Noctes Atticae

A passage taken from the Symposium of Plato, skilful. harmonious and fitting in its rhythm and structure, which for the sake of practice I have turned into the Latin tongue.

THE Symposium of Plato was being read before the philosopher Taurus. Those words of Pausanias in which, taking his turn among the banqueters, lie eulogizes love, I admired so much that I even resolved to commit them to memory. And tile words, if I remember rightly, are as follows [*](Symlpos. p. SO, E.) "Every action is of this nature: in and of itself, when done, it is neither good nor bad; for example, what we are now doing, drinking, or singing, or arguing. Not one of these things is in itself good, but it may become so by the way in which it is done. Well and rightly done, it becomes a good action; wrongly done, it becomes shameful. It is the same with love; for not all love is honourable or worthy of raise, but only that which leads us to love worthily." When these words had been read, thereupon Taurus said to me:

Ho! you young rhetorician

— for so he used to call me in the beginning, when I was first admitted to his class, supposing that I had come to Athens only to work up eloquence [*](This would seem to imply that Gellius went to Athens on completing his studies in Rome; see Introd. p. xv.) —

do you see this syllogism, full of meaning, brilliant, well rounded and constructed in brief and smooth numbers with a kind of symmetrical turn? Can you quote us so aptand so melodiously formed a passage from the works of your rhetoricians? But yet

v3.p.271

I advise you to look upon this rhythm as an incidental feature; for one must penetrate to the inmost depths of Plato's mind and feel the weight and dignity of his subject matter, not be diverted to the charm of his diction or the grace of his expression.

This admonition of Taurus as to Plato's style not only did not deter me, but even encouraged me to try to equal the elegance of the Greek in a Latin rendering; and just as there are small and insignificant animals which through wantonness imitate everything which they have seen or heard, just so I had the assurance, not indeed to rival those qualities which I admired in Plato's style, but to give a shadowy outline of them, such as the following, which I patterned on those very words of his:

Every act, in general,

he says,

is of this nature; it is in itself neither base nor honourable; as, for example, the things which we ourselves are now doing, drinking, singing, arguing. For none of these things is honourable in itself, but it becomes so by the manner in which it is done; if it is done rightly and honourably, it is then honourable; but if it is not rightly done, then it is shameful. It is the same with love; thus not every kind of love is honourable, not every kind is deserving of praise, but only that which leads us to love honourably.

The times after the foundling of Rome and before the second war with Carthage at which distinguished Greeks and Romans flourished. [*](Leuze has shown (see Biogr. Note, i. p. xxiv) that, besides the Chroica of Cornelius Nepos, Gellius made use of Varronian sources, which used a different chronology. According to the source which he followed, Gellius' dates are reckoned from 751 (Nepos) or 753 B.C. (Varro) as the date of the founding of Rome. He does not, however, confuse these epochs in speaking of the same event. In my notes the Varronian chronology is followed, except as otherwise indicated; for full details see the article of Leutze.)

I WISHED to have a kind of survey of ancient times, and also of the famous men who were born in those days, lest I might in conversation chance to make some careless remark about the date and life of celebrated men, as that ignorant sophist did who lately, in a public lecture, said that Carneades the philosopher [*](Carneades, who was one of the envoys sent from Athens to Rome in 155 B.C., lived more than a hundred years after the death of Alexander.) was presented with a sum of money by king Alexander, son of Philip, and that Panaetius the Stoic was intimate with the elder Africanus. [*](Panaetius, born about 185 B.C., was the teacher and personal friend of the younger Africanus.) In order, I say, to guard against such errors in dates and periods of time, I made notes from the books known as Chroicles [*](Chronic (xronika/) were chronological lists of historical events. The Chronica of Nepos seem to have given the important dates in foreign, as well as in Roman, history, including mythology.) of the times when those Greeks and Romans flourished who were famous and conspicuous either for talent or for political power, between the founding of Rome and the second Punic war. [*](218–202 B.C.) And these excerpts of mine, made in various and sundry places, I have now put hastily together. For it was not my endeavour with keen and subtle care to compile a catalogue of the eminent men of both nations who lived at the same time, but merely to strew these Nights of mine

lightly here and there with a few of these flowers of history. [*](After his usual fashion, Gellius tries to present his material in an entertaining form by introducing the anecdote of the ignorant sophist, by freedom of treatment, and by condensation; also by the arrangement of his matter.) Moreover, it seemed sufficient in this survey to speak of the dates of a few men, from which it would not be difficult to infer the periods also of many more whom I did not name.

