Noctes Atticae

The derivation of soror, according to Antistins Labeo, and that of frater, according to Publius Nigidius.

ANTISTIUS LABEO cultivated the study of civil law with special interest, and gave advice publicly to those who consulted him on legal questions; he was also not unacquainted with the other liberal arts, and he had delved deep into grammar and dialectics, as well as into the earlier and more recondite literature. He had also become versed in the origin and formation of Latin words, and applied that knowledge in particular to solving many knotty points of law. In fact, after his death works of his were published,

A soror, or 'sister,'

is so called because she is, as it were, born seorsum, or ' outside,' and is separated from that home in which she was born, and transferred to another family.

Moreover, Publius Nigidius, a man of prodigious learning, explains the word frater, or

brother,

A frater,

is so called because he is, as it were, fere alter, that is, 'almost another self.'

Marcus Varro's opinion of the just and proper number of banqueters; his views about the dessert and about sweetmeats.

THAT is a very charming book of Marcus Varro's, one of his Menippean Satires, entitled You know not what the Late Evening may Bring, [*](Apparently a proverbial expression; cf. Virg. Georg. i. 461, Denique, quid vesper serus vehat . .. sol tibi signa dabit.) in which he descants upon the proper number of guests at a dinner, and about the order and arrangement of the entertainment itself. Now he says [*](Fr. 333, Bücheler.) that the number of the guests ought to begin with that of the Graces and end with that of the Muses; that is,

For it is disagreeable to have a great number, since a crowd is generally disorderly, [*](There is a word-play on turba and turbulenta, which it seems difficult to reproduce. Cf. Ausonius, p. 12, 146, Peiper; i., p. 22, L. C. L.: Quinque advocavi; sex enim conviviumCum rege iustum; si super, convicium est.) and at Rome it stands, [*](Referring to turba as the throng of citizens in public assembly.) at Athens it sits, but nowhere does it recline. Now, the banquet itself,

has four features, and then only is it complete in all its parts: if a nice little group has been got together, if the place is well chosen, the time fit, and due preparation not neglected. Moreover, one should not,

invite either too talkative or too silent guests, since eloquence is appropriate to the Forum and the courts, but silence to the bed-chamber and not to a dinner.

This will surely follow,

if we talk about matters which relate to the common experience of life, which we have no leisure to discuss in the Forum and amid the press of business. Furthermore, the host,

ought rather to be free from meanness than over-elegant,

At a banquet not everything should be read, [*](Readings or music were common forms of entertainment at a Roman dinner (cf. e.g. Pliny, Epist. iii. 1. 9). Legi, however, may have the meaning of legere in § 3 (end), in which case the reference would be to the viands and biwfelh= would mean wholesome.) but such things as are at once edifying and enjoyable.

And he does not omit to tell what the nature of the dessert ought to be. For he uses these words:

Those sweetmeats (bellaria) are sweetest which are not sweet; [*](An example of Varro's fondness for word-plays; sweetest is used in the double sense of sweetest to the taste and pleasantest in their after-effects.) for harmony between delicacies and digestion is not to be counted upon.

That no one may be puzzled by the word bellaria which Varro uses in this passage, let me say that it means all kinds of dessert. For what the Greeks called pe/mmata or tragh/mata, our forefathers called bellaria. [*](mensa secunda bellariorum occurs in the Transactions of the Arval Brethren for May 27, A.D. 218.) In the earlier comedies [*](p. 144, 65, Ribbeck 3.) one may find this term applied also to the sweeter wines, which are called Liberi bellaria, or

sweetmeats of Bacchus.

That the tribunes of the commons have the right to arrest, but not to summon.

IN one of the letters of Ateius Capito we read [*](Fr. 19, Huschke: ii. p. 287, Bremer.) that Antistius Labeo was exceedingly learned in the laws and customs of the Roman people and in the civil law.

But,

an excessive and mad love of freedom possessed the man, to such a degree that, although the deified Augustus was then emperor and was ruling the State, Labeo looked upon nothing as lawful and accepted nothing, unless he had found it ordered and sanctioned by the old Roman law.

