Book 15

That it is written in the Annals of Quintus Claudius that wood smeared with alum does not burn.

THE rhetorician Antonius Julianus, besides holding forth on many other occasions, had once declaimed with marvellous charm and felicity. For such scholastic declamations generally show the characteristics of the same man and the same eloquence, but nevertheless are not every day equally happy. We friends of his therefore thronged about him on all sides and were escorting him home, when, as we were on our way up the Cispian Hill, we saw that a block of houses, built high with many stories, had caught fire, and that now all the neighbouring buildings were burning in a mighty conflagration. Then some one of Julianus' companions said: The income from city property is great, but the dangers are far greater. But if some remedy could be devised to prevent houses in Rome from so constantly catching fire, by Jove! I would sell my country property and buy in the city. And Julianus replied to him in his usual happy and graceful style: If you had read the nineteenth book of the Annals of Quintus Claudius, that excellent and faithful writer, you would surely have learned from Archelaus, a praefect of king Mithridates, by what method and by what skill you might prevent fires, so that no wooden building of yours would burn, even though caught and penetrated by the flames.

I inquired what this marvel of Quadrigarius was. He rejoined: In that book then I found it recorded, that when Lucius Sulla attacked the Piraeus in the land of Attica, and Archelaus, praefect of king Mithridates, was defending it against him, Sulla was unable to burn a wooden tower constructed for purposes of defence, although it had been surrounded with fire on every side, because Archelaus had smeared it with alum. The words of Quadrigarius in that book are as follows:

When Sulla had exerted himself for a long time, he led out his troops in order to set fire to a single wooden tower which Archelaus had interposed. He came, he drew near, he put wood under it, he beat off the Greeks, he applied fire; though they tried for a considerable time, they were never able to set it on fire, so thoroughly had Archelaus covered all the wood with alum. Sulla and his soldiers were amazed at this, and failing in his attempt, the general led back his troops.

That Plato in the work which he wrote On the Laws expressed the opinion that inducements to drink more abundantly and more merrily at feasts were not without benefit.

A MAN from the island of Crete, who was living in Athens, gave out that he was a Platonic philosopher and desired to pass as one. He was, however, a man of no worth, a trifler, boastful of his command of Grecian eloquence, besides having a passion for wine which fairly made him a laughing stock. At the entertainments which it was the custom of us young men to hold at Athens at the beginning of each week, as soon as we had finished eating and an instructive and pleasant conversation had begun, this fellow, having called for silence that he might be heard, began to speak, and using a cheap and disordered rabble of words after his usual fashion, urged all to drink; and this he declared that he did in accordance with the injunction of Plato, maintaining that Plato in his work On the Laws had written most eloquently in praise of drunkenness, and had decided that it was beneficial to good and strong men. And at the same time, while he was thus speaking, he drenched such wits as he had with frequent and huge beakers, saying that it was a kind of touchwood and tinder to the intellect and the faculties, if mind and body were inflamed with wine.

However, Plato in the first and second books of his work On the Laws did not, as that fool thought, praise that shameful intoxication which is wont to undermine and weaken men's minds, although he did not disapprove of that somewhat more generous and cheerful inspiration of wine which is regulated by some temperate arbiters, so to speak, and presidents of banquets. For he thought that by the proper and moderate relaxation of drinking the mind was refreshed and renewed for resuming the duties of sobriety, and that men were gradually rendered happier and became readier to repeat their efforts. At the same time, if there were deep in their hearts any errors of inclination or desire, which a kind of reverential shame concealed, he thought that by the frankness engendered by wine all these were disclosed without great danger and became more amenable to correction and cure.

And in the same place Plato says this also: that exercises of this kind for the purpose of resisting the violence of wine, are not to be avoided and shunned, and that no one ever appeared to be altogether selfrestrained and temperate whose life and habits had not been tested amid the very dangers of error and in the midst of the enticements of pleasures. For when all the license and attractions of banquets are unknown, and a man is wholly unfamiliar with them, if haply inclination has led him, or chance has induced him, or necessity has compelled him, to take part in pleasures of that kind, then he is as a rule seduced and taken captive, his mind and soul fail to meet the test, but give way, as if attacked by some strange power. Therefore he thought that we ought to meet the issue and contend hand to hand, as in a kind of battle, with pleasure and indulgence in wine, in order that we may not be safe against them by flight or absence, but that by vigour of spirit, by presence of mind, and by moderate use, we may preserve our temperance and self-restraint, and at the same time by warming and refreshing the mind we may free it of whatever frigid austerity or dull bashfulness it may contain.

