1. Is it a serious discussion we are engaged in. or do you want only to be amused? The tone of your letter leaves me wondering whether your preference for humorous remarks to studied arguments is the result of your having a feeble case, or simply of your affability. First you make a comparison between Mount Olympus and your own market-place, the point of which I fail to see; unless it was your intention to remind me that it was in that mountain Jove pitched his camp when fighting against his father, according to the tale your co-religionists call sacred, and to remind me of the two images of Mars in that same market-place, one of them armed, the other in his tunic, while a human statue, standing over against them, uses three outstretched fingers to curb their evil influence that threatens your townsmen so direfully. So should I ever have believed that in mentioning your market-place you wanted to revive my recollection of such deities, if it had not been your intention to be facetious rather than to have a serious discussion? But as to your statement that such gods are portions of one great god, I give you plain warning: please refrain altogether from such irreverent jocularity. If you are really referring to the unity of that god about whom, as the ancients have it, learned and unlearned are in agreement, do you describe as portions of him those whose frightfulness, or, if you prefer the word, power, is kept in check by the statue of a single dead man? I could say a good deal more about this point: you are intelligent enough to see how far that remark of yours lays you open to censure. But I refrain, in case you imagine that I am quarrelling about words rather than seeking truth.
1. Seriumne aliquid inter nos agimus, an iocari libet? Nam sicut tua epistula loquitur, utrum causae ipsius infirmitate, an morum tuorum comitate sit factum, ut malles esse facetior quam paratior, incertum habeo. Primo enim Olympi montis et fori vestri comparatio facta est, quae nescio quo pertinuerit, nisi ut me commonefaceret et in illo monte Iovem castra posuisse, cum adversus patrem bellum gereret, ut ea docet historia, quam vestri etiam sacram vocant, et in isto foro recordarer esse in duobus simulacris unum Martem nudum, alterum armatum, quorum daemonium infestissimum civibus porrectis tribus digitis contra conlocata statua humana comprimeret. Ergone umquam ego crediderim mentione illius fori facta numinum talium memoriam mihi te renovare voluisse, nisi iocari potius quam serie agere maluisses? Sed illud plane, quod tales deos quaedam dei unius magni membra esse dixisti, admoneo, quia dignaris, ut ab huius modi sacrilegis facetiis te magnopere abstineas. Si quidem illum deum dicis unum, de quo, ut dictum est a veteribus, docti indoctique consentiunt, huiusne tu membra dicis esse, quorum iam humanitatem vel, si hoc mavis, potentiam mortui hominis imago compescit? Plura hinc possim dicere; vides enim pro tua prudentia, quam late locus iste pateat reprehensioni. Sed me ipse cohibeo, ne a te rhetorice potius quam veridice agere existimer.
2. You have gathered together some Punic names of dead people, with the intention of making use of them to cast on our religion what you supposed to be witty abuse: I am not sure if I should refute your taunts or pass them over in silence. If such matters appear to a man of your sense to be as unimportant as they really are, I have not much time to spare for such pleasantry; if they appear to you important, I am surprised that if absurd names appeal to you, you did not remember that among your priests you have the Eucaddires, and among your deities the Abaddires. a I do not suppose that these did not occur to you when you were writing, but in your usual genial and witty way you wanted to amuse me by reminding me how many laughable things are to be found in your superstitions. Nor could you have forgotten yourself so far as to imagine that Punic names were to be railed at, when you, an African, were writing to Africans and seeing that we are both living in Africa. If we interpret those words, what does Namphamo mean but “the man with the lucky foot”? That is, the man whose coming brings some good fortune, just as we say that one whose arrival has been attended by some stroke of luck has entered with a prosperous foot. If you disapprove of Punic as a language, then you must refuse to admit that many wise things have been recorded in Punic books, as is declared by learned men; you must even feel shame that you were born in a district in which the cradle of that language is still warm. b If it is unreasonable that the sound of our own tongue should give us offence and if you grant that I have lightly interpreted that name, you have just cause to feel annoyed with your friend Virgil, who in these words invites your Hercules to the rites celebrated in his honour by Evander: Us and thy rites with prosperous foot approach, In favouring mood. a He prays him to come “with prosperous foot”; that is. he wants Hercules to come as Namphamo. in whom it pleases you to find much to taunt us with. But if you do take delight in jests, you have in your own religion ample material for ridicule: Stercutius. your god of manure, Cluacina. your goddess of purification. Bald Venus, your god Fear, your god Pallor, your goddess Fever, and countless others of the same kind, to whom the ancient Romans, worshippers of idols, built temples and thought worship should be offered. If you neglect them, you are neglecting Roman gods, thereby making it understood that you were not initiated into Roman rites, and yet you scorn and despise Punic names like one excessively devoted to the altars of Rome.
