Attic Nights (12.3-12.7)

The meaning and origin of the word lictor and the varying opinions of Valgius Rufus and Tullius Tiro on that subject.

VALGIUS RUFUS, in the second of the books which he entitled On Matters Investigated by Letter, says [*] that the lictor was so called from ligando or

binding,

because when the magistrates of the Roman people had given orders that anyone should be beaten with rods, his legs and arms were always fastened and bound by an attendant, and therefore that the member of the college of attendants who had the duty of binding him was called a lictor. And he quotes as evidence on this subject Marcus Tullius, citing these words from the speech entitled In Defence of Gaius Rabirius: [*]

Lictor, bind his hands.

This is what Valgius says.

Now, I for my part agree with him; but Tullius Tiro, the freedman of Marcus Cicero, wrote [*] that the lictor got his name from limus or licium.

For,

says he,

those men who were in attendance upon the magistrates were girt across with a kind of girdle called limus.

But if there is anyone who thinks that what Tiro said is more probable, because the first syllable [*] in lictor is long like that of licium, but in the word ligo is short, that has nothing to do with the case. For in lictor from ligando, lector from legendo, vitor from viendo, tutor from tuendo, and structor from struendo, the vowels, which were originally short, are lengthened.

Lines taken from the seventh book of the Annals of Ennius, in which the courteous bearing of an inferior towards a friend of higher rank is described and defined.

QUINTUS ENNIUS in the seventh book of his Annals describes and defines very vividly and skilfully in his sketch of Geminus Servilius, a man of rank, the tact, courtesy, modesty, fidelity, restraint and propriety in speech, knowledge of ancient history and of customs old and new, scrupulousness in keeping and guarding a secret; in short, the various remedies and methods of relief and solace for guarding against the annoyances of life, which the friend of a man who is his superior in rank and fortune ought to have. Those verses in my opinion are no less worthy of frequent, attentive perusal than the rules of the philosophers about duties. Besides this, there is such a venerable flavour of antiquity in these verses, such a sweetness, so unmixed and so removed from all affectation, that in my opinion they ought to be observed, remembered and cherished as old and sacred laws of friendship. Therefore I thought them worthy of quotation, in case there should be anyone who desired to see them at once; [*]

So saying, on a friend he called, with whom

He oft times gladly shared both board and speech

And courteously informed of his affairs,

On coming wearied from the sacred House

Or Forum broad, where he all day had toiled,

Directing great affairs with wisdom; one with whom

He freely spoke of matters great and small,

Confiding to him thoughts approved or not,

If he so wished, and found him trustworthy;

With whom he took much pleasure openly

Or privily; a man to whom no thought

Suggested heedlessness or ill intent,

A cultured, loyal and a winsome man,

Contented, happy, learned, eloquent,

Speaking but little and that fittingly,

Obliging, knowing well all ancient lore,

All customs old and new, the laws of man

And of the gods, who with due prudence told

What he had heard, or kept it to himself:

Him 'mid the strife Servilius thus accosts.

They say that Lucius Aelius Stilo used to declare [*] that Quintus Ennius wrote these words about none other than himself, and that this was a description of Quintus Ennius' own character and disposition.

A discourse of the philosopher Taurus on the manner and method of enduring pain, according to the principles of the Stoics.

WHEN the philosopher Taurus was on his way to Delphi, to see the Pythian games and the throng that gathered there from almost all Greece, I was his companion. And when, in the course of the journey, we had come to Lebadia, which is an ancient town in the land of Boeotia, word was brought to Taurus there that a friend of his, an eminent philosopher of the Stoic sect, had been seized with illness and had taken to his bed. Then interrupting our journey, which otherwise would have called for haste, and leaving the carriages, he hastened to visit his friend, and I followed, as I usually did wherever he went. When we came to the house in which the sick man was, we saw that he was suffering anguish from pains in the stomach, such as the Greeks call ko/los, or

colic,

and at the same time from a high fever. The stifled groans that burst from him, and the heavy sighs that escaped his panting breast, revealed his suffering, and no less his struggle to overcome it.

