Quaestiones Romanae

Why do they, as they conduct the bride to her home, bid her say, Where you are Gaius, there am I Gaia [*](Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia.)?

Is her entrance into the house upon fixed terms, as it were, at once to share everything and to control jointly the household, and is the meaning, then, Wherever you are lord and master, there am I lady and mistress? These names are in common use also in other connexions, just as jurists speak of Gaius Seius and Lucius Titius,[*](John Doe and Richard Roe.) and philosophers of Dion and Theon.[*](Cf.Moralia, 1061 c.)

Or do they use these names because of Gaia Caecilia,[*](Probably not the same as Tanaquil, wife of Tarquinius Priscus; but Cf. Pliny, Natural History, viii. 48 (194).) consort of one of Tarquini sons, a fair and virtuous woman, whose statue in bronze stands in the temple of Sanctus?[*](We should probably emend to Sancus; the same mistake is made in the mss. of Propertius, iv. 9. 71-74, where see the excellent note of Barber and Butler.) And both her sandals and her spindle were, in ancient days, dedicated there as tokens of her love of home and of her industry respectively.

Why is the far-famed Talassio [*](The traditional Roman spelling seems to be with -ss-.) sung at the marriage ceremony?[*](Cf.Life of Romulus, xv. (26 c), Life of Pompey, iv. (620 f); Livy, i. 9. 12.)

Is it derived from talasia (spinning)? For they call the wool-basket (talaros) talasus. When they lead in the bride, they spread a fleece beneath her: she herself brings with her a distaff and her spindle, and wreaths her husband’s door with wool.

Or is the statement of the historians true? They relate that there was a certain young man, brilliant in military achievements and valuable in other wTays, whose name was Talasius: and when the Romans were carrying off the daughters of the Sabines who had come to see the games, a maiden of particularly beautiful appearance was being carried off for him by some plebeian retainers of his. To protect their enterprise and to prevent anyone from approaching and trying to wrest the maiden from them, they shouted continually that she was being brought as a wife for Talasius (Talasio). Since, therefore, everyone honoured Talasius, they followed along and provided escort, joining in the good wishes and acclamations. Wherefore since Talasius’s marriage was happy, they became accustomed to invoke Talasius in other marriages also, even as the Greeks invoke Hymen.

Why is it that in the month of May at the time of the full moon they throw into the river from the Pons Sublicius figures of men, calling the images thrown Argives?[*](Cf. 285 a, infra, and Ovid, Fasti, v. 621 ff.; Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 45; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 38. 2-3. Plutarch means the Argei, the origin and meaning of which is a mystery (see V. Rose’s edition, pp. 98 ff.).)

Is it because in ancient days the barbarians who

Why in ancient days did they never dine out without their sons, even when these were still but children?

Did Lycurgus introduce this custom also, and bring boys to the common meals that they might become accustomed to conduct themselves toward their pleasures, not in a brutish or disorderly way, but with discretion, since they had their elders as supervisors and spectators, as it were? No less important is the fact that the fathers themselves would also be more decorous and prudent in the presence of their sons: for where the old are shameless, as Plato[*](Laws, 729 c; also cited or referred to Moralia, 14 b, 71 b, 144 f.) remarks, there the young also must needs be lost to all sense of shame.

Why is it that while the other Romans make libations and offerings to the dead in the month of February, Decimus Brutus, as Cicero[*](De Legibus, ii. 21. 54.) has recorded, used to do so in the month of December? This was

Since most peoples are accustomed to make offerings to the dead at the close of the day and at the end of the month, is it not reasonable also to honour the dead in the last month[*](That is, according to Brutus’s reckoning. For the common people February continued to be the month of the Parentalia, and February was once the last month (Cf. 268 b, supra).) at the turn of the year? And December is the last month.

Or do these honours belong to deities beneath the earth, and is it the proper season to honour these deities when all the crops have attained consummation?

Or is it most fitting to remember those below when men are stirring the earth at the beginning of seed-time?

Or is it because this month has been consecrated to Saturn by the Romans, and they regard Saturn as an infernal, not a celestial god?

