Noctes Atticae

That the name Agrippa was given to those whose birth was difficult and unnatural; and of the goddesses called Prorsa and Postverta.

THOSE at whose birth the feet appeared first, instead of the head, which is considered the most difficult and dangerous form of parturition, are called Agrippae, a word formed from aegritudo, or

difficulty,

and pedes (feet). But Varro says [*](Ant. Rer. Div. xiv, frag. 17 b, Agahd.) that the position of children in the womb is with the head lowest and the feet raised up, not according to the nature of a man, but of a tree. For he likens the branches of a tree to the feet and legs, and the stock and trunk to the head.

Accordingly,

says he,

when they chanced to be turned upon their feet in an unnatural position, since their arms are usually extended they are wont to be held back, and then women give birth with greater difficulty. For the purpose of averting this danger altars were set up at Rome to the two Carmentes, [*](Carmenta was a birth-goddess, whose festival, the Carmentalia (or Karmentalia) occurred on Jan. 11 and 15. The Carmentes may originally have been wise women who assisted at births and were later deified (Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp 290 ff.).) of whom one was called Postverta, [*](That is, head foremost.) the other Prorsa, [*](That is, feet foremost.) named from natural and unnatural births, and their power over them.

Of the origin of the term ager Vaticanus.

WE had been told that the ager Vaticanus, or

Vatican region,

and the presiding deity of the same place, took their names from the vaticinia, or

prophecies,

which were wont to be made in that region through the power and inspiration of that god. But in addition to that reason Marcus Varro, in his Antiquities of the Gods, states [*](Frag. 20b, Agahd.) that there is another explanation of the name: For,

says he, just as Aius was called a god and the altar was erected in his honour which stands at the bottom of the Nova Via, because in that place a voice from heaven was heard, so that god was called Vaticanus who controls the beginnings of human speech, since children, as soon as they are born, first utter the sound which forms the first syllable of Vaticanus; hence the word vagire ('cry'), which represents the sound of a new-born infant's voice.

Some interesting and instructive remarks about that part of Geometry which is called

Optics

; of another part called

Harmony,

and also of a third called

Metric.

A PART of Geometry which relates to the sight is called o)ptikh/ or

Optics,

another part, relating to the ears, is known as kanonikh/ or

Harmony,

which musicians make use of as the foundation of their art. These are concerned respectively with the spaces and the intervals between lines and with the theory of musical numbers.

Optics effect many surprising things, such as the appearance in one mirror of several images of the same thing; also that a mirror placed in a certain position shows no image, but when moved to another spot gives reflections; also that if you look straight into a mirror, your reflection is such that your head

appears below and your feet uppermost. [*](The first effect is produced when the surface of a mirror is divided into numerous smaller mirrors. Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 129, describes cups, the interior of which was so fashioned as to give numerous reflections. The second is described (e.g.) in Pausanias viii. 37. 7. The third is produced when one looks into a concave mirror from a certain distance. Magic mirrors of various kinds and properties were known in antiquity, as well as divination by means of mirrors. See Trans. Numais. and Ant. Soc. of Phila., 1910, pp. 187 ff.) This science also gives the reasons for optical illusions, such as the magnifying of objects seen in the water, and the small size of those that are remote from the eye.

Harmony, on the other hand, measures the length and pitch of sounds. The measure of the length of a tone is called r(uqmo/s, or rhythm of its pitch, me/los, or

melody.

There is also another variety of Harmony which is called metrikh/, or

Metric,

by which the combination of long and short syllables, and those which are neither long nor short, and the verse measure according to the principles of geometry are examined with the aid of the ears.

But these things,

says Marcus Varro, [*](p. 337, Bipont.)

we either do not learn at all, or we leave off before we know why they ought to be learned. But the pleasure,

he says,

and the advantage of such sciences appear in their later study, when they have been completely mastered; but in their mere elements they seem foolish and unattractive.

[*](Cf. xvi. 8. 15 ff.)

A story about the lyre-player Arion, taken from the work of Herodotus.

HERODOTUS has written [*](i. 23.) of the famous lyre-player Arion in terse and vigorous language and in simple and elegant style.

Arion,

says he,

in days of old was a celebrated player upon the lyre. The

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town in which he was born was Methyma, but from the name of his country and the island as a whole he was a Lesbian. This Arion for the sake of his art was held in friendship and affection by Periander, king of Corinth. [*](625–585 B.C.) Later, he left the king, to visit the famous lands of Sicily and Italy. On his arrival there he charmed the ears and minds of all in the cities of both countries, and there he was enriched as well as being generally admired and beloved. Then later, laden with money and with wealth of all kinds, he determined to return to Corinth, choosing a Corinthian vessel and crew, as better known to him and more friendly.

