Noctes Atticae

WHAT we have learned and know of the nature and character of memory from Aristotle's work entitled Peri\ Mnh/mhs or On Memory; and also some other examples, of which we have heard or read, about extraordinary powers of memory or its total loss. [*](See Nonius, s.v. meminisse, p. 441. 4, M.)

MY experience in trying to interpret and, as it were, to reproduce in Latin certain passages of Plato.

How Theophrastus, the most eloquent philosopher of his entire generation, when on the point of making a brief speech to the people of Athens, was overcome by bashfulness and kept silence; and how Demosthenes had a similar experience when speaking before king Philip.

A DISCUSSION that I had in the town of Eleusis with a conceited grammarian who, although ignorant of the tenses of verbs and the exercises of schoolboys, ostentatiously proposed abstruse questions of a hazy and formidable character, to impress the minds of the unlearned.

Would wish a lying scoundrel. [*](Whether these words, from Nonius, II., p. 120, 12, M., belong here is uncertain.)

THE witty reply of Socrates to his wife Xanthippe, when she asked that they might spend more money for their dinners during the Dionysiac festival.

ON the meaning of plerique omnes, or

almost all,

THAT eupsones, a word used by the people of Africa, is not Phoenician, but Greek.

A HIGHLY entertaining discussion of the philosopher Favorinus with a tiresome person who held forth on the double meaning of certain words; also some unusual expressions from the poet Naevius and from Gnaeus Gellius; and further, some investigations of the derivation of words by Publius Nigidius.

How the poet Laberius was ignominiously treated by Gaius Caesar, with a quotation of Laberius' own words on that subject. [*](See Macr. Sat. ii. 7.)

A pleasant and remarkable story from the books of Heracleides of Pontus. [*](This heading, of uncertain number, is quoted in Grammatici Latini ii. 246, 6, K, and attributed to Agellius, Noctium Atticarum viii., or according to the greater number of MSS., viiii.)

Why Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, wrote that missiles hit their mark more accurately and surely if they are hurled from below, than if they are hurled from above.

When Quintus Claudius, in the nineteenth book of his Annals, was describing an attack upon a town by the proconsul Metellus, and its defence against him by the townspeople from the top of the walls, he wrote these words: [*](Fr. 85, Peter2.)

The archers and slingers on both sides showered their weapons with the utmost vigour and courage. But there is this difference between shooting an arrow or a stone downward or upward; for neither missile can be discharged accurately downward, but both upwards with excellent effect. Therefore the soldiers of Metellus suffered far fewer wounds, and, what was of the greatest importance, they very easily drove the enemy back from the battlements by means of their slingers.

I asked Antonius Julianus, the rhetorician, why what Quadrigarius had said was so; namely, that the shots of missiles are closer and more accurate if you discharge a stone or an arrow upwards rather than downwards, in spite of the fact that a throw from above downward is swifter and easier than one in the opposite direction. Then

His statement about an arrow and a stone may be made about almost any missile weapon. But, as you have said, throwing is easier if you throw downwards, provided you wish only to throw, and not to hit a mark. But when the direction and force of the throw must be regulated and guided, then, if you are throwing downwards, tile control and command of the marksman are impaired by the downward impulse itself, such as it is, and by the weight of the falling missile. But if you throw your weapon upwards, and direct hand and eye to hitting something above you, the missile which you have hurled will go to the spot to which the impulse which you have given bears it.

With regard to the remark of the same Claudius,

they very easily drove the enemy from the battlements,

to run against something and fall upon it,

to avert and drive away

In what terms Herodes Atticus reproved a man who in appearance and dress falsely laid claim to the title and character of philosopher.

To Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, renowned for his personal charm and his Grecian eloquence, there

for bread.

I see,

a beard and a cloak; the philosopher I do not yet see. Now, I pray you, be so good as to tell me by what evidence you think we may recognize you as a philosopher.

Let us give him some money, whatever his character may be, not because he is a man, but because we are men,

Then, turning to those of us who were with him, he said:

Musonius [*](p. 132, Hense.) ordered a thousand sesterces to be given to a fakir of this sort who posed as a philosopher, and when several told him that the fellow was a rascal and knave and deserving of nothing good, Musonius, they say, replied with a smile: a)/cios ou)=n e)sti\n a)rguri/ou, 'then he deserves money.' But,

it is rather this that causes me resentment and vexation, that foul and evil beasts of this sort usurp a most sacred name and call themselves philosophers. Now, my ancestors the Athenians by public decree made it unlawful for slaves ever to be given the names of those valiant youths Harmodius

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and Aristogeiton, who to restore liberty tried to slay the tyrant Hippias; [*](In 514 B.C. They slew Hipparchus, brother of Hippias and son of Pisistratus. Hippias was afterwards driven from the city and the tyrannicides, who had lost their lives in their attempt, received almost divine honours.) for they thought it impious for the names of men who had sacrificed themselves for their country's freedom to be disgraced by contact with slavery. Why then do we allow the glorious title of philosopher to be defiled in the person of the basest of men? Moreover,

I hear that the early Romans, setting a similar example in a case of the opposite nature, voted that the forenames of certain patricians who had deserved ill of their country and for that reason had been condemned to death should never be given to any patrician of the same clan, in order that their very names might seem to be dishonoured and done to death, as well as the malefactors themselves.

