Gellius: NOCTES ATTICAE

I. Quem in modum responderit Chrysippus adversum eos, qui providentiam consistere negaverunt. Quibus non videtur mundus dei et hominum causa institutus neque res humanae providentia gubernari, gravi se argumento uti putant, cum ita dicunt:

1. In what manner Chrysippus replied against those who denied that providence subsists. Those to whom it does not seem that the world was instituted for the sake of god and men, nor that human affairs are governed by providence, think that they employ a grave argument when they speak thus:

1 "si esset providentia, nulla essent mala." Nihil enim minus aiunt providentiae congruere, quam in eo mundo, quem propter homines fecisse dicatur, tantam vim esse aerumnarum et malorum.

1 "if there were providence, there would be no evils." For they say that nothing is less congruent with providence than that in that world, which is said to have been made for the sake of humans, there should be so great a mass of hardships and evils.

2 Adversus ea Chrysippus cum in libro peri pronoias quarto dissereret: "nihil est prorsus istis" inquit "insubidius, qui opinantur bona esse potuisse, si non essent ibidem mala.

2 Against these points Chrysippus, when he was discoursing in the fourth book On Providence, said: "nothing at all is more insipid than those who suppose that good things could have existed, if evils had not existed in the same place."

3 Nam cum bona malis contraria sint, utraque necessum est opposita inter sese et quasi mutuo adverso quaeque fulta nisu consistere; nullum adeo contrarium est sine contrario altero.

3 For since goods are contrary to evils, it is necessary that both, opposed to each other and, as it were, each upheld by a mutual adverse effort, stand; no contrary at all is without the other contrary.

4 Quo enim pacto iustitiae sensus esse posset, nisi essent iniuriae? aut quid aliud iustitia est quam iniustitiae privatio? quid item fortitudo intellegi posset nisi ex ignaviae adpositione?

4 For in what way could a sense of justice exist, unless injustices existed? Or what else is justice than the privation of injustice? Likewise, how could fortitude be understood except from the juxtaposition of cowardice?

quid continentia nisi ex intemperantiae? quo item modo prudentia esset, nisi foret contra inprudentia?

what is continence except from intemperance? In what way likewise would there be prudence, unless there were, against it, imprudence?

5 Proinde" inquit "homines stulti cur non hoc etiam desiderant, ut veritas sit et non sit mendacium? Namque itidem sunt bona et mala, felicitas et infortunitas, dolor et voluptas.

5 "Accordingly," he says, "why do foolish men not also desire this, that truth should be and that there should not be mendacity? For likewise there are goods and evils, felicity and misfortune, pain and pleasure."

6 Alterum enim ex altero, sicuti Plato ait, verticibus inter se contrariis deligatum est; si tuleris unum, abstuleris utrumque."

6 For the one from the other, just as Plato says, is bound with vertices contrary to one another; if you take away one, you will have taken away both."

7 Idem Chrysippus in eodem libro tractat consideratque dignumque esse id quaeri putat, ei hai ton anthropon nosoi kata physin ginontai, id est, si natura ipsa. rerum vel providentia, quae compagem hanc mundi et genus hominum fecit, morbos quoque et debilitates et aegritudines corporum, quas patiuntur homines, fecerit.

7 The same Chrysippus in the same book treats and considers, and thinks it worthy that this be asked: “whether the diseases of humans come to be according to nature,” that is, whether Nature herself. of things, or Providence, which made this structure of the world and the race of humankind, has also made the diseases and debilities and sicknesses of bodies which men suffer.

8 Existimat autem non fuisse hoc principale naturae consilium, ut faceret homines morbis obnoxios; numquam enim hoc convenisse naturae auctori parentique omnium rerum bonarum.

8 He thinks, however, that this was not the principal counsel of Nature, to make humans subject to diseases; for this never suited the author of Nature and the parent of all good things.

9 "Sed cum multa" inquit "atque magna gigneret pareretque aptissima et utilissima, alia quoque simul adgnata sunt incommoda his ipsis, quae faciebat, cohaerentia"; eaque non per naturam, sed per sequellas quasdam necessarias facta dicit, quod ipse appellat kata parakolouthesin.

9 "But since," he says, "while it was generating and bringing forth many and great things most apt and most useful, other inconveniences likewise at the same time were agnate, cohering to those very things which it was making"; and he says that these were done not by nature, but by certain necessary sequels, which he himself calls kata parakolouthesin.

10 "Sicut," inquit "cum corpora hominum natura fingeret, ratio subtilior et utilitas ipsa operis postulavit, ut tenuissimis minutisque ossiculis caput compingeret.

