Noctes Atticae

About the constellation which the Greeks call a(/maca and the Romans septentriones; and as to the origin and meaning of both those words.

SEVERAL of us, Greeks and Romans, who were pursuing the same studies, were crossing in the same boat from Aegina to the Piraeus. It was night, the sea was calm, the time summer, and the sky

Wain,

Thereupon I turned to our compatriots and said:

Why don't you barbarians tell me why we give the name of septentriones to what the Greeks call a(/maca. Now ' because we see seven stars' is not a sufficient answer, but I desire to be informed at some length,

of the meaning of the whole idea which we express by the word septentriones.

Then one of them, who had devoted himself to ancient literature and antiquities, replied: "The common run of grammarians think that the word septentriones is derived solely from the number of stars. For they declare that triones of itself has no meaning, but is a mere addition to the word; just as in our word quinquatrus, so called because five is the number of days after the Ides, [*](The quinquatrtus, or festival of Minerva, was so called because it came on the fifth day after the Ides (fifteenth) of March.) atrus means nothing. But for my part, I agree with Lucius Aelius [*](Fr. 42, Fun.) and Marcus Varro, [*](De Ling. Lat. vii. 4. 74.) who wrote that oxen were called triones, a rustic term it is true, as if they were terriones, [*](A word made up from terra, earth ; the derivation is a fanciful one. Triones is connected with tero, rub, tread, etc.) that is to say, adapted to nominibus regionibusque docere nos ipse vellet,

that he suspected that these seven stars were called triones rather for the reason that they are so situated that every group of three neighbouring stars forms a triangle, that is to say, a three-sided figure.

Of these two reasons which he gave, the latter seemed the neater and the more ingenious; for as we looked at that constellation, it actually appeared to consist of triangles. [*](This is true, whatever the origin of the name.)

Information about the wind called Iapyx and about the names and quarters of other winds, derived from the discourses of Favorinus.

AT Favorinus' table, when he dined with friends, there was usually read either an old song of one of the lyric poets, or something from history, now in Greek and now in Latin. Thus one day there was read there, in a Latin poem, [*](Perhaps Horace, Odes, i. 3. 4 or iii. 27. 20. Gellius mentions Horace by name only once, in § 25, below.) the word Iapyx, the name of a wind, and the question was asked what wind this was, from what quarter it blew, and what was the origin of so rare a term; and we also asked Favorinus to be so good as to inform us about the names and quarters of the other winds,

Then Favorinus ran on as follows:

It is well known,

"There are also some other names of what might be called special winds, which the natives have coined each in their own districts, either from the designations of the places in which they live or from some other reason which has led to the formation of the word. Thus our Gauls [*](That is, the Gauls of Gallia Narbonensis. Favorinus was a native of Arelate, the modern Aries.) call the wind which blows from their land, the most violent wind to which they are exposed, circius, doubtless from its whirling and stormy character; the Apulians give the name Iapyx—the name by which they themselves are known (Iapzyges)—to the wind that blows from the mouth of )Iapugi/a itself, from its inmost recesses, as it were. [*](Text and meaning are very uncertain. No satisfactory explanation of ore or sinibus has been offered, so far as I know. Apuleius, De Mundo 14, says: Apuli Iapagem eum venture ) ex Iapygae sinu, id est ex ipso Gargano venientem (appellant).) This is, I think, about the same as caurus; for it is a west wind and seems to blow from the quarter opposite eurus. Therefore Virgil says [*](Aen. viii. 709.) that Cleopatra, when fleeing to Egypt after the sea-fight, was borne onward by Iapyx, and he called [*](Aen. xi. 678.) an Apulian horse by the same name as the wind, that is, Iapyx. There is also a wind named caecias, which, according to Aristotle [*](Meteor. ii. 6; Prob. xxvi. 29.) blows in such a way as not to drive away clouds, but to attract them. This, he says, is the origin of the proverbial line: [*](Trag. fr. adesp. 75, Nauck.2)

1. Attracting to oneself, as caecias does the clouds.

Moreover, besides these which I have mentioned there are in various places other names of winds, of new coinage and each peculiar to its own region,

is neither decent nor becoming.

This is what Favorinus recounted to us at his own table at the time I mentioned, with extreme elegance of diction and in a delightful and graceful style throughout. But as to his statement that the wind which blows from the land of Gaul is called circius, Marcus Cato in his Origins [*](Fr. 93, Peter.) calls that wind, not circius, but cercius. For writing about the Spaniards who dwell on this side the Ebro, he set down these words:

But in this district are the finest iron and silver mines, also a great mountain of pure salt; the more you take from it, the more it grows. The cercius wind, when you speak, fills your mouth; it overturns an armed man or a loaded wagon.

In saying above that the e)thsi/ai blow from one or another quarter of the heavens, although following the opinion of many, I rather think I spoke hastily. [*](Gellius, as he sometimes does elsewhere, refers to Favorinus' statement as if it were his own. Gronovius' proposed change to dixit and dixerit is unnecessary.)

Both the e)thsi/ai and the annual south winds follow the sun.

follow the sun.

A discussion and comparison of passages taken from the comedy of Menander and that of Caecilius, entitled Plocium.

