The Roman Questions (102-105)

Why do they name boys when they are nine days old, but girls when they are eight days old?

Does the precedence of the girls have Nature as its cause? It is a fact that the female grows up, and attains maturity and perfection before the male. As for the days, they take those that follow the seventh: for the seventh is dangerous for newly-born children in various ways and in the matter of the umbilical cord: for in most cases this comes away on the seventh day: but until it comes off, the child is more like a plant than an animal.[*]

Or did they, like the adherents of Pythagoras, regard the even number as female and the odd number as male?[*] For the odd number is generative, and, when it is added to the even number, it prevails over it. And also, when they are divided into units, the even number, like the female, yields a vacant space between, while of the odd number an integral part always remains. Wherefore they think that the odd is suitable for the male, and the even for the female.

Or is it that of all numbers nine[*] is the first square from the odd and perfect triad, while eight is the first cube from the even dyad? Now a man should be four-square,[*] eminent, and perfect; but a woman, like a cube, should be stable, domestic, and difficult to remove from her place. And this should be added,

Why do they call children of unknown fathers spurii?[*]

Now the reason is not, as the Greeks believe and lawyers in court are wont to assert, that these children are begotten of some promiscuous and common seed: but Spurius is a first name like Sextus and Decimus and Gaius. They do not write first names in full, but by one letter, as Titus (T.) and Lucius (L.) and Marcus (M.): or by two, as Tiberius (Ti.) and Gnaeus (Cn.): or by three, as Sextus (Sex.) and Servius (Ser.). Spurius, then, is one of those written by two letters: Sp. And by these two letters they also denote children of unknown fathers, sine patre,[*] that is without a father: by the s they indicate sine and by the p patre. This, then, caused the error, the writing of the same abbreviation for sine patre and for Spurius.

I must state the other explanation also, but it is somewhat absurd: They assert that the Sabines use the word spurius for the pudenda muliebria, and it later came about that they called the child born of an unmarried, unespoused woman by this name, as if in mockery.

Why do they call Bacchus Liber Pater (Free Father)?[*]

Is it because he is the father of freedom to drinkers? For most people become bold and are abounding in frank speech when they are in their cups.[*] Or is it because he has provided the means for libations?

Or is it derived, as Alexander[*] asserts, from Dionysus Eleuthereus,[*] so named from Eleutherae in Boeotia?

For what reason is it not the custom for maidens to marry on public holidays, but widows do marry at this time?[*]

Is it, as Varro has remarked, that maidens are grieved over marrying, but older women are glad, and on a holiday one should do nothing in grief or by constraint?

Or is it rather because it is seemly that not a few should be present when maidens marry, but disgraceful that many should be present when widows marry? Now the first marriage is enviable: but the second is to be deprecated, for women are ashamed if they take a second husband while the first husband is still living, and they feel sad if they do so when he is dead. Wherefore they rejoice in a quiet wedding rather than in noise and processions. Holidays distract most people, so that they have no leisure for such matters.

Or, because they seized the maiden daughters of the Sabines at a holiday festival, and thereby became involved in war, did they come to regard it as ill-omened to marry maidens on holy days?