Noctes Atticae

A conversation held with a grammarian, who was full of insolence and ignorance, as to the meaning of the word obnoxius; and of the origin of that word.

I INQUIRED at Rome of a certain grammarian who had the highest repute as a teacher, not indeed

Truly a difficult question is this that you ask, one demanding very many sleepless nights of investigation! Who, pray, is so ignorant of the Latin tongue as not to know that one is called obnoxius who can be inconvenienced or injured by another, to whom he is said to be obnoxius because the other is conscious of his noxa, that is to say, of his guilt? Why not rather,

drop these trifles and put questions worthy of study and discussion?

Then indeed I was angry, but thinking that I ought to dissemble, since I was dealing with a fool, I said;

If, most learned sir, I need to learn and to know other things that are more abstruse and more important, when the occasion arises I shall inquire and learn them from you; but inasmuch as I have often used the word obnoxious without knowing what I was saying, I have learned from you and am now beginning to understand what not I alone, as you seem to think, was ignorant of; for as a matter of fact, Plautus too, though a man of the first rank in his use of the Latin language and in elegance of diction, did not know the meaning of obnoxius. For there is a passage of his in the Stichus which reads as follows:

1. By Heaven! I now am utterly undone,
2. Not only partly so (non obnoxie). [*](497. Cf. Salmasius, ad loc., obnoxie perire dicitur, qui non plane nec funditus perit, sed aliquam spem salutis habet. Cf. Poen. 787; Amph. 372.)

This does not in the least agree with what you have

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taught me; for Plautus contrasted plane and obnoxie as two opposites, which is far removed from your meaning.

But that grammarian retorted foolishly enough, as if obnoxius and obnoxie differed, not merely in form, but in their substance and meaning:

I gave a definition of obnoxins, not obnoxie.

Let us, as you wish, disregard the fact that Plautus said obnoxie, if you think that too far-fetched; and let us also say nothing of the passage in Sallust's Catiline: [*](xxiii. 3.) 'Also to threaten her with his sword, if she would not be submissive (obnoxia) to him'; but explain to me this example, which is certainly more recent and more familiar. For the following verses of Virgil's are very well known: [*](Georg. i. 395–6.)

1. For now the stars' bright sheen is seen undimmed.
2. The rising Moon owes naught (nec .. obnoxia) to brother's rays;

but you say that it means 'conscious of her guilt.' In another place too Virgil uses this word with a meaning different from yours, in these lines: [*](Georg. ii. 438.)

1. What joy the fields to view
2. That owe no debt (non obnoxia) to hoe or care of man.

for care is generally a benefit to fields, not an injury, as it would be according to your definition of obnoxius. Furthermore, how can what Quintus Ennius writes in the following verses from the Phoenix [*](257 ff., Ribbeck.3) agree with you:

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1. 'Tis meet a man should live inspired by courage true,
2. In conscious innocence should boldly challenge foes.
3. True freedom his who bears a pure and steadfast heart,
4. All else less import has (obnoxiosae) and lurks in gloomy night?

But our grammarian, with open mouth as if in a dream, said:

Just now I have no time to spare. When I have leisure, come to see me and learn what Virgil, Plautus, Sallust and Ennius meant by that word.

So saying that fool made off; but in case anyone should wish to investigate, not only the origin of this word, but also its variety of meaning, in order that he may take into consideration this Plautine use also, I have quoted the following lines from the Asinaria: [*](282.)

1. He'll join with me and hatch the biggest jubilee,
2. Stuff'd with most joy, for son and father too.
3. For life they both shall be in debt (obnoxii) to both of us,
4. By our services fast bound.

Now, in the definition which that grammarian gave, he seems in a word of such manifold content to have noted only one of its uses—a use, it is true, which agrees with that of Caecilius in these verses of the Chrysium: [*](21, Ribbeck.3)

1. Although I come to you attracted by your pay,
2. Don't think that I for that am subject to your will (tibi . . . obnoxium);
3. If you speak ill of me, you'll hear a like reply.

On the strict observance by the Romans of the sanctity of an oath; and also the story of the ten prisoners whom Hannibal sent to Rome under oath.

AN oath was regarded and kept by the Romans as something inviolable and sacred. This is evident from many of their customs and laws, and this tale which I shall tell may be regarded as no slight support of the truth of the statement. After the battle of Cannae Hannibal, commander of the Carthaginians, selected ten Roman prisoners and sent them to the city, instructing them and agreeing that, if it seemed good to the Roman people, there should be an exchange of prisoners, and that for each captive that one side should receive in excess of the other side, there should be paid a pound and a half of silver. Before they left, he compelled them to take oath that they would return to the Punic camp, if the Romans would not agree to an exchange.

The ten captives come to Rome. They deliver the message of the Punic commander in the senate. The senate refused an exchange. The parents, kinsfolk and connexions of the prisoners amid embraces declared that they had returned to their native land in accordance with the law of postliminium, [*](Recovery of civic rights by a person who has been reduced to slavery by capture in war, Pomponius, Dig. xlix. 15. 5, and 19.) and that their condition of independence was complete and inviolate; they therefore besought them not to think of returning to the enemy. Then eight of their number rejoined that they had no just right of postliminium, since they were bound by an oath, and they at once went back to Hannibal, as they had sworn to do. The other two remained

Furthermore Cornelius Nepos, in the fifth book of his Examples [*](Corn. Nepos, Ex. fr. 2, Peter2,) has recorded also that many of the senators recommended that those who refused to return should be sent to Hannibal under guard, but that the motion was defeated by a majority of dissentients. He adds that, in spite of this, those who had not returned to Hannibal were so infamous and hated that they became tired of life and committed suicide.

A story, taken from the annals, about Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the commons and father of the Gracchi; and also an exact quotation of the decrees of the tribunes.

A FINE, noble and generous action of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus is recorded in the Examples.[*](Nepos, Ex,, fr. 3, Peter2,) It runs as follows: Gaius Minucius Augurinus, tribune of the commons, imposed a fine on Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, brother of Scipio Africanus the elder, [*](The famous conqueror of Hannibal at Zama in 202 B.C. He served as legatus under his brother in the war against Antiochus, in 190 B.C.) and demanded that he should give security

The words of their decree, which I have quoted, are taken from the records of the annals:

Whereas Publius Scipio Africanus has asked us to protect his brother, Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, against the violent measures of one of our colleagues, in that, contrary to the laws and the customs of our forefathers, that tribune of the commons, having illegally convened an assembly without consulting the auspices, pronounced sentence upon him and imposed an unprecedented fine, and compels him to furnish security for its payment, or if he does not do so, orders that he be imprisoned; and whereas, on the other hand, our colleague has demanded that we should not interfere with him in the exercise of his legal authority—our unanimous decision in this matter is as follows: If Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus will furnish security in accordance with the decision of our colleague, we will forbid our colleague to take him to prison; but if he shall not furnish the securities in accordance with our colleague's decision, we will not interfere with our colleague in the exercise of his lawful authority.

After this decree, Lucius Scipio refused to give security and the tribune Augurinus ordered him to be arrested and taken to prison. Thereupon Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, one of the tribunes of the commons and father of Tiberius and Gaius

That decree ran as follows:

Whereas Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, during the celebration of a triumph, cast the leaders of the enemy into prison, it seems contrary to the dignity of our country that the Roman people's commander should be consigned to the same place to which he had committed the leaders of the enemy; therefore I forbid my colleague to take violent measures towards Lucius Scipio Asiaticus.

But Valerius Antias, contradicting this record of the decrees and the testimony of the ancient annals, has said [*](Page 267 note, Peter2.) that it was after the death of Africanus that Tiberius Gracchus interposed that veto in behalf of Scipio Asiaticus; also that Scipio was not fined, but that being convicted of embezzlement of the money taken from Antiochus and refusing to give bail, was just being taken to prison when he was saved by this veto of Gracchus.

That Virgil removed Nola from one of his lines and substituted ora because the inhabitants of Nola had refused him water; and also some additional notes on the agreeable euphony of vowels.

I HAVE found it noted in a certain commentary that the following lines were first read and published by Virgil in this form: [*](Georg. ii. 244 f.)

