Noctes Atticae

These words from the Atinian law,

the claim on whatever shall be stolen shall be everlasting,

THE words of the ancient Atinian law [*](Different from the plebiscitum of xiv. 8. 2. The date is uncertain.) are as follows: [*](Fontes Iur. Rom., p. 45, 6.)

Whatever shall have been stolen, let the right to claim the thing be everlasting.

Therefore Publius Nigidius, the most learned man of the Roman State, discussed this uncertainty of theirs in the twenty-third book of his Grammatical Notes. [*](Fr. 34, Swoboda.) And he himself too has the same opinion, that the indication of the time is indefinite, but he speaks very concisely and obscurely, so that you may see that he is rather making notes to aid his own memory than trying to instruct his readers. [*](Cf. xvi. 8. 3.) However, his meaning seems to be that est and erit are independent words; when they are used alone, they have and retain their own tense, but when they are joined with a past participle, they lose the force of their own tense, and are transferred to the past. For when I say in campo est, or

he is in the field,

he is in the comitium,

Similarly then,

with regard also to the wording of the law; if you divide and separate these two words subruptum and erit, so that you understand subruptum erit as you would certamen erit, that is, 'there will be a contest,' or sacrificium erit (there will be a sacrifice), then the law will seem to have reference to an act completed in future time; but if you understand the two words to be united and mingled, so that subruptum erit is not two words, but one, and is a single form of the passive inflection, then that word indicates past time no less than future.

In conversation at the table of the philosopher Taurus questions of this kind were proposed and discussed:

why oil congeals often and readily, wine seldom, vinegar hardly ever,

that the waters of rivers and springs freeze, while the sea does not.

THE philosopher Taurus at Athens usually entertained us at dinner at the time of day when evening had already come on; for there that is the time for dining. [*](In Rome the dinner-hour was considerably earlier, usually the ninth hour, or about three o'clock in the afternoon; see Hor. Epist. 1. 7. 71; Mart. iv. 8. 6. To-day, too, the dinner-hour is later in Athens than in Rome, although the difference is not so great as in ancient times.) The entire basis and foundation of the meal usually consisted of one pot of Egyptian beans, to which were added gourds cut in small pieces.

One day when this dish had been brought and placed upon the table, and we were ready and awaiting the meal, Taurus ordered a slave-boy to pour some oil into the pot. The slave was a boy of Attic birth, at most eight years old, overflowing with the merry wit characteristic of his race and his time of life. He brought an empty Samian flask, from oversight, as he said, supposing there was oil in it, turned it up and, as he usually did, passed it with his hand over all parts of the pot; but no oil came out. The boy, in anger, looked savagely at the flask, shook it violently, and again turned it over the pot; and when we were all quietly and furtively laughing at his actions, he said in Greek, and excellent Attic Greek at that:

Don't laugh; there's oil in it; but don't you know how cold it was this morning; it's congealed.

You rascal,

run and fetch some oil.

But when the boy had gone out to buy oil, Taurus, not at all put out by the delay, said:

The pot needs oil, and, as I see, is intolerably hot; let us withhold our hands and meanwhile, since the slave has just told us that oil is in the habit of congealing, let us consider why oil congeals often and readily, but wine rarely.

It is indeed,

as you say. For it is well known that wine, when we drink it, warms the body. But oil is equally calorific and has no less power of warming the body. Besides, if those things which are warmer are frozen with greater difficulty, it follows that those which are colder freeze more readily. But vinegar is the most cooling of all things and yet it never freezes. Is the reason then for the quicker freezing of oil to be found in its lightness? For those things seem to congeal more readily which are lighter and smoother.

Taurus says besides that it is also worth inquiring why the waters of rivers and streams freeze, while all the sea is incapable of freezing.

Although Herodotus,

the writer of history, contrary to the opinion of almost all who have investigated these matters, writes [*](iv. 28 (ii., p. 226, L.C.L.).) that the Bosphoric sea, which is called Cimmerian, [*](The Cimmerian Bosphorus, the present Strait of Yenikale, connecting the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azov) with the Pontus Euxinus or Black Sea.) and all that part of the sea which is termed Scythian, [*](Herodotus does not use the term Scythian Sea, but says the sea, referring to the Palus Maeotis and the Euxine. See the map, Herod., L.C.L., vol. ii.) is bound fast by the cold and brought to a standstill.

