---
title: "Attic Nights · Noctes Atticae"
author: "Aulus Gellius"
translator: "John C. Rolfe"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Classical Latin"
url: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/
cite: "Aulus Gellius, tr. John C. Rolfe, Attic Nights · Noctes Atticae. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/"
---

# Attic Nights · Noctes Atticae

*Aulus Gellius, tr. John C. Rolfe*

Notes made on winter nights near Athens: grammar, law, philosophy and stories, Androclus and the lion among them.

> Latin: ed. John C. Rolfe, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, phi1254.phi001, CC BY-SA 4.0).

> English: John C. Rolfe, from the Perseus Digital Library (phi1254.phi001.perseus-eng1). Notes are not included.

> Rows follow the references the two texts share (books, chapters and sections), cut where both reach the end of a sentence.

## Contents

1. [Book I · chapters 1–3](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/1.md)
2. [Book I · chapters 3–11](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/2.md)
3. [Book I · chapters 12–17](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/3.md)
4. [Book I · chapters 18–26](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/4.md)
5. [Book II · chapters 1–13](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/5.md)
6. [Book II · chapters 14–23](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/6.md)
7. [Book II · chapters 24–30](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/7.md)
8. [Book III · chapters 1–10](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/8.md)
9. [Book III · chapters 11–19](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/9.md)
10. [Book IV · chapters 1–9](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/10.md)
11. [Book IV · chapters 10–20](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/11.md)
12. [Book V · chapters 1–12](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/12.md)
13. [Book V · chapters 13–21](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/13.md)
14. [Book VI · chapters 1–3](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/14.md)
15. [Book VI · chapters 3–12](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/15.md)
16. [Book VI · chapters 13–22](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/16.md)
17. [Book VII · chapters 1–8](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/17.md)
18. [Book VII · chapters 9–17](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/18.md)
19. [Book VIII](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/19.md)
20. [Book IX · chapters 1–9](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/20.md)
21. [Book IX · chapters 10–16](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/21.md)
22. [Book X · chapters 1–11](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/22.md)
23. [Book X · chapters 12–20](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/23.md)
24. [Book X · chapters 21–29](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/24.md)
25. [Book XI · chapters 1–11](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/25.md)
26. [Book XI · chapters 12–16](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/26.md)
27. [Book XII · chapters 1–5](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/27.md)
28. [Book XII · chapters 5–15](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/28.md)
29. [Book XIII · chapters 1–14](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/29.md)
30. [Book XIII · chapters 15–23](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/30.md)
31. [Book XIII · chapters 24–31](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/31.md)
32. [Book XIV · chapters 1–2](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/32.md)
33. [Book XIV · chapters 2–8](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/33.md)
34. [Book XV · chapters 1–13](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/34.md)
35. [Book XV · chapters 14–31](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/35.md)
36. [Book XVI · chapters 1–8](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/36.md)
37. [Book XVI · chapters 9–19](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/37.md)
38. [Book XVII · chapters 1–7](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/38.md)
39. [Book XVII · chapters 8–14](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/39.md)
40. [Book XVII · chapters 15–21](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/40.md)
41. [Book XVIII · chapters 1–6](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/41.md)
42. [Book XVIII · chapters 7–15](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/42.md)
43. [Book XIX · chapters 1–8](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/43.md)
44. [Book XIX · chapters 9–14](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/44.md)
45. [Book XX · chapter 1](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/45.md)
46. [Book XX · chapters 2–11](https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/46.md)

## 1. Book I · chapters 1–3

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/1/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/1/#p-N

[¶0] * * * other more entertaining writings may be found, in order that like recreation might be provided for my children, when they should have some respite from business affairs and could unbend and divert their minds.

> Latin: … iucundiora alia reperiri queunt, ad hoc ut liberis quoque meis partae istiusmodi remissiones essent, quando animus eorum interstitione aliqua negotiorum data laxari indulgerique potuisset.

[¶1] But in the arrangement of my material I have adopted the same haphazard order that I had previously followed in collecting it. For whenever I had taken in hand any Greek or Latin book, or had heard anything worth remembering, I used to jot down whatever took my fancy, of any and every kind, without any definite plan or order; and such notes I would lay away as an aid to my memory, like a kind of literary storehouse, so that when the need arose of a word or a subject which I chanced for the moment to have forgotten, and the books from which I had taken it were not at hand, I could readily find and produce it.

> Latin: Usi autem sumus ordine rerum fortuito, quem antea in excerpendo feceramus. Nam proinde ut librum quemque in manus ceperam seu Graecum seu Latinum vel quid memoratu dignum audieram, ita quae libitum erat, cuius generis cumque erant, indistincte atque promisce annotabam eaque mihi ad subsidium memoriae quasi quoddam litterarum penus recondebam, ut quando usus venisset aut rei aut verbi, cuius me repens forte oblivio tenuisset, et libri ex quibus ea sumpseram non adessent, facile inde nobis inventu atque depromptu foret.

[¶2] It therefore follows, that in these notes there is the same variety of subject that there was in those former brief jottings which I had made without order or arrangement, as the fruit of instruction or reading in various lines.

> Latin: Facta igitur est in his quoque commentariis eadem rerum disparilitas quae fuitfruit in illis annotationibus pristinis, quas breviter et indigeste et incondite ex eruditionibus lectionibusque variis feceramus.

[¶3] And since, as I have said, I began to amuse myself by assembling these notes during the long winter nights which I spent on a country-place in the land of Attica, I have therefore given them the title of Attic Nights, making no attempt to imitate the witty captions which many other writers of both languages have devised for works of the kind. For since they had laboriously gathered varied, manifold, and as it were indiscriminate learning, they therefore invented ingenious titles also, to correspond with that idea.

> Latin: Sed quoniam longinquis per hiemem noctibus in agro, sicuti dixi, terrae Atticae commentationes hasce ludere ac facere exorsi sumus, idcirco eas inscripsimus Noctium esse Atticarum, nihil imitati festivitates inscriptionum quas plerique alii utriusque linguae scriptores in id genus libris fecerunt.
Nam quia variam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctrinam conquisiverant, eo titulos quoque ad eam sententiam exquisitissimos indiderunt.

[¶4] Thus some called their books “The Muses,” others “Woods” one used the title “Athena's Mantle,” another “The Horn of Amaltheia,” still another “Honeycomb,” several “Meads,” one “Fruits of my Reading,” another “Gleanings from Early Writers,” another “The Nosegay,” still another “Discoveries.” Some have used the name “Torches,” others “Tapestry,” others “Repertory,” others “Helicon,” “Problems,” “Handbooks” and “Daggers.”

> Latin: Namque alii Musarum inscripserunt, alii Silvarum, ille Πείπλον, hic Ἀμαλθείας Κέρας, alius Κηρία, partim Λειμῶνας quidam Lectionis Suae, alius antiquarumAntiquarm Lectionum atque alius Ἀνθηρῶν et item alius Εὑρημάτων.

[¶5] One man called his book “Memorabilia,” one “Principia,” one “Incidentals,” another “Instructions.”

> Latin: Sunt etiam qui Λὔχνους inscripserint, sunt item qui Στρωματεις,, sunt adeo qui Πανδέκτας et Ἑλικῶνα et qui Προβλήματα et Ἐγχειρίδια et Παραξιφίδας.

[¶6] Other titles are “Natural History,” “Universal History,” “The Field,” “The Fruit-basket,” or “Topics.” Many have termed their notes “Miscellanies,” some “Moral Epistles,” “Questions in Epistolary Form,” or “Miscellaneous Queries,” and there are some other titles that are exceedingly witty and redolent of extreme refinement.

> Latin: Est qui Memoriales titulum fecerit, est qui Πραγματικὰ et Πάρεργα et Διδασκαλικά, est item qui Historiae Naturalis, et Παντοδαπῆς Ἱστορίας, est praeterea qui Pratum, est itidem qui Πάγκαρπον, est qui Τόπων scripserit; sunt item multi qui Coniectanea,

[¶7] But I, bearing in mind my limitations, gave my work off-hand, without premeditation, and indeed almost in rustic fashion, the caption of Attic Nights, derived merely from the time and place of my winter's vigils; I thus fall as far short of all other writers in the dignity too even of my title, as I do in care and in elegance of style.

> Latin: neque item non sunt qui indices libris suis fecerint aut Epistularum Moralium aut Epistolicarum Quaestionum aut Confusarum et quaedam alia inscripta nimis lepida multasque prorsum concinnitates redolentia.

[¶8] Neither had I in making my excerpts and notes the same purpose as many of those whom I have mentioned. For all of them, and in particular the Greeks, after wide and varied reading, with a white line, as the saying goes, that is with no effort to discriminate, swept together whatever they had found, aiming at mere quantity.

> Latin: Nos vero, ut captus noster est, incuriose et inmeditate ac prope etiam subrustice ex ipso loco ac tempore hibernarum vigiliarum Atticas Noctes inscripsimus, tantum ceteris omnibus in ipsius quoque inscriptionis laude cedentes, quantum cessimus in cura et elegantia scriptionis.

[¶9] The perusal of such collections will exhaust the mind through weariness or disgust, before it finds one or two notes which it is a pleasure to read, or inspiring to have read, or helpful to remember. I myself, on the contrary, having at heart that well-known saying of the famous Ephesian, “Much learning does not make a scholar,” did it is true busy and even weary myself in unrolling and running through many a scroll, working without cessation in all the intervals of business whenever I could steal the leisure;

> Latin: Sed ne consilium quidem in excerpendis notandisque rebus idem mihi, quod plerisque illis, fuit. Namque illi omnes et eorum maxime Graeci, multa et varia lectitantes, in quas res cumque inciderant, “alba,” ut dicitur, “linea” sine cura discriminis solam copiam sectati converrebant, quibus in legendis ante animus senio ac taedio languebit quam unum alterumve reppererit quod sit aut voluptati legere aut cultui legisse aut usui meminisse.

[¶10] but I took few items from them, confining myself to those which, by furnishing a quick and easy short-cut, might lead active and alert minds to a desire for independent learning and to the study of the useful arts, or would save those who are already fully occupied with the other duties of life from an ignorance of words and things which is assuredly shameful and boorish. Now just because there will be found in these notes some few topics that are knotty and troublesome, either from Grammar or Dialectics or even from Geometry, and because there will also be some little material of a somewhat recondite character about augural or pontifical law, one ought not therefore to avoid such topics as useless to know or difficult to comprehend.

> Latin: Ego vero, cum illud Ephesii viri summe nobilis verbum cordi haberem, quod profecto ita est πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει, ipse quidem volvendis transeundisque multis admodum voluminibus per omnia semper negotiorum intervalla in quibus furari otium potui exercitus defessusque sum, sed modica ex his eaque sola accepi quae aut ingenia prompta expeditaque ad honestae eruditionis cupidinem utiliumque artium contemplationem celeri facilique compendio ducerent aut homines aliis iam vitae negotiis occupatos a turpi certe agrestique rerum atque verborum imperitia vindicarent.

[¶11] For I have not made an excessively deep and obscure investigation of the intricacies of these questions, but I have presented the first fruits, so to say, and a kind of foretaste of the liberal arts; and never to have heard of these, or come in contact with them, is at least unbecoming, if not positively harmful, for a man with even an ordinary education. Of those then, if such there be, who may perhaps sometimes have leisure and inclination to acquaint themselves with these lucubrations, I should like to ask and be granted the favour, that in reading of matters which they have known for a long time they shall not scorn them as commonplace and trite;

> Latin: Quod erunt autem in his commentariis pauca quaedam scrupulosa et anxia, vel ex grammatica vel ex dialectica vel etiam ex geometrica, quodque erunt item paucula remotiora super augurio iure et pontificio, non oportet ea defugere, quasi aut cognitu non utilia aut perceptu difficilia. Non enim fecimus altos nimis et obscuros in his rebus quaestionum sinus, sed primitias quasdam et quasi libamenta ingenuarum artium dedimus, quae virum civiliter eruditum neque audisse umquam neque attigisse, si non inutile, at quidem certe indecorum est.

[¶12] for is there anything in literature so recondite as not to be known to a goodish many? In fact, I am sufficiently flattered if these subjects have not been repeated over and over again in the schools and become the common stock of commentaries.

> Latin: Ab his igitur, si cui forte nonnumquam tempus voluptasque erit lucubratiunculas istas cognoscere, petitum impetratumque volumus, ut in legendo quae pridem scierint non aspernentur quasi nota invulgataque.

[¶13] Furthermore, if my readers find anything new and unknown to them, I think it fair that they should not indulge in useless criticism, but should ask themselves whether these observations, slight and trifling though they be, are after all not without power to inspire study, or too dull to divert and stimulate the mind;

> Latin: Nam ecquid tam remotum in litteris est quin id tamen complusculi sciant? Et satis hoc blandum est, non esse haec neque in scholis decantata neque in commentariis protrita.

[¶14] whether on the contrary they do not contain the germs and the quality to make men's minds grow more vigorous, their memory more trustworthy, their eloquence more effective, their diction purer, or the pleasures of their hours of leisure and recreation more refined.

> Latin: Quae porro nova sibi ignotaque offenderint, aequum esse puto ut sine vano obtrectatu considerent an minutae istae admonitiones et pauxillulae nequaquam tamen sint vel ad alendum studium vescae vel ad oblectandum fovendumque animum frigidae, sed eius seminis generisque sint ex quo facile adolescent aut ingenia hominum vegetiora aut memoria adminiculatior aut oratio sollertior aut sermo incorruptior aut delectatio in otio atque in ludo liberalior.

[¶15] But as to matters which seem too obscure, or not presented in full enough detail, I beg once again that my readers may consider them written, not so much to instruct, as to give a hint, and that content with my, so to speak, pointing out of the path, they may afterwards follow up those subjects, if they so desire, with the aid either of books or of teachers. But if they find food for criticism, let them, if they have the courage, blame those from whom I drew my material;

> Latin: Quae autem parum plana videbuntur aut minus plena in structaque, petimus, inquam, ut ea non docendi magis quam admonendi gratia scripta existiment et, quasi demonstratione vestigiorum contenti, persequantur ea post, si libebit, vel libris repertis vel magistris.

[¶16] or if they discover that different statements are made by someone else, let them not at once give way to hasty censure, but rather let them weigh the reasons for the statements and the value of the authorities which those other writers and which I have followed.

> Latin: Quae vero putaverint reprehendenda, his, si audebunt, succenseant, unde ea nos accepimus; sed enim, si quae aliter apud alium scripta legerint, ne iam statim temere obstrepant, sed et rationes rerum et auctoritates hominum pensitent, quos illi quosque nos secuti sumus.

[¶17] For those, however, who have never found pleasure nor busied themselves in reading, inquiring, writing and taking notes, who have never spent wakeful nights in such employments, who have never improved themselves by discussion and debate with rival followers of the same Muse, but are absorbed in the turmoil of business affairs—for such men it will be by far the best plan to hold wholly aloof from these “Nights” and seek for themselves other diversion. There is an old saying:
The daw knows naught of the lyre, the hog naught of marjoram ointment.

> Latin: Erit autem id longe optimum, ut qui in lectitando, percontando, scribendo, commentando, numquam voluptates, numquam labores ceperunt, nullas hoc genus vigilias vigilarunt neque ullis inter eiusdem Musae aemulos certationibus disceptationibusque elimati sunt, sed intemperiarum negotiorumque pleni sunt, abeant a “Noctibus” his procul, atque alia sibi oblectamenta quaerant. Vetus adagium est:
Nil cum fidibus graculost, nihil cum amaracino sui.

[¶18] Moreover, in order that the perversity and envy of certain half-educated men may be the more aroused, I shall borrow a few anapaests from a chorus of Aristophanes, and the conditions which that wittiest of men imposed for the viewing of his play, I shall lay down for the reading of these notes of mine: namely, that the profane and uninitiate throng, averse to the Muses' play, shall neither touch nor approach them.

> Latin: Atque etiam, quo sit quorundam male doctorum hominum scaevitas et invidentia irritatior, mutuabor ex Aristophanae choro anapaesta pauca et quam ille homo festivissimus fabulae suae spectandae legem dedit, eandem ego commentariis his legendis dabo, ut ea ne attingat neve adeat profestum et profanum vulgus, a ludo musico diversum.

[¶19] The verses which contain those conditions run as follows:
All evil thought and profane be still:
far hence, far hence from our choirs depart,
Who knows not well what the Mystics tell,
or is not holy and pure of heart;
Who ne'er has the noble revelry learned,
or danced the dance of the Muses high;
* * * * *
I charge them once, I charge them twice,
I charge them thrice, that they draw not nigh
To the sacred dance of the Mystic choir.
But YE, my comrades, awake the song,
The night-long revels of joy and mirth
which ever of right to our feast belong.

> Latin: Versus legis datae hi sunt:
Εὐφημεῖν χρὴ κἀξίστασθαι τοῖς ἡμετέροισι χοροῖσιν
Ὅστις ἄπειρος τοιῶνδε λόλων ἢ γνώμῃ μὴ καθαρεύει
Ἢ γενναίων ὄργια Μουσῶν μήτʼ εἶδεν μήτʼ ἐχόρευσεν,
Τούτοις αὐδῶ, καὖθις ἀπαυδῶ, καὖις τὸ ρρίτον μάλʼ ἀπαυδῶ
Ἐξίστασθαι μύσταισι χοροις, ὑμεῖς δʼ ἀνεγείρετε μολπὴν
Καὶ παννυχίδας τὰς ἡμετέρας, αἳ τῇδε πρέπουσιν ἑορτῇ.

[¶20] Up to the present day I have already completed twenty books of notes.

> Latin: Volumina commentariorum ad hunc diem viginti iam facta sunt.

[¶21] As much longer life as the Gods' will shall grant me, and as much respite as is given me from managing my affairs and attending to the education of my children, every moment of that remaining and leisure time I shall devote to collecting similar brief and entertaining memoranda.

> Latin: Quantum autem vitae mihi deinceps deum voluntate erit quantumque a tuenda re familiari procurandoque cultu liberorum meorum dabitur otium, ea omnia subsiciva et subsecundaria tempora ad colligendas huiuscemodi memoriarum delectatiunculas conferam.

[¶22] Thus the number of books, given the Gods' gracious help, will keep pace with the years of life itself, however many or few they may be, nor have I any desire to be allotted a longer span of existence than so long as I retain my present ability to write and take notes.

> Latin: Progredietur ergo numerus librorum, diis bene iuvantibus, cum ipsius vitae quantuli quomque fuerint progressibus, neque longiora mihi dari spatia vivendi volo quam dum ero ad hanc quoque facultatem scribendi commentandique idoneus.

[¶23] Summaries of the material to be found in each book of my Commentaries I have here placed all together, in order that it may at once be clear what is to be sought and found in every book.

> Latin: Capita rerum quae cuique commentario insunt, exposuimus hic universa, ut iam statim declaretur quid quo in libro quaeri invenirique possit.

[¶24] 1. Plutarch's account of the method of comparison and the calculations which the philosopher Pythagoras used in determining the great height of Hercules, while the hero was living among men. In the treatise which he wrote on the mental and physical endowment and achievements of Hercules while he was among men, Plutarch says that the philosopher Pythagoras reasoned sagaciously and acutely in determining and measuring the hero's superiority in size and stature. For since it was generally agreed that Hercules paced off the racecourse of the stadium at Pisae, near the temple of Olympian Zeus, and made it six hundred feet long, and since the other courses in the land of Greece, constructed later by other men, were indeed six hundred feet in length, but yet were somewhat shorter than that at Olympia, he readily concluded by a process of comparison that the measured length of Hercules' foot was greater than that of other men in the same proportion as the course at Olympia was longer than the other stadia. Then, having ascertained the size of Hercules' foot, he made a calculation of the bodily height suited to that measure, based upon the natural proportion of all parts of the body, and thus arrived at the logical conclusion that Hercules was as much taller than other men as the course at Olympia exceeded the others that had been constructed with the same number of feet.

> Latin: 1. Quali proportione quibusque collectionibus Plutarchus ratiocinatum esse Pythagoram philosophum dixerit de comprehendenda corporis proceritate qua fuit Hercules, cum vitam inter homines viveret. Plutarchus in libro quem de Herculis quam diu inter homines fuit animi corporisque ingenio atque virtutibus conscripsit, scite subtiliterque ratiocinatum Pythagoram philosophum dicit in reperienda modulandaque status longitudinisque eius praestantia. Nam cum fere constaret, curriculum stadii quod est Pisis apud Iovem Olympium Herculem pedibus suis metatum idque fecisse longum pedes sescentos, cetera quoque stadia in terra Graecia ab aliis postea instituta pedum quidem esse numero sescentum, sed tamen esse aliquantulum breviora, facile intellexit, modum spatiumque plantae Herculis, ratione proportionis habita, tanto fuisse quam aliorum procerius, quanto Olympicum stadium longius esset quam cetera. Comprehensa autem mensura Herculani pedis, quanta longinquitas corporis ei mensurae conveniret secundum naturalem membrorum omnium inter se competentiam modificatus est atque ita id collegit, quod erat consequens, tanto fuisse Herculem corpore excelsiorem quam alios, quanto Olympicum stadium ceteris pari numero factis anteiret.

[¶25] 2. The apt use made by Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, in reply to an arrogant and boastful young fellow, a student of philosophy in appearance only, of the passage in which Epictetus the Stoic humorously set apart the true Stoic from the mob of prating triflers who called themselves Stoics. While we were students at Athens, Herodes Atticus, a man of consular rank and of true Grecian eloquence, often invited me to his country houses near that city, in company with the honourable Servilianus and several others of our countrymen who had withdrawn from Rome to Greece in quest of culture. And there at that time, while we were with him at the villa called Cephisia, both in the heat of summer and under the burning autumnal sun, we protected ourselves against the trying temperature by the shade of its spacious groves, its long, soft promenades, the cool location of the house, its elegant baths with their abundance of sparkling water, and the charm of the villa as a whole, which was everywhere melodious with plashing waters and tuneful birds. There was with us there at the time a young student of philosophy, of the Stoic school according to his own account, but intolerably loquacious and presuming. In the course of the conversations which are commonly carried on at table after dinner, this fellow often used to prattle unseasonably, absurdly, and at immoderate length, on the principles of philosophy, maintaining that compared with himself all the Greek-speaking authorities, all wearers of the toga, and the Latin race in general were ignorant boors. As he spoke, he rattled off unfamiliar terms, the catchwords of syllogisms and dialectic tricks, declaring that no one but he could unravel the “master,” the “resting,” and the “heap” arguments, and other riddles of the kind. Furthermore, as to ethics, the nature of the human intellect, and the origin of the virtues with their duties and limits, or on the other hand the ills caused by disease and sin, and the wasting and destruction of the soul, he stoutly maintained that absolutely no one else had investigated, understood and mastered all these more thoroughly than himself. Further, he believed that torture, bodily pain and deadly peril could neither injure nor detract from the happy state and condition of life which, in his opinion, he had attained, and that no sorrow could even cloud the serenity of the Stoic's face and expression. Once when he was puffing out these empty boasts, and already all, weary of his prating, were thoroughly disgusted and longing for an end, Herodes, speaking in Greek as was his general custom, said: “Allow me, mightiest of philosophers, since we, whom you call laymen, cannot answer you, to read from a book of Epictetus, greatest of Stoics, what he thought and said about such big talk as that of yours.” And he bade them bring the first volume of the Discourses of Epictetus, arranged by Arrian, in which that venerable old man with just severity rebukes those young men who, though calling themselves Stoics, showed neither virtue nor honest industry, but merely babbled of trifling propositions and of the fruits of their study of such elements as are taught to children. Then, when the book was brought, there was read the passage which I have appended, in which Epictetus with equal severity and humour set apart and separated from the true and genuine Stoic, who was beyond question without restraint or constraint, unembarrassed, free, prosperous and happy, that other mob of triflers who styled themselves Stoics, and casting the black soot of their verbiage before the eves of their hearers, laid false claim to the name of the holiest of sects:
"'Speak to me of good and evil.'—Listen:
The wind, bearing me from Ilium, drove me to the Cicones.
“Of all existing things some are good, some evil, and some indifferent. Now the good things are virtues and what partakes of them, the evil are vice and what partakes of vice, and the indifferent lie between these: wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, pain. —'How do you know this?'—Hellanicus says so in his Egyptian Histoy. For what difference does it make whether you say that, or that it was Diogenes in his Ethics or Chrysippus or Cleanthes? Have you then investigated any of these matters and formed an opinion of your own? Let me see how you are accustomed to act in a storm at sea. Do you recall this classification when the sail cracks and you cry aloud? If some idle fellow should stand beside you and say: 'Tell me, for Heaven's sake, what you told me before. It isn't a vice to suffer shipwreck, is it? It doesn't partake of vice, does it?' Would you not hurl a stick of wood at him and cry: 'What have we to do with you, fellow? We perish and you come and crack jokes.' But if Caesar should summon you to answer an accusation...” On hearing these words, that most arrogant of youths was mute, just as if the whole diatribe had been pronounced, not by Epictetus against others, but against himself by Herodes.

> Latin: 2. Ab Herode Attico C. V. tempestive deprompta in quondam iactantem et gloriosum adulescentem, specie tantum philosophiae sectatorem, verba Epicteti Stoici, quibus festiviter a vero Stoico seiunxit vulgus loquaciumloquliciuin nebulonum qui se Stoicos nuncuparent. HERODES ATTICUS, vir et Graeca facundia et consulari honore praeditus, accersebat saepe, nos cum apud magistros Athenis essemus, in villas ei urbi proximas me et clarissimum virum Servilianum compluresque alios nostrates qui Roma in Graeciam ad capiendum ingenii cultum concesserant. Atque ibi tunc, cum essemus apud eum in villa cui nomen est Cephisia, et aestu anni et sidere autumni flagrantissimo, propulsabamus incommoda caloris lucorum umbra ingentium, longis ambulacris et mollibus, medium positu refrigeranti, lavacris nitidisnlitidis et abundis et collucentibus totiusquetotiusqiue villae venustate, aquis undique canoris atque avibus personante. Erat ibidem nobiscum simul adulescens philosophiae sectator, “disciplinae,” ut ipse dicebat, “stoicae,” sed loquacior inpendio et promptior. Is plerumque in convivio sermonibus, qui post epulas haberi solent, multa atque inmodica de philosophiae doctrinis intempestive atque insubide disserebat praeque se uno ceteros omnes linguae Atticae principes gentemque omnem togatam, quodcumque nomen Latinum rudes esse et agrestes praedicabat atque interea vocabulis haut facile cognitis, syllogismorum captionumque dialecticarum laqueis strepebat, χυριεύοντας et σωρείτας aliosque id genus griphos neminem posse dicens nisi se dissolvere. Rem vero ethicam naturamque humani ingenii virtutumque origines officiaque earum et confinia, aut contra morborum vitiorumque fraudes animorumque labes et pestilentias, asseverabat nulli esse ulli magis ea omnia explorata, comperta meditataque. Cruciatibus autem doloribusque corporis et periculis mortem minitantibus habitum statumque vitae beatae, quem se esse adeptum putabat, neque laedi neque inminui existimabat, ac ne oris quoque et vultus serenitatem stoici hominis umquam ulla posse aegritudine obnubilari. Has ille inanes glorias cum flaret iamque omnes finem cuperent verbisque eius defetigati pertaeduissent, tum Herodes Graeca, uti plurimus ei mos fuitfruit, oratione utens, “Permitte,” inquit, “philosophorum amplissime, quoniam respondere nos tibi, quos vocas idiotas, non quimus, recitari ex libro quid de huiuscemodi magniloquentia vestra senserit dixeritque Epictetus, Stoicorum maximus,” iussitque proferri Dissertationum Epicteti digestarum ab Arriano primum librum, in quo ille venerandus senex iuvenes qui se “Stoicos” appellabant, neque frugis neque operae probae, sed theorematis tantum nugalibus et puerilium isagogarum commentationibus deblaterantes, obiurgatione iusta incessuit. Lecta igitur sunt ex libro qui prolatus est ea quae addidi; quibus verbis Epictetus severe simul et festiviter seiunxit atque divisit a vero atque sincero Stoico, qui esset procul dubio ἀκώλυτος, ἀνανάγκαστος, ἀπαραπόδιστος, ἐλεύθερος, εὐπορῶν, εὐδαιμονῶν, vulgus κακῶν. Ἄκουε. aliud nebulonum hominum qui se “Stoicos” nuncuparent, atraque verborum et argutiarum fuligine ob oculos audientium iacta sanctissimae disciplinae nomen ementirentur:Εἰπέ μοι περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. Ἄκουε.
Ἰλιόθεν με φέρων ἄνεμος Κικόνεσσι πέλασσεν. Τῶν ὅντων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἀγαθά, τὰ δὲ ἀδιάφορα. Ἀγαθὰ μὲν οὖν ἀρεταὶ τὰ μετέχοιτα αὐτῶν, κακὰ δὲ κακία καὶ τὰ μετέχοντα κακίας, ἀδιάφορα δὲ τὰ μεταξὺ τούων, πλοῦτος, ὑγεία, ζωή, θάνατος, ἡδονή, πόνος. Πόθεν οἶδας; Ἑλλάνικος λέγει ἐν τοῖς Αἰγυπτιακοῖς. Τι γὰρ διαφέρει τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, ἢ ὅτι Διογένης ἐν τῇ ἠθικῇ ἢ Χρύσιππος ἢ Κλεάνθης; βεβασάνικας οὖν τι αὐτῶν καὶ δόγμα σαυτοῦ πεποίησαι. Δείκνυε πῶς εἴωθας ἐν πλοίῳ χειμάζεσθαι· μέμνησαι ταύτης τῆς διαιρέσεως, ὅταν ψοφήσῃ τὸ ἱστίον καὶ ἀνακραυγάσῃς. Ἄν σοί τις κακόσχολός πως παραστὰς εἴπῃ, λέγε μοι, τοὺς θεούς σοι, ἃ πρῴην ἔλεγες, μή τι κακία ἐστὶν τὸ ναυαγῆσαι; μήτι κακίας μετέχον; οὐκ ἄρα ξύλον ἐνσείσεις αὐτῷ; τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί, ἄνθρωπε; ἀπολλύμεθα, καὶ σὺ ἐλθὼν παίζεις. Ἐὰν δέ σε ὁ Καῖσαρ μεταπέμψηται κατηγορούμενον … His ille auditis insolentissimus adulescens obticuit, tamquam si ea omnia non ab Epicteto in quosdamquosdan alios, sed ab Herode in eum dicta essent.

[¶26] 3. The difficult decision which the Lacedaemonian Chilo made to save a friend; and that one should consider scrupulously and anxiously whether one ought ever to do wrong in the interest of friends, with notes and quotations on that subject from the writings of Theophrastus and Marcus Cicero.

> Latin: 3. Quod Chilo Lacedaemonius consilium anceps pro salute amici cepit; quodque est circumspecte et anxie considerandum an pro utilitatibus amicorum delinquendum aliquando sit; notataque inibi et relata quae et Theophrastus et M. Cicero super ea re scripserunt.

[¶27] OF Chilo the Lacedaemonian, one of that famous group of sages, it is written in the books of those who have recorded the lives and deeds of distinguished men, that he, Chilo, at the close of his life, when death was already close upon him, thus addressed the friends about his bedside: "That very little of what I have said and done in the course of a long life calls for repentance, you yourselves may perhaps know.

> Latin: LACEDAEMONIUM Chilonem, virum ex illo incluto numero sapientium, scriptum est in libris eorum qui vitas resque gestas clarorum hominum memoriae mandaverunt, eum Chilonem in vitae suae postremo, cum iam inibi mors occuparet, ad circumstantis amicos sic locutum:
“Dicta,” inquit, “mea factaque in aetate longa pleraque omnia fuisse non paenitenda, fors sit ut vos etiam sciatis.”

[¶28] I, at any rate, at such a time as this do not deceive myself in believing that I have done nothing that it troubles me to remember, except for just one thing; and as to that it is not even now perfectly clear to me whether I did right or wrong. “I was judge with two others, and a friend's life was at stake.

> Latin: “Ego quidem in hoc certe tempore non fallo me, nihil esse quicquam commissum a me cuius memoria mihi aegritudini sit, ni illud profecto unum sit, quod rectene an perperam fecerim nondum mihi plane liquet.”

[¶29] The law was such that the man must be found guilty. Therefore, either my friend must suffer capital punishment or violence must be done to the law. I considered for a long time how to remedy so difficult a situation.

> Latin: “Super amici capite index cum duobus aliis fui. Ita lex fuit uti eum hominem condemnari necessum esset. Aut amicus igitur capitis perdendus aut adhibenda fraus legi fuit.”

[¶30] The course which I adopted seemed, in comparison with the alternative, the less objectionable;

> Latin: “Multa cum animo meo ad casum tam ancipitem medendum consultavi. Visum est esse id quod feci praequam erant alia toleratu facilius:”

[¶31] I myself secretly voted for conviction, but I persuaded my fellow judges to vote for acquittal. Thus I myself in a matter of such moment did my duty both as a judge and as a friend.

> Latin: “ipse tacitus ad condemnandum sententiam tuli, is qui simul iudicabant ut absolverent persuasi.”

[¶32] But my action torments me with the fear that there may be something of treachery and guilt in having recommended to others, in the same case, at the same time, and in a common duty, a course for them contrary to what I thought best for myself.”

> Latin: “Sic mihi et iudicis et amici officium in re tanta salvum fuit. Hanc capio ex eo facto molestiam, quod metuo ne a perfidia et culpa non abhorreat, in eadem re eodemque tempore inque communi negotio, quod mihi optimum factu duxerim, diversum eius aliis suasisse.”

[¶33] This Chilo, then, though a man of surpassing wisdom, was in doubt how far he ought to have gone counter to law and counter to equity for the sake of a friend, and that question distressed him even at the very end of his life.

> Latin: Et hic autem Chilo, praestabilis homo sapientiae, quonam usque debuerit contra legem contraque ius pro amico progredi dubitavit, eaque res in fine quoque vitae ipso animum eius anxit,

[¶34] So too many subsequent students of philosophy, as appears in their works, have inquired very carefully and very anxiously, to use their own language, ei) dei= bohqei=n tw=| fi/lw| para\ to\ di/kaion kai\ me/xri po/sou kai\ poi=a. That is to say, they inquired “whether one may sometimes act contrary to law or contrary to precedent in a friend's behalf, and under what circumstances and to what extent.”

> Latin: et alii deinceps multi philosophiae sectatores, ut in libris eorum scriptum est, satis inquisite satisque sollicite quaesiverunt, ut verbis quae scripta sunt ipsis utar,εἰ δεῖ βοηθεῖν τῷ φίλῳ παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον καὶ μέχρι πόσου καὶ ποῖα. Ea verba significant, quaesisse eos an nonnumquam contra ius contrave morem faciendum pro amico sit et in qualibus causis et quemnam usque ad modum.

[¶35] This problem has been discussed, as I have said, not only by many others, but also with extreme thoroughness by Theophrastus, the most conscientious and learned of the Peripatetic school; the discussion is found, if I remember correctly, in the first book of his treatise On Friendship. That work Cicero evidently read when he too was composing a work On Friendship.

> Latin: Super hac quaestione cum ab aliis, sicuti dixi, multis, tum vel diligentissime a Theophrasto disputatur, viro in philosophia peripatetica modestissimo doctissimoque, eaque disputatio scripta est, si recte meminimus, in libro eius De Amicitia primo.

[¶36] Now, the other material that Cicero thought proper to borrow from Theophrastus his talent and command of language enabled him to take and to translate with great taste and pertinence;

> Latin: Eum librum M. Cicero videtur legisse, cum ipse quoque librum De Amicitia componeret. Et cetera quidem quae sumenda a Theophrasto existimavit, ut ingenium facundiaque eius fuit, sumpsit et transposuit commodissime aptissimeque;

[¶37] but this particular topic which, as I have said, has been the object of much inquiry, and is the most difficult one of all, he passed over briefly and hurriedly, not reproducing the thoughtful and detailed argument of Theophrastus, but omitting his involved and as it were over-scrupulous discussion and merely calling attention in a few words to the nature of the problem.

> Latin: hunc autem locum de quo satis quaesitum esse dixi, omnium rerum aliarum difficillimum, strictim atque cursim transgressus est, neque ea quae a Theophrasto pensiculate atque enucleate scripta sunt exsecutusexecutus est, sed anxietate illa et quasi morositate disputationis praetermissa, genus ipsum rei tantum paucis verbis notavit.

[¶38] I have added Cicero's words, in case anyone should wish to verify my statement: “Therefore these are the limits which I think ought to be observed, namely: when the characters of friends are blameless, then there should be complete harmony of opinions and inclinations in everything without any exception; and, even if by some chance the wishes of a friend are not altogether honourable and require to be forwarded in matters which involve his life or reputation, we should turn aside from the straight path, provided, however, utter disgrace does not follow. For there are limits to the indulgence which can be allowed to friendship.”

> Latin: Ea verba Ciceronis, si recensere quis vellet, apposui: “His igitur finibus utendum esse arbitror, ut, cum emendati mores amicorumainicorum sunt, tum sit inter eos omnium rerum, consiliorum, voluntatum sine ulla exceptione communitas, ut etiam, si qua fortuna accident, ut minus iustae voluntates amicorum adiuvandae sint, in quibus eorum aut caput agatur aut fama, declinandum de via sit, modo ne summa turpitudo sequatur; est enim quatenus amicitiae venia dari possit.”

[¶39] “When it is a question,” he says, “either of a friend's life or good name, we must turn aside from the straight path, to further even his dis-honourable desire.”

> Latin: “Cum agetur,” inquit, “aut caput amici aut fama, declinandum est de via, ut etiam iniquam voluntatem illius adiutemus.”

[¶40] But he does not tell us what the nature of that deviation ought to be, how far we may go to help him, and how dis-honourable tile nature of the friend's desire may be.

> Latin: Sed cuiusmodi declinatio esse ista debeat qualisque ad adiuvandum digressio et in quanta voluntatis amici iniquitate, non dicit.

[¶41] But what does it avail me to know that I must turn aside from the straight path in the event of such dangers to my friends, provided I commit no act of utter disgrace, unless he also informs me what he regards as utter disgrace and, once having turned from the path of rectitude, how far I ought to go? “For,” he says, “there are limits to the indulgence which can be allowed to friendship.”

> Latin: Quid autem refert scire me in eiusmodi periculis amicorum, si non magna me turpitudo insecutura est, de via esse recta declinandum, nisi id quoque me docuerit, quam putet magnam turpitudinem, et cum decessero de via, quousque degredi debeam? “Est enim,” inquit, “quatenus dari amicitiae venia possit.”

[¶42] But that is the very point on which we most need instruction, but which the teachers make least clear, namely, how far and to what degree indulgence must be allowed to friendship.

> Latin: Hoc immo ipsum est quod maxime discendum est quodque ab his qui docent minime dicitur, quatenus quaque fini dari amicitiaeanicitiae venia debeat.

[¶43] The sage Chilo, whom I mentioned above, turned from the path to save a friend. But I can see how far lie went; for he gave unsound advice to save his friend.

> Latin: Chilo ille sapiens, de quo paulo ante dixi, conservandi amici causa de via declinavit. Sed video quousque progressus sit; falsum enim pro amici salute consilium dedit.

[¶44] Yet even as to that he was in doubt up to his last hour whether he deserved criticism and censure.

> Latin: Id ipsum tamen in fine quoque vitae an iure posset reprehendi culparique dubitavit.

[¶45] “Against one's fatherland,” says Cicero, “one must not take up arms for a friend.”

> Latin: “Contra patriam,” inquit Cicero, “arma Pro amico sumenda non sunt.”

[¶46] That of course everybody knew, and “before The ognis was born,” as Lucilius says. But what I ask and wish to know is this: when it is that one must act contrary to law and contrary to equity in a friend's behalf, albeit without doing violence to the public liberty and peace; and when it is necessary to turn aside from the path, as he himself puts it, in what way and how much, under what circumstances, and to what extent that ought to be done.

> Latin: Hoc profecto nemo ignoravit, et “priusquam Theognis,” quod Lucilius ait, “nasceretur.” Set id quaero, id desidero: cum pro amico contra ius, contra quam licet, salva tamen libertate atque pace, faciendum est et cum de via, sicut ipse ait, declinandum est, quid et quantum et in quali causa et quonam usque id fieri debeat.

[¶47] Pericles, the great Athenian, a man of noble character and endowed with all honourable accomplishments, declared his opinion— in a single instance, it is true, but yet very clearly. For when a friend asked him to perjure himself in court for his sake, he replied in these words: “One ought to aid one's friends, but only so far as the gods allow.”

> Latin: Pericles ille Atheniensis, vir egregio ingenio bonisque omnibus disciplinis ornatus, in una quidem specie, set planius tamen quid existimaret professus est. Nam cum amicus eum rogaret ut pro re causaque eius falsum deiuraret, his ad eum verbis usus est: “Δεῖ μὲν συμπράττειν τοῖς φίλοις, ἀλλὰ μέχρι τῶν φεῶν.”

[¶48] Theophrastus, however, in the book that I have mentioned, discusses this very question more exhaustively and with more care and precision than Cicero.

> Latin: Theophrastus autem in eo quo dixi libro inquisitius quidem super hac ipsa re et exactius expressiusque quam Cicero disserit.

[¶49] But even he in his exposition does not express an opinion about separate and individual action, nor with the corroborative evidence of examples, but treats classes of actions briefly and generally, in about the following terms: “A small and trifling amount of disgrace or infamy,” he says, "should be incurred, if thereby great advantage may be gained for a friend;

> Latin: Set is quoque in docendo non de unoquoque facto singillatim existimat neque certis exemplorum documentis, set generibus rerum summatim universimque utitur ad hunc ferme modum:

[¶50] for the insignificant loss from impairment of honour is repaid and made good by the greater and more substantial honour gained by aiding a friend, and that slight break or rift, so to speak, in one's reputation is repaired by the buttress formed by the advantages gained for one's friend.

> Latin: “Parva,” inquit, “et tenuis vel turpitudo vel infamiainfamnia subeunda est, si ea re magna utilitas amico quaeri potest. Rependitur quippe et compensatur leve damnum delibatae honestatis maiore alia gravioreque in adiuvando amico honestate, minimaque illa labes et quasi lacuna famae munimentis partarum amico utilitatium solidatur.”

[¶51] Nor ought we," says he, “to be influenced by mere terms, because my fair fame and the advantage of a friend under accusation are not of the same class. For such things must be estimated by their immediate weight and importance, not by verbal terms and the merits of the classes to which they belong.

> Latin: “Neque nominibus,” inquit, “moveri nos oportet, quod paria genere ipso non sunt honestas meae famae et rei amici utilitas. Ponderibus haec enim potestatibusque praesentibus, non vocabulorum appellationibus neque dignitatibus generum diiudicanda sunt.”

[¶52] For when the interests of a friend are put into the balance with our own honour in matters of equal importance, or nearly so, our own honour unquestionably turns the scale; but when the advantage of a friend is far greater, but our sacrifice of reputation in a matter of no great moment is insignificant, then what is advantageous to a friend gains in importance in comparison with what is honourable for us, exactly as a great weight of bronze is more valuable than a tiny shred of gold.”

> Latin: “Nam cum in rebus aut paribus aut non longe secus utilitas amici aut honestas nostra consistit, honestas procul dubio praeponderat; cum vero amici utilitas nimio est amplior, honestatis autem nostrae in re non gravi levis iactura est, tunc quod utile amico est, id prae illo quod honestum nobis est fit plenius, sicuti est magnum pondus aeris parva lamna auri pretiosius.”
Verba adeo ipsa Theophrasti super ea re adscripsi:

[¶53] On this point I append Theophrastus' own words: “If such and such a thing belongs to a more valuable class, yet it is not true that some part of it, compared with a corresponding part of something else, will be preferable. This is not the case, for example, if gold is more valuable than bronze, and a portion of gold, compared with a portion of bronze of corresponding size, is obviously of more worth;

> Latin: Οὐκ, εἰ δή που τοῦτο τῷ γένει τιμιώτερον, ἤδη καὶ ὁτιοῦν ἂν ᾖ μέρος τούτου πρὸς τ ὸ τηλίκον θατέρου συγκρινόμενον αἱρετὸν ἔσται. Λέγω δὲ οἷον, οὐκ, εἰ χρυσίον τιμιώτερον χαλκοῦ, καὶ τηλίκον τοῦ χρυσίου πρὸς τὸ τηλίκον χαλκοῦ μέγεθος ἀντιπαραβαλλόμενον πλέον δόξει· ἀλλὰ ποιήσει τινὰ ῥοπὴν καὶ τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τὸ μέγεθος.

## 2. Book I · chapters 3–11

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/2/#p-N

[¶0] but the number and size of the portions will have some influence on our decision.” The philosopher Favorinus too, somewhat loosening and inclining the delicate balance of justice to suit the occasion, thus defined such an indulgence in favour: “That which among men is called favour is the relaxing of strictness in time of need.”

> Latin: FavorinusFavoriinus quoque philosophusphilosophlus huiuscemodihuiuscemlodi indulgentiam gratiae, tempestive laxato paulum remissoque subtili iustitiae examine, his verbis definivit: Ἡ καλουμέιν χάρις παρὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, τοῦτο ἔστιν ὕφεσις ἀκριβείας ἐν δέοντι.

[¶1] Later on Theophrastus again expressed himself to about this effect: “The relative importance and insignificance of things, and all these considerations of duty, are sometimes directed, controlled, and as it were steered by other external influences and other additional factors, so to say, arising from individuals, conditions and exigencies, as well as by the requirements of existing circumstances; and these influences, which it is difficult to reduce to rules, make them appear now justifiable and now unjustifiable.”

> Latin: Post deinde idem Theophrastus ad hanc ferme sententiam disseruit: “Has tamentarnen,” inquit, “parvitates rerum et magnitudinesmiagnitudines atqueatquc has omnes officiorum aestimationes alia nonnumquam momenta extrinsecus atque aliae quasi appendices personarum et causarum et temporum et circumstantiae ipsius necessitates, quas includere in praecepta difficilest, moderantur et regunt et quasi gubernant et nunc ratas efficiunt, nunc inritas.”

[¶2] On these and similar topics Theophrastus wrote very discreetly, scrupulously and conscientiously, yet with more attention to analysis and discussion than with the intention or hope of arriving at a decision, since undoubtedly the variations in circumstances and exigencies, and the minute distinctions and differences, do not admit of a definite and universal rule that can be applied to individual cases;

> Latin: Haec taliaque Theophrastus satis caute et sollicite et religiose, cum discernendi magis disceptandique diligentia quam cum decernendi sententia atque fiducia scripsit, quoniam profecto causarum ac temporum varietates discriminumque ac differentiarum tenuitates derectum atque perpetuum distinctumque in rebus singulis praeceptum, quod ego nos in prima tractatus istius parte desiderare dixeram, non capiunt.

[¶3] and it is such a rule, as I said at the beginning of this essay, of which we are in search. Now this Chilo, with whom I began this little discussion, is the author not only of some other wise and salutary precepts, but also of the following, which has been found particularly helpful, since it confines within due limits those two most ungovernable passions, love and hatred. “So love,” said he, “as if you were possibly destined to hate;

> Latin: Eius autem Chilonis, a quo disputatiunculae huius initium fecimus, cum alia quaedam sunt monita utilia atque prudentia, tum id maxime exploratae utilitatis est, quod duas ferocissimas adfectiones amoris atque odii intra modum cautum coercuit. “Hac,” inquit, “fini ames, tamquam forte fortuna et osurus; hac itidem tenus oderis, tamquam fortasse post amaturus.”

[¶4] and in the same way, hate as if you might perhaps afterwards love.” Of this same Chilo the philosopher Plutarch, in the first book of his treatise On the Soul, wrote as follows: “Chilo of old, having heard a man say that he had no enemy, asked him if he had no friend, believing that enmities necessarily followed and were involved in friendships.”

> Latin: Super hoc eodem Chilone Plutarchus philosophus, in libro Περὶ Ψυχῆς primo, verbis his ita scripsit: Χείλων ὁ παλαιός, ἀκούσας τινὸς λέγοντος, μηδένα ἔχειν ἐχθρόν, ἠρώτησεν, εἰ μηδένα δίλον ἔχει, νομίζων ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐπακολουθεῖν καὶ συνεμπλέκεσθαι ταῖς φιλίαις ἀπεχθείας.

[¶5] 4. The care and fine taste with which Antonius Julianus examined the artful substitution of one word for another by Marcus Cicero in one of his orations. THE rhetorician Antonius Julianus had an exceedingly noble and winning personality. He also possessed learning of a delightful and helpful sort, devoting great attention to the refinements of the writers of old and readily recalling them. Moreover, he inspected all the earlier literature with such care, weighing its merits and ferreting out its defects, that you might say that his judgment was perfect. This Julianus expressed the following opinion of the syllogism which is found in the speech of Marcus Tullius spoken In Defence of Gnaeus Plancius —but first I will quote the exact words on which he passed judgment: "And yet, a debt of money is a different thing from a debt of gratitude. For he who discharges a debt in money ceases forthwith to have that which he has paid, while one who continues in debt keeps what belongs to another. But in the case of a debt of gratitude, he who returns it has it; and he who has it returns it by the mere fact of having it. In the present instance I shall not cease to be Plancius' debtor if I pay this debt, nor should I be paying him any the less simply by feeling goodwill, if the present unfortunate situation had not occurred" Here, said Julianus, “is to be sure a fine artistry in the way the words are marshalled, something well-rounded that charms tile ear by its mere music; but it must be read with the privilege of a slight change in the meaning of one word in order to preserve the truth of the proposition. Now the comparison of a debt of gratitude with a pecuniary debt demands the use of the word 'debt' in both instances. For a debt of money and a debt of gratitude will seem to be properly compared, if we may say that both money and gratitude are owed; but let us consider what happens in the owing or paying of money, and on the other hand in the owing and paying of a debt of gratitude, if we retain the word 'debt' in both instances. Now Cicero,” continued Julianus, “having said that a debt of money was a different thing from a debt of gratitude, in giving his reason for that statement applies the word 'owe' to money, but in the case of gratitude substitutes ' has' (i.e. 'feels') for ' owes'; for this is what he says: ' But in the case of a debt of gratitude, he who returns it has it; and he who has it returns it by the mere fact of having it.' But that word 'has' does not exactly fit the proposed comparison. For it is the owing, and not the having, of gratitude that is compared with money, and therefore it would have been more consistent to say: 'He who owes pays by the mere fact of owing.' But it would be absurd and quite too forced if a debt of gratitude that was not yet paid should be said to be paid by the mere fact that it was owed. Therefore,” said Julianus, “Cicero made a change and substituted a similar word for one which he had dropped, in order to seem to have kept the idea of a comparison of debts, and at the same time retained the careful balance of his period.” Thus it was that Julianus elucidated and criticized passages in the earlier literature, which a select group of young men read under his guidance.

> Latin: 4. Quam tenuiter curioseque exploraverit Antonius Iulianus in oratione M. Tullii verbi ab eo mutati argutiam. ANTONIUS Iulianuslulianus rhetor perquam fuit honesti atque amoeni ingeni. Doctrina quoque iste utiliore ac delectabili veterumque elegantiarum cura et memoria multa fuit; ad hoc scriptascript omnia antiquiora tam curiose spectabat et aut virtutes pensitabat aut vitia rimabatur, ut iudicium esse factum ad amussim diceres. Is Iulianus super eo enthymemate, quod est in oratione M. Tullii, quam Pro Cn. Plancio dixit, ita existimavit—sed verba prius, de quibus iudicium ab eo factum est, ipsa ponam: “Quamquam dissimilis est pecuniae debitio et gratiae. Nam qui pecuniam dissolvit, statim non habet id quod reddidit, qui autem debetdlebet, is retinet alienun; gratiam autem et qui refert habet, et qui habet in eo ipso quod habet refert. Neque ego nunc Plancio desinam debere, si hochioc solvero, nec minus ei redderem voluntate ipsa, si hoc molestiae non accidisset” — “Crispum sane,” inquit, “agmen orationis rotundumque ac modulo ipso numerorum venustum, sed quod cum venia legendum sit verbi paulum ideo inmutati, ut sententiae fides salva esset.” “Namque debitio gratiae et pecuniae conlata verbum utrubique servari postulat. Ita enim recte opposita inter sese gratiae pecuniaeque debitio videbitur, si et pecunia quidem deberi dicatur et gratia, sed quid eveniat in pecunia debita solutave, quid contra in gratia debita redditave, debitionis verbo utrimque servato disseratur.” “Cicero autem,” inquit, “cum gratiae pecuniaeque debitionem dissimilem esse dixisset eiusque sententiae rationem redderet, verbum ‘debet’ in pecunia ponit, in gratia ‘habet’ subicit pro debet; ita enim dicit: ‘gratiam autem et qui refert habet, et qui habet in eo ipso quod habet refert.’” “Sed id verbum ‘habet’ cum proposita comparatione non satis convenit. Debitio enim gratiae, non habitio, cum pecunia confertur, atque ideo consequens quidem fuerat sic dicere: ‘et qui debet in eo ipso quod debet refert’; sed absurdum et nimis coactum foret, si nondum redditam gratiam eo ipso redditam diceret, quia debetur.” “Inmutavit ergo,” inquit, “et subdidit verbum ei verbo, quod omiserat, finitimum, ut videretur et sensum debitionis conlatae non reliquisse et concinnitatem sententiae retinuisse.” Ad hunc modum Iulianus enodabat diiudicabatque veterum scriptorum sententias, quae aput eum adulescentes delecti lectitabant.

[¶6] 5. That the orator Demosthenes was criticized because of his care for his person and attire, and taunted with foppishness; and that the orator Hortensius also, because of similar foppishness and the use of theatrical gestures when he spoke, was nicknamed Dionysia the dancing-girl. IT is said that Demosthenes in his dress and other personal habits was excessively spruce, elegant and studied. It was for that reason that he was taunted by his rivals and opponents with his “exquisite, pretty mantles” and “soft, pretty tunics”; for that reason, too, that they did not refrain from applying to him foul and shameful epithets, alleging that he was no mall and was even guilty of unnatural vice. In like manner Quintus Hortensius, quite the most renowned orator of his time with the exception of Marcus Tullius, because he dressed with extreme foppishness, arranged the folds of his toga with great care and exactness, and in speaking used his hands to excess in lively gestures, was assailed with gibes and shameful charges; and many taunts were hurled at him, even while he was pleading in court, for appearing like an actor. But when Sulla was on trial, and Lucius Torquatus, a man of somewhat boorish and uncouth nature, with great violence and bitterness did not stop with calling Hortensius an actor in the presence of the assembled jurors, but said that he was a posturer and a Dionysia—which was the name of a notorious dancing-girl—then Hortensius replied in a soft and gentle tone: “I would rather be a Dionysia, Torquatus, yes, a Dionysia, than like you, a stranger to the Muses, to Venus and to Dionysus.”

> Latin: 5. Quod Demosthenes rhetor cultu corporis atque vestitu probris obnoxio infamique munditia fuit; quodque item Hortensius orator, ob eiusmodi munditias gestumque in agendo histrionicum, Dionysiae saltatriculae cognomento compellatus est. DEMOSTHENEN traditum est vestitu ceteroque cultu corporis nitido venustoque nimisque accurato fuisse. Et hinc ei τὰ κομψὰ illa χλανίσκια et μαλακοὶ χιτωνίσκοι ab aemulis adversariisque probro data, hinc etiam turpibus indignisque in eum verbis non temperatum, quin parum vir et ore quoque polluto diceretur. Ad eundem modum Q. Hortensius omnibus ferme oratoribus aetatis suae, nisi M. Tullio, clarior, quod multa munditia et circumspecte compositeque indutus et amictus esset manusque eius inter agendum forent argutae admodum et gestuosae, maledictis compellationibusque probris iactatus est multaque in eum, quasi in histrionem, in ipsis causis atque iudiciis dicta sunt. Sed cum L. Torquatus, subagresti homo ingenio et infestivo, gravius acerbiusqueacerliusque apud consilium iudicum, cum de causa Sullae quaereretur, non iam histrionem eum esse diceret, sed gesticulariam Dionysiamque eum notissimae saltatriculae nomine appellaret, tum voce molli atqueatoue demissa Hortensius “Dionysia,” inquit, “Dionysia malo equidem esse quam quod tu, Torquate, ἄμουσος, ἀναφρόδιτος, ἀπροσδιόνυσος.”

[¶7] 6. An extract from the speech delivered to the people by Metellus Numidicus when he was censor, urging them to marry; why that speech has been criticized and how on the contrary it has been defended. A number of learned men were listening to the reading of the speech which Metellus Numidicus, an earnest and eloquent man, delivered to the people when he was censor, On Marriage, urging them to be ready to undertake its obligations. In that speech these words were written: “If we could get on without a wife, Romans, we would all avoid that annoyance; but since nature has ordained that we can neither live very comfortably with them nor at all without them, we must take thought for our lasting well-being rather than for the pleasure of the moment.” It seemed to some of the company that Quintus Metellus, whose purpose as censor was to encourage the people to take wives, ought not to have admitted the annoyance and constant inconveniences of the married state; that to do this was not so much to encourage, as to dissuade and deter them. But they said that his speech ought rather to have taken just the opposite tone, insisting that as a rule there were no annoyances in matrimony, and if after all they seemed sometimes to arise, they were slight, insignificant and easily endured, and were completely forgotten in its greater pleasures and advantages; furthermore, that even these annoyances did not fall to the lot of all or from any fault natural to matrimony, but as the result of the misconduct and injustice of some husbands and wives. Titus Castricius, however, thought that Metellus had spoken properly and as was altogether worthy of his position. “A censor,” said he, “ought to speak in one way, an advocate in another. It is the orator's privilege to make statements that are untrue, daring, crafty, deceptive and sophistical, provided they have some semblance of truth and can by any artifice be made to insinuate themselves into the minds of the persons who are to be influenced. Furthermore,” he said, “it is disgraceful for an advocate, even though his case be a bad one, to leave anything unnoticed or undefended. But for a Metellus, a blameless man, with a reputation for dignity and sense of honour, addressing the Roman people with the prestige of such a life and course of honours, it was not becoming to say anything which was not accepted as true by himself and by all men, especially when speaking on a subject which was a matter of everyday knowledge and formed a part of the common and habitual experience of life. Accordingly, having admitted the existence of annoyances notorious with all men, and having thus established confidence in his sincerity and truthfulness, he then found it no difficult or uphill work to convince them of what was the soundest and truest of principles, that the State cannot survive without numerous marriages.” This other passage also from the same address of Metellus in my opinion deserves constant reading, not less by Heaven! than the writings of the greatest philosophers. His words are these: “The immortal gods have mighty power, but they are not expected to be more indulgent to us than our parents. But parents, if their children persist in wrong-doing, disinherit them. What different application of justice then are we to look for from the immortal gods, unless we put an end to our evil ways? Those alone may fairly claim the favour of the gods who are not their own worst enemies. The immortal gods ought to support, not supply, virtue.”

> Latin: 6. Verba ex oratione Metelli Numidici quam dixit in censura ad populum, cum eum ad uxores ducendas adhortaretur; eaque oratio quam ob causam reprehensa et quo contra modo defensa sit. MULTIS et eruditis viris audientibus legebatur oratio Metelli Numidici, gravis ac diserti viri, quam in censura dixit ad populum de ducendis uxoribus, cum eum ad matrimonia capessenda hortaretur. In ea oratione ita scriptum fuit: “Si sine uxore pati possemus, Quirites, omnes ea molestia careremus; set quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum est.” Videbatur quibusdam, Q. Metellum censorem, cui consilium esset ad uxores ducendas populum hortari, non oportuisse de molestia incommodisque perpetuis rei uxoriae confiteri, neque id hortari magis esse quam dissuadere absterrereque; set contra in id potius orationem debuisse sumi dicebant, ut et nullas plerumque esse in matrimoniis molestias adseveraret et, si quae tamen accidere nonnumquam viderentur, parvas et leves facilesque esse toleratu diceret maioribusque eas emolumentis et voluptatibus oblitterari easdemque ipsas neque omnibus neque naturae vitio, set quorundam maritorum culpa et iniustitia evenire. Titus autem Castricius recte atque condigne Metellum esse locutum existimabat. “Aliter,” inquit, “censor loqui debet, aliter rhetor. rhetori concessum est, sententiis uti falsis, audacibus, versutis, subdolis, captiosis, si veri modo similes sint et possint movendos hominumn animos qualicunque astu inrepere.” Praeterea turpe esse ait rhetori, si quid in mala causa destitutum atque inpropugnatum relinquat. “Sed enim Metellum,” inquit, “sanctum virum, illa gravitate et fide praeditum cum tanta honorum atque vitae dignitate aput populum Romanum loquentem, nihil decuit aliud dicere quam quod verum esse sibi atque omnibus videbatur, praesertim cum super ea re diceret quae cotidiana intellegentia et communi pervolgatoque vitae usu comprenderetur.” “De molestia igitur cunctis hominibus notissima confessus, fidem sedulitatis veritatisque commeritus, tum denique facile et procliviter, quod fuit rerum omnium validissimum atque verissimumvelissimum i, persuasit civitatem salvam esse sine matrimoniorum frequentia non posse.” HocHoe quoque aliut ex eadem oratione Q. Metelli dignum esse existimavimus adsidua lectione non hercle minus quam quae a gravissimis philosophis scripta sunt. Verba Metelli haec sunt: “Di immortales plurimum possunt; sed non plus velle nobis debent quam parentes. At parentes, si pergunt liberi errare, bonis exheredant. Quid ergo nos ab immortalibus dissimile ius expectemus, nisi malis rationibus finem faciamus? Is demum deos propitios esse aecum est, qui sibi adversarii non sunt. Dii immortales virtutem adprobare, non adhibere debent.”

[¶8] 7. In these words of Cicero, from his fifth oration Against Verres, hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futurum, there is no error in writing or grammar but those are wrong who do violence to good copies by writing futuram; and in that connection mention is also made of another word of Cicero's which, though correct, is wrongly changed; with a few incidental remarks on the melody and cadence of periods for which Cicero earnestly strove. IN the fifth oration of Cicero Against Verres, in a copy of unimpeachable fidelity, since it was the result of Tiro's careful scholarship, is this passage: “Men of low degree and humble birth sail the seas; they come to places which they had never before visited. They are neither known to those to whom they have come nor can they always find acquaintances to vouch for them, yet because of this mere faith in their citizenship they believe that they will be safe, not only before our magistrates, who are constrained by fear of the laws and public opinion, and not only among Roman citizens, who are united by the common bond of language, rights, and many interests, but wherever they may come, they hope that this possession will protect them.” It seemed to many that there was an error in the last word. For they thought that futuram should be written instead of futurum, and they were sure that the book ought to be corrected, lest like the adulterer in the comedy of Plautus —for so they jested about the error which they thought they had found—this solecism in an oration of Cicero's should be “caught in the act.” There chanced to be present there a friend of mine, who had become an expert from wide reading and to whom almost all the older literature had been the object of study, meditation and wakeful nights. He, on examining the book, declared that there was no mistake in writing or grammar in that word, but that Cicero had written correctly and in accordance with early usage. “For futurum is not,” said he, " to be taken with rem, as hasty and careless readers think, nor is it used as a participle. It is an infinitive, the kind of word which the Greeks call a)pare/mfatos or 'indeterminate,' affected neither by number nor gender, but altogether free and independent, such a word as Gaius Gracchus used in the speech entitled On Publius Popilius, delivered in the places of assembly, in which we read: 'I suppose that my enemies will say this.' He said dicturum, not dicturos; and is it not clear that dicturum in Gracchus is used according to the same principle as futurum in Cicero? Just as in the Greek language, without any suspicion of error, words such as e)rei=n, poih/sein, e)/sesqai, and the like, are used in all genders and all numbers without distinction." He added that in the third book of the Annals of Claudius Quadrigarius are these words: “While they were being cut to pieces, the forces of the enemy would be busy there (copias... futurum)”; and at the beginning of the eighteenth book of the same Quadrigarius: “If you enjoy health proportionate to your own merit and our good-will, we have reason to hope that the gods will bless the good (deos... facturum)”; that similarly Valerius Antias also in his twenty-fourth book wrote: “If those religious rites should be performed, and the omens should be wholly favourable, the soothsayers declared that everything would proceed as they desired (omnia...processurum esse).” “Plautus also in the Casina, speaking of a girl, used occisurum, not occisuram in the following passage: Has Casina a sword?—Yes, two of them.— Why two?—With one she'd fain the bailiff slay, With t'other you. So too Laberius in The Twins wrote: I thought not she would do (facturum) it. Now, all those men were not unaware of the nature of a solecism, but Gracchus used dicturum, Quadrigarius futurum and facturum, Antias processurum, Plautus occisurum and Laberius facturum, in the infinitive mood, a mood which is not inflected for mood or number or person or tense or gender, but expresses them all by one and the same form, just as Marcus Cicero did not use fiturum in the masculine or neuter gender—for that would clearly be a solecism—but employed a form which is independent of any influence of gender.” Furthermore, that same friend of mine used to say that in the oration of that same Marcus Tullius On Pompey's Military Command Cicero wrote the following, and so my friend always read it: “Since you know that your harbours, and those harbours from which you draw the breath of life, were in tile power of the pirates.” And he declared that in potestatem fuisse was not a solecism, as the half-educated vulgar think, but he maintained that it was used in accordance with a definite and correct principle, one which the Greeks also followed; and Plautus, who is most choice in his Latinity, said in the Amphitruo:
Número mihi in mentém fuit,
not in mente, as we commonly say. But besides Plautus, whom my friend used as an example in this instance, I myself have come upon a great abundance of such expressions in the early writers, and I have jotted them down here and there in these notes of mine. But quite apart from that rule and those authorities, the very sound and order of the words make it quite clear that it is more in accordance with the careful attention to diction and the rhythmical style of Marcus Tullius that, either being good Latin, he should prefer to say potestatem rather than potestate. For the former construction is more agreeable to the ear and better rounded, the latter harsher and less finished, provided always that a man has an ear attuned to such distinctions, not one that is dull and sluggish; it is for the same reason indeed that he preferred to say explicavit rather than explicuit, which was already coming to be the commoner form. These are his own words from the speech which he delivered On Pomnpey's Military Command: “Sicily is a witness, which, begirt on all sides by many dangers, he freed (explicavit), not by the threat of war, but by his promptness in decision.” But if lie had said explicuit, the sentence would halt with weak and imperfect rhythm.

> Latin: 7. In hisce verbis Ciceronis ex oratione quinta in Verrem “hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futurum,” neque mendum esse neque vitium, errareque istos qui bonos libros violant et “futuram” scribunt; atque ibi de quodam alio Ciceronis verbo dictum, quod probe scriptum perperam mutatur; et aspersa pauca de modulis numerisque orationis, quos Cicero avide sectatus est. IN oratione Ciceronis quinta In Verrem, libro spectatae fidei, Tironiana cura atque disciplina facto, ita scriptum fuit: Homines tenues, obscuro loco nati, navigant; adeunt ad ea loca quae numquam antea adierant. Neque noti esse iis quo venerunt neque semper cum cognitoribus esse possunt, hac una tamen fiducia civitatis, non modo apud nostros magistratus, qui et legum et existimationis periculo continentur, neque apud cives solum Romanos, qui et sermonis et iuris et multarum rerum societate iuncti sunt, fore se tutos arbitrantur, sed quocumque venerint, hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futurum. Videbatur compluribus in extremo verbo menda esse. Debuisse enim scribi putabant non “futurum,” sed “futuram,” neque dubitabant quin liber emendandus esset, ne, ut in Plauti comoedia moechus, sic enim mendae suae inludiabant, ita in Ciceronis oratione soloecismus esset “manifestarius.” Aderat forte ibi amicus noster, homo lectione multa exercitus, cui pleraque omnia veterum litterarum quaesita, meditata evigilataque erant. Is, libro inspecto, ait nullum esse in eo verbo neque mendum neque vitium et Ciceronem probe ac vetuste locutum. “Nam futurum,” inquit, “non refertur ad rem, sicut legentibus temere et incuriose videtur, neque pro participio positum est, set verbum est indefinitum, quod Graeci appellant ἀπαρέμφατον, neque numeris neque generibus praeserviens,” “set liberum undique et impromiscum, quali C. Gracchus verbo usus est in oratione cuius titulus est De P. Popilio circum Conciliabula, in qua ita scriptumscripturm est: ‘Credo ego inimicos meos hoc dicturum.’ ‘Inimicos dicturum,’ inquit, non ‘dicturos’; videturne ea ratione positum esse aput Gracchum ‘dicturum,’ ” “qua est aput Ciceronem ‘futurum’? Sicut in Graeca oratione sine ulla vitii suspicione omnibus numeris generibusque sine discrimine tribuuntur huiuscemodi verba: ἐρεῖν, ποιήσειν, ἔσεσθαι et similia.” In Claudi quoque Quadrigarii tertio Annali verba haec esse dixit: “I dum conciderentur, hostium copias ibi occupatas futurum”; in duodevicesimo Annali eiusdem Quadrigarii principium libri sic scriptum: “Si pro tua bonitate et nostra voluntate tibi valitudo subpetit, est quod speremus deos bonis benefacturum”; item in Valerii Antiatis libro quarto vicesimo simili modo scriptum esse: “Si eae res divinae factae recteque perlitatae essent, haruspices dixerunt omnia ex sententia processurum esse.” “Plautus etiam in Casina,” “cum de puella loqueretur, ‘occisurum’ dixit, non ‘occisuram,’ his verbis:
Etiamne habet Casina gladium?
Habét, sed duós.—Quid duós? —Alteró te
Occísurum aít, alteró vilicum.” “Item Laberius in Gemellis:
Nón putavi (inquit) hoc eám facturum.” “Non ergo isti omnes soloecismus quid esset ignorarunt, sed et Gracchus ‘dicturum’ et Quadrigarius ‘futurumfuturunm’ et ‘facturum’ et Antias ‘processurum’ et Plautus ‘occisurum’ et Laberius ‘facturum’ indefinito modo dixerunt,” “qui modus neque in numeros neque in personas neque in tempora neque in genera distrahitur, sed omnia istaec una eademque declinatione complectitur,” “sicuti M. Cicero ‘futurum’ dixit non virili genere neque neutro, soloecismus enim plane foret, sed verbo usus est ab omni necessitate generum absoluto.” Idem autem ille amicus noster in eiusdem M. Tullii oratione, quae est De imperio Cn. Pompei, ita scriptum esse a Cicerone dicebat atque ipse ita lectitabat: “Cum vestros portus, atque eos portus quibus vitam ac spiritum ducitis, in praedonum fuisse potestatem sciatis,” neque soloecismum esse aiebat “in potestatem fuisse,” ut vulgus semidoctum putat, sed ratione dictum certa et proba contendebat, qua et Graeci ita uterentur; et Plautus, verborum Latinorum elegantissimus, in Amphitruone dixit:
número mihi in mentemmentdm fuit,
non, ut dici solitum est, “in mente.” Sed enim praeter Plautum, cuius ille in praesens exemplo usus est, multam nos quoque apud veteres scriptores locutionum talium copiam offendimus atque his vulgo adnotamentis inspersimus. Ut et rationem autem istam missam facias et auctoritates, sonus tamen et positura ipsa verborum satis declarat id potius ἐπιμελείᾳ τῶν λέξεων modulamentisque orationis M. Tullii convenisse, ut, quoniam utrumvis dici Latine posset, “potestatem” dicere mallet, non “potestate.” Illud enim sic compositum iucundius ad aurem completiusque, insuavius hoc imperfectiusque est, si modo ita explorata aure homo sit, non surda nec iacenti; sicuti est hercle quod “explicavit” dicere maluit quam “explicuit,” quod esse iam usitatius coeperat. Verba sunt haec ipsius ex oratione, quam De inperio Cn. Pompei habuit: “Testis est Sicilia, quam, multis undique cinctam periculis, non terrore belli, sed consilii celeritate explicavit.” At si “explicuit” diceret, inperfecto et debili numero verborum sonus clauderet.

[¶9] 8. An anecdote found in the works of the philosopher Sotion about the courtesan Lais and the orator Demosthenes. SOTION was a man of the Peripatetic school, far from unknown. He wrote a book filled with wide and varied information and called it Ke/ras )Amalqei/as, which is about equivalent to The Horn of Plenty. In that book is found the following anecdote about the orator Demosthenes and the courtesan Lais: “Lais of Corinth,” he says, “used to gain a great deal of money by the grace and charm of her beauty, and was frequently visited by wealthy men from all over Greece; but no one was received who did not give what she demanded, and her demands were extravagant enough.” He says that this was the origin of the proverb common among the Greeks:
Not every man may fare to Corinth town,
for in vain would any man go to Corinth to visit Lais who could not pay her price. “The great Demosthenes approached her secretly and asked for her favours. But Lais demanded ten thousand drachmas” —a sum equivalent in our money to ten thousand denarii. “Amazed and shocked at the woman's great impudence and the vast sum of money demanded, Demosthenes turned away, remarking as he left her: 'I will not buy regret at such a price.'” But the Greek words which he is said to have used are neater; he said: Ou)k w)nou=mai muri/wn draxmw=n metame/leian..

> Latin: 8. Historia in libris Sotionis philosophi reperta super Laide meretrice et Demosthene rhetore. SOTION ex peripatetica disciplina haut sane ignobilis vir fuit. Is librum multae variaeque historiae refertum composuit eumque inscripsit Κέρας Ἀμαλθείας. Ea vox hoc ferme valet, tamquam si dicas “Cornum Copiae.” In eo libro super Demosthene rhetore et Laide meretrice historia haec scripta est: “Lais,” inquit, “Corinthia ob elegantiam venustatemque formae grandem pecuniam demerebat conventusque ad eam ditiorum hominum ex omni Graecia celebres erant, neque admittebatur nisi qui dabat quod poposcerat; poscebat autem illa nimium quantum.” Hinc ait natum esse illud frequens apud Graecos adagium:
Οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐς Κόρινθον ἔσθʼ ὁ πλοῦς,
quod frustra iret Corinthum ad Laidem qui non quiret dare quod posceretur. “Ad hanc ille Demosthenes clanculum adit et ut sibi copiam sui faceret petit. At Lais μυρίας δραχμὰς poposcit—” hoc facit nummi nostratis denarium decem milia. “Tali petulantia mulieris atque pecuniae magnitudine ictus expavidusque Demosthenes avertitur et discedens ‘ego,’ inquit, ‘paenitere tanti non emo.’” Sed Graeca ipsa, quae fertur dixisse, lepidiora sunt: οὐκ ὠνοῦμαι, inquit, μυρίων δραχμῶν μεταμέλειαν.

[¶10] 9. What the method and what the order of the Pythagorean training was, and the amount of time which was prescribed and accepted as the period for learning and at the same time keeping silence. IT is said that the order and method followed by Pythagoras, and afterwards by his school and his successors, in admitting and training their pupils were as follows: At the very outset he “physiognomized” the young men who presented themselves for instruction. That word means to inquire into the character and dispositions of men by an inference drawn from their facial appearance and expression, and from the form and bearing of their whole body. Then, when he had thus examined a man and found him suitable, he at once gave orders that he should be admitted to the school and should keep silence for a fixed period of time; this was not the same for all, but differed according to his estimate of the man's capacity for learning quickly. But the one who kept silent listened to what was said by others; he was, however, religiously forbidden to ask questions, if he had not fully understood, or to remark upon what he had heard. Now, no one kept silence for less than two years, and during the entire period of silent listening they were called a)koustikoi/ or “auditors.” But when they had learned what is of all things the most difficult, to keep quiet and listen, and had finally begun to be adepts in that silence which is called e)xemuqi/a or “continence in words,” they were then allowed to speak, to ask questions, and to write down what they had heard, and to express their own opinions. During this stage they were called maqhmatikoi/ or “students of science,” evidently from those branches of knowledge which they had now begun to learn and practise; for the ancient Greeks called geometry, gnomonics, music and other higher studies maqh/mata or “sciences”; but the common people apply the term mathematici to those who ought to be called by their ethnic name, Chaldaeans. Finally, equipped with this scientific training, they advanced to the investigation of the phenomena of the universe and the laws of nature, and then, and not till then, they were called fusikoi/ or “natural philosophers.” Having thus expressed himself about Pythagoras, my friend Taurus continued: "But nowadays these fellows who turn to philosophy on a sudden with unwashed feet, not content with being wholly 'without purpose, without learning, and without scientific training,' even lay down the law as to how they are to be taught philosophy. One says, 'first teach me this,' another chimes in,' I want to learn this, I don't want to learn that'; one is eager to begin with the Symposiumn of Plato because of the revel of Alcibiades, another with the Phaedrus on account of the speech of Lysias. By Jupiter!" said he, “one man actually asks to read Plato, not in order to better his life, but to deck out his diction and style, not to gain in discretion, but in prettiness.” That is what Taurus used to say, in comparing the modern students of philosophy with the Pythagoreans of old. But I must not omit this fact either—that all of them, as soon as they had been admitted by Pythagoras into that band of disciples, at once devoted to the common use whatever estate and property they had, and an inseparable fellowship was formed, like the old-time association which in Roman legal parlance was termed an “undivided inheritance.”

> Latin: 9. Quis modus fuerit, quis ordo disciplinae Pythagoricae, quantumque temporis imperatum observatumque sit discendi simul ac tacendi. ordo atque ratio Pythagorae, ac deinceps familiae et successionis eius, recipiendi instituendique discipulos huiuscemodi fuisse traditur: Iamlam a principio adulescentes qui sese ad discendum obtulerant εφυ- σιογνωμόνει. Id verbum significat, mores naturasque hominum coniectatione quadam de oris et vultus ingenio deque totius corporis filo atque habitu sciscitari. tumTurn qui exploratus ab eo idoneusque inventus fuerat recipi in disciplinam statim iubebat et tempus certum tacere; non omnes idem, sed alios aliud tempus pro aestimato captu sollertiae. Is autem qui tacebat quae dicebantur ab aliis audiebat, neque percontari, si parum intellexerat, commentari quae audierat fas erat; sed non minus quisquam tacuit quam biennium: hi prorsus appellabantur intra tempus tacendi audiendique ἀκουστικοί. Ast ubi res didicerant rerum omnium difficillimas, tacere audireque, atque esse iam coeperant silentio eruditi cui erat nomen ἐχεμυθία, tum verba facere et quaerere, quaeque audissent scribere, et quae ipsi opinarentur expromere potestas erat; hi dicebantur in eo tempore μαθηματικοί, ab his scilicet artibus quas iam discere atque meditari inceptaverant: quoniam geometriam, gnomonicam, musicam ceterasque item disciplinas altiores μαθήματα veteres Graeci appellabant; vulgus autem, quos gentilicio vocabulo “Chaldaeos” dicere oportet, “mathematicos” dicit. Exinde, his scientiae studiis ornati, ad perspicienda mundi opera et principia naturae procedebant ac tunc denique nominabantur φυσικοί. Haec eadem super Pythagora noster Taurus cum dixisset: “Nunc autem,” inquit, “isti qui repente pedibus inlotisinotis ad philosophos devertunt, non est hoc satis quod sunt omnino ἀθεώρητοι, ἄμουσοι, ἀγεωμέτρητοι, sed legem etiam dant qua philosophari discant.” “Alius ait ‘hoc me primum doce,’ item alius ‘hoc volo,’ inquit, ‘discere, istud nolo’; hic a Symposio Platonis incipere gestit propter Alcibiadae comisationem, ille a Phaedro propter Lysiae orationem.” “Est etiam,” inquit, “pro Iuppiter! qui Platonem legere postulet non vitae ornandae, sed linguae orationisque comendae gratia, nec ut modestior fiat, sed ut lepidior.” Haec Taurus dicere solitus, novicios philosophorumphilosoplorum sectatores cum veteribus Pythagoricis pensitans. Sed id quoque non Praetereundum est, quod omnes, simul atque a Pythagora in cohortem illam disciplinarum recepti erant, quod quisque familiae, pecuniae habebat in medium dabat et coibatur societas inseparabilis, tamquamtamquanla illud fuit anticum consortium, quod iure atque verbo Romano appellabatur “ercto non cito.”

[¶11] 10. In what terms the philosopher Favorinus rebuked a young man who used language that was too old-fashioned and archaic. THE philosopher Favorinus thus addressed a young man who was very fond of old words and made a display in his ordinary, everyday conversation of many expressions that were quite too unfamiliar and archaic: “Curius,” said he, “and Fabricius and Coruncanius, men of the olden days, and of a still earlier time than these those famous triplets, the Horatii, talked clearly and intelligibly with their fellows, using the language of their own day, not that of the Aurunci, the Sicani, or the Pelasgi, who are said to have been the earliest inhabitants of Italy. You, on the contrary, just as if you were talking to-day with Evander's mother, use words that have already been obsolete for many years, because you want no one to know and comprehend what you are saying. Why not accomplish your purpose more fully, foolish fellow, and say nothing at all? But you assert that you love the olden time, because it is honest, sterling, sober and temperate. Live by all means according to the manners of the past, but speak in the language of the present, and always remember and take to heart what Gaius Caesar, a man of surpassing talent and wisdom, wrote in the first book of his treatise On Analogy: 'Avoid, as you would a rock, a strange and unfamiliar word.'”

> Latin: 10. Quibus verbis compellaverit Favorinus philosophus adulescentem casce nimis et prisce loquentem. FAVORINUS philosophus adulescenti veterum verborum cupidissimo et plerasque voces nimis priscas et ignotas in cotidianis communibusque sermonibus expromenti: “Curius,” inquit, “et Fabricius et Coruncanius, antiquissimi viri, et his antiquiores Horatii illi trigemini, plane ac dilucide cum suis fabulati sunt neque Auruncorum aut Sicanorum aut Pelasgorum, qui primi coluisse Italiam dicuntur, sed aetatis suae verbis locuti sunt;” “tu autem, proinde quasi cum matre Euandri nunc loquare, sermone abhinc multis annis iam desito uteris, quod scire atque intellegere neminem vis quae dicas. Nonne, homo inepte, ut quod vis abunde consequaris, taces?” “Sed antiquitatem tibi placere ais, quod honesta et bona et sobria et modesta sit.” “Vive ergo moribus praeteritis, loquere verbis praesentibus atque id, quod a C. Caesare, excellentis ingenii ac prudentiae viro, in primo De Analogia libro scriptum est, habe semper in memoriamemorial atque in pectore, ut tamquam scopulum, sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum.”

[¶12] 11. The statement of the celebrated writer Thucydides, that the Lacedaemonians in battle used pipes and not trumpets, with a citation of his words on that subject; and the remark of Herodotus that king Alyattes had female lyre-players as part of his military equipment; and finally, some notes on the pipe used by Gracchus when addressing assemblies. THUCYDIDES, the most authoritative of Greek historians, tells us that the Lacedaemonians, greatest of warriors, made use in battle, not of signals by horns or trumpets, but of the music of pipes, certainly not in conformity with any religious usage or from any ceremonial reason, nor yet that their courage might be roused and stimulated, which is the purpose of horns and trumpets; but on the contrary that they might be calmer and advance in better order, because the effect of the flute-player's notes is to restrain impetuosity. So firmly were they convinced that in meeting the enemy and beginning battle nothing contributed more to valour and confidence than to be soothed by gentler sounds and keep their feelings under control. Accordingly, when the army was drawn up, and began to advance in battle-array against the foe, pipers stationed in the ranks began to play. Thereupon, by this quiet, pleasant, and even solemn prelude the fierce impetuosity of the soldiers was checked, in conformity with a kind of discipline of military music, so to speak, so that they might not rush forth in straggling disorder. But I should like to quote the very words of that outstanding writer, which have greater distinction and credibility than my own: “And after this the attack began. The Argives and their allies rushed forward eagerly and in a rage, but the Lacedaemonians advanced slowly to the music of many flute-players stationed at regular intervals; this not for any religious reason, but in order that they might make the attack while marching together rhythmically, and that their ranks might not be broken, which commonly happens to great armies when they advance to the attack.” Tradition has it that the Cretans also commonly entered battle with the lyre playing before them and regulating their step. Futhermore, Alyattes, king of the land of Lydia, a man of barbaric manners and luxury, when he made war on the Milesians, as Herodotus tells us in his History, had in his army and his battle-array orchestras of pipe and lyre-players, and even female flute-players, such as are the delight of wanton banqueters. Homer, however, says that the Achaeans entered battle, relying, not on the music of lyres and pipes, but on silent harmony and unanimity of spirit:
In silence came the Achaeans, breathing rage,
Resolved in mind on one another's aid. What then is the meaning of that soul-stirring shout of the Roman soldiers which, as the annalists have told us, was regularly raised when charging the foe? Was that done contrary to so generally accepted a rule of old-time discipline? Or are a quiet advance and silence needful when an army is marching against an enemy that is far off and visible from a distance, but when they have almost come to blows, then must the foe, already at close quarters, be driven back by a violent assault and terrified by shouting? But, look you, the Laconian pipe-playing reminds me also of that oratorical pipe, which they say was played for Gaius Gracchus when he addressed the people, and gave him the proper pitch. But it is not at all true, as is commonly stated, that a musician always stood behind him as he spoke, playing the pipe, and by varying the pitch now restrained and now animated his feelings and his delivery. For what could be more absurd than that a piper should play measures, notes, and a kind of series of changing melodies for Gracchus when addressing an assembly, as if for a dancing mountebank? But more reliable authorities declare that the musician took his place unobserved in the audience and at intervals sounded on a short pipe a deeper note, to restrain and calm the exuberant energy of the orator's delivery. And that in my opinion is the correct view, for it is unthinkable that Gracchus' well-known natural vehemence needed any incitement or impulse from without. Yet Marcus Cicero thinks that the piper was employed by Gracchus for both purposes, in order that with notes now soft, now shrill, he might animate his oratory when it was becoming weak and feeble, or check it when too violent and passionate. I quote Cicero's own words: “And so this same Gracchus, Catulus, as you may hear from your client Licinius, an educated man, who was at that time Gracchus' slave and amanuensis, used to have a skilful musician stand behind him in concealment when he addressed an audience, who could quickly breathe a note to arouse the speaker if languid, or recall him from undue vehemence.” Finally, Aristotle wrote in his volume of Problems that the custom of the Lacedaemonians which I have mentioned, of entering battle to the music of pipers, was adopted in order to make the fearlessness and ardour of the soldiers more evident and indubitable. “For,” said he, “distrust and fear are not at all consistent with an advance of that kind, and such an intrepid and rhythmical advance cannot be made by the faint-hearted and despondent.” I have added a few of Aristotle's own words on the subject: “Why, when on the point of encountering danger, did they advance to music of the pipe? In order to detect the cowards by their failure to keep time.” * * * AT what age, from what kind of family, by what rites, ceremonies and observances, and under what title a Vestal virgin is “taken” by the chief pontiff; what legal privileges she has immediately upon being chosen; also that, according to Labeo, she is lawfully neither heir of an intestate person, nor is anyone her heir, in case she dies without a will.

> Latin: 11. Quod Thucydides, scriptor inclitus, Lacedaemonios in acie non tuba, sed tibiis esse usos dicit verbaque eius super ea re posita; quodque Herodotus Alyattem regem fidicinas in procinctuprocinct habuissehalbuisse tradit; atque inibi quaedam notata de Gracchi fistula contionaria. AUCTOR historiae Graecae gravissimus Thucydides, Lacedaemonios, summos bellatores, non cornuum tubarumve signis, sed tibiarum modulis in proeliis esse usos refert, non prorsus ex aliquo ritu religionum neque rei divinae gratia neque autem ut excitarentur atque evibrarentur animi, quod cornua et litui moliuntur; sed contra, ut moderatiores modulatioresque fierent, quod tibicinis numeris vis temperatur. Nihil adeo in congrediendis hostibus atque in principiis proeliorum ad salutem virtutemque aptius rati, quam si permultipermulcti sonis mitioribus non inmodice ferocirent. Cum procinctae igitur classes erant et instructa acies coeptumquecoeptunique in hostem progredi tibicines inter exercitum positi canere inceptabant. Ea ibi praecentione tranquilla et delectabili atque adeo venerabili ad quandam quasi militaris musicae disciplinam vis et impetus militum, ne sparsi dispalatique proruerent, cohibebatur. Sed ipsius illius egregii scriptoris uti verbis libet, quae et dignitate et fide graviora sunt: Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἡ ξύνοδος ἦν· Ἀργεῖοι μὲν καὶ οἱ σύμμαχοι ἐντόνως καὶ ὀργῇ χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν, νόμου ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλʼ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες προσέλθοιεν καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτοῖς ἡ τάξις, ὅπερ φιλεῖ τὰ μεγάλα στρατόπεδα ἐν ταῖς προσόδοις ποιεῖν Cretenses quoque proelia ingredi solitos memoriae datum est praecinente ac praemoderante cithara gressibus; Alyattes autem, rex terrae Lydiae, more atque luxu barbarico praeditus, cum bellum Milesiis faceret, ut Herodotus in Historiis tradit, concinentes habuit fistulatores et fidicines atque feminas etiam tibicinas in exercitu atque in procinctu habuit, lascivientium delicias conviviorum. Sed enim Achaeos Homerus pugnam indipisci ait non fidicularum tibiarumque, sed mentium animorumque concentu conspiratuque tacito nitibundos:
Οἱ δ᾽ ἄρʼ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοί,
Ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν Quid ille vult ardentissimus clamor militum Romanorum, quem in congressibus proeliorum fieri solitum scriptores annalium memoravere? Contrane institutum fiebat antiquae disciplinae tam probabile? An tum et gradu clementi et silentio est opus, cum ad hostem itur in conspectu longinquo procul distantem, cum vero prope ad manus ventum est tum iam e propinquo hostis et impetu propulsandus et clamore terrendus est? Ecce autem per tibicinia Laconica tibiae quoque illius contionariae in mentem venit, quam C. Graccho cum populo agente praeisse ac praeministrassepraerinistrasse modulos ferunt. Sed nequaquamneuquaquam sic est, ut a vulgo dicitur, canere tibia solitum qui pone eum loquentem staret, et variis modis tum demulcere animum actionemque eius, tum intendere. Quid enim foret ista re ineptius, si, ut planipedi saltanti, ita Graccho contionanti numeros et modos et frequentamenta quaedam varia tibicen incineret? Sed qui hoc compertius memoriae tradiderunt, stetisse in circumstantibus dicunt occultius, qui fistula brevi sensim graviusculum sonum inspiraret ad reprimendum sedandumque inpetus vocis eius effervescentes; namque inpulsu et instinctu extraneo naturalis illa Gracchi vehementia indiguisse, non, opinor, existimanda est. M. tamen Cicero fistulatorem istum utrique rei adhibitumadhibituim esse a Graccho putat, ut sonis tum placidis tum citatis aut demissam iacentemque orationem eius erigeret aut ferocientem saevientemque cohiberet. Verba ipsius Ciceronis apposui: “Itaque idem Gracchus, quod potes audire, Catule, ex Licinio cliente tuo, litterato homine, quem servum sibi habuit ad manum, cum eburnea solitus est habere fistula, qui staret occulte post ipsum cum contionaretur, peritum hominem, qui inflaret celeriter eum sonum, qui illum aut remissum excitaret aut a contentione revocaret.” Morem autem illum ingrediendi ad tibicinum modulos proelii institutum esse a Lacedaemonis, Aristoteles in libris Problematon scripsit, quo manifestior fieret exploratiorque militum securitas et alacritas. “Nam diffidentiae,” inquit, “et timori cum ingressione huiuscemodi minime convenit et maesti atque formidantes ab hac tam intrepida ac tam decora incedendi modulatione alieni sunt.” Verba pauca Aristotelis super ea re apposui: Διὰ τί, ἐπειδὰν κινδυνεύειν μέλλωσιν, πρὸς αὐλὸν ἐμβαίνουσιν; ἵνα τοὺς δειλοὺς ἀσχημονοῦντας γινώσκωσιν. … Virgo Vestae quid aetatis et ex quali familia et quo ritu quibusque caerimoniis et religionibus ac quo nomine a pontifice maximo capiatur, et quo statim iure esse incipiat simul atque capta est;

## 3. Book I · chapters 12–17

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/3/#p-N

[¶0] 12. Those who have written about “taking” a Vestal virgin, of whom the most painstaking is Antistius Labeo, have stated that it is unlawful for a girl to be chosen who is less than six, or more than ten, years old; she must also have both father and mother living; she must be free too from any impediment in her speech, must not have impaired hearing, or be marked by any other bodily defect; she must not herself have been freed from paternal control, nor her father before her, even if her father is still living and she is under the control of her grandfather; neither one nor both of her parents may have been slaves or engaged in mean occupations. But they say that one whose sister has been chosen to that priesthood acquires exemption, as well as one whose father is a1 flamen or an augur, one of the Fifteen in charge of the Sibylline Books, one of the Seven who oversee the banquets of the gods, or a dancing priest of Mars. Exemption from that priesthood is regularly allowed also to the betrothed of a pontiff and to the daughter of a priest of the tubilustrium. Furthermore the writings of Ateius Capito inform us that the daughter of a man without residence in Italy must not be chosen, and that the daughter of one who has three children must be excused. Now, as soon as the Vestal virgin is chosen, escorted to the House of Vesta and delivered to the pontiffs, she immediately passes from the control of her father without the ceremony of emancipation or loss of civil rights, and acquires the right to make a will. But as to the method and ritual for choosing a Vestal, there are, it is true, no ancient written records, except that the first to be appointed was chosen by Numa. There is, however, a Papian law, which provides that twenty maidens be selected from the people at the discretion of the chief pontiff, that a choice by lot be made from that number in the assembly, and that the girl whose lot is drawn be “taken” by the chief pontiff and become Vesta's. But that allotment in accordance with the Papian law is usually unnecessary at present. For if any man of respectable birth goes to the chief pontiff and offers his daughter for the priesthood, provided consideration may be given to her candidacy without violating any religious requirement, the senate grants him exemption from the Papian law. Now the Vestal is said to be “taken,” it appears, because she is grasped by the hand of the chief pontiff and led away from the parent under whose control she is, as if she had been taken in war. In the first book of Fabius Pictor's History the formula is given which the chief pontiff should use in choosing a Vestal. It is this: “I take thee, Amata, as one who has fulfilled all the legal requirements, to be priestess of Vesta, to perform the rites which it is lawful for a Vestal to perform for the Roman people, the Quirites.” Now, many think that the term “taken” ought to be used only of a Vestal. But, as a matter of fact, the flamens of Jupiter also, as well as the augurs, were said to be “taken.” Lucius Sulla, in the second book of his Autobiography, wrote as follows: “Publius Cornelius, the first to receive the surname Sulla, was taken to be flamen of Jupiter.” Marcus Cato, in his accusation of Servius Galba, says of the Lusitanians: “Yet they say that they wished to revolt. I myself at the present moment wish a thorough knowledge of the pontifical law; shall I therefore be taken as chief pontiff? If I wish to understand the science of augury thoroughly, shall anyone for that reason take me as augur?” Furthermore, in the Commentaries on the Twelve Tables compiled by Labeo we find this passage: “A Vestal virgin is not heir to any intestate person, nor is anyone her heir, should she die without making a will, but her property, they say, reverts to the public treasury. The legal principle involved is an unsettled question.” The Vestal is called “Amata” when taken by the chief pontiff, because there is a tradition that the first one who was chosen bore that name.

> Latin: 12. quodque, ut Labeo dicit, necnee intestato cuiquam nec eius intestatae quisquam iure heres est. QUI de virgine capienda scripserunt, quorum diligentissime scripsit Labeo Antistius, minorem quam annos sex, maiorem quam annos decem natam, negaverunt capi fas esse; item quae non sit patrima et matrima; item quae lingua debili sensuve aurium deminuta aliave qua corporis labe insignita sit; item quae ipsa aut cuius pater emancipatus sit, etiamsi vivo patre in avi potestate sit; item cuius parentes alter amboueabove servitutem servierunt aut in negotiis sordidis versantur. Set et eam cuius soror ad id sacerdotium lecta est excusationem mereri aiunt; item cuius pater flamen aut augur aut quindecimvirum sacris faciundis aut septemvirum epulonum aut Salius est. Sponsae quoque pontificis et tubicinis sacrorum filiae vacatio a sacerdotio isto tribui solet. Praeterea Capito Ateius scriptum reliquit, neque eius legendam filiam qui domicilium in Italia non haberet, et excusandam eius qui liberos tres haberet. Virgo autem Vestalis simul est capta atque in atrium Vestae deducta et pontificibus tradita est, eo statim tempore sine emancipatione ac sine capitis minutione e patris potestate exit et ius testamenti faciundi adipiscitur. De more autem rituque capiundae virginis litterae quidem antiquiores non extant, nisi quae capta prima est a Numa rege esse captam. Sed Papiam legem invenimus, qua cavetur ut pontificis maximi arbitratu virgines e populo viginti legantur sortitioque in contione ex eo numero fiat et cuius sors virginis ducta erit, ut eam pontifex maximus capiat eaque Vestae fiat. Sed ea sortitio ex lege Papia non necessaria nunc videri solet. Nam si quis honesto loco natus adeat pontificem maximum atque offerat ad sacerdotium filiam suam, cuius dumtaxat salvis religionum observationibus ratio haberi possit, gratia Papiae legis per senatum fit. “Capi” autem virgo propterea dici videtur, quia pontificis maximi manu prensa ab eo parente in cuius potestate est, veluti bello capta, abducitur. In libro primo Fabii Pictoris, quae verba pontificem maximum dicere oporteat, cum virginem capiat, scriptum est. Ea verba haec sunt: “Sacerdotem Vestalem, quae sacra faciat quae ius siet sacerdotem Vestalem facere pro populo Romano Quiritibus, uti quae optima lege fuit, ita te, Amata, capio.” Plerique autem “capi” virginem solam debere dici putant. Sed flamines quoque Diales, item pontifices et augures “capi” dicebantur. L. Sulla Rerum Gestarum libro secundo ita scripsit: “P. Cornelius, cui primum cognomen Sullae impositum est, flamen Dialis captus.” M. Cato de Lusitanis, cum Servium Galbam accusavit: “Tamen dicunt deficere voluisse. Ego me nunc volo ius pontificium optime scire; iamne ea causa pontifex capiar? Si volo augurium optime tenere, ecquis me ob eamearn rem augurem capiat?” Praeterea in commentariisCommenlariis Labeonis, quae ad duodecimDuodecin Tabulas composuit, ita scriptum est: “Virgo Vestalis neque heres est cuiquam intestato, neque intestatae quisquam, sed bona eius in publicum redigi aiunt. Id quo iure fiat, quaeritur.” “Amata” inter capiendum a pontifice maximo appellatur, quoniam quae prima capta est hoc fuisse nomen traditum est.

[¶1] 13. On the philosophical question, what would be more proper on receipt of an order-to do scrupulously what was commanded, or sometimes even to disobey, in the hope that it would be more advantageous to the giver of the order; and an exposition of varying views on that subject. IN interpreting, evaluating and weighing the obligations which the philosophers call kaqh/konta, or “duties,” the question is often asked, when some task has been assigned to you and exactly what was to be done has been defined, whether you ought to do anything contrary to instructions, if by so doing it might seem that the outcome would be more successful and more advantageous to the one who imposed the task upon you. It is a difficult question which has been answered both ways by wise men. For several have taken a position on the one side and expressed the decided belief that when a matter has once for all been determined, after due deliberation, by the one whose business and right are concerned, nothing should be done contrary to his order, even if some unlooked for occurrence should promise a better way of accomplishing the end in view; for fear that, if the expectation were not realized, the offender would be liable to blame and inexorable punishment for his insubordination. If, on the other hand, the affair chanced to result more favourably, thanks would indeed be due the gods, but nevertheless a precedent would seem to have been established, which might ruin well-laid plans by weakening the binding force of a command. Others have thought that the disadvantages to be feared, in case the order was not strictly obeyed, should carefully be weighed in advance against the advantage looped for, and if the former were comparatively light and trivial, while on the contrary a greater and more substantial advantage was confidently to be expected, then they judged that one might go counter to instructions, to avoid losing a providential opportunity for successful action; and they did not believe that a precedent for disobedience was to be feared, provided always that considerations of such a kind could be urged. But they thought that particular regard should be paid to the temperament and disposition of the person whose business and command were involved: he must not be stern, hard, autocratic and implacable, as in the case of the orders of a Postumius and a Manlius. For if an account must be rendered to such a commander, they recommended that nothing be done contrary to the letter of his order. I think that this question of obedience to commands of such a nature will be more clearly defined, if I add the example set by Publius Crassus Mucianus, a distinguished and eminent man. This Crassus is said by Sempronius Asellio and several other writers of Roman history to have had the five greatest and chiefest of blessings; for he was very rich, of the highest birth, exceedingly eloquent, most learned in the law, and chief pontiff. When he, in his consulship, was in command in the province of Asia, and was making preparations to beset and assault Leucae, he needed a long, stout beam from which to make a battering-ram, to breach the walls of that city. Accordingly, he wrote to the chief engineer of the people of Mylatta, allies and friends of the Romans, to have the larger of two masts which he had seen in their city sent him. Then the chief engineer on learning the purpose for which Crassus wanted the mast, did not send him the larger, as had been ordered, but the smaller, which he thought was more suitable, and better adapted for making a ram, besides being easier to transport. Crassus ordered him to be summoned, asked why he had not sent the mast which had been ordered, and ignoring the excuses and reasons which the man urged, caused him to be stripped and soundly beaten with rods; for he thought that all the authority of a commander was weakened and made of no effect, if one might reply to orders which he received, not with due obedience, but with an unsolicited plan of his own.

> Latin: 13. Quaesitum esse in philosophia, quidnam foret in recepto mandato rectius, idne omnino facere quod mandatum est, an nonnumquam etiam contra, si id speres ei qui mandavit utilius fore; superque ea quaestione expositae diversae sententiae. IN officiis capiendis, censendis iudicandisque, quae καθήκοντα philosophi appellant, quaeri solet an negotio tibi dato et quid omnino faceres definite. contra quid facere debeas, si eo facto videri possit res eventura prosperius exque utilitate eius qui id tibi negotium mandavit. Anceps quaestio et in utramque partem a prudentibus viris arbitrata est. Sunt enim non pauci qui sententiam suam una in parte defixerint et re semel statuta deliberataque ab eo cuius id negotium pontificiumque esset, nequaquam putaverint contra dictum eius esse faciendum, etiamsi repentinus aliqui casus rem commodius agi posse polliceretur; ne, si spes fefellisset, culpa inpatientiae et poena indeprecabilis subeunda esset; si res forte melius vertisset, dis quidem gratia habenda, sed exemplum tamen intromissum videretur, quo bene consulta consilia religione mandati soluta corrumperentur. Alii existimaverunt incommoda prius quae metuenda essent, si res gesta aliter foret quam imperatum est, cum emolumento spei pensitanda esse et, si ea leviora minoraque, utilitas autem contra gravior et amplior spe quantum potest firma ostenderetur, tum posse adversum mandata fieri censuerunt, ne oblata divinitus rei bene gerendae occasio amitteretur; neque timendum exemplum non parendi crediderunt, si rationes dumtaxat huiuscemodi non abessent. Cumprimiscum autem respiciendum putaverunt ingenium naturamque illius cuia res praeceptumque esset: ne ferox, durus, indomitus inexorabilisque sit, qualia fuerunt Postumiana imperia et Manliana. Nam si tali praeceptori ratio reddenda sit, nihil faciendum esse monuerunt aliter quam praeceptum est. Instructius deliberatiusque fore arbitramur theorematium hoc de mandatis huiuscemodi obsequendis, si exemplum quoque P. Crassi Muciani, clari atque incluti viri, apposuerimus. Is Crassus a Sempronio Asellione et plerisque aliis historiae Romanae scriptoribus traditur habuisse quinque rerum bonarum maxima et praecipua: quod esset ditissimus, quod nobilissimus, quod eloquentissimus, quod iuris consultissimus, quod pontifex maximus. Is cum in consulatu obtineret Asiam provinciam et circumsedere oppugnareque Leucas pararet opusque esset firma atque procera trabe, qui arietem faceret quo muros eius oppidi quateret, scripsit ad magistrum ἀρχιτεκτόνων Mylattensium, sociorum amicorumque populi Romani, ut ex malis duobus, quos apud eos vidisset, uter maior esset eum mittendum curaret. Tum magister ἀρχιτεκτόνων comperto quamobrem malum desideraret, non, uti iussus erat, maiorem, sed quem esse magis idoneum aptioremque faciendo arieti facilioremque portatu existimabat, minorem misit. Crassus eum vocari iussit et, cum interrogasset cur non quem iusserat misisset, causis rationibusque quas dictitabat spretis, vestimenta detrahi imperavit virgisque multum cecidit, corrumpi atque dissolvi officium omne imperantis ratus. si quis ad id quod facere iussus est non obsequio debito, sed consilio non desiderato respondeat.

[¶2] 14. What was said and done by Gaius Fabricius, a man of great renown and great deeds, but of simple establishment and little money, when the Samnites offered him a great amount of gold, in the belief that he was a poor man. JULIUS HYGINUS, in the sixth book of his work On the Lives and Deeds of Famous Men, says that a deputation from the Samnites came to Gaius Fabricius, the Roman general, and after mentioning his many important acts of kindness and generosity to the Samnites since peace was restored, offered him a present of a large sum of money, begging that he would accept and use it. And they said that they did this because they saw that his house and mode of life were far from magnificent, and that he was not so well provided for as his high rank demanded. Thereupon Fabricius passed his open hands from his ears to his eyes, then down to his nose, his mouth, his throat, and finally to the lower part of his belly; then he replied to the envoys: “So long as I can restrain and control all those members which I have touched, I shall never lack anything; therefore I cannot accept money, for which I have no use, from those who, I am sure, do have use for it.”

> Latin: 14. Quid dixerit feceritque C. Fabricius, magna vir gloria magnisque rebus gestis, sed familiae pecuniaeque inops, cum ei Samnites tamquam indigent grave aurum donarent. IULIUS Hyginus, in libro De Vita Rebusque inlustriumInlustrirm Virorum sexto, legatos dicit a Samnitibus ad C. FabriciumFabriciuni, imperatoremimnperatorem populi Romani, venisse et memoratis multis magnisque rebus quae bene ac benivole post redditam pacem Samnitibus fecisset, obtulisse dono grandem pecuniam orasseque uti acciperet utereturque, atque id facere Samnites dixisse, quod viderent multa ad splendorem domus atque victus defieri neque pro amplitudine dignitateque lautum paratum esse. tumTurn Fabricium planas manus ab auribus ad oculos et infra deinceps ad nares et ad os et ad gulam atque inde porro ad ventrem imum deduxisse et legatis ita respondisse: dum illis omnibus membris quae attigisset obsistere atque imperare posset, numquam quicquam defuturum; propterea se pecuniam qua nihil sibi esset usus ab his quibus eamearn sciret usui esse non accipere.

[¶3] 15. What a tiresome and utterly hateful fault is vain and empty loquacity, and how often it has been censured in deservedly strong language by the greatest Greek and Latin writers. THE talk of empty-headed, vain and tiresome babblers, who with no foundation of solid matter let out a stream of tipsy, tottering words, has justly been thought to come from the lips and not from the heart. Moreover, men say that the tongue ought not to be unrestrained and rambling, but guided and, so to speak, steered by cords connected with the heart and inmost breast. Yet you may see some men spouting forth words with no exercise of judgment, but with such great and profound assurance that many of them in the very act of speaking are evidently unaware that they are talking. Ulysses, on the contrary, a man gifted with sagacious eloquence, spoke, not from his lips but from his heart, as Hommer says—a remark which applies less to the sound and quality of his utterance than to the depth of the thoughts inwardly conceived; and the poet went on to say, with great aptness, that the teeth form a rampart to check wanton words, in order that reckless speech may not only be restrained by that watchful sentry the heart, but also hedged in by a kind of outpost, so to speak, stationed at the lips. The words of Homer which I mentioned above are these:
When from his breast his mighty voice went forth
and:
What a word has passed the barrier of your teeth.
I have added also a passage from Marcus Tullius, in which he expresses his strong and just hatred of silly and unmeaning volubility. He says: “Provided this fact be recognized, that neither should one commend the dumbness of a man who knows a subject, but is unable to give it expression in speech, nor the ignorance of one who lacks knowledge of his subject, but abounds in words; yet if one must choose one or the other alternative, I for my part would prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.” Also in the first book of the De Oratore he wrote as follows: “For what is so insane as the empty sound of words, however well-chosen and elegant, if there be no foundation of sense or sagacity?” But Marcus Cato in particular is a relentless assailant of this fault. For in the speech entitled If Caelius, tribune of the commons, should have summoned him, he says: “That man is never silent who is afflicted with the disease of talking, as one in a lethargy is afflicted with that of drinking and sleeping. For if you should not come together when he calls an assembly, so eager is he to talk that he would hire someone to listen. And so you hear him, but you do not listen, just as if he were a quack. For a quack's words are heard, but no one trusts himself to him when he is sick.” Again Cato, in the same speech, upbraiding the same Marcus Caelius, tribune of the commons, for the cheapness at which not only his speech but also his silence could be bought, says: “For a crust of bread he can be hired either to keep silence or to speak.” Most deservedly too does Homer call Thersites alone of all the Greeks a)metroeph/s, “of measureless speech,” and a)krito/muqos, “a reckless babbler,” declaring that his words are many and a)/kosma, or “disordered,” like the endless chatter of daws; for what else does e)kolw/a (“he chattered” ) mean? There is also a line of Eupolis most pointedly aimed at men of that kind:
In chatter excellent, unable quite to speak,
and our countryman Sallust, wishing to imitate this, writes: “Talkative rather than eloquent.” It is for the same reason that Hesiod, wisest of poets, says that the tongue should not be vulgarly exposed but hidden like a treasure, and that it is exhibited with best effect when it is modest, restrained and musical. His own words are:
The greatest of man's treasures is the tongue,
Which wins most favour when it spares its words
And measured is of movement.
The following verse of Epicharmus is also to the point:
Thou art not skilled in speech, yet silence cannot keep,
and it is from this line surely that the saying arose: “Who, though he could not speak, could not be silent.” I once heard Favorinus say that the familiar lines of Euripides:
Of unrestrained mouth
And of lawless folly
Is disaster the end,
ought not to be understood as directed only at those who spoke impiously or lawlessly, but might even with special propriety be used also of men who prate foolishly and immoderately, whose tongues are so extravagant and unbridled that they ceaselessly flow and seethe with the foulest dregs of language, the sort of persons to whom the Greeks apply the highly significant term kata/glwssoi, or “given to talk.” I learned from a friend of his, a man of learning, that the famous grammarian Valerius Probus, shortly before his death, began to read Sallust's well-known saying, “a certain amount of eloquence but little discretion,” as “abundant talkativeness, too little discretion,” and that he insisted that Sallust left it in that form, since the word loquentia was very characteristic of Sallust, an innovator in diction, while eloquentia was not at all consistent with lack of discretion. Finally, loquacity of this kind and a disorderly mass of empty grandiloquence is scored with striking epithets by Aristophanes, wittiest of poets, in the following lines:
A stubborn-creating, stubborn-pulling fellow,
Uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech,
Unperiphrastic, bombastiloquent.
And no less pointedly did our forefathers also call men of that kind, who were drowned in words, "babblers, gabbllers and chatterboxes."

> Latin: 15. Quam inportunum vitiumvitiimn plenumque odii sit futilis inanisque loquacitas, et quam multis in locis a principibus utriusque linguae viris detestatione iusta culpata sit. QUI sunt leves et futiles et importuni locutores quique nullo rerum pondere innixi verbis uvidis et lapsantibus diffluunt, eorum orationem bene existimatum est in ore nasci, non in pectore, linguam autem debere aiunt non esse liberam nec vagam, sed vinclis de pectore imo ac de corde aptis moverirnoveri et quasi gubernari. Sed enim videas quosdam scatere verbis sine ullo iudicii negotio cum securitate multa et profunda, ut loquentes plerumque videantur loqui sese nescire. Ulixen contra Homerus, virum sapienti facundia praeditum, vocem mittere ait non ex ore, sed ex pectore, quod scilicet non ad sonum magis habitumquehabitunmque vocis quam ad sententiarum penitus conceptarum altitudinem pertineret, petulantiaeque verborum coercendae vallum esse oppositum dentium luculente dixit, ut loquendi temeritas non cordis tantum custodia atque vigilia cohibeatur, sed et quibusdam quasi excubiis in ore positis saepiatur. Homerica, de quibus supra dixi, haec sunt:
Ἀλλʼ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη,
et:
Ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων. M. Tullii quoque verba posui, quibus stultam et inanem dicendi copiam graviter et vere detestatus est: “Dummodo,” inquit, “hoc constet, neque infantiam eius, qui rem norit, sed eam explicare dicendo non queat, neque inscientiam illius, cui res non subpetat, verba non desint, esse laudandam; quorum si alterum sit optandum, malim equidem indisertam prudentiam quam stultam loquacitatem.” Item in libro De Oratore primo verba haec posuit: “Quid enim est tam furiosum quam verborum vel optimorum atque ornatissimorum sonitus inanis, nulla subiecta sententia nec scientia?” Cumprimis autem M. Cato atrocissimus huiusce vitii insectator est. Namque in oratione, quae inscripta est Si se Caelius tribunus plebis appellasset, “Numquam,” inquit, “tacet, quemquern morbus tenet loquendi tamquam veternosum bibendi atque dormiendi. Quod si non conveniatis, cum convocari iubet, ita cupidus orationis conducat, qui auscultet. Itaque auditis, non auscultatis, tamquam pharmacopolam. Nam eius verba audiuntur, verum se ei nemo committit, si aeger est.” Idem Cato in eadem oratione eidem M. Caelio tribuno plebi vilitatem obprobrans non loquendi tantum, verum etiam tacendi: “Frusto,” inquit, “panis conduci potest, vel uti taceat vel uti loquatur.” Neque non merito Homerus unum ex omnibus Thersitam ἀμετροεπῆ et ἀκριτόμυθον appellat verbaque illius multa et ἄκοσμα strepentium sine modo graculorum similia esse dicit. Quid enim est aliud ἐκολώα? Eupolidis quoque versus de id genus hominibus consignatissime factus est:
Λαλεῖν ἄριστος, ἀδυνατώτατος λέγειν,
quod Sallustius noster imitari volens sic scribit: “Loquax,” inquit, “magis quam facundus.” Quapropter Hesiodus, poetarumpoetartum prudentissimus, linguam non vulgandam, sed recondendam esse dicit proinde ut thesaurum, eiusque esse in promendo gratiam plurimam, si modesta et parca et modulata sit:
Γλώσσης τοι θησαυρὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἄριστος,
Φειδωλῆς πλείστη δὲ χαρις κατὰ μέτροι ἰούσης, Epicharmium quoque illud non inscite se habet: Οὐ λέγειν τύγʼ ἐσσὶ δεινός, ἀλλὰ σιγᾶν ἀδύνατος,
ex quo hoc profecto sumptum est: “Qui cum loqui non posset, tacere non potuit.” Favorinum ego audivi dicere versus istos Euripidi:
Ἀχαλίνων στομάτων
Ἀνόμου τʼ ἀφροσύνας
Τὸ τέλος δυστυχία,
non de his tantum factos accipi debere, qui impia aut inlicita dicerent, sed vel maxime de hominibus quoque posse dici stulta et inmodica blaterantibus, quorum lingua tam prodiga infrenisque sit, ut fluat semper et aestuet conluvione verborum taeterrima, quod genus homines a Graecis significantissimo vocabulo κατάγλωσσοι appellantur. Valerium Probum, grammaticum inlustrem, ex familiari eius, docto viro, comperi, Sallustianum illud, “satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parum,” brevi antequam vita decederet, sic legere coepisse et sic a Sallustio relictum affirmavisse: “satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum,” quod “loquentia” novatori verborum Sallustio maxime congrueret, “eloquentia” cum insipientia minime conveniret. Huiuscemodi autem loquacitatem verborumque turbam magnitudine inani vastam facetissimus poeta Aristophanes insignibus vocabulis denotavit in his versibus:
Ἄνθρωπον ἀγριοποιόν, αὐθαδόστομον,
Ἔχοντʼ ἀχάλινον, ἀκρατές, ἀπύλωτον στόμα,
Ἀπεριλάλητον, κομποφακελορρήμονα, neque minus insigniter veteres quoque nostri hoc genus homines in verba proiectos “locutuleios” et “blaterones” et “linguaces” dixerunt Quod verba istaec Quadrigari ex Annali tertio, “ibi mille hominum occiditur,” non licenter neque de poetarum figura, sed ratione certa et proba grammaticae disciplinae dicta sunt.

[¶4] 16. That those words of Quadrigarius in the third book of his Annals, “there a thousand of men is killed,” are not used arbitrarily or by a poetic figure, but in accordance with a definite and approved rule of the science of grammar. QUADRIGARIUS in the third book of his Annals wrote the following: "There a thousand of men is killed," using occiditur, not occiduntur. So too Lucilius in the third book of his Satires,
From gate to gate a thousand of paces is.
Thence to Salcrnum six,
has mille est, not mille sunt. Varro in the seventeenth book of his Antiquilies of Man writes: “To the beginning of Romulus' reign is more than a thousand and one hundred years,” Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins, “From there it is nearly a thousand of paces.” Marcus Cicero has in his sixth Oration against Antony, “Is the middle Janus so subject to the patronage of Lucius Antonius? Who has ever been found in that Janus who would lend Lucius Antonius a thousand of sesterces?” In these and many other passages mile is used in the singular number, and that is not, as some think, a concession to early usage or admitted as a neat figure of speech, but it is obviously demanded by rule. For the word mille does not stand for the Greek xilioi, “thousand,” but for xilia/s, “a thousand”; and just as they say one xilia/s, or two xilia/des, so we say one thousand and two thousands according to a definite and regular rule. Therefore these common expressions are correct and good usage, “There is a thousand of denarii in the chest,” and “There is a thousand of horsemen in the army.” Furthermore Lucilius, in addition to the example cited above, makes this point still clearer in another place also: for in his fifteenth book he says:
This horse no jolting fine Campanian steed,
Though he has passed him by one thousand, aye
And twain, of paces, can in a longer course
Compete with, but he will in fact appear
To run the other way.
So too in the ninth book:
With sesterces a thousand you can gain
A hundred thousand.
Lucilius wrote milli passum instead of mille passibus and uno milli nummum for unis mille nunmis, thus showing clearly that mille is a noun, used in the singular number, that its plural is milia, and that it also forms an ablative case. Nor ought we to expect the rest of the cases; for there are many other words which are declined only in single cases, and even some which are not declined at all. Therefore we can no longer doubt that Cicero, in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Milo, used these words: “Before the estate of Clodius, where fully a thousand of ablebodied men was employed on those crazy substructures,” not “were employed,” as we find it in less accurate copies; for one rule requires us to say “a thousand men,” but another, “a thousand of men.”

> Latin: 16. QUADRIGARIUS in tertio Annalium ita scripsit: “Ibi occiditur mille hominum.” “Occiditur,” inquit, non “occiduntur.” Item Lucilius in tertio satirarumSatirarm:
Ad portam mille a porta est, sex inde Salernum,
mille, inquit, est, non “mille sunt.” Varro in XVII. Humanarum: “Ad Romuli initium plus mille et centum annorum est.” M. Cato in primo Originum: “Inde est ferme mille passum.” M. Cicero in sexta in Antonium: “Itane Ianuslanus medius in L. Antonii clientela est? Quis umquam in illo Iano inventus est, qui L. Antonio mille nummum ferret expensum?” In his atque in multis aliis “mille” numero singulari dictum est; neque hoc, ut quidam putant, vetustati concessum est aut per figurarum concinnitatem admissum est, scdsed sic videtur ratio poscere. “Mille” enim non pro eo ponitur, quod Graece χίλιοι dicitur, sed quod χιλιάς et sicuti una χιλιὰς et duae χιλιάδες, ita “unum mille” et “duo milia” certa atque directa ratione dicitur. Quamobrem id quoque recte et probabiliter dici solitum “mille denarium in area est” et “mille equitum in exercitu est.” Lucilius autem, praeterquam supra posui, alio quoque in loco id manifestius demonstrat, nam in libro XV. ita dicit:
huncHune, milli passum qui vicerit atque duobus,
Campanus sonipes succussor nullus sequetur
Maiore in spatio ac diversus videbitur ire;
item libro nono: Tu milli nummum potes uno quaerere centum; milli passum dixit pro “mille passibus” et “uno milli nummum” pro “unis mille nummis” aperteque ostendit “mille” et vocabulum esse et singulari numero dici eiusque plurativum esse “milia” et casum etiam capere ablativum. Neque ceteros casus requiri oportet, cum sint alia pleraque vocabula, quae in singulos tantum casus, quaedam etiam, quae in nullum inclinentur. Quapropter nihil iam dubium est, quin M. Cicero in oratione, quam scripsit pro Milone, ita scriptum reliquerit: “Ante fundum Clodi, quo in fundo propter insanas illas substructiones facile mille hominum versabatur valentium,” non “versabantur,” quod in libris minus accuratis scriptum est; alia enim ratione “mille homines,” alia “mille hominum” dicendum est.

[¶5] 17. The patience with which Socrates endured his wife's shrewish disposition; and in that connection what Marcus Varro says in one of his satires about the duty of a husband. XANTHIPPE, the wife of the philosopher Socrates, is said to have been ill-tempered and quarrelsome to a degree, with a constant flood of feminine tantrums and annoyances day and night. Alcibiades, amazed at this outrageous conduct of hers towards her husband, asked Socrates what earthly reason he had for not showing so shrewish a woman the door. “Because,” replied Socrates, “it is by enduring such a person at home that I accustom and train myself to bear more easily away from home the impudence and injustice of other persons.” In the same vein Varro also said in the Menippean Satire which he entitled On the Duty of a Husband: “A wife's faults must be either put down or put up with. He who puts down her faults, makes his wife more agreeable; he who puts up with them, improves himself.” Varro contrasted the two words tollere and ferre very cleverly, to be sure, but he obviously uses tollere in the sense of “correct.” It is evident too that Varro thought that if a fault of that kind in a wife cannot be corrected, it should be tolerated, in so far of course as a man may endure it honourably; for faults are less serious than crimes.

> Latin: 17. Quanta cum animi aequitate toleraverit Socrates uxoris ingenium intractabile; atque inibi, quid M. Varro in quadam satura de officio mariti scripserit. XANTHIPPE, Socratis philosophiphilosophy uxor, morosa admodum fuisse fertur et iurgiosa, irarumque et molestiarum muliebrium per diem perque noctem scatebat. Has eius intemperies in maritum Alcibiades demiratus, interrogavit Socraten quaenam ratio esset cur mulierem tam acerbam domo non exigeret. “Quoniam,” inquit Socrates, “cum illam domi talem perpetior, insuesco et exerceor, ut ceterorum quoque foris petulantiam et iniuriam facilius feram.” Secundum hanc sententiam quoque Varro in Satura Menippea, quam De Officio Mariti inscripsit: “Vitium,” inquit, “uxoris aut tollendum aut ferendum est. Qui tollit vitium, uxorem commodiorem praestat, qui fert, sese meliorem facit.” Haec verba Varronis “tollere” et “ferre” lepide quidem composita sunt, sed “tollere” apparet dictum pro “corrigere.” Id etiam apparet, eiusmodi vitium uxoris, si corrigi non possit, ferendum esse Varronem censuisse, quod ferri scilicet a viro honeste potest; vitia enim flagitiis leviora sunt.

## 4. Book I · chapters 18–26

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/4/#p-N

[¶0] 18. How Marcus Varro, in the fourteenth book of his Antiquities of Man, criticizes his master Lucius Aelius for a false etymology; and how Varro in his turn, in the same book, gives a false origin for fur. IN the fourteenth book of his Divine Antiquities Marcus Varro shows that Lucius Aelius, the most learned Roman of his time, went astray and followed a false etymological principle in separating an old Greek word which had been taken over into the Roman language into two Latin words, just as if it were of Latin origin. I quote Varro's own words on the subject: “In this regard our countryman Lucius Aelius, the most gifted man of letters within my memory, was sometimes misled. For he gave false derivations of several early Greek words, under the impression that they were native to our tongue. We do not use the word lepus ('hare') because the animal is levipes ('light-footed'), as he asserts, but because it is an old Greek word. Many of the early words of that people are unfamiliar, because to-day the Greeks use other words in their place; and it may not be generally known that among these are Graecus, for which they now use (/Ellhn, puteus ('well') which they call fre/ar, and lepus, which they call lagwo/s. But as to this, far from disparaging Aelius' ability, I commend his diligence; for it is good fortune that brings success, endeavour that deserves praise.” Tis is what Varro wrote in the first part of his book, with great skill in the explanation of words, with wide knowledge of the usage of both languages, and marked kindliness towards Aelius himself. But in the latter part of the same book he says that fur is so called because the early Romans used furvus for ater (“black” ), and thieves steal most easily in the night, which is black. Is it not clear that Varro made the same mistake about fur that Aelius did about lepus. For what the Greeks now call kle/pths, or “thief,” in the earlier Greek language was called fw/r. Hence, owing to the similarity in sound, he who in Greek is fw/r, in Latin is fur. But whether that fact escaped Varro's memory at the time, or on the other hand he thought that fur was more appropriately and consistently named from furvus, that is, “black,” as to that question it is not for me to pass judgment on a man of such surpassing learning.

> Latin: 18. Quod M. Varro in quarto decimo Humanarum L. Aelium magistrum suum in ἐτμολογίᾳ falsa reprehendit; quodque idem Varro in eodem libro falsum furis ἔτυμον dicit. IN XIV. Rerum Divinarum libro M. Varro doctissimum tunc civitatis hominem L. Aelium errasse ostendit, quod vocabulum Graecum vetus traductum in linguam Romanam, proinde atque si primitus Latine fictum esset, resolverit in voces Latinas ratione etymologica falsa. Verba ipsa super ea re Varronis posuimus: “In quo L. Aelius noster, litteris ornatissimus memoria nostra, erravit aliquotiens. Nam aliquot verborum Graecorum antiquiorum, proinde atque essent propria nostra, reddidit causas falsas. Non ‘leporem’ dicimus, ut ait, quod est levipes, sed quod est vocabulum anticum Graecum. Multa vetera illorum ignorantur, quod pro his aliis nunc vocabulis utuntur; et illorum esse plerique ignorent ‘Graecum,’ quod nunc nominant Ἕλληνα, ‘puteum,’ quod vocant φρέαρ ‘leporem,’ quod λαγωὸν dicunt. In quo non modo Aelii ingenium non reprehendo, sed industriam laudo; successum enim fert fortuna, experientiam laus sequitur.” HaecIaec Varro in primore libro scripsit, de ratione vocabulorum scitissimescitissirne, de usu utriusque linguae peritissime, de ipso Aelio clementissime. Sed in posteriore eiusdem libri parte “furem” dicit ex eo dictum, quod veteres Romani “furuumfurvurm” atrum appellaverintappellavcrint et fures per noctem, quae atra sit, facilius furentur. Nonne sic videtur Varro de fure, tamquam Aelius de lepore? Nam quod a Graecis nunc κλέπτης dicitur, antiquiore Graeca lingua φὼρ dictum est. Hinc per adfinitatem litterarum, qui φὼρ Graece, est Latine “fur.” Sed ea res fugeritne tunc Varronis memoriammemioriamr, an contra aptius et cohaerentiuscolaerentius putarit, “furem” a “furvo,” id est nigro, appellari, in hac re de viro tam excellentis doctrinae non meum iudicium est.

[¶1] 19. The story of king Tarquin the Proud and the Sibylline Books. IN ancient annals we find this tradition about the Sibylline Books. An old woman, a perfect stranger, came to king Tarquin the Proud, bringing nine books; she declared that they were oracles of the gods and that she wished to sell them. Tarquin inquired the price; the woman demanded an immense and exorbitant sum: the king laughed her to scorn, believing her to be in her dotage. Then she placed a lighted brazier before him, burned three of the books to ashes, and asked whether he would buy the remaining six at the same price. But at this Tarquin laughed all the more and said that there was now no doubt that the old woman was crazy. Upon that the woman at once burned up three more books and again calmly made the same request, that he would buy the remaining three at the original figure. Tarquin now became serious and more thoughtful, and realising that such persistence and confidence were not to be treated lightly, he bought the three books that were left at as high a price as had been asked for all nine. Now it is a fact that after then leaving Tarquin, that woman was never seen again anywhere. The three books were deposited in a shrine and called “Sibylline”; to them the Fifteen resort whenever tile immortal gods are to be consulted as to the welfare of the State.

> Latin: 19. Historia super libris Sibyllinis ac de Tarquinio Superbo rege. IN antiquis annalibus memoria super libris Sibyllinis haec prodita est: Anus hospita atque incognita ad Tarquinium Superbum regem adiit, novemnovein libros ferens, quos esse divinadiceebat divina oracula: eos velle venundare. Tarquinius pretium percontatus est. Mulier nimium atque inmensum poposcit; rex, quasi anus aetate desiperet, derisit. tumTurn illa foculum coram cum igni apponit, tris libros ex novem deurit et ecquid reliquos sex eodem pretio emere vellet regem interrogavit. Sed enim Tarquinius id multo risit magis dixitque anum iam procul dubio delirare. Mulier ibidem statim tris alios libros exussit atque id ipsum denuo placide rogat, ut tris reliquos eodemmodern illo pretio emat. Tarquinius ore iam serio atque attentiore animo fit, eamearn constantiam confidentiamque non insuper habendam intellegit, libros tris reliquos mercatur nihilo minore pretio quam quod erat petitum pro omnibus. Sed eamearn mulierem tunc a Tarquinio digressam postea nusquam loci visam constitit. Libri tres, in sacrarium conditi, “Sibyllini” appellati; ad eos quasi ad oraculum quindecimuiriquindeciimviri adeunt, cum di immortales publicepublic consulendi sunt.

[¶2] 20. On what the geometers call e)pi/pedos, stereo/s, ku/bos and grammh/, with the Latin equivalents for all these terms. OF the figures which the geometers call sxh/mata there are two kinds, “plane” and “solid.” These the Greeks themselves call respectively e)pi/pedos and stereo/s. A “plane” figure is one that has all its lines in two dimensions only, breadth and length; for example, triangles and squares, which are drawn on a flat surface without height. We have a “solid” figure, when its several lines do not produce merely length and breadth in a plane, but are raised so as to produce height also; such are in general the triangular columns which they call “pyramids,” or those which are bounded on all sides by squares, such as the Greeks call ku/boi, and we quadrantalia. For the ku/bos is a figure which is square on all its sides, “like the dice,” says Marcus Varro, “with which we play on a gaming-board, for which reason the dice themselves are called ku/boi” Similarly in numbers too the term ku/bos is used, when every factor consisting of the same number is equally resolved into the cube number itself, as is the case when three is taken three times and the resulting number itself is then trebled. Pythagoras declared that the cube of the number three controls the course of the moon, since the moon passes through its orbit in twenty-seven days, and the ternio, or “triad,” which the Greeks call tria/s, when cubed makes twenty-seven. Furthermore, our geometers apply the term linea, or “line,” to what the Greeks call grammh/. This is defined by Marcus Varro as follows: “A line,” says he, “is length without breadth or height.” But Euclid says more tersely, omitting “height”: “A line is mh=kos a)plate/s, or 'breadthless length.'” )Aplate/s cannot be expressed in Latin by a single word, unless you should venture to coin the term inlatabile.

> Latin: 20. Quid geometrae dicant ἐπίπεδον, quid στερεόν, quid κύβον quid γραμμήν; quibusque ista omnia Latinis vocabulis appellentur. FIGURARUM quae σχήματα geometrae appellant, genera sunt duo, “planum” et “solidum.” Haec ipsi vocant ἐπίπεδον καὶ στερεόν. “Planum” est quod in duas partis solum lineas habet, qua latum est et qua longum; qualia sunt triquetra et quadrata, quae in area fiunt, sine altitudine. “Solidum” est quando non longitudines modo et latitudines planasplans numeri linearum efficiunt, sed etiam extollunt altitudines, quales sunt ferme metae triangulae quas “pyramidas” appellant, vel qualia sunt quadrata undique, quae, κύβους illi, nos “quadrantalia” dicimus. Κύβος enim est figura ex omni latere quadrate, “quales sunt,” inquit M. Varro, “tesserae quibus in alveolo luditur,” “ex quo ipsae quoque appellatae κύβοι” In numeris etiam similiter κύβος dicitur, cum omne latus eiusdem numeri aequabiliter in sese solvitur, sicuti fit cum ter terna ducuntur atque ipse numerus terplicatur. Huius numeri cubum Pythagoras vim habere lunaris circuli dixit, quod et luna orbem suum lustret septem et viginti diebus et numerus ternio, qui τριὰς Graece dicitur, tantundemtatutndem efficiat in cubo. “Linea” autem a nostris dicitur, quam γραμμὴν Graeci nominant. Eam M. Varro ita definit: “Linea est,” inquit, “longitudo quaedam sine latitudine et altitudine.” Εὐκλείδης autem brevius, praetermissa altitudine: γραμμὴ, inquit, est μῆκος ἀπλατές, quod exprimere uno Latino verbo non queas, nisi audeas dicere “inlatabile.”

[¶3] 21. The positive assertion of Julius Hyginus that he had read a manuscript of Virgil from the poet's own household, in which there was written et ora tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror and not the usual reading, sensu torquebit amaro. NEARLY everyone reads these lines from the Georgics of Virgi in this way:
At sapor indicium faciet manifestus et ora
Tristia temptantum sensu torquebit amaro.
Hyginus, however, on my word no obscure grammarian, in the Commentaries which he wrote on Virgil, declares and insists that it was not this that Virgil left, but what he himself found in a copy which had come from the home and family of the poet:
et ora
Tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror,
and this reading has commended itself, not to Hyginus alone, but also to some other learned men, because it seems absurd to say “the taste will distort with its bitter sensation.” “Since,” they say, “taste itself is a sensation, it cannot have another sensation in itself, but it is exactly as if one should say, 'the sensation will distort with a bitter sensation.'” Moreover, when I had read Hyginus' note to Favorinus, and the strangeness and harshness of the phrase “sensu torquebit amaro” at once had displeased him, he said with a laugh: “I am ready to swear by Jupiter and the stone, which is considered the most sacred of oaths, that Virgil never wrote that, but I believe that Hyginus is right. For Virgil was not the first to coin that word arbitrarily, but he found it in the poems of Lucretius and made use of it, not disdaining to follow the authority of a poet who excelled in talent and power of expression.” The passage, from the fourth book of Lucretius, reads as follows:
dilutaque contra
Cum tuimur misceri absinthia, tangit amaror.
And in fact we see that Virgil imitated, not only single words of Lucretius, but often almost whole lines and passages.

> Latin: 21. Quod Iulius Hyginus affirmatissime contendit, legisse se librum P. Vergilii domesticum, ubi scriptum esset “et ora Tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror,” non quod vulgus legeret “sensu torquebit amaro.” VERSUS istos ex Georgicis Vergilii plerique omnes sic legunt:
At sapor indicium faciet manifestus et ora
Tristia temptantum sensu torquebit amaro. Hyginus autem, non hercle ignobilis grammaticus, in Coninmientariiscommentariis quae in Vergilium fecit, confirmat et perseverat, non hoc a Vergilio relictum, sed quod ipse invenerit in libro qui fuerit ex domo atque ex familia Vergilii:
et ora
Tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror,
neque id soli Hygino, sed doctis quibusdam etiam viris complacitum, quoniam videtur absurde dici “sapor sensu amaro torquet.” “Cum ipse,” inquiunt, “sapor sensus sit, non alium in semet ipso sensum habeat ac proinde sit quasi dicatur ‘sensus sensu amaro torquet.’” Sed enim cum Favorino Hygini commentariumcoommentarium legissem atque ei statimstatic displicita esset insolentia et insuavitas illius “sensu torquebit amaro,” risit et: “Iovem lapidem,” inquit, “quod sanctissimum iusiurandum habitum est, paratus ego iurare sum Vergilium hoc numquam scripsisse, sed Hyginum ego verum dicere arbitror.” “Non enimenin primus finxit hoc verbum Vergilius insolenter, sed in carminibuscarnminibus Lucreti invento usus est, non aspernatus auctoritatem poetae ingenio et facundia praecellentis.” Verba ex IV. Lucreti haec sunt:
dilutaque contra
Cum tuimur misceri absinthia, tangit amaror. Non verba autem sola, sed versus prope totos et locos quoque Lucreti plurimos sectatum esse Vergilium videmus.

[¶4] 22. Whether it is correct Latin for counsel for the defence to say superesse se, “that he is appearing for” those whom he is defending; and the proper meaning of superesse. AN incorrect and improper meaning of a word has been established by long usage, in that we use the expression hic illi superest when we wish to say that anyone appears as another's advocate and pleads his cause. And this is not merely the language of the streets and of the common people, but is used in the forum, the comitium and the courts. Those, however, who have spoken language undefiled have for the most part used superesse in the sense of “to overflow, be superfluous, or exceed the required amount.” Thus Marcus Varro, in the satire entitled “You know not what evening may bring,” uses superfuisse in the sense of having exceeded the amount proper for the occasion. These are his words: “Not everything should be read at a dinner party, but preferably such works as are at the same time improving and diverting, so that this feature of the entertainment also may seem not to have been neglected, rather than overdone.” I remember happening to be present in the court of a praetor who was a man of learning, and that on that occasion an advocate of some repute pleaded in such fashion that he wandered from the subject and did not touch upon the point at issue. Thereupon the praetor said to the man whose case was before him: “You have no counsel.” And when the pleader protested, saying “I am present (supersum) for the honourable gentleman,” the praetor wittily retorted: “You surely present too much, but you do not represent your client.” Marcus Cicero, too, in his book entitled On Reducing the Civil Law to a System wrote these words: “Indeed Quintus Aelius Tubero did not fall short of his predecessors in knowledge of the law, in learning he even outstripped them.” In this passage superfuit seems to mean “he went beyond, surpassed and excelled his predecessors in his learning, which, however, was excessive and overabundant”; for Tubero was thoroughly versed in Stoic dialectics. Cicero's use of the word in the second book of the Republic also deserves attention. This is the passage in question: “I should not object, Laelius, if I did not think that these friends wished, and if I myself did not desire, that you should take some part in this discussion of ours, especially since you yourself said yesterday that you would give us even more than enough (te superfuturum). But that indeed is impossible: we all ask you not to give us less than enough (ne desis).” Now Julius Paulus, the most learned man within my recollection, used to say witll keenness and understanding that superesse and its Greek equivalent had more than one meaning: for he declared that the Greeks used perisso/n both ways, either of what was superfluous and unnecessary or of what was too abundant, overflowing and excessive; that in the same way our earlier writers also employed superesse sometimes of what was superfluous, idle and not wholly necessary, a sense which we have just cited from Varro, and sometimes, as in Cicero, of that which indeed surpassed other things in copiousness and plentifulness, yet was immoderate and too extensive, and gushed forth more abundantly than was sufficient. Therefore one who says superesse se with reference to a man whom he is defending tries to convey none of these meanings, but uses superesse in a sense that is unknown and not in use. And he will not be able to appeal even to the authority of Virgil, who in his Georgics wrote as follows:
I will be first to bear, so but my life still last (supersit),
Home to my native land...
For in this place Virgil seems to have used that word somewhat irregularly in giving supersit the sense of “be present for a longer or more extended period,” but on the contrary his use of the word in the following line is more nearly the accepted one:
They cut him tender grass,
Give corn and much fresh water, that his strength
Be more than equal to (superesse) the pleasing toil.
for here superesse means to be more than equal to the task and not to be crushed by it. I also used to raise the question whether the ancients used superesse in the sense of “to be left and be lacking for the completion of an act.” For to express that idea Sallust says, not superesse, but superare. These are his words in the Jugurtha: “This man was in the habit of exercising a command independently of the king, and of attending to all business which had been left undone (superaverant) by Jugurtha when he was weary or engaged in more important affairs.” But we find in the third book of Ennius' Annals:
Then he declares one task's left over (super esse) for him,
that is, is left and remains undone; but there superesse must be divided and read as if it were not one part of speech, but two, as in fact it is. Cicero, however, in his second Oration against Antony expresses “what is left” by restare, not by superesse. Besides these uses we find superesse with the meaning “survive.” For it is so employed in the book of letters of Marcus Cicero to Lucius Plancus, as well as in a letter of Marcus Asinius Pollio to Cicero, as follows: “For I wish neither to fail the commonwealth nor to survive it (superesse),” meaning that if the commonwealth should be destroyed and perish, he does not wish to live. Again in the Asinaria of Plautus that same force is still more evident in these, the first verses of that comedy:
As you would hope to have your only son
Survive (superesse) you and be ever sound and hale. Thus we have to avoid, not merely an improper use of the word, but also the evil omene, in case an older man, acting as advocate for a youth, should say that he “survives” him.

> Latin: 22. An qui causas defendit recte Latineque dicat “superesse se” is quos defendit; et “superesse” proprie quid sit. INROBORAVIT inveteravitque falsa atque aliena verbi significatio, quod dicitur “hic illi superest,” cum dicendum est advocatum esse quem cuipiam causamque eius defendere. Atque id dicitur non in compitiscoinpitis tantum neque in plebe vulgaria, sed in foro, in comitio, apud tribunalia. Qui integre autem locuti sunt magnamnagnam partem “superesse” ita dixerunt, ut eo verbo significarent superfluere et supervacare atque esse supra necessarium modum. Itaque M. Varro, in satura quae inscripta est Nescis Quid Vesper Vehat, “superfuisse” dicit immodice et intempestive fuisse. Verba ex eo libro haec sunt: “In convivio legi nec omnia debent et ea potissimum, quae simul sint βιωφελῆ et delectent, potius ut id quoque videatur non defuisse quam superfuisse.” Memini ego praetoris, docti hominis, tribunali me forte assistere atque ibi advocatum non incelebrem sic postulare, ut extra causam diceret remque quae agebatur non attingeret. Tunc praetorem ei cuia res erat dixisse advocatum eum non habere, et cum is qui verba faciebat reclamasset “ego illi V. C. supersum,” respondisse praetorem festiviter “tu plane superes, non ades.” M. autem Cicero, in libro qui inscriptus est De iurelure Civili in Artem Redigendo, verba haec posuit: “Nec vero scientia iuris maioribus suis Q. Aelius Tubero defuit, doctrina etiam superfuit.” In quo loco “superfuit” significare videtur “supra fuit et praestitit superavitque maiores suos doctrina sua, superfluenti tamen et nimis abundanti,” disciplinas enim Tubero stoicas et dialecticas percalluerat. In libro quoque De Republica secundo id ipsum verbum Cicero ponit non temere transeundum. Verba ex eo libro haec sunt: “Non gravarer, Laeli, nisi et hos velle putarem et ipse cuperem te quoque aliquam partem huius nostri sermonis attingere, praesertim cum heri ipse dixeris te nobis etiam superfuturum. Verum id quidem fieri non potest; ne desis omnes te rogamus.” Exquisite igitur et comperte Iulius Paulus dicebat, homo in nostra memoria doctissimus, “superesse” non simplici ratione dici tam Latine quam Graece; Graecos enim περισσὸν in utramque partemparteni ponere, vel quod supervacaneum esset ac non necessarium, vel quod abundans nimis et afluens et exuberans; sic nostros quoque veteres “superesse” alias dixisse pro superfluenti et vacivo neque admodum necessario, ita ut supra posuimus Varronem dicere, alias ita ut Cicero dixit, pro eo quod copia quidem et facultate ceteris anteiret, super modum tamen et largius prolixiusque flueret quam esset satis. Qui dicit ergo “superesse se” ei quem defendit, nihil istorum vult dicere sed nescio quid 12 aliud indictum inscitumque dicitlicit ac ne Vergilii quidem poterit auctoritate uti, qui in Georgicis ita scripsit·
Primus ego in patriam mecum, modo vita supersit …
Hoc enim in loco Vergilius ἀκυρότερον eo verbo usus videtur, quod “supersit” dixit pro “longinquius diutiusque adsit,” illudque contra eiusdem Vergili aliquanto est probabilius:
Florentisque secant herbas fluviosque ministrant
Farraque, ne blando nequeat superesse labori;
significat enim supra laborem esse neque opprimi a labore. An autem “superesse” dixerint veteres pro “restare et perficiendae rei deesse,” quaerebamus. Nam Sallustius in significatione ista non “superesse,” sed “superare” dicit. Verba eius in Iugurtha haec sunt: “Is plerumque seorsum a rege exercitum ductare et omnis res exequi solitus erat, quae Iugurthae fesso aut maioribus astricto superaverant.” Sed invenimus in tertio Enni Annalium in hoc versu:
Inde sibi memorat unum super esse laborem,
id est relicum esse et restare, quod, quia id est, divise pronuntiandum est, ut non una pars orationis esse videatur, sed duae. Cicero autem in secunda Antonianarum, quod est relicum, non “superesse,” sed “restare” dicit. Praeter haec “superesse” invenimus dictum pro “superstitem esse.” Ita enim scriptum est in libro epistularum M. Ciceronis ad L. Plancum, et in epistula M. Asini Pollionis ad Ciceronem, verbis his: “Nam neque deesse reipublicae volo neque superesse,” per quod significant, si respublica emoriatur et pereat, nolle se vivere. In Plauti autem Asinaria manifestius id ipsum scriptumscrituin est in his versibus, qui sunt eius comoediaeconoediae primiprinii:
Sicút tuum vis únicum gnatúm tuae
Superésse vitae sóspitem et supérstitem. Cavenda igitur est non inproprietasimnproprietas sola verbi, sed etiam pravitas ominis, si quis senior advocatus adulescenti “superesse se” dicat.

[¶5] 23. Who Papirius Praetextatus was; the reason for that surname; and the whole of the entertaining story about that same Papirius. THE story of Papirius Praetextatus was told and committed to writing in the speech which Marcus Cato made To the soldiers against Galba, with great charm, brilliance and elegance of diction. I should have included Cato's own words in this very commentary, if I had had access to the book at the time when I dictated this extract. But if you would like to hear the bare tale, without the noble and dignified language, the incident was about as follows: It was formerly the custom at Rome for senators to enter the House with their sons under age. In those days, when a matter of considerable importance had been discussed and was postponed to the following day, it was voted that no one should mention the subject of the debate until the matter was decided. The mother of the young Papirius, who had been in the House with his father, asked her son what the Fathers had taken up in the senate. The boy replied that it was a secret and that he could not tell. The woman became all the more eager to hear about it; the secrecy of the matter and the boy's silence piqued her curiosity; she therefore questioned him more pressingly and urgently. Then the boy, because of his mother's insistence, resorted to a witty and amusing falsehood. He said that the senate had discussed the question whether it seemed more expedient, and to the advantage of the State, for one man to have two wives or one woman to have two husbands. On hearing this, she is panic-stricken, rushes excitedly from the house, and carries the news to the other matrons. Next day a crowd of matrons came to the senate, imploring with tears and entreaties that one woman might have two husbands rather than one man two wives. The senators, as they entered the House, were wondering at this strange madness of the women and the meaning of such a demand, when young Papirius, stepping forward to the middle of the House, told in detail what his mother had insisted on hearing, what he himself had said to her, in fact, the whole story exactly as it had happened. The senate paid homage to the boy's cleverness and loyalty, but voted that thereafter boys should not enter the House with their fathers, save only this Papirius; and the boy was henceforth honoured with the surname Praetextatus, because of his discretion in keeping silent and in speaking, while he was still young enough to wear the purple-bordered gown.

> Latin: 23. Quis fuerit Papirius Praetextatus; quae istius causa cognomenti sit; historiaque ista omnis super eodem Papirio cognitu iucunda. HISTORIA de Papirio Praetextato dicta scriptaque est a M. Catone in oratione qua usus est Ad Milites contra Galbam, cum multa quidem venustate atque luce atque munditia verborum. Ea Catonis verba huic prorsus commentario indidissem, si libri copia fuisset id temporis, cum haec dictavi. Quod si non virtutes dignitatesque verborum, sed rem ipsam scire quaeris, res ferme ad hunc modum est: Mos antea senatoribus Romae fuit in curiam cum praetextatis filiis introire. Tum, cum in senatu res maior quaepiam consultata eaque in diem posterum prolata est placuitque ut eamearn rem super qua tractavissent ne quis enuntiaret priusquam decreta esset, mater Papirii pueri, qui cumcuim parente suo in curia fuerat, percontata est filium quidnam in senatu patres egissent. Puer respondit tacendum esse neque id dici licere. Mulier fit audiendi cupidior; secretum rei et silentium pueri animum eius ad inquirendum everberat; quaerit igitur compressius violentiusque. tumTurn puer, matre urgente, lepidi atque festivi mendacii consilium capit. Actum in senatu dixit, utrum videretur utilius exque republica esse unusne ut duas uxores haberet, an ut una apud duos nupta esset. Hoc illa ubi audivit, animus compavescit, domo trepidans egreditur, ad ceteras matronas perfert. Venit ad senatum postridie matrum familias caterva. Lacrimantes atque obsecrantes orant una potius ut duobus nupta fieret quam ut uni duae. Senatores, ingredientes in curiam, quae illa mulierum intemperies et quid sibi postulatio istaec vellet, mirabantur. Puer Papirius in medium curiae progressus, quid mater audire institisset, quid ipse matri dixisset, rem, sicut fuerat, denarrat. Senatus fidem atque ingenium pueri exosculatur, consultum facit uti posthac pueri cum patribus in curiam ne introeant, praeter ille unus Papirius, atque puero postea cognomentum honoris gratia inditum “Praetextatus” ob tacendi loquendique in aetate praetextae prudentiam.

[¶6] 24. Three epitaphs of three early poets, Naevius, Plautus and Pacuvius, composed by themselves and inscribed upon their tombs. THERE are three epitaphs of famous poets, Gnaeus Naevius, Plautus and Marcus Pacuvius, composed by themselves and left to be inscribed upon their tombs, which I have thought ought to be included among these notes, because of their distinction and charm. The epitaph of Naevius, although full of Campanian arrogance, might have been regarded as a just estimate, if he had not written it himself:
If that immortals might for mortals weep,
Then would divine Camenae weep for Naevius.
For after he to Orcus as treasure was consigned,
The Romans straight forgot to speak the Latin tongue. We should be inclined to doubt whether the epitaph of Plautus was really by his own hand, if it had not been quoted by Marcus Varro in the first book of his work On Poets:
Since Plautus has met death, Comedy mourns,
Deserted is the stage; then Laughter, Sport and Wit,
And Music's countless numbers all together wept. Pacuvius' epitaph is the most modest and simple, worthy of his dignity and good taste:
Young man, although you haste, this little stone
Entreats thee to regard it, then to read its tale.
Here lie the bones of Marcus, hight Pacuvius.
Of this I would not have you unaware. Good-bye.

> Latin: 24. Tria epigrammata trium veterum poetarum, Naevii, Plauti, Pacuvii, quae facta ab ipsis sepulcris eorum incisa sunt. TRIUM poetarum inlustrium epigrammata, Cn. Naevii, Plauti, M. Pacuvii, quae ipsi fecerunt et incidenda sepulcro suo reliquerunt, nobilitatis eorum gratia et venustatis scribenda in his commentariis esse duxi. Epigramma Naevi plenum superbiae Campanae, quod testimonium esse iustum potuisset, nisi ab ipso dictum esset:
Inmórtalés mortáles si forét fas flére,
Flerént divaé Caménae Naéviúm poétam.
Itáque póstquam est ÓOrchorcho tráditús thesaúro,
Oblíti súnt Romaé loquiér linguá Latína. Epigramma Plauti, quod dubitassemus an Plauti foret, nisi a M. Varrone positum esset in libro De Poetis primo:
Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, Comoedia luget,
Scaena est deserta, dein Risus, Ludus Iocusque
Et Numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrimarunt. Epigramma Pacuvii verecundissimum et purissimum dignumque eius elegantissima gravitate:
Adulescens, tametsi próperas, hoc te saxúlum rogat,
Ut sése aspicias, deínde quod scriptum ést legas.
Hic súnt poetae Pácuvi Marcí sita
Ossa. Hóc volebam néscius ne essés. Vale.

[¶7] 25. Marcus Varro's definition of the word “indutiae”; to which is added a somewhat careful investigation of the derivation of that word. MARCUS VARRO, in that book of his Antiquities of Man which treats Of War and Peace, defines indutiae (a truce) in two ways. “A truce,” he says, “is peace for a few days in camp;” and again in another place, “A truce is a holiday in war.” But each of these definitions seems to be wittily and happily concise rather than clear or satisfactory. For a truce is not a peace—since war continues, although fighting ceases—nor is it restricted to a camp or to a few days only. For what are we to say if a truce is made for some months, and the troops withdraw from camp into the towns? Have we not then also a truce? Again, if a truce is to be defined as only lasting for a few days, what are we to say of the fact, recorded by Quadrigarius in the first book of his Annals, that Gaius Pontius the Samnite asked the Roman dictator for a truce of six hours? The definition “a holiday in war,” too, is rather happy than clear or precise. Now the Greeks, more significantly and more pointedly, have called such an agreement to cease from fighting e)kexeiri/a, or “a staying of hands,” substituting for one letter of harsher sound a smoother one. For since there is no fighting at such a time and their hands are withheld, they called it e)kexeiri/a. But it surely was not Varro's task to define a truce too scrupulously, and to observe all the laws and canons of definition; for he thought it sufficient to give an explanation of the kind which the Greeks call tu/poi (“typical” ) and u(pografai/ (“outline” ), rather than o(rismoi/ (“exact definition” ). I have for a long time been inquiring into the derivation of indutiae, but of the many explanations which I have either heard or read this which I am going to mention seems most reasonable. I believe that indutiae is made up of inde uti iam (“that from then on” ). The stipulation of a truce is to this effect, that there shall be no fighting and no trouble up to a fixed time, but that after that time all the laws of war shall again be in force. Therefore, since a definite date is set and an agreement is made that before that date there shall be no fighting but when that time comes, “that from then on,” fighting shall be resumed: by uniting (as it were) and combining those words which I have mentioned the term indutiae is formed. But Aurelius Opilius, in the first book of his work entitled The Muses, says: “It is called a truce when enemies pass back and forth from one side to another safely and without strife; from this the name seems to be formed, as if it were initiae, that is, an approach and entrance.” I have not omitted this note of Aurelius, for fear that it might appear to some rival of these Nights a more elegant etymology, merely because he thought that it had escaped my notice when I was investigating the origin of the word.

> Latin: 25. Quibus verbis M. Varro indutias definierit; quaesitumque inibi curiosiuscnriosius, quaenam ratio sit vocabuli indutiarum. DUOBUS modis M. Varro in libro Humanarum, qui est De Bello et Pace, “indutiae” quid sint, definit. “Indutiae sunt,” inquit, “pax castrensis paucorum dierum”; item alio in loco, “indutiae sunt,” inquit, “belli feriae.” Sed lepidae magis atque iucundae brevitatis utraque definitio quam plana aut proba esse videtur. Nam neque pax est indutiae— bellum enim manet, pugna cessat—neque in solis castris neque paucorum tantum dierum indutiae sunt. Quid enim dicemus, si indutiis mensum aliquot factis in oppida castris concedatur? Nonne tum quoque indutiae sunt? Aut rursus quid esse id dicemus quod in primo Annalium Quadrigarii scriptum est, C. Pontium Samnitem a dictatore Romano sex horarum indutias postulasse, si indutiae paucorum tantum dierum appellandae sunt? “Belli” autem “ferias” festive magis dixit quam aperte atque definite. Graeci autem significantius consignatiusque cessationem istam pugnae pacticiam ἐκεχειρίαν dixerunt, exempta littera una sonitus vastioris et subdita lenioris. Nam quod eo tempore non pugnetur et manus cohibeantur, ἐκεχειρίαν appellarunt. Sed profecto non id fuit Varroni negotium, ut indutias superstitiose definiret et legibus rationibusque omnibus definitionum inserviret. Satis enim visumvistum est, eiusmodi facere demonstrationemn, quod genus Graeci τύπους magis et ὑπογραφὰς quam ὁρισμοὺς vocant. “Indutiarum” autem vocabulum qua sit ratione factum, iam diu est, cum quaerimus. Sed ex multis, quae vel audimus vel legimus, probabilius id, quod dicam, videtur. “Indutias” sic dictas arbitramurarbitramu, quasi tu dicas “inde uti iam.” Pactum indutiarum eiusmodi est, ut in diem certum non pugnetur nihilqueiihilque incommodetur, sed ex eo die postea uti iam omnia belli iure agantur. Quod igitur dies certus praefinitur pactumque fit, ut ante eum diem ne pugnetur atque is dies ubi venit “inde uti iam” pugnetur, idcirco ex his quibus dixi vocibus, quasi per quendam coitum et copulam nomen indutiarum conexumconexuni est. Aurelius autem Opilius in primo librorum, quos Musarum inscripsit, “indutiae,” inquit, “dicuntur, cum hostes inter sese utrimque utroque alteri ad alteros impune et sine pugna ineunt; inde adeo inquit nomen factum videtur, quasi initiae, hoc est initus atque introitus.” Hoc ab Aurelio scriptum propterea non praeterii, ne cui harum Noctium aemulo eo tantum nomine elegantius id videretur, tamquam id nos originem verbi requirentes fugisset.

[¶8] 26. The answer of the philosopher Taurus, when I asked him whether a wise man ever got angry. I ONCE asked Taurus in his lecture-room whether a wise man got angry. For after his daily discourses he often gave everyone the opportunity of asking whatever questions he wished. On this occasion he first discussed the disease or passion of anger seriously and at length, setting forth what is to be fund in the books of the ancients and in his own commentaries; then, turning to me who had asked the question, he said: “This is what I think about getting angry, but it will not be out of place for you to hear also the opinion of my master Plutarch, a man of great learning and wisdom. Plutarch,” said he, “once gave orders that one of his slaves, a worthless and insolent fellow, but one whose ears had been filled with the teachings and arguments of philosophy, should be stripped of his tunic for some offence or other and flogged. They had begun to beat him, and the slave kept protesting that he did not deserve the flogging; that he was guilty of no wrong, no crime. Finally, while the lashing still went on, he began to shout, no longer uttering complaints or shrieks and groans, but serious reproaches. Plutarch's conduct, he said, was unworthy of a philosopher; to be angry was shameful: his master had often descanted on the evil of anger and had even written an excellent treatise Peri\ )Aorghsi/as; it was in no way consistent with all that was written in that book that its author should fall into a fit of violent rage and punish his slave with many stripes. Then Plutarch calmly and mildly made answer: ' What makes you think, scoundrel, that I am now angry with you. Is it from my expression, my voice, my colour, or even my words, that you believe me to be in the grasp of anger? In my opinion my eyes are not fierce, my expression is not disturbed, I am neither shouting madly nor foaming at the mouth and getting red in the face; I am saying nothing to cause me shame or regret; I am not trembling at all from anger or making violent gestures. For all these actions, if you did but know it, are the usual signs of angry passions.' And with these words, turning to the man who was plying the lash, he said: 'In the meantime, while this fellow and I are arguing, do you keep at it.'” Now the sum and substance of Taurus' whole disquisition was this: he did not believe that a)orghsi/a or “freedom from anger,” and a)nalghsi/a, or “lack of sensibility,” were identical; but that a mind not prone to anger was one thing, a spirit a)na/lghtos and a)nai/sqhtos, that is, callous and unfeeling, quite another. For as of all the rest of the emotions which the Latin philosophers call affects or affectiones, and the Greeks pa/qh, so of the one which, when it becomes a cruel desire for vengeance, is called “anger,” he did not recommend as expedient a total lack, ste/rhsis as the Greeks say, but a moderate amount, which they call metrio/ths.

> Latin: 26. Quem in modum mihi Taurus philosophus responderit percontanti an sapiens irasceretur. INTERROGAVI in diatriba Taurum, an sapiens irasceretur. Dabat enim saepe post cotidianas lectiones quaerendi quod quis vellet potestatem. Is cum graviter, copiose de morbo affectuve irae disseruisset, quae et in veterum libris et in ipsius commentariis exposita sunt, convertit ad me, qui interrogaveram, et “haec ego,” inquit, “super irascendo sentio;” “sed, quid et Plutarchus noster, vir doctissimus ac prudentissimus, senserit, non ab re est ut id quoque audias.” “Plutarchus,” inquit, “servo suo, nequam homini et contumaci, sed libris disputationibusque philosophiae aures inbutasinbuftas habenti, tunicam detrahidetrahli ob nescio quod delictum caedique eum loro iussit.” “Coeperat verberari et obloquebaturobloquebatum non meruisse ut vapulet, nihil mali, nihil sceleris admisisse. Postremo vociferari inter vapulandum incipit,” “neque iam querimonias aut gemitus eiulatusque facere, sed verba seria et obiurgatoria: non ita esse Plutarchum, ut philosophum deceret; irasci turpe esse: saepe eum de malo irae dissertavisse, librum quoque Περὶ Ἀοργησίας pulcherrimum conscripsisse; his omnibus quae in eo libro scripta sint nequaquam convenire, quod provolutus effususqueefususque in iram plurimis se plagis multaret.” “tumTurn Plutarchus lente et leniter ‘quid autem,’ inquit, ‘verbero, nunc ego tibi irasci videor? Ex vultune meo an ex voce an ex colore an etiam ex verbis correptum esse me ira intellegis? Mihi quidem neque oculi, opinor, truces sunt neque os turbidum neque inmaniter clamo neque in spumam ruborenve effervesco neque pudenda dico aut paenitenda neque omnino trepido ira et gestio.’” “‘Haec enim omnia, si ignoras, signa esse irarum solent.’ Et simul ad eum qui caedebat conversus, ‘interim,’ inquit, ‘dum ego atque hic disputamus, tu hoc age.’” Summa autem totius sententiae Tauri haec fuit: Non idem esse existimavit ἀοργησίαν et ἀναλγησίαν aliudque esse non iracundum animum, aliud ἀνάλγητον et ἀναίσθητον, id est hebetem et stupentem. Nam sicut aliorum omnium, quos Latini philosophi “affectus” vel “affectiones,” Graeci πάθη appellant, ita huius quoque motus animi, qui cum est ulciscendi causa saevior “ira” dicitur, non privationem esse utilem censuit, quam Graeci στέρησιν dicunt, sed mediocritatem, quam μετριότητα illi appellant.

## 5. Book II · chapters 1–13

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/5/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/5/#p-N

[¶0] 1. How Socrates used to train himself in physical endurance; and of the temperate habits of that philosopher. Among voluntary tasks and exercises for strengthening his body for any chance demands upon its endurance we are told that Socrates habitually practised this one: he would stand, so the story goes, in one fixed position, all day and all night, from early dawn until the next sunrise, open-eyed, motionless, in his very tracks and with face and eyes riveted to the same spot in deep meditation, as if his mind and soul had been, as it were, withdrawn from his body. When Favorinus in his discussion of the man's fortitude and his many other virtues had reached this point, he said: “He often stood from sun to sun, more rigid than the tree trunks.” His temperance also is said to have been so great, that he lived almost the whole period of his life with health unimpaired. Even amid the havoc of that plague which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, devastated Athens with a deadly species of disease, by temperate and abstemious habits he is said to have avoided the ill-effects of indulgence and retained his physical vigour so completely, that he was not at all affected by the calamity common to all.

> Latin: 1. Quo genere solitus sit philosophus Socrates exercere patientiam corporis; deque eiusdem viri temperantia. INTER labores voluntarios et exercitia corporis ad fortuitas patientiae vices firmandi id quoque accepimus Socraten facere insuevisse: stare solitus Socrates dicitur pertinaci statu perdius atque pernox a summo lucis ortu ad solem alterumalteum orientem inconivens, immobilis, isdem in vestigiis et ore atque oculis eundem in locum directis cogitabundus, tamquam quodam secessu mentis atque animi facto a corpore. Quam rem cum Favorinus de fortitudine eius viri ut pleraque disserens attigisset, πολλάκις, inquit, ἐξ ἡλίου εἰς ἥλιον εἱστήκει ἀστραβέστερος τῶν πρέμνων. Temperantia quoque fuisse eum tanta traditum est, ut omnia fere vitae suae tempora valitudine inoffensa vixerit. In illius etiam pestilentiae vastitate quae in belli Peloponnensiaci principis Atheniensium civitatem internecivo genere morbi depopulata est, is parcendi moderandique rationibus dicitur et a voluptatum labe cavisse et salubritates corporis retinuisse, ut nequaquam fuerit communi omnium cladi obnoxius.

[¶1] 2. What rules of courtesy should be observed by fathers and sons in taking their places at able, keeping their seats, and similar matters at home and elsewhere, when the sons are magistrates and the fathers private citizens; and a discourse of the philosopher Taurus on this subject, with an illustration taken from Roman history. THE governor of the province of Crete, a man of senatorial rank, had come to Athens for the purpose of visiting and becoming acquainted with the philosopher Taurus, and in company with this same governor was his father. Taurus, having just dismissed his pupils, was sitting before the door of his room, and we stood by his side conversing with him. In came the governor of the province and with him his father. Taurus arose quietly, and after salutations had been exchanged, sat down again. Presently the single chair that was at hand was brought and placed near them, while others were being fetched. Taurus invited the governor's father to be seated; to which he replied: “Rather let this man take the seat, since he is a magistrate of the Roman people.” “Without prejudicing the case,” said Taurus, “do you meanwhile sit down, while we look into the matter and inquire whether it is more proper for you, who are the father, to sit, or your son, who is a magistrate.” And when the father had seated himself, and another chair had been placed near by for his son also, Taurus discussed the question with what, by the gods! was a most excellent valuation of honours and duties. The substance of the discussions was this: In public places, functions and acts the rights of fathers, compared with tile authority of sons who are magistrates, give way somewhat and are eclipsed; but when they are sitting together unofficially in the intimacy of home life, or walking about, or even reclining at a dinner-party of intimate friends, then the official distinctions between a son who is a magistrate and a father who is a private citizen are at an end, while those that are natural and inherent come into play. “Now, your visit to me,” said he, “our present conversation, and this discussion of duties are private actions. Therefore enjoy the same priority of honours at my house which it is proper for you to enjoy in your own home as the older man.” These remarks and others to the same purport were made by Taurus at once seriously and pleasantly. Moreover, it has seemed not out of place to add what I have read in Claudius about the etiquette of father and son under such circumstances. I therefore quote Quadrigarius' actual words, transcribed from the sixth book of his Annals "The consuls then elected were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus for the second time and Quintus Fabius Maximus, son of the Maximus who had been consul the year before. The father, at the time proconsul, mounted upon a horse met his son the consul, and because lie was his father, would not dismount, nor did the lictors, who knew that the two men lived in the most perfect harmony, presume to order him to do so. As the father drew near, the consul said: “What next?” The lictor in attendance quickly understood and ordered Maximus the proconsul to dismount. Fabius obeyed the order and warmly commended his son for asserting the authority which he had as the gift of the people."

> Latin: 2. Quae ratio observatioque officiorum esse debeat inter patres filiosque in discumbendo sedendoque atque id genus rebus domidonii forisque, si filii magistratus sunt et patres privati; superque ea re Tauri philosophi dissertatio et exemplum ex historia Romana petitum. AD philosophum Taurum Athenas visendi cognoscendique eius gratia venerat V. C., praeses Cretae provinciae, et cum eo simul eiusdem praesidis pater. Taurus, sectatoribus commodum dimissis, sedebat pro cubiculi sui foribus et cum assistentibus nobis sermocinabatur. Introivit provinciae praeses et cum eo pater; assurrexit placide Taurus et post mutuam salutationem resedit. Allata moxmnox una sella est, quae in promptuprompt erat, atque dum aliae promebanturpromrebantur, apposita est. Invitavit Taurus patrem praesidispralesidis uti sederet. Ad quae ille ait: “Sedeat hic potius qui populi Romani magistratus est.” “Absque praeiudicio,” inquit Taurus, “tu interea sede, dum inspicimus quaerimusquequaerimlusque utrum conveniat, tene potius sedere, qui pater es, an filium, qui magistratus est.” Et cum pater assedisset appositumque esset aliud filio quoque eius sedile, verba super ea re Taurus facit cum summa, dii boni, honorum atque officiorum perpensationeperpenlsatione. Eorum verborum sententia haec fuit: In publicis locis atque muneribus atque actionibus patrum iura, cum filiorum qui in magistratu sunt potestatibus collata, interquiescere paululum et conivere; sed cum extra rempublicam in domesticadomestic re atque vita sedeatur, ambuletur, in convivio quoque familiarifamiliar discumbatur, tum inter filium magistratum et patrem privatum publicos honores cessare, naturales et genuinos exoriri. “Hoc igitur,” inquit, “quod ad me venistis, quod colloquimur nunc, quod de officiis disceptamus, privata actio est. Itaque utere apud me his honoribus prius, quibus domi quoque vestrae te uti priorem decet.” Haec atque alia in eandem sententiam Taurus graviter simul et comiter disseruit. Quid autem super huiuscemodihuiuscemlodi patris atque filii officio apud Claudium legerimus, non esse ab re visum est ut adscriberemus. Posuimus igitur verba ipsa Quadrigarii ex Annali eius sexto transscripta: “Deinde facti consules Ti. Sempronius Gracchus iterum, Q. Fabius Maximus, filius eius qui priore anno erat consul. Ei consulicosuli pater proconsul obviam in equo vehens venit neque descendere voluit, quod pater erat, et quod inter eos sciebant maxima concordia convenire, lictores non ausi sunt descendere iubere. Ubi iuxta venit, tum consul ait: ‘Quid postea?’; lictor ille qui apparebat cito intellexit, Maximum proconsulem descendere iussit. Fabius imperio paret et filium collaudavit, cum imperium, quod populi esset, retineret.”

[¶2] 3. For what reason our forefathers inserted the aspirate h in certain verbs and nouns. THE letter h (or perhaps it should be called a breathing rather than a letter) was added by our forefathers to give strength and vigour to the pronunciation of many words, in order that they might have a fresher and livelier sound; and this they seem to have done from their devotion to the Attic language, and under its influence. It is well known that the people of Attica, contrary to the usage of the other Greek races, pronounced i(xqu/s (fish), i(/ppos (horse), and many other words besides, with a rough breathing on the first letter. In the same way our ancestors said lachrumae (tears), sepulchrum (burial-place), ahenum (of bronze), vehemens (violent), incohare (begin), helluari (gormandize), hallucinari (dream), honera (burdens), honustum (burdened). For in all these words there seems to be no reason for that letter, or breathing, except to increase the force and vigour of the sound by adding certain sinews, so to speak. But apropos of the inclusion of ahenum among my examples, I recall that Fidus Optatus, a grammarian of considerable repute in Rome, showed me a remarkably old copy of the second book of the Aeneid, bought in the Sigillaria for twenty pieces of gold, which was believed to have belonged to Virgil himself. In that book, although the following two lines were written thus:
Before the entrance-court, hard by the gate,
With sheen of brazen (aena) arms proud Pyrrhus gleams,
we observed that the letter h had been added above the line, changing aena to ahena. So too in the best manuscripts we find this verse of Virgil's written as follows:
Or skims with leaves the bubbling brass's (aleni) wave.

> Latin: 3. Qua ratione verbis quibusdam vocabulisque veteres immiserintimmiseurint h litterae spiritum. H LITTERAM, sive illam spiritum magis quam litteram dici oportet, inserebant eamearn veteres nostri plerisque vocibus verborumverborLum firmandis roborandisque, ut sonus earum esset viridior vegetiorque; atque id videntur fecisse studio et exemplo linguae Atticae. Satis notum est Atticos ἱχθὺν et ἵππον et multa itidem alia contra morem gentium Graeciae ceterarum inspirantis prime litterae dixisse. Sic “lachrumas,” sic “sepulcrum,” sic “ahenum,” sic “vehemens,” sic “incohare,” sic “helluari,” sic “halucinari,” sic “honera,” sic “honustum” dixerunt. In his enim verbis omnibus litterae seu spiritus istius nulla ratio visa est, nisi ut firmitas et vigor vocis quasi quibusdam nervis additis intenderetur. Sed quoniam “aheni” quoque exemplo usi sumus, venit nobis in memoriam Fidum Optatum, multi nominis Romae grammaticum, ostendisse mihi librum Aeneidos secundum mirandae vetustatis, emptum in Sigillariis viginti aureis, quemquern ipsius Vergili fuisse credebatur. In quo duo isti versus cum ita scripti forent:
Vestibulum ante ipsum primoque in limine Pyrrus
Exultat, telis et luce coruscus aena,
additam supra vidimus h litteram et “ahena” factum. Sic in illo quoque Vergili versu in optimis libris scriptumscriptumr invenimus:
Aut foliis undam trepidi despumat aheni.

[¶3] 4. The reason given by Gavius Bassus for calling a certain kind of judicial inquiry divitiatio; and the explanation that others have given of the same term. WHEN inquiry is made about the choice of a prosecutor, and judgment is rendered on the question to which of two or more persons the prosecution of a defendant, or a share in the prosecution, is to be entrusted, this process and examination by jurors is called divinatio. The reason for the use of this term is a matter of frequent inquiry. Gavius Bassus, in the third book of his work On the Origin of Terms, says: “This kind of trial is called divinatio because the juror ought in a sense to divine what verdict it is proper for him to give.” The explanation offered in these words of Gavius Bassus is far from complete, or rather, it is inadequate and meagre. But at least he seems to be trying to show that divinatio is used because in other trials it is the habit of the juror to be influenced by what he has heard and by what has been shown by evidence or by witnesses; but in this instance, when a prosecutor is to be selected, the considerations which can influence a juror are very few and slight, and therefore he must, so to speak, “divine” what man is the better fitted to make the accusation. Thus Bassus. But some others think that the divinatio is so called because, while prosecutor and defendant are two things that are, as it were, related and connected, so that neither can exist without the other, yet in this form of trial, while there is already a defendant, there is as yet no prosecutor, and therefore the factor which is still lacking and unknown—namely, what man is to be the prosecutor—must be supplied by divination.

> Latin: 4. Quam ob causam Gavius Bassus genus quoddam iudicii “divinationem” appellari scripserit; et quam alii causam esse eiusdem vocabuli dixerint. CUM de constituendo accusatore quaeritur iudiciumque super ea re redditur cuinam potissimum ex duobus pluribusque accusatio subscriptiove in reum permittatur, ea res atque iudicum cognitio “divinatio” appellatur. Id vocabulum quam ob causam ita factum sit, quaeri solet. Gavius Bassus in tertio librorum, quos De Origine vocabulorumVocabilorum composuit, “Divinatio,” inquit, “iudicium appellatur, quoniam divinet quodammodo iudex oportet quam sententiam sese ferre par sit.” Nimis quidem est in verbis Gavi Bassi ratio inperfecta vel magis inops et ieiuna. Sed videtur tamen significare velle idcirco dici “divinationem,” quod in aliis quidem causis iudex ea quae didicit quaeque argumentis vel testibus demonstrata sunt sequi solet, in hac autem re, cum eligendus accusator est, parva admodum et exilia sunt quibus moveri iudex possit, et propterea quinam magis ad accusandum idoneus sit quasi divinandum est. Haec Bassus. Sed alii quidam “divinationem” esse appellatam putant quoniam, cum accusator et reus duae res quasi cognatae coniunctaeque sint neque utra sine altera constare possit, in hoc tamen genere causae reus quidem iam est, sed accusator nondum est, et idcirco quod adhuc usque deest et latet divinatione supplendum est, quisnam sit accusator futurus.

[¶4] 5. How elegantly and clearly the philosopher Favorinus described the difference between the style of Plato and that of Lysias. FAVORINUS used to say of Plato and Lysias: “If you take a single word from a discourse of Plato or change it, and do it with the utmost skill, you will nevertheless mar the elegance of his style; if you do the same to Lysias, you will obscure his meaning.”

> Latin: 5. Quam lepide signateque dixerit Favorinus philosophus quid intersit inter Platonis et Lysiae orationem. FAVORINUS de Lysia et Platone solitus dicere est: “Si ex Platonis,” inquit, “oratione verbum aliquod demas mutesve atque id commodatissimecommnodatissime facias, de elegantiaclegantia tamen detraxeris; si ex Lysiae, de sententia.”

[¶5] 6. On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge. SOME grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet's use of a word in the following verses as careless and negligent:
That, her white waist with howling monsters girt,
Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships
Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight!
The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent.
They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster. They also criticize another word in the following:
Who has not heard
Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands
And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?
Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable world, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely “undeserving of praise,” but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race. They have criticized still another word in the verse:
Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side,
on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold. Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from ve- here, in which there is already some notion of compulsion by another; for a man who is carried is not his own master. But vexare, which is derived from vehere, unquestionably implies greater force and impulse. For vexare is properly used of one who is seized and carried away, and dragged about hither and yon; just as taxare denotes more forcible and repeated action than tangere, from which it is undoubtedly derived; and iactare a much fuller and more vigorous action than iacere, from which it comes; and quassare something severer and more violent than quatere. Therefore, merely because vexare is commonly used of the annoyance of smoke or wind or dust is no reason why the original force and meaning of the word should be lost; and that meaning was preserved by the earlier writers who, as became them, spoke correctly and clearly. Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote On the Achaeans, has these words: And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy. 'hat is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal's conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. Marcus Tullius, in his fourth Oration against Verres, wrote: “This was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates.” But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari.) And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:
Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose.
But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: “And not unwillingly they charged,” and again:
Not then would you divine Atrides see
Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.
Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: “The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.” Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool “unlovely.” For just as he expressed abhorrence of the “unpraised” man by the denial of praise, so he abhorred the “unlovable” by the denial of love. Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means “to name” and “cite.” Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as the inlaudabilis, namely, one who is worthy neither of mention nor remembrance, and is never to be named; as, for example, in days gone by the common council of Asia decreed that no one should ever mention the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana at Ephesus. There remains the third criticism, his use of the expression “a tunic rough with gold.” But squalentem signifies a quantity or thick layer of gold, laid on so as to resemble scales. For squalere is used of the thick, rough scales (squamae) which are to be seen on the skins of fish or snakes. This is made clear both by others and indeed by this same poet in several passages; thus:
A skin his covering was, plumed with brazen scales (squamis)
And clasped with gold.
and again:
And now has he his flashing breastplate donned,
Bristling with brazen scales (squamis).
Accius too in the Pelopidae writes thus:
This serpent's scales (squamae) rough gold and purple wrought.
Thus we see that squalere was applied to whatever was overloaded and excessively crowded with anything, in order that its strange appearance might strike terror into those who looked upon it. So too on neglected and scaly bodies the deep layer of dirt was called squalor, and by long and continued use in that sense the entire word has become so corrupted, that finally squalor has come to be used of nothing but filth.

> Latin: 6. Quibus verbis ignaviter et abiecte Vergilius usus esse dicatur; et quid his qui improbe id dicunt respondeatur. NONNULLI grammatici aetatis superioris, in quibus est Cornutus Annaeus, haut sane indocti neque ignobiles, qui commentaria in Vergilium composuerunt, reprehendunt quasi incuriose et abiecte verbum positum in his versibus:
Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris
Dulichias vexasse rates et gurgite in alto
A! timidos nautas canibus lacerasse marinis; “vexasse” enim putant verbum esse leve et tenuis ac parvi incommodi, nec tantae atrocitati congruere, cum homines repente a belua immanissima rapti laniatique sint. Item aliud huiuscemodi reprehendunt:
Quis aut Eurysthea durum
Aut inlaudati nescit Busiridis aras?
“Inlaudati” parum idoneum verbum esse dicunt, neque id satis esse ad faciendam scelerati hominis detestationem, qui, quod hospites omnium gentium immolare solitus fuit, non laude indignus, sed detestatione execrationeque totius generis humani dignus esset. Item aliud verbum culpaverunt:
Per tunicam squalentem auro latus haurit apertum,
tamquam si non convenerit dicere “auro squalentem,” quoniam nitoribus splendoribusque auri squaloris inluvies sit contraria. Sed de verbo “vexasse” ita responderi posse credo: “Vexasse” grave verbum est factumque ab eo videtur, quod est “vehere,” in quo inest vis iam quaedam alieni arbitrii; non enim sui potens est, qui vehitur. “Vexare” autem, quod ex eo inclinatum est, vi atque motu procul dubio vastiorest. Nam qui fertur et rapsatur atque huc atque illuc distrahitur, is “vexari” proprie dicitur, sicuti “taxare” pressius crebriusque est quam “tangere,” unde id procul dubio inclinatum est, et “iactare” multo fusius largiusque est quam “iacere,” unde id verbum traductum est, et “quassare” quam “quatere” gravius violentiusque est. Non igitur, quia vulgo dici solet “(vexatum esse” quem fumo aut vento aut pulvere, propterea debet vis vera atque natura verbi deperire, quae a veteribus, qui proprie atque signate locuti sunt, ita ut decuit, conservata est. M. Catonis verba sunt ex oratione quam De Achaeis scripsit: “Cumque Hannibal terram Italiam laceraret atque vexaret”; “vexatam” Italiam dixit Cato ab Hannibale, quando nullum calamitatis aut saevitiae aut immanitatis genus reperiri queat quod in eo tempore Italia non perpessa sit; M. Tullius IV. In Verrem: “Quae ab isto sic spoliata atque direpta est, non ut ab hoste aliquo, qui tamen in bello religionem et consuetudinis iura retineret, sed ut a barbaris praedonibus vexata esse videatur.” De “inlaudato” autem duo videntur responderi posse. Unum est eiusmodi: Nemo quisquam tamtan efflictis est moribus quin faciat aut dicat nonnumquam aliquid quod laudari queat. Unde hic antiquissimus versus vice proverbii celebratus est:
Πολλάκι τοι Sed enim qui omni in re atque omni tempore laude omni vacat, is “inlaudatus” est isque omnium pessimus deterrimusque est, sicuti omnis culpae privatio “inculpatum” facit. “Inculpatus” autem instar est absolutae virtutis; “inlaudatus” quoque igitur 11 finis est extremae malitiae. Itaque Homerus non virtutibus appellandis, sed vitiis detrahendis laudare ampliter solet. Hoc enim est: τὼ δʼ οὐκ ἄκοντε πετέσθην, et item illud:
Ἔνθʼ οὐκ ἂν βρίζοντα ἴδοις Ἀγαμέμνονα δῖον
Οὐδὲ καταπτώσσοντʼ, οὐδʼ οὐκ ἐθέλοντα μάχεσθαι. Epicurus quoque simili modo maximam voluptatem privationem detractionemque omnis doloris definivit his verbis: Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους τῶν ἡδονῶν ἡ παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγοῦντος ὑπεξαίρεσις. Eadem ratione idem Vergilius “inamabilem” dixit Stygiam paludem. Nam sicut “inlaudatum” κατὰ στέρησιν laudis, ita “inamabilem” κατὰ amoris στέρησιν detestatus est. Altero modo “inlaudatus” ita defenditur: “Laudare” significat prisca lingua nominare appellareque. Sic in actionibus civilibus auctor, “laudari” dicitur, quod est nominari. Is “inlaudatus” autem est, quasi inlaudabilis, qui neque mentione aut memoria ulla dignus neque umquam nominandus est, sicuti quondam a communi consilio Asiae decretum est uti nomen eius qui templum Dianae Ephesi incenderat ne quis ullo in tempore nominaret. Tertium restat ex is quae reprehensa sunt, quod “tunicam squalentem auro” dixit. Id autem significat copiam densitatemque auri in squamarum speciem intexti. “Squalere” enim dictum a squamarum crebritate asperitateque, quae in serpentium pisciumve coriis visuntur. Quam rem et alii et hic quidem poeta locis aliquot demonstrat:
Quem pellis (inquit) ahenis
In plumam squamis auro conserta tegebat, et alio loco:
Iamque adeo rutilum thoraca indutus ahenis
Horrebat squamis. Accius in Pelopidis ita scribit:
Éius serpentis squámae squalido aúro et purpurá pertextae. Quicquid igitur nimis inculcatum obsitumque aliqua re erat, ut incuteret visentibus facie nova horrorem, id “squalere” dicebatur. Sic in corporibus incultis squamosisque alta congeries sordium “squalor” appellabatur. Cuius significationis multo assiduoque usu totum id verbum ita contaminatum est, ut iam “squalor” de re alia nulla quam de solis inquinamentis dici coeperit.

[¶6] 7. Of the obedience of children to their parents; and quotations on this subject from the writings of the philosophers, in which it is inquired whether all a father's commands should be obeyed. IT is a frequent subject of discussion with philosophers, whether a father should always be obeyed, whatever the nature of his commands. As to this question writers On Duty, both Greeks and our own countrymen, have stated that there are three opinions to be noticed and considered, and these they have differentiated with great acuteness The first is, that all a father's commands must be obeyed; the second, that in some he is to be obeyed, in others not; the third, that it is not necessary to yield to and obey one's father in anything. Since at first sight this last opinion is altogether shameful, I shall begin by stating what has been said on that point. “A father's command,” they say, “is either right or wrong. If it is right, it is not to be obeyed because it is his order, but the thing must be done because it is right that it be done. If his command is wrong, surely that should on no account be done which ought not to be done.” Thus they arrive at the conclusion that a father's command should never be obeyed. But I have neither heard that this view has met with approval —for it is a mere quibble, both silly and foolish, as I shall presently show—nor can the opinion which we stated first, that all a father's commands are to be obeyed, be regarded as true and acceptable. For what if he shall command treason to one's country, a mother's murder, or some other base or impious deed? The intermediate view, therefore, has seemed best and safest, that some commands are to be obeyed and others not. But yet they say that commands which ought not to be obeyed must nevertheless be declined gently and respectfully, without excessive aversion or bitter recrimination, and rather left undone than spurned. But that conclusion from which it is inferred, as has been said above, that a father is never to be obeyed, is faulty, and may be refuted and disposed of as follows: All human actions are, as learned men have decided, either honourable or base. Whatever is inherently right or honourable, such as keeping faith, defending one's country, loving one's friend's, ought to be done whether a father commands it or not; but whatever is of the opposite nature, and is base and altogether evil, should not be done even at a father's order. Actions, however, which lie between these, and are called by the Greeks now me/sa, or “neutral,” and now a)dia/fora, or “indifferent,” such as going to war, tilling the fields, seeking office, pleading causes, marrying a wife, going when ordered, coming when called; since these and similar actions are in themselves neither honourable nor base, but are to be approved or disapproved exactly according to the manner in which we perform them: for this reason they believe that in every kind of action of this description a father should be obeyed; as for instance, if he should order his son to marry a wife or to plead for the accused. For since each of these acts, in its actual nature and of itself, is neither honourable nor base, if a father should command it, he ought to be obeyed. But if he should order his son to marry a woman of ill repute, infamous and criminal, or to speak in defence of a Catiline, a Tubulus, or a Publius Clodius, of course he ought not to be obeyed, since by the addition of a certain degree of evil these acts cease to be inherently neutral and indifferent. Hence the premise of those who say that “the commands of a father are either honourable or base” is incomplete, and it cannot be considered what the Greeks call “sound and regular disjunctive proposition.” For that disjunctive premise lacks the third member, “or are neither honourable nor base.” If this be added, the conclusion cannot be drawn that a father's command must never be obeyed.

> Latin: 7. De officio erga patres liberorum; deque ea re ex philosophiaephilosophies libris, in quibus scriptum quaesitumquequaesitnumque est an omnibus patris iussis obsequendum sit. QUAERI solitum est in philosophorum disceptatio nibus, an semper inque omnibus iussis patri parendum sit. Super ea re Graeci nostrique, qui De Officiis scripserunt, tres sententias esse quae spectandae considerandaeque sint tradiderunt easque subtilissime diiudicarunt. Earum una est: omnia quae pater imperat parendum; altera est: in quibusdam parendum, quibusdam non obsequendum; tertia est: nihil necesse esse patri obsequi et parere. Haec sententia quoniam primore aspectu nimis infamis est, super ea prius quae dicta sunt dicemus. “Aut recte,” inquiunt, “imperat pater aut perperam.” “Si recte imperat, non quia imperat parendum, sed quoniam id fieri ius est; si perperam, nequaquam scilicet faciendum quod fieri non oportet.” Deinde ita concludunt: “Numquam igitur est patri parendum quae imperat.” Set neque istam sententiam probari accepimus—argutiola quippe haec, sicuti mox ostendemus, frivola et inanis est—neque autem illa quam primo in loco diximus vera et proba videri potest, omnia esse quae pater iusserit parendum. Quid enim? si proditionem patriae, si matris necem, si alia quaedam imperabit turpia aut impia? Media igitur sententia optima atque tutissima visa est, quaedam esse parendum, quaedam non obsequendum. Sed ea tamen, quae obsequi non oportet, leniter et verecunde ac sine detestatione nimia sineque obprobratione acerba reprehensionis declinanda sensim et relinquenda esse dicunt quam respuenda. Conclusio vero illa qua colligitur, sicuti supra dictum est, nihil patri parendum, inperfecta est refutarique ac dilui sic potest: Omnia, quae in rebus humanis fiunt, ita ut docti censuerunt, aut honesta sunt aut turpia. Quae sua vi recta aut honesta sunt, ut fidem colere, patriam defendere, ut amicos diligere, ea fieri oportet, sive imperet pater sive non imperet; sed quae his contraria quaeque turpia, omnino iniqua sunt, ea ne si imperet quidem. Quae vero in medio sunt et a Graecis tum, μέσα tum ἀδιάφορα appellantur, ut in militiam ire, rus colere, honores capessere, causas defendere, uxorem ducere, ut iussum proficisci, ut accersitum venire, quoniam et haec et his similia per sese ipsa neque honesta sunt neque turpia, sed proinde ut a nobis aguntur, ita ipsis actionibus aut probanda fiunt aut reprehendenda: propterea in eiusmodi omnium rerum generibus patri parendum esse censent, veluti si uxorem ducere imperet aut causas pro reis dicere. Quod enim utrumque in genere ipso per sese neque honestum neque turpe est, idcirco, si pater iubeat, obsequendum est. Sed enim si imperet uxorem ducere infamem, propudiosam, criminosam, aut pro reo Catilina aliquo aut Tubulo aut P. Clodio causam dicere, non scilicet parendum, quoniam accedente aliquo turpitudinis numero desinunt esse per sese haec media atque indifferentia. Non ergo integra est propositio dicentium “aut honesta sunt, quae imperat pater, aut turpia,” neque ὑγιὲς et νόμιμον διεζευγμένον videri potest. Deest enim diiunctioni isti tertium: “aut neque honesta sunt neque turpia.” Quod si additur, non potest ita concludi: “numquam est igitur patri parendum.”

[¶7] 8. The unfairness of Plutarch's criticism of Epicurus' knowledge of the syllogism. PLUTARCH, in the second book of his essay On Homer, asserts that Epicurus made use of an incomplete, perverted and faulty syllogism, and he quotes Epicurus' own words: “Death is nothing to us, for what is dissolved is without perception, and what is without perception is nothing to us.” “Now Epicurus,” says Plutarch, "omitted what he ought to have stated as his major premise, that death is a dissolution of body and soul, and then, to prove something else, he goes on to use the very premise that he had omitted, as if it had been stated and conceded. But this syllogism," says Plutarch, “cannot advance, unless that premise be first presented.” What Plutarch wrote as to the form and sequence of a syllogism is true enough; for if you wish to argue and reason according to the teaching of the schools, you ought to say: “Death is the dissolution of soul and body; but what is dissolved is without perception; and what is without perception is nothing to us.” But we cannot suppose that Epicurus, being the man he was, omitted that part of the syllogism through ignorance, or that it was his intention to state a syllogism complete in all its members and limitations, as is done in the schools of the logicians; but since the separation of body and soul by death is self-evident, he of course did not think it necessary to call attention to what was perfectly obvious to everyone. For the same reason, too, he put the conclusion of the syllogism, not at the end, but at the beginning; for who does not see that this also was not due to inadvertence? In Plato too you will often find syllogisms in which the order prescribed in the schools is disregarded and inverted, with a kind of lofty disdain of criticism.

> Latin: 8. Quod parum aequa reprehensio Epicuri a Plutarcho facta sit in synlogismi disciplina. PlutarchusPLUTARCIIUS, secundo librorum quos De Homero composuit, inperfecte atque praepostere atque inscite synlogismo esse usum Epicurum dicit verbaque ipsa Epicuri ponit: Ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶ· τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἡμᾶς. “Nam praetermisit,” inquit, “quod in prima parte sumere debuit, τὸν θάνατον εἶναι ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος διάλυσιν, tum deinde eodem ipso,” “quod omiserat, quasi posito concessoque ad confirmandum aliud utitur.” “Progredi autem hic,” inquit, “synlogismus, nisi illo prius posito, non potest.” Vere hoc quidem Plutarchus de forma atque ordine synlogismi scripsit. Nam si, ut in disciplinis traditur, ita colligere et ratiocinari velis, sic dici oportet: Ὁ θάνατος ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος διάλυσις· τὸ δὲ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ· τὸ δὲ ἀναισθητοῦ οὑδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς. Sed Epicurus, cuiusmodi homost, non inscitia videtur partem istam synlogismi praetermisisse, neque id ei negotium fuit, synlogismum tamquam in scholis philosophorum cum suis numeris omnibus et cum suis finibus dicere, sed profecto, quia separatio animi et corporis in morte evidens est, non est ratus necessariam esse eius admonitionem, quod omnibus prosus erat obvium. Sicuti etiam, quod coniunctionem synlogismi non in fine posuit, set in principio; nam id quoque non inperite factum, quis non videt? Aput Platonem quoque multis in locis reperias synlogismos, repudiate conversoque ordine isto qui in docendo traditur, cum eleganti quadam reprehensionis contemptione positos esse.

[¶8] 9. How the same Plutarch, with obvious captiousness, criticized the use of a word by Epicurus. IN the same book, Plutarch also finds fault a second time with Epicurus for using an inappropriate word and giving it an incorrect meaning. Now Epicurus wrote as follows: “The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of everything that pains.” Plutarch declares that he ought not to have said “of everything that pains,” but “of everything that is painful”; for it is the removal of pain, he explains, that should be indicated, not of that which causes pain. In bringing this charge against Epicurus Plutarch is “word-chasing” with excessive minuteness and almost with frigidity; for far from hunting up such verbal meticulousness and such refinements of diction, Epicurus hunts them down.

> Latin: 9. Quod idem Plutarchus evidenti calumnia verbum ab Epicuro dictum insectatus sit. IN eodem libro idem Plutarchus eundem Epicurum reprehendit, quod verbo usus sit parum proprio et alienae significationis. Ita enim scripsit Epicurus: Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους τῶν ἡδονῶν ἡ παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγοῦντος ὑπεξαίρεσις. “Non,” inquit, “παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγοῦντος, sed παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγεινοῦ dicere oportuit;” “detractio enim significandi est doloris, non,” inquit, “dolentis.” Nimis minute ac prope etiam subfrigide Plutarchus in Epicuro accusando λεξιθηρεῖ Has enim curas vocum verborumqueverborurmque elegantias non modo non sectatur Epicurus, sed etiam insectatur.

[¶9] 10. The meaning of favisae Capitolinae; and what Marcus Varro replied to Servius Sulpicius, who asked him about that term. SERVIUS SULPICIUS, an authority on civil law and a man well versed in letters, wrote to Marcus Varro and asked him to explain the meaning of a term which was used in the records of the censors; the term in question was favisae Capitolinae. Varro wrote in reply that he recalled that Quintus Catulus, when in charge of the restoration of the Capitol, had said that it had been his desire to lower the area Capitolina, in order that the ascent to the temple might have more steps and that the podium might be higher, to correspond with the elevation and size of the pediment; but that he had been unable to carry out his plan because the favisae had prevented. These, he said, were certain underground chambers and cisterns in the area, in which it was the custom to store ancient statues that had fallen from the temple, and some other consecrated objects from among the votive offerings. And then Varro goes on to say in the same letter, that he had never found any explanation of the term favisae in literature, but that Quintus Valerius Soranus used to assert that what we called by their Greek name thesauri (treasuries) the early Latins termed favisae, their reason being that there was deposited in them, not uncoined copper and silver, but stamped and minted money. His theory therefore was, he said, that the second letter had dropped out of the word flavisae, and that certain chambers and pits, which the attendants of the Capitol used for the preservation of old and sacred objects, were called favisae.

> Latin: 10. Quid sint favisae Capitolinae; et quid super eo verbo M. Varro Servio Sulpicio quaerenti rescripserit. SERVIUS SULPICIUS, iurisiunis civilis auctor, vir bene litteratus, scripsit ad M. Varronem rogavitque ut rescriberet quid significaret verbum quod in censoriis libris scriptum esset. Id erat verbum “favisae Capitolinae.” Varro rescripsit in memoriamemorial sibi esse quod Q. Catulus curator restituendi Capitolii dixisset, voluisse se aream Capitolinam deprimere, ut pluribus gradibus in aedem conscenderetur suggestusque pro fastigii magnitudine altior fieret, sed facere id non quisse, quoniam “favisae” impedissent. Id esse cellas quasdam et cisternas quae in area sub terra essent, ubi reponi solerent signa vetera quae ex eo templo collapsa essent, et alia quaedam religiosa e donis consecratis. Ac deinde eadem epistula negat quidem se in litteris invenisse cur “favisae” dictae sint, sed Q. Valerium Soranum solitum dicere ait, quos “thesauros” Graeco nomine appellaremus, priscos Latinos “flavisas” dixisse, quod in eos non rude aes argentumque, sed flata signataque pecunia conderetur. Coniectare igitur se detractam esse ex eo verbo secundam litteram et “favisas” esse dictas cellas quasdam et specus, quibus aeditui Capitolii uterentur ad custodiendas res veteres religiosas.

[¶10] 11. Numerous important details about Sicinius Dentatus, the distinguished warrior. WE read in the annals that Lucius Sicinius Dentatus, who was tribune of the commons in the consulship of Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius, was a warrior of incredible energy; that he won a name for his exceeding great valour, and was called the Roman Achilles. It is said that he fought with the enemy in one hundred and twenty battles, and had not a scar on his back, but forty-five in front; that golden crowns were given him eight times, the siege crown once, mural crowns three times, and civic crowns fourteen times; that eighty-three neck-chains were awarded him, more than one hundred and sixty armlets, and eighteen spears; he was presented besides with twenty-five decorations; he had a number of spoils of war, many of which were won in single combat; he took part with his generals in nine triumphal processions.

> Latin: 11. De Sicinio Dentato egregio bellatore multa memoratu digna. L. SICINIUM DENTATUM, qui tribunus plebi fuit Sp. Tarpeio, A. Aternio consulibus, scriptum est in libris annalibus plus quam credi debeatdefeat strenuum bellatorem fuisse nomenque ei factum ob ingentem fortitudinem appellatumque esse Achillem Romanum. Is pugnasse in hostem dicitur centum et viginti proeliis, cicatricem aversam nullam, adversas quinque et quadraginta tulisse, coronis donatus esse aureis octo, obsidionali una, muralibus tribus, civicis quattuordecim, torquibus tribus et octoginta, armillis plus centum sexaginta, hastis duodeviginti; phaleris item donatus est quinquies viciesque; spolia militaria habuit multiiuga, in his provocatoria pleraque; triumphavit cum imperatoribus suis triumphos novem.

[¶11] 12. A law of Solon, the result of careful thought and consideration, which at first sight seems unfair and unjust, but on close examination is found to be altogether helpful and salutary. AMONG those very early laws of Solon which were inscribed upon wooden tablets at Athens, and which, promulgated by him, the Athenians ratified by penalties and oaths, to ensure their permanence, Aristotle says that there was one to this effect: “If because of strife and disagreement civil dissension shall ensue and a division of the people into two parties, and if for that reason each side, led by their angry feelings, shall take up arms and fight, then if anyone at that time, and in such a condition of civil discord, shall not ally himself with one or the other faction, but by himself and apart shall hold aloof from the common calamity of the State, let hint be deprived of his home, his country, and all his property, and be an exile and an outlaw.” When I read this law of Solon, who was a man of extraordinary wisdom, I was at first filled with something like great amazement, and I asked myself why it was that those who had held themselves aloof from dissension and civil strife were thought to be deserving of punishment. Then those who had profoundly and thoroughly studied the purpose and meaning of the law declared that it was designed, not to increase, but to terminate, dissension. And that is exactly so. For if all good men, who have been unequal to checking the dissension at the outset, do not abandon the aroused and frenzied people, but divide and ally themselves with one or the other faction, then the result will be, that when they have become members of the two opposing parties, and, being men of more than ordinary influence, have begun to guide and direct those parties, harmony can best be restored and established through the efforts of such men, controlling and soothing as they will the members of their respective factions, and desiring to reconcile rather than destroy their opponents. The philosopher Favorinus thought that this same course ought to be adopted also with brothers, or with friends, who are at odds; that is, that those who are neutral and kindly disposed towards both parties, if they have had little influence in bringing about a reconciliation because they have not made their friendly feelings evident, should then take sides, some one and some the other, and through this manifestation of devotion pave the way for restoring harmony. “But as it is,” said he, “most of the friends of both parties make a merit of abandoning the two disputants, leaving them to the tender mercies of ill-disposed or greedy advisers, who, animated by hatred or by avarice, add fuel to their strife and inflame their passions.”

> Latin: 12. Considerata perpensaque lex quaedam Solonis, species habens primorempriniorem iniquae iniustaeque legis, sed ad usum et emolumentum salubritatis penitus reperta. IN legibus Solonis illis antiquissimis quae Athenis axibus ligneis incisae sunt quasque latas ab eo Athenienses, ut sempiternae manerent, poenis et religionibus sanxerunt, legem esse Aristoteles refert scriptam ad hanc sententiam: “Si ob discordiam dissensionemque seditio atque discessio populi in duas partes fiet et ob eamearn causam irritatis animis utrimque arma capientur pugnabiturque, tum qui in eo tempore in eoque casu civilis discordiae non alterutrae parti sese adiunxerit, sed solitarius separatusque a communi malo civitatis secesserit, is domodonio, patria fortunisque omnibus careto, exul extorrisque esto.” Cum hanc legem Solonis, singulari sapientia praediti, legissemus, tenuit nos gravis quaedam in principio admiratio, requirens quam ob causam dignos esse poena existimaverit, qui se procul a seditione et civili pugna removissent. Tum, qui penitus atque alte usum ac sententiam legis introspexerant, non ad augendam, sed ad desinendam seditionem legem hanchanec esse dicebant. Et res prorsum se sic habent. Nam si boni omnes, qui in principio coercendae seditioni impares fuerint, populum percitum et amentem non deseruerint, ad alterutram partem dividi sese adiunxerint, tum eveniet, ut cum socii partis seorsum utriusque fuerint eaeque partes ab his, ut maioris auctoritatis viris, temperari ac regi coeperint, concordia per eos potissimum restitui conciliarique possit, dum et suos, apud quos sunt, regunt atque mitificant et aduersariosadversaries sanatos magis cupiunt quam perditos. Hoc idem Favorinus philosophus inter fratres quoque aut amicos dissidentis oportere fieri censebat, ut qui in medio sunt utriusque partis benivoli, si in concordia adnitenda parum auctoritatis quasi ambigui amici habuerint, tum alteri in alteram partem discedant ac per id meritum viam sibi ad utriusque concordiam muniant. “Nunc autem plerique,” inquit, “partis utriusque amici, quasi probe faciant, duos litigantes destituunt et relinquunt deduntque eos advocatis malivolis aut avaris, qui lites animasque eorum inflamment aut odii studio aut lucri.”

[¶12] 13. That the early writers used liberi in the plural number even of a single son or daughter. The early orators and writers of history or of poetry called even one son or daughter liberi, using the plural. And I have not only noticed this usage at various times in the works of several other of the older writers, but I just now ran across it in the fifth book of Sempronius Asellio's History. This Asellio was military tribune under Publius Scipio Africanus at Numantia and wrote a detailed account of the events in whose action he himself took part. His words about Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the commons, at the time when he was killed on the Capitol, are as follows: “For whenever Gracchus left home, he was never accompanied by less than three or four thousand men.” And farther on he wrote thus of the same Gracchus: “He began to beg that they would at least defend him and his children (liberi); and then he ordered that the one male child which he had at that time should be brought out, and almost in tears commended him to the protection of the people.”

> Latin: 13. Liberos in multitudinis numero etiam unum filium filiamve veteres dixisse. ANTIQUI oratores historiaeque aut carminum scriptores etiam unum filium filiamve “liberos” multitudinis numero appellarunt. Idque nos, cum in complurium veterum libris scriptum aliquotiens aduerterimusadverterimnus, nunc quoque in libro Sempronii Asellionis Rerum Gestarum quinto ita esse positum offendimus. Is Asellio sub P. Scipione Africano tribunus militum ad Numantiam fuit resque eas quibus gerendis ipse interfuit conscripsit. Eius verba de Tiberio Graccho, tribuno pl., quo in tempore interfectus in Capitolio est, haec sunt: “Nam Gracchus domo cum proficiscebatur, numquam minus terna aut quaterna milia hominum sequebantur.” Atque inde infra de eodem Graccho ita scripsit: “Orare coepit id quidem, ut se defenderent liberosque suos, eumque quem virile secus tum in eo tempore habebat produci iussit populoque commendavit prope flens.”

## 6. Book II · chapters 14–23

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/6/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/6/#p-N

[¶0] 14. That Marcus Cato, in the speech entitled Against the Exile Tiberius, says stitisses vadimonium with an i, and not stetisses; and the explanation of that word. IN an old copy of the speech of Marcus Cato, which is entitled, Against the Exile Tiberius, we find the following words: “What if with veiled head you had kept your recognizance?” Cato indeed wrote stitisses, correctly; but revisers have boldly and falsely written an e and put stelisses in all the editions, on the ground that stitisses is an unmeaning and worthless reading. Nay, it is rather they themselves that are ignorant and worthless, in not knowing that Cato wrote stitisses because sisteretur is used of recognizance, not staretur.

> Latin: 14. Quod M. Cato, in libro qui inscriptus est Contra Tiberium Exulem, “stitisses vadimonium” per i litteram dicit, non “stetisses”; eiusque verbi ratio reddita. IN libro vetere M. Catonis, qui inscribitur Contra TiberiumTiberiunm Exulem, scriptum sic erat: “Quid si vadimonium capite obvoluto stitisses?” Recte quidem ille “stitisses” scripsit; sed falsa et audaci emendatione editores “e” scripto per libros “stetisses” fecerunt, tamquam “stitisses” vanum et nihili verbum esset. Quin potius ipsi nequam et nihili sunt, qui ignorant “stitisses” dictum a Catone, quoniam “sisteretur” vadimonium, non “staretur.”

[¶1] 15. To what extent in ancient days it was to old age in particular that high honours were paid; and why it was that later those same honours were extended to husbands and fathers; and in that connection some provisions of the seventh section of the Julian law. AMONG the earliest Romans, as a rule, neither birth nor wealth was more highly honoured than age, but older men were reverenced by their juniors almost like gods and like their own parents, and everywhere and in every kind of honour they were regarded as first and of prior right. From a dinner-party, too, older men were escorted home by younger men, as we read in the records of the past, a custom which, as tradition has it, the Romans took over from the Lacedaemonians, by whom, in accordance with the laws of Lycurgus, greater honour on all occasions was paid to greater age. But after it came to be realised that progeny were a necessity for the State, and there was occasion to add to the productivity of the people by premiums and other inducements, then in certain respects greater deference was shown to men who had a wife, and to those who had children, than to older men who had neither wives nor children. Thus in chapter seven of the Julian law priority in assuming the emblems of power is given, not to the elder of the consuls, but to him who either has more children tinder his control than his colleague, or has lost them in war. But if both have an equal number of children, the one who has a wife, or is eligible for marriage, is preferred. If, however, both are married and are fathers of the same number of children, then the standard of honour of early times is restored, and the elder is first to assume the rods. But when both consuls are without wives and have the same number of sons, or are husbands but have no children, there is no provision in that law as to age. However, I hear that it was usual for those who had legal priority to yield the rods for the first month to colleagues who were either considerably older than they, or of much higher rank, or who were entering upon a second consulship.

> Latin: 15. Quod antiquitus aetati senectae potissimum habiti sint ampli honores; et cur postea ad maritos et ad patres idem isti honores delati sint; atque ibi de capite quaedam legis Iuliae septimo. APUD antiquissimos Romanorum neque generi neque pecuniae praestantior honos tribui quam aetati solitus, maioresque natu a minoribus colebantur ad deum prope et parentum vicem atque omni in loco inque omni specie honoris priores potioresque habiti. A convivio quoque, ut scriptum in antiquitatibus est, seniores a iunioribus domum deducebantur, eumque morem accepisse Romanos a Lacedaemoniis traditum est, apud quos Lycurgi legibus maior omnium rerum honos aetati maiori habebatur. Sed postquam suboles civitati necessaria visa est et ad prolem populi frequentandam praemiis atque invitamentis usus fuit, tum antelati quibusdam in rebus qui uxorem quique liberos haberent senioribus neque liberos neque uxores habentibus. Sicuti kapite VII. legis Iuliaeluliae priori ex consulibus fasces sumendi potestas fit, non qui pluris annos natus est, sed qui pluris liberos quam collega aut in sua potestate habet aut bello amisit. Sed si par utrique numerus liberorum est, maritus aut qui in numero maritorum est praefertur; si vero ambo et mariti et patres totidem liberorum sunt, tum ille pristinus honos instauratur et qui maior natu est prior fasces sumit. Super his autem, qui aut caelibes ambo sunt et parem numerum filiorum habent aut mariti sunt et liberos non habent, nihil scriptum in ea lege de aetate est. Solitos tamen audio, qui lege potiores essent fasces primi mensis collegis concedere aut longe aetate prioribus aut nobilioribus multo aut secundum consulatum ineuntibus.

[¶2] 16. Sulpicius Apollinaris' criticism of Caesellius Vindex for his explanation of a passage in Virgil. VIRGIL has the following lines in the sixth book:
Yon princeling, thou beholdest leaning there
Upon a bloodless lance, shall next emerge
Into the realms of day. He is the first
Of half-Italian strain, thy last-born heir,
To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,
Called Silvius, a royal Alban name
(Of sylvan birth and sylvan nurture he),
A king himself and sire of kings to come,
By whom our race in Alba Longa reign. It appeared to Caesellius that there was utter inconsistency between
thy last-born heir
and
To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,
Of sylvan birth.
For if, as is shown by the testimony of almost all the annals, this Silvius was born after the death of Aeneas, and for that reason was given the forename Postumus, with what propriety does Virgil add:
To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,
Of sylvan birth?
For these words would seem to imply that while Aeneas was still living, but was already an old man, a son Silvius was born to him and was reared. Therefore Caesellius, in his Notes on Early Readings, expressed the opinion that the meaning of the words was as follows: “Postuma proles,” said he, “does not mean a child born after the death of his father, but the one who was born last; this applies to Silvius, who was born late and after the usual time, when Aeneas was already an old man.” But Caesellius names no adequate authority for this version, while that Silvius was born, as I have said, after Aeneas' death, has ample testimony. Therefore Sulpicius Apollinaris, among other criticisms of Caesellius, notes this statement of his as an error, and says that the cause of the error is the phrase quem tibi longaevo. “Longaevo,” he says, “does not mean 'when old,' for that is contrary to historical truth, but rather ' admitted into a life that is now long and unending, and made immortal.' For Anchises, who says this to his son, knew that after Aeneas had ended his life among men he would be immortal and a local deity, and enjoy a long and everlasting existence.” Thus Apollinaris, ingeniously enough. But yet a “long life” is one thing, and an “unending life” another, and the gods are not called “of great age,” but “immortal.”

> Latin: 16. Quod Caesellius Vindex a Sulpicio Apollinari reprehensus est in sensus Vergiliani enarratione. Vergilii versus sunt e libro sexto:
Ille, vides, pura iuvenis qui nititur hasta,
Proxima sorte tenet lucis loca. Primus ad auras
Aetherias Italo commixtus sanguine surget,
Silvius, Albanum nomen, tua postuma proles,
Quem tibi longaevo serum Lavinia coniunx
Educet silvis regem regumque parentem,
Unde genus Longa nostrum dominabitur Alba, Videbantur haec nequaquam convenire:
tua postuma proles,
et:
Quem tibi longaevo serum Lavinia coniunx
Educet silvis. Nam si hic Silvius, ita ut in omnium ferme annalium monumentis scriptum est, post mortem Aeneae natus est ob eamque causam praenomen ei Postumo fuit, qua ratione subiectum est:
Quem tibi longaevo serum Lavinia coniunx
Educet silvis? Haec enim verba significare videri possunt, Aenea vivo ac iam sene, natum ei Silvium et educatum. Itaque hanc sententiam esse verborum istorum Caesellius opinatus in Commentario Lectionum Antiquarum: “Postuma,” inquit, “proles non eum significat qui patre mortuo, sed qui postremo loco natus est, sicuti Silvius, qui Aenea iam sene tardo seroque partu est editus.” Sed huius historiae auctorem idoneum nullum nominat; Silvium autem post Aeneae mortem, sicuti diximus, natum esse multi tradiderunt. Idcirco Apollinaris Sulpicius, inter cetera in quis Caesellium reprehenditrepreliendit, hoc quoque eius quasi erratum animadvertit errorisque istius hanc esse causam dixit, quod scriptum ita sit “quem tibi longaevo.” “‘Longaevo’” inquit, “non seni significat, hoc enim est contra historiae fidem, sed in longum iam aevum et perpetuum recepto immortalique facto.” “Anchises enim, qui haec ad filium dicit, sciebat eum, cum hominum vita discessisset, immortalem atque indigetem futurum et longo perpetuoque aevo potiturum.” Hoc sane Apollinaris argute. Sed aliud tamen est “longum aevum,” aliud “perpetuum,” neque dii “longaevi” appellantur, sed “inmortales.”

