Noctes Atticae

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).

Some stories of the elder Publius Africanus, taken from the annals and well worth relating.

How greatly the earlier Scipio Africanus excelled in the splendour of his merits, how lofty and noble of spirit he was, and to what an extent he was upheld by consciousness of his own rectitude, is evident from many of his words and acts. Among these are the following two instances of his extreme self-confidence and sense of superiority.

When Marcus Naevius, tribune of the commons, accused him before the people [*](In 185 B.C.) and declared that he had received money from king Antiochus to make peace with him in the name of the Roman people on favourable and easy terms, and when the tribune added sundry other charges which were unworthy of so great a man, then Scipio, after a few preliminary remarks such as were called for by the dignity and renown of his life, said:

I recall, fellow citizens, that this is the day on which in Africa in a mighty battle I conquered Hannibal the Carthaginian, the most bitter enemy of your power, and won for you a splendid peace and a glorious victory. Let us then not be ungrateful to the gods, but, I suggest, let us leave this worthless fellow, and go at once to render thanks to Jupiter, greatest and best of gods.

There is also another celebrated act of his. Certain Petilii, tribunes of the commons, influenced they say by Marcus Cato, Scipio's personal enemy, and instigated to appear against him, insisted most vigorously in the senate [*](Probably in 187 B.C., but the details of these attacks on Scipio are confused and uncertain.) on his rendering an account of the money of Antiochus and of the booty taken in that war; for he had been deputy to his brother Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, the commander in that campaign. Thereupon Scipio arose, and taking a roll from the fold of his toga, said that it contained an account of all the money and all the booty; that he had brought it to be publicly read and deposited in the treasury.

But that,

I shall not do now, nor will I so degrade myself.

What Marcus Varro wrote in his Philosophical-historical Treatise on restricting the diet of immature children.

IT has been found that if immature children eat a great deal and sleep too much, they become so sluggish as to have the dulness of a sufferer from insomnia or lethargy; and their bodies are stunted and under-developed. This is stated by numerous other physicians and philosophers and also by Marcus Varro in that section of his Philosophical-historical Treatise which is entitled Catus, or On Bringing up Children. [*](Fr. 17, Riese.)

On the punishment by the censors of men who had made untimely jokes in their hearing; also a deliberation as to the punishment of a man who had happened to yawn when standing before them.

AMONG the severities of the censors these three examples of the extreme strictness of their discipline are recorded in literature. The first is of this sort: The censor was administering the usual oath regarding wives, which was worded as follows:

Have you, to the best of your knowledge and belief, a wife?

Have you, to the best of your knowledge and belief, a wife?

I indeed have a wife,

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but not, by Heaven! such a one as I could desire.

Here is another instance of the sternness of the same officials. The censors deliberated about the punishment of a man who had been brought before them by a friend as his advocate, and who had yawned in court very clearly and loudly. He was on the point of being condemned for his lapse, on the ground that it was an indication of a wandering and trifling mind and of wanton and undisguised indifference. But when the man had sworn that the yawn had overcome him much against his will and in spite of his resistance, and that he was afflicted with the disorder known as oscedo, or a tendency to yawning, he was excused from the penalty which had already been determined upon. Publius Scipio Africanus, son of Paulus, included both these stories in a speech which he made when censor, urging the people to follow the customs of their forefathers. [*](O. R. F.,2 p. 179.)

Sabinus Masurius too in the seventh book of his Memoirs relates a third instance of severity. He says:

When the censors Publius Scipio Nasica and Marcus Popilius were holding a review of the knights, they saw a horse that was very thin and ill-kept, while its rider was plump and in the best of condition. 'Why is it,' said they, 'that you are better cared for than your mount?' 'Because,' he replied, 'I take care of myself, but Statius, a worthless slave, takes care of the horse.' This answer did not seem sufficiently respectful, and the man was reduced to a commoner, according to custom.

Now Statius was a slave-name. In old times there were many slaves of that name. Caecilius too, the famous comic poet, was a slave and as such called Statius. But afterwards this was made into a kind of surname and he was called Caecilius Statius. [*](This was regular in the case of freedmen, who took the forename and gentile name of their patron, or former master, and added their slave-name as a cognomen; e.g. M. Tullius Tiro. The forename of the Caecilius to whom Statius belonged is not known.)