I OFTEN read comedies which our poets have adapted and translated from the Greeks—Menander or Posidippus, Apollodorus or Alexis, and also some other comic writers. And while I am reading them, they do not seem at all bad; on the contrary, they appear to be written with a wit and charm which you would say absolutely could not be surpassed. But if you compare and place beside them the Greek originals from which they came, and if you match individual passages, reading them together alternately with care and attention, the Latin versions at once begin to appear exceedingly commonplace and mean; so dimmed are they by the wit and brilliance of the Greek comedies, which they were unable to rival.

Only recently I had an experience of this kind. I was reading the Plocium or Necklace of Caecilius, much to the delight of myself and those who were present. The fancy took us to read also the Plocium of Menander, from which Caecilius had translated the said comedy. But after we took Menander in hand, good Heavens! how dull and lifeless, and how different from Menander did Caecilius appear!

1. Now may our heiress fair on both ears sleep.
2. A great and memorable feat is hers;
3. For she has driven forth, as she had planned,
4. The wench that worried her, that all henceforth
5. Of Crobyle alone the face may see,
6. And that the famous woman, she my wife,
7. May also be my tyrant. From the face
8. Dame Nature gave her, she's an ass 'mong apes,
9. As says the adage. I would silent be
10. About that night, the first of many woes.
11. Alas that I took Crobyle to wife,
12. With sixteen talents and a foot of nose.
13. Then too can one her haughtiness endure?
14. By Zeus Olympius and Athena, no '
15. She has dismissed a maid who did her work
16. More quickly than the word was given her,
17. More quickly far than one will bring her back!

1. In very truth is he a wretched man,
2. Who cannot hide his woe away from home;
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3. And that my wife makes me by looks and acts:
4. If I kept still, I should betray myself
5. No less. And she has all that you would wish
6. She had not, save the dowry that she brought.
7. Let him who's wise a lesson take from me,
8. Who, like a free man captive to the foe,
9. Am slave, though town and citadel are safe.
10. What! wish her safe who steals whate'er I prize?
11. While longing for her death, a living corpse am I.
12. She says I've secret converse with our maid—
13. That's what she said, and so be laboured me
14. With tears, with prayers, with importunities,
15. That I did sell the wench. Now, I suppose,
16. She blabs like this to neighbours and to friends:
17. " Which one of you, when in the bloom of youth,
18. Could from her husband win what I from mine
19. Have gained, who've robbed him of his concubine."
20. Thus they, while I, poor wretch, am torn to shreds.

Now, not to mention the charm of subject matter and diction, which is by no means the same in the two books, I notice this general fact—that some of Menander's lines, brilliant, apt and witty, Caecilius has not attempted to reproduce, even where lie might have done so; but he has passed them by as if they were of no value, and has dragged in some other farcical stuff; and what Menander took from actual life, simple, realistic and delightful, this for some reason or other Caecilius has missed. For example, that same old husband, talking with another old man, a neighbour of his, and cursing the arrogance of his rich wife, says: [*](Fr. 403, Kock; p. 428, L. C. L.)

1. I have to wife an heiress ogress, man!
2. I did not tell you that? What, really? no?
3. She is the mistress of my house and lands,
4. Of all that's hereabout. And in return
5. I have by Zeus! the hardest of hard things.
6. She scolds not only me, but her son too,
7. Her daughter most of all.—You tell a thing
8. There's no contending with.—I know it well.

1. But tell me, sir; is your wife captious, pray?—
2. How can you ask?—But in what manner, then?—
3. I am ashamed to tell. When I come home
4. And sit beside her, she with fasting [*](That is, nauseous.) breath
5. Straight kisses me.—There's no mistake in that.
6. She'd have you spew up what you've drunk abroad.

It is clear what your judgment ought to be about that scene also, found in both comedies, which is about of the following purport: The daughter of a poor man was violated during a religious vigil. This was unknown to her father, and she was looked upon as a virgin. Being with child as the result of that assault, at the proper time she is in labour. An honest slave, standing before the door of the house, knowing nothing of the approaching delivery of his master's daughter, and quite unaware that violence had been offered her, hears the groans and prayers of the girl labouring in childbirth; he gives expression to his fear, anger, suspicion, pity and grief. In the Greek comedy all these emotions and

1. Alas! thrice wretched he who weds, though poor,
2. And children gets. How foolish is the man
3. Who keeps no watch o'er his necessities,
4. And if he luckless be in life's routine,
5. Can't use his wealth as cloak, but buffeted
6. By ev'ry storm, lives helpless and in grief.
7. All wretchedness he shares, of blessings none,
8. Thus sorrowing for one I'd all men warn.

1. Unfortunate in truth the man, who poor,
2. Yet children gets, to share his poverty.
3. His fortune and his state at once are clear;
4. The ill fame of the rich their set conceals.

Accordingly, as I said above, when I read these passages of Caecilius by themselves, they seem by no means lacking in grace and spirit, but when I compare and match them with the Greek version, I feel that Caecilius should not have followed a guide with whom he could not keep pace.

On the ancient frugality; and on early sumptuary laws.