[¶3] 17. Marcus Cicero's observations on the nature of certain prepositions; to which is added a discussion of the particular matter which Cicero had observed. AFTER careful observation Marcus Tullius noted that the prepositions in and con, when prefixed to nouns and verbs, are lengthened and prolonged when they are followed by the initial letters of sapiens and felix; but that in all other instances they are pronounced short. Cicero's words are: “Indeed, what can be more elegant than this, which does not come about from a natural law, but in accordance with a kind of usage? we pronounce the first vowel in indoctus short, in insanus long; in immanis short, in infelix long; in brief, in compound words in which the first letters are those which begin sapiens and felix the prefix is pronounced long, in all others short; thus we have conposuit but cōnsuevit, cŏncrepuit but cōnficit. Consult the rules of grammar and they will censure your usage; refer the matter to your ears and they will approve. Ask why it is so; they will say that it pleases them. And language ought to gratify the pleasure of the ear.” In these words of which Cicero spoke it is clear that the principle is one of euphony, but what are we to say of the preposition pro? For although it is often shortened or lengthened, yet it does not conform to this rule of Marcus Tullius. For it is not always lengthened when it is followed by the first letter of the word fecit, which Cicero says has the effect of lengthening the prepositions in and con. For we pronounce prŏficisci, prŏfugere, prŏfundere, prŏfannu and prŏfestumn with the first vowel short, but prōferre, prōfligare and prōficere with that syllable long. Why is it then that this letter, which, according to Cicero's observation, has the effect of lengthening, does not have the same effect by reason of rule or of euphony in all words of the same kind, but lengthens the vowel in one word and shortens it in another. Nor, as a matter of fact, is the particle con lengthened only when followed by that letter which Cicero mentioned: for both Cato and Sallust say “faenoribus copertus est.” Moreover cōligatus and cōnexus are pronounced long. But after all, in these cases which I have cited one can see that this particle is lengthened because the letter n is dropped; for the loss of a letter is compensated by the lengthening of the syllable. This principle is observed also in the word cōgo; and it is no contradiction that we pronounce cŏegi short; for this form cannot be derived from cōgo without violation of the principle of analogy.

> Latin: 17. CuiusmodiCuiusnlodi esse naturamnaturaim quarundam praepositionum M. Cicero animadverterit; disceptatumque ibi super eo ipso quod Cicero observaverat. OBSERVATE curioseque animadvertit M. Tullius “in” et “con” praepositiones verbis aut vocabulis praepositas tunc produci atque protendi, cum litterae sequerentur quae primae sunt in “sapiente” atque “felice,” in alis autem omnibus correpte pronuntiari. Verba Ciceronis haec sunt: “Quid vero hoc elegantius, quod non fit natura, sed quodam instituto? ‘Indoctus’ dicimus brevi prima littera, ‘insanu.’ producta, ‘immanis’ brevi, ‘infelix’ longa et, ne multis, quibus in verbis hae primae litterae sunt quae in ‘sapiente’ atque ‘felice,’ producte dicuntur, in ceteris omnibus breviter; itemque ‘conposuit,’ ‘consuevit,’ ‘concrepuit,’ ‘confecit.’ Consule veritatem, reprehendet; refer ad auris, probabunt; quaere cur ita sit? dicent iuvare. Voluptati autem aurium morigerari debet oratio.” Manifesta quidem ratio suavitatis est in his vocibus de quibus Cicero locutus est. Sed quid dicemus de praepositione “pro,” quae, cum produci et corripi soleat, observationem hanc tamen M. Tullii aspernata est? Non enim semper producitur, cum sequitur ea littera quae prima est in verbo “fecit,” quam Cicero hanc habere vim significat ut propter eam rem “in” et “con” praepositiones producantur. Nam “proficisci” et “profugere” et “profundere” et “profanum” et “profestumprofesturn” correpte dicimus, “proferre” “autem et profligareprofligatee” et “proficere” producte. Cur igitur ea littera, quam Cicero productionis causam facere observavit, non in omnibus consimilibus eandem vim aut rationis aut suavitatis tenet, sed aliam vocem produci facit, aliam corripi? Neque vero “con” particula tum solum producitur, cum ea littera, de qua Cicero dixit, insequitur. Nam et Cato et Sallustius: “faenoribus,” inquiunt, “copertus est.” Praeterea “coligatus” et “conexus” producte dicitur. Sed tamen videri potest in his quae posui, ob eamearn causam particula haec produci, quoniam eliditur ex ea n littera; nam detrimentum litterae productione syllabae compensatur. Quod quidem etiam in eo servatur, quod est “cogo”; neque repugnat quod “coegi” correpte dicimus; non enim salva id ἀναλογίᾳ dicitur a verbo, quod est “cogo.”

[¶4] 18. That Phaedo the Socratic was a slave; and that several others also were of that condition. PHAEDO of Elis belonged to that famous Socratic band and was on terms of close intimacy with Socrates and Plato. His name was given by Plato to that inspired dialogue of his on the immortality of the soul. This Phaedo, though a slave, was of noble person and intellect, and according to some writers, in his boyhood was driven to prostitution by his master, who was a pander. We are told that Cebes the Socratic, at Socrates' earnest request, bought Phaedo and gave him the opportunity of studying philosophy. And he afterwards became a distinguished philosopher, whose very tasteful discourses on Socrates are in circulation. There were not a few other slaves too who afterwards became famous philosophers, among them that Menippus whose works Marcus Varro emulated in those satires which others call “Cynic,” but he himself, “Menippean.” Besides these, Pompylus, the slave of the Peripatetic Theophrastus, and the slave of the Stoic Zeno who was called Persaeus, and the slave of Epicurus whose name was Mys, were philosophers of repute. Diogenes the Cynic also served as a slave, but he was a freeborn man, who was sold into slavery. When Xeniades of Corinth wished to buy him and asked whether he knew any trade, Diogenes replied: “I know how to govern free men.” Then Xeniades, in admiration of his answer, bought him, set him free, and entrusting to him his own children, said: “Take my children to govern.” But as to the well-known philosopher Epictetus, the fact that he too was a slave is too fresh in our memory to need to be committed to writing, as if it had been forgotten.

> Latin: 18. Quod Phaedon Socraticus servus fuit; quodque item alii complusculi servitutem servierunt. PHAEDON Elidensis ex cohorte illa Socratica fuit Socratique et Platoni per fuit familiaris. Eius nomini Plato librum illum divinum de immortalitate animae dedit. Is Phaedon servus fuit forma atque ingenio liberali et, ut quidam scripserunt, a lenone domino puer ad merendum coactus. Eum Cebes Socraticus hortante Socrate emisse dicitur habuisseque in philosophiae disciplinis. Atque is postea philosophus inlustris fuit sermonesque eius de Socrate admodum elegantes leguntur. Alii quoque non pauci servi fuerunt qui post philosophi clari extiterunt. Ex quibus ille Menippus fuit cuius libros M. Varro in saturissatiris aemulatus est, quas alii “Cynicas,” ipse appellat “Menippeas.” Sed et Theophrasti Peripatetici servus Pompylus et Zenonis Stoici servus, qui Persaeus vocatus est, et Epicuri, cui Mys nomen fuit, philosophi non incelebres vixerunt. Diogenes etiam Cynicus servitutem servivit. Sed is ex libertate in servitutem venum ierat. Quem cum emere vellet Ξενιάδης Κορίνθιος et ecquid artificii novisset esset percontatus: “Novi,” inquit Diogenes, “hominibus liberis imperare.” Tum Ξενιάδης responsum eius demiratus emit et manu emisit filiosque suos ei tradens: “Accipe,” inquit, “liberos meos quibus imperes.” De Epicteto autem philosopho nobili, quod is quoque servus fuit recentior est memoria quam ut scribi quasi oblitteratum debuerit.

[¶5] 19. On the nature of the verb rescire; and its true and distinctive meaning. I HAVE observed that the verb rescire has a peculiar force, which is not in accord with the general meaning of other words compounded with that same preposition; for we do not use rescire in the same way that we do rescribere (write in reply), relegere (reread), restituere (restore),... and substituere (put in the place of); but rescire is properly said of one who learns of something that is hidden, or unlooked for and unexpected. But why the particle re has this special force in this one word alone, I for my part am still inquiring. For I have never yet found that rescivi or rescire was used by those who were careful in their diction, otherwise than of things which were purposely concealed, or happened contrary to anticipation and expectation; although scire itself is used of everything alike, whether favourable or unfavourable, unexpected or expected. Thus Naevius in the Triphallus wrote:
If ever I discover (rescivero) that my son
Has borrowed money for a love affair,
Straightway I'll put you where you'll spit no more.
Claudius Quadrigarius in the first book of his Annals says: “When the Lucanians discovered (resciverunt ) that they had been deceived and tricked.” And again in the same book Quadrigarius uses that word of something sad and unexpected: “When this became known to the relatives (rescierunt provinqui) of the hostages, who, as I have pointed out above, had been delivered to Pontius, their parents and relatives rushed into the street with hair in disarray.” Marcus Cato writes in the fourth book of the Origins: “Then next day the dictator orders the master of the horse to be summoned: I will send you, if you wish, with the cavalry.' It is too late,' said the master of the horse, 'they have found it out already (rescicere).'”

> Latin: 19. “Rescire” verbum quid sit; et quam habeat veram atque propriam significationem. VERBUM “rescire” observavimus vim habere propriam quandam, non ex communi significatione ceterorum verborum quibus eadem praepositio imponitur; neque ut “rescribere,” “relegere,” “restituere” … substituere dicimus, itidem dicimus “rescire”; nam qui factum aliquod occultius aut inopinatum insperatumque cognoscit, is dicitur proprie “rescire.” Cur autem in hoc uno verbo “re” particula huius sententiae vim habeat, equidem adhuc quaero. Aliter enim dictum esse “rescivi” aut “rescire” apud eos qui diligenter locuti sunt, nondum invenimus quam super is rebus quae aut consulto consilio latuerint aut contra spem opinionemve usu venerint; quamquam ipsum “scire” de omnibus communiter rebus dicatur vel adversis vel prosperis vel insperatis vel expectatis. Naevius in Triphallo ita scripsit:
Sive únquam quicquam filium rescívero,
Argéntum amoris caúsa sumpse mútuum,
Extémplo illo te dúcam ubi non déspuas. Claudius Quadrigarius in primo Annali: “Ea Lucani ubi resciverunt, sibi per fallacias verba data esse.” Item Quadrigarius in eodem libro in re tristi et inopinata verbo isto ita utitur: “Id ubi rescierunt propinqui obsidum, quos Pontio traditos supra demonstravimus, eorum parentes cumcunl propinquis capillo passo in viam provolarunt.” M. Cato in quarto originumOriginun:“Deinde dictator iubet postridie magistrum equitum arcessi: ‘mittam te, si vis, cum equitibus.’ ‘Sero est,’ inquit magister equitum, ‘iam rescivere.’”

[¶6] 20. That for what we commonly call virvaria the earlier writers did not use that term; and what Publius Scipio used for this word in his speech to the people, and afterwards Marcus Varro in his work On Farming. IN the third book of his treatise On Farming, Marcus Varro says that the name leporaria is given to certain enclosures, now called vivaria, in which wild animals are kept alive and fed. I have appended Varro's own words: “There are three means of keeping animals on the farm—bird houses, leporaria (warrens), and fish-ponds. I am now using the term ornithones of all kinds of birds that are ordinarily kept within the walls of the farmhouse. Leporaria I wish you to understand, not in the sense in which our remote ancestors used the word, of places in which only hares are kept, but of all enclosures which are connected with a farm-house and contain live animals that are fed.” Farther on in the same book Varro writes: “When you bought the farm at Tusculum from Marcus Piso, there were many wild boars in the leporarium.” But the word vivaria, which the common people now use—the Greek para\de/isoi and Varro's leporaria—I do not recall meeting anywhere in the older literature. But as to the word roboraria, which we find in the writings of Scipio, who used the purest diction of any man of his time, I have heard several learned men at Rome assert that this means what we call vivaria and that the name came from the “oaken” planks of which the enclosures were made, a kind of enclosure which we see in many places in Italy. This is the passage from Scipio's fifth oration Against Claudius Asellus: “When he had seen the highly-cultivated fields and well-kept farmhouses, he ordered them to set up a measuring rod on the highest spot in that district; and from there to build a straight road, in some places through the midst of vineyards, in others through the roborarium and the fish-pond, in still others through the farm buildings.” Thus we see that to pools or ponds of water in which live fish are kept in confinement, they gave their own appropriate name of piscinae, or “fishponds.” Apiaria too is the word commonly used of places in which bee-hives are set; but I recall almost no one of those who have spoken correctly who has used that word either in writing or speaking. But Marcus Varro, in the third book of his treatise On Farming, remarks: “This is the way to make melissw=nes, which some call mellaria, or 'places for storing honey.'” But this word which Varro used is Greek; for they say melissw=nes, just as they do a)mpelw=nes (vineyards) and dafnw=nes (laurel groves).

> Latin: 20. Quae volgo dicuntur “vivaria,” id vocabulum veteres non dixisse; et quid pro eo P. Scipio in oratione ad populum, quid postea M. Varro in librislilbris De Re Rustica dixerit. “VIVARIA,” quae nunc dicuntur saepta quaedam loca, in quibus ferae vivae pascuntur, M. Varro in libro De Re Rustica III. dicit “leporaria” appellari. Verba Varronis subieci: “Villaticae pastionis genera sunt tria, ornithones, leporaria, piscinae. Nunc ornithonas dico omnium alitum quae intra parietes villaevillage solent pasci. Leporaria te accipere volo, non ea quae tritavi nostri dicebant, ubi soli lepores sint, sed omnia saepta adficta villae quae sunt et habent inclusa animalia quae pascuntur.” Is item infra eodem in libro ita scribit: “Cum emisti fundum Tusculanum a M. Pisone, in leporario apri multi fuere.” “Vivaria” autem quae nunc vulgus dicit—quos παραδείσους Graeci appellant, quae “leporaria” Varro dicit—haut usquam memini apud vetustiores scriptum. Sed quod apud Scipionem, omnium aetatis suae purissime locutum, legimuslegimuns “roboraria,” aliquot Romae doctosdoctorss viros dicere audivi id significare, quod nos “vivaria” dicimus, appellataqueapplellataque esse a tabulistabulia roboreis, quibus saepta essent; quod genus saeptorumsaeptorun vidimus in Italia locis plerisque. Verba ex oration eius Contra Claudium Asellum quinta haechace sunt: “Ubi agros optime cultos atque villas expolitissimas vidisset, in his regionibus excelsissimo loco grumam statuere aiebat; inde corrigere viam, aliis per vineas medias, aliis per roborariumroborariuni atque piscinam, aliis per villamvillaim.” Lacus vero aut stagna quae piscibus vivis coercentur clausa, suo atque proprio nomine “piscinas” nominaverunt. “Apiaria” quoque vulgus dicit loca in quibus siti sunt alvei apum; sed neminem ferme qui incorrupte locuti sunt aut scripsisse memini aut dixisse. M. autem Varro in libro De Re Rustica tertio: “Μελις- σῶνας,” inquit, “ita facere oportet, quae quidam ‘mellaria’ appellant.” Sed hoc verbum quo Varro usus est Graecum est; nam μελισσῶνες ita dicuntur, ut ἀμπελῶνες et δαφνῶνες.

[¶7] 21. About the constellation which the Greeks call a(/maca and the Romans septentriones; and as to the origin and meaning of both those words. SEVERAL of us, Greeks and Romans, who were pursuing the same studies, were crossing in the same boat from Aegina to the Piraeus. It was night, the sea was calm, the time summer, and the sky bright and clear. So we all sat together in the stern and watched the brilliant stars. Then those of our company who were acquainted with Grecian lore discussed with learning and acumen such questions as these: what the a(/maca, or “Wain,” was, and what Boötes, which was the Great, and which the Little Bear and why they were so called; in what direction that constellation moved in the course of the advancing night, and why Homer says that this is the only constellation that does not set, in view of the fact that there are some other stars that do not set. Thereupon I turned to our compatriots and said: “Why don't you barbarians tell me why we give the name of septentriones to what the Greeks call a(/maca. Now ' because we see seven stars' is not a sufficient answer, but I desire to be informed at some length,” said I, “of the meaning of the whole idea which we express by the word septentriones.” Then one of them, who had devoted himself to ancient literature and antiquities, replied: "The common run of grammarians think that the word septentriones is derived solely from the number of stars. For they declare that triones of itself has no meaning, but is a mere addition to the word; just as in our word quinquatrus, so called because five is the number of days after the Ides, atrus means nothing. But for my part, I agree with Lucius Aelius and Marcus Varro, who wrote that oxen were called triones, a rustic term it is true, as if they were terriones, that is to say, adapted to nominibus regionibusque docere nos ipse vellet, ploughing and cultivating the earth. Therefore this constellation, which the early Greeks called a(/maca merely from its form and position, because it seemed to resemble a wagon, the early men also of our country called septentriones, from oxen yoked together, that is, seven stars by which yoked oxen (triones) seem to be represented. After giving this opinion, Varro further added," said he, “that he suspected that these seven stars were called triones rather for the reason that they are so situated that every group of three neighbouring stars forms a triangle, that is to say, a three-sided figure.” Of these two reasons which he gave, the latter seemed the neater and the more ingenious; for as we looked at that constellation, it actually appeared to consist of triangles.

> Latin: 21. Super eo sidere quod Graeci ἅμαξαν, nos “septentriones” vocamus; ac de utriusque vocabulivocaluli ratione et origine. AB Aegina in Piraeum complusculi earundem disciplinarum sectatores Graeci Romanique homines eadem in navi transmittebamus. Nox fuit et clemens mare et anni aestas caelumque liquide serenum. Sedebamus ergo in puppi simul universi et lucentia sidera considerabamus. Tum, qui eodem in numero Graecas res eruditi erant, quid ἅμαξα esset, quid βοώτης et quaenam maior et quae minor, cur ita appellata et quam in partem procedentis noctis spatio moveretur et quamobrem Homerus solam eam non occidere dicat, cum et quaedam alia non occidant astra, scite ista omnia ac perite disserebant. Hic ego ad nostros iuvenes convertor et “quin,” inquam, “vos opici dicitis mihi quare quod ἅμαξαν Graeci vocant nos ‘septentriones’ vocamus?” “Non enimn satis est quod septem stellas videmus, sed quid hoc totum quod ‘septentriones’ dicimus significet scire,” inquam, “id prolixius volo.” Tum quispiam ex his, qui se ad litteras memoriasque veteres dediderat: “Vulgus,” inquit, “grammaticorum ‘septentriones’ a solo numero stellarum dictum putat.” “‘Triones’ enim per sese nihil significare aiunt, sed vocabuli esse supplementum; sicut in eo, quod ‘quinquatrus’ dicamus, quod quinque ab Idibus dierum numerus sit, ‘atrus’ nihil.” “Sed ego quidem cum L. Aelio et M. Varrone sentio, qui ‘triones’ rustico cetera vocabulo boves appellatos scribunt, quasi quosdam ‘terriones,’ hoc est arandae colendaequecolendacque terrae idoneos.” “Itaque hoc sidus, quod a figura posituraque ipsa, quia simile plaustri videtur, antiqui Graecorum ἕμαξαν dixerunt, nostri quoque veteres a bubus iunctis ‘septentriones’ appellaruntalppellarunt, id est septem stellas, ex quibus quasi iuncti ‘triones’ figurantur.” “Praeter hanc,” inquit, “opinionem id quoque Varro addit, dubitare sese an propterea magis hae septem stellae ‘triones’ appellatae sint, quia ita sunt sitae ut ternae stellae proximae quaeque inter sese faciant ‘trigona,’ id est triquetras figuras.” Ex his duabus rationibus quas ille dixit, quod posterius est subtilius elegantiusque est visum. Intuentibus enim nobis in illud, ita propemodum res erat, ut forma esse triquetra viderentur.

[¶8] 22. Information about the wind called Iapyx and about the names and quarters of other winds, derived from the discourses of Favorinus. AT Favorinus' table, when he dined with friends, there was usually read either an old song of one of the lyric poets, or something from history, now in Greek and now in Latin. Thus one day there was read there, in a Latin poem, the word Iapyx, the name of a wind, and the question was asked what wind this was, from what quarter it blew, and what was the origin of so rare a term; and we also asked Favorinus to be so good as to inform us about the names and quarters of the other winds, since there was no general agreement as to their designations, positions or number. Then Favorinus ran on as follows: “It is well known,” said he, " that there are four quarters and regions of the heavens—east, west, south and north. East and west are movable and variable points; south and north are permanently fixed and unalterable. For the sun does not always rise in exactly the same place, but its rising is called either equinoctial when it runs the course which is called i)shmerino/s (with equal days and nights), or solsticial, which is equivalent to qerinai\ tropai/ (summer turnings), or brumal, which is the same as xeimerinai\ tropai/, or 'winter turnings.' So too the sun does not always set in the same place; for in the same way its setting is called equinoctial, solstitial, or brumal. Therefore the wind which blows from the sun's spring, or equinoctial, rising is called eurus, a word derived, as your etymologists say, from the Greek which means ' that which flows from the east.' This wind is called by the Greeks by still another name, a)fhliw/ths, or 'in the direction of the sun'; and by the Roman sailors, subsolanus (lying beneath the sun). But the wind that comes from the summer and solstitial point of rising is called in Latin aquilo, in Greek bore/as, and some say it was for that reason that Homer called it ai)qrhgene/ths, or 'ether-born'; but boreas, they think, is so named a)po\ th=s boh=s, 'from the loud shout,' since its blast is violent and noisy. To the third wind, which blows from the point of the winter rising—the Romans call it volturnus—many of the Greeks give a compound name, eu)ro/notos, because it is between eurus and notus. These then are the three east winds: aquilo, volturnus and curus, and eurus lies between the other two. Opposite to and facing these are three other winds from the west: caurus, which the Greeks commonly call a)rgesth/s or 'clearing'; this blows from the quarter opposite aquilo. There is a second, favonius, which in Greek is called ze/furos, blowing from the point opposite to eurus; and a third, Africus, which in Greek is li/y, or 'wet-bringing,' blows in opposition to volturnus. These two opposite quarters of the sky, east and west, have, as we see, six winds opposite to one another. But the south, since it is a fixed and invariable point, has but one single south wind; this in Latin is termed auster, in Greek no/tos, because it is cloudy and wet, for noti/s is the Greek for 'moisture." The north too, for the same reason, has but one wind. This, called in Latin septentrionarius, in Greek a)parkti/as, or 'from the region of the Bear,' is directly opposite to auster. From this list of eight winds some subtract four, and they declare that they do so on the authority of Homer, who knows only four winds: eurus, auster, aquilo and favonius, blowing from the four quarters of the heaven which we have named primary, so to speak; for they regard the east and west as broader, to be sure, but nevertheless single and not divided into three parts. There are others, on the contrary, who make twelve winds instead of eight, by inserting a third group of four in the intervening space about the south and north, in the same way that the second four are placed between the original two at east and west. "There are also some other names of what might be called special winds, which the natives have coined each in their own districts, either from the designations of the places in which they live or from some other reason which has led to the formation of the word. Thus our Gauls call the wind which blows from their land, the most violent wind to which they are exposed, circius, doubtless from its whirling and stormy character; the Apulians give the name Iapyx—the name by which they themselves are known (Iapzyges)—to the wind that blows from the mouth of )Iapugi/a itself, from its inmost recesses, as it were. This is, I think, about the same as caurus; for it is a west wind and seems to blow from the quarter opposite eurus. Therefore Virgil says that Cleopatra, when fleeing to Egypt after the sea-fight, was borne onward by Iapyx, and he called an Apulian horse by the same name as the wind, that is, Iapyx. There is also a wind named caecias, which, according to Aristotle blows in such a way as not to drive away clouds, but to attract them. This, he says, is the origin of the proverbial line:
Attracting to oneself, as caecias does the clouds. Moreover, besides these which I have mentioned there are in various places other names of winds, of new coinage and each peculiar to its own region, for example the Atabulus of Horace; these too I intended to discuss; I would also have added those which are called etesiae and prodromi, which at a fixed time of year, namely when the dog-star rises, blow from one or another quarter of the heavens; and since I have drunk a good bit, I would have rated on about the meaning of all these terms, had I not already done a deal of talking while all of you have been silent, as if I were delivering 'an exhibition speech.' But for one to do all the talking at a large dinner-party," said he, “is neither decent nor becoming.” This is what Favorinus recounted to us at his own table at the time I mentioned, with extreme elegance of diction and in a delightful and graceful style throughout. But as to his statement that the wind which blows from the land of Gaul is called circius, Marcus Cato in his Origins calls that wind, not circius, but cercius. For writing about the Spaniards who dwell on this side the Ebro, he set down these words: “But in this district are the finest iron and silver mines, also a great mountain of pure salt; the more you take from it, the more it grows. The cercius wind, when you speak, fills your mouth; it overturns an armed man or a loaded wagon.” In saying above that the e)thsi/ai blow from one or another quarter of the heavens, although following the opinion of many, I rather think I spoke hastily. For in the second book of Publius Nigidius' treatise On Wind are these words: “Both the e)thsi/ai and the annual south winds follow the sun.” We ought therefore to inquire into the meaning of “follow the sun.”

> Latin: 22. De vento “Iapyge” deque aliorum ventorum vocabulis regionibusque accepta ex Favorini sermonibus. APUD mensam Favorini in convivio familiarifamilari legi solitum erat aut vetus carmen melici poetae aut historia partim Graecae linguae, alias Latinae. legebaturLegebabur ergo ibi tunc in carmine Latino “Iapyx” ventus quaesitumque est quis hic ventus et quibus ex locis spiraret et quae tamtarn infrequentis vocabuli ratio esset; atque etiam petebamus, ut super ceterorum nominibus regionibusque docere nos ipse vellet, quia vulgo neque de appellationibus eorum neque de finibus neque de numero conveniret. TumTurn Favorinus ita fabulatus est: “Satis,” inquit, “notum est, limites regionesque esse caeli quattuor: ‘exortum,’ ‘occasum,’ ‘meridiem,’ ‘septentriones.’” “Exortus et occasus mobilia et varia sunt, meridies septentrionesque statu perpetuo stant et manent.” “Oritur enim sol non indidem semper, sed aut ‘aequinoctialis’ oriens dicitur, cum in circulo currit qui appellatur ἰσημερινός, aut ‘solstitialis,’ quae sunt θεριναὶ τροπαί, aut ‘brumalis,’ quae sunt χειμεριναὶ τροπαί.” “Item cadit sol non in eundem semper locum. Fit enim similiter occasus eius aut ‘aequinoctialis’ aut ‘solstitialis’ aut ‘brumalis.’” “Qui ventus igitur ab oriente verno, id est aequinoctiali, venit, nominatur ‘eurus,’ ficto vocabulo, ut isti ἐτυμολογικοὶ aiunt, ὁ ἀπὸ τῆς ἠοῦς ῥέων.” “Is alio quoque a Graecis nomine ἀφηλιώτης, Romanis nauticis ‘subsolanus’ cognominatur.” “Sed qui ab aestiva et solstitiali orientis meta venit, Latine ‘aquilo,’ βορέας Graece dicitur, eumque propterea quidam dicunt ab Homero αἰθρηγενέτην appellatum; boream autem putant dictum ἀπὸ τῆς βοῆς, quoniam sit violenti flatus et sonori.” “Tertius ventus, qui ab oriente hiberno spirat—‘volturnum’ Romani vocant—,eum plerique Graeci mixto nominenominee, quod inter notum et eurum sit, εὐρόνοτον appellant. Hi sunt igitur tres venti orientales:” “‘aquilo,’ ‘volturnus,’ ‘eurus,’ quorum medius eurus est.” “His oppositi et contrarii sunt alii tres occidui: ‘caurus,’ quem solent Graeci appellare ἀργεστήν: is adversus aquilonemaquilonein flat; item alter ‘favonius,’ qui Graece ζέφυρος vocatur: is adversus eurum flat; tertius ‘Africus,’ qui Graece λίψ: is adversus volturnum facit.” “Hae duae regiones caeli orientis occidentisque inter sese adversae sex habere ventos videntur.” “Meridies autem, quoniam certo atque fixo limite est, unum meridialem ventum habet: is Latine ‘auster,’ Graece νότος nominatur, quoniam est nebulosus atque umectus; νοτίς enim Graece umor nominatur.” “Septentriones autem habent ob eandem causam unum. Is obiectus derectusque in austrum, Latine ‘septentrionarius,’ Graece ἀπαρκτίας appellatus.” “Ex his octo ventis alii quattuor ventos detrahunt atque id facere se dicunt Homero auctore, qui solos quattuor ventos noverit: eurum, austrum,” “aquilonem, favonium, a quattuor caeli partibus, quas quasi primas nominavimus, oriente scilicet atque occidente latioribus atque simplicibus, non tripertitis.” “Partim autem sunt qui pro octo duodecim faciant, tertios quattuor in media loca inserentes circum meridiem et septentriones eadem ratione qua secundi quattuor intersiti sunt inter primores duos apud orientem occidentemqueoccidentenique.” “Sunt porro alia quaedem nomina quasi peculiariumpeculiarum ventorum, quae incolae in suis quisque regionibus fecerunt aut ex locorum vocabulis in quibus colunt, aut ex alia qua causa quae ad faciendum vocabulum acciderat.” “Nostri namque Galli venture ex sua terra flantem, quem saevissimum patiuntur, ‘circium’ appellant a turbine, opinor, eius ac vertigine;” “ex Ἰαπυγίας ipsius ore proficiscentem, quasi sinibus, Apuli eodem quo ipsi sunt nomine ‘iapygemlapygem’ dicunt. Eum esse propemodum caurum existimo;” “nam et est occidentalis et videtur exadversum eurum flare.” “Itaque Vergilius Cleopatram e navali proelio in Aegyptum fugientem vento iapyge ferri ait, ecum quoque Apulum eodem quo ventum vocabulo ‘iapygem’ appellavit.” “Est etiam ventus nomine ‘caecias.’ quem AristotelesAristotoles ita flare dicit, ut nubes non procul propellat, sed ut ad sese vocet, ex quo versum istumistun proverbialemproverbialer factum ait:
Ἕλκων ἐφʼ αὑτὸν ὥστε καικίας νέφος.” “Praeter hos autem, quos dixi, sunt alii plurifariam venti commenticii et suae quisque regionis indigenae, ut est Horatianus quoque ille ‘atabulus,’ quos ipsos quoque exsecuturus fui; addidissemque eos qui ‘etesiae’ et ‘prodromi’ appellitantur, qui certo tempore anni, cum canis oritur, ex alia atque alia parte caeli spirant; rationesque omnium vocabulorum, quoniam plus paulo adbibi, effutissem, nisi multa iam prosus omnibus vobis reticentibus verba fecissem, quasi fieret a me ἀκρόασις ἐπιδεικτική.” “In convivio autem frequenti loqui solum unum neque honestum est,” inquit, “neque commodum.” Haec nobis Favorinus in eo, quod dixi, tempore apud mensam suam summa cum elegantia verborum totiusque sermonis comitate atque gratia denarravit. Sed, quod ait ventum qui ex terra Gallia flaret “circium” appellari, M. Cato in libris Originum eum ventum “cercium” dicit, non “circium.” Nam cum de Hispanis scriberet, qui citra Hiberum colunt, verba haec posuit: “Set in his regionibus ferrareae, argentifodinae pulcherrimaepulcherriinae, mons ex sale mero magnus; quantum demas,tantum adcrescitaderescit. Ventus cercius, cum loquare, buccam implet, armatum hominem, plaustrum oneratum percellit.” Quod supra autem dixi, ἐτησίας ex alia atque alia caeli parte flare, haut scio an secutus opinionem multorum temere dixerim. P. enim Nigidii, in secundo libroruin quos De Vento composuitcoinposuit, verba haec sunt: “Et ἐτησίαι et austri anniversarii secundo sole flant.” Considerandum igitur est, quid sit secundo sole.

[¶9] 23. A discussion and comparison of passages taken from the comedy of Menander and that of Caecilius, entitled Plocium. I OFTEN read comedies which our poets have adapted and translated from the Greeks—Menander or Posidippus, Apollodorus or Alexis, and also some other comic writers. And while I am reading them, they do not seem at all bad; on the contrary, they appear to be written with a wit and charm which you would say absolutely could not be surpassed. But if you compare and place beside them the Greek originals from which they came, and if you match individual passages, reading them together alternately with care and attention, the Latin versions at once begin to appear exceedingly commonplace and mean; so dimmed are they by the wit and brilliance of the Greek comedies, which they were unable to rival. Only recently I had an experience of this kind. I was reading the Plocium or Necklace of Caecilius, much to the delight of myself and those who were present. The fancy took us to read also the Plocium of Menander, from which Caecilius had translated the said comedy. But after we took Menander in hand, good Heavens! how dull and lifeless, and how different from Menander did Caecilius appear! Upon my word, the armour of Diomedes and of Glaucus were not more different in value. Our reading had reached the passage where the aged husband was complaining of his rich and ugly wife, because he had been forced to sell his maid-servant, a girl skilled at her work and very good looking, since his wife suspected her of being his mistress. I shall say nothing of the great difference; but I have had the lines of both poets copied and submitted to others for their decision. This is Menander:
Now may our heiress fair on both ears sleep.
A great and memorable feat is hers;
For she has driven forth, as she had planned,
The wench that worried her, that all henceforth
Of Crobyle alone the face may see,
And that the famous woman, she my wife,
May also be my tyrant. From the face
Dame Nature gave her, she's an ass 'mong apes,
As says the adage. I would silent be
About that night, the first of many woes.
Alas that I took Crobyle to wife,
With sixteen talents and a foot of nose.
Then too can one her haughtiness endure?
By Zeus Olympius and Athena, no '
She has dismissed a maid who did her work
More quickly than the word was given her,
More quickly far than one will bring her back!
But Caecilius renders it thus:
In very truth is he a wretched man,
Who cannot hide his woe away from home;
And that my wife makes me by looks and acts:
If I kept still, I should betray myself
No less. And she has all that you would wish
She had not, save the dowry that she brought.
Let him who's wise a lesson take from me,
Who, like a free man captive to the foe,
Am slave, though town and citadel are safe.
What! wish her safe who steals whate'er I prize?
While longing for her death, a living corpse am I.
She says I've secret converse with our maid—
That's what she said, and so be laboured me
With tears, with prayers, with importunities,
That I did sell the wench. Now, I suppose,
She blabs like this to neighbours and to friends:
" Which one of you, when in the bloom of youth,
Could from her husband win what I from mine
Have gained, who've robbed him of his concubine."
Thus they, while I, poor wretch, am torn to shreds. Now, not to mention the charm of subject matter and diction, which is by no means the same in the two books, I notice this general fact—that some of Menander's lines, brilliant, apt and witty, Caecilius has not attempted to reproduce, even where lie might have done so; but he has passed them by as if they were of no value, and has dragged in some other farcical stuff; and what Menander took from actual life, simple, realistic and delightful, this for some reason or other Caecilius has missed. For example, that same old husband, talking with another old man, a neighbour of his, and cursing the arrogance of his rich wife, says:
I have to wife an heiress ogress, man!
I did not tell you that? What, really? no?
She is the mistress of my house and lands,
Of all that's hereabout. And in return
I have by Zeus! the hardest of hard things.
She scolds not only me, but her son too,
Her daughter most of all.—You tell a thing
There's no contending with.—I know it well.
But in this passage Caecilius chose rather to play the buffoon than to be appropriate and suitable to the character that he was representing. For this is the way he spoiled the passage:
But tell me, sir; is your wife captious, pray?—
How can you ask?—But in what manner, then?—
I am ashamed to tell. When I come home
And sit beside her, she with fasting breath
Straight kisses me.—There's no mistake in that.
She'd have you spew up what you've drunk abroad. It is clear what your judgment ought to be about that scene also, found in both comedies, which is about of the following purport: The daughter of a poor man was violated during a religious vigil. This was unknown to her father, and she was looked upon as a virgin. Being with child as the result of that assault, at the proper time she is in labour. An honest slave, standing before the door of the house, knowing nothing of the approaching delivery of his master's daughter, and quite unaware that violence had been offered her, hears the groans and prayers of the girl labouring in childbirth; he gives expression to his fear, anger, suspicion, pity and grief. In the Greek comedy all these emotions and feelings of his are wonderfully vivid and clear, but in Caecilius they are all dull and without any grace and dignity of expression. Afterwards, when the same slave by questioning has found out what has happened, in Menander he utters this lament:
Alas! thrice wretched he who weds, though poor,
And children gets. How foolish is the man
Who keeps no watch o'er his necessities,
And if he luckless be in life's routine,
Can't use his wealth as cloak, but buffeted
By ev'ry storm, lives helpless and in grief.
All wretchedness he shares, of blessings none,
Thus sorrowing for one I'd all men warn.
Let us consider whether Caecilius was sufficiently inspired to approach the sincerity and realism of these words. These are the lines of Caecilius, in which he gives some mangled fragments from Menander, patching them with the language of tragic bombast:
Unfortunate in truth the man, who poor,
Yet children gets, to share his poverty.
His fortune and his state at once are clear;
The ill fame of the rich their set conceals. Accordingly, as I said above, when I read these passages of Caecilius by themselves, they seem by no means lacking in grace and spirit, but when I compare and match them with the Greek version, I feel that Caecilius should not have followed a guide with whom he could not keep pace.

> Latin: 23. Consultatio diiudicatioque locorum facta ex comoedia Menandri et Caecilii, quae Plocium inscripta est. Comoedias lectitamus nostrorum poetarum sumptas ac versas de Graecis Menandro aut Posidippo aut Apollodoro aut Alexide et quibusdam item aliis comicis. Neque, cum legimus eas, nimium sane displicent, quin lepide quoque et venuste scriptae videntur, prorsus ut melius posse fieri nihil censeas. Set enim si conferas et componascomnponas Graeca ipsa, unde illa venerunt, ac singula considerate atque apte iunctis et alternis lectionibus committas, oppido quam iacere atque sordere incipiunt quae Latina sunt; ita Graecarum, quas aemulari nequiverunt, facetiis atque luminibus obsolescunt. Nuper adeo usus huius rei nobis venit. Caecili Plocium legebamus; hautquaquam mihi et qui aderant displicebat. Libitum et Menandri quoque PlociumPlociitm legere, a quo istam comoediam verterat. Sed enim postquam in manus Menander venit, a principio statimstating, di boni, quantum stupere atque frigere quantumque mutare a Menandro Caecilius visus est! Diomedis hercle arma et Glauci non dispari magis pretio existimata sunt. Accesserat dehinc lectio ad eum locum, in quo maritus senex super uxore divite atque deformi querebatur, quod ancillam suam, non inscito puellam ministerio et facie haut inliberali, coactus erat venundare, suspectam uxori quasi paelicem. Nihil dicam ego, quantum differat; versus utrimque eximi iussi et aliis ad iudicium faciundum exponi. Menander sic:
Ἐπʼ ἀμφότερα νῦν ἡπίκληρος ἡ καλή
Μέλλει καθευδῄσειν. Κατείργασται μέγα
Καὶ περιβόητον ἔργον· ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας
Ἐξέβαλε τὴν λυποῦσαν, ἣν ἐβούλετο,
Ἵνʼ ἀποβλέπωσι πάντες εἰς τὸ Κρωβύλης
Πρόσωπον ᾖ τʼ εὔγνωστος οὖσʼ ἐμὴ γυνή
Δέσποινα. Καὶ τὴν ὄψιν, ἣν ἐκτήσατο,
Ὄνος ἐν πιθήκοις, τοῦτο δὴ τὸ λεγόμενον
Ἔστιν. Σιωπᾶν βούλομαι τὴν νύκτα τήν
Πολλῶν κακῶν ἀρχηγόν. Οἴμοι Κροωβύλην
Λαβεῖν ἔμʼ, ἑκκαίδεκα τάλαντα προῖκα καί
Τὴν ῥῖνʼ ἔχουσαν πηχέως· εἶτʼ ἐστὶ τό
Φρύαγμά πως ὑπόστατον; μὰ τὸν Δια
Τὸν Ὀλύμπιον καὶ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, οὐδαμῶς.
Παιδισκάριον θεραπευτικὸν δὲ καὶ λόγου
†Τάχιον ἀπαγέσθω δέτις ἄρʼ ἀντεεσαγάγοι. Caecilius autem sic:
Is démum miser est, qui aérumnam suám néscit Occultáre.
Foris: íta me uxor forma ét factís facit, sí taceam, tamen íudicium.
Quae nísi dotem, ómnia quaé nolis habet; quí sapiet, de mé discet,
Qui quási ad hostis captús liber servío salva urbe atque árce.
Quaen míhi quidquid placet éo privatum id me servatam velim?
Dum ego éius mortem inhio, égomet vivo mórtuus inter vivos.
Éa me clam se cúm mea ancilla aít consuetum, id me árguit;
Íta plorando, orándo, instando atque óbiurgando me óbtudit
Eam utí venderém; nunc credo ínter suás
Aequális et cognátas sermoném serit:
“
Quís vestrarúm fuit íntegra aetátula,
Quae hóc idem a viro
Ímpetrarit suo, quód ego anus modo
Efféci, paelice út meum privarém virum?
Haéc erunt concília hodie, dífferor sermóne miser.” Praeter venustatem autem rerum atque verborum, in duobus libris nequaquam parem, in hoc equidem soleo animum attendere, quod quae Menander praeclare et apposite et facete scripsit, ea Caecilius, ne qua potuit quidem, conatus est enarrare, sed quasi minime probanda praetermisit et alia nescio quae mimica inculcavit et illud Menandri de vita hominum media sumptum, simplex et verum et delectabile, nescio quo pacto omisit. Idem enim ille maritus senex cum altero sene vicino colloquens et uxoris locupletis superbiam deprecans, haec ait:
Ἔχω δʼ ἐπίκληρον Λάμιαν· οὐκ εἴρηκά σοι
Τοῦτʼ; εἶτʼ ἄρʼ οὐχί; κυρίαν τῆς οἰκίας
Καὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν καὶ† πάντων ἀντʼ ἐκείνης
Ἔχομεν, Ἄπολλον, ὡς χαλεπῶν χαλεπώτατον·
Ἅπασι δʼ ἀργαλέα ᾽στίν, οὐκ ἐμοὶ μόνῳ,
Υἱῷ πολὺ μᾶλλον θυγατρι—Πρᾶγμʼ ἄμαχον λέγεις.
—Εὖ οἷδα. Caecilius vero hoc in loco ridiculus magis quam personae isti quam tractabat aptus atque conveniens videri maluit. Sic enim haec corrupit:
Sed túa morosane úxor, quaeso, est?-Quám rogas?
Qui tándem?—Taedet méntionis, quáe mihi,
Ubí domum adveni, adsedí, extemplo sávium
Dat iéiuna anima.—Níl peccat de sávio.
Ut dévomas vult, quod forisioris potáveris. Quid de illo quoque loco, in utraque comoedia posito, existimari debeatdefeat, manifestum est, cuius loci haec ferme sententia: Filia hominis pauperis in pervigilio vitiata est. Ea res clam patrem fuit, et habebatur pro virgine. Ex eo vitio gravida mensibus exactis parturit. Servus bonae frugi, cum pro foribus domus staretstart et propinquare partum erili filiae atque omnino vitium esse oblatum ignoraret, gemitum et ploratum audit puellae in puerperio enitentis; timet, irascitur, suspicatur, miseretur, dolet. Hi omnes motus eius affectionesque animi in Graeca quidem comoedia mirabiliter acres et illustres, apud Caecilium autem pigra istaec omnia et a rerum dignitate atque gratia vacua sunt. Post, ubi idem servus percontando quod acciderat repperit, has apud Menandrum voces facit:
Ὢ τρὶς κακοδαίμων, ὅστις ὢν πένης γαμεῖ
Καὶ παιδοποιεῖ. Ὡς ἀλόγιστός ἐστʼ ἀνήρ,
Ὃς μήτε φυλακὴν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἔχει,
Μήτʼ, ἂν ἀτυχήσῃ εἰς τὰ κοινὰ τοῦ βίου,
Ἐπαμφιέσαι δύνατο τοῦτο χρήμασιν,
Ἀλλʼ ἐν ἀκαλύπτῳ καὶ ταλαιπώρῳ βίῳ
Χειμαζόμενος ζῇ, τῶν μὲν ἀνιαρῶν ἔχων
Τὸ μέρος ἁπάντων, τῶν δʼ ἀγαθῶν αὐδὲν μέρος.
Ὑπὲρ γὰρ ἑνὸς ἀλγῶν ἅπαντας νουθετῶ. Ad horum autem sinceritatem veritatemque verborum an adspiraverit Caecilius, consideremus. Versus sunt hi Caecili trunca quaedam ex Menandro dicentis et consarcinantis verba tragici tumoris:
Is demum infórtunatus ést homo,
Paupér qui educit ín egestatem liberos,
Cuí fortuna et rés ut est continuó patet.
Nam opulénto famam fácile occultat fáctio: Itaque, ut supra dixi, cum haec Caecilii seorsum lego, neutiquam videntur ingrata ignavaque, cum autem Graeca comparo et contendo, non puto Caecilium sequi debuisse quod assequi nequiret.

## 7. Book II · chapters 24–30

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/7/#p-N

[¶0] 24. On the ancient frugality; and on early sumptuary laws. FRUGALITY among the early Romans, and moderation in food and entertainments were secured not only by observance and training at home, but also by public penalties and the inviolable provisions of numerous laws. Only recently I read in the Miscellanies of Ateius Capito an old decree of the senate, passed in the consulship of Gaius Fannius and Marcus Valerius Messala, which provides that the leading citizens, who according to ancient usage “interchanged” at the Melagesian games (that is, acted as host to one another in rotation), should take oath before the consuls in set terms, that they would not spend on each dinner more than one hundred and twenty asses in addition to vegetables, bread and wine; that they would not serve foreign, but only native, wine, nor use at table more than one hundred pounds' weight of silverware. But subsequent to that decree of the senate the law of Fannius was passed, which allowed the expenditure of one hundred asses a day at the Roman and the plebeian games, at the Saturnalia, and on certain other days; of thirty asses on ten additional days each month; but on all other days of only ten. This is the law to which the poet Lucilius alludes when he says:
The paltry hundred pence of Fannius.
In regard to this some of the commentators on Lucilius have been mistaken in thinking that Fannius' law authorized a regular expenditure of a hundred asses on every kind of day. For, as I have stated above, Fannius authorized one hundred asses on certain holidays which he expressly named, but for all other days he limited the daily outlay to thirty asses for some days and to ten for others. Next the Licinian law was passed which, while allowing the outlay of one hundred asses on designated days, as did the law of Fannius, conceded two hundred asses for weddings and set a limit of thirty for other days; however, after naming a fixed weight of dried meat and salted provisions for each day, it granted the indiscriminate and unlimited use of the products of the earth, vine and orchard. This law the poet Laevius mentions in his Erotopaegnia. These are the words of Laevius, by which he means that a kid that had been brought for a feast was sent away and the dinner served with fruit and vegetables, as the Licinian law had provided:
The Licinian law is introduced,
The liquid light to the kid restored.
Lucilius also has the said law in mind in these words:
Let us evade the law of Licinius. Afterwards, when these laws were illegible from the rust of age and forgotten, when many men of abundant means were gormandizing, and recklessly pouring their family and fortune into an abyss of dinners and banquets, Lucius Sulla in his dictatorship proposed a law to the people, which provided that on the Kalends, Ides and Nones, on days of games, and on certain regular festivals, it should be proper and lawful to spend three hundred sesterces on a dinner, but on all other days no more than thirty. Besides these laws we find also an Aemilian law, setting a limit not on the expense of dinners, but on the kind and quantity of food. Then the law of Antius, besides curtailing outlay, contained the additional provision, that no magistrate or magistrate elect should dine out anywhere, except at the house of stipulated persons. Lastly, the Julian law came before the people during the principate of Caesar Augustus, by which on working days two hundred sesterces is the limit, on the Kalends, Ides and Nones and some other holidays, three hundred, but at weddings and the banquets following them, a thousand. Ateius Capito says that there is still another Edict—but whether of the deified Augustus or of Tiberius Caesar I do not exactly remember—by which the outlay for dinners on various festal days was increased from three hundred sesterces to two thousand, to the end that the rising tide of luxury night be restrained at least within those limits.

> Latin: 24. De vetere parsimonia; deque antiquis legibus sumptuariis. Parsimonia apud veteres Romanos et victus atque cenarum tenuitas non domestica solum observatione ac disciplina, sed publicapublic quoque animadversione legumque complurium sanctionibus custodita est. Legi adeo nuper in Capitonis Atei Coniectaneis senatus decretum vetus C. Fannio et M. Valerio Messalla consulibusconsulilus factum, in quo iubentur principes civitatis, qui ludis Megalensibus antiquo ritu “mutitarent,” id est mutua inter sese dominia agitarent, iurare apud consules verbis conceptis, non amplius in singulas cenas sumptus se esse facturos quam centenos vicenosque aeris praeter olus et far et vinum, neque vino alienigena, sed patriae usuros, neque argenti in convivio plus pondo quam libras centum inlaturos. Sed post id senatus consultum lex Fannia lata est, quae ludis Romanis, item ludis plebeis et Saturnalibus et aliis quibusdam diebus, in singulos dies centenos aeris insumi concessit decemque aliis diebus in singulis mensibus tricenos, ceteris autem diebus omnibus denos. Hanc Lucilius poeta legem significat, cum dicit:
Fanni centussis misellus. In quo erraverunt quidam commentariorum in Lucilium scriptores, quod putaverunt Fannia lege perpetuos in omne dierum genus centenos aeris statutos. Centum enim aeris Fannius constituit, sicuti supra dixi, festis quibusdam diebus eosque ipsos dies nominavit, aliorum autem dierum omnium in singulos dies sumptum inclusit intra aeris alias tricenos, alias denos. Lex deinde Licinia rogata est, quae cum certis diebus, sicuti Fannia, centenos aeris inpendi permisisset, nuptiis ducenos indulsit ceterisque diebus statuit aeris tricenos; cum et carnis aridae et salsamenti certa pondera in singulos dies constituisset, quidquid esset natum e terra, vite, arbore, promiscepromise atque indefinite largita est. Huius legis Laevius poeta meminit in Erotopaegniis. Verba Laevii haec sunt, quibus significat haedum, qui ad epulas fuerat adlatus, dimissum cenamque ita ut lex Licinia sanxisset, pomis oleribusque instructam;
Lex Licinia (inquit) introducitur,
Lux liquida haedo redditur. Lucilius quoque legis istius meminit in his verbis:
Legem vitemus Licini. Postea L. Sulla dictator, cum, legibus istis situ atque senio oblitteratis, plerique in patrimoniis amplis elluarentur et familiam pecuniamque suam prandiorum conviviorumque gurgitibus proluissent, legem ad populum tulit qua cautum est ut Kalendis, Idibus, Nonis diebusque ludorum et feriis quibusdam sollemnibus sestertios trecenos in cenam insumere ius potestasque esset, ceteris autem diebus omnibus non amplius tricenos. Praeter has leges Aemiliam quoque legem invenimus, qua lege non sumptus cenarum, sed ciborum genus et modus praefinitus est. Lex deinde Antia praeter sumptum aeris id etiam sanxit, ut qui magistratus esset magistratumve capturus esset, ne quo ad cenam, nisi ad certas personas, itaret. Postrema lex Iulialulia ad populum pervenit Caesare Augusto imperante, qua profestis quidem diebus ducenti finiuntur, Kalendis, Idibus, Nonis et aliis quibusdam festis trecenti, nuptiis autem et repotiis sestertii mille. Esse etiam dicit Capito Ateius edictum—divine vero Augusti an Tiberii Caesaris non satis commemini—quo edicto per dierum varias sollemnitates a trecentis sestertiis adusque duo sestertia sumptus cenarum propagatus est, ut his saltemsalter finibus luxuriae effervescentis aestus coerceretur.

[¶1] 25. What the Greeks understand by a)nalogi/a, and, on the contrary, by a)nwmali/a. IN the Latin language, just as in Greek, some have thought that the principle of a)nalogi/a should be followed, others that of a)nwmali/a. is the similar inflection of similar words, which some call in Latin proportio, or “regularity.” )Anwmali/a is irregularity in inflection, following usage. Now two distinguished Greek grammarians, Aristarchus and Crates, defended with the utmost vigour, the one analogy, the other anomaly. The eighth book of Marcus Varro's treatise On the Latin Language, dedicated to Cicero, maintains that no regard is paid to regularity, and points out that in almost all words usage rules. “As when we decline,” says he, “lpus lupi, probus probi, but lepus leporis; again, paro paravi and lavo lavi, pungo pupugi, tundo tutudi and pingo pinxi. And although,” he continues, "from ceno and prandeo and poto we form cenatus sum, pransus sum and potus sum, yet from destringor and extergeor and lavor we make destrinxi and extersi and lavi. Furthermore, although from Oscus, Tuscus and Graecus we derive the adverbs Osce, Tusce and Graece, yet from Gallus and Maurus we have Gallice and Maurice; also from probus probe, from doctus docte, but from rarus there is no adverb rare, but some say raro, others rarenter." In the same book Varro goes on to say: “No one uses senior and that form by itself is naught, but almost everyone says adsentior. Sisenna alone used to say adsentio (I agree) in the senate, but later many followed his example, yet could not prevail over usage.” But Varro himself in other books wrote a good deal in defence of analogy. Therefore his utterances on the subject are, as it were, common-places, to cite now against analogy and again also in its favour.

> Latin: 25. Quid Graeci ἀναλογίαν quid contra ἀνωμαλίαν vocent. In Latino sermone, sicut in Graeco, alii ἀνα- λογίαν sequendam putaverunt, alii ἀνωμαλίαν. Ἀναλογία est similium similis declinatio, quam quidam Latine “proportionem” vocant. Ἀνωμαλία est inaequalitas declinationum, consuetudinem sequens. Duo autem Graeci grammatici illustres, Aristarchus et Crates, summa ope ille ἀναλογίαν, hic ἀνωμαλίαν defensitavit. M. Varronis liber ad Ciceronem De Lingua Latina octavus nullam esse observationem similium docet inque omnibus paene verbis consuetudinem dominari ostendit: “Sicuti cum dicimus,” inquit, “‘lupus lupi,’ ‘probus probi’ et ‘lepus leporis,’ item ‘paro paravi’ et ‘lavo lavi,’ ‘pungo pupugi,’ ‘tundo tutudi’ et ‘pingo pinxi.’” “Cumque,” inquit, “a ‘ceno’ et ‘prandeo’ et ‘poto,’ et ‘cenatus sum’ et ‘pransus sum’ et ‘potus sum’ dicamus, a ‘destringor’ tamen et ‘extergeor’ et ‘lavor,’ ‘destrinxi’ et ‘extersi’ et ‘lavi’ dicimus.” “Item cum dicamus ab ‘Osco,’ ‘Tusco,’ ‘Graeco,’ ‘Osce,’ ‘Tusce,’ ‘Graece,’ a ‘Gallo’ tamen et ‘Mauro’ ‘Gallice’ et ‘Maurice’ dicimus; item a ‘probus.’ ‘probe,’ a ‘doctus’ ‘docte,’ sed a ‘rarus’ non dicitur ‘rare,’ sed alii ‘raro’ dicunt, alii ‘rarenter.’” Idem M. Varro in eodem libro: “Sentior,” inquit, “nemo dicit et id per se nihil est, ‘adsentior’ tamen fere omnes dicunt. Sisenna unus ‘adsentio’ in senatu dicebat et eum postea multi secuti, neque tamen vincere consuetudinem potuerunt.” Sed idem Varro in aliis libris multa pro ἀναλογίᾳ tuenda scribit. Sunt igitur ii tamquam loci quidam communes, contra ἀναλογίαν dicere et item rursum pro ἀναλογίᾳ.

[¶2] 26. Discourses of Marcus Fronto and the philosopher Favorinus on the varieties of colours and their Greek and Latin names: and incidentally, the nature of the colour spadix. WHEN the philosopher Favorinus was on his way to visit the exconsul Marcus Fronto, who was ill with the gout, he wished me also to go with him. And when there at Fronto's, where a number of learned men were present, a discussion took place about colours and their names, to the effect that the shades of colours are manifold, but the names for them are few and indefinite, Favorinus said: "More distinctions of colour are detected by the eye than are expressed by words and terms. For leaving out of account other incongruities, your simple colours, red (rufus) and green viridiss), have single names, but many different shades. And that poverty in names I find more pronounced in Latin than in Greek. For the colour red Rufuss) does in fact get its name from redness, but although fire is one kind of red, blood another, purple another, saffron another, and gold still another, yet the Latin tongue does not indicate these special varieties of red by separate and individual words, but includes them all under the one term rubor, except in so far as it borrows names from the things themselves, and calls anything ' fiery,' ' flaming,' 'blood-red,' 'saffron' 'purple' and 'golden.' For russus and rubber are no doubt derived from rufus, and do not indicate all its special varieties, but canqo/s and e)ruqro/s and purro/s and kirro/s and foi=nic seem to mark certain differences in the colour red, either intensifying it or making it lighter, or qualifying it by the admixture of some shade." Then Fronto, replying to Favorinus, said: "I do not deny that the Greek language, which you seem to prefer, is richer and more copious than ours; but nevertheless in naming these colours of which you have just spoken we are not quite so badly off as you think. For russus and ruber, which you have just mentioned, are not the only words that denote the colour red, but we have others also, more numerous than those which you have quoted from the Greek. For fihlvus, flavus, rubidus, poeniceus, rutilus, luteus and spadix are names of the colour red, which either brighten it (making it fiery, as it were), or combine it with green, or darken it with black, or make it luminous by a slight addition of gleaming white. For poeniceus, which you call foi=nic in Greek, belongs to our language, and rutilus and spadix, a synonym of poeniceus which is taken over into Latin from the Greek, indicate a rich, gleaming shade of red like that of the fruit of the palm-tree when it is not fully ripened by the sun. And from this spadix and poeniceus get their name; for spadix in Doric is applied to a branch torn from a palm-tree along with its fruit. But the colour fulvus seems to be a mixture of red and green, in which sometimes green predominates, sometimes red. Thus the poet who was most careful in his choice of words applies fulvus to an eagle, to jasper, to fur caps, to gold, to sand, and to a lion; and so Ennius in his Annals uses fulvus of air. Flavus on the other hand seems to be compounded of green and red and white; thus Virgil speaks of golden hair as flava and applies that adjective also to the leaves of the olive, which I see surprises some; and thus, much earlier, Pacuvius called water flava and dust fulvus. I am glad to quote his verses, for they are most charming:
Give me thy foot, that with the same soft hands
With which oft times I did Ulysses soothe
I may with golden (flavis) waters wash away
The tawny (fulvum) dust and heal thy weariness.
" “Now, rubidus is a darker red and with a larger admixture of black; luteus, on the other hand, is a more diluted red, and from this dilution its name too seems to be derived. Therefore, my dear Favorinus,” said he, "the shades of red have no more names in Greek than with us. But neither is the colour green expressed by more terms in your language, and Virgil, when he wished to indicate the green colour of a horse, could perfectly well have called the horse caerulus rather than glaucus, but he preferred to use a familiar Greek word, rather than one which was unusual in Latin. Moreover, our earlier writers used caesia as the equivalent of the Greek glaukw=pis, as Nigidius says, from the colour of the sky, as if it were originally caelia." After Fronto had said this, Favorinus, enchanted with his exhaustive knowledge of the subject and his elegant diction, said:
Were it not for you, and perhaps for you alone, the Greek language would surely have come out far ahead; but you, my deal Fronto, exemplify Homer's line:
Thou would'st either have won or made the result indecisive.
But not only have I listened with pleasure to all your learned remarks, but in particular in describing the diversity of the colour flavus you have made me understand these beautiful lines from the fourteenth book of Ennius' Annalns which before I did not in the least comprehend:
The calm sea's golden marble now they skim;
Ploughed by the thronging craft, the green seas foam;
for 'the green seas' did not seem to correspond with 'golden marble.' But since, as you have said, flavus is a colour containing an admixture of green and white, Ennius with the utmost elegance called the foam of the green sea 'golden marble.'

> Latin: 26. Sermones M. Frontonis et Favorini philosophi de generibus colorum vocabulisque eorumeorurn Graecis et Latinis; atqueatquc inibi color spadix cuiusmodi sit. Favorinus philosophus cum ad M. Frontonem consularem pedibus aegrum visum iret, voluit me quoque ad eum secum ire. Ac deinde, cum ibi aput Frontonem plerisque viris doctis praesentibus sermones de coloribus vocabulisque eorum agitarentur, quod multiplex colorum facies, appellationes autem incertae et exiguae forent, “plura,” inquit “sunt” Favorinus, “in sensibus oculorum quam in verbis vocibusque colorum discrimina.” “Nam, ut alias eorum inconcinnitates omittamus, simplices isti rufus et viridis colores singula quidem vocabula, multas autem species differentis habent.” “Atque eamearn vocum inopiam in lingua magis Latina video quam in Graeca. Quippe qui ‘rufus’ color a rubore quidem appellatus est, sed cum aliter rubeat ignis, aliter sanguis, aliter ostrum, aliter crocum, aliter aurum, has singulas rufi varietates Latina oratio singulis propriisque vocabulis non demonstrat omniaque ista significat una ‘ruboris’ appellatione, nisi cum ex ipsis rebus vocabula colorum mutuatur et ‘igneum’ aliquid dicit et ‘flammeum’ et ‘sanguineum’ et ‘croceum’ et ‘ostrinum’ et ‘aureum.’” “‘Russus’ enim color et ‘ruber’ nimirum a vocabulo ‘rufi’ dicuntur neque proprietates eius omnes declarant, ξανθός autem et ἐρυθρός et πυρρός et κιρρός et φοῖνιξ habere quasdam distantias coloris rufi videntur, vel augentes eum vel remittentes vel mixta quadam specie temperantes.” Tum Fronto ad Favorinum, “Non infitias,” inquit, “imus quin lingua Graeca, quam tu videre elegisse, prolixior fusiorque sit quam nostra; sed in his tamen coloribus quibus modo dixisti denominandis, non proinde inopes sumus ut tibi videmur.” “Non enim haec sunt sola vocabula rufum colorem demonstrantia, quae tu modo dixisti, ‘russus’ et ‘ruber,’ sed alia quoque habemus plura quam quae dicta abs te Graeca sunt; ‘fulvus’ ‘enim et flavus’ et ‘rubidus’ et ‘poeniceus’ et ‘rutilus’ et ‘luteus’ et ‘spadix’ appellationes sunt rufi coloris, aut acuentes eum, quasi incendentes, aut cum colore viridi miscentes aut nigro infuscantes aut virenti sensim albo illuminantes.” “Nam ‘poeniceus,’ quem tu GraeceGraecc φοίνικα dixisti, noster est et ‘rutilus’ et ‘spadix,’ poenicei συνώνυμος, qui factus e Graeco noster est, exuberantiam splendoremque significant ruboris, quales sunt fructus palmae arboris non admodum sole incocti, unde spadici et poeniceo nomen est;” “enim Dorice vocant avulsum e palma termitem cum fructu.” “‘Fulvus’ autem videtur de rufo atque viridi mixtus in aliis plus viridis, in aliis plus rufi habere. Sic poeta verborum diligentissimus ‘fuluamfulvarm’ aquilam dicit et iaspidem, ‘fulvos’ galeros et ‘fulvum’ aurum et arenam ‘fulvam’ et ‘fulvum’ leonem, sicque Ennius in Annalibus ‘aere fulvo’ dixit.” “‘Flavus’ contra videtur e viridi et rufo et albo concretus; sic ‘flaventes comae’ et, quod mirari quosdam video,” “frondes olearum a Vergilio ‘flavae’ dicuntur, sic multo ante Pacuvius aquam ‘flavam’ dixit et ‘fulvum’ pulverem. Cuius versus, quoniam sunt iucundissimi, libens commemini:
Cédo tuum pedém mi, lymphis flávis fulvum ut Púlverem
Mánibus isdem, quíbus Ulixi sáepe permulsi, ábluam,
Lássitudinémque minuam mánuum mollitúdine.” “‘Rubidus’ autem est rufus atrior et nigrore multo inustus, ‘luteus’ contra rufus color est dilutior;” “inde ei nomen quoque esse factum videtur.” “Non igitur,” inquit, “mi Favorine, species rufi coloriscolors plures aput Graecos quam aput nos nominantur.” “Sed ne viridis quidem color pluribus a vobis vocabulis dicitur,” “neque non potuit Vergilius, colorem equi significare viridem volens, ‘caerulum’ magis dicere ecum quam ‘glaucum,’ sed maluit verbo uti notiore Graeco quam inusitato Latino.” “Nostris autem veteribus ‘caesia’ dicta est, quae a Graecis γλαυκ- ῶπις, ut Nigidius ait, de colore caeli, quasi caelia.” Postquam haec Fronto dixit, tum Favorinus scientiam rerum uberem verborumque eius elegantiam exosculatus, “Absque te,” inquit, “uno forsitan lingua profecto Graeca longe anteisset, sed tu, mi Fronto, quod in versu Homerico est, id facis:
Καί νύ κεν ἢ παρέλασσας ἢ ἀμφήριστον ἔθηκας.” “Sed cum omnia libens audivi quae peritissime dixisti, tum maxime quod varietatem flavi coloriscolors enarrasti fecistique ut intellegerem verba illa ex Annali quarto decimodecino Ennii amoenissima, quae minime intellegebam:
Verrunt extemplo placide mare marmore flavo
Caeruleum, spumat sale conferta rate pulsum;” “non enim videbatur ‘caeruleum’ mare cum ‘marmore flavo’ convenire.” “Sed cum sit, ita ut dixisti, flavus color e viridi et albo mixtus, pulcherrime prorsus spumas virentis maris ‘flavom marmor’ appellavit.”

[¶3] 27. The criticism of Titus Castricius passed upon passages from Sallust and Demosthenes, in which the one described Philip, the other Sertorius. THIS is Demosthenes' striking and brilliant description of king Philip: “I saw that Philip himself, with whom we were struggling, had in his desire for empire and absolute power had one eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory.” Sallust, desiring to rival this description, in his Histories thus wrote of the leader Sertorius: “He won great glory in Spain, while military tribune under the command of Titus Didius, rendered valuable service in the Marsic war in providing troops and arms; but he got no credit for much that was then done under his direction and orders, at first because of his low birth and afterwards through unfriendly historians; but during his lifetime his appearance bore testimony to these deeds, in many scars on his breast, and in the loss of an eye. Indeed, he rejoiced greatly in his bodily disfigurement, caring nothing for what he had lost, because he kept the rest with greater glory.” In his estimate of these words of the two writers Titus Castricius said: “Is it not beyond the range of human capability to rejoice in bodily disfigurement? For rejoicing is a certain exaltation of spirit, delighting in the realization of something greatly desired. How much truer, more natural, and more in accordance with human limitations is this: ' Giving up whatever part of his body fortune chose to take.' In these words,” said he, “Philip is shown, not like Sertorius, rejoicing in bodily disfigurement, which,” he said, “is unheard of and extravagant, but as a scorner of bodily losses and injuries in his thirst for honour and glory, who in exchange for the fame which he coveted would sacrifice his limbs one by one to the attacks of fortune.”

> Latin: 27. Quid T. Castricius existimarit super Sallustii verbis et Demosthenis, quibus alter Philippum descripsit, alter Sertorium. VERBA sunt haec gravia atque illustria de rege Philippo Demosthenis: Ἑώρων δʼ αὐτὸν τὸν Φίλιππον, πρὸς ὃν ἦν ἡμῖν ὁ ἀγών, ὑπὲρ ἀρχῆς καὶ δυναστείας τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν ἐκκεκομμένον, τὴν κλεῖν κατεαγότα, τὴν χεῖρα, τὸ σκέλος πεπηρωμένον, πᾶν ὅτι βουληθείη μέρος ἡ τύχη τοῦ σώματος παρελέσθαι, τοῦτο προϊέμενον, ὥστε τῷ λοιπῷ μετὰ τιμῆς καὶ δόξης ζῆν. Haec aemulari volens Sallustius de Sertorio duce in Historiis ita scripsit: “Magna gloria tribunus militum in Hispania T. Didio imperante, magno usui bello Marsico paratu militum et armorum fuit, multaque tum ductu eius iussuque patrata primo per ignobilitatem, deinde per invidiam scriptorum incelebrata sunt, quae vivus facie sua ostentabat aliquot adversis cicatricibus et effosso oculo. Quin ille dehonestamento corporis maxime laetabatur, neque illis anxius, quia reliqua gloriosius retinebat.” De utriusque his verbis T. Castricius cum iudicaret, “Nonne,” inquit, “ultra naturae humanae modum est, dehonestamento corporis laetari? Siquidem laetitia dicitur exultatio quaedam animi gaudio efferventior eventu rerum expetitarum.” “Quanto illud sincerius veriusque et humanis magis condicionibus conveniens: πᾶν ὅτι ἂν βουληθείη μέρος ἡ τύχη τοῦ σώματος παρελέσθαι, τοῦτο ποϊέμε- νον.” “Quibus verbis,” inquit, “ostenditur Philippus, non, ut Sertorius, corporis dehonestamento laetus, quod est,” inquit, “insolens et inmodicum, sed prae studio laudis et honoris iacturarum damnorumque corporis contemptor, qui singulos artus suos fortunae prodigendos daret quaestu atque compendio gloriarum.”

[¶4] 28. That it is uncertain to which deity sacrifices ought to be offered when there is an earthquake. WHAT is to be regarded as the cause of earthquakes is not only not obvious to the ordinary understanding and thought of mankind, but it is not agreed even among the natural philosophers whether they are due to the mighty winds that gather in the caverns and hollow places of the earth, or to the ebb and flow of subterranean waters in its hollows, as seems to have been the view of the earliest Greeks, who called Neptune “the Earth Shaker”; or whether they are the result of something else or due to the divine power of some other god—all this, I say, is not yet a matter of certain knowledge. For that reason the Romans of old, who were not only exceedingly scrupulous and careful in discharging all the other obligations of life, but also in fulfilling religious duties and venerating the immortal gods, whenever they felt an earthquake or received report of one, decreed a holy day on that account, but forbore to declare and specify in the decree, as is commonly done, the name of the god in whose honour the holy day was to be observed; for fear that by naming one god instead of another they might involve the people in a false observance. If anyone had desecrated that festival, and expiation was therefore necessary, they used to offer a victim “to either the god or goddess,” and Marcus Varro tells us that this usage was established by a decree of the pontiffs, since it was uncertain what force, and which of the gods or goddesses, had caused the earthquake. But in the case of eclipses of the sun or moon they concerned themselves no less with trying to discover the causes of that phenomenon. However, Marcus Cato, although a man with a great interest in investigation, nevertheless on this point expressed himself indecisively and superficially. His words in the fourth book of his Origins are as follows: “I do not care to write what appears on the tablet of the high priest: how often grain was dear, how often darkness, or something else, obscured the light of sun or moon.” Of so little importance did he consider it either to know or to tell the true causes of eclipses of the sun and moon.

> Latin: 28. Non esse compertumcompertnm cui deo rem divinam fieri oporteat, cum terra movet. QUAENAM esse causa videatur quamobrem terrae tremores fiant, non modo his communibus hominum sensibus opinionibusque incompertum, sed ne inter physicas quidem philosophias satis constitit ventorumne vi accidant specus hiatusque terrae subeuntium an aquarum subter in terrarum cavis undantium pulsibus fluctibusque, ita uti videntur existimasse antiquissimi Graecorum, qui Neptunum σεισίχθονα appellaverunt, an cuius aliae rei causa alteriusve dei vi ac numine, nondum etiam, sicuti diximus, pro certo creditum. Propterea veteres Romani, cum in omnibus aliis vitae officiisoficiis, tum in constituendis religionibus atque in dis inmortalibus animadvertendis castissimi cautissimiquecautissirnique, ubi terrain movisse senserant nuntiatumve erat, ferias eius rei causa edicto imperabant, sed dei nomen, ita uti solet, cui servari ferias oporteret, statuere et edicere quiescebant, ne alium pro alio nominando falsa religione populum alligarent. Eas ferias si quis polluisset piaculoque ob hanc rem opus esset, hostiam “si deo, si deae” immolabant, idque ita ex decreto pontificum observatum esse M. Varro dicit, quoniam et qua vi et per quem deorum dearumve terra tremeret incertum esset. Sed de lunae solisque defectionibus, non minus in eius rei causa reperienda sese exercuerunt. Quippe M. Cato, vir in cognoscendis rebus multi studii, incerta tamen et incuriose super ea re opinatus est. Verba Catonis ex Originum quarto haec sunt: “Non lubet scribere quod in tabula apud pontificem maximum est, quotiens annona cara, quotiens lunae aut solis lumine caligo aut quid obstiterit.” Usque adeo parvi fecit rationes veras solis et lunae deficientium vel scire vel dicere.

[¶5] 29. A fable of the Phrygian Aesop, which is well worth telling. AESOP, the well-known fabulist from Phrygia, has justly been regarded as a wise man, since he taught what it was salutary to call to mind and to recommend, not in an austere and dictatorial manner, as is the way of philosophers, but by inventing witty and entertaining fables he put into men's minds and hearts ideas that were wholesome and carefully considered, while at the same time he enticed their attention. For example, this fable of his about the little nest of a birdlet with delightful humour warns us that in the case of things which one can do, hope and confidence should never be placed in another, but in one's own self. “There is a little bird,” he says, “it is called the lark. It lives in the grain-fields, and generally builds its nest at such a time that the harvest is at hand exactly when the young birds are ready to be fledged. Such a lark chanced to have built her nest in a field which had been sown rather early in the year; therefore when the grain was turning yellow, the fledglings were still unable to fly. Accordingly, when the mother went off in search of food for her young, she warned them to notice whether anything unusual was said or done there, and to tell it to her on her return. A little later the owner of that grain-field calls his young son and says: ' Do you not see that this is ripe and already calls for hands? To-morrow then, as soon as it is light, see that you go to our friends and ask them to come and exchange work with us, and help us with this harvest.' So saying, he at once went away. And when the lark returned, the chicks, frightened and trembling, twittered about their mother and implored her to make haste and at once carry them off to some other place; 'for,' said they, 'the master has sent to ask his friends to come at daybreak and reap.' The mother bids them be easy in mind. ' For if the master,' said she, ' has turned the harvesting over to his friends, the field will not be reaped to-morrow, and I need not take you away to-day.' On the following day the mother flies off to get food. The master waits for those whom he had summoned. The sun grows hot and nothing is done. The day advances and no friends come. Then he says again to his son: 'Those friends of ours are a lot of slackers. why not rather go and ask our relatives and kinsfolk to come to reap early tomorrow?' This, too, the frightened chicks tell their mother. She urges them once again to be without fear and without worry, saying that hardly any relatives and kinsfolk are so obliging as to undertake labour without any delay and to obey a summons at once. 'But do you,' she said, 'observe whether anything more is said.' Next day at dawn the bird left to forage. The relatives and kinsfolk neglected the work which they were asked to do. So finally the owner said to his son: ' Enough of friends and relatives. Bring two scythes at daybreak; I myself will take one and you yourself the other, and tomorrow we ourselves will reap the grain with our own hands.' When the mother heard from her brood that the farmer had said this, she cried: ' It is time to get out and be off; for this time what he said surely will be done. For now it depends on the very man whose business it is, not on another who is asked to do it.' And so the lark moved her nest, the owner harvested his crop.” This then is Aesop's fable, showing that trust in friends and relatives is usually idle and vain. But what different warning do the more highly revered books of the philosophers give us, than that we should rely on ourselves alone, and regard everything else that is outside us and beyond our control as helpful neither to our affairs nor to ourselves? This parable of Aesop has been rendered in tetrameter verse by Quintus Ennius in his Saturae most cleverly and gracefully. The following are the last two lines of that version, and I surely think it is worth while to remember them and take them to heart:
This adage ever have in readiness;
Ask not of friends what you yourself can do.

> Latin: 29. Apologus Aesopi Phrygis memoratu non inutilis AESOPUS ille e Phrygia fabulator haut immerito sapiens existimatus est, cum quae utilia monitu suasuque erant, non severe neque imperiose praecepit et censuit, ut philosophis mos est, sed festivos delectabilesque apologos commentus, res salubriter ac prospicienter animadversas in mentes animosque hominum cum audiendi quadam inlecebra induit. Velut haec eius fabula de aviculae nidulo lepide atque iucunde promonet, spem fiduciamque rerum quas efficere quis possit haut umquam in alio, sed in semetipso habendam. “Avicula,” inquit, “est parva, nomen est cassita.” “Habitat nidulaturque in segetibus, id ferme temporis, ut appetat messis pullis iam iam plumantibus.” “Ea cassita in sementes forte congesserat tempestiviores; propterea frumentis flavescentibus pulli etiam tunc involucres erant.” “Dum igitur ipsa iret cibum pullis quaesitum, monet eos ut, si quid ibi rei novae fieret dicereturve, animadverterent idque uti sibi, ubi redisset, nuntiarent.” “Dominus postea segetum illarum filium adulescentem vocat et ‘Videsne,’ inquit, ‘haec ematuruisse et manus iam postulare? Idcirco die crastini, ubi primum diluculabit, fac amicos eas et roges veniant operamque mutuam dent et messim hanc nobis adiuvent.’” “Haec ubi ille dixit, et discessit. Atque ubi redit cassita, pulli tremibundi, trepiduli circumstrepere orareque matrem ut iam statim properet inque alium locum sese asportet; ‘nam dominus,’ inquiunt, ‘misit qui amicos roget uti luce oriente veniant et metant.’” “Mater iubet eos otioso animo esse: ‘Si enim dominus,’ inquit, ‘messim ad amicos reicit, crastino seges non metetur neque necessum est hodie uti vos auferam.’” “Die,” inquit, “postero mater in pabulum volat. Dominus quos rogaverat opperitur. Sol fervit, et fit nihil; it dies, et amici nulli eunt.” “tumTurn ille rursum ad filium ‘amici isti magnam partem,’ inquit, ‘cessatores sunt. Quin potius imus et cognatos adfinesque nostros oramus ut assint eras tempori ad metendum?’” “Itidem hoc pulli pavefacti matri nuntiant. Mater hortatur ut tum quoque sine metu ac sine cura sint, cognatoscognates adfinesque nullos ferme tam esse obsequibiles ait, ut ad laborem capessendum nihil cunctentur et statimstatic dicto oboediant: ‘Vos modo,’ inquit, ‘advertite, si modo quid denuo dicetur.’” “Alia luce orta avis in pastum profecta est. Cognati et adfines opera, quam dare rogati sunt supersederunt.” “Ad postremum igitur dominus filio: ‘Valeant,’ inquit, ‘amici cum propinquis. Afferes primo luci falces duas; unam egomet mihi et tu tibi capies alteram et frumentum nosmetipsi manibus nostris eras metemus.’” “Id ubi ex pullis dixisse dominum mater audivit, ‘Tempus,’ inquit, ‘est cedendi et abeundi; fiet nunc dubio procul quod futurum dixit. In ipso enim iam vertitur cuia res est, non in alio, unde petitur.’” “Atque ita cassita nidum migravit, seges a domino demessa est.” Haec quidem est Aesopi fabula de amicorum et propinquorum levi plerumque et inani fiducia. Sed quid aliud sanctiores libri philosophorum monent quam ut in nobis tantum ipsis nitamur, alia autem omnia quae extra nos extraque nostrum animum sunt neque pro nostris neque pro nobis ducamus? Hunc Aesopi apologum Q. Ennius in Satiris scite admodum et venuste versibus quadratis composuit. Quorum duo postremi isti sunt, quos habere cordi et memoriae operae pretium esse hercle puto:
Hóc erit tibi árgumentum sémper in promptú situm:
Né quid expectés amicos, quód tute agere póssies.

[¶6] 30. An observation on the waves of the sea, which take one form when the wind is from the south, and another when it is from the north. IT has often been observed in the motion of the waves caused by the north winds or by any current of air from that quarter of the heaven [that it is different from that caused by] the south and southwest winds. For the waves raised by the blowing of the north wind are very high and follow hard upon one another, but as soon as the wind has ceased, they flatten out and subside, and soon there are no waves at all. But it is not the same when the wind blows from the south or southwest; for although these have wholly ceased to blow, still the waves that they have caused continue to swell, and though they have long been undisturbed by wind, yet the sea keeps continually surging. The reason of this is inferred to be, that the winds from the north, falling upon the sea from a higher part of the sky, are borne straight down, as it were headlong, into the depths of ocean, making waves that are not driven forward, but are set in motion from within; and these, being turned up from beneath, roll only so long as the force of that wind which blows in from above continues. The south and southwest winds, on the contrary, forced down to the southern zone and the lowest part of the heavens, are lower and flatter, and as they blow over the surface of the sea, they push forward the waves rather than raise them up. Therefore the waters are not struck from above but are forced forward, and even after the wind has fallen they retain for some time the motion given by the original impulse. Moreover, this very suggestion of mine may be supported by the following lines of Homer, if one reads them carefully. For he wrote thus of the blasts of the south wind:
Then Notus drives huge waves against the western cliff,
but on the other hand he speaks in a different way of boreas, which we call aquilo:
And Boreas aetherborn, uprolling a great wave.
For he means that the waves stirred up by the north winds, which are high and blow from above, are so to speak rolled downward, but that by the south winds, which are lower than these, they are driven forward in an upward direction by a somewhat greater force and pushed up. For that is the meaning of the verb w)qei=, as also in another passage:
The stone toward the hilltop pushed he up. This also has been observed by the most learned investigators of nature, that when the south winds blow, the sea becomes blue and bright, but, under the north winds, darker and more gloomy. I noted the cause of this when I was making excerpts from the Problems of Aristotle.

> Latin: 30. Quid observatum sit in undarum motibus, quae in mari alio atque alio modo fiunt austris flantibus aquilonibusque. Hoc saepenumero in undarum motu, quas aquilones venti quique ex eadem caeli regione aer fluit, faciunt … in mari austri atque Africi. Nam fluctus, qui flante aquilone maximi et creberrimi excitantur, simul ac ventus posuit, sternuntur et conflaccescunt et mox fluctus esse desinunt. At non idem fit flante austro vel Africo; quibus iam nihil spirantibus undae tamen factae diutius tument et a vento quidem iamdudum tranquillae sunt, sed mare est etiam atque etiam undabundum. Eius rei causa esse haec coniectatur, quod venti a septentrionibus, ex altiore caeli parte in mare incidentes, deorsum in aquarum profunda quasi praecipites deferuntur undasque faciunt non prorsus inpulsas, sed imitus commotas, quae tantisper erutae volvuntur, dum illius infusi desuper spiritus vis manet. Austri vero et Africi, ad meridianum orbis circulum et ad partem axis infimam depressi, inferiores et humiles, per supreme aequoris euntes protrudunt magis fluctus quam eruunt, et idcirco non desuper laesae, sed propulsae in adversum aquae, etiam desistente flatu, retinent aliquantisper de pristino pulsu impetum. Id autem ipsum quod dicimus ex illis quoque Homericis versibus, si quis non incuriose legat, adminiculari potest. Nam de austri flatibus ita scripsit:
Ἔνθα νότος μέγα κῦμα ποτὶ σκαιὸν ῥίον ὠθεῖ,
contra autem de boreaborca, quem “aquilonem” nos appellamus, alio dicit modo:
Καὶ βορέης αἰθρηγενέτης μέγα κῦμα κυλίνδων. Ab aquilonibus enim, qui alti supernique sunt, fluctus excitatos quasi per prona volvi dicit, ab austris autem, his qui humiliores sunt, maiore vi quadam propelli sursum atque subici. Id enim significat verbum ὠθεῖ,, sicut alio in loco:
Λᾶαν ἄνω ὤθεσκε ποτὶ λόφον. Id quoque a peritissimis rerum philosophis observatum est, austris spirantibus mare fieri glaucum et caeruleum, aquilonibus obscurius atriusque. Cuius rei causam, cum Aristotelis libros Problematorum praecerperemus, notavi.

## 8. Book III · chapters 1–10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/8/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/8/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A discussion of the question why Sallust said that avarice rendered effeminate, not only a manly soul, but also the very body itself. WHEN winter was already waning, we were walking with the philosopher Favorinus in the court of the Titian baths, enjoying the mild warmth of the sun; and there, as we walked, Sallust's Catiline was being read, a book which Favorinus had seen in the hands of a friend and had asked him to read. The following passage from that book had been recited: “Avarice implies a desire for money, which no wise man covets; steeped as it were with noxious poisons, it renders the most manly body and soul effeminate; it is ever unbounded, nor can either plenty or want make it less.” Then Favorinus looked at me and said: “How does avarice make a man's body effeminate? For I seem to grasp in general the meaning of his statement that it has that effect on a manly soul, but how it also makes his body effeminate I do not yet comprehend.” “I too,” said I, “have for a long time been putting myself that question, and if you had not anticipated me, I should of my own accord have asked you to answer it.” Scarcely had I said this with some hesitation, when one of the disciples of Favorinus, who seemed to be an old hand in the study of literature, broke in: “I once heard Valerius Probus say that Sallust here used a kind of poetic circumlocution, and meaning to say that a man was corrupted by avarice, spoke of his body and soul, the two factors which indicate a man; for man is made up of body and soul.” “Never,” replied Favorinus, “at least, so far as I know, was our Probus guilty of such impertinent and bold subtlety as to say that Sallust, a most skilful artist in conciseness, used poetic paraphrases.” There was with us at the time in the same promenade a man of considerable learning. He too, on being asked by Favorinus whether he had anything to say on the subject, answered to this effect: “We observe that almost all those whose minds are possessed and corrupted by avarice and who have devoted themselves to the acquisition of money from any and every source, so regulate their lives, that compared with money they neglect manly toil and attention to bodily exercise, as they do everything else. For they are commonly intent upon indoor and sedentary pursuits, in which all their vigour of mind and body is enfeebled and, as Sallust says, 'rendered effeminate.'” Then Favorinus asked to have the same words of Sallust read again, and when they had been read, he said: “How then are we to explain the fact, that it is possible to find many men who are greedy for money, but nevertheless have strong and active bodies?” To this the man replied thus: “Your answer is certainly to the point. Whoever,” said he, “is greedy for money, but nevertheless has a body that is strong and in good condition, must necessarily be possessed either by an interest in, or devotion to, other things as well, and cannot be equally niggardly in his care of himself. For if extreme avarice, to the exclusion of everything else, lay hold upon all a man's actions and desires, and if it extend even to neglect of his body, so that because of that one passion he has regard neither for virtue nor physical strength, nor body, nor soul—then, and then only, can that vice truly be said to cause effeminacy both of body and of soul, since such men care neither for themselves nor for anything else except money.” Then said Favorinus: “Either what you have said is reasonable, or Sallust, through hatred of avarice, brought against it a heavier charge than he could justify.”

> Latin: 1. Quaesitum atque tractatum quam ob causam Sallustius avaritiam dixerit non animumanimumum modo virilem, sed corpus quoque ipsum effeminareefferninare. HIEME iam decedente, apud balneas Titias in area subcalido sole cum Favorino philosopho ambulabamus; atque ibi inter ambulandum legebatur Catilina Sallustii, quem in manu amici conspectum legi iusserat. Cumque haec verba ex eo libro lecta essent: “Avaritia pecuniae studium habet, quam nemo sapiens concupivit; ea quasi venenis malis imbuta corpus animumque virilem effeminat, semper infinita et insatiabilis est, neque copia neque inopia minuitur,” tum Favorinus me aspiciens “Quo,” inquit, “pacto corpus hominis avaritia effeminat? Quid enim istuc sit, quod animum virilem ab ea effeminari dixit, videor ferme assequi, set quonam modo corpus quoque hominis effeminet nondum reperiorcperio.” “Et ego,” inquam, “longe iamdiu in eo ipse quaerendo fui ac, nisi tu occupasses, ultro te hoc rogassem.” Vix ego haec dixeram cunctabundus, atque inibi quispiam de sectatoribus Favorini, qui videbatur esse in litteris veterator, “Valerium,” inquit, “Probum audivi haec dicere: usum esse Sallustium circumlocutione quadam poetica et, cum dicere vellet hominem avaritia corrumpi, corpus et animum dixisse, quae duae res hominem demonstrarent; namque homo ex anima et corpore est.” “Numquam,” inquit Favorinus, “quod equidem scio, tam inportuna tamque audaci argutia fuit noster Probus, ut Sallustium, vel subtilissimum brevitatis artificem, periphrasis poetarum facere diceret.” Erat tum nobiscum in eodem ambulacro homo quispiam sane doctus. Is quoque a Favorino rogatus ecquid haberet super ea re dicere, huiuscemodi verbis usus est: “Quorum,” inquit, “avaritia mentem tenuit et corrupit quique sese quaerundae undique pecuniae dediderunt, eos plerosque tali genere vitae occupatos videmus, ut sicuti alia in his omnia prae pecunia, ita labor quoque virilis exercendique corporis studium relictui sit.” “Negotiis enim se plerumque umbraticis et sellulariis quaestibus intentos habent, in quibus omnis eorum vigor animi corporisque elanguescit et, quod Sallustius ait, ‘effeminatur.’” Tum Favorinus legi denuo verba eadem Sallustii iubet atque, ubi lecta sunt, “Quid igitur,” inquit, “dicimus, quod multos videre est pecuniae cupidos et eosdem tamen corpore esse vegeto ac valenti?” Tum ille ita respondit: “Respondes non hercle inscite. Quisquis,” inquit, “est pecuniae cupiens et corpore tamen est bene habito ac strenuo, aliarum quoque rerum vel studio vel exercitio eum teneri necessum est atque in sese colendo non aeque esse parcum.” “Nam si avaritia sola summa omnes hominis partes affectionesque occupet et si ad incuriam usque corporis grassetur, ut per illam unam neque virtutis neque virium neque corporis neque animi cura adsit, tum denique id vere dici potest effeminando esse et animo et corpori, si qui neque sese neque aliud curent, nisi pecuniam.” Tum Favorinus “Aut hoc,” inquit, “quod dixisti, probabile est, aut Sallustius odio avaritiae plus quam par fuit eam criminatus est.”

[¶1] 2. Which was the birthday, according to Marcus Varro, of those born before the sixth hour of the night, or after it and in that connection, concerning the duration and limits of the days that are termed “civil” and are reckoned differently all over the world; and in addition, what Quintus Mucius wrote about that woman who claimed freedom from her husband's control illegally, because she had not taken account of the civil year. IT is often inquired which day should be considered and called the birthday of those who are born in the third, the fourth, or any other hour of the night; that is, whether it is the day that preceded, or the day that followed, that night. Marcus Varro, in that book of his Human Antiquities which he wrote On Days, says: “Persons who are born during the twenty-four hours between one midnight and the next midnight are considered to have been born on one and the same day.” From these words it appears that he so apportioned the reckoning of the days, that the birthday of one who is born after sunset, but before midnight, is the day after which that night began; but that, on the other hand, one who is born during the last six hours of the night is considered to have been born on the day which dawned after that night. However, Varro also wrote in that same book that the Athenians reckon differently, and that they regard all the intervening time from one sunset to the next as one single day. That the Babylonians counted still differently; for they called by the name of one day the whole space of time between sunrise and the beginning of the next sunrise; but that in the land of Umbria many said that from midday to the following midday was one and the same day. “But this,” he said, “is too absurd. For the birthday of one who is born among the Umbrians at mid-day on the first of the month will have to be considered as both half of the first day of the month and that part of the second day which comes before midday.” But it is shown by abundant evidence that the Roman people, as Varro said, reckoned each day from midnight to the next midnight. The religious ceremonies of the Romans are performed in part by day, others by night; but those which take place by night are appointed for certain days, not for nights; accordingly, those that take place during the last six hours of the night are said to take place on the day which dawns immediately after that night. Moreover, the ceremony and method of taking the auspices point to the same way of reckoning; for the magistrates, whenever they must take the auspices, and transact the business for which they have taken the auspices, on the same day, take the auspices after midnight and transact tile business after midday, when the sun is high, and they are then said to have taken the auspices and acted on the same day. Again, when the tribunes of the commons, who are not allowed to be away from Rome for a whole day, leave the city after midnight and return after the first lighting of the lamps on the following day, but before midnight, they are not considered to have been absent for a whole day, since they returned before the completion of the sixth hour of the night, and were in the city of Rome for some part of that day. I have read that Quintus Mucius, the jurist, also used to say that a woman did not become her own mistress who, after entering upon marriage relations with a man on the day called the Kalends of January, left him, for the purpose of emancipating herself, on the fourth day before the Kalends of the following January; for the period of three nights, during which the Twelve Tables provided that a woman must be separated from her husband for the purpose of gaining her independence, could not be completed, since the last six hours of the third night belonged to the next year, which began on the first of January. Now since I found all the above details about the duration and limits of days, pertaining to the observance and the system of ancient law, in the works of our early writers, I did not doubt that Virgil also indicated the same thing, not directly and openly, but, as became one treating poetic themes, by an indirect and as it were veiled allusion to ancient observance. He says:
For dewy Night has wheeled her way
Far past her middle course; the panting steeds
Of orient Morn breathe pitiless on me.
For in these lines he wished to remind us covertly, as I have said, that the day which the Romans have called “civil” begins after the completion of the sixth hour of the night.

> Latin: 2. Quemnam esse natalem diem M. Varro dicat, qui ante noctis horam sextam postve eamearn nati sunt; atque inibi de temporibus terminisque dierum qui civiles nominantur et usquequaque gentium varie observantur; et praeterea quid Q. Mucius scripserit super ea muliere quae a marito non iure se usurpavisset, quod rationem civilis anni non habuerit. QUAERI solitum est, qui noctis hora tertia quartave sive qua alia nati sunt, uter dies natalis haberi appellarique debeat, isne quem nox ea consecuta est, an qui dies noctem consecutus est. M. Varro in libro Rerum humanarumHumnanarum, quem De Diebus scripsit, “homines,” inquit, “qui inde a media nocte ad proximam mediam noctem in his horis viginti quattuor nati sunt, uno die nati dicuntur.” Quibus verbis ita videtur dierum observationem divisisse, ut qui post solem occasum ante mediam noctem natus sit, is ei dies natalis sit, a quo die ea nox coeperit; contra vero, qui in sex noctis horis posterioribus nascatur, eo die videri natum, qui post eamearn noctem diluxerit. Athenienses autem aliter observare, idem Varro in eodem libro scripsit, eosque a sole occaso ad solem iterum occidentem omne id medium tempus unum diem esse dicere. Babylonios porro aliter; a sole enim exorto ad exortum eiusdem incipientem totum id spatium unius diei nomine appellare; multos vero in terra Umbria unum et eundem diem esse dicere a meridie ad insequentem meridiem; “quod quidem,” inquit, “nimis absurdum est. Nam qui Kalendis hora sexta apud Umbros natus est, dies eius natalis videri debebit et Kalendarum dimidiarum et qui est post Kalendas dies ante horam eius diei sextam.” Populum autem Romanum ita, uti Varro dixit, dies singulos adnumerare a media nocte ad mediam proximam, multis argumentis ostenditur. Sacra sunt Romana partim diurna, alia nocturna, sed ea quae inter noctem fiunt diebus addicuntur, non noctibus; quae igitur sex posterioribus noctis horis fiunt, eo die fieri dicuntur qui proximus eam noctem inlucescit. Ad hoc ritus quoque et mos auspicandi eandem esse observationem docet; nam magistratus, quando uno die eis auspicandum est et id super quo auspicaverunt agendum, post mediam noctem auspicantur et post meridiem sole magno agunt, auspicatique esse et egisse eodem die dicuntur. Praeterea tribuni plebei, quos nullum diem abessealesse Roma licet, cum post mediam noctem proficiscuntur et post primam facem ante mediam sequentem revertuntur, non videntur afuisse unum diem, quoniam, ante horam noctis sextam regressi, parte aliqua illius in urbe Roma sunt. Q. quoque Mucium iureconsultum dicere solitum legi, non esse usurpatam mulierem, quae, cum Kalendis Ianuariis apud virum matrimonii causa esse coepisset, ante diem IV. Kalendas Ianuarias sequentes usurpatumusulpatum isset; non enim posse impleri trinoctium, quod abesse a viro usurpandi causa ex Duodecim Tabulis deberet, quoniam tertiae noctis posterioris sex horae alterius anni essent, qui inciperet ex Kalendis. Istaec autem omnia de dierum temporibus et finibus ad observationem disciplinamque iuris antiqui pertinentia cum in libris veterum inveniremus, non dubitabamus quin Vergilius quoque id ipsum ostenderit, non exposite atque aperte, sed, ut hominemhoiniem decuit poeticas res agentem, recondita et quasi operta veteris ritus significatione: Torquet (inquit) medios nox umida cursus
Et me saevus equis oriens afflavit anhelis. His enim versibus oblique, sicuti dixi, admonere voluit, diem quem Romani “civilem” appellaverunt a sexta noctis hora oriri.

[¶2] 3. On investigating and identifying the comedies of Plautus, since the genuine and the spurious without distinction are said to have been inscribed with his name; and further as to the report that Plautus wrote plays in a bakery and Naevius in prison. I AM convinced of the truth of the statement which I have heard made by men well trained in literature, who have read a great many plays of Plautus with care and attention: namely, that with regard to the so-called “doubtful” plays they would trust, not the lists of Aelius or Sedigitus or Claudius or Aurelius or Accius or Manilius, but Plautus himself and the characteristic features of his manner and diction. Indeed, this is the criterion which we find Varro using. For in addition to those one and twenty known as “Varronian,” which he set apart from the rest because they were not questioned but by common consent were attributed to Plautus, he accepted also some others, influenced by the style and humour of their language, which was characteristic of Plautus; and although these had already been listed under the names of other poets, he claimed them for Plautus: for example, one that I was recently reading, called The Boeotian woman. For although it is not among those one and twenty and is attributed to Aquilius, still Varro had not the least doubt that it was Plautine, nor will any other habitual reader of Plautus doubt it, even if lie knows only the following verses from that play, which, since they are, to speak in the manner of that famous poet, most Plautine, I recall and have noted down. There a hungry parasite speaks as follows:
The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,
Who in this place set up a sun-dial
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions! When I was a boy,
My belly was my only sun-dial, one more sure,
Truer, and more exact than any of them.
This dial told me when 'twas proper time
To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat;
But nowadays, why even when I have,
I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.
The town's so full of these confounded dials
The greatest part of the inhabitants,
Shrunk up with hunger, crawl along the streets. My master Favorinus too, when I was reading the Nervularia of Plautus, and he had heard this line of the comedy:
Old, wheezing, physicky, mere foundered hags
With dry, parched, painted hides, shrivell'd and shrunk,
delighted with the wit of the archaic words that describe the ugly defects of harlots, cried: “By heaven! just this one verse is enough to convince one that the play is Plautine.” I myself too a little while ago, when reading the Fretum—that is the name of a comedy which some think is not Plautine—had no manner of doubt that it was by Plautus and in fact of all his plays the most authentic. From it I copied these two lines, with the intention of looking up the story of the Arretine oracle:
Now here we have at the great games the Arretine response:
I perish if I don't, and if I do, I'm flogged. Yet Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Comedies of Plautus, quotes these words of Accius: “For not the Twin Panders nor the Slave-ring nor the Old Woman were the work of Plautus, nor were ever the Twice Violated or the Boeotian woman, nor were the Clownish Rustic or the Partners in, Death the work of Titus Maccius.” In that same book of Varro's we are told also that there was another writer of comedies called Plautius. Since his plays bore the title “Plauti,” they were accepted as Plautine, although in fact they were not Plautine by Plautus, but Plautinian by Plautius. Now there are in circulation under the name of Plautus about one hundred and thirty comedies; but that most learned of men Lucius Aelius thought that only twenty-five of them were his. However, there is no doubt that those which do not appear to have been written by Plautus but are attached to his name, were the work of poets of old but were revised and touched up by him, and that is why they savour of the Plautine style. Now Varro and several others have recorded that the Saturio, the Addictus, and a third comedy, the name of which I do not now recall, were written by Plautus in a bakery, when, after losing in trade all the money which he had earned in employments connected with the stage, he had returned penniless to Rome, and to earn a livelihood had hired himself out to a baker, to turn a mill, of the kind which is called a “push-mill.” So too we are told of Naevius that he wrote two plays in prison, the Soothsayer and the Leon, when by reason of his constant abuse and insults aimed at the leading men of the city, after the manner of the Greek poets, he had been imprisoned at Rome by the triumvirs. And afterwards he was set free by the tribunes of the commons, when he had apologized for his offences and the saucy language with which he had previously assailed many men.

> Latin: 3. De noscendis explorandisque Plauti comoediis, quoniamquonian promiscepromise verae atque falsae nomine eius inscriptaeinscriptac feruntur; atque inibi, quod Plautus in pistrino et Naevius in carcere fabulas scriptitarint. VERUM esse comperior quod quosdam bene litteratos homines dicere audivi, qui plerasque Plauti comoedias curiose atque contente lectitarunt, non indicibus Aelii nec Sedigiti nec Claudii nec Aurelii nec Accii nec Manilii super his fabulis quae dicuntur “ambiguae” crediturum, sed ipsi Plauto moribusque ingeni atque linguae eius. Hac enim iudicii norma Varronem quoque usum videmus. Nam praeter illas unam et viginti quae “Varronianae” vocantur, quas idcirco a ceteris segregavit, quoniam dubiosae non erant set consensu omnium Plauti esse censebantur, quasdam item alias probavit adductus filo atque facetia sermonis Plauto congruentis easque iam nominibus aliorum occupatas Plauto vindicavit, sicuti istam quam nuperrime legebamus, cui est nomen Boeotia. Nam cum in illis una et viginti non sit et esse Aquili dicatur, nihil tamen Varro dubitavit quin Plauti foret, neque alius quisquam non infrequens Plauti lector dubitaverit, si vel hos solos ex ea fabula versus cognoverit, qui quoniam sunt, ut de illius Plauti more dicam, Plautinissimi, propterea et meminimus eos et ascripsimus. Parasitus ibi esuriens haec dicit:
Ut illúm di perdant, prímus qui horas répperit,
Quique ádeo primus státuit hichie solárium,
Qui míhi comminuit mísero articulatím diem.
Nam unúm me puero vénter erat soláríum
Multo ómnium istorum óptimum et veríssimum;
Ubivís monebat ésse, nisi quom níl erat.
Nunc étiam quod est non éstur, nisi solí libet;
Itaque ádeo iam oppletum óppidum est soláriis,
Maiór pars populi iam áridi reptánt fame. Favorinus quoque noster, cum Nervulariam Plauti legerem, quae inter incertas habita est, et audisset ex ea comoedia versum hunc:
Scrattáe, scrupipedae, stríttivillae sórdidae,
delectatus faceta verborum antiquitate, meretricum vitia atque deformitates significantium, “vel unus hercle,” inquit, “hic versus Plauti esse hanc fabulam satis potest fidei fecisse.” Nos quoque ipsi nuperrime, cum legeremus Fretum—nomen est id comoediae quam Plauti esse quidam non putant,—haut quicquam dubitavimus quin ea Plauti foret, et omnium quidem maxime genuina. Ex qua duo hos versus exscripsimus, ut historiam quaereremus oraculi Arretini:
Nunc íllud est quód responsum Arreti ludis magnis dícitur:
Períbo, si non fécero, si fáxo, vapulábo. M. tamen Varro in libro De Comoediis Plautinis primo Accii verba haec ponit: “Nam nec Geminei Lenones nec Condalium nec Anus Plauti, nec Bis Coimpressa nec Boeotia umquam fuit, neque adeo Agroecus neque Commorientes Macci Titi.” In eodem libro M. Varronis id quoque scriptum, et Plautium fuisse quempiam poetam comoediarum. Quoniam fabulae eae “Plauti” inscriptae forent, acceptas esse quasi Plautinas, cum essent non a Plauto Plautinae, sed a Plautio Plautianae. Feruntur autem sub Plauti nomine comoediaecomoediac circiter centum atque triginta; sed homo eruditissimus L. Aelius quinque et viginti eius esse solas existimavit. Neque tamen dubium est quin istaec quae scriptae a Plauto non videntur et nomini eius addicuntur, veterum poetarum fuerint et ab eo retractatae et expolitae sint ac propterea resipiant stilum Plautinum. Sed enim Saturionem et Addictum et tertiam quandam, cuius nunc mihi nomen non subpetit, in pistrino eum scripsisse Varro et plerique alii memoriae tradiderunt, cum, pecunia omni quam in operas artificum scaenicorum pepereratpeperat, in mercatibus perdita, inops Romam redisset et ob quaerendum victum ad circumagendas molas quae “trusatiles” appellantur, operam pistori locasset. Sicuti de Naevio quoque accepimus fabulas eum in carcere duas scripsisse, Hariolum et Leontem, cum ob assiduam maledicentiam et probra in principes civitatis de Graecorum poetarum more dicta in vincula Romae a triumviris coniectus esset. Unde post a tribunis plebis exemptus est, cum in his quas supra dixi fabulis delicta sua et petulantias dictorum quibus multos ante laeserat diluisset.

[¶3] 4. That it was an inherited custom of Publius Africanus and other distinguished men of his time to shave their beard and cheeks. I FOUND it stated in books which I read dealing with the life of Publius Scipio Africanus, that Publius Scipio, the son of Paulus, after he had celebrated a triumph because of his victory over the Carthaginians and had been censor, was accused before the people by Claudius Asellus, tribune of the commons, whom he had degraded from knighthood during his censorship; and that Scipio, although he was under accusation, neither ceased to shave his beard and to wear white raiment nor appeared in the usual garb of those under accusation. But since it is certain that at that time Scipio was less than forty years old, I was surprised at the statement about shaving his beard. I have learned, however, that in those same times the other nobles shaved their beards at that time of life, and that is why we see many busts of early men represented in that way, men who were not very old, but in middle life.

> Latin: 4. Quod P. Africano et aliis tunc viris nobilibus ante aetatem senectam barbam et genas radere mos patrius fuit. IN libris quos de vita P. Scipionis Africani compositos legimus, scriptum esse animadvertimus P. Scipioni, Pauli filio, postquam de Poenis triumphaverat censorque fuerat, diem dictum esse ad populum a Claudio Asello tribuno plebis, cui equum in censura ademerat, eumque, cum esset reus, neque barbam desisse radi neque candida veste uti neque fuisse cultu solito reorum. Sed cum in eo tempore Scipionem minorem quadraginta annorum fuisse constaret, quod de barba rasa ita scriptum esset mirabamur. Comperimus autem ceteros quoque in isdem temporibus nobiles viros barbam in eiusmodi aetate rasitavisse, idcircoque plerasque imagines veterum, non admodum senum, sed in medio aetatis, ita factas videmus.

[¶4] 5. How the philosopher Arcesilaus severely yet humorously taunted a man with the vice of voluptuousness and with unmanliness of expression and conduct. PLUTARCH tells us that Arcesilaus the philosopher used strong language about a certain rich man, who was too pleasure-loving, but nevertheless had a reputation for uprightness and freedom from sensuality. For when he observed the man's affected speech, his artfully arranged hair, and his wanton glances, teeming with seduction and voluptuousness, he said: “It makes no difference with what parts of your body you debauch yourself, front or rear.”

> Latin: 5. Deliciarum vitium et mollities oculorum et corporis ab Arcesila philosopho cuidam obprobrata acerbe simul et festiviter. PLUTARCHUS refert Arcesilaum philosophum vehementi verbo usum esse de quodam nimis delicato divite, qui incorruptus tamen et a stupro integer dicebatur. Nam cum vocem eius infractam capillumque arte compositum et oculos ludibundos atque inlecebrae voluptatisque plenos videret, “Nihil interest,” inquit, “quibus membris cinaedi sitis, posterioribusposteriorilus an prioribus.”

[¶5] 6. On the natural strength of the palm-tree; for when weights are placed upon its wood, it resists their pressure. A TRULY wonderful fact is stated by Aristotle in the seventh book of his Problems, and by Plutarch in the eighth of his Symposiaca. “If,” say they, “you place heavy weights on the wood of the palmtree, and load it so heavily and press it down so hard that the burden is too great to bear, the wood does not give way downward, nor is it made concave, but it rises against the weight and struggles upward and assumes a convex form. It is for that reason,” says Plutarch, “that the palm has been chosen as the symbol of victory in contests, since the nature of its wood is such that it does not yield to what presses hard upon it and tries to crush it.”

> Latin: 6. De vi atque natura palmae arboris, quod lignum ex ea ponderibus positis renitatur. PER hercle rem mirandam Aristoteles in septimo Problematorum et Plutarchus in octavo Symposiacorum dicit. “Si super palmae,” inquiunt, “arboris lignum magna pondera inponas ac tam graviter urgeas oneresque, ut magnitudomnagnitudo oneris sustineri non queat, non deorsum palma cedit nec intra flectitur, sed adversus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recurvaturque”; “propterea,” inquit Plutarchus, “in certaminibus palmam signum esse placuit victoriae, quoniam ingenium ligni eiusmodi est, ut urgentibus opprimentibusque non cedat.”

[¶6] 7. A tale from the annals about Quintus Caedicius, tribune of the soldiers; and a passage from the Origins of Marcus Cato, in which he likens the valour of Caedicius to that of the Spartan Leonidas. A GLORIOUS deed, by the Gods! and well worthy of the noble strains of Greek eloquence, is that of the military tribune Quintus Caedicius, recorded by Marcus Cato in his Origins. The actual account runs about as follows: In the first Punic war the Carthaginian general in Sicily advanced to meet the Roman army and was first to take possession of the hills and strategic points. As the result of this, the Roman soldiers made their way into a place exposed to surprise and extreme danger. The tribune went to the consul and pointed out that destruction was imminent from their unfavourable position and from the fact that the enemy had surrounded them. “My advice is,” said he, “if you want to save the day, that you order some four hundred soldiers to advance to yonder wart” —for that is Cato's term for a high and rough bit of ground—“and command and conjure them to hold it. When the enemy see that, undoubtedly all their bravest and most active men will be intent upon attacking and fighting with them; they will devote themselves to that one task, and beyond a doubt all those four hundred will be slaughtered. Then in the meantime, while the enemy is engaged in killing them, you will have time to get the army out of this position. There is no other way of safety but this.” The consul replied to the tribune that the plan seemed to him equally wise; “but who, pray,” said he, “will there be to lead those four hundred men of yours to that place in the midst of the enemy's troops?” “If you find no one else,” answered the tribune, “you may use me for that dangerous enterprise. I offer this life of mine to you and to my country.” The consul thanked and commended the tribune. The tribune and his four hundred marched forth to death. The enemy marvelled at their boldness; they were on tiptoe of expectation to see where they would go. But when it appeared that they were on their way to occupy that hill, the Carthaginian commander sent against them the strongest men in his army, horse and foot. The Roman soldiers were surrounded; though surrounded, they resisted; the battle was long and doubtful. At last numbers triumphed. Every man of the four hundred fell, including the tribune, either run through with swords or overwhelmed with missiles. Meanwhile the consul, while the battle was raging there, withdrew to a safe position on high ground. But what, by Heaven's help, befell that tribune, the leader of the four hundred soldiers, in the battle, I have added, no longer using my own words, but giving those of Cato himself, who says: “The immortal gods gave the tribune good fortune equal to his valour; for this is what happened. Although he had been wounded in many places during the battle, yet his head was uninjured, and they recognized him among the dead, unconscious from wounds and loss of blood. They bore him off the field, he recovered, and often after that rendered brave and vigorous service to his country; and by that act of leading that forlorn hope lie saved the rest of the army. But what a difference it makes where you do the same service! The Laconian Leonidas, who performed a like exploit at Thermopylae, because of his valour won unexampled glory and gratitude from all Greece, and was honoured with memorials of the highest distinction; they showed their appreciation of that deed of his by pictures, statues and honorary inscriptions, in their histories, and in other ways; but the tribune of the soldiers, who had done the same thing and saved an army, gained small glory for his deeds.” With such high personal testimony did Marcus Cato honour this valorous deed of Quintus Caedicius the tribune. But Claudius Quadrigarius, in the third book of his Annals, says that the man's name was not Caedicius, but Laberius.

> Latin: 7. Historia ex annalibus sumpta de Q. Caedicio tribuno militummilitu; verbaque ex Originibus M. Catonis apposita, quibus Caedici virtutem cum Spartano Leonida aequiperat. PULCRUM, dii boni, facinus Graecarumque facundiarum magniloquentia condignum M. Cato libris Originum de Q. Caedicio tribuno militum scriptum reliquit. Id profecto est ad hanc ferme sententiam: Imperator Poenus in terra Sicilia, bello Carthaginiensi primo, obviam Romano exercitu progreditur, colles locosque idoneos prior occupat. Milites Romani, uti res nata est, in locum insinuant fraudi et perniciei obnoxium. Tribulus ad consulem venit, ostendit exitium de loci importunitate et hostium circumstantia maturum. “Censeo,” inquit, “si rem servare vis, faciundum ut quadringentos aliquos milites ad verrucam illam,” sic enim Cato locum editum asperumque appellat, “ire iubeas, eamque uti occupent imperes horterisque; hostes profecto ubi id viderint, fortissimus quisque et promptissimus ad occursandum pugnandumque in eos praevertentur unoque illo negotio sese alligabunt atque illi omnes quadringenti procul dubio obtruncabuntur.” “Tunc interea, occupatis in ea caede hostibus, tempus exercitus ex hoc loco educendi habebis.” “Alia nisi haec salutis via nulla est.” Consul tribuno respondit, consilium quidem istud aeque providens sibi viderier; “sed istos,” inquit, “milites quadringentos ad eum locum in hostium cuneos quisnam erit qui ducat?” “Si alium,” inquit tribunus, “neminem reperisrepperis, me licet ad hoc periculum utare; ego hanc tibi et reipublicae animam do.” Consul tribuno gratias laudesque agit. Tribunus et quadringenti ad moriendum proficiscuntur. Hostes eorum audaciam demirantur, quorsum ire pergant in expectando sunt. Sed ubi apparuit ad eam verrucam occupandam iter intendere, mittit adversum illos imperator Carthaginiensis peditatum equitatumque quos in exercitu viros habuit strenuissimos. Romani milites circumveniuntur, circumventi repugnant; fit proelium diu anceps. Tandem superat multitudo. Quadringenti omnes cum tribuno perfossi gladiis aut missilibus operti cadunt. Consul interim, dum ibi pugnatur, se in locos tutos atque editos subducit. Sed quod illi tribuno, duci militum quadringentorum, divinitus in eo proelio usus venit, non iam nostris, sed ipsius Catonis verbis subiecimus: “Dii inmortales tribuno militum fortunam ex virtute eius dedere. Nam ita evenit: cum saucius multifariam ibi factus esset, tamen vulnus capiti nullum evenit, eumque inter mortuos, defetigatum vulneribus atque quod sanguen eius defluxerat, cognovere. Eum sustulere, isque convaluit, saepeque post illa operam reipublicae fortem atque strenuam perhibuitpraehibuit illoque facto, quod illos milites subduxit, exercitum ceterum servavit. Sed idem benefactum quo in loco ponas, nimium interest. Leonides Laco, qui simile apud Thermopylas fecit, propter eius virtutes omnis Graecia gloriam atque gratiam praecipuam claritudinis inclitissimae decoravere monumentis: signis, statuis, elogiis, historiis aliisque rebus gratissimum id eius factum habuere; at tribuno militum parva laus pro factis relicta, qui idem fecerat atque rem servaverat.” Hanc Q. Caedici tribuni virtutem M. Cato tali suo testimonio decoravit. Claudius autem Quadrigarius Annalis tertio non Caedicio nomen fuisse ait, sed Laberio.

[¶7] 8. A fine letter of the consuls Gaius Fabricius and Quintus Aemilius to king Pyrrhus, recorded by the historian Quintus Claudius. AT the time when king Pyrrhus was on Italian soil and had won one or two battles, when the Romans were getting anxious, and the greater part of Italy had gone over to the king, a certain Timochares, an Ambracian and a friend of king Pyrrhus, came stealthily to the consul Gaius Fabricius and asked a reward, promising that if they could come to terms, he would poison the king. This, he said, could easily be done, since his son was the monarch's cup-bearer. Fabricius transmitted this offer to the senate. The senate sent envoys to the king, instructing them not to reveal anything about Timochares, but to warn the king to act with more caution, and be on his guard against the treachery of those nearest to his own person. This, as I have told it, is the version found in the History of Valerius Antias. But Quadrigarius, in his third book, says that it was not Timochares, but Nicias, that approached the consul; that the embassy was not sent by the senate, but by the consuls; and that Pyrrhus thanked and complimented the Roman people in a letter, besides clothing and returning all the prisoners that were then in his hands. The consuls at that time were Gaius Fabricius and Quintus Aemilius. The letter which they sent to king Pyrrhus about that matter, according to Claudius Quadrigarius, ran as follows:
" The Roman consuls greet king Pyrrhus.
We, being greatly disturbed in spirit because of your continued acts of injustice, desire to war with you as an enemy. But as a matter of general precedent and honour, it has seemed to us that we should desire your personal safety, in order that we may have the opportunity of vanquishing you in the field. Your friend Nicias came to us, to ask for a reward if he should secretly slay you. We replied that we had no such wish, and that he could look for no advantage from such an action; at the same time it seemed proper to inform you, for fear that if anything of the kind should happen, the nations might think that it was done with our connivance, and also because we have no desire to make war by means of bribes or rewards or trickery. As for you, if you do not take heed, you will have a fall."

> Latin: 8. Litterae eximiae consulum C. Fabricii et Q. Aemilii ad regem Pyrrum, a Q. Claudio scriptore historiarum in memoriammemorial datae. CUM Pyrrus rex in terra Italia esset et unam atque alteram pugnas prospere pugnasset satisque agerent Romani et pleraque Italia ad regem descivisset, tum Ambraciensis quispiam Timochares, regis Pyrri amicus, ad C. Fabricium consulem furtim venit ac praemium petivit et, si de praemio conveniret, promisit regem venenis necare, idque facile esse factu dixit, quoniam filius suus pocula in convivio regi ministraret. Eam rem Fabricius ad senatum scripsit. Senatus ad regem legatos misit mandavitque ut de Timochare nihil proderent, sed monerent uti rex circumspectius ageret atque a proximorum insidiis salutem tutaretur. Hoc ita, uti diximus, in Valeri Antiatis Historia scriptum est. Quadrigarius autem in libro tertio non Timocharem, sed Niciam adisse ad consulem scripsit, neque legatos a senatu missos, sed a consulibus, et Pyrrum populo Romano laudes atque gratias scripsisse captivosque omnes quos tum habuit vestivisse et reddidisse. Consules tum fuerunt C. Fabricius et Q. Aemilius. Litteras, quas ad regem Pyrrum super ea causa miserunt, Claudius Quadrigarius scripsit fuisse hoc exemplo:
Consules Romani salutem dicunt Pyrro regi.
Nos pro tuis iniuriis continuis animo tenus commoti inimiciter tecum bellare studemus. Sed communis exempli et fidei ergo visum ut te salvum velimus, ut esset quem armis vincere possemus. Ad nos venit Nicias familiaris tuus, qui sibi praemium a nobis peteret, si te clam interfecisset. Id nos negavimus velle, neve ob eam rem quicquam commodi expectaret, et simul visum est ut te certiorem faceremus, ne quid eiusmodi, si accidisset, nostro consilio civitates putarent factumfittum, et quod nobis non placet pretio aut praemio aut dolis pugnare. Tu, nisi caves, iacebis.

[¶8] 9. The characteristics of the horse of Seius, which is mentioned in the proverb; and as to the colour of the horses which are called spadices; and the explanation of that term. GAVIUS BASSUS in his Commentaries, and Julius Modestus in the second book of his Miscellaneous Questions, tell the history of the horse of Seius, a tale wonderful and worthy of record. They say that there was a clerk called Gnaeus Seius, and that he had a horse foaled at Argos, in the land of Greece, about which there was a persistent tradition that it was sprung from the breed of horses that had belonged to the Thracian Diomedes, those which Hercules, after slaying Diomedes, had taken from Thrace to Argos. They say that this horse was of extraordinary size, with a lofty neck, bay in colour, with a thick, glossy mane, and that it was far superior to all horses in other points of excellence; but that same horse, they go on to say, was of such a fate or fortune, that whoever owned and possessed it came to utter ruin, as well as his whole house, his family and all his possessions. Thus, to begin with, that Gnaeus Seius who owned him was condemned and suffered a cruel death at the hands of Marcus Antonius, afterwards one of the triumvirs for setting the State in order. At that same time Cornelius Dolabella, the consul, on his way to Syria, attracted by the renown of this horse, turned aside to Argos, was fired with a desire to own the animal, and bought it for a hundred thousand sesterces; but Dolabella in his turn was besieged in Syria during the civil war, and slain. And soon afterwards Gaius Cassius, who had besieged Dolabella, carried off this same horse, which had been Dolabella's. It is notorious too that this Cassius, after his party had been vanquished and his army routed, met a wretched end. Then later, after the death of Cassius, Antonius, who had defeated him, sought for this famous horse of Cassius, and after getting possession of it was himself afterwards defeated and deserted in his turn, and died an ignominious death. Hence the proverb, applied to unfortunate men, arose and is current:
“That man has the horse of Seius.” The meaning is the same of that other old proverb, which I have heard quoted thus: “the gold of Tolosa.” For when the town of Tolosa in the land of Gaul was pillaged by the consul Quintus Caepio, and a quantity of gold was found in the temples of that town, whoever touched a piece of gold from that sack died a wretched and agonizing death. Gavius Bassus reports that he saw this horse at Argos; that it was of incredible beauty and strength and of the richest possible colouring. This colour, as I have said, we call poeniceus; the Greeks sometimes name it foi=nic, at others spa/dic, since the branch of the palm (foi=nic), torn from the tree with its fruit, is called spadix.

> Latin: 9. Quis et cuiusmodi fuerit qui in proverbio fertur equus Seianus; et qualis color equorum sit qui “spadices” vocantur; deque istius vocabuli ratione. GAVIUS BASSUS in commentariisCommenariis suis, item Iuliuslulius Modestus in secundo Quaestionum Confusarum, historiam de equo Seiano tradunt dignam memoria atque admiratione: Gnaeum Seium quempiam scribam fuisse eumque habuisse equum natum Argis in terra Graecia, de quo fama constans esset tamquam de genere equorum progenitus foret qui Diomedis Thracis fuissent, quos Hercules, Diomede occiso, e Thracia Argos perduxisset. Eum equum fuisse dicunt magnitudine invisitata, cervice ardua, colore poeniceo, flora et comanti iuba, omnibusque aliis equorum laudibus quoque longe praestitisse; sed eundem equum tali fuisse fato sive fortuna ferunt, ut quisquis haberet eum possideretque, ut is cum omni domo, familia fortunisque omnibus suis ad internecionem deperiret. Itaque primum illum Gnaeum Seium, dominum eius, a M. Antonio, qui postea triumvirum reipublicae constituendae fuit, capitis damnatum, miserando supplicio affectum esse; eodem tempore Cornelium Dolabellam consulem, im Syriam proficiscentem, fama istius equi adductumadductumi Argos devertisse cupidineque habendi eius exarsisse emisseque eum sestertiis centum milibus; sed ipsum quoque Dolabellam in Syria bello civili obsessum atque interfectum esse; mox eundem equum, qui Dolabellae fuerat, C. Cassium, qui Dolabellam obsederat, abduxisse. Eum Cassium postea satis notum est victis partibus fusoque exercitu suo miseram mortem oppetisse, deinde post Antonium, post interitum Cassii parta victoria, equum illum nobilem Cassi requisisse et, cum eo potitus esset, ipsum quoque postea victum atque desertum, detestabili exitio interisse. Hinc proverbium de hominibus calamitosis ortum dicique solitum: “Ille homo habet equum Seianum.” Eadem sententia est illius quoque veteris proverbii, quod ita dictum accepimus: “aurum Tolosanum.” Nam cum oppidum Tolosanum in terra Gallia Quintus Caepio consul diripuisset multumque auri in eius oppidi templis fuisset, quisquis ex ea direptione aurum attigit misero cruciabilique exitu periit. Hunc equum Gavius Bassus vidisse se Argis refert haut credibili pulcritudine vigoreque et colore exuberantissimo. Quem colorem nos, sicuti dixi, poeniceum dicimus, Graeci partim φοίνικα, alii σπάδικα appellant, quoniam palmae termes ex arbore cum fructu avulsus “spadix” dicitur.

[¶9] 10. That in many natural phenomena a certain power and efficacy of the number seven has been observed, concerning which Marcus Varro discourses at length in his Hebdomades. MARCUS VARRO, in the first book of his work entitled Hebdomades or On Portraits, speaks of many varied excellencies and powers of the number seven, which the Greeks call e(bdoma/s. “For that number,” he says, “forms the Greater and the Lesser Bear in the heavens; also the vergiliae, which the Greeks call pleia/des; and it is likewise the number of those stars which some call 'wandering,' but Publius Nigidius' wanderers.'” Varro also says that there are seven circles in the heavens, perpendicular to its axis. The two smallest of these, which touch the ends of the axis, he says are called po/loi, or “poles”; but that because of their small diameter they cannot be represented on what is termed an armillary sphere. And the zodiac itself is not uninfluenced by the number seven; for the summer solstice occurs in the seventh sign from the winter solstice, and the winter solstice in the seventh after the summer, and one equinox in the seventh sign after the other. Then too those winter days during which the kingfishers nest on the water he says are seven in number. Besides this, he writes that the course of the moon is completed in four times seven complete days; “for on the twenty-eighth day,” he says, “the moon returns to the same point from which it started,” and he quotes Aristides of Samos as his authority for this opinion. In this case he says that one should not only take note of the fact that the moon finishes its journey in four times seven, that is eight and twenty, days, but also that this number seven, if, beginning with one and going on until it reaches itself, it includes the sum of all the numbers through which it has passed and then adds itself, makes the number eight and twenty, which is the number of days of the revolution of the moon. He says that the influence of that number extends to and affects also the birth of human beings. “For,” says he, “when the life-giving seed has been introduced into the female womb, in the first seven days it is compacted and coagulated and rendered fit to take shape. Then afterwards in the fourth hebdomad the rudimentary male organ, the head, and the spine which is in the back, are formed. But in the seventh hebdomad, as a rule, that is, by the forty-ninth day,” says he, “the entire embryo is formed in the womb.” He says that this power also has been observed in that number, that before the seventh month neither male nor female child can be born in health and naturally, and that those which are in the womb the most regular time are born two hundred and seventy-three days after conception, that is, not until the beginning of the fortieth hebdomad. Of the periods dangerous to the lives and fortunes of all men, which the Chaldaeans call “climacterics,” all the gravest are combinations of the number seven. Besides this, he says that the extreme limit of growth of the human body is seven feet. That, in my opinion, is truer than the statement of Herodotus, the story-teller, in the first book of his History, that the body of Orestes was found under ground, and that it was seven cubits in height, that is, twelve and a quarter feet; unless, as Homer thought, the men of old were larger and taller of stature, but now, because the world is ageing, as it were, men and things are diminishing in size. The teeth too, he says, appear in the first seven months seven at a time in each jaw, and fall out within seven years, and the back teeth are added, as a rule, within twice seven years. He says that the physicians who use music as a remedy declare that the veins of men, or rather their arteries, are set in motion according to the number seven, and this treatment they call th\n dia\ tessa/rwn sumfwni/an, because it results from the harmony of four tones. He also believes that the periods of danger in diseases have greater violence on the days which are made up of the number seven, and that those days in particular seem to be, as the physicians call them, krisi/moi or “critical”; namely, the first, second and third hebdomad. And Varro does not fail to mention a fact which adds to the power and influence of the number seven, namely, that those who resolve to die of starvation do not meet their end until the seventh day. These remarks of Varro about the number seven show painstaking investigation. But he has also brought together in the same place others which are rather trifling: for example, that there are seven wonderful works in the world, that the sages of old were seven, that the usual number of rounds in the races in the circus is seven, and that seven champions were chosen to attack Thebes. Then he adds in that book the further information that he has entered upon the twelfth hebdomad of his age, and that up to that day he has completed seventy hebdomads of books, of which a considerable number were destroyed when his library was plundered, at the time of his proscription.

> Latin: 10. Quod est quaedam septenarii numeri vis et facultas in multis naturae rebus animaduersaaninadversa, de qua M. Varro in Hebdomadibus disserit copiose. M. VARRO in primo librorum qui inscribuntur Hebdomades vel De Imaginibus, septenarii numeri, quem Graece ἑβδομάδα appellant, virtutes potestatesque multas variasque dicit. “Is namque numerus,” inquit, “septentriones maiores minoresque in caelo facit, item vergilias, quas πλειάδας Graeci vocant, facit etiam stellas quas alii ‘erraticas,’ P. Nigidius ‘errones’ appellat.” Circulos quoque ait in caelo circum longitudinem axis septem esse; ex quis duos minimos, qui axem extimum tangunt, πόλους appellari dicit; sed eos in sphaera, quae κρικωτὴ vocatur, propter brevitatem non inesse. Ac neque ipse zodiacus septenario numero caret; nam in septimo signo fit solstitium a bruma, in septimo bruma a solstitio, in septimo aequinoctium ab aequinoctio. Dies deinde illos quibus alcyones hieme anni in aqua nidulantur, eos quoque septem esse dicit. Praeterea scribit lunae curriculum confici integris quater septenis diebus: “nam die duo- detricesimo luna,” inquit, “ex quo vestigio profecta est, eodem redit,” auctoremque opinionis huius Aristidem esse Samium; in qua re non id solum animadverti debere dicit quod quater septenis, id est octo et viginti, diebus conficeret luna iter suum, sed quod is numerus septenarius, si ab uno profectus, dum ad semetipsum progreditur, omnes per quos progressus est numeros comprehendat ipsumque se addat, facit numerum octo et viginti, quot dies sunt curriculi lunaris. Ad homines quoque nascendos vim numeri istius porrigi pertinereque ait: “Nam cum in uterum,” inquit, “mulieris genitale semen datum est, primis septem diebus conglobatur, coagulaturque fitque ad capiendam figuram idoneum. Post deinde quarta hebdomade, quod eius virile secus futurum est, caput et spina, quae est in dorso, informatur. Septima autem fere hebdomade, id est nono et quadragesimo die, totus,” inquit, “homo in utero absolvitur.” Illam quoque vim numeri huius observatam refert, quod ante mensem septimum neque mas neque femina salubriter ac secundum naturam nasci potest, et quod hi qui iustissime in utero sunt, post ducentos septuaginta tres dies postquam sunt concepti, quadragesima denique hebdomade inita nascuntur. Pericula quoque vitae fortunarumque omnium, quae “climacteras” Chaldaei appellant, gravissimos quosque fieri septenarios. Praeter hoc, modum esse dicit summum adolescendi humani corporis septem pedes. Quod esse magis verum arbitramur quam quod Herodotus, homo fabulator, in primo Historiarum inventum esse sub terra scripsit Oresti corpus cubita longitudinis habens septem, quae faciunt pedes duodecim et quadrantem, nisi si, ut Homerus opinatus est, vastiora prolixioraque fuerunt corpora hominum antiquiorum et nunc, quasi iam mundo senescente, rerum atque hominum decrementa sunt. Dentes quoque et in septem mensibus primis et septenos ex utraque parte gigni ait et cadere annis septimis et genuinos adnasci annis fere bis septenis. Venas etiam in hominibus, vel potius arterias, medicos musicos dicere ait numero moveri septenario, quod ipsi appellant τὴν διὰ τεσσάρων συμφωνίαν, quae fit in collatione quaternarii numeri. Discrimina etiam periculorum in morbis maiore vi fieri putat in diebus qui conficiuntur ex numero septenario, eosque dies omnium maxime, ita ut medici appellant, κρισίμους videri primam hebdomadam et secundam et tertiam. Neque non id etiam sumit ad vim facultatesque eius numeri augendas, quod, quibus inedia mori consilium est, septimo demumdernum die mortem oppetunt. Haec Varro de numero septenario scripsit admodum conquisite. Sed alia quoque ibidem congerit frigidiuscula: veluti septem opera esse in orbe terrae miranda et sapientes item veteres septem fuisse et curricula ludorum circensium sollemnia septem esse et ad oppugnandas Thebas duces septem delectos. Tum ibi addit, se quoque iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse et ad eum diem septuaginta hebdomadas librorum conscripsisse, ex quibus aliquammultos, cum proscriptus esset, direptis bibliothecis suis non comparuisse.

## 9. Book III · chapters 11–19

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/9/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/9/#p-N

[¶0] 11. The weak arguments by which Accius in his Didascalica attempts to prove that Hesiod was earlier than Homer. As to the age of Homer and of Hesiod opinions differ. Some, among whom are Philochorus and Xenophanes, have written that Homer was older than Hesiod; others that he was younger, among them Lucius Accius the poet and Euphorus the historian. But Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Portraits, says that it is not at all certain which of the two was born first, but that there is no doubt that they lived partly in the same period of time, and that this is proved by the inscription engraved upon a tripod which Hesiod is said to have set up on Mount Helicon. Accius, on the contrary, in the first book of his Didascalica, makes use of very weak arguments in his attempt to show that Hesiod was the elder: “Because Homer,” he writes, “when he says at the beginning of his poem that Achilles was the son of Peleus, does not inform us who Peleus was; and this he unquestionably would have done, if he did not know that the information had already been given by Hesiod. Again, in the case of Cyclops,” says Accius, “he would not have failed to note such a striking characteristic and to make particular mention of the fact that he was oneeyed, were it not that this was equally well known from the poems of his predecessor Hesiod.” Also as to Homer's native city there is the very greatest divergence of opinion. Some say that he was from Colophon, some from Smyrna; others assert that he was an Athenian, still others, an Egyptian; and Aristotle declares that he was from the island of los. Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Portraits, placed this couplet under the portrait of Homer:
This snow-white kid the tomb of Homer marks;
For such the Ietae offer to the dead.

> Latin: 11. Quibus et quam frivolis argumentis Accius in Didascalicis utatur, quibus docere nititur Hesiodum esse quam Homerum natu antiquiorem. SUPER aetate Homeri atque Hesiodi non consentitur. Alii Homerum quam Hesiodum maiorem natu fuisse scripserunt, in quis Philochorus et Xenophanes, alii minorem, in quis L. Accius poeta et Ephorus historiae scriptor. M. autem Varro in primo De Imaginibus, uter prior sit natus parum constare dicit, sed non esse dubium quin aliquo tempore eodem vixerint, idque ex epigrammate ostendi quod in tripode scriptum est, qui in monte Helicone ab Hesiodo positus traditur. Accius autem in primo Didascalico levibus admodum argumentis utitur, per quae ostendi putat, Hesiodum natu priorem: “Quod Homerus,” inquit, “cum in principio carminis Achillem esse filium Pelei diceret, quis esset Peleus non addidit; quam rem procul,” inquit, “dubio dixisset, nisi ab Hesiodo iam dictum videret. De Cyclope itidem,” inquit, “vel maxime quod unoculus fuit, rem tam insignem non praeterisset, nisi aeque prioris Hesiodi carminibus invulgatum esset.” De patria quoque Homeri multo maxime dissensum est. Alii Colophonium, alii Smyrnaeum, sunt qui Atheniensem, sunt etiam qui Aegyptium fuisse dicant, Aristoteles tradidit ex insula Io. M. Varro in libro De Imaginibus primo Homeri imagini epigramma hoc apposuit.
Capélla Homeri candida haec tumulum índicat,
Quod hac Ietaeletae mórtuo faciúnt sacra.

[¶1] 12. That Publius Nigidius, a man of great learning, applied bibosus to one who was given to drinking heavily and greedily, using a new, but hardly rational, word-formation. PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in his Grammatical Notes, calls one who is fond of drinking bibax and bibosus. Bibax, like edax, I find used by many others; but as yet I have nowhere found an example of bibosus, except in Laberius, and there is no other word similarly derived. For vinosus, or vitiosus, and other formations of the kind, are not parallel, since they are derived from nouns, not from verbs. Laberius, in the mime entitled Salinator, uses this word thus:
Not big of breast, not old, not bibulous, not pert.

> Latin: 12. Largum atque avidum bibendi a P. Nigidio, doctissimo viro, nova et prope absurda vocabuli figura “bibosum” dictum. BIBENDI avidum P. Nigidius in Commentariis grammaticisGranmmaticis “bibacem” et “bibosum” dicit. “Bibacem” ego, ut “edacem,” a plerisque aliis dictum lego; “bibosum” dictum nondum etiam usquam repperi nisi apud Laberium, neque aliud est quod simili inclinatu dicatur. Non enim simile est ut “vinosus” aut “vitiosus” ceteraque quae hoc modo dicuntur, quoniam a vocabulis, non a verbo, inclinata sunt. Laberius in mimo, qui Salinator inscriptus est, verbo hoc ita utitur:
Nón mammosa, nón annosa, nón bibosa, nón procax.

[¶2] 13. How Demosthenes, while still young and a pupil of the philosopher Plato, happening to hear the orator Callistratus add ressing the people, deserted Plato and became a follower of Callistratus. HERMIPPUS has written that Demosthenes, when quite young, used to frequent the Academy and listen to Plato. “And this Demosthenes,” says he, “when he had left home and, as usual, was on his way to Plato, saw great throngs of people running to the same place; he inquired the reason of this, and learned that they were hurrying to hear Callistratus. This Callistratus was one of those orators in the Athenian republic that they call dhmagwgoi/, or 'demagogues.' Demosthenes thought it best to turn aside for a moment and find out whether the discourse justified such eager haste. He came,” says Hermippus, “and heard Callistratus delivering that famous speech of his, h( peri\ )Wrwpou= di/kh. He was so moved, so charmed, so captivated, that he became a follower of Callistratus from that moment, deserting Plato and the Academy.”

> Latin: 13. Quod Demosthenes etiamtum adulescens, cum Platonis philosophi discipulus foret, audito forte Callistrato rhetore in contione populi, destitit a Platone et sectatus Callistratum est. HERMIPPUS hoc scriptum reliquit, Demosthenen admodum adulescentem ventitare in Academiam Platonemque audire solitum. “Atque is,” inquit, “Demosthenes domo egressus, ut ei mos erat, cum ad Platonem pergeret complurisque populos concurrentes videret, percontatur eius rei causam cognoscitque currere eos auditum Callistratum.” “Is Callistratus Athenis orator in republica fuit quos illi δημαγωγούς appellant.” “Visum est paulum devertere experirique an digna auditio tanto properantium studio foret.” “Venit,” inquit, “atque audit Callistratum nobilem illam τὴν περὶ Ὠρωποῦ δίκην dicentem, atque ita motus et demultus et captus est ut Callistratum iam inde sectari coeperit Academiam cum Platone reliquerit.”

[¶3] 14. That whoever says dimidium librum legi, or dimidiam fabulam audivi, and uses other expressions of that kind, speaks incorrectly: and that Marcus Varro gives the explanation of that error: and that no early writer has used such phraseology. VARRO believes that dimidium librum legi (“I have read half the book” ), or dimidiam fabulam legi (“I have read half the play” ), or any other expression of that kind, is incorrect and faulty usage. “For,” says he, one ought to say dimidiatum librum ('the halved book'), not dimidium, and dimidiatam fabulam, not dimidiam. But, on the contrary, if from a pint a half-pint has been poured, one should not say that 'a halved pint' has been poured, but a ' half-pint,' and when one has received five hundred sesterces out of a thousand that were owing him, we must say that he has received a half sestertium, not a halved one. But if a silver bowl," he says, “which I own in common with another person, has been divided into two parts, I ought to speak of it as 'halved,' not as 'a half': but my share of the silver of which the bowl is made is a 'half,' not 'halved.'” Thus Varro discusses and analyzes very acutely the difference between dimidium and dimidiatum, and he declares that Quintus Ennius spoke, in his Annals, with understanding in the line:
As if one brought a halved cup of wine,
and similarly the part that is missing from the cup should be spoken of as “half,” not “halved.” Now the point of all this argument, which Varro sets forth acutely, it is true, but somewhat obscurely, is this: dimidiatum is equivalent to dismediatum, and means “divided into two parts,” and therefore dimidiatum cannot properly be used except of the thing itself that is divided; dimidium, however, is not that which is itself divided, but is one of the parts of what has been divided. Accordingly, when we wish to say that we have read the half part of a book or heard the half part of a play, if we say dimidiam fabulam or dimidium librum, we make a mistake; for in that case you are using dimidium of the whole thing which has been halved and divided. Therefore Lucilius, following this same rule, says:
With one eye and two feet, like halved pig,
and in another place:
why not? To sell his trash the huckster lauds
(The rascal!) half a shoe, a strigil split.
Again in his twentieth book it is clearer still that Lucilius carefully avoids saying dimidiam horam, but puts dimidium in the place of dimnidiam in the following lines:
At its own season and the self-same time,
The half an hour and three at least elapsed,
At the fourth hour again.
For while it was natural and easy to say “three and a half elapsed,” he watchfully and carefully shunned an improper term. From this it is quite clear that not even “half an hour” can properly be said, but we must say either “a halved hour” or “the halt part of an hour.” And so Plautus as well, in the Bacchides, writes “half of the gold,” not “the halved gold,” and in the Aulularia, “half of the provisions,” not “the halved provisions,” in this verse:
He bade them give him half of all the meats;
But in the Menaechmi he has “the halved day,” not “half,” as follows:
Down to the navel now the halved day is dead.
Marcus Cato, too, in his work On Farming, writes: “Sow cypress seed thick, just as flax is commonly sown. Over it sift earth from a sieve to the depth of a halved finger. Then smooth it well with a board, with the feet, or with the hands.” He says “a halved finger,” not “a half.” For we ought to say “half of a finger,” but the finger itself should be said to be “halved.” Marcus Cato also wrote this of the Carthaginians: “They buried the men halfway down (dimidiatos) in the ground and built a fire around them; thus they destroyed them.” In fact, no one of all those who have spoken correctly has used these words otherwise than in the way I have described.

> Latin: 14. “Dimidium librum legi” aut “dimidiam fabulam audivi” aliaque huiuscemodi qui dicat, vitiose dicere; eiusque vitii causas reddere M. Varronem; nec quemquam veterem hisce verbis ita usum esse. “DIMIDIUM librum legi” aut “dimidiam fabulam audivi,” vel quid aliud huiuscemodi, male ac vitiose dici existumat Varro. “Oportet enim,” inquit, “dicere ‘dimidiatum librum,’ non ‘dimidium,’ et ‘dimidiatam fabulam,’ non ‘dimidiam.’ Contra autem si ex sextario hemina fusa est, non ‘dimidiatum’ sed ‘dimidium,’ sextarium fusum dicendum est, et qui ex mille nummum, quod ei debebatur, quingentos recepit, non ‘dimidiatum’ recepisse dicemus, sed ‘dimidium.’” “At si scyphusscyplus,” inquit, “argenteus mihi cum alio communis in duas partis disiectus sit,‘dimidiatum’ eum esse dicere scyphum debeo, non ‘dimidium,’ argenti autem, quod in eo scypho inest, ‘dimidium’ meum esse, non ‘dimidiatum’”; disseritque ac dividit subtilissime quid “dimidium” “dimidiato” intersit, et Q. Ennium scienter hoc in Annalibus dixisse ait:
Sicuti si quis ferat vas vini dimidiatum,
sicuti pars quae deest ei vaso non “dimidiata” dicenda est, sed “dimidia.” Omnis autem disputationis eius, quam subtiliter quidem, sed subobscuresuboscure explicat, summa haec est: “dimidiatum” est quasi “dismediatum” et in partis duas pares divisum, “dimidiatum” ergo nisi ipsum quod divisum est dici haut convenit; “dimidium” vero est, non quod ipsum dimidiatumdiinidiatum est, sed quae ex dimidiato pars altera est. Cum igitur partem dimidiam libri legisse volumus dicere aut partem dimidiam fabulae audisse, si “dimidiam fabulam” aut “dimidium librum” dicimus, peccamus; totum enim ipsum quod dimidiatum atque divisum est “dimidium” dicis. Itaque Lucilius eadem secutus:
Uno oculo (inquit) pedibusque duobus dimidiatus Ut porcus,
et alio loco:
Quidni? et scruta quidem ut vendat scrutarius laudat,
Praefractam strigilem, soleam inprobus dimidiatam. Iam in vicesimo manifestius “dimidiam horam” dicere studiose fugit, sed pro “dimidia” “dimidium” ponit in hisce versibus:
Tempestate sua atque eodem uno tempore, et horae
Dimidio et tribus confectis dumtaxat—eandem
Ad quartam.
Nam cum obvium proximumque esset dicere: “dimidia et tribus confectis,” vigilate atque attente verbum non probum vitavit. Per quod satis apparet ne “horam” quidem “dimidiam” recte dici, sed vel “dimidiatam horam” vel “dimidiam partem horae.” Propterea Plautus quoque in Bacchidibus dimidium auri dicit, non “dimidiatumdiridiatum aurum”; item in Aulularia “dimidium obsoni,” non “dimidiatum obsonium,” in hoc versu:
Ei ádeo obsoni hic iússit dimidiúm dari;
in MenaechmisMenaeclmis autem “dimidiatum diem,” non “dimidium” in hochoe versu:
Diés quidem iam ad úmbilicum dímidiatus mórtuust. M. etiam Cato in libro quem De Agricultura conscripsit: “Semen cupressi serito crebrum, ita uti linum seri solet. Eo cribro terram incernito, dimidiatum digitum. Iam id bene tabula aut pedibus aut manibus complanato.” “Dimidiatum,” inquit, “digitum,” non “dimidium.” Nam “digiti” quidem “dimidium,” digitum autem ipsum “dimidiatum” dici oportet. Item M. Cato de Carthaginiensibus ita scripsit: “Homines defoderunt in terram dimidiatos ignemque circumposuerunt, ita interfecerunt.” Neque quisquam omnium qui probe locuti sunt his verbis sequius quam dixi usus est.

[¶4] 15. That it is recorded in literature and handed down by tradition, that great and unexpected joy has brought sudden death to many, since the breath of life was stifled and could not endure the effects of an unusual and strong emotion. ARISTOTLE the philosopher relates that Polycrita, a woman of high rank in the island of Naxos, on suddenly and unexpectedly hearing joyful news, breathed her last. Philippides too, a comic poet of no little repute, when he had unexpectedly won the prize in a contest of poets at an advanced age, and was rejoicing exceedingly, died suddenly in the midst of his joy. The story also of Diogoras of Rhodes is widely known. This Diogoras had three young sons, one a boxer, the second a pancratist, and the third a wrestler. He saw them all victors and crowned at Olympia on the same day, and when the three young men were embracing him there, and having placed their crowns on their father's head were kissing him, and the people were congratulating him and pelting him from all sides with flowers, there in the very stadium, before the eyes of the people, amid the kisses and embraces of his sons, he passed away. Moreover, I have read in our annals that at the time when the army of the Roman people was cut to pieces at Cannae, an aged mother was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow by a message announcing the death of her son; but that report was false, and when not long afterwards the young man returned from that battle to the city, the aged mother, upon suddenly seeing her son, was overpowered by the flood, the shock, and the crash, so to speak, of unlooked-for joy descending upon her, and gave up the ghost.

> Latin: 15. Extare in litteris perque hominum memorias traditum, quod repente multis mortem attulit gaudium ingens insperatum, interclusa anima et vim magni novique motus non sustinente. cognito repente insperato gaudio expirasse animam refert Aristoteles philosophus Polycritam, nobilem feminam Naxo insula. Philippides quoque, comoediarum poeta haut ignobilis, aetate iam edita cum in certamine poetarum praeter spem vicisset et laetissime gauderet, inter illud gaudium repente mortuus est. De Rodio etiam Diagora celebrata historia est. Is Diagoras tris filios adulescentes habuit, unum pugilem, alterum pancratiasten, tertium luctatorem. Eos omnis vidit vincere coronarique Olympiae eodem die et, cum ibi eum tres adulescentes amplexi coronis suis in caput patris positis saviarentur, cum populus gratulabundus flores undique in eum iaceret, ibidem in stadio inspectante populo in osculis atque in manibus filiorum animam efflavit. Praeterea in nostris annalibus scriptum legimus, qua tempestate apud Cannas exercitus populi Romani caesus est, anum matrem, nuntio de morte filii allato, luctu atque maerore affectam esse; sed is nuntius non verus fuit, utque is adulescens non diu post ex ea pugna in urbem redit, anus repente filio viso copia atque turba et quasi ruina incidentis inopinati gaudii oppressa exanimataque est.

[¶5] 16. The variations in the period of gestation reported by physicians and philosophers; and incidentally the views also of the ancient poets on that subject and many other noteworthy and interesting particulars; and the words of the physician Hippocrates, quoted verbatim from his book entitled Peri\ Trofh=s.

> Latin: 16. Temporis varietas in puerperis mulierum quaenam sit a medicis et a philosophis tradita; atque inibi poetarum quoque veterum super eadem re opiniones multaque alia auditu atque memoratu digna; verbaque ipsa Hippocratis medicinedici ex libro illius sumpta qui inscriptus est Περὶ Τροφῆς.

[¶6] BOTH physicians and philosophers of distinction have investigated the duration of the period of gestation in man. The general opinion, now accepted as correct, is that after the womb of a woman has conceived the seed, the child is born rarely in the seventh month, never in the eighth, often in the ninth, more often in the tenth in number; and that the end of the tenth month, not its beginning, is the extreme limit of human gestation.

> Latin: ET medici et philosophi inlustres de tempore humani partus quaesiverunt. Multa opinio est, eaque iam pro vero recepta, postquam mulieris uterum semen conceperit, gigni hominem septimo rarenter, numquam octavo, saepe nono, saepius numero decimo mense, eumque esse hominum gignendi summum finem: decem menses non inceptos, sed exactos. Idque Plautum,

[¶7] And this we find the ancient poet Plautus saying in his comedy the Cistellaria, in these words:
And then the girl whom he did violate
Brought forth a daughter when ten months had sped.
That same thing is stated by Menander also, a still older poet and exceedingly well informed as to current opinion;

> Latin: veterem poetam, dicere videmus in comoedia Cistellaria his verbis:
tum ílla, quam comprésserat,
Decumó post mense exácto hic peperit fíliam.
Hoc idem tradit etiam Menander,

[¶8] I quote his words on that subject from the play called Plocium or The Necklace:
The woman is ten months with child...
But although our countryman Caecilius wrote a play with the same name and of the same plot, and borrowed extensively from Menander, yet in naming the months of delivery he did not omit the eighth, which Menander had passed by. These are the lines from Caecilius:
And may a child in the tenth month be born?—
By Pollux! in the ninth, and seventh, and eighth.

> Latin: poeta vetustior, humanarum opinionum vel peritissimus; versus eius super ea re de fabula Plocio posui:
Γυνὴ κυεῖ δέκα μῆνας.
4 sed noster Caecilius, cum faceret eodem nomine et eiusdem argumenti comoediam ac pleraque a Menandro sumeret, in mensibus tamen genitalibus nominandis non praetermisit octavum, quem praeterierat Menander. Caecilii versus hiscehice sunt:
sóletne mulier décimo mense párere?—
Pol nonó quoque
étíam septimo átque octavo.

[¶9] Marcus Varro leads us to believe that Caecilius did not make this statement thoughtlessly or differ without reason from Menander and from the opinions of many men.

> Latin: eamEarn rem Caecilium non inconsiderate dixisse neque temere a Menandro atque a multorum opinionibus descivisse, M. Varro uti credamus facit.

[¶10] For in the fourteenth book of his Divine Antiquities he has left the statement on record that parturition sometimes takes place in the eighth month. In this book he also says that sometimes a child may be born even in the eleventh month, and he cites Aristotle as authority for his statement in regard both to the eighth and the eleventh month.

> Latin: Nam mense nonnumquam octavo editum esse partum in libro quarto decimo Rerum Divinarum scriptum reliquit; quo in libro etiam undecimo mense aliquando nasci posse hominem dicit, eiusque sententiae tam de octavo quam de undecimo mense Aristotelem auctorem laudat.

[¶11] Now, the reason for this disagreement as to the eighth month may be found in Hippocrates' work entitled Peri\ Trofh=s, or On Nurture, from which these words are taken “Eighth-month's children exist and do not exist.”

> Latin: Sed huius de mense octavo dissensionis causa cognosci potest in libro Hippocratis qui inscriptus est Περὶ Τροφῆς, ex quo libro verba haec sunt: Ἔστιν δὲ καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν τὰ ὀκτάμηνα.

[¶12] This statement, so obscure, abrupt, and apparently contradictory, is thus explained by the physician Sabinus, who wrote a very helpful commentary on Hippocrates: “They exist, since they appear to live after the miscarriage; but they do not exist, since they die afterwards; they exist and do not exist therefore, since they live for the moment in appearance, but not in reality.”

> Latin: Id tam obscure atque praecise et tamquam adverse dictum Sabinus medicus, qui Hippocratem commodissime commentatus est, verbis his enarravit: Ἔστιν μέν, φαινόμενα ὡς ζῶα μετὰ τὴν ἔκτρωσιν· οὐκ ἔστιν δέ, θνήσκοντα μετὰ ταῦτα· καὶ ἔστιν οὖν καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν, φαντασίᾳ μὲν παραυτίκα ὄντα, δυνάμει δὲ οὐκέτι.

[¶13] But Varro says that the early Romans did not regard such births as unnatural rarities, but they did believe that a woman was delivered according to nature in the ninth or tenth month, and in no others, and that for this reason they gave to the three Fates names derived from bringing forth, and from the ninth and tenth months.

> Latin: Antiquos autem Romanos Varro dicit non recepisse huiuscemodi quasi monstruosas raritates, sed nono mense aut decimo, neque praeter hos aliis, partionem mulieris secundum naturam fieri existimasse idcircoque eos nomina Fatis tribus fecisse apariendo et a nono atque decimo mense.

[¶14] “For Parca,” says he, “is derived from partuis with the change of one letter, and likewise Nona and Decima from the period of timely delivery.”

> Latin: Nam “‘Parca,’” inquit, “inmutata una littera, a partu nominata, item ‘Nona’ et ‘Decima’ a partus tempestivi tempore.”

[¶15] But Caesellius Vindex in his Ancient Readings says: ' The names of the Fates are three: “Nona, Decuma, Morta”; and he quotes this verse from the Odyssey of Livius, the earliest of our poets,
When will the day be present that Morta has predicted?
But Caesellius, though a man not without learning, took Morta as a name, when he ought to have taken it as equivalent to Mocra.

> Latin: Caesellius autem Vindex in Lectionibus suis Antiquis: “Tria,” inquit, “nomina Parcarum sunt: ‘Nona,’ ‘Decuma,’ ‘Morta,’” et versum hunc Livii, antiquissimi poetae, ponit ex Ὀδυσσείᾳ:
Quandó diés advéniet quém profáta Mórta est?
Sed homo minime malus Caesellius “Mortam” quasi nomen accepit, cum accipere quasi Moeram deberet.

[¶16] Furthermore, besides what I have read in books about human gestation, also heard of the following case, which occurred in Rome: A woman of good and honourable character, of undoubted chastity, gave birth to a child in the eleventh month after her husband's death, and because of the reckoning of the time the accusation was made that she had conceived after the death of her husband, since the decemvirs had written that a child is born in ten months and not in the eleventh month. The deified Hadrian, however, having heard the case, decided that birth might also occur in the eleventh month, and I myself have read the actual decree with regard to the matter. In that decree Hadrian declares that he makes his decision after looking up the views of the ancient philosophers and physicians.

> Latin: Praeterea ego de partu humano, praeterquam quaequac scripta in libris legi, hoc quoque usu venisse Romae comperi: feminam bonis atque honestis moribus, non ambigua pudicitia, in undecimo mense post mariti mortem peperisse factumque esse negotium propter rationem temporis, quasi marito mortuo postea concepisset, quoniam decemviri in decem mensibus gigni hominem, non in undecimo scripsissent; sed divum Hadrianum, causa cognita, decrevisse in undecimoundecino quoque mense partum edi posse; idque ipsum eius rei decretum nos legimus. In eo decreto Hadrianus id statuere se dicit requisitis veterum philosophorum et medicorum sententiis.

[¶17] This very day I chanced to read these words in a satire of Marcus Varro's entitled The Will: “If one or more sons shall be born to me in ten months, let them be disinherited, if they are asses in music; but if one be born to me in the eleventh month, according to Aristotle, let Attius have the same rights under my will as Tettius.” Just as it used commonly to be said of things that did not differ from each other, “let Attius be as Tettius,” so Varro means by this old proverb that children born in ten months and in eleven are to have the same and equal rights.

> Latin: Hodie quoque in satura forte M. Varronis legimus, quae inscribitur Testamentum, verba haec: “Si quis mihi filius unus pluresve in decem mensibus gignantur, ii si erunt ὄνοι λύρας, exheredes sunto; quod si quis undecimo mense, Ἀριστοτέλην, natus est, Attio idem, quod Tettio, ius esto apud me.”

[¶18] But if it is a fact that gestation cannot be prolonged beyond the tenth month, it is pertinent to ask why Homer wrote that Neptune said to a girl whom he had just violated:
Rejoice, O woman, in this act of love;

> Latin: Per hoc vetus proverbium Varro significat, sicuti vulgo dici solitum erat de rebus nihil inter sese distantibus: “idem Atti, quod Tetti,” ita pari eodemque iure esse in decem mensibus natos et in undecim.

[¶19] A year gone by, fair offspring shall be thine,
For not unfruitful is a god's embrace. When I had brought this matter to the attention of several scholars, some of them argued that in Homer's time, as in that of Romulus, the year consisted, not of twelve months, but of ten;

> Latin: Quod si ita neque ultra decimum mensem fetura mulierum protolli potest, quaeri oportet cur Homerus scripserit, Neptunum dixisse puellae a se recens compressae:
Χαῖρε γυνὴ φιλότητι· περιπλομένου δʼ ἐνιαυτοῦ
Τέξεις ἀγλαὰ τέκνʼ, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἀποφώλιοι εὐναὶ
Ἀθανάτων.

[¶20] others, that it was in accord with Neptune and his majesty that a child by him should develop through a longer period than usual; and others gave other nonsensical reasons. But Favorinus tells me that periplome/nou e)niautou= does not mean “when the year is ended” (confectus), but “when it is nearing its end” (ad fectus.)

> Latin: Id cum ego ad complures grammaticos attulissem, partim eorum disputabant Homeri quoque aetate, sicuti Romuli, annum fuisse non duodecim mensium, sed decem; alii convenisse Neptuno maiestatique eius dicebant, ut longiori tempore fetus ex eo grandesceret;

[¶21] In this instance Favorinus did not use the word adfectus in its popular signification (but yet correctly);

> Latin: alii alia quaedam nugalia. Sed Favorinus mihi ait περιπλομένου ἐνιαυτοῦ non “confecto” esse “anno,” sed “adfecto.”
In qua re verbo usus est non vulgariae significationis.

[¶22] for as it was used by Marcus Cicero and the most polished of the early writers, it was properly applied to things which had advanced, or been carried, not to the very end, but nearly to the end. Cicero gives the word that meaning in the speech On the Consular Provinces.

> Latin: “Adfecta” enim, sicuti Marcus Cicero et veterum elegantissimi locuti sunt, ea proprie dicebantur quae non ad finem ipsum, sed proxime finem progressa deductave erant. Hoc verbum ad hanc sententiam Cicero in hac fecit, quam dixit De Provinciis Consularibus.

[¶23] Moreover, Hippocrates, in that book of which I wrote above, when he mentioned the number of days within which the embryo conceived in the womb is given form, and had limited the time of gestation itself to the ninth or tenth month, but had said that this nevertheless was not always of the same duration, but that delivery occurred sometimes more quickly, sometimes later, finally used these words: “In these cases there are longer and shorter periods, both wholly and in part; but the longer are not much longer or the shorter much shorter.” By this he means that whereas a birth sometimes takes place more quickly, yet it occurs not much more quickly, and when later, not much later.

> Latin: Hippocrates autem in eo libro de quo supra scripsi, cum et numerum dierum quibus conceptum in utero coagulum conformatur, et tempus ipsius partionis nono aut decimo mense definisset neque id tamen semper eadem esse fini dixisset, sed alias ocius fieri, alias serius, hisce ad postremum verbis usus est: Γίνεται δὲ ἐν τούτοις καὶ πλείω καὶ ἐλάσσω καὶ ὅλον καὶ κατὰ μέρος· οὐ πολλὸν δὲ καὶ πλείω πλείω καὶ ἐλάσσω ἐλάσσω. Quibus verbis significat, quod aliquando ocius fieret, non multo tamen fieri ocius, neque quod serius, multo serius.

[¶24] I recall that this question was carefully and thoroughly investigated at Rome, an inquiry demanded by a suit at law of no small moment at the time, whether, namely, a child that had been born alive in the eighth month but had died immediately, satisfied the conditions of the ius trium liberorrum, since it seemed to some that the untimely period of the eighth month made it an abortion and not a birth.

> Latin: Memini ego Romae accurate hoc atque sollicite quaesitum, negotio non rei tunc parvae postulante, an octavo mense infans ex utero vivus editus et statim mortuus ius trium liberorum supplevisset, cum abortio quibusdam, non partus, videretur mensis octavi intempestivitas.

[¶25] But since I have told what I have learned about a birth after a year in Homer and about the eleventh month, I think I ought not to omit what I read in the seventh book of the Natural Histoy of Plinius Secundus.

> Latin: Sed quoniam de Homerico annuo partu ac de undecimo mense diximus quae cognoveramus, visum est non praetereundum quod in Plinii Secundi libro septimo Naturalis Historiae legimus.

[¶26] But because that story might seem to be beyond belief, I have quoted Pliny's own words: “Masurius makes the statement that the praetor Lucius Papirius, when an heir in the second degree brought suit for the possession of an inheritance, decided against him, although the mother said that she had been pregnant for thirteen months; and the reason for his decision was that it seemed to him that no definite period of gestation had been fixed by law.”

> Latin: Id autem quia extra fidem esse videri potest, verba ipsius Plinii posuimus: “Masurius auctor est, L. Papirium praetorem, secundo herede lege agente, bonorumbonoruin possessionem contra eum dedisse, cum mater partum se tredecim mensibus tulisse diceret, quoniam nullum certum tempus pariendi statutum ei videretur.”

[¶27] In the same book of Plinius Secundus are these words: “Yawning during childbirth is fatal, just as to sneeze after coition produces abortion.”

> Latin: In eodem libro Plini Secundi verba haec scripta sunt: “Oscitatio in nixu letalis est, sicut sternuisse a coitu abortivum.”

[¶28] 17. The statement of men of the highest authority that Plato bought three books of Philolaus the Pythagorean, and that Aristotle purchased a few books of the philosopher Speusippus, at prices beyond belief. THE story goes that the philosopher Plato was a man of very slender means, but that nevertheless he bought three books of Philolaus the Pythagorean for ten thousand denarii.1 That sum, according to some writers, was given him by his friend Dion of Syracuse. Aristotle too, according to report, bought a very few books of the philosopher Speusippus, after the latter's death, for three Attic talents, a sum equivalent in our money to seventy-two thousand sesterces. The bitter satirist Timon wrote a highly abusive work, which he entitled Si/llos. In that book he addresses the philosopher Plato in opprobrious terms, alleging that he had bought a treatise on the Pythagorean philosophy at an extravagant figure, and that from it he had compiled that celebrated dialogue the Timaeus. Here are Timon's lines on the subject:
Thou, Plato, since for learning thou didst yearn,
A tiny book for a vast sum did'st buy,
Which taught thee a Timacus to compose.

> Latin: 17. Id quoque esse a gravissimis viris memoriae mandatum, quod tris libros Plato Philolai Pythagorici et Aristoteles pauculos Speusippi philosophi mercati sunt pretiis fidem non capientibus. MEMORIAE mandatum est Platonem philosophum tenui admodum pecunia familiari fuisse atque eum tamen tris Philolai Pythagorici libros decem milibus denarium mercatum. Id ei pretium donasse quidam scripserunt amicum eius Dionem Syracosium. Aristotelem quoque traditum libros pauculos Speusippi philosophi post mortem eius emisse talentis Atticis tribus; ea summa fit nummi nostri sestertia duo et septuaginta milia. Τίμων amarulentus librum maledicentissimum conscripsit, qui Σίλλος inscribitur. In eo libro Platonem philosophum contumeliose appellat, quod inpenso pretio librum Pythagoricae disciplinae emisset exque eo Timaeum, nobilem illum dialogum, concinnasset. Versus super ea re Τίμωνος hi sunt: Καὶ σύ, Πλάτων, καὶ γάρ σε μαθητείης πόθος ἔσχεν,
Πολλῶν δʼ ἀργυρίων ὀλίγην ἠλλάξαο βίβλον,
Ἔνθεν ἀπαρχόμενος τιμαιογραφεῖν ἐδιδάχθης.

[¶29] 18. What is meant by pedari senafores, and why they are so called; also the origin of these words in the customary edict of the consuls: “senators and those who are allowed to speak in the senate.” THERE are many who think that those senators were called pedarii who did not express their opinion in words, but agreed with the opinion of others by stepping to their side of the House. How then? Whenever a decree of the senate was passed by division, did not all the senators vote in that manner? Also the following explanation of that word is given, which Gavius Bassus has left recorded in his Commentaries. For he says that in the time of our forefathers senators who had held a curule magistracy used to ride to the House in a chariot, as a mark of honour; that in that chariot there was a seat on which they sat, which for that reason was called curulis; but that those senators who had not yet held a curule magistracy went on foot to the House: and that therefore the senators who had not yet held the higher magistracies were called pedarii. Marcus Varro, however, in the Menippean Satire entitled (Ippoku/wn, says that some knights were called pedarii, and he seems to mean those who, since they had not yet been enrolled in the senate by the censors, were not indeed senators, but because they had held offices by vote of the people, used to come into the senate and had the right of voting. In fact, even those who had filled curule magistracies, if they had not yet been added by the censors to the list of senators, were not senators, and as their names came among the last, they were not asked their opinions, but went to a division on the views given by the leading members. That was the meaning of the traditional proclamation, which even to-day the consuls, for the sake of following precedent, use in summoning the senators to the House. The words of the edict are these: “Senators and those who have the right to express their opinion in the senate.” I have had a line of Laberius copied also, in which that word is used; I read it in a mime entitled Stricturae:
The aye-man's vote is but a tongueless head.
I have observed that some use a barbarous form of this word; for instead of pedarii they say pedanii.

> Latin: 18. Quid sint “pedari senatores” et quam ob causam ita appellati; quamque habeant originem verba haec ex edicto tralaticio consulum: “senatores quibusque in senatu sententiam dicere licet.” NON pauci sunt qui opinantur “pedarios senatores” appellatos, qui sententiam in senatu non verbis dicerent, sed in alienam sententiam pedibus irent. Quid igitur? cum senatusconsultum per discessionem fiebat, nonne universi senatores sententiam pedibus ferebant? Atque haec etiam vocabuli istius ratio dicitur, quam Gavius Bassus in Commentariis suis scriptam reliquit. Senatores enim dicit in veterum aetate, qui curulem magistratum gessissent, curru solitos honoris gratia in curiam vehi, in quo curru sella esset super quam considerent, quae ob eam causam “curulis” appellaretur; sed eos senatores, qui magistratum curulem nondum ceperant, pedibus itavisse in curiam: propterea senatores nondum maioribus honoribus usos “pedarios” nominatos. M. autem Varro in Satira Menippea, quae Ἱπποκύων inscripta est, equites quosdam dicit “pedarios” appellatos, videturque eos significare qui, nondum a censoribus in senatum lecti, senatores quidem non erant, sed quia honoribus populi usi erant, in senatum veniebant et sententiae ius habebant. Nam et curulibus magistratibus functi, si nondum a censoribus in senatum lecti erant, senatores non erant et, quia in postremis scripti erant, non rogabantur sententias sed, quas principes dixerant, in eas discedebant. Hoc significabat edictum quo nunc quoque consules, cum senatores in curiam vocant, servandae consuetudinis causa tralaticio utuntur. Verba edicti haec sunt: “Senatores quibusque in senatu sententiam dicere licet.” Versum quoque Laberii. in quo id vocabulum positum est, notari iussimus, quem legimus in mimo qui Stricturae inscriptus est:
Caput sine lingua pedari sententia est. Hoc vocabulum a plerisque barbare dici animadvertimus; nam pro “pedariis” “pedaneos” appellant.

[¶30] 19. Why, according to Gavius Bassus, a man is called parcus and what he thought to be the explanation of that word; and how, on the contrary, Favorinus made fun of that explanation of his. AT the dinners of the philosopher Favorinus, after the guests had taken their places and the serving of the viands began, a slave commonly stood by his table and began to read something, either from Grecian literature or from our own. For example, one day when I was present the reading was from the treatise of the learned Gavius Bassus On the Origin of Verbs and Substantives. In it this passage occurred: “Parcus is a compound word, made up of par arcae, that is 'like a strong-box;' for just as all valuables are put away in a strong-box and preserved and kept under its protection, just so a man who is close and content to spend little keeps all his property guarded and hidden away, as in a strong-box. For that reason he is called parcus, as if it were par arcus.” Then Favorinus, on hearing these words, said: “That fellow Gavius Bassus has made up and contrived an origin for that word in an unnatural, altogether laboured and repellent manner, rather than explained it. For if it is permissible to draw on one's imagination, why would it not seem more reasonable to believe that a man is called parcus for the reason that he forbids and prevents tile spending of money, as if he were pecuniarcus. Why not rather,” he continued, “adopt an explanation which is simpler and nearer the truth? For parcus is derived neither from arca nor from arceo, but from parum and parvum.”

> Latin: 19. Qua ratione Gavius Bassus scripserit “parcum” hominem appellatum et quam esse eius vocabuli causam putarit; et contra, quem in modum quibusque verbis Favorinus hanc traditionem eius eluserit. APUD cenam Favorini philosophiphilosophy cum discubitum fuerat coeptusque erat apponi cibus, servus assistens mensae eius legere inceptabat aut Graecarum quid litterarum aut nostratium; velut eo die quo ego affui, legebatur Gavii Bassi, eruditi viri, liber De Origine Verborum et Vocabulorum. In quo ita scriptum fuit: “‘Parcus’ composito vocabulo est dictus, quasi ‘par arcae,’ quando, sicut in area omnia reconduntur eiusque custodia servantur et continentur, ita homo tenax parvoque contentus omnia custodita et recondita habet, sicuti area. Quam ob causam ‘parcus’ quasi ‘pararcus’ est nominatus.” Tum Favorinus, ubi haec audivit, “superstitiose,” inquit, “et nimis moleste atque odiose confabricatus commolitusque magis est originem vocabuli Gavius iste Bassus quam enarravit.” “Nam si licet res dicere commenticias, cur non probabilius videatur ut accipiamus ‘parcum’ ob eam causam dictum, quod pecuniam consumi atque impendi arceat et prohibeat, quasi ‘pecuniarcus’?” “Quin potius,” inquit, “quod simplicius veriusque est, id dicimus? ‘Parcus’ enim neque ab area, neque ab arcendo, sed ab eo, quod est ‘parum’ et ‘parvum,’ denominatus est.”

## 10. Book IV · chapters 1–9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/10/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/10/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus carried on in the Socratic manner with an over-boastful grammarian; and in that discourse we are told how Quintus Scaevola defined penus; and that this same definition has been criticized and rejected. IN the entrance hall of the palace on the Palatine a large number of men of almost all ranks had gathered together, waiting an opportunity to pay their respects to Caesar. And there in a group of scholars, in the presence of the philosopher Favorinus, a man who thought himself unusually rich in grammatical lore was airing trifles worthy of the schoolroom, discoursing on the genders and cases of nouns with raised eyebrows and an exaggerated gravity of voice and expression, as if he were the interpreter and sovereign lord of the Sibyl's oracle. Then, looking at Favorinus, although as yet he was hardly acquainted with him, he said: "Penus too is used in different genders and is variously declined. For the early writers used to say hoc penus and haec penus, and in the genitive peni and penoris; Lucilius in his sixteenth satire also used the word mundus, which describes women's ornaments, not in the masculine gender, as other writers do, but in the neuter, in these words:
A man once willed his wife all ornaments (mundum omne) and stores.
But what are ornaments? Who will determine that?
And he kept bawling out illustrations and examples of all these usages; but while he was prating quite too tiresomely, Favorinus interrupted and quietly said: Well and good, master, whatever your name is, you have taught us more than enough about many things of which we were indeed ignorant and certainly did not ask to know. For what difference does it make to me and the one with whom I am speaking in what gender I use penus, or with what endings I inflect it, provided no one of us does this too barbarously? But this is clearly what I need to know, what penus is, and how far that word may be employed, so that I may not call a thing in everyday use by the wrong name, as those do who begin to speak their Latin in the slave-market. " “Your question is not at all difficult,” replied the man. “Who indeed does not know that penus is wine, wheat, oil, lentils, beans, and the other things of that kind?” “Is not penus also,” said Favorinus, “millet, panic-grass, acorns and barley? for these too are almost of the same sort;” and when the man hesitated and did not answer, he continued: “I do not want you to trouble yourself further about the question whether those things which I have mentioned are called penus. But can you not, instead of telling me some essential part of penus, rather define the meaning of the word by stating its genus and adding its species?” “Good Heavens!” said he, “I don't understand what you mean by genus and species.” “You ask,” replied Favorinus, “to have a matter which has been stated clearly stated still more clearly, which is very difficult; for it is surely a matter of common knowledge that every definition consists of genus and species. But if you ask me to predigest it for you, as they say, I will certainly do that too, for the sake of showing you honour.” And then Favorinus began in this wise: “If,” said he, “I should now ask you to tell me, and as it were to define in words, what a man is, you would not, I suppose, reply that you and I are men. For that is to show who is a man, not to tell what a man is. But if, I say, I should ask you to define exactly what a man is, you would undoubtedly tell me that a man is a mortal living being, endowed with reason and knowledge, or you would define him in some other manner which would differentiate him from all other animals. Similarly, then, I now ask you to tell what penus is, not to name some example of penus.” Then that boaster, now in humble and subdued tones, said: “I have never learned philosophy, nor desired to learn it, and if I do not know whether barley is included under penus, or in what words penus is defined, I am not on that account ignorant also of other branches of learning.” “To know what penus is,” said Favorinus, who was now laughing, “is not more a part of my philosophy than of your grammar. For you remember, I suppose, that it is often inquired whether Virgil said penum struere longam or longo ordine; for you surely know that both readings are current. But to make you feel easier in mind, let me say that not even those old masters of the law who were called 'wise men' are thought to have defined penus with sufficient accuracy. For I hear that Quintus Scaevola used the following words to explain penus: Penus,' said he, 'is what is to be eaten or drunk, which is prepared for the use of the father of the family himself; or the mother of the family, or the children of the father, or the household which he has about him or his children and which is not engaged in work... as Mucius says ought to be regarded as penus. For articles which are prepared for eating and drinking day by day, for luncheon or dinner, are not penus; but rather the articles of that kind which are collected and stored up for use during a long period are called penus, because they are not ready at hand, but are kept in the innermost part of the house.' This information,” said Favorinus, although I had devoted myself to philosophy, I yet did not neglect to acquire; since for Roman citizens speaking Latin it is no less disgraceful not to designate a thing by its proper word than it is to call a man out of his own name. Thus Favorinus used to lead ordinary conversations of this kind from insignificant and trivial topics to those which were better worth hearing and knowing, topics not lugged in irrelevantly, nor by way of display, but springing from and suggested by the conversations themselves. Besides what Favorinus said, I think this too ought to be added to our consideration of penus, that Servius Sulpicius, in his Criticism of the Chapters of Scaevola, wrote that Aelius Catus believed that not only articles for eating and drinking, but also incense and wax tapers were included under the head of penus, since they were provided for practically the same purpose. But Masurius Sabinus, in the second book of his Civil Law, declares that whatever was prepared for the beasts of burden which the owner of a house used was also penus. He adds that some have thought that the term likewise included wood, faggots and charcoal, by means of which the penus was made ready for use. But of articles kept in the same place, for use or for purposes of trade, he thinks that only the amount which was sufficient for a year's needs was to be regarded as penus.

> Latin: 1. Sermo quidam Favorini philosophi cum grammatico iactantiore factus in Socraticum modum; atque ibi in sermone dictum quibus verbis “penus” a Q. Scaevola definita sit; quodque eadem definitio culpata reprehensaque est. IN vestibulo aedium Palatinarum omnium fere ordinum multitudo opperientes salutationem Caesaris constiterant; atque ibi in circulo doctorum hominum, Favorino philosopho praesente, ostentabat quispiam grammaticae rei ditior scholica quaedam nugalia, de generibus et casibus vocabulorum disserens cum arduis superciliis vocisque et vultus gravitate composita, tamquam interpres et arbiter Sibyllae oraculorum. Tum aspiciens ad Favorinum, quamquam ei nondum etiam satis notus esset, “‘Penus quoque,’” inquit, “variis generibus dictum et varie declinatum est. Nam et ‘hoc penus’ et ‘haec penus’ et ‘huius peni’ et ‘penoris’ veteres dictaverunt;” “mundum quoque muliebrem Lucilius in Satirarum xvi. non virili genere, ut ceteri, sed neutro appellavit his verbis:
Legavit quidam uxori mundum omne penumque.
Atqui quid mundum, quid non? quis dividet istuc?” Atque horum omnium et testimoniis et exemplis constrepebat; cumque nimis odiose blatiret, intercessit placide Favorinus et “Amabo,” inquit, “magister, quicquid est nomen tibi, abunde multa docuisti quae quidem ignorabamus et scire haud sane postulabamus.” “Quid enim refert mea eiusque quicum loquor, quo genere ‘penum’ dicam aut in quas extremas litteras declinem, si nemo id non nimis barbare fecerimus?” “Sed hoc plane indigeo discere, quid sit ‘penus’ et qua fini id vocabulum dicatur, ne rem cotidiani usus, tamquam qui in venalibus Latine loqui coeptant, alia quam oportet voce appellem.” “Quaeris,” inquit, “rem minime obscuram. Quis adeo ignorat, ‘penum’ esse vinum et triticum et oleum et lentim et fabam atque huiuscemodi cetera?” “Etiamne,” inquit Favorinus, “milium et panicum et glans et hordeum ‘penus’ est? sunt enim propemodum haec quoque eiusdemmodi”; cumque ille reticens haereret, “Nolo,” inquit, “hoc iam labores, an ista, quae dixi, ‘penus’ appelletur. Sed potesne mihi non speciem aliquam de penu dicere, sed definire, genere proposito et differentiis adpositis, quid sit ‘penus’”? “Quod,” inquit, “genus et quas differentias dicas, non hercle intellego.” “Rem,” inquit Favorinus, “plane dictam postulas, quod difficillimum est, dici planius; nam hoc quidem pervolgatum est, definitionem omnem ex genere et differentia consistere.” “Sed si me tibi praemandere, quod aiunt, postulas, faciam sane id quoque honoris tui habendi gratia.” Ac deinde ita exorsus est: “Si,” inquit, “ego te nunc rogem ut mihi dicas et quasi circumscribas verbis cuiusmodi ‘homo’ sit, non, opinor, respondeas hominem esse te atque me. Hoc enim quis homo sit ostendere est, non quid homo sit dicere. Sed si, inquam, peterem ut ipsum illud quod homo est definires, tu profecto mihi diceres hominem esse animal mortale, rationis et scientiae capiens, vel quo alio modo diceres, ut eum a ceteris omnibus separares. Proinde igitur nunc te rogo ut quid sit ‘penus’ dicas, non ut aliquid ex penu nomines.” Tum ille ostentator, voce iam molli atque demissa, “philosophias,” inquit, “ego non didici neque discere adpetivi et, si ignoro an hordeum ex ‘penu’ sit aut quibus verbis ‘penus’ definiatur, non ea re litteras quoque alias nescio.” “Scire,” inquit ridens iam Favorinus, “quid ‘penus’ sit, non ex nostra magis est philosophia quam ex grammatica tua.” “Meministi enim, credo, quaeri solitum quid Vergilius dixerit, penum struere vel longam vel longo ordine; utrumque enim profecto scis legi solitum.” “Sed ut faciam te aequiore animo ut sis, ne illi quidem veteres iuris magistri, qui ‘sapientes’ appellati sunt, definisse satis recte existimantur, quid sit ‘penus.’” “Nam Quintum Scaevolam ad demonstrandam penum his verbis usum audio: ‘Penus est,’ inquit, ‘quod esculentum aut posculentum est, quod ipsius patrisfamilias aut matris familias aut liberum patrisfamilias aut familiae eius, quae circum eum aut liberos eius est et opus non facit, causa paratum est..., ut Mucius ait, “penus” videri debet. Nam quae ad edendum bibendumque in dies singulos prandii aut cenae causa parantur, “penus” non sunt; sed ea potius, quae huíusce generis longae usionis gratia contrahuntur et reconduntur, ex eo, quod non in promptu est, sed intus et penitus habeatur, “penus” dicta est.’” “Haec ego,” inquit, “cum philosophiae me dedissem, non insuper tamen habui discere; quoniam civibus Romanis Latine loquentibus rem non suo vocabulo demonstrare non minus turpe est quam hominem non suo nomine appellare.” Sic Favorinus sermones id genus communes a rebus parvis et frigidis abducebat ad ea quae magis utile esset audire ac discere, non allata extrinsecus, non per ostentationem, sed indidem nata acceptaque. Praeterea de penu adscribendum hoc etiam putavi, Servium Sulpicium In Reprehensis Scaevolae Capitibus scripsisse Cato Aelio placuisse, non quae esui et potui forent, sed thus quoque et cereos in penu esse, quod esset eius ferme rei causa comparatum. Masurius autem Sabinus in Iuris Civilis secundo, etiam quod iumentorum causa apparatum esset quibus dominus uteretur, penori attributum dicit. Ligna quoque et virgas et carbones, quibus conficeretur penus, quibusdam ait videri esse in penu. Ex his autem quae promercalia et usuaria isdem in locis essent, esse ea sola penoris putat quae satis sint usu annuo.

[¶1] 2. On the difference between a disease and a defect, and the force of those terms in the aediles' edict; also whether eunuchs and barren women can he returned, and the various views as to that question. THE edict of the curule aediles, in the section containing stipulations about the purchase of slaves, reads as follows: “See to it that the sale ticket of each slave be so written that it can be known exactly what disease or defect each one has, which one is a runaway or a vagabond, or is still under condemnation for some offence.” Therefore the jurists of old raised the question of the proper meaning of a “diseased slave” and one that was “defective,” and to what degree a disease differed from a defect. Caelius Sabinus, in the book which he wrote On the Edict of t he Curule Aediles, quotes Labeo, as defining a disease in these terms: “Disease is an unnatural condition of any body, which impairs its usefulness.” But he adds that disease affects sometimes the whole body and at other times a part of the body. That a disease of the whole body is, for example, consumption or fever, but of a part of the body anything like blindness or lameness. “But,” he continues, “one who stutters or stammers is defective rather than diseased, and a horse which bites or kicks has faults rather than a disease. But one who has a disease is also at the same time defective. However, the converse is not also true; for one may have defects and yet not be diseased. Therefore in the case of a man who is diseased,” says he, “it will be just and fair to state to what extent ' the price will be less on account of that defect.'” With regard to a eunuch in particular it has been inquired whether he would seem to have been sold contrary to the aediles' edict, if the purchaser did not know that he was a eunuch. They say that Labeo ruled that he could be returned as diseased; and that Labeo also wrote that if sows were sterile and had been sold, action could be brought on the basis of the edict of the aediles. But in the case of a barren woman, if the barrenness were congenital they say that Trebatius gave a ruling opposed to that of Labeo. For while Labeo thought that she could be returned as unsound, they quote Trebatius as declaring that no action could be taken on the basis of the edict, if the woman had been born barren. But if her health had failed, and in consequence such a defect had resulted that she could not conceive, in that case she appeared to be unsound and there was ground for returning her. With regard to a short-sighted person too, one whom we call in Latin luscitiosus, there is disagreement; for some maintain that such a person should be returned in all cases, while others on the contrary hold that he can be returned only if that defect was the result of disease. Servius indeed ruled that one who lacked a tooth could be returned, but Labeo said that such a defect was not sufficient ground for a return: “For,” says he, “many men lack some one tooth, and most of them are no more diseased on that account, and it would be altogether absurd to say that men are not born sound, because infants come into the world unprovided with teeth.” I must not omit to say that this also is stated in the works of the early jurists, that the difference between a disease and a defect is that the latter is lasting, while the former comes and goes. But if this be so, contrary to the opinion of Labeo, which I quoted above, neither a blind man nor a eunuch is diseased. I have added a passage from the second book of Masurius Sabinus On Civil Law.: “A madman or a mute, or one who has a broken or crippled limb, or any defect which impairs his usefulness, is diseased. But one who is by nature near-sighted is as sound as one who runs more slowly than others.”

> Latin: 2. Morbus et vitium quid differat et quam vim habeant vocabula ista in edicto aedilium; et an eunuchus et steriles mulieres redhiberi possint; diversaeque super ea re sententiae. IN Edicto Aedilium Curulium, qua parte de mancipiis vendundis cautum est, scriptum sic fuit: “Titulus servorum singulorum scriptus sit curato ita, ut intellegi recte possit quid morbi vitiive cuique sit, quis fugitivus errove sit noxave solutus non sit.” Propterea quaesierunt iure consulti veteres, quod “mancipium morbosum” quodve “vitiosum” recte diceretur quantumque “morbus” a “vitio” differret. Caelius Sabinus in libro, quem De Edicto Aedilium Curulium composuit, Labeonem refert quid esset “morbus” hisce verbis definisse: “Morbus est habitus cuiusque corporis contra naturam, qui usum eius facit deteriorem.” Sed “morbum” alias in toto corpore accidere dicit, alias in parte corporis. Totius corporis “morbum” esse, veluti sit phthisis aut febris, partis autem, veluti sit caecitas aut pedis debilitas. “Balbus autem,” inquit, “et atypus vitiosi magis quam morbosi sunt, et equus mordax aut calcitro vitiosus, non morbosus est. Sed cui morbus est, idem etiam vitiosus est. Neque id tamen contra fit; potest enim qui vitiosus est non morbosus esse. quamobremQuarmobrem, cum de homine morboso agetur, aeque,” inquit, “ita dicetur: ‘quanto ob id vitium minoris erit.’” De eunucho quidem quaesitum est an contra edictum aedilium videretur venundatus, si ignorasset emptor eum eunuchum esse. Labeonem respondisse aiunt redhiberi posse quasi morbosum; sues etiam feminae si sterilae essent et venum issent, ex edicto aedilium posse agi Labeonem scripsisse. De sterila autem muliere, si nativa sterilitate sit, Trebatiun contra Labeonem respondisse dicunt. Nam cum redhiberi eamearn Labeo, quasi minus sanam, putasset, negasse aiunt Trebatium ex edicto agi posse, si ea mulier a principio genitali sterilitate esset. At si valitudo eius offendisset exque ea vitium factum esset ut concipere fetus non posset, tum sanam non videri et esse in causa redhibitionis. De myope quoque, qui “luscitiosus” Latine appellatur, dissensum est; alii enim redhiberi omnimodo debere, alii contra, nisi id vitium morbo contractum esset. Eum vero cui dens deesset, Servius redhiberi posse respondit, Labeo in causa esse redhibendi negavit; vit; “Nam et magna,” inquit, “pars dente aliquo carent, neque eo inagis plerique homines morbosi sunt, et absurdumalsurdum admodum est dicere non sanos nasci homines, quoniam cum infantibus non simul dentes gignuntur.” Non praetereundum est id quoque in libris veterum iurisperitorum scriptum esse, “morbum” et “vitium” distare, quod “vitium” perpetuum, “morbus” cum accessu decessuque sit. Sed hoc si ita est, neque caecus neque eunuchus morbosus est, contra Labeonis quam supra dixi sententiam. Verba Masuri Sabini apposui ex libro luris civilis secundo: “Furiosus mutusve cuive quod membrum lacerum laesumque est aut obest quo ipse minus aptus sit, morbosi sunt. Qui natura longe minus videt tam sanus est quam qui tardius currit.”

[¶2] 3. That before the divorce of Carvilius there were no lawsuits about a wife's dowry in the city of Rome; further, the proper meaning of the word paelex and its derivation. IT is on record that for nearly five hundred years after the founding of Rome there were no lawsuits and no warranties in connection with a wife's dowry in the city of Rome or in Latium, since of course nothing of that kind was called for, inasmuch as no marriages were annulled during that period. Servius Sulpicius too, in the book which he compiled On Dowries, wrote that security for a wife's dower seemed to have become necessary for the first time when Spurius Carvilius, who was surnamed Ruga, a man of rank, put away his wife because, owing to some physical defect, no children were born from her; and that this happened in the five hundred and twenty-third year after the founding of the city, in the consulship of Marcus Atilius and Publius Valerius. And it is reported that this Carvilius dearly loved the wife whom he divorced, and held her in strong affection because of her character, but that above his devotion and his love he set his regard for the oath which the censors had compelled him to take, that he would marry a wife for the purpose of begetting children. Moreover, a woman was called paelex, or “concubine,” and regarded as infamous, if she lived on terms of intimacy with a man who had another woman under his legal control in a state of matrimony, as is evident from this very ancient law, which we are told was one of king Numa's: “Let no concubine touch the temple of Juno; if she touch it, let her, with hair unbound, offer up a ewe lamb to Juno.” Now paelex is the equivalent of pa/llac, that is to say, of pallaki/s. Like many other words of ours, this one too is derived from the Greek.

> Latin: 3. Quod nullae fuerunt rei uxoriae actiones in urbe Roma ante Carvilianum divortium; atque inibi, quid sit proprie paelex quaeque eius vocabuli ratio sit. MEMORIAE traditum est quingentis fere annis post Romam conditam nullas rei uxoriae neque actiones neque cautiones in urbe Roma aut in Latio fuisse, quoniam profecto nihil desiderabantur, nullis etiamtunc matrimoniis divertentibus. Servius quoque Sulpicius in libro, quem composuit De Dotibus, tum primum cautiones rei uxoriae necessarias esse visas scripsit, cum Spurius Carvilius, cui Ruga cognomentum fuit, vir nobilis, divortium cum uxore fecit, quia liberi ex ea corporis vitio non gignerentur, anno urbis conditae quingentesimo vicesimo tertio M. Atilio, P. Valerio consulibus. Atque is Carvilius traditur uxorem quam dimisit egregie dilexisse carissimamque morum eius gratia habuisse, set iurisiurandi religionem animo atque amori praevertisse quod iurare a censoribus coactus erat, uxorem se liberum quaerundum gratia habiturum. “Paelicem” autem appellatam probrosamque habitam, quae iuncta consuetaque esset cum eo in cuius manu mancipioque alia matrimonii causa foret, hac antiquissima lege ostenditur, quam Numae regis fuisse accepimus: “Paelex aedem Iunonis ne tangito; si tangit, Iunoni crinibus demissis agnum feminam caedito.” “Paelex” autem quasi πάλλαξ, id est quasi παλλακίς. Ut pleraque alia, ita hoc quoque vocabulum de Graeco flexum est.

[¶3] 4. What Servius Sulpicius wrote in his work On Dowries about the law and usage of betrothals in early times. IN the book to which he gave the title On Dowries Servius Sulpicius wrote that in the part of Italy known as Latium betrothals were regularly contracted according to the following customary and legal practice. “One who wished to take a wife,” says he, “demanded of him from whom she was to be received a formal promise that she would be given in marriage. The man who was to take the woman to wife made a corresponding promise. That contract, based upon pledges given and received, was called sponsalia, or 'betrothal.' Thereafter, she who had been promised was called sponsa, and he who had asked her in marriage, sponsus. But if, after such an interchange of pledges, the bride to be was not given in marriage, or was not received, then he who had asked for her hand, or he who had promised her, brought suit on the ground of breach of contract. The court took cognizance of the case. The judge inquired why the woman was not given in marriage, or why she was not accepted. If no good and sufficient reason appeared, the judge then assigned a money value to the advantage to be derived from receiving or giving the woman in marriage, and condemned the one who had made the promise, or the one who had asked for it, to pay a fine of that amount.” Servius Sulpicius says that this law of betrothal was observed up to the time when citizenship was given to all Latium by the Julian law. The same account as the above was given also by Neratius in the book which he wrote On Marriage.

> Latin: 4. Quid Servius Sulpicius, in libro qui est De Dotibus, scripserit de iure atque more veterum sponsaliorum. SPONSALIA in ea parte ItaliaeItaliac quae Latium appellatur hoc more atque iure solita fieri scripsit Servius Sulpicius in libro quem inscripsit De Dotibus: “Qui uxorem,” inquit, “ducturus erat, ab eo unde ducenda erat stipulabatur, eam in matrimonium datum iri. Qui ducturus erat, id itidem spondebat. Is contractus stipulationum sponsionumque dicebatur ‘sponsalia.’ Tunc, quae promissa erat ‘sponsa’ appellabatur, qui spoponderat ducturum, ‘sponsus.’ Sed si post eas stipulationis uxor non dabatur aut non ducebatur, qui stipulabatur aut qui spoponderat ex sponsu agebat. Iudices cognoscebant. Iudex quamobremquamobrerm data acceptave non esset uxor quaerebat. Si nihil iustae causae videbatur, litem pecunia aestimabat, quantique interfuerat eamearn uxorem accipi aut dari, eum qui spoponderat aut qui stipulatus erat, condemnabat.” Hoc ius sponsaliorum observatum dicit Servius ad id tempus quo civitas universe Latio lege Iulia data est. Haec eadem Neratius scripsit in libro quem De Nuptiis composuit.

[¶4] 5. A story which is told of the treachery of Etruscan diviners; and how because of that circumstance the boys at Rome chanted this verse all over the city: “Bad counsel to the giver is most ruinous.” The statue of that bravest of men, Horatius Cocles, which stood in the Comitium at Rome, was struck by lightning. To make expiatory offerings because of that thunderbolt, diviners were summoned from Etruria. These, through personal and national hatred of the Romans, had made up their minds to give false directions for the performance of that rite. They accordingly gave the misleading advice that the statue in question should be moved to a lower position, on which the sun never shone, being cut off by the high buildings which surrounded the place on every side. When they had induced the Romans to take that course, they were betrayed and brought to trial before the people, and having confessed their duplicity, were put to death. And it became evident, in exact accord with what were later found to be the proper directions, that the statue ought to be taken to an elevated place and set up in a more commanding position in the area of Vulcan; and after that was done, the matter turned out happily and successfully for the Romans. At that time, then, because the evil counsel of the Etruscan diviners had been detected and punished, this clever line is said to have been composed, and chanted by the boys all over the city:
Bad counsel to the giver is most ruinous. This story about the diviners and that senarius is found in the Annales Maximi, in the eleventh book, and in Verrius Flaccus' first book of Things Worth Remembering. But the verse appears to be a translation of the Greek poet Hesiod's familiar line:
And evil counsel aye most evil is
To him who gives it.

> Latin: 5. Historia narrata de perfidia aruspicum Etruscorum; quodque ob eamearn rem versus hic a pueris Romae urbe tota cantatus est: “Malum consilium consultori pessimum est.” STATUA Romae in comitio posita Horatii Coclitis, fortissimi viri, de caelo tacta est. Ob id fulgur piaculis luendum aruspices ex Etruria acciti, inimico atque hostili in populum Romanum animo, instituerant eamearn rem contrariis religionibus procurare, atque illam statuam suaserunt in inferiorem locum perperam transponi, quem sol oppositu circum undique altarum aedium numquam illustraret. Quod cum ita fieri persuasissent, delati ad populum proditique sunt et, cum de perfidia confessi essent, necati sunt, constititque, eam statuam, proinde ut verae rationes post compertae monebant, in locum editum subducendam atque ita in area Volcani sublimiore loco statuendam; ex quo res bene ac prospere populo Romano cessit. Tum igitur, quod in Etruscos aruspices male consulentis animadversum vindicatumque fuerat, versus hic scite factus cantatusque esse a pueris urbe tota fertur:
Malúm consilium cónsultori péssimum est. Ea historia de aruspicibus ac de versu isto senario scripta est in Annalibus Maximis, libro undecimo, et in Verri Flacci libro primo Rerum Memoria Dignarum. Videtur autem versus hic de Graeco illo Hesiodi versu expressus:
Ἡ δὲ κακὴ βουλὴ τῷ βουλεύσαντι κακίστη.

[¶5] 6. A quotation from an early decree of the senate, which provided that sacrifice should be made with full-grown victims because the spears of Mars had moved in the sanctuary; also an explanation of the meaning of hostiae succidaneae and likewise of porca praecidanea; and further, that Ateius Capito called certain holidays praecidaneae. NOT only was an earthquake regularly reported, and expiatory offerings made on that account, but I also find it mentioned in early records, that report was made to the senate when the spears of Mars had moved in the sanctuary in the Regia. Because of such an occurrence, a decree of the senate was passed in the consulship of Marcus Antonius and Aulus Postumius, of which this is a copy: “Whereas Gaius Julius, son of Lucius, the pontifex, has reported that the spears of Mars have moved in the sanctuary in the Regia, the senate has therefore decreed with reference to that matter, that Marcus Antonius the consul should make expiation to Jupiter and Mars with full-grown victims, and with unweaned victims to such of the other gods as he thought proper. They decided that it should be regarded as sufficient for him to have sacrificed with these. If there should be any need of additional victims, the additional offerings should be made with red victims.” Inasmuch as the senate called some victims succidaneae, it is often inquired what that word means. Also in the comedy of Plautus which is entitled Epidicus I hear that inquiry is made about that same word, which occurs in these verses:
Should I the victim of your folly be
And let you sacrifice my back to it,
As substitute for yours? Now it is said that the victims were called succidaneae —which is equivalent to succaedaneae, the diphthong ae, according to the custom in compound words, being changed to i—because if the expiation was not effected by the first victims, other victims were brought and killed after them; and since these, after the first had already been offered, were substituted for the sake of making atonement and were “slain in succession to” the others, they were called succidaneae, the letter i, of course, being pronounced long; for I hear that some barbarously shorten that letter in this word. Moreover, it is on the same linguistic principle that praecidanea is applied to those victims which are offered on the day before the regular sacrifices. Also the sow is called praecidalea which it was usual to offer up to Ceres before the harvesting of the new crops, for the sake of expiation in case any had failed to purify a defiled household, or had performed that rite in an improper manner. But that a sow and certain victims are called praecidaneae, as I have said, is a matter of common knowledge; that some festivals are called praecidaneae is a fact I think that is not known to the general public. Therefore I have quoted a passage from the fifth book of the treatise which Ateius Capito compiled On Pontifical Law:
Tiberius Coruncanius, the pontifex maximus, appointed feriae praecidaneae, or “a preparatory festival,” for a day of ill-omen. The college of pontiffs voted that there need be no religious scruple against celebrating the feriae praecidaneae on that day.

> Latin: 6. Verba veteris senatusconsulti posita, quo decretum est hostiis maioribus expiandum, quod in sacrario hastae Martiae movissent; atque ibi enarratum quid sint “hostiae succidaneae,” quid item “porca praecidanea”; et quod Capito Ateius ferias “praecidaneas” appellavit. UT “terram movisse” nuntiari solet eaque res procuratur, ita in veteribus memoriis scriptum legimus nuntiatum esse senatui in sacrario in regia “hastas Martias movisse.” Eius rei causa senatusconsultum factum est M. Antonio A. Postumio consulibus, eiusque exemplum hoc est: “Quod C. Iulius, L. filius, pontifex nuntiavit in sacrario in regia hastas Martias movisse, de ea re ita censuerunt, uti M. Antonius consul hostiis maioribus Iovi et Marti procuraret et ceteris dis, quibus videretur, lactantibus. Ibus uti procurasset satis halendum censuerunt. Si quid succidaneis opus esset, robiis succideret.” Quod “succidaneas” hostias senatus appellavit, quaeri solet quid verbum id significet. In Plauti quoque comoedia quae Epidicus inscripta est, super eodem ipso verbo requiri audio in his versibus:
Mén piaculárem oportet fíeri ob stultitiám tuam,
Ut meum tergum tuaé stultitiae súbdas succidaneum? “Succidaneae” autem “hostiae” dicuntur, ae littera per morem compositi vocabuli in i litteram tramutata quasi “succaedaneae,” appellatae, quoniam, si primis hostiis litatum non erat, aliae post easdem ductae hostiae caedebantur; quae quia, prioribus iam caesis, luendi piaculi gratia subdebantur et succidebantur, “succidaneae” nominatae, littera i scilicet tractim pronuntiata; audio enim quosdam eam litteram in hac voce barbare corripere. Eadem autem ratione verbi “praecidaneae” quoque hostiae dicuntur quae ante sacrificia sollemnia pridie caeduntur. “Porca” etiam “praecidanea” appellata quam piaculi gratia ante fruges novas captas immolare Cereri mos fuit, si qui familiam funestam aut non purgaverant, aut aliter eam rem, quam oportuerat, procuraverant. Sed porcam et hostias quasdam “praecidaneas,” sicuti dixi, appellari, vulgo notum est, ferias “praecidaneas” dici, id, opinor, a volgo remotum est. Propterea verba Atei Capitonis, ex quinto librorum quos De Pontificio iurelure composuit, scripsi: “Tib. Coruncanio pontifici maximo feriae praecidaneae in atrum diem inauguratae sunt. Collegium decrevit non habendum religioni, quin eo die feriae praecidaneae essent.”

[¶6] 7. On a letter of the grammarian Valerius Probus, written to Marcellus, regarding the accent of certain Punic names. VALERIUS PROBUS the grammarian was conspicuous among the men of his time for his learning. He pronounced Hannibalem and Hasdrubalem and Hamilcarem with a circumflex accent on the penult, and there is a letter addressed To Marcellus, in which he asserts that Plautus, and Ennius and many other early writers pronounced in that way; but he quotes a single line of Ennius alone, from the book entitled Scipio. That verse, composed in octonarii, I have appended; in it, unless the third syllable of Hannibal's name is circumflexed, the metre will halt. The verse of Ennius to which I referred reads thus: And where near Hannibal's forces he had camped.

> Latin: 7. De epistula Valerii Probi grammatici ad Marcellum scripta super accentu nominum quorundam Poenicorum. VALERIUS PROBUS grammaticus inter suam aetatem praestanti scientia fuit. Is “Hannibalem” et “Hasdrubalem” et “Hamilcarem” ita pronuntiabat ut paenultimam circumflecteret, et est epistula eius scripta Ad Marcellum, in qua Plautum et Ennium multosque alios veteres eo modo pronuntiasse affirmat, solius tamen Ennii versum unum ponit ex libro, qui Scipio inscribitur. Eum versum quadrato numero factum subiecimus, in quo, nisi tertia syllaba de Hannibalis nomine circumflexe promatur, numerus clausurus est. Versus Ennii quem dixit, ita est:
Quáque propter Hánnibalis cópias considerat.

[¶7] 8. What Gaius Fabricius said of Cornelius Rufinus, an avaricious man, whose election to the consulship he supported, although he hated him and was his personal enemy. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS was a man of great renown and great achievements. Publius Cornelius Rufinus was, to be sure, a man energetic in action, a good warrior, and a master of military tactics, but thievish and keen for money. This man Fabricius neither respected nor treated as a friend, but hated him because of his character. Yet when consuls were to be chosen at a highly critical period for the State, and that Rufinus was a candidate while his competitors were without military experience and untrustworthy, Fabricius used every effort to have the office given to Rufinus. When many men expressed surprise at his attitude, in wishing an avaricious man, towards whom he felt bitter personal enmity, to be elected consul, he said: “I would rather be robbed by a fellow-citizen than sold by the enemy.” This Rufinus afterwards, when he had been dictator and twice consul, Fabricius in his censorship expelled from the senate on the charge of extravagance, because he possessed ten pounds weight of silver plate. That remark of Fabricius about Rufinus I gave above in the form in which it appears in most historians; but Marcus Cicero, in the second book of the De Oratore, says that it was not made by Fabricius to others, but to Rufinus himself, when he was thanking Fabricius because he had been elected consul through his help.

> Latin: 8. Quid C. Fabricius de Cornelio Rufino homine avaro dixerit, quem, cum odisset inimicusque esset, designandum tamen consulem curavit. FABRICIUS LUSCINUS magna gloria vir magnisque rebus gestis fuit. P. Cornelius Rufinus manu quidem strenuus et bellator bonus militarisque disciplinae peritus admodum fuit, sed furax homo et avaritia acri erat. Hunc Fabricius non probabat neque amico utebatur osusque eum morum causa fuit. Sed cum in temporibus rei publicae difficillimis consules creandi forent et is Rufinus peteret consulatum competitoresque eius essent inbelles quidam et futtiles, summa ope adnixus est Fabricius uti Rufino consulatus deferretur. eamEarn rem plerisque admirantibus, quod hominem avarum cui esset inimicissimus, creari consulem vellet, “Malo,” inquit, “civis me compilet, quam hostis vendat.” Hunc Rufinum postea, bis consulatu et dictatura functum, censor Fabricius senatu movit ob luxuriae notam, quod decem pondo libras argenti facti haberet. Id autem quod supra scripsi, Fabricium de Cornelio Rufino ita, uti in pleraque historia scriptum est, dixisse, M. Cicero non aliis a Fabricio, sed ipsi Rufino, gratias agenti quod ope eius designatus esset, dictum esse refert in libro secundo De Oratore.

[¶8] 9. On the proper meaning of religiosus; and what changes the meaning of that word has undergone; and remarks of Nigidius Figulus on that subject, drawn from his Commentaries. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS, in my opinion the most learned of men next to Marcus Varro, in the eleventh book of his Grammatical Commentaries, quotes a truly remarkable line from an early poet:
Best it is to be religious, lest one superstitious be;
but he does not name the author of the poem. And in the same connection Nigidius adds: “The suffix osus in words of this kind, such as vinosus, mulierosus, religiosus, always indicates an excessive amount of the quality in question. Therefore religiosus is applied to one who has involved himself in an extreme and superstitious devotion, which was regarded as a fault.” But in addition to what Nigidius says, by another shift in meaning religiosus began to be used of an upright and conscientious man, who regulates his conduct by definite laws and limits. Similarly too the following terms, which have the same origin, appear to have acquired different meanings; namely, religiosus dies and religiosa delubra. For those days are called religiosi which are of ill-fame and are hampered by an evil omen, so that on them one must refrain from offering sacrifice or beginning any new business whatever; they are, namely, the days that the ignorant multitude falsely and improperly call ne fasti. Thus Marcus Cicero, in the ninth book of his Letters to Atticus, writes: “Our forefathers maintained that the day of the battle at the Allia was more calamitous than that on which the city was taken; because the latter disaster was the result of the former. Therefore the one day is even now religiosus, while the other is unknown to the general public.” Yet the same Marcus Tullius, in his speech On Appointing a Prosecutor, uses the term religiosa delubra of shrines which are not ill-omened and gloomy, but full of majesty and sacredness. Masurius Sabinus too, in his Notes on Native Words, says: “Religiosus is that which because of some sacred quality is removed and withdrawn from us; the word is derived from relinquo, as is caerimonia from careo.” According to this explanation of Sabinus, temples indeed and shrines—since an accumulation of these does not give rise to censure, as in case of things which are praised for their moderate use—since they are to be approached, not unceremoniously and thoughtlessly, but after purification and in due form, must be both revered and feared, rather than profaned; but those days are called religiosi which for the opposite reason, because they are of dire omen, we avoid. And Terence says:
Then too I give her nothing, except to say “All right;”
For I avoid confessing my impecunious plight.
But if, as Nigidius says, all derivatives of that kind indicate an excessive and immoderate degree, and therefore have a bad sense, as do vinosus (“fond of wine” ), mulierosus (“fond of women” ), morosus (“whimsical” ), verbosus (“wordy” ), famosus (“notorious” ), why are ingeniosus (“talented” ), formosus (“beautiful” ), officiosus (“dutiful” ), and speciosus (“showy” ), which are formed in the same way from ingenium, forma, officium, and species, why too are disciplinosus (“well-trained” ), consiliosus (“full of wisdom” ), victoriosus (“victorious” ), words coined by Marcus Cato, why too facundiosts—for Sempronius Asellio in the thirteenth book of his History wrote, “one should regard his deeds, not his words if they are less eloquent (facundiosa)” —why, I say, are all these adjectives used, not in a bad, but in a good sense, although they too indicate an excessive amount of the quality which they signify? Is it because a certain necessary limit must be set for the qualities indicated by those words which I first cited? For favour if it is excessive and without limit, and habits if they are too many and varied, and words if they are unceasing, endless and deafening, and fame if it should be great and restless and begetting envy; all these are neither praiseworthy nor useful; but talent, duty, beauty, training, wisdom, victory and eloquence, being in themselves great virtues, are confined within no limits, but the greater and more extensive they are, the more are they deserving of praise.

> Latin: 9. Quid significet proprie “religiosus”; et in quae diverticula significatio istius vocabuli flexa sit; et verbaverbal Nigidii Figuli ex Commentariis eius super ea re sumpta. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS, homo, ut ego arbitror, iuxta M. Varronem doctissimus, in undecimo Commentariorum Grammaticorum versum ex antiquo carmine refert memoria hercle dignum:
Religentem esse oportet, religiosus ne fuas,
cuius autem id carmen sit non scribit. Atque in eodem loco Nigidius: “Hoc,” inquit, “inclinamentum semper huiuscemodi verborum, ut ‘vinosus,’ ‘mulierosus,’ ‘religiosus,’ significat copiam quandam inmodicam rei super qua dicitur. Quocirca ‘religiosus’ is appellabatur, qui nimia et superstitiosa religione sese alligaverat, eaque res vitio assignabatur.” Sed praeter ista quae Nigidius dicit, alio quodam diverticulo significationis “religiosus” pro casto atque observanti cohibentique sese certis legibus finibusque dici coeptus. Simili autem modo illa quoque vocabula, ab eadem profecta origine, diversum significare videntur, “religiosi dies” et “religiosa delubra.” “Religiosi” enim “dies” dicuntur tristi omine infames inpeditique, in quibus et res divinas facere et rem quampiam novam exordiri temperandum est, quos multitudo imperitorum prave et perperam “nefastos” appellat. Itaque M. Cicero in libro Epistularum nono Ad Atticum, “Maiores,” inquit, “nostri funestiorem diem esse voluerunt Alliensis pugnae quam urbis captae, quod hoc malum ex illo. Itaque alter religiosus etiamnunc dies, alter in volgus ignotus.” Idem tamen M. Tullius in oratione De accusatoreAccusalore Constituendo “religiosa delubra” dicit non ominosa nec tristia, sed maiestatis venerationisque plena. Masurius autem Sabinus in Commentariis quos De Indigenis composuit, “Religiosum,” inquit, “est quod propter sanctitatem aliquam remotum ac sepositum a nobis est, verbum a ‘reliquendo’ dictum, tamquam ‘caerimoniae’ a ‘carendo.’” Secundum hanc Sabini interpretationem templa quidem ac delubra—quia horum cumulus in vituperationem non cadit, ut illorum quorum laus in modo extat —, quae non volgo ac temere, sed cum castitate caerimoniaque adeundum, et reverenda et reformidanda sunt magis quam involganda; sed dies “religiosi” dicti, quos ex contraria causa, propter ominis diritatem, relinquimus. Et Terentius:
Tun, quód dem “recte” est. Nám, nihil esse Míhi, religio est dicere. Quod si, ut ait Nigidius, omnia istiusmodi inclinamenta nimium ac praeter modum significant et idcirco in culpas cadunteadunt, ut “vinosus,” “mulierosus,” “morosus,” “verbosus,” “famosus,” cur “ingeniosus” et “formosus” et “officiosus” et “speciosus,” quae pariter ab ingenio et forma et officio et specie, inclinata sunt, cur etiam “disciplinosus,” “consiliosus,” “victoriosus,” quae M. Cato ita affiguravit, cur item “facundiosa,” quod Sempronius Asellio XIII Rerum Gestarum ita scripsit: facta sua spectare oportere, non dicta, si minus facundiosa essent—cur, inquam, ista omnia numquam in culpam, sed in laudem dicuntur, quamquam haec item incrementum sui nimium demonstrent? an propterea, quia illis quidem, quae supra posui, adhibendus est modus quidam necessarius? Nam et gratia, si nimia atque inmodica, et mores, si multi atque varii, et verba, si perpetua atque infinita et obtundentia, et fama, si magna et inquieta et invidiosa sit, neque laudabilia neque utilia sunt; ingenium autem et officium et forma et disciplina et consilium et victoria et facundia sicut ipsae virtutum amplitudines nullis finibus cohibentur, sed quanto maiora auctioraque sunt, multo etiam tanto laudatiora sunt.

