Attic Nights/Book 2

1
How Socrates used to train himself in physical endurance; and of the temperate habits of that philosopher. Among voluntary tasks and exercises for strengthening his body for any chance demands upon its endurance we are told that Socrates habitually practised this one: he would stand, so the story goes, in one fixed position, all day and all night, from early dawn until the next sunrise, open-eyed, motionless, in his very tracks and with face and eyes riveted to the same spot in deep meditation, as if his mind and soul had been, as it were, withdrawn from his body. When Favorinus in his discussion of the man’s fortitude and his many other virtues had reached this point, he said: “He often stood from sun to sun, more rigid than the tree trunks.”

His temperance also is said to have been so great, that he lived almost the whole period of his life with health unimpaired. Even amid the havoc of that plague which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, devastated Athens with a deadly species of disease, by temperate and abstemious habits he is said to have avoided the ill-effects of indulgence and retained his physical vigour so completely, that he was not at all affected by the calamity common to all.

2
What rules of courtesy should be observed by fathers and sons in taking their places at able, keeping their seats, and similar matters at home and elsewhere, when the sons are magistrates and the fathers private citizens; and a discourse of the philosopher Taurus on this subject, with an illustration taken from Roman history. THE governor of the province of Crete, a man of senatorial rank, had come to Athens for the purpose of visiting and becoming acquainted with the philosopher Taurus, and in company with this same governor was his father. Taurus, having just dismissed his pupils, was sitting before the door of his room, and we stood by his side conversing with him. In came the governor of the province and with him his father. Taurus arose quietly, and after salutations had been exchanged, sat down again. Presently the single chair that was at hand was brought and placed near them, while others were being fetched. Taurus invited the governor’s father to be seated; to which he replied: “Rather let this man take the seat, since he is a magistrate of the Roman people.” “Without prejudicing the case,” said Taurus, “do you meanwhile sit down, while we look into the matter and inquire whether it is more proper for you, who are the father, to sit, or your son, who is a magistrate.” And when the father had seated himself, and another chair had been placed near by for his son also, Taurus discussed the question with what, by the gods! was a most excellent valuation of honours and duties.

The substance of the discussions was this: In public places, functions and acts the rights of fathers, compared with tile authority of sons who are magistrates, give way somewhat and are eclipsed; but when they are sitting together unofficially in the intimacy of home life, or walking about, or even reclining at a dinner-party of intimate friends, then the official distinctions between a son who is a magistrate and a father who is a private citizen are at an end, while those that are natural and inherent come into play. “Now, your visit to me,” said he, “our present conversation, and this discussion of duties are private actions. Therefore enjoy the same priority of honours at my house which it is proper for you to enjoy in your own home as the older man.”

These remarks and others to the same purport were made by Taurus at once seriously and pleasantly. Moreover, it has seemed not out of place to add what I have read in Claudius about the etiquette of father and son under such circumstances. I therefore quote Quadrigarius’ actual words, transcribed from the sixth book of his Annals “‘The consuls then elected were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus for the second time and Quintus Fabius Maximus, son of the Maximus who had been consul the year before. The father, at the time proconsul, mounted upon a horse met his son the consul, and because lie was his father, would not dismount, nor did the lictors, who knew that the two men lived in the most perfect harmony, presume to order him to do so. As the father drew near, the consul said: “What next?” The lictor in attendance quickly understood and ordered Maximus the proconsul to dismount. Fabius obeyed the order and warmly commended his son for asserting the authority which he had as the gift of the people.

3
For what reason our forefathers inserted the aspirate h in certain verbs and nouns. THE letter h (or perhaps it should be called a breathing rather than a letter) was added by our forefathers to give strength and vigour to the pronunciation of many words, in order that they might have a fresher and livelier sound; and this they seem to have done from their devotion to the Attic language, and under its influence. It is well known that the people of Attica, contrary to the usage of the other Greek races, pronounced ἱχθύς (fish), ἵππος (horse), and many other words besides, with a rough breathing on the first letter. In the same way our ancestors said lachrumae (tears), sepulchrum (burial-place), ahenum (of bronze), vehemens (violent), incohare (begin), helluari (gormandize), hallucinari (dream), honera (burdens), honustum (burdened). For in all these words there seems to be no reason for that letter, or breathing, except to increase the force and vigour of the sound by adding certain sinews, so to speak. But apropos of the inclusion of ahenum among my examples, I recall that Fidus Optatus, a grammarian of considerable repute in Rome, showed me a remarkably old copy of the second book of the Aeneid, bought in the Sigillaria for twenty pieces of gold, which was believed to have belonged to Virgil himself. In that book, although the following two lines were written thus:

Before the entrance-court, hard by the gate,

With sheen of brazen (aena ) arms proud Pyrrhus gleams,

we observed that the letter h had been added above the line, changing aena to ahena. So too in the best manuscripts we find this verse of Virgil’s written as follows:

Or skims with leaves the bubbling brass’s (aleni ) wave.