FRUGALITY among the early Romans, and moderation in food and entertainments were secured not only by observance and training at home, but also by public penalties and the inviolable provisions of numerous laws. Only recently I read in the Miscellanies[*](Fr. 5, Huschke; 6, Bremer.) of Ateius Capito an old decree of the senate, passed in the consulship of Gaius Fannius and Marcus Valerius Messala, [*](161 B.C.) which provides that the leading citizens, who according to ancient usage

interchanged

But subsequent to that decree of the senate the law of Fannius was passed, which allowed the expenditure of one hundred asses a day at the Roman and the plebeian games, [*](The ludi Romani in Cicero's time extended from Sept. 5 to 19; the ludi plebei, at first probably held on one day, finally lasted from Nov. 4 to 17.) at the Saturnalia, [*](Originally on Dec. 17; extended to seven days, of which five (under Augustus, three) were legal holidays.) and on certain other days; of thirty asses on ten additional days each month; but on all other days of only ten. This is the law to which the poet Lucilius alludes when he says: [*](1172, Marx.)

1. The paltry hundred pence of Fannius.

Next the Licinian law was passed [*](Probably in 103 B.C.) which, while allowing the outlay of one hundred asses on designated days, as did the law of Fannius, conceded two hundred asses for weddings and set a limit of thirty for other days; however, after naming a fixed weight of dried meat and salted provisions for each day, it granted the indiscriminate and unlimited use of the products of the earth, vine and orchard. This law the poet Laevius mentions in his Erotopaegnia. [*](Fr. 23, Bährens, Fray. Poet. Rom., p. 292. Erotopaegnia means Playful Verses about Love ; a sixth book is cited by Charisius (i. 204 K). One fragment indicates that Laevius was a contemporary of Varro. His brief and scanty fragments show great variety in metre (cf. Prisc. ii. 258 K), and innovations in diction (Gell. xix. 7.)) These are the words of Laevius, by which he means that a kid that had been brought for a feast was sent away and the dinner served with fruit and vegetables, as the Licinian law had provided:

1. The Licinian law is introduced,
2. The liquid light to the kid restored.

1. Let us evade the law of Licinius. [*](1200, Marx.)

Afterwards, when these laws were illegible from the rust of age and forgotten, when many men of abundant means were gormandizing, and recklessly

Besides these laws we find also an Aemilian law, [*](78 B. C. Another Aemilian sumptuary law was passed in 115 B.C.) setting a limit not on the expense of dinners, but on the kind and quantity of food.

Then the law of Antius, [*](Passed a few years after the Aemilian law.) besides curtailing outlay, contained the additional provision, that no magistrate or magistrate elect should dine out anywhere, except at the house of stipulated persons.

Lastly, the Julian law came before the people during the principate of Caesar Augustus, [*](Cf. Suet. Aug. xxxiv, 1.) by which on working days two hundred sesterces is the limit, on the Kalends, Ides and Nones and some other holidays, three hundred, but at weddings and the banquets following them, a thousand.

Ateius Capito says [*](Fr, 6, Huschke; 7, Bremer.) that there is still another Edict—but whether of the deified Augustus or of Tiberius Caesar I do not exactly remember—by which the outlay for dinners on various festal days was increased from three hundred sesterces to two thousand, to the end that the rising tide of luxury night be restrained at least within those limits.

What the Greeks understand by a)nalogi/a, and, on the contrary, by a)nwmali/a.

IN the Latin language, just as in Greek, some have thought that the principle of a)nalogi/a should be followed, others that of a)nwmali/a. is the similar inflection of similar words, which some call in Latin proportio, or

regularity.

As when we decline,

lpus lupi, probus probi, but lepus leporis; again, paro paravi and lavo lavi, pungo pupugi, tundo tutudi and pingo pinxi. And although,

No one uses

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senior and that form by itself is naught, but almost everyone says adsentior. Sisenna alone used to say adsentio (I agree) in the senate, but later many followed his example, yet could not prevail over usage.

Discourses of Marcus Fronto and the philosopher Favorinus on the varieties of colours and their Greek and Latin names: and incidentally, the nature of the colour spadix.

WHEN the philosopher Favorinus was on his way to visit the exconsul Marcus Fronto, who was ill with the gout, he wished me also to go with him. And when there at Fronto's, where a number of learned men were present, a discussion took place about colours and their names, to the effect that the shades of colours are manifold, but the names for them are few and indefinite, Favorinus said: "More distinctions of colour are detected by the eye than are expressed by words and terms. For leaving out of account other incongruities, your simple colours, red (rufus) and green viridiss), have single names, but many different shades. And that poverty in names I find more pronounced in Latin than in Greek. For the colour red Rufuss) does in fact get its name from redness, but although fire is one kind of red, blood

Then Fronto, replying to Favorinus, said: "I do not deny that the Greek language, which you seem to prefer, is richer and more copious than ours; but nevertheless in naming these colours of which you have just spoken we are not quite so badly off as you think. For russus and ruber, which you have just mentioned, are not the only words that denote the colour red, but we have others also, more numerous than those which you have quoted from the Greek. For fihlvus, flavus, rubidus, poeniceus, rutilus, luteus and spadix are names of the colour red, which either brighten it (making it fiery, as it were), or combine it with green, or darken it with black, or make it luminous by a slight addition of gleaming white. For poeniceus, which you call foi=nic in Greek, belongs to our language, and rutilus and spadix, a synonym of poeniceus which is taken over into Latin from the Greek,

1. Give me thy foot, that with the same soft hands
2. With which oft times I did Ulysses soothe
3. I may with golden (flavis) waters wash away
4. The tawny (fulvum) dust and heal thy weariness.

