Noctes Atticae

Of ignoble subjects, called by the Greeks a)/docoi, or

unexpected,

argued by Favorinus for the sake of practice.

NOT only the sophists of old, but the philosophers as well, took up ignoble subjects, [*](See Pease, Things without Honor, Class. Phil. xxi. pp. 27 ff. An example is Erasmus' Praise of Folly.) or if you prefer, unexpected ones, a)/docoi u(poqe/seis, as the Greeks call them; and our friend Favorinus took a great deal of pleasure in descending to such subjects, [*](Frag. 65, Marres.) either thinking them suitable for stimulating his thoughts or exercising his cleverness or overcoming difficulties by practice. For example, when he attempted to praise Thersites and pronounced a eulogy upon the quartan ague, [*](See note 1, p. 252.) he said many clever and ingenious things on both topics, which he has left written in his works.

But in his eulogy of fever he even produced Plato as a witness, declaring that the philosopher wrote [*](Tim. 10, p. 86 A.) that one who after suffering from quartan ague got well and recovered his full strength, would afterwards enjoy surer and more constant health. And in that same eulogy he made this quip, which, of a truth, is not ungraceful:

The following lines,

he says,

have met with the approval of many generations of men: [*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 825.)

1. Sometimes a day is like a stepmother,
2. And sometimes like a mother.

v3.p.253

The meaning of the verses is that a man cannot fare well every day, but fares well on one day and ill on another. Since it is true,

he says,

that in human affairs things are in turn, now good, now bad, how much more fortunate is this fever which has an interval of two days, [*](Owing to the Roman method of inclusive reckoning, the quartan ague, occurring on every fourth day, had an interval of two days; see Class Phil. viii. 1 ff.) since it has only one stepmother, but two mothers!

How many and what varieties of meaning the particle quin has, and that it is often obscure in the earlier literature.

THE particle quin, which the grammarians call a conjunction, seems to connect sentences in various ways and with divers meanings. For it seems to have one meaning when we say, as if chiding or questioning or exhorting, quin venis?

Why don't you come?

quin legis?

Why don't you read?

or quin fugis?

Why don't you flee?

; but it has a different meaning when we affirm, for example, that

there is no doubt but that (quin) Marcus Tullius is the most eloquent of all men,

and still a third, when we add something which seems contradictory to a former statement:

Isocrates did not plead causes, not but that he thought it useful and honourable so to do.

In the last of these sentences the meaning is not very different from that which is found in the third book of Marcus Cato's Origins: [*](Frag. 73, Peter2.)

these I describe last, not but that they are good and valiant peoples.

[*](This rather difficult example I do not find in our grammars.) Also in the second book of the Origins Marcus Cato has used this particle in a very similar manner: [*](Id. 36.)

He did not consider it enough to have slandered him privately, without openly defaming his character.

I have noted, besides, that Quadrigarius in the eighth book of his Annals has used that particle in a very obscure manner. I quote his exact words: [*](Frag. 70, Peter2.)

He came to Rome; he barely succeeds in having a triumph voted.

[*](Quin = why not; see note 4 below.) Also in the sixth book of the same writer's Annals are these words: [*](Id. 58.)

It lacked little but that (quin) they should leave their camp and yield to the enemy.

Now I am quite well aware that someone may say off-hand that there is no difficulty in these words; for quin in both passages is used for ut, and the meaning is perfectly plain if you say:

He came to Rome; he with difficulty brought it about that a triumph should be voted

; [*](This translation, which Gellius rightly rejects, neglects the negative in quin. Both examples from Quadrigarius might be explained as dubitative questions in the paratactic form; e.g. Why should not a triumph be granted him?) and also in the other passage,

It almost happened that they left their camp and yielded to the enemy.

Let those who are so ready find refuge in changing words which they do not understand, but let them do so with more modesty, when the occasion permits.

Only one who has learned that this particle of which we are speaking is a compound and formed of two parts, and that it does not merely have the function of a connective but has a definite meaning of its own, [*](quin is formed from qui, the ablative of the interrogative and relative stem qui-, and -ne, not. It is used in both dependent and independent sentences. See Lane, Lat. Gr.2 1980 ff.) will ever understand its variations in meaning. But because an explanation of these would require a long dissertation, he who has leisure may find it in the Commentaries of Publius Nigidius which he entitled Grammatical. [*](Frag. 52, Swoboda.)