Quaestiones Romanae

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Chauncy, Isaac translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

Question 101. Why do they finify their boys with necklaces, which they call bullae?

Solution. What if this were for the honor of the wives which were taken by force? For as many other things, so this might be one of the injunctions laid on their posterity. Or did they it in honor of Tarquin’s manhood? For it is reported of him that, whilst he was but a boy, being engaged in a battle against the Latins and Tuscans, charging his enemies, he fell from his horse; yet animating those Romans which were engaged in the charge, he led them on courageously. The enemies were put to a remarkable rout, and sixteen thousand were slain; whereupon he had this badge of honor bestowed upon him by his father the king. Or was it that by the ancients it was neither lewd nor dishonorable to love beautiful slaves (as now the comedies testify), but that they resolvedly abstained from freeborn servants; and lest, by coming accidentally on naked boys, they should ignorantly transgress, the free boys wore this mark of distinction? Or was this a protector of good order, and after a manner a curb of incontinency; they being ashamed to pretend to manhood before they have put off the badge of children? That which they say who follow Varro is not probable, that boule by the Aeolians is called bolla, and this is put about children as a teaching sign of good counsel. But consider whether they do not

wear it for the moon’s sake. For the visible face of the moon, when it is halved, is not spherical, but shaped like a lentil or a quoit; and (as Empedocles supposeth) so is also the side that is turned away from us.

Question 102. Why do they name boys when they are nine days old, and girls when they are eight?

Solution. Perhaps it’s a natural reason, that girls are forwarder, for the female grows up and comes to full stature and perfection before the male. But they take the day after the seventh, because the seventh is dangerous to infants by reason of the navel-string; for with many it falls off at seven days, and until it falls off, an infant is more like a plant than an animal. Or is it, as the Pythagoreans reckon, that the even number is the feminine, and the odd number the masculine? For it is a fruitful number, and excels the even in respect of its composition. And if these numbers be divided into units, the even, like a female, hath an empty space in the middle; the odd number always leaves a segment full in the middle, wherefore this is fit to be compared to the male, that to the female. Or is it thus, that of all numbers nine is the first square number made of three, which is an odd and perfect number, but eight is the first cube made of two, an even number; whence a male ought to be square, superexcelling, and complete; but a woman, like a cube, constant, a good housewife, and no gadding gossip? This also may be added that, as eight is a cube from the root two, and nine a square from the root three, so the female makes use of two names, and the males of three.

Question 103. Why do they call those whose fathers are not known Spurius?

Solution. It is not verily—as the Grecians suppose and as the rhetoricians say in their determinations—because they are begot of some promiscuous and common seed (as the Greeks say σπόρος). But Spurius is found

among first names, as Sextus, Decimus, Caius. But the Romans do not write all the letters of the first name; but either one letter, as T. for Titus, L. for Lucius, M. for Marcus; or two letters, as Ti. for Tiberius, Cn. for Cnaeus; or three, as Sex. for Sextus, and Ser. for Servius. Now Spurius is of those that are written with two letters, Sp. But with these same letters they write without father, S. for sine, and P. for patre, which truly hath caused the mistake. Moreover, we may meet with another reason, but it is more absurd. They say, that the Sabines called the privities of a woman spurious; and therefore they call him so, by way of reproach, who is born of a woman unmarried and unespoused.

Question 104. Why did they call Bacchus Liber Pater?

Solution. Was the reason because they make him, as it were, the father of liberty to tipplers? For most men become very audacious and are filled with too much licentious prattle, by reason of too much drink. Or is this it, that he hath supplied them with a libamen, a drink-offering? Or is it, as Alexander hath said, that Bacchus is called Eleutherius from his having his abode about Eleutherae, a city of Boeotia?

Question 105. For what cause was it, that on high holidays it was not a custom for virgins to marry, but widows did marry then?

