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 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?