Noctes Atticae

Marcus Varro's definition of the word

indutiae

MARCUS VARRO, in that book of his Antiquities of Man which treats Of War and Peace, [*](xxii, fr. 1, 2, Mirsch.) defines indutiae (a truce) in two ways.

A truce,

is peace for a few days in camp;

A truce is a holiday in war.

a holiday in war,

Now the Greeks, more significantly and more pointedly, have called such an agreement to cease from fighting e)kexeiri/a, or

a staying of hands,

typical

outline

exact definition

I have for a long time been inquiring into the derivation of indutiae, but of the many explanations which I have either heard or read this which I am going to mention seems most reasonable. I believe that indutiae is made up of inde uti iam (

that from then on

that from then on,

But Aurelius Opilius, in the first book of his work entitled The Muses, says: [*](p. 88, Fun.)

It is called a truce when enemies pass back and forth from one side to another safely and without strife; from this the name seems to be formed, as if it were initiae, [*](This derivation is clearer from the older form induitiae; see the critical note.) that is, an approach and entrance.

The answer of the philosopher Taurus, when I asked him whether a wise man ever got angry.

I ONCE asked Taurus in his lecture-room whether a wise man got angry. For after his daily discourses he often gave everyone the opportunity of asking whatever questions he wished. On this occasion he first discussed the disease or passion of anger seriously and at length, setting forth what is to be fund in the books of the ancients and in his own commentaries; then, turning to me who had asked

This is what I think about getting angry, but it will not be out of place for you to hear also the opinion of my master Plutarch, a man of great learning and wisdom. Plutarch,

once gave orders that one of his slaves, a worthless and insolent fellow, but one whose ears had been filled with the teachings and arguments of philosophy, should be stripped of his tunic for some offence or other and flogged. They had begun to beat him, and the slave kept protesting that he did not deserve the flogging; that he was guilty of no wrong, no crime. Finally, while the lashing still went on, he began to shout, no longer uttering complaints or shrieks and groans, but serious reproaches. Plutarch's conduct, he said, was unworthy of a philosopher; to be angry was shameful: his master had often descanted on the evil of anger and had even written an excellent treatise Peri\ )Aorghsi/as; [*](On Freedom from Anger; the work has not survived.) it was in no way consistent with all that was written in that book that its author should fall into a fit of violent rage and punish his slave with many stripes. Then Plutarch calmly and mildly made answer: ' What makes you think, scoundrel, that I am now angry with you. Is it from my expression, my voice, my colour, or even my words, that you believe me to be in the grasp of anger? In my opinion my eyes are not fierce, my expression is not disturbed, I am neither shouting madly nor foaming at the mouth and getting red in the face; I am saying nothing to cause me shame or regret; I am not trembling at all from anger or making violent gestures. For all these actions, if you did but know it, are the usual signs of angry passions.' And with these words, turning to the man who was plying the lash,

v1.p.119

he said: 'In the meantime, while this fellow and I are arguing, do you keep at it.'

Now the sum and substance of Taurus' whole disquisition was this: he did not believe that a)orghsi/a or

freedom from anger,

lack of sensibility,

anger,

How Socrates used to train himself in physical endurance; and of the temperate habits of that philosopher.

Among voluntary tasks and exercises for strengthening his body for any chance demands upon its endurance we are told that Socrates habitually practised this one: he would stand, so the story goes, in one fixed position, all day and all night, from early dawn until the next sunrise, open-eyed, motionless, in his very tracks and with face and eyes riveted to the same spot in deep meditation, as if his mind and soul had been, as it were, withdrawn from his body. When Favorinus in his discussion of the man's fortitude and his many other virtues had reached this point, he said:

He often stood from sun to sun, more rigid than the tree trunks.

His temperance also is said to have been so great, that he lived almost the whole period of his life with health unimpaired. Even amid the havoc of that plague which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, devastated Athens with a deadly species of disease, by temperate and abstemious habits he is said to have avoided the ill-effects of indulgence and retained his physical vigour so completely, that he was not at all affected by the calamity common to all.

What rules of courtesy should be observed by fathers and sons in taking their places at able, keeping their seats, and similar matters at home and elsewhere, when the sons are magistrates and the fathers private citizens; and a discourse of the philosopher Taurus on this subject, with an illustration taken from Roman history.

