Noctes Atticae

A statement from the works of Aristotle, that snow-water is a very bad thing to drink; and that ice is formed from snow. [*](This is not what Aristotle said, but that water formed from ice was unwholesome, see § 5 and 9. See crit. note 1, p. 362.)

IN the hottest season of the year with some companions and friends of mine who were students of

eloquence or of philosophy, I had withdrawn to the country-place of a rich friend at Tibur. There was with us a good man of the Peripatetic school, well trained and especially devoted to Aristotle. When we drank a good deal of water made of melted snow, he tried to restrain us and rather severely scolded us. He cited us the authority of famous physicians and in particular of the philosopher Aristotle, a man skilled in all human knowledge, who declared that snow-water was indeed helpful to grain and trees, but was a very unwholesome drink for human beings, and that it gradually produced wasting diseases in the body, which made their appearance only after a long time.

This counsel he gave us repeatedly in a spirit of prudence and goodwill. But when the drinking of snow-water went on without interruption, from the library of Tibur, which at that time was in the temple of Hercules and was well supplied with books, he drew out a volume of Aristotle and brought it to us, saying:

At least believe the words of this wisest of men and cease to ruin your health.

In that book it was written [*](Frag. 214, Rose.) that water from snow was very bad to drink, as was also that water which was more solidly and completely congealed, which the Greeks call kru/stallos, or

clear ice

; and the following reason was there given for this:

That when water is hardened by the cold air and congeals, it necessarily follows that evaporation takes place and that a kind of very thin vapour, so to speak, is forced from it and comes out of it. But its lightest part,

he said,

is that which is evaporated; what remains is heavier and less clean and wholesome,

v3.p.365

and this part, beaten upon by the throbbing of the air, takes on the form and colour of white foam. But that some more wholesome part is forced out and evaporated from the snow is shown by the fact that it becomes less than it was before it congealed.

I have taken a few of Aristotle's own words from that book, and I quote them:

Why is the water made from snow or ice unwholesome? Because from all water that is frozen the lightest and thinnest part evaporates. And the proof of this is that when it melts after being frozen, its volume is less than before. But since the most wholesome part is gone, it necessarily follows that what is left is less wholesome.

After I read this, we decided to pay honour to the learned Aristotle. And so I for my part immediately declared war upon snow and swore hatred against it,1 while the others made truces with it on various terms.

That shame drives the blood outward, while fear checks it.

IN the Problems of the philosopher Aristotle is the following passage: [*](Frag. 243, Rose.)

Why do men who are ashamed turn red and those who fear grow pale; although these emotions are similar? Because the blood of those who feel shame flows from the heart to all parts of the body, and therefore comes to the surface; but the blood of those who fear rushes to the heart, and consequently leaves all the other parts of the body.

When I had read this at Athens with our friend

Taurus and had asked him what he thought about that reason which had been assigned, he answered:

He has told us properly and truly what happens when the blood is diffused or concentrated, but he has not told us why this takes place. For the question may still be asked why it is that shame diffuses the blood and fear contracts it, when shame is a kind of fear and is defined by the philosophers as 'the fear of just censure.' For they say: ai)sxu/nh e)sti\n fo/bos dikai/ou yo/gou.

The meaning of obesus and of some other early words.

THE poet Julius Paulus, a worthy man, very learned in early history and letters, inherited a small estate in the Vatican district. He often invited us there to visit him and entertained us very pleasantly and generously with vegetables and fruits. And so one mild day in autumn, when Julius Celsinus and I had dined with him, and after hearing the Alcestis of Laevius read at his table were returning to the city just before sunset, we were ruminating on the rhetorical figures and the new or striking use of words in that poem of Laevius', and as each word occurred that was worthy of notice with reference to its future use by ourselves, [*](This is characteristic of the archaistic period in which Gellius lived.) we committed it to memory.

Now the passages which then came to mind were of this sort: [*](Frag. 8, Bahrens.)

1. Of chest and body wasted (obeso) everywhere,
2. Of mind devoid of sense and slow of pace,
3. With age o'ercome.

Here we noticed that obesus is used, rather in its proper than in its common signification, to mean slender and lean; for the vulgar use obesus, a)ku/rws (improperly), or kata\ a)nti/frasin (by contraries), for uber (bulky) and pinguis (fat). We also observed [*](Frag. 9, Bährens.) that he spoke of an extinct race as oblittera instead of oblitterata, and that he characterized enemies who broke treaties as foedifragi, not foederifragi; that he called the blushing Aurora pudoricolor, or

shame-coloured

and Memnon, nocticolor, or

night-coloured

; also that he used forte for

hesitatingly,

and said silenta loca, or

silent places,

from the verb sileo; further, that he used pulverulenta for

dusty

and pestilenta for

pestilent,

the genitive case instead of the ablative with careo; magno impete, or

mighty onset,

instead of impetu; that he used fortescere for fortem fieri, or

become brave,

dolentia for dolor, or

sorrow,

avens for libens, or

desirous

; that he spoke of curae intolerantes, or

unendurable cares,

instead of intolerandae, manciolae tenellae, or

tender hands,

instead of manus, and quis tam siliceo for

who is of so flinty a heart?

He also says fiere inpendio infit, meaningfieri inpense incipit, or

the expense begins to be great,

and he used accipetret [*](A verb formed from accipiter, hawk, meaning to tear, as a hawk does its prey.) for laceret, or

rends.

We entertained ourselves on our way with these notes on Laevius' diction. But others we passed over as too poetic and unsuited to use in prose; for example, when he calls Nestor trisaeclisenex, or

an old man who had lived three generations

and dulciorelocus isle, or

that sweet-mouthed speaker,

when he calls great swelling waves multigruma, or

great-hillocked,

and says that rivers congealed by the cold have an onychinum tegimen, or

an onyx covering

; also his many humorous multiple compounds, as when he calls his detractors [*](Frag. 7, Bährens.) subductisupercilicarptores, or

carpers with raised eye-brows.