When the tribunes of the commons had been appealed to by a woman against Labeo and had sent to him at

v2.p.443

the Gallianum [*](Probably Labeo's country place. He spent half the year in retirement (Dig. i. 2. 2.47), and praedia Galliana are mentioned in C.I.L. iii. 536, and ix. 1455, col. iii, lines 62—64.) bidding him come and answer the woman's charge, he ordered the messenger to return and say to the tribunes that they had the right to summon neither him nor anyone else, since according to the usage of our forefathers the tribunes of the commons had the power of arrest, but not of summons; that they might therefore come and order his arrest, but they did not have the right to summon him when absent.

Having read this in that letter of Capito's, I later found the same statement made more fully in the twenty-first book of Varro's Human Antiquities, and I have added Varro's own words on the subject: [*](Fr. 2, Mirsch.)

In a magistracy

some have the power of summons, others of arrest, others neither; summoning, for example, belongs to the consuls and others possessing the imperium [*](The right of commanding an army conferred by the Lex Curiata de imperio on the dictator, consuls, magister equitum and praetors.) ; arrest, to the tribunes of the commons and the rest who are attended by a messenger; neither summoning nor arrest to the quaestors and others who have neither a lictor nor a messenger. Those who have the power of summons may also arrest, detail, and lead off to prison, all this whether those whom they summon are present or are sent for by their order. The tribunes of the commons have no power of summons, nevertheless many of them in ignorance have used that power, as if they were entitled to it; for some of them have ordered, not only private persons, but even a consul to be summoned before the rostra. I myself, when a triumvir, [*](That is, one of the triumviri capitales, a minor office.) on being summoned by Porcius, tribune of the commons, did not appear, following the authority of our leading men, but I held to the old law. Similarly, when I was a tribune, I ordered

v2.p.445

no one to be summoned, and required no one who was summoned by one of my colleagues to obey, unless he wished.

I think that Labeo, being a private citizen at the time, [*](That is, he had not yet held a magisterial office.) showed unjustified confidence in that law of which Marcus Varro has written, in not appearing when summoned by the tribunes. For how the mischief was it reasonable to refuse to obey those whom you admit to have the power of arrest? For one who can lawfully be arrested may also be taken to prison. But since we are inquiring why the tribunes, who had full power of coercion, did not have the right to summon ... [*](There seems to be a lacuna in the text. Supply we may assume that it was, or something similar.) because the tribunes of the commons seem to have been elected in early times, not for administering justice, nor for taking cognizance of suits and complaints when the parties were absent, but for using their veto-power when there was immediate need, in order to prevent injustice from being done before their eyes; and for that reason the right of leaving the city at night was denied them, since their constant presence and personal oversight were needed to prevent acts of violence.

That it is stated in Marcus Varro's books on Human Antiquities that the aediles and quaestors of the Roman people might be cited before a praetor by a private citizen.

WHEN from the secluded retreat of books and masters I had come forth among men and into the light of the forum, I remember that it was the

It is lawful for those magistrates who have the power neither of summoning the people as individuals nor of arrest, even to be called into court by a private citizen. Marcus Laevinus, a curule aedile, was cited before a praetor by a private citizen; to-day, surrounded as they are by public servants, aediles not only may not be arrested, but even presume to disperse the people.

This is what Varro says in the part of his work which concerns the aediles, but in an earlier part of the same book he says [*](See xiii. 12. 6, above.) that quaestors have the right neither to summon nor to arrest. Accordingly, when both parts of the book had been read, all came over to Varro's opinion, and the quaestor was summoned before the praetor.

The meaning of pomerium.

THE augurs of the Roman people who wrote books On the Auspices have defined the meaning of pomerium in the following terms:

The pomerium is the space within the rural district designated by the augurs along the whole circuit of the city without the walls, marked off by fixed bounds and forming the limit of the city auspices.

