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18.1.p1325
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Discussions held by a Stoic philosopher and in opposition by a Peripatetic, with Favorinus as arbiter; and the question at issue was, how far virtue availed in determining a happy life and to what extent happiness was dependent on what are called external circumstances
18.1.p1326
18.1.p1326
THERE were two friends of Favorinus, philosophers of no little note in the city of Rome; one of them was a follower of the Peripatetic school, the other of the Stoic. I was once present when these men argued ably and vigorously, each for his own beliefs, when we were all with Favorinus at Ostia. And we were walking along the shore in springtime, just as evening was falling.
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18.1.p1327
And on that occasion the Stoic mantatined
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1
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that man could enjoy a happy life only through virtue, and that the greatest wretchedness was due to wickedness only, even though all the other blessings, which are called external, should be lacking to the virtuous man and present with the wicked. The Peripatetic, on the other hand, admitted that a wretched life was due solely to vicious thoughts and wickedness, but he believed that virtue alone was by no means sufficient to round out all the parts of a happy life, since the complete use of one's limbs, good health, a reasonably attractive person, property, good repute, and all the other advantages of body and fortune seemed necessary to make a perfectly happy life.
18.1.p1328
18.1.p1328
Here the Stoic made outcry against him, and maintaining that his opponent was advancing two contrary propositions, expressed his surprise that, since wickedness and virtue were two opposites, and a wretched and a happy life were also opposites, he did not preserve in each the force and nature of an opposite, but believed that wickedness alone was sufficient to cause an unhappy life, at the same time declaring that virtue alone was not sufficient to guarantee a happy life. And he said that it was especially inconsistent and contradictory for one who maintained that a life could in no way be made happy if virtue alone were lacking, to deny on the other hand that a life could be happy when virtue alone was present, and thus to take away from virtue when present and demanding it, that honour which he gave and bestowed upon virtue when lacking.
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18.1.p1329
Thereupon the Peripatetic, in truth very wittily, said:
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Pray pardon me, and tell me this, whether you think that an amphora Somewhat less than 6 gallons. of wine from which a congius A little less than 6 pints. has been taken, is still an amphora?
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By no means,
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was the reply,
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can that be called an amphora of wine, from which a congius is missing.
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When the Peripatetic heard this, he retorted:
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Then it will have to be said that one congius makes an amphora of wine, since when that one is lacking, it is not an amphora, and when it is added, it becomes an amphora. But if it is absurd to say that an amphora is made from one single congius, it is equally absurd to say that a life is made happy by virtue alone by itself, because when virtue is lacking life can never be happy.
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18.1.p1330
Then Favorinus, turning to the Peripatetic, said: This clever turn which you have used about the congius of wine is indeed set forth in the books; but, as you know, it ought to be regarded rather as a neat catch than as an honest or plausible argument. For when a congius is lacking, it indeed causes the amphora not to be of full measure; but when it is added and put in, it alone does not make, but completes, an amphora. But virtue, as the Stoics say, is not an addition or a supplement, but it by itself is the equivalent of a happy life, and therefore it alone makes a happy life, when it is present.
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These and some other minute and knotty arguments each advanced in support of his own opinion, before Favorinus as umpire. But when the first night-lights appeared and the darkness grew thicker, we escorted Favorinus to the house where he was putting up; and when he went in, we separated.
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18.2.p1332
What kind of questions we used to discuss when spending the Saturnalia at Athens; and some amusing sophistries and enigmas
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WE used to spend the Saturnalia at Athens very merrily yet temperately, not
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relaxing our minds,
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as the saying is—for, as Musonius asserts,
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1
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to relax the mind is like losing it—but diverting our minds a little and relieving them by the delights of pleasant and improving conversation. Accordingly, a number of us Romans who had come to Greece, and who attended the same lectures and devoted ourselves to the same teachers, met at the same dinner-table. Then the one who was giving the entertainment in his turn,
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2
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offered as a prize for solving a problem
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the work of some old Greek or Roman writer and a crown woven from laurel, and put to us as many questions as there were guests present. But when he had put them all, the question which each was to discuss and the order of speaking were determined by lot. Then, when a question was correctly answered, the reward was a crown and a prize; if it was not correctly answered, it was passed on to the next in the allotment, and this process was repeated throughout the circle. If no one could answer a particular question, the crown was dedicated to the god in whose honour the festival was held. Now the questions that were proposed were of this kind: an obscure saying of some early poet, amusing rather than perplexing; some point in ancient history; the correction of some tenet of philosophy which was commonly misinterpreted, the solution of some sophistical catch, the investigation of a rare and unusual word, or of an obscure use of the tense of a verb of plain meaning.
