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).

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,

and quoad morietur, or

until he shall die,

are used, two opposite things really seem to be said, but the two expressions indicate one and the same time. Also when we say

as long as the senate shall be in session,

and

until the senate shall adjourn,

although

be in session

and

adjourn

are opposites, yet one and the same idea is expressed by both phrases. For when two periods of time are opposed to each other and yet are so connected that the end of one coincides with the beginning of the other, it makes no difference whether the exact point of their meeting is designated by the end of the first period or the beginning of the second.

v2.p.87

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.