Noctes Atticae

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

) than to the rules and precepts devised by the grammarians.

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,

he replied,

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.

Then the one who had asked the question said:

What do you mean by 'consult my ear'?

and he told me that Probus answered:

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,

said he,

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.

But the one who had asked the question, a boorish fellow surely and with untrained ear, said:

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.

Then Probus, now somewhat impatient, retorted:

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.

In one place he has tres, in the other tris; weigh and ponder both, and you will find that each sounds most suitable in its own place. But also in this line of Vergil, [*](Aen. ii. 554.)

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

if you change haec and say hic finis, it will be hard and unrhythmical and your ears will shrink from the change. Just as, on the contrary, you would make the following verse of Vergil less sweet, if you were to change it: [*](Aen. i. 241.)

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

For if you should say quam das finem, you would somehow make the sound of the words harsh and somewhat weak.

Ennius too spoke of rectos cupressos, or

straight cypresses,

contrary to the accepted gender of that word, in the following verse:

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

The sound of the word, I think, seemed to him stronger and more vigorous, if he said rectos cupressos rather than rectas. But, on the other hand, this same Ennius in the eighteenth book of his Annals [*](Ann. 454, Vahlen2, cf. ii. 26. 4.) said aere fulva instead of fulvo, not merely because Homer said h)e/ra baqei=a, [*](Iliad xx. 446; xxi. 6.) but because this sound, I think, seemed more sonorous and agreeable.

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)

; for it would have been heavier and more archaic to say perangusto freto. Also in his second Oration against Verres, making use of a like rhythm, he said [*](ii. 2. 191.)

by an evident sin,

using peccatu instead of peccato; for I find this written in one or two of Tiro's copies, of very trustworthy antiquity. These are Cicero's words:

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

itself, and tributus, where we say tributum (tribute). Adlegatus (instigation) too and arbitratus (judgment) are used for adlegatio and arbitratio, and preserving these forms we say arbitratu and adlegatu meo. So then Cicero said in manifesto peccatu, as the early writers said in manifesto incestu, not that it was not good Latin to say peccato, but because in that context the use of peccatu was finer and smoother to the ear.

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,

although with equally good rhythm he might have used the more common aureus funis and written:

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.

To such a degree have writers in some cases followed neither reason nor usage in choosing a word, but only the ear, which weighs words according to its own standards. [*](cf. Hor. Epist. i. 7. 98.)

And as for those who do not feel this,

says Marcus Cicero himself, [*](Orat. 168.) when speaking about appropriate and rhythmical language,

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,

in another place [*](Iliad xvii. 755.) he did not use yhrw=n te, but yarw=n:

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

not conforming to general usage, but seeking the pleasing effect peculiar to the word in each of the two positions; for if you change one of these for the other, you will give both a harsh sound.

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,

of those who wore gallicae, or

Gallic slippers,

and not soleae. But Castricius certainly spoke purely and properly; for in general all kinds of foot-gear which cover only the bottom of the soles, leaving the rest almost bare, and are bound on by slender thongs, are called soleae, or sometimes by the Greek word crepidulae. But gallicae, I think, is a new word, which came into use not long before the time of Marcus Cicero. In fact, he himself uses it in his second Oration against Antony: [*](Phil. ii. 76.)

You ran about,

says lie,

in slippers (gallicis) and cloak.

Nor do I find this word with that meaning in any other writer—a writer of high authority, that is; but, as I have said, they called that kind of shoe crepidae and crepidulae, shortening the first syllable of the Greek word krhpi=des, and the makers of such shoes they termed crepidarii. Sempronius Asellio in the fourteenth book of his Histories says: [*](Fr. 11, Peter2.)

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

books of the priests of the Roman people, as well as in many early books of prayers. In these we find:

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.

Of these I hear most people pronounce the one which I have put last with a long initial syllable, as the Greeks pronounce Nhrei/+des (

Nereids

). But those who have spoken correctly made the first syllable short and lengthened the third. For the nominative case of the word, as it is written in the books of early writers, is Nerio, although Marcus Varro, in his Menippean Satire entitled Skiomaxi/a, or

Battle of the Shadows,

uses in the vocative Nericnes, not Nerio, in the following verses: [*](Frag. 506, Bücheler.)

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

From which it necessarily follows that the nominative case is the same. But Nerio was declined by our forefathers like Atnio; for, as they said Aniēnem with the third syllable long, so they did Neriēnem. Furthermore, that word, whether it be Nerio or Nerienes, is Sabine and signifies valour and courage. Hence among the Claudii, who we are told sprang from the Sabines, whoever was of eminent and surpassing courage was called Nero. [*](See Suet. Tib. i. 2.) But the Sabines seem to have derived this word from the Greeks, who call the sinews and ligaments of the limbs neu=ra, whence we also in Latin call them nervi. Therefore Nerio designates the strength and power of Mars and a certain majesty of the War-god.