2. Nam quod nomina quaedam mortuorum Punica collegisti, quibus in nostram religionem festivas, ut tibi visum est, contumelias iaciendas putares, nescio, utrum refellere debeam, an silentio praeterire. Si enim res istae tam videntur leves tuae gravitati, quam sunt, iocari mihi non multum vacat; si autem graves tibi videntur, miror, quod nominum absurditate commoto in mentem non venerit habere vos et in sacerdotibus Eucaddires et in numinibus Abaddires. Non puto ego ista tibi, cum scriberes, in animo non fuisse, sed more humanitatis et leporis tui commonefacere nos voluisti ad relaxandum animum, quanta in vestra superstitione ridenda sint. Neque enim usque adeo te ipsum oblivisci potuisses, ut homo Afer scribens Afris, cum simus utrique in Africa constituti, Punica nomina exagitanda existimares. Nam si ea vocabula interpretemur, Namphamo quid aliud significat quam boni pedis hominem? Id est, cuius adventus adferat aliquid felicitatis, sicut solemus dicere secundo pede introisse, cuius introitum prosperitas aliqua consecuta sit. Quae lingua si in-probatur abs te, nega Punicis libris, ut a viris doctissimis proditur, multa sapienter esse mandata memoriae; paeniteat te certe ibi natum, ubi huius linguae cunabula recalent. Si vero et sonus nobis noster non rationabiliter displicet et me bene interpretatum illud vocabulum recognoscis, habes quod suscenseas Vergilio tuo, qui Herculem vestrum ad sacra, quae illi ab Evandro celebrantur, invitat hoc modo: et nos et tua dexter adi pede sacra secundo. Secundo pede optat ut veniat. Ergo venire optat Herculem Namphamonem, de quo tu multum nobis insultare dignaris. Verum tamen si ridere delectat, habes apud vos magnam materiam facetiarum: deum Stercutium, deam Cluacinam, Venerem Calvam, deum Timorem, deum Pallorem, deam Febrem et cetera innumerabilia huiusce modi, quibus Romani antiqui simulacrorum cultores templa fecerunt et colenda censuerunt. Quae si neglegis, Romanos deos neglegis, ex quo intellegens non Romanis initiatus sacris, et tamen Punica nomina tamquam nimium Romanorum altaribus deditus contemnis ac despicis.
3. But altogether your depreciation of those rites seems perhaps greater than ours, though you gain from them some vague pleasure for life's journey. You had no hesitation even in invoking the authority of Virgil, as you say, and in shielding yourself by that line in which he says: Each man is drawn by his own pleasure. b If you are satisfied with Virgil's authority, as you indicate that you are, then you will certainly be satisfied with these lines too: From high Olympus first came Saturn down, Fleeing Jove's arms, an exile from his realm, c and so on. By these lines the poet wants to show that Saturn and such-like gods of yours were once men; he had read that mythical tale confirmed by ancient authority and known to Tully as well, for in his Dialogues a he draws attention to the same fact more explicitly than we should venture to ask. and tries, as far as those days allowed, to put it before men's notice.
