Noctes Atticae

Instances of disgrace and punishment inflicted by the censors, found in ancient records and worthy of notice.

IF anyone had allowed his land to run to waste and was not giving it sufficient attention, if he had neither ploughed nor weeded it, or if anyone had neglected his orchard or vineyard, such conduct did not go unpunished, but it was taken up by the censors, who reduced such a man to the lowest class of citizens. [*](Made him an aerarius, originally a citizen who owned no land, but paid a tax (aes) based on such property as he had. The aerarii had no political rights until about the middle of the fifth century B.C., when they were enrolled in the four city tribes. See Mommsen, Staatsr. ii. 392 ff.) So too, any Roman knight, if his horse seemed to be skinny or not well groomed, was charged with inpolitiae, a word which means the same thing as negligence. [*](More literally, inpolitia is lack of neatness, from in-, negative, and polio, polish, from which pulcher also is derived.) There are authorities for both these punishments, and Marcus Cato has cited frequent instances. [*](Fr. 2, p. 52, Jordan.)

On the possibility of curing gout by certain melodies played in a special way on the flute.

I RAN across the statement very recently in the book of Theophrastus OnInspiration[*](Fr. 87, Wimmer.) that many men have believed and put their belief on record, that when gouty pains in the hips are most severe, they are relieved if a flute-player plays soothing measures. That snake-bites are cured by the music of the flute, when played skilfully and melodiously, is also stated in a book of Democritus, entitled On

A story told of Hostilius Mancinus, a curule aedile, and the courtesan Manilia; and the words of the decree of the tribunes to whom Manilia appealed.

As I was reading the ninth book of the Miscellany of Ateius Capito, entitled On Public Decisions, [*](Fr. 1, Huschke; 1, Bremer.) one decree of the tribunes seemed to me full of old-time dignity. For that reason I remember it, and it was rendered for this reason and to this purport. Aulus Hostilius Mancinus was a curule aedile. [*](The date is uncertain.) He brought suit before the people against a courtesan called Manilia, because he said that he had been struck with a stone thrown from her apartment by night, and he exhibited the wound made by the stone. Manilia appealed to the tribunes of the commons. Before them she declared that Mancinus had come to her house in the garb of a reveller; that it would not have been to her advantage to admit him, and that when he tried to break in by force, he had been driven off with stones. The tribunes decided that the aedile had rightly been refused admission to a place to which it had not been seemly for him to go with a garland on his head; [*](That is, as a reveller coming from a drinking-bout. An aedile might visit such a place officially in the course of his duty of regulating taverns and brothels.) therefore they forbade the aedile to bring an action before the people.

The defence of a passage in the historical works of Sallust, which his enemies attacked in a spirit of malicious criticism.

THE elegance of Sallust's style and his passion for coining and introducing new words was met with exceeding great hostility, and many men of no mean ability tried to criticize and decry much in his writings. Many of the attacks on him were ignorant or malicious. Yet there are some things that may be regarded as deserving of censure, as for example the following passage in the History of Catiline,[*](iii. 2.) which has the appearance of being written somewhat carelessly. Sallust's words are these:

And for myself, although I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds, yet I regard the writing of history as one of the hardest of tasks; first because the style and diction must be equal to the deeds recorded; and in the second place, because such criticisms as you make of others' shortcomings are thought by most men to be due to malice and envy. Furthermore, when you commemorate the distinguished merit and fame of good men, while everyone is quite ready to believe you when you tell of things which he thinks he could easily do himself, everything beyond that he regards as fictitious, if not false.

He declared that he would give the reasons why it appears to be ' hard ' 'to write history'; and then, after mentioning the first reason, he does not give a second, but gives utterance to complaints. For it ought not to be regarded as a reason why the work of history is 'hard,' that the reader either

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misinterprets what is written or does not believe it to be true.

hard

hard

That is what those ill-natured critics say. But Sallust does not use arduus merely in the sense of

hard,

On the inflection of certain words by Varro and Nigidius contrary to everyday usage; and also a quotation of some instances of the same kind from the early writers, with examples.

I LEARN that Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, [*](Fr. 63, Swoboda.) the most learned of all the Romans, always said and wrote senatuis, domuis and fluctuis as the genitive case of the words senatus, domus and fluctus, and used senatui, domui, fluctui, and other similar words, with the corresponding dative ending. There is also a line of the comic poet Terence, which in the old manuscripts is written as follows: [*](Heaut. 287.)

1. Because, I think, of that old dame (anuis) who died.

Therefore,

since we use senatui as the dative case, the genitive singular of that word is senatuis, not senatus.

But all are not agreed that we should use senatui in the dative case rather than senatu. For example, Lucilius in that same case uses victu and ann, and not victui and anui, in these verses: [*](1288, Marx. )

1. Since you to honest fare (victu) do waste and feasts prefer,

1. I'm doing harm to the old girl (anu).

1. Withdraw not from our view (aspectu)

1. Nor give themselves to love's embrace (concubitu).

owing to the arrogance, haughtiness and tyranny dominateu) of one man.

Those in whose temples and shrines they had been placed for an honour and an adornment (ornatu).

A discussion of the natural quantity of certain particles, the long pronunciation of which, when prefixed to verbs, seems to be barbarous and ignorant; with several examples and explanations.

IN the eleventh book of Lucilius are these lines: [*](394, Marx.)

1. Thus base Asellus did great Scipio taunt:
2. Unlucky was his censorship and bad.

1. I'd versify the words the herald Granius spoke.

1. Subicit huic humilem et suffercitus posteriorem, [*](The reading is uncertain and the meaning doubtful. The line is an hexameter, since final s (as in suffercitus) did not make position in early Latin.)

1. Haste now, Epidicus, prepare yourself,
2. And throw (conice) your mantle round about your neck.

1. Parnassian laurel too
2. Lifts (subicit) 'neath large mother-shade its infant stem.

What I have said leads also to a knowledge of this, that in the line which we find in the sixth book of Virgil: [*](Aen. vi. 365.)

1. Unconquered chieftain, save me from these ills;
2. Or do thou earth cast on (inice) me,

We ask then for what reason the letter o in obicibus is lengthened, since this word is derived from the verb obiicio, and is not at all analogous to motus, which is from moveo and is pronounced with a long o. I myself recall that Sulpicius Apollinaris, a man eminent for his knowledge of literature, pronounced obices and obicibus with a short o, and that in Virgil too he read in the same way the lines: [*](Georg. iii. 479.)

1. And by what force the oceans fathomless
2. Rise, bursting all their bounds (obicibus);

It is consistent therefore that subices also, which is formed exactly like obices, should be pronounced with the letter u short. Ennius, in his tragedy which is entitled Achilles, uses subices for the upper air which is directly below the heavens, in these lines: [*](2, Ribbeck3.) By lofty, humid regions (subices) of the gods I swear, Whence comes the storm with savage roaring wind; yet, in spite of what I have said, you may hear almost everyone read subices with a long u. But Marcus Cato uses that very verb with another prefix in the speech which he delivered On his Consulship: [*](i. 9, Jordan, who reads nos for hos.)

So the wind bears them to the beginning of the

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Pyrenees' range, where it extends (proicit) into the deep.

1. High Ida's cape, whose tongue into the deep extends (proicit).