Later, when Taurus had sent for physicians and discussed with them the means of cure, and had encouraged the patient to keep up his endurance by commending the fortitude which he was showing,

we left the house. And as we were returning to the carriages, and our companions, Taurus said:

You were witness of no very pleasant sight, it is true, but one which was, nevertheless, a profitable experience, in beholding the encounter and contest of a philosopher with pain. The violent character of the disorder, for its part, produced anguish and torture of body; reason and the spiritual nature, on the other hand, similarly played their part, supporting and restraining within bounds the violence of well-nigh ungovernable pain. He uttered no shrieks, no complaints, not even any unseemly outcries; yet, as you saw, there were obvious signs of a battle between soul and body for the man's possession.

Then one of the disciples of Taurus, a young man not untrained in philosophy, said:

If the bitterness of pain is such that it struggles against the will and judgment, forcing a man to groan involuntarily and confess the evil of his violent disorder, why is it said among the Stoics that pain is a thing indifferent and not an evil? Furthermore, why can a Stoic be compelled to do anything, or how can pain compel him, when the Stoics say that pain exerts no compulsion, and that a wise man cannot be forced to anything?

[*]

To this Taurus, with a face that was now somewhat more cheerful, for he seemed pleased at being lured into a discussion, replied as follows:

If this friend of ours were now in better health, he would have defended such unavoidable groans against reproach and, I dare say, would have answered your question; but you know that I am no great friend of the Stoics, or rather, of the Stoa; for it is often

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inconsistent with itself and with us, as is shown in the book which I have written on that subject. But to oblige you, I will say 'unlearnedly and clearly,' as the adage has it, what I imagine that any Stoic now present would have said more intricately and cleverly. For you know, I suppose, that old and familiar proverb: [*]

Less eruditely speak and clearer, please.

And with that preamble he discoursed as follows about the pain and groans of the ailing Stoic: [*]

Nature,

said he, "who produced us, implanted in us and incorporated in the very elements from which we sprang a love and affection for ourselves, to such a degree that nothing whatever is dearer or of more importance to us than ourselves. And this, she thought, would be the underlying principle for assuring the perpetuation of the human race, if each one of us, as soon as he saw the light, should have a knowledge and understanding first of all of those things which the philosophers of old have called ta\ prwta kata\ fu/sin, or 'the first principles of nature'; that is, that he might delight in all that was agreeable to his body and shrink from everything disagreeable. Later, with increasing years, reason developed from its first elements, and reflection in taking counsel, and the consideration of honour and true expediency, and a wiser and more careful choice of advantages as opposed to disadvantages; and in this way the dignity of virtue and honour became so preeminent and so superior, that any disadvantage from without which prevented our holding and retaining this quality was despised. Nothing was considered truly and wholly good unless it was honourable, and nothing evil unless it is dishonourable. All other things which lay between, and were neither honourable nor dishonourable, were decided to be neither good nor evil. [*] But productions and relationes, which the philosophers call prohgme/na, or 'things desirable,' and a)poprohgme/na, or 'things undesirable,' are distinguished and set apart each by their own qualities. Therefore pleasure also and pain, so far as the end of living well and happily is concerned, are regarded as indifferent and classed neither with good nor with evil. But since the newly-born child is endowed with these first sensations of pain and pleasure before the appearance of judgment and reason, and is attracted to pleasure by nature, but averted and alienated from pain, as if from some bitter enemy—therefore reason, which is given to him later, is hardly able to uproot and destroy those inclinations which were originally and deeply implanted in him. Yet he constantly struggles with them, checks and tramples them under foot when they are excessive, and compels them to obey and submit to him. Hence you saw the philosopher, relying upon the efficacy of his system, wrestling with the insolent violence of disease and pain, yielding nothing, admitting nothing; not, as sufferers commonly do, shrieking, lamenting and calling himself wretched and unhappy, but giving vent only to panting breathing and deep sighs, which are signs and indications, not that he is overcome or subdued by pain, but that he is struggling to overcome and subdue it.

