Noctes Atticae

A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus, in which he urged a lady of rank to feed with her own milk, and not with that of other nurses, the children whom she had borne.

WORD was once brought in my presence to the philosopher Favorinus that the wife of an auditor and disciple of his had been brought to bed a short time before, and that his pupil's family had been increased by the birth of a son.

Let us go,

both to see the child and to congratulate the father.

The father was of senatorial rank and of a family of high nobility. We who were present at the time went with Favorinus, attended him to the house to which he was bound, and entered it with him. Then the philosopher, having embraced and congratulated the father immediately upon entering, sat down. And when he had asked how long the labour had been and how difficult, and had learned that the young woman, overcome with fatigue and wakefulness, was sleeping, he began to talk at greater length and said:

I have no doubt she will suckle her son herself!

I beg you, madam, let her be wholly and

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entirely the mother of her own child. For what kind of unnatural, imperfect and half-motherhood is it to bear a child and at once send it away from her? to have nourished in her womb with her own blood something which she could not see, and not to feed with her own milk what she sees, now alive, now human, now calling for a mother's care? Or do you too perhaps think,

"'But it makes no difference,' for so they say, 'provided it be nourished and live, by whose milk that is effected.' Why then does not he who affirms this, if he is so dull in comprehending natural

"Shall we then allow this child of ours to be infected with some dangerous contagion and to draw a spirit into its mind and body from a body and mind of the worst character? This, by Heaven! is the very reason for what often excites our surprise, that some children of chaste women turn out to be like their parents neither in body nor in mind. Wisely then and skilfully did our Maro make use of these lines of Homer: [*](Iliad xvi. 33 ff.)

1. The horseman Peleus never was thy sire,
2. Nor Thetis gave thee birth; but the gray sea
3. Begat thee, and the hard and flinty rocks;
4. So savage is thy mind.

1. And fierce Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck. [*](Aen. iv. 366f.)

And in addition to all this, who can neglect or despise this consideration also, that those who desert their offspring, drive them from them, and give them to others to nurse, do sever, or at any rate loosen and relax, that bond and cementing of the mind and of affection with which nature attaches

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parents to their children? For when the child is given to another and removed from its mother's sight, the strength of maternal ardour is gradually and little by little extinguished, every call of impatient anxiety is silenced, and a child which has been given over to another to nurse is almost as completely forgotten as if it had been lost by death. Moreover, the child's own feelings of affection, fondness, and intimacy are centred wholly in the one by whom it is nursed, and therefore, just as happens in the case of those who are exposed at birth, it has no feeling for the mother who bore it and no regret for her loss. Therefore, when the foundations of natural affection have been destroyed and removed, however much children thus reared may seem to love their father and mother, that affection is in a great measure not natural but merely courteous and conventional.

I heard Favorinus make this address in the Greek language. I have reproduced his sentiments, so far as I was able, for the sake of their general utility, but the elegance, copiousness and richness of his words hardly any power of Latin eloquence could equal, least of all my humble attainments.

That the judgment passed by Annaeus Seneca on Quintus Ennius and Marcus Cicero was trifling and futile.

SOME think of Annaeus Seneca as a writer of little value, whose works are not worth taking up, since his style seems commonplace and ordinary, while the matter and the thought are characterized, now by a foolish and empty vehemence, now by an empty and

For in the twenty-second book of his Moral Epistles, which he addressed to Lucilius, he says [*](pp. 610 f. Hense; except for these fragments, only twenty books have come down to us.) that the following verses which Quintus Ennius wrote [*](Ann. 306 ff., Vahlen2; quoted by Cicero, Brut. 58.) about Cethegus, a man of the olden time, are absurd:

1. He by his fellow citizens was called,
2. By every man who lived and flourished then,
3. The people's chosen flower, Persuasion's marrow.

I am surprised that men of great eloquence, devoted to Ennius, have praised those absurd verses as his best. Cicero, at any rate, includes them among examples of his good verses.

I am not surprised that there existed a man who could write such verses, when there existed a man who could praise them; unless haply Cicero, that great orator, was pleading his own cause

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and wished his own verse to appear excellent.

In Cicero himself too you will find, even in his prose writings, some things which will show that he did not lose his labour when he read Ennius.

