That Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus criticized a saying of Cicero's in the speech which he delivered For Marcus Caelius; and what may be said with truth and propriety in defence of that saying, in reply to those most foolish critics.

JUST as there have been monsters of men who expressed impious and false opinions about the immortal gods, so there have been some so extravagant and so ignorant that they have dared to say that Marcus Cicero spoke without correctness, propriety, or consideration; among these are Asinius Gallus and Largius Licinus, and the latter's book even bears the outrageous title of The Scourge of Cicero. Now the other things that they have censured are certainly not worth hearing or mentioning; but let us consider the value of this stricture of theirs, in which particularly they are, in their own opinion, very keen critics of language.

Marcus Cicero in his speech For Marcus Caelius ¹ writes as follows: They think that Cicero has not used the proper word in saying paeniteat, or and they go so far as to add that it is almost absurd; they say, But that no one correctly says that he or or ; for in such cases there is no design or choice on our part, but such things happen to us against our will by some necessity or force of nature. they continue,

This is in fact, as they say, the force of that word, and paenitere is strictly used of none but voluntary acts, although our forefathers used that same word also in a different sense and connected paenitere with the words paene (almost) and paenuria (want). But that is another question, and will be spoken of in another place. ² But with regard to the point at issue, giving to paenitere this same meaning which is commonly recognized, what Marcus Cicero said is not only not foolish, but in the highest degree elegant and witty. For since the adversaries and detractors of Marcus Caelius, inasmuch as he was of handsome person, made use of his appearance and figure to throw doubt upon his chastity, therefore Cicero, making sport of such an absurd charge as to impute to him as a fault the good looks which nature had given him, has deliberately adopted that very same false charge of which he is making fun, saying: ; so that by the very fact of speaking thus he might reproach his accusers and wittily show that they were doing an absurd thing in making Caelius' handsome person an accusation against him, just as if the person with which he was born depended upon his own volition.

Certain words from the first book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, noted in a hasty reading.

WHENEVER I read the book of an early writer, I tried afterwards, for the purpose of quickening my memory, to recall and review any passages in the book which were worthy of note, in the way either of praise or censure; and I found it an exceedingly helpful exercise for ensuring my recollection of elegant words and phrases, whenever need of them should arise. For example, in the first book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, which I had read on the preceding two days, I noted these passages: says he, ³ The verb inhatebrant, for seemed poetic, but neither improper nor harsh. he says, ⁴ Subnixo animo is. significant and carefully chosen expression with the force of ; and it indicates loftiness and confidence of spirit, since we are, as it were, raised and lifted up by that upon which we depend.

he says, ⁵ Frunisci, meaning was somewhat rare in the days of Marcus Tullius and became still rarer after that time, and its Latinity was questioned by those who were unacquainted with our early literature. However, fruniscor is not only good Latin, but it is more elegant and pleasing than fruor, from which it is formed in the same way as fatiscor from fateor. Quintus Metellus Numidicus, who is known to have used the Latin tongue with purity and simplicity, in the letter which he sent when in exile To the Domitii, wrote as follows: Novius, in his Atellan farce entitled The Miser, uses this word: ⁶

says Quadrigarius, ⁷ Copiantur is a soldier's word, and you will not readily find it in the pleaders of civil suits; it is formed in the same way as lignantur, or pabulantur, or and aquantur, or

Quadrigarius uses sole occaso for ⁸ This expression has a flavour of antiquity which is not without charm, if one possesses an ear that is not dull and commonplace; furthermore the phrase occurs in the Twelve Tables in the following passage: ⁹

says he, ¹⁰ The common people say in medio; for they think that in medium is an error, and if you should say in medium ponere (to make known), ¹¹ they consider that also a solecism; but if anyone examines these words with some care, that expression will seem to him the more correct and the more expressive; moreover in Greek qei=nai ei)s me/son, is not an error. "After it was announced," he says, ¹² In Gallos is nester and finer than cum Gallis or contra Gallos; for these are somewhat awkward and out of date.

he says, ¹³ Magnum viaticum is a novel expression for great ability and great resources, and Claudius seems to have followed the Greeks, who transferred e)fo/dion from the meaning of to preparation for other things, and often say e)fodi/ason for and

said he, ¹⁴ Adprime is more frequent for ; cumprime is rarer and is derived from the expression cumprimis with the force of inprimis. Quadrigarius says ¹⁵ that We use the ablative divitiis with opus. But this usage of his is not a mistake in grammar, nor is it even what is termed a figure; for it is correct Latin and the early writers quite frequently used that case; moreover, no reason can be given why divis opus esse is more correct than divitias, except by those who look upon the innovations of grammarians as oracular responses.

says he, ¹⁶ His use of diurnare for diu vivere is unusual, but it is justified by the figure by which we use perennare (to last for years). He says: ¹⁷ Semocinari seems somewhat rustic, but is more correct; sermocinari is more common, but is not such pure Latin.

says he, ¹⁸ He has used ne id quoque for ne id quidem; the former is not common now in conversation, but is very frequent in the books of the earlier writers.

says he, ¹⁹ Sanctitas and sanctimonia are equally good Latin, but the word sanctitudo somehow has greater dignity, just as Marcus Cato, in his speech Against Lucius Veturius, thought it more forcible to use duritudo than duritia, saying, ²⁰

says Quadrigarius, ²¹ He applied the term arrabo to the six hundred hostages and preferred to use that word rather than pignus, since the force of arrabo in that connection is weightier and more pointed; but nowadays arrabo is beginning to be numbered among vulgar words, and arra seems even more so, although the early writers often used arra, and Laberius ²² has it several times.

says Quadrigarius, ²³ and, ²⁴ In both cases elegance is sought by the use of the plural number. says he, ²⁵ He says that Cominius meaning although he had said nothing to anybody; and the Gauls who were besieging the Capitol had seen him neither going up nor coming down. But is used with the meaning of

Again he says: ²⁶ Arboreta is a less familiar word, arbusta ²⁷ the more usual one.

says he, ²⁸ Commutationes, meaning is not usual, but, by Heaven! is neither erroneous nor inelegant.

These few notes on that book, such things as I remembered after reading it, I have now jotted down for my own use.

The words of Marcus Varro in the twenty fifth book of his Humran Antiquities, in which he has interpreted a line of Homer contrary to the general opinion.

IT happened in the course of conversations which we carried on about the dates of various inventions for human use, that a young man not without learning observed that the use of spartum or also was for a long time unknown in the land of Greece and that it was imported from Spain many years after the taking of Ilium. One or two half-educated fellows who were present there, of the class that the Greeks call a)gorai=oi, or laughed in derision of this statement, and declared that the man who had made it had read a copy of Homer which happened to lack the following verse: ²⁹

Then the youth, in great vexation, replied: They only laughed the louder, and would have continued to do so, had he not produced the twenty-fifth book of Varro's Human Antiquities, in which Varro writes as follows of that Homeric word: ³⁰ Since Varro says this, I have grave doubts whether the last syllable in the Homeric word ought not to have an acute accent; unless it be because words of this kind, when they pass from their general meaning to the designation of a particular thing, are distinguished by a difference in accent.

What the poet Menander said to Philemon, by whom he was often undeservedly defeated in contests in comedy; and that Euripides was very often vanquished in tragedy by obscure poets.

IN contests in comedy Menander was often defeated by Philemon, a writer by no means his equal, owing to intrigue, favour, and partisanship. When Menander once happened to meet his rival, he said:

Marcus Varro says ³² that Euripides also, although he wrote seventy-five tragedies, was victor with only five, ³³ and was often vanquished by some very poor poets.

Some say that Menander left one hundred and eight comedies, others that the number was a hundred and nine. But we find these words of Apollodorus, a very famous writer, about Menander in his work entitled Chronica: ³⁴ Yet Apollodorus also writes in the same book that out of all those hundred and five dramas Menander gained the victory only with eight.

That it is by no mears true, as some meticulous artists in rhetoric affirm, that Marcus Cicero, in his book On Friendship, made use of a faulty argument and postulated ; with a careful discussion and examination of this whole question.

MARCUS CICERO, in the dialogue entitled Laelius, or On Friendship, wishes to teach us that friendship ought not to be cultivated in the hope and expectation of advantage, profit, or gain, but that it should be sought and cherished because in itself it is rich in virtue and honour, even though no aid and no advantage can be gained from it. This thought he has expressed in the following words, put into the mouth of Gaius Laelius, a wise man and a very dear friend of Publius Africanus ³⁵

When it chanced that these words were read in a company of cultured men, a sophistical rhetorician, skilled in both tongues, a man of some note among those clever and meticulous teachers known as texnikoi,/ or who was at the same time not without ability in disputation, expressed the opinion that Marcus Tullius had used an argument which was neither sound nor clear, but one which was of the same uncertainty as the question at issue itself; and he described that fault by Greek words, saying that Cicero had postulated a)ufisbhtou/menon a)nti\ o(mologoume/nou, that is,

said he, Furthermore, he thought that arguments ought to be either convincing, or clear and not open to controversy, and he said that the term apodixis, ³⁶ or was properly used only when things that are doubtful or obscure are made plain through things about which there is no doubt. And in order that he might show that the kind and generous ought not to be taken as an argument or example for the question about friendship, he said: said he,

It seemed to some that this artist in rhetoric argued cleverly and learnedly, but that as a matter of fact he was ignorant of the true meaning of terms. For Cicero calls a man in the sense that the philosophers believe those words ought to be used: not of one who, as Cicero himself expresses it, puts favours out at interest, but of one who shows kindness without having any secret reason which redounds to his own advantage. Therefore he has used an argument which is not obscure or doubtful, but trustworthy and clear, since if anyone is truly kind and generous, it is not asked with what motive he acts kindly or generously. For he must be called by very different names if, when he does such things, he does them for his own advantage rather than for that of another. Possibly the criticism made by this sophist might have some justification, if Cicero had said: ³⁷ For it might seem that anyone who was not kindly might happen to do a kind action, if it was done because of some accidental circumstance and not through a fixed habit of constant kindliness. But since Cicero spoke of and meant no other sort than that which we have mentioned before, it is ³⁸ as the proverb says, and unwashed words that our critic assails the argument of that most learned man.

That what Verrius Flaccus wrote about servus recepticius, in his second book On the Obscurities of Marcus Cato, is false.

