Attic Nights (11.16-12.2)

That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called polupragmosu/nh. [*] The word means

being busy about many things,

often with the idea of

officiousness

or

meddling.

WE have frequently observed not a few names of things which we cannot express in Latin by single words, as in Greek; and even if we use very many words, those ideas cannot be expressed in Latin so aptly and so clearly as the Greeks express them by single terms. Lately, when a book of Plutarch had been brought to me, and I had read its title, which was Peri\ Polupragmosu/nhs, a man who was unacquainted with Greek letters and words asked who the author was and what the book was about. The name of the writer I gave him at once, but I hesitated when on the point of naming the subject of the work. At first indeed, since it did not seem to me that it would be a very apt interpretation if I said that it was written De Negotiositale or

On Busyness,

I began to rack my brains for something else which would render the title word for word, as the saying is. But there was absolutely nothing that I remembered to have read, or even that I could invent, that was not to a degree harsh and absurd, if I fashioned a single word out of multitudo, or

multitude,

and negotium, or

business,

in the same way that we say multiiugus (

manifold

), multicolorus (

multicoloured

) and multiformius (

multiform

). But it would be no less uncouth an expression than if you should try to translate by one word polufili/a (abundance of friends), polutropi/a (versatility), or polusarki/a (fleshiness). Therefore, after spending a brief time in silent thought, I finally answered that in my opinion the idea could not be expressed by a single word, and accordingly I was preparing to indicate the meaning of that Greek word by a phrase.

Well then,

said I,

undertaking many things and busying oneself with them all is called in Greek polupragmosu/nh, and the title shows that this is the subject of our book.

Then that illiterate fellow, misled by my unfinished, rough-and-ready language and believing that polupragmosu/nh was a virtue, said:

Doubtless this Plutarch, whoever he is, urges us to engage in business and to undertake very many enterprises with energy and dispatch, and properly enough he has written as the title of the book itself the name of this virtue about which, as you say, he is intending to speak.

Not at all,

said I;

for that is by no means a virtue which, expressed by a Greek term, serves to indicate the subject of this book; and neither does Plutarch do what you suppose, nor do I intend to say that he did. For, as a matter of fact, it is in this book that he tries to dissuade us, so far as he can, from the haphazard, promiscuous and unnecessary planning and pursuit

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of such a multitude of things. But,

said I,

I realize that this mistake of yours is due to my imperfect command of language, since even in so many words I could not express otherwise than very obscurely what in Greek is expressed with perfect elegance and clearness by a single term.

The meaning of the expression found in the old praetorian edicts:

those who have undertaken public contracts for clearing the rivers of nets.

As I chanced to be sitting in the library of Trajan's temple, [*] looking for something else, the edicts of the early praetors fell into my hands, and I thought it worth while to read and become acquainted with them. Then I found this, written in one of the earlier edicts:

If anyone of those who have taken public contracts for clearing the rivers of nets shall be brought before me, and shall be accused of not having done that which by the terms of his contract he was bound to do.

Thereupon the question arose what

clearing of nets

meant.

Then a friend of mine who was sitting with us said that he had read in the seventh book of Gavius On the Origin of Words [*] that those trees which either projected from the banks of rivers, or were found in their beds, were called retae, and that they got their name from nets, because they impeded the course of ships and, so to speak, netted them. Therefore he thought that the custom was to farm

out the rivers to be

cleaned of nets,

that is to say, cleaned out, in order that vessels meeting such branches might suffer neither delay nor danger.

The punishment which Draco the Athenian, in the laws which he made for his fellow-citizens, inflicted upon thieves; that of Solon later; and that of our own decemvirs, who compiled the Twelve Tables; to which it is added, that among the Egyptians thefts were permitted and lawful, while among the Lacedaemonians they were even strongly encouraged and commended as a useful exercise; also a memorable utterance of Marcus Cato about the punishment of theft.

DRACO the Athenian was considered a good man and of great wisdom, and he was skilled in law, human and divine. This Draco was the first of all to make laws for the use of the Athenians. In those laws he decreed and enacted that one guilty of any theft whatsoever should be punished with death, and added many other statutes that were excessively severe.

Therefore his laws, since they seemed very much too harsh, were abolished, not by order and decree, but by the tacit, unwritten consent of the Athenians. After that, they made use of other, milder laws, compiled by Solon. This Solon was one of the famous seven wise men. [*] He thought proper by his law to punish thieves, not with death, as Draco had formerly done, but by a fine of twice the value of the stolen goods.

