Noctes Atticae

The account of Apion, a learned man who was surnamed Plistonices, of the mutual recognition, due to old acquaintance, that he had seen at Rome between a man and a lion.

APION, who was called Plistonices, was a man widely versed in letters, and possessing an extensive and varied knowledge of things Greek. In his works, which are recognized as of no little repute, is contained an account of almost all the remarkable things which are to be seen and heard in Egypt. Now, in his account of what he professes either to have heard or read he is perhaps too verbose through a reprehensible love of display—for he is a great self-advertiser in parading his learning; but this incident, which he describes in the fifth book of his Wonders of Egypt, [*](F. H. G. iii. 510.) he declares that he neither heard nor read, but saw himself with his own eyes in the city of Rome.

In the Great Circus,

he says,

a battle with wild beasts on a grand scale was being exhibited to the people. Of that spectacle, since I chanced to be in Rome, I was,

he says,

an eye-witness. There were there many savage wild beasts, brutes remarkable for their huge size, and all of uncommon appearance or unusual ferocity. But beyond all others,

says he,

did the vast size of the lions excite wonder, and one of these in particular surpassed all the rest. This one lion had drawn to himself the attention and eyes of all because of the activity and huge size of his body, his terrific and deep roar, the development of his muscles, and the mane streaming over his shoulders. There was brought in, among many others who had been condemned to fight with the wild beasts, the slave of an ex-consul; the slave's name was Androclus. When that lion saw him from a distance,

says Apion,

he stopped short as if in amazement, and then approached the man slowly and quietly, as if he recognized him. Then, wagging his tail in a mild and caressing way, after the manner and fashion of fawning dogs, he came close to the man, who was now half dead from fright, and gently licked his feet and hands. The man Androclus, while submitting to the caresses of so fierce a beast, regained his lost courage and gradually turned his eyes to look at the lion. Then,

says Apion,

you might have seen man and lion exchange joyful greetings, as if they had recognized each other.

He says that at this sight, so truly astonishing, the people broke out into mighty shouts; and Gaius Caesar called Androclus to him and inquired the reason why that fiercest of lions had spared him alone. Then Androclus related a strange and

surprising story.

My master,

said he,

was governing Africa with proconsular authority. While there, I was forced by his undeserved and daily floggings to run away, and that my hiding-places might be safer from my master, the ruler of that country, I took refuge in lonely plains and deserts, intending, if food should fail me, to seek death in some form. Then,

said he,

when the midday sun was fierce and scorching, finding a remote and secluded cavern, I entered it, and hid myself. Not long afterwards this lion came to the same cave with one paw lame and bleeding, making known by groans and moans the torturing pain of his wound.

And then, at the first sight of the approaching lion, Androclus said that his mind was overwhelmed with fear and dread.

But when the lion,

said he,

had entered what was evidently his own lair, and saw me cowering at a distance, he approached me mildly and gently, and lifting up his foot, was evidently showing it to me and holding it out as if to ask for help. Then,

said he,

I drew out a huge splinter that was embedded in the sole of the foot, squeezed out the pus that had formed in the interior of the wound, wiped away the blood, and dried it thoroughly, being now free from any great feeling of fear. Then, relieved by that attention and treatment of mine, the lion, putting his paw in my hand, lay down and went to sleep, and for three whole years from that day the lion and I lived in the same cave, and on the same food as well. For he used to bring for me to the cave the choicest parts of the game which he took in hunting, which I, having no means of making a fire, dried in the noonday sun and ate. But,

said he,

after I had finally grown tired of that wild

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life, I left the cave when the lion had gone off to hunt, and after travelling nearly three days, I was seen and caught by some soldiers and taken from Africa to Rome to my master. He at once had me condemned to death by being thrown to the wild beasts. But,

said he,

I perceive that this lion was also captured, after I left him, and that he is now requiting me for my kindness and my cure of him.

Apion records that Androclus told this story, and that when it had been made known to the people by being written out in full on a tablet and carried about the Circus, at the request of all Androclus was freed, acquitted and presented with the lion by vote of the people.

Afterwards,

said he,

we used to see Androclus with the lion, attached to a slender leash, making the rounds of the shops throughout the city; Androclus was given money, the lion was sprinkled with flowers, and everyone who met them anywhere exclaimed: 'This is the lion that was a man's friend, this is the man who was physician to a lion.'

That it is a disputed question among philosophers whether voice is corporeal or incorporeal.

