Noctes Atticae

Whether one ought to say tertium consul or tertio; and how Gnaeus Pompeius, when he would inscribe his honours on the theatre which he was about to dedicate, by Cicero's advice evaded the difficulty as to the form of that word.

I SENT a letter from Athens to a friend of mine in Rome. In it I said that I had now written him for the third time (tertium). In his reply he asked me to give my reason for having written tertium and not tertio. He added that he hoped I would at the same time inform him what I thought about the question whether one should say tertium consul, meaning

consul for the third time,

In reply to these questions, to decide both matters about which he had written to me, I contented myself with quoting Marcus Varro, a more learned man in my opinion than Coelius and Claudius together. For Varro has made it quite plain what ought to be said, and I did not wish, when at a distance, to enter into a dispute with a man who had the name of being learned.

Marcus Varro's words, in the fifth book of his Disciplinae, are as follows: [*](p. 202, Bipont.)

It is one thing to be made praetor quarto, and another quartum; for quarto refers to order and indicates that three were elected before him; [*](That is, that he was fourth in order of election.) quartum refers to time and indicates that he had been made praetor three times before. Accordingly Ennius was right when he wrote: [*](Ann. 295, Vahlen2.)

1. Quintus, his sire, a fourth time (quartum) consul is,

and Pompeius was timid when, in order to avoid writing consul tertium or tertio on his theatre, he did not write the final letters.

What Varro briefly and somewhat obscurely hinted at concerning Pompey, Tullius Tiro, Cicero's freedman, wrote at greater length in one of his letters, substantially as follows: [*](p. 12, Lion.)

When Pompey was preparing to consecrate the temple of Victory, the steps of which formed his theatre, [*](Because of the sentiment against a permanent theatre at Rome, Pompey placed a temple of Venus Victrix at the top of his theatre, so that the seats of the auditorium formed an approach to it. It was built in 55 B.C.) and to inscribe upon it his name and honours, the question arose whether consul tertium should be written, or tertio. Pompey took great pains to refer this question to the most learned men of Rome, and when there was difference of opinion, some maintaining that tertio ought to be written, others tertium, Pompey asked Cicero,

to decide upon what seemed to him the more correct form.

He accordingly advised Pompey to write neither tertium nor tertio, but to inscribe the first

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four letters only, so that the meaning was shown without writing the whole word, but yet the doubt as to the form of the word was concealed.

But that of which Varro and Tiro spoke is not now written in that way on this same theatre. For when, many years later, the back wall of the stage had fallen and was restored, the number of the third consulship was indicated, not as before, by the first four letters, but merely by three incised lines. [*](That is, by the Roman numeral III.)

However, in the fourth book of Marcus Cato's Origines we find: [*](Fr. 84, Peter2.)

The Carthaginians broke the treaty for the sixth time (sextum).

What Aristotle has recorded about the number of children born at one time.

THE philosopher Aristotle has recorded [*](Cf. Hist. Anim. vii. 4, p. 584, 29.) that a woman in Egypt bore five children at one birth; this, he said, was the limit of human multiple parturition; more children than that had never been known to be born at one time, and even that number was very rare. But in the reign of the deified Augustus the historians of the time say that a maid servant of Caesar Augustus in the region of Laurentum brought forth five children, and that they lived for a few days; that their mother died not long after she had been delivered, whereupon a monument was erected to her by order of Augustus

A collection of famous passages from the speeches of Gaius Gracchus, Marcus Cicero and Marcus Cato, and a comparison of them.

GAIUS GRACCHUS is regarded as a powerful and vigorous speaker. No one disputes this. But how can one tolerate the opinion of some, that he was more impressive, more spirited and more fluent than Marcus Tullius? Indeed, I lately read the speech of Gaius Gracchus On the Promulgation of Laws, in which, with all the indignation of which he is master, he complains that Marcus Marius and other distinguished men of the Italian free-towns were unlawfully beaten with rods by magistrates of the Roman people.

His words on the subject are as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 236, Meyer3.)

The consul lately came to Teanum Sidicinum. His wife said that she wished to bathe in the men's baths. Marcus Marius, the quaestor of Sidicinum, was instructed to send away the bathers from the baths. The wife tells her husband that the baths were not given up to her soon enough and that they were not sufficiently clean. Therefore a stake was planted in the forum and Marcus Marius, the most illustrious man of his city, was led to it. His clothing was stripped off, he was whipped with rods. The people of Cales, when they heard of this, passed a decree that no one should think of using the public baths when a Roman magistrate was in town. At Ferentinum, for the

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same reason, our praetor ordered the quaestors to be arrested; one threw himself from the wall, the other was caught and beaten with rods.

