Noctesatticae
Choose a text
id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/aulus-gellius" aria-label="More works by Aulus Gellius">
—
⋯
Original / primary: Perseus Eng1
20.1.p1433
20.1.p1433
A discussion of the jurist Sextus Caecilius and the philosopher Favorinus about the laws of the Twelve Tables.
20.1.p1434
20.1.p1434
SEXTUS CAECILIUS was famed for his knowledge, experience and authority in the science of jurisprudence and in understanding and interpreting the laws of the Roman people. It happened that as we were waiting to pay our respects to Caesar,
20.1.p1434
1
20.1.p1434
the philosopher Favorinus met and accosted Caecilius in the Palatine square
20.1.p1434
2
20.1.p1434
in my presence and that of several others. In the conversation which they carried on at the time mention was made of the laws of the decemvirs, which the board of ten appointed by the people for that purpose wrote and inscribed upon twelve tablets.
20.1.p1434
3
20.1.p1435
20.1.p1435
When Sextus Caecilius, who had examined and studied the laws of many cities, said that they were drawn up in the most choice and concise terms, Favorinus rejoined: It may be as you say in the greater part of those laws; for I read your twelve tables with as eager interest as I did the twelve books of Plato On the Laws. But some of them seem to me to be either very obscure or very cruel, or on the other hand too mild and lenient, or by no means to be taken exactly as they are written.
20.1.p1436
20.1.p1436
As for the obscurities,
20.1.p1436
said Sextus Caecilius,
20.1.p1436
let us not charge those to the fault of the makers of the laws, but to the ignorance of those who cannot follow their meaning, although they also who do not fully understand what is written may he excused. For long lapse of time has rendered old words and customs obsolete, and it is in the light of those words and customs that the sense of the laws is to be understood. As a matter of fact, the laws were compiled and written in the three hundredth year after the founding of Rome, The chronology of Nepos; see note on § 3, above, and on the chapter heading of xvii. 21. and from that time until to-day is clearly not less than six hundred years. But what can be looked upon as cruel in those laws? Unless you think a law is cruel which punishes with death a judge or arbiter appointed by law, who has been convicted of taking a bribe for rendering his decision, ix. 3. or which hands over a thief caught in the act to be the slave of the man from whom he stole, viii. 4. and makes it lawful to kill a robber who comes by night. viii. 12. Tell me, I pray, tell me, you deep student of philosophy, whether you think that the perfidy of a juror who sells his oath contrary to all laws, human and divine, or the intolerable audacity of an open theft, or the treacherous violence of a nocturnal footpad, does not deserve the penalty of death?
20.1.p1437
20.1.p1437
Don't ask me,
20.1.p1437
said Favorinus,
20.1.p1437
what I think. For you know that, according to the practice of the sect to which I belong, He probably refers to the Pyrronian sceptics, about whose beliefs he wrote a work in ten books; see xi. 5. 5. I am accustomed rather to inquire than to decide. But the Roman people is a judge neither insignificant nor contemptible, and while they thought that such crimes ought to be punished, they yet believed that punishments of that kind were too severe; for they have allowed the laws which prescribed such excessive penalties to die out from disuse and old age. Just so they considered it also an inhuman provision, that if a man has been summoned to court, and being disabled through illness or years is too weak to walk, 'a covered waggon he need not spread'; That is, with a pallet for lying upon. but the man is carried out and placed upon a beast of burden and conveyed from his home to the praetor At that time one of the two chief magistrates, corresponding to the consuls of later times. in the comitium, as if he were a living corpse. For why should one who is a prey to illness, and unable to appear, be haled into court at the demand of his adversary, clinging to a draught animal? But as for my statement that some laws were excessively lenient, do not you yourself think that law too lax, which reads as follows with regard to the penalty for an injury: viii. 4. 'If anyone has inflicted an injury upon another, let him be fined twenty-five asses'? For who will be found so poor that twenty-five asses would keep him from inflicting an injury if he desired to? And therefore your friend Labeo also, in the work which he wrote On the Twelve Tables, Frag. 25, Hushke; 3, Bremer. expressing his disapproval of that law, says: There seems to be a lacuna in the text; see crit. note. One Lucius Veratius was an exceedingly wicked man and of cruel brutality. He used to amuse himself by striking free men in the face with his open hand. A slave followed him with a purse full of asses; as often as he had buffeted anyone, he ordered twenty-five asses to be counted out at once, according to the provision of the Twelve Tables' Therefore,
20.1.p1437
he continued,
20.1.p1437