A QUESTION that has been argued long and continuously by the most famous philosophers is whether voice has body or is incorporeal; for the word incorporeus has been coined by some of them, corresponding exactly to the Greek a)sw/matos. Now a body is that which is either active or passive: this in Greek is defined as to\ h)/toi poiou=n h)\ pa/sxon, or

that which either acts or is acted upon.

Wishing to reproduce this definition the poet Lucretius wrote: [*](i. 304.)

1. Naught save a body can be touched or touch.

The Greeks also define body in another way, as to\ trixh= dia/staton, or

that which has three dimensions.

But the Stoics maintain [*](II. 141, Arn.) that voice is a body, and say that it is air which has been struck; Plato, however, thinks that voice is not corporeal:

for,

says he, [*](Timaeus, p. 67, B.)

not the air which is struck, but the stroke and the blow themselves are voice.

Democritus, and following him Epicurus, declare that voice consists of individual particles, and they call it, to use their own words, r(eu=ma a)to/mwn, [*](p. 353, Usener.) or

a stream of atoms.

When I heard of these and other sophistries, the result of a self-satisfied cleverness combined with lack of employment, and saw in these subtleties no real advantage affecting the conduct of life, and no end to the inquiry, I agreed with Ennius' Neoptolemus, who rightly says: [*](340, Ribbeck3.)

1. Philosophizing there must be, but by the few;
2. Since for all men it's not to be desired.

On the function of the eye and the process of vision.

I HAVE observed that the philosophers have varying opinions about the method of seeing and the nature of vision. The Stoics say [*](II. 871, Arn.) that the causes of sight are the emission of rays from the eyes to those objects which can be seen, and the simultaneous

expansion of the air. Epicurus believes [*](319, Usener.) that there is a constant flow from all bodies of images of those bodies themselves, and that these impinge upon the eyes and hence the sensation of seeing arises. Plato is of the opinion [*](Timaeus, p. 45, B.) that a kind of fire or light issues from the eyes, and that this, being united and joined either with the light of the sun or with that of some other fire, by means of its own and the external force makes us see whatever it has struck and illumined. But here too we must not dally longer, but follow the advice of that Neoptolemus in Ennius, of whom I have just written, [*](xv. 9.) who advises having a

taste

of philosophy, but not

gorging oneself with it.

Why the first days after the Kalends, Nones and Ides are considered unlucky; and why many avoid also the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones or Ides, on the ground that it is ill-omened.

VERRIUS FLACCUS, in the fourth book of his work On the Meaning of Words, writes [*](p. xiv. Müller.) that the days immediately following the Kalends, Nones and Ides, which the common people ignorantly call

holidays,

are properly called, and considered,

ill-omened,

for this reason:—

When the city,

he says,

had been recovered from the Senonian Gauls, Lucius Atilius stated in the senate that Quintus Sulpicius, tribune of the soldiers, when on the eve of fighting against the Gauls at the Allia, [*](In 390 B. C.) offered sacrifice in anticipation of that battle on the day after the Ides; that the army of the Roman people was thereupon cut to pieces, and three days later the whole

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city, except the Capitol, was taken. Also many other senators said that they remembered that whenever with a view to waging war a magistrate of the Roman people had sacrificed on the day after the Kalends, Nones or Ides, in the very next battle of that war the State had suffered disaster. Then the senate referred the matter to the pontiffs, that they might take what action they saw fit. The pontiffs decreed that no offering would properly be made on those days.

Many also avoid the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones and Ides, as ill-omened. It is often inquired whether any religious reason for that observance is recorded. I myself have found nothing in literature pertaining to that matter, except that Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the fifth book of his Annals, says that the prodigious slaughter of the battle of Cannae occurred on the fourth day before the Nones of August. [*](August 2, 216 B. C.)

In what respect, and how far, history differs from annals; and a quotation on that subject from the first book of the Histories of Sempronius Asellio.

SOME think that history differs from annals in this particular, that while each is a narrative of events, yet history is properly an account of events in which the narrator took part; and that this is the opinion of some men is stated by Verrius Flaccus in the fourth book of his treatise On the Meaning of Words.[*](p. xiv. Müller.) He adds that he for his part has doubts about the matter, but he thinks that the view may have some appearance of reason, since i(stori/a in Greek means a

knowledge of current events. But we often hear it said that annals are exactly the same as histories, but that histories are not exactly the same as annals; just as a man is necessarily an animal, but an animal is not necessarily a man.