In speaking of such an atrocious action, in so lamentable and distressing a manifestation of public injustice, has he said anything either fluent or brilliant, or in such a way as to arouse tears and pity; is there anything that shows an outpouring of indignation and solemn and impressive remonstrance? Brevity there is, to be sure, grace, and a simple purity of expression, such as we sometimes have in the more refined of the comedies.

Gracchus also in another place speaks as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 236, Meyer.2)

I will give you a single example of the lawlessness of our young men, and of their entire lack of self-control. Within the last few years a young man who had not yet held a magisterial office was sent as an envoy from Asia. He was carried in a litter. A herdsman, one of the peasants of Venusia, met him, and not knowing whom they were bearing, asked in jest if they were carrying a corpse. Upon hearing this, the young man ordered that the litter be set down and that the peasant be beaten to death with the thongs by which it was fastened.

Now these words about so lawless and cruel an outrage do not differ in the least from those of ordinary conversation. But in Marcus Tullius, when in a similar case Roman citizens, innocent men, are beaten with rods contrary to justice and contrary to the laws, or tortured to death, what pity is then aroused! What complaints does he utter! How he brings the whole scene before our eyes! What a mighty surge of indignation and bitterness comes seething forth! By Heaven! when I read those

The man himself came into the forum, blazing with wickedness and frenzy. His eyes burned, every feature of his face displayed cruelty. All were waiting to see to what ends he would go, or what he would do, when on a sudden he gave orders that the man be dragged forth, that he be stripped in the middle of the forum and bound, and that rods be brought.

he ordered that he be stripped and bound, and rods brought

But Gracchus plays the part, not of one who complains or implores, but of a mere narrator:

A stake,

was planted in the forum, his clothing was stripped off, he was beaten with rods.

he was beaten,

a citizen of Rome was being beaten with rods in the middle of the forum at Messana, while in the meantime no groan, no sound was heard from that wretched man amid his torture and the resounding blows except these words, 'I am a Roman citizen.' By thus calling to mind his citizenship he hoped to avert all their stripes and free his body from torture.

O beloved name of liberty! O

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eminent justice of our country! O Porcian and Sempronian laws! O authority of the tribunes, earnestly desired and finally restored to the Roman commons! Pray, have all these blessings fallen to this estate, that a Roman citizen, in a province of the Roman people, in a town of our allies, should be bound and flogged in the forum by one who derived the emblems of his power from the favour of the Roman people? What! when fire and hot irons and other tortures were applied, although your victim's bitter lamentation and piteous outcries did not affect you, were you not moved by the tears and loud groans even of the Roman citizens who were then present?

These outrages Marcus Tullius bewailed bitterly and solemnly, in appropriate and eloquent terms. But if anyone has so rustic and so dull an ear that this brilliant and delightful speech and the harmonious arrangement of Cicero's words do not give him pleasure; if he prefers the earlier oration because it is unadorned, concise and unstudied, yet has a certain native charm, and because it has, so to say, a shade and colour of misty antiquity—let such a one, if he has any judgment at all, study the address in a similar case of Marcus Cato, a man of a still earlier time, to whose vigour and flow of language Gracchus could never hope to attain. He will realize, I think, that Cato was not content with the eloquence of his own time, but aspired to do even then what Cicero later accomplished. For in the speech which is entitled On Sham Battles he thus made complaint of Quintus Thermus: [*](ix, Jordan.)

He said that his provisions had not been satisfactorily attended to by the decemvirs. [*](The local magistrates.) He ordered them to be stripped and scourged. The

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Bruttiani [*](See § 18, below.) scourged the decemvirs, many men saw it done. Who could endure such an insult, such tyranny, such slavery? No king has ever dared to act thus; shall such outrages be inflicted upon good men, born of a good family, and of good intentions? Where is the protection of our allies? Where is the honour of our forefathers? To think that you have dared to inflict signal wrongs, blows, lashes, stripes, these pains and tortures, accompanied with disgrace and extreme ignominy, since their fellow citizens and many other men looked on! But amid how great grief, what groans, what tears, what lamentations have I heard that this was done! Even slaves bitterly resent injustice; what feeling do you think that such men, sprung from good families, endowed with high character, had and will have so long as they live?

