Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights

ToposText · Aulus Gellius · 404 sections

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§ 10.12 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....”
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§ 10.13 On what principle the ancients aid cum partim hominum. Partim hominum 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.”
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§ 10.14 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 factam iri means “to go to inflict an injury,” that is, to take pains that it be inflicted, just so contumelia mihi factum itur expresses the same idea, merely with a change of case.
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§ 10.15 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 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 this 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.”
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§ 10.16 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 through thou earth upon me, for you can, And to the port of Velia return. “How,” said he, “could either Palinurus know and name'the porta 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 [sic] 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, κατὰ πρόληψιν,'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 Chalcis. 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.”
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§ 10.17 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 eye-sight, 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.
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§ 10.18 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 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, 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 victory in that contest. He was a pupil of Isocrates. The tragedy of Theodectes, entitled Mausolus, is still extant today; and that in it Theodectes was more pleasing than in his prose writings is the opinion of Hyginus in his Examples.
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§ 10.19 That a sin is not removed or lessened by citing in excuse similar sins which others have committed; with a passage from 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 among 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.
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§ 10.20 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, did 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 of 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 Gaius 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.”
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§ 10.21 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 novissime. 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.”
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§ 10.22 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 hear 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 market-place, 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.
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§ 10.23 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.”
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§ 10.24 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 εἰς τετάρτην καὶ εἰς πέμπτην, 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 “tomorrow.” 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 di 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 quartus, 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 die quarte of the future.
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§ 10.25 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, κέλητες, barques, smacks, sailing-skiffs, light galleys, which the Greeks call ἱστιοκόποι or ἐπακτρίδες, scouting-boats, galliots, tenders, flat-boats, vetutiae moediae, yachts, pinnaces, long-galliots, scullers' boats, caupuli, arks, fair-weather craft, pinks, lighters, spy-boats.
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§ 10.26 That Asinius Pollio showed ignorance in criticizing Sallust because he used transgressus (crossing) for transfretatio (crossing the sea) and transgressi (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 transgressus, 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 is not 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 before 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.”
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§ 10.27 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 was sent, but two tokens, on one of which was engraved the representation of a staff; on the other that of a spear.
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§ 10.28 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 the 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.
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§ 10.29 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.
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§ 11.1 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 ἰταλοί; 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 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.
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§ 11.2 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-for-nothing 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."
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§ 11.3 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 oftestimony”; 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.
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§ 11.4 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 though 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 ἀδοξούντων and δοκούντων; for not all who are obscure are contemned, nor are the great all revered.
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§ 11.5 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 σκεπτικοί, 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 of that 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 Πυρρωνεῖοι Τρόποι, 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 φαντασίαι, 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 these appearances come. Therefore they call absolutely all things that affect men's sense τὰ πρός τι. 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 is appearance is while they are seen, and such as they are formed by our senses, to whom 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, while the Pyrronians assert that not even that can by any means be regarded as true, because nothing is regarded as true.
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§ 11.6 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.
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§ 11.7 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 words 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 ὀψιμαθία 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 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.
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§ 11.8 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.
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§ 11.9 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.”
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§ 11.10 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.”
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§ 11.11 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.
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§ 11.12 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 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.”
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§ 11.13 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 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.” 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 flower 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.”
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§ 11.14 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.'”
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§ 11.15 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 of the one who plays the part of, or imitates, one who plays, laughs or wanders.” But why Scaurus was led to censure Caesellius on the spot, 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, παραγωγή, 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.
