Noctes Atticae

The meaning of the expression susque deque, which occurs frequently in the books of early writers.

SUSQUE dequefero, susque deque sum, or susque deque habeo [*](Susque deque, both up and down, is an expression denoting indifference. It occurs without a verb in Cic. ad Att. xiv. 6. 1, de Octavio susque deque. See Paul. Fest. p. 271 Linds., susque deque significat plus minusve.) —for all these forms occur, meaning

it's all

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one to me

—is an expression used in the everyday language of cultivated men. It occurs frequently in poems too and in the letters of the early writers; but you will more readily find persons who flaunt the phrase than who understand it. So true is it that many of us hasten to use out-of-the-way words that we have stumbled upon, but not to learn their meaning. Now susque deque ferre means to be indifferent and not to lay much stress upon anything that happens; sometimes it means to neglect and despise, having about the force of the Greek word a)diaforei=n. Laberius says in his Compitalia: [*](v. 29, Ribbeck3.)

1. Now you are dull, now 'tis all one to you (susque deque fers);
2. Your wife sits by you on the marriage bed, [*](The marriage bed in the early Roman house stood in the atrium, opposite the door, whence it was called lectus adversus; in later times a symbolic bed stood in the sane place.)
3. A penny slave unseemly language dares.

Marcus Varro in his Sisenna, or On History says: [*](256, Riese.)

But if all these things did not have similar beginnings and sequels, it would be all one (susque deque esset).

So Lucilius in his third book writes: [*](110 ff., Marx.)

1. All this was sport, to us it was all one (susque deque fierunt),
2. All one it was, I say, all sport and play;
3. That was hard toil, when we gained Setia's bourne:
4. Goat-traversed heights, Aetnas, rough Athoses.

The meaning of proletarii and capite censi; also of adsiduus in the Twelve Tables, and the origin of the word.

ONE day there was a cessation of business in the Forum at Rome, and as the holiday was being joyfully celebrated, it chanced that one of the books of the Annals of Ennius was read in an assembly of very many persons. In this book the following lines occurred: [*](Ann. 183 ff.)

1. With shield and savage sword is Proletarius armed
2. At public cost; they guard our walls, our mart and town.

Then the question was raised there, what proletarius meant. And seeing in that company a man who was skilled in the civil law, a friend of mine, I asked him to explain the word to us; and when he rejoined that he was an expert in civil law and not in grammatical matters, I said: " You in particular ought to explain this, since, as you declare, you are skilled in civil law. For Quintus Ennius took this word from your Twelve Tables, in which, if I remember aright, we have the following: [*](i. 4.) 'For a freeholder let the protector [*](The vindex is here one who voluntarily agrees to go before the magistrate as the representative of the defendant, and thereby takes upon himself the action in the stead of the latter (Allen, Remnants of Early Latin, p. 85).) be a freeholder. For a proletariate citizen [*](The proletarii (cf. proles) were child-producers, who made no other contribution to the State; see § 13.) let whoso will be protector.

We therefore ask you to consider that not one of the books of Quintus Ennius' Annals, but the Twelve

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Tables are being read, and interpret the meaning of 'proletariate citizen' in that law.

It is true,

said he,

that if I had learned the law of the Fauns and Aborigines, I ought to explain and interpret this. But since proletarii, adsidui, sanates, vades, subvades, 'twenty-five asses,' 'retaliation,' and trials for theft 'by plate and girdle' [*](XII Tab. i. 4, 5, 10; viii. 2, 4, 15. For proletarii see note, p. 167. The adsidui were permanent settlers, or taxpayers, belonging to one of the five upper Servian classes. The sanates seem to have been clients or dependents of the wealthy Roman citizens. Vades were sureties, who gave bail; subvades, sub-sureties, who gave security for the bail. On viginti quinque asses, the penalty for an assault, see xx. 1. 12; for taliones, xx. 1. 14; and for cum lance et licio, note on xi. 18. 9.) have disappeared, and since all the ancient lore of the Twelve Tables, except for legal questions before the court of the centumviri, was put to sleep by the Aebutian law, [*](The date is unknown,) I ought only to exhibit interest in, and knowledge of, the law and statutes and legal terms which we now actually use.

"

Just then, by some chance, we caught sight of Julius Paulus passing by, the most learned poet within my recollection. We greeted him, and when he was asked to enlighten us as to the meaning and derivation of that word, he said: "Those of the Roman commons who were humblest and of smallest means, and who reported no more than fifteen hundred asses at the census, were called proletarii, but those who were rated as having no property at all, or next to none, were termed capite censi, or 'counted by head.' And the lowest rating of the capite censi was three hundred and seventy-five asses. But since property and money were regarded as a hostage and pledge of loyalty to the State, and since there was in them a kind of guarantee and assurance of patriotism, neither the proletarii nor the capite censi were enrolled as soldiers except in some time of extraordinary disorder, because they had