## 11. Book IV · chapters 10–20

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/11/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/11/#p-N

[¶0] 10. The order observed in calling upon senators for their opinions; and the altercation in the senate between Gaius Caesar, when consul, and Marcus Cato, who tried to use up the whole day in talk. BEFORE the passage of the law which is now observed in the proceedings of the senate, the order in calling for opinions varied. Sometimes the man was first called upon whom the censors had first enrolled in the senate, sometimes the consuls elect; some of the consuls, influenced by friendship or some personal relationship, used to call first upon anyone they pleased, as a compliment, contrary to the regular order. However, when the usual order was not followed, the rule was observed of not calling first upon any but a man of consular rank. It is said that Gaius Caesar, when he was consul with Marcus Bibulus, called upon only four senators out of order. The first of these was Marcus Crassus, but after Caesar had betrothed his daughter to Gnaeus Pompeius, he began to call upon Pompeius first. Caesar gave the senate his reason for this procedure, according to the testimony of Tullius Tiro, Cicero's freedman, who writes that he had the information from his patron. Ateius Capito has made the same statement in his work On Senatorial Conduct. In the same treatise of Capito is this passage: “The consul Gaius Caesar called upon Marcus Cato for his opinion. Cato did not wish to have the motion before the house carried, since he did not think it for the public good. For the purpose of delaying action, he made a long speech and tried to use up the whole day in talking. For it was a senator's right, when asked his opinion, to speak beforehand on any other subject he wished, and as long as he wished. Caesar, in his capacity as consul, summoned an attendant, and since Cato would not stop, ordered him to be arrested in the full tide of his speech and taken to prison. The senate arose in a body and attended Cato to the prison. But this,” he says, “aroused such indignation, that Caesar yielded and ordered Cato's release.”

> Latin: 10. Quid observatum de ordine rogandarum in senatu sententiarum; iurgiumqueinrgiumque in senatu C. Caesaris consulis et M. Catonis, diem dicendo eximentis. ANTE legem quae nunc de senatu habendo observatur, ordo rogandi sententias varius fuit. Alias primus rogabatur qui princeps a censoribus in senatum lectus fuerat, alias qui designati consules erant; quidam e consulibus, studio aut necessitudine aliqua adducti, quem is visum erat honoris gratia extra ordinem sententiam primum rogabant. Observatum tamen est, cum extra ordinem fieret, ne quis quemquam ex alio quam ex consulari loco sententiam primum rogaret. C. Caesar in consulatu, quem cum M. Bibulo gessit, quattuor solos extra ordinem rogasse sententiam dicitur. Ex his quattuor principem rogabat M. Crassum; sed, postquam filiam Cn. Pompeio desponderat, primumprimuim coeperat Pompeium rogare. Eius rei rationem reddidisse eum senatui Tiro Tullius, M. Ciceronis libertus, refert, itaque se ex patrono suo audisse scribit. Id ipsum Capito Ateius in libro quem De Officio Senatorio composuit, scriptum reliquit. In eodem libro Capitonis id quoque scriptum est: “C.,” inquit, “Caesar consul M. Catonem sententiam rogavit. Cato rem quae consulebatur, quoniam non e republica videbatur, perfici nolebat. Eius rei ducendae gratia longa oratione utebatur eximebatque dicendo diem. Erat enim ius senatori, ut sententiam rogatus diceret ante quicquid vellet aliae rei et quoad vellet. Caesar consul viatorem vocavit eumque, cum finem non faceret, prendi loquentem et in carcerem duci iussit. Senatus consurrexit et prosequebatur Catonem in carcerem. Hac,” inquit, “invidia facta Caesar destitit et mitti Catonem iussit.”

[¶1] 11. The nature of the information which Aristoxenus has handed down about Pythagoras on the ground that it was more authoritative; and also what Plutarch wrote in the same vein about that same Pythagoras. AN erroneous belief of long standing has established itself and become current, that the philosopher Pythagoras did not eat of animals: also that he abstained from the bean, which the Greeks call ku/amos. In accordance with that belief the poet Callimachus wrote:
I tell you too, as did Pythagoras,
Withhold your hands from beans, a hurtful food.
Also, as the result of the same belief, Marcus Cicero wrote these words in the first book of his work On Didination: “Plato therefore bids us go to our sleep in such bodily condition that there may be nothing to cause delusion and disturbance in our minds. It is thought to be for that reason too that the Pythagoreans were forbidden to eat beans, a food that produces great flatulency, which is disturbing to those who seek mental calm.” So then Cicero. But Aristoxenus the musician, a man thoroughly versed in early literature, a pupil of the philosopher Aristotle, in the book On Pythagoras which he has left us, says that Pythagoras used no vegetable more often than beans, since that food gently loosened the bowels and relieved them. I add Aristoxenus' own words: “Pythagoras among vegetables especially recommended the bean, saying that it was both digestible and loosening; and therefore he most frequently made use of it.” Aristoxenus also relates that Pythagoras ate very young pigs and tender kids. This fact he seems to have learned from his intimate friend Xenophilus the Pythagorean and from some other older men, who lived not long after the time of Pythagoras. And the same information about animal food is given by the poet Alexis, in the comedy entitled “The Pythagorean Bluestocking.” Furthermore, the reason for the mistaken idea about abstaining from beans seems to be, that in a poem of Empedocles, who was a follower of Pythagoras, this line is found:
O wretches, utter wretches, from beans withhold your hands.
For most men thought that kua/mous meant the vegetable, according to the common use of the word. But those who have studied the poems of Empedocles with greater care and knowledge say that here kua/mous refers to the testicles, and that after the Pythagorean manner they were called in a covert and symbolic way ku/amoi, because they are the cause of pregnancy and furnish the power for human generation: and that therefore Empedocles in that verse desired to keep men, not from eating beans, but from excess in venery. Plutarch too, a man of weight in scientific matters, in the first book of his work On Homer wrote that Aristotle gave the same account of the Pythagoreans: namely, that except for a few parts of the flesh they did not abstain from eating animals. Since the statement is contrary to the general belief, I have appended Plutarch's own words: “Aristotle says that the Pythagoreans abstained from the matrix, the heart, the a)kalh/fh and some other such things, but used all other animal food.” Now the a)kalh/fh is a marine creature which is called the sea-nettle. But Plutarch in his Table Talk says that the Pythagoreans also abstained from mullets. But as to Pythagoras himself, while it is well known that he declared that he had come into the world as Euphorbus, what Cleanthes and Dicaearchus have recorded is less familiar—that he was afterwards Pyrrhus Pyranthius, then Aethalides, and then a beautiful courtesan, whose name was Alco.

> Latin: 11. Quae qualiaque sint quae Aristoxenus quasi magis comperta de Pythagora memoriae mandavit; et quae item Plutarchus in eundem modum de eodem Pythagora scripserit. OPINIO vetus falsa occupavit et convaluit, Pythagoram philosophum non esitavisse ex animalibus, item abstinuisse fabulo, quem Graeci κύαμον appellant. Ex hac opinione Callimachus poeta scripsit: Καὶ κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχειν, ἀνιῶντος ἐδεστοῦ, Κἀγώ, Πυθαγόρας ὡς ἐκέλευε, λέγω. Ex eadem item opinione M. Cicero in libro De Divinatione primo haec verba posuit: “Iubet igitur Plato sic ad somnum proficisci corporibus affectis, ut nihil sit quod errorem animis perturbationemque afferat. Ex quo etiam Pythagoreis interdictum putatur ne faba vescerentur, quae res habet inflationem magnam, tranquillitatem mentis quaerentibus contrariam.” Haec quidem M. Cicero. Sed Aristoxenus musicus, vir litterarum veterum diligentissimus, Aristoteli philosophi auditor, in libro quem De Pythagora reliquit, nullo saepius legumento Pythagoram dicit usum quam fabis, quoniam is cibus et subduceret sensim alvum et levigaret. Verba ipsa Aristoxeni subscripsi: Πυθαγόρας δὲ τῶν ὀσπρίων μάλιστα τὸν κύαμον ἐδοκίμασεν· λειαντικόν τε γὰρ εἶναι καὶ διαχωρητικόν· διὸ καὶ μάλιστα κέχρηται αὐτῷ. Porculis quoque minusculis et haedis tenerioribus victitasse, idem Aristoxenus refert. Quam rem videtur cognovisse e Xenophilo Pythagorico familiari suo, et ex quibusdam aliis natu maioribus, qui ab aetate Pythagorae minus diu aberant. Ac de animalibus Alexis etiam poeta in comoedia, quae Πυθαγορίζουσα inscribitur, docet. Videtur autem de κυάμῳ non esitato causam erroris fuisse, quia in Empedocli carmine, qui disciplinas Pythagorae secutus est, versus hic invenitur:
Δειλοί, πάνδειλοι, κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχεσθαι. Opinati enim sunt plerique κυάμους legumentum dici, ut a vulgo dicitur. Sed qui diligentius scitiusque carmina Empedocli arbitrati sunt, κυάμους hoc in loco testiculos significare dicunt, eosque more Pythagorae operte atque symbolice κυάμους appellatos, quod sint αἴτιοι τοῦ κυεῖν et geniturae humanae vim praebeant; idcircoque Empedoclen versu isto non a fabulo edendo, sed a rei veneriae prolubio voluisse homines deducere. Plutarchus quoque, homo in disciplinis gravi auctoritate, in primo librorum quos De Homero composuit, Aristotelem philosophum scripsit eadem ipsa de Pythagoricis scripsisse, quod non abstinuerint edundis animalibus, nisi pauca carne quadam. Verba ipsa Plutarchi, quoniam res inopinata est, subscripsi: Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ μήτρας καὶ καρδίας καὶ ἀκαλήφης καὶ τοιούτων τινῶν ἄλλων ἀπέχεσθαί φησιν τοὺς Πυθαγορικούς· χρῆσθαι δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις. Ἀκαλήφη autem est animal marinum, quod “urtica” appellatur. Sed et piscibus mullis abstinere Pythagoricos, Plutarchus in Symposiacis dicit. Pythagoram vero ipsum, sicuti celebre est Euphorbum primo fuisse dictasse, ita haec remotiora sunt his quae Clearchus et Dicaearchus memoriae tradiderunt, fuisse eum postea Pyrrum Pyranthium, deinde Aethaliden, deinde feminam pulcra facie meretricemneretricem, cui nomen fuerat Alco.

[¶2] 12. Instances of disgrace and punishment inflicted by the censors, found in ancient records and worthy of notice. IF anyone had allowed his land to run to waste and was not giving it sufficient attention, if he had neither ploughed nor weeded it, or if anyone had neglected his orchard or vineyard, such conduct did not go unpunished, but it was taken up by the censors, who reduced such a man to the lowest class of citizens. So too, any Roman knight, if his horse seemed to be skinny or not well groomed, was charged with inpolitiae, a word which means the same thing as negligence. There are authorities for both these punishments, and Marcus Cato has cited frequent instances.

> Latin: 12. Notae et animadversiones censoriae in veteribus monumentis repertae memoria dignae. Si quis agrum suum passus fuerat sordescere eumque indiligenter curabat ac neque araverat neque purgaverat, sive quis arborem suam vineamque habuerat derelictui, non id sine poena fuit, sed erat opus censorium censoresque aerarium faciebant. Item, si quis eques Romanus equum habere gracilentum aut parum nitidum visus erat, “inpolitiae” notabatur; id verbum significat quasi tu dicas “incuriae.” Cuius rei utriusque auctoritates sunt et M. Cato id saepenumero adtestatus est.

[¶3] 13. On the possibility of curing gout by certain melodies played in a special way on the flute. I RAN across the statement very recently in the book of Theophrastus OnInspiration that many men have believed and put their belief on record, that when gouty pains in the hips are most severe, they are relieved if a flute-player plays soothing measures. That snake-bites are cured by the music of the flute, when played skilfully and melodiously, is also stated in a book of Democritus, entitled On Deadly Infections, in which he shows that the music of the flute is medicine for many ills that flesh is heir to. So very close is the connection between the bodies and the minds of men, and therefore between physical and mental ailments and their remedies.

> Latin: 13. Quod incentiones quaedam tibiarum certo modo factae ischiacis mederi possunt. Creditum hoc a plerisque esse et memoriae mandatum, ischia cum maxime doleant, tum, si modulis lenibus tibicen incinat, minui dolores, ego nuperrime in libro Theophrasti Περὶ Ἐνθουσιασμοῦ scriptum inveni. Viperarum morsibus tibicinium scite modulateque adhibitumadhilitum mederi, refert etiam Democriti liber, qui inscribiturinscrilitur Περὶ Λοιμῶν, in quo docet plurimis hominum morbidis medicinae fuisse incentiones tibiarum. Tanta prosus adfinitas est corporibus hominum mentibusque et propterea vitiis quoque aut medellis animorum et corporum.

[¶4] 14. A story told of Hostilius Mancinus, a curule aedile, and the courtesan Manilia; and the words of the decree of the tribunes to whom Manilia appealed. As I was reading the ninth book of the Miscellany of Ateius Capito, entitled On Public Decisions, one decree of the tribunes seemed to me full of old-time dignity. For that reason I remember it, and it was rendered for this reason and to this purport. Aulus Hostilius Mancinus was a curule aedile. He brought suit before the people against a courtesan called Manilia, because he said that he had been struck with a stone thrown from her apartment by night, and he exhibited the wound made by the stone. Manilia appealed to the tribunes of the commons. Before them she declared that Mancinus had come to her house in the garb of a reveller; that it would not have been to her advantage to admit him, and that when he tried to break in by force, he had been driven off with stones. The tribunes decided that the aedile had rightly been refused admission to a place to which it had not been seemly for him to go with a garland on his head; therefore they forbade the aedile to bring an action before the people.

> Latin: 14. Narratur historia de Hostilio Mancino aedili cur. et Manilia meretrice; verbaque decreti tribunorum ad quos a Manilia provocatum est. CUM librum IX. Atei Capitonis Coniectaneorum legeremus, qui inscriptus est De Iudiciis Publicis, decretum tribunorum visum est gravitatis antiquae plenum. Propterea id meminimus, idque ob hanc causam et in hanc sententiam scriptum est: Aulus Hostilius Mancinus aedilis curulis fuit. Is Maniliae meretrici diem ad populum dixit, quod e tabulato eius noctu lapide ictus esset, vulnusque ex eo lapide ostendebat. Manilia ad tribunos plebi provocavit. Apud eos dixit comessatorem Mancinum ad aedes suas venisse; eum sibi recipere non fuisse e re sua, sed cum vi inrumperetinruinperet, lapidibus depulsum. Tribuni decreverunt aedilem ex eo loco iure deiectum quo eum venire cum corollario non decuisset; propterea, ne cum populo aedilis ageret intercesserunt Defensa a culpa sententia ex historia Sallustii, quam iniqui eius cum insectatione maligni reprehenderint.

[¶5] 15. The defence of a passage in the historical works of Sallust, which his enemies attacked in a spirit of malicious criticism. THE elegance of Sallust's style and his passion for coining and introducing new words was met with exceeding great hostility, and many men of no mean ability tried to criticize and decry much in his writings. Many of the attacks on him were ignorant or malicious. Yet there are some things that may be regarded as deserving of censure, as for example the following passage in the History of Catiline, which has the appearance of being written somewhat carelessly. Sallust's words are these: “And for myself, although I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds, yet I regard the writing of history as one of the hardest of tasks; first because the style and diction must be equal to the deeds recorded; and in the second place, because such criticisms as you make of others' shortcomings are thought by most men to be due to malice and envy. Furthermore, when you commemorate the distinguished merit and fame of good men, while everyone is quite ready to believe you when you tell of things which he thinks he could easily do himself, everything beyond that he regards as fictitious, if not false.” The critics say: “He declared that he would give the reasons why it appears to be ' hard ' 'to write history'; and then, after mentioning the first reason, he does not give a second, but gives utterance to complaints. For it ought not to be regarded as a reason why the work of history is 'hard,' that the reader either misinterprets what is written or does not believe it to be true.” They maintain that he ought to say that such work is exposed and subject to misjudgments, rather than “hard”; for that which is “hard” is hard because of the difficulty of its accomplishment, not because of the mistaken opinions of other men. That is what those ill-natured critics say. But Sallust does not use arduus merely in the sense of “hard,” but as the equivalent of the Greek word xalepo/s, that is, both difficult and also troublesome, disagreeable and intractable. And the meaning of these words is not inconsistent with that of the passage which was just quoted from Sallust.

> Latin: 15. ELEGANTIA orationis Sallustii verborumque fingendi et novandi studium cum multa prorsus invidia fuit, multique non mediocri ingenio viri conati sunt reprehendere pleraque et obtrectare. In quibus plura inscite aut maligne vellicant. Nonnulla tamen videri possunt non indigna reprehensione; quale illud in Catilinae Historia repertum est, quod habeat eamearn speciem, quasi parum adtente dictum. Verba Sallustii haec sunt: “Ac mihi quidem, tametsi hautquaquam par gloria sequitur scriptorem et auctorem rerum, tamen inprimis arduum videtur res gestas scribere; primum, quod facta dictis exaequanda sunt; dein, quia plerique quae delicta reprehenderis malivolentia et invidia dicta putant. Ubi de magna virtute atque gloria bonorum memores, quae sibi quisque facilia factu putat, aequo animo accipit; supra ea, veluti ficta, pro falsis ducit” “Proposuit,” inquiunt, “dicturum causas quamobrem videatur esse ‘arduum,’ ‘res gestas scribere’; atque ibi cum primam causam dixerit, dein non alteram causam, sed querellas dicit.” “Non enim causa videri debet cur historiae opus ‘arduum’ sit, quod hi qui legunt aut inique interpretantur quae scripta sunt aut vera esse non credunt.” Obnoxiam quippe et obiectam falsis existimationibus eamearn rem dicendam aiunt quam “arduam”; quia quod est “arduum” sui operis difficultate est arduum, non opinionis alienae erroribus. Haec illi malivoli reprehensores dicunt. Sed “arduum” Sallustius non pro difficili tantum, sed pro eo quoque ponit quod Graeci χαλεπὸν appellant, quod est cum difficile, tum molestum quoque et incommodum et intractabile. Quorum verborum significatio a sententia Sallustii supra scripta non abhorret.

[¶6] 16. On the inflection of certain words by Varro and Nigidius contrary to everyday usage; and also a quotation of some instances of the same kind from the early writers, with examples. I LEARN that Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, the most learned of all the Romans, always said and wrote senatuis, domuis and fluctuis as the genitive case of the words senatus, domus and fluctus, and used senatui, domui, fluctui, and other similar words, with the corresponding dative ending. There is also a line of the comic poet Terence, which in the old manuscripts is written as follows:
Because, I think, of that old dame (anuis) who died.
Some of the early grammarians wished to give this authority of theirs the sanction of a rule; namely, that every dative singular ending in l, if it has not the same form as the genitive singular, makes the genitive singular by adding s, as pati patris, duci ducis, caedi caedis. “Therefore,” they say, “since we use senatui as the dative case, the genitive singular of that word is senatuis, not senatus.” But all are not agreed that we should use senatui in the dative case rather than senatu. For example, Lucilius in that same case uses victu and ann, and not victui and anui, in these verses:
Since you to honest fare (victu) do waste and feasts prefer,
and in another place:
I'm doing harm to the old girl (anu).
Vergil also in the dative case writes aspectu and not aspecui:
Withdraw not from our view (aspectu)
and in the Georgics:
Nor give themselves to love's embrace (concubitu).
Gaius Caesar too, a high authority on the Latin language, says in his Speech against Cato: “owing to the arrogance, haughtiness and tyranny dominateu) of one man.” Also in the First Action against Dolabella, Book I: “Those in whose temples and shrines they had been placed for an honour and an adornment (ornatu).” Also, in his books on analogy he decides that i should be omitted in all such forms.

> Latin: 16. De vocabulis quibusdam a Varrone et Nigidio contra cotidiani sermonis consuetudinem declinatis; atque inibi id genus quaedam cum exemplis veterum relata. M. VARRONEM et P. Nigidium, viros Romani generis doctissimos, comperimus non aliter elocutos esse et scripsisse quam “senatuis” et “domuis” et “fluctuis,” qui est patrius casus ab eo quod est “senatus,” “domus” “fluctus”; huic “senatui,” “domui” “fluctui” ceteraque is consimilia pariter dixisse. Terentii quoque comici versus in libris veteribus itidem scriptus est:
Eius ánuis causa, opínor, quae est emórtua. Hanc eorum auctoritatem quidam e veteribus grammaticis ratione etiam firmare voluerunt, quod omnis dativus singularis “i” littera finitus, si non similis est genetivi singularis, s littera addita genetivum singularem facit, ut “patri patris,” “duci ducis,” “caedi caedis.” “Cum igitur” inquiunt “in casu dandi ‘huic senatui’ dicamus, genetivus ex eo singularis ‘senatuis’ est, non ‘senatus.’” Set non omnes concedunt in casu dativo “senatui” magis dicendum quam “senatu.” Sicuti Lucilius in eodem casu “victu” et “anu” dicit, non “victui” nec “anui,” in hisce versibus:
Quod sumptum atque epulas victu praeponis honesto
et alio in loco:
Anu noceo (inquit). Vergilius quoque in casu dandi “aspectu” dicit, non “aspectui”
Teque aspectu ne subtrahe nostro
et in Georgicis:
Quod nec concubitu indulgent. C. etiam Caesar, gravis auctor linguae Latinae, in Anticatone, “unius,” inquit, “arrogantiae, superbiae dominatuque.” Item In Dolabellam actionis l. lib. I.: “Isti, quorum in aedibus fanisque posita et honori erant et ornatu.” In libris quoque analogicis omnia istiusmodi sine “i” littera dicenda censet.

[¶7] 17. A discussion of the natural quantity of certain particles, the long pronunciation of which, when prefixed to verbs, seems to be barbarous and ignorant; with several examples and explanations. IN the eleventh book of Lucilius are these lines:
Thus base Asellus did great Scipio taunt:
Unlucky was his censorship and bad.
I hear that many read obiciebat with a long o, and they say that they do this in order to preserve the metre. Again farther on he says:
I'd versify the words the herald Granius spoke.
In this passage also they lengthen the prefix of the first word for the same reason. Again in the fifteenth book:
Subicit huic humilem et suffercitus posteriorem,
they read subicit with a long u, because it is not proper for the first syllable to be short in heroic verse. Likewise in the Epidicus of Plautus they lengthen the syllable con in
Haste now, Epidicus, prepare yourself,
And throw (conice) your mantle round about your neck.
In Virgil too I hear that some lengthen the verb subicit in:
Parnassian laurel too
Lifts (subicit) 'neath large mother-shade its infant stem.
But neither the preposition ob nor sub is long by nature, nor is con long either, except when it is followed by the letters which come directly after it in constituit and confecit, or when its n is lost, as in Sallust's faenoribus copertus. But in those instances which I have mentioned above the metre may be preserved without barbarously lengthening the prefixes; for the following letter in those words should be written with two i's, not with one. For the simple verb to which the above-mentioned particles are prefixed, is not icio, but iacio, and the perfect is not icit, but iecit. When that word is used in compounds, the letter a is changed into i, as happens in the verbs insilio and incipio, and thus the first i acquires consonantal force. Accordingly, that syllable, being pronounced a little longer and fuller, does not allow the first syllable to be short, but makes it long by position, and thus the rhythm of the verse and the correct pronunciation are preserved. What I have said leads also to a knowledge of this, that in the line which we find in the sixth book of Virgil:
Unconquered chieftain, save me from these ills;
Or do thou earth cast on (inice) me,
iniice is to be written and pronounced as I have indicated above, unless anyone is so ignorant as to lengthen the preposition in in this word too for the sake of the metre. We ask then for what reason the letter o in obicibus is lengthened, since this word is derived from the verb obiicio, and is not at all analogous to motus, which is from moveo and is pronounced with a long o. I myself recall that Sulpicius Apollinaris, a man eminent for his knowledge of literature, pronounced obices and obicibus with a short o, and that in Virgil too he read in the same way the lines:
And by what force the oceans fathomless
Rise, bursting all their bounds (obicibus);
but, as I have indicated, he gave the letter i, which in that word also should be doubled, a somewhat fuller and longer sound. It is consistent therefore that subices also, which is formed exactly like obices, should be pronounced with the letter u short. Ennius, in his tragedy which is entitled Achilles, uses subices for the upper air which is directly below the heavens, in these lines: By lofty, humid regions (subices) of the gods I swear, Whence comes the storm with savage roaring wind; yet, in spite of what I have said, you may hear almost everyone read subices with a long u. But Marcus Cato uses that very verb with another prefix in the speech which he delivered On his Consulship: “So the wind bears them to the beginning of the Pyrenees' range, where it extends (proicit) into the deep.” And so too Pacuvius in the Chryses:
High Ida's cape, whose tongue into the deep extends (proicit).

> Latin: 17. De natura quarundam particularumparticularuin quae praepositae verbis intendi atque produci barbare et inscite videntur, exemplis rationibusque plusculis disceptatum. LUCILII ex XI. versus sunt:
Scipiadae magno improbus obiciebat Asellus,
Lustrum illo censore malum infelixque fuisse.
“Obiciebat” “o” littera producta multos legere audio, idque eo facere dicunt ut ratio numeri salva sit. Idem infra:
Conicere in versus dictum praeconis volebam
Grani.
In hac quoque primi verbi praepositione “o” ob eandem causam producunt. Item XV.:
Subicit huic humilem et suffercitus posteriorem,
“subicit” “u” littera longa legunt, quia primam syllabam brevem esse in versu heroico non convenit. Item apud Plautum in Epidico “con” syllabam productam pronuntiant:
Age núnciam orna te, Epidice, et palliolum in
collum cónice. Apud Vergilium quoque “subicit” verbum produci a plerisque audio:
etiam Parnasia laurus
Parva sub ingenti matris se subicit umbra. Sed neque “ob” neque “sub” praepositio producendi habet naturam, neque item “con,” nisi cum eam litterae secuntur quae in verbis “constituit” et “confecit” secundum eam primae sunt, vel cumcurl eliditur ex ea “n” littera, sicut Sallustius: “faenoribus,” inquit, “copertus.” In his autem quae supra posui et metrum esse integrum potest et praepositiones istae possunt non barbare protendi; secunda enim littera in his verbis per duo “i,” non per unum scribenda est. Nam verbum ipsum, cui supradictae particulae praepositae sunt, non est “icio,” sed “iacio” et praeteritum non “icit” facit, sed “iecit.” Id ubi compositum est, “a” littera in “i” mutatur, sicuti fit in verbis “insilio” et “incipio,” atque “i” ita vim consonantis,capit, et idcirco ea syllaba productius latiusque paulo pronuntiata priorem syllabam brevem esse non patitur, sed reddit eam positu longam, proptereaque et numerus in versu et ratio in pronuntiatu manet. Haec quae diximus eo etiam conducunt, ut quod apud Vergilium in sexto positum invenimus:
Eripe me his, invicte, malis, aut tu mihi terram Inice,
sic esse “iniice,” ut supra dixi, et scribendum et legendum sciamus, nisi quis tam indocilis est, ut in hoc quoque verbo “in” praepositionem metri gratia protendat. Quaerimus igitur in “obicibus” “o” littera qua ratione intendatur, cum id vocabulum factum sit a verbo “obiicio” et nequaquam simile sit quod a verbo “moveo” “motus” “o” littera longa dicitur. Equidem memini Sulpicium Apollinarem, virum praestanti litterarum scientia, “obicesotobices” et “obicibus” “o” littera correpta dicere, in Vergilio quoque sic eum legere:
qua vi maria alta tumescant
Obicibus ruptis;
sed ita ut diximus, “i” litteram, quae in hoc vocabulo quoque gemina esse debet, paulo uberius largiusque pronuntiabat. Congruens igitur est ut “subices” etiam, quod proinde ut “obices” compositum est, “u” littera brevi dici oporteat. Ennius in tragoedia quae Achilles inscribitur, “subices” pro aere alto ponit qui caelo subiectus est, in his versibus:
per ego déum sublimas súbices
Húmidas, unde óritur imber sónitu saevo et spíritu;
plerosque omnes tamen legere audias “u” littera producta. Id ipsum autem verbum M. Cato sub alia praepositione dicit in oratione quam De Consulatu Suo habuit: “Ita hos,” inquit, “fert ventus ad primorem Pyrenaeum, quo proicit in altum.” Et Pacuvius item in Chryse:
Idae promúnturium, cuius lingua in altum prócit.

[¶8] 18. Some stories of the elder Publius Africanus, taken from the annals and well worth relating. How greatly the earlier Scipio Africanus excelled in the splendour of his merits, how lofty and noble of spirit he was, and to what an extent he was upheld by consciousness of his own rectitude, is evident from many of his words and acts. Among these are the following two instances of his extreme self-confidence and sense of superiority. When Marcus Naevius, tribune of the commons, accused him before the people and declared that he had received money from king Antiochus to make peace with him in the name of the Roman people on favourable and easy terms, and when the tribune added sundry other charges which were unworthy of so great a man, then Scipio, after a few preliminary remarks such as were called for by the dignity and renown of his life, said: “I recall, fellow citizens, that this is the day on which in Africa in a mighty battle I conquered Hannibal the Carthaginian, the most bitter enemy of your power, and won for you a splendid peace and a glorious victory. Let us then not be ungrateful to the gods, but, I suggest, let us leave this worthless fellow, and go at once to render thanks to Jupiter, greatest and best of gods.” So saying, he turned away and set out for the Capitol. Thereupon the whole assembly, which had gathered to pass judgment on Scipio, left the tribune, accompanied Scipio to the Capitol, and then escorted him to his home with the joy and expressions of gratitude suited to a festal occasion. The very speech is in circulation which is believed to have been delivered that day by Scipio, and those who deny its authenticity at least admit that these words which I have quoted were spoken by Scipio. There is also another celebrated act of his. Certain Petilii, tribunes of the commons, influenced they say by Marcus Cato, Scipio's personal enemy, and instigated to appear against him, insisted most vigorously in the senate on his rendering an account of the money of Antiochus and of the booty taken in that war; for he had been deputy to his brother Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, the commander in that campaign. Thereupon Scipio arose, and taking a roll from the fold of his toga, said that it contained an account of all the money and all the booty; that he had brought it to be publicly read and deposited in the treasury. “But that,” said he, “I shall not do now, nor will I so degrade myself.” And at once, before them all, he tore the roll across with his own hands and rent it into bits, indignant that an account of money taken in war should be required of him, to whose account the salvation of the Roman State and its power ought to be credited.

> Latin: 18. De P. Africano superiore sumpta quaedam ex annalibus memoratu dignissimadignissinla. SCIPIO AFRICANUS antiquior quanta virtutum gloria praestiterit et quam fuerit altus animi atque magnificus et qua sui conscientia subnixus, plurimis rebus quae dixit quaeque fecit declaratum est. Ex quibus sunt haec duo exempla eius fiduciae atque exuperantiae ingentis. Cum M. Naevius tribunus plebis accusaret eum ad populum diceretque accepisse a rege Antiocho pecuniam, ut condicionibus gratiosis et mollibus pax cum eo populi Romani nomine fieret, et quaedam item alia crimini daret indigna tali viro, tum Scipio pauca praefatus quae dignitas vitae suae atque gloria postulabat, “Memoria,” inquit, “Quirites, repeto, diem esse hodiernum quo Hannibalem Poenum imperio vestro inimicissimum magno proelio vici in terra Africa pacemque et victoriam vobis peperi spectabilem. Non igitur simus adversum deos ingrati et, censeo, relinquamus nebulonem hunc, eamus hinc protinus Iovi optimo maximo gratulatum.” Id cum dixisset, avertit et ire ad Capitolium coepit. Tum contio universa, quae ad sententiam de Scipione ferendam convenerat, relicto tribuno, Scipionem in Capitolium comitata atque inde ad aedes eius cum laetitia et gratulatione sollemni prosecuta est. Fertur etiam oratio quae videtur habita eo die a Scipione, et qui dicunt eamearn non veram, non eunt infitias quin haec quidem verba fuerint, quae dixi, Scipionis. Item aliud est factum eius praeclarum. Petilii quidam tribuni plebis a M., ut aiunt, Catone, inimico Scipionis, comparati in eum atque inmissi, desiderabant in senatu instantissime ut pecuniae Antiochinae praedaeque in eo bello captae rationem redderet; fuerat enim L. Scipioni Asiatico, fratri suo, imperatori in ea provincia legatus. Ibi Scipio exsurgitexurgit et, prolato e sinu togae libro, rationes in eo scriptas esse dixit omnis pecuniae omnisque praedae; illatum, ut palam recitaretur et ad aerarium deferretur. “Sed enim id iam non faciam,” inquit, “nec me ipse afficiam contumelia,” eumque librum statim coram discidit suis manibus et concerpsit, aegre passus quod cui salus imperii ac reipublicae accepta ferri deberet rationem pecuniae praedatae posceretur.

[¶9] 19. What Marcus Varro wrote in his Philosophical-historical Treatise on restricting the diet of immature children. IT has been found that if immature children eat a great deal and sleep too much, they become so sluggish as to have the dulness of a sufferer from insomnia or lethargy; and their bodies are stunted and under-developed. This is stated by numerous other physicians and philosophers and also by Marcus Varro in that section of his Philosophical-historical Treatise which is entitled Catus, or On Bringing up Children.

> Latin: 19. Quid M. Varro in Logistorico scripserit de moderando victu puerorum inpubium. PUEROS inpubes compertum est, si plurimo cibo nimioque somno uterentur, hebetiores fieri ad veterni usque aut eluci tarditatem, corporaque eorum inprocera fieri minusque adolescere. Idem plerique alii medicorum philosophorumque et M. Varro in Logistorico scripsit, quae inscripta est Catus aut De Liberis Educandis.

[¶10] 20. On the punishment by the censors of men who had made untimely jokes in their hearing; also a deliberation as to the punishment of a man who had happened to yawn when standing before them. AMONG the severities of the censors these three examples of the extreme strictness of their discipline are recorded in literature. The first is of this sort: The censor was administering the usual oath regarding wives, which was worded as follows: “Have you, to the best of your knowledge and belief, a wife?” The man who was to take the oath was a jester, a sarcastic dog, and too much given to buffoonery. Thinking that he had a chance to crack a joke, when the censor asked him, as was customary, “Have you, to the best of your knowledge and belief, a wife?” he replied: “I indeed have a wife, but not, by Heaven! such a one as I could desire.” Then the censor reduced him to a commoner for his untimely quip, and added that the reason for his action was a scurrilous joke made in his presence. Here is another instance of the sternness of the same officials. The censors deliberated about the punishment of a man who had been brought before them by a friend as his advocate, and who had yawned in court very clearly and loudly. He was on the point of being condemned for his lapse, on the ground that it was an indication of a wandering and trifling mind and of wanton and undisguised indifference. But when the man had sworn that the yawn had overcome him much against his will and in spite of his resistance, and that he was afflicted with the disorder known as oscedo, or a tendency to yawning, he was excused from the penalty which had already been determined upon. Publius Scipio Africanus, son of Paulus, included both these stories in a speech which he made when censor, urging the people to follow the customs of their forefathers. Sabinus Masurius too in the seventh book of his Memoirs relates a third instance of severity. He says: “When the censors Publius Scipio Nasica and Marcus Popilius were holding a review of the knights, they saw a horse that was very thin and ill-kept, while its rider was plump and in the best of condition. 'Why is it,' said they, 'that you are better cared for than your mount?' 'Because,' he replied, 'I take care of myself, but Statius, a worthless slave, takes care of the horse.' This answer did not seem sufficiently respectful, and the man was reduced to a commoner, according to custom.” Now Statius was a slave-name. In old times there were many slaves of that name. Caecilius too, the famous comic poet, was a slave and as such called Statius. But afterwards this was made into a kind of surname and he was called Caecilius Statius.

> Latin: 20. Notati a censoribus qui audientibus iis dixerant ioca quaedam intempestiviter; ac de eius quoque nota deliberatum qui steterat forte apud eos oscitabundus. INTER censorum severitates tria haec exempla in litteris sunt castigatissimae disciplinae. Unum est huiuscemodi: Censor agebat de uxoribus sollemne iusiurandum; verba erant ita concepta: “Ut tu ex animi tui sententia uxorem habes?” Qui iurabat cavillator quidam et canicula et nimis ridicularius fuit. Is locum esse sibi loci dicundi ratus, cum ita uti mos erat censor dixisset, “Ut tu ex animi tui sententia uxorem habes?” “Habeo equidem,” inquit, “uxorem, sed non hercle ex animi mei sententia.” Tum censor eum, quod intempestive lascivisset, in aerarios rettulit, causamque hanc ioci scurrilis apud se dicti subscripsit. Altera severitas eiusdem sectae disciplinaeque est. Deliberatum est de nota eius qui ad censores ab amico advocatus est et in iure stans dare nimis et sonore oscitavit; atque inibi ut plecteretur fuit, tamquam illud indicium esset vagi animi et alucinantis et fluxae atque apertae securitatis. Sed cum ille deiurasset invitissimum sese ac repugnantem oscitatione victum tenerique eo vitio quod “oscedo” appellatur, tum notae iam destinatae exemptus est. Publius Scipio Africanus, Pauli filius, utramque historiam posuit in oratione quam dixit in censura, cum ad maiorum mores populum hortaretur. Item aliud refert Sabinus Masurius in septimo Memoriali severe factum: “Censores,” inquit, “Publius Scipio Nasica et Marcus Popilius cum equitum censum agerent, equum nimis strigosum et male habitum, sed equitem eius uberrimum et habitissimum viderunt et ‘cur,’” inquiunt, “ita est, ut tu sis quam equus curatior? ‘Quoniam,’ inquit, ‘ego me curo, equum Statius nihili servos.’ Visum est parum esse reverens responsum relatusque in aerarios, ut mos est.” “Statius” autem servile nomen fuit. Plerique apud veteres servi eo nomine fuerunt. Caecilius quoque, ille comoediarum poeta inclutus, servus fuit et propterea nomen habuit “Statius.” Sed postea versum est quasi in cognomentum, appellatusque est “Caecilius Statius.”

## 12. Book V · chapters 1–12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/12/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/12/#p-N

[¶0] 1. That the philosopher Musonius criticized and rebuked those who expressed approval of a philosopher's discourse by loud shouts and extravagant demonstrations of praise. I have heard that the philosopher Musonius was accustomed... “When a philosopher,” he says, “is uttering words of encouragement, of warning, of persuasion, or of rebuke, or is discussing any other philosophical theme, then if his hearers utter trite and commonplace expressions of praise without reflection or restraint, if they shout too, if they gesticulate, if they are stirred and swayed and impassioned by the charm of his utterance, by the rhythm of his words, and by certain musical notes, as it were, then you may know that speaker and hearers are wasting their time, and that they are not hearing a philosopher's lecture, but a flute-player's recital. The mind,” said he, “of one who is listening to a philosopher, so long as what is said is helpful and salutary, and furnishes a cure for faults and vices, has no time or leisure for continued and extravagant applause. Whoever the hearer may be, unless he is wholly lost, during the course of the philosopher's address he must necessarily shudder and feel secret shame and repentance, or rejoice or wonder, and even show changes of countenance and betray varying emotions, according as the philosopher's discourse has affected him and his consciousness of the different tendencies of his mind, whether noble or base.” He added that great applause is not inconsistent with admiration, but that the greatest admiration gives rise, not to words, but to silence. “Therefore,” said he, "the wisest of all poets does not represent those who heard Ulysses' splendid account of his hardships as leaping up, when he ceased speaking, with shouts and noisy demonstrations, but he says they were one and all silent, as if amazed and confounded, since the gratification of their ears even affected their power of utterance."
Thus he; but they in silence all were hushed
And held in rapture through the shadowy hall.

> Latin: 1. Quod Musonius philosophus reprehendit inprobavitque laudari philosophum disserentem a vociferantibus et in laudando gestientibus. … MUSONIUM philosophum solitum accepimus. “Cum philosophus,” inquit, “hortatur, monet, suadet, obiurgat aliudve quid disciplinarum disserit, tum qui audiunt si de summo et soluto pectore obvias vulgatasque laudes effutiunt, si clamitant etiam, si gestiunt, si vocum eius festivitatibus, si modulis verborum, si quibusdam quasi fritamentis orationis moventur, exagitantur et gestiunt, tum scias et qui dicit et qui audiunt frustra esse, neque illi philosophum loqui, sed tibicinem canere.” “Animus,” inquit, “audientis philosophum, dum quae dicuntur utilia ac salubria sunt et errorum atque vitiorum medicinas ferunt, laxamentum atque otium prolixe profuseque laudandi non habet. Quisquis ille est qui audit, nisi ille est plane deperditus,” “inter ipsam philosophi orationem et perhorrescat necesse est et pudeat tacitus et paeniteat et gaudeat et admiretur,” “varios adeo vultus disparilesque sensus gerat, proinde ut eum conscientiamque eius adfecerit utrarumque animi partium, aut sincerarum aut aegrarum, philosophi pertractatio.” Praeterea dicebat magnam laudem non abesse ab admiratione, admirationem autem quae maxima est non verba parere, sed silentium. “Idcirco,” inquit, “poetarum sapientissimus auditores illos Ulixi, labores suos inlustrissime narrantis, ubi loquendi finis factus, non exsultareexultare ne strepere nec vociferari facit, sed consiluisse universos dicit, quasi attonitosattonitcs et obstupidos, delenimentis aurium ad origines usque vocis permanantibus:
Ὣς φάτο· τοὶ δʼ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ,
Κηληθμῷ δʼ ἔσχοντο κατὰ μέγαρα σκιόεντα.”

[¶1] 2. About the horse of king Alexander, called Bucephalas. THE horse of king Alexander was called Bucephalas because of the shape of his head. Chares wrote that he was bought for thirteen talents and given to king Philip; that amount in Roman money is three hundred and twelve thousand sesterces. It seemed a noteworthy characteristic of this horse that when he was armed and equipped for battle, he would never allow himself to be mounted by any other than the king. It is also related that Alexander in the war against India, mounted upon that horse and doing valorous deeds, had driven him, with disregard of his own safety, too far into the enemies' ranks. The horse had suffered deep wounds in his neck and side from the weapons hurled from every hand at Alexander, but though dying and almost exhausted from loss of blood, he yet in swiftest course bore the king from the midst of the foe; but when he had taken him out of range of the weapons, the horse at once fell, and satisfied with having saved his master breathed his last, with indications of relief that were almost human. Then king Alexander, after winning the victory in that war, founded a city in that region and in honour of his horse called it Bucephalon.

> Latin: 2. Super equo Alexandri regis, qui Bucephalas appellatus est. EQUUS Alexandri regis et capite et nomine “Bucephalas” fuit. Emptum Chares scripsit talentis tredecim et regi Philippo donatumdonatums; hoc autem aeris nostri summa est sestertia trecenta duodecim. Super hoc equo dignum memoria visum, quod, ubi ornatus erat armatusque ad proelium, haud umquam inscendi sese ab alio nisi ab rege passus sit. Id etiam de isto equo memoratum est, quod, cum insidens in eo Alexander bello Indico et facinora faciens fortia, in hostium cuneum non satis sibi providens inmisisset, coniectisque undique in Alexandrum telis, vulneribus altis in cervice atque in latere equus perfossus esset, moribundus tamen ac prope iam exanguis e mediis hostibus regem vivacissimo cursu retulit atque, ubi eum extra tela extulerat, ilico concidit et, domini iam superstitis securus, quasi cum sensus humani solacio animam expiravit. Tum rex Alexander, parta eius belli victoria, oppidum in isdem locis condidit idque ob equi honores “Bucephalon” appellavit.

[¶2] 3. The reason and the occasion which are said to have introduced Protagoras to the study of philosophical literature. THEY say that Protagoras, a man eminent in the pursuit of learning, whose name Plato gave to that famous dialogue of his, in his youth earned his living as a hired labourer and often carried heavy burdens on his back, being one of that class of men which the Greeks call a)xqofo/roi and we Latins baiuli, or porters. He was once carrying a great number of blocks of wood, bound together with a short rope, from the neighbouring countryside into his native town of Abdera. It chanced at the time that Democritus, a citizen of that same city, a man esteemed before all others for his fine character and his knowledge of philosophy, as he was going out of the city, saw Protagoras walking along easily and rapidly with that burden, of a kind so awkward and so difficult to hold together. Democritus drew near, and noticing with what skill and judgment the wood was arranged and tied, asked the man to stop and rest awhile. When Protagoras did as he was asked, and Democritus again observed that the almost circular heap of blocks was bound with a short rope, and was balanced and held together with all but geometrical accuracy, lie asked who had put the wood together in that way. When Protagoras replied that he had done it himself, Democritus asked him to untie the bundle and arrange it again in the same way. But after he had done so, then Democritus, astonished at the keen intellect and cleverness of this uneducated man, said: “My dear young man, since you have a talent for doing things well, there are greater and better employments which you can follow with me”; and he at once took him away, kept him at his own house, supplied him with money, taught him philosophy, and made him the great man that he afterwards became. Yet this Protagoras was not a true philosopher, but the cleverest of sophists; for in consideration of the payment of a huge annual fee, he used to promise his pupils that he would teach them by what verbal dexterity the weaker cause could be made the stronger, a process which he called in Greek: to\n h(/ttw lo/gon krei/ttw poiei=n, or “making the worse appear the better reason.”

> Latin: 3. Quae causa quodque initium fuisse dicatur Protagorae ad philosophiae litteras adeundi. PROTAGORAM, virum in studiis doctrinarum egregium, cuius nomen Plato libro suo illi incluto inscripsit, adulescentem aiunt victus quaerendi gratia in mercedem missum vecturasque onerum corpore suo factitavisse, quod genus Graeci ἀχθοφόρους vocant, Latine “baiulos” appellamus. Is de proximo rure Abdera in oppidum, cuius popularis fuit, caudices ligni plurimos funiculo brevi circumdatos portabat. tumTurn forte Democritus, civitatis eiusdem civis, homo ante alios virtutis et philosophiae gratia venerandus, cum egrederetur extra urbem, videt eum cum illo genere oneris tam impedito ac tam incohibili facile atque expedite incedentem, et prope accedit et iuncturam posituramque ligni scite periteque factam considerat petitque ut paululum adquiescat. Quod ubi Protagoras, ut erat petitum, fecit atque itidem Democritus acervum ilium et quasi orbem caudicum, brevi vinculo comprehensum, ratione quadam quasi geometrica librari continerique animadvertit, interrogavit quis id lignum ita composuisset, et cum ille a se compositum dixisset, desideravit uti solveret ac denuo in modum eundem collocaret. At postquam ille solvit ac similiter composuit, tum Democritus, animi aciem sollertiamque hominis non docti demiratus, “Mi adulescens,” inquit, “cum ingenium bene faciendi habeas, sunt maiora melioraque quae facere mecum possis,” abduxitque eum statimstating secumque habuit et sumptum ministravit et philosophias docuit et esse eum fecit quantus postea fuit. Is tamen Protagoras insincerus quidem philosophus, sed acerrimus sophistarum fuit; pecuniam quippe ingentem cum a discipulis acciperet annuam, pollicebatur se id docere quanam verborum industria causa infirmior fieret fortior, quam rem Graece ita dicebat: τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν.

[¶3] 4. On the word duovicesimus, which is unknown to the general public, but occurs frequently in the writings of the learned. I CHANCED to be sitting in a bookshop in the Sigillaria with the poet Julius Paulus, the most learned man within my memory; and there was on sale there the Annals of Fabius in a copy of good and undoubted age, which the dealer maintained was without errors. But one of the better known grammarians, who had been called in by a purchaser to inspect the book, said that he had found in it one error; but the bookseller for his part offered to wager any amount whatever that there was not a mistake even in a single letter. The grammarian pointed out the following passage in the fourth book: “Therefore it was then that for the first time one of the two consuls was chosen from the plebeians, in the twenty-second (duovicesimo) year after the Gauls captured Rome.” “It ought,” said lie, “to read, not duovicesimo, but duodevicesimo or twenty-second; for what is the meaning of duovicesimo?”... Varro in the sixteenth book of his Antiquities of Man; there he wrote as follows: “He died in the twenty-second year (duovicesimo); he was king for twenty-one years.”...

> Latin: 4. De verbo “duovicesimo,” quod vulgo incognitum eat, a viris doctis multifariam in libris scriptum est. APUD Sigillaria forte in libraria ego et Iulius Paulus poeta, vir memoria nostra doctissimus, consideramus; atque ibi expositi erant Fabii Annales, bonae atque sincerae vetustatis libri, quos venditor sine mendis esse contendebat. Grammaticus autem quispiam de nobilioribus, ab emptore ad spectandos libros adhibitus, repperisse se unum in libro mendum dicebat; sed contra librarius in quodvis pignus vocabat, si in una uspiam littera delictum esset. Ostendebat grammaticus ita scriptum in libro quarto: “Quapropter tum primumprimnum ex plebe alter consul factus est, duovicesimo anno postquam Romam Galli ceperunt.” “Non,” inquit, “duovicesimo, sed ‘duo et vicesimo’ scribi oportuit.” “Quid enim est duovicesimo?” … Varro Humanarum Rerum lib. XVI; hic ita scripsit: Mortuus est anno duovicesimo; rex fuit annos XXI. … CuiusmodiCuiustnodi ioco incavillatus sit Antiochum regem Poenus Hannibal.

[¶4] 5. How the Carthaginian Hannibal jested at the expense of king Antiochus. IN collections of old tales it is recorded that Hannibal the Carthaginian made a highly witty jest when at the court of king Antiochus. The jest was this: Antiochus was displaying to him on the plain the gigantic forces which he had mustered to make war on the Roman people, and was manœuvring his army glittering with gold and silver ornaments. He also brought up chariots with scythes, elephants with turrets, and horsemen with brilliant bridles, saddlecloths, neck-chains and trappings. And then the king, filled with vainglory at the sight of an army so great and so well-equipped, turned to Hannibal and said: “Do you think that all this can be equalled and that it is enough for the Romans?” Then the Carthaginian, deriding the worthlessness and inefficiency of the king's troops in their costly armour, replied: “I think all this will be enough, yes, quite enough, for the Romans, even though they are most avaricious.” Absolutely nothing could equal this remark for wit and sarcasm; the king had inquired about the size of his army and asked for a comparative estimate; Hannibal in his reply referred to it as booty.

> Latin: 5. IN libris veterum memoriarum scriptum est, Hannibalem Carthaginiensem apud regem Antiochum facetissime cavillatum esse. Ea cavillatio huiuscemodi fuit: ostendebat ei Antiochus in campo copias ingentis quas bellum populo Romano facturus comparaverat, convertebatque exercitum insignibus argenteis et aureis florentem; inducebat etiam currus cum falcibus et elephantos cum turribus equitatumque frenis, ephippiis, monilibus, phaleris praefulgentem. Atque ibi rex, contemplatione tanti ac tam ornati exercitus gloriabundus, Hannibalem aspicit et “Putasne,” inquit, “conferri posse ac satis esse Romanis haec omnia?” Tum Poenus, eludens ignaviam inbelliamqueinbelliarnque militum eius pretiose armatorum: “Satis, plane satis esse credo Romanis haec omnia, etiamsi avarissimi sunt.” Nihil prorsum neque tam lepide neque tam acerbe dici potest; rex de numero exercitus sui ac de aestimanda aequiperatione quaesiverat, respondit Hannibal de praeda.

[¶5] 6. On military crowns, with a description of the triumphal, siege, civic, mural, camp, naval, ovation, and olive crowns. MILITARY crowns are many and varied. Of these the most highly esteemed I find to be in general the following: the “triumphal, siege, civic, mural, camp and naval crowns.” There is besides the so-called “ovation” crown, and lastly also the “olive” crown, which is regularly worn by those who have not taken part in a battle, but nevertheless are awarded a triumph. “Triumphal” crowns are of gold and are presented to a commander in recognition of the honour of a triumph. This in common parlance is “gold for a crown.” This crown in ancient times was of laurel, but later they began to make them of gold. The “siege” crown is the one which those who have been delivered from a state of siege present to the general who delivered them. That crown is of grass, and custom requires that it be made of grass which grew in the place within which the besieged were confined. This crown of grass the Roman senate and people presented to Quintus Fabius Maximus in the second Punic war, because he had freed the city of Rome from siege by the enemy. The crown is called “civic” which one citizen gives to another who has saved his life in battle, in recognition of the preservation of his life and safety. It is made of the leaves of the esculent oak, because the earliest food and means of supporting life were furnished by that oak; it was formerly made also from the holm oak, because that is the species which is most nearly related to the esculent; this we learn from a comedy of Caecilius, who says:
They pass with cloaks and crowns of holm; ye Gods!
But Masurius Sabinus, in the eleventh book of his Memoirs, says that it was the custom to award the civic crown only when the man who had saved the life of a fellow citizen had at the same time slain the enemy who threatened him, and had not given ground in that battle; under other conditions he says that the honour of the civic crown was not granted. He adds, however, that Tiberius Caesar was once asked to decide whether a soldier might receive the civic crown who had saved a citizen in battle and killed two of the enemy, yet had not held the position in which he was fighting, but the enemy had occupied it. The emperor ruled that the soldier seemed to be among those who deserved the civic crown, since it was clear that he had rescued a fellow citizen from a place so perilous that it could not be held even by valiant warriors. It was this civic crown that Lucius Gellius, an ex-censor, proposed in the senate that his country should award to Cicero in his consulship, because it was through his efforts that the frightful conspiracy of Catiline had been detected and punished. The “mural” crown is that which is awarded by a commander to the man who is first to mount the wall and force his way into an enemy's town; therefore it is ornamented with representations of the battlements of a wall. A “camp” crown is presented by a general to the soldier who is first to fight his way into a hostile camp; that crown represents a palisade. The “naval” crown is commonly awarded to the armed man who has been the first to board an enemy ship in a sea-fight; it is decorated with representations of the beaks of ships. Now the “mural,” “camp,” and “naval” crowns are regularly made of gold. The “ovation” crown is of myrtle; it was worn by generals who entered the city in an ovation. The occasion for awarding an ovation, and not a triumph, is that wars have not been declared in due form and so have not been waged with a legitimate enemy, or that the adversaries' character is low or unworthy, as in the case of slaves or pirates, or that, because of a quick surrender, a victory was won which was “dustless,” as the saying is, and bloodless. For such an easy victory they believed that the leaves sacred to Venus were appropriate, on the ground that it was a triumph, not of Mars, but as it were of Venus. And Marcus Crassus, when he returned after ending the Servile war and entered the city in an ovation, disdainfully rejected the myrtle crown and used his influence to have a decree passed by the senate, that he should be crowned with laurel, not with myrtle. Marcus Cato charges Marcus Fulvius Nobilior with having awarded crowns to his soldiers for the most trifling reasons possible, for the sake of popularity. On that subject I give you Cato's own words: “Now to begin with, who ever saw anyone presented with a crown, when a town had not been taken or an enemy's camp burned?” But Fulvius, against whom Cato brought that charge, had bestowed crowns on his soldiers for industry in building a rampart or in digging a well. I must not pass over a point relating to ovations, about which I learn that the ancient writers disagreed. For some of them have stated that the man who celebrated an ovation was accustomed to enter the city on horseback: but Masurius Sabinus says that they entered on foot, followed, not by their soldiers, but by the senate in a body.

> Latin: 6. De coronis militaribus; quae sit earum triumphalistriumnphalis, quae obsidionalis, quae civica, quae muralis, quae castrensis, quae navalis, quae ovalis, quae oleaginea. MILITARES coronae multae et variae sunt. Quarum quae nobilissimae sunt, has ferme esse accepimus: “triumphalem, obsidionalem, civicam, muralem, castrensem, navalem”; est ea quoque corona quae “ovalis” dicitur, est item postrema “oleaginea,” qua uti solent qui in proelio non fuerunt sed triumphum procurant. “Triumphales” coronae sunt aureae, quae imperatoribus ob honorem triumphi mittuntur. Id vulgo dicitur “aurum coronarium.” Haec antiquitus e lauru erant, post fieri ex auro coeptae. “Obsidionalis” est, quam ii qui liberati obsidione sunt dant ei duci qui liberavit. Ea corona graminea est, observarique solitum ut fieret e gramine quod in eo loco gnatum esset intra quem clausi erant qui obsidebantur. Hanc coronam gramineam senatus populusque Romanus Q. Fabio Maximo dedit bello Poenorum secundo, quod urbem Romam obsidione hostium liberasset. “Civica” corona appellatur, quam civis civi a quo in proelio servatus est testem vitae salutisque perceptae dat. Ea fit e fronde quernea, quoniam cibus victusque antiquissimus quercus capi solitus; fuit etiam ex ilice, quod genus superiori proximum est, sicuti scriptum est in quadam comoedia Caecilii:
† “Advehuntur,” (inquit), “cum ilignea corona et chlamyde; di vostram fidem!” Masurius autem Sabinus, in undecimo Librorum Memorialium, civicam coronam tum dari solitam dicit, cum is qui civem servaverat eodem tempore etiam hostem occiderat neque locum in ea pugna reliquerat; aliter ius civicae coronae negat concessum. Tiberium tamen Caesarem consultum an civicam coronam capere posset qui civem in proelio servasset et hostes ibidem duos interfecisset, sed locum in quo pugnabat non retinuisset eoque loco hostes potiti essent, rescripsisse dicit eum quoque civica dignum videri, quod appareret e tam iniquo loco civem ab co servatum, ut etiam a fortiter pugnantibus retineri non quiverit. Hac corona civica L. Gellius, vir censorius, in senatu Ciceronem consulem donari a republica censuit, quod eius opera esset atrocissima illa Catilinae coniuratio detecta vindicataque. “Muralis” est corona, qua donatur ab imperatore qui primusprirus murum subiit inque oppidum hostium per vim ascendit; idcirco quasi muri pinnis decorata est. “Castrensis” est corona, qua donat imperator eum qui primus hostium castra pugnans introivit; ea corona insigne valli habet. “Navalis” est, qua donari solet maritimomaritino proelio qui primus in hostium navem armatus transiluit; ea quasi navium rostris insignita est. Et “muralis” autem et “castrensis” et “navalis” fieri ex auro solent. “Ovalis” corona murtea est; ea utebantur imperatores qui ovantes urbem introibant. Ovandi ac non triumphandi causa est, cum aut bella non rite indicta neque cum iustoilusto hoste gesta sunt, aut hostium nomen humile et non idoneum est, ut servorum piratarumque, aut, deditione repente facta, “inpulverea,” ut dici solet, incruentaque victoria obvenit. Cui facilitati aptam esse Veneris frondem crediderunt, quod non Martius, sed quasi Venerius quidam triumphus foret. Ac murteam coronam M. Crassus, cum bello fugitivorum confecto ovans rediret, insolenter aspernatus est senatusque consultum faciundum per gratiam curavit, ut lauro, non murto, coronaretur. Marcus Cato obicit M. Fulvio Nobiliori quod milites per ambitum coronis de levissimis causis donasset. De qua re verba ipsa apposui Catonis: “Iam principio quis vidit corona donari quemquam, cum oppidum captum non esset aut castra hostium non incensa essent?” Fulvius autem, in quem hoc a Catone dictum est, coronis donaverat milites qui vallum curaverant aut qui puteum strenue foderant. Praetereundum non est quod ad ovationes attinet, super quo dissensisse veteres scriptores accipio. Partim enim scripserunt qui ovaret introire solitum equo vehentem; set Sabinus Masurius pedibus ingredi ovantes dicit, sequentibus eos non militibus, sed universo senatu.

[¶6] 7. How cleverly Gavius Bassus explained the word persons, and what he said to be the origin of that word. CLEVERLY, by Heaven! and wittily, in my opinion, does Gavius Bassus explain the derivation of the word persona, in the work that he composed On the Origin of Words; for he suggests that that word is formed from personae. “For,” he says, “the head and the face are shut in on all sides by the covering of the persona, or mask, and only one passage is left for the issue of the voice; and since this opening is neither free nor broad, but sends forth the voice after it has been concentrated and forced into one single means of egress, it makes the sound clearer and more resonant. Since then that covering of the face gives clearness and resonance to the voice, it is for that reason called persona, the o being lengthened because of the formation of the word.”

> Latin: 7. “Personae” vocabulum quamqualn lepide interpretatusinlterpretatus sit quamque esse vocis eius originem dixerit Gavius Bassus. LEPIDE, mi hercules, et scite Gavius Bassus in libris, quos De Origine Vocabulorum composuit, unde appellata “persona” sit interpretatur; a personando enim id vocabulum factum esse coniectat. “Nam caput,” inquit, “et os coperimento personae tectum undique unaque tantum vocis emittendae via pervium, quoniam non vaga neque diffusa est, set in unum tantummodo exitum collectam coactamque vocem ciet, magis claros canorosque sonitus facit. Quoniam igitur indumentum illud oris clarescere et resonare vocer facit, ob eam causam ‘persona’ dicta est, ‘o’ littera propter vocabuli formam productiore.”

[¶7] 8. A defence of some lines of Virgil, in which the grammarian Julius Hyginus alleged that there was a mistake; and also the meaning of lituus; and on the etymology of that word. HERE, wielding his Quirinal augur-staff,
Girt with scant shift and bearing on his left
The sacred shield, Picus appeared enthroned. In these verses Hyginus wrote that Virgil was in error, alleging that he did not notice that the words ipse Quirinali lituo lacked something. “For,” said he, “if we have not observed that something is lacking, the sentence seems to read ' girt with staff and scant shift,' which,” says he, “is utterly absurd; for since the lituus is a short wand, curved at its thicker end, such as the augurs use, how on earth can one be looked upon as ' girt with a lituus? '” As a matter of fact, it was Hyginus himself who failed to notice that this expression, like very many others, contains an ellipsis. For example, when we say “Marcus Cicero, a man of great eloquence” and “Quintus Roscius, an actor of consummate grace,” neither of these phrases is full and complete, but to the hearer they seem full and complete. As Vergil wrote in another place:
Victorious Butes of huge bulk,
that is, having huge bulk, and also in another passage: Into the ring he hurled gauntlets of giant weight, and similarly:
A house of gore and cruel feasts, dark, huge within,
so then it would seem that the phrase in question ought to be interpreted as “Picus was with the Quirinal staff,” just as we say “the statue was with a large head,” and in fact est, erat and fuit are often omitted, with elegant effect and without any loss of meaning. And since mention has been made of the lituus, I must not pass over a question which obviously may be asked, whether the augurs' lituus is called after the trumpet of the same name, or whether the trumpet derived its name lituus from the augurs' staff; for both have the same form and both alike are curved. But if, as some think, the trumpet was called lituus from its sound, because of the Homeric expression li/gce bio/s,
The bow twanged,
it must be concluded that the augural staff was called litmus from its resemblance to the trumpet. And Virgil uses that word also as synonymous with tuba:
He even faced the fray
Conspicuous both with clarion (lituo) and with spear.

> Latin: 8. Defensus error a Vergilii versibus, quos arguerat Iulius Hyginus grammaticus; et ibidem, quid sit lituus; deque ἐτυμολογίᾳ vocis eius. IPSE Quirinali lituo parvaque sedebat
Subcinctus trabea laevaque ancile gerebat.
In his versibus errasse Hyginus Vergilium scripsit, tamquam non animadverterit deesse aliquid hisce verbis:
Ipse Quirinali lituo.
“Nam si nihil,” inquit, “deesse animadverterimus, videtur ita dictum ut fiat ‘lituo et trabea subcinctus,’ quod est,” inquit, “absurdissimum; quippe cum ‘lituus’ sit virga brevis, in parte qua robustior est incurva, qua augures utuntur, quonam modo ‘subcinctus lituo’ videri potest?” Immo ipse Hyginus parum animadvertit sic hoc esse dictum, ut pleraque dici per defectionem solent. Veluti cum dicitur “M. Cicero homo magna eloquentia” et “Q. Roscius histrio summa venustate,” non plenum hoc utrumque neque perfectum est, sed enim pro pleno atque perfecto auditur. Ut Vergilius alio in loco:
Victorem Buten inmani corpore,
id est corpus inmane habentem, et item alibi:
In medium geminos inmani pondere caestus
Proiecit,
ac similiter:
Domus sanie dapibusque cruentis,
Intus opaca, ingens,
sic igitur id quoque videri dictum debet: “Picus Quirinali lituo erat,” sicuti dicimus: “statua grandi capite erat.” Et “est” autem et “erat” et “fuit” plerumque absunt cum elegantia sine detrimento sententiae. Et, quoniam facta “litui” mentio est, non praetermittendum est quod posse quaeri animadvertimus, utrum lituus auguralis a tuba quae “lituus” appellatur, an tuba a lituo augurum “lituus” dicta sit; utrumque enim pari forma et pariter incurvum est. Sed si, ut quidam putant, tuba a sonitu “lituus” appellata est ex illo Homerico verbo:
Λίγξε βιός,
necesse est ita accipi, ut virga auguralis a tubae similitudine “lituus” vocetur. Utitur autem vocabulo isto Vergilius et pro tuba:
Et lituo pugnas insignis obibat et hasta.

[¶8] 9. The story of Croesus dumb son, from the books of Herodotus. THE son of king Croesus, when he was already old enough to speak, was dumb, and after lie had become a well-grown youth, he was still unable to utter a word. Hence he was for a long time regarded as mute and tongue-tied. When his father had been vanquished in a great war, the city in which he lived had been taken, and one of the enemy was rushing upon him with drawn sword, unaware that he was the king, then the young man opened his mouth in an attempt to cry out. And by that effort and the force of his breath he broke the impediment and the bond upon his tongue, and spoke plainly and clearly, shouting to the enemy not to kill king Croesus. Then the foeman withheld his sword, the king's life was saved, and from that time on the youth began to speak. Herodotus in his Histories is the chronicler of that event, and the words which he says the son of Croesus first spoke are: “Man, do not kill Croesus.” But also an athlete of Samos—his name was Echeklous—although he had previously been speechless, is said to have begun to speak for a similar reason. For when in a sacred contest the casting of lots between the Samians and their opponents was not being done fairly, and he had noticed that a lot with a false name was being slipped in, he suddenly shouted in a loud voice to the man who was doing it that he saw what he was up to. And he too was freed from the check upon his speech and for all the remaining time of his life spoke without stammering or lack of clearness.

> Latin: 9. Historia de Croesi filio muto, ex Herodoti libris. filius Croesi regis, cum iam fari per aetatem posset, infans erat et, cum iam multum adolevisset, item nihil fari quibat. Mutus adeo et elinguis diu habitus est. Cum in patrem eius, bello magno victum et urbe in qua erat capta, hostis gladio educto, regem esse ignorans, invaderet, diduxit adulescens os, clamare nitens, eoque nisu atque impetu spiritus vitium nodumque linguae rupit planeque et articulate elocutus est, clamans in hostemhosterm ne rex Croesus occideretur. Tum et hostis gladium reduxit et rex vita donatus est et adulescens loqui prorsum deinceps incepit. Herodotus in Historiis huius memoriae scriptor est eiusque verba sunt, quae prima dixisse filium Croesi refert: Ἄνθρωπε, μὴ κτεῖνε Κροῖσον. Sed et quispiam Samius athleta, nomen illi fuit Ἐχεκλοῦς, cum antea non loquens fuisset, ob similem dicitur causam loqui coepisse. Nam cum in sacro certamine sortitio inter ipsos et aduersariosadversaries non bona fide fieret et sortem nominis falsam subici animadvertisset, repente in eum qui id faciebat, videre sese quid faceret, magnum inclamavit. Atque is oris vinclo solutus per omne inde vitae tempus non turbide neque adhaese locutus est.

[¶9] 10. On the arguments which by the Greeks are called a)ntistre/fon: ta, and in Latin may be termed reciproca. AMONG fallacious arguments the one which the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon seems to be by far the most fallacious. Such arguments some of our own philosophers have rather appropriately termed reciproca, or “convertible.” The fallacy arises from the fact that the argument that is presented may be turned in the opposite direction and used against the one who has offered it, and is equally strong for both sides of the question. An example is the well-known argument which Protagoras, the keenest of all sophists, is said to have used against his pupil Euathlus. For a dispute arose between them and an altercation as to the fee which had been agreed upon, as follows: Euathlus, a wealthy young man, was desirous of instruction in oratory and the pleading of causes. He became a pupil of Protagoras and promised to pay him a large sum of money, as much as Protagoras had demanded. He paid half of the amount at once, before beginning his lessons, and agreed to pay the remaining half on the day when he first pleaded before jurors and won his case. Afterwards, when he had been for some little time a pupil and follower of Protagoras, and had in fact made considerable progress in the study of oratory, he nevertheless did not undertake any cases. And when the time was already getting long, and he seemed to be acting thus in order not to pay the rest of the fee, Protagoras formed what seemed to him at the time a wily scheme; he determined to demand his pay according to the contract, and brought suit against Euathlus. And when they had appeared before the jurors to bring forward and to contest the case, Protagoras began as follows: “Let me tell you, most foolish of youths, that in either event you will have to pay what I am demanding, whether judgment be pronounced for or against you. For if the case goes against you, the money will be due me in accordance with the verdict, because I have won; but if the decision be in your favour, the money will be due me according to our contract, since you will have won a case.” To this Euatlllus replied: “I might have met this sophism of yours, tricky as it is, by not pleading my own cause but employing another as my advocate. But I take greater satisfaction in a victory in which I defeat you, not only in the suit, but also in this argument of yours. So let me tell you in turn, wisest of masters, that in either event I shall not have to pay what you demand, whether judgment be pronounced for or against me. For if the jurors decide in my favour, according to their verdict nothing will be due you, because I have won; but if they give judgment against me, by the terms of our contract I shall owe you nothing, because I have not won a case.” Then the jurors, thinking that the plea on both sides was uncertain and insoluble, for fear that their decision, for whichever side it was rendered, might annul itself, left the matter undecided and postponed the case to a distant day. Thus a celebrated master of oratory was refuted by his youthful pupil with his own argument, and his cleverly devised sophism failed.

> Latin: 10. De argumentisarguments quae Graece ἀντιστρέφοντα appellantur, a nobis “reciproca” dici possunt. INTER vitia argumentorum longe maximum esse vitium videtur quae ἀντιστρέφοντα Graeci dicunt. Ea quidam e nostris non hercle nimis absurde “reciproca” appellaverunt. Id autem vitium accidit hoc modo, cum argumentum propositum referri contra convertique in eum potest a quo dictum est, et utrimque pariter valet; quale est pervolgatum illud quo Protagoram, sophistarum acerrimum, usum esse ferunt adversus Euathlum, discipulum suum. Lis namque inter eos et controversia super pactapact mercede haec fuit. Euathlus, adulescens dives, eloquentiae discendae causarumque orandi cupiens fuit. Is in disciplinam Protagorae sese dedit daturumque promisit mercedemmercederm grandem pecuniam, quantam Protagoras petiverat, dimidiumque eius dedit iam tunc statim priusquam disceret, pepigitque ut reliquum dimidium daret quo primoprimro die causam apud iudices orasset et vicisset. Postea cum diutule auditor adsectatorque Protagorae fuisset et in studio quidem facundiae abunde promovisset, causas tamen non reciperet tempusque iam longum transcurreret et facere id videretur, ne relicum mercedis daret, capit consilium Protagoras, ut tum existimabat, astutum; petere institit ex pacto mercedem, litem cum Euathlo contestatur. Et cum ad iudices coniciendae consistendaeque causae gratia venissent, tum Protagoras sic exorsus est: “Disce,” inquit, “stultissime adulescens, utroque id modo fore uti reddas quod peto, sive contra te pronuntiatum erit sive pro te.” “Nam si contra te lis data erit, merces mihi ex sententia debebitur, quia ego vicero; sin vero secundum te iudicatum erit, merces mihi ex pacto debebitur, quia tu viceris.” Ad ea respondit Euathlus: “Potui,” inquit, “huic tuae tam ancipiti captioni isse obviam, si verba non ipse facerem atque alio patrono uterer.” “Sed maius mihi in ista victoria prolubium est, cum te non in causa tantum, sed in argumento quoque isto vinco.” “Disce igitur tu quoque, magister sapientissime, utroque modo fore uti non reddam quod petis, sive contra me pronuntiatum fuerit sive pro me.” “Nam si iudices pro causa mea senserint, nihil tibi ex sententia debebitur, quia ego vicero; sin contra me pronuntiaverint, nihil tibi ex pacto debebo, quia non vicero.” Tum iudices, dubiosum hoc inexplicabileque esse quod utrimque dicebatur rati, ne sententia sua, utramcumque in partem dicta esset, ipsa sese rescinderet, rem iniudicatam reliquerunt causamque in diem longissimam distulerunt. Sic ab adulescente discipulo magister eloquentiae inclutus suo sibi argumento confutatus est et captionis versute excogitatae frustratus fuit.

[¶10] 11. The impossibility of regarding Bias' syllogism on marriage as an example of a)ntistre/fon. SOME think that the famous answer of the wise and noble Bias, like that of Protagoras of which I have just spoken, was a)ntistre/fon. For Bias, being asked by a certain man whether lie should marry or lead a single life, said: “You are sure to marry a woman either beautiful or ugly; and if beautiful, you will share her with others, but if ugly, she will be a punishment. But neither of these things is desirable; therefore do not marry.” Now, they turn this argument about in this way. “If I marry a beautiful woman, she will not be a punishment; but if an ugly one, I shall be her sole possessor; therefore marry.” But this syllogism does not seem to be in the least convertible, since it appears somewhat weaker and less convincing when turned into the second form. For Bias maintained that one should not marry because of one of two disadvantages which must necessarily be suffered by one who took a wife. But he who converts the proposition does not defend himself against the inconvenience which is mentioned, but says that he is free from another which is not mentioned. But to maintain the opinion that Bias expressed, it is enough that a man who has taken a wife must necessarily suffer one or the other of two disadvantages, of having a wife that is unfaithful, or a punishment. But our countryman Favorinus, when that syllogism which Bias had employed happened to be mentioned, of which the first premise is: “You will marry either a beautiful or an ugly woman,” declared that this was not a fact, and that it was not a fair antithesis, since it was not inevitable that one of the two opposites be true, which must be the case in a disjunctive proposition. For obviously certain outstanding extremes of appearance are postulated, ugliness and beauty. “But there is,” said he, “a third possibility also, lying between those two opposites, and that possibility Bias did not observe or regard. For between a very beautiful and a very ugly woman there is a mean in appearance, which is free from the danger to which an excess of beauty is exposed, and also from the feeling of repulsion inspired by extreme ugliness. A woman of that kind is called by Quintus Ennius in the Melanippa by the very elegant term ' normal,' and such a woman will be neither unfaithful nor a punishment.” This moderate and modest beauty Favorinus, to my mind most sagaciously, called “conjugal.” Moreover Ennius, in the tragedy which I mentioned, says that those women as a rule are of unblemished chastity who possess normal beauty.

> Latin: 11. Biantis de re uxoria syllogismum non posse videri ἀντιστρέφειν. EXISTIMANT quidam etiam illud Biantis, viri sapientis ac nobilis, responsum consimile esse atque est Protagorion illud de quo dixi modo, ἀντιστρέφον. Nam cum rogatus esset a quodam Bias, deberetne uxorem ducere an vitam vivere caelibem, Ἤτοι, inquit, καλὴν ἄξεις ἢ αἰσχράν· καὶ εἰ καλήν, ἕξεις κοινήν, εἰ δὲ αἰσχράν, ἕξεις ποινήν· ἑκάτερον δὲ οὐ ληπτέον· οὐ γαμητέον ἄρα. Sic autem hoc rursum convertunt: Εἰ μὲν καλὴν ἄξω, οὐχ ἕξω ποινήν· εἰ δὲ αἰσχράν, οὐχ ἕξω κοινήν· γαμητέον ἄρα. Sed minime hoc esse videtur ἀντιστρέφον, quoniam ex altero latere conversum frigidius est infirmiusque. Nam Bias proposuit non esse ducendam uxorem propter alterutrum incommodum, quod necessario patiendum erit ei qui duxerit. Qui convertit autem, non ab eo se defendit incommodo quod adest, sed carere se altero dicit quod non adest. Satis est autem tuendae sententiae quam Bias dixit, quod eum qui duxit uxorem pati necesse est ex duobus incommodis alterum, ut aut κοινὴν habeat aut ποινήν. Sed Favorinus noster, cum facta esset forte mentio syllogismi istius quo Bias usus est, cuius prima πρότασις est, ἤτοι καλὴν ἄξεις ἢ αἰσχράν, non ratum id neque iustum diiunctivum esse ait, quoniam non necessum sit alterum ex duobus quae diiunguntur verum esse, quod in proloquio diiunctivo necessarium est. Eminentia enim quadam significari formarum turpes et pulcrae videntur. “Est autem,” inquit, “tertium quoque inter duo ista quae diiunguntur, cuius rationem prospectumque Bias non habuit.” “Inter enim pulcherrimam feminam et deformissimam media forma quaedam est, quae et a nimiae pulcritudinis periculo et a summae deformitatis odio vacat;” “qualis a Quinto Ennio in Melanippa perquam eleganti vocabulo ‘stata’ dicitur, quae neque κοινὴ futura sit neque ποινή.” Quam formam modicam et modestam Favorinus non, mi hercule, inscite appellabat “uxoriam.” Ennius autem in ista quam dixi tragoedia, eas fere feminas ait incolumi pudicitia esse quae stata forma forent.

[¶11] 12. On the names of the gods of the Roman people called Diovis and Vediovis. IN ancient prayers we have observed that these names of deities appear: Diovis and Vediovis; furthermore, there is also a temple of Vediovis at Rome, between the Citadel and the Capitolium. The explanation of these names I have found to be this: the ancient Latins derived Iovis from iuvare (help), and called that same god “father,” thus adding a second word. For Iovispater is the full and complete form, which becomes Iupiter by the syncope or change of some of the letters. So also Neptunuspater is used as a compound, and Saturnus— pater and Ianuspater and Marspater—for that is the original form of Marspiter—and Jove also was called Diespiter, that is, the father of day and of light. And therefore by a name of similar origin Jove is called Diovis and also Lucetius, because he blesses and helps us by means of the day and the light, which are equivalent to life itself. And Lucetius is applied to Jove by Gnaeus Naevius in his poem On the Punic war. Accordingly, when they had given the names Iovis and Diovis from iuvare (help), they applied a lame of the contrary meaning to that god who had, not the power to help, but the force to do harm—for some gods they worshipped in order to gain their favour, others they propitiated in order to avert their hostility; and they called him Vediovis, thus taking away and denying his power to give help. For the particle ve which appears in different forms in different words, now being spelled with these two letters and now with an a inserted between the two, has two meanings which also differ from each other. For ve, like very many other particles, has the effect either of weakening or of strengthening the force of a word; and it therefore happens that some words to which that particle is prefixed are ambiguous and may be used with either force, such as vescus (small), vemens (mighty), and vegrandis (very small), a point which I have discussed elsewhere in greater detail. But vesanus and vecordes are used with only one of the meanings of ve, namely, the privative or negative force, which the Greeks call kata\ ste/rhsin. It is for this reason that the statue of the god Vediovis, which is in the temple of which I spoke above, holds arrows, which, as everyone knows, are devised to inflict harm. For that reason it has often been said that that god is Apollo; and a shegoat is sacrificed to him in the customary fashion, and a representation of that animal stands near his statue. It was for this reason, they say, that Virgil, a man deeply versed in antiquarian lore, but never making a display of his knowledge, prays to the unpropitious gods in the Georgics, thus intimating that in gods of that kind there is a power capable of injuring rather than aiding. The verses of Vergil are these:
A task of narrow span, but no small praise,
If unpropitious powers bar not my way
And favouring Phoebus grant a poet's prayer. And among those gods which ought to be placated in order to avert evil influences from ourselves or our harvests are reckoned Auruncus and Robigus.

> Latin: 12. De nominibus deorum populi Romani Diovis et Vediovis. IN antiquis precationibus nomina haec deorum inesse animadvertimus: “Diovis” et “Vediovis”; est autem etiam aedes Vediovis Romae inter Arcem et Capitolium. Eorum nominum rationem esse hanc comperi: “Iovemlove” Latini veteres a “iuvando” appellavere, eundemque alio vocabulo iuncto “patrem” dixerunt. Nam quod est, elisis aut inmutatis quibusdam litteris, “Iupiter,” id plenum atque integrum est “Iovispater.” Sic et “Neptunuspater” coniuncte dictus est et “Saturnuspater” et “IanuspaterManuspater” et “Marspater” —hoc enim est “Marspiter” — itemque Iovis “Diespiter” appellatus, id est diei et lucis pater. Idcircoque simili nominenominee Iovis “Diovis” dictus est et “Lucetius,” quod nos die et luce quasi vita ipsa afficeret et iuvaret. “Lucetium” autem Iovem Cn. Naevius in libris Belli Poenici appellat. Cum Iovem igitur et Diovem a iuvando nominassent, eum contra deum, qui non iuvandi potestatem, sed vim nocendi haberet—nam deos quosdam, ut prodessent, celebrabant, quosdam, ut ne obessent, placabant—“Vediovem” appellaverunt, dempta atque detracta iuvandi facultate. “Ve” enim particula, quae in aliis atque aliis vocabulis varia, tum per has duas litteras, tum “a” littera media inmissa dicitur, duplicem significatum eundemque inter sese diversum capit. Nam et augendae rei et minuendae valet, sicuti aliae particulae plurimae; propter quod accidit ut quaedam vocabula quibus particula ista praeponitur ambigua sint et utroqueversum dicantur, veluti “vescum,” “vemens” et “vegrande,” de quibus alio in loco, uberiore tractatu facto, admonuimus; “vesani” autem et “vecordes” ex una tantum parte dicti, quae privativa est, quam Graeci κατὰ στέρησιν dicunt. Simulacrum igitur dei Vediovis, quod est in aede de qua supra dixi, sagittas tenet, quae sunt videlicet partae ad nocendum. Quapropter eum deum plerumque Apollinem esse dixerunt; immolaturque ritu humano capra eiusque animalis figmentum iuxta simulacrum stat. Propterea Vergilium quoque aiunt, multae antiquitatis hominem sine ostentationis studio peritum, numina laeva in Georgicis deprecari, significantem vim quandam esse huiuscemodi deorum in laedendo magis quam in iuvando potentem. Versus Vergilii sunt:
In tenui labor; at tenuis non gloria, si quem
Numina laeva sinunt auditque vocatus Apollo. In istis autem diis quos placari oportet, uti mala a nobis vel a frugibus natis amoliantur, Auruncus quoque habetur et Robigus.

## 13. Book V · chapters 13–21

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/13/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/13/#p-N

[¶0] 13. On the rank and order of obligations established by the usage of the Roman people. THERE was once a discussion, in my presence and hearing, of the rank and order of obligations, carried on by a company of men of advanced age and high position at Rome, who were also eminent for their knowledge and command of ancient usage and conduct. And when the question was asked to whom we ought first and foremost to discharge those obligations, in case it should be necessary to prefer some to others in giving assistance or showing attention, there was a difference of opinion. But it was readily agreed and accepted, that in accordance with the usage of the Roman people the place next after parents should be held by wards entrusted to our honour and protection; that second to them came clients, who also had committed themselves to our honour and guardianship; that then in the third place were guests; and finally relations by blood and by marriage. Of this custom and practice there are numerous proofs and illustrations in the ancient records, of which, because it is now at hand, I will cite only this one at present, relating to clients and kindred. Marcus Cato in the speech which he delivered before the censors Against Lentulus wrote thus: “Our forefathers regarded it as a more sacred obligation to defend their wards than not to deceive a client. One testifies in a client's behalf against one's relatives; testimony against a client is given by no one. A father held the first position of honour; next after him a patron.” Masurius Sabinus, however, in the third book of his Civil Law assigns a higher place to a guest than to a client. The passage from that book is this: “In the matter of obligations our forefathers observed the following order: first to a ward, then to a guest, then to a client, next to a blood relation, finally to a relation by marriage. Other things being equal, women were given preference to men, but a ward who was under age took precedence of one who was a grown woman. Also those who were appointed by will to be guardians of the sons of a man against whom they had appeared in court, appeared for the ward in the same case.” Very clear and strong testimony on this subject is furnished by the authority of Gaius Caesar, when he was high priest; for in the speech which he delivered In Defence of the Bithynians he made use of this preamble: “In consideration either of my guest-friendship with king Nicomedes or my relationship to those whose case is on trial, O Marcus Iuncus, I could not refuse this duty. For the remembrance of men ought not to be so obliterated by their death as not to be retained by those nearest to them, and without the height of disgrace we cannot forsake clients to whom we are bound to render aid even against our kinsfolk.”

> Latin: 13. De officiorum gradu atque ordineordme moribus populi Romani observato. SENIORUM hominum et Romae nobilium atque in morum disciplinarumque veterum doctrina memoriaque praestantium disceptatio quaedam fuit, praesentepraesentc et audiente me, de gradu atque ordine officiorum. Cumque quaereretur quibus nos ea prioribus potioribusque facere oporteret, si necesse esset in opera danda faciendoque officio alios aliis anteferre, non consentiebatur. Conveniebat autem facile constabatque, ex moribus populi Romani primum iuxta parentes locum tenere pupillos debere,fidei tutelaeque nostrae creditos; secundum eos proximum locum clientes habere, qui sese itidem in fidem patrociniumque nostrum dediderunt; tum in tertio loco esse hospites; postea esse cognatos adfinesque. Huius moris observationisque multa sunt testimonia atque documenta in antiquitatibus perscripta, ex quibus unum hoc interim de clientibus cognatisque, quod prae manibus est, ponemus. M. Cato in oratione, quam dixit apud censores In Lentulum, ita scripsit: “Quod maiores sanctius; habuere, defendi pupillos quam clientem non fallere. Adversus cognatos pro cliente testatur, testimonium adversus clientem nemo dicit. Patrem primum, postea patronum proximum nomenniomen habuere.” Masurius autem Sabinus in libro luris Civilis tertio antiquiorem locum hospiti tribuit quam clienti. Verba ex eo libro haec sunt: “In officiis apud maiores ita observatum est, primum tutelae, deinde hospiti, deinde clienti, tum cognato, postea adfini. Aequa causa feminae viris potiores habitae pupillarisque tutela muliebri praelata. Etiam adversus quem adfuissent, eius filiis tutores relicti, in eadem causa pupillo aderant.” Firmum atque clarum isti rei testimonium perhibet auctoritas C. Caesaris pontificis maximi, qui in oratione quam Pro Bithynis dixit hoc principio usus est: “Vel pro hospitio regis Nicomedis vel pro horum necessitate quorum res agitur, refugere hoc munus, M. Iunce, non potui. Nam neque hominum morte memoria deleri debet quin a proximis retineatur, neque clientes sine summa infamia deseri possunt, quibus etiam a propinquis nostris opem ferre instituimus.”

[¶1] 14. The account of Apion, a learned man who was surnamed Plistonices, of the mutual recognition, due to old acquaintance, that he had seen at Rome between a man and a lion. APION, who was called Plistonices, was a man widely versed in letters, and possessing an extensive and varied knowledge of things Greek. In his works, which are recognized as of no little repute, is contained an account of almost all the remarkable things which are to be seen and heard in Egypt. Now, in his account of what he professes either to have heard or read he is perhaps too verbose through a reprehensible love of display—for he is a great self-advertiser in parading his learning; but this incident, which he describes in the fifth book of his Wonders of Egypt, he declares that he neither heard nor read, but saw himself with his own eyes in the city of Rome. “In the Great Circus,” he says, “a battle with wild beasts on a grand scale was being exhibited to the people. Of that spectacle, since I chanced to be in Rome, I was,” he says, “an eye-witness. There were there many savage wild beasts, brutes remarkable for their huge size, and all of uncommon appearance or unusual ferocity. But beyond all others,” says he, “did the vast size of the lions excite wonder, and one of these in particular surpassed all the rest. This one lion had drawn to himself the attention and eyes of all because of the activity and huge size of his body, his terrific and deep roar, the development of his muscles, and the mane streaming over his shoulders. There was brought in, among many others who had been condemned to fight with the wild beasts, the slave of an ex-consul; the slave's name was Androclus. When that lion saw him from a distance,” says Apion, “he stopped short as if in amazement, and then approached the man slowly and quietly, as if he recognized him. Then, wagging his tail in a mild and caressing way, after the manner and fashion of fawning dogs, he came close to the man, who was now half dead from fright, and gently licked his feet and hands. The man Androclus, while submitting to the caresses of so fierce a beast, regained his lost courage and gradually turned his eyes to look at the lion. Then,” says Apion, “you might have seen man and lion exchange joyful greetings, as if they had recognized each other.” He says that at this sight, so truly astonishing, the people broke out into mighty shouts; and Gaius Caesar called Androclus to him and inquired the reason why that fiercest of lions had spared him alone. Then Androclus related a strange and surprising story. “My master,” said he, “was governing Africa with proconsular authority. While there, I was forced by his undeserved and daily floggings to run away, and that my hiding-places might be safer from my master, the ruler of that country, I took refuge in lonely plains and deserts, intending, if food should fail me, to seek death in some form. Then,” said he, “when the midday sun was fierce and scorching, finding a remote and secluded cavern, I entered it, and hid myself. Not long afterwards this lion came to the same cave with one paw lame and bleeding, making known by groans and moans the torturing pain of his wound.” And then, at the first sight of the approaching lion, Androclus said that his mind was overwhelmed with fear and dread. “But when the lion,” said he, “had entered what was evidently his own lair, and saw me cowering at a distance, he approached me mildly and gently, and lifting up his foot, was evidently showing it to me and holding it out as if to ask for help. Then,” said he, “I drew out a huge splinter that was embedded in the sole of the foot, squeezed out the pus that had formed in the interior of the wound, wiped away the blood, and dried it thoroughly, being now free from any great feeling of fear. Then, relieved by that attention and treatment of mine, the lion, putting his paw in my hand, lay down and went to sleep, and for three whole years from that day the lion and I lived in the same cave, and on the same food as well. For he used to bring for me to the cave the choicest parts of the game which he took in hunting, which I, having no means of making a fire, dried in the noonday sun and ate. But,” said he, “after I had finally grown tired of that wild life, I left the cave when the lion had gone off to hunt, and after travelling nearly three days, I was seen and caught by some soldiers and taken from Africa to Rome to my master. He at once had me condemned to death by being thrown to the wild beasts. But,” said he, “I perceive that this lion was also captured, after I left him, and that he is now requiting me for my kindness and my cure of him.” Apion records that Androclus told this story, and that when it had been made known to the people by being written out in full on a tablet and carried about the Circus, at the request of all Androclus was freed, acquitted and presented with the lion by vote of the people. “Afterwards,” said he, “we used to see Androclus with the lion, attached to a slender leash, making the rounds of the shops throughout the city; Androclus was given money, the lion was sprinkled with flowers, and everyone who met them anywhere exclaimed: 'This is the lion that was a man's friend, this is the man who was physician to a lion.'”

> Latin: 14. Quod Apion, doctus homo, qui Plistonices appellatus est, vidisse se Romae scripsit recognitionem inter sese mutuam ex vetere notitia hominis et leonis. APION, qui Plistonices appellatus est, litteris homo multis praeditus rerumque Graecarum plurimaplurrima atque varia scientia fuit. Eius libri non incelebres feruntur, quibus omnium ferme quae mirifica in Aegypto visuntur audiunturque historia comprehenditur. Sed in his quae vel audisse vel legisse sese dicit, fortassean vitio studioque ostentationis sit loquacior—est enim sane quam in praedicandis doctrinis sui venditator—hoc autem, quod in libro Aegyptiacorum quinto scripsit, neque audisse neque legisse, sed ipsum sese in urbe Roma vidisse oculis suis confirmat. “In Circo Maximo,” inquit, “venationis amplissimae pugna populo dabatur.” “Eius rei, Romae cum forte essem, spectator,” inquit, “fui.” “Multae ibi saevientes ferae, magnitudines bestiarum excellentes omniumque invisitata aut forma erat aut ferocia. Sed praeter alia omnia leonum,” inquit, “immanitas admirationi fuit praeterque omnis ceteros unus.” “Is unus leo corporis impetu et vastitudine terrificoque fremitu et sonoro, toris comisque cervicum fluctuantibus, animos oculosque omnium in sese converterat.” “Introductus erat inter compluris ceteros ad pugnam bestiarum datos servus viri consularis; ei servo Androclus nomen fuit.” “Hunc ille leo ubi vidit procul, repente,” inquit, “quasi admirans stetit ac deinde sensim atque placide, tamquam noscitabundus, ad hominem accedit.” “tumTurn caudam more atque ritu adulantium canum clementer et blande movet hominisque se corpori adiungit cruraque eius et manus, prope iam exanimati metu, lingua leniter demulcet.” “Homo Androclus inter illa tam atrocis ferae blandimenta amissum animum recuperat, paulatim oculos ad contuendum leonem refert.” “Tum quasi mutua recognitione facta laetos,” inquit, “et gratulabundos videres hominem et leonem.” Ea re prorsus tam admirabili maximos populi clamores excitatos dicit, accersitumque a C. Caesare Androclum quaesitamque causam cur illi atrocissimus leo uni parsisset. Ibi Androclus rem mirificam narrat atque admirandam. “Cum provinciam,” inquit, “Africam proconsulari imperio meus dominus obtineret, ego ibi iniquis eius et cotidianis verberibus ad fugam sum coactus et, ut mihi a domino, terrae illius praeside, tutiores latebrae forent, in camporum et arenarum solitudines concessi ac, si defuisset cibus, consilium fuit mortem aliquo pacto quaerere.” “Tum sole medio,” inquit, “rabido et flagranti specum quandam nanctus remotam latebrosamque, in eamearn me penetro et recondo.” “Neque multo post ad eandem specum venit hic leo, debili uno et cruento pede, gemitus edens et murmura, dolorem cruciatumque vulneris commiserantia.” Atque illic primo quidem conspectu advenientis leonis territum sibi et pavefactum animum dixit. “Sed postquam introgressus,” inquit, “leo, uti re ipsa apparuit, in habitaculum illud suum, videt me procul delitescentem, mitis et mansues accessit et sublatum pedem ostendere mihi et porgere quasi opis petendae gratia visus est.” “Ibi,” inquit, “ego stirpem ingentem, vestigio pedis eius haerentem, revelli conceptamque saniem volnere intimo expressi accuratiusque sine magna iam formidine siccavi penitus atque detersi cruorem.” “Illa tunc mea opera et medella levatus, pede in manibus meis posito, recubuit et quievit atque ex eo” “die triennium totum ego et leo in eadem specu eodemque et victu viximus.” “Nam, quas venabatur feras, membra opimiora ad specum mihi subgerebat, quae ego, ignis copiam non habens, meridiano sole torrens edebam.” “Sed ubi me,” inquit, “vitae illius ferinae iam pertaesum est, leone in venatum profecto, reliqui specum et viam ferme tridui permensus a militibus visus adprehensusque sum et ad dominum ex Africa Romam deductus.” “Is me statim rei capitalis damnandum dandumque ad bestias curavit.” “Intellego autem,” inquit, “hunc quoque leonem, me tunc separato captum, gratiam mihi nunc beneficii et medicinae referre.” Haec Apion dixisse Androclum tradit, eaque omnia scripta circumlataque tabula populo declarata, atque ideo cunctis petentibus dimissum Androclum et poena solutum leonemque ei suffragiis populi donatum. “Postea,” inquit, “videbamus Androclum et leonem, loro tenui revinctum, urbe tota circum tabernas ire, donari aere Androclum, floribus spargi leonem, omnes ubique obvios dicere: ‘Hic est leo hospes hominis, hic est homo medicus leonis.’”

[¶2] 15. That it is a disputed question among philosophers whether voice is corporeal or incorporeal. A QUESTION that has been argued long and continuously by the most famous philosophers is whether voice has body or is incorporeal; for the word incorporeus has been coined by some of them, corresponding exactly to the Greek a)sw/matos. Now a body is that which is either active or passive: this in Greek is defined as to\ h)/toi poiou=n h)\ pa/sxon, or “that which either acts or is acted upon.” Wishing to reproduce this definition the poet Lucretius wrote:
Naught save a body can be touched or touch.
The Greeks also define body in another way, as to\ trixh= dia/staton, or “that which has three dimensions.” But the Stoics maintain that voice is a body, and say that it is air which has been struck; Plato, however, thinks that voice is not corporeal: “for,” says he, “not the air which is struck, but the stroke and the blow themselves are voice.” Democritus, and following him Epicurus, declare that voice consists of individual particles, and they call it, to use their own words, r(eu=ma a)to/mwn, or “a stream of atoms.” When I heard of these and other sophistries, the result of a self-satisfied cleverness combined with lack of employment, and saw in these subtleties no real advantage affecting the conduct of life, and no end to the inquiry, I agreed with Ennius' Neoptolemus, who rightly says:
Philosophizing there must be, but by the few;
Since for all men it's not to be desired.

> Latin: 15. Corpusne sit vox an ἀσώματον varias esse philosophorum sententias. VETUS atque perpetua quaestio inter nobilissimos philosophorum agitata est, corpusne sit vox an incorporeum. Hoc enim vocabulum quidam finxerunt proinde quod Graece dicitur ἀσώματον. Corpus autem est quod aut efficient est aut patiens; id Graece definitur τὸ ἤτοι ποιοῦν ἢ πάσχον. Quam definitionem significare volens, Lucretius poeta ita scripsit:
Tangere enim aut tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res. Alio quoque modo corpus esse Graeci dicunt τὸ τριχῆ διάστατον. Sed vocem Stoici corpus esse contendunt eamque esse dicunt ictum aera, Plato autem non esse vocem corpus putat: “Non enim percussus,” inquit, “aer, sed plaga ipsa atque percussio, id vox est.” Democritus ac deinde Epicurus ex individuis corporibus vocem constare dicunt eamque, ut ipsis eorum verbis utar, ῥεῦμα ἀτόμων appellant. Hos aliosque talis argutae delectabilisque desidiae aculeos cum audiremus vel lectitaremus neque in his scrupulis aut emolumentum aliquod solidum ad rationem vitae pertinens aut finem ullum quaerendi videremus, Ennianum Neoptolemum probabamus, qui profecto ita ait:
Philósophandum est paúcis; nam omnino haút placet.

[¶3] 16. On the function of the eye and the process of vision. I HAVE observed that the philosophers have varying opinions about the method of seeing and the nature of vision. The Stoics say that the causes of sight are the emission of rays from the eyes to those objects which can be seen, and the simultaneous expansion of the air. Epicurus believes that there is a constant flow from all bodies of images of those bodies themselves, and that these impinge upon the eyes and hence the sensation of seeing arises. Plato is of the opinion that a kind of fire or light issues from the eyes, and that this, being united and joined either with the light of the sun or with that of some other fire, by means of its own and the external force makes us see whatever it has struck and illumined. But here too we must not dally longer, but follow the advice of that Neoptolemus in Ennius, of whom I have just written, who advises having a “taste” of philosophy, but not “gorging oneself with it.”

> Latin: 16. De vi oculorum deque videndi rationibus. DE videndi ratione deque cernendi natura diversas esse opiniones philosophorum animadvertimus. Stoici causas esse videndi dicunt radiorum ex oculis in ea quae videri queunt emissionem aerisque simul intentionem. Epicurus afluere semper ex omnibus corporibus simulacra quaedam corporum ipsorum eaque sese in oculos inferre atque ita fieri sensum videndi putat. Plato existimat, genus quoddam ignis lucisque de oculis exire idque, coniunctum continuatumque vel cum luce solis vel cum alterius ignis lumine, sua vi et externa nixum efficere ut quaecumque offenderit inlustraveritque cernamus. Set hic aeque non diutius muginandum, eiusdemque illius Enniani Neoptolemi, de quo supra scripsimus, consilio utendum est, qui “degustandum” ex philosophia censet, “non in eamearn ingurgitandum.”

[¶4] 17. Why the first days after the Kalends, Nones and Ides are considered unlucky; and why many avoid also the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones or Ides, on the ground that it is ill-omened. VERRIUS FLACCUS, in the fourth book of his work On the Meaning of Words, writes that the days immediately following the Kalends, Nones and Ides, which the common people ignorantly call “holidays,” are properly called, and considered, “ill-omened,” for this reason:—“When the city,” he says, “had been recovered from the Senonian Gauls, Lucius Atilius stated in the senate that Quintus Sulpicius, tribune of the soldiers, when on the eve of fighting against the Gauls at the Allia, offered sacrifice in anticipation of that battle on the day after the Ides; that the army of the Roman people was thereupon cut to pieces, and three days later the whole city, except the Capitol, was taken. Also many other senators said that they remembered that whenever with a view to waging war a magistrate of the Roman people had sacrificed on the day after the Kalends, Nones or Ides, in the very next battle of that war the State had suffered disaster. Then the senate referred the matter to the pontiffs, that they might take what action they saw fit. The pontiffs decreed that no offering would properly be made on those days.” Many also avoid the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones and Ides, as ill-omened. It is often inquired whether any religious reason for that observance is recorded. I myself have found nothing in literature pertaining to that matter, except that Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the fifth book of his Annals, says that the prodigious slaughter of the battle of Cannae occurred on the fourth day before the Nones of August.

> Latin: 17. Quam ob causam dies primi post Kalendas, Nonas, Idus atri habeantur; et cur diem quoque quartum ante Kalendas vel Nonas vel Idus quasi religiosum plerique vitent. VERRIUS FLACCUS, in quarto De Verborum Significatu, dies qui sunt postridie Kalendas, Nonas, Idus, quos vulgus imperite “nefastos” dicit, propter hanc causam dictos habitosque “atros” esse scribit. “Urbe,” inquit, “a Gallis Senonibus recuperata, L. Atilius in senatu verba fecit, Q. Sulpicium tribunum militum, ad Alliam adversus Gallos pugnaturum, rem divinam dimicandi gratia postridie Idus fecisse; tum exercitum populi Romani occidione occisum et post diem tertium eius diei urbem praeter Capitolium captam esse: compluresque alii senatores recordari sese dixerunt, quotiens belli gerendi gratia res divina postridie Kalendas, Nonas, Idus a magistratu populi Romani facta esset, eius belli proximo deinceps proelio rem publicam male gestam esse. Tum senatus eamearn rem ad pontifices reiecit, ut ipsi quod videretur statuerent. Pontifices decreverunt nullum his diebus sacrificium recte futurum.” Ante diem quoque quartum Kalendas vel Nonas vel Idus tamquam inominalem diem plerique vitant. Eius observationis an religio ulla sit tradita, quaeri solet. nihilNillil nos super ea re scriptum invenimus, nisi quod Q. Claudius Annaliun quinto cladem illam pugnae Cannensis vastissimam factam dicit ante diem quartum Nonas Sextiles.

[¶5] 18. In what respect, and how far, history differs from annals; and a quotation on that subject from the first book of the Histories of Sempronius Asellio. SOME think that history differs from annals in this particular, that while each is a narrative of events, yet history is properly an account of events in which the narrator took part; and that this is the opinion of some men is stated by Verrius Flaccus in the fourth book of his treatise On the Meaning of Words. He adds that he for his part has doubts about the matter, but he thinks that the view may have some appearance of reason, since i(stori/a in Greek means a knowledge of current events. But we often hear it said that annals are exactly the same as histories, but that histories are not exactly the same as annals; just as a man is necessarily an animal, but an animal is not necessarily a man. Thus they say that history is the setting forth of events or their description, or whatever term may be used; but that annals set down the events of many years successively, with observance of the chronological order. When, however, events are recorded, not year by year, but day by day, such a history is called in Greek e)fhmeri/s, or “a diary,” a term of which the Latin interpretation is found in the first book of Sempronius Asellio. I have quoted a passage of some length from that book, in order at the same time to show what his opinion is of the difference between history and chronicle. “But between those,” he says, “who have desired to leave us annals, and those who have tried to write the history of the Roman people, there was this essential difference. The books of annals merely made known what happened and in what year it happened, which is like writing a diary, which the Greeks call e)fhmeri/s. For my part, I realize that it is not enough to make known what has been done, but that one should also show with what purpose and for what reason things were done.” A little later in the same book Asellio writes: “For annals cannot in any way make men more eager to defend their country, or more reluctant to do wrong. Further-more, to write over and over again in whose consulship a war was begun and ended, and who in consequence entered the city in a triumph, and in that book not to state what happened in the course of the war, what decrees the senate made during that time, or what law or bill was passed, and with what motives these things were done—that is to tell stories to children, not to write history.”

> Latin: 18. In quid et quantum differat historia ab annalibus; superque ea re verba posita ex libro Rerum Gestarum Sempronii Asellionis primo. HISTORIAM ab annalibus quidam differre eo putant, quod, cum utrumque sit rerum gestarum narratio, earum tamen proprie rerum sit historiabistoria, quibus rebus gerendis interfuerit is qui narret; eamque esse opinionem quorundam, Verrius Flaccus refert in libro De Significatu verborumVerborun quarto. Ac se quidem dubitare super ea re dicit, posse autem videri putat nonnihil esse rationis in ea opinione, quod ἱστορία Graece significet rerum cognitionem praesentium. Sed nos audire soliti sumus annales omnino id esse quod historiae sint; historias non omnino esse id quod annales sint: sicuti, quod est homo, id necessario animal esse; quod est animal, non id necesse est hominem esse. Ita historias quidem esse aiunt rerum gestarum vel expositionem vel demonstrationem vel quo alio nomine id dicendum est; annales vero esse, cum res gestae plurium annorum, observato cuiusque anni ordine, deinceps componuntur. Cum vero non per annos, sed per dies singulos res gestae scribuntur, ea historia Graeco vocabulo ἐφημερὶς dicitur, cuius Latinum interpretamentum scriptum est in libro Semproni Asellionis primo, ex quo libro plura verba ascripsimus, ut simul ibidem quid ipse inter res gestas et annales esse dixerit ostenderemus. “Verum inter eos,” inquit, “qui annales relinquere voluissent, et eos qui res gestas a Romanis perscribere conati essent, omnium rerum hoc interfuit. Annales libri tantummodo quod factum quoque anno gestum sit, ea demonstrabant, id est quasi qui diarium scribunt, quam Graeci ἐφημερίδα vocant. Nobis non modo satis esse video, quod factum esset, id pronuntiare, sed etiam quo consilio quaque ratione gesta essent demonstrare.” Paulo post idem Asellio in eodem libro: “Nam neque alacriores,” inquit, “ad rempublicam defendundam, neque segniores ad rem perperam faciundam annales libri commovere quicquam possunt. Scribere autem bellum initum quo consule et quo confectum sit et quis triumphans introierit ex eo, et eo libro quae in bello gesta sint non praedicare aut interea quid senatus decreverit aut quae lex rogatiove lata sit neque quibus consiliis ea gesta sint iterare: id fabulas pueris est narrare, non historias scribere.”

[¶6] 19. The meaning of adoptatio and also of adrogatio, and how they differ; and the formula used by the official who, when children are adopted, brings the business before the people. WHEN outsiders are taken into another's family and given the relationship of children, it is done either through a praetor or through the people. If done by a praetor, the process is called adoptatio; if through the people, arrogatio. Now, we have adoptatio, when those who are adopted are surrendered in court through a thrice repeated sale by the father under whose control they are, and are claimed by the one who adopts them in the presence of the official before whom the legal action takes place. The process is called adrogatio, when persons who are their own masters deliver themselves into the control of another, and are themselves responsible for the act. But arrogations are not made without due consideration and investigation; for the so-called comitia curiata are summoned under the authority of the pontiffs, and it is inquired whether the age of the one who wishes to adopt is not rather suited to begetting children of his own; precaution is taken that the property of the one who is being adopted is not being sought under false pretences; and an oath is administered which is said to have been formulated for use in that ceremony by Quintus Mucius, when he was pontifex maxinus. But no one may be adopted by adrogatio who is not yet ready to assume the gown of manhood. The name adrogatio is due to the fact that this kind of transfer to another's family is accomplished through a rogatio or “request,” put to the people. The language of this request is as follows: “Express your desire and ordain that Lucius Valerius be the son of Lucius Titius as justly and lawfully as if he had been born of that father and the mother of his family, and that Titius have that power of life and death over Valerius which a father has over a son. This, just as I have stated it, I thus ask of you, fellow Romans.” Neither a ward nor a woman who is not under the control of her father may be adopted by adrogatio; since women have no part in the comitia, and it is not right that guardians should have so much authority and power over their wards as to be able to subject to the control of another a free person who has been committed to their protection. Freedmen, however, may legally be adopted in that way by freeborn citizens, according to Masurius Sabinus. But he adds that it is not allowed, and he thinks it never ought to be allowed, that men of the condition of freedmen should by process of adoption usurp the privileges of the freeborn. “Furthermore,” says he, “if that ancient law be maintained, even a slave may be surrendered by his master for adoption through the agency of a praetor.” And he declares that several authorities on ancient law have written that this can be done. I have observed in a speech of Publius Scipio On Morals, which he made to the people in his censorship, that among the things that he criticized, on the ground that they were done contrary to the usage of our forefathers, he also found fault with this, that an adopted son was of profit to his adoptive father in gaining the rewards for paternity. The passage in that speech is as follows: “A father votes in one tribe, the son in another, an adopted son is of as much advantage as if one had a son of his own; orders are given to take the census of absentees, and hence it is not necessary for anyone to appear in person at the census.”

> Latin: 19. Quid sit adoptatio, quid item sit adrogatio, quantumque haec inter se differant; verbaque eius quae qualiaque sint, qui in liberis adrogandis super ea re populum rogat. CUM in alienam familiam inque liberorum locum extranei sumuntur, aut per praetorem fit aut per populum. Quod per praetorem fit, “adoptatio” dicitur, quod per populum, “arrogatio.” Adoptantur autem, cum a parente in cuius potestate sunt tertia mancipatione in iure ceduntur atque ab eo qui adoptat apud eum apud quem legis actio est vindicantur; adrogantur hi qui, cum sui iuris sunt, in alienam sese potestatem tradunt eiusque rei ipsi auctores fiunt. Sed adrogationes non temere nec inexplorate committuntur; nam comitia arbitris pontificibus praebentur, quae “curiata” appellantur, aetasque eius qui adrogare vult, an liberislileris potius gignundis idonea sit, bonaque eius qui adrogatur ne insidiose adpetita sint consideratur, iusque iurandum a Q. Mucio pontifice maximo conceptum dicitur, quod in adrogando iuraretur. Sed adrogari non potest nisi iam vesticeps. “Adrogatio” autem dicta, quia genus hoc in alienam familiam transitus per populi rogationem fit. Eius rogationis verba haec sunt: “Velitis, iubeatis, uti L. Valerius L. Titio tam iure legeque filius siet, quam si ex eo patre matreque familias eius natus esset, utique ei vitae necisque in eum potestas siet, uti patri endo filio est. Haec ita uti dixi, ita vos, Quirites, rogo.” Neque pupillus autem neque mulier quae in parentis potestate non est adrogari possunt; quoniam et cum feminis nulla comitiorum communio est et tutoribus in pupillos tantam esse auctoritatem potestatemque fas non est, ut caput liberum fidei suae commissum alienae dicioni subiciant. Libertinos vero ab ingenuis adoptari quidem iure posse, Masurius Sabinus scripsit. Sed id neque permitti dicit, neque permittendum esse umquam putat, ut homines libertini ordinis per adoptiones in iura ingenuorum invadant. “Alioquin,” inquit, “si iuris ista antiquitas servetur, etiam servus a domino per praetorem dari in adoptionem potest.” Idque ait plerosque iuris veteris auctores posse fieri scripsisse. Animadvertimus in oratione P. Scipionis, quam censor habuit ad populum De Moribus, inter ea quae reprehendebat, quod contra maiorum instituta fierent, id etiam eum culpavisse, quod filius adoptivos patri adoptatori inter praemia patrum prodesset. Verba ex ea oratione haec sunt: “In alia tribu patrempattern, in alia filium suffragium ferre, filium adoptivum tam procedere quam si se natum habeat; absentis censeri iubere, ut ad censum nemini necessus sit venire.”

[¶7] 20. The Latin word coined by Sinnius Capito for “solecism,” and what the early writers of Latin called that same fault: and also Sinnius Capito's definition of a solecism. A solecism, which by Sinnius Capito and other lien of his time was called in Latin inparilitas, or “inequality,” the earlier Latin writers termed stribiligo, evidently meaning the improper use of an inverted form of expression, a sort of twist as it were. This kind of fault is thus defined by Sinnius Capito, in a letter which lie wrote to Clodius Tuscus: “A solecism,” he says, “is an irregular and incongruous joining together of the parts of speech.” Since “soloecismus” is a Greek word, the question is often asked, whether it was used by the men of Attica who spoke most elegantly. But I have as yet found neither soloecismus nor barbarismus in good Greek writers; for just as they used ba/rbaros, so they used so/loikos. So too our earlier writers used soloecus regularly, soloecismus never, I think. But if that be so, soloecismus is proper usage neither in Greek nor in Latin.

> Latin: 20. Quod vocabulum Latinum soloecismo fecerit Capito Sinnius, quid autem id ipsum appellaverint veteres Latini; quibusque verbis soloecismum definierit idem Capito Sinnius. “SOLOECISMUS,” Latino vocabulo a Sinnio Capitone eiusdemque aetatis aliis “inparilitas” appellatus, vetustioribus Latinis “stribiligo” dicebatur, a versura videlicet et pravitate tortuosae orationis, tamquam “strobiligo” quaedam. Quod vitium Sinnius Capito in litteris, quas ad Clodium Tuscum dedit, hisce verbis definit: “‘Soloecismus.’ est,” inquit, “impar atque inconveniens compositura partium orationis.” Cum Graecum autem vocabulum sit “soloecismus,” an Attici homines qui elegantius locuti sunt usi eo sint quaeri solet. Sed nos neque “soloecismum” neque “barbarismumarbbarismum” apud Graecorum idoneos adhuc invenimus; nam sicut βάρβαρον ita σόλοικοι dixerunt. Nostri quoque antiquiores “soloecum” facile, “soloecismum” haut scio an umquam, dixerunt. Quod si ita est, neque in Graeca neque in Latina lingua “soloecismus” probe dicitur.

[¶8] 21. One who says pluria, compluria and compluriens speaks good Latin, and not incorrectly. AN extremely learned man, a friend of mine, chanced in the course of conversation to use the word pluria, not at all with a desire to show off, or because he thought that plura ought not to be used. For he is a man of serious scholarship and devoted to the duties of life, and not at all meticulous in the use of words. But, I think, from constant perusal of the early writers a word which he had often met in books had become second nature to his tongue. There was present when he said this a very audacious critic of language, who had read very little and that of the most ordinary sort; this fellow had some trifling instruction in the art of grammar, which was partly ill-digested and confused and partly false, and this he used to cast like dust into the eyes of any with whom he had entered into discussion. Thus on that occasion he said to my friend: “You were incorrect in saying pluria; for that form has neither justification nor authorities.” Thereupon that friend of mine rejoined with a smile: “My: good sir, since I now have leisure from more serious affairs, I wish you would please explain to me why pluria and compluria—for they do not differ-are used barbarously and incorrectly by Marcus Cato, Quintus Claudius, Valerius Antias, Lucius Aelius, Publius Nigidius, and Marcus Varro, whom we have as endorsers and sanctioners of this form, to say nothing of a great number of the early poets and orators.” And the fellow answered with excessive arrogance: “You are welcome to those authorities of yours, dug up from the age of the Fauns and Aborigines, but what is your answer to this rule? No neuter comparative in the nominative plural has an i before its final a; for example, meliora, maiora, graviora. Accordingly, then, it is proper to say plura, not pluria, in order that there be no i before final a in a comparative, contrary to the invariable rule.” Then that friend of mine, thinking that the self-confident fellow deserved few words, said: “There are numerous letters of Sinnius Capito, a very learned man, collected in a single volume and deposited, I think, in the Temple of Peace. The first letter is addressed to Pacuvius Labeo, and it is prefixed by the title, 'Pluria, not plura, should be used.' In that letter he has collected the grammatical rules to show that pluria, and not plura, is good Latin. Therefore I refer you to Capito. From him you will learn at the same time, provided you can comprehend what is written in that letter, that pluria, or plura, is the positive and simple form, not, as it seems to you, a comparative.” It also confirms that view of Sinnius, that when we say complures or “several,” we are not using a comparative. Moreover, from the word compluria is derived the adverb compluriens, “often.” Since this is not a common word, I have added a verse of Plautus, from the comedy entitled The Persian:
What do you fear?—By Heaven! I am afraid;
I've had the feeling many a time and oft (compluriens).
Marcus Cato too, in the fourth book of his Origins, has used this word three times in the same passage: “Often (compluriens) did their mercenary soldiers kill one another in large numbers in the camp; often (compluriens) did many together desert to the enemy; often (compluriens) did they attack their general.”

> Latin: 21. “Pluria” qui dicat et “compluria” et “compluriens” non barbare dicere, sed Latine. “PLURIA” forte quis dixit sermocinans vir adprime doctus, meus amicus, non hercle studio se ferens ostentandi neque quo “plura” non dicendum putaret. Est enim doctrina homo seria et ad vitae officia devincta ac nihil de verbis laborante. Sed, opinor, assidua veterum scriptorum tractatione inoleverat linguae illius vox quam in libris saepe offenderat. Aderat, cum ille hoc dicit, reprehensor audaculus verborum, qui perpauca eademque a volgo protrita legerat habebatque nonnullas disciplinae grammaticae inauditiunculas, partim rudes inchoatasque, partim non probas, easque quasi pulverem ob oculos, cum adortus quemque fuerat, adspergebat. Sicut tunc amico nostro “Barbare,” inquit, “dixisti ‘pluria’; nam neque rationem verbum hoc neque auctoritates habet.” Ibi ille amicus ridens, “Amabo te,” inquit, “vir bone, quia nunc mihi a magis seriis rebus otium est, velim doceas nos cur ‘pluria’ sive ‘compluria,’ nihil enim differt, non Latine sed barbare dixerint M. Cato, Q. Claudius, Valerius Antias, L. Aelius, P. Nigidius, M. Varro, quos subscriptores approbatoresque huius verbi habemus praeter poetarum oratorumque veterum multam copiam.” Atque ille nimis arroganter “Tibi,” inquit, “habeas auctoritates istas, ex Faunorum et Aboriginum saeculo repetitas, atque huic rationi respondeas.” “Nullum enim vocabulum neutrum comparativum numero plurativo, recto casu, ante extremum ‘a’ habet ‘i’ litteram, sicuti ‘meliora, maiora, graviora.’ Proinde igitur ‘plura,’ non ‘pluria,’ dici convenit, ne contra formam perpetuam in comparativo ‘i’ littera sit ante extremum ‘a’.” Tum ille amicus noster, cum hominem confidentem pluribus verbis non dignum existimaret, “Sinni,” inquit, “Capitonis, doctissimi viri, epistulae sunt uno in libro multae positae, opinor, in templo Pacis.” “Prima epistula scripta est ad Pacuvium Labeonem, cui titulus praescriptus est ‘Pluria, non plura dici debere.’” “In ea epistula rationes grammaticas posuit per quas docet ‘pluria’ Latinum esse, ‘plura’ barbarum. Ad Capitonem igitur te dimittimus.” “Ex eo id quoque simul disces, si modo assequi poteris quod in ea epistula scriptum est,” “‘pluria’ sive ‘plura’ absolutum esse et simplex, non, ut tibi videtur, comparativum.” Huius opinionis Sinnianae id quoque adiumentum est, quod “complures” cum dicimus, non comparative dicimus. Ab eo autem quod est “compluria” adverbium est factum “compluriens.” Id quoniam minus usitatum est, versum Plauti subscripsi ex comoedia quae Persa inscribitur:
Quid metuis?–Metuo hércle vero; sénsi ego
Complúriens. Item M. Cato in IV. Originum eodem in loco ter hoc verbum posuit: “Compluriens eorum milites mercennarii inter se multi alteri alteros in castris occidere, compluriens multi simul ad hostis transfugere, compluriens in imperatorem impetum facere.”

## 14. Book VI · chapters 1–3

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/14/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/14/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Some remarkable stories about the elder Publius Africanus, drawn from the annals. The tale which in Grecian history is told of Olympias, wife of king Philip and mother of Alexander, is also recorded of the mother of that Publius Scipio who was the first to be called Africanus. For both Gaius Oppius and Julius Hyginus, as well as others who have written of the life and deeds of Africanus, declare that his mother was for a long time thought to be barren, and that Publius Scipio, her husband, had also given up hope of offspring; that afterwards, in her own room and bed, when she was lying alone in the absence of her husband and had fallen asleep, of a sudden a huge serpent was seen lying by her side; and that when those who had seen it were frightened and cried out, the snake glided away and could not be found. It is said that Publius Scipio himself consulted soothsayers about the occurrence; that they, after offering sacrifice, declared that he would have children, and not many days after that serpent had been seen in her bed, the woman began to experience the indications and sensation of conception. Afterwards, in the tenth month, she gave birth to that Publius Scipio who conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians in Africa in the second Punic war. But it was far more because of his exploits than because of that prodigy that he too was believed to be a man of godlike excellence. This too I venture to relate, which the same writers that I mentioned before have put on record: This Scipio Africanus used often to go to the Capitolium in the latter part of the night, before the break of day, give orders that the shrine of Jupiter be opened, and remain there a long time alone, apparently consulting Jupiter about matters of state; and the guardians of the temple were often amazed that on his coming to the Capitolium alone at such an hour the dogs, that flew at all other intruders, neither barked at him nor molested him. These popular beliefs about Scipio seemed to be confirmed and attested by many remarkable actions and sayings of his. Of these the following is a single example: He was engaged in the siege of a town in Spain, which was strongly fortified and defended, protected by its position, and also well provisioned; and there was no prospect of taking it. One day he sat holding court in his camp, at a point from which there was a distant view of the town. Then one of the soldiers who were on trial before him asked in the usual way on what day and in what place he bade them give bail for their appearance. Then Scipio, stretching forth his hand towards the very citadel of the town which he was besieging, said: “Appear the day after to-morrow in yonder place.” And so it happened; on the third day, the day on which he had ordered them to appear, the town was captured, and on that same day he held court in the citadel of the place.

> Latin: 1. Admiranda quaedam ex annalibus sumpta de P. Africano superiore. QUOD de Olympiade, Philippi regis uxore, Alexandri matre, in historia Graeca scriptum est, id de P. quoque Scipionis matre qui prior Africanus appellatus est memoriae datum est. Nam et C. Oppius et Iulius Hyginus, aliique qui de vita et rebus Africani scripserunt, matrem eius diu sterilem existimatam tradunt, P. quoque Scipionem, cum quo nupta erat, liberos desperavisse. Postea in cubiculo atque in lecto mulieris, cum absente marito cubans sola condormisset, visum repente esse iuxta eam cubare ingentem anguem eumque, his qui viderant territis et clamantibus, elapsum inveniri non quisse. Id ipsum P. Scipionem ad haruspices retulisse; eos, sacrificio facto, respondisse fore ut liberi gignerentur, neque multis diebus postquam ille anguis in lecto visus est, mulierem coepisse concepti fetus signa atque sensumsensurn pati; exinde mense decimo peperisse natumque esse hunc P. Africanum qui Hannibalem et Carthaginienses in Africa bello Poenico secundo vicit. Sed et eum inpendio magis ex rebus gestis quam ex illo ostento virum esse virtutis divinae creditum est. Id etiam dicere haut piget, quod idem illi quos supra nominavi litteris mandaverint, Scipionem hunc Africanum solitavisse noctis extreme, priusquam dilucularet, in Capitolium ventitare ac iubere aperiri cellam Iovislovis atque ibi solum diu demorari, quasi consultantem de republica cum Iove, aeditumosque eius templi saepe esse demiratos, quod solum id temporis in Capitolium ingredientem canes semper in alios saevientes neque latrarent eum neque incurrerent. Has volgi de Scipione opiniones confirmare atque approbare videbantur dicta factaque eius pleraque admiranda. Ex quibus est unumunurm huiuscemodiuiuscemodi: Assidebat oppugnabatque oppidum in Hispania, situ, moenibus, defensoribus validum et munitum, re etiam cibaria copiosum, nullaque eius potiundi spes erat, et quodam die ius in castris sedens dicebat atque ex eo loco id oppidum procul visebatur, Tum e militibus, qui in iure apud eum stabant, interrogavit quispiam ex more in quem diem locumque vadimonium promitti iuberet; et Scipio, manum ad ipsam oppidi quod obsidebatur arcem protendens, “Perendie,” inquit, “sese sistant illo in loco.” Atque ita factum; die tertio, in quem vadari iusserat, oppidum captum est eodemque eo die in arce eius oppidi ius dixit.

[¶1] 2. Of a disgraceful blunder of Caesellius Vindex, which we find in his work entitled Archaic Terms. IN those highly celebrated notes of Caesellius Vindex On Archaic Terms we find a shameful oversight, although in fact the man is seldom caught napping. This error has escaped the notice of many, in spite of their diligent search for opportunities to find fault with Caesellius, even through misrepresentation. Now, Caesellius wrote that Quintus Ennius, in the thirteenth book of his Annals, used cor in the masculine gender. I add Caesellius' own words: “Ennius used cor, like many other words, in the masculine gender; for in Annals xiii. he wrote quem cor.” He then quoted two verses of Ennius:
While Hannibal, of bold breast, did me exhort
Not to make war, what heart thought he was mine?
The speaker is Antiochus, king of Asia. He is surprised and indignant that Hannibal, the Carthaginian, discourages his desire to make war on the people of Rome. Now, Caesellius understands the lines to mean that Antiochus says: “Hannibal dissuades me from making war. In so doing, what kind of heart does he think I have, and how foolish does he believe me to be, when he gives me such advice?” So Caesellius; but Ennius' meaning was quite different. For there are three verses, not two, which belong to this utterance of the poet's, and Caesellius overlooked the third verse:
Through valour war's great advocate and friend.
The meaning and arrangement of these three verses I believe to be this:
Hannibal, that boldest and most valiant of men, who I believed (for that is the meaning of cor meum credidit, exactly as if he had said “who l, foolish man, believed”) would strongly advise war, discourages and dissuades me from making war.
Caesellius, however, somewhat carelessly misled as to the connection of the words, assumed that Ennius said quem cor, reading quem with an acute accent, as if it belonged with cor and not with Hannibal. But I am well aware that one might, if anyone should have so little understanding, defend Caesellius' masculine cor by maintaining that the third verse should be read apart from the others, as if Antiochus had exclaimed in broken and abrupt language “a mighty adviser!” But those who would argue thus do not deserve a reply.

> Latin: 2. De Caeselli Vindicis pudendo errore, quem offendimus in libris eius quos inscripsit Lectionum antiquarumAntiquairum. TURPE erratum offendimus in illis celebratissimis commentariis Lectionum Antiquarum Caeselli Vindicis, hominis hercle pleraque haut indiligentis. Quod erratum multos fugit, quamquam multa in Caesellio reprehendendo etiam per calumnias rimarentur. Scripsit autem Caesellius Q. Ennium in XIII. Annali “cor” dixisse genere masculino. Verba Caeselli subiecta sunt: “Masculino genere, ut multa alia, enuntiavit Ennius. Nam in XIII. Annali ‘quem cor’ dixit.” Ascripsit deinde versus Ennii duo:
Hannibal audaci dum pectore de me hortatur
Ne bellum faciam, quem credidit esse meum cor?
Antiochus est qui hoc dixit, Asiae rex. Is admiratur et permovetur, quod Hannibal Carthaginiensis bellum se facere populo Romano volentem dehortetur. Hos autem versus Caesellius sic accipit, tamquam si Antiochus sic dicat: “Hannibal me ne bellum geram dehortatur; quod cum facit, ecquale putat cor habere me et quam stultum esse me credit, cum id mihi persuadere vult?” Hoc Caesellius quidem, sed aliud longe Ennius. Nam tres versus sunt, non duo, ad hanchance Ennii sententiam pertinentes, ex quibus tertium versum Caesellius non respexit:
Hannibal audaci dum pectore de me hortatur
Ne bellum faciam, quem credidit esse meum cor
Suasorem summum et studiosum robore belli. Horum versuum sensus atque ordo sic, opinor, est: “Hannibal ille audentissimus atque fortissimus, quem ego credidi”—hoc est enim: “cor meum credidit,” proinde atque diceret “quem ego stultus homo credidi”—“summum fore suasorem ad bellandum, is me dehortatur dissuadetque ne bellum faciam.” Caesellius autem forte ῥαθυμότερον iunctura ista verborum captus “quem cor” dictum putavit et “quem” accentu acuto legit, quasi ad “cor” referretur, non ad “Hannibalem.” Sed non fugit me, si aliquis sit tam inconditus, sic posse defendi “cor” Caeselli masculinum, ut videatur tertius versus separatim atque divise legendus, proinde quasi praecisis interruptisque verbis exclamet Antiochus: “suasorem summum!” Sed non dignum est eis qui hoc dixerint responderi.

[¶2] 3. What Tullius Tiro, Cicero's freedman, criticized in the speech which Marcus Cato delivered in the senate in defence of the Rhodians; and our answer to his strictures.

> Latin: 3. Quid Tiro Tullius, Ciceronis libertus, reprehenderit in M. Catonis oratione quam pro Rodiensibus in senatu dixit; et quid ad ea, quae reprehenderat, responderimus.

[¶3] THE State of Rhodes is famed for the happy situation of the island, its celebrated works of art, its skill in seamanship and its naval victories.

> Latin: CIVITAS Rodiensis et insulae opportunitate et operum nobilitatibus et navigandi sollertia navalibusque victoriis celebrata est.

[¶4] Although a friend and ally of the Roman people, that State was on cordial terms with Perses, son of Philip and king of Macedon, with whom the Romans were at war; accordingly, the Rhodians often sent envoys to Rome and tried to reconcile the contending parties.

> Latin: Ea civitas, cum amica atque socia populi Romani foret, Persa tamen, Philippi filio, Macedonum rege, cum quo bellum populo Romano fuit, amico usa est, conixique sunt Rodienses legationibus Romam saepe missis id bellum inter eos componere.

[¶5] But when their attempts at peace-making failed, many of the Rhodians harangued the people in their assemblies, urging that if peace were not made, the Rhodians should aid the king in his contest with the people of Rome; but as to that question no official action was taken.

> Latin: Sed, ubi ista pacificatio perpetrari nequivit, verba a plerisque Rodiensibus in contionibus eorum ad populum facta sunt, ut, si pax non fieret, Rodienses regem adversus populum Romanum adiutarent.

[¶6] When, however, Perses was defeated and taken prisoner, the Rhodians were in great fear because of what had been said and done on many occasions in the popular assemblies;

> Latin: Sed nullum super ea re publicum decretum factum est.

[¶7] and they sent envoys to Rome, to apologize for the hastiness of some of their fellow-citizens and vindicate their loyalty as a community. When the envoys reached Rome and were admitted to the senate, after having humbly pleaded their cause they left the House, and the senators were called upon for their opinions.

> Latin: At ubi Perses victus captusque est, Rodienses pertimuere ob ea quae conpluriens in coetibus populi acta dictaque erant, legatosque Romam miserunt, qui temeritatem quorundam popularium suorum deprecarentur et fidem consiliumque publicum expurgarent.

[¶8] When some of the members complained of the Rhodians, declaring that they had been disloyal, and recommended that war be declared upon them, then Marcus Cato arose.

> Latin: Legati postquam Romam venerunt et in senatum intromissi sunt, verbisque suppliciter pro causa sua factis e curia excesserunt, sententiae rogari coeptae;

[¶9] He endeavoured to defend and save our very good and faithful allies, to whom many of the most distinguished senators were hostile through a desire to plunder and possess their wealth; and he delivered that famous speech entitled For the Rhodians, which is included in the fifth book of his Origins and is also in circulation as a separate publication. Now Tullius Tiro, Marcus Cicero's freedman, was unquestionably a man of refined taste and by no means unacquainted with our early history and literature.

> Latin: cumque partim senatorum de Rodiensibus quererentur maleque animatos eos fuisse dicerent bellumque illis faciendum censerent, tum M. Cato exsurgitexurgit et optimos fidissimosque socios, quorum opibus diripiendis possidendisque non pauci ex summatibus viris intenti infensique erant, defensum conservatumque pergit orationemque inclutam dicit, quae et seorsum fertur inscriptaque est Pro Rodiensibus et in quintae Originis libro scripta est.

[¶10] He had been liberally educated from his earliest years, and Cicero found in him an assistant, and in a sense a partner, in his literary work. But surely Tiro showed more presumption than can be tolerated or excused.

> Latin: Tiro autem Tullius, M. Ciceronis libertus, sane quidem fuit ingenio homo eleganti hautquaquam rerum litterarumque veterum indoctus, eoque ab ineunte aetate liberaliter institute adminiculatore et quasi administro in studiis litterarum Cicero usus est.

[¶11] For he wrote a letter to Quintus Axius, a friend of his patron, with excessive assurance and warmth, in which, as he imagined, he criticized that speech For the Rhodians with keen and fine judgment.

> Latin: Sed profecto plus ausus est quam ut tolerari ignoscique possit.

[¶12] It chanced to take my fancy to touch upon certain of the animadversions which he makes in that letter, and I shall doubtless be the more readily pardoned for finding fault with Tiro, because he took Cato to task.

> Latin: Namque epistulam conscripsit ad Q. Axium, familiarem patroni sui, confidenter nimis et calide, in qua sibimet visus est orationem istam Pro Rodiensibus acri subtilique iudicio percensuisse.
Ex ea epistula lubitum forte nobis est reprehensiones eius quasdam attingere, maiore scilicet venia reprehensuri Tironem, cum ille reprehenderit Catonem.

[¶13] His first charge was that Cato, “ignorantly and absurdly,” to use Tiro's own language, made use of a preamble which was excessively arrogant and excessively severe and fault-finding, in which he declared that he feared lest the fathers, having their minds upset by joy and exultation at their success, might act unwisely and be in no state of mind for understanding and deliberating aright. Tiro says: “Advocates who are pleading for clients ought in their opening remarks to win over and propitiate the jurors with complimentary and respectful language;

> Latin: Culpavit autem primum hoc, quod Cato “inerudite et ἀναγώγως,” ut ipse ait, principio nimis insolenti nimisque acri et obiurgatorio usus sit, cum vereri sese ostendit ne patres, gaudio atque laetitia rerum prospere gestarum de statu mentis suae deturbati, non satis consiperent neque ad recte intellegendum consulendumque essent idonei.

[¶14] they ought, while their minds, as they wait to hear the case, are still in suspense and cool, to render them complacent, and not to arouse contradiction by insults and arrogant threats.” Then he has given us Cato's own preamble, which runs as follows: “I am aware that in happy, successful and prosperous times the minds of most men are wont to be puffed up, and their arrogance and self-confidence to wax and swell.

> Latin: “In principiis autem,” inquit, “patroni, qui pro reis dicunt, conciliare sibi et complacare iudices debent sensusque eorum expectatione causae suspensos rigentesque honorificis verecundisque sententiis commulcere, non iniuriis atque imperiosis minationibus confutare.”

[¶15] Therefore I am now gravely concerned, since this enterprise has gone on so successfully, lest something adverse may happen in our deliberations, to bring to naught our good fortune, and lest this joy of ours may become too extravagant. Adversity subdues and shows what ought to be done; prosperity, since it inspires joy, commonly turns men aside from wise counsel and right understanding. Therefore it is with the greater emphasis that I advise and urge that this matter be put off for a few days, until we regain our self-command after so great rejoicing.” “Then what Cato says next,” continues Tiro, “amounts to a confession rather than a defence;

> Latin: Ipsum deinde principium apposuit, cuius verba haec sunt: “Scio solere plerisque hominibus rebus secundis atque prolixis atque prosperis animum excellere atque superbiam atque ferociam augescere atque crescere. Quo mihi nunc magnae curae est, quod haec res tam secunde processit, ne quid in consulendo advorsi eveniat, quod nostras secundas res confutet, neve haec laetitia nimis luxuriose eveniat. Advorsae res edomant et docent quid opus siet facto, secundae res laetitia transvorsum trudere solent a recte consulendo atque intellegendo. Quo maiore opere dico suadeoque uti haec res aliquot dies proferatur, dum ex tanto gaudio in potestatem nostram redeamus.”

[¶16] for it does not contain a refutation or shifting of the charge, but the sharing of it with many others, which of course amounts to nothing in the way of excuse. Moreover,” says Tiro, “he also acknowledges that the Rhodians, who were accused of favouring the king's cause against the Roman people and wishing him success, did so from motives of self-interest, for fear that the Romans, already proud and self-confident, with the addition of a victory over king Perses might become immoderately insolent.” And he gives Cato's own words, as follows: “And I really think that the Rhodians did not wish us to end the war as we did, with a victory over king Perses.

> Latin: “Quae deinde Cato iuxta dicit, ea,” inquit, “confessionem faciunt, non defensionem, neque propulsationem translationemve criminis habent, sed cum pluribus aliis communicationem, quod scilicet nihili ad purgandum est. Atque etiam,” inquit, “insuper profitetur Rodienses, qui accusabantur quod adversus populum Romanum regi magis cupierint faverintque, id eos cupisse atque favisse utilitatis suae gratia, ne Romani Perse quoque rege victo ad superbiam ferociamque et inmodicum modum insolescerent.”

[¶17] But it was not the Rhodians alone who had that feeling, but I believe that many peoples and many nations agreed with them. And I am inclined to think that some of them did not wish us success, not in order that we might be disgraced, but because they feared that if there were no one of whom we stood in dread, we would do whatsoever we chose. I think, then, that it was with an eye to their own freedom that they held that opinion, in order not to be under our sole dominion and enslaved to us. But for all that, the Rhodians never publicly aided Perses. Reflect how much more cautiously we deal with one another as individuals. For each one of us, if he thinks that anything is being done contrary to his interests, strives with might and main to prevent it; but they in spite of all permitted this very thing to happen.” Now as to his criticism of Cato's introduction, Tiro ought to have known that although Cato defended the Rhodians, he did so as a senator who had been consul and censor and was recommending what he thought was best for the public welfare, not as an advocate pleading the cause of the accused.

> Latin: Eaque ipsa verba ponit, ita ut infra scriptum: “Atque ego quidem arbitror Rodienses noluisse nos ita depugnare, uti depugnatumdepugnaturm est, neque regem Persen vinci. Sed non Rodienses modo id noluere, sed multos populos atque multas nationes idem noluisse arbitror atque haut scio an partim eorum fuerint, qui non nostrae contumeliae causa id noluerint evenire; sed enim id metuere, ne si nemo esset homo quem vereremur, quidquid luberet faceremus. Ne sub solo imperio nostro in servitute nostra essent, libertatis suae causa in ea sententia fuisse arbitror. Atque Rodienses tamen Persen publice numquam adiuvere. Cogitate quanto nos inter nos privatim cautius facimus. Nam unusquisque nostrum, si quis advorsus rem suam quid fieri arbitrantur, summa vi contraeontra nititur, ne advorsus eam fiat; quod illi tamen perpessi.”

[¶18] For one kind of introduction is appropriate for a man who is defending clients before jurors and striving in every way to excite pity and compassion;

> Latin: Sed, quod ad principium reprehensum attinet, scire oportuit Tironem, defensos esse Rodienses a Catone, sed ut a senatore et consulari et censorio viro, quidquid optimum esse publicum existimabat suadente, non ut a patrono causam pro reis dicente.

[¶19] quite another for a man of eminent authority, when the senate is asked for its opinion on a matter of State, and when, indignant at the highly unjust opinions of some of the members, he gives plain and emphatic expression at once to his indignation and his sorrow, speaking in behalf of the public welfare and the safety of our allies.

> Latin: Alia namque principia conducunt reos apud indices defendenti et clementiam misericordiamque undique indaganti, alia, cum senatus de republica consulitur, viro auctoritate praestanti, sententiis quorundam iniquissimis permoto et pro utilitatibus publicis ac pro salute sociorum graviter ac libere indignanti simul ac dolenti.

[¶20] Indeed, it is a proper and salutary rule of the schools of rhetoric, that jurors who are to pass judgment on the person of a stranger and on a case which does not personally concern them (so that apart from the duty of acting as jurors no danger or emolument will come to them) ought to be conciliated and induced by mild and soothing language to have regard for the reputation and safety of the prisoner at the bar.

> Latin: Quippe recte et utiliter in disciplinis rhetorum praecipitur, iudices de capite alieno deque causa ad sese non pertinenti cognituros, ex qua praeter officium iudicandi nihil ad eos vel periculi vel emolumenti redundaturum est, conciliandos esse ac propitiandos placabiliter et leniter existimationi salutique eius qui apud eos accusatus est.

[¶21] But when the common prestige, honour and advantage of all are involved, and therefore one must advise what is to be done, or what must be put off that has already been begun, then one who busies oneself with an introduction designed to make his hearers friendly and kindly disposed towards himself wastes his efforts in needless talk. For the common interests and dangers have themselves already disposed the jurors to listen to advice, and it is rather they themselves that demand good-will on the part of their counsellor.

> Latin: At cum dignitas et fides et utilitas omnium communis agitur, ob eamque rem aut suadendum quid ut fiat, aut, fieri iam coepto, differendum est, tum qui se in eiusmodi principiis occupat, ut benivolos benignosque sibi auditores paret, otiosam operam in non necessariis verbis sumit.
Iamdudum enim negotia, pericula ipsa rerum communia consiliis eos capiendis conciliant et ipsi potius sibi exposcunt consultoris benivolentiam.

[¶22] But when Tiro says that Cato admitted that the Rhodians did not wish the Romans to fight as successfully as they did, and king Perses to be conquered by the Roman people, and when he asserts that he declared that not the Rhodians alone, but many other nations too, had the same feeling, but that this availed nothing in excuse or extenuation of their fault—in this very first point Tiro is guilty of a shameless lie. He quotes Cato's words, yet misrepresents him by giving them a false interpretation.

> Latin: Sed quod ait confessum Catonem noluisse Rodiensis ita depugnari, ut depugnatum est, neque regem Persem a populo Romano vinci, atque id eum dixisse non Rodienses modo, sed multas quoque alias nationes noluisse, sed id nihil ad purgandum extenuandumve crimen valere, iam hoc primum Tiro inprobe mentitur.
Verba ponit Catonis et aliis tamen eum verbis calumniatur.

[¶23] For Cato does not admit that the Rhodians did not wish the Roman people to be victorious, but said that he thought they did not; and this was unquestionably an expression of his own opinion, not an concession of the guilt of the Rhodians.

> Latin: Non enim Cato confitetur noluisse Rodienses victoriam esse populi Romani, sed sese arbitrari dixit id eos noluisse, quod erat procul dubio opinionis suae professio, non Rodiensium culpae confessio.

[¶24] On this point, in my judgment at least, Cato is not only free from reproach, but is even deserving of praise and admiration. For he apparently expressed a frank and conscientious opinion adverse to the Rhodians; but then, having established confidence in his candour, he so changed and shifted that very statement which seemed to militate against them, that on that account alone it seemed right that they should be more highly esteemed and beloved by the people of Rome; inasmuch as they took no steps to aid the king, although they wished him to succeed and although his success would have been to their advantage.

> Latin: In qua re, ut meum quidem iudicium est, non culpa tantum vacat, sed dignus quoque laude admirationeque est, cum et ingenue ac religiose dicere visus est contra Rodienses quod sentiebat et, parta sibi veritatis fide, ipsum illud tamen, quod contrarium putabatur, flexit et transtulit, ut eos idcirco vel maximemaxine aequum esset acceptiores carioresque fieri populo Romano, quod cum et utile iis esset et vellent regi esse factum, nihil tamen adiuvandi eius gratia fecerunt.

[¶25] Later on, Tiro quotes the following words from the same speech: “Shall we, then, of a sudden abandon these great services given and received and this strong friendship? Shall we be the first to do what we say they merely wished to do?”

> Latin: Postea verba haec ex eadem oratione ponit: “Ea nunc derepente tanta beneficia ultro citroque, tantam amicitiam relinquemus? quod illos dicimus voluisse facere, id nos priores facere occupabimus?”

[¶26] “This,” says Tiro, “is a worthless and faulty argument. For it might be replied: 'Certainly we shall anticipate them, for if we do not, we shall be caught unawares and must fall into the snares against which we failed to guard in advance.'

> Latin: “Hoc,” inquit, “enthymema nequam et vitiosum est. Responderi enim potuit: ‘Occupabimus certe; nam, si non occupaverimusoccupaverimnus, opprimemur incidendumque erit in insidias a quibus ante non caverimus.’”

[¶27] Lucilius,” he says,
justly criticizes the poet Euripides for this reason, that when king Polyphontes declared that he had killed his brother, because his brother had previously planned to slay him, Meropa, his brother's wife, confuted the king with these words:
If, as you say, my husband planned your death,
You too should only plan, till that time came.

> Latin: “Recteque,” inquit, “hoc vitio dat Lucilius poetae Euripidae, quod, cum Polyphontes rex propterea se interfecisse fratrem diceret, quod ipse ante de nece eius consilium cepisset, Meropa fratris uxor hisce adeo eum verbis eluserit:
Εἰ γάρ γάρ σʼ ἔμελλεν, ὡς σὺ φής, κτείνειν πόσις,
Χρὴ καὶ σὲ μέλλειν, ὡς χρόνος παρήλυθεν.”

[¶28] But that,
says Tiro, “is altogether full of absurdity, to wish to do something, and yet have the design and purpose of never doing what you wish to do.”

> Latin: “At hoc enim,” inquit, “plane stultitiae plenum est, eo consilio atque ea fini facere velle aliquid, uti numquam id facias quod velis.”

[¶29] But, as a matter of fact, Tiro failed to observe that the reason for taking precautions is not the same in all cases, and that the occupations and actions of human life, and the obligations of anticipation or postponement or even of taking vengeance or precautions, are not like a combat of gladiators. For to a gladiator ready to fight the fortune of battle offers the alternative, either to kill, if he should conquer, or to die, if he should yield.

> Latin: Sed videlicet Tiro animum non advertit non esse in omnibus rebus cavendis eandem causam, neque humanae vitae negotia et actiones et officiaofiicia vel occupandi vel differendi vel etiam ulciscendi vel cavendi similia esse pugnae gladiatoriae.

[¶30] But the life of men in general is not restricted by such unfair or inevitable necessities that one must be first to commit an injury in order to avoid suffering injury.

> Latin: Nam gladiatori composito ad pugnandum pugnae haec proposita sors est, aut occidere, si occupaverit, aut occumbere, si cessaverit.

[¶31] In fact, such conduct was so alien to the humanity of the Roman people that they often forbore to avenge the wrongs inflicted upon them.

> Latin: Hominum autem vita non tam iniquis neque tam indomitisindoimitis necessitatibus conscripta est, ut idcirco prior iniuriam facere debeas, quam nisi feceris pati possis.
Quod tantum aberat a populi Romani mansuetudine, ut saepe iam in sese factas iniurias ulcisci neglexerit.

[¶32] Then Tiro says that later in that same speech Cato used arguments that were disingenuous and excessively audacious, not suited to the character which Cato showed at other times, but cunning and deceitful, resembling the subtleties of the Greek sophists. “For although,” says he, “he charged the Rhodians with having wished to make war on the Roman people, he declared that they did not deserve punishment, because they had not made war in spite of their strong desire to do so.”

> Latin: Post deinde usum esse Catonem dicit in eadem oratione argumentisargutnentis parum honestis et nimis audacibus ac non viri qui alioqui fuit, sed vafris ac fallaciosis et quasi Graecorum sophistarum sollertiis.

[¶33] He says that Cato introduced what the logicians call an e)pagwgh/, a most treacherous and sophistical device. designed not so much for the truth as for cavil, since by deceptive examples he tried to establish and prove that no one who wished to do wrong deserved to be punished, unless he actually accomplished his desire. Now Cato's words in that speech are as follows: “He who uses the strongest language against them says that they wished to be our enemies.

> Latin: “Nam cum obiceretur,” inquit, “Rodiensibus quod bellum populo Romano facere voluissent, negavit poena esse dignos, quia id non fecissent, etsi maxime voluissent,” induxisseque eum dicit quam dialectici ἐπαγωγήν appellant, rem admodum insidiosam et sophisticam neque ad veritates magis quam ad captiones repertam, cum conatus sit exemplis decipientibus conligere confirmareque, neminem qui male facere voluit plecti aequum esse, nisi quod factum voluit etiam fecerit.

[¶34] Pray is there any one of you who, so far as he is concerned, would think it fair to suffer punishment because he is accused of having wished to do wrong? No one, I think; for so far as I am concerned, I should not.” Then a little farther on he says: “What? Is there any law so severe as to provide that if anyone wish to do so and so, he be fined a thousand sesterces, provided that be less than half his property;

> Latin: Verba autem ex ea oratione M. Catonis haec sunt; “Qui acerrime adversus eos dicit, ita dicit ‘hostes voluisse fieri.’ Ecquis est tandem, qui vestrorum, quod ad sese attineat, aequum censeat poenas dare ob eam rem, quod arguatur male facere voluisse? Nemo, opinor; nam ego, quod ad me attinet, nolim.”

[¶35] if anyone shall desire to have more than five hundred acres, let the fine be so much; if anyone shall wish to have a greater number of cattle, let the fine be thus and so. In fact, we all wish to have more, and we do so with impunity.” Later he continues: “But if it is not right for honour to be conferred because anyone says that he wished to do well, but yet did not do so, shall the Rhodians suffer, not because they did wrong, but because they are said to have wished to do wrong?”

> Latin: Deinde paulo infra dicit: “Quid nunc? Ecqua tandem lex est tam acerba, quae dicat ‘si quis illud facere voluerit, mille, minus dimidium familiae, multa esto; si quis plus quingenta iugera habere voluerit, tanta poena esto; si quis maiorem pecuum numerum habere voluerit, tantum damnas esto?’ Atqui nos omnia plura habere volumus et id nobis impune est.”

[¶36] With such arguments Tullius Tiro says that Marcus Cato strove to show that the Rhodians also ought not to be punished, because although they had wished to be enemies of the Roman people, they had actually not been such.

> Latin: Postea ita dicit: “Sed si honorem non aequum est haberi ob eam rem, quod bene facere voluisse quis dicit neque fecit tamen, Rodiensibus oberit, quod non male fecerunt, sed quia voluisse dicuntur facere?”

[¶37] Furthermore, he says that it cannot be denied that to wish to have more than five hundred acres, which was forbidden by Stolo's bill, is not exactly the same thing as to wish to make an unjust and unrighteous war upon the Roman people;

> Latin: His argumentis Tiro Tullius M. Catonem contendere et conficere dicit Rodiensibus quoque impune esse debere, quod hostes quidem esse populi Romani voluissent, ut qui maxime non fuissent.

[¶38] also that it could not be denied that rewards and punishments belong to different categories. “For services,” he says, “that are promised should be awaited, and not rewarded until they are performed; but in the case of threatening injuries, it is fair to guard against them rather than wait for them.

> Latin: Dissimulari autem non posse ait quin paria et consimilia non sint, plus quingenta iugera habere velle, quod plebiscito Stolonis prohibitum fuit, et bellum iniustum atque impium populo Romano facere velle, neque item infitiari posse quin alia causa in praemio sit, alia in poenis.

[¶39] For it is an admission of the greatest folly,” he declares, “not to go to meet wickedness that is planned, but to await and expect it, and then, when it has been committed and accomplished, at last to inflict punishment, when what is done cannot be undone.”

> Latin: “Nam beneficia,” inquit, “promissa opperiri oportet neque ante remunerari quam facta sint, iniurias autem imminentis praecavisse iustum est quam expectavisse.”

[¶40] These are the criticisms which Tiro passed upon Cato, not altogether pointless or wholly unreasonable;

> Latin: “Summa enim professio stultitiae,” inquit, “est, non ire obviam sceleribus cogitatis, sed manere opperirique ut, cum admissa et perpetrata fuerint, tum denique, ubi quae facta sunt infecta fieri non possunt, poeniantur.”

[¶41] but as a matter of fact, Cato did not leave this e)pagwgh/ bare, isolated and unsupported, but he propped it up in various ways and clothed it with many other arguments.

> Latin: Haec Tiro in Catonem non nimis frigide neque sane inaniter;

[¶42] Furthermore, since lie had an eye as much to the interests of the State as to those of the Rhodians, he regarded nothing that he said or did in that matter as discreditable, provided he strove by every kind of argument to save our allies. And first of all, he very cleverly sought to find actions which are prohibited, not by natural or by international law, but by statutes passed to remedy some evil or meet an emergency;

> Latin: sed enim Cato non nudam nec solitariam nec inprotectam hanc ἐπαγωγήν facit, sed multis eam modis praefulcit multisque aliis argumentis convelat et, quia non Rodiensibus magis quam reipublicae consultabat, nihil sibi dictu factuque in ea re turpe duxit, quin omni sententiarum via servatum ire socios niteretur.

[¶43] such for example as the one which limited the number of cattle or the amount of land. In such cases that which is forbidden cannot lawfully be done; but to wish to do it, if it should be allowed, is not dishonourable.

> Latin: Ac primum ea non incallide conquisivit, quae non iure naturae aut iure gentium fieri prohibentur, sed iure legum rei alicuius medendae aut temporis causa iussarum; sicut est de numero pecoris et de modo agri praefinito.

[¶44] And then he gradually compared and connected such actions as these with that which in itself it is neither lawful to do nor to wish to do.

> Latin: In quibus rebus quod prohibitum est fieri quidem per leges non licet; velle id tamen facere, si liceat, inhonestum non est.

[¶45] Then finally, in order that the impropriety of the comparison may not become evident, he defends it by numerous bulwarks, not laying great stress on those trivial and ideal censures of unlawful desires, such as form the arguments of philosophers in their leisure moments, but striving with might and main for one single end, namely, that the cause of the Rhodians, whose friendship it was to the interests of the commonwealth to retain, should be shown either to be just, or in any event, at least pardonable. Accordingly, he now affirms that the Rhodians did not make war and did not desire to do so; but again he declares that only acts should be considered and judged, and that mere empty wishes are liable neither to laws nor punishment; sometimes, however, as if admitting their guilt, he asks that they be pardoned and shows that forgiveness is expedient in human relations, arousing fear of popular outbreaks, if pardon is not granted, and on the other hand showing that if they forgive, the greatness of the Roman people will be maintained.

> Latin: Atque eas res contulit sensim miscuitque cum eo, quod neque facere neque velle per sese honestum est; tum deinde, ne disparilitas conlationis evidens fieret, pluribus id propugnaculis defensat, neque tenues istas et enucleatas voluntatum in rebus illicitis reprehensiones, qualia in philosophorum otio disputantur, magni facit, sed id solum summa ope nititur, ut causa Rodiensium, quorum amicitiam retineri ex republica fuit, aut aequa iudicaretur aut quidem certe ignoscenda. Atque interim neque fecisse Rodienses bellum neque facere voluisse dicit, interim autem facta sola censenda dicit atque in iudicium vocanda, sed voluntates nudas inanesque neque legibus neque poenis fieri obnoxias; interdum tamen, quasi deliquisse eos concedat, ignosci postulat et ignoscentias utiles esse rebus humanis docet ac, nisi ignoscant, metus in republica rerum novarum movet; sed enim contra, si ignoscatur, conservatum iri ostendit populi Romani magnitudinem.

## 15. Book VI · chapters 3–12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/15/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/15/#p-N

[¶0] The charge of arrogance too, which in particular was brought against the Rhodians in the senate at that time, he evaded and eluded by a brilliant and all but inspired mode of reply.

> Latin: Superbiae quoque crimen, quod tunc praeter cetera in senatu Rodiensibus obiectum erat, mirifica et prope divina responsionis figura elusit et eluit.

[¶1] I shall give Cato's very words, since Tiro has passed them by: “They say that the Rhodians are arrogant, bringing a charge against them which I should on no account wish to have brought against me and my children.

> Latin: Verba adeo ipsa ponemus Catonis, quoniam Tiro ea praetermisit:

[¶2] Suppose they are arrogant. What is that to us? Are you to be angry merely because someone is more arrogant than we are?”

> Latin: “Rodiensis superbos esse aiunt, id obiectantes quod mihi et liberis meis minime dici velim. Sint sane superbi. Quid id ad nos attinet? Idne irascimini, si quis superbior est quam nos?”

[¶3] Absolutely nothing could be said with greater force or weight than this apostrophe against men proud of their deeds, loving pride in themselves, but condemning it in others. It is further to be observed that throughout that speech of Cato's recourse is had to every weapon and device of the art rhetorical;

> Latin: Nihil prorsus hac compellatione dici potest neque gravius neque munitius adversus homines superbissimos facta, qui superbiam in sese amarent, in aliis reprehenderent.

[¶4] but we are not conscious of their use, as we are in mock combats or in battles feigned for the sake of entertainment. For the case was not pleaded, I say, with an excess of refinement, elegance and observance of rule, but just as in a doubtful battle, when the troops are scattered, the contest rages in many parts of the field with uncertain outcome, so in that case at that time, when the notorious arrogance of the Rhodians had aroused the hatred and hostility of many men, Cato used every method of protection and defence without discrimination, at one time commending the Rhodians as of the highest merit, again exculpating them and declaring them blameless, yet again demanding that their property and riches should not be coveted, now asking for their pardon as if they were in the wrong, now pointing out their friendship to the commonwealth, appealing now to clemency, now to the mercy shown by our forefathers, now to the public interest.

> Latin: Praeterea animadvertere est, in tota ista Catonis oratione omnia disciplinarum rhetoricarum arma atque subsidia mota esse; sed non proinde ut in decursibus ludicris aut simulacris proeliorum voluptariis fieri videmus. Non enim, inquam, distincte nimis atque compte atque modulate res acta est, sed quasi in ancipiti certamine, cum sparsa acies est, multis locis Marte vario pugnatur, sic in ista tum causa Cato, cum superbia illa Rodiensium famosissima multorum odio atque invidia flagraret, omnibus promisce tuendi atque propugnandi modis usus est, et nunc ut optime meritos commendat, nunc tamquam si innocentes purgat, nunc ne bona divitiaeque eorum expetantur obiurgat, nunc quasi sit erratum deprecatur, nunc ut necessarios reipublicae ostentat, nuncnune clementiae, nunc mansuetudinis maiorum, nunc utilitatis publicae commonefacit.

[¶5] All this might perhaps have been said in a more orderly and euphonic style, yet I do not believe that it could have been said with greater vigour and vividness.

> Latin: Eaque omnia distinctius numerosiusque fortassean dici potuerint, fortius atque vividius potuisse dici non videntur.

[¶6] It was therefore unfair of Tullius Tiro to single out from all the qualities of so rich a speech, apt in their connection with one another, a small and bare part to criticize, by asserting that it was not worthy of Marcus Cato to maintain that the mere desire for delinquencies that were not actually committed did not merit punishment.

> Latin: Inique igitur Tiro Tullius, quod ex omnibus facultatibus tam opulentae orationis, aptis inter sese et cohaerentibus, parvum quippiam nudumque sumpsit, quod obtrectaret tamquam non dignum M. Catone fuerit, quod delictorum non perpetratorum voluntates non censuerit poeniendas.

[¶7] But one will form a juster and more candid opinion of these words of mine, spoken in reply to Tullius Tiro, and judge accordingly, if one will take in hand Cato's own speech in its entirety, and will also take the trouble to look up and read the letter of Tiro to Axius. For then he will be able either to correct or confirm what I have said more truthfully and after fuller examination.

> Latin: Commodius autem rectiusque de his meis verbis, quibus Tullio Tironi respondimus, existimabit iudiciumque faciet, qui et orationem ipsam totam Catonis acceperit in manus et epistulam Tironis ad Axium scriptam requirere et legere curaverit. Ita enim nos sincerius exploratiusque vel corrigere poterit vel probare.

[¶8] 4. What sort of slaves Caelius Sabinus, the writer on civil law, said were commonly sold with caps on their heads, and why; and what chattels were sold under a crown in the days of our forefathers; and the meaning of that same expression “under a crown.” CAELIUS SABINUS, the jurist, has written that it was usual, when selling slaves, to put caps on those for whom the seller assumed no responsibility. He says that the reason for that custom was, that the law required that slaves of that kind be marked when offered for sale, in order that buyers might not err and be deceived; that it might not be necessary to wait for the bill of sale, but might be obvious at once what kind of slaves they were. “Just so,” he says, “in ancient times slaves taken by right of conquest were sold wearing garlands, and hence were said to be sold 'under a crown.' For as the crown was a sign that those who were being sold were captives, so a cap upon the head indicated that slaves were being sold for whom the seller gave the buyer no guarantee.” There is, however, another explanation of the reason for the common saying that captives were sold “under a crown” namely, because a guard of soldiers stood around the bands of prisoners that were offered for sale, and such a ring of soldiers was called corona. But that the reason which I first gave is the more probable one is made clear by Marcus Cato in the book which he wrote On Military Science. Cato's words are as follows “That the people may rather crown themselves and go to offer thanks for success gained through their own efforts than be crowned and sold because of ill-success.”

> Latin: 4. Cuiusmodi servos et quam ob causam Caelius Sabinus, iuris civilis auctor, pilleatos vendundarivenundari solitos scripserit; et quae mancipia sub corona more maiorum venierint; atque id ipsum “sub corona” quid sit. PILLEATOS servos venum solitos ire, quorum nomine venditor nihil praestaret, Caelius Sabinus iurisperitus scriptum reliquit. Cuius rei causam esse ait, quod eiusmodi condicionis mancipia insignia esse in vendundo deberent, ut emptores errare et capi non possent, neque lex vendundi opperienda esset, sed oculis iam praeciperent quodnam esset mancipiorum genus; “Sicuti,” inquit, “antiquitus mancipia iure belli capta coronis induta veniebant et idcirco dicebantur ‘sub corona’ venire. Namque ut ea corona signum erat captivorum venalium, ita pilleus impositus demonstrabat eiusmodi servos vendundarivenundari, quorum nomine emptori venditor nihil praestaret.” Est autem alia rationis opinio cur dici solitum sit captivos “sub corona” vendundarivenundari, quod milites custodiae causa captivorum venalium greges circumstarent eaque circumstatio militum “corona” appellata sit. Sed id magis verum esse quod supra dixi, M. Cato in libro quem composuit De Re militariMililari docet. Verba sunt haec Catonis: “Ut populus sua opera potius ob rem bene gestam coronatus supplicatum eat quam re male gesta coronatus veniat.”

[¶9] 5. A noteworthy story about the actor Polus. THERE was in the land of Greece an actor of wide reputation, who excelled all others in his clear delivery and graceful action. They say that his name was Polus, and he often acted the tragedies of famous poets with intelligence and dignity. This Polus lost by death a son whom he dearly loved. After he felt that he had indulged his grief sufficiently, he returned to the practice of his profession. At that time he was to act the Electra of Sophocles at Athens, and it was his part to carry an urn which was supposed to contain the ashes of Orestes. The plot of the play requires that Electra, who is represented as carrying her brother's remains, should lament and bewail the fate that she believed had overtaken him. Accordingly Polus, clad in the mourning garb of Electra, took from the tomb the ashes and urn of his son, embraced them as if they were those of Orestes, and filled the whole place, not with the appearance and imitation of sorrow, but with genuine grief and unfeigned lamentation. Therefore, while it seemed that a play was being acted, it was in fact real grief that was enacted.

> Latin: 5. Historia de Polo histrione memoratu digna. HISTRIO in terra Graecia fuit fama celebri, qui gestus et vocis claritudine et venustate ceteris antistabat; nomen fuisse aiunt Polum, tragoedias poetarum nobilium scite atque asseverate actitavit. Is Polus unice amatum filium morte amisit. Eum luctum quoniam satis visus est eluxisse, rediit ad quaestum artis. In eo tempore Athenis Electram Sophoclis acturus, gestare urnam quasi cum Oresti ossibus debebat. Ita compositum fabulae argumentum est, ut veluti fratris reliquias ferens Electra comploret commisereaturque interitum eius existimatum. Igitur Polus, lugubri habitu Electrae indutus, ossa atque urnam e sepulcro tulit filii et, quasi Oresti amplexus, opplevit omnia non simulacris neque imitamentis, sed luctu atque lamentis veris et spirantibus. Itaque cum agi fabula videretur, dolor actus est.

[¶10] 6. What Aristotle wrote of the congenital absence of some of the senses. NATURE has given five senses to living beings; sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, called by the Greeks ai)sqh/seis. Of these some animals lack one and some another, being born into the world blind, or without the sense of smell or hearing. But Aristotle asserts that no animal is born without the sense of taste or of touch. His own words, from the book which he wrote On Memory, are as follows: “Except for some imperfect animals, all have taste or touch.”

> Latin: 6. Quid de quorundam sensuum naturali defectione Aristoteles scripserit. Ex quinque his sensibus quos animantibus natura tribuit, visu, auditu, gustu, tactu, odoratu, quas Graeci αἰσθήσεις appellant, quaedam animalium alia alio carent et aut caeca natura gignuntur aut inodora inauritave. Nullum autem ullum gigni animal Aristoteles dicit, quod aut gustus sensu careat, aut tactus. Verba ex libro eius, quem Περὶ Μνήμης composuit, haec sunt:Τὴν δὲ ἁφὴν καὶ τὴν γεῦσιν πάντα ἔχει, πλὴν εἴ τι τῶν ζώων ἀτελές.

[¶11] 7. Whether affatim, like admodunm, should be pronounced with an acute accent on the first syllable; with some painstaking observations on the accents of other words. THE poet Annianus, in addition to his charming personality, was highly skilled in ancient literature and literary criticism, and conversed with remarkable grace and learning. He pronounced affalim, as he did admodum, with an acute accent on the first, and not on the medial, syllable; and he believed that the ancients so pronounced the word. He adds that in his hearing the grammarian Probus thus read the following lines of the Cistellaria of Plautus:
Canst do a valiant deed?—Enough (áffatim) there be
Who can. I've no desire to be called brave,
and he said that the reason for that accent was that affatim was not two parts of speech, but was made up of two parts that had united to form a single word; just as also in the word which we call exadversum he thought that the second syllable should have the acute accent, because the word was one part of speech, and not two. Accordingly, he maintained that the two following verses of Terence ought to be read thus:
Over against (exádversum) the school to which she went
A barber had his shop.
He added besides that the preposition ad was commonly accented when it indicated e)pi/tasis, or as we say, “emphasis,” as in ádfabre, ádmodum, and ádprobe. In all else, indeed, Annianus spoke aptly enough. But if he supposed that this particle was always accented when it denoted emphasis, that rule is obviously not without exceptions; for when we say adpotus, adprimus, and adprime, emphasis is evident in all those words, yet it is not at all proper to pronounce the particle ad with the acute accent. I must admit, however, that adprobus, which means “highly approved,” ought to be accented on the first syllable. Caecilius uses that word in his comedy entitled The Triumph:
Hierocles, my friend, is a most worthy (ádprobus) youth. In those words, then, which we say do not have the acute accent, is not this the reason—that the following syllable is longer by nature, and a long penult does not as a rule permit the accenting of the preceding syllable in words of more than two syllables? But Lucius Livius in his Odyssey uses ádprimus in the sense of “by far the first” in the following line:
And then the mighty hero, foremost of all (ádprimus), Patroclus. Livius in his Odyssey too pronounces praemodum like admodum; he says parcentes praemodum, which means “beyond measure merciful,” and praemodum is equivalent to praeter modum. And in this word, of course, the first syllable will have to have the acute accent.

> Latin: 7. An “affatim,” quasi “admodum,” prima acuta pronuntiandum sit; et quaedam itidem non incuriose tractata super aliarum vocum accentibus. ANNIANUS poeta praeter ingenii amoenitates litterarum quoque veterum et rationum in litteris oppido quam peritus fuit et sermocinabatur mira quadam et scita suavitate. Is “affatim,” ut “admodum,” prima acuta, non media, pronuntiabat atque ita veteres locutos censebat. Itaque se audiente Probum grammaticum hos versus in Plauti Cistellaria legisse dicit:
Pótine tu homo fácinus facere strénuum?—Aliorum áffatim est.
Qui faciant; sane égo me nolo fórtem perhiberi virum,
causamque esse huic accentui dicebat, quod “affatim” non essent duae partes orationis, sed utraque pars in unam vocem coaluisset, sicuti in eo quoque quod “exadversum” dicimus secundam syllabam debere acui existimabat, quoniam una, non duae essent partes orationis; atque ita oportere apud Terentium legi dicebat in his versibus:
In quo haéc discebat lúdo, exadversúm loco
Tostrina erat quaedam. Addebat etiam quod “ad” praeverbium tum ferme acueretur, cum significaret ἐπίτασιν, quam “intentionem” nos dicimus, sicut “adfabre” et “admodum” et “adprobe” dicuntur. Cetera quidem satis commode Annianus. Sed si hanc particulam semper, cum intentionem significaret, acui putavit, non id perpetuum videtur; nam et “adpotus” cum dicimus et “adprimus” et “adprime,” intentio in his omnibus demonstratur, neque tamen “ad” particula satis commode accentu acuto pronuntiatur. “Adprobus” tamen, quod significat “valde probus,” non infitias eo quin prima syllaba acui debeat. Caecilius in comoedia quae inscribitur Triumphus vocabulo isto utitur:
Hiérocles hospes ést mi adulescens ádprobus. Num igitur in istis vocibus quas non acui diximus, ea causa est, quod syllaba insequitur natura longior, quae non ferme patitur acui priorem in vocabulis syllabarum plurium quam duarum? “Adprimum” autem “longe primum” L. Livius in Odyssia dicit in hoc versu:
Ibidemque vir summus adprimus Patroclus. Idem Livius in Odyssia “praemodumpraenmodum” dicit, quasi “admodum”; “parcentes,” inquit, “praemodum,” quod significat “supra modum,” dictumque est quasi “praeter modum”; in quo scilicet prima syllaba acui debebit.

[¶12] 8. An incredible story about a dolphin which loved a boy. THAT dolphins are affectionate and amorous is shown, not only by ancient history, but also by tales of recent date. For in the sea of Puteoli, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, as Apion has written, and some centuries before at Naupactus, as Theophrastus tells us, dolphins are positively known to have been ardently in love. And they did not love those of their own kind, but had an extraordinary passion, like that of human beings, for boys of handsome figure, whom they chanced to have seen in boats or in the shoal waters near the shore. I have appended the words of that learned man Apion, from the fifth book of his Egyptian History, in which he tells of an amorous dolphin and a boy who did not reject its advances, of their intimacy and play with each other, the dolphin carrying the boy and the boy bestriding the fish; and Apion declares that of all this he himself and many others were eye-witnesses. “Now I myself,” he writes, “near Dicaearchia saw a dolphin that fell in love with a boy called Hyacinthus. For the fish with passionate eagerness came at his call, and drawing in his fins, to avoid wounding the delicate skin of the object of his affection, carried him as if mounted upon a horse for a distance of two hundred stadia. Rome and all Italy turned out to see a fish that was under the sway of Aphrodite.” To this he adds a detail that is no less wonderful. “Afterwards,” he says, “that same boy who was beloved by the dolphin fell sick and died. But the lover, when he had often come to the familiar shore, and the boy, who used to await his coming at the edge of the shoal water, was nowhere to be seen, pined away from longing and died. He was found lying on the shore by those who knew the story and was buried in the same tomb with his favourite.”

> Latin: 8. Res ultra fidem tradita super amatore delphino et puero amato. DelphinosDELPIIINOS venerios esse et amasios non modo historiae veteres, sed recentes quoque memoriae declarant. Nam et sub Caesare Augusto in Puteolano mari, ut Apion scriptum reliquit, et aliquot saeculis ante apud Naupactum, ut Theophrastus tradidit, amatores flagrantissimi delphinorum cogniti compertique sunt. Neque hi amaverunt quod sunt ipsi genus, sed pueros forma liberali in naviculis forte aut in vadis litorum conspectos miris et humanis modis arserunt. Verba subscripsi Ἀπίωνος, eruditi viri, ex Aegyptiacorum libro quinto, quibus delphini amantis et pueri non abhorrentis consuetudines, lusus, gestationes, aurigationes refert eaque omnia sese ipsum multosque alios vidisse dicit: Αὐτὸς δʼ περὶ Δικαιαρχίας εἶδον περὶ δικαιαρχίας παιδός —Ὑάκινθος ἐκαλεῖτο—πόθοις ἐπτοημένον δελφῖνα. Προσσαίνει τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν πτερούμενος ἐντὸς τάς τε ἀκάνθας ὑποστέλλων, μή τι τοῦ ποθουμένου χρωτὸς ἀμύξη φειδόμενος, ἱππηδόν τε περιβεβηκότα μέχρι διακοσίων ἀνῆγε σταδίων. ἐξεχεῖτο ἡ Ῥώμη καὶ πᾶσα Ἰταλία τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ξυνορῶντες ἡνιοχούμενον ἰχθύν. Ad hoc adicit rem non minus mirandam. “Postea,” inquit, “idem ille puer δελφι- νερώμενος morbo adfectus obit suum diem. At ille amans,” “ubi saepe ad litus solitum adnavit et puer, qui in primo vado adventum eius opperiri consueverat, nusquam fuit, desiderio tabuit exanimatusque est et in litore iacens inventus ab his qui rem cognoverant, in sui pueri sepulcro humatus est.”

[¶13] 9. That many early writers used peposci, memordi pepugi, spepondi and cecurri, and not, as was afterwards customary, forms with o or u in the first syllable, and that in so doing said that they followed Greek usage; that it has further been observed that men who were neither unlearned nor obscure made from the verb descendo, not descendi, but descendidi. POPOSCI, momordi, pupugi and cucurri seem to be the approved forms, and to-day they are used by almost all better-educated men. But Quintus Ennius in his Satires wrote memorderit with an e, and not momorderit, as follows:
'Tis not my way, as if a dog had bit me (memorderit).
So too Laberius in the Galli:
Now from my whole estate
A hundred thousand have I bitten off (memordi).
The same Laberius too in his Colorator:
And when, o'er slow fire cooked, I came beneath her teeth,
Twice, thrice she bit (memordit).
Also Publius Nigidius in his second book On Animals: “As when a serpent bites (memordit) one, a hen is split and placed upon the wound.” Likewise Plautus in the Aulularia:
How he the man did fleece (admemordii).
But Plautus again, in the Trigemini, said neither praememordisse nor praemomordisse, but praemorsisse, in the following line:
Had I not fled into your midst,
Methinks he'd bitten me (praemorsisset).
Atta too in the Conciliatrix says:
A bear, he says, bit him (memordisse).
Valerius Antias too, in the forty-fifth book of his Annals, has left on record peposci, not poposci in this passage: “Finally Licinius, tribune of the commons, charged him with high treason and asked (peposcit) from the praetor Marcus Marcius a day for holding the comitia.” In the same way Atta in the Aedilicia says:
But he will be afraid, if I do prick him (pepugero). Probus has noted that Aelius Tubero also, in his work dedicated to Gaius Oppius, wrote occecurrit, and he has quoted him as follows: “If the general form should present itself (occecurrerit).” Probus also observed that Valerius Antias in the twenty-second book of his Histories wrote speponderant, and he quotes his words as follows: “Tiberius Gracchus, who had been quaestor to Gaius Mancinus in Spain, and the others who had guaranteed (speponderant) peace.” Now the explanation of these forms might seem to be this: since the Greeks in one form of the past tense, which they call parakei/menon, or “perfect,” commonly change the second letter of the verb to e, as gra/fw ge/grafa, poiw= pepoi/hka, lalw= lela/lhka, kratw= kekra/thka, lou/w le/louka, so accordingly mordeo makes memordi, posco peposci, tendo tetendi, tango tetigi, pungo pepugi, curro cecurri, tollo tetuli, and spondeo spepondi. Thus Marcus Tullius and Gaius Caesar used mordeo memordi, pungo pepugi, spondeo spepondi. I find besides that from the verb scindo in the same way was made, not sciderat, but sciciderat. Lucius Accius in the first book of his Sotadici writes sciciderat. These are his words:
And had the eagle then, as these declare,
His bosom rent (sciciderat)?
Ennius too in his Melanippa says:
When the rock he shall split (sciciderit).
* * * * * Valerius Antias in the seventy-fifth book of his Histories wrote these words: “Then, having arranged for the funeral, he went down (descendidit) to the Forum.” Laberius too in the Catularius wrote thus:
I wondered how my breasts had fallen low (descendiderant).

> Latin: 9. “Peposci” et “memordi,” “pepugi” et “spepondi” et “cecurri” plerosque veterum dixisse, non, uti postea receptum est dicere, per a aut per u litteram in prima syllaba positam, atque id eos Graecae rationis exemplo dixisse; praeterea notatum quod viri non indocti neque ignobiles a verbo “descendo” non “descendi,” sed “descendidi” dixerunt. “POPOSCI,” “momordi,” “pupugi,” “cucurri” probabiliter dici videtur atque ita nunc omnesones ferme doctiores hisce verbis utuntur. Sed Q. Ennius in Saturis “memorderit” dixit per e litteram, non “momorderit:”
Meum (inquit) nón est, ac si mé canis memórderit. Item Laberius in Gallis:
De íntegro património meo céntum milia númmum
Memórdi. Item idem Laberius in Coloratore:
Itáque leni pruná percoctus símul sub dentes Múlieris
Veni, bis, ter memórdit. Item P. Nigidius De Animalibus libro II.: “Ut serpens si memordit, gallina diligitur et opponitur.” Item Plautus in Aulularia:
Ut ádmemordit hóminem. Sed idem Plautus in Trigeminis neque “praememordisse” neque “praemomordisse” dicit, sed “praemorsisse”:
Nisi fugissem (inquit) in médium, credo, praémorsisset. Item Atta in Conciliatrice:
Ursum sé memordisse aútumat. “Peposci” quoque, non “poposci,” Valerius Antias libro Annalium XLV. scriptum reliquit: “Denique Licinius tribunus plebi perduellionis ei diem dixit et comitiis diem a M. Marcio praetore peposcit.” “Pepugero” aeque Atta in Aedilicia dicit: Sed sí pepugero, métuet. Aelium quoque Tuberonem libro Ad C. Oppium scripto “occecurrit” dixisse, Probus adnotavit et haec eius verba apposuit: “Si generalis species occecurrerit.” Idem Probus Valerium Antiatem libro Historiarum XXII. “speponderant” scripsisse annotavit verbaque eius haec posuit: “Tiberius Gracchus, qui quaestor C. Mancino in Hispania fuerat, et ceteri qui pacem speponderant.” Ratio autem istarum dictionum haec esse videri potest: quoniam Graeci in quadam specie praeteriti temporis, quod παρακείμενον appellant, secundam verbi litteram in e plerumque vertunt, ut γράφω γέγραφα, ποιῶ πεποίηκα, λαλῶ λελάληκα, κρατῶ κεκράτηκα, λούω λέλουκα, sic igitur mordeo “memordi,” posco “peposci,” tendo “tetendi,” tango “tetigi,” pungo “pepugi,” curro “cecurri,” tollo “tetuli,” spondeo “spepondi” facit. Sic M. Tullius et C. Caesar “mordeo memordi,” “pungo pepugi,” “spondeo spepondi” dixerunt. Praeterea inveni, a verbo “scindo” simili ratione non “sciderat,” sed “sciciderat,” dictum esse. L. Accius in Sotadicorum libro I. “sciciderat” dicit. Verba haec sunt:
Num érgo aquila ita, ut hi praedicánt, sciciderat Péctus? Ennius quoque in Melanippa:
cum saxum scíciderit.
… Valerius Antias in libro Historiarum LXXV. verba haec scripsit: “Deinde funere locato ad forum descendidit.” Laberius quoque in Catulario ita scripsit:
égo mirabar, quómodo mammaemammal mihi
Déscendiderant … Ut “ususcapio” copulate recto vocabuli casu dicitur, ita “pignoriscapio” coniuncte eadem vocabuli forma dictum esse.

[¶14] 10. As ususcapio is treated as a compound noun in the nominative case, so pignoriscapio is taken together as one word in the same case. As ususcapio is treated as a compound word, in which the letter a is pronounced long, just so pignoriscapio was pronounced as one word with a long a. These are the words of Cato in the first book of his Epistolary Questions: “Pignoriscapio, resorted to because of military pay which a soldier ought to receive from the public paymaster, is a word by itself.” From this it is perfectly clear that one may say capio as if it were captio, in connection with both usus and pignus.

> Latin: 10. UT haec “ususcapio” dicitur copulato vocabulo, a littera in eo tractim pronuntiata, ita “pignoriscapio” iuncte et producte dicebatur. Verba Catonis sunt ex primo Epistolicarum Quaestionum: “Pignoriscapio ob aes militare, quod aes a tribuno aerario miles accipere debebat, vocabulum seorsum fit.” Per quod satis dilucet, hanc “capionem” posse dici, quasi hanc “captionem,” et in “usu” et in “pignore.”

[¶15] 11. That neither levitas nor nequitia has the meaning that is given to those words in ordinary conversation. I OBSERVE that levitas is now generally used to denote inconsistency and changeableness, and nequitia, in the sense of craftiness and cunning. But those of the men of early days who spoke properly and purely applied the term leves to those whom we now commonly call worthless and meriting no esteem. That is, they used levitas with precisely the force of vilitas, and applied the term nequam to a man of no importance nor worth, the sort of man that the Greeks usually call a)/swtos (beyond recovery) or a)ko/lastos(incorrigible). One who desires examples of these words need not resort to books that are very inaccessible, but he will find them in Marcus Tullius' second Oration against Antony. For when Cicero wished to indicate a kind of extreme sordidness in the life and conduct of Marcus Antonius, that he lurked in a tavern, that he drank deep until evening, and that he travelled with his face covered, so as not to be recognized— when he wished to give expression to these and similar charges against him, he said: “Just see the worthlessness (levitatem) of the man,” as if by that reproach he branded him with all those various marks of infamy which I have mentioned. But afterwards, when he had heaped upon the same Antony sundry other scornful and opprobrious charges, he finally added “O man of no worth (nequam)! for there is no term that I can use more fittingly.” But from that passage of Marcus Tullius I should like to add a somewhat longer extract: “Just see the worthlessness of the man! Having come to Saxa Rubra at about the tenth hour of the day, he lurked in a certain low tavern, and shutting himself up there drank deep until evening. Then riding swiftly to the city in a cab, he came to his home with covered face. The doorkeeper asked: 'Who are you?' 'The bearer of a letter from Marcus,' was the reply. He was at once taken to the lady on whose account he had come, and handed her the letter. While she read it with tears—for it was written in amorous terms and its main point was this: that hereafter he would have nothing to do with that actress, that he had cast aside all his love for her and transferred it to the reader—when the woman wept still more copiously, the compassionate man could not endure it; he uncovered his face and threw himself on her neck. O man of no worth!—for I can use no more fitting term; was it, then, that your wife might unexpectedly see you, when you had surprised her by appearing as her lover, that you upset the city with terror by night and Italy with dread for many days?” In a very similar way Quintus Claudius too, in the first book of his Annals, called a prodigal and wasteful life of luxury nequitia, using these words: “They persuade a young man from Lucania, who was born in a most exalted station, but had squandered great wealth in luxury and prodigality (nequitia).” Marcus Varro in his work On the Latin Language says: “Just as from non and volo we have nolo, so from ne and quicquam is formed nequam, with the loss of the medial syllable.” Publius Africanus, speaking In his own Defence against Tiberius Asellus in the matter of a fine, thus addressed the people: “All the evils, shameful deeds, and crimes that men commit come from two things, malice and profligacy (nequitia). Against which charge do you defend yourself, that of malice or profligacy, or both together? If you wish to defend yourself against the charge of profligacy, well and good; if you have squandered more money on one harlot than you reported for the census as the value of all the equipment of your Sabine estate; if this is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces? If you have wasted more than a third of your patrimony and spent it on your vices; if that is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces? You do not care to defend yourself against the charge of profligacy; at least refute the charge of malice. If you have sworn falsely in set terms knowingly and deliberately; if this is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces?”

> Latin: 11. Neque “levitatem” neque “nequitiam” ea significatione esse qua in vulgi sermonibus dicuntur. “LEVITATEM” plerumque nunc pro inconstantia et mutabilitate dici audio et “nequitiam” pro sollertia astutiaque. Sed veterum hominum qui proprie atque integre locuti sunt “leves” dixerunt, quos vulgo nunc viles et nullo honore dignos dicimus, et “levitatem” appellaverunt proinde quasi “vilitatem” et “nequam” hominem nihili rei neque frugis bonae, quod genus Graeci fere ἄσωτον vel ἀκόλαστον dicunt. Qui exempla horum verborum requirit, ne in libris nimium remotis quaerat, inveniet ea in M. Tullii secunda Antonianarum. Nam cum genus quoddam sordidissimum vitae atque victus M. Antoni demonstraturus esset, quod in caupona delitisceret, quod ad vesperum perpotaret, quod ore involuto iter faceret ne cognosceretur, haec aliaque eiusdemmodi cum in eum dicturus esset: “Videte,” inquit, “hominis levitatem,” tamquam prorsus ista dedecora hoc convicio in homine notarentur. At postea, cum in eundem Antonium probra quaedam alia ludibriosa et turpia ingessisset, ad extremum hoc addidit: “O hominem nequam! nihil enim magis proprie possum dicere.” Sed ex eo loco M. Tullii verba compluscula libuit ponere: “At videte levitatem hominis! Cum hora diei decima fere ad Saxa Rubra venisset, delituit in quadam cauponula atque ibi se occultans perpotavit ad vesperum; inde cisio celeriter ad urbem advectus, domum venit ore involuto. Ianitor rogat: ‘Quis tu?’ ‘A Marco tabellarius.’ Confestim ad eam cuius causa venerat deducitur eique epistulam tradit. Quam illa cum legeret flens— erat enim scripta amatorie, caput autem litterarum hoc erat: sibi cum illa mima posthac nihil futurum, omnem se amorem abiecisse illim atque in hanc transfudisse— cum mulier fleret uberius, homo misericors ferre non potuit: caput aperuit, in collum invasit. O hominem nequam!—nihil enim magis proprie possum dicere; ergo ut te catamitum nec opinato cum ostendisses, praeter spem mulier aspiceret, idcirco urbem terrore nocturno, Italiam multorum dierum metu perturbasti?” Consimiliter Q. quoque Claudius in primo Annalium “nequitiam” appellavit luxum vitae prodigum effusumque in hisce verbis: “Persuadent i cuidam adulescenti Lucano, qui adprime summo genere gnatus erat, sed luxuria et nequitia pecuniam magnam consumpserat.” M. Varro in libris De Lingua Latina, “Ut ex ‘non’ et ex ‘volo,’” inquit, “‘nolo,’ sic ex ‘ne’ et ‘quicquam,’ media syllaba extrita, compositum est ‘nequam.’” P. Africanus Pro se contra Tiberium Asellum de multa ad populum: “Omnia mala, probra, flagitia, quae homines faciunt, in duabus rebus sunt, malitia atque nequitia. Utrum defendis, malitiam an nequitiam an utrumque simul? Si nequitiam defendere vis, licet; si tu in uno scorto maiorem pecuniam absumpsisti quam quanti omne instrumentum fundi Sabini in censum dedicavisti; si hoc ita est, qui spondet mille nummum? si tu plus tertia parte pecuniae paternae perdidisti atque absumpsisti in flagitiis; si hoc ita est, qui spondet mille nummum? Non vis nequitiam. Age malitiam saltem defende. Si tu verbis conceptis coniuravisti sciens sciente animo tuo; si hoc ita est, qui spondet mille nummum?”

[¶16] 12. Of the tunics called chiridotae; that Publius Africanus reproved Sulpicius Gallus for wearing them. FOR a man to wear tunics coming below the arms and as far as the wrists, and almost to the fingers, was considered unbecoming in Rome and in all Latium. Such tunics our countrymen called by the Greek name chiridotae (long-sleeved), and they thought that a long and full-flowing garment was not unbecoming for women only, to hide their arms and legs from sight. But Roman men at first wore the toga alone without tunics; later, they had close, short tunics ending below the shoulders, the kind which the Greeks call e)cwmi/des (sleeveless). Habituated to this older fashion, Publius Africanus, son of Paulus, a man gifted with all worthy arts and every virtue, among many other things with which he reproached Publius Sulpicius Gallus, an effeminate man, included this also, that he wore tunics which covered his whole hands. Scipio's words are these: “For one who daily perfumes himself and dresses before a mirror, whose eyebrows are trimmed, who walks abroad with beard plucked out and thighs made smooth, who at banquets, though a young man, has reclined in a long-sleeved tunic on the inner side of the couch with a lover, who is fond not only of wine but of men—does anyone doubt that he does what wantons commonly do?” Virgil too attacks tunics of this kind as effeminate and shameful, saying:
Sleeves have their tunics, and their turbans, ribbons. Quintus Ennius also seems to have spoken not without scorn of “the tunic-clad men” of the Carthaginians.

> Latin: 12. De tunicis chiridotis; quod earum usum P. Africanus Sulpicio Gallo obiecit TUNICIS uti virum prolixis ultra brachia et usque in primores manus ac prope in digitos, Romae atque in omni Latio indecorum fuit. Eas tunicas Graeco vocabulo nostri “chiridotas” appellaverunt feminisque solis vestem longe lateque diffusam non indecere existimaverunt ad ulnas cruraque adversus oculos protegenda. Viri autem Romani primo quidem sine tunicis toga sola amicti fuerunt; postea substrictas et breves tunicas citra umerum desinentis habebant, quod genus Graeci dicunt ἐξωμίδας. Hac antiquitate indutus P. Africanus, Pauli filius, vir omnibus bonis artibus atque omni virtute praeditus, P. Sulpicio Gallo, homini delicate, inter pleraque alia, quae obiectabat, id quoque probro dedit, quod tunicis uteretur manus totas operientibus. Verba sunt haec Scipionis: “Nam qui cotidie unguentatus adversum speculum ornetur, cuius supercilia radantur, qui barba vulsa feminibusque subvulsis ambulet, qui in conviviis adulescentulus cum amatore, cum chiridota tunica interior accubuerit, qui non modo vinosus, sed virosus quoque sit, eumne quisquam dubitet, quin idem fecerit quod cinaedi facere solent?” Vergilius quoque tunicas huiuscemodi quasi femineas, probrosas criminatur:
Et tunicae (inquit) manicas et habent redimicula mitrae. Q. quoque Ennius Carthaginiensium “tunicatam iuventuten” non videtur sine probro dixisse.

## 16. Book VI · chapters 13–22

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/16/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/16/#p-N

[¶0] 13. Whom Marcus Cato calls classici or “belonging to a class,” and whom infra classem or “below class.” NOT all those men who were enrolled in the five classes were called classici, but only the men of the first class, who were rated at a hundred and twenty-five thousand asses or more. But those of the second class and of all the other classes, who were rated at a smaller sum than that which I just mentioned, were called infra classes. I have briefly noted this, because in connection with the speech of Marcus Cato In Support of the Voconian Law the question is often raised, what is meant by classicus and what by infra classem.

> Latin: 13. Quem “classicum” dicat M. Cato, quem “infra classem.” “CLASSICI” dicebantur non omnes qui in quinque classibus erant, sed primae tantum classis homines, qui centum et viginti quinque milia aeris ampliusve censi erant. “Infra classes” autem appellabantur secundae classis ceterarumque omnium classium, qui minore summa aeris, quam quod supra dixi, censebantur. Hoc eo strictim notavi, quoniam in M. Catonis oratione, Qua Voconiam legem suasit, quaeri solet quid sit “classicus,” quid “infra classem.”

[¶1] 14. Of the three literary styles; and of the three philosophers who were sent as envoys by the Athenians to the senate at Rome. BOTH in verse and in prose there are three approved styles, which the Greeks call xarakth=res and to which they have given the names of a(dro/s, i)sxno/s and me/sos. We also call the one which I put first “grand,” the second “plain,” and the third “middle.” The grand style possesses dignity and richness, the plain, grace and elegance; the middle lies on the border line and partakes of the qualities of both. To each of these excellent styles there are related an equal number of faulty ones, arising from unsuccessful attempts to imitate their manner and character. Thus very often pompous and bombastic speakers lay claim to the grand style, the mean and bald to the plain, and the unclear and ambiguous to the middle. But true and genuine Latin examples of these styles are said by Marcus Varro to be: Pacuvius of the grand style, Lucilius of the plain, and Terence of the middle. But in early days these same three styles of speaking were exemplified in three men by Homer: the grand and rich in Ulysses, the elegant and restrained in Menelaus, the middle and moderate in Nestor. This threefold variety is also to be observed in the three philosophers whom the Athenians sent as envoys to the senate at Rome, to persuade the senators to remit the fine which they had imposed upon the Athenians because of the sack of Oropos; and the fine amounted to nearly five hundred talents. The philosophers in question were Carneades of the Academy, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic. When they were admitted to the House, they made use of Gaius Acilius, one of the senators, as interpreter; but beforehand each one of them separately, for the purpose of exhibiting his eloquence, lectured to a large company. Rutilius and Polybius declare that all three aroused admiration for their oratory, each in his own style. “Carneades,” they say, “spoke with a vehemence that carried you away, Critolaus with art and polish, Diogenes with restraint and sobriety.” Each of these styles, as I have said, is more brilliant when it is chastely and moderately adorned; when it is rouged and be powdered, it becomes mere jugglery.

> Latin: 14. De tribus dicendi generibus; ac de tribus philosophis qui ab Atheniensibus ad senatum Romam legati missi sunt. ET in carmine et in soluta oratione genera dicendi probabilia sunt tria, quae Graeci χαρακτῆρας vocant nominaque eis fecerunt ἁδρόν, ἰσχνόν, μέσον. Nos quoque (quem primum posuimus “uberem” vocamus, secundum “gracilem,” tertium “mediocrem.” Uberi dignitas atque amplitudo est, gracili venustas et subtilitas, medius in confinio est utriusque modi particeps. His singulis orationis virtutibus vitia agnata sunt pari numero, quae earum modum et habitum simulacris falsis ementiuntur. Sic plerumque sufflati atque tumidi fallunt pro uberibus, squalentes et ieiunidici pro gracilibus, incerti et ambigui pro mediocribus. Vera autem et propria huiuscemodihuitscemodi formarum exempla in Latina lingua M. Varro esse dicit ubertatis Pacuvium, gracilitatis Lucilium, mediocritatis Terentium. Sed ea ipsa genera dicendi iam antiquitus tradita ab Homero sunt tria in tribus: magnificum in Ulixe et ubertum, subtile in Menelao et cohibitum, mixtum moderatumque in Nestore. Animadversa eadem tripertita varietas est in tribus philosophis quos Athenienses Romam ad senatum legaverant, inpetratum uti multam remitteret, quam fecerat is propter Oropi vastationem. Ea multa fuerat talentum fere quingentum. Erant isti philosophi Carneades ex Academia, Diogenes Stoicus. Critolaus Peripateticus. Et in senatum quidem introducti interprete usi sunt C. Acilio senatore; sed ante ipsi seorsum quisque ostentandi gratia magno conventu hominum dissertaverunt. Tum admirationi fuisse aiunt Rutilius et Polybius philosophorum trium sui cuiusque generis facundiam. “Violenta,” inquiunt, “et rapida Carneades dicebat, scita et teretia Critolaus, modesta Diogenes et sobria.” Unumquodque autem genus, ut diximus, cum caste pudiceque ornatur, fit illustrius, cum fucatur atque praelinitur, fit praestigiosum.

[¶2] 15. How severely thieves were punished by the laws of our forefathers; and whit Mucius Scaevola wrote about that which is given or entrusted to anyone's care. LABEO, in his second book On the Twelve Tables, wrote that cruel and severe judgments were passed upon theft in early times, and that Brutus used to say that a man was pronounced guilty of theft who had merely led an animal to another place than the one where he had been given the privilege of using it, as well as one who had driven it farther than he had bargained to do. Accordingly, Quintus Scaevola, in the sixteenth book of his work On the Civil Law, wrote these words: “If anyone has used something that was entrusted to his care, or having borrowed anything to use, has applied it to another purpose than that for which he borrowed it, he is liable for theft.”

> Latin: 15. Quam severe moribus maiorum in fares vindicatum sit; et quid scripserit Mucius Scaevola super eo quod servandum datum commodatumve esset. LABEO in libro De Duodecim Tabulis secundo acria et severaseveral iudicia de furtis habita esse apud veteres scripsit, idque Brutum solitum dicere, et furti damnatum esse qui iumentum aliorsum duxerat quam quo utendum acceperat, item qui longius produxerat quam in quem locum petierat. Itaque Q. Scaevola, in librorum quos De iurelure Civili composuit XVI., verba haec posuit: “Quod cui servandum datum est, si id usus est, sive quod utendum accepit, ad aliam rem atque accepit usus est, furti se obligavit.”

[¶3] 16. A passage about foreign varieties of food, copied from the satire of Marcus Varro entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn, or On Edibles; and with it some verses of Euripides, in which he assails the extravagant gluttony of luxurious men. MARCUS VARRO, in the satire which he entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn, in verses written with great charm and cleverness, treats of exquisite elegance in banquets and viands. For he has set forth and described in senarii the greater number of things of that kind which such gluttons seek out on land and sea. As for the verses themselves, he who has leisure may find and read them in the book which I have mentioned. So far as my memory goes, these are the varieties and names of the foods surpassing all others, which a bottomless gullet has hunted out and which Varro has assailed in his satire, with the places where they are found: a peacock from Samos, a woodcock from Phrygia, cranes of Media, a kid from Ambracia, a young tunny from Chalcedon, a lamprey from Tartessus, codfish from Pessinus, oysters from Tarentum, cockles from Sicily, a swordfish from Rhodes pike from Cilicia, nuts from Thasos, dates from Egypt, acorns from Spain. But this tireless gluttony, which is ever wandering about and seeking for flavours, and this eager quest of dainties from all quarters, we shall consider deserving of the greater detestation, if we recall the verses of Euripides of which the philosopher Chrysippus made frequent use, to the effect that gastronomic delicacies were contrived, not because of the necessary uses of life, but because of a spirit of luxury that disdains what is easily attainable because of the immoderate wantonness that springs from satiety. I have thought that I ought to append the verses of Euripides:
What things do mortals need, save two alone,
The fruits of Ceres and the cooling spring,
Which are at hand and made to nourish us?
With this abundance we are not content,
But hunt out other foods through luxury.

> Latin: 16. Locus exscriptus ex satura M. Varronis, quae Περὶ Ἐδεσμάτων inscripta est, de peregrinis ciborum generibus; et appositi versus Euripidi, quibus delicatorum hominum luxuriantem gulam confutavit. M. VARRO, in satura quam Περὶ Ἐδεσμάτων inscripsit, lepide admodum et scite factis versibus cenarum, ciborum exquisitas delicias comprehendit. Nam pleraque id genus, quae helluones isti terra et mari conquirunt, exposuit inclusitque in numeros senarios. Et ipsos quidem versus, cui otium erit in libro quo dixi positos legat; genera autem nominaque edulium et domicilia ciborum omnibus aliis praestantia, quae profunda ingluvies vestigavit, quae Varro obprobrans exsecutus est, haec sunt ferme, quantum nobis memoriae est pavus e Samo, Phrygia attagena, grues Melicae, haedus ex Ambracia, pelamys Chalcedonia, muraena Tartesia, aselli Pessinuntii, ostrea Tarenti, pectunculus Siculus, helops RhodiusRodius, scari Cilices, nuces Thasiae, palma Aegyptia, glans Hiberica. Hanc autem peragrantis gulae et in sucos inquirentis industriam atque has undiquevorsum indagines cuppediarum maiore detestatione dignas censebimus, si versus Euripidi recordemur, quibus saepissime Chrysippus philosophus usus, tamquam ἡδυπαθείας edendi repertas esse, non per usum vitae necessarium, sed per luxum animi parata atque facilia fastidientis per inprobam satietatis lasciviam. Versus Euripidi adscribendos putavi:
Ἐπεὶ τί δεῖ βροτοῖσι, πλὴν δυεῖν μόνον,
Δήμητρος ἀκτῆς, πώματός θʼ ὑδρηχόου,
Ἅπερ πάρεστι καὶ πεφυχʼ ἡμᾶς τρέφειν;
Ὧν οὐκ ἀπαρκεῖ πλησμονή. Τρυφῇ δέ τοι
Ἄλλων ἐδεστῶν μηχανὰς θηρώμεθα.

[¶4] 17. A conversation held with a grammarian, who was full of insolence and ignorance, as to the meaning of the word obnoxius; and of the origin of that word. I INQUIRED at Rome of a certain grammarian who had the highest repute as a teacher, not indeed for the sake of trying or testing him, but rather from an eager desire for knowledge, what obnoxius meant and what was the origin and history of the word. And he, looking at me and ridiculing what he considered the insignificance and unfitness of the query, said: “Truly a difficult question is this that you ask, one demanding very many sleepless nights of investigation! Who, pray, is so ignorant of the Latin tongue as not to know that one is called obnoxius who can be inconvenienced or injured by another, to whom he is said to be obnoxius because the other is conscious of his noxa, that is to say, of his guilt? Why not rather,” said he, “drop these trifles and put questions worthy of study and discussion?” Then indeed I was angry, but thinking that I ought to dissemble, since I was dealing with a fool, I said;
If, most learned sir, I need to learn and to know other things that are more abstruse and more important, when the occasion arises I shall inquire and learn them from you; but inasmuch as I have often used the word obnoxious without knowing what I was saying, I have learned from you and am now beginning to understand what not I alone, as you seem to think, was ignorant of; for as a matter of fact, Plautus too, though a man of the first rank in his use of the Latin language and in elegance of diction, did not know the meaning of obnoxius. For there is a passage of his in the Stichus which reads as follows:
By Heaven! I now am utterly undone,
Not only partly so (non obnoxie).
This does not in the least agree with what you have taught me; for Plautus contrasted plane and obnoxie as two opposites, which is far removed from your meaning. But that grammarian retorted foolishly enough, as if obnoxius and obnoxie differed, not merely in form, but in their substance and meaning: “I gave a definition of obnoxins, not obnoxie.” But then I, amazed at the ignorance of the presumptuous fellow, answered:
Let us, as you wish, disregard the fact that Plautus said obnoxie, if you think that too far-fetched; and let us also say nothing of the passage in Sallust's Catiline: 'Also to threaten her with his sword, if she would not be submissive (obnoxia) to him'; but explain to me this example, which is certainly more recent and more familiar. For the following verses of Virgil's are very well known:
For now the stars' bright sheen is seen undimmed.
The rising Moon owes naught (nec.. obnoxia) to brother's rays;
but you say that it means 'conscious of her guilt.' In another place too Virgil uses this word with a meaning different from yours, in these lines:
What joy the fields to view
That owe no debt (non obnoxia) to hoe or care of man.
for care is generally a benefit to fields, not an injury, as it would be according to your definition of obnoxius. Furthermore, how can what Quintus Ennius writes in the following verses from the Phoenix agree with you:
'Tis meet a man should live inspired by courage true,
In conscious innocence should boldly challenge foes.
True freedom his who bears a pure and steadfast heart,
All else less import has (obnoxiosae) and lurks in gloomy night? But our grammarian, with open mouth as if in a dream, said: “Just now I have no time to spare. When I have leisure, come to see me and learn what Virgil, Plautus, Sallust and Ennius meant by that word.” So saying that fool made off; but in case anyone should wish to investigate, not only the origin of this word, but also its variety of meaning, in order that he may take into consideration this Plautine use also, I have quoted the following lines from the Asinaria:
He'll join with me and hatch the biggest jubilee,
Stuff'd with most joy, for son and father too.
For life they both shall be in debt (obnoxii) to both of us,
By our services fast bound. Now, in the definition which that grammarian gave, he seems in a word of such manifold content to have noted only one of its uses—a use, it is true, which agrees with that of Caecilius in these verses of the Chrysium:
Although I come to you attracted by your pay,
Don't think that I for that am subject to your will (tibi... obnoxium);
If you speak ill of me, you'll hear a like reply.

> Latin: 17. Sermo habitus cum grammatico insolentiarum et inperitiarum pleno de significatione vocabuli quod est “obnoxius”; deque eius vocis origine. PERCONTABAR Romae quempiam grammaticum primae in docendo celebritatis, non hercle experiundi vel temptandi gratia, sed discendi magis studio et cupidine, quid significaret “obnoxius” quaeque eius vocabuli origo ac ratio esset. Atque ille aspicit me, inludens levitatem quaestionis pravitatemque: “Obscuram,” inquit, “sane rem quaeris multaque prorsus vigilia indagandam!” “Quis adeo tam linguae Latinae ignarus est, quin sciat eum dici ‘obnoxium’ cui quid ab eo cui esse ‘obnoxius’ dicitur incommodari et noceri potest, ut qui habeat aliquem noxae, id est culpae suae, conscium? Quin potius,” inquit, “haec mittis nugalia et affers ea quae digna quaeri tractarique sint?” Tum vero ego permotus, agendum iam oblique, ut cum homine stulto, existimavi et “Cetera,” inquam, “vir doctissime, remotiora gravioraque si discere et scire debuero, quando mihi usus venerit, tum quaeram ex te atque discam; sed enim quia dixi saepe ‘obnoxius’ et quid dicerem nescivi, didici ex te et scire nunc coepi quod non ego omnium solus, ut tibi sum visus, ignoravi, sed, ut res est, Plautus quoque, homo linguae atque elegantiae in verbis Latinae princeps, quid esset ‘obnoxius’ nescivit; versus enim est in Sticho illius ita. scriptus:
nuncNune ego hercle perii pláne, non obnóxie,
quod minime congruit cum ista, quam me docuisti, significatione; composuit enim Plautus tamquam duo inter se contraria ‘plane’ et ‘obnoxie,’ quod a tua significatione longe abest.” Atque ille grammaticus satis ridicule, quasi “obnoxius” et “obnoxie” non declinatione sola, sed re atque sententia differrent, “Ego,” inquit, “dixi quid esset ‘obnoxius,’ non quid ‘obnoxie.’” At tunc ego admirans insolentis hominis inscitiam, “Mittamus,” inquam, “sicuti vis, quod Plautus ‘obnoxie’ dixit, si id nimis esse remotum putas,” “atque illud quoque praetermittamus, quod Sallustius in Catilina scribit:” “‘Minari etiam ferro, ni sibi obnoxia foret,’ et quod videtur novius pervulgatiusque esse, id me doce. Versus enim Vergilii sunt notissimi:
Nam neque tunc astris acies obtunsa videri,
Nec fratris radiis obnoxia surgere luna,” “quod tu ais ‘culpae suae conscium.’ Alio quoque loco Vergilius verbo isto utitur a tua sententia diverse in his versibus:
iuvat arva videre
Non rastris hominum, non ulli obnoxia curae;
cura enim prodesse arvis solet, non nocere, quod tu de ‘obnoxio’ dixisti.” “Iam vero illud etiam Q. Enni quo pacto congruere tecum potest, quod scribit in Phoenice in hisce versibus:
Séd virum verá virtute vívere animatum áddecet,
Fórtiterque innóxium stare ádversum adversários.
Éa libertas ést, qui pectus púrum et firmum géstitat,
Áaliaeliae res obnóxiosae nócte in obscurá latent?” At ille oscitans et alucinanti similis: “Nunc,” inquit, “mihi operae non est. Cum otium erit, revises ad me atque disces quid in verbo isto et Vergilius et Sallustius et Plautus et Ennius senserint.” At nebulo quidem ille, ubi hoc dixit, digressus est; si quis autem volet non originem solam verbi istius, sed significationem quoque eius varietatemque recensere, ut hoc etiam Plautinum spectet, adscripsi versus ex Asinaria:
Máximas opímitates gaúdio effertíssimas
Súis eris ille úna mecum páriet gnatoque ét patri;
Ádeo ut aetatem ámbo ambobus nóbis sint obnóxii
Nóstro devincti beneficio. Qua vero ille grammaticus finitione usus est, ea videtur in verbo tam multiplici unam tantummodo usurpationem eius notasse, quae quidem congruit cum significatu quo Caecilius usus est in Chrysio in his versibus:
quamquam ego mercéde huchue conductús tua
Advénio, ne tibi me ésse ob eam rem obnóxium
Reáre; audibis mále, si maledicís mihi.

[¶5] 18. On the strict observance by the Romans of the sanctity of an oath; and also the story of the ten prisoners whom Hannibal sent to Rome under oath. AN oath was regarded and kept by the Romans as something inviolable and sacred. This is evident from many of their customs and laws, and this tale which I shall tell may be regarded as no slight support of the truth of the statement. After the battle of Cannae Hannibal, commander of the Carthaginians, selected ten Roman prisoners and sent them to the city, instructing them and agreeing that, if it seemed good to the Roman people, there should be an exchange of prisoners, and that for each captive that one side should receive in excess of the other side, there should be paid a pound and a half of silver. Before they left, he compelled them to take oath that they would return to the Punic camp, if the Romans would not agree to an exchange. The ten captives come to Rome. They deliver the message of the Punic commander in the senate. The senate refused an exchange. The parents, kinsfolk and connexions of the prisoners amid embraces declared that they had returned to their native land in accordance with the law of postliminium, and that their condition of independence was complete and inviolate; they therefore besought them not to think of returning to the enemy. Then eight of their number rejoined that they had no just right of postliminium, since they were bound by an oath, and they at once went back to Hannibal, as they had sworn to do. The other two remained in Rome, declaring that they had been released and freed from their obligation because, after leaving the enemy's camp, they had returned to it as if for some chance reason, but really with intent to deceive, and having thus kept the letter of the oath, they had come away again unsworn. This dishonourable cleverness of theirs was considered so shameful, that they were generally despised and reprobated; and later the censors punished them with all possible fines and marks of disgrace, on the ground that they had not done what they had sworn to do. Furthermore Cornelius Nepos, in the fifth book of his Examples has recorded also that many of the senators recommended that those who refused to return should be sent to Hannibal under guard, but that the motion was defeated by a majority of dissentients. He adds that, in spite of this, those who had not returned to Hannibal were so infamous and hated that they became tired of life and committed suicide.

> Latin: 18. De observata custoditaque apud Romanos iurisiurandi sanctimonia; atque inibi de decem captivis, quos Romam Hannibal deiurio ab his accepto legavit. IUSIURANDUM apud Romanos inviolate sancteque habitum servatumque est. Id et moribus legibusque multis ostenditur, et hoc, quod dicemus, ei rei non tenue argumentum esse potest. Post proelium Cannense Hannibal, Carthaginiensium imperator, ex captivis nostris electos decem Romam misit mandavitque eis pactusque est, ut, si populo Romano videretur, permutatio fieret captivorum et pro his quos alteri plures acciperent, darent argenti pondo libram et selibram. Hoc, priusquam proficiscerentur, iusiurandum eos adegit, redituros esse in castra Poenica, si Romani captivos non permutarent. Veniunt Romam decem captivi. Mandatum Poeni imperatoris in senatu exponunt. Permutatio senatui non placita. Parentes, cognati adfinesque captivorum amplexi eos postliminio in patriam redisse dicebant statumque eorum integrum incolumemque esse, ac ne ad hostes redire vellent orabant. Tum octo ex his postliminium iustum non esse sibi responderunt, quoniam deiurio vincti forent, statimque, uti iurati erant, ad Hannibalem profecti sunt. Duo reliqui Romae manserunt solutosque esse se ac liberator religione dicebant, quoniam, cum egressi castra hostium fuissent, commenticio consilio regressi eodem, tamquam si ob aliquam fortuitam causam, issent atque ita iureiurando satisfacto rursum iniurati abissent. Haec eorum fraudulenta calliditas tam esse turpis existimata est, ut contempti vulgo discerptique sint censoresque eos postea omnium notarum et damnis et ignominiis adfecerint, quoniam quod facturos deieraverant non fecissent. Cornelius autem Nepos in libro Exemplorum quinto id quoque litteris mandavit, multis in senatu placuisse ut hi qui redire nollent, datis custodibus, ad Hannibalem deducerentur, sed eamcam sententiam numero plurium quibus id non videretur superatam; eos tamen qui ad Hannibalem non redissent usque adeo intestabiles invisosque fuisse, ut taedium vitae ceperint necemque sibi consciverint.

