Noctes Atticae

In these words of Cicero, from his fifth oration Against Verres, hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futurum, there is no error in writing or grammar but those are wrong who do violence to good copies by writing futuram; and in that connection mention is also made of another word of Cicero's which, though correct, is wrongly changed; with a few incidental remarks on the melody and cadence of periods for which Cicero earnestly strove.

IN the fifth oration of Cicero Against Verres,[*](ii. 5. 167. ) in a copy of unimpeachable fidelity, since it was the result of Tiro's [*](Cicero's favourite freedman, who not only aided him in his literary work, but also, after the orator's death, collected, arranged, and published his patron's writings, in particular his correspondence.) careful scholarship, is this passage:

Men of low degree and humble birth sail the seas; they come to places which they had never before visited. They are neither known to those to whom they have come nor can they always find acquaintances to vouch for them, yet because of this mere faith in their citizenship they believe that they will be safe, not only before our magistrates, who are constrained by fear of the

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laws and public opinion, and not only among Roman citizens, who are united by the common bond of language, rights, and many interests, but wherever they may come, they hope that this possession will protect them.

It seemed to many that there was an error in the last word. For they thought that futuram should be written instead of futurum, and they were sure that the book ought to be corrected, lest like the adulterer in the comedy of Plautus [*](Bacch. 918.) —for so they jested about the error which they thought they had found—this solecism in an oration of Cicero's should be

caught in the act.

There chanced to be present there a friend of mine, who had become an expert from wide reading and to whom almost all the older literature had been the object of study, meditation and wakeful nights. He, on examining the book, declared that there was no mistake in writing or grammar in that word, but that Cicero had written correctly and in accordance with early usage.

For futurum is not,

said he, " to be taken with rem, as hasty and careless readers think, nor is it used as a participle. It is an infinitive, the kind of word which the Greeks call a)pare/mfatos or 'indeterminate,' affected neither by number nor gender, but altogether free and independent, such a word as Gaius Gracchus used in the speech entitled On Publius Popilius, delivered in the places of assembly, [*](Gracchus delivered two speeches against Popilius, one in the Forum at Rome (pro rostris), the other circum conciliabula, in the market-places of various towns of Latium; see Meyer, O. R. F,2 p. 239.) in which we read: 'I suppose that my enemies will say this.' He said dicturum, not dicturos; and is it not clear that dicturum in Gracchus is used according to the same principle as futurum in Cicero? Just as in the Greek language, without any suspicion of error, words such as e)rei=n, poih/sein, e)/sesqai, and the like, are used in all genders and all numbers without distinction." He added that in the third book of the Annals of Claudius Quadrigarius are these words: [*](Fr. 43, Peter.)

While they were being cut to pieces, the forces of the enemy would be busy there (copias . . . futurum)

; and at the beginning of the eighteenth book of the same Quadrigarius: [*](Fr. 79, Peter.)

If you enjoy health proportionate to your own merit and our good-will, we have reason to hope that the gods will bless the good (deos . . . facturum)

; that similarly Valerius Antias also in his twenty-fourth book wrote:

If those religious rites should be performed, and the omens should be wholly favourable, the soothsayers declared that everything would proceed as they desired (omnia . . .processurum esse).

[*](Fr. 59, Peter.)

Plautus also in the Casina, [*](v. 691.) speaking of a girl, used occisurum, not occisuram in the following passage: Has Casina a sword?—Yes, two of them.— Why two?—With one she'd fain the bailiff slay, With t'other you. So too Laberius in The Twins wrote: [*](v. 51, Ribbeck.3) I thought not she would do (facturum) it. Now, all those men were not unaware of the nature of a solecism, but Gracchus used dicturum, Quadrigarius futurum and facturum, Antias processurum, Plautus occisurum and Laberius facturum, in the infinitive mood, a mood which is not inflected for mood or number or person or tense or gender,

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but expresses them all by one and the same form, just as Marcus Cicero did not use fiturum in the masculine or neuter gender—for that would clearly be a solecism—but employed a form which is independent of any influence of gender.

[*](Cellius' friend was partly right. Such forms as dicturum were derived from the second supine dictu + *erom (earlier *esom), the infinitive of sum. Later, the resulting form dicturum was looked upon as a participle and declined. In the early writers such infinitives did not change their form, and did not add the tautological esse.)

Furthermore, that same friend of mine used to say that in the oration of that same Marcus Tullius On Pompey's Military Command [*](§ 33.) Cicero wrote the following, and so my friend always read it:

Since you know that your harbours, and those harbours from which you draw the breath of life, were in tile power of the pirates.

