Noctes Atticae

The reply of a certain philosopher, when he was asked why he turned pale in a storm at sea.

WE were sailing from Cassiopa [*](A town in the north-eastern part of Corcyra, also called Cassiope.) to Brundisium over the Ionian sea, violent, vast and storm-tossed. During almost the whole of the night which followed our first day a fierce side-wind blew, which had filled our ship with water. Then afterwards, while we were all still lamenting, and working hard at the pumps, day at last dawned. But there was no less danger and no slackening of the violence of the wind; on the contrary, more frequent whirlwinds, a black sky, masses of fog, and a kind of fearful cloud-forms, which they called typhones, [*](Typhon, according to Hesiod, was a son of Typhoeus (see note on xvii. 10. 9) and father of the winds; but by later poets he was identified with Typhos or Typhoeus. His name was given to the violent storms called typhoons.) or

typhoons,

In our company was an eminent philosopher of the Stoic sect, whom I had known at Athens as a man of no slight importance, holding the young men who were his pupils under very good control. In the midst of the great dangers of that time and that tumult of sea and sky I looked for him, desiring to know in what state of mind he was and whether he was unterrified and courageous. And then I beheld

What does this mean, Sir philosopher, that when we were in danger you were afraid and turned pale, while I neither feared nor changed colour?

If in such a terrible storm I did show a little fear, you are not worthy to be told the reason for it. But, if you please, the famous Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, shall answer for me, [*](Frag. Phil. Graec. ii. 407. 16.) who on being asked on a similar occasion by a man much like you why he feared, though a philosopher, while his questioner on the contrary had no fear, replied that they had not the same motives, for his questioner need not be very anxious about the life of a worthless coxcomb, but he himself feared for the life of an Aristippus.

With these words then the Stoic rid himself of the rich Asiatic. But later, when we were approaching Brundisium and sea and sky were calm, I asked him what the reason for his fear was, which he had refused to reveal to the man who had improperly addressed him. And he quietly and courteously replied:

Since you are desirous of knowing, hear

v3.p.353

what our forefathers, the founders of the Stoic sect, thought about that brief but inevitable and natural fear, or rather,

read it, for if you read it, you will be the more ready to believe it and you will remember it better.

In that book I read this statement, which of course was written in Greek [*](Frag. 9, p. 408, Schenkl., L.C.L. II. 448 ff.) :

The mental visions, which the philosophers call fantasi/ai or 'phantasies,' by which the mind of man on the very first appearance of an object is impelled to the perception of the object, are neither voluntary nor controlled by the will, but through a certain power of their own they force their recognition upon men; but the expressions of assent, which they call sugkataqe/seis, by which these visions are recognized, are voluntary and subject to man's will. Therefore when some terrifying sound, either from heaven or from a falling building or as a sudden announcement of some danger, or anything else of that kind occurs, even the mind of a wise man must necessarily be disturbed, must shrink and feel alarm, not from a preconceived idea of any danger, but from certain swift and unexpected attacks which forestall the power of the mind and of reason. Presently, however, the wise man does not approve ' such phantasies,' that is to say, such terrifying mental visions (to quote the Greek, 'he does not consent to them nor confirm them'), but he rejects and scorns them, nor does he see in them anything that ought to excite fear. And they say that there is this difference between

v3.p.355

the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ' visions ' are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and 'confirms' them; for prosepidoca/zei is the word which the Stoics use in their discourses on the subject. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his colour and expression, 'does not assent,' but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms.

That these were the opinions and utterances of Epictetus the philosopher in accordance with the beliefs of the Stoics I read in that book which I have mentioned, and I thought that they ought to be recorded for this reason, that when things of the kind which I have named chance to occur, we may not think that to fear for a time and, as it were, turn white is the mark of a foolish and weak man, but in that brief but natural impulse we yield rather to human weakness than because we believe that those things are what they seem.

That of the five senses of the body two in particular we share with beasts; and that pleasure which comes from hearing, sight and smell is base and reprehensible, but that which comes from taste and touch is the most shameful of all, since the last two are felt also by beasts, the others only by mankind.

MEN have five senses, which the Greeks call ai)sqh/seis, by which mental or bodily pleasure is

I have added the words of Aristotle the philosopher on this subject, [*](Problemata, xxviii. 7.) in order that the authority of that renowned and illustrious man might turn us from such shameful pleasures:

Why are they called incontinent who indulge to excess in the pleasures of taste and touch? For both those who are immoderate in venery and those who are immoderate in the enjoyment of food are such. But of the latter, some find this gratification in the tongue and others in the throat, and it was for that reason that Philoxenos prayed to have the throat of a crane. Is it because the pleasures derived from such sources are common to us with the other animals? And being thus common they are the most dishonourable and more than the other pleasures, or alone, objects of

v3.p.359

reproach, so that we censure a man who is addicted to them and call him incontinent and incorrigible because he is enslaved to the meanest of pleasures. Now, there being five senses, the other animals are gratified by the two which have been mentioned only, but from the others they either enjoy no pleasure at all, or they merely experience it incidentally.

the election disease

that coition is a brief epilepsy.