Now, rubidus is a darker red and with a larger admixture of black; luteus, on the other hand, is a more diluted red, and from this dilution its name too seems to be derived. Therefore, my dear Favorinus,

After Fronto had said this, Favorinus, enchanted with his exhaustive knowledge of the subject and his elegant diction, said:

Were it not for you, and perhaps for you alone, the Greek language would surely have come out far ahead; but you, my deal Fronto, exemplify Homer's line: [*](Iiad, xxiii. 382.)

1. Thou would'st either have won or made the result indecisive.

But not only have I listened with pleasure to all your learned remarks, but in particular in describing the diversity of the colour flavus you have made me understand these beautiful lines from the fourteenth book of Ennius' Annalns [*](v. 384 f., Vahlen 2, who reads placide and sale.) which before I did not in the least comprehend:

1. The calm sea's golden marble now they skim;
2. Ploughed by the thronging craft, the green seas foam;

for 'the green seas' did not seem to correspond with 'golden marble.' But since, as you have said, flavus is a colour containing an admixture of green and white, Ennius with the utmost elegance called the foam of the green sea 'golden marble.'

The criticism of Titus Castricius passed upon passages from Sallust and Demosthenes, in which the one described Philip, the other Sertorius.

THIS is Demosthenes' striking and brilliant description of king Philip: [*](De Cor. 67.)

I saw that Philip himself, with whom we were struggling, had in his desire for empire and absolute power had one eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken, his hand and leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body that fortune chose to take from him, provided that with what remained he might live in honour and glory.

He won great glory in Spain, while military tribune under the command of Titus Didius, rendered valuable service in the Marsic war in providing troops and arms; but he got no credit for much that was then done under his direction and orders, at first because of his low birth and afterwards through unfriendly historians; but during his lifetime his appearance bore testimony to these deeds, in many scars on his breast, and in the loss of an eye. Indeed, he rejoiced greatly in his bodily disfigurement, caring nothing for what he had lost, because he kept the rest with greater glory.

In his estimate of these words of the two writers Titus Castricius said:

Is it not beyond the range of human capability to rejoice in bodily disfigurement? For rejoicing is a certain exaltation of spirit, delighting in the realization of something greatly desired. How much truer, more natural, and more

v1.p.221

in accordance with human limitations is this: ' Giving up whatever part of his body fortune chose to take.' In these words,

Philip is shown, not like Sertorius, rejoicing in bodily disfigurement, which,

is unheard of and extravagant, but as a scorner of bodily losses and injuries in his thirst for honour and glory, who in exchange for the fame which he coveted would sacrifice his limbs one by one to the attacks of fortune.

That it is uncertain to which deity sacrifices ought to be offered when there is an earthquake.

WHAT is to be regarded as the cause of earthquakes is not only not obvious to the ordinary understanding and thought of mankind, but it is not agreed even among the natural philosophers whether they are due to the mighty winds that gather in the caverns and hollow places of the earth, or to the ebb and flow of subterranean waters in its hollows, as seems to have been the view of the earliest Greeks, who called Neptune

the Earth Shaker

to either the god or goddess,

But in the case of eclipses of the sun or moon they concerned themselves no less with trying to discover the causes of that phenomenon. However, Marcus Cato, although a man with a great interest in investigation, nevertheless on this point expressed himself indecisively and superficially. His words in the fourth book of his Origins are as follows: [*](Fr. 77, Peter.)

I do not care to write what appears on the tablet of the high priest: how often grain was dear, how often darkness, or something else, obscured the light [*](Lumine is the old dat., cf. II viri iure dicundo and note 1, p. 153.) of sun or moon.

A fable of the Phrygian Aesop, which is well worth telling.

AESOP, the well-known fabulist from Phrygia, has justly been regarded as a wise man, since he taught what it was salutary to call to mind and to recommend, not in an austere and dictatorial manner, as is the way of philosophers, but by inventing witty and

There is a little bird,

it is called the lark. It lives in the grain-fields, and generally builds its nest at such a time that the harvest is at hand exactly when the young birds are ready to be fledged. Such a lark chanced to have built her nest in a field which had been sown rather early in the year; therefore when the grain was turning yellow, the fledglings were still unable to fly. Accordingly, when the mother went off in search of food for her young, she warned them to notice whether anything unusual was said or done there, and to tell it to her on her return. A little later the owner of that grain-field calls his young son and says: ' Do you not see that this is ripe and already calls for hands? To-morrow then, as soon as it is light, see that you go to our friends and ask them to come and exchange work with us, and help us with this harvest.' So saying, he at once went away. And when the lark returned, the chicks, frightened and trembling, twittered about their mother and implored her to make haste and at once carry them off to some other place; 'for,' said they, 'the master has sent to ask his friends to come at daybreak and reap.' The mother bids them be easy in mind. ' For if the master,' said she, ' has turned the harvesting over to his friends, the field will not be reaped to-morrow, and I need not take you away