[¶6] 19. A story, taken from the annals, about Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the commons and father of the Gracchi; and also an exact quotation of the decrees of the tribunes. A FINE, noble and generous action of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus is recorded in the Examples. It runs as follows: Gaius Minucius Augurinus, tribune of the commons, imposed a fine on Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, brother of Scipio Africanus the elder, and demanded that he should give security for its payment. Scipio Africanus appealed to the college of tribunes on behalf of his brother, asking them to defend against the violent measures of their colleague a man who had been consul and had celebrated a triumph. Having heard the case, eight of the tribunes rendered a decision. The words of their decree, which I have quoted, are taken from the records of the annals: “Whereas Publius Scipio Africanus has asked us to protect his brother, Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, against the violent measures of one of our colleagues, in that, contrary to the laws and the customs of our forefathers, that tribune of the commons, having illegally convened an assembly without consulting the auspices, pronounced sentence upon him and imposed an unprecedented fine, and compels him to furnish security for its payment, or if he does not do so, orders that he be imprisoned; and whereas, on the other hand, our colleague has demanded that we should not interfere with him in the exercise of his legal authority—our unanimous decision in this matter is as follows: If Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus will furnish security in accordance with the decision of our colleague, we will forbid our colleague to take him to prison; but if he shall not furnish the securities in accordance with our colleague's decision, we will not interfere with our colleague in the exercise of his lawful authority.” After this decree, Lucius Scipio refused to give security and the tribune Augurinus ordered him to be arrested and taken to prison. Thereupon Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, one of the tribunes of the commons and father of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, although he was a bitter personal enemy of Publius Scipio Africanus because of numerous disagreements on political questions, publicly made oath that he had not been reconciled with Publius Africanus nor become his friend, and then read a decree which he had written out. That decree ran as follows: “Whereas Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, during the celebration of a triumph, cast the leaders of the enemy into prison, it seems contrary to the dignity of our country that the Roman people's commander should be consigned to the same place to which he had committed the leaders of the enemy; therefore I forbid my colleague to take violent measures towards Lucius Scipio Asiaticus.” But Valerius Antias, contradicting this record of the decrees and the testimony of the ancient annals, has said that it was after the death of Africanus that Tiberius Gracchus interposed that veto in behalf of Scipio Asiaticus; also that Scipio was not fined, but that being convicted of embezzlement of the money taken from Antiochus and refusing to give bail, was just being taken to prison when he was saved by this veto of Gracchus.

> Latin: 19. Historia ex annalibus sumpta de Tiberio Graccho, Gracchorum patre, tribuno plebis; atque inibi tribunicia decreta cum ipsis verbis relata. PULCRUM atque liberale atque magnanimum factum Tiberii Sempronii Gracchi in Exemplis repositum est. Id exemplum huiuscemodi est: L. Scipioni Asiatico, P. Scipionis Africani superioris fratri, C. Minucius Augurinus tribunus plebi multam irrogavit eumque ob eam causam praedes poscebat. Scipio Africanus fratris nomine ad collegium tribunorum provocabat, petebatque ut virum consularem triumphalemque a collegae vi defenderent. Octo tribuni cognita causa decreverunt. Eius decreti verba, quae posui, ex annalium monumentis exscripta sunt: “Quod P. Scipio Africanus postulavit pro L. Scipione Asiatico fratre, cum contra leges contraque morem maiorum tribunus pl. hominibus accitis per vim inauspicato sententiam de eo tulerit multamque nullo exemplo irrogaverit praedesque eum ob eam rem dare cogat aut, si non det, in vincula duci iubeat, ut eum a collegae vi prohibeamus. Et quod contra collega postulavit ne sibi intercedamus quominus suapte potestate uti liceat, de ea re nostrum sententia omnium ea est: Si L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus collegae arbitratu praedes dabit, collegae ne eum in vincula ducat intercedemus; si eius arbitratu praedes non dabit, quominus collega sua potestate utatur non intercedemus.” Post hoc decretum cum Augurinus tribunus L. Scipionem praedes non dantem prendi et in carcerem duci iussisset, tunc Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus tr. pl., pater Tiberi atque C. Gracchorum, cum P. Scipioni Africano inimicus gravis ob plerasque in republica dissensiones esset, iuravit palam in amicitiam inque gratiam se cum P. Africano non redisse, atque ita decretum ex tabula recitavit. Eius decreti verba haec sunt: “Cum L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus triumphans hostium duces in carcerem coniectarit, alienum videtur esse dignitate reipublicae, in eum locum imperatorem populi Romani duci, in quem locum ab eo coniecti sunt duces hostium; itaque L. Cornelium Scipionem Asiaticum a collegae vi prohibeo.” Valerius autem Antias contra hanc decretorum memoriam contraque auctoritates veterum annalium post Africani mortem intercessionem istam pro Scipione Asiatico factam esse a Tiberio Graccho dixit, neque multam irrogatam Scipioni, sed damnatum eum peculatus ob Antiochinam pecuniam, quia praedes non daret, in carcerem duci coeptum atque ita intercedente Graccho exemptum.

[¶7] 20. That Virgil removed Nola from one of his lines and substituted ora because the inhabitants of Nola had refused him water; and also some additional notes on the agreeable euphony of vowels. I HAVE found it noted in a certain commentary that the following lines were first read and published by Virgil in this form:
Such is the soil that wealthy Capua ploughs
And Nola near Vesuvius' height.
That afterwards Virgil asked the people of Nola to allow him to run their city water into his estate, which was near by, but that they refused to grant the favour which he asked; that thereupon the offended poet erased the name of their city from his poem, as if consigning it to oblivion, changing Nola to ora (region) and leaving the phrase in this form:
The region near Vesuvius' height. With the truth or falsity of this note I am not concerned; but there is no doubt that ora has a more agreeable and musical sound than Nola. For the last vowel in the first line and the first vowel in the following line being the same, the sound is prolonged by an hiatus that is at the same time melodious and pleasing. Indeed, it is possible to find in famous poets many instances of such melody, which appears to be the result of art rather than accident; but in Homer they are more frequent than in all other poets. In fact, in one single passage he introduces a number of sounds of such a nature, and with such an hiatus, in a series of successive words; for example:
The other fountain e'en in summer flows,
Like unto hail, chill snow, or crystal ice,
and similarly in another place:
Up to the top he pushed (a)/nw w)/qeske) the stone. Catullus too, the most graceful of poets, in the following verses,
Boy, who servest old Falernian,
Pour out stronger cups for me,
Following queen Postumia's mandate,
Tipsier she than tipsy grape,
although he might have said ebrio, and used acinum in the neuter gender, as was more usual, nevertheless through love of the melody of that Homeric hiatus he said ebria, because it blended with the following a. But those who think that Catullus wrote ebriosa or ebrioso—for that incorrect reading is also found—have unquestionably happened upon editions copied from corrupt texts.

> Latin: 20. Quod Vergilius a Nolanis ob aquam sibi non permissam sustulit e versu suo “Nolam” et posuit “oram”; atque ibi quaedam alia de iucunda consonantia litterarum. SCRIPTUM in quodam commentario repperi, versus istos a Vergilio ita primum esse recitatos atque editos:
Talem dives arat Capua et vicina Vesevo
Nola iugo;
postea Vergilium petisse a Nolanis, aquam uti duceret in propinquum rus, Nolanos beneficium petitum non fecisse, poetam offensum nomen urbis eorum, quasi ex hominum memoria, sic ex carmine suo derasisse, “oram” que pro “Nola” mutasse atque ita reliquisse;
et vicina Vesevo
Ora iugo. Ea res verane an falsa sit, non laboro; quin tamen melius suaviusque ad aures sit “ora” quam “Nola,” dubium id non est. Nam vocalis in priore versu extrema eademque in sequenti prima canoro simul atque iucundo hiatu tractim sonat. Est adeo invenire apud nobiles poetas huiuscemodi suavitatis multa, quae appareat navata esse, non fortuita; sed praeter ceteros omnis apud Homerum plurima. Uno quippe in loco tales tamque hiantes sonitus in assiduis vocibus pluribus facit:
Ἡ δʼ ἑτέρη θέρεϊ προρέει εἰκυῖα χαλάζῃ
Ἢ χιόνι ψυχρῇ ἢ ἐξ ὕδατος κρυστάλλῳ,
atque item alio loco:
Λᾶαν ἄνω ὤθεσκε ποτὶ λόφον. Catullus quoque elegantissimus poetarum in hisce versibus:
Minister vetuli puer Falerni,
Inger mi calices amariores,
Ut lex Postumiae iubet magistrae
Ebria acina ebriosioris,
cum dicere “ebrio” posset et, quod erat usitatius, “acinum” in neutro genere appellare, amans tamen hiatus illius Homerici suavitatem, “ebriam” dixit propter insequentis a litterae concentum. Qui “ebriosa” autem Catullum dixisse putant aut “ebrioso,” nam id quoque temere scriptum invenitur, in libros scilicet de corruptis exemplaribus factos inciderunt.

[¶8] 21. Why it is that the phrases quoad vivet and quoad morietur indicate the very same time, although based upon opposite things. WHEN the expressions quoad vivet, or “so long as he shall live,” and quoad morietur, or “until he shall die,” are used, two opposite things really seem to be said, but the two expressions indicate one and the same time. Also when we say “as long as the senate shall be in session,” and “until the senate shall adjourn,” although “be in session” and “adjourn” are opposites, yet one and the same idea is expressed by both phrases. For when two periods of time are opposed to each other and yet are so connected that the end of one coincides with the beginning of the other, it makes no difference whether the exact point of their meeting is designated by the end of the first period or the beginning of the second.

> Latin: 21. “Quoad vivet” “quoad” que “morietur” cur id ipsum temporis significent, cum ex duobus sint facta contrariis. “QUOAD vivet” cum dicitur, cum item dicitur “quoad morietur,” videntur quidem duae res dici contrariae; sed idem atque unum tempus utraque verba demonstrant. Item cum dicitur “quoad senatus habebitur” et “quoad senatus dimittetur,” tametsi “haberi” atque “dimitti” contraria sunt, unum atque id ipsum tamen utroque in verbo ostenditur. Tempora enim duo cum inter sese opposita sunt atque ita cohaerentia ut alterius finis cum alterius initio misceatur, non refert utrum per extremitatem prioris an per initium sequentis locus ipse confinis demonstretur.

[¶9] 22. On the custom of the censors of taking their horse from corpulent and excessively fat knights; and the question whether such action also involved degradation or left them their rank as knights. THE censors used to take his horse from a man who was too fat and corpulent, evidently because they thought that so heavy a person was unfit to perform the duties of a knight. For this was not a punishment, as some think, but the knight was relieved of duty without loss of rank. Yet Cato, in the speech which he wrote On Neglecting Sacrifice, makes such an occurrence a somewhat serious charge, thus apparently indicating that it was attended with disgrace. If you understand that to have been the case, you must certainly assume that it was because a man was not looked upon as wholly free from the reproach of slothfulness, if his body had bulked and swollen to such unwieldy dimensions.

> Latin: 22. Quod censores equum adimere soliti sunt equitibus corpulentis et praepinguibus; quaesitumque utrum ea res cum ignominia an incolumi dignitate equitum facta sit. NIMIS pingui homini et corpulento censores equum adimere solitos, scilicet minus idoneum ratos esse cum tanti corporis pondere ad faciendum equitis munus. Non enim poena id fuit, ut quidam existimant, sed munus sine ignominia remittebatur. Tamen Cato, in oratione quam De Sacrificio Commisso scripsit, obicit hanc rem criminosius, uti magis videri possit cum ignominia fuisse. Quod si ita accipias, id profecto existimandum est, non omnino inculpatum neque indesidem visum esse, cuius corpus in tam inmodicum modum luxuriasset exuberassetque.

## 17. Book VII · chapters 1–8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/17/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/17/#p-N

[¶0] 1. How Chrysippus replied to those who denied the existence of Providence. Those who do not believe that the world was created for God and mankind, or that human affairs are ruled by Providence, think that they are using a strong argument when they say: “If there were a Providence, there would be no evils.” For they declare that nothing is less consistent with Providence than the existence of such a quantity of troubles and evils in a world which He is said to have made for the sake of man. Chrysippus, arguing against such views in the fourth book of his treatise On Providence says: “There is absolutely nothing more foolish than those men who think that good could exist, if there were at the same time no evil. For since good is the opposite of evil, it necessarily follows that both must exist in opposition to each other, supported as it were by mutual adverse forces; since as a matter of fact no opposite is conceivable without something to oppose it. For how could there be an idea of justice if there were no acts of injustice? or what else is justice than the absence of injustice? How too can courage be understood except by contrast with cowardice? Or temperance except by contrast with intemperance? How also could there be wisdom, if folly did not exist as its opposite? Therefore,” said he, “why do not the fools also wish that there may be truth, but no falsehood? For it is in the same way that good and evil exist, happiness and unhappiness, pain and pleasure. For, as Plato says, they are bound one to the other by their opposing extremes; if you take away one, you will have removed both.” In the same book Chrysippus also considers and discusses this question, which he thinks worth investigating: whether men's diseases come by nature; that is, whether nature herself, or Providence, if you will, which created this structure of the universe and the human race, also created the diseases, weakness, and bodily infirmities from which mankind suffers. He, however, does not think that it was nature's original intention to make men subject to disease; for that would never have been consistent with nature as the source and mother of all things good. “But,” said he, “when she was creating and bringing forth many great things which were highly suitable and useful, there were also produced at the same time troubles closely connected with those good things that she was creating”; and he declared that these were not due to nature, but to certain inevitable consequences, a process that he himself calls kata\ parakolou/qhsin. “Exactly as,” he says, “when nature fashioned men's bodies, a higher reason and the actual usefulness of what she was creating demanded that the lead be made of very delicate and small bones. But this greater usefulness of one part was attended with an external disadvantage; namely, that the head was but slightly protected and could be damaged by slight blows and shocks. In the same way diseases too and illness were created at the same time with health. Exactly, by Heaven!” said he, “as vices, through their relationship to the opposite quality, are produced at the same time that virtue is created for mankind by nature's design.”

> Latin: 1. Quem in modum responderit Chrysippus adversum eos qui providentiam consistere negaverunt. QUIBUS non videtur mundus dei et hominum causa institutus neque res humanae providentia gubernari, gravi se argumento uti putant cum ita dicunt: “Si esset providentia, nulla essent mala.” Nihil enim minus aiunt providentiae congruere, quam in eo mundo quem propter homines fecisse dicatur tantam vim esse aerumnarum et malorum. Adversus ea Chrysippus cum in libro Περὶ Προνοίας quarto dissereret, “Nihil est prorsus istis,” inquit, “insubidius, qui opinantur bona esse potuisse,” “si non essent ibidem mala. Nam cum bona malis contraria sint, utraque necessum est opposita inter sese et quasi mutuo adversoque fulta nisu consistere; nullum adeo contrarium est sine contrario altero.” “Quo enim pacto iustitiae sensus esse posset, nisi essent iniuriae? aut quid aliud iustitia est quam iniustitiae privatio? Quid item fortitudo intellegi posset, nisi ex ignaviae adpositione? Quid continentia, nisi ex intemperantiae? Quo item modo prudentia esset, nisi foret contra inprudentia?” “Proinde,” inquit, “homines stulti cur non hoc etiam desiderant, ut veritas sit et non sit mendacium? Namque itidem sunt bona et mala, felicitas et infortunitas, dolor et voluptas.” “Alterum enim ex altero, sicuti Plato ait, verticibus inter se contrariis deligatum est; si tuleris unum, abstuleris utrumque.” Idem Chrysippus in eodem libro tractat consideratque dignumque esse id quaeri putat, εἰ αἱ τῶν ἀνθρώπων νόσοι κατὰ φύσιν γίνονται, id est, si natura ipsa rerum vel providentia, quae compagem hanc mundi et genus hominum fecit, morbos quoque et debilitates et aegritudines corporum, quas patiuntur homines, fecerit. Existimat autem non fuisse hoc principale naturae consilium, ut faceret homines morbis obnoxios, numquam enim hoc convenisse naturae auctori parentique omnium rerum bonarum. “Sed cum multa,” inquit, “atque magna gigneret pareretque aptissima et utilissima, alia quoque simul adgnata sunt incommoda his ipsis quae faciebat cohaerentia”; eaque non per naturam, sed per sequellas quasdam necessarias facta dicit, quod ipse appellat κατὰ παρακολούθησιν. “Sicut,” inquit, “cum corpora hominum natura fingeret, ratio subtilior et utilitas ipsa operis postulavit ut tenuissimis minutisque ossiculis caput compingeret.” “Sed hanc utilitatem rei maiorem alia quaedam incommoditas extrinsecus consecuta est, ut fieret caput tenuiter munitum et ictibus offensionibusque parvis fragile.” “Proinde morbi quoque et aegritudines partae sunt, dum salus paritur.” “Sicut hercle,” inquit, “dum virtus hominibus per consilium naturae gignitur, vitia ibidem per adfinitatem contraria nata sunt.”

[¶1] 2. How Chrysippus also maintained the power and inevitable nature of fate, but at the same time declared that we had control over our plans and decisions. CHRYSIPPUS, the leader of the Stoic philosophy, defined fate, which the Greeks call ei(marme/nh, in about the following terms: “Fate,” he says, “is an eternal and unalterable series of circumstances, and a chain rolling and entangling itself through an unbroken series of consequences, from which it is fashioned and made up.” But I have copied Chrysippus' very words, as exactly as I could recall them, in order that, if my interpretation should seem too obscure to anyone, he may turn his attention to the philosopher's own language. For in the fourth book of his work On Providence, he says that ei(marme/nh is “an orderly series, established by nature, of all events, following one another and joined together from eternity, and their unalterable interdependence.” But the authors of other views and of other schools of philosophy openly criticize this definition as follows: “If Chrysippus,” they say, “believes that all things are set in motion and directed by fate, and that the course of fate and its coils cannot be turned aside or evaded, then the sins and faults of men too ought not to cause anger or be attributed to themselves and their inclinations, but to a certain unavoidable impulse which arises from fate,” which is the mistress and arbiter of all things, and through which everything that will happen must happen; and that therefore the establishing of penalties for the guilty by law is unjust, if men do not voluntarily commit crimes, but are led into them by fate. Against these criticisms Chrysippus argues at length, subtilely and cleverly, but the purport of all that he has written on that subject is about this: “Although it is a fact,” he says, “that all things are subject to an inevitable and fundamental law and are closely linked to fate, yet the peculiar properties of our minds are subject to fate only according to their individuality and quality. For if in the beginning they are fashioned by nature for health and usefulness, they will avoid with little opposition and little difficulty all that force with which fate threatens them from without. But if they are rough, ignorant, crude, and without any support from education, through their own perversity and voluntary impulse they plunge into continual faults and sin, even though the assault of some inconvenience due to fate be slight or non-existent. And that this very thing should happen in this way is due to that natural and inevitable connection of events which is called 'fate.' For it is in the nature of things, so to speak, fated and inevitable that evil characters should not be free from sins and faults.” A little later he uses an illustration of this statement of his, which is in truth quite neat and appropriate: “For instance,” he says, “if you roll a cylindrical stone over a sloping, steep piece of ground, you do indeed furnish the beginning and cause of its rapid descent, yet soon it speeds onward, not because you make it do so, but because of its peculiar form and natural tendency to roll; just so the order, the law, and the inevitable quality of fate set in motion the various classes of things and the beginnings of causes, but the carrying out of our designs and thoughts, and even our actions, are regulated by each individual's own will and the characteristics of his mind.” Then he adds these words, in harmony with what I have said:
Therefore it is said by the Pythagoreans also:
You'll learn that men have ills which they themselves
Bring on themselves,
for harm comes to each of them through themselves, and they go astray through their own impulse and are harmed by their own purpose and determination.
Therefore he says that wicked, slothful, sinful and reckless men ought not to be endured or listened to, who, when they are caught fast in guilt and sin, take refuge in the inevitable nature of fate, as if in the asylum of some shrine, declaring that their outrageous actions must be charged, not to their own heedlessness, but to fate. The first to express this thought was the oldest and wisest of the poets, in these verses:
Alas! how wrongly mortals blame the gods!
From us, they say, comes evil; they themselves
By their own folly woes unfated bear.
Therefore Marcus Cicero, in the book which he wrote On Fate after first remarking that this question is highly obscure and involved, declares that even the philosopher Chrysippus was unable to extricate himself from its difficulties, using these words: “Chrysippus, in spite of all efforts and labour, is perplexed how to explain that everything is ruled by fate, but that we nevertheless have some control over our conduct.”

> Latin: 2. Quo itidem modo et vim necessitatemque fati constituerit et esse tamen in nobis consilii iudiciique nostri arbitrium confirmaverit. FATUM, quod εἱμαρμένην Graeci vocant, ad hanc ferme sententiam Chrysippus, Stoicae princeps philosophiae, definit: “Fatum est,” inquit, “sempiterna quaedam et indeclinabilis series rerum et catena, volvens semetipsa sese et inplicans per aeternos consequentiae ordines, ex quibus apta nexaque est.” Ipsa autem verba Chrysippi, quantum valui memoria, ascripsi, ut, si cui meum istud interpretamentum videbitur esse obscurius, ad ipsius verba animadvertat. In libro enim Περὶ Προνοίας quarto εἱμαρμένην esse dicit φυσικήν τινα σύνταξιν τῶν ὅλων ἐξ ἀϊδίου τῶν ἑτέρων τοῖς ἑτέροις ἐπακολουθούντων καὶ μεταπολουμένων ἀπαραβάτου οὔσης τῆς τοιαύτης ἐπιπλοκῆς. Aliarum autem opinionum disciplinarumque auctores huic definitioni ita obstrepunt: “Si Chrysippus,” inquiunt, “fato putat omnia moveri et regi nec declinari transcendique posse agmina fati et volumina, peccata quoque hominum et delicta non suscensenda neque inducenda sunt ipsis voluntatibusque eorum, sed necessitati cuidam et instantiae, quae oritur ex fato,” omnium quae sit rerum domina et arbitra, per quam necesse sit fieri quicquid futurumfiturum est; et propterea nocentium poenas legibus inique constitutas, si homines ad maleficia non sponte veniunt, sed fato trahuntur. Contra ea Chrysippus tenuiter multa et argute disserit; sed omnium fere quae super ea re scripsit huiuscemodi sententia est: “Quamquam ita sit,” inquit, “ut ratione quadam necessaria et principali coacta atque conexa sint fato omnia, ingenia tamen ipsa mentium nostrarum proinde sunt fato obnoxia, ut proprietas eorum est ipsa et qualitas.” “Nam si sunt per naturam primitus salubriter utiliterque ficta, omnem illam vim, quae de fato extrinsecus ingruit, inoffensius tractabiliusque transmittunt. Sin vero sunt aspera et inscita et rudia nullisque artium bonarum adminiculis fulta, etiamsi parvo sive nullo fatalis incommodi conflictu urgeantur, sua tamen scaevitate et voluntario impetu in assidua delicta et in errores se ruunt.” “Idque ipsum ut ea ratione fiat, naturalis illa et necessaria rerum consequentia efficit, quae ‘fatum’ vocatur.” “Est enim genere ipso quasi fatale et consequens, ut mala ingenia peccatis et erroribus non vacent.” Huius deinde fere rei exemplo non hercle nimis alieno neque inlepido utitur. “Sicut,” inquit, “lapidem cylindrum si per spatia terrae prona atque derupta iacias, causam quidem ei et initium praecipitantiae feceris, mox tamen ille praeceps volvitur, non quia tu id etiam facis, sed quoniam ita sese modus eius et formae volubilitas habet; sic ordo et ratio et necessitas fati genera ipsa et principia causarum movet, impetus vero consiliorum mentiumque nostrarum actionesque ipsas voluntas cuiusque propria et animorum ingenia moderantur.” Infert deinde verba haec, his quae dixi congruentia: Διὸ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν Πυθαγορείων εἴρηται.
Γνώσει δʼ ἀνθρώπους αὐθαίρετα πήματʼ ἔχοντας,
ὡς τῶν βλαβῶν ἑκάστοις παρʼ αὐτοῖς γινομένων καὶ καθʼ ὁρμὴν αὐτῶν ἁμαρτανόντων τε καὶ βλαπτομένων καὶ κατὰ τὴν αὐτῶν διάνοιαν καὶ θέσιν. Propterea negat oportere ferri audirique homines aut nequam aut ignavos et nocentes et audaces, qui, cum in culpa et in maleficio revicti sunt, perfugiunt ad fati necessitatem, tamquam in aliquod fani asylum et, quae pessime fecerunt, ea non suae temeritati, sed fato esse attribuenda dicunt. Primus autem hoc sapientissimus ille et antiquissimus poetarum dixit hisce versibus:
Ὢ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται.
Ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκʼ ἔμμεναι· οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοί
Σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγεʼ ἔχουσιν. Itaque M. Cicero, in libro quem De Fato conscripsit, cum quaestionem istam diceret obscurissimam esse et inplicatissimam, Chrysippum quoque philosophum non expedisse se in ea ait his verbis: “Chrysippus aestuans laboransque quonam hoc modo explicet, et fato omnia fieri et esse aliquid in nobis, intricatur.”

[¶2] 3. An account, taken from the works of Tubero, of a serpent of unprecedented length. TUBERO in his Histories has recorded that in the first Punic war the consul Atilius Regulus, when encamped at the Bagradas river in Africa, fought a stubborn and fierce battle with a single serpent of extraordinary size, which had its lair in that region; that in a mighty struggle with the entire army the reptile was attacked for a long time with hurling engines and catapults; and that when it was finally killed, its skin, a hundred and twenty feet long, was sent to Rome.

> Latin: 3. Historia sumpta ex libris Tuberonis de serpente invisitatae longitudinis. TUBERO in Historiis scriptum reliquit, bello primo Poenico Atilium Regulum consulem in Africa, castris apud Bagradam flumen positis, proelium grande atque acre fecisse adversus unum serpentem in illis locis stabulantem invisitatae inmanitatis, eumque magna totius exercitus conflictione balistis atque catapultis diu oppugnatum, eiusque interfecti corium longum pedes centum et viginti Romam missum esse.

[¶3] 4. A new account, written by the above-mentioned Tubero, of the capture of Regulus by the Carthaginians; and also what Tuditanus wrote about that same Regulus. I RECENTLY read in the works of Tuditanus the well-known story about Atilius Regulus: That Regulus, when a prisoner, in addition to the advice which he gave in the senate at Rome against making an exchange of prisoners with the Carthaginians, also declared that the Carthaginians had given him a poison, not of immediate effect, but such as to delay his death for a season; that their design was that he should live for a time, until the exchange was accomplished, but afterwards should waste away as the drug gradually took effect. Tubero in his Histories says that this Regulus returned to Carthage and was put to death by the Carthaginians with tortures of a novel kind: “They confined him,” he says, “in a dark and deep dungeon, and a long time afterwards suddenly brought him out, when the sun was shining most brightly, and exposed him to its direct rays, holding him and forcing him to fix his gaze upon the sky. They even drew his eyelids apart upward and downward and sewed them fast, so that he could not close his eyes.” Tuditanus, however, reports that Regulus was for a long time deprived of sleep and so killed, and that when this became known at Rome, Carthaginian captives of the highest rank were handed over by the senate to his sons, who shut them in a chest studded within with spikes; and that they too were tortured to death by lack of sleep.

> Latin: 4. Quid idem Tubero novae historiae de Atilio Regulo a Carthaginiensibus capto litteris mandaverit; quid etiam Tuditanus super eodem Regulo scripserit. QUOD satis celebre est de Atilio Regulo, id nuperrime legimus scriptum in Tuditani libris: Regulum captum ad ea quae in senatu Romae dixit, suadens ne captivi cum Carthaginiensibus permutarentur, id quoque addidisse, venenum sibi Carthaginienses dedisse, non praesentarium, sed eiusmodi quod mortem in diem proferret, eo consilio, ut viveret quidem tantisper quoad fieret permutatio, post autem grassante sensim veneno contabesceret. Eundem Regulum Tubero in Historiis redisse Carthaginem novisque exemplorum modis excruciatum a Poenis dicit: “In atras,” inquit, “et profundas tenebras eum claudebant ac diu post, ubi erat visus sol ardentissimus, repente educebant et adversus ictus solis oppositum continebant atque intendere in caelum oculos cogebant. Palpebras quoque eius, ne conivere posset, sursum ac deorsum diductas insuebant.” Tuditanus autem somno diu prohibitum atque ita vita privatum refert, idque ubi Romae cognitum est, nobilissimos Poenorum captivos liberis Reguli a senatu deditos et ab his in armario muricibus praefixo destitutos eademque insomnia cruciatos interisse.

[¶4] 5. An error of the jurist Alfenus in the interpretation of early words. THE jurist Alfenus, a pupil of Servius Sulpicius and a man greatly interested in matters antiquarian, in the thirty-fourth book of his Digests and the second of his Miscellanies, says: “In a treaty which was made between the Roman people and the Carthaginians the provision is found, that the Carthaginians should pay each year to the Roman people a certain weight of argenti puri puti, and the meaning of puri puti was asked. I replied,” he says, “that putus meant very pure,' just as we say novicius for novus (new) and propicius for proprius (proper), when we wish to augment and amplify the meaning of novus and proprius.” Upon reading this, I was surprised that Alfenus should think that the relation of purus and putus was the same as that of novicius and novus; for if the word were puricius, then it would indeed appear to be formed like novicius. It was also surprising that he thought that novicius was used to imply amplification, since in fact novicius does not mean “more new,” but is merely a derivative and variant of novus. Accordingly, I agree with those who think that putus is derived from puto and therefore pronounce the word with the first syllable short, not long as Alfenus seems to have thought it, since he wrote that putus came from purus. Moreover, the earlier writers used putare of removing and pruning away from anything whatever was superfluous and unnecessary, or even injurious and foreign, leaving only what seemed useful and without blemish. For that was the meaning of putare, “to prune,” as applied to trees and vines, and so too as used of accounts. The verb puto itself also, which we use for the purpose of stating our opinion, certainly means nothing else than that in an obscure and difficult matter we do our best, by cutting away and lopping off false views, to retain what seems true and pure and sound. Therefore in the treaty with Carthage silver was called putum, as having been thoroughly purified and refined, as free from all foreign matter, and as spotless and whitened by the removal from it of all impurities. But the expression purum putum occurs, not only in the treaty with Carthage, but also in many other early writings, including the tragedy of Quintus Ennius entitled Alexander, and the satire of Marcus Varro called Di\s Pai=des oi( Ge/rontes, or Old Men are Children for a Second Time.

> Latin: 5. Quod Alfenus iureconsultus in verbis veteribus interpretandis erravit. ALFENUS iureconsultus, Servii Sulpicii discipulus rerumque antiquarum non incuriosus, in libro Digestorum tricesimo et quarto, Coniectaneorum autem secundo: “In foedere,” inquit, “quod inter populum Romanum et Carthaginienses factum est, scriptum invenitur ut Carthaginienses quotannis populo Romano darent certum pondus ‘argenti puri puti,’ quaesitumque est quid esset ‘purum putum.’ Respondi,” inquit, “ego ‘putum’ esse ‘valde purum,’ sicut novum ‘novicium’ dicimus et proprium ‘propicium,’ augere atque intendere volentes ‘novi’ et ‘proprii’ significationem.” Hoc ubi legimus, mirabamur eandem adfinitatem visam esse Alfeno “puri” et “puti,” quae sit “novicii” et “novi”; nam, si esset “puricium,” tum sane videretur dici quasi “novicium.” Id etiam mirum fuit, quod “novicium” per augendi figuram dictum existimavit, cum sit “novicium” non quod magis novum sit, sed quod a “novo” dictum sit inclinatumque. His igitur assentimus, qui “putum” esse dicunt a “putando” dictum et ob eam causam prima syllaba brevi pronuntiant, non longa, ut existimasse Alfenus videtur, qui a “puro” id esse factum scripsit. “Putare” autem veteres dixerunt vacantia ex quaque re ac non necessaria aut etiam obstantia et aliena auferre et excidere, et quod esse utile ac sine vitio videretur relinquere. Sic namque arbores et vites et sic rationes etiam “putari” dictum. Verbum quoque ipsum “puto,” quod declarandae sententiae nostrae causa dicimus, non significat profecto aliud quam id agere nos in re dubia obscuraque, ut decisis amputatisque falsis opinionibus, quod videatur esse verum et integrum et incorruptum retineamus. Argentum ergo in Carthaginiensi foedere “putum” dictum est quasi exputatum excoctumque omnique aliena materia carens omnibusque ex eo vitiis detractis emaculatum et candefactum. Scriptum est autem “purum putum,” non in Carthaginiensi solum foedere, sed cum in multis aliis veterum libris, tum in Q. quoque Ennii tragoedia quae inscribitur Alexander, et in satira M. Varronis quae inscripta est Δὶς Παῖδες οἱ Γέροντες.

[¶5] 6. That Julius Hyginus was hasty and foolish in his criticism of Virgil for calling the wings of Daedalus praepetes; also a note on the meaning of aves praepetes and of those birds which Nigidius called inferae.
FROM Minos' realms in flight brave Daedalus
On pinion swift (praepetibus), 'tis said, did dare the sky. In these lines of Virgil Julius Hyginus criticizes the use of pennis praepetibus as an improper and ignorant expression. “For,” says he, “those birds are called praepetes by the augurs which either fly onward auspiciously or alight in suitable places.” Therefore he thought it inappropriate in Virgil to use an augural term in speaking of the flight of Daedalus, which had nothing to do with the science of the augurs. But of a truth it was Hyginus who was altogether foolish in supposing that the meaning of praepetes was known to him, but unknown to Virgil and to Gnaeus Matius, a learned man, who in the second book of his Iliad called winged Victory praepes in the following line:
While Victory swift (praepes) the victor's palm bestows. Furthermore, why does he not find fault also with Quintus Ennius, who in his Annals uses praepes, not of the wings of Daedalus, but of something very different, in the line:
Brundisium girt with fair, propitious (praepete) port?
But if Hyginus had regarded the force and origin of the word rather than merely noting the meaning given to it by the augurs, he would certainly pardon the poets for using words in a figurative and metaphorical sense rather than literally. For since not only the birds themselves which fly auspiciously, but also the places which they take, since these are suitable and propitious, are called praepetes, therefore Virgil called the wings of Daedalus praepetes, since he had come from places in which he feared danger into safer regions. Furthermore, the augurs call places praepetes, and Ennius in the first book of his Annals said:
In fair, propitious (praepetibus) places they alight. But birds that are the opposite of praepetes are called inferae, or “low,” according to Nigidius Figulus, who says in the first book of his Private Augury: “The right is opposed to the left, praepes to infera.” From this we may infer that birds were called praepetes which have a higher and loftier flight, since Nigidius said that the praepetes were contrasted with the inferae. In my youth in Rome, when I was still in attendance on the grammarians, I gave special attention to Sulpicius Apollinaris. Once when there was a discussion about augural law and mention had been made of praepetes aves, I heard him say to Erucius Clarus, the city prefect, that in his opinion praepetes was equivalent to Homer's tanupte/ruges, or “wide-winged,” since the augurs had special regard to those birds whose flight was broad and wide because of their great wings. And then he quoted these verses of Homer:
You bid me trust the flight of wide-winged birds,
But I regard them not, nor think of them.

> Latin: 6. Temere inepteque reprehensum esse a Iulio Hygino Vergilium, quod “praepetes” Daedali pennas dixit; atque inibi quid sint “aves praepetes” et quid illae sint aves quas Nigidius “inferas” appellavit.
DAEDALUS, ut fama est, fugiens Minoia regna,
Praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo. In his Vergilii versibus reprehendit Iulius Hyginus “pennis praepetibus” quasi inproprie et inscite dictum. “Nam‘praepetes,’” inquit, “aves ab auguribus appellantur, quae aut opportune praevolant aut idoneas sedes capiunt.” Non apte igitur usum verbo augurali existimavit in Daedali volatu, nihil ad augurum disciplinam pertinente. Sed Hyginus nimis hercle ineptus fuit, cum quid “praepetes” essent se scire ratus est, Vergilium autem et Cn. Matium, doctum virum, ignorasse, qui in secundo Iliadis Victoriam volucrem “praepetem” appellavit in hoc versu:
Dum dat vincendi praepes Victoria palmam. Cur autem non Q. quoque Ennium reprehendit, qui in Annalibus non pennas Daedali, sed longe diversius:
Brundisium (inquit) pulcro praecinctum praepete portu? Set si vim potius naturamque verbi considerasset neque id solum quod augures dicerent inspexisset, veniam prorsus poetis daret similitudine ac translatione verborum, non significatione propria utentibus. Nam quoniam non ipsae tantum aves quae prosperius praevolant, sed etiam loci quos capiunt, quod idonei felicesque sunt, “praepetes” appellantur, idcirco Daedali pennas “praepetes” dixit, quoniam ex locis in quibus periculum metuebat in loca tutiora pervenerat. Locos porro “praepetes” et augures appellant et Ennius in Annalium primo dixit:
praepetibus sese pulcrisque locis dant. Avibus autem “praepetibus” contrarias aves “inferas” appellari, Nigidius Figulus in libro primo Augurii Privati ita dicit: “Discrepat dextra sinistrae, praepes inferae.” Ex quo est coniectare “praepetes” appellatas quae altius sublimiusque volitent, cum differre a “praepetibus” Nigidius “inferas” dixerit. Adulescens ego Romae, cum etiamtum ad grammaticos itarem, audivi Apollinarem Sulpicium, quem inprimis sectabar, cum de iure augurio quaereretur et mentio “praepetum avium” facta esset, Erucio Claro praefecto urbi dicere, “praepetes” sibi videri esse alites, quas Homerus τανυπτέρυγας appellaverit, quoniam istas potissimum augures spectarent quae ingentibus alis patulae atque porrectae praevolarent. Atque ibi hos Homeri versus dixit:
Τύνη δʼ οἰωνοῖσι τανυπτερύγεσσι κελεύεις
Πείθεσθαι, τῶν οὔ τι μετατρέπομʼ οὐδʼ ἀλεγίζω.

[¶6] 7. On Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia; and on the origin of the priesthood of the Arval Brethren. THE names of Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia, or Fufetia as she is sometimes called, are frequent in the early annals. To the former of these after her death, but to Taracia while she still lived, the Roman people paid distinguished honours. And that Taracia, at any rate, was a Vestal virgin is proved by the Horatian law which was laid before the people with regard to her. By this law very many honours are bestowed upon her and among them the right of giving testimony is granted her, and that privilege is given to no other woman in the State. The word testabilis is used in the Horatian law itself, and its opposite occurs in the Twelve Tables: “Let him be infamous and intestabilis, or 'forbidden to testify.'” Besides, if at the age of forty she should wish to leave the priesthood and marry, the right and privilege of withdrawing from the order and marrying were allowed her, in gratitude for her generosity and kindness in presenting to the people the campus Tiberinus or Martius. But Acca Larentia was a public prostitute and by that trade had earned a great deal of money. In her will she made king Romulus heir to her property, according to Antias' History; according to some others, the Roman people. Because of that favour public sacrifice was offered to her by the priest of Quirinus and a day was consecrated to her memory in the Calendar. But Masurius Sabinus, in the first book of his Memorialia, following certain historians, asserts that Acca Larentia was Romulus' nurse. His words are: “This woman, who had twelve sons, lost one of them by death. In his place Romulus gave himself to Acca as a son, and called himself and her other sons ' Arval Brethren.' Since that time there has always been a college of Arval Brethren, twelve in number, and the insignia of the priesthood are a garland of wheat ears and white fillets.”

> Latin: 7. De Acca Larentia et Gaia Taracia; deque origine sacerdotii fratrumFratruin Arvalium. ACCAE Larentiae et Gaiae Taraciae, sive illa Fufetia est, nomina in antiquis annalibus celebria sunt. Earum alterae post mortem, Taraciae autem vivae, amplissimi honores a populo Romano habiti. Et Taraciam quidem virginem Vestae fuisse lex Horatia testis est quae super ea ad populum lata. Qua lege ei plurimi honores fiunt, inter quos ius quoque testimonii dicendi tribuitur, “testabilis” que una omnium feminarum ut sit datur. Id verbum est legis ipsius Horatiae; contrarium est in Duodecim Tabulis scriptum: “Inprobus intestabilisque esto.” Praeterea si quadraginta annos nata sacerdotio abire ac nubere voluisset, ius ei potestasque exaugurandi atque nubendi facta est munificentiae et beneficii gratia, quod campum Tiberinum sive Martium populo condonasset. Sed Acca Larentia corpus in vulgus dabat pecuniamque emeruerat ex eo quaestu uberem. Ea testamento, ut in Antiatis Historia scriptum est, Romulum regem, ut quidam autem alii tradiderunt, populum Romanum bonis suis heredem fecit. Ob id meritum a flamine Quirinali sacrificium ei publice fit et dies e nomine eius in fastos additus. Sed Sabinus Masurius in primo Memorialium, secutus quosdam historiae scriptores, Accam Larentiam Romuli nutricem fuisse dicit. “Ea,” inquit, “mulier ex duodecim filiis maribus unum morte amisit. In illius locum Romulus Accae sese filium dedit seque et ceteros eius filios ‘fratres Arvales’ appellavit. Ex eo tempore collegium mansit fratrum Arvalium numero duodecim, cuius sacerdotii insigne est spicea corona et albae infulae.”

[¶7] 8. Some noteworthy anecdotes of King Alexander and of Publius Scipio. APION, a Greek, called Pleistoneices, possessed a fluent and lively style. Writing in praise of king Alexander, he says: “He forbade the wife of his vanquished foe, a woman of surpassing loveliness, to be brought into his presence, in order that he might not touch her even with his eyes.” We have then the subject for a pleasant discussion—which of the two shall justly be considered the more continent: Publius Africanus the elder, who after he had stormed Carthage, a powerful city in Spain, and a marriageable girl of wonderful beauty, the daughter of a noble Spaniard, had been taken prisoner and brought to him, restored her unharmed to her father; or king Alexander, who refused even to see the wife of king Darius, who was also his sister, when he had taken her captive in a great battle and had heard that she was of extreme beauty, but forbade her to be brought before him. But those who have an abundance of talent, leisure and eloquence may use this material for a pair of little declamations on Alexander and Scipio; I shall be satisfied with relating this, which is a matter of historical record: Whether it be false or true is uncertain, but at any rate the story goes that your Scipio in his youth did not have an unblemished reputation, and that it was all but generally believed that it was at him that the following verses were aimed by the poet Gnaeus Naevius:
E'en he who oft-times mighty deeds hath done,
Whose glory and exploits still live, to whom
The nations bow, his father once led home,
Clad in a single garment, from his love. I think it was by these verses that Valerius Antias was led to hold an opinion opposed to that of all other writers about Scipio's character, and to write, contrary to what I said above, that the captured maiden was not returned to her father, but was kept by Scipio and possessed by him in amorous dalliance.

> Latin: 8. Notata quaedam de rege Alexandro et de P. Scipione memoratu digna. Ἀπίων, Graecus homo, qui Πλειστονείκης appellatus est, facili atque alacri facundia fuit. Is cum de Alexandri regis laudibus scriberet: “Victi,” inquit, “hostis uxorem, facie incluta mulierem, vetuit in conspectum suum deduci, ut eam ne oculis quidem suis contingeret.” Lepide igitur agitari potest, utrum videri continentiorem par sit, Publiumne Africanum superiorem, qui, Carthagine ampla civitate in Hispania expugnata, virginem tempestivam, forma egregia, nobilis viri Hispani filiam captam perductamque ad se patri inviolatam reddidit, an regem Alexandrum, qui Darii regis uxorem eandemque eiusdem sororem, proelio magno captain, quam esse audiebat exuperanti forma, videre noluit perducique ad sese prohibuit. Sed hanc utramque declamatiunculam super Alexandro et Scipione celebraverint, quibus abunde et ingenii et otii et verborum est; nos satis habebimus, quod ex historia est, id dicere: Scipionem istum, verone an falso incertum, fama tamen, cum esset adulescens, haud sincera fuisse et propemodum constitisse, hosce versus a Cn. Naevio poeta in eum scriptos esse:
Etiám qui res magnás manu saepe géssit glorióse,
Cuius fácta viva núnc vigent, qui apud géntes solus praéstat,
Eum súus pater cum pállio uno domum ab amíca abduxit. His ego versibus credo adductum Valerium Antiatem adversus ceteros omnis scriptores de Scipionis moribus sensisse et eam puellam captivam non redditam patri scripsisse, contra quam nos supra diximus, sed retentam a Scipione atque in deliciis amoribusque ab eo usurpatamusurlpatam.

## 18. Book VII · chapters 9–17

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/18/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/18/#p-N

[¶0] 9. A passage taken from the Annals of Lucius Piso, highly diverting in content and graceful in style. BECAUSE the action of Gnaeus Flavius, the curule aedile, son of Annius, which Lucius Piso described in the third book of his Annals, seemed worthy of record, and because the story is told by Piso in a very pure and charming style, I have quoted the entire passage from Piso's Annals: “Gnaeus Flavius, the son of a freedman,” he says, "was a scribe by profession and was in the service of a curule aedile at the time of the election of the succeeding aediles. The assembly of the tribes named Flavius curule aedile, but the magistrate who presided at the election refused to accept him as an aedile, not thinking it right that one who followed the profession of scribe should be made an aedile. Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, is said to have laid aside his tablets and resigned his clerkship, and he was then made a curule aedile. This same Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, is said to have come to call upon a sick colleague. When he arrived and entered the room, several young nobles were seated there. They treated Flavius with contempt and none of them was willing to rise in his presence. Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, the aedile, laughed at this rudeness; then he ordered his curule chair to be brought and placed it on the threshold, in order that none of them might be able to go out, and that all of them against their will might see him sitting on his chair of state. " A story about Euclides, the Socratic, by whose example the philosopher Taurus used to urge his pupils to be diligent in the pursuit of philosophy.

> Latin: 9. Locus exemptus ex Annalibus L. Pisonis historiae et orationis lepidissimae. QUOD res videbatur memoratu digna, quam fecisse Cn. Flavium, Anni filium, aedilem curulem, L. Piso in tertio Annali scripsit, eaque res perquam pure et venuste narrata a Pisone, locum istum totum huc ex Pisonis Annali transposuimus. “Cn.,” inquit, “Flavius, patre libertino natus, scriptum faciebat, isque in eo tempore aedili curuli apparebat, quo tempore aediles subrogantur, eumque pro tribu aedilem curulem renuntiaverunt.” “Aedilem qui comitia habebat negat accipere, neque sibi placere, qui scriptum faceret, eum aedilem fieri.” “Cn. Flavius, Anni filius, dicitur tabulas posuisse, scriptu sese abdicasse, isque aedilis curulis factus est.” “Idem Cn. Flavius, Anni filius, dicitur ad collegam venisse visere aegrotum. Eo in conclave postquam introivit, adulescentes ibi complures nobiles sedebant. Hi contemnentes eum, assurgere ei nemo voluit.” “Cn. Flavius, Anni filius, aedilis, id arrisit, sellam curulem iussit sibi afferri, eam in limine apposuit, ne quis illorum exire posset utique hi omnes inviti viderent sese in sella curuli sedentem.”

[¶1] 10. THE philosopher Taurus, a celebrated Platonist of my time, used to urge the study of philosophy by many other good and wholesome examples and in particular stimulated the minds of the young by what he said that Euclides the Socratic used to do. “The Athenians,” said he, “had provided in one of their decrees that any citizen of Megara who should be found to have set foot in Athens should for that suffer death; so great,” says he, “was the hatred of the neighbouring men of Megara with which the Athenians were inflamed. Then Euclides, who was from that very town of Megara and before the passage of that decree had been accustomed both to come to Athens and to listen to Socrates, after the enactment of that measure, at nightfall, as darkness was coming on, clad in a woman's long tunic, wrapped in a parti-coloured mantle, and with veiled head, used to walk from his home in Megara to Athens, to visit Socrates, in order that he might at least for some part of the night share in the master's teaching and discourse. And just before dawn he went back again, a distance of somewhat over twenty miles, disguised in that same garb. But nowadays,” said Taurus, “we may see the philosophers themselves running to the doors of rich young men, to give them instruction, and there they sit and wait until nearly noonday, for their pupils to sleep off all last night's wine.”

> Latin: 10. Historia super Euclida Socratico, cuius exemplo Taurus philosophus hortari adulescentes suos solitus ad philosophiam naviter sectandam. PHILOSOPHUS TAURUS, vir memoria nostra in disciplina Platonica celebratus, cum aliis bonis multis salubribusque exemplis hortabatur ad philosophiam capessendam, tum vel maxime ista re iuvenum animos expergebat, Euclidem quam dicebat Socraticum factitavisse. “Decreto,” inquit, “suo Athenienses caverant, ut qui Megaris civis esset, si intulisse Athenas pedem prensus esset, ut ea res ei homini capitalis esset;” “tanto Athenienses,” inquit, “odio flagrabant finitimorum hominum Megarensium.” “Tum Euclides, qui indidem Megaris erat quique ante id decretum et esse Athenis et audire Socratem consueverat, postquam id decretum sanxerunt, sub noctem, cum advesperasceret, tunica longa muliebri indutus et pallio versicolore amictus et caput rica velatus, e domo sua Megaris Athenas ad Socratem commeabat, ut vel noctis aliquo tempore consiliorum sermonumque eius fieret particeps, rursusque sub lucem milia passuum paulo amplius viginti eadem veste illa tectus redibat.” “At nunc,” inquit, “videre est philosophos ultro currere, ut doceant, ad fores iuvenum divitum eosque ibi sedere atque opperiri prope ad meridiem, donec discipuli nocturnum omne vinum edormiant.”

[¶2] 11. A passage from a speech of Quintus Metellus Numidicus, which it was my pleasure to recall, since it draws attention to the obligation of self-respect and dignity in the conduct of life. ONE should not vie in abusive language with the basest of men or wrangle with foul words with the shameless and wicked, since you become like them and their exact mate so long as you say things which match and are exactly like what you hear. This truth may be learned no less from an address of Quintus Metellus Numidicus, a man of wisdom, than from the books and the teachings of the philosophers. These are the words of Metellus from his speech Against Gaius Manlius, Tribune of the Commons, by whom he had been assailed and taunted in spiteful terms in a speech delivered before the people: “Now, fellow citizens, so far as Manlius is concerned, since he thinks that he will appear a greater man, if he keeps calling me his enemy, who neither count him as my friend nor take account of him as an enemy, I do not propose to say another word. For I consider him not only wholly unworthy to be well spoken of by good men, but unfit even to be reproached by the upright. For if you name an insignificant fellow of his kind at a time when you cannot punish him, you confer honour upon him rather than ignominy.”

> Latin: 11. verba ex oratione Q. Metelli Numidici, quae libuit meminisse, ad officium gravitatis dignitatisque vitae ducentia. CUM inquinatissimis hominibus non esse convicio decertandum neque in maledictis adversum inpudentes et inprobos velitandum, quia tantisper similis et compar eorum fias, dum paria et consimilia dicas atque audis, non minus ex oratione Q. Metelli Numidici, sapientis viri, cognosci potest quam ex libris et disciplinis philosophorum. Verba haec sunt Metelli Adversus C. Manlium, tribunum plebis, a quo apud populum in contione lacessitus iactatusque fuerat dictis petulantibus: “Nunc quod ad ilium attinet, Quirites, quoniam se ampliorem putat esse, si se mihi inimicum dictitarit, quem ego mihi neque amicum recipio neque inimicum respicio, in eum ego non sum plura dicturus. Nam cum indignissimum arbitror cui a viris bonis benedicatur, tum ne idoneum quidem cui a probis maledicatur. Nam si in eo tempore huiusmodi homunculum nomines, in quo punire non possis, maiore honore quam contumelia adficias.”

[¶3] 12. That neither testamentum, as Servius Sulpicius thought, nor sacellum, as Gaius Trebatus believed, is a compound, but the former is an extended form of testatio, the latter a diminutive of sacrum. I DO not understand what reason led Servius Sulpicius the jurist, the most learned man of his time, to write in the second book of his work On the Annulling of Sacred Rites that testamentum is a compound word; for he declared that it was made up of mentis contestatio, or “an attesting of the mind.” What then are we to say about calciamentum (shoe), paludamentum (cloak), pavimentum (pavement), vestimentum (clothing), and thousands of other words that have been extended by a suffix of that kind? Are we to call all these also compounds? As a matter of fact, Servius, or whoever it was who first made the statement, was evidently misled by a notion of the presence of mens in testamentum, an idea that is to be sure false, but neither inappropriate nor unattractive, just as indeed Gaius Trebatius too was misled into a similar attractive combination. For he says in the second book of his work On Religions: “A sacellum, or 'shrine,' is a small place consecrated to a god and containing an altar.” Then he adds these words: “Sacellum, I think, is made up of the two words sacer and cella, as if it were sacra cella, or 'a sacred clamber.'” This indeed is what Trebatius wrote, but who does not know both that sacellum is not a compound, and that it is not made up of sacer and cella, but is the diminutive of sacrum?

> Latin: 12. Quod neque “testamentum,” sicuti Servius Sulpicius existimavit, neque “sacellum.” sicuti C. Trebatius, duplicia verba sunt, sed a “testatione” productum alterum, alterum a “sacro” imminutum. SERVIUS SULPICIUS iureconsultus, vir aetatis suae doctissimus, in libro De Sacris Detestandis secundo, qua ratione adductus “testamentum” verbum esse duplex scripserit, non reperio; nam compositum esse dixit a “mentis contestatione.” Quid igitur “calciamentum,” quid “paludamentum,” quid “pavimentum,” quid “vestimentum,” quid alia mille per huiuscemodi formam producta, etiamne ista omnia composita dicemus? Obrepsisse autem videtur Servio, vel si quis est qui id prior dixit, falsa quidem, sed non abhorrens neque inconcinna quasi mentis quaedam in hoc vocabulo significatio, sicut hercleherele C. quoque Trebatio eadem concinnitas obrepsit. Nam in libro De Religionibus secundo: “‘Sacellum.’ est,” inquit, “locus parvus deo sacratus cuin ara.” Deinde addit verba haec: “‘Sacellum’ ex duobus verbis arbitror compositum ‘sacri’ et ‘cellae,’ quasi ‘sacra cella.’” Hoc quidem scripsit Trebatius; set quis ignorat, “sacellum” et simplex verbum esse et non ex “sacro” et “cella” copulatum, sed ex “sacro” deminutum?

[¶4] 13. On the brief topics discussed at the table of the philosopher Taurus and called Sympoticae, or Table Talk. THIS custom was practised and observed at Athens by those who were on intimate terms with the philosopher Taurus; when he invited us to his home, in order that we might not come wholly tax-free, as the saying is, and without a contribution, we brought to the simple meal, not dainty foods, but ingenious topics for discussion. Accordingly, each one of us came with a question which he had thought up and prepared, and when the eating ended, conversation began. The questions, however, were neither weighty nor serious, but certain neat but trifling e)nqumhma/tia, or problems, which would pique a mind enlivened with wine; for instance, the examples of playful subtlety which I shall quote. The question was asked, when a dying man died—when he was already in the grasp of death, or while he still lived? And when did a rising man rise—when he was already standing, or while he was still seated? And when did one who was learning an art become an artist—when he already was one, or when he was still learning? For whichever answer you make, your statement will be absurd and laughable, and it will seem much more absurd, if you say that it is in either case, or in neither. But when some declared that all these questions were pointless and idle sophisms, Taurus said: “Do not despise such problems, as if they were mere trifling amusements. The most earnest of the philosophers have seriously debated this question. Some have thought that the term 'die' was properly used, and that the moment of death came, while life still remained; others have left no life in that moment, but have claimed for death all that period which is termed dying.' Also in regard to other similar problems they have argued for different times and maintained opposite opinions. But our master Plato,” said he, “assigned that time neither to life nor to death, and took the same position in every discussion of similar questions. For he saw that the alternatives were mutually contrary, that one of the two opposites could not be maintained while the other existed, and that the question arose from the juxtaposition of two opposing extremes, namely life and death. Therefore he himself devised, and gave a name to, a new period of time, lying on the boundary between the two, which he called in appropriate and exact language h( e)cai/fnhs fu/sis, or 'the moment of sudden separation.' And this very term, as I have given it,” said he, “you will find used by him in the dialogue entitled Parmenides.” Of such a kind were our “contributions” at Taurus' house, and such were, as he himself used to put it, the traghma/tia or “sweetmeats” of our desserts.

> Latin: 13. De quaestiunculis apud Taurum philosophum in convivio agitatis, quae “sympoticae” vocantur. FACTITATUM observatumque hoc Athenis est ab his qui erant philosophophilosophy Tauro iunctiores; cum domum suam nos vocaret, ne omnino, ut dicitur, immunes et asymboli veniremus, coniectabamus ad cenulam non cuppedias ciborum, sed argutias quaestionum. Unusquisque igitur nostrum commentus paratusque ibat quod quaereret, eratque initium loquendi edundi finis. Quaerebantur autem non gravia nec reverenda, sed ἐνθυμημάτια quaedam lepida et minuta et florentem vino animum lacessentia, quale hoc ferme est subtilitatis ludicrae, quod dicam. Quaesitum est quando moriens moreretur? cum iam in morte esset, an cum etiamtum in vita foret; et quando surgens surgeret? cum iam staret, an cum etiamtum sederet; et qui artem disceret, quando artifex fieret? cum iam esset, an cum etiamtum non esset. Utrum enim horum dices, absurde atque ridicule dixeris, multoque absurdius videbitur, si aut utrumque esse dicas aut neutrum. Sed ea omnia cum captiones esse quidam futtiles atque inanes dicerent, “Nolite,” inquit Taurus, “haec quasi nugarum aliquem ludum aspernari.” “Gravissimi philosophorum super hac re serio quaesiverunt; et alii moriendi verbum atque momentum manente adhuc vita dici atque fieri putaverunt, alii nihil in eo tempore vitae reliquerunt totumque illud, quod mori dicitur, morti vindicaverunt;” “item de ceteris similibus in diversa tempora et in contrarias sententias discesserunt.” “Sed Plato,” inquit, “noster neque vitae id tempus neque morti dedit, idemque in omni consimilium rerum disceptatione fecit.” “Vidit quippe utrumque esse pugnans neque posse ex duobus contrariis, altero manente, alterum constitui quaestionemque fieri per diversorum inter se finium mortis et vitae cohaerentiam, et idcirco peperit ipse expressitque aliud quoddam novum in confinio tempus, quod verbis propriis atque integris τὴν ἐξαίφνης φύσιν appellavit idque ipsum ita, uti dico,” inquit, “in libro, cui Parmenides titulus est, scriptum ab eo reperietis.” Tales aput Taurum symbolae taliaque erant mensarum secundarum, ut ipse dicere solitus erat, τραγημάτια.

[¶5] 14. The three reasons given by the philosophers for punishing crimes; and why Plato mentions only two of these, and not three. IT has been thought that there should be three reasons for punishing crimes. One of these, which the Greeks call either ko/lasis or nouqesi/a, is the infliction of punishment for the purpose of correction and reformation, in order that one who has done wrong thoughtlessly may become more careful and scrupulous. The second is called timwri/a by those who have made a more exact differentiation between terms of this kind. That reason for punishment exists when the dignity and the prestige of the one who is sinned against must be maintained, lest the omission of punishment bring him into contempt and diminish the esteem in which he is held; and therefore they think that it was given a name derived from the preservation of honour (timh/). A third reason for punishment is that which is called by the Greeks para/deigma, when punishment is necessary for the sake of example, in order that others through fear of a recognized penalty may be kept from similar sins, which it is to the common interest to prevent. Therefore our forefathers also used the word exempla, or “examples,” for the severest and heaviest penalties. Accordingly, when there is either strong hope that the culprit will voluntarily correct himself without punishment, or on the other hand when there is no hope that he can be reformed and corrected; or when there is no need to fear loss of prestige in the one who has been sinned against; or if the sin is not of such a sort that punishment must be inflicted in order that it may inspire a necessary feeling of fear—then in the case of all such sins the desire to inflict punishment does not seem to be at all fitting. Other philosophers have discussed these three reasons for punishment in various places, and so too had our countryman Taurus in the first book of the Commentaries which he wrote On the Gorgias of Plato. But Plato himself says in plain terms that there are only two reasons for punishment: one being that which I put first—for the sake of correction; the second, that which I gave in the third place—as an example to inspire fear. These are Plato's own words in the Gorgias: “It is fitting that everyone who suffers punishment, when justly punished by another, either be made better and profit thereby, or serve as an example to others, in order that they, seeing his punishment, may be reformed through fear.” In these words you may readily understand that Plato used timwri/a, not in the sense that 1 said above is given it by some, but with the general meaning of any punishment. But whether he omitted the maintenance of the prestige of an injured person as a reason for inflicting punishment, on the ground that it was altogether insignificant and worthy of contempt, or rather passed over it as something not germane to his subject, since he was writing about punishments to be inflicted after this life and not during life and among men, this question I leave undecided.

> Latin: 14. Poeniendis peccatis tres esse rationes a philosophis attributas; et quamobrem Plato duarum ex his meminerit, non trium. POENIENDIS peccatis tres esse debere causas existimatum est. Una est causa, quae Graece vel κόλασις vel νουθεσία dicitur, cum poena adhibetur casti gandi atque emendandi gratia, ut is qui fortuito delinquit attentior fiat correctiorque. Altera est, quam hi qui vocabula ista curiosius diviserunt τιμωρίαν appellant. Ea causa animadvertendi est, cum dignitas auctoritasque eius in quem est peccatum tuenda est, ne praetermissa animadversio contemptum eius pariat et honorem levet; idcircoque id ei vocabulum a conservatione honoris factum putant. Tertia ratio vindicandi est quae παράδειγμα a Graecis nominatur cum poenitio propter exemplum necessaria est, ut ceteri a similibus peccatis, quae prohiberi publicitus interest, metu cognitae poenae deterreantur. Idcirco veteres quoque nostri “exempla” pro maximis gravissimisque poenis dicebant. Quando igitur aut spes magna est ut is qui peccavit citra poenam ipse sese ultro corrigat, aut spes contra nulla est emendari eum posse et corrigi, aut iacturam dignitatis, in quem peccatum est, metui non necessum est, aut non id peccatum est cuius exemplum necessario metu sanciendum sit: tum, quicquid ita delictum est non sane dignum esse imponendi poenae studium visum est. Has tris ulciscendi rationes et philosophi alii plurifariam et noster Taurus in primo commentariorumCommentartorum, quos in Gorgian Platonis composuit, scriptas reliquit. Plato autem ipse verbis apertis duas solas esse poeniendi causas dicit: unam, quam primo in loco propter corrigendum, alteram, quam in tertio propter exempli metum posuimus. Verba haec sunt Platonis in Gorgia: Προσήκει δὲ παντὶ τῷ ἐν τιμωρίᾳ ὄντι ὑπʼ ἄλλου ὀρθῶς τιμωρουμένῳ ἢ βελτίονι γίγνεσθαι καὶ ὀνίνασθαι, ἢ παραδείγματι ἄλλοις γίγνεσθαι, ἵνα ἄλλοι οἱ ὁρῶντες πάσχοντα φοβούμενοι βελτίους γίγνωνται. In hisce verbis facile intellegas τιμωρίαν Platonem dixisse, non ut supra scripsi quosdam dicere, sed ita ut promiscepromisee dici solet pro omni punitione. Anne autem quasi omnino parvam et contemptu dignam praeterierit poenae sumendae causam propter tuendam laesi hominis auctoritatem, an magis quasi ei quam dicebat rei non necessariam praetermiserit, cum de poenis, non in vita neque inter homines, sed post vitae tempus capiendis scriberet, ego in medium relinquo.

[¶6] 15. On the verb quiesco, whether it should be pronounced with a long or a short e. A FRIEND of mine, a man of much learning and devoted to the liberal arts, pronounced the verb quiescit (“be quiet”) in the usual manner, with a short e. Another man, also a friend of mine, marvellous in the use of grammatical rules as jugglers' tricks, so to say, and excessively fastidious in rejecting common words, thought that the first man had been guilty of a barbarism, maintaining that he ought to have lengthened the e, rather than shortened it. For he asserted that quiescit ought to be pronounced like calescit, nitescit, stupescit and many other words of that kind. He also added the statement that quies (quiet) is pronounced with the e long, not short. But my first-named friend, with the unassuming modesty which was characteristic of him in all matters, said that not even if the Aelii, the Cincii and the Santrae had decided that the word ought to be so pronounced, would he follow their ruling against the universal usage of the Latin language, nor would he speak in such an eccentric fashion as to be discordant and strange in his diction. Nevertheless he wrote a letter on the subject, among some exercises for his own amusement, in which he tried to prove that quiesco is not like those words which I have quoted above; that it is not derived from quies but rather quies from quiesco. He also maintained that quiesco has the form and derivation of a Greek word, and he tried to show, by reasons that were by no means without force, that the word should not be pronounced with a long e.

> Latin: 15. De verbo “quiesco,” an e littera corripi an produci debeat. AMicus noster, homo multi studii atque in bonarum disciplinarum opere frequens, verbum “quiescit” usitate e littera correpta dixit. Alter item amicus, homo in doctrinis, quasi in praestigiis, mirificus communiumque vocum respuens nimis et fastidiens, barbare eum dixisse opinatus est, quoniam producere debuisset, non corripere. Nam “quiescit” ita oportere dici praedicavit, ut “calescit, nitescit, stupescit” et alia huiuscemodi multa. Id etiam addebat, quod “quies” e producto, non brevi diceretur. Noster autem, qua est rerum omnium verecunda mediocritate, ne si Aelii quidem, Cincii et Santrae dicendum ita censuissent, obsecuturum se fuisse ait contra perpetuam Latinae linguae consuetudinem, neque se tam insignite locuturum, ut absona inauditaque diceret; litteras tamen super hac re fecit inter exercitia quaedam ludicra et “quiesco” non esse his simile quae supra posui, nec a “quiete” dictum, sed ab eo quietemquieterm, “Graecaeque vocis et modum et originem verbum istud habere demonstravit, rationibusque haut sane frigidis docuit quiesco” e littera longa dici non convenire.

[¶7] 16. On a use by the poet Catullus of the word deprecor, which is unusual, it is true, but appropriate and correct; and on the origin of that word, with examples from early writers. As we chanced to be strolling one evening in the Lyceum, we were furnished with sport and amusement by a certain man, of the kind that lays claim to a reputation for eloquence by a superficial and ill-regulated use of language, without having learned any of the usages and principles of the Latin tongue. For while Catullus in one of his poems had used the word deprecor rather cleverly, that fellow, unable to appreciate this, declared that the following verses which I have quoted were very flat, although in the judgment of all men they are most charming:
My Lesbia constantly speaks ill of me
And ceases not. By Jove! she cares for me!
How do I know? 'Tis just the same with me;
I rail at, but by Jove! I worship, her. Our good man thought that deprecor in this passage was used in the sense that is commonly given the word by the vulgar; that is, “I pray earnestly,” “I beseech,” “I entreat,” where the preposition de is used intensively and emphatically. And if that were so, the verses would indeed be flat. But as a matter of fact the sense is exactly the opposite; for the preposition de, since it has a double force, contains two meanings in one and the same word. For deprecor is used by Catullus in the sense of “denounce, execrate, drive away,” or “avert by prayers”; but it also has the opposite meaning, when Cicero In Defence of Publius Sulla speaks as follows: “How many men's lives did he beg off (est deprecatus) from Sulla.” Similarly in his speech Against the Agrarian Law Cicero says:
If I do any wrong, there are no masks of ancestors to intercede (deprecentur, “beg off”) for me with you by their prayers. But Catullus was not alone in using this word with that meaning. Indeed, the books are full of cases of its occurrence in the same sense, and of these I have quoted one or two which had come to mind. Quintus Ennius in the Erectheus, not differing greatly from Catullus, says:
Who now win freedom by my own distress
For those whose slavery I by woe avert (deprecor).
He means “I drive away” and “remove,” either by resort to prayer or in some other way. Similarly in the Chresphontes Ennius writes:
When I my own life spare, may I avert (deprecer)
Death from mine enemy.
Cicero, in the sixth book of his Republic, wrote: “Which indeed was so much the more remarkable, because, while the colleagues were in the same case, they not only did not incur the same hatred, but the affection felt for Gracchus even averted (deprecabatur) the unpopularity of Claudius.” Here too the meaning is not “earnestly entreated,” but “warded off” unpopularity, so to speak, and defended him against it, a meaning which the Greeks express by the parallel word paraitei=sqai. Cicero also uses the word in the same way in his Defence of Aulus Caecina, saying: “What can you do for a man like this? Can you not sometimes permit one to avert (deprecetur) the odium of the greatest wickedness by the excuse of the most abysmal folly?” Also in the first book of his second Arraignment of Verres: “Now what can Hortensius do? Will he try to avert (deprecetur) the charge of avarice by the praise of economy? But he is defending a man who is utterly disgraced and sunk in lust and crime.” So then Catullus means that he is doing the same as Lesbia, in publicly speaking ill of her, scorning and rejecting her, and constantly praying to be rid of her, and yet loving her to madness.

> Latin: 16. Verbum “deprecor” a poeta Catullo inusitate quidem, sed apte positum et proprie; deque ratione eius verbi exemplisque veterum scriptorum. EIUSMODI quispiam qui tumultuariis et inconditis linguae exercitationibus ad famam sese facundiae promiseratproniiserat neque orationis Latinae usurpationes rationesve ullas didicerat, cum in Lycio forte vespera ambularemus, ludo ibi et voluptati fuit. Nam cum esset verbum “deprecor” doctiuscule positum in Catulli carmine, quia id ignorabat, frigidissimos versus esse dicebat omnium quidem iudicio venustissimos, quos subscripsi:
Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam
De me; Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat.
Quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea; deprecor illam
Assidue, verum dispeream nisi amo. “Deprecor” hoc in loco vir bonus ita esse dictum putabat, ut plerumque a vulgo dicitur, quod significat “valde precor” et “oro” et “supplico,” in quo “de” praepositio ad augendum et cumulandum valet. Quod si ita esset, frigidi sane versus forent. Nunc enim contra omnino est; nam “de” praepositio, quoniam est anceps, in uno eodemque verbo duplicem vim capit. Sic enim “deprecor” a Catullo dictum est, quasi “detestor” vel “exsecror” vel “depello” vel “abominor”; contra autem valet, cum Cicero Pro P. Sulla ita dicit: “Quam multorum hic vitamst a Sulla deprecatus.” Item in dissuasione legis agrariae: “Si quid deliquero, nullae sunt imagines, quae me a vobis deprecentur.” Sed neque solus Catullus ita isto verbo usus est. Pleni sunt adeo libri similis in hoc verbo significationis, ex quibus unum et alterum, quae subpetierant, apposui. Q. Ennius in Erectheo non longe secus dixit quam CatullusCattullus:
Qui núnc (inquit) aerumna meá libertatém paro,
Quibus sérvitutem meá miseria déprecor;
signat “abigo” et “amolior,” vel prece adhibita vel quo alio modo. Item Ennius in Cresphonte:
Ego cum meae vitae parcam, létum inimico déprecer. Cicero in libro sexto De RepublIca ita scripsit: “Quod quidem eo fuit maius, quia, cum causa pari collegae essent, non modo invidia pari non erant, sed etiam Claudi invidiam Gracchi caritas deprecabatur”; hic quoque item non est “valde precabatur,” sed quasi propulsabat invidiam et defensabat invidiam, quod Graeci propinqua significatione παραιτεῖσθαι dicunt. Item Pro Aulo Caecina consimiliter Cicero verbo isto utitur. “Quid,” inquit, “huic homini facias? Nonne concedas interdum ut excusatione summae stultitiae summae improbitatis odium deprecetur?” Item In Verrem actionis secundae primo: “Nunc vero quid faciat Hortensius? Avaritiaene crimina frugalitatis laudibus deprecetur? At hominem flagitiosissimum, libidinosissimum nequissimumque defendit.” Sic igitur Catullus eadem se facere dicit quae Lesbiam, quod et malediceret ei palam respueretque et recusaret detestareturque assidue et tamen eam penitus deperiret.

[¶8] 17. Who was the first of all to establish a public library; and how many books there were in the public libraries at Athens before the Persian invasions. THE tyrant Pisistratus is said to have been the first to establish at Athens a public library of books relating to the liberal arts. Then the Athenians themselves added to this collection with considerable diligence and care; but later Xerxes, when he got possession of Athens and burned the entire city except the citadel, removed that whole collection of books and carried them off to Persia. Finally, a long time afterwards, king Seleucus, who was surnamed Nicanor, had all those books taken back to Athens. At a later time an enormous quantity of books, nearly seven hundred thousand volumes, was either acquired or written in Egypt under the kings known as Ptolemies; but these were all burned during the sack of the city in our first war with Alexandria, not intentionally or by anyone's order, but accidentally by the auxiliary soldiers.

> Latin: 17. Quis omnium primus libros publice praebuerit legendos; quantusque numerusnumerous fuerit Athenis ante clades Persicas librorum in bibliothecis publicorum. LIBROS Athenis disciplinarum liberalium publice ad legendum praebendos primus posuisse dicitur Pisistratus tyrannus. Deinceps studiosius accuratiusque ipsi Athenienses auxerunt; sed omnem illam postea librorum copiam Xerxes, Athenarum potitus, urbe ipsa praeter arcem incensa, abstulit asportavitque in Persas. Eos porro libros universos multis post tempestatibus Seleucus rex, qui Nicanor appellatus est, referendos Athenas curavit. Ingens postea numerus librorum in Aegypto ab Ptolemaeis regibus vel conquisitus vel confectus est ad milia ferme voluminum septingenta; sed ea omnia bello priore Alexandrino, dum diripitur ea civitas, non sponte neque opera consulta, sed a militibus forte auxiliaris incensa sunt.

## 19. Book VIII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/19/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/19/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Whether the expression hesterna nocte, for “last night,” is right or wrong, and what the grammarians have said about those words; also that the decemvirs in the Twelve Tables used nox for noctu, meaning “by night.”

> Latin: 1. “HESTERNA noctu” rectene an cum vitio dicatur et quaenam super istis verbis grammatica traditio sit; item quod decemviri in XII. Tabulis “nox” pro “noctu” dixerunt.

[¶1] 2. TEN words pointed out to me by Favorinus which, although in use by the Greeks, are of foreign origin and barbarous; also the same number given him by me which, though of general and common use by those who speak Latin, are by no means Latin and are not to be found in the early literature.

> Latin: 2. QUAE mihi decem verba ediderit Favorinus, quae usurpentur quidem a Graecis, sed sint adulterina et barbara; quae item a me totidem acceperit, quae ex medio communique usu Latine loquentium minime Latina sint neque in veterum libris reperiantur.

[¶2] 3. IN what terms and how severely the philosopher Peregrinus in my hearing rebuked a young Roman of equestrian rank, who stood before him inattentive and constantly yawning.... and saw him continually yawning and noticed the degenerate dreaminess expressed in his attitude of mind and body.

> Latin: 3. QUAE in modum et quam severe increpuerit audientibus nobis Peregrinus philosophus adulescentem Romanum ex equestri familia, stantem segnem apud se et assidue oscitantemoscitaitem. Et adsiduo oscitantem vidit, atque illius quidem delicatissimas mentis et corporis halucinationes.

[¶3] 4. THAT Herodotus, that most famous writer of history, was wrong in saying that the pine alone of all trees never puts forth new shoots from the same roots, after being cut down; and that he stated as an established fact about rainwater and snow a thing which had not been sufficiently investigated.

> Latin: 4. QUOD Herodotus, scriptor historiae memoratissimus, parum vere dixerit unam solamque pinum arborum omnium caesam numquam denuo ex isdem radicibus pullulare; et quod item de aqua pluviali et nive rein non satis exploratam pro comperta posuerit.

[¶4] 5. ON the meaning of Virgil's expression caelum stare pulvere and of Lucilius' pectus sentibus stare.

> Latin: 5. QUID illud sit, quod Vergilius “caelum stare pulvere,” et quod Lucilius “pectus sentibus stare” dixit.

[¶5] 6. THAT when a reconciliation takes place after trifling offences, mutual complaints are useless; and Taurus' discourse on that subject, with a quotation from the treatise of Theophrastus; and what Marcus Cicero also thought about the love arising from friendship, added in his own words.

> Latin: 6. CUM post offensiunculas in gratiam redeatur, expostulationes fieri mutuas minime utile esse, superque ea re et sermo Tauri expositus et verba ex Theophrasti libro sumpta; et quid M. quoque Cicero de amore amicitiae senserit, cum ipsius verbis additum.

[¶6] 7. WHAT we have learned and know of the nature and character of memory from Aristotle's work entitled Peri\ Mnh/mhs or On Memory; and also some other examples, of which we have heard or read, about extraordinary powers of memory or its total loss.

> Latin: 7. Ex Aristotelis libro, qui Περὶ Μνήμης inscriptus est, cognita acceptaque de natura memoriae et habitu; atque inibi alia quaedam de exuberantia aut interitu eius lecta auditaque.

[¶7] 8. MY experience in trying to interpret and, as it were, to reproduce in Latin certain passages of Plato.

> Latin: 8. QUID mihi usu venerit, interpretari et quasi effingere volenti locos quosdam Platonicos Latina oratione.

[¶8] 9. How Theophrastus, the most eloquent philosopher of his entire generation, when on the point of making a brief speech to the people of Athens, was overcome by bashfulness and kept silence; and how Demosthenes had a similar experience when speaking before king Philip.

> Latin: 9. QUOD Theophrastus, philosophus omnis suae aetatis facundissimus, verba pauca ad populum Atheniensem facturus, deturbatus verecundia obticuerit; quodque idem hoc Demostheni apud Philippum regem verba facienti evenerit.

[¶9] 10. A DISCUSSION that I had in the town of Eleusis with a conceited grammarian who, although ignorant of the tenses of verbs and the exercises of schoolboys, ostentatiously proposed abstruse questions of a hazy and formidable character, to impress the minds of the unlearned. Would wish a lying scoundrel.

> Latin: 10. QUALIS mihi fuerit in oppido Eleusino disceptatio cum grammaticogramnatico quodam praestigioso, tempora verborum et puerilia meditamentarneditamenta ignorante, remotarum autem quaestionum nebulas et formidines capiendis imperitorum animis ostentante. halophantam mendaeem velit.

[¶10] 11. THE witty reply of Socrates to his wife Xanthippe, when she asked that they might spend more money for their dinners during the Dionysiac festival.

> Latin: 11. QUAM festive responderit Xanthippae uxori Socrates, petenti ut per Dionysia largiore sumptu cenitarent.

[¶11] 12. ON the meaning of plerique omnes, or “almost all,” in the early literature; and on the probable Greek origin of that expression.

> Latin: 12. QUID significet in veterum libris scriptum “plerique omnes”; et quod ea verba accepta a Graecis videntur.

[¶12] 13. THAT eupsones, a word used by the people of Africa, is not Phoenician, but Greek.

> Latin: 13. “CupsonesEUPSONES,” quod homines Afri dicunt, non esse verbum Poenicum, sed Graecum.

[¶13] 14. A HIGHLY entertaining discussion of the philosopher Favorinus with a tiresome person who held forth on the double meaning of certain words; also some unusual expressions from the poet Naevius and from Gnaeus Gellius; and further, some investigations of the derivation of words by Publius Nigidius.

> Latin: 14. LEPIDISSIMA altercatio Favorini philosophi adversus quendam intempestivum de ambiguitate verborum disserentem; atque inibi verba quaedam ex Naevio poeta et Cn. Gellio non usitate collocata; atque ibidem a P. Nigidio origines vocabulorum exploratae.

[¶14] 15. How the poet Laberius was ignominiously treated by Gaius Caesar, with a quotation of Laberius' own words on that subject. A pleasant and remarkable story from the books of Heracleides of Pontus.

> Latin: 15. QUIBUS modis ignominiatus tractatusque sit a C. Caesare Laberius poeta; atque inibi appositi versus super eadem re eiusdem Laberii. Historia ex libris Heraclidae Pontici iucunda memoratu et miranda.

## 20. Book IX · chapters 1–9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/20/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/20/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Why Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, wrote that missiles hit their mark more accurately and surely if they are hurled from below, than if they are hurled from above. When Quintus Claudius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, was describing an attack upon a town by the proconsul Metellus, and its defence against him by the townspeople from the top of the walls, he wrote these words: “The archers and slingers on both sides showered their weapons with the utmost vigour and courage. But there is this difference between shooting an arrow or a stone downward or upward; for neither missile can be discharged accurately downward, but both upwards with excellent effect. Therefore the soldiers of Metellus suffered far fewer wounds, and, what was of the greatest importance, they very easily drove the enemy back from the battlements by means of their slingers.” I asked Antonius Julianus, the rhetorician, why what Quadrigarius had said was so; namely, that the shots of missiles are closer and more accurate if you discharge a stone or an arrow upwards rather than downwards, in spite of the fact that a throw from above downward is swifter and easier than one in the opposite direction. Then Julianus, after commending the character of the question, said: “His statement about an arrow and a stone may be made about almost any missile weapon. But, as you have said, throwing is easier if you throw downwards, provided you wish only to throw, and not to hit a mark. But when the direction and force of the throw must be regulated and guided, then, if you are throwing downwards, tile control and command of the marksman are impaired by the downward impulse itself, such as it is, and by the weight of the falling missile. But if you throw your weapon upwards, and direct hand and eye to hitting something above you, the missile which you have hurled will go to the spot to which the impulse which you have given bears it.” It was to this general effect that Julianus chatted with us about those words of Quintus Claudius. With regard to the remark of the same Claudius, “they very easily drove the enemy from the battlements,” it must be observed that he used the word defendebant, not in the sense which it commonly has, but yet quite properly and in accordance with good Latin usage. For defendere and offendere are opposed to each other, the latter meaning e)mpodw\n e)/xein, that is, “to run against something and fall upon it,” the former, e)kpodw\n poiei=n, that is, “to avert and drive away”; and the latter is Claudius' meaning in this passage.

> Latin: 1. Quamobrem Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in undevicesimo Annali, scripserit rectiores certioresque ictus fieri, si sursum quid mittas quam si deorsum. QUINTUS CLAUDIUS in undevicesimo Annali, cum oppidum a Metello proconsule oppugnari, contra ab oppidanis desuper e muris propugnari describeret, ita scripsit: “Sagittarius cum funditore utrimque summo studio spargunt fortissime. Sed sagittam atque lapidem deorsum an sursum mittas, hoc interest; nam neutrum potest deorsum versum recte mitti, sed sursum utrumque optime. Quare milites Metelli sauciabantur multo minus et, quod maxime opus erat, a pinnis hostis defendebant facillime finditorePercontabar.” Percontabar ego Antonium Iulianumluhanum rhetorem, cur hoc ita usu veniret quod Quadrigarius dixisset, ut contigui magis directioresque ictus fiant, si vel lapidem vel sagittam sursum versus iacias quam deorsum, cum proclivior faciliorque iactus sit ex supernis in infima quam ex infimis in superna. Tum Iulianus, comprobato genere quaestionis, “Quod de sagitta,” inquit, “et lapide dixit, hoc de omni fere missili telo dici potest.” “Facilior autem iactus est, sicuti dixisti, si desuper iacias, si quid iacere tantum velis, non ferire.” “Sed cum modus et impetus iactus temperandus derigendusque est, tum, si in prona iacias, moderatio atque ratio inittentisquemittentis praecipitantia qualicumque ipsa et pondere cadentis teli corrumpitur.” “At si in editiora mittas et ad percutiendum superne aliquid manum et oculos conlinies, quo motus a te datus tulerit, eo telum ibit quod ieceris.” Ad hanc ferme sententiam Iulianus super istis Q. Claudii verbis nobiscum sermocinatus est. Quod ait idem Q. Claudius: “a pinnis hostis defendebant facillime,” animadvertendum est usum esse eum verbo “defendebant,” non ex vulgari consuetudine, sed admodum proprie et Latine. Nam “defendere” et “offendere” inter sese adversa sunt, quorum alterum significat ἐμποδὼν ἔχειν, id est incurrere in aliquid et incidere, alterum ἐκποδὼν ποιεῖν, id est avertere atque depellere, quod hoc in loco Claudio dicitur.

[¶1] 2. In what terms Herodes Atticus reproved a man who in appearance and dress falsely laid claim to the title and character of philosopher. To Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, renowned for his personal charm and his Grecian eloquence, there once came, when I was present, a man in a cloak, with long hair and a beard that reached almost to his waist, and asked that money be given him ei)s a)/rtous, that is, “for bread.” Then Herodes asked him who on earth he was, and the man, with anger in his voice and expression, replied that he was a philosopher, adding that he wondered why Herodes thought it necessary to ask what was obvious. “I see,” said Herodes, “a beard and a cloak; the philosopher I do not yet see. Now, I pray you, be so good as to tell me by what evidence you think we may recognize you as a philosopher.” Meanwhile some of Herodes' companions told him that the fellow was a vagabond of worthless character, who frequented foul dives and was in the habit of being shamefully abusive if he did not get what he demanded. Thereupon Herodes said: “Let us give him some money, whatever his character may be, not because he is a man, but because we are men,” and he ordered enough money to be given him to buy bread for thirty days. Then, turning to those of us who were with him, he said: “Musonius ordered a thousand sesterces to be given to a fakir of this sort who posed as a philosopher, and when several told him that the fellow was a rascal and knave and deserving of nothing good, Musonius, they say, replied with a smile: a)/cios ou)=n e)sti\n a)rguri/ou, 'then he deserves money.' But,” said Herodes, “it is rather this that causes me resentment and vexation, that foul and evil beasts of this sort usurp a most sacred name and call themselves philosophers. Now, my ancestors the Athenians by public decree made it unlawful for slaves ever to be given the names of those valiant youths Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who to restore liberty tried to slay the tyrant Hippias; for they thought it impious for the names of men who had sacrificed themselves for their country's freedom to be disgraced by contact with slavery. Why then do we allow the glorious title of philosopher to be defiled in the person of the basest of men? Moreover,” said he, “I hear that the early Romans, setting a similar example in a case of the opposite nature, voted that the forenames of certain patricians who had deserved ill of their country and for that reason had been condemned to death should never be given to any patrician of the same clan, in order that their very names might seem to be dishonoured and done to death, as well as the malefactors themselves.”

> Latin: 2. Qualibus verbis notarit Herodes Atticus falso quempiam cultu amictuque nomen habitumque philosophi ementientem. AD Herodem Atticum, consularem virum ingenioque amoeno et Graeca facundia celebrem, adiit nobis praesentibus palliatus quispiam et crinitus barbaque prope ad pubem usque porrecta ac petit aes sibi dari εἰς ἄρτους. Tum Herodes interrogat quisnam esset. Atque ille, vultu sonituque vocis obiurgatorio, philosophum sese esse dicit et mirari quoque addit cur quaerendum putasset quod videret. “Video,” inquit Herodes, “barbam et pallium, philosophum nondum video.” “Quaeso autem te, cum bona venia dicas mihi quibus nos uti posse argumentis existimas, ut esse te philosophum noscitemus?” Interim aliquot ex his qui cum Herode erant erraticum esse hominem dicere et nulli rei incolamque esse sordentium ganearum, nisi accipiat quod petat convicio turpi solitum incessere; atque ibi Herodes “Demus,” inquit, “huic aliquid aeris, cuicuimodi est,” “tamquam homines, non tamquam homini,” et iussit dari pretium panis triginta dierum. Tum nos aspiciens qui eum sectabamur, “Musonius,” inquit, “aeruscanti cuipiam id genus et philosophum sese ostentanti dari iussit mille nummum, et cum plerique dicerent nebulonem esse hominem malum et malitiosum et nulla re bona dignum, tum Musonium subridentem dixisse aiunt: ἄξιος οὖν ἐστὶν ἀργυρίον.” “Sed hoc potius,” inquit, “dolori mihi et aegritudini est, quod istiusmodi animalia spurca atque probra nomen usurpant sanctissimumsanetissimum et philosophi appellantur.” “Maiores autem mei Athenienses nomina iuvenum fortissimorum Harmodii et Aristogitonis, qui libertatis recuperandae gratia Hippiam tyrannum interficere adorsi erant, ne umquam servis indere liceret decreto publico sanxerunt, quoniam nefas ducerent nomina libertati patriae devota servili contagio pollui.” “Cur ergo nos patimur nomen philosophiae inlustrissimum in hominibus deterrimis exsordescereexordescere? Simili autem,” inquit, “exemplo ex contraria specie antiquos Romanorum audio praenomina patriciorum quorundam male de republica meritorum et ob eamearn causam capite damnatorum censuisse, ne cui eiusdem gentis patricio inderentur, ut vocabula quoque eorum defamata atque demortua cum ipsis viderentur.”

[¶2] 3. A letter of king Philip to the philosopher Aristotle with regard to the recent birth of his son Alexander. PHILIP, son of Amyntas, was king of the land of Macedonia. Through his valour and energy the Macedonians had greatly increased and enriched their kingdom, and had begun to extend their power over many nations and peoples, so that Demosthenes, in those famous orations and addresses, insists that his power and arms are to be feared and dreaded by all Greece. This Philip, although almost constantly busied and distracted by the labours and triumphs of war, yet never was a stranger to the Muse of the liberal arts and the pursuit of culture, but his acts and words never lacked charm and refinement. In fact collections of his letters are in circulation, which abound in elegance, grace, and wisdom, as for example, the one in which he announced to the philosopher Aristotle the birth of his son Alexander. Since this letter is an encouragement to care and attention in the education of children, I thought that it ought to be quoted in full, as an admonition to parents. It may be translated, then, about as follows: Philip to Aristotle, Greeting. Know that a son is born to me. For this indeed I thank the gods, not so much because he is born, as because it is his good fortune to be born during your lifetime. For I hope that as a result of your training and instruction he will prove worthy of us and of succeeding to our kingdom. But Philip's own words are these: Fi/lippos )Aristote/lei xai/rein. )/Isqi moi gegono/ta ui(o/n. pollh\n ou)=n toi=s qeoi=s e)/xw xa/rin, ou)x ou(/tws e)pi\ th=| gene/sei tou= paido/s, w(s e)pi\ tw=| kata\ th\n sh\n h(liki/an au)to\n gegone/nai: e)lpi/zw ga/r au)to\n u(po\ sou= trafe/nta kai\ paideuqe/nta a)/cion e)/sesqai kai\ h(mw=n kai\ th=s tw=n pragma/twn diadoxh=s.

> Latin: 3. Epistula Philippi regis ad Aristotelem philosophum super Alexandro recens nato. PHILIPPUS, Amyntae filius, terrae Macedoniae rex, cuius virtute industriaque Macetae locupletissimo imperio aucti gentium nationumquenationunique multarummultarur potiri coeperant et cuius vim atque arma toti Graeciae cavenda metuendaque inclitae illae Demosthenis orationes contionesque vocificant— is Philippus, cum in omni fere tempore negotiis belli victoriisque adfectus exercitusque esset, a liberali tamen Musa et a studiis humanitatis numquam afuit, quin lepide comiterque pleraque et faceret et diceret. Feruntur adeo libri epistularum eius, munditiae et venustatis et prudentiae plenarum, velut sunt illae litterae quibus Aristoteli philosopho natum esse sibi Alexandrum nuntiavit. Ea epistula, quoniam curae diligentiaeque in liberorum disciplinas hortamentum est, exscribenda visa est ad commonendos parentum animos. Exponenda est igitur ad hanc ferme sententiam: Philippus Aristoteli salutem dicit. Filium mihi genitum scito. Quod equidem dis habeo gratiam, non proinde quia natus est, quam pro eo, quod nasci contigit temporibus vitae tuae. Spero enim fore ut eductus eruditusque a te, dignus existat et nobis et rerum nostrarum susceptione. Ipsius autem Philippi verba haec sunt: Φίλιππος Ἀριστοτέλει χαίρειν. Ἴσθι μοι γεγονότα υἱόν. πολλὴν οὖν τοῖς θεοῖς ἔχω χάριν, οὐχ οὕτως ἐπὶ τῇ γενέσει τοῦ παιδός, ὡς ἐπὶ τῷ κατὰ τὴν σὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτὸν γεγονέναι· ἐλπίζω γάρ αὐτὸν ὑπὸ σοῦ τραφέντα καὶ παιδευθέντα ἄξιον ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἡμῶν καὶ τῆς τῶν πραγμάτων διαδοχῆς.

[¶3] 4. On some extraordinary marvels found among barbarian peoples; and on awful and deadly spells; and also on the sudden change of women into men. WHEN I was returning from Greece to Italy and had come to Brundisium, after disembarking I was strolling about in that famous port, which Quintus Ennius called praepes, or “propitious,” using an epithet that is somewhat far-fetched, but altogether apt. There I saw some bundles of books exposed for sale, and I at once eagerly hurried to them. Now, all those books were in Greek, filled with marvellous tales, things unheard of, incredible; but the writers were ancient and of no mean authority: Aristeas of Proconnesus, Isigonus of Nicaea, Ctesias and Onesicritus, Philostephanus and Hegesias. The volumes themselves, however, were filthy from long neglect, in bad condition and unsightly. Nevertheless, I drew near and asked their price; then, attracted by their extraordinary and unexpected cheapness, 1 bought a large number of them for a small sum, and ran through all of them hastily in the course of the next two nights. As I read, I culled from them, and noted down, some things that were remarkable and for the most part unmentioned by our native writers; these I have inserted here and there in these notes, so that whoever shall read them may not be found to be wholly ignorant and a)nh/koos, or “uninstructed,” when hearing tales of that kind. Those books, then, contained matter of the following sort: that the most remote of the Scythians, who pass their life in the far north, eat human flesh and subsist on the nourishment of that food, and are called a)nqrwpofa/goi, or “cannibals.” Also that there are men in the same latitude having one eye in the middle of the forehead and called Arimaspi, who are of the appearance that the poets give the Cyclopes. That there are also in the same region other men, of marvellous swiftness, whose feet are turned backwards and do not point forward, as in the rest of mankind. Further, that it was handed down by tradition that in a distant land called Albania men are born whose hair turns white in childhood and who see better by night than in the daytime. That it was also a matter of assured belief that the Sauromatae, who dwell far away beyond the river Borysthenes, take food only every other day and fast on the intervening day. In those same books I ran upon this statement too, which I later read also in the seventh book of the Natural History of Plinius Secundus, that in the land of Africa there are families of persons who work spells by voice and tongue; for if they should chance to have bestowed extravagant praise upon beautiful trees, plentiful crops, charming children, fine horses, flocks that are well fed and in good condition, suddenly, for no other cause than this, all these would die. That with the eyes too a deadly spell is cast, is written in those same books, and it is said that there are persons among the Illyrians who by their gaze kill those at whom they have looked for some time in anger; and that those persons themselves, both men and women, who possess this power of harmful gaze, have two pupils in each eye. Also that in the mountains of the land of India there are men who have the heads of dogs, and bark, and that they feed upon birds and wild animals which they have taken in the chase. That in the remotest lands of the east too there are other marvellous men called monocoli, or “one-legged,” who run by hopping with their single leg and are of a most lively swiftness. And that there are also some others who are without necks and have eyes in their shoulders. But all bounds of wonder are passed by the statement of those same writers, that there is a tribe in farthest India with bodies that are rough and covered with feathers like birds, who eat no food but live by inhaling the perfume of flowers. And that not far from these people is the land of Pygmies, the tallest of whom are not more than two feet and a quarter in height. These and many other stories of the kind I read; but when writing them down, I was seized with disgust for such worthless writings, which contribute nothing to the enrichment or profit of life. Nevertheless, the fancy took me to add to this collection of marvels a thing which Plinius Secundus, a man of high authority in his day and generation by reason of his talent and his position, recorded in the seventh book of his Natural History, not as something that he had heard or read, but that he knew to be true and had himself seen. The words therefore which I have quoted below are his own, taken from that book, and they certainly make us hesitate to reject or ridicule that familiar yarn of the poets of old about Caenis and Caeneus. He says that the change of women into men is not a fiction. “We find,” says he, “in the annals that in the consulship of Quintus Licinius Crassus and Gains Cassius Longinus a girl at Casinum was changed into a boy in the house of her parents and by direction of the diviners was deported to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus has stated that he saw at Argos one Arescontes, whose name had been Arescusa; that she had even been married, but presently grew a beard, became a man, and had taken a wife: and that at Smyrna also he had seen a boy who had experienced the same change. I myself in Africa saw Lucius Cossutius, a citizen of Thysdrus, who had been changed into a man on his wedding day and was still living when I wrote this.” Pliny also wrote this in the same book: “There are persons who from birth are bisexual, whom we call 'hermaphrodites'; they were formerly termed androgyni and regarded as prodigies, but now are instruments of pleasure.”

> Latin: 4. De barbararum gentium prodigiosis miraculis; deque diris et exitiosis effascinationibus; atque inibi de feminis repente versis in mares. CUM e Graecia in Italiam rediremus et Brundisium iremus egressique e navi in terram in portu illo inclito spatiaremur, quem Q. Ennius remotiore paulum, sed admodum scito vocabulo “praepetem” appellavit, fasces librorum venalium expositos vidimus. Atque ego avide statim pergo ad libros. Erant autem isti omnes libri Graeci miraculorum fabularumque pleni, res inauditae, incredulae, scriptores veteres non parvae auctoritatis: Aristeas Proconnesius et Isigonus Nicaeensis et Ctesias et Onesicritus et Philostephanus et Hegesias; ipsa autem volumina ex diutino situ squalebant et habitu aspectuque taetro erant. Accessi tamen percontatusque pretium sum et, adductus mira atque insperata vilitate, libros plurimos aere pauco emo eosque omnis duabus proximis noctibus cursim transeo; atque in legendo carpsi exinde quaedam et notavi mirabilia et scriptoribus fere nostris intemptata eaque his commentariis aspersi, ut qui eos lectitarit ne rudis omnino et ἀνήκοος inter istiusmodi rerum auditiones reperiatur. Erant igitur in illis libris scripta huiuscemodi: Scythas illos penitissimospenitissiimos, qui sub ipsis septentrionibus aetatem agunt, corporibus hominum vesci eiusque victus alimento vitam ducere et ἀνθρωποφάγους nominari; item esse homines sub eadem regione caeli unum oculum in frontis medio habentes, qui appellantur Arimaspi, qua fuisse facie Cyclopas poetae ferunt; alios item esse homines apud eandem caeli plagam singulariae velocitatis, vestigia pedum habentes retro porrecta, non, ut ceterorum hominum, prosum spectantia; praeterea traditum esse memoratumque in ultima quadam terra, quae “Albania” dicitur, gigni homines, qui in pueritia canescant et plus cernant oculis per noctem quam interdiu; item esse compertum et creditum, Sauromatas, qui ultra Borysthenen fluvium longe colunt, cibum capere semper diebus tertiis, medio abstinere. Id etiam in isdem libris scriptum offendimus, quod postea in libro quoque Plinii Secundi Naturalis Historiae septimo legi, esse quasdam in terra Africa hominum familias voce atque lingua effascinantium, qui si impensius forte laudaverint pulchras arbores, segetes laetiores, infantes amoeniores, egregios equos, pecudes pastu atque cultu opimas, emoriantur repente haec omnia, nulli aliae causae obnoxia. Oculis quoque exitialem fascinationem fieri in isdem libris scriptum est traditurque esse homines in Illyriis qui interimant videndo quos diutius irati viderint, eosque ipsos mares feminasque, qui visu ita nocenti sunt, pupillas in singulis oculis binas habere. Item esse in montibus terrae Indiae homines caninis capitibus et latrantibus eosque vesci avium et ferarum venatibus; atque esse item alia aput ultimas orientis terras miracula homines, qui “monocoli” appellentur, singulis cruribus saltatim currentes, vivacissimae pernicitatis; quosdam etiam esse nullis cervicibus, oculos in humeris habentes. Iam vero hoc egreditur omnem modum admirationis, quod idem illi scriptores gentem esse aiunt aput extrema Indiae, corporibus hirtis et avium ritu plumantibusplumnantibus, nullo cibatu vescentem, sed spiritu florum naribus hausto victitantem; Pygmaeos quoque haut longe ab his nasci, quorum qui longissimi sint, non longiores esse quam pedes duo et quadrantem. Haec atque alia istiusmodi plura legimus, sed cum ea scriberemus, tenuit nos non idoneae scripturae taedium, nihil ad ornandum iuvandumque usum vitae pertinentis. Libitum tamen est in loco hoc miraculorum notare id etiam, quod Plinius Secundus, vir in temporibus aetatis suae ingenii dignitatisque gratia auctoritate magna praeditus, non audisse neque legisse, sed scire sese atque vidisse in libro Naturalis Historiae septimo scripsit. Verba igitur haec, quae infra posui, ipsius sunt, ex eo libro sumpta, quae profecto faciunt ut neque respuenda neque ridenda sit notissima illa veterum poetarum de Caenide et Caeneo cantilena. Ex feminis, inquit, mutari in mares, non esse fabulosum. “Invenimus in annalibus, Q. Licinio Crasso, C. Cassio Longino consulibus, Casini puerum factum ex virgine sub parentibus iussuque haruspicum deportatum in insulam desertam. Licinius Mucianus prodidit visum esse a se Argis Arescontem, cui nomen Arescusae fuisset, nupsisse etiam, mox barbam et virilitatem provenisse uxoremque duxisse; eiusdem sortis et Zmyrnae puerum a se visum. Ipse in Africa vidi mutatum in marem die nuptiarum L. Cossitium civem Thysdritanum, vivebatque cum proderem haec.” Idem Plinius in eodem libro verba haec scripsit: “Gignuntur homines utriusque sexus, quos ‘hermaphroditos’ vocamus, olim ‘androgynos’ vocatos et in prodigiis habitos, nuncnune vero in deliciis.”

[¶4] 5. Diverse views of eminent philosophers as to the nature and character of pleasure; and the words in which the philosopher Hierocles attacked the principles of Epicurus. As to pleasure the philosophers of old expressed varying opinions. Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good, but defines it as sarko\s eu)staqe\s kata/sthma, or “a well-balanced condition of body.” Antisthenes the Socratic calls it the greatest evil; for this is the expression he uses: manei/hn ma=llon h)\ h(sqei/hn; that is to say, “may I go mad rather than feel pleasure.” Speusippus and all the old Academy declare that pleasure and pain are two evils opposed to each other, but that what lay midway between the two was the good. Zeno thought that pleasure was indifferent, that is neutral, neither good nor evil, that, namely, which he himself called by the Greek term a)dia/foron. Critolaus the Peripatetic declares that pleasure is an evil and gives birth to many other evils: injustice, sloth, forgetfulness, and cowardice. Earlier than all these, Plato discoursed in so many and varied ways about pleasure, that all those opinions which I have set forth may seem to have flowed from the founts of his discourses; for he makes use of each one of them according to the suggestion offered by the nature of pleasure itself, which is manifold, and according to the demands made by the character of the topics which he is treating and of the effect that he wishes to produce. But our countryman Taurus, whenever mention was made of Epicurus, always had on his lips and tongue these words of Hierocles the Stoic, a man of righteousness and dignity: “Pleasure an end, a harlot's creed; there is no Providence, not even a harlot's creed.”

> Latin: 5. Diversae nobilium philosophorum sententiae de genere ac natura voluptatis; verbaque Hieroclis philosophi quibus decreta Epicuri insectatus est. DE voluptate veteres philosophi diversas sententias dixerunt. Epicurus voluptatem summum bonum esse ponit, eam tamen ita definit: σαρκὸς εὐσταθὲς κατάστημα. Antisthenes Socraticus summum malum dicit; eius namque hoc verbum est: μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἡσθείην. Speusippus vetusque omnis Academia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter sese, bonum tamen esse quod utriusque medium foret. Zeno censuit voluptatem esse indifferens, id est neutrum, neque bonum neque malum, quod ipse Graeco vocabulo ἀδιάφορον appellavit. Critolaus Peripateticus et malum esse voluptatem ait et multa alia mala parere ex sese, iniurias, desidias, obliviones, ignavias. Plato ante hos omnis ita varie et multiformitermultiobrmiter de voluptate disseruit, ut cunctae istae sententiae quas exposui videantur ex sermonum eius fontibus profluxisse; nam proinde unaquaque utitur, ut et ipsius voluptatis natura fert, quae est multiplex, et causarum quas tractat, rerumque quas efficere vult ratio desiderat. Taurus autem noster, quotiens facta mentio Epicuri erat, in ore atque in lingua habebat verba haec Hieroclis Stoici, viri sancti et gravis, ἡδονὴ τέλος, πόρνης δόγμα· οὐκ ἔστιν πρόνοια, οὐδὲ πόρνης δόγμα.

[¶5] 6. With what quantity the first syllable of the frequentative verb from ago should be pronounced. FROM ago and egi are derived the verbs actito and actitavi, which the grammarians call “frequentatives.” These verbs I have heard some men, and those not without learning, pronounce with a shortening of the first syllable, and give as their reason that the first letter of the primitive ago is pronounced short. Why then do we make the first vowel long in the frequentative forms esito and unctito, which are derived from edo and ungo, in which the first letter is short; and, on the contrary, pronounce the first vowel short in dictito from dīco? Accordingly, should not actito and actitavi rather be lengthened? For the first syllable of almost all frequentatives is pronounced in the same way as the same syllable of the past participle of the verbs from which they are formed: for example, lego lēctus makes lēctito; ungo ūnctus, ūnctito; scrībo scrīptus, scrīptito; moveo mōtus, mōtito; pendeo pēnsus, pēnsito; edo ēsus, ēsito; but dīco dīctus forms dictito; gĕro gĕstus, gĕstito; vĕho vĕctus, vĕctito; răpio răptus, răptito; căpio căptus, căptito; făcio făctus, făctito. So then ăctito should be pronounced with the first syllable long, since it is from ago and ăctus.

> Latin: 6. Verbum quod est ab “ago” frequentativum, in syllaba prima quonam sit modulo pronuntiandum. An eo quod est “ago” et “egi,” verba sunt quae appellant grammatici “frequentativa,” “actito” et “actitavi.” Haec quosdam non sane indoctos viros audio ita pronuntiare, ut primam in his litteram corripiant, rationemque dicunt, quoniam in verbo principali, quod est “ago,” prima littera breviter pronuntiatur. Cur igitur ab eo quod est “edo” et “ungo,” in quibus verbis prima littera breviter dicitur, “esito” et “unctito,” quae sunt eorum frequentativa, prima littera longa promimus et contra “dictito,” ab eo verbo quod est “dico,” correpte dicimus? Num ergo potius “actito” et “actitavi” producenda sunt? quoniam frequentativa ferme omnia eodem modo in prima syllaba dicuntur, quo participia praeteriti temporis ex his verbis unde ea profecta sunt in eadem syllaba pronuntiantur, sicuti “lego lectus” facit “lectito”; “ungo unctus,” “unctito”; “scribo scriptus,” “scriptito”; “moveo motus,” “motito”; “pendeo pensus,” “pensito”; “edo esus,” “esito”; “dico” autem “dictus” “dictito” facit; “gero gestus,” “gestito”; “veho vectus,” “vectito”; “rapio raptus,” “raptito”; “capio captus,” “captito”; “facio factus,” “factito.” Sic igitur “actito” producte in prima syllaba pronuntiandum, quoniam ex eo fit quod est “ago” et “actus.”

[¶6] 7. That the leaves of the olive tree turn over at the summer and the winter solstice, and that the lyre at that same season produces sounds from other strings than those that are struck. IT is commonly both written and believed that at the winter and the summer solstice the leaves of olive trees turn over, and that the side which had been underneath and hidden becomes uppermost and is exposed to sight and to the sun. And 1 myself was led to test this statement more than once, and found it to be almost exactly true. But about the lyre there is an assertion that is less often made and is even more remarkable. And this both other learned men and also Suetonius Tranquillus, in the first book of his History of the Games, declare to have been fully investigated and to be generally accepted; namely, that when some strings of the lyre are struck with the fingers at the time of the winter solstice, other strings give out sound.

> Latin: 7. De conversione foliorum in arbore olea brumali et solstitiali die; deque fidibus id temporis ictu alieno sonantibus. VolgoVULGO et scriptum et creditum est, folia olearum arborum brumali et solstitiali die converti et quae pars eorum fuerit inferior atque occultior, eam supra fieri atque exponi ad oculos et ad solem. Quod nobis quoque semel atque iterum experiri volentibus ita esse propemodumpropeinodum visum est. Sed de fidibus rarius dictu et mirabilius est; quam rem et alii docti viri et Suetonius etiam Tranquillus, in libro Ludicrae Historiae primo, satis compertam esse satisque super ea constare adfirmat: nervias in fidibus brumali die alias digitis pelli, alias sonare.

[¶7] 8. That it is inevitable that one who has much should need much, with a brief and graceful aphorism of the philosopher Favorinus on that subject. THAT is certainly true which wise men have said as the result of observation and experience, that he who has much is in need of much, and that great want arises from great abundance and not from great lack; for many things are wanted to maintain the many things that you have. Whoever then, having much, desires to provide and take precaution that nothing may fail or be lacking, needs to lose, not gain, and must have less in order to want less. I recall that Favorinus once, amid loud and general applause, rounded off this thought, putting it into the fewest possible words: “It is not possible for one who wants fifteen thousand cloaks not to want more things; for if I want more than I possess, by taking away from what I have I shall be contented with what remains.”

> Latin: 8. Necessum esse qui multa habeat multis indigere; deque ea re Favorini philosophi cum brevitate eleganti sententia. VERUM est profecto quod observato rerum usu sapientes viri dixere, multis egere qui multa habeat, magnamque indigentiam nasci non ex inopia magna, sed ex magna copia; multa enim desiderari ad multa quae habeas tuenda. Quisquis igitur, multa habens, cavere atque prospicere velit ne quid egeat neve quid desit, iactura opus esse, non quaestu, et minus habendum esse, ut minus desit. Hanc sententiam memini a Favorino inter ingentes omnium clamoresclarnores detornatam inclusamque verbis his paucissimis: Τὸν γὰρ μυρίων καὶ πεντακισχιλίων χλαμύδων δεόμενον οὐκ ἔστι μὴ πλειόνων δεῖσθαι· οἷς γὰρ ἔχω προσδεόμενος, ἀφελὼν ὧν ἔχω, ἀρκοῦμαι οἷς ἔχω.

[¶8] 9. What method should be followed in translating Greek expressions; and on those verses of Homer which Virgil is thought to have translated either well and happily or unsuccessfully. WHENEVER striking expressions from the Greek poets are to be translated and imitated, they say that we should not always strive to render every single word with exact literalness. For many things lose their charm if they are transplanted too forcibly— unwillingly, as it were, and reluctantly. Virgil therefore showed skill and good judgment in omitting some things and rendering others, when he was dealing with passages of Homer or Hesiod or Apollonius or Parthenius or Callimachus or Theocritus, or some other poet. For example, when very recently the Bucolics of Theocritus and Virgil were being read together at table, we perceived that Virgil had omitted something that in the Greek is, to be sure, wonderfully pleasing, but neither could nor ought to have been translated. But what he has substituted for that omission is almost more charming and graceful. Theocritus writes:
But when her goatherd boy goes by you should see my Cleärist
Fling apples, and her pretty lips call pouting to be kissed.
Virgil has:
My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies,
Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies,
And wishes to be seen before she flies.
Also in another place I notice that what was very sweet in the Greek was prudently omitted. Theocritus writes:
O Tityrus, well-belovéd, feed my goats,
And lead them to the fount, good Tityrus;
But 'ware yon buck-goat yellow, lest he butt.
But how could Virgil reproduce to\ kalo\n pefilhme/ne (“well-beloved”), words that, by Heaven! defy translation, but have a certain native charm? He therefore omitted that expression and translated the rest very cleverly, except in using caper for Theocritus' e)no/rxas; for, according to Marcus Varro, a goat is called caper in Latin only after he has been castrated. Virgil's version is:
Till I return—not long—feed thou my goats;
Then, Tityrus, give them drink, but as you go,
Avoid the buck-goat's horn—the fellow butts' And since I am speaking on the subject of translation, I recall hearing from pupils of Valerius Probus, a learned man and well trained in reading and estimating the ancient writings, that he used to say that Virgil had never translated Homer less successfully than in these delightful lines which Homer wrote about Nausicaa:
As when o'er Erymanth Diana roves,
Or wide Taÿgetus' resounding groves,
A silver train the huntress queen surrounds,
Her rattling quiver from her shoulder sounds;
Fierce in the sport, along the mountain's brow
They bay the boar or chase the bounding roe;
High o'er the lawn, with more majestic pace,
Above the nymphs she treads with stately grace;
Distinguished excellence the goddess proves,
Exults Latona as the virgin moves:
With equal grace Nausicaa trod the plain,
And shone transcendent o'er the beauteous train.
This passage Virgil renders thus:
As on Eurotas' banks or Cynthus' heights
Diana guides her dancing bands, whose train
A thousand Oreads follow, right and left;
A quiver bears she on her shoulder fair,
And as she treads, the goddesses o'ertops;
Joys thrill Latona's silent breast.
First of all, they said that Probus thought that in Homer the maiden Nausicaa, playing among her girl companions in solitary places, was consistently and properly compared with Diana hunting on the mountain heights among the rural goddesses; but that Virgil had made a comparison that was by no means suitable, since Dido, walking with dignified dress and gait in the midst of a city, and surrounded by the Tyrian chiefs, “pressing on the work of her rising kingdom,” as he himself says, can have no points of similarity corresponding with the sports and hunts of Diana. Then secondly, that Homer mentions plainly and directly Diana's interest and pleasure in the chase, while Virgil, not having said a word about the goddess' hunting, merely pictures her as carrying a quiver on her shoulder, as if it were a burden or a pack. And they said that Probus was particularly surprised at this feature of Virgil's version, that while Homer's Leto rejoices with a joy that is unaffected, deep, and springing from the very depths of her heart and soul—for the words ge/ghqe de/ te fre/na Lhtw/, or “Leto rejoiced in heart,” mean nothing else—Virgil, on the other hand, in his attempt to imitate this, has depicted a joy that is passive, mild, slow, and as it were floating on the surface of the heart; for Probus said that he did not know what else the word pertemptant could mean. Besides all this, Virgil seemed to have left out the flower of the whole passage, by giving only a faint shadow of this verse of Homer's:
And shone transcendent o'er the beauteous train.
For no greater or more complete praise of beauty can be expressed than that she alone excelled where all were beautiful, that she alone was easily distinguished from all the rest.

> Latin: 9. Quis modus sit vertendi verba in GraecisGraeeis sententiis; deque his Homeri versibus quos Vergilius vertisse aut bene apteque aut inprospere existimatus est. QUANDO ex poematis Graecis vertendae imitandaeque sunt insignes sententiae, non semper aiunt enitendum ut omnia omnino verba in eum in quem dicta sunt modum vertamus. Perdunt enim gratiam pleraque, si quasi invita et recusantia violentius transferantur. Scite ergo et considerate Vergilius, cum aut Homeri aut Hesiodi aut Apollonii aut Parthenii aut Callimachi aut Theocriti aut quorundam aliorum locos effingeret, partim reliquit, alia expressit. Sicuti nuperrime, aput mensam cum legerentur utraque simul Bucolica Theocriti et Vergilii, animadvertimus reliquisse Vergilium quod Graecum quidem mire quam suave est, verti autem neque debuit neque potuit. Sed enim quod substituit pro eo, quod omiserat, non abest quin iucundius lepidiusque sit:
Βάλλει καὶ μάλοισι τὸν αἰπόλον ἁ Κλεαρίστα
Τὰς αἶγας παρελᾶντα καὶ ἁδύ τι ποππυλιάζει. Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella,
Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri. Illud quoque alio in loco animadvertimus caute omissum, quod est in Graeco versu dulcissimum
Τίτυρʼ, ἐμὶν τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, Βόσκε τὰς αἶγας
Καὶ ποτὶ τὰν κράναν ἄγε, Τίτυρε· καὶ τὸν ἐνόρχαν
Τὸν Λιβυκὸν κνάκωνα φυλάσσεο, μή τυ κορύξῃ.
Quo enim pacto diceret: τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένετὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, verba hercle non translaticia, sed cuiusdam nativae dulcedinis? Hoc igitur reliquit et cetera vertit non infestiviter, nisi quod “caprum” dixit, quem Theocritus ἐνόρχαν appellavit— auctore enim M. Varrone is demum Latine “caper” dicitur, qui excastratus est: — Tityre, dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas
Et potum pastas age, Tityre, et inter agendum
Occursare capro, cornu ferit ille, caveto. Et quoniam de transferendis sententiis loquor, memini audisse me ex Valerii Probi discipulis, docti hominis et in legendis pensitandisque veteribus scriptis bene callidi, solitum eum dicere, nihil quicquam tam inprospere Vergilium ex Homero vertisse quam versus hos amoenissimos, quos de Nausicaa Homerus fecit:
Οἵη δʼ Ἄρτεμις εἶσι κατʼ οὔρεος ἰοχέαιρα,
Ἢ κατὰ Τηΰγετον περιμήκετον ἢ Ἐρύμανθον
Τερπομένη κάπροισι καὶ ὠκείῃς ἐλάφοισιν·
Τῇ δέ θʼ ἅμα νύμφαι, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο,
Ἀγρονόμοι παίζουσι· γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα Λητώ·
Πασάων δʼ ὕπερ ἥ γε κάρη ἔχει ἠδὲ μέτωπα,
Ῥεῖα δʼ ἀριγνώτη πέλεται, καλαὶ δέ τε πᾶσαι,— Qualis in Eurotae ripis aut per iuga Cynthi
Exercet Diana choroschores, quam mille secutae
Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oriades. Illa pharetram
Fert humero gradiensque deas supereminet omnis.
Latonae tacitum pertemptant gaudia pectus. Primum omnium id visum esse dicebant Probo, quod aput Homerum quidem virgo Nausicaa, ludibunda inter familiares puellas in locis solis, recte atque commode confertur cum Diana venante in iugis montium inter agrestes deas, nequaquam autem conveniens Vergilium fecisse, quoniam Dido in urbe media ingrediens inter Tyrios principes cultu atque incessu serio, “instans operi,” sicut ipse ait, “regnisque futuris,” nihil eius similitudinis capere possit, quae lusibus atque venatibus Dianae congruat; tum postea, quod Homerus studia atque oblectamenta in venando Dianae honeste aperteque dicit, Vergilius autem, cum de venatu deae nihil dixisset, pharetram tantum facit eam ferre in humero, tamquam sit onus et sarcina; atque illud impense Probum esse demiratum in Vergilio dicebant, quod Homerica quidem Λητώ gaudium gaudeat genuinum et intimum atque in ipso penetrali cordis et animae vigens, siquidem non aliud est: γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα Λητώ, ipse autem, imitari ea volens, gaudia fecerit pigra et levia et cunctantia et quasi in summo pectore supernantia: nescire enim sese, quid significaret aliud “pertemptant”; praeter ista omnia florem ipsius totius loci Vergilium videri omisisse, quod hunc Homeri versum exigue secutus sït:
Ῥεῖα δʼ ἀριγνώτη πέλεται, καλαὶ δέ τε πᾶσαι, quando nulla maior cumulatiorque pulcritudinis laus dici potuerit, quam quod una inter omnis pulcras excelleret, una facile et ex omnibus nosceretur.

## 21. Book IX · chapters 10–16

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/21/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/21/#p-N

[¶0] 10. The low and odious criticism with which Annaeus Cornutus befouled the lines of Virgil in which the poet with chaste reserve spoke of the intercourse of Venus and Vulcan. THE poet Annianus, and with him many other devotees of the same Muse, extolled with high and constant praise the verses of Virgil in which, while depicting and describing the conjugal union of Vulcan and Venus, an act that nature's law bids us conceal, he veiled it with a modest paraphrase. For thus he wrote:
So speaking, the desired embrace he gave,
And sinking on the bosom of his spouse,
Calm slumber then he wooed in every limb.
But they thought it less difficult, in speaking of such a subject, to use one or two words that suggest it by a slight and delicate hint, such as Homer's parqeni/h zw/nh, or “maiden girdle”; le/ktroio qesmo/n, “the right of the couch”; and e)/rga filoth/sia, “love's labours”; that no other than Virgil has ever spoken of those sacred mysteries of chaste intercourse in so many and such plain words, which yet were not licentious, but pure and honourable. But Annaeus Cornutus, a man in many other respects, to be sure, lacking neither in learning nor taste, nevertheless, in the second book of the work which he compiled On Figurative Language, defamed the high praise of all that modesty by an utterly silly and odious criticism. For after expressing approval of that kind of figurative language, and observing that the lines were composed with due circumspection, he added: “Virgil nevertheless was somewhat indiscreet in using the word membra.”

> Latin: 10. Quod Annaeus Cornutus versus Vergilii, quibus Veneris et Vulcani concubitum pudice operteque dixit, reprehensione spurca et odiosa inquinavit. ANNIANUS poeta, et plerique cum eo eiusdem Musae viri, summis adsiduisque laudibus hos Vergilii versus ferebat, quibus Vulcanum et Venerem iunctos mixtosque iure coniugii, rem lege naturae operiendam, verecunda quadam translatione verborum, cum ostenderet demonstraretque, protexit. Sic enim scripsit:
Ea verba locutus
Optatos dedit amplexus placidumque petivit
Coniugis infusus gremio per membra soporem. Minus autem difficile esse arbitrabantur, in istiusmodi re dicenda, verbis uti uno atque altero brevi tenuique eam signo demonstrantibus, sicut Homerus dixerit: παρθενίην ζώνην et λέκτροιο θεσμόν et ἔργα φιλοτήσια, tot vero et tam evidentibus ac tamen non praetextatis, sed puris honestisque verbis venerandum illud concubii pudici secretum neminem quemquam alium dixisse. Sed Annaeus Cornutus, homo sane pleraque alia non indoctus neque inprudens, in secundo tamen librorum, quos De Figuris Sententiarum conposuit, egregiam totius istius verecundiae laudem insulsa nimis et odiosa scrutatione violavit. Nam cum genus hoc figurae probasset et satis circumspecte factos esse versus dixisset, “‘Membra’ tamen,” inquit, “paulo incautius nominavit.”

[¶1] 11. Of Valerius Corvinus and the origin of his surname, THERE is not one of the well-known historians who has varied in telling the story of Valerius Maximus, who was called Corvinus because of the help and defence rendered him by a raven. That truly remarkable event is in fact thus related in the annals: In the consulship of Lucius Furius and Appius Claudius, a young man of such a family was appointed tribune of the soldiers. And at that time vast forces of Gauls had encamped in the Pomptine district, and the Roman army was being drawn up in order of battle by the consuls, who were not a little disquieted by the strength and number of the enemy. Meanwhile the leader of the Gauls, a man of enormous size and stature, his armour gleaming with gold, advanced with long strides and flourishing his spear, at the same time casting haughty and contemptuous glances in all directions. Filled with scorn for all that he saw, he challenged anyone from the entire Roman army to come out and meet him, if he dared. Thereupon, while all were wavering between fear and shame, the tribune Valerius, first obtaining the consuls' permission to fight with the Gaul who was boasting so vainly, advanced to meet him, boldly yet modestly. They meet, they halt, they were already engaging in combat. And at that moment a divine power is manifest: a raven, hitherto unseen, suddenly flies to the spot, perches on the tribune's helmet, and from there begins an attack on the face and the eyes of his adversary. It flew at the Gaul, harassed him, tore his hand with its claws, obstructed his sight with its wings, and after venting its rage flew back to the tribune's helmet. Thus the tribune, before the eyes of both armies, relying on his own valour and defended by the help of the bird, conquered and killed the arrogant leader of the enemy, and thus won the surname Corvinus. This happened four hundred and five years after the founding of Rome. To that Corvinus the deified Augustus caused a statue to be erected in his Forum. On the head of this statue is the figure of a raven, a reminder of the event and of the combat which I have described.

> Latin: 11. De Valerio Corvino; et unde Corvinus. DE MAXIMO VALERIO, qui Corvinus appellatus est ob auxilium propugnationemque corvi alitis, haut quisquam est nobilium scriptorum qui secus dixerit. Ea res prorsus miranda sic profecto est in libris annalibus memorata: “Adulescens tali genere editus, L. Furio, Claudio Appio consulibus fit tribunus militaris.” “Atque in eo tempore copiae Gallorum ingentes agrum Pomptinum insederant instruebaturque acies a consulibus, de vi ac multitudine hostium satis agentibus.” “Dux interea Gallorum, vasta et ardua proceritate armisque auro praefulgentibus, grandia ingrediens et manu telum reciprocans incedebat perque contemptum et superbiam circumspicienscircumsliciens despiciensque omnia, venire iubet et congredi, si quis pugnare secum ex omni Romano exercitu auderet.” “Tum Valerius tribunus, ceteris inter metum pudoremque ambiguis, impetrato prius a consulibus ut in Gallum tam inaniter adrogantem pugnare sese permitterent, progreditur intrepide modesteque obviam; et congrediuntur et consistunt et conserebantur iam manus. Atque ibi vis quaedam divina fit:” “corvus repente inprovisus advolat et super galeam tribuni insistit atque inde in adversari os atque oculos pugnare incipit; insilibat, obturbabat et unguibus manum laniabat et prospectum alis arcebat atque, ubi satis saevierat, revolabat in galeam tribuni.” “Sic tribunus, spectante utroque exercitu, et sua virtute nixus et opera alitis propugnatus, ducem hostiumhiostium ferocissimumferocissinmum vicit interfecitque atque ob hanc causam cognomen habuit Corvinus.” “Id factum est annis quadringentis quinque post Romam conditam.” Statuam Corvino isti divus Augustus in foro suo statuendam curavit. In eius statuae capite corvi simulacrum est, rei pugnaeque quamquain diximus monimentum.

[¶2] 12. On words which are used with two opposite meanings, both active and passive. As the adjective formidulosus may be used both of one who fears and of one who is feared, invidiosus of one who envies and of one who is envied, suspiciosus of one who suspects and of one who is suspected, ambitiosus of one who courts favour and of one who is courted, gratiosus also of one who gives, and of one who receives, thanks, laboriosus of one who toils and of one who causes toil—as many other words of this kind are used in both ways, so infestus too has a double meaning. For he is called infestus who inflicts injury on anyone, and on the other hand he who is threatened with injury from another source is also said to be infestus. But the meaning which I gave first surely needs no illustration, so many are there who use infestus in the sense of hostile and adverse; but that second meaning is less familiar and more obscure. For who of the common run would readily call a man infestus to whom another is hostile? However, not only did many of the earlier writers speak in that way, but Marcus Tullius also gave the word that meaning in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Gnaeus Plancius, saying: “I were grieved, gentlemen of the jury, and keenly distressed, if this man's safety should be more endangered (infestior) for the very reason that he had protected my life and safety by his own kindliness, protection and watchfulness.” Accordingly, I inquired into the origin and meaning of the word and found this statement in the writings of Nigidius: “Infestus is derived from festinare,” says he, “for one who threatens anyone, and is in haste to attack him, and hurries eagerly to crush him; or on the other hand one whose peril and ruin are being hastened— both of these are called infestus from the urgent imminence of the injury which one is either about to inflict on someone, or to suffer.” Now, that no one may have to search for an example of suspiciosus, which I mentioned above, and of formidulosus in its less usual sense, Marcus Cato, On the properly of Florius, used suspiciosus as follows: “But except in the case of one who practised public prostitution, or had hired himself out to a procurer, even though he had been ill-famed and suspected suspiciousus, they decided that it was unlawful to use force against the person of a freeman.” For in this passage Cato uses suspicious in the sense of “suspected,” not that of “suspecting.” Sallust too in the (Cailine uses formidulosus of one who is feared, in this passage: “To such men consequently no labour was unfamiliar, no region too rough or too steep, no armed foeman to be dreaded (formidulosus).” Gaius Calvus also in his poems uses laboriosus, not in the ordinary sense of “one who toils,” but of that on which labour is spent, saying:
The hard and toilsome (laboriosum) country he will
shun.
In the same way Laberius also in the Sisters says:
By Castor! sleepy (somniculosum) wine!
and Cinna in his poems:
As Punic Psyllus doth the sleepy (somniculosam) asp. Metus also and iniuria, and some other words of the kind. may be used in this double sense; for metus hostium, “fear of the enemy,” is a correct expression both when the enemy fear and when they are feared. Thus Sallust in the first book of his History speaks of “the fear of Pompey,” not implying that Pompey was afraid, which is the more common meaning, but that he was feared. These are Sallust's words: “That war was aroused by the fear of the victorious Pompey, who was restoring Hiempsal to his kingdom.” Also in another passage: “After the fear of the Carthaginians had been dispelled and there was leisure to engage in dissensions.” In the same way we speak of the “injuries,” as well of those who inflict them as of those who suffer them, and illustrations of that usage are readily found. The following passage from Virgil affords a similar instance of this kind of double meaning; he says:
Slow from Ulysses' wound,
using vulnus, not of a wound that Ulysses had suffered, but of one that he had inflicted. Nescius also is used as well of one who is unknown as of one who does not know; but its use in the sense of one who does not know is common, while it is rarely used of that which is unknown. Ignarus has the same double application, not only to one who is ignorant, but also to one who is not known. Thus Plautus in the Rudens says:
In unknown (nesciis) realms are we where hope
knows naught (nescia).
And Sallust: “With the natural desire of mankind to visit unknown (ignara) places.” And Virgil:
Unknown (ignarum) the Laurentine shore doth Mimas hold.

> Latin: 12. De verbis quae in utramque partem significatione adversa et reciproca dicuntur. UT “formidulosusformdulosus” dici potest et qui formidat et qui formidatur, ut “invidiosus” et qui invidet et cui invidetur, ut “suspiciosus” et qui suspicatur et qui suspectus est, ut “ambitiosus” et qui ambit et qui ambitur, ut item “gratiosus” et qui adhibet gratias et qui admittit, ut “laboriosus” et qui laborat et qui labori est, ut pleraque alia huiuscemodi in utramque partem dicuntur, ita “infestus” quoque ancipiti significatione est. Nam et is “infestus” appellatur, qui malum infert cuipiam, et contra, cui aliunde impendet malum, is quoque “infestus” dicitur. Sed quod prius posui profecto exemplis non indiget; sic adeo multi locuntur, ut “infestum” dicant inimicum atque adversum; alterum autem illud ignorabilius obscuriusque est. Quis enim e medio facile dixerit “infestum” esse, cui alter infestus est? Sed et veteres plerique ita dixerunt et M. Tullius, in oratione quam Pro Cn. Plancio scripsit, vocabulo hoc sic usus est: “Dolebam,” inquit, “iudices, et acerbe ferebam, si huius salus ob eamearn ipsam causam esset infestior, quod is meam salutem atque vitam sua benivolentia, praesidio custodiaque texisset.” Nos igitur de origine et ratione verbi quaerebamus, atque ita in Nigidianis scriptum invenimus: “‘Infestum’ est a ‘festinando’ dictum; nam qui instat,” inquit, “alicui eumque properans urget opprimereque eum studet festinatque, aut contra de cuius periculo et exitio festinatur, is uterque ‘infestus’ dicitur ab instantia atque imminentia fraudis, quam vel facturus cuipiam vel passurus est.” Ne quis autem de “suspicioso,” quod supra posuimus, et de “formiduloso” in eam partem quae minus usitata est, exemplum requirat, de “suspicioso” aput M. Catonem De Re Floria ita scriptum: “Sed nisi qui palam corpore pecuniam quaereret aut se lenoni locavisset, etsi famosus et suspiciosus fuisset, vim in corpus liberum non aecum censuere adferri.” “Suspiciosum” enim Cato hoc in loco suspectum significat, non suspicantem: “formidulosum” autem, qui formidetur, Sallustius in Catilina ita dicit: “Igitur talibus viris non labor insolitus, non locus ullusulius asper aut arduus erat, non armatus hostis formidulosus.” Item C. Calvus in poematis “laboriosus” dicit, non, ut vulgo dicitur, qui laborat, sed in quo laboratur:
Durum (inquit) rus fugit et laboriosum. Eadem ratione Laberius quoque in Sororibus:
Ecastor (inquit) mustum somniculosum, et Cinna in poematis:
Somniculosam ut Poénus aspidém Psyllus. “Metus” quoque et “iniuria” atque alia quaedam id genus sic utroqueversum dici possunt; nam “metus hostium” recte dicitur et cum timent hostes et cum timentur. Itaque Sallustius in Historia prima “metum Pompei” dixit, non quo Pompeius metueret, quod est usitatius, sed quo metueretur. Verba haec Sallusti sunt: “Id bellum excitabat metus Pompei victoris, Hiempsalem in regnum restituentis.” Item alio in loco: “Postquam remoto metu Punico simultates exercere vacuum fuit.” “Iniurias” itidem dicimus tam illorum qui patiuntur, quam qui faciunt, quarum dictionum exempla sunt facilia. inventu. Illud etiam dictum a Vergilio eandem habet formam communicatae ultro et citro significationis:
et vulnere (inquit) tardis Ulixi,
cum diceret “vulnus,” non quod accepisset Ulixes, sed quod dedisset. “Nescius” quoque dicitur tam is qui nescitur, quam qui nescit. Sed super eo qui nescit, frequens huius vocabuli usus est, infrequens autem est de eo quod nescitur. “Ignarus” aeque utroqueversum dicitur, non tantum qui ignorat, set et qui ignoratur. Plautus in Rudente:
Quae ín locis nésciis néscia spé sumus.
Sallustius: More humanae cupidinis ignara visendi. Vergilius:
ignarum Laurens habet ora Mimanta.

[¶3] 13. A passage from the history of Claudius Quadrigarius, in which he pictured the combat of Manlius Torquatus, a young noble, with a hostile Gaul, who challenged the whole Roman army. TITUS MANLIUS was a man of the highest birth and of exalted rank. This Manlius was given the surname Torquatus. The reason for the surname, we are told, was that he wore as a decoration a golden neck-chain, a trophy taken from an enemy whom he had slain. But who the enemy was, and what his nationality, how formidable his huge size, how insolent his challenge, and how the battle was fought all this Quintus Claudius has described in the first book of his Annals with words of the utmost purity and clearness, and with the simple and unaffected charm of the old-time style. When the philosopher Favorinus read this passage from that work, he used to say that his mind was stirred and affected by no less emotion and excitement than if he were himself an eye-witness of their contest. I have added the words of Quintus Claudius in which that battle is pictured: “In the meantime a Gaul came forward, who was naked except for a shield and two swords and the ornament of a neck-chain and bracelets; in strength and size, in youthful vigour and in courage as well, he excelled all the rest. In the very height of the battle, when the two armies were fighting with the utmost ardour, he began to make signs with his hand to both sides, to cease fighting. The combat ceased. As soon as silence was secured, he called out in a mighty voice that if anyone wished to engage him in single combat, he should come forward. This no one dared do, because of his great size and savage aspect. Then the Gaul began to laugh at them and to stick out his tongue. This at once roused the great indignation of one Titus Manlius, a youth of the highest birth, that such an insult should be offered his country, and that no one from so great an army should accept the challenge. He, as I say, stepped forth, and would not suffer Roman valour to be shamefully tarnished by a Gaul. Armed with a foot-soldier's shield and a Spanish sword, he confronted the Gaul. Their meeting took place on the very bridge, in the presence of both armies, amid great apprehension. Thus they confronted each other, as I said before: the Gaul, according to his method of fighting, with shield advanced and awaiting an attack; Manlius, relying on courage rather than skill, struck shield against shield, and threw the Gaul off his balance. While the Gaul was trying to regain the same position, Manlius again struck shield against shield, and again forced the man to change his ground. In this fashion he slipped in under the Gaul's sword and stabbed him in the breast with his Spanish blade. Then at once with the same mode of attack he struck his adversary's right shoulder, and he did not give ground at all until he overthrew him, without giving the Gaul a chance to strike a blow. After he had overthrown him, he cut off his head, tore off his neck-chain, and put it, covered with blood as it was, around his own neck. Because of this act, he himself and his descendants had the surname Torquatus.” From this Titus Manlius, whose battle Quadrigarius described above, all harsh and cruel commands are called “Manlian;” for at a later time, when he was consul in a war against the Latins, Manlius caused his own son to be beheaded, because he had been sent by his father on a scouting expedition with orders not to fight, and disregarding the command, had killed one of the enemy who had challenged him.

> Latin: 13. Verba ex historia Claudi Quadrigari, quibus Manli Torquati, nobilis adulescentis, et hostis Galli provocantis pugnam depinxit. TITUS MANLIUS summo loco natus adprimeque nobilis fuit. Ei Manlio cognomentum factum est Torquatus. Causam cognomenti fuisse accepimus torquis ex auro induviasinduvies, quam ex hoste quem occiderat detractam induit. Sed quis hostis et quid genus, quam formidandae vastitatis et quantum insolens provocator et cuimodi fuerit pugna decertatum, Q. Claudius primo Annalium purissime atque inlustrissime simplicique et incompta orationis antiquae suavitate descripsit. Quem locum ex eo libro philosophus Favorinus cum legeret, non minoribus quati adficique animum suum motibus pulsibusque dicebat, quam si ipse coram depugnantes eos spectaret. Verba Q. Claudi, quibus pugna ista depicta est, adscripsi: “Cum interim Gallus quidam nudus praeter scutum et gladios duos torque atque armillis decoratus processit, qui et viribus et magnitudine et adulescentia simulque virtute ceteris antistabat.” “Is maxime proelio commoto atque utrisque summo studio pugnantibus, manu significare coepit utrisque, quiescerent.” “Pugnae facta pausa est.” “Extemplo silentio facto cum voce maxima conclamat, si quis secum depugnare vellet, uti prodiret.” “Nemo audebat propter magnitudinem atque inmanitatem facies.” “Deinde Gallus inridere coepit atque linguam exertare.” “Id subito perdolitum est cuidam Tito Manlio, summo genere gnato, tantum flagitium civitati adcidere, e tanto exercitu neminem prodire.” “Is, ut dico, processit neque passus est virtutem Romanam ab Gallo turpiter spoliari. Scuto pedestri et gladio Hispanico cinctus contra Gallum constitit.” “Metu magno ea congressio in ipso ponti, utroque exercitu inspectante, facta est.” “Ita, ut ante dixi, constiterunt: Gallus sua disciplina scuto proiecto cunctabundus; Manlius, animo magis quam arte confisus, scuto scutum percussit atque statum Galli conturbavit.” “Dum se Gallus iterum eodem pacto constituere studet, Manlius iterum scuto scutum percutit atque de loco hominem iterum deiecit; eo pacto ei sub Gallicum gladium successit atque Hispanico pectus hausit; deinde continuo umerum dextrum eodem successu incidit neque recessit usquam, donec subvertit, ne Gallus impetum in ictu haberet.” “Ubi eum evertit, caput praecidit, torquem detraxit eamque sanguinulentam sibi in collum inponit.” “Quo ex facto ipse posterique eius Torquati sunt cognominati.” Ab hoc Tito Manlio, cuius hanc pugnam Quadrigarius descripsit, imperia et aspera et immitia “ManlianaManlia” dicta sunt, quoniam postea bello adversum Latinos cum esset consul, filium suum securi percussit, qui speculatum ab eo missus,.. interdicto, hostem, a quo provocatus fuerat, occiderat.

[¶4] 14. That Quadrigarius also, with correct Latinity, used facies as a genitive; and some other observations on the inflection of similar words. THE expression that I quoted above from Quintus Claudius, “On account of his great size and savage aspect (facies),” I have inquired into by examining several old manuscripts, and have found it to be as I wrote it. For it was in that way, as a rule, that the early writers declined the word—facies facies— whereas the rule of grammar now requires faciei as the genitive. But I did find some corrupt manuscripts in which faciei was written, with erasure of the former reading. I remember too having found both facies and facii written in the same manuscript of Claudius in the library at Tibur. But facies was written in the text and facii, with double i, in the margin opposite; nor did I regard that as inconsistent with a certain early usage; for from the nominative dies they used both dies and dii as the genitive, and from fames, both famis and fami. Quintus Ennius, in the sixteenth book of his Annals, wrote dies for diei in the following verse:
Caused by the distant time of the last day (dies).
Caesellius asserts that Cicero also wrote dies for diei in his oration For Publius Sestius, and after sparing no pains and inspecting several old manuscripts, I found Caesellius to be right. These are the words of Marcus Tullius: “But the knights shall pay the penalty for that day (dies).” As a result, I readily believe those who have stated that they saw a manuscript from Virgil's own hand, in which it was written:
When Libra shall make like the hours of day (dies) and sleep,
where dies is used for diei. But just as in this place Virgil evidently wrote dies, so there is no doubt that he wrote dii for diei in the following line:
As gifts for that day's (dii) merriment,
where the less learned read dei, doubtless shrinking from the use of so uncommon a form. But the older writers declined dies dii, as they did fames fami, pernicies pernicii, progenies progenii, luxuries luxurii, acies acii. For Marcus Cato in his oration On the Punic War wrote as follows: “The women and children were driven out because of the famine (fami causa).” Lucilius in his twelfth book has:
Wrinkled and full of hunger (fami).
Sisenna in the sixth book of his History writes: “That the Romans came for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii).” Pacuvius in the Paulus says:
O sire supreme of our own race's (progenii) sire.
Gnaeus Matius in the twenty-first book of his Iliad:
The army's (acii) other part the river's wave had shunned.
Again Matius in Book xxiii writes:
Or bides in death some semblance of a form (specii)
Of those who speak no more.
Gaius Gracchus, On the Publishing of the Laws has: “They say that those measures were taken because of luxury (luxurii casaa)” and farther on in the same speech we find: “What is necessarily provided to sustain life is not luxury (luxuries),” which shows that he used luxurii as the genitive of luxuries. Marcus Tullius also has left pernicii on record, in the speech in which he defended Sextus Roscius. These are his words: “We think that none of these things was produced by divine will for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii), but by the very force and greatness of Nature.” We must therefore suppose that Quadrigarius wrote either facies or facii as the genitive; but I have not found the reading facie in any ancient manuscript. But in the dative case those who spoke the best Latin did not use the form faciei, which is now current, but facie. For example, Lucilius in his Satires:
Which first is joined to a fair face
And youth.
And in his seventh book:
Who loves you, and who to your youth and charms (facie),
Plays courtier, promising to be your friend.
However, there are not a few who read facii in both these passages of Lucilius. But Gaius Caesar, in the second book of his treatise On Analogy, thinks that we should use die and specie as genitive forms. I have also found die in the genitive case in a manuscript of Sallust's Jugurtha of the utmost trustworthiness and of venerable age. These were the words: “when scarcely a tenth part of the day (die) was left.” For I do not think we ought to accept such a quibble as the assertion that die is used for ex die.

> Latin: 14. Quod idem Quadrigarius “huius facies” patrio casu probe et Latine dixit; et quaedam alia adposita de similium vocabulorum declinationibus. quod autem supra scriptum est in Q. Claudi verbis: “Propter magnitudinem atque inmanitatem facies,” id nos aliquot veteribusveteiibus libris inspectis exploravimus atque ita esse, ut scriptum est, comperimus. Sic enim pleraque aetas veterum declinavit: “haec facies, huius facies,” quod nunc propter rationem grammaticam “faciei” dicitur. Corruptos autem quosdam libros repperi, in quibus “faciei” scriptum est, illo quod ante scriptum erat oblitterato. Meminimus etiam in Tiburti bibliotheca invenire nos in eodem Claudii libro scriptum utrumque “facies” et “facii.” Sed “facies” in ordinem scriptum fuit et contra per i geminum “facii,” neque id abesse a quadam consuetudine prisca existimavimus; nam et ab eo quod est “hic dies,” tam “huius dies,” quam “huius dii,” et ab eo quod est “haec fames,” tam “huius famis,” quam “huius fami” dixerunt. Q. Ennius in XVI. Annali “dies” scripsit pro “diei” in hoc versu:
Postremae longinqua dies quod fecerit aetas. Ciceronem quoque adfirmat Caesellius in oratione, quam Pro P. Sestio fecit, “dies” scripsisse pro “diei,” quod ego inpensa opera conquisitis veteribus libris plusculis ita, ut Caesellius ait, scriptum inveni. Verba sunt haec M. Tullii: “Equites vero daturos illius dies poenas”; quocirca factum hercle est, ut facile his credam, qui scripserunt, idiographum librum Vergilii se inspexisse, in quo ita scriptum est:
Libra dies somnique pares ubi fecerit horas,
id est “Libra diei somnique.” Sed sicut hoc in loco “dies” a Vergilio scriptum videtur, ita in illo versu non dubium est, quin “dii” scripserit pro “diei”:
Munera laetitiamque dii,
quod inperitiores “dei” legunt, ab insolentia scilicet vocis istius abhorrentes. Sic autem “dies, dii” a veteribus declinatum est, ut “fames fami,” “pernicies pernicii,” “progenies progenii,” “luxuries luxurii,” “acies acii.” M. enim Cato in oratione, quam De Bello Carthaginiensi composuit, ita scripsit: “Pueri atque mulieres extrudebantur fami causa.” Lucilius in XII.:
Rugosum atque fami plenum.
Sisenna in Historiarum libro VI.: Romanos inferendae pernicii causa venisse. Pacuvius in Paulo:
Patér supreme nóstrae progenií patris. Cn. Matius in Iliadis XXI.:
Altera pars acii vitassent fluminis undas. Idem Matius in XXIII.:
An maneat specii simulacrum in morte silentum. C. Gracchus De Legibus Promulgatis: “Ea luxurii causa aiunt institui”; et ibidem infra ita scriptum est: “Non est ea luxuries, quae necessario parentur vitae causa,” per quod apparet eum ab eo quod est “luxuries” “luxurii” patrio casu dixisse. M. quoque Tullius, in oratione qua Sextum Roscium defendit, “pernicii” scriptum reliquit. Verba haec sunt: “Quorum nihil pernicii causa divino consilio, sed vi ipsa et magnitudine rerum factum putamus.” Aut “facies” ergo in casu patrio aut “facii” Quadrigarium scripsisse existimandum est; “facie” autem in nullo veteri libro scriptum repperi. In casu autem dandi qui purissime locuti sunt non “faciei,” uti nuncnune dicitur, sed “facie” dixerunt. Lucilius in Saturis: primum (inquit) facie quod honestae et
Aetati accedit. Lucilius in libro septimo: Qui te diligat, aetati facieque tuae se
Fautorem ostendat, fore amicum polliceatur; sunt tamen non pauci qui utrobique “facii” legant. Sed C. Caesar in libro De Analogia secundo “huius die” et “huius specie” dicendum putat. Ego quoque in Iugurtha Sallustii summae fidei et reverendae vetustatis libro “die” casu patrio scriptum inveni. Verba haec ita erant: “Vix decima parte die reliqua.” Non enim puto argutiolam istam recipiendam, ut die dictum quasi “ex die” existimemus.

[¶5] 15. On the kind of debate which the Greeks call a)/poros. WITH the rhetorician Antonius Julianus I had withdrawn to Naples during the season of the summer holidays, wishing to escape the heat of Rome. And there was there at the time a young man of the richer class studying with tutors in both languages, and trying to gain a command of Latin eloquence in order to plead at the bar in Rome; and he begged Julianus to hear one of his declamations. Julianus went to hear him and I went along with him. The young fellow entered the room, made some preliminary remarks in a more arrogant and presumptuous style than became his years, and then asked that subjects for debate be given him. There was present there with us a pupil of Julianus, a man of ready speech and good ability, who was already offended that in the hearing of a man like Julianus the fellow should show such rashness and should dare to test himself in extempore speaking. Therefore, to try him, he proposed a topic for debate that was not logically constructed, of the kind which the Greeks call a)/poros, and in Latin might with some propriety be termed inexplicabile, that is, “unsolvable.” The subject was of this kind: “Seven judges are to hear the case of a defendant, and judgment is to be passed in accordance with the decision of a majority of their number. When the seven judges had heard the case, two decided that the defendant ought to be punished with exile; two, that he ought to be fined; the remaining three, that he should be put to death. The execution of the accused is demanded according to the decision of the three judges, but he appeals.” As soon as the young man had heard this, without any reflection and without waiting for other subjects to be proposed, he began at once with incredible speed to reel off all sorts of principles and apply then to that same question, pouring out floods of confused and meaningless words and a torrent of verbiage. All the other members of his company, who were in the habit of listening to him, showed their delight by loud applause, but Julianus blushed and sweat from shame and embarrassment. But when after many thousand lines of drivel the fellow at last came to an end and we went out, his friends and comrades followed Julianus and asked him for his opinion. Whereupon Julianus very wittily replied “Don't ask me what I think; without controversy this young man is eloquent.”

> Latin: 15. De genere controversiae quod Graece ἄπορον appellatur. CUM Antonio Iuliano rhetore, per feriarum tempus aestivarum decedere ex urbis aestu volentes, Neapolimconcesseramus. Atque ibi erat adulescens tunc quispiam ex ditioribus cum utriusque linguae magistris meditans et exercens ad causas Romae orandas eloquentiae Latinae facultatem; atque is rogat Iulianumlulianum, uti sese audiat declamantem. It auditum Iulianuslulianus imusque nos cum eo simul. Introit adulescens et praefatur arrogantius et elatius quam aetatem eius decebat, ac deinde iubet exponi controversias. Aderat ibi nobiscum Iuliani sectator, iuvenis promptus et proficiens et offendens iam in eo, quod ille aput Iuliani aures in praecipiti stare et subitaria dictione periculum sui facere audebat. Exponit igitur temptamenti gratia controversiam parum consistentemconistentem, quod genus Graeci ἄπορον vocant, Latine autem id non nimis incommode “inexplicabile” dici potest. Ea controversia fuit huiusmodi: “De reo septem iudices cognoscant eaque sententia sit rata, quam plures ex eo numero dixerint. Cum septem iudices cognovissent, duo censuerunt reum exilio multandum, duo alii pecunia, tres reliqui capite puniendum.” “Petitur ad supplicium ex sententia trium iudicum et contradicit.” Hac ille audita nec considerata neque aliis, ut proponerentur, expectatis, incipit statim mira celeritate in eandem hanc controversiam principia nescio quae dicere et involucra sensuum verborumque volumina vocumque turbas fundere, ceteris omnibus ex cohorte eius, qui audire eum soliti erant, clamore magno exsultantibusexultantibus, Iuliano autem male ac misere rubente et sudante. Sed ubi deblateratis versuum multis milibus finem aliquando fecit egressique inde sumus, amici familiaresque eius Iulianum prosecuti, quidnam existimaret, percontati sunt. Atque ibi Iulianus festivissime “Nolite quaerere,” inquit, “quid sentiam; adulescens hic sine controversia disertus est.”

[¶6] 16. How Plinius Secundus, although not without learning, failed to observe and detect the fallacy in an argument of the kind that the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon. PLINIUS SECUNDUS was considered the most learned man of his time. He left a work, entitled For Students of Oratory, which is by no manner of means to be lightly regarded. In that work he introduces much varied material that will delight the ears of the learned. He also quotes a number of arguments that he regards as cleverly and skilfully urged in the course of debates. For instance, he cites this argument from such a debate: 'A brave man shall be given the reward which he desires. A man who had done a brave deed asked for the wife of another in marriage, and received her. Then the man whose wife she had been did a brave deed. He demands the return of his wife, but is refused.' On the part of the second brave man, who demanded the return of his wife, says Pliny, “this elegant and plausible argument was presented: ' If the law is valid, return her to me; if it is not valid, return her.'” But it escaped Pliny's notice that this bit of reasoning, which he thought very acute, was not without the fallacy which the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon, or “a convertible proposition.” And that is a deceptive fallacy, which lies concealed under a false appearance of truth; for that very argument may just as easily be turned about and used against the same man, and might, for example, be put thus by that former husband: “If the law is valid, I do not return her; if it is not valid, I do not return her.”

> Latin: 16. Quod Plinium Secundum, non hominem indoctum, fugerit latueritque vitium argumenti quod ἀντιστρέφον Graeci dicunt. PLINIUS SECUNDUS existimatus est esse aetatis suae doctissimus. Is libros reliquit quos Studiosorum inscripsit, non medius fidius usquequaque aspernandos. In his libris multa varie ad oblectandas eruditorum hominum aures ponit. Refert etiam plerasque sententias quas in declamandis controversiis lepide arguteque dictas putat. Sicuti hanc quoque sententiam ponit ex huiuscemodi controversia: “‘Vir fortis praemio quod optaverit donetur. Qui fortiter fecerat, petit alterius uxorem in matrimonium et accepit. Is deinde cuia uxor fuit fortiter fecit. Repetit eandem; contradicitur.’” “Eleganter,” inquit, “et probabiliter ex parte posterioris viri fortis, uxorem sibi reddi postulantis, hoc dictum est: ‘Si placet lex, redde; si non placet, redde.’” Fugit autem Plinium, sententiolam istam, quam putavit esse argutissimam, vitio non carere quod Graece ἀντιστρέφον dicitur. Et est vitium insidiosum et sub falsa laudis specie latens; nihil enim minus converti ex contrario id ipsum adversus eundem potest, atque ita a priore illo viro forte dici: “Si placet lex, non reddo; si non placet, non reddo.”

## 22. Book X · chapters 1–11

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/22/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/22/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Whether one ought to say tertium consul or tertio; and how Gnaeus Pompeius, when he would inscribe his honours on the theatre which he was about to dedicate, by Cicero's advice evaded the difficulty as to the form of that word. I SENT a letter from Athens to a friend of mine in Rome. In it I said that I had now written him for the third time (tertium). In his reply he asked me to give my reason for having written tertium and not tertio. He added that he hoped I would at the same time inform him what I thought about the question whether one should say tertium consul, meaning “consul for the third time,” and quartum, or tertio and quarto; since he had heard a learned man at Rome say tertio and quarto consul, not tertium and quartum; also, that Coelius had so written at the beginning of his third book and that Quintus Claudius in his eleventh book said that Marius was chosen consul for the seventh time, using septimo. In reply to these questions, to decide both matters about which he had written to me, I contented myself with quoting Marcus Varro, a more learned man in my opinion than Coelius and Claudius together. For Varro has made it quite plain what ought to be said, and I did not wish, when at a distance, to enter into a dispute with a man who had the name of being learned. Marcus Varro's words, in the fifth book of his Disciplinae, are as follows:
It is one thing to be made praetor quarto, and another quartum; for quarto refers to order and indicates that three were elected before him; quartum refers to time and indicates that he had been made praetor three times before. Accordingly Ennius was right when he wrote:
Quintus, his sire, a fourth time (quartum) consul is,
and Pompeius was timid when, in order to avoid writing consul tertium or tertio on his theatre, he did not write the final letters. What Varro briefly and somewhat obscurely hinted at concerning Pompey, Tullius Tiro, Cicero's freedman, wrote at greater length in one of his letters, substantially as follows: “When Pompey was preparing to consecrate the temple of Victory, the steps of which formed his theatre, and to inscribe upon it his name and honours, the question arose whether consul tertium should be written, or tertio. Pompey took great pains to refer this question to the most learned men of Rome, and when there was difference of opinion, some maintaining that tertio ought to be written, others tertium, Pompey asked Cicero,” says Varro, “to decide upon what seemed to him the more correct form.” Then Cicero was reluctant to pass judgment upon learned men, lest he might seem to have censured the men themselves in criticizing their opinion. “He accordingly advised Pompey to write neither tertium nor tertio, but to inscribe the first four letters only, so that the meaning was shown without writing the whole word, but yet the doubt as to the form of the word was concealed.” But that of which Varro and Tiro spoke is not now written in that way on this same theatre. For when, many years later, the back wall of the stage had fallen and was restored, the number of the third consulship was indicated, not as before, by the first four letters, but merely by three incised lines. However, in the fourth book of Marcus Cato's Origines we find: “The Carthaginians broke the treaty for the sixth time (sextum).” This word indicates that they had violated the treaty five times before, and that this was the sixth time. The Greeks too in distinguishing numbers of this kind use tri/ton kai\ te/tarton, which corresponds to the Latin words tertium quartumque.

> Latin: 1. “Tertium”ne consul an “tertio” dici oporteat; et quonam modo Cn. Pompeius, cum in theatro, quod erat dedicaturus, honores suos scriberet, quaestionem ancipitem istius verbi de consilio Ciceronis vitaverit. FAMILIARI meo cuipiam litteras Athenis Romam misi. In his scriptum fuit me illi iam “tertium” scripsisse. Is ad me rescripsit petivitque ut rationem dicerem cur “tertium” ac non “tertio” scripsissem. Id etiam adscripsit, ut eadem, quid super illo quoque mihi videretur, facerem se certiorem, “tertium” ne “consul” et “quartum” an “tertio” et “quarto” dicendum esset, quoniam Romae doctum virum dicere audisset “tertio” et “quarto consul,” non “tertium quartum” que; idque in principio libri III. Coelium scripsisse et Quintum Claudium in libro undevicesimo C. Marium creatum “septimo” consulem dixisse. Ad haec ego rescripsi nihil amplius quam verba M. Varronis, hominis, opinor, quam fuit Claudius cum Coelio doctioris, quibus verbis utrumque de quo ad me scripserat decideretur; nam et Varro satis aperte quid dici oporteret edocuit et ego adversus eum qui doctus esse dicebatur litem meam facere absens nolui. Verba M. Varronis ex libro Disciplinarum quinto haechace sunt: “Aliud est ‘quarto’ praetorem fieri et ‘quartum’; quod ‘quarto’ locum adsignificat ac tres ante factos, ‘quartum’ tempus adsignificat et ter ante factum. Igitur Ennius recte, quod scripsit:
Quintus pater quartum fit consul,
et Pompeius timide, quod in theatro, ne adscriberet ‘consul tertium’ aut ‘tertio,’ extremas litteras non scripsit.” Quod de Pompeio Varro breviter et subobscure dixit, Tiro Tullius, Ciceronis libertus, in epistula quadam enarratius scripsit ad hunc ferme modum: “Cum Pompeius,” inquit, “aedem Victoriae dedicaturus foret, cuius gradus vicem theatri essent, nomenque eius et honores scriberentur, quaeri coeptum est, utrum ‘consul tertio’ inscribendum esset an ‘tertium.’ Eam rem Pompeius exquisitissime rettulit ad doctissimos civitatis, cumque dissentiretur et pars ‘tertio,’ alii ‘tertium’ scribendum contenderent, rogavit,” inquit, “Ciceronem Pompeius, ut quod ei rectius videretur scribi iuberet.” Tum Ciceronem iudicare de viris doctis veritum esse, ne, quorum opinionem inprobasset, ipsos videretur inprobasse. “Persuasit igitur Pompeio, ut neque ‘tertium.’ neque ‘tertio’ scriberetur, sed ad secundum usque t fierent litterae, ut verbo non perscripto res quidem demonstraretur, sed dictio tamen ambigua verbi lateret.” Id autem, quod et Varro et Tiro dixerunt, in eodem nunc theatro non est ita scriptum. Nam cum multis annis postea scaena, quae prociderat, refecta esset, numerus tertii consulatus non uti initio primoribus litteris, sed tribus tantum lineolisliniolis incisis significatus est. In M. autem Catonis quarta Origine ita perscriptum est: “Carthaginienses sextum de foedere decessere.” Id verbum significat quinquiens ante eos fecisse contra foedus et tum sextum. Graeci quoque in significandis huiuscemodi rerum numeris τρίτον καὶ τέταρτον dicunt, quod congruit cum eo quod Latine dicitur: “tertium quartumque.”

[¶1] 2. What Aristotle has recorded about the number of children born at one time. THE philosopher Aristotle has recorded that a woman in Egypt bore five children at one birth; this, he said, was the limit of human multiple parturition; more children than that had never been known to be born at one time, and even that number was very rare. But in the reign of the deified Augustus the historians of the time say that a maid servant of Caesar Augustus in the region of Laurentum brought forth five children, and that they lived for a few days; that their mother died not long after she had been delivered, whereupon a monument was erected to her by order of Augustus on the via Laurentina, and on it was inscribed the number of her children, as I have given it.

> Latin: 2. Quid Aristoteles de numero puerperii memoriae mandaverit. ARISTOTELES philosophus memoriae tradidit, mulierem in Aegypto uno partu quinque pueros enixam, eumque esse finem dixit multiiugae hominum partionis neque plures umquam simul genitos compertum, hunc autem numerum ait esse rarissimum. Sed et divo Augusto imperante qui temporum eius historiam scripserunt ancillam Caesaris Augusti in agro Laurente peperisse quinque pueros dicunt eosque pauculos dies vixisse; matrem quoque eorum, non multo postquam peperit, mortuam monumentumque ei factum iussu Augusti in via Laurentina inque eo scriptum esse numerum puerperii eius, de quo diximus.

[¶2] 3. A collection of famous passages from the speeches of Gaius Gracchus, Marcus Cicero and Marcus Cato, and a comparison of them.

> Latin: 3. Locorum quorundam inlustrium conlatio contentioque facta ex orationibus C. Gracchi et M. Ciceronis et M. Catonis.

[¶3] GAIUS GRACCHUS is regarded as a powerful and vigorous speaker. No one disputes this. But how can one tolerate the opinion of some, that he was more impressive, more spirited and more fluent than Marcus Tullius?

> Latin: FORTIS ac vehemens orator existimatur esse C. Gracchus. Nemo id negat. Sed quod nonnullis videtur severior, acrior ampliorque esse M. Tullio, ferri id qui potest?

[¶4] Indeed, I lately read the speech of Gaius Gracchus On the Promulgation of Laws, in which, with all the indignation of which he is master, he complains that Marcus Marius and other distinguished men of the Italian free-towns were unlawfully beaten with rods by magistrates of the Roman people.

> Latin: Legebamus adeo nuper orationem Gracchi De Legibus Promulgatis, in qua M. Marium et quosdam ex municipiismuiicipiis Italicis honestos viros virgis per iniuriam caesos a magistratibus populi Romani quanta maxima invidia potest conqueritur.

[¶5] His words on the subject are as follows: “The consul lately came to Teanum Sidicinum. His wife said that she wished to bathe in the men's baths. Marcus Marius, the quaestor of Sidicinum, was instructed to send away the bathers from the baths. The wife tells her husband that the baths were not given up to her soon enough and that they were not sufficiently clean. Therefore a stake was planted in the forum and Marcus Marius, the most illustrious man of his city, was led to it. His clothing was stripped off, he was whipped with rods. The people of Cales, when they heard of this, passed a decree that no one should think of using the public baths when a Roman magistrate was in town. At Ferentinum, for the same reason, our praetor ordered the quaestors to be arrested; one threw himself from the wall, the other was caught and beaten with rods.”

> Latin: Verba haec sunt quae super ea re fecit: “Nuper Teanum Sidicinum consul venit. Uxor eius dixit se in balneis virilibus lavari velle. Quaestori Sidicino M. Mario datum est negotium, uti balneis exigerentur qui lavabantur. Uxor renuntiat viro parum cito sibi balneas traditas esse et parum lautas fuisse. Idcirco palus destitutus est in foro eoque adductus suae civitatis nobilissimus homo M. Marius. Vestimenta detracta sunt, virgis caesus est. Caleni, ubi id audierunt, edixerunt ne quis in balneis lavisse vellet, cum magistratus Romanus ibi esset. Ferentini ob eandem causam praetor noster quaestores arripi iussit; alter se de muro deiecit, alter prensus et virgis caesus est.”

[¶6] In speaking of such an atrocious action, in so lamentable and distressing a manifestation of public injustice, has he said anything either fluent or brilliant, or in such a way as to arouse tears and pity; is there anything that shows an outpouring of indignation and solemn and impressive remonstrance?

> Latin: In tam atroci re ac tam misera atque maesta iniuriae publicae contestatione, ecquid est quod aut ampliter insigniterque aut lacrimose atque miseranter aut multa copiosaque invidia gravique et penetrabili querimonia dixerit? Brevitas sane et venustas et mundities orationis est, qualis haberi ferme in comoediarum festivitatibus solet.

[¶7] Brevity there is, to be sure, grace, and a simple purity of expression, such as we sometimes have in the more refined of the comedies. Gracchus also in another place speaks as follows: “I will give you a single example of the lawlessness of our young men, and of their entire lack of self-control. Within the last few years a young man who had not yet held a magisterial office was sent as an envoy from Asia. He was carried in a litter. A herdsman, one of the peasants of Venusia, met him, and not knowing whom they were bearing, asked in jest if they were carrying a corpse. Upon hearing this, the young man ordered that the litter be set down and that the peasant be beaten to death with the thongs by which it was fastened.”

> Latin: Item Gracchus alio in loco ita dicit: “Quanta libido quantaque intemperantia sit hominum adulescentium, unum exemplum vobis ostendam. His annis paucis ex Asia missus est qui per id tempus magistratum non ceperat, homo adulescens pro legato. Is in lectica ferebatur. Ei obviam bubulcus de plebe Venusina advenit et per iocum, cum ignoraret qui ferretur, rogavit num mortuum ferrent. Ubi id audivit, lecticam iussit deponi, struppis, quibus lectica deligata erat, usque adeo verberari iussit, dum animam efflavit.”

[¶8] Now these words about so lawless and cruel an outrage do not differ in the least from those of ordinary conversation.

> Latin: Haec quidem oratio super tam violento atque crudeli facinore nihil profecto abest a cotidianis sermonibus.

[¶9] But in Marcus Tullius, when in a similar case Roman citizens, innocent men, are beaten with rods contrary to justice and contrary to the laws, or tortured to death, what pity is then aroused! What complaints does he utter! How he brings the whole scene before our eyes! What a mighty surge of indignation and bitterness comes seething forth!

> Latin: At cum in simili causa aput M. Tullium cives Romani, innocentes viri, contra ius contraque leges virgis caeduntur aut supplicio extremo necantur, quae ibi tunc miseratio! quae comploratio! quae totius rei sub oculos subiectio! quod et quale invidiae atque acerbitatis fretum effervescit!

[¶10] By Heaven! when I read those words of Cicero's, my mind is possessed with the sight and sound of blows, cries and lamentation.

> Latin: Animum hercle meum, cum illa M. Ciceronis lego, imago quaedam et sonus verberum et vocum et eiulationum circumplectitur;

[¶11] For example, the words which he speaks about Gaius Verres, which I have quoted so far as my memory went, which was all that I could do at present: “The man himself came into the forum, blazing with wickedness and frenzy. His eyes burned, every feature of his face displayed cruelty. All were waiting to see to what ends he would go, or what he would do, when on a sudden he gave orders that the man be dragged forth, that he be stripped in the middle of the forum and bound, and that rods be brought.”

> Latin: velut sunt ista quae de C. Verre dicit, quae nos, ut in praesens potuimus, quantum memoria subpeditabat, adscripsimus: “Ipse inflammatus scelere et furore in forum venit. Ardebant oculi, toto ex ore crudelitas eminebat. Expectabant omnes quo tandem progressurus aut quidnam acturus esset, cum repente hominemhorminem proripi atque in foro medio nudari ac deligari et virgas expediri iubet.”

[¶12] Now, so help me! the mere words “he ordered that he be stripped and bound, and rods brought” arouse such emotion and horror that you do not seem to hear the act described, but to see it acted before your face.

> Latin: iamlam haec medius fidius sola verba: “nudari ac deligari et virgas expediri iubet” tanti motus horrorisque sunt, ut non narrari quae gesta sunt, sed rem geri prosus videas.

[¶13] But Gracchus plays the part, not of one who complains or implores, but of a mere narrator: “A stake,” he says, “was planted in the forum, his clothing was stripped off, he was beaten with rods.”

> Latin: Gracchus autem non querentis neque implorantis, sed nuntiantis vicem: “Palus,” inquit, “in foro destitutus est, vestimenta detracta sunt, virgis caesus est.”

[¶14] But Marcus Cicero, finely representing the idea of continued action, says, not “he was beaten,” but “a citizen of Rome was being beaten with rods in the middle of the forum at Messana, while in the meantime no groan, no sound was heard from that wretched man amid his torture and the resounding blows except these words, 'I am a Roman citizen.' By thus calling to mind his citizenship he hoped to avert all their stripes and free his body from torture.”

> Latin: Sed enim M. Cicero praeclare cum diutina repraesentatione, non “caesus est,” sed “caedebatur,” inquit, “virgis in medio foro Messanae civis Romanus, cum interea nullus gemitus, nulla vox illius miseri inter dolorem strepitumque plagarum audiebatur, nisi haec: ‘civis Romanus sum!’ Hac commemoratione civitatis omnia verbera depulsurum cruciatumque a corpore deiecturum arbitrabatur.”

[¶15] Then Cicero with vigour, spirit and fiery indignation complains of so cruel an outrage and inspires the Romans with hatred and detestation of Verres by these words: “O beloved name of liberty! O eminent justice of our country! O Porcian and Sempronian laws! O authority of the tribunes, earnestly desired and finally restored to the Roman commons! Pray, have all these blessings fallen to this estate, that a Roman citizen, in a province of the Roman people, in a town of our allies, should be bound and flogged in the forum by one who derived the emblems of his power from the favour of the Roman people? What! when fire and hot irons and other tortures were applied, although your victim's bitter lamentation and piteous outcries did not affect you, were you not moved by the tears and loud groans even of the Roman citizens who were then present?”

> Latin: Complorationem deinde tam acerbae rei et odium in Verrem detestationemque aput civis Romanos inpense atque acriter atque inflammanter facit, cum haec dicit: “O nomen dulce libertatis! O ius eximium nostrae civitatis! O lex Porcia legesque Semproniae! O graviter desiderata et aliquando reddita plebi Romanae tribunicia potestas! Hucine tandem haec omnia reciderunt, ut civis Romanus in provincia populi Romani, in oppido foederatorum, ab eo qui beneficio populi Romani fasces ac secures haberet, deligatus in foro virgis caederetur? Quid? cum ignes ardentesque laminae ceterique cruciatus admovebantur, si te illius acerba imploratio et vox miserabilis non leniebat, ne civium quidem Romanorum, qui tum aderant, fletu gemituque maximo commovebare?”

[¶16] These outrages Marcus Tullius bewailed bitterly and solemnly, in appropriate and eloquent terms.

> Latin: Haec M. Tullius atrociter, graviter, apte copioseque miseratus est.

[¶17] But if anyone has so rustic and so dull an ear that this brilliant and delightful speech and the harmonious arrangement of Cicero's words do not give him pleasure; if he prefers the earlier oration because it is unadorned, concise and unstudied, yet has a certain native charm, and because it has, so to say, a shade and colour of misty antiquity—let such a one, if he has any judgment at all, study the address in a similar case of Marcus Cato, a man of a still earlier time, to whose vigour and flow of language Gracchus could never hope to attain.

> Latin: Sed si quis est tam agresti aure ac tam hispida, quem lux ista et amoenitas orationis verborumque modificatio parum delectat, amat autem priora idcirco, quod incompta et brevia et non operosa, sed nativa quadam suavitate sunt quodque in his umbra et color quasi opacae vetustatis est, is, si quid iudicii habet, consideret in causa pari M. Catonis, antiquioris hominis, orationem, ad cuius vim et copiam Gracchus nec adspiravit.

[¶18] He will realize, I think, that Cato was not content with the eloquence of his own time, but aspired to do even then what Cicero later accomplished.

> Latin: Intelleget, opinor, Catonem contentum eloquentia aetatis suae non fuisse et id iam tum facere voluisse quod Cicero postea perfecit.

[¶19] For in the speech which is entitled On Sham Battles he thus made complaint of Quintus Thermus: “He said that his provisions had not been satisfactorily attended to by the decemvirs. He ordered them to be stripped and scourged. The Bruttiani scourged the decemvirs, many men saw it done. Who could endure such an insult, such tyranny, such slavery? No king has ever dared to act thus; shall such outrages be inflicted upon good men, born of a good family, and of good intentions? Where is the protection of our allies? Where is the honour of our forefathers? To think that you have dared to inflict signal wrongs, blows, lashes, stripes, these pains and tortures, accompanied with disgrace and extreme ignominy, since their fellow citizens and many other men looked on! But amid how great grief, what groans, what tears, what lamentations have I heard that this was done! Even slaves bitterly resent injustice; what feeling do you think that such men, sprung from good families, endowed with high character, had and will have so long as they live?”

> Latin: In eo namque libro qui De Falsis Pugnis inscriptus est ita de Q. Thermo conquestus est: “Dixit a decemviris parum bene sibi cibaria curata esse. iussitlussit vestimenta detrahi atque flagro caedi. Decemviros Bruttiani verberavere, videre multi mortales. Quis hanc contumeliam, quis hoc imperium, quis hanc servitutem ferre potest? Nemo hoc rex ausus est facere; eane fieri bonis, bono genere gnatis, boni consultis? Ubi societas? ubi fides maiorum? Insignitas iniurias, plagas, verbera, vibices, eos dolores atque carnificinas per dedecus atque maximam contumeliam, inspectantibus popularibus suis atque multis mortalibus, te facere ausum esse? Set quantum luctum, quantum gemitum, quid lacrimarum, quantum fletum factum audivi! Servi iniurias nimis aegre ferunt; quid illos, bono genere natos, magna virtute praeditos, opinamini animi habuisse atque habituros, dum vivent?”
Quod Cato dixit: “Bruttiani verberavere,” ne qui fortasse de “Bruttianis” requirat,

[¶20] When Cato said “the Bruttiani scourged them,” lest haply anyone should inquire the meaning of Bruttiani, it is this: When Hannibal the Carthaginian was in Italy with his army, and the Romans had suffered several defeats, the Bruttii were the first people of all Italy to revolt to Hannibal. Angered at this, the Romans, after Hannibal left Italy and the Carthaginians were defeated, by way of ignominious punishment refused to enrol the Bruttii as soldiers or treat them as allies, but commanded them to serve the magistrates when they went to their provinces, and to perform the duties of slaves. Accordingly, they accompanied the magistrates in the capacity of those who are called “floggers” in the plays, and bound or scourged those whom they were ordered. And because they came from the land of the Bruttii, they were called Bruttiani.

> Latin: id significat: Cum Hannibal Poenus cum exercitu in Italia esset et aliquot pugnas populus Romanus adversas pugnavisset, primi totius Italiae Bruttii ad Hannibalem desciverunt. Id Romani aegre passi, postquam Hannibal Italia decessit superatique Poeni sunt, Bruttios ignominiae causa non milites scribebant nec pro sociis habebant, sed magistratibus in provincias euntibus parere et praeministrare servorum vicem iusserunt. Itaque hi sequebantur magistratus, tamquam in scaenicis fabulis qui dicebantur “lorarii,” et quos erant iussi vinciebant aut verberabant; quod autem ex Bruttiis erant, appellati sunt “Bruttiani.”

[¶21] 4. How Publius Nigidius with great cleverness showed that words are not arbitrary, but natural. PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS in his Grammatical Notes shows that nouns and verbs were formed, not by a chance use, but by a certain power and design of nature, a subject very popular in the discussions of the philosophers; for they used to inquire whether words originate by “nature” or are man-made. Nigidius employs many arguments to this end, to show that words appear to be natural rather than arbitrary. Among these the following seems particularly neat and ingenious: “When we say vos, or 'you,'” says Nigidius, “we make a movement of the mouth suitable to the meaning of the word; for we gradually protrude the tips of our lips and direct the impulse of the breath towards those with whom we are speaking. But on the other hand, when we say nos, or 'us,' we do not pronounce the word with a powerful forward impulse of the voice, nor with the lips protruded, but we restrain our breath and our lips, so to speak, within ourselves. The same thing happens in the words tu or 'thou,' ego or ' I,' tibi ' to thee,' and mihi 'to me.' For just as when we assent or dissent, a movement of the head or eyes corresponds with the nature of the expression, so too in the pronunciation of these words there is a kind of natural gesture made with the mouth and breath. The same principle that we have noted in our own speech applies also to Greek words.”

> Latin: 4. Quod P. Nigidius argutissime docuit nomina non positive esse, sed naturalia. NOMINA verbaque non positu fortuito, sed quadam vi et ratione naturae facta esse, P. Nigidius in Grammaticis Commentariis docet, rem sane in philosophiae disceptationibus celebrem. Quaeri enim solitum aput philosophos, φύσει τὰ ὀνόματα sint ἢ θέσει. In eam rem multa argumenta dicit, cur videri possint verba esse naturalia magis quam arbitraria. Ex quibus hoc visum est lepidum et festivum: “‘Vos,’” inquit, “cum dicimus, motu quodam oris conveniente cum ipsius verbi demonstratione utimur et labeas sensim primores emovemus ac spiritum atque animam porro versum et ad eos quibuscum sermocinamur intendimus. At contra cum dicimus ‘nos,’ neque profuso intentoque flatu vocis neque proiectis labris pronuntiamus, sed et spiritum et labeas quasi intra nosmet ipsos coercemus. Hoc idem fit et in eo, quod dicimus ‘tu,’ ‘ego’ et ‘tibi’ et ‘mihi.’ Nam sicuti, cum adnuimus et abnuimus, motus quidam ille vel capitis vel oculorum a natura rei quam significat non abhorret, ita in his vocibus quasi gestus quidam oris et spiritus naturalis est. Eadem ratio est in Graecis quoque vocibus, quam esse in nostris animadvertimus.”

[¶22] 5. Whether avarus is a simple word or, as it appears to Publius Nigidius, a compound, made up of two parts. PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in the twenty-ninth book of his Commentaries, declares that avarus is not a simple word, but is compounded of two parts: “For that man,” he says, “is called avarus, or 'covetous,' who is avidus aeris, or 'eager for money;' but in the compound the letter e is lost.” He also says that a man is called by the compound term locuples, or “rich,” when he holds pleraque loca, that is to say, “many possessions.” But his statement about locuples is the stronger and more probable. As to avarus there is doubt; for why may it not seem to be derived from one single word, namely aveo, and formed in the same way as amarus, about which there is general agreement that it is not a compound?

> Latin: 5. “Avarus” simplexne vocabulum sit, an compositum et duplex, sicut P. Nigidio videtur. “AVARUS” non simplex vocabulum, sed iunctum copulatumque esse P. Nigidius dicit in commentariorumCommenatariorum undetricesimo. “‘Avarus’ enim,” inquit, “appellatur, qui ‘avidus aeris’ est. Sed in ea copula e littera,” inquit, “detrita est.” Item “locupletem” dictum ait ex conpositis vocibus, qui “pleraque loca,” hoc est qui multas possessiones teneret. Sed probabilius id firmiusque est, quod de “locuplete” dixit. Nam de “avaro” ambigitur; cur enim non videri possit ab uno solum verbo inclinatum, quod est “aveo,” eademque esse fictura qua est “amarus,” de quo nihilnhil dici potest quin duplex non sit?

[¶23] 6. That a fine was imposed by the plebeian aediles on the daughter of Appius Caecus, a woman of rank, because she spoke too arrogantly. PUBLIC punishment was formerly inflicted, not only upon crimes, but even upon arrogant language; so necessary did men think it to maintain the dignity of Roman conduct inviolable. For the daughter of the celebrated Appius Caecus, when leaving the plays of which she had been a spectator, was jostled by the crowd of people that surrounded her, flocking together from all sides. When she had extricated herself, complaining that she had been roughly handled, she added: “What, pray, would have become of me, and how much more should I have been crowded and pressed upon, had not my brother Publius Claudius lost his fleet in the sea-fight and with it a vast number of citizens? Surely I should have lost my life, overwhelmed by a still greater mass of people. How I wish,” said she, “that my brother might come to life again, take another fleet to Sicily, and destroy that crowd which has just knocked poor me about.” Because of such wicked and arrogant words, Gaius Fundanius and Tiberius Sempronius, the plebeian aediles, imposed a fine upon the woman of twenty-five thousand pounds of full-weight bronze. Ateius Capito, in his commentary On Public Trials, says that this happened in the first Punic war, in the consulship of Fabius Licinus and Otacilius Crassus.

> Latin: 6. Multam dictam esse ab aedilibus plebei Appi Caeci filiae, mulieri nobili, quod locuta esset petulantius. NON in facta modo, sed in voces etiam petulantiores publice vindicatum est; ita enim debere esse visa est Romanae disciplinae dignitas inviolabilis. Appi namque illius Caeci filia, a ludis quos spectaverat exiens, turba undique confluentis fluctuantisque populi iactata est. Atque inde egressa, cum se male habitam doleret: “Quid me nunc factum esset,” inquit, “quantoque artius pressiusque conflictata essem, si P. Claudius, frater meus, navali proelio classem navium cum ingenti civium numero non perdidisset? Certe quidem maiore nunc copia populi oppressa intercidissem. Sed utinam,” inquit, “reviviscat frater aliamque classem in Siciliam ducat atque istam multitudinem perditum eat, quae me nunc male miseram convexavit!” Ob haec mulieris verba tam inproba ac tam incivilia C. Fundanius et Tiberius Sempronius, aediles plebei, multam dixerunt ei aeris gravis viginti quinque milia. Id factum esse dicit Capito Ateius in commentario De Iudiciis Publicis bello Poenico primo, Fabio Licino et Otacilio Crasso consulibus.

[¶24] 7. Marcus Varro, I remember, writes that of the rivers which flow outside the limits of the Roman empire the Nile is first in size, the Danube second, and next the Rhone. OF all the rivers which flow into the seas included within the Roman empire, which the Greeks call “the inner sea,” it is agreed that the Nile is the greatest. Sallust wrote that the Danube is next in size; but Varro, when he discussed the part of the earth which is called Europe, placed the Rhone among the first three rivers of that quarter of the earth, by which he seems to make it a rival of the Danube; for the Danube also is in Europe.

> Latin: 7. Fluminum, quae ultra imperium Romanum fluunt, prima magnitudine esse Nilum, secunda Histrum, proxima Rodanum, sicuti M. Varronem memini scribere. OMNIUM fluminum quae in maria qua imperium Romanum est fluunt, quam Graeci τὴν εἴσω θάλασσαν appellant, maximum esse Nilum consentitur. Proxima magnitudine esse Histrum scripsit Sallustius. Varro autem cum de parte orbis quae Europa dicitur dissereret, in tribus primis eius terrae fluminibus Rodanum esse ponit, per quod videtur eum facere Histro aemulum. Histros enim quoque in Europa fluit.

[¶25] 8. That among the ignominious punishments which were inflicted upon soldiers was the letting of blood; and what seems to be the reason for such a penalty. THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind.

> Latin: 8. Inter ignominias militares quibus milites exercebantur, fuisse sanguinis dimissionem; et quaenam esse videatur causa huiuscemodi castigationis. FUIT haec quoque antiquitus militaris animadversio, iubere ignominiae causa militi venam solvi et sanguinem dimitti. Cuius rei ratio in litteris veteribus, quas equidem invenire potui, non extat; sed opinor factum hoc primitus in militibus stupentis animi et a naturali habitu declinatis, ut non tam poena quam medicina videretur. Postea tamen ob pleraque alia delicta idem factitatum esse credo per consuetudinem, quasi minus sani viderentur omnes qui delinquerent.

[¶26] 9. In what way and in what form the Roman army is commonly drawn up, and the names of the formations. THERE are military terms which are applied to an army drawn up in a certain manner: “the front,” “reserves,” “wedge,” “ring,” “mass,” “shears,” “saw,” “wings,” “towers.” These and some other terms you may find in the books of those who have written about military affairs. However, they are taken from the things themselves to which the names are strictly applied, and in drawing up an army the forms of the objects designated by each of these words is represented.

> Latin: 9. Quibus modis quoqueqnoque habitu acies Romana instrui solita sit, quaeque earum instructionum sint vocabula. VOCABULA sunt militaria, quibus instructa certo modo acies appellari solet: “frons,” “subsidia,” “cuneus,” “orbis,” “globus,” “forfices,” “serra,” “alae,” “turres.” Haec et quaedam item alia invenire est in libris eorum qui de militari disciplina scripserunt. Tralata autem sunt ab ipsis rebus quae ita proprie nominantur, earumque rerum in acie instruenda sui cuiusque vocabuli imagines ostenduntur.

[¶27] 10. The reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans wore a ring on the next to the little finger of the left hand. I HAVE heard that the ancient Greeks wore a ring on the finger of the left hand which is next to the little finger. They say, too, that the Roman men commonly wore their rings in that way. Apion in his Egyptian History says that the reason for this practice is, that upon cutting into and opening human bodies, a custom in Egypt which the Greeks call a)natomai/, or “dissection,” it was found that a very fine nerve proceeded from that finger alone of which we have spoken, and made its way to the human heart; that it therefore seemed quite reasonable that this finger in particular should be honoured with such an ornament, since it seems to be joined, and as it were united, with that supreme organ, the heart.

> Latin: 10. Quae eius rei causa sit, quod et Graeci veteres et Romani anulum hoc digito gestaverint qui est in manu sinistra minimo proximus. VETERES GRAECOS anulum habuisse in digito accepimus sinistrae manus qui minimo est proximus. Romanos quoque homines aiunt sic plerumque anulis usitatos. Causam esse huius rei Apion in libris Aegyptiacis hanc dicit, quod insectis apertisque humanis corporibus, ut mos in Aegypto fuit, quas Graeci ἀνατομάς appellant, repertum est nervum quendam tenuissimum ab eo uno digito de quo diximus, ad cor hominis pergere ac pervenire; propterea non inscitum visum esse eum potissimum digitum tali honore decorandum, qui continens et quasi conexus esse cum principatu cordis videretur.

[¶28] 11. The derivation and meaning of the word mature, and that it is generally used improperly; and also that the genitive of praecox is praecocis and not praecoquis. MATURE in present usage signifies “hastily” and “quickly,” contrary to the true force of the word; for mature means quite a different thing. Therefore Publius Nigidius, a man eminent in the pursuit of all the liberal arts, says: “Mature means neither 'too soon' nor 'too late,' but something between the two and intermediate.” Publius Nigidius has spoken well and properly. For of grain and fruits those are called matura, or “mature,” which are neither unripe and hard, nor falling and decayed, but full-grown and ripened in their proper time. But since that which was not done negligently was said to be done mature, the force of the word has been greatly extended, and an act is now said to be done mature which is done with some haste, and not one which is done without negligence; whereas such things as are immoderately hastened are more properly called inmatura, or “untimely.” That limitation of the word, and of the action itself, which was made by Nigidius was very elegantly expressed by the deified Augustus with two Greek words; for we are told that he used to say in conversation, and write in his letters, speu=de brade/ws, that is, “make haste slowly,” by which he recommended that to accomplish a result we should use at once the promptness of energy and the delay of carefulness, and it is from these two opposite qualities that maturitas springs. Virgil also, to one who is observant, has skilfully distinguished the two words properare and maturare as clearly opposite, in these verses:
Whenever winter's rains the hind confine,
Much is there that at leisure may be done (maturare),
Which in fair weather he must hurry on (properanda).
Most elegantly has he distinguished between those two words; for in rural life the preparations during rainy weather may be made at leisure, since one has time for them; but in fine weather, since time presses, one must hasten. But when we wish to indicate that anything has been done under too great pressure and too hurriedly, then it is more properly said to have been done praemature, or “prematurely,” than mature. Thus Afranius in his Italian play called The Title says:
With madness premature (praemature) you seek a hasty power.
In this verse it is to be observed that he says praecocem and not praecoquem; for the nominative case is not praecoquis, but praecox.

> Latin: 11. Verbum “mature” quid significet quaeque vocis eius ratio sit; et quod eo verbo volgus hominum inproprie utitur; atque inibi, quod “praecox” declinatum “praecocis” facit, non “praecoquis.” “MATURE” nunc significat “propere” et “cito” contra ipsius verbi sententiam; aliud enim est “mature” quam dicitur. Propterea P. Nigidius, homo in omnium bonarum artium disciplinis egregius: “‘Mature,’” inquit, “est, quod neque citius est neque serius, sed medium quiddam et temperatum est.” Bene atque proprie P. Nigidius. Nam et in frugibus et in pomis “matura” dicuntur, quae neque cruda et inmitia sunt neque caduca et decocta, sed tempore suo adulta maturataque. Quoniam autem id quod non segniter fiebat, “mature” fieri dicebatur, progressa plurimum verbi significatione, non iam, quod non segnius, sed quod festinantius fit, id fieri “mature” dicitur, quando ea quae praeter sui temporis modum properata sunt “inmatura” verius dicantur. Illud vero Nigidianum rei atque verbi temperamentum divos Augustus duobus Graecis verbis elegantissime exprimebat. Nam et dicere in sermonibus et scribere in epistulis solitum esse aiunt σπεῦδε βραδέως, per quod monebat ut ad rem agendam simul adhiberetur et industriae celeritas et diligentiae tarditas, ex quibus duobus contrariis fit “maturitas.” Vergilius quoque, si quis animum adtendat, duo ista verba “properare” et “maturare” tamquam plane contraria scitissime separavit in hisce versibus:
Frigidus agricolam si quando continet imber,
Multa, forent quae mox caelo properanda sereno,
Maturare datur.
Elegantissime duo verba ista divisit; namque in praeparatu rei rusticae per tempestates pluvias, quoniam otium est, “maturari” potest; per serenas, quoniam tempus instat, “properari” necessum est. Cum significandum autem est coactius quid factum et festinantius, tum rectius “praemature” factum id dicitur quam “mature,” sicuti Afranius dixit in togata, cui TitulusTitluls nomen est:
Adpetis dominátum demens praémature praécocem, in quo versu animadvertendum est quod “praecocem” inquit, non “praecoquempraecocluem”; est enim casus eius rectus non “praecoquis,” sed “praecox.”

## 23. Book X · chapters 12–20

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/23/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/23/#p-N

[¶0] 12. Of extravagant tales which Plinius Secundus most unjustly ascribes to the philosopher Democritus; and also about the flying image of a dove. PLINY THE ELDER, in the twenty-eighth book of his Natural History asserts that there is a book of that most famous philosopher Democritus On the Power and Nature of the Chameleon, and that he had read it; and then he transmits to us many foolish and intolerable absurdities, alleging that they were written by Democritus. Of these unwillingly, since they disgust me, I recall a few, as follows: that the hawk, the swiftest of all birds, if it chance to fly over a chameleon which is crawling on the ground, is dragged down and falls through some force to the earth, and offers and gives itself up of its own accord to be torn to pieces by the other birds. Another statement too is past human belief, namely, that if the head and neck of the chameleon be burned by means of the wood which is called oak, rain and thunder are suddenly produced, and that this same thing is experienced if the liver of that animal is burned upon the roof of a house. There is also another story, which by heaven! I hesitated about putting down, so preposterous is it; but I have made it a rule that we ought to speak our mind about the fallacious seduction of marvels of that kind, by which the keenest minds are often deceived and led to their ruin, and in particular those which are especially eager for knowledge. But I return to Pliny. He says that the left foot of the chameleon is roasted with an iron heated in the fire, along with an herb called by the same name, “chameleon”; both are mixed in an ointment, formed into a paste, and put in a wooden vessel. He who carries the vessel, even if he go openly amid a throng, can be seen by no one. I think that these marvellous and false stories written by Plinius Secundus are not worthy of the name of Democritus; the same is true of what the same Pliny, in his tenth book, asserts that Democritus wrote; namely, that there were certain birds with a language of their own, and that by mixing the blood of those birds a serpent was produced; that whoso ate it would understand the language of birds and their conversation. Many fictions of this kind seem to have been attached to the name of Democritus by ignorant men, who sheltered themselves under his reputation and authority. But that which Archytas the Pythagorean is said to have devised and accomplished ought to seem no less marvellous, but yet not wholly absurd. For not only many eminent Greeks, but also the philosopher Favorinus, a most diligent searcher of ancient records, have stated most positively that Archytas made a wooden model of a dove with such mechanical ingenuity and art that it flew; so nicely balanced was it, you see, with weights and moved by a current of air enclosed and hidden within it. About so improbable a story I prefer to give Favorinus' own words: “Archytas the Tarentine, being in other lines also a mechanician, made a flying dove out of wood. Whenever it lit, it did not rise again. For until this....”

> Latin: 12. De portentis fabularum quae Plinius Secundus indignissime in Democritum philosophum confert; et ibidem de simulacro volucri columbae. LIBRUM esse Democriti, nobilissimi philosophorum, De Vi et Natura Chamaeleontis eumque se legisse Plinius Secundus in Naturalis Historiae vicesimo octavo refert, multaque vana atque intoleranda auribus deinde quasi a Democrito scripta tradit, ex quibus pauca haec inviti meminimus, quia pertaesum est: accipitrem avium rapidissimum a chamaeleonte humi reptante, si eum forte supervolet, detrahi et cadere vi quadam in terram ceterisque avibus laniandum sponte sua obiicere sese et dedere. Item aliud ultra humanam fidem: caput et collum chamaeleontis si uratur ligno quod appellatur “robur,” imbres et tonitrus fieri derepentederelente, idque ipsum usu venire, si iecur eiusdem animalis in summis tegulis uratur. Item aliud, quod hercle an ponerem dubitavi, ita est deridiculae vanitatis, nisi idcirco plane posui quod oportuit nos dicere quid de istiusmodi admirationum fallaci inlecebra sentiremus, qua plerumque capiuntur et ad perniciem elabuntur ingenia maxime sollertia, eaque potissimum quae discendi cupidiora sunt. Sed redeo ad Plinium. Sinistrum pedem ait chamaeleontis ferro ex igni calefacto torreri cum herba, quae appellatur eodem nomine chamaeleontis, et utrumque macerari unguento conligique in modum pastilli atque in vas mitti ligneum et eum qui id vas ferat, etiamsi is in medio palam versetur, a nullo videri posse. His portentis atque praestigiis a Plinio Secundo scriptis non dignum esse cognomen Democriti puto; vel illud quale est quod idem Plinius in decimo libro Democritum scripsisse adseverat, aves quasdam esse certis vocabulis et earum avium confuso sanguine gigni serpentem; eum qui ederit linguas avium et conloquia interpretaturum. Multa autem videntur ab hominibus istis male sollertibus huiuscemodi commenta in Democriti nomen data, nobilitatis auctoritatisque eius perfugio utentibus. Sed id quod Archytam Pythagoricum commentum esse atque fecisse traditur, neque minus admirabile neque tamen vanum aeque videri debet. Nam et plerique nobilium Graecorum et Favorinus philosophus, memoriarum veterum exequentissimus, affirmatissime scripserunt simulacrum columbae e ligno ab Archyta ratione quadam disciplinaque mechanica factum volasse; ita erat scilicet libramentis suspensum et aura spiritus inclusa atque occulta concitum. Libet hercle super re tam abhorrenti a fide ipsius Favorini verba ponere: Ἀρχύτας Ταραντῖνος, τὰ ἄλλα καὶ μηχανικὸς ὤν, ἐποίησεν περιστερὰν ξυλίνην πετομένην· ὁπότε καθίσειεν, οὐκέτι ἀνίστατο. μέχρι γὰρ τούτου … “Cum partim hominum” qua ratione veteres dixerint.

[¶1] 13. On what principle the ancients said cum. partim hominum. PARTIM homninum venerunt is a common expression, meaning “a part of the men came,” that is, “some men.” For partim is here an adverb and is not declined by cases. Hence we may say cum partim hominum, that is, “with some men” or “with a certain part of the men.” Marcus Cato, in his speech On the> property of Florius has written as follows: “There she acted like a harlot, she went from the banquet straight to the couch and with a part of them (cum partim illorum) she often conducted herself in the same manner.” The less educated, however, read cum parti, as if partim were declined as a noun, not used as an adverb. But Quintus Claudius, in the twenty-first book of his Annals, has used this figure in a somewhat less usual manner; he says: “For with the part of the forces (cum partim copiis) of young men that was pleasing to him.” Also in the twenty-third book of the Annals of Claudius are these words: “But that I therefore acted thus, but whether to say that it happened from the negligence of a part of the magistrates (neglegentia partim magistratum), from avarice, or from the calamity of the Roman people, I know not.”

> Latin: 13. “PARTIM hominum venerunt” plerumque dicitur, quod significat “pars hominum venit,” id est “quidam homines.” Nam “partim” hoc in loco adverbium est neque in casus inclinatur, sicuti “cum partim hominum” dici potest, id est cum quibusdam hominibus et quasi cum quadam parte hominum. M. Cato in oratione De Re Floria ita scripsit: “Ibi pro scorto fuit, in cubiculum subrectitavit e convivio, cum partim illorum iam saepe ad eundem modum erat.” Imperitiores autem “cum parti” legunt, tamquam declinatum sit quasi vocabulum, non dictum quasi adverbium. Sed Q. Claudius in vicesimo primo Annali insolentius paulo hac figura est ita usus: “Enimn cum partim copiis hominum adulescentium placentem sibi.” Itemque Claudi in vicesimo tertio Annali verba haec sunt: “Sed idcirco me fecisse, quod utrum neglegentia partim magistratum an avaritia an calamitate populi Romani evenisse dicam, nescio.”

[¶2] 14. In what connection Cato said iniuria mihi factum itur. I HEAR the phrase illi iniuriam factum iri, or “injury will be done to him,” I hear contumeliam dictum iri, or “insult will be offered,” commonly so used everywhere, and I notice that this form of expression is a general one; I therefore refrain from citing examples. But contumelia illi or iniuria factum itur, “injury or insult is going to be offered him,” is somewhat less common, and therefore I shall give an example of that. Marcus Cato, speaking For Himself against Gaius Cassius, says: “And so it happened, fellow citizens, that in this insult which is going to be put upon me (quae mihi factum itur) by the insolence of this man I also, fellow citizens (so help me!), pity our country.” But just as contumeliam factum iri means “to go to inflict an injury,” that is, to take pains that it be inflicted, just so contumelia nihi factum itur expresses the same idea, merely with a change of case.

> Latin: 14. “Iniuria mihimilli factum itur” quali verborum ordine Cato dixerit. AUDIO “illi iniuriam factum iri,” audio “contumeliam dictum iri” vulgo quoque ita dici, vulgo et istam esse verborum figuram iam in medio loquendi usu, idcircoque exemplis supersedeo. Sed “contumelia illi” vel “iniuria factum itur” paulo est remotius, exemplum igitur ponemus. M. Cato Pro Se contra C. Cassium: “Atque evenit ita, Quirites, uti in hac contumelia quae mihi per huiusce petulantiam factum itur, rei quoque publicae medius fidius miserear, Quirites.” Sicut autem “contumeliam factum iri” significat iri ad contumeliam faciendam, id est opera dari quo fiat, ita “contumelia mihi factum itur” casu tantum inmutato idem dicit.

[¶3] 15. Of the ceremonies of the priest and priestess of Jupiter; and words quoted from the praetor's edict, in which he declares that he will not compel either the Vestal virgins or the priest of Jupiter to take oath. CEREMONIES in great number are imposed upon the priest of Jupiter and also many abstentions, of which we read in the books written On the Public Priests; and they are also recorded in the first book of Fabius Pictor. Of these the following are in general what I remember: It is unlawful for the priest of Jupiter to ride upon a horse; it is also unlawful for him to see the “classes arrayed” outside the pomerium, that is, the army in battle array; hence the priest of Jupiter is rarely made consul, since wars were entrusted to the consuls; also it is always unlawful for the priest to take an oath; likewise to wear a ring, unless it be perforated and without a gem. It is against the law for fire to be taken from the flaminia, that is, from the home of the flamen Dialis, except for a sacred rite; if a person in fetters enter his house, he must be loosed, the bonds must be drawn up through the impluvium to the roof and from there let down into the street. He has no knot in his head-dress, girdle, or any other part of his dress; if anyone is being taken to be flogged and falls at his feet as a suppliant, it is unlawful for the man to be flogged on that day. Only a free man may cut the hair of the Dialis. It is not customary for the Dialis to touch, or even name, a she-goat, raw flesh, ivy, and beans. The priest of Jupiter must not pass under an arbour of vines. The feet of the couch on which he sleeps must be smeared with a thin coating of clay, and he must not sleep away from this bed for three nights in succession, and no other person must sleep in that bed. At the foot of his bed there should be a box with sacrificial cakes. The cuttings of the nails and hair of the Dialis must be buried in the earth under a fruitful tree. Every day is a holy day for the Dialis. He must not be in the open air without his cap; that he might go without it in the house has only recently been decided by the pontiffs, so Masurius Sabinus wrote, and it is said that some other ceremonies have been remitted and he has been excused from observing them. “The priest of Jupiter” must not touch any bread fermented with yeast. He does not lay off his inner tunic except under cover, in order that he may not be naked in the open air, as it were under the eye of Jupiter. No other has a place at table above the flamen Dialis, except the rex sacrificulus. If the Dialis has lost his wife he abdicates his office. The marriage of the priest cannot be dissolved except by death. He never enters a place of burial, he never touches a dead body; but he is not forbidden to attend a funeral. The ceremonies of the priestess of Jupiter are about the same; they say that she observes other separate ones: for example, that she wears a dyed robe, that she has a twig from a fruitful tree in her head-dress, that it is forbidden for her to go up more than three rounds of a ladder, except the so called Greek ladders; also, when she goes to the Argei, that she neither combs her head nor dresses her hair. I have added the words of the praetor in his standing edict concerning the flamen Dialis and the priestess of Vesta: “In the whole of my jurisdiction I will not compel the flamen of Jupiter or a priestess of Vesta to take an oath.” The words of Marcus Varro about the flamen Dialis, in the second book of his Divine Antiquities, are as follows: “He alone has a white cap, either because he is the greatest of priests, or because a white victim should be sacrificed to Jupiter.”

> Latin: 15. De flaminis Dialis deque flaminicae caerimonis; verbaque ex edicto praetoris apposita, quibus dicit non coacturum se ad iurandum neque virgines Vestae neque Dialem. CAERIMONIAE impositae flamini Diali multae, item castus multiplices, quos in libris qui De Sacerdotibus Publicis compositi sunt, item in Fabii Pictoris librorum primo scriptos legimus. Unde haec ferme sunt, quae commeminimus: Equo Dialem flaminem vehi religio est; item religio est “classemclassesm procinctam” extra pomerium, id est exercitum armatum, videre; idcirco rarenter flamen Dialis creatus consul est, cum bella consulibus mandabantur? item iurare Dialem fas numquam est; item anulo uti nisi pervio cassoque fas non est. Ignem e “flaminia,” id est flaminis Dialis domo, nisi sacrum efferri ius non est; vinetum, si aedes eius introierit, solvi necessum est et vincula per impluvium in tegulas subduci atque inde foras in viam demitti. Nodum in apice neque in cinctu neque in alia parte ullum habet; si quis ad verberandum ducatur, si ad pedes eius supplex procubuerit, eo die verberari piaculum est. Capillum Dialis, nisi qui liber homo est, non detonset. Capram et carnem incoctam et hederam et fabam neque tangere Diali mos est neque nominare. Propagines e vitibus altius praetentas non succedit. Pedes lecti, in quo cubat, luto tenui circumlitos esse oportet et de eo lecto trinoctium continuum non decubat neque in eo lecto cubare alium fas est. Apud eius lecti fulcrum capsulam esse cum strue atque ferto oportet. Unguium Dialis et capilli segmina subter arborem felicem terra operiuntur. Dialis cotidie feriatus est. Sine apice sub divo esse licitum non est; sub tecto uti liceret, non pridem a pontificibus constitutum, Masurius Sabinus scripsit et alia quaedam remissa gratiaque aliquot caerimoniarum facta dicitur. Farinam fermento inbutam adtingere ei fas non est. Tunica intima, nisi in locis tectis, non exuit se, ne sub caelo, tamquam sub oculis Iovis, nudus sit. Super flaminem Dialem in convivio, nisi rex sacrificulus, haut quisquam alius accumbit. Uxorem si amisit, flamonio decedit. Matrimonium flaminis nisi morte dirimi ius non est. Locum in quo bustum est numquam ingreditur, mortuum numquam attingit; funus tamen exequi non est religio. Eaedem ferme caerimoniae sunt flaminicae Dialis; alias seorsum aiunt observitare, veluti est quod venenato operitur et quod in rica surculum de arbore felici habet et quod scalas, nisi quae Graecae appellantur, escendere ei plus tribus gradibus religiosum est atque etiam, cum it ad Argeos, quod neque comit caput neque capillum depectit. Verba praetoris ex edicto perpetuo de flamine Diali et de sacerdote Vestae adscripsi: “Sacerdotem Vestalem et flaminem Dialem in omni mea iurisdictione iurare non cogam.” Verba M. Varronis ex secundo Rerum Divinarum super flamine Diali haec sunt: “Is solum album habet galerum, vel quod maximus, vel quod Iouilovi immolata hostia alba id fieri oporteat.”

[¶4] 16. Errors in Roman History which Julius Hyginus noted in Virgil's sixth book. HYGINUS criticizes a passage in Virgil's sixth book and thinks that he would have corrected it. Palinurus is in the Lower World, begging Aeneas to take care that his body be found and buried. His words are:
O save me from these ills, unconquered one;
Or throw thou earth upon me, for you can,
And to the port of Velia return.
“How,” said he, “could either Palinurus know and name 'the port of Velia,' or Aeneas find the place from that name, when the town of Velia, from which he has called the harbour in that place 'Veline' was founded in the Lucanian district and called by that name when Servius Tullius was reigning in Rome, more than six hundred years after Aeneas came to Italy? For of those,” he adds, “who were driven from the land of Phocis by Harpalus, prefect of king Cyrus, some founded Velia, and others Massilia. Most absurdly, then, does Palinurus ask Aeneas to seek out the Veline port, when at that time no such name existed anywhere. Nor ought that to be considered a similar error,” said he,
which occurs in the first book:
Exiled by fate, to Italy fared and to Lavinian strand,
and similarly in the sixth book:
At last stood lightly poised on the Chalcidian height,
since it is usually allowed the poet himself to mention, kata\ pro/lhyin, 'by anticipation,' in his own person some historical facts which took place later and of which he himself could know; just as Virgil knew the town of Lavinium and the colony from Calchis. But how could Palinurus,
he said, “know of events that occurred six hundred years later, unless anyone believes that in the Lower World he had the power of divination, as in fact the souls of the deceased commonly do? But even if you understand it in that way, although nothing of the kind is said, yet how could Aeneas, who did not have the power of divination, seek out the Veline port, the name of which at that time, as we have said before, was not in existence anywhere?” He also censures the following passage in the same book, and thinks that Virgil would have corrected it, had not death prevented: “For,” says He,
when he had named Theseus among those who had visited the Lower World and returned, and had said:
But why name Theseus? why Alcides great?
And my race too is from almighty Jove,
he nevertheless adds afterwards:
Unhappy Theseus sits, will sit for aye.
But how,
says he, “could it happen that one should sit for ever in the Lower World whom the poet mentions before among those who went down there and returned again, especially when the story of Theseus says that Hercules tore him from the rock and led him to the light of the Upper World?” He also says that Virgil erred in these lines:
He Argos and Mycenae shall uproot,
City of Agamemnon, and the heir
Of Aeacus himself, from war-renowned
Achilles sprung, his ancestors of Troy
Avenging and Minerva's spotless shrine.
“He has confounded,” says Hyginus, “different persons and times. For the wars with the Achaeans and with Pyrrus were not waged at the same time nor by the same men. For Pyrrus, whom he calls a descendant of Aeacus, having crossed over from Epirus into Italy, waged war with the Romans against Manius Curius, who was their leader in that war. But the Argive, that is, the Achaean war, was carried on many years after under the lead of Lucius Mummius. The middle verse, therefore, about Pyrrus,” says he, “may be omitted, since it was inserted inopportunely; and Virgil,” he said, “undoubtedly would have struck it out.”

> Latin: 16. Quos errores Iulius Hyginus in sexto Vergilii animadverterit, in Romana historia erratos. REPREHENDIT Hyginus Vergilium correcturumque eum fuisse existimat quod in libro sexto scriptum est. Palinurus est aput inferos, petens ab Aenea ut suum corpus requirendum et sepeliendum curet. Is hoc dicit:
Eripe me his, invicte, malis, aut tu mihi terram
iniceIniice, namque potes, portusque require Velinos. “Quo,” inquit, “modo aut Palinurus novisse et nominare potuit ‘portus Velinos’ aut Aeneas ex eo nomine locum invenire, cum Velia oppidum, a quo portum qui in eo loco est ‘Velinum’ dixit, Servio Tullio Romae regnante, post annum amplius sescentesimum quam Aeneas in Italiam venit conditum in agro Lucano et eo nomine appellatum est?” “Nam qui ab Harpalo,” inquit, “regis Cyri praefecto, ex terra Phocide fugati sunt, alii Veliam, partim Massiliam condiderunt.” “Inscitissime igitur petit ut Aeneas portum Velinum requirat, cum id nomen eo tempore fuerit nusquam gentium.” “Neque simile,” inquit, “illud videri debet, quod est in primo carmine:
Italiam fato profugus LaviniaqueLavinaque venit
Litora,
et aeque in sexto libro:” “
Chalcidicaque levis tandem superastitit arce,” “quoniam poetae ipsi quaedam κατὰ πρόληψιν historiae dicere ex sua persona concedi solet, quae facta ipse postea scire potuit, sicut Vergilius scivit de Lavinio oppido et de colonia Chalcidicensi.” “Sed Palinuros qui potuit,” inquit, “scire ea quae post annos sescentos facta sunt, nisi quis eum divinasse aput inferos putat, proinde ut animae defunctorum solent?” “Sed et si ita accipias, quamquam non ita dicitur, Aeneas tamen, qui non divinabat, quo pacto potuit requirere portum Velinum, cui nomen tunc, sicut diximus, nullum usquam fuit?” Item hoc quoque in eodem libro reprehendit et correcturum fuisse Vergilium putat, nisi mors occupasset. “Nam cum Thesea,” inquit, “inter eos nominasset, qui ad inferos adissent ac redissent, dixissetque:
quid Thesea, magnum
Quid memorem Alciden? et mi genus ab Iove summo est,
postea tamen infert:
sedet aeternumque sedebit
Infelix Theseus.” “Qui autem,” inquit, “fieri potest, ut aeternum aput inferos sedeat, quem supra cum is nominat qui descenderint illuc atque inde rursum evaserint, praesertim cum ita sit fabula de Theseo, atque si Hercules eum evellerit e petra et in lucem ad superos eduxeriteduxeri?” Item in his versibus errasse Vergilium dicit:
Eruet ille Argos Agamemnoniasque Mycenas
Ipsumque Aeaciden, genus armipotentis Achilli,
Ultus avos Troiae, templa intemerata Minervae. “Confudit,” inquit, “et personas diversas et tempora. Nam neque eodem tempore neque per eosdem homines cum Achaeis et cum Pyrro bellatum est. Pyrrus enim,” “quem dicit Aeaciden, de Epiro in Italiam transgressus cum Romanis depugnavit adversus Manium Curium, in eo bello ducem.” “Argivum autem bellum, id est Achaicum, multis post annis a L. Mummio imperatore gestum est.” “Potest igitur,” inquit, “medius eximi versus, qui de Pyrro inportune inmissus est, quem Vergilius procul dubio exempturus,” inquit, “fuit.”

[¶5] 17. Why and how the philosopher Democritus deprived himself of his eye-sight; and the very fine and elegant verses of Laberius on that subject. IT is written in the records of Grecian story that the philosopher Democritus, a man worthy of reverence beyond all others and of the highest authority, of his own accord deprived himself of eyesight, because he believed that the thoughts and meditations of his mind in examining nature's laws would be more vivid and exact, if he should free them from the allurements of sight and the distractions offered by the eyes. This act of his, and the manner too in which he easily blinded himself by a most ingenious device, the poet Laberius has described, in a farce called The Ropemaker, in very elegant and finished verses; but he has imagined another reason for voluntary blindness and applied it with no little neatness to his own subject. For the character who speaks these lines in Laberius is a rich and stingy miser, lamenting in vigorous terms the excessive extravagance and dissipation of his young son. These are the verses of Laberius:
Democritus, Abdera's scientist,
Set up a shield to face Hyperion's rise,
That sight he might destroy by blaze of brass,
Thus by the sun's rays he destroyed his eyes,
Lest he should see bad citizens' good luck;
So I with blaze and splendour of my gold,
Would render sightless my concluding years,
Lest I should see my spendthrift son's good luck.

> Latin: 17. Quam ob causam et quali modo Democritus philosophus luminibus oculorum sese privaverit; et super ea re versus Laberii pure admodum et venuste facti. DEMOCRITUM philosophum in monumentis historiae Graecae scriptum est, virum praeter alios venerandum auctoritateque antiqua praeditum, luminibus oculorum sua sponte se privasse, quia existimaret cogitationes commentationesque animi sui in contemplandis naturae rationibus vegetiores et exactiores fore, si eas videndi inlecebris et oculorum impedimentis liberasset. Id factum eius modumque ipsum quo caecitatem facile sollertia subtilissima conscivit, Laberius poeta in mimo quem scripsit Restionem, versibus quidem satis munde atque graphice factis descripsit, sed causam voluntariae caecitatis finxit aliam vertitque in eam rem quam tum agebat, non inconcinniter. Est enim persona, quae hoc aput Laberium dicit, divitis avari et parci, sumptum plurimum asotiamque adulescentis vivide plorantis. Versus Laberiani sunt: Demócritus Abderítes physicus phílosophus
Clipeúm constituit cóntra exortum Hyperíonis,
Oculós effodere ut pósset splendore aéreo.
Ita rádiis solis áciem effodit lúminis,
Malís bene esse né videret cívibus.
Sic égo fulgentis spléndorem pecúniae
Volo élucificare éxitum aetatí meae,
Ne in ré bona esse vídeam nequam fílium.