What Marcus Cicero thought and wrote about the prefix in the verbs aufugio and aufcro; and whether this same preposition is to be seen in the verb autumo.

I READ a book of Marcus Cicero's entitled The Orator. In that book when Cicero had said that the verbs aifugio and aufero were indeed formed of the preposition ab and the verbs fugio and fero, but that the preposition, in order that the word might be smoother in pronunciation and sound, was changed and altered into the syllable au, and aufulgio and aufero began to be used for abfugio and abfero; when he had said this, I say, he afterwards in the same work wrote as follows of the same particle:

This preposition, he says, will be found in no other verb save these two only.

But I have found in the Commentary of Nigidius that the verb autumo is formed from the preposition ab and the verb aestumo (estimate) and that autumo is a contracted form of abaestumo, signifying totum aestumo, on the analogy of abnumero.

But, be it said with great respect for Publius Nigidius, a most learned man, this seems to be rather bold and clever than true. For autumo does not only mean I think, but also I say, I am of the opinion, and I consider, with which verbs that preposition has no connection either in the composition of the word or in the expression of its meaning. Besides, Marcus Tullius, a man of unwearied industry in the pursuit of letters, would not have said that these were the only two verbs containing au, if any third example could be found. But the following point is more worthy of examination and investigation, whether the preposition ab is altered and changed into the syllable au for the sake of making the pronunciation smoother, or whether more properly the particle au has its own origin, and just as many other prepositions were taken from the Greeks, so this one also is derived from that source.

As in that verse of Homer:

First bent them back (au)e/rusan), then slew and flayed the beasts; and:

Loud-shouting (au)i/axoi), noisy.

The story of Ventidius Bassus, a man of obscure birth, who is reported to have been the first to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians.

IT was lately remarked in the conversation of certain old and learned men that in ancient times many persons of most obscure birth, who were previously held in great contempt, had risen to the highest grade of dignity. Nothing that was said about anyone, however, excited so much wonder as the story recorded of Ventidius Bassus. He was born in Picenum in a humble station, and with his mother was taken prisoner by Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, in the Social War, in the course of which Strabo subdued the Aesculani.

Afterwards, when Pompeius Strabo triumphed, the boy also was carried in his mother's arms amid the rest of the captives before the general's chariot. Later, when he had grown up, he worked hard to gain a livelihood, resorting to the humble calling of a buyer of mules and carriages, which he had contracted with the State to furnish to the magistrates who had been allotted provinces. In that occupation he made the acquaintance of Gaius Caesar and went with him to the Gallic provinces. Then, because he had shown commendable energy in that province, and later during the civil war had executed numerous commissions with promptness and vigour, he not only gained Caesar's friendship, but because of it rose even to the highest rank. Afterwards he was also made tribune of the commons, and then praetor, and at that time he was declared a public enemy by the senate along with Mark Antony. Afterwards, however, when the parties were united, he not only recovered his former rank, but gained first the pontificate and then the consulship.

At this the Roman people, who remembered that Ventidius Bassus had made a living by taking care of mules, were so indignant that these verses were posted everywhere about the streets of the city:

Assemble, soothsayers and augurs all! A portent strange has taken place of late; For he who curried mules is consul now.

Suetonius Tranquillus writes that this same Bassus was put in charge of the eastern provinces by Mark Antony, and that when the Parthians invaded Syria he routed them in three battles;

that he was the first of all to celebrate a triumph over the Parthians, and was honoured when he died with a public funeral.

That the verb profligo is used by many improperly and ignorantly.

JUST as many other words, through the ignorance and stupidity of those who speak badly what they do not understand, are diverted and turned aside from their proper and usual meaning, so too has the signification of the verb profligo been changed and perverted. For while it is taken over and derived from adfligo, in the sense of bring to ruin and destruction, and while all who have been careful in their diction have always used the word to express waste and destroy, calling things that were cast down and destroyed res profligatae, I now hear that buildings, temples, and many other things that are almost complete and finished are said to be in profligato and the things themselves profligata. Therefore that was a very witty reply, as Sulpicius Apollinaris has recorded in one of his Letters, which a praetor, a man not without learning, made to a simpleton among a crowd of advocates. For, said he, when that impudent prater had made a request in these terms: 'All the business, renowned sir, about which you said that you would take cognizance to-day, because of your diligence and promptness is done (profligata sunt); one matter only remains, to which I beg you to give attention.' Then the praetor wittily enough replied: 'Whether the affairs of which you say that I have taken cognizance are done (profligata), I do not know; but this business which has fallen into your hands is undoubtedly done for (profligatum est), whether I hear it or not.'

