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).

That Plato in the work which he wrote On the Laws expressed the opinion that inducements to drink more abundantly and more merrily at feasts were not without benefit.

A MAN from the island of Crete, who was living in Athens, gave out that he was a Platonic philosopher and desired to pass as one. He was, however, a man of no worth, a trifler, boastful of his command

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of Grecian eloquence, besides having a passion for wine which fairly made him a laughing stock. At the entertainments which it was the custom of us young men to hold at Athens at the beginning of each week, as soon as we had finished eating and an instructive and pleasant conversation had begun, this fellow, having called for silence that he might be heard, began to speak, and using a cheap and disordered rabble of words after his usual fashion, urged all to drink; and this he declared that he did in accordance with the injunction of Plato, maintaining that Plato in his work On the Laws had written most eloquently in praise of drunkenness, and had decided that it was beneficial to good and strong men. And at the same time, while he was thus speaking, he drenched such wits as he had with frequent and huge beakers, saying that it was a kind of touchwood and tinder to the intellect and the faculties, if mind and body were inflamed with wine.

However, Plato in the first [*](9, p. 637, A; 14, p. 647, E.) and second [*](9, p. 666, A; 12, p. 671, B.) books of his work On the Laws did not, as that fool thought, praise that shameful intoxication which is wont to undermine and weaken men's minds, although he did not disapprove of that somewhat more generous and cheerful inspiration of wine which is regulated by some temperate arbiters, so to speak, and presidents of banquets. For he thought that by the proper and moderate relaxation of drinking the mind was refreshed and renewed for resuming the duties of sobriety, and that men were gradually rendered happier and became readier to repeat their efforts. At the same time, if there were deep in their hearts any errors of inclination or desire,

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which a kind of reverential shame concealed, he thought that by the frankness engendered by wine all these were disclosed without great danger and became more amenable to correction and cure.

And in the same place Plato says this also: that exercises of this kind [*](That is, in the moderate use of wine, explained by adversum . . . violentiam.) for the purpose of resisting the violence of wine, are not to be avoided and shunned, and that no one ever appeared to be altogether selfrestrained and temperate whose life and habits had not been tested amid the very dangers of error and in the midst of the enticements of pleasures. For when all the license and attractions of banquets are unknown, and a man is wholly unfamiliar with them, if haply inclination has led him, or chance has induced him, or necessity has compelled him, to take part in pleasures of that kind, then he is as a rule seduced and taken captive, his mind and soul fail to meet the test, but give way, as if attacked by some strange power. Therefore he thought that we ought to meet the issue and contend hand to hand, as in a kind of battle, with pleasure and indulgence in wine, in order that we may not be safe against them by flight or absence, but that by vigour of spirit, by presence of mind, and by moderate use, we may preserve our temperance and self-restraint, and at the same time by warming and refreshing the mind we may free it of whatever frigid austerity or dull bashfulness it may contain.

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What Marcus Cicero thought and wrote about the prefix in the verbs aufugio and aufcro; and whether this same preposition is to be seen in the verb autumo.

I READ a book of Marcus Cicero's entitled The Orator. In that book when Cicero had said that the verbs aifugio and aufero were indeed formed of the preposition ab and the verbs fugio and fero, but that the preposition, in order that the word might be smoother in pronunciation and sound, was changed and altered into the syllable au, [*](Au is probably a different preposition from ab; see Archiv. f. lat. Lex. u. Gr., x, p. 480, and xiii, pp. 7 f.) and aufulgio and aufero began to be used for abfugio and abfero; when he had said this, I say, he afterwards in the same work wrote as follows of the same particle: [*](§ 158.)

This preposition,

he says,

will be found in no other verb save these two only.

But I have found in the Commentary of Nigidius [*](Frag. 51, Swoboda.) that the verb autumo is formed from the preposition ab and the verb aestumo (estimate) and that autumo is a contracted form of abaestumo, signifying totum aestumo, on the analogy of abnumero. [*](The derivation of autumo is uncertain; some take the original meaning to be divining and connect it with avis; see T.L.L. s.v. Walde rejects that derivation in favour of the one from autem; cf. Fay, Class. Quart. i. (1907) p. 25. Here the original meaning is assumed to be repeat, assert, and in fact autumo and itero are sometimes synonymous. The development of the meanings of autuino was doubtless influenced by aestumo, which has the same suffix.) But, be it said with great respect for Publius Nigidius, a most learned man, this seems to be rather bold and clever than true. For autumo does not only mean

I think,

but also

I say,

I am of the opinion,

and

I consider,

with which verbs that preposition has no connection either in the composition of the

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word or in the expression of its meaning. Besides, Marcus Tullius, a man of unwearied industry in the pursuit of letters, would not have said that these were the only two verbs containing au, if any third example could be found. But the following point is more worthy of examination and investigation, whether the preposition ab is altered and changed into the syllable au for the sake of making the pronunciation smoother, or whether more properly the particle au has its own origin, and just as many other prepositions were taken from the Greeks, so this one also is derived from that source. [*](See note 1, p. 66; it is not taken from the Greeks.) As in that verse of Homer: [*](Iliad i. 459.)