That it is more disgraceful to be praised coldly than to be accused bitterly.

FAVORINUS the philosopher used to say that it was more shameful to be praised faintly and coldly than to be censured violently and severely:

For,

the man who reviles and censures you is regarded as unjust and hostile towards you in proportion to the bitterness of his invective, and therefore he is usually not believed. But one who praises grudgingly and faintly seems to lack a theme; he is regarded as the friend of a man whom he would like to praise but as unable to find anything in him which he can justly commend.

Why the bowels are loosened by sudden terror; also why fire provokes urine.

THERE is a work of Aristotle, entitled Physical Questions, which is most delightful, and filled with choice knowledge of all kinds. In this book he inquires [*](xxvii. 10; vii. 3.) why it happens that those who are seized with sudden fear of some great catastrophe commonly suffer at once from looseness of the bowels. He also inquires why it happens that one who has stood for some time before a fire is overtaken with a desire to make water. And he says that the cause of the loosening and discharge of the bowels because of fear is due to the fact that all terror is cold producing, or yuxropoio/s, as he calls it, and that by the effect of that cold it drives and expels all the blood and heat from the surface of the skin and at the same time causes those who fear to grow pale, because the blood leaves the face.

Now this blood and heat,

being driven inwards, usually moves the bowels and stimulates them.

The fire dissolves the solid matter, as the sun does snow.

A statement from the works of Aristotle, that snow-water is a very bad thing to drink; and that ice is formed from snow. [*](This is not what Aristotle said, but that water formed from ice was unwholesome, see § 5 and 9. See crit. note 1, p. 362.)

IN the hottest season of the year with some companions and friends of mine who were students of

This counsel he gave us repeatedly in a spirit of prudence and goodwill. But when the drinking of snow-water went on without interruption, from the library of Tibur, which at that time was in the temple of Hercules and was well supplied with books, he drew out a volume of Aristotle and brought it to us, saying:

At least believe the words of this wisest of men and cease to ruin your health.

In that book it was written [*](Frag. 214, Rose.) that water from snow was very bad to drink, as was also that water which was more solidly and completely congealed, which the Greeks call kru/stallos, or

clear ice

That when water is hardened by the cold air and congeals, it necessarily follows that evaporation takes place and that a kind of very thin vapour, so to speak, is forced from it and comes out of it. But its lightest part,

is that which is evaporated; what remains is heavier and less clean and wholesome,

v3.p.365

and this part, beaten upon by the throbbing of the air, takes on the form and colour of white foam. But that some more wholesome part is forced out and evaporated from the snow is shown by the fact that it becomes less than it was before it congealed.

I have taken a few of Aristotle's own words from that book, and I quote them:

Why is the water made from snow or ice unwholesome? Because from all water that is frozen the lightest and thinnest part evaporates. And the proof of this is that when it melts after being frozen, its volume is less than before. But since the most wholesome part is gone, it necessarily follows that what is left is less wholesome.

That shame drives the blood outward, while fear checks it.

IN the Problems of the philosopher Aristotle is the following passage: [*](Frag. 243, Rose.)

Why do men who are ashamed turn red and those who fear grow pale; although these emotions are similar? Because the blood of those who feel shame flows from the heart to all parts of the body, and therefore comes to the surface; but the blood of those who fear rushes to the heart, and consequently leaves all the other parts of the body.

When I had read this at Athens with our friend

He has told us properly and truly what happens when the blood is diffused or concentrated, but he has not told us why this takes place. For the question may still be asked why it is that shame diffuses the blood and fear contracts it, when shame is a kind of fear and is defined by the philosophers as 'the fear of just censure.' For they say: ai)sxu/nh e)sti\n fo/bos dikai/ou yo/gou.

The meaning of obesus and of some other early words.

THE poet Julius Paulus, a worthy man, very learned in early history and letters, inherited a small estate in the Vatican district. He often invited us there to visit him and entertained us very pleasantly and generously with vegetables and fruits. And so one mild day in autumn, when Julius Celsinus and I had dined with him, and after hearing the Alcestis of Laevius read at his table were returning to the city just before sunset, we were ruminating on the rhetorical figures and the new or striking use of words in that poem of Laevius', and as each word occurred that was worthy of notice with reference to its future use by ourselves, [*](This is characteristic of the archaistic period in which Gellius lived.) we committed it to memory.

