Noctes Atticae

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, [*](The Bibliotheca Ulpia in the temple in Trajan's forum. Other great public libraries at Rome were in Vespasian's temple of Peace (see v. 21. 9 and the note), in Augustus' temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and in the porticus Octaniae. The first public library at Rome was founded by Asinius Pollio.) 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 [*](Fr. 2, Fun.; Jur. Civ. 126, Bremer.) 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.

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 Lacedaemonians 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 Athenian 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 seven wise men. [*](See note 2, vol. i. p. 11.) 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 [*](viii. 13 ff.) 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 be his bondsman, until the debt was paid.) 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, [*](That is, the Tarpeian Rock on the Capitoline Hill.) 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, [*](See Paul. Festus, pp. 104—5, Lindsay. The searchers were clad only in a girdle, that they might not be suspected of bringing anything in with them and saying that it had been stolen, and they held a perforated plate before their faces, because of the presence of the women of the household.) they punished as if the culprit had been caught in the act.

But to-day 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, [*](Fr. 7, Huschke; Jur. Civ. 126, Bremer (ii, p. 517).)

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 [*](Fr. 7, Huschke; 3–5, Bremer (ii, p. 383).) 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. [*](XII. Tab. viii. 16.) I recall also that I read in the work of the jurist Aristo, [*](Fr. 1, Huschke; ii. 2, p. 393, Bremer.) 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 Lacedaemonians 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 or 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: [*](p. 69, 1, Jordan.)

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: [*](Fr. 2, Huschke; 113, Bremer (ii, p. 513).)

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: [*](Fr. 3, Huschke; 119, Bremer (ii, p. 515).)

He who silently carries off another's property for the sake of gain is guilty of theft, whether he knows to whom 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 [*](Fr. 4, Huschke; 127, Bremer.) that he has no doubt that a master should be convicted of theft who has ordered a slave of his to steal something.

A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus, in which he urged a lady of rank to feed with her own milk, and not 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 addition of a son to his family gave the father certain privileges.)

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 there might not be added the wearisome and difficult task of nursing, he said:

I beg you, madam, let her be wholly and

v2.p.355

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 weight of the burden they bear and 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, already brought into the world, already a son, 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 warmth? Is not the wisdom of nature evident also in this, that as soon as the blood, the artificer, has fashioned the whole human body within its secret precincts, 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, or 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, when 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: [*](Iliad xvi. 33 ff.)

1. The horseman Peleus never was thy sire,
2. Nor Thetis gave thee birth; but the gray sea
3. Begat thee, and the hard and flinty rocks;
4. 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:

1. And fierce Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck. [*](Aen. iv. 366f.)

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

v2.p.361

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.

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. [*](Besides Caligula, who called Seneca's essays mere declamation exercises and his style sand without lime (Suet. Calig. liii), there were other critics of Seneca in his own day, as well as in the following Flavian epoch.) 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 [*](pp. 610 f. Hense; except for these fragments, only twenty books have come down to us.) that the following verses which Quintus Ennius wrote [*](Ann. 306 ff., Vahlen2; quoted by Cicero, Brut. 58.) about Cethegus, a man of the olden time, are absurd:

1. He by his fellow citizens was called,
2. By every man who lived and flourished then,
3. 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.

[*](Cic. Brut. 58.) 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

v2.p.365

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: [*](V. 9, 11.)

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, [*](Lit., those who smell like a he-goat; cf. Hor. Serm. i. 2. 27, pastillos Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum; Epod. xii. 5.) 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.

[*](Obviously, an unskilful workman.)

Worthy indeed would Seneca appear [*](Ironical, of course.) 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.

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 [*](p. 485, Fun.) 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: [*](§ 13.)

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 [*](p. 8, Lion.) 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 [*](The vowel is long, not merely the syllable, as Gellius goes on to say.) 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.

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; [*](Ann. 234 ff., Vahlen.2)

1. So saying, on a friend he called, with whom
2. He oft times gladly shared both board and speech
3. And courteously informed of his affairs,
4. On coming wearied from the sacred House
5. Or Forum broad, where he all day had toiled,
6. Directing great affairs with wisdom; one with whom
7. He freely spoke of matters great and small,
8. Confiding to him thoughts approved or not,
9. If he so wished, and found him trustworthy;
10. With whom he took much pleasure openly
11. Or privily; a man to whom no thought
12. Suggested heedlessness or ill intent,
13. A cultured, loyal and a winsome man,
14. Contented, happy, learned, eloquent,
15. Speaking but little and that fittingly,
16. Obliging, knowing well all ancient lore,
17. All customs old and new, the laws of man
18. And of the gods, who with due prudence told
19. What he had heard, or kept it to himself:
20. Him 'mid the strife Servilius thus accosts.

They say that Lucius Aelius Stilo used to declare [*](p. 51, Fun.) that Quintus Ennius wrote these words about none other than himself, and that this was a description of Quintus Ennius' own character and disposition.

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, we saw that he was suffering anguish from pains in the stomach, such as the Greeks call ko/los, 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 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?

[*](iii. 168, Arn.)

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

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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: [*](Aristophanes, Frogs, 1445.)

1. Less eruditely speak and clearer, please.

And with that preamble he discoursed as follows about the pain and groans of the ailing Stoic: [*](iii. 181, Arn.)

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 ta\ prw=ta kata\ fu/sin, 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 its 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 preeminent 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. [*](Cf. i. 2. 9.) But productions and relationes, which the philosophers call prohgme/na, or 'things desirable,' and a)poprohgme/na, 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 it is necessary to groan and struggle? It is because all things which are not

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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, [*](That is, they do not involve any guilt.) 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 a)nalghsi/a, or 'insensibility,' and a)pa/qeia, 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, [*](Fr. 14, Fowler.) 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

v2.p.383

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 the 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.

On the Enigma.

THE kind of composition which the Greeks call

enigmas,

some of our early writers called scirpi, or

rushes.

[*](Apparently so called from the involved pattern of plaited 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:

1. I know not if he's minus once or twice,
2. Or both of these, who would not give his place,
3. As I once heard it said, to Jove himself.

He who does not wish to puzzle himself too long will find the answer [*](The answer is Terminus. Once minus and twice minus = thrice (ter) minus. In the cella of Jupiter on the Capitolium, or possibly in the pronaos, there was a terminal cippus, representing Terminus, who refused to be removed from his original site.) in the second book of Varro's Latin Language, addressed to Marcellus. [*](Fr. 55. G. & S.)