When Cato said

the Bruttiani scourged them,

floggers

How Publius Nigidius with great cleverness showed that words are not arbitrary, but natural.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS in his Grammatical Notes shows that nouns and verbs were formed, not by a chance use, but by a certain power and design of nature, a subject very popular in the discussions of the philosophers; for they used to inquire whether words originate by

nature

When we say vos, or 'you,'

we make a movement of the mouth suitable to the meaning of the word; for we gradually protrude the tips of our lips and direct the impulse of the breath towards those with whom we are speaking. But on the other hand, when we say nos, or 'us,' we do not pronounce the word with a powerful forward impulse of the voice, nor with the lips protruded, but we restrain our breath and our lips, so to speak, within ourselves. The same thing happens in the words tu or 'thou,' ego or ' I,' tibi ' to thee,' and mihi 'to me.' For just as when we assent or dissent, a movement of the head or eyes corresponds with the nature of the expression, so too in the pronunciation of these words there is a kind of natural gesture made with the mouth and breath. The same principle that we have noted in our own speech applies also to Greek words.

Whether avarus is a simple word or, as it appears to Publius Nigidius, a compound, made up of two parts.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in the twenty-ninth book of his Commentaries,[*](Fr. 42, Swoboda.) declares that avarus is not a simple word, but is compounded of two parts:

For that man,

is called avarus, or 'covetous,' who is avidus aeris, or 'eager for money;' but in the compound the letter e is lost.

rich,

many possessions.

But his statement about locuples is the stronger and more probable. As to avarus there is doubt; for why may it not seem to be derived from one single word, namely aveo, [*](This is, of course, the accepted etymology. The derivation of amarus is uncertain; it is perhaps connected with Greek w)mo/s, raw (cf. crudus and crudelis). Sanscrit âma-s.) and formed in the same way as amarus, about which there is general agreement that it is not a compound?

That a fine was imposed by the plebeian aediles on the daughter of Appius Caecus, a woman of rank, because she spoke too arrogantly.

PUBLIC punishment was formerly inflicted, not only upon crimes, but even upon arrogant language; so necessary did men think it to maintain the dignity of Roman conduct inviolable. For the daughter of the celebrated Appius Caecus, when leaving the plays of

What, pray, would have become of me, and how much more should I have been crowded and pressed upon, had not my brother Publius Claudius lost his fleet in the sea-fight and with it a vast number of citizens? [*](In 249 B.C. He was warned not to fight by the refusal of the sacred chickens to eat; but he threw them overboard, saying that they might drink, since they would not eat. See Suet. Tib. ii. 2.) Surely I should have lost my life, overwhelmed by a still greater mass of people. How I wish,

that my brother might come to life again, take another fleet to Sicily, and destroy that crowd which has just knocked poor me about.

Marcus Varro, I remember, writes that of the rivers which flow outside [*](This was true in Varro's time.) the limits of the Roman empire the Nile is first in size, the Danube second, and next the Rhone.

OF all the rivers which flow into the seas included within the Roman empire, which the Greeks call

the inner sea,

That among the ignominious punishments which were inflicted upon soldiers was the letting of blood; and what seems to be the reason for such a penalty.

THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind. [*](Muretus, Var. Lect. xiii, p. 199, thought it was in order that they night lose with ignominy the blood which they had been unwilling to shed for their country.)

In what way and in what form the Roman army is commonly drawn up, and the names of the formations.

THERE are military terms which are applied to an army drawn up in a certain manner:

the front,

reserves,

wedge,

ring,

mass,

shears,

saw,

wings,

towers.

The reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans wore a ring on the next to the little finger of the left hand.

I HAVE heard that the ancient Greeks wore a ring on the finger of the left hand which is next to the little finger. They say, too, that the Roman men commonly wore their rings in that way. Apion in his Egyptian History says [*](F.H.G. iii. 511.) that the reason for this practice is, that upon cutting into and opening human bodies, a custom in Egypt which the Greeks call a)natomai/, or

dissection,

The derivation and meaning of the word mature, and that it is generally used improperly; and also that the genitive of praecox is praecocis and not praecoquis.

MATURE in present usage signifies

hastily

quickly,

Mature means neither 'too soon' nor 'too late,' but something between the two and intermediate.

Publius Nigidius has spoken well and properly. For of grain and fruits those are called matura, or

mature,

untimely.