Of the cypher letters which are found in the epistles of Gains Caesar, and of other secret forms of writing taken from ancient history; and what the Laconian skuta/lh is.

THERE are volumes of letters of Gaius Caesar addressed to Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus,

But the ancient Lacedaemonians, when they wanted to conceal and disguise the public dispatches sent to their generals, in order that, in case they were intercepted by the enemy, their plans might not be known, used to send letters written in the following manner. There were two thin, cylindrical wands of the same thickness and length, smoothed and prepared so as to be exactly alike. One of these was given to the general when he went to war, the other the magistrates kept at home under their control and seal. When the need of more secret communication arose, they bound about the staff a thong of moderate thickness, but long enough for the purpose, in a simple spiral, in such a way that the edges of the thong which was twined around the stick met and were joined throughout. Then they wrote the dispatch on that thong across

There is also in the records of Grecian history another profound and difficult method of concealment, devised by a barbarian's cunning. He was called Histiaeus and was born in the land of Asia in no mean station. At that time king Darius held

When you come to him, say that I told him to shave your head, as I did a little while ago.

What Favorinus thought of the verses of Virgil in which he imitated the poet Pindar in his description of an eruption of Mount Aetna; his comparison and evaluation of the verses of the two poets on the same theme.

I REMEMBER that the philosopher Favorinus, when he had gone during the hot season to the villa of a friend of his at Antium, and I had come from Rome to see him, discoursed in about the following manner about the poets Pindar and Virgil.

The friends and intimates of Publius Vergilius,

in the accounts which they have left us of his talents and his character, say that he used to declare that he produced verses after the manner and fashion of a

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bear. For he said that as that beast brought forth her young formless and misshapen, and afterwards by licking the young cub gave it form and shape, just so the fresh products of his mind were rude in form and imperfect, but afterwards by working over them and polishing them he gave them a definite form and expression. [*](Cf. Suet. Vita Verg. 22 (ii. p. 470, L.C.L.).) That this was honestly and truly said by that man of fine taste,

Now among the passages,

which particularly seem to have needed revision and correction is the one which was composed about Mount Aetna. For wishing to rival the poem which the earlier poet Pindar composed about the nature and eruption of that mountain, he has heaped up such words and expressions that in this passage at least he is more extravagant and bombastic even than Pindar himself, who was thought to have too rich and luxuriant a style. And in order that you yourselves,

1. Mount Aetna, from whose inmost caves burst forth
2. The purest fount of unapproachable fire.
3. By day her rivers roll a lurid stream
4. Of smoke, while 'mid the gloom of night red flame,
5. On sweeping, whirleth rocks with crashing din
6. Far down to the deep sea. And high aloft
7. That monster [*](The monster was the giant Typhoeus, or Typhon, who was struck by Zeus' thunder-bolt and buried under Aetna.) flingeth fearful founts of fire,
8. A marvel to behold or e'en to hear
9. From close at hand.

1. There lies a port, safe from the winds' approach,
2. Spacious itself, but Aetna close at hand
3. Thunders with crashes dire, and now hurls forth
4. Skyward a dusky cloud with eddies black
5. And glowing ash, and uplifts balls of flame
6. And licks the stars; now spews forth rocks,
7. The mountain's entrails torn, hurls molten crags
8. Groaning to heaven, and seethes from depths profound.

Now in the first place,

Pindar has more closely followed the truth and has given a realistic description of what actually happened there, and what he saw with his own eyes; namely, that Aetna in the daytime sends forth smoke and at night fire; but Virgil, labouring to find grand and sonorous words, confuses the two periods of time and makes no distinction between them. Then the Greek has vividly pictured the streams of fire belched from the depths and the flowing rivers of smoke, and