MARCUS CATO, when recommending the Voconian law, ³⁹ spoke as follows: ⁴⁰

The question was asked what was meant by servus recepticius. At once the books of Verrius Flaccus On the Obscurities of Cato were asked for and produced. In the second book was found the statement ⁴¹ that servus recepticius was the name applied to a slave that was worthless and of no value, who, after being sold, was returned because of some fault and taken back. says Flaccus, "a slave of that kind was bidden to hound her husband and demand the money, in order that the man's vexation might be greater, and the insult put upon him still more bitter, for the very reason that a worthless slave dunned him for the payment of money."

But with the indulgence and pardon of those, if such there be, who are influenced by the authority of Verrius Flaccus, this must be said. That recepticius servus in the case of which Cato is speaking is something very different from what Verrius wrote. And this is easy for anyone to understand; for the situation is undoubtedly this: when the woman gave the dowry to her husband, what she retained of her property and did not give over to her husband she was said to ( recipere), just as now also at sales those things are said to be which are set aside and not sold. This word Plautus also used in the Trinumnus in this line: ⁴² That is, when he sold the house, he did not sell a small part which was behind the house, but held it back. Cato himself too, wishing to describe the woman as rich, says: ; that is, she gives a great dowry and retains possession of a large sum of money. From that property then which she kept for herself after giving her dowry, she lent money to her husband. When she happened to be vexed with her husband and determined to demand the money back, she appoints to demand it from him a seruves recepticius, that is, a slave of her very own, whom she had held back with the rest of the money and had not given as part of her dowry, but had retained; for it was not right for the woman to give such an order to a slave of her husband, but only to one of her very own.

I forbear to say more in defence of this view of mine; for the opinion of Verrius and mine are before you, each by itself; anyone therefore may adopt whichever of the two seems to him the truer.

These words from the Atinian law, seemed to Publius Nigidius and Quintus Scaevola to have reference not less to a past theft than to a future one.

THE words of the ancient Atinian law ⁴³ are as follows: ⁴⁴ Who would suppose that in these words the law referred to anything else than to future time? But Quintus Scaevola says ⁴⁵ that his father ⁴⁶ and Brutus ⁴⁷ and Manilius, ⁴⁸ exceedingly learned men, inquired and were in doubt whether the law was valid in cases of future theft only or also in those already committed in the past; since subruptum erit seems to indicate both times, past as well as future.

Therefore Publius Nigidius, the most learned man of the Roman State, discussed this uncertainty of theirs in the twenty-third book of his Grammatical Notes. ⁴⁹ And he himself too has the same opinion, that the indication of the time is indefinite, but he speaks very concisely and obscurely, so that you may see that he is rather making notes to aid his own memory than trying to instruct his readers. ⁵⁰ However, his meaning seems to be that est and erit are independent words; when they are used alone, they have and retain their own tense, but when they are joined with a past participle, they lose the force of their own tense, and are transferred to the past. For when I say in campo est, or and in comitio est, or I refer to the present time; also when I say in campo erit (he will be in the field), or in comitio erit (he will be in the comitium), I indicate future time: but when I say factum est, scriptum est or subruptum est, although the verb est is in the present tense, it is nevertheless united with the past and ceases to be present.

he says,

In conversation at the table of the philosopher Taurus questions of this kind were proposed and discussed: and

THE philosopher Taurus at Athens usually entertained us at dinner at the time of day when evening had already come on; for there that is the time for dining. ⁵¹ The entire basis and foundation of the meal usually consisted of one pot of Egyptian beans, to which were added gourds cut in small pieces.

One day when this dish had been brought and placed upon the table, and we were ready and awaiting the meal, Taurus ordered a slave-boy to pour some oil into the pot. The slave was a boy of Attic birth, at most eight years old, overflowing with the merry wit characteristic of his race and his time of life. He brought an empty Samian flask, from oversight, as he said, supposing there was oil in it, turned it up and, as he usually did, passed it with his hand over all parts of the pot; but no oil came out. The boy, in anger, looked savagely at the flask, shook it violently, and again turned it over the pot; and when we were all quietly and furtively laughing at his actions, he said in Greek, and excellent Attic Greek at that: said Taurus with a laugh,

But when the boy had gone out to buy oil, Taurus, not at all put out by the delay, said: And he looked at me and bade me give my opinion. Then I replied that I inferred that wine congealed less quickly because it had in it certain seeds of heat and was naturally more fiery, and that was why Homer called ⁵² it ai)/qoy, ⁵³ and not, as some supposed, on account of its colour.

says Taurus,

Taurus says besides that it is also worth inquiring why the waters of rivers and streams freeze, while all the sea is incapable of freezing. said he, While Taurus was thus speaking, the boy had returned, the pot had cooled off, and the time had come to eat and hold our peace.

Of the cypher letters which are found in the epistles of Gains Caesar, and of other secret forms of writing taken from ancient history; and what the Laconian skuta/lh is.

