Noctes Atticae

Gellius, Aulus

Gellius, Aulus. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, 1927 (printing).

About the strange suicides of the maids of Miletus.

PLUTARCH in the first book of his work On the Soul, [*](vii. p. 20, Bern.) discussing disorders which affect the human mind, has told us that almost all the maidens of the Milesian nation suddenly without any apparent cause conceived a desire to die, and thereupon many of them hanged themselves. When this happened more frequently every day, and no remedy had any effect on their resolve to die, the Milesians passed a decree that all those maidens who committed suicide

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by hanging should be carried to the grave naked, along with the same rope by which they had destroyed themselves. After that decree the maidens ceased to seek a voluntary death, deterred by the mere shame of so disgraceful a burial.

The words of a decree of the senate on expelling philosophers from the city of Rome; also the words of the edict of the censors by which those were rebuked and restrained who had begun to establish and practise the art of rhetoric at Rome.

IN the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala [*](161 B.C.) the following decree of the senate was passed regarding Latin speaking philosophers and rhetoricians: [*](Fontes Iuris Rom., p. 157; cf. Suetonius, De Rhet. 1 (ii. p. 434, L.C.L.).)

(The praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed to him in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they should not remain in Rome.

Then some years [*](92 B.C.) after that decree of the senate Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus the censors issued the following edict for restraining the Latin rhetoricians: [*](F.I.R., p. 215; Suetonius ii, p. 434 f. L.C.L.)

It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that
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young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers neither please us nor seem proper. Therefore it seems necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.

And it was not only in those times, which were somewhat rude and not yet refined by Greek training, that philosophers were driven from the city of Rome, but even in the reign of Domitian [*](A.D. 89.) by a decree of the senate they were driven from the city and forbidden Italy. And it was at that time that the philosopher Epictetus also withdrew from Rome to Nicopolis because of that senatorial decree.

A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence.

WHEN Gaius Gracchus [*](The celebrated tribune of 123 and 122 B.C. He was famous as an orator; cf. i. 11. 10 ff.) returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words: [*](O.R.F., p. 231, Meyer2.)

I conducted myself in my province,

said he,

as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their
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general's tent.

Later on he continues as follows:

I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, [*](One is reminded of the story of the politician who declared that he had never received a penny in bribes, but that it was as well to say nothing about thousand dollar bills.) by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons.

Then after an interval he goes on:

Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.

Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians

common.

UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are

common

verbs and can be used either way:

I respect you

and

I am respected by you,

that is,

you respect me

;

I use you

and

I am used by you,

that is,

you use me

;

I exhort you

and

I am exhorted by you,

that is,

you exhort me

;

I console you

and

I am consoled by you,

that is,

you console me.

Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are

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unusual in the second of these meanings, and it is a matter of inquiry whether they are ever so used. Afranius in The Cousins says: [*](ii. 33, Ribbeck3.)

Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap,
Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be.

Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning: [*](v. 43, Ribbeck3.)

Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur).

That is,

which is not to be used.

Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this: [*](Frag. 101, Peter2.)

He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle.

We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius.

But,

he says,

when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes.

Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, [*](§ 87 and § 53) so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be

common

verbs. Sallust too in a similar way says: [*](Hist. i. 49, Maur.)

The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis),

indicating that largior is one of the

common

verbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and

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pigitum, is used impersonally and indefinitely, [*](That is, without having a particular person or thing as its subject.) not only by the earlier writers, but also by Marcus Tullius in the second book of his De Finibus. [*](§ 39.)

First (I will refute),

says he,

the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear [*](i.e. who did not scruple.) (veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.

Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as

common

verbs. Thus we find in Virgil: [*](Aen. iii. 475.)

Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale),

and [*](Aen. iii. 460.)

Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe.

Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words: [*](iii. 1.)

For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days.

Also in those same Tables we find this: [*](viii. 22.)

Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, [*](That is, in a symbolic sale, when the purchaser touched a balance with a coin. See note on v. 19. 3 (vol. i., p. 436).) if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.

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That Metellus Numidicus borrowed a new form of expression from Greek usage.

IN Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in the third book of his Accusalion of Valerius Messala, I have made note of a novel expression. The words of his speech are as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 276, Mever2.)

When he knew that he had incurred so grave an accusation, and that our allies had come to the senate in tears, to make complaint that they had been exacted enormous sums of money (pecunias maximas exactos esse).

He says

that they had been exacted enormous sums of money,

instead of

that enormous sums of money had been exacted from them.

This seemed to me an imitation of a Greek idiom; for the Greeks say: ei)sepra/cato/ me a)rgu/rion, meaning

he exacted me money.

But if this can be said, so too can

one is exacted money,

and Caecilius seems to have used that form of expression in his Supposititious Aeschinus: [*](v. 92, Ribbeck3.)

Yet I the customs-fee exacted am.

That is to say,

yet the customs-fee is exacted from me.

That the early writers used passis velis and passis manibus, not from the verb patior, to which the participle belongs, but from pando, to which it does not belong.

FROM the verb pando the ancients made passum, not pansum, and with the preposition ex they formed

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expassum, not expansum. Caecilius in the Fellowbreakfasters says: [*](v. 197, Ribbeck3.)

That yesterday he'd looked in from the roof,
Had this announced, and straight the veil [*](The flame-coloured (yellow) bridal veil.) was spread (expassum).

A woman too is said to be capillo passo, or

with disordered hair,

when it is hanging down and loosened, and we say passis manibus and velis passis of hands and sails stretched out and spread. Therefore Plautus in his Braggart Captain, changing an a into an e, as is usual in compound words, uses dispessis for dispassis in these lines: [*](359 Cf. iv. 17. 8; a became e before two consonants, i before a single one, except r.) Methinks you thus must die without the gate, When you shall hold the cross with hands outstretched (dispessis).

Of the singular death of Milo of Croton. [*](The same story is told by Strabo, vi. 1. 12 (iii, p. 45, L.C.L.).)

MILO of Croton, a famous athlete, who was first crowned at the sixty-second Olympiad, [*](32 B.C.) as the chronicles record, ended his life in a strange and lamentable manner. When he was already advanced in age and had given up the athletic art, he chanced to be journeying alone in a wooded part of Italy. Near the road he saw an oak tree, the middle of which gaped with wide cracks. Then wishing, I suppose, to try whether he still had any strength left,

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he put his fingers into the hollows of the tree and tried to rend apart and split the oak. And in fact he did tear asunder and divide the middle part; but when the oak was thus split into two parts, and he relaxed his hold as if he had accomplished his attempt, the tree returned to its natural position when the pressure ceased, and catching and holding his hands as it came together and united, it kept the man there, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts.

Why young men of noble rank at Athens gave up playing the pipes, although it was one of their native customs.

ALCIBIADES the Athenian in his boyhood was being trained in the liberal arts and sciences at the home of his uncle, Pericles; and Pericles had ordered Antigenides, a player on the pipes, to be sent for, to teach the boy to play on that instrument, which was then considered a great accomplishment. But when the pipes were handed to him and he had put them to his lips and blown, disgusted at the ugly distortion of his face, he threw them away and broke them in two. When this matter was noised abroad, by the universal consent of the Athenians of that time the art of playing the pipes was given up. This story is told in the twenty-ninth book of the Commentary of Pamphila. [*](F.H.G. iii. 521. 9.)

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That the battle which Gaius Caesar fought on the plains of Pharsalus during the civil war was announced on the very same day at Patavium in Italy, and his victory foretold, by the divination of a seer.

