Noctes Atticae

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.

Of verses of Homer and Parthenius, which Virgil seems to have followed.

THERE is a verse of the poet Parthenius: [*](Anal. Alex., p. 285, fr. 33, Meineke.)

1. To Glaucus, Nereus and sea-dwelling Melicertes.

1. To Glaucus, Panopea, and Ino's son Melicertes.

But the following verse of Homer he has not indeed equalled, nor approached. For that of Homer [*](Iliad xi. 728.) seems to be simpler and more natural, that of Virgil [*](Aen. iii. 119.) more modern and daubed over with a kind of stucco, [*](Referring to the otiose epithet pulcher, which is gilding the lily.) as it were:

Of an opinion of the philosopher Panaetius, which he expressed in his second book On Duties, where he urges men to be alert and prepared to guard against injuries on all occasions.

THE second book of the philosopher Panaetius On Duties was being read to us, being one of those three celebrated books which Marcus Tullius emulated with great care and very great labour. In it there was written, in addition to many other incentives to virtue, one especially which ought to be kept fixed in the mind. And it is to this general purport: [*](Fr. 8, Fowler.)

The life of men,

who pass their time in the midst of affairs, and who wish to be helpful to themselves and to others, is exposed to constant and almost daily troubles and sudden dangers. To guard against and avoid these one needs a mind that is always ready and alert, such as the athletes have who are called 'pancratists.' For just as they, when called to the contest, stand with their arms raised and stretched out, and protect their head and face by opposing their hands as a rampart; and as all their limbs, before the battle

v2.p.507

has begun, are ready to avoid or to deal blows—so the spirit and mind of the wise man, on the watch everywhere and at all times against violence and wanton injuries, ought to be alert, ready, strongly protected, prepared in time of trouble, never flagging in attention, never relaxing its watchfulness, opposing judgment and forethought like arms and hands to the strokes of fortune and the snares of the wicked, lest in any way a hostile and sudden onslaught be made upon us when we are unprepared and unprotected.

That Quadrigarius used the expression cum multis mortalibus; whether it would have made any difference if he had said cum multis hominibus, and how great a difference.

THE following is a passage of Claudius Quadrigarius from the thirteenth book of his Annals:[*](Fr. 76, Peter.2)

When the assembly had been dismissed, Metellus came to the Capitol with many mortals (cum mortalibus mulltis); from there he went home attended by the entire city.

Do you, a man of most refined taste in other matters, say that mortalibus multis seems to you foolish and frigid, and do you think there is no reason why a man whose language is chaste, pure and almost conversational,

v2.p.509

preferred to say mortalibus rather than hominibus? And do you think that he would have described a multitude in the same way if he said cum multis hominibus and not cum multis mortalibus? For my part,

unless my regard and veneration for this writer, and for all early Latin, blinds my judgment, I think that it is far, far fuller, richer and more comprehensive in describing almost the whole population of the city to have said mortales rather than homines. For the expression ' many men' may be confined and limited to even a moderate number, but 'many mortals' somehow in some indefinable manner includes almost all the people in the city, of every rank, age and sex; so you see Quadrigarius, wishing to describe the crowd as vast and mixed, as in fact it was, said that Metellus came into the Capitol ' with many mortals, speaking with more force than if he had said 'with many men.'

When we, as was fitting, had expressed, not only approval, but admiration of all this that we had heard from Fronto, he said:

Take care, however, not to think that mortales multi is to be used always and everywhere in place of multi homines, lest that Greek proverb, to\ e)pi\ th=| fakh=| mu/ron, or 'myrrh on lentils, [*](That is, to use a costly perfumed oil to dress a dish of lentils; proverbial for a showy entertainment with little to eat ) which is found in one of Varro's Satires, [*](p. 219, Bücheler.) be applied to you.

That fades has a wider application than is commonly supposed.

WE may observe that many Latin words have departed from their original signification and passed into one that is either far different or near akin, and that such a departure is due to the usage of those ignorant people who carelessly use words of which they have not learned the meaning. As, for example, some think that facies, applied to a man, means only the face, eyes and cheeks, that which the Greeks call pro/swpon; whereas facies really designates the whole form, dimensions and, as it were, the make-up of the entire body, being formed from facio as species is from aspects and figura from fingere. Accordingly Pacuvius, in the tragedy entitled Niptra, used faces for the height of a man's body in these lines: [*](253, Ribbeck3.)