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And I recollect that once seven questions were put, the first of which was an explanation of these verses in the
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Saturae
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of Quintus Ennius,
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1
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in which one word is very neatly used in many different senses. They run as follows:
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The second question was how it ought to be understood and interpreted that Plato in the State
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which he planned in his books
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1
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said
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koina\s ta\s gunai=kas,
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that is, declared that women
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should be common property,
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and that the rewards of the bravest men and the greatest warriors should be the kisses of boys and maidens. In the third place this was asked, in what words the fallacy of the following catches consisted and how they could be made out and explained:
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What you have not lost, that you have. You have not lost horns; therefore you have horns.
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Also another catch:
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What I am, that you are not. I am a man; therefore you are not a man.
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Then it was inquired what was the solution of this sophistry:
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When I lie and admit that I lie, do I lie or speak the truth?
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Afterwards this question was put, why the patricians are in the habit of entertaining one another on the Megalensia,
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2
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and the plebeians on the Cerealia.
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3
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Next came this question:
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What one of the early poets used the verb verant, in the sense of 'they speak the truth '?
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The sixth question was, what kind of plant the
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asphodel
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was, which Hesiod mentioned in the following lines:
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4
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O fools! who know not how much half exceeds the whole, Hesiod means that a simple and frugal life is the best. He had shared his father's property with his brother Perses; but Perses went to law and through the partiality of the judges got possession of the whole inheritance. He soon wasted it, and Hesiod, through his thrift, was able to come to his help. Hence the expression became proverbial. Cicero, on seeing a bust of his brother Quintus, who was of short stature, said: Half of my bother is greater than the whole. (Macrob. Sat. ii. 3. 4.)
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Or that the asphodel and mallow make fine food.
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And also what Hesiod meant when he said that the half was more than the whole. The last of all the
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questions was this: of what tense the verbs
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scripserim, legerim
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and
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venerim
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are, perfect or future, or both.
18.2.p1336
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When these questions had been put in the order that I have mentioned, and had been discussed and explained by the several guests on whom the lots fell, we were all presented with crowns and books, except for the one question about the verb
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verant.
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For at the time no one remembered that the word was used by Quintus Ennius in the thirteenth book of his
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Annals
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in the following line:
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1
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Do seers speak truth (verant), predicting life's extent?
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Therefore the crown for this question was presented to Saturn, the god of that festival.
18.3.p1337
18.3.p1337
What the orator Aeschines, in the speech in which he accused Timarchus of unchastity, said that the Lacedaemonians decided about the praiseworthy suggestion of a most unpraiseworthy man
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AESCHINES, the most acute and sagacious of the orators who gained renown in the Athenian assemblies, in that cruel, slanderous and virulent speech in which he severely and directly accused Timarchus of unchastity, says that a man of advanced years and high character, a leader in that State, once gave noble and distinguished counsel to the Lacedaemonians.
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The people of Lacedaemon,
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he says,
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1
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were deliberating as to what was honourable and expedient in a matter of great moment to their State. Then there arose, for the purpose of giving his opinion, a man notorious for the baseness of his past life, but at the same time highly eminent for his eloquence and oratory. The advice which he gave, and the course which he said ought to be followed, were approved and accepted by all, and a decree of the people was about to be passed in accordance with his opinion. Thereupon one of that body of leading citizens whom the Lacedaemonians, because of the prestige of their age and rank, reverenced as judges and directors of public policy, Cf. Cic. De Senectute, 20, apud Lacedaemonios quidem ii qui amplissimum magistratum geruiit, ut sunt, sic etiam nominantur, senes, referring to the gerousi/a. sprang up in a spirit of anger and vexation, and said: ' What prospect, Lacedaemonians, or what hope, pray, will there be that this city and this State can longer be secure and invincible, if we follow counsellors whose past life is like that of this man? Even if this advice is honourable and noble, let us not, I pray you, allow it to be disgraced by the pollution of its most shameful author.' And when he had said this, he selected a man conspicuous before all others for his courage and justice, but a poor speaker and without eloquence, and bade him, with the consent and at the request of all, to deliver that opinion of the eloquent man in the best language he could command, in order that, without mention of the former speaker, the vote and decree of the people might be passed under the name of him alone who had last made that proposition. And the action which that most sagacious old man had recommended was taken. So the good advice endured, but its base author was displaced.
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18.4.p1340
How Sulpicius Apollinaris made fun of a man who asserted that he alone understood Sallust's histories, by inquiring the meaning of these words in Sallust: incertum, stolidior an vacnior.