And he declared that in potestatem fuisse [*](That is, for in potestate.) was not a solecism, as the half-educated vulgar think, but he maintained that it was used in accordance with a definite and correct principle, one which the Greeks also followed; and Plautus, who is most choice in his Latinity, said in the Amphitruo: [*](v. 180. Leo reads num número mi in mentém fruit it hasn't just occurred to me, has it?)

1. Número mihi in mentém fuit,

not in mente, as we commonly say.

But besides Plautus, whom my friend used as an example in this instance, I myself have come upon a great abundance of such expressions in the early writers, and I have jotted them down here and there in these notes of mine. But quite apart from that rule and those authorities, the very sound and order of the words make it quite clear that it is more in accordance with the careful attention to diction and the rhythmical style of Marcus Tullius that, either

being good Latin, he should prefer to say potestatem rather than potestate. For the former construction is more agreeable to the ear and better rounded, the latter harsher and less finished, provided always that a man has an ear attuned to such distinctions, not one that is dull and sluggish; it is for the same reason indeed that he preferred to say explicavit rather than explicuit, which was already coming to be the commoner form.

These are his own words from the speech which he delivered On Pomnpey's Military Command: [*](§ 30.)

Sicily is a witness, which, begirt on all sides by many dangers, he freed (explicavit), not by the threat of war, but by his promptness in decision.

But if lie had said explicuit, the sentence would halt with weak and imperfect rhythm. [*](The cadence _u_u was a favourite one with Cicero at the end of a sentence.)

An anecdote found in the works of the philosopher Sotion about the courtesan Lais and the orator Demosthenes.

SOTION was a man of the Peripatetic school, far from unknown. He wrote a book filled with wide and varied information and called it Ke/ras )Amalqei/as,[*](The Horn of Amantheia; see Greek Index.) which is about equivalent to The Horn of Plenty.

In that book is found the following anecdote about the orator Demosthenes and the courtesan Lais:

Lais of Corinth,

he says,

used to gain a great deal of money by the grace and charm of her beauty, and was frequently visited by wealthy men from all over Greece; but no one was received who did not give what she demanded, and her

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demands were extravagant enough.

He says that this was the origin of the proverb common among the Greeks:

1. Not every man may fare to Corinth town, [*](Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 17. 36.)

for in vain would any man go to Corinth to visit Lais who could not pay her price.

The great Demosthenes approached her secretly and asked for her favours. But Lais demanded ten thousand drachmas

—a sum equivalent in our money to ten thousand denarii. [*](The drachma and the denarius (about 8d. or 16 cents) was the average wage of a day-labourer.)

Amazed and shocked at the woman's great impudence and the vast sum of money demanded, Demosthenes turned away, remarking as he left her: 'I will not buy regret at such a price.'

But the Greek words which he is said to have used are neater; he said: Ou)k w)nou=mai muri/wn draxmw=n metame/leian. [*](I will not buy regret for ten thousand drachmas.) .

What the method and what the order of the Pythagorean training was, and the amount of time which was prescribed and accepted as the period for learning and at the same time keeping silence.

IT is said that the order and method followed by Pythagoras, and afterwards by his school and his successors, in admitting and training their pupils were as follows: At the very outset he

physiognomized

the young men who presented themselves for instruction. That word means to inquire into the character and dispositions of men by an inference drawn from their facial appearance and expression, and from the form and bearing of their whole body. Then, when he had thus examined a man and found him suitable, he at once gave orders that he should be admitted to the school and should keep silence for a fixed period of time; this was not the same for all, but differed according to his estimate of the man's capacity for learning quickly. But the one who kept silent listened to what was said by others; he was, however, religiously forbidden to ask questions, if he had not fully understood, or to remark upon what he had heard. Now, no one kept silence for less than two years, and during the entire period of silent listening they were called a)koustikoi/ or

auditors.

But when they had learned what is of all things the most difficult, to keep quiet and listen, and had finally begun to be adepts in that silence which is called e)xemuqi/a or

continence in words,

they were then allowed to speak, to ask questions, and to write down what they had heard, and to express their own opinions. During this stage they were called maqhmatikoi/ or

students of science,

evidently from those branches of knowledge which they had now begun to learn and practise; for the ancient Greeks called geometry, gnomonics, [*](The science of dialling, concerned with the making and testing of sun-dials (gnw/mones).) music and other higher studies maqh/mata or

sciences

; but the common people apply the term mathematici to those who ought to be called by their ethnic name, Chaldaeans. [*](Chaldaei and mathematici were general terms for astrologers at Rome; see e.g. Suet. Dom. xiv. 1, xv. 3; Tib. lxix; etc.) Finally, equipped with this scientific training, they advanced to the investigation of the phenomena of the universe and the laws of nature, and then, and not till then, they were called fusikoi/ or

natural philosophers.