THERE are volumes of letters of Gaius Caesar addressed to Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, who had charge of his affairs in his absence. In certain parts of these letters ⁵⁷ there are found individual characters which are not connected to form syllables, but apparently are written at random; for no word can be formed from those letters. But a secret agreement had been made between the correspondents about a change in the position of the letters, so that, in writing, one name and position was given to one letter and another to another, but in reading its own place and force was restored to each of them. ⁵⁸ But which letter was written for which was, as I have already said, agreed upon by those who devised this secret code. There is in fact a commentary of the grammarian Probus, On the Secret meaning of the Letters appearing in the Epistles of Gains Caesar, which is a very careful piece of work.

But the ancient Lacedaemonians, when they wanted to conceal and disguise the public dispatches sent to their generals, in order that, in case they were intercepted by the enemy, their plans might not be known, used to send letters written in the following manner. There were two thin, cylindrical wands of the same thickness and length, smoothed and prepared so as to be exactly alike. One of these was given to the general when he went to war, the other the magistrates kept at home under their control and seal. When the need of more secret communication arose, they bound about the staff a thong of moderate thickness, but long enough for the purpose, in a simple spiral, in such a way that the edges of the thong which was twined around the stick met and were joined throughout. Then they wrote the dispatch on that thong across the connected edges of the joints, with the lines running from the top to the bottom. When the letter had been written in this way, the thong was unrolled from the wand and sent to the general, who was familiar with the device. But the unrolling of the thong made the letters imperfect and broken, and their parts and strokes ⁵⁹ were divided and separated. Therefore, if the thong fell into the hands of the enemy, nothing at all could be made out from the writing; but when the one to whom the letter was sent had received it, he wound it around the corresponding staff, which he had, from the top to the bottom, just as he knew that it ought to be done, and thus the letters, united by encircling a similar staff, came together again, rendering the dispatch entire and undamaged, and easy to read. This kind of letter the Lacedaemonians called skuta/lh. I also read this in an ancient history of Carthage, that a certain famous man of that country —whether it was Hasdrubal or another I do not recall—disguised a letter written about secret matters in the following way: he took new tablets, not yet provided with wax, and cut the letters into the wood. Afterwards he covered the tablet with wax in the usual way and sent it, apparently without writing, to one to whom he had previously told his plan. The recipient then scraped off the wax, found the letters safe and sound inscribed upon the wood, and read them.

There is also in the records of Grecian history another profound and difficult method of concealment, devised by a barbarian's cunning. He was called Histiaeus and was born in the land of Asia in no mean station. At that time king Darius held sway in Asia. This Histiaeus, being in Persia with Darius, wished to send a confidential message to a certain Aristagoras in a secret manner. He devised this remarkable method of concealing a letter. He shaved all the hair from the head of a slave of his who had long suffered from weak eyes, as if for the purpose of treatment. Then he tattooed the forms of the letters on his smooth head. When in this way he had written what he wished, he kept the man at home for a time, until his hair grew out. When this happened, he ordered him to go to Aristagoras, adding: The slave, as he was bidden, came to Aristagoras and delivered his master's order. Aristagoras, thinking that the command must have some reason, did as he was directed. And thus the letter reached its destination.

What Favorinus thought of the verses of Virgil in which he imitated the poet Pindar in his description of an eruption of Mount Aetna; his comparison and evaluation of the verses of the two poets on the same theme.

I REMEMBER that the philosopher Favorinus, when he had gone during the hot season to the villa of a friend of his at Antium, and I had come from Rome to see him, discoursed in about the following manner about the poets Pindar and Virgil. said he, said he, "is shown by the result. For the parts that he left perfected and polished, to which his judgment and approval had applied the final hand, enjoy the highest praise for poetical beauty; but those parts which he postponed, with the intention of revising them later, but was unable to finish because he was overtaken by death, are in no way worthy of the fame and taste of the most elegant of poets. It was for that reason, when he was laid low by disease and saw that death was near, that he begged and earnestly besought his best friends to burn the Aeneid, which he had not yet sufficiently revised.

said Favorinus, said he, "may be judges of what I say, I will repeat Pindar's poem about Mount Aetna, so far as I can remember it: ⁶¹ Now hear the verses of Virgil, which I may more truly say that he began than finished: ⁶³ said Favorinus, he says, said Favorinus, he said, ⁶⁴

That Plutarch in his Symposiacs defended the opinion of Plato about the structure and nature of the stomach, and of the tube which is called traxei=a, against the physician Erasistratus, urging the authority of the ancient physician Hippocrates.

BOTH Plutarch ⁶⁵ and certain other learned men have written that Plato was criticized by the famous physician Erasistratus, ⁶⁶ because he said ⁶⁷ that drink went to the lungs and having sufficiently moistened them, flowed through them, since they are somewhat porous, and from there passed into the bladder. They declared that the originator of that error was Alcaeus, who wrote ⁶⁸ in his poems: but that Erasistratus himself declared ⁶⁹ that there were two little canals, so to speak, or pipes, and that they extended downward from the throat; that through one of these all food and drink passed and went into the stomach, and from there were carried into the belly, which the Greeks call h( ka/tw koili/a. That there it is reduced and digested and then the drier excrement passes into the bowels, which the Greeks call ko/lon, ⁷⁰ and the moisture through the kidneys into the bladder. But through the other tube, which the Greeks call the traxei=a a)rthri/a, or the breath passes from the lips into the lungs, and from there goes back into the mouth and nostrils, and along this same road a passage for the voice also is made; and lest drink or drier food, which ought to pass into the stomach, should fall from the mouth and slip into that tube through which the breath goes back and forth, and by such an accident the path of the breath should be cut off, there has been placed at these two openings by a kind of helpful device of nature, a sort of movable valve which is called the which alternately shuts and opens. This epiglottis, while we are eating and drinking, covers and protects in order that no particle of food or drink may fall into that path, so to speak, of the rising and falling breath; and on that account no moisture passes into the lungs, since the opening of the windpipe itself is well protected.

