Noctes Atticae

How Quintus Ennius rivalled [*](The principle of rivalry, the a)gw/n, was a recognized feature of literary technique.) certain verses of Euripides.

IN the Hecuba of Euripides there are some verses remarkable and brilliant in their diction, their thought and their terseness. Hecuba is speaking to Ulysses: [*](v. 293; the translation is that of Way, L.C.L.)

1. Thine high repute, how ill soe'er thou speak'st,
2. Shall sway them; for the same speech carrieth not
3. Like weight from men contemned and men revered.

These verses Quintus Ennius, when he translated that tragedy, rivalled with no little success. The verses of Ennius are the same in number, as follows: [*](v. 165, Ribbeck3.)

1. Though thou speak'st ill, thou wilt the Achivi sway;
2. The selfsame words and speech have other weight
3. When spoken by the great and by the obscure.

Ennius, as I have said, did well; but yet ignobiles and opulenti do not seem to express the full force of a)docou/ntwn and dokou/ntwn; for not all who are obscure are contemned, nor are the great all revered.

Some brief notes about the Pyrronian philosophers and the Academics; and of the difference between them.

THOSE whom we call the Pyrronian philosophers are designated by the Greek name skeptikoi/, or

sceptics,

which means about the same as

inquirers

and

investigators.

For they decide nothing and determine nothing, but are always engaged in inquiring and considering what there is in all nature concerning which it is possible to decide and determine. And moreover they believe that they do not see or hear anything clearly, but that they undergo and experience something like seeing and hearing; but they are in doubt as to the nature and character of those very things which cause them those experiences, and they deliberate about them: and they declare that in everything assurance and absolute truth seem so beyond our grasp, owing to the mingling and confusing of the indications of truth and falsehood, that any man who is not rash and precipitate in his judgment ought to use the language which they say was used by Pyrro, the founder of that philosophy:

Does not this matter stand so, rather than so, or is it neither?

For they deny that proofs of anything and its real qualities can be known and understood, and they try in many ways to point this out and demonstrate it. On this subject Favorinus too with great keenness and subtlety has composed ten books, which he entitled Purrwnei=oi Tro/poi, or The Pyrronian Principles. [*](p. 88, Marres. Apparently a discussion of the arguments by which the Pyrronian philosophers supported their beliefs.)

It is besides a question of long standing, which has been discussed by many Greek writers, whether the Pyrronian and Academic philosophers differ at all, and to what extent. For both are called

sceptics, inquirers and doubters,

since both affirm nothing and believe that nothing is understood. But they say that appearances, which they call fantasi/ai, are produced from all objects, not according to the nature of the objects themselves, but according to the condition of mind or body of those to whom those appearances come. Therefore they call absolutely all things that affect men's senses ta\ pro/s ti. [*](That is, things relative to something else.) This expression means that there is nothing at all that is self-dependent or which has its own power and nature, but that absolutely all things have

reference

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to something else

and seem to be such as their appearance is while they are seen, and such as they are formed by our senses, to which they come, not by the things themselves, from which they have proceeded. But although the Pyrronians and the Academics express themselves very much alike about these matters, yet they are thought to differ from each other both in certain other respects and especially for this reason—because the Academics do, as it were,

comprehend

[*](Comprehendo is used in a technical sense; cf. Cic. Acad. Pr. ii. 47, cum plane compresserat (manum) pugnumque fecerat, comprehensionem illam esse dicebat; also Acad. Post. i. 11, where kata/lhpton is rendered by comprehensio, and kata/lhyin by rebus quae manu prenderentur.) the very fact that nothing can be comprehended, and, as it were, decide that nothing can be decided, while the Pyrronians assert that not even that can by any means be regarded as true, because nothing is regarded as true.

That at Rome women did not swear by Hercules nor men by Castor.

IN our early writings neither do Roman women swear by Hercules nor the men by Castor. But why the women did not swear by Hercules is evident, since they abstain from sacrificing to Hercules. On the other hand, why the men did not name Castor in oaths is not easy to say. Nowhere, then, is it possible to find an instance, among good writers, either of a woman saying

by Hercules

or a man,

by Castor

; but edepol, which is an oath by Pollux, is common to both man and woman. Marcus Varro, however, asserts [*](p. 375, Bipont.) that the earliest men were wont to swear neither by Castor nor by Pollux, but that this oath was used by women alone and was taken from the Eleusinian initiations; that gradually, however, through ignorance of ancient usage, men began to say edepol, and thus it became a customary expression; but that the use of

by Castor

by a man appears in no ancient writing.