But our decemvirs, who after the expulsion of the kings compiled laws on Twelve Tables for the use of the Romans, did not show equal severity in

punishing thieves of every kind, nor yet too lax leniency. For they permitted [*] a thief who was caught in the act to be put to death, only if it was night when he committed the theft, or if in the daytime he defended himself with a weapon when taken. But other thieves taken in the act, if they were freemen, the decemvirs ordered to be scourged and handed over [*] to the one from whom the theft had been made, provided they had committed the theft in daylight and had not defended themselves with a weapon. Slaves taken in the act were to be scourged and hurled from the rock, [*] but they decided that boys under age should be flogged at the discretion of the praetor and the damage which they had done made good. Those thefts also which were detected by the girdle and mask, [*] they punished as if the culprit had been caught in the act.

But to-day we have departed from that law of the decemvirs; for if anyone wishes to try a case of manifest theft by process of law, action is brought for four times the value. But

manifest theft,

says Masurius, [*]

is one which is detected while it is being committed. The act is completed when the stolen object is carried to its destination.

When stolen goods are found in possession of the thief (concepti) or in that of another (oblati), the penalty is threefold.

But one who wishes to learn what oblatum means, and conceptum, and many other particulars of the same kind taken from the admirable customs of our forefathers, and both useful and agreeable to know, will consult the book of Sabinus entitled On Thefts. In this book there is also written [*] a thing that is not

commonly known, that thefts are committed, not only of men and movable objects which can be purloined and carried off secretly, but also of an estate and of houses; also that a farmer was found guilty of theft, because he had sold the farm which he had rented and deprived the owner of its possession. And Sabinus tells this also, which is still more surprising, that one person was convicted of having stolen a man, who, when a runaway slave chanced to pass within sight of his master, held out his gown as if he were putting it on, and so prevented the slave from being seen by his master.

Then upon all other thefts, which were called

not manifest,

they imposed a two-fold penalty. [*] I recall also that I read in the work of the jurist Aristo, [*] a man of no slight learning, that among the ancient Egyptians, a race of men known to have been ingenious in inventions and keen in getting at the bottom of things, thefts of all kinds were lawful and went unpunished.

Among the Lacedaemonians too, those serious and vigorous men (a matter for which the evidence is not so remote as in the case of the Egyptians) many famous writers, who have composed records of their laws and customs, affirm that thieving was lawful and customary, and that it was practised by their young men, not for base gain or to furnish the means for indulgence or amassing wealth, but as an exercise and training in the art of war; for dexterity and practice in thieving made the minds of the youth keen and strong for clever ambuscades, and for endurance in watching, and for the swiftness of surprise.

Marcus Cato, however, in the speech which he

wrote On Dividing Spoils among the Soldiers, complains in strong and choice language about unpunished thievery and lawlessness. I have quoted his words, since they pleased me greatly: [*]

Those who commit private theft pass their lives in confinement and fetters; plunderers of the public, in purple and gold.

But I think I ought not to pass over the highly ethical and strict definition of theft made by the wisest men, lest anyone should consider him only a thief who privately purloins anything or secretly carries it off. The words are those of Sabinus in his second book On Civil Law: [*]

He is guilty of theft who has touched anything belonging to another, when he has reason to know that he does so against the owner's will.

Also in another chapter: [*]

He who silently carries off another's property for the sake of gain is guilty of theft, whether he knows to whom the object belongs or not.

Thus has Sabinus written, in the book which I just now mentioned, about handling things for the purpose of stealing them. But we ought to remember, according to what I have written above, that a theft may be committed even without touching anything, when the mind alone and the thoughts desire that a theft be committed. Therefore Sabinus says [*] that he has no doubt that a master should be convicted of theft who has ordered a slave of his to steal something.

A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus, in which he urged a lady of rank to feed with her own milk, and not with that of other nurses, the children whom she had borne.

WORD was once brought in my presence to the philosopher Favorinus that the wife of an auditor and disciple of his had been brought to bed a short time before, and that his pupil's family had been increased by the birth of a son.

Let us go,

said he,

both to see the child and to congratulate the father.