Now the passages which then came to mind were of this sort: [*](Frag. 8, Bahrens.)

1. Of chest and body wasted (obeso) everywhere,
2. Of mind devoid of sense and slow of pace,
3. With age o'ercome.

shame-coloured

night-coloured

hesitatingly,

silent places,

dusty

pestilent,

mighty onset,

become brave,

sorrow,

desirous

unendurable cares,

tender hands,

who is of so flinty a heart?

the expense begins to be great,

rends.

We entertained ourselves on our way with these notes on Laevius' diction. But others we passed over as too poetic and unsuited to use in prose; for example, when he calls Nestor trisaeclisenex, or

an old man who had lived three generations

that sweet-mouthed speaker,

great-hillocked,

an onyx covering

carpers with raised eye-brows.

An inquiry whether harena, caelum and triticum are found in the plural; also whether quadrigae, inimicitiae, and some other words, occur in the singular.

WHEN I was a young man at Rome, before I went to Athens, I often paid a visit to Cornelius Fronto, when I had leisure from my masters and my lectures, and enjoyed his refined conversations, which abounded besides in excellent information. Whenever I saw him and heard him speak, I almost never failed to come away improved and better informed. An example is the following little talk of his, held one day on a trivial subject, it is true, but yet not without importance for the study of the Latin language. For when an intimate friend of his, a learned man and an eminent poet of the day, said that he had been cured of dropsy by the use of hot sand (calentes harenae), thereupon Fronto in jesting fashion said: "You are indeed freed of your complaint, but not of the complaint of improper language. For Gaius Caesar, the famous life-dictator and father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius, from whom the family and the name of the Caesars are derived, a man of wonderful talent, surpassing all others of his time in the purity of his diction, in the work On Analogy, which he dedicated to Marcus Cicero, wrote [*](ii. p. 126, Dinter.) that harenae is an improper term, since harena ought never to be

With regard to caelum,

and triticum I do not deny that they ought always to be used in the singular, nor with regard to arma, moenia and comitia, that their use ought to be confined to the plural; but we will inquire rather about inimicitiae and quadigae. And perhaps in the case of quadrigae I shall yield to the authority of the early writers: but what reason is there why Caesar should think that inimicitia was not used by the ancients, as were inscientia (ignorance) and impotentia (impotence) and iniuria (injury), and ought not to be used by us, when Plautus, that glory of the Latin tongue, even used delicia in the singular number instead of deliciae? For he says: [*](Poen. 365.)

1. O my delight, my darling (delicia).

Furthermore Quintus Ennius, in that most famous book of his, said: [*](Achilles, 12, p. 120, Vahlen2.)

1. Such is my habit; plain upon my brow
2. Friendship I bear and enmity (inmicitiam) to see.

v3.p.375

But pray, who else has written or said that harenae is not good Latin? And therefore I beg of you, if Gaius Caesar's book is accessible, that you have it brought, in order that you may judge with how much confidence he makes this statement.

At the time, the first book On Analogy being brought, I committed to memory these few words from it; for, first asserting that neither caelum, triticum, nor harena admitted a plural meaning, Caesar said:

Do you not think that it happens from the nature of these things that we say ' one land' and 'several lands,' 'city' and 'cities,' 'command' and 'commands,' and that we cannot convert quadrigae into the form of a singular noun or harena into a plural?

When these words had been read, Fronto said to the poet:

Does it not seem to you that Gaius Caesar has decided against you as to the status of this word with sufficient clearness and force?

If it were lawful to appeal from Caesar, I would now appeal from this book of his. But since he has neglected to give the reason for his opinion, I now ask you to tell on what ground you think it an error to say quadriga and harenae.

Quadrigae is always confined to the plural number, even though there be only one horse, since four horses yoked together are called quadrigae, from quadriugae, and certainly a term which designates many horses ought not to be included under the oneness expressed by the singular number. The same reasoning must be applied to harena, but in a different form; for since harena, though used in the singular number,

v3.p.377

nevertheless indicates the multiplicity and abundance of the minute parts of which it consists, harenae seems to be an ignorant and improper usage, as if the word needed a plural form,. when its collective nature makes it natural for it to be used in the singular. But,

