Noctes Atticae

A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence.

WHEN Gaius Gracchus [*](The celebrated tribune of 123 and 122 B.C. He was famous as an orator; cf. i. 11. 10 ff.) returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words: [*](O.R.F., p. 231, Meyer2.)

I conducted myself in my province,

said he,

as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their

v3.p.91

general's tent.

Later on he continues as follows:

I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, [*](One is reminded of the story of the politician who declared that he had never received a penny in bribes, but that it was as well to say nothing about thousand dollar bills.) by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons.

Then after an interval he goes on:

Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.

Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians

common.

UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are

common

verbs and can be used either way:

I respect you

and

I am respected by you,

that is,

you respect me

;

I use you

and

I am used by you,

that is,

you use me

;

I exhort you

and

I am exhorted by you,

that is,

you exhort me

;

I console you

and

I am consoled by you,

that is,

you console me.

Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are unusual in the second of these meanings, and it is a matter of inquiry whether they are ever so used. Afranius in The Cousins says: [*](ii. 33, Ribbeck3.)

1. Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap,
2. Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be.

Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning: [*](v. 43, Ribbeck3.)

1. Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur).

That is,

which is not to be used.

Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this: [*](Frag. 101, Peter2.)

He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle.

We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius.

But,

he says,

when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes.

Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, [*](§ 87 and § 53) so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be

common

verbs. Sallust too in a similar way says: [*](Hist. i. 49, Maur.)

The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis),

indicating that largior is one of the

common

verbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and pigitum, is used impersonally and indefinitely, [*](That is, without having a particular person or thing as its subject.) not only by the earlier writers, but also by Marcus Tullius in the second book of his De Finibus. [*](§ 39.)

First (I will refute),

says he,

the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear [*](i.e. who did not scruple.) (veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.

Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as

common

verbs. Thus we find in Virgil: [*](Aen. iii. 475.)

1. Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale),

and [*](Aen. iii. 460.)

1. Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe.

Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words: [*](iii. 1.)

For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days.

Also in those same Tables we find this: [*](viii. 22.)

Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, [*](That is, in a symbolic sale, when the purchaser touched a balance with a coin. See note on v. 19. 3 (vol. i., p. 436).) if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.

That Metellus Numidicus borrowed a new form of expression from Greek usage.

IN Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in the third book of his Accusalion of Valerius Messala, I have made note of a novel expression. The words of his speech are as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 276, Mever2.)

When he knew that he had incurred so grave an accusation, and that our allies had come to the senate in tears, to make complaint that they had been exacted enormous sums of money (pecunias maximas exactos esse).

He says

that they had been exacted enormous sums of money,

instead of

that enormous sums of money had been exacted from them.

This seemed to me an imitation of a Greek idiom; for the Greeks say: ei)sepra/cato/ me a)rgu/rion, meaning

he exacted me money.

But if this can be said, so too can

one is exacted money,

and Caecilius seems to have used that form of expression in his Supposititious Aeschinus: [*](v. 92, Ribbeck3.)

1. Yet I the customs-fee exacted am.

That is to say,

yet the customs-fee is exacted from me.

That the early writers used passis velis and passis manibus, not from the verb patior, to which the participle belongs, but from pando, to which it does not belong.

FROM the verb pando the ancients made passum, not pansum, and with the preposition ex they formed

expassum, not expansum. Caecilius in the Fellowbreakfasters says: [*](v. 197, Ribbeck3.)

1. That yesterday he'd looked in from the roof,
2. Had this announced, and straight the veil [*](The flame-coloured (yellow) bridal veil.) was spread (expassum).

A woman too is said to be capillo passo, or

with disordered hair,

when it is hanging down and loosened, and we say passis manibus and velis passis of hands and sails stretched out and spread. Therefore Plautus in his Braggart Captain, changing an a into an e, as is usual in compound words, uses dispessis for dispassis in these lines: [*](359 Cf. iv. 17. 8; a became e before two consonants, i before a single one, except r.) Methinks you thus must die without the gate, When you shall hold the cross with hands outstretched (dispessis).

Of the singular death of Milo of Croton. [*](The same story is told by Strabo, vi. 1. 12 (iii, p. 45, L.C.L.).)

MILO of Croton, a famous athlete, who was first crowned at the sixty-second Olympiad, [*](32 B.C.) as the chronicles record, ended his life in a strange and lamentable manner. When he was already advanced in age and had given up the athletic art, he chanced to be journeying alone in a wooded part of Italy. Near the road he saw an oak tree, the middle of which gaped with wide cracks. Then wishing, I suppose, to try whether he still had any strength left,

he put his fingers into the hollows of the tree and tried to rend apart and split the oak. And in fact he did tear asunder and divide the middle part; but when the oak was thus split into two parts, and he relaxed his hold as if he had accomplished his attempt, the tree returned to its natural position when the pressure ceased, and catching and holding his hands as it came together and united, it kept the man there, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts.