Noctes Atticae

The term which the early Latins used for the Greek word prosw|di/ai; also that the term barbarismus was used neither by the early Romans nor by the people of Attica.

WHAT the Greeks call prosw|di/ai, or

tones,

[*](The Greeks had a pitch accent, pronouncing the accented syllable with a higher tone.) our early scholars called now notae vocum, or

marks of tone,

now moderamenta, or

guides,

now accenticulae, or

accents,

and now voculationes, or

intonations.

But the fault which we designate when we say now that anyone speaks barbare, or

outlandishly,

they did not call

outlandish

but

rustic,

and they said that those speaking with that fault spoke

in a countrified manner

(rustice). Publius Nigidius, in his Grammatical Notes [*](Fr. 39, Swoboda.) says:

Speech becomes rustic, if you misplace the aspirates.

[*](Cf. Catull. lxxxiv.) Whether therefore those who before the time of the deified Augustus expressed themselves purely and properly used the word barbarismus (outlandishness), which is now common, I for my part have not yet been able to discover.

That Homer in his poems and Herodotus in his Histories spoke differently of the nature of the lion.

HERODOTUS, in the third book of his Histories, has left the statement that lionesses give birth but once during their whole life, and at that one birth that

they never produce more than one cub. His words in that book are as follows: [*](iii. 108.)

But the lioness, although a strong and most courageous animal, gives birth once only in her lifetime to one cub; for in giving birth she discharges her womb with the whelp.

Homer, however, says that lions (for so he calls the females also, using the masculine or

common

(epicene) gender, as the grammarians call it) produce and rear many whelps. The verses in which he plainly says this are these: [*](Iliad, xvii. 133.)

1. He stood, like to a lion before its young,
2. Beset by hunters in a gloomy wood
3. And leading them away.

In another passage also he indicates the same thing: [*](Iliad, xviii. 318.)

1. With many a groan, like lion of strong beard,
2. From which a hunter stole away its young
3. Amid dense woods.

Since this disagreement and difference between the most famous of poets and the most eminent of historians troubled me, I thought best to consult that very thorough treatise which the philosopher Aristotle wrote On Animals. And what I find that he has written there upon this subject I shall include in these notes, in Aristotle's own language. [*](The passage is not quoted; see critical note. Aristotle tells us that the lioness gives birth to young every year, usually two, at most six, sometimes only one. The current idea that the womb is discharged with the young is absurd; it arose from the fact that lions are rare and that the inventor of the story did not know the real reason, which is that their habitat is of limited extent. The lionesses in Syria give birth five times, producing at first five cubs, then one less at each successive birth.)

That the poet Afranius wisely and prettily called Wisdom the daughter of Experience and Memory.

THAT was a fine and true thought of the poet Afranius about the birth of Wisdom and the means of acquiring it, when he said that she was the daughter of Experience and Memory. For in that way he shows that one who wishes to be wise in human affairs does not need books alone or instruction in rhetoric and dialectics, but ought also to occupy and train himself in becoming intimately acquainted with and testing real life, and in firmly fixing in his memory all such acts and events; and accordingly he must learn wisdom and judgment from the teaching of actual experience, not from what books only, or masters, through vain words and fantasies, have foolishly represented as though in a farce or a dream. The verses of Afranius are in a Roman comedy called The Chair:[*](298, Ribbeck3.)

1. My sire Experience was, me Memory bore,
2. In Greece called Sophia, Wisdom in Rome.

There is also a line of Pacuvius to about the same purport, which the philosopher Macedo, a good man and my intimate friend, thought ought to be written over the doors of all temples: [*](348, Ribbeck3.)

1. I hate base men who preach philosophy.

For he said that nothing could be more shameful or insufferable than that idle, lazy folk, disguised with beard and cloak, should change the character and advantages of philosophy into tricks of the tongue and of words, and, themselves saturated with vices, should eloquently assail vice.

What Tullius Tiro wrote in his commentaries about the Suculae, or

Little Pigs,

and the Hyades, which are the names of constellations.

TULLIUS TIRO was the pupil and freedman of Marcus Cicero and an assistant in his literary work. He wrote several books on the usage and theory of the Latin language and on miscellaneous questions of various kinds. Pre-eminent among these appear to be those to which he gave the Greek title Pande/ktai,[*](Literally, all-embracing.) implying that they included every kind of science and fact. In these he wrote the following about the stars which are called the Suculae, or

Little Pigs

: [*](pp. 7 ff. Lion.)

The early Romans,

says he,

were so ignorant of Grecian literature and so unfamiliar with the Greek language, that they called those stars which are in the head of the Bull Suculae, or 'The Little Pigs,' because the Greeks call them u(a/des; for they supposed that Latin word to be a translation of the Greek name because u(/es in Greek is sues in Latin. But the u(a/des,

says he,

are so called, ou)k a)po\ tw=n u(w=n (that is, not from pigs), as our rude forefathers believed, but from the word u(/ein; for both when they rise and when they set they cause rainstorms and heavy showers. And pluere, (to rain) is expressed in the Greek tongue by u(/ein.

So, indeed, Tiro in his Pandects. But, as a matter of fact, our early writers were not such boors and

crowns as to give to the stars called hyades the name of suculae, or

little pigs,

because u(/es are called sues in Latin; but just as what the Greeks call u(pe/r we call super, what they call u(/ptios we call supinus, what they call u(forbo/s we call subulcus, and finally, what they call u(/pnos we call first sypnus, and then, because of the kinship of the Greek letter y and the Latin o, somnus—just so, what they call u(a/des were called by us, first shades, and then suculae.

But the stars in question are not in the head of the Bull, as Tiro says, for except for those stars the Bull has no head; but they are so situated and arranged in the circle that is called the

zodiac,

that from their position they seem to present the appearance and semblance of a bull's head, just as the other parts, and the rest of the figure of the Bull, are formed and, as it were, pictured by the place and location of those stars which the Greeks call Pleia/des and we, Vergiliae.

The derivation of soror, according to Antistins Labeo, and that of frater, according to Publius Nigidius.

ANTISTIUS LABEO cultivated the study of civil law with special interest, and gave advice publicly to those who consulted him on legal questions; he was also not unacquainted with the other liberal arts, and he had delved deep into grammar and dialectics, as well as into the earlier and more recondite literature. He had also become versed in the origin and formation of Latin words, and applied that knowledge in particular to solving many knotty points of law. In fact, after his death works of his were published,

which are entitled Posteriores, of which three successive books, the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth and fortieth, are full of information of that kind, tending to explain and illustrate the Latin language. Moreover, in the books which he wrote On the Praetor's Edict he has included many observations, some of which are graceful and clever. Of such a kind is this, which we find written in the fourth book On the Edict: [*](Fr. 26, Huschke; 2, Bremer (ii, p. 85).)

A soror, or 'sister,'

he says,

is so called because she is, as it were, born seorsum, or ' outside,' and is separated from that home in which she was born, and transferred to another family.

[*](That is to say, by marriage.)

Moreover, Publius Nigidius, a man of prodigious learning, explains the word frater, or

brother,

by a no less clever and ingenious derivation: [*](Fr. 50, Swoboda.)

A frater,

he says,

is so called because he is, as it were, fere alter, that is, 'almost another self.'

[*](These derivations are, of course, purely fanciful; soror and frater are cognate with sister and brother, and are not of Latin derivation.)