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18.4.p1341
WHEN I was already a young man at Rome, having laid aside the purple-bordered toga of boyhood, and was on my own account seeking masters of deeper knowledge, I happened to be with the booksellers in Shoemaker's Street at the time when Sulpicius Apollinaris, the most learned man of all within my memory, in the presence of a large gathering made fun of a boastful fellow who was parading his reading of Sallust, and turned him into ridicule with that kind of witty irony which Socrates used against the sophists. For when the man declared that he was the one and only reader and expositor of Sallust, and openly boasted that he did not merely search into the outer skin and obvious meaning of his sentences, but delved into and thoroughly examined the very blood and marrow of his words, then Apollinaris, pretending to embrace and venerate his learning, said:
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Most opportunely, my good master, do you come to me now with the blood and marrow of Sallust's language. For yesterday I was asked what in the world those words of his meant which he wrote in the fourth book of his Histories about Gnaeus Lentulus, of whom he says that it is uncertain whether he was more churlish or more unreliable
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; and he quoted the very words, as Sallust wrote them:
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1
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But Gnaeus Lentulus, his colleague, surnamed Clodianus, a man of patrician family—and it is not at all easy to say whether he was more churlish or more unreliable—proposed a bill for exacting the money which Sulla had remitted to the purchasers of property.
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18.4.p1342
Apolinaris therefore asserted that it was asked of him, and that he had not been able to answer tile question, what was meant by vanior and what by stolidior, since Sallust seemed to have separated the words and contrasted them with each other, as if they were different and unlike and did not both designate the same fault; and therefore he asked that the man would tell him the meaning and origin of the two words.
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18.4.p1343
Then the other, showing by a grin and a grimace that he despised both the subject of the inquiry and the questioner himself; said: I am accustomed to examine and explain the marrow and blood of ancient and recondite words, as I said, not of those which are in common use and trite. Surely a man is more worthless and stupid than Gnaeus Lentulus himself, if he does not know that vanitas and stoliditas indicate the same kind of folly. But having said that, he left us in the very midst of our discussion and began to sneak off: Then we laid hold on him and pressed him, and in particular Apollinaris begged him to discourse at greater length and more plainly upon the difference, or, if he preferred, on the similarity of the words, and not to begrudge the information to one who was eager to learn.
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Then the fellow, realizing by this time that he was being laughed at, pleaded an engagement and made off But we afterwards learned from Apollinaris that the term
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rani
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was properly applied, not as in common parlance to those who were foolish or dull or silly, but, as the most learned of the ancients
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had used them, to liars, deceivers, and those who cleverly devised light and empty statements in place of those which were true and earnest. But that those were called
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stolidi
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who were not so much foolish and witless as austere, churlish and disagreeable, such men as the Greeks called
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moxqhroi/,
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ugly fellows,
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and
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fortikoi/,
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common
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or
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vulgar folk.
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He also said that the roots and derivations of these words were to be found in the books of Nigidius.
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1
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Having sought for these words and found them, with examples of their earliest meanings, I made a note of them, in order to include them in the notes contained in these
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Nights,
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and I think that I have already introduced them somewhere among them.
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2
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18.5.p1345
That Quintus Ennius, in the seventh book of his Annals, wrote quadrupes eques, and not quadrupes equus, as many read it.
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18.5.p1346
A NUMBER of us young men, friends of his, were at Puteoli with the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a fine man in truth and of distinguished eloquence, and we were spending the summer holidays in amusement and gaiety, amid literary diversions and seemly and improving pleasures. And while we were there, word was brought to Julianus that a certain reader, a man not without learning, was reciting the Annals of Ennius to the people in the theatre in a very refined and musical voice. Let us go, said he, to hear this ' Ennianist.' whoever he may be; for that was the name by which the man wished to be called.
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18.5.p1347
When at last we had found him reading amid loud applause—and he was reading the seventh book of the
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Annals
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of Ennius—we first heard him wrongly recite the following lines:
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1
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Then with great force on rush the four-footed horse (equus)
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And elephants,
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and without adding many more verses, he departed amid the praises and applause of the whole company.
18.5.p1348
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Then Julianus, as he came out of the theatre, said:
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What think you of this reader and his fourfooted horse? For surely he read it thus:
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Denique vi magna quadrupes equus atque elephant
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Proiciunt sese.
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Do you think that, if he had had a master and instructor worth a penny, he would have said
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quadrupes equus
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and not
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quadrupes eqces?
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For no one who has given any attention to ancient literature doubts that Ennius left it written in that way.
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When several of those who were present declared that they had read
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quadrupes equus,
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each with his own teacher, and wondered what was the meaning oft quadrupes eques, Julianus rejoined: " I could wish, my worthy young friends, that you had read Quintus Ennius as accurately as did Publius Vergilius, who, imitating this verse of his in
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The Georgics,
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used
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eques
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for
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equus
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in these lines:
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1
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Thessalian Lapiths, high on horses' back,
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Gave us the bit and circling course, and taught
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The horse Julianus gave this meaning to equitem, but the modern editors give it the usual one of horseman. full armed, to gallop o'er the plain
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And round his paces proud.