As Menelaus, the Laconian, had a kind of sweet-speaking charm,

he cultivates brevity of speech in his oratory.

This was not the fault of Cicero, but of the times; it was necessary to say such things when such verses were read.

In the same place Seneca writes the following about Virgil also:

Our Virgil too admitted some verses which are harsh, irregular and somewhat beyond the proper length, with no other motive than that those who were devoted to Ennius might find a flavour of antiquity in the new poem.

But I am already weary of quoting Seneca; yet I shall not pass by these jokes of that foolish and tasteless man:

There are some thoughts in Quintus Ennius,

that are of such lofty tone that though written among the unwashed, [*](Lit., those who smell like a he-goat; cf. Hor. Serm. i. 2. 27, pastillos Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum; Epod. xii. 5.) they nevertheless can give pleasure among the anointed

It would be clear to you that those who love verses of this kind admire even the couches of Sotericus.

Worthy indeed would Seneca appear [*](Ironical, of course.) of the reading and study of the young, a man who has compared the dignity and beauty of early Latin with the couches of Sotericus, implying forsooth that they possessed no charm and were already obsolete and despised! Yet listen to the relation and mention of a few things which that same Seneca has well said, for example what he said of a man who was avaricious, covetous and thirsting for money:

Why, what difference does it make how much you have? There is much more which you do not have.

The meaning and origin of the word lictor and the varying opinions of Valgius Rufus and Tullius Tiro on that subject.

VALGIUS RUFUS, in the second of the books which he entitled On Matters Investigated by Letter, says [*](p. 485, Fun.) that the lictor was so called from ligando or

binding,

Lictor, bind his hands.

Now, I for my part agree with him; but Tullius Tiro, the freedman of Marcus Cicero, wrote [*](p. 8, Lion.) that the lictor got his name from limus or licium.

For,

those men who were in attendance upon the magistrates were girt across with a kind of girdle called limus.

But if there is anyone who thinks that what Tiro said is more probable, because the first syllable [*](The vowel is long, not merely the syllable, as Gellius goes on to say.) in lictor is long like that of licium, but in the word ligo is short, that has nothing to do with the case. For in lictor from ligando, lector from legendo, vitor from viendo, tutor from tuendo, and structor from struendo, the vowels, which were originally short, are lengthened.

Lines taken from the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius, in which the courteous bearing of an inferior towards a friend of higher rank is described and defined.

QUINTUS ENNIUS in the seventh book of his Annals describes and defines very vividly and skilfully in his sketch of Geminus Servilius, a man of rank, the tact, courtesy, modesty, fidelity, restraint and propriety in speech, knowledge of ancient history and of customs old and new, scrupulousness in keeping and guarding a secret; in short, the various remedies and methods of relief and solace for guarding against the

1. So saying, on a friend he called, with whom
2. He oft times gladly shared both board and speech
3. And courteously informed of his affairs,
4. On coming wearied from the sacred House
5. Or Forum broad, where he all day had toiled,
6. Directing great affairs with wisdom; one with whom
7. He freely spoke of matters great and small,
8. Confiding to him thoughts approved or not,
9. If he so wished, and found him trustworthy;
10. With whom he took much pleasure openly
11. Or privily; a man to whom no thought
12. Suggested heedlessness or ill intent,
13. A cultured, loyal and a winsome man,
14. Contented, happy, learned, eloquent,
15. Speaking but little and that fittingly,
16. Obliging, knowing well all ancient lore,
17. All customs old and new, the laws of man
18. And of the gods, who with due prudence told
19. What he had heard, or kept it to himself:
20. Him 'mid the strife Servilius thus accosts.

They say that Lucius Aelius Stilo used to declare [*](p. 51, Fun.) that Quintus Ennius wrote these words about none other than himself, and that this was a description of Quintus Ennius' own character and disposition.

A discourse of the philosopher Taurus on the manner and method of enduring pain, according to the principles of the Stoics.