But very likely,

said he,

because of the mere fact that he struggles and groans, someone may ask, if pain is not an evil, why it is necessary to groan and struggle? It is because all things which are not

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evil are not also wholly lacking in annoyance, but there are very many things which, though free from any great harm or baneful effect, as not being base, [*] are none the less opposed to the gentleness and mercy of nature through a certain inexplicable and inevitable law of nature herself. These, then, a wise man can endure and put up with, but he cannot exclude them altogether from his consciousness; for a)nalghsi/a, or 'insensibility,' and a)pa/qeia, or 'lack of feeling,' not only in my judgment,

said he, "but also in that of some of the wise men of that same school (such as Panaetius, [*] a serious and learned man) are disapproved and rejected."

"But why is a Stoic philosopher, upon whom they say no compulsion can be exerted, compelled to utter groans against his will? It is true that no compulsion can be exerted upon a wise man when he has the opportunity of using his reason; but when nature compels, then reason also, the gift of nature, is compelled. Inquire also, if you please, why a man involuntarily winks when someone's hand is suddenly directed against his eyes, why when the sky is lit up by a flash of lightning he involuntarily drops his head and closes his eyes, why as the thunder grows louder he gradually becomes terrified, why he is shaken by sneezing, why he sweats in the heat of the sun or grows cold amid severe frosts. For these and many other things are not under the control of the will, the judgment, or the reason, but are decrees of nature and of necessity.

Moreover, that is not fortitude which, like a giant, struggles against nature and goes beyond her bounds, either through insensibility of spirit, or

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savage pride, or some unhappy and compulsory practice in bearing pain—such as we heard of in a certain savage gladiator of Caesar's school, who used to laugh when his wounds were probed by the doctors—but that is true and noble fortitude which our forefathers called a knowledge of what is endurable and unendurable. From this it is evident that there are some insupportable trials, from the undergoing or endurance of which brave men may shrink.

When Taurus had said this and seemed to intend to say even more, we reached our carriages and entered them.

On the Enigma.

THE kind of composition which the Greeks call

enigmas,

some of our early writers called scirpi, or

rushes.

[*] An example is the enigma composed of three iambic trimeters which I recently found— very old, by Jove! and very neat. I have left it unanswered, in order to excite the ingenuity of my readers in seeking for an answer. The three verses are these:

I know not if he's minus once or twice,

Or both of these, who would not give his place,

As I once heard it said, to Jove himself.

He who does not wish to puzzle himself too long will find the answer [*] in the second book of Varro's Latin Language, addressed to Marcellus. [*]

Why Gnaeus Dolabella, the proconsul, referred to the court of the Areopagus the case of a woman charged with poisoning and admitting the fact.

WHEN Gnaeus Dolabella was governing the province of Asia with proconsular authority, a woman of Smyrna was brought before him. This woman had killed her husband and her son at the same time by secretly giving them poison. She confessed the crime, and said that she had reason for it, since her husband and son had treacherously done to death another son of hers by a former husband, an excellent and blameless youth; and there was no dispute about the truth of this statement. Dolabella referred the matter to his council. No member of the council ventured to render a decision in so difficult a case, since the confession of the poisoning which had resulted in the death of the husband and son seemed to call for punishment, while at the same time a just penalty had thereby been inflicted upon two wicked men. Dolabella referred the question to the Areopagites [*] at Athens, as judges of greater authority and experience. The Areopagites, after having heard the case, summoned the woman and her accuser to appear after a hundred years. Thus the woman's crime was not condoned, for the laws did not permit that, nor, though guilty, was she condemned and punished for a pardonable offence. The story is told in the ninth book of Valerius Maximus' work on Memorable Occurrences and Sayings. [*]