Solution. Is the reason, as Varro saith, that virgins, forsooth, are married weeping, but women with joyful glee, and people are to do nothing of a holiday with a heavy heart nor by compulsion? Or rather is it because it is decent for virgins to marry with more than a few present, but for widows to marry with a great many present is indecent? For the first marriage is zealously affected, the second to be deprecated; yea, they are ashamed to marry a second husband while their first husband lives, and they

grieve at doing so even when he is dead. Hence they are pleased more with silence than with tumults and pompous doings; and the feasts do attract the generality of people to them, so that they cannot be at leisure on holidays for such wedding solemnities. Or was it that they that robbed the Sabines of their daughters that were virgins on the feast-day raised thereby a war, and looked therefore upon it as unlucky to marry virgins on holidays?

Question 106. Why do the Romans worship Fortuna Primigenia?

Solution. Was it because Servius, being by Fortune born of a servant-maid, came to rule king in Rome with great splendor? And this is the supposition of most Romans. Or rather is it that Fortune hath bestowed on Rome itself its very original and birth? Or may not this matter require a more natural and philosophical reason, even that Fortune is the original of all things and that Nature itself is produced out of things that come by Fortune, when events that come by chance fall into an order among themselves?

Question 107. Why do the Romans call the artists who appear in the worship of Bacchus histriones?

Solution. Is it for the reason which C. Rufus tells us? For he says, that in ancient time, C. Sulpicius and Licinius Stolo, being consuls, a pestilence raging in Rome, all the actors upon the stage were cut off; wherefore, upon the request of the Romans, many and good artists came from Etruria, among whom he that excelled in fame and had been longest experienced on the public stages was called Histrus, and from him they named all the stage-players.

Question 108. Why do not men marry women that are near akin?

Solution. Is this the reason, that they design by marriage to augment their family concerns and to procure many relations, by giving wives to strangers and marrying

wives out of other families? Or do they suspect that the contentions that would happen among relations upon marriage would destroy even natural rights? Or is it that, considering that wives by reason of weakness stand in need of many helpers, they would not have near akin marry together, that their own kindred might stand by them when their husbands wrong them?

Question 109. Why is it not lawful for the high priest of Jupiter, which they call Flamen Dialis, to touch meal or leaven?

Solution. Is it because meal is imperfect and crude nourishment? For the wheat neither hath continued what it was, neither is it made into bread as it must be; but it hath lost the faculty of seed, and hath not attained to usefulness for food. Wherefore the poet hath named meal, by a metaphor, mill-murdered (μυλήφατον), as if the corn were spoiled and destroyed by grinding. Leaven, as it is made by corruption, corrupts the mass that it is mingled with, for it is made thereby looser and weaker; and fermentation is a kind of corruption, which, if it be overmuch, makes the bread sour and spoils it.

Question 110. Why is the same high priest forbid to touch raw flesh?

Solution. Is it because custom makes them averse enough to raw flesh? Or is it that the same reason that makes them averse to meal doth also make them averse to flesh; for it is neither a living creature nor dressed food? Roasting or boiling, being an alteration and change, doth change its form; but fresh and raw flesh offers not a pure and unpolluted object to the eye, but such as is offensive to the eye, and like that of a raw wound.

Question 111. Why do they require the priest to abstain from a dog and a goat, and neither to touch or name them?

