Why Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, wrote that missiles hit their mark more accurately and surely if they are hurled from below, than if they are hurled from above.

When Quintus Claudius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, was describing an attack upon a town by the proconsul Metellus, and its defence against him by the townspeople from the top of the walls, he wrote these words: Fr. 85, Peter2. The archers and slingers on both sides showered their weapons with the utmost vigour and courage. But there is this difference between shooting an arrow or a stone downward or upward; for neither missile can be discharged accurately downward, but both upwards with excellent effect. Therefore the soldiers of Metellus suffered far fewer wounds, and, what was of the greatest importance, they very easily drove the enemy back from the battlements by means of their slingers.

I asked Antonius Julianus, the rhetorician, why what Quadrigarius had said was so; namely, that the shots of missiles are closer and more accurate if you discharge a stone or an arrow upwards rather than downwards, in spite of the fact that a throw from above downward is swifter and easier than one in the opposite direction. Then Julianus, after commending the character of the question, said: His statement about an arrow and a stone may be made about almost any missile weapon. But, as you have said, throwing is easier if you throw downwards, provided you wish only to throw, and not to hit a mark. But when the direction and force of the throw must be regulated and guided, then, if you are throwing downwards, tile control and command of the marksman are impaired by the downward impulse itself, such as it is, and by the weight of the falling missile. But if you throw your weapon upwards, and direct hand and eye to hitting something above you, the missile which you have hurled will go to the spot to which the impulse which you have given bears it. It was to this general effect that Julianus chatted with us about those words of Quintus Claudius.

With regard to the remark of the same Claudius, they very easily drove the enemy from the battlements, it must be observed that he used the word defendebant, not in the sense which it commonly has, but yet quite properly and in accordance with good Latin usage. For defendere and offendere are opposed to each other, the latter meaning e)mpodw\n e)/xein, that is, to run against something and fall upon it, the former, e)kpodw\n poiei=n, that is, to avert and drive away; and the latter is Claudius' meaning in this passage.

In what terms Herodes Atticus reproved a man who in appearance and dress falsely laid claim to the title and character of philosopher.

To Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, renowned for his personal charm and his Grecian eloquence, there once came, when I was present, a man in a cloak, with long hair and a beard that reached almost to his waist, and asked that money be given him ei)s a)/rtous, that is, for bread. Then Herodes asked him who on earth he was, and the man, with anger in his voice and expression, replied that he was a philosopher, adding that he wondered why Herodes thought it necessary to ask what was obvious. I see, said Herodes, a beard and a cloak; the philosopher I do not yet see. Now, I pray you, be so good as to tell me by what evidence you think we may recognize you as a philosopher. Meanwhile some of Herodes' companions told him that the fellow was a vagabond of worthless character, who frequented foul dives and was in the habit of being shamefully abusive if he did not get what he demanded. Thereupon Herodes said: Let us give him some money, whatever his character may be, not because he is a man, but because we are men, and he ordered enough money to be given him to buy bread for thirty days.

Then, turning to those of us who were with him, he said: Musonius p. 132, Hense. ordered a thousand sesterces to be given to a fakir of this sort who posed as a philosopher, and when several told him that the fellow was a rascal and knave and deserving of nothing good, Musonius, they say, replied with a smile: a)/cios ou)=n e)sti\n a)rguri/ou, 'then he deserves money.' But, said Herodes, it is rather this that causes me resentment and vexation, that foul and evil beasts of this sort usurp a most sacred name and call themselves philosophers. Now, my ancestors the Athenians by public decree made it unlawful for slaves ever to be given the names of those valiant youths Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who to restore liberty tried to slay the tyrant Hippias; In 514 B.C. They slew Hipparchus, brother of Hippias and son of Pisistratus. Hippias was afterwards driven from the city and the tyrannicides, who had lost their lives in their attempt, received almost divine honours. for they thought it impious for the names of men who had sacrificed themselves for their country's freedom to be disgraced by contact with slavery. Why then do we allow the glorious title of philosopher to be defiled in the person of the basest of men? Moreover, said he, I hear that the early Romans, setting a similar example in a case of the opposite nature, voted that the forenames of certain patricians who had deserved ill of their country and for that reason had been condemned to death should never be given to any patrician of the same clan, in order that their very names might seem to be dishonoured and done to death, as well as the malefactors themselves. An example, the discarding of the forename Lucius by the Claudii, is given by Suetonius, Tib. i. 2.

A letter of king Philip to the philosopher Aristotle with regard to the recent birth of his son Alexander.

PHILIP, son of Amyntas, was king of the land of Macedonia. Through his valour and energy the Macedonians had greatly increased and enriched their kingdom, and had begun to extend their power over many nations and peoples, so that Demosthenes, in those famous orations and addresses, The Philippics. insists that his power and arms are to be feared and dreaded by all Greece. This Philip, although almost constantly busied and distracted by the labours and triumphs of war, yet never was a stranger to the Muse of the liberal arts and the pursuit of culture, but his acts and words never lacked charm and refinement. In fact collections of his letters are in circulation, which abound in elegance, grace, and wisdom, as for example, the one in which he announced to the philosopher Aristotle the birth of his son Alexander. At Pella, in 356 B.C.

Since this letter is an encouragement to care and attention in the education of children, I thought that it ought to be quoted in full, as an admonition to parents. It may be translated, then, about as follows:

But Philip's own words are these:

Fi/lippos )Aristote/lei xai/rein.

)/Isqi moi gegono/ta ui(o/n. pollh\n ou)=n toi=s qeoi=s e)/xw xa/rin, ou)x ou(/tws e)pi\ th=| gene/sei tou= paido/s, w(s e)pi\ tw=| kata\ th\n sh\n h(liki/an au)to\n gegone/nai: e)lpi/zw ga/r au)to\n u(po\ sou= trafe/nta kai\ paideuqe/nta a)/cion e)/sesqai kai\ h(mw=n kai\ th=s tw=n pragma/twn diadoxh=s.

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 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 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 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 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, 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; 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.