10 "Just as," he says, "when nature was fashioning the bodies of men, subtler reason and the very utility of the work demanded that nature piece together the head with the thinnest and minutest little bones.

11 Sed hanc utilitatem rei maioris alia quaedam incommoditas extrinsecus consecuta est, ut fieret caput tenuiter munitum et ictibus offensionibusque parvis fragile.

11 But this utility of the greater matter was followed from without by a certain other incommodity, so that the head became thinly fortified and fragile against small blows and knocks.

12 Proinde morbi quoque et aegritudines partae sunt, dum salus paritur.

12 Accordingly, diseases and infirmities were brought forth, while health is being brought forth.

13 Sicut hercle," inquit "dum virtus hominibus per consilium naturae gignitur, vitia ibidem per adfinitatem contrariam nata sunt."

13 "Just so, by Hercules," he says, "while virtue is begotten in humans through the counsel of nature, vices likewise in the same place were born through a contrary affinity."

II. Quo itidem modo et vim necessitatemque fati constituerit et esse tamen in nobis consilii iudiciique nostri arbitrium confirmaverit.

2. In what likewise way he has established the force and necessity of fate, and has nonetheless confirmed that there is in us the arbitrament of our counsel and judgment.

1 Fatum, quod heimarmenen Graeci vocant, ad hanc ferme sententiam Chrysippus, Stoicae princeps philosophiae, definit: "Fatum est" inquit "sempiterna quaedam et indeclinabilis series rerum et catena volvens semetipsa sese et inplicans per aeternos consequentiae ordines, ex quibus apta nexaque est."

1 Fate, which the Greeks call heimarmene, Chrysippus, the chief of Stoic philosophy, defines to about this purport: "Fate," he says, "is a certain sempiternal and undeclinable series of things and a chain rolling itself and involving itself through the eternal orders of consequence, from which it is aptly knit and linked."

2 Ipsa autem verba Chrysippi, quantum valui memoria, ascripsi, ut, si cui meum istud interpretamentum videbitur esse obscurius, ad ipsius verba animadvertat.

2 But the very words of Chrysippus I have set down, as far as I was able by memory, so that, if to anyone that interpretation of mine shall seem more obscure, he may take note of his very words.

3 In libro enim peri pronoias quarto heimarmenen esse dicit physiken tina syntaxin ton holon ex aidiou ton heteron tois heterois epakolouthounton kai metapoloumenon aparabatou ouses tes toiautes epiplokes.

3 For in the fourth book Peri Pronoias he says that heimarmene is a certain physical co‑ordination of the whole, from eternity, of one thing following upon others and being transmuted, the interconnection of such a kind being unalterable.

4 Aliarum autem opinionum disciplinarumque auctores huic definitioni ita obstrepunt:

4 But the authors of other opinions and disciplines thus clamor against this definition:

5 "Si Chrysippus" inquiunt "fato putat omnia moveri et regi nec declinari transcendique posse agmina fati et volumina, peccata quoque hominum et delicta non suscensenda neque inducenda sunt ipsis voluntatibusque eorum, sed necessitati cuidam et instantiae, quae oritur ex fato", omnium quae sit rerum domina et arbitra, per quam necesse sit fieri, quicquid futurum est; et propterea nocentium poenas legibus inique constitutas, si homines ad maleficia non sponte veniunt, sed fato trahuntur.

5 "If Chrysippus," they say, "thinks that all things are moved and ruled by fate and that the ranks of fate and its volumes cannot be turned aside and transcended, then the sins of men too and their delicts are not to be resented nor to be imputed to them and to their wills, but to a certain necessity and compulsion, which arises from fate", the mistress and arbiter of all things, by which it is necessary that whatever is going to be should come to pass; and therefore the penalties of the guilty have been unjustly established by the laws, if men do not come to misdeeds of their own accord, but are dragged by fate.

6 Contra ea Chrysippus tenuiter multa et argute disserit; sed omnium fere, quae super ea re scripsit, huiuscemodi sententia est.

6 In reply to these, Chrysippus discourses many things subtly and acutely; but the opinion of nearly all that he wrote on that matter is of this kind.

7 "Quamquam ita sit," inquit "ut ratione quadam necessaria et principali coacta atque conexa sint fato omnia, ingenia tamen ipsa mentium nostrarum proinde sunt fato obnoxia, ut proprietas eorum est ipsa et qualitas.

7 "Although it be so," he says, "that by a certain necessary and principal reason all things are constrained and connected by fate, nevertheless the very native dispositions of our minds are subject to fate in like measure as is their own property and quality.