But to indicate what those wish to express who use profligatum in the sense of nearly done, those who have spoken good Latin used, not profligatum profigatum, but adfectum, as for example Marcus Cicero, in the speech which he delivered About the Consular Provinces. His words are as follows:

We see the war nearing its end (adfectum) and, to tell the truth, all but finished. Also further on:

For why should Caesar himself wish to remain longer in that province, except that he may turn over to the State, completed, the tasks which he has nearly finished (acfecta sunt)? Cicero also says in the Oeconomicus:

When indeed, as summer is already well nigh ended (adfecta), it is time for the grapes to ripen in the sun.

An evident mistake in the second book of Cicero On Glory, in the place where he has written about Hector and Ajax.

IN Cicero's second book On Glory there is an evident mistake, of no great importance-a mistake which it does not require a man of learning to detect, but merely one who has read the seventh book of Homer. Therefore I am not so much surprised that Marcus Tullius erred in that matter, as that it was not noticed later and corrected either by Cicero himself or by Tiro, his freedman, a most careful man, who gave great attention to his patron's books. Now, in that book the following passage occurs:

The same poet says that Ajax, when about to engage with Hector in combat, arranges for his burial in case he should chance to be defeated, declaring that he wishes that those who pass his tomb even after many ages should thus speak:

Here lies a man of life's light long bereft, Who slain by Hector's sword fell long ago. This, one shall say; my glory ne'er shall die.

But the verses to this purport, which Cicero has turned into the Latin tongue, Ajax does not utter in Homer, nor is it Ajax who plans his burial, but Hector speaks the lines and arranges for burial, before he knows whether Ajax will meet him in combat.

It has been observed of old men, that the sixty-third year of their life is marked as a rule by troubles, by death, or by some disaster; and an example apropos of this observation is taken from a letter from the deified Augustus to his son Gaius.

IT has been observed during a long period of human recollection, and found to be true, that for almost all old men the sixty-third year of their age Both were adopted by Augustus, and on the death of the young Marcellus were made principes iuventutis, and thus designated as the successors of Augustus. is attended with danger, and with some disaster involving either serious bodily illness, or loss of life, or mental suffering. Therefore those who are engaged in the study of matters and terms of that kind call that period of life the climacteric.

Night before last, too, when I was reading a volume of letters of the deified Augustus, written to his grandson Gaius, and was led on by the elegance of the style, which was easy and simple, by Heaven without mannerisms or effort, in one of the letters I ran upon a reference to this very belief about that same year. I give a copy of the letter:

The ninth day before the Kalends of October.

Greeting, my dear Gaius, my dearest little donkey, whom, so help me! constantly miss whenever you are away from me. But especially on such days as to-day my eyes are eager for my Gaius, and wherever you have been to-day, I hope you have celebrated my sixty-fourth birthday in health and happiness. For, as you see, I have passed the climacteric common to all old men, the sixty-third year. And I pray the gods that whatever time is left to me I may pass with you safe and well, with our country in a flourishing condition, while you are playing the man and preparing to succeed to my position.

A passage from a speech of Favonius, an early orator, containing an attack which he made on luxurious entertainments, when he was advocating the Licinian law for lessening extravagance.

WHEN I was reading an old speech of Favonius, a man of no little eloquence, in which

... I learned the whole of it by heart, in order to be able to remember that such extravagant living is truly hateful. These words which I have added are those of Favonius:

The leaders in gluttony and luxury declare that an entertainment is not elegant, unless, when you are eating with the greatest relish, your plate is removed and a better, richer dainty comes from the reserves. This to-day is thought the very flower of a feast among those with whom extravagance and fastidiousness take the place of elegance; who say that the whole of no bird ought to be eaten except a fig-pecker; who think that a dinner is mean and stingy unless so many of the other birds and fatted fowl are provided, that the guests may be satisfied with the rumps and hinder parts; who believe that those who eat the upper parts of such birds and fowl have no refinement of taste. If luxury continues to increase in its present proportion, what remains but that men should bid someone to eat their dinners for them, in order that they may not fatigue themselves by feeding, when the couch is more profusely adorned with gold, silver and purple for a few mortals than for the immortal gods?