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In this passage, unless one is foolishly and silkily captious,
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equiter
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can be taken in no other sense than that of 'horse,' for many of the early writers called the man who sat upon a horse
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eques
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and also the horse on which he sat. Hence
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equitare
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also, which is derived from the word
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eques, equitis,
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was said both of the man who rode the horse and of the horse which carried the man. Lucilius, indeed, a man conspicuous for his command of the Latin language, says
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equum equitare
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in these lines:
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3
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With what we see the courser run and trot,
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With this he runs and trots. Now, 'tis with eyes
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We see him trot; hence with his eyes he trots. Similar sophistries were indulged in by Chrysippus (Diog. Laert. vii. 180 ff.) and other philosophers. See Marx ad loc.
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But,
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said Apollinaris,
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I was not content with these examples, and in order that it might not appear uncertain and doubtful, but clear and evident, whether Ennius wrote equus or eques, I procured at great trouble and expense, for the sake of examining one line, a copy of heavy and venerable antiquity, which it was almost certain had been edited by the hand of Lampadio; C. Octavius Lampadio edited the Bellum Punicum of Naevius and divided the poem into seven books; see Suet. Gr. ii. (L. C. L. ii, p. 399). Apparently he also edited Ennius. and in that copy I found eques and not equus written in that line.
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"
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This at the time Julianus explained to us, along with other problems, clearly and courteously. But afterwards I ran upon the very same remarks in some very well-known handbooks.
18.6.p1350
18.6.p1350
That Aelius Melissus, in the book to which he gave the title On Correctness of Speech, and which on its publication he called a horn of plenty, wrote something that deserves neither to be said nor heard, when he expressed the opinion that matrona and mater familias differ in meaning, thus making a distinction that is wholly groundless.
18.6.p1351
18.6.p1351
WITHIN my memory Aelius Melissus held the highest rank among the grammarians of his day at Rome; but in literary criticism he showed greater boastfulness and sophistry than real merit. Besides many other works which he wrote, he made a book which at the time when it was issued seemed to be one of remarkable learning. The title of the book was designed to be especially attractive to readers, for it was called
18.6.p1351
Correct Language.
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Who, then, would suppose that he could speak correctly or with propriety unless he had learned those rules of Melissus? From that book I take these words:
18.6.p1351
Matrona, 'a matron,' is a woman who has given birth once; she who has done so more than once is called mater familias, 'mother of a family'; just so a sow which has had one litter is called porcetra; one which has had more, scrofa.
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But to decide whether Melissus thought out this distinction between
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matrona
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and
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mater familias
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and that it was his own conjecture, or whether he read what someone else had written, surely requires soothsayers. For with regard to
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porcetra
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he has, it is true, the authority of Pomponius in the Atellan farce which bears that very title
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1
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but that
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matron
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was applied only to a woman who had given birth once, and
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mother of a family
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only to one who had done so more than once, can be proved by the authority of no ancient writer. Indeed, that seems much more probable which competent interpreters of ancient terms have written, that
18.6.p1351
matron
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was properly applied to one who had contracted a marriage with a man, so long as she remained in that state, even though children were not yet born to them; and that she was so called from the word
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mater,
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or
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mother,
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a state which she had not yet attained, but which she had the hope and promise of attaining later.
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Matrimonium
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itself, or
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marriage,
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has the same derivation; but that woman only is called
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mother of the household
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2
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who is in the power and possession of her husband, or in the power and possession of the one under whose authority her husband is; since she had come, not only into a state of wedlock, but also into the family of her husband and into the position of his heir.
18.7.p1352
18.7.p1352
How Favorinus treated a man who made an unseasonable inquiry about words of ambiguous meaning; and in that connection the different meanings of the word contio.
18.7.p1353
18.7.p1353
DOMITIUS was a learned and famous grammarian in the city of Rome, who was given the surname
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Insanus,
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or
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The Madman,
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because he was by nature rather difficult and churlish. When our friend Favorinus, in my company, chanced to have met this Domitius at the temple of Carmentis, Favorinus said:
18.7.p1353
I pray you, master, tell me whether I was in error in saying contiones, when I wanted to turn dhmhgori/ai into Latin; for I am in doubt and should be glad to be informed whether any of the men of old who spoke with special elegance used contio of words and of a speech.
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1
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Then Domitius, with excited voice and expression, replied:
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There is absolutely no hope left of anything good, when even you distinguished philosophers care for nothing save words and the authority for words. But I will send you a book, in which you will find what you ask. For I, a grammarian, am inquiring into the conduct of life and manners, while you philosophers are nothing but mortualia, or 'winding sheets,' as Marcus Cato says: Frag. incert. 19, Jordan. for you collect glossaries and word-lists, filthy, foolish, trifling things, like the dirges of female hired mourners. And I could wish,
18.7.p1353
said he,
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that all we mortals were dumb! for then dishonesty would lack its chief instrumentiinstrument.