Therefore it has been, and even now continues to be, inquired why it is that when the other six of the seven hills of the city are within the pomerium, the Aventine alone, which is neither a remote nor an unfrequented district, should be outside the pomerium; and why neither king Servius Tullius nor Sulla, who demanded the honour of extending the pomerium, nor later the deified Julius, when he enlarged the pomerium, included this within the designated limits of the city.

Messala wrote [*](Fr. 3, Huschke; id., Bremer (ii, p. 265).) that there seemed to be several reasons for this, but above them all he himself approved one, namely, because on that hill Remus took the auspices with regard to founding the city, but found the birds unpropitious and was less

Therefore,

all those who extended the pomerium excluded that hill, on the ground that it was made ill-omened by inauspicious birds.

But speaking of the Aventine hill, I thought I ought not to omit something which I ran across recently in the Commentary of Elys, [*](The name is obviously corrupt; see critical note.) an early grammarian. In this it was written that in earlier times the Aventine was, as we have said, excluded from the pomerium, but afterwards by the authority of the deified Claudius it was admitted and honoured with a place within the limits of the pomerium.

A passage from the book of the augur Messala, in which he shows who the minor magistrates are and that the consul and the praetor are colleagues; and certain observations besides on the auspices.

IN the edict of the consuls by which they appoint the day for the centuriate assembly it is written in accordance with an old established form:

Let no minor magistrate presume to watch the skies.

The auspices of the patricians are divided into two classes. The

v2.p.453

greatest are those of the consuls, praetors and censors. Yet the auspices of all these are not the same or of equal rank, for the reason that the censors are not colleagues of the consuls or praetors, [*](Explained in § 6, below.) while the praetors are colleagues of the consuls. Therefore neither do the consuls or the praetors interrupt or hinder the auspices of the censors, nor the censors those of the praetors and consuls; but the censors may vitiate and hinder each other's auspices and again the praetors and consuls those of one another. The praetor, although he is a colleague of the consul, cannot lawfully elect either a praetor or a consul, as indeed we have learned from our forefathers, or from what has been observed in the past, and as is shown in the thirteenth book of the Commentaries of Gaius Tuditanus; [*](Fr. 8, Peter2; 2, Huschke; id., Bremer (i, p. 35).) for the praetor has inferior authority and the consul superior, and a higher authority cannot be elected by a lower, or a superior colleague by an inferior. At the present time, when a praetor elects the praetors, I have followed the authority of the men of old and have not taken part in the auspices at such elections. Also the censors are not chosen under the same auspices as the consuls and praetors. The lesser auspices belong to the other magistrates. Therefore these are called 'lesser' and the others 'greater' magistrates. When the lesser magistrates are elected, their office is conferred upon them by the assembly of the tribes, but full powers by a law of the assembly of the curiae; the higher magistrates are chosen by the assembly of the centuries.

From this whole passage of Messala it becomes clear both who the lesser magistrates are and why they are so called. But he also shows that the praetor

Another passage from the same Messala, in which he argues that to address the people and to treat with the people are two different things; and what magistrates may call away the people when in assembly, and from whom.

THE same Messala in the same book has written as follows about the lesser magistrates [*](Fr. 2, Huschke: id., Bremer (i, p. 263).)

A consul may call away the people from all magistrates, when they are assembled for the elections or for another purpose. A praetor may at any time call away the people when assembled for the elections or for another purpose, except from a consul. Lesser magistrates may never call away the people when assembled for the elections or another purpose. Hence, whoever of them first summons the people to an election has the law on his side, because it is unlawful to take the same action twice with the people (bifariam cum populo agi), nor can one minor magistrate call away an assembly from another. But if they wish to address the people (contionem habere) without laying any measure before them, it is lawful for any number of magistrates to hold a meeting (contionem habere) at the same time.

to treat with the people,

to address the people.

That humanitas does not mean what the common people think, but those who have spoken pure Latin have given the word a more restricted meaning.

THOSE who have spoken Latin and have used the language correctly do not give to the word humanitas the meaning which it is commonly thought to have, namely, what the Greeks call filanqrwpi/a, signifying a kind of friendly spirit and good-feeling towards all men without distinction; but they gave to humanitas about the force of the Greek paidei/a; that is, what we call eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artes, or

education and training in the liberal arts.

humanity.

