Noctes Atticae

Gellius, Aulus

Gellius, Aulus. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, 1927 (printing).

On some extraordinary marvels found among barbarian peoples; and on awful and deadly spells; and also on the sudden change of women into men.

WHEN I was returning from Greece to Italy and had come to Brundisium, after disembarking I was

v2.p.163
strolling about in that famous port, which Quintus Ennius called praepes, or
propitious,
[*](Ann. 488, Vahlen2; cf. vii. 6. 6, where Gellius quotes the line and discusses the word.) using an epithet that is somewhat far-fetched, but altogether apt. There I saw some bundles of books exposed for sale, and I at once eagerly hurried to them. Now, all those books were in Greek, filled with marvellous tales, things unheard of, incredible; but the writers were ancient and of no mean authority: Aristeas of Proconnesus, Isigonus of Nicaea, Ctesias and Onesicritus, Philostephanus and Hegesias. [*](See the Index.) The volumes themselves, however, were filthy from long neglect, in bad condition and unsightly. Nevertheless, I drew near and asked their price; then, attracted by their extraordinary and unexpected cheapness, 1 bought a large number of them for a small sum, and ran through all of them hastily in the course of the next two nights. As I read, I culled from them, and noted down, some things that were remarkable and for the most part unmentioned by our native writers; these I have inserted here and there in these notes, so that whoever shall read them may not be found to be wholly ignorant and a)nh/koos, or
uninstructed,
when hearing tales of that kind.

Those books, then, contained matter of the following sort: that the most remote of the Scythians, who pass their life in the far north, eat human flesh and subsist on the nourishment of that food, and are called a)nqrwpofa/goi, or

cannibals.
Also that there are men in the same latitude having one eye in the middle of the forehead and called Arimaspi, who are of the appearance that the poets give the Cyclopes. [*](The Arimaspi are mentioned as good riders by Aeschylus, Prom. 805. Since Herodotus (iv. 27; L.C.L. ii, p. 227) says that in Scythian a)/rima meant one and spou=, eye, Strabo (i, 2, 10; L.C.L. vol. i, pp. 77 f.) thought that Homer might have derived his Cyclopes from the Scythian Arimaspi. See Milton, P.L. 2, 945.) That there are also in the same region
v2.p.165
other men, of marvellous swiftness, whose feet are turned backwards and do not point forward, as in the rest of mankind. [*](Cf. Pliny, N.H. vii. 11; Augustine, Civ. Dei, xvi. 8.) Further, that it was handed down by tradition that in a distant land called Albania men are born whose hair turns white in childhood and who see better by night than in the daytime. That it was also a matter of assured belief that the Sauromatae, who dwell far away beyond the river Borysthenes, take food only every other day [*](That is, every third day, according to the Roman method of reckoning; cf. xvii. 12. 2, febrim quartis diebus recurrentem, and xvii. 12. 5, haec biduo medio intervallata febris, and see Class. Phil. viii, pp. 1 ff.) and fast on the intervening day.

In those same books I ran upon this statement too, which I later read also in the seventh book of the Natural History of Plinius Secundus, [*](vii. 16.) that in the land of Africa there are families of persons who work spells by voice and tongue; for if they should chance to have bestowed extravagant praise upon beautiful trees, plentiful crops, charming children, fine horses, flocks that are well fed and in good condition, suddenly, for no other cause than this, all these would die. That with the eyes too a deadly spell is cast, is written in those same books, and it is said that there are persons among the Illyrians who by their gaze kill those at whom they have looked for some time in anger; and that those persons themselves, both men and women, who possess this power of harmful gaze, have two pupils in each eye. Also that in the mountains of the land of India there are men who have the heads of dogs, and bark, and that they feed upon birds and wild animals which they have taken in the chase. That in the remotest lands of the east too there are

v2.p.167
other marvellous men called monocoli, or
one-legged,
who run by hopping with their single leg and are of a most lively swiftness. [*](Cf. Plin. N.H. vii. 23.) And that there are also some others who are without necks and have eyes in their shoulders. But all bounds of wonder are passed by the statement of those same writers, that there is a tribe in farthest India with bodies that are rough and covered with feathers like birds, who eat no food but live by inhaling the perfume of flowers. And that not far from these people is the land of Pygmies, the tallest of whom are not more than two feet and a quarter in height.

These and many other stories of the kind I read; but when writing them down, I was seized with disgust for such worthless writings, which contribute nothing to the enrichment or profit of life. Nevertheless, the fancy took me to add to this collection of marvels a thing which Plinius Secundus, a man of high authority in his day and generation by reason of his talent and his position, recorded in the seventh book of his Natural History, [*](vii. 36.) not as something that he had heard or read, but that he knew to be true and had himself seen. The words therefore which I have quoted below are his own, taken from that book, and they certainly make us hesitate to reject or ridicule that familiar yarn of the poets of old about Caenis and Caeneus. [*](Caenis was a girl whom her lover Poseidon changed into a man and who was then called Caeneus; see Ovid, Met. xii. 171 ff.; Virg. Aen. vi. 448.) He says that the change of women into men is not a fiction.