8 Nam si sunt per naturam primitus salubriter utiliterque ficta, omnem illam vim, quae de fato extrinsecus ingruit, inoffensius tractabiliusque transmittunt. Sin vero sunt aspera et inscita et rudia nullisque artium bonarum adminiculis fulta, etiamsi parvo sive nullo fatalis incommodi conflictu urgeantur, sua tamen scaevitate et voluntario impetu in assidua delicta et in errores se ruunt.

8 For if from nature in the first instance they are fashioned salubriously and usefully, they let pass, with less offense and more tractably, all that force which from fate assails from without. But if they are rough, unskilled, and raw, and are supported by no supports (adminicles) of the good arts, even if they are pressed by a small or by no conflict of fated disadvantage, yet by their own perversity and by voluntary impulse they rush into continual delicts and into errors.

9 Idque ipsum ut ea ratione fiat, naturalis illa et necessaria rerum consequentia efficit, quae fatum vocatur.

9 And this very thing—that it happens in that way—is effected by that natural and necessary sequence of things, which is called fate.

10 Est enim genere ipso quasi fatale et consequens, ut mala ingenia peccatis et erroribus non vacent."

10 For by the very genus itself it is, as it were, fatal and consequent, that bad natures are not vacant of sins and errors."

11 Huius deinde fere rei exemplo non hercle nimis alieno neque inlepido utitur. "Sicut" inquit "lapidem cylindrum si per spatia terrae prona atque derupta iacias, causam quidem ei et initium praecipitantiae feceris, mox tamen ille praeceps volvitur, non quia tu id iam facis, sed quoniam ita sese modus eius et formae volubilitas habet: sic ordo et ratio et necessitas fati genera ipsa et principia causarum movet, impetus vero consiliorum mentiumque nostrarum actionesque ipsas voluntas cuiusque propria et animorum ingenia moderantur."

11 He then employs an example of almost this very matter, not, by Hercules, too alien nor inelegant. "Just as," he says, "if you cast a cylindrical stone over stretches of ground that are sloping and broken, you indeed will have made for it the cause and the beginning of its precipitancy; yet soon it rolls headlong, not because you are now doing that, but because thus its condition and the volubility of its form are constituted: so the order and reason and necessity of fate move the very kinds and the principles of causes, but the impulses of our counsels and minds and the actions themselves are governed by each one’s own will and by the dispositions of souls."

12 Infert deinde verba haec his, quae dixi, congruentia: Dio kai hypo ton Pythagoreion eiretai:
gnosei d'anthropous authaireta pemat'echontas,
hos ton blabon hekastois par'autous ginomenon kai kath'hormen auton
hamartanonton te kai blaptomenon kai kata ten auton dianoian kai thesin.

12 Then he brings in these words, congruent with what I have said: And so also by the Pythagoreans it has been said:
you will know human beings as having self-chosen sufferings,
since the harm for each comes to them from themselves, and according to their own impulse,
both erring and being harmed, and according to their own thinking and disposition.

13 Propterea negat oportere ferri audirique homines aut nequam aut ignavos et nocentes et audaces, qui, cum in culpa et in maleficio revicti sunt, perfugiunt ad fati necessitatem tamquam in aliquod fani asylum et, quae pessime fecerunt, ea non suae temeritati, sed fato esse attribuenda dicunt.

13 For that reason he says that men ought not to be borne nor listened to—whether knavish or cowardly and harmful and audacious—who, when they have been convicted in fault and in malefaction, flee for refuge to the necessity of fate as though into some temple’s asylum, and say that the things which they have done most wickedly are to be attributed not to their own temerity, but to fate.

14 Primus autem hoc sapientissimus ille et antiquissimus poetarum dixit hisce versibus:
o potoi, oion de ny theous brotoi aitioontai.
ex hemeron gar phasi kak'emmenai; hoi de kai autoi
spheisin atasthalieisin hyper moron alge'echousin.

14 But first the very wisest and most ancient of the poets said this in these verses:
Ah, alas, how mortals now make the gods responsible!
For from the gods, they say, their evils come; but they themselves
by their own recklessness, beyond their destined portion, suffer pains.

15 Itaque M. Cicero in libro, quem de fato conscripsit, cum quaestionem istam diceret obscurissimam esse et inplicatissimam, Chrysippum quoque philosophum non expedisse se in ea ait his verbis: "Chrysippus aestuans laboransque, quonam hoc modo explicet et fato omnia fieri et esse aliquid in nobis, intricatur."