ON the day that Gaius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius engaged in battle in Thessaly during the civil war, an event occurred at Patavium in Transpadane Italy, which is deserving of record. A priest called Cornelius, a man of good birth, honoured for scrupulousness in his office and revered for the purity of his life, was suddenly seized by a prophetic inspiration and said that he saw a most furious battle taking place afar off; then he shouted out, just as if he were personally taking part in the engagement, that some were giving way, others pressing on; that he saw before him carnage, flight, flying weapons, a renewal of the engagement, an attack, groans and wounds; and later he suddenly exclaimed that Caesar was victorious.

At the time the prophecy of the priest Cornelius seemed unimportant and without meaning. Afterwards, however, it caused great surprise, since not only the time of the battle which was fought in Thessaly, and its predicted outcome, were verified, but all the shifting fortunes of the day and the very conflict of the two armies were represented by the gestures and words of the seer. [*](Cf. Plutarch, Caesar, 47.)

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Memorable words of Marcus Varro, from the satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn.

THERE are not a few to whom that may apply which is said by Marcus Varro in his satire entitled Peri\ )Edesma/twn. or On Eatables. His words are these: [*](Fr. 404, Bücheler.)

If you had given to philosophy a twelfth part of the effort which you spent in making your baker give you good bread, you would long since have become a good man. As it is, those who know him are willing to buy him at a hundred thousand sesterces, while no one who knows you would take you at a hundred.

Certain facts about the birth, life and character of the poet Euripides, and about the end of his life.

THEOPOMPUS says [*](F.H. G. i. 294.) that the mother of the poet Euripides made a living by selling country produce. Furthermore, when Euripides was born, his father was assured by the astrologers that the boy, when he grew up, would be victor in the games; for that was his destiny. His father, understanding this to mean that he ought to be an athlete, exercised and strengthened his son's body and took him to Olympia to contend among the wrestlers. And at first he was not admitted to the contest because of his time of life, [*](He was too old for the boys' races.) but afterwards he engaged in the Eleusinian [*](Athletic games in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries.) and Thesean [*](A festival held at Athens in the autumn in the month Pyanepsion, in honour of Theseus.) contests and won crowns.

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Later, turning from attention to bodily exercise to the desire of training his mind, he was a pupil of the natural philosopher Anaxagoras and the rhetorician Prodicus, and, in moral philosophy, of Socrates. At the age of eighteen he attempted to write a tragedy. Philochorus relates [*](F.H. G. i. 412.) that there is on the island of Salamis a grim and gloomy cavern, [*](These words are probably not part of the quotation.) which I myself have seen, in which Euripides wrote tragedies. He is said to have had an exceeding antipathy towards almost all women, either because he had a natural disinclination to their society, or because he had had two wives at the same time (since that was permitted by a decree passed by the Athenians) and they had made wedlock hateful to him. Aristophanes also notices his antipathy to women in the first edition of the Thesmophoriazousae in these verses: [*](453 ff.)

Now then I urge and call on all our sex
This man to punish for his many crimes.
For on us, women, he brings bitter woes,
Himself brought up 'mid bitter garden plants.

But Alexander the Aetolian composed the following lines about Euripides: [*](Anal. Alex. p. 247, Meineke.)

The pupil of stout Anaxagoras,
Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned
To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote
Might honey and the Sirens well have known.

When Euripides was in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, and had become an intimate friend of the king, returning home one night from a dinner with the monarch he was torn by dogs, which were set

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upon him by a rival of his, and death resulted from his wounds. [*](He died in 406 B.C.; according to another version of the story it was a band of women who tore him to pieces. Both tales are of doubtful authenticity; the one told by Gellius appears also in Athenaeus xiii. 597, but is denied in verses preserved in Suidas, s.v. u(pai/meke.) The Macedonians treated his tomb and his memory with such honour that they used to proclaim:

Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish,

also by way of self-glorification, because the distinguished poet had met his death and been buried in their land. Therefore when envoys, sent to them by the Athenians, begged that they should allow his bones to be moved to Athens, his native land, the Macedonians unanimously persisted in refusing.