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When we had left him, Favorinus said:
18.7.p1353
We approached this man at an unseasonable time. For he seems to me to be clearly mad. Know, however,
18.7.p1353
said he,
18.7.p1353
that the disorder which is called melagxoli/a, or 'melancholia,' does not attack small or contemptible minds, but it is in a way a kind of heroic affliction and its victims often speak the truth boldly, but without regard to time or moderation. For example, what think you of this which he just said of philosophers? If Antisthenes or Diogenes had said it, would it not have seemed worthy of remembrance?
18.7.p1354
18.7.p1354
But a little later Domitius sent Favorinus the book which he had promised—I think it was one by Verrius Flaccus—in which the following was written with regard to questions of that kind:
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1
18.7.p1354
that
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senatus
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(senate) was used both of a place and of persons;
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civitas
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(state) of a situation and a town, also of the rights of a community, and of a body of men; further that
18.7.p1354
tribus
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(tribes) and
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decuriae
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(decuries) designated places, privileges and persons, and that
18.7.p1354
contio
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had three meanings: the place and tribunal from which speaking was done, as Marcus Tullius in his speech,
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In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metelius,
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says:
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2
18.7.p1354
I mounted the tribunal (contionem); the people assembled.
18.7.p1354
It also signifies an assembly of the people gathered together, since the same Marcus Tullius says in his
18.7.p1354
Orator
18.7.p1354
:
18.7.p1354
3
18.7.p1354
I have often heard audiences (contiones) cry out, when words ended in a proper rhythm; for the ears expect the thought to be expressed in harmonious words.
18.7.p1354
It likewise designated the speech itself which was made to the people.
18.7.p1354
4
18.7.p1355
18.7.p1355
Examples of these uses were not given in that book. But afterwards I found and showed to Favorinus at his request instances of all these meanings in Cicero, as I remarked above, and in the most elegant of the early writers; but that which he especially desired, an example of contio used for words and of a speech, I pointed out in the title of a book by Cicero, which he had called In Reply to the Address of Quintus Metellus; for there Contionem surely means nothing else than the speech itself which was delivered by Metellus.
18.8.p1356
18.8.p1356
That o(moiote/leuta, o(moio/ptwta, and other devices of the kind which are considered ornaments of style, are silly and uerile, is indicated, among other places, in some verses of Lucilius.
18.8.p1357
18.8.p1357
LUCILIUS in the fifth book of his
18.8.p1357
Satires
18.8.p1357
shows, and indeed most wittily, how silly, useless, and puerile are
18.8.p1357
o(moiote/leuta,
18.8.p1357
or
18.8.p1357
words of the same ending,
18.8.p1357
i)sokata/lhkta,
18.8.p1357
or
18.8.p1357
words of the same sound,
18.8.p1357
pa/risa,
18.8.p1357
or
18.8.p1357
words exactly balanced,
18.8.p1357
o(moio/ptwta,
18.8.p1357
or
18.8.p1357
words of the same case,
18.8.p1357
and other niceties of that kind which those foolish pedants who wish to appear to be followers of Isocrates use in their compositions without moderation or taste. For having complained to a friend because he did not come to see him when he was ill, he adds these merry words:
18.8.p1357
1
18.8.p1357
Although you do not ask me how I am,
18.8.p1357
I'll tell you, since with those I still abide
18.8.p1357
Who of all mortals are the lesser part The poet has been ill, but still lives; cf. abiit ad plures, Petron. 42. . . .
18.8.p1357
You are the slacker friend Marx suggests Tu cessator malus, talis amicus as the sense of the lacuna. who'd wish him dead
18.8.p1357
Whom you'd not visit though it was your debit.
18.8.p1357
But if you chide this visit joined with debit
18.8.p1357
('Twas writ by chance), if you detest it all,
18.8.p1357
This silly, puerile, Isocratic The homoioteleuta of Isocrates are mentioned, among others, by Cicero, Orator, 38. stuff,
18.8.p1357
I'll waste no time on you, That is, in deleting the jingle. since such you are. Such a friend as he has described.
18.9.p1358
18.9.p1358
The meaning of the word insecenda in Marcus Cato; and that insecenda ought to be read rather than insequenda, which many prefer.
18.9.p1359
18.9.p1359
IN an old book, containing the speech of Marcus Cato
18.9.p1359
On Ptolemy against Thermus,
18.9.p1359
were these words:
18.9.p1359
1
18.9.p1359
But if he did everything craftily, everything for the sake of avarice and pelf, such abominable crimes as we have never heard of or read of, he ought to suffer punishment for his acts. . .
18.9.p1359
The question was raised what
18.9.p1359
insecenda
18.9.p1359
meant. Of those who were present at the time there was one who was a dabbler in literature and another who was versed in it; that is to say, one was teaching the subject, the other was learned in it.