That very old words which have become antiquated and obsolete ought not to be used.

To use words that are too antiquated and worn out, or those which are unusual and of a harsh and unpleasant novelty, seems to be equally faulty. But for my own part I think it more offensive and censurable to use words that are new, unknown and unheard of, than those that are trite and mean. Furthermore, I maintain that those words also seem new which are out of use and obsolete, even though they are of ancient date. [*](Cf. Hor. Ars. Poet. 46 ff.) In fact, it is a common fault of lately acquired learning, or o)yimaqi/a as the Greeks call it, to make a great point anywhere and everywhere, and in connection with any subject whatever, to talk about what you have never learned and of which you were long ignorant, when at last you have begun to know something about it. For instance, at Rome in my presence a man of experience and celebrated as a pleader, who had acquired a sudden and, so to speak, haphazard kind of education, was speaking before the prefect of the city and wished to say that a certain man lived upon poor and wretched food, ate bread made from bran,

and drank flat and spoiled wine:

This Roman knight,

said he,

eats apluda and drinks flocces.

All who were present looked at one another, at first somewhat seriously, with a disturbed and inquiring aspect, wondering what in the world the two words meant; then presently they all burst into a laugh, as if he had said something in Etruscan or Gallic. Now that man had read that the farmers of ancient days called the chaff of grain apluda, and that the word was used by Plautus in the comedy entitled Astraba, [*](14, Götz; 16, Linds.) if that play be the work of Plautus. He had also heard that flocces in the early language meant the lees of wine pressed from the skins of grapes, corresponding to the dregs of oil from olives. This he had read in the Polumeni [*](The Pwlou/menoi, or Men offered for sale.) of Caecilius, [*](190, Ribbeck3.) and he had saved up those two words as ornaments for his speeches.

Another Einfaltspinsel also, after some little reading of that kind, when his opponent requested that a case be postponed, said:

I pray you, praetor, help me, aid me! How long, pray, shall this bovinator delay me?

And he bawled it out three or four times in a loud voice:

He is a bovinator.

A murmur began to arise from many of those who were present, as if in wonder at this monster of a word. But he, waving his arms and gesticulating, cried:

What, haven't you read Lucilius, who calls a shuffler bovinator?

And, in fact, this verse occurs in Lucilius' eleventh book: [*](417, Marx.)

If trifling shuffler (bovinator) with abusive tongue.

What Marcus Cato thought and said of Albinus, who, though a Roman, wrote a history of Rome in the Greek language, having first asked indulgence for his lack of skill in that tongue.

MARCUS CATO is said to have rebuked Aulus Albinus with great justice and neatness. Albinus, who had been consul with Lucius Lucullus, [*](In 151 B.C.) composed a Roman History in the Greek language. In the introduction to his work he wrote to this effect: [*](Fr. 1, Peter2.) that no one ought to blame him if he had written anything then in those books that was incorrect or inelegant;

for

he continues,

I am a Roman, born in Latium, and the Greek language is quite foreign to me

; and accordingly he asked indulgence and freedom from adverse criticism in case he had made any errors. When Marcus Cato had read this,

Surely, Aulus,

said he,

you are a great trifler in preferring to apologize for a fault rather than avoid it. For we usually ask pardon either when we have erred through inadvertence or done wrong under compulsion. But tell me, I pray you,

said he,

who compelled you to do that for which you ask pardon before doing it.

This is told in the thirteenth book of Cornelius Nepos' work On Famous Men. [*](Fr. 15, Peter2.)

The story of the Milesian envoys and the orator Demosthenes, found in the works of Critolaus.

