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).
How elegantly and clearly the philosopher Favorinus described the difference between the style of Plato and that of Lysias.
FAVORINUS used to say of Plato and Lysias:
If you take a single word from a discourse of Plato or change it, and do it with the utmost skill, you will nevertheless mar the elegance of his style; if you do the same to Lysias, you will obscure his meaning.
On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge.
SOME grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote
They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.
- That, her white waist with howling monsters girt,
- Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships
- Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight!
- The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent.
They also criticize another word in the following: [*](Georg. iii. 4)
Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable world, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely
- Who has not heard
- Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands
- And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?
undeserving of praise,but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.
They have criticized still another word in the verse: [*](Aen. x. 314.)
on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.
- Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side,
Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from ve-
Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote On the Achaeans, [*](xxxv. Jordan.) has these words:
And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy.'hat is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal's conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. Marcus Tullius, in his fourth Oration against Verres, wrote:
This [*](The temple of Artemis at Syracuse; § 122.) was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates.
But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character
But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: [*](Iliad iv. 366, 768, etc.)
- Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose.
And not unwillingly they charged,and again: [*](Iliad iv. 223.)
Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: [*](Sent. iii. p. 72, Ussing.)
- Not then would you divine Atrides see
- Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.
The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool
unlovely.[*](Georg. iv. 479; Aen. vi. 438.) For just as he expressed abhorrence of the
unpraisedman by the denial of praise, so he abhorred the
unlovableby the denial of love. Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means
to nameand
cite.Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as
There remains the third criticism, his use of the expression
a tunic rough with gold.But squalentem signifies a quantity or thick layer of gold, laid on so as to resemble scales. For squalere is used of the thick, rough scales (squamae) which are to be seen on the skins of fish or snakes. This is made clear both by others and indeed by this same poet in several passages; thus: [*](Aen. xi. 770.)
and again: [*](Aen. xi. 487.)
- A skin his covering was, plumed with brazen scales (squamis)
- And clasped with gold.
Accius too in the Pelopidae writes thus: [*](v. 517, Ribbeck3.)
- And now has he his flashing breastplate donned,
- Bristling with brazen scales (squamis).
Thus we see that squalere was applied to whatever was overloaded and excessively crowded with anything, in order that its strange appearance might strike terror into those who looked upon it. So too on neglected and scaly bodies the deep layer of dirt was called squalor, and by long and continued use in that sense the entire word has become so corrupted, that finally squalor has come to be used of nothing but filth.
- This serpent's scales (squamae) rough gold and purple wrought.
Of the obedience of children to their parents; and quotations on this subject from the writings of the philosophers, in which it is inquired whether all a father's commands should be obeyed.
IT is a frequent subject of discussion with philosophers, whether a father should always be obeyed, whatever the nature of his commands. As to this question writers On Duty, both Greeks and our own countrymen, have stated that there are three opinions to be noticed and considered, and these they have differentiated with great acuteness The first is, that all a father's commands must be obeyed; the second, that in some he is to be obeyed, in others not; the third, that it is not necessary to yield to and obey one's father in anything.
Since at first sight this last opinion is altogether shameful, I shall begin by stating what has been said on that point.
A father's command,they say,
is either right or wrong. If it is right, it is not to be obeyed because it is his order, but the thing must be done because it is right that it be done. If his command is wrong, surely that should on no account be done which ought not to be done.Thus they arrive at the conclusion that a father's command should never be obeyed. But I have neither heard that this view has met with approval —for it is a mere quibble, both silly and foolish, as I shall presently show—nor can the opinion which we stated first, that all a father's commands are to be obeyed, be regarded as true and acceptable. For what if he shall command treason to one's country, a mother's murder, or some other base or impious
But that conclusion from which it is inferred, as has been said above, that a father is never to be obeyed, is faulty, and may be refuted and disposed of as follows: All human actions are, as learned men have decided, either honourable or base. Whatever is inherently right or honourable, such as keeping faith, defending one's country, loving one's friend's, ought to be done whether a father commands it or not; but whatever is of the opposite nature, and is base and altogether evil, should not be done even at a father's order. Actions, however, which lie between these, and are called by the Greeks now me/sa, or
neutral,and now a)dia/fora, or
indifferent,such as going to war, tilling the fields, seeking office, pleading causes, marrying a wife, going when ordered, coming when called; since these and similar actions are in themselves neither honourable nor base, but are to be approved or disapproved exactly according to the manner in which we perform them: for this reason they believe that in every kind of action of this description a father should be obeyed; as for instance, if he should order his son to marry a wife or to plead for the accused. For since each of these acts, in its actual nature and of itself, is neither honourable nor base, if a father should command it, he ought to be obeyed. But if he should order his son to
the commands of a father are either honourable or baseis incomplete, and it cannot be considered what the Greeks call
sound and regular disjunctive proposition.For that disjunctive premise lacks the third member,
or are neither honourable nor base.If this be added, the conclusion cannot be drawn that a father's command must never be obeyed.