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the rushing of lurid and spiral volumes of flame into the waters of the sea, like so many fiery serpents; but our poet, attempting to render r(o/on kapnou= ai)/qwna, 'a lurid stream of smoke,' has clumsily and diffusely piled up the words atram nubem turbine piceo et favilla fomented, 'a dusky cloud smoking with eddies black and glowing ash,' and what Pindar called krounoi/, or 'founts,' he has harshly and inaccurately rendered by 'balls of flame.' Likewise when he says sidearm lamb it, 'it licks the stars,' this also,

is a useless and foolish elaboration. And this too is inexplicable and almost incomprehensible, when he speaks of a 'black cloud smoking with eddies black and glowing ash.' For things which glow,

do not usually smoke nor are they black; unless candenti ('glowing') is used vulgarly and inaccurately for hot ashes, instead of those which are fiery and gleaming. For candens, of course, is connected with candor, or 'whiteness,' not with calor ('heat'). But when he says saxa et scopulos eructari et erigi, 'that rocks and crags are spewed forth and whirled skyward,' and that these same crags at once liquefieri et gemere atque glomerari ad auras, 'are molten and groan and are whirled to heaven,' this,

is what Pindar never wrote and what was never spoken by anyone; and it is the most monstrous of all monstrous descriptions.

That Plutarch in his Symposiacs defended the opinion of Plato about the structure and nature of the stomach, and of the tube which is called traxei=a, against the physician Erasistratus, urging the authority of the ancient physician Hippocrates.

BOTH Plutarch [*](Sympos. vii. 1.) and certain other learned men have written that Plato was criticized by the famous physician Erasistratus, [*](p. 194, Fuchs.) because he said [*](Tim. 44, p. 91, A; 31, p. 70, c.) that drink went to the lungs and having sufficiently moistened them, flowed through them, since they are somewhat porous, and from there passed into the bladder. They declared that the originator of that error was Alcaeus, who wrote [*](Frag. 39, Bergk4.) in his poems:

1. Wet now the lungs with wine; the dog-star shines,

rough windpipe,

epiglottis,

the rough windpipe,

These are the views of the physician Erasistratus, as opposed to Plato. But Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, [*](vii. 1. 3.) says that the originator of Plato's opinion was Hippocrates, and that the same opinion was held by Philistion of Locris [*](Frag. 7, p. 112, Wellmann.) and Dioxippus the pupil of Hippocrates, famous physicians of the olden time; also that the epiglottis, of which Erasistratus spoke, was not placed where it is to prevent anything that we drank from flowing into the windpipe; for fluid seems necessary and serviceable for refreshing and moistening the lungs; but it was placed there as a kind of controller and arbiter, to exclude or admit whatever was necessary for the health of the body; to keep away all foods from the windpipe and turn them to the stomach, but to divide what is drunk between the stomach and the lungs. And that part which ought to be admitted into the lungs through the windpipe the epiglottis does not let through rapidly and all at once, but when it has been checked and held back, as it were by a kind

Of ignoble subjects, called by the Greeks a)/docoi, or

unexpected,

NOT only the sophists of old, but the philosophers as well, took up ignoble subjects, [*](See Pease, Things without Honor, Class. Phil. xxi. pp. 27 ff. An example is Erasmus' Praise of Folly.) or if you prefer, unexpected ones, a)/docoi u(poqe/seis, as the Greeks call them; and our friend Favorinus took a great deal of pleasure in descending to such subjects, [*](Frag. 65, Marres.) either thinking them suitable for stimulating his thoughts or exercising his cleverness or overcoming difficulties by practice. For example, when he attempted to praise Thersites and pronounced a eulogy upon the quartan ague, [*](See note 1, p. 252.) he said many clever and ingenious things on both topics, which he has left written in his works.

But in his eulogy of fever he even produced Plato as a witness, declaring that the philosopher wrote [*](Tim. 10, p. 86 A.) that one who after suffering from quartan ague got well and recovered his full strength, would afterwards enjoy surer and more constant health. And in that same eulogy he made this quip, which, of a truth, is not ungraceful:

The following lines,

have met with the approval of many generations of men: [*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 825.)

1. Sometimes a day is like a stepmother,
2. And sometimes like a mother.

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The meaning of the verses is that a man cannot fare well every day, but fares well on one day and ill on another. Since it is true,

that in human affairs things are in turn, now good, now bad, how much more fortunate is this fever which has an interval of two days, [*](Owing to the Roman method of inclusive reckoning, the quartan ague, occurring on every fourth day, had an interval of two days; see Class Phil. viii. 1 ff.) since it has only one stepmother, but two mothers!

How many and what varieties of meaning the particle quin has, and that it is often obscure in the earlier literature.