Solution. Was it that they abominated the lasciviousness

and stink of a goat, or that they suspected it to be a diseased creature? For it seems this animal is more seized with the falling sickness than other creatures, and is contagious to them that eat or touch it while it hath this disease; they say, the cause is the straightness of the windpipe, often intercepting the breath, a sign of which they make the smallness of their voice to be; for it happens to men that are epileptical, that they utter a voice sounding much like the bleat of a goat. Now in a dog there may be less of lasciviousness and of an ill scent; although some say that dogs are not permitted to go into the high streets of Athens—no, not into the island Delos—by reason of their open coition; as if kine, swine, and horses did use coition in bed-chambers, and not openly and lawlessly. They do not know the true reason,—that, because a dog is a quarrelsome creature, they therefore expel dogs out of sanctuaries and sacred temples, giving safe access to suppliants for refuge. Wherefore it is very likely that the priest of Jupiter, being (as it were) an animated and sacred image, granted for refuge to petitioners and suppliants, doth banish or fright away none. For which cause a couch was set for him in the porch of the house, and they that fell on their knees before him had indemnity from stripes or punishment that day; and if one in fetters came and addressed him, he was unloosed, and his fetters were not laid down by the door but thrown from the roof. It would be therefore no advantage that he should carry himself so mild and courteous, if there were a dog at the door, scaring and frighting them that petitioned for sanctuary. Neither did the ancients at all repute this creature clean; for he is offered in sacrifice to none of the celestial Gods, but being sent to Hecate, an infernal Goddess, at the three cross-ways for a supper, takes a share in averting calamities and in expiations. In Lacedaemon they cut puppies in pieces to Mars, that
most cruel God. In Boeotia public expiation is made by passing between the parts of a dog divided in twain. But the Romans sacrifice a dog in the cleansing month, on the festival which they call Lupercalia. Hence it was not without cause, to prohibit them whose charge it was to worship the highest and holiest God from making a dog familiar and customed to them.

Question 112. What is the reason that the priest of Jupiter is forbid to touch an ivy, or to pass over that way that is overspread with vine branches?

Solution. Is it not of the like nature with those precepts of Pythagoras, not to eat in a chair, not to sit upon a measure called a choenix, and not to step over a broom? For the Pythagoreans do not dread and refrain from these things, but they prohibit other things by these. Now to go under a vine hath reference to wine, because it is not lawful for a priest to be drunk. For the wine is above the heads of those that are drunk, and they are depraved and debased thereby; whereas it is requisite that they should be above pleasure and conquer it, but not be subdued by it. As for the ivy,—it being unfruitful and useless to men, as also infirm, and by reason of its infirmity standing in need of other trees to climb upon, though by its shadow and sight of its greenness it doth bewitch the vulgar,—what if they judge it not convenient to nourish it about a house because it bringeth no profit, or to suffer it to clasp about any thing, seeing it is so hurtful to plants that bear it up, while it sticketh fast in the ground? Hence ivy is forbidden at the Olympic festivals, and neither at Athens in Juno’s sacrifices, nor at Thebes in those belonging to Venus, can any wild ivy be seen; though in the Agrionia and Nyctelia (which are services to Bacchus for the most part performed in the dark) it is to be found. Or was this a symbol of the prohibition of revels and sports of Bacchus? For women that were addicted to Bacchanal

sports presently ran to the ivy and plucked it off, tearing it in pieces with their hands and gnawing it with their mouths, so that they are not altogether to be disbelieved that say it hath a spirit in it that stirreth and moveth to madness, transporting and bereaving of the senses, and that alone by itself it introduceth drunkenness without wine to those that have an easy inclination to enthusiasm.

Question 113. Why are not these priests allowed to take upon them or attempt civil authority, while they have a lictor and a curule chair for honor’s sake, and in some sort of consolation for their being excluded from magistracies?

Solution. Was it because in some places of Greece the dignity of priesthood was equal with kingship, and therefore they designated not ordinary persons to be priests? Or was it rather,—since they have appointed office-employments, whereas the charge of kings is unmethodical and indefinite,—that it would not be possible, if both fell out at the same time, that he should be able to attend both, but he must of necessity neglect one (both pressing together upon him), sometimes neglecting the worship of God, and sometimes injuring the subjects? Or else, seeing that there is no less necessity than power attending the administration of civil government, and that the ruler of the people (as Hippocrates saith of the physician) doth see weighty matters and hath to do with weighty matters, and from other men’s calamities procures troubles peculiar to himself, did they think ’him not sacred enough to sacrifice to the Gods and manage the sacrifices who had been present at the condemnation and execution of citizens, and often of some of his own kindred and family, as happened to Brutus?