Noctes Atticae

A noteworthy story about the actor Polus. [*](On this famous tragic actor see O'Connor, Chapters in the History of Actors and Acting in Ancient Greece (Princeton dissertation, 1908), pp. 128 ff. He flourished toward the end of the fourth century B.C.)

THERE was in the land of Greece an actor of wide reputation, who excelled all others in his clear delivery and graceful action. They say that his name was Polus, and he often acted the tragedies of famous poets with intelligence and dignity. This Polus lost by death a son whom he dearly loved. After he felt that he had indulged his grief sufficiently, he returned to the practice of his profession.

At that time he was to act the Electra of Sophocles at Athens, and it was his part to carry an urn which was supposed to contain the ashes of Orestes. The plot of the play requires that Electra, who is

What Aristotle wrote of the congenital absence of some of the senses.

NATURE has given five senses to living beings; sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, called by the Greeks ai)sqh/seis. Of these some animals lack one and some another, being born into the world blind, or without the sense of smell or hearing. But Aristotle asserts that no animal is born without the sense of taste or of touch.

His own words, from the book which he wrote On Memory, are as follows: [*](Peri\ (/Upnou or On Sleep, 2. Gellius is mistaken in his title.)

Except for some imperfect animals, all have taste or touch.

Whether affatim, like admodunm, should be pronounced with an acute accent on the first syllable; with some painstaking observations on the accents of other words.

THE poet Annianus, [*](One of the few poets of Hadrian's time. He wrote Falisca, on rural life, and Fescennini. Like other poets of his time, he was fond of unusual metres; see Gr. Lat. vi. 122, 12, K.) in addition to his charming personality, was highly skilled in ancient literature and literary criticism, and conversed with remarkable grace and learning. He pronounced affalim, as he did admodum, with an acute accent [*](This seems to mean no more than accent; see note 2, p. 9, above.) on the first, and not on the medial, syllable; and he believed that the ancients so pronounced the word. He adds that in his hearing the grammarian Probus thus read the following lines of the Cistellaria of Plautus: [*](231.)

1. Canst do a valiant deed?—Enough (áffatim) there be
2. Who can. I've no desire to be called brave,

1. Over against (exádversum) the school to which she went
2. A barber had his shop.

emphasis,

In all else, indeed, Annianus spoke aptly enough. But if he supposed that this particle was always accented when it denoted emphasis, that rule is obviously not without exceptions; for when we say adpotus, adprimus, and adprime, emphasis is evident in all those words, yet it is not at all proper to pronounce the particle ad with the acute accent. I must admit, however, that adprobus, which means

highly approved,

1. Hierocles, my friend, is a most worthy (ádprobus) youth.

In those words, then, which we say do not have the acute accent, is not this the reason—that the following syllable is longer by nature, and a long penult does not as a rule [*](Gellius is perhaps thinking of such exceptions as éxinde and súbinde, in which however the penult is not long by nature, but by position.) permit the accenting of the preceding syllable in words of more than two syllables? But Lucius Livius in his Odyssey uses ádprimus in the sense of

by far the first

1. And then the mighty hero, foremost of all (ádprimus), Patroclus.

Livius in his Odyssey too pronounces praemodum like admodum; he says [*](Fr. 29, Bährens.) parcentes praemodum, which means

beyond measure merciful,

An incredible story about a dolphin which loved a boy.

THAT dolphins are affectionate and amorous is shown, not only by ancient history, but also by tales of recent date. For in the sea of Puteoli, during the reign of Augustus Caesar, as Apion has written, and some centuries before at Naupactus, as Theophrastus tells us, dolphins are positively known to have been ardently in love. And they did not love those of their own kind, but had an extraordinary passion, like that of human beings, for boys of handsome figure, whom they chanced to have seen in boats or in the shoal waters near the shore.

I have appended the words of that learned man Apion, from the fifth book of his Egyptian History, in which he tells of an amorous dolphin and a boy who did not reject its advances, of their intimacy and play with each other, the dolphin carrying the boy and the boy bestriding the fish; and Apion declares that of all this he himself and many others were eye-witnesses.

Now I myself,

near Dicaearchia [*](The early Greek name of Puteoli.) saw a dolphin that fell in love with a boy called Hyacinthus. For the fish with passionate eagerness came at his call, and drawing in his fins, to avoid wounding the delicate skin of the object of his affection, carried him as if mounted upon a horse for a distance of two hundred stadia. Rome and all Italy turned out to see a fish that was under the sway of Aphrodite.

Afterwards,

that same boy who was beloved by the

v2.p.45

dolphin fell sick and died. But the lover, when he had often come to the familiar shore, and the boy, who used to await his coming at the edge of the shoal water, was nowhere to be seen, pined away from longing and died. He was found lying on the shore by those who knew the story and was buried in the same tomb with his favourite.

That many early writers used peposci, memordi pepugi, spepondi and cecurri, and not, as was afterwards customary, forms with o or u in the first syllable, and that in so doing said that they followed Greek usage; that it has further been observed that men who were neither unlearned nor obscure made from the verb descendo, not descendi, but descendidi.