First bent them back (au)e/rusan), then slew and flayed the beasts;

and: [*](Iliad xiii. 41)

Loud-shouting (au)i/axoi), noisy. [*](Or, in silence, noiseless; see L. and S. s.v.)

The story of Ventidius Bassus, a man of obscure birth, who is reported to have been the first to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians.

IT was lately remarked in the conversation of certain old and learned men that in ancient times many persons of most obscure birth, who were previously held in great contempt, had risen to the highest grade of dignity. Nothing that was said about anyone, however, excited so much wonder as the story recorded of Ventidius Bassus. He was born in Picenum in a humble station, and with his mother was taken prisoner by Pompeius Strabo,

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father of Pompey the Great, in the Social War, [*](90–89 B.C. War was waged by the Italian allies against Rome. After a bitter contest, in which 300,000 men are said to have perished, the Romans were victorious, but by the lex Plautia Papiria granted nearly all the demands of the allies, including the franchise.) in the course of which Strabo subdued the Aesculani. [*](Aesculum was the capital of the Picenates, one of the seven peoples who made up the allies.) Afterwards, when Pompeius Strabo triumphed, the boy also was carried in his mother's arms amid the rest of the captives before the general's chariot. Later, when he had grown up, he worked hard to gain a livelihood, resorting to the humble calling of a buyer of mules and carriages, which he had contracted with the State to furnish to the magistrates who had been allotted provinces. In that occupation he made the acquaintance of Gaius Caesar and went with him to the Gallic provinces. Then, because he had shown commendable energy in that province, and later during the civil war had executed numerous commissions with promptness and vigour, he not only gained Caesar's friendship, but because of it rose even to the highest rank. Afterwards he was also made tribune of the commons, and then praetor, and at that time he was declared a public enemy by the senate along with Mark Antony. Afterwards, however, when the parties were united, he not only recovered his former rank, but gained first the pontificate and then the consulship. [*](43 B.C.) At this the Roman people, who remembered that Ventidius Bassus had made a living by taking care of mules, were so indignant that these verses [*](p. 331, 7, Bährens; cf. Virg. Catal. x., believed by some to refer to Ventidius Bassus, but probably wrongly. See Virgil, L.C.L., ii., p. 499, n. 2.) were posted everywhere about the streets of the city:

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Assemble, soothsayers and augurs all!
A portent strange has taken place of late;
For he who curried mules is consul now.

Suetonius Tranquillus writes [*](Frag. 210, Reiff.) that this same Bassus was put in charge of the eastern provinces by Mark Antony, and that when the Parthians invaded Syria he routed them in three battles; [*](39 and 38 B.C.) that he was the first of all to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians, and was honoured when he died with a public funeral.

That the verb profligo is used by many improperly and ignorantly.

JUST as many other words, through the ignorance and stupidity of those who speak badly what they do not understand, are diverted and turned aside from their proper and usual meaning, so too has the signification of the verb profligo been changed and perverted. For while it is taken over and derived from adfligo, in the sense of

bring to ruin and destruction,

and while all who have been careful in their diction have always used the word to express

waste

and

destroy,

calling things that were cast down and destroyed res profligatae, I now hear that buildings, temples, and many other things that are almost complete and finished are said to be in profligato and the things themselves profligata. Therefore that was a very witty reply, as Sulpicius Apollinaris has recorded in one of his Letters, which a praetor, a man not without learning, made to a simpleton among a crowd of advocates.

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For,

said he,

when that impudent prater had made a request in these terms: 'All the business, renowned sir, about which you said that you would take cognizance to-day, because of your diligence and promptness is done (profligata sunt); one matter only remains, to which I beg you to give attention.' Then the praetor wittily enough replied: 'Whether the affairs of which you say that I have taken cognizance are done (profligata), I do not know; but this business which has fallen into your hands is undoubtedly done for (profligatum est), whether I hear it or not.'

But to indicate what those wish to express who use profligatum in the sense of

nearly done,

those who have spoken good Latin used, not , but adfectum, as for example Marcus Cicero, in the speech which he delivered About the Consular Provinces. His words are as follows: [*](§ 19.)

We see the war nearing its end (adfectum) and, to tell the truth, all but finished.

Also further on: [*](§ 9.)