v1.p.227

to-day.' On the following day the mother flies off to get food. The master waits for those whom he had summoned. The sun grows hot and nothing is done. The day advances and no friends come. Then he says again to his son: 'Those friends of ours are a lot of slackers. why not rather go and ask our relatives and kinsfolk to come to reap early tomorrow?' This, too, the frightened chicks tell their mother. She urges them once again to be without fear and without worry, saying that hardly any relatives and kinsfolk are so obliging as to undertake labour without any delay and to obey a summons at once. 'But do you,' she said, 'observe whether anything more is said.' Next day at dawn the bird left to forage. The relatives and kinsfolk neglected the work which they were asked to do. So finally the owner said to his son: ' Enough of friends and relatives. Bring two scythes at daybreak; I myself will take one and you yourself the other, and tomorrow we ourselves will reap the grain with our own hands.' When the mother heard from her brood that the farmer had said this, she cried: ' It is time to get out and be off; for this time what he said surely will be done. For now it depends on the very man whose business it is, not on another who is asked to do it.' And so the lark moved her nest, the owner harvested his crop.

This then is Aesop's fable, showing that trust in friends and relatives is usually idle and vain. But what different warning do the more highly revered books of the philosophers give us, than that we should rely on ourselves alone, and regard everything else that is outside us and beyond our control as helpful neither to our affairs nor to ourselves? This parable

1. This adage ever have in readiness;
2. Ask not of friends what you yourself can do.

An observation on the waves of the sea, which take one form when the wind is from the south, and another when it is from the north.

IT has often been observed in the motion of the waves caused by the north winds or by any current of air from that quarter of the heaven [that it is different from that caused by] the south and southwest winds. For the waves raised by the blowing of the north wind are very high and follow hard upon one another, but as soon as the wind has ceased, they flatten out and subside, and soon there are no waves at all. But it is not the same when the wind blows from the south or southwest; for although these have wholly ceased to blow, still the waves that they have caused continue to swell, and though they have long been undisturbed by wind, yet the sea keeps continually surging. The reason of this is inferred to be, that the winds from the north, falling upon the sea from a higher part of the sky, are borne straight down, as it were headlong, into the depths of ocean, making waves that are not driven forward, but are set in motion from within; and these, being turned up from beneath, roll only so long as the force of that wind which blows in

1. Then Notus drives huge waves against the western cliff,

1. And Boreas aetherborn, uprolling a great wave.

1. The stone toward the hilltop pushed he up.

This also has been observed by the most learned investigators of nature, that when the south winds blow, the sea becomes blue and bright, but, under the north winds, darker and more gloomy. I noted the cause of this when I was making excerpts from the Problems of Aristotle. [*](xxvi. 37.)

A discussion of the question why Sallust said that avarice rendered effeminate, not only a manly soul, but also the very body itself.

WHEN winter was already waning, we were walking with the philosopher Favorinus in the court of the Titian baths, [*](Otherwise unknown. The Baths of Titus were Thermae and the adj. is Titianae.) enjoying the mild warmth of the sun; and there, as we walked, Sallust's Catiline was being read, a book which Favorinus had seen in the hands of a friend and had asked him to read. The following passage from that book had been recited: [*](xi. 3.)

Avarice implies a desire for money, which no wise man covets; steeped as it were with noxious poisons, it renders the most manly body and soul effeminate; it is ever unbounded, nor can either plenty or want make it less.

How does avarice make a man's body effeminate? For I seem to grasp in general the meaning of his statement that it has that effect on a manly soul, but how it also makes his body effeminate I do not yet comprehend.

I too,

have for a long time been putting myself that question, and if you had not anticipated me, I should of my own accord have asked you to answer it.

Scarcely had I said this with some hesitation, when one of the disciples of Favorinus, who seemed

I once heard Valerius Probus say that Sallust here used a kind of poetic circumlocution, and meaning to say that a man was corrupted by avarice, spoke of his body and soul, the two factors which indicate a man; for man is made up of body and soul.

Never,

at least, so far as I know, was our Probus guilty of such impertinent and bold subtlety as to say that Sallust, a most skilful artist in conciseness, used poetic paraphrases.

There was with us at the time in the same promenade a man of considerable learning. He too, on being asked by Favorinus whether he had anything to say on the subject, answered to this effect:

We observe that almost all those whose minds are possessed and corrupted by avarice and who have devoted themselves to the acquisition of money from any and every source, so regulate their lives, that compared with money they neglect manly toil and attention to bodily exercise, as they do everything else. For they are commonly intent upon indoor and sedentary pursuits, in which all their vigour of mind and body is enfeebled and, as Sallust says, 'rendered effeminate.'

Then Favorinus asked to have the same words of Sallust read again, and when they had been read, he said:

How then are we to explain the fact, that it is possible to find many men who are greedy for money, but nevertheless have strong and active bodies?

Your answer is certainly to the point. Whoever,

is greedy for money, but nevertheless has a body that is strong and in good condition, must necessarily be possessed either by an interest in, or devotion to,

v1.p.239

other things as well, and cannot be equally niggardly in his care of himself. For if extreme avarice, to the exclusion of everything else, lay hold upon all a man's actions and desires, and if it extend even to neglect of his body, so that because of that one passion he has regard neither for virtue nor physical strength, nor body, nor soul—then, and then only, can that vice truly be said to cause effeminacy both of body and of soul, since such men care neither for themselves nor for anything else except money.