I have said this, not in order to give my authority and signature to this opinion and rule, but that I might not leave the view of that learned man, Caesar, unsupported. For while caelum, or 'sky,' is always used in the singular, but mare, or 'sea,' and terra, or 'land,' not always, and pulvis, or 'dust,' ventus, or 'wind,' and fumus, or 'smoke,' not always, why did the early writers sometimes use indutiae, or 'truce,' and caerimoniae, or 'ceremony,' in the singular, but never feriae, or 'holiday,' nundinae, or 'market day,' inferiae, or 'offering to the dead,' and exsequiae, or ' obsequies'? Why may mel, or 'honey,' and vinum, or 'wine,' and other words of that kind, be used in the plural, but not lacte (milk)? [*](The classical form is, of course, lac. Lacte and lact occur in early Latin, and the use of lacte here is an archaism, which was not understood by some of the scribes; see crit. note 2.) All these questions, I say, cannot be investigated, unravelled, and thrashed out by men of affairs in so busy a city; indeed, I see that you have been delayed even by these matters of which I have spoken, being intent, I suppose, on some business. So go now and inquire, when you chance to have leisure, whether any orator or poet, provided he be of that earlier band—that is to say, any classical or authoritative writer, not one of the common herd—has used quadriga or harenae.

The very neat reply of Antonius Julianus to certain Greeks at a banquet.

A YOUNG man of equestrian rank from the land of Asia, gifted by nature, well off in manners and fortune, with a taste and talent for music, was celebrating the anniversary of the day on which he began life by giving a dinner to his friends and teachers in a little country place near the city. There had come with us then to that dinner the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a public teacher of young men, who spoke in the Spanish manner, [*](Cf. facundia rabida iurgiosaque, § 7.) but was very eloquent, besides being well acquainted with our early literature. When there was an end of eating and drinking, and the time came for conversation, Julianus asked that the singers and lyre-players be produced, the most skilful of both sexes, whom he knew that the young man had at hand. And when the boys and girls were brought in, they sang in a most charming way several odes of Anacreon and Sappho, as well as some erotic elegies of more recent poets that were sweet and graceful. But we were especially pleased with some delightful verses of Anacreon, written in his old age, [*](Poetae Lyrici Graeci, iii., p. 298, Bergk4.) which I noted down, in order that sometimes the toil and worry of this task of mine might find relief in the sweetness of poetical compositions:

1. Shaping the silver, Hephaestus,
2. Make me no panoply, pray;
3. What do I care for war's combats?
4. Make me a drinking cup rather,
5. Deep as you ever can make it;
6. Carve on it no stars and no wains;
7. What care I, pray, for the Pleiads,
8. What for the star of Bootes?
9. Make vines, and clusters upon them,
10. Treading them Love and Bathyllus,
11. Made of pure gold, with Lyaeus.

Then several Greeks who were present at that dinner, men of refinement and not without considerable acquaintance also with our literature, began to attack and assail Julianus the rhetorician as altogether barbarous and rustic, since he was sprung from the land of Spain, was a mere ranter of violent and noisy speech, and taught exercises in a tongue which had no charm and no sweetness of Venus and the Muse; and they asked him more than once what he thought of Anacreon and the other poets of that kind, and whether any of our bards had written such smooth-flowing and delightful poems;

except,

perhaps a few of Catullus and also possibly a few of Calvus; for the compositions of Laevius were involved, those of Hortensius without elegance, of Cinna harsh, of Memmius rude, and in short those of all the poets without polish or melody.

Then Julianus, filled with anger and indignation, spoke as follows in behalf of his mother tongue, as if for his altars and his fires:

I must indeed grant you

v3.p.383

that in such licentiousness and baseness you would outdo Alcinus [*](Probably (see crit. note) another form of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians. He is not represented by Homer as licentious and base, but that opinion arose at a later time. Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 28 ff.) and that as you outstrip us in the pleasures of adornment and of food, so you do also in the wantonness of your ditties. But lest you should condemn us, that is, the Latin race, as lacking in Aphrodite's charm, just as if we were barbarous and ignorant, allow me, I pray, to cover my head with my cloak (as they say Socrates did when making somewhat indelicate remarks), and hear and learn that our forefathers also were lovers and devoted to Venus before those poets whom you have named.

Then lying upon his back with veiled head, he chanted in exceedingly sweet tones some verses of Valerius Aedituus, an early poet, and also of Porcius Licinus and Quintus Catulus; and I think that nothing can be found neater, more graceful, more polished and more terse than those verses, either in Greek or in Latin:

The verses of Aedituus are as follows: [*](Frag. 1, Bährens.)

1. When, Pamphila, I try to tell my love,
2. What shall I ask of you? Words fail my lips,
3. A sudden sweat o'erflows my ardent [*](Subidus occurs only here, and its meaning is not certain It seems to be connected with the verb subo, burn with love, but some regard it as the opposite of insubidus, foolish, stupid, in which case it might be translated conscious The alliteration and assonance in this epigram are noteworthy.) breast;
4. Thus fond and silent, I refrain and die.
5. And he also added other verses of the same poet,
6. no less sweet than the former ones: [*](Frag. 2, Bährens.)