[¶6] 18. The story of Artemisia; and of the contest at the tomb of Mausolus in which celebrated writers took part. ARTEMISIA is said to have loved her husband Mausolus with a love surpassing all the tales of passion and beyond one's conception of human affection. Now Mausolus, as Marcus Tullius tells us, was king of the land of Caria; according to some Greek historians he was governor of a province, the official whom the Greeks term a satrap. When this Mausolus had met his end amid the lamentations and in the arms of his wife, and had been buried with a magnificent funeral, Artemisia, inflamed with grief and with longing for her spouse, mingled his bones and ashes with spices, ground them into the form of a powder, put them in water, and drank them; and she is said to have given many other proofs of the violence of her passion. For perpetuating the memory of her husband, she also erected, with great expenditure of labour, that highly celebrated tomb, which has been deemed worthy of being numbered among the seven wonders of the world. When Artemisia dedicated this monument, consecrated to the deified shades of Mausolus, she instituted an agon, that is to say, a contest in celebrating his praises, offering magnificent prizes of money and other valuables. Three men distinguished for their eminent talent and eloquence are said to have come to contend in this eulogy, Theopompus, Theodectes and Naucrates; some have even written that Isocrates himself entered the lists with them. But Theopompus was adjudged the victor in that contest. He was a pupil of Isocrates. The tragedy of Theodectes, entitled Mausolus, is still extant to-day; and that in it Theodectes was more pleasing than in his prose writings is the opinion of Hyginus in his Examples.

> Latin: 18. Historia de Artemisia; deque eo certamine quod aput Mausoli sepulcrum a scriptoribus inclutis decertatum est. ARTEMISIA Mausolum virum amasse fertur supra omnis amorum fabulas ultraque affectionis humanae fidem. Mausolus autem fuit, ut M. Tullius ait, rex terrae Cariae, ut quidam Graecarum historiarum scriptores, provinciae praefectus σατράπην Graeci vocant. Is Mausolus, ubi fato perfunctus inter lamenta et manus uxoris funere magnifico sepultus est, Artemisia, luctu atque desiderio mariti flagrans uxor, ossa cineremque eius mixta odoribus contusaque in faciem pulveris aquae indidit ebibitque multaque alia violenti amoris indicia fecisse dicitur. Molita quoque est ingenti impetu operis conservandae mariti memoriae sepulcrum illud memoratissimum dignatumque numerari inter septem omnium terrarum spectacula. Id monumentum Artemisia cum dis manibus sacrum Mausoli dicaret, “agona,” id est certamen laudibus eius dicundis, facit ponitque praemia pecuniae aliarumque rerum bonarum amplissima. Ad eas laudes decertandas venisse dicuntur viri nobiles ingenio atque lingua praestabili, Theopompus, Theodectes, Naucrates; sunt etiam qui Isocratem ipsum cum his certavisse memoriae mandaverint. Sed eo certamine vicisse Theopompum iudicatum est. Is fuit Isocrates discipulus. Extat nuncnune quoque Theodecti tragoedia, quae inscribitur Mausolus; in qua eum magis quam in prosa placuisse Hyginus in Exemplis refert.

[¶7] 19. That a sin is not removed or lessened by citing in excuse similar sins which others have committed; with a passage front a speech of Demosthenes on that subject. THE philosopher Taurus once reproved a young man with severe and vigorous censure because he had turned from the rhetoricians and the study of eloquence to the pursuit of philosophy, declaring that he had done something dishonourable and shameful. Now the young man did not deny the allegation, but urged in his defence that it was commonly done and tried to justify the baseness of the fault by citing examples and by the excuse of custom. And then Taurus, being the more irritated by the very nature of his defence, said: “Foolish and worthless fellow, if the authority and rules of philosophy do not deter you from following bad examples, does not even the saying of your own celebrated Demosthenes occur to you? For since it is couched in a polished and graceful form of words, it might, like a sort of rhetorical catch, the more easily remain fixed in your memory. For,” said he, “if I do not forget what as a matter of fact I read in my early youth, these are the words of Demosthenes, spoken against one who, as you now do, tried to justify and excuse his own sin by those of others: 'Say not, Sir, that this has often been done, but that it ought to be so done; for if anything was ever done contrary to the laws, and you followed that example, you would not for that reason justly escape punishment, but you would suffer much more severely. For just as, if anyone had suffered a penalty for it, you would not have proposed this, so if you suffer punishment now, no one else will propose it.'” Thus did Taurus, by the use of every kind of persuasion and admonition, incline his disciples to the principles of a virtuous and blameless manner of life.

> Latin: 19. Non purgari neque levari peccatum, cum praetenditur peccatorum quae alii quoque peccaverunt similitudo; atque inibi verba ex oratione super ea re Demosthenis. INCESSEBAT quempiam Taurus philosophus severa atque vehementi obiurgatione adulescentem a rhetoribus et a facundiae studio ad disciplinas philosophiae transgressum, quod factum quiddam esse ab eo diceret inhonesteinlloneste et improbe. At ille non ibat infitias fecisse, sed id solitum esse fieri defendebat turpitudinemque delicti exemplorum usu et consuetudinis venia deprecabatur. Atque ibi Taurus isto ipso defensionis genere inritatior: “Homo,” inquit, “stulte et nihili, si te a malis exemplis auctoritates et rationes philosophiae non abducunt, ne illius quidem Demosthenis vestri sententia tibi in mentem venit, quae, quia lepidis et venustis vocum modis vincta est, quasi quaedam cantilena rhetorica facilius adhaerere memoriae tuae potuit?” “Nam si me” inquit “non fallit quod quidem in primori pueritia legerim, verba haec sunt Demosthenis adversus eum, qui, ut tu nunc facis, peccatum suum peccatis alienis exemptum purgatumque ibat: Σὺ δὴ μὴ λέγε, ὡς γέγονε τοῦτο πολλάκις, ἀλλʼ ὡς οὕτω προσήκει γίγνεσθαι· οὐ γάρ, εἴ τι πώποτε μὴ κατὰ τοὺς νόμους ἐπράχθη, σὺ δὲ τοῦτο ἐμιμήσω, διὰ τοῦτο ἀποφύγοις ἂν δικαίως, ἀλλά πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἁλίσκοιο· ὥσπερ γάρ, εἴ τις ἑάλω, σὺ τοῦτα οὐκ ἂν ἔγραψας, οὕτως, ἐὰν σὺ νῦν δίκην δῷς, ἄλλος οὐ γράψει.” Sic Taurus, omni suasionum admonitionumque genere utens, sectatores suos ad rationes bonae inculpataeque indolis ducebat.

[¶8] 20. The meaning of rogatio, lex, plebisscitum and privilegium, and to what extent all those terms differ. I HEAR it asked what the meaning is of lex, plebisscitum, rogatio, and privilegium. Ateius Capito, a man highly skilled in public and private law, defined the meaning of lex in these words: “A law,” said he, “is a general decree of the people, or of the commons, answering an appeal made to them by a magistrate.” If this definition is correct, neither the appeal for Pompey's military command, nor about the recall of Cicero, nor as to the murder or Clodius, nor any similar decrees of the people of commons, can be called laws. For they are not general decrees, and they are framed with regard, not to the whole body of citizens, but to individuals. Hence they ought rather to be called privilegia, or “privileges,” since the ancients used priva where we now use singula (private or individual). This word Lucilius used in the first book of his Satires:
I'll give them, when they come, each his own (priva) piece
Of tunny belly and acarne heads. Capito, however, in the same definition divided the plebes, or “commons,” from the populus, or “people,” since in the term “people” are embraced every part of the state and all its orders, but “commons” is properly applied to that part in which the patrician families of the citizens are not included. Therefore, according to Capito, a plebisscitum is a law which the commons, and not the people, adopt. But the head itself, the origin, and as it were the fount of this whole process of law is the rogatio, whether the appeal (rogatio) is to the people or to the commons, on a matter relating to all or to individuals. For all the words under discussion are understood and included in the fundamental principle and name of rogatio; for unless the people or commons be appealed to (rogetur), no decree of the people or commons can be passed. But although all this is true, yet in the old records we observe that no great distinction is made among the words in question. For the common term lex is used both of decrees of the commons and of “privileges,” and all are called by the indiscriminate and inexact name rogatio. Even Sallust, who is most observant of propriety in the use of words, has yielded to custom and applied the term “law” to the “privilege” which was passed with reference to the return of Gnaeus Pompeius. The passage, from the second book of his Histories, reads as follows: “For when Sulla, as consul, proposed a law (legem) touching his return, the tribune of the commons, Gaius Herennius, had vetoed it by previous arrangement.”

> Latin: 20. Quid sit “rogatio,” quid “lex,” quid “plebisscitum,” quid “privilegium”; et quantum ista omnia differant. QUAERI audio quid “lex” sit, quid “plebisscitum,” quid “rogatio,” quid “privilegium.” Ateius Capito, publici privatique iuris peritissimus, quid “lex” esset hisce verbis definivit. “Lex,” inquit, “est generale iussum populi aut plebis, rogante magistratu.” Ea definitio si probe facta est, neque de imperio Cn. Pompei neque de reditu M. Ciceronis neque de caede P. Clodi quaestio neque alia id genus populi plebisve iussa “leges” vocari possunt. Non sunt enim generalia iussa neque de universis civibus, sed de singulis concepta; quocirca “privilegia” potius vocari debent, quia veteres “priva” dixerunt quae nos “singula” dicimus. Quo verbo Lucilius in primo Satirarum libro usus est:
abdomina thynni
Advenientibus priva dabo cephalaeaque acarnae. “Plebem” autem Capito in eadem definitione seorsum a “populo” divisit, quoniam in “populo” omnis pars civitatis omnesque eius ordines contineantur, “plebes” vero ea dicatur, in qua gentes civium patriciae non insunt. “Plebisscitum” igitur est secundum eum Capitonem lex, quam plebes, non populus, accipit. Sed totius huius rei iurisque, sive cum populus sive cum plebs rogatur, sive quod ad singulos sive quod ad universos pertinet, caput ipsum et origo et quasi fons “rogatio” est. Ista enim omnia vocabula censentur continenturque “rogationis” principali genere et nomine; nam, nisi populus aut plebs rogetur, nullum plebis aut populi iussum fieri potest. Sed quamquam haec ita sunt, in veteribus tamen scriptis non magnam vocabulorum istorum differentiam esse animadvertimus. Nam et “plebisscita” et “privilegia” translaticio nomine “legis” appellaverunt eademque omnia confuso et indistincto vocabulo “rogationes” dixerunt. Sallustius quoque, proprietatum in verbis retinentissimus, consuetudini concessit et privilegium, quod de Cn. Pompei reditu ferebatur, “legem” appellavit. Verba ex secunda eius Historia haec sunt: “Nam Sullam consulem de reditu eius legem ferentem ex conposito tr. pl. C. Herennius prohibuerat.”

## 24. Book X · chapters 21–29

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/24/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/24/#p-N

[¶0] 21. Why Marcus Cicero very scrupulously avoided any use of the words novissime and novissimus. IT is clear that Marcus Cicero was unwilling to use many a word which is now in general circulation, and was so in his time, because he did not approve of them; for instance, novissimus and novissine. For although both Marcus Cato and Sallust, as well as others also of the same period, have used that word generally, and although many men besides who were not without learning wrote it in their books, yet he seems to have abstained from it, on the ground that it was not good Latin, since Lucius Aelius Stilo, who was the most learned man of his time, had avoided its use, as that of a novel and improper word. Moreover, what Marcus Varro too thought of that word I have deemed it fitting to show from his own words in the sixth book of his De Lingua Latina, dedicated to Cicero: “What used to be called extremum or 'last,'” says he, “is beginning to be called generally novissimum, a word which within my own memory both Aelius and several old men avoided as too new a term; as to its origin, just as from vetus we have vetustior and veterrimus, so from novus we get novior and novissimus.”

> Latin: 21. Quam ob causam M. Cicero his omnino verbis “novissime” et “novissimus” observantissime uti vitarit. NON paucis verbis, quorum frequens usus est nunc et fuit, M. Ciceronem noluisse uti manifestum est, quod ea non probaret; velut est et “novissimus” et “novissime.” Nam cum et M. Cato et Sallustius et alii quoque aetatis eiusdem verbo isto promisce usitati sint, multi etiam non indocti viri in libris id suis scripserint, abstinuisse eo tamen tamquam non Latino videtur, quoniam qui doctissimus eorum temporum fuerat, L. Aelius Stilo, ut novo et inprobo verbo uti vitaverat. Propterea, quid M. quoque Varro de ista voce existimaverit, verbis ipsius Varronis ex libro De Lingua Latina ad Ciceronem sexto demonstrandum putavi. “Quod ‘extremum,’” inquit, “dicebatur, dici ‘novissimum’ coeptum vulgo, quod mea memoria ut Aelius, sic senes aliquot, quod nimium novum verbum esset, vitabant; cuius origo, ut a ‘vetere’ ‘vetustius’ ac ‘veterrimum,’ sic a ‘novo’ declinatum ‘novius’ et ‘novissimum.’”

[¶1] 22. A passage taken from Plato's book entitled Gorgias, on the abuses of false philosophy, with which those who are ignorant of the rewards of true philosophy assail philosophers without reason. PLATO, a man most devoted to the truth and most ready to point it out to all, has said truly and nobly, though not from the mouth of a dignified or suitable character, all that in general may be said against those idle and worthless fellows, who, sheltered under the name of philosophy, follow profitless idleness and darkness of speech and life. For although Callicles, whom he makes his speaker, being ignorant of true philosophy, heaps dishonourable and undeserved abuse upon philosophers, yet what he says is to be taken in such a way that we may gradually come to understand it as a warning to ourselves not to deserve such reproofs, and not by idle and foolish sloth to feign the pursuit and cultivation of philosophy. I have written down Plato's own words on this subject from the book called Gorgias, not attempting to translate them, because no Latinity, much less my own, can emulate their qualities: “Philosophy, Socrates, is indeed a nice thing, if one pursue it in youth with moderation; but if one occupy oneself with it longer than is proper, it is a corrupter of men. For even if a man be well endowed by nature and follow philosophy when past his youth, he must necessarily be ignorant of all those things in which a man ought to be versed if he is to be honourable, good and of high repute. For such men are ignorant both of the laws relating to the city, and of the language which it is necessary to use in the intercourse of human society, both privately and publicly, and of the pleasures and desires of human life; in brief, they are wholly unacquainted with manners. Accordingly, when they engage in any private or public business, they become a laughing-stock; just exactly as statesmen, I suppose, become ridiculous when they enter into your debates and discussions.” A little later he adds the following: "But I think it best to take part in both. It is good to pursue philosophy merely as a matter of education, and to be a philosopher is not dishonourable when one is young; but when one who is already older persists in the business, the thing becomes laughable, Socrates, and I for my part feel the same towards those who philosophize as towards those who lisp and play. Whenever I see a little boy, to whom it is fitting to speak thus, lisping and playing, I am pleased, and it seems to me becoming and liberal and suited to the age of childhood; but when I hear a small boy speaking with precision, it seems to me to be a disagreeable thing; it wounds my ears and appears to be something befitting a slave. When, however, one hears a man lisping, or sees him playing, it appears ridiculous, unmanly and deserving of stripes. I feel just the same way towards the philosophers When I see philosophy in a young man, I rejoice; it seems to me fitting, and I think that the young man in question is ingenuous; that he who does not study philosophy is not ingenuous and will never himself be worthy of anything noble or generous. But when I see an older man still philosophizing and not giving it up, such a man, Socrates, seems to me to deserve stripes. For, as I have just said, it is possible for such a man, even though naturally well endowed, to become unmanly, avoiding the business of the city and the marketplace, where, as the poet says, men become “most eminent,” and living the rest of his life in hiding with young men, whispering in a corner with three or four of them, but never accomplishing anything liberal, great or satisfactory." These sentiments, as I have said, Plato put into the mouth of a man of no great worth indeed, yet possessing a reputation for common sense and understanding and a kind of uncompromising frankness. He does not, of course, refer to that philosophy which is the teacher of all the virtues, which excels in the discharge of public and private duties alike, and which, if nothing prevents, governs cities and the State with firmness, courage and wisdom; but rather to that futile and childish attention to trifles which contributes nothing to the conduct and guidance of life, but in which people of that kind grow old in “ill-timed playmaking,” regarded as philosophers by the vulgar, as they were by him from whose lips the words that I have quoted come.

> Latin: 22. Locus exemptus ex Platonis libro qui inscribitur Gorgias, de falsae philosophiae probis, quibus philosophos temere incessunt qui emolumenta verae philosophiae ignorant. PLATO, veritatis homo amicissimus eiusque omnibus exhibendae promptissimus, quae omnino dici possint in desides istos ignavosque, qui obtentu philosophiae nominis inutile otium et linguae vitaeque tenebras secuntur, ex persona quidem non gravi neque idonea, vere tamen ingenueque dixit. Nam etsi Callicles, quem dicere haec facit, verae philosophiae ignarus, inhonesta indignaque in philosophos confert, proinde tamen accipienda sunt quae dicuntur, ut nos sensim moneri intellegamus, ne ipsi quoque culpationes huiuscemodi mereamur neve inerti inanique desidia cultum et studium philosophiae mentiamur. Verba ipsa super hac re Platonis ex libro qui appellatur Gorgias scripsi, quoniam vertere ea consilium non fuit, cum ad proprietates eorum nequaquam possit Latina oratio aspirare ac multo minus etiam mea: φιλοσοφία γάρ τοί ἐστιν, ὦ Σώκρατες, χαρίεν, ἐάν τις αὐτοῦ μετρίως ἅψηται ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ· ἐὰν δὲ περαιτέρω τοῦ δέοντος ἐνδιατρίψῃ, διαφθορὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. ἐὰν γὰρ καὶ πάνυ εὐφυὴς ᾖ καὶ πόρρω τῆς ἡλικίας φιλοσοφῇ, ἀνάγκη πάντων ἄπειρον γεγονέναι ἐστίν, ὧν χρὴ ἔμπειρον εἶναι τὸν μέλλοντα καλὸν κἀγαθὸν καὶ εὐδόκιμον ἔσεσθαι ἄνδρα. καὶ γὰρ τῶν νόμων ἄπειροι γίγνονται τῶν κατὰ τὴν πόλιν καὶ τῶν λόγων, οἷς δεῖ χρώμενον ὁμιλεῖν ἐν τοῖς συμβολίαοις τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ, καὶ τῶν ἡδονῶν τε καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν τῶν ἀνθρωπείων, καὶ συλλήβδην τῶν ἠθῶν παντάπασιν ἄπειροι γίγνονται. ἐπειδὰν οὖν ἔλθωσιν εἴς τινα ἰδίαν ἢ πολιτικὴν πρᾶξιν, καταγέλαστοι γίγνονται ὥσπερ γε, οἶμαι, οἱ πολιτικοί, ἐπειδὰν αὖ εἰς τὰς ὑμετέρας διατριβὰς ἔλθωσι καὶ τοὺς λόγους, καταγέλαστοί εἰσι. Paulo post addit haec: ἀλλʼ, οἶμαι, τὸ ὀρθότατόν ἐστιν, ὀμφοτέρων μετασχεῖν. φιλοσοφίας μέν, ὅσον παιδείας χάριν, καλὸν μετέχειν, καὶ οὐκ αἰσχρὸν μειρακίῳ ὄντι φιλοσοφεῖν· ἐπειδὰν δὲ ἤδη πρεσβύτερος ὢν ἄνθρωπος ἔτι φιλοσοφῇ, καταγέλαστον, ὦ Σώκρατες, τὸ χρῆηα γίγνεται, καὶ ἔγωγε ὁμοιότατον πάσχω πρὸς τοὺς φιλοσοφοῦντας, ὥσπερ πρὸς τοὺς ψελλιζομένους καὶ παίζοντας. ὅταν μὲν γὰρ παιδίον ἴδω, ᾧ ἔτι προσήκει διαλέγεσθαι οὕτω, ψελλιζόμενον καὶ παῖζον, χαίρω τε, καὶ χαρίεν μοι φαίνεται καὶ ἐλευθέριον καὶ πρέπον τῇ τοῦ παιδίου ἡλικίᾳ. ὅταν δὲ σαφῶς διαλεγομένου παιδαρίου ἀκούσω, πικρόν τί μοι δοκεῖ χρῆμα εἶναι καὶ ἀνιᾷ μου τὰ ὦτα καί μοι δοκεῖ δουλοπρεπές τι εἶναι· ὅταν δὲ ἀνδρὸς ἀκούσῃ τις ψελλιζομένου ἢ παίζοντα ὁρᾷ, καταγέλαστον φαίνεται καὶ ἄνανδρον καὶ πληγῶν ἄξιον. ταὐτὸν οὖν ἔγωγε τοῦτο πάσχω καὶ πρὸς τοὺς φιλοσοφοῦντας. περὶ νέῳ μὲν γὰρ μειρακίῳ ὁρῶν φιλοσοφίαν ἄγαμαι καὶ πρέπειν μοι δοκεῖ καὶ ἡγοῦμαι ἐλεύθερόν τινα εἶναι τοῦτον τὸν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν δὲ μὴ φιλοσοφοῦντα ἀνελεύθερον καὶ οὐδέποτε οὐδενὸς ἀξιώσοντα ἑαυτὸν οὔτε καλοῦ οὔτε γενναίου πράγματος· ὅταν δὲ δὴ πρεσβύτερον ἴδω ἔτι φιλοσοφοῦντα καὶ μὴ ἀπαλλαττόμενον, πληγῶν μοι δοκεῖ ἤδη δεῖσθαι, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὗτος ὁ ἀνήρ. ὃ γὰρ νῦν δὴ ἔλεγον, ὑπάρχει τούτῳ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, κἂν πάνυ εὐφυὴς ᾖ, ἀνάνδρῳ γενέσθαι, φεύγοντι τὰ μέσα τῆς πόλεως καὶ τὰς ἀγοράς, ἐν αἷς ἔφη ὁ ποιητὴς τοὺς ἄνδρας “ἀριπρεπεῖς” γίγνεσθαι, καταδεδυκότι δὲ τὸν λοιπὸν βίον βιῶναι μετὰ μειρακίων, ἐν γωνίᾳ τριῶν ἢ τεττάρων ψιθυρίζοντα, ἐλεύθερον δὲ καὶ μέγα καὶ ἱκανὸν μηδέποτε φθέγξασθαι. Haec Plato sub persona quidem, sicuti dixi, non proba, set cum sensus tamen intellegentiaeque communis fide et cum quadam indissimulabili veritate disseruit, non de illa scilicet philosophia, quae virtutum omnium disciplina est quaeque in publicis simul et privatis officiis excellit civitatesque et rempublicam, si nihil prohibeat, constanter, fortiter et perite administrat, sed de ista futtili atque puerili meditatione argutiarum, nihil ad vitam neque tuendam neque ordinandam promovente, in qua id genus homines consenescunt male feriati, quos philosophos esse et vulgus putat et is putabat, ex cuius persona haec dicta sunt.

[¶2] 23. A passage from a speech of Marcus Cato on the mode of life and manners of women of the olden time; and also that the husband had the right to kill his wife, if she were taken in adultery. Those who have written about the life and civilization of the Roman people say that the women of Rome and Latium “lived an abstemious life”; that is, that they abstained altogether from wine, which in the early language was called temetum; that it was an established custom for them to kiss their kinsfolk for the purpose of detection, so that, if they had been drinking, the odour might betray them. But they say that the women were accustomed to drink the second brewing, raisin wine, spiced wine and other sweet-tasting drinks of that kind. And these things are indeed made known in those books which I have mentioned, but Marcus Cato declares that women were not only censured but also punished by a judge no less severely if they had drunk wine than if they had disgraced themselves by adultery. I have copied Marcus Cato's words from the oration entitled On the Dowry, in which it is also stated that husbands had the right to kill wives taken in adultery: “When a husband puts away his wife,” says he, “he judges the woman as a censor would, and has full powers if she has been guilty of any wrong or shameful act; she is severely punished if she has drunk wine; if she has done wrong with another man, she is condemned to death.” Further, as to the right to put her to death it was thus written: “If you should take your wife in adultery, you may with impunity put her to death without a trial; but if you should commit adultery or indecency, she must not presume to lay a finger on you, nor does the law allow it.”

> Latin: 23. Verba ex oratione M. Catonis de mulierum veterum victu et moribus; atque inibi, quod fuerit ius marito in adulterio uxorem deprehensam necare. Qui de victu atque cultu populi Romani scripserunt mulieres Romae atque in Latio “aetatem abstemias egisse,” hoc est vino semper, quod “temetum” prisca lingua appellabatur, abstinuisse dicunt, institutumque ut cognatis osculum ferrent deprehendendi causa, ut odor indicium faceret, si bibissent. Bibere autem solitas ferunt loream, passum, murrinam et quae id genus sapiant potu dulcia. Atque haec quidem in his quibus dixi libris pervulgata sunt, sed Marcus Cato non solum existimatas, set et multatas quoque a iudice mulieres refert, non minus si vinum in se, quam si probrum et adulterium admisissent. Verba Marci Catonis adscripsi ex oratione quae inscribitur De Dote, in qua id quoque scriptum est, in adulterio uxores deprehensas ius fuisse maritis necare: “Vir,” inquit, “cum divortium fecit, mulieri iudex pro censore est, imperium quod videtur habet, si quid perverse taetreque factum est a muliere; multaturmultitatur, si vinum bibit; si cum alieno viro probri quid fecit, condemnatur.” De iure autem occidendi ita scriptum: “In adulterio uxorem tuam si prehendisses, sine iudicio inpune necares; illa te, si adulterares sive tu adulterarere, digito non auderet contingere, neque ius est.”

[¶3] 24. That the most elegant speakers used the expressions die pristini, die crastini, die quarti, and die quinti, not those which are current now. I HEAR die quarto and die quinto, which the Greeks express by ei)s teta/rthn kai\ ei)s pe/mpthn, used nowadays even by learned men, and one who speaks otherwise is looked down upon as crude and illiterate. But in the time of Marcus Tullius, and earlier, they did not, I think, speak in that way; for they used diequinte and diequinti as a compound adverb, with the second syllable of the word shortened. The deified Augustus, too, who was well versed in the Latin tongue and an imitator of his father's elegance in discourse, has often in his letters used that means of designating the days. But it will be sufficient to show the undeviating usage of the men of old, if I quote the regular formula of the praetor, in which, according to the usage of our forefathers, he is accustomed to proclaim the festival known as the Compitalia. His words are as follows: “On the ninth day the Roman people, the Quirites, will celebrate the Compitalia; when they shall have begun, legal business ceases.” The praetor says dienoni, not die nono. And not the praetor alone, but almost all antiquity, spoke in that way. Look you, this passage of the well-known poet Pomponius comes to my mind, from the Atellan farce entitled Mevia:
For six days now I've done no stroke of work;
The fourth day (diequarte) I, poor wretch, shall starve to death. There is also the following passage from Coelius in the second book of his Histories: “If you are willing to give me the cavalry and follow me yourself with the rest of the army, on the fifth day (diequinti) I will have your dinner ready for you in the Capitol at Rome.” But Coelius took both the story itself and the word from the fourth book of Marcus Cato's Origines, where we find the following: “Then the master of the horse thus advised the Carthaginian dictator: 'Send me to Rome with the cavalry; on the fifth day (diequinti) your dinner shall be ready for you in the Capitol.'” The final syllable of that word I find written sometimes with e and sometimes with i; for it was usual with those men of olden times very often to use those letters without distinction, saying praefiscine and praefiscini, proclivi and proclive, and using many other words of that kind with either ending; in the same way too they said die pristini, that is, “the day before,” which is commonly expressed by pridie, changing the order of the words in the compound, as if it were pristino die. Also by a similar usage they said die crastini, meaning crastino die or “to-morrow.” The priests of the Roman people, too, when they make a proclamation for the third day, say diem perendini. But just as very many people said die pristini, so Marcus Cato in his oration Against Furius said die proximi or “the next day”; and Gnaeus Matius, an exceedingly learned man, in his Mimiambi, instead of our nudius tertius, or “four days ago,” has die quarto, in these lines:
Of late, four days ago (die quarto), as I recall,
The only pitcher in the house he broke. Therefore the distinction will be found to be, that we use die quarto of the past, but diequarte of the future.

> Latin: 24. “Die pristini,” “die crastini” et “die quarti” et “die quinti” qui elegantius locuti sint dixisse, non ut ea nunc vulgo dicuntur. “DIE quarto” et “die quinto,” quod Graeci εἰς τετάρτην καὶ εἰς πέμπτην dicunt, ab eruditis nunc quoque dici audio, et qui aliter dicit pro rudi atque indocto despicitur. Sed Marci Tullii aetas ac supra eam non, opinor, ita dixerunt, “diequinte” enim et “diequinti” pro adverbio copulate dictum est, secunda in eo syllaba correpta. Divus etiam Augustus, linguae Latinae non nescius munditiarumque patris sui in sermonibus sectator, in epistulis plurifariam significatione ista dierum non aliter usus est. Satis autem erit perpetuae veterum consuetudinis demonstrandae gratia verba sollemnia praetoris ponere, quibus more maiorum ferias concipere solet quae appellantur Compitalia. Ea verba haec sunt: “Dienoni populo Romano Quiritibus Compitalia erunt; quando concepta fuerint, nefas.” “Dienoni” praetor dicit, non “die nono.” Neque praetor solum, sed pleraque omnis vetustas sic locuta est. Venit ecce illius versus Pomponiani in mentem, qui est ex Atellania, quae Mevia inscribitur:
Díes hic sextus, cúm nihil egi: diequarte Moriár fame. Suppetit etiam Coelianum illud ex libro Historiarum secundo: “Si vis mihi equitatum dare et ipse cum cetero exercitu me sequi, diequinti Romae in Capitolium curabo tibi cena sit cocta.” Et historiam autem et verbum hoc sumpsit Coelius ex Origine IV. M. Catonis, in qua ita scriptum est: “Igitur dictatorem Carthaginiensium magister equitum monuit: ‘Mitte mecum Romam equitatum; diequinti in Capitolio tibi cena cocta erit.’” Extremam istius vocis syllabam tum per e tum per i scriptam legi; nam sane quam consuetum is veteribus fuerit, litteris is plerumque uti indifferenter, sicuti “praefiscine” et “praefiscini,” “proclivi” et “proclive” atque alia item multa hoc genus varie dixerunt; “die pristini” quoque eodem modo dicebatur, quod significabat “die pristino,” id est priore, quod vulgo “pridie” dicitur, converso compositionis ordine, quasi “pristino die.” Atque item simili figura “die crastini” dicebatur, id erat “crastino die.” Sacerdotes quoque populi Romani, cum condicunt in diem tertium, “die perendini” dicunt. Sed ut plerique “die pristini,” ita M. Cato in oratione Contra Furium “die proximi” dixit, “die quarto” autem Cn. Matius, homo impense doctus, in Mimiambis pro eo dicit, quod “nudius quartus” nos dicimus, in his versibus:
Nuper die quarto, ut recordor, et certe
Aquarium urceum unicum domi fregit.
Hoc igitur intererit, ut “die quarto” quidem de praeterito dicamus, “diequarte” autem de futuro.

[¶4] 25. The names of certain weapons, darts and swords, and also of boats and ships, which are found in the books of the early writers. ONCE upon a time, when I was riding in a carriage, to keep my mind from being dull and unoccupied and a prey to worthless trifles, it chanced to occur to me to try to recall the names of weapons, darts and swords which are found in the early histories, and also the various kinds of boats and their names. Those, then, of the former that came to mind at the time are the following: spear, pike, fire-pike, half-pike, iron bolt, Gallic spear, lance, hunting-darts, javelins, long bolts, barbed-javelins, German spears, thonged-javelin, Gallic bolt, broadswords, poisoned arrows, Illyrian hunting-spears, cimeters, darts, swords, daggers, broadswords, double-edged swords, small-swords, poniards, cleavers. Of the lingula, or “little tongue,” since it is less common, I think I ought to say that the ancients applied that term to an oblong small-sword, made in the form of a tongue; it is mentioned by Naevius in his tragedy Hesione. I quote the line:
Pray let me seem to please you with my tongue,
But with my little tongue (lingula).
The rumpia too is a kind of weapon of the Thracian people, and the word occurs in the fourteenth book of the Annals of Quintus Ennius. The names of ships which I recalled at the time are these: merchant-ships, cargo-carriers, skiffs, warships, cavalry-transports, cutters, fast cruisers, or, as the Greeks call them, ke/lhtes, barques, smacks, sailing-skiffs, light galleys, which the Greeks call i(stiokopoi or e)paktri/des, scouting-boats, galliots, tenders, flatboats, vetutiae moediae, yachts, pinnaces, long-galliots, scullers' boats, caupuls, arks, fair-weather craft, pinks, lighters, spy-boats.

> Latin: 25. Telorum et iaculorum gladiorumque, atque inibi navium quoque vocabula, quae scripta in veterum libris reperiuntur. TELORUM, iaculorum gladiorumque vocabula quae in historiis veteribus scripta sunt, item navigiorum genera et nomina, libitum forte nobis est sedentibus in reda conquirere, ne quid malarum ineptiarum vacantem stupentemque animum occuparet. Quae tum igitur suppetierant, haec sunt: hasta, pilum, phalarica, semiphalarica, soliferrea, gaesa, lancea, spari, rumices, trifaces, tragulae, frameae, mesanculae, cateiae, rumpiae, scorpii, sibones, siciles, veruta, enses, sicae, machaeraemacherae, spathae, lingulae, pugiones, clunacula. De “lingula,” quoniam est minus frequens, admonendum existimo, lingulam veteres dixisse gladiolum oblongum in speciem linguae factum, cuius meminit Naevius in tragoedia Hesiona. Versum Naevi apposui:
Síne mi gerere mórem videar língua, verum língula. Item “rumpia” genus teli est Thraecae nationis, positumque hoc vocabulum in Quinti Enni Annalium XIV. Navium autem, quas reminisci tunc potuimus, appellationes hae sunt: gauli, corbitae, caudicae, longae, hippagines, cercuri, celoces vel, ut Graeci dicunt, κέλητες, lembi, oriae, lenunculi, actuariae, quas Graeci ἱστιοκώπους vocant vel ἐπακτρίδας, prosumiae vel geseoretae vel oriolae, stlattae, scaphae, pontones, vectoriaevetutiae mydiamoediae, phaseli, parones, myoparones, lintres, caupuli, camarae, placidae, cydarum, ratariae, catascopium.

[¶5] 26. That Asinius Pollio showed ignorance in criticizing Sallust because he used transgressus (crossing) for transfretatio (crossing the sea) and trangressi (those who had crossed) for qui transfretaverant (those who had crossed the sea). ASINIUS POLLIO, in a letter which he addressed to Plancus, and certain others who were unfriendly to Gaius Sallustius, thought that Sallust deserved censure because in the first book of his Histories he called the crossing of the sea and a passage made in ships transgresses, using transgressi of those who had crossed the sea, for which the usual term is transfretare. I give Sallust's own words: “Accordingly Sertorius, having left a small garrison in Mauretania and taking advantage of a dark night and a favourable tide, tried either by secrecy or speed to avoid a battle while crossing (in transgressu).” Then later he wrote: “When they had crossed (transgressos), a mountain which had been seized in advance by the Lusitanians gave them all shelter.” This, they say, is an improper and careless usage, supported by no adequate authority. “For transgressus,” says Pollio, “comes from transgredi, 'to step across,' and this word itself refers to walking and stepping with the feet.” Therefore Pollio thought that the verb transgredi did not apply to those who fly or creep or sail, but only to those who walk and measure the way with their feet. Hence they say that in no good writer can transgressus be found applied to ships, or as the equivalent of transfretatio. But, since cursus, or “running,” is often correctly used of ships, I ask why it is that ships may not be said to make a transgressus, especially since the small extent of the narrow strait which flows between Spain and the Afric land is most elegantly described by the word transgressio, as being a distance of only a few steps. But as to those who ask for authority and assert that ingredi or transgredi has not been used of sailing, I should like them to tell me how much difference they think there is between ingredi, or “march,” and ambulare, or “walk.” Yet Cato in his book On Farming says: “A farm should be chosen in a situation where there is a large town near by and the sea, or a river where ships pass (ambulant).” Moreover Lucretius, by the use of this same expression, bears testimony that such figures are intentional and are regarded as ornaments of diction. For in his fourth book he speaks of a shout as “marching” (gradientem) through the windpipe and jaws, which is much bolder than the Sallustian expression about the ships. The lines of Lucretius are as follows:
The voice besides doth often scrape the throat;
A shout forth marching (gradiens) doth make the windpipe rough. Accordingly, Sallust, in the same book, uses progressus, not only of those who sailed in ships, but also of floating skiffs. I have added his own words about the skiffs: “Some of them, after going (progressae) but a little way, the load being excessive and unstable, when panic had thrown the passengers into disorder, began to sink.”

> Latin: 26. Inscite ab Asinio Pollione reprehensum SallustiumSellustium, quod transfretationem “transgressum” dixerit, et “transgressos” qui transfretassent. ASINIO POLLIONI in quadam epistula, quam ad Plancum scripsit, et quibusdam aliis C. Sallusti iniquis, dignum nota visum est, quod in primo Historiarum maris transitum transmissumque navibus factum “transgressum” appellavit eosque, qui fretum transmiserant, quos “transfretasse” dici solitum est, “transgressos” dixit. Verba ipsa Sallusti posui: “Itaque Sertorius, levi praesidio relicto in Mauretania, nanctus obscuram noctem, aestu secundo furtim aut celeritate vitare proelium in transgressu conatus est.” Ac deinde infra ita scripsit: “Transgressos omnis recipit mons praeceptus a Lusitanis.” Hoc igitur et minus proprie et ἀπερισκέπτως et nullo gravi auctore dictum aiunt. “Nam ‘transgressus,’” inquit, “a transgrediendo dicitur idque ipsum ab ingressu et a pedum gradu appellatum.” Idcirco verbum “transgredi” convenire non putavit neque volantibus neque serpentibus neque navigantibus, sed his solis qui gradiuntur et pedibus iter emetiuntur. Propterea negant aput scriptorem idoneum aut navium “transgressum” reperiri posse aut pro transfretatione “transgressum.” Sed quaero ego, cur non, sicuti “cursus” navium recte dici solet, ita “transgressus” etiam navibus factus dici possit. Praesertim cum brevitas tam angusti fretus, qui terram Africam Hispaniamque interfluit, elegantissime “transgressionis” vocabulo, quasi paucorum graduum spatium, definita sit. Qui auctoritatem autem requirunt et negant dictum “ingredi” “transgredi” ve in navigantibus, volo uti respondeant quantum existiment interesse “ingredi” atque “ambulare.” Atqui Cato De Re Rustica: “Fundus,” inquit, “eo in loco habendus est, ut et oppidum prope amplum sit et mare aut amnis, qua naves ambulant.” Appetitas porro huiuscemodi translationes habitasque esse pro honestamentis orationis, Lucretius quoque testimonium in hac eadem voce dicit. In quarto enim libro clamorem per arterias et per fauces “gradientem” dicit, quod est nimio confidentius quam illud de navibus Sallustianum. Versus Lucreti hi sunt:
Praeterea radit vox fauces saepe, facitque
Asperiora foras gradiens arteria clamor. Propterea Sallustius in eodem libro non eos solum qui navibus veherentur, sed et scaphas quoque nantes “progressas” dicit. Verba ipsa de scaphis posui: “Earum aliae paululum progressae nimio simul et incerto onere, cum pavor corpora agitaverat, deprimebantur.”

[¶6] 27. A story of the Roman and the Carthaginian people, showing that they were rivals of nearly equal strength. IT is stated in ancient records that the strength, the spirit and the numbers of the Roman and the Carthaginian people were once equal. And this opinion was not without foundation. With other nations the contest was for the independence of one or the other state, with the Carthaginians it was for the rule of the world. An indication of this is found in the following word and act of each of the two peoples: Quintus Fabius, a Roman general, delivered a letter to the Carthaginians, in which it was written that the Roman people had sent them a spear and a herald's staff, signs respectively of war and peace; they might choose whichever they pleased and regard the one which they should choose as sent them by the Roman people. The Carthaginians replied that they chose neither one; those who had brought them might leave whichever they liked; that whatever should be left them they would consider that they themselves had chosen. Marcus Varro, however, says that neither the spear itself nor the staff itself was sent, but two tokens, on one of which was engraved the representation of a staff; on the other that of a spear.

> Latin: 27. Historia de populo Romano deque populo Poenico, quod pari propemodum vigore fuerint aemuli. IN litteris veteribus memoria extat quod par quondam fuit vigor et acritudo amplitudoque populi Romani atque Poeni. Neque inmerito aestimatum. Cum aliis quidem populis de uniuscuiusque republica, cum Poenis autem de omnium terrarum imperio decertatum. Eius rei specimen est in illo utriusque populi verbo factoque: Q. Fabius, imperator Romanus, dedit ad Carthaginienses epistulam. Ibi scriptum fuit populum Romanum misisse ad eos hastam et caduceum, signa duo belli aut pacis, ex quis utrum vellent eligerent; quod elegissent, id unum ut esse missum existimarent. CarthaginiensesCathaginienses responderunt neutrum sese eligere, sed posse qui adtulissent utrum mallent relinquere; quod reliquissent, id sibi pro electo futurum. M. autem Varro non hastam ipsam neque ipsum caduceum missa dicit, sed duas tesserulas, in quarum altera caduceum, in altera hastae simulacra fuerint incisa.

[¶7] 28. About the limits of the periods of boyhood, manhood and old age, taken from the History of Tubero. TUBERO, in the first book of his History, has written that King Servius Tullius, when he divided the Roman people into those five classes of older and younger men for the purpose of making the enrolment, regarded as pueri, or “boys,” those who were less than seventeen years old; then, from their seventeenth year, when they were thought to be fit for service, he enrolled them as soldiers, calling them up to the age of forty-six iuniores, or “younger men,” and beyond that age, seniores, or “elders.” I have made a note of this fact, in order that from the rating of Servius Tullius, that most sagacious king, the distinctions between boyhood, manhood, and old age might be known, as they were established by the judgment, and according to the usage, of our forefathers.

> Latin: 28. De aetatum finibus pueritiae, iuventae, senectae, ex Tuberonis historia sumptum. TUBERO in Historiarum primo scripsit Servium Tullium regem, populi Romani cum illas quinque classes seniorum et iuniorum census faciendi gratia institueret, “pueros” esse existimasse qui minores essent annis septem decem, atque inde ab anno septimo decimo, quo idoneos iam esse reipublicae arbitraretur, milites scripsisse, eosque ad annum quadragesimum sextum “iuniores” supraque eum annum “seniores” appellasse. Eam rem propterea notavi, ut discrimina, quae fuerint iudicio moribusque maiorum “pueritiae,” “iuventae,” “senectae,” ex ista censione Servi Tulli, prudentissimi regis, noscerentur.

[¶8] 29. That the particle atque is not only conjunctive, but has many and varied meanings. THE particle atque is said by the grammarians to be a copulative conjunction. And as a matter of fact, it very often joins and connects words; but sometimes it has certain other powers, which are not sufficiently observed, except by those engaged in a diligent examination of the early literature. For it has the force of an adverb when we say “I have acted otherwise than (atque) you,” for it is equivalent to aliter quam tu; and if it is doubled, it amplifies and emphasizes a statement, as we note in the Annals of Quintus Ennius, unless my memory of this verse is at fault:
And quickly (atque atque) to the walls the Roman manhood came.
The opposite of this meaning is expressed by deque, also found in the early writers. Atque is said to have been used besides for another adverb also, namely statim, as is thought to be the case in these lines of Virgil, where that particle is employed obscurely and irregularly:
Thus, by Fate's law, all speeds towards the worse,
And giving way, falls back; e'en as if one
Whose oars can barely force his skiff upstream
Should chance to slack his arms and cease to drive;
Then straightway (atque) down the flood he's swept away.

> Latin: 29. Quod particula “atque” non complexiva tantum sit, sed vim habeat plusculam variamque. “ATQUE” particula a grammaticis quidem coniunctio esse dicitur conexiva. Et plerumque sane coniungit verba et conectit; sed interdum alias quasdam potestates habet non satis notas, nisi in veterum litterarum tractatione atque cura exercitis. Nam et pro adverbio valet, cum dicimus “aliter ego feci atque tu,” significatur enim “aliter quam tu,” et si gemina fiat, auget incenditque rem de qua agitur, ut animadvertimus in Q. Enni Annalibus, nisi memoria in hoc versu labor:
Atque atque accedit muros Romana iuventus; cui significationi contrarium est quod itidem a veteribus dictum est, “deque.” Et praeterea pro alio quoque adverbio dicitur, id est “statim” factum, quod in his Vergili versibus existimatur, ubi obscure et insequentur particula ista posita est:
sic omnia fatis
In peius ruere ac retro sublapsa referri;
Non aliter quam qui adverso vix flumine lembum
Remigiis subigit, si brachia forte remisit,
Atque illum in praeceps prono rapit alveus amni.

## 25. Book XI · chapters 1–11

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/25/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/25/#p-N

[¶0] 1. On the origin of the term terra Italia, or “the land of Italy”; of that fine which is called “supreme”; concerning the reason for the name and on the Aternian law; and in what words the “smallest” fine used to be pronounced in ancient days. TIMAEUS, in the History which he composed in the Greek language about the affairs of the Roman people, and Marcus Varro in his Human Antiquities, wrote that the land of Italy derived its name from a Greek word, oxen in the old Greek tongue being called i)taloi/; for in Italy there was a great abundance of cattle, and in that land pastures are numerous and grazing is a frequent employment. Furthermore, we may infer that it was for the same reason—namely, since Italy at that time so abounded in cattle—that the fine was established which is called “supreme,” consisting of two sheep and thirty oxen each day, obviously proportionate to the abundance of oxen and the scarcity of sheep. But when a fine of that sort, consisting of cattle and sheep, was pronounced by a magistrate, oxen and sheep were brought, now of small, again of greater value; and this made the penalty of the fine unequal. Therefore later, by the Aternian law, the value of a sheep was fixed at ten pieces of brass, of the cattle at a hundred apiece. Now the “smallest” fine is that of one sheep. The “supreme” fine is of that number which we have mentioned, beyond which it is not lawful to impose a fine for a period of successive days; and for that reason it is called “supreme,” that is, greatest and heaviest. When therefore even now, according to ancient usage, either the “smallest” or the “supreme” fine is pronounced by Roman magistrates, it is regularly observed that oves (“sheep”) be given the masculine gender; and Marcus Varro has thus recorded the words of the law by which the smallest fine was pronounced: “Against Marcus Terentius, since, though summoned, he has neither appeared nor been excused, I pronounce a fine of one sheep (unum ovem)”; and they declared that the fine did not appear to be legal unless that gender was used. Furthermore, Marcus Varro, in the twenty-first book of his Human Antiquities, also says that the word for fine (multa) is itself not Latin, but Sabine, and he remarks that it endured even to within his own memory in the speech of the Samnites, who are sprung from the Sabines. But the upstart herd of grammarians have asserted that this word, like some others, is used on the principle of opposites. Furthermore, since it is a usage and custom in language for us to say even now, as the greater number of the early men did, multam dixit and multa dicta est, I have thought it not out of place to note that Marcus Cato spoke otherwise. For in the fourth book of his Origins are these words: “Our commander, if anyone has gone to battle out of order, imposes (facit) a fine upon him.” But it may seem that Cato changed the word with an eye to propriety, since the fine was imposed in camp and in the army, not pronounced in the comitium or in the presence of the people.

> Latin: 1. De origine vocabuli “terrae Italiae”; deque ea multa quae suprema appellatur deque eius nominis ratione ac de lege Aternia; et quibus verbis antiquitus multa minima dici solita sit. TIMAEUS in Historiis quas oratione Graeca de rebus populi Romani composuit, et M. Varro in Antiquitatibus Rerum Humanarum,terram Italiam de Graeco vocabulo appellatam scripserunt, quoniam boves Graeca vetere lingua ἰταλοί vocitati sint, quorum in Italia magna copia fuerit, bucetaque in ea terra gigni pascique solita sint complurima. Coniectare autem possumus ob eandem causam, quod Italia tunc esset armentosissima multam, quae appellatur “suprema” institutam in dies singulos duarum ovium, boum triginta, pro copia scilicet boumbourn proque ovium penuria. Sed cum eiusmodi multa pecoris armentique a magistratibus dicta erat, adigebantur boves ovesque alias pretii parvi, alias maioris, eaque res faciebat inaequalem multae poenitionem. Idcirco postea lege Aternia constituti sunt in oves singulas aeris deni, in boves aeris centeni. “Minima” autem multa est ovis unius. “Suprema” multa est eius numeri cuius diximus, ultra quem multam dicere in dies singulos ius non est, et propterea “suprema” appellatur, id est summa et maxima. Quando igitur nunc quoque a magistratibus populi Romani more maiorum multa dicitur vel minima vel suprema, observari solet ut “oves” genere virili appellentur; atque ita M. Varro verba haec legitima, quibus minima multa diceretur, concepit: “M. Terentio, quando citatus neque respondit neque excusatus est, ego ei unum ovem multam dico”; ac nisi eo genere diceretur, negaverunt iustam videri multam. Vocabulum autem ipsum “multae” idem M. Varro in uno vicesimo Rerum Humanarum non Latinum, sed Sabinum esse dicit, idque ad suam memoriam mansisse ait in lingua Samnitium, qui sunt a Sabinis orti. Sed turba grammaticorum novicia κατʼ ἀντίφρασιν, ut quaedam alia, hoc quoque dici tradiderunt. Cum autem usus et mos sermonum is sit, ut ita et nunc loquamur, ut plerique veterum locuti sunt: “multam dixit” et “multa dicta est,” non esse abs re putavi notare quod M. Cato aliter dixit. Nam in quarto Originum verba haec sunt: “Imperator noster, si quis extra ordinem depugnatum ivit, ei multam facit.” Potest autem videri consulta elegantia mutasse verbum, cum in castris et in exercitu multa fieret, non in comitio nec ad populum diceretur.

[¶1] 2. That the word elegantia in earlier days was not used of a more refined nature, but of excessive fastidiousness in dress and mode of life, and was a term of reproach. IT was not customary to call a man elegans, or “elegant,” by way of praise, but up to the time of Marcus Cato that word as a rule was a reproach, not a compliment. And this we may observe both in some other writers, and also in the work of Cato entitled Carmen de Moribus. In this book is the following passage: “They thought that avarice included all the vices; whoever was considered extravagant, ambitious, elegant, vicious or good-fornothing received praise.” It is evident from these words that in days of old the “elegant” man was so called, not because of refinement of character, but because he was excessively particular and extravagant in his attire and mode of life. Later, the “elegant” man ceased indeed to be reproached, but he was deemed worthy of no commendation, unless his elegance was very moderate. Thus Marcus Tullius commended Lucius Crassus and Quintus Scaevola, not for mere elegance, but for elegance combined with great frugality. “Crassus,” he says, “was the most frugal of elegant men; Scaevola the most elegant of the frugal.” Besides this, in the same work of Cato, I recall also these scattered and cursory remarks: “It was the custom,” says he, “to dress becomingly in the forum, at home to cover their nakedness. They paid more for horses than for cooks. The poetic art was not esteemed. If anyone devoted himself to it, or frequented banquets, he was called a 'ruffian.'” This sentiment too, of conspicuous truthfulness, is to be found in the same work: “Indeed, human life is very like iron. If you use it, it wears out; if you do not, it is nevertheless consumed by rust. In the same way we see men worn out by toil; if you toil not, sluggishness and torpor are more injurious than toil.”

> Latin: 2. Quod “elegantia” apud antiquiores, non de amoeniore ingenio, sed de nitidiore cultu atque victu dicebatur, eaque in vitio ponebatur. “ELEGANS” homo non dicebatur cum laude, set id fere verbum ad aetatem M. Catonis vitii, non laudis fuit. Est namque hoc animadvertere, cum in quibusdam aliis, tum in libro Catonis qui inscriptus est Carmen De Moribus. Ex quo libro verba haec sunt: “Avaritiam omnia vitia habere putabant; sumptuosus, cupidus, elegans, vitiosus, inritus qui habebatur, is laudabatur”; ex quibus verbis apparet, “elegantem” dictum antiquitus non ab ingenii elegantia, sed qui nimis lecto amoenoque cultu victuque esset. Postea “elegans” reprehendi quidem desiit, sed laude nulla dignabatur, nisi cuius elegantia erat moderatissima. Sic M. Tullius L. Crasso et Q. Scaevolae non meram elegantiam, set multa parsimonia mixtam, laudi dedit: “Crassus,” inquit, “erat parcissimus elegantium, Scaevola parcorum elegantissimus.” Praeterea ex eodem libro Catonis haec etiam sparsim et intercise commeminimus: “Vestiri,” inquit, “in foro honeste mos erat, domi quod satis erat. Equos carius quam coquos emebant. Poeticae artis honos non erat. Si quis in ea re studebat aut sese ad convivia adplicabat, ‘crassator’ vocabatur.” Illa quoque ex eodem libro praeclarae veritatis sententia est: “Nam vita,” inquit, “humana prope uti ferrum est. Si exerceas, conteritur; si non exerceas, tamen robigo interficit. Item homines exercendo videmus conteri; si nihil exerceas, inertia atque torpedo plus detrimenti facit quam exercitio.”

[¶2] 3. The nature and degree of the variety of usage in the particle pro; and some examples of the differences. WHEN I have leisure from legal business, and walk or ride for the sake of bodily exercise, I have the habit sometimes of silently meditating upon questions that are trifling indeed and insignificant, even negligible in the eyes of the uneducated, but are nevertheless highly necessary for a thorough understanding of the early writers and a knowledge of the Latin language. For example, lately in the retirement of Praeneste, as I was taking my evening walk alone, I began to consider the nature and degree of variety in the use of certain particles in the Latin language; for instance, in the preposition pro. For I saw that we had one use in “the priests passed a decree in the name of their order,” and another in “that a witness who had been called in said by way of testimony”; that Marcus Cato used it in still another way in the fourth book of his Origins: “The battle was fought and ended before the camp,” and also in the fifth book: “That all the islands and cities were in favour of the Illyrian land.” Also “before the temple of Castor” is one form of expression, “on the rostra” another, “before, or on, the tribunal” another, “in presence of the assembly” another, and “the tribune of the commons interposed a veto in view of his authority” still another. Now, I thought that anyone who imagined that all these expressions were wholly alike and equal, or were entirely different, was in error; for I was of the opinion that this variety came from the same origin and source, but yet that its end was not the same. And this surely anyone will easily understand, if he attentively considers the question and has a somewhat extensive use and knowledge of the early language.

> Latin: 3. Qualis quantaque sit “pro” particulae varietas; deque exemplis eius varietatis. QUANDO ab arbitriis negotiisque otium est et motandi corporis gratia aut spatiamur aut vectamur, quaerere nonnumquam aput memet ipsum soleo res eiusmodi, parvas quidem minutasque et hominibus non bene eruditis aspernabiles, sed ad veterum scripta penitus noscenda et ad scientiam linguae Latinae cumprimis necessarias; velut est, quod forte nuper in Praenestino recessu vespertina ambulatione solus ambulans, considerabam qualis quantaque esset particularum quarundam in oratione Latina varietas. Quod genus est praepositio “pro.” Aliter enim dici videbam “pontifices pro conlegio decrevisse,” aliter “quempiam testem introductum pro testimonio dixisse,” aliter M. Catonem in Originum quarto: “Proelium factum depugnatumque pro castris” scripsisse et item in quinto: “Urbes insulasque omnis pro agro Illyrio esse,” aliter etiam dici “pro aede Castoris,” aliter “pro rostris,” aliter “pro tribunali,” aliter “pro contione” atque aliter “tribunum plebis pro potestate intercessisse.” Sed has omnes dictiones qui aut omnino similes et pares aut usquequaque diversas existimaret, errare arbitrabar; nam varietatem istam eiusdem quidem fontis et capitis, non eiusdem tamen esse finis putabam. Quod profecto facile intelleget, si quis adhibeat ad meditationem suam intentionem et habeat veteris orationis usum atque notitiam celebriorem.

[¶3] 4. How Quintus Ennius rivalled certain verses of Euripides. IN the Hecuba of Euripides there are some verses remarkable and brilliant in their diction, their thought and their terseness. Hecuba is speaking to Ulysses:
Thine high repute, how ill soe'er thou speak'st,
Shall sway them; for the same speech carrieth not
Like weight from men contemned and men revered.
These verses Quintus Ennius, when he translated that tragedy, rivalled with no little success. The verses of Ennius are the same in number, as follows:
Though thou speak'st ill, thou wilt the Achivi sway;
The selfsame words and speech have other weight
When spoken by the great and by the obscure.
Ennius, as I have said, did well; but yet ignobiles and opulenti do not seem to express the full force of a)docou/ntwn and dokou/ntwn; for not all who are obscure are contemned, nor are the great all revered.

> Latin: 4. Quem in modum Q. Ennius versus Euripidi aemulatus sit. EURIPIDIS versus sunt in Hecuba verbis, sententia, brevitate insignes inlustresque; Hecuba est ad Ulixen dicens:
Τὸ δʼ ἀξίωμα, κἂν κακῶς λέγῃ, τὸ σὸν
Νικᾷ· λόγος γὰρ ἔκ τʼ ἀδοξούντων ἰὼν
Κἀκ τῶν δοκούντων αὐτός, οὐ ταὐτὸν σθένει Hos versus Q. Ennius, cum eam tragoediam verteret, non sane incommode aemulatus est. Versus totidem Enniani hi sunt:
Haéc tu etsi pervérse dices, fácile Achivos fléxeris;
Nám opulenti cúm locuntur páriter atque ignóbiles,
Éadem dicta eadémque oratio aéqua non aequé valet.
Bene, sicuti dixi, Ennius; sed “ignobiles” tamen et “opulenti” ἀντὶ ἀδοξούντων καὶ δοκούντων satisfacere sententiae non videntur; nam neque omnes ignobiles ἀδοξοῦσι neque omnes opulenti εὐδοξοῦσιν.

[¶4] 5. Some brief notes about the Pyrronian philosophers and the Academics; and of the difference between them. THOSE whom we call the Pyrronian philosophers are designated by the Greek name skeptikoi/, or “sceptics,” which means about the same as “inquirers” and “investigators.” For they decide nothing and determine nothing, but are always engaged in inquiring and considering what there is in all nature concerning which it is possible to decide and determine. And moreover they believe that they do not see or hear anything clearly, but that they undergo and experience something like seeing and hearing; but they are in doubt as to the nature and character of those very things which cause them those experiences, and they deliberate about them: and they declare that in everything assurance and absolute truth seem so beyond our grasp, owing to the mingling and confusing of the indications of truth and falsehood, that any man who is not rash and precipitate in his judgment ought to use the language which they say was used by Pyrro, the founder of that philosophy: “Does not this matter stand so, rather than so, or is it neither?” For they deny that proofs of anything and its real qualities can be known and understood, and they try in many ways to point this out and demonstrate it. On this subject Favorinus too with great keenness and subtlety has composed ten books, which he entitled Purrwnei=oi Tro/poi, or The Pyrronian Principles. It is besides a question of long standing, which has been discussed by many Greek writers, whether the Pyrronian and Academic philosophers differ at all, and to what extent. For both are called “sceptics, inquirers and doubters,” since both affirm nothing and believe that nothing is understood. But they say that appearances, which they call fantasi/ai, are produced from all objects, not according to the nature of the objects themselves, but according to the condition of mind or body of those to whom those appearances come. Therefore they call absolutely all things that affect men's senses ta\ pro/s ti. This expression means that there is nothing at all that is self-dependent or which has its own power and nature, but that absolutely all things have “reference to something else” and seem to be such as their appearance is while they are seen, and such as they are formed by our senses, to which they come, not by the things themselves, from which they have proceeded. But although the Pyrronians and the Academics express themselves very much alike about these matters, yet they are thought to differ from each other both in certain other respects and especially for this reason—because the Academics do, as it were, “comprehend” the very fact that nothing can be comprehended, and, as it were, decide that nothing can be decided, while the Pyrronians assert that not even that can by any means be regarded as true, because nothing is regarded as true.

> Latin: 5. De Pyrronis philosophis quaedam deque Academicis strictim notata; deque inter eos differentia. Quos Pyrronios philosophos vocamus, hi Graeco cognomento σκεπτικοί appellantur; id ferme significat quasi “quaesitores” et “consideratores.” Nihil enim decernunt, nihil constituunt, sed in quaerendo semper considerandoque sunt quidnam sit omnium rerum de quo decerni constituique possit. Ac ne videre quoque plane quicquam neque audire sese putant, sed ita pati adficique quasi videant vel audiant, eaque ipsa quae adfectiones istas in sese efficiant, qualia et cuiusmodi sint cunctantur atque insistunt, omniumque rerum fidem veritatemque mixtis confusisque signis veri atque falsi ita inprensibilem videri aiunt, ut quisquis homo est non praeceps neque iudicii sui prodigus his uti verbis debeat quibus auctorem philosophiae istius Pyrronem esse usum tradunt: οὐ μᾶλλον οὕτως ἔχει τόδε ἢ ἐκείνως ἢ οὐθετέρως. Indicia enim rei cuiusque et sinceras proprietates negant posse nosci et percipi, idque ipsum docere atque ostendere multis modis conantur. Super qua re Favorinus quoque subtilissime argutissimeque decem libros composuit, quos Πυρρωνείων Τρόπων inscribit. Vetus autem quaestio et a multis scriptoribus Graecis tractata, an quid et quantum Pyrronios et Academicos philosophos intersit. Utrique enim σκεπτικοί, ἐφεκτικοί, ἀπορητικοί dicuntur, quoniam utrique nihil adfirmant nihilque comprehendi putant. Sed ex omnibus rebus proinde visa dicunt fieri, quas φαντασίας appellant, non ut rerum ipsarum natura est, sed ut adfectio animi corporisve est eorum, ad quos ea visa perveniunt. Itaque omnes omnino res quae sensus hominum movent, τῶν πρός τι esse dicunt. Id verbum significat nihil esse quicquam quod ex sese constet nec quod habeat vim propriam et naturam, sed omnia prorsum ad aliquid referri taliaque videri qualis sit eorum species dum videntur, qualiaque apud sensus nostros, quo pervenerunt, creantur, non apud sese, unde profecta sunt. Cum haec autem consimiliter tam Pyrronii dicant quam Academici, differre tamen inter sese et propter alia quaedam et vel maxime propterea existimati sunt, quod Academici quidem ipsum illud nihil posse comprehendi quasi comprehendunt, et nihil posse decerni quasi decernunt, Pyrronii ne id quidem ullo pacto verum videri dicunt, quod nihil esse verum videtur.

[¶5] 6. That at Rome women did not swear by Hercules nor men by Castor. IN our early writings neither do Roman women swear by Hercules nor the men by Castor. But why the women did not swear by Hercules is evident, since they abstain from sacrificing to Hercules. On the other hand, why the men did not name Castor in oaths is not easy to say. Nowhere, then, is it possible to find an instance, among good writers, either of a woman saying “by Hercules” or a man, “by Castor”; but edepol, which is an oath by Pollux, is common to both man and woman. Marcus Varro, however, asserts that the earliest men were wont to swear neither by Castor nor by Pollux, but that this oath was used by women alone and was taken from the Eleusinian initiations; that gradually, however, through ignorance of ancient usage, men began to say edepol, and thus it became a customary expression; but that the use of “by Castor” by a man appears in no ancient writing.

> Latin: 6. Quod mulieres Romae per Herculem non iuraverint neque viri per Castorem. IN veteribus scriptis neque mulieres Romanae per Herculem deiurant neque viri per Castorem. Sed cur illae non iuraverint Herculem non obscurum est, nam Herculaneo sacrificio abstinent. Cur autem viri Castorem iurantes non appellaverint non facile dictu est. Nusquam igitur scriptum invenire est, apud idoneos quidem scriptores, aut “me hercle” feminam dicere aut “me castor” virum; “edepol” autem, quod iusiurandum per Pollucem est, et viro et feminae commune est. Sed M. Varro adseverat antiquissimos viros neque per Castorem neque per Pollucem deiurare solitos, sed id iusiurandum fuisse tantum feminarum, ex initiis Eleusinis acceptum; paulatim tamen inscitia antiquitatis viros dicere “edepol” coepisse factumque esse ita dicendi morem, sed “me castor” a viro dici in nullo vetere scripto inveniri.

[¶6] 7. That very old words which have become antiquated and obsolete ought not to be used. To use words that are too antiquated and worn out, or those which are unusual and of a harsh and unpleasant novelty, seems to be equally faulty. But for my own part I think it more offensive and censurable to use words that are new, unknown and unheard of, than those that are trite and mean. Furthermore, I maintain that those words also seem new which are out of use and obsolete, even though they are of ancient date. In fact, it is a common fault of lately acquired learning, or o)yimaqi/a as the Greeks call it, to make a great point anywhere and everywhere, and in connection with any subject whatever, to talk about what you have never learned and of which you were long ignorant, when at last you have begun to know something about it. For instance, at Rome in my presence a man of experience and celebrated as a pleader, who had acquired a sudden and, so to speak, haphazard kind of education, was speaking before the prefect of the city and wished to say that a certain man lived upon poor and wretched food, ate bread made from bran, and drank flat and spoiled wine: “This Roman knight,” said he, “eats apluda and drinks flocces.” All who were present looked at one another, at first somewhat seriously, with a disturbed and inquiring aspect, wondering what in the world the two words meant; then presently they all burst into a laugh, as if he had said something in Etruscan or Gallic. Now that man had read that the farmers of ancient days called the chaff of grain apluda, and that the word was used by Plautus in the comedy entitled Astraba, if that play be the work of Plautus. He had also heard that flocces in the early language meant the lees of wine pressed from the skins of grapes, corresponding to the dregs of oil from olives. This he had read in the Polumeni of Caecilius, and he had saved up those two words as ornaments for his speeches. Another Einfaltspinsel also, after some little reading of that kind, when his opponent requested that a case be postponed, said: “I pray you, praetor, help me, aid me! How long, pray, shall this bovinator delay me?” And he bawled it out three or four times in a loud voice: “He is a bovinator.” A murmur began to arise from many of those who were present, as if in wonder at this monster of a word. But he, waving his arms and gesticulating, cried: “What, haven't you read Lucilius, who calls a shuffler bovinator?” And, in fact, this verse occurs in Lucilius' eleventh book: If trifling shuffler (bovinator) with abusive tongue.

> Latin: 7. Verbis antiquissimis relictisque iam et desitis minime utendum. VERBIS uti aut nimis obsoletis exculcatisque aut insolentibus novitatisque durae et inlepidae, par esse delictum videtur. Sed molestius equidem culpatiusque esse arbitror verba nova, incognita, inaudita dicere quam involgata et sordentia. Nova autem videri dico etiam ea quae sunt inusitata et desita, etsi sunt vetusta. Est adeo id vitium plerumque serae eruditionis, quam Graeci ὀψιμαθίαν appellant, ut quod numquam didiceris, diu ignoraveris, cum id scire aliquando coeperis, magni facias quo in loco cumque et quacumque in re dicere. Veluti Romae, nobis praesentibus, vetus celebratusque homo in causis, sed repentina et quasi tumultuaria doctrina praeditus, cum apud praefectum urbi verba faceret et dicere vellet inopi quendam miseroque victu vivere et furfureum panem esitare, vinumque eructum et fetidum potare, “Hic,” inquit, “eques Romanus apludam edit et flocces bibit.” Aspexerunt omnes qui aderant alius alium, primo tristiores turbato et requirente voltu, quidnam illud utriusque verbi foret; post deinde, quasi nescio quid Tusce aut Gallice dixisset, universi riserunt. Legerat autem ille “apludam” veteres rusticos frumenti furfurem dixisse idque a Plauto in comoedia, si ea Plauti est, quae Astraba inscripta est, positum esse. Item “flocces” audierat prisca voce significare vini faecem e vinaceis expressam, sicuti fraces ex oleis, idque aput Caecilium in Polumenis legerat, eaque sibi duo verba ad orationum ornamenta servaverat. Alter quoque a lectionibus id genus paucis apirocalus, cum adversarius causam differri postularet: “Rogo, praetor,” inquit, “subveni, succurre! quonam usque nos bovinator hic demoratur?” Atque id voce magna ter quaterve inclamavit: “bovinator est.” Commurmuratio fieri coepta est a plerisque qui aderant, quasi monstrum verbi admirantibus. At ille iactans et gestiens: “Non enim Lucilium,” inquit, “legistis, qui tergiversatorem ‘bovinatorem’ dicit?” Est autem in Lucili XI. versus hic:
Si tricosus bovinatorque ore improbus duro.

[¶7] 8. What Marcus Cato thought and said of Albinus, who, though a Roman, wrote a history of Rome in the Greek language, having first asked indulgence for his lack of skill in that tongue. MARCUS CATO is said to have rebuked Aulus Albinus with great justice and neatness. Albinus, who had been consul with Lucius Lucullus, composed a Roman History in the Greek language. In the introduction to his work he wrote to this effect: that no one ought to blame him if he had written anything then in those books that was incorrect or inelegant; “for” he continues, “I am a Roman, born in Latium, and the Greek language is quite foreign to me”; and accordingly he asked indulgence and freedom from adverse criticism in case he had made any errors. When Marcus Cato had read this, “Surely, Aulus,” said he, “you are a great trifler in preferring to apologize for a fault rather than avoid it. For we usually ask pardon either when we have erred through inadvertence or done wrong under compulsion. But tell me, I pray you,” said he, “who compelled you to do that for which you ask pardon before doing it.” This is told in the thirteenth book of Cornelius Nepos' work On Famous Men.

> Latin: 8. Quid senserit dixeritque M. Cato de Albino, qui homo Romanus Graeca oratione res Romanas, venia sibi ante eius imperitiae petita, composuit. IUSTE venusteque admodum reprehendisse dicitur Aulum Albinum M. Cato. Albinus, qui cum L. Lucullo consul fuit, res Romanas oratione Graeca scriptitavit. In eius Historiae principio scriptum est ad hanc sententiam: neminem suscensere sibi convenire, si quid in his libris parum composite aut minus eleganter tum scriptum foret; “nam sum,” inquit, “homo Romanus natus in Latio, Graeca oratio a nobis alienissima est,” ideoque veniam gratiamque malae existimationis, si quid esset erratum, postulavit. Ea cum legisset M. Cato: “Ne tu,” inquit, “Aule, nimium nugator es, cum maluisti culpam deprecari quam culpa vacare. Nam petere veniam solemus, aut cum inprudentes erravimus aut cum compulsi peccavimus. Dic,” inquit, “oro te, quis perpulit ut id committeres, quod, priusquam faceres, peteres ut ignosceretur?” Scriptum hoc est in libro Corneli Nepotis De Inlustribus Viris XIII.

[¶8] 9. The story of the Milesian envoys and the orator Demosthenes, found in the works of Critolaus. CRITOLAUS has written that envoys came from Miletus to Athens on public business, perhaps for the purpose of asking aid. Then they engaged such advocates as they chose, to speak for them, and the advocates, according to their instructions, addressed the people in behalf of the Milesians. Demosthenes vigorously opposed the demands of the Milesians, maintaining that the Milesians did not deserve aid, nor was it to the interest of the State to grant it. The matter was postponed to the next day. The envoys came to Demosthenes and begged him earnestly not to speak against them; he asked for money, and received the amount which he demanded. On the following day, when the case was taken up again, Demosthenes, with his neck and shoulders wrapped in thick wool, came forward before the people and said that he was suffering from quinsy and hence could not speak against the Milesians. Then one of the populace cried out that it was, not quinsy, but “silverinsy” from which Demosthenes was suffering. Demosthenes himself too, as Critolaus also relates, did not afterwards conceal that matter, but actually made a boast of it. For when he had asked Aristodemus, the player, what sum he had received for acting, and Aristodemus had replied, “a talent,” Demosthenes rejoined: “Why, I got more than that for holding my tongue.”

> Latin: 9. Historia de legatis Mileti ac Demosthene rhetore in libris Critolai reperta. CRITOLAUS scripsit legatos Mileto publicae rei causa venisse Athenas, fortasse an auxilii petendi gratia. Tum qui pro sese verba facerent quos visum erat advocavisse, aduocatosadvocates, uti erat mandatum, verba pro Milesiis ad populum fecisse, Demosthenen Milesiorum postulatis acriter respondisse, neque Milesios auxilio dignos neque ex republica id esse contendisse; rem in posterum diem prolatam. Legatos ad Demosthenen venisse magnoque opere orasse uti contra ne diceret; eum pecuniam petivisse et quantam petiverat abstulisse. Postridie, cum res agi denuo coepta esset, Demosthenen, lana multa collum cervicesque circumvolutum, ad populum prodisse et dixisse se synanchen pati, eo contra Milesios loqui non quire. Tum e populo unum exclamasse, non “synanchen,” quod Demosthenes pateretur, sed “argyranchen” esse. Ipse etiam Demosthenes, ut idem Critolaus refert, non id postea concelavit, quin gloriae quoque hoc sibi adsignavit. Nam cum interrogasset Aristodemum, actorem fabularum, quantum mercedis, uti ageret, accepisset, et Aristodemus “talentum” respondisset, “At ego plus,” inquit, “accepi, ut tacerem.”

[¶9] 10. That Gaius Gracchus in a speech of his applied the story related above to the orator Demades, and not to Demosthenes; and a quotation of Gracchus' words. THE story which in the preceding chapter we said was told by Critolaus about Demosthenes, Gaius Gracchus, in the speech Against the Aufeian Law, applied to Demades in the following words: “For you, fellow citizens, if you wish to be wise and honest, and if you inquire into the matter, will find that none of us comes forward here without pay. All of us who address you are after something, and no one appears before you for any purpose except to carry something away. I myself, who am now recommending you to increase your taxes, in order that you may the more easily serve your own advantage and administer the government, do not come here for nothing; but I ask of you, not money, but honour and your good opinion. Those who come forward to persuade you not to accept this law, do not seek honour from you, but money from Nicomedes; those also who advise you to accept it are not seeking a good opinion from you, but from Mithridates a reward and an increase of their possessions; those, however, of the same rank and order who are silent are your very bitterest enemies, since they take money from all and are false to all. You, thinking that they are innocent of such conduct, give them your esteem; but the embassies from the kings, thinking it is for their sake that they are silent, give them great gifts and rewards. So in the land of Greece, when a Greek tragic actor boasted that he had received a whole talent for one play, Demades, the most eloquent man of his country, is said to have replied to him: 'Does it seem wonderful to you that you have gained a talent by speaking? I was paid ten talents by the king for holding my tongue.' Just so, these men now receive a very high price for holding their tongues.”

> Latin: 10. Quod C. Gracchus in oratione sua historiam supra scriptam Demadi rhetori, non DemostheniDemostlleni, adtribuit; verbaque ipsius C. Gracchi relata. QUOD in capite superiore a Critolao scriptum esse diximus super Demosthene, id C. Gracchus in oratione, Qua legem Aufeiam dissuasit, in Demaden contulit verbis hisce: “Nam vos, Quirites, si velitis sapientia atque virtute uti, etsi quaeritis, neminem nostrum invenietis sine pretio huc prodire. Omnes nos qui verba facimus aliquid petimus, neque ullius rei causa quisquam ad vos prodit, nisi ut aliquid auferat.” “Ego ipse, qui aput vos verba facio uti vectigalia vestra augeatis, quo facilius vestra commoda et rempublicam administrare possitis, non gratis prodeo; verum peto a vobis, non pecuniam, sed bonam existimationem atque honorem.” “Qui prodeunt dissuasuri ne hanc legem accipiatis, petunt non honorem a vobis, verum a Nicomede pecuniam; qui suadent ut accipiatis, hi quoque petunt non a vobis bonam existimationem, verum a Mitridate rei familiari suae pretium et praemium; qui autem ex eodem loco atque ordine tacent, hi vel acerrimi sunt, nam ab omnibus pretium accipiunt et omnis fallunt.” “Vos, cum putatis eos ab his rebus remotos esse, inpertitis bonam existimationem;” “legationes autem a regibus, cum putant eos sua causa reticere, sumptus atque pecunias maximas praebent, item uti in terra Graecia, quo in tempore Graecus tragoedus gloriae sibi ducebat talentum magnum ob unam fabulam datum esse, homo eloquentissimus civitatis suae Demades ei respondisse dicitur: ‘Mirum tibi videtur, si tu loquendo talentum quaesisti? Ego, ut tacerem, decem talenta a rege accepi.’ Item nunc isti pretia maxima ob tacendum accipiunt.”

[¶10] 11. The words of Publius Nigidius, in which he says that there is a difference between “lying” and “telling a falsehood.” THESE are the very words of Publius Nigidius, a man of great eminence in the pursuit of the liberal arts, whom Marcus Cicero highly respected because of his talent and learning: “There is a difference between telling a falsehood and lying. One who lies is not himself deceived, but tries to deceive another; he who tells a falsehood is himself deceived.” He also adds this: “One who lies deceives, so far as he is able; but one who tells a falsehood does not himself deceive, any more than he can help.” He also had this on the same subject: “A good man,” says he, “ought to take pains not to lie, a wise man, not to tell what is false; the former affects the man himself, the latter does not.” With variety, by Heaven! and neatness has Nigidius distinguished so many opinions relating to the same thing, as if he were constantly saying something new.

> Latin: 11. Verba P. Nigidii, quibus differre dicit “mentiri” et “mendacium dicere.” VERBA sunt ipsa haec P. Nigidii, hominis in studiis bonarum artium praecellentis, quem M. Cicero ingenii doctrinarumque nomine summe reveritus est: “Inter mendacium dicere et mentiri distat. Qui mentitur ipse non fallitur, alterum fallere conatur; qui mendacium dicit, ipse fallitur.” Item hoc addidit: “Qui mentitur,” inquit, “fallit, quantum in se est; at qui mendacium dicit, ipse non fallit, quantum in se est.” Item hoc quoque super eadem re dicit: “Vir bonus,” inquit, “praestare debet ne mentiatur, prudens, ne mendacium dicat; alterum incidit in hominem, alterum non.” Varie me hercule et lepide Nigidius tot sententias in eandem rem, quasi aliud atque aliud diceret, disparavit.

## 26. Book XI · chapters 12–16

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/26/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/26/#p-N

[¶0] 12. That the philosopher Chrysippus says that every word is ambiguous and of doubtful meaning, while Diodorus, on the contrary, thinks that no word is ambiguous. CHRYSIPPUS asserts that every word is by nature ambiguous, since two or more things may be understood from the same word. But Diodorus, surnamed Cronus, says: “No word is ambiguous, and no one speaks or receives a word in two senses; and it ought not to seem to be said in any other sense than that which the speaker feels that he is giving to it. But when I,” said he, “meant one thing and you have understood another, it may seem that I have spoken obscurely rather than ambiguously; for the nature of an ambiguous word should be such that he who speaks it expresses two or more meanings. But no man expresses two meanings who has felt that he is expressing but one.”

> Latin: 12. Quod Chrysippus philosophus omne verbum ambiguum dubiumque esse dicit, Diodorus contra nullum verbum ambiguum esse putat. CHRYSIPPUS ait omne verbum ambiguum natura esse, quoniam ex eodem duo vel plura accipi possunt. Diodorus autem, cui Crono cognomentum fuit, “Nullum,” inquit, “verbum est ambiguum, nec quisquam ambiguum dicit aut sentit, nec aliud dici videri debet quam quod se dicere sentit is qui dicit.” “At cum ego,” inquit, “aliud sensi, tu aliud accepisti, obscure magis dictum videri potest quam ambigue; ambigui enim verbi natura illa esse debuit, ut qui id diceret duo vel plura diceret. Nemo autem duo vel plura dicit, qui se sensit unum dicere.”

[¶1] 13. What Titus Castricius thought about the wording of a sentence of Gaius Gracchus; and that he showed that it contributed nothing to the effectiveness of the sentence. THE speech of Gaius Gracchus Against Publius Popilius was read before Titus Castricius, a teacher of the art of rhetoric and a man of sound and solid judgment. At the beginning of that speech the sentences were constructed with more care and regard for rhythm than was customary with the early orators. The words, arranged as I have said, are as follows: “If you now reject rashly the things which all these years you have earnestly sought and longed for, it must be said either that you formerly sought them earnestly, or now have rejected them without consideration.” Well then, the flow and rhythm of this well-rounded and smooth-flowing sentence pleased us to a remarkable and unparalleled degree, and still more the evidence that composition of that kind appealed even in those early days to Gaius Gracchus, a man of distinction and dignity. But when those very same words were read again and again at our request, we were admonished by Castricius to consider what the force and value of the thought was, and not to allow our ears to be charmed by the rhythm of a well-turned sentence and through mere pleasure to confuse our judgment as well. And when by this admonition he had made us more alert, “Look deeply,” said he, “into the meaning of these words, and tell me pray, some of you, whether there is any weight or elegance in this sentence: 'If you rashly reject the things which all these years you have earnestly sought and longed for, it must be said either that you formerly sought them earnestly or now reject them without consideration.' For to whom of all men does it not occur, that it is certainly natural that you should be said earnestly to have sought what you earnestly sought, and to have rejected without consideration what you rejected without consideration? But I think,” said he, “if it had been written thus: ' If you now reject what you have sought and longed for these many years, it must be said that you formerly sought it earnestly or that you now reject it without consideration'; if,” said he, “it were spoken thus, the sentence would be weightier and more solid and would arouse some reasonable expectation in the hearer; but as it is, these words 'earnestly' and 'without consideration,' on which the whole effect of the sentence rests, are not only spoken at the end of the sentence, but are also put earlier where they are not needed, so that what ought to arise and spring from the very conception of the subject is spoken wholly before the subject demands it. For one who says: ' If you do this, you will be said to have done it earnestly,' says something that is composed and arranged with some regard to sense; but one who says: 'If you do it earnestly, you will be said to have done it earnestly,' speaks in much the same way as if he should say: 'If you do it earnestly, you will do it earnestly.' I have warned you of this,” said he, “not with the idea of censuring Gaius Gracchus—may the gods give me a wiser mind! for if any fault or error can be mentioned in a man of such powerful eloquence, it is wholly excused by his authority and overlooked in view of his antiquity—but in order that you might be on your guard lest the rhythmic sound of any flowing eloquence should easily dazzle you, and that you might first balance the actual weight of the substance against the high quality of the diction; so that if any sentence was uttered that was weighty, honest and sound, then, if you thought best, you might praise also the mere flow of the language and the delivery; that if, on the contrary, thoughts that were cold, trifling and futile should be conveyed in words neatly and rhythmically arranged, they might have the same effect upon you as when men conspicuous for their deformity and their ludicrous appearance imitate actors and play the buffoon.”

> Latin: 13. Quid Titus Castricius de verbis deque sententia quadam C. Gracchi existimarit; quodque esse eam sine ullo sensus emolumento docuerit. APUD Titum Castricium, disciplinae rhetoricae doctorem, gravi atque firmo iudicio virum, legebatur oratio C. Gracchi In P. Popilium. In eius orationis principio conlocata verba sunt accuratius modulatiusque quam veterum oratorum consuetudo fert. Ea verba, sicuti dixi conposita, haec sunt: “Quae vos cupide per hosce annos adpetistis atque voluistis, ea si temere repudiaritis, abesse non potest quin aut olim cupide adpetisse aut nunc temere repudiasse dicamini.” Cursus igitur hic et sonus rotundae volubilisque sententiae eximie nos et unice delectabat, tanto id magis, quod iam tunc C. Graccho, viro inlustri et severo, eiusmodi compositionem fuisse cordi videbamus. Sed enim, cum eadem ipsa verba saepius petentibus nobis lectitarentur, admoniti a Castricio sumus ut consideraremus quae vis quodve emolumentum eius sententiae foret, neque pateremur ut aures nostrae cadentis apte orationis modis eblanditae animum quoque nobis voluptate inani perfunderent. Cumque nos admonitione ista adtentiores fecisset, “Inspicite,” inquit, “penitus quid efficiant verba haec, dicatque mihi, quaeso, aliqui vestrum, an sit ulla huiusce sententiae gravitas aut gratia: ‘Quae vos cupide per hosce annos adpetistis atque voluistis, ea si temere repudiaritis, abesse non potest quin aut olim cupide adpetisse aut nunc temere repudiasse dicamini.’” “Cui enim omnium hominum in mentem non venit id profecto usu venire, ut quod cupide adpetieris, cupide adpetisse et quod temere repudiaveris, temere repudiasse dicaris?” “At si, opinor,” inquit, “ita scriptum esset: ‘Quae vos per hosce annos adpetistis atque voluistis, ea nunc si repudiaritis, abesse non potest quin aut olim cupide adpetisse aut nunc temere repudiasse dicamini’;” “si ita,” inquit, “diceretur, gravior scilicet solidiorque fieret sententia et acciperet aliquid iustae in audiendo expectationis;” “nunc autem verba haec ‘cupide’ et ‘temere,’ in quibus verbis omne momentum rei est, non in concludenda sententia tantum dicuntur, sed supra quoque nondum desiderata ponuntur et quae nasci oririque ex ipsa rei conceptione debebant, ante omnino quam res postulat dicuntur. Nam qui ita dicit: ‘si hoc feceris, cupide fecisse diceris,’ rem dicit sensus alicuius ratione conlectam et consertam; qui vero ita dicit: ‘si cupide feceris, cupide fecisse diceris,’ non longe secus dicit atque si diceret: ‘si cupide feceris, cupide feceris.’” “Haec ego,” inquit, “admonui, non ut C. Graccho vitio darem,—dii enim mentem meliorem mihi! nam, si quicquam in tam fortis facundiae viro vitii vel erroris esse dici potest, id omne et auctoritas eius exhausit et vetustas consumpsit,—sed uti caveretis ne vos facile praestringeret modulatus aliqui currentis facundiae sonitus atque ut vim ipsam rerum virtutemque verborum prius pensitaretis et, si quidem gravis atque integra et sincera sententia diceretur, tum, si ita videretur, gressibus quoque ipsis orationis et gestibus plauderetis; si vero frigidi et leves et futtiles sensus in verba apte numeroseque posita includerentur, non esse id secus crederetis quam cum homines insigni deformitate ac facie deridicula imitantur histriones et gestiunt.”

[¶2] 14. The discreet and admirable reply of King Romulus as to his use of wine. Lucius Piso FRUGI has shown an elegant simplicity of diction and thought in the first book of his Annals, when writing of the life and habits of King Romulus. His words are as follows: “They say also of Romulus, that being invited to dinner, he drank but little there, giving the reason that he had business for the following day. They answer: ' If all men were like you, Romulus, wine would be cheaper.' ' Nay, dear,' answered Romulus, ' if each man drank as much as he wished; for I drank as much as I wished.'”

> Latin: 14. Sobria et pulcherrima Romuli regis responsio circa vini usum. SIMPLICISSIMA suavitate et rei et orationis L. Piso Frugi usus est in primo Annali, cum de Romuli regis vita atque victu scriberet. Ea verba, quae scripsit, haec sunt: “Eundem Romulum dicunt, ad cenam vocatum, ibi non multum bibisse, quia postridie negotium haberet. Ei dicunt: ‘Romule, si istud omnes homines faciant, vinum vilius sit.’ His respondit: ‘immo vero carum, si quantum quisque volet bibat; nam ego bibi, quantum volui.’”

[¶3] 15. On ludibundus and errabundus and the suffix in words of that kind; that Laberius used amorabunda in the same way as ludibunda and errabunda; also that Sisenna in the case of a word of that sort made a new form. LABERIUS in his Lake Avernus spoke of a woman in love as amorabunda, coining a word in a somewhat unusual manner. Caesellius Vindex in his Commentary on Archaic Words said that this word was used on the same principle that ludibunda, ridibunda and errabunda are used for ludens, ridens and errans. But Terentius Scaurus, a highly distinguished grammarian of the time of the deified Hadrian, among other things which he wrote On the Mistakes of Caesellius, declared that about this word also he was wrong in thinking that ludens and ludibunda, ridens and ridibunda, errans and errabunda were identical. “For ludibunda, ridibunda, and errabunda,” he says, “are applied to one who plays the part of, or imitates, one who plays, laughs or wanders.” But why Scaurus was led to censure Caesellius on this point, I certainly could not understand. For there is no doubt that these words, each after its own kind, have the same meaning that is indicated by the words from which they are derived. But I should prefer to seem not to understand the meaning of “act the laugher” or “imitate the laugher” rather than charge Scaurus himself with lack of knowledge. But Scaurus ought rather, in censuring the commentaries of Caesellius, to have taken him to task for what he left unsaid; namely, whether ludibundus, ridibundus and errabundus differ at all from ludens, ridens and errans, and to what extent, and so with other words of the same kind; whether they differ only in some slight degree from their primitives, and what is the general force of the suffix which is added to words of that kind. For in examining a phenomenon of that nature that were a more pertinent inquiry, just as in vinulentus, lutulentus and turbulentus it is usual to ask whether that suffix is superfluous and without meaning, paragwgh/, as the Greeks say, or whether the suffix has some special force of its own. However, in noting this criticism of Scaurus it occurred to me that Sisenna, in the fourth book of his Histories, used a word of the same form. He says: “He came to the town, laying waste the fields (populabundus),” which of course means “while he was laying waste the fields,” not, as Sisenna says of similar words, “when he played the part of, or imitated, one laying waste.” But when I was inquiring about the signification and origin of such forms as populabundus, errabundus, laetabundus, ludibundus, and many other words of that kind, our friend Apollinaris—very appositely by Heaven! —remarked that it seemed to him that the final syllable of such words indicated force and abundance, and as it were, an excess of the quality belonging to the primitive word. Thus laetabundus is used of one who is excessively joyful, and errabundus of one who has wandered long and far, and he showed that all other words of that form are so used that this addition and ending indicates a great and overflowing force and abundance That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called polupragmosu/nh.

> Latin: 15. De “ludibundo” et “errabundo” atque id genus verborum productionibus; et quod Laberius sic “amorabundam” dixit, ut dicitur “ludibunda” et “errabunda”; atque inibi quod Sisenna per huiuscemodi verbum nova figura usus est. LABERIUS in Lacu Averno mulierem amantem, verbo inusitatius ficto, “amorabundam” dixit. Id verbum Caesellius Vindex in Commentario Lectionum Antiquarum ea figura scriptum dixit, qua “ludibunda” et “ridibunda” et “errabunda” dicitur “ludens” et “ridens” et “errans.” Terentius autem Scaurus, divi Hadriani temporibus grammaticus vel nobilissimus, inter alia quae De Caeselli Erroribus conposuit, in hoc quoque verbo errasse eum scripsit, quod idem esse putaverit “ludens” et “ludibunda,” “ridens” et “ridibunda,” “errans” et “errabunda.” “Nam ‘ludibunda,’” inquit, “et ‘ridibunda’ et ‘errabunda’ ea dicitur quae ludentem vel ridentem vel errantem agit aut simulat.” Sed qua ratione Scaurus adductus sit ut Caesellium in eo reprehenderet,non hercle reperiebamus. Non est enim dubium quin haec, genere ipso dumtaxat, idem significent quod ea demonstrant a quibus producuntur. Quid esset autem ludentem agere vel imitari non intellegere videri maluimus quam insimulare eum tamquam ipsum minus intellegentem. Quin magis Scaurum oportuit, commentaria Caeselli criminantem, hoc ab eo praeteritum requirere, quod non dixerit an quid et quantulum differret a “ludibundo” “ludens” et “ridibundo” “ridens” et “errabundo” “errans” ceteraque quae horum sunt similia, an a principalibus verbis paulum aliquid distarent, et quam omnino vim haberet particula haec extrema eiusmodi vocabulis addita. Hoc enim fuit potius requirendum in istiusmodi figurae tractatu, sicuti requiri solet in “vinulento” et “lutulento” et “turbulento,” vacuane et inanis sit istaec productio, cuiusmodi sunt quae παραγωγάς GraeciGracci dicunt, an extrema illa particula habeat aliquid suae propriae significationis. Cum reprehensionem autem illam Scauri notaremus, in memoriam nobis rediit quod Sisenna in quarto Historiarum eiusdem figurae verbo ita usus est. “Populabundus,” inquit, “agros ad oppidum pervenit,” quod scilicet significat “cum agros popularetur,” non, ut Scaurus in consimilibus verbis ait, “cum populantem ageret” vel “cum imitaretur.” Sed inquirentibus nobis quaenam ratio et origo esset huiuscemodi figurae “populabundus” et “errabundus” et “laetabundus” et “ludibundus” multorumque aliorum id genus verborum, εὐεπιβόλως hercle Apollinaris noster videri sibi ait particulam istam postremam in quam verba talia exeunt vim et copiam et quasi abundantiam rei cuius id verbum esset demonstrare, ut “laetabundus” is dicatur qui abunde laetus sit, et “errabundus,” qui longo atque abundanti errore sit, ceteraque omnia ex ea figura ita dici ostendit, ut productio haec et extremitas largam et fluentem vim et copiam declararet.

[¶4] 16. looking for something else, the edicts of the early praetors fell into my hands, and I thought it worth while to read and become acquainted with them.

> Latin: 16. Quod Graecorum verborum quorundam difficillima est in Latinam linguam mutatio, velut quod Graece dicitur πολυπραγμοσύνη.

[¶5] Then I found this, written in one of the earlier edicts: “If anyone of those who have taken public contracts for clearing the rivers of nets shall be brought before me, and shall be accused of not having done that which by the terms of his contract he was bound to do.”

> Latin: ADIECIMUS saepe animum ad vocabula rerum non paucissima quae neque singulis verbis, ut a Graecis, neque, si maxime pluribus eas res verbis dicamus, tam dilucide tamque apte demonstrari Latina oratione possunt quam Graeci ea dicunt privis vocibus.

[¶6] Thereupon the question arose what “clearing of nets” meant.

> Latin: Nuper etiam cum adlatus esset ad nos Plutarchi liber et eius libri indicem legissemus, qui erat Περὶ Πολυπραγμοσύνης, percontanti cuipiam qui et litterarum et vocum Graecarum expers fuit cuiusnam liber et qua de re scriptus esset, nomen quidem scriptoris statim diximus, rem de qua scriptum fuit dicturi, haesimus.

[¶7] Then a friend of mine who was sitting with us said that he had read in the seventh book of Gavius On the Origin of Words that those trees which either projected from the banks of rivers, or were found in their beds, were called retae, and that they got their name from nets, because they impeded the course of ships and, so to speak, netted them.

> Latin: Ac tum quidem primo, quia non satis commode opinabar interpretaturum me esse, si dicerem librum scriptum “De Negotiositate,” aliud institui aput me exquirere, quod, ut dicitur, verbum de verbo expressum esset.

[¶8] Therefore he thought that the custom was to farm out the rivers to be “cleaned of nets,” that is to say, cleaned out, in order that vessels meeting such branches might suffer neither delay nor danger.

> Latin: Nihil erat prorsus quod aut meminissem legere me aut, si etiam vellem fingere, quod non insigniter asperum absurdumque esset, si ex multitudine et negotio verbum unum compingerem, sicuti “multiiuga” dicimus et “multicolora” et “multiformia.”
Sed non minus inlepide ita diceretur quam si interpretari voce una velis πολυφιλίαν aut πολυτροπίαν aut πολυσαρκίαν.

[¶9] The punishment which Draco the Athenian, in the laws which he made for his fellow-citizens, inflicted upon thieves; that of Solon later;

> Latin: Quamobrem, cum diutule tacitus in cogitando fuissem, respondi tandem non videri mihi significari eam rem posse uno nomine, et idcirco iuncta oratione quid vellet Graecum id verbum parabam dicere.

[¶10] and that of our own decemvirs, who compiled the Twelve Tables; to which it is added, that among the Egyptians thefts were permitted and lawful, while among the Lacedaemonians they were even strongly encouraged and commended as a useful exercise;

> Latin: “Ad multas igitur res adgressio earumque omnium rerum actio πολυπραγμοσύνη,” inquam, “Graece dicitur, de qua hunc librum conpositum esse, inscriptio ista indicat.”

[¶11] also a memorable utterance of Marcus Cato about the punishment of theft. DRACO the Athenian was considered a good man and of great wisdom, and he was skilled in law, human and divine.

> Latin: Tum ille opicus, verbis meis inchoatis et inconditis adductus virtutemque esse πολυπραγμοσύνην ratus, “Hortatur,” inquit, “nos profecto nescio quis hic Plutarchus ad negotia capessenda et ad res obeundas plurimas cum industria et celeritate, nomenque ipsius virtutis de qua locuturus esset libro ipsi, sicuti dicis, non incommode praescripsit.” “Minime,” inquam, “vero;”

[¶12] This Draco was the first of all to make laws for the use of the Athenians. In those laws he decreed and enacted that one guilty of any theft whatsoever should be punished with death, and added many other statutes that were excessively severe.

> Latin: “neque enim ista omnino virtus est, cuius Graeco nomine argumentum hoc libri demonstratur, neque id quod tu opinare aut ego me dicere sentio aut Plutarchus facit. Deterret enim nos hoc quidem in libro, quam potest maxime, a varia promiscaque et non necessaria rerum cuiuscemodi plurimarum et cogitatione et petitione.”

[¶13] Therefore his laws, since they seemed very much too harsh, were abolished, not by order and decree, but by the tacit, unwritten consent of the Athenians. After that, they made use of other, milder laws, compiled by Solon.

> Latin: “Sed huius,” inquam, “tui erroris culpam esse intellego in mea scilicet infacundia, qui ne pluribus quidem verbis potuerim non obscurissime dicere quod a Graecis perfectissime verbo uno et planissime dicitur.”

[¶14] This Solon was one of the famous seven wise men.

> Latin: Quid significet in veteribus praetorum edictis: “qui flumina retanda publice redempta habent.”

[¶15] He thought proper by his law to punish thieves, not with death, as Draco had formerly done, but by a fine of twice the value of the stolen goods.

> Latin: EDICTA veterum praetorum sedentibus forte nobis in bibliotheca templi Traiani et aliud quid quaerentibus cum in manus incidissent, legere atque cognoscere libitum est.

[¶16] But our decemvirs, who after the expulsion of the kings compiled laws on Twelve Tables for the use of the Romans, did not show equal severity in punishing thieves of every kind, nor yet too lax leniency.

> Latin: Tum in quodam edicto antiquiore ita scriptum invenimus: “Qui flumina retanda publice redempta habent, si quis eorum ad me eductus fuerit, qui dicatur quod eum ex lege locationis facere oportuerit non fecisse.”
“Retanda” igitur quid esset quaerebatur.

[¶17] For they permitted a thief who was caught in the act to be put to death, only if it was night when he committed the theft, or if in the daytime he defended himself with a weapon when taken. But other thieves taken in the act, if they were freemen, the decemvirs ordered to be scourged and handed over to the one from whom the theft had been made, provided they had committed the theft in daylight and had not defended themselves with a weapon. Slaves taken in the act were to be scourged and hurled from the rock, but they decided that boys under age should be flogged at the discretion of the praetor and the damage which they had done made good. Those thefts also which were detected by the girdle and mask, they punished as if the culprit had been caught in the act.

> Latin: Dixit ibi quispiam nobiscum sedens amicus meus in libro se Gavi De Origine Vocabulorum VII. legisse, “retas” vocari arbores quae aut ripis fluminum eminerent aut in alveis eorum extarent, appellatasque esse a retibus, quod praetereuntes naves inpedirent et quasi inretirent; idcircoque sese arbitrari, “retanda” flumina locari solita esse, id est purganda, ne quid aut morae aut periculi navibus in ea virgulta incidentibus fieret. Qua poena Draco Atheniensis, in legibus quas populo Atheniensi scripsit, fures adfecerit; et qua postea Solon; et qua item decemviri nostri, qui duodecimDaodecim Tabulas scripserunt; atque inibi adscriptum quod aput Aegyptios furta licita et permissa sunt, aput Lacedaemonios autem cum studio quoque adfectata et pro exercitio utili celebrata; ac praeterea M. Catonis de poeniendis furtis digna memoria sententia.

[¶18] But to-day we have departed from that law of the decemvirs;

> Latin: DRACO Atheniensis vir bonus multaque esse prudentia existimatus est iurisque divini et humani peritus fuit.
Is Draco leges, quibus Athenienses uterentur, primus omnium tulit.

[¶19] for if anyone wishes to try a case of manifest theft by process of law, action is brought for four times the value.

> Latin: In illis legibus furem cuiusmodicumque furti supplicio capitis poeniendum esse et alia pleraque nimis severe censuit sanxitque.

[¶20] But “manifest theft,” says Masurius, “is one which is detected while it is being committed. The act is completed when the stolen object is carried to its destination.”

> Latin: Eius igitur leges, quoniam videbantur impendio acerbiores, non decreto iussoque, set tacito inlitteratoque Atheniensium consensu oblitteratae sunt. Postea legibus aliis mitioribusnitioribus,

[¶21] When stolen goods are found in possession of the thief (concepti) or in that of another (oblati), the penalty is threefold.

> Latin: a Solone compositiscornpositis, usi sunt. Is Solon e septem illis inclutis sapientibus fuit. Is sua lege in fures, non, ut Draco antea, mortis, sed dupli poena vindicandum existimavit.

[¶22] But one who wishes to learn what oblatum means, and conceptum, and many other particulars of the same kind taken from the admirable customs of our forefathers, and both useful and agreeable to know, will consult the book of Sabinus entitled On Thefts.

> Latin: Decemviri autem nostri, qui post reges exactos leges, quibus populus Romanus uteretur, in XII. Tabulis scripserunt, neque pari severitate in poeniendis omnium generum furibusfurious neque remissa nimis lenitate usi sunt.
Nam furem qui manifesto furto prensus esset tum demum occidi permiserunt, si aut, cum faceret furtum, nox esset, aut interdiu telo se, cum prenderetur, defenderet.

[¶23] In this book there is also written a thing that is not commonly known, that thefts are committed, not only of men and movable objects which can be purloined and carried off secretly, but also of an estate and of houses; also that a farmer was found guilty of theft, because he had sold the farm which he had rented and deprived the owner of its possession.

> Latin: Ex ceteris autem manifestis furibus liberos verberari addicique iusserunt ei cui furtum factum esset, si modo id luci fecissent neque se telo defendissent; servos item furti manifesti prensos verberibus adfici et e saxo praecipitari, sed pueros inpuberes praetoris arbitratu verberari voluerunt noxiamque ab his factam sarciri.
Ea quoque furta quae per lancem liciumque concepta essent, proinde ac si manifesta forent, vindicaverunt.

[¶24] And Sabinus tells this also, which is still more surprising, that one person was convicted of having stolen a man, who, when a runaway slave chanced to pass within sight of his master, held out his gown as if he were putting it on, and so prevented the slave from being seen by his master.

> Latin: Sed nunc a lege illa decemvirali discessum est. Nam si qui super manifesto furto iure et ordine experiri velit, actio in quadruplum datur.
“Manifestum” autem “furtum est,” ut ait Masurius, “quod deprehenditur dum fit. Faciendi finis est, cum perlatum est quo ferri coeperat.”

[¶25] Then upon all other thefts, which were called “not manifest,” they imposed a two-fold penalty.

> Latin: Furti concepti, item oblati, tripli poena est.

[¶26] I recall also that I read in the work of the jurist Aristo, a man of no slight learning, that among the ancient Egyptians, a race of men known to have been ingenious in inventions and keen in getting at the bottom of things, thefts of all kinds were lawful and went unpunished.

> Latin: Sed quod sit “oblatum,” quod “conceptum,” et pleraque alia ad eam rem ex egregiis veterum moribus accepta neque inutilia cognitu neque iniucunda qui legere volet, inveniet Sabini librum cui titulus est De Furtis.
In quo id quoque scriptum est, quod volgo inopinatum est, non hominum tantum neque rerum moventium, quae auferri occulte et subripi possunt, sed fundi quoque et aedium fieri furtum; condemnatum quoque furti colonum, qui fundo quem conduxerat vendito, possessione eius dominum intervertisset.

[¶27] Among the Lacedaemonians too, those serious and vigorous men (a matter for which the evidence is not so remote as in the case of the Egyptians) many famous writers, who have composed records of their laws and customs, affirm that thieving was lawful and customary, and that it was practised by their young men, not for base gain or to furnish the means for indulgence or amassing wealth, but as an exercise and training in the art of war;

> Latin: Atque id etiam, quod magis inopinabile est, Sabinus dicit, furem esse hominis iudicatum, qui cum fugitivus praeter oculos forte domini iret, obtentu togae, tamquam se amiciens, ne videretur a domino, obstitisset.
Allis deinde furtis omnibus, quae “nec manifesta” appellantur, poenam imposuerunt dupli.

[¶28] for dexterity and practice in thieving made the minds of the youth keen and strong for clever ambuscades, and for endurance in watching, and for the swiftness of surprise.

> Latin: Id etiam memini legere me in libro Aristonis iureconsulti, hautquaquam indocti viri, aput veteres Aegyptios, quod genus hominum constat et in artibus reperiendis sollertes extitisse et in cognitione rerum indaganda sagaces, furta omnia fuisse licita et inpunita.

[¶29] Marcus Cato, however, in the speech which he wrote On Dividing Spoils among the Soldiers, complains in strong and choice language about unpunished thievery and lawlessness. I have quoted his words, since they pleased me greatly: “Those who commit private theft pass their lives in confinement and fetters; plunderers of the public, in purple and gold.”

> Latin: Aput Lacedaemonios quoque, sobrios illos et acres viros, cuius rei non adeo ut Aegyptiis fides longinqua est, non pauci neque ignobiles scriptores, qui de moribus legibusque eorum memorias condiderunt, ius atque usum fuisse furandi dicunt, idque a iuventute eorum non ad turpia lucra neque ad sumptum libidini praebendum comparandamve opulentiam, sed pro exercitio disciplinaque rei bellicae factitatum, quod et furandi sollertia et adsuetudo acueret firmaretque animos adulescentium et ad insidiarum astus et ad vigilandi tolerantiam et ad obrependi celeritatem.

[¶30] But I think I ought not to pass over the highly ethical and strict definition of theft made by the wisest men, lest anyone should consider him only a thief who privately purloins anything or secretly carries it off. The words are those of Sabinus in his second book On Civil Law: “He is guilty of theft who has touched anything belonging to another, when he has reason to know that he does so against the owner's will.”

> Latin: Sed enim M. Cato in oratione, quam De Praeda Militibus Dividenda scripsit, vehementibus et inlustribus verbis de inpunitate peculatus atque licentia conqueritur. Ea verba, quoniam nobis inpense placuerunt. adscripsimus: “Fures,” inquit, “privatorum furtorum in nervo atque in compedibus aetatem agunt, fures publici in auro atque in purpura.”

[¶31] Also in another chapter: “He who silently carries off another's property for the sake of gain is guilty of theft, whether he knows to whom the object belongs or not.”

> Latin: Quam caste autem ac religiose a prudentissimis viris quid esset “furtum” definitum sit, praetereundum non puto, ne quis eum solum esse furem putet, qui occulte tollit aut clam subripit.
Verba sunt Sabini ex libro luris Civilis secundo: “Qui alienam rem adtrectavit, cum id se invito domino facere iudicare deberet, furti tenetur.”

[¶32] Thus has Sabinus written, in the book which I just now mentioned, about handling things for the purpose of stealing them.

> Latin: Item alio capite: “Qui alienum tacens lucri faciendi causa sustulit, furti obstringitur, sive scit cuius sit, sive nescit.”

[¶33] But we ought to remember, according to what I have written above, that a theft may be committed even without touching anything, when the mind alone and the thoughts desire that a theft be committed.

> Latin: Haec quidem sic, in eo quo nunc dixi, Sabinus scripsit de rebus furti faciendi causa adtrectatis.
Sed meminisse debemus, secundum ea quae supra scripsi, furtum sine ulla quoque adtrectatione fieri posse, sola mente atque animo ut furtum fiat adnitente.

[¶34] Therefore Sabinus says that he has no doubt that a master should be convicted of theft who has ordered a slave of his to steal something.

> Latin: Quocirca ne id quidem Sabinus dubitare se ait, quin dominus furti sit condemnandus qui servo suo uti furtum faceret imperavit.

## 27. Book XII · chapters 1–5

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/27/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/27/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus, in which he urged a lady of rank to feed with her own milk, and not with that of other nurses, the children whom she had borne.

> Latin: 1. Dissertatio Favorini philosophi, qua suasit nobili feminae uti liberos quos peperisset, non nutricum aliarum, sed sibi suo lacte aleret.

[¶1] WORD was once brought in my presence to the philosopher Favorinus that the wife of an auditor and disciple of his had been brought to bed a short time before, and that his pupil's family had been increased by the birth of a son.

> Latin: NUNTIATUM quondam est Favorino philosopho, nobis praesentibus, uxorem auditoris sectatorisque sui paululum ante enixam auctumque eum esse nato filio.
“Eamus,” inquit, “et puerum visum et patri gratulatum.”

[¶2] “Let us go,” said he, “both to see the child and to congratulate the father.” The father was of senatorial rank and of a family of high nobility.

> Latin: Is erat loci senatorii, ex familia nobiliore. Imus una qui tum aderamus prosecutique eum sumus ad domum quo pergebat, et cum eo simul introgressi sumus.

[¶3] We who were present at the time went with Favorinus, attended him to the house to which he was bound, and entered it with him. Then the philosopher, having embraced and congratulated the father immediately upon entering, sat down. And when he had asked how long the labour had been and how difficult, and had learned that the young woman, overcome with fatigue and wakefulness, was sleeping, he began to talk at greater length and said: “I have no doubt she will suckle her son herself!”

> Latin: Tum in primis aedibus complexus hominem congratulatusque adsedit. Atque ubi percontatus est quam diutinum puerperium et quam laboriosi nixus fuissent, puellamque defessam labore ac vigilia somnum capere cognovit, fabulari instituit prolixius et: “Nihil,” inquit, “dubito quin filium lacte suo nutritura sit.”

[¶4] But when the young woman's mother said to him that she must spare her daughter and provide nurses for the child, in order that to the pains which she had suffered in childbirth there might not be added the wearisome and difficult task of nursing, he said: “I beg you, madam, let her be wholly and entirely the mother of her own child.

> Latin: Sed cum mater puellae parcendum esse ei diceret adhibendasque puero nutrices, ne ad dolores quos in enitendo tulisset munus quoque nutricationis grave ac difficile accederet, “Oro te,” inquit, “mulier, sine eam totam integram matrem esse filii sui.”

[¶5] For what kind of unnatural, imperfect and half-motherhood is it to bear a child and at once send it away from her?

> Latin: “Quod est enim hoc contra naturam inperfectum atque dimidiatum matris genus, peperisse ac statim a sese abiecisse? aluisse in utero sanguine suo nescio quid quod non videret, non alere nunc suo lacte quod videat, iam viventem, iam hominem, iam matris officia inplorantem?”

[¶6] to have nourished in her womb with her own blood something which she could not see, and not to feed with her own milk what she sees, now alive, now human, now calling for a mother's care?

> Latin: “An tu quoque,” inquit, “putas naturam feminis mammarum ubera quasi quosdam venustiores naevulos, non liberum alendorum, sed ornandi pectoris causa dedisse?”

[¶7] Or do you too perhaps think,” said he, "that nature gave women nipples as a kind of beauty-spot, not for the purpose of nourishing their children, but as an adornment of their breast? For it is for that reason though such a thing is of course far from your thoughts) that many of those unnatural women try to dry up and check that sacred fount of the body, the nourisher of mankind, regardless of the danger of diverting and spoiling the milk, because they think it disfigures the charms of their beauty. In so doing they show the same madness as those who strive by evil devices to cause abortion of the fetus itself which they have conceived, in order that their beauty may not be spoiled by the weight of the burden they bear and by the labour of parturition.

> Latin: “Sic enim, quod a vobis scilicet abest, pleraeque istae prodigiosae mulieres fontem illum sanctissimum corporis, generis humani educatorem, arefacere et extinguere cum periculo quoque aversi corruptique lactis laborant, tamquam pulcritudinis sibi insignia devenustet, quod quidem faciunt eadem vecordia, qua quibusdam commenticiis fraudibus nituntur ut fetus quoque ipsi, in corpore suo concepti, aboriantur, ne aequor illud ventris inrugetur ac de gravitate oneris et labore partus fatiscat.”

[¶8] But since it is an act worthy of public detestation and general abhorrence to destroy a human being in its inception, while it is being fashioned and given life and is still in the hands of Dame Nature, how far does it differ from this to deprive a child, already perfect, already brought into the world, already a son, of the nourishment of its own familiar and kindred blood?"

> Latin: “Quod cum sit publica detestatione communique odio dignum, in ipsis hominem primordiis, dum fingitur, dum animatur, inter ipsas artificis naturae manus interfectum ire, quantulum hinc abest, iam perfectum, iam genitum, iam filium proprii atque consueti atque cogniti sanguinis alimonia privare?”
“‘Sed nihil interest,’ hoc enim dicitur, ‘dum alatur et vivat, cuius id lacte fiat.’”

[¶9] "'But it makes no difference,' for so they say, 'provided it be nourished and live, by whose milk that is effected.'

> Latin: “Cur igitur iste qui hoc dicit, si in capessendis naturae sensibus tam obsurduit, non id quoque nihil interesse putat, cuius in corpore cuiusque ex sanguine concretus homo et coalitus sit?”

[¶10] Why then does not he who affirms this, if he is so dull in comprehending natural feeling, think that it also makes no difference in whose body and from whose blood a human being is formed and fashioned?

> Latin: “an quia spiritu multo et calore exalbuit, non idem sanguis est nunc in uberibus, qui in utero fuit?”

[¶11] Is the blood which is now in the breasts not the same that it was in the womb, merely because it has become white from abundant air and warmth? Is not the wisdom of nature evident also in this, that as soon as the blood, the artificer, has fashioned the whole human body within its secret precincts, when the time for birth comes, it rises into the upper parts, is ready to cherish the first beginnings of life and of light, and supplies the newborn children with the familiar and accustomed food?

> Latin: “Nonne hac quoque in re sollertia naturae evidens est, quod, postquam sanguis ille opifex in penetralibus suis omne corpus hominis finxit, adventante iam partus tempore, in supernas se partis perfert, ad fovenda vitae atque lucis rudimenta praesto est et recens natis notum et familiarem victum offert?”
“Quamobrem non frustra creditum est, sicut valeat ad fingendas corporis atque animi similitudines vis et natura seminis, non secus ad eandem rem lactis quoque ingenia et proprietates valere.”

[¶12] Therefore it is believed not without reason that, just as the power and nature of the seed are able to form likenesses of body and mind, so the qualities and properties of the milk have the same effect. And this is observed not only in human beings, but in beasts also;

> Latin: “Neque in hominibus id solum, sed in pecudibus quoque animadversum. Nam si ovium lacte haedi aut caprarum agni alantur, constat ferme in his lanam duriorem, in illis capillum gigni teneriorem.”

[¶13] for if kids are fed on the milk of ewes, or lambs on that of goats, it is a fact that as a rule the wool is harsher in the former and the hair softer in the latter. In trees too and grain the power and strength of the water and earth which nourish them have more effect in retarding or promoting their growth than have those of the seed itself which is sown;

> Latin: “In arboribus etiam et frugibus maior plerumque vis et potestas est ad earum indolem vel detrectandam vel augendam aquarum atque terrarum quae alunt, quam ipsius quod iacitur seminis, ac saepe videas arborem laetam et nitentem, in locum alium transpositam, deterioris terrae suco deperisse.”

[¶14] and you often see a strong and flourishing tree, when transplanted to another spot, die from the effect of an inferior soil. What the mischief, then, is the reason for corrupting the nobility of body and mind of a newly born human being, formed from gifted seeds, by the alien and degenerate nourishment of another's milk? Especially if she whom you employ to furnish the milk is either a slave or of servile origin and, as usually happens, of a foreign and barbarous nation, if she is dishonest, ugly, unchaste and a wine-bibber; for as a rule anyone who has milk at the time is employed and no distinction made."

> Latin: “Quae, malum, igitur ratio est, nobilitatem istam nati modo hominis corpusque et animum, bene ingeniatis primordiis inchoatum, insitivo degenerique alimento lactis alieni corrumpere? praesertim si ista quam ad praebendum lactem adhibebitis, aut serva aut servilis est et, ut plerumque solet, externae et barbarae nationis est, si inproba, si informis, si inpudica, si temulenta est; nam plerumque sine discrimine, quaecumque id temporis lactans est adhiberi solet.”

[¶15] "Shall we then allow this child of ours to be infected with some dangerous contagion and to draw a spirit into its mind and body from a body and mind of the worst character?

> Latin: “Patiemurne igitur infantem hunc nostrum pernicioso contagio infici et spiritum ducere in animum atque in corpus suum ex corpore et animo deterrimo?”

[¶16] This, by Heaven! is the very reason for what often excites our surprise, that some children of chaste women turn out to be like their parents neither in body nor in mind.

> Latin: “Id hercle ipsum est quod saepenumero miramur, quosdam pudicarum mulierum liberos parentum suorum neque corporibus neque animis similes existere.”

[¶17] Wisely then and skilfully did our Maro make use of these lines of Homer:
The horseman Peleus never was thy sire,
Nor Thetis gave thee birth; but the gray sea
Begat thee, and the hard and flinty rocks;
So savage is thy mind.
For he bases his charge, not upon birth alone, as did his model, but on fierce and savage nurture, for his next verse reads:
And fierce Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck.
And there is no doubt that in forming character the disposition of the nurse and the quality of the milk play a great part; for the milk, although imbued from the beginning with the material of the father's seed, forms the infant offspring from the body and mind of the mother as well.

> Latin: “Scite igitur et perite noster Maro, quod, cum versus illos Homeri consectaretur:
οὐκ ἄρα σοί γε πατὴρ ἦν ἱππότα Πηλεύς,
Οὐδὲ Θέτις μήτηρ· γλαυκὴ δέ σε τίκτε θάλασσα
Πέτραι τʼ ἠλίβατοι, ὅτι τοι νόος ἐστὶν ἀπηνής,
non partionem solam, tamquam ille quem sequebatur, sed alituram quoque feram et saevam criminatus est; addidit enim hoc de suo:
Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres,
quoniam videlicet in moribus inolescendis magnam fere partem ingenium altricis et natura lactis tenet, quae iam a principio imbuta paterni seminis concretione, ex matris etiam corpore et animo recentem indolem configurat.”

[¶18] And in addition to all this, who can neglect or despise this consideration also, that those who desert their offspring, drive them from them, and give them to others to nurse, do sever, or at any rate loosen and relax, that bond and cementing of the mind and of affection with which nature attaches parents to their children?

> Latin: “Et praeter haec autem, quis illud etiam neglegere aspernarique possit, quod quae partus suos deserunt ablegantque a sese et aliis nutriendos dedunt, vinculum illud coagulumque animi atque amoris, quo parentes cum filiis natura consociat, interscindunt aut certe quidem diluunt deteruntque.”

[¶19] For when the child is given to another and removed from its mother's sight, the strength of maternal ardour is gradually and little by little extinguished, every call of impatient anxiety is silenced, and a child which has been given over to another to nurse is almost as completely forgotten as if it had been lost by death.

> Latin: “Nam ubi infantis aliorsum dati facta ex oculis amolitiost, vigor ille maternae flagrantiae sensim atque paulatim restinguitur omnisque inpatientissimae sollicitudinis strepitus consilescit, neque multo minor amendati ad nutricem aliam filii, quam morte amissi, obliviost.”

[¶20] Moreover, the child's own feelings of affection, fondness, and intimacy are centred wholly in the one by whom it is nursed, and therefore, just as happens in the case of those who are exposed at birth, it has no feeling for the mother who bore it and no regret for her loss. Therefore, when the foundations of natural affection have been destroyed and removed, however much children thus reared may seem to love their father and mother, that affection is in a great measure not natural but merely courteous and conventional.

> Latin: “Ipsius quoque infantis adfectio animi, amoris, consuetudinis in ea sola unde alitur occupatur, et proinde, ut in expositis usu venit, matris quae genuit neque sensum ullum neque desiderium capit. Ac propterea, oblitteratis et abolitis nativae pietatis elementis, quicquid ita educati liberi amare patrem atque matrem videntur, magnam fere partem non naturalis ille amor est, sed civilis et opinabilis.”

[¶21] " I heard Favorinus make this address in the Greek language. I have reproduced his sentiments, so far as I was able, for the sake of their general utility, but the elegance, copiousness and richness of his words hardly any power of Latin eloquence could equal, least of all my humble attainments.

> Latin: Haec Favorinum dicentem audivi Graeca oratione. Cuius sententias communis utilitatis gratia, quantum meminisse potui, rettuli, amoenitates vero et copias ubertatesque verborum Latina omnis facundia vix quaedam indipisci potuerit, mea tenuitas nequaquam.

[¶22] 2. That the judgment passed by Annaeus Seneca on Quintus Ennius and Marcus Cicero was trifling and futile. SOME think of Annaeus Seneca as a writer of little value, whose works are not worth taking up, since his style seems commonplace and ordinary, while the matter and the thought are characterized, now by a foolish and empty vehemence, now by an empty and affected cleverness; and because his learning is common and plebeian, gaining neither charm nor distinction from familiarity with the earlier writers. Others, on the contrary, while not denying that his diction lacks elegance, declare that he is not without learning and a knowledge of the subjects which he treats, and that he censures the vices of the times with a seriousness and dignity which are not wanting in charm. I myself do not feel called upon to criticize and pass judgment upon his talents in general, or upon his writings as a whole; but I shall select for consideration the nature of the opinions which he has expressed about Marcus Cicero, Quintus Ennius and Publius Vergilius. For in the twenty-second book of his Moral Epistles, which he addressed to Lucilius, he says that the following verses which Quintus Ennius wrote about Cethegus, a man of the olden time, are absurd:
He by his fellow citizens was called,
By every man who lived and flourished then,
The people's chosen flower, Persuasion's marrow.
He then wrote the following about these lines: “I am surprised that men of great eloquence, devoted to Ennius, have praised those absurd verses as his best. Cicero, at any rate, includes them among examples of his good verses.” He then goes on to say of Cicero: “I am not surprised that there existed a man who could write such verses, when there existed a man who could praise them; unless haply Cicero, that great orator, was pleading his own cause and wished his own verse to appear excellent.” Later he adds this very stupid remark: “In Cicero himself too you will find, even in his prose writings, some things which will show that he did not lose his labour when he read Ennius.” Then he cites passages from Cicero which he criticizes as taken from Ennius; for example, when Cicero wrote as follows in his Republic: “As Menelaus, the Laconian, had a kind of sweet-speaking charm,” and said in another place: “he cultivates brevity of speech in his oratory.” And then that trifler apologizes for what he considers Cicero's errors, saying: “This was not the fault of Cicero, but of the times; it was necessary to say such things when such verses were read.” Then he adds that Cicero inserted these very things in order to escape the charge of being too diffuse and ornamental in his style. In the same place Seneca writes the following about Virgil also: “Our Virgil too admitted some verses which are harsh, irregular and somewhat beyond the proper length, with no other motive than that those who were devoted to Ennius might find a flavour of antiquity in the new poem.” But I am already weary of quoting Seneca; yet I shall not pass by these jokes of that foolish and tasteless man: “There are some thoughts in Quintus Ennius,” says he, “that are of such lofty tone that though written among the unwashed, they nevertheless can give pleasure among the anointed”; and, after censuring the verses about Cethegus which I have quoted above, he said: “It would be clear to you that those who love verses of this kind admire even the couches of Sotericus.” Worthy indeed would Seneca appear of the reading and study of the young, a man who has compared the dignity and beauty of early Latin with the couches of Sotericus, implying forsooth that they possessed no charm and were already obsolete and despised! Yet listen to the relation and mention of a few things which that same Seneca has well said, for example what he said of a man who was avaricious, covetous and thirsting for money: “Why, what difference does it make how much you have? There is much more which you do not have.” Is not that well put? Excellently well; but the character of the young is not so much benefited by what is well said, as it is injured by what is very badly put; all the more so, if the bad predominates, and if a part of the bad is uttered, not as an argument about some slight and trivial affair, but as advice in a matter requiring decision.

> Latin: 2. Quod Annaeus Seneca, iudicans de Q. Ennio deque M. Tullio, levi futtilique iudicio fuit. DE Annaeo Seneca partim existimant ut de scriptore minime utili, cuius libros adtingere nullum pretium operae sit, quod oratio eius vulgaria videatur et protrita, res atque sententiae aut inepto inanique impetu sint aut levi et causidicali argutia, eruditio autem vernacula et plebeia nihilque ex veterum scriptis habens neque gratiae neque dignitatis. Alii vero elegantiae quidem in verbis parum esse non infitias eunt, sed et rerum quas dicat scientiam doctrinamque ei non deesse dicunt et in vitiis morum obiurgandis severitatem gravitatemque non invenustam. Mihi de omni eius ingenio deque omni scripto iudicium censuramque facere non necessum est; sed quod de M. Cicerone et Q. Ennio et P. Vergilio iudicavit, ea res cuimodicuiusmodi sit, ad considerandum ponemus. In libro enim vicesimo secundo Epistularum Moralium quas ad Lucilium conposuit, deridiculos versus Q. Ennium de Cetego antiquo viro fecisse hos dicit:
is dictust ollis popularibus olim
Qui tum vivebant homines atque aevum agitabant,
Flos delibatus populi, Suadaeque medulla. Ac deinde scripsit de isdem versibus verba haec: “Admiror eloquentissimos viros et deditos Ennio pro optimis ridicula laudasse. Cicero certe inter bonos eius versus et hos refert.” Atque id etiam de Cicerone dicit: “Non miror,” inquit, “fuisse qui hos versus scriberet, cum fuerit qui laudaret; nisi forte Cicero summus orator agebat causam suam et volebat suos versus videri bonos.” Postea hoc etiam addidit insulsissime: “Aput ipsum quoque,” inquit, “Ciceronem invenies, etiam in prosa oratione, quaedam ex quibus intellegas ilium non perdidisse operam, quod Ennium legit.” Ponit deinde quae apud Ciceronem reprehendat, quasi Enniana, quod ita scripserit in libris De Republica: “Ut Menelao Laconi quaedam fuit suaviloquens iucunditas,” et quod alio in loco dixerit: “breviloquentiam in dicendo colit.” Atque ibi homo nugator Ciceronis errores deprecatur et: “Non fuit,” inquit, “Ciceronis hoc vitium, sed temporis; necesse erat haec dici, cum illa legerentur.” Deinde adscribit Ciceronem haec ipsa interposuisse ad effugiendam infamiam nimis lascivae orationis et nitidae. De Vergilio quoque eodem in loco verba haec ponit: “Vergilius quoque noster non ex alia causa duros quosdam versus et enormes et aliquid supra mensuram trahentis interposuit quam ut Ennianus populus adgnosceret in novo carmine aliquid antiquitatis.” Sed iam verborum Senecae piget; haec tamen inepti et insubidi hominis ioca non praeteribo: “Quidam sunt,” inquit, “tam magni sensus Q. Ennii, ut, licet scripti sint inter hircosos, possint tamen inter unguentatos placere”; et, cum reprehendisset versus quos supra de Cetego posuimus: “Qui huiuscemodi,” inquit, “versus amant, liqueat tibi eosdem admirari et Soterici lectos.” Dignus sane Seneca videatur lectione ac studio adulescentium, qui honorem coloremque veteris orationis Soterici lectis compararit, quasi minimae scilicet gratiae et relictis iam contemptisque. Audias tamen commemoraricormmemorari ac referri pauca quaedam quae idem ipse Seneca bene dixerit, quale est illud, quod in hominem avarum et avidum et pecuniae sitientem dixit: “Quid enim refert quantum habeas? multo illud plus est quod non habesbabes.” Benene hoc? sane bene; sed adulescentium indolem non tam iuvant quae bene dicta sunt quam inficiunt quae pessime, multoque tanto magis, si et plura sunt quae deteriora sunt, et quaedam in his non pro enthymemate aliquo rei parvae ac simplicis, sed in re ancipiti pro consilio dicuntur.

[¶23] 3. The meaning and origin of the word lictor and the varying opinions of Valgius Rufus and Tullius Tiro on that subject. VALGIUS RUFUS, in the second of the books which he entitled On Matters Investigated by Letter, says that the lictor was so called from ligando or “binding,” because when the magistrates of the Roman people had given orders that anyone should be beaten with rods, his legs and arms were always fastened and bound by an attendant, and therefore that the member of the college of attendants who had the duty of binding him was called a lictor. And he quotes as evidence on this subject Marcus Tullius, citing these words from the speech entitled In Defence of Gaius Rabirius: “Lictor, bind his hands.” This is what Valgius says. Now, I for my part agree with him; but Tullius Tiro, the freedman of Marcus Cicero, wrote that the lictor got his name from limus or licium. “For,” says he, “those men who were in attendance upon the magistrates were girt across with a kind of girdle called limus.” But if there is anyone who thinks that what Tiro said is more probable, because the first syllable in lictor is long like that of licium, but in the word ligo is short, that has nothing to do with the case. For in lictor from ligando, lector from legendo, vitor from viendo, tutor from tuendo, and structor from struendo, the vowels, which were originally short, are lengthened.

> Latin: 3. Lictoris vocabulum qua ratione conceptum ortumque sit; et super eo diversae sententiae Valgi Rufi et Tulli Tironis. VALGIUS RUFUS in secundo librorum quos inscripsit De Rebus per Epistulam Quaesitis, “lictorem” dicit a “ligando” appellatum esse, quod, cum magistratus populi Romani virgis quempiam verberari iussissent, crura eius et manus ligari vincirique a viatore solita sint, et inde is qui ex conlegio viatorum officium ligandi haberet “lictor” sit appellatus; utiturque ad eam rem testimonio M. Tulli verbaque eius refert ex oratione quae dicta est Pro C. Rabirio: “Lictor,” inquit, “conliga manus.” Haec ita Valgius. Et nos sane cum illo sentimus; sed Tiro Tullius M. Ciceronis libertus, “lictorem” vel a “limo” vel a “licio” dictum scripsit: “Licio enim transverse, quod ‘limum’ appellatur, qui magistratibus,” inquit, “praeministrabant cincti erant.” Si quis autem est qui propterea putat probabilius esse quod Tiro dixit, quoniam prima syllaba in “lictore,” sicuti in “licio,” producta est et in eo verbo quod est “ligo” correpta est, nihil ad rem istud pertinet. Nam sicut a “ligando” “lictor” et a “legendo” “lector” et a “viendo” “vitor” et “tuendo” “tutor” et “struendo” “structor” productis quae corripiebantur vocalibus dicta sunt.

[¶24] 4. Lines taken from the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius, in which the courteous bearing of an inferior towards a friend of higher rank is described and defined. QUINTUS ENNIUS in the seventh book of his Annals describes and defines very vividly and skilfully in his sketch of Geminus Servilius, a man of rank, the tact, courtesy, modesty, fidelity, restraint and propriety in speech, knowledge of ancient history and of customs old and new, scrupulousness in keeping and guarding a secret; in short, the various remedies and methods of relief and solace for guarding against the annoyances of life, which the friend of a man who is his superior in rank and fortune ought to have. Those verses in my opinion are no less worthy of frequent, attentive perusal than the rules of the philosophers about duties. Besides this, there is such a venerable flavour of antiquity in these verses, such a sweetness, so unmixed and so removed from all affectation, that in my opinion they ought to be observed, remembered and cherished as old and sacred laws of friendship. Therefore I thought them worthy of quotation, in case there should be anyone who desired to see them at once;
So saying, on a friend he called, with whom
He oft times gladly shared both board and speech
And courteously informed of his affairs,
On coming wearied from the sacred House
Or Forum broad, where he all day had toiled,
Directing great affairs with wisdom; one with whom
He freely spoke of matters great and small,
Confiding to him thoughts approved or not,
If he so wished, and found him trustworthy;
With whom he took much pleasure openly
Or privily; a man to whom no thought
Suggested heedlessness or ill intent,
A cultured, loyal and a winsome man,
Contented, happy, learned, eloquent,
Speaking but little and that fittingly,
Obliging, knowing well all ancient lore,
All customs old and new, the laws of man
And of the gods, who with due prudence told
What he had heard, or kept it to himself:
Him 'mid the strife Servilius thus accosts. They say that Lucius Aelius Stilo used to declare that Quintus Ennius wrote these words about none other than himself, and that this was a description of Quintus Ennius' own character and disposition.

> Latin: 4. Versus accepti ex Q. Enni septimo Annalium, quibus depingitur finiturque ingenium comitasque hominis minoris erga amicum superiorem. DESCRIPTUM definitumque est a Quinto Ennio in Annali septimo graphice admodum sciteque sub historia Gemini Servili, viri nobilis, quo ingenio, qua comitate, qua modestia, qua fide, qua linguae parsimonia, qua loquendi opportunitate, quanta rerum antiquarum morumque veterum ac novorum scientia quantaque servandi tuendique secreti religione, qualibus denique ad muniendas vitae molestias fomentis, levamentis, solacis amicum esse conveniat hominis genere et fortuna superioris. Eos ego versus non minus frequenti adsiduoque memoratu dignos puto quam philosophorum de officiis decreta. Ad hoc color quidam vetustatisvestustatis in his versibus tam reverendus est, suavitas tam inpromiscainprolnisca tamque a fuco omni remota est, ut mea quidem sententia pro antiquis sacratisque amicitias legibus observandi, tenendi colendique sint. Quapropter adscribendos eos existimavi, si quis iam statim desideraret:
Haece locutus vocat quocum bene saepe libenter
Mensam sermonesque suos rerumque suarum
Comiter inpertit, magnam cum lassus diei
Partem fuisset, de summis rebus regundis
Consilio indu foro lato sanctoque senatu;
Cui res audacter magnas parvasque iocumque
Eloqueretur sed cura malaque et bona dictu
Evomeret, si qui vellet, tutoque locaret,
Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque;
Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet
Ut faceret facinus levis aut malus; doctus, fidelis,
Suavis homo, facundus, suo contentus, beatus,
Scitus, secunda loquens in tempore, commodus, verbum
Paucum, multa tenens antiqua sepulta, vetustas
Quem facit et mores veteresque novosque tenentem,
Multorum veterum leges divumque hominumque;
Prudenter qui dicta loquive tacereve posset;
Hunc inter pugnas conpellat Servilius sic.
L. Aelium Stilonem dicere solitum ferunt Q. Ennium de semet ipso haec scripsisse picturamque istam morum et ingenii ipsius Q. Ennii factam esse.

[¶25] 5. A discourse of the philosopher Taurus on the manner and method of enduring pain, according to the principles of the Stoics.

> Latin: 5. Sermo Tauri philosophi de modo atque ratione tolerandi doloris secundum Stoicorum decreta.

[¶26] WHEN the philosopher Taurus was on his way to Delphi, to see the Pythian games and the throng that gathered there from almost all Greece, I was his companion. And when, in the course of the journey, we had come to Lebadia, which is an ancient town in the land of Boeotia, word was brought to Taurus there that a friend of his, an eminent philosopher of the Stoic sect, had been seized with illness and had taken to his bed.

> Latin: CUM Delphos ad Pythia conventumque totius ferme Graeciae visendum philosophus Taurus iret nosque ei comites essemus inque eo itinere Lebadiam venissemus, quod est oppidum anticum in terra Boeotia, adfertur ibi ad Taurum amicum eius quempiam, nobilem in Stoica disciplina philosophum, aegra valitudine oppressum, decumbere.

[¶27] Then interrupting our journey, which otherwise would have called for haste, and leaving the carriages, he hastened to visit his friend, and I followed, as I usually did wherever he went. When we came to the house in which the sick man was, we saw that he was suffering anguish from pains in the stomach, such as the Greeks call ko/los, or “colic,” and at the same time from a high fever. The stifled groans that burst from him, and the heavy sighs that escaped his panting breast, revealed his suffering, and no less his struggle to overcome it.

> Latin: Tunc omisso itinere, quod alioquin maturandum erat, et relictis vehiculis, pergit eum propere videre, nosque de more, quem in locum cumque iret, secuti sumus. Et ubi ad aedes in quis ille aegrotus erat pervenimus, videmus hominem doloribus cruciatibusque alvi, quod Graeci κόλον dicunt, et febri simul rapida adflictari gemitusque ex eo conpressos erumpere spiritusque et anhelitus e pectore eius evadere, non dolorem magis indicantes quam pugnam adversum dolorem.

[¶28] Later, when Taurus had sent for physicians and discussed with them the means of cure, and had encouraged the patient to keep up his endurance by commending the fortitude which he was showing, we left the house. And as we were returning to the carriages, and our companions, Taurus said: “You were witness of no very pleasant sight, it is true, but one which was, nevertheless, a profitable experience, in beholding the encounter and contest of a philosopher with pain. The violent character of the disorder, for its part, produced anguish and torture of body; reason and the spiritual nature, on the other hand, similarly played their part, supporting and restraining within bounds the violence of well-nigh ungovernable pain. He uttered no shrieks, no complaints, not even any unseemly outcries; yet, as you saw, there were obvious signs of a battle between soul and body for the man's possession.”

> Latin: Post deinde, cum Taurus et medicos accersisset conlocutusque de facienda medella esset et eum ipsum ad retinendam patientiam, testimonio tolerantiae quam videbat perhibito, stabilisset, egressique inde ad vehicula et ad comites rediremus: “Vidistis,” inquit Taurus, “non sane iucundum spectaculum, sed cognitu tamen utile, congredientes conpugnantesque philosophum et dolorem. Faciebat vis illa et natura morbi, quod erat suum, distractionem cruciatumque membrorum, faciebat contra ratio et natura animi, quod erat aeque suum: perpetiebatur et cohibebat coercebatque infra sese violentias effrenati doloris. Nullos eiulatus, nullas conplorationes, ne ullas quidem voces indecoras edebat, signa tamen quaedam, sicut vidistis, existebant virtutis et corporis, de possessione hominis pugnantium.”

[¶29] Then one of the disciples of Taurus, a young man not untrained in philosophy, said: “If the bitterness of pain is such that it struggles against the will and judgment, forcing a man to groan involuntarily and confess the evil of his violent disorder, why is it said among the Stoics that pain is a thing indifferent and not an evil? Furthermore, why can a Stoic be compelled to do anything, or how can pain compel him, when the Stoics say that pain exerts no compulsion, and that a wise man cannot be forced to anything?”

> Latin: Tum e sectatoribus Tauri invenis, in disciplinis philosophiae non ignavus, “Si tanta,” inquit, “doloris acerbitas est, ut contra voluntatem contraque iudicium animi nitatur invitumque hominem cogat ad gemendum confitendumque de malo morbi saevientis, cur dolor aput Stoicos indifferens esse dicitur, non malum? Cur deinde aut Stoicus homo cogi aliquid potest aut dolor cogere, cum et dolorem Stoici nihil cogere et sapientem nihil cogi posse dicant?”

[¶30] To this Taurus, with a face that was now somewhat more cheerful, for he seemed pleased at being lured into a discussion, replied as follows:
If this friend of ours were now in better health, he would have defended such unavoidable groans against reproach and, I dare say, would have answered your question; but you know that I am no great friend of the Stoics, or rather, of the Stoa; for it is often inconsistent with itself and with us, as is shown in the book which I have written on that subject.

> Latin: Ad ea Taurus vultu iam propemodum laetiore, delectatus enim videbatur inlecebra quaestionis, “Si iam amicus,” inquit, “hic noster melius valeret, gemitus eiusmodi necessarios a calumnia defendisset et hanc, opinor, tibi quaestionem dissolvisset, me autem scis cum Stoicis non bene convenire, vel cum StoicaStoa potius; est enim pleraque et sibi et nobis incongruens, sicut libro quem supra illa re composuimus declaratur.”

[¶31] But to oblige you, I will say 'unlearnedly and clearly,' as the adage has it, what I imagine that any Stoic now present would have said more intricately and cleverly. For you know, I suppose, that old and familiar proverb:
Less eruditely speak and clearer, please.

> Latin: “Sed ut tibi a me mos geratur, dicam ego ‘indoctius,’ ut aiunt, ‘et apertius,’ quae fuisse dicturum puto sinuosius atque sollertius, si quis nunc adesset Stoicorum; nosti enim, credo, verbum illud vetus et pervolgatum:
Ἀμαθέστερόν πως εἰπὲ καὶ σαφέστερον λέγε.”
Atque hine exorsus de dolore atque de gemitu Stoici aegrotantis ita disseruit:

[¶32] And with that preamble he discoursed as follows about the pain and groans of the ailing Stoic: “Nature,” said he, "who produced us, implanted in us and incorporated in the very elements from which we sprang a love and affection for ourselves, to such a degree that nothing whatever is dearer or of more importance to us than ourselves. And this, she thought, would be the underlying principle for assuring the perpetuation of the human race, if each one of us, as soon as he saw the light, should have a knowledge and understanding first of all of those things which the philosophers of old have called ta\ prw=ta kata\ fu/sin, or 'the first principles of nature'; that is, that he might delight in all that was agreeable to his body and shrink from everything disagreeable. Later, with increasing years, reason developed from its first elements, and reflection in taking counsel, and the consideration of honour and true expediency, and a wiser and more careful choice of advantages as opposed to disadvantages; and in this way the dignity of virtue and honour became so preeminent and so superior, that any disadvantage from without which prevented our holding and retaining this quality was despised. Nothing was considered truly and wholly good unless it was honourable, and nothing evil unless it is dishonourable. All other things which lay between, and were neither honourable nor dishonourable, were decided to be neither good nor evil. But productions and relationes, which the philosophers call prohgme/na, or 'things desirable,' and a)poprohgme/na, or 'things undesirable,' are distinguished and set apart each by their own qualities. Therefore pleasure also and pain, so far as the end of living well and happily is concerned, are regarded as indifferent and classed neither with good nor with evil.

> Latin: “Natura,” inquit, “omnium rerum quae nos genuit, induit nobis inolevitque in ipsis statim principiis quibus nati sumus, amorem nostri et caritatem, ita prorsus ut nihil quicquam esset carius pensiusque nobis quam nosmet ipsi, atque hoc esse fundamentum ratast conservandae hominum perpetuitatis, si unusquisque nostrum, simul atque editus in lucem foret, harum prius rerum sensum adfectionemque caperet quae a veteribus philosophis τὰ πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν appellata sunt; ut omnibus scilicet corporis sui commodis gauderet, ab incommodis omnibus abhorreret. Postea per incrementa aetatis exorta e seminibus suis ratiost et utendi consilii reputatio et honestatis utilitatisque verae contemplatio subtiliorque et exploratior commodorum incommodorumque dilectus; atque ita prae ceteris omnibus enituit et praefulsit decori et honesti dignitas ac, si ei retinendae obtinendaeve incommodum extrinsecus aliquod obstaret, contemptum est; neque aliud esse vere et simpliciter bonum nisi honestum, aliud quicquam malum nisi quod turpe esset existimatum est. Reliqua omnia, quae in medio forent ac neque honesta essent neque turpia, neque bona esse neque mala decretum est. Productiones tamen et relationes suis quaeque momentis distinctae divisaeque sunt, quae προηγμένα et ἀποπροηγμένα ipsi vocant. Propterea voluptas quoque et dolor, quod ad finemfiner ipsum bene beateque vivendi pertinet, et in mediis relicta et neque in bonis neque in malis iudicata sunt.”

[¶33] But since the newly-born child is endowed with these first sensations of pain and pleasure before the appearance of judgment and reason, and is attracted to pleasure by nature, but averted and alienated from pain, as if from some bitter enemy—therefore reason, which is given to him later, is hardly able to uproot and destroy those inclinations which were originally and deeply implanted in him. Yet he constantly struggles with them, checks and tramples them under foot when they are excessive, and compels them to obey and submit to him.

> Latin: “Sed enim quoniam his primis sensibus doloris voluptatisque ante consilii et rationis exortum recens natus homo inbutus est et voluptati quidem a natura conciliatus, a dolore autem, quasi a gravi quodam inimico, abiunctus alienatusque est—circo adfectiones istas primitus penitusque inditas ratio ipsi post addita convellere ab stirpe atque extinguere vix potest. Pugnat autem cum his semper et exultantis eas opprimit obteritque et parere sibi atque oboedire cogit.”

[¶34] Hence you saw the philosopher, relying upon the efficacy of his system, wrestling with the insolent violence of disease and pain, yielding nothing, admitting nothing; not, as sufferers commonly do, shrieking, lamenting and calling himself wretched and unhappy, but giving vent only to panting breathing and deep sighs, which are signs and indications, not that he is overcome or subdued by pain, but that he is struggling to overcome and subdue it.

> Latin: “Itaque vidistis philosophum, ratione decreti sui nixum, cum petulantia morbi dolorisque exultantia conluctantem, nihil cedentem, nihil confitentem, neque ut plerique dolentes solent, eiulantem atque lamentantem ac miserum sese et infelicem appellantem, sed acres tantum anhelitus et robustos gemitus edentem, signa atque indicia non victi nec obpressi a dolore, sed vincere eum atque obprimere enitentis.”

[¶35] “But very likely,” said he, “because of the mere fact that he struggles and groans, someone may ask, if pain is not an evil, why it is necessary to groan and struggle? It is because all things which are not evil are not also wholly lacking in annoyance, but there are very many things which, though free from any great harm or baneful effect, as not being base, are none the less opposed to the gentleness and mercy of nature through a certain inexplicable and inevitable law of nature herself. These, then, a wise man can endure and put up with, but he cannot exclude them altogether from his consciousness; for a)nalghsi/a, or 'insensibility,' and a)pa/qeia, or 'lack of feeling,' not only in my judgment,” said he, "but also in that of some of the wise men of that same school (such as Panaetius, a serious and learned man) are disapproved and rejected."

> Latin: “Sed haut scio,” inquit, “an dicat aliquis, ipsum illud quod pugnat, quod gemit, si malum dolor non est, cur necesse est gemere et pugnare? Quia enim omnia quae non sunt mala molestia quoque omni non carent, sed sunt pleraque noxa quidem magna et pernicie privata, quia non sunt turpia, contra naturae tamen mansuetudinem lenitatemque opposita sunt et infesta per obscuram quandam et necessariam ipsius naturae consequentiam. Haec ergo vir sapiens tolerare et exanclare potest, non admittere omnino in sensum sui non potest; ἀναλγησία enim atque ἀπάθεια non meo tantum,” inquit, “sed quorundam etiam ex eadem porticu prudentiorum hominum, sicuti iudicio Panaetii, gravis atque docti viri, inprobata abiectaque est.”

## 28. Book XII · chapters 5–15

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/28/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/28/#p-N

[¶0] "But why is a Stoic philosopher, upon whom they say no compulsion can be exerted, compelled to utter groans against his will? It is true that no compulsion can be exerted upon a wise man when he has the opportunity of using his reason; but when nature compels, then reason also, the gift of nature, is compelled. Inquire also, if you please, why a man involuntarily winks when someone's hand is suddenly directed against his eyes, why when the sky is lit up by a flash of lightning he involuntarily drops his head and closes his eyes, why as the thunder grows louder he gradually becomes terrified, why he is shaken by sneezing, why he sweats in the heat of the sun or grows cold amid severe frosts.

> Latin: “Sed cur contra voluntatem suam gemitus facere cogitur philosophus Stoicus, quem nihil cogi posse dicunt? Nihil sane potest cogi vir sapiens, cum est rationi obtinendae locus; cum vero natura cogit, ratio quoque a natura data cogitur. Quaere etiam, si videtur, cur manu alicuius ob oculos suos repente agitata invitus coniveat, cur fulgente caelo a luminis iactu non sua sponte et caput et oculos declinet, cur tonitru vehementius facto sensim pavescat, cur sternumentis quatiatur, cur aut in ardoribus solis aestuet aut in pruinis inmanibus obrigescat.”
“Haec enim et pleraque alia non voluntas nec consilium nec ratio moderatur, set naturae necessitatisque decreta sunt.”

[¶1] For these and many other things are not under the control of the will, the judgment, or the reason, but are decrees of nature and of necessity. “Moreover, that is not fortitude which, like a giant, struggles against nature and goes beyond her bounds, either through insensibility of spirit, or savage pride, or some unhappy and compulsory practice in bearing pain—such as we heard of in a certain savage gladiator of Caesar's school, who used to laugh when his wounds were probed by the doctors—but that is true and noble fortitude which our forefathers called a knowledge of what is endurable and unendurable.

> Latin: “Fortitudo autem non east, quae contra naturam monstri vicem nititur ultraque modum eius egreditur aut stupore animi aut inmanitate aut quadam misera et necessaria in perpetiendis doloribus exercitatione— qualemn fuisse accepimus ferum quendam in ludo Caesaris gladiatorem, qui, cum vulnera eius a medicis exsecabantur, ridere solitus fuit—sed ea vera et proba fortitudost, quam maiores nostri scientiam esse dixerunt rerum tolerandarum et non tolerandarum.”

[¶2] From this it is evident that there are some insupportable trials, from the undergoing or endurance of which brave men may shrink.”

> Latin: “Per quod apparet esse quaedam intolerabilia, a quibus fortes viri aut obeundis abhorreant aut sustinendis.”

[¶3] When Taurus had said this and seemed to intend to say even more, we reached our carriages and entered them.

> Latin: Cum haec Taurus dixisset videreturque in eandem rem plura etiam dicturus, perventum est ad vehicula et conscendimus.

[¶4] 6. On the Enigma. THE kind of composition which the Greeks call “enigmas,” some of our early writers called scirpi, or “rushes.” An example is the enigma composed of three iambic trimeters which I recently found— very old, by Jove! and very neat. I have left it unanswered, in order to excite the ingenuity of my readers in seeking for an answer. The three verses are these:
I know not if he's minus once or twice,
Or both of these, who would not give his place,
As I once heard it said, to Jove himself.
He who does not wish to puzzle himself too long will find the answer in the second book of Varro's Latin Language, addressed to Marcellus.

> Latin: 6. De aenigmate. QUAE Graeci dicunt “aenigmata,” hoc genus quidam ex nostris veteribus “scirpos” appellaverunt. Quale est quod nuper invenimus per hercle antiquum, perquam lepidum, tribus versibus senariis compositum aenigma, quod reliquimus inenarratum, ut legentium coniecturas in requirendo acueremus. Versus tres hi sunt: Semel minusne an bis minus sit, nescio;
An utrumque eorum, ut quondam audivi dicier,
Iovi ipsi regi noluit concedere. Hoc qui nolit diutius aput sese quaerere, inveniet quid sit in M. Varronis De Sermone Latino ad Marcellum libro secundo.

[¶5] 7. Why Gnaeus Dolabella, the proconsul, referred to the court of the Areopagus the case of a woman charged with poisoning and admitting the fact. WHEN Gnaeus Dolabella was governing the province of Asia with proconsular authority, a woman of Smyrna was brought before him. This woman had killed her husband and her son at the same time by secretly giving them poison. She confessed the crime, and said that she had reason for it, since her husband and son had treacherously done to death another son of hers by a former husband, an excellent and blameless youth; and there was no dispute about the truth of this statement. Dolabella referred the matter to his council. No member of the council ventured to render a decision in so difficult a case, since the confession of the poisoning which had resulted in the death of the husband and son seemed to call for punishment, while at the same time a just penalty had thereby been inflicted upon two wicked men. Dolabella referred the question to the Areopagites at Athens, as judges of greater authority and experience. The Areopagites, after having heard the case, summoned the woman and her accuser to appear after a hundred years. Thus the woman's crime was not condoned, for the laws did not permit that, nor, though guilty, was she condemned and punished for a pardonable offence. The story is told in the ninth book of Valerius Maximus' work on Memorable Occurrences and Sayings.

> Latin: 7. Quam ob causam Cn. Dolabella proconsul ream mulierem veneficii confitentemque ad Ariopagitas reiecerit. AD Cn. Dolabellam, proconsulari imperio provinciam Asiam obtinentem, deducta mulier Smyrnaea est. Eadem mulier virum et filium eodem tempore venenis clam datis vita interfecerat atque id fecisse se confitebatur dicebatque habuisse se faciendi causam, quoniam idem illi maritus et filius alterum filium mulieris, ex viro priore genitum, adulescentem optimum et innocentissimum, exceptum insidiis occidissent. Idque ita esse factum, controversia non erat. Dolabella retulit ad consilium. Nemo quisquam ex consilio sententiam ferre in causa tam ancipiti audebat, quod et confessum veneficium, quo maritus et filius necat forent, non admittendum inpunitum videbatur et digna tamen poena in homines sceleratos vindicatum fuisset. Dolabella eamear rem Athenas ad Ariopagitas, ut ad iudices graviores exercitatioresque, reiecit. Ariopagitae, cognita causa, accusatorem mulieris et ipsam quae accusabatur centesimo anno adesse iusserunt. Sic neque absolutum mulieris veneficium est, quod per leges non licuit, neque nocens damnata poenitaque quae digna venia fuit. Scripta haec historiast in libro Valerii Maximi Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium nono.

[¶6] 8. Noteworthy reconciliations between famous men. PUBLIUS AFRICANUS the elder and Tiberius Gracchus, father of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, men illustrious for their great exploits, the high offices which they held, and the uprightness of their lives, often disagreed about public questions, and for that reason, or some other, were not friends. When this hostility had lasted for a long time, the feast was offered to Jupiter on the appointed day, and on the occasion of that ceremony the senate banqueted in the Capitol. It chanced that the two men were placed side by side at the same table, and immediately, as if the immortal gods, acting as arbiters at the feast of Jupiter, Greatest and Best of Gods, had joined their hands, they became the best of friends. And not only did friendship spring up between them, but at the same time their families were united by a marriage; for Publius Scipio, having a daughter that was unwedded and marriageable at the time, thereupon on the spot betrothed her to Tiberius Gracchus, whom he had chosen and approved at a time when judgment is most strict; that is, while he was his personal enemy. Aemilius Lepidus, too, and Fulvius Flaccus, men of noble birth, who had held the highest offices, and occupied an exalted place in public life, were opposed to each other in a bitter hatred and enmity of long standing. Later, the people chose them censors at the same time. Then they, as soon as their election was proclaimed by the herald, in the Campus Martius itself, before the assembly was dispersed, both voluntarily and with equal joy, immediately joined hands and embraced each other, and from that day, both during their censorship and afterwards, they lived in continual harmony as loyal and devoted friends.

> Latin: 8. Reditiones in gratiam nobilium virorum memoratu dignae. P. AFRICANUS superior et Tiberius Gracchus, Tiberii et C. GracchorumGracclorum pater, rerum gestarum magnitudine et honorum atque vitae dignitate inlustres viri, dissenserunt saepenumero de republican et ea sive qua alia re non amici fuerunt. Ea simultas cum diu mansisset et sollemni die epulum Iovi libaretur atque ob id sacrificium senatus in Capitolio epularetur, fors fuit ut aput eandem mensam duo illi iunctim locarentur. Tum, quasi diis inmortalibus arbitris in convivio Iovis Optimi Maximi dexteras eorum conducentibus, repente amicissimi facti. Neque solum amicitia incepta, sed adfinitas simul instituta; nam P. Scipio filiam virginem habens iam viro maturam, ibi tunc eodem in loco despondit eam Tiberio Graccho, quem probaverat elegeratque exploratissimo iudicii tempore, dum inimicus esset. Aemilius quoque Lepidus et Fulvius Flaccus, nobili genere amplissimisque honoribus ac summo loco in civitate praediti, odio inter sese gravi et simultate diutina conflictati sunt. Postea populus eos simul censores facit. Atque illi, ubi voce praeconis renuntiati sunt, ibidem in campo statim, nondum dimissa contione, ultro uterque et pari voluntate coniuncti complexique sunt, exque eo die et in ipsa censura et postea iugi concordia fidissime amicissimeque vixerunt.

[¶7] 9. What is meant by “ambiguous” words; and that even honos was such a word. ONE may very often see and notice in the early writings many words which at present in ordinary conversation have one fixed meaning, but which then were so indifferent and general, that they could signify and include two opposite things. Some of these are well known, such as tempestas (weather), valitudo (health), facinus (act), dolus (device), gratia (favour), industria (activity). For it is well-nigh a matter of general knowledge that these are ambiguous and can be used either in a good or in a bad sense. That periculm (trial), too, and venenum (drug) and contagium (contagion) were not used, as they now are, only in a bad sense, you may learn from many examples of that usage. But the use of honor as an indifferent word, so that people even spoke of “bad honour,” signifying “wrong” or “injury,” is indeed very rare. However, Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in a speech which he delivered On his Triumph, used these words: “In this affair, by as much as the whole of you are more important than my single self, by so much he inflicts upon you greater insult and injury than on me; and by as much as honest men are more willing to suffer wrong than to do wrong to another, by so much has he shown worse honour (peiorem honorem) to you than to me; for he wishes me to suffer injustice, Romans, and you to inflict it, so that I may be left with cause for complaint, and you may be open to reproach.” He says, “he has shown worse honour to you than to me,” and the meaning of the expression is the same as when he himself says, just before that, “he has inflicted a greater injury and insult on you than on me.” In addition to the citation of this word, I thought I ought to quote the following saying from the speech of Quintus Metellus, in order to point out that it is a precept of Socrates; the saying in question is: “It is worse to be unjust than to suffer injustice.”

> Latin: 9. Quae dicantur vocabula ancipitia; et quod honoris quoque vocabulum ancipiti sententia fuerit. EST plurifariam videre atque animadvertere in veteribus scriptis pleraque vocabula, quae nunc in sermonibus vulgi unam certamque rem demonstrent, ita fuisse media et communia ut significare et capere possent duas inter se res contrarias. Ex quibus quaedam satis nota sunt, ut “tempestas,” “valitudo,” “facinus,” “dolus,” “gratia,” “industria.” Haec enim fere iam vulgatum est ancipitia esse et utroqueversus dici posse. “Periculum” etiam et “venenum” et “contagium” non, uti nunc dicuntur, pro malis tantum dicta esse, multum exemplorum huiusmodi reperias. Sed “honorem” quoque mediam vocem fuisse et ita appellatum, ut etiam “malus honos” diceretur et significaret iniuriam, id profecto rarissimum. Quintus autem Metellus Numidicus, in oratione quam De Triumpho Suo dixit, his verbis usus est: “Qua in re quanto universi me unum antistatis, tanto vobis quam mihi maiorem iniuriam atque contumeliam facit, Quirites, et quanto probi iniuriam facilius accipiunt quam alteri tradunt, tanto ille vobis quam mihi peiorem honorem habuit; nam me iniuriam ferre, vos facere vult, Quirites, ut hic conquestio, istic vituperatio relinquatur.” “Honorem,” inquit, “peiorem vobis habuit quam mihi”; cuius verbi sententia est quam ipse quoque supra dicit: “maiore vos adfecit iniuria et contumelia quam me.” Praeter huius autem verbi notionem adscribendam esse hanc sententiamsenitentiam ex oratione Quinti Metelli existimavi, ut definiremus Socratis esse decretum: κάκιον εἶναι τὸ ἀδικεῖν ἢ τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι.

[¶8] 10. That aeditumus is a Latin word. Aeditimus is a Latin word and an old one at that, formed in the same way as finitimus and legilimus. In place of it many to-day say aedituus by a new and false usage, as if it were derived from guarding the temples. This ought to be enough to say as a warning... because of certain rude and persistent disputants, who are not to be restrained except by the citation of authorities. Marcus Varro, in the second book of his Latin Language addressed to Marcellus, thinks that we ought to use aedituus rather than aedituus, because the latter is made up by a late invention, while the former is pure and of ancient origin. Laevius too, in the Protesilaodamia I think, used claustritumum of one who had charge of the fastenings of a door, evidently using the same formation by which he saw that aeditumus, or “one who guards the temples,” is made. In the most reliable copies of Marcus Tullius' Fourth Oration against Verres I find it written: “The custodians (aeditumi) and guards quickly perceive it,” but in the ordinary copies aeditui is read. There is an Atellan farce of Pomponius' entitled Aeditumus. In it is this line:
As soon as I attend you and keep your temple-door (aeditumor).
Titus Lucretius too in his poem speaks of aedituentes, instead of aeditui.

> Latin: 10. Quod “aeditumus” verbum Latinum sit. “AEDITIMUS” verbum Latinum est et vetus, ea forma dictum qua “finitimus” et “legitimus.” Pro eo a plerisque nunc “aedituus” dicitur nova et commenticia usurpatione, quasi a tuendis aedibus appellatus. Satis hoc esse potuit admonendi gratia dixisse … propter agrestes quosdam et indomitos certatores, qui nisi auctoritatibus adhibitis non comprimuntur. M. Varro in libro secundo Ad Marcellum De Latino Sermone “aeditumum” dici oportere censet magis quam “aedituum,” quod alterum sit recenti novitate fictum, alterum antiqua origine incorruptum. Laevius quoque, ut opinor in Protesilaodamia, “claustritumum” dixit qui claustris ianuae praeesset, eadem scilicet figura qua “aeditumum” dici videbat qui aedibus praeest. In IV in Verrem M. Tullii in exemplaribus fidelissimis ita inveni scriptum: “Aeditumi custodesque mature sentiunt,” in libris autem hoc vulgariis “aeditui” scriptum est. pomponiiPomponi fabula Atellania est quae ita scripta est: Aeditumus. In qua hic versus est:
Quí postquam tibi appáreo atque aedítumor in
templó tuo. Titus autem Lucretius in carmine suo pro “aedituis” “aedituentes” appellat.

[¶9] 11. That those are deceived who sin in the confident hope of being undetected, since there is no permanent concealment of wrongdoing; and on that subject a discourse of the philosopher Peregrinus and a saying of the poet Sophocles. WHEN I was at Athens, I met a philosopher named Peregrinus, who was later surnamed Proteus, a man of dignity and fortitude, living in a hut outside the city. And visiting him frequently, I heard him say many things that were in truth helpful and noble. Among these I particularly recall the following: He used to say that a wise man would not commit a sin, even if he knew that neither gods nor men would know it; for he thought that one ought to refrain from sin, not through fear of punishment or disgrace, but from love of justice and honesty and from a sense of duty. If, however, there were any who were neither so endowed by nature nor so well disciplined that they could easily keep themselves from sinning by their own will power, he thought that such men would all be more inclined to sin whenever they thought that their guilt could be concealed and when they had hope of impunity because of such concealment. “But,” said he, “if men know that nothing at all can be hidden for very long, they will sin more reluctantly and more secretly.” Therefore he said that one should have on his lips these verses of Sophocles, the wisest of poets:
See to it lest you try aught to conceal;
Time sees and hears all, and will all reveal. Another one of the old poets, whose name has escaped my memory at present, called Truth the daughter of Time.

> Latin: 11. Errare istos qui spe et fiducia latendi peccent, cum latebra peccati perpetua nulla sit; et super ea re Peregrini philosophi sermo et Sophocli poetae sententia. PHILOSOPHUM nomine Peregrinum, cui postea cognomentum Proteus factum est, virum gravem atque constantem, vidimus, cum Athenis essemus, deversantem in quodam tugurio extra urbem. Cumque ad eum frequenter ventitaremus, multa hercle dicere eum utiliter et honeste audivimus. In quibus id fuit, quod praecipuum auditu meminimus: Virum quidem sapientem non peccaturum esse dicebat, etiamsi peccasse eum dii atque homines ignoraturi forent. Non enim poenae aut infamiae metu non esse peccandum censebat, sed iusti honestique studio et officio. Si qui tamen non essent tali vel ingenio vel disciplina praediti, uti se vi sua ac sua sponte facile a peccando tenerent, eos omnis tunc peccare proclivius existimabat, cum latere posse id peccatum putarent inpunitatemque ex ea latebra sperarent. “At si sciant,” inquit, “homines nihil omnium rerum diutius posse celari, repressius pudentiusque peccabitur.” Propterea versus istos Sophocli, prudentissimi poetarum, in ore esse habendos dicebat:
Πρὸς ταῦτα κρύπτε μηδέν, ὡς ἅπανθʼ ὁρῶν
Καὶ πάντʼ ἀκούων πάντʼ ἀναπτύσσει χρόνος. Alius quidam veterum poetarum, cuius nomen mihi nuncnune memoriae non est, Veritatem Temporis filiam esse dixit.

[¶10] 12. A witty reply of Marcus Cicero, in which he strives to refute the charge of a direct falsehood. THIS also is part of a rhetorical training, cunningly and cleverly to admit charges not attended with danger, so that if something base is thrown up to you which cannot be denied, you may turn it off by a jocular reply, making the thing seem deserving of laughter rather than censure. This we read that Cicero did, when by a witty and clever remark he put aside what could not be denied. For when he wished to buy a house on the Palatine, and did not have the ready money, he received a loan of 2,000,000 sesterces privately from Publius Sulla, who was at the time under accusation. But before he bought the house, the transaction became known and reached the ears of the people, and he was charged with having received money from an accused man for the purpose of buying a house. Then Cicero, disturbed by the unexpected reproach, said that he had not received the money and also declared that he had no intention of buying a house, adding: “Therefore, if I buy the house, let it be considered that I did receive the money.” But when later he had bought the house and was twitted in the senate with this falsehood by friends, he laughed heartily, saying as he did so: “You are men devoid of common sense, if you do not know that it is the part of a prudent and careful head of a family to get rid of rival purchasers by declaring that he does not intend to buy something that he wishes to purchase.”

> Latin: 12. Faceta responsio M. Ciceronis, amolientis a se crimen manifesti mendacii. HAEC quoque disciplina rhetorica est, callide et cum astu res criminosas citra periculum confiteri, ut si obiectum sit turpe aliquid quod negari non queat, responsione ioculari eludas et rem facias risu magis dignam quam crimine, sicut fecisse Ciceronem scriptum est, cum id quod infitiari non poterat urbano facetoque dicto diluit. Nam cum emere vellet in Palatio domum et pecuniam in praesens non haberet, a P. Sulla, qui tum reus erat, mutua sestertium viciens tacita accepit. Ea res tamen, priusquam emeret, prodita est et in vulgus exivit, obiectumque ei est quod pecuniam domus emendae causa a reo accepisset. Tum Cicero, inopinata obprobratione permotus, accepisse se negavit ac domum quoque se empturum negavit atque “Adeo,” inquit, “verum sit accepisse me pecuniam, si domum emero.” Sed cum postea emisset et hoc mendacium in senatu ei ab amicis obiceretur, risit satis atque inter ridendum: “Ἀκοινονόητοι,” inquit, “homines estis, cum ignoratis prudentis et cauti patrisfamilias esse, quod emere velit empturum sese negare propter competitores emptionis.”

[¶11] 13. What is meant by the expression “within the Kalends,” whether it signifies “before the Kalends” or “on the Kalends,” or both; also the meaning of “within the Ocean” and “within Mount Taurus” in a speech of Marcus Tullius, and of “within the limit” in one of his letters.

> Latin: 13. “Intra Kalendas” cum dicitur, quid significet, utrum “ante Kalendas” an “Kalendis” an utrumque; atque inibi, quid sit in oratione M. Tulli “intra oceanum” et “intra monte Taurum” et in quadam epistula “intra modum.”

[¶12] WHEN I had been named by the consuls a judge extraordinary at Rome, and ordered to give judgment “within the Kalends,” I asked Sulpicius Apollinaris, a learned man, whether the phrase “within the Kalends” included the Kalends themselves; and I told him that I had been duly appointed, that the Kalends had been set as the limit, and that I was to give judgment “within” that day.

> Latin: CUM Romae a consulibus iudex extra ordinem datus pronuntiare “intra Kalendas” iussus essem, Sulpicium Apollinarem, doctum hominem, percontatus sum an his verbis “intra Kalendas” ipsae quoque Kalendae tenerentur, dixique ei me videlicet datum Kalendasque mihi prodictas, ut intra eum diem pronuntiarem. “Cur,” inquit,

[¶13] “Why,” said he, “do you make this inquiry of me rather than of some one of those who are students of the law and learned in it, whom you are accustomed to take into your counsel when about to act as judge?”

> Latin: “hoc me potius rogas quam ex istis aliquem peritis studiosisque iuris, quos adhibere in consilium iudicaturi soletis?” Tum illi ego ita respondi:

[¶14] Then I answered him as follows: “If I needed information about some ancient point of law that had been established, one that was contested and ambiguous, or one that was newly ratified, I should naturally have gone to inquire of those whom you mention.

> Latin: “Si aut de vetere,” inquam, “iure et recepto aut controverso et ambiguo aut novo et constituto discendum esset, issem plane sciscitatum ad istos quos dicis;”

[¶15] But when the meaning, use and nature of Latin words is to be investigated, I should indeed be stupid and mentally blind, if, having the opportunity of consulting you, I had gone to another rather than to you.”

> Latin: “sed cum verborum Latinorum sententia, usus, ratio exploranda sit, scaevus profecto et caecus animi forem, si, cum haberem tui copiam, issem magis ad alium quam ad te.”

[¶16] “Hear then,” said he, “my opinion about the meaning of the word, but be it understood that you will not act according to what I shall say about its nature, but according to what you shall learn to be the interpretation agreed upon by all, or by very many, men; for not only are the true and proper significations of common words changed by long usage, but even the provisions of the laws themselves become a dead letter by tacit consent.”

> Latin: “Audi igitur,” inquit, “de ratione verbi quid existimem, sed eo tamen pacto ut id facias, non quod ego de proprietate vocis disseruero, sed quod in ea re omnium pluriumve consensu observari cognoveris; non enim verborum tantum communium verae atque propriae significationes longiore usu mutantur, sed legum quoque ipsarum iussa consensu tacito oblitterantur.”

[¶17] Then he proceeded to discourse, in my hearing and that of several others, in about this fashion: “When the time,” said he, "is so defined that the judge is to render a decision 'within the Kalends, everyone at once jumps to the conclusion that there is no doubt that the verdict may lawfully be rendered before the Kalends, and I observe that the only question is the one which you raise, namely, whether the decision may lawfully be rendered also on the Kalends.

> Latin: Tum deinde disseruit, me et plerisque aliis audientibus, in hunchune ferme modum: “Cum dies,” inquit, “ita praefinita est, ut iudex ‘intra Kalendas’ pronuntiet, occupavit iam haec omnes opinio, non esse dubium quin ante Kalendas iure pronuntietur, et id tantum ambigi video quod tu quaeris, an Kalendis quoque iure pronuntietur.”

[¶18] But undoubtedly the word itself is of such origin and such a nature that when the expression 'within the Kalends' is used, no other day ought to be meant than the Kalends alone.

> Latin: “Ipsum autem verbum sic procul dubio natum est atque ita sese habet, ut, cum dicitur ‘intra Kalendas,’ non alius accipi dies debeat quam solae Kalendae. Nam tres istae voces ‘intra, citra, ultra,’ quibus certi locorum fines demonstrantur, singularibus apud veteres syllabis appellabantur ‘in, cis, uls.’”

[¶19] For those three words intra, citra, ultra (within, this side, beyond), by which definite boundaries of places are indicated, among the early writers were expressed by monosyllables, in, cis, uls. Then, since these particles had a somewhat obscure utterance because of their brief and slight sound, the same syllable was added to all three words, and what was formerly cis Tiberim (on this side of the Tiber) and uls Tiberim (beyond the Tiber) began to be called citra Tiberim and ultra Tiberim;

> Latin: “Haec deinde particulae quoniam parvo exiguoque sonitu obscurius promebantur, addita est tribus omnibus eadem syllaba, et quod dicebatur ‘cis Tiberim’ et ‘uls Tiberim’ dici coeptum est ‘citra Tiberim’ et ‘ultra Tiberim’; item quod erat ‘in,’ accedente eadem syllaba, ‘intra’ factum est.”

[¶20] and in also became intra by the addition of the same syllable.

> Latin: “Sunt ergo haec omnia quasi contermina iunctis inter se finibus cohaerentia: ‘intra oppidum,’ ‘ultra oppidum,’ ‘citra oppidum,’ ex quibus ‘intra,’ sicuti dixi, ‘in’ significat;”

[¶21] Therefore all these expressions are, so to speak, related, being united by common terminations: intra oppidum, ultra oppidum, citra oppidum, of which intra, as I have said, is equivalent to in;

> Latin: “nam qui dicit ‘intra oppidum,’ ‘intra cubiculum,’ ‘intra ferias,’ non dicit aliud quam ‘in oppido,’ ‘in cubiculo,’ ‘in feriis.’”

[¶22] for one who says intra oppidum, intra cubiculum, intra ferias means nothing else than in oppido (in the town), in cubiculo (in the room), in feriis (during the festival)."

> Latin: “‘Intra Kalendas’ igitur non ‘ante Kalendas’ est, sed ‘in Kalendis’; id est, eo ipso die quo Kalendae sunt.”

[¶23] 'Within the Kalends,' then, is not 'before the Kalends,' but 'on the Kalends'; that is, on the very day on which the Kalends fall.

> Latin: “Itaque secundum verbi ipsius rationem qui iussus est ‘intra Kalendas’ pronuntiare, nisi Kalendis pronuntiet, contra iussum vocis facit;”

[¶24] Therefore, according to the meaning of the word itself, one who is ordered to give judgment 'within the Kalends,' unless he do so on the Kalends, acts contrary to the order contained in the phrase;

> Latin: “nam, si ante id fiat, non ‘intra’ pronuntiat, sed ‘citra.’”

[¶25] for if he does so earlier, he renders a decision not ' within' but ' before the Kalends.'

> Latin: “Nescio quo autem pacto recepta vulgo interpretatio est absurdissima, ut ‘intra Kalendas’ significare videatur etiam ‘citra Kalendas’ vel ‘ante Kalendas,’ nihil enim ferme interest.”

[¶26] But somehow or other the utterly absurd interpretation has been generally adopted, that ' within the Kalends' evidently means also ' on this side of the Kalends' or 'before the Kalends'; for these are nearly the same thing.

> Latin: “Atque insuper dubitatur an Kalendis quoque pronuntiari possit, quando neque ultra neque citra, set, quod inter haec medium est, ‘intra Kalendas,’ id est Kalendis, pronuntiandum sit.”

[¶27] And, besides, it is doubted whether a decision may be rendered on the Kalends also, since it must be rendered neither beyond nor before that date, but 'within the Kalends,' a time which lies between these;

> Latin: “Sed nimirum consuetudo vicit, quae cum omnium domina rerum, tum maxime verborum est.”

[¶28] that is to say, ' on the Kalends.' But no doubt usage has gained the victory, the mistress not only of all things, but particularly of language. After this very learned and clear discussion of the subject by Apollinaris, I then spoke as follows: “It occurred to me,” said I, “before coming to you, to inquire and investigate how our ancestors used the particle in question. Accordingly, I found that Tullius in his Third Oration against Verres wrote thus: 'There is no place within the ocean (intra oceanum) either so distant or so hidden, that the licentiousness and injustice of our countrymen has not penetrated it.'

> Latin: Ea omnia cum Apollinaris scite perquam atque enucleate disputavisset, tum ego haec dixi: “Cordi,” inquam, “mihi fuit, priusquam ad te irem, quaerere explorareque quonam modo veteres nostri particula ista qua de agitur usi sint, atque ita invenimus Tullium in Tertia in Verrem scripsisse istoc modo: ‘Locus intra oceanum iam nullus est, neque tam longincus neque tam reconditus, quo non per haec tempora nostrorum hominum libido iniquitasque pervaserit.’”

[¶29] He uses 'within the ocean' contrary to your reasoning; for he does not, I think, wish to say 'in the ocean,' but he indicates all the lands which are surrounded by the ocean and to which our countrymen have access; and these are 'this side the ocean,' not 'in the ocean.' For he cannot be supposed to mean some islands or other, which are spoken of as far within the waters of the ocean itself.”

> Latin: “‘Intra oceanum’ dicit contra rationem tuam; non enim vult, opinor, dicere ‘in oceano’; terras enim demonstrat omnis quae oceano ambiuntur, ad quas a nostris hominibus adiri potest, quae sunt ‘citra oceanum,’ non ‘in oceano’; neque enim videri potest insulas significare nescio quas, quae penitus esse intra aequora ipsa oceani dicuntur.”

[¶30] Then with a smile Sulpicius Apollinaris replied: “Keenly and cleverly, by Heaven! have you confronted me with this Ciceronian passage;

> Latin: Tunc Sulpicius Apollinaris renidens: “Non me hercule inargute,” inquit, “nec incallide opposuisti hoc Tullianum; sed Cicero ‘intra oceanum,’ non, ut tu interpretare,”

[¶31] but Cicero said ' within the ocean,' not, as you interpret it, ' this side ocean.' What pray can be said to be 'on this side of the ocean,' when the ocean surrounds and encircles all lands on every side? For that which is 'on this side' of a thing, is outside of that thing; but how can that be said to be ' within' which is without? But if the ocean were only on one side of the world, then the land in that part might be said to be 'this side the ocean,' or 'before the ocean.' But since the ocean surrounds all lands completely and everywhere, nothing is on this side of it, but, all lands being walled in by the embrace of its waters, everything which is included within its shore is in its midst, just as in truth the sun moves, not on this side of the heavens, but within and in them.”

> Latin: “‘citra oceanum’ dixit. Quid enim potest dici ‘citra oceanum’ esse, cum undique oceanus circumscribat omnis terras et ambiat? Nam ‘citra’ quod est, id extra est; qui autem potest ‘intra’ esse dici, quod extra est? Sed si ex una tantum parte orbis oceanus foret, tum quae terra ad eam partem foret, ‘citra oceanum’ esse dici posset vel ‘ante oceanum’; cum vero omnis terras omnifariam et undiqueversum circumfluat, nihil citra eum est, sed, undarum illius ambitu terris omnibus convallatis, in medio eius sunt omnia, quae intra oras eius inclusa sunt, sicuti hercle sol non citra caelum vertitur, sed in caelo et intra caelum.”

[¶32] At the time, what Sulpicius Apollinaris said seemed to be learned and acute.

> Latin: Haec tunc Apollinaris scite acuteque dicere visus est.

[¶33] But later, in a volume of Letters to Servius Sulpicius by Marcus Tullius, I found “within moderation” (intra modum) used in the same sense that those give to “within the Kalends” who mean to say “this side of the Kalends.”

> Latin: Set postea in libro M. Tullii Epistularum ad Servium Sulpicium sic dictum esse invenimus “intra modum,” ut “intra Kalendas” dicunt qui dicere “citra Kalendas” volunt.

[¶34] These are the words of Cicero, which I quote: “But yet since I have avoided the displeasure of Caesar, who would perhaps think that I did not regard the present government as constitutional if I kept silence altogether, I shall do this moderately, or even less than moderately (intra modum), so as to consult both his wishes and my own desires.”

> Latin: Verba haec Ciceronis sunt, quae adposui: “Sed tamen, quoniam effugi eius offensionem, qui fortasse arbitraretur me hanc rem publicam non putare, si perpetuo tacerem, modice hoc faciam aut etiam intra modum, ut et illius voluntati et meis studiis serviam.”
“Modice” dixerat “hoc faciam,” id est cum modo aequo et pari;

[¶35] He first said “I shall do this moderately,” that is, to a fair and temperate degree; then, as if this expression did not please him and he wished to correct it, he added “or even within moderation,” thus indicating that he would do it to a less extent than might be considered moderate;

> Latin: deinde, quasi hoc displiceret et corrigere id vellet, addit: “aut etiam intra modum,” per quod ostendit minus sese id facturum esse quam quod fieri modice videretur; id est, non ad ipsum modum, sed retro paululum et citra modum.

[¶36] that is, not up to the very limit, but somewhat short of, or “on this side of” the limit. Also in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Publius Sestius Cicero says “within Mount Taurus” in such a way as to mean, not “on Mount Taurus,” but “as far as the mountain and including the mountain itself.”

> Latin: In oratione etiam, quam Pro P. Sestio scripsit, “intra montem Taurum” sic dicit, ut non significet “in monte Tauro,” sed “usque ad montem cum ipso monte.”

[¶37] These are Cicero's own words in the speech which I have mentioned: “Our forbears, having overcome Antiochus the Great after a mighty struggle on land and sea, ordered him to confine his realm 'within Mount Taurus.'

> Latin: Verba sunt haec ipsius M. Tullii ex ea qua dixi oratione: “Antiochum Magnum illum maiores nostri magna belli contentione terra marique superatum intra montem Taurum regnare iusserunt; Asiam, qua illum multarunt, Attalo, ut is in ea regnaret, condonarunt.”

[¶38] Asia, which they had taken from him, they gave to Attalus, to be his kingdom.” Cicero says: “They ordered him to confine his realm within Mount Taurus,” which is not the same as when we say “within the room,” unless “within the mountain” may appear to mean what is within the regions which are separated by the interposition of Mount Taurus.

> Latin: “Intra montem,” inquit, “Taurum regnare iusserunt,” quod non proinde est, ut “intra cubiculum” dicimus, nisi videri potest id esse “intra montem” quod est intra regiones quae Tauri montis obiectu separantur.

[¶39] For just as one who is “within a room” is not in the walls of the room, but is within the walls by which the room is enclosed, which walls themselves are yet equally in the room, just so one who rules “within Mount Taurus,” not only rules on Mount Taurus but also in those regions which are bounded by Mount Taurus.

> Latin: Nam sicuti qui “intra cubiculum” est, is non in cubiculi parietibus, sed intra parietes est quibus cubiculum includitur, qui tamen ipsi quoque parietes in cubiculo sunt, ita, qui regnat “intra montem Taurum,” non solum in monte Tauro regnat, sed in his etiam regionibus quae Tauro monte clauduntur.

[¶40] According therefore to the analogy of the words of Marcus Tullius may not one who is bidden to make a decision “within the Kalends” lawfully make it before the Kalends and on the Kalends themselves? And this results, not from a sort of privilege conceded to ignorant usage, but from an accurate regard for reason, since all time which is embraced by the day of the Kalends is correctly said to be “within the Kalends.”

> Latin: Num igitur secundum istam verborum M. Tullii similitudinem, qui iubetur “intra Kalendas” pronuntiare, is et ante Kalendas et ipsis Kalendis iure pronuntiare potest? Neque id fit quasi privilegio quodam inscitae consuetudinis, sed certa rationis observatione, quoniam omne tempus, quod Kalendarum die includitur, “intra Kalendas” esse recte dicitur.

[¶41] 14. The meaning and origin of the particle saltem. WE were inquiring what the original meaning of the particle saltem (at least) was, and what was the derivation of the word; for it seems to have been so formed from the first that it does not appear, like some aids to expression, to have been adopted inconsiderately and irregularly. And there was one man who said that he had read in the Grammatical Notes of Publius Nigidius that saltem was derived from si aliter, and that this itself was an elliptical expression, since the complete sentence was si aliter non potest, “if otherwise, it cannot be.” But I myself have nowhere come upon that statement in those Notes of Publius Nigidius, although I have read them, I think, with some care. However, that phrase si aliter non potest does not seem at variance with the meaning of the word under discussion. But yet to condense so many words into a very few letters shows a kind of misplaced subtlety. There was also another man, devoted to books and letters, who said that saltem seemed to him to be formed by the syncope of a medial u, saying that what we call saltem was originally salute. “For when some other things have been requested and refused, then,” said he, “we are accustomed, as if about to make a final request which ought by no means to be denied, to say ' this at least (saltem) ought to be done or given,' as if at last seeking safety salutem, which it is surely most just to grant and to obtain.” But this also, though ingeniously contrived, seems too far-fetched. I thought therefore that further investigation was necessary.

> Latin: 14. “Saltem” particula quam vim habeat et quam originem. “SALTEM” particula quam haberet principem significationem, quaeque vocis istius origo esset, quaerebamus. Ita enim primitus factam esse apparet, ut non videatur, sicuti quaedam subplementa orationis, temere et incondite adsumpta. Atque erat qui diceret legisse se in Grammaticis Commentariis P. Nigidii, “saltem” ex eo dictum quod esset “si aliter,” idque ipsum dici solitum per defectionem, nam plenam esse sententiam, “si aliter non potest.” Sed id nos in isdem commentariis P. Nigidii, cum eos non, opinor, incuriose legissemus, nusquam invenimus. Videntur autem verba ista “si aliter non potest” a significatione quidem voculae huius de qua quaerimus non abhorrere. Set tot verba tamen in paucissimas litteras cludere, inprobae cuiusdam subtilitatis est. Fuit etiam qui diceret, homo in libris atque in litteris adsiduus, “saltem” sibi dictum videri u littera media extrita; “salutem” enimenin ante dictum, quod nos “saltem” diceremus. “Nam cum alia quaedam petita et non impetrata sunt, tum solemus,” inquit, “quasi extremum aliquid petituri quod negari minime debeat, dicere ‘hoc saltem fieri aut dari oportere,’ tamquam salutem postremo petentes, quam impetrari certe et obtineri sit aequissimum.” Sed hoc itidem non inlepide quidem fictum, nimis tamen esse videtur commenticium. Censuimus igitur amplius quaerendum.

[¶42] 15. That Sisenna in his Histories has frequently used adverbs of the type of celatim, vellicatim and saltuatim. WHILE diligently reading the History of Sisenna, I observed that he used adverbs of this form: cursim (rapidly), properatim (hastily), celatim, vellicatim, salluatim. Of these the first two, since they are more common, do not require illustration. The rest are to be found in the sixth book of the Histories in these passages: “He arranged his men in ambush as secretly (celatim) as he could.” Also in another place: “I have written of the events of one summer in Asia and Greece in a consecutive form, that I might not by writing piecemeal or in disconnected fashion (vellicatim aut saltuatim) confuse the minds of my readers.”

> Latin: 15. Quod Sisenna in libris Historiarum adverbis huiuscemodihuinscemodi saepenumerosaepenunero usus est: “celatim,” “vellicatim,” “saltuatim.” CUM lectitaremus Historiam Sisennae adsidue. huiuscemodi figurae adverbia in oratione eius animadvertimus cuimodi sunt haec: “cursim,” “properatim,” “celatim,” “vellicatim,” “saltuatim.” Ex quibus duo prima, quia sunt notiora, exemplis non indigebant, reliqua in Historiarum sexto sic scripta sunt: “Quam maxime celatim poterat, in insidiis suos disponit.” Item alio in loco: “Nos una aestate in Asia et Graecia gesta litteris idcirco continentia mandavimus, ne vellicatim aut saltuatim scribendo lectorum animos impediremus.”

## 29. Book XIII · chapters 1–14

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/29/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/29/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A somewhat careful inquiry into these words of Marcus Tullius in his first Oration against Antony: “But many things seem to threaten contrary even to nature and to fate”; and a discussion of the question whether the words “fate” and “nature” mean the same thing or something different. MARCUS CICERO, in his first Oration against Antony, has left us these words: “I hastened then to follow him whom those present did not follow; not that I might be of any service, for I had no hope of that nor could I promise it, but in order that if anything to which human nature is liable should happen to me (and many things seem to threaten contrary even to nature and contrary to fate) I might leave what I have said to-day as a witness to my country of my constant devotion to its interests.” Cicero says “contrary to nature and contrary to fate.” Whether he intended both words, “fate” and “nature,” to have the same meaning and has used two words to designate one thing, or whether he so divided and separated them that nature seems to bring some casualties and fate others, I think ought to be investigated; and this question ought especially to be asked—how it is that he has said that many things to which humanity is liable can happen contrary to fate, when the plan and order and a kind of unconquerable necessity of fate are so ordained that all things must be included within the decrees of fate; unless perhaps he has followed Homer's saying:
Lest, spite of fate, you enter Hades' home.
But there is no doubt that Cicero referred to a violent and sudden death, which may properly seem to happen contrary to nature. But why he has put just that kind of death outside the decrees of fate it is not the part of this work to investigate, nor is this the time. The point, however, must not be passed by, that Virgil too had that same opinion about fate which Cicero had, when in his fourth book he said of Elissa, who inflicted a violent death upon herself:
For since she perished not by fate's decree,
Nor earned her death;
just as if, in making an end of life, those deaths which are violent do not seem to come by fate's decree. Cicero, however, seems to have followed the words of Demosthenes, a man gifted with equal wisdom and eloquence, which express about the same idea concerning nature and fate. For Demosthenes in that splendid oration entitled On the Crown wrote as follows: “He who thinks that he was born only for his parents, awaits the death appointed by fate, the natural death; but he who thinks that he was born also for his country, will be ready to die that he may not see his country enslaved.” What Cicero seems to have called “fate” and “nature,” Demosthenes long before termed “fate” and “the natural death.” For “a natural death” is one which comes in the course of fate and nature, as it were, and is caused by no force from without.

> Latin: 1. Inquisitio verborum istorum M. Tulli curiosior quae sunt in primo Antonianarum libro, “multa autem inpendere videntur praeter naturam etiam praeterque fatum”; tractatumque an idem duo ista significant, “fatum” atque “natura,” an diversum. MARCUS CICERO in primo Antonianarum ita scriptum reliquit: “Hunc igitur ut sequerer properavi quem praesentes non sunt secuti; non ut proficerem aliquid, neque enim sperabam id nec praestare poteram, sed ut, si quid mihi humanitus accidisset, multa autem inpendere videntur praeter naturam etiam praeterque fatum, huius diei vocem testem reipublicae relinquerem meae perpetuae erga se voluntatis.” “Praeter naturam,” inquit, “praeterque fatum.” An utrumque idem valere voluerit “fatum” atque “naturam” et duas res καθʼ ἑνὸς ὑποκειμένου posuerit, an vero diviserit separaritque, ut alios casus natural ferre videatur, alios fatum, considerandum equidem puto, atque id maxime requirendum, qua ratione dixerit accidere multa humanitus posse praeter fatum, quando sic ratio et ordo et insuperabilis quaedam necessitas fati constituitur, ut omnia intra fatum claudenda sint, nisi illud sane Homeri secutus est:
Μὴ καὶ ὑπὲρ μοῖραν δόμον Ἄιδος εἰσαφίκηαι. Nihil autem dubium est quin violentam et inopinatam mortem significaverit, quae quidem potest recte videri accidere praeter naturam. Sed cur id quoque genus mortis extra fatum posuerit, neque operis huius est explorare neque temporis. Illud tamen non praetermittendum est, quod Vergilius quoque id ipsum quod Cicero de fato opinatus est, cum hoc in quarto libro dixit de Elissa, quae mortem per vim potita est:
Nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat,
tamquam in faciendo fine vitae quae violenta sunt non videantur e fato venire. Demosthenis autem, viri prudentia pari atque facundia praediti, verba idem fere significantia de natura atque fato M. Cicero secutus videtur. Ita enim scriptum est in oratione illa egregia, cui titulus est Ὓπὲρ Στεφάνου: Ὁ μὲν τοῖς γονεῦσι νομίζων μόνον γεγενῆσθαι, τὸν τῆς εἱμαρμένης καὶ τὸν αὐτόματον θάνατον περιμένει· ὁ δὲ καὶ τῇ πατρίδι, ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ ταύτην ἐπιδεῖν δουλεύουσαν ἀποθνήσκειν βουλεύσεται. Quod Cicero “fatum” atque “naturam” videtur dixisse, id multo ante Demosthenes τὴν πεπρωμένην et τὸν αὐτόματον θάνατον appellavit. Αὐτόματος enim θάνατος, quasi naturalis et fatalis, nulla extrinsecus vi coactus venit.

[¶1] 2. About an intimate talk of the poets Pacuvius and Accius in the town of Tarentum. THOSE who have had leisure and inclination to inquire into the life and times of learned men and hand them down to memory, have related the following anecdote of the tragic poets Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius: “Pacuvius,” they say, “when already enfeebled by advanced age and constant bodily illness, had withdrawn from Rome to Tarentum. Then Accius, who was a much younger man, coming to Tarentum on his way to Asia, visited Pacuvius, and being hospitably received and detained by him for several days, at his request read him his tragedy entitled Atreus.” Then they say that Pacuvius remarked that what he had written seemed sonorous and full of dignity, but that nevertheless it appeared to him somewhat harsh and rugged. “What you say is true,” replied Accius, “and I do not greatly regret it; for it gives me hope that what I write hereafter will be better. For they say it is with the mind as it is with fruits; those which are at first harsh and bitter, later become mild and sweet; but those which at once grow mellow and soft, and are juicy in the beginning, presently become, not ripe, but decayed. Accordingly, it has seemed to me that something should be left in the products of the intellect for time and age to mellow.”

> Latin: 2. Super poetarum Pacuvii et Accii conloquio familiari in oppido Tarentino. QUIBUS otium et studium fuit vitas atque aetates doctorum hominum quaerere ac memoriae tradere, de M. Pacuvio et L. Accio tragicis poetis historiam scripserunt huiuscemodi: “Cum Pacuvius,” inquiunt, “grandi iam aetate et morbo corporis diutino adfectus, Tarentum ex urbe Roma concessisset, Accius tunc, haut parvo iunior, proficiscens in Asiam, cum in oppidum venisset, devertit ad Pacuvium comiterque invitatus plusculisque ab eo diebus retentus, tragoediam suam cui Atreus nomen est desideranti legit.” Tum Pacuvium dixisse aiunt sonora quidem esse quae scripsisset et grandia, sed videri tamen ea sibi duriora paulum et acerbiora. “Ita est,” inquit Accius, “uti dicis, neque id me sane paenitet; meliora enim fore spero, quae deinceps scribam.” “Nam quod in pomis, itidem,” inquit, “esse aiunt in ingeniis; quae dura et acerba nascuntur, post fiunt mitia et iucunda; sed quae gignuntur statim vieta et mollia atque in principio sunt uvida, non matura mox fiunt, sed putria.” “Relinquendum igitur visum est in ingenio quod dies atque aetas mitificet.”

[¶2] 3. Whether the words necessitudo and necessitas differ from each other in meaning. IT is a circumstance decidedly calling for laughter and ridicule, when many grammarians assert that necessitudo and necessitas are unlike and different, in that necessitas is an urgent and compelling force, but necessitudo is a certain right and binding claim of consecrated intimacy, and that this is its only meaning. But just as it makes no difference at all whether you say suavitudo or suavitas (sweetness), acerbitudo or acerbitas (bitterness), acritudo or acritas (sharpness), as Accius wrote in his Neoptolemus, in the same way no reason can be assigned for separating necessitudo and necessitas. Accordingly, in the books of the early writers you may often find necessitudo used of that which is necessary; but necessitas certainly is seldom applied to the law and duty of respect and relationship, in spite of the fact that those who are united by that very law and duty of relationship and intimacy are called necessarii (kinsfolk). However, in a speech of Gaius Caesar, In Support of the Plautian Law, I found necessitas used for necessitudo, that is for the bond of relationship. His words are as follows: “To me indeed it seems that, as our kinship (necessitas) demanded, I have failed neither in labour, in pains, nor in industry.” I have written this with regard to the lack of distinction between these two words as the result of reading the fourth book of the History of Sempronius Asellio, an early writer, in which he wrote as follows about Publius Africanus, the son of Paulus: “For he had heard his father, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, say that a really able general never engaged in a pitched battle, unless the utmost necessity (necessitudo) demanded, or the most favourable opportunity offered.”

> Latin: 3. An vocabula haec, “necessitudo” et “necessitas,” differenti significatione sint. RISU prorsus atque ludo res digna est, cum plerique grammaticorum adseverant, “necessitudinem” et “necessitatem” mutare differreque, ideo quod “necessitas” sit vis quaepiam premens et cogens, “necessitudo” autem dicatur ius quoddam et vinculum religiosae coniunctionis, idque unum solitarium significet. Sicut autem nihil quicquam interest, “suavitudo” dicas an “suavitas,” “sanctitudo” an “sanctitas,” “acerbitudo” an “acerbitas,” “acritudo” an, quod Accius in Neoptolemo scripsit, “acritas,” ita nihil rationis dici potest qui “necessitudo” et “necessitas” separentur. Itaque in libris veterum vulgo reperias, “necessitudinem” dici pro eo quod necessum est. Sed “necessitas” sane pro iure officioque observantiae adfinitatisve infrequens est, quamquam qui ob hoc ipsum ius adfinitatis familiaritatisque coniuncti sunt “necessarii” dicuntur. Repperi tamen in oratione C. Caesaris, Qua Plautian Rogationem Suasit, “necessitatem” dictam pro “necessitudine,” id est iure adfinitatis. Verba haec sunt: “Equidem mihi videor pro nostra necessitate non labore, non opera, non industria defuisse.” Hoc ego scripsi de utriusque vocabuli indifferentia, admonitus forte verbi istius, cum legerem Sempronii Asellionis, veteris scriptoris, quartum ex Historia librum, in quo de P. Africano, Pauli filio, ita scriptum est: “Nam se patrem suum audisse dicere L. Aemilium Paulum, nimis bonum imperatorem signis conlatis non decertare, nisi summa necessitudo aut summa occasio data esset.”

[¶3] 4. Copy of a letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias; and Olympias' witty reply. IN many of the records of Alexander's deeds, and not long ago in the book of Marcus Varro entitled Orestes or On Madness, I have read that Olympias, the wife of Philip, wrote a very witty reply to her son Alexander. For he had addressed his mother as follows: “King Alexander, son of Jupiter Hammon, greets his mother Olympias.” Olympias replied to this effect: “Pray, my son,” said she, “be silent, and do not slander me or accuse me before Juno; undoubtedly she will take cruel vengeance on me, if you admit in your letters that I am her husband's paramour.” This courteous reply of a wise and prudent woman to her arrogant son seemed to warn him in a mild and polite fashion to give up the foolish idea which lie had formed from his great victories, from the flattery of his courtiers, and from his incredible success—that he was the son of Jupiter.

> Latin: 4. Descripta Alexandri ad matrem Olympiadem epistula; et quid Olympias festive ei rescripserit. IN plerisque monimentis rerum ab Alexandro gestarum, et paulo ante in libro M. Varronis qui inscriptus est Orestes vel De Insania, Olympiadem, Philippi uxorem, festivissime rescripsisse legimus Alexandro filio. Nam cum is ad matrem ita scripsisset: “Rex Alexander, lovis Hammonis filius, Olympiadi matri salutem dicit,” Olympias ei rescripsit ad hanc sententiam: “Amabo,” inquit, “mi fili, quiescas neque deferas me neque criminere adversum lunonem; malum mihi prorsus illa magnum dabit, cum tu me litteris tuis paelicem esse illi confiteris.” Ea mulieris scitae atque prudentis erga ferocem filium comitas sensim et comiter admonuisse eum visa est deponendam esse opinionem vanam quam ille ingentibus victoriis et adulantium blandimentis et rebus supra fidem prosperis inbiberat, genitum esse sese de Iove.

[¶4] 5. On the philosophers Aristotle, Theophrastus and Eudemus; and of the graceful tact of Aristotle in selecting a successor as head of his school. THE philosopher Aristotle, being already nearly sixty-two years of age, was sickly and weak of body and had slender hope of life. Then the whole band of his disciples came to him, begging and entreating that he should himself choose a successor to his position and his office, to whom, as to himself, they might apply after his last day, to complete and perfect their knowledge of the studies into which he had initiated them. There were at the time in his school many good men, but two were conspicuous, Theophrastus and Eudemus, who excelled the rest in talent and learning. The former was from the island of Lesbos, but Eudemus from Rhodes. Aristotle replied that he would do what they asked, so soon as the opportunity came. A little later, in the presence of the same men who had asked him to appoint a master, he said that the wine he was then drinking did not suit his health, but was unwholesome and harsh; that therefore they ought to look for a foreign wine, something either from Rhodes or from Lesbos. He asked them to procure both kinds for him, and said that he would use the one which he liked the better. They went, sought, found, brought. Then Aristotle asked for the Rhodian and tasting it said: “This is truly a sound and pleasant wine.” Then he called for the Lesbian. Tasting that also, he remarked: “Both are very good indeed, but the Lesbian is the sweeter.” When he said this, no one doubted that gracefully, and at the same time tactfully, he had by those words chosen his successor, not his wine. This was Theophrastus, from Lesbos, a man equally noted for the fineness of his eloquence and of his life. And when, not long after this, Aristotle died, they accordingly all became followers of Theophrastus.

> Latin: 5. De Aristotele et Theophrasto et Eudemo philosophis; deque eleganti verecundia Aristotelis successorem diatribae suae eligentis. ARISTOTELES philosophus, annos iam fere natus duo et sexaginta, corpore aegro adfectoque ac spe vitae tenui fuit. Tunc omnis eius sectatorum cohors ad eum accedit, orantes obsecrantesque ut ipse deligeret loci sui et magisterii successorem, quo post summum eius diem proinde ut ipso uterentur ad studia doctrinarum conplenda excolendaque quibus ab eo inbuti fuissent. Erant tunc in eius ludo boni multi, sed praecipui duo, Theophrastus et Eudemus. Ingenio hi atque doctrinis ceteros praestabant; alter ex insula Lesbo fuit, Eudemus autem Rodo. Aristoteles respondit facturum esse quod vellent, cum id sibi foret tempestivum. Postea brevi tempore, cum idem illi qui de magistro destinando petierant praesentes essent, vinum ait quod tum biberet non esse id ex valitudine sua, sed insalubre esse atque asperum ac propterea quaeri debere exoticum, vel Rodium aliquod vel Lesbium. Id sibi utrumque ut curarent petivit, usurumque eo dixit quod sese magis iuvisset. Eunt, quaerunt, inveniunt, adferunt. Tum Aristoteles Rodium petit, degustat: “Firmum,” inquit, “hercle vinum et iucundum.” Petit mox Lesbium. Quo item degustato: “Utrumque,” inquit, “oppido bonum, sed ἡδίων ὁ Λέσβιος.” Id ubi dixit, nemini fuit dubium quin lepide simul et verecunde successorem illa voce sibi, non vinum delegisset. Is erat e Lesbo Theophrastus, suavitate homo insigni linguae pariter atque vitae. Itaque non diu post Aristotele vita defuncto, ad Theophrastum omnes concesserunt.

[¶5] 6. The term which the early Latins used for the Greek word prosw|di/ai; also that the term barbarismus was used neither by the early Romans nor by the people of Attica. WHAT the Greeks call prosw|di/ai, or “tones,” our early scholars called now notae vocum, or “marks of tone,” now moderamenta, or “guides,” now accenticulae, or “accents,” and now voculationes, or “intonations.” But the fault which we designate when we say now that anyone speaks barbare, or “outlandishly,” they did not call “outlandish” but “rustic,” and they said that those speaking with that fault spoke “in a countrified manner” (rustice). Publius Nigidius, in his Grammatical Notes says: “Speech becomes rustic, if you misplace the aspirates.” Whether therefore those who before the time of the deified Augustus expressed themselves purely and properly used the word barbarismus (outlandishness), which is now common, I for my part have not yet been able to discover.

> Latin: 6. Quid veteres Latini dixerint quas Graeci προσῳδίας appellant; item quod vocabulum “arbarismi” non usurpaverint neque Romani antiquiores neque Attici. QUAS Graeci προσῳδίας dicunt, eas veteres docti tum “notas vocum,” tum “moderamenta,” tum “accentiunculas,” tum “voculationes” appellabant; quod nunc autem “barbare” queen loqui dicimus, id vitium sermonis non “barbarum” esse, sed “rusticum,” et cum eo vitio loquentes “justice” loqui dictitabant. P. Nigidius in Commentariis Grammaticis: “Rusticus fit sermo,” inquit, “si adspires perperam.” Itaque id vocabulum, quod dicitur vulgo “barbarismus,” qui ante divi Augusti aetatem pure atque integre locuti sunt an dixerint, nondum equidem inveni.

[¶6] 7. That Homer in his poems and Herodotus in his Histories spoke differently of the nature of the lion. HERODOTUS, in the third book of his Histories, has left the statement that lionesses give birth but once during their whole life, and at that one birth that they never produce more than one cub. His words in that book are as follows: “But the lioness, although a strong and most courageous animal, gives birth once only in her lifetime to one cub; for in giving birth she discharges her womb with the whelp.” Homer, however, says that lions (for so he calls the females also, using the masculine or “common” (epicene) gender, as the grammarians call it) produce and rear many whelps. The verses in which he plainly says this are these:
He stood, like to a lion before its young,
Beset by hunters in a gloomy wood
And leading them away.
In another passage also he indicates the same thing:
With many a groan, like lion of strong beard,
From which a hunter stole away its young
Amid dense woods. Since this disagreement and difference between the most famous of poets and the most eminent of historians troubled me, I thought best to consult that very thorough treatise which the philosopher Aristotle wrote On Animals. And what I find that he has written there upon this subject I shall include in these notes, in Aristotle's own language.

> Latin: 7. Diversum de natura leonum dixisse Homerum in carminibus et Herodotum in historiis. LEAENAS inter omnem vitam semel parere eoque uno partu numquam edere plures quam unum, Herodotus in tertia Historia scriptum reliquit. Verba ex eo libro haec sunt: Ἡ δὲ δὴ λέαινα, ἐὸν ἰσχυρὸν καὶ θρασύτατον, ἅπαξ ἐν τῷ βίῳ τίκτει ἕν· τίκτουσα γὰρ συνεκβάλλει τῷ τέκνῳ τὰς μήτρας. Homerus autem leones, sic enim feminas quoque virili genere appellat, quod grammatici ἐπίκοινον vocant, pluris gignere atque educare catulos dicit. Versus, quibus hoc aperte demonstrat, hi sunt: Εἱστήκει, ὥς τίς τε λέων περὶ οἷσι τέκεσσιν,
Ὧι ῥά τε νήπιʼ ἄγοντι συναντήσωνται ἐν ὕλῃ
Ἄνδρες ἐπακτῆρες.
Item alio in loco idem significat: Πυκνὰ μάλα στενάχων· ὥς τε λὶς ἠυγένειος,
Ὧι ῥά θʼ ὑπὸ σκύμνους ἐλαφηβόλος ἁρπάσῃ ἀνήρ
Ὕλης ἐκ πυκινῆς. Ea nos dissensio atque diversitas cum agitaret inclutissimi poetarum et historicorum nobilissimi, placuit libros Aristotelis philosophi inspici quos De Animalibus exquisitissime composuit. In quibus quod super ista re scriptum invenerimus, cum ipsius Aristotelis verbis in his commentariis scribemus.

[¶7] 8. That the poet Afranius wisely and prettily called Wisdom the daughter of Experience and Memory. THAT was a fine and true thought of the poet Afranius about the birth of Wisdom and the means of acquiring it, when he said that she was the daughter of Experience and Memory. For in that way he shows that one who wishes to be wise in human affairs does not need books alone or instruction in rhetoric and dialectics, but ought also to occupy and train himself in becoming intimately acquainted with and testing real life, and in firmly fixing in his memory all such acts and events; and accordingly he must learn wisdom and judgment from the teaching of actual experience, not from what books only, or masters, through vain words and fantasies, have foolishly represented as though in a farce or a dream. The verses of Afranius are in a Roman comedy called The Chair:
My sire Experience was, me Memory bore,
In Greece called Sophia, Wisdom in Rome.
There is also a line of Pacuvius to about the same purport, which the philosopher Macedo, a good man and my intimate friend, thought ought to be written over the doors of all temples:
I hate base men who preach philosophy.
For he said that nothing could be more shameful or insufferable than that idle, lazy folk, disguised with beard and cloak, should change the character and advantages of philosophy into tricks of the tongue and of words, and, themselves saturated with vices, should eloquently assail vice.

> Latin: 8. Quod Afranius poeta prudenter et lepide Sapientiam filiam esse Usus et Memoriae dixit. EXIMIE hoc atque verissime Afranius poeta de gignenda conparandaque Sapientia opinatus est, quod eam filiam esse Usus et Memoriae dixit. Eo namque argumento demonstrat, qui sapiens rerum esse humanarum velit, non libris solis neque disciplinis rhetoricis dialecticisque opus esse, sed oportere eum versari quoque exercerique in rebus comminus noscendis periclitandisque eaque omnia acta et eventa firmiter meminisse et proinde sapere atque consulere ex his quae pericula ipsa rerum docuerint, non quae libri tantum aut magistri per quasdam inanitates verborum et imaginum tamquam in mimo aut in somnio deliraverint. Versus Afrani sunt in togata, cui Sellae nomen est:
Usús me genuit, máter peperit Mémoria,
Sophiám vocant me Grái, vos Sapiéntiam. Item versus est in eandem ferme sententiam Pacuvii, quem Macedo philosophus, vir bonus, familiaris meus, scribi debere censebat pro foribus omnium templorum:
Ego odi homines ígnava opera et phílosopha Senténtia. Nihil enim fieri posse indignius neque intolerantius dicebat quam quod homines ignavi ac desides, operti barba et pallio, mores et emolumenta philosophiae in linguae verborumque artes converterent et vitia facundissime accusarent, intercutibus ipsi vitiis madentes.

[¶8] 9. What Tullius Tiro wrote in his commentaries about the Suculae, or “Little Pigs,” and the Hyades, which are the names of constellations. TULLIUS TIRO was the pupil and freedman of Marcus Cicero and an assistant in his literary work. He wrote several books on the usage and theory of the Latin language and on miscellaneous questions of various kinds. Pre-eminent among these appear to be those to which he gave the Greek title Pande/ktai, implying that they included every kind of science and fact. In these he wrote the following about the stars which are called the Suculae, or “Little Pigs”: “The early Romans,” says he, “were so ignorant of Grecian literature and so unfamiliar with the Greek language, that they called those stars which are in the head of the Bull Suculae, or 'The Little Pigs,' because the Greeks call them u(a/des; for they supposed that Latin word to be a translation of the Greek name because u(/es in Greek is sues in Latin. But the u(a/des,” says he, “are so called, ou)k a)po\ tw=n u(w=n (that is, not from pigs), as our rude forefathers believed, but from the word u(/ein; for both when they rise and when they set they cause rainstorms and heavy showers. And pluere, (to rain) is expressed in the Greek tongue by u(/ein.” So, indeed, Tiro in his Pandects. But, as a matter of fact, our early writers were not such boors and crowns as to give to the stars called hyades the name of suculae, or “little pigs,” because u(/es are called sues in Latin; but just as what the Greeks call u(pe/r we call super, what they call u(/ptios we call supinus, what they call u(forbo/s we call subulcus, and finally, what they call u(/pnos we call first sypnus, and then, because of the kinship of the Greek letter y and the Latin o, somnus—just so, what they call u(a/des were called by us, first shades, and then suculae. But the stars in question are not in the head of the Bull, as Tiro says, for except for those stars the Bull has no head; but they are so situated and arranged in the circle that is called the “zodiac,” that from their position they seem to present the appearance and semblance of a bull's head, just as the other parts, and the rest of the figure of the Bull, are formed and, as it were, pictured by the place and location of those stars which the Greeks call Pleia/des and we, Vergiliae.

> Latin: 9. Quid Tullius Tiro in commentariis scripserit de “Suculis” et “Hyadibus,” quae sunt stellarum vocabula. TULLIUS TIRO M. Ciceronis alumnus et libertus adiutorque in litteris studiorum eius fuit. Is libros compluris de usu atque ratione linguae Latinae, item de variis atque promiscis quaestionibus composuit. In his esse praecipui videntur quos Graeco titulo Πανδέκτας inscripsit, tamquam omne rerum atoue doctrinarum genus continentis. Ibi de his stellis quae appellantur “suculae” hoc scriptum est: “Adeo,” inquit, “veteres Romani litteras Graecas nesciverunt et rudes Graecae linguae fuerunt, ut stellas quae in capite tauri sunt propterea ‘suculas’ appellarint, quod eas Graeci ὑάδας vocant, tamquam id verbum Latinum Graeci verbi interpretamentum sit, quia quae Graece ‘sues’ Latine dicantur. Sed ὑάδες,” inquit, “οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑῶν (id est, non a subus), ita ut nostri opici putaverunt, sed ab eo quod est ὕειν, appellantur; nam et cum oriuntur et cum occidunt, tempestates pluvias largosque imbres cient. Pluere autem Graeca lingua ὕειν dicitur.” Haec quidem Tiro in Pandectis. Sed enim veteres nostri non usque eo rupices et agrestes fuerunt, ut stellas hyadas idcirco “suculas” nominarent, quod ὕες Latine “sues” dicantur; sed ut quod Graeci ὑπέρ, nos “super” dicimus, quod illi ὕπτιος, nos “supinus,” quod illi ὑφορβός, nos “subulcus,” quod item illi ὕπνος, nos primo “sypnus,” deinde per y Graecae Latinaeque o litterae cognationem “somnus”: sic quod ab illis ὑάδες, a nobis primo “syades,” deinde “suculae” appellatae. Stellae autem istae non in capite tauri sunt, ut Tiro dicit, nullum enim videtur praeter eas stellas tauri caput, set hae ita circulo qui “zodiacus” dicitur sitae locataeque sunt, ut ex earum positu species quaedam et simulacrum esse videatur tauri capitis, sicuti ceterae partes et reliqua imago tauri conformata et quasi depicta est locis regionibusque earum stellarum quas Graeci Πλειάδας, nos “Vergilias” vocamus.

[¶9] 10. The derivation of soror, according to Antistins Labeo, and that of frater, according to Publius Nigidius. ANTISTIUS LABEO cultivated the study of civil law with special interest, and gave advice publicly to those who consulted him on legal questions; he was also not unacquainted with the other liberal arts, and he had delved deep into grammar and dialectics, as well as into the earlier and more recondite literature. He had also become versed in the origin and formation of Latin words, and applied that knowledge in particular to solving many knotty points of law. In fact, after his death works of his were published, which are entitled Posteriores, of which three successive books, the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth and fortieth, are full of information of that kind, tending to explain and illustrate the Latin language. Moreover, in the books which he wrote On the Praetor's Edict he has included many observations, some of which are graceful and clever. Of such a kind is this, which we find written in the fourth book On the Edict: “A soror, or 'sister,'” he says, “is so called because she is, as it were, born seorsum, or ' outside,' and is separated from that home in which she was born, and transferred to another family.” Moreover, Publius Nigidius, a man of prodigious learning, explains the word frater, or “brother,” by a no less clever and ingenious derivation: “A frater,” he says, “is so called because he is, as it were, fere alter, that is, 'almost another self.'”