the praetors afterwards decided that this law was obsolete and invalid and declared that they would appoint arbiters to appraise damages. Again, some things in those laws obviously cannot, as 1 have said, even be carried out; for instance, the one referring to retaliation, which reads as follows, if my memory is correct: 'If one has broken another's limb, there shall be retaliation, unless a compromise be made.' Now not to mention the cruelty of the vengeance, the exaction even of a just retaliation is impossible. For if one whose limb has been broken by another wishes to retaliate by breaking a limb of has injurer, can he succeed, pray, in breaking the limb in exactly the same manner? In this case there first arises this insoluble difficulty. What about one who has broken another's limb unintentionally? For what has been done unintentionally ought to be retaliated unintentionally. For a chance blow and an intentional one do not fall under the same category of retaliation. How then will it be possible to imitate unintentional action, when in retaliating one has not the right of intention, but of unintention? But if he break it intentionally, the offender will certainly not allow himself to be injured more deeply or more severely; but by what weight and measure this can be avoided, I do not understand. Nay more, if retaliation is taken to a greater extent or differently, it will be a matter of absurd cruelty that a counter-action for retaliation should arise and an endless interchange of retaliation take place. But that enormity of cutting and dividing a man's body, if an individual is brought to trial for debt and adjudged to several creditors, The law reads: fertiis nundinis partis secanto. Si plus minusve secuerunt, se fraude esto, on the third market day (i.e. after about two weeks; see note on § 49, below) let them cut him into pieces. If they have cut more or less (than their proper share), let it be without prejudice (to them). I do not care to remember, and I am ashamed to mention it. For what can seem more savage, what more inconsistent with humanity, than for the limbs of a poor debtor to be barbarously butchered and sold, just as to-day his goods are divided and sold?
20.1.p1438
20.1.p1438
Then Sextus Caecilius, throwing both arms about Favorinus, said: " You are indeed the one man within my memory who is most familiar both with Greek and with Roman lore. For what philosopher is skilled and learned in the laws of his sect to the extent to which you are thoroughly versed in our decemviral legislation? But yet, I pray you, depart for a little from that academic manner of arguing of yours, and laying aside the passion for attacking or defending anything whatever according to your inclination, consider more seriously what is the nature of the details which you have censured, and do not scorn those ancient laws merely because there are many of them which even the Roman people have now ceased to use. For you surely are not unaware that according to the manners of the times, the conditions of governments, considerations of immediate utility, and the vehemence of the vices which are to be remedied, the advantages and remedies offered by the laws
20.1.p1438
1
20.1.p1438
are often changed and modified, and do not remain in the same condition; on the contrary, like the face of heaven and the sea, they vary according to the seasons of circumstances and of fortune. What seemed more salutary than that law of Stolo limiting the number of acres? What more expedient than the bill of Voconius regulating the inheritances of women? What was thought so necessary for checking the luxury of the citizens as the law of Licinius
20.1.p1438
and Fannius and other sumptuary laws? Yet all these have been wiped out and buried by the wealth of the State, as if by the waves of a swelling sea. But why did that law appear to you inhumane which in my opinion is the most humane of all; that law, namely, which provides that a beast be furnished for a sick or aged man who is called into court? The words of that law, 'if he summon him to court,'
20.1.p1438
2
20.1.p1438
are as follows:
20.1.p1438
3
20.1.p1438
If disease or age be a hindrance, let the summoner provide a beast; if he does not wish, he need not spread a covered waggon.' Do you by any chance suppose that
20.1.p1438
morhus
20.1.p1438
(disease) here means a dangerous sickness with a high fever and ague, and that
20.1.p1438
iumentum
20.1.p1438
(beast) means only one animal, capable of carrying someone on his back; and is it for that reason that you think it was inhumane for a man lying sick-a-bed at his home to be placed upon a beast and hurried off to court? That is by no means the case, my dear Favorinus. For
20.1.p1438
morbus
20.1.p1438
in that law does not mean a serious complaint attended with fever, but some defect of weakness and indisposition, not involving danger to life. On the contrary, a more severe disorder, having the power of material injury, the writers of those laws call in another place,
20.1.p1438
4
20.1.p1438
not morbus alone, but morbus sonticus, or 'a serious disease.'
20.1.p1438
5
20.1.p1438
iumentum
20.1.p1438
also does not have only the meaning which it has at present, but it might even mean a vehicle drawn by yoked animals; for our forefathers formed
20.1.p1438
iumentum
20.1.p1438
from
20.1.p1438
iungo.
20.1.p1438
Furthermore
20.1.p1438
arcera
20.1.p1438
was the name for a waggon, enclosed and shut in on all sides like a great chest (
20.1.p1438
arca
20.1.p1438
),
20.1.p1438
6
20.1.p1438
and
20.1.p1438
strewn with robes, and in it men who were too ill or old used to be carried lying down. What cruelty then does there seem to you to be in deciding that a waggon ought to be furnished for a poor or needy man who was called into court, if haply through lameness or some other mischance he was unable to walk; and in not requiring that ' a closed carriage' be luxuriously strewn,
20.1.p1438
7
20.1.p1438
when a conveyance of any kind was sufficient for the invalid? And they made that decision, in order that the excuse of a diseased body might not give perpetual immunity to those who neglected their obligations and put off suits at law; but foolishly."