A letter of king Philip to the philosopher Aristotle with regard to the recent birth of his son Alexander.

PHILIP, son of Amyntas, was king of the land of Macedonia. Through his valour and energy the Macedonians had greatly increased and enriched their kingdom, and had begun to extend their power over many nations and peoples, so that Demosthenes, in those famous orations and addresses, [*](The Philippics.) insists that his power and arms are to be feared and dreaded by all Greece. This Philip, although almost constantly busied and distracted by the labours and triumphs of war, yet never was a stranger to the Muse of the liberal arts and the pursuit of culture, but his

Since this letter is an encouragement to care and attention in the education of children, I thought that it ought to be quoted in full, as an admonition to parents. It may be translated, then, about as follows:

Philip to Aristotle, Greeting.

Know that a son is born to me. For this indeed I thank the gods, not so much because he is born, as because it is his good fortune to be born during your lifetime. For I hope that as a result of your training and instruction he will prove worthy of us and of succeeding to our kingdom.

But Philip's own words are these:

Fi/lippos )Aristote/lei xai/rein.

)/Isqi moi gegono/ta ui(o/n. pollh\n ou)=n toi=s qeoi=s e)/xw xa/rin, ou)x ou(/tws e)pi\ th=| gene/sei tou= paido/s, w(s e)pi\ tw=| kata\ th\n sh\n h(liki/an au)to\n gegone/nai: e)lpi/zw ga/r au)to\n u(po\ sou= trafe/nta kai\ paideuqe/nta a)/cion e)/sesqai kai\ h(mw=n kai\ th=s tw=n pragma/twn diadoxh=s.

On some extraordinary marvels found among barbarian peoples; and on awful and deadly spells; and also on the sudden change of women into men.

WHEN I was returning from Greece to Italy and had come to Brundisium, after disembarking I was

propitious,

uninstructed,

Those books, then, contained matter of the following sort: that the most remote of the Scythians, who pass their life in the far north, eat human flesh and subsist on the nourishment of that food, and are called a)nqrwpofa/goi, or

cannibals.

In those same books I ran upon this statement too, which I later read also in the seventh book of the Natural History of Plinius Secundus, [*](vii. 16.) that in the land of Africa there are families of persons who work spells by voice and tongue; for if they should chance to have bestowed extravagant praise upon beautiful trees, plentiful crops, charming children, fine horses, flocks that are well fed and in good condition, suddenly, for no other cause than this, all these would die. That with the eyes too a deadly spell is cast, is written in those same books, and it is said that there are persons among the Illyrians who by their gaze kill those at whom they have looked for some time in anger; and that those persons themselves, both men and women, who possess this power of harmful gaze, have two pupils in each eye. Also that in the mountains of the land of India there are men who have the heads of dogs, and bark, and that they feed upon birds and wild animals which they have taken in the chase. That in the remotest lands of the east too there are

one-legged,

These and many other stories of the kind I read; but when writing them down, I was seized with disgust for such worthless writings, which contribute nothing to the enrichment or profit of life. Nevertheless, the fancy took me to add to this collection of marvels a thing which Plinius Secundus, a man of high authority in his day and generation by reason of his talent and his position, recorded in the seventh book of his Natural History, [*](vii. 36.) not as something that he had heard or read, but that he knew to be true and had himself seen. The words therefore which I have quoted below are his own, taken from that book, and they certainly make us hesitate to reject or ridicule that familiar yarn of the poets of old about Caenis and Caeneus. [*](Caenis was a girl whom her lover Poseidon changed into a man and who was then called Caeneus; see Ovid, Met. xii. 171 ff.; Virg. Aen. vi. 448.) He says that the change of women into men is not a fiction.

We find,

in the annals that in the consulship of Quintus Licinius Crassus and Gains Cassius Longinus [*](171 B.C.) a girl at Casinum was changed into a boy in the house of her parents and by direction of the diviners was deported to a desert island. Licinius Mucianus has stated

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that he saw at Argos one Arescontes, whose name had been Arescusa; that she had even been married, but presently grew a beard, became a man, and had taken a wife: and that at Smyrna also he had seen a boy who had experienced the same change. I myself in Africa saw Lucius Cossutius, a citizen of Thysdrus, who had been changed into a man on his wedding day and was still living when I wrote this.