4
The reason given by Gavius Bassus for calling a certain kind of judicial inquiry divitiatio; and the explanation that others have given of the same term. WHEN inquiry is made about the choice of a prosecutor, and judgment is rendered on the question to which of two or more persons the prosecution of a defendant, or a share in the prosecution, is to be entrusted, this process and examination by jurors is called divinatio. The reason for the use of this term is a matter of frequent inquiry.

Gavius Bassus, in the third book of his work On the Origin of Terms, says: “This kind of trial is called divinatio because the juror ought in a sense to divine what verdict it is proper for him to give.” The explanation offered in these words of Gavius Bassus is far from complete, or rather, it is inadequate and meagre. But at least he seems to be trying to show that divinatio is used because in other trials it is the habit of the juror to be influenced by what he has heard and by what has been shown by evidence or by witnesses; but in this instance, when a prosecutor is to be selected, the considerations which can influence a juror are very few and slight, and therefore he must, so to speak, “divine” what man is the better fitted to make the accusation.

Thus Bassus. But some others think that the divinatio is so called because, while prosecutor and defendant are two things that are, as it were, related and connected, so that neither can exist without the other, yet in this form of trial, while there is already a defendant, there is as yet no prosecutor, and therefore the factor which is still lacking and unknown — namely, what man is to be the prosecutor — must be supplied by divination.

5
How elegantly and clearly the philosopher Favorinus described the difference between the style of Plato and that of Lysias. FAVORINUS used to say of Plato and Lysias: “If you take a single word from a discourse of Plato or change it, and do it with the utmost skill, you will nevertheless mar the elegance of his style; if you do the same to Lysias, you will obscure his meaning.”

6
On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge. SOME grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet’s use of a word in the following verses as careless and negligent:

That, her white waist with howling monsters girt,

Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse ) Ulysses’ ships

Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight!

The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent.

They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.

They also criticize another word in the following:

Who has not heard

Of king Eurystheus’ pitiless commands

And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?

Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable world, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely “undeserving of praise,” but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.

They have criticized still another word in the verse:

Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side,

on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.

Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from ve- here, in which there is already some notion of compulsion by another; for a man who is carried is not his own master. But vexare, which is derived from vehere, unquestionably implies greater force and impulse. For vexare is properly used of one who is seized and carried away, and dragged about hither and yon; just as taxare denotes more forcible and repeated action than tangere, from which it is undoubtedly derived; and iactare a much fuller and more vigorous action than iacere, from which it comes; and quassare something severer and more violent than quatere. Therefore, merely because vexare is commonly used of the annoyance of smoke or wind or dust is no reason why the original force and meaning of the word should be lost; and that meaning was preserved by the earlier writers who, as became them, spoke correctly and clearly.

Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote On the Achaeans, has these words: “And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy.” ‘hat is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal’s conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. Marcus Tullius, in his fourth Oration against Verres, wrote: “This was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates.”

But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari). And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:

Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose.

But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude ) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: “And not unwillingly they charged,” and again:

Not then would you divine Atrides see

Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.

Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: “The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.” Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool “unlovely.” For just as he expressed abhorrence of the “unpraised” man by the denial of praise, so he abhorred the “unlovable” by the denial of love. Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means “to name” and “cite.” Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as the inlaudabilis, namely, one who is worthy neither of mention nor remembrance, and is never to be named; as, for example, in days gone by the common council of Asia decreed that no one should ever mention the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

There remains the third criticism, his use of the expression “a tunic rough with gold.” But squalentem signifies a quantity or thick layer of gold, laid on so as to resemble scales. For squalere is used of the thick, rough scales (squamae) which are to be seen on the skins of fish or snakes. This is made clear both by others and indeed by this same poet in several passages; thus: A skin his covering was, plumed with brazen scales (squamis)

And clasped with gold.

and again:

And now has he his flashing breastplate donned,

Bristling with brazen scales (squamis).

Accius too in the Pelopidae writes thus:

This serpent’s scales (squamae) rough gold and purple wrought.

Thus we see that squalere was applied to whatever was overloaded and excessively crowded with anything, in order that its strange appearance might strike terror into those who looked upon it. So too on neglected and scaly bodies the deep layer of dirt was called squalor, and by long and continued use in that sense the entire word has become so corrupted, that finally squalor has come to be used of nothing but filth.