Noctes Atticae

On investigating and identifying the comedies of Plautus, since the genuine and the spurious without distinction are said to have been inscribed with his name; and further as to the report that Plautus wrote plays in a bakery and Naevius in prison.

I AM convinced of the truth of the statement which I have heard made by men well trained in literature, who have read a great many plays of Plautus with care and attention: namely, that with regard to the so-called

doubtful

Varronian,

1. The gods confound the man who first found out
2. How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,
3. Who in this place set up a sun-dial
4. To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
5. Into small portions! When I was a boy,
6. My belly was my only sun-dial, one more sure,
7. Truer, and more exact than any of them.
8. This dial told me when 'twas proper time
9. To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat;
10. But nowadays, why even when I have,
11. I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.
12. The town's so full of these confounded dials
13. The greatest part of the inhabitants,
14. Shrunk up with hunger, crawl along the streets.

My master Favorinus too, when I was reading the Nervularia of Plautus, and he had heard this line of the comedy: [*](Fr. v. 100 Götz; translation by Thornton and Warner.)

1. Old, wheezing, physicky, mere foundered hags
2. With dry, parched, painted hides, shrivell'd and shrunk,

By heaven! just this one verse is enough to convince one that the play is Plautine.

I myself too a little while ago, when reading the Fretum—that is the name of a comedy which some think is not Plautine—had no manner of doubt that it was by Plautus and in fact of all his plays the most authentic. From it I copied these two lines, [*](Fr. v. 76, Götz.) with the intention of looking up the story of the Arretine oracle: [*](Nothing is known of this oracle. The inferior manuscripts and earlier editors read Arictini and interpreted it as that of Jupiter Ammon, because that god is sometimes represented as a ram (aries), or with a ram's head. According to Bicheler, Thes. Ling. Lat. ii. 636. 9, the reference is to a person, not to the town of Arretium. Text and meaning are most uncertain.)

1. Now here we have at the great games [*](According to Bücheler, T.L.L. ii. 636. 9, the reference is to the ludi Romani, Sept. 5–19.) the Arretine response:
2. I perish if I don't, and if I do, I'm flogged.

Yet Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Comedies of Plautus, [*](Fr. p. 193, Bipont.) quotes these words of Accius: [*](Didascalica, fr. inc., Müller.)

For not the Twin Panders nor the Slave-ring nor the Old Woman were the work of Plautus, nor were ever the Twice Violated or the Boeotian woman, nor were the Clownish Rustic or the Partners in, Death the work of Titus Maccius.

In that same book of Varro's we are told also that there was another writer of comedies called Plautius. Since his plays bore the title

Plauti,

Now there are in circulation under the name of Plautus about one hundred and thirty comedies; but that most learned of men Lucius Aelius thought that only twenty-five of them were his. [*](p. 58. 4, Fun.) However, there is no doubt that those which do not appear to have been written by Plautus but are attached to his name, were the work of poets of old but were revised and touched up by him, and that is why they savour of the Plautine style. Now Varro and several others have recorded that the Saturio, the Addictus, and a third comedy, the name of which I do not now recall, were written by Plautus in a bakery, when, after losing in trade all the money which he had earned in employments connected with the stage, he had returned penniless to Rome, and to earn a livelihood had hired himself out to a baker, to turn a mill, of the kind which is called a

push-mill.

So too we are told of Naevius that he wrote two plays in prison, the Soothsayer and the Leon, when by reason of his constant abuse and insults aimed at the leading men of the city, after the manner of the Greek poets, he had been imprisoned at Rome by the triumvirs. [*](The triumviri capitales, police magistrates, in charge of the public prisons.) And afterwards he was set free by the tribunes of the commons, when he had apologized for his offences and the saucy language with which he had previously assailed many men.

That it was an inherited custom of Publius Africanus and other distinguished men of his time to shave their beard and cheeks.

