Noctes Atticae

That those words of Quadrigarius in the third book of his Annals,

there a thousand of men is killed,

are not used arbitrarily or by a poetic figure, but in accordance with a definite and approved rule of the science of grammar.

QUADRIGARIUS in the third book of his Annals[*](Fr. 44, Peter.) wrote the following: "There a thousand of men is killed," using occiditur, not occiduntur. So too Lucilius in the third book of his Satires,

1. From gate to gate a thousand of paces is.
2. Thence to Salcrnum six, [*](v. 124, Marx, who has exinde for sex inde and supplies sumus, mus profecti.)

has mille est, not mille sunt. Varro in the seventeenth book of his Antiquilies of Man writes: [*](xviii, fr. 2, Mirsch. )

To the beginning of Romulus' reign is more than a thousand and one hundred years,

Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins, [*](Fr. 26, Peter.)

From there it is nearly a thousand of paces.

Marcus Cicero has in his sixth Oration against Antony, [*](Phil. vi. 15.)

Is the middle Janus [*](The middle Janus was the seat of money-lenders and bankers. As a district it extended along the northern side of the Forum Romanum. The Janus itself was near the basilica Aemlia, perhaps at the entrance to the Argiletum.) so subject to the patronage of Lucius Antonius? Who has ever been found in that Janus who would lend Lucius Antonius a thousand of sesterces?

In these and many other passages mile is used in the singular number, and that is not, as some think, a concession to early usage or admitted as a neat figure of speech, but it is obviously demanded

by rule. For the word mille does not stand for the Greek xilioi,

thousand,

but for xilia/s,

a thousand

; and just as they say one xilia/s, or two xilia/des, so we say one thousand and two thousands according to a definite and regular rule. Therefore these common expressions are correct and good usage,

There is a thousand of denarii in the chest,

and

There is a thousand of horsemen in the army.

Furthermore Lucilius, in addition to the example cited above, makes this point still clearer in another place also: for in his fifteenth book he says: [*](506 ff., Marx, who punctuates with a comma after succussor, with a slight change in the meaning, taking nullus seqetur in the sense of non sequetur. On the Campanian horses see Livy, viii.11.5 and xxvi.4.3, 6; Val. Max. ii.3.3.)

1. This horse no jolting fine Campanian steed,
2. Though he has passed him by one thousand, aye
3. And twain, of paces, can in a longer course
4. Compete with, but he will in fact appear
5. To run the other way.

So too in the ninth book: [*](327, Marx.)

1. With sesterces a thousand you can gain
2. A hundred thousand.

Lucilius wrote milli passum instead of mille passibus and uno milli nummum for unis mille nunmis, thus showing clearly that mille is a noun, used in the singular number, that its plural is milia, and that it also forms an ablative case. Nor ought we to expect the rest of the cases; for there are many other words which are declined only in single cases, and even some which are not declined at all. Therefore we can no longer doubt that Cicero, in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Milo, [*](§53.) used these words:

Before the estate of Clodius, where fully a thousand of

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ablebodied men was employed on those crazy substructures,

not

were employed,

as we find it in less accurate copies; for one rule requires us to say

a thousand men,

but another,

a thousand of men.

The patience with which Socrates endured his wife's shrewish disposition; and in that connection what Marcus Varro says in one of his satires about the duty of a husband.

XANTHIPPE, the wife of the philosopher Socrates, is said to have been ill-tempered and quarrelsome to a degree, with a constant flood of feminine tantrums and annoyances day and night. Alcibiades, amazed at this outrageous conduct of hers towards her husband, asked Socrates what earthly reason he had for not showing so shrewish a woman the door.

Because,

replied Socrates,

it is by enduring such a person at home that I accustom and train myself to bear more easily away from home the impudence and injustice of other persons.

In the same vein Varro also said in the Menippean Satire [*](Varro's Menippean Satires, in 150 books, based to some extent on the Speudoge/loion of Menippus, a Cynic philosopher of the third century B.C., treated in a mixture of prose and verse a great variety of moral and serious topics in a playful and sometimes jocose manner. For other titles see Index under (M.) Terentius Varro, and for the fragments, Bücheler's Petronius, 3d. ed., Berlin, 1882, pp. 161 ff.) which he entitled On the Duty of a Husband: [*](Fr 83, Bücheler.)

A wife's faults must be either put down or put up with. He who puts down her faults, makes his wife more agreeable; he who puts up with them, improves himself.

Varro contrasted the two words tollere and ferre very cleverly, [*](For a similar play on two meanings of tollere, cf. Suet. Aug. xii.) to be sure, but he obviously uses tollere in the sense of

correct.

It is evident too that Varro thought that if a fault of that kind in a wife cannot be corrected, it should be tolerated, in so far of course as a man may endure it honourably; for faults are less serious than crimes.

How Marcus Varro, in the fourteenth book of his Antiquities of Man, [*](Fr. 99, Agahd. In the lemma, or chapter heading, Varro's statement is wrongly reffered to the Antiquities of Man, the other division of his great work Antiquitatum Libri XLI, treating the political and religious institutions of the Romans. Only scanty fragments have survived.) criticizes his master Lucius Aelius for a false etymology; and how Varro in his turn, in the same book, gives a false origin for fur.

IN the fourteenth book of his Divine Antiquities[*](Fr. 99, Agahd. In the lemma, or chapter heading, Varro's statement is wrongly referred to the Antiquities of Man, the other division of his great work Antiquitatum Libri XLI, treating the political and religious institutions of the Romans. Only scanty fragments have survived.) Marcus Varro shows that Lucius Aelius, the most learned Roman of his time, went astray and followed a false etymological principle in separating an old Greek word which had been taken over into the Roman language into two Latin words, just as if it were of Latin origin.

I quote Varro's own words on the subject:

In this regard our countryman Lucius Aelius, the most gifted man of letters within my memory, was sometimes misled. For he gave false derivations of several early Greek words, under the impression that they were native to our tongue. We do not use the word lepus ('hare') because the animal is levipes ('light-footed'), as he asserts, but because it is an old Greek word. Many of the early words of that people are unfamiliar, because to-day the Greeks use other words in their place; and it may not be generally known that among these are Graecus, for which they now use (/Ellhn, puteus ('well') which

v1.p.89

they call fre/ar, and lepus, which they call lagwo/s. But as to this, far from disparaging Aelius' ability, I commend his diligence; for it is good fortune that brings success, endeavour that deserves praise.

Tis is what Varro wrote in the first part of his book, with great skill in the explanation of words, with wide knowledge of the usage of both languages, and marked kindliness towards Aelius himself. But in the latter part of the same book he says that fur is so called because the early Romans used furvus for ater (

black

), and thieves steal most easily in the night, which is black. Is it not clear that Varro made the same mistake about fur that Aelius did about lepus. For what the Greeks now call kle/pths, or

thief,

in the earlier Greek language was called fw/r. Hence, owing to the similarity in sound, he who in Greek is fw/r, in Latin is fur. But whether that fact escaped Varro's memory at the time, or on the other hand he thought that fur was more appropriately and consistently named from furvus, that is,

black,

as to that question it is not for me to pass judgment on a man of such surpassing learning.