Noctes Atticae

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 deed? The intermediate view, therefore, has seemed best and safest, that some commands are to be obeyed and others not. But yet they say that commands which ought not to be obeyed must nevertheless be declined gently and respectfully, without excessive aversion or bitter recrimination, and rather left undone than spurned.

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 marry a woman of ill repute, infamous and criminal, or to speak in defence of a Catiline, a Tubulus, [*](Catiline and Clodius are too notorious to require comment. L. Hostilius Tubulus, praetor in 142 B. C., accepted bribes when presiding at a trial for murder. Cic., De Nal. Deorum i. 63 and elsewhere, cites him as an example of iniquity. ) or a Publius Clodius, of course he ought not to be obeyed, since by the addition of a certain degree of evil these acts cease to be inherently neutral and indifferent. Hence the premise of those who say that

the commands of a father are either honourable or base

is 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-chasing

with 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

it was the custom to store ancient statues that had fallen from the temple, and some other consecrated objects from among the votive offerings. And then Varro goes on to say in the same letter, that he had never found any explanation of the term favisae in literature, but that Quintus Valerius Soranus used to assert that what we called by their Greek name thesauri (treasuries) the early Latins termed favisae, their reason being that there was deposited in them, not uncoined copper and silver, but stamped and minted money. His theory therefore was, he said, that the second letter had dropped out of the word flavisae, and that certain chambers and pits, which the attendants of the Capitol used for the preservation of old and sacred objects, were called favisae. [*](For original flavisae, from flare. Minted or coined money had to be softened or melted before being cast or struck, and for this process the word isflare; hence the directors of the mint were called Triumviri Auro Argento Aere Flando Feriundo, where aere is of course an old dative. Favisa is apparently for *fovisa and cognate with forea, pit.)

Numerous important details about Sicinius Dentatus, the distinguished warrior.

WE read in the annals that Lucius Sicinius Dentatus, who was tribune of the commons in the consulship of Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius, [*](454 B.C.) was a warrior of incredible energy; that he won a name for his exceeding great valour, and was called the Roman Achilles. It is said that he fought with the enemy in one hundred and twenty battles, and had not a scar on his back, but forty-five in front; that golden crowns were given him eight

times, the siege crown once, mural crowns three times, and civic crowns fourteen times; that eighty-three neck-chains were awarded him, more than one hundred and sixty armlets, and eighteen spears; he was presented besides with twenty-five decorations [*](The Romans awarded a great variety of military prizes, which are here enumerated, for the most part, in descending order of importance. Phalerae were discs of metal worn on the breast like medals, or sometimes on the harness of horses; the spears were hastae purae, unused (hence bloodless ) and perhaps sometimes headless weapons, although they are represented with heads on two tombstones (Cagnat et Chapot, Arch. Rom. ii, p. 359, and Bonner Jahrbücher, 114 (1905), Plate 1, Fig. 4). Besides golden crowns without a particular designation, there were others which are enunerated and described in v. 6.) ; he had a number of spoils of war, [*](The armour of the defeated antagonist; cf. Livy xxii. 6. 5. etc.) many of which were won in single combat; he took part with his generals in nine triumphal processions.

A law of Solon, the result of careful thought and consideration, which at first sight seems unfair and unjust, but on close examination is found to be altogether helpful and salutary.

AMONG those very early laws of Solon which were inscribed upon wooden tablets at Athens, and which, promulgated by him, the Athenians ratified by penalties and oaths, to ensure their permanence, Aristotle says [*](Cf. Pol. )Aqhn. 8.) that there was one to this effect:

If because of strife and disagreement civil dissension shall ensue and a division of the people into two parties, and if for that reason each side, led by their angry feelings, shall take up arms and fight, then if anyone at that time, and in such a condition of civil discord, shall not ally himself with one or the other faction, but by himself and apart shall hold aloof from the common calamity of the State, let hint be deprived of his home, his country, and all his property, and be an exile and an outlaw.

When I read this law of Solon, who was a man of extraordinary wisdom, I was at first filled with something like great amazement, and I asked myself why it was that those who had held themselves aloof from dissension and civil strife were thought to be deserving of punishment. Then those who had profoundly and thoroughly studied the purpose and meaning of the law declared that it was designed, not to increase, but to terminate, dissension. And that is exactly so. For if all good men, who have been unequal to checking the dissension at the outset, do not abandon the aroused and frenzied people, but divide and ally themselves with one or the other faction, then the result will be, that when they have become members of the two opposing parties, and, being men of more than ordinary influence, have begun to guide and direct those parties, harmony can best be restored and established through the efforts of such men, controlling and soothing as they will the members of their respective factions, and desiring to reconcile rather than destroy their opponents.

The philosopher Favorinus thought that this same course ought to be adopted also with brothers, or with friends, who are at odds; that is, that those who are neutral and kindly disposed towards both parties, if they have had little influence in bringing about a reconciliation because they have not made their friendly feelings evident, should then take sides, some one and some the other, and through this manifestation of devotion pave the way for restoring harmony.

But as it is,

said he,

most of the friends of both parties make a merit of abandoning the two disputants, leaving them to the tender

v1.p.159

mercies of ill-disposed or greedy advisers, who, animated by hatred or by avarice, add fuel to their strife and inflame their passions.