20.1.p1439
20.1.p1439
"They assessed inflicted injuries at twenty-five asses. They did not, my dear Favorinus, by any means compensate all injuries by that trifling sum, although even that small number of asses meant a heavy weight of copper; for the as which the people then used weighed a pound. But more cruel injuries, such as breaking a bone, inflicted not only on freemen but even on slaves, they punished with a heavier fine,
20.1.p1439
1
20.1.p1439
and for some injuries they even prescribed retaliation. This very law of retaliation, my dear sir, you criticized somewhat unfairly, saying with facetious captiousness that it was impossible to carry it out, since injury and retaliation could not be exactly alike, and because it was not easy to break a limb in such a way as to be an exact
20.1.p1439
aequilibrium,
20.1.p1439
or 'balance,' as you put it, of the breaking of the other man's. It is true, my dear Favorinus, that to make exact retaliation is very difficult. But the Ten, wishing by retaliation to diminish and abolish such violence as beating and injuring, thought that men ought to be restrained
20.1.p1439
by the fear of such a penalty; and they did not think that so much consideration ought to be had for one who broke another's limb, and refused to compromise by buying off retaliation, as to consider that the question ought to be raised whether he broke it intentionally or not, nor did they make the retaliation in such a case exactly equivalent or weigh it in a balance; but they aimed rather at exacting the same spirit and the same violence in breaking the same part of the body, but not also the same result, since the degree of intention can be determined, but the effect of a chance blow cannot."
20.1.p1440
20.1.p1440
"But if this is as I say, and as the condition of fairness itself dictates, those mutual retaliations that you imagined were certainly rather ingenious than real. But since you think that even this kind of punishment is cruel, what cruelty, pray, is there in doing the same thing to you which you have done to another? especially when you have the opportunity of compromising, and when it is not necessary for you to suffer retaliation unless you choose that alternative. As for your idea that the praetors' edict was preferable in taking cognizance of injuries, I want you to realize this, that this retaliation also was wont of necessity to be subject to the discretion of a judge. For if a defendant, who refused to compromise, did not obey the judge who ordered retaliation, the judge considered the case and fined the man a sum of money; so that, if the defendant thought the compromise hard and the retaliation cruel, the severity of the law was limited to a fine. It remains for me to answer your belief that the cutting and division of a man's body is most inhuman. It was by the exercise and cultivation of
20.1.p1440
all the virtues that the Roman people sprang from a lowly origin to such a height of greatness, but most of all and in particular they cultivated integrity and regarded it as sacred, whether public or private. Thus for the purpose of vindicating the public honour it surrendered its consuls, most distinguished men, to the enemy,
20.1.p1440
1
20.1.p1440
thus it maintained that a client taken under a man's protection should be held dearer than his relatives and protected against his own kindred, nor was any crime thought to be worse than if anyone was convicted of having defrauded a client. This degree of faith our forefathers ordained, not only in public functions, but also in private contracts, and particularly in the use and interchange of borrowed money; for they thought that this aid to temporary need, which is made necessary by the common intercourse of life, was lost, if perfidy on the part of debtors escaped with a slight punishment. Therefore in the case of those liable for an acknowledged debt thirty days were allowed for raising the money to satisfy the obligation, and those days the Ten called 'legitimate,' as if they formed a kind of
20.1.p1440
moratorium,
20.1.p1440
that is to say, a cessation and interruption of judicial proceedings, during which no legal action could be taken against them."
20.1.p1441
20.1.p1441
"Then later, unless they had paid the debt, they were summoned before the praetor and were by him made over to those to whom they had been adjudged; and they were also fastened in the stocks or in fetters. For that, I think, is the meaning of these words:
20.1.p1441
1
20.1.p1441
For a confessed debt and for judgment duly pronounced let thirty days be the legitimate time. Then let there
20.1.p1441
be a laying on of hands, bring him to court. If he does not satisfy the judgment, or unless someone in the presence of the magistrate intervenes as a surety, let the creditor take him home and fasten him in stocks or in fetters. Let him fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds weight, or if he wish, with more.
