Noctes Atticae
Gellius, Aulus
Gellius, Aulus. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, 1927 (printing).
The story of the Milesian envoys and the orator Demosthenes, found in the works of Critolaus.
CRITOLAUS has written [*](F. H. G. iv. 373.) that envoys came from Miletus to Athens on public business, perhaps for
silverinsyfrom 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 [*](Ps.-Plutarch, Decem Orat. Vitae, Demosth., p. 848, B, says that the actor was Polos. Famous actors made large sums of money; according to Pliny, N.H. vii. 129, the celebrated Roman actor Roscius made 500,000 sesterces yearly.) had replied,
a talent,Demosthenes rejoined:
Why, I got more than that for holding my tongue.
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
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.
The words of Publius Nigidius, in which he says that there is a difference between
lyingand
telling a falsehood.
THESE are the very words of Publius Nigidius, [*](Fr. 49, Swoboda.) 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.
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 [*](ii. 152, Arn.) 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 thansaid he,v2.p.327that which the speaker feels that he is giving to it. But when I,
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.
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[*](0. R. F., p. 238, Meyer.) 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
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 rashly reject 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 reject 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 andsaid he,v2.p.331arranged 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,
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 flow 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.
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: [*](Fr. 8, Peter.)
They say also ofv2.p.333Romulus, that being invited to dinner, he drank but little there, giving the reason that he had business for the following day. They [*](That is, his table companions.) 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.'
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 [*](57, Ribbeck3.) 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 [*](Fr. 9, Kummrow.) 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 to one who plays the part of, or imitates, one who plays, laughs or wanders.
But why Scaurus was led to censure Caesellius on this point, I certainly could not understand. For there is no doubt that these words, each after its
act the laugheror
imitate the laugherrather 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, paragwgh/, as the Greeks say, [*](That is, an addition to the end of a syllable.) 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: [*](Fr. 55, Peter.)
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
That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called polupragmosu/nh. [*]() The word means
being busy about many things,often with the idea of
officiousnessor
meddling.
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 Peri\ Polupragmosu/nhs, 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 Negotiositale 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
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 polufili/a (abundance of friends), polutropi/a (versatility), or polusarki/a (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 polupragmosu/nh, 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 polupragmosu/nh 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 pursuitsaid I,v2.p.341of such a multitude of things. But,
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.