Noctes Atticae

Of things which seem to have sumptwsi/a, or

coincidence,

with the waning and waxing moon.

THE poet Annianus owned an estate in the Faliscan territory, where he used to celebrate the vintage season with mirth and jollity. On one occasion he invited me, along with some other friends. As we were dining there one day, a large quantity of oysters were sent from Rome. When they were set before us and proved to be indeed numerous, but neither rich nor very plump, Annianus said:

Of course the moon is waning just now; therefore the oyster also, like some other things, is thin and juiceless.

When we asked what other things wasted away with the waning moon, he answered: "Don't you remember that our Lucilius says: [*](v. 1201, Marx.)

1. The moon makes oysters fat, sea-urchins full,
2. And bulk and substance to the mussels adds? [*](Cf. Hor. Serm. ii. 4. 30, lubrica nascentes implent conchylia lunae; Cic. de Div. ii. 33.)

Furthermore, those same things which grow as the moon waxes grow less as it wanes. The eyes of cats also become larger or smaller according to the same changes of the moon. This too," said he,

is much more greatly to be wondered at, which I read in the fourth book of Plutarch's Commentary on Hesiod: [*](Frag. 90, Bern.) ' The onion grows and buds as the moon wanes, but, on the contrary, dries up while the moon waxes. The Egyptian priests say that this is the reason why the people of Pelusium do not eat the onion, because it is the only one of all vegetables which has an interchange of increase and decrease contrary to the waxing and waning of the moon.'

A passage in the Mimiambi of Gnaeus Matius, in which Antonius Iulianus used to delight; and the meaning of Marcus Cato in the speech which he wrote on his own uprightness, when he said:

I have never asked the people for garments.

ANTONIUS JULIANUS used to say that his ears were soothed and charmed by the newly-coined words of Gnaeus Matius, a man of learning, such as the following, which he said were written by Matius in his Mimiambi: [*](Frag. 12, Bahrens (F.P.R. p. 282).)

1. Revive your cold love in your warm embrace,
2. Close joining lip to lip like amorous dove (columbulatim).

And this also he declared to be charmingly and neatly devised: [*](Id. 13.)

1. The shorn rugs now are drunken with the dye
2. With which the shell [*](That is, the murex or purple-fish.) has drenched and coloured them. . .