1. A man in prime of life, of spirit bold,
2. Of stature (facie) tall.

But facies is applied, not only to the bodies of men, but also to the appearance of other things of every kind. For facies may be said properly, if the application be seasonable, of a mountain, the heavens and the sea. [*](Just so we speak of the face of nature, the face of the waters, and the like.) The words of Sallust in the second book of his Histories are [*](ii. 2, Maur.)

Sardinia, in the African Sea, having the appearance (facies) of a human foot, [*](That is, the sole of the foot.) projects farther on the eastern than on the western side.

1. But tell me, pray, how looks (qua sit facie) that nurse of yours?—
2. Not very tall, complexion dark.—'Tis she!—
3. A comely wench, with pretty mouth, black eyes—
4. By Jove! a picture of her limned in words!

The meaning of caninum prandium in Marcus Varro's satire.

LATELY a foolish, boastful fellow, sitting in a bookseller's shop, was praising and advertising himself, asserting that he was the only one under all heaven who could interpret the Satires of Marcus Varro, which by some are called Cynical, by others Menippean. And then he displayed some passages of no great difficulty, which he said no one could presume to explain. At the time I chanced to have with me a book of those Satires, entitled (Udroku/wn, or The Water Dog. [*](This, with the (Ippoku/wn, or Dog-Knight, and the Kunorh/twr, or Dog-Rhetorician, justifies the term Cynicae as applied to Varro's Saturae.) I therefore went up to him and said:

Master, of course you know that old Greek saying, that music, if it be hidden, is of no account. [*](The same proverb is put into the mouth of Nero by Suetonius (Nero, xx. 1), where the meaning is, that it is of no use for one to know how to sing, unless he proves that he knows how by singing in public.) I beg you therefore to read these few lines and tell me the meaning of the proverb

v2.p.515

contained in them.

Do you rather,

read me what you do not understand, in order that I may interpret it for you.

How on earth can I read,

what I cannot understand? Surely my reading will be indistinct and confused, and will even distract your attention.

Then, as many others who were there present agreed with me and made the same request, I handed him an ancient copy of the satire, of tested correctness and clearly written. But he took it with a most disturbed and worried expression. But what shall I say followed? I really do not dare to ask you to believe me. Ignorant schoolboys, if they had taken up that book, could not have read more laughably, so wretchedly did he pronounce the words and murder the thought. Then, since many were beginning to laugh, he returned the book to me, saying,

You see that my eyes are weak and almost ruined by constant night work; I could barely make out even the forms [*](Apices here seems to refer to the strokes of which the letters were made up; cf. Cassiodorus vii. 184. 6 K., digamma nominatur quia duos apices ex gamma littera habere videtur, and Gell. xvii. 9. 12.) of the letters. When my eyes have recovered, come to me and I will read the whole of that book to you.

Master,

I hope your eyes may improve; but I pray you, tell me this, for which you will have no need of your eyes; what does caninum prandium mean in the passage which you read?

You ask no small matter; I do not give such instruction for nothing.

The words of the passage in which that proverb is found are as follows: [*](Fr. 575, Bücheler.)

Do you not know that Mnesitheus [*](A celebrated Athenian physician of the fourth century before our era.) writes that there are three kinds of wine, dark, light and medium, which the Greeks call

v2.p.517

kirro/s or 'tawny'; and new, old and medium? And that the dark gives virility, the light increases the urine, and the medium helps digestion? That the new cools, the old heats, and the medium is a dinner for a dog (caninum prandium)?

a dinner for a dog,

a dog's meal,

A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus directed against those who are called Chaldaeans, and who profess to tell men's fortunes from the conjunction and movements of the stars and constellations.

