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).
Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians
common.
UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are
commonverbs and can be used either way:
I respect youand
I am respected by you,that is,
you respect me;
I use youand
I am used by you,that is,
you use me;
I exhort youand
I am exhorted by you,that is,
you exhort me;
I console youand
I am consoled by you,that is,
you console me.Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are
Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning: [*](v. 43, Ribbeck3.)
- Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap,
- Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be.
That is,
- Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur).
which is not to be used.Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this: [*](Frag. 101, Peter2.)
He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle.We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius.
But,he says,
when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes.Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, [*](§ 87 and § 53) so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be
commonverbs. Sallust too in a similar way says: [*](Hist. i. 49, Maur.)
The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis),indicating that largior is one of the
commonverbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and
First (I will refute),says he,
the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear [*](i.e. who did not scruple.) (veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.
Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as
commonverbs. Thus we find in Virgil: [*](Aen. iii. 475.)
and [*](Aen. iii. 460.)
- Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale),
Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words: [*](iii. 1.)
- Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe.
For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days.Also in those same Tables we find this: [*](viii. 22.)
Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, [*](That is, in a symbolic sale, when the purchaser touched a balance with a coin. See note on v. 19. 3 (vol. i., p. 436).) if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.
That Metellus Numidicus borrowed a new form of expression from Greek usage.
IN Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in the third book of his Accusalion of Valerius Messala, I have made note of a novel expression. The words of his speech are as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 276, Mever2.)
When he knew that he had incurred so grave an accusation, and that our allies had come to the senate in tears, to make complaint that they had been exacted enormous sums of money (pecunias maximas exactos esse).He says
that they had been exacted enormous sums of money,instead of
that enormous sums of money had been exacted from them.This seemed to me an imitation of a Greek idiom; for the Greeks say: ei)sepra/cato/ me a)rgu/rion, meaning
he exacted me money.But if this can be said, so too can
one is exacted money,and Caecilius seems to have used that form of expression in his Supposititious Aeschinus: [*](v. 92, Ribbeck3.)
That is to say,
- Yet I the customs-fee exacted am.
yet the customs-fee is exacted from me.
That the early writers used passis velis and passis manibus, not from the verb patior, to which the participle belongs, but from pando, to which it does not belong.
FROM the verb pando the ancients made passum, not pansum, and with the preposition ex they formed
A woman too is said to be capillo passo, or
- That yesterday he'd looked in from the roof,
- Had this announced, and straight the veil [*](The flame-coloured (yellow) bridal veil.) was spread (expassum).
with disordered hair,when it is hanging down and loosened, and we say passis manibus and velis passis of hands and sails stretched out and spread. Therefore Plautus in his Braggart Captain, changing an a into an e, as is usual in compound words, uses dispessis for dispassis in these lines: [*](359 Cf. iv. 17. 8; a became e before two consonants, i before a single one, except r.) Methinks you thus must die without the gate, When you shall hold the cross with hands outstretched (dispessis).
Of the singular death of Milo of Croton. [*](The same story is told by Strabo, vi. 1. 12 (iii, p. 45, L.C.L.).)
MILO of Croton, a famous athlete, who was first crowned at the sixty-second Olympiad, [*](32 B.C.) as the chronicles record, ended his life in a strange and lamentable manner. When he was already advanced in age and had given up the athletic art, he chanced to be journeying alone in a wooded part of Italy. Near the road he saw an oak tree, the middle of which gaped with wide cracks. Then wishing, I suppose, to try whether he still had any strength left,
Why young men of noble rank at Athens gave up playing the pipes, although it was one of their native customs.
ALCIBIADES the Athenian in his boyhood was being trained in the liberal arts and sciences at the home of his uncle, Pericles; and Pericles had ordered Antigenides, a player on the pipes, to be sent for, to teach the boy to play on that instrument, which was then considered a great accomplishment. But when the pipes were handed to him and he had put them to his lips and blown, disgusted at the ugly distortion of his face, he threw them away and broke them in two. When this matter was noised abroad, by the universal consent of the Athenians of that time the art of playing the pipes was given up. This story is told in the twenty-ninth book of the Commentary of Pamphila. [*](F.H.G. iii. 521. 9.)
That the battle which Gaius Caesar fought on the plains of Pharsalus during the civil war was announced on the very same day at Patavium in Italy, and his victory foretold, by the divination of a seer.