That limitation of the word, and of the action itself, which was made by Nigidius was very elegantly expressed by the deified Augustus with two Greek words; for we are told that he used to say in conversation, and write in his letters, speu=de brade/ws, that is,

make haste slowly,

1. Whenever winter's rains the hind confine,
2. Much is there that at leisure may be done (maturare),
3. Which in fair weather he must hurry on (properanda).

But when we wish to indicate that anything has been done under too great pressure and too hurriedly, then it is more properly said to have been done praemature, or

prematurely,

1. With madness premature (praemature) you seek a hasty power.

Of extravagant tales which Plinius Secundus most unjustly ascribes to the philosopher Democritus; and also about the flying image of a dove.

PLINY THE ELDER, in the twenty-eighth book of his Natural History asserts [*](xxviii. 112.) that there is a book of that

chameleon

I think that these marvellous and false stories written by Plinius Secundus are not worthy of the name of Democritus; the same is true of what the same Pliny, in his tenth book, asserts [*](x. 137.) that

Many fictions of this kind seem to have been attached to the name of Democritus by ignorant men, who sheltered themselves under his reputation and authority. But that which Archytas the Pythagorean is said to have devised and accomplished ought to seem no less marvellous, but yet not wholly absurd. For not only many eminent Greeks, but also the philosopher Favorinus, a most diligent searcher of ancient records, have stated most positively that Archytas made a wooden model of a dove with such mechanical ingenuity and art that it flew; so nicely balanced was it, you see, with weights and moved by a current of air enclosed and hidden within it. About so improbable a story I prefer to give Favorinus' own words:

Archytas the Tarentine, being in other lines also a mechanician, made a flying dove out of wood. Whenever it lit, it did not rise again. For until this... .

On what principle the ancients said cum. partim hominum.

PARTIM homninum venerunt is a common expression, meaning

a part of the men came,

some men.

with some men

with a certain

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part of the men.

There she acted like a harlot, she went from the banquet straight to the couch and with a part of them (cum partim illorum) she often conducted herself in the same manner.

But Quintus Claudius, in the twenty-first book of his Annals, has used this figure in a somewhat less usual manner; he says:

For with the part of the forces (cum partim copiis) of young men that was pleasing to him.

But that I therefore acted thus, but whether to say that it happened from the negligence of a part of the magistrates (neglegentia partim magistratum), from avarice, or from the calamity of the Roman people, I know not.

In what connection Cato said iniuria mihi factum itur.

I HEAR the phrase illi iniuriam factum iri, or

injury will be done to him,

insult will be offered,

injury or insult is going to be offered him,

And so it happened, fellow citizens, that in this insult which is going to be put upon me (quae mihi factum itur) by the insolence of this man I also, fellow citizens (so help me!), pity our country.

to go to inflict an injury,

Of the ceremonies of the priest and priestess of Jupiter; and words quoted from the praetor's edict, in which he declares that he will not compel either the Vestal virgins or the priest of Jupiter to take oath.

CEREMONIES in great number are imposed upon the priest of Jupiter [*](The flamen was the special priest of an individual deity. There were three flamines maiores—of Jupiter (Dialis), Mars and Quirinus—and twelve flamines minores. For taboos imposed on priests see Frazer, Golden Bough, ch. 2.) and also many abstentions, of which we read in the books written On the Public Priests; and they are also recorded in the first book of Fabius Pictor. [*](Fr. 19, 24, 35, 46, R. Peter; fr. 3, Huschke; id. Bremer (i, p. 10).) Of these the following are in general what I remember: It is unlawful for the priest of Jupiter to ride upon a horse; it is also unlawful for him to see the

classes [*](Classis originally meant one of the classes into which the citizens were divided by the Servian constitution, then, collectively, the army composed of the classes.) arrayed

The priest of Jupiter must not pass under an arbour of vines. The feet of the couch on which he sleeps must be smeared with a thin coating of clay, and he must not sleep away from this bed for three nights in succession, and no other person must sleep in that bed. At the foot of his bed there should be a box with sacrificial cakes. The cuttings of the nails and hair of the Dialis must be buried in the earth under a fruitful tree. Every day is a holy day for the Dialis. He must not be in the open air without his cap; that he might go without it in the house has only recently been decided by the pontiffs, so Masurius Sabinus wrote, [*](Fr. 28, Huschke; Memor. 16, Bremer (ii, p. 372).) and it is said that some other ceremonies have been remitted and he has been excused from observing them.