15 And so Marcus Cicero, in the book which he composed On Fate, when he said that that question is most obscure and most intricate, says that the philosopher Chrysippus too had not extricated himself in it, in these words: "Chrysippus, seething and laboring, as to the way in which he might explicate both that all things happen by fate and that there is something within us, becomes entangled."

III. Historia sumpta ex libris Tuberonis de serpente invisitatae longitudinis.

3. History taken from the books of Tubero about a serpent of unprecedented length.

1 Tubero in historiis scriptum reliquit bello primo Poenico Atilium Regulum consulem in Africa castris apud Bagradam flumen positis proelium grande atque acre fecisse adversus unum serpentem in illis locis stabulantem invisitatae inmanitatis eumque magna totius exercitus conflictione balistis atque catapultis diu oppugnatum, eiusque interfecti corium longum pedes centum et viginti Romam misisse.

1 Tubero left written in his histories that in the First Punic War the consul Atilius Regulus, with his camp pitched in Africa by the river Bagradas, fought a great and keen battle against a single serpent dwelling in those places, of unheard-of enormity; and that it, long assaulted with great conflict by the whole army with ballistae and catapults, having been slain, he sent its hide, one hundred and twenty feet long, to Rome.

IV. Quid idem Tubero novae historiae de Atilio Regulo a Carthaginiensibus capto litteris mandaverit; quid etiam Tuditanus super eodem Regulo scripserit.

4. What that same Tubero consigned to letters in his new history about Atilius Regulus captured by the Carthaginians; what also Tuditanus wrote concerning that same Regulus.

1 Quod satis celebre est de Atilio Regulo, id nuperrime legimus scriptum in Tuditani libris: Regulum captum ad ea, quae in senatu Romae dixit suadens, ne captivi cum Carthaginiensibus permutarentur, id quoque addidisse venenum sibi Carthaginienses dedisse, non praesentarium, sed eiusmodi, quod mortem in diem proferret, eo consilio, ut viveret quidem tantisper, quoad fieret permutatio, post autem grassante sensim veneno contabesceret.

1 That which is quite celebrated about Atilius Regulus we most recently read written in the books of Tuditanus: that Regulus, having been captured, in connection with the things which he said in the Senate at Rome—urging that the captives should not be exchanged with the Carthaginians—added this as well: that the Carthaginians had given him poison, not of the instantaneous sort, but of such a kind as would defer death from day to day, with this design: that he should indeed live for just so long as the exchange was effected, but afterwards, as the poison gradually gained ground, he would waste away.

2 Eundem Regulum Tubero in historiis redisse Carthaginem novisque exemplorum modis excruciatum a Poenis dicit:

2 Tubero in his histories says that the same Regulus returned to Carthage and was excruciated by the Punics with new exemplary modes:

3 "In atras" inquit "et profundas tenebras eum claudebant ac diu post, ubi erat visus sol ardentissimus, repente educebant et adversus ictus solis oppositum continebant atque intendere in caelum oculos cogebant. Palpebras quoque eius, ne conivere posset, sursum ac deorsum diductas insuebant."

3 "Into black and profound darkness," he says, "they used to shut him; and long afterward, when the sun was seen most blazing, they would suddenly lead him out and hold him opposite, against the strokes of the sun, and they forced him to strain his eyes toward the sky. His eyelids also, so that he could not even blink, they sewed up, having pulled them apart upward and downward."

4 Tuditanus autem somno diu prohibitum atque ita vita privatum refert, idque ubi Romae cognitum est, nobilissimos Poenorum captivos liberis Reguli a senatu deditos et ab his in armario muricibus praefixo destitutos eademque insomnia cruciatos interisse.

4 But Tuditanus reports that he was long prohibited from sleep and thus deprived of life; and when this was learned at Rome, the most noble captives of the Punics, given by the Senate to Regulus’s children, were by them left in a cupboard fitted with murex-spikes and, tormented by the same insomnia, perished.

V. Quod Alfenus iureconsultus in verbis veteribus interpretandis erravit.

5. That Alfenus, a jurisconsult, erred in interpreting ancient words.

1 Alfenus iureconsultus, Servii Sulpicii discipulus rerumque antiquarum non incuriosus, in libro digestorum tricesimo et quarto, coniectaneorum autem secundo: "in foedere," inquit "quod inter populum Romanum et Carthaginienses factum est, scriptum invenitur, ut Carthaginienses quotannis populo Romano darent certum pondus argenti puri puti, quaesitumque est, quid esset "purum putum". Respondi" inquit "ego "putum" esse valde purum, sicuti novum "novicium" dicimus et proprium "propicium" augere atque intendere volentes novi et proprii significationem."