AGAINST those who call themselves

Chaldaeans

astrologers,

somewhat roughly,

For if the original Chaldaeans,

who dwelt in the open plains, watched the movements and orbits of the stars their

v3.p.7

separations and conjunctions, and observed their effects, let this art continue to be practised, but let it be only under the same inclination of the heavens as that under which the Chaldaeans then were. For the system of observation of the Chaldaeans cannot remain valid, if anyone should wish to apply it to different regions of the sky. For who does not see,

how great is the diversity of the zones and circles of the heavens caused by the inclination and convexity of the earth? Why then should not those same stars, by which they maintain that all human and divine affairs are affected, just as they do not everywhere arouse cold and heat, but change and vary the weather, at the same time causing calm in one place and storm in another—why should they not, I say, produce one series of affairs and events in the land of the Chaldaeans, another among the Gaetulians, another on the Danube, and still another on the Nile? But,

it is utterly inconsistent to suppose that the mass and the condition of this vast height of air does not remain the same under one or another region of the heavens, but that in human affairs those stars always indicate the same thing from whatever part of the earth you may observe them.

wandering,

the wanderers,

some stars are visible from certain lands and are known to the men of those lands; but those same stars are not visible from every other land and are wholly unknown to other men. And granting,

both that only these stars ought to be observed, and that too from one part of the earth, what possible end was there to such observation, and what periods of time seemed sufficient for understanding what the conjunction or the orbits or the transits of the stars foretold? For if an observation was made in the beginning in such a manner that it was calculated under what aspect, arrangement and position of the stars anyone was born, and if thereafter his fortune from the beginning of his life, his character, his disposition, the circumstances of his affairs and activities, and finally also the end of his life were noted, and all these things as they had actually happened were committed to writing, and long afterwards, when the same stars were in the same aspect and position, it was supposed that those same things would happen to others who had been born at that same time; [*](That is, the time when the stars were again in the same position. The point is, that observations made for one man, even though they came out right, were of no value, because of the long time that it took for the stars to reach the same positions that they had at the time of the earlier observations.) if the first observations were made in that way,

and from such observations a kind of science was formed, it can by no means be a success. For let them tell me in how many years, pray, or rather in how many ages, the cycle of the observations could be completed.

wandering,

But how,

can it be believed that the fate and fortune foretold by the form and position of any one of the stars are

v3.p.13

fixed and attached to one particular individual, and that the same position of the stars is restored only after a long series of years, if the indications of the same man's life and fortunes in such short intervals, through the single degrees of his forefathers and through an infinite order of successions, are so often and so frequently pointed out as the same, although the position of the stars is not the same? But if this can happen, and if this contradiction and variation be admitted through all the epochs of antiquity in foretelling the origin of those men who are to be born afterwards, this inequality confounds the observation and the whole theory of the science falls to the ground.

reasoning beings,

And if,

they affirm that it could have been foretold whether king Pyrrhus or Manius Curius was to be victorious in the battle, why, pray, do they not dare also to predict which of the

v3.p.15

players with dice or counters on a board will win? Or, forsooth, do they know important things, but not those which are unimportant; and are unimportant things more difficult to understand than the important? But if they claim knowledge of great matters and say that they are plainer and easier to be understood, I should like,

to have them tell me, in this observation of the whole world, in comparison with such mighty works of nature, what they regard as great in the trifling and brief fortunes and affairs of men. And I should like to have them answer this question also,

if the instant in which man at birth is allotted his destiny is so brief and fleeting, that at that same moment not more than one can be born with the same conjunction under the same circle of the heavens, and if therefore even twins have different lots in life, since they are not born at the same instant—I ask them to tell me,

how and by what plan they are able to overtake the course of that fleeting moment, which can scarcely be grasped by one's thoughts, or to detain and examine it, when in the swift revolution of days and nights even the briefest moments, as they say, cause great changes?

This,

of course would never happen, if the natal influence assigned to the birth

v3.p.17

of each of them had its own peculiar conditions. But if,

they answer that even in the life and death of men who are born at different times certain events may happen which are alike and similar, through some similar conjunction of the stars at a later time, why may not sometimes everything become equal, so that through such agreement and similarity of the stars many a Socrates and Antisthenes and Plato may appear, equal in birth, in person, in talent, in character, in their whole life and in their death? But this,

can by no means whatever happen. Therefore they cannot properly use this argument against the inequality of men's births and the similarity of their death.