That the poet Caecilius used frons in the masculine gender, not by poetic license, but properly and by analogy.

CORRECTLY and elegantly did Caecilius write this in his Changeling:

The worst of foes are these, of aspect gay (fronte hilaro), Gloomy of heart, whom we can neither grasp Nor yet let go. I chanced to quote these lines in a company of well educated young men, when we were speaking of a man of that kind. Thereupon one of a throng of grammarians who stood there with us, a man of no little repute, said: What license and boldness Caecilius showed here in saying, fronte hilaro and not fronte hilara, and in not shrinking from so dreadful a solecism. Nay, said I, it is rather we who are as bold and free as possible in improperly and ignorantly failing to use frons in the masculine gender, when both the principle of regularity which is called analogy and the authority of earlier writers indicate that we ought to say, not hanc frontem, but hunc frontem. Indeed, Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins wrote as follows:

'On the following day in open combat, with straight front (aequo fronte) we fought with the enemy's legions with foot, horse and wings.' Also Cato again says recto fronte in the same book. But that half-educated grammarian said: Away with your authorities, which I think you may perhaps have, but give me a reason, which you do not have. Then I, somewhat irritated by those words of his, as was natural at my time of life: Listen, said I, my dear sir, to a reason that may be false, but which you cannot prove to be false. All words, said I, ending in the three letters in which frons ends are of the masculine gender, if they end in the same syllable in the genitive case also, as mons, fons, pons, frons.

But he replied with a laugh: Hear, young scholar, several other similar words which are not of the masculine gender. Then all begged him at once to name just one. But when the man was screwing up his face, could not open his lips, and changed colour, then I broke in, saying: Go now and take thirty days to hunt one up; when you have found it, meet us again. And thus we sent off this worthless fellow to hunt up a word with which to break down the rule which I had made.

About the strange suicides of the maids of Miletus.

PLUTARCH in the first book of his work On the Soul, discussing disorders which affect the human mind, has told us that almost all the maidens of the Milesian nation suddenly without any apparent cause conceived a desire to die, and thereupon many of them hanged themselves. When this happened more frequently every day, and no remedy had any effect on their resolve to die, the Milesians passed a decree that all those maidens who committed suicide by hanging should be carried to the grave naked, along with the same rope by which they had destroyed themselves. After that decree the maidens ceased to seek a voluntary death, deterred by the mere shame of so disgraceful a burial.

The words of a decree of the senate on expelling philosophers from the city of Rome; also the words of the edict of the censors by which those were rebuked and restrained who had begun to establish and practise the art of rhetoric at Rome.

IN the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala the following decree of the senate was passed regarding Latin speaking philosophers and rhetoricians:

(The praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed to him in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they should not remain in Rome.

Then some years after that decree of the senate Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus the censors issued the following edict for restraining the Latin rhetoricians:

It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers neither please us nor seem proper. Therefore it seems necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.

And it was not only in those times, which were somewhat rude and not yet refined by Greek training, that philosophers were driven from the city of Rome, but even in the reign of Domitian by a decree of the senate they were driven from the city and forbidden Italy. And it was at that time that the philosopher Epictetus also withdrew from Rome to Nicopolis because of that senatorial decree.

A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence.

WHEN Gaius Gracchus returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words:

I conducted myself in my province, said he, as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their general's tent. Later on he continues as follows: I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons. Then after an interval he goes on: Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.

Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians common.

UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are common verbs and can be used either way: I respect you and I am respected by you, that is, you respect me; I use you and I am used by you, that is, you use me; I exhort you and I am exhorted by you, that is, you exhort me; I console you and I am consoled by you, that is, you console me. Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are unusual in the second of these meanings, and it is a matter of inquiry whether they are ever so used. Afranius in The Cousins says:

Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap, Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be. Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning:

Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur). That is, which is not to be used. Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this:

He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle. We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius. But, he says, when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes. Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be common verbs. Sallust too in a similar way says:

The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis), indicating that largior is one of the common verbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and pigitum, is used impersonally and indefinitely, not only by the earlier writers, but also by Marcus Tullius in the second book of his De Finibus.

