But no! not yet. First about that ‘ nefandous.’ 
Tell me, in the name of Aphrodite Pandemus and
the Genetyllides Genetyllis was originally a goddess of childbirth. Hesychius says that she resembled Hecate, received sacrifices of dogs, and was of foreign origin. But in Attica, where she was worshipped in the temple of another similar divinity, Colias, the identities of the two were apparently so thoroughly merged that they could both be called either Genetyllides or Coliades, and both were more or less blended with Aphrodite. and Cybebe, in what respect did
you think the word nefandous objectionable and fit to
be laughed at? Oh, because it did not belong to the
Greeks, but had somehow thrust its way in among
them from their intercourse with Celts or Thracians
or Scyths; wherefore you—for you know everything
that pertains to the Athenians—excluded it at once
and banished it from the Greek world, and your
laughter was because I committed a barbarism and
used a foreign idiom and went beyond the Attic
bounds ! 
“Come now, what else is as well established on
Athenian soil as that word?” people would say who
are better informed than you about such matters.
It would be easier for you to prove Erechtheus and
Cecrops foreigners and invaders of Attica, than to
show that ‘ nefandous ’ is not at home and indigenous
in Attica. There are many things which they designate in the same way as everybody else, but they,
and they alone, designate as nefandous a day which
is vile, abominable, inauspicious, useless, and like
you.
 
There now! I have already taught you in
passing what they mean by nefandous!



 
 
When official business is not transacted, introduction of lawsuits is not permissible, sacrifice of victims
is not performed, and, in general, nothing is done
that requires good omens, that day is nefandous.
 
The custom was introduced among different peoples
in different ways; either they were defeated in great
battles and subsequently established that those days
on which they had undergone such misfortunes
should be useless and invalid for their customary transactions, or, indeed—but it is inopportune, perhaps,
and by now unseasonable to try to alter an old
man’s education and reinstruct him in such matters
when he does not know even what precedes them. That is, he lacks even the rudiments of an education. 
It can hardly be that this is all that remains, and that
if you learn it, we shall have you fully informed!
Nonsense, man! Not to know those other expressions
which are off the beaten path and obscure to ordinary
folk is pardonable ; but even if you wished, you could
not say nefandous in any other way, for that is everyone’s sole and only word for it.
 
“Well and good,” someone will say, “but even in
the case of time-honoured words, only some of them
are to be employed, and not others, which are
unfamiliar to the public, that we may not disturb the
wits and wound the ears of our hearers.” My dear
sir, perhaps as far as you are concerned I was wrong
to say that to you about yourself; yes, yes, I should
have followed the folk-ways of the Paphlagonians or
the Cappadocians or the Bactrians in conversing with
you, that you might fully understand what was being
said and it might be pleasing to your ears. But
Greeks, I take it, should be addressed in the Greek
tongue. Moreover, although even the Athenians in


 

course of time have made many changes in their
speech, this word especially has continued to be used
in this way always and by all of them.
 
I should have named those who have employed
the word before our time, were I not certain to
disturb you in this way also, by reciting names of
poets and rhetoricians and historians that would be
foreign to you, and beyond your ken. No, I shall not
name those who have used it, for they are known to
all; but do you point me out one of the ancients who
has not employed the word and your statue shall be
set up, as the saying goes, in gold at Olympia.
Indeed, any old man, full of years, who is unacquainted
with such expressions is not, I think, even aware
that the city of Athens is in Attica, Corinth at the
Isthmus, and Sparta in the Peloponnese.