1 The jurist Alfenus, a disciple of Servius Sulpicius and not uncurious about ancient matters, in the thirty-fourth book of his Digests, and in the second of his Coniectanea: "In the treaty," he says, "which was made between the Roman People and the Carthaginians, it is found written that the Carthaginians should give every year to the Roman People a fixed weight of silver, 'purum putum'; and it was asked what 'purum putum' was. I answered," he says, "that 'putum' means very pure, just as we say novum 'novicium' and proprium 'propicium' when wishing to augment and intensify the signification of 'new' and 'proper.'"

2 Hoc ubi legimus, mirabamur eandem adfinitatem visam esse Alfeno "puri" et "puti", quae sit "novicii" et "novi";

2 When we read this, we marveled that the same affinity had seemed to Alfenus to exist between "puri" and "puti" as exists between "novicii" and "novi";

3 nam si esset "puricium", tum sane videretur dici quasi "novicium".

3 for if there were "puricium", then certainly it would seem to be said as if "novicium".

4 Id etiam mirum fuit, quod "novicium" per augendi figuram dictum existimavit, cum sit "novicium" non, quod magis novum sit, sed quod a "novo" dictum sit inclinatumque.

4 That too was a marvel, that he thought "novicium" was said by a figure of augmentation, whereas "novicium" is not because it is more new, but because it is said from "novo" and is inclined/inflected.

5 His igitur assentimus, qui "putum" esse dicunt a "putando" dictum et ob eam causam prima syllaba brevi pronuntiant, non longa, ut existimasse Alfenus videtur, qui a "puro" id esse factum scripsit.

5 Therefore we assent to those who say that "putum" is said from "putando," and for that cause pronounce the first syllable short, not long, as Alfenus seems to have thought, who wrote that it was made from "puro."

6 "Putare" autem veteres dixerunt vacantia ex quaque re ac non necessaria aut etiam obstantia et aliena auferre et excidere et, quod esse utile ac sine vitio videretur, relinquere.

6 But the ancients said that “putare” meant to remove and cut out from any thing what was vacant and not necessary, or even obstructive and alien, and to leave what seemed useful and without fault.

7 Sic namque arbores et vites et sic rationes etiam "putari" dictum.

7 Thus, namely, trees and vines, and thus accounts too, are said "to be pruned."

8 Verbum quoque ipsum "puto", quod declarandae sententiae nostrae causa dicimus, non significat profecto aliud, quam id agere nos in re dubia obscuraque, ut decisis amputatisque falsis opinionibus, quod videatur esse verum et integrum et incorruptum, retineamus.

8 The very word itself "puto," which we say for the purpose of declaring our opinion, indeed signifies nothing else than that we act in a doubtful and obscure matter, so that, the false opinions having been cut off and amputated, we may retain what seems to be true and integral and incorrupt.

9 Argentum ergo in Carthaginiensi foedere "putum" dictum est quasi exputatum excoctumque omnique aliena materia carens omnibusque ex eo vitiis detractis emaculatum et candefactum.

9 Therefore, in the Carthaginian treaty, silver was termed "putum," as if expurgated and refined, lacking all alien material, and, with all faults detracted from it, made immaculate and brought to a white heat.

10 Scriptum est autem "purum putum" non in Carthaginiensi solum foedere, sed cum in multis aliis veterum libris, tum in Q. quoque Ennii tragoedia, quae inscribitur Alexander, et in satira M. Varronis, quae inscripta est dis paides hoi gerontes.

10 Moreover, "purum putum" is written not only in the Carthaginian treaty, but both in many other books of the ancients and in the tragedy of Quintus Ennius, which is entitled Alexander, and in the satire of Marcus Varro, which is entitled Old Men Are Twice Children.

VI. Temere inepteque reprehensum esse a Iulio Hygino Vergilium, quod "praepetes" Daedali pennas dixit; atque inibi, quid sint aves praepetes et quid illae sint aves, quas Nigidius "inferas" appellavit.

VI. That Vergil was rashly and ineptly reproved by Julius Hyginus, because he called the wings of Daedalus “praepetes”; and therein, what birds are praepetes and what those birds are which Nigidius called “inferas.”

1 Daedalus, ut fama est, fugiens Minoia regna praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo.

1 Daedalus, as fame reports, fleeing the Minoan realms, dared to entrust himself to the sky on auspicious wings.

2 In his Vergilii versibus reprehendit Iulius Hyginus "pennis praepetibus" quasi inproprie et inscite dictum.

2 In these verses of Vergil, Julius Hyginus reprehended “pennis praepetibus” as if said improperly and unskilfully.

3 "Nam "praepetes"" inquit "aves ab auguribus appellantur, quae aut opportune praevolant aut idoneas sedes capiunt."

