Attic Nights (15.9-15.13)

That the poet Caecilius used frons in the masculine gender, not by poetic license, but properly and by analogy.

CORRECTLY and elegantly did Caecilius write this in his Changeling: [*]

The worst of foes are these, of aspect gay (fronte hilaro),

Gloomy of heart, whom we can neither grasp Nor yet let go.

I chanced to quote these lines in a company of well educated young men, when we were speaking of a man of that kind. Thereupon one of a throng of grammarians who stood there with us, a man of no little repute, said:

What license and boldness Caecilius showed here in saying, fronte hilaro and not fronte hilara, and in not shrinking from so dreadful a solecism.

Nay,

said I,

it is rather we who are as bold and free as possible in improperly and ignorantly failing to use frons in the masculine gender, when both the principle of regularity which is called analogy [*] and the authority of earlier writers indicate that we ought to say, not hanc frontem, but hunc frontem. Indeed, Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins wrote as follows: [*] 'On the following day in open combat, with straight front (aequo fronte) we fought with the enemy's legions with foot, horse and wings.' Also Cato again says [*] recto fronte in the same book.

But that half-educated grammarian said:

Away with your authorities, which I think you may perhaps have, but give me a reason, which you do not

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have.

Then I, somewhat irritated by those words of his, as was natural at my time of life:

Listen,

said I,

my dear sir, to a reason that may be false, but which you cannot prove to be false. All words,

said I,

ending in the three letters in which frons ends are of the masculine gender, if they end in the same syllable in the genitive case also, as mons, fons, pons, frons.

[*] But he replied with a laugh:

Hear, young scholar, several other similar words which are not of the masculine gender.

Then all begged him at once to name just one. But when the man was screwing up his face, could not open his lips, and changed colour, then I broke in, saying:

Go now and take thirty days to hunt one up; when you have found it, meet us again.

And thus we sent off this worthless fellow to hunt up a word with which to break down the rule which I had made.

About the strange suicides of the maids of Miletus.

PLUTARCH in the first book of his work On the Soul, [*] discussing disorders which affect the human mind, has told us that almost all the maidens of the Milesian nation suddenly without any apparent cause conceived a desire to die, and thereupon many of them hanged themselves. When this happened more frequently every day, and no remedy had any effect on their resolve to die, the Milesians passed a decree that all those maidens who committed suicide

by hanging should be carried to the grave naked, along with the same rope by which they had destroyed themselves. After that decree the maidens ceased to seek a voluntary death, deterred by the mere shame of so disgraceful a burial.

The words of a decree of the senate on expelling philosophers from the city of Rome; also the words of the edict of the censors by which those were rebuked and restrained who had begun to establish and practise the art of rhetoric at Rome.

IN the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala [*] the following decree of the senate was passed regarding Latin speaking philosophers and rhetoricians: [*]

(The praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed to him in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they should not remain in Rome.

Then some years [*] after that decree of the senate Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus the censors issued the following edict for restraining the Latin rhetoricians: [*]

It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that

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young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers neither please us nor seem proper. Therefore it seems necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.

And it was not only in those times, which were somewhat rude and not yet refined by Greek training, that philosophers were driven from the city of Rome, but even in the reign of Domitian [*] by a decree of the senate they were driven from the city and forbidden Italy. And it was at that time that the philosopher Epictetus also withdrew from Rome to Nicopolis because of that senatorial decree.

A highly memorable passage from a speech of Gracchus, regarding his frugality and continence.

WHEN Gaius Gracchus [*] returned from Sardinia, he delivered a speech to an assembly of the people in the following words: [*]

I conducted myself in my province,

said he,

as I thought would be to your advantage, not as I believed would contribute to my own ambitions. There was no tavern at my establishment, nor did slaves of conspicuous beauty wait upon me, and at an entertainment of mine your sons were treated with more modesty than at their

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general's tent.

Later on he continues as follows:

I so conducted myself in my province that no one could truly say that I received a penny, or more than that, [*] by way of present, or that anyone was put to expense on my account. I spent two years in my province; if any courtesan entered my house or anyone's slave was bribed on my account, consider me the lowest and basest of mankind. Since I conducted myself so continently towards their slaves, you may judge from that on what terms I lived with your sons.

Then after an interval he goes on:

Accordingly, fellow citizens, when I left for Rome, I brought back empty from the province the purses which I took there full of money. Others have brought home overflowing with money the jars which they took to their province filled with wine.

Of some unusual words, which are used in either voice and are called by the grammarians

common.

UTOR, vereor, hortor and consolor are

common

verbs and can be used either way:

I respect you

and

I am respected by you,

that is,

you respect me

;

I use you

and

I am used by you,

that is,

you use me

;

I exhort you

and

I am exhorted by you,

that is,

you exhort me

;

I console you

and

I am consoled by you,

that is,

you console me.

Testor too and interpretor are used in a reciprocal sense. But all these words are unusual in the second of these meanings, and it is a matter of inquiry whether they are ever so used. Afranius in The Cousins says: [*]

Lo! there his children hold a sire's life cheap,

Where rather feared than honoured (vereri) he would be.

Here vereor is used in its less common sense. Novius also in the Wood-dealer uses the word utor with a passive meaning: [*]

Since a deal of gear is bought which is not used (utitur).

That is,

which is not to be used.

Marcus Cato in the fifth book of his Origins has this: [*]

He led forth his army, fed, ready, and encouraged (cohortatum), and drew it up in order of battle.

We find consolor also used in a different sense from the one which it commonly has, in a letter of Quintus Metellus, which he wrote during his exile to Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius.

But,

he says,

when I realize your feeling towards me, I am very greatly consoled (consolor), and your loyalty and worth are brought before my eyes.

Marcus Tullius used testata and interpretata in the same manner in the first book of his work On Divination, [*] so that testor and interpreter ought also to be considered to be

common

verbs. Sallust too in a similar way says: [*]

The goods of the proscribed having been given away (dilargitis),

indicating that largior is one of the

common

verbs. Moreover, we see that veritum, like puditum and pigitum, is used impersonally and indefinitely, [*] not only by the earlier writers, but also by Marcus Tullius in the second book of his De Finibus. [*]

First (I will refute),

says he,

the view of Aristippus and of all the Cyrenaic philosophers, to whom it caused no fear [*] (veritum est) to assign the highest good to that pleasure which affects the senses with greatest delight.

Dignor, too, veneror, confiteor and testor are treated as

common

verbs. Thus we find in Virgil: [*]

Of wedlock high with Venus worthy deemed (dignale),

and [*]

Revered in prayer (venerata), shall grant a voyage safe.

Moreover, confessi aeris, meaning a debt of which admission is made, is written in the Twelve Tables in these words: [*]

For an admitted debt, when the matter has been taken into court, let the respite be thirty days.

Also in those same Tables we find this: [*]

Whoever shall allow himself to be summoned as a witness or shall act as a balance-holder, [*] if he does not give his testimony, let him be regarded as dishonoured and incapable of giving testimony in the future.