1. Such is the soil that wealthy Capua ploughs
2. And Nola near Vesuvius' height.

1. The region near Vesuvius' height.

With the truth or falsity of this note I am not concerned; but there is no doubt that ora has a more agreeable and musical sound than Nola. For the last vowel in the first line and the first vowel in the following line being the same, the sound is prolonged by an hiatus that is at the same time melodious and pleasing. Indeed, it is possible to find in famous poets many instances of such melody, which appears to be the result of art rather than accident; but in Homer they are more frequent than in all other poets. In fact, in one single passage he introduces a number of sounds of such a nature, and with such an hiatus, in a series of successive words; for example: [*](Iliad xxii. 151.)

1. The other fountain e'en in summer flows,
2. Like unto hail, chill snow, or crystal ice,
[*](The instances referred to are prore/ei ei)kui=a, xala/zh| h)\, and yuxrh=| h)\.)

1. Up to the top he pushed (a)/nw w)/qeske) the stone.

Catullus too, the most graceful of poets, in the following verses, [*](xxvii. 1.)

1. Boy, who servest old Falernian,
2. Pour out stronger cups for me,
3. Following queen [*](Postumia is the magistra bibendi, who regulated the proportion of wine and water and the size of the cups, and imposed penalties for breaking her rules. Cf. Hor. Odes, i. 4. 18.) Postumia's mandate,
4. Tipsier she than tipsy grape,

Why it is that the phrases quoad vivet and quoad morietur indicate the very same time, although based upon opposite things.

WHEN the expressions quoad vivet, or

so long as he shall live,

until he shall die,

as long as the senate shall be in session,

until the senate shall adjourn,

be in session

adjourn

On the custom of the censors of taking their horse from corpulent and excessively fat knights; and the question whether such action also involved degradation or left them their rank as knights.

THE censors used to take his horse from a man who was too fat and corpulent, evidently because they thought that so heavy a person was unfit to perform the duties of a knight. For this was not a punishment, as some think, but the knight was relieved of duty without loss of rank. Yet Cato, in the speech which he wrote On Neglecting Sacrifice,[*](xviii. 5, Jordan.) makes such an occurrence a somewhat serious charge, thus apparently indicating that it was attended with disgrace. If you understand that to have been the case, you must certainly assume that it was because a man was not looked upon as wholly free from the reproach of slothfulness, if his body had bulked and swollen to such unwieldy dimensions.

How Chrysippus replied to those who denied the existence of Providence.

Those who do not believe that the world was created for God and mankind, or that human affairs are ruled by Providence, think that they are using a strong argument when they say:

If there were a Providence, there would be no evils.

There is absolutely nothing more foolish than those men who think that good could exist, if there were at the same time no evil. For since good is the opposite of evil, it necessarily follows that both must exist in opposition to each other, supported as it were by mutual adverse forces; since as a matter of fact no opposite is conceivable without something to oppose it. For how could there be an idea of justice if there were no acts of injustice? or what else is justice than the absence of injustice? How too can courage be understood except by contrast with cowardice? Or temperance except by contrast with intemperance? How also could there be wisdom, if folly did not exist as its opposite? Therefore,

why do not the

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fools also wish that there may be truth, but no falsehood? For it is in the same way that good and evil exist, happiness and unhappiness, pain and pleasure. For, as Plato says, [*](Phaedo, 3, p. 60 B.) they are bound one to the other by their opposing extremes; if you take away one, you will have removed both.

In the same book [*](Fr. ii, 1170, Arn.) Chrysippus also considers and discusses this question, which he thinks worth investigating: whether men's diseases come by nature; that is, whether nature herself, or Providence, if you will, which created this structure of the universe and the human race, also created the diseases, weakness, and bodily infirmities from which mankind suffers. He, however, does not think that it was nature's original intention to make men subject to disease; for that would never have been consistent with nature as the source and mother of all things good.