1. O Phileros, why a torch, that we need not?
2. Just as we are we'll go, our hearts aflame.
3. That flame no wild wind's blast can ever quench,
4. Or rain that falls torrential from the skies;
5. Venus herself alone can quell her fire,
6. No other force there is that has such power.

1. O shepherds of the lambs, the ewes' young brood,
2. Seek ye for fire? Come hither; man is fire.
3. Touch I the wood with finger-tip, it burns;
4. Your flock's a flame, all I behold is fire.

1. My soul has left me; it has fled, methinks,
2. To Theotimus; he its refuge is.
3. But what if I should beg that he refuse
4. The truant to admit, but cast it out?
5. I'll go to him; but what if I be caught?
6. What shall I do? Queen Venus, lend me aid.

That the words praeter propter, which are in common use, were found also in Ennius.

I REMEMBER that I once went with Julius Celsinus the Numidian to visit Cornelius Fronto, who was then seriously ill with the gout. When we arrived and were admitted, we found him lying on a Greek

And another fifty thousand, more or less (praeterpropter).

'That word is not my own, for you may hear many men using it; but what the word means you must ask from a grammarian, not from me

We inquire about something which does not at all deserve the honour of investigation, for this is some utterly plebeian expression or other, better known in the talk of mechanics than in that of cultivated men.

But Fronto, raising his voice and with a more earnest expression, said:

Sir, does this word seem to you so degraded and utterly faulty, when Marcus

v3.p.389

Cato [*](Frag. inc. 53, Jordan.) and Marcus Varro, [*](p. 340 Bipont.) and the early writers in general, have used it as necessary and as good Latin?

1. That man in truth who knows not leisure's use
2. More trouble has than one by tasks pursued;
3. For he who has a task must be performed,
4. Devotes himself to that with heart and soul;
5. The idle mind knows not what 'tis it wants.
6. With us it is the same; for not at home
7. Are we nor in the field; from place to place
8. We haste; and once arrived, we would be gone.
9. Aimless we drift, we live but more or less
10. (praeterpropter). [*](That is, we exist rather than really live. Cf. Sophocles, fr. Iphig. ti/ktei ga\r ou)de\n e)sqlo\n ei)kai/a sxolh/, aimless idleness produces nothing that is good. (Bergk, De Frag. Soph. p. 15.))

When this had been read there, then Fronto said to the grammarian, who was already wavering:

Have you heard, most worthy master, that your Ennius used praeterpropter, and that too in an expression of opinion resembling the austerest diatribes of the philosophers? We beg you then to tell us, since we are now investigating a word used by Ennius, what the hidden meaning is in this line:

v3.p.391

1. Aimless we drift, we live but more or less.

And the grammarian, in a profuse sweat and blushing deeply, since many of the company were laughing long and loud at this, got up, saying as he left:

I will tell you at a later time, when we are alone, Fronto, in order that ignorant folk may not hear and learn.

He gives some amatory verses of Plato, with which the philosopher amused himself when he was a very young man and was contending for the tragic prize.

HERE are two Greek verses that are famous and deemed worthy of remembrance by many learned men because of their charm and graceful terseness. There are in fact not a few ancient writers who declare that they are the work of the philosopher Plato, with which he amused himself in his youth, while at the same time he was beginning his literary career by writing tragedies. [*](The writing of tragedies as youthful literary exercises was not uncommon; see Suet. Jul. lvi. 7, and Plin. Epist. vii. 4. 2. The lemma is wrong; cf. note 2, p. 360.) My soul, when I kissed Agathon, did pass My lips; as though, poor soul, 'would leap across. This distich a friend of mine, a young man no stranger to the Muses, has paraphrased somewhat boldly and freely in a number of lines. And since they seemed to me not undeserving of remembrance, I have added them here: [*](p. 375, Bährens.)

1. When with my parted lips my love I kiss,
2. And quaff the breath's sweet balm from open mouth,
3. Smitten with love my soul mounts to my lips,
4. And through my love's soft mouth its way would take,
5. Passing the open gateway of the lips.
6. But if our kiss, delayed, had been prolonged,
7. By love's fire swayed my soul that way had ta'en,
8. And left me. Faith, a wondrous thing it were,
9. If I should die, but live within my love.

A discourse of Herodes Atticus on the power and nature of pain, and a confirmation of his view by the example of an ignorant countryman who cut down fruit-trees along with thorns.