These remarks I have touched upon in a dry, unadorned, and almost jejune style. But Favorinus, such was the man's talent, and such is at once the copiousness and the charm of Greek eloquence, delivered them at greater length and with more charm, brilliance and readiness, and from time to

For they do not,

say anything that is tangible, definite or comprehensible, but depending upon slippery and roundabout conjecture, groping with cautious steps between truth and falsehood, as if walking in the dark, they go their way. And after making many attempts they either happen suddenly on the truth without knowing it, or led by the great credulity of those who consult them, they get hold by cunning of something true, and therefore obviously find it easier to come somewhere near the truth in past events than in those to come. Yet all the true things which they say through accident or cunning,

are not a thousandth part of the falsehoods which they utter.

But besides these remarks which I heard Favorinus make, I recall many testimonies of the ancient poets, by which delusive fallacies of this kind are refuted. Among these is the following saying of Pacuvius: [*](v. 407, Ribbeck3.)

1. Could men divine the future, they'd match Jove.

1. I trust the augurs not, who with mere words
2. Enrich men's ears, to load themselves with gold.

Favorinus too, wishing to deter and turn away young men from such calculators of nativities and from certain others of that kind, who profess to reveal all the future by means of magic arts, concluded with arguments of this sort, to show that they ought by no means to be resorted to and consulted.

They predict,

either adverse or prosperous events. If they foretell prosperity and deceive you, you will be made wretched by vain expectations; if they foretell adversity and lie, you will be made wretched by useless fears. But if they predict truly and the events are unhappy, you will thereby be made wretched by anticipation, before you are fated to be so; if on the contrary they promise prosperity and it conies to pass, then there will clearly be two disadvantages: the anticipation of your hopes will wear you out with suspense, and hope will in advance have reaped the fruit of your approaching happiness. Therefore there is every reason why you should not resort to men of that kind, who profess knowledge of the future.

How Favorinus discoursed when I consulted hint about the duty of a judge.

AT the time when I was first chosen by the praetors to be one of the judges in charge of the suits which are called

private,

living voice,

mute counsellors.

A sum of money was claimed before me, which was said to have been paid and counted out; [*](i.e. advanced or loaned by the claimant.) but the claimant did not show this by documents or witnesses, but relied upon very slender arguments. It was clear, however, that he was a thoroughly good man, of well-known and tested integrity and of blameless life, and many striking instances of his probity and honesty were presented. On the other hand, the man upon whom the claim was made was shown to be of no substance, of base and evil life, often convicted of lying, and full of treachery and fraud. Yet lie, along with his numerous advocates, noisily protested that the payment of the money ought to be shown in the usual way, by a

receipt for payment,

book of accounts,

producing a signature,

a sealed deed,

testimony of witnesses

Thereupon some friends of mine, whom I had asked to aid me with their advice, experienced men with a reputation gained in acting as advocates and in the business of the forum, who were always inclined to act in haste because of the suits everywhere demanding attention, declared there was no need of sitting longer and that there was no doubt that the defendant ought to be acquitted, since it could not be shown in any of the usual ways that he had received the money. But when I contemplated the men, one abounding in honesty, the other in baseness and of a most shameful and degraded life, I could not by any means be argued into an acquittal. I therefore ordered a postponement and from the bench I proceeded to go to the philosopher Favorinus, with whom I associated a great deal at Rome at that time. I told him the whole story of the suit and of the men, as it had been related to me, begging that with regard both to the matter about which I was then in doubt, as well as to others which I should have to consider in my position as judge, he should make me a man of greater wisdom in such affairs.

Then Favorinus, after commending my scrupulous hesitation and my conscientiousness said:

The question which you are now considering may seem to be of a trifling and insignificant character. But if you wish me to instruct you as to the full duties of a judge, this is by no means a fit place or time; for such a discussion involves many intricate questions and requires long and anxious attention and consideration. For-to touch at once upon a few leading questions for your benefit-the first query relating to the duty of a judge is this. If a judge

v3.p.27

chance to have knowledge of a matter which is brought to trial before him, and the matter is clearly known and demonstrated to him alone from some external circumstance or event, before it has begun to be argued or brought into court, but nevertheless the same thing is not proved in the course of the trial, ought he to decide in accordance with what he knew beforehand, or according to the evidence in the case? This question also,

"Besides these questions, there is disagreement also on this point, whether it is consistent with the Practice and office of a judge by his occasional remarks so to explain and set forth the matter and he case which is being tried, that before the time of his decision, as the result of statements which at he time are made before him in a confused and doubtful form, he gives signs and indications of the motions and feelings by which he is affected on each occasion and at every time. For those judges who give the impression of being keen and quick hink that the matter in dispute cannot be examined