Either what you have said is reasonable, or Sallust, through hatred of avarice, brought against it a heavier charge than he could justify.

Which was the birthday, according to Marcus Varro, of those born before the sixth hour of the night, or after it and in that connection, concerning the duration and limits of the days that are termed

civil

IT is often inquired which day should be considered and called the birthday of those who are born in the third, the fourth, or any other hour of the night; that is, whether it is the day that preceded, or the day that followed, that night. Marcus Varro, in that book of his Human Antiquities which he wrote On Days, says: [*](xiii. Frag. 2, Mirsch.)

Persons who are born during the

v1.p.241

twenty-four hours between one midnight and the next midnight are considered to have been born on one and the same day.

However, Varro also wrote in that same book [*](xiii. Frag. 3, Mirsch.) that the Athenians reckon differently, and that they regard all the intervening time from one sunset to the next as one single day. That the Babylonians counted still differently; for they called by the name of one day the whole space of time between sunrise and the beginning of the next sunrise; but that in the land of Umbria many said that from midday to the following midday was one and the same day.

But this,

is too absurd. For the birthday of one who is born among the Umbrians at mid-day on the first of the month will have to be considered as both half of the first day of the month and that part of the second day which comes before midday.

But it is shown by abundant evidence that the Roman people, as Varro said, reckoned each day from midnight to the next midnight. The religious ceremonies of the Romans are performed in part by day, others by night; but those which take place by night are appointed for certain days, not for nights; accordingly, those that take place during the last six hours of the night are said to take place on the day which dawns immediately after that night.

I have read that Quintus Mucius, the jurist, also used to say [*](Fr. 7, Huschke; Jur. Civ. iv. 2, Bremer.) that a woman did not become her own mistress who, after entering upon marriage relations with a man on the day called the Kalends of January, left him, for the purpose of emancipating herself, on the fourth day before the Kalends of the following January; [*](Dec. 27th; December at that time had twenty-nine days.) for the period of three nights, during which the Twelve Tables [*](vi. 4.) provided that a woman must be separated from her husband for the purpose of gaining her independence, could not be completed, since the last [*](Posterioris is nom. pl. See Varro De Ling. Lat. viii. 66.) six hours of the third night belonged to the next year, which began on the first of January.

Now since I found all the above details about the duration and limits of days, pertaining to the observance and the system of ancient law, in the works of our early writers, I did not doubt that Virgil also

1. For dewy Night has wheeled her way
2. Far past her middle course; the panting steeds
3. Of orient Morn breathe pitiless on me.

civil

On investigating and identifying the comedies of Plautus, since the genuine and the spurious without distinction are said to have been inscribed with his name; and further as to the report that Plautus wrote plays in a bakery and Naevius in prison.

I AM convinced of the truth of the statement which I have heard made by men well trained in literature, who have read a great many plays of Plautus with care and attention: namely, that with regard to the so-called

doubtful

Varronian,

1. The gods confound the man who first found out
2. How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,
3. Who in this place set up a sun-dial
4. To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
5. Into small portions! When I was a boy,
6. My belly was my only sun-dial, one more sure,
7. Truer, and more exact than any of them.
8. This dial told me when 'twas proper time
9. To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat;
10. But nowadays, why even when I have,
11. I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.
12. The town's so full of these confounded dials
13. The greatest part of the inhabitants,
14. Shrunk up with hunger, crawl along the streets.

My master Favorinus too, when I was reading the Nervularia of Plautus, and he had heard this line of the comedy: [*](Fr. v. 100 Götz; translation by Thornton and Warner.)

1. Old, wheezing, physicky, mere foundered hags
2. With dry, parched, painted hides, shrivell'd and shrunk,

By heaven! just this one verse is enough to convince one that the play is Plautine.

I myself too a little while ago, when reading the Fretum—that is the name of a comedy which some think is not Plautine—had no manner of doubt that it was by Plautus and in fact of all his plays the most authentic. From it I copied these two lines, [*](Fr. v. 76, Götz.) with the intention of looking up the story of the Arretine oracle: [*](Nothing is known of this oracle. The inferior manuscripts and earlier editors read Arictini and interpreted it as that of Jupiter Ammon, because that god is sometimes represented as a ram (aries), or with a ram's head. According to Bicheler, Thes. Ling. Lat. ii. 636. 9, the reference is to a person, not to the town of Arretium. Text and meaning are most uncertain.)

1. Now here we have at the great games [*](According to Bücheler, T.L.L. ii. 636. 9, the reference is to the ludi Romani, Sept. 5–19.) the Arretine response:
2. I perish if I don't, and if I do, I'm flogged.

Yet Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Comedies of Plautus, [*](Fr. p. 193, Bipont.) quotes these words of Accius: [*](Didascalica, fr. inc., Müller.)

For not the Twin Panders nor the Slave-ring nor the Old Woman were the work of Plautus, nor were ever the Twice Violated or the Boeotian woman, nor were the Clownish Rustic or the Partners in, Death the work of Titus Maccius.