THE particle quin, which the grammarians call a conjunction, seems to connect sentences in various ways and with divers meanings. For it seems to have one meaning when we say, as if chiding or questioning or exhorting, quin venis?

Why don't you come?

Why don't you read?

Why don't you flee?

there is no doubt but that (quin) Marcus Tullius is the most eloquent of all men,

Isocrates did not plead causes, not but that he thought it useful and honourable so to do.

these I describe last, not but that they are good and valiant peoples.

He did not consider it enough to have slandered him privately, without openly defaming his character.

I have noted, besides, that Quadrigarius in the eighth book of his Annals has used that particle in a very obscure manner. I quote his exact words: [*](Frag. 70, Peter2.)

He came to Rome; he barely succeeds in having a triumph voted.

It lacked little but that (quin) they should leave their camp and yield to the enemy.

He came to Rome; he with difficulty brought it about that a triumph should be voted

It almost happened that they left their camp and yielded to the enemy.

Only one who has learned that this particle of which we are speaking is a compound and formed of two parts, and that it does not merely have the function of a connective but has a definite meaning of its own, [*](quin is formed from qui, the ablative of the interrogative and relative stem qui-, and -ne, not. It is used in both dependent and independent sentences. See Lane, Lat. Gr.2 1980 ff.) will ever understand its variations in meaning. But because an explanation of these would require a long dissertation, he who has leisure may find it in the Commentaries of Publius Nigidius which he entitled Grammatical. [*](Frag. 52, Swoboda.)

Neat sayings selected from the Mimes of Publilius.

PUBLILIUS wrote mimes. He was thought worthy of being rated about equal to Laberius. But the scurrility and the arrogance of Laberius so offended Gaius Caesar, that he declared that he was better pleased with the mimes of Publilius than with those of Laberius. Many sayings of this Publilius are current, which are neat and well adapted to the use of ordinary conversation. Among these are the following, consisting of a single line each, which I have indeed taken pleasure in quoting: [*](Meyer, vv. 362, 55, 176, 106, 104, 193, 221, 178, 264, 245, 645, 383, 416, 469. In one instance it has seemed necessary to use two lines in the English version.)

1. Bad is the plan which cannot bear a change.
2. He gains by giving who has given to worth.
3. Endure and don't deplore what can't be helped. [*](Cf. What can't be cured must be endured.)
4. Who's given too much, will want more than's allowed. [*](Cf. Give an inch, he'll take an ell.)
5. A witty colmrade at vour side,
6. To walk's as easy as to ride.
7. Frugality is misery in disguise.
8. Heirs' tears are laughter underneath a mask.
9. Patience too oft provoked is turned to rage.
10. He wrongly Neptune blames, who suffers shipwreck twice.
11. Regard a friend as one who may be foe.
12. By bearing old wrongs new ones you provoke.
13. With danger ever danger's overcome.
14. 'Mid too much wrangling truth is often lost.
15. Who courteously declines, grants half your suit.

That Carneades the Academic purged his stomach with hellebore when about to write against the dogmas of Zeno the Stoic; and of the nature and curative powers of white and black hellebore.

WHEN Carneades, the Academic philosopher, was about to write against the books of the Stoic Zeno, he cleansed the upper part of his body with white hellebore, in order that none of the corrupt humours of his stomach might rise to the abode of his mind and weaken the power and vigour of his intellect; with such care and such preparation did this man of surpassing talent set about refuting what Zeno had written. When I had read of this in Grecian history, I inquired what was meant by the term

white hellebore.

Then I learned that there are two kinds of hellebore distinguished by a difference in colour, white and black; but that those colours are distinguished neither in the seed of the hellebore nor in its plant, but in the root; further, that with white hellebore the stomach and upper belly [*](The small intestine, see note on xvii. 11. 2.) are purged by vomiting; by the black the so-called lower belly is loosened, [*](The large intestine.) and the effect of both is to remove the noxious humours in which the causes of diseases are situated. But that there is danger lest, when every avenue of the body is opened, along with the causes of disease the juices on which the principle of life depends should also pass away, and the man should perish from exhaustion because of the destruction of the entire foundation of natural nourishment.