CRITOLAUS has written [*](F. H. G. iv. 373.) that envoys came from Miletus to Athens on public business, perhaps for

the purpose of asking aid. Then they engaged such advocates as they chose, to speak for them, and the advocates, according to their instructions, addressed the people in behalf of the Milesians. Demosthenes vigorously opposed the demands of the Milesians, maintaining that the Milesians did not deserve aid, nor was it to the interest of the State to grant it. The matter was postponed to the next day. The envoys came to Demosthenes and begged him earnestly not to speak against them; he asked for money, and received the amount which he demanded. On the following day, when the case was taken up again, Demosthenes, with his neck and shoulders wrapped in thick wool, came forward before the people and said that he was suffering from quinsy and hence could not speak against the Milesians. Then one of the populace cried out that it was, not quinsy, but

silverinsy

from which Demosthenes was suffering.

Demosthenes himself too, as Critolaus also relates, did not afterwards conceal that matter, but actually made a boast of it. For when he had asked Aristodemus, the player, what sum he had received for acting, and Aristodemus [*](Ps.-Plutarch, Decem Orat. Vitae, Demosth., p. 848, B, says that the actor was Polos. Famous actors made large sums of money; according to Pliny, N.H. vii. 129, the celebrated Roman actor Roscius made 500,000 sesterces yearly.) had replied,

a talent,

Demosthenes rejoined:

Why, I got more than that for holding my tongue.

That Gaius Gracchus in a speech of his applied the story related above to the orator Demades, and not to Demosthenes; and a quotation of Gracchus' words.

THE story which in the preceding chapter we said was told by Critolaus about Demosthenes, Gaius

Gracchus, in the speech Against the Aufeian Law, applied to Demades in the following words: [*](0. R. F., p. 242, Meyer2.)

For you, fellow citizens, if you wish to be wise and honest, and if you inquire into the matter, will find that none of us comes forward here without pay. All of us who address you are after something, and no one appears before you for any purpose except to carry something away. I myself, who am now recommending you to increase your taxes, in order that you may the more easily serve your own advantage and administer the government, do not come here for nothing; but I ask of you, not money, but honour and your good opinion. Those who come forward to persuade you not to accept this law, do not seek honour from you, but money from Nicomedes; those also who advise you to accept it are not seeking a good opinion from you, but from Mithridates a reward and an increase of their possessions; those, however, of the same rank and order who are silent are your very bitterest enemies, since they take money from all and are false to all. You, thinking that they are innocent of such conduct, give them your esteem; but the embassies from the kings, thinking it is for their sake that they are silent, give them great gifts and rewards. So in the land of Greece, when a Greek tragic actor boasted that he had received a whole talent for one play, Demades, the most eloquent man of his country, is said to have replied to him: 'Does it seem wonderful to you that you have gained a talent by speaking? I was paid ten talents by the king for holding my tongue.' Just so, these men now receive a very high price for holding their tongues.

The words of Publius Nigidius, in which he says that there is a difference between

lying

and

telling a falsehood.

THESE are the very words of Publius Nigidius, [*](Fr. 49, Swoboda.) a man of great eminence in the pursuit of the liberal arts, whom Marcus Cicero highly respected because of his talent and learning:

There is a difference between telling a falsehood and lying. One who lies is not himself deceived, but tries to deceive another; he who tells a falsehood is himself deceived.

He also adds this:

One who lies deceives, so far as he is able; but one who tells a falsehood does not himself deceive, any more than he can help.

He also had this on the same subject:

A good man,

says he,

ought to take pains not to lie, a wise man, not to tell what is false; the former affects the man himself, the latter does not.

With variety, by Heaven! and neatness has Nigidius distinguished so many opinions relating to the same thing, as if he were constantly saying something new.

That the philosopher Chrysippus says that every word is ambiguous and of doubtful meaning, while Diodorus, on the contrary, thinks that no word is ambiguous.

CHRYSIPPUS asserts [*](ii. 152, Arn.) that every word is by nature ambiguous, since two or more things may be understood from the same word. But Diodorus, surnamed Cronus, says:

No word is ambiguous, and no one speaks or receives a word in two senses; and it ought not to seem to be said in any other sense than

v2.p.327

that which the speaker feels that he is giving to it. But when I,

said he,

meant one thing and you have understood another, it may seem that I have spoken obscurely rather than ambiguously; for the nature of an ambiguous word should be such that he who speaks it expresses two or more meanings. But no man expresses two meanings who has felt that he is expressing but one.