20.1.p1441
2
20.1.p1441
If the prisoner wishes, he may live at his own expense. If he does not, the creditor shall give him a pound of meal each day. If he wishes, he may give more.' In the meantime the right of compromising the case was allowed,
20.1.p1441
3
20.1.p1441
and if they did not compromise it, debtors were confined for sixty days. During that time on three successive market-days
20.1.p1441
4
20.1.p1441
they were brought before the praetor and the amount of the judgment against them was announced. But on the third day
20.1.p1441
5
20.1.p1441
they were capitally condemned or sent across the Tiber to be sold abroad. But they made this capital punishment horrible by a show of cruelty and fearful by unusual terrors, for the sake, as I have said, of making faith sacred. For if there were several, to whom the debtor had been adjudged, the laws allowed them to cut the man who had been made over to them in pieces, if they wished, and share his body. And indeed I will quote the very words of the law, less haply you should think that I shrink from their odium:
20.1.p1441
6
20.1.p1441
'On the third market day,' it says, 'let them cut him up; if they have cut more or less, let them not be held accountable.' Nothing surely is more merciless, nothing less humane, unless, as is evident on the face of it, such a cruel punishment was threatened in order that they
20.1.p1441
might never have to resort to it. For nowadays we see many condemned and bound, because worthless men despise the punishment of bondage; but I have never read or heard of anyone having been cut up in ancient days, since the severity of that law could not be scorned. Or do you suppose, Favorinus, that if the penalty provided by the
20.1.p1441
Twelve Tables
20.1.p1441
7
20.1.p1441
for false witness had not become obsolete, and if now, as formerly, one who was convicted of giving false witness was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, that we should see so many guilty of lying on the witness stand? Severity in punishing crime is often the cause of upright and careful living. The story of the Alban Mettius Fufetius
20.1.p1441
8
20.1.p1441
is not unknown even to me, although I read few books of that kind. Since he had treacherously broken a pact and agreement made with the king of the Roman people, he was bound to two four-horse teams and torn asunder as the horses rushed in opposite directions. Who denies that this is an unusual and cruel punishment? but see what the most refined of poets says:
20.1.p1441
9
20.1.p1442
20.1.p1442
When Sextus Caecilius had said these and other things with the approval of all who were present, including Favorinus himself, it was announced that Caesar was now receiving, and we separated.
20.2.p1443
20.2.p1443
The meaning of the word siticines in a speech of Marcus Cato's.
20.2.p1444
20.2.p1444
THE word
20.2.p1444
siticines
20.2.p1444
is found in a speech of Marcus Cato entitled
20.2.p1444
Let not a Former Official retain his power, when his Successor arrives.
20.2.p1444
1
20.2.p1444
He speaks of
20.2.p1444
siticines, liticines
20.2.p1444
and
20.2.p1444
tubicines.
20.2.p1444
But Caesellius Vindex, in his
20.2.p1444
Notes on Early Words,
20.2.p1444
declares that he knows that
20.2.p1444
liticines
20.2.p1444
played upon the
20.2.p1444
lituus,
20.2.p1444
or
20.2.p1444
clarion,
20.2.p1444
and
20.2.p1444
tibicines
20.2.p1444
on the
20.2.p1444
tuba, or
20.2.p1444
trumpet,
20.2.p1444
but, being a man of conscientious honesty, he says that he does not know what instrument the
20.2.p1444
siticines
20.2.p1444
used. But I have found in the
20.2.p1444
Miscellanies
20.2.p1444
of Ateius Capito
20.2.p1444
2
20.2.p1444
that those were called
20.2.p1444
siticines
20.2.p1444
who played in the presence of those who were
20.2.p1444
laid away
20.2.p1444
(
20.2.p1444
sitos
20.2.p1444
), that is, who were dead and buried; and that they had a special kind of trumpet on which they played, differing from those of the other trumpeters.
20.3.p1445
20.3.p1445
Why the poet Lucius Accius in his Pragmatica said that sicinnistae was a nebulous word.
20.3.p1446
20.3.p1446
THOSE whom the vulgar call sicinistae, persons who speak more accurately have called sicinnistae with a double n. For the sicinnium was an ancient form of dance. Moreover, those who now stand and sing formerly danced as they sang. Lucius Accius used this word in his Pragmatica, and says that sicinnistae are so called by a nebulous (nebuloso) term, using the word nebulous, I suppose, because the reason for the term sicinnium was obscure.
20.4.p1447
20.4.p1447
That devotion to play-actors, and love of them, was shameful and disgraceful, with a quotation of the words of the philosopher Aristotle on that subject.
20.4.p1448
20.4.p1448
A WEALTHY young man, a pupil of the philosopher Taurus, was devoted to, and delighted in, the society of comic and tragic actors and musicians, as if they were freemen. Now in Greek they call artists of that kind
20.4.p1448
oi( peri\ Dio/nuson texni=tai
20.4.p1448
or
20.4.p1448
craftsmen of Dionysus.
20.4.p1448
Taurus, wishing to wean that youth from the intimacy and companionship of men connected with the stage, sent him these words extracted from the work of Aristotle entitled
20.4.p1448
Universal Questions,
20.4.p1448
and bade him read it over every day:
20.4.p1448
1
20.4.p1448
Why are the craftsmen of Dionysus for the most part worthless fellows? Is it because they are least of all familiar with reading and philosophy, since the greater part of their life is given to their essential pursuits and much of their time is spent in intemperance and sometimes in poverty too? For both of these things are incentives to wickedness.
20.5.p1449
20.5.p1449
Specimens of letters of King Alexander and the philosopher Aristotle. just as they were written; with a rendering of the same into Latin.
20.5.p1450
20.5.p1450
THE philosopher Aristotle, the teacher of king Alexander, is said to have had two forms of the lectures and instructions which he delivered to his pupils. One of these was the kind called
20.5.p1450
e)cwterika/,
20.5.p1450
or
20.5.p1450
exoteric,
20.5.p1450
the other
20.5.p1450
a)kroatika/,
20.5.p1450
or
20.5.p1450
acroatic.
20.5.p1450
1
20.5.p1450
Those were called
20.5.p1450
exoteric
20.5.p1450
which gave training in rhetorical exercises, logical subtlety, and acquaintance with politics; those were called
20.5.p1450
acroatic
20.5.p1450
in which a more profound and recondite philosophy was discussed, which related to the contemplation of nature or dialectic discussions. To the practice of the
20.5.p1450
acroatic
20.5.p1450
training which I have mentioned he devoted the morning hours in the Lyceum,
20.5.p1450
2
20.5.p1450
and he did not ordinarily admit any pupil to it until he had tested his ability, his elementary knowledge, and his zeal and devotion to study. The exoteric lectures and exercises in speaking lie held at the same place in the evening and opened them generally to young men without distinction. This he called
20.5.p1450
deilino\s
20.5.p1450
peri/patos,
20.5.p1450
or
20.5.p1450
the evening walk,
20.5.p1450
the other which I have mentioned above,
20.5.p1450
e(wqino/s,
20.5.p1450
or
20.5.p1450
the morning walk
20.5.p1450
;
20.5.p1450
3
20.5.p1450
for on both occasions he walked as he spoke. He also divided his books on all these subjects into two divisions, calling one set
20.5.p1450
exoteric,
20.5.p1450
the other
20.5.p1450
acroatic.
20.5.p1451
20.5.p1451
When King Alexander knew that he had published those books of the acroatic set, although at that time the king was keeping almost all of Asia in a state of panic by his deeds of arms, and was pressing King Darius himself hard by attacks and victories, yet in the midst of such urgent affairs he sent a letter to Aristotle, saying that the philosopher had not done right in publishing the books and so revealing to the public the acroatic training, in which he himself had been instructed. For in what other way, said he, can I excel the rest, it that instruction which I have received from you becomes the common property of all the world? For I would rather be first in learning than in wealth and power.
20.5.p1452
20.5.p1452
Aristotle replied to him to this purport: Know that the acroatic books, which you complain have been made public and not hidden as if they contained secrets, have neither been made public nor hidden, since they can be understood only by those who have heard my lectures.
20.5.p1453
20.5.p1453
I have added copies of both letters, taken from the book of the philosopher Andronicus.
20.5.p1453
1
20.5.p1453
I was particularly charmed with the slender thread of elegant brevity in the letter of each.
20.5.p1454
20.5.p1454
You have not done right in publishing your acroatic lectures; for wherein, pray, shall I differ from other men, if these lectures, by which I was instructed, become the common property of all? As for me, I should wish to excel in acquaintance with what is noblest, rather than in power. Farewell.
20.5.p1455
20.5.p1455
You have written to me regarding my acroatic lectures, thinking that I ought to have kept them secret. Know then that they have both been made public and not made public. For they are intelligible only to those who have heard me. Farewell, King Alexander.
20.5.p1456
20.5.p1456
When trying, in the phrase
20.5.p1456
cunetoi\ ga\r ei)sin,
20.5.p1456
to express the word
20.5.p1456
cunetoi/
20.5.p1456
by a single Latin term, I found nothing better than what is written by Marcus Cato in the sixth book of his
20.5.p1456
Origins:
20.5.p1456
1
20.5.p1456
Therefore I think the information is more comprehensible (cognobilior).
20.6.p1457
20.6.p1457
It is asked and discussed whether it it is more correct to say habeo curam vestri, or vestrum.