But Plinius Secundus, in his work On Natural History, wrote [*](xxv. 52.) that hellebore could be taken with the greatest safety in the island of Anticyra. [*](There were three places of this name, all celebrated for their hellebore, which was regarded as a cure for insanity. One was in Locris, on the Corinthian Gulf; the second was on the Maliac Gulf at the foot of Mt. Oeta. The third, usually considered the most important, was a town of Phocis on the Corinthian Gulf. See Thes. Ling. Lat. s.v., where Plin. N. H. xxv. 52 is assigned to the last-named, in spite of iasula. Baumgarten-Crasius, Suetonius, refer the reference in Calig. xxix to an island, which they do not, locate. In Hor. Ars. Poet. 300, tribus Anticyris may refer to three Anticyras, but is more probably used in a general sense.) That for this reason Livius Drusus, the former tribune of the commons, when he was suffering from the so-called

election

I have read besides that the Gauls, when hunting, dip their arrows in hellebore, because the wild animals that are struck and killed by arrows thus treated become tenderer for eating; but because of the contagion of the hellebore they are said to cut out a large piece of flesh around the wounds made by the arrows.

That Pontic ducks have a power which is able to expel poisons; and also of the skill of Mithridates in preparing antidotes.

IT is said that the ducks of Pontus commonly live by eating poisons. It was also written by Lenaeus, [*](See Suet. De G. amm. xv. (ii, p. 418, L.C.L.).) the freedman of Pompey the Great, that Mithridates, the famous king of Pontus, was skilled in medicine and in antidotes of that kind, and that he was accustomed to mix the blood of these ducks with drugs that have the power of expelling poisons, and that the blood was the very most powerful agency

Mithridatian.

That Mithridates, king of Pontus, spoke the languages of twenty-five nations; and that Quintus Ennius said that he had three hearts, because he was proficient in three tongues, Greek, Oscan, and Latin.

QUINTUS ENNIUS used to say that he had three hearts, because he knew how to speak Greek, Oscan, and Latin. But Mithridates, the celebrated king of Pontus and Bithynia, who was overcome in war by Gnaeus Pompeius, [*](66–63 B.C.) was proficient in the languages of the twenty-five races which he held under his sway. He never spoke to the men of all those nations through an interpreter, but whenever it was necessary for him to address any one of them, he used his language and speech with as much skill as if he were his fellow-countryman.

The statement of Marcus Vairo that Gaius Sallustius, the writer of history, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo and was let go only after he had been beaten with thongs and had paid a sum of money.

MARCUS VARRO, a man of great trustworthiness and authority in his writings and in his life, in the work which he entitled Pius, or On Peace, [*](p. 256, Ricse) says that Gaius Sallustius, the author of those austere and dignified works, whom we see in his history writing and acting, like a censor, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo, soundly beaten with thongs, and allowed to escape only after paying a sum of money. [*](On this story see Sallust, L.C. L., p. x.)

What Epictetus the philosophers used to say to worthless and vile men, who zealously followed the pursuit of philosophy; and the two words whose remembrance he enjoyed as by far the most salutary in all respects.

I HEARD Favorinus say that the philosopher Epictetus declared [*](Frag. 10, p. 410, Schenkl., L.C.L. II, p. 452 ff.) that very many of those who professed to be philosophers were of the kind a)/neu tou= pra/ttein, me/xri tou= le/gein, which means

without deeds, limited to words

For,

when he perceived that a man without shame, persistent in wickedness, of abandoned

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character, reckless, boastful, and cultivating everything else except his soul—when he saw such a man taking up also the study and pursuit of philosophy, attacking natural history, practising logic and balancing and investigating many problems of that kind, he used to invoke the help [*](That is, he used some phrase equivalent to pro deum atque hominum fidem (Heaven help us!).) of gods and men, and usually amid his exclamations chided the man in these terms: 'O man, where are you storing these things? Consider whether the vessel be clean. For if you take them into your self-conceit, they are lost; if they are spoiled, they become urine or vinegar or something worse, if possible.'

Therefore,

if anyone would take these two words to heart and use them for his own guidance and regulation, he will be almost without sin and will lead a very peaceful life. These two words,

are a)ne/xou (bear) and a)pe/xou (forbear).

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

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

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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,

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

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

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,

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

1. The man who runs away will fight again.

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

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

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

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