Noctes Atticae

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

most famous philosopher Democritus On the Power and Nature of the Chameleon, and that he had read it; and then he transmits to us many foolish and intolerable absurdities, alleging that they were written by Democritus. Of these unwillingly, since they disgust me, I recall a few, as follows: that the hawk, the swiftest of all birds, if it chance to fly over a chameleon which is crawling on the ground, is dragged down and falls through some force to the earth, and offers and gives itself up of its own accord to be torn to pieces by the other birds. Another statement too is past human belief, namely, that if the head and neck of the chameleon be burned by means of the wood which is called oak, rain and thunder are suddenly produced, and that this same thing is experienced if the liver of that animal is burned upon the roof of a house. There is also another story, which by heaven! I hesitated about putting down, so preposterous is it; but I have made it a rule that we ought to speak our mind about the fallacious seduction of marvels of that kind, by which the keenest minds are often deceived and led to their ruin, and in particular those which are especially eager for knowledge. But I return to Pliny. He says [*](xxviii. 115.) that the left foot of the chameleon is roasted with an iron heated in the fire, along with an herb called by the same name,

chameleon

; both are mixed in an ointment, formed into a paste, and put in a wooden vessel. He who carries the vessel, even if he go openly amid a throng, can be seen by no one.

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

Democritus wrote; namely, that there were certain birds with a language of their own, and that by mixing the blood of those birds a serpent was produced; that whoso ate it would understand the language of birds and their conversation.

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... .

[*](There is a lacuna and the sense is uncertain.)

On what principle the ancients said cum. partim hominum.

PARTIM homninum venerunt is a common expression, meaning

a part of the men came,

that is,

some men.

For partim is here an adverb and is not declined by cases. Hence we may say cum partim hominum, that is,

with some men

or

with a certain

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part of the men.

Marcus Cato, in his speech On the> property of Florius has written as follows: [*](p. 64. 8, Jordan.)

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.

The less educated, however, read cum parti, as if partim were declined as a noun, not used as an adverb.

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.

[*](Fr. 87, Peter. The passage is corrupt and unintelligible.) Also in the twenty-third book of the Annals of Claudius are these words: [*](Fr. 89, Peter.)

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,

I hear contumeliam dictum iri, or

insult will be offered,

commonly so used everywhere, and I notice that this form of expression is a general one; I therefore refrain from citing examples. But contumelia illi or iniuria factum itur,

injury or insult is going to be offered him,

is somewhat less common, and therefore I shall give an example of that. Marcus Cato, speaking For Himself against Gaius Cassius, says: [*](p. 63. 6, Jordan.)

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.

But just as contumeliam factum iri means

to go to inflict an injury,

that is, to take pains that it be inflicted, just so contumelia nihi factum itur expresses the same idea, merely with a change of case.

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

outside the pomerium, [*](The pomerium was the religious boundary of the city; see xiii. 14.) that is, the army in battle array; hence the priest of Jupiter is rarely made consul, since wars were entrusted to the consuls; also it is always unlawful for the priest to take an oath; likewise to wear a ring, unless it be perforated and without a gem. It is against the law for fire to be taken from the flaminia, that is, from the home of the flamen Dialis, except for a sacred rite; if a person in fetters enter his house, he must be loosed, the bonds must be drawn up through the impluvium [*](The opening in the roof of the atrium or main room of a Roman house.) to the roof and from there let down into the street. He has no knot in his head-dress, girdle, or any other part of his dress; if anyone is being taken to be flogged and falls at his feet as a suppliant, it is unlawful for the man to be flogged on that day. Only a free man may cut the hair of the Dialis. It is not customary for the Dialis to touch, or even name, a she-goat, raw flesh, ivy, and beans.

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

must not touch any bread fermented with yeast. He does not lay off his inner tunic except under cover, in order that he may not be naked in the open air, as it were under the eye of Jupiter. No other has a place at table above the flamen Dialis, except the rex sacrificulus. [*](The priest who succeeded the kings, after their expulsion, in presiding over the sacrifices. Although he nominally outranked the flamens and the pontifex maximus, the office was unimportant.) If the Dialis has lost his wife he abdicates his office. The marriage of the priest cannot be dissolved except by death. He never enters a place of burial, he never touches a dead body; but he is not forbidden to attend a funeral.