But,

when she was creating and bringing forth many great things which were highly suitable and useful, there were also produced at the same time troubles closely connected with those good things that she was creating

Exactly as,

when nature fashioned men's bodies, a higher reason and the actual usefulness of what she was creating demanded that the lead be made of very delicate and small bones. But this greater usefulness of one part was attended with an external disadvantage; namely, that the head was but slightly protected and could be damaged by slight blows and shocks. In the same way diseases too and illness were created at the same time with

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health. Exactly, by Heaven!

as vices, through their relationship to the opposite quality, are produced at the same time that virtue is created for mankind by nature's design.

How Chrysippus also maintained the power and inevitable nature of fate, but at the same time declared that we had control over our plans and decisions.

CHRYSIPPUS, the leader of the Stoic philosophy, defined fate, which the Greeks call ei(marme/nh, in about the following terms: [*](Fr. ii. 1000, Arn.)

Fate,

is an eternal and unalterable series of circumstances, and a chain rolling and entangling itself through an unbroken series of consequences, from which it is fashioned and made up.

an orderly series, established by nature, of all events, following one another and joined together from eternity, and their unalterable interdependence.

But the authors of other views and of other schools of philosophy openly criticize this definition as follows:

If Chrysippus,

believes that all things are set in motion and directed by fate, and that the course of fate and its coils cannot be turned aside or evaded, then the sins and faults of men too ought not to cause anger or be attributed to

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themselves and their inclinations, but to a certain unavoidable impulse which arises from fate,

Against these criticisms Chrysippus argues at length, subtilely and cleverly, but the purport of all that he has written on that subject is about this: [*](Fr. ii. 1000, Arn.)

Although it is a fact,

that all things are subject to an inevitable and fundamental law and are closely linked to fate, yet the peculiar properties of our minds are subject to fate only according to their individuality and quality. For if in the beginning they are fashioned by nature for health and usefulness, they will avoid with little opposition and little difficulty all that force with which fate threatens them from without. But if they are rough, ignorant, crude, and without any support from education, through their own perversity and voluntary impulse they plunge into continual faults and sin, even though the assault of some inconvenience due to fate be slight or non-existent. And that this very thing should happen in this way is due to that natural and inevitable connection of events which is called 'fate.' For it is in the nature of things, so to speak, fated and inevitable that evil characters should not be free from sins and faults.

A little later he uses an illustration of this statement of his, which is in truth quite neat and appropriate: [*](Fr. ii. 1000, Arn.)

For instance,

if you roll a cylindrical stone over a sloping, steep piece of ground, you do indeed furnish the beginning and

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cause of its rapid descent, yet soon it speeds onward, not because you make it do so, but because of its peculiar form and natural tendency to roll; just so the order, the law, and the inevitable quality of fate set in motion the various classes of things and the beginnings of causes, but the carrying out of our designs and thoughts, and even our actions, are regulated by each individual's own will and the characteristics of his mind.

Therefore it is said by the Pythagoreans also: [*](Xru/sea )/Eph, 54.)

1. You'll learn that men have ills which they themselves
2. Bring on themselves,

for harm comes to each of them through themselves, and they go astray through their own impulse and are harmed by their own purpose and determination.

The first to express this thought was the oldest and wisest of the poets, in these verses: [*](Homer, Odyss. i. 32.)

1. Alas! how wrongly mortals blame the gods!
2. From us, they say, comes evil; they themselves
3. By their own folly woes unfated bear.

Chrysippus, in spite of all efforts and labour, is perplexed how to explain that everything is ruled by fate, but that we nevertheless have some control over our conduct.

An account, taken from the works of Tubero, of a serpent of unprecedented length.

TUBERO in his Histories has recorded [*](Fr. 8, Peter2.) that in the first Punic war the consul Atilius Regulus, when encamped at the Bagradas river in Africa, [*](In 256 B.C.) fought a stubborn and fierce battle with a single serpent of extraordinary size, which had its lair in that region; that in a mighty struggle with the entire army the reptile was attacked for a long time with hurling engines and catapults; and that when it was finally killed, its skin, a hundred and twenty feet long, was sent to Rome.

A new account, written by the above-mentioned Tubero, of the capture of Regulus by the Carthaginians; and also what Tuditanus wrote about that same Regulus.