[*]

The father was of senatorial rank and of a family of high nobility. We who were present at the time went with Favorinus, attended him to the house to which he was bound, and entered it with him. Then the philosopher, having embraced and congratulated the father immediately upon entering, sat down. And when he had asked how long the labour had been and how difficult, and had learned that the young woman, overcome with fatigue and wakefulness, was sleeping, he began to talk at greater length and said:

I have no doubt she will suckle her son herself!

But when the young woman's mother said to him that she must spare her daughter and provide nurses for the child, in order that to the pains which she had suffered in childbirth there might not be added the wearisome and difficult task of nursing, he said:

I beg you, madam, let her be wholly and

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entirely the mother of her own child. For what kind of unnatural, imperfect and half-motherhood is it to bear a child and at once send it away from her? to have nourished in her womb with her own blood something which she could not see, and not to feed with her own milk what she sees, now alive, now human, now calling for a mother's care? Or do you too perhaps think,

said he, "that nature gave women nipples as a kind of beauty-spot, not for the purpose of nourishing their children, but as an adornment of their breast? For it is for that reason though such a thing is of course far from your thoughts) that many of those unnatural women try to dry up and check that sacred fount of the body, the nourisher of mankind, regardless of the danger of diverting and spoiling the milk, because they think it disfigures the charms of their beauty. In so doing they show the same madness as those who strive by evil devices to cause abortion of the fetus itself which they have conceived, in order that their beauty may not be spoiled by the weight of the burden they bear and by the labour of parturition. But since it is an act worthy of public detestation and general abhorrence to destroy a human being in its inception, while it is being fashioned and given life and is still in the hands of Dame Nature, how far does it differ from this to deprive a child, already perfect, already brought into the world, already a son, of the nourishment of its own familiar and kindred blood?"

"'But it makes no difference,' for so they say, 'provided it be nourished and live, by whose milk that is effected.' Why then does not he who affirms this, if he is so dull in comprehending natural

feeling, think that it also makes no difference in whose body and from whose blood a human being is formed and fashioned? Is the blood which is now in the breasts not the same that it was in the womb, merely because it has become white from abundant air and warmth? Is not the wisdom of nature evident also in this, that as soon as the blood, the artificer, has fashioned the whole human body within its secret precincts, when the time for birth comes, it rises into the upper parts, is ready to cherish the first beginnings of life and of light, and supplies the newborn children with the familiar and accustomed food? Therefore it is believed not without reason that, just as the power and nature of the seed are able to form likenesses of body and mind, so the qualities and properties of the milk have the same effect. And this is observed not only in human beings, but in beasts also; for if kids are fed on the milk of ewes, or lambs on that of goats, it is a fact that as a rule the wool is harsher in the former and the hair softer in the latter. In trees too and grain the power and strength of the water and earth which nourish them have more effect in retarding or promoting their growth than have those of the seed itself which is sown; and you often see a strong and flourishing tree, when transplanted to another spot, die from the effect of an inferior soil. What the mischief, then, is the reason for corrupting the nobility of body and mind of a newly born human being, formed from gifted seeds, by the alien and degenerate nourishment of another's milk? Especially if she whom you employ to furnish the milk is either a slave or of servile origin and, as usually happens, of a foreign and barbarous nation, if she is dishonest, ugly, unchaste and a wine-bibber; for as a rule anyone who has milk at the time is employed and no distinction made."

"Shall we then allow this child of ours to be infected with some dangerous contagion and to draw a spirit into its mind and body from a body and mind of the worst character? This, by Heaven! is the very reason for what often excites our surprise, that some children of chaste women turn out to be like their parents neither in body nor in mind. Wisely then and skilfully did our Maro make use of these lines of Homer: [*]

The horseman Peleus never was thy sire,

Nor Thetis gave thee birth; but the gray sea

Begat thee, and the hard and flinty rocks;

So savage is thy mind.

For he bases his charge, not upon birth alone, as did his model, but on fierce and savage nurture, for his next verse reads:

And fierce Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck. [*]

And there is no doubt that in forming character the disposition of the nurse and the quality of the milk play a great part; for the milk, although imbued from the beginning with the material of the father's seed, forms the infant offspring from the body and mind of the mother as well.