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.

The words of Marcus Varro about the flamen Dialis, in the second book of his Divine Antiquities, are as follows: [*](Fr. 4, p. cxiii, Merkel.)

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

[*](White was emblematic of royalty. Cf. Suetonius Jul. Ixxix, I.)

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,

said he,

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,

he adds,

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,

said he,

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,

he said,

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,

says He,

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,

says he,

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,

says Hyginus,

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,

says he,

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

he said,

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

reverence beyond all others and of the highest authority, of his own accord deprived himself of eyesight, because he believed that the thoughts and meditations of his mind in examining nature's laws would be more vivid and exact, if he should free them from the allurements of sight and the distractions offered by the eyes. This act of his, and the manner too in which he easily blinded himself by a most ingenious device, the poet Laberius has described, in a farce called The Ropemaker, in very elegant and finished verses; but he has imagined another reason for voluntary blindness and applied it with no little neatness to his own subject. For the character who speaks these lines in Laberius is a rich and stingy miser, lamenting in vigorous terms the excessive extravagance and dissipation of his young son. These are the verses of Laberius: [*](ii, 72, Ribbeck3.)

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

affection. Now Mausolus, as Marcus Tullius tells us, [*](Tusc. Disp. iii. 75.) was king of the land of Caria; according to some Greek historians he was governor of a province, the official whom the Greeks term a satrap. When this Mausolus had met his end amid the lamentations and in the arms of his wife, [*](In 353 B.C.) and had been buried with a magnificent funeral, Artemisia, inflamed with grief and with longing for her spouse, mingled his bones and ashes with spices, ground them into the form of a powder, put them in water, and drank them; and she is said to have given many other proofs of the violence of her passion. For perpetuating the memory of her husband, she also erected, with great expenditure of labour, that highly celebrated tomb, [*](The famous Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, adorned by Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leochares with sculptures, the remains of which are now in the British Museum. It was a square building, 140 feet high, surrounded by Ionic columns. It stood upon a lofty base and was surmounted by a pyramid of steps ending in a platform, on which was a four-horse chariot. The term mausoleum was applied by the Romans to large and magnificent tombs such as the mausoleum of Augustus and that of Hadrian.) which has been deemed worthy of being numbered among the seven wonders of the world. [*](The other six wonders were: The walls and hanging gardens of Babylon; the temple of Diana at Ephesus; the statue of Olympian Zeus by Phidias; the Pyramids; and the Pharos, or lighthouse, at Alexandria.) When Artemisia dedicated this monument, consecrated to the deified shades of Mausolus, she instituted an agon, that is to say, a contest in celebrating his praises, offering magnificent prizes of money and other valuables. Three men distinguished for their eminent talent and eloquence are said to have come to contend in this eulogy, Theopompus, Theodectes [*](The more approved spelling is Theodectas; see C.I.G. ii. 977.) and Naucrates; some have even written that Isocrates himself entered the lists with them. But Theopompus was adjudged the victor in that contest. He was a pupil of Isocrates.

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,

said he,

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.'

Thus did Taurus, by the use of every kind of persuasion and admonition, incline his disciples to the principles of a virtuous and blameless manner of life.

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,

said he,

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

If this definition is correct, neither the appeal for Pompey's military command, nor about the recall of Cicero, nor as to the murder or Clodius, nor any similar decrees of the people of commons, can be called laws. For they are not general decrees, and they are framed with regard, not to the whole body of citizens, but to individuals. Hence they ought rather to be called privilegia, or

privileges,

since the ancients used priva where we now use singula (private or individual). This word Lucilius used in the first book of his Satires: [*](v. 49, Marx.)

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,

from the populus, or

people,

since in the term

people

are embraced every part of the state and all its orders, but

commons

is properly applied to that part in which the patrician families of the citizens are not included. Therefore, according to Capito, a plebisscitum is a law which the commons, and not the people, adopt.

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,

and all are called by the indiscriminate and inexact name rogatio.

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

law

to the

privilege

which was passed with reference to the return of Gnaeus Pompeius. The passage, from the second book of his Histories, reads as follows: [*](ii. 21, Maur.)

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.