I FOUND it stated in books which I read dealing with the life of Publius Scipio Africanus, that Publius Scipio, the son of Paulus, after he had celebrated a triumph because of his victory over the Carthaginians and had been censor, was accused before the people by Claudius Asellus, tribune of the commons, whom he had degraded from knighthood during his censorship; and that Scipio, although he was under accusation, neither ceased to shave his beard and to wear white raiment nor appeared in the usual garb of those under accusation. But since it is certain that at that time Scipio was less than forty years old, I was surprised at the statement about shaving his beard. I have learned, however, that in those same times the other nobles shaved their beards at that time of life, and that is why we see many busts of early men represented in that way, men who were not very old, but in middle life. [*](This fashion changed with Hadrian.)

How the philosopher Arcesilaus severely yet humorously taunted a man with the vice of voluptuousness and with unmanliness of expression and conduct.

PLUTARCH tells us [*](Sympos. vii. 5.3, De Tuend. San. 7.) that Arcesilaus the philosopher used strong language about a certain rich man, who was too pleasure-loving, but nevertheless had a

It makes no difference with what parts of your body you debauch yourself, front or rear.

On the natural strength of the palm-tree; for when weights are placed upon its wood, it resists their pressure.

A TRULY wonderful fact is stated by Aristotle in the seventh book of his Problems,[*](Fr. 229, Rose. ) and by Plutarch in the eighth of his Symposiaca. [*](4.5.)

If,

you place heavy weights on the wood of the palmtree, and load it so heavily and press it down so hard that the burden is too great to bear, the wood does not give way downward, nor is it made concave, but it rises against the weight and struggles upward and assumes a convex form. [*](Hardly to be taken literally. The same statement is made by Pliny, N. H. xvi. 223; Theophr. Enquiry into Plants, v. 6 (i. 453, L.C.L.); Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5. 11 (ii. 267, L.C.L.) ) It is for that reason,

that the palm has been chosen as the symbol of victory in contests, since the nature of its wood is such that it does not yield to what presses hard upon it and tries to crush it.

A tale from the annals about Quintus Caedicius, tribune of the soldiers; and a passage from the Origins of Marcus Cato, in which he likens the valour of Caedicius to that of the Spartan Leonidas.

A GLORIOUS deed, by the Gods! and well worthy of the noble strains of Greek eloquence, is that of

The actual account runs about as follows: In the first Punic war the Carthaginian general in Sicily advanced to meet the Roman army and was first to take possession of the hills and strategic points. As the result of this, the Roman soldiers made their way into a place exposed to surprise and extreme danger. The tribune went to the consul and pointed out that destruction was imminent from their unfavourable position and from the fact that the enemy had surrounded them.

My advice is,

if you want to save the day, that you order some four hundred soldiers to advance to yonder wart

and command and conjure them to hold it. When the enemy see that, undoubtedly all their bravest and most active men will be intent upon attacking and fighting with them; they will devote themselves to that one task, and beyond a doubt all those four hundred will be slaughtered. Then in the meantime, while the enemy is engaged in killing them, you will have time to get the army out of this position. There is no other way of safety but this.

but who, pray,

will there be to lead those four hundred men of yours to that place in the midst of the enemy's troops?

If you find no one else,

you may use me for that dangerous enterprise. I offer this life of mine to you and to my country.

But what, by Heaven's help, befell that tribune, the leader of the four hundred soldiers, in the battle, I have added, no longer using my own words, but giving those of Cato himself, who says:

The immortal gods gave the tribune good fortune equal to his valour; for this is what happened. Although he had been wounded in many places during the battle, yet his head was uninjured, and they recognized him among the dead, unconscious from wounds and loss of blood. They bore him off the field, he recovered, and often after that rendered brave and vigorous service to his country; and by that act of leading that forlorn hope lie saved the rest of the army. But what a difference it makes where you do the same service! [*](Cf. Sall. Cat. viii.) The Laconian Leonidas, who performed a like exploit at Thermopylae, because of his valour won unexampled glory and gratitude from all Greece, and was honoured with memorials of the highest distinction; they showed their appreciation of that deed of his by pictures, statues and honorary inscriptions, in their histories, and in other ways; but the tribune

v1.p.261

of the soldiers, who had done the same thing and saved an army, gained small glory for his deeds.

With such high personal testimony did Marcus Cato honour this valorous deed of Quintus Caedicius the tribune. But Claudius Quadrigarius, in the third book of his Annals, [*](Fr. 42, Peter.) says that the man's name was not Caedicius, but Laberius.