First (I will refute), says he, the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear

(veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.

Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as common verbs. Thus we find in Virgil:

Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale), and

Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe. Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words:

For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days. Also in those same Tables we find this:

Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.

That Metellus Numidicus borrowed a new form of expression from Greek usage.

IN Quintus Metellus Numidicus, in the third book of his Accusalion of Valerius Messala, I have made note of a novel expression. The words of his speech are as follows:

When he knew that he had incurred so grave an accusation, and that our allies had come to the senate in tears, to make complaint that they had been exacted enormous sums of money (pecunias maximas exactos esse). He says that they had been exacted enormous sums of money, instead of that enormous sums of money had been exacted from them. This seemed to me an imitation of a Greek idiom; for the Greeks say: ei)sepra/cato/ me a)rgu/rion, meaning he exacted me money. But if this can be said, so too can one is exacted money, and Caecilius seems to have used that form of expression in his Supposititious Aeschinus:

Yet I the customs-fee exacted am. That is to say, yet the customs-fee is exacted from me.

That the early writers used passis velis and passis manibus, not from the verb patior, to which the participle belongs, but from pando, to which it does not belong.

FROM the verb pando the ancients made passum, not pansum, and with the preposition ex they formed expassum, not expansum. Caecilius in the Fellowbreakfasters says:

That yesterday he'd looked in from the roof, Had this announced, and straight the veil was spread (expassum). A woman too is said to be capillo passo, or with disordered hair, when it is hanging down and loosened, and we say passis manibus and velis passis of hands and sails stretched out and spread. Therefore Plautus in his Braggart Captain, changing an a into an e, as is usual in compound words, uses dispessis for dispassis in these lines:

Methinks you thus must die without the gate, When you shall hold the cross with hands outstretched (dispessis).

Of the singular death of Milo of Croton.

MILO of Croton, a famous athlete, who was first crowned at the sixty-second Olympiad, as the chronicles record, ended his life in a strange and lamentable manner. When he was already advanced in age and had given up the athletic art, he chanced to be journeying alone in a wooded part of Italy. Near the road he saw an oak tree, the middle of which gaped with wide cracks. Then wishing, I suppose, to try whether he still had any strength left, he put his fingers into the hollows of the tree and tried to rend apart and split the oak. And in fact he did tear asunder and divide the middle part; but when the oak was thus split into two parts, and he relaxed his hold as if he had accomplished his attempt, the tree returned to its natural position when the pressure ceased, and catching and holding his hands as it came together and united, it kept the man there, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts.

Why young men of noble rank at Athens gave up playing the pipes, although it was one of their native customs.

ALCIBIADES the Athenian in his boyhood was being trained in the liberal arts and sciences at the home of his uncle, Pericles; and Pericles had ordered Antigenides, a player on the pipes, to be sent for, to teach the boy to play on that instrument, which was then considered a great accomplishment. But when the pipes were handed to him and he had put them to his lips and blown, disgusted at the ugly distortion of his face, he threw them away and broke them in two. When this matter was noised abroad, by the universal consent of the Athenians of that time the art of playing the pipes was given up. This story is told in the twenty-ninth book of the Commentary of Pamphila.

That the battle which Gaius Caesar fought on the plains of Pharsalus during the civil war was announced on the very same day at Patavium in Italy, and his victory foretold, by the divination of a seer.

ON the day that Gaius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius engaged in battle in Thessaly during the civil war, an event occurred at Patavium in Transpadane Italy, which is deserving of record. A priest called Cornelius, a man of good birth, honoured for scrupulousness in his office and revered for the purity of his life, was suddenly seized by a prophetic inspiration and said that he saw a most furious battle taking place afar off; then he shouted out, just as if he were personally taking part in the engagement, that some were giving way, others pressing on; that he saw before him carnage, flight, flying weapons, a renewal of the engagement, an attack, groans and wounds; and later he suddenly exclaimed that Caesar was victorious.

At the time the prophecy of the priest Cornelius seemed unimportant and without meaning. Afterwards, however, it caused great surprise, since not only the time of the battle which was fought in Thessaly, and its predicted outcome, were verified, but all the shifting fortunes of the day and the very conflict of the two armies were represented by the gestures and words of the seer.

Memorable words of Marcus Varro, from the satire entitled Peri)Edesma/twn.