That it is in this sense that our earlier writers have used the word, and in particular Marcus Varro and Marcus Tullius, [*](De Orat. i. 71; ii. 72, etc.) almost all the literature shows. Therefore I have thought it sufficient for the present to give one single example. I have accordingly quoted the words of Varro from the first book of his Human Antiquities, beginning as follows: [*](Fr. 1, Mirsch.)

Praxiteles, who, because of his surpassing art, is unknown to no one of any liberal culture (humaniori).

good-natured, amiable, and kindly,

some cultivation and education,

The meaning of Marcus Cato's phrase

betwixt mouth and morsel.

THERE is a speech by Marcus Cato Censorius On the Improper Election of Aediles. In that oration is this passage: [*](lxv. 1, Jordan.)

Nowadays they say that the standing-grain, still in the blade, is a good harvest. Do not count too much upon it. I have often heard that many things may come inter os atque offam, or 'between the mouth and the morsel'; but there certainly is a long distance between a morsel and the blade.

between mouth and morsel

1. 'Twixt cup and lip there's many a slip.

That Plato attributes a line of Sophocles to Euripides; and some other matters of the same kind.

THERE is an iambic trimeter verse of notorious antiquity:

1. By converse with the wise wax tyrants wise.

But the following line is equally well known:

1. I who am old shall lead you, also old.

I have further observed that in the Fire-bringing Prometheus of Aeschylus and in the tragedy of Euripides entitled Ino an identical verse occurs, except for a few syllables. In Aeschylus it runs thus: [*](Fr. 208, Nauck2 (Coeph. 576).)

1. When proper, keeping silent, and saying what is fit.

1. When proper, keeping silent, speaking when 'tis safe.

Of the lineage and names of the Porcian family.

WHEN Sulpicius Apollinaris and I, with some others who were friends of his or mine, were sitting in the library of the Palace of Tiberius, it chanced that a book was brought to us bearing the name of Marcus Cato Nepos. We at once began to inquire who this Marcus Cato Nepos was. And thereupon a young man, not unacquainted with letters, so far as I could judge from his language, said:

This Marcus Cato is called Nepos, not as a surname, but because he was the grandson of Marcus Cato Censorius through his son, and father of Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who slew himself with his own sword at Utica during the civil war. There is a book of Marcus Cicero's about the life of the last-named, entitled Laus Catonis, or A Eulogy of Cato, in which Cicero says [*](Fr. 1, p. 987, Orelli2.) that he was the great-grandson of Marcus Cato Censorius. Therefore the father of the man whom Cicero eulogized was this Marcus Cato, whose orations are circulated under the name of Marcus Cato Nepos.

Then Apollinaris. very quietly and mildly, as was his custom when passing criticism, said:

I congratulate you, my son, that at your age you have been able to favour us with a little lecture on the family of Cato, even though you do not know who this Marcus Cato was, about whom we are now inquiring. For the famous Marcus Cato Censorius had not one, but several grandsons, although not all were sprung from the same father. For the famous Marcus Cato, who was both an orator and

v2.p.465

a censor, had two sons, born of different mothers and of very different ages; since, when one of them was a young man, his mother died and his father, who was already well on in years, married the maiden daughter of his client Salonius, from whom was born to him Marcus Cato Salonianus, a surname which he derived from Salonius, his mother's father. But from Cato's elder son, who died when praetorelect, while his father was still living, and left some admirable works on The Science of Law, there was born the man about whom we are inquiring, Marcus Cato, son of Marcus, and grandson of Marcus. He was an orator of some power and left many speeches written in the manner of his grandfather; he was consul with Quintus Marcius Rex, and during his consulship went to Africa and died in that province. But he was not, as you said he was, the father of Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who killed himself at Utica and whom Cicero eulogized; nor because he was the grandson of Cato the censor and Cato of Utica was the censor's great-grandson does it necessarily follow that the former was the father of the latter. For this grandson whose speech was just brought to us did, it is true, have a son called Marcus Cato, but he was not the Cato who died at Utica, but the one who, after being curule aedile and praetor, went to Gallia Narbonensis and there ended his life. But by that other son of Censorius, a far younger man, who, as I said, was surnamed Salonianus, two sons were begotten: Lucius and Marcus Cato. That Marcus Cato was tribune of the commons and died when a candidate for the praetorship; he begot Marcus Cato the ex-praetor, who committed suicide at Utica during the civil war, and when Marcus