But Herodotus says that those Corinthians, having received Arion on board and put to sea, formed the plan of murdering him for the sake of his money. Then he, realizing that death was at hand, gave them possession of his money and other goods, but begged that they should at least spare his life. The sailors were moved by his prayers only so far as to refrain from putting him to death with their own hands, but they bade him at once, before their eyes, leap headlong into the sea.

Then,

says Herodotus,

the poor man, in terror and utterly hopeless of life, finally made the one request that before meeting his end he might be allowed to put on all his costume, take his lyre, and sing a song in consolation of his fate. The sailors, though savage and cruel, nevertheless had a desire to hear him; his request was granted. Then afterwards, crowned in the usual way, robed and adorned, he stood upon the extreme stern and lifting up his voice on high sang the song called 'orthian.' [*](This was a song in such a high key that it could be reached by few voices. In Aristophanes, Knights, 1279 (L.C.L. i, p. 247) the o)/rqios no/mos is played by a prince of harpers.) Finally, having finished his song, with his lyre and all his equipment, just as he stood and sang, he

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threw himself far out into the deep. The sailors, not doubting in the least that he had perished, held on the course which they had begun. But an unheard of, strange and miraculous thing happened.

Herodotus asserts that a dolphin suddenly swam up amid the waves, dove under the floating man, and lifting his back above the flood, carried him and landed him at Taenarum in the Laconian land, with his person and adornment uninjured. Then Arion went from there straight to Corinth and, just as he was when the dolphin carried him, presented himself unexpectedly to king Periander and told him exactly what had occurred. The king did not believe the story but ordered that Arion be imprisoned as an impostor. He hunted up the sailors, and in the absence of Arion craftily questioned them, asking whether they had heard anything of Arion in the places from which they had come. They replied that the man had been in the land of Italy when they left it, that he was doing well there, enjoying the devotion and the pleasures of the cities, and that both in prestige and in money he was rich and fortunate. Then, in the midst of their story, Arion suddenly appeared with his lyre, clad in the garments in which he had thrown himself into the sea; the sailors were amazed and proved guilty, and could not deny their crime. This story is told by the Lesbians and the Corinthians, and in testimony to its truth two brazen images are to be seen near Taenarum, the dolphin carrying the man, who is seated on his back.

That Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus criticized a saying of Cicero's in the speech which he delivered For Marcus Caelius; and what may be said with truth and propriety in defence of that saying, in reply to those most foolish critics.

JUST as there have been monsters of men who expressed impious and false opinions about the immortal gods, so there have been some so extravagant and so ignorant that they have dared to say that Marcus Cicero spoke without correctness, propriety, or consideration; among these are Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus, and the latter's book even bears the outrageous title of The Scourge of Cicero. Now the other things that they have censured are certainly not worth hearing or mentioning; but let us consider the value of this stricture of theirs, in which particularly they are, in their own opinion, very keen critics of language.

Marcus Cicero in his speech For Marcus Caelius [*](§6.) writes as follows:

As to the charge made against his chastity and published by all his accusers, not in the form of actual charges, but of gossip and calumnies, Marcus Caelius will never take that so much to heart, as to repent that he was not born ugly.

They think that Cicero has not used the proper word in saying paeniteat, or

repent,

and they go so far as to add that it is almost absurd;

for,

they say,

we regularly use paenitere when things which we ourselves have done, or which have been done in accordance with our wish and design, later begin to displease us and we change our opinion about them.

But that no one correctly says that he

repents being born

or

repents being mortal,

or

because he feels pain from any chance injury or wound inflicted upon his body

; for in such cases there is no design or choice on our part, but such things happen to us against our will by some necessity or force of nature.

In the same way,

they continue,

it was not a matter of choice with Marcus Caelius with what person he was born; yet he says that ' he did not repent this,' as if there were in that circumstance ground for a feeling of repentance.

This is in fact, as they say, the force of that word, and paenitere is strictly used of none but voluntary acts, although our forefathers used that same word also in a different sense and connected paenitere with the words paene (almost) and paenuria (want). But that is another question, and will be spoken of in another place. [*](This promise is not fulfilled.) But with regard to the point at issue, giving to paenitere this same meaning which is commonly recognized, what Marcus Cicero said is not only not foolish, but in the highest degree elegant and witty. For since the adversaries and detractors of Marcus Caelius, inasmuch as he was of handsome person, made use of his appearance and figure to throw doubt upon his chastity, therefore Cicero, making sport of such an absurd charge as to impute to him as a fault the good looks which nature had given him, has deliberately adopted that very same false charge of which he is making fun, saying:

Marcus Caelius is not sorry

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for not having been born ugly

; so that by the very fact of speaking thus he might reproach his accusers and wittily show that they were doing an absurd thing in making Caelius' handsome person an accusation against him, just as if the person with which he was born depended upon his own volition.