Noctes Atticae

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

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

with disordered hair,

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,

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.)

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.)

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.

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

1. The pupil of stout Anaxagoras,
2. Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned
3. To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote
4. 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

Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish,

That by the poets the sons of Jupiter are represented as most wise and refined, but those of Neptune as very haughty and rude.

THE poets have called the sons of Jupiter most excellent in worth, wisdom and strength, for example Aeacus, Minos and Sarpedon; the sons of Neptune, the Cyclops, Cercyon, Sciron, and the Laestrygonians, they said, were most haughty and cruel, and strangers to all refinement, as being sprung from the sea.

A story of the distinguished leader Sertorius; of his cunning, and of the clever devices which he used to control and conciliate his barbarian soldiers.

SERTORIUS, a brave man and a distinguished general, was skilled in using and commanding an army. In times of great difficulty he would lie to

This credulity of the barbarians was very helpful to Sertorius in important matters. It is recorded that of those tribes which acted with Sertorius, although he was defeated in many battles, not one ever deserted him, although that race of men is most inconstant.

Of the age of the famous historians, Hellanicus, Herodotus and Thucydides.

HELLANICUS, Herodotus, and Thucydides, writers of history, enjoyed great glory at almost the same time, and did not differ very greatly in age. For Hellanicus seems to have been sixty-five years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, [*](In 413 B.C.) Herodotus fifty-three, Thucydides forty. This is stated in the eleventh book of Pamphila. [*](F.H.G. iii. 521. 7; cf. xv. 17. 3, above.)

Vulcacius Sedigitus' canon of the Latin writers of comedy, from the book which he wrote On Poets.

SEDIGITUS, in the book which he wrote On Poets, shows in the following verses of his [*](Frag. 1, Bährens.) what he thought of those who wrote comedies, which one he thinks surpasses all the rest, and then what rank and honour he gives to each of them:

1. This question many doubtfully dispute,
2. Which comic poet they'd award the palm.
3. This doubt my judgment shall for you resolve;
4. If any differ from me, senseless he.
v3.p.115
5. First place I give Caecilius Statius.
6. Plautus holds second rank without a peer;
7. Then Naevius third, for passion and for fire.
8. If fourth there be, be he Licinius.
9. I place Atilius next, after Licinius.
10. These let Terentius follow, sixth in rank.
11. Turpilius seventh, Trabea eighth place holds.
12. Ninth palm I gladly give to Luscius,
13. To Ennius tenth, as bard of long ago. [*](The principle on which the ranking was done is a disputed question—the amount of originality, that of pa/qos, and personal feeling have been suggested. Vulcacius lived about 130 B.C. He is cited by Suetonius, v. Ter. ii, iv, v (L.C.L. ii, pp. 456, 458, 462).)

Of certain new words which I had met in the Miimiambics of Gnaeus Matius.

GNAEUS MATIUS, a learned man, in his Mimiambics properly and fitly coined the word recentatur for the idea expressed by the Greek a)nai eou=tai, that is

it is born again and is again made new.

1. E'en now doth Phoebus gleam, again is born (recentatur)
2. The common light to joys of mortal men.

to sweeten,

1. And therefore it is fit to sweeten (edulcare) life,
2. And bitter cares with wisdom to control.