In that same book of Varro's we are told also that there was another writer of comedies called Plautius. Since his plays bore the title

Plauti,

Now there are in circulation under the name of Plautus about one hundred and thirty comedies; but that most learned of men Lucius Aelius thought that only twenty-five of them were his. [*](p. 58. 4, Fun.) However, there is no doubt that those which do not appear to have been written by Plautus but are attached to his name, were the work of poets of old but were revised and touched up by him, and that is why they savour of the Plautine style. Now Varro and several others have recorded that the Saturio, the Addictus, and a third comedy, the name of which I do not now recall, were written by Plautus in a bakery, when, after losing in trade all the money which he had earned in employments connected with the stage, he had returned penniless to Rome, and to earn a livelihood had hired himself out to a baker, to turn a mill, of the kind which is called a

push-mill.

So too we are told of Naevius that he wrote two plays in prison, the Soothsayer and the Leon, when by reason of his constant abuse and insults aimed at the leading men of the city, after the manner of the Greek poets, he had been imprisoned at Rome by the triumvirs. [*](The triumviri capitales, police magistrates, in charge of the public prisons.) And afterwards he was set free by the tribunes of the commons, when he had apologized for his offences and the saucy language with which he had previously assailed many men.

That it was an inherited custom of Publius Africanus and other distinguished men of his time to shave their beard and cheeks.

I FOUND it stated in books which I read dealing with the life of Publius Scipio Africanus, that Publius Scipio, the son of Paulus, after he had celebrated a triumph because of his victory over the Carthaginians and had been censor, was accused before the people by Claudius Asellus, tribune of the commons, whom he had degraded from knighthood during his censorship; and that Scipio, although he was under accusation, neither ceased to shave his beard and to wear white raiment nor appeared in the usual garb of those under accusation. But since it is certain that at that time Scipio was less than forty years old, I was surprised at the statement about shaving his beard. I have learned, however, that in those same times the other nobles shaved their beards at that time of life, and that is why we see many busts of early men represented in that way, men who were not very old, but in middle life. [*](This fashion changed with Hadrian.)

How the philosopher Arcesilaus severely yet humorously taunted a man with the vice of voluptuousness and with unmanliness of expression and conduct.

PLUTARCH tells us [*](Sympos. vii. 5.3, De Tuend. San. 7.) that Arcesilaus the philosopher used strong language about a certain rich man, who was too pleasure-loving, but nevertheless had a

It makes no difference with what parts of your body you debauch yourself, front or rear.

On the natural strength of the palm-tree; for when weights are placed upon its wood, it resists their pressure.

A TRULY wonderful fact is stated by Aristotle in the seventh book of his Problems,[*](Fr. 229, Rose. ) and by Plutarch in the eighth of his Symposiaca. [*](4.5.)

If,

you place heavy weights on the wood of the palmtree, and load it so heavily and press it down so hard that the burden is too great to bear, the wood does not give way downward, nor is it made concave, but it rises against the weight and struggles upward and assumes a convex form. [*](Hardly to be taken literally. The same statement is made by Pliny, N. H. xvi. 223; Theophr. Enquiry into Plants, v. 6 (i. 453, L.C.L.); Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5. 11 (ii. 267, L.C.L.) ) It is for that reason,

that the palm has been chosen as the symbol of victory in contests, since the nature of its wood is such that it does not yield to what presses hard upon it and tries to crush it.

A tale from the annals about Quintus Caedicius, tribune of the soldiers; and a passage from the Origins of Marcus Cato, in which he likens the valour of Caedicius to that of the Spartan Leonidas.

A GLORIOUS deed, by the Gods! and well worthy of the noble strains of Greek eloquence, is that of

The actual account runs about as follows: In the first Punic war the Carthaginian general in Sicily advanced to meet the Roman army and was first to take possession of the hills and strategic points. As the result of this, the Roman soldiers made their way into a place exposed to surprise and extreme danger. The tribune went to the consul and pointed out that destruction was imminent from their unfavourable position and from the fact that the enemy had surrounded them.

My advice is,

if you want to save the day, that you order some four hundred soldiers to advance to yonder wart

and command and conjure them to hold it. When the enemy see that, undoubtedly all their bravest and most active men will be intent upon attacking and fighting with them; they will devote themselves to that one task, and beyond a doubt all those four hundred will be slaughtered. Then in the meantime, while the enemy is engaged in killing them, you will have time to get the army out of this position. There is no other way of safety but this.

but who, pray,

will there be to lead those four hundred men of yours to that place in the midst of the enemy's troops?

If you find no one else,

you may use me for that dangerous enterprise. I offer this life of mine to you and to my country.

But what, by Heaven's help, befell that tribune, the leader of the four hundred soldiers, in the battle, I have added, no longer using my own words, but giving those of Cato himself, who says:

The immortal gods gave the tribune good fortune equal to his valour; for this is what happened. Although he had been wounded in many places during the battle, yet his head was uninjured, and they recognized him among the dead, unconscious from wounds and loss of blood. They bore him off the field, he recovered, and often after that rendered brave and vigorous service to his country; and by that act of leading that forlorn hope lie saved the rest of the army. But what a difference it makes where you do the same service! [*](Cf. Sall. Cat. viii.) The Laconian Leonidas, who performed a like exploit at Thermopylae, because of his valour won unexampled glory and gratitude from all Greece, and was honoured with memorials of the highest distinction; they showed their appreciation of that deed of his by pictures, statues and honorary inscriptions, in their histories, and in other ways; but the tribune

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of the soldiers, who had done the same thing and saved an army, gained small glory for his deeds.