We find,
says he,
in the annals that in the consulship of Quintus Licinius Crassus and Gains Cassius Longinus [*](171 B.C.) a girl at Casinum was changed into a boy in the house of her parents and by direction of the diviners was deported to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus has stated
v2.p.169
that he saw at Argos one Arescontes, whose name had been Arescusa; that she had even been married, but presently grew a beard, became a man, and had taken a wife: and that at Smyrna also he had seen a boy who had experienced the same change. I myself in Africa saw Lucius Cossutius, a citizen of Thysdrus, who had been changed into a man on his wedding day and was still living when I wrote this.

Pliny also wrote this in the same book: [*](vii. 34.)

There are persons who from birth are bisexual, whom we call 'hermaphrodites'; they were formerly termed androgyni and regarded as prodigies, but now are instruments of pleasure.

Diverse views of eminent philosophers as to the nature and character of pleasure; and the words in which the philosopher Hierocles attacked the principles of Epicurus.

As to pleasure the philosophers of old expressed varying opinions. Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good, but defines it [*](Fr. 28, Usener.) as sarko\s eu)staqe\s kata/sthma, or

a well-balanced condition of body.
Antisthenes the Socratic calls it the greatest evil; for this is the expression he uses: [*](F.P. G. ii. 286. 65.) manei/hn ma=llon h)\ h(sqei/hn; that is to say,
may I go mad rather than feel pleasure.
Speusippus and all the old Academy declare [*](F.P. G. iii. 92. 169.) that pleasure and pain are two evils opposed to each other, but that what lay midway between the two was the good. Zeno thought [*](p. 169, Pearson; i. 195, Arn.) that pleasure was indifferent, that is neutral, neither good nor evil, that,
v2.p.171
namely, which he himself called by the Greek term a)dia/foron. Critolaus the Peripatetic declares that pleasure is an evil and gives birth to many other evils: injustice, sloth, forgetfulness, and cowardice. Earlier than all these, Plato discoursed in so many and varied ways about pleasure, that all those opinions which I have set forth may seem to have flowed from the founts of his discourses; for he makes use of each one of them according to the suggestion offered by the nature of pleasure itself, which is manifold, and according to the demands made by the character of the topics which he is treating and of the effect that he wishes to produce. But our countryman Taurus, whenever mention was made of Epicurus, always had on his lips and tongue these words of Hierocles the Stoic, a man of righteousness and dignity:
Pleasure an end, a harlot's creed; there is no Providence, not even a harlot's creed.

With what quantity the first syllable of the frequentative verb from ago should be pronounced.

FROM ago and egi are derived the verbs actito and actitavi, which the grammarians call

frequentatives.
[*](Most modern grammarians prefer the more comprehensive term intensives.) These verbs I have heard some men, and those not without learning, pronounce with a shortening of the first syllable, and give as their reason that the first letter of the primitive ago is pronounced short. Why then do we make the first vowel long in the frequentative forms esito and unctito, which are derived from edo and ungo, in which the first letter is short;
v2.p.173
and, on the contrary, pronounce the first vowel short in dictito from dīco? Accordingly, should not actito and actitavi rather be lengthened? For the first syllable of almost all frequentatives is pronounced in the same way as the same syllable of the past participle of the verbs from which they are formed: for example, lego lēctus makes lēctito; ungo ūnctus, ūnctito; scrībo scrīptus, scrīptito; moveo mōtus, mōtito; pendeo pēnsus, pēnsito; edo ēsus, ēsito; but dīco dīctus forms dictito; gĕro gĕstus, gĕstito; vĕho vĕctus, vĕctito; răpio răptus, răptito; căpio căptus, căptito; făcio făctus, făctito. So then ăctito should be pronounced with the first syllable long, since it is from ago and ăctus.

That the leaves of the olive tree turn over at the summer and the winter solstice, and that the lyre at that same season produces sounds from other strings than those that are struck.

IT is commonly both written and believed that at the winter and the summer solstice the leaves of olive trees turn over, and that the side which had been underneath and hidden becomes uppermost and is exposed to sight and to the sun. And 1 myself was led to test this statement more than once, and found it to be almost exactly true.

But about the lyre there is an assertion that is less often made and is even more remarkable. And this both other learned men and also Suetonius Tranquillus, in the first book of his History of the Games, [*](The title as given in full by Suidas is On the Festivals and Games of the Romans, two books. See Fr. 181, Reiff.)

v2.p.175
declare to have been fully investigated and to be generally accepted; namely, that when some strings of the lyre are struck with the fingers at the time of the winter solstice, other strings give out sound.

That it is inevitable that one who has much should need much, with a brief and graceful aphorism of the philosopher Favorinus on that subject.

THAT is certainly true which wise men have said as the result of observation and experience, that he who has much is in need of much, and that great want arises from great abundance and not from great lack; for many things are wanted to maintain the many things that you have. Whoever then, having much, desires to provide and take precaution that nothing may fail or be lacking, needs to lose, not gain, and must have less in order to want less.

I recall that Favorinus once, amid loud and general applause, rounded off this thought, putting it into the fewest possible words: [*](Fr. 81, Marres. We may compare Hor. Epist. i. 6. 40 ff.)

It is not possible for one who wants fifteen thousand cloaks not to want more things; [*](ad ea quae habet tuenda; see § 1.) for if I want more than I possess, by taking away from what I have I shall be contented with what remains.