> Latin: 10. Quid “sororis” ἔτυμον esse dixerit Labeo Antistius, et quid “fratris” P. Nigidius. LABEO ANTISTIUS iuris quidem civilis disciplinam principali studio exercuit et consulentibus de iure publice responsitavit; ceterarum quoque bonarum artium non expers fuit et in grammaticam sese atque dialecticam litterasque antiquiores altioresque penetraverat Latinarumque vocum origines rationesque percalluerat, eaque praecipue scientia ad enodandos plerosque iuris laqueos utebatur. Sunt adeo libri post mortem eius editi, qui Posteriores inscribuntur, quorum librorum tres continui, tricesimus octavus et tricesimus nonus et quadragesimus, pleni sunt id genus rerum ad enarrandam et inlustrandam linguam Latinam conducentium. Praeterea in libris quos Ad Praetoris Edictum scripsit multa posuit, partim lepide atque argute reperta. Sicuti hoc est quod in quarto Ad Edictum libro scriptum legimus: “‘Soror,’” inquit, “appellata est, quod quasi seorsum nascitur separaturque ab ea domo in qua nata est et in aliam familiam transgreditur.” “Fratris” autem vocabulum P. Nigidius, homo inpense doctus, non minus arguto subtilique ἐτύμῳ interpretatur: “‘Frater,’” inquit, “est dictus quasi ‘fere alter.’”

[¶10] 11. Marcus Varro's opinion of the just and proper number of banqueters; his views about the dessert and about sweetmeats. THAT is a very charming book of Marcus Varro's, one of his Menippean Satires, entitled You know not what the Late Evening may Bring, in which he descants upon the proper number of guests at a dinner, and about the order and arrangement of the entertainment itself. Now he says that the number of the guests ought to begin with that of the Graces and end with that of the Muses; that is, it should begin with three and stop at nine, so that when the guests are fewest, they should not be less than three, when they are most numerous, not more than nine. “For it is disagreeable to have a great number, since a crowd is generally disorderly, and at Rome it stands, at Athens it sits, but nowhere does it recline. Now, the banquet itself,” he continues, “has four features, and then only is it complete in all its parts: if a nice little group has been got together, if the place is well chosen, the time fit, and due preparation not neglected. Moreover, one should not,” he says, “invite either too talkative or too silent guests, since eloquence is appropriate to the Forum and the courts, but silence to the bed-chamber and not to a dinner.” He thinks, then, that the conversation at such a time ought not to be about anxious and perplexing affairs, but diverting and cheerful, combining profit with a certain interest and pleasure, such conversation as tends to make our character more refined and agreeable. “This will surely follow,” he says, “if we talk about matters which relate to the common experience of life, which we have no leisure to discuss in the Forum and amid the press of business. Furthermore, the host,” he says, “ought rather to be free from meanness than over-elegant,” and, he adds: “At a banquet not everything should be read, but such things as are at once edifying and enjoyable.” And he does not omit to tell what the nature of the dessert ought to be. For he uses these words: “Those sweetmeats (bellaria) are sweetest which are not sweet; for harmony between delicacies and digestion is not to be counted upon.” That no one may be puzzled by the word bellaria which Varro uses in this passage, let me say that it means all kinds of dessert. For what the Greeks called pe/mmata or tragh/mata, our forefathers called bellaria. In the earlier comedies one may find this term applied also to the sweeter wines, which are called Liberi bellaria, or “sweetmeats of Bacchus.”

> Latin: 11. Quem M. Varro aptum iustumque esse numerum convivarum existimarit; ac de mensis secundis et de bellariis. LEPIDISSIMUS liber est M. Varronis ex Satiris Menippeis, qui inscribitur Nescis Quid Vesper Serus Vehat, in quo disserit de apto convivarum numero deque ipsius convivii habitu cultuque. Dicit autem, convivarum numerum incipere oportere a Gratiarum numero et progredi ad Musarum, id est proficisci a tribus et consistere in novem, ut, cum paucissimi convivae sunt, non pauciores sint quam tres, cum plurimi, non plures quam novem. “Nam multos,” inquit, “esse non convenit, quod turba plerumque est turbulenta et Romae quidem stat, sedet Athenis, nusquam autem cubat. Ipsum deinde convivium constat,” inquit, “ex rebus quattuor et tum denique omnibus suis numeris absolutum est, si belli homunculi conlecti sunt, si electus locus, si tempus lectum, si apparatus non neglectus. Nec loquaces autem,” inquit, “convivas nec mutos legere oportet, quia eloquentia in foro et aput subsellia, silentium vero non in convivio, set in cubiculo esse debet.” Sermones igitur id temporis habendos censet non super rebus anxiis aut tortuosis, sed iucundos atque invitabiles et cum quadam inlecebra et voluptate utiles, ex quibus ingenium nostrum venustius fiat et amoenius. “Quod profecto,” inquit, “eveniet, si de id genus rebus ad communem vitae usum pertinentibus confabulemur, de quibus in foro atque in negotiis agendi non est otium. Dominum autem,” inquit, “convivii esse oportet non tam lautum, quam sine sordibus,” et: “In convivio legi nec omnia debent, sed ea potissimum, quae simul sint βιωφελῆ et delectent.” Neque non de secundis quoque mensis, cuiusmodi esse eas oporteat, praecipit. His enim verbis utitur: “Bellaria,” inquit, “ea maxime sunt mellita, quae melltta non sunt; πέμμασιν enim cum πέψει societas infida.” Quod Varro hoc in loco dixit “bellaria,” ne quis forte in ista voce haereat, significat id vocabulum omne mensae secundae genus. Nam quae πέμματα Graeci aut τραγήματα dixerunt, ea veteres nostri “bellaria” appellaverunt. Vina quoque dulciora est invenire in comoediis antiquioribus hoc nomine appellata dictaque esse ea “Liberi bellaria.”

[¶11] 12. That the tribunes of the commons have the right to arrest, but not to summon. IN one of the letters of Ateius Capito we read that Antistius Labeo was exceedingly learned in the laws and customs of the Roman people and in the civil law. “But,” he adds, “an excessive and mad love of freedom possessed the man, to such a degree that, although the deified Augustus was then emperor and was ruling the State, Labeo looked upon nothing as lawful and accepted nothing, unless he had found it ordered and sanctioned by the old Roman law.” He then goes on to relate the reply of this same Labeo, when he was summoned by the messenger of a tribune of the commons. He says: “When the tribunes of the commons had been appealed to by a woman against Labeo and had sent to him at the Gallianum bidding him come and answer the woman's charge, he ordered the messenger to return and say to the tribunes that they had the right to summon neither him nor anyone else, since according to the usage of our forefathers the tribunes of the commons had the power of arrest, but not of summons; that they might therefore come and order his arrest, but they did not have the right to summon him when absent.” Having read this in that letter of Capito's, I later found the same statement made more fully in the twenty-first book of Varro's Human Antiquities, and I have added Varro's own words on the subject: “In a magistracy” says he, “some have the power of summons, others of arrest, others neither; summoning, for example, belongs to the consuls and others possessing the imperium; arrest, to the tribunes of the commons and the rest who are attended by a messenger; neither summoning nor arrest to the quaestors and others who have neither a lictor nor a messenger. Those who have the power of summons may also arrest, detail, and lead off to prison, all this whether those whom they summon are present or are sent for by their order. The tribunes of the commons have no power of summons, nevertheless many of them in ignorance have used that power, as if they were entitled to it; for some of them have ordered, not only private persons, but even a consul to be summoned before the rostra. I myself, when a triumvir, on being summoned by Porcius, tribune of the commons, did not appear, following the authority of our leading men, but I held to the old law. Similarly, when I was a tribune, I ordered no one to be summoned, and required no one who was summoned by one of my colleagues to obey, unless he wished.” I think that Labeo, being a private citizen at the time, showed unjustified confidence in that law of which Marcus Varro has written, in not appearing when summoned by the tribunes. For how the mischief was it reasonable to refuse to obey those whom you admit to have the power of arrest? For one who can lawfully be arrested may also be taken to prison. But since we are inquiring why the tribunes, who had full power of coercion, did not have the right to summon... because the tribunes of the commons seem to have been elected in early times, not for administering justice, nor for taking cognizance of suits and complaints when the parties were absent, but for using their veto-power when there was immediate need, in order to prevent injustice from being done before their eyes; and for that reason the right of leaving the city at night was denied them, since their constant presence and personal oversight were needed to prevent acts of violence.

> Latin: 12. Tribunos plebis prensionem habere, vocationem non habere. IN quadam epistula Atei Capitonis scriptum legimus, Labeonem Antistium legum atque morum populi Romani iurisque civilis doctum adprime fuisse. “Sed agitabat,” inquit, “hominem libertas quaedam nimia atque vecors usque eo ut, divo Augusto iam principe et rempublicam obtinente, ratum tamen pensumque nihil haberet, nisi quod iussum sanctumque esse in Romanis antiquitatibus legisset,” ac deinde narrat, quid idem Labeo per viatorem a tribunis plebi vocatus responderit: “Cum a muliere,” inquit, “quadam tribuni plebis adversum eum aditi, in Gallianum ad eum misissent, ut veniret et mulieri responderet, iussit eum qui missus erat redire et tribunis dicere ius eos non habere neque se neque alium quemquam vocandi, quoniam moribus maiorum tribuni plebis prensionem haberent, vocationem non haberent; posse igitur eos venire et prendi se iubere, sed vocandi absentem ius non habere.” Cum hoc in ea Capitonis epistula legissemus, id ipsum postea in M. Varronis Rerum Humanarum uno et vicesimo libro enarratius scriptum invenimus, verbaque ipsa super ea re Varronis adscripsimus: “In magistratu,” inquit, “habent alii vocationem, alii prensionem, alii neutrum; vocationem, ut consules et ceteri qui habent imperiunm; prensionem, ut tribuni plebis et alii qui habent viatorem; neque vocationem neque prensionem, ut quaestores et ceteri qui neque lictorem habent neque viatorem. Qui vocationem habent, idem prendere, tenere, abducere possunt, et haec omnia sive adsunt quos vocant sive acciri iusserunt. Tribuni plebis vocationem habent nullam, neque minus multi imperiti, proinde atque haberent, ea sunt usi; nam quidam non modo privatum, sed etiam consulem, in rostra vocari iusserunt. Ego triumvirum, vocatus a Porcio, tribuno plebis, non ivi, auctoribus principibus, et vetus ius tenui. Item tribunus cum essem, vocari neminem iussi, nec vocatum a conlega parere invitum.” Huius ego iuris quod M. Varro tradit Labeonem arbitror vana tunc fiducia, cum privatus esset, vocatum a tribunis non isse. Quae, malum, autem ratio fuit vocantibus nolle obsequi quos confiteare ius habere prendendi? Nam qui iure prendi potest et in vincula duci potest. Sed quaerentibus nobis quam ob causam tribuni, qui haberent summam coercendi potestatem, ius vocandi non habuerint..., quod tribuni plebis antiquitus creati videntur non iuri dicundo nec causis querelisque de absentibus noscendis, sed intercessionibus faciendis quibus usus praesens fuisset, ut iniuria quae coram fieret arceretur; ac propterea ius abnoctandi ademptum, quoniam, ut vim fieri vetarent, adsiduitate eorum et praesentium oculis opus erat.

[¶12] 13. That it is stated in Marcus Varro's books on Human Antiquities that the aediles and quaestors of the Roman people might be cited before a praetor by a private citizen. WHEN from the secluded retreat of books and masters I had come forth among men and into the light of the forum, I remember that it was the subject of inquiry in many of the quarters frequented by those who gave public instruction in law, or offered counsel, whether a quaestor of the Roman people could be cited by a praetor. Moreover, this was not discussed merely as an academic question, but an actual instance of the kind had chanced to arise, in which a quaestor was to be called into court. Now, not a few men thought that the praetor did not have the right to summon him, since he was beyond question a magistrate of the Roman people and could neither be summoned, nor if he refused to appear could he be taken and arrested without impairing the dignity of the office itself which he held. But since at that time I was immersed in the books of Marcus Varro, as soon as I found that this matter was the subject of doubt and inquiry, I took down the twenty-first book of his Human Antiquities, in which the following is written: “It is lawful for those magistrates who have the power neither of summoning the people as individuals nor of arrest, even to be called into court by a private citizen. Marcus Laevinus, a curule aedile, was cited before a praetor by a private citizen; to-day, surrounded as they are by public servants, aediles not only may not be arrested, but even presume to disperse the people.” This is what Varro says in the part of his work which concerns the aediles, but in an earlier part of the same book he says that quaestors have the right neither to summon nor to arrest. Accordingly, when both parts of the book had been read, all came over to Varro's opinion, and the quaestor was summoned before the praetor.

> Latin: 13. Quod in libris Humanarum M. Varronis scriptum est aediles et quaestores populi Romani in ius a privato ad praetorem vocari posse. CUM ex angulis secretisque librorum ac magistrorum in medium iam hominum et in lucem fori prodissem, quaesitum esse memini in plerisque Romae stationibus ius publice docentium aut respondentium, an quaestor populi Romani a praetore in ius vocari posset. Id autem non ex otiosa quaestione agitabatur, sed usus forte natae rei ita erat, ut vocandus esset in ius quaestor. Non pauci igitur existimabant ius vocationis in eum praetori non esse, quoniam magistratus populi Romani procul dubio esset et neque vocari neque, si venire nollet, capi atque prendi, salva ipsius magistratus maiestate, posset. Sed ego, qui tum adsiduus in libris M. Varronis fui, cum hoc quaeri dubitarique animadvertissem, protuli unum et vicesimum Rerum Humanarum, in quo ita scriptum fuit: “Qui potestatem neque vocationis populi viritim habent neque prensionis, eos magistratus a privato in ius quoque vocari est potestas. M. Laevinus, aedilis curulis, a privato ad praetorem in ius est eductus; nunc stipati servis publicis non modo prendi non possunt, sed etiam ultro submovent populum.” Hoc Varro in ea libri parte de aedilibus, supra autem in eodem libro quaestores neque vocationem habere neque prensionem dicit. Utraque igitur libri parte recitata, in Varronis omnes sententiam concesserunt, quaestorque in ius ad praetorem vocatus est.

[¶13] 14. The meaning of pomerium. THE augurs of the Roman people who wrote books On the Auspices have defined the meaning of pomerium in the following terms: “The pomerium is the space within the rural district designated by the augurs along the whole circuit of the city without the walls, marked off by fixed bounds and forming the limit of the city auspices.” Now, the most ancient pomerium, which was established by Romulus, was bounded by the foot of the Palatine hill. But that pomerium, as the republic grew, was extended several times and included many lofty hills. Moreover, whoever had increased the domain of the Roman people by land taken from an enemy had the right to enlarge the pomerium. Therefore it has been, and even now continues to be, inquired why it is that when the other six of the seven hills of the city are within the pomerium, the Aventine alone, which is neither a remote nor an unfrequented district, should be outside the pomerium; and why neither king Servius Tullius nor Sulla, who demanded the honour of extending the pomerium, nor later the deified Julius, when he enlarged the pomerium, included this within the designated limits of the city. Messala wrote that there seemed to be several reasons for this, but above them all he himself approved one, namely, because on that hill Remus took the auspices with regard to founding the city, but found the birds unpropitious and was less successful in his augury than Romulus. “Therefore,” says he, “all those who extended the pomerium excluded that hill, on the ground that it was made ill-omened by inauspicious birds.” But speaking of the Aventine hill, I thought I ought not to omit something which I ran across recently in the Commentary of Elys, an early grammarian. In this it was written that in earlier times the Aventine was, as we have said, excluded from the pomerium, but afterwards by the authority of the deified Claudius it was admitted and honoured with a place within the limits of the pomerium.

> Latin: 14. Quid sit “pomerium.” “POMERIUM” quid esset augures populi Romani qui libros De Auspiciis scripserunt istiusmodi sententia definierunt: “Pomerium est locus intra agrum effatum per totius urbis circuitum pone muros regionibus certeis determinatus, qui facit finem urbani auspicii.” Antiquissimum autem pomerium, quod a Romulo institutum est, Palatini montis radicibus terminabatur. Sed id pomerium pro incrementis reipublicae aliquotiens prolatum est et multos editosque collis circumplexum est. Habebat autem ius proferendi pomerii qui populum Romanum agro de hostibus capto auxerat. Propterea quaesitum est, ac nunc etiam in quaestione est, quam ob causam ex septem urbis montibus, cum ceteri sex intra pomerium sint, Aventinus solum, quae pars non longinqua nec infrequens est, extra pomerium sit, neque id Servius Tullius rex neque Sulla, qui proferendi pomerii titulum quaesivit, neque postea divus Iulius, cum pomerium proferret, intra effatos urbi fines incluserint. Huius rei Messala aliquot causas videri scripsit; sed praeter eas omnis ipse unam probat, quod in eo monte Remus urbis condendae gratia auspicaverit avesque inritas habuerit superatusque in auspicio a Romulo sit: “Idcirco,” inquit, “omnes qui pomerium protulerunt montem istum excluserunt, quasi avibus obscenis ominosum.” Sed de Aventino monte praetermittendum non putavi quod non pridem ego in Elydis, grammatici veteris, Conmmenlario offendi, in quo scriptum erat Aventinum antea, sicuti diximus, extra pomerium exclusum, post auctore divo Claudio receptum et intra pomerii fines observatum.

## 30. Book XIII · chapters 15–23

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/30/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/30/#p-N

[¶0] 15. A passage from the book of the augur Messala, in which he shows who the minor magistrates are and that the consul and the praetor are colleagues; and certain observations besides on the auspices. IN the edict of the consuls by which they appoint the day for the centuriate assembly it is written in accordance with an old established form: “Let no minor magistrate presume to watch the skies.” Accordingly, the question is often asked who the minor magistrates are. On this subject there is no need for words of mine, since by good fortune the first book of the augur Messala On Auspices is at hand, when I am writing this. Therefore I quote from that book Messala's own words: “The auspices of the patricians are divided into two classes. The greatest are those of the consuls, praetors and censors. Yet the auspices of all these are not the same or of equal rank, for the reason that the censors are not colleagues of the consuls or praetors, while the praetors are colleagues of the consuls. Therefore neither do the consuls or the praetors interrupt or hinder the auspices of the censors, nor the censors those of the praetors and consuls; but the censors may vitiate and hinder each other's auspices and again the praetors and consuls those of one another. The praetor, although he is a colleague of the consul, cannot lawfully elect either a praetor or a consul, as indeed we have learned from our forefathers, or from what has been observed in the past, and as is shown in the thirteenth book of the Commentaries of Gaius Tuditanus; for the praetor has inferior authority and the consul superior, and a higher authority cannot be elected by a lower, or a superior colleague by an inferior. At the present time, when a praetor elects the praetors, I have followed the authority of the men of old and have not taken part in the auspices at such elections. Also the censors are not chosen under the same auspices as the consuls and praetors. The lesser auspices belong to the other magistrates. Therefore these are called 'lesser' and the others 'greater' magistrates. When the lesser magistrates are elected, their office is conferred upon them by the assembly of the tribes, but full powers by a law of the assembly of the curiae; the higher magistrates are chosen by the assembly of the centuries.” From this whole passage of Messala it becomes clear both who the lesser magistrates are and why they are so called. But he also shows that the praetor is a colleague of the consul, because they are chosen under the same auspices. Moreover, they are said to possess the greater auspices, because their auspices are esteemed more highly than those of the others.

> Latin: 15. Verba ex libro Messalae auguris, quibus docet qui sint minores magistratus, et consulem praetoremque conlegas esse; et quaedam alia de auspiciis. IN edicto consulum, quo edicunt quis dies comitiis centuriatis futurus sit, scribitur ex vetere forma perpetua: “Ne quis magistratus minor de caelo servasse velit.” Quaeri igitur solet qui sint magistratus minores. Super hac re meis verbis nil opus fuit, quoniam liber M. Messalae auguris De Auspiciis primus, cum hoc scriberemus, forte adfuit. Propterea ex eo libro verba ipsius Messalae subscripsimus: “Patriciorum auspicia in duas sunt divisa potestates. Maxima sunt consulum, praetorum, censorum. Neque tamen eorum omnium inter se eadem aut eiusdem potestatis, ideo quod conlegae non sunt censores consulum aut praetorum, praetores consulum sunt. Ideo neque consules aut praetores censorious neque censores consulibus aut praetoribus turbant aut retinent auspicia; at censores inter se, rursus praetores consulesque inter se, et vitiant et obtinent. Praetor, etsi conlega consulis est, neque praetorem neque consulem iure rogare potest, ut quidem nos a superioribus accepimus aut ante haec tempora servatum est et ut in Commentario tertio decimo C. Tuditani patet, quia imperium minus praetor, maius habet consul, et a minore imperio maius aut maior a minore conlega rogari iure non potest. Nos his temporibus, praetore praetores creante, veterum auctoritatem sumus secuti neque his comitiis in auspicio fuimus. Censores aeque non eodem rogantur auspicio atque consules et praetores. Reliquorum magistratuum minora sunt auspicia. Ideo illi ‘minores,’ hi ‘maiores’ magistratus appellantur. Minoribus creatis magistratibus, tributis comitiis magistratus, sed iustus curiata datur lege; maiores centuriatis comitiis fiunt.” Ex his omnibus verbis Messalae manifestum fit, et qui sint magistratus minores et quamobrem “minores” appellentur. Sed et conlegam esse praetorem consuli docet, quod eodem auspicio creantur. Maiora autem dicuntur auspicia habere, quia eorum auspicia magis rata sunt quam aliorum.

[¶1] 16. Another passage from the same Messala, in which he argues that to address the people and to treat with the people are two different things; and what magistrates may call away the people when in assembly, and from whom. THE same Messala in the same book has written as follows about the lesser magistrates “A consul may call away the people from all magistrates, when they are assembled for the elections or for another purpose. A praetor may at any time call away the people when assembled for the elections or for another purpose, except from a consul. Lesser magistrates may never call away the people when assembled for the elections or another purpose. Hence, whoever of them first summons the people to an election has the law on his side, because it is unlawful to take the same action twice with the people (bifariam cum populo agi), nor can one minor magistrate call away an assembly from another. But if they wish to address the people (contionem habere) without laying any measure before them, it is lawful for any number of magistrates to hold a meeting (contionem habere) at the same time.” From these words of Messala it is clear that cum populo agere, “to treat with the people,” differs from contionem habere, “to address the people.” For the former means to ask something of the people which they by their votes are to order or forbid; the latter, to speak to the people without laying any measure before them.

> Latin: 16. Item verba eiusdem Messalae, disserentis aliud esse ad populum loqui, aliud cum populo agere; et qui magistratus a quibus avocent comitiatum. IDEM Messala in eodem libro de minoribus magistratibus ita scripsit: “Consul ab omnibus magistratibus et comitiatum et contionem avocare potest. Praetor et comitiatum et contionem usquequaque avocare potest, nisi a consule. Minores magistratus nusquam nec comitiatum nec contionem avocare possunt. Ea re, qui eorum primus vocat ad comitiatum, is recte agit, quia bifariam cum populo agi non potest nec avocare alius alii potest. Set, si contionem habere volunt uti ne cum populo agant, quamvis multi magistratus simul contionem habere possunt.” Ex his verbis Messalae manifestum est, aliud esse “cum populo agere,” aliud “contionem habere.” Nam “cum populo agere” est rogare quid populum, quod suffragiis suis aut iubeat aut vetet; “contionem” autem “habere” est verba facere ad populum sine ulla rogatione.

[¶2] 17. That humanitas does not mean what the common people think, but those who have spoken pure Latin have given the word a more restricted meaning. THOSE who have spoken Latin and have used the language correctly do not give to the word humanitas the meaning which it is commonly thought to have, namely, what the Greeks call filanqrwpi/a, signifying a kind of friendly spirit and good-feeling towards all men without distinction; but they gave to humanitas about the force of the Greek paidei/a; that is, what we call eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artes, or “education and training in the liberal arts.” Those who earnestly desire and seek after these are most highly humanized. For the pursuit of that kind of knowledge, and the training given by it, have been granted to man alone of all the animals, and for that reason it is termed humanitas, or “humanity.” That it is in this sense that our earlier writers have used the word, and in particular Marcus Varro and Marcus Tullius, almost all the literature shows. Therefore I have thought it sufficient for the present to give one single example. I have accordingly quoted the words of Varro from the first book of his Human Antiquities, beginning as follows: “Praxiteles, who, because of his surpassing art, is unknown to no one of any liberal culture (humaniori).” He does not use humanior in its usual sense of “good-natured, amiable, and kindly,” although without knowledge of letters, for this meaning does not at all suit his thought; but in that of a man of “some cultivation and education,” who knew about Praxiteles both from books and from story.

> Latin: 17. “Humanitatem” non significare id quod vulgus putat, sed eo vocabulo qui sinceriter locuti sunt magis proprie esse usos. Qui verba Latina fecerunt quique his probe usi sunt “humanitatem” non id esse voluerunt quod vulgus existimat quodque a Graecis φιλανθρωπία dicitur et significat dexteritatem quandam benivolentiamque erga omnis homines promiscam; sed “humanitatem” appellaverunt id propemodum quod Graeci παιδείαν vocant, nos “eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artes” dicimus. Quas qui sinceriter percupiunt adpetuntque, hi sunt vel maxime humanissimi. Huius enim scientiae cura et disciplina ex universis animantibus uni homini data est idcircoque “humanitas” appellata est. Sic igitur eo verbo veteres esse usos, et cumprimis M. Varronem Marcumque Tullium, omnes ferme libri declarant. Quamobrem satis habui unum interim exemplum promere. Itaque verba posui Varronis e libro Rerum Humanarum primo, cuius principium hoc est: “Praxiteles, qui propter artificium egregium nemini est paulum modo humaniori ignotus.” “Humaniori” inquit non ita ut vulgo dicitur, “facili et tractabili et benivolo,” tametsi rudis litterarum sit, hoc enim cum sententia nequaquam convenit, sed “eruditiori doctiorique,” qui Praxitelem, quid fuerit, et ex libris et ex historia cognoverit.

[¶3] 18. The meaning of Marcus Cato's phrase “betwixt mouth and morsel.” THERE is a speech by Marcus Cato Censorius On the Improper Election of Aediles. In that oration is this passage: “Nowadays they say that the standing-grain, still in the blade, is a good harvest. Do not count too much upon it. I have often heard that many things may come inter os atque offam, or 'between the mouth and the morsel'; but there certainly is a long distance between a morsel and the blade.” Erucius Clarus, who was prefect of the city and twice consul, a man deeply interested in the customs and literature of early days, wrote to Sulpicius Apollinaris, the most learned man within my memory, begging and entreating that he would write him the meaning of those words. Then, in my presence, for at that time I was a young man in Rome and was in attendance upon him for purposes of instruction, Apollinaris replied to Clarus very briefly, as was natural when writing to a man of learning, that “between mouth and morsel” was an old proverb, meaning the same as the poetic Greek adage:
'Twixt cup and lip there's many a slip.

> Latin: 18. Quid aput M. Catonem significent verba haec “inter os atque offam.” ORATIO est M. Catonis Censorii De Aedilibus Vitio Creatis. Ex ea oratione verba haec sunt: “Nunc ita aiunt, in segetibus, in herbis bona frumenta esse. Nolite ibi nimiam spem habere. Saepe audivi inter os atque offam multa intervenire posse; verumvero inter offam atque herbam, ibi vero longum intervallum est.” Erucius Clarus, qui praefectus urbi et bis consul fuit, vir morum et litterarum veterum studiosissimus, ad Sulpicium Apollinarem scripsit, hominem memoriae nostrae doctissimum, quaerere sese et petere, uti sibi rescriberet quaenam esset eorum verborum sententia. Tum Apollinaris, nobis praesentibus, nam id temporis ego adulescens Romae sectabar eum discendi gratia, rescripsit Claro ut viro erudito brevissime, vetus esse proverbium “inter os et offam,” idem significans quod Graecus ille παροιμιώδης versus:
Πολλὰ μεταξὺ πέλει κύλικος καὶ χείλεος ἄκρου.

[¶4] 19. That Plato attributes a line of Sophocles to Euripides; and some other matters of the same kind. THERE is an iambic trimeter verse of notorious antiquity:
By converse with the wise wax tyrants wise.
This verse Plato in his Theaetetus attributes to Euripides. I am very much surprised at this; for I have met it in the tragedy of Sophocles entitled Ajax the Locrian and Sophocles was born before Euripides. But the following line is equally well known:
I who am old shall lead you, also old.
And this is found both in a tragedy of Sophocles, of which the title is Phthiotides, and in the Bacchae of Euripides. I have further observed that in the Fire-bringing Prometheus of Aeschylus and in the tragedy of Euripides entitled Ino an identical verse occurs, except for a few syllables. In Aeschylus it runs thus:
When proper, keeping silent, and saying what is fit.
In Euripides thus:
When proper, keeping silent, speaking when 'tis safe.
But Aeschylus was considerably the earlier writer.

> Latin: 19. Platonem tribuere Euripidi Sophocli versum; et similia quaedam alia. VERSUS est notae vetustatis senarius:
Σοφοὶ τύραννοι τῶν σοφῶν ξυνουσίᾳ. Eum versum Plato in Theaeteto Euripidi esse dicit. Quod quidem nos admodum miramur; nam scriptum eum legimus in tragoedia Sophocli quae inscripta est Αἴας Λοκρός, prior autem natus fuit Sophocles quam Euripides. Sed etiam ille versus non minus notus:
Γέρων γέροντα παιδαγωγήσω σʼ ἐγώ,
et in tragoedia Sophocli scriptus est, cui titulus est Φθιώτιδες, et in Bacchis Euripidi. Id quoque animadvertimus, aput Aeschylum ἐν τῷ Πυρφόρῳ Προμηθεῖ et aput Euripidem in tragoedia quae inscripta est Ἰνώ, eundem esse versum absque paucis syllabis. Aeschylus sic:
Σιγῶν θʼ ὅπου δεῖ καὶ λέγων τὰ καίρια,
Euripides ita:
Σιγᾶν θʼ ὅπου δεῖ καὶ λέγειν ἵνʼ ἀσφαλές.
Fuit autem Aeschylus non brevi antiquior.

[¶5] 20. Of the lineage and names of the Porcian family. WHEN Sulpicius Apollinaris and I, with some others who were friends of his or mine, were sitting in the library of the Palace of Tiberius, it chanced that a book was brought to us bearing the name of Marcus Cato Nepos. We at once began to inquire who this Marcus Cato Nepos was. And thereupon a young man, not unacquainted with letters, so far as I could judge from his language, said: “This Marcus Cato is called Nepos, not as a surname, but because he was the grandson of Marcus Cato Censorius through his son, and father of Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who slew himself with his own sword at Utica during the civil war. There is a book of Marcus Cicero's about the life of the last-named, entitled Laus Catonis, or A Eulogy of Cato, in which Cicero says that he was the great-grandson of Marcus Cato Censorius. Therefore the father of the man whom Cicero eulogized was this Marcus Cato, whose orations are circulated under the name of Marcus Cato Nepos.” Then Apollinaris. very quietly and mildly, as was his custom when passing criticism, said: “I congratulate you, my son, that at your age you have been able to favour us with a little lecture on the family of Cato, even though you do not know who this Marcus Cato was, about whom we are now inquiring. For the famous Marcus Cato Censorius had not one, but several grandsons, although not all were sprung from the same father. For the famous Marcus Cato, who was both an orator and a censor, had two sons, born of different mothers and of very different ages; since, when one of them was a young man, his mother died and his father, who was already well on in years, married the maiden daughter of his client Salonius, from whom was born to him Marcus Cato Salonianus, a surname which he derived from Salonius, his mother's father. But from Cato's elder son, who died when praetorelect, while his father was still living, and left some admirable works on The Science of Law, there was born the man about whom we are inquiring, Marcus Cato, son of Marcus, and grandson of Marcus. He was an orator of some power and left many speeches written in the manner of his grandfather; he was consul with Quintus Marcius Rex, and during his consulship went to Africa and died in that province. But he was not, as you said he was, the father of Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who killed himself at Utica and whom Cicero eulogized; nor because he was the grandson of Cato the censor and Cato of Utica was the censor's great-grandson does it necessarily follow that the former was the father of the latter. For this grandson whose speech was just brought to us did, it is true, have a son called Marcus Cato, but he was not the Cato who died at Utica, but the one who, after being curule aedile and praetor, went to Gallia Narbonensis and there ended his life. But by that other son of Censorius, a far younger man, who, as I said, was surnamed Salonianus, two sons were begotten: Lucius and Marcus Cato. That Marcus Cato was tribune of the commons and died when a candidate for the praetorship; he begot Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who committed suicide at Utica during the civil war, and when Marcus Tullius wrote the latter's life and panegyric he said that he was the great-grandson of Cato the censor. You see therefore that the branch of the family which is descended from Cato's younger son differs not only in its pedigree, but in its dates as well; for because that Salonianus was born near the end of his father's life, as I said, his descendants also were considerably later than those of his elder brother. This difference in dates you will readily perceive from that speech itself, when you read it.” Thus spoke Sulpicius Apollinaris in my hearing. Later we found that what he had said was so, when we read the Funeral Eulogies and the Genealogy of the Porcian Family.

> Latin: 20. De genere atque nominibus familiae Porciae. CUM in domus Tiberianae bibliotheca sederemus ego et Apollinaris Sulpicius et quidam alii mihi aut illi familiares, prolatus forte liber est ita inscriptus: M. Catonis Nepotis. Tum quaeri coeptum est quisnam is fuisset M. Cato Nepos. Atque ibi adulescens quispiam, quod ex eius sermonibus coniectare potui, non abhorrens a litteris, “Hic,” inquit, “est M. Cato, non cognomento Nepos, sed M. Catonis Censorii ex filio nepos, qui pater fuit M. Catonis, praetorii viri, qui bello civili Uticae necem sibi gladio manu sua conscivit, de cuius vita liber est M. Ciceronis, qui inscribitur Laus Catonis, quem in eodem libro idem Cicero pronepotem fuisse dicit M. Catonis Censorii.” “Eius igitur quem Cicero laudavit pater hic fuit M. Cato, cuius orationes feruntur inscriptae M. Catonis Nepotis.” Tum Apollinaris, ut mos eius in reprehendendo fuit, placide admodum leniterque: “Laudo,” inquit, “te, mi fili, quod in tantula aetate, etiamsi hunc M. Catonem, de quo nunc quaeritur, quis fuerit ignoras, auditiuncula tamen quadam de Catonis familia aspersus es.” “Non unus autem, sed conplures M. illius Catonis Censorii nepotes fuerunt, geniti non eodem patre;” “duos enim M. ille Cato, qui et orator et censor fuit, filios habuit, et matribus diversos et aetatibus longe dispares.” “Nam iam adulescente altero, matre eius amissa, ipse quoque iam multum senex, Saloni clientis sui filiam virginem duxit in matrimonium, ex qua natus est ei M. Cato Salonianus; hoc enim illi cognomentum fuit a Salonio, patre matris, datum.” “Ex maiore autem Catonis filio, qui praetor designatus patre vivo mortuus est, et egregios De luris Disciplina libros reliquit, nascitur hie de quo quaeritur, M. Cato, M. filius, M. nepos.” “Is satis vehemens orator fuit multasque orationes ad exemplum avi scriptas reliquit et consul cum Q. Marcio Rege fuit, inque eo consulatu in Africam profectus, in ea provincia mortem obiit.” “Sed is non, ita ut dixisti, M. Catonis, praetorii viri, qui se Uticae occidit it quem Cicero laudavit, pater fuit; nec, quia hic nepos Catonis Censorii, ille autem pronepos fuit, propterea necessum est patrem hunc ei fuisse.” “Hic enim nepos, cuius haec modo prolata oratio est, filium quidem M. Catonem habuit; sed non eum qui Uticae periit, sed qui, cum aedilis curulis et praetor fuisset, in Galliam Narbonensem profectus, ibi vita functus est.” “Ex altero autem illo Censorii filio, longe natu minore, quem Salonianum esse appellatum dixi, duo nati sunt L. Cato et M. Cato.” “Is M. Cato tribunus plebis fuit et praeturam petens mortem obiit ex eoque natus est M. Cato praetorius, qui se bello civili Uticae interemit, de cuius vita laudibusque cum M. Tullius scriberet, pronepotem eum Catonis Censorii dixit fuisse.” “Videtis igitur banc partem familiae, quae ex minore Catonis filio progenita est, non solum generis ipsius tramitibus, sed temporum quoque spatio differre; nam quia ille Salonianus in extrema patris aetate, sicuti dixi, natus fuit, prognati quoque ab eo aliquanto posteriores fuerunt quam qui a maiore fratre eius geniti erant.” “Hanc temporum differentiam facile animadvertetis ex hac ipsa oratione, cum eam legetis.” Haec Sulpicius Apollinaris audientibus nobis dixit. Quae postea ita esse, uti dixerat, cognovimus, cum et Laudationes Funebres et Librum Commentariun De Familia Porcia legeremus.

[¶6] 21. That the most elegant writers pay more attention to the pleasing sound of words and phrases (what the Greeks call eu)fwni/a, or “euphony”) than to the rules and precepts devised by the grammarians. VALERIUS PROBUS was once asked, as I learned from one of his friends, whether one ought to say has urbis or has urbes and hanc turrem. or hanc turrim. “If,” he replied, “you are either composing verse or writing prose and have to use those words, pay no attention to the musty, fusty rules of the grammarians, but consult your own ear as to what is to be said in any given place. What it favours will surely be the best.” Then the one who had asked the question said: “What do you mean by 'consult my ear'?” and he told me that Probus answered: “Just as Vergil did his, when in different passages he has used urbis and urbes, following the taste and judgment of his ear. For in the first Georgic, which,” said he,
I have read in a copy corrected by the poet's own hand, he wrote urbis with an i. These are the words of the verses:
O'er cities (urbis) if you choose to watch, and rule
Our lands, O Caesar great.
But turn and change it so as to read urbes, and somehow you will make it duller and heavier. On the other hand, in the third Aeneid he wrote urbes with an e:
An hundred mighty cities (urbes) they inhabit.
Change this too so as to read urbis and the word will be too slender and colourless, so great indeed is the different effect of combination in the harmony of neighbouring sounds. Moreover, Vergil also said turrim, not turrem, and securim, not securem:
A turret (turrim) on sheer edge standing,
and
Has shaken from his neck the ill-aimed axe (securim).
These words have, I think, a more agreeable lightness than if you should use the form in e in both places.
But the one who had asked the question, a boorish fellow surely and with untrained ear, said: “I don't just understand why you say that one form is better and more correct in one place and the other in the other.” Then Probus, now somewhat impatient, retorted: “Don't trouble then to inquire whether you ought to say urbis or urbes. For since you are the kind of man that I see you are and err without detriment to yourself, you will lose nothing whichever you say.” With these words then and this conclusion Probus dismissed the man, somewhat rudely, as was his way with stupid folk. But I afterwards found another similar instance of double spelling by Vergil. For he has used tres and tris in the same passage with such fineness of taste, that if you should read differently and change one for the other, and have any ear at all, you would perceive that the sweetness of the sound is spoiled. These are the lines, from the tenth book of the Aeneid:
Three (tres) Thracians too from Boreas' distant race,
And three (iris) whom Idas sent from Ismarus' land.
In one place he has tres, in the other tris; weigh and ponder both, and you will find that each sounds most suitable in its own place. But also in this line of Vergil,
This end (haec finis) to Priam's fortunes then,
if you change haec and say hic finis, it will be hard and unrhythmical and your ears will shrink from the change. Just as, on the contrary, you would make the following verse of Vergil less sweet, if you were to change it:
What end (quem finem) of labours, great king, dost thou grant?
For if you should say quam das finem, you would somehow make the sound of the words harsh and somewhat weak. Ennius too spoke of rectos cupressos, or “straight cypresses,” contrary to the accepted gender of that word, in the following verse:
On cliffs the nodding pine and cypress straight.
The sound of the word, I think, seemed to him stronger and more vigorous, if he said rectos cupressos rather than rectas. But, on the other hand, this same Ennius in the eighteenth book of his Annals said aere fulva instead of fulvo, not merely because Homer said h)e/ra baqei=a, but because this sound, I think, seemed more sonorous and agreeable. In the same way Marcus Cicero also thought it smoother and more polished to write, in his fifth Oration against Verres, fretiu rather than freto. He says “divided by a narrow strait (fretu)”; for it would have been heavier and more archaic to say perangusto freto. Also in his second Oration against Verres, making use of a like rhythm, he said “by an evident sin,” using peccatu instead of peccato; for I find this written in one or two of Tiro's copies, of very trustworthy antiquity. These are Cicero's words: “No one lived in such a way that no part of his life was free from extreme disgrace, no one was detected in such manifest sin (peccatu) that while he had been shameless in committing it, he would seem even more shameless if he denied it.” Not only is the sound of this word more elegant in this passage, but the reason for using the word is definite and sound. For hic peccatus, equivalent to peccatio, is correct and good Latin, just as many of the early writers used incestus (criminal), not of the one who committed the crime, but of the crime itself, and tributus, where we say tributum (tribute). Adlegatus (instigation) too and arbitratus (judgment) are used for adlegatio and arbitratio, and preserving these forms we say arbitratu and adlegatu meo. So then Cicero said in manifesto peccatu, as the early writers said in manifesto incestu, not that it was not good Latin to say peccato, but because in that context the use of peccatu was finer and smoother to the ear. With equal regard for our ears Lucretius made funis feminine in these verses:
No golden rope (aurea funis), methinks, let down from heaven
The race of mortals to this earth of ours,
although with equally good rhythm he might have used the more common aureus funis and written:
Aureus e caelo demisit funis in arva. Marcus Cicero calls even priests by a feminine term, antistitae, instead of antislites, which is demanded by the grammarians' rule. For while he usually avoided the obsolete words used by the earlier writers, yet in this passage, pleased with the sound of the word, he said: “The priests of Ceres and the guardians (antistitae) of her shrine.” To such a degree have writers in some cases followed neither reason nor usage in choosing a word, but only the ear, which weighs words according to its own standards. “And as for those who do not feel this,” says Marcus Cicero himself, when speaking about appropriate and rhythmical language, “I know not what ears they have, or what there is in them resembling a man.” But the early grammarians have noted this feature in Homer above all, that when he had said in one place koloiou/s te yhra/s te, “both crows and starlings,” in another place he did not use yhrw=n te, but yarw=n:
As lights a cloud of starlings (yarw=n) or of daws,
not conforming to general usage, but seeking the pleasing effect peculiar to the word in each of the two positions; for if you change one of these for the other, you will give both a harsh sound.

> Latin: 21. Quod a scriptoribus elegantissimis maior ratio habita sit sonitus vocum atque verborum iucundioris, quae a Graecis εὐφωνία dicitur, quam regulae disciplinaeque quae a grammaticis reperta est. INTERROGATUS est Probus Valerius, quod ex familiari eius quodam conperi, “hasne urbis” an “has urbes” et “hanc turrem” an “hanc turrim” dici oporteret. “Si aut versum,” inquit, “pangis aut orationem solutam struis atque ea tibi verba dicenda sunt, non finitiones illas praerancidas neque fetutinas grammaticas spectaveris, sed aurem tuam interroga quo quid loco conveniat dicere; quod illa suaserit, id profecto erit rectissimum.” Tum is qui quaesierat, “Quonam modo,” inquit, “vis aurem meam interrogem?” Et Probum ait respondisse: “Quo suam Vergilius percontatus est, qui diversis in locis ‘urbis’ et ‘urbes’ dixit arbitrio consilioque usus auris.” “Nam in primo Georgicon, quem ego,” inquit, “librum manu ipsius correctum legi, ‘urbis,’ per i litteram scripsit. Verba e versibus eius haec sunt:
urbisne invisere, Caesar,
Terrarumque velis curam.
Verte enim et muta, ut ‘urbes’ dicas, insubidius nescio quid facies et pinguius.” “Contra in tertio Aeneidis ‘urbes’ dixit per e litteram:
Centum urbes habitant magnas.
Hic item muta, ut ‘urbis’ dicas, nimis exilis vox erit et exanguis, tanta quippe iuncturae differentia est in consonantia vocum proximarum.” “Praeterea idem Vergilius ‘turrim’ dixit, non ‘turrem,’ et ‘securim,’ non ‘securem’:
Turrim in praecipiti stantem
et:
incertam excussit cervice securim.
Quae sunt, opinor, iucundioris gracilitatis quam si suo utrumque loco per e litteram dicas.” At ille qui interrogaverat, rudis profecto et aure agresti homo, “Cur,” inquit, “aliud alio in loco potius rectiusque esse dicas, non sane intellego.” Tum Probus iam commotior, “Noli,” inquit, “igitur laborare, utrum istorum debeas dicere, ‘urbis’ an ‘urbes.’ Nam cum id genus sis quod video, ut sine iactura tua pecces, nihil perdes, utrum dixeris.” His tum verbis Probus et hac fini hominem dimisit, ut mos eius fuit erga indociles, prope inclementer. Nos autem aliud quoque postea consimiliter a Vergilio duplici modo scriptum invenimus. Nam et tres et tris posuit eodem in loco ea iudicii subtilitate, ut si aliter dixeris mutaverisque et aliquid tamen auris habeas, sentias suavitatem sonitus claudere. Versus ex decimo hi sunt:
Tres quoque Threicios Boreae de gente suprema
Et tris quos Idas pater et patria Ismara mittit.
Tres illic, tris hic; pensicula utrumque modulareque, reperies suo quidque in loco sonare aptissime. Sed in illo quoque itidem Vergilii versu:
Haec finis Priami fatorum,
si mutes “haec” et “hic finis” dicas, durum atque absonum erit respuentque aures quod mutaveris. Sicut illud contra eiusdem Vergilii insuavius facias, si mutes:
quem das finem, rex magne, laborum?
Nam si ita dicas: “quam das finem,” iniucundum nescio quo pacto et laxiorem vocis sonum feceris. Ennius item rectos cupressos dixit contra receptum vocabuli genus hoc versu:
Cautibus nutantis pinos rectosque cupressos.
Firmior ei, credo, et viridior sonus esse vocis visus est, “rectos” dicere “cupressos” quam “rectas.” Contra vero idem Ennius in Annali duodevicesimo “aere fulva” dixit, non “fulvo,” non ob id solum, quod Homerus ἠέρα βαθεῖαν dicit, sed quod hic sonus, opinor, vocabilior visus et amoenior. Sicuti Marco etiam Ciceroni mollius teretiusque visum, in Quinta in Verrem “fretu” scribere quam “freto”: “Perangusto,” inquit, “fretu divisa.” Erat enim crassius iam vetustiusque, “perangusto freto” dicere. Itidem in Secunda, simili usus modulamine, “manifesto peccatu,” inquit, non “peccato”; hoc enim scriptum in uno atque in altero antiquissimae fidei libro Tironiano repperi. Verba sunt Ciceronis haec: “Nemo ita vivebat ut nulla eius vitae pars summac turpitudinis esset expers, nemo ita in manifesto peccatu tenebatur ut cum inpudens fuisset in facto, tum inpudentior videretur, si negaret.” Huius autem vocis cum elegantior hoc in loco sonus est, tum ratio certa et probata est. “Hic” enim “peccatus,” quasi “peccatio,” recte Latineque dicitur, sicut “hic incestus,” non qui admisit, sed quod admissum est, et “hic tributus,” quod “tributum” nos dicimus, a plerisque veterum dicta sunt. “Hi” quoque “adlegatus” et “hic arbitratus” pro “adlegatione” proque “arbitratione” dicuntur, qua ratione servata “arbitratu” et “adlegatu meo” dicimus. Sic igitur “in manifesto peccatu” dixit, ut “in manifesto incestu” veteres dixerunt, non quin Latinum esset “peccato” dicere, sed quia in loco isto positum subtilius ad aurem molliusque est. Lucretius aeque auribus inserviens “funem” feminino genere appellavit in hisce versibus:
Haut, ut opinor, enim mortalia saecla superne
Aurea de caelo demisit funis in arva,
cum dicere usitatius manente numero posset:
Aureus e caelo demisit funis in arva. Sacerdotes quoque feminas M. Cicero “antistitas” dicit, non secundum grammaticam legem “antistites.” Nam cum insolentias verborum a veteribus dictorum plerumque respueret, huius tamen verbi in ea parte sonitu delectatus: “Sacerdotes,” inquit, “Cereris atque illius fani antistitae.” Usque adeo in quibusdam neque rationem verbi neque consuetudinem, sed solam aurem secuti sunt, suis verba modulis pensitantem. “Quod qui non sentiunt,” inquit idem ipse M. Cicero, cum de numerosa et apta oratione dissereret, “quas auris habeant aut quid in his hominis simile sit, nescio.” Illud vero cumprimis apud Homerum veteres grammatici adnotaverunt, quod, cum dixisset quodam in loco κολοιούς τε ψῆράς τε, alio in loco, non ψηρῶν τε, set ψαρῶν dixit:
Τῶν δʼ ὥς τε ψαρῶν νέφος ἔρχεται ἠὲ κολοιῶν,
secutus non communem, sed propriam in quoque vocis situ iucunditatem; nam si alterum in alterius loco ponas, utrumque feceris sonitu insuave.

[¶7] 22. The words of Titus Castricius to his young pupils on unbecoming clothes and shoes. TITUS CASTRICIUS, a teacher of the art of rhetoric, who held the first rank at Rome as a declaimer and an instructor, a man of the greatest influence and dignity, was highly regarded also by the deified Hadrian for his character and his learning. Once when 1 happened to be with him (for I attended him as my master) and he had seen some pupils of his who were senators wearing tunics and cloaks on a holiday, and with sandals on their feet, he said: “For my part, I should have preferred to see you in your togas, or if that was too much trouble, at least with girdles and mantles. But if this present attire of yours is now pardonable from long custom, yet it is not at all seemly for you, who are senators of the Roman people, to go through the streets of the city in sandals, nor by Jove! is this less criminal in you than it was in one whom Marcus Tullius once reproved for such attire.” This, and some other things to the same purport, Castricius said in my hearing with true Roman austerity. But several of those who had heard him asked why he had said soleatos, or “in sandals,” of those who wore gallicae, or “Gallic slippers,” and not soleae. But Castricius certainly spoke purely and properly; for in general all kinds of foot-gear which cover only the bottom of the soles, leaving the rest almost bare, and are bound on by slender thongs, are called soleae, or sometimes by the Greek word crepidulae. But gallicae, I think, is a new word, which came into use not long before the time of Marcus Cicero. In fact, he himself uses it in his second Oration against Antony: “You ran about,” says lie, “in slippers (gallicis) and cloak.” Nor do I find this word with that meaning in any other writer—a writer of high authority, that is; but, as I have said, they called that kind of shoe crepidae and crepidulae, shortening the first syllable of the Greek word krhpi=des, and the makers of such shoes they termed crepidarii. Sempronius Asellio in the fourteenth book of his Histories says: “He asked for a cobbler's knife from a maker of slippers (crepidarius sutor).”

> Latin: 22. Verba Titi Castricii rhetoris ad discipulos adulescentes de vestitu atque calciatu on decoro. T. CASTRICIUS, rhetoricae disciplinae doctor, qui habuit Romae locum principem declamandi ac docendi, summa vir auctoritate gravitateque et a divo Hadriano in mores atque litteras spectatus, cum me forte praesente, usus enim sum eo magistro, discipulos quosdam suos senatores vidisset die feriato tunicis et lacernis indutos et gallicis calciatos, “Equidem,” inquit, “maluissem vos togatos esse; si pigitum est, cinctos saltem esse et paenulatos. Sed si hic vester huiusmodi vestitus de multo iam usu ignoscibilis est, soleatos tamen vos, populi Romani senatores, per urbis vias ingredi nequaquam decorum est, non hercle vobis minus quam illi tum fuit, cui hoc M. Tullius pro turpi crimine obiectavit.” Haec, me audiente, Castricius et quaedam alia ad eam rem conducentia Romane et severe dixit. Plerique autem ex his qui audierant requirebant cur “soleatos” dixisset, qui gallicas, non soleas, haberent. Sed Castricius profecto scite atque incorrupte locutus est; omnia enim ferme id genus, quibus plantarum calces tantum infimae teguntur, cetera prope nuda et teretibus habenis vincta sunt, “soleas” dixerunt, nonnumquam voce Graeca “crepidulas.” “Gallicas” autem verbum esse opinor novum, non diu ante aetatem M. Ciceronis usurpari coeptum, itaque ab eo ipso positum est in secunda Antonianarum: “Cum gallicis,” inquit, “et lacerna cucurristi.” Neque in ea significatione id apud quemquam alium scriptum lego gravioris dumtaxat auctoritatis scriptorem; sed, ut dixi, “crepidas” et “crepidulas,” prima syllaba correpta, id genus calciamentum appellaverunt, quod Graeci κρηπῖδας vocant, eiusque calciamenti sutores “crepidarios” dixerunt. Sempronius Asellio in libro Rerum Gestarum XIV: “Crepidarium,” inquit, “cultellum rogavit a crepidario sutore.”

[¶8] 23. Of the Nerio of Mars in ancient prayers. PRAYERS to the immortal gods, which are offered according to the Roman ritual, are set forth in the books of the priests of the Roman people, as well as in many early books of prayers. In these we find: “Lua, of Saturn; Salacia, of Neptune; Hora, of Quirinus; the Virites of Quirinus; Maia of Vulcan; Heries of Juno; Moles of Mars, and Nerio of Mars.” Of these I hear most people pronounce the one which I have put last with a long initial syllable, as the Greeks pronounce Nhrei/+des (“Nereids”). But those who have spoken correctly made the first syllable short and lengthened the third. For the nominative case of the word, as it is written in the books of early writers, is Nerio, although Marcus Varro, in his Menippean Satire entitled Skiomaxi/a, or “Battle of the Shadows,” uses in the vocative Nericnes, not Nerio, in the following verses:
Thee, Anna and Peranna, Panda Cela, Pales,
Nerienes and Minerva, Fortune and likewise Ceres.
From which it necessarily follows that the nominative case is the same. But Nerio was declined by our forefathers like Atnio; for, as they said Aniēnem with the third syllable long, so they did Neriēnem. Furthermore, that word, whether it be Nerio or Nerienes, is Sabine and signifies valour and courage. Hence among the Claudii, who we are told sprang from the Sabines, whoever was of eminent and surpassing courage was called Nero. But the Sabines seem to have derived this word from the Greeks, who call the sinews and ligaments of the limbs neu=ra, whence we also in Latin call them nervi. Therefore Nerio designates the strength and power of Mars and a certain majesty of the War-god. Plautus, however, in the Truculentus says that Nerio is the wife of Mars, and puts the statement into the mouth of a soldier, in the following line:
Mars, coming home, greets his wife Nerio. About this line I once heard a man of some repute say that Plautus, with too great an eye to comic effect, attributed this strange and false idea, of thinking that Nerio was the wife of Mars, to an ignorant and rude soldier. But whoever will read the third book of the Annals of Gnaeus Gellius will find that this passage shows learning, rather than a comic spirit; for there it is written that Hersilia, when she pleaded before Titus Tatius and begged for peace, prayed in these words: “Neria of Mars, I beseech thee, give us peace; I beseech thee that it be permitted us to enjoy lasting and happy marriages, since it was by thy lord's advice that in like manner they carried off us maidens, that from us they might raise up children for themselves and their people, and descendants for their country.” She says “by thy lord's advice,” of course meaning her husband, Mars; and from this it is plain that Plautus made use of no poetic fiction, but that there was also a tradition according to which Nerio was said by some to be the wife of Mars. But it must be noticed besides that Gellius writes Neria with an a, not Nerio nor Nerienes. In addition to Plautus too, and Gellius, Licinius Imbrex, an early writer of comedies, in the play entitled Neaera, wrote as follows:
Neaera I'd not wish to have thee called;
Neriene rather, since thou art wife to Mars.
Moreover, the metre of this verse is such that the third syllable in that name must be made short, contrary to what was said above. But how greatly the quantity of this syllable varied among the early writers is so well known that I need not waste many words on the subject. Ennius also, in this verse from the first book of his Annals,
Neriene of Mars and Here,
if, as is not always the case, he has preserved the metre, has lengthened the first syllable and shortened the third. And I do not think that I ought to pass by this either, whatever it amounts to, which I find written in the Commentary of Servius Claudius, that Nerio is equivalent to Neirio, meaning without anger (ne ira) and with calmness, so that in using that name we pray that Mars may become mild and calm; for the particle ne, as it is among the Greeks, is frequently privative in the Latin language also.

> Latin: 23. De Neriene Martis in antiquis conprecationibus. CONPRECATIONES deum inmortalium, quae ritu Romano fiunt, expositae sunt in libris sacerdotum populi Romani et in plerisque antiquis orationibus. In his scriptum est: “Luam Saturni, Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani, Heriem lunonis, Moles Martis Nerienemque Martis.” Ex quibus id quod postremum posui sic plerosque dicere audio, ut priimam in eo syllabam producant, quo Graeci modo dicunt Νηρεΐδας. Sed qui proprie locuti sunt primam correptam dixerunt, tertiam produxerunt. Est enim rectus casus vocabuli, sicut in libris veterum scriptum est, “Nerio,” quamquam M. Varro in Satura Menippea, quae inscribitur Σκιομαχία, non “Nerio,” sed “Nerienes” vocative dicit in his versibus:
Te Anna á Peranna, Pánda Cela, té Pales,
Neriénes et Minérva, Fortuna ác Ceres. Ex quo nominandi quoque casum eundem fieri necessum est. Sed “Nerio” a veteribus sic declinabatur, quasi “Anio”; nam perinde ut “Anienem,” sic “Nerienem” dixerunt, tertia syllaba producta. Id autem, sive “Nerio” sive “Nerienes” est, Sabinum verbum est, eoque significatur virtus et fortitudo. Itaque ex Claudiis, quos a Sabinis oriundos accepimus, qui erat egregia atque praestanti fortitudine “Nero” appellatus est. Sed id Sabini accepisse a Graecis videntur, qui vincula et firmamenta membrorum νεῦρα dicunt, unde nos quoque Latine “nervos” appellamus. “Nerio” igitur Martis vis et potentia et maiestas quaedam esse Martis demonstratur. Plautus autem in Truculento coniugem esse Nerienem Martis dicit, atque id sub persona militis, in hoc versu:
Márs peregre adveniéns salutat Nérienem uxorém suam. Super ea re audivi non incelebrem hominem dicere, nimis comice Plautum inperito et incondito militi falsam novamque opinionem tribuisse, ut Nerienem coniugem esse Martis putaret. Sed id perite magis quam comice dictum intelleget, qui leget Cn. Gellii Annalem tertium, in quo scriptum est Hersiliam, cum apud T. Tatium verba faceret pacemque oraret, ita precatam esse: “Neria Martis te obsecro, pacem da, te, uti liceat nuptiis propriis et prosperis uti, quod de tui coniugis consilio contigit uti nos itidem integras raperent, unde liberos sibi et suis, posteros patriae pararent.” “De tui,” inquit, “coniugis consilio,” Martem scilicet significans; per quod apparet, non esse id poetice a Plauto dictum, sed eam quoque traditionem fuisse, ut Nerio a quibusdam uxor esse Martis diceretur. Inibi autem animadvertendum est quod Gellius “Neria” dicit per a litteram, non “Nerio,” neque “Nerienes.” Praeter Plautum etiam praeterque Gellium Licinius Imbrex, vetus comoediarum scriptor, in fabula quae Neaera scripta est, ita scripsit:
Nolo égo Neaeram té vocent, set Nérienem,
Cum quidém Mavorti es ín conubiúm data. Ita autem se numerus huiusce versus habet, ut tertia in eo nomine syllaba, contra quam supra dictum est, corripienda sit; cuius sonitus quanta aput veteres indifferentia sit, notius est quam ut plura in id verba sumenda sint. Ennius autem in primo Annali in hoc versu:
Nerienem Mavortis et Herem,
si, quod minime solet, numerum servavit, primam syllabam intendit, tertiam corripuit. Ac ne id quidem praetermittendum puto, cuiusmodi est, quod in Commentario Servii Claudii scriptum invenimus, “Nerio” dictum quasi “Neirio,” hoc est sine ira et cum placiditate, ut eo nomine mitem tranquillumque fieri Martem precemur; “ne” enim particula, ut apud Graecos, ita plerumque in Latina quoque lingua privativa est.

## 31. Book XIII · chapters 24–31

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/31/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/31/#p-N

[¶0] 24. Remarks of Marcus Cato, who declared that he lacked many things, yet desired nothing. MARCUS CATO, ex-consul and ex-censor, says that when the State and private individuals were abounding in wealth, his country-seats were plain and unadorned, and not even whitewashed, up to the seventieth year of his age. And later he uses these words on the subject: “I have no building, utensil or garment bought with a great price, no costly slave or maidservant. If I have anything to use,” he says, “I use it; if not, I do without. So far as I am concerned, everyone may use and enjoy what he has.” Then he goes on to say: “They find fault with me, because I lack many things; but I with them, because they cannot do without them.” This simple frankness of the man of Tusculum, who says that he lacks many things, yet desires nothing, truly has more effect in inducing thrift and contentment with small means than the Greek sophistries of those who profess to be philosophers and invent vain shadows of words, declaring that they have nothing and yet lack nothing and desire nothing, while all the time they are fevered with having, with lacking, and with desiring.

> Latin: 24. Verba M. Catonis, egere se multis rebus et nihil tamen cupere dicentis. M. CATO, consularis et censorius, publicis iam privatisque opulentis rebus, villas suas inexcultas et rudes, ne tectorio quidem praelitas fuisse dicit ad annum usque aetatis suae septuagesimum. Atque ibi postea his verbis utitur: “Neque mihi,” inquit, “aedificatio neque vasum neque vestimentum ullum est manupretiosum neque pretiosus servus neque ancilla. Si quid est,” inquit, “quod utar, utor; si non est, egeo. Suum cuique per me uti atque frui licet.” Tum deinde addit: “Vitio vertunt, quia multa egeo; at ego illis, quia nequeunt egere.” Haec mera veritas Tusculani hominis, egere se multis rebus et nihil tamen cupere dicentis, plus hercle promovet ad exhortandam parsimoniam sustinendamque inopiam quam Graecae istorum praestigiae, philosophari sese dicentium umbrasque verborum inanes fingentium, qui se nihil habere et nihil tamen egere ac nihil cupere dicunt, cum et habendo et egendo et cupiendo ardeant.

[¶1] 25. The meaning of manubiae is asked and discussed; with some observations as to the propriety of using several words of the same meaning.

> Latin: 25. Quaesitum tractatumque, quid sint “manubiae”; atque inibi dicta quaedam de ratione utendi verbis pluribus idem significantibus.

[¶2] ALL along the roof of the colonnades of Trajan's forum there are placed gilded statues of horses and representations of military standards, and underneath is written Ex manubiis.

> Latin: IN fastigiis fori Traiani simulacra sunt sita circumundique inaurata equorum atque signorm militarium, subscriptumque est:

[¶3] Favorinus inquired, when he was walking in the court of the forum, waiting for his friend the consul, who was hearing cases from the tribunal—and I at the time was in attendance on him—he asked, I say, what that inscription manubiae seemed to us really to mean.

> Latin: “Ex manubiis.” Quaerebat Favorinus, cum in area fori ambularet et amicum suum consulem opperiretur causas pro tribunali cognoscentem nosque tunc eum sectaremur—quaerebat, inquam, quid nobis videretur significare proprie “manubiarum” illa inscriptio.

[¶4] Then one of those who were with him, a man of a great and wide-spread reputation for his devotion to learned pursuits, said: “Ex manubiis is the same as ex praeda; for manubiae is the term for booty which is taken mann, that is 'by hand.'”

> Latin: Tum quispiam qui cum eo erat, homo in studiis doctrinae multi atque celebrati nominis: “Ex manubiis,” inquit, “significat ‘ex praeda’; ‘manubiae’ enim dicuntur praeda quae manu capta est.” “Etiamsi,” inquit Favorinus,

[¶5] Then Favorinus rejoined: “Although my principal and almost my entire attention has been given to the literature and arts of Greece, I am nevertheless not so inattentive to the Latin language, to which I devote occasional or desultory study, as to be unaware of this common interpretation of manubiae, which makes it a synonym of praeda. But I raise the question, whether Marcus Tullius, a man most careful in his diction, in the speech which he delivered against Rullus on the first of January On the Agrarian Law, joined manubiae and praeda by an idle and inelegant repetition, if it be true that these two words have the same meaning and do not differ in any respect at all.” And then, such was Favorinus' marvellous and almost miraculous memory, he at once added Cicero's own words.

> Latin: “opera mihi princeps et prope omnis in litteris disciplinisque Graecis sumpta est, non usque eo tamen infrequens sum vocum Latinarum, quas subsicivo aut tumultuario studio colo, ut hanc ignorem manubiarum interpretationem vulgariam, quod esse dicantur ‘manubiae’ praeda. Sed quaero an M. Tullius, verborum homo diligentissimus, in oratione quam dixit De Lege Agraria Kalendis Ianuariis contra Rullum, inani et inlepida geminatione iunxerit ‘manubias’ et ‘praedam,’ si duo haec verba idem significant neque ulla re aliqua dissident.” Atque, ut erat Favorinus egregia vel divina quadam memoria,
verba ipsa M. Tulli statim dixit.

[¶6] These I have appended: “The decemvirs will sell the booty (praedam), the proceeds of the spoils (manubias), the goods reserved for public auction, in fact Gnaeus Pompeius' camp, while the general sits looking on”;

> Latin: Ea nos hic adscripsimus: “Praedam, manubias, sectionem, castra denique Cn. Pompei, sedente imperatore, decemviri vendent”; et infra itidem duo haec simul iunctim posita dixit: “Ex praeda, ex manubiis, ex auro coronario.”

[¶7] and just below he again used these two words in conjunction: “From the booty (ex praeda), from the proceeds of the spoils (ex manubiis), from the crown-money.” Then, turning to the man who had said that manubiae was the same as praeda, Favorinus said, "Does it seem to you that in both these passages Marcus Cicero weakly and frigidly used two words which, as you think, mean the same thing, thus showing himself deserving of the ridicule with which in Aristophanes, the wittiest of comic writers, Euripides assailed Aeschylus, saying:
Wise Aeschylus has said the same thing twice;
'I come into the land,' says he, 'and enter it.'
But 'enter' and ' come into' are the same.

> Latin: Ac deinde ad eum convertit qui manubias esse praedam dixerat, et: “Videturne tibi,” inquit, “utroque in loco M. Cicero duobus verbis idem, sicuti tu putas, significantibus inepte et frigide esse usus ac tali ioco dignus quali apud Aristophanen, facetissimum comicorum, Euripides Aeschylum insectatus est, cum ait:
Δὶς ταὐτὸν ἡμῖν εἶπεν ὁ σοφὸς Αἰσχύλος.
Ἥκω γὰρ εἰς γῆν, φησι., καὶ κατέρχομαι·
Ἥκω δὲ ταὐτόν ἐστι τῷ κατέρχομαι.
Νὴ τὸν Δίʼ, ὥσπερ γʼ εἴ τις εἴποι γείτονι,
Χρῆσον σὺ μάκτραν, εἰ δὲ βούλει, κάρδοπον?”

[¶8] By Heaven, yes! It's just as if one said
To a neighbour: 'Use the pot, or else the pan'? “But by no means,” said he, “do Cicero's words seem like such repetitions as ma/ktra, pot, and ka/rdopos, pan, which are used either by our own poets or orators and those of the Greeks, for the purpose of giving weight or adornment to their subject by the use of two or more words of the same meaning.”

> Latin: “Nequaquam vero,” inquit ille, “talia videntur, quale est μάκτρα et κάρδοπος, qua vel a poetis vel oratoribus Graecis nostrisque venerandae et ornandae rei gratia duobus eadem pluribusve nominibus frequentantur.”

[¶9] “Pray,” said Favorinus, "what force has this repetition and recapitulation of the same thing under another name in manubiae and praeda? It does not adorn the sentence, does it, as is sometimes the case? It does not make it more exact or more melodious, does it? Does it make an effective cumulation of words designed to strengthen the accusation or brand the crime? As, for example, in the speech of the same Marcus Tullius On the Appointment of an Accuser one and the same thing is expressed in several words with force and severity: ' All Sicily, if it could speak with one voice, would say this: “Whatever gold, whatever silver, whatever jewels I had in my cities, abodes and shrines.'”

> Latin: “Quid igitur,” inquit Favorinus, “valet haec repetitio instauratioque eiusdem rei sub alio nomine in ‘manubiis’ et in ‘praeda’? Num ornat, ut alioqui solet, orationem? Num eam modulatiorem aptioremque reddit? Num onerandi vel exprobrandi criminis causa exaggerationem aliquam speciosam facit? Sicut in libro eiusdem M. Tulli, qui De Constituendo Accusatore est, una eademque res pluribus verbis vehementer atque atrociter dicitur: ‘Sicilia tota, si una voce loqueretur, hoc diceret: “Quod auri, quod argenti, quod ornamentorum in meis urbibus, sedibus, delubris fuit.”’ Nam cum urbes semel totas dixisset, sedes delubraque addidit, quae sunt ipsa quoque in urbibus. Item in eodem libro simili modo:”

[¶10] For having once mentioned the cities as a whole, he added 'abodes' and 'shrines,' which are themselves a part of the cities.

> Latin: “‘Siciliam,’ inquit, ‘provinciam C. Verres per triennium depopulatus esse, Siculorum civitates vastasse, domos exinanisse, fana spoliasse dicitur.’”

[¶11] Also in the same oration he says in a similar manner: 'During three years Gaius Verres is said to have plundered the province of Sicily, devastated the cities of the Sicilians, emptied their homes, pillaged their shrines.' Does he not seem to you, when he had mentioned the province of Sicily and had besides added the cities as well, to have included the houses also and the shrines, which he later mentioned? So too do not those many and varied words, 'plundered, devastated, emptied, pillaged,' have one and the same force? They surely do.

> Latin: “Ecquid videtur, cum Siciliam provinciam dixerit atque insuper etiam civitates addiderit, domos etiam et fana, quae infra posuit, conprehendisse? Verba haec item multa atque varia: ‘depopulatus esse, vastasse, exinanisse, spoliasse,’ nonne unam et eandem vim in sese habent? Sane. Sed quia cum dignitate orationis et cum gravi verborum copia dicuntur, quamquam eadem fere sint et ex una sententia cooriantur, plura tamen esse existimantur, quoniam et aures et animum saepius feriunt.”

[¶12] But since the mention of them all adds to the dignity of the speech and the impressive copiousness of its diction, although they are nearly the same and spring from a single idea, yet they appear to contain more meaning because they strike the ears and mind more frequently. "This kind of adornment, by heaping up in a single charge a great number of severe terms, was frequently used even in early days by our most ancient orator, the famous Marcus Cato, in his speeches; for example in the one entitled On the Ten, when he accused Thermus because he had put to death ten freeborn men at the same time, he used the following words of the same meaning, which, as they are brilliant flashes of Latin eloquence, which was just then coming into being, I have thought fit to call to mind: 'You seek to cover up your abominable crime with a still worse crime, you slaughter men like swine, you commit frightful bloodshed, you cause ten deaths, slay ten freemen, take life from ten men, untried, unjudged, uncondemned.'

> Latin: “Hoc ornatus genus in crimine uno vocibus multis atque saevis extruendo ille iam tunc M. Cato antiquissimus in orationibus suis celebravit, sicuti in illa, quae inscripta est De Decem Hominibus, cum Thermum accusavit quod decem liberos homines eodem tempore interfecisset, hisce verbis eandem omnibus rem significantibus usus est, quae quoniam sunt eloquentiae Latinae tunc primum exorientis lumina quaedam sublustria, libitum est ea mihi ἀπομνημονεύειν: ‘Tuum nefarium facinus peiore facinore operire postulas, succidias humanas facis, tantam trucidationem facis, decem funera facis, decem capita libera interficis, decem hominibus vitam eripis, indicta causa, iniudicatis, incondemnatis.’”

[¶13] So too Marcus Cato, at the beginning of the speech which he delivered in the senate, In Defence of the Rhodians, wishing to describe too great prosperity, used three words which mean the same thing.

> Latin: “Item M. Cato in orationis principio, quam dixit in senatu Pro Rodiensibus, cum vellet res nimis prosperas dicere, tribus vocabulis idem sentientibus dixit.”

[¶14] His language is as follows: I know that most men in favourable, happy and prosperous circumstances are wont to be puffed up in spirit and to increase in arrogance and haughtiness.'

> Latin: “Verba eius haec sunt: ‘Scio solere plerisque hominibus in rebus secundis atque prolixis atque prosperis animum excellere atque superbiam atque ferociam augescere.’”

[¶15] In the seventh book of his Origins too, in the speech which he spoke Against Servius Galba, Cato used several words to express the same thing: ' Many things have dissuaded me from appearing here, my years, my time of life, my voice, my strength, my old age;

> Latin: “Itidem Cato ex Originum VII., in oratione quam Contra Servium Galbam dixit, conpluribus vocabulis super eadem re usus est: ‘Multa me dehortata sunt huc prodire, anni, aetas, vox, vires, senectus; verum enimvero cum tantam rem peragier arbitrarer … ’”

[¶16] but nevertheless, when I reflected that so important a matter was being discussed..." "But above all in Homer there is a brilliant heaping up of the same idea and thought, in these lines:
Zeus from the weapons, from the dust and blood,
From carnage, from the tumult Hector bore.

> Latin: “Sed ante omnis apud Homerum eiusdem rei atque sententiae luculenta exaggeratio est:
Ἕκτορα δʼ ἐκ βελέων ὕπαγε Ζεὺς ἔκ τε κονίης
Ἔκ τʼ ἀνδροκτασίης ἔκ θʼ αἵματος ἔκ τε κυδοιμοῦ.
Item alio in versu:
Ὑσμῖναί τε μαχαί τε φόνοι τʼ ἀνδροκτασίαι τε.”

[¶17] Also in another verse:
Engagements, battles, carnage, deaths of men.
For although all those numerous synonymous terms mean nothing more than 'battle,' yet the varied aspects of this concept are elegantly and charmingly depicted by the use of several different words.

> Latin: “Nam cum omnia ista utrubique multa et cognominata nihil plus demonstrent quam ‘proelium,’ huius tamen rei varia facies delectabiliter ac decore multis variisque verbis depicta est.”

[¶18] And in the same poet this one thought is repeated with admirable effect by the use of two words; for Idaeus, when he interrupted the armed contest of Hector and Ajax, addressed them thus:
No longer fight, dear youths, nor still contend,
and in this verse it ought not to be supposed that the second word, meaning the same as the first, was added and lugged in without reason, merely to fill out the metre;

> Latin: “Neque non illa quoque aput eundem poetam una in duobus verbis sententia cum egregia ratione repetita est; Idaeus enim, cum inter Aiacem et Hectorem decertantes armis intercederet, his ad eos verbis usus est:
Μηκέτι, παῖδε φίλω, πολεμίζετε μηδὲ μάχεσθε,”

[¶19] for that is utterly silly and false. But while he gently and calmly chided the obstinate fierceness and love of battle in two youths burning with a desire for glory, he emphasized and impressed upon them the atrocity of the act and the sin of their insistence by adding one word to another; and that double form of address made his admonition more impressive.

> Latin: “in quo versu non oportet videri alterum verbum, idem quod superius significans, supplendi numeri causa extrinsecus additum et consarcinatum. Est enim hoc inane admodum et futtile. Sed cum in iuvenibus gloriae studio flagrantibus pervicaciam ferociamque et cupidinem pugnae leniter tamen ac placide obiurgaret, atrocitatem rei et culpam perseverandi bis idem dicendo alio atque alio verbo auxit inculcavitque, duplexque eadem conpellatio admonitionem facit instantiorem.”

[¶20] Nor ought the following repetition of the same thought to seem any more weak and cold:
With death the suitors threatened, and with fate, Telemachus,
because he said the same thing twice in qa/naton (death) and mo/ron (fate); for the heinousness of attempting so cruel and unjust a murder is deplored by the admirable repetition of the word meaning 'death.'

> Latin: “Ne illa quidem significationis eiusdemi repetitio ignava et frigida videri debet:
Μνηστῆρες δʼ ἄρα Τηλεμάχῳ θάνατόν τε μόρον τε Ἤρτυον,
quod bis idem, θάνατον et μόρον, dixerit; indignitas enim moliendae tam acerbae tamque iniustae necis miranda mortis iteratione defleta est.”

[¶21] Who too is of so dull a mind as not to understand that in
Away, begone, dire dream,
and
Away, begone, swift Iris,
two words of the same meaning are not used to no purpose, e)k parallh/lwn, 'as the repetition of two similar words,' as some think, but are a vigorous exhortation to the swiftness which is enjoined?"

> Latin: “Ceterum quis tam obtunso ingeniost, quin intellegat:
Βάσκʼ ἴθι, οὖλε Ὄνειρε,
et:
Βάσκʼ ἴθι, Ἶρι ταχεῖα,
verba idem duo significantia non frustra posita esse ἐκ παραλλήλων, ut quidam putant, sed hortamentum esse acre imperatae celeritatis?”

[¶22] “Also those thrice repeated words in the speech of Marcus Cicero Against Lucius Piso, although displeasing to men of less sensitive ears, did not merely aim at elegance, but buffeted Piso's assumed expression of countenance by the rhythmical accumulation of several words.

> Latin: “Verba quoque illa M. Ciceronis In L. Pisonen trigemina, etiamsi durae auris hominibus non placent, non venustatem modo numeris quaesiverunt, sed figuram simulationemque oris pluribus simul vocibus everberaverunt:”

[¶23] Cicero says: Finally, your whole countenance, which is, so to speak, the silent voice of the mind, this it was that incited men to crime, this deceived, tricked, cheated those to whom it was not familiar.'

> Latin: “‘Vultus denique,’ inquit, ‘totus, qui sermo quidam tacitus mentis est, hic in fraudem homines impulit, hic eos quibus erat ignotus decepit, fefellit, induxit.’”

[¶24] Well then,” continued Favorinus, "is the use of praeda and manubiae in the same writer similar to this? Truly, not at all!

> Latin: “Quid igitur? Simile est,” inquit, “apud eundem in ‘praeda’ et ‘manubiis’? Nihil profecto istiusmodi est.”

[¶25] For by the addition of manubiae the sentence does not become more ornate, more forcible, or more euphonius; but manubiae means one thing, as we learn from the books on antiquities and on the early Latin, praeda quite another.

> Latin: “Nam neque ornatius fit additis ‘manubiis’ neque exaggeratius modulatiusve; sed aliud omnino ‘praeda’ est, ut in libris rerum verborumque veterum scriptum est,”
“aliud ‘manubiae.’ Nam ‘praeda’ dicitur corpora ipsa rerum quae capta sunt, ‘manubiae’”

[¶26] For praeda is used of the actual objects making up the booty, but manubiae designates the money collected by the quaestor from the sale of the booty. Therefore Marcus Tullius, in order to rouse greater hatred of the decemvirs, said that they would carry off and appropriate the two: both the booty which had not yet been sold and the money which had been received from the sale of the booty."

> Latin: “vero appellatae sunt pecunia a quaestore ex venditione praedae redacta. Utrumque ergo dixit M. Tullius cumulandae invidiae gratia decemviros ablaturos persecuturosque: et praedam quae nondum esset venundata, et pecuniam quae ex venditione praedae percepta esset.”

[¶27] “Therefore this inscription which you see, ex manubiis, does not designate the objects and the mass of booty itself, for none of these was taken from the enemy by Trajan, but it declares that these statues were made and procured 'from the manubiae,' that is, with the money derived from the sale of the booty.

> Latin: “Itaque haec inscriptio quam videtis: ‘Ex manubiis,’ non res corporaque ipsa praedae demonstrat, nihil enim captum est horum a Traiano ex hostibus, sed facta esse haec conparataque ‘ex manubiis,’ id est ex pecunia praedaticia, declarat.”
“‘Manubiae’ enim sunt, sicuti iam dixi, non praeda,”

[¶28] For manubiae means, as I have already said, not booty, but money collected from the sale of the booty by a quaestor of the Roman people. But when I said 'by the quaestor,' one ought now to understand that the praefect of the treasury is meant.

> Latin: “sed pecunia per quaestorem populi Romani ex praeda vendita contracta. Quod ‘per quaestorem’ autem dixi, intellegi nunc oportet praefectum aerario significari.”

[¶29] For the charge of the treasury has been transferred from the quaestors to praefects. However, it is possible to find instances in which writers of no little fame have written in such a way as to use praeda for manubiae or manubiae for praeda, either from carelessness or indifference; or by some metaphorical figure they have interchanged the words, which is allowable when done with judgment and skill.

> Latin: “Nam cura aerarii a quaestoribus ad praefectos translata est. Est tamen nonnusquam invenire ita scripsisse quosdam non ignobiles scriptores, ut aut temere aut incuriose ‘praedam’ pro ‘manubiis’ et ‘manubias’ pro ‘praeda’ posuerint, aut tropica quadam figura mutationem vocabuli fecerint, quod facere concessum est scite id periteque facientibus.”

[¶30] But those who have spoken properly and accurately, as did Marcus Tullius in that passage, have used manubiae of money.”

> Latin: “Sed enim, qui proprie atque signate locuti sunt, sicut hoc in loco M. Tullius, ‘manubias’ pecuniam dixerunt.”

[¶31] 26. A passage of Publius Nigidius in which he says that in Valeri, the vocative case of the name Valerius, the first syllable should have an acute accent; with other remarks of the same writer on correct writing. THESE are the words of Publius Nigidius, a man pre-eminent for his knowledge of all the sciences, from the twenty-fourth book of his Grammatical Notes: “How then can the accent be correctly used, if in names like Valeri we do not know whether they are genitive or vocative? For the second syllable of the genitive has a higher pitch than the first, and on the last syllable the pitch falls again; but in the vocative case the first syllable has the highest pitch, and then there is a gradual descent.” Thus indeed Nigidius bids us speak. But if anyone nowadays, calling to a Valerius, accents the first syllable of the vocative according to the direction of Nigidius, he will not escape being laughed at. Furthermore, Nigidius calls the acute accent “the highest pitch,” and what we call accentus, or “accent,” he calls voculatio, or “tone,” and the case which we now call genetivus, or “genitive,” he calls casus interrogandi, “the case of asking.” This too I notice in the same book of Nigidius: “If you write the genitive case of amicus,” he says, “or of magnus, end the word with a single i; but if you write the nominative plural, you must write magnei and amicei, with an e followed by i, and so with similar words. Also if you write terra in the genitive, let it end with the letter i, as terrai; but in the dative with e, as terrae. Also one who writes mei in the genitive case, as when we say mei studiosus, or ' devoted to me,' let him write it with i only (mei), not with e (meei); but when he writes mehei, it must be written with e and i, since it is the dative case.” Led by the authority of a most learned man, I thought that I ought not to pass by these statements, for the sake of those who desire a knowledge of such matters.

> Latin: 26. Verba P. Nigidii quibus dicit in nomine Valeri in casu vocandi primam syllabam acuendam esse; et item alia ex eiusdem verbis ad rectam scripturam pertinentia. P. NIGIDII verba sunt ex Commentariorum Grammaticorum vicesimo quarto, hominis in disciplinis doctrinarum omnium praecellentis: “Deinde,” inquit, “voculatio qui poterit servari, si non sciemus in nominibus, ut ‘Valeri,’ utrum interrogandi an vocandi sint? Nam interrogandi secunda syllaba superiore tonost quam prima, deinde novissima deicitur; at in casu vocandi summo tonost prima, deinde gradatim descendunt.” Sic quidem Nigidius dici praecipit. Sed si quis nunc, Valerium appellans, in casu vocandi secundum id praeceptum Nigidii acuerit primam, non aberit quin rideatur. “Summum” autem “tonum” προσῳδίαν acutam dicit et quem “accentum” nos dicimus “voculationem” appellat et “casum interrogandi” eum dicit, quem nunc nos “genetivum” dicimus. Id quoque in eodem libro Nigidiano animadvertimus: “Si ‘huius,’” inquit, “‘amici’ vel ‘huius magni’ scribas, unum i facito extremum, sin vero ‘hei magnei,’ ‘hei amicei,’ casu multitudinis recto, tum ante i scribendum erit e, atque id ipsum facies in similibus. Item si ‘huius terrai’ scribas, i littera fit extrema, si ‘huic terrae,’ per e scribendum est. Item ‘mei’ qui scribit in casu interrogandi, velut cum dicimus ‘mei studiosus,’ per i unum scribat, non per e; at cum ‘mehei,’ tum per e et i scribendum est, quia dandi casus est.” Haec nos auctoritate doctissimi hominis adducti, propter eos qui harum quoque rerum scientiam quaerunt, non praetermittenda existimavimus.

[¶32] 27. Of verses of Homer and Parthenius, which Virgil seems to have followed. THERE is a verse of the poet Parthenius:
To Glaucus, Nereus and sea-dwelling Melicertes.
This verse Virgil has emulated, and has made it equal to the original by a graceful change of two words:
To Glaucus, Panopea, and Ino's son Melicertes. But the following verse of Homer he has not indeed equalled, nor approached. For that of Homer seems to be simpler and more natural, that of Virgil more modern and daubed over with a kind of stucco, as it were:
Homer::
A bull to Alpheus, to Poseidon one.
Virgil::
A bull to Neptune, and to you, Apollo fair.

> Latin: 27. De versibus, quos Vergilius sectatus videtur, Homeri ac Partheni. PARTHENI poetae versus est:
Γλαύκῳ καὶ Νηρεῖ καὶ εἰναλίῳ Μελικέρτῃ. Eum versum Vergilius aemulatus est, itaque fecit duobus vocabulis venuste inmutatis parem:
Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicertae. Sed illi Homerico non sane re parem neque similem fecit; esse enim videtur Homeri simplicior et sincerior, Vergilii autem νεωτερικώτερος et quodam quasi ferumine inmisso fucatior:
Ταῦρον δʼ Ἀλφειῷ, ταῦρον δὲ Ποσειδάωνι.
Taurum Neptuno, taurum tibi, pulcher Apollo.

[¶33] 28. Of an opinion of the philosopher Panaetius, which he expressed in his second book On Duties, where he urges men to be alert and prepared to guard against injuries on all occasions. THE second book of the philosopher Panaetius On Duties was being read to us, being one of those three celebrated books which Marcus Tullius emulated with great care and very great labour. In it there was written, in addition to many other incentives to virtue, one especially which ought to be kept fixed in the mind. And it is to this general purport: “The life of men,” he says, “who pass their time in the midst of affairs, and who wish to be helpful to themselves and to others, is exposed to constant and almost daily troubles and sudden dangers. To guard against and avoid these one needs a mind that is always ready and alert, such as the athletes have who are called 'pancratists.' For just as they, when called to the contest, stand with their arms raised and stretched out, and protect their head and face by opposing their hands as a rampart; and as all their limbs, before the battle has begun, are ready to avoid or to deal blows—so the spirit and mind of the wise man, on the watch everywhere and at all times against violence and wanton injuries, ought to be alert, ready, strongly protected, prepared in time of trouble, never flagging in attention, never relaxing its watchfulness, opposing judgment and forethought like arms and hands to the strokes of fortune and the snares of the wicked, lest in any way a hostile and sudden onslaught be made upon us when we are unprepared and unprotected.”

> Latin: 28. De sententia Panaetii philosophi, quam scripsit in libro De Officiis secundo, qua hortatur ut homines ad cavendas iniurias in omni loco intenti paratique sint. LEGEBATUR Panaetii philosophi liber De Officiis secundus ex tribus illis inclitis libris, quos M. Tullius magno cum studio maximoque opere aemulatus est. Ibi scriptum est, cum multa alia ad bonam frugem ducentia, tum vel maxime quod esse haerereque in animo debet. Id autem est ad hanc fere sententiam: “Vita,” inquit, “hominum qui aetatem in medio rerum agunt ac sibi suisque esse usui volunt, negotia periculaque ex improviso adsidua et prope cotidiana fert. Ad ea cavenda atque declinanda perinde esse oportet animo prompto semper atque intento, ut sunt athletarum, qui ‘pancratiastae’ vocantur.” “Nam sicut illi ad certandum vocati proiectis alte brachiis consistunt caputque et os suum manibus oppositis quasi vallo praemuniunt, membraque eorum omnia, priusquam pugna mota est, aut ad vitandos ictus cauta sunt aut ad faciendos parata—ita animus atque mens viri prudentis, adversus vim et petulantias iniuriarum omni in loco atque in tempore prospiciens, esse debet erecta, ardua, saepta solide, expedita in sollicitis, numquam conivens, nusquam aciem suam flectens, consilia cogitationesque contra fortunae verbera contraque insidias iniquorum, quasi brachia et manus, protendens, ne qua in re adversa et repentina incursio inparatis inprotectisque nobis oboriatur.”

[¶34] 29. That Quadrigarius used the expression cum multis mortalibus; whether it would have made any difference if he had said cum multis hominibus, and how great a difference. THE following is a passage of Claudius Quadrigarius from the thirteenth book of his Annals: “When the assembly had been dismissed, Metellus came to the Capitol with many mortals (cum mortalibus mulltis); from there he went home attended by the entire city.” When this book and this passage were read to Marcus Fronto, as I was sitting with him in company with some others, it seemed to one of those present, a man not without learning, that the use of mortalibus multis for hominibus multis in a work of history was foolish and frigid, and savoured too much of poetry. Then Fronto said to the man who expressed this opinion: “Do you, a man of most refined taste in other matters, say that mortalibus multis seems to you foolish and frigid, and do you think there is no reason why a man whose language is chaste, pure and almost conversational, preferred to say mortalibus rather than hominibus? And do you think that he would have described a multitude in the same way if he said cum multis hominibus and not cum multis mortalibus? For my part,” continued Fronto, “unless my regard and veneration for this writer, and for all early Latin, blinds my judgment, I think that it is far, far fuller, richer and more comprehensive in describing almost the whole population of the city to have said mortales rather than homines. For the expression ' many men' may be confined and limited to even a moderate number, but 'many mortals' somehow in some indefinable manner includes almost all the people in the city, of every rank, age and sex; so you see Quadrigarius, wishing to describe the crowd as vast and mixed, as in fact it was, said that Metellus came into the Capitol ' with many mortals, speaking with more force than if he had said 'with many men.'” When we, as was fitting, had expressed, not only approval, but admiration of all this that we had heard from Fronto, he said: “Take care, however, not to think that mortales multi is to be used always and everywhere in place of multi homines, lest that Greek proverb, to\ e)pi\ th=| fakh=| mu/ron, or 'myrrh on lentils, which is found in one of Varro's Satires, be applied to you.” This judgment of Fronto's, though relating to trifling and unimportant words, I thought I ought not to pass by, lest the somewhat subtle distinction between words of this kind should escape and elude us.

> Latin: 29. Quod Quadrigarius “cum multis mortalibus” dixit; an quid et quantum differret, si dixisset “cum multis hominibus.” VERBA sunt Claudi Quadrigarii ex Annalium eius XIII: “Contione dimissa, Metellus in Capitolium venit cum mortalibus multis; inde domum proficiscitur, tota civitas eum reduxit.” Cum is liber eaque verba M. Frontoni, nobis ei ac plerisque aliis adsidentibus, legerentur et cuidam haut sane viro indocto videretur “mortalibus multis” pro “hominibus multis” inepte frigideque in historia nimisque id poetice dixisse, tum Fronto illi cui hoc videbatur: “Ain tu,” inquit, “aliarum homo rerum iudicii elegantissimi, ‘mortalibus multis’ ineptum tibi videri et frigidum, nil autem arbitrare causae fuisse quod vir modesti atque puri ac prope cotidiani sermonis ‘mortalibus’ maluit quam ‘hominibus’ dicere, eandemque credis futuram fuisse multitudinis demonstrationem, si ‘cum multis hominibus,’ ac non ‘cum multis mortalibus’ diceret?” “Ego quidem,” inquit, “sic existimo, nisi si me scriptoris istius omnisque antiquae orationis amor atque veneratio caeco esse iudicio facit, longe longeque esse amplius, prolixius, fusius, in significanda totius prope civitatis multitudine ‘mortales’ quam ‘homines’ dixisse.” “Namque ‘multorum hominum’ appellatio intra modicum quoque numerum cohiberi atque includi potest, ‘multi’ autem ‘mortales’ nescio quo pacto et quodam sensu inenarrabili omne fere genus quod in civitate est et ordinum et aetatum et sexus conprehendunt; quod scilicet Quadrigarius, ita ut res erat, ingentem atque promiscam multitudinem volens ostendere, ‘cum multis mortalibus’ Metellum in Capitolium venisse dixit ἐμφατικώτερον quam si ‘cum multis hominibus’ dixisset.” Ea nos omnia quae Fronto dixit, cum ita ut par erat, non adprobantes tantum, sed admirantes quoque audiremus, “Videte tamen,” inquit, “ne existimetis, semper atque in omni loco ‘mortales multos’ pro ‘multis hominibus’ dicendum, ne plane fiat Graecum illud de Varronis Satura proverbium τὸ ἐπὶ τῇ φακῇ μύρον.” Hoc iudicium Frontonis, etiam in parvis minutisque vocabulis, non praetermittendum putavi, ne nos forte fugeret lateretque subtilior huiuscemodi verborum consideratio.

[¶35] 30. That fades has a wider application than is commonly supposed. WE may observe that many Latin words have departed from their original signification and passed into one that is either far different or near akin, and that such a departure is due to the usage of those ignorant people who carelessly use words of which they have not learned the meaning. As, for example, some think that facies, applied to a man, means only the face, eyes and cheeks, that which the Greeks call pro/swpon; whereas facies really designates the whole form, dimensions and, as it were, the make-up of the entire body, being formed from facio as species is from aspects and figura from fingere. Accordingly Pacuvius, in the tragedy entitled Niptra, used faces for the height of a man's body in these lines:
A man in prime of life, of spirit bold,
Of stature (facie) tall. But facies is applied, not only to the bodies of men, but also to the appearance of other things of every kind. For facies may be said properly, if the application be seasonable, of a mountain, the heavens and the sea. The words of Sallust in the second book of his Histories are “Sardinia, in the African Sea, having the appearance (facies) of a human foot, projects farther on the eastern than on the western side.” And, by the way, it has also occurred to me that Plautus too, in the Poenulus, said facies, meaning the appearance of the whole body and complexion. These are his words:
But tell me, pray, how looks (qua sit facie) that nurse of yours?—
Not very tall, complexion dark.—'Tis she!—
A comely wench, with pretty mouth, black eyes—
By Jove! a picture of her limned in words!
Besides, I remember that Quadrigarius in his nineteenth book used facies for stature and the form of the whole body.

> Latin: 30. Non hactenus esse “faciem” qua vulgo dicitur. ANIMADVERTERE est pleraque verborum Latinorum ex ea significatione de qua nata sunt decessisse vel in aliam longe vel in proximam, eamque decessionem factam esse consuetudine et inscitia temere dicentium quae cuimodi sint non didicerint. Sicuti quidam “faciem” esse hominis putant os tantum et oculos et genas, quod Graeci πρόσωπον dicunt, quando “facies” sit forma omnis et modus et factura quaedam corporis totius, a “faciendo” dicta, ut ab “aspectu” “species” et a “fingendo” “figura.” Itaque Pacuvius in tragoedia, quae Niptra inscribitur, “faciem” dixit hominis pro corporis longitudine:
aetate (inquit) íntegra,
Feróci ingenio, fácie procerá virum. Non solum autem in hominum corporibus, sed etiam in rerum cuiusquemodi aliarum “facies” dicitur. Nam montis et caeli et maris “facies,” si tempestive dicatur, probe dicitur. Sallustii verba sunt ex Historia secunda: “Sardinia in Africo mari facie vestigii humani in orientem quam occidentem latior prominet.” Ecce autem id quoque in mentem venit, quod etiam Plautus in Poenulo “faciem” pro totius corporis colorisque habitu dixit. Verba Plauti haec sunt:
Set eárum nutrix quá sit facie mi éxpedi.—
Statúra non magna córpore aquilost. —
Ipsa east.—
Specié venusta, óre atque oculis pérnigris.—
Formám quidem hercle vérbis depinxtí probe! Praeterea memini Quadrigarium in undevicesimo “faciem” pro statura totiusque corporis figura dixisse.

[¶36] 31. The meaning of caninum prandium in Marcus Varro's satire. LATELY a foolish, boastful fellow, sitting in a bookseller's shop, was praising and advertising himself, asserting that he was the only one under all heaven who could interpret the Satires of Marcus Varro, which by some are called Cynical, by others Menippean. And then he displayed some passages of no great difficulty, which he said no one could presume to explain. At the time I chanced to have with me a book of those Satires, entitled (Udroku/wn, or The Water Dog. I therefore went up to him and said: “Master, of course you know that old Greek saying, that music, if it be hidden, is of no account. I beg you therefore to read these few lines and tell me the meaning of the proverb contained in them.” “Do you rather,” he replied, “read me what you do not understand, in order that I may interpret it for you.” “How on earth can I read,” I replied, “what I cannot understand? Surely my reading will be indistinct and confused, and will even distract your attention.” Then, as many others who were there present agreed with me and made the same request, I handed him an ancient copy of the satire, of tested correctness and clearly written. But he took it with a most disturbed and worried expression. But what shall I say followed? I really do not dare to ask you to believe me. Ignorant schoolboys, if they had taken up that book, could not have read more laughably, so wretchedly did he pronounce the words and murder the thought. Then, since many were beginning to laugh, he returned the book to me, saying, “You see that my eyes are weak and almost ruined by constant night work; I could barely make out even the forms of the letters. When my eyes have recovered, come to me and I will read the whole of that book to you.” “Master,” said I, “I hope your eyes may improve; but I pray you, tell me this, for which you will have no need of your eyes; what does caninum prandium mean in the passage which you read?” And that egregious blockhead, as if alarmed by the difficulty of the question, at once got up and made off, saying: “You ask no small matter; I do not give such instruction for nothing.” The words of the passage in which that proverb is found are as follows: “Do you not know that Mnesitheus writes that there are three kinds of wine, dark, light and medium, which the Greeks call kirro/s or 'tawny'; and new, old and medium? And that the dark gives virility, the light increases the urine, and the medium helps digestion? That the new cools, the old heats, and the medium is a dinner for a dog (caninum prandium)?” The meaning of “a dinner for a dog,” though a slight matter, I have investigated long and anxiously. Now an abstemious meal, at which there is no drinking, is called “a dog's meal,” since the dog has no need of wine. Therefore when Mnesitheus named a medium wine, which was neither new nor old—and many men speak as if all wine was either new or old—he meant that the medium wine had the power neither of the old nor of the new, and was therefore not to be considered wine at all, because it neither cooled nor heated. By refrigerare (to cool), he means the same as the Greek yu/xein.

> Latin: 31. Quid sit in satura M. Varronis “caninum prandium.” LAUDABAT venditabatque se nuper quispiam in libraria sedens homo inepte gloriosus, tamquam unus esset in omni caelo Saturarum M. Varronis enarrator, quas partim Cynicas, alii Menippeas appellant. Et iaciebat inde quaedam non admodum difficilia, ad quae conicienda adspirare posse neminem dicebat. Tum forte ego eum librum ex isdem saturis ferebam, qui Ὑδροκύων inscriptus est. Propius igitur accessi et: “Nosti,” inquam, “magister, verbum illud scilicet e Graecia vetus, musicam quae sit abscondita, eam esse nulli rei? Oro ergo te, legas hos versus pauculos et proverbii istius quod in his versibus est sententiam dicas mihi.” “Lege,” inquit, “tu mihi potius quae non intellegis, ut ea tibi ego enarrem.” “Quonam,” inquam, “pacto legere ego possum quae non adsequor? Indistincta namque et confusa fient quae legero, et tuam quoque impedient intentionem.” Tunc aliis etiam qui ibi aderant compluribus idem comprobantibus desiderantibusque, accipit a me librum veterem fidei spectatae, luculente scriptum. Accipit autem inconstantissimo vultu et maestissimo. Sed quid deinde dicam? Non audeo hercle postulare ut id credatur mihi. Pueri in ludo rudes, si eum librum accepissent, non hi magis in legendo deridiculi fuissent, ita et sententias intercidebat et verba corrupte pronuntiabat. Reddit igitur mihi librum, multis iam ridentibus, et “Vides,” inquit, “oculos meos aegros adsiduisque lucubrationibus prope iam perditos; vix ipsos litterarum apices potui conprehendere; cum valebo ab oculis, revise ad me et librum istum tibi totum legam.” “Recte,” inquam, “sit oculis, magister, tuis;” “sed, in quo illis nihil opus est, id, rogo te, dicas mihi: ‘caninum prandium’ in hoc loco quem legisti quid significat?” Atque ille egregius nebulo, quasi difficili quaestione proterritus, exurgit statim et abiens, “Non,” inquit, “parvam rem quaeris; talia ego gratis non doceo.” Eius autem loci, in quo id proverbium est, verba haec sunt: “Non vides apud Mnesitheum scribi tria genera esse vini, nigrum, album, medium, quod vocant κιρρόν, et novum, vetus, medium? Et efficere nigrum virus, album urinam, medium πέψιν? Novum refrigerare, vetus calefacere, medium esse prandium caninum?” Quid significet prandium caninum, rem leviculam, diu et anxie quaesivimus. Prandium autem abstemium, in quo nihil potatur, “caninum” dicitur, quoniam canis vino caret. Cum igitur “medium vinum” appellasset, quod neque novum esset neque vetus—et plerumque homines ita loquantur, ut omne vinum aut novum esse dicant aut vetus —nullam vim habere significavit neque novi neque veteris quod medium esset, et idcirco pro vino non habendum, quia neque refrigeraret neque calefaceret. “Refrigerare” id dicit quod Graece “ψύχειν” dicitur.

## 32. Book XIV · chapters 1–2

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/32/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/32/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus directed against those who are called Chaldaeans, and who profess to tell men's fortunes from the conjunction and movements of the stars and constellations.

> Latin: 1. Dissertatio Favorini philosophi adversus cos qui Chaldaei appellantur, et ex coetu motibusque siderum et stellarum fata hominum dicturos pollicentur.

[¶1] AGAINST those who call themselves “Chaldaeans” or “astrologers,” and profess from the movements and position of the stars to be able to read the future, I once at Rome heard the philosopher Favorinus discourse in Greek in admirable and brilliant language.

> Latin: ADVERSUM istos qui sese “Chaldaeos” seu “genethliacos” appellant ac de motu deque positu stellarumstellarunm dicere posse quae futura sunt profitentur, audivimus quondam Favorinum philosophum Romae Graece disserentem egregia atque inlustri oratione;

[¶2] But whether it was for the purpose of exercising, not vaunting, his talent, or because he seriously and sincerely believed what he said, I am unable to tell; but I promptly jotted down the heads of the topics and of the arguments which he used, so far as I could recall them immediately after leaving the meeting, and they were about to this effect: That this science of the Chaldaeans was not of so great antiquity as they would have it appear; that the founders and authors of it were not those whom they themselves name, but that tricks and delusions of that kind were devised by jugglers and men who made a living and profit from their lies.

> Latin: exercendi autem, non ostentandi, gratia ingenii, an quod ita serio iudicatoque existimaret, non habeo dicere. Capita autem locorum argumentorumque quibus usus est, quod eius meminisse potui, egressus ibi ex auditione propere adnotavi, eaque fuerunt ad hanc ferme sententiam: disciplinam istam Chaldaeorum tantae vetustatis non esse quantae videri volunt, neque eos principes eius auctoresque esse, quos ipsi ferant, sed id praestigiarum atque offuciarum genus commentos esse homines aeruscatores et cibum quaestumque ex mendaciis captantes.

[¶3] And since they saw that some terrestrial phenomena known to men were caused by the influence and control of the heavenly bodies, as for example the ocean, as though a companion of the moon, grows old and resumes its youth along with her—from this, forsooth, they derived an argument for persuading us to believe that all human affairs, both the greatest and the least, as though bound to the stars and constellations, are influenced and governed by them.

> Latin: Atque eos, quoniam viderent terrena quaedam inter homines caelestium rerum sensu atque ductu moveri, quale est quod oceanus quasi lunae comes cum ea simul senescit adolescitque, hinc videlicet sibi argumentum ad suadendum paravisse ut crederemus omnia rerum humanarum et parva et maxima, tamquam stellis atque sideribus evincta, duci et regi.

[¶4] But Favorinus said that it was utterly foolish and absurd to suppose, because the tide of the ocean corresponds with the course of the moon, that a suit at law which one happens to have about an aqueduct with his neighbours, or with the man next door about a party wall, is also bound to heaven as if by a kind of chain and is decided by the stars.

> Latin: Esse autem nimis quam ineptum absurdumque, ut, quoniam aestus oceani cum lunae curriculo congruit, negotium quoque alicuius, quod ei forte de aquae ductu cum rivalibus aut de communi pariete cum vicino apud iudicem est, ut existimemus, id negotium quasi habena quadam de caelo vinctum gubernari.

[¶5] But even if by some divine power and purpose this could happen, yet he thought that it could by no means be grasped and understood in such a brief and scant span of life as ours by any human intellect, but he believed that some few things were conjectured paxumere/steron, (to use his own term), that is, “somewhat roughly,” with no sure foundation of knowledge, but in a loose, random and arbitrary manner, just as when we look at objects far away with eyes blinded by their remoteness from us.

> Latin: Quod etsi vi et ratione quapiam divina fieri potest, nequaquam id tamen censebat in tam brevi exiguoque vitae spatio quantovis hominis ingenio conprehendi posse et percipi, set coniectari pauca quaedam, ut verbo ipsius utar, παχυμερέστερον, nullo scientiae fundo concepto, sed fusa et vaga et arbitraria, qualis longinqua oculorum acies est per intervalla media caligantium;
tolli enim quod maxime inter deos atque homines differt, si homines quoque res omnis post futuras praenoscerent.

[¶6] For the greatest difference between men and gods was removed, if man also had the power of foreknowing all future events.

> Latin: Ipsam deinde siderum stellarumque observationem, quam esse originem scientiae suae praedicarent, hautquaquam putabat liquide consistere.

[¶7] Furthermore, he thought that even the observation of the stars and constellations, which they declared to be the foundation of their knowledge, was by no means a matter of certainty. “For if the original Chaldaeans,” said he, “who dwelt in the open plains, watched the movements and orbits of the stars their separations and conjunctions, and observed their effects, let this art continue to be practised, but let it be only under the same inclination of the heavens as that under which the Chaldaeans then were. For the system of observation of the Chaldaeans cannot remain valid, if anyone should wish to apply it to different regions of the sky.

> Latin: “Nam si principes Chaldaei, qui in patentibus campis colebant, stellarum motus et vias et discessiones et coetus intuentes, quid ex his efficeretur observaverunt, procedat,” inquit, “haec sane disciplina, set sub ea modo inclinatione caeli, sub qua tunc Chaldaei fuerunt; non enim potest,” inquit, “ratio Chaldaeorum observationis manere, si quis ea uti velit sub diversis caeli regionibus. Nam quanta,” inquit, “partium circulorumque caeli ex devergentia et convexionibus mundi varietas sit, quis non videt?”

[¶8] For who does not see,” said he, “how great is the diversity of the zones and circles of the heavens caused by the inclination and convexity of the earth? Why then should not those same stars, by which they maintain that all human and divine affairs are affected, just as they do not everywhere arouse cold and heat, but change and vary the weather, at the same time causing calm in one place and storm in another—why should they not, I say, produce one series of affairs and events in the land of the Chaldaeans, another among the Gaetulians, another on the Danube, and still another on the Nile?

> Latin: “Eaedem igitur stellae, per quas omnia divina humanaque fieri contendunt, sicuti non usquequaque pruinas aut calores cient, sed mutant et variant tempestatesque eodem in tempore alibi placidas, alibi violentas movent, cur non eventa quoque rerum ac negotiorum alia efficiunt in Chaldaeis, alia in Gaetulis, alia aput Danuvium, alia aput Nilum?”
“Per autem,” inquit, “inconsequens, ipsum quidem corpus et habitum tam profundi aeris sub alio atque alio caeli curvamine non eundem manere, in hominum autem negotiis stellas istas opinari idem semper ostendere, si eas ex quacumque terra conspexeris.”

[¶9] But,” said he, “it is utterly inconsistent to suppose that the mass and the condition of this vast height of air does not remain the same under one or another region of the heavens, but that in human affairs those stars always indicate the same thing from whatever part of the earth you may observe them.”

> Latin: Praeterea mirabatur id cuiquam pro percepto liquere, stellas istas quas a Chaldaeis et Babyloniis sive Aegyptiis observatas ferunt, quas multi “erraticas,” Nigidius “errones” vocat, non esse plures quam volgo dicerentur;

[¶10] Besides, he expressed his surprise that anyone considered it a certainty that those stars which they say were observed by the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, or by the Egyptians, which many call erraticae, or “wandering,” but Nigidius called errones, or “the wanderers,” are not more numerous than is commonly assumed;

> Latin: posse enim fieri existimabat ut et alii quidam planetes pari potestate essent, sine quibus recta atque perpetua observatio perfici non quiret, neque eos tamen cernere homines possent propter exuperantiam vel splendoris vel altitudinis.

[¶11] for he thought it might possibly be the case that there were some other planets of equal power, without which a correct and final observation could not be completed, but that men could not see them because of their remarkable brilliance or altitude.

> Latin: “Nam et quaedam,” inquit,“sidera a quibusdam terris conspiciuntur earumque terrarum hominibus nota sunt; sed eadem ipsa ex alia omni terra non videntur et sunt aliis omnino ignarissima.”

[¶12] ' For,' said he, “some stars are visible from certain lands and are known to the men of those lands; but those same stars are not visible from every other land and are wholly unknown to other men.

> Latin: “Atque uti demus,” inquit, “et has tantummodo stellas et ex una parte terrae observari debuisse, quae tandem finis observationis istius fuit et quae tempora satis esse visa sunt ad percipiendum quid praemonstraret aut coetus stellarum aut circuitus aut transitus?”

[¶13] And granting,” said he, “both that only these stars ought to be observed, and that too from one part of the earth, what possible end was there to such observation, and what periods of time seemed sufficient for understanding what the conjunction or the orbits or the transits of the stars foretold? For if an observation was made in the beginning in such a manner that it was calculated under what aspect, arrangement and position of the stars anyone was born, and if thereafter his fortune from the beginning of his life, his character, his disposition, the circumstances of his affairs and activities, and finally also the end of his life were noted, and all these things as they had actually happened were committed to writing, and long afterwards, when the same stars were in the same aspect and position, it was supposed that those same things would happen to others who had been born at that same time;

> Latin: “Nam si isto modo coepta fieri observatio est, ut animadverteretur quo habitu quaque forma quaque positura stellarum aliquis nasceretur, tum deinceps ab ineunte vita fortuna eius et mores et ingenium et circumstantia rerum negotiorumque et ad postremumpostrernum finis etiam vitae spectaretur eaque omnia, ut usu venerant, litteris mandarentur ac postea longis temporibus, cum ipsae illae eodem in loco eodemque habitu forent, eadem ceteris quoque eventura existimarentur,”
“qui eodem illo tempore nati fuissent—si isto,” inquit, “modo observari coeptum et ex ea observatione conposita quaedam disciplina est, nullo id pacto potest procedere.”

[¶14] if the first observations were made in that way,” said he, “and from such observations a kind of science was formed, it can by no means be a success.

> Latin: “Dicant enim quot tandem annis vel potius quot saeculis orbis hic observationis perfici quiverit.”

[¶15] For let them tell me in how many years, pray, or rather in how many ages, the cycle of the observations could be completed.” For he said that it was agreed among astrologers that those stars which they call “wandering,” which are supposed to determine the fate of all things, beginning their course together, return to the same place from which they set out only after an innumerable and almost infinite number of years, so that there could be no continuity of observation, and no literary record could endure for so long an epoch.

> Latin: Constare quippe inter astrologos dicebat, stellas istas quas “erraticas” dicerent, quae esse omnium rerum fatales viderentur, infinito prope et innumerabili numero annorum ad eundem locum, cum eodem abitu simul omnes reverti unde profectae sunt, ut neque ullus observationis tenor neque memoriae ulla effigies litterarum tanto aevo potuerint edurare.

[¶16] And he thought that this point also ought to be taken into consideration, that one constellation presided at the time when a man was first conceived in his mother's womb, and another one ten months later when he came into the world, and he asked how it was consistent for a different indication to be made about the same person, if, as they themselves thought, a different position and order of the same stars gave different fortunes.

> Latin: Atque illud etiam cuimodi esset considerandum putabat, quod aliud stellarum agmen foret quo primumprimur tempore conciperetur homo in utero matris, aliud postea cum in decem mensibus proximis in lucem ederetur, quaerebatque qui conveniret diversam super eodem fieri demonstrationem, si, ut ipsi putarent, alius atque alius earundem stellarum situs atque ductus alias atque alias fortunas daret.

[¶17] But also at the time of marriage, from which children were expected, and at the very union of the husband and wife, he said that it ought to be indicated by a fixed and inevitable position of the stars, with what character and fortune men would be born; and, indeed, long before that, when the father and mother were themselves born, it ought to be foretold even then from their horoscope what offspring they would produce; and far, far back of that, even to infinity, so that, if that science rested on any foundation of truth, a hundred years ago, or rather at the beginning of heaven and earth, and then on in an unbroken series of predictions as long as generation followed generation, those stars ought to have foretold what character and fortune anyone would have who is born to-day.

> Latin: Sed et nuptiarum tempore, ex quibus liberi quaererentur, atque ipso etiam illo maris et feminae iam declarari coitu oportere dicebat certo quodam et necessario stellarum ordine quales qualique fortuna homines gignerentur; ac multo etiam ante, cum pater ipse atque mater nascerentur, ex eorum genitura debuisse iam tunc prospici quinam olim futuri essent quos hi creaturi forent; et supra longelone atque longe per infinitum, ut, si disciplina ista fundamento aliquo veritatis nixa est, centesimo usque abhinc saeculo vel magis primo caeli atque mundi exordio atque inde iam deinceps continua significatione, quotiens generis auctores eiusdem homines nascerentur, stellae istae praemonstrare debuerint qualis qualique fato futurus sit quisquis hodie natus est.

[¶18] “But how,” said he, “can it be believed that the fate and fortune foretold by the form and position of any one of the stars are fixed and attached to one particular individual, and that the same position of the stars is restored only after a long series of years, if the indications of the same man's life and fortunes in such short intervals, through the single degrees of his forefathers and through an infinite order of successions, are so often and so frequently pointed out as the same, although the position of the stars is not the same?

> Latin: “Quo autem,” inquit, “pacto credi potest, uniuscuiusque stellarum formae et positionis sortem atque fortunam uni omnino homini certam destinatamque esse eamque formam post longissima saeculorum spatia restitui, si vitae fortunarumquefortunaruinque eiusdem hominis indicia in tam brevibus intervallis per singulos maiorum eius gradus perque infinitum successionum ordinem tam saepe ac tam multipliciter eadem ipsa, non eadem stellarum facie denotantur?”

[¶19] But if this can happen, and if this contradiction and variation be admitted through all the epochs of antiquity in foretelling the origin of those men who are to be born afterwards, this inequality confounds the observation and the whole theory of the science falls to the ground.”

> Latin: “Quod si id fieri potest eaque diversitas atque varietas admittitur per omnis antiquitatis gradus ad significanda eorum hominum qui post nascentur exordia imparilitas haec turbat observationem omnisque ratio disciplinae confunditur.”

[¶20] Moreover, he thought that the most intolerable thing was their belief that not only occurrences and events of an external nature, but even men's very deliberations, their purposes, their various pleasures, their likes and dislikes, the chance and sudden attractions and aversions of their feelings on trifling matters, were excited and influenced from heaven above; for example, if you happened to wish to go to the baths, and then should change your mind, and again should decide to go, that all this happens, not from some shifting and variable state of mind, but from a fateful ebb and flow of the planets. Thus men would clearly be seen to be, not logika\ zw=a or “reasoning beings,” as they are called, but a species of ludicrous and ridiculous puppets, if it be true that they do nothing of their own volition or their own will, but are led and driven by the stars.

> Latin: iamlam vero id minime ferundum censebat, quod non modo casus et eventa quae evenirent extrinsecus, sed consilia quoque ipsa hominum et arbitria et varias voluntates adpetitionesque et declinationes et fortuitos repentinosque in levissimis rebus animorum impetus recessusque moveri agitarique desuper e caelo putarent; tamquam quod forte ire in balneas volueris ac deinde nolueris atque id rursus volueris, non ex aliqua dispari variaque animi agitatione, sed ex necessaria quadam errantium siderum reciprocatione contigerit, ut plane homines non, quod dicitur, λογικὰ ζῶα, sed ludicra et ridenda quaedam neurospasta esse videantur, si nihil sua sponte, nihil arbitratu suo faciunt, sed ducentibus stellis et aurigantibus.

[¶21] “And if,” said he, “they affirm that it could have been foretold whether king Pyrrhus or Manius Curius was to be victorious in the battle, why, pray, do they not dare also to predict which of the players with dice or counters on a board will win?

> Latin: “Ac si,” inquit, “potuisse praedici adfirmant Pyrrusne rex an Manius Curius proelio victurus esset, cur tandem non de alea quoque ac de calculis et alveolo audent dicere, quisnam ibi ludentium vincat? An videlicet magna sciunt, parva nesciunt, et minora maioribus inperceptiora sunt?”

[¶22] Or, forsooth, do they know important things, but not those which are unimportant; and are unimportant things more difficult to understand than the important? But if they claim knowledge of great matters and say that they are plainer and easier to be understood, I should like,” said he, “to have them tell me, in this observation of the whole world, in comparison with such mighty works of nature, what they regard as great in the trifling and brief fortunes and affairs of men.

> Latin: “Sed si magnitudines rerum sibi vindicant magisque esse perspicuas et facilius comprehendi posse dicunt, volo,” inquit, “mili respondeant quid in hac totius mundi contemplatione, prae tantis naturae operibus, in tam parvis atque brevibus negotiis fortunisque hominum magnum putent?”

[¶23] And I should like to have them answer this question also,” said he: “if the instant in which man at birth is allotted his destiny is so brief and fleeting, that at that same moment not more than one can be born with the same conjunction under the same circle of the heavens, and if therefore even twins have different lots in life, since they are not born at the same instant—I ask them to tell me,” said he, “how and by what plan they are able to overtake the course of that fleeting moment, which can scarcely be grasped by one's thoughts, or to detain and examine it, when in the swift revolution of days and nights even the briefest moments, as they say, cause great changes?”

> Latin: “Atque id velim etiam,” inquit, “ut respondeant: si tam parvum atque rapidum est momentum temporis, in quo homo nascens fatum accipit, ut in eodem illo puncto sub eodem circulo caeli plures simul ad eandem competentiam nasci non queant, et si idcircoideirco gemini quoque non eadem vitae sorte sunt, quoniam non eodem temporis puncto editi sunt peto,” inquit, “respondeant, cursum illum temporis transvolantis, qui vix cogitatione animi conprehendi potest, quonam pacto aut consulto adsequi queant aut ipsi perspicere et reprehendere, cum in tam praecipiti dierum noctiumque vertigine minima momenta ingentes facere dicant mutationes?”

[¶24] Then, finally, he asked what answer could be made to this argument, that human beings of both sexes, of all ages, born into the world under different positions of the stars and in regions widely separated, nevertheless sometimes all perished together by the same kind of death and at the same moment, either from an earthquake, or a falling building, or the sack of a town, or the wreck of the same ship.

> Latin: Ad postremum autem et quid esset quod adversum hoc dici posset requirebat, quod homines utriusque sexus, omnium aetatum, diversis stellarum motibus in vitam editi, regionibus sub quibus geniti sunt longe distantibus, omnes tamen isti, aut hiantibus terris aut labentibus tectis aut oppidorum expugnationibus aut eadem in navi fluctu obruti, eodem genere mortis eodemque ictu temporis universi simul interirent.

[¶25] “This,” said he, “of course would never happen, if the natal influence assigned to the birth of each of them had its own peculiar conditions.

> Latin: “Quod scilicet,” inquit, “numquam eveniret, si momenta nascendi singulis adtributa suas unumquidque leges haberent.”

[¶26] But if,” he said, “they answer that even in the life and death of men who are born at different times certain events may happen which are alike and similar, through some similar conjunction of the stars at a later time, why may not sometimes everything become equal, so that through such agreement and similarity of the stars many a Socrates and Antisthenes and Plato may appear, equal in birth, in person, in talent, in character, in their whole life and in their death? But this,” said he, “can by no means whatever happen.

> Latin: “Quod si quaedam,” inquit, “in hominum morte atque vita etiam diversis temporibus editorum per stellarum pares quosdam postea conventus paria nonnulla et consimilia posse dicunt optingere, cur non aliquando possint omnia quoque paria usu venire, ut existant per huiuscemodi stellarum concursiones et similitudines Socratae simul et Antisthenae et Platones multi genere, forma, ingenio, moribus, vita omni et morte pari? Quod nequaquam,” inquit, “prorsus fieri potest.”

[¶27] Therefore they cannot properly use this argument against the inequality of men's births and the similarity of their death.”

> Latin: “Non igitur hac causa probe uti queunt adversum hominum impares ortus, interitus pares.”

[¶28] He added that he excused them from this further inquiry: namely, if the time, the manner and the cause of men's life and death, and of all human affairs, were in heaven and with the stars, what would they say of flies, worms, sea urchins, and many other minute animals of land and sea? Were they too born and destroyed under the same laws as men? so that to frogs also and gnats either the same fates are assigned at birth by the movements of the constellations, or, if they do not believe that, there seemed to be no reason why that power of the stars should be effective with men and ineffectual with the other animals. These remarks I have touched upon in a dry, unadorned, and almost jejune style.

> Latin: Illud autem condonare se his dicebat quod non id quoque requireret: si vitae mortisque hominum rerumque humanarum omnium tempus et ratio et causa in caelo et apud stellas foret, quid de muscis aut vermiculis aut echinis, multis aliis minutissimis terra marique animantibus dicerent? An istaec quoque isdem, quibus homines, legibus nascerentur isdemque itidem extinguerentur? ut aut ranunculis quoque et culicibus nascendi fata sint de caelestium siderum motibus adtributa aut, si id non putarent, nulla ratio videretur cur ea siderum vis in hominibus valeret, deficeret in ceteris.

[¶29] But Favorinus, such was the man's talent, and such is at once the copiousness and the charm of Greek eloquence, delivered them at greater length and with more charm, brilliance and readiness, and from time to time he warned us to take care lest in any way those sycophants should worm their way into our confidence by sometimes seeming to stumble upon, and give utterance to, something true.

> Latin: Haec nos sicca et incondita et propemodum ieiuna oratione adtingimusadtigimus. Set Favorinus, ut hominis ingenium fuit utque est Graecae facundiae copia simul et venustas, latius ea et amoenius et splendidius et profluentius exequebatur, atque identidem commonebat ut caveremus ne qua nobis isti sycophantae ad faciendam fidem inreperent, quod viderentur quaedam interdum vera effutire aut spargere.

[¶30] “For they do not,” said he, “say anything that is tangible, definite or comprehensible, but depending upon slippery and roundabout conjecture, groping with cautious steps between truth and falsehood, as if walking in the dark, they go their way. And after making many attempts they either happen suddenly on the truth without knowing it, or led by the great credulity of those who consult them, they get hold by cunning of something true, and therefore obviously find it easier to come somewhere near the truth in past events than in those to come. Yet all the true things which they say through accident or cunning,” said he, “are not a thousandth part of the falsehoods which they utter.”

> Latin: “Non enim comprehensa,” inquit, “neque definita neque percepta dicunt, sed lubrica atque ambagiosa coniectatione nitentes, inter falsa atque vera pedetemptim quasi per tenebras ingredientes, eunt et aut multa temptando incidunt repente inprudentes in veritatem aut ipsorum, qui eos consulunt, multa credulitate ducente perveniunt callide ad ea quae vera sunt, et idcirco videntur in praeteritis rebus quan in futuris veritatem facilius imitari. Ista tamen omnia quae aut tenere aut astute vera dicunt, prae ceteris,” inquit, “quae mentiuntur, pars ea non sit millesima.”

[¶31] But besides these remarks which I heard Favorinus make, I recall many testimonies of the ancient poets, by which delusive fallacies of this kind are refuted. Among these is the following saying of Pacuvius:
Could men divine the future, they'd match Jove.
Also this from Accius, who writes:
I trust the augurs not, who with mere words
Enrich men's ears, to load themselves with gold.

> Latin: Praeter haec autem quae dicentem Favorinum audivimus, multa etiam memini poetarum veterum testimonia, quibus huiuscemodihuiuscenodi ambages fallaciosae confutantur. Ex quibus est Pacuvianum illud:
Nám si quae eventúra sunt provideant, aequiperént Iouilovi,
item Accianum illud:
Nihil (inquit) crédo auguribus, qui aúres verbis dívitant
Aliénas, suas ut aúro locupletént domus.

[¶32] Favorinus too, wishing to deter and turn away young men from such calculators of nativities and from certain others of that kind, who profess to reveal all the future by means of magic arts, concluded with arguments of this sort, to show that they ought by no means to be resorted to and consulted. “They predict,” said he, “either adverse or prosperous events.

> Latin: Idem Favorinus, deterrere volens ac depellere adulescentes a genethliacisgenethiacis istis et quibusdam aliis id genus, qui prodigiosis artibus futura omnia dicturos pollicentur, nullo pacto adeundos eos esse consulendosque huiuscemodi argumentisargdnmentis concludebat:

[¶33] If they foretell prosperity and deceive you, you will be made wretched by vain expectations; if they foretell adversity and lie, you will be made wretched by useless fears. But if they predict truly and the events are unhappy, you will thereby be made wretched by anticipation, before you are fated to be so; if on the contrary they promise prosperity and it conies to pass, then there will clearly be two disadvantages: the anticipation of your hopes will wear you out with suspense, and hope will in advance have reaped the fruit of your approaching happiness. Therefore there is every reason why you should not resort to men of that kind, who profess knowledge of the future.”

> Latin: “Aut adversa,” inquit, “eventura dicunt, aut prospera. Si dicunt prospera et fallunt, miser fies frustra expectando; si adversa dicunt et mentiuntur, miser fiesties frustra timendotirnendo; sin vera respondent eaque sunt non prospera, iam inde ex animo miser fies, antequam e fato fias; si felicia promittunt eaque eventura sunt, tum plane duo erunt incommoda: et expectatio te spei suspensum fatigabit et futurum gaudii fructum spes tibi iam praefloraverit. Nullo igitur pacto utendum est istiusmodi hominibus res futuras praesagientibus.”

[¶34] 2. How Favorinus discoursed when I consulted hint about the duty of a judge.

> Latin: 2. Quem in modum disseruerit Favorinus consultus a me super officio iudicis.

[¶35] AT the time when I was first chosen by the praetors to be one of the judges in charge of the suits which are called “private,” I hunted up books written in both languages on the duty of a judge, in order that, being a young man, called from poets' tales and orators' perorations to preside in court, I might from lack of the “living voice,” as they say, gain legal lore from so-called “mute counsellors.” And with regard to postponements and delays and some other legal principles I was advised and helped by the Julian Law itself and by the commentaries of Masurius Sabinus and some other jurists. But in those complicated cases which often come up, and in the perplexity arising from conflicting opinions, such books gave me no aid at all.

> Latin: Quo primum tempore a praetoribusraetoribus lectus in iudices sum, ut iudicia quae appellantur “privata” susciperem, libros utriusque linguae de officio iudicis scriptos conquisivi, ut homo adulescens, a poetarum fabulis et a rhetorum epilogis ad iudicandas lites vocatus, rem iudiciariam, quoniam “vocis,” ut dicitur, “vivae” penuria erat, ex “mutis,” quod aiunt, “magistris” cognoscerem. Atque in dierum quidem diffissionibus conperendinationibusque et aliis quibusdam legitimis ritibus ex ipsa lege Iulia et ex Sabini Masurii et quorundam aliorum iurisperitorum commentariis commoniti et adminiculati sumus.

[¶36] For although the opinions of judges ought to be formed from the conditions of the cases before them, yet there are certain general principles and precepts by which, before hearing a case, the judge ought to guard and prepare himself against the uncertain event of future difficulties;

> Latin: In his autem, quae existere solent, negotiorum ambagibus et in ancipiti rationum diversarum circumstantia nihil quicquam nos huiuscemodi libri iuverunt. Nam.

[¶37] as, for example, an inexplicable perplexity in coming to an opinion once befell me. A sum of money was claimed before me, which was said to have been paid and counted out; but the claimant did not show this by documents or witnesses, but relied upon very slender arguments.

> Latin: etsi consilia iudicibus ex praesentium causarum statu capienda sunt, generalia tamen quaedam praemonita et praecepta sunt, quibus ante causam praemuniri iudex praepararique ad incertos casus futurarum difficultatum debeat, sicut illa mihi tunc accidit inexplicabilis reperiendae sententiae ambiguitas.

[¶38] It was clear, however, that he was a thoroughly good man, of well-known and tested integrity and of blameless life, and many striking instances of his probity and honesty were presented.

> Latin: Petebatur apud me pecunia, quae dicebatur data numerataque, sed qui petebat neque tabulis neque testibus id factum docebat et argumentisarguments admodum exilibus nitebatur.

[¶39] On the other hand, the man upon whom the claim was made was shown to be of no substance, of base and evil life, often convicted of lying, and full of treachery and fraud.

> Latin: Sed eum constabat virum esse firme bonum notaeque et expertae fidei et vitae inculpatissimae, multaque et inlustria exempla probitatis sinceritatisque eius expromebantur;

[¶40] Yet lie, along with his numerous advocates, noisily protested that the payment of the money ought to be shown in the usual way, by a “receipt for payment,” by a “book of accounts,” by “producing a signature,” by “a sealed deed,” or by the “testimony of witnesses”;

> Latin: ilium autem unde petebatur hominem esse non bonae rei vitaque turpi et sordida convictumque volgo in mendaciis plenumque esse perfidiarum et fraudum ostendebatur.

[¶41] and if it could be shown in none of these ways, that he ought surely to be dismissed at once and his accuser found guilty of blackmail. He maintained that the testimony relating to the life and conduct of the two parties was irrelevant;

> Latin: Is tamen cum suis multis patronis clamitabat probari apud me debere pecuniam datam consuetis modis, “expensi latione,” “mensae rationibus,” “chirographi exhibitione” “tabularum obsignatione,” “testium intercessione,”

[¶42] for this was a case of claiming money before a private judge, not a question of morals inquired into by the censors. Thereupon some friends of mine, whom I had asked to aid me with their advice, experienced men with a reputation gained in acting as advocates and in the business of the forum, who were always inclined to act in haste because of the suits everywhere demanding attention, declared there was no need of sitting longer and that there was no doubt that the defendant ought to be acquitted, since it could not be shown in any of the usual ways that he had received the money.

> Latin: ex quibus omnibus si nulla re probaretur, dimitti iam se sane oportere et adversarium de calumnia damnari, quod de utriusque autem vita atque factis diceretur, frustra id fieri atque dici; rem enim de petenda pecunia apud iudicem privatum agi, non apud censores de moribus.

[¶43] But when I contemplated the men, one abounding in honesty, the other in baseness and of a most shameful and degraded life, I could not by any means be argued into an acquittal.

> Latin: Tunc ibi amici mei, quos rogaveram in consilium, viri exercitati atque in patrociniis et in operis fori celebres semperque se circumundique distrahentibus causis festinantes, non sedendum diutius ac nihil esse dubium dicebant quin absolvendus foret, quem accepisse pecuniam nulla probatione sollemni docebatur.

[¶44] I therefore ordered a postponement and from the bench I proceeded to go to the philosopher Favorinus, with whom I associated a great deal at Rome at that time.

> Latin: Sed enim ego homines cum considerabam, alterum fidei, alterum probri plenum spurcissimaeque vitae ac defamatissimae, nequaquam adduci potui ad absolvendum.

[¶45] I told him the whole story of the suit and of the men, as it had been related to me, begging that with regard both to the matter about which I was then in doubt, as well as to others which I should have to consider in my position as judge, he should make me a man of greater wisdom in such affairs. Then Favorinus, after commending my scrupulous hesitation and my conscientiousness said: “The question which you are now considering may seem to be of a trifling and insignificant character.

> Latin: Iussi igitur diem diffindi atque inde a subselliis pergo ire ad Favorinum philosophum, quem in eo tempore Romae plurimum sectabar, atque ei de causa ac de hominibus quae apud me dicta fuerant, uti res erat, narro omnia ac peto ut et ipsum illud in quo haerebam, et cetera etiam quae observanda mihi forent in officio iudicis, faceret me ut earum rerum essem prudentior.

[¶46] But if you wish me to instruct you as to the full duties of a judge, this is by no means a fit place or time; for such a discussion involves many intricate questions and requires long and anxious attention and consideration. For-to touch at once upon a few leading questions for your benefit-the first query relating to the duty of a judge is this.

> Latin: Tum Favorinus, religione illa cunctationis et sollicitudinis nostrae conprobata: “Id quidem,” inquit, “super quo nunc deliberas, videri potest specie tenui parvaque esse. Sed si de omni quoque officio iudicis praeire tibi me vis, nequaquam est vel loci huius vel temporis;”
“est enim disceptatio ista multiiugae et sinuosae quaestionis multaque et anxia cura et circumspicientia indigens.”

[¶47] If a judge chance to have knowledge of a matter which is brought to trial before him, and the matter is clearly known and demonstrated to him alone from some external circumstance or event, before it has begun to be argued or brought into court, but nevertheless the same thing is not proved in the course of the trial, ought he to decide in accordance with what he knew beforehand, or according to the evidence in the case? This question also,” said he, "is often raised, whether it is fitting and proper for a judge, after a case has been heard, if there seems to be an opportunity for compromising the dispute, to postpone the duty of a judge for a time and take the part of a common friend and peace-maker, as it were.

> Latin: “Namque, ut pauca tibi nunc quaestionum capita adtingam, iam omnium primum hoc de iudicis officio quaeritur: si iudex forte id sciat, super qua re apud eum litigatur, eaque res uni ei, priusquam agi coepta aut in iudicium deducta sit, ex alio quodam negotio casuve aliquo cognita liquido et comperta sit, neque id tamen in agenda causa probetur, oporteatne eum secundum ea quae sciens venit iudicare, an secundum ea quae aguntur?”

[¶48] And I know that this further is a matter of doubt and inquiry, whether a judge, when hearing a suit, ought to mention and ask about the things which it is for the interest of one of the parties to the suit to mention and inquire, even if the party in question neither mentions nor calls for them.

> Latin: “Id etiam,” inquit, “quaeri solet, an deceat atque conveniat iudici causa iam cognita, si facultas esse videatur conponendi negotii, officio paulisper iudicis dilato communis amicitiae et quasi pacificatoris partes recipere?”

[¶49] For they say that this is in fact to play the part of an advocate, not of a judge.

> Latin: “Atque illud amplius ambigi ac dubitari scio, debeatne iudex inter cognoscendum ea quae dicto quaesitoque opus est dicere et quaerere, etiamsi cuius ea dici quaerique interest neque dicat neque postulet? Patrocinari enim prorsus hoc esse aiunt, non iudicare.”

## 33. Book XIV · chapters 2–8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/33/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/33/#p-N

[¶0] "Besides these questions, there is disagreement also on this point, whether it is consistent with the Practice and office of a judge by his occasional remarks so to explain and set forth the matter and he case which is being tried, that before the time of his decision, as the result of statements which at he time are made before him in a confused and doubtful form, he gives signs and indications of the motions and feelings by which he is affected on each occasion and at every time.

> Latin: “Praeter haec super ea quoque re dissentitur, an ex usu exque officio sit iudicis, rem causamque de qua cognoscit interlocutionibus suis ita exprimere consignareque, ut ante sententiae tempus, ex iis quae apud eum in praesens confuse varieque dicuntur, proinde ut quoquo in loco ac tempore movetur, signa et indicia faciat motus atque sensus sui.”

[¶1] For those judges who give the impression of being keen and quick hink that the matter in dispute cannot be examined and understood, unless the judge by frequent questions and necessary interruptions makes his own opinion clear and grasps that of the litigants. But, on the other hand, those who have a reputation for calmness and dignity maintain that the judge ought not, before giving his decision and while the case is being pleaded by both parties, to indicate his opinion whenever he is influenced by some argument that is brought forward.

> Latin: “Nam qui iudices,” inquit, “acres atque celeres videntur, non aliter existimant rem qua de agitur indagari conprehendique posse, nisi is qui iudicat crebris interrogationibus necessariisque interlocutionibus et suos sensus aperiat et litigantium deprehendat.”

[¶2] For they say that the result will be, since one emotion of the mind after another must be excited by the variety of points and arguments, that such judges will seem to feel and speak differently about the same case and almost at the same time.

> Latin: “Contra autem qui sedatiores et graviores putantur negant iudicem debere ante sententiam, dum causa utrumque agitatur, quotiens aliqua re proposita motus est, totiens significare quid sentiat. Eventurum enim aiunt, ut, quia pro varietate propositionum argumentorumque alius atque alius motus animi patiendus est, aliter atque aliter eadem in causa eodemque in tempore sentire et interloqui videantur.”

[¶3] “But,” said he, "about these and other similar discussions as to the duty of a judge I shall attempt to give you my views later, when we have leisure, and I will repeat the precepts of Aelius Tubero on the subject, which I have read very recently. But so far as concerns the money which you said was claimed before your tribunal, I advise you, by Heaven! to follow the counsel of that shrewdest of men, Marcus Cato;

> Latin: “Sed de his,” inquit, “et ceteris huiuscemodi iudicialis officii tractatibus et nos posthac, cum erit otium, dicere quid sentiamus conabimur et praecepta Aelii Tuberonis super officio iudicis, quae nuperrime legi, recensebimus.”

[¶4] for he, in the speech which he delivered For Lucius Turius against Gnaeus Gellius, said that this custom had been handed down and observed by our forefathers, that if a question at issue between two men could not be proved either by documents or witnesses, then the question should be raised before the judge who was trying the case which of the two was the better man, and if they were either equally good or equally bad, that then the one upon whom the claim was made should be believed and the verdict should be given in his favour.

> Latin: “Quod autem ad pecuniam pertinet quam apud iudicem peti dixisti, suadeo hercle tibi, utare M. Catonis, prudentissimi viri, consilio, qui, in oratione quam Pro L. Turio contra Cn. Gellium dixit, ita esse a maioribus traditum observatumque ait, ut si quod inter duos actum est neque tabulis neque testibus planum fieri possitposit, tum apud iudicem qui de ea re cognosceret, uter ex his vir melior esset quaereretur et, si pares essent seu boni pariter seu mali, tum illi unde petitur crederetur ac secundum eum iudicaretur.”

[¶5] But in this case about which you are in doubt the claimant is a person of the highest character and the one on whom the claim is made is the worst of men, and there are no witnesses to the transaction between the two.

> Latin: “In hac autem causa de qua tu ambigis, optimus est qui petit, unde petitur deterrimus, et res est inter duos acta sine testibus.”

[¶6] So then go and give credit to the claimant and condemn the one on whom the claim is made, since, as you say, the two are not equal and the claimant is the better man."

> Latin: “Eas igitur et credas ei qui petit, condemnesque eum de quo petitur, quoniam, sicuti dicis, duo pares non sunt et qui petit melior est.”

[¶7] This was the advice which Favorinus gave me at that time, as became a philosopher.

> Latin: Hoc quidem mihi tum Favorinus, ut virum philosophum decuit, suasit.

[¶8] But I thought that I should show more importance and presumption than became my youth and humble merit, if I appeared to sit in judgment on and condemn a man from the characters of the disputants rather than from the evidence in the case; yet I could not make up my mind to acquit the defendant, and accordingly I took oath that the matter was not clear to me and in that way I was relieved from rendering a decision.

> Latin: Sed maius ego altiusque id esse existimavi quam quod meae aetati et mediocritati conveniret, ut cognovisse et condemnasse de moribus, non de probationibus rei gestae viderer; ut absolverem tamen inducere in animum non quivi et propterea iuravi, mihi non liquere, atque ita iudicatu illo solutus sum.

[¶9] The words of the speech of Marcus Cato which Favorinus mentioned are these: “And I have learnt this from the tradition of our ancestors: if anyone claim anything from another, and both are equally either good or bad, provided there are no witnesses to the transaction between the two, the one from whom the claim is made ought rather to be credited. Now, if Gellius had made a wager with Turio on the issue, ' Provided Gellius were not a better man than Turio,' no one, I think, would be so mad as to decide that Gellius is better than Turio; if Gellius is not better than Turio, the one from whom the claim is made ought preferably to be credited.”

> Latin: Verba ex oratione M. Catonis cuius commeminit Favorinus, haec sunt: “Atque ego a maioribus memoria sic accepiaccept: si quis quid alter ab altero peterent, si ambo pares essent, sive boni sive mali essent, quod duo res gessissent uti testes non interessent, illi unde petitur, ei potius credendum esse. Nunc si sponsionem fecissent Gellius cum Turio: ‘Ni vir melior esset Gellius quam Turius,’ nemo, opinor, tam insanus esset qui iudicaret meliorem esse Gellium quam Turium; si non melior Gellius est Turio, potius oportet credi unde petitur.”

[¶10] 3. Whether Plato and Xenophon were rivals and not on good terms with each other. THOSE who have written most carefully and thoroughly about the life and character of Xenophon and Plato have expressed the belief that they were not free from certain secret and concealed feelings of enmity and rivalry of each other, and they have set forth some conjectural evidence of this, drawn from their writings. These are in fact of this sort: that Plato in his great number of works nowhere makes mention of Xenophon, nor, on the other hand, does Xenophon mention Plato in his writings, although both men, and in particular Plato in the dialogues which he wrote, mention many followers of Socrates. This too they thought was an indication of no sincerely friendly feeling: that Xenophon in opposition to that celebrated work of Plato, which he wrote on the best form of constitution and of governing a city-state, having barely read the two books of Plato's work which were first made public, proposed a different mode of government (to wit, a monarchy) in the work entitled Paidei/as Ku/rou, or The Education of Cyrus. They say that Plato was so disturbed by that conduct and book of his, that having made mention of king Cyrus in one of his own books, in order to criticize and belittle Xenophon's work he said that Cyrus was indeed a strong and active man, but “had by no means had a fitting education”; for these are Plato's words about Cyrus. Moreover, they think that this also is added to what I have already said: that Xenophon, in the book which he wrote as records of the sayings and doings of Socrates, asserts that Socrates never discussed the causes and laws of the heavens and of nature, and that he never touched upon or approved the other sciences, called by the Greeks maqh/mata which did not contribute to a good and happy life; accordingly, he says that those who have attributed discourses of that kind to Socrates are guilty of a base falsehood. “But when Xenophon wrote this,” they say, “The of course refers to Plato, in whose works Socrates discourses on physics, music and geometry.” But if anything of this kind was to be believed, or even suspected, in noble and dignified men, I do not believe that the motive was hostility or envy, or a contest for gaining greater glory; for such considerations are wholly alien to the character of philosophers, among whom those two were in all men's judgment pre-eminent. What then is the reason for that opinion? Undoubtedly this: the mere equality and likeness of kindred talents, even though the desire and inclination of contention be absent, nevertheless create an appearance of rivalry. For when two or more men of great intellectual gifts, who have gained distinction in the same pursuit, are of equal or nearly equal fame, then there arises among their various partisans emulation in expressing an estimate of their efforts and merit. Then later, from the contention of others, the contagion of rivalry spreads to the men themselves, and while they are pressing on to the same goal of honour, the race is so even, or almost even, that it comes imperceptibly under a suspicion of rivalry, not from any purpose of their own, but from the zeal of their partisans. So then Xenophon and Plato, two stars of Socrates' charming philosophy, were believed to contend with and rival each other, because others strove to show that one or the other was the superior, and because two eminent characters, when they are labouring side by side for a lofty aim, beget a kind of appearance of rivalry and competition.

> Latin: 3. An aemuli offensique inter sese fuerint Xenophon et Plato. Qui de Xenophontis Platonisque vita et moribus pleraque omnia exquisitissime scripsere, non afuisse ab eis motus quosdam tacitos et occultos simultatis aemulationisque mutuae putaverunt et eius rei argumenta quaedam coniectaria ex eorum scriptis protulerunt. Ea sunt profecto huiuscemodi: quod neque a Platone in tot numero libris mentio usquam facta sit Xenophontis neque item contra ab eo in suis libris Platonis, quamquam uterque ac maxime Plato complurium Socratis sectatorum in sermonibus quos scripsit commermerit. Id etiam esse non sincerae neque amicae voluntatis indicium crediderunt, quod Xenophon inclito illi operi Platonis, quod de optimo statu reipublicae civitatisque administrandae scriptum est, lectis ex eo duobus fere libris qui primi in volgus exierant, opposuit contra conscripsitque diversum regiae administrationis genus, quod Παιδείας Κύρου inscriptum est. Eo facto scriptoque eius usque adeo permotum esse Platonem ferunt, ut quodam in libro, mentione Cyri regis habita, retractandi levandique eius operis gratia, virum quidem Cyrum navum et strenuum fuisse dixerit, παιδείας δὲ οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἧφθαι τὸ παράπαν; haec enim verba sunt de Cyro Platonis. Praeterea putant id quoque ad ista, quae dixi, accedere: quod Xenophon, in libris quos dictorum atque factorum Socratis commentarios composuit, negat Socraten de caeli atque naturae causis rationibusque umquam disputavisse, ac ne disciplinas quidem ceteras, quae μαθήματα Graeci appellant, quae ad bene beateque vivendum non pergerent, aut attigisse aut comprobasse, idcircoque turpiter eos mentiri dicit, qui dissertationes istiusmodi Socrati adtribuerent. “Hoc autem,” inquiunt, “Xenophon cum scripsit, Platonem videlicet notat, in cuius libris Socrates physicapbysica et musica et geometrica disserit.” Sed enim de viris optimis et gravissimis si credendum hoc aut suspicandum fuit, causam equidem esse arbitror non obtrectationis nec invidiae neque de gloria maiore parienda certationis; haec enim procul a moribus philosophiae absunt, in quibus illi duo omnium iudicio excelluerunt. Quae igitur est opinionis istius ratio? Haec profecto est: aequiperatio ipsa plerumque et parilitas virtutum inter sese consimilium, etiamsi contentionis studium et voluntas abest, speciem tamen aemulationis creat. Nam cum ingenia quaedam magna duorum pluriumve in eiusdem rei studio inlustrium aut pari sunt fama aut proxima, oritur apud diversos favisores eorum industriae laudisque aestumandae contentio. Tum postea ex alieno certamine ad eos quoque ipsos contagium certationis adspirat cursusque eorum ad eandem virtutis calcem pergentium, quando est compar vel ambiguusarmbiguus, in aemulandi suspiciones non suo, sed faventium studio delabitur. Proinde igitur et Xenophon et Plato, Socraticae amoenitatis duo lumina, certare aemularique inter sese existimati sunt, quia de his apud alios uter esset exsuperantiorexuperantior certabatur et quia duae eminentiae, cum simul iunctae in arduum nituntur, simulacrum quoddam contentionis aemulae pariunt.

[¶11] 4. That Chrysippus skilfully and vividly represented the likeness of Justice in melodious and picturesque language. MOST worthily, by Heaven! and most elegantly did Chrysippus, in the first book of his work entitled On Beauty and Pleasure, depict the face and eyes of Justice, and her aspect, with austere and noble word-painting. For he represents the figure of Justice, and says that it was usually represented by the painters and orators of old in about the following manner: “Of maidenly form and bearing, with a stern and fearsome countenance, a keen glance of the eye, and a dignity and solemnity which was neither mean nor cruel, but awe-inspiring.” From the spirit of this representation he wished it to be understood that the judge, who is the priest of Justice, ought to be dignified, holy, austere, incorruptible, not susceptible to flattery, pitiless and inexorable towards the wicked and guilty, vigorous, lofty, and powerful, terrible by reason of the force and majesty of equity and truth. Chrysippus' own words about Justice are as follows: “She has the title of virgin as a symbol of her purity and an indication that she has never given way to evil-doers, that she has never yielded to soothing words, to prayers and entreaties, to flattery, nor to anything of that kind. Therefore she is properly represented too as stern and dignified, with a serious expression and a keen, steadfast glance, in order that she may inspire fear in the wicked and courage in the good; to the latter, as her friends, she presents a friendly aspect, to the former a stern face.” I thought it the more necessary to quote these words of Chrysippus, in order that they might be before us for consideration and judgment, since, on hearing me read them, some philosophers who are more sentimental in their views called that a representation of Cruelty rather than of Justice.

> Latin: 4. Quod apte Chrysippus et graphice imaginem Iustitiae modulis coloribusque verborum depinxit. CONDIGNE mehercule et condecore Chrysippus, in librorum qui inscribuntur Περὶ Καλοῦ καὶ Ἡδονῆς primo, os et oculos Iustitiae vultumque eius severis atque venerandis verborum coloribus depinxit. Facit quippe imaginem Iustitiae fierique solitam esse dicit a pictoribus rhetoribusque antiquioribus ad hunc ferme modum: “Forma atque filo virginali, aspectu vehementi et formidabili, luminibus oculorum acribus, neque humilis neque atrocis, sed reverendae cuiusdam tristitiae dignitate.” Ex imaginis autem istius significatione intellegi voluit, iudicem, qui Iustitiae antistes est, oportere esse grave, sanctum, severum, incorruptum, inadulabilem contraque improbos nocentesque inmisericordem atque inexorabilem erectumque et arduum ac potentem, vi et maiestate aequitatis veritatisque terrificum. Verba ipsa Chrysippi de Iustitia scripta haec sunt: Παρθένος δὲ εἶναι λέγεται κατὰ σύμβολον τοῦ ἀδιάφθορος εἶναι καὶ μηδαμῶς ἐνδιδόναι τοῖς κακούργοις, μηδὲ προσίεσθαι μήτε τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς λόγους μήτε παραίτησιν καὶ δέησιν μήτε κολακείαν μήτε ἄλλο μηδὲν τῶν τοιούτων· οἷς ἀκολούθως καὶ σκυθρωπὴ γράφεται καὶ συνεστηκὸς ἔχουσα τὸ πρόσωπον καὶ ἔντονον καὶ δεδορκὸς βλέπουσα, ὥστε τοῖς μὲν ἀδίκοις φόβον ἐμποεῖν, τοῖς δὲ δικαίοις θάρσος· τοῖς μὲν προσφιλοῦς ὄντος τοῦ τοιούτου προσώπου, τοῖς δὲ ἑτέροις προσάντους. Haec verba Chrysippi eo etiam magis ponenda existimavi, ut prompta ad considerandum iudicandumque sint, quoniam legentibus ea nobis delicatiorum quidam disciplinarum philosophi, Saevitiae imaginem istam esse, non Iustitiae, dixerunt.

[¶12] 5. The strife and contention of two eminent grammarians at Rome as to the vocative case of egregius. ONCE upon a time, wearied with constant writing, I was walking in the park of Agrippa for the purpose of relieving and resting my mind. And there, as it chanced, I saw two grammarians of no small repute in the city of Rome, and was a witness of a violent dispute between them, one maintaining that vir egregi was the proper form of the vocative case, the other vir egregie. The argument of the one who thought that we should say egregi was of this sort: “Whatever nouns or words,” said he, “end in the nominative singular in the syllable us preceded by i, in the vocative case terminate in the letter i, as Caelius Caeli, modius modi, tertius terti, Accius Acci, Titius Titi, and the like; so then egregious, since it ends in the syllable us in the nominative and the letter i precedes that syllable, must in the vocative singular have i for the final letter, and therefore it is correct to say egregi, not egregie. For divus and rivus and clivus do not end in the syllable us, but in that which ought to be written with two us, and in order to indicate that sound a new letter was devised, which was called the digamma.” When the other heard this, he said: "O egreie grammatice, or if you prefer, egregissime, tell me, I pray you, what is the vocative case of, inscius, impius, sobrius, ebrius, proprius, propitious, anxius, and contrarius, which end in the syllable us and have the letter i before the final syllable? For shame and modesty prevent me from pronouncing them according to your rule." Now the other, overcome by the accumulation of so many words against him, remained silent for a time; but then he nevertheless rallied, and upheld and defended that same rule which he had laid down, maintaining that proprius, propitius, anxius and contrarius ought to have the same form in the vocative case as adversarius and extrarius; that inscius also and impius and ebrius and sobrius were somewhat less commonly, nevertheless more correctly, made to end in that same case in the letter i rather than e. But as this contest of theirs was likely to be continued for some time, I did not think it worth while to listen to those same arguments any longer, and I left them shouting and wrangling.

> Latin: 5. Lis atque contentio grammaticorum Romae inlustrium enarrata, super casu vocativo vocabuli quod est “egregius.” DEFESSUS ego quondam diutina commentatione laxandi levandique animi gratia in Agrippae campo deambulabam. Atque ibi duos forte grammaticos conspicatus non parvi in urbe Roma nominisnorrinis, certationi eorum acerrimae adfui, cum alter in casu vocativo “vir egregi” dicendum contenderet, alter “vir egregie.” Ratio autem eius, qui “egregi” oportere dici censebat, huiuscemodi fuit: “Quaecumque,” inquit, “nomina seu vocabula recto casu numero singulari ‘us’ syllaba finiuntur, in quibus ante ultimam syllabam posita est i littera, ea omnia casu vocativo i littera terminantur, ut ‘Caelius Caeli,’ ‘modius modi,’ ‘tertius terti,’ ‘Accius Acci,’ ‘Titius Titi’ et similia omnia; sic igitur ‘egregius,’ quoniam ‘us’ syllaba in casu nominandi finitur eamque syllabam praecedit i littera, habere debebit in casu vocandi i litteram extremam et idcirco ‘egregi,’ non ‘egregie,’ rectius dicetur. Nam ‘divus’ et ‘rivus’ et ‘clivus’ non ‘us’ syllaba terminantur, sed ea quae per duo u scribenda est, propter cuius syllabae sonum declarandum reperta erat nova littera, quae ‘digammadigarma’ appellabatur.” Hoc ubi ille alter audivit, “O,” inquit, “egregie grammatice vel, si id mavis, egregissime, die, oro te, ‘inscius’ et ‘impius’ et ‘sobrius’ et ‘ebrius’ et ‘proprius’ et ‘propitius’ et ‘anxius’ et ‘contrarius,’ quae ‘us’ syllaba finiuntur, in quibus ante ultimam syllabam i littera est, quem casum vocandi habent? Me enim pudor et verecundia tenent, pronuntiare ea secundum tuam definitionem.” Sed cum ille paulisper oppositu horum vocabulorum commotus reticuisset et mox tamen se conlegisset eandemque illam quam definierat regulam retineret et propugnaret diceretque et “proprium” et “propitium” et “anxium” et “contrarium” itidem in casu vocativo dicendum, ut “adversarius” et “extrarius” diceretur; “inscium” quoque et “impium” et “ebrium” et “sobrium” insolentiusiiisolentius quidem paulo, sed rectius per i litteram, non per e, in eodem casu pronuntiandum, eaque inter eos contentio longius duceretur, non arbitratus ego operae pretium esse eadem istaec diutius audire, clamantes conpugnantesque illos reliqui.

[¶13] 6. Of what kind are the things which have the appearance of learning, but are neither entertaining nor useful; and also of changes in the names of several cities and regions. A FRIEND of mine, a man not without fame as a student of literature, who had passed a great part of his life among books, said to me: “I should like to aid and adorn your Nights,” at the same time presenting me with a book of great bulk, overflowing, as he himself put it, with learning of every kind. He said that he had compiled it as the result of wide, varied and abstruse reading, and he invited me to take from it as much as I liked and thought worthy of record. I took the book eagerly and gladly, as if I had got possession of the horn of plenty, and shut myself up in order to read it without interruption. But what was written there was, by Jove! merely a list of curiosities: the name of the man who was first called a “grammarian”; the number of famous men named Pythagoras and Hippocrates; Homer's description of the laurh/, or “narrow passage,” in the house of Ulysses; why Telemachus did not touch Pisistratus, who was lying beside him, with his hand, but awakened him by a kick; with what kind of bolt Euryclia shut in Telemachus; and why the same poet did not know the rose, but did know oil made from roses. It also contained the names of the companions of Ulysses who were seized and torn to pieces by Scylla; whether the wanderings of Ulysses were in the inner sea, as Aristarchus believed, or in the outer sea, according to Crates. There was also a list of the isopsephic verses in Homer; what names in the same writer are given in the form of an acrostic; what verse it is in which each word is a syllable longer than the preceding word; by what rule each head of cattle produces three offspring each year; of the five layers with which the shield of Achilles was strengthened, whether the one made of gold was on top or in the middle; and besides what regions and cities had had a change of name, as Boeotia was formerly called Aonia, Egypt Aeria, Crete by the same name Aeria, Attica Acte, Corinth Ephyre, Macedonia Emathia, Thessaly Haemonia, Tyre Sarra, Thrace Sithonia, Paestum Poseidonia. These things and many others of the same kind were included in that book. Hastening to return it to him at once, I said: “I congratulate you, most learned sir, on this display of encyclopaedic erudition; but take back this precious volume, which does not have the slightest connection with my humble writings. For my Nights, which you wish to assist and adorn, base their inquiries especially on that one verse of Homer which Socrates said was above all other things always dear to him Whate'er of good and ill has come to you at home.”

> Latin: 6. CuimodiCuinodi sint quae speciem doctrinarum habeant, sed neque delectent neque utilia sint; atque inibi de vocabulis singularum urbium regionumque inmutatis. HOMO nobis familiaris, in litterarum cultu non ignobilis magnamque aetatis partem in libris versatus “Adiutum,” inquit, “ornatumqueornatutmque volo ire Noctes tuas”; et simul dat mihi librum grandi volumine doctrinae omnigenus, ut ipse dicebat, praescatentem, quem sibi elaboratum esse ait ex multis et variis et remotis lectionibus, ut ex eo sumerem quantum liberet rerum memoria dignarum. Accipio cupidus et libens, tamquam si copiae cornum nactus essem, et recondo me penitus, ut sine arbitris legam. At quae ibi scripta erant, pro Iuppiter, mera miracula! quo nomine fuerit qui primus “grammaticus” appellatus est; et quot fuerint Pythagorae nobiles, quot Hippocratae; et cuiusmodi fuisse Homerus dicat in Ulixis domo λαύρην; et quam ob causam Telemachus cubans iunctim sibi cubantem Pisistratum non manu adtigerit, sed pedis ictu excitarit; et Euryclia Telemachum quo genere claustri incluserit; et quapropter idem poeta rosam non norit, oleum ex rosa norit. Atque illud etiam scriptum fuit, quae nomina fuerint sociorum Ulixis, qui a Scylla rapti laceratique sunt; utrum ἐν τῇ ἔσω θαλάσσῃ Ulixes erraverit κατʼ Ἀρίσταρχον an ἐν τῇ ἔξω κατὰ Κράτητα; item etiam istic scriptum fuit, qui sint apud Homerum versus isopsephi; et quorum ibi nominum παραστιχίς reperiatur; et quis adeo versus sit, qui per singula vocabula singulis syllabis increscat; ac deinde qua ratione dixerit singulas pecudes in singulos annos terna parere; et ex quinque operimentis quibus Achillis clipeus munitus est, quod factum ex auro est summum sit an medium, et praeterea quibus urbibus regionibusque vocabula iam mutata sint, quod Boeotia ante appellata fuerit “Aonia,” quod Aegyptus “Aeria,” quod Creta quoque eodem nomine “Aeria” dicta sit, quod Attice “Ἀκτή,” quod Corinthus “Ephyre,” quod Macedonia “Ἠμαθία,” quod Thessalia “Αἱμονία,” quod Tyros “Sarra,” quod Thracia ante “Sithonia” dicta sit, quod Paestum “Ποσειδώνιον.” Haec item atque alia multa istiusmodi scripta in eo libro fuerunt. Quem cum statim properans redderem: “Ὄναιό σου,” inquam, “doctissime virorum, ταύτης τῆς πολυμαθίας et librum hunc opulentissimum recipe, nil prosus ad nostras paupertinas litteras congruentem. Nam meae Noctes, quas instructum ornatumque isti, de uno maxime illo versu Homeri quaerunt, quem Socrates prae omnibus semper rebus sibi esse cordi dicebat:
Ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν τʼ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.”

[¶14] 7. That Marcus Varro presented Gnaeus Pompeius, when he was consul elect for the first time, with a commentary, which Varro himself called Ei)sagwgiko/s, on the method of conducting meetings of the senate. GNAEUS POMP/EIUS was elected consul for the first time with Marcus Crassus. When he was on the point of entering upon the office, because of his long military service he was unacquainted with the method of convening and consulting the senate, and of city affairs in general. He therefore asked his friend Marcus Varro to make him a book of instructions (Ei)sagwgiko/s, as Varro himself termed it), from which he might learn what he ought to say and do when he brought a measure before the House. Varro in letters which he wrote to Op pianus, contained in the fourth book of his Investigations in Epistolary Form, says that this notebook which he made for Pompey on that subject was lost; and since what he had previously written was no longer in existence, he repeats in those letters a good deal bearing upon the same subject. First of all, he tells us there by what magistrates the senate was commonly convened according to the usage of our forefathers, naming these: “the dictator, consuls, praetors, tribunes of the commons, interrex, and prefect of the city.” No other except these, he said, had the right to pass a decree of the senate, and whenever it happened that all those magistrates were in Rome at the same time, then he says that the first in the order of the list which I have just quoted had the prior right of bringing a matter before the senate; next, by an exceptional privilege, the military tribunes also who had acted as consuls, and likewise the decemvirs, who in their day had consular authority, and the triumvirs appointed to reorganize the State, had the privilege of bringing measures before the House. Afterwards he wrote about vetoes, and said that the right to veto a decree of the senate belonged only to those who had the same authority as those who wished to pass the decree, or greater power. He then added a list of the places in which a decree of the senate might lawfully be made, and he showed and maintained that this was regular only in a place which had been appointed by an augur, and called a “temple.” Therefore in the Hostilian Senate House and the Pompeian, and later in the Julian, since those were unconsecrated places, “temples” were established by the augurs, in order that in those places lawful decrees of the senate might be made according to the usage of our forefathers. In connection with which he also wrote this, that not all sacred edifices are temples, and that not even the shrine of Vesta was a temple. After this he goes on to say that a decree of the senate made before sunrise or after sunset was not valid, and that those through whom a decree of the senate was made at that time were thought to have committed an act deserving censure. Then he gives much instruction on the same lines: on what days it was not lawful to hold a meeting of the senate; that one who was about to hold a meeting of the senate should first offer up a victim and take the auspices; that questions relating to the gods ought to be presented to the senate before those affecting men; then further that resolutions should be presented indefinitely, as affecting the general welfare, or definitely on specific cases; that a decree of the senate was made in two ways: either by division if there was general agreement, or if the matter was disputed, by calling for the opinion of each senator; furthermore the senators ought to be asked their opinions in order, beginning with the grade of consul. And in that grade in former times the one to be called upon first was always the one who had first been enrolled in the senate; but at the time when he was writing he said that a new custom had become current, through partiality and a desire to curry favour, of asking first for the opinion of the one whom the presiding officer wished to call upon, provided however that he was of consular rank. Besides this he discoursed about seizure of goods and the imposing of a fine upon a senator who was not present when it was his duty to attend a meeting. These and certain other matters of that kind, first published in the book of which I spoke above, Marcus Varro treated in a letter written to Oppianus. But when he says that a decree of the senate is commonly made in two ways, either by calling for opinions or by division, that does not seem to agree with what Ateius Capito has written in his Miscellanies. For in Book VIIII Capito says that Tubero asserts that no decree of the senate could be made without a division, since in all decrees of the senate, even in those which are made by calling for opinions, a division was necessary, and Capito himself declares that this is true. But I recall writing on this whole matter more fully and exactly in another place.

> Latin: 7. Quod M. Varro Cn. Pompeio, consuli primum designato, commentarium dedit, quem appellavit ipse Εἰσαγωγικόν, de officio senatus habendi. GNAEO POMPEIO consulatus primus cum M. Crasso designatus est. Eum magistratum Pompeius cum initurus foret, quoniam per militiae tempora senatus habendi consulendique, rerum expers urbanarum fuit, M. Varronem, familiarem suum, rogavit uti commentarium faceret Εἰσαγωγικόν—sic enim Varro ipse appellat—, ex quo disceret quid facere dicereque deberet, cum senatum consuleret. Eum librum commentarium, quem super ea re Pompeio fecerat, perisse Varro ait in litteris quas ad Oppianum dedit, quae sunt in libro Epistolicarum Quaestionum quarto, in quibus litteris, quoniam quae ante scripserat non comparebant, docet rursum multa ad eamearn rem ducentia. Primum ibi ponit qui fuerint per quos more maiorum senatus haberi soleret eosque nominat: “dictatorem, consules, praetores, tribunos plebi, interregem, praefectum urbi,” neque alii praeter hos ius fuisse dixit facere senatusconsultum, quotiensque usus venisset ut omnes isti magistratus eodem tempore Romae essent, tum quo supra ordine scripti essent, qui eorum prior aliis esset, ei potissimum senatus consulendi ius fuisse ait, deinde extraordinario iure tribunos quoque militares, qui pro consulibus fuissent, item decemviros, quibus imperium consulare tum esset, item triumviros reipublicae constituendae causa creatos ius consulendi senatum habuisse. Postea scripsit de intercessionibus dixitque intercedendi ne senatusconsultum fieret ius fuisse iis solis qui eadem potestate qua ii qui senatusconsultum facere vellent maioreve essent. Tum adscripsit de locis in quibus senatusconsultum fieri iure posset, docuitque confirmavitque, nisi in loco per augurem constitute, quod “templum” appellaretur, senatusconsultum factum esset, iustum id non fuisse. Propterea et in curia Hostilia et in Pompeia et post in Iulia, cum profana ea loca fuissent, templa esse per augures constituta, ut in iis senatusconsulta more maiorum iusta fieri possent. Inter quae id quoque scriptum reliquit, non omnes aedes sacras templa esse ac ne aedem quidem Vestae templum esse. Post haec deinceps dicit senatusconsultum ante exortum aut post occasum solem factum ratum non fuisse, opus etiam censorium fecisse existimatos per quos eo tempore senatusconsultum factum esset. Docet deinde inibi multa: quibus diebus habere senatum ius non sit; immolareque hostiam prius auspicarique debere, qui senatum habiturus esset, de rebusque divinis prius quam humanis ad senatum referendum esse; tum porro referri oportere aut infinite de republica aut de singulis rebus finite; senatusque consultum fieri duobus modis: aut per discessionem, si consentiretur, aut, si res dubia esset, per singulorum sententias exquisitas; singulos autem debere consuli gradatim incipique a consulari gradu. Ex quo gradu semper quidem antea primum rogari solitum, qui princeps in senatum lectus esset; tum autem, cum haec scriberet, novum morem institutum refert per ambitionem gratiamque, ut is primus rogaretur quem rogare vellet qui haberet senatum, dum is tamen ex gradu consulari esset. Praeter haec de pignore quoque capiendo disserit deque multa dicenda senatori qui, cum in senatum venire deberet, non adesset. Haec et alia quaedam id genus in libro quo supra dixi M. Varro epistula ad Oppianum scripta executus est. Sed quod ait senatusconsultum duobus modis fieri solere, aut conquisitis sententiis aut per discessionem, parum convenire videtur cum eo quod Ateius Capito in Coniectaneis scriptum reliquit. Nam in libro VIIII. Tuberonem dicere ait nullum senatusconsultum fieri posse non discessione facta, quia in omnibus senatusconsultis, etiam in iis quae per relationem fierent, discessio esset necessaria, idque ipse Capito verum esse adfirmat. Sed de hac omni re alio in loco plenius accuratiusque nos memini scribere.

[¶15] 8. Inquiry and difference of opinion as to whether the praefect appointed for the Latin Festival has the right of convening and consulting the senate. JUNIUS declares that the praefect left in charge of the city because of the Latin Festival may not hold a meeting of the senate, since he is neither a senator nor has he the right of expressing his opinion, because he is made praefect at an age when he is not eligible to the senate. But Marcus Varro in the fourth book of his Investigations in Epistolary Form and Ateius Capito in the ninth of his Miscellanies assert that the praefect has the right to convene the senate, and Capito declares that Varro agrees on this point with Tubero, contrary to the view of Junius: “For the tribunes of the commons also,” says Capito, “had the right of convening the senate although before the bill of Atinius they were not senators.”

> Latin: 8. Quaesitumuaesitum esse dissensumque an praefectus Latinarum causa creatus insius senatus convocandi consulendique habeat. PRAEFECTUM urbi Latinarum causa relictum senatum habere posse Iunius negat, quoniam ne senator quidem sit neque ius habeat sententiae dicendae, cum ex ea aetate praefectus fiat quae non sit senatoria. M. autem Varro in quarto Epistolicarum Quaestionum et Ateius Capito in coniectaneorumConiectancorum VIII., ius esse praefecto senatus habendi dicunt; deque ea re adsensum esse Capito Varronem Tuberoni contra sententiam Iunii refert: “Nam et tribunis,” inquit, “plebis senatus habendi ius erat, quamquam senatores non essent ante Atinium plebiscitum.”

## 34. Book XV · chapters 1–13

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/34/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/34/#p-N

[¶0] 1. That it is written in the Annals of Quintus Claudius that wood smeared with alum does not burn. THE rhetorician Antonius Julianus, besides holding forth on many other occasions, had once declaimed with marvellous charm and felicity. For such scholastic declamations generally show the characteristics of the same man and the same eloquence, but nevertheless are not every day equally happy. We friends of his therefore thronged about him on all sides and were escorting him home, when, as we were on our way up the Cispian Hill, we saw that a block of houses, built high with many stories, had caught fire, and that now all the neighbouring buildings were burning in a mighty conflagration. Then some one of Julianus' companions said: “The income from city property is great, but the dangers are far greater. But if some remedy could be devised to prevent houses in Rome from so constantly catching fire, by Jove! I would sell my country property and buy in the city.” And Julianus replied to him in his usual happy and graceful style: “If you had read the nineteenth book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, that excellent and faithful writer, you would surely have learned from Archelaus, a praefect of king Mithridates, by what method and by what skill you might prevent fires, so that no wooden building of yours would burn, even though caught and penetrated by the flames.” I inquired what this marvel of Quadrigarius was. He rejoined: “In that book then I found it recorded, that when Lucius Sulla attacked the Piraeus in the land of Attica, and Archelaus, praefect of king Mithridates, was defending it against him, Sulla was unable to burn a wooden tower constructed for purposes of defence, although it had been surrounded with fire on every side, because Archelaus had smeared it with alum.” The words of Quadrigarius in that book are as follows: “When Sulla had exerted himself for a long time, he led out his troops in order to set fire to a single wooden tower which Archelaus had interposed. He came, he drew near, he put wood under it, he beat off the Greeks, he applied fire; though they tried for a considerable time, they were never able to set it on fire, so thoroughly had Archelaus covered all the wood with alum. Sulla and his soldiers were amazed at this, and failing in his attempt, the general led back his troops.”

> Latin: 1. Quod in Quinti Claudii Annalibus scriptum est lignum alumine oblitum non ardere. DECLAMAVERAT Antonius Iulianus rhetor, praeterquam semper alias, tum vero nimium quantum delectabiliter et feliciter. Sunt enim ferme scholasticae istae declamationes eiusdem hominis eiusdemque facundiae, non eiusdem tamen cotidie felicitatis. Nos ergo familiares eius circumfusi undique eum prosequebamur domum, cum inde subeuntes montem Cispium conspicimus insulam quandam occupatam igni multis arduisque tabulatis editam et propinqua iam omnia flagrare vasto incendio. Tum quispiam ibi ex comitibus Iuliani: “Magni,” inquit, “reditus urbanorum praediorum, sed pericula sunt longe maxima. Si quid autem posset remedii fore, ut ne tam adsidue domus Romae arderent, venum hercle dedissem res rusticas et urbicas emissem.” Atque illi Iulianuslulianus laeta, ut mos eius fuit, inter fabulandum venustate: “Si Annalem,” inquit, “undevicensimum Q. Claudi legisses, optumi et sincerissimi scriptoris, docuisset te profecto Archelaus, regis Mitridati praefectus, qua medella quaque sollertia ignem defenderes, ut ne ulla tua aedificatio e ligno correpta atque insinuata flammis arderet.” Percontatus ego sum quid esset illud mirum Quadrigarii. Repetit: “In eo igitur libro scriptum inveni, cum obpugnaret L. Sulla in terra Attica Piraeum et contra Archelaus regis Mitridati praefectus ex eo oppido propugnaret, turrim ligneam defendendi gratia structam, cum ex omni latere circumplexa igni foret, ardere non quisse, quod alumine ab Archelao oblita fuisset.” Verba Quadrigarii ex eo libro haec sunt: “Cum Sulla conatus esset tempore magno, eduxit copias, ut Archelai turrim unam quam ille interposuit ligneam incenderet. Venit, accessit, ligna subdidit, submovit Graecos, ignem admovit; satis sunt diu conati, numquam quiverunt incendere, ita Archelaus omnem materiam obleverat alumine, quod Sulla atque milites mirabantur, et postquam non succendit, reduxit copias.”

[¶1] 2. That Plato in the work which he wrote On the Laws expressed the opinion that inducements to drink more abundantly and more merrily at feasts were not without benefit. A MAN from the island of Crete, who was living in Athens, gave out that he was a Platonic philosopher and desired to pass as one. He was, however, a man of no worth, a trifler, boastful of his command of Grecian eloquence, besides having a passion for wine which fairly made him a laughing stock. At the entertainments which it was the custom of us young men to hold at Athens at the beginning of each week, as soon as we had finished eating and an instructive and pleasant conversation had begun, this fellow, having called for silence that he might be heard, began to speak, and using a cheap and disordered rabble of words after his usual fashion, urged all to drink; and this he declared that he did in accordance with the injunction of Plato, maintaining that Plato in his work On the Laws had written most eloquently in praise of drunkenness, and had decided that it was beneficial to good and strong men. And at the same time, while he was thus speaking, he drenched such wits as he had with frequent and huge beakers, saying that it was a kind of touchwood and tinder to the intellect and the faculties, if mind and body were inflamed with wine. However, Plato in the first and second books of his work On the Laws did not, as that fool thought, praise that shameful intoxication which is wont to undermine and weaken men's minds, although he did not disapprove of that somewhat more generous and cheerful inspiration of wine which is regulated by some temperate arbiters, so to speak, and presidents of banquets. For he thought that by the proper and moderate relaxation of drinking the mind was refreshed and renewed for resuming the duties of sobriety, and that men were gradually rendered happier and became readier to repeat their efforts. At the same time, if there were deep in their hearts any errors of inclination or desire, which a kind of reverential shame concealed, he thought that by the frankness engendered by wine all these were disclosed without great danger and became more amenable to correction and cure. And in the same place Plato says this also: that exercises of this kind for the purpose of resisting the violence of wine, are not to be avoided and shunned, and that no one ever appeared to be altogether selfrestrained and temperate whose life and habits had not been tested amid the very dangers of error and in the midst of the enticements of pleasures. For when all the license and attractions of banquets are unknown, and a man is wholly unfamiliar with them, if haply inclination has led him, or chance has induced him, or necessity has compelled him, to take part in pleasures of that kind, then he is as a rule seduced and taken captive, his mind and soul fail to meet the test, but give way, as if attacked by some strange power. Therefore he thought that we ought to meet the issue and contend hand to hand, as in a kind of battle, with pleasure and indulgence in wine, in order that we may not be safe against them by flight or absence, but that by vigour of spirit, by presence of mind, and by moderate use, we may preserve our temperance and self-restraint, and at the same time by warming and refreshing the mind we may free it of whatever frigid austerity or dull bashfulness it may contain.

> Latin: 2. Quod Plato in libris quos De Legibus composuit largiores laetioresque in conviviis invitatiunculas vini non inutiles esse existimavit. Ex insula Creta quispiam aetatem Athenis agens Platonicum sese philosophum dicebat et viderier gestibat. Erat autem nihili homo et nugator atque in Graecae facundiae gloria iactabundus et praeterea vini libidine adusque ludibria ebriosus. Is in conviviis iuvenum, quae agitare Athenis hebdomadibus lunae sollemne nobis fuit, simulatque modus epulis factus et utiles delectabilesque sermones coeperant, tum, silentio ad audiendum petito, loqui coeptabat atque id genus vili et incondita verborum caterva hortabatur omnes ad bibendum, idque se facere ex decreto Platonico praedicabat, tamquam Plato in libris quos De Legibus composuit laudes ebrietatis copiosissime scripsisset utilemque esse eam bonis ac fortibus viris censuisset; ac simul inter eiusmodi orationem crebris et ingentibus poculis ingenium omne ingurgitabat, fomitem esse quendam dicens et ignitabulum ingenii virtutisque, si mens et corpus hominis vino flagraret. Sed enim Plato in primo et secundo De Legibus non, ut ille nebulo opinabatur, ebrietatem istam turpissimam quae labefacere et inminuere hominum mentes solet laudavit, sed hanc largiorem paulo iucundioremque vini invitationem, quae fieret sub quibusdam quasi arbitris et magistris conviviorum sobriis, non inprobavit. Nam et modicis honestisque inter bibendum remissionibus refici integrarique animos ad instauranda sobrietatis officia existumavit reddique eos sensimsensrm laetiores atque ad intentiones rursum capiendas fieri habiliores, et simul, si qui penitus in his adfectionum cupiditatumque errores inessent, quos aliquis pudor reverens concelaret, ea omnia sine gravi periculo, libertate per vinum data detegi et ad corrigendum medendumque fieri oportuniora. Atque hoc etiam Plato ibidem dicit, non defugiendas esse neque respuendas huiuscemodi exercitationes adversum propulsandam vini violentiam neque ullum umquam continentem prorsum ac temperantem satis fideliter visum esse, cuius vita victusque non inter ipsa errorum pericula et in mediis voluptatum inlecebris explorata sit. Nam cui libentiae gratiaeque omnes conviviorum incognitae sint quique illarum omnino expers sit, si eum forte ad participandas eiusmodi voluptates aut voluntas tulerit aut casus induxerit aut necessitas compulerit, deleniri plerumque et capi, neque mentem animumque eius consistere, sed vi quadam nova ictum labascere. Congrediendum igitur censuit et, tamquam in acie quadam, cum voluptariis rebus cumque ista vini licentia comminus decernendum, ut adversum eas non fuga simus tuti nec absentia, sed vigore animi et constanti praesentia moderatoque usu temperantiam continentiamque tueamur et calefacto simul refotoque animo, si quid in eo vel frigidae tristitiae vel torpentis verecundiae fuerit, deluamus.

[¶2] 3. What Marcus Cicero thought and wrote about the prefix in the verbs aufugio and aufcro; and whether this same preposition is to be seen in the verb autumo. I READ a book of Marcus Cicero's entitled The Orator. In that book when Cicero had said that the verbs aifugio and aufero were indeed formed of the preposition ab and the verbs fugio and fero, but that the preposition, in order that the word might be smoother in pronunciation and sound, was changed and altered into the syllable au, and aufulgio and aufero began to be used for abfugio and abfero; when he had said this, I say, he afterwards in the same work wrote as follows of the same particle: “This preposition,” he says, “will be found in no other verb save these two only.” But I have found in the Commentary of Nigidius that the verb autumo is formed from the preposition ab and the verb aestumo (estimate) and that autumo is a contracted form of abaestumo, signifying totum aestumo, on the analogy of abnumero. But, be it said with great respect for Publius Nigidius, a most learned man, this seems to be rather bold and clever than true. For autumo does not only mean “I think,” but also “I say,” “I am of the opinion,” and “I consider,” with which verbs that preposition has no connection either in the composition of the word or in the expression of its meaning. Besides, Marcus Tullius, a man of unwearied industry in the pursuit of letters, would not have said that these were the only two verbs containing au, if any third example could be found. But the following point is more worthy of examination and investigation, whether the preposition ab is altered and changed into the syllable au for the sake of making the pronunciation smoother, or whether more properly the particle au has its own origin, and just as many other prepositions were taken from the Greeks, so this one also is derived from that source. As in that verse of Homer:
First bent them back (au)e/rusan), then slew and flayed the beasts;
and:
Loud-shouting (au)i/axoi), noisy.

> Latin: 3. Quid M. Cicero de particula ista senserit scripseritque quae praeposita est verbis “aufugio” et “aufero”; et an in verbo “autumo” eadem istaec praepositio esse videri debeat. LEGIMUS librum M. Ciceronis qui inscriptus est Orator. In eo libro Cicero, cuin dixisset verba haec “aufugio” et “aufero” composita quidem esse ex praepositione “ab” et ex verbis “fugio” et “fero,” sed eam praepositionem, quo fieret vox pronuntiatu audituque lenior, versam mutatamque esse in “au” syllabam coeptumque esse dici “aufugio” et “aufero” pro “abfugio” et “abfero”— cum haec, inquam, ita dixisset, tum postea ibidemilbidem super eadem particula ita scripsit: “Haec,” intuit, “praepositio praeter haec duo verba nullo alio in verbo reperietur.” Invenimus autem in conmentarioConmenctario Nigidiano, verbum “autumoautum” compositumcominositum ex “ab” praepositionepraelositione et verbo “aestumo” dictunque intercise “autumo” quasi “abaestumo,” quod significaret “totum aestumo,” tamquam “abnumeroabumero.” Sed, quod sit cum honore multo dictum P. Nigidii, hominis eruditissimi, audacius hoc argutiusque esse videtur quam verius. “Autumo” enim non id solum significat, “aestumo,” sed et “dico” et “opinor” et “censeo,” cum quibus verbis praepositio ista neque cohaerentia vocis neque significatione sententiae convenit. Praeterea vir acerrimae in studio litterarum diligentiae M. Tullius non sola esse haec duo verba dixisset, si reperiri posset ullum tertium. Sed illud magis inspici quaerique dignum est, versane sit et mutata “ab” praepositio in “au” syllabam propter lenitatem vocis, an potius “au” particula sua sit propria origine et proinde ut pleraeque aliae praepositiones a Graecis, ita haec quoque inde accepta sit; sicuti est in illo versu Homeri:
Αὐέρυσαν μὲν πρῶτα καὶ ἔσφαξαν καὶ ἔδειραν,
et:
Ἄβρομοι, αὐίαχοι.

[¶3] 4. The story of Ventidius Bassus, a man of obscure birth, who is reported to have been the first to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians. IT was lately remarked in the conversation of certain old and learned men that in ancient times many persons of most obscure birth, who were previously held in great contempt, had risen to the highest grade of dignity. Nothing that was said about anyone, however, excited so much wonder as the story recorded of Ventidius Bassus. He was born in Picenum in a humble station, and with his mother was taken prisoner by Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, in the Social War, in the course of which Strabo subdued the Aesculani. Afterwards, when Pompeius Strabo triumphed, the boy also was carried in his mother's arms amid the rest of the captives before the general's chariot. Later, when he had grown up, he worked hard to gain a livelihood, resorting to the humble calling of a buyer of mules and carriages, which he had contracted with the State to furnish to the magistrates who had been allotted provinces. In that occupation he made the acquaintance of Gaius Caesar and went with him to the Gallic provinces. Then, because he had shown commendable energy in that province, and later during the civil war had executed numerous commissions with promptness and vigour, he not only gained Caesar's friendship, but because of it rose even to the highest rank. Afterwards he was also made tribune of the commons, and then praetor, and at that time he was declared a public enemy by the senate along with Mark Antony. Afterwards, however, when the parties were united, he not only recovered his former rank, but gained first the pontificate and then the consulship. At this the Roman people, who remembered that Ventidius Bassus had made a living by taking care of mules, were so indignant that these verses were posted everywhere about the streets of the city:
Assemble, soothsayers and augurs all!
A portent strange has taken place of late;
For he who curried mules is consul now. Suetonius Tranquillus writes that this same Bassus was put in charge of the eastern provinces by Mark Antony, and that when the Parthians invaded Syria he routed them in three battles; that he was the first of all to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians, and was honoured when he died with a public funeral.

> Latin: 4. Historia de Ventidio Basso, ignobili homine, quem primum de Parthis triumphasse memoriae traditum est. IN sermonibus nuper fuit seniorum hominum et eruditorum, multos in vetere memoria altissimum dignitatis gradum ascendisse ignobilissimos prius homines et despicatissimos. Nihil adeo de quoquam tantae admirationi fuit, quantae fuerunt quae de Ventidio Basso scripta sunt: eum Picentem fuisse genere et loco humili; et matrem eius a Pompeio Strabone, Pompei Magni patre, bello sociali, quo Asculanos subegit, captam cum ipso esse; mox triumphante Pompeio Strabone eum quoque puerum inter ceteros ante currum imperatoris sinu matris vectum esse; post, cum adolevisset, victum sibi aegre quaesisse eumque sordide invenisse comparandis mulis et vehiculis, quae magistratibus qui sortiti provincias forent praebenda publice conduxisset. In isto quaestu notum esse coepisse C. Caesari et cum eo profectum esse in Gallias. Tum, quia in ea provincia satis naviter versatus esset et deinceps civili bello mandata sibi pleraque inpigre et strenue fecisset, non modo in amicitiam Caesaris, sed ex ea in amplissimum quoque ordinem pervenisse; mox tribunum quoque plebi ac deinde praetorem creatum atque in eo tempore iudicatum esse a senatu hostem cum M. Antonio; post vero coniunctis partibus non pristinam tantum dignitatem reciperasse, sed pontificatum ac deinde consulatum quoque adeptum esse, eamque rem tam intoleranter tulisse populum Romanum, qui Ventidium Bassum meminerat curandis mulis victitasse, ut vulgo per vias urbis versiculi proscriberentur:
Concúrrite omnes aúgures, harúspices!
Porténtum inusitátum conflatúm est recens;
Nam múlas qui fricábat, consul fáctus est. Eundem Bassum Suetonius Tranquillus praepositum esse a M. Antonio provinciis orientalibus Parthosque in Syriam introrumpentis tribus ab eo proelis fusos scribit, eumque primum omnium de Parthis triumphasse et morte obita publico funere sepultum esse.

[¶4] 5. That the verb profligo is used by many improperly and ignorantly. JUST as many other words, through the ignorance and stupidity of those who speak badly what they do not understand, are diverted and turned aside from their proper and usual meaning, so too has the signification of the verb profligo been changed and perverted. For while it is taken over and derived from adfligo, in the sense of “bring to ruin and destruction,” and while all who have been careful in their diction have always used the word to express “waste” and “destroy,” calling things that were cast down and destroyed res profligatae, I now hear that buildings, temples, and many other things that are almost complete and finished are said to be in profligato and the things themselves profligata. Therefore that was a very witty reply, as Sulpicius Apollinaris has recorded in one of his Letters, which a praetor, a man not without learning, made to a simpleton among a crowd of advocates. “For,” said he, “when that impudent prater had made a request in these terms: 'All the business, renowned sir, about which you said that you would take cognizance to-day, because of your diligence and promptness is done (profligata sunt); one matter only remains, to which I beg you to give attention.' Then the praetor wittily enough replied: 'Whether the affairs of which you say that I have taken cognizance are done (profligata), I do not know; but this business which has fallen into your hands is undoubtedly done for (profligatum est), whether I hear it or not.'” But to indicate what those wish to express who use profligatum in the sense of “nearly done,” those who have spoken good Latin used, not profligatumprofigatum, but adfectum, as for example Marcus Cicero, in the speech which he delivered About the Consular Provinces. His words are as follows: “We see the war nearing its end (adfectum) and, to tell the truth, all but finished.” Also further on: “For why should Caesar himself wish to remain longer in that province, except that he may turn over to the State, completed, the tasks which he has nearly finished (acfecta sunt)?” Cicero also says in the Oeconomicus: “When indeed, as summer is already well nigh ended (adfecta), it is time for the grapes to ripen in the sun.”

> Latin: 5. Verbum “profligo” a plerisque dici inproprie insciteque. SICUT alia verba pleraque, ignoratione et inscitia improbe dicentium quae non intellegant, deflexa ac depravata sunt a ratione recta et consuetudine, ita huius quoque verbi, quod est “profligo,” significatio versa et corrupta est. Nam cum ab adfligendo et ad perniciem interitumque deducendo inclinatum id tractumque sit, semperque eo verbo qui diligenter locuti sunt ita usi sint, ut “profligare” dicerent “prodigere” et “deperdere” “profligatasque res” quasi “proflictasproflictaset” “perditas” appellarent, nunc audio aedificia et templa et alia fere multa quae prope absoluta adfectaque sunt “in nrofligato” esse dici ipsaque esse iam “profligata.” Quapropter urbanissime respondisse praetorem, non indoctum virum, barunculo cuidam ex advocatorum turba, Sulpicius Apollinaris in quadam epistula scriptum reliquit. “Nam cum ille,” inquit, “rabula audaculus ita postulasset verbaque ita fecisset: ‘Omnia, vir clarissime, negotia de quibus te cogniturum esse hodie dixisti diligentia et velocitate tua profligata sunt, unum id solum relictum est, de quo, rogo, audias,’ tum praetor satis ridicule: ‘An illa negotia de quibus iam cognovisse me dicis profligata sint equidem nescio; hoc autem negotium quod in te incidit, procul dubio, sive id audiam sive non audiam, profligatum est.’” Quod significare autem volunt qui “profligatumprofigatum” dicunt, hi qui Latine locuti sunt non “profligatum,” sed “adfectum” dixerunt, sicuti M. Cicero in oratione, quam habuit De Provinciis Consularibus. Eius verba haec sunt: “Bellum adfectum videmus et, vere ut dicam, paene confectum.” Item infra: “Nam ipse Caesar quid est quod in ea provincia commorari velit, nisi ut ea quae per eum adfecta sunt, perfecta reipublicae tradat?” Idem Cicero in Oeconomico: “Cum vero adfecta iam prope aestate uvas a sole mitescere tempus est.”

[¶5] 6. An evident mistake in the second book of Cicero On Glory, in the place where he has written about Hector and Ajax. IN Cicero's second book On Glory there is an evident mistake, of no great importance-a mistake which it does not require a man of learning to detect, but merely one who has read the seventh book of Homer. Therefore I am not so much surprised that Marcus Tullius erred in that matter, as that it was not noticed later and corrected either by Cicero himself or by Tiro, his freedman, a most careful man, who gave great attention to his patron's books. Now, in that book the following passage occurs:
The same poet says that Ajax, when about to engage with Hector in combat, arranges for his burial in case he should chance to be defeated, declaring that he wishes that those who pass his tomb even after many ages should thus speak:
Here lies a man of life's light long bereft,
Who slain by Hector's sword fell long ago.
This, one shall say; my glory ne'er shall die. But the verses to this purport, which Cicero has turned into the Latin tongue, Ajax does not utter in Homer, nor is it Ajax who plans his burial, but Hector speaks the lines and arranges for burial, before he knows whether Ajax will meet him in combat.

> Latin: 6. In libro M. Ciceronis De Gloria secundo manifestum erratum, in ea parte in qua scriptum est super Hectore et Aiace. IN libro M. Tulli, qui est secundus De Gloria, manifestus error est non magnae rei, quem errorem esse possit cognoscere non aliquis eruditorum, sed qui tantum legerit Ὁμήρου τὸ Ηʹ. Quamobrem non tam id mirabamur errasse in ea re M. Tullium, quam non esse animadversum hoc postea correctumque vel ab ipso vel a Tirone, liberto eius, diligentissimo homine et librorum patroni sui studiosissimo. Ita enim scriptum in eo libro est: “Apud eundem poetam Aiax cum Hectore congrediens depugnandi causa agit ut sepeliatur, si sit forte victus, declaratque se velle ut suum tumulum multis etiam post saeculis praetereuntes sic loquantur:
Hic situs est vitae iampridem lumina linquens,
Qui quondam Hectoreo perculsus concidit ense.
Fabitur haec aliquis, mea semper gloria vivet.” Huius autem sententiae versus, quos Cicero in linguam Latinam vertit, non Aiax apud Homerum dicit neque Aiax agit ut sepeliatur, sed Hector dicit et Hector de sepultura agit, priusquam sciat an Aiax secum depugnandi causa congressurus sit.

[¶6] 7. It has been observed of old men, that the sixty-third year of their life is marked as a rule by troubles, by death, or by some disaster; and an example apropos of this observation is taken from a letter from the deified Augustus to his son Gaius. IT has been observed during a long period of human recollection, and found to be true, that for almost all old men the sixty-third year of their age Both were adopted by Augustus, and on the death of the young Marcellus were made principes iuventutis, and thus designated as the successors of Augustus. is attended with danger, and with some disaster involving either serious bodily illness, or loss of life, or mental suffering. Therefore those who are engaged in the study of matters and terms of that kind call that period of life the “climacteric.” Night before last, too, when I was reading a volume of letters of the deified Augustus, written to his grandson Gaius, and was led on by the elegance of the style, which was easy and simple, by Heaven without mannerisms or effort, in one of the letters I ran upon a reference to this very belief about that same year. I give a copy of the letter:
The ninth day before the Kalends of October. “Greeting, my dear Gaius, my dearest little donkey, whom, so help me! constantly miss whenever you are away from me. But especially on such days as to-day my eyes are eager for my Gaius, and wherever you have been to-day, I hope you have celebrated my sixty-fourth birthday in health and happiness. For, as you see, I have passed the climacteric common to all old men, the sixty-third year. And I pray the gods that whatever time is left to me I may pass with you safe and well, with our country in a flourishing condition, while you are playing the man and preparing to succeed to my position.”

> Latin: 7. Observatum esse in senibus quod annum fere aetatis tertium et sexagesimum agant aut laboribus aut interitu aut clade aliqua insignitum; atque inibi super eadem observatione exemplum adpositum epistulae divi Augusti ad Gaium filium. OBSERVATUM in multa hominum memoria expertumque est, senioribus plerisque omnibus sexagesimum tertium vitae annum cum periculo et clade aliqua venire aut corporis morbique gravioris aut vitae interitus aut animi aegritudinis. Propterea, qui rerum verborumque istiusmodi studio tenentur eum aetatis annum appellant κλιμακτηρικόν. Nocte quoque ista proxima superiore, cum librum Epistularum divi Augusti, quas ad Gaium nepotem suum scripsit, legeremus duceremurque elegantia orationis neque morosa neque anxia, sed facili hercle et simplici, id ipsum in quadam epistula super eodem anno scriptum offendimus; eiusque epistula exemplum hoc est:
IX. Kal. Octobris.
“Ave, mi Gai, meus asellus iucundissimus, quem semper medius fidius desidero, cum a me abes. Set praecipue diebus talibus, qualis est hodiernus, oculi mei requirunt meum Gaium, quem, ubicumque hoc die fuisti, spero laetum et bene valentem celebrasse quartum et sexagesimum natalem meum. Nam, ut vides, κλιμακτῆρα communem seniorum omnium tertium et sexagesimum annum evasimus. Deos autem oro ut mihi quantumcumque superest temporis, id salvis nobis traducere liceat in statu reipublicae felicissimo, ἀνδραγαθούντων ὑμῶν καὶ διαδεχομένων stationem meam.”

[¶7] 8. A passage from a speech of Favonius, an early orator, containing an attack which he made on luxurious entertainments, when he was advocating the Licinian law for lessening extravagance. WHEN I was reading an old speech of Favonius, a man of no little eloquence, in which... I learned the whole of it by heart, in order to be able to remember that such extravagant living is truly hateful. These words which I have added are those of Favonius: “The leaders in gluttony and luxury declare that an entertainment is not elegant, unless, when you are eating with the greatest relish, your plate is removed and a better, richer dainty comes from the reserves. This to-day is thought the very flower of a feast among those with whom extravagance and fastidiousness take the place of elegance; who say that the whole of no bird ought to be eaten except a fig-pecker; who think that a dinner is mean and stingy unless so many of the other birds and fatted fowl are provided, that the guests may be satisfied with the rumps and hinder parts; who believe that those who eat the upper parts of such birds and fowl have no refinement of taste. If luxury continues to increase in its present proportion, what remains but that men should bid someone to eat their dinners for them, in order that they may not fatigue themselves by feeding, when the couch is more profusely adorned with gold, silver and purple for a few mortals than for the immortal gods?”

> Latin: 8. Locus ex oratione Favoni, veteris oratoris, de cenarum atque luxuriae obprobratione, qua usus est cum legem Liciniam de sumptu minuendo suasit. CUM legeremus orationem veterem Favoni, non indiserti viri, qua oratione … totum, ut meminisse possemus odio esse hercle istiusmodi sumptus atque victus, perdidicimus. Verba haec, quae adposuimus, Favoni sunt: “Praefecti popinae atque luxuriae negant cenam lautam esse, nisi cum lubentissime edis, tum auferatur et alia esca melior atque amplior succenturietur. Is nunc flos cenae habetur inter istos quibus sumptus et fastidium pro facetiis procedit, qui negant ullam avem praeter ficedulam totam comesse oportere; ceterarum avium atque altilium nisi tantum adponatur, ut a cluniculis inferiore parte saturi fiant, convivium putant inopia sordere, superiorem partem avium atque altilium qui edint, eos palatum parum delicatum habere. Si proportione pergit luxuria crescere, quid relinquitur, nisi ut delibari sibi cenas iubeant, ne edendo defetigentur, quando stratus lectuls auro, argento, purpura amplior aliquot hominibus quam dis inmortalibus adornatur?”

[¶8] 9. That the poet Caecilius used frons in the masculine gender, not by poetic license, but properly and by analogy. CORRECTLY and elegantly did Caecilius write this in his Changeling:
The worst of foes are these, of aspect gay (fronte hilaro),
Gloomy of heart, whom we can neither grasp Nor yet let go.
I chanced to quote these lines in a company of well educated young men, when we were speaking of a man of that kind. Thereupon one of a throng of grammarians who stood there with us, a man of no little repute, said: “What license and boldness Caecilius showed here in saying, fronte hilaro and not fronte hilara, and in not shrinking from so dreadful a solecism.” “Nay,” said I, “it is rather we who are as bold and free as possible in improperly and ignorantly failing to use frons in the masculine gender, when both the principle of regularity which is called analogy and the authority of earlier writers indicate that we ought to say, not hanc frontem, but hunc frontem. Indeed, Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins wrote as follows: 'On the following day in open combat, with straight front (aequo fronte) we fought with the enemy's legions with foot, horse and wings.' Also Cato again says recto fronte in the same book.” But that half-educated grammarian said: “Away with your authorities, which I think you may perhaps have, but give me a reason, which you do not have.” Then I, somewhat irritated by those words of his, as was natural at my time of life: “Listen,” said I, “my dear sir, to a reason that may be false, but which you cannot prove to be false. All words,” said I, “ending in the three letters in which frons ends are of the masculine gender, if they end in the same syllable in the genitive case also, as mons, fons, pons, frons.” But he replied with a laugh: “Hear, young scholar, several other similar words which are not of the masculine gender.” Then all begged him at once to name just one. But when the man was screwing up his face, could not open his lips, and changed colour, then I broke in, saying: “Go now and take thirty days to hunt one up; when you have found it, meet us again.” And thus we sent off this worthless fellow to hunt up a word with which to break down the rule which I had made.

> Latin: 9. Quod Caecilius poeta “frontem” genere virili non poetice, sed cum probatione et cum analogia appellavit. VERE ac diserte Caecilius hoc in Subditivo scripsit:
Nam hi súnt inimici péssumi, fronte hílaro, corde Trísti,
Quos néque ut adprendas néque uti dimittás scias. Hos ego versus, cum de quodam istiusmodi homine sermones essent, in circulo forte iuvenum eruditiorum dixi. Tum de grammaticorumgranlnaticorum volgo quispiam nobiscum ibi adsistens non sane ignobilis, “Quanta,” inquit, “licentia audaciaque Caecilius hic fuit, cum ‘fronte hilaro,’ non ‘fronte hilara’ dixit et tam inmanem soloecismum nihil veritus est!” “Immo,” inquam, “potius nos et quam audaces et quam licentes sumus, qui ‘frontemfiontem’ inprobe indocteque non virili genere dicimus, cum et ratio proportionis, quae ‘analogia’ appellatur, et veterum auctoritates non ‘hanc,’ sed ‘hunc frontem’ debere dici suadeant. Quippe M. Cato in primo Originum ita scripsit:” “‘Postridie signis conlatis, aequo fronte, peditatu, equitibus atque alis cum hostium legionibus pugnavimus.’ ‘Recto’ quoque ‘fronte’ idem Cato in libro eodem dicit.” At ille semidoctus grammaticus: “Missas,” inquit, “auctoritates facias, quas quidem ut habeas posse fieri puto, sed rationem dic, quam non habes.” Atque ego his eius verbis, ut tum ferebat aetas, inritatior, “Audi,” inquam, “mi magister, rationem falsam quidem, sed quam redarguere falsam esse tu non queas.” “Omnia,” inquam, “vocabula tribus litteris finita quibus ‘frons’ finitur, generis masculini sunt, si in genetivo quoque casu eadem syllaba finiantur, ut ‘mons,’ ‘fons,’ ‘pons,’ ‘frons.’” At ille contra renidens: “Audi,” inquit, “discipule, plura alia consimilia, quae non sint generis masculini.” Petebant ibi omnes ut vel unum statim diceret. Sed cum homo voltum intorqueret et non hisceret et colores mutaretmnutaret, tum ego intercessi et “Vade,” inquam, “nunc et habeto ad requirendum triginta dies; postquam inveneris, repetes nos.” Atque ita hominem nulli rei ad indagandum vocabulum, quo rescinderet finitionem fictam, dimisimus.

[¶9] 10. About the strange suicides of the maids of Miletus. PLUTARCH in the first book of his work On the Soul, discussing disorders which affect the human mind, has told us that almost all the maidens of the Milesian nation suddenly without any apparent cause conceived a desire to die, and thereupon many of them hanged themselves. When this happened more frequently every day, and no remedy had any effect on their resolve to die, the Milesians passed a decree that all those maidens who committed suicide by hanging should be carried to the grave naked, along with the same rope by which they had destroyed themselves. After that decree the maidens ceased to seek a voluntary death, deterred by the mere shame of so disgraceful a burial.

> Latin: 10. De voluntario et admirando interitu virginum Milesiarum. PLUTARCHUS in librorum quos Περὶ Ψυχῆς inscripsit primo, cum de morbis dissereret in animos hominum incidentibus, virgines dixit Milesii nominis fere quot tum in ea civitate erant repente sine ulla evidenti causa voluntatem cepisse obeundae mortis ac deinde plurimas vitam suspendio amisisse. Id cum accideret in dies crebrius neque animis earum mori perseverantium medicina adhiberi quiret, decrevisse Milesios ut virgines quae corporibus suspensis demortuae forent, ut hae omnes nudae, cum eodem laqueo quo essent praevinctae efferrentur. Post id decretum virgines voluntariam mortem non petisse pudore solo deterritas tam inhonesti funeris.

[¶10] 11. The words of a decree of the senate on expelling philosophers from the city of Rome; also the words of the edict of the censors by which those were rebuked and restrained who had begun to establish and practise the art of rhetoric at Rome. IN the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala the following decree of the senate was passed regarding Latin speaking philosophers and rhetoricians: “(The praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed to him in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they should not remain in Rome.” Then some years after that decree of the senate Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus the censors issued the following edict for restraining the Latin rhetoricians: “It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers neither please us nor seem proper. Therefore it seems necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.” And it was not only in those times, which were somewhat rude and not yet refined by Greek training, that philosophers were driven from the city of Rome, but even in the reign of Domitian by a decree of the senate they were driven from the city and forbidden Italy. And it was at that time that the philosopher Epictetus also withdrew from Rome to Nicopolis because of that senatorial decree.

> Latin: 11. Verba senatusconsulti de exigendis urbe Roma philosophis; item verba edicti censorum, quo inprobati et coerciti sunt qui disciplinam rhetoricamrhetorical instituere et exercere Romae coeperant. C. FANNIO STRABONE, M. Valerio Messala coss. senatusconsultum de philosophis et de rhetoribus Latinis factum est: “M. Pomponius praetor senatum consuluit. Quod verba facta sunt de philosophisphilosophies et de rhetoribus, de ea re ita censuerunt, ut M. Pomponius praetor animadverteret curaretque, uti ei e republica fideque sua videretur, uti Romae ne essent.” Aliquot deinde annis post id senatusconsultum Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus et L. Licinius Crassus censores de coercendiscoereendis rhetoribus Latinis ita edixerunt: “Renuntiatum est nobis esse homines, qui novum genus disciplinae instituerunt, ad quos iuventus in ludum conveniat; eos sibi nomen inposuisse Latinos rhetoras; ibi homines adulescentulos dies totos desidere. Maiores nostri quae liberos suos discere et quos in ludos itare vellent instituerunt. Haec nova, quae praeter consuetudinem ac morem maiorum fiunt, neque placent neque recta videntur. Quapropter et his qui eos ludos habent, et his qui eo venire consuerunt, visum est faciundum, ut ostenderemus nostram sententiam, nobis non placere.” Neque illis solum temporibus, nimis rudibus necdum Graeca disciplina expolitis, philosophi ex urbe Roma pulsi sunt, verum etiam Domitiano imperante senatusconsulto eiecti atque urbe et Italia interdicti sunt. Qua tempestate Epictetus quoque philosophus propter id senatusconsultum Nicopolim Roma decessit.

[¶11] 12. A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence. WHEN Gaius Gracchus returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words: “I conducted myself in my province,” said he, “as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their general's tent.” Later on he continues as follows: “I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons.” Then after an interval he goes on: “Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.”

> Latin: 12. Locus ex oratione Gracchi de parsimonia ac de pudicitia sua memoratissimus. C. GRACCHUS cum ex Sardinia rediit, orationem ad populum in contione habuit. Ea verba haec sunt: “Versatus sum,” inquit, “in provincia, quomodo ex usu vestro existimabam esse, non quomodo ambitioni meae conducere arbitrabar. Nulla apud me fuit popina, neque pueri eximia facie stabant, et in convivio liberi vestri modestius erant quam apud principia.” Post deinde haec dicit: “Ita versatus sum in provincia, uti nemo posset vere dicere assem aut eo plus in muneribus me accepisse, aut mea opera quemquam sumptum fecisse. Biennium fui in provincia; si ulla meretrix domum meam introivit aut cuiusquam servulus propter me sollicitatus est, omnium nationum postremissimum nequissimumque existimatote. Cum a servis eorum tam caste me habuerim, inde poteritis considerare quomodo me putetis cum liberis vestris vixisse.” Atque ibi ex intervallo: “Itaque,” inquit, “Quirites, cum Romam profectus sum, zonas quas plenas argenti extuli, eas ex provincia inanes retuli. Alii vini amphoras quas plenas tulerunt, eas argento repletas domum reportaverunt.”

[¶12] 13. Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians “common.” UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are “common” verbs and can be used either way: “I respect you” and “I am respected by you,” that is, “you respect me”; “I use you” and “I am used by you,” that is, “you use me”; “I exhort you” and “I am exhorted by you,” that is, “you exhort me”; “I console you” and “I am consoled by you,” that is, “you console me.” Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are unusual in the second of these meanings, and it is a matter of inquiry whether they are ever so used. Afranius in The Cousins says:
Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap,
Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be.
Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning:
Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur).
That is, “which is not to be used.” Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this: “He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle.” We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius. “But,” he says, “when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes.” Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be “common” verbs. Sallust too in a similar way says: “The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis),” indicating that largior is one of the “common” verbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and pigitum, is used impersonally and indefinitely, not only by the earlier writers, but also by Marcus Tullius in the second book of his De Finibus. “First (I will refute),” says he, “the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear (veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.” Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as “common” verbs. Thus we find in Virgil:
Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale),
and
Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe.
Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words: “For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days.” Also in those same Tables we find this: “Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.”

> Latin: 13. De verbis inopinatis, quae utroque versum dicuntur et a grammaticis “communia” vocantur. “UTOR” et “vereor” et “consolor” communia verba sunt ac dici utroque versus possunt: “vereor te” et “vereor abs te,” id est “tu me vereris”; “utor te” et “utor abs te,” id est “tu me uteris”; “hortor te” et “hortor abs te,” id est “tu me hortaris”; “consolor te” et “consolor abs te,” id est “tu me consolaris”; “testor” quoque et “interpretor” significatione reciproca dicuntur. Sunt autem verba haec omnia ex altera parte inusitata, et an dicta sint in eam quoque partem quaeri solet. Afranius in Consobrinis:
Em istó parentum est vita vilis líberis,
Ubi málunt metui, quám vereri se áb suis.
Hic “vereri” ex ea parte dictum est quae est non usitatior. Novius in Lignaria verbum quod est “utitur” ex contraria parte dicit:
Quía supellex múlta quae non útitur, emitúr tamen,
id est “quae usui non est.” M. Cato in quinta Origine: “Exercitum,” inquit, “suum pransum, paratum, cohortatum eduxit foras atque instruxit.” “Consolor” quoque in partem alteram, praeterquam dici solitum est, scriptum invenimus in epistula Q. Metelli, quam, cum in exilio esset, ad Cn. et ad L. Domitios dedit. “At cum animum,” inquit, “vestrum erga me video, vehementer consolor et fides virtusque vestra mihi ante oculos versatur.” “Testata” itidem et “interpretata” eadem ratione dixit M. Tullius in primo libro De Divinatione, ut “testor” “interpretor”que verba communia videri debeant. Sallustius quoque eodem modo: “dilargitis proscriptorum bonis” dicit, tamquam verbum “largior” sit ex verbis communibus. “Veritum” autem, sicut “puditum” et “pigitum,” non personaliter per infinitum modum dictum esse, non a vetustioribus tantum videmus, sed a M. quoque Tullio in secundo De Finibus. “Primum,” inquit, “Aristippi Cyrenaicorumque omnium, quos non est veritum in ea voluptate quae maxima dulcedine sensum moveret summum bonum ponere.” “Dignor” quoque et “veneror” et “confiteor” et “testor” habita sunt in verbis communibus. Sic illa in Vergilio dicta sunt:
Coniugio, Anchisa, Veneris dignate superbo,
et:
cursusque dabit venerata secundos. “Confessi” autem “aeris,” de quo facta confession est, in XII. Tabulis scriptum est his verbis: “Aeris confessi rebusque iure iudicatis XXX. dies iusti sunto.” Item ex isdem tabulis id quoque est. “Qui se si erit testarier libri pensve fuerit, ni testimonium fariatur, inprobus intestabilisque esto.”

## 35. Book XV · chapters 14–31

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/35/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/35/#p-N

[¶0] 14. That Metellus Numidicus borrowed a new form of expression from Greek usage. IN Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in the third book of his Accusalion of Valerius Messala, I have made note of a novel expression. The words of his speech are as follows: “When he knew that he had incurred so grave an accusation, and that our allies had come to the senate in tears, to make complaint that they had been exacted enormous sums of money (pecunias maximas exactos esse).” He says “that they had been exacted enormous sums of money,” instead of “that enormous sums of money had been exacted from them.” This seemed to me an imitation of a Greek idiom; for the Greeks say: ei)sepra/cato/ me a)rgu/rion, meaning “he exacted me money.” But if this can be said, so too can “one is exacted money,” and Caecilius seems to have used that form of expression in his Supposititious Aeschinus:
Yet I the customs-fee exacted am.
That is to say, “yet the customs-fee is exacted from me.”

> Latin: 14. Quod Metellus Numidicus figuram orationis novam ex orationibus Graecis mutuatus est. APUT Q. Metellum Numidicum in libro accusationis In Valerium Messalam tertio nove dictum esse adnotavimus. Verba ex oratione eius haec sunt: “Cum sese sciret in tantum crimen venisse atque socios ad senatum questum flentes venisse, sese pecunias maximas exactos esse.” “Sese pecunias,” inquit, “maximas exactos esse” pro eo quod est: “pecunias a se esse maximas exactas.” Id nobis videbatur Graeca figura dictum; Graeci enim dicunt: εἰσεπράξατό με ἀργύριον, id significat “exegit me pecuniam.” Quod si id dici potest, etiam “exactus esse aliqui pecuniam” dici potest, Caeciliusque eadem figura in Hypobolimaeo Aeschino usus videtur:
Ego illúd minus nihilo éxigor portórium,
id est “nihilominus exigitur de me portorium.”

[¶1] 15. That the early writers used passis velis and passis manibus, not from the verb patior, to which the participle belongs, but from pando, to which it does not belong. FROM the verb pando the ancients made passum, not pansum, and with the preposition ex they formed expassum, not expansum. Caecilius in the Fellowbreakfasters says:
That yesterday he'd looked in from the roof,
Had this announced, and straight the veil was spread (expassum).
A woman too is said to be capillo passo, or “with disordered hair,” when it is hanging down and loosened, and we say passis manibus and velis passis of hands and sails stretched out and spread. Therefore Plautus in his Braggart Captain, changing an a into an e, as is usual in compound words, uses dispessis for dispassis in these lines: Methinks you thus must die without the gate, When you shall hold the cross with hands outstretched (dispessis).