I shall begin, then, with the illustrious Solon; for, as regards Homer and Hesiod, it is agreed by almost all writers, either that they lived at approximately the same period, or that Homer was somewhat the earlier; yet that both lived before the founding of Rome, when the Silvii were ruling in Alba, more than a hundred and sixty years after the Trojan war, as Cassius has written [*](Frag. 8, Peter2; F.H.G. iii, p. 688.) about Homer and Hesiod in the first book of his Annals, but about a hundred and sixty years before the founding of Rome, as Cornelius Nepos says of Homer in the first book of his Chronicles. [*](Frag. 2, Peter2. Nepos' date is 910 B.C., that of Cassius (Hemina), 1024. Both are too late, for literary and archæological evidence indicate the end of the twelfth century before our era as the time of the Homeric poems. See Amer. Journ. of Phil. xlvi (1925), pp. 26 ff.) Well then, we are told that Solon, one of the famous sages, [*](About 639–559 B.C. For the seven sages see vol. i, p. 10, n. 2.) drew up laws for the Athenians when Tarquinius Priscus was king at Rome, [*](616–578 B.C., traditional chronology.) in the thirtythird year of his reign. [*](See the critical note.) Afterwards, when Servius Tullius was king, [*](578–534 B.C.) Pisistratus was tyrant at Athens, Solon having previously gone into voluntary exile, since he had not been believed when he predicted that tyranny. Still later, Pythagoras of Samos came to Italy, when the son of Tarquinius was king, he who was surnamed the Proud, [*](534–510 B.C.) and at that same time

Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, was slain at Athens by Harmodius and Aristog, iton. [*](514 B. C.) And Cornelius Nepos adds [*](Frag. 4, Peter2.) that when Tullus Hostilius was king at Rome [*](673–641 B.C.) Archilochus was already illustrious and famous for his poems. [*](Flourished about 650 B.C.)

Then, in the two hundred and sixtieth year after the founding (of Rome, or not much later, it is recorded that the Persians were vanquished by the Athenians in the famous battle of Marathon under the lead of Militiades, [*](490 B.C., but Gellius, here following Nepos. puts it in 493.) who after that victory was condemned by the Athenians and died in the public prison. At that time Aesthylus. the tragic poet, flourished at Athens. [*](He lived from 525 to 456 B.C.) In Rome, at about the same time, the commons, as the result of a secession, for the first time elected their own tribunes and aediles; [*](494 B.C.) and not much later Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, harassed and exasperated by the tribunes of the commons, turned traitor to the republic and joined the Volscians, who were then our enemies, [*](Leuze suggests that Gellius so arranged his material as to show that at a time when the Greeks were lighting epochmaking battles the Romans were warring with comparatively insignificant Italian peoples.) and lade war upon the Roman people. Then a few years later, King Xerxes was beaten and put to flight by the Athenians and a good part of Greece, under the lead of Themistocles, in the sea-fight at Salamis. [*](480 B.C. Gellius is here using a Varroian source; Nepos' date would be 483.) About three [*](That is, in the fourth year; see note on xvii. 12. 5 (p 252).) years afterwards, in the consulship of Menenius Agrippa and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, during the war with Veii, the patrician Fabii, three hundred and six in number, along with their dependents, [*](Some 4000 in number. This was in 477 B.C.) were all ambushed at the river Cremera and slain.

At about that time Empedocles of Agrigentum was eminent in the domain of natural philosophy. [*](Flourished about 450 B.C. In § 14–15 Leuze sees the chronology of Fabius Pictor.) But at Rome at that epoch it is stated that a board of ten was appointed [*](451 B.C.) to codify laws, and that at first they compiled ten tables, to which afterwards two more were added.

Then the great Peloponnesian war began in Greece, which Thucydides has handed down to memory, about three hundred and twenty-three years after the founding of Rome. [*](431 B.C.) At that time Olus Postumius Tubertus was dictator at Rome, and executed his own son, because he had fought against the enemy contrary to his father's order. The people of Fidenae and the Aequians were then at war with the Roman people. [*](See note on § 11, above. Here the contrast is still more marked.) During that period Sophocles, and later Euripides, were famous and renowned as tragic poets, Hippocrates as a physician, and as a philosopher, Democritus; Socrates the Athenian was younger than these, [*](Born 469 B.C.) but was in part their contemporary.

Somewhat later, when the military tribunes with consular authority were in power [*](407 B.C. They were first chosen in 444, but were compelled to resign. From 404 B.C. (407, Nepos) to 367 the series of military tribunes was interrupted by only two consular years. Gellius here records changes in the form of government of Athens, Syracuse and Rome.) at Rome, about the three hundred and forty-seventh year after the founding of the city, the notorious thirty tyrants were imposed upon the Athenians by the Lacedaemonians, and in Sicily the elder Dionysius was tyrant. [*](404 B.C.) A few years later, at Athens, Socrates was condemned to death and executed in prison by means of poison. At about the same time, at Rome,

Marcus Furius Camillus was dictator and took Veii. Not long afterwards came the war with the Senones, when the Gauls captured Rome with the exception of the Capitol. [*](390 B.C.; 387. Varro.)