That the philosopher Musonius criticized and rebuked those who expressed approval of a philosopher's discourse by loud shouts and extravagant demonstrations of praise.

I have heard that the philosopher Musonius [*](p. 130, Hense.) was accustomed. . . [*](There seems to be a lacuna in the text; see crit. note.)

When a philosopher,

is uttering words of encouragement, of warning, of persuasion, or of rebuke, or is discussing any other philosophical theme, then if his hearers utter trite and commonplace expressions of praise without reflection or restraint, if they shout too, if they gesticulate, if they are stirred and swayed and impassioned by the charm of his utterance, by the rhythm of his words, and by certain musical notes, [*](Heracus suggests fritamenta in i. 11, 12.) as it were, then you may know that speaker and hearers are wasting their time, and that they are not hearing a philosopher's lecture, but a flute-player's recital. The mind,

of one who is listening to a philosopher, so long as what is said is helpful and salutary, and furnishes a cure for faults and vices, has no time or leisure for continued and extravagant applause. Whoever the hearer may be, unless he is wholly lost, during the course of the philosopher's address he must necessarily shudder and feel secret shame and

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repentance, or rejoice or wonder, and even show changes of countenance and betray varying emotions, according as the philosopher's discourse has affected him and his consciousness of the different tendencies of his mind, whether noble or base.

He added that great applause is not inconsistent with admiration, but that the greatest admiration gives rise, not to words, but to silence.

Therefore,

1. Thus he; but they in silence all were hushed
2. And held in rapture through the shadowy hall. [*](Odyss. xiii. 1. Odysseus (Ulysses) had just finished telling his story to Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, and his court.)

About the horse of king Alexander, called Bucephalas.

THE horse of king Alexander was called Bucephalas because of the shape of his head. [*](Bucephalas in Greek means ox-headed.) Chares wrote [*](Fr. 14, p. 117, Müller.) that he was bought for thirteen talents and given to king Philip; that amount in Roman money is three hundred and twelve thousand sesterces. It seemed a noteworthy characteristic of this horse that when he was armed and equipped for battle, he would never allow himself to be mounted by any other than the king. [*](Cf. Suet. Jul. lxi.) It is also related that Alexander in the war against India, mounted upon that horse and doing

The reason and the occasion which are said to have introduced Protagoras to the study of philosophical literature.

THEY say that Protagoras, a man eminent in the pursuit of learning, whose name Plato gave to that famous dialogue of his, in his youth earned his living as a hired labourer and often carried heavy burdens on his back, being one of that class of men which the Greeks call a)xqofo/roi and we Latins baiuli, or porters. He was once carrying a great number of blocks of wood, bound together with a short rope, from the neighbouring countryside into his native town of Abdera. It chanced at the time that Democritus, a citizen of that same city, a man esteemed before all others for his fine character and his knowledge of philosophy, as he was going out of the city, saw Protagoras walking along easily and rapidly with that burden, of a kind so awkward and so difficult to hold together. Democritus drew near, and

My dear young man, since you have a talent for doing things well, there are greater and better employments which you can follow with me

Yet this Protagoras was not a true philosopher, but the cleverest of sophists; for in consideration of the payment of a huge annual fee, he used to promise his pupils that he would teach them by what verbal dexterity the weaker cause could be made the stronger, a process which he called in Greek: to\n h(/ttw lo/gon krei/ttw poiei=n, or

making the worse appear the better reason.

On the word duovicesimus, which is unknown to the general public, but occurs frequently in the writings of the learned.

I CHANCED to be sitting in a bookshop in the Sigillaria [*](See note 2, p. 128.) with the poet Julius Paulus, the most

Therefore it was then that for the first time one of the two consuls was chosen from the plebeians, in the twenty-second (duovicesimo) year after the Gauls captured Rome.

It ought,

to read, not duovicesimo, but duodevicesimo or twenty-second; for what is the meaning of duovicesimo?

He died in the twenty-second year [*](Of his reign.) (duovicesimo); he was king for twenty-one years.

How the Carthaginian Hannibal jested at the expense of king Antiochus.

IN collections of old tales it is recorded that Hannibal the Carthaginian made a highly witty jest when at the court of king Antiochus. The jest was

Do you think that all this can be equalled and that it is enough for the Romans?

I think all this will be enough, yes, quite enough, for the Romans, even though they are most avaricious.