Noctes Atticae

The criticism of Titus Castricius passed upon passages from Sallust and Demosthenes, in which the one described Philip, the other Sertorius.

THIS is Demosthenes' striking and brilliant description of king Philip: [*](De Cor. 67.)

I saw that Philip himself, with whom we were struggling, had in his desire for empire and absolute power had one eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory.

Sallust, desiring to rival this description, in his Histories thus wrote of the leader Sertorius [*](i. 88, Maurenbrecher.) :

He won great glory in Spain, while military tribune under the command of Titus Didius, rendered valuable service in the Marsic war in providing troops and arms; but he got no credit for much that was then done under his direction and orders, at first because of his low birth and afterwards through unfriendly historians; but during his lifetime his appearance bore testimony to these deeds, in many scars on his breast, and in the loss of an eye. Indeed, he rejoiced greatly in his bodily disfigurement, caring nothing for what he had lost, because he kept the rest with greater glory.

In his estimate of these words of the two writers Titus Castricius said:

Is it not beyond the range of human capability to rejoice in bodily disfigurement? For rejoicing is a certain exaltation of spirit, delighting in the realization of something greatly desired. How much truer, more natural, and more

v1.p.221

in accordance with human limitations is this: ' Giving up whatever part of his body fortune chose to take.' In these words,

said he,

Philip is shown, not like Sertorius, rejoicing in bodily disfigurement, which,

he said,

is unheard of and extravagant, but as a scorner of bodily losses and injuries in his thirst for honour and glory, who in exchange for the fame which he coveted would sacrifice his limbs one by one to the attacks of fortune.

That it is uncertain to which deity sacrifices ought to be offered when there is an earthquake.

WHAT is to be regarded as the cause of earthquakes is not only not obvious to the ordinary understanding and thought of mankind, but it is not agreed even among the natural philosophers whether they are due to the mighty winds that gather in the caverns and hollow places of the earth, or to the ebb and flow of subterranean waters in its hollows, as seems to have been the view of the earliest Greeks, who called Neptune

the Earth Shaker

; or whether they are the result of something else or due to the divine power of some other god—all this, I say, is not yet a matter of certain knowledge. For that reason the Romans of old, who were not only exceedingly scrupulous and careful in discharging all the other obligations of life, but also in fulfilling religious duties and venerating the immortal gods, whenever they felt an earthquake or received report of one, decreed a holy day on that account, but forbore to declare and specify in the decree, as is commonly done, the name of the god in whose honour the holy day was to be observed; for fear that by naming one god instead of another they might involve the people in a false observance. If anyone had desecrated that festival, and expiation was therefore necessary, they used to offer a victim

to either the god or goddess,

and Marcus Varro tells us [*](Fr. 1, p. cliii, Merkel.) that this usage was established by a decree of the pontiffs, since it was uncertain what force, and which of the gods or goddesses, had caused the earthquake.

But in the case of eclipses of the sun or moon they concerned themselves no less with trying to discover the causes of that phenomenon. However, Marcus Cato, although a man with a great interest in investigation, nevertheless on this point expressed himself indecisively and superficially. His words in the fourth book of his Origins are as follows: [*](Fr. 77, Peter.)

I do not care to write what appears on the tablet of the high priest: how often grain was dear, how often darkness, or something else, obscured the light [*](Lumine is the old dat., cf. II viri iure dicundo and note 1, p. 153.) of sun or moon.

Of so little importance did he consider it either to know or to tell the true causes of eclipses of the sun and moon.