THERE are not a few to whom that may apply which is said by Marcus Varro in his satire entitled Peri)Edesma/twn. or On Eatables. His words are these:

If you had given to philosophy a twelfth part of the effort which you spent in making your baker give you good bread, you would long since have become a good man. As it is, those who know him are willing to buy him at a hundred thousand sesterces, while no one who knows you would take you at a hundred.

Certain facts about the birth, life and character of the poet Euripides, and about the end of his life.

THEOPOMPUS says that the mother of the poet Euripides made a living by selling country produce. Furthermore, when Euripides was born, his father was assured by the astrologers that the boy, when he grew up, would be victor in the games; for that was his destiny. His father, understanding this to mean that he ought to be an athlete, exercised and strengthened his son's body and took him to Olympia to contend among the wrestlers. And at first he was not admitted to the contest because of his time of life, but afterwards he engaged in the Eleusinian and Thesean contests and won crowns. Later, turning from attention to bodily exercise to the desire of training his mind, he was a pupil of the natural philosopher Anaxagoras and the rhetorician Prodicus, and, in moral philosophy, of Socrates. At the age of eighteen he attempted to write a tragedy. Philochorus relates that there is on the island of Salamis a grim and gloomy cavern, which I myself have seen, in which Euripides wrote tragedies. He is said to have had an exceeding antipathy towards almost all women, either because he had a natural disinclination to their society, or because he had had two wives at the same time (since that was permitted by a decree passed by the Athenians) and they had made wedlock hateful to him. Aristophanes also notices his antipathy to women in the first edition of the Thesmophoriazousae in these verses:

Now then I urge and call on all our sex This man to punish for his many crimes. For on us, women, he brings bitter woes, Himself brought up 'mid bitter garden plants. But Alexander the Aetolian composed the following lines about Euripides:

The pupil of stout Anaxagoras, Of churlish speech and gloomy, ne'er has learned To jest amid the wine; but what he wrote Might honey and the Sirens well have known.

When Euripides was in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, and had become an intimate friend of the king, returning home one night from a dinner with the monarch he was torn by dogs, which were set upon him by a rival of his, and death resulted from his wounds.

The Macedonians treated his tomb and his memory with such honour that they used to proclaim: Never, Euripides, shall thy monument perish, also by way of self-glorification, because the distinguished poet had met his death and been buried in their land. Therefore when envoys, sent to them by the Athenians, begged that they should allow his bones to be moved to Athens, his native land, the Macedonians unanimously persisted in refusing.

That by the poets the sons of Jupiter are represented as most wise and refined, but those of Neptune as very haughty and rude.

THE poets have called the sons of Jupiter most excellent in worth, wisdom and strength, for example Aeacus, Minos and Sarpedon; the sons of Neptune, the Cyclops, Cercyon, Sciron, and the Laestrygonians, they said, were most haughty and cruel, and strangers to all refinement, as being sprung from the sea.

A story of the distinguished leader Sertorius; of his cunning, and of the clever devices which he used to control and conciliate his barbarian soldiers.

SERTORIUS, a brave man and a distinguished general, was skilled in using and commanding an army. In times of great difficulty he would lie to his soldiers, if a lie was advantageous, he would read forged letters for genuine ones, feign dreams, and resort to fictitious omens, if such devices helped him to keep up the spirits of his soldiers. the following story about Sertorius is particularly well known: A white hind of remarkable beauty, agility and swiftness was given him as a present by a man of Lusitania. He tried to convince everyone that the animal had been given him by the gods, and that inspired by the divine power of Diana, it talked with him, and showed and indicated what it was expedient to do; and if any command which he felt obliged to give his soldiers seemed unusually difficult, he declared that he had been advised by the hind. When he said that, all willingly rendered obedience, as if to a god. One day, when an advance of the enemy had been reported, the hind, alarmed by the hurry and confusion, took to flight and hid in a neighbouring marsh, and after being sought for in vain was believed to have perished. Not many days later, word was brought to Sertorius that the hind had been found. Then he bade the one who had brought the news to keep silence, threatening him with punishment in case he revealed the matter to anyone; and he ordered him suddenly on the following day to let the animal into the place where lie himself was with his friends. Then, next day, having called in his friends, he said that he had dreamed that the lost hind had returned to him, and after its usual manner had told him what ought to be done. Thereupoli he signed to the slave to do what he had ordered; the hind was let loose and burst into Sertorius' room, amid shouts of amazement.

