Noctes Atticae

Marcus Varro's opinion of the just and proper number of banqueters; his views about the dessert and about sweetmeats.

THAT is a very charming book of Marcus Varro's, one of his Menippean Satires, entitled You know not what the Late Evening may Bring, [*](Apparently a proverbial expression; cf. Virg. Georg. i. 461, Denique, quid vesper serus vehat . .. sol tibi signa dabit.) in which he descants upon the proper number of guests at a dinner, and about the order and arrangement of the entertainment itself. Now he says [*](Fr. 333, Bücheler.) that the number of the guests ought to begin with that of the Graces and end with that of the Muses; that is,

it should begin with three and stop at nine, so that when the guests are fewest, they should not be less than three, when they are most numerous, not more than nine.

For it is disagreeable to have a great number, since a crowd is generally disorderly, [*](There is a word-play on turba and turbulenta, which it seems difficult to reproduce. Cf. Ausonius, p. 12, 146, Peiper; i., p. 22, L. C. L.: Quinque advocavi; sex enim conviviumCum rege iustum; si super, convicium est.) and at Rome it stands, [*](Referring to turba as the throng of citizens in public assembly.) at Athens it sits, but nowhere does it recline. Now, the banquet itself,

he continues,

has four features, and then only is it complete in all its parts: if a nice little group has been got together, if the place is well chosen, the time fit, and due preparation not neglected. Moreover, one should not,

he says,

invite either too talkative or too silent guests, since eloquence is appropriate to the Forum and the courts, but silence to the bed-chamber and not to a dinner.

He thinks, then, that the conversation at such a time ought not to be about anxious and perplexing affairs, but diverting and cheerful, combining profit with a certain interest and pleasure, such conversation as tends to make our character more refined and agreeable.

This will surely follow,

he says,

if we talk about matters which relate to the common experience of life, which we have no leisure to discuss in the Forum and amid the press of business. Furthermore, the host,

he says,

ought rather to be free from meanness than over-elegant,

and, he adds:

At a banquet not everything should be read, [*](Readings or music were common forms of entertainment at a Roman dinner (cf. e.g. Pliny, Epist. iii. 1. 9). Legi, however, may have the meaning of legere in § 3 (end), in which case the reference would be to the viands and biwfelh= would mean wholesome.) but such things as are at once edifying and enjoyable.

And he does not omit to tell what the nature of the dessert ought to be. For he uses these words:

Those sweetmeats (bellaria) are sweetest which are not sweet; [*](An example of Varro's fondness for word-plays; sweetest is used in the double sense of sweetest to the taste and pleasantest in their after-effects.) for harmony between delicacies and digestion is not to be counted upon.

That no one may be puzzled by the word bellaria which Varro uses in this passage, let me say that it means all kinds of dessert. For what the Greeks called pe/mmata or tragh/mata, our forefathers called bellaria. [*](mensa secunda bellariorum occurs in the Transactions of the Arval Brethren for May 27, A.D. 218.) In the earlier comedies [*](p. 144, 65, Ribbeck 3.) one may find this term applied also to the sweeter wines, which are called Liberi bellaria, or

sweetmeats of Bacchus.

That the tribunes of the commons have the right to arrest, but not to summon.

IN one of the letters of Ateius Capito we read [*](Fr. 19, Huschke: ii. p. 287, Bremer.) that Antistius Labeo was exceedingly learned in the laws and customs of the Roman people and in the civil law.

But,

he adds,

an excessive and mad love of freedom possessed the man, to such a degree that, although the deified Augustus was then emperor and was ruling the State, Labeo looked upon nothing as lawful and accepted nothing, unless he had found it ordered and sanctioned by the old Roman law.

He then goes on to relate the reply of this same Labeo, when he was summoned by the messenger of a tribune of the commons. He says:

When the tribunes of the commons had been appealed to by a woman against Labeo and had sent to him at

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the Gallianum [*](Probably Labeo's country place. He spent half the year in retirement (Dig. i. 2. 2.47), and praedia Galliana are mentioned in C.I.L. iii. 536, and ix. 1455, col. iii, lines 62—64.) bidding him come and answer the woman's charge, he ordered the messenger to return and say to the tribunes that they had the right to summon neither him nor anyone else, since according to the usage of our forefathers the tribunes of the commons had the power of arrest, but not of summons; that they might therefore come and order his arrest, but they did not have the right to summon him when absent.

Having read this in that letter of Capito's, I later found the same statement made more fully in the twenty-first book of Varro's Human Antiquities, and I have added Varro's own words on the subject: [*](Fr. 2, Mirsch.)

In a magistracy

says he,

some have the power of summons, others of arrest, others neither; summoning, for example, belongs to the consuls and others possessing the imperium [*](The right of commanding an army conferred by the Lex Curiata de imperio on the dictator, consuls, magister equitum and praetors.) ; arrest, to the tribunes of the commons and the rest who are attended by a messenger; neither summoning nor arrest to the quaestors and others who have neither a lictor nor a messenger. Those who have the power of summons may also arrest, detail, and lead off to prison, all this whether those whom they summon are present or are sent for by their order. The tribunes of the commons have no power of summons, nevertheless many of them in ignorance have used that power, as if they were entitled to it; for some of them have ordered, not only private persons, but even a consul to be summoned before the rostra. I myself, when a triumvir, [*](That is, one of the triumviri capitales, a minor office.) on being summoned by Porcius, tribune of the commons, did not appear, following the authority of our leading men, but I held to the old law. Similarly, when I was a tribune, I ordered

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no one to be summoned, and required no one who was summoned by one of my colleagues to obey, unless he wished.

I think that Labeo, being a private citizen at the time, [*](That is, he had not yet held a magisterial office.) showed unjustified confidence in that law of which Marcus Varro has written, in not appearing when summoned by the tribunes. For how the mischief was it reasonable to refuse to obey those whom you admit to have the power of arrest? For one who can lawfully be arrested may also be taken to prison. But since we are inquiring why the tribunes, who had full power of coercion, did not have the right to summon ... [*](There seems to be a lacuna in the text. Supply we may assume that it was, or something similar.) because the tribunes of the commons seem to have been elected in early times, not for administering justice, nor for taking cognizance of suits and complaints when the parties were absent, but for using their veto-power when there was immediate need, in order to prevent injustice from being done before their eyes; and for that reason the right of leaving the city at night was denied them, since their constant presence and personal oversight were needed to prevent acts of violence.