I ONCE heard Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, holding forth at Athens in the Greek language, in which he far surpassed almost all the men of our time in distinction, fluency, and elegance of diction. He was speaking at the time against the a)pa/qeia, or

lack of feeling

When a man of Thrace,

from a remote and barbarous land, and unskilled in agriculture, had moved into a more civilized country, in order to lead a less wild life, he bought a farm planted with olives and vines. Knowing nothing at all about the care of vines or trees, he chanced to see a neighbour cutting down the thorns which had sprung up high and wide, pruning his ash-trees almost to

v3.p.397

their tops, pulling up the suckers of his vines which had spread over the earth from the main roots, and cutting off the tall straight shoots on his fruit and olive trees. He drew near and asked why the other was making such havoc of his wood and leaves. The neighbour answered; 'In order to make the field clean and neat and the trees and vines more productive.' The Thracian left his neighbour with thanks, rejoicing that he had gained some knowledge of farming. Then he took his sickle and axe; and thereupon in his pitiful ignorance the fellow cuts down all his vines and olives, lopping off the richest branches of the trees and the most fruitful shoots of the vines, and, with the idea of clearing up his place, he pulls up all the shrubs and shoots fit for bearing fruits and crops, along with the brambles and thorns, having learnt assurance at a ruinous price and acquired boldness in error through faulty imitation. Thus it is,

that those disciples of insensibility, wishing to be thought calm, courageous and steadfast because of showing neither desire nor grief, neither wrath nor joy, root out all the more vigorous emotions of the mind, and grow old in the torpor of a sluggish and, as it were, nerveless life.

That what we call pumiliones the Greeks term na/noi.

CORNELIUS FRONTO, Festus Postumius, and Sulpicius Apollinaris chanced to be standing and talking together in the vestibule of the Palace; [*](The palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill at Rome.) and I, being near by with some companions, eagerly

I pray you, Sir, inform me whether I was right in forbearing to call men of excessively small stature nam and in preferring the term pumiliones; for I remembered that the latter word appears in the books of early writers, while I thought that nam was vulgar and barbarous.

It is true,

said he,

"But this word would have been given citizenship by you, or established in a Latin colony, if you had deigned to use it, and it would be very much more acceptable than the low and vulgar words which Laberius introduced into the Latin language." [*](See xvi. 7.) Thereupon Postumius Festus said to a Latin grammarian, a friend of Fronto's:

Apollinaris has told us that nam is a Greek word; do you inform us whether it is good Latin, when it is used, as it commonly is, of small mules or ponies, and in what author it is found.

If I am not committing sacrilege in giving

v3.p.401

my opinion of any Greek or Latin word in the presence of Apollinaris, I venture to reply to your inquiry, Festus, that the word is Latin and is found in the poems of Helvius Cinna, a poet neither obscure nor without learning

1. But now through Genunanian willow groves
2. the wagon hurries me with dwarf steeds (bigis nanis) twain.

That Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, the most learned Romans of their time, were contemporaries of Caesar and Cicero, and that the commentaries of Nigidius, because of their obscurity and subtlety, did not become popular.

THE time of Marcus Cicero and Gaius Caesar had few men of surpassing eloquence, but in encyclopaedic learning and in the varied sciences by which humanity is enobled it possesses two towering figures in Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius. Now the records of knowledge and learning left in written form by Varro are familiar and in general use, the observations of Nigidius, however, are not so widely known, but their obscurity and subtlety have caused them to be neglected, as of little practical value. As a specimen I may cite what I read a short time ago in his work entitled Grammatical Notes; from this book I have made a few extracts, as an example of the nature of his writings. When discussing the nature and order of the letters [*](Properly sounds.) which the grammarians call vocales, or

vowels,

A and o,

always stand first in diphthongs, i and u always second, e both follows and precedes; it precedes in Euripus, follows in Aemilius. If anyone supposes that u precedes in the words Valeriuis, Vannonis, and Volusius, or that i precedes in iampridem (long ago), iecur (liver), iocis (joke), and iucundus (agreeable), he will be wrong, for when these letters precede, they are in fact not vowels.

Between the letters n and g another element is introduced, as in the words aguis (snake), angari, [*](This word is cited by the Thes. Ling. Lat. from Lucilius 200, Lachmann; that, however, is a conjecture of Scaliger's and Marx (262) reads Ancerius, a personal name. The meaning of the word is uncertain. It is perhaps the same as the Greek a)/ggaros, courier, a loan-word of Persian origin.) ancora (anchor), increpat (chides), incurrit (runs upon), and ingenuus (free-born). In all these we have, not a true n, but a so-called n adullerinum. [*](Pronounced like ng; for example, angcor,.) For the tongue shows that it is not an ordinary n; since if it were that sound, the tongue would touch the palate in making it.

I do not charge those Greeks with so great ignorance in writing ou (-ū) with o and v, as I do those [*](That is, the Romans.) who wrote ei (=ī) with e and i; for the former the Greeks lid from necessity, in the latter case there was no compulsion.

A discussion of the jurist Sextus Caecilius and the philosopher Favorinus about the laws of the Twelve Tables.