little or no property and money. However, the class of proletarii was somewhat more honourable in fact and in name than that of the capite censi; for in times of danger to the State, when there was a scarcity of men of military age, they were enrolled for hasty service, [*](That is, to meet a tumultus, a rebellion or irregular warfare. At first used as a military term, tumultuarius later acquired a general sense; cf. tumultuario rogo, on a hastily erected pyre, Suet. Calig. lix.) and arms were furnished them at public expense. And they were called, not capite censi, but by a more auspicious name derived from their duty and function of producing offspring, for although they could not greatly aid the State with what small property they had, yet they added to the population of their country by their power of begetting children. Gaius Marius is said to have been the first, according to some in the war with the Cimbri in a most critical period for our country, or more probably, as Sallust says, in the Jugurthine war, to have enrolled soldiers from the capite censi, since such an act was unheard of before that time. Adsidaus in the Twelve Tables [*](i. 4, 10.) is used of one who is rich and well to do, [*](locuples seems to be derived from locus, in the sense of land, and the root ple- of pleo and plenus.) either because he contributed 'asses' (that is, money) when the exigencies of the State required it, or from his 'assiduity' in making contributions according to the amount of his property." [*](Both these derivations are fanciful; adsiduus is connected with adsideo, as the grammarian Caper knew (Gram. Lat. vii. 108. 5, Keil), and means a permanent settler.)

Now the words of Sallust in the Iugurthine War about Gaius Marius and the capite censi are these: [*](Jug. lxxxvi. 2.)

He himself in the meantime enrolled soldiers, not according to the classes, or in the manner of our forefathers, but allowing anyone to volunteer, for the most part the lowest class (capite censos). Some say that he did this through lack of good men,

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others because of a desire to curry favour, since that class had given him honour and rank, and as a matter of fact, to one who aspires to power the poorest man is the most helpful.

A story taken from the books of Herodotus about the destruction of the Psylli, who dwelt in the African Syrtes.

THE race of the Marsians in Italy is said to have sprung from the son of Circe. 'Therefore it was given to the Marsic men, provided their families were not stained through the admixture of foreign alliances, by an inborn hereditary power to be the subduers of poisonous serpents and to perform wonderful cures by incantations and the juices of plants.

We see certain persons called Psylli endowed with this same power. And when I had sought in ancient records for information about their name and race, I found at last in the fourth book of Herodotus [*](iv. 173.) this story about them: that the Psylli had once been neighbours in the land of Africa of the Nasamones, and that the South Wind at a certain season in their territories blew very long and hard; that because of that gale all the water in the regions which they inhabited dried up; that the Psylli, deprived of their water supply, were grievously incensed at the South Wind because of that injury and voted to take up arms and march against the South Wind as against an enemy, and demand restitution according to the laws of war. And when they had thus set out, the South Wind

came to meet them with a great blast of air, and piling upon them mountainous heaps of sand, buried them all with their entire forces and arms. Through this act the Psylli all perished to a man, and accordingly their territories were occupied by the Nasamones.

Of those words which Cloatius Verus referred to a Greek origin, either quite fittingly or too absurdly and tastelessly.

CLOATIUS VERUS, in the books which he entitled Words taken from the Greek, says not a few things indeed which show careful and keen investigation, but also some which are foolish and trifling.

Errare (to err),

he says, [*](Fr. 3, Fun.)

is derived from the Greek e)/rrein,

and he quotes a line of Homer in which that word occurs: [*](Odyss. x. 72.) Swift wander (e)/rrei) from the isle, most wretched man. Cloatius also wrote that alucinari, or

dream,

is derived from the Greek a)lu/ein, or

be distraught,

and from this he thinks that the word elucus also is taken, with a change of a to e, meaning a certain sluggishness and stupidity of mind, which commonly comes to dreamy folk. He also derives fascinum, or

charm,

as if it were bascanum, [*](Gk. baska/nion.) and fascinare, as if it were bascinare, [*](Gk. baskai/nw.) or

bewitch.

All these are fitting and proper enough. But in his fourth book he says: [*](Fr. I, Fun.)

Faenerator is equivalent to

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fainera/twr, meaning 'to appear at one's best,' since that class of men present an appearance of kindliness and pretend to be accommodating to poor men who are in need of money

; and he declared that this was stated by Hypsicrates, a grammarian whose books on Words Borrowed from the Greeks are very well known. But whether Cloatius himself or some other blockhead gave vent to this nonsense, nothing can be more silly. For faenerator, as Marcus Varro wrote in the third book of his Latin Diction, [*](Frag. 57. G. and S.)

is so called from feanus, or 'interest,' but faenus,

he says,

is derived from fetus, [*](Thurneysen, T.L.L. s. v. fenus, thinks this derivation is perhaps correct; we may compare Greek to/kos, which means both offspring and interest.) or 'offspring,' and from a birth, as it were, from money, producing and giving increase.

Therefore he says that Marcus Cato [*](Frag. inc. 62, Jordan.) and others of his time pronounced generator without the letter a, just as fetus itself and fecunditas were pronounced.