3 "For "praepetes"" he says "are what the augurs call birds, which either fly forward opportunely or take suitable seats."

4 Non apte igitur usum verbo augurali existimavit in Daedali volatu nihil ad augurum disciplinam pertinente.

4 Therefore he judged the use of an augural word not apt in Daedalus’s flight, which pertains in no way to the discipline of the augurs.

5 Sed Hyginus nimis hercle ineptus fuit, cum, quid "praepetes" essent, se scire ratus est, Vergilium autem et Cn. Matium, doctum virum, ignorasse, qui in secundo Iliadis Victoriam volucrem "praepetem" appellavit in hoc versu:
dum dat vincendi praepes Victoria palmam.

5 But Hyginus was, by Hercules, far too inept, when he supposed that he knew what “praepetes” were, while Vergil and Cn. Matius, a learned man, were ignorant—Matius who, in the second of the Iliad, called Victory a winged “praepes” in this verse:
while swift-winged Victory gives the palm of conquering.

6 Cur autem non Q. quoque Ennium reprehendit, qui in annalibus non pennas Daedali, sed longe diversius: "Brundisium" inquit "pulcro praecinctum praepete portu"?

6 Why, moreover, does he not also reproach Q. Ennius, who in the Annals speaks not of Daedalus’s feathers, but something far more different: “Brundisium,” he says, “girdled with a fair, propitious (praepetous) harbor”?

7 Set si vim potius naturamque verbi considerasset neque id solum, quod augures dicerent, inspexisset, veniam prorsus poetis daret similitudine ac translatione verborum, non significatione propria utentibus.

7 But if he had rather considered the force and the nature of the word and had inspected not only that which the augurs say, he would absolutely grant pardon to poets using the similitude and translation (transference) of words, not their proper signification.

8 Nam quoniam non ipsae tantum aves, quae prosperius praevolant, sed etiam quos capiunt, quod idonei felicesque sunt, "praepetes" appellantur, idcirco Daedali pennas "praepetes" dixit, quoniam ex locis, in quibus periculum metuebat, in loca tutiora pervenerat.

8 For since not only the birds themselves, which fly ahead more prosperously, but also those whom they seize, because they are idoneous and felicitous, are called "praepetes," therefore he called Daedalus’s wings "praepetes," since from places in which he was fearing peril he had come into safer places.

9 Locos porro "praepetes" et augures appellant, et Ennius in annalium primo dixit:
praepetibus sese pulcrisque locis dant.

9 Moreover, augurs also call places "praepetes," and Ennius in the first of the Annals said:
they betake themselves to propitious and fair places.

10 Avibus autem "praepetibus" contrarias aves "inferas" appellari Nigidius Figulus in libro primo augurii privati ita dicit: "Discrepat dextra sinistrae, praepes inferae."

10 But birds contrary to the "praepetes" are called "inferae," as Nigidius Figulus in the first book of Private Augury says thus: "The right differs from the left, the praepetes from the inferae."

11 Ex quo est coniectare "praepetes" appellatas, quae altius sublimiusque volitent, cum differre a "praepetibus" Nigidius "inferas" dixerit.

11 From which it is to be conjectured that "praepetes" are so appellated, those which fly higher and more loftily, since Nigidius has said that "inferae" differ from "praepetes".

12 Adulescens ego Romae, cum etiamtum ad grammaticos itarem, audivi Apollinarem Sulpicium, quem inprimis sectabar, cum de iure augurio quaereretur et mentio "praepetum" avium facta esset, Erucio Claro praefecto urbi dicere "praepetes" sibi videri esse alites, quas Homerus panypterygas appellaverit, quoniam istas potissimum augures spectarent, quae ingentibus alis patulae atque porrectae praevolarent. Atque ibi hos Homeri versus dixit:
tyne d'oionoisi tanypterygessi keleveis
peithesthai, ton ou ti metatrepom'oud'alegizo.

12 I, a youth at Rome, when I was still going to the grammarians, heard Apollinaris Sulpicius, whom I especially followed, when inquiry was being made about augural law and mention had been made of “praepetes” birds, say to Erucius Clarus, prefect of the city, that “praepetes” seemed to him to be the alates, which Homer called “panypterygas” (“long-winged”), since the augurs most especially watched those which, with vast wings, broad and outstretched, flew on ahead. And there he recited these verses of Homer:
Do you then bid men obey the long-winged birds?
As for them, I neither turn aside for them nor give them heed.