I RECENTLY read in the works of Tuditanus the well-known story about Atilius Regulus: [*](Fr. 5, Peter2.) That

Tubero in his Histories says [*](Fr. 9, Peter.) that this Regulus returned to Carthage and was put to death by the Carthaginians with tortures of a novel kind:

They confined him,

in a dark and deep dungeon, and a long time afterwards suddenly brought him out, when the sun was shining most brightly, and exposed him to its direct rays, holding him and forcing him to fix his gaze upon the sky. They even drew his eyelids apart upward and downward and sewed them fast, so that he could not close his eyes.

An error of the jurist Alfenus in the interpretation of early words.

THE jurist Alfenus, a pupil of Servius Sulpicius and a man greatly interested in matters antiquarian,

In a treaty which was made between the Roman people and the Carthaginians the provision is found, that the Carthaginians should pay each year to the Roman people a certain weight of argenti puri puti, and the meaning of puri puti was asked. I replied,

that putus meant very pure,' just as we say novicius for novus (new) and propicius for proprius (proper), when we wish to augment and amplify the meaning of novus and proprius.

Upon reading this, I was surprised that Alfenus should think that the relation of purus and putus was the same as that of novicius and novus; for if the word were puricius, then it would indeed appear to be formed like novicius. It was also surprising that he thought that novicius was used to imply amplification, since in fact novicius does not mean

more new,

to prune,

But the expression purum putum occurs, not only in the treaty with Carthage, but also in many other early writings, including the tragedy of Quintus Ennius entitled Alexander, [*](62, Ribbeck3.) and the satire of Marcus Varro called Di\s Pai=des oi( Ge/rontes, [*](Fr. 91, Bücheler.) or Old Men are Children for a Second Time.

That Julius Hyginus was hasty and foolish in his criticism of Virgil for calling the wings of Daedalus praepetes; also a note on the meaning of aves praepetes and of those birds which Nigidius called inferae.

1. FROM Minos' realms in flight brave Daedalus
2. On pinion swift (praepetibus), 'tis said, did dare the sky.

In these lines of Virgil [*](Aen. vi. 14 f.) Julius Hyginus [*](Fr. 6, Fun.) criticizes the use of pennis praepetibus as an improper and ignorant expression.

For,

those birds are called praepetes by the augurs which either fly onward auspiciously or alight in suitable places.

But of a truth it was Hyginus who was altogether foolish in supposing that the meaning of praepetes was known to him, but unknown to Virgil and to

1. While Victory swift (praepes) the victor's palm bestows.

Furthermore, why does he not find fault also with Quintus Ennius, who in his Annals uses praepes, not of the wings of Daedalus, but of something very different, in the line: [*](488, Vahlen2. Cf. Gell. ix. 4. 1.)

1. Brundisium girt with fair, propitious (praepete) port?

1. In fair, propitious (praepetibus) places they alight.

But birds that are the opposite of praepetes are called inferae, or

low,

The right is opposed to the left, praepes to infera.

In my youth in Rome, when I was still in attendance on the grammarians, I gave special attention to Sulpicius Apollinaris. Once when there was a discussion about augural law and mention had been made of praepetes aves, I heard him say to Erucius Clarus, the city prefect, that in his opinion praepetes was equivalent to Homer's tanupte/ruges, or

wide-winged,

1. You bid me trust the flight of wide-winged birds,
2. But I regard them not, nor think of them.

On Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia; and on the origin of the priesthood of the Arval Brethren.

THE names of Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia, or Fufetia as she is sometimes called, are frequent in the early annals. To the former of these after her death, but to Taracia while she still lived, the Roman people paid distinguished honours. And that Taracia, at any rate, was a Vestal virgin is proved by the Horatian law which was laid before the people with regard to her. By this law very many honours are bestowed upon her and among them the right of giving testimony is granted her, and that privilege is given to no other woman in the State. The word testabilis is used in the Horatian law itself, and its opposite occurs in the Twelve Tables: [*](viii. 22; the date of this privilegium (see x. 20. 4) is uncertain.)

Let him be

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infamous and intestabilis, or 'forbidden to testify.'

But Acca Larentia was a public prostitute and by that trade had earned a great deal of money. In her will she made king Romulus heir to her property, according to Antias' History; [*](Fr. 1, Peter2.) according to some others, the Roman people. Because of that favour public sacrifice was offered to her by the priest of Quirinus and a day was consecrated to her memory in the Calendar. But Masurius Sabinus, in the first book of his Memorialia, following certain historians, asserts that Acca Larentia was Romulus' nurse. His words are: [*](Fr. 14, Huschke; 1, Bremer (ii, p. 368).)

This woman, who had twelve sons, lost one of them by death. In his place Romulus gave himself to Acca as a son, and called himself and her other sons ' Arval Brethren.' Since that time there has always been a college of Arval Brethren, twelve in number, and the insignia of the priesthood are a garland of wheat ears and white fillets.

Some noteworthy anecdotes of King Alexander and of Publius Scipio.

APION, a Greek, called Pleistoneices, [*](Of many quarrels, a word coined in imitation of the epithet applied to famous athletes: pleistoni/khs, of many victories.) possessed a fluent and lively style. Writing in praise of king

He forbade the wife of his vanquished foe, a woman of surpassing loveliness, to be brought into his presence, in order that he might not touch her even with his eyes.

But those who have an abundance of talent, leisure and eloquence may use this material for a pair of little declamations on Alexander and Scipio; I shall be satisfied with relating this, which is a matter of historical record: Whether it be false or true is uncertain, but at any rate the story goes that your Scipio in his youth did not have an unblemished reputation, and that it was all but generally believed that it was at him that the following verses were aimed by the poet Gnaeus Naevius: [*](ii. 108, Ribbeck3.)

1. E'en he who oft-times mighty deeds hath done,
2. Whose glory and exploits still live, to whom
3. The nations bow, his father once led home,
4. Clad in a single garment, from his love.

I think it was by these verses that Valerius Antias was led to hold an opinion opposed to that of all

A passage taken from the Annals of Lucius Piso, highly diverting in content and graceful in style.

BECAUSE the action of Gnaeus Flavius, [*](He was the secretary of the censor Appius Claudius Caecus and became curule aedile in 303 B.C.) the curule aedile, son of Annius, which Lucius Piso described in the third book of his Annals, seemed worthy of record, and because the story is told by Piso in a very pure and charming style, I have quoted the entire passage from Piso's Annals: [*](Fr. 27, Peter2.)

Gnaeus Flavius, the son of a freedman,

This same Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, is said to have come to call upon a sick colleague. When he arrived and entered the room, several young nobles were seated there. They treated Flavius with contempt and none of them was willing to

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rise in his presence. Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, the aedile, laughed at this rudeness; then he ordered his curule chair to be brought and placed it on the threshold, in order that none of them might be able to go out, and that all of them against their will might see him sitting on his chair of state.

A story about Euclides, the Socratic, by whose example the philosopher Taurus used to urge his pupils to be diligent in the pursuit of philosophy.

THE philosopher Taurus, a celebrated Platonist of my time, used to urge the study of philosophy by many other good and wholesome examples and in particular stimulated the minds of the young by what he said that Euclides the Socratic used to do.

The Athenians,

had provided in one of their decrees that any citizen of Megara who should be found to have set foot in Athens should for that suffer death; so great,

was the hatred of the neighbouring men of Megara with which the Athenians were inflamed. Then Euclides, who was from that very town of Megara and before the passage of that decree had been accustomed both to come to Athens and to listen to Socrates, after the enactment of that measure, at nightfall, as darkness was coming on, clad in a woman's long tunic, wrapped in a parti-coloured mantle, and with veiled head, used to walk from his home in Megara to Athens, to visit Socrates, in order that he might at least for some part of the night share in the master's teaching and discourse. And just before dawn he went back again, a distance of somewhat over twenty miles,

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disguised in that same garb. But nowadays,

we may see the philosophers themselves running to the doors of rich young men, to give them instruction, and there they sit and wait until nearly noonday, for their pupils to sleep off all last night's wine.

A passage from a speech of Quintus Metellus Numidicus, which it was my pleasure to recall, since it draws attention to the obligation of self-respect and dignity in the conduct of life.

ONE should not vie in abusive language with the basest of men or wrangle with foul words with the shameless and wicked, since you become like them and their exact mate so long as you say things which match and are exactly like what you hear. This truth may be learned no less from an address of Quintus Metellus Numidicus, a man of wisdom, than from the books and the teachings of the philosophers. These are the words of Metellus from his speech Against Gaius Manlius, Tribune of the Commons,[*](O.R.F. p. 274, Meyer2.) by whom he had been assailed and taunted in spiteful terms in a speech delivered before the people:

Now, fellow citizens, so far as Manlius is concerned, since he thinks that he will appear a greater man, if he keeps calling me his enemy, who neither count him as my friend nor take account of him as an enemy, I do not propose to say another word. For I consider him not only wholly unworthy to be well spoken of by good men, but unfit even to be reproached by the upright. For if you name an insignificant fellow of his kind at a time when you cannot punish him, you confer honour upon him rather than ignominy.

That neither testamentum, as Servius Sulpicius thought, nor sacellum, as Gaius Trebatus believed, is a compound, but the former is an extended form of testatio, the latter a diminutive of sacrum.

I DO not understand what reason led Servius Sulpicius the jurist, the most learned man of his time, to write in the second book of his work On the Annulling of Sacred Rites[*](Fr. 3, Huschke; i, p. 225, Bremer.) that testamentum is a compound word; for he declared that it was made up of mentis contestatio, or

an attesting of the mind.

A sacellum, or 'shrine,' is a small place consecrated to a god and containing an altar.

Sacellum, I think, is made up of the two words sacer and cella, as if it were sacra cella, or 'a sacred clamber.'

On the brief topics discussed at the table of the philosopher Taurus and called Sympoticae, or Table Talk. [*](Really, talk over the wine, or after-dinner talk.)

THIS custom was practised and observed at Athens by those who were on intimate terms with the philosopher Taurus; when he invited us to his home, in order that we might not come wholly tax-free, [*](The reference is to a dinner to which each guest brought his contribution (symbolon); cf. Hor. Odes, iv. 12. 14 f., non ego te meis immunem meditor tinguere poculis; Catull. xiii.) as the saying is, and without a contribution, we brought to the simple meal, not dainty foods, but ingenious topics for discussion. Accordingly, each one of us came with a question which he had thought up and prepared, and when the eating ended, conversation began. The questions, however, were neither weighty nor serious, but certain neat but trifling e)nqumhma/tia, or problems, which would pique a mind enlivened with wine; for instance, the examples of playful subtlety which I shall quote.

The question was asked, when a dying man died—when he was already in the grasp of death, or while he still lived? And when did a rising man rise—when he was already standing, or while he was still seated? And when did one who was learning an art become an artist—when he already was one, or when he was still learning? For whichever answer you make, your statement will be absurd and laughable, and it will seem much more absurd, if you say that it is in either case, or in neither.

But when some declared that all these questions were pointless and idle sophisms, Taurus said:

Do not despise such problems, as if they were mere trifling

v2.p.127

amusements. The most earnest of the philosophers have seriously debated this question. [*](See Pease, Things without Honor, Class. Phil. xxi. (1926), pp. 97 ff.) Some have thought that the term 'die' was properly used, and that the moment of death came, while life still remained; others have left no life in that moment, but have claimed for death all that period which is termed dying.' Also in regard to other similar problems they have argued for different times and maintained opposite opinions. But our master Plato,

assigned that time neither to life nor to death, and took the same position in every discussion of similar questions. For he saw that the alternatives were mutually contrary, that one of the two opposites could not be maintained while the other existed, and that the question arose from the juxtaposition of two opposing extremes, namely life and death. Therefore he himself devised, and gave a name to, a new period of time, lying on the boundary between the two, which he called in appropriate and exact language h( e)cai/fnhs fu/sis, or 'the moment of sudden separation.' And this very term, as I have given it,

you will find used by him in the dialogue entitled Parmenides.

Of such a kind were our

contributions

sweetmeats