These are the views of the physician Erasistratus, as opposed to Plato. But Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, ⁷¹ says that the originator of Plato's opinion was Hippocrates, and that the same opinion was held by Philistion of Locris ⁷² and Dioxippus the pupil of Hippocrates, famous physicians of the olden time; also that the epiglottis, of which Erasistratus spoke, was not placed where it is to prevent anything that we drank from flowing into the windpipe; for fluid seems necessary and serviceable for refreshing and moistening the lungs; but it was placed there as a kind of controller and arbiter, to exclude or admit whatever was necessary for the health of the body; to keep away all foods from the windpipe and turn them to the stomach, but to divide what is drunk between the stomach and the lungs. And that part which ought to be admitted into the lungs through the windpipe the epiglottis does not let through rapidly and all at once, but when it has been checked and held back, as it were by a kind of dam, it allows it to pass gradually and little by little, and turns aside all the remainder into the other tube leading to the stomach.

Of ignoble subjects, called by the Greeks a)/docoi, or argued by Favorinus for the sake of practice.

NOT only the sophists of old, but the philosophers as well, took up ignoble subjects, ⁷³ or if you prefer, unexpected ones, a)/docoi u(poqe/seis, as the Greeks call them; and our friend Favorinus took a great deal of pleasure in descending to such subjects, ⁷⁴ either thinking them suitable for stimulating his thoughts or exercising his cleverness or overcoming difficulties by practice. For example, when he attempted to praise Thersites and pronounced a eulogy upon the quartan ague, ⁷⁵ he said many clever and ingenious things on both topics, which he has left written in his works.

But in his eulogy of fever he even produced Plato as a witness, declaring that the philosopher wrote ⁷⁶ that one who after suffering from quartan ague got well and recovered his full strength, would afterwards enjoy surer and more constant health. And in that same eulogy he made this quip, which, of a truth, is not ungraceful: he says, he says,

How many and what varieties of meaning the particle quin has, and that it is often obscure in the earlier literature.

THE particle quin, which the grammarians call a conjunction, seems to connect sentences in various ways and with divers meanings. For it seems to have one meaning when we say, as if chiding or questioning or exhorting, quin venis? quin legis? or quin fugis? ; but it has a different meaning when we affirm, for example, that and still a third, when we add something which seems contradictory to a former statement: In the last of these sentences the meaning is not very different from that which is found in the third book of Marcus Cato's Origins: ^{79 80} Also in the second book of the Origins Marcus Cato has used this particle in a very similar manner: ⁸¹

I have noted, besides, that Quadrigarius in the eighth book of his Annals has used that particle in a very obscure manner. I quote his exact words: ^{82 83} Also in the sixth book of the same writer's Annals are these words: ⁸⁴ Now I am quite well aware that someone may say off-hand that there is no difficulty in these words; for quin in both passages is used for ut, and the meaning is perfectly plain if you say: ; ⁸⁵ and also in the other passage, Let those who are so ready find refuge in changing words which they do not understand, but let them do so with more modesty, when the occasion permits.

Only one who has learned that this particle of which we are speaking is a compound and formed of two parts, and that it does not merely have the function of a connective but has a definite meaning of its own, ⁸⁶ will ever understand its variations in meaning. But because an explanation of these would require a long dissertation, he who has leisure may find it in the Commentaries of Publius Nigidius which he entitled Grammatical. ⁸⁷

Neat sayings selected from the Mimes of Publilius.

PUBLILIUS wrote mimes. He was thought worthy of being rated about equal to Laberius. But the scurrility and the arrogance of Laberius so offended Gaius Caesar, that he declared that he was better pleased with the mimes of Publilius than with those of Laberius. Many sayings of this Publilius are current, which are neat and well adapted to the use of ordinary conversation. Among these are the following, consisting of a single line each, which I have indeed taken pleasure in quoting: ⁸⁸

That Carneades the Academic purged his stomach with hellebore when about to write against the dogmas of Zeno the Stoic; and of the nature and curative powers of white and black hellebore.

WHEN Carneades, the Academic philosopher, was about to write against the books of the Stoic Zeno, he cleansed the upper part of his body with white hellebore, in order that none of the corrupt humours of his stomach might rise to the abode of his mind and weaken the power and vigour of his intellect; with such care and such preparation did this man of surpassing talent set about refuting what Zeno had written. When I had read of this in Grecian history, I inquired what was meant by the term

Then I learned that there are two kinds of hellebore distinguished by a difference in colour, white and black; but that those colours are distinguished neither in the seed of the hellebore nor in its plant, but in the root; further, that with white hellebore the stomach and upper belly ⁹¹ are purged by vomiting; by the black the so-called lower belly is loosened, ⁹² and the effect of both is to remove the noxious humours in which the causes of diseases are situated. But that there is danger lest, when every avenue of the body is opened, along with the causes of disease the juices on which the principle of life depends should also pass away, and the man should perish from exhaustion because of the destruction of the entire foundation of natural nourishment.