VII. De Acca Larentia et Gaia Taracia; deque origine sacerdotii fratrum arvalium.

7. On Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia; and on the origin of the priesthood of the Arval brothers.

1 Accae Larentiae et Gaiae Taraciae, sive illa Fufetia est, nomina in antiquis annalibus celebria sunt. Earum alterae post mortem, Taraciae autem vivae amplissimi honores a populo Romano habiti.

1 The names of Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia—whether she is that Fufetia—are celebrated in ancient annals. To the one of them, after death, but to Taracia while alive, the most ample honors were accorded by the Roman People.

2 Et Taraciam quidem virginem Vestae fuisse lex Horatia testis est, quae super ea ad populum lata. Qua lege ei plurimi honores fiunt, inter quos ius quoque testimonii dicendi tribuitur testabilisque una omnium feminarum ut sit datur. Id verbum est legis ipsius Horatiae; contrarium est in duodecim tabulis scriptum:

2 And indeed that Taracia was a virgin of Vesta the Horatian law is witness, which was carried to the people concerning her. By that law very many honors are conferred upon her, among which the right also of speaking testimony is bestowed, and it is granted that she alone of all women be competent to give testimony. That is the very wording of the Horatian law itself; the contrary is written in the Twelve Tables:

3 "Inprobus intestabilisque esto."

3 "Let the dishonest man be intestable."

4 Praeterea si quadraginta annos nata sacerdotio abire ac nubere voluisset, ius ei potestasque exaugurandi atque nubendi facta est munificentiae et beneficii gratia, quod campum Tiberinum sive Martium populo condonasset.

4 Besides, if, at forty years of age, she wished to depart from the priesthood and to marry, the right and power of being exaugurated and of marrying was granted to her, by way of munificence and beneficence, because she had donated the Tiberine Field or the Field of Mars (Campus Martius) to the people.

5 Sed Acca Larentia corpus in vulgus dabat pecuniamque emeruerat ex eo quaestu uberem.

5 But Acca Larentia was giving her body to the public, and she had earned abundant money from that trade.

6 Ea testamento, ut in Antiatis historia scriptum est, Romulum regem, ut quidam autem alii tradiderunt, populum Romanum bonis suis heredem fecit.

6 She, by testament, as it is written in the history of Antias, made Romulus the king, or, as certain others have handed down, the Roman people, heir to her goods.

7 Ob id meritum a flamine Quirinali sacrificium ei publice fit et dies e nomine eius in fastos additus.

7 On account of that merit, a sacrifice is made to her publicly by the Quirinal flamen, and a day from her name has been added to the fasti.

8 Sed Sabinus Masurius in primo memorialium secutus quosdam historiae scriptores Accam Larentiam Romuli nutricem fuisse dicit. "Ea" inquit "mulier ex duodecim filiis maribus unum morte amisit. In illius locum Romulus Accae sese filium dedit seque et ceteros eius filios "fratres arvales" appellavit.

8 But Masurius Sabinus, in the first of the Memorials, following certain writers of history, says that Acca Larentia was the nurse of Romulus. "That," he says, "woman, out of twelve male sons, lost one by death. In his place Romulus gave himself to Acca as a son, and he called himself and her other sons the "Arval Brethren".

Ex eo tempore collegium mansit fratrum arvalium numero duodecim, cuius sacerdotii insigne est spicea corona et albae infulae."

From that time the college of the Arval brothers remained at the number twelve, whose priesthood’s insignia are a crown of ears of grain and white fillets."

VIII. Notata quaedam de rege Alexandro et de P. Scipione memoratu digna.

8. Certain notes about King Alexander and about P. Scipio, worthy of remembrance.

1 Apion, Graecus homo, qui Pleistoneikes appellatus est, facili atque alacri facundia fuit.

1 Apion, a Greek man, who was called Pleistoneikes, had a facile and alacritous eloquence.

2 Is cum de Alexandri regis laudibus scriberet: "Victi" inquit "hostis uxorem, facie incluta mulierem, vetuit in conspectum suum deduci, ut eam ne oculis quidem suis contingeret."

2 When he was writing about the praises of King Alexander, he said: "He forbade the wife of the vanquished enemy, a woman illustrious in face, to be led into his sight, so that he might not even touch her with his eyes."

3 Lepide igitur agitari potest, utrum videri continentiorem par sit Publiumne Africanum superiorem, qui Carthagine ampla civitate in Hispania expugnata virginem tempestivam forma egregia, nobilis viri Hispani filiam, captam perductamque ad se patri inviolatam reddidit, an regem Alexandrum, qui Darii regis uxorem eandemque eiusdem sororem proelio magno captam, quam esse audiebat exsuperanti forma, videre noluit perducique ad sese prohibuit.

