Noctes Atticae

How Publius Nigidius with great cleverness showed that words are not arbitrary, but natural.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS in his Grammatical Notes shows that nouns and verbs were formed, not by a chance use, but by a certain power and design of nature, a subject very popular in the discussions of the philosophers; for they used to inquire whether words originate by

nature

When we say vos, or 'you,'

we make a movement of the mouth suitable to the meaning of the word; for we gradually protrude the tips of our lips and direct the impulse of the breath towards those with whom we are speaking. But on the other hand, when we say nos, or 'us,' we do not pronounce the word with a powerful forward impulse of the voice, nor with the lips protruded, but we restrain our breath and our lips, so to speak, within ourselves. The same thing happens in the words tu or 'thou,' ego or ' I,' tibi ' to thee,' and mihi 'to me.' For just as when we assent or dissent, a movement of the head or eyes corresponds with the nature of the expression, so too in the pronunciation of these words there is a kind of natural gesture made with the mouth and breath. The same principle that we have noted in our own speech applies also to Greek words.

Whether avarus is a simple word or, as it appears to Publius Nigidius, a compound, made up of two parts.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in the twenty-ninth book of his Commentaries,[*](Fr. 42, Swoboda.) declares that avarus is not a simple word, but is compounded of two parts:

For that man,

is called avarus, or 'covetous,' who is avidus aeris, or 'eager for money;' but in the compound the letter e is lost.

rich,

many possessions.

But his statement about locuples is the stronger and more probable. As to avarus there is doubt; for why may it not seem to be derived from one single word, namely aveo, [*](This is, of course, the accepted etymology. The derivation of amarus is uncertain; it is perhaps connected with Greek w)mo/s, raw (cf. crudus and crudelis). Sanscrit âma-s.) and formed in the same way as amarus, about which there is general agreement that it is not a compound?

That a fine was imposed by the plebeian aediles on the daughter of Appius Caecus, a woman of rank, because she spoke too arrogantly.

PUBLIC punishment was formerly inflicted, not only upon crimes, but even upon arrogant language; so necessary did men think it to maintain the dignity of Roman conduct inviolable. For the daughter of the celebrated Appius Caecus, when leaving the plays of

What, pray, would have become of me, and how much more should I have been crowded and pressed upon, had not my brother Publius Claudius lost his fleet in the sea-fight and with it a vast number of citizens? [*](In 249 B.C. He was warned not to fight by the refusal of the sacred chickens to eat; but he threw them overboard, saying that they might drink, since they would not eat. See Suet. Tib. ii. 2.) Surely I should have lost my life, overwhelmed by a still greater mass of people. How I wish,

that my brother might come to life again, take another fleet to Sicily, and destroy that crowd which has just knocked poor me about.

Marcus Varro, I remember, writes that of the rivers which flow outside [*](This was true in Varro's time.) the limits of the Roman empire the Nile is first in size, the Danube second, and next the Rhone.

OF all the rivers which flow into the seas included within the Roman empire, which the Greeks call

the inner sea,

That among the ignominious punishments which were inflicted upon soldiers was the letting of blood; and what seems to be the reason for such a penalty.

THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind. [*](Muretus, Var. Lect. xiii, p. 199, thought it was in order that they night lose with ignominy the blood which they had been unwilling to shed for their country.)

In what way and in what form the Roman army is commonly drawn up, and the names of the formations.

THERE are military terms which are applied to an army drawn up in a certain manner:

the front,

reserves,

wedge,

ring,

mass,

shears,

saw,

wings,

towers.

The reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans wore a ring on the next to the little finger of the left hand.

I HAVE heard that the ancient Greeks wore a ring on the finger of the left hand which is next to the little finger. They say, too, that the Roman men commonly wore their rings in that way. Apion in his Egyptian History says [*](F.H.G. iii. 511.) that the reason for this practice is, that upon cutting into and opening human bodies, a custom in Egypt which the Greeks call a)natomai/, or

dissection,