This credulity of the barbarians was very helpful to Sertorius in important matters. It is recorded that of those tribes which acted with Sertorius, although he was defeated in many battles, not one ever deserted him, although that race of men is most inconstant.

Of the age of the famous historians, Hellanicus, Herodotus and Thucydides.

HELLANICUS, Herodotus, and Thucydides, writers of history, enjoyed great glory at almost the same time, and did not differ very greatly in age. For Hellanicus seems to have been sixty-five years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war,

Herodotus fifty-three, Thucydides forty. This is stated in the eleventh book of Pamphila.

Vulcacius Sedigitus' canon of the Latin writers of comedy, from the book which he wrote On Poets.

SEDIGITUS, in the book which he wrote On Poets, shows in the following verses of his what he thought of those who wrote comedies, which one he thinks surpasses all the rest, and then what rank and honour he gives to each of them: This question many doubtfully dispute, Which comic poet they'd award the palm. This doubt my judgment shall for you resolve; If any differ from me, senseless he. First place I give Caecilius Statius. Plautus holds second rank without a peer; Then Naevius third, for passion and for fire. If fourth there be, be he Licinius. I place Atilius next, after Licinius. These let Terentius follow, sixth in rank. Turpilius seventh, Trabea eighth place holds. Ninth palm I gladly give to Luscius, To Ennius tenth, as bard of long ago.

Of certain new words which I had met in the Miimiambics of Gnaeus Matius.

GNAEUS MATIUS, a learned man, in his Mimiambics properly and fitly coined the word recentatur for the idea expressed by the Greek a)nai eou=tai, that is it is born again and is again made new. The lines in which the word occurs are these:

E'en now doth Phoebus gleam, again is born (recentatur) The common light to joys of mortal men. Matius too, in the same Mimiarmbics, says edulcare, meaning to sweeten, in these lines:

And therefore it is fit to sweeten (edulcare) life, And bitter cares with wisdom to control.

In what words the philosopher Aristotle defined a syllogism; and an interpretation of his definition in Latin terms.

ARISTOTLE defines a syllogism in these lines:

A sentence in which, granted certain premises, something else than these premises necessarily follows as the result of these premises. The following interpretation of this definition seemed to me fairly good: A syllogism is a sentence in which, certain things being granted and accepted, something else than that which was granted is necessarily established through what was granted.

The meaning of comitia calata, curiata, centsriata, and tribulta, and of concilium, and other related matters of the same kind.

IN the first book of the work of Laelius Felix addressed To Quintus Mucius it is said that Labeo wrote that the comitia calata, or convoked assembly, was held on behalf of the college of pontiffs for the purpose of installing the king or the flames. Of these assemblies some were those of the curies, others those of the centuries; the former were called together (calari being used in the sense of convoke) by the curiate lictor, the latter by a horn blower.

In that same assembly, which we have said was called calata, or convoked, wills were customarily made and sacrifices annulled. For we learn that there were three kinds of wills: one which was made in the convoked assembly before the collected people, a second on the battle-field, when the men were called into line for the purpose of fighting, a third the symbolic sale of a householder's property by means of the coin and balance.

In the same book of Laelius Felix this is written: One who orders a part of the people to assemble, but not all the people, ought to announce a council rather than an assembly. Moreover, tribunes do not summon the patricians, nor may they refer any question to them. Therefore bills which are passed on the initiative of the tribunes of the commons are properly called plebiscita, or 'decrees of the commons,' rather than 'laws.' In former times the patricians were not bound by such decrees until the dictator Quintus Hortensius passed a law, providing that all the Quirites should be bound by whatever enactment the commons should pass.

It is also written in the same book: When voting is done according to families of men, the assembly is called 'curiate'; when it is according to property and age, ' centuriate'; when according to regions and localities, 'tribal.' Further it impious for the assembly of the centuries to be held within the pomerium, because the army must be summoned outside of the city, and it is not lawful for it to be summoned within the city. Therefore it was customary for the assembly of the centuries to be held in the field of Mars, and the army to be summoned there for purposes of defence while the people were busy casting their votes.

That Cornelius Nepos was in error when he wrote that Cicero defended Sextus Roscius at the age of twenty-three.