v2.p.467

Tullius wrote the latter's life and panegyric he said that he was the great-grandson of Cato the censor. You see therefore that the branch of the family which is descended from Cato's younger son differs not only in its pedigree, but in its dates as well; for because that Salonianus was born near the end of his father's life, as I said, his descendants also were considerably later than those of his elder brother. This difference in dates you will readily perceive from that speech itself, when you read it.

Thus spoke Sulpicius Apollinaris in my hearing. Later we found that what he had said was so, when we read the Funeral Eulogies and the Genealogy of the Porcian Family.

That the most elegant writers pay more attention to the pleasing sound of words and phrases (what the Greeks call eu)fwni/a, or

euphony

VALERIUS PROBUS was once asked, as I learned from one of his friends, whether one ought to say has urbis or has urbes and hanc turrem. or hanc turrim.

If,

you are either composing verse or writing prose and have to use those words, pay no attention to the musty, fusty rules of the grammarians, but consult your own ear as to what is to be said in any given place. What it favours will surely be the best.

What do you mean by 'consult my ear'?

Just as Vergil did his, when in different passages

v2.p.469

he has used urbis and urbes, following the taste and judgment of his ear. For in the first Georgic, which,

I have read in a copy corrected by the poet's own hand, he wrote urbis with an i. These are the words of the verses: [*](Georg. i. 25.)

1. O'er cities (urbis) if you choose to watch, and rule
2. Our lands, O Caesar great.

But turn and change it so as to read urbes, and somehow you will make it duller and heavier. On the other hand, in the third Aeneid he wrote urbes with an e: [*](Aen. iii. 106.)

1. An hundred mighty cities (urbes) they inhabit.

Change this too so as to read urbis and the word will be too slender and colourless, so great indeed is the different effect of combination in the harmony of neighbouring sounds. Moreover, Vergil also said turrim, not turrem, and securim, not securem:

1. A turret (turrim) on sheer edge standing, [*](Aen. ii. 460.)

and

1. Has shaken from his neck the ill-aimed axe (securim). [*](Aen. ii. 224.)

These words have, I think, a more agreeable lightness than if you should use the form in e in both places.

I don't just understand why you say that one form is better and more correct in one place and the other in the other.

Don't trouble then to inquire whether you ought to say urbis or urbes. For since

v2.p.471

you are the kind of man that I see you are and err without detriment to yourself, you will lose nothing whichever you say.

With these words then and this conclusion Probus dismissed the man, somewhat rudely, as was his way with stupid folk. But I afterwards found another similar instance of double spelling by Vergil. For he has used tres and tris in the same passage with such fineness of taste, that if you should read differently and change one for the other, and have any ear at all, you would perceive that the sweetness of the sound is spoiled. These are the lines, from the tenth book of the Aeneid: [*](Aen. x. 350.)

1. Three (tres) Thracians too from Boreas' distant race,
2. And three (iris) whom Idas sent from Ismarus' land.

1. This end (haec finis) to Priam's fortunes then,

1. What end (quem finem) of labours, great king, dost thou grant?

Ennius too spoke of rectos cupressos, or

straight cypresses,

1. On cliffs the nodding pine and cypress straight. [*](Ann. 490, Vahlen.2 Ennius also has longi cupressi in Ann. 262.)

In the same way Marcus Cicero also thought it smoother and more polished to write, in his fifth Oration against Verres, [*](ii. 5. 169.) fretiu rather than freto. He says

divided by a narrow strait (fretu)

by an evident sin,

No one lived in such a way that no part of his life was free from extreme disgrace, no one was detected in such manifest sin (peccatu) that while he had been shameless in committing it, he would seem even more shameless if he denied it.