For why should Caesar himself wish to remain longer in that province, except that he may turn over to the State, completed, the tasks which he has nearly finished (acfecta sunt)?

Cicero also says in the Oeconomicus: [*](Frag. 21, p. 978, Orelli2.)

When indeed, as summer is already well nigh ended (adfecta), it is time for the grapes to ripen in the sun.

An evident mistake in the second book of Cicero On Glory, in the place where he has written about Hector and Ajax.

IN Cicero's second book On Glory there is an evident mistake, of no great importance-a mistake

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which it does not require a man of learning to detect, but merely one who has read the seventh book of Homer. Therefore I am not so much surprised that Marcus Tullius erred in that matter, as that it was not noticed later and corrected either by Cicero himself or by Tiro, his freedman, a most careful man, who gave great attention to his patron's books. Now, in that book the following passage occurs: [*](II., frag. 1, p. 989, Orelli2.)

The same poet says that Ajax, when about to engage with Hector in combat, arranges for his burial in case he should chance to be defeated, declaring that he wishes that those who pass his tomb even after many ages should thus speak: [*](Iliad vii. 89.)
Here lies a man of life's light long bereft,
Who slain by Hector's sword fell long ago.
This, one shall say; my glory ne'er shall die.

But the verses to this purport, which Cicero has turned into the Latin tongue, Ajax does not utter in Homer, nor is it Ajax who plans his burial, but Hector speaks the lines and arranges for burial, before he knows whether Ajax will meet him in combat.

It has been observed of old men, that the sixty-third year of their life is marked as a rule by troubles, by death, or by some disaster; and an example apropos of this observation is taken from a letter from the deified Augustus to his son Gaius. [*](Gaius and Lucius Caesar were sons of Agrippa and Julia, and grandsons of Augustus (see Gaium nepotem, § 3).)

IT has been observed during a long period of human recollection, and found to be true, that for almost all old men the sixty-third year of their age Both were adopted by Augustus, and on the death of the young Marcellus were made principes iuventutis, and thus designated as the successors of Augustus.

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is attended with danger, and with some disaster involving either serious bodily illness, or loss of life, or mental suffering. Therefore those who are engaged in the study of matters and terms of that kind call that period of life the

climacteric.

[*](Cf. iii. 10. 9.) Night before last, too, when I was reading a volume of letters of the deified Augustus, written to his grandson Gaius, and was led on by the elegance of the style, which was easy and simple, by Heaven without mannerisms or effort, in one of the letters I ran upon a reference to this very belief about that same year. I give a copy of the letter: [*](p. 155, 18, Wichert.)

The ninth day before the Kalends of October. [*](Sept. 23.)

Greeting, my dear Gaius, my dearest little donkey, [*](A term of affection. The asellus is an attractive little beast, whatever the reputation of the asinus. The ocellus of Beroaldus and Damsté's autclus (=avicellus, birdlet; the usual form is avicula, as in ii. 29. 2) are needless changes, particularly in view of Augustus' humorous tendencies; Weiss cites vi. 16. 5, where asellus has a different, but hardly more complimentary, meaning.) whom, so help me! constantly miss whenever you are away from me. But especially on such days as to-day my eyes are eager for my Gaius, and wherever you have been to-day, I hope you have celebrated my sixty-fourth birthday in health and happiness. For, as you see, I have passed the climacteric common to all old men, the sixty-third year. And I pray the gods that whatever time is left to me I may pass with you safe and well, with our country in a flourishing condition, while you [*](The plural refers to Gaius and his brother Lucius; see note.) are playing the man and preparing to succeed to my position.

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A passage from a speech of Favonius, an early orator, containing an attack which he made on luxurious entertainments, when he was advocating the Licinian law for lessening extravagance.

WHEN I was reading an old speech of Favonius, a man of no little eloquence, in which [*](The sense of the lacuna seems to be given in the chapter heading.) . . . I learned the whole of it by heart, in order to be able to remember that such extravagant living is truly hateful. These words which I have added are those of Favonius: [*](O.R.F., p. 207, Meyer2.)

The leaders in gluttony and luxury declare that an entertainment is not elegant, unless, when you are eating with the greatest relish, your plate is removed and a better, richer dainty comes from the reserves. This to-day is thought the very flower of a feast among those with whom extravagance and fastidiousness take the place of elegance; who say that the whole of no bird ought to be eaten except a fig-pecker; who think that a dinner is mean and stingy unless so many of the other birds and fatted fowl are provided, that the guests may be satisfied with the rumps and hinder parts; who believe that those who eat the upper parts of such birds and fowl have no refinement of taste. If luxury continues to increase in its present proportion, what remains but that men should bid someone to eat their dinners for them, in order that they may not fatigue themselves by feeding, when the couch is more profusely adorned with gold, silver and purple for a few mortals than for the immortal gods?