But Plinius Secundus, in his work On Natural History, wrote ⁹³ that hellebore could be taken with the greatest safety in the island of Anticyra. ⁹⁴ That for this reason Livius Drusus, the former tribune of the commons, when he was suffering from the so-called disease, ⁹⁵ sailed to Anticyra, drank hellebore in that island, and was thus cured of the ailment.

I have read besides that the Gauls, when hunting, dip their arrows in hellebore, because the wild animals that are struck and killed by arrows thus treated become tenderer for eating; but because of the contagion of the hellebore they are said to cut out a large piece of flesh around the wounds made by the arrows.

That Pontic ducks have a power which is able to expel poisons; and also of the skill of Mithridates in preparing antidotes.

IT is said that the ducks of Pontus commonly live by eating poisons. It was also written by Lenaeus, ⁹⁶ the freedman of Pompey the Great, that Mithridates, the famous king of Pontus, was skilled in medicine and in antidotes of that kind, and that he was accustomed to mix the blood of these ducks with drugs that have the power of expelling poisons, and that the blood was the very most powerful agency in their preparation; furthermore, that the king himself by the constant use of such remedies guarded against hidden plots at banquets; nay more, that lie often voluntarily and wittingly, to show his immunity, drank a swift and rapid poison, which yet did him no harm. Therefore, at a later time, when he had been defeated in battle, and after fleeing to the remotest bounds of his kingdom had resolved to take his own life, having vainly tried the most violent poisons for the purpose of hastening his death, he fell upon his own sword. the most celebrated antidote of this king is the one which is called

That Mithridates, king of Pontus, spoke the languages of twenty-five nations; and that Quintus Ennius said that he had three hearts, because he was proficient in three tongues, Greek, Oscan, and Latin.

QUINTUS ENNIUS used to say that he had three hearts, because he knew how to speak Greek, Oscan, and Latin. But Mithridates, the celebrated king of Pontus and Bithynia, who was overcome in war by Gnaeus Pompeius, ⁹⁷ was proficient in the languages of the twenty-five races which he held under his sway. He never spoke to the men of all those nations through an interpreter, but whenever it was necessary for him to address any one of them, he used his language and speech with as much skill as if he were his fellow-countryman.

The statement of Marcus Vairo that Gaius Sallustius, the writer of history, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo and was let go only after he had been beaten with thongs and had paid a sum of money.

MARCUS VARRO, a man of great trustworthiness and authority in his writings and in his life, in the work which he entitled Pius, or On Peace, ⁹⁸ says that Gaius Sallustius, the author of those austere and dignified works, whom we see in his history writing and acting, like a censor, was taken in adultery by Annius Milo, soundly beaten with thongs, and allowed to escape only after paying a sum of money. ⁹⁹

What Epictetus the philosophers used to say to worthless and vile men, who zealously followed the pursuit of philosophy; and the two words whose remembrance he enjoyed as by far the most salutary in all respects.

I HEARD Favorinus say that the philosopher Epictetus declared ¹⁰⁰ that very many of those who professed to be philosophers were of the kind a)/neu tou= pra/ttein, me/xri tou= le/gein, which means ; that is, they preached but did not practise. But that is still more severe which Arrian, in his work On the Dissertations of Epictetus, ¹⁰¹ has written that this philosopher used to say. says Arrian, Nothing surely could be weightier, nothing truer than these words, in which the greatest of philosophers declared that the learning and precepts of philosophy, flowing into a base and degenerate man, as if into a soiled and filthy vessel, are turned, altered, spoiled, and as he himself more cynically expresses it, become urine or, if possible, something worse than urine. Moreover, that same Epictetus, as we also heard from Favorinus, used to say that there were two faults which were by far the worst and most disgusting of all, lack of endurance and lack of self-restraint, when we cannot put up with or bear the wrongs which we ought to endure, or cannot restrain ourselves from actions or pleasures from which we ought to refrain. said he, he said, ¹⁰³

A passage taken from the Symposium of Plato, skilful. harmonious and fitting in its rhythm and structure, which for the sake of practice I have turned into the Latin tongue.

THE Symposium of Plato was being read before the philosopher Taurus. Those words of Pausanias in which, taking his turn among the banqueters, lie eulogizes love, I admired so much that I even resolved to commit them to memory. And tile words, if I remember rightly, are as follows ¹⁰⁴ "Every action is of this nature: in and of itself, when done, it is neither good nor bad; for example, what we are now doing, drinking, or singing, or arguing. Not one of these things is in itself good, but it may become so by the way in which it is done. Well and rightly done, it becomes a good action; wrongly done, it becomes shameful. It is the same with love; for not all love is honourable or worthy of raise, but only that which leads us to love worthily." When these words had been read, thereupon Taurus said to me: — for so he used to call me in the beginning, when I was first admitted to his class, supposing that I had come to Athens only to work up eloquence ¹⁰⁵ —