3 Neatly, then, it can be debated, whether it is fitting that Publius Africanus the elder should be seen as the more continent—who, when Carthage, a large city in Spain, had been taken by storm, returned to her father inviolate a maiden ripe in years and of outstanding beauty, the daughter of a noble Spanish man, though she had been captured and brought to him—or King Alexander, who, when the wife of King Darius, and the same woman his sister, had been captured in a great battle, whom he heard to be of surpassing beauty, refused to see her and prohibited her being brought to himself.

4 Sed hanc utrimque declamatiunculam super Alexandro et Scipione celebraverint, quibus abunde et ingenii et otii et verborum est;

4 But let this little declamation on both sides concerning Alexander and Scipio be celebrated by those who have an abundance of talent and leisure and words;

5 nos satis habebimus, quod ex historia est, id dicere: Scipionem istum, verone an falso incertum, fama tamen, cum esset adulescens, haud sincera fuisse et propemodum constitisse hosce versus a Cn. Naevio poeta in eum scriptos esse:
etiam qui res magnas manu saepe gessit gloriose,
cuius facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus praestat,
eum suus pater cum pallio uno ab amica abduxit.

5 we shall deem it enough to say what is from history: that that Scipio—whether true or false is uncertain—yet the report is that, when he was an adolescent, his repute was not wholly sincere and pretty much amounted to this, that these verses by the poet Gnaeus Naevius were written about him:
even he who has often borne great affairs with his hand gloriously,
whose deeds, alive, now are vigorous, who alone among the nations excels,
him his own father led away from a girlfriend with one cloak.

6 His ego versibus credo adductum Valerium Antiatem adversus ceteros omnis scriptores de Scipionis moribus sensisse et eam puellam captivam non redditam patri scripsisse contra quam nos supra diximus, sed retentam a Scipione atque in deliciis amoribusque ab eo usurpatam.

6 By these verses I believe Valerius Antias was induced, against all the other writers, to opine about Scipio’s morals and to write that that captive girl was not returned to her father, contrary to what we said above, but was retained by Scipio and usurped by him for delights and love-affairs.

IX. Locus exemptus ex annalibus L. Pisonis historiae et orationis lepidissimae.

9. A passage excerpted from the annals of L. Piso, of a most charming history and oration.

1 Quod res videbatur memoratu digna, quam fecisse Cn. Flavium Anni filium aedilem curulem L. Piso in tertio annali scripsit, eaque res perquam pure et venuste narrata a Pisone, locum istum totum huc ex Pisonis annali transposuimus.

1 Since the matter seemed worthy of remembrance, which Lucius Piso wrote in the third Annal that Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, the curule aedile, had done, and as this matter is related very purely and charmingly by Piso, we have transposed that whole passage hither from Piso’s Annal.

2 "Cn." inquit "Flavius patre libertino natus scriptum faciebat, isque in eo tempore aedili curuli apparebat, quo tempore aediles subrogantur, eumque pro tribu aedilem curulem renuntiaverunt.

2 "Cn.," he says, "Flavius, born of a freedman father, was making a written record, and at that time he was serving as an apparitor to the curule aedile, at the time when aediles are subrogated, and they declared him curule aedile by tribe."

3 Aedilem, qui comitia habebat, negat accipere, neque sibi placere, qui scriptum faceret, eum aedilem fieri.

3 The aedile who was holding the elections says he does not accept it, nor does it please him that the one who was making the written record become aedile.

4 Cn. Flavius Anni filius dicitur tabulas posuisse, scriptu sese abdicasse, isque aedilis curulis factus est.

4 Cn. Flavius, son of Annius, is said to have laid down the tablets, to have abdicated himself from writing, and he was made curule aedile.

5 "Idem Cn. Flavius Anni filius dicitur ad collegam venisse visere aegrotum. Eo in conclave postquam introivit, adulescentes ibi complures nobiles sedebant. Hi contemnentes eum, assurgere ei nemo voluit.

5 "The same Gnaeus Flavius, son of Annius, is said to have come to his colleague to visit him while ill. There, after he had entered the chamber, several young nobles were sitting. These men, being contemptuous of him, no one was willing to arise for him.

6 Cn. Flavius Anni filius aedilis id arrisit, sellam curulem iussit sibi afferri, eam in limine apposuit, ne quis illorum exire posset utique hi omnes inviti viderent sese in sella curuli sedentem."

6 Cn. Flavius, son of Annius, the aedile, smiled at that, ordered a curule chair to be brought to himