Noctes Atticae

Certain facts about the birth, life and character of the poet Euripides, and about the end of his life.

THEOPOMPUS says [*](F.H. G. i. 294.) that the mother of the poet Euripides made a living by selling country produce. Furthermore, when Euripides was born, his father was assured by the astrologers that the boy, when he grew up, would be victor in the games; for that was his destiny. His father, understanding this to mean that he ought to be an athlete, exercised and strengthened his son's body and took him to Olympia to contend among the wrestlers. And at first he was not admitted to the contest because of his time of life, [*](He was too old for the boys' races.) but afterwards he engaged in the Eleusinian [*](Athletic games in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries.) and Thesean [*](A festival held at Athens in the autumn in the month Pyanepsion, in honour of Theseus.) contests and won crowns.

1. Now then I urge and call on all our sex
2. This man to punish for his many crimes.
3. For on us, women, he brings bitter woes,
4. Himself brought up 'mid bitter garden plants.

1. The pupil of stout Anaxagoras,
2. Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned
3. To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote
4. Might honey and the Sirens well have known.

When Euripides was in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, and had become an intimate friend of the king, returning home one night from a dinner with the monarch he was torn by dogs, which were set

Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish,

That by the poets the sons of Jupiter are represented as most wise and refined, but those of Neptune as very haughty and rude.

THE poets have called the sons of Jupiter most excellent in worth, wisdom and strength, for example Aeacus, Minos and Sarpedon; the sons of Neptune, the Cyclops, Cercyon, Sciron, and the Laestrygonians, they said, were most haughty and cruel, and strangers to all refinement, as being sprung from the sea.

A story of the distinguished leader Sertorius; of his cunning, and of the clever devices which he used to control and conciliate his barbarian soldiers.

SERTORIUS, a brave man and a distinguished general, was skilled in using and commanding an army. In times of great difficulty he would lie to

This credulity of the barbarians was very helpful to Sertorius in important matters. It is recorded that of those tribes which acted with Sertorius, although he was defeated in many battles, not one ever deserted him, although that race of men is most inconstant.

Of the age of the famous historians, Hellanicus, Herodotus and Thucydides.

HELLANICUS, Herodotus, and Thucydides, writers of history, enjoyed great glory at almost the same time, and did not differ very greatly in age. For Hellanicus seems to have been sixty-five years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, [*](In 413 B.C.) Herodotus fifty-three, Thucydides forty. This is stated in the eleventh book of Pamphila. [*](F.H.G. iii. 521. 7; cf. xv. 17. 3, above.)

Vulcacius Sedigitus' canon of the Latin writers of comedy, from the book which he wrote On Poets.

SEDIGITUS, in the book which he wrote On Poets, shows in the following verses of his [*](Frag. 1, Bährens.) what he thought of those who wrote comedies, which one he thinks surpasses all the rest, and then what rank and honour he gives to each of them:

1. This question many doubtfully dispute,
2. Which comic poet they'd award the palm.
3. This doubt my judgment shall for you resolve;
4. If any differ from me, senseless he.
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5. First place I give Caecilius Statius.
6. Plautus holds second rank without a peer;
7. Then Naevius third, for passion and for fire.
8. If fourth there be, be he Licinius.
9. I place Atilius next, after Licinius.
10. These let Terentius follow, sixth in rank.
11. Turpilius seventh, Trabea eighth place holds.
12. Ninth palm I gladly give to Luscius,
13. To Ennius tenth, as bard of long ago. [*](The principle on which the ranking was done is a disputed question—the amount of originality, that of pa/qos, and personal feeling have been suggested. Vulcacius lived about 130 B.C. He is cited by Suetonius, v. Ter. ii, iv, v (L.C.L. ii, pp. 456, 458, 462).)

Of certain new words which I had met in the Miimiambics of Gnaeus Matius.

GNAEUS MATIUS, a learned man, in his Mimiambics properly and fitly coined the word recentatur for the idea expressed by the Greek a)nai eou=tai, that is

it is born again and is again made new.

1. E'en now doth Phoebus gleam, again is born (recentatur)
2. The common light to joys of mortal men.

to sweeten,

1. And therefore it is fit to sweeten (edulcare) life,
2. And bitter cares with wisdom to control.

In what words the philosopher Aristotle defined a syllogism; and an interpretation of his definition in Latin terms.

ARISTOTLE defines a syllogism in these lines: [*](Topic. i. 1, p. 100. 25.)

A sentence in which, granted certain premises, something else than these premises necessarily follows as the result of these premises.

A syllogism is a sentence in which, certain things being granted and accepted, something else than that which was granted is necessarily established through what was granted.

The meaning of comitia calata, curiata, centsriata, and tribulta, and of concilium, and other related matters of the same kind.

IN the first book of the work of Laelius Felix addressed To Quintus Mucius it is said [*](Frag. I ff., i. p. 70, Bremer.) that Labeo wrote [*](Frag. 22, Huschke; inc. 187, Bremer.) that the comitia calata, or

convoked assembly,

of the curies

of the centuries

convoke

In that same assembly, which we have said was called calata, or

convoked,

convoked assembly

In the same book of Laelius Felix this is written:

One who orders a part of the people to assemble, but not all the people, ought to announce a council rather than an assembly. Moreover, tribunes do not summon the patricians, nor may they refer any question to them. Therefore bills which are passed on the initiative of the tribunes of the commons are properly called plebiscita, or 'decrees of the commons,' rather than 'laws.' In former times the patricians were not bound by such decrees until the dictator Quintus Hortensius passed a law, providing that all the Quirites should be bound by whatever enactment the commons should pass.

When voting is done according to families of men, [*](The comitia curiata were organized on the basis of the thirty curiae of the three original Roman tribes. These curiae included the patrician gentes, which, before the time of the military assembly (comitia centuriata) attributed to Servius Tullius, alone had the full rights of citizenship.) the assembly is called 'curiate'; when it is according to property and age, ' centuriate'; when according to regions and localities, 'tribal.' Further it impious for the assembly of the centuries to be held within the pomerium, because the army must be summoned outside of the city, and it is not lawful for it to be summoned within the city. Therefore it was customary for the

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assembly of the centuries to be held in the field of Mars, and the army to be summoned there for purposes of defence while the people were busy casting their votes.

That Cornelius Nepos was in error when he wrote that Cicero defended Sextus Roscius at the age of twenty-three.

CORNELIUS NEPOS was a careful student of records and one of Marcus Cicero's most intimate friends. Yet in the first book of his Life of Cicero he seems to have erred in writing [*](Frag. 1, Peter2.) that Cicero made his first plea in a public trial at the age of twenty-three years, defending Sextus Roscius, who was charged with murder. For if we count the years from Quintus Caepio and Quintus Serranus, in whose consulship Cicero was born on the third day before the Nones of January, [*](January 3, 106 B.C.) to Marcus Tullius and Gnaeus Dolabella, in whose consulate he pleaded a private case In Defence of Quinctius before Aquilius Gallus as judge, the result is twenty-six years. And there is no doubt that he defended Sextus Roscius on a charge of murder the year after he spoke In Defence of Quinctius; that is, at the age of twenty-seven, in the consulship of Lucius Sulla Felix and Metellus Pius, the former for a second time.

Asconius Pedianus has noted [*](p. xv, Kiessling and Schöll.) that Fenestella also made a mistake in regard to this matter, in writing [*](Frag. 17, Peter2.) that he pleaded for Sextus Roscius in the twenty-sixth year of his age. But the mistake of Nepos is greater than that of Fenestella, unless anyone is inclined to believe that Nepos, led by a

This also has been noted and recorded by the admirers of both orators, that Demosthenes and Cicero delivered their first brilliant speeches in the courts at the same age, the former Against Androtion and Against Timocrates at the age of twenty-seven, the latter when a year younger In Defence of Quinctius and at twenty-seven In Defence of Sextus Roscius. Also, the number of years which they lived did not differ very greatly; Cicero died at sixty-three, Demosthenes at sixty. [*](In 322 B.C.)

A new form of expression used by Lucius Piso, the writer of annals.

THE two following modes of saying

my name is Julius

They feared his colleague, Lucius Tarquinius, because he had the Tarquinian name; and he begged him to leave Rome of his own free will.

Because,

he had the Tarquinian name

I have the Julian name.