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§ 11.16 That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called πολυπραγμοσύνη. We have frequently observed not a few names of things which we cannot express in Latin by single words, as in Greek; and even if we use very many words, those ideas cannot be expressed in Latin so aptly and so clearly as the Greeks express them by single terms. Lately, when a book of Plutarch had been brought to me, and I had read its title, which was Περὶ Πολυπραγμοσύνης, a man who was unacquainted with Greek letters and words asked who the author was and what the book was about. The name of the writer I gave him at once, but I hesitated when on the point of naming the subject of the work. At first indeed, since it did not seem to me that it would be a very apt interpretation if I said that it was written De Negotiositate or “On Busyness,” I began to rack my brains for something else which would render the title word for word, as the saying is. But there was absolutely nothing that I remembered to have read, or even that I could invent, that was not to a degree harsh and absurd, if I fashioned a single word out of multitudo, or “multitude,” and negotium, or “business,” in the same way that we say multiiugus ("manifold"), multicolorus ("multicoloured") and multiformius ("multiform"). But it would be no less uncouth an expression than if you should try to translate by one word πολυφιλία (abundance of friends), πολυτροπία (versatility), or πολυσαρκία (fleshiness). Therefore, after spending a brief time in silent thought, I finally answered that in my opinion the idea could not be expressed by a single word, and accordingly I was preparing to indicate the meaning of that Greek word by a phrase. “Well then,” said I, “undertaking many things and busying oneself with them all is called in Greek πολυπραγμοσύνη, and the title shows that this is the subject of our book.” Then that illiterate fellow, misled by my unfinished, rough-and-ready language and believing that πολυπραγμοσύνη was a virtue, said: “Doubtless this Plutarch, whoever he is, urges us to engage in business and to undertake very many enterprises with energy and dispatch, and properly enough he has written as the title of the book itself the name of this virtue about which, as you say, he is intending to speak.” “Not at all,” said I; “for that is by no means a virtue which, expressed by a Greek term, serves to indicate the subject of this book; and neither does Plutarch do what you suppose, nor do I intend to say that he did. For, as a matter of fact, it is in this book that he tries to dissuade us, so far as he can, from the haphazard, promiscuous and unnecessary planning and pursuit of such a multitude of things. But,” said I, “I realize that this mistake of yours is due to my imperfect command of language, since even in so many words I could not express otherwise than very obscurely what in Greek is expressed with perfect elegance and clearness by a single term.”
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§ 11.17 The meaning of the expression, found in the old praetorian edicts: “those who have undertaken public contracts for clearing the rivers of nets.” As I chanced to be sitting in the library of Trajan's temple, 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. 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.” Thereupon the question arose what “clearing of nets” meant. 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. 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.
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§ 11.18 The punishment which Draco the Athenian, in the laws which he made for his fellow-citizens, inflicted upon thieves; that of Solon later; 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 Lacedemonians they were even strongly encouraged and commended as a useful exercise; also a memorable utterance of Marcus Cato about the punishment of theft. Draco the attention was considered a good man and of great wisdom, and he was skilled in law, human and divine. 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. 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. This Solon was one of the famous wise men. 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. 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. 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. But today we have departed from that law of the decemvirs; for if anyone wishes to try a case of manifest theft by process of law, action is brought for four times the value. 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.” When stolen goods are found in possession of the thief (concepti) or in that of another (oblati), the penalty is threefold. 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. 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. 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. Then upon all other thefts, which were called “not manifest,” they imposed a two-fold penalty. 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. Among the Lacedemonians 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 of amassing wealth, but as an exercise and training in the art of war; 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. 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.” 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.” 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 whether the object belongs or not." Thus has Sabinus written, in the book which I just now mentioned, about handling things for the purpose of stealing them. 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. 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.
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§ 12.1 A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus, in which he urged a lady of rank to feed with her own milk, and with that of other nurses, the children whom she had borne. 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. “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. 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!. 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 they 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. For what kind of unnatural, imperfect and half-motherhood is it to bear a child and at once send it away from her? 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. 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 labour of parturition. 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, of the nourishment of its own familiar and kindred blood. ”'But it makes no difference,' for so they say,'provided it be nourished and live, by whose milk that is effected." 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. 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 width. Is not wisdom of nature evident also in this, that as soon as the blood, the artificer, has fashioned the whole human body within its secret precautions, 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. 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; for if kids are fed on the milk of ewes, and 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; and you often see a strong and flourishing tree, with 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. “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. 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. 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. ”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. 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. 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." 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.
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§ 12.2 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.
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§ 12.3 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.
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§ 12.4 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 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.
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§ 12.5 A discourse of the philosopher Taurus on the manner and method of enduring pain, according to the principles of the Stoics. 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. 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, which were saw that he was suffering anguish from pains in the stomach, such as the Greeks call κόλος, 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. 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 reasonable 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.” 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?. 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. 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." 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 τὰ πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν, 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 the 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 pre-eminent 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 productiones and relationes, which the philosophers call προηγμένα, or'things desirable,' and ἀποπροηγμένα, 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. 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. 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. ”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 is it 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 ἀναλγησία, or'insensibility,' and ἀπάθεια, 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. 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. 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 doctors — but that is true and noble fortitude which our forefathers called a knowledge of what is endurable and unendurable. From this it is evident that there are some insupportable trials, from the undergoing or endurance of which brave men may shrink." When Taurus had said this and seemed to intend to say even more, we reached our carriages and entered them.