18.9.p1359
2
18.9.p1359
These two disagreed with each other, the grammarian maintaining that
18.9.p1359
insequenda
18.9.p1359
ought to be written:
18.9.p1359
For,
18.9.p1359
said he,
18.9.p1359
insequenda
18.9.p1359
should be written, not
18.9.p1359
insecenda,
18.9.p1359
since
18.9.p1359
insequens
18.9.p1359
means . . . and
18.9.p1359
inseque
18.9.p1359
has come down to us in the sense of 'proceed to say,' and accordingly
18.9.p1359
insequor
18.9.p1359
was written by Ennius in the following verses:
18.9.p1359
3
18.9.p1359
Proceed, O Muse, when Rome with Philip warred,
18.9.p1359
To tell the valorous deeds our leaders wrought.
18.9.p1360
18.9.p1360
But the other, more learned, man declared that there was no mistake, but that it was written correctly and properly, and that we ought to trust Velius Longus, a man not without learning, who
18.9.p1360
wrote in the commentary which he composed
18.9.p1360
On the Use of Archaic Terms,
18.9.p1360
that
18.9.p1360
inseque
18.9.p1360
should not be read in Ennius, but
18.9.p1360
insece;
18.9.p1360
and that therefore the early writers called what we term
18.9.p1360
narrationes,
18.9.p1360
or
18.9.p1360
tales,
18.9.p1360
insectiones;
18.9.p1360
that Varro also explained this verse from the
18.9.p1360
Menaechmi
18.9.p1360
of Plautus:
18.9.p1360
1
18.9.p1360
Nihilo minus esse videtur sectius quam somnia,
18.9.p1360
as follows:
18.9.p1360
they seem to me no more worth telling than if they were dreams.
18.9.p1360
Such was their discussion.
18.9.p1361
18.9.p1361
I think that both Marcus Cato and Quintus Ennius wrote
18.9.p1361
insecenda
18.9.p1361
and
18.9.p1361
insece
18.9.p1361
without
18.9.p1361
u.
18.9.p1361
For in the library at Patrae
18.9.p1361
1
18.9.p1361
I found a manuscript of Livius Andronicus of undoubted antiquity, entitled
18.9.p1361
)Odu/sseia,
18.9.p1361
in which the first line contained this word without the letter
18.9.p1361
u
18.9.p1361
:
18.9.p1361
2
18.9.p1361
Tell me (insece), O Muse, about the crafty man,
18.9.p1361
translated from this line of Homer:
18.9.p1361
3
18.9.p1362
18.9.p1362
On that point then I trust a book of great age and authority. For the fact that the line of Plautus has sectius quam somnia lends no weight to the opposite opinion. However, even if the men of old did say insece and not inseque, I suppose because it was lighter and smoother, yet the two words seem to have the same meaning. For sequo and sequor and likewise secta and sectio differ in the manner of their use, but anyone who examines them closely will find that their derivation and meaning are the same.
18.9.p1363
18.9.p1363
The teachers also and interpreters of Greek words think that in
18.9.p1363
a)/ndra moi e)/nnepe, Mou=sa, Odyss. i. 1.
18.9.p1363
and
18.9.p1363
e)/spete nu=n moi, Mou=sai, Iliad ii. 484, etc.
18.9.p1363
e)/nnepe,
18.9.p1363
and
18.9.p1363
e)/spete
18.9.p1363
are expressed by the Latin word
18.9.p1363
inseque;
18.9.p1363
for they say that in one word the
18.9.p1363
n
18.9.p1363
is doubled, in the other changed to
18.9.p1363
s.
18.9.p1363
And they also say that the word
18.9.p1363
e)/ph,
18.9.p1363
which means
18.9.p1363
words
18.9.p1363
or
18.9.p1363
verses,
18.9.p1363
can he derived only
18.9.p1363
a)po\ tou= e(/pesqai kai\ tou=
18.9.p1363
ei)pei=n,
18.9.p1363
that is from
18.9.p1363
follow
18.9.p1363
and
18.9.p1363
say.
18.9.p1363
Therefore for the same reason our forefathers called narrations and discourses
18.9.p1363
insectiones.
18.10.p1364
18.10.p1364
That those persons are in error who think that in testing for fever the pulse of the veins is felt, and not that of the arteries.
18.10.p1365
18.10.p1365
IN the midst of the summer's heat I had withdrawn to the country house of Herodes, a man of senatorial rank, at a place in the territory of Attica which is called Cephisia, abounding in clear waters and groves. There I was confined to my bed by an attack of diarrhoea, accompanied by a high fever. When the philosopher Calvisius Taurus, and some others who were disciples of his, had come there from Athens to visit me, the physician who had been found there and who was sitting by me at the time, began to tell Taurus what discomfort I suffered and with what variations and intervals the fever came and went. Then in the course of the conversation remarking that I was now getting better, he said to Taurus: You too may satisfy yourself of this, e)a\n a(/yh| au)tou= th=s flebo/s, which in our language certainly leans: si attigeris venam illius; that is, 'if you will put your finger on his vein.'