Thus they say that history is the setting forth of events or their description, or whatever term may be used; but that annals set down the events of many years successively, with observance of the chronological order. When, however, events are recorded, not year by year, but day by day, such a history is called in Greek e)fhmeri/s, or

a diary,

a term of which the Latin interpretation is found in the first book of Sempronius Asellio. I have quoted a passage of some length from that book, in order at the same time to show what his opinion is of the difference between history and chronicle.

But between those,

he says, [*](Fr. 1, Peter.)

who have desired to leave us annals, and those who have tried to write the history of the Roman people, there was this essential difference. The books of annals merely made known what happened and in what year it happened, which is like writing a diary, which the Greeks call e)fhmeri/s. For my part, I realize that it is not enough to make known what has been done, but that one should also show with what purpose and for what reason things were done.

A little later in the same book Asellio writes: [*](Fr. 2, Peter.)

For annals cannot in any way make men more eager to defend their country, or more reluctant to do wrong. Further-more, to write over and over again in whose consulship a war was begun and ended, and who in consequence entered the city in a triumph, and in that

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book not to state what happened in the course of the war, what decrees the senate made during that time, or what law or bill was passed, and with what motives these things were done—that is to tell stories to children, not to write history.

The meaning of adoptatio and also of adrogatio, and how they differ; and the formula used by the official who, when children are adopted, brings the business before the people.

WHEN outsiders are taken into another's family and given the relationship of children, it is done either through a praetor or through the people. If done by a praetor, the process is called adoptatio; if through the people, arrogatio. Now, we have adoptatio, when those who are adopted are surrendered in court through a thrice repeated sale [*](This was a symbolic sale, made by thrice touching a balance with a penny, in the presence of a praetor; see Suet., Aug. lxiv.) by the father under whose control they are, and are claimed by the one who adopts them in the presence of the official before whom the legal action takes place. The process is called adrogatio, when persons who are their own masters deliver themselves into the control of another, and are themselves responsible for the act. But arrogations are not made without due consideration and investigation; for the so-called comitia curiata [*](The assembly of the curiae, the thirty divisions into which the Roman citizens were divided, ten for each of the original three tribes. It was superseded at an early period by the comitia centuriata, and its action was confined to formalities. See xv. 27. 5.) are summoned under the authority of the pontiffs, and it is inquired whether the age of the one who wishes to adopt is not rather suited to begetting children of his own; precaution is taken that the property of the one who is being adopted is not being sought under false pretences; and an oath is administered which is said

to have been formulated for use in that ceremony by Quintus Mucius, [*](Fr. 13, Huschke; I. p. 58 and p. 80, Bremer.) when he was pontifex maxinus. But no one may be adopted by adrogatio who is not yet ready to assume the gown of manhood. The name adrogatio is due to the fact that this kind of transfer to another's family is accomplished through a rogatio or

request,

put to the people.

The language of this request is as follows:

Express your desire and ordain that Lucius Valerius be the son of Lucius Titius as justly and lawfully as if he had been born of that father and the mother of his family, and that Titius have that power of life and death over Valerius which a father has over a son. This, just as I have stated it, I thus ask of you, fellow Romans.

Neither a ward nor a woman who is not under the control of her father may be adopted by adrogatio; since women have no part in the comitia, and it is not right that guardians should have so much authority and power over their wards as to be able to subject to the control of another a free person who has been committed to their protection. Freedmen, however, may legally be adopted in that way by freeborn citizens, according to Masurius Sabinus. [*](Fr. 27, Huschke; Jus. Civ. 60, Bremer.) But he adds that it is not allowed, and he thinks it never ought to be allowed, that men of the condition of freedmen should by process of adoption usurp the privileges of the freeborn.

Furthermore,

says he,

if that ancient law be maintained, even a slave may be surrendered by his master for adoption through the agency of a praetor.

And he declares that several authorities [*](Cato, Fr. 4a, I. p. 21, Bremer.) on ancient law have written that this can be done.

I have observed in a speech of Publius Scipio On

Morals, which he made to the people in his censorship, that among the things that he criticized, on the ground that they were done contrary to the usage of our forefathers, he also found fault with this, that an adopted son was of profit to his adoptive father in gaining the rewards for paternity. [*](That is, the privileges and exemptions conferred upon the fathers of children, later comprised under the ius trium liberorum; see ii. 15. 3 ff.) The passage in that speech is as follows: [*](O.R.F.2 p. 180.)

A father votes in one tribe, the son in another, [*](The meaning is that a man who had been adopted would vote in the tribe of his adoptive father, which might be different from that of his own father.) an adopted son is of as much advantage as if one had a son of his own; orders are given to take the census of absentees, and hence it is not necessary for anyone to appear in person at the census.