WHEN the philosopher Taurus was on his way to Delphi, to see the Pythian games and the throng that gathered there from almost all Greece, I was his companion. And when, in the course of the journey, we had come to Lebadia, which is an ancient town in the land of Boeotia, word was brought to Taurus there that a friend of his, an eminent philosopher of the Stoic sect, had been seized with illness and had taken to his bed. Then interrupting our journey, which otherwise would have called for haste, and leaving the carriages, he hastened to visit his friend, and I followed, as I usually did wherever he went. When we came to the house in which the sick man was, we saw that he was suffering anguish from pains in the stomach, such as the Greeks call ko/los, or

colic,

Later, when Taurus had sent for physicians and discussed with them the means of cure, and had encouraged the patient to keep up his endurance by commending the fortitude which he was showing,

You were witness of no very pleasant sight, it is true, but one which was, nevertheless, a profitable experience, in beholding the encounter and contest of a philosopher with pain. The violent character of the disorder, for its part, produced anguish and torture of body; reason and the spiritual nature, on the other hand, similarly played their part, supporting and restraining within bounds the violence of well-nigh ungovernable pain. He uttered no shrieks, no complaints, not even any unseemly outcries; yet, as you saw, there were obvious signs of a battle between soul and body for the man's possession.

Then one of the disciples of Taurus, a young man not untrained in philosophy, said:

If the bitterness of pain is such that it struggles against the will and judgment, forcing a man to groan involuntarily and confess the evil of his violent disorder, why is it said among the Stoics that pain is a thing indifferent and not an evil? Furthermore, why can a Stoic be compelled to do anything, or how can pain compel him, when the Stoics say that pain exerts no compulsion, and that a wise man cannot be forced to anything?

To this Taurus, with a face that was now somewhat more cheerful, for he seemed pleased at being lured into a discussion, replied as follows:

If this friend of ours were now in better health, he would have defended such unavoidable groans against reproach and, I dare say, would have answered your question; but you know that I am no great friend of the Stoics, or rather, of the Stoa; for it is often

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inconsistent with itself and with us, as is shown in the book which I have written on that subject. But to oblige you, I will say 'unlearnedly and clearly,' as the adage has it, what I imagine that any Stoic now present would have said more intricately and cleverly. For you know, I suppose, that old and familiar proverb: [*](Aristophanes, Frogs, 1445.)

1. Less eruditely speak and clearer, please.

And with that preamble he discoursed as follows about the pain and groans of the ailing Stoic: [*](iii. 181, Arn.)

Nature,

But very likely,

because of the mere fact that he struggles and groans, someone may ask, if pain is not an evil, why it is necessary to groan and struggle? It is because all things which are not

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evil are not also wholly lacking in annoyance, but there are very many things which, though free from any great harm or baneful effect, as not being base, [*](That is, they do not involve any guilt.) are none the less opposed to the gentleness and mercy of nature through a certain inexplicable and inevitable law of nature herself. These, then, a wise man can endure and put up with, but he cannot exclude them altogether from his consciousness; for a)nalghsi/a, or 'insensibility,' and a)pa/qeia, or 'lack of feeling,' not only in my judgment,

"But why is a Stoic philosopher, upon whom they say no compulsion can be exerted, compelled to utter groans against his will? It is true that no compulsion can be exerted upon a wise man when he has the opportunity of using his reason; but when nature compels, then reason also, the gift of nature, is compelled. Inquire also, if you please, why a man involuntarily winks when someone's hand is suddenly directed against his eyes, why when the sky is lit up by a flash of lightning he involuntarily drops his head and closes his eyes, why as the thunder grows louder he gradually becomes terrified, why he is shaken by sneezing, why he sweats in the heat of the sun or grows cold amid severe frosts. For these and many other things are not under the control of the will, the judgment, or the reason, but are decrees of nature and of necessity.

Moreover, that is not fortitude which, like a giant, struggles against nature and goes beyond her bounds, either through insensibility of spirit, or

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savage pride, or some unhappy and compulsory practice in bearing pain—such as we heard of in a certain savage gladiator of Caesar's school, who used to laugh when his wounds were probed by the doctors—but that is true and noble fortitude which our forefathers called a knowledge of what is endurable and unendurable. From this it is evident that there are some insupportable trials, from the undergoing or endurance of which brave men may shrink.

When Taurus had said this and seemed to intend to say even more, we reached our carriages and entered them.

On the Enigma.

THE kind of composition which the Greeks call

enigmas,

rushes.

