Noctes Atticae

That Quintus Ennius, in the seventh book of his Annals, wrote quadrupes eques, and not quadrupes equus, as many read it.

A NUMBER of us young men, friends of his, were at Puteoli with the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a fine man in truth and of distinguished eloquence, and we were spending the summer holidays in amusement and gaiety, amid literary diversions and seemly and improving pleasures. And while we were there, word was brought to Julianus that a certain reader, a man not without learning, was reciting the Annals of Ennius to the people in the theatre in a very refined and musical voice.

Let us go,

said he,

to hear this ' Ennianist.' whoever he may be

; for that was the name by which the man wished to be called.

When at last we had found him reading amid loud applause—and he was reading the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius—we first heard him wrongly recite the following lines: [*](vv. 232 ff. Vahlen2.)

1. Then with great force on rush the four-footed horse (equus)
2. And elephants,

and without adding many more verses, he departed amid the praises and applause of the whole company.

Then Julianus, as he came out of the theatre, said:

What think you of this reader and his fourfooted horse? For surely he read it thus:

1. Denique vi magna quadrupes equus atque elephant
2. Proiciunt sese.

Do you think that, if he had had a master and instructor worth a penny, he would have said quadrupes equus and not quadrupes eqces? For no one who has given any attention to ancient literature doubts that Ennius left it written in that way.

When several of those who were present declared that they had read quadrupes equus, each with his own teacher, and wondered what was the meaning oft quadrupes eques, Julianus rejoined: " I could wish, my worthy young friends, that you had read Quintus Ennius as accurately as did Publius Vergilius, who, imitating this verse of his in The Georgics, used eques for equus in these lines: [*](iii. 115.)

1. Thessalian Lapiths, high on horses' back,
2. Gave us the bit and circling course, and taught
3. The horse [*](Julianus gave this meaning to equitem, but the modern editors give it the usual one of horseman.) full armed, to gallop o'er the plain
4. And round his paces proud.

In this passage, unless one is foolishly and silkily captious, equiter can be taken in no other sense than that of 'horse,' for many of the early writers called the man who sat upon a horse eques and also the horse on which he sat. Hence equitare also, which is derived from the word eques, equitis, was said both of the man who rode the horse and of the horse which carried the man. Lucilius, indeed, a man conspicuous for his command of the Latin language, says equum equitare in these lines: [*](vv. 1284 ff. Marx, who reads ecum for equum.)

1. With what we see the courser run and trot,
2. With this he runs and trots. Now, 'tis with eyes
3. We see him trot; hence with his eyes he trots. [*](Similar sophistries were indulged in by Chrysippus (Diog. Laert. vii. 180 ff.) and other philosophers. See Marx ad loc.)

But,

said Apollinaris,

I was not content with these examples, and in order that it might not appear uncertain and doubtful, but clear and evident, whether Ennius wrote equus or eques, I procured at great trouble and expense, for the sake of examining one line, a copy of heavy and venerable antiquity, which it was almost certain had been edited by the hand of Lampadio; [*](C. Octavius Lampadio edited the Bellum Punicum of Naevius and divided the poem into seven books; see Suet. Gr. ii. (L. C. L. ii, p. 399). Apparently he also edited Ennius.) and in that copy I found eques and not equus written in that line.

"

This at the time Julianus explained to us, along with other problems, clearly and courteously. But afterwards I ran upon the very same remarks in some very well-known handbooks.

That Aelius Melissus, in the book to which he gave the title On Correctness of Speech, and which on its publication he called a horn of plenty, wrote something that deserves neither to be said nor heard, when he expressed the opinion that matrona and mater familias differ in meaning, thus making a distinction that is wholly groundless.

WITHIN my memory Aelius Melissus held the highest rank among the grammarians of his day at Rome; but in literary criticism he showed greater boastfulness and sophistry than real merit. Besides many other works which he wrote, he made a book which at the time when it was issued seemed to be one of remarkable learning. The title of the book was designed to be especially attractive to readers, for it was called Correct Language. Who, then, would suppose that he could speak correctly or with propriety unless he had learned those rules of Melissus? From that book I take these words:

Matrona, 'a matron,' is a woman who has given birth once; she who has done so more than once is called mater familias, 'mother of a family'; just so a sow which has had one litter is called porcetra; one which has had more, scrofa.