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§ 12.6 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.
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§ 12.7 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.
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§ 12.8 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.
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§ 12.9 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 periculum (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.”
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§ 12.10 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 legitimus. In place of it many today 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 aeditumus 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.
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§ 12.11 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.
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§ 12.12 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 than 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.”
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§ 12.13 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. 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. “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?” 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. 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.” “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 signification so common words changed by long usage, but even the provisions of the laws themselves become a dead letter by tacit consent.” 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 be 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. 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. 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; and in also became intra by the addition of the same syllable. 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. 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).'Within the Kalends,' then, is not'before the Kalends,' but'on the Kalends'; that is, on the very day on which the Kalends fall. 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. for if he does so earlier, he renders a decision not'within' but'before the Kalends.” 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. 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. 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.” 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." Then with a smile Sulpicius Apollinaris replied: “Keenly and cleverly, by Heaven! have you confronted me with this Ciceronian passage; 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." At the time, what Sulpicius Apollinaris said seemed to be learned and acute. 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.” 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.” 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; 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.” These 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.' 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. 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, 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. 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.”
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§ 12.14 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 salutem. “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.
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§ 12.15 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, saltuatim. 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.”
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§ 13.1 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 today 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 is it 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 to 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.
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§ 13.2 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 from 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.”
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§ 13.3 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.”
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§ 13.4 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 he had formed from his great victories, from the flattery of his courtiers, and from his incredible success — that he was the son of Jupiter.
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§ 13.5 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.
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§ 13.6 The term which the early Latins used for the Greek word προσῳδίαι; also that the term barbarismus was used neither by the early Romans nor by the people of Attica. What the Greeks call προσῳδίαι, 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 he 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.
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§ 13.7 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.
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§ 13.8 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.
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§ 13.9 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 Πανδέκται, 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 ὑάδες; for they supposed that Latin word to be a translation of the Greek name because ὕες in Greek is sues in Latin. But the ὑάδες,” says he, “are so called, οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑῶν (that is, not from pigs ), as our rude forefathers believed, but from the word ὕειν; 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 ὕειν.” So, indeed, Tiro in his Pandects. But, as a matter of fact, our early writers were not such boors and clowns as to give to the stars called hyades the name of suculae, or “little pigs,” because ὕες are called sues in Latin; but just as what the Greeks call ὑπέρ we callsuper, what they call ὕπτιος we call supinus, what they call ὑφορβός we call subulcus, and finally, what they call ὕπνος 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 ὑάδες were called by us, first syades, 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 Πλειάδες and we, Vergiliae.
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§ 13.10 The derivation of soror, according to Antistius 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.'.
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§ 13.11 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 bedchamber 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 should 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 call πέμματα or τραγήματα, 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.”
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§ 13.12 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 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 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 party 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.
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§ 13.13 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 the 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; today, 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.
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§ 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 extend 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.
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§ 13.15 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.” For 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.
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§ 13.16 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.
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§ 13.17 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 φιλανθρωπία, 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 παιδεία; 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.
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§ 13.18 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.
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§ 13.19 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.
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§ 13.20 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 saysthat 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 passing 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 praetor-elect, 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 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.
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§ 13.21 That the most elegant writers pay more attention to the pleasing sound of words and phrases (what the Greeks call εὐφωνία, 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'?”3 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 just don't 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 (tris) 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 ἠέρα βαθεῖα, 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, fretu 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 antistites, 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 κολοιούς τε ψηράς τε, “both crows and starlings,” in another place he did not use ψηρῶν τε, but ψαρῶν: As lights a cloud of starlings (ψαρῶν) 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.
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§ 13.22 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 I 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 were gallicae, or “Gallic slippers,” and notsoleae. 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 he, “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 κρηπῖδες, 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).”
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§ 13.23 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 Νηρεΐδες (" 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 Σκιομαχία, or “Battle of the Shadows,” uses in the vocative Nerienes, not Nero, 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 Anio; for, as they said Anienem with the third syllable long. so they did Nerienem. 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 νεῦρα, 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 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 se, as it is among the Greeks, is frequently privative in the Latin language also.