Or is it that then their greatest festival, the Saturnalia, is set: and it is reputed to contain the most numerous social gatherings and enjoyments, and therefore Brutus deemed it proper to bestow upon the dead first-fruits, as it were, of this festival also?

Or is this statement, that Brutus alone sacrificed to the dead in this month, altogether a falsehood? For it is in December that they make offerings to Larentia and bring libations to her sepulchre.

And why do they thus honour Larentia who was at one time a courtesan?

They record that there was another Larentia, Acca,[*](Cf. W. F. Otto, Wiener Studien, xxxv. 62 ff.) the nurse of Romulus, whom they honour in

Why do they call one of the gates the Window, for this is what fenestra means: and why is the so-called Chamber of Fortune beside it?[*](Cf. 322 f, infra; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 569 ff.)

Is it because King Servius, the luckiest of mortals, was reputed to have converse with Fortune, who visited him through a window?

Or is this but a fable, and is the true reason that when King Tarquinius Priscus died, his wife Tanaquil, a sensible and a queenly woman, put her head out of a window and, addressing the citizens, persuaded them to appoint Servius king, and thus the place came to have this name?[*](Cf. 323 d, infra; Livy, i. 41.)

Why is it that of all the things dedicated to the gods it is the custom to allow only spoils of war to disintegrate with the passage of time, and not to move them beforehand[*](That is, to move them away before they fell to pieces; for the ancients used to clear out their temples periodically.) nor repair them?

Is it in order that men may believe that their repute deserts them at the same time with the obliteration of their early memorials, and may ever seek to bring in some fresh reminder of valour?

Or is it rather that, as time makes dim the memorials of their dissension with their enemies, it would be invidious and malicious to restore and renew them? Nor among the Greeks, either, do

Why did Quintus Metellus,[*](Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius, consul 80 b.c.) when he became pontifex maximus, with his reputation for good sense in all other matters as well as in his statesmanship, prevent divination from birds after the month Sextius, which is now called August?

Is it that, even as we attend to such matters in the middle of the day or at dawn, or in the beginning of the month when the moon is waxing, and avoid the declining days and hours as unsuitable for business, so likewise did Metellus regard the period of time after the first eight months as the evening or late afternoon, so to speak, of the year, since then it is declining and waning?

Or is it because we should observe birds when they are in their prime and in perfect condition? And this they are before the summer-time: but towards autumn some are weak and sickly, others but nestlings and not full-grown, and still others have vanished completely, migrating because of the time of year.

Why were men who were not regularly enlisted, but merely tarrying m the camp, not allowed to throw missiles at the enemy or to wound them?

This fact Cato the Elder[*](Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, i. 11 (37).) has made clear in one of his letters to his son, in which he bids the young man to return home if he has completed his term of service and has been discharged: or, if he should

Is it because sheer necessity alone constitutes a warrant to kill a human being, and he who does so illegally and without the word of command is a murderer? For this reason Cyrus also praised Chrysantas[*](Cf. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, iv. 1. 3; and the note on Moralia, 236 e (Vol. III. p. 420).) who, when he was about to kill an enemy, and had his weapon raised to strike, heard the recall sounded and let the man go without striking him, believing that he was now prevented from so doing.

Or must he who grapples with the enemy and fights not be free from accountability nor go unscathed should he play the coward? For he does not help so much by hitting or wounding an enemy as he does harm by fleeing or retreating. He, therefore, who has been discharged from service is freed from military regulations: but he who asks leave to perform the offices of a soldier renders himself again accountable to the regulations and to his general.

Why is it not allowed the priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) to anoint himself in the open air?[*](Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15.)

Is it because it used not to be proper or decent for sons to strip in their father’s sight, nor a son-in-law in the presence of his father-in-law, nor in ancient days did they bathe together?[*](Cf. Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 55 (224), with Wilkins’s note.) Now Jupiter is our father, and whatever is in the open air is in some way thought to be particularly in his sight.