1. I know not if he's minus once or twice,
2. Or both of these, who would not give his place,
3. As I once heard it said, to Jove himself.

Why Gnaeus Dolabella, the proconsul, referred to the court of the Areopagus the case of a woman charged with poisoning and admitting the fact.

WHEN Gnaeus Dolabella was governing the province of Asia with proconsular authority, a woman of Smyrna was brought before him. This woman had killed her husband and her son at the same time by secretly giving them poison. She confessed the crime, and said that she had reason for it, since her husband and son had treacherously done to death another son of hers by a former husband, an excellent and blameless youth; and there was no dispute about the truth of this statement. Dolabella referred the matter to his council. No member of the council ventured to render a decision in so difficult a case, since the confession of the poisoning which had resulted in the death of the husband and son seemed to call for punishment, while at the same time a just penalty had thereby been inflicted upon two wicked men. Dolabella referred the question to the Areopagites [*](A very ancient court at Athens, so called because it held its meetings on the Areopagus, or Hill of Mars.) at Athens, as judges of greater authority and experience. The Areopagites, after having heard the case, summoned the woman and her accuser to appear after a hundred years. Thus the woman's crime was not condoned, for the laws did not permit that, nor, though guilty, was she condemned and punished for a pardonable offence. The story is told in the ninth book of Valerius Maximus' work on Memorable Occurrences and Sayings. [*](viii. 1 amb. 2, Kempf; Gellius' reference is wrong.)

Noteworthy reconciliations between famous men.

PUBLIUS AFRICANUS the elder and Tiberius Gracchus, father of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, men illustrious for their great exploits, the high offices which they held, and the uprightness of their lives, often disagreed about public questions, and for that reason, or some other, were not friends. When this hostility had lasted for a long time, the feast was offered to Jupiter on the appointed day, [*](On the 13th of September, which was also the anniversary of the founding of the Capitoline Temple. See Fowler, .Roman Festivals, pp. 217 f.) and on the occasion of that ceremony the senate banqueted in the Capitol. It chanced that the two men were placed side by side at the same table, and immediately, as if the immortal gods, acting as arbiters at the feast of Jupiter, Greatest and Best of Gods, had joined their hands, they became the best of friends. And not only did friendship spring up between them, but at the same time their families were united by a marriage; for Publius Scipio, having a daughter that was unwedded and marriageable at the time, thereupon on the spot betrothed her to Tiberius Gracchus, whom he had chosen and approved at a time when judgment is most strict; that is, while he was his personal enemy.

Aemilius Lepidus, too, and Fulvius Flaccus, men of noble birth, who had held the highest offices, and occupied an exalted place in public life, were opposed to each other in a bitter hatred and enmity of long standing. Later, the people chose them censors at the same time. Then they, as soon as their election was proclaimed by the herald, in the Campus Martius itself, before the assembly was

What is meant by

ambiguous

ONE may very often see and notice in the early writings many words which at present in ordinary conversation have one fixed meaning, but which then were so indifferent and general, that they could signify and include two opposite things. Some of these are well known, such as tempestas (weather), valitudo (health), facinus (act), dolus (device), gratia (favour), industria (activity). [*](Tempestas means good or bad weather; valitudo, good or ill health, etc.) For it is well-nigh a matter of general knowledge that these are ambiguous and can be used either in a good or in a bad sense.

That periculm (trial), too, and venenum (drug) and contagium (contagion) were not used, as they now are, only in a bad sense, you may learn from many examples of that usage. But the use of honor as an indifferent word, so that people even spoke of

bad honour,

wrong

injury,

In this affair, by as much as the whole of you are more important than my single self, by so much he inflicts upon you greater insult and injury than on me; and by as much as honest men are more willing to suffer wrong than to

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do wrong to another, by so much has he shown worse honour (peiorem honorem) to you than to me; for he wishes me to suffer injustice, Romans, and you to inflict it, so that I may be left with cause for complaint, and you may be open to reproach.

he has shown worse honour to you than to me,

he has inflicted a greater injury and insult on you than on me.

In addition to the citation of this word, I thought I ought to quote the following saying from the speech of Quintus Metellus, in order to point out that it is a precept of Socrates; the saying in question is:

It is worse to be unjust than to suffer injustice.