> Latin: 15. “Passis velis” et “passis manibus” dixisse veteres non a verbo suo, quod est “patior,” sed ab alieno, quod est “pando.” AB eo quod est “pando” “passum” veteres dixerunt, non “pansum,” et cum “ex” praepositione “expassum,” non “expansum.” Caecilius in Synaristosis: Heri vero prospexisse eum se ex tégulis, Haec nuntiasseniintiasse et flámmeum expassúm domi “Capillo” quoque esse mulier “passo” dicitur, quasi porrecto et expanso, et “passis manibus” et “velis passis” dicimus, quod significat diductis atque distentis. Itaque Plautus in Milite Glorioso, a littera in e mutata per compositi vocabuli morem, “dispessis” dicit pro eo, quod est “dispassis”:
Credo égo istoc exempló tibi esse pereundum extra pórtam,
Dispéssis manibus pátibulum cum habébis.

[¶2] 16. Of the singular death of Milo of Croton. MILO of Croton, a famous athlete, who was first crowned at the sixty-second Olympiad, as the chronicles record, ended his life in a strange and lamentable manner. When he was already advanced in age and had given up the athletic art, he chanced to be journeying alone in a wooded part of Italy. Near the road he saw an oak tree, the middle of which gaped with wide cracks. Then wishing, I suppose, to try whether he still had any strength left, he put his fingers into the hollows of the tree and tried to rend apart and split the oak. And in fact he did tear asunder and divide the middle part; but when the oak was thus split into two parts, and he relaxed his hold as if he had accomplished his attempt, the tree returned to its natural position when the pressure ceased, and catching and holding his hands as it came together and united, it kept the man there, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts.

> Latin: 16. De novo genere interitus Crotoniensis Milonis. MILO Crotoniensis, athleta inlustris, quem in chronicis scriptum est Olympiade LXII primum coronatum esse, exitum habuit e vita miserandum et mirandum. Cum iam natu grandis artem athleticam desisset iterque faceret forte solus in locis Italiae silvestribus, quercum vidit proxime viam patulis in parte media rimis hiantem. Tum experiri, credo, etiam tunc volens an ullae sibi reliquae vires adessent, inmissis in cavernas arboris digitis, diducere et rescindere quercum conatus est. Ac mediam quidem partem discidit divellitque; quercus autem in duas diducta partis, cum ille, quasi perfecto quod erat conixus, manus laxasset, cessante vi rediit in naturam manibusque eius retentis inclusisque stricta denuo et cohaesa, dilacerandum hominem feris praebuit.

[¶3] 17. Why young men of noble rank at Athens gave up playing the pipes, although it was one of their native customs. ALCIBIADES the Athenian in his boyhood was being trained in the liberal arts and sciences at the home of his uncle, Pericles; and Pericles had ordered Antigenides, a player on the pipes, to be sent for, to teach the boy to play on that instrument, which was then considered a great accomplishment. But when the pipes were handed to him and he had put them to his lips and blown, disgusted at the ugly distortion of his face, he threw them away and broke them in two. When this matter was noised abroad, by the universal consent of the Athenians of that time the art of playing the pipes was given up. This story is told in the twenty-ninth book of the Commentary of Pamphila.

> Latin: 17. Quam ob causam nobiles pueri Atheniensium tibiis canere desierint, cum patrium istum morem canendi haberent. ALCIBIADES Atheniensis, cum apud avunculum Periclen puer artibus ac disciplinis liberalibus erudiretur et arcessi Pericles Antigenidam tibicinem iussisset, ut eum canere tibiis, quod honestissimum tum videbatur, doceret, traditas sibi tibias, cum ad os adhibuisset inflassetque, pudefactus oris deformitate abiecit infregitque. Ea res cum percrebuisset, omnium tum Atheniensium consensu disciplina tibiis canendi desita est. Scriptum hoc in Commentario Pamphilae nono et vicesimo.

[¶4] 18. That the battle which Gaius Caesar fought on the plains of Pharsalus during the civil war was announced on the very same day at Patavium in Italy, and his victory foretold, by the divination of a seer. ON the day that Gaius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius engaged in battle in Thessaly during the civil war, an event occurred at Patavium in Transpadane Italy, which is deserving of record. A priest called Cornelius, a man of good birth, honoured for scrupulousness in his office and revered for the purity of his life, was suddenly seized by a prophetic inspiration and said that he saw a most furious battle taking place afar off; then he shouted out, just as if he were personally taking part in the engagement, that some were giving way, others pressing on; that he saw before him carnage, flight, flying weapons, a renewal of the engagement, an attack, groans and wounds; and later he suddenly exclaimed that Caesar was victorious. At the time the prophecy of the priest Cornelius seemed unimportant and without meaning. Afterwards, however, it caused great surprise, since not only the time of the battle which was fought in Thessaly, and its predicted outcome, were verified, but all the shifting fortunes of the day and the very conflict of the two armies were represented by the gestures and words of the seer.

> Latin: 18. Quod pugnapogna belli civilis victoriaque Gai Caesaris, quam vicit in Pharsaliis campis, nuntiata praedictaque est per cuiuspiam sacerdotis vaticinium eodem ipso die in Italia Patavi. Quo C. Caesar et Cn. Pompeius die per civile bellum signis conlatis in Thessalia conflixerunt, res accidit Patavi in transpadana Italia memorari digna. Cornelius quidam sacerdos, et nobilis et sacerdotii religionibus venerandus et castitate vitae sanctus, repente mota mente conspicere se procul dixit pugnam acerrimam pugnari, ac deinde alios cedere, alios urgere, caedem, fugam, tela volantia, instaurationem pugnae, inpressionem, gemitus, vulnera, proinde ut si ipse in proelio versaretur, coram videre sese vociferatus est ac postea subito exclamavit Caesarem vicisse. Ea Cornelii sacerdotis ariolatio levis tum quidem visa est et vecors. Magnae mox admirationi fuit, quod non modo pugnae dies quae in Thessalia pugnata est, neque proelii exitus qui erat praedictus, idem fuit, sed omnes quoque pugnandi reciprocae vices et ipsa exercituum duorum conflictatio vaticinantis motu atque verbis repraesentata est.

[¶5] 19. Memorable words of Marcus Varro, from the satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn. THERE are not a few to whom that may apply which is said by Marcus Varro in his satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn. or On Eatables. His words are these: “If you had given to philosophy a twelfth part of the effort which you spent in making your baker give you good bread, you would long since have become a good man. As it is, those who know him are willing to buy him at a hundred thousand sesterces, while no one who knows you would take you at a hundred.”

> Latin: 19. Verba M. Varronis memoria digna ex Satura, quae inscribitur Περὶ Ἐδεσμάτων. NON paucissimi sunt in quos potest convenire id quod M. Varro dicit in Satura quae inscribitur Περὶ Ἐδεσμάτων. Verba haec sunt: “Si, quantum operae sumpsisti ut tuus pistor bonum faceret panem, eius duodecimam philosophiae dedisses, ipse bonus iampridem esses factus. Nunc ilium qui norunt volunt emere milibus centum, te qui novit nemo centussis.”

[¶6] 20. Certain facts about the birth, life and character of the poet Euripides, and about the end of his life. THEOPOMPUS says that the mother of the poet Euripides made a living by selling country produce. Furthermore, when Euripides was born, his father was assured by the astrologers that the boy, when he grew up, would be victor in the games; for that was his destiny. His father, understanding this to mean that he ought to be an athlete, exercised and strengthened his son's body and took him to Olympia to contend among the wrestlers. And at first he was not admitted to the contest because of his time of life, but afterwards he engaged in the Eleusinian and Thesean contests and won crowns. Later, turning from attention to bodily exercise to the desire of training his mind, he was a pupil of the natural philosopher Anaxagoras and the rhetorician Prodicus, and, in moral philosophy, of Socrates. At the age of eighteen he attempted to write a tragedy. Philochorus relates that there is on the island of Salamis a grim and gloomy cavern, which I myself have seen, in which Euripides wrote tragedies. He is said to have had an exceeding antipathy towards almost all women, either because he had a natural disinclination to their society, or because he had had two wives at the same time (since that was permitted by a decree passed by the Athenians) and they had made wedlock hateful to him. Aristophanes also notices his antipathy to women in the first edition of the Thesmophoriazousae in these verses:
Now then I urge and call on all our sex
This man to punish for his many crimes.
For on us, women, he brings bitter woes,
Himself brought up 'mid bitter garden plants.
But Alexander the Aetolian composed the following lines about Euripides:
The pupil of stout Anaxagoras,
Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned
To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote
Might honey and the Sirens well have known. When Euripides was in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, and had become an intimate friend of the king, returning home one night from a dinner with the monarch he was torn by dogs, which were set upon him by a rival of his, and death resulted from his wounds. The Macedonians treated his tomb and his memory with such honour that they used to proclaim: “Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish,” also by way of self-glorification, because the distinguished poet had met his death and been buried in their land. Therefore when envoys, sent to them by the Athenians, begged that they should allow his bones to be moved to Athens, his native land, the Macedonians unanimously persisted in refusing.

> Latin: 20. Notata quaedam de Euripidis poetae genere, vita, moribus deque eiusdem fine vitae. EURIPIDI poetae matrem Theopompus agrestia olera vendentem victum quaesisse dicit. Patri autem eius nato illo responsum est a Chaldaeis eum puerum, cum adolevisset, victorem in certaminibus fore; id ei puero fatum esse. Pater interpretatus athletam debere esse, roborato exercitatoque filii sui corpore, Olympiam certaturum eum inter athletas pueros deduxit. Ac primo quidem in certamen per ambiguam aetatem receptus non est, post Eleusino et Theseo certamine pugnavit et coronatus est. Mox a corporis cura ad excolendi animi studium transgressus, auditor fuit physici Anaxagorae et Prodici rhetoris, in morali autem philosophia Socratis. Tragoediam scribere natus annos duodeviginti adortus est. Philochorus refert in insula Salamine speluncam esse taetram et horridam, quam nos vidimus, in qua Euripides tragoedias scriptitarit. Mulieres fere omnes in maiorem modum exosus fuisse dicitur, sive quod natura abhorruit a mulierum coetu sive quod duas simul uxores habuerat, cum id decreto ab Atheniensibus facto ius esset, quarum matrimonii pertaedebat. Eius odii in mulieres Aristophanes quoque meminit ἐν ταῖς τροτέραις Θεσμοφοριαζούσαις in his versibus:
Νῦν οὖν ἁπάσαισιν παραινῶ καὶ λέγω,
Τοῦτον κολάσαι τὸν ἄνδρα πολλῶν οὕνεκα.
Ἄγρια γὰρ ἡμᾶς, ὦ γυναῖκες, δρᾷ κακά,
Ἅτʼ ἐν ἀγρίοισι τοῖς λαχάνοις αὐτὸς τραφείς. Alexander autem Aetolus hos de Euripide versus composuit:
Ὁ δʼ Ἀναξαγόρου τρόφιμος χαιοῦ στριφνὸς μὲν ἔμοιγε προσειπεῖν,
Καὶ μισογέλως, καὶ τωθάζειν οὐδὲ παρʼ οἶνον μεμαθηκώς,
Ἀλλʼ ὅ τι γράψαι, τοῦτʼ ἄν μέλιτος καὶ Σειρήνων ἐτετεύχει. Is cum in Macedonia apud Archelaum regem esset utereturque eo rex familiariter, rediens nocte ab eius cena, canibus a quodam aemulo inmissis dilaceratus est et ex his vulneribus mors secuta est. Sepulchrum autem eius et memoriam Macedones eo dignati sunt honore, ut in gloriae quoque loco praedicarent: οὔποτʼ ἂν σὸν μνῆμα, Εὐρίπιδες, ὄλοιτό που, quod egregius poeta morte obita sepultus in eorum terra foret. Quamobrem cum legati ad eos ab Atheniensibus missi petissent ut ossa Athenas in terram illius patriam permitterent transferri, maximo consensu Macedones in ea re deneganda perstiterunt.

[¶7] 21. That by the poets the sons of Jupiter are represented as most wise and refined, but those of Neptune as very haughty and rude. THE poets have called the sons of Jupiter most excellent in worth, wisdom and strength, for example Aeacus, Minos and Sarpedon; the sons of Neptune, the Cyclops, Cercyon, Sciron, and the Laestrygonians, they said, were most haughty and cruel, and strangers to all refinement, as being sprung from the sea.

> Latin: 21. Quod a poetis Iovis filii prudentissimi humanissimique, Neptuni autem ferocissimi et inhumanissimi traduntur. PRAESTANTISSIMOS virtute, prudentia, viribus Iovis filios poetae appellaverunt, ut Aeacum et Minoa et Sarpedona; ferocissimos et inmanes et alienos ab omni humanitate, tamquam e mari genitos, Neptuni filios dixerunt, Cyclopa et Cercyona et Scirona et Laestrygonas.

[¶8] 22. A story of the distinguished leader Sertorius; of his cunning, and of the clever devices which he used to control and conciliate his barbarian soldiers. SERTORIUS, a brave man and a distinguished general, was skilled in using and commanding an army. In times of great difficulty he would lie to his soldiers, if a lie was advantageous, he would read forged letters for genuine ones, feign dreams, and resort to fictitious omens, if such devices helped him to keep up the spirits of his soldiers. the following story about Sertorius is particularly well known: A white hind of remarkable beauty, agility and swiftness was given him as a present by a man of Lusitania. He tried to convince everyone that the animal had been given him by the gods, and that inspired by the divine power of Diana, it talked with him, and showed and indicated what it was expedient to do; and if any command which he felt obliged to give his soldiers seemed unusually difficult, he declared that he had been advised by the hind. When he said that, all willingly rendered obedience, as if to a god. One day, when an advance of the enemy had been reported, the hind, alarmed by the hurry and confusion, took to flight and hid in a neighbouring marsh, and after being sought for in vain was believed to have perished. Not many days later, word was brought to Sertorius that the hind had been found. Then he bade the one who had brought the news to keep silence, threatening him with punishment in case he revealed the matter to anyone; and he ordered him suddenly on the following day to let the animal into the place where lie himself was with his friends. Then, next day, having called in his friends, he said that he had dreamed that the lost hind had returned to him, and after its usual manner had told him what ought to be done. Thereupoli he signed to the slave to do what he had ordered; the hind was let loose and burst into Sertorius' room, amid shouts of amazement. This credulity of the barbarians was very helpful to Sertorius in important matters. It is recorded that of those tribes which acted with Sertorius, although he was defeated in many battles, not one ever deserted him, although that race of men is most inconstant.

> Latin: 22. Historia de Sertorio, egregio duce, deque astu eius commenticiisque simulamentis quibus ad barbaros milites continendos conciliandosque sibi utebatur. SERTORIUS, vir acer egregiusque dux, et utendi regendique exercitus peritus fuit. Is in temporibus difficillimis et mentiebatur ad milites, si mendaciumn prodesset, et litteras compositas pro veris legebat et somnium simulabat et falsas religiones conferebat, si quid istae res eum apud militum animos adiuvabant. Illud adeo Sertori nobile est: Cerva alba eximiae pulchritudinis et vivacissimae celeritatis a Lusitano ei quodam dono data est. Hanc sibi oblatam divinitus et instinctam Dianae numine conloqui secum monereque et docere quae utilia factu essent, persuadere omnibus institit ac, si quid durius videbatur quod imperandum militibus foret, a cerva sese monitumnonitum praedicabat. Id cum dixerat, universi, tamquam si deo, libentes parebant. Ea cerva quodam die, cum incursio esset hostium nuntiata, festinatione ac tumultu consternata in fugam se prorupitproruptit atque in palude proxima delituit et frustra requisita perisse credita est. Neque multis diebus post inventam esse cervam Sertorio nuntiatur. Tum qui nuntiaverat iussit tacere, ac ne cui palam diceret interminatus est, praecepitque ut eam postero die repente in eum locum in quo ipse cum amicis esset inmitteret. Admissis deinde amicis postridie, visum sibi esse ait in quiete cervam quae perisset ad se reverti et, ut prius consuerat, quod opus esset facto praedicere; tum servo quod imperaverat significat, cerva emissa in cubiculum Sertorii introrupit, clamor factus et orta admiratio est. Eaque hominum barbarorum credulitas Sertorio in magnis rebus magno usui fuit. Memoria prodita est, ex his nationibus quae cum Sertorio faciebant, cum multis proeliis superatus esset, neminem umquam ab eo descivisse, quamquam id genus hominum esset mobilissimum.

[¶9] 23. Of the age of the famous historians, Hellanicus, Herodotus and Thucydides. HELLANICUS, Herodotus, and Thucydides, writers of history, enjoyed great glory at almost the same time, and did not differ very greatly in age. For Hellanicus seems to have been sixty-five years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, Herodotus fifty-three, Thucydides forty. This is stated in the eleventh book of Pamphila.

> Latin: 23. De aetatibus historicorum nobilium, Hellanici, Herodoti, Thucydidis. HELLANICUS, Herodotus, Thucydides, historiae scriptores, in isdem fere temporibus laude ingenti floruerunt et non nimis longe distantibus fuerunt aetatibus. Nam Hellanicus initio belli Peloponnesiaci fuisse quinque et sexaginta annos natus videtur, Herodotus tres et quinquaginta, Thucydides quadraginta. Scriptum est hoc in libro undecimo Pamphilae.

[¶10] 24. Vulcacius Sedigitus' canon of the Latin writers of comedy, from the book which he wrote On Poets. SEDIGITUS, in the book which he wrote On Poets, shows in the following verses of his what he thought of those who wrote comedies, which one he thinks surpasses all the rest, and then what rank and honour he gives to each of them:
This question many doubtfully dispute,
Which comic poet they'd award the palm.
This doubt my judgment shall for you resolve;
If any differ from me, senseless he.
First place I give Caecilius Statius.
Plautus holds second rank without a peer;
Then Naevius third, for passion and for fire.
If fourth there be, be he Licinius.
I place Atilius next, after Licinius.
These let Terentius follow, sixth in rank.
Turpilius seventh, Trabea eighth place holds.
Ninth palm I gladly give to Luscius,
To Ennius tenth, as bard of long ago.

> Latin: 24. Quid Vulcacius Sedigitus, in libro quem De Poetis scripsit, de comicis Latinis iudicarit. SEDIGITUS in libro quem scripsit De Poetis, quid de his sentiat qui comoedias fecerunt, et quem ex omnibus praestare ceteris putet, ac deinceps quo quemque in loco et honore ponat, his versibus suis demonstrate:
Multós incertos cértare hanc rem vidimus,
Palmám poetae cómico cui déferant.
Eum méo iudicio errórem dissolvám tibi,
Ut, cóntra si quis séntiat, nihil séntiat.
Caecílio palmam Státio do mimico.
Plautús secundus facile exuperat céteros.
Dein Naévius, qui férvet, pretio in tértiost.
Si erit, quod quarto détur, dabitur Licinio.
Post insequi Licinium facio Atilium.
In séxto consequétur hos Teréntius,
Turpílius septimúm, Trabea octavum óptinet,
Nonó loco esse fácile facio Lúscium.
Decimum áddo causa antiquitatis ÉEnniumnnium.

[¶11] 25. Of certain new words which I had met in the Miimiambics of Gnaeus Matius. GNAEUS MATIUS, a learned man, in his Mimiambics properly and fitly coined the word recentatur for the idea expressed by the Greek a)nai eou=tai, that is “it is born again and is again made new.” The lines in which the word occurs are these:
E'en now doth Phoebus gleam, again is born (recentatur)
The common light to joys of mortal men.
Matius too, in the same Mimiarmbics, says edulcare, meaning “to sweeten,” in these lines:
And therefore it is fit to sweeten (edulcare) life,
And bitter cares with wisdom to control.

> Latin: 25. De verbis quibusdam novis, quae in Gnaei Mati Mimiambis offenderamus. CN. MATIUS, vir eruditus, in mimiambisMimianibis suis non absurde neque absone finxit “recentatur” pro eo, quod Graeci dicunt ἀνανεοῦται, id est “denuo nascitur atque iterum fit recens.” Versus, in quibus hoc verbum est, hi sunt:
Iam iam albicascit Phoebus et recentatur
Commune lumen hominibus voluptatis. Idem Matius in isdem Mimiambis edulcare dicit, quod est “dulcius reddere,” in his versibus:
Quapropter edulcare convenit vitam
Curasque acerbas sensibus gubernare.

[¶12] 26. In what words the philosopher Aristotle defined a syllogism; and an interpretation of his definition in Latin terms. ARISTOTLE defines a syllogism in these lines: “A sentence in which, granted certain premises, something else than these premises necessarily follows as the result of these premises.” The following interpretation of this definition seemed to me fairly good: “A syllogism is a sentence in which, certain things being granted and accepted, something else than that which was granted is necessarily established through what was granted.”

> Latin: 26. Quibus verbis Aristoteles philosophus definierit syllogismum; eiusque definitionis interpretamentum verbis Latinis factum. ARISTOTELES, quid “syllogismus” esset, his versibus definivit: Λόγος, ἐν τεθέντων τινῶν, ἕτερόν τι τῶν κειμένων ἐξ ἀνάγκης συμβαίνει διὰ τῶν κειμένων. definitionis non videbatur habere incommode interpretatio facta hoc modo: “Syllogismus est oratio, in qua, consensis quibusdam et concessis, aliud quid quam quae concessa sunt, per ea quae concessa sunt, necessario conficitur.”

[¶13] 27. The meaning of comitia calata, curiata, centsriata, and tribulta, and of concilium, and other related matters of the same kind. IN the first book of the work of Laelius Felix addressed To Quintus Mucius it is said that Labeo wrote that the comitia calata, or “convoked assembly,” was held on behalf of the college of pontiffs for the purpose of installing the king or the flames. Of these assemblies some were those “of the curies”, others those “of the centuries”; the former were called together (calari being used in the sense of “convoke”) by the curiate lictor, the latter by a horn blower. In that same assembly, which we have said was called calata, or “convoked,” wills were customarily made and sacrifices annulled. For we learn that there were three kinds of wills: one which was made in the “convoked assembly” before the collected people, a second on the battle-field, when the men were called into line for the purpose of fighting, a third the symbolic sale of a householder's property by means of the coin and balance. In the same book of Laelius Felix this is written: “One who orders a part of the people to assemble, but not all the people, ought to announce a council rather than an assembly. Moreover, tribunes do not summon the patricians, nor may they refer any question to them. Therefore bills which are passed on the initiative of the tribunes of the commons are properly called plebiscita, or 'decrees of the commons,' rather than 'laws.' In former times the patricians were not bound by such decrees until the dictator Quintus Hortensius passed a law, providing that all the Quirites should be bound by whatever enactment the commons should pass.” It is also written in the same book: “When voting is done according to families of men, the assembly is called 'curiate'; when it is according to property and age, ' centuriate'; when according to regions and localities, 'tribal.' Further it impious for the assembly of the centuries to be held within the pomerium, because the army must be summoned outside of the city, and it is not lawful for it to be summoned within the city. Therefore it was customary for the assembly of the centuries to be held in the field of Mars, and the army to be summoned there for purposes of defence while the people were busy casting their votes.”

> Latin: 27. Quid sint “comitia calata,” quid “curiata,” quid “centuriata,” quid “tributatributea,” quid “concilium”; atque inibi quaedam eiusdemmodi. IN libro Laelii Felicis Ad Q. Mucium primo scriptum est Labeonem scribere “calata” comitia esse quae pro conlegio pontificum habentur, aut regis aut flaminum inaugurandorum causa. Eorum autem alia esse “curiata,” alia “centuriata”; “curiata” per lictorem curiatum “calari,” id est “convocari,” “centuriata” per cornicinem. Isdem comitiis, quae “calata” appellari diximus, et sacrorum detestatio et testamenta fieri solebant. Tria enim genera testamentorum fuisse accepimus: unum, quod calatis comitiis in populi contione fieret, alterum in procinctu, cum viri ad proelium faciendum in aciem vocabantur, tertium per familiae emancipationem, cui aes et libra adhiberetur. In eodem Laeli Felicis libro haec scripta sunt: “Is qui non universum populum, sed partem aliquam adesse iubet, non ‘comitia,’ sed ‘concilium’ edicere debet. Tribuni autem neque advocant patricios neque ad eos referre ulla de re possunt. Ita ne ‘leges’ quidem proprie, sed ‘plebisscita’ appellantur quae tribunis plebis ferentibus acceptaaccept sunt, quibus rogationibus ante patricii non tenebantur, donec Q. Hortensius dictator legem tulit, ut eo iure quod plebs statuisset omnes Quirites tenerentur.” Item n eodem libro hoc scriptum est: “Cum ex generibus hominum suffragium feratur, ‘curiata’ comitia esse, cum ex censu et aetate ‘centuriata,’ cum ex regionibus et locis, ‘tributa’; centuriata autem comitia intra pomerium fieri nefas esse, quia exercitum extra urbem imperari oporteat, intra urbem imperari ius non sit. Propterea centuriata in campo Martio haberi exercitumque imperari praesidii causa solitum, quoniam populus esset in suffragiis ferendis occupatus.”

[¶14] 28. That Cornelius Nepos was in error when he wrote that Cicero defended Sextus Roscius at the age of twenty-three. CORNELIUS NEPOS was a careful student of records and one of Marcus Cicero's most intimate friends. Yet in the first book of his Life of Cicero he seems to have erred in writing that Cicero made his first plea in a public trial at the age of twenty-three years, defending Sextus Roscius, who was charged with murder. For if we count the years from Quintus Caepio and Quintus Serranus, in whose consulship Cicero was born on the third day before the Nones of January, to Marcus Tullius and Gnaeus Dolabella, in whose consulate he pleaded a private case In Defence of Quinctius before Aquilius Gallus as judge, the result is twenty-six years. And there is no doubt that he defended Sextus Roscius on a charge of murder the year after he spoke In Defence of Quinctius; that is, at the age of twenty-seven, in the consulship of Lucius Sulla Felix and Metellus Pius, the former for a second time. Asconius Pedianus has noted that Fenestella also made a mistake in regard to this matter, in writing that he pleaded for Sextus Roscius in the twenty-sixth year of his age. But the mistake of Nepos is greater than that of Fenestella, unless anyone is inclined to believe that Nepos, led by a feeling of friendship and regard, suppressed four years in order to increase our admiration of Cicero, by making it appear that he delivered his brilliant speech In Defence of Roscius when he was a very young man. This also has been noted and recorded by the admirers of both orators, that Demosthenes and Cicero delivered their first brilliant speeches in the courts at the same age, the former Against Androtion and Against Timocrates at the age of twenty-seven, the latter when a year younger In Defence of Quinctius and at twenty-seven In Defence of Sextus Roscius. Also, the number of years which they lived did not differ very greatly; Cicero died at sixty-three, Demosthenes at sixty.

> Latin: 28. Quod erravit Cornelius Nepos, cum scripsit Ciceronem tres et viginti annos natum causam pro Sexto Roscio dixisse. CORNELIUS NEPOS et rerum memoriae non indiligens et M. Ciceronis ut qui maxime amicus familiaris fuit. Atque is tamen, in primo librorum quos de vita illius composuit, errasse videtur, cum eum scripsit tres et viginti annos natum primum causam iudicii publici egisse Sextumque Roscium parricidii reum defendisse. Dinumeratis quippe annis a Q. Caepione et Q. Serrano, quibus consulibus ante diem tertium Nonas Ianuar. M. Cicero natus est, ad M. Tullium et Cn. Dolabellam quibus consulibus causam privatam Pro Quinctio apud Aquilium Gallum iudicem dixit, sex et viginti anni reperiuntur. Neque dubium est quin post annum quam Pro Quinctio dixerat, Sex. Roscium reum parricidii defenderit, annos iam septem atque viginti natus, L. Sulla Felice II. Q. Metello Pio consulibus. In qua re etiam Fenestellam errasse Pedianus Asconius animadvertit, quod eum scripserit sexto vicesimo aetatis anno pro Sex. Roscio dixisse. Longior autem Nepotis quam Fenestellae error est, nisi quis vult in animum inducere Nepotem, studio amoris et amicitiae adductum, amplificandae admirationis gratia quadriennium suppressisse, ut M. Cicero orationem florentissimam dixisse Pro Roscio admodum adulescens videretur. Illud adeo ab utriusque oratoris studiosis animadversum et scriptum est, quod Demosthenes et Cicero pari aetate inlustrissimas primas orationes in causis dixerunt, alter Κατὰ Ἀνδροτίωνος et Κατὰ Τιμοκράτους septem et viginti annos natus, alter anno minor Pro P. Quinctio septimoque et vicesimo Pro Sex. Roscio. Vixerunt quoque non nimis numerumnunerum annorum diversum; alter tres et sexaginta annos, Demosthenes sexaginta.

[¶15] 29. A new form of expression used by Lucius Piso, the writer of annals. THE two following modes of saying “my name is Julius” are common and familiar: mihi nomen est Iulius and mihi nomen est Iulio. I have actually found a third, and new, form in Piso, in the second book of his Annals. His words are these: “They feared his colleague, Lucius Tarquinius, because he had the Tarquinian name; and he begged him to leave Rome of his own free will.” “Because,” says he, “he had the Tarquinian name”; this is as if I should say mihi nomen est Iulium, or “I have the Julian name.”

> Latin: 29. Quali figura orationis et quam nova L. Piso annalium scriptor usus sit. DUAE istae in loquendo figurae notae satis usitataeque sunt: “mihi nomen est Iulius” et “mihi nomen est Iulio”; tertiam figuram novam hercle repperi apud Pisonem in secundo Annalium. Verba Pisonis haec sunt: “L. Tarquinium, collegam suum quia Tarquinio nomine esset, metuere; eumque orat uti sua voluntate Roma concedat.” “Quia Tarquinio,” inquit, “nomine esset”; hoc proinde est, tamquam si ego dicam: “mihi nomen est Iulium.”

[¶16] 30. Whether the word petorritum, applied to a vehicle, is Greek or Gallic. THOSE who approach the study of letters late in life, after they are worn out and exhausted by some other occupation, particularly if they are garrulous and of only moderate keenness, make themselves exceedingly ridiculous and silly by displaying their would-be knowledge. To this class that man surely belongs, who lately talked fine-spun nonsense about petorrita, or “four-wheeled wagons.” For when the question was asked, what form of vehicle the petorritum was, and from what language the word came, he falsely described a form of vehicle very unlike the real one; he also declared that the name was Greek and interpreted it as meaning “flying wheels,” maintaining that pelorritum was formed by the change of a single letter from pelorrotum, and that this form was actually used by Valerius Probus. When I had got together many copies of the Commentaries of Probus, I did not find that spelling in them, and I do not believe that Probus used it anywhere else. For petorritum is not a hybrid word derived in part from the Greek, but the entire word belongs to the people across the Alps; for it is a Gallic word. It is found in the fourteenth book of Marcus Varro's Divine Antiquities, where Varro, speaking of petorritum, says that it is a Gallic term. He also says that lancea, or “lance,” is not a Latin, but a Spanish word.

> Latin: 30. Vehiculum quod “petorritum” appellatur, cuiatis linguae vocabulum sit, Graecae an Gallicae. Qui ab alio genere vitae detriti iam et retorridi ad litterarum disciplinas serius adeunt, si forte idem sunt garruli natura et subargutuli, oppido quam fiunt in litterarum ostentatione inepti et frivoli. Quod genus profecto ille homo est, qui de “petorritis” nuper argutissimas nugas dixit. Nam cum quaereretur, “petorritum” quali forma vehiculum cuiatisque linguae vocabulum esset, et faciem vehiculi ementitus est longe alienam falsamque et vocabulum Graecum esse dixit atque adsignificare volucres rotas interpretatus est, commutataque una littera “petorritum” esse dictum volebat quasi “petorrotum”; scriptum etiam hoc esse a Valerio Probo contendit. Ego, cum Probi multos admodum Commentationum libros adquisierim, neque scriptum in his inveni nec usquam alioqui Probum scripsisse credo; “petorritum” enim est non ex Graecia dimidiatum, sed totum Transalpibus; nam est vox Gallica. Id scriptum est in libro M. Varronis quarto decimo Rerum Divinarum, quo in loco Varro, cum de “petorrito” dixisset, esse id verbum Gallicum, “lanceam” quoque dixit non Latinum, set Hispanicum verbum esse.

[¶17] 31. A message sent by the Rhodians about the celebrated picture of Ialysus to Demetrius, leader of the enemy, at the time when they were besieged by him. THE island of Rhodes, of ancient fame, and the fairest and richest town in it were besieged and assaulted by Demetrius, a famous general of his time, who was surnamed Poliorkhth/s, or “the taker of cities,” from his skill and training in conducting sieges and the cleverness of the engines which he devised for the capture of towns. On that occasion he was preparing in the course of the siege to attack, pillage and burn a public building without the walls of the town, which had only a weak garrison. In this building was that famous picture of Ialysus, the work of Protogenes, the distinguished painter; and incited by anger against them, Demetrius begrudged the Rhodians the beauty and fame of that work of art. The Rhodians sent envoys to Demetrius with this message: “What on earth is your reason for wishing to set fire to that building and destroy our painting? For if you overcome all of us and take this whole town, through your victory you will gain possession also of that painting, uninjured and entire; but if you are unable to overcome us by your siege, we beg you to take thought lest it bring shame upon you, because you could not conquer the Rhodians in war, to have waged war with the dead Protogenes.” Upon hearing this message from the envoys, Demetrius abandoned the siege and spared both the picture and the city.

> Latin: 31. Quae verba legaverint Rodii ad hostium ducem Demetrium, cum ab eo obsiderentur, super illa incluta Ialysi imagine. RODUM insulam celebritatis antiquissimae oppidumque in ea pulcherrimum ornatissimumque obsidebat obpugnabatque Demetrius, dux aetatis suae inclutus, cui a peritia disciplinaque faciendi obsidii machinarumque sollertia ad capienda oppida repertarum cognomentum Πολιορκητής fuit. Tum ibi in obsidione aedes quasdam publice factas, quae extra urbis muros cum parvo praesidio erant, adgredi et vastare atque absumere igni parabat. In eis aedibus erat memoratissima illa imago Ialysi, Protogenis manu facta, inlustris pictoris, cuius operis pulchritudinem praestantiamque ira percitus Rodiis invidebat. Mittunt Rodii ad Demetrium legatos cum his verbis: “Quae, malum,” inquiunt, “ratiost ut tu imaginem istam velis incendio aedium facto disperdere? Nam si nos omnes superaveris et oppidum hoc totum ceperis, imagine quoque illa integra et incolumi per victoriam potieris; sin vero nos vincere obsidendo nequiveris, petimus consideres ne turpe tibi sit, quia non potueris bello Rodios vincere, bellum cum Protogene mortuo gessisse.” Hoc ubi ex legatis audivit, obpugnatione desita et imagini et civitati pepercit.

## 36. Book XVI · chapters 1–8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/36/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/36/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A saying of Musonius, the Greek philosopher, which is of practical value and worth hearing and bearing in mind; and a remark of equal value made by Marcus Cato many years before to the knights at Numantia. WHEN I was still young and a schoolboy, I heard that this Greek sentiment which I have subjoined was uttered by the philosopher Musonius, and since it is a true and brilliant saying, expressed briefly and roundly, I very willingly committed it to memory: "If you accomplish anything noble with toil, the toil passes, but the noble deed endures. If you do anything shameful with pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the shame endures." Later, I read that same sentiment in the speech of Marcus Cato which he delivered At Numantia to the Knights. Although it is expressed somewhat loosely and diffusely compared with the Greek which I have given, yet, since it is prior in time and more ancient, it ought to seem worthy of greater respect. The words in the speech are as follows: “Bear in mind, that if through toil you accomplish a good deed, that toil will quickly pass from you, the good deed will not leave you so long as you live; but if through pleasure you do anything dishonourable, the pleasure will quickly pass away, that dishonourable act will remain with you for ever.”

> Latin: 1. Verba Musoni philosophi Graeca, digna atque utilia audiri observarique; eiusdemque utilitatis sententia a M. Catone multis ante annis Numantiae ad equites dicta. ADULESCENTULI cum etiamtum in scholis essemus, ἐνθυμημάτιον hoc Graecum quod adposui dictum esse a Musonio philosopho audiebamus et, quoniam vere atque luculente dictum verbisque est brevibus et rotundis vinctum, perquam libenter memineramus: Ἄν τι πράξῃς καλὸν μετὰ πόνου, ὁ μὲν πόνος οἴχεται, τὸ δὲ καλὸν μένει· ἄν τι ποιήσῃς αἰσχρὸν μετὰ ἡδονῆς, τὸ μὲν ἡδὺ οἴχεται, τὸ δὲ αἰσχρὸν μένει. Postea istam ipsam sententiam in Catonis oratione, quam dixit Numantiae apud Equites, positam legimus. Quae etsi laxioribus paulo longioribusque verbis comprehensa est praequam illud Graecum quod diximus, quoniam tamen prior tempore antiquiorque est, venerabilior videri debet. Verba ex oratione haec sunt: “Cogitate cum animis vestris, si quid vos per laborem recte feceritis, labor ille a vobis cito recedet, bene factum a vobis, dum vivitis, non abscedet; sed si qua per voluptatem nequiter feceritis, voluptas cito abibit, nequiter factum illud apud vos semperselmper manebit.”

[¶1] 2. The nature of the rule of the logicians in disputation and declamation, and the defect of that rule. THEY say that it is a rule of the dialectic art, that if there is inquiry and discussion of any subject, and you are called upon to answer a question which is asked, you should answer the question by a simple “yes” or “no.” And those who do not observe that rule, but answer more than they were asked, or differently, are thought to be both uneducated and unobservant of the customs and laws of debate. As a matter of fact this dictum undoubtedly ought to be followed in very many debates. For a discussion will become endless and hopelessly involved, unless it is confined to simple questions and answers. But there seem to be some discussions in which, if you answer what you are asked briefly and directly, you are caught in a trap. For if anyone should put a question in these words: “I ask you to tell me whether you have given up committing adultery or not,” whichever way you answer according to this rule of debate, whether you say “yes” or “no,” you will be caught in a dilemma, equally if you should say that you are an adulterer, or should deny it; for one who has not given up a thing has not of necessity ever done it. That then is a deceptive kind of catch-question, and can by no means lead to the inference and conclusion that he commits adultery who says that he has not given up doing it. But what will the defenders of that rule do in that dilemma, in which they must necessarily be caught, if they give a simple answer to the question? For if I should ask any one of them: “Do you, or do you not, have what you have not lost? I demand the answer 'yes' or no,'” whichever way he replies briefly, he will be caught. For if he says that he does not have what he has not lost, the conclusion will be drawn that he has no eyes, since he has not lost them; but if he says that he has it, it will be concluded that he has horns, because he has not lost them. Therefore it will be more cautious and more correct to reply as follows: “I have whatever I had, if I have not lost it.” But an answer of that kind is not made in accordance with the rule which we have mentioned; for more is answered than was asked. Therefore this proviso also is commonly added to the rule, that one need not answer catchquestions.

> Latin: 2. Cuiusmodi sit lex apud dialecticos percontandi disserendique; et quae sit eius legis reprehensio. LEGEM esse aiunt disciplinae dialecticae, si de quapiam re quaeratur disputeturque atque ibi quid rogere ut respondeas, tum ne amplius quid dicas quam id solum quod es rogatus aut aias aut neges; eamque legem qui non servent, et aut plus aut aliter quam sunt rogati respondeant, existumanturexistumnantur indoctique esse disputandique morem atque rationem non tenere. Hoc quidem quod dicunt in plerisque disputationibus procul dubio fieri oportet. Indefinitus namque inexplicabilisque sermo fiet, nisi interrogationibus responsionibusque simplicibus fuerit determinatus. Sed enim esse quaedam videntur, in quibus si breviter et ad id quod rogatus fueris respondeas, capiare. Nam si quis his verbis interroget: “Postulo uti respondeas desierisne facere adulterium an non,” utrumcumque dialectica lege responderis, sive aias seu neges, haerebis in captione, tamquam si te dicas adulterum quam si neges; nam qui facere non desinit, non id necessario etiam fecit. Falsa igitur est species istius captionis et nequaquam procedere ad id potest, ut conligi concludique possit eum facere adulterium qui se negaverit facere desisse. Quid autem legis istius propugnatores in illa captiuncula facient, in qua haerere eos necessum est, si nihil amplius quam quod interrogati erunt responderint? Nam, si ita ego istorum aliquem rogem: “Quicquid non perdidisti habeasne an non habeas postulo ut aias aut neges,” utrumcumque breviter respondent, capietur. Nam si habere se negaverit quod non perdidit, colligetur oculos eum non habere, quos non perdidit; sin vero habere se dixerit, colligetur habere eum cornua, quae non perdidit. Rectius igitur cautiusque ita respondebitur: “Quicquid habui, id habeo, si id non perdidi.” Sed huiuscemodi responsio non fit ex ea lege quam diximus; plus enim, quam quod rogatus est, respondet. Propterea id quoque ad eam legem addi solet, non esse captiosis interrogationibus respondendum.

[¶2] 3. By what means Erasistratus, the physician, said that one could do for a time without eating, if food chanced to be lacking, and endure hunger; and his own words on that subject. I OFTEN spent whole days in Rome with Favorinus. His delightful conversation held my mind enthralled, and I attended him wherever he went, as if actually taken prisoner by his eloquence; to such a degree did he constantly delight me with his most agreeable discourse. Once when he had gone to visit a sick man, and I had entered with him, having conversed for some time in Greek about the man's illness with the physicians who chanced to be there at the time, he said: “This ought not to seem surprising either, that although previously he was always eager for food, now after an enforced fast of three days all his former appetite is lost. For what Erasistratus has written is pretty nearly true,” said he, “that the empty and open fibres of the intestines, the hollowness of the belly within and the empty and yawning cavity of the stomach, cause hunger; but when these are either filled with food or are contracted and brought together by continued fasting, then, since the place into which the food is received is either filled or made smaller, the impulse to take food, or to crave it, is destroyed.” He declared that Erasistratus also said that the Scythians too, when it was necessary for them to endure protracted hunger, bound a very tight bandage around their bellies. That by such compression of the belly it was believed that hunger could be prevented. These things and many others of the kind Favorinus said most entertainingly on that occasion; but later, when I chanced to be reading the first book of Erasistratus' Distinctions, I found in that book the very passage which 1 had heard Favorinus quote. The words of Erasistratus on the subject are as follows: “I reasoned therefore that the ability to fast for a long time is caused by strong compression of the belly; for with those who voluntarily fast for a long time, at first hunger ensues, but later it passes away.” Then a little later: “And the Scythians also are accustomed, when on any occasion it is necessary to fast, to bind up the belly with broad belts, in the belief that the hunger thus troubles them less; and one may almost say too that when the stomach is full, men feel no hunger for the reason that there is no vacuity in it, and likewise when it is greatly compressed there is no vacuity.” In the same book Erasistratus declares that a kind of irresistibly violent hunger, which the Greeks call bou/limos, or “ox-hunger,” is much more apt to be felt on very cold days than when tile weather is calm and pleasant, and that the reasons why this disorder prevails especially at such times have not yet become clear to him. The words which he uses are these: “It is unknown and requires investigation, both in reference to the case in question and in that of others who suffer from 'ox-hunger,' why this symptom appears rather on cold days than in warm weather.”

> Latin: 3. Quanam ratione effici dixerit Erasistratus medicus, si cibus forte deerit, ut tolerari aliquantisper inedia possit et tolerari fames; verbaque ipsa Erasistrati super ea re scripta. Cum Favorino Romae dies plerumque totos eramus tenebatque animos nostros homo ille fandi dulcissimus atque eum, quoquo iret, quasi ex lingua prorsum eius capti prosequebamur; ita sermonibus usquequaque amoenissimis demulcebat. Tum ad quendam aegrum cum isset visere nosque cum eo una introissemus multaque ad medicos, qui tumturn forte istic erant, valitudinis eius gratia oratione Graeca dixisset, “Ac ne hoc quidem mirum,” inquit, “videri debet, quod, cum antehac semper edundi fuerit adpetens, nunc post imperatam inediam tridui omnis eius adpetitio pristina elanguerit.” “Nam quod Erasistratus scriptum,” inquit, “reliquit propemodum verum est: esuritionem faciunt inanes patentesque intestinorum fibrae et cava intus ventris ac stomachi vacua et hiantia; quae ubi aut cibo conplentur aut inanitate diutina contrahuntur et conivent, tunc loco, in quem cibus capitur, vel stipato vel adducto, voluntas capiendi eius desiderandique restinguitur.” Scythas quoque ait eundem Erasistratum dicere, cum sit usus ut famem longius tolerent, fasceis ventrem strictissime circumligare. Ea ventris conpressione esuritionem posse depelli creditum est. Haec tum Favorinus multaque istiusmodi alia adfabilissime dicebat, nos autem postea, cum librum forte Erasistrati legeremus Διαιρέσεων primum, id ipsum in eo libro, quod Favorinum audiebamusaudiebanus dicere, scripture offendimus. Verba Erasistrati ad eam rem pertinentia haec sunt: Ἐλογιζόμεθα οὖν παρὰ τὴν ἰσχυρὰν σύμπτωσιν τῆς κοιλίας εἶναι τὴν σφόδρα ἀσιτίαν· καὶ γὰρ τοῖς ἐπίπλεον ἀσιτοῦσιν κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις χρόνοις ἡ πεῖνα παρακολουθεῖ, ὕστερον δὲ οὐκέτι. Deinde paululum infra: Εἰθισμένοι δέ εἰσιν καὶ οἱ Σκύθαι, ὅταν διά τινα καιρὸν ἀναγκάζωνται ἀσιτεῖν, ζώναις πλατείαις τὴν κοιλίαν διασφίγγειν, ὡς τῆς πείνης αὐτοὺς ἧττον ἐνοχλούσης· σχεδὸν δὲ καὶ ὅταν πλήρης κοιλία ᾖ, διὰ τὸ κένωμα ἐν αὐτῇ μηδὲν εἶναι, διὰ τοῦτο οὐ πεινῶσιν, ὅταν δὲ σφόδρα συμπεπτωκυῖα ᾖ, κένωμα οὐκ ἔχει. In eodem libro Erasistratus vim quandam famis non tolerabilem, quam Graeci βούλιμον appellant, in diebus frigidissimis multo facilius accidere ait quam cum serenum atque placidum est, atque eius rei causas, cur is morbus in eo plerumque tempore oriatur, nondum sibi esse compertas dicit. Verba quibus id dicit, haec sunt: Ἄπορον δὲ καὶ δεόμενον ἐπισκέψεως καὶ ἐπὶ τούτου καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λοιπῶν βουλιμιώντων, διὰ τί ἐν τοῖς ψύχεσιν μᾶλλον τὸ σύμπτωμα τοῦτο γίνεται ἢ ἐν ταῖς εὐδίαις;

[¶3] 4. In what fashion and in what language the war-herald of the Roman people was accustomed to declare war upon those against whom the people had voted that war should be made; also in what words the oath relating to the prohibition and punishment of theft by the soldiers was couched; and how the soldiers that were enrolled were to appear at an appointed time and place, with some exceptional cases in which they might properly be freed from that oath. CINCIUS writes in his third book On Military Science that the war-herald of the Roman people, when he declared war on the enemy and hurled a spear into their territory, used the following words: “Whereas the Hermundulan people and the men of the Hermundulam people have made war against the Roman people and have transgressed against them, and whereas the Roman people has ordered war with the Hermundulan people and the men of the Hermundulans, therefore I and the Roman people declare and make war with the Hermundulan people and with the men of the Hermundulans.” Also in the fifth book of the same Cincius On Military Science we read the following: "When a levy was made in ancient times and soldiers were enrolled, the tribune of the soldiers compelled them to take an oath in the following words dictated by the magistrate: 'In the army of the consuls Gaius Laelius, son of Gaius, and Lucius Cornelius, son of Publius, and for ten miles around it, you will not with malice aforethought commit a theft, either alone or with others, of more than the value of a silver sesterce in any one day. And except for one spear, a spear shaft, wood, fruit, fodder, a bladder, a purse and a torch, if you find or carry off anything there which is not your own and is worth more than one silver sesterce, you will bring it to the consul Gaius Laelius, son of Gaius, or to the consul Lucius Cornelius, son of Publius, or to whomsoever either of them shall appoint, or you will make known within the next three days whatever you have found or wrongfully carried off, or you will restore it to him whom you suppose to be its rightful owner, as you wish to do what is right." “Moreover, when soldiers had been enrolled, a day was appointed on which they should appear and should answer to the consul's summons; then an oath was taken, binding them to appear, with the addition of the following exceptions: 'Unless there be any of the following excuses: a funeral in his family or purification from a dead body (provided these were not appointed for that day in order that he might not appear on that day), a dangerous disease, or an omen which could not be passed by without expiatory rites, or an anniversary sacrifice which could not be properly celebrated unless he himself were present on that day, violence or the attack of enemies, a stated and appointed day with a foreigners; if anyone shall have any of these excuses, then on the day following that on which he is excused for these reasons he shall come and render service to the one who held the levy in that district, village or town.'” Also in the same book are these words: 'When a soldier was absent on the appointed day and had not been excused, he was branded as a deserter. Also in the sixth book we find this: “The columns of cavalry were called the wings of the army, because they were placed around the legions on the right and on the left, as wings are on tile bodies of birds. In a legion there are sixty centuries, thirty maniples, and ten cohorts.”

> Latin: 4. Quo ritu quibusque verbis fetialis populi Romani bellum indicere solitus sit his quibus populus bellum fieri iusserat; et item in quae verba conceptum fuerit iusiurandum de furtis militaribus sanciendis; et uti milites scripti intra praedictum diem in loco certo frequentarentfrequentitarent, causis quibusdam exceptis, propter quas id iusiurandum remitti aecumaecui esset. CINCIUS in libro tertio De Re Militari, fetialem populi Romani bellum indicentem hostibus telumque in agrum eorum iacientem, hisce verbis uti scripsit: “Quod populus Hermundulus hominesque populi Hermunduli adversus populum Romanum bellum fecere deliqueruntque, quodque populus Romanus cum populo Hermundulo hominibusque Hermundulis bellum iussit, ob eam rem ego populusque Romanus populo Hermundulo hominibusque Hermundulis bellum dico facioque.” Item in libro eiusdem Cincii De Re Militari quinto ita scriptum est: “Cum dilectus antiquitus fieret et milites scriberentur, iusiurandum eos tribunus militaris adigebat in verba haec (magistratus verba): ‘C. Laelii C. fili consulis, L. Cornelii P. fili consulis in exercitu, decemque milia passuum prope, furtum non facies dolo malo solus neque cum pluribus pluris nummi argentei in dies singulos; extraque hastam, hastile, ligna, poma, pabulum, utrem, follem, faculam si quid ibi inveneris sustulerisve quod tuum non erit, quod pluris nummi argentei erit, uti tu ad C. Laelium C. filium consulem Luciumve Cornelium P. filium sive quem ad tuter eorum iusserit proferes, aut profitebere in triduotridiuo proximo quidquid inveneris sustulerisve dolo malo, aut domino suo, cuium id censebis esse, reddes, uti quod rectum factum esse voles.’” “Militibus autem scriptis, dies praefinibatur quo die adessent et citanti consuli responderent; deinde concipiebatur iusiurandum,” “ut adessent, his additis exceptionibus: ‘Nisi harunce quae causa erit: funus familiare feriaeve denicales, quae non eius rei causa in eum diem conlatae sint, quo is eo die minus ibi esset, morbus sonticus auspiciumve quod sine piaculo praeterire non liceat, sacrificiumve anniversarium quod recte fieri non possit nisi ipsus eo die ibi sit, vis hostesve, status condictusve dies cum hoste; si cui eorum harunce quae causa erit, tum se postridie quam per eas causas licebit, eo die venturum adiuturumque eum qui eum pagum, vicum, oppidumve delegerit.’” Item in eodem libro verba haec sunt: “Miles cum die, qui prodictus est, aberat neque excusatus erat, infrequens notabatur.” Item in libro sexto hoc scriptum est: “Alae dictae exercitus equitum ordines, quod circum legiones dextra sinistraque tamquam alae in avium corporibus locabantur. In legione sunt centuriae sexaginta, manipuli triginta, cohortes decem.”

[¶4] 5. The meaning of vestibulum and the various derivations proposed for the word. THERE are numerous words which we use commonly, without however clearly knowing what their proper and exact meaning is; but following an uncertain and vulgar tradition without investigating the matter, we seem to say what we mean rather than say it; an example is vestibulum or “vestibule,” a word frequently met in conversation, yet not wholly clear to all who readily make use of it. For I have observed that some men who are by no means without learning think that the vestibule is the front part of the house, which is commonly known as the atrium. Gaius Aelius Gallus, in the second book of his work On the Meaning of Words relating to the Civil Law, says that the vestibule is not in the house itself, nor is it a part of the house, but is an open place before the door of the house, through which there is approach and access to the house from the street, while on the right and left the door is hemmed in by buildings extended to the street and the door itself is at a distance from the street, separated from it by this vacant space. Furthermore, it is often inquired what the derivation of this word is; but nearly everything that I have read on the subject has seemed awkward and absurd. But what I recall hearing from Sulpicius Apollinaris, a man of choice learning, is as follows:
The particle ve, like some others, is now intensive and now the reverse; for of vetis and vehenens, the former is made by intensifying the idea of age, with elision, and the latter from the power and force of the mind. But vescus, which is formed from the particle ve and esca, assumes the force of both opposite meanings. For Lucretius uses vescum salem, or ' devouring salt,' in one sense, indicating a strong propensity to eat, Lucilius in the other sense, of fastidiousness in eating. Those then in early times who made spacious houses left a vacant place before the entrance, midway between the door of the house and the street. There those who had come to pay their respects to the master of the house took their places before they were admitted, standing neither in the street nor within the house. Therefore from that standing in a large space, and as it were from a kind of 'standing place,' the name vestibule was given to the great places left, as I have said, before the doors of houses, in which those who had come to call stood, before they were admitted to the house. But we shall have to bear in mind that this word was not always used literally by the early writers, but in various figurative senses, which however are so formed as not to differ widely from that proper meaning which we have mentioned, as for example in the sixth book of Vergil:
Before the vestibule, e'en in Hell's very jaws,
Avenging Cares and Grief have made their beds.
For he does not call the front part of the infernal dwelling the 'vestibule,' although one might be misled into thinking it so called, but he designates two places outside the doors of Orcus, the ' vestibule' and the fauces, of which 'vestibule' is applied to the part as it were before the house itself and before the private rooms of Orcus, while fauces designates the narrow passage through which the vestibule was approached.

> Latin: 5. “Vestibulum” quid significet; deque eius vocabuli rationibus. PLERAQUE sunt vocabula quibus vulgo utimur, neque tamen liquido scimus quid ea proprie atque vere significent; sed incompertam et vulgariam traditionem rei non exploratae secuti, videmur magis dicere quod volumus, quam dicimus; sicuti est “vestibulum,” verbum in sermonibus celebre atque obvium, non omnibus tamen qui illo facile utuntur satis spectatum. Animadverti enim quosdam hautquaquam indoctos viros opinari “vestibulum” esse partem domus primorei, quam vulgus “atrium” vocat. C. Aelius Gallus, in libro De Significatione verborumVerhorunm Quae ad Ius Civile pertinentPertilent secundo, “vestibulum” esse dicit non in ipsis aedibus neque partem aedium, sed locum ante ianuamianuaim domus vacuum, per quem a via aditus accessusque ad aedis est, cum dextra sinistraque ianuam tecta saepiunt viae iuncta atque ipsa ianua procul a via est, area vacanti intersita. Quae porro huic vocabulo ratio sit, quaeri multum solet; sed quae scripta legi, ea ferme omnia inconcinna atque absurda visa sunt. Quod Sulpicium autem Apollinarem memini dicere, virum elegant scientia ornatum, huiuscemodi est: “‘Ve’ particula, sicuti quaedam alia, tum intentionem significat, tum minutionem.” “Nam ‘vetus’ et ‘vehemens’, alterum ab aetatis magnitudinemnagnitudine compositumcoimlpositum elisumque est, alterum a mentis vi atque impetu dicitur. ‘Vescum’ autem, quod ex ‘ve’ particula et ‘esca’ copulatum est, utriusque diversae significationis vim capit.” “Aliter enim Lucretius ‘vescum’ salem dicit ex edendi intentione, aliter Lucilius ‘vescum’ appellat cum edendi fastidio.” “Qui domos igitur amplas antiquitus faciebant, locum ante ianuam vacuum relinquebant, qui inter fores domus et viam medius esset.” “In eo loco, qui dominum eius domus salutatum venerant, priusquam admitterentur, consistebant et neque in via stabant, neque intra aedis erant.” “Ab illa ergo grandis loci consistione et quasi quadam stabulatione ‘vestibula’ appellate sunt spatia, sicuti diximus, grandia ante fores aedium relicta, in quibus starent qui venissent, priusquam in domumdoinum intromitterentur.” “Meminisse autem debebimus id vocabulum non sempersenmper a veteribus scriptoribus proprie, sed per quasdam translationes esse dictum, quae tamen ita sunt factae, ut ab ista de qua diximus proprietate non longe desciverint, sicut illud in sexto Vergilii:
Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae:” “non enim ‘vestibulum’ priorem partem domus infernae esse dicit, quod obrepere potest tamquam si ita dicatur, sed loca duo demonstrat extra Orci fores, ‘vestibulum’ et ‘fauces,’ ex quibus ‘vestibulum’ appellate ante ipsam quasi domum et ante ipsa Orci penetralia, ‘fauces’ autem vocat iter angustum, per quod ad vestibulum adiretur.”

[¶5] 6. What the victims are which are called bidentes, and why they were so called; and the opinions of Publius Nigidius and Julius Hyginus on that subject. ON my return from Greece I put in at Brundisium. There a dabbler in the Latin language, who had been called from Rome by the people of Brundisium, was offering himself generally to be tested. I also went to him for the sake of amusement, for my mind was weary and languid from the tossing of the sea. He was reading in a barbarous and ignorant manner from the seventh book of Vergil, in which this verse occurs:
An hundred woolly sheep (bidentes) he duly slew,
and he invited anyone to ask him anything whatever which one wished to learn. Then I, marvelling at the assurance of the ignorant fellow, said: “Will you tell us, master, why bidentes are so called?” “Bidentes,” said he, “means sheep, and he called them 'woolly,' to show more clearly that they are sheep.” I replied:
We will see later whether only sheep are called bidentes, as you say, and whether Pomponius, the writer of Atellanae, was in error in his Transalpine Gauls, when he wrote this:
O Mars, if ever I return, I vow
To sacrifice to thee with two-toothed (bidenti) boar.
But now I asked you whether you know the reason for this name.
And he, without a moment's hesitation, but with the greatest possible assurance, said: “Sheep are called bidentes, because they have only two teeth.” “Where on earth, pray,” said I, “have you seen a sheep that by nature had only two teeth? For that is a portent and ought to be met with expiatory offerings.” Then he, greatly disturbed and angry with me, cried: “Ask rather such questions as ought to be put to a grammarian; for one inquires of shepherds about the teeth of sheep.” I laughed at the wit of the blockhead and left him. Now Publius Nigidius, in the book which he wrote On Sacrificial Meats, says that not sheep alone are called bidentes, but all victims that are two years old; yet he has not explained clearly why they are called bidentes. But I find written in some Notes on the Pontifical Law what I had myself thought, that they were first called bidennes, that is biennes with the insertion of the letter d; then by long use in speech the word became changed and from bidennes was formed bidentes, because the latter seemed easier and less harsh to pronounce. However, Julius Hyginus, who seems not to have been ignorant of pontifical law, in the fourth book of his work On Virgil, wrote that those victims were called bidentes which were of such an age that they had two prominent teeth. I quote his own words: “The victim called bidens should have eight teeth, but of these two should be more prominent than the rest, to make it plain that they have passed from infancy to a less tender age.” Whether this opinion of Hyginus is true or not may be determined by observation without resort to argument.

> Latin: 6. Hostiae quae dicuntur “bidentes,” quid sint et quam ob causam ita appellatae sint; superque ea re P. Nigidii et Iulii Hygini sententiae. REDEUNTES ex Graecia, Brundisium navem advertimus. Ibi quispiam linguae Latinae litterator, Roma a Brundisinis accersitus, experiundum sese vulgo dabat. Imus ad eum nos quoque oblectamenti gratia, erat enim fessus atque languens animus de aestu maris. Legebat barbare insciteque Vergilii septimum, in quo libro hic versus est: Centum lanigeras mactabat rite bidentis, et iubebat rogare se si quis quid omnium rerum vellet discere. Tum ego, indocti hominis confidentiam demiratus: “Docesne,” inquam, “nos, magister, cur ‘bidentes’ dicantur?” “‘Bidentes,’” inquit, “oves appellatae, idcircoque lanigeras dixit, ut oves planius demonstraret.” “Posthac,” inquam, “videbimus an oves solae, ut tu ais, bidentes dicantur et an Pomponius, Atellanarum poeta, in Gallis Transalpinis erraverit, cum hoc scripsit:
Mars, tíbi factúrum voveo, si umquam rédierit,
Bidénti verre,” “sed nunc ego a te rogavi ecquam scias esse huiusce vocabuli rationem.” Atque ille nihil cunctatus, sed nimium quantum audacter: “Oves,” inquit, “‘bidentes’ dictae, quod duos tantum dentes habeant.” “Ubi terrarum, quaeso te,” inquam, “duos solos per naturam dentes habere ovem vidisti? Ostentum enim est et piaculis factis procurandum.” Tum ille permotus mili et inritatus: “Quaere,” inquit, “ea potius quae e grammatico quaerenda sunt; nam de ovium dentibus opiliones percontantur.” Facetias nebulonis hominis risi et reliqui. P. autem Nigidius, in libro quem De extisErtis composuit, “bidentes” appellari ait non oves solas, sed omnes bimas hostias, neque tamen dixit apertius, cur “bidentes”; sed, quod ultro existumabamus, id scriptum invenimus in commentariis quibusdamquisbusdam ad ius pontificum pertinentibus, “bidennes” primo dictas, d littera inmissa, quasi “biennes,” tum longo usu loquendi corruptam vocem esse et ex “bidennibus” “bidentes” factum,.quoniam id videbatur esse dictu facilius leniusque. Hyginus tamen Iulius, qui ius pontificum non videtur ignorasse, in quarto librorum quos De Vergilio fecit, “bidentes” appellari scripsit hostias quae per aetatem duos dentes altiores haberent. Verba illius ipsa posui: “Quae ‘bidens’ est,” inquit, “hostia, oportet habeat dentes octo, sed ex his duo ceteris altiores, per quos appareat ex minore aetate in maiorem transcendisse.” Haec Hygini opinio an vera sit, non argui argumentis, sed oculis videri potest.

[¶6] 7. That Laberius formed many words freely and boldly, and that he even uses numerous words whose Latinity is often questioned. LABERIUS, in the mimes which he wrote, coined words with the greatest possible freedom. For he said mendicimonium for “beggary,” moechimonium, adulterio or adulteritas for “adultery,” depudicavit for “dishonoured,” and abluvium for diluvium, or “deluge”; in the farce which he entitled The Basket he uses manuatus est for “he stole,” and in The Fuller he calls a thief manuarius, saying: Thief (manuari), you have lost your shame, and he makes many other innovations of the same kind. He also used obsolete and obscene words, such as are spoken only by the dregs of the people, as in the Spinners' Shop:
Orcus, in truth, will bear you on his shoulders (catomum) nude.
He uses elutriare for “washing out” linen, and lavandaria, or “wash,” of those things which are sent to be washed. He says:
Into the fulling business I am hurled (coicior),
and
O heater (Calidoniamcaldonia), what's your haste? Would'st aught outstrip?
Also in the Ropemaker he applies the term talabarriunculi to those whom the general public call talabarriones. He writes in the Compitlia:
My jaws I've tamed (malaxavi),
and in The Forgetful Man,
This is that dolt (gurdus) who, when two months ago
From Africa I came, did meet me here,
As I did say.
Also in the farce entitled Natalicius he uses cippus for a small column, obba for a cup, camella for a bowl, pittacim for a flap and capitium for a breast band; the last-named passage reads:
A breast-band (capitium) you put on, the tunic's flap (pittacium). Further, in his Anna Peranna he uses gubernius for pilot, and plans for sycophant, and nanus for dwarf; but Marcus Cicero also wrote planus for sycophant in the speech which he delivered In Defence of Cluentius. Moreover Laberius in the farce entitled The Saturnalia calls a sausage bolulus and says homo levanna instead of levis or “slight.” In the Necyomantia too he uses the very vulgar expression cocio for what our forefathers called arillator or “haggler.” His words are these:
Two wives? More trouble this, the haggler (cocio) says;
Six aediles he had seen. However, in the farce which he called Alexandrea, he used the same Greek word which is in common use, but correctly and in good Latin form; for he put emplastrum in the neuter, not in the feminine gender, as those half-educated innovators of ours do. I quote the words of that farce:
What is an oath? A plaster (emplastrum) for a debt.

> Latin: 7. Quod Laberius verba pleraque licentius petulantiusque finxit; et quod multis item verbis utitur de quibus an sint Latina quaeri solet. LABERIUS, in mimis quos scriptitavit, oppido quam verba finxit praelicenter. Nam et “mendicimonium” dicit et “moechimoniummechimonium” et “adulterionem” “adulteritatemque” pro “adulterio” et “depudicavit” pro “stupravit” et “abluvium” pro “diluvio” et, quod in mimo ponit quem Cophinum inscripsit, “manuatus est” pro “furatus est” et item in Fullone furem “manuarium” appellat:
manuari (inquit) pudorem perdidisti,
multaque alia huiuscemodi novat. Neque non obsoleta quoque et maculantia ex sordidiore vulgi usu ponit, quale est in Staminariis:
Tóllet bona fide vos Orcus nudasnuidas in catómum. Et “elutriare lintea” et “lavandaria” dicit, quae ad lavandum sint data, et:
coicior (inquit) in fullónicam,
et:
Quid próperas? ecquid praecurris, caldónia? Item in Restione “talabarriunculos” dicit, quos vulgus “talabarriones,” item in Compitalibus:
malas malaxavi, item in Cacomnemone:
Hic est (inquit)
Íillelle gurdus, quem ego me abhinc menses duos ex África
Vénientem excepísse tibi narrávi,
item in mimo, qui inscribitur NataliciusNatalicilus, “cippum” dicit et “obbam” et “camellam” et “pittacium” et “capitium”:
Induis (inquit) cápitium tunicaé pittacium. Praeterea in Anna Peranna “gubernium” pro “gubernatore” et “planum” pro “sycophanta” et “nanum” pro “pumilione” dicit; quamquam “planum” pro “sycophanta” M. quoque Cicero in oratione scriptum reliquit, quam Pro Cluentio dixit. Atque item, in mimo qui Saturnalia inscriptus est, “botulum” pro “farcimine” appellat et “hominem levennam” pro “levi.” Item in NecyomantiaNecyomnantia “cocionem” pervulgate dicit, quem veteres “arillatorem” dixerunt. Verba Laberi haec sunt:
Duas uxores? hercle hoc plus negóti est, inquit cócio;
Séx aediles viderat. Sed enim, in mimo quem inscripsit Alexandream, eodem quidem quo vulgus, sed probe Latineque usus est Graeco vocabulo; “emplastrum” enim dixit οὐθετέρως, non genere feminino, ut isti novicii semidocti. Verba ex eo mimo adposui:
Quíd est ius iurandum? emplastrum aeris álieni.

[¶7] 8. The meaning of what the logicians call “an axiom,” and what it is called by our countrymen; and some other things which belong to the elements of the dialectic art. WHEN I wished to be introduced to the science of logic and instructed in it, it was necessary to take up and learn what the dialecticians call ei)sagwgai/ or “introductory exercises.” Then because at first I had to learn about axioms, which Marcus Varro calls, now proposita, or “propositions,” and now proloquia, or “preliminary statements,” I sought diligently for the Commentary on Proloquia of Lucius Aelius, a learned man, who was the teacher of Varro; and finding it in the library of Peace, I read it. But I found in it nothing that was written to instruct or to make the matter clear, but Aelius seems to have made that book rather as suggestions for his own use than for the purpose of teaching others. I therefore of necessity returned to my Greek books. From these I obtained this definition of an axiom: lekto\n au)totele\s a)po/fanton o(/son a)f' au(tw=|. This I forbore to turn into Latin, since it would have been necessary to use new and as yet uncoined words, such as, from their strangeness, the ear could hardly endure. But Marcus Varro in the twenty-fourth book of his Latin Language, dedicated to Cicero, thus defines the word very briefly: “A proloquium is a statement in which nothing is lacking.” But his definition will be clearer if I give an example. An axiom, then, or a preliminary proposition, if you prefer, is of this kind: “Hannibal was a Carthaginian”; “Scipio destroyed Numantia”; “Milo was found guilty of murder”; “pleasure is neither a good nor an evil”; and in general any saying which is a full and perfect thought, so expressed in words that it is necessarily either true or false, is called by the logicians an “axiom,” by Marcus Varro, as I have said, a “proposition,” but by Marcus Cicero a pronuntiatum, or “pronouncement,” a word however which he declared that he used “only until I can find a better one.” But what the Greeks call sunhmme/non a)ci/wma, or “a hypothetical syllogism,” some of our countrymen call adiunctum, others conexum. The following are examples of this: “If Plato is walking, Plato is moving”; “if it is day, the sun is above the earth.” Also what they call sumpeplegme/non, or “a compound proposition,” we call coniunctum or copulatum; for example: “Publius Scipio, son of Paulus, was twice consul and celebrated a triumph, and held the censorship, and was the colleague of Lucius Mummius in his censorship.” But in the whole of a proposition of this kind, if one member is false, even if the rest are true, the whole is said to be false. For if to all those true statements which I have made about that Scipio I add “and he worsted Hannibal in Africa,” which is false, all those other statements which are made in conjunction will not be true, because of this one false statement which is made with them. There is also another form, which the Greeks call diezeugme/non a)ci/wma, or “a disjunctive proposition,” and we call disiunctum. For example: “Pleasure is either good or evil, or it is neither good nor evil.” Now all statements which are contrasted ought to be opposed to each other, and their opposites, which the Greeks call a)ntikei/mena, ought also to be opposed. Of all statements which are contrasted, one ought to be true and the rest false. But if none at all of them is true, or if all, or more than one, are true, or if the contrasted things are not at odds, or if those which are opposed to each other are not contrary, then that is a false contrast and is called paradiezeugme/non. For instance, this case, in which the things which are opposed are not contraries: “Either you run or you walk or you stand.” These acts are indeed contrasted, but when opposed they are not contrary; for “not to walk” and “not to stand” and “not to run” are not contrary to one another, since those things are called “contraries” which cannot be true at the same time. But you may at once and at the same time neither walk, stand, nor run. But for the present it will be enough to have given this little taste of logic, and I need only add by way of advice, that the study and knowledge of this science in its rudiments does indeed, as a rule, seem forbidding and contemptible, as well as disagreeable and useless. But when you have made some progress, then finally its advantages will become clear to you, and a kind of insatiable desire for acquiring it will arise; so much so, that if you do not set bounds to it, there will be great danger lest, as many others have done, you should reach a second childhood amid those mazes and meanders of logic, as if among the rocks of the Sirens.

> Latin: 8. Quid significet et quid a nostris appellatum sit quod “axioma” dialectici dicunt; et quaedam alia quae prima in disciplina dialectica traduntur. CUM in disciplinas dialecticas induci atque imbui vellemus, necessus fuit adire atque cognoscere quas vocant dialectici εἰσαγωγάς. Tum, quia in primo περὶ ἀξιωμάτων discendum, quae M. Varro alias “profata,” alias “proloquia” appellat, commentariumCommeniarium De Proloquiis L. Aelii, docti hominis, qui magister Varronis fuit, studiose quaesivimus eumque in Pacis bibliotheca repertun legimus. Sed in eo nihil edocenter neque ad instituendum explanate scriptum est, fecisseque videtur eum librum Aelius sui magis admonendi quam aliorum docendi gratia. Redimus igitur necessario ad Graecos libros. Ex quibus accepimus ἀξίωμα esse his verbis definitum: λεκτὸν αὐτοτελὲς ἀπόφαντον ὅσον ἐφʼ αὑτῷ. Hoc ego supersedi vertere, quia novis et inconditis vocibus utendum fuit, quas pati aures per insolentiam vix possent. Sed M. Varro in libro De Lingua Latina ad Ciceronem quarto vicesimo expeditissime ita finit: “Proloquium est sententia in qua nihil desideratur.” Erit autem planius quid istud sit, si exemplum eius dixerimus. Ἀξίωμα igitur, sive id “proloquium” dicere placet, huiusmodihuiuscemodi est: “Hannibal Poenus fuit”; “Scipio Numantiam delevit”; “Milo caedis damnatus est”; “neque bonum est voluptas neque malum”; et omnino quicquid ita dicitur plena atque perfecta verborum sententia, ut id necesse sit aut verum aut falsum esse, id a dialecticis ἀξίωμα appellatum est, a M. Varrone, sicuti dixi, “proloquium,” a M. autem Cicerone “pronuntiatum,” quo ille tamen vocabulo tantisper uti se adtestatus est, “quoad melius,” inquit, “invenero.” Sed quod Graeci συνημμένον ἀξίωμα dicunt, id alii nostrorum “adiunctum,” alii “conexum” dixerunt. Id “conexum” tale est: “si Plato ambulat, Plato movetur”; “si dies est, sol super terras est.” Item quod illi συμπεπλεγμένον, nos vel “coniunctum” vel “copulatum” dicimus, quod est huiuscemodieiusdemmodi: “P. Scipio, Pauli filius, et bis consul fuit et triumphavit et censura functus est et collega in censura L. Mummi fuit.” In omni autem coniuncto si unum est mendacium, etiamsi cetera vera sunt, totum esse mendacium dicitur. Nam si ad ea omnia quae de Scipione illo vera dixi, addidero “et Hannibalem in Africa superavit,” quod est falsum, universa quoque illa quae coniuncte dicta sunt, propter hoc unum quod falsum accesserit, quia simul dicentur, vera non erunt. Est item aliud quod Graeci διεζευγμένον ἀξίωμα, nos “disiunctum” dicimus. Id huiusmodihuiuscemodi est: “Aut malum est voluptas aut bonum, aut neque bonum neque malum est.” Omnia autem quae disiunguntur pugnantia esse inter sese oportet, eorumque opposita, quae ἀντικείμενα Graeci dicunt, ea quoque ipsa inter se adversa esse. Ex omnibus quae disiunguntur unum esse verum debet, falsa cetera. Quod si aut nihil omnium verum aut omnia plurave quam unum vera erunt, aut quae disiuncta sunt non pugnabunt, aut quae opposita eorum sunt contraria inter sese non erunt, tunc id disiunctum mendacium est et appellatur παραδιεζευγμένον, sicuti hoc est, in quo quae opposita non sunt contraria: “Aut curris aut ambulas aut stas.” Nam ipsa quidem inter se adversa sunt, sed opposita eorum non pugnant: “non ambulare” enim et “non stare” et “non currere” contraria inter sese non sunt, quoniam “contraria” ea dicuntur quae simul vera esse non queunt; possis enim simul eodemque tempore neque ambulare neque stare neque currere. Sed hoc iam breve ex dialectica libamentum dedisse. nunc satis erit atque id solum addendum admonendumque est, quod huius disciplinae studium atque cognitio in principiis quidem taetra et aspernabilis insuavisque esse et inutilis videri solet, sed, ubi aliquantum processeris, tum denique et emolumentum eius in animo tuo dilucebit et sequitur quaedam discendi voluptas insatiabilis, cui sane nisi modum feceris, periculum non mediocre erit ne, ut plerique alii, tu quoque in illis dialecticae gyris atque maeandrismeandris, tamquam apud Sirenios scopulos, consenescas.

## 37. Book XVI · chapters 9–19

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/37/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/37/#p-N

[¶0] 9. The meaning of the expression susque deque, which occurs frequently in the books of early writers. SUSQUE dequefero, susque deque sum, or susque deque habeo —for all these forms occur, meaning “it's all one to me”—is an expression used in the everyday language of cultivated men. It occurs frequently in poems too and in the letters of the early writers; but you will more readily find persons who flaunt the phrase than who understand it. So true is it that many of us hasten to use out-of-the-way words that we have stumbled upon, but not to learn their meaning. Now susque deque ferre means to be indifferent and not to lay much stress upon anything that happens; sometimes it means to neglect and despise, having about the force of the Greek word a)diaforei=n. Laberius says in his Compitalia:
Now you are dull, now 'tis all one to you (susque deque fers);
Your wife sits by you on the marriage bed,
A penny slave unseemly language dares.
Marcus Varro in his Sisenna, or On History says: “But if all these things did not have similar beginnings and sequels, it would be all one (susque deque esset).” So Lucilius in his third book writes:
All this was sport, to us it was all one (susque deque fierunt),
All one it was, I say, all sport and play;
That was hard toil, when we gained Setia's bourne:
Goat-traversed heights, Aetnas, rough Athoses.

> Latin: 9. Quid significet verbum in libris veterum creberrime positum “susque deque.” “SUSQUE deque fero” aut “susque deque sum” aut “susque deque habeo”—his enim omnibus modis dicitur—verbum est ex hominum doctorum sermonibus. In poematis quoque et in epistulis veterum scriptum est plurifariam; sed facilius reperias qui verbum ostentent quam qui intellegant. Ita plerique nostrum quae remotiora verba invenimus dicere ea properamus, non discere. Significat autem “susque deque ferre” animo aequo esse et quod accidit non magni pendere atque interdum neglegere et contemnere, et propemodum id valet quod dicitur Graece ἀδιαφορεῖν. Laberius in Compitalibus:
Núnc tu lentu’s, núnc tu susque déque fers;
Matér familias túa in lecto adversó sedet,
Servós sextantis útitur nefáriis
Verbís.
M. Varro in Sisenna vel De Historia: “Quod si non horum omnium similia essent principia ac postprincipia, susque deque esset.” Lucilius in tertio:
Verum haec ludus ibi susque omnia deque fuerunt,
Susque et deque fuere, inquam, omnia, ludus iocusque;
Illud opus durum, ut Setinum accessimus finem: Αἰγίλιποι montes, Aetnae omnes, asperi Athones.

[¶1] 10. The meaning of proletarii and capite censi; also of adsiduus in the Twelve Tables, and the origin of the word. ONE day there was a cessation of business in the Forum at Rome, and as the holiday was being joyfully celebrated, it chanced that one of the books of the Annals of Ennius was read in an assembly of very many persons. In this book the following lines occurred:
With shield and savage sword is Proletarius armed
At public cost; they guard our walls, our mart and town.
Then the question was raised there, what proletarius meant. And seeing in that company a man who was skilled in the civil law, a friend of mine, I asked him to explain the word to us; and when he rejoined that he was an expert in civil law and not in grammatical matters, I said: " You in particular ought to explain this, since, as you declare, you are skilled in civil law. For Quintus Ennius took this word from your Twelve Tables, in which, if I remember aright, we have the following: 'For a freeholder let the protector be a freeholder. For a proletariate citizen let whoso will be protector. “We therefore ask you to consider that not one of the books of Quintus Ennius' Annals, but the Twelve Tables are being read, and interpret the meaning of 'proletariate citizen' in that law.” “It is true,” said he, that if I had learned the law of the Fauns and Aborigines, I ought to explain and interpret this. But since proletarii, adsidui, sanates, vades, subvades, 'twenty-five asses,' 'retaliation,' and trials for theft 'by plate and girdle' have disappeared, and since all the ancient lore of the Twelve Tables, except for legal questions before the court of the centumviri, was put to sleep by the Aebutian law, I ought only to exhibit interest in, and knowledge of, the law and statutes and legal terms which we now actually use. " Just then, by some chance, we caught sight of Julius Paulus passing by, the most learned poet within my recollection. We greeted him, and when he was asked to enlighten us as to the meaning and derivation of that word, he said: "Those of the Roman commons who were humblest and of smallest means, and who reported no more than fifteen hundred asses at the census, were called proletarii, but those who were rated as having no property at all, or next to none, were termed capite censi, or 'counted by head.' And the lowest rating of the capite censi was three hundred and seventy-five asses. But since property and money were regarded as a hostage and pledge of loyalty to the State, and since there was in them a kind of guarantee and assurance of patriotism, neither the proletarii nor the capite censi were enrolled as soldiers except in some time of extraordinary disorder, because they had little or no property and money. However, the class of proletarii was somewhat more honourable in fact and in name than that of the capite censi; for in times of danger to the State, when there was a scarcity of men of military age, they were enrolled for hasty service, and arms were furnished them at public expense. And they were called, not capite censi, but by a more auspicious name derived from their duty and function of producing offspring, for although they could not greatly aid the State with what small property they had, yet they added to the population of their country by their power of begetting children. Gaius Marius is said to have been the first, according to some in the war with the Cimbri in a most critical period for our country, or more probably, as Sallust says, in the Jugurthine war, to have enrolled soldiers from the capite censi, since such an act was unheard of before that time. Adsidaus in the Twelve Tables is used of one who is rich and well to do, either because he contributed 'asses' (that is, money) when the exigencies of the State required it, or from his 'assiduity' in making contributions according to the amount of his property." Now the words of Sallust in the Iugurthine War about Gaius Marius and the capite censi are these: “He himself in the meantime enrolled soldiers, not according to the classes, or in the manner of our forefathers, but allowing anyone to volunteer, for the most part the lowest class (capite censos). Some say that he did this through lack of good men, others because of a desire to curry favour, since that class had given him honour and rank, and as a matter of fact, to one who aspires to power the poorest man is the most helpful.”

> Latin: 10. Quid sint “proletarii,” quid “capite censi”; quid item sit in XII. Tabulis “adsiduus”; et quae eius vocabuli ratio sit. OTIUM erat quodam die Romae in foro a negotiis et laeta quaedam celebritas feriarum legebaturque in consessu forte conplurium Enni liber ex Annalibus. In eo libro versus hi fuerunt:
Proletarius publicitus scutisque feroque
Ornatur ferro; muros urbemque forumque
Excubiis curant.
Tum ibi quaeri coeptum est, quid esset “proletarius.” Atque ego, aspiciens quempiam in eo circulo ius civile callentem, familiarem meum, rogabam ut id verbum nobis enarraret, et cum illic se iuris, non rei grammaticae peritum esse respondisset, “Eo maxime,” inquam, “te dicere hoc oportet, quando, ut praedicas, peritus iuris es.” “Nam Q. Ennius verbum hoc ex Duodecim Tabulis vestris accepit, in quibus, si recte commemini, ita scriptum est: ‘Adsiduo vindex adsiduus esto. Proletario iam civi quis volet vindex esto.’” “Petimus igitur ne Annalem nunc Q. Ennii, sed Duodecim Tabulas legi arbitrere et quid sit in ea lege ‘proletarius civis’ interpretere.” “Ego vero,” inquit ille, “dicere atque interpretari hoc deberem, si ius Faunorum et Aboriginum didicissem.” “Sed enim cum ‘proletarii’ et ‘adsidui’ et ‘sanates’ et ‘vades’ et ‘subvades’ et ‘viginti quinque asses’ et ‘taliones.’ furtorumque quaestio ‘cum lance et licio’ evanuerint omnisque illa Duodecim Tabularum antiquitas, nisi in legis actionibus centumviralium causarum lege Aebutia lata consopita sit, studium scientiamque ego praestare debeo iuris et legum vocumque earum quibus utimur.” Tum forte quadam Iulium PaulumPaulurn, poetam memoriae nostrae doctissimum, praetereuntem conspeximus. Is a nobis salutatur, rogatusque uti de sententia deque ratione istius vocabuli nos doceret, “Qui in plebe,” inquit, “Romanaomana tenuissimi pauperrimique erant neque amplius quam mille quingentum aeris in censum deferebant, ‘proletarii’ appellati sunt, qui vero nullo aut perquam parvo aere censebantur, ‘capite censi’ vocabantur, extremus autem census capite censorum aeris fuit trecentis septuaginta quinque.” “Sed quoniam res pecuniaque familiaris obsidis vicem pignerisque esse apud rempublicam videbatur amorisque in patriam fides quaedam in ea firmamentumque erat, neque proletarii neque capite censi milites, nisi in tumultu maximo, scribebantur, quia familia pecuniaque his aut tenuis aut nulla esset.” “Proletariorum tamen ordo honestior aliquanto et re et nomine quam capite censorum fuit;” “nam et asperis reipublicae temporibus, cum iuventutis inopia esset, in militiam tumultuariam legebantur armaque is sumptu publico praebebantur, et non capitis censione, sed prosperiore vocabulo a munere officioque prolis edendae appellati sunt, quod, cum re familiari parva minus possent rempublicam iuvare, subolis tamen gignendae copia civitatem frequentarent.” “Capite censos autem primus C. Marius, ut quidam ferunt bello Cimbrico, difficillimis reipublicae temporibus, vel potius, ut Sallustius ait, bello Iugurthino, milites scripsisse traditur, cum id factum ante in nulla memoria extaret.” “‘Adsiduus’ in XII. Tabulis pro locuplete et facile facienti dictus aut ab assibus, id est, aere dando, cum id tempora reipublicae postularent, aut a muneris pro familiari copia faciendi adsiduitate.” Verba autem Sallusti in Historia Iugurthina de C. Mario consule et de capite censis haec sunt: “Ipse interea milites scribere, non more maiorum nec ex classibus, sed ut libido cuiusque erat, capite censos plerosque. Id factum alii inopia bonorum, alii per ambitionem consulis memorabant, quod ab eo genere celebratus auctusque erat, et homini potentiampotential quaerenti egentissimus quisque oportunissimus.”

[¶2] 11. A story taken from the books of Herodotus about the destruction of the Psylli, who dwelt in the African Syrtes. THE race of the Marsians in Italy is said to have sprung from the son of Circe. 'Therefore it was given to the Marsic men, provided their families were not stained through the admixture of foreign alliances, by an inborn hereditary power to be the subduers of poisonous serpents and to perform wonderful cures by incantations and the juices of plants. We see certain persons called Psylli endowed with this same power. And when I had sought in ancient records for information about their name and race, I found at last in the fourth book of Herodotus this story about them: that the Psylli had once been neighbours in the land of Africa of the Nasamones, and that the South Wind at a certain season in their territories blew very long and hard; that because of that gale all the water in the regions which they inhabited dried up; that the Psylli, deprived of their water supply, were grievously incensed at the South Wind because of that injury and voted to take up arms and march against the South Wind as against an enemy, and demand restitution according to the laws of war. And when they had thus set out, the South Wind came to meet them with a great blast of air, and piling upon them mountainous heaps of sand, buried them all with their entire forces and arms. Through this act the Psylli all perished to a man, and accordingly their territories were occupied by the Nasamones.

> Latin: 11. Historia ex Herodoti libris sumpta de Psyllorum interitu, qui in Syrtibus Africanis colebant. GENS in Italia Marsorum orta fertur a Circae filio. Propterea Marsis hominibus, quorum dumtaxat familiae cum externis cognationibus nondum etiam permixtae corruptaeque sunt, vi quadam genitali datum ut et serpentium virulentorumvirulentoruni domitoresdomnitores sint et incentionibus herbarumque sucis faciant medellarum miracula. Hac eadem vi praeditos esse quosdam videmus, qui “Psylli” vocantur. Quorum super nomine et genere cum in veteribus litteris quaesissem, in quarto denique Herodoti libro fabulam de Psyllis hanc invenimus: Psyllos quondam fuisse in terra Africa conterminos Nasamonibus Austrumque in finibus eorum quodam in tempore perquam validum ac diutinum flavisse; eo flatu aquam omnem in locis in quibus colebant exaruisse; Psyllos, re aquaria defectos, eam iniuriam graviter Austro suscensuisse decretumque fecisse, uti armis sumptis ad Austrum, proinde quasi ad hostem, iure belli res petitum proficiscerentur. Atque ita profectis ventum Austrum magno spiritus agmine venisse obviam eosque universos cum omnibus copiis armisque, cumulis montibusque harenarum supervectis, operuisse. Eo facto Psyllos ad unum omnis interisse, itaque eorum fines a Nasamonibus occupatos.

[¶3] 12. Of those words which Cloatius Verus referred to a Greek origin, either quite fittingly or too absurdly and tastelessly. CLOATIUS VERUS, in the books which he entitled Words taken from the Greek, says not a few things indeed which show careful and keen investigation, but also some which are foolish and trifling. “Errare (to err),” he says, “is derived from the Greek e)/rrein,” and he quotes a line of Homer in which that word occurs: Swift wander (e)/rrei) from the isle, most wretched man. Cloatius also wrote that alucinari, or “dream,” is derived from the Greek a)lu/ein, or “be distraught,” and from this he thinks that the word elucus also is taken, with a change of a to e, meaning a certain sluggishness and stupidity of mind, which commonly comes to dreamy folk. He also derives fascinum, or “charm,” as if it were bascanum, and fascinare, as if it were bascinare, or “bewitch.” All these are fitting and proper enough. But in his fourth book he says: “Faenerator is equivalent to fainera/twr, meaning 'to appear at one's best,' since that class of men present an appearance of kindliness and pretend to be accommodating to poor men who are in need of money”; and he declared that this was stated by Hypsicrates, a grammarian whose books on Words Borrowed from the Greeks are very well known. But whether Cloatius himself or some other blockhead gave vent to this nonsense, nothing can be more silly. For faenerator, as Marcus Varro wrote in the third book of his Latin Diction, “is so called from feanus, or 'interest,' but faenus,” he says, “is derived from fetus, or 'offspring,' and from a birth, as it were, from money, producing and giving increase.” Therefore he says that Marcus Cato and others of his time pronounced generator without the letter a, just as fetus itself and fecunditas were pronounced.

> Latin: 12. De his vocabulis quae Cloatius Verus aut satis commode aut nimis absurde et inlepide ad origines linguae Graecae redigit. CLOATIUS VERUS in libris quos inscripsit Verborum a Graecis Tractorum, non pauca hercle dicit curiose et sagaciter conquisita, neque non tamen quaedam futtilia et frivola. “Errare,” inquit, “dictum est ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔρρειν,” versumque infert Homeri, in quo id verbum est:
Ἕρρʼ ἐκ νήσου θᾶσσον, ἐλέγχιστε ζωόντων. Item “alucinari” factum scripsit ex eo, quod dicitur Graece ἀλύειν, unde “elucum” quoque esse dictum putat, a littera in e versa, tarditatem quandam animi et stuporem, qui alucinantibus plerumque usu venit. Item “fascinum” appellatum quasi “bascanum” et “fascinare” esse quasi “bascinare.” Commode haec sane omnia et conducenter. Sed in libro quarto: “Faenerator,” inquit, “appellatus est quasi φαινεράτωρ, ἀπὸ τοῦ φαίνεσθαι ἐπὶ τὸ χρηστότερον, quoniam id genus hominum speciem ostentent humanitatishurnanitatis et commodi esse videantur inopibus nummos desiderantibus,” idque dixisse ait Hypsicraten quempiam grammaticum, cuius libri sane nobiles sunt super his, quae a Graecis accepta sunt. Sive hoc autem ipse Cloatius sive nescio quis alius nebulo effutivit, nihil potest dici insulsius. “Faenerator” enim, sicuti M. Varro in libro tertio De sermoneSernmone Latino scripsitscrisit, a faenore est nominatus; “faenus” autem dictum ait a fetu et quasi a fetura quadam pecuniae parientis atque increscentis. Idcirco et M. Catonem et ceteros aetatis eius “feneratorem” sine a littera pronuntiasse tradit, sicuti “fetus” ipse et “fecunditas” appellata.

[¶4] 13. The meaning of municipium and how it differs from colonia; and what municipes are and the derivation and proper use of that word; and also what the deified Hadrian said in the senate about the name and rights of municipes. MUNICIPES and municipia are words which are readily spoken and in common use, and you would never find a man who uses them who does not think that he understands perfectly what he is saying. But in fact it is something different, and the meaning is different. For how rarely is one of us found who, coming from a colony of the Roman people, does not say what is far removed from reason and from truth, namely, that he is municeps and that his fellow citizens are municipes? So general is the ignorance of what municipia are and what rights they have, and how far they differ from a “colony,” as well as the belief that coloniae are better off than municipia. With regard to the errors in this opinion which is so general the deified Hadrian, in the speech which he delivered in the senate In Behalf of the Italicenses, from whom he himself came, discoursed most learnedly, showing his surprise that the Italicenses themselves and also some other ancient municipia, among whom he names the citizens of Utica, when they might enjoy their own customs and laws, desired instead to have the rights of colonies. Moreover, he asserts that the citizens of Praeneste earnestly begged and prayed the emperor Tiberius that they might be changed from a colony into the condition of a municipium, and that Tiberius granted their request by way of conferring a favour, because in their territory, and near their town itself, he had recovered from a dangerous illness. Municipes, then, are Roman citizens from free towns, using their own laws and enjoying their own rights, merely sharing with the Roman people an honorary munus, or “privilege” (from the enjoyment of which privilege they appear to derive their name), and bound by no other compulsion and no other law of the Roman people, except such as their own citizens have officially ratified. We learn besides that the people of Caere were the first municipes without the right of suffrage, and that it was allowed them to assume the honour of Roman citizenship, but yet to be free from service and burdens, in return for receiving and guarding sacred objects during the war with the Gauls. Hence by contraries those tablets were called Caerites on which the censors ordered those to be enrolled whom they deprived of their votes by way of disgrace. But the relationship of the “colonies” is a different one; for they do not come into citizenship from without, nor grow from roots of their own, but they are as it were transplanted from the State and have all the laws and institutions of the Roman people, not those of their own choice. This condition, although it is more exposed to control and less free, is nevertheless thought preferable and superior because of the greatness and majesty of the Roman people, of which those colonies seem to be miniatures, as it were, and in a way copies; and at the same time because the rights of the municipal towns become obscure and invalid, and from ignorance of their existence the townsmen are no longer able to make use of them.

> Latin: 13. Quid sit “municipium” et quid a “colonia” differat; et quid sint “municipes” quaeque sit eius vocabuli ratio ac proprietas; atque inibi, quod divus Hadrianus in senatu de iure atque vocabulo municipum verba fecit. “MUNICIPES” et “municipia” verba sunt dictu facilia et usu obvia, et neutiquam reperias qui haec dicit, quin scire se plane putet quid dicat. Sed profecto aliud est, atque aliter dicitur. Quotus enim fere nostrum est, qui, cum ex colonia populi Romani sit, non se “municipem” esse et popularespopulates suos “municipes” esse dicat, quod est a ratione et a veritate longe aversum? Sic adeo et “municipia” quid et quo iure sint quantumque a “colonia” differant ignoramus, existimamusque meliore condicione esse “colonias” quam “municipia.” De cuius opinationis tam promiscae erroribus divus Hadrianus in oratione, quam De Italicensibus, unde ipse ortus fuit, in senatu habuit, peritissime disseruit mirarique se ostendit quod et ipsi Italicenses et quaedam item alia municipia antiqua, in quibus Uticenses nominat, cum suis moribus legibusque uti possent, in ius coloniarum mutari gestiverint. Praenestinos autem refert maximo opere a Tiberio imperatore petisse orasseque ut ex colonia in municipii statum redigerentur, idque illis Tiberium pro ferenda gratia tribuisse, quod in eorum finibus sub ipso oppido ex capitali morbo revaluisset. “Municipes” ergo sunt cives Romani ex municipiis, legibus suis et suo iure utentes, muneris tantum cum populo Romano honorari participes, a quo munere capessendo appellati videntur, nullis aliis necessitatibus neque ulla populi Romani lege adstricti, nisi in quam populus eorum fundus factus est. Primos autem municipes sine suffragii iure Caerites esse factos accepimus concessumque illis ut civitatis Romanae honorem quidem caperent, sed negotiis tamen atque oneribus vacarent, pro sacris bello Gallico receptis custoditisque. Hinc “tabulae Caerites” appellatae versa vice, in quas censores referri iubebant quos notae causa suffragiis privabant. Sed “coloniarum” alia necessitudo est; non enim veniunt extrinsecus in civitatem nec suis radicibus nituntur, sed ex civitate quasi propagatae sunt et iura institutaque omnia populi Romani, non sui arbitrii, habent. Quae tamen condicio, cum sit magis obnoxia et minus libera, potior tamen et praestabilior existimatur propter amplitudinem maiestatemque populi Romani, cuius istae coloniae quasi effigies parvae simulacraque esse quaedam videntur, et simul quia obscura oblitterataque sunt municipiorum iura, quibus uti iam per ignotitiaminnotitiam non queunt.

[¶5] 14. That Marcus Cato said there was a difference between properare and festinare, and how inappropriately Verrius Flaccus explained the origin of the latter word. FESTINARE and properare seem to indicate the same thing and to be used of the same thing. But Marcus Cato thinks that there is a difference, and that the difference is this—I quote his own words from the speech which he pronounced On his Own Merits: “It is one thing to hasten (properare), another to hurry (festinare). He who finishes some one thing in good season, hastens (properat); one who begins many things at the same time but does not finish them, hurries (festinat).” Verrius Flaccus, wishing to explain the nature of this difference, says “Festinat is derived from for (to speak), since those idle folk who can accomplish nothing talk more than they act.” But that seems too forced and absurd, nor can the first letter of the two words be of such weight that because of it such different words as festino and for should appear to be the same. But it seems more fitting and closer to explain festinare as equivalent to fessum esse or “be wearied.” For one who tires himself out by hastily attacking many things at once no longer hastens, but hurries.

> Latin: 14. Quod M. Cato differre dixit “properare” et “festinare”; et quam incommode Verrius Flaccus verbi quod est “festinat” ἔτυμον interpretatus est. “FESTINARE” et “properare” idem significare atque in eandem rem dici videntur. Sed M. Cato id differre existimat eaque hoc modo divisa—verba sunt ipsius ex oratione, quam De Suis Virtutibus habuit—: “Aliud est ‘properare,’ aliud ‘festinare.’ Qui unum quid mature transigit, is properat; qui multa simul incipit neque perficit, is festinat.” Verrius Flaccus rationem dicere volens differentiae huius: “‘Festinat,’” inquit, “a fando dicitur, quoniam isti ignaviores, qui nihil perficere possunt, plus verborum quam operae habent.” Sed id nimis coactum atque absurdum videtur neque tanti esse momenti potest prima in utroque verbo littera, ut propter eam unam tam diversa verba “festinare” et “fari” eadem videri debeant. Commodius autem propiusque visum est, “festinare” esse quasi “fessum esse.” Nam qui multis simul rebus properandis defessus est, is iam non properat, set festinat.

[¶6] 15. The strange thing recorded of partridges by Theophrastus and of hares by Theopompus. THEOPHRASTUS, most expert of philosophers, declares that in Paphlagonia all the partridges have two hearts; Theopompus, that in Bisaltia the hares have two livers each.

> Latin: 15. Quid Theophrastus mirum de perdicibus scriptum reliquerit et quid Theopompus de leporibus. THEOPHRASTUS, philosophorum peritissimus, omnes in Paphlagonia perdices bina corda habere dicit, Theopompus in Bisaltia lepores bina iecora.

[¶7] 16. That the name Agrippa was given to those whose birth was difficult and unnatural; and of the goddesses called Prorsa and Postverta. THOSE at whose birth the feet appeared first, instead of the head, which is considered the most difficult and dangerous form of parturition, are called Agrippae, a word formed from aegritudo, or “difficulty,” and pedes (feet). But Varro says that the position of children in the womb is with the head lowest and the feet raised up, not according to the nature of a man, but of a tree. For he likens the branches of a tree to the feet and legs, and the stock and trunk to the head. “Accordingly,” says he, “when they chanced to be turned upon their feet in an unnatural position, since their arms are usually extended they are wont to be held back, and then women give birth with greater difficulty. For the purpose of averting this danger altars were set up at Rome to the two Carmentes, of whom one was called Postverta, the other Prorsa, named from natural and unnatural births, and their power over them.”

> Latin: 16. “Agrippas” a partus aegri et inprosperi vitio appellatos; deque his deabus quae vocantur “Prorsa” et “Postverta.” QUORUM in nascendo non caput, sed pedes primi extiterant, qui partus difficillimus aegerrimusqueaegerrinusque habetur, “Agrippae” appellati, vocabulo ab aegritudine et pedibus conficto. Esse autem pueros in utero Varro dicit capite infimo nixos, sursum pedibus elatis, non ut hominis natura est, sed ut arboris. Nam pedes cruraque arboris ramos appellat, caput stirpem atque caudicem. “Quando igitur,” inquit, “contra naturam forte conversi in pedes, brachiis plerumque diductis, retineri solent, aegriusque tunc mulieres enituntur, huius periculi deprecandi gratia arae statutae sunt Romae duabus Carmentibus, quarum altera ‘Postverta’ cognominatastcognonminatast, ‘Prorsa’ altera, a recti perversique partus et potestate et nomine.”

[¶8] 17. Of the origin of the term ager Vaticanus. WE had been told that the ager Vaticanus, or “Vatican region,” and the presiding deity of the same place, took their names from the vaticinia, or “prophecies,” which were wont to be made in that region through the power and inspiration of that god. But in addition to that reason Marcus Varro, in his Antiquities of the Gods, states that there is another explanation of the name: For, “says he, just as Aius was called a god and the altar was erected in his honour which stands at the bottom of the Nova Via, because in that place a voice from heaven was heard, so that god was called Vaticanus who controls the beginnings of human speech, since children, as soon as they are born, first utter the sound which forms the first syllable of Vaticanus; hence the word vagire ('cry'), which represents the sound of a new-born infant's voice.”

> Latin: 17. Quae ratio vocabuli sit agri Vaticani. ET agrum Vaticanum et eiusdem agri deum praesidem appellatum acceperamus a vaticiniis quae vi atque instinctu eius dei in eo agro fieri solita essent. Sed praeter hanc causam M. Varro in libris divinarumDivinarurm aliam esse tradit istius nominis rationem: “Nam sicut Aius,” inquit, “deus appellatus araque ei statuta est quae est infima nova via, quod eo in loco divinitus vox edita erat, ita Vaticanus deus nominatus penes quem essent vocis humanae initia, quoniam pueri, simul atque parti sunt, eam primam vocem edunt quae prima in Vaticano syllabast idcircoque ‘vagire.’ dicitur, exprimente verbo sonum vocis recentis.”

[¶9] 18. Some interesting and instructive remarks about that part of Geometry which is called “Optics”; of another part called “Harmony,” and also of a third called “Metric.” A PART of Geometry which relates to the sight is called o)ptikh/ or “Optics,” another part, relating to the ears, is known as kanonikh/ or “Harmony,” which musicians make use of as the foundation of their art. These are concerned respectively with the spaces and the intervals between lines and with the theory of musical numbers. Optics effect many surprising things, such as the appearance in one mirror of several images of the same thing; also that a mirror placed in a certain position shows no image, but when moved to another spot gives reflections; also that if you look straight into a mirror, your reflection is such that your head appears below and your feet uppermost. This science also gives the reasons for optical illusions, such as the magnifying of objects seen in the water, and the small size of those that are remote from the eye. Harmony, on the other hand, measures the length and pitch of sounds. The measure of the length of a tone is called r(uqmo/s, or rhythm of its pitch, me/los, or “melody.” There is also another variety of Harmony which is called metrikh/, or “Metric,” by which the combination of long and short syllables, and those which are neither long nor short, and the verse measure according to the principles of geometry are examined with the aid of the ears. “But these things,” says Marcus Varro, “we either do not learn at all, or we leave off before we know why they ought to be learned. But the pleasure,” he says, “and the advantage of such sciences appear in their later study, when they have been completely mastered; but in their mere elements they seem foolish and unattractive.”

> Latin: 18. Lepida quaedam et memoratu et cognitu de parte geometriae quae ὀπτική appellatur, et item alia quae κανονική, et tertia itidem quae dicitur μετρική. PARS quaedam geometriae ὀπτική appellatur quae ad oculos pertinet, pars altera, quae ad auris, κανονική vocatur, qua musici ut fundamento artis suae utuntur. Utraque harum spatiis et intervallis linearum et ratione numerorum constat. Ὀπτική facit multa demiranda id genus, ut in speculo uno imagines unius rei plures appareant; item ut speculum in loco certo positum nihil imaginet, aliorsum translatum faciat imagines; item si rectus speculum spectes, imago fiat tua eiusmodi, ut caput deorsum videatur, pedes sursum. Reddit etiam causas ea disciplina cur istae quoque visiones fallant, ut quae in aqua conspiciuntur maiora ad oculos fiant, quae procul ab oculis sunt, minora. Κανονική autem longitudines et altitudines vocis emetitur. Longior mensura vocis ῥυθμός dicitur, μέλος. Est et alia species κανονικῆς, quae appellatur μετρική, per quam syllabarum longarum et brevium et mediocrium iunctura et modus congruens cum principiis geometriae aurium mensura examinatum. “Sed haec,” inquit M. Varro, “aut omnino non discimus aut prius desistimus quam intellegamus cur discenda sint. Voluptas autem,” inquit, “vel utilitas talium disciplinarum in postprincipiis existit, cum perfectae absolutaeque sunt; in principiis vero ipsis ineptae et insuaves videntur.”

[¶10] 19. A story about the lyre-player Arion, taken from the work of Herodotus. HERODOTUS has written of the famous lyre-player Arion in terse and vigorous language and in simple and elegant style. “Arion,” says he, “in days of old was a celebrated player upon the lyre. The town in which he was born was Methyma, but from the name of his country and the island as a whole he was a Lesbian. This Arion for the sake of his art was held in friendship and affection by Periander, king of Corinth. Later, he left the king, to visit the famous lands of Sicily and Italy. On his arrival there he charmed the ears and minds of all in the cities of both countries, and there he was enriched as well as being generally admired and beloved. Then later, laden with money and with wealth of all kinds, he determined to return to Corinth, choosing a Corinthian vessel and crew, as better known to him and more friendly.” But Herodotus says that those Corinthians, having received Arion on board and put to sea, formed the plan of murdering him for the sake of his money. Then he, realizing that death was at hand, gave them possession of his money and other goods, but begged that they should at least spare his life. The sailors were moved by his prayers only so far as to refrain from putting him to death with their own hands, but they bade him at once, before their eyes, leap headlong into the sea. “Then,” says Herodotus, “the poor man, in terror and utterly hopeless of life, finally made the one request that before meeting his end he might be allowed to put on all his costume, take his lyre, and sing a song in consolation of his fate. The sailors, though savage and cruel, nevertheless had a desire to hear him; his request was granted. Then afterwards, crowned in the usual way, robed and adorned, he stood upon the extreme stern and lifting up his voice on high sang the song called 'orthian.' Finally, having finished his song, with his lyre and all his equipment, just as he stood and sang, he threw himself far out into the deep. The sailors, not doubting in the least that he had perished, held on the course which they had begun. But an unheard of, strange and miraculous thing happened.” Herodotus asserts that a dolphin suddenly swam up amid the waves, dove under the floating man, and lifting his back above the flood, carried him and landed him at Taenarum in the Laconian land, with his person and adornment uninjured. Then Arion went from there straight to Corinth and, just as he was when the dolphin carried him, presented himself unexpectedly to king Periander and told him exactly what had occurred. The king did not believe the story but ordered that Arion be imprisoned as an impostor. He hunted up the sailors, and in the absence of Arion craftily questioned them, asking whether they had heard anything of Arion in the places from which they had come. They replied that the man had been in the land of Italy when they left it, that he was doing well there, enjoying the devotion and the pleasures of the cities, and that both in prestige and in money he was rich and fortunate. Then, in the midst of their story, Arion suddenly appeared with his lyre, clad in the garments in which he had thrown himself into the sea; the sailors were amazed and proved guilty, and could not deny their crime. This story is told by the Lesbians and the Corinthians, and in testimony to its truth two brazen images are to be seen near Taenarum, the dolphin carrying the man, who is seated on his back.

> Latin: 19. Sumpta historia ex Herodoti libro super fidicine Arione. CELERI admodum et cohibili oratione vocumque filo tereti et candido fabulam scripsit Herodotus super fidicine illo Arione. “Vetus,” inquit, “et nobilis Arion cantator fidibus fuit.” “Is loco et oppido Methymnaeus, terra atque insula omni Lesbius fuit.” “Eum Arionem rex Corinthi Periander amicum amatumque habuit artis gratia.” “Is inde a rege proficiscitur,” “terras inclutas Siciliam atque Italiam visere. Ubi eo venit auresque omnium mentesque in utriusque terrae urbibus demulsit, in quaestibus istic et voluptatibus amoribusque hominum fuit.” “Is tum postea grandi pecunia et re bona multa copiosus Corinthum instituit redire,” “vnavem igitur et navitas, ut notiores amicioresque sibi, Corinthios delegit.” Sed eos Corinthios, homine accepto navique in altum provecta, praedae pecuniaeque cupidos cepisse consilium de necando Arione. Tum ilium ibi, pernicie intellecta, pecuniam ceteraque sua, ut haberent, dedisse, vitam modo sibi ut parcerent oravisse. Navitas precum eius harum commiseritum esse illactenus ut ei necem adferre per vim suis manibus temperarent, sed imperavisse ut iam statim coram desiliret praeceps in mare. “Homo,” inquit, “ibi territus, spe omni vitae perdita, id unum postea oravit, ut priusquam mortem obpeteret, induere permitterent sua sibi omnia indumenta et fides capere et canere carmen casus illius sui consolabile.” “Feros et inmanes navitas prolubium tamen audiendi subit; quod oraverat impetrat.” “Atque ibi mox de more cinctus, amictus, ornatus stansque in summae puppis foro, carmen quod ‘orthium’ dicitur voce sublatissima cantavit.” “Ad postrema cantus cum fidibus ornatuque omni, sicut stabat canebatque, iecit sese procul in profundum. Navitae, hautquaquam dubitantes quin perisset, cursum quem facere coeperant tenuerunt.” “Sed novum et mirum et pium facinus contigit.” Delphinum repente inter undas adnavisse fluitantique sese homini subdidisse et dorso super fluctus edito vectavisse incolumique eum corpore et ornatu Taenarum in terram Laconicam devexisse. Tum Arionem prorsus ex eo loco Corinthum petivisse talemque Periandro regi, qualis delphino vectus fuerat, inopinanti sese optulisse eique rem, sicuti acciderat, narravisse. Regem istaec parum credidisse, Arionem, quasi falleret, custodiri iussisse, navitas inquisitos, ablegato Arione, dissimulanter interrogasse ecquid audissent in his locis unde venissent super Arione? Eos dixisse, hominem, cum inde irent, in terra Italia fuisse eumque illic bene agitare et studiis delectationibusque urbium florere atque in gratia pecuniaque magna opulentum fortunatumque esse. Tum inter haec eorum verba Arionem cum fidibus et indumentis cum quibus se in salum eiaculaverat extitisse, navitas stupefactos convictosque ire infitias non quisse. Eam fabulam dicere Lesbios et Corinthios atque esse fabulae argumentum, quod simulacra duo aenea ad Taenarum viserentur, delphinus vehens et homo insidens.

## 38. Book XVII · chapters 1–7

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/38/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/38/#p-N

[¶0] 1. That Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus criticized a saying of Cicero's in the speech which he delivered For Marcus Caelius; and what may be said with truth and propriety in defence of that saying, in reply to those most foolish critics. JUST as there have been monsters of men who expressed impious and false opinions about the immortal gods, so there have been some so extravagant and so ignorant that they have dared to say that Marcus Cicero spoke without correctness, propriety, or consideration; among these are Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus, and the latter's book even bears the outrageous title of The Scourge of Cicero. Now the other things that they have censured are certainly not worth hearing or mentioning; but let us consider the value of this stricture of theirs, in which particularly they are, in their own opinion, very keen critics of language. Marcus Cicero in his speech For Marcus Caelius writes as follows: “As to the charge made against his chastity and published by all his accusers, not in the form of actual charges, but of gossip and calumnies, Marcus Caelius will never take that so much to heart, as to repent that he was not born ugly.” They think that Cicero has not used the proper word in saying paeniteat, or “repent,” and they go so far as to add that it is almost absurd; “for,” they say, “we regularly use paenitere when things which we ourselves have done, or which have been done in accordance with our wish and design, later begin to displease us and we change our opinion about them.” But that no one correctly says that he “repents being born” or “repents being mortal,” or “because he feels pain from any chance injury or wound inflicted upon his body”; for in such cases there is no design or choice on our part, but such things happen to us against our will by some necessity or force of nature. “In the same way,” they continue, “it was not a matter of choice with Marcus Caelius with what person he was born; yet he says that ' he did not repent this,' as if there were in that circumstance ground for a feeling of repentance.” This is in fact, as they say, the force of that word, and paenitere is strictly used of none but voluntary acts, although our forefathers used that same word also in a different sense and connected paenitere with the words paene (almost) and paenuria (want). But that is another question, and will be spoken of in another place. But with regard to the point at issue, giving to paenitere this same meaning which is commonly recognized, what Marcus Cicero said is not only not foolish, but in the highest degree elegant and witty. For since the adversaries and detractors of Marcus Caelius, inasmuch as he was of handsome person, made use of his appearance and figure to throw doubt upon his chastity, therefore Cicero, making sport of such an absurd charge as to impute to him as a fault the good looks which nature had given him, has deliberately adopted that very same false charge of which he is making fun, saying: “Marcus Caelius is not sorry for not having been born ugly”; so that by the very fact of speaking thus he might reproach his accusers and wittily show that they were doing an absurd thing in making Caelius' handsome person an accusation against him, just as if the person with which he was born depended upon his own volition.

> Latin: 1. Quod Gallus Asinius et Largius Licinus sententiam M. Ciceronis reprehenderunt ex oratione quam dixit Pro M. CaelioCaclio; et quid ad versus homines stolidissimos pro eadem sententia vere digneque dici possit. UT quidam fuerunt monstra hominum, quod de dis inmortalibus impias falsasque opiniones prodiderunt, ita nonnulli tam prodigiosi tamque vecordes extiterunt, in quibus sunt Gallus Asinius et Largius Licinus, cuius liber etiam fertur infando titulo Ciceromastix, ut scribere ausi sint M. Ciceronem parum integre atque inproprie atque inconsiderate locutum. Atque alia quidem quae reprehenderunt neque dictu neque auditu digna sunt, sed enim hoc, in quo sibimet ipsi praeter cetera esse visi sunt verborum pensitatores subtilissimi, cedo, quale id sit consideremus. M. Cicero Pro M. Caelio ita scribit: “Nam quod obiectum est de pudicitia quodque omnium accusatorum non criminibus, sed vocibus maledictisque celebratum est, id numquam tam acerbe feret M. Caelius, ut eum paeniteat non deformem esse natum.” Non existumant verbo proprio esse usum, quod ait “paeniteat,” atque id prope ineptum etiam esse dicunt. “Nam ‘paenitere,’” inquiunt, “tum dicere solemus, cum quae ipsi fecimus aut quae de nostra voluntate nostroque consilio facta sunt, ea nobis post incipiunt displicere sententiamque in iis nostram demutamus”; neminem autem recte ita loqui “paenitere sese, quod natus sit” aut “paenitere, quod mortalis sit” aut “quod ex offenso forte vulneratoque corpore dolorem sentiat,” quando istiusmodi rerum nec consilium sit nostrum nec arbitrium, sed ea ingratis nostris vi ac necessitate naturae nobis accidant: “Sicut hercle,” inquiunt, “non voluntarium fuit M. Caelio, quali forma nasceretur, cuius eum dixit ‘non paenitere,’ tamquam in ea causa res esset ut rationem caperet paenitendi.” Est haec quidem, quam dicunt, verbi huiusce sententia et “paenitere” nisi in voluntariis rebus non probe dicitur, tametsi antiquiores verbo ipso alio quoque modo usitati sunt et “paenitet” ab eo quod est “paene” et “paenuria” dixerunt. Sed id aliorsum pertinet atque alio in loco dicetur. Nunc autem, sub hac eadem significatione quae vulgo nota est, non modo ineptum hoc non est quod M. Cicero dixit, sed festivissimum adeo et facetissimum est. Nam cum adversarii et obtrectatores M. Caeli, quoniam erat pulchro corpore, formam eius et faciem in suspiciones inpudicitiae accerserent, inludens Cicero tam absurdam criminationem, quod formam, quam natura fecerat, vitio darent, eodem ipso errore quem inludebat sciens usus est et “non paenitet,” inquit, “M. Caelium, non deformem esse natum,” ut vel hac ipsa re, quod ita dicebat, obprobraret adversariis ac per facetias ostentaret facere eos deridiculum, quod proinde Caelio formam crimini darent, quasi arbitrium eius fuisset, quali forma nasceretur.

[¶1] 2. Certain words from the first book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, noted in a hasty reading.

> Latin: 2. Verba quaedam ex Q. Claudi Annalium primo cursim in legendo notata.

[¶2] WHENEVER I read the book of an early writer, I tried afterwards, for the purpose of quickening my memory, to recall and review any passages in the book which were worthy of note, in the way either of praise or censure; and I found it an exceedingly helpful exercise for ensuring my recollection of elegant words and phrases, whenever need of them should arise.

> Latin: CUM librum veteris scriptoris legebamus, conabamur postea memoriae vegetandae gratia indipisci animo ac recensere quae in eo libro scripta essent in utrasque existimationes laudis aut culpae adnotamentis digna, eratque hoc sane quam utile exercitium ad conciliandas nobis, ubi venisset usus, verborum sententiarumquesententiarunlque elegantium recordationes.

[¶3] For example, in the first book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, which I had read on the preceding two days, I noted these passages: “The greater number,” says he, “threw away their arms and hid themselves unarmed.”

> Latin: Velut haec verba ex Q. Claudi primo Annali, quae meminisse potui, notavi, quem librum legimus biduo proximo superiore.

[¶4] The verb inhatebrant, for “hid themselves,” seemed poetic, but neither improper nor harsh. “While these things were going on,” he says, “the Latins, their spirits raised because of their easy victory, form a plan.”

> Latin: “Arma,” inquit, “plerique abiciunt atque inermi inlatebrant sese.” “Inlatebrant” verbum poeticum visum est, sed non absurdum neque asperum.

[¶5] Subnixo animo is. significant and carefully chosen expression with the force of “raised and elevated in spirit”; and it indicates loftiness and confidence of spirit, since we are, as it were, raised and lifted up by that upon which we depend. “He bids each one,” he says, “go to his own house and enjoy his possessions.”

> Latin: “Ea,” inquit, “dum fiunt, Latini subnixo animo ex victoria inerti consilium ineunt.” “Subnixo animo” quasi sublimisublimli et supra nixo, verbum bene significans et non fortuitum; demonstratque animi altitudinem fiduciamque, quoniam quibus innitimur, iis quasi erigimur attollimurque.

[¶6] Frunisci, meaning “enjoy,” was somewhat rare in the days of Marcus Tullius and became still rarer after that time, and its Latinity was questioned by those who were unacquainted with our early literature.

> Latin: “Domus,” inquit, “suas quemque ire iubet et sua omnia frunisci.” “Frunisci” rarius quidem fuit in aetate M. Tulli ac deinceps infra rarissimum, dubitatunque est ab inperitis antiquitatis an Latinum foret.

[¶7] However, fruniscor is not only good Latin, but it is more elegant and pleasing than fruor, from which it is formed in the same way as fatiscor from fateor.

> Latin: Non modo autem Latinum, sed iucundius amoeniusque etiam verbum est “fruniscor” quam “fruor,” et ut “fatiscor” a “fateor,” ita “fruniscor” factum est a “fruor.”

[¶8] Quintus Metellus Numidicus, who is known to have used the Latin tongue with purity and simplicity, in the letter which he sent when in exile To the Domitii, wrote as follows: “They indeed were cut off from every right and honour, I lack neither water nor fire and I enjoy (fruiscor) the greatest glory.” Novius, in his Atellan farce entitled The Miser, uses this word:
What eagerly they sought they can't enjoy (frunisci);

> Latin: Q. Metellus Numidicus, qui caste pureque lingua usus Latina videtur, in epistula quam exul Ad Domitios misit, ita scripsit: “Illi vero omni iure atque honestate interdicti, ego neque aqua neque igni careo et summa gloria fruniscor.”

[¶9] Who does not spare, enjoys the goods he has. “And the Romans,” says Quadrigarius, “get possession of (copiantur) many arms and a great supply of provisions, and enormous booty.”

> Latin: Novius, in Atellania quae Parcus inscripta est, hoc verbo ita utitur:
Quód magno opere quaésiverunt, id frunisci nón queunt.
Qui non parsit ápud se, … frunítus est.

[¶10] Copiantur is a soldier's word, and you will not readily find it in the pleaders of civil suits; it is formed in the same way as lignantur, or “gather wood,” pabulantur, or “forage,” and aquantur, or “get water.” Quadrigarius uses sole occaso for “at sunset.”

> Latin: “Et Romani,” inquit, “multis armis et magno commeatu praedaque ingenti copiantur.” “Copiantur” verbum castrense est nec facile id reperias apud civilium causarum oratores, ex eademque figura est qua “lignantur” et “pabulantur” et “aquantur.” “Sole,” inquit, “occaso.”

[¶11] This expression has a flavour of antiquity which is not without charm, if one possesses an ear that is not dull and commonplace; furthermore the phrase occurs in the Twelve Tables in the following passage: “Before midday let them hear the case, with both parties making their pleas in person. After midday, decide the ease in favour of the one who is present. If both are present, let sunset be the limit of the proceedings.”

> Latin: “Sole occaso” non insuavi vetustate est, si quis aurem habeat non sordidam nec proculcatam; in Duodecim autem Tabulis verbum hoc ita scriptum est: “Ante meridiem causam coniciunto, cum perorant ambo praesentes. Post meridiem praesenti litem addicito. Si ambo praesentes, sol occasus suprema tempestas esto.”

[¶12] “We,” says he, “will leave it undecided (in medium).” The common people say in medio; for they think that in medium is an error, and if you should say in medium ponere (to make known), they consider that also a solecism; but if anyone examines these words with some care, that expression will seem to him the more correct and the more expressive; moreover in Greek qei=nai ei)s me/son, is not an error.

> Latin: “Nos,” inquit, “in medium relinquemus.” Vulgus “in medio” dicit; nam vitium esse istuc putat et, si dicas “in medium ponere,” id quoque esse soloecon putant; set probabilius significantiusque sic dici videbitur, si quis ea verba non incuriose introspiciat; Graece quoque θεῖναι εἰς μέσον, vitium id non est.

[¶13] "After it was announced," he says, “that a battle had been fought against the Gauls (in Gallos), the State was troubled.” In Gallos is nester and finer than cum Gallis or contra Gallos; for these are somewhat awkward and out of date.

> Latin: “Postquam nuntiatum est,” inquit, “ut pugnatum esset in Gallos, id civitas graviter tulit.” “In Gallos” mundius subtiliusque est quam “cum Gallis” aut “contra Gallos”; nam pinguiora haec obsoletioraque sunt.

[¶14] “At the same time,” he says, “he excelled in person, in exploits, in eloquence, in position, in energy, and confidence alike, so that it was easily seen that he possessed from himself and in himself a great equipment (magnum viaticum) for overthrowing the republic.” Magnum viaticum is a novel expression for great ability and great resources, and Claudius seems to have followed the Greeks, who transferred e)fo/dion from the meaning of “money for a journey” to preparation for other things, and often say e)fodi/ason for “prepare” and “make ready.”

> Latin: “Simul,” inquit, “forma, factis, eloquentia, dignitate, acrimonia, confidentia pariter praecellebat, ut facile intellegeretur magnum viaticum ex se atque in se ad rempublicam evertendam habere.” “Magnum viaticum” pro magna facultate et paratu magno nove positum est, videturque Graecos secutus, qui ἐφόδιον a sumptu viae ad aliarum quoque rerum apparatus traducunt ac saepe ἐφοδίασον pro eo dicunt, quod est “institue” et “instrue.”

[¶15] “For Marcus Manlius,” said he, “who, as I have shown above, saved the Capitol from the Gauls, and whose service, along with that of Marcus Furius the dictator, the State found especially (cumprime) valiant and irresistible against the Gauls, yielded to no one in race, in strength and in warlike valour.” Adprime is more frequent for “especially”; cumprime is rarer and is derived from the expression cumprimis with the force of inprimis.

> Latin: “Nam Marcus,” inquit, “Manlius, quem Capitolium servasse a Gallis supra ostendi cuiusque operam cum M. Furio dictatore apud Gallos cumprime fortem atque exsuperabilem respublica sensit, is et genere et vi et virtute bellica nemini concedebat.” “Adprime” crebrius est, “cumprime” rarius traductumque ex eo est, quod “cumprimis” dicebant pro quod est “inprimis.”

[¶16] Quadrigarius says that “he has no need for riches (divitias).” We use the ablative divitiis with opus. But this usage of his is not a mistake in grammar, nor is it even what is termed a figure; for it is correct Latin and the early writers quite frequently used that case; moreover, no reason can be given why divis opus esse is more correct than divitias, except by those who look upon the innovations of grammarians as oracular responses.

> Latin: “NihilNihl sibi,” inquit, “divitias opus esse.” Nos “divitiis” dicimus. Sed vitium hoc orationis nullum est ac ne id quidem est quod figura dici solet; recta enim istaec oratio est et veteres conpluscule ita dixerunt, nec ratio dici potest, cur rectius sit “divitiis opus esse” quam “divitias,” nisi qui grammaticorum nova instituta ut τεμένων ἱερά observant.

[¶17] “For herein especially,” says he, “lies the injustice of the gods, that the worst men are the least subject to injury, and that they do not allow the best men to remain long (diurnare) with us.” His use of diurnare for diu vivere is unusual, but it is justified by the figure by which we use perennare (to last for years). He says: “He conversed (consermonabatur) with them.”

> Latin: “Nam hac,” inquit, “maxime versatur deorum iniquitas, quod deteriores sunt incolumiores neque optimum quemquam inter nos sinunt diurnare.” Inusitate “diurnare” dixit pro “diu vivere,” sed ex ea figuratione est, qua dicimus “perennare.” “Cum iis,” inquit, “consermonabatur.”

[¶18] Semocinari seems somewhat rustic, but is more correct; sermocinari is more common, but is not such pure Latin.

> Latin: “Sermonari” rusticius videtur, sed rectius est, “sermocinari” tritius, sed corruptius est.

[¶19] “That he would not do even that,” says he, “which he then advised.” He has used ne id quoque for ne id quidem; the former is not common now in conversation, but is very frequent in the books of the earlier writers.

> Latin: “Sese,” inquit, “ne id quoque, quod tum suaderet, facturum esse.” “Ne id quoque” dixit pro “ne id quidem,” infrequens nunc in loquendo, sed in libris veterum creberrimum.

[¶20] “Such is the sanctity (sanctitudo) of the fane,” says he, “that no one ever ventured to violate it.”

> Latin: “Tanta,” inquit, “sanctitudo fani est, ut numquam quisquam violare sit ausus.” “Sanctitas” quoque et “sanctimonia” non minus Latine dicuntur, sed nescio quid maioris dignitatis est verbum “sanctitudo,”

[¶21] Sanctitas and sanctimonia are equally good Latin, but the word sanctitudo somehow has greater dignity, just as Marcus Cato, in his speech Against Lucius Veturius, thought it more forcible to use duritudo than duritia, saying, “Who knew his impudence and hardihood (duritudinem).”

> Latin: sicuti M. Cato In L. Veturium “duritudinem” quam “duritiam” dicere gravius putavit: “Qui illius,” inquit, “impudentiam norat et duritudinem.”

[¶22] “Since the Roman people,” says Quadrigarius, “had given such a pledge (arrabo) to the Samites.” He applied the term arrabo to the six hundred hostages and preferred to use that word rather than pignus, since the force of arrabo in that connection is weightier and more pointed; but nowadays arrabo is beginning to be numbered among vulgar words, and arra seems even more so, although the early writers often used arra, and Laberius has it several times.

> Latin: “Cum tantus,” inquit, “arrabo penes Samnites populi Romani esset.” “Arrabonem” dixit sescentos obsides et id maluit quam pignus dicere, quoniam vis huius vocabuli in ea sententia gravior acriorque est; sed nunc “arrabo” in sordidis verbis haberi coeptus ac multo videtur sordidius “arra,” quamquam “arra” quoque veteres saepe dixerint et conpluriens Laberius.

[¶23] “They have spent most wretched lives (vitas),” says Quadrigarius, and, “This man is worn out by too much leisure (otiis).” In both cases elegance is sought by the use of the plural number.

> Latin: “Miserrimas,” inquit, “vitas exegerunt,” et: “hic nimiis in otiis,” inquit, “consumptus est.” Elegantia utrobique ex multitudine numeri quaesita est.

[¶24] “Cominius,” says he, “came down the same way he had gone up and so deceived the Gauls.” He says that Cominius “gave words to the Gauls,” meaning “deceived them,” although he had said nothing to anybody; and the Gauls who were besieging the Capitol had seen him neither going up nor coming down. But “he gave words” is used with the meaning of “he escaped the notice of, and circumvented.”

> Latin: “Cominius,” inquit, “qua ascenderat, descendit atque verba Gallis dedit.” “Verba Cominium dedisse Gallis” dicit, qui nihil quicquam cuiquam dixerat; neque eum Galli, qui Capitolium obsidebant, ascendentem aut descendentem viderant. Sed “verba dedit” haut secus posuit quam si tu dicas “latuit atque obrepsit.”

[¶25] Again he says: “There were valleys and great woods (arboreta).”

> Latin: “Convalles,” inquit, “et arboreta magna erant.”

[¶26] Arboreta is a less familiar word, arbusta the more usual one.

> Latin: “Arboreta” ignobilius verbum, “arbusta” celebratius.

[¶27] “They thought,” says he, “that those who were without and those that were within the citadel were exchanging communications (commutationes) and plans” Commutationes, meaning “conferences and communications,” is not usual, but, by Heaven! is neither erroneous nor inelegant.

> Latin: “Putabant,” inquit, “eos qui foris atque qui in arce erant inter se commutationes et consilia facere.” “Commutationes,” id est conlationes communicationesque, non usitate dixit, set non hercle inscite nec ineleganter.

[¶28] These few notes on that book, such things as I remembered after reading it, I have now jotted down for my own use.

> Latin: Haec ego pauca interim super eo libro, quorum memoria post lectionem subpetierat, mihi notavi.

[¶29] 3. The words of Marcus Varro in the twenty fifth book of his Humran Antiquities, in which he has interpreted a line of Homer contrary to the general opinion. IT happened in the course of conversations which we carried on about the dates of various inventions for human use, that a young man not without learning observed that the use of spartum or “Spanish broom” also was for a long time unknown in the land of Greece and that it was imported from Spain many years after the taking of Ilium. One or two half-educated fellows who were present there, of the class that the Greeks call a)gorai=oi, or “haunters of the market-place,” laughed in derision of this statement, and declared that the man who had made it had read a copy of Homer which happened to lack the following verse:
And rotted the ship's timbers, loosed the ropes (spa/rta). Then the youth, in great vexation, replied: “It was not my book that lacked that line, but you who badly lacked a teacher, if you believe that spa/rta in that verse means what we call spartum, or 'a rope of Spanish broom'” They only laughed the louder, and would have continued to do so, had he not produced the twenty-fifth book of Varro's Human Antiquities, in which Varro writes as follows of that Homeric word: “I believe that spa/rta in Homer does not mean sparta, or 'Spanish broom,' but rather spa/rtoi, a kind of broom which is said to grow in the Theban territory. In Greece there has only recently been a supply of spartum, imported from Spain. The Liburnians did not make use of that material either, but as a rule fastened their ships together with thongs, while the Greeks made more use of hemp, tow, and other cultivated plants (sativis), from which ropes got their name of sparta.” Since Varro says this, I have grave doubts whether the last syllable in the Homeric word ought not to have an acute accent; unless it be because words of this kind, when they pass from their general meaning to the designation of a particular thing, are distinguished by a difference in accent.

> Latin: 3. Verba M. Varronis ex libro quinto et vicesimo Humanarum, quibus contra opinionem volgariam interpretatus est Homeri versum. IN sermonibus forte quos de temporibus rerum ad usus hominum repertarum agitabamus, adulescens quispiam non indoctus sparti quoque usum in terra Graecia diu incognitum fuisse dixit multisque post Ilium captum tempestatibus ex terra Hispania advectum. Riserunt hoc ad inludendum ex his, qui ibi aderant, unus atque alter, male homines litterati, quod genus ἀγοραίους Graeci appellant, atque eum qui id dixerat librum legisse Homeri aiebant, cui versus hic forte deesset:
Καὶ δὴ δοῦρα σέσηπε νεῶν καὶ σπάρτα λέλυνται. Tum ille prorsum inritatus: “Non,” inquit, “meo libro versus iste, sed vobis plane magister defuit, si creditis in eo versu σπάρτα id significare quod nos ‘spartum’ dicimus.” Maiorem illi risum subiciunt, neque id desierunt, nisi liber ab eo prolatus esset M. Varronis vicesimus quintus Humanarum, in quo de isto Homeri verbo a Varrone ita scriptum est: “Ego σπάρτα apud Homerum non plus ‘spartum’ significare puto quam σπάρτους, qui dicuntur in agro Thebano nati. In Graecia sparti copia modo coepit esse ex Hispania. Neque ea ipsa facultate usi Liburni; sed hi plerasque naves loris suebant, Graeci magis cannabo et stuppa ceterisque sativis rebus, a quibus σπάρτα appellabant.” Quod cum ita Varro dicat, dubito hercle, an posterior syllaba in eo verbo, quod apud Homerum est, acuenda sit, nisi quia voces huiusmodi, cum ex communi significatione in rei certae proprietatem concedunt, diversitate accentuum separantur.

[¶30] 4. What the poet Menander said to Philemon, by whom he was often undeservedly defeated in contests in comedy; and that Euripides was very often vanquished in tragedy by obscure poets. IN contests in comedy Menander was often defeated by Philemon, a writer by no means his equal, owing to intrigue, favour, and partisanship. When Menander once happened to meet his rival, he said: “Pray pardon me, Philemon, but really, don't you blush when you defeat me?” Marcus Varro says that Euripides also, although he wrote seventy-five tragedies, was victor with only five, and was often vanquished by some very poor poets. Some say that Menander left one hundred and eight comedies, others that the number was a hundred and nine. But we find these words of Apollodorus, a very famous writer, about Menander in his work entitled Chronica:
Cephissia's child, by Diopeithes sired,
An hundred plays he left and five besides;
At fifty-two he died.
Yet Apollodorus also writes in the same book that out of all those hundred and five dramas Menander gained the victory only with eight.

> Latin: 4. Quid Menander poeta Philemoni poetae dixerit, a quo saepe indigne in certaminibuscertamninibus comoediarum superatus est; et quod saepissime Euripides in tragoedia ab ignobilibus poetis victus est. MENANDER a Philemone, nequaquam pari scriptore, in certaminibus comoediarum ambitu gratiaque et factionibus saepenumero vincebatur. Eum cum forte habuisset obviam, “Quaeso,” inquit, “Philemo, bona venia dic mihi, cum me vincis, non erubescis?” Euripidem quoque M. Varro ait, cum quinque et septuaginta tragoedias scripserit, in quinque solis vicisse, cum eum saepe vincerent aliquot poetae ignavissimi. Menandrum autem alii centum octo, partim centum novem reliquisse comoedias ferunt. Sed Apollodori, scriptoris celebratissimi, hos de Menandro versus legimus in libro qui Chronica inscriptus est:
Κηφισιεὺς ὢν ἐκ Διοπείθους πατρός,
Πρὸς τοῖσιν ἑκατὸν πέντε γράψας δράματα
Ἐξέλιπε, πεντήκοντα καὶ δυεῖν ἐτῶν. Ex istis tamen centum et quinque omnibus, solis eum octo vicisse, idem Apollodorus eodem in libro scripsit.

[¶31] 5. That it is by no mears true, as some meticulous artists in rhetoric affirm, that Marcus Cicero, in his book On Friendship, made use of a faulty argument and postulated “the disputed for the admitted”; with a careful discussion and examination of this whole question. MARCUS CICERO, in the dialogue entitled Laelius, or On Friendship, wishes to teach us that friendship ought not to be cultivated in the hope and expectation of advantage, profit, or gain, but that it should be sought and cherished because in itself it is rich in virtue and honour, even though no aid and no advantage can be gained from it. This thought he has expressed in the following words, put into the mouth of Gaius Laelius, a wise man and a very dear friend of Publius Africanus “well, then, does Africanus need my help? No more do I need his. But I love him because of a certain admiration for his virtues; he in turn has affection for me perhaps because of some opinion which he has formed of my character; and intimacy has increased our attachment. But although many great advantages have resulted, yet the motives for our friendship did not arise from the hope of those advantages. For just as we are kindly and generous, not in order to compel a return—for we do not put favours out at interest, but we are naturally inclined to generosity —just so we think that friendship is to be desired, not because we are led by hope of gain, but because all its fruit is in the affection itself.” When it chanced that these words were read in a company of cultured men, a sophistical rhetorician, skilled in both tongues, a man of some note among those clever and meticulous teachers known as texnikoi,/ or “connoisseurs,” who was at the same time not without ability in disputation, expressed the opinion that Marcus Tullius had used an argument which was neither sound nor clear, but one which was of the same uncertainty as the question at issue itself; and he described that fault by Greek words, saying that Cicero had postulated a)ufisbhtou/menon a)nti\ o(mologoume/nou, that is, “what was disputed rather than what was admitted.” “For,” said he, “he took benefci, 'the kindly,' and liberales, 'the generous,' to confirm what he said about friendship, although that very question is commonly asked and ought to be asked, with what thought and purpose one who acts liberally and kindly is kind and generous. Whether it is because he hopes for a return of the favour, and tries to arouse in the one to whom he is kind a like feeling towards himself, as almost all seem to do; or because he is by nature kindly, and kindness and generosity gratify him for their own sakes without any thought of a return of the favour, which is as a rule the rarest of all.” Furthermore, he thought that arguments ought to be either convincing, or clear and not open to controversy, and he said that the term apodixis, or “demonstration,” was properly used only when things that are doubtful or obscure are made plain through things about which there is no doubt. And in order that he might show that the kind and generous ought not to be taken as an argument or example for the question about friendship, he said: “By the same comparison and the same appearance of reason, friendship in its turn may be taken as an argument, if one should declare that men ought to be kindly and generous, not from the hope of a return, but from the desire and love of honourable conduct. For he will be able to argue in a very similar manner as follows: ' Now just as we do not embrace friendship through hope of advantage, so we ought not to be generous and kindly with the desire of having the favour returned.' He will indeed,” said he, “be able to say this, but friendship cannot furnish an argument for generosity, nor generosity for friendship, since in the case of each there is equally an open question.” It seemed to some that this artist in rhetoric argued cleverly and learnedly, but that as a matter of fact he was ignorant of the true meaning of terms. For Cicero calls a man “kind and generous” in the sense that the philosophers believe those words ought to be used: not of one who, as Cicero himself expresses it, puts favours out at interest, but of one who shows kindness without having any secret reason which redounds to his own advantage. Therefore he has used an argument which is not obscure or doubtful, but trustworthy and clear, since if anyone is truly kind and generous, it is not asked with what motive he acts kindly or generously. For he must be called by very different names if, when he does such things, he does them for his own advantage rather than for that of another. Possibly the criticism made by this sophist might have some justification, if Cicero had said: “For as we do some kind and generous action, not in order to compel a return.” For it might seem that anyone who was not kindly might happen to do a kind action, if it was done because of some accidental circumstance and not through a fixed habit of constant kindliness. But since Cicero spoke of “kindly and generous people,” and meant no other sort than that which we have mentioned before, it is “with unwashed feet,” as the proverb says, and unwashed words that our critic assails the argument of that most learned man.

> Latin: 5. Nequaquam esse verum, quod minutis quibusdam rhetoricae artificibus videatur, M. Ciceronem in libro quem De Amicitia scripsit vitioso argumento usum, ἀμφισβητούμενον ἀντὶ ὁμολογουμένου posuisse; totumque id consideratius tractatum exploratumque. M. CICERO, in dialogo cui titulus est Laelius vel De Amicitia, docere volens amicitiam non spe expectationeque utilitatis neque pretii mercedisque causa colendam, sed quod ipsa per sese plena virtutis honestatisque sit expetendam diligendamque esse, etiamsi nihil opis nihilque emolumenti ex ea percipi queat, hac sententia atque his verbis usus est eaque dicere facit C. Laelium, sapientem virum, qui Publii Africani fuerat amicissimus: “Quid enim?” “Africanus indigens mei? Ne ego quidem illius. Sed ego admiratione quadam virtutis eius, ille vicissim opinione fortasse nonnulla quam de meis moribus habebat me dilexit; auxit benivolentiam consuetudo. Sed quamquam utilitates multae et magnae consecutae sunt, non sunt tamen ab earum spe causae diligendi profectae. Ut enim benefici liberalesque sumus, non ut exigamus gratiam—neque enim beneficium faeneramur, sed natura propensi ad liberalitatem sumus—, sic amicitiam non spe mercedis adducti, sed quod omnis eius fructus in ipso amore inest, expetendam putamus.” Hoc cum legeretur in coetu forte hominum doctorum, rhetoricus quidam sophista, utriusque linguae callens, haut sane ignobilis ex istis acutulis et minutis doctoribus qui τεχνικοί appellantur, atque in disserendo tamen non impiger, usum esse existimabat argumento M. Tullium non probo neque apodictico, sed eiusdem quaestionis, cuius esset ea ipsa res de qua quaereretur; verbisque id vitium Graecis appellat, quod accepisset ἀμφισβητούμενον ἀντὶ ὁμολογουμένου. “Nam ‘beneficos,’” inquit, “et ‘liberales’ sumpsit ad confirmandum id quod de amicitia dicebat, cum ipsum illud et soleat quaeri et debeat, quisquis liberaliter et benigne facit, qua mente quoque consilio benignus liberalisque sit? utrum, quia mutuam gratiam speret et eum in quem benignus sit ad parem curam sui provocet, quod facere plerique omnes videntur, an, quia natura sit benivolus benignitasque eum per sese ipsa et liberalitas delectet sine ulla recipiendae gratiae procuratione, quod est omnium ferme rarissimum?” Argumenta autem censebat aut probabilia esse debere aut perspicua et minime controversa, idque “apodixin” vocari dicebat, cum ea quae dubia aut obscura sunt, per ea quae ambigua non sunt inlustrantur. Atque, ut ostenderet beneficos liberalesque ad id quod de amicitia quaereretur quasi argumentum exemplumve sumi non oportere, “Eodem,” inquit, “simulacro eademque rationis imagine amicitia invicem pro argumento sumi potest, si quis adfirmet homines beneficos liberalesque esse debere, non spe aliqua compendii, set amore et studio honestatis.” “Poterit enim consimiliter ita dicere: ‘Namque, ut amicitiam non spe utilitatis amplectimur, sic benefici liberalesque non gratiae reciperandae studio esse debemus.’” “Poterit sane,” inquit, “ita dicere, sed neque amicitia liberalitati neque liberalitas amicitiae praebere argumentum potest, cum de utraque pariter quaeratur.” Haec ille rhetoricus artifex dicere quibusdam videbatur perite et scienter, sed videlicet eum vocabula rerum vera ignoravisse. Nam “beneficum et liberalem” Cicero appellat, ita ut philosophi appellandum esse censent, non eum qui, ut ipse ait, beneficia faeneratur, sed qui benigne facit, nulla tacita ratione ad utilitates suas redundante. Non ergo obscuro neque ambiguo argumento usus est, sed certo atque perspicuo, siquidem, qui vere beneficus liberalisque est, qua mente bene aut liberaliter facit non quaeritur. Aliis enim longe nominibus appellandus est, si, cum talia facit, sui potius quam alterius iuvandi causa facit. Processisset autem argutatori isti fortassean reprehensio, si Cicero ita dixisset: “Ut enim benefice liberaliterque facimus, non ut exigamus gratiam”; videretur enim benefice facere etiam in non beneficum cadere posse, si id per aliquam circumstantiam fieret, non per ipsam perpetuae benignitatis constantiam. Sed cum “beneficos liberalesque” dixerit neque alius modi isti sint quam cuius esse eos supra diximus, “inlotis,” quod aiunt, “pedibus” et verbis reprehendit doctissimi viri orationem.

[¶32] 6. That what Verrius Flaccus wrote about servus recepticius, in his second book On the Obscurities of Marcus Cato, is false. MARCUS CATO, when recommending the Voconian law, spoke as follows: “In the beginning the woman brought you a great dowry; then she holds back a large sum of money, which she does not entrust to the control of her husband, but lends it to her husband. Later, becoming angry with him, she orders a servus recepticius, or ' slave of her own,' to hound him and demand the money.” The question was asked what was meant by servus recepticius. At once the books of Verrius Flaccus On the Obscurities of Cato were asked for and produced. In the second book was found the statement that servus recepticius was the name applied to a slave that was worthless and of no value, who, after being sold, was returned because of some fault and taken back. “Therefore,” says Flaccus, "a slave of that kind was bidden to hound her husband and demand the money, in order that the man's vexation might be greater, and the insult put upon him still more bitter, for the very reason that a worthless slave dunned him for the payment of money." But with the indulgence and pardon of those, if such there be, who are influenced by the authority of Verrius Flaccus, this must be said. That recepticius servus in the case of which Cato is speaking is something very different from what Verrius wrote. And this is easy for anyone to understand; for the situation is undoubtedly this: when the woman gave the dowry to her husband, what she retained of her property and did not give over to her husband she was said to “hold back” (recipere), just as now also at sales those things are said to be “held back” which are set aside and not sold. This word Plautus also used in the Trinumnus in this line:
But when he sold the house, this little place
Behind it he held back (recepit).
That is, when he sold the house, he did not sell a small part which was behind the house, but held it back. Cato himself too, wishing to describe the woman as rich, says: “The woman brings a great dowry and holds back a large sum of money”; that is, she gives a great dowry and retains possession of a large sum of money. From that property then which she kept for herself after giving her dowry, she lent money to her husband. When she happened to be vexed with her husband and determined to demand the money back, she appoints to demand it from him a seruves recepticius, that is, a slave of her very own, whom she had held back with the rest of the money and had not given as part of her dowry, but had retained; for it was not right for the woman to give such an order to a slave of her husband, but only to one of her very own. I forbear to say more in defence of this view of mine; for the opinion of Verrius and mine are before you, each by itself; anyone therefore may adopt whichever of the two seems to him the truer.

> Latin: 6. Falsum esse, quod Verrius Flaccus, in libro secundo quos De Obscuris M. Catonis composuit, de servo recepticio scriptum reliquit. M. CATO Voconiam legem suadens verbis hisce usus est: “Principio vobis mulier magnam dotem adtulit; tum magnam pecuniam recipit, quam in viri potestatem non conmittit, eam pecuniam viro mutuam dat; postea, ubi irata facta est, servum recepticium sectari atque flagitare virum iubet.” Quaerebatur, “servus recepticius” quid esset. Libri statim quaesiti allatique sunt Verrii Flacci De Obscuris Catonis. In libro secundo scriptum et inventum est, “recepticium servum” dici nequam et nulli pretii, qui, cum venum esset datus, redhibitus ob aliquod vitium receptusque sit. “Propterea,” inquit, “servus eiusmodi sectari maritum et flagitare pecuniam iubebatur, ut eo ipso dolor maior et contumelia gravior viro fieret, quod eum servus nihili petendae pecuniae causa conpellaret.” Cum pace autem cumque venia istorum, si qui sunt, qui Verrii Flacci auctoritate capiuntur, dictum hoc sit. “Recepticius” enim “servus,” in ea re quam dicit Cato, aliud omnino est quam Verrius scripsit. Atque id cuivis facile intellectu est; res enim procul dubio sic est: quando mulier dotem marito dabat, tum quae ex suis bonis retinebat neque ad virum tramittebat, ea “recipere” dicebatur, sicuti nuncnune quoque in venditionibus “recipi” dicuntur, quae excipiuntur neque veneunt. Quo verbo Plautus quoque in Trinummo usus est in hoc versu:
Postículum hoc recépit, cum aedis véndidit,
id est: cum aedis vendidit, particulam quandam quae post eas aedis erat non vendidit, sed retinuit. Ipse etiam Cato mulierem demonstrare locupletem volens: “Mulier,” inquit, “et magnam dotem dat et magnam pecuniam recipit,” hoc est: et magnam dotem dat et magnam pecuniam retinet. Ex ea igitur re familiari, quam sibi dote data retinuit, pecuniam viro mutuam dat. Eam pecuniam cum viro forte irata repetere instituit, adponit ei flagitatorem “servum recepticium,” hoc est proprium servum suum, quem cum pecunia reliqua receperat neque dederat doti, sed retinuerat; non enim servo mariti imperare hoc mulierem fas erat, sed proprio suo. Plura dicere quibus hoc nostrum tuear supersedeo; ipsa enim sunt per sese evidentia et quod a Verrio dicitur et a nobis; quod utrum ergo videbitur cuique verius, eo utatur.

[¶33] 7. These words from the Atinian law, “the claim on whatever shall be stolen shall be everlasting,” seemed to Publius Nigidius and Quintus Scaevola to have reference not less to a past theft than to a future one. THE words of the ancient Atinian law are as follows: “Whatever shall have been stolen, let the right to claim the thing be everlasting.” Who would suppose that in these words the law referred to anything else than to future time? But Quintus Scaevola says that his father and Brutus and Manilius, exceedingly learned men, inquired and were in doubt whether the law was valid in cases of future theft only or also in those already committed in the past; since subruptum erit seems to indicate both times, past as well as future. Therefore Publius Nigidius, the most learned man of the Roman State, discussed this uncertainty of theirs in the twenty-third book of his Grammatical Notes. And he himself too has the same opinion, that the indication of the time is indefinite, but he speaks very concisely and obscurely, so that you may see that he is rather making notes to aid his own memory than trying to instruct his readers. However, his meaning seems to be that est and erit are independent words; when they are used alone, they have and retain their own tense, but when they are joined with a past participle, they lose the force of their own tense, and are transferred to the past. For when I say in campo est, or “he is in the field,” and in comitio est, or “he is in the comitium,” I refer to the present time; also when I say in campo erit (he will be in the field), or in comitio erit (he will be in the comitium), I indicate future time: but when I say factum est, scriptum est or subruptum est, although the verb est is in the present tense, it is nevertheless united with the past and ceases to be present. “Similarly then,” he says, “with regard also to the wording of the law; if you divide and separate these two words subruptum and erit, so that you understand subruptum erit as you would certamen erit, that is, 'there will be a contest,' or sacrificium erit (there will be a sacrifice), then the law will seem to have reference to an act completed in future time; but if you understand the two words to be united and mingled, so that subruptum erit is not two words, but one, and is a single form of the passive inflection, then that word indicates past time no less than future.”

> Latin: 7. Verba haec ex Atinia lege: “quod subruptum erit, eius rei aeterna auctoritas esto,” P. Nigidio et Q. Scaevolae visa esse non minus de praeterito furto quam de futuro cavisse. LEGIS veteris Atiniae verba sunt: “Quod subruptum erit, eius rei aeterna auctoritas esto.” Quis aliud putet in hisce verbis quam de tempore tantum futuro legem loqui? Sed Q. Scaevola patrem suum et Brutum et Manilium, viros adprime doctos, quaesisse ait dubitasseque utrumne in post facta modo furta lex valeret an etiam in ante facta; quoniam “subruptum erit” utrumque tempus videretur ostendere, tam praeteritum quam futurum. Itaque P. Nigidius, civitatis Romanae doctissimus, super dubitatione hac eorum scripsit in tertio vicesimo Grammaticorum Commentariorum. Atque ipse quoque idem putat, incertam esse temporis demonstrationem, sed anguste perquam et obscure disserit, ut signa rerum ponere videas ad subsidium magis memoriae suae quam ad legentium disciplinam. Videbatur tamen hoc dicere, suum verbum et “est” esse et “erit”; quando per sese ponuntur, habent atque retinent tempus suum, cum vero praeterito iunguntur, vim temporis sui amittunt et in praeteritum contendunt. Cum enim dico: “in campo est” et “in comitio est,” tempus instans significo; item cum dico “in campo erit,” tempus futurum demonstro; at cum dico: “factum est,” “scriptum est,” “subruptum est,” quamquam “est” verbum temporis est praesentis, confunditur tamen cum praeterito et praesens esse desinit. “Sic igitur,” inquit, “etiam istud quod in lege est; si dividas separesque duo verba haec ‘subruptum’ et ‘erit,’ ut sic audias ‘subruptum erit,’ tamquam ‘certamencertanien erit’ aut ‘sacrificium erit,’ tumturn videbitur lex in postfuturum loqui; si vero copulate permixteque dictum intellegas, ut ‘subruptum erit’ non duo, sed unum verbum sit idque unitum patiendi declinatione sit, Tum hoc verbo non minus praeteritum tempus ostenditur quam futurum.”

## 39. Book XVII · chapters 8–14

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/39/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/39/#p-N

[¶0] 8. In conversation at the table of the philosopher Taurus questions of this kind were proposed and discussed: “why oil congeals often and readily, wine seldom, vinegar hardly ever,” and “that the waters of rivers and springs freeze, while the sea does not.” THE philosopher Taurus at Athens usually entertained us at dinner at the time of day when evening had already come on; for there that is the time for dining. The entire basis and foundation of the meal usually consisted of one pot of Egyptian beans, to which were added gourds cut in small pieces. One day when this dish had been brought and placed upon the table, and we were ready and awaiting the meal, Taurus ordered a slave-boy to pour some oil into the pot. The slave was a boy of Attic birth, at most eight years old, overflowing with the merry wit characteristic of his race and his time of life. He brought an empty Samian flask, from oversight, as he said, supposing there was oil in it, turned it up and, as he usually did, passed it with his hand over all parts of the pot; but no oil came out. The boy, in anger, looked savagely at the flask, shook it violently, and again turned it over the pot; and when we were all quietly and furtively laughing at his actions, he said in Greek, and excellent Attic Greek at that: “Don't laugh; there's oil in it; but don't you know how cold it was this morning; it's congealed.” “You rascal,” said Taurus with a laugh, “run and fetch some oil.” But when the boy had gone out to buy oil, Taurus, not at all put out by the delay, said: “The pot needs oil, and, as I see, is intolerably hot; let us withhold our hands and meanwhile, since the slave has just told us that oil is in the habit of congealing, let us consider why oil congeals often and readily, but wine rarely.” And he looked at me and bade me give my opinion. Then I replied that I inferred that wine congealed less quickly because it had in it certain seeds of heat and was naturally more fiery, and that was why Homer called it ai)/qoy, and not, as some supposed, on account of its colour. “It is indeed,” says Taurus, “as you say. For it is well known that wine, when we drink it, warms the body. But oil is equally calorific and has no less power of warming the body. Besides, if those things which are warmer are frozen with greater difficulty, it follows that those which are colder freeze more readily. But vinegar is the most cooling of all things and yet it never freezes. Is the reason then for the quicker freezing of oil to be found in its lightness? For those things seem to congeal more readily which are lighter and smoother.” Taurus says besides that it is also worth inquiring why the waters of rivers and streams freeze, while all the sea is incapable of freezing. “Although Herodotus,” said he, “the writer of history, contrary to the opinion of almost all who have investigated these matters, writes that the Bosphoric sea, which is called Cimmerian, and all that part of the sea which is termed Scythian, is bound fast by the cold and brought to a standstill.” While Taurus was thus speaking, the boy had returned, the pot had cooled off, and the time had come to eat and hold our peace.

> Latin: 8. In sermonibus apud mensam Tauri philosophi quaeri agitarique eiusmodi solita: “cur oleum saepe et facile, vina rarius congelascant, acetum haut fere umquam” et “quod aquae fluviorum fontiumque durentur, mare gelu non duretur.” PHILOSOPHUS TAURUS accipiebat nos Athenis cena plerumque ad id diei ubi iam vesperaverat; id enim est tempus istic cenandi. Frequens eius cenae fundus et firmamentum omne erat aula una lentis Aegyptiae et cucurbitae inibi minutim caesae. Ea quodam die ubi paratis et expectantibus nobis adlata atque inposita mensae est, puerum iubet Taurus oleum in aulam indere. Erat is puer genere Atticus, ad annos maxime natus octo, festivissimis aetatis et gentis argutiis scatens. Gutum Samium ore tenus inprudens inanem, tamquam si inesset oleum, adfert convertitque eum et, ut solitum est, circumegit per omnem partem aulae manum: nullum inde ibat oleum. Aspicit puer gutum atrocibus oculis stomachabundus et concussum vehementius iterum in aulam vertit; idque cum omnes sensim atque summissim rideremus, tum puer Graece, et id quidem perquam Attice “μὴ γελᾶτε,” inquit, “ἔνι τοὔλαιον· ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἴστε, οἷα φρίκη περὶ τὸν ὄρθρον γέγονε τήμερον; κεκρυστάλλωται.” “Verbero,” inquit ridens Taurus, “nonne is curriculo atque oleum petis?” Sed cum puer foras emptum isset, nihil ipse ista mora offensior: “Aula,” inquit, “oleo indiget et, ut video, intolerandum fervit; cohibeamus manus atque interea, quoniam puer nunc admonuit solere oleum congelascere, consideremus cur oleum quidem saepe et facile, set vina rarenter congelascant?” Atque aspicit me et iubet quid sentiam dicere. Tum ego respondi coniectare me vinum idcirco minus cito congelascere, quod semina quaedam caldoris in sese haberet essetque natura ignitius, ob eamque rem dictum esse ab Homero αἴθοπα οἶνον, non, ut alii putarent, propter colorem. “Est quidem,” inquit Taurus, “ita ut dicis; nam ferme convenit vinum, ubi potum est, calefacere corpora.” “Sed non secus oleum quoque calorificum est neque minorem vim in corporibus calefaciendis habet.” “Ad hoc, si istaec quae calidiora sunt difficilius gelu coguntur, congruens est ut quae frigidiora sunt facile cogantur.” “Acetum autem omnium maxime frigorificum est atque id numquam tamen concrescit.” “Num igitur magis causa oleo coaguli celerioris in levitate est? Faciliora enim ad coeundum videntur quae levatiora levioraque sunt.” Praeterea id quoque ait quaeri dignum, cur fluviorum et fontium aquae gelu durentur, mare omne incongelabile sit. “Tametsi Herodotus,” inquit, “historiae scriptor, contra omnium ferme qui haec quaesiverunt opinionem, scribit mare Bosporicum, quod ‘Cimmerium’ appellatur, earumque partium mare omne quod ‘Scythicum’ dicitur, gelu stringi et consistere.” Dum haec Taurus, interea puer venerat et aula deferbuerat tempusque esse coeperat edendi et tacendi.

[¶1] 9. Of the cypher letters which are found in the epistles of Gains Caesar, and of other secret forms of writing taken from ancient history; and what the Laconian skuta/lh is. THERE are volumes of letters of Gaius Caesar addressed to Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, who had charge of his affairs in his absence. In certain parts of these letters there are found individual characters which are not connected to form syllables, but apparently are written at random; for no word can be formed from those letters. But a secret agreement had been made between the correspondents about a change in the position of the letters, so that, in writing, one name and position was given to one letter and another to another, but in reading its own place and force was restored to each of them. But which letter was written for which was, as I have already said, agreed upon by those who devised this secret code. There is in fact a commentary of the grammarian Probus, On the Secret meaning of the Letters appearing in the Epistles of Gains Caesar, which is a very careful piece of work. But the ancient Lacedaemonians, when they wanted to conceal and disguise the public dispatches sent to their generals, in order that, in case they were intercepted by the enemy, their plans might not be known, used to send letters written in the following manner. There were two thin, cylindrical wands of the same thickness and length, smoothed and prepared so as to be exactly alike. One of these was given to the general when he went to war, the other the magistrates kept at home under their control and seal. When the need of more secret communication arose, they bound about the staff a thong of moderate thickness, but long enough for the purpose, in a simple spiral, in such a way that the edges of the thong which was twined around the stick met and were joined throughout. Then they wrote the dispatch on that thong across the connected edges of the joints, with the lines running from the top to the bottom. When the letter had been written in this way, the thong was unrolled from the wand and sent to the general, who was familiar with the device. But the unrolling of the thong made the letters imperfect and broken, and their parts and strokes were divided and separated. Therefore, if the thong fell into the hands of the enemy, nothing at all could be made out from the writing; but when the one to whom the letter was sent had received it, he wound it around the corresponding staff, which he had, from the top to the bottom, just as he knew that it ought to be done, and thus the letters, united by encircling a similar staff, came together again, rendering the dispatch entire and undamaged, and easy to read. This kind of letter the Lacedaemonians called skuta/lh. I also read this in an ancient history of Carthage, that a certain famous man of that country —whether it was Hasdrubal or another I do not recall—disguised a letter written about secret matters in the following way: he took new tablets, not yet provided with wax, and cut the letters into the wood. Afterwards he covered the tablet with wax in the usual way and sent it, apparently without writing, to one to whom he had previously told his plan. The recipient then scraped off the wax, found the letters safe and sound inscribed upon the wood, and read them. There is also in the records of Grecian history another profound and difficult method of concealment, devised by a barbarian's cunning. He was called Histiaeus and was born in the land of Asia in no mean station. At that time king Darius held sway in Asia. This Histiaeus, being in Persia with Darius, wished to send a confidential message to a certain Aristagoras in a secret manner. He devised this remarkable method of concealing a letter. He shaved all the hair from the head of a slave of his who had long suffered from weak eyes, as if for the purpose of treatment. Then he tattooed the forms of the letters on his smooth head. When in this way he had written what he wished, he kept the man at home for a time, until his hair grew out. When this happened, he ordered him to go to Aristagoras, adding: “When you come to him, say that I told him to shave your head, as I did a little while ago.” The slave, as he was bidden, came to Aristagoras and delivered his master's order. Aristagoras, thinking that the command must have some reason, did as he was directed. And thus the letter reached its destination.

> Latin: 9. De notis litterarum quae in C. Caesaris epistulis reperiuntur; deque aliis clandestinis litteris ex vetere historia petitis; et quid σκυτάλη sit Laconica. LIBRI sunt epistularum C. Caesaris ad C. Oppium et Balbum Cornelium, qui rebus eius absentis curabant. In his epistulis quibusdam in locis inveniuntur litterae singulariae sine coagmentis syllabarum, quas tu putes positas incondite; nam verba ex his litteris confici nulla possunt. Erat autem conventum inter eos clandestinum de commutando situ litterarum, ut in scripto quidem alia aliae locum et nomen teneret, sed in legendo locus cuique suus et potestas restitueretur; quaenam vero littera pro qua scriberetur, ante is, sicuti dixi, conplacebat qui hanc scribendi latebram parabant. Est adeo Probi grammatici commentarius satis curiose factus De Occulta Litterarum Significatione in Epistularum C. Caesaris Scriptura. Lacedaemonii autem veteres, cum dissimulare et occultare litteras publice ad imperatores suos missas volebant, ne, si ab hostibus eae captae forent, consilia sua noscerentur, epistulas id genus factas mittebant. Surculi duo erant teretes, oblonguli, pari crassamento eiusdemque longitudinis, derasi atque ornati consimiliter; unus imperatori in bellum proficiscenti dabatur, alterum domi magistratus cum iure atque cum signo habebant. Quando usus venerat litterarum secretiorum, circum eum surculum lorum modicae tenuitatis, longum autem quantum rei satis erat, conplicabant, volumine rotundo et simplici, ita uti orae adiunctae undique et cohaerentes lori, quod plicabatur, coirent. Litteras deinde in eo loro per transversas iuncturarum oras versibus a summo ad imum proficiscentibus inscribebant; id lorum litteris ita perscriptis revolutum ex surculo imperatori commenti istius conscio mittebant; resolutio autem lori litteras truncas atque mutilas reddebat membraque earum et apices in partis diversissimas spargebat; propterea, si id lorum in manus hostium inciderat, nihil quicquam coniectari ex eo scripto quibat; sed ubi ille ad quem erat missum acceperat, surculo conpari, quem habebat, a capite ad finem, proinde ut debere fieri sciebat, circumplicabat, atque ita litterae per eundem ambitum surculi coalescentes rursum coibant integramque et incorruptam epistulam et facilem legi praestabant. Hoc genus epistulae Lacedaemonii σκυτάλην appellant. Legebamus id quoque in vetere historia rerum Poenicarum, virum indidem quempiam inlustrem—sive ille Hasdrubal sive quis alius est non retineo—epistulam scriptam super rebus arcanis hoc modo abscondisse: pugillaria nova, nondum etiam cera inlita, accepisse, litteras in lignum incidisse, postea tabulas, uti solitum est, cera conlevisse easque tabulas, tamquam non scriptas, cui facturum id praedixerat misisse; eum deinde ceram derasisse litterasque incolumes ligno incisas legisse. Est et alia in monumentis rerum Graecarum profunda quaedam et inopinabilis latebra, barbarico astu excogitata. Histiaeus nomine fuit, loco natus in terra Asia non ignobili. Asiam tunc tenebat imperio rex Darius. Is Histiaeus, cum in Persis apud Darium esset, Aristagorae cuipiam res quasdam occultas nuntiare furtivo scripto volebat. Comminiscitur opertum hoc litterarum admirandum. Servo suo diu oculos aegros habenti capillum ex capite omni tamquam medendi gratia deradit caputque eius leve in litterarum formas conpungit. His litteris quae voluerat perscripsit, hominem postea quoad capillus adolesceret domo continuit. Ubi id factum est, ire ad Aristagoran iubet et “Cum ad eum,” inquit, “veneris, mandasse me dicito ut caput tuum, sicut nuper egomet feci, deradat.” Servus, ut imperatum erat, ad Aristagoran venit mandatumque domini adfert. Atque ille id non esse frustra ratus, quod erat mandatum fecit. Ita litterae perlatae sunt.

[¶2] 10. What Favorinus thought of the verses of Virgil in which he imitated the poet Pindar in his description of an eruption of Mount Aetna; his comparison and evaluation of the verses of the two poets on the same theme. I REMEMBER that the philosopher Favorinus, when he had gone during the hot season to the villa of a friend of his at Antium, and I had come from Rome to see him, discoursed in about the following manner about the poets Pindar and Virgil. “The friends and intimates of Publius Vergilius,” said he, “in the accounts which they have left us of his talents and his character, say that he used to declare that he produced verses after the manner and fashion of a bear. For he said that as that beast brought forth her young formless and misshapen, and afterwards by licking the young cub gave it form and shape, just so the fresh products of his mind were rude in form and imperfect, but afterwards by working over them and polishing them he gave them a definite form and expression. That this was honestly and truly said by that man of fine taste,” said he, "is shown by the result. For the parts that he left perfected and polished, to which his judgment and approval had applied the final hand, enjoy the highest praise for poetical beauty; but those parts which he postponed, with the intention of revising them later, but was unable to finish because he was overtaken by death, are in no way worthy of the fame and taste of the most elegant of poets. It was for that reason, when he was laid low by disease and saw that death was near, that he begged and earnestly besought his best friends to burn the Aeneid, which he had not yet sufficiently revised. “Now among the passages,” said Favorinus, “which particularly seem to have needed revision and correction is the one which was composed about Mount Aetna. For wishing to rival the poem which the earlier poet Pindar composed about the nature and eruption of that mountain, he has heaped up such words and expressions that in this passage at least he is more extravagant and bombastic even than Pindar himself, who was thought to have too rich and luxuriant a style. And in order that you yourselves,” said he, "may be judges of what I say, I will repeat Pindar's poem about Mount Aetna, so far as I can remember it:
Mount Aetna, from whose inmost caves burst forth
The purest fount of unapproachable fire.
By day her rivers roll a lurid stream
Of smoke, while 'mid the gloom of night red flame,
On sweeping, whirleth rocks with crashing din
Far down to the deep sea. And high aloft
That monster flingeth fearful founts of fire,
A marvel to behold or e'en to hear
From close at hand.
Now hear the verses of Virgil, which I may more truly say that he began than finished:
There lies a port, safe from the winds' approach,
Spacious itself, but Aetna close at hand
Thunders with crashes dire, and now hurls forth
Skyward a dusky cloud with eddies black
And glowing ash, and uplifts balls of flame
And licks the stars; now spews forth rocks,
The mountain's entrails torn, hurls molten crags
Groaning to heaven, and seethes from depths profound.
“Now in the first place,” said Favorinus, “Pindar has more closely followed the truth and has given a realistic description of what actually happened there, and what he saw with his own eyes; namely, that Aetna in the daytime sends forth smoke and at night fire; but Virgil, labouring to find grand and sonorous words, confuses the two periods of time and makes no distinction between them. Then the Greek has vividly pictured the streams of fire belched from the depths and the flowing rivers of smoke, and the rushing of lurid and spiral volumes of flame into the waters of the sea, like so many fiery serpents; but our poet, attempting to render r(o/on kapnou= ai)/qwna, 'a lurid stream of smoke,' has clumsily and diffusely piled up the words atram nubem turbine piceo et favilla fomented, 'a dusky cloud smoking with eddies black and glowing ash,' and what Pindar called krounoi/, or 'founts,' he has harshly and inaccurately rendered by 'balls of flame.' Likewise when he says sidearm lamb it, 'it licks the stars,' this also,” he says, “is a useless and foolish elaboration. And this too is inexplicable and almost incomprehensible, when he speaks of a 'black cloud smoking with eddies black and glowing ash.' For things which glow,” said Favorinus, “do not usually smoke nor are they black; unless candenti ('glowing') is used vulgarly and inaccurately for hot ashes, instead of those which are fiery and gleaming. For candens, of course, is connected with candor, or 'whiteness,' not with calor ('heat'). But when he says saxa et scopulos eructari et erigi, 'that rocks and crags are spewed forth and whirled skyward,' and that these same crags at once liquefieri et gemere atque glomerari ad auras, 'are molten and groan and are whirled to heaven,' this,” he said, “is what Pindar never wrote and what was never spoken by anyone; and it is the most monstrous of all monstrous descriptions.”

> Latin: 10. Quid de versibus Vergilii Favorinus existumarit, quibus in describenda flagrantia montis Aetnae Pindarum poetam secutus est; conlataque ab eo super eadem re utriusque carmina et diiudicata. FAVORINUM philosophum, cum in hospitis sui Antiatem villam aestu anni concessisset nosque ad eum videndum Roma venissemus, memini super Pindaro poeta et Vergilio in hunc ferme modum disserere: “Amici,” inquit, “familiaresque P. Vergilii, in his quae de ingenio moribusque eius memoriae tradiderunt, dicere eum solitum ferunt parere se versus more atque ritu ursino.” “Namque ut illa bestia fetum ederet ineffigiatum informemque lambendoque id postea quod ita edidisset conformaret et fingeret, proinde ingenii quoque sui partus recentes rudi esse facie et inperfecta, sed deinceps tractando colendoque reddere iis se oris et vultus liniamenta.” “Hoc virum iudicii subtilissimi ingenue atque vere dixisse, res,” inquit, “indicium facit.” “Nam quae reliquit perfecta expolitaque quibusque inposuit census atque dilectus sui supremam manum,” “omni poeticae venustatis laude florent; sed quae procrastinata sunt ab eo, ut post recenserentur, et absolvi, quoniam mors praeverterat, nequiverunt, nequaquam poetarum elegantissimi nomine atque iudicio digna sunt.” “Itaque cum morbo obpressus adventare mortem viderat, petivit oravitque a suis amicissimis inpense, ut Aeneida, quam nondum satis elimavisset, adolerent.” “In his autem,” inquit, “quae videntur retractari et corrigi debuisse, is maxime locus est qui de monte Aetna factus est. Nam cum Pindari, veteris poetae, carmen quod de natura atque flagrantia montis eius compositum est, aemulari vellet, eiusmodi sententias et verba molitus est, ut Pindaro quoque ipso, qui nimis opima pinguique esse facundia existimatus est, insolentior hoc quidem in loco tumidiorque sit.” “Atque uti vosmet ipsos,” inquit, “eius quod dico arbitros faciam, carmen Pindari quod est super monte Aetna, quantulum est mihi memoriae, dicam:
Τᾶς ἐρεύγονται μὲν ἀπλάτου πυρὸς ἁγνόταται
Ἐκ μυχῶν παγαί· ποταμοὶ δʼ ἁμέροισιν μὲν προχέοντιμυχῶν παγαί· ποταμοὶ δʼ ἁμέροισιν μὲν προχέοντι ῥόον καπνοῦ
Αἴθωνʼ· ἀλλʼ ἐν ὄρφναισιν πέτρας
Φοίνισσα κυλινδομένα φλὸξ ἐς βαθεῖαν φέρει πόντου πλάκα σὺν πατάγῳ.
Κεῖνο δʼ Ἀφαίστοιο κρουνοὺς ἑρπετὸν
Δεινοτάτους ἀναπέμπει· τέρας μὲν θαυμάσιον προσιδέσθαι, θαῦμα δὲ καὶ παρεόντων ἀκοῦσαι.” “Audite nunc,” inquit, “Vergilii versus, quos inchoasse eum verius dixerim, quam fecisse:
Portus ab accessu ventorum inmotus et ingens
Ipse, sed horrificis iuxta tonat Aetna ruinis
Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem,
Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla,
Adtollitque globos flammarum et sidera lambit;
Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis
Erigit eructans liquefactaque saxa sub auras
Cum gemitu glomerat fundoque exaestuat imo.” “Iam principio,” inquit, “Pindarus, veritati magis obsecutus, id dixit quod res erat quodque istic usu veniebat quodque oculis videbaturvidelatur, interdius fumare Aetnam, noctu flammigare;” “Vergilius autem, dum in strepitu sonituque verborum conquirendo laborat, utrumque tempus, nulla discretione facta, confudit.” “Atque ille Graecus quidem fontes imitus ignis eructari et fluere amnes fumi et flammarum fulva et tortuosa volumina in plagas maris ferre, quasi quosdam igneos angues, luculente dixit;” “at hic noster ‘atram nubem turbine piceo et favilla fumantem’ ῥόον καπνοῦ αἴθωνα interpretari volens, crasse et inmodice congessit,” “‘globos’ quoque ‘flammarumflammmarum,’ quod ille κρουνούς dixerat, duriter et ἀκύρως transtulit.” “Item quod ait: ‘sidera lambit,’ vacanter hoc etiam,” inquit, “accumulavit et inaniter.” Neque non id quoque inenarrabile esse ait et propemodum insensibile, quod “nubem atram fumare” dixit “turbine piceo et favilla candente.” “Non enim fumare,” inquit, “solent neque atra esse quae sunt candentia; nisi si ‘candenti’ dixit pervulgate et inproprie pro ferventi favilla, non pro ignea et relucenti. Nam ‘candens’ scilicet a candore dictum, non a calore.” “Quod ‘saxa’ autem ‘et scopulos eructari et erigi’ eosdemque ipsos statim ‘liquefieri et gemere atque glomerari sub auras’ dixit, hoc,” inquit, “nec a Pindaro scriptum nec umquam fando auditum et omnium, quae monstra dicuntur, monstruosissimum est.”

[¶3] 11. That Plutarch in his Symposiacs defended the opinion of Plato about the structure and nature of the stomach, and of the tube which is called traxei=a, against the physician Erasistratus, urging the authority of the ancient physician Hippocrates. BOTH Plutarch and certain other learned men have written that Plato was criticized by the famous physician Erasistratus, because he said that drink went to the lungs and having sufficiently moistened them, flowed through them, since they are somewhat porous, and from there passed into the bladder. They declared that the originator of that error was Alcaeus, who wrote in his poems:
Wet now the lungs with wine; the dog-star shines,
but that Erasistratus himself declared that there were two little canals, so to speak, or pipes, and that they extended downward from the throat; that through one of these all food and drink passed and went into the stomach, and from there were carried into the belly, which the Greeks call h( ka/tw koili/a. That there it is reduced and digested and then the drier excrement passes into the bowels, which the Greeks call ko/lon, and the moisture through the kidneys into the bladder. But through the other tube, which the Greeks call the traxei=a a)rthri/a, or “rough windpipe,” the breath passes from the lips into the lungs, and from there goes back into the mouth and nostrils, and along this same road a passage for the voice also is made; and lest drink or drier food, which ought to pass into the stomach, should fall from the mouth and slip into that tube through which the breath goes back and forth, and by such an accident the path of the breath should be cut off, there has been placed at these two openings by a kind of helpful device of nature, a sort of movable valve which is called the “epiglottis,” which alternately shuts and opens. This epiglottis, while we are eating and drinking, covers and protects “the rough windpipe,” in order that no particle of food or drink may fall into that path, so to speak, of the rising and falling breath; and on that account no moisture passes into the lungs, since the opening of the windpipe itself is well protected. These are the views of the physician Erasistratus, as opposed to Plato. But Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, says that the originator of Plato's opinion was Hippocrates, and that the same opinion was held by Philistion of Locris and Dioxippus the pupil of Hippocrates, famous physicians of the olden time; also that the epiglottis, of which Erasistratus spoke, was not placed where it is to prevent anything that we drank from flowing into the windpipe; for fluid seems necessary and serviceable for refreshing and moistening the lungs; but it was placed there as a kind of controller and arbiter, to exclude or admit whatever was necessary for the health of the body; to keep away all foods from the windpipe and turn them to the stomach, but to divide what is drunk between the stomach and the lungs. And that part which ought to be admitted into the lungs through the windpipe the epiglottis does not let through rapidly and all at once, but when it has been checked and held back, as it were by a kind of dam, it allows it to pass gradually and little by little, and turns aside all the remainder into the other tube leading to the stomach.

> Latin: 11. Quod Plutarchus in libris Symposiacis opinionem Platonis de habitu atque natura stomachi, fistulaeque eius quae τραχεῖα dicitur, adversum Erasistratum medicum tutatus est, auctoritate adhibita antiqui medici Hippocratis. ET Plutarchus et alii quidam docti viri reprehensum esse ab Erasistrato, nobili medico, PlatonemPlatonern scripsere, quod potum dixit defluere ad pulmonem eoque satis humectato demanare per eum, quia sit rimosior, et confluere inde in vesicam, errorisque istius fuisse Alcaeum ducem, qui in poematis suis scriberet:
Τέγγε πνεύμονα οἴνῳ· τὸ γὰρ ἄστρον περιτέλλεται, ipsum autem Erasistratum dicere duas esse quasi canaliculas quasdam vel fistulas easque ab oris faucibus proficisci deorsum, per earumque alteram deduci delabique in stomachum esculenta omnia et posculenta ex eoque ferri in ventriculum, quae Graece appellatur; ἡ κάτω κοιλία, atque ibi subigi digerique, ac deinde aridiora ex his recrementa in alvum convenire, quod Graece κόλον dicitur, humidiora per renes in vesicam. Per alteram autem fistulam, quae Graece nominatur τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία, spiritum a summo ore in pulmonem atque inde rursum in os et in nares commeare, perque eandem viam vocis quoque fieri meatum ac, ne potus cibusve aridior, quem oporteret in stomachum ire, procideret ex ore labereturque in eam fistulam per quam spiritus reciprocatur, eaque offensione intercluderetur animae via, inpositam esse arte quadam et ope naturae inde apud duo ista foramina, quae dicitur ἐπιγλωττίς, quasi claustra quaedam mobilia, coniventia vicissim et resurgentia, eamque ἐπιγλωττίδα inter edendum bibendumque operire atque protegere τὴν τραχεῖαν ἀρτηρίαν, ne quid ex esca potuve incideret in illud quasi aestuantis animae iter; ac propterea nihil humoris influere in pulmonem ore ipso arteriae communito. Haec Erasistratus medicus adversum Platonem. Sed Plutarchus in libro Symposiacorum auctorem Platonis sententiae Hippocraten dicit fuisse idemque esse opinatos et Philistiona Locrum et Dioxippum Hippocraticum, veteres medicos et nobiles; atque illam, de qua Erasistratus dixerat, ἐπιγλωττίδα non idcirco eo in loco constitutam, ne quid ex potu influeret in arteriam; nam pulmoni quoque fovendo rigandoque utiles necessariosque humores videri, set adpositam quasi moderatricem quandam et arbitram prohibendi admittendive quod ex salutis usu foret, uti edulia quidem omnia defenderet ab arteria depelleretque in stomachum, potum autem partiretur inter stomachum et pulmonem et quod ex eo admitti in pulmonem per arteriam deberet, non rapidum id neque universum, sed quadam quasi obice sustenta tum ac repressum sensim paulatimque tramitteret atque omne reliquum in alteram stomachi fistulam derivaret.

[¶4] 12. Of ignoble subjects, called by the Greeks a)/docoi, or “unexpected,” argued by Favorinus for the sake of practice. NOT only the sophists of old, but the philosophers as well, took up ignoble subjects, or if you prefer, unexpected ones, a)/docoi u(poqe/seis, as the Greeks call them; and our friend Favorinus took a great deal of pleasure in descending to such subjects, either thinking them suitable for stimulating his thoughts or exercising his cleverness or overcoming difficulties by practice. For example, when he attempted to praise Thersites and pronounced a eulogy upon the quartan ague, he said many clever and ingenious things on both topics, which he has left written in his works. But in his eulogy of fever he even produced Plato as a witness, declaring that the philosopher wrote that one who after suffering from quartan ague got well and recovered his full strength, would afterwards enjoy surer and more constant health. And in that same eulogy he made this quip, which, of a truth, is not ungraceful: “The following lines,” he says,
have met with the approval of many generations of men:
Sometimes a day is like a stepmother,
And sometimes like a mother.
The meaning of the verses is that a man cannot fare well every day, but fares well on one day and ill on another. Since it is true,
he says, “that in human affairs things are in turn, now good, now bad, how much more fortunate is this fever which has an interval of two days, since it has only one stepmother, but two mothers!”

> Latin: 12. De materiis infamibus, quas Graeci ἀδόξους appellant, a Favorino exercendi gratia disputatis. INFAMES materias, sive quis mavult dicere “inopinabiles,” quas Graeci ἀδόξους ὑποθέσεις appellant, et veteres adorti sunt, non sophistae solum, sed philosophi quoque, et noster Favorinus oppido quam libens in eas materias se deiciebat, vel ingenio expergificando ratus idoneas vel exercendis argutiis vel edomandis usu difficultatibus; sicuti, cum Thersitae laudes quaesivit et cum febrim quartis diebus recurrentem laudavit, lepida sane multa et non facilia inventu in utramque causam dixit eaque scripta in libris reliquit. Sed in febris laudibus testemtested etiam Platonem produxit, quem scripsisse ait qui quartanam passus convaluerit viresque integras recuperaverit, fidelius constantiusque postea valiturum. Atque inibi in isdem laudibus non hercle hac sententiola invenuste lusit: “Versus,” inquit, “est longo hominum aevo probatus:
Ἄλλοτε μητρυιὴ πέλει ἡμέρη, ἄλλοτε μήτηρ.
Eo versu significatur, non omni die bene esse posse, sed isto bene atque alio male.” “Quod cum ita sit,” inquit, “ut in rebus humanis bene aut male vice alterna sit, haec biduo medio intervallata febris quanto est fortunatior, in qua est μία μητρυιά, δύο μητέρες!”

[¶5] 13. How many and what varieties of meaning the particle quin has, and that it is often obscure in the earlier literature. THE particle quin, which the grammarians call a conjunction, seems to connect sentences in various ways and with divers meanings. For it seems to have one meaning when we say, as if chiding or questioning or exhorting, quin venis? “Why don't you come?” quin legis? “Why don't you read?” or quin fugis? “Why don't you flee?”; but it has a different meaning when we affirm, for example, that “there is no doubt but that (quin) Marcus Tullius is the most eloquent of all men,” and still a third, when we add something which seems contradictory to a former statement: “Isocrates did not plead causes, not but that he thought it useful and honourable so to do.” In the last of these sentences the meaning is not very different from that which is found in the third book of Marcus Cato's Origins: “these I describe last, not but that they are good and valiant peoples.” Also in the second book of the Origins Marcus Cato has used this particle in a very similar manner: “He did not consider it enough to have slandered him privately, without openly defaming his character.” I have noted, besides, that Quadrigarius in the eighth book of his Annals has used that particle in a very obscure manner. I quote his exact words: “He came to Rome; he barely succeeds in having a triumph voted.” Also in the sixth book of the same writer's Annals are these words: “It lacked little but that (quin) they should leave their camp and yield to the enemy.” Now I am quite well aware that someone may say off-hand that there is no difficulty in these words; for quin in both passages is used for ut, and the meaning is perfectly plain if you say: “He came to Rome; he with difficulty brought it about that a triumph should be voted”; and also in the other passage, “It almost happened that they left their camp and yielded to the enemy.” Let those who are so ready find refuge in changing words which they do not understand, but let them do so with more modesty, when the occasion permits. Only one who has learned that this particle of which we are speaking is a compound and formed of two parts, and that it does not merely have the function of a connective but has a definite meaning of its own, will ever understand its variations in meaning. But because an explanation of these would require a long dissertation, he who has leisure may find it in the Commentaries of Publius Nigidius which he entitled Grammatical.

> Latin: 13. “Quin” particula quot qualesque varietates significationis habeat et quam saepe in veterum scriptis obscura sit. “QUIN” particula, quam grammatici coniunctionem appellant, variis modis sententiisque conectere orationem videtur. Aliter enim dici putatur, cum quasi increpantes vel interrogantes vel exhortantes dicimus “quin venis?” “quin legis?” “quin fugis?” aliter, cum ita confirmamus: “non dubium est, quin M. Tullius omnium sit eloquentissimus,” aliter autem, cum sic componimus, quod quasi prior videtur contrarium: “non idcirco causas Isocrates non defendit, quin id utile esse et honestum existumarit”; a quo illa significatio non abhorret, quae est in tertia Origine M. Catonis. “Haut eos,” inquit, “eo postremum scribo, quin populi et boni et strenui sient.” In secunda quoque Origine M. Cato non longe secus hac particula usus est: “Neque satis,” inquit, “habuit quod eum in occulto vitiaverat, quin eius famam prostitueret.” Praeterea animadvertimus Quadrigarium in octavo Annalium particula ista usum esse obscurissime. Verba ipsius posuimus: “Romam venit; vix superat quin triumphus decernatur.” Item in sexto Annali eiusdem verba haec sunt: “Paene factum est quin castra relinquerent atque cederent hosti.” Non me autem praeterit dicere aliquem posse de summo pectore nil esse in his verbis negotii; nam “quin” utrobique positum pro “ut” planissimumque esse, si ita dicas: “Romam venit; vix superat, ut triumphus decernatur”; item alio in loco: “Paene factum est, ut castra relinquerent atque cederent hosti.” Sed utantur sane, qui tam expediti sunt, perfugiis commutationum in verbis quae non intelleguntur, utantur tamen, ubi id facere poterunt, verecundius. Hanc particulam de qua dicimus, nisi si quis didicerit compositam copulatamque esse neque vim tantum coniungendi habere, sed certa quadam significatione factam, numquam profecto rationes ac varietates istius comprehensurus est. Quod quia longioris dissertationis est, poterit, cui otium est, reperire hoc in P. Nigidii Commentariis, quos Grammaticos inscripsit.

[¶6] 14. Neat sayings selected from the Mimes of Publilius. PUBLILIUS wrote mimes. He was thought worthy of being rated about equal to Laberius. But the scurrility and the arrogance of Laberius so offended Gaius Caesar, that he declared that he was better pleased with the mimes of Publilius than with those of Laberius. Many sayings of this Publilius are current, which are neat and well adapted to the use of ordinary conversation. Among these are the following, consisting of a single line each, which I have indeed taken pleasure in quoting:
Bad is the plan which cannot bear a change.
He gains by giving who has given to worth.
Endure and don't deplore what can't be helped.
Who's given too much, will want more than's allowed.
A witty colmrade at vour side,
To walk's as easy as to ride.
Frugality is misery in disguise.
Heirs' tears are laughter underneath a mask.
Patience too oft provoked is turned to rage.
He wrongly Neptune blames, who suffers shipwreck twice.
Regard a friend as one who may be foe.
By bearing old wrongs new ones you provoke.
With danger ever danger's overcome.
'Mid too much wrangling truth is often lost.
Who courteously declines, grants half your suit.

> Latin: 14. Sententiae ex Publili mimisMiminis selectae lepidiores. PUBLILIUS mimos scriptitavit. Dignus habitus est qui subpar Laberio iudicaretur. C. autem Caesarem ita Laberii maledicentia et adrogantia offendebat, ut acceptiores sibi esse Publili quam Laberii mimos praedicaret. Huius Publili sententiae feruntur pleraeque lepidae et ad communem sermonum usum commendatissimae, ex quibus sunt istae singulis versibus circumscriptae, quas libitum hercle est adscribere:
Malum est consilium quód mutari nón potest.
Beneficium dando accépit, qui dignó dedit.
Ferás, non culpes, quód vitari nón potest.
Cui plús licet, quam pár est, plus vult, quám licet.
Comés facundus in via pro véhiculo est.
Frugálitas miséria est rumorís boni.
Herédis fletus súb persona risus est.
Furór fit laesa saépius patiéntia.
Inprobe Neptúnum accusat, qui iterum naufragiúm facit.
Ita amicumamicumi habeas pésse ut facile fieri hunc inimicúm putes.
Veterém ferendo iniúriam invités novam.
Numquám periclum síne periclo vincitur.
Nimium áltercando veritas amíttitur.
Pars bénefici est, quod pétitur si bellé neges.

## 40. Book XVII · chapters 15–21

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/40/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/40/#p-N

[¶0] 15. That Carneades the Academic purged his stomach with hellebore when about to write against the dogmas of Zeno the Stoic; and of the nature and curative powers of white and black hellebore. WHEN Carneades, the Academic philosopher, was about to write against the books of the Stoic Zeno, he cleansed the upper part of his body with white hellebore, in order that none of the corrupt humours of his stomach might rise to the abode of his mind and weaken the power and vigour of his intellect; with such care and such preparation did this man of surpassing talent set about refuting what Zeno had written. When I had read of this in Grecian history, I inquired what was meant by the term “white hellebore.” Then I learned that there are two kinds of hellebore distinguished by a difference in colour, white and black; but that those colours are distinguished neither in the seed of the hellebore nor in its plant, but in the root; further, that with white hellebore the stomach and upper belly are purged by vomiting; by the black the so-called lower belly is loosened, and the effect of both is to remove the noxious humours in which the causes of diseases are situated. But that there is danger lest, when every avenue of the body is opened, along with the causes of disease the juices on which the principle of life depends should also pass away, and the man should perish from exhaustion because of the destruction of the entire foundation of natural nourishment. But Plinius Secundus, in his work On Natural History, wrote that hellebore could be taken with the greatest safety in the island of Anticyra. That for this reason Livius Drusus, the former tribune of the commons, when he was suffering from the so-called “election” disease, sailed to Anticyra, drank hellebore in that island, and was thus cured of the ailment. I have read besides that the Gauls, when hunting, dip their arrows in hellebore, because the wild animals that are struck and killed by arrows thus treated become tenderer for eating; but because of the contagion of the hellebore they are said to cut out a large piece of flesh around the wounds made by the arrows.

> Latin: 15. Quod Carneades Academicus elleboroelleloro stomachum purgavit, scripturusscriptures adversus Zenonis Stoici decretadeereta; deque natura medellaque elleboriellelori candidi et nigri. CARNEADES Academicus, scripturus adversum Stoici Zenonis libros, superior corporis elleboro candido purgavit, ne quid ex corruptis in stomacho humoribus ad domicilia usque animi redundaret et instantiam vigoremque mentis labefaceret; tanta cura tantoque apparatuappparatu sui vir ingenio praestanti ad refellenda quae scripserat Zeno aggressus; idque cum in historia Graeca legissem, quod “elleboro candido” scriptum erat, quid esset quaesivi. Tum comperi duas species ellebori esse discerniculo coloris insignes, candidi et nigri; eos autem colores non in semine ellebori neque in virgultis, sed in radice dinosci; candido stomachum et ventrem superiorem vomitionibus purgari; nigro alvum, quae “inferior” vocatur, dilui, utriusque esse hanc vim, ut humoreshumrores noxios in quibus causae morborum sunt extrahant. Esse autem periculum ne inter causas morborum, omni corporum via patefacta, ea quoque ipsa, in quibus causa vivendi est, effluant amissoque omni naturalis alimoniae fundamento homo exhaustus intereat. Set elleborum sumi posse tutissime in insula Anticyra Plinius Secundus in libris Naturalis Historiae scripsit. Propterea Livium Drusum, qui tribunus plebi fuit, cum morbum qui “comitialis” dicitur pateretur, Anticyram navigasse et in ea insula elleborum bibisse ait, atque ita inorbo liberatum. Praeterea scriptum legimus Gallos in venatibus tinguere elleboro sagittas, quod his ictae, exanimatae ferae teneriores ad epulas fiant; sed propter ellebori contagium vulnera ex sagittis facta circumcidere latius dicuntur.

[¶1] 16. That Pontic ducks have a power which is able to expel poisons; and also of the skill of Mithridates in preparing antidotes. IT is said that the ducks of Pontus commonly live by eating poisons. It was also written by Lenaeus, the freedman of Pompey the Great, that Mithridates, the famous king of Pontus, was skilled in medicine and in antidotes of that kind, and that he was accustomed to mix the blood of these ducks with drugs that have the power of expelling poisons, and that the blood was the very most powerful agency in their preparation; furthermore, that the king himself by the constant use of such remedies guarded against hidden plots at banquets; nay more, that lie often voluntarily and wittingly, to show his immunity, drank a swift and rapid poison, which yet did him no harm. Therefore, at a later time, when he had been defeated in battle, and after fleeing to the remotest bounds of his kingdom had resolved to take his own life, having vainly tried the most violent poisons for the purpose of hastening his death, he fell upon his own sword. the most celebrated antidote of this king is the one which is called “Mithridatian.”

> Latin: 16. Anates Ponticas vim habere venenis digerendis potentem; atque inibi de Mitridati regis in id genus medicamentismedicainentum sollertia. ANATES Ponticas dicitur edundis vulgo venenis victitare. Scriptum etiam a Lenaeo, Cn. Pompei liberto, Mitridatem illum Ponti regem medicinae rei et remediorum id genus sollertem fuisse solitumque earum sanguine miscere medicamentis quae digerendis venenis valent, eumque sanguinein vel potentissimum esse in ea confectione; ipsum autem regem adsiduo talium medellarum usu a clandestinis epularum insidiis cavisse, quin et scientem quoque ultro et ostentandi gratia venenum rapidum et velox saepenumero hausisse, atque id tamen sine noxa fuisse. Quamobrem postea, cum proelio victus in ultima regni refugisset et mori decrevisset, venena violentissima festinandae necis causa frustra expertus, suo se ipse gladio transegit. Huius regis antidotus celebratissima est, quae “Mitridatios” vocatur.

[¶2] 17. That Mithridates, king of Pontus, spoke the languages of twenty-five nations; and that Quintus Ennius said that he had three hearts, because he was proficient in three tongues, Greek, Oscan, and Latin. QUINTUS ENNIUS used to say that he had three hearts, because he knew how to speak Greek, Oscan, and Latin. But Mithridates, the celebrated king of Pontus and Bithynia, who was overcome in war by Gnaeus Pompeius, was proficient in the languages of the twenty-five races which he held under his sway. He never spoke to the men of all those nations through an interpreter, but whenever it was necessary for him to address any one of them, he used his language and speech with as much skill as if he were his fellow-countryman.

> Latin: 17. Mitridatem, Ponti regem, quinque et viginti gentium linguis locutum; Quintumque Ennium tria corda habere sese dixisse, quod tris linguas percalluisset, Graecam, Oscam, Latinam. QUINTUS ENNIUS tria corda habere sese dicebat, quod loqui Graece et Osce et Latine sciret. Mitridates autem, Ponti atque Bithyniae rex inclutus, qui a Cn; Pompeio bello superatus est, quinque et viginti gentium quas sub dicione habuit linguas percalluit earumque omnium gentium viris haut umquam per interpretem conlocutus est, sed ut quemque ab eo appellari usus fuit, proinde lingua et oratione ipsius non minus scite quam si gentilis eius esset locutus est.

[¶3] 18. The statement of Marcus Vairo that Gaius Sallustius, the writer of history, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo and was let go only after he had been beaten with thongs and had paid a sum of money. MARCUS VARRO, a man of great trustworthiness and authority in his writings and in his life, in the work which he entitled Pius, or On Peace, says that Gaius Sallustius, the author of those austere and dignified works, whom we see in his history writing and acting, like a censor, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo, soundly beaten with thongs, and allowed to escape only after paying a sum of money.

> Latin: 18. Quod M. Varro C. Sallustium. historiae scriptorem, deprehensum ab Annio Milone in adulterio scribit et loris caesum pecuniaque data dimissumdimrissum. M. VARRO, in litteris atque vita fide homo multa et gravis, in libro quem inscripsit Pius aut De Pace, C. Sallustium scriptorem seriae illius et severae orationis, in cuius historia notiones censorias fieri atque exerceri videmus, in adulterio deprehensum ab Annio Milone loris bene caesuin dicit et, cum dedisset pecuniam, dimissum.

[¶4] 19. What Epictetus the philosophers used to say to worthless and vile men, who zealously followed the pursuit of philosophy; and the two words whose remembrance he enjoyed as by far the most salutary in all respects. I HEARD Favorinus say that the philosopher Epictetus declared that very many of those who professed to be philosophers were of the kind a)/neu tou= pra/ttein, me/xri tou= le/gein, which means “without deeds, limited to words”; that is, they preached but did not practise. But that is still more severe which Arrian, in his work On the Dissertations of Epictetus, has written that this philosopher used to say. “For,” says Arrian, “when he perceived that a man without shame, persistent in wickedness, of abandoned character, reckless, boastful, and cultivating everything else except his soul—when he saw such a man taking up also the study and pursuit of philosophy, attacking natural history, practising logic and balancing and investigating many problems of that kind, he used to invoke the help of gods and men, and usually amid his exclamations chided the man in these terms: 'O man, where are you storing these things? Consider whether the vessel be clean. For if you take them into your self-conceit, they are lost; if they are spoiled, they become urine or vinegar or something worse, if possible.'” Nothing surely could be weightier, nothing truer than these words, in which the greatest of philosophers declared that the learning and precepts of philosophy, flowing into a base and degenerate man, as if into a soiled and filthy vessel, are turned, altered, spoiled, and as he himself more cynically expresses it, become urine or, if possible, something worse than urine. Moreover, that same Epictetus, as we also heard from Favorinus, used to say that there were two faults which were by far the worst and most disgusting of all, lack of endurance and lack of self-restraint, when we cannot put up with or bear the wrongs which we ought to endure, or cannot restrain ourselves from actions or pleasures from which we ought to refrain. “Therefore,” said he, “if anyone would take these two words to heart and use them for his own guidance and regulation, he will be almost without sin and will lead a very peaceful life. These two words,” he said, “are a)ne/xou (bear) and a)pe/xou (forbear).”

> Latin: 19. Quid Epictetus philosophus dicere solitus sit hominibushoninibus nequamneuam et inpuris, disciplinas philosophiaephilosoplhiae studiose tractantibus; et quae duo verba observanda praeceperit omniumomniuni rerum longelone saluberrima. FavorinumFAVOINUM ego audivi dicere Epictetum philosophum dixisse plerosque istos, qui philosophariphilosohari viderentur, philosophos esse huiuscemodieiuscemodi ἄνευ τοῦ πράττειν, μέχρι τοῦ λέγειν; id significat “factis procul, verbis tenus.” Iam illud est vehementius quod Arrianus solitum eum dictitare, in libris quos de dissertationibus eius composuit, scriptum reliquit. “Nam cum,” inquit, “animadverterat hominem pudore amisso, inportuna industria, corruptis moribus, audacem, confidentem lingua ceteraque omnia praeterquam animam procurantem, istiusmodi hominem cum viderat studia quoque et disciplinas philosophiae contrectare et physica adire et meditari dialectica multaque id genus theoremata auspicari sciscitarique, inclamabat deum atque horminum fidem ac plerumque inter clamandum his eum verbis increpabat: ‘Ἄνθρωπε, ποῦ βάλλεις; σκέψαι εἰ κεκάθαρται τὸ ἀγγεῖον· ἂν γὰρ εἰς τὴν οἴησιν αὐτὰ βάλλῃς, ἀπώλετο· ἢν σαπῇ, οὖρον ἢ ὄξος γένοιτο ἢ εἴ τι τούτων χεῖρον.’” Nil profecto his verbis gravius, nil verius, quibus declarabat maximus philosophorum, litteras atque doctrinas philosophiae, cum in hominem falsum atque degenerem tamquam in vas spurcum atque pollutum influxissent, verti, mutari, corrumpi et, quod ipse κυνικώτερον ait, urinam fieri aut si quid est urina spurcius. Praeterea idem ille Epictetus, quod ex eodem Favorino audivimus, solitus dicere est duo esse vitia multo omnium gravissima ac taeterrima, intolerantiam et incontinentiam, cum aut iniurias quae sunt ferendae non toleramus neque ferimus, aut a quibus rebus voluptatibusque nos tenere debemus, non tenemus. “Itaque,” inquit, “si quis haec duo verba cordi habeat eaque sibi imperando atque observando curet, is erit pleraque inpeccabilis vitamque vivet tranquillissimam.” Verba haec duo dicebat: ἀνέχου et ἀπέχου.

[¶5] 20. A passage taken from the Symposium of Plato, skilful. harmonious and fitting in its rhythm and structure, which for the sake of practice I have turned into the Latin tongue. THE Symposium of Plato was being read before the philosopher Taurus. Those words of Pausanias in which, taking his turn among the banqueters, lie eulogizes love, I admired so much that I even resolved to commit them to memory. And tile words, if I remember rightly, are as follows "Every action is of this nature: in and of itself, when done, it is neither good nor bad; for example, what we are now doing, drinking, or singing, or arguing. Not one of these things is in itself good, but it may become so by the way in which it is done. Well and rightly done, it becomes a good action; wrongly done, it becomes shameful. It is the same with love; for not all love is honourable or worthy of raise, but only that which leads us to love worthily." When these words had been read, thereupon Taurus said to me: “Ho! you young rhetorician”— for so he used to call me in the beginning, when I was first admitted to his class, supposing that I had come to Athens only to work up eloquence — “do you see this syllogism, full of meaning, brilliant, well rounded and constructed in brief and smooth numbers with a kind of symmetrical turn? Can you quote us so aptand so melodiously formed a passage from the works of your rhetoricians? But yet I advise you to look upon this rhythm as an incidental feature; for one must penetrate to the inmost depths of Plato's mind and feel the weight and dignity of his subject matter, not be diverted to the charm of his diction or the grace of his expression.” This admonition of Taurus as to Plato's style not only did not deter me, but even encouraged me to try to equal the elegance of the Greek in a Latin rendering; and just as there are small and insignificant animals which through wantonness imitate everything which they have seen or heard, just so I had the assurance, not indeed to rival those qualities which I admired in Plato's style, but to give a shadowy outline of them, such as the following, which I patterned on those very words of his: “Every act, in general,” he says, “is of this nature; it is in itself neither base nor honourable; as, for example, the things which we ourselves are now doing, drinking, singing, arguing. For none of these things is honourable in itself, but it becomes so by the manner in which it is done; if it is done rightly and honourably, it is then honourable; but if it is not rightly done, then it is shameful. It is the same with love; thus not every kind of love is honourable, not every kind is deserving of praise, but only that which leads us to love honourably.”

> Latin: 20. Verba sumptasumnpta ex SymposioSlnmposio PlatonisPllatonis, numerisrumeris coagmentisque verborum scite modulatequelmodtulatequc apta, exercendiexerxcendi gratia in Latinam orationem versa. SymposiumSYIMPOSIUMI Platonis apud philosophum Taurum legebatur. Verba illa Pausaniae inter convivas amorem vice sua laudantis, ea verba ita prorsum amavimus, ut meminisse etiam studuerimusstuduerinius. Sunt adeo, quae meminimus, verba haec: Πᾶσα γὰρ πρᾶξις ὧδε ἔχει· αὐτὴ ἐφʼ αὑτῆς πραττομένη οὔτε καλὴ οὔτε αἰσχρά· οἷον ὃ νῦν ἡμεῖς ποιοῦμεν, ἢ πίνειν ἢ ᾁδειν ἢ διαλέγεσθαι. οὐκ ἔστι τούτων αὐτὸ καθʼ αὑτὸ καλὸν αὐδέν, ἀλλʼ ἐν τῇ πράξει, ὡς ἂν πραχθῇ, τοιοῦτον ἀπέβη· καλῶς μὲν γὰρ πραττόμενον καὶ ὀρθῶς καλὸν γίγνεται, μὴ ὀρθῶς δὲ αἰσχρόν· οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὸ ἐρᾶ, καὶ ὁ Ἔρως οὐ πᾶς ἐστὶν καλὸς οὐδὲ ἄξιος ἐγκωμιάζεσθαι, ἀλλʼ ὁ καλῶς προτρέπων ἐρᾶν. Haec verba ubi lecta sunt, atque ibi Taurus mihi “Heus,” inquit, “tu, rhetorisce,”—sic enim me in principioprinicipio recens in diatribam acceptumaccelptum appellitabat, existimans eloquentiae unius extundendae gratia Athenas venisse,—“videsne,” inquit, “ἐνφύμημα crebrum et coruscum et convexun brevibusque et rotundis numeris cum quadamqualdam aequabili circumactione devinctum?” “Habesne nobis dicere in libris rhetorum vestrorum tam apte tamque modulate compositam orationem? Sed hos,” inquit, “tamen numeros censeo videas ὁδοῦ πάρεργον.” “Ad ipsa enim Platonis penetralia ipsarumque rerum pondera et dignitates pergendum est, non ad vocularum eius amoenitatem nec ad verborum venustates deversitandum.” Haec admonitio Tauri de orationis Platonicae modulis non modo non repressit, sed instrinxit etiam nos ad elegantiam Graecae orationis verbis Latinis adfectandam; atque uti quaedam animalium parva et vilia ad imitandum sunt quas res cumque audierint viderintve petulantia, proinde nos ea quae in Platonis oratione demiramur non aemulari quidem, sed lineas umbrasque facere ausi sumus. Velut ipsum hoc est, quod ex isdem illis verbis eius effinximus: “Omne,” inquit, “omnino factum sic sese habet; neque turpe est, quantum in eo est, neque honestum: velut est, quas nunc facimus ipsi res, bibere, cantare, disserere. Nihil namque horum ipsum ex sese honestum est; quali cum fieret modo factum est, tale extitit; si recte honesteque factum est, tum honestum fit; sin parum recte, turpe fit. Sic amiare; sic amor non honestus omnis neque omnis laude dignus, sed qui facit nos ut honestelioneste amemus.”

[¶6] 21. The times after the foundling of Rome and before the second war with Carthage at which distinguished Greeks and Romans flourished.

> Latin: 21. Quibus temporibus post Romam conditam Graeci Romanique inlustres viri floruerint ante secundum bellum Carthaginiensium.

[¶7] I WISHED to have a kind of survey of ancient times, and also of the famous men who were born in those days, lest I might in conversation chance to make some careless remark about the date and life of celebrated men, as that ignorant sophist did who lately, in a public lecture, said that Carneades the philosopher was presented with a sum of money by king Alexander, son of Philip, and that Panaetius the Stoic was intimate with the elder Africanus. In order, I say, to guard against such errors in dates and periods of time, I made notes from the books known as Chroicles of the times when those Greeks and Romans flourished who were famous and conspicuous either for talent or for political power, between the founding of Rome and the second Punic war. And these excerpts of mine, made in various and sundry places, I have now put hastily together. For it was not my endeavour with keen and subtle care to compile a catalogue of the eminent men of both nations who lived at the same time, but merely to strew these Nights of mine lightly here and there with a few of these flowers of history. Moreover, it seemed sufficient in this survey to speak of the dates of a few men, from which it would not be difficult to infer the periods also of many more whom I did not name.

> Latin: UT conspectum quendam aetatum antiquissimarum, item virorum inlustrium qui in his aetatibus nati fuissent haberemus, ne in sermonibus forte inconspectum aliquid super aetate atque vita clarorumelariorum hominum temere diceremus, sicuti sophista ille ἀπαίδευτος, qui publice nuper disserens Carneaden philosophum a rege Alexandro, Philippi filio, pecuniapeciunia donatum et Panaetium Stoicum cum superiore Africano vixisse dixit; litut ab istiusmodiistiusinodi, inquaminlquam, temporum aetatumqueaetatiunqlue erroribus caveremus, et excerpebiamus ex librislilris qui chronici appellantur quibusquilus temporibus floruissent Graeci simul atque Romani viri, qui vel ingenio vel imperio nobiles insignesqueinsigiesque post conditam Romam fuissent ante secundum bellum Carthaginiensium, easque nunc excerptiones nostras variis diversisque in locis factas cursim digessimus. Neque enim id nobis negotium fuit, ut acri atque subtili cura excellentium in utraque gentegenlte hominumlomninuim συγχρονισμούς componeremus, sed ut Noctes istae quadamtenusquadamntenus his quoque historiae flosculis leviter iniectis aspergerentur.

[¶8] I shall begin, then, with the illustrious Solon; for, as regards Homer and Hesiod, it is agreed by almost all writers, either that they lived at approximately the same period, or that Homer was somewhat the earlier;

> Latin: Satis autem visum est in hoc conmentario de temporibus paucorum hominum dicere, ex quorum aetatibus de pluribus quoque, quos non nominaremus, haut difficilis coniectura fieri posset.

[¶9] yet that both lived before the founding of Rome, when the Silvii were ruling in Alba, more than a hundred and sixty years after the Trojan war, as Cassius has written about Homer and Hesiod in the first book of his Annals, but about a hundred and sixty years before the founding of Rome, as Cornelius Nepos says of Homer in the first book of his Chronicles. Well then, we are told that Solon, one of the famous sages, drew up laws for the Athenians when Tarquinius Priscus was king at Rome, in the thirtythird year of his reign.

> Latin: Incipiemus igitur a Solone claro, quoniam de Homero et Hesiodo inter omnes fere scriptores constitit aetatem eos egisse vel isdem fere temporibus vel Homerum aliquanto antiquiorem, utrumque tamen ante Romam conditam vixisse, Silviis Albae regnantibus, annis post bellum Troianum, ut Cassius in prino Annalium de Homero atque Hesiodo scriptum reliquit, plus centum atque sexaginta, ante Romam autem conditam, ut Cornelius Nepos in primo Chronico de Homero dicit, annis circiter centum et sexaginta.

[¶10] Afterwards, when Servius Tullius was king, Pisistratus was tyrant at Athens, Solon having previously gone into voluntary exile, since he had not been believed when he predicted that tyranny.

> Latin: Solonem ergo accepimus, unum ex illo nobili numero sapientium, leges scripsisse Atheniensium, Tarquinio Prisco Romae regnante, anno regni eius tricesimo tertio.

[¶11] Still later, Pythagoras of Samos came to Italy, when the son of Tarquinius was king, he who was surnamed the Proud, and at that same time Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, was slain at Athens by Harmodius and Aristog, iton.

> Latin: Servio autem Tullio regnante, Pisistratus Athenis tyrannus fuit, Solone ante in exilium voluntarium profecto, quoniam id ei praedicenti non creditum est.
Postea Pythagoras Samius in Italiam venit, Tarquini filio regnum optinente, cui cognomentum Superbus fuit,

[¶12] And Cornelius Nepos adds that when Tullus Hostilius was king at Rome Archilochus was already illustrious and famous for his poems.

> Latin: isdemque temporibus occisus est Athenis ab HarmodioHarinodio et Aristogitone Hipparchus, Pisistrati filius, Hippiae tyranni frater Archilochum autem Nepos Cornelius tradit,

[¶13] Then, in the two hundred and sixtieth year after the founding (of Rome, or not much later, it is recorded that the Persians were vanquished by the Athenians in the famous battle of Marathon under the lead of Militiades, who after that victory was condemned by the Athenians and died in the public prison.

> Latin: Tullo Hostilio Romae regnante, iam tunc fuisse poematis clarum et nobilem.

[¶14] At that time Aesthylus. the tragic poet, flourished at Athens. In Rome, at about the same time, the commons, as the result of a secession, for the first time elected their own tribunes and aediles;

> Latin: Ducentesimo deinde et sexagesimo anno post Romam conditam, aut non longelone amplius, victos esse ab AtheniensibusAtheniensilus Persas memoriaememorial traditum est pugnam illam inclutam Marathoniam, Miltiade duce, qui post eam victoriam damnatus a populo Atheniensi in vinculis publicis mortem obiit.

[¶15] and not much later Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, harassed and exasperated by the tribunes of the commons, turned traitor to the republic and joined the Volscians, who were then our enemies, and lade war upon the Roman people. Then a few years later, King Xerxes was beaten and put to flight by the Athenians and a good part of Greece, under the lead of Themistocles, in the sea-fight at Salamis.