Not long after these events the astronomer Eudoxus was famed in the land of Greece, the Lacedaemonians were defeated by the Athenians at Corinth under the lead of Phormio, [*](429 B.C.) and at Rome Marcus Manlius, who during the siege of the Capitol had repulsed the Gauls as they were climbing up its steep cliffs, was convicted of having formed the design of making himself king. Marcus Varro says [*](Annales iii, frag. 2. Peter2. In 384 B.C.) that he was condemned to death and hurled from the Tarpeian rock; but Cornelius Nepos has written [*](Chron., frag. 5, Peter.2) that he was scourged to death. In the very same year, which was the seventh after the recovery of the city, it is recorded that the philosopher Aristotle was born. [*](384 B.C.)

Next, some years after the war with the Senones, the Thebans defeated the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra [*](371 B.C.) under the lead of Epaminondas, and a little later in the city of Rome the law of Licinius Stolo provided for the elections of consuls also from the plebeians, [*](317 B.C.) whereas before that time it was not lawful for a consul to be chosen except from the patrician .

Then, about the four hundredth year after the founding of the city, Philip, son of Amyntas and father of Alexander, became king of Macedonia. At that time Alexander was born, [*](356 B.C.) and a few years later the philosopher Plato went to the court of the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily; then some little time afterwards Philip defeated the Athenians in the great battle at Chaeronea. [*](338 B.C.) At that time the

orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: [*](Menander, Monost. 45.)

1. The man who runs away will fight again.

Later Philip fell victim to a conspiracy; but Alexander, who succeeded him, [*](336 B.C. Quint. xi. 2. 50) crossed over into Asia and the Orient, to subdue the Persians. But another Alexander, surnamed Molossus, came into Italy intending to make war on the Roman people —for already the fame of Roman valour and success was beginning to be conspicuous among foreign nations—but he died before beginning the war. We have learned that on his way to Italy that Molossus said that he was going against the Romans as a nation of men, but the Macedonian was going against the Persians as one of women. Later, the Macedonian Alexander, having subdued the greater part of the east, died [*](323 B.C.) after a reign of eleven years. Not long after this the philosopher Aristotle ended his life, [*](322 B.C.) and a little later, Demosthenes; [*](322 B.C.) at about that same time the Roman people engaged in a dangerous and protracted war with the Samites and the consuls Tiberius Veturius and Spurius Postumius were surrounded by the Samites in a perilous position near Caudium and being sent under the yoke were allowed to depart only when they had made a shameful treaty; [*](321 B.C.) and when for that reason the consuls by vote of the people were surrendered to the Samites through the fetial priests, they were not accepted.

Then, about four hundred and seventy years after the founding of the city, war was begun with king

Pyrrhus. [*](280 B.C.) At that time Epicurus the Athenian and Zeno of Citium were famed as philosophers, and at the same time the censors at Rome, Gains Fabricius Luscinus and Quintus Aemilius Papus, expelled from the senate Publius Cornelius Rufinus, who had twice been consul and dictator; and they recorded as the reason for that censure the fact that they had learned of his using ten pounds' weight of silverware at a dinner.

Then, in about the four hundred and ninetieth year after the founding of Rome, when the consuls were Appius Claudius, surnamed Caudex, brother of the celebrated Appius the Blind, and Marcus Fluvius Flaccus, the first war with the Carthaginians broke out, [*](264 B.C.) and not long afterwards Callimachus, the poet of Cyrene, was famous at the court of king Ptolemy at Alexandria. A little more than twenty years later, when peace had been made with the Carthaginians and the consuls were C. Claudius Centho, son of Appius the Blind, and Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus, the poet Lucius Livius was the very first to put plays upon the stage at Rome, [*](240 B.C.) more than a hundred and sixty years after the death of Sophocles and Euripides and about fifty-two years after the death of Menander. The consuls Claudius and Tuditanus were followed by Quintus Valerius and Gaius Mamilius, in whose year the poet Quintus Ennius was born, [*](239 B.C.) as Marcus Varro has written in the first book of his work On Poets; [*](p. 259, Bipont.) and he adds that at the age of sixty-seven Ennius had written the twelfth Book of the Annals, and that Ennius himself says so in that same book.