Not only is the sound of this word more elegant in this passage, but the reason for using the word is definite and sound. For hic peccatus, equivalent to peccatio, is correct and good Latin, just as many of the early writers used incestus (criminal), not of the one who committed the crime, but of the crime

With equal regard for our ears Lucretius made funis feminine in these verses: [*](ii. 1153.)

1. No golden rope (aurea funis), methinks, let down from heaven
2. The race of mortals to this earth of ours,

1. Aureus e caelo demisit funis in arva.

Marcus Cicero calls [*](In Verr. iv. 99.) even priests by a feminine term, antistitae, instead of antislites, which is demanded by the grammarians' rule. For while he usually avoided the obsolete words used by the earlier writers, yet in this passage, pleased with the sound of the word, he said:

The priests of Ceres and the guardians (antistitae) of her shrine.

And as for those who do not feel this,

I know not what ears they have, or what there is in them resembling a man.

But the early grammarians have noted this feature in Homer above all, that when he had said in one place [*](Iliad xvi. 583.) koloiou/s te yhra/s te,

both crows and starlings,

1. As lights a cloud of starlings (yarw=n) or of daws,

The words of Titus Castricius to his young pupils on unbecoming clothes and shoes.

TITUS CASTRICIUS, a teacher of the art of rhetoric, who held the first rank at Rome as a declaimer and an instructor, a man of the greatest influence and dignity, was highly regarded also by the deified Hadrian for his character and his learning. Once when 1 happened to be with him (for I attended him as my master) and he had seen some pupils of his who were senators wearing tunics and cloaks on a holiday, and with sandals on their feet, [*](Instead of the senatorial shoe; this was red or black and was fastened on by four black thongs which passed crosswise around the ankle and the calf of the leg; of Hor. Sat. i. 6. 27.) he said:

For my part, I should have preferred to see you in your togas, or if that was too much trouble, at least with girdles and mantles. But if this present attire of yours is now pardonable from long custom, yet it is not at all seemly for you, who are senators of the Roman people, to go through the streets of the city

v2.p.479

in sandals, nor by Jove! is this less criminal in you than it was in one whom Marcus Tullius once reproved for such attire.

This, and some other things to the same purport, Castricius said in my hearing with true Roman austerity. But several of those who had heard him asked why he had said soleatos, or

in sandals,

Gallic slippers,

You ran about,

in slippers (gallicis) and cloak.

He asked for a cobbler's knife from a maker of slippers (crepidarius sutor).

Of the Nerio of Mars in ancient prayers.

PRAYERS to the immortal gods, which are offered according to the Roman ritual, are set forth in the

Lua, [*](These names apparently represented characteristics of the deities with which they are coupled, which in some cases later became separate goddesses; see Fowler, Roman Festivals, pp. 60 ff. Gellius is apparently right in his explanation of Nerio in §§ 7–10, while later myths made her the wife of Mars. Lua (cf. luo, purify), according to Livy xlv. 33. 2, was a goddess to whom, in company with Mars and Minerva, the captured arms of an enemy were devoted when they were burned by the victors. Salacia (cf. sal, salt one) was a sea-goddess. Hora, according to Nonius, p. 120, was a goddess of youth. Ovid, Met. xiv. 830- 851, says that it was the name given to Hersilia, the wife of Romulus, after her deification. For the other names see the Index.) of Saturn; Salacia, of Neptune; Hora, of Quirinus; the Virites of Quirinus; Maia of Vulcan; Heries of Juno; Moles of Mars, and Nerio of Mars.