With such high personal testimony did Marcus Cato honour this valorous deed of Quintus Caedicius the tribune. But Claudius Quadrigarius, in the third book of his Annals, [*](Fr. 42, Peter.) says that the man's name was not Caedicius, but Laberius.

A fine letter of the consuls Gaius Fabricius and Quintus Aemilius to king Pyrrhus, recorded by the historian Quintus Claudius.

AT the time when king Pyrrhus was on Italian soil and had won one or two battles, when the Romans were getting anxious, and the greater part of Italy had gone over to the king, a certain Timochares, an Ambracian and a friend of king Pyrrhus, came stealthily to the consul Gaius Fabricius and asked a reward, promising that if they could come to terms, he would poison the king. This, he said, could easily be done, since his son was the monarch's cup-bearer. Fabricius transmitted this offer to the senate. The senate sent envoys to the king, instructing them not to reveal anything about Timochares, but to warn the king to act with more caution, and be on his guard against the treachery of those nearest to his own person. This, as I have told it, is the version found in the History of Valerius Antias. [*](Fr. 21, Peter.) But Quadrigarius, in his third book, [*](Fr. 40, Peter.) says that it was not Timochares, but Nicias, that approached the consul; that the embassy was not sent by the senate, but by the consuls; and that Pyrrhus thanked and complimented the Roman people in a

The consuls at that time were Gaius Fabricius and Quintus Aemilius. [*](282 B. C.) The letter which they sent to king Pyrrhus about that matter, according to Claudius Quadrigarius, ran as follows:

1. " The Roman consuls greet king Pyrrhus.

The characteristics of the horse of Seius, which is mentioned in the proverb; and as to the colour of the horses which are called spadices; and the explanation of that term.

GAVIUS BASSUS in his Commentaries,[*](Frag. 4, Fun.) and Julius Modestus in the second book of his Miscellaneous Questions, [*](p. 15, Bunte.) tell the history of the horse of Seius, a

1. That man has the horse of Seius.

The meaning is the same of that other old proverb, which I have heard quoted thus:

the gold of Tolosa.

Gavius Bassus reports that he saw this horse at Argos; that it was of incredible beauty and strength and of the richest possible colouring.

This colour, as I have said, we call poeniceus; the Greeks sometimes name it foi=nic, at others spa/dic, since the branch of the palm (foi=nic), torn from the tree with its fruit, is called spadix. [*](See ii. 26, 10. The colour is a purple-red, or reddish purple.)

That in many natural phenomena a certain power and efficacy of the number seven has been observed, concerning which Marcus Varro discourses at length in his Hebdomades. [*](Fr. p. 255, Bipont. This work, more commonly called Imagines, consisted of seven hundred portraits of dis. tinguished men, arranged in seven categories of Greeks and Romans; besides the fourteen books thus formed there was an introductory fifteenth. Under each portrait was a metrical elogium and an account of the personage in prose. Cf. Plin. N.H. xxxv. 11.)

MARCUS VARRO, in the first book of his work entitled Hebdomades or On Portraits, speaks of many varied excellencies and powers of the number seven, which the Greeks call e(bdoma/s.

For that number,

forms the Greater and the Lesser Bear in the heavens; also the vergiliae, [*](So called (from ver ) because their rising, from April 22 to May 10, marked the beginning of spring.) which

v1.p.269

the Greeks call pleia/des; and it is likewise the number of those stars which some call 'wandering,' but Publius Nigidius' wanderers.'

poles

for on the twenty-eighth day,

the moon returns to the same point from which it started,

For,

when the life-giving seed has been introduced into the female womb, in the first seven days it is compacted and coagulated and rendered fit to take shape. Then afterwards in the fourth hebdomad the rudimentary male organ, the head, and the spine which is in the back, are formed. But in the seventh hebdomad, as a rule, that is, by the forty-ninth day,

the entire embryo is formed in the womb.

climacterics,

critical

These remarks of Varro about the number seven show painstaking investigation. But he has also brought together in the same place others which are rather trifling: for example, that there are seven wonderful works in the world, that the sages of old were seven, that the usual number of rounds in the races in the circus is seven, and that seven champions were chosen to attack Thebes. Then he adds in that book the further information that he has entered upon the twelfth hebdomad of his age, and that up to that day he has completed seventy hebdomads of books, [*](Only 39 titles have come down to us, through Hieronymus, De Vir. Ill. 54, whose catalogue is unfinished and also includes ten libri singulares under one head. Ritschl estimated Varro's publications as 74 works, comprising 620 books.) of which a considerable number were destroyed when his library was plundered, at the time of his proscription. [*](By Antony in 43 B. C. Varro was saved from death by Fufius Calenus, and died in 27 B.C., at the age of nearly ninety.)