And in addition to all this, who can neglect or despise this consideration also, that those who desert their offspring, drive them from them, and give them to others to nurse, do sever, or at any rate loosen and relax, that bond and cementing of the mind and of affection with which nature attaches

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parents to their children? For when the child is given to another and removed from its mother's sight, the strength of maternal ardour is gradually and little by little extinguished, every call of impatient anxiety is silenced, and a child which has been given over to another to nurse is almost as completely forgotten as if it had been lost by death. Moreover, the child's own feelings of affection, fondness, and intimacy are centred wholly in the one by whom it is nursed, and therefore, just as happens in the case of those who are exposed at birth, it has no feeling for the mother who bore it and no regret for her loss. Therefore, when the foundations of natural affection have been destroyed and removed, however much children thus reared may seem to love their father and mother, that affection is in a great measure not natural but merely courteous and conventional.

"

I heard Favorinus make this address in the Greek language. I have reproduced his sentiments, so far as I was able, for the sake of their general utility, but the elegance, copiousness and richness of his words hardly any power of Latin eloquence could equal, least of all my humble attainments.

That the judgment passed by Annaeus Seneca on Quintus Ennius and Marcus Cicero was trifling and futile.

SOME think of Annaeus Seneca as a writer of little value, whose works are not worth taking up, since his style seems commonplace and ordinary, while the matter and the thought are characterized, now by a foolish and empty vehemence, now by an empty and affected cleverness; and because his learning is common and plebeian, gaining neither charm nor distinction from familiarity with the earlier writers. [*] Others, on the contrary, while not denying that his diction lacks elegance, declare that he is not without learning and a knowledge of the subjects which he treats, and that he censures the vices of the times with a seriousness and dignity which are not wanting in charm. I myself do not feel called upon to criticize and pass judgment upon his talents in general, or upon his writings as a whole; but I shall select for consideration the nature of the opinions which he has expressed about Marcus Cicero, Quintus Ennius and Publius Vergilius.

For in the twenty-second book of his Moral Epistles, which he addressed to Lucilius, he says [*] that the following verses which Quintus Ennius wrote [*] about Cethegus, a man of the olden time, are absurd:

He by his fellow citizens was called,

By every man who lived and flourished then,

The people's chosen flower, Persuasion's marrow.

He then wrote the following about these lines:

I am surprised that men of great eloquence, devoted to Ennius, have praised those absurd verses as his best. Cicero, at any rate, includes them among examples of his good verses.

[*] He then goes on to say of Cicero:

I am not surprised that there existed a man who could write such verses, when there existed a man who could praise them; unless haply Cicero, that great orator, was pleading his own cause

v2.p.365

and wished his own verse to appear excellent.

Later he adds this very stupid remark:

In Cicero himself too you will find, even in his prose writings, some things which will show that he did not lose his labour when he read Ennius.

Then he cites passages from Cicero which he criticizes as taken from Ennius; for example, when Cicero wrote as follows in his Republic: [*]

As Menelaus, the Laconian, had a kind of sweet-speaking charm,

and said in another place:

he cultivates brevity of speech in his oratory.

And then that trifler apologizes for what he considers Cicero's errors, saying:

This was not the fault of Cicero, but of the times; it was necessary to say such things when such verses were read.

Then he adds that Cicero inserted these very things in order to escape the charge of being too diffuse and ornamental in his style.

In the same place Seneca writes the following about Virgil also:

Our Virgil too admitted some verses which are harsh, irregular and somewhat beyond the proper length, with no other motive than that those who were devoted to Ennius might find a flavour of antiquity in the new poem.

But I am already weary of quoting Seneca; yet I shall not pass by these jokes of that foolish and tasteless man:

There are some thoughts in Quintus Ennius,

says he,

that are of such lofty tone that though written among the unwashed, [*] they nevertheless can give pleasure among the anointed

; and, after censuring the verses about Cethegus which I have quoted above, he said:

It would be clear to you that those who love verses of this kind admire even the couches of Sotericus.

[*]

Worthy indeed would Seneca appear [*] of the reading and study of the young, a man who has compared the dignity and beauty of early Latin with the couches of Sotericus, implying forsooth that they possessed no charm and were already obsolete and despised! Yet listen to the relation and mention of a few things which that same Seneca has well said, for example what he said of a man who was avaricious, covetous and thirsting for money:

Why, what difference does it make how much you have? There is much more which you do not have.

Is not that well put? Excellently well; but the character of the young is not so much benefited by what is well said, as it is injured by what is very badly put; all the more so, if the bad predominates, and if a part of the bad is uttered, not as an argument about some slight and trivial affair, but as advice in a matter requiring decision.