Noctes Atticae

The story of king Tarquin the Proud and the Sibylline Books.

IN ancient annals we find this tradition about the Sibylline Books. An old woman, a perfect stranger, came to king Tarquin the Proud, bringing nine books; she declared that they were oracles of the gods and that she wished to sell them. Tarquin inquired the price; the woman demanded an

immense and exorbitant sum: the king laughed her to scorn, believing her to be in her dotage. Then she placed a lighted brazier before him, burned three of the books to ashes, and asked whether he would buy the remaining six at the same price. But at this Tarquin laughed all the more and said that there was now no doubt that the old woman was crazy. Upon that the woman at once burned up three more books and again calmly made the same request, that he would buy the remaining three at the original figure. Tarquin now became serious and more thoughtful, and realising that such persistence and confidence were not to be treated lightly, he bought the three books that were left at as high a price as had been asked for all nine. Now it is a fact that after then leaving Tarquin, that woman was never seen again anywhere. The three books were deposited in a shrine [*](In the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. Augustus transferred them to the temple of Apollo on the Palatine; see Suet. Aug. xxxi. 1.) and called

Sibylline

; [*](Because the old woman was regarded as a Sibyl. Although the books came to Tarquin by way of Cumae, the origin of the Sibylline books was probably Asia Minor. There were several Sibyls (Varro enumerates ten), of whom the Erythraean, from whom the books apparently came, was the most important; see Marquardt, Stautsverew. 1112. 350 ff.) to them the Fifteen [*](See note 4, page 61.) resort whenever tile immortal gods are to be consulted as to the welfare of the State.

On what the geometers call e)pi/pedos, stereo/s, ku/bos and grammh/, with the Latin equivalents for all these terms.

OF the figures which the geometers call sxh/mata there are two kinds,

plane

and

solid.

These the Greeks themselves call respectively e)pi/pedos and stereo/s. A

plane

figure is one that has all its lines in two dimensions only, breadth and length; for example, triangles and squares, which are drawn on a flat surface without height. We have a

solid

figure, when its several lines do not produce merely length and breadth in a plane, but are raised so as to produce height also; such are in general the triangular columns which they call

pyramids,

or those which are bounded on all sides by squares, such as the Greeks call ku/boi, [*](See Euclid, Elementa I, Definitions, 20, cubs autem est aequaliter aequalis aequaliter, sive qui tribus aequalibus numeris comprehenditur.) and we quadrantalia. For the ku/bos is a figure which is square on all its sides,

like the dice,

says Marcus Varro, [*](Fr. p. 350, Bipont.)

with which we play on a gaming-board, for which reason the dice themselves are called ku/boi

Similarly in numbers too the term ku/bos is used, when every factor [*](Euclid, l. c., 17, "ubi autem tres numeri inter se multiplicantes numerum aliquem efficiunt, numerus inde ortus soliduss" (= ku/bos) est, latera autem eius numeri inter se multiplicantes.) consisting of the same number is equally resolved into the cube number itself, [*](That is, is an equal factor in the cube number.) as is the case when three is taken three times and the resulting number itself is then trebled.

Pythagoras declared that the cube of the number three controls the course of the moon, since the moon passes through its orbit in twenty-seven days, and the ternio, or

triad,

which the Greeks call tria/s, when cubed makes twenty-seven.

Furthermore, our geometers apply the term linea, or

line,

to what the Greeks call grammh/. This is defined by Marcus Varro as follows: [*](Fr. p. 337, Bipont.)

A line,

says he,

is length without breadth or height.

But Euclid says more tersely, omitting

height

: [*](l.c. 2, grammh\ de\ mh=kos a)plate/s.)

A line is mh=kos a)plate/s, or 'breadthless length.'

)Aplate/s cannot be expressed in Latin by a single word, unless you should venture to coin the term inlatabile.

The positive assertion of Julius Hyginus that he had read a manuscript of Virgil from the poet's own household, in which there was written et ora tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror and not the usual reading, sensu torquebit amaro.

NEARLY everyone reads these lines from the Georgics of Virgi [*](ii. 246 f.) in this way:

1. At sapor indicium faciet manifestus et ora
2. Tristia temptantum sensu torquebit amaro. [*](But the taste will tell its tale full plainly, and with its bitter flavour will distort the testers' poured mouths.)

Hyginus, however, on my word no obscure grammarian, in the Commentaries [*](Fr. 4, p. 528, Fun.) which he wrote on Virgil, declares and insists that it was not this that Virgil left, but what he himself found in a copy which had come from the home and family of the poet:

1. et ora
2. Tristia temptantum sensus torquebit amaror, [*](But the bitterness of the sensation will distort the testers' soured mouths.)

and this reading has commended itself, not to Hyginus alone, but also to some other learned men, because it seems absurd to say

the taste will distort with its bitter sensation.

Since,

they say,

taste itself is a sensation, it cannot have another sensation in itself, but it is exactly as if one should say, 'the sensation will distort with a bitter sensation.'

Moreover, when I had read Hyginus' note to Favorinus, and the strangeness and harshness of the phrase

sensu torquebit amaro

at once had displeased him, he said with a laugh:

I am ready to swear by Jupiter and the stone, [*](This much discussed oath is best taken as equivalent to per lovem et lapidem; see Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 231; Nettleship, Essays, p. 35, and others. The locus classicus on the process is Polybius, iii. 25; of. Plutarch, Sulla, 10.) which is considered the most sacred of oaths, that Virgil never wrote that, but I believe that Hyginus is right. For Virgil was not the first to coin that word arbitrarily, but he found it in the poems of Lucretius and made use of it, not disdaining to follow the authority of a poet who excelled in talent and power of expression.

The passage, from the fourth book of Lucretius, reads as follows: [*](iv. 221 f.)

1. dilutaque contra
2. Cum tuimur misceri absinthia, tangit amaror. [*](When we look on at the mixing of a decoction of wormwood in our presence, its bitterness affects us.)

And in fact we see that Virgil imitated, not only single words of Lucretius, but often almost whole lines and passages.