POPOSCI, momordi, pupugi and cucurri seem to be the approved forms, and to-day they are used by almost all better-educated men. But Quintus Ennius in his Satires wrote memorderit with an e, and not momorderit, as follows: [*](63, Vahlen2.)

1. 'Tis not my way, as if a dog had bit me (memorderit).

1. Now from my whole estate
2. A hundred thousand have I bitten off (memordi).

1. And when, o'er slow fire cooked, I came beneath her teeth,
2. Twice, thrice she bit (memordit).

As when a serpent bites (memordit) one, a hen is split and placed upon the wound.

1. How he the man did fleece (admemordii).

1. Had I not fled into your midst,
2. Methinks he'd bitten me (praemorsisset).

1. A bear, he says, bit him (memordisse).

Finally Licinius, tribune of the commons, charged him with high treason and asked (peposcit) from the praetor Marcus Marcius a day for holding the comitia.

In the same way Atta in the Aedilicia says: [*](Fr. 2, Ribbeck3.)

1. But he will be afraid, if I do prick him (pepugero).

Probus has noted that Aelius Tubero also, in his work dedicated to Gaius Oppius, wrote occecurrit, and he has quoted him as follows: [*](Fr. 2, Huschke; I. p. 367, Bremer.)

If the general form should present itself (occecurrerit).

Tiberius Gracchus,

v2.p.49

who had been quaestor to Gaius Mancinus in Spain, and the others who had guaranteed (speponderant) peace.

Now the explanation of these forms might seem to be this: since the Greeks in one form of the past tense, which they call parakei/menon, or

perfect,

I find besides that from the verb scindo in the same way was made, not sciderat, but sciciderat. Lucius Accius in the first book of his Sotadici writes sciciderat. These are his words: [*](Fr. i. 2, Müller; 8, Bährens.)

1. And had the eagle then, as these declare,
2. His bosom rent (sciciderat)?

1. When the rock he shall split (sciciderit).

Then, having arranged for the funeral, he went down (descendidit) to the Forum.

1. I wondered how my breasts had fallen low (descendiderant).

As ususcapio is treated as a compound noun in the nominative case, so pignoriscapio is taken together as one word in the same case.

As ususcapio is treated as a compound word, in which the letter a is pronounced long, just so pignoriscapio was pronounced as one word with a long a. These are the words of Cato in the first book of his Epistolary Questions: [*](p. cviii., Jordan. It should be Varro rather than Cato.)

Pignoriscapio, resorted to because of military pay [*](That is, pay in arrears.) which a soldier ought to receive from the public paymaster, is a word by itself.

That neither levitas nor nequitia has the meaning that is given to those words in ordinary conversation.

I OBSERVE that levitas is now generally used to denote inconsistency and changeableness, and nequitia, in the sense of craftiness and cunning. But those of the men of early days who spoke properly and purely applied the term leves to those whom we now commonly call worthless and meriting no esteem. That is, they used levitas with precisely the force of vilitas, and applied the term nequam to a man of no

One who desires examples of these words need not resort to books that are very inaccessible, but he will find them in Marcus Tullius' second Oration against Antony. For when Cicero wished to indicate a kind of extreme sordidness in the life and conduct of Marcus Antonius, that he lurked in a tavern, that he drank deep until evening, and that he travelled with his face covered, so as not to be recognized— when he wished to give expression to these and similar charges against him, he said: [*](Phil. ii. 77.)

Just see the worthlessness (levitatem) of the man,

O man of no worth (nequam)! for there is no term that I can use more fittingly.

But from that passage of Marcus Tullius I should like to add a somewhat longer extract:

Just see the worthlessness of the man! Having come to Saxa Rubra at about the tenth hour of the day, [*](About four o'clock in the afternoon.) he lurked in a certain low tavern, and shutting himself up there drank deep until evening. Then riding swiftly to the city in a cab, he came to his home with covered face. The doorkeeper asked: 'Who are you?' 'The bearer of a letter from Marcus,' was the reply. He was at once taken to the lady on whose account he had come, [*](His wife, Fulvia.) and handed her the letter. While she read it with tears—for it was written in amorous terms and its

v2.p.55

main point was this: that hereafter he would have nothing to do with that actress, that he had cast aside all his love for her and transferred it to the reader—when the woman wept still more copiously, the compassionate man could not endure it; he uncovered his face and threw himself on her neck. O man of no worth!—for I can use no more fitting term; was it, then, that your wife might unexpectedly see you, when you had surprised her by appearing as her lover, that you upset the city with terror by night and Italy with dread for many days?

In a very similar way Quintus Claudius too, in the first book of his Annals, called a prodigal and wasteful life of luxury nequitia, using these words: [*](Fr. 15, Peter2.)

They persuade a young man from Lucania, who was born in a most exalted station, but had squandered great wealth in luxury and prodigality (nequitia).

Just as from non and volo we have nolo, so from ne and quicquam is formed nequam, with the loss of the medial syllable.