SEXTUS CAECILIUS was famed for his knowledge, experience and authority in the science of jurisprudence and in understanding and interpreting the laws of the Roman people. It happened that as we were waiting to pay our respects to Caesar, [*](That is, Antoninus Pius.) the philosopher Favorinus met and accosted Caecilius in the Palatine square [*](The Area Palatina was originally the space bounded on the west by the Domus Tiberiana, or Palace of Tiberius, and the Domus Augustana; as time went on, it must have been bounded and restricted by other parts of the Imperial Palace.) in my presence and that of several others. In the conversation which they carried on at the time mention was made of the laws of the decemvirs, which the board of ten appointed by the people for that purpose wrote and inscribed upon twelve tablets. [*](These laws were set up in the Forum on ten tablets of bronze in 451 B.C., to which two more tablets were added in 450.)

When Sextus Caecilius, who had examined and studied the laws of many cities, said that they were drawn up in the most choice and concise terms, Favorinus rejoined:

It may be as you say in the greater part of those laws; for I read your twelve tables with as eager interest as I did the twelve books of Plato On the Laws. But some of them seem to me to be either very obscure or very cruel, or on the other hand too mild and lenient, or by no means to be taken exactly as they are written.

As for the obscurities,

let us not charge those to the fault of the makers of the laws, but to the ignorance of those who cannot follow their meaning, although they also who do not fully understand what is written may he excused. For long lapse of time has rendered old words and customs obsolete, and it is in the light of those words and customs that the sense of the laws is to be understood. As a matter of fact, the laws were compiled and written in the three hundredth year after the founding of Rome, [*](The chronology of Nepos; see note on § 3, above, and on the chapter heading of xvii. 21.) and from that time until to-day is clearly not less than six hundred years. But what can be looked upon as cruel in those laws? Unless you think a law is cruel which punishes with death a judge or arbiter appointed by law, who has been convicted of taking a bribe for rendering his decision, [*](ix. 3.) or which hands over a thief caught in the act to be the slave of the man from whom he stole, [*](viii. 4.) and makes it lawful to kill a robber who comes by night. [*](viii. 12.) Tell me, I pray, tell me, you deep student of philosophy, whether you think that the perfidy of a juror who sells his oath contrary to all laws, human and divine, or the intolerable audacity of an open theft, or the treacherous violence of a nocturnal footpad, does not deserve the penalty of death?

Don't ask me,

what I think. For you know that, according to the practice of the sect to which I belong, [*](He probably refers to the Pyrronian sceptics, about whose beliefs he wrote a work in ten books; see xi. 5. 5.) I am accustomed rather to inquire than to decide. But the Roman people is a judge neither insignificant nor contemptible, and

v3.p.411

while they thought that such crimes ought to be punished, they yet believed that punishments of that kind were too severe; for they have allowed the laws which prescribed such excessive penalties to die out from disuse and old age. Just so they considered it also an inhuman provision, that if a man has been summoned to court, and being disabled through illness or years is too weak to walk, 'a covered waggon he need not spread'; [*](That is, with a pallet for lying upon.) but the man is carried out and placed upon a beast of burden and conveyed from his home to the praetor [*](At that time one of the two chief magistrates, corresponding to the consuls of later times.) in the comitium, as if he were a living corpse. For why should one who is a prey to illness, and unable to appear, be haled into court at the demand of his adversary, clinging to a draught animal? But as for my statement that some laws were excessively lenient, do not you yourself think that law too lax, which reads as follows with regard to the penalty for an injury: [*](viii. 4.) 'If anyone has inflicted an injury upon another, let him be fined twenty-five asses'? For who will be found so poor that twenty-five asses would keep him from inflicting an injury if he desired to? And therefore your friend Labeo also, in the work which he wrote On the Twelve Tables, [*](Frag. 25, Hushke; 3, Bremer.) expressing his disapproval of that law, says: [*](There seems to be a lacuna in the text; see crit. note.) One Lucius Veratius was an exceedingly wicked man and of cruel brutality. He used to amuse himself by striking free men in the face with his open hand. A slave followed him with a purse full of asses; as often as he had buffeted anyone, he ordered twenty-five asses to be counted out at once, according to the provision of the Twelve Tables'

