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Theme for this month: "Ax" adjectives

pertinax, pertinacis (gen)

Definition: very tenacious; unyielding, stubborn; (humorous) extremely tight-fisted or niggardly (with an emp. on prefix)

Sententia: Today's sententia is taken from Plautus' play Captivi, lines 289-292

HEGIO SENEX: Quid tu ais? tenaxne pater est eius?

PHILOCRATES ADVLESCENS: Immo edepol pertinax;

quin etiam ut magis noscas: Genio suo ubi [ali]quando sacruficat...Samiis vasis utitur, ne ipse Genius surripiat...

Old man Hegio: What do you say? Is his father closefisted?

Philocrates the youth: No indeed, by Pollux, extremely closefisted, nay rather also [I will say] so that you may recognize more: when at any time he sacrifices to his own guardian spirit... he uses Samian earthenware (i.e. really cheap and common), lest the guardian spirit himself steal [from him]...

Latin text is from http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/plautus/captivi.shtml, with supplementary notes from Captivi, by Titus Maccius Plautus, Edward Adolf Sonnenschein, found through Google Books (available online here--it's Act 2, scene 2, on page 35, with notes on pages 92 and 93) . Also, I translated the text myself, so please excuse any errors, and please tell me, so that I don't make the same mistake again.

This word is not found in any poems on the AP syllabi, though a related word, tenax, is found in Books 4 and 6 of Vergil's Aeneid. Etymologically, it comes from the intensifier "per" + the verb "teneo" meaning "to hold" + "-ax," expressing ability. As a note of trivia, Pertinax was the cognomen of P. Helvius, who suceeded Commodus as Emperor of Rome in A. D. 193 and only ruled for 86 days in the "Year of the Five Emperors."