Pliny also wrote this in the same book: [*](vii. 34.)

There are persons who from birth are bisexual, whom we call 'hermaphrodites'; they were formerly termed androgyni and regarded as prodigies, but now are instruments of pleasure.

Diverse views of eminent philosophers as to the nature and character of pleasure; and the words in which the philosopher Hierocles attacked the principles of Epicurus.

As to pleasure the philosophers of old expressed varying opinions. Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good, but defines it [*](Fr. 28, Usener.) as sarko\s eu)staqe\s kata/sthma, or

a well-balanced condition of body.

may I go mad rather than feel pleasure.

Pleasure an end, a harlot's creed; there is no Providence, not even a harlot's creed.

With what quantity the first syllable of the frequentative verb from ago should be pronounced.

FROM ago and egi are derived the verbs actito and actitavi, which the grammarians call

frequentatives.

That the leaves of the olive tree turn over at the summer and the winter solstice, and that the lyre at that same season produces sounds from other strings than those that are struck.

IT is commonly both written and believed that at the winter and the summer solstice the leaves of olive trees turn over, and that the side which had been underneath and hidden becomes uppermost and is exposed to sight and to the sun. And 1 myself was led to test this statement more than once, and found it to be almost exactly true.

But about the lyre there is an assertion that is less often made and is even more remarkable. And this both other learned men and also Suetonius Tranquillus, in the first book of his History of the Games, [*](The title as given in full by Suidas is On the Festivals and Games of the Romans, two books. See Fr. 181, Reiff.)

That it is inevitable that one who has much should need much, with a brief and graceful aphorism of the philosopher Favorinus on that subject.

THAT is certainly true which wise men have said as the result of observation and experience, that he who has much is in need of much, and that great want arises from great abundance and not from great lack; for many things are wanted to maintain the many things that you have. Whoever then, having much, desires to provide and take precaution that nothing may fail or be lacking, needs to lose, not gain, and must have less in order to want less.

I recall that Favorinus once, amid loud and general applause, rounded off this thought, putting it into the fewest possible words: [*](Fr. 81, Marres. We may compare Hor. Epist. i. 6. 40 ff.)

It is not possible for one who wants fifteen thousand cloaks not to want more things; [*](ad ea quae habet tuenda; see § 1.) for if I want more than I possess, by taking away from what I have I shall be contented with what remains.

What method should be followed in translating Greek expressions; and on those verses of Homer which Virgil is thought to have translated either well and happily or unsuccessfully.

WHENEVER striking expressions from the Greek poets are to be translated and imitated, they say that

For example, when very recently the Bucolics of Theocritus and Virgil were being read together at table, we perceived that Virgil had omitted something that in the Greek is, to be sure, wonderfully pleasing, but neither could nor ought to have been translated. But what he has substituted for that omission is almost more charming and graceful. Theocritus writes: [*](Idyls v. 88 f; the translation is that of Edmonds, L.C.L.)

1. But when her goatherd boy goes by you should see my Cleärist
2. Fling apples, and her pretty lips call pouting to be kissed.

1. My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies,
2. Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies,
3. And wishes to be seen before she flies.

1. O Tityrus, well-belovéd, feed my goats,
2. And lead them to the fount, good Tityrus;
3. But 'ware yon buck-goat yellow, lest he butt.

well-beloved

1. Till I return—not long—feed thou my goats;
2. Then, Tityrus, give them drink, but as you go,
3. Avoid the buck-goat's horn—the fellow butts'

And since I am speaking on the subject of translation, I recall hearing from pupils of Valerius Probus, a learned man and well trained in reading and estimating the ancient writings, that he used to say that Virgil had never translated Homer less successfully than in these delightful lines which Homer wrote about Nausicaa: [*](Odyss. vi. 102 ff., translation by Dryden.)

1. As when o'er Erymanth Diana roves,
2. Or wide Taÿgetus' resounding groves,
3. A silver train the huntress queen surrounds,
4. Her rattling quiver from her shoulder sounds;
5. Fierce in the sport, along the mountain's brow
6. They bay the boar or chase the bounding roe;
7. High o'er the lawn, with more majestic pace,
8. Above the nymphs she treads with stately grace;
9. Distinguished excellence the goddess proves,
10. Exults Latona as the virgin moves:
11. With equal grace Nausicaa trod the plain,
12. And shone transcendent o'er the beauteous train.

1. As on Eurotas' banks or Cynthus' heights
2. Diana guides her dancing bands, whose train
3. A thousand Oreads follow, right and left;
4. A quiver bears she on her shoulder fair,
5. And as she treads, the goddesses o'ertops;
6. Joys thrill Latona's silent breast.

pressing on the work of her rising kingdom,

Leto rejoiced in heart,

1. And shone transcendent o'er the beauteous train. [*](Literally, "And is readily recognized, though all are fair.")