The priest of Jupiter

The ceremonies of the priestess of Jupiter are about the same; they say that she observes other separate ones: for example, that she wears a dyed robe, that she has a twig from a fruitful tree in her head-dress, that it is forbidden for her to go up more than three rounds of a ladder, except the so called Greek ladders; [*](What these were is uncertain. Probably they offered less exposure of the person than an ordinary ladder.) also, when she goes to the Argei, [*](The term Argei was applied to twenty-four chapels distributed among the four regions of early Rome, and also called Sacella Argeiorum and Argea. It also designated the same number of puppets, or bundles of straw in the shape of men, which were thrown from the Pons Sublicius into the Tiber by the Vestal virgins on the Ides of May. See Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp. 111 ff. and Thes. Ling. Lat. s.v. Argei.) that she neither combs her head nor dresses her hair.

I have added the words of the praetor in his standing edict concerning the flamen Dialis and the priestess of Vesta: [*](Fontes Jur. Rom., p. 197.)

In the whole of my jurisdiction I will not compel the flamen of Jupiter or a priestess of Vesta to take an oath.

He alone has a white cap, either because he is the greatest of priests, or because a white victim should be sacrificed to Jupiter.

Errors in Roman History which Julius Hyginus noted in Virgil's sixth book.

HYGINUS criticizes [*](Fr. 7, Fun.) a passage in Virgil's sixth book and thinks that he would have corrected it. Palinurus is in the Lower World, begging Aeneas to take care that his body be found and buried. His words are: [*](Aen. vi. 365 ff.)

1. O save me from these ills, unconquered one;
2. Or throw thou earth upon me, for you can,
3. And to the port of Velia return.

How,

could either Palinurus know and name 'the port of Velia,' or Aeneas find the place from that name, when the town of Velia, from which he has called the harbour in that place 'Veline' was founded in the Lucanian district and called by that name when Servius Tullius was reigning in Rome, [*](578—534 B.C., traditional chronology.) more than six hundred years after Aeneas came to Italy? For of those,

who were driven from the land of Phocis [*](Phocis, a district of Greece west of Boeotia, was confused by Hyginus with Phocaea, a city on the western coast of Asia Minor.) by Harpalus, [*](Probably an error for Harpagus.) prefect of king Cyrus, some founded Velia, and others Massilia. Most absurdly, then, does Palinurus ask Aeneas to seek out the Veline port, when at that time no such name existed anywhere. Nor ought that to be considered a similar error,

which occurs in the first book: [*](Aen. i. 2.)

1. Exiled by fate, to Italy fared and to Lavinian strand,

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and similarly in the sixth book: [*](Alen. vi. 17.)

1. At last stood lightly poised on the Chalcidian height,

since it is usually allowed the poet himself to mention, kata\ pro/lhyin, 'by anticipation,' in his own person some historical facts which took place later and of which he himself could know; just as Virgil knew the town of Lavinium and the colony from Calchis. But how could Palinurus,

know of events that occurred six hundred years later, unless anyone believes that in the Lower World he had the power of divination, as in fact the souls of the deceased commonly do? But even if you understand it in that way, although nothing of the kind is said, yet how could Aeneas, who did not have the power of divination, seek out the Veline port, the name of which at that time, as we have said before, was not in existence anywhere?

He also censures the following passage in the same book, and thinks that Virgil would have corrected it, had not death prevented:

For,

when he had named Theseus among those who had visited the Lower World and returned, and had said: [*](Aen. vi. 122.)

1. But why name Theseus? why Alcides great?
2. And my race too is from almighty Jove,

he nevertheless adds afterwards: [*](Aen.vi. 617.)

1. Unhappy Theseus sits, will sit for aye.

But how,

could it happen that one should sit for ever in the Lower World whom the poet mentions before among those who went down there and returned again, especially when the story of

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Theseus says that Hercules tore him from the rock and led him to the light of the Upper World?

He also says that Virgil erred in these lines: [*](Aen. vi. 838. The rendering is by Rhoades, except for spotless in the last line.)

1. He Argos and Mycenae shall uproot,
2. City of Agamemnon, and the heir
3. Of Aeacus himself, from war-renowned
4. Achilles sprung, [*](Neoptolemus, also called Pyrrus (or Pyrrhus), the son of Achilles and Deidameia.) his ancestors of Troy
5. Avenging and Minerva's spotless shrine. [*](Probably either Gellius or Hyginus misquotes Virgil. With their version we have a transfer of the epithet intemerata from Minerva to her shrine.)