Having thus expressed himself about Pythagoras, my friend Taurus continued: "But nowadays these fellows who turn to philosophy on a sudden with unwashed feet, [*](Proverbial for without preparation.) not content with being wholly 'without purpose, without learning, and without scientific training,' even lay down the law as to how they are to be taught philosophy. One says, 'first teach me this,' another chimes in,' I want to learn this, I don't want to learn that'; one is eager to begin with the Symposiumn of Plato because of the revel of Alcibiades, [*](Ch. 30.) another with the Phaedrus on account of the speech of Lysias. [*](Ch. 6.) By Jupiter!" said he,

one man actually asks to read Plato, not in order to better his life, but to deck out his diction and style, not to gain in discretion, but in prettiness.

That is what Taurus used to say, in comparing the modern students of philosophy with the Pythagoreans of old.

But I must not omit this fact either—that all of them, as soon as they had been admitted by Pythagoras into that band of disciples, at once devoted to the common use whatever estate and property they had, and an inseparable fellowship was formed, like the old-time association which in Roman legal parlance was termed an

undivided inheritance.

[*](See Servius on Aen. viii. 612, ercto non cito, id est, hereditate non divisa; nam citus divisus siqnificat.)

In what terms the philosopher Favorinus rebuked a young man who used language that was too old-fashioned and archaic.

THE philosopher Favorinus thus addressed a young man who was very fond of old words and made a display in his ordinary, everyday conversation of many expressions that were quite too unfamiliar and archaic:

Curius,

said he,

and Fabricius and Coruncanius, men of the olden days, and of a still earlier time than these those famous triplets, the Horatii, talked clearly and intelligibly with their fellows, using the language of their own day, not that of the Aurunci, the Sicani, or the Pelasgi, who are said to have been the earliest inhabitants of Italy. You, on the contrary, just as if you were talking to-day with Evander's mother, [*](Evander, a Greek from Pallanteum in Arcadia, migrated to Italy and settled on the Palatine hill before the coming of Aeneas.) use words that have already been obsolete for many years, because you want no one to know and comprehend what you are saying. Why not accomplish your purpose more fully, foolish fellow, and say nothing at all? But you assert that you love the olden time, because it is honest, sterling, sober and temperate. Live by all means according to the manners of the past, but speak in the language of the present, and always remember and take to heart what Gaius Caesar, a man of surpassing talent and wisdom, wrote in the first book of his treatise On Analogy: [*](A work on grammar in two books, mentioned among the writings of Caesar by Suet. Jul. lvi. 5; Fronto, p. 221, Naber (L.C.L. ii, pp. 29 and 255 ff.); described by Cic. Brut. 253 as de ratione Latine loquendi.) 'Avoid, as you would a rock, a strange and unfamiliar word.'

The statement of the celebrated writer Thucydides, that the Lacedaemonians in battle used pipes and not trumpets, with a citation of his words on that subject; and the remark of Herodotus that king Alyattes had female lyre-players as part of his military equipment; and finally, some notes on the pipe used by Gracchus when addressing assemblies.

THUCYDIDES, the most authoritative of Greek historians, tells us [*](v. 70.) that the Lacedaemonians, greatest of warriors, made use in battle, not of signals by horns or trumpets, but of the music of pipes, certainly not in conformity with any religious usage or from any ceremonial reason, nor yet that their courage might be roused and stimulated, which is the purpose of horns and trumpets; but on the contrary that they might be calmer and advance in better order, because the effect of the flute-player's notes is to restrain impetuosity. So firmly were they convinced that in meeting the enemy and beginning battle nothing contributed more to valour and confidence than to be soothed by gentler sounds and keep their feelings under control. Accordingly, when the army was drawn up, and began to advance in battle-array against the foe, pipers stationed in the ranks began to play. Thereupon, by this quiet, pleasant, and even solemn prelude the fierce impetuosity of the soldiers was checked, in conformity with a kind of discipline of military music, so to speak, so that they might not rush forth in straggling disorder.

But I should like to quote the very words of that outstanding writer, which have greater distinction and credibility than my own:

And after this the

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attack began. The Argives and their allies rushed forward eagerly and in a rage, but the Lacedaemonians advanced slowly to the music of many flute-players stationed at regular intervals; this not for any religious reason, but in order that they might make the attack while marching together rhythmically, and that their ranks might not be broken, which commonly happens to great armies when they advance to the attack.