Or, just as it is against divine ordinance to strip oneself in a shrine or a temple, so also did they scrupulously avoid the open air and the space beneath the

Or are some regulations prescribed for the priest alone, while others are prescribed for all by the law through the priest? Wherefore also, in my country, to wear a garland, to wear the hair long, not to have any iron on one’s person, and not to set foot within the boundaries of Phocis, are the special functions of an archon: but not to taste fruit before the autumnal equinox nor to prune a vine before the vernal equinox are prohibitions disclosed to practically all alike through the archon: for those are the proper seasons for each of these acts.

In the same way, then, it is apparently a special obligation of the Roman priest also not to use a horse nor to be absent from the city more than three nights[*](Livy, v. 52. 13, says not even one night. Cf. also Tacitus, Annals, iii. 58 and 71.) nor to lay aside the cap from which he derives the name of flamen.[*](Cf.Life of Numa, chap. vii. (64 c); Life of Marcellus, chap. v. (300 c); Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 84; Festus, s.v. Flamen Dialis; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 64. 2. Varro’s etymology is Flamen quasi filamen; Plutarch must have pronouncedφλᾶμεν ph(i)lamen, with ph a true aspirate as in uphill, else there would be no justification for the alternative derivation from pileus (Numa, vii.).) But many other regulations are revealed to all through the priest, and one of them is the prohibition not to anoint oneself in the open air. For the Romans used to be very suspicious of rubbing down with oil, and even to-day they believe that nothing has been so much to blame for the enslavement and effeminacy of the Greeks as their gymnasia and wrestling - schools, which engender much listless idleness and waste of time in their cities, as well as paederasty and the ruin of the bodies of

Why did their ancient coinage have stamped on one side a double-faced likeness of Janus, on the other the stern or the prow of a ship?[*](Cf. Athenaeus, 692 e; Ovid, Fasti, i. 229 ff.; Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 3 (45); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 7. 21-22.)

Is it, as many affirm, in honour of Saturn who crossed over to Italy in a ship?

Or, since this might be said of many, inasmuch as Janus, Evander, and Aeneas all landed in Italy after a voyage by sea, one might rather conjecture thus: some things are excellent for States, others are necessary; and of the excellent things good government is the chief, and of the necessary things facility of provision. Since, therefore, Janus established for them an ordered government by civilizing their life, and since the river, which was navigable and permitted transportation both from the sea and from the land, provided them with an abundance of necessities, the coinage came to have as its symbol the twofold form of the lawgiver, as has been stated,[*](269 a, supra.) because of the change he wrought, and the vessel as symbol of the river.

They also used another kind of coinage, stamped

Why do they use the temple of Saturn as the public treasury and also as a place of storage for records of contracts?[*](Cf. Life of Publicola, xii. (103 c).)

Is it because the opinion and tradition prevailed that when Saturn was king there was no greed or injustice among men, but good faith and justice?

Or is it because the god was the discoverer of crops and the pioneer in husbandry? For this is what his sickle signifies and not as Antimachus,[*](Kinkel, Epicorum Graec. Frag. p. 287, Antimachus, Frag. 35.) following Hesiod,[*](Theogony, 160 ff.; Cf. Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 984-986.) has written:

1. Here with sickle in hand was wrought the form of rough Cronus
2. Maiming his sire at his side, who is Uranus, offspring of Acmon.

Or is this a matter of ancient history, and was Valerius Publicola the first to make the temple of Saturn the treasury, when the kings had been overthrown, because he believed that the place was well-protected, in plain sight, and hard to attack secretly?

Why do the ambassadors to Rome, from whatever country they come, proceed to the temple of Saturn, and register with the prefects of the treasury?

Is it because Saturn was a foreigner, and consequently takes pleasure in foreigners, or is the solution of this question also to be found in history? For it seems that in early days the treasurers[*](Presumably the quaestores aerarii.) used to send gifts to the ambassadors, which were called lautia, and they cared for the ambassadors when they were sick, and buried them at public expense if they died: but now, owing to the great number of embassies that come, this expensive practice has been discontinued: yet there still remains the preliminary meeting with the prefects of the treasury in the guise of registration.