THE governor of the province of Crete, a man of senatorial rank, had come to Athens for the purpose of visiting and becoming acquainted with the philosopher Taurus, and in company with this same governor was his father. Taurus, having just dismissed his pupils, was sitting before the door of his room, and we stood by his side conversing with him. In came the governor of the province and with him his father. Taurus arose quietly, and after salutations had been exchanged, sat down again. Presently the single chair that was at hand was brought and placed near them, while others were being fetched. Taurus invited the governor's father to be seated; to which he replied:

Rather let this man take the seat, since he is a magistrate of the Roman people.

Without prejudicing the case,

do you meanwhile sit down, while we look into the matter and inquire whether it is more proper for you, who are the father, to sit, or your son, who is a magistrate.

The substance of the discussions was this: In public places, functions and acts the rights of fathers,

Now, your visit to me,

our present conversation, and this discussion of duties are private actions. Therefore enjoy the same priority of honours at my house which it is proper for you to enjoy in your own home as the older man.

These remarks and others to the same purport were made by Taurus at once seriously and pleasantly. Moreover, it has seemed not out of place to add what I have read in Claudius about the etiquette of father and son under such circumstances. I therefore quote Quadrigarius' actual words, transcribed from the sixth book of his Annals [*](Fr. 57. Peter.) "The consuls then elected were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus for the second time and Quintus Fabius Maximus, son of the Maximus who had been consul the year before. The father, at the time proconsul, mounted upon a horse met his son the consul, and because lie was his father, would not dismount, nor did the lictors, who knew that the two men lived in the most perfect harmony, presume to order him to do so. As the father drew near, the consul said:

What next?

For what reason our forefathers inserted the aspirate h in certain verbs and nouns.

THE letter h (or perhaps it should be called a breathing rather than a letter) was added by our forefathers to give strength and vigour to the pronunciation of many words, in order that they might have a fresher and livelier sound; and this they seem to have done from their devotion to the Attic language, and under its influence. It is well known that the people of Attica, contrary to the usage of the other Greek races, pronounced i(xqu/s (fish), i(/ppos (horse), and many other words besides, with a rough breathing on the first letter. [*](I find no authority for this. Brugmann in Müller's Handbuch, II, 61 (end) cites i(/ppos as a word which originally had a smooth breathing and acquired the rough from the combination o( i)/ppos. Since the i in i)xqu/s is prosthetic, i(xqu/s, if it existed must have had the same origin, but Brugmann does not cite it. See also Indoger. Forsch. xxii, p. 197 (gives some additional information).) In the same way our ancestors said lachrumae (tears), sepulchrum (burial-place), ahenum (of bronze), vehemens (violent), incohare (begin), helluari (gormandize), hallucinari (dream), honera (burdens), honustum (burdened). For in all these words there seems to be no reason for that letter, or breathing, except to increase the force and vigour of the sound by adding certain sinews, so to speak.

But apropos of the inclusion of ahenum among my examples, I recall that Fidus Optatus, a grammarian of considerable repute in Rome, showed me a remarkably old copy of the second book of the Aeneid, bought in the Sigillaria [*](A street or quarter in Rome where the little images were sold which were given as presents at the festival of the Sigillaria; this was on Dec. 21 and 22, an extension of the Saturnalia, although not a religious holiday. The aureus was the standard gold coin of the Romans, of the value of 100 sesterces; its weight varied at different periods.) for twenty pieces of gold, which was believed to have belonged to

1. Before the entrance-court, hard by the gate,
2. With sheen of brazen (aena) arms proud Pyrrhus gleams,

1. Or skims with leaves the bubbling brass's (aleni) wave.

The reason given by Gavius Bassus for calling a certain kind of judicial inquiry divitiatio; and the explanation that others have given of the same term.

WHEN inquiry is made about the choice of a prosecutor, and judgment is rendered on the question to which of two or more persons the prosecution of a defendant, or a share in the prosecution, is to be entrusted, this process and examination by jurors is called divinatio.[*](Cf. Cicero's Divinatio in Caecilium, preliminary to the prosecution of Verres.) The reason for the use of this term is a matter of frequent inquiry.

Gavius Bassus, in the third book of his work On the Origin of Terms, says: [*](Fr. I. Fun.)

This kind of trial is called divinatio because the juror ought in a sense to divine what verdict it is proper for him to give.

divine

Thus Bassus. But some others think that the divinatio is so called because, while prosecutor and defendant are two things that are, as it were, related and connected, so that neither can exist without the other, yet in this form of trial, while there is already a defendant, there is as yet no prosecutor, and therefore the factor which is still lacking and unknown—namely, what man is to be the prosecutor—must be supplied by divination.