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§ 13.24 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.
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§ 13.25 The meaning of manubiae is asked and discussed; with some observations as to the propriety of using several words of the same meaning. 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. 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 same time was in attendance on him — he asked, I say, what that inscription manubiae seemed to us really to mean. 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 manu, that is'by hand.'” Then Favorinus rejoined. “Although my principal and almost my entire attention has been given to the literature and art 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 ofpraeda. 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. 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”; 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. By Heaven, yes! It is 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 μάκτρα, pot, and κάρδοπος, 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.” “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." For having once mentioned the cities as a whole, he added'abodes' and'shrines,' which are themselves a part of the cities. 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. 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 into 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.” 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. 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." 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; 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. 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. 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; 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. 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 θάνατον (death) and μόρον (fate); for the heinousness of attempting so cruel and unjust a murder is deplored by the admirable repetition of the word meaning'death.” 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, ἐκ παραλλήλων,'as the repetition of two similar words,' as some think, but are a vigorous exhortation to the swiftness which is enjoined. “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. 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.” Well then," continued Favorinus, “is the use of praeda and manubiae in the same writer similar to this? Truly, not at all. For by the addition of manubiae the sentence does not become more ornate, more forcible, or more euphonious. but manubiae means one thing, as we learn from the books on antiquities and on the early Latin, praeda quite another. 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. ”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. 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. 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 formanubiae 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. But those who have spoken properly and accurately, as did Marcus Tullius in that passage, have used manubiae of money."
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§ 13.26 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 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.
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§ 13.27 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.
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§ 13.28 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."
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§ 13.29 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 multis); 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, τὸ ἐπὶ τῇ φακῇ μύρον, 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.
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§ 13.30 That facies 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 πρόσωπον; 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 aspectus and figura from fingere. Accordingly Pacuvius, in the tragedy entitled Niptra, used facies 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.
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§ 13.31 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 Ὑδροκύων, 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 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 κιρρός 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 ψύχειν.
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§ 14.1 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 παχυμερέστερον, (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. For the greatest difference between men and gods was removed, if man also had the power of foreknowing all future events. 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. 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? 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.” 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; 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.' 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. 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; 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. 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. 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. 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 today. “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? 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.” 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 λογικὰ ζῶα 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. “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? 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. 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?” 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. “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. 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. Therefore they cannot properly use this argument against the inequality of men's births and the similarity of their death.” 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. 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. “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.” 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. 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. 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.”
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§ 14.1 How Favorinus discoursed when I consulted hint about the duty of a judge. 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. 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; 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 argumentis. 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. 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. 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”; 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; 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. For they say that this is in fact to play the part of an advocate, not of a judge. ”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. For those judges who give the impression of being keen and quick think 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. 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. “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; 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. 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. 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. This was the advice which Favorinus gave me at that time, as became a philosopher. 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. 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."
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§ 14.3 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 παιδείας κύρου, 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 μαθήματα 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.
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§ 14.4 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.
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§ 14.5 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 egrege 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.
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§ 14.6 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 λαυρή, 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.”
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§ 14.7 That Marcus Varro presented Gnaeus Pompeius, when he was consul elect for the first time, with a commentary, which Varro himself called εἰσαγωγικός, on the method of conducting meetings of the senate. Gnaeus Pompeius 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 (εἰσαγωγικός, 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 Oppianus, 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 [aedes] are temples, and that not even the aedes of Vesta was a templum. 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.
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§ 14.8 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.”
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§ 15.1 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.”
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§ 15.2 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.
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§ 15.3 What Marcus Cicero thought and wrote about the prefix in the verbs aufugio and aufero; 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 aufugio 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 (αὐέρυσαν), then slew and flayed the beasts; and: Loud-shouting (αὐίαχοι), noisy.
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§ 15.4 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.
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§ 15.5 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 today, 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 profligatum, 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.”
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§ 15.6 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.
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§ 15.7 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 madeprincipes 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 today my eyes are eager for my Gaius, and wherever you have been today, 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."
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§ 15.8 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 today 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?”
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§ 15.9 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.
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§ 15.10 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.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by John Carew Rolfe (1859-1943). Composed ca. 160 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.