Five hundred and nineteen years after the

founding of Rome, Spurius Carvilius Ruga, at the advice of his friends, was the first Roman to divorce his wife, on the ground that she was barren and that he had taken oath before the censors that he married for the purpose of having children. [*](235 B.C. In iv. 3 Gellius gave the date as 231, following a different chronology. Dionysius of Halicarnassus agrees with the former (Varronian) chronology. On the formula liberty quaerundorum causa see note on iv. 3. 2 (vol. i, p. 322).) In that same year the poet Naevius exhibited plays to the people, [*](235 B.C.) and Marcus Varro says [*](p. 259, Bipont.) in the first book of his work On Poets that Naevius served in the first Punic war and that the poet himself makes that statement in the poem which he wrote on that same war. But Porcius Licinius says [*](Frag. 1, Bährens.) in the following verses that Rome was later in taking up the poetic art:

1. In the second Punic war with winged flight
2. The Muse to Romulus' warrior nation came.

Then, about fifteen years later, war was begun with the Carthaginians, [*](218 B.C.) and not very long after that Marcus Cato was famous as a political orator and Plautus as a dramatic poet; and at that same time Diogenes the Stoic, Carneades the Academic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic were sent by the Athenians as envoys to the senate of the Roman people on public business. Not very long after this came Quintus Ennius, and then Caecilius and Terence, [*](These three poets died respectively in 169, 168 and 159 B.C., before the coming of the envoys to Rome in 155 B.C. Since Gellius announced the second Punic war as his limit, Leuze believes that he added this section from memory.) and afterwards Pacuvius [*](Pacuvius (220–130 B.C.) was older than Terence, but outlived him. Terence's comedies were produced between 166 and 160 B.C.; he died in 159, but the date of his birth is uncertain.) and when

Pacuvius was already an old man, Accius and then Lucilius, who was still more famous through his criticisms of the poems of his predecessors.

But I have gone too far, since the limit that I set for these little notes was the second Punic war.

Discussions held by a Stoic philosopher and in opposition by a Peripatetic, with Favorinus as arbiter; and the question at issue was, how far virtue availed in determining a happy life and to what extent happiness was dependent on what are called external circumstances

THERE were two friends of Favorinus, philosophers of no little note in the city of Rome; one of them was a follower of the Peripatetic school, the other of the Stoic. I was once present when these men argued ably and vigorously, each for his own beliefs, when we were all with Favorinus at Ostia. And we were walking along the shore in springtime, just as evening was falling.

And on that occasion the Stoic mantatined [*](III. 56, Arn.) that man could enjoy a happy life only through virtue, and that the greatest wretchedness was due to wickedness only, even though all the other blessings, which are called external, should be lacking to the virtuous man and present with the wicked. The Peripatetic, on the other hand, admitted that a wretched life was due solely to vicious thoughts and wickedness, but he believed that virtue alone was by no means sufficient to round out all the parts of a happy life, since the complete use of one's limbs, good health, a reasonably attractive person, property, good repute, and all the other advantages of body and fortune seemed necessary to make a perfectly happy life.

Here the Stoic made outcry against him, and maintaining that his opponent was advancing two contrary propositions, expressed his surprise that, since wickedness and virtue were two opposites, and a wretched and a happy life were also opposites, he did not preserve in each the force and nature of an opposite, but believed that wickedness alone was sufficient to cause an unhappy life, at the same time declaring that virtue alone was not sufficient to guarantee a happy life. And he said that it was especially inconsistent and contradictory for one who maintained that a life could in no way be made happy if virtue alone were lacking, to deny on the other hand that a life could be happy when virtue alone was present, and thus to take away from virtue when present and demanding it, that honour which he gave and bestowed upon virtue when lacking.

Thereupon the Peripatetic, in truth very wittily, said:

Pray pardon me, and tell me this, whether you think that an amphora [*](Somewhat less than 6 gallons.) of wine from which a congius [*](A little less than 6 pints.) has been taken, is still an amphora?

By no means,

was the reply,

can that be called an amphora of wine, from which a congius is missing.

When the Peripatetic heard this, he retorted:

Then it will have to be said that one congius makes an amphora of wine, since when that one is lacking, it is not an amphora, and when it is added, it becomes an amphora. But if it is absurd to say that an amphora is made from one single congius, it is equally absurd to say that a life is made happy by virtue alone by itself, because when virtue is lacking life can never be happy.

Then Favorinus, turning to the Peripatetic, said:

This clever turn which you have used about the congius of wine is indeed set forth in the books; but, as you know, it ought to be regarded rather as a neat catch than as an honest or plausible argument. For when a congius is lacking, it indeed causes the amphora not to be of full measure; but when it is added and put in, it alone does not make, but completes, an amphora. But virtue, as the Stoics say, is not an addition or a supplement, but it by itself is the equivalent of a happy life, and therefore it alone makes a happy life, when it is present.

These and some other minute and knotty arguments each advanced in support of his own opinion, before Favorinus as umpire. But when the first night-lights appeared and the darkness grew thicker, we escorted Favorinus to the house where he was putting up; and when he went in, we separated.