Nereids

Battle of the Shadows,

1. Thee, Anna and Peranna, Panda Cela, Pales,
2. Nerienes and Minerva, Fortune and likewise Ceres.

Plautus, however, in the Truculentus says [*](515.) that Nerio is the wife of Mars, and puts the statement into the mouth of a soldier, in the following line:

1. Mars, coming home, greets his wife Nerio.

About this line I once heard a man of some repute say that Plautus, with too great an eye to comic effect, attributed this strange and false idea, of thinking that Nerio was the wife of Mars, to an ignorant and rude soldier. But whoever will read the third book of the Annals of Gnaeus Gellius will find that this passage shows learning, rather than a comic spirit; for there it is written that Hersilia, when she pleaded before Titus Tatius and begged for peace, prayed in these words: [*](Fr. 15, Peter2.)

Neria of Mars, I beseech thee, give us peace; I beseech thee that it be permitted us to enjoy lasting and happy marriages, since it was by thy lord's advice that in like manner they carried off us maidens, [*](Referring to the rape of the Sabine women. Itidem shows that Cn. Gellius had in mind the later myth (see note 1, p. 480) that Mars finally carried off Nerio as his bride.) that from us they might raise up children for themselves and their people, and descendants for their country.

by thy lord's advice,

1. Neaera I'd not wish to have thee called;
2. Neriene rather, since thou art wife to Mars.

1. Neriene of Mars and Here,
[*](See Paul. Fest., p. 89, 4, Lindsay: Herem Marteam antiqui accepta hereditate colebant, quae a nomine appellabatur heredum, et esse una ex Martis comitibus putabatur.)

And I do not think that I ought to pass by this either, whatever it amounts to, which I find written in the Commentary of Servius Claudius, [*](Fr. 4, Fun.) that Nerio is equivalent to Neirio, meaning without anger (ne ira) and with calmness, so that in using that name we pray that Mars may become mild and calm; for the particle ne, as it is among the Greeks, is frequently privative in the Latin language also.

Remarks of Marcus Cato, who declared that he lacked many things, yet desired nothing.

MARCUS CATO, ex-consul and ex-censor, says that when the State and private individuals were abounding in wealth, his country-seats were plain and

I have no building, utensil or garment bought with a great price, no costly slave or maidservant. If I have anything to use,

I use it; if not, I do without. So far as I am concerned, everyone may use and enjoy what he has.

They find fault with me, because I lack many things; but I with them, because they cannot do without them.

The meaning of manubiae is asked and discussed; with some observations as to the propriety of using several words of the same meaning.

ALL along the roof of the colonnades of Trajan's forum [*](The largest and grandest of the imperial fora, including the basilica Ulpia, the column of Trajan, and the library.) there are placed gilded statues of horses and representations of military standards, and underneath is written Ex manubiis. Favorinus inquired, when he was walking in the court of the forum, waiting for

Ex manubiis is the same as ex praeda; for manubiae is the term for booty which is taken mann, that is 'by hand.'

Although my principal and almost my entire attention has been given to the literature and arts of Greece, I am nevertheless not so inattentive to the Latin language, to which I devote occasional or desultory study, as to be unaware of this common interpretation of manubiae, which makes it a synonym of praeda. But I raise the question, whether Marcus Tullius, a man most careful in his diction, in the speech which he delivered against Rullus on the first of January On the Agrarian Law, joined manubiae and praeda by an idle and inelegant repetition, if it be true that these two words have the same meaning and do not differ in any respect at all.

The decemvirs will sell the booty (praedam), the proceeds of the spoils (manubias), the goods reserved for public auction, in fact Gnaeus Pompeius' camp, while the general sits looking on

From the booty (ex praeda), from the proceeds of the spoils (ex manubiis), from the crown-money.

1. Wise Aeschylus has said the same thing twice;
2. 'I come into the land,' says he, 'and enter it.'
3. But 'enter' and ' come into' are the same.
4. By Heaven, yes! It's just as if one said
5. To a neighbour: 'Use the pot, or else the pan'?

But by no means,

do Cicero's words seem like such repetitions as ma/ktra, pot, and ka/rdopos, pan, which are used either by our own poets or orators and those of the Greeks, for the purpose of giving weight or adornment to their subject by the use of two or more words of the same meaning.

Pray,

Whatever gold, whatever silver, whatever jewels I had in my cities, abodes and shrines.'

