Attic Nights (13.3-13.7)

Whether the words necessitudo and necessitas differ from each other in meaning.

IT is a circumstance decidedly calling for laughter and ridicule, when many grammarians assert that necessitudo and necessitas are unlike and different, in that necessitas is an urgent and compelling force, but necessitudo is a certain right and binding claim of consecrated intimacy, and that this is its only meaning. But just as it makes no difference at all whether you say suavitudo or suavitas (sweetness), acerbitudo or acerbitas (bitterness), acritudo or acritas (sharpness), as Accius wrote in his Neoptolemus, [*] in the same way no reason can be assigned for separating necessitudo and necessitas. Accordingly, in the books of the early writers you may often find necessitudo used of that which is necessary; but necessitas certainly is seldom applied to the law and duty of respect and relationship, in spite of the fact that those who are united by that very law and duty of relationship and intimacy are called necessarii (kinsfolk). However, in a speech of Gaius Caesar, [*] In Support of the Plautian Law, I found necessitas used for necessitudo, that is for the bond of relationship. His words are as follows: [*]

To me indeed it seems that, as our kinship (necessitas) demanded, I have failed neither in labour, in pains, nor in industry.

I have written this with regard to the lack of

distinction between these two words as the result of reading the fourth book of the History of Sempronius Asellio, an early writer, in which he wrote as follows about Publius Africanus, the son of Paulus: [*]

For he had heard his father, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, say that a really able general never engaged in a pitched battle, unless the utmost necessity (necessitudo) demanded, or the most favourable opportunity offered.

Copy of a letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias; and Olympias' witty reply.

IN many of the records of Alexander's deeds, and not long ago in the book of Marcus Varro entitled Orestes or On Madness, I have read [*] that Olympias, the wife of Philip, wrote a very witty reply to her son Alexander. For he had addressed his mother as follows:

King Alexander, son of Jupiter Hammon, greets his mother Olympias.

Olympias replied to this effect:

Pray, my son,

said she,

be silent, and do not slander me or accuse me before Juno; undoubtedly she will take cruel vengeance on me, if you admit in your letters that I am her husband's paramour.

This courteous reply of a wise and prudent woman to her arrogant son seemed to warn him in a mild and polite fashion to give up the foolish idea which lie had formed from his great victories, from the flattery of his courtiers, and from his incredible success—that he was the son of Jupiter.

On the philosophers Aristotle, Theophrastus and Eudemus; and of the graceful tact of Aristotle in selecting a successor as head of his school.

THE philosopher Aristotle, being already nearly sixty-two years of age, was sickly and weak of body and had slender hope of life. Then the whole band of his disciples came to him, begging and entreating that he should himself choose a successor to his position and his office, to whom, as to himself, they might apply after his last day, to complete and perfect their knowledge of the studies into which he had initiated them. There were at the time in his school many good men, but two were conspicuous, Theophrastus and Eudemus, who excelled the rest in talent and learning. The former was from the island of Lesbos, but Eudemus from Rhodes. Aristotle replied that he would do what they asked, so soon as the opportunity came.

A little later, in the presence of the same men who had asked him to appoint a master, he said that the wine he was then drinking did not suit his health, but was unwholesome and harsh; that therefore they ought to look for a foreign wine, something either from Rhodes or from Lesbos. He asked them to procure both kinds for him, and said that he would use the one which he liked the better. They went, sought, found, brought. Then Aristotle asked for the Rhodian and tasting it said:

This is truly a sound and pleasant wine.

Then he called for the Lesbian. Tasting that also, he remarked:

Both are very good indeed, but the Lesbian is the sweeter.

When he said this, no one doubted that gracefully, and at the same time tactfully, he had by those words chosen his successor, not his wine. This was Theophrastus, from Lesbos, a man equally noted for the fineness of his eloquence and of his life. And when, not long after this, Aristotle died, [*] they accordingly all became followers of Theophrastus.

The term which the early Latins used for the Greek word proswdi/ai; also that the term barbarismus was used neither by the early Romans nor by the people of Attica.

WHAT the Greeks call proswdi/ai, or

tones,

[*] our early scholars called now notae vocum, or

marks of tone,

now moderamenta, or

guides,

now accenticulae, or

accents,

and now voculationes, or

intonations.

But the fault which we designate when we say now that anyone speaks barbare, or

outlandishly,

they did not call

outlandish

but

rustic,

and they said that those speaking with that fault spoke

in a countrified manner

(rustice). Publius Nigidius, in his Grammatical Notes [*] says:

Speech becomes rustic, if you misplace the aspirates.

[*] Whether therefore those who before the time of the deified Augustus expressed themselves purely and properly used the word barbarismus (outlandishness), which is now common, I for my part have not yet been able to discover.

That Homer in his poems and Herodotus in his Histories spoke differently of the nature of the lion.

HERODOTUS, in the third book of his Histories, has left the statement that lionesses give birth but once during their whole life, and at that one birth that they never produce more than one cub. His words in that book are as follows: [*]

But the lioness, although a strong and most courageous animal, gives birth once only in her lifetime to one cub; for in giving birth she discharges her womb with the whelp.

Homer, however, says that lions (for so he calls the females also, using the masculine or

common

(epicene) gender, as the grammarians call it) produce and rear many whelps. The verses in which he plainly says this are these: [*]

He stood, like to a lion before its young,

Beset by hunters in a gloomy wood

And leading them away.

In another passage also he indicates the same thing: [*]

With many a groan, like lion of strong beard,

From which a hunter stole away its young

Amid dense woods.

Since this disagreement and difference between the most famous of poets and the most eminent of historians troubled me, I thought best to consult that very thorough treatise which the philosopher Aristotle wrote On Animals. And what I find that he has written there upon this subject I shall include in these notes, in Aristotle's own language. [*]