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.

She says

by thy lord's advice,

of course meaning her husband, Mars; and from this it is plain that Plautus made use of no poetic fiction, but that there was also a tradition according to which Nerio was said by some to be the wife of Mars. But it must be noticed besides that Gellius writes Neria with an a, not Nerio nor Nerienes. In addition to Plautus too, and Gellius, Licinius Imbrex, an early writer of comedies, in the play entitled Neaera, wrote as follows: [*](p. 39, Ribbeck3.)

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

Moreover, the metre of this verse is such that the third syllable in that name must be made short, [*](That is, Nērĭĕnem, instead of Nērĭēnem.) contrary to what was said above. But how greatly the quantity of this syllable varied among the early writers is so well known that I need not waste many words on the subject. Ennius also, in this verse from the first book of his Annals, [*](Ann. 104, Vahlen2.)

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.)

if, as is not always the case, he has preserved the metre, has lengthened the first syllable and shortened the third.

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

unadorned, and not even whitewashed, up to the seventieth year of his age. And later he uses these words on the subject: [*](O.R.F., p. 146, Meyer2.)

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

he says,

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

Then he goes on to say:

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

This simple frankness of the man of Tusculum, who says that he lacks many things, yet desires nothing, truly has more effect in inducing thrift and contentment with small means than the Greek sophistries of those who profess to be philosophers and invent vain shadows of words, declaring that they have nothing and yet lack nothing and desire nothing, while all the time they are fevered with having, with lacking, and with desiring.

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

his friend the consul, who was hearing cases from the tribunal—and I at the time was in attendance on him—he asked, I say, what that inscription manubiae seemed to us really to mean. Then one of those who were with him, a man of a great and wide-spread reputation for his devotion to learned pursuits, said:

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

Then Favorinus rejoined:

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.

And then, such was Favorinus' marvellous and almost miraculous memory, he at once added Cicero's own words. These I have appended: [*](De Leg. Agr. i., p. 601, Orelli2.)

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

; and just below he again used these two words in conjunction: [*](Id. ii. 59.)

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

[*](It was customary for cities in the provinces to send golden crowns to a victorious general, which were carried before him in his triumph. By the time of Cicero the presents took the form of money, called aurum coronarium. Later, it was a present to the emperor on stated occasions.) Then, turning to the man who had said that manubiae was the same as praeda, Favorinus said, "Does it seem to you that in both these passages Marcus Cicero weakly and frigidly used two words which, as you think, mean the same thing, thus showing himself deserving of the ridicule with which in Aristophanes, the wittiest of comic writers, Euripides assailed Aeschylus, saying: [*](Frogs 1154, 1156 ff. )

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,

said he,

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,

said Favorinus, "what force has this repetition and recapitulation of the same thing under another name in manubiae and praeda? It does not adorn the sentence, does it, as is sometimes the case? It does not make it more exact or more melodious, does it? Does it make an effective cumulation of words designed to strengthen the accusation or brand the crime? As, for example, in the speech of the same Marcus Tullius On the Appointment of an Accuser one and the same thing is expressed in several words with force and severity: [*](Div. in Caec. 19.) ' All Sicily, if it could speak with one voice, would say this:

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

For having once mentioned the cities as a whole, he added 'abodes' and 'shrines,' which are themselves a part of the cities. Also in the same oration he says in a similar manner: [*](§ 11.) 'During three years Gaius Verres is said to have plundered the province of Sicily, devastated the cities of the Sicilians, emptied their homes, pillaged their shrines.' Does he not seem to you, when he had mentioned the province of Sicily and had besides added the cities as well, to have included the houses also and the shrines, which he later mentioned? So too do not those many and varied words, 'plundered, devastated, emptied, pillaged,' have one and the same force? They surely do. But since the mention of them all adds to the dignity of the speech and the impressive copiousness of its diction, although they are nearly the same and spring from a single idea, yet they appear to contain more meaning because they strike the ears and mind more frequently.

"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

of the Rhodians, wishing to describe too great prosperity, used three words which mean the same thing. [*](Orig. v. 1, p. 21, 8, Jordan.) His language is as follows: I know that most men in favourable, happy and prosperous circumstances are wont to be puffed up in spirit and to increase in arrogance and haughtiness.' In the seventh book of his Origins too, [*](Frag. 108, Peter2.) in the speech which he spoke Against Servius Galba, Cato used several words to express the same thing: [*](O.R.F., p. 123, Meyer2.) ' Many things have dissuaded me from appearing here, my years, my time of life, my voice, my strength, my old age; but nevertheless, when I reflected that so important a matter was being discussed..."