"This kind of adornment, by heaping up in a single charge a great number of severe terms, was frequently used even in early days by our most ancient orator, the famous Marcus Cato, in his speeches; for example in the one entitled On the Ten, when he accused Thermus because he had put to death ten freeborn men at the same time, he used the following words of the same meaning, which, as they are brilliant flashes of Latin eloquence, which was just then coming into being, I have thought fit to call to mind: [*](p. 39, 127, Jordan.) 'You seek to cover up your abominable crime with a still worse crime, you slaughter men like swine, you commit frightful bloodshed, you cause ten deaths, slay ten freemen, take life from ten men, untried, unjudged, uncondemned.' So too Marcus Cato, at the beginning of the speech which he delivered in the senate, In Defence

"But above all in Homer there is a brilliant heaping up of the same idea and thought, in these lines: [*](Iliad xi. 163.)

1. Zeus from the weapons, from the dust and blood,
2. From carnage, from the tumult Hector bore.

1. Engagements, battles, carnage, deaths of men.

1. No longer fight, dear youths, nor still contend,

1. With death the suitors threatened, and with fate, Telemachus,

1. Away, begone, dire dream,

1. Away, begone, swift Iris,

Also those thrice repeated words in the speech of Marcus Cicero Against Lucius Piso, although displeasing to men of less sensitive ears, did not merely aim at elegance, but buffeted Piso's assumed expression

v2.p.499

of countenance by the rhythmical accumulation of several words. Cicero says: [*](In Pis. 1.) Finally, your whole countenance, which is, so to speak, the silent voice of the mind, this it was that incited men to crime, this deceived, tricked, cheated those to whom it was not familiar.' Well then,

Therefore this inscription which you see, ex manubiis, does not designate the objects and the mass of booty itself, for none of these was taken from the enemy by Trajan, but it declares that these statues were made and procured 'from the manubiae,' that is, with the money derived from the sale of the booty. For manubiae means, as I have already said, not booty, but money collected from the sale of the booty by a quaestor of the Roman people. But when I said 'by the quaestor,' one ought now to understand that the praefect of the treasury is meant. For the charge of the treasury has been transferred from the quaestors to praefects. [*](See Suet. Claud. xxiv.) However, it is possible to find instances in which

v2.p.501

writers of no little fame have written in such a way as to use praeda for manubiae or manubiae for praeda, either from carelessness or indifference; or by some metaphorical figure they have interchanged the words, which is allowable when done with judgment and skill. But those who have spoken properly and accurately, as did Marcus Tullius in that passage, have used manubiae of money.

A passage of Publius Nigidius in which he says that in Valeri, the vocative case of the name Valerius, the first syllable should have an acute accent; with other remarks of the same writer on correct writing.

THESE are the words of Publius Nigidius, a man pre-eminent for his knowledge of all the sciences, from the twenty-fourth book of his Grammatical Notes:[*](Fr. 35, Swoboda.)

How then can the accent be correctly used, if in names like Valeri we do not know whether they are genitive [*](On casus interrogandi for the genitive see Fay, A.J.P. xxxvi (1916), p. 78.) or vocative? For the second syllable of the genitive has a higher pitch than the first, and on the last syllable the pitch falls again; but in the vocative case the first syllable has the highest pitch, and then there is a gradual descent.

the highest pitch,

accent,

tone,

genitive,

the case of asking.

This too I notice in the same book of Nigidius: [*](36 Swoboda.)

If you write the genitive case of amicus,

or of magnus, end the word with a single i; but if you write the nominative plural, you must write magnei and amicei, with an e followed by i, and so with similar words. Also [*](Id. 37.) if you write terra in the genitive, let it end with the letter i, as terrai; [*](Really terrái.) but in the dative with e, as terrae. Also [*](Id. 38.) one who writes mei in the genitive case, as when we say mei studiosus, or ' devoted to me,' let him write it with i only (mei), not with e (meei); [*](Gellius refers only to the ending, which is i alone, and not i preceded by e.) but when he writes mehei, it must be written with e and i, since it is the dative case.