But to decide whether Melissus thought out this distinction between matrona and mater familias and that it was his own conjecture, or whether he read what someone else had written, surely requires soothsayers. For with regard to porcetra he has, it is true, the authority of Pomponius in the Atellan farce which bears that very title [*](p. 295, Ribbeck3.) but that

matron

was applied only to a woman who had given birth once, and

mother of a family

only to one who had done so more than once, can be proved by the authority of no ancient writer. Indeed, that seems much more probable which competent interpreters of ancient terms have written, that

matron

was properly applied to one who had contracted a marriage with a man, so long as she remained in that state, even though children were not yet born to them; and that she was so called from the word mater, or

mother,

a state which she had not yet attained, but which she had the hope and promise of attaining later. Matrimonium itself, or

marriage,

has the same derivation; but that woman only is called

mother of the household

[*](Mater familias is the feminine equivalent of pater familias. The latter was father of the household in authority, although he was not the actual father of all its members. In C.I.L. vi. 1035, Julia, wife of Septimius Severus, is called mater Augusti nostri et castrorum et senatus et patriae.) who is in the power and possession of her husband, or in the power and possession of the one under whose authority her husband is; since she had come, not only into a state of wedlock, but also into the family of her husband and into the position of his heir.

How Favorinus treated a man who made an unseasonable inquiry about words of ambiguous meaning; and in that connection the different meanings of the word contio.

DOMITIUS was a learned and famous grammarian in the city of Rome, who was given the surname

Insanus, or

The Madman,

because he was by nature rather difficult and churlish. When our friend Favorinus, in my company, chanced to have met this Domitius at the temple of Carmentis, Favorinus said:

I pray you, master, tell me whether I was in error in saying contiones, when I wanted to turn dhmhgori/ai into Latin; for I am in doubt and should be glad to be informed whether any of the men of old who spoke with special elegance used contio of words and of a speech.

[*](Contio, from coventio ( =conventio) meant first an assembly, then a speech to an assembly, and finally the place of meeting. It is used in the sense of a speech by Cicero, Caesar, and other good writers.) Then Domitius, with excited voice and expression, replied:

There is absolutely no hope left of anything good, when even you distinguished philosophers care for nothing save words and the authority for words. But I will send you a book, in which you will find what you ask. For I, a grammarian, am inquiring into the conduct of life and manners, while you philosophers are nothing but mortualia, or 'winding sheets,' as Marcus Cato says: [*](Frag. incert. 19, Jordan.) for you collect glossaries and word-lists, filthy, foolish, trifling things, like the dirges of female hired mourners. And I could wish,

said he,

that all we mortals were dumb! for then dishonesty would lack its chief .

When we had left him, Favorinus said:

We approached this man at an unseasonable time. For he seems to me to be clearly mad. Know, however,

said he,

that the disorder which is called melagxoli/a, or 'melancholia,' does not attack small or contemptible minds, but it is in a way a kind of heroic affliction and its victims often speak the truth boldly, but without regard to time or moderation. For example, what think you of this which he just said of philosophers? If Antisthenes or Diogenes

v3.p.323

had said it, would it not have seemed worthy of remembrance?

But a little later Domitius sent Favorinus the book which he had promised—I think it was one by Verrius Flaccus—in which the following was written with regard to questions of that kind: [*](Festus, p. xvi, Müller.) that senatus (senate) was used both of a place and of persons; civitas (state) of a situation and a town, also of the rights of a community, and of a body of men; further that tribus (tribes) and decuriae (decuries) designated places, privileges and persons, and that contio had three meanings: the place and tribunal from which speaking was done, as Marcus Tullius in his speech, In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metelius, says: [*](Frag. 4, p. 946, Orelli.)

I mounted the tribunal (contionem); the people assembled.

It also signifies an assembly of the people gathered together, since the same Marcus Tullius says in his Orator: [*](§ 168.)

I have often heard audiences (contiones) cry out, when words ended in a proper rhythm; for the ears expect the thought to be expressed in harmonious words.

It likewise designated the speech itself which was made to the people. [*](See note 1, p. 320. Gellius has given the meanings in the wrong order.)

Examples of these uses were not given in that book. But afterwards I found and showed to Favorinus at his request instances of all these meanings in Cicero, as I remarked above, and in the most elegant of the early writers; but that which he especially desired, an example of contio used for words and of a speech, I pointed out in the title of a book by Cicero, which he had called In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metellus; for there Contionem

surely means nothing else than the speech itself which was delivered by Metellus.