He has confounded,

different persons and times. For the wars with the Achaeans and with Pyrrus were not waged at the same time nor by the same men. For Pyrrus, whom he calls a descendant of Aeacus, having crossed over from Epirus into Italy, waged war with the Romans against Manius Curius, who was their leader in that war. [*](280—275 B.C.) But the Argive, that is, the Achaean war, was carried on many years after under the lead of Lucius Mummius. [*](146 B.C.) The middle verse, therefore, about Pyrrus,

may be omitted, since it was inserted inopportunely; and Virgil,

undoubtedly would have struck it out.

Why and how the philosopher Democritus deprived himself of his eye-sight; and the very fine and elegant verses of Laberius on that subject.

IT is written in the records of Grecian story that the philosopher Democritus, a man worthy of

1. Democritus, Abdera's scientist,
2. Set up a shield to face Hyperion's rise,
3. That sight he might destroy by blaze of brass,
4. Thus by the sun's rays he destroyed his eyes,
5. Lest he should see bad citizens' good luck;
6. So I with blaze and splendour of my gold,
7. Would render sightless my concluding years,
8. Lest I should see my spendthrift son's good luck.

The story of Artemisia; and of the contest at the tomb of Mausolus in which celebrated writers took part.

ARTEMISIA is said to have loved her husband Mausolus with a love surpassing all the tales of passion and beyond one's conception of human

The tragedy of Theodectes, entitled Mausolus, is still extant to-day; and that in it Theodectes was more pleasing than in his prose writings is the opinion of Hyginus in his Examples. [*](Fr. 1, Peter.)

That a sin is not removed or lessened by citing in excuse similar sins which others have committed; with a passage front a speech of Demosthenes on that subject.

THE philosopher Taurus once reproved a young man with severe and vigorous censure because he had turned from the rhetoricians and the study of eloquence to the pursuit of philosophy, declaring that he had done something dishonourable and shameful. Now the young man did not deny the allegation, but urged in his defence that it was commonly done and tried to justify the baseness of the fault by citing examples and by the excuse of custom. And then Taurus, being the more irritated by the very nature of his defence, said:

Foolish and worthless fellow, if the authority and rules of philosophy do not deter you from following bad examples, does not even the saying of your own celebrated Demosthenes occur to you? For since it is couched in a polished and graceful form of words, it might, like a sort of rhetorical catch, the more easily remain fixed in your memory. For,

if I do not forget what as a matter of fact I read in my early youth, these are the words of Demosthenes, spoken against one who, as you now do, tried to justify and excuse his own sin by those of others: [*](Adv. Androt. 7, p. 595. ) 'Say not, Sir, that this has often been done, but that it ought to be so done; for if anything was ever done contrary to the

v2.p.267

laws, and you followed that example, you would not for that reason justly escape punishment, but you would suffer much more severely. For just as, if anyone had suffered a penalty for it, you would not have proposed this, so if you suffer punishment now, no one else will propose it.'

The meaning of rogatio, lex, plebisscitum and privilegium, and to what extent all those terms differ.

I HEAR it asked what the meaning is of lex, plebisscitum, rogatio, and privilegium. Ateius Capito, a man highly skilled in public and private law, defined the meaning of lex in these words: [*](Fr. 22, Huschke; Coniect. fr. 13, Bremer.)

A law,

is a general decree of the people, or of the commons, answering an appeal [*](That is, a royatio.) made to them by a magistrate.

privileges,

1. I'll give them, when they come, each his own (priva) piece
2. Of tunny belly and acarne [*](The acarne was a kind of sea-fish.) heads.

Capito, however, in the same definition divided [*](Fr. 23, Huschke; 14, Bremer.) the plebes, [*](The older form of the nominative plebs.) or

commons,

people,

people

commons

But the head itself, the origin, and as it were the fount of this whole process of law is the rogatio, whether the appeal (rogatio) is to the people or to the commons, on a matter relating to all or to individuals. For all the words under discussion are understood and included in the fundamental principle and name of rogatio; for unless the people or commons be appealed to (rogetur), no decree of the people or commons can be passed.

But although all this is true, yet in the old records we observe that no great distinction is made among the words in question. For the common term lex is used both of decrees of the commons and of

privileges,

Even Sallust, who is most observant of propriety in the use of words, has yielded to custom and applied the term

law

privilege

For when Sulla, as consul, proposed a law (legem) touching his return, the tribune of the commons, Gaius Herennius, had vetoed it by previous arrangement.