3. Sed mihi videris omnino plus quam nos fortasse illa sacra nihili pendere, sed ex eis nescio quam captare ad huius vitae transitum voluptatem, quippe qui etiam non dubitaveris ad Maronem confugere, ut scribis, et eius versu te tueri, quo ait: trahit sua quemque voluptas. Nam si tibi auctoritas Maronis placet, sicut placere significas, profecto etiam illud placet: primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympo arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exul ademptis et cetera, quibus eum atque huius modi deos vestros vult intellegi homines fuisse. Legerat enim ille mythicam 1 historiam vetusta auctoritate roboratam, quam etiam Tullius legerat, qui hoc idem in dialogis plus. quam postulare auderemus, commemorat et perducere in hominum notitiam, quantum illa tempora patiebantur, molitur.
4. Then again, you state that your rites are to be preferred to ours, on the ground that your worship is public, while we use more secret places of meeting. First, I ask you how it comes that you have forgotten your god Bacchus; you think he should be entrusted only to the eves of the few who are initiated. Then you convict yourself of having had no other intention, in mentioning the public celebration of your rites, than that of making us envisage, as in a mirror, your senators and notable townsmen raging and revelling through your city streets. If in that celebration you have the presence of a deity within you, you surely see what kind of being he is, when he destroys your reason. But if this is only an assumed madness, what are those secret rites that you actually practise in public? Or what is the object of so vile a piece of deceit? Or again, if you are inspired seers, why do you foretell no future events? Or why do you rend the clothes of the bystanders, if you are in your right mind? b Since your letter has recalled to me these facts and others which I think it better to pass over for the present, why should I make fun of your gods, when anyone who knows your type of mind and reads your letter can see that you yourself poke stealthy fun at them?
4. Quod autem dicis eo nostris vestra sacra praeponi, quod vos publice colitis deos, nos autem secretioribus conventiculis utimur, primo illud abs te quaero, quo modo oblitus sis Liberum illum, quem paucorum sacratorum oculis committendum putatis. Deinde tu ipse iudicas nihil aliud te agere voluisse, cum publicam sacrorum vestrorum celebrationem commemorares, nisi ut nobis decuriones et primates civitatis per plateas vestrae urbis bacchantes ac furentes ante oculos quasi specula poneremus. In qua celebritate si numine inhabitamini, certe videtis quale illud sit, quod adimit mentem; si autem fingitis, quae sunt ista etiam in publico vestra secreta? Vel quo pertinet tarn turpe mendacium? Deinde cur nulla futura canitis, si vates estis? Aut cur spoliatis circumstantes, si sani estis?
5. So, if you want us to discuss this topic in a manner befitting your age and good sense and answering the just demands of my close friends from one of my profession, look for some theme worthy of debate between us, and do your best to put forward on your gods' behalf arguments that will not make me think you are betraying your own case; for you certainly did suggest to me what can be said against them, rather than advance any statement on their behalf. Finally, I want to tell you something you should know, to keep you from being inadvertently drawn into irreverent gibes: Catholic Christians, who have a church established in your town too, a worship no dead man and adore nothing as a deity that was made and created by God; they worship only God himself, who made and created everything. I shall enlarge on these facts by the help of our one true God, when I am assured that you want to treat them seriously.
5. Cum igitur haec nos et alia, quae nunc praeter- mittenda existimo, per epistulam tuam feceris recordari, quid nos derideamus deos vestros, quos abs te ipso subtiliter derideri nemo non intellegit, qui et ingenium tuum novit et legit litteras tuas? Itaque si aliquid inter nos de his rebus vis agamus, quod aetati prudentiaeque tuae congruit, quod denique de nostro proposito iure a carissimis nostris flagitari potest, quaere aliquid nostra discussione dignum et ea pro vestris numinibus cura dicere, in quibus non te causae praevaricatorem putemus. quod nos magis commoneas. quae contra illos dici possint, quam pro eis aliquid dicas. Ad summam tamen ne te hoc lateat et in sacrilega convicia inprudentem trahat, scias a Christianis catholicis, quorum in vestro oppido etiam ecclesia constituta est, nullum coli mortuorum, nihil denique ut numen adorari, quod sit factum et conditum a deo, sed unum ipsum deum, qui fecit et condidit omnia. Disserentur ista latius ipso vero et uno deo adiuvante, cum te graviter agere velle cognovero.