Tradition has it that the Cretans also commonly entered battle with the lyre playing before them and regulating their step. Futhermore, Alyattes, king of the land of Lydia, a man of barbaric manners and luxury, when he made war on the Milesians, as Herodotus tells us in his History, [*](i. 17.) had in his army and his battle-array orchestras of pipe and lyre-players, and even female flute-players, such as are the delight of wanton banqueters. Homer, however, says [*](Iliad, iii. 8.) that the Achaeans entered battle, relying, not on the music of lyres and pipes, but on silent harmony and unanimity of spirit:

1. In silence came the Achaeans, breathing rage,
2. Resolved in mind on one another's aid.

What then is the meaning of that soul-stirring shout of the Roman soldiers which, as the annalists have told us, was regularly raised when charging the foe? [*](This is approved by Julius Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 92. 5.) Was that done contrary to so generally accepted a rule of old-time discipline? Or are a quiet advance and silence needful when an army is marching against an enemy that is far off and visible from a distance, but when they have almost come to blows, then must the foe, already at close quarters, be driven back by a violent assault and terrified by shouting?

But, look you, the Laconian pipe-playing reminds me also of that oratorical pipe, which they say was played for Gaius Gracchus when he addressed the people, and gave him the proper pitch. But it is not at all true, as is commonly stated, that a musician always stood behind him as he spoke, playing the pipe, and by varying the pitch now restrained and now animated his feelings and his delivery. For what could be more absurd than that a piper should play measures, notes, and a kind of series of changing melodies for Gracchus when addressing an assembly, as if for a dancing mountebank? But more reliable authorities declare that the musician took his place unobserved in the audience and at intervals sounded on a short pipe a deeper note, to restrain and calm the exuberant energy of the orator's delivery. And that in my opinion is the correct view, for it is unthinkable that Gracchus' well-known natural vehemence needed any incitement or impulse from without. Yet Marcus Cicero thinks that the piper was employed by Gracchus for both purposes, in order that with notes now soft, now shrill, he might animate his oratory when it was becoming weak and feeble, or check it when too violent and passionate. I quote Cicero's own words: [*](De Orat. iii. 225.)

And so this same Gracchus, Catulus, as you may hear from your client Licinius, an educated man, who was at that time Gracchus' slave and amanuensis, [*](The more usual expression for amanuensis is (servus) a manu, but ad manum also occurs.) used to have a skilful musician stand behind him in concealment when he addressed an audience, who could quickly breathe a note to arouse the speaker if languid, or recall him from undue vehemence.

Finally, Aristotle wrote in his volume of Problems [*](The marching of the cowards, because of their fear, would not be in time with the music.) that the custom of the Lacedaemonians which I have mentioned, of entering battle to the music of pipers, was adopted in order to make the fearlessness and ardour of the soldiers more evident and indubitable.

For,

said he,

distrust and fear are not at all consistent with an advance of that kind, and such an intrepid and rhythmical advance cannot be made by the faint-hearted and despondent.

I have added a few of Aristotle's own words on the subject:

Why, when on the point of encountering danger, did they advance to music of the pipe? In order to detect the cowards by their failure to keep time.

* * * [*](Some comment on the quotation should follow. Hertz indicated a lacuna.)

AT what age, from what kind of family, by what rites, ceremonies and observances, and under what title a Vestal virgin is

taken

by the chief pontiff; what legal privileges she has immediately upon being chosen; also that, according to Labeo, she is lawfully neither heir of an intestate person, nor is anyone her heir, in case she dies without a will.