But,

This was the advice which Favorinus gave me at that time, as became a philosopher. But I thought that I should show more importance and presumption than became my youth and humble merit, if I appeared to sit in judgment on and condemn a man from the characters of the disputants rather than from the evidence in the case; yet I could not make up my mind to acquit the defendant, and accordingly I took oath that the matter was not clear to me and in that way I was relieved from rendering a decision. The words of the speech of Marcus Cato which

Favorinus mentioned are these:

And I have learnt this from the tradition of our ancestors: if anyone claim anything from another, and both are equally either good or bad, provided there are no witnesses to the transaction between the two, the one from whom the claim is made ought rather to be credited. Now, if Gellius had made a wager [*](See note on vi. 11. 9.) with Turio on the issue, ' Provided Gellius were not a better man than Turio,' no one, I think, would be so mad as to decide that Gellius is better than Turio; if Gellius is not better than Turio, the one from whom the claim is made ought preferably to be credited.

Whether Plato and Xenophon were rivals and not on good terms with each other.

THOSE who have written most carefully and thoroughly about the life and character of Xenophon and Plato have expressed the belief that they were not free from certain secret and concealed feelings of enmity and rivalry of each other, and they have set forth some conjectural evidence of this, drawn from their writings. These are in fact of this sort: that Plato in his great number of works nowhere makes mention of Xenophon, nor, on the other hand, does Xenophon mention Plato in his writings, although both men, and in particular Plato in the dialogues which he wrote, mention many followers of Socrates. This too they thought was an indication of no sincerely friendly feeling: that Xenophon in opposition to that celebrated work of Plato, which he wrote on the best form of constitution and of governing a city-state, having barely read the two books of Plato's work which were first made public, proposed a different mode of government (to wit, a monarchy) in the work entitled Paidei/as Ku/rou, or The Education of Cyrus. They say that Plato was so disturbed by that conduct and book of his, that having made mention of king Cyrus in one of his own books, in order to criticize and belittle Xenophon's work he said [*](De Legg. 12, p. 694, c.) that Cyrus was indeed a strong and active man, but

had by no means had a fitting education

Moreover, they think that this also is added to

But when Xenophon wrote this,

The of course refers to Plato, in whose works Socrates discourses on physics, music and geometry.

That Chrysippus skilfully and vividly represented the likeness of Justice in melodious and picturesque language.

MOST worthily, by Heaven! and most elegantly did Chrysippus, in the first book of his work entitled On Beauty and Pleasure, depict the face and eyes of Justice, and her aspect, with austere and noble word-painting. For he represents the figure of Justice, and says that it was usually represented by the painters and orators of old in about the following manner:

Of maidenly form and bearing, with a stern and fearsome countenance, a keen glance of the eye, and a dignity and solemnity which was neither mean nor cruel, but awe-inspiring.

She has the title of virgin as a symbol of her purity and an indication that she has never given way to evil-doers, that she has never yielded to soothing words, to prayers and entreaties, to flattery, nor to anything of that kind. Therefore she is properly represented too as stern and dignified, with a serious expression and a keen, steadfast glance, in order that she may inspire fear in the wicked and courage in the good; to the latter, as her friends, she presents a friendly aspect, to the former a stern face.

I thought it the more necessary to quote these words of Chrysippus, in order that they might be before us for consideration and judgment, since, on hearing me read them, some philosophers who are more sentimental in their views called that a representation of Cruelty rather than of Justice.

The strife and contention of two eminent grammarians at Rome as to the vocative case of egregius.