18.10.p1366
18.10.p1366
The learned men who accompanied Taurus were shocked by this careless language in calling an artery a vein, and looking on him as a physician of little value, showed their opinion by their murmurs and expression. Whereupon Taurus, very mildly, as was his way, said: We feel sure, my good sir, that you are not unaware of the difference between veins and arteries; that the veins have no power of motion and are examined only for the purpose of drawing off blood, but that the arteries by their motion and pulsation show the condition and degree of fever. But, as I see, you spoke rather in common parlance than through ignorance; for I have heard others, as well as you, erroneously use the term 'vein' for 'artery.' Let us then find that you are more skilled in curing diseases than in the use of language, and with the favour of the gods restore this man to us by your art, sound and well, as soon as possible.
18.10.p1367
18.10.p1367
Afterwards when I recalled this criticism of the physician, I thought that it was shameful, not only for a physician, but for all cultivated and liberally educated men, not to know even such facts pertaining to the knowledge of our bodies as are not deep and recondite, but which nature, for the purpose of maintaining our health, has allowed to be evident and obvious. Therefore I devoted such spare time as I had to dipping into those books on the art of medicine which I thought were suited to instruct me, and from them I seem to have learned, not only many other things which have to do with human experience, but also concerning veins and arteries what I may express as follows: A vein is a receptacle, or a)ggei=on, as the physicians call it, for blood mingled and combined with vital breath, in which the blood predominates and the breath is less. An artery is a receptacle for the vital breath mingled and combined with blood, in which there is more breath and less blood. Sfugmo/s (pulsation) is the natural and involuntary expansion and contraction in the heart and in the artery. But the ancient Greek physicians defined it thus: An involuntary dilation or contraction of the pulse and of the heart.
18.11.p1368
18.11.p1368
Words from the poems of Furius of Antium which were ignorantly criticised by Caesellius Vindex; a quotation of the very verses which include the words in question.
18.11.p1369
18.11.p1369
I CERTAINLY do not agree with Caesellius Vindex, the grammarian, though in my opinion he is by no means without learning. But yet this was a hasty and ignorant statement of his, that the ancient poet Furius of Antium had degraded the Latin language by forming words of a kind which to me did not seem inconsistent with a poet's license nor to be vulgar or unpleasant to speak and utter, as are some others which have been harshly and tastelessly fashioned by distinguished poets.
18.11.p1370
18.11.p1370
The expressions of Furius which Caesellius censures are these: that he uses lutescere of earth which has turned into mud, noctescere of darkness that has arisen like that of night, virescere of recovering former strength, describes the wind curling the blue sea and making it shine by purpurat, and uses opulescere for becoming rich.
18.11.p1371
18.11.p1371
I have added the very lines from the poems of Furius in which these words occur:
18.11.p1371
1
18.12.p1372
18.12.p1372
That our forefathers had the custom of changing passive verbs and turning them into active.
18.12.p1373
18.12.p1373
THIS also used to be regarded as a kind of elegance in composition, to use active verbs in place of those which had a passive form and then in turn to substitute the former for the latter. Thus Juventius in a comedy says:
18.12.p1373
1
18.12.p1374
18.12.p1374
Is not this far more graceful and pleasing than if he said
18.12.p1374
maculetur,
18.12.p1374
if it be spotted
18.12.p1374
? Plautus also says in a similar way:
18.12.p1374
1
18.12.p1374
What's wrong?—This cloak doth wrinkle (rugat), I'm ill clad.
18.12.p1374
Also Plautus uses
18.12.p1374
pulveret,
18.12.p1374
not of making dusty, but of being dusty:
18.12.p1374
2
18.12.p1374
Go, sprinkle, slave; I'd have this entrance neat.
18.12.p1374
My Venus comes, don't let the place show dust (pulveret).
18.12.p1374
In the
18.12.p1374
Asinaria
18.12.p1374
he uses
18.12.p1374
contemples
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
contempleris:
18.12.p1374
3
18.12.p1374
Observe (
18.12.p1374
contemples) my
18.12.p1374
head, if you'd your interest heed. Gnaeus Gellius in his
18.12.p1374
Annals
18.12.p1374
4
18.12.p1374
writes:
18.12.p1374
After the storm quieted (sedavit) Adherbal sacrificed a bull
18.12.p1374
; Marcus Cato in his
18.12.p1374
Origins:
18.12.p1374
5
18.12.p1374
Many strangers came to that same place from the country. Therefore their wealth waxed (auxit).