This admonition of Taurus as to Plato's style not only did not deter me, but even encouraged me to try to equal the elegance of the Greek in a Latin rendering; and just as there are small and insignificant animals which through wantonness imitate everything which they have seen or heard, just so I had the assurance, not indeed to rival those qualities which I admired in Plato's style, but to give a shadowy outline of them, such as the following, which I patterned on those very words of his: he says,

The times after the foundling of Rome and before the second war with Carthage at which distinguished Greeks and Romans flourished. ¹⁰⁶

I WISHED to have a kind of survey of ancient times, and also of the famous men who were born in those days, lest I might in conversation chance to make some careless remark about the date and life of celebrated men, as that ignorant sophist did who lately, in a public lecture, said that Carneades the philosopher ¹⁰⁷ was presented with a sum of money by king Alexander, son of Philip, and that Panaetius the Stoic was intimate with the elder Africanus. ¹⁰⁸ In order, I say, to guard against such errors in dates and periods of time, I made notes from the books known as Chroicles ¹⁰⁹ of the times when those Greeks and Romans flourished who were famous and conspicuous either for talent or for political power, between the founding of Rome and the second Punic war. ¹¹⁰ And these excerpts of mine, made in various and sundry places, I have now put hastily together. For it was not my endeavour with keen and subtle care to compile a catalogue of the eminent men of both nations who lived at the same time, but merely to strew these Nights of mine lightly here and there with a few of these flowers of history. ¹¹¹ Moreover, it seemed sufficient in this survey to speak of the dates of a few men, from which it would not be difficult to infer the periods also of many more whom I did not name.

I shall begin, then, with the illustrious Solon; for, as regards Homer and Hesiod, it is agreed by almost all writers, either that they lived at approximately the same period, or that Homer was somewhat the earlier; yet that both lived before the founding of Rome, when the Silvii were ruling in Alba, more than a hundred and sixty years after the Trojan war, as Cassius has written ¹¹² about Homer and Hesiod in the first book of his Annals, but about a hundred and sixty years before the founding of Rome, as Cornelius Nepos says of Homer in the first book of his Chronicles. ¹¹³ Well then, we are told that Solon, one of the famous sages, ¹¹⁴ drew up laws for the Athenians when Tarquinius Priscus was king at Rome, ¹¹⁵ in the thirtythird year of his reign. ¹¹⁶ Afterwards, when Servius Tullius was king, ¹¹⁷ Pisistratus was tyrant at Athens, Solon having previously gone into voluntary exile, since he had not been believed when he predicted that tyranny. Still later, Pythagoras of Samos came to Italy, when the son of Tarquinius was king, he who was surnamed the Proud, ¹¹⁸ and at that same time Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, was slain at Athens by Harmodius and Aristog, iton. ¹¹⁹ And Cornelius Nepos adds ¹²⁰ that when Tullus Hostilius was king at Rome ¹²¹ Archilochus was already illustrious and famous for his poems. ¹²²

Then, in the two hundred and sixtieth year after the founding (of Rome, or not much later, it is recorded that the Persians were vanquished by the Athenians in the famous battle of Marathon under the lead of Militiades, ¹²³ who after that victory was condemned by the Athenians and died in the public prison. At that time Aesthylus. the tragic poet, flourished at Athens. ¹²⁴ In Rome, at about the same time, the commons, as the result of a secession, for the first time elected their own tribunes and aediles; ¹²⁵ and not much later Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, harassed and exasperated by the tribunes of the commons, turned traitor to the republic and joined the Volscians, who were then our enemies, ¹²⁶ and lade war upon the Roman people. Then a few years later, King Xerxes was beaten and put to flight by the Athenians and a good part of Greece, under the lead of Themistocles, in the sea-fight at Salamis. ¹²⁷ About three ¹²⁸ years afterwards, in the consulship of Menenius Agrippa and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, during the war with Veii, the patrician Fabii, three hundred and six in number, along with their dependents, ¹²⁹ were all ambushed at the river Cremera and slain.

At about that time Empedocles of Agrigentum was eminent in the domain of natural philosophy. ¹³⁰ But at Rome at that epoch it is stated that a board of ten was appointed ¹³¹ to codify laws, and that at first they compiled ten tables, to which afterwards two more were added.

Then the great Peloponnesian war began in Greece, which Thucydides has handed down to memory, about three hundred and twenty-three years after the founding of Rome. ¹³² At that time Olus Postumius Tubertus was dictator at Rome, and executed his own son, because he had fought against the enemy contrary to his father's order. The people of Fidenae and the Aequians were then at war with the Roman people. ¹³³ During that period Sophocles, and later Euripides, were famous and renowned as tragic poets, Hippocrates as a physician, and as a philosopher, Democritus; Socrates the Athenian was younger than these, ¹³⁴ but was in part their contemporary.