The unfairness of Plutarch's criticism of Epicurus' knowledge of the syllogism.
PLUTARCH, in the second book of his essay On Homer,[*](vii, p. 100, Bern.) asserts that Epicurus made use of an incomplete, perverted and faulty syllogism, and he quotes Epicurus' own words: [*](Sent. II, p. 71, Ussing.)
Death is nothing to us, for what is dissolved is without perception, and what is without perception is nothing to us.
Now Epicurus,says Plutarch, "omitted what he ought to have stated as his major premise, that death is a dissolution of body and soul, and then, to prove something else, he goes on to use the very premise that he had omitted, as if it had been stated and conceded. But this syllogism," says Plutarch,
cannot advance, unless that premise be first presented.
What Plutarch wrote as to the form and sequence of a syllogism is true enough; for if you wish to argue and reason according to the teaching of the schools, you ought to say:
Death is the dissolution of soul and body; but what is dissolved is without perception; and what is without perception is nothing to us.But we cannot suppose that Epicurus, being the man he was, omitted that part of the syllogism through ignorance, or that it was his intention to state a syllogism complete in all its members and limitations, as is done in the schools of the logicians; but since the separation of body and soul by death is self-evident, he of course did not think it necessary to call attention to what was perfectly obvious to everyone. For the same reason, too, he put the conclusion of the syllogism, not at the end, but at the beginning; for who does not see that this also was not due to inadvertence?
In Plato too you will often find syllogisms in which the order prescribed in the schools is disregarded and inverted, with a kind of lofty disdain of criticism.
How the same Plutarch, with obvious captiousness, criticized the use of a word by Epicurus.
IN the same book, [*](vii, p. 101, Bern.) Plutarch also finds fault a second time with Epicurus for using an inappropriate word and giving it an incorrect meaning. Now Epicurus wrote as follows: [*](Sect. iii, p. 72, Ussing.)
The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of everything that pains.Plutarch declares that he ought not to have said
of everything that pains,but
of everything that is painful; for it is the removal of pain, he explains, that should be indicated, not of that which causes pain.
In bringing this charge against Epicurus Plutarch is
word-chasingwith excessive minuteness and almost with frigidity; for far from hunting up such verbal meticulousness and such refinements of diction, Epicurus hunts them down. [*](There is an obvious word-play on sectatur and insectatur.)
The meaning of favisae Capitolinae; and what Marcus Varro replied to Servius Sulpicius, who asked him about that term.
SERVIUS SULPICIUS, an authority on civil law and a man well versed in letters, wrote [*](p. 140, Bremer. ) to Marcus Varro and asked him to explain the meaning of a term which was used in the records of the censors; the term in question was favisae Capitolinae. Varro wrote in reply [*](p. 199, Bipont.) that he recalled that Quintus Catulus, when in charge of the restoration of the Capitol, [*](After the destruction of the temple by fire in 83 B.C. In spite of Caesar's opposition (Suet. Jul. xv), Catulus dedicated the new temple in 69 B. C.) had said that it had been his desire to lower the area Capitolina, [*](The open space in front of and around the temple of Jupiter.) in order that the ascent to the temple might have more steps and that the podium might be higher, to correspond with the elevation and size of the pediment [*](Sulla and Catulus in their restorations of the Capitoline temple used columns that were taller than those of the earlier building. Catulus wished to make the podium (or elevated platform) higher, to correspond with the greater elevation and size of the pediment (or gable). This he could have done most easily by lowering the area about the temple.) ; but that he had been unable to carry out his plan because the favisae had prevented. These, he said, were certain underground chambers and cisterns in the area, in which