20.6.p1458
20.6.p1458
I ASKED Sulpicius Apollinaris, when I was studying with him at Rome in my youth, on what principle people said
20.6.p1458
habeo curam vestri,
20.6.p1458
or
20.6.p1458
I have care for you,
20.6.p1458
and
20.6.p1458
misereor vestri,
20.6.p1458
or
20.6.p1458
I pity you,
20.6.p1458
and what he thought the nominative case of
20.6.p1458
vestri
20.6.p1458
was in such connections. Thereupon he answered me as follows:
20.6.p1458
You ask something of me about which I too have long been in a state of uncertainty. For it seems to me that one ought to say, not vestri, but vestrum, just as the Greeks say e)pimelou=mai u(mw=n and kh/domai u(mw=n, where u(mw=n is translated by vestrum more fittingly than by vestri, having vos for the naming case, or the 'direct' case, as you called it. Yet in not a few places,
20.6.p1458
said he, "I find
20.6.p1458
nostri
20.6.p1458
and
20.6.p1458
vestri,
20.6.p1458
not
20.6.p1458
nostrum
20.6.p1458
or
20.6.p1458
vestrum.
20.6.p1458
Thus Lucius Sulla says, in the second book of his
20.6.p1458
Autobiography:
20.6.p1458
1
20.6.p1458
But if it is possible that even now you think of me (nostri), and believe me worthy to be your fellow citizen rather than your enemy, and to fight for you rather than against you, this will surely be due to my services and those of my forefathers.
20.6.p1458
Also Terence in the Phormio:
20.6.p1458
2
20.6.p1458
Of such a nature are we almost all,
20.6.p1458
That with ourselves (nostri) we discontented are.
20.6.p1458
Afranius wrote in an Italian play:
20.6.p1458
3
20.6.p1458
At last some god or other pitied us (nostri).
20.6.p1458
And Laberius in the
20.6.p1458
Necyomantia:
20.6.p1458
4
20.6.p1459
20.6.p1459
There is no doubt,
20.6.p1459
said he,
20.6.p1459
that in all these phrases: 'we are discontented,' he forgot us,' 'he pitied us' (
20.6.p1459
nostri
20.6.p1459
), the same case is used as in 'I repent' (
20.6.p1459
mei paenitet
20.6.p1459
), 'he pitied me' (
20.6.p1459
mei miseritus est), '
20.6.p1459
he forgot me' (
20.6.p1459
mei oblitus est
20.6.p1459
). But
20.6.p1459
mei
20.6.p1459
is the case of questioning,
20.6.p1459
1
20.6.p1459
which the grammarians call 'genitive,' and comes from
20.6.p1459
ego;
20.6.p1459
and the plural of
20.6.p1459
ego
20.6.p1459
is
20.6.p1459
nos. Tui
20.6.p1459
also is formed from
20.6.p1459
tu,
20.6.p1459
and the plural of this is
20.6.p1459
vos.
20.6.p1459
For Plautus has thus declined those pronouns in the
20.6.p1459
Pseudolus,
20.6.p1459
in the following lines:
20.6.p1459
2
20.6.p1459
O Sir, could I be told without your words
20.6.p1459
What wretchedness so grievous troubles you,
20.6.p1459
I would have spared the trouble of two men:
20.6.p1459
My own (mei), of asking you, and yours (tis = tui), of answering.
20.6.p1459
For Plautus here uses
20.6.p1459
mei,
20.6.p1459
not from
20.6.p1459
meus,
20.6.p1459
but from
20.6.p1459
ego.
20.6.p1459
Therefore if you should choose to say
20.6.p1459
patrem mei
20.6.p1459
instead of
20.6.p1459
patrem meum,
20.6.p1459
as the Greeks say
20.6.p1459
to\n
20.6.p1459
pate/ra mou,
20.6.p1459
it would be unusual, but surely correct, and on the same principle that Plautus used
20.6.p1459
labori mei,
20.6.p1459
'the trouble of me,' for
20.6.p1459
labori meo, ' my
20.6.p1459
trouble.' The same rule applies also in the plural number, where Gracchus said
20.6.p1459
3
20.6.p1459
misereri vestrum
20.6.p1459
and Marcus
20.6.p1459
Cicero
20.6.p1459
4
20.6.p1459
contentio vestrum,
20.6.p1459
and
20.6.p1459
contention nostrum,
20.6.p1459
5
20.6.p1459
and on the same principle Quadrigarius in the nineteenth book of his
20.6.p1459
Annals
20.6.p1459
wrote these words:
20.6.p1459
6
20.6.p1459
'Gaius Marius, when pray will you pity us (
20.6.p1459
nostrum
20.6.p1459
) and the State?' Why then should Terence use
20.6.p1459
paenitet nostri,
20.6.p1459
not
20.6.p1459
nostrum,
20.6.p1459
and Afranius
20.6.p1459
nostri miseritus est,
20.6.p1459
not
20.6.p1459
nostrum
20.6.p1459
? Indeed,
20.6.p1459
said he,
20.6.p1459
no reason for this occurs to me except the authority of a certain ancient usage, which was not too anxious or scrupulous in the use of language. For just as
20.6.p1459
vestrorum
20.6.p1459
is often used for
20.6.p1459
vestrum,
20.6.p1459
as in this line from the
20.6.p1459
MustellariaMostellaria
20.6.p1459
of Plautus,
20.6.p1459
7
20.6.p1459
The greatest part of you (vestrorum) know that is true
20.6.p1459
(where
20.6.p1459
vestrorum
20.6.p1459
is for
20.6.p1459
vestrum
20.6.p1459
), in the same way
20.6.p1459
vestri
20.6.p1459
also is sometimes used for
20.6.p1459
vestrum.
20.6.p1459
But undoubtedly one who desires to speak very correctly will prefer
20.6.p1459
vestrum
20.6.p1459
to
20.6.p1459
vestri.
20.6.p1459
And therefore,
20.6.p1459
said he,
20.6.p1459
those have acted most arbitrarily who in many copies of Sallust have corrupted a thoroughly sound reading. For although he wrote in the Catiline: xxxiii. 2. 'Often your forefathers (maiores vestrum), pitying the Roman commons,' they erased vestrum and wrote vestrz over it. And from this Indoles is perhaps the nature of the error, i.e., the disposition to make an error of that kind. that error has grown and found its way into more manuscripts.
20.6.p1459
This is what I remember hearing from Apollinaris, and I noted down his very words at the time, exactly as they were spoken."
20.7.p1460
20.7.p1460
How the opinions of the Greeks differ as to the number of Niobe's children.
20.7.p1461
20.7.p1461
A STRANGE and indeed almost absurd variation is to be noted in the Greek poets as to the number of Niobe's children. For Homer says
20.7.p1461
1
20.7.p1461
that she had six sons and six daughters; Euripides,
20.7.p1461
2
20.7.p1461
seven of each; Sappho,
20.7.p1461
3
20.7.p1461
nine; Bacchylides
20.7.p1461
4
20.7.p1461
and Pindar,
20.7.p1461
5
20.7.p1461
ten; while certain other writers have said that there were only three sons and three daughters.
20.8.p1462
20.8.p1462
Of things which seem to have sumptwsi/a, or coincidence, with the waning and waxing moon.
20.8.p1463
20.8.p1463
THE poet Annianus owned an estate in the Faliscan territory, where he used to celebrate the vintage season with mirth and jollity. On one occasion he invited me, along with some other friends. As we were dining there one day, a large quantity of oysters were sent from Rome. When they were set before us and proved to be indeed numerous, but neither rich nor very plump, Annianus said:
20.8.p1463
Of course the moon is waning just now; therefore the oyster also, like some other things, is thin and juiceless.
20.8.p1463
When we asked what other things wasted away with the waning moon, he answered: "Don't you remember that our Lucilius says:
20.8.p1463
1
20.8.p1463
The moon makes oysters fat, sea-urchins full,
20.8.p1463
And bulk and substance to the mussels adds? Cf. Hor. Serm. ii. 4. 30, lubrica nascentes implent conchylia lunae; Cic. de Div. ii. 33.
20.8.p1464
20.8.p1464
Furthermore, those same things which grow as the moon waxes grow less as it wanes. The eyes of cats also become larger or smaller according to the same changes of the moon. This too," said he,
20.8.p1464
is much more greatly to be wondered at, which I read in the fourth book of Plutarch's Commentary on Hesiod: Frag. 90, Bern. ' The onion grows and buds as the moon wanes, but, on the contrary, dries up while the moon waxes. The Egyptian priests say that this is the reason why the people of Pelusium do not eat the onion, because it is the only one of all vegetables which has an interchange of increase and decrease contrary to the waxing and waning of the moon.'
20.9.p1465
20.9.p1465
A passage in the Mimiambi of Gnaeus Matius, in which Antonius Iulianus used to delight; and the meaning of Marcus Cato in the speech which he wrote on his own uprightness, when he said: I have never asked the people for garments.
20.9.p1466
20.9.p1466
ANTONIUS JULIANUS used to say that his ears were soothed and charmed by the newly-coined words of Gnaeus Matius, a man of learning, such as the following, which he said were written by Matius in his
20.9.p1466
Mimiambi
20.9.p1466
:
20.9.p1466
1
20.9.p1466
Revive your cold love in your warm embrace,
20.9.p1466
Close joining lip to lip like amorous dove (columbulatim).
20.9.p1466
And this also he declared to be charmingly and neatly devised:
20.9.p1466
2
20.9.p1466
The shorn rugs now are drunken with the dye
20.9.p1466
With which the shell That is, the murex or purple-fish. has drenched and coloured them. . .
20.10.p1467
20.10.p1467
The meaning of the phrase ex iure manum consertum.
20.10.p1468
20.10.p1468
Ex iure manum consertum, or lay on hands according to law, is a phrase taken from ancient cases at law, and commonly used to-day when a case is tried before the praetor and claims are made. I asked a Roman grammarian, a man of wide reputation and great name, what the meaning of these words was. But he, looking scornfully at me, said: Either you are making a mistake, youngster, or you are jesting; for I teach grammar and do not give legal advice. If you want to know anything connected with Virgil, Plautus or Ennius, you may ask me.
20.10.p1469
20.10.p1469
It is a question from Ennius then, master,
20.10.p1469
said I,
20.10.p1469
that I am asking. For it was Ennius who used those words.
20.10.p1469
And when the grammarian said in great surprise that the words were unsuited to poetry and that they were not to be found anywhere in the poems of Ennius, I quoted from memory the following lines from the eighth book of the
20.10.p1469
Annals;
20.10.p1469
for it chanced that I remembered them because of their particularly striking character:
20.10.p1469
1
20.10.p1470
20.10.p1470
When I had recited these verses from Ennius, the grammarian rejoined: Now I believe you. But I would have you believe me, when I say that Quintus Ennius learned this, not from his reading of the poets, but from someone learned in the law. Do you too then go and learn from the same source as Ennius.
20.10.p1471
20.10.p1471
I followed the advice of this teacher, when he referred me to another from whom I could learn what he ought to have taught me himself: And I thought that I ought to include in these notes of mine what I have learned from jurists and their writings, since those who are living in the midst of affairs and among men ought not to be ignorant of the commoner legal expressions.
20.10.p1471
Manum conserere,
20.10.p1471
to lay on hands.
20.10.p1471
. . . For with one's opponent to lay hold of and claim in the prescribed formula anything about which there is a dispute, whether it be a field or something else, is called
20.10.p1471
vindicia,
20.10.p1471
or
20.10.p1471
a claim.
20.10.p1471
A seizing with the hand of the thing or place in question took place in the presence of the praetor according to the
20.10.p1471
Twelve Tables,
20.10.p1471
in which it was written
20.10.p1471
1
20.10.p1471
"If any lay on hands in the presence of the magistrate."
20.10.p1471
2
20.10.p1471
But when the boundaries of Italy were extended and the praetors were greatly occupied with legal business, they found it hard to go to distant places to settle claims. Therefore it became
20.10.p1471
usual by silent consent, though contrary to the
20.10.p1471
Twelve Tables,
20.10.p1471
for the litigants not to lay on hands in court in the presence of the praetor, but to call for
20.10.p1471
a laying on of hands according to law
20.10.p1471
; that is, that the one litigant should summon the other to the object in question, to lay hands on it according to law, and that they should go together to the field under dispute and bring some earth from it to the city to the praetor's court, for example one clod, and should lay claim to that clod, as if it were the whole field. Accordingly Ennius, wishing to describe such action, said that restitution was demanded, not by legal processes, such as are carried on before a praetor, nor by a laying on of hands according to law, but by war and the sword, and by genuine and resistless violence; and he seems to have expressed this by comparing that civil and symbolic
20.10.p1471
3
20.10.p1471
power which is exercised in name only and not actually, with warlike and sanguinary violence.
20.11.p1472
20.11.p1472
The meaning of the word sculna, used by Marcus Varro.
20.11.p1473
20.11.p1473
PUBLIUS LAVINIUS is the author of a carefully written book, entitled
20.11.p1473
On Vulgar Words.
20.11.p1473
In it he wrote that
20.11.p1473
scublna
20.11.p1473
was a colloquial form for
20.11.p1473
seculna,
20.11.p1473
for which,
20.11.p1473
says he,
20.11.p1473
more elegant speakers use sequester, or' arbiter.'
20.11.p1473
Each of these words is derived from
20.11.p1473
sequor,
20.11.p1473
because both parties
20.11.p1473
follow
20.11.p1473
the decision of the arbiter who is chosen. Lavinius
20.11.p1473
reminds us in the same book that
20.11.p1473
sculna
20.11.p1473
was written in the division of Marcus Varro's
20.11.p1473
Logistorica
20.11.p1473
entitled
20.11.p1473
Caius.
20.11.p1473
1
20.11.p1473
But that which was deposited with the arbiter they spoke of as
20.11.p1473
sequestro positum,
20.11.p1473
deposited for arbitration,
20.11.p1473
using the adverb
20.11.p1473
sequestro.
20.11.p1473
Cato, in his speech
20.11.p1473
On Ptolemy, against Thermus,
20.11.p1473
says:
20.11.p1473
2
20.11.p1473
By the immortal gods, do not. . . .