Attic Nights

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.