"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.

Also in another verse: [*](Odyss. xi. 612.)

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

For although all those numerous synonymous terms mean nothing more than 'battle,' yet the varied aspects of this concept are elegantly and charmingly depicted by the use of several different words. And in the same poet this one thought is repeated with admirable effect by the use of two words; for Idaeus, when he interrupted the armed contest of Hector and Ajax, addressed them thus: [*](Iliad vii. 279.)

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

and in this verse it ought not to be supposed that the second word, meaning the same as the first, was added and lugged in without reason, merely to fill out the metre; for that is utterly silly and false. But while he gently and calmly chided the obstinate fierceness and love of battle in two youths burning with a desire for glory, he emphasized and impressed upon them the atrocity of the act and the sin of their insistence by adding one word to another; and that double form of address made his admonition more impressive. Nor ought the following repetition of the same thought to seem any more weak and cold: [*](Odyss. xx. 241.)

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

because he said the same thing twice in qa/naton (death) and mo/ron (fate); for the heinousness of attempting so cruel and unjust a murder is deplored by the admirable repetition of the word meaning 'death.' Who too is of so dull a mind as not to understand that in [*](Iliad ii. 8.)

1. Away, begone, dire dream,

and [*](Iliad viii. 399.)

1. Away, begone, swift Iris,

two words of the same meaning are not used to no purpose, e)k parallh/lwn, 'as the repetition of two similar words,' as some think, but are a vigorous exhortation to the swiftness which is enjoined?"

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,

continued Favorinus, "is the use of praeda and manubiae in the same writer similar to this? Truly, not at all! For by the addition of manubiae the sentence does not become more ornate, more forcible, or more euphonius; but manubiae means one thing, as we learn from the books on antiquities and on the early Latin, praeda quite another. For praeda is used of the actual objects making up the booty, but manubiae designates the money collected by the quaestor from the sale of the booty. Therefore Marcus Tullius, in order to rouse greater hatred of the decemvirs, said that they would carry off and appropriate the two: both the booty which had not yet been sold and the money which had been received from the sale of the booty."

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.

[*](See note 2, p. 426. Many believe this to be true also of the Latin sermo urbanus; see Class. Phil. ii. 444 ff.) Thus indeed Nigidius bids us speak. But if anyone nowadays, calling to a Valerius, accents the first syllable of the vocative according to the direction of Nigidius, he will not escape being laughed at. Furthermore, Nigidius calls the acute accent

the highest pitch,

and what we call accentus, or

accent,

he calls voculatio, or

tone,

and the case which we now call genetivus, or

genitive,

he calls casus interrogandi,

the case of asking.

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

If you write the genitive case of amicus,

he says,

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.

Led by the authority of a most learned man, I thought that I ought not to pass by these statements, for the sake of those who desire a knowledge of such matters.

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.

This verse Virgil has emulated, and has made it equal to the original by a graceful change of two words: [*](Georg. i. 437.)

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:

1. A bull to Alpheus, to Poseidon one.

1. A bull to Neptune, and to you, Apollo fair.

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,

he says,

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

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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.

When this book and this passage were read to Marcus Fronto, as I was sitting with him in company with some others, it seemed to one of those present, a man not without learning, that the use of mortalibus multis for hominibus multis in a work of history was foolish and frigid, and savoured too much of poetry. Then Fronto said to the man who expressed this opinion:

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,

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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,

continued Fronto,

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.

This judgment of Fronto's, though relating to trifling and unimportant words, I thought I ought not to pass by, lest the somewhat subtle distinction between words of this kind should escape and elude us.

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.

And, by the way, it has also occurred to me that Plautus too, in the Poenulus, said facies, meaning the appearance of the whole body and complexion. These are his words: [*](1111.)

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!

Besides, I remember that Quadrigarius in his nineteenth book used facies for stature and the form of the whole body.

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

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contained in them.

Do you rather,

he replied,

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

How on earth can I read,

I replied,

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,

said I,

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?

And that egregious blockhead, as if alarmed by the difficulty of the question, at once got up and made off, saying:

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)?

The meaning of

a dinner for a dog,

though a slight matter, I have investigated long and anxiously. Now an abstemious meal, at which there is no drinking, is called

a dog's meal,

since the dog has no need of wine. Therefore when Mnesitheus named a medium wine, which was neither new nor old—and many men speak as if all wine was either new or old—he meant that the medium wine had the power neither of the old nor of the new, and was therefore not to be considered wine at all, because it neither cooled nor heated. By refrigerare (to cool), he means the same as the Greek yu/xein.