Those who have written about

taking

a Vestal virgin, of whom the most painstaking is Antistius Labeo, [*](De Iure Pontificali, fr. 21, Huschke; 3, Bremer.) have stated that it is unlawful for a girl to be chosen who is less than six, or more than ten, years old; she must also have both father and mother living; she must be free too from any impediment in her speech, must not have impaired hearing, or be marked by any other bodily defect; she must not herself have been freed from paternal control, [*](The Roman father had control over his children (patria potestas) until he died, or lost his civic rights through some misconduct, or voluntarily emancipated them; for a striking example see Suet. Tib. xv. 2.) nor her father before her, even if her father is still living and she is under the control of her grandfather; [*](If a man was emancipated after having children born to him, the latter remained under the control of their grand-father (cf. Gains, i. 133) and were legally orphans, hence not patrima et matrimra; Pruner, Hestia-Vesta, p. 273, N. 1.) neither one nor both of her parents may have been slaves or engaged in mean occupations. [*](Cf. Cic. De Off. i. 150.) But they say that one whose sister has been chosen to that priesthood acquires exemption, as well as one whose father is a1 flamen or an augur, one of the Fifteen in charge of the Sibylline Books, [*](The X V viri sacris faciundis, who had charge of the Sibylline Books. Tarquin appointed IIviri sacris faciundis for the purpose (Livy, v. 13. 6), but by the Licinian laws of 367 B.C. the number was increased to ten, five patricians and five plebeians. The Fifteen are first mentioned by Cicero (Epist. viii. 4. 1) in 51 B.C. They were ex-praetors or ex-consuls until a late period, and the priesthood continued to exist until the books were burned by Stilicho in the fourth century. ) one of the Seven who oversee the banquets of the gods, or a dancing priest of Mars. Exemption from that priesthood is regularly allowed also to the betrothed of a pontiff and to the daughter of a priest of the tubilustrium. [*](At the tubilustrium, on March 23, the trumpets used in sacred rites were purified by the tibicines sacrorum populi Romani; at the same time the Salii had their third procession in honour of Mars and Nerio; cf. Festus, 482. 27, Lindsay.) Furthermore the writings of Ateius Capito inform us [*](De lure Pontificali, fr. 11, Huschke; 7, Bremer.) that the daughter of a man without residence in Italy must not be chosen, and that the daughter of one who has three children must be excused.

Now, as soon as the Vestal virgin is chosen, escorted to the House of Vesta and delivered to the pontiffs, she immediately passes from the control of her father without the ceremony of emancipation or loss of civil rights, and acquires the right to make a will.

But as to the method and ritual for choosing a Vestal, there are, it is true, no ancient written records,

except that the first to be appointed was chosen by Numa. There is, however, a Papian law, [*](The date of this law is unknown; it is not identical with the lex Papia-Poppaea of 250 B.C.) which provides that twenty maidens be selected from the people at the discretion of the chief pontiff, that a choice by lot be made from that number in the assembly, [*](The comitia calata; see xv. 27. l. ff.) and that the girl whose lot is drawn be

taken

by the chief pontiff and become Vesta's. But that allotment in accordance with the Papian law is usually unnecessary at present. For if any man of respectable birth goes to the chief pontiff and offers his daughter for the priesthood, provided consideration may be given to her candidacy without violating any religious requirement, the senate grants him exemption from the Papian law.

Now the Vestal is said to be

taken,

it appears, because she is grasped by the hand of the chief pontiff and led away from the parent under whose control she is, as if she had been taken in war. In the first book of Fabius Pictor's History [*](Fr. 4, Huschke; 1, Bremer.) the formula is given which the chief pontiff should use in choosing a Vestal. It is this:

I take thee, Amata, as one who has fulfilled all the legal requirements, to be priestess of Vesta, to perform the rites which it is lawful for a Vestal to perform for the Roman people, the Quirites.

Now, many think that the term

taken

ought to be used only of a Vestal. But, as a matter of fact, the flamens of Jupiter also, as well as the augurs, were said to be

taken.

Lucius Sulla, in the second book of his Autobiography, [*](Fr. 2, Peter.) wrote as follows:

Publius Cornelius, the first to receive the surname Sulla, was taken to be flamen of Jupiter.

Marcus Cato, in his accusation of Servius Galba, says of the Lusitanians: [*](The title of the oration is variously given as Contra Servium Galbam and Pro Direptis Lusitanis; perhaps the two titles were combined in one. See Jordan's Cato, p. 27.)

Yet they say that they wished to revolt. I myself at the present moment wish a thorough knowledge of the pontifical law; shall I therefore be taken as chief pontiff? If I wish to understand the science of augury thoroughly, shall anyone for that reason take me as augur?

Furthermore, in the Commentaries on the Twelve Tables compiled by Labeo [*](Fr. 24, Huschke; 2, Bremer. The comment quoted by Gellius is on Twelve Tables V. 1.) we find this passage:

A Vestal virgin is not heir to any intestate person, nor is anyone her heir, should she die without making a will, but her property, they say, reverts to the public treasury. The legal principle involved is an unsettled question.

The Vestal is called

Amata

when taken by the chief pontiff, because there is a tradition that the first one who was chosen bore that name. [*](Various other reasons have been given, of which perhaps the most attractive is that it is from an original a)dama/ta, inwedded. According to Pruner, Hestia-Vesta, p. 276, followed by Rossbach in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v., amata is not a proper name, but means beloved.)