v3.p.413

Therefore,

the praetors afterwards decided that this law was obsolete and invalid and declared that they would appoint arbiters to appraise damages. Again, some things in those laws obviously cannot, as 1 have said, even be carried out; for instance, the one referring to retaliation, which reads as follows, if my memory is correct: 'If one has broken another's limb, there shall be retaliation, unless a compromise be made.' Now not to mention the cruelty of the vengeance, the exaction even of a just retaliation is impossible. For if one whose limb has been broken by another wishes to retaliate by breaking a limb of has injurer, can he succeed, pray, in breaking the limb in exactly the same manner? In this case there first arises this insoluble difficulty. What about one who has broken another's limb unintentionally? For what has been done unintentionally ought to be retaliated unintentionally. For a chance blow and an intentional one do not fall under the same category of retaliation. How then will it be possible to imitate unintentional action, when in retaliating one has not the right of intention, but of unintention? But if he break it intentionally, the offender will certainly not allow himself to be injured more deeply or more severely; but by what weight and measure this can be avoided, I do not understand. Nay more, if retaliation is taken to a greater extent or differently, it will be a matter of absurd cruelty that a counter-action for retaliation should arise and an endless interchange of retaliation take place. But that enormity of cutting and dividing a man's body, if an individual is brought to trial for debt and adjudged to several creditors, [*](The law reads: fertiis nundinis partis secanto. Si plus minusve secuerunt, se fraude esto, on the third market day (i.e. after about two weeks; see note on § 49, below) let them cut him into pieces. If they have cut more or less (than their proper share), let it be without prejudice (to them).) I do not care to remember, and I am

v3.p.415

ashamed to mention it. For what can seem more savage, what more inconsistent with humanity, than for the limbs of a poor debtor to be barbarously butchered and sold, just as to-day his goods are divided and sold?

Then Sextus Caecilius, throwing both arms about Favorinus, said: " You are indeed the one man within my memory who is most familiar both with Greek and with Roman lore. For what philosopher is skilled and learned in the laws of his sect to the extent to which you are thoroughly versed in our decemviral legislation? But yet, I pray you, depart for a little from that academic manner of arguing of yours, and laying aside the passion for attacking or defending anything whatever according to your inclination, consider more seriously what is the nature of the details which you have censured, and do not scorn those ancient laws merely because there are many of them which even the Roman people have now ceased to use. For you surely are not unaware that according to the manners of the times, the conditions of governments, considerations of immediate utility, and the vehemence of the vices which are to be remedied, the advantages and remedies offered by the laws [*](Oportuitates refers to the advantage or assistance which the laws afford to meet the special needs of defence; moedellas, to the remedies they furnish for the cure of vice and crime.) are often changed and modified, and do not remain in the same condition; on the contrary, like the face of heaven and the sea, they vary according to the seasons of circumstances and of fortune. What seemed more salutary than that law of Stolo limiting the number of acres? What more expedient than the bill of Voconius regulating the inheritances of women? What was thought so necessary for checking the luxury of the citizens as the law of Licinius

"They assessed inflicted injuries at twenty-five asses. They did not, my dear Favorinus, by any means compensate all injuries by that trifling sum, although even that small number of asses meant a heavy weight of copper; for the as which the people then used weighed a pound. But more cruel injuries, such as breaking a bone, inflicted not only on freemen but even on slaves, they punished with a heavier fine, [*](viii. 3.) and for some injuries they even prescribed retaliation. This very law of retaliation, my dear sir, you criticized somewhat unfairly, saying with facetious captiousness that it was impossible to carry it out, since injury and retaliation could not be exactly alike, and because it was not easy to break a limb in such a way as to be an exact aequilibrium, or 'balance,' as you put it, of the breaking of the other man's. It is true, my dear Favorinus, that to make exact retaliation is very difficult. But the Ten, wishing by retaliation to diminish and abolish such violence as beating and injuring, thought that men ought to be restrained

"But if this is as I say, and as the condition of fairness itself dictates, those mutual retaliations that you imagined were certainly rather ingenious than real. But since you think that even this kind of punishment is cruel, what cruelty, pray, is there in doing the same thing to you which you have done to another? especially when you have the opportunity of compromising, and when it is not necessary for you to suffer retaliation unless you choose that alternative. As for your idea that the praetors' edict was preferable in taking cognizance of injuries, I want you to realize this, that this retaliation also was wont of necessity to be subject to the discretion of a judge. For if a defendant, who refused to compromise, did not obey the judge who ordered retaliation, the judge considered the case and fined the man a sum of money; so that, if the defendant thought the compromise hard and the retaliation cruel, the severity of the law was limited to a fine. It remains for me to answer your belief that the cutting and division of a man's body is most inhuman. It was by the exercise and cultivation of

"Then later, unless they had paid the debt, they were summoned before the praetor and were by him made over to those to whom they had been adjudged; and they were also fastened in the stocks or in fetters. For that, I think, is the meaning of these words: [*](iii. 1–4.) For a confessed debt and for judgment duly pronounced let thirty days be the legitimate time. Then let there

1. But you, O Alban, should have kept your word."

When Sextus Caecilius had said these and other things with the approval of all who were present, including Favorinus himself, it was announced that Caesar was now receiving, and we separated.