ONCE upon a time, wearied with constant writing, I was walking in the park of Agrippa [*](The campus Agrippae, laid out by the famous minister of Augustus, was finished and dedicated by the emperor in 7 B.C. It extended from the line of the aqua Virgo on the south at least as far as the modern via S. Claudio on the north, and from the via Lata to the slope of the Quirinal hill, although its eastern boundary is quite uncertain; see Platner, Topog.,2 p. 477.) for the purpose of relieving and resting my mind. And there, as it chanced, I saw two grammarians of no small repute in the city of Rome, and was a witness of a violent dispute between them, one maintaining

The argument of the one who thought that we should say egregi was of this sort:

Whatever nouns or words,

end in the nominative singular in the syllable us preceded by i, in the vocative case terminate in the letter i, as Caelius Caeli, modius modi, tertius terti, Accius Acci, Titius Titi, and the like; so then egregious, since it ends in the syllable us in the nominative and the letter i precedes that syllable, must in the vocative singular have i for the final letter, and therefore it is correct to say egregi, not egregie. For divus and rivus and clivus do not end in the syllable us, but in that which ought to be written with two us, and in order to indicate that sound a new letter was devised, which was called the digamma.

Of what kind are the things which have the appearance of learning, but are neither entertaining nor useful; and also of changes in the names of several cities and regions.

A FRIEND of mine, a man not without fame as a student of literature, who had passed a great part of his life among books, said to me:

I should like to aid and adorn your Nights,

grammarian

narrow passage,

I

v3.p.47

congratulate you, most learned sir, on this display of encyclopaedic erudition; but take back this precious volume, which does not have the slightest connection with my humble writings. For my Nights, which you wish to assist and adorn, base their inquiries especially on that one verse of Homer which Socrates said was above all other things always dear to him [*](Odyss. iv. 392.) Whate'er of good and ill has come to you at home.

That Marcus Varro presented Gnaeus Pompeius, when he was consul elect for the first time, with a commentary, which Varro himself called Ei)sagwgiko/s, [*](The word means Introductory. It was what we should call a Handbook of Parliamentary Practice.) on the method of conducting meetings of the senate.

GNAEUS POMP/EIUS was elected consul for the first time with Marcus Crassus. When he was on the point of entering upon the office, because of his long military service he was unacquainted with the method of convening and consulting the senate, and of city affairs in general. He therefore asked his friend Marcus Varro to make him a book of instructions (Ei)sagwgiko/s, as Varro himself termed it), from which he might learn what he ought to say and do when he brought a measure before the House. Varro in letters which he wrote to Op

First of all, he tells us there by what magistrates the senate was commonly convened according to the usage of our forefathers, naming these:

the dictator, consuls, praetors, tribunes of the commons, interrex, and prefect of the city.

temple.

temples

But when he says that a decree of the senate is commonly made in two ways, either by calling for opinions or by division, that does not seem to agree with what Ateius Capito has written in his Miscellanies. For in Book VIIII Capito says [*](Frag. 3, Huschke; 5, Bremer.) that Tubero asserts [*](Frag. 1, Huschke; De Off. Sen. 1, Bremer.) that no decree of the senate could be made without a division, since in all decrees of the senate, even in those which are made by calling for opinions, a division was necessary, and Capito himself declares that this is true. But I recall writing on this whole matter more fully and exactly in another place. [*](iii. 18.)

Inquiry and difference of opinion as to whether the praefect appointed for the Latin Festival has the right of convening and consulting the senate.

JUNIUS declares [*](Frag. 10, Huschke; id., Bremer.) that the praefect left in charge of the city because of the Latin Festival [*](The feriae Latinae were held on the Alban Mount in April at a date set by the consuls. Since the consuls must be present at the celebration, they appointed a prafectus urbi to take their place in Rome. Under the empire he was called praefectus urbi fcriarum Latinarum, to distinguish him from the praefectus urbi instituted by Augustus (Suet. Aug. xxxvii). Since a praefectus had the powers of the officer or officers in whose place he was appointed, Varro and Capito are right in theory; but since very young men were often appointed to the office (Suet. Nero, vii. 2; S.H.A. vita Marci, iv, etc.), Junius may have been right as to the actual practice.) may not hold a meeting of the senate, since he is neither a senator nor has he the right of expressing his opinion, because he is made praefect at an age when he is not eligible to the senate. But Marcus Varro in the fourth book of his Investigations in Epistolary Form [*](p. 196, Bipont.) and Ateius Capito in the ninth of his Miscellanies [*](Frag. 4, Huschke; id., Bremer.) assert that the praefect has the right to convene the senate, and Capito declares that Varro agrees on this point with Tubero, contrary to the view of Junius:

For the tribunes of the commons also,

had the right of convening the senate although before the bill of Atinius [*](The date of this bill is not known.) they were not senators.