All the evils, shameful deeds, and crimes that men commit come from two things, malice and profligacy (nequitia). Against which charge do you defend yourself, that of malice or profligacy, or both together? If you wish to defend yourself against the charge of profligacy, well and good; if you have squandered more money on one harlot than you reported for the census as the value of all the

v2.p.57

equipment of your Sabine estate; if this is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces? [*](The lexicons and commentators define the sponsio as a legal wager, in which the two parties to a suit put up a sum of money, which was forfeited by the one who lost his case; and they cite Gaius, Inst. iv. 93. But in iv. 94 Gaius says that only one party pledged a sum of money (unde etiam is, cum quo agetur, non restipulabatur), that it was merely a preliminary to legal action, and that the sum was not forfeited (non tamen haec summa sponsionis exigitur; nec enim poenalis sed praeiudicialis, et propter hoc solum fit, ut per earn de re iudicetur). Wagers, however, were common; see Plaut. Pers. 186 ff.; Cas. prol. 75; Catull. 44. 4; Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 168.) If you have wasted more than a third of your patrimony and spent it on your vices; if that is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces? You do not care to defend yourself against the charge of profligacy; at least refute the charge of malice. If you have sworn falsely in set terms knowingly and deliberately; if this is so, who pledges a thousand sesterces?

Of the tunics called chiridotae; that Publius Africanus reproved Sulpicius Gallus for wearing them.

FOR a man to wear tunics coming below the arms and as far as the wrists, and almost to the fingers, was considered unbecoming in Rome and in all Latium. Such tunics our countrymen called by the Greek name chiridotae (long-sleeved), and they thought that a long and full-flowing garment was not unbecoming for women only, to hide their arms and legs from sight. But Roman men at first wore the toga alone without tunics; later, they had close, short tunics ending below the shoulders, the kind which the Greeks call e)cwmi/des (sleeveless). [*](More literally, leaving the shoulders bare. ) Habituated to this older fashion, Publius Africanus, son of Paulus, a man gifted with all worthy arts and every virtue, among many other things with which he

For one who daily perfumes himself and dresses before a mirror, whose eyebrows are trimmed, who walks abroad with beard plucked out and thighs made smooth, who at banquets, though a young man, has reclined in a long-sleeved tunic on the inner side of the couch with a lover, who is fond not only of wine but of men—does anyone doubt that he does what wantons commonly do?

Virgil too attacks tunics of this kind as effeminate and shameful, saying: [*](Aen, ix. 616.)

1. Sleeves have their tunics, and their turbans, ribbons.

Quintus Ennius also seems to have spoken not without scorn of

the tunic-clad men

Whom Marcus Cato calls classici or

belonging to a class,

below class.

NOT all those men who were enrolled in the five classes [*](The five classes into which the Roman citizens were divided by the constitution attributed to Servius Tullius. The division was for military purposes and was made on the basis of a property qualification.) were called classici, but only the men of the first class, who were rated at a hundred and twenty-five thousand asses or more. But those of the second class and of all the other classes, who were rated at

Of the three literary styles; and of the three philosophers who were sent as envoys by the Athenians to the senate at Rome.

BOTH in verse and in prose there are three approved styles, which the Greeks call xarakth=res and to which they have given the names of a(dro/s, i)sxno/s and me/sos. We also call the one which I put first

grand,

plain,

middle.

The grand style possesses dignity and richness, the plain, grace and elegance; the middle lies on the border line and partakes of the qualities of both.

To each of these excellent styles there are related an equal number of faulty ones, arising from unsuccessful attempts to imitate their manner and character. Thus very often pompous and bombastic speakers lay claim to the grand style, the mean and bald to the plain, and the unclear and ambiguous to the middle. But true and genuine Latin examples of these styles are said by Marcus Varro [*](Fr. 80, Wilmanns.) to be: Pacuvius of the grand style, Lucilius of the plain, and Terence of the middle. But in early days these same three styles of speaking were exemplified in three men by Homer: the grand and rich in

This threefold variety is also to be observed in the three philosophers whom the Athenians sent as envoys to the senate at Rome, to persuade the senators to remit the fine which they had imposed upon the Athenians because of the sack of Oropos; [*](The embassy was sent in 155 B.C. Plutarch, Cat. Mai. xxii. (L.C.L. ii., p. 369) says that the fine was five hundred talents.) and the fine amounted to nearly five hundred talents. The philosophers in question were Carneades of the Academy, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic. When they were admitted to the House, they made use of Gaius Acilius, one of the senators, as interpreter; but beforehand each one of them separately, for the purpose of exhibiting his eloquence, lectured to a large company. Rutilius [*](Fr. 3, Peter2.) and Polybius [*](xxxiii. 2, p. 1287, H.) declare that all three aroused admiration for their oratory, each in his own style.

Carneades,

spoke with a vehemence that carried you away, Critolaus with art and polish, Diogenes with restraint and sobriety.

Each of these styles, as I have said, is more brilliant when it is chastely and moderately adorned; when it is rouged and be powdered, it becomes mere jugglery.