CORNELIUS NEPOS was a careful student of records and one of Marcus Cicero's most intimate friends. Yet in the first book of his Life of Cicero he seems to have erred in writing that Cicero made his first plea in a public trial at the age of twenty-three years, defending Sextus Roscius, who was charged with murder. For if we count the years from Quintus Caepio and Quintus Serranus, in whose consulship Cicero was born on the third day before the Nones of January, to Marcus Tullius and Gnaeus Dolabella, in whose consulate he pleaded a private case In Defence of Quinctius before Aquilius Gallus as judge, the result is twenty-six years. And there is no doubt that he defended Sextus Roscius on a charge of murder the year after he spoke In Defence of Quinctius; that is, at the age of twenty-seven, in the consulship of Lucius Sulla Felix and Metellus Pius, the former for a second time.

Asconius Pedianus has noted that Fenestella also made a mistake in regard to this matter, in writing that he pleaded for Sextus Roscius in the twenty-sixth year of his age. But the mistake of Nepos is greater than that of Fenestella, unless anyone is inclined to believe that Nepos, led by a feeling of friendship and regard, suppressed four years in order to increase our admiration of Cicero, by making it appear that he delivered his brilliant speech In Defence of Roscius when he was a very young man.

This also has been noted and recorded by the admirers of both orators, that Demosthenes and Cicero delivered their first brilliant speeches in the courts at the same age, the former Against Androtion and Against Timocrates at the age of twenty-seven, the latter when a year younger In Defence of Quinctius and at twenty-seven In Defence of Sextus Roscius. Also, the number of years which they lived did not differ very greatly; Cicero died at sixty-three, Demosthenes at sixty.

A new form of expression used by Lucius Piso, the writer of annals.

THE two following modes of saying my name is Julius are common and familiar: mihi nomen est Iulius and mihi nomen est Iulio. I have actually found a third, and new, form in Piso, in the second book of his Annals. His words are these:

They feared his colleague, Lucius Tarquinius, because he had the Tarquinian name; and he begged him to leave Rome of his own free will.

Because, says he, he had the Tarquinian name; this is as if I should say mihi nomen est Iulium, or I have the Julian name.

Whether the word petorritum, applied to a vehicle, is Greek or Gallic.

THOSE who approach the study of letters late in life, after they are worn out and exhausted by some other occupation, particularly if they are garrulous and of only moderate keenness, make themselves exceedingly ridiculous and silly by displaying their would-be knowledge. To this class that man surely belongs, who lately talked fine-spun nonsense about petorrita, or four-wheeled wagons. For when the question was asked, what form of vehicle the petorritum was, and from what language the word came, he falsely described a form of vehicle very unlike the real one; he also declared that the name was Greek and interpreted it as meaning flying wheels, maintaining that pelorritum was formed by the change of a single letter from pelorrotum, and that this form was actually used by Valerius Probus.

When I had got together many copies of the Commentaries of Probus, I did not find that spelling in them, and I do not believe that Probus used it anywhere else. For petorritum is not a hybrid word derived in part from the Greek, but the entire word belongs to the people across the Alps; for it is a Gallic word. It is found in the fourteenth book of Marcus Varro's Divine Antiquities, where Varro, speaking of petorritum, says that it is a Gallic term.

He also says that lancea, or lance, is not a Latin, but a Spanish word.

A message sent by the Rhodians about the celebrated picture of Ialysus to Demetrius, leader of the enemy, at the time when they were besieged by him.

THE island of Rhodes, of ancient fame, and the fairest and richest town in it were besieged and assaulted by Demetrius, a famous general of his time, who was surnamed Poliorkhth/s, or the taker of cities, from his skill and training in conducting sieges and the cleverness of the engines which he devised for the capture of towns. On that occasion he was preparing in the course of the siege to attack, pillage and burn a public building without the walls of the town, which had only a weak garrison.

In this building was that famous picture of Ialysus, the work of Protogenes, the distinguished painter; and incited by anger against them, Demetrius begrudged the Rhodians the beauty and fame of that work of art. The Rhodians sent envoys to Demetrius with this message: What on earth is your reason for wishing to set fire to that building and destroy our painting? For if you overcome all of us and take this whole town, through your victory you will gain possession also of that painting, uninjured and entire; but if you are unable to overcome us by your siege, we beg you to take thought lest it bring shame upon you, because you could not conquer the Rhodians in war, to have waged war with the dead Protogenes. Upon hearing this message from the envoys, Demetrius abandoned the siege and spared both the picture and the city.