No other evil we know is faster than Rumor, thriving on speed and becoming stronger by running. Small and timid at first, then borne on a light air, she flits over ground while hiding her head on a cloud-top.

It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of iron. [Lat., Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum Ferrea vox.]

Straightway throughout the Libyan cities flies rumor;--the report of evil things than which nothing is swifter; it flourishes by its very activity and gains new strength by its movements; small at first through fear, it soon raises itself aloft and sweeps onward along the earth. Yet its head reaches the clouds. . . . A huge and horrid monster covered with many feathers: and for every plume a sharp eye, for every pinion a biting tongue. Everywhere its voices sound, to everything its ears are open. [Lat., Extemplo Libyae magnas it Fama per urbes: Fama malum quo non velocius ullum; Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo; Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras, Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubilia condit. . . . . Monstrum, horrendum ingens; cui quot sunt corpore plumae Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu, Tot linquae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures.]

The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed throughout the small town. [Lat., Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.]

Buy the rumor, sell the fact.

Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something to what he has heard. [Lat., Hi narrata ferunt alio; mensuraque ficti Crescit et auditus aliquid novus adjicit auctor.]