18.12.p1374
Varro in the books which he wrote
18.12.p1374
On Latin Diction,
18.12.p1374
dedicated to Marcellus, said:
18.12.p1374
6
18.12.p1374
In the former word the accents that were grave remain so. The others change,
18.12.p1374
where
18.12.p1374
mutant,
18.12.p1374
change,
18.12.p1374
is a very elegant expression for
18.12.p1374
mutantur,
18.12.p1374
are changed.
18.12.p1374
7
18.12.p1374
The same expression too seems to be used by Varro in the seventh book of his
18.12.p1374
Divine Antiquities:
18.12.p1374
8
18.12.p1374
What a difference (quid mutet) there is between princesses may be seen in Antigone and Tullia.
18.12.p1374
But passive verbs instead of active are found in the writings of almost all the men of the olden time. A few of these, which I recall now, are the following:
18.12.p1374
muneror te,
18.12.p1374
or
18.12.p1374
I reward you,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
munero; significor,
18.12.p1374
or
18.12.p1374
I indicate,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
significo; assentior, or
18.12.p1374
I assent,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
assentio; sacrificor,
18.12.p1374
or
18.12.p1374
I sacrifice,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
sacrifice; faeneror,
18.12.p1374
or
18.12.p1374
I practise usury,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
faenero; pigneror,
18.12.p1374
or
18.12.p1374
I take as a pledge,
18.12.p1374
for
18.12.p1374
pignero,
18.12.p1374
and many others of the same kind, which will be noted as I meet them in reading.
18.13.p1375
18.13.p1375
The retort which the philosopher Diogenes made, when he was challenged by a logician with an impudent sophistry.
18.13.p1376
18.13.p1376
AT Athens during the Saturnalia we engaged in a pleasant and improving diversion of this kind: when a number of us who were interested in the same study had met at the time of the bath, we discussed the catch questions which are called sophisms, and each one of us cast them before the company in his turn, like knuckle-bones or dice. The prize for solving a problem, or the penalty for failing to understand it, was a single sestertius. From the money thus collected, as if it had been won at dice, a little dinner was provided for all of us who had taken part in the game. Now the sophisms were somewhat as follows, although they cannot be expressed very elegantly in Latin, or even without clumsiness: What snow is, that hail is not; but snow is white, therefore hail is not white. A somewhat similar one is this: What man is, that a horse is not; man is an animal, therefore a horse is not an animal. The one who was called upon by the throw of the dice to solve and refute the sophistry was expected to tell in what part of the proposition and in what word the fallacy consisted, and what ought not to be granted and conceded; if he did not succeed, he was fined one sestertius. The fine contributed to the dinner.
18.13.p1377
18.13.p1377
I must tell you how wittily Diogenes paid back a sophism of that kind which I have mentioned above, proposed with insulting intent by a logician of the Platonic school. For when the logician had asked: You are not what I am, are you? and Diogenes had admitted it, he added: But I am a man. And when Diogenes had assented to that also and the logician had concluded: Then you are not a man, Diogenes retorted: That is a lie, but if you want it to be true, begin your proposition with me.
18.14.p1378
18.14.p1378
What the number is which is called hemiolios and what epitritos; and that our countrymen have not rashly ventured to translate those words into Latin.
18.14.p1379
18.14.p1379
CERTAIN numerical figures which the Greeks call by definite terms have no corresponding names in Latin. But those who have written in Latin about numbers have used the Greek expressions and have hesitated to make up Latin equivalents, since that would be absurd. For what name could one give to a number which is said to be hemiolios or epitritos? But hemiolios is a number which contains in itself some other whole number and its half, as three compared with two, fifteen with ten, thirty with twenty; epitritos is a number which contains another whole number and its third part, as four compared with three, twelve with nine, forty with thirty. It does not seem out of place to note and to remember these numerical terms; for unless they are understood, some of the most subtle calculations recorded in the writings of the philosophers cannot be comprehended.
18.15.p1380
18.15.p1380
That Marcus Varro in heroic verse noted a matter demanding very minute and careful observation.
18.15.p1381
18.15.p1381
IN the long lines called hexameters, and likewise in senarii,
18.15.p1381
1
18.15.p1381
students of metric have observed that the first two feet, and also the last two, may consist each of a single part of speech, but that those between may not, but are always formed of words which are either divided, or combined and run together.
18.15.p1381
2
18.15.p1381
Varro in his book
18.15.p1381
On the Arts
18.15.p1381
3
18.15.p1381
wrote that he had observed in hexameter verse that the fifth half-foot always ends a word,
18.15.p1381
4
18.15.p1381
and that the first five half-feet are of equally great importance in making a verse with the following seven; and he argues that this happens in accordance with a certain geometrical ratio.