ON the day that Gaius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius engaged in battle in Thessaly during the civil war, an event occurred at Patavium in Transpadane Italy, which is deserving of record. A priest called Cornelius, a man of good birth, honoured for scrupulousness in his office and revered for the purity of his life, was suddenly seized by a prophetic inspiration and said that he saw a most furious battle taking place afar off; then he shouted out, just as if he were personally taking part in the engagement, that some were giving way, others pressing on; that he saw before him carnage, flight, flying weapons, a renewal of the engagement, an attack, groans and wounds; and later he suddenly exclaimed that Caesar was victorious.
At the time the prophecy of the priest Cornelius seemed unimportant and without meaning. Afterwards, however, it caused great surprise, since not only the time of the battle which was fought in Thessaly, and its predicted outcome, were verified, but all the shifting fortunes of the day and the very conflict of the two armies were represented by the gestures and words of the seer. [*](Cf. Plutarch, Caesar, 47.)
Memorable words of Marcus Varro, from the satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn.
THERE are not a few to whom that may apply which is said by Marcus Varro in his satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn. or On Eatables. His words are these: [*](Fr. 404, Bücheler.)
If you had given to philosophy a twelfth part of the effort which you spent in making your baker give you good bread, you would long since have become a good man. As it is, those who know him are willing to buy him at a hundred thousand sesterces, while no one who knows you would take you at a hundred.
Certain facts about the birth, life and character of the poet Euripides, and about the end of his life.
THEOPOMPUS says [*](F.H. G. i. 294.) that the mother of the poet Euripides made a living by selling country produce. Furthermore, when Euripides was born, his father was assured by the astrologers that the boy, when he grew up, would be victor in the games; for that was his destiny. His father, understanding this to mean that he ought to be an athlete, exercised and strengthened his son's body and took him to Olympia to contend among the wrestlers. And at first he was not admitted to the contest because of his time of life, [*](He was too old for the boys' races.) but afterwards he engaged in the Eleusinian [*](Athletic games in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries.) and Thesean [*](A festival held at Athens in the autumn in the month Pyanepsion, in honour of Theseus.) contests and won crowns.
But Alexander the Aetolian composed the following lines about Euripides: [*](Anal. Alex. p. 247, Meineke.)
- Now then I urge and call on all our sex
- This man to punish for his many crimes.
- For on us, women, he brings bitter woes,
- Himself brought up 'mid bitter garden plants.
- The pupil of stout Anaxagoras,
- Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned
- To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote
- Might honey and the Sirens well have known.
When Euripides was in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, and had become an intimate friend of the king, returning home one night from a dinner with the monarch he was torn by dogs, which were set
Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish,also by way of self-glorification, because the distinguished poet had met his death and been buried in their land. Therefore when envoys, sent to them by the Athenians, begged that they should allow his bones to be moved to Athens, his native land, the Macedonians unanimously persisted in refusing.
That by the poets the sons of Jupiter are represented as most wise and refined, but those of Neptune as very haughty and rude.
THE poets have called the sons of Jupiter most excellent in worth, wisdom and strength, for example Aeacus, Minos and Sarpedon; the sons of Neptune, the Cyclops, Cercyon, Sciron, and the Laestrygonians, they said, were most haughty and cruel, and strangers to all refinement, as being sprung from the sea.
A story of the distinguished leader Sertorius; of his cunning, and of the clever devices which he used to control and conciliate his barbarian soldiers.
SERTORIUS, a brave man and a distinguished general, was skilled in using and commanding an army. In times of great difficulty he would lie to
This credulity of the barbarians was very helpful to Sertorius in important matters. It is recorded that of those tribes which acted with Sertorius, although he was defeated in many battles, not one ever deserted him, although that race of men is most inconstant.
Of the age of the famous historians, Hellanicus, Herodotus and Thucydides.
HELLANICUS, Herodotus, and Thucydides, writers of history, enjoyed great glory at almost the same time, and did not differ very greatly in age. For Hellanicus seems to have been sixty-five years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, [*](In 413 B.C.) Herodotus fifty-three, Thucydides forty. This is stated in the eleventh book of Pamphila. [*](F.H.G. iii. 521. 7; cf. xv. 17. 3, above.)