> Latin: Tum Aeschylus Athenis tragoediarum poeta celebris fuit. Romae autem istis ferme temporibus tribunos et aediles tum primumprirnum per seditionem sibi plebes creavit ac non diu post Cn. Marcius Coriolanus exagitatus vexatusque a tribunis plebi ad Vulscos,
qui tum hostes erant, a rep. descivit bellumque populo Romano fecit.

[¶16] About three years afterwards, in the consulship of Menenius Agrippa and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, during the war with Veii, the patrician Fabii, three hundred and six in number, along with their dependents, were all ambushed at the river Cremera and slain.

> Latin: Post deinde paucis annis Xerxes rex ab Atheniensibus et pleraque Graecia, ThemistocleThenistocle duce, navali proelio quod ad Salamina factum est victus fugatusque est.

[¶17] At about that time Empedocles of Agrigentum was eminent in the domain of natural philosophy.

> Latin: Inde anno fere quarto, Menenio Agrippa, M. Horatio Pulvillo consulibus, bello Veienti apud fluvium Cremeram Fabii sex et trecenti patricii cum familiisfamilies suis universi ab hostibus circumuenticircumvent perierunt.

[¶18] But at Rome at that epoch it is stated that a board of ten was appointed to codify laws, and that at first they compiled ten tables, to which afterwards two more were added.

> Latin: Iuxta ea tempora Empedocles Agrigentinus in philosophiae naturalis studio floruit.

[¶19] Then the great Peloponnesian war began in Greece, which Thucydides has handed down to memory, about three hundred and twenty-three years after the founding of Rome.

> Latin: Romae autem per eas tempestates decemviros legibus scribundis creatos constitit tabulasque ab his primo decem conscriptas, mox alias duas additas.

[¶20] At that time Olus Postumius Tubertus was dictator at Rome, and executed his own son, because he had fought against the enemy contrary to his father's order.

> Latin: Bellum deinde in terra Graecia maximum Peloponnensiacum, quod Thucydides memoriae mandavit, coeptum est circa annum fere post conditam Romam trecentesimum vicesimum tertium.

[¶21] The people of Fidenae and the Aequians were then at war with the Roman people. During that period Sophocles, and later Euripides, were famous and renowned as tragic poets, Hippocrates as a physician, and as a philosopher, Democritus;

> Latin: Qua tempestate Olus Postumius Tubertus dictator Romae fuit, qui filium suum, quod contra suum dictum in hostem pugnaverat, securi necavit. Hostes tunc populi Romani fuerunt Fidenates atque Aequi.

[¶22] Socrates the Athenian was younger than these, but was in part their contemporary. Somewhat later, when the military tribunes with consular authority were in power at Rome, about the three hundred and forty-seventh year after the founding of the city, the notorious thirty tyrants were imposed upon the Athenians by the Lacedaemonians, and in Sicily the elder Dionysius was tyrant.

> Latin: In hoc tempore nobiles celebresque erant Sophocles ac deinde Euripides tragici poetae et Hippocrates medicus et philosophus Democritus, quibus Socrates Atheniensis natu quidem posterior fuit, sed quibusdam temporibus isdem vixerunt.

[¶23] A few years later, at Athens, Socrates was condemned to death and executed in prison by means of poison. At about the same time, at Rome, Marcus Furius Camillus was dictator and took Veii. Not long afterwards came the war with the Senones, when the Gauls captured Rome with the exception of the Capitol.

> Latin: Iam deinde, tribunis militaribus consulari imperio rempublicam Romae regentibus, ad annum fere conditae urbis trecentesimum quadragesimum septimum, triginta illi tyranni praepositi sunt a Lacedaemoniis Atheniensibus et in Sicilia Dionysius superior tyrannidem tenuit, paucisque annis post Socrates Athenis capitis damnatus est et in carcere veneno necatus.
Set ea fere tempestate Romae M. Furius Camillus dictator fuitfruit et Veios cepit;
ac post non longo tempore bellum Senonicum fuit,

[¶24] Not long after these events the astronomer Eudoxus was famed in the land of Greece, the Lacedaemonians were defeated by the Athenians at Corinth under the lead of Phormio, and at Rome Marcus Manlius, who during the siege of the Capitol had repulsed the Gauls as they were climbing up its steep cliffs, was convicted of having formed the design of making himself king.

> Latin: cum Galli Romam praeter Capitolium ceperuntceplerunt.
Neque multo postea Eudoxus astrologus in terra Graecia nobilitatus est Lacedaemoniique ab Atheniensibus apud Corinthun superati duce Phormione,

[¶25] Marcus Varro says that he was condemned to death and hurled from the Tarpeian rock; but Cornelius Nepos has written that he was scourged to death. In the very same year, which was the seventh after the recovery of the city, it is recorded that the philosopher Aristotle was born.

> Latin: et M. Manlius Romae, qui Gallos in obsidione Capitolii obrepentes per ardua depulerat, convictus est consilium de regno occupando inisse, damnatusquedamatusque capitis e saxo Tarpeio, ut M. Varro ait, praeceps datus, ut Cornelius autem Nepos scriptum reliquit, verberando necatus est;
eoque ipso anno, qui erat post reciperatam urbem septimus, Aristotelem philosophum natum esse memoriae mandatum est.

[¶26] Next, some years after the war with the Senones, the Thebans defeated the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra under the lead of Epaminondas, and a little later in the city of Rome the law of Licinius Stolo provided for the elections of consuls also from the plebeians, whereas before that time it was not lawful for a consul to be chosen except from the patrician familiisfamilies.

> Latin: Aliquot deinde annis post bellum Senonicum Thebani LacedaemoniosLacedaemonoios duce EpaminondaEpaminoda apud Leuctra superaverunt

[¶27] Then, about the four hundredth year after the founding of the city, Philip, son of Amyntas and father of Alexander, became king of Macedonia.

> Latin: ac brevi post temporeteinpore in urbe Roma lege Licinii Stolonis consules creari etiam ex plebe coepti, cum antea ius non esset nisi ex patriciis gentibus fieri consulem.

[¶28] At that time Alexander was born, and a few years later the philosopher Plato went to the court of the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily; then some little time afterwards Philip defeated the Athenians in the great battle at Chaeronea.

> Latin: Circa annum deindedcinde urbis conditae quadringentesimumquadlringentesimum Philippus, Amyntae filius, Alexandri pater, regnum Macedoniae adeptus est inque eo tempore Alexander natus est
paucisque inde annis post Plato philosophus ad DionysiumDioilysium Siciliae tyrannum posteriorem profectus est;

[¶29] At that time the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight he jestingly replied in the well-known verse:
The man who runs away will fight again.

> Latin: post deinde aliquanto tempore Philippus apud Chaeroneam proelio magno Athenienses vicit.

[¶30] Later Philip fell victim to a conspiracy; but Alexander, who succeeded him, crossed over into Asia and the Orient, to subdue the Persians.

> Latin: Tum Demosthenes orator ex eo proelio salutem fuga quaesivit, cumque id ei quod fugerat probrose obiceretur, versu illo notissimo elusit:
“Ἀνήρ,” inquit, “ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται.”
Postea Philippus ex insidiis occiditur;

[¶31] But another Alexander, surnamed Molossus, came into Italy intending to make war on the Roman people —for already the fame of Roman valour and success was beginning to be conspicuous among foreign nations—but he died before beginning the war.

> Latin: at Alexander regnum adeptus ad subigendos Persas in Asiam atque in Orientem transgressus est.

[¶32] We have learned that on his way to Italy that Molossus said that he was going against the Romans as a nation of men, but the Macedonian was going against the Persians as one of women. Later, the Macedonian Alexander, having subdued the greater part of the east, died after a reign of eleven years. Not long after this the philosopher Aristotle ended his life, and a little later, Demosthenes;

> Latin: Alter autem Alexander, cui cognomentum Molosso fuit, in Italiam venit, bellum populo Romano facturus—iam enim fama virtutis felicitatisque Romanae apud exteras gentes enitescere inceptabat—, sed priusquam bellum faceret, vita decessit. Eum Molossum, cum in Italiam transiret, dixisse accepimus se quidem ad Romanos ire quasi in andronitin, Macedonem ad Persas quasi in gynaeconitin.
Postea Macedo Alexander, pleraque parte orientali subacta, cum annos undecim regnavisset, obiit mortis diem.

[¶33] at about that same time the Roman people engaged in a dangerous and protracted war with the Samites and the consuls Tiberius Veturius and Spurius Postumius were surrounded by the Samites in a perilous position near Caudium and being sent under the yoke were allowed to depart only when they had made a shameful treaty;

> Latin: Neque haut longe post Aristoteles philosophus et post aliquanto Demosthenes vita functi sunt isdemque

[¶34] and when for that reason the consuls by vote of the people were surrendered to the Samites through the fetial priests, they were not accepted. Then, about four hundred and seventy years after the founding of the city, war was begun with king Pyrrhus.

> Latin: ferme tempestatibus populus Romanus gravi ac diutino Samnitium bello conflictatus est consulesque Tiberius Veturius et Spurius Postumius, in locis iniquis apud Caudium a Samnitibus circumvallati ac subiugi missi, turpi foedere facto discesserunt, ob eamque causam, populi iussu Samnitibus per fetiales dediti, recepti non sunt.

[¶35] At that time Epicurus the Athenian and Zeno of Citium were famed as philosophers, and at the same time the censors at Rome, Gains Fabricius Luscinus and Quintus Aemilius Papus, expelled from the senate Publius Cornelius Rufinus, who had twice been consul and dictator;

> Latin: Post annum deinde urbis conditae quadringentesimum fere et septuagesimum bellum cum rege Pyrro sumptum est.
Ea tempestate Epicurus Atheniensis et Zeno Citiensis philosophi celebres erant,

[¶36] and they recorded as the reason for that censure the fact that they had learned of his using ten pounds' weight of silverware at a dinner.

> Latin: eodemque tempore C. Fabricius Luscinus et Q. Aemilius Papus censores Romae fuerunt et P. Cornelium Rufinum, qui bis consul et dictator fuerat, senatu moverunt; causamque isti notae subscripserunt, quod eum comperissent argenti facti cenae gratia decem pondo libras habere.

[¶37] Then, in about the four hundred and ninetieth year after the founding of Rome, when the consuls were Appius Claudius, surnamed Caudex, brother of the celebrated Appius the Blind, and Marcus Fluvius Flaccus, the first war with the Carthaginians broke out, and not long afterwards Callimachus, the poet of Cyrene, was famous at the court of king Ptolemy at Alexandria.

> Latin: Anno deinde post Romam conditam quadringentesimo ferme et nonagesimo, consulibus Appio Claudio, cui cognomentum Caudex fuit, Appii illius Caeci fratre, et Marco Fulvio Flacco, bellum adversum Poenos primum coeptum est,

[¶38] A little more than twenty years later, when peace had been made with the Carthaginians and the consuls were C.

> Latin: neque diu post Callimachus, poeta Cyrenensis, Alexandriae apud Ptolemaeum regem celebratus est.

[¶39] Claudius Centho, son of Appius the Blind, and Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus, the poet Lucius Livius was the very first to put plays upon the stage at Rome, more than a hundred and sixty years after the death of Sophocles and Euripides and about fifty-two years after the death of Menander. The consuls Claudius and Tuditanus were followed by Quintus Valerius and Gaius Mamilius, in whose year the poet Quintus Ennius was born, as Marcus Varro has written in the first book of his work On Poets;

> Latin: Annis deinde postea paulo pluribus quam viginti, pace cum Poenis facta, consulibus C. Claudio Centhone, Appii Caeci filio, et M. SempronioSeimpronio Tuditano, primus omnium L. Livius poeta tabulas docere Romae coepit post Sophoclis et Euripidis mortem annis plus fere centum et sexaginta, post Menandri annis circiter quinquaginta duobus.

[¶40] and he adds that at the age of sixty-seven Ennius had written the twelfth Book of the Annals, and that Ennius himself says so in that same book.

> Latin: Claudium et Tuditanum consules secuntur Q. Valerius et C. Mamilius, quibus natum esse Q. Ennium poetam M. Varro in primo De Poetis libro scripsit eumque, cum septimum et sexagesimum annum haberet, duodecimum Annalem scripsisse, idque ipsum Ennium in eodem libro dicere.

[¶41] Five hundred and nineteen years after the founding of Rome, Spurius Carvilius Ruga, at the advice of his friends, was the first Roman to divorce his wife, on the ground that she was barren and that he had taken oath before the censors that he married for the purpose of having children.

> Latin: Anno deinde post Romam conditam quingentesimo undevicesimo Sp. Carvilius Ruga primus Romae de amicorum sententia divortium cum uxore fecit, quod sterila esset iurassetque apud censores, uxorem se liberum quaerundorum causa habere,

[¶42] In that same year the poet Naevius exhibited plays to the people, and Marcus Varro says in the first book of his work On Poets that Naevius served in the first Punic war and that the poet himself makes that statement in the poem which he wrote on that same war. But Porcius Licinius says in the following verses that Rome was later in taking up the poetic art:
In the second Punic war with winged flight
The Muse to Romulus' warrior nation came.

> Latin: eodemque anno Cn. Naevius poeta fabulas apud populum dedit, quem M. Varro in libro De Poetis primo stipendia fecisse ait bello Poenico primo, idque ipsum Naevium dicere in eo carmine quod de eodem bello scripsit. Porcius autem Licinus serius poeticam Romae coepisse dicit in his versibus:
Poénico belló secundo Músa pinnató gradu
Íintulitntulit se béllicosam in Rómuli gentém feram.
Ac deinde annis fere post quindecim bellum adversum

[¶43] Then, about fifteen years later, war was begun with the Carthaginians, and not very long after that Marcus Cato was famous as a political orator and Plautus as a dramatic poet;

> Latin: Poenos sumptum est atque non nimium longe M. Cato orator in civitate et Plautus poeta in scaena florueruntforuerunt;

[¶44] and at that same time Diogenes the Stoic, Carneades the Academic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic were sent by the Athenians as envoys to the senate of the Roman people on public business.

> Latin: isdemque temporibus Diogenes Stoicus et Carneades Academicus et Critolaus Peripateticus ab Atheniensibus ad senatum populi Romani negotii publici gratia legati sunt.

[¶45] Not very long after this came Quintus Ennius, and then Caecilius and Terence, and afterwards Pacuvius and when Pacuvius was already an old man, Accius and then Lucilius, who was still more famous through his criticisms of the poems of his predecessors.

> Latin: Neque magno intervallo postea Q. Ennius et iuxta Caecilius et Terentius et subinde et Pacuvius et Pacuvio iam sene Accius clariorque tunc in poematis eorum obtrectandis Lucilius fuit.

[¶46] But I have gone too far, since the limit that I set for these little notes was the second Punic war.

> Latin: Sed progressi longius sumus, cum finem proposuerimus adnotatiunculis istis bellum Poenorum secundum.

## 41. Book XVIII · chapters 1–6

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/41/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/41/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Discussions held by a Stoic philosopher and in opposition by a Peripatetic, with Favorinus as arbiter; and the question at issue was, how far virtue availed in determining a happy life and to what extent happiness was dependent on what are called external circumstances THERE were two friends of Favorinus, philosophers of no little note in the city of Rome; one of them was a follower of the Peripatetic school, the other of the Stoic. I was once present when these men argued ably and vigorously, each for his own beliefs, when we were all with Favorinus at Ostia. And we were walking along the shore in springtime, just as evening was falling. And on that occasion the Stoic mantatined that man could enjoy a happy life only through virtue, and that the greatest wretchedness was due to wickedness only, even though all the other blessings, which are called external, should be lacking to the virtuous man and present with the wicked. The Peripatetic, on the other hand, admitted that a wretched life was due solely to vicious thoughts and wickedness, but he believed that virtue alone was by no means sufficient to round out all the parts of a happy life, since the complete use of one's limbs, good health, a reasonably attractive person, property, good repute, and all the other advantages of body and fortune seemed necessary to make a perfectly happy life. Here the Stoic made outcry against him, and maintaining that his opponent was advancing two contrary propositions, expressed his surprise that, since wickedness and virtue were two opposites, and a wretched and a happy life were also opposites, he did not preserve in each the force and nature of an opposite, but believed that wickedness alone was sufficient to cause an unhappy life, at the same time declaring that virtue alone was not sufficient to guarantee a happy life. And he said that it was especially inconsistent and contradictory for one who maintained that a life could in no way be made happy if virtue alone were lacking, to deny on the other hand that a life could be happy when virtue alone was present, and thus to take away from virtue when present and demanding it, that honour which he gave and bestowed upon virtue when lacking. Thereupon the Peripatetic, in truth very wittily, said: “Pray pardon me, and tell me this, whether you think that an amphora of wine from which a congius has been taken, is still an amphora?” “By no means,” was the reply, “can that be called an amphora of wine, from which a congius is missing.” When the Peripatetic heard this, he retorted: “Then it will have to be said that one congius makes an amphora of wine, since when that one is lacking, it is not an amphora, and when it is added, it becomes an amphora. But if it is absurd to say that an amphora is made from one single congius, it is equally absurd to say that a life is made happy by virtue alone by itself, because when virtue is lacking life can never be happy.” Then Favorinus, turning to the Peripatetic, said: “This clever turn which you have used about the congius of wine is indeed set forth in the books; but, as you know, it ought to be regarded rather as a neat catch than as an honest or plausible argument. For when a congius is lacking, it indeed causes the amphora not to be of full measure; but when it is added and put in, it alone does not make, but completes, an amphora. But virtue, as the Stoics say, is not an addition or a supplement, but it by itself is the equivalent of a happy life, and therefore it alone makes a happy life, when it is present.” These and some other minute and knotty arguments each advanced in support of his own opinion, before Favorinus as umpire. But when the first night-lights appeared and the darkness grew thicker, we escorted Favorinus to the house where he was putting up; and when he went in, we separated.

> Latin: 1. Disputationes a philosophophilosophy Stoico et contra a Peripatetico, arbitro Favorino, factae; quaesitumque inter eos quantum in perficiendaperfcienda vita beata virtus valeret quantumque esset in his quae dicuntur extranea. FAMILIARES Favorini erant duo quidam non incelebres in urbe Roma philosophi. Eorum fuit unus Peripateticae disciplinaediscilinae sectator, alter Stoicae. His quondam ego acriter atque contente pro suis utrimque decretis propugnantibus, cum essemus una omnesones Ostiae cum Favorino, interfui. Ambulabamus autem in litore, cum iam advesperasceret, aestate anni novi. Atque ibi Stoicus censebat et vitam beatam homini virtute animi sola et miseriammiseriar summam malitia sola posse effici, etiamsi cetera bona omnia quae corporalia et externa appellarentur virtuti deessent, malitiae adessent. Ille contra Peripateticus miseram quidem vitam vitiis animi et malitia sola fieri concedebat, sed ad conplendos omnes vitae beatae numeros virtutem solam nequaquam satis esse existimabat, quoniam et corporis integritas sanitasque et honestus modus formae et pecunia familiaris et bona existimatio ceteraque omnia corporis et fortunae bona necessaria viderentur perficiendae vitae beatae. Reclamabat hoc in loco Stoicus et, tamquam duas ille res diversas poneret, mirabatur, quod, cum essent malitia et virtus duo contraria, vita misera et beata quoque aeque contraria, non servaret in utrisque vim et naturamnatural contrarii et ad miseriam quidem vitae conficiendam satis valere malitiam solam putaret, ad praestandam vero beatam vitam non satis solam esse virtutem diceret. Atque id maxime dissidere neque convenire dicebat, quod qui profiteretur vitam nullo pacto beatam effici posse si virtus sola abesset, idem contra negaret, beatam fieri vitam cum sola virtus adesset, et quem daret haberetque virtuti absenti honorem, eundem petenti atque praesenti adimeret. Tum Peripateticus perquam hercle festive: “Rogo te,” inquit, “cum bona venia respondeas an existimes esse vini amphoram, cum abest ab ea unus congius?” “Minime,” inquit, “vini amphora dici potest ex qua abest congius.” Hoc ubi accepit Peripateticus, “Unus igitur,” inquit, “congius amphoram facere dici debebit, quoniam, cum deest ille unus, non fit amphora vini et, cum accessit, fit amphora. Quod si id dicere absurdum est, uno congio solo fieri amphoram, itidem absurdum est una sola virtute vitam fieri beatam dicere, quoniam, cum virtus abest, beata esse vita numquam potest.” Tum Favorinus aspiciens Peripateticum, “Est quidem,” inquit, “argutiola haec qua de congio vini usus es exposita in libris; sed, ut scis, captio magis lepida quam probum aut simile argumentum videri debet.” “Congius enim, cum deest, efficit quidem ne sit iustae mensurae amphora; sed cum accedit et additur, non ille unus facit amphoram, sed supplet.” “Virtus autem, ut isti dicunt, non accessio neque supplementum, sed sola ipsa vitae beatae instar est et propterea beatam vitam sola una, cum adest, facit.” Haec atque alia quaedam minuta magis et nodosa, tamquam apud arbitrum Favorinum, in suam uterque sententiam conferebant. Sed cum iam prima fax noctis et densiores esse tenebrae coepissent, prosecuti Favorinum in domum, ad quam devertebat, discessimus.

[¶1] 2. What kind of questions we used to discuss when spending the Saturnalia at Athens; and some amusing sophistries and enigmas WE used to spend the Saturnalia at Athens very merrily yet temperately, not “relaxing our minds,” as the saying is—for, as Musonius asserts, to relax the mind is like losing it—but diverting our minds a little and relieving them by the delights of pleasant and improving conversation. Accordingly, a number of us Romans who had come to Greece, and who attended the same lectures and devoted ourselves to the same teachers, met at the same dinner-table. Then the one who was giving the entertainment in his turn, offered as a prize for solving a problem the work of some old Greek or Roman writer and a crown woven from laurel, and put to us as many questions as there were guests present. But when he had put them all, the question which each was to discuss and the order of speaking were determined by lot. Then, when a question was correctly answered, the reward was a crown and a prize; if it was not correctly answered, it was passed on to the next in the allotment, and this process was repeated throughout the circle. If no one could answer a particular question, the crown was dedicated to the god in whose honour the festival was held. Now the questions that were proposed were of this kind: an obscure saying of some early poet, amusing rather than perplexing; some point in ancient history; the correction of some tenet of philosophy which was commonly misinterpreted, the solution of some sophistical catch, the investigation of a rare and unusual word, or of an obscure use of the tense of a verb of plain meaning. And I recollect that once seven questions were put, the first of which was an explanation of these verses in the Saturae of Quintus Ennius, in which one word is very neatly used in many different senses. They run as follows:
Who tries with craft another to deceive,
Deceives himself, if he says he's deceived
Whom he'd deceive. For if whom you'd deceive
Perceives that he's deceived, the deceiver 'tis
Who is deceived, if 'other's not deceived. The second question was how it ought to be understood and interpreted that Plato in the State which he planned in his books said koina\s ta\s gunai=kas, that is, declared that women “should be common property,” and that the rewards of the bravest men and the greatest warriors should be the kisses of boys and maidens. In the third place this was asked, in what words the fallacy of the following catches consisted and how they could be made out and explained: “What you have not lost, that you have. You have not lost horns; therefore you have horns.” Also another catch: “What I am, that you are not. I am a man; therefore you are not a man.” Then it was inquired what was the solution of this sophistry: “When I lie and admit that I lie, do I lie or speak the truth?” Afterwards this question was put, why the patricians are in the habit of entertaining one another on the Megalensia, and the plebeians on the Cerealia. Next came this question: “What one of the early poets used the verb verant, in the sense of 'they speak the truth '?” The sixth question was, what kind of plant the “asphodel” was, which Hesiod mentioned in the following lines:
O fools! who know not how much half exceeds the whole,
Or that the asphodel and mallow make fine food.
And also what Hesiod meant when he said that the half was more than the whole. The last of all the questions was this: of what tense the verbs scripserim, legerim and venerim are, perfect or future, or both. When these questions had been put in the order that I have mentioned, and had been discussed and explained by the several guests on whom the lots fell, we were all presented with crowns and books, except for the one question about the verb verant. For at the time no one remembered that the word was used by Quintus Ennius in the thirteenth book of his Annals in the following line:
Do seers speak truth (verant), predicting life's extent?
Therefore the crown for this question was presented to Saturn, the god of that festival.

> Latin: 2. CuiusmodiCuinsmodi quaestionum certationibus Saturnalicia ludicraIudicra Athenis agitare soliti sinus; atque inibi expressa quaedam sophismatia et aenigmataaenigniata oblectatoria SATURNALIA Athenis agitabamus hilare prorsum ac modeste, non, ut dicitur, “remittentes animum”— nam “remittere,” inquit Musonius, “animum quasi amittere est”—, sed demulcentes eum paulum atque laxantes iucundis honestisque sermonum inlectationibus. conueniebamusColveniebamus autem ad eandem cenam conplusculi, qui Romani in Graeciam veneramus quiquequiqiue easdem auditiones eosdemque doctores colebamus. Tum qui et cenulam ordine suo curabat, praemium soluendaesolvenudae quaestionis ponebat librum veteris scriptoris vel Graecum vel Latinum et coronam e lauro plexam, totidemque res quaerebat quot homines istic eramus; cumque eas omnis exposuerat, rem locumque dicendi sors dabat. Quaestio igitur soluta corona et praemio donabatur, non soluta autem tramittebatur ad eum qui sortito successerat, idque in orbem vice pari servabatur. Si nemo dissolvebat, corona eius quaestionis deo cuius id festum erat dicabatur. Quaerebantur autem res huiuscemodi: aut sententia poetae veteris lepide obscura, non anxie, aut historiae antiquioris requisitio, aut decreti cuiuspiam ex philosophia perperam invulgati purgatio, aut captionis sophisticae solutio, aut inopinati rariorisque verbi indagatio, aut tempus item in verbo perspicuo obscurissimum. Itaque nuper quaesita esse memini numero septem, quorum prima fuit enarratio horum versuum, qui sunt in Saturis Quinti Enni uno multifariam verbo concinniter inplicati. Quorum exemplum hoc est:
Nám qui lepidé postulat álterum frustrári,
Quém frustratúr, frustra eum dícit frustra ésse;
Nám si se frústrari quém frustras séntit,
Quí frustratur frustrast, sí non ille frústra est. Secunda quaestio fuit quonam modo audiri atque accipi deberet, quod Plato, in civitate quam in libris suis condidit, κοινὰς τὰς γυναῖκας, id est communes esse mulieres, censuit et praemia viris fortissimis summisque bellatoribus posuit saviationes puerorum et puellarum. Tertio in loco hoc quaesitum est, in quibus verbis captionum istarum fraus esset et quo pacto distingui resolvique possent: “Quod non perdidisti, habes; cornua non perdidisti: habesbabes igitur cornua,” item altera captio: “quod ego sum, id tu non es; homo ego sum: homo igitur tu non es.” Quaesitum ibi est quae esset huius quoque sophismatis resolutio: “Cum mentior et mentiri me dico, mentior an verum dico?” Postea quaestio istaec fuit, quam ob causam patricii Megalensibus mutitare soliti sint, plebes Cerealibus. Secundum ea hoc quaesitum est: verbum “verant,” quod significat “vera dicunt,” quisnam poetarum veterum dixerit? Sexta quaestio fuitfruit, “asphodelumasphlodelum” cuiusmodi herba sit, quod Hesiodus in isto versu posuerit:
Νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντὸς
Οὐδʼ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγʼ ὄνειαρ,
et quid item Hesiodus se dicere sentiat, cum dimidium plus esse toto dicit. Postrema quaestionumquaestionium omnium haec fuit: “Scripserim,” “legerim,” “venerim,” cuius temporis verba sint, praeteriti an futuri an utriusque? Haec ubi ordine quo dixi proposita atque singulis sorte ductis disputata explanataque sunt, libris coronisque omnes donati sumus, nisi ob unam quaestionem, quae fuit de verbo “verant.” Nemo enim tum commeminerat, dictum esse a Q. Ennio id verbum in tertio decimo Annalium in isto versu:
Satin vates verant aetate in agunda?
Corona igitur huius quaestionis deo feriarum istarum Saturno datast.

[¶2] 3. What the orator Aeschines, in the speech in which he accused Timarchus of unchastity, said that the Lacedaemonians decided about the praiseworthy suggestion of a most unpraiseworthy man AESCHINES, the most acute and sagacious of the orators who gained renown in the Athenian assemblies, in that cruel, slanderous and virulent speech in which he severely and directly accused Timarchus of unchastity, says that a man of advanced years and high character, a leader in that State, once gave noble and distinguished counsel to the Lacedaemonians. “The people of Lacedaemon,” he says, “were deliberating as to what was honourable and expedient in a matter of great moment to their State. Then there arose, for the purpose of giving his opinion, a man notorious for the baseness of his past life, but at the same time highly eminent for his eloquence and oratory. The advice which he gave, and the course which he said ought to be followed, were approved and accepted by all, and a decree of the people was about to be passed in accordance with his opinion. Thereupon one of that body of leading citizens whom the Lacedaemonians, because of the prestige of their age and rank, reverenced as judges and directors of public policy, sprang up in a spirit of anger and vexation, and said: ' What prospect, Lacedaemonians, or what hope, pray, will there be that this city and this State can longer be secure and invincible, if we follow counsellors whose past life is like that of this man? Even if this advice is honourable and noble, let us not, I pray you, allow it to be disgraced by the pollution of its most shameful author.' And when he had said this, he selected a man conspicuous before all others for his courage and justice, but a poor speaker and without eloquence, and bade him, with the consent and at the request of all, to deliver that opinion of the eloquent man in the best language he could command, in order that, without mention of the former speaker, the vote and decree of the people might be passed under the name of him alone who had last made that proposition. And the action which that most sagacious old man had recommended was taken. So the good advice endured, but its base author was displaced.”

> Latin: 3. Quid Aeschines rhetor, in oratione qua Timarchum de inpudicitia accusavit, Lacedaemonios statuisse dixerit super sententia probatissima, quam inprobatissimus homo dixisset AESCHINES, vel acerrimus prudentissimusque oratorum qui apud contiones Atheniensium floruerunt, in oratione illa saeva criminosaque et virulenta, qua Timarchum de inpudicitia graviter insigniterque accusabat, nobile et inlustre consilium LacedaemoniisLaedaemoniis dedisse dicit virum indidem civitatis eiusdem principem, virtute atque aetate magna praeditum. “Populus,” inquit, “Lacedaemonius de summa republica sua, quidnam esset utile et honestum deliberabat.” “Tum exsurgitexurgit sententiae dicendae gratia homo quispiam turpitudine pristinae vitae diffamatissimus, sed lingua tunc atque facundia nimium quanto praestabilis.” “Consilium quod dabat, quodque oportere fieri suadebat, acceptum ab universis et conplacitum est futurumquefuturuinque erat ex eius sententia populi decretum.” “Ibi unus ex illo principum ordine quos Lacedaemonii, aetatis dignitatisque maiestate, tamquam arbitros et magistros disciplinae publicae verebantur, commoto irritatoque animo exilit, et ‘Quaenam,’ inquit, ‘Lacedaemonii, ratio aut quae tandem spes erit urbem hanc et hancbane rempublicam salvam inexpugnabilemqueinexpuglnabilemque esse diutius posse, si huiuscemodi anteactae vitae hominibus consiliariis utemur? Quod si proba istaec et honesta sententia est, quaeso vos, non sinamus eandem dehonestari turpissimi auctoris contagio.’” “Atque ubi hoc dixit, elegit virum fortitudine atque iustitia praeter alios praestantem, sed inopi lingua et infacundum, iussitque eum consensus petituque omnium eandem illam sententiam diserti viri cuimodi posset verbis dicere, ut nulla prioris mentione habita, scitum atque decretum populi ex eius unius nomine fieret qui id ipsum denuo dixerat.” “Atque ita, ut suaserat prudentissimus senex, factum est.” “Sic bona sententia mansit, turpis auctor mutatus est.”

[¶3] 4. How Sulpicius Apollinaris made fun of a man who asserted that he alone understood Sallust's histories, by inquiring the meaning of these words in Sallust: incertum, stolidior an vacnior. WHEN I was already a young man at Rome, having laid aside the purple-bordered toga of boyhood, and was on my own account seeking masters of deeper knowledge, I happened to be with the booksellers in Shoemaker's Street at the time when Sulpicius Apollinaris, the most learned man of all within my memory, in the presence of a large gathering made fun of a boastful fellow who was parading his reading of Sallust, and turned him into ridicule with that kind of witty irony which Socrates used against the sophists. For when the man declared that he was the one and only reader and expositor of Sallust, and openly boasted that he did not merely search into the outer skin and obvious meaning of his sentences, but delved into and thoroughly examined the very blood and marrow of his words, then Apollinaris, pretending to embrace and venerate his learning, said: “Most opportunely, my good master, do you come to me now with the blood and marrow of Sallust's language. For yesterday I was asked what in the world those words of his meant which he wrote in the fourth book of his Histories about Gnaeus Lentulus, of whom he says that it is uncertain whether he was more churlish or more unreliable”; and he quoted the very words, as Sallust wrote them: “But Gnaeus Lentulus, his colleague, surnamed Clodianus, a man of patrician family—and it is not at all easy to say whether he was more churlish or more unreliable—proposed a bill for exacting the money which Sulla had remitted to the purchasers of property.” Apolinaris therefore asserted that it was asked of him, and that he had not been able to answer tile question, what was meant by vanior and what by stolidior, since Sallust seemed to have separated the words and contrasted them with each other, as if they were different and unlike and did not both designate the same fault; and therefore he asked that the man would tell him the meaning and origin of the two words. Then the other, showing by a grin and a grimace that he despised both the subject of the inquiry and the questioner himself; said: “I am accustomed to examine and explain the marrow and blood of ancient and recondite words, as I said, not of those which are in common use and trite. Surely a man is more worthless and stupid than Gnaeus Lentulus himself, if he does not know that vanitas and stoliditas indicate the same kind of folly.” But having said that, he left us in the very midst of our discussion and began to sneak off: Then we laid hold on him and pressed him, and in particular Apollinaris begged him to discourse at greater length and more plainly upon the difference, or, if he preferred, on the similarity of the words, and not to begrudge the information to one who was eager to learn. Then the fellow, realizing by this time that he was being laughed at, pleaded an engagement and made off But we afterwards learned from Apollinaris that the term rani was properly applied, not as in common parlance to those who were foolish or dull or silly, but, as the most learned of the ancients had used them, to liars, deceivers, and those who cleverly devised light and empty statements in place of those which were true and earnest. But that those were called stolidi who were not so much foolish and witless as austere, churlish and disagreeable, such men as the Greeks called moxqhroi/, “ugly fellows,” and fortikoi/, “common” or “vulgar folk.” He also said that the roots and derivations of these words were to be found in the books of Nigidius. Having sought for these words and found them, with examples of their earliest meanings, I made a note of them, in order to include them in the notes contained in these Nights, and I think that I have already introduced them somewhere among them.

> Latin: 4. Quod Sulpicius Apollinaris praedicantem quendam a sese uno Sallusti historias intellegi inlusit, quaestione proposita quid verba ista apud Sallustium significarent: “incertum, stolidior an vanior.” CUM iam adulescentuli Romae praetextam et puerilem togam mutassemus magistrosque tunc nobis nosmet ipsi exploratiores quaereremus, in Sandaliario forte apud librarioslibraries fuimus, cum ibi in multorum hominum coetu Apollinaris Sulpicius, vir in memoria nostra praeter alios doctus, iactatorem quempiam et venditatorem Sallustianae lectionis inrisit inlusitque genere illo facetissimae dissimulationis, qua Socrates ad sophistas utebatur. Nam cum ille se unum et unicum lectorem esse enarratoremque Sallustii diceret neque primam tantum cutem ac speciem sententiarum, sed sanguinem quoque ipsum ac medullam verborum eius eruere atque introspicere penitus praedicaret, tum Apollinaris amplecti venerarique se doctrinas illius dicens: “Per,” inquit, “magister optume, exoptatus mihi nunc venis cum sanguine et medulla Sallusti verborum.” “Hesterno enim die quaerebatur ex me quidnam verba haec eius in quarto Historiarum libro de Cn. Lentulo scripta significent, de quo incertum fuisse ait, stolidiorne esset an vanior,” eaque ipsa verba, uti sunt a Sallustio scripta, dixit: “At Cn. Lentulus patriciae gentis; collega eius, cui cognomentum Clodiano fuit, perincertum stolidior an vanior, legem de pecunia quamn Sulla emptoribus bonorum remiserat exigenda promulgavit.” Quaesitum ergo ex se Apollinaris neque id se dissolvere potuisse adseverabat, quid esset “vanior” et quid “stolidior,” quoniam Sallustius sic ea separasse atque opposuisse inter se videretur, tamquamtamqnuam diversa ac dissimilia nec eiusdem utraque vitii forent, ac propterea petebat uti se doceret significationes utriusque vocis et origines. Tum ille rictu oris labearumquelabeairumque ductu contemni a se ostendens et rem de qua quaereretur et hominem ipsum qui quaereret, “Priscorum,” inquit, “et remotorum ego verborum medullas et sanguinem, sicuti dixi, perspicere et elicere soleo, non istorum quae proculcata vulgo et protrita sunt. Ipso illo quippequilppe Cn. LentuloLentulto ‘stolidior’ est et ‘vanior’ qui ignorat eiusdem stultitiae esse vanitatem et stoliditatem.” Sed ubi hoc dixit, media ipsa sermonum reliquit et abire coepit. Nos deinde eum tenebamus urgebamusque, et cumprimis Apollinaris, ut de vocabulorum vel differentia vel, si ei ita videretur, similitudine plenius apertiusque dissereret et, ut ne sibi invideret discere volenti, orabat. Atque ille, se iam plane inludi ratus, negotium sibi esse causatur et digreditur. Nos autem posteaposted ex Apollinari didicimus, “vanos” proprie dici, non ut vulgus diceret, desipientis aut hebetes aut ineptos, sed, ut veterum doctissimi dixissentdiissent, mendaces et infidos et levia inaniaque pro gravibus et veris astutissime componentes; “stolidos” autem vocari non tam stultos et excordes quam taetros et molestos et inlepidos, quos Graeci μχθηροὺς καὶ φορτικούς dicerent. Etyma quoque harum vocum et origines scriptas esse dicebat in libris Nigidianis. Quas requisitas ego et repertas cum primarum significationum exemplis, ut commentariis harum Noctium inferrem, notavi et intulisse iam me aliquo in loco commentationibus istis existimo.

[¶4] 5. That Quintus Ennius, in the seventh book of his Annals, wrote quadrupes eques, and not quadrupes equus, as many read it. A NUMBER of us young men, friends of his, were at Puteoli with the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a fine man in truth and of distinguished eloquence, and we were spending the summer holidays in amusement and gaiety, amid literary diversions and seemly and improving pleasures. And while we were there, word was brought to Julianus that a certain reader, a man not without learning, was reciting the Annals of Ennius to the people in the theatre in a very refined and musical voice. “Let us go,” said he, “to hear this ' Ennianist.' whoever he may be”; for that was the name by which the man wished to be called. When at last we had found him reading amid loud applause—and he was reading the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius—we first heard him wrongly recite the following lines:
Then with great force on rush the four-footed horse (equus)
And elephants,
and without adding many more verses, he departed amid the praises and applause of the whole company. Then Julianus, as he came out of the theatre, said:
What think you of this reader and his fourfooted horse? For surely he read it thus:
Denique vi magna quadrupes equus atque elephant
Proiciunt sese.
Do you think that, if he had had a master and instructor worth a penny, he would have said quadrupes equus and not quadrupes eqces? For no one who has given any attention to ancient literature doubts that Ennius left it written in that way.
When several of those who were present declared that they had read quadrupes equus, each with his own teacher, and wondered what was the meaning oft quadrupes eques, Julianus rejoined: " I could wish, my worthy young friends, that you had read Quintus Ennius as accurately as did Publius Vergilius, who, imitating this verse of his in The Georgics, used eques for equus in these lines:
Thessalian Lapiths, high on horses' back,
Gave us the bit and circling course, and taught
The horse full armed, to gallop o'er the plain
And round his paces proud.
In this passage, unless one is foolishly and silkily captious, equiter can be taken in no other sense than that of 'horse,' for many of the early writers called the man who sat upon a horse eques and also the horse on which he sat. Hence equitare also, which is derived from the word eques, equitis, was said both of the man who rode the horse and of the horse which carried the man. Lucilius, indeed, a man conspicuous for his command of the Latin language, says equum equitare in these lines:
With what we see the courser run and trot,
With this he runs and trots. Now, 'tis with eyes
We see him trot; hence with his eyes he trots.
“But,” said Apollinaris, I was not content with these examples, and in order that it might not appear uncertain and doubtful, but clear and evident, whether Ennius wrote equus or eques, I procured at great trouble and expense, for the sake of examining one line, a copy of heavy and venerable antiquity, which it was almost certain had been edited by the hand of Lampadio; and in that copy I found eques and not equus written in that line. " This at the time Julianus explained to us, along with other problems, clearly and courteously. But afterwards I ran upon the very same remarks in some very well-known handbooks.

> Latin: 5. Quod Q. Ennius in septimo Annali “quadrupes eques” ac non “quadrupes equus,” ut legunt multi, scriptum reliquit. CUM Antonio Iuliano rhetore, viro hercle bono et facundiae florentis, complures adulescentuli, familiares eius, Puteolis aestivarum feriarum ludum et iocum in litteris amoenioribus et in voluptatibus pudicis honestisque agitabamus. Atque ibi tunc Iulianoluliano nuntiatur, ἀναγνώστην quendam, non indoctum hominem, voce admodum scita et canora Ennii Annales legere ad populum in theatro. “Eamus,” inquit, “auditum nescio quem istum Ennianistam”; hoc enim se ille nomine appellari volebat. Quem cum iam inter ingentes clamores legentem invenissemus—legebat autem librum ex annalibusAnnalibuis Ennii septimum—, hos eum primum versus perperam pronuntiantem audivimus:
Denique vi magnainagna quadrupes equus atque elephanti
Proiciunt sese,
neque multis postea versibus additis, celebrantibus eum laudantibusque omnibus, discessit. Tum Iulianus egrediens e theatro: “Quid vobis,” inquit, “de hoc anagnosta et de quadrupede equo videtur? sic enim profecto legit:
Denique vi magna quadrupes equus atque elephanti
Proiciunt sese.” “Ecquid putatis, si magistrum praelectoremque habuisset alicuius aeris, ‘quadrupes equus’ dicturum fuisse ac non ‘quadrupes eques,’ quod ab Ennio ita scriptum relictumque esse nemo unus litterarum veterum diligens dubitavit?” Cumque aliquot eorum qui aderant “quadrupes equus” apud suum quisque grammaticumgranmmaticum legisse se dicerent et mirarentur quidnam esset “quadrupes eques,” “Vellem vos,” inquit, “optimi iuvenes, tam accurate Q. Ennium legisse quam P. Vergilius legerat, qui hunchune eius versum secutus in Georgicis suis ‘equitem’ pro ‘equo’ posuit his in versibus:
Frena Pelethronii Lapithae gyrosque dedere
Impositi dorso atque equitem docuere sub armis
Insultare solo et gressus glomerare superbos.
In quo loco equitem, si quis modo non inscite inepteque argutior sit, nihil potest accipi aliud nisi ‘equum’;” “pleraque enim veterum aetas et hominem equo insidentem et equum cui insideretur ‘equitem’ dixerunt.” “Propterea ‘equitare’ etiam, quod verbum e vocabulo ‘equitis’ inclinatum est, et homo equo utens et equus sub homine gradiens dicebatur.” “Lucilius adeo, vir adprime linguae Latinae sciens, ‘ecum equitare’ dicit his versibus:
Quis hunc currere equum nos atque equitare videmus,
His equitat curritque; oculis equitare videmus;
Ergo oculis equitat.” “Sed enim contentus,” inquit, “ego his non fui et, ut non turbidae fidei nec ambiguae, sed ut purae liquentisque esset, ‘equus’ne an ‘eques’ scriptum Ennius reliquisset, librum summae atque reverendae vetustatisvestustatis, quem fere constabat Lampadionis manu emendatum, studio pretioque multo unius versus inspiciendi gratia conduxi et ‘eques,’ non ‘equus,’ scriptum in eo versu inveni.” Hoc tum nobis Iulianus et multa alia lucide simul et adfabiliter dixit. Sed eadem ipsa post etiam in pervulgatis commentariis scripta offendimus.

[¶5] 6. That Aelius Melissus, in the book to which he gave the title On Correctness of Speech, and which on its publication he called a horn of plenty, wrote something that deserves neither to be said nor heard, when he expressed the opinion that matrona and mater familias differ in meaning, thus making a distinction that is wholly groundless. WITHIN my memory Aelius Melissus held the highest rank among the grammarians of his day at Rome; but in literary criticism he showed greater boastfulness and sophistry than real merit. Besides many other works which he wrote, he made a book which at the time when it was issued seemed to be one of remarkable learning. The title of the book was designed to be especially attractive to readers, for it was called Correct Language. Who, then, would suppose that he could speak correctly or with propriety unless he had learned those rules of Melissus? From that book I take these words: “Matrona, 'a matron,' is a woman who has given birth once; she who has done so more than once is called mater familias, 'mother of a family'; just so a sow which has had one litter is called porcetra; one which has had more, scrofa.” But to decide whether Melissus thought out this distinction between matrona and mater familias and that it was his own conjecture, or whether he read what someone else had written, surely requires soothsayers. For with regard to porcetra he has, it is true, the authority of Pomponius in the Atellan farce which bears that very title but that “matron” was applied only to a woman who had given birth once, and “mother of a family” only to one who had done so more than once, can be proved by the authority of no ancient writer. Indeed, that seems much more probable which competent interpreters of ancient terms have written, that “matron” was properly applied to one who had contracted a marriage with a man, so long as she remained in that state, even though children were not yet born to them; and that she was so called from the word mater, or “mother,” a state which she had not yet attained, but which she had the hope and promise of attaining later. Matrimonium itself, or “marriage,” has the same derivation; but that woman only is called “mother of the household” who is in the power and possession of her husband, or in the power and possession of the one under whose authority her husband is; since she had come, not only into a state of wedlock, but also into the family of her husband and into the position of his heir.

> Latin: 6. Quod Aelius Melissus, in libro cui titulum fecit De Loquendi proprietatePropriictate, quemqueln, cum ederet, cornuin esse copiae dicebat, rem scripsit neque dictu neque audit dignam, cum differre “matronam” et “matrem familias” existimavit differentia longe vanissimavanisima. AELIUS MELISSUS in nostra memoriamemorial fuit Romae summi quidem loci inter grammaticosgranimaticos id temporis; sed maiore in litteris erat iactantiaiactintia et σοφιστείᾳ quam opera. Is praeter alia quae scripsit compluria, librum composuit, ut tum videbatur cum est editusedits, doctrinae inclutae. Ei libro titulus est ingentis cuiusdam inlecebrae ad legendum; scriptus quippe est De Loquendi Proprietate. Quis adeo existimet loqui se recte atque proprie posse, nisi illas Melissi proprietates perdidicerit? Ex eo libro verba haec suit: “Matrona” est quae semel peperit, quae saepius, “mater familias”; sicuti sus quae semel peperit, “porcetraorcetra,” quae saepius, “scrofa.” Utrum autem hoc de matrona ac de matrefamiliasmatrefamrilias Melissus excogitaverit ipse et coniectaverit, an scripture ab alio quo legerit, hariolis profecto est opus. Nam de “porcetra” habet sane auctorem Pomponium in Atellania, quae hoc eodem vocabulo inscripta est; sed “matronam” non esse appellatam nisi quae semel peperit, neque “matrem familiasfarilias” nisi quae saepius, nullis veterum scriptorum auctoritatibus confirmari potest. Enimvero illud impendio probabilius est quod idonei vocum antiquarum enarratores tradiderunt, “matronam” dictam esse proprie quae in matrimonium cum viro convenisset, quoad in eo matrimonio maneret, etiamsi liberi nondum nati forent, dictamque ita esse a matris nomine, non adepto iam, sed cum spe et omine mox adipiscendi, unde ipsum quoque “matrimonium” dicitur, “matrem” autem “familias” appellatam esse eam solam quae in mariti manu mancipioque aut in eius in cuius maritus manu mancipioque esset, quoniam non in matrimonium tantum, sed in familiam quoque mariti et in sui heredis locum venisset.

## 42. Book XVIII · chapters 7–15

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/42/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/42/#p-N

[¶0] 7. How Favorinus treated a man who made an unseasonable inquiry about words of ambiguous meaning; and in that connection the different meanings of the word contio. DOMITIUS was a learned and famous grammarian in the city of Rome, who was given the surname Insanus, or “The Madman,” because he was by nature rather difficult and churlish. When our friend Favorinus, in my company, chanced to have met this Domitius at the temple of Carmentis, Favorinus said: “I pray you, master, tell me whether I was in error in saying contiones, when I wanted to turn dhmhgori/ai into Latin; for I am in doubt and should be glad to be informed whether any of the men of old who spoke with special elegance used contio of words and of a speech.” Then Domitius, with excited voice and expression, replied: “There is absolutely no hope left of anything good, when even you distinguished philosophers care for nothing save words and the authority for words. But I will send you a book, in which you will find what you ask. For I, a grammarian, am inquiring into the conduct of life and manners, while you philosophers are nothing but mortualia, or 'winding sheets,' as Marcus Cato says: for you collect glossaries and word-lists, filthy, foolish, trifling things, like the dirges of female hired mourners. And I could wish,” said he, “that all we mortals were dumb! for then dishonesty would lack its chief instrumentiinstrument.” When we had left him, Favorinus said: “We approached this man at an unseasonable time. For he seems to me to be clearly mad. Know, however,” said he, “that the disorder which is called melagxoli/a, or 'melancholia,' does not attack small or contemptible minds, but it is in a way a kind of heroic affliction and its victims often speak the truth boldly, but without regard to time or moderation. For example, what think you of this which he just said of philosophers? If Antisthenes or Diogenes had said it, would it not have seemed worthy of remembrance?” But a little later Domitius sent Favorinus the book which he had promised—I think it was one by Verrius Flaccus—in which the following was written with regard to questions of that kind: that senatus (senate) was used both of a place and of persons; civitas (state) of a situation and a town, also of the rights of a community, and of a body of men; further that tribus (tribes) and decuriae (decuries) designated places, privileges and persons, and that contio had three meanings: the place and tribunal from which speaking was done, as Marcus Tullius in his speech, In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metelius, says: “I mounted the tribunal (contionem); the people assembled.” It also signifies an assembly of the people gathered together, since the same Marcus Tullius says in his Orator: “I have often heard audiences (contiones) cry out, when words ended in a proper rhythm; for the ears expect the thought to be expressed in harmonious words.” It likewise designated the speech itself which was made to the people. Examples of these uses were not given in that book. But afterwards I found and showed to Favorinus at his request instances of all these meanings in Cicero, as I remarked above, and in the most elegant of the early writers; but that which he especially desired, an example of contio used for words and of a speech, I pointed out in the title of a book by Cicero, which he had called In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metellus; for there Contionem surely means nothing else than the speech itself which was delivered by Metellus.

> Latin: 7. Quem in modum Favorinus tractaverit intempestivum quendam de verborum ambiguitatibus quaerentem; atque ibi, quot significationes capiat “contio.” DOMITIO, homini docto celebrique in urbe Roma grammatico, cui cognomentum “Insano” factum est, quoniam erat natura intractabilior et morosior, ei Domitio Favorinus noster cum forte apud fanum Carmentis obviam venisset atque ego cum Favorino essem, “Quaeso,” inquit, “te, magister, dicas mili num erravi quod, cum vellem δηυμγορίας Latine dicere, ‘contiones’ dixi? Dubito quippe et requiro an veterum eorum qui electius locuti sunt pro verbis et oratione dixerit quis ‘contionem.’” Tum Domitius voce atque vultu atrociore “Nulla,” inquit, “prorsus bonae salutis spes reliqua est, cum vos quoque, philosophorum inlustrissimi, nihil iam aliud quam verba auctoritatesque verborum cordi habetis. Mittam autem librum tibi, in quo id reperias quod quaeris. Ego enim grammaticus vitae iam atque morum disciplinas quaero, vos philosophiphilosophy mera estis, ut M. Cato ait, ‘mortualia’; glossariaglosaria namquenamique conligitis et lexidia, res taetras et inanes et frivolas, tamquam mulierum voces praeficarum. Atque utinam,” inquit, “muti omnes homines essemus! minus improbitasinmprobitas instrumentiinstrument haberet.” Cumque digressi essemus, “Non tempestive,” inquit Favorinus, “hunc hominem accessimus. Videtur enim mihi ἐπισήμως μαίνεσθαι. Scitote,” inquit, “tamen intemperiem istam quae μελαγχολία dicitur, non parvis nec abiectis ingeniis accidere, ἀλλὰ εἶναι σχεδόν τι τὸ πάθος ἡρωϊκόν et veritates plerumqueplerumique fortiter dicere, sed respectum non habere μήτε καιροῦ σχεδόν μήτε μέτρου. Vel ipsumipsurm hoc quale existimatis quod nunc de philosophis dixit? Nonne, si id Antisthenes aut Diogenes dixisset, dignum memoria visum esset?” Misit autem paulo post Favorino librum quem promiserat—Verri, opinor, Flacci erat—, in quo scriptascript ad hoc genus quaestionis pertinentia haec fuerunt: “senatum” dici et pro loco et pro hominibus, “civitatem” et pro loco et oppido et pro iure quoque omnium et pro hominum multitudine, “tribus” quoque et “decurias” dici et pro loco et pro iure et pro hominibus, “contionem” autem tria significare: locum suggestumque unde verba fierent, sicut M. Tullius in oratione quae inscripta est Contra Contionem Q. Metelli: “Escendi,” inquit, “in contionem;” “concursus est populi factus”; item significare coetum populi adsistentis, sicuti idem M. Tullius in Oratore ait: “Contiones saepe exclamare vidi, cum apte verba cecidissent. Etenim expectant aures, ut verbis conligetur sententia”; item orationem ipsam quae ad populum diceretur. Exempla in eo libro scripta non erant. Sed nos postea Favorino desideranti harum omnium significationum monumenta apud Ciceronem, sicut supra scripsi, et apud elegantissimos veterum reperta exhibuimus; id autem quod potissimum expetebat, “contionem” esse dictam pro verbis et oratione, docui titulo Tulliani libri, qui a M. Cicerone inscriptus est Contra Contionem Q. Metelli, quo nihil profecto significatur aliud quam ipsa quae a Metello dicta est oratio.

[¶1] 8. That o(moiote/leuta, o(moio/ptwta, and other devices of the kind which are considered ornaments of style, are silly and uerile, is indicated, among other places, in some verses of Lucilius. LUCILIUS in the fifth book of his Satires shows, and indeed most wittily, how silly, useless, and puerile are o(moiote/leuta, or “words of the same ending,” i)sokata/lhkta, or “words of the same sound,” pa/risa, or “words exactly balanced,” o(moio/ptwta, or “words of the same case,” and other niceties of that kind which those foolish pedants who wish to appear to be followers of Isocrates use in their compositions without moderation or taste. For having complained to a friend because he did not come to see him when he was ill, he adds these merry words:
Although you do not ask me how I am,
I'll tell you, since with those I still abide
Who of all mortals are the lesser part...
You are the slacker friend who'd wish him dead
Whom you'd not visit though it was your debit.
But if you chide this “visit” joined with “debit”
('Twas writ by chance), if you detest it all,
This silly, puerile, Isocratic stuff,
I'll waste no time on you, since such you are.

> Latin: 8. Ὁμοιοτέλευτα et ὁμοιόπτωτα atque alia id genus quae ornamenta orationis putantur inepta esse et puerilia, Lucili quoque versibus declarari. Ὁμοιοτέλευτα et ἰσοκατάληκτα et πάρισα et ὁμοιόπτωτα ceteraque huiusmodi scitamenta, quae isti apirocali qui se Isocratios videri volunt in conlocandis verbis immodice faciunt et rancide, quam sint insubida et inertia et puerilia facetissime hercle significat in quinto Saturarum LuciliusIucilius. Nam ubi est cum amico conquestus, quod ad se aegrotum non viseret, haec ibidem addit festiviter:
Quo me habeam pacto, tametsi non quaeris, docebo,
Quando in eo numero mansi quo in maxima non est
Pars hominum …
Ut perisse velis quem visere nolueris, cum
Debueris. Hoc “nolueris” et “debueris” te
Si minus delectat (quod atechnon) et Isocratium hoc
σκληρῶδες que simul totum ac si συμμειρακιῶδες,
Non operam perdo, si tu hic.

[¶2] 9. The meaning of the word insecenda in Marcus Cato; and that insecenda ought to be read rather than insequenda, which many prefer. IN an old book, containing the speech of Marcus Cato On Ptolemy against Thermus, were these words: “But if he did everything craftily, everything for the sake of avarice and pelf, such abominable crimes as we have never heard of or read of, he ought to suffer punishment for his acts...” The question was raised what insecenda meant. Of those who were present at the time there was one who was a dabbler in literature and another who was versed in it; that is to say, one was teaching the subject, the other was learned in it. These two disagreed with each other, the grammarian maintaining that insequenda ought to be written: “For,” said he,
insequenda should be written, not insecenda, since insequens means... and inseque has come down to us in the sense of 'proceed to say,' and accordingly insequor was written by Ennius in the following verses:
Proceed, O Muse, when Rome with Philip warred,
To tell the valorous deeds our leaders wrought. But the other, more learned, man declared that there was no mistake, but that it was written correctly and properly, and that we ought to trust Velius Longus, a man not without learning, who wrote in the commentary which he composed On the Use of Archaic Terms, that inseque should not be read in Ennius, but insece; and that therefore the early writers called what we term narrationes, or “tales,” insectiones; that Varro also explained this verse from the Menaechmi of Plautus:
Nihilo minus esse videtur sectius quam somnia,
as follows: “they seem to me no more worth telling than if they were dreams.” Such was their discussion. I think that both Marcus Cato and Quintus Ennius wrote insecenda and insece without u. For in the library at Patrae I found a manuscript of Livius Andronicus of undoubted antiquity, entitled )Odu/sseia, in which the first line contained this word without the letter u:
Tell me (insece), O Muse, about the crafty man,
translated from this line of Homer:
)/Andra moi e)/nnepe, Mou=sa, polu/tropon. On that point then I trust a book of great age and authority. For the fact that the line of Plautus has sectius quam somnia lends no weight to the opposite opinion. However, even if the men of old did say insece and not inseque, I suppose because it was lighter and smoother, yet the two words seem to have the same meaning. For sequo and sequor and likewise secta and sectio differ in the manner of their use, but anyone who examines them closely will find that their derivation and meaning are the same. The teachers also and interpreters of Greek words think that in
a)/ndra moi e)/nnepe, Mou=sa,
and
e)/spete nu=n moi, Mou=sai,
e)/nnepe, and e)/spete are expressed by the Latin word inseque; for they say that in one word the n is doubled, in the other changed to s. And they also say that the word e)/ph, which means “words” or “verses,” can he derived only a)po\ tou= e(/pesqai kai\ tou= ei)pei=n, that is from “follow” and “say.” Therefore for the same reason our forefathers called narrations and discourses insectiones.

> Latin: 9. Quid significet apud M. Catonem verbum “insecenda” quodque “insecenda” potius legendum sit quam, quod plerique existimat, “insequenda.” IN libro vetere, in quo erat oratio M. Catonis De Ptolemaeo contra Thermum, sic scriptum fuit: “Sed si omnia dolo fecit, omnia avaritiae atque pecuniae causa fecit, eiusmodi scelera nefaria, quae neque fando neque legendo audivimus, supplicium pro factis dare oportet.” … “Insecenda” quid esset quaeri coeptum. tumTurn ex his qui aderant alter litterator fuit, alter litteras sciens, id est alter docens, doctus alter. Hi duo inter sese dissentiebant. Et grammaticus quidem contendebat, “insequenda” scribendum esse; “‘insequenda’ enim scribi,” inquit, “debet, non ‘insecenda,’ quoniam ‘insequens’ significat traditumque esse ‘inseque’ quasi ‘perge dicere’ et ‘insequere’ itaque ab Ennio scriptum in his versibus:
Inseque, Musa, manu Romanorum induperator
Quod quisque in bello gessit cum rege Philippo.” Alter autem ille eruditior, nihil mendum, sed recte atque integre scriptum esse perseverabat et Velio Longo, non homini indocto, fidem esse habendam, qui in commentario quod fecisset De Usu Antiquae Lectionis scripserit non “inseque” apud Ennium legendum, sed “insece”; ideoque a veteribus, quas “narrationes” dicimus, “insectiones” esse appellatas; Varronem quoque versum hunc Plauti de Menaechmis:
Nihilo minus esse videtur sectius quam sómnia,
sic enarrasse: “nihilo magis narranda esse quam si ea essent somnia.” Haec illi inter se certabant. Ego arbitror et a M. Catone “insecenda” et a Q. Ennio “insece” scriptum sine u littera. Offendi enim in bibliotheca Patrensi librum verae vetustatis Livii Andronici, qui inscriptus est Ὀδύσσεια in quo erat versus primus cum hoc verbo sine u littera:
Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum,
cactus ex illo Homeri versu:
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτεοπον.
Illic igitur aetatis et fidei magnae libro credo. Nam, quod in versu Plautino est: “sectius quam somnia,” nihil in alteras partes argumenti habet. Etiamsi veteres autem non “inseque,” sed “insece” dixerunt, credo, quia erat lenius leviusque, tamen eiusdem sententiae verbum videtur. Nam et “sequo” et “sequor” et item “secta” et “sectio” consuetudine loquendi differunt; sed qui penitus inspexerit, origo et ratio utriusque una est. Doctores quoque et interpretes vocum Graecarum: Ἄνδρα μοι “ἔννεπε,” Μοῦσα et: “Ἔσπετε” νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι, dictum putant, quod Latine “inseque” dicitur; namque in altero ν geminum, in altero ς esse tralatum dicunt. Sed etiam ipsum illud “ἔπη,” quod significant verba aut versus, non aliunde esse dictum tradunt quam “ἀπὸ τοῦ ἕπεσθαι καὶ τοῦ εἰπεῖν.” Eadem ergo ratione antiqui nostri narrationes sermonesque “insectiones” appellitaverunt.

[¶3] 10. That those persons are in error who think that in testing for fever the pulse of the veins is felt, and not that of the arteries. IN the midst of the summer's heat I had withdrawn to the country house of Herodes, a man of senatorial rank, at a place in the territory of Attica which is called Cephisia, abounding in clear waters and groves. There I was confined to my bed by an attack of diarrhoea, accompanied by a high fever. When the philosopher Calvisius Taurus, and some others who were disciples of his, had come there from Athens to visit me, the physician who had been found there and who was sitting by me at the time, began to tell Taurus what discomfort I suffered and with what variations and intervals the fever came and went. Then in the course of the conversation remarking that I was now getting better, he said to Taurus: “You too may satisfy yourself of this, e)a\n a(/yh| au)tou= th=s flebo/s, which in our language certainly leans: si attigeris venam illius; that is, 'if you will put your finger on his vein.'” The learned men who accompanied Taurus were shocked by this careless language in calling an artery a vein, and looking on him as a physician of little value, showed their opinion by their murmurs and expression. Whereupon Taurus, very mildly, as was his way, said: “We feel sure, my good sir, that you are not unaware of the difference between veins and arteries; that the veins have no power of motion and are examined only for the purpose of drawing off blood, but that the arteries by their motion and pulsation show the condition and degree of fever. But, as I see, you spoke rather in common parlance than through ignorance; for I have heard others, as well as you, erroneously use the term 'vein' for 'artery.' Let us then find that you are more skilled in curing diseases than in the use of language, and with the favour of the gods restore this man to us by your art, sound and well, as soon as possible.” Afterwards when I recalled this criticism of the physician, I thought that it was shameful, not only for a physician, but for all cultivated and liberally educated men, not to know even such facts pertaining to the knowledge of our bodies as are not deep and recondite, but which nature, for the purpose of maintaining our health, has allowed to be evident and obvious. Therefore I devoted such spare time as I had to dipping into those books on the art of medicine which I thought were suited to instruct me, and from them I seem to have learned, not only many other things which have to do with human experience, but also concerning veins and arteries what I may express as follows: A “vein” is a receptacle, or a)ggei=on, as the physicians call it, for blood mingled and combined with vital breath, in which the blood predominates and the breath is less. An “artery” is a receptacle for the vital breath mingled and combined with blood, in which there is more breath and less blood. Sfugmo/s (pulsation) is the natural and involuntary expansion and contraction in the heart and in the artery. But the ancient Greek physicians defined it thus: “An involuntary dilation or contraction of the pulse and of the heart.”

> Latin: 10. Errare istos qui in exploranda febri venarum pulsus pertemptariperteniptari putant, non arteriarum. IN Herodis, C. V., villam, quae est in agro Attico, loco qui appellatur Cephisiae, aquis lucidis et nemoribus frequentem, aestu anni medio concesseram. Ibi alvo mihi cita et accedente febri rapida decubueram. Eo Calvisius Taurus philosophus et alii quidam sectatores eius cum Athenis visendi mei gratia venissent, medicus, qui tum in his locis repertus adsidebat mihi, narrare Tauro coeperat quid incommodi paterer et quibus modulis quibusque intervallis accederet febris decederetque. Tum in eo sermone, cum iam me sinceriore corpusculo factum diceret, “Potes,” inquit Tauro, “tu quoque id ipsum comprehendere, ἐὰν ἅψῃ αὐτοῦ αὐτοῦ τῆς φλεβός quod nostris verbi profectoprotect ita dicitur: ‘si attigeris venam illius.’” Hanc loquendi imperitiam, quod venam pro arteria dixisset, cum in eo docti homines qui cum Tauro erant, tamquam in minime utili medico offendissent atque id murmure et vultu ostenderent, tum ibi Taurus, ut mos eius fuit, satis leniter: “Certi,” inquit, “sumus, vir bone. non ignorare te quid ‘vena’ appelletur et quid ‘arteria,’ quod venae quidem suapte vi inmobiles sint et sanguinis tantum demittendidenmittendi gratia explorentur, arteriae autem motu atque pulsu suo habitum et modum febrium demonstrent;” “sed, ut video, pervulgate magis quam inscite locutus es; non enim te solum, sed alios quoque itidem errantis audivi venam pro arteria dicere.” “Fac igitur ut experiamur elegantiorem esse te in medendo quam in dicendo. et cum dis bene volentibus opera tua sistas hunc nobis sanum atque validum quam citissime.” Hoc ego postea cum in medico reprehensum esse meminissem, existimavi non medico soli, sed omnibus quoque hominibus liberis liberaliterque institutis, turpe esse ne ea quidem cognovisse ad notitiam corporis nostri pertinentia, quae non altius occultiusque remota sunt et quae natura nobis tuendae valitudinis causa et in promptu esse et in propatulo voluerit; ac propterea, quantum habui temporis subsicivi, medicinae quoque disciplinae libros attigi, quos arbitrabar esse idoneos ad docendum, et ex his cum alia pleraque ab isto humanitatis usu non aliena, tum de venis quoque et arteriis didicisse videor ad hunc ferme modum: “Vena” est conceptaculum sanguinis, quod ἀγγεῖον medici vocant, mixti confusique cum spiritu naturali, in quo plus sanguinis est, minus spiritus; “arteria” est conceptaculum spiritus naturalis mixti confusique cum sanguine, in quo plus spiritus est, minus sanguinis; σφυγμός autem est intentio motus et remissio in corde et in arteria naturalis, non arbitraria. Medicis autem veteribus oratione Graeca ita definitus est: “Σφυγμός ἐστιν διαστολή τε καὶ συστολὴ ἀπροαίρετος ἀρτηρίας καὶ καρδίας.”

[¶4] 11. Words from the poems of Furius of Antium which were ignorantly criticised by Caesellius Vindex; a quotation of the very verses which include the words in question. I CERTAINLY do not agree with Caesellius Vindex, the grammarian, though in my opinion he is by no means without learning. But yet this was a hasty and ignorant statement of his, that the ancient poet Furius of Antium had degraded the Latin language by forming words of a kind which to me did not seem inconsistent with a poet's license nor to be vulgar or unpleasant to speak and utter, as are some others which have been harshly and tastelessly fashioned by distinguished poets. The expressions of Furius which Caesellius censures are these: that he uses lutescere of earth which has turned into mud, noctescere of darkness that has arisen like that of night, virescere of recovering former strength, describes the wind curling the blue sea and making it shine by purpurat, and uses opulescere for becoming rich. I have added the very lines from the poems of Furius in which these words occur:
Blood floods the world, the deep earth turns to mud (lutescit),
All becomes night (noctescunt) with darkness of black gloom.
Their courage grows, valour 's renewed (virescit) by wounds.
The fleet, like sea-bird, lightly skims the deep,
The East Wind's breath empurples (purpurat) the green surge.
That on their native plains they may grow rich (opulescere).

> Latin: 11. Verba ex carminibus Furi Antiatis inscite a Cãesellio Vindice reprehensa; versusque ipsi in quibus ea verba sunt subscripti. non hercle idem sentio cum Caesellio Vindice, grammatico, ut mea opinio est, hautquaquam inerudito. Verum hoc tamen petulanter insciteque, quod Furium, veterem poetam, dedecorasse linguam Latinam scripsit huiuscemodi vocum fictionibustictionibus quae mihi quidem neque abhorrere a poetica facultate visae sunt neque dictu profatuque ipso taetrae aut insuaves esse, sicuti sunt quaedam alia ab inlustribus poetis ficta dure et rancide. Quae reprehendit autem Caesellius Furiana haec sunt: quod terram in lutum versam “lutescere” dixerit et tenebras in noctis modum factas “noctescere” et pristinas reciperare vires “virescere,” et quod ventus si mare caerulum crispicans nitefacit “purpurat” dixerit, et opulentum fieri “opulescere.” Versus autem ipsos ex poematis Furianis, in quibus verba haec sunt, subdidi:
Sanguine diluitur tellus, cava terra lutescit.
Omnia noctescunt tenebris caliginis atrae.
Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.
Sicut fulica levis volitat super aequora classis,
Spiritus Eurorum viridis cum purpurat undas.
Quo magis in patriis possint opulescere campis.

[¶5] 12. That our forefathers had the custom of changing passive verbs and turning them into active. THIS also used to be regarded as a kind of elegance in composition, to use active verbs in place of those which had a passive form and then in turn to substitute the former for the latter. Thus Juventius in a comedy says:
I care not if my cloak resplendent be, or spot. Is not this far more graceful and pleasing than if he said maculetur, “if it be spotted”? Plautus also says in a similar way:
What's wrong?—This cloak doth wrinkle (rugat), I'm ill clad.
Also Plautus uses pulveret, not of making dusty, but of being dusty:
Go, sprinkle, slave; I'd have this entrance neat.
My Venus comes, don't let the place show dust (pulveret).
In the Asinaria he uses contemples for contempleris: Observe (contemples) my head, if you'd your interest heed. Gnaeus Gellius in his Annals writes: “After the storm quieted (sedavit) Adherbal sacrificed a bull”; Marcus Cato in his Origins: “Many strangers came to that same place from the country. Therefore their wealth waxed (auxit).” Varro in the books which he wrote On Latin Diction, dedicated to Marcellus, said: “In the former word the accents that were grave remain so. The others change,” where mutant, “change,” is a very elegant expression for mutantur, “are changed.” The same expression too seems to be used by Varro in the seventh book of his Divine Antiquities: “What a difference (quid mutet) there is between princesses may be seen in Antigone and Tullia.” But passive verbs instead of active are found in the writings of almost all the men of the olden time. A few of these, which I recall now, are the following: muneror te, or “I reward you,” for munero; significor, or “I indicate,” for significo; assentior, or “I assent,” for assentio; sacrificor, or “I sacrifice,” for sacrifice; faeneror, or “I practise usury,” for faenero; pigneror, or “I take as a pledge,” for pignero, and many others of the same kind, which will be noted as I meet them in reading.

> Latin: 12. Morem istum veteribus nostris fuisse verba patiendi mutare ac vetere in agendi nodum. ID quoque habitum est in oratione facienda elegantiae genus, ut pro verbis habentibus patiendi figuram agentia ponerent ac deinde haec vice inter sese mutua verterent. Iuventius in comoedia:
pallium (inquit) flocci non facio ut splendeat an maculet. Nonne hoc inpendio venustius gratiusque est quam si diceret “maculetur”? Plautus etiam non dissimiliter:
Quid ést?—Hoc rugat pallium, amictus non sum Cómmode. Itidem Plautus “pulveret” dicit, quod non pulvere impleat, set ipsum pulveris plenum sit:
Exi tu, Dave, age, spárge; mundum hoc ésse Vestibuliúm volo.
Venús ventura est nóstra, non hoc púlveret. In Asinaria quoque “contemples” dicit pro “contempleris”:
Meúm caput contémples, si quidem é re consultás tua.
Cn. Gellius in Annalibus: “Postquam tempestas sedavit, Atherbal taurum immolavit.” M. Cato in Originibus:“Eodem convenae conplures ex agro accessitavere.” “Eo res eorum auxit.” Varro libris quos ad Marcellum De Lingua LatinaLaiina fecit: “In priore verbo graves prosodiae, quae fuerunt, manent, reliquae mutant,” “mutant” inquit elegantissime pro “mutantur.” Potest etiam id quoque ab eodem Varrone in septimo Divinarum similiter dictum videri: “Inter duas filias regum quid mutet, inter Antigonam et Tulliam, est animadvertere.” Verba autem patiendi pro agentibus in omnibus ferme modum veterum scriptis reperiuntur. Ex quibus sunt pauca ista, quaequake nuncnune meminimus: “muneror te” pro “munero” et “significor” pro “significo” et “sacrificor” pro “sacrifico” et “adsentior” pro “adsentio” et “faeneror” pro “faenero” et “pigneror” pro “pignero” et alia istiusmodi pleraque, quae, proinde ut in legendo fuerint obvia, notabuntur.

[¶6] 13. The retort which the philosopher Diogenes made, when he was challenged by a logician with an impudent sophistry. AT Athens during the Saturnalia we engaged in a pleasant and improving diversion of this kind: when a number of us who were interested in the same study had met at the time of the bath, we discussed the catch questions which are called “sophisms,” and each one of us cast them before the company in his turn, like knuckle-bones or dice. The prize for solving a problem, or the penalty for failing to understand it, was a single sestertius. From the money thus collected, as if it had been won at dice, a little dinner was provided for all of us who had taken part in the game. Now the sophisms were somewhat as follows, although they cannot be expressed very elegantly in Latin, or even without clumsiness: “What snow is, that hail is not; but snow is white, therefore hail is not white.” A somewhat similar one is this: “What man is, that a horse is not; man is an animal, therefore a horse is not an animal.” The one who was called upon by the throw of the dice to solve and refute the sophistry was expected to tell in what part of the proposition and in what word the fallacy consisted, and what ought not to be granted and conceded; if he did not succeed, he was fined one sestertius. The fine contributed to the dinner. I must tell you how wittily Diogenes paid back a sophism of that kind which I have mentioned above, proposed with insulting intent by a logician of the Platonic school. For when the logician had asked: “You are not what I am, are you?” and Diogenes had admitted it, he added: “But I am a man.” And when Diogenes had assented to that also and the logician had concluded: “Then you are not a man,” Diogenes retorted: “That is a lie, but if you want it to be true, begin your proposition with me.”

> Latin: 13. Quali talione Diogenes philosophus usus sit, pertemptatus a dialectico quodamquodain sophismatiosophisinatio inpudentiitpudenti. SATURNALIBUS Athenis alea quadam festiva et honesta lusitabamus huiuscemodi: ubi conveneramus conplusculi eiusdem studii homines ad lavandi tempus, captiones quae “sophismata” appellantur mente agitabamus easque, quasi talos aut tesserulas, in medium vice sua quisque iaciebamus. Captionis solutae aut parum intellectae praemium poenave erat nummus unus sestertius. Hoc aere conlecto, quasi manuario, cenula curabatur omnibus qui eum lusum luseramus. Erant autem captiones ad hoc fere exemplum, tametsi Latina oratione non satis scite ac paene etiam inlepide exponuntur: “Quod nix est, hoc grando non est; nix autem alba est: grando igitur alba non est.” Item aliud non dissimile: “Quod homo est, non est hoc equus; homo autem animal est: equus igitur animal non est.” Dicere ergo debebat qui ad sophisma diluendum ac refellendum ritu aleatorio vocatus erat, in qua parte quoque in verbo captio foret, quid dari concedique non oporteret; nisi dixerat, nummo singulo multabatur. Ea multa cenam iuvabat. Libet autem dicere quam facete Diogenes sophisma id genus, quod supra dixi, a quodam dialectico ex Platonis diatriba per contumeliam propositum, remuneratus sit. Nam cum ita rogasset dialecticus: “Quod ego sum, id tu non es?” et Diogenes adnuisset, atque ille addidisset: “Homo autem ego sum,” cum id quoque adsensus esset, contra dialecticus ita conclusisset: “Homo igitur tu non es,” “Hoc quidem,” inquit Diogenes, “falsum est, et si verum fieri vis, a me incipe.”

[¶7] 14. What the number is which is called hemiolios and what epitritos; and that our countrymen have not rashly ventured to translate those words into Latin. CERTAIN numerical figures which the Greeks call by definite terms have no corresponding names in Latin. But those who have written in Latin about numbers have used the Greek expressions and have hesitated to make up Latin equivalents, since that would be absurd. For what name could one give to a number which is said to be hemiolios or epitritos? But hemiolios is a number which contains in itself some other whole number and its half, as three compared with two, fifteen with ten, thirty with twenty; epitritos is a number which contains another whole number and its third part, as four compared with three, twelve with nine, forty with thirty. It does not seem out of place to note and to remember these numerical terms; for unless they are understood, some of the most subtle calculations recorded in the writings of the philosophers cannot be comprehended.

> Latin: 14. Quid sit numerus “hemiolios,” quid “epitritos”; et quod vocabula ista non facile nostri ausi sunt convertere in linguam Latinam. FIGURAE quaedam numerorum, quas Graeci certis nominibus appellant, vocabula in lingua Latina non habent. Sed qui de numeris Latine scripserunt Graeca ipsa dixerunt, fingere autem nostra, quoniam id absurde futurum erat, noluerunt. Quale enim fieri nomen posset “hemiolio” numero aut “epitrito”? Est autem “hemiolios” qui numerum aliquem totum in sese habet dimidiumque eius, ut tres ad duo, quindecim ad decem, triginta ad viginti; “epitritos” est qui habet totum aliquem numerum et eiusdem partem tertiam, ut quattuor ad tres, duodecim ad novem, quadraginta ad triginta. Haec autem notare meminisseque non esse abs re visum est, quoniam vocabula ista numerorum nisi intelleguntur, rationes quaedam subtilissimae in libris philosophorum scriptae percipi non queunt.

[¶8] 15. That Marcus Varro in heroic verse noted a matter demanding very minute and careful observation. IN the long lines called hexameters, and likewise in senarii, students of metric have observed that the first two feet, and also the last two, may consist each of a single part of speech, but that those between may not, but are always formed of words which are either divided, or combined and run together. Varro in his book On the Arts wrote that he had observed in hexameter verse that the fifth half-foot always ends a word, and that the first five half-feet are of equally great importance in making a verse with the following seven; and he argues that this happens in accordance with a certain geometrical ratio.

> Latin: 15. Quod M. Varro in herois versibus observaverit rem nimis anxiae et curiosae observationis. IN longis versibus qui “hexametri” vocantur, item in senariis, animadverterunt metrici primos duos pedes, item extremos duos, habere singulos posse integras partes orationis, medios haut umquam posse, sed constare eos semper ex verbis aut divisis aut mixtis atque confusis. M. etiam Varro in libris disciplinarumDisciplinarurm scripsit, observasse sese in versu hexametro, quod omnimodo quintus semipes verbum finiret et quod priores quinque semipedes aeque magnam vim haberent in efficiendo versu atque alii posteriores septem, idque ipsum ratione quadam geometrica fieri disserit.

## 43. Book XIX · chapters 1–8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/43/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/43/#p-N

[¶0] 1. The reply of a certain philosopher, when he was asked why he turned pale in a storm at sea. WE were sailing from Cassiopa to Brundisium over the Ionian sea, violent, vast and storm-tossed. During almost the whole of the night which followed our first day a fierce side-wind blew, which had filled our ship with water. Then afterwards, while we were all still lamenting, and working hard at the pumps, day at last dawned. But there was no less danger and no slackening of the violence of the wind; on the contrary, more frequent whirlwinds, a black sky, masses of fog, and a kind of fearful cloud-forms, which they called typhones, or “typhoons,” seemed to hang over and threaten us, ready to overwhelm the ship. In our company was an eminent philosopher of the Stoic sect, whom I had known at Athens as a man of no slight importance, holding the young men who were his pupils under very good control. In the midst of the great dangers of that time and that tumult of sea and sky I looked for him, desiring to know in what state of mind he was and whether he was unterrified and courageous. And then I beheld the man frightened and ghastly pale, not indeed uttering any lamentations, as all the rest were doing, nor any outcries of that kind, but in his loss of colour and distracted expression not differing much from the others. But when the sky cleared, the sea grew calm, and the heat of danger cooled, then the Stoic was approached by a rich Greek from Asia, a man of elegant apparel, as we saw, and with an abundance of baggage and many attendants, while he himself showed signs of a luxurious person and disposition. This man, in a bantering tone, said: “What does this mean, Sir philosopher, that when we were in danger you were afraid and turned pale, while I neither feared nor changed colour?” And the philosopher, after hesitating for a moment about the propriety of answering him, said: “If in such a terrible storm I did show a little fear, you are not worthy to be told the reason for it. But, if you please, the famous Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, shall answer for me, who on being asked on a similar occasion by a man much like you why he feared, though a philosopher, while his questioner on the contrary had no fear, replied that they had not the same motives, for his questioner need not be very anxious about the life of a worthless coxcomb, but he himself feared for the life of an Aristippus.” With these words then the Stoic rid himself of the rich Asiatic. But later, when we were approaching Brundisium and sea and sky were calm, I asked him what the reason for his fear was, which he had refused to reveal to the man who had improperly addressed him. And he quietly and courteously replied: “Since you are desirous of knowing, hear what our forefathers, the founders of the Stoic sect, thought about that brief but inevitable and natural fear, or rather,” said he, “read it, for if you read it, you will be the more ready to believe it and you will remember it better.” Thereupon before my eyes he drew from his little bag the fifth book of the Discourses of the philosopher Epictetus, which, as arranged by Arrian, undoubtedly agree with the writings of Zeno and Chrysippus. In that book I read this statement, which of course was written in Greek: “The mental visions, which the philosophers call fantasi/ai or 'phantasies,' by which the mind of man on the very first appearance of an object is impelled to the perception of the object, are neither voluntary nor controlled by the will, but through a certain power of their own they force their recognition upon men; but the expressions of assent, which they call sugkataqe/seis, by which these visions are recognized, are voluntary and subject to man's will. Therefore when some terrifying sound, either from heaven or from a falling building or as a sudden announcement of some danger, or anything else of that kind occurs, even the mind of a wise man must necessarily be disturbed, must shrink and feel alarm, not from a preconceived idea of any danger, but from certain swift and unexpected attacks which forestall the power of the mind and of reason. Presently, however, the wise man does not approve ' such phantasies,' that is to say, such terrifying mental visions (to quote the Greek, 'he does not consent to them nor confirm them'), but he rejects and scorns them, nor does he see in them anything that ought to excite fear. And they say that there is this difference between the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ' visions ' are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and 'confirms' them; for prosepidoca/zei is the word which the Stoics use in their discourses on the subject. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his colour and expression, 'does not assent,' but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms.” That these were the opinions and utterances of Epictetus the philosopher in accordance with the beliefs of the Stoics I read in that book which I have mentioned, and I thought that they ought to be recorded for this reason, that when things of the kind which I have named chance to occur, we may not think that to fear for a time and, as it were, turn white is the mark of a foolish and weak man, but in that brief but natural impulse we yield rather to human weakness than because we believe that those things are what they seem.

> Latin: 1. Responsio cuiusdam philosophi, interrogati quam ob causam maris tempestate palluerit. NAVIGABAMUS a Cassiopa Brundisium mare Ionium violentum et vastum et iactabundum. Nox deinde quae diem primum secuta est, in ea fere tota ventus a latere saeviens navem undis compleverat. Tum postea, complorantibus nostris omnibus atque in sentina satis agentibus, dies quidem tandem inluxit. Sed nihil de periculo neque de saevitia venti remissum, quin turbines etiam crebriores et caelum atrum et fumigantes globi et figurae quaedam nubium metuendae quos “typhonas” vocabant, inpendere inminereque ac depressurae navem videbantur. In eadem fuit philosophus in disciplina Stoica celebratus, quem ego A the nis cognoveram non parva virum auctoritate satisque attente discipulos iuvenes continentem. Eum tunc in tantis periculis inque illo tumultu caeli marisque requirebam oculis, scire cupiens quonam statu animi et an interritus intrepidusque esset. Atque ibi hominem conspicimus pavidum et expallidum, ploratus quidem nullos, sicuti ceteri omnes, nec ullas eiusmodihuiusmodi voces cientem, sed coloris et voltus turbatione non multum a ceteris differenten. At ubi caelum enituit et deferbuit mare et ardor ille periculi deflagravit, accedit ad Stoicum Graecus quispiam dives ex Asia, magno, ut videbamus, cultu paratuque rerum et familiae, atque ipse erat multis corporis animique deliciis affluens. Is quasi inludens: “Quid hoc,” inquit, “est, o philosophe, quod, cum in periculis essemus, timuisti tu et palluisti? Ego neque timui neque pallui.” Et philosophus aliquantum cunctatus an respondere ei conveniret, “Si quid ego,” inquit. “in tanta violentia tempestatum videor paulum pavefactus, non tu istius rei ratione audienda dignus es.” “Set tibi sane Aristippus, ille Socratis discipulus, pro me responderit, qui in simili tempore a simillimo tui homine interrogatus quare philosophus timeret, cum ille contra nihil metueret, non eandem esse causam sibi atque illi respondit, quoniam is quidem esset non magnopere sollicitus pro anima nequissimi nebulonis, ipsum autem pro Aristippi anima timere.” His tunc verbis Stoicus divitem ilium Asiaticum a sese molitus est. Sed postea, cum Brundisium adventaremus malaciaque esset venti ac maris, percontatus eum sum quaenam illa ratio esset pavoris sui, quam dicere ei supersedisset a quo fuerat non satis digne compellatus? Atque ille mihi placide et comiter: “Quoniam,” inquit, “audiendi cupidus es, audi quid super isto brevi quidem, sed necessario et naturali pavore maiores nostri, conditores sectae Stoicae, senserint, vel potius,” inquit, “lege; nam et facilius credideris, si legas, et memineris magis.” Atque ibi coram ex sarcinula sua librum protulit Epicteti philosophi quintum Διαλέξεων, quas ab Arriano digestas congruere scriptis ζήνωνος et Chrysippi non dubium est. In eo libro Graeca scilicet oratione scriptam hanc sententiam legimus: “Visa animi, quas φαντασίας philosophi appellant, quibus mens hominis prima statim specie accidentis ad animum rei pellitur, non voluntatis sunt neque arbitrariae, sed vi quadam sua inferunt sese hominibus noscitanda;” “probationes autem, quas συγκαταφέσεις vocant, quibus eadem visa noscuntur, voluntariae sunt fiuntque hominum arbitratu.” “Propterea cum sonus aliquis formidabilis aut caelo aut ex ruina aut repentinus nescio cuius periculi nuntius vel quid aliud est eiusmodi factum, sapientis quoque animum paulisper moveri et contrahi et pallescere necessum est, non opinione alicuius mali praecepta, sed quibusdam motibus rapidis et inconsultis, officium mentis atque rationis praevertentibus.” “Mox tamen ille sapiens ibidem τὰς τοιαύτας φαντασίας id est visa istaec animi sui terrifica, non adprobat, hoc est οὐ συγκαττατιθεται οὐδὲ προσεπιδοξάζει, sed abicit respuitque nec ei metuendum esse in his quicquam videtur.” “Atque hoc inter insipientis sapientisque animum differre dicunt, quod insipiens, qualia sibi esse primo animi sui pulsu visa sunt saeva et aspera, talia esse vero putat et eadem incepta, tamquam si iure metuenda sint, sua quoque adsensione adprobat καὶ προσεπιδοξάζει hoc enim verbo Stoici, cum super istaistare disserunt, utuntur.” “Sapiens autem, cum breviter et strictim colore atque vultu motus est, οὐ συγκατατίθεαι, sed statum vigoremque sententiae suae retinet quam de huiuscemodi visis semper habuit, ut de minime metuendis, sed fronte falsa et formidineformidinie inani territantibus.” Haec Epictetum philosophum ex decretis Stoicorum sensisse atque dixisse, in eo quo dixi libro legimus adnotandaque esse idcirco existimavimus, ut rebus forte id genus quibus dixi obortis pavescere sensim et quasi albescere, non insipientis esse hominis neque ignavi putemus et in eo tamen brevi motu naturali magis infirmitati cedamus quam quod esse ea qualia visa sunt censeamus.

[¶1] 2. That of the five senses of the body two in particular we share with beasts; and that pleasure which comes from hearing, sight and smell is base and reprehensible, but that which comes from taste and touch is the most shameful of all, since the last two are felt also by beasts, the others only by mankind. MEN have five senses, which the Greeks call ai)sqh/seis, by which mental or bodily pleasure is evidently sought: taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. From all of these the enjoyment of any immoderate pleasure is regarded as base and reprehensible. But excessive pleasure from taste or touch in the opinion of philosophers is the basest of all things, and those in particular who have given themselves up to those two animal pleasures the Greeks call by terms of the gravest reproach either a)kratei=s or a)ko/lastoi; we call them either incontinences (incontinent) or intemperantes (intemperate); for if you should desire to have a closer translation of a)ko/lastoi, the equivalent will be too unusual. But those two pleasures of taste and touch, namely, gluttony and venery, are the only ones common to man with the lower animals, and therefore whoever is enslaved to these beastly pleasures is regarded as in the number of brutes and beasts; the remaining pleasures proceeding from the other three senses seem to be peculiar to man alone. I have added the words of Aristotle the philosopher on this subject, in order that the authority of that renowned and illustrious man might turn us from such shameful pleasures: “Why are they called incontinent who indulge to excess in the pleasures of taste and touch? For both those who are immoderate in venery and those who are immoderate in the enjoyment of food are such. But of the latter, some find this gratification in the tongue and others in the throat, and it was for that reason that Philoxenos prayed to have the throat of a crane. Is it because the pleasures derived from such sources are common to us with the other animals? And being thus common they are the most dishonourable and more than the other pleasures, or alone, objects of reproach, so that we censure a man who is addicted to them and call him incontinent and incorrigible because he is enslaved to the meanest of pleasures. Now, there being five senses, the other animals are gratified by the two which have been mentioned only, but from the others they either enjoy no pleasure at all, or they merely experience it incidentally.” Who, then, having any human modesty, would take pleasure in those two delights of venery and gluttony, which are common to man with the hog and the ass? Socrates indeed used to say that many men wish to live in order to eat and drink, but that he ate and drank in order to live. Hippocrates, moreover, a man of divine wisdom, believed of venery that it was a part of the horrible disease which our countrymen call comitialis, or “the election disease”; for these are his very words as they have come down to us: “that coition is a brief epilepsy.”

> Latin: 2. Ex quinque corporis sensibus duos esse cum beluis maxiem communes; quodque turpis et improba est voluptas quae ex auditu, visu odoratuque procedit, quae vero ex gustu tactuque est, rerum omium foedissima est, cum hae duae bestiarum etiam sint, reliquae hominum tantum. QUINQUE sunt hominum sensus, quos Graeci αἰσθήσεις appellant, per quos voluptas animo aut corpori quaeri videtur: gustus, tactus, odoratus, visus, auditus. Ex his omnibus quae inmodice voluptas capitur, ea turpis atque inprobainiproba existimatur. Sed enim quae nimia ex gustu atque tactu est, ea voluptas, sicuti sapientes viri censuerunt, omnium rerum foedissima est, eosque maxime qui duabus istis beluinis voluptatibus sese dediderunt, gravissimi vitii vocabulis Graeci appellant vel ἀκρατεῖς vel ἀκολάστους; nos eos vel “incontinentes” dicimus vel “intemperantes”: ἀκολάστους enim, si interpretari coactius velis, nimis id verbum insolens erit. Istae autem voluptates duae gustus atque tactus, id est libidines in cibos atque in Venerem prodigae, solae sunt hominibus communes cum beluis et idcirco in pecudum ferorumque animalium numero habetur, quisquis est his ferinis voluptatibus praevinctus; ceterae ex tribus aliis sensibus proficiscentes hominum esse tantum propriae videntur. Verba super hac re Aristotelis philosophi adscripsi, ut vel auctoritas clari atque incluti viri tam infamibus nos voluptatibus deterreret: Διὰ τί οἱ κατὰ τὴν τῆς ἁφῆς ἢ γεύσεως ἡδονὴν γιγνομένην, ἂν ὑπερβάλλωσιν, ἀκρατεῖς λέγονται; οἵ τε γὰρ περὶ τὰ ἀφροδίσια ἀκόλαστοι τοιοῦτοι, οἵ τε περὶ τὰς τῆς τροφῆς ἀπολαύσεις· τῶν δὲ κατὰ τὴν τροφήν, ἀπʼ ἐνίων μὲν ἐν τῇ γλώττῃ τὸ ἡδύ, ἀπʼ ἐνίων δὲ ἐν τῷ λάρυγγι, διὸ καὶ Φιλόξενος γεράνου λάρυγγα εὔχετο ἔχειν· ἢ διὰ τὸ τὰς ἀπὸ τούτων γιγνομένας ἡδονὰς κοινὰς εἶναι ἡμῖν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ζώοις; ἅτε οὐσῶν κοινῶν, ἀτιμόταταί εἰσι καὶ μάλιστα ἢ μόναι ἐπονείδιστοι, ὡς τὸν ὑπὸ τούτων ἡττώ- μενον ψέγομεν καὶ ἀκρατῆ καὶ ἀκόλαστον λέγομεν διὰ τὸ ὑπὸ τῶν χειρίστων ἡδονῶν ἡττᾶσθαι. οὐσῶν δὲ τῶν αἰσθήσεων πέντε, τὰ ἄλλα ζῶα ἀπὸ τῶν δύο μόνων τῶν προειρημένων ἥδεται, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἄλλας ἢ ὅλως οὐχ ἥδεται ἢ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς τοῦτο πάσχει. Quis igitur habens aliquid humani pudoris voluptatibus istis duabus coeundi atque comedendi, quae sunt homini cum sue atque asino communes, gaudeat? Socrates quidem dicebat multos homines propterea velle vivere, ut ederent et biberent, se bibere atque esse, ut viveret. Hippocrates autem, divina vir scientia, de coitu venerio ita existimabat, partem esse quandam morbi taeterrimi, quem nostri “comitialem” dixerunt; namque ipsius verba haec traduntur: τὴν συνουσίαν εἶναι μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν.

[¶2] 3. That it is more disgraceful to be praised coldly than to be accused bitterly. FAVORINUS the philosopher used to say that it was more shameful to be praised faintly and coldly than to be censured violently and severely: “For,” said he, “the man who reviles and censures you is regarded as unjust and hostile towards you in proportion to the bitterness of his invective, and therefore he is usually not believed. But one who praises grudgingly and faintly seems to lack a theme; he is regarded as the friend of a man whom he would like to praise but as unable to find anything in him which he can justly commend.”

> Latin: 3. Quod turpius est frigide laudari quam acerbius vituperari. TURPIUS esse dicebat Favorinus philosophus exigue atque frigide laudari quam insectanter et graviter vituperari: “Quoniam,” inquit, “qui maledicit et vituperat, quanto id acerbius facit, tam maximo ille pro inimico et iniquo ducitur et plerumque propterea fidem non capit. Sed qui infecunde atque ieiune laudat destitui a causa videtur et amicus quidem creditur eius quem laudare vult, sed nihil posse reperire quod iurelure laudet.”

[¶3] 4. Why the bowels are loosened by sudden terror; also why fire provokes urine. THERE is a work of Aristotle, entitled Physical Questions, which is most delightful, and filled with choice knowledge of all kinds. In this book he inquires why it happens that those who are seized with sudden fear of some great catastrophe commonly suffer at once from looseness of the bowels. He also inquires why it happens that one who has stood for some time before a fire is overtaken with a desire to make water. And he says that the cause of the loosening and discharge of the bowels because of fear is due to the fact that all terror is cold producing, or yuxropoio/s, as he calls it, and that by the effect of that cold it drives and expels all the blood and heat from the surface of the skin and at the same time causes those who fear to grow pale, because the blood leaves the face. “Now this blood and heat,” he says, “being driven inwards, usually moves the bowels and stimulates them.” For the frequent urinating caused by nearness to a fire he gave this reason: “The fire dissolves the solid matter, as the sun does snow.”

> Latin: 4. Quamobrem venter repentino timore effluat; quare etiam ignis urinam lacessat. ARISTOTELIS libri sunt, qui Problemata Physica inscribuntur, lepidissimi et elegantiarum omnigenus referti. In his quaerit quam ob causam eveniat ut quibus invasit repentinus rei magnae timor, plerumque alvo statim cita fiant. Item quaerit cur accidat ut eum qui propter ignem diutius stetit libido urinae lacessat. Ac de alvo quidem inter timendum prona atque praecipiti causam esse dicit quod timor omnis sit algificus, quem ille appellat ψυχροποιόν, eaque vi frigoris sanguine caldoremque omnem de summa corporis cute cogat penitus et depellat faciatque simul ut qui timent, sanguine ex ore decedente, pallescant. “Is autem,” inquit, “sanguis et caldor in intuma coactus movet plerumque alvum et incitat.” De urina celebri, ex igni proximo facta, verba haec posuit: Τὸ δὲ πῦρ διαχαλᾷ τὸ πεπηγός, ὥσπρ ἥλιος τὴν χιόνα.

[¶4] 5. A statement from the works of Aristotle, that snow-water is a very bad thing to drink; and that ice is formed from snow. IN the hottest season of the year with some companions and friends of mine who were students of eloquence or of philosophy, I had withdrawn to the country-place of a rich friend at Tibur. There was with us a good man of the Peripatetic school, well trained and especially devoted to Aristotle. When we drank a good deal of water made of melted snow, he tried to restrain us and rather severely scolded us. He cited us the authority of famous physicians and in particular of the philosopher Aristotle, a man skilled in all human knowledge, who declared that snow-water was indeed helpful to grain and trees, but was a very unwholesome drink for human beings, and that it gradually produced wasting diseases in the body, which made their appearance only after a long time. This counsel he gave us repeatedly in a spirit of prudence and goodwill. But when the drinking of snow-water went on without interruption, from the library of Tibur, which at that time was in the temple of Hercules and was well supplied with books, he drew out a volume of Aristotle and brought it to us, saying: “At least believe the words of this wisest of men and cease to ruin your health.” In that book it was written that water from snow was very bad to drink, as was also that water which was more solidly and completely congealed, which the Greeks call kru/stallos, or “clear ice”; and the following reason was there given for this: “That when water is hardened by the cold air and congeals, it necessarily follows that evaporation takes place and that a kind of very thin vapour, so to speak, is forced from it and comes out of it. But its lightest part,” he said, “is that which is evaporated; what remains is heavier and less clean and wholesome, and this part, beaten upon by the throbbing of the air, takes on the form and colour of white foam. But that some more wholesome part is forced out and evaporated from the snow is shown by the fact that it becomes less than it was before it congealed.” I have taken a few of Aristotle's own words from that book, and I quote them: “Why is the water made from snow or ice unwholesome? Because from all water that is frozen the lightest and thinnest part evaporates. And the proof of this is that when it melts after being frozen, its volume is less than before. But since the most wholesome part is gone, it necessarily follows that what is left is less wholesome.” After I read this, we decided to pay honour to the learned Aristotle. And so I for my part immediately declared war upon snow and swore hatred against it,1 while the others made truces with it on various terms.

> Latin: 5. Ex Aristotelis libris sumptum quod nivis aqua potui pessima sit; et quod ex nive crystallus concreatur. IN Tiburte rus concesseramus hominis amici divitis aestate anni flagrantissima ego et quidam alii aequales et familiares mei, eloquentiae aut philosophiae sectatores. Erat nobiscum vir bonus ex peripatetica disciplina, bene doctus et Aristotelis unice studiosissimus. Is nos aquam multam ex diluta nive bibentes coercebat severiusque increpabat. Adhibebat nobis auctoritates nobilium medicorum et cumprimis Aristotelis philosophi, rei omnis humanae peritissimi, qui aquam nivalem frugibus sane et arboribus fecundam diceret, sed hominibus potu nimio insalubrem esse tabemque et morbos sensim atque in diem longam visceribus inseminare. Haec quidem ille ad nos prudenter et benivole et adsidue dictitabat. Sed cum bibendae nivis pausa fieret nulla, profit e bibliotheca Tiburti, quae tunc in Herculis templo satis commode instructa libris erat, Aristotelis librum eumque ad nos adfert et “Huius saltem,” inquit, “sapientissimi viri verbis credite ac desinite valitudinem vestram profligare.” In eo libro scriptum fuit deterrimam esse potu aquam e nive itemque solidius latiusque concretam esse eam, quam κρύσταλλον Graeci appellant; causaque ibi adscripta est huiuscemodi: “Quoniam, cum aqua frigore aeris duratur et coit, necessum est fieri evaporationem et quandam quasi auram tenuissimam exprimi ex ea et emanare.” “Id autem,” inquit, “in ea levissimum est quod evaporatur; manet autem quod est gravius et sordidius et insalubrius, atque id, pulsu aeris verberatum, in modum coloremque spumae candidae oritur.” “Sed aliquantum quod est salubrius difflari atque evaporari ex nive indicium illud est, quod minor fit illo, quod ante fuerat quam concresceret.” Verba ipsa Aristotelis ex eo libro pauca sumpsi et adscripsi: Διὰ τί τὰ ἀπὸ χιόνος καὶ κρυστάλλων ὕδατα φαὐλά ἐστιν; ὅτι παντὸς ὕδατος πηγνυμένου τὸ λεπτότατον καὶ κουφότατον ἐξατμίζει. σημεῖον δέ, ὅτι ἔλαττον γίνεται ἢ πρότερον, ὅταν τακῇ παγέν. ἀπεληλυθότος οὖν τοῦ ὑγιεινοτάτου, ἀνάγκη ἀεί, τὸ καταλειμόμενον χεῖρον εἶναι. Hoc ubi legimus, placuit honorem doctissimo viro haberi Aristoteli. Atque ita postea ego bellum et odium nivi indixi, alii indutias cum ea varie factitabant.

[¶5] 6. That shame drives the blood outward, while fear checks it. IN the Problems of the philosopher Aristotle is the following passage: “Why do men who are ashamed turn red and those who fear grow pale; although these emotions are similar? Because the blood of those who feel shame flows from the heart to all parts of the body, and therefore comes to the surface; but the blood of those who fear rushes to the heart, and consequently leaves all the other parts of the body.” When I had read this at Athens with our friend Taurus and had asked him what he thought about that reason which had been assigned, he answered: “He has told us properly and truly what happens when the blood is diffused or concentrated, but he has not told us why this takes place. For the question may still be asked why it is that shame diffuses the blood and fear contracts it, when shame is a kind of fear and is defined by the philosophers as 'the fear of just censure.' For they say: ai)sxu/nh e)sti\n fo/bos dikai/ou yo/gou.”

> Latin: 6. Quod pudor sanguinem ad extera diffundit, timor vero contrahit. In Problematis Aristotelis philosophi ita scriptum est: Διὰ τί οἱ μὲν αἰσχυνόμενοι ἐρυθριῶσιν, οἱ δὲ φοβούμενοι ὠχριῶσιν, παραπλησίων τῶν παθῶν ὄντων; ὅτι τῶν μὲν αἰσχυνομένων διαχεῖται τὸ αἷμα ἐκ τῆς καρδίας εἰς ἅπαντα τὰ μέρη τοῦ σώματος, ὥστε ἐπιπολάζειν· τοῖς δὲ φοβηθεῖσιν συντρέχει εἰς τὴν καρδίαν, ὥστε ἐκλείπειν ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων μερῶν. Hoc ego Athenis cum Tauro nostro legissem percontatusque essem quid de ratione ista reddita sentiret, “Dixit quidem,” inquit, “probe et vere quid accideret diffuso sanguine aut contracto, sed cur ita fieret non dixit.” “Adhuc enim quaeri potest quam ob causam pudor sanguinem diffundat, timor contrahat, cum sit pudor species timoris atque ita definiatur: ‘timor iustae reprehensionis.’ Ita enim philosophi definiunt: αἰσχύνη ἐστὶν φόβος δικαίου ψόγου.”

[¶6] 7. The meaning of obesus and of some other early words. THE poet Julius Paulus, a worthy man, very learned in early history and letters, inherited a small estate in the Vatican district. He often invited us there to visit him and entertained us very pleasantly and generously with vegetables and fruits. And so one mild day in autumn, when Julius Celsinus and I had dined with him, and after hearing the Alcestis of Laevius read at his table were returning to the city just before sunset, we were ruminating on the rhetorical figures and the new or striking use of words in that poem of Laevius', and as each word occurred that was worthy of notice with reference to its future use by ourselves, we committed it to memory. Now the passages which then came to mind were of this sort:
Of chest and body wasted (obeso) everywhere,
Of mind devoid of sense and slow of pace,
With age o'ercome.
Here we noticed that obesus is used, rather in its proper than in its common signification, to mean slender and lean; for the vulgar use obesus, a)ku/rws (improperly), or kata\ a)nti/frasin (by contraries), for uber (bulky) and pinguis (fat). We also observed that he spoke of an extinct race as oblittera instead of oblitterata, and that he characterized enemies who broke treaties as foedifragi, not foederifragi; that he called the blushing Aurora pudoricolor, or “shame-coloured” and Memnon, nocticolor, or “night-coloured”; also that he used forte for “hesitatingly,” and said silenta loca, or “silent places,” from the verb sileo; further, that he used pulverulenta for “dusty” and pestilenta for “pestilent,” the genitive case instead of the ablative with careo; magno impete, or “mighty onset,” instead of impetu; that he used fortescere for fortem fieri, or “become brave,” dolentia for dolor, or “sorrow,” avens for libens, or “desirous”; that he spoke of curae intolerantes, or “unendurable cares,” instead of intolerandae, manciolae tenellae, or “tender hands,” instead of manus, and quis tam siliceo for “who is of so flinty a heart?” He also says fiere inpendio infit, meaningfieri inpense incipit, or “the expense begins to be great,” and he used accipetret for laceret, or “rends.” We entertained ourselves on our way with these notes on Laevius' diction. But others we passed over as too poetic and unsuited to use in prose; for example, when he calls Nestor trisaeclisenex, or “an old man who had lived three generations” and dulciorelocus isle, or “that sweet-mouthed speaker,” when he calls great swelling waves multigruma, or “great-hillocked,” and says that rivers congealed by the cold have an onychinum tegimen, or “an onyx covering”; also his many humorous multiple compounds, as when he calls his detractors subductisupercilicarptores, or “carpers with raised eye-brows.”

> Latin: 7. Quid sit “obesum”; nonnullaque alia prisca vocabula. IN agro Vaticano Iulius Paulus poeta, vir bonus et rerum litterarumque veterum inpense doctus, herediolum tenue possidebat. Eo saepe nos ad sese vocabat et olusculis pomisque satis comiter copioseque invitabat. Atque ita molli quodam tempestatis autumnae die ego et Iulius Celsinus, cum ad eum cenassemus et apud mensam eius audissemus legi Laevi Alcestin rediremusque in urbem sole iam fere occiduo, figuras habitusque verborum nove aut insigniter dictorum in Laeviano illo carmine ruminabamur et, ut quaeque vox indidem digna animadverti subvenerat, qua nos quoque possemus uti, memoriae mandabamus. Erant autem verba quae tunc suppetebant, huiuscemodi:
Corpore (inquit) pectoreque undique obeso ac
Mente exsensa tardigenuclo
Senio obpressum. “Obesum” hic notavimus proprie magis, quam usitate dictum pro exili atque gracilento; vulgus enim ἀκύρως vel κατὰ ἀντίφρασιν “obesum” pro “uberi” atque “pingui” dicit. Item notavimusnotavimnus quod “oblitteram” gentem pro “oblitterata” dixit; item quod hostis qui foedera frangerent, “foedifragos,” non “foederifragos” dixit; item, quod rubentem auroram “pudoricolorem” appellavit et Memnonem “nocticolorem”; item, quod “forte” dubitanter et ab eo quod est “sileo,” “silenta loca” dixit et “pulverulenta” et “pestilenta” et quod “carendum tui est” pro “te” quodque “magno impete” pro “impetu”; item quod “fortescere” posuit pro “fortem fieri” quodque “dolentiam” pro “dolore” et “avens” pro “libens”; item “curis intolerantibus” pro “intolerandis,” quodque “manciolis,” inquit, “tenellis” pro “manibus” et “quis tam siliceo?” Item “fiere,” inquit, “inpendio infit,” id est “fieri inpense incipit”; quodque “accipitret” posuit pro “laceret.” His nos inter viam verborum Laevianorum adnotatiunculis oblectabamus. Cetera enim, quae videbantur nimium poetica, ex prosae orationis usu alieniora praetermisimus; veluti fuit quod de Nestore ait “trisaeclisenex” et “dulciorelocus iste,” quod de tumidis magnisque fluctibus inquit “multigrumis” et flumina gelu concreta “tegimine” esse “onychino” dixit, et quae multiplica ludens conposuit, quale illud est, quod vituperones suos “subductisupercilicarptores” appellavit.

[¶7] 8. An inquiry whether harena, caelum and triticum are found in the plural; also whether quadrigae, inimicitiae, and some other words, occur in the singular. WHEN I was a young man at Rome, before I went to Athens, I often paid a visit to Cornelius Fronto, when I had leisure from my masters and my lectures, and enjoyed his refined conversations, which abounded besides in excellent information. Whenever I saw him and heard him speak, I almost never failed to come away improved and better informed. An example is the following little talk of his, held one day on a trivial subject, it is true, but yet not without importance for the study of the Latin language. For when an intimate friend of his, a learned man and an eminent poet of the day, said that he had been cured of dropsy by the use of hot sand (calentes harenae), thereupon Fronto in jesting fashion said: "You are indeed freed of your complaint, but not of the complaint of improper language. For Gaius Caesar, the famous life-dictator and father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius, from whom the family and the name of the Caesars are derived, a man of wonderful talent, surpassing all others of his time in the purity of his diction, in the work On Analogy, which he dedicated to Marcus Cicero, wrote that harenae is an improper term, since harena ought never to be used in the plural, any more than caelum (heaven) and triticum (wheat). But on the other hand he thinks that quadrigae, even though it be a single chariot, that is, one team of four horses yoked together, ought always to be used in the plural number, like arma (arms), moenia (walls), comitia (election) and inimicitiae (hostility)—unless, my finest of poets, you have anything to say in reply, to excuse yourself and show that you have not made an error." “With regard to caelum,” said the poet,
and triticum I do not deny that they ought always to be used in the singular, nor with regard to arma, moenia and comitia, that their use ought to be confined to the plural; but we will inquire rather about inimicitiae and quadigae. And perhaps in the case of quadrigae I shall yield to the authority of the early writers: but what reason is there why Caesar should think that inimicitia was not used by the ancients, as were inscientia (ignorance) and impotentia (impotence) and iniuria (injury), and ought not to be used by us, when Plautus, that glory of the Latin tongue, even used delicia in the singular number instead of deliciae? For he says:
O my delight, my darling (delicia).
Furthermore Quintus Ennius, in that most famous book of his, said:
Such is my habit; plain upon my brow
Friendship I bear and enmity (inmicitiam) to see.
But pray, who else has written or said that harenae is not good Latin? And therefore I beg of you, if Gaius Caesar's book is accessible, that you have it brought, in order that you may judge with how much confidence he makes this statement. At the time, the first book On Analogy being brought, I committed to memory these few words from it; for, first asserting that neither caelum, triticum, nor harena admitted a plural meaning, Caesar said: “Do you not think that it happens from the nature of these things that we say ' one land' and 'several lands,' 'city' and 'cities,' 'command' and 'commands,' and that we cannot convert quadrigae into the form of a singular noun or harena into a plural?” When these words had been read, Fronto said to the poet: “Does it not seem to you that Gaius Caesar has decided against you as to the status of this word with sufficient clearness and force?” Thereupon the poet, greatly impressed by the authority of the book, said: “If it were lawful to appeal from Caesar, I would now appeal from this book of his. But since he has neglected to give the reason for his opinion, I now ask you to tell on what ground you think it an error to say quadriga and harenae.” Then Fronto replied as follows: “Quadrigae is always confined to the plural number, even though there be only one horse, since four horses yoked together are called quadrigae, from quadriugae, and certainly a term which designates many horses ought not to be included under the oneness expressed by the singular number. The same reasoning must be applied to harena, but in a different form; for since harena, though used in the singular number, nevertheless indicates the multiplicity and abundance of the minute parts of which it consists, harenae seems to be an ignorant and improper usage, as if the word needed a plural form,. when its collective nature makes it natural for it to be used in the singular. But,” said he, “I have said this, not in order to give my authority and signature to this opinion and rule, but that I might not leave the view of that learned man, Caesar, unsupported. For while caelum, or 'sky,' is always used in the singular, but mare, or 'sea,' and terra, or 'land,' not always, and pulvis, or 'dust,' ventus, or 'wind,' and fumus, or 'smoke,' not always, why did the early writers sometimes use indutiae, or 'truce,' and caerimoniae, or 'ceremony,' in the singular, but never feriae, or 'holiday,' nundinae, or 'market day,' inferiae, or 'offering to the dead,' and exsequiae, or ' obsequies'? Why may mel, or 'honey,' and vinum, or 'wine,' and other words of that kind, be used in the plural, but not lacte (milk)? All these questions, I say, cannot be investigated, unravelled, and thrashed out by men of affairs in so busy a city; indeed, I see that you have been delayed even by these matters of which I have spoken, being intent, I suppose, on some business. So go now and inquire, when you chance to have leisure, whether any orator or poet, provided he be of that earlier band—that is to say, any classical or authoritative writer, not one of the common herd—has used quadriga or harenae.” Now Fronto asked us to look up these words, I think, not because he thought that they were to be found in any books of the early writers, but to rouse in us an interest in reading for the purpose of hunting down rare words. The one, then, which seemed the rarest, quadriga, I found used in the singular number in that book of Marcus Varro's Satires which is entitled Ecdemeticus. But I sought with less interest for an example of the plural harenae, because, except Gaius Caesar, no one among learned men has used that form, so far as I can recall.

> Latin: 8. Quaestio an “harena.” “caelum,” “triticum” pluralia inveniantur; atque inibi de “quadrigis,” “inimicitiis,” nonnullis praeterea vocabulis, an singulari numero comperiantur. ADULESCENTULUS Romae, priusquam Athenas concederern, quando erat a magistris auditionibusque obeundis otium, ad Frontonem Cornelium visendi gratia pergebampergelam sermonibusque eius purissimis bonarumque doctrinarum plenis fruebar. Nec umquam factum est, quotiens eum vidimus loquentemque audivimus, quin rediremus fere cultiores doctioresque. Veluti fuit illa quodam die sermocinatio illius, levi quidem de re, sed a Latinae tamen linguae studio non abhorrens. Nam, cum quispiam familiaris eius, bene eruditus homo et tum poeta inlustris, liberatum esse se aquae intercutis morbo diceret, quod “harenis calentibus” esset usus, tum adludens Fronto: “Morbo quidem,” inquit, “cares, sed verbi vitio non cares. Gaius enim Caesar, ille perpetuus dictator, Cn. Pompei socer, a quo familia et appellatio Caesarum deinceps propagata est, vir ingenii praecellentis, sermonis praeter alios suae aetatis castissimi, in libris, quos ad M. Ciceronem De Analogia conscripsit, ‘harenas’ vitiose dici existimat, quod ‘harena’ numquam multitudinis numero appellanda sit, sicuti neque ‘caelum’ neque ‘triticum’;” “contra autem ‘quadrigas,’ etiamsi currus unus, equorum quattuor iunctorum agmen unum sit, plurativo semper numero dicendas putat, sicut ‘armaarina’ et ‘moenia’ et ‘comitia’ et ‘inimicitias’—nisi quid contra ea dicis, poetarum pulcherrime, quo et te purges et non esse id vitium demonstres.” “De ‘caelo,’” inquit ille, “et ‘tritico’ non infitias eo, quin singulo semper numero dicenda sint, neque de ‘armis’ et ‘moenibus’ et ‘comitiis,’ quin figurafigure multitudinis perpetua censeantur;” “videbimus autem potius de ‘inimicitiis’ et ‘quadrigis.’ Ac fortassean de ‘quadrigis’ veterum auctoritati concessero, ‘inimicitiam’ tamen, sicuti ‘inscientiam’ et ‘inpotentiam’ et ‘iniuriam,’ quae ratio est quamobrem C. Caesar vel dictam esse a veteribus vel dicendam a nobis non putat, quando Plautus, linguae Latinae decus, ‘deliciam.’ quoque ἐνικῶς dixerit pro ‘deliciis’?
Méa (inquit) voluptas, méa delicia.
‘Inimicitiam’ autem Q. Ennius in illo memoratissimo libro dixit:
Eo ego (inquit) ingenio natus sum;
Amicitiam atque inimicitiaminimicitiamr in frontem promptam gero.
Sed enim ‘harenas’ parum Latine dici, quis, oro te, alius aut scripsit aut dixit? Ac propterea peto ut, si Gai Caesaris liber prae manibus est, promi iubeas, ut quam confidenter hoc indicat aestimari a te possit.” Tunc, prolato libro De Analogia primo, verba haec ex eo pauca memoriae mandavi. Nam, cum supra dixisset, neque “caelum” neque “triticum” neque “harenamlarenam” multitudinis significationem pati, “Num tu,” inquit, “harum rerum natura accidere arbitraris quod ‘unam terram’ ac ‘plures terras’ et ‘urbem’ et ‘urbes’ et ‘imperium’ et ‘imperia’ dicamus, neque ‘quadrigas’ in unam nominis figuram redigere neque ‘harenam’ multitudinis appellatione convertere possimus?” His deinde verbis lectis ibi Fronto ad illum poetam: “Videturne tibi,” inquit, “C. Caesar de statu verbi contra te satis aperte satisque constanter pronuntiasse?” Tunc permotus auctoritate libri poeta: “Si a Caesare,” inquit, “ius provocandi foret, ego nunc ab hoc Caesaris libro provocassem. Sed quoniam ipse rationem sententiae suae reddere supersedit, nos te nunc rogamus ut dicas quam esse causam vitii putes et in ‘quadriga’ dicenda et in ‘harenis.’” Tum Fronto ita respondit: “‘Quadrigae’ semper, etsi multiiugae non sunt, multitudinis tamen numero tenentur, quoniam quattuor simul equi iuncti ‘quadrigae,’ quasi ‘quadriiugae,’ vocantur, neque debet prorsus appellatio equorum plurium includi in singularis numeri unitatem.” “Eandemque rationem ‘harenae’ habendam, sed in specie dispari; nam cum ‘harena’ singulari in numero dicta multitudinem tamen et copiam significet minimarum, ex quibus constat, partium, indocte et inscite ‘harenae’ dici videntur, tamquam id vocabulum indigeat numeri amplitudine, cum ei singulariter dicto ingenita sit naturalis sui multitudo. Sed haec ego,” inquit, “dixi, non ut huius sententiae legisque fundus subscriptorque fierem, sed ut ne Caesaris, viri docti, opinionem ἀπαραμύθητον destituerem. Nam cum ‘caelum’ semper ἑνικῶς dicatur,” “‘mare’ et ‘terra’ non semper, et ‘pulvis,’ ‘ventus’ et ‘fumus.’ non semper, cur‘indutias’ et ‘caerimonias’ scriptores veteres nonnumquam singulari numero appellaverunt, ‘ferias’ et ‘nundinas.’ et ‘inferias.’ et ‘exequias’ numquam? Cur ‘mel’ et ‘vinum’ atque id genus cetera numerum multitudinis capiunt, ‘lacte’ non capiat?” “Quaeri, inquam, ista omnia et enucleari et extundi ab hominibus negotiosis in civitate tam occupata non queunt. Quin his quoque ipsis quae iam dixi demoratos vos esse video, alicui, opinor, negotio destinatos.” “Ite ergo nunc et, quando forte erit otium, quaerite an ‘quadrigam’ et ‘harenas’ dixerit e cohorte illa dumtaxat antiquiore vel oratorum aliquis vel poetarum, id est classicus adsiduusque aliquis scriptor, non proletarius.” Haec quidem Fronto requirere nos iussit vocabula non ea re, opinor, quod scripta esse in ullis veterum libris existumaret, sed ut nobis studium lectitandi in quaerendis rarioribus verbis exerceret. Quod unum ergo rarissimum videbatur, invenimus “quadrigam” numero singulari dictam in libro Saturarum M. Varronis, qui inscriptus est Ecdemeticus. “Harenas” autem πληθυντικῶς dictas minore studio quaerimus, quia praeter C. Caesarem, quod equidem meminerim, nemo id doctorum hominum dedit.

## 44. Book XIX · chapters 9–14

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/44/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/44/#p-N

[¶0] 9. The very neat reply of Antonius Julianus to certain Greeks at a banquet. A YOUNG man of equestrian rank from the land of Asia, gifted by nature, well off in manners and fortune, with a taste and talent for music, was celebrating the anniversary of the day on which he began life by giving a dinner to his friends and teachers in a little country place near the city. There had come with us then to that dinner the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a public teacher of young men, who spoke in the Spanish manner, but was very eloquent, besides being well acquainted with our early literature. When there was an end of eating and drinking, and the time came for conversation, Julianus asked that the singers and lyre-players be produced, the most skilful of both sexes, whom he knew that the young man had at hand. And when the boys and girls were brought in, they sang in a most charming way several odes of Anacreon and Sappho, as well as some erotic elegies of more recent poets that were sweet and graceful. But we were especially pleased with some delightful verses of Anacreon, written in his old age, which I noted down, in order that sometimes the toil and worry of this task of mine might find relief in the sweetness of poetical compositions:
Shaping the silver, Hephaestus,
Make me no panoply, pray;
What do I care for war's combats?
Make me a drinking cup rather,
Deep as you ever can make it;
Carve on it no stars and no wains;
What care I, pray, for the Pleiads,
What for the star of Bootes?
Make vines, and clusters upon them,
Treading them Love and Bathyllus,
Made of pure gold, with Lyaeus. Then several Greeks who were present at that dinner, men of refinement and not without considerable acquaintance also with our literature, began to attack and assail Julianus the rhetorician as altogether barbarous and rustic, since he was sprung from the land of Spain, was a mere ranter of violent and noisy speech, and taught exercises in a tongue which had no charm and no sweetness of Venus and the Muse; and they asked him more than once what he thought of Anacreon and the other poets of that kind, and whether any of our bards had written such smooth-flowing and delightful poems; “except,” said they, “perhaps a few of Catullus and also possibly a few of Calvus; for the compositions of Laevius were involved, those of Hortensius without elegance, of Cinna harsh, of Memmius rude, and in short those of all the poets without polish or melody.” Then Julianus, filled with anger and indignation, spoke as follows in behalf of his mother tongue, as if for his altars and his fires: “I must indeed grant you that in such licentiousness and baseness you would outdo Alcinus and that as you outstrip us in the pleasures of adornment and of food, so you do also in the wantonness of your ditties. But lest you should condemn us, that is, the Latin race, as lacking in Aphrodite's charm, just as if we were barbarous and ignorant, allow me, I pray, to cover my head with my cloak (as they say Socrates did when making somewhat indelicate remarks), and hear and learn that our forefathers also were lovers and devoted to Venus before those poets whom you have named.” Then lying upon his back with veiled head, he chanted in exceedingly sweet tones some verses of Valerius Aedituus, an early poet, and also of Porcius Licinus and Quintus Catulus; and I think that nothing can be found neater, more graceful, more polished and more terse than those verses, either in Greek or in Latin: The verses of Aedituus are as follows:
When, Pamphila, I try to tell my love,
What shall I ask of you? Words fail my lips,
A sudden sweat o'erflows my ardent breast;
Thus fond and silent, I refrain and die.
And he also added other verses of the same poet,
no less sweet than the former ones:
O Phileros, why a torch, that we need not?
Just as we are we'll go, our hearts aflame.
That flame no wild wind's blast can ever quench,
Or rain that falls torrential from the skies;
Venus herself alone can quell her fire,
No other force there is that has such power.
He also recited the following verses of Porcius Licinus:
O shepherds of the lambs, the ewes' young brood,
Seek ye for fire? Come hither; man is fire.
Touch I the wood with finger-tip, it burns;
Your flock's a flame, all I behold is fire.
The verses of Quintus Catulus were these:
My soul has left me; it has fled, methinks,
To Theotimus; he its refuge is.
But what if I should beg that he refuse
The truant to admit, but cast it out?
I'll go to him; but what if I be caught?
What shall I do? Queen Venus, lend me aid.

> Latin: 9. AntoniiAdulescens Iuliani in convivio ad quosdam Graecos lepidissima responsio. ADULESCENS e terra Asia de equestri loco, laetae indolis moribusque et fortuna bene ornatus et ad rem musicam facili ingenio ac lubenti, cenam dabat amicis ac magistris sub urbe in rusculo celebrandae lucis annuae, quam principem sibi vitae habuerat. Venerat tum nobiscum ad eandem cenam Antonius Iulianus rhetor, docendis publice iuvenibus magister, Hispano ore florentisque homo facundiae et rerum litterarumque veterum peritus. Is, ubi eduliis finis et poculis mox sermonibusque tempus fuit, desideravit exhiberi, quos habere eum adulescentem sciebat, scitissimos utriusque sexus, qui canerent voce et qui psallerent. Ac posteaquam introducti pueri puellaeque sunt, iucundum in modum Ἀνακρεόντεια pleraque et Sapphica et poetarum quoque recentium ἐλεγεῖα quaedam erotica dulcia et venusta cecinerunt. Oblectati autem sumus praeter multa alia versiculis lepidissimis Anacreontis senis, quos equidem scripsi, ut interea labor hic vigiliarum et inquies suavitate paulisper vocum atque modulorum adquiesceret: Τὸν ἄργυρον τορεύσας,
Ἥφαιστέ, μοι ποίησον
Πανοπλίας μὲν οὐχί,
Τί γὰρ μάχαισι κἀμοί;
Ποτήριον δὲ κοῖλον
Ὅσον δύνῃ βάθυνον,
Καὶ μὴ ποίει κατʼ αὐτὸ
Μήτʼ ἄστρα μήτʼ ἀμάξας:
Τίδʼ ἀστέρος Βοώτεω;
Ποίησον ἀμπέλους μοι
Καὶ βότρυας κατʼ αὐτῶν
Καὶ χρυσέους πατοῦντας
Ὁμοῦ καλῷ Λυαίῳ
Ἔρωτα καὶ Βάθυλλον. Tum Graeci plusculi qui in eo convivio erant, homines amoeni et nostras quoque litteras haut incuriose docti, Iulianumlulianum rhetorem lacessere insectarique adorti sunt tamquam prorsus barbarum et agrestem, qui ortus terra Hispania foret clamatorque tantum et facundia rabida iurgiosaque esset eiusque linguae exercitationes doceret quae nullas voluptates nullamque mulcedinem Veneris atque Musae haberet; saepeque eum percontabantur quid de Anacreonte ceterisque id genus poetis sentiret et ecquis nostrorum poetarum tam fluentes carminum delicias fecisset. “Nisi Catullus,” inquiunt, “forte pauca et Calvus itidem pauca. Nam Laevius inplicata et Hortensius invenusta et Cinna inlepida et Memmius dura ac deinceps omnes rudia fecerunt atque absona.” Tum ille pro lingua patria, tamquam pro aris et focis, animo inritato indignabundus: “Cedere equidem,” inquit, “vobis debui, ut in tali asotia atque nequitia AlcinoumAlcinum vinceretis et sicut in voluptatibus cultus atque victus, ita in cantilenarum quoque mollitiis anteiretis.” “Sed ne nos, id est nomen Latinum, tamquam profecto vastos quosdam et insubidos, ἀναφροδισίας condemnetis, permittite mihi, quaeso, operire pallio caput, quod in quadam parum pudica oratione Socraten fecisse aiunt, et audite ac discite nostros quoque antiquiores ante eos quos nominastis poetas amasios ac venerios fuisse.” Tum resupinus, capite convelato, voce admodum quam suavi, versus cecinit Valeri Aeditui, veteris poetae, item Porcii Licini et Q. Catuli, quibus mundius, venustius, limatius, tersius, Graecum Latinumve nihil quicquam reperiri puto. Aeditui versus:
Dicere cum conor curam tibi, Pamphila, cordis,
Quid mi abs te quaeram? verba labris abeunt,
Per pectus manat subito subido mihi sudor:
Sic tacitus, subidus, dum pudeo, pereo. Atque item alios versus eiusdem addidit, non hercle minus dulces quam priores:
Qui faculam praefers, Phileros, quae nil opus nobis?
Ibimus sic, lucet pectore flamma satis.
Istam nam potis est vis saeva extinguere venti
Aut imber caelo candidus praecipitans,
At contra hunc ignem Veneris, nisi si Venus ipsa,
Nullast quae possit vis alia opprimere. Item dixit versus Porcii Licini hosce:
Custodes ovium tenerae propaginis, agnum,
Quaeritis ignem? ite huchue; quaeritis? ignis homosthomrost.
Si digito attigero, incendam silvam simul omnem;
Omne pecus flammast, omnia quae video.
Quinti Catuli versus illi fuerunt: Aufugit mi animus; credo, ut solet, ad Theotimum
Devenit. Sic est: perfugium illud habet.
Qui, si non interdixem, ne illunc fugitivum
Mitteret ad se intro, sed magis eiceret?
Ibimus quaesitum. Verum, ne ipsi teneamur,
Formido. Quid ago? Da Venus consilium.

[¶1] 10. That the words praeter propter, which are in common use, were found also in Ennius. I REMEMBER that I once went with Julius Celsinus the Numidian to visit Cornelius Fronto, who was then seriously ill with the gout. When we arrived and were admitted, we found him lying on a Greek couch, and sitting around him a large number of men famous for learning, birth or fortune. By his side stood several builders, who had been summoned to construct some new baths and were exhibiting different plans for baths, drawn on little pieces of parchment. When he had selected one plan and specimen of their work, he inquired what the expense would be of completing that entire project. And when the architect had said that it would probably require about three hundred thousand sesterces, one of Fronto's friends said, “And another fifty thousand, more or less (praeterpropter).” Then Fronto, interrupting the conversation which he had begun to hold about the expense of the baths, and looking at the friend who had said that another fifty thousand would be needed praeterpropter, asked him what that word meant. And the friend replied: 'That word is not my own, for you may hear many men using it; but what the word means you must ask from a grammarian, not from me; and at the same time he pointed out a grammarian of no little fame as a teacher at Rome, who was sitting there with them. Then the grammarian, surprised by the uncertainty about a familiar and much used word, said: “We inquire about something which does not at all deserve the honour of investigation, for this is some utterly plebeian expression or other, better known in the talk of mechanics than in that of cultivated men.” But Fronto, raising his voice and with a more earnest expression, said: “Sir, does this word seem to you so degraded and utterly faulty, when Marcus Cato and Marcus Varro, and the early writers in general, have used it as necessary and as good Latin?” And thereupon Julius Celsinus reminded him that also in the tragedy of Ennius entitled Iphigeina the very word about which we were inquiring was found, and that it was more frequently corrupted by the grammarians than explained. Consequently, he at once asked that the Iphigenia of Quintus Ennius be brought and in a chorus of that tragedy we read these lines:
That man in truth who knows not leisure's use
More trouble has than one by tasks pursued;
For he who has a task must be performed,
Devotes himself to that with heart and soul;
The idle mind knows not what 'tis it wants.
With us it is the same; for not at home
Are we nor in the field; from place to place
We haste; and once arrived, we would be gone.
Aimless we drift, we live but more or less
(praeterpropter). When this had been read there, then Fronto said to the grammarian, who was already wavering:
Have you heard, most worthy master, that your Ennius used praeterpropter, and that too in an expression of opinion resembling the austerest diatribes of the philosophers? We beg you then to tell us, since we are now investigating a word used by Ennius, what the hidden meaning is in this line:
Aimless we drift, we live but more or less. And the grammarian, in a profuse sweat and blushing deeply, since many of the company were laughing long and loud at this, got up, saying as he left: “I will tell you at a later time, when we are alone, Fronto, in order that ignorant folk may not hear and learn.” And so we all rose, leaving the consideration of the word at that point.

> Latin: 10. Verba haec, “praeter propter,” in usu vulgi protrita, etiam Ennii fuisse. MEMINI me quondam et Celsinum Iulium Numidam ad Frontonem Cornelium, pedes tunc graviter aegrum, ire et visere. Atque ubi introducti sumus, offendimus eum cubantem in scimpodio Graeciensi, circumundique sedentibus multis doctrina aut genere aut fortuna nobilibus viris. Adsistebant fabri aedium complures, balneis novis moliendis adhibiti, ostendebantque depictas in membranulis varias species balnearum. Ex quibus cum elegisset unam formam speciemque operis, interrogavit quantus esset pecuniae sumptus ad id totum opus absolvendum. Cumque architectus dixisset necessaria videri esse sestertia ferme trecenta, unus ex amicis Frontonis: “Et praeterpropter,” inquit, “alia quinquaginta.” Tum Fronto, dilatis sermonibus quos habere de balnearum sumptu institerat, aspiciens ad eum amicum qui dixerat quinquaginta esse alia praeterpropter necessaria, eum interrogavit quid significaret verbum “praeterpropter.” Atque ille amicus: “Non meummeutm,” inquit, “hoc verbum est, sed multorum hominumhominurm quos loquentis id audias;” “quid autem id verbum significet, non ex me, sed ex grammatico quaerundum est,” ac simul digito demonstrat grammaticum, haud incelebri nomine Romae docentem unaque ibi sedentem. Tum grammaticus usitati pervulgatique verbi obscuritate motus: “Quaerimus,” inquit, “quod honore quaestionis minime dignum est.” “Nam nescio quid hoc praenimis plebeium est et in opificum sermonibus quam in hominum doctorum notius.” At enim Fronto, iam voce atque vultu intentiore: “Itane,” inquit, “magister, dehonestum tibi deculpatumque hoc verbum videtur, quo et M. Cato et M. Varro et pleraque aetas superior ut necessario et Latino usi sunt?” Atque ibi Iulius Celsinus admonuit, in tragoedia quoque Enni quae Iphigenia inscripta est, id ipsum de quo quaerebatur scriptum esse et a grammaticis contaminari magis solitum quam enarrari. Quocirca statim proferri Iphigeniam Q. Enni iubet. In eius tragoediae choro inscriptos esse hos versus legimus:
Óotiotio qui néscit uti
Plús negoti habét quam cum est negótium in negótio.
Nám cui quod agat ínstitutumst, nil nisi negótium,
Íd agit, id studét, ibi mentem atque ánimum delectát suum,
Óotiosotioso in ótio animus néscit quid velit.
Hóc idem est; em néque domi nunc nós nec militiaé sumussumlus,
Ímus huchue, hinc illuc, cum illuc véntum est, ire illínc lubet,
Íincertencerte errat ánimus, praeterprópter vitam vívitur. Hoc ibi lectum est, tum deinde Fronto ad grammaticum iam labentem: “Audistine,” inquit, “magister optime, Ennium tuum dixisse ‘praeterpropter’ et cum sententia quidem tali, quali severissimae philosophorum esse obiurgationes solent? Petimus igitur dicas, quoniam de Enniano iam verbo quaeritur, qu sit remotus huiusce versus sensus:
Íincertencerte errat ánimus, praeterprópter vitam vívitur.” Et grammaticus sudans multum ac rubens multum, cum id plerique prolixius riderent, exsurgitexurgit et abiens: “Tibi,” inquit, “Fronto, postea uni dicam, ne inscitiores audiant ac discant.” Atque ita omnes, relicta ibi quaestione verbi, consurreximus.

[¶2] 11. He gives some amatory verses of Plato, with which the philosopher amused himself when he was a very young man and was contending for the tragic prize. HERE are two Greek verses that are famous and deemed worthy of remembrance by many learned men because of their charm and graceful terseness. There are in fact not a few ancient writers who declare that they are the work of the philosopher Plato, with which he amused himself in his youth, while at the same time he was beginning his literary career by writing tragedies. My soul, when I kissed Agathon, did pass My lips; as though, poor soul, 'would leap across. This distich a friend of mine, a young man no stranger to the Muses, has paraphrased somewhat boldly and freely in a number of lines. And since they seemed to me not undeserving of remembrance, I have added them here:
When with my parted lips my love I kiss,
And quaff the breath's sweet balm from open mouth,
Smitten with love my soul mounts to my lips,
And through my love's soft mouth its way would take,
Passing the open gateway of the lips.
But if our kiss, delayed, had been prolonged,
By love's fire swayed my soul that way had ta'en,
And left me. Faith, a wondrous thing it were,
If I should die, but live within my love.

> Latin: 11. Ponit versus Platonis amatorios quos admodum iuvenis lusit, dum tragoediis contendit. CELEBRANTUR duo isti Graeci versiculi multorumque doctorum hominum memoria dignantur, quod sint lepidissimi et venustissimae brevitatis. Neque adeo pauci sunt veteres scriptores, qui quidem eos Platonis esse philosophi adfirmant, quibus ille adulescens luserit, cum tragoediis quoque eodem tempore faciendis praeluderet:
Τὴν ψυχὴν Ἀγάθωνα φιλῶν ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἔσχον
Ἤλθε γὰρ ἡ τλήμων ὡς διαβησομένη. Hoc δίστιχον amicus meus, οὐκ ἄμουσος adulescens, in plures versiculos licentius liberiusque vertit. Qui quoniam mihi quidem visi sunt non esse memoratu indigni, subdidi: Cum semihiulco savio
Meo puellum savior
Dulcemque florem spiritus
Duco ex aperto tramite,
Anima male aegra et saucia
Cucurrit ad labeas mihimilli,
Rictuinque in oris pervium
Et labra pueri mollia,
Rimata itineri transitus,
Ut transiliret, nititur.
Tum si morae quid plusculaeplusculac
Fuisset in coetu osculi,
Amoris igni percita
Transisset et me linqueret
Et mira prorsum res foret,
Ut fierem ad me mortuus,
Ad puerum ut intus viverem.

[¶3] 12. A discourse of Herodes Atticus on the power and nature of pain, and a confirmation of his view by the example of an ignorant countryman who cut down fruit-trees along with thorns. I ONCE heard Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, holding forth at Athens in the Greek language, in which he far surpassed almost all the men of our time in distinction, fluency, and elegance of diction. He was speaking at the time against the a)pa/qeia, or “lack of feeling” of the Stoics, in consequence of having been assailed by one of that sect, who alleged that he did not endure the grief which he felt at the death of a beloved boy with sufficient wisdom and fortitude. The sense of the discourse, so far as I remember, was as follows: that no man, who felt and thought normally, could be wholly exempt and free from those emotions of the mind, which he called pa/qh, caused by sorrow, desire, fear, anger and pleasure; and even if he could so resist them as to be free from them altogether, he would not be better off, since his mind would grow weak and sluggish, being deprived of the support of certain emotions, as of a highly necessary stimulus. For he declared that those feelings and impulses of the mind, though they become faults when excessive, are connected and involved in certain powers and activities of the intellect; and therefore, if we should in our ignorance eradicate them altogether, there would be danger lest we lose also the good and useful qualities of the mind which are connected with them. Therefore he thought that they ought to be regulated, and pruned skilfully and carefully, so that those only should be removed which are unsuitable and unnatural, lest in fact that should happen which once (according to the story) befell an ignorant and rude Thracian in cultivating a field which he had bought. “When a man of Thrace,” said he, “from a remote and barbarous land, and unskilled in agriculture, had moved into a more civilized country, in order to lead a less wild life, he bought a farm planted with olives and vines. Knowing nothing at all about the care of vines or trees, he chanced to see a neighbour cutting down the thorns which had sprung up high and wide, pruning his ash-trees almost to their tops, pulling up the suckers of his vines which had spread over the earth from the main roots, and cutting off the tall straight shoots on his fruit and olive trees. He drew near and asked why the other was making such havoc of his wood and leaves. The neighbour answered; 'In order to make the field clean and neat and the trees and vines more productive.' The Thracian left his neighbour with thanks, rejoicing that he had gained some knowledge of farming. Then he took his sickle and axe; and thereupon in his pitiful ignorance the fellow cuts down all his vines and olives, lopping off the richest branches of the trees and the most fruitful shoots of the vines, and, with the idea of clearing up his place, he pulls up all the shrubs and shoots fit for bearing fruits and crops, along with the brambles and thorns, having learnt assurance at a ruinous price and acquired boldness in error through faulty imitation. Thus it is,” said Herodes, “that those disciples of insensibility, wishing to be thought calm, courageous and steadfast because of showing neither desire nor grief, neither wrath nor joy, root out all the more vigorous emotions of the mind, and grow old in the torpor of a sluggish and, as it were, nerveless life.”

> Latin: 12. Dissertatio Herodis Attici super vi et natura doloris suaeque opinionis affirmatio per exemplum indocti rustici, qui cum rubis fructiferas arbores praecidit. HERODEM ATTICUM, consularem virum, Athenis disserentem audivi Graeca oratione, in qua fere omnes memoriae nostrae universos gravitate atque copia et elegantia vocum longe praestitit. Disseruit autem contra ἀπάθειαν Stoicorum, lacessitus a quodam Stoico, tamquam minus sapienter et parum viriliter dolorem ferret ex morte pueri quem amaverat. In ea dissertione, quantulum memini, huiuscemodi sensus est: quod nullus usquam homo, qui secundum naturam sentiret et saperet, adfectionibus istis animi, quas πάθη appellabat, aegritudinis, cupiditatis, timoris, irae, voluptatis, carere et vacare totis posset, atque, si posset etiam obniti ut totis careret, non fore id melius, quoniam langueret animus et torperet, adfectionum quarundam adminiculis, ut necessaria plurimum temperie privatus. Dicebat enim sensus istos motusque animi, qui cum inmoderatiores sunt vitia fiunt, innexos inplicatosque esse vigoribus quibusdam mentium et alacritatibus, ac propterea, si omnino omnis eos inperitius convellamus, periculum esse ne eis adhaerentes bonas quoque et utiles animi indoles amittamus. Moderandos esse igitur et scite considerateque purgandos censebat, ut ea tantum quae aliena sunt contraque naturam videntur et cum pernicie adgnata sunt detrahantur, ne profecto id accidat quod cuipiam Thraco insipienti et rudi in agro quem emerat procurando venisse usu fabulast. “Homo Thracus,” inquit, “ex ultima barbaria, ruris colendi insolens, cum in terras cultiores humanioris vitae cupidine commigrasset, fundum mercatus est oleo atque vino consitum. Qui cum nihil admodum super vite aut arbore colenda sciret, videt forte vicinum rubos alte atque late obortas excidentem, fraxinos ad summum prope verticem deputantem, suboles vitium e radicibus caudicum super terrain fusas revellentem, stolones in pomis aut in oleis proceros atque derectos amputantem, acceditque prope et cur tantam ligni atque frondium caedem faceret percontatus est.” “Et vicinus ita respondit: ‘Ut ager,’ inquit, ‘mundus purusque fiat, eius arbor atque vitis fecundior.’” “Discedit ille a vicino gratias agens et laetus, tamquam adeptus rei rusticae disciplinam. Tum falcem ibi ac securim capit: atque ibi homo misere inperitus vites suas sibi omnis et oleas detruncat comasque arborum laetissimas uberrimosque vitium palmites decidit et frutecta atque virgulta simul omnia, pomis frugibusque gignendis felicia, cum sentibus et rubis purificandi agri gratia convellit, mala mercede doctus audaciam fiduciamque peccandi imitatione falsa eruditus.” “Sic,” inquit, “isti apathiae sectatores, qui videri se esse tranquillos et intrepidos et inmobiles volunt, dum nihil cupiunt, nihil dolent, nihil irascuntur, nihil gaudent, omnibus vehementioris animi officiis amputatis, in torpore ignavae et quasi enervatae vitae consenescunt.”

[¶4] 13. That what we call pumiliones the Greeks term na/noi. CORNELIUS FRONTO, Festus Postumius, and Sulpicius Apollinaris chanced to be standing and talking together in the vestibule of the Palace; and I, being near by with some companions, eagerly listened to their conversations on literary subjects. Then said Fronto to Apollinaris: “I pray you, Sir, inform me whether I was right in forbearing to call men of excessively small stature nam and in preferring the term pumiliones; for I remembered that the latter word appears in the books of early writers, while I thought that nam was vulgar and barbarous.” “It is true,” replied Apollinaris, that the word nam is frequent in the language of the ignorant vulgar; yet it is not barbarous, but is thought to be of Greek origin; for the Greeks called men of short and low stature, rising but little above the ground, na/noi, or 'dwarfs,' using that word by the application of a certain etymological principle corresponding with its meaning, and if my memory is not at fault, “said he,”it occurs in the comedy of Aristophanes entitled (Olka/des, or The Cargo Boats. "But this word would have been given citizenship by you, or established in a Latin colony, if you had deigned to use it, and it would be very much more acceptable than the low and vulgar words which Laberius introduced into the Latin language." Thereupon Postumius Festus said to a Latin grammarian, a friend of Fronto's: “Apollinaris has told us that nam is a Greek word; do you inform us whether it is good Latin, when it is used, as it commonly is, of small mules or ponies, and in what author it is found.” And that grammarian, a man very well versed in knowledge of the early literature, said: “If I am not committing sacrilege in giving my opinion of any Greek or Latin word in the presence of Apollinaris, I venture to reply to your inquiry, Festus, that the word is Latin and is found in the poems of Helvius Cinna, a poet neither obscure nor without learning” And he gave the verses themselves, which I have added, since I chanced to remember them:
But now through Genunanian willow groves
the wagon hurries me with dwarf steeds (bigis nanis) twain.

> Latin: 13. Quos “pumiliones” dicimus, Graece νάνους appellari. STABANT forte una in vestibulo Palatii fabulantestabulantes Fronto Cornelius et Festus Postumius et Apollinaris Sulpicius, atque ego ibi adsistens cum quibusdam aliis sermones eorum, quos de litterarum disciplinis habebant, curiosius captabam. Tum Fronto Apollinari: “Fac me,” inquit, “oro, magister, ut sim certus an recte supersederim ‘nanos’ dicere parva nimisnimtis statura homines maluerimque eos ‘pumiliones’ appellare, quoniam hoc scriptum esse in libris veterum memineram, ‘nanos’ autem sordidum esse verbum et barbarum credebam?” “Est quidem,” inquit, “hoc” Apollinaris, “in consuetudine inperiti vulgi frequens, sed barbarum non est censeturque linguae Graecae origine; νάνους enim Graeci vocaverunt brevi atque humili corpore homines paulum supra terrain extantes idque ita dixerunt adhibita quadam ratione etymologiae cum sententia vocabuli competente et, si memoria,” inquit, “mihi non labat scriptun hoc est in comoedia Aristophanis, cui nomen est Ὁλκάδες. Fuisset autem verbum hoc a te civitate donatum aut in Latinam coloniamcolonial deductum, si tu eo uti dignatus fores, essetque id inpendio probabilius quam quae a Laberio ignobilia nimis et sordentia in usum linguae Latinae intromissa sunt.” Tum Festus Postumius grammatico cuipiam Latino, Frontonis familiari: “Docuit,” inquit, “nos Apollinaris, ‘nanos’ verbum Graecum esse, tu nos doce, quoniam de mulis aut eculeis humilioribus vulgo dicitur, anne Latinum sit et aput quem scriptum reperiatur?” Atque ille grammaticus, homo sane perquam in noscendis veteribus scriptis exercitus: “Si piaculumpiaculunm,” inquit, “non committiturcomniittitur, praesente Apollinare, quid de voce ulla Graeca Latinave sentiam dicere, audeo tibi, Feste, quaerenti respondere esse hoc verbum Latinum scriptumque inveniri in poematispoeinatis Helvi Cinnae, non ignobilis neque indocti poetae,” versusque eius ipsos dixit, quos, quoniam memoriae mihi forte aderant, adscripsi: At nunc me Genumana per salicta Bigis raeda rapit citata nanis.

[¶5] 14. That Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, the most learned Romans of their time, were contemporaries of Caesar and Cicero, and that the commentaries of Nigidius, because of their obscurity and subtlety, did not become popular. THE time of Marcus Cicero and Gaius Caesar had few men of surpassing eloquence, but in encyclopaedic learning and in the varied sciences by which humanity is enobled it possesses two towering figures in Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius. Now the records of knowledge and learning left in written form by Varro are familiar and in general use, the observations of Nigidius, however, are not so widely known, but their obscurity and subtlety have caused them to be neglected, as of little practical value. As a specimen I may cite what I read a short time ago in his work entitled Grammatical Notes; from this book I have made a few extracts, as an example of the nature of his writings. When discussing the nature and order of the letters which the grammarians call vocales, or “vowels,” he wrote the following, which I leave unexplained, in order to test my readers' powers of application: “A and o,” he says, “always stand first in diphthongs, i and u always second, e both follows and precedes; it precedes in Euripus, follows in Aemilius. If anyone supposes that u precedes in the words Valeriuis, Vannonis, and Volusius, or that i precedes in iampridem (long ago), iecur (liver), iocis (joke), and iucundus (agreeable), he will be wrong, for when these letters precede, they are in fact not vowels.” These words also are from the same book: “Between the letters n and g another element is introduced, as in the words aguis (snake), angari, ancora (anchor), increpat (chides), incurrit (runs upon), and ingenuus (free-born). In all these we have, not a true n, but a so-called n adullerinum. For the tongue shows that it is not an ordinary n; since if it were that sound, the tongue would touch the palate in making it.” Then in another place we find this: “I do not charge those Greeks with so great ignorance in writing ou (-ū) with o and v, as I do those who wrote ei (=ī) with e and i; for the former the Greeks lid from necessity, in the latter case there was no compulsion.”

> Latin: 14. Contemporaneos fuisse Caesari et Ciceroni M. Varronem et P. Nigidium, aetatis suae doctissimos Ronanos; et quod Nigidii commentationes propter earum obscuritatem subtilitatemque in vulgus non exeunt. AETAS M. Ciceronis et C. Caesaris praestanti facundia paucos habuit, doctrinarum autem multiformium variarumque artium quibus humanitas erudita est columina habuit M. Varronem et P. Nigidium. Sed Varronis quidem monumenta rerum ac disciplinarum, quae per litteras condidit, in propatulo frequentique usu feruntur, Nigidianae autem commentationes non proinde in volgus exeunt et obscuritas subtilitasque earum tamquam parum utilis derelicta est. Sicuti sunt quae paulo ante legimus in Commentariis eius, quos Grammaticos inscripsit, ex quibus quaedam ad demonstrandum scripturaeseripturae genus exempli gratia sumpsisunpsi. Nam, cum de natura atque ordine litterarum dissereret quas grammatici “vocales” appellant, verba haec scripsit, quae reliquimus inenarrata ad exercendam legentium intentionem: “A et o semper principes sunt, i et u semper subditae, e et subit et praeit; praeit in ‘Euripo,’ subit in ‘Aemilio.’ Si quis putat praeire u in his verbis: ‘Valerius,’ ‘Vennonius,’ ‘Volusius,’ aut i in his: ‘iampridemianpridem,’ ‘iecur,’ ‘iocus,’ ‘iucundum,’ errabit, quod hae litterae, cum praeeunt, ne vocales quidem sunt.” Item ex eodem libro verba haec sunt: “Inter litteram n et g est alia vis, ut in nomine ‘anguis’ et ‘angarianrari’ et ‘ancorae’ et ‘increpat’ et ‘incurrit’ et ‘ingenuusingeluus.’ In omnibus his non verum n, sed adulterinum ponitur. Nam n non esse lingua indicio est; nam si ea littera esset, lingua palatum tangeret.” Alio deinde in loco ita scriptum: “Graecos non tantae inscitiae arcesso, qui ou ex o et u scripserunt, quantae qui ei ex e et i; illud enim inopia fecerunt, hoc nulla re subacti.”

## 45. Book XX · chapter 1

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/45/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/45/#p-N

[¶0] 1. A discussion of the jurist Sextus Caecilius and the philosopher Favorinus about the laws of the Twelve Tables.

> Latin: 1. Disputatio Sex. Caecilii iureconsulti et Favorini philosophi de legibus Duodecim Tabularum.

[¶1] SEXTUS CAECILIUS was famed for his knowledge, experience and authority in the science of jurisprudence and in understanding and interpreting the laws of the Roman people.

> Latin: SEXTUS CAECILIUS in disciplina iuris atque in legibus populi Romani noscendis interpretandisque scientia, usu auctoritateque inlustris fuit.

[¶2] It happened that as we were waiting to pay our respects to Caesar, the philosopher Favorinus met and accosted Caecilius in the Palatine square in my presence and that of several others.

> Latin: Ad eum forte in area Palatina, cum salutationem Caesaris opperiremur, philosophus Favorinus accessit conlocutusque est, nobis multisque aliis praesentibus.

[¶3] In the conversation which they carried on at the time mention was made of the laws of the decemvirs, which the board of ten appointed by the people for that purpose wrote and inscribed upon twelve tablets.

> Latin: In illis tunc eorum sermonibus orta mentiost legum decemviralium, quas decemviri eius rei gratia a populo creati conposuerunt, in duodecim tabulas conscripserunt.

[¶4] When Sextus Caecilius, who had examined and studied the laws of many cities, said that they were drawn up in the most choice and concise terms, Favorinus rejoined: “It may be as you say in the greater part of those laws; for I read your twelve tables with as eager interest as I did the twelve books of Plato On the Laws. But some of them seem to me to be either very obscure or very cruel, or on the other hand too mild and lenient, or by no means to be taken exactly as they are written.”

> Latin: Eas leges cum Sex. Caecilius, inquisitis exploratisque multarum urbium legibus, eleganti atque absoluta brevitate verborum scriptas diceret, “Sit,” inquit, “hoc” Favorinus, “in pleraque earum legum parte ita uti dicis; non enim minus cupide tabulas istas duodecimduodecin legi quam illos duodecim libros Platonis De Legibus. Sed quaedam istic esse animadvertuntur aut obscurissima aut durissima aut lenia contra nimis et remissa aut nequaquam ita, ut scriptum est, consistentia.”
“Obscuritates,” inquit Sex.

[¶5] “As for the obscurities,” said Sextus Caecilius, “let us not charge those to the fault of the makers of the laws, but to the ignorance of those who cannot follow their meaning, although they also who do not fully understand what is written may he excused.

> Latin: Caecilius, “non adsignemus culpae scribentium, sed inscitiae non adsequentium, quamquam hi quoque ipsi, qui quae scriptascript sunt minus percipiunt culpa vacant.”

[¶6] For long lapse of time has rendered old words and customs obsolete, and it is in the light of those words and customs that the sense of the laws is to be understood. As a matter of fact, the laws were compiled and written in the three hundredth year after the founding of Rome, and from that time until to-day is clearly not less than six hundred years.

> Latin: “Nam longa aetas verba atque mores veteres oblitteravit, quibus verbis moribusque sententia legum conprehensa est. Trecentesimo quoque anno post Romam conditam tabulae conpositae scriptaeque sunt, a quo tempore ad hunc diem anni esse non longe minus sescenti videntur.”

[¶7] But what can be looked upon as cruel in those laws? Unless you think a law is cruel which punishes with death a judge or arbiter appointed by law, who has been convicted of taking a bribe for rendering his decision, or which hands over a thief caught in the act to be the slave of the man from whom he stole, and makes it lawful to kill a robber who comes by night.

> Latin: “Dure autem scriptum esse in istis legibus quid existimari potest? nisi duram esse legemlegend putas, quae iudicem arbitrumve iure datum, qui ob rem iudicandam pecuniam accepisse convictus est, capite poenitur aut quae furemfurerm manifestum ei cui furtum factum est in servitutem tradit, nocturnum autem furem ius occidendi tribuit.”

[¶8] Tell me, I pray, tell me, you deep student of philosophy, whether you think that the perfidy of a juror who sells his oath contrary to all laws, human and divine, or the intolerable audacity of an open theft, or the treacherous violence of a nocturnal footpad, does not deserve the penalty of death?” “Don't ask me,” said Favorinus, “what I think.

> Latin: “Dic enim, quaeso, die, vir sapientiae studiosissime, an aut iudicis illius perfidiam contra omnia divina atque humana iusiurandum suum pecunia vendentis aut furis manifesti intolerandam audaciam aut nocturni grassatoris insidiosam violentiam non dignam esse capitis poena existumes?”

[¶9] For you know that, according to the practice of the sect to which I belong, I am accustomed rather to inquire than to decide. But the Roman people is a judge neither insignificant nor contemptible, and while they thought that such crimes ought to be punished, they yet believed that punishments of that kind were too severe;

> Latin: “Noli,” inquit Favorinus, “ex me quaerere quid ego existumem. Scis enim solitum esse me, pro disciplina sectae quam colo, inquirere potius quam decernere.”

[¶10] for they have allowed the laws which prescribed such excessive penalties to die out from disuse and old age.

> Latin: “Sed non levis existimator neque aspernabilis est populus Romanus, cui delicta quidem istaec vindicanda, poenae tamen huiuscemodi nimis durae esse visae sunt; passus enim est leges istas de tam inmodico supplicio situ atque senio emori.”

[¶11] Just so they considered it also an inhuman provision, that if a man has been summoned to court, and being disabled through illness or years is too weak to walk, 'a covered waggon he need not spread'; but the man is carried out and placed upon a beast of burden and conveyed from his home to the praetor in the comitium, as if he were a living corpse. For why should one who is a prey to illness, and unable to appear, be haled into court at the demand of his adversary, clinging to a draught animal?

> Latin: “Sicut illud quoque inhumaniternon scriptum improbavit, quod, si homo in ius vocatus, morbo aut aetate aeger ad ingrediendum invalidus est, ‘arcera non sternitur,’ sed ipse aufertur et iumento imponitur atque ex domo sua ad praetorem in comitium nova funeris facie effertur. Quam enim ob causam morbo adfectus et ad respondendum pro sese non idoneus, iumento adhaerens in ius adversario deportatur?”

[¶12] But as for my statement that some laws were excessively lenient, do not you yourself think that law too lax, which reads as follows with regard to the penalty for an injury: 'If anyone has inflicted an injury upon another, let him be fined twenty-five asses'? For who will be found so poor that twenty-five asses would keep him from inflicting an injury if he desired to?

> Latin: “Quod vero dixi videri quaedam esse inpendio molliora, nonne tibi quoque videtur nimis esse dilutum quod ita de iniuria poenienda scriptum est: ‘Si iniuriam alteri faxsit, viginti quinque aeris poenae sunto’? Quis enim erit tam inops, quem ab iniuriae faciendae libidine viginti quinque asses deterreant?”

[¶13] And therefore your friend Labeo also, in the work which he wrote On the Twelve Tables, expressing his disapproval of that law, says: One Lucius Veratius was an exceedingly wicked man and of cruel brutality. He used to amuse himself by striking free men in the face with his open hand. A slave followed him with a purse full of asses; as often as he had buffeted anyone, he ordered twenty-five asses to be counted out at once, according to the provision of the Twelve Tables' Therefore,” he continued, “the praetors afterwards decided that this law was obsolete and invalid and declared that they would appoint arbiters to appraise damages. Again, some things in those laws obviously cannot, as 1 have said, even be carried out;

> Latin: “Itaque cum eam legem Labeo quoque vester in libris, quos Ad Duodecimn Tabulas conscripsit, non probaret: ‘Quidam,’ inquit, ‘L. Veratius fuit egregie homo inprobus atque inmani vecordia. Is pro delectamento habebat, os hominis liberi manus suae palma verberare. Eum servus sequebatur ferens crumenam plenam assium; ut quemque depalmaverat, numerari statim secundum Duodecim Tabulas quinque et viginti asses iubebat.’ Propterea,” inquit, “praetores postea hanc abolescere et relinqui censuerunt iniuriisque aestumandis recuperatores se daturos edixerunt.”

[¶14] for instance, the one referring to retaliation, which reads as follows, if my memory is correct: 'If one has broken another's limb, there shall be retaliation, unless a compromise be made.'

> Latin: “Nonnulla autem in istis legibus ne consistere quidem, sicuti dixi, visa sunt, velut illa lex talionis, cuius verba, nisi memoria me fallit, haec sunt: ‘Si merbrum rupit, ni cum e pacto, talio esto.’”

[¶15] Now not to mention the cruelty of the vengeance, the exaction even of a just retaliation is impossible. For if one whose limb has been broken by another wishes to retaliate by breaking a limb of has injurer, can he succeed, pray, in breaking the limb in exactly the same manner? In this case there first arises this insoluble difficulty. What about one who has broken another's limb unintentionally?

> Latin: “Praeter enim ulciscendiulclsendi acerbitatem ne procedere quoque executio iustae talionis potest. Nam cui membrum ab alio ruptum est, si ipsi itidem rumpere per talionem velit, quaero, an efficere possit rumpendi pariter membri aequilibrium? In qua re primum ea difficultas est inexplicabilis.”

[¶16] For what has been done unintentionally ought to be retaliated unintentionally. For a chance blow and an intentional one do not fall under the same category of retaliation. How then will it be possible to imitate unintentional action, when in retaliating one has not the right of intention, but of unintention? But if he break it intentionally, the offender will certainly not allow himself to be injured more deeply or more severely;

> Latin: “Quid si membrum,” inquit, “alteri inprudens ruperit? Quod enim inprudentia factum est, retaliari per inprudentiam debet. Ictus quippe fortuitus et consultus non cadunt sub eiusdem talionis similitudinem. Quonam igitur modo inprudentem poterit imitari, qui in exequenda talione non licentiae ius habet, sed inprudentiae?”

[¶17] but by what weight and measure this can be avoided, I do not understand.

> Latin: “Sed et si prudens ruperit, nequaquam patietur aut altius se laedi aut latius. Quod cuimodicuiusmodi libra atque mensura caveri possit, non reperio.”

[¶18] Nay more, if retaliation is taken to a greater extent or differently, it will be a matter of absurd cruelty that a counter-action for retaliation should arise and an endless interchange of retaliation take place.

> Latin: “Quin etiam, si quid plus erit aliterve conmissum, res fiet ridiculae atrocitatis, ut contraria actio mutuaenutuae talionis oriatur et adolescat infinita quaedam reciprocatio talionum.”

[¶19] But that enormity of cutting and dividing a man's body, if an individual is brought to trial for debt and adjudged to several creditors, I do not care to remember, and I am ashamed to mention it. For what can seem more savage, what more inconsistent with humanity, than for the limbs of a poor debtor to be barbarously butchered and sold, just as to-day his goods are divided and sold?” Then Sextus Caecilius, throwing both arms about Favorinus, said: " You are indeed the one man within my memory who is most familiar both with Greek and with Roman lore.

> Latin: “Nam de inmanitate illa secandi partiendique humani corporis, si unus ob pecuniam debitam iudicatus addictusque sit pluribus, non libet meminisse et piget dicere. Quid enim videri potest efferatius, quid ab hominis ingenio diversius quam quod membra inopis debitoris acerbissimo laniatu distrahebantur, sicuti nunc bona venum distrahuntur?”

[¶20] For what philosopher is skilled and learned in the laws of his sect to the extent to which you are thoroughly versed in our decemviral legislation?

> Latin: Tum Sex. Caecilius amplexus utraque manu Favorinum, “Tu es,” inquit, “unus profecto in nostra memoriamemorial non Graecae modo, sed Romanae quoque rei peritissimus. Quis enim philosophorum disciplinae suae leges tam scite atque docte callet quam leges tu nostras decemvirales percalluisti?”

[¶21] But yet, I pray you, depart for a little from that academic manner of arguing of yours, and laying aside the passion for attacking or defending anything whatever according to your inclination, consider more seriously what is the nature of the details which you have censured, and do not scorn those ancient laws merely because there are many of them which even the Roman people have now ceased to use.

> Latin: “Sed, quaeso tecum tamen, degrediare paulisperpaulisler curriculis istis disputationum vestrarum academicis omissoque studio, quicquid lubitum est arguendi tuendique, consideres gravius cuimodicuiusmodi sint ea quae reprehendisti,”

[¶22] For you surely are not unaware that according to the manners of the times, the conditions of governments, considerations of immediate utility, and the vehemence of the vices which are to be remedied, the advantages and remedies offered by the laws are often changed and modified, and do not remain in the same condition; on the contrary, like the face of heaven and the sea, they vary according to the seasons of circumstances and of fortune. What seemed more salutary than that law of Stolo limiting the number of acres?

> Latin: “nec ideo contemnas legum istarum antiquitates, quod plerisque ipse iam populus Romanus uti desiverit. Non enim profecto ignoras legum oportunitatesoportunlitates et medellas pro temporumtempoorum moribus et pro rerum publicarum generibus ac pro utilitatum praesentium rationibus proque vitiorum quibus medendum est fervoribus mutari atque flecti neque uno statu consistere, quin, ut facies caeli et maris, ita rerum atque fortunae tempestatibus varientur.”

[¶23] What more expedient than the bill of Voconius regulating the inheritances of women? What was thought so necessary for checking the luxury of the citizens as the law of Licinius and Fannius and other sumptuary laws? Yet all these have been wiped out and buried by the wealth of the State, as if by the waves of a swelling sea. But why did that law appear to you inhumane which in my opinion is the most humane of all; that law, namely, which provides that a beast be furnished for a sick or aged man who is called into court?

> Latin: “Quid salubrius visum est rogatione illa Stolonis iugerum de numero praefinito? Quid utilius plebisscito Voconio de coercendis mulierum hereditatibus? Quid tam necessarium existimatum est propulsandae civium luxuriae quam lex Licinia et Fannia aliaeque item leges sumptuariae? Omnia tamen haec oblitterata et operta sunt civitatis opulentia quasi quibusdam fluctibus exaestuantis.”

[¶24] The words of that law, 'if he summon him to court,' are as follows: If disease or age be a hindrance, let the summoner provide a beast;

> Latin: “Sed cur tibi esse visa est inhumana lex omnium mea quidem sententia humanissima, quae iumentum dari iubet aegro aut seni in ius vocato?”

[¶25] if he does not wish, he need not spread a covered waggon.'

> Latin: “Verba sunt haec de lege ‘Si in ius vocat’: ‘Si morbus aevitasve vitium escit, qui in ius vocabit iumentum dato; si nolet,’”

[¶26] Do you by any chance suppose that morhus (disease) here means a dangerous sickness with a high fever and ague, and that iumentum (beast) means only one animal, capable of carrying someone on his back; and is it for that reason that you think it was inhumane for a man lying sick-a-bed at his home to be placed upon a beast and hurried off to court? That is by no means the case, my dear Favorinus.

> Latin: “‘arceram ne sternito.’ An tu forte morbum appellari hic putas aegrotationem graver cum febri rapida et quercera, iumentumque dici pecus aliquod unicum tergo vehens? ac propterea minus fuisse humanum existumas aegrotum domi suae cubantem iumento inpositum in ius rapi?”

[¶27] For morbus in that law does not mean a serious complaint attended with fever, but some defect of weakness and indisposition, not involving danger to life. On the contrary, a more severe disorder, having the power of material injury, the writers of those laws call in another place, not morbus alone, but morbus sonticus, or 'a serious disease.' iumentum also does not have only the meaning which it has at present, but it might even mean a vehicle drawn by yoked animals;

> Latin: “Hoc, mi Favorine, nequaquam ita est. Nam morbus in lege ista non febriculosus neque nimium gravis, sed vitium aliquod inbecillitatis atque invalentiae demonstratur, non periculum vitae ostenditur. Ceteroqui morbum vehementiorem, vim graviter nocendi habenten, legum istarum scriptores alio in loco, non per se ‘morbum,’ sed ‘morbum sonticum’ appellant.”

[¶28] for our forefathers formed iumentum from iungo. Furthermore arcera was the name for a waggon, enclosed and shut in on all sides like a great chest (arca), and strewn with robes, and in it men who were too ill or old used to be carried lying down.

> Latin: “Iumentum quoque non id solum significat quod nunc dicitur, sed vectabulum etiam quod a iunctis pecoribus trahebatur; veteres nostri ‘iumentum.’ a ‘iungendo’ dixerunt.”

[¶29] What cruelty then does there seem to you to be in deciding that a waggon ought to be furnished for a poor or needy man who was called into court, if haply through lameness or some other mischance he was unable to walk;

> Latin: “‘Arcera’ autem vocabatur plaustrum tectum undique et munitum, quasi area quaedam magna, vestimentis instrata, qua nimis aegri aut senes portari cubantes solebant.”

[¶30] and in not requiring that ' a closed carriage' be luxuriously strewn, when a conveyance of any kind was sufficient for the invalid? And they made that decision, in order that the excuse of a diseased body might not give perpetual immunity to those who neglected their obligations and put off suits at law; but foolishly." "They assessed inflicted injuries at twenty-five asses.

> Latin: “Quaenam tibi igitur acerbitas esse visa est, quod in ius vocato paupertino homini vel inopi, qui aut pedibus forte aegris esset aut quo alio casu ingredi non quiret, plaustrum esse dandum censuerunt? neque insterni tamen delicate arceram iusserunt, quoniam satis esset invalido cuimodi vectabulum. Atque id fecerunt, ne causatio ista aegri corporis perpetuam vocationem daret fidem detractantibus iurisque actiones declinantibus; sed enim insubide.”

[¶31] They did not, my dear Favorinus, by any means compensate all injuries by that trifling sum, although even that small number of asses meant a heavy weight of copper; for the as which the people then used weighed a pound. But more cruel injuries, such as breaking a bone, inflicted not only on freemen but even on slaves, they punished with a heavier fine, and for some injuries they even prescribed retaliation.

> Latin: “Iniurias factas quinque et viginti assibus sanxerunt. Non omnino omnes, mi Favorine, iniurias aere isto pauco diluerunt, tametsi haec ipsa paucitas assium grave pondus aeris fuit; nam librariis assibus in ea tempestate populus usus est.”
“Sed iniurias atrociores, ut de osse fracto, non liberis modo, verum etiam servis factas, inpensiore damno vindicaverunt, quibusdam autem iniuriis talionem quoque adposuerunt.”

[¶32] This very law of retaliation, my dear sir, you criticized somewhat unfairly, saying with facetious captiousness that it was impossible to carry it out, since injury and retaliation could not be exactly alike, and because it was not easy to break a limb in such a way as to be an exact aequilibrium, or 'balance,' as you put it, of the breaking of the other man's. It is true, my dear Favorinus, that to make exact retaliation is very difficult.

> Latin: “Quam quidem tu talionem, vir optime, iniquius paulo insectatus es ac ne consistere quidem dixisti lepida quadam sollertia verborum, quoniam talioni par non sit talio neque rumpi membrum facile possit ad alterius rupturae, ut ais tu, ‘aequilibrium.’”

[¶33] But the Ten, wishing by retaliation to diminish and abolish such violence as beating and injuring, thought that men ought to be restrained by the fear of such a penalty; and they did not think that so much consideration ought to be had for one who broke another's limb, and refused to compromise by buying off retaliation, as to consider that the question ought to be raised whether he broke it intentionally or not, nor did they make the retaliation in such a case exactly equivalent or weigh it in a balance; but they aimed rather at exacting the same spirit and the same violence in breaking the same part of the body, but not also the same result, since the degree of intention can be determined, but the effect of a chance blow cannot."

> Latin: “Verumst, mi Favorine, talionem parissimam fieri difficillime. Sed decemviri minuere atque extinguere volentes huiuscemodi violentiam pulsandi atque laedendi talione, eo quoque metu coercendos esse homines putaverunt neque eius qui membrum alteri rupisset et pacisci tamen de talione redimenda nollet tantam esse habendam rationem arbitrati sunt, ut an prudens inprudensne rupisset spectandum putarent aut talionem in eo vel ad amussim aequiperarent vel in librili perpenderent; sed potius eundem animum eundemque impetum in eadem parte corporis rumpenda, non eundem quoque casum exigi voluerunt, quoniam modus voluntatis praestari posset, casus ictus non posset.”

[¶34] "But if this is as I say, and as the condition of fairness itself dictates, those mutual retaliations that you imagined were certainly rather ingenious than real.

> Latin: “Quod si ita est ut dico, et ut ipse aequitatis habitus demonstrat, taliones illae tuae reciprocae argutiores profecto quam veriores fuerunt.”

[¶35] But since you think that even this kind of punishment is cruel, what cruelty, pray, is there in doing the same thing to you which you have done to another? especially when you have the opportunity of compromising, and when it is not necessary for you to suffer retaliation unless you choose that alternative.

> Latin: “Sed quoniam acerbum quoque esse hoc genus poenae putas, quae, obsecro te, ista acerbitas est, si idem fiat in te quod tute in alio feceris? praesertim cum habeas facultatem paciscendi et non necesse sit pati talionem, nisi eam tu elegeris.”

[¶36] As for your idea that the praetors' edict was preferable in taking cognizance of injuries, I want you to realize this, that this retaliation also was wont of necessity to be subject to the discretion of a judge.

> Latin: “Quod edictum autem praetorum de aestimandis iniuriis probabilius esse existimas, nolo hoc ignores, hanc quoque ipsam talionem ad aestimationem iudicis redigi necessario solitam.”

[¶37] For if a defendant, who refused to compromise, did not obey the judge who ordered retaliation, the judge considered the case and fined the man a sum of money; so that, if the defendant thought the compromise hard and the retaliation cruel, the severity of the law was limited to a fine. It remains for me to answer your belief that the cutting and division of a man's body is most inhuman.

> Latin: “Nam si reus, qui depecisci noluerat, iudici talionem imperanti non parebat, aestimata lite iudex hominem pecuniae damnabat, atque ita, si reo et pactio gravis et acerba talio visa fuerat, severitas legis ad pecuniae multam redibat.”

[¶38] It was by the exercise and cultivation of all the virtues that the Roman people sprang from a lowly origin to such a height of greatness, but most of all and in particular they cultivated integrity and regarded it as sacred, whether public or private.

> Latin: “Restat, ut ei quod de sectione partitioneque que corporis inmanissimum esse tibi visum est respondeam. Omnibus quidem virtutum generibus exercendis colendisque populus Romanus e parva origine ad tantae amplitudinis instar emicuit, sed omnium maxime atque praecipue fidem coluit sanctamque habuit tam privatim quam publice.”

[¶39] Thus for the purpose of vindicating the public honour it surrendered its consuls, most distinguished men, to the enemy, thus it maintained that a client taken under a man's protection should be held dearer than his relatives and protected against his own kindred, nor was any crime thought to be worse than if anyone was convicted of having defrauded a client.

> Latin: “Sic consules, clarissimos viros, hostibus confirmandae fidei publicae causa dedidit, sic clientem in fidem acceptum cariorem haberi quam propinquos tuendumque esse contra cognatos censuit, neque peius ullum facinus existimatum est quam si cui probareturprolaretur clientem divisui habuisse.”

[¶40] This degree of faith our forefathers ordained, not only in public functions, but also in private contracts, and particularly in the use and interchange of borrowed money; for they thought that this aid to temporary need, which is made necessary by the common intercourse of life, was lost, if perfidy on the part of debtors escaped with a slight punishment.

> Latin: “Hanc autem fidem maiores nostri non modo in officiorum vicibusvicious, sed in negotiorum quoque contractibus sanxerunt maximeque in pecuniae mutuaticae usu atque commercio; adimi enim putaverunt subsidium hoc inopiae temporariae, quo communiscomnunis omnium vita indiget, si perfidia debitorum sine gravi poena eluderet.”

[¶41] Therefore in the case of those liable for an acknowledged debt thirty days were allowed for raising the money to satisfy the obligation, and those days the Ten called 'legitimate,' as if they formed a kind of moratorium, that is to say, a cessation and interruption of judicial proceedings, during which no legal action could be taken against them."

> Latin: “Confessi igitur aeris ac debiti iudicatis triginta dies sunt dati conquirendae pecuniae causa, quam dissolverent,”

[¶42] "Then later, unless they had paid the debt, they were summoned before the praetor and were by him made over to those to whom they had been adjudged;

> Latin: “eosque dies decemviri ‘iustos’ appellaverunt, velut quoddam iustitium, id est iuris inter eos quasi interstitionem quandam et cessationem, quibus diebus nihil cum his agi iure posset.”

[¶43] and they were also fastened in the stocks or in fetters. For that, I think, is the meaning of these words: For a confessed debt and for judgment duly pronounced let thirty days be the legitimate time.

> Latin: “Post deinde, nisi dissolverant, ad praetorem vocabantur et ab eo quibus erant iudicati addicebantur, nervo quoque aut compedibuscompedilus vinciebantur.”

[¶44] Then let there be a laying on of hands, bring him to court. If he does not satisfy the judgment, or unless someone in the presence of the magistrate intervenes as a surety, let the creditor take him home and fasten him in stocks or in fetters. Let him fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds weight, or if he wish, with more. If the prisoner wishes, he may live at his own expense. If he does not, the creditor shall give him a pound of meal each day.

> Latin: “Sic enim sunt, opinor, verba legis: ‘Aeris confessi rebusque iure iudicatis triginta dies iusti sunto. Post deinde manus iniectio esto, in ius ducito. Ni iudicatum facit aut quis endo eo in iure vindicit, secum ducito, vincito aut nervo aut compedibus. Quindecim pondo ne minore aut si volet maiore vincito. Si volet suo vivito. Ni suo vivit, qui eum vinctum habebit, libras farris endo dies dato. Si volet plus dato.’”

[¶45] If he wishes, he may give more.' In the meantime the right of compromising the case was allowed, and if they did not compromise it, debtors were confined for sixty days.

> Latin: “Erat autem ius interea paciscendi ac, nisi pacti forent, habebantur in vinculis dies sexaginta.”

[¶46] During that time on three successive market-days they were brought before the praetor and the amount of the judgment against them was announced. But on the third day they were capitally condemned or sent across the Tiber to be sold abroad.

> Latin: “Inter eos dies trinis nundinis continuis ad praetorem in comitium producebantur, quantaeque pecuniae iudicati essent praedicabatur. Tertiis autem nundinis capite poenas dabant aut trans Tiberim peregre venum ibant.”

[¶47] But they made this capital punishment horrible by a show of cruelty and fearful by unusual terrors, for the sake, as I have said, of making faith sacred. For if there were several, to whom the debtor had been adjudged, the laws allowed them to cut the man who had been made over to them in pieces, if they wished, and share his body.

> Latin: “Sed eam capitis poenam sanciendae, sicuti dixi, fidei gratia horrificam atrocitatis ostentu novisque terroribus metuendam reddiderunt. Nam si plures forent, quibus reus esset iudicatus, secare, si vellent, atque partiri corpus addicti sibi hominis permiserunt.”

[¶48] And indeed I will quote the very words of the law, less haply you should think that I shrink from their odium: 'On the third market day,' it says, 'let them cut him up;

> Latin: “Et quidem verba ipsa legis dicam, ne existimes invidiam me istam forte formidare: ‘Tertiis,’ inquit, ‘nundinis partis secanto. Si plus minusve secuerunt, se fraude esto.’”

[¶49] if they have cut more or less, let them not be held accountable.' Nothing surely is more merciless, nothing less humane, unless, as is evident on the face of it, such a cruel punishment was threatened in order that they might never have to resort to it.

> Latin: “Nihil profecto inmitius, nihil inmanius, nisi, ut re ipsa apparet, eo consilio tanta inmanitas poenae denuntiatast, ne ad eam umquam perveniretur.”
“Addici namque nunc et vinciri multos videmus, quia vinculorum poenam deterrimi homines contemnunt,”

[¶50] For nowadays we see many condemned and bound, because worthless men despise the punishment of bondage; but I have never read or heard of anyone having been cut up in ancient days, since the severity of that law could not be scorned.

> Latin: “dissectum esse antiquitus neminem equidem legi neque audivi, quoniam saevitia ista poenae contemni non quitast.”

[¶51] Or do you suppose, Favorinus, that if the penalty provided by the Twelve Tables for false witness had not become obsolete, and if now, as formerly, one who was convicted of giving false witness was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, that we should see so many guilty of lying on the witness stand? Severity in punishing crime is often the cause of upright and careful living.

> Latin: “An putas, Favorine, si non illa etiam ex Duodecim Tabulis de testimoniis falsis poena abolevisset et si nunc quoque, ut antea, qui falsum testimonium dixisse convictus esset, e saxo Tarpeio deiceretur, mentituros fuisse pro testimonio tam multos quam videmus? Acerbitas plerumque ulciscendi maleficii bene atque caute vivendi disciplinast.”

[¶52] The story of the Alban Mettius Fufetius is not unknown even to me, although I read few books of that kind. Since he had treacherously broken a pact and agreement made with the king of the Roman people, he was bound to two four-horse teams and torn asunder as the horses rushed in opposite directions. Who denies that this is an unusual and cruel punishment? but see what the most refined of poets says:
But you, O Alban, should have kept your word."

> Latin: “Historia de Metto Fufetio Albano nobis quoque, non admodum numero istiusmodi libros lectitantibus, ignota non est, qui, quoniam pactum atque condictum cum rege populi Romani perfide ruperat, binis quadrigis evinctus in diverse nitentibus laceratus est; novum atque asperum supplicium quis negat? sed, quid elegantissimus poeta dicat, vide:
at tu dictis, Albane, maneres.”

[¶53] When Sextus Caecilius had said these and other things with the approval of all who were present, including Favorinus himself, it was announced that Caesar was now receiving, and we separated.

> Latin: Haec taliaque alia ubi Sextus Caecilius, omnibus qui aderant, ipso quoque Favorino adprobante atque laudante, disseruit, nuntiatum est Caesarem iam salutari, et separati sumus.

## 46. Book XX · chapters 2–11

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/46/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gellius-attic-nights/46/#p-N

[¶0] 2. The meaning of the word siticines in a speech of Marcus Cato's. THE word siticines is found in a speech of Marcus Cato entitled Let not a Former Official retain his power, when his Successor arrives. He speaks of siticines, liticines and tubicines. But Caesellius Vindex, in his Notes on Early Words, declares that he knows that liticines played upon the lituus, or “clarion,” and tibicines on the tuba, or “trumpet,” but, being a man of conscientious honesty, he says that he does not know what instrument the siticines used. But I have found in the Miscellanies of Ateius Capito that those were called siticines who played in the presence of those who were “laid away” (sitos), that is, who were dead and buried; and that they had a special kind of trumpet on which they played, differing from those of the other trumpeters.

> Latin: 2. Vocabulum “siticinum” in M. Catonis oratione quid significet. “SITICINES” scriptum est in oratione M. Catonis, quae scribitur Ne Imperium sit Veteri, ubi Nouus Venerit. “Siticines,” intuit, “et liticines et tubicines.” Sed Caesellius Vindex in Conmentariis Lectionum Antiquarum scire quidem se ait, “liticines” lituo cantare et “tubicines” tuba; quid istuc autem sit, quo “siticines” cantant, homo ingenuae veritatis scire sese negat. Nos autem in Capitonis Atei Coniectaneis invenimus, “siticines” appellatos qui apud “sitos” canere soliti essent, hoc est vita functos et sepultos, eosque habuisse proprium genus tubae, qua canerent, a ceterorum tubicinum differens.

[¶1] 3. Why the poet Lucius Accius in his Pragmatica said that sicinnistae was a “nebulous word.” THOSE whom the vulgar call sicinistae, persons who speak more accurately have called sicinnistae with a double n. For the sicinnium was an ancient form of dance. Moreover, those who now stand and sing formerly danced as they sang. Lucius Accius used this word in his Pragmatica, and says that sicinnistae are so called by a “nebulous” (nebuloso) term, using the word “nebulous,” I suppose, because the reason for the term sicinnium was obscure.

> Latin: 3. Quam ob causam L. Accius poeta in Pragmaticis sicinnistas “nebuloso nomine” esse dixerit. Quos “sicinistas” vulgus dicit, qui rectius locuti sunt,“sicinnistas” littera n gemina dixerunt. “Sicinnium” enim genus veteris saltationis fuit. Saltabundi autem canebant, quae nunc stantes canunt. Posuit hoc verbum L. Accius poeta in Pragmaticis appellarique “sicinnistas” ait “nebuloso nomine,” credo propterea “nebuloso,” quod, “sicinnium” cur diceretur, obscurum esset.

[¶2] 4. That devotion to play-actors, and love of them, was shameful and disgraceful, with a quotation of the words of the philosopher Aristotle on that subject. A WEALTHY young man, a pupil of the philosopher Taurus, was devoted to, and delighted in, the society of comic and tragic actors and musicians, as if they were freemen. Now in Greek they call artists of that kind oi( peri\ Dio/nuson texni=tai or “craftsmen of Dionysus.” Taurus, wishing to wean that youth from the intimacy and companionship of men connected with the stage, sent him these words extracted from the work of Aristotle entitled Universal Questions, and bade him read it over every day: “Why are the craftsmen of Dionysus for the most part worthless fellows? Is it because they are least of all familiar with reading and philosophy, since the greater part of their life is given to their essential pursuits and much of their time is spent in intemperance and sometimes in poverty too? For both of these things are incentives to wickedness.”

> Latin: 4. Artificum scaenicorum studium amoremque inhonestum probrosumque esse; et super ea re verba Aristotelis philosophi adscripta. COMOEDOS quispiam et tragoedos et tibicines dives adulescens, Tauri philosophi discipulus, ut liberos homines in deliciis atque in delectamentis habebat. Id genus autem artifices Graece appellantur οἱ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον τεχνῖται. Eum adulescentem Taurus a sodalitatibus convictuque hominum scaenicorum abducere volens, misit ei verba haec ex Aristotelis libro exscripta, qui Προβλήματα Ἐγκύκλια inscriptus est, iussitque uti ea cotidie lectitaret: Διὰ τὶ οἱ Διονυσιακοὶ τεχνῖται ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ πονηροί εἰσιν; ἢ ὅτι ἥκιστα λόγου καὶ φιλοσοφίας κοινωνοῦσι διὰ τὸ περὶ τὰς ἀναγκαίας τέχνας τὸ πολὺ μέρος τοῦ βίου εἶναι, καὶ ὅτι ἐν ἀκρασίαις τὸν πολὺν χρόνον εἰσίν, ὁτὲ δὲ ἐν ἀποριαις; ἀμφότερα δὲ φαυλότητος παρασκευαστικά.

[¶3] 5. Specimens of letters of King Alexander and the philosopher Aristotle. just as they were written; with a rendering of the same into Latin. THE philosopher Aristotle, the teacher of king Alexander, is said to have had two forms of the lectures and instructions which he delivered to his pupils. One of these was the kind called e)cwterika/, or “exoteric,” the other a)kroatika/, or “acroatic.” Those were called “exoteric” which gave training in rhetorical exercises, logical subtlety, and acquaintance with politics; those were called “acroatic” in which a more profound and recondite philosophy was discussed, which related to the contemplation of nature or dialectic discussions. To the practice of the “acroatic” training which I have mentioned he devoted the morning hours in the Lyceum, and he did not ordinarily admit any pupil to it until he had tested his ability, his elementary knowledge, and his zeal and devotion to study. The exoteric lectures and exercises in speaking lie held at the same place in the evening and opened them generally to young men without distinction. This he called deilino\s peri/patos, or “the evening walk,” the other which I have mentioned above, e(wqino/s, or “the morning walk”; for on both occasions he walked as he spoke. He also divided his books on all these subjects into two divisions, calling one set “exoteric,” the other “acroatic.” When King Alexander knew that he had published those books of the “acroatic” set, although at that time the king was keeping almost all of Asia in a state of panic by his deeds of arms, and was pressing King Darius himself hard by attacks and victories, yet in the midst of such urgent affairs he sent a letter to Aristotle, saying that the philosopher had not done right in publishing the books and so revealing to the public the acroatic training, in which he himself had been instructed. “For in what other way,” said he, “can I excel the rest, it that instruction which I have received from you becomes the common property of all the world? For I would rather be first in learning than in wealth and power.” Aristotle replied to him to this purport: “Know that the acroatic books, which you complain have been made public and not hidden as if they contained secrets, have neither been made public nor hidden, since they can be understood only by those who have heard my lectures.” I have added copies of both letters, taken from the book of the philosopher Andronicus. I was particularly charmed with the slender thread of elegant brevity in the letter of each.
"
Alexander to Aristotle, Greeting. “You have not done right in publishing your acroatic lectures; for wherein, pray, shall I differ from other men, if these lectures, by which I was instructed, become the common property of all? As for me, I should wish to excel in acquaintance with what is noblest, rather than in power. Farewell.”
"Aristotle to King Alexander, Greeting. “You have written to me regarding my acroatic lectures, thinking that I ought to have kept them secret. Know then that they have both been made public and not made public. For they are intelligible only to those who have heard me. Farewell, King Alexander.” When trying, in the phrase cunetoi\ ga\r ei)sin, to express the word cunetoi/ by a single Latin term, I found nothing better than what is written by Marcus Cato in the sixth book of his Origins: “Therefore I think the information is more comprehensible (cognobilior).”

> Latin: 5. Exempla epistularum Alexandri regis et Aristotelis philosophi, ita uti sunt edita; eaque in lingua Latinam versa. COMMENTATIONUM suarum artiumque quas discipulis tradebat Aristoteles philosophus, regis Alexandri magister, duas species habuisse dicitur. Alia erant, quae nominabat ἐξωτερικά, alia, quae appellabat ἀκροατικά. Ἐξωτερικά dicebantur, quae ad rhetoricas meditationes facultatemque argutiarum civiliumque rerum notitiam conducebant, ἀκροατικά autem vocabantur, in quibus philosophia remotior subtiliorque agitabatur quaeque ad naturae contemplationes disceptationesve dialecticas pertinebant. Huic disciplinae, quam dixi, ἀκροατικῇ tempus exercendae dabat in Lycio matutinum nec ad eam quemquam temereternere admittebat, nisi quorum ante ingenium et eruditionis elementa atque in discendo studium laboremque explorasset. Illas vero exotericas auditiones exercitiumque dicendi eodem in loco vesperi faciebat easque vulgo iuvenibus sine dilectu praebebat, atque eum δειλινὸν περίπατον appellabat, ilium alterum supra ἐωθινόν; utroque enim tempore ambulans disserebat. Libros quoque suos, earum omnium rerum conmentarios, seorsum divisit, ut alii “exoterici” dicerentur, partim “acroatici.” Eos libros generis “acroatici” cum in vulgus ab eo editos rex Alexander cognovisset atque ea tempestate armis exercitam omnem prope Asiam teneret regemque ipsum Darium proeliis et victoriis urgeret, in illis tamen tantis negotiis litteras ad Aristotelem misit, non eum recte fecisse, quod disciplinas acroaticas, quibus ab eo ipse eruditus foret, libris foras editis involgasset: “Nam qua,” inquit, “alia re praestare ceteris poterimus, si ea quae ex te accepimusaccelimus omnium prosus fient communia? Quippe ego doctrina anteire malim quam copiis atque opulentiis.” Rescripsit ei Aristoteles ad hanc sententiam: “Acroaticos libros, quos editos quereris et non proinde ut arcana absconditos, neque editos scito esse neque non editos, quoniam his solis cognobiles erunt, qui nos audiverunt.” Exempla utrarumque litterarum sumpta ex Andronici philosophi libro subdidi; amavi prosus in utriusque epistula brevitatis elegantissimae filum tenuissimum: Ἀλέξανδρος Ἀριστοτέλει εὖ πράττειν. Οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἐποίησας, ἐκδοὺς τοὺς ἀκροατικοὺς τῶν λόγων· τίνι γὰρ δὴ διοίσομεν ἡμεῖς τῶν ἄλλων, εἰ καθʼ οὓς ἐπαιδεύθημεν λόγους, οὗτοι πάντων ἔσονται κοινοί; ἐγὼ δὲ βουλοίμην ἂν ταῖς περὶ τὰ ἄριστα ἐμπειράαις ἢ ταῖς δυνάμεσιν διαφέρειν. ἔρρωσο. Ἀριστοτέλης βασιλεῖ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ εὖ πράττειν. Ἔγραψάς μοι περὶ τῶν ἀκροατικῶν λόγων, οἰόμενος δεῖν αὐτοὺς φυλάττειν ἐν ἀπορρήτοις. ἴσθι οὖν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐκδεδομένους καὶ μὴ ἐκδεδομένουσ· ξυνετοὶ γάρ εἰσιν μόνοις τοῖς ἡμῶν ἀκούσασιν. ἔρρωσο, Ἀλέξανδρε βασιλεῦ. Hoc ego verbum ξυνετοὶ γὰρ εἰσιν quaerens uno itidem verbo dicere, aliud non repperi quam quod est scriptum a M. Catone in sexta Origine: “Itaque ego,” inquit, “cognobiliorem cognitionem esse arbitror.”

[¶4] 6. It is asked and discussed whether it it is more correct to say habeo curam vestri, or vestrum. I ASKED Sulpicius Apollinaris, when I was studying with him at Rome in my youth, on what principle people said habeo curam vestri, or “I have care for you,” and misereor vestri, or “I pity you,” and what he thought the nominative case of vestri was in such connections. Thereupon he answered me as follows: “You ask something of me about which I too have long been in a state of uncertainty. For it seems to me that one ought to say, not vestri, but vestrum, just as the Greeks say e)pimelou=mai u(mw=n and kh/domai u(mw=n, where u(mw=n is translated by vestrum more fittingly than by vestri, having vos for the naming case, or the 'direct' case, as you called it. Yet in not a few places,” said he, "I find nostri and vestri, not nostrum or vestrum. Thus Lucius Sulla says, in the second book of his Autobiography: “But if it is possible that even now you think of me (nostri), and believe me worthy to be your fellow citizen rather than your enemy, and to fight for you rather than against you, this will surely be due to my services and those of my forefathers.” Also Terence in the Phormio:
Of such a nature are we almost all,
That with ourselves (nostri) we discontented are.
Afranius wrote in an Italian play:
At last some god or other pitied us (nostri).
And Laberius in the Necyomantia:
Detained for many days, he us (nostri) forgot. “There is no doubt,” said he,
that in all these phrases: 'we are discontented,' he forgot us,' 'he pitied us' (nostri), the same case is used as in 'I repent' (mei paenitet), 'he pitied me' (mei miseritus est), ' he forgot me' (mei oblitus est). But mei is the case of questioning, which the grammarians call 'genitive,' and comes from ego; and the plural of ego is nos. Tui also is formed from tu, and the plural of this is vos. For Plautus has thus declined those pronouns in the Pseudolus, in the following lines:
O Sir, could I be told without your words
What wretchedness so grievous troubles you,
I would have spared the trouble of two men:
My own (mei), of asking you, and yours (tis = tui), of answering.
For Plautus here uses mei, not from meus, but from ego. Therefore if you should choose to say patrem mei instead of patrem meum, as the Greeks say to\n pate/ra mou, it would be unusual, but surely correct, and on the same principle that Plautus used labori mei, 'the trouble of me,' for labori meo, ' my trouble.' The same rule applies also in the plural number, where Gracchus said misereri vestrum and Marcus Cicero contentio vestrum, and contention nostrum, and on the same principle Quadrigarius in the nineteenth book of his Annals wrote these words: 'Gaius Marius, when pray will you pity us (nostrum) and the State?' Why then should Terence use paenitet nostri, not nostrum, and Afranius nostri miseritus est, not nostrum? Indeed,
said he,
no reason for this occurs to me except the authority of a certain ancient usage, which was not too anxious or scrupulous in the use of language. For just as vestrorum is often used for vestrum, as in this line from the MustellariaMostellaria of Plautus,
The greatest part of you (vestrorum) know that is true
(where vestrorum is for vestrum), in the same way vestri also is sometimes used for vestrum. But undoubtedly one who desires to speak very correctly will prefer vestrum to vestri. And therefore,
said he, “those have acted most arbitrarily who in many copies of Sallust have corrupted a thoroughly sound reading. For although he wrote in the Catiline: 'Often your forefathers (maiores vestrum), pitying the Roman commons,' they erased vestrum and wrote vestrz over it. And from this that error has grown and found its way into more manuscripts.” This is what I remember hearing from Apollinaris, and I noted down his very words at the time, exactly as they were spoken."

> Latin: 6. Quaesitum atque tractatum utrumn siet rectius dicere “habeo curam vestri,” an “vestrum.” PERCONTABAR Apollinarem Sulpicium, cum eum Romae adulescentulus sectarer, qua ratione diceretur “habeo curam vestri” aut “misereor vestri” et iste casus “vestri” eo in loco quem videretur habere casum rectum. Is hic mihi ita respondit: “Quaeris,” inquit, “ex me, quod mihi quoque est iamdiu in perpetua quaestione. Videtur enim non ‘vestri’ oportere dici, sed ‘vestrum,’ sicuti Graeci locuntur: ἐπιμελοῦμαι ὑμῶν, κήδομαι ὑμῶν, in quo loco ὑμῶν aptius ‘vestrum’ dicitur quam ‘vestri’ et habet casum nominandi, quem tu ‘rectum’ appellasti, ‘vos.’ ” “Invenio tamen,” inquit, “non paucis in locis ‘nostri’ atque ‘vestri’ dictum, non ‘nostrum’ aut ‘vestrum.’ L. Sulla Rerum Gestarum libro secundo: ‘Quod si fieri potest, ut etiam nunc nostri vobis in mentem veniat, nosque magis dignos creditis quibus civibus quam hostibus utamini quique pro vobis potius quam contra vos pugnemus, neque nostro neque maiorum nostrorum inmmerito ’ nobis id continget.” “Terentius in Phormione:
Ita plérique ingenió sumus omnes, nóstri nosmet paénitet.” “Afranius in togata:
Nescío qui nostri míseritust tandém deus.” “Et Laberius in Necyomantia:
Dum diútius retinétur, nostri oblitus est.” “Dubium porro,” inquit, “non est, quin eodem haec omnia casu dicantur: ‘nostri paenitet,’ ‘nostri oblitus est,’ ‘nostri misertus est,’ quo dicitur: ‘mei paenitet,’ ‘mei misertus est,’ ‘mei oblitus est.’” “‘Mei’ autem casus interrogandi est, quem ‘genetivum’ grammatici vocant, et ab eo declinatur, quod est ‘ego’; huius deinde plurativum est ‘nos.’ ‘Tui’ aeque declinatur ab eo, quod est ‘tu’; huius itidem plurativum est ‘vos.’” “Sic namque Plautus declinavit in PseuduloPseudolo in hisce versibus:
Si ex té tacente fíeri possem cértior,
Ere, quaé miseriae té tam misere mácerent,
Duorúm labori ego hóminum parsissém lubens:
Mei té rogandi et tís respondendí mihi.
‘Mei’ enim Plautus hoc in loco non ab eo dixit, quod est ‘meus,’ sed ab eo, quod est ‘ego.’” “Itaque si dicere velis ‘patrem mei’ pro ‘patrem meum,’ quo Graeci modo τὸν πατέρα μου dicunt, inusitate quidem, sed recte profecto eaque ratione dices, qua Plautus dixit ‘labori mei’ pro ‘labori meo.’” “Haec autem ipsa ratio est in numero plurativo, qua Gracchus ‘misereri vestrum’ dixit et qua M. Cicero ‘contentio vestrum’ et ‘contentione nostrum’ dixit quaque item ratione Quadrigarius in Annali undevicesimo verba haec posuit: ‘C. Mari, ecquando te nostrum et reipublicae miserebitur!’ Cur igitur Terentius ‘paenitet nostri,’ non ‘nostrum,’ et Afranius ‘nostri miseritus est,’ non ‘nostrum’?” “Nihil hercle,” inquit, “mihi de ista re in mentem venit, nisi auctoritas quaedam vetustatis non nimis anxie neque superstitiose loquentis. Nam sicuti multifariam scriptum est ‘vestrorum’ pro‘vestrum,’ ut in Plauti MustellariaMostellaria in hoc versu:
Vérum illud esse máxima párs vestrorum intéllegit,
cum vellet ‘maxima pars’ dicere ‘vestrum,’ ita nonnumquam ‘vestri’ quoquc dictum est pro ‘vestrum.’” “Sed proculprocu dubio qui rectissime loqui volet ‘vestrum’ potius dixerit quam ‘vestri.’” “Et idcircoideirco inportunissime,” inquit, “fecerunt, qui in plerisque Sallusti exemplaribus scripturam istam sincerissimam corruperunt. Nam cum ita in Catilina scriptum esset: ‘Saepe maiores vestrum miseriti plebis Romanae,’ ‘vestrum’ obleverunt et ‘vestri’ superscripserunt. Ex quo in plures libros mendae istius indoles manavit.” Haec memini mihi Apollinarem dicere, eaque tunc ipsa, ita ut dicta fuerant, notavi.

[¶5] 7. How the opinions of the Greeks differ as to the number of Niobe's children. A STRANGE and indeed almost absurd variation is to be noted in the Greek poets as to the number of Niobe's children. For Homer says that she had six sons and six daughters; Euripides, seven of each; Sappho, nine; Bacchylides and Pindar, ten; while certain other writers have said that there were only three sons and three daughters.

> Latin: 7. Quam diversae Graecorum sint sententiae super numero Niobae filiorum. MIRA et prope adeo ridicula diversitas fabulae apud Graecos poetas deprenditur super numero Niobae filiorum. Nam Homerus pueros puellasque eius bis senos dicit fuisse, Euripides bis septenos, Sappho bis novenos, Bacchylides et Pindarus bis denos, quidam alii scriptores tres fuisse solos dixerunt.

[¶6] 8. Of things which seem to have sumptwsi/a, or “coincidence,” with the waning and waxing moon. THE poet Annianus owned an estate in the Faliscan territory, where he used to celebrate the vintage season with mirth and jollity. On one occasion he invited me, along with some other friends. As we were dining there one day, a large quantity of oysters were sent from Rome. When they were set before us and proved to be indeed numerous, but neither rich nor very plump, Annianus said: “Of course the moon is waning just now; therefore the oyster also, like some other things, is thin and juiceless.” When we asked what other things wasted away with the waning moon, he answered: "Don't you remember that our Lucilius says:
The moon makes oysters fat, sea-urchins full,
And bulk and substance to the mussels adds? Furthermore, those same things which grow as the moon waxes grow less as it wanes. The eyes of cats also become larger or smaller according to the same changes of the moon. This too," said he, “is much more greatly to be wondered at, which I read in the fourth book of Plutarch's Commentary on Hesiod: ' The onion grows and buds as the moon wanes, but, on the contrary, dries up while the moon waxes. The Egyptian priests say that this is the reason why the people of Pelusium do not eat the onion, because it is the only one of all vegetables which has an interchange of increase and decrease contrary to the waxing and waning of the moon.'”

> Latin: 8. De his quae habere συμπτωσίαν videntur cum luna iuvenescente ac senescente. ANNIANUS poeta in fundo suo, quem in agro Falisco possidebat, agitare erat solitus vindemiam hilare atque amoeniter. Ad eos dies me et quosdam item alios familiaris vocavit. Ibi tum cenantibus nobis magnus ostrearum numerus Roma missus est. Quae cum adpositae fuissent et multae quidem, sed inuberes macriusculaeque essent: “Luna,” inquit Annianus, “nunc videlicet senescit; ea re ostrea quoque, sicuti quaedam alia, tenuis exsuctaque est.” Cum quaereremus quae alia item senescente luna tabescerent, “Nonne Lucilium,” inquit, “nostrum meministis dicere:
Luna alit ostrea et implet echinos, muribus fibras
Et iecur addit?” “Eadem autem ipsa quae crescente luna gliscunt, deficiente contra defiunt.” “Aelurorum quoque oculi ad easdem vices lunae aut ampliores fiunt aut minores.” “Id etiam,” inquit, “multo mirandum est magis, quod apud Plutarchum in quarto In Hesiodum Commentario legi: ‘Cepetum revirescit et congerminat decedente luna, contra autem inarescit adolescente. Eam causam esse dicunt sacerdotes Aegyptii, cur Pelusiotae cepe non edint, quia solum olerum omnium contra lunae augmenta atque damna vices minuendi et augendi habeat contrarias.’”

[¶7] 9. A passage in the Mimiambi of Gnaeus Matius, in which Antonius Iulianus used to delight; and the meaning of Marcus Cato in the speech which he wrote on his own uprightness, when he said: “I have never asked the people for garments.” ANTONIUS JULIANUS used to say that his ears were soothed and charmed by the newly-coined words of Gnaeus Matius, a man of learning, such as the following, which he said were written by Matius in his Mimiambi:
Revive your cold love in your warm embrace,
Close joining lip to lip like amorous dove (columbulatim).
And this also he declared to be charmingly and neatly devised:
The shorn rugs now are drunken with the dye
With which the shell has drenched and coloured them...

> Latin: 9. Qualibus verbis delectari solitus sit Antonius Iulianus, positis in mimiambisMamiambis Cn. Matii; et quid significetsigniificet M. Cato in oratione quam scripsit de innocentia sua, cumcurl ita dictitat: “numquam vestimentavestirnenta a populo poposcipeposci.” Delectari mulcerique aures suas dicebat Antonius Iulianus figmentis verborum novis Cn. Matii, hominis eruditi, qualia haec quoque essent, quae scripta ab eo in Mimiambis memorabat:
Sinuque amicam refice frigidam caldo,
Columbulatim labra conserens labris.
Item id quoque iucunde lepideque fictum dictitabat: Iam tonsiles tapetes ebrii fuco,
Quos concha purpura imbuens venenavit … Quid vocabulum “ex iure manuni consertum” signiticet.

[¶8] 10. The meaning of the phrase ex iure manum consertum. Ex iure manum consertum, or “lay on hands according to law,” is a phrase taken from ancient cases at law, and commonly used to-day when a case is tried before the praetor and claims are made. I asked a Roman grammarian, a man of wide reputation and great name, what the meaning of these words was. But he, looking scornfully at me, said: “Either you are making a mistake, youngster, or you are jesting; for I teach grammar and do not give legal advice. If you want to know anything connected with Virgil, Plautus or Ennius, you may ask me.” “It is a question from Ennius then, master,” said I, “that I am asking. For it was Ennius who used those words.” And when the grammarian said in great surprise that the words were unsuited to poetry and that they were not to be found anywhere in the poems of Ennius, I quoted from memory the following lines from the eighth book of the Annals; for it chanced that I remembered them because of their particularly striking character:
Wisdom is driven forth and force prevails;
They scorn the speaker good, the rude soldier love.
Contending not with learning nor abuse,
They join in strife, not laying claim by law,
But, seeking with the sword both wealth and power,
With force resistless rush. When I had recited these verses from Ennius, the grammarian rejoined: “Now I believe you. But I would have you believe me, when I say that Quintus Ennius learned this, not from his reading of the poets, but from someone learned in the law. Do you too then go and learn from the same source as Ennius.” I followed the advice of this teacher, when he referred me to another from whom I could learn what he ought to have taught me himself: And I thought that I ought to include in these notes of mine what I have learned from jurists and their writings, since those who are living in the midst of affairs and among men ought not to be ignorant of the commoner legal expressions. Manum conserere, “to lay on hands.”... For with one's opponent to lay hold of and claim in the prescribed formula anything about which there is a dispute, whether it be a field or something else, is called vindicia, or “a claim.” A seizing with the hand of the thing or place in question took place in the presence of the praetor according to the Twelve Tables, in which it was written "If any lay on hands in the presence of the magistrate." But when the boundaries of Italy were extended and the praetors were greatly occupied with legal business, they found it hard to go to distant places to settle claims. Therefore it became usual by silent consent, though contrary to the Twelve Tables, for the litigants not to lay on hands in court in the presence of the praetor, but to call for “a laying on of hands according to law”; that is, that the one litigant should summon the other to the object in question, to lay hands on it according to law, and that they should go together to the field under dispute and bring some earth from it to the city to the praetor's court, for example one clod, and should lay claim to that clod, as if it were the whole field. Accordingly Ennius, wishing to describe such action, said that restitution was demanded, not by legal processes, such as are carried on before a praetor, nor by a laying on of hands according to law, but by war and the sword, and by genuine and resistless violence; and he seems to have expressed this by comparing that civil and symbolic power which is exercised in name only and not actually, with warlike and sanguinary violence.

> Latin: 10. “Ex iure manum consertum” verba sunt ex antiquis actionibus, quae, cum lege agitur et vindiciae contenduntur, dici nunc quoque apud praetorem solent. Rogavi ego Romae grammaticum, celebri hominem fama et multo nomine, quid haec verba essent. Tum ille me despiciens: “Aut erras,” inquit, “adulescens, aut ludis; rem enim doceo grammaticam, non ius respondeo; si quid igitur ex Vergilio, Plauto, Ennio quaerere habes, quaeras licet.” “Ex Ennio ergo,” inquam, “est, magister, quod quaero.” “Ennius enim verbis hisce usus est.” Cumque ille demiratus aliena haec esse a poetis et haud usquam inveniri in carminibus Ennii diceret, tumturn ego hos versus ex octavo Annali absentes dixi, nam forte eos tamquam insigniter praeter alios factos
Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res;
Spernitur orator bonus, horridus miles amatur.
Haut doctis dictis certantes nec maledictis,
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes.
Non ex iure manum consertum, sed magis ferro
Rem repetunt regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi. Cum hos ego versus Ennianos dixissem, “Credo,” inquit grammaticus, “iam tibi. Sed tu velim credas mihi, Quintum Ennium didicisse hoc non ex poeticae litteris, set ex iuris aliquo perito. Eas igitur tu quoque,” inquit, “et discas unde Ennius didicit.” Usus consilio sum magistri, quod docere ipse debuerat a quo discerem praetermonstrantis. Itaque id quod ex iureconsultis quodque ex libris eorum didici inferendum his commentariis existimavi, quoniam in medio rerum et hominum vitam qui colunt ignorare non oportet verba actionum civilium celebriora. “Manum conserere” … Nam de qua re disceptatur in iurelure in re praesenti, sive ager sive quid aliud est, cum adversario simul manu prendere et in ea re sollemnibus verbis vindicare, id est “vindicia.” Correptio manus in re atque in loco praesenti apud praetorem ex Duodecim Tabulis fiebat, in quibus ita scriptum est: “Si qui in iure manum conserunt.” Sed postquam praetores, propagatis Italiae finibus, satis iurisdictionis negotiis occupati, proficisci vindiciarum dicendarum causa ad longinquas res gravabantur, institutum est contra Duodecim Tabulas tacito consensus, ut litigantes non in iure apud praetorem manum consererent, sed “ex iure manum consertum” vocarent, id est alter alterum ex iure ad conserendam manum in rem de qua ageretur vocaret atque profecti simul in agrum de quo litigabatur, terrae aliquid ex eo, uti unam glebam, in ius in urbem ad praetorem deferrent et in ea gleba, tamquam in toto agro, vindicarent. Idcirco Ennius significare volens gestum, non, ut ad praetorem solitum est, legitimis actionibus neque ex iure manum consertum, sed bello ferroque et vera vi atque solidasolid rem repeti dixit; quod videtur dixisse, conferens vim illam civilem et festucariam, quae verbo diceretur, non quae manu fieret, cum vi bellica et cruenta.

[¶9] 11. The meaning of the word sculna, used by Marcus Varro. PUBLIUS LAVINIUS is the author of a carefully written book, entitled On Vulgar Words. In it he wrote that scublna was a colloquial form for seculna, “for which,” says he, “more elegant speakers use sequester, or' arbiter.'” Each of these words is derived from sequor, because both parties “follow” the decision of the arbiter who is chosen. Lavinius reminds us in the same book that sculna was written in the division of Marcus Varro's Logistorica entitled Caius. But that which was deposited with the arbiter they spoke of as sequestro positum, “deposited for arbitration,” using the adverb sequestro. Cato, in his speech On Ptolemy, against Thermus, says: “By the immortal gods, do not....”

> Latin: 11. Quid sit “sculuae” verbum positum apud M. Varronem. P. LAVINI liber est non incuriose factus. Is inscriptus est De verbisVerhis Sordidis. In eo scripsit “sculnam” vulgo dici, quasi “seculnam”; “quem qui elegantius,” inquit, “loquuntur ‘sequestrem’ appellant.” Utrumque vocabulum a sequendo factum est, quod eiuscius qui electus sit utraque pars fidem sequatur. “Sculnam” autem scriptum esse in Logistorico M. Varronis, qui inscribitur Catus, idem Lavinius in eodem libro admonet. Sed quod apud sequestrem depositum erat, “sequestro positum” per adverbium dicebant. Cato De Ptolomaeo contra Thermum:“Per deos immortalis, nolite vos atque … ”