[*](The reference is probably to the lectisternium, when the images of the gods were placed upon couches and food was set before them by the vii viri epulones.)

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That the poet Caecilius used frons in the masculine gender, not by poetic license, but properly and by analogy.

CORRECTLY and elegantly did Caecilius write this in his Changeling: [*](ii. 79, Ribbeck3.)

The worst of foes are these, of aspect gay (fronte hilaro),
Gloomy of heart, whom we can neither grasp Nor yet let go.

I chanced to quote these lines in a company of well educated young men, when we were speaking of a man of that kind. Thereupon one of a throng of grammarians who stood there with us, a man of no little repute, said:

What license and boldness Caecilius showed here in saying, fronte hilaro and not fronte hilara, and in not shrinking from so dreadful a solecism.

Nay,

said I,

it is rather we who are as bold and free as possible in improperly and ignorantly failing to use frons in the masculine gender, when both the principle of regularity which is called analogy [*](On analogy see ii. 25.) and the authority of earlier writers indicate that we ought to say, not hanc frontem, but hunc frontem. Indeed, Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins wrote as follows: [*](Frag. 99, Peter2.) 'On the following day in open combat, with straight front (aequo fronte) we fought with the enemy's legions with foot, horse and wings.' Also Cato again says [*](Frag. 100, Peter2.) recto fronte in the same book.

But that half-educated grammarian said:

Away with your authorities, which I think you may perhaps have, but give me a reason, which you do not
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have.

Then I, somewhat irritated by those words of his, as was natural at my time of life:

Listen,

said I,

my dear sir, to a reason that may be false, but which you cannot prove to be false. All words,

said I,

ending in the three letters in which frons ends are of the masculine gender, if they end in the same syllable in the genitive case also, as mons, fons, pons, frons.

[*](Nouns of the third declension ending in s preceded By a consonant are regularly feminine. The four exceptions are mons, fons, dens, and pons; frons is usually feminine.) But he replied with a laugh:

Hear, young scholar, several other similar words which are not of the masculine gender.

Then all begged him at once to name just one. But when the man was screwing up his face, could not open his lips, and changed colour, then I broke in, saying:

Go now and take thirty days to hunt one up; when you have found it, meet us again.

And thus we sent off this worthless fellow to hunt up a word with which to break down the rule which I had made.

About the strange suicides of the maids of Miletus.

PLUTARCH in the first book of his work On the Soul, [*](vii. p. 20, Bern.) discussing disorders which affect the human mind, has told us that almost all the maidens of the Milesian nation suddenly without any apparent cause conceived a desire to die, and thereupon many of them hanged themselves. When this happened more frequently every day, and no remedy had any effect on their resolve to die, the Milesians passed a decree that all those maidens who committed suicide

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by hanging should be carried to the grave naked, along with the same rope by which they had destroyed themselves. After that decree the maidens ceased to seek a voluntary death, deterred by the mere shame of so disgraceful a burial.

The words of a decree of the senate on expelling philosophers from the city of Rome; also the words of the edict of the censors by which those were rebuked and restrained who had begun to establish and practise the art of rhetoric at Rome.

IN the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala [*](161 B.C.) the following decree of the senate was passed regarding Latin speaking philosophers and rhetoricians: [*](Fontes Iuris Rom., p. 157; cf. Suetonius, De Rhet. 1 (ii. p. 434, L.C.L.).)

(The praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed to him in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they should not remain in Rome.

Then some years [*](92 B.C.) after that decree of the senate Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus the censors issued the following edict for restraining the Latin rhetoricians: [*](F.I.R., p. 215; Suetonius ii, p. 434 f. L.C.L.)

It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that
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young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers neither please us nor seem proper. Therefore it seems necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.

And it was not only in those times, which were somewhat rude and not yet refined by Greek training, that philosophers were driven from the city of Rome, but even in the reign of Domitian [*](A.D. 89.) by a decree of the senate they were driven from the city and forbidden Italy. And it was at that time that the philosopher Epictetus also withdrew from Rome to Nicopolis because of that senatorial decree.

A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence.

WHEN Gaius Gracchus [*](The celebrated tribune of 123 and 122 B.C. He was famous as an orator; cf. i. 11. 10 ff.) returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words: [*](O.R.F., p. 231, Meyer2.)

I conducted myself in my province,

said he,

as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their
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general's tent.

Later on he continues as follows:

I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, [*](One is reminded of the story of the politician who declared that he had never received a penny in bribes, but that it was as well to say nothing about thousand dollar bills.) by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons.

Then after an interval he goes on:

Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.