Somewhat later, when the military tribunes with consular authority were in power ¹³⁵ at Rome, about the three hundred and forty-seventh year after the founding of the city, the notorious thirty tyrants were imposed upon the Athenians by the Lacedaemonians, and in Sicily the elder Dionysius was tyrant. ¹³⁶ A few years later, at Athens, Socrates was condemned to death and executed in prison by means of poison. At about the same time, at Rome, Marcus Furius Camillus was dictator and took Veii. Not long afterwards came the war with the Senones, when the Gauls captured Rome with the exception of the Capitol. ¹³⁷

Not long after these events the astronomer Eudoxus was famed in the land of Greece, the Lacedaemonians were defeated by the Athenians at Corinth under the lead of Phormio, ¹³⁸ and at Rome Marcus Manlius, who during the siege of the Capitol had repulsed the Gauls as they were climbing up its steep cliffs, was convicted of having formed the design of making himself king. Marcus Varro says ¹³⁹ that he was condemned to death and hurled from the Tarpeian rock; but Cornelius Nepos has written ¹⁴⁰ that he was scourged to death. In the very same year, which was the seventh after the recovery of the city, it is recorded that the philosopher Aristotle was born. ¹⁴¹

Next, some years after the war with the Senones, the Thebans defeated the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra ¹⁴² under the lead of Epaminondas, and a little later in the city of Rome the law of Licinius Stolo provided for the elections of consuls also from the plebeians, ¹⁴³ whereas before that time it was not lawful for a consul to be chosen except from the patrician familiis families.

Then, about the four hundredth year after the founding of the city, Philip, son of Amyntas and father of Alexander, became king of Macedonia. At that time Alexander was born, ¹⁴⁴ and a few years later the philosopher Plato went to the court of the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily; then some little time afterwards Philip defeated the Athenians in the great battle at Chaeronea. ¹⁴⁵ At that time the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: ¹⁴⁶ Later Philip fell victim to a conspiracy; but Alexander, who succeeded him, ¹⁴⁷ crossed over into Asia and the Orient, to subdue the Persians. But another Alexander, surnamed Molossus, came into Italy intending to make war on the Roman people —for already the fame of Roman valour and success was beginning to be conspicuous among foreign nations—but he died before beginning the war. We have learned that on his way to Italy that Molossus said that he was going against the Romans as a nation of men, but the Macedonian was going against the Persians as one of women. Later, the Macedonian Alexander, having subdued the greater part of the east, died ¹⁴⁸ after a reign of eleven years. Not long after this the philosopher Aristotle ended his life, ¹⁴⁹ and a little later, Demosthenes; ¹⁵⁰ at about that same time the Roman people engaged in a dangerous and protracted war with the Samites and the consuls Tiberius Veturius and Spurius Postumius were surrounded by the Samites in a perilous position near Caudium and being sent under the yoke were allowed to depart only when they had made a shameful treaty; ¹⁵¹ and when for that reason the consuls by vote of the people were surrendered to the Samites through the fetial priests, they were not accepted.

Then, about four hundred and seventy years after the founding of the city, war was begun with king Pyrrhus. ¹⁵² At that time Epicurus the Athenian and Zeno of Citium were famed as philosophers, and at the same time the censors at Rome, Gains Fabricius Luscinus and Quintus Aemilius Papus, expelled from the senate Publius Cornelius Rufinus, who had twice been consul and dictator; and they recorded as the reason for that censure the fact that they had learned of his using ten pounds' weight of silverware at a dinner.

Then, in about the four hundred and ninetieth year after the founding of Rome, when the consuls were Appius Claudius, surnamed Caudex, brother of the celebrated Appius the Blind, and Marcus Fluvius Flaccus, the first war with the Carthaginians broke out, ¹⁵³ and not long afterwards Callimachus, the poet of Cyrene, was famous at the court of king Ptolemy at Alexandria. A little more than twenty years later, when peace had been made with the Carthaginians and the consuls were C. Claudius Centho, son of Appius the Blind, and Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus, the poet Lucius Livius was the very first to put plays upon the stage at Rome, ¹⁵⁴ more than a hundred and sixty years after the death of Sophocles and Euripides and about fifty-two years after the death of Menander. The consuls Claudius and Tuditanus were followed by Quintus Valerius and Gaius Mamilius, in whose year the poet Quintus Ennius was born, ¹⁵⁵ as Marcus Varro has written in the first book of his work On Poets; ¹⁵⁶ and he adds that at the age of sixty-seven Ennius had written the twelfth Book of the Annals, and that Ennius himself says so in that same book.

Five hundred and nineteen years after the founding of Rome, Spurius Carvilius Ruga, at the advice of his friends, was the first Roman to divorce his wife, on the ground that she was barren and that he had taken oath before the censors that he married for the purpose of having children. ¹⁵⁷ In that same year the poet Naevius exhibited plays to the people, ¹⁵⁸ and Marcus Varro says ¹⁵⁹ in the first book of his work On Poets that Naevius served in the first Punic war and that the poet himself makes that statement in the poem which he wrote on that same war. But Porcius Licinius says ¹⁶⁰ in the following verses that Rome was later in taking up the poetic art:

Then, about fifteen years later, war was begun with the Carthaginians, ¹⁶¹ and not very long after that Marcus Cato was famous as a political orator and Plautus as a dramatic poet; and at that same time Diogenes the Stoic, Carneades the Academic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic were sent by the Athenians as envoys to the senate of the Roman people on public business. Not very long after this came Quintus Ennius, and then Caecilius and Terence, ¹⁶² and afterwards Pacuvius ¹⁶³ and when Pacuvius was already an old man, Accius and then Lucilius, who was still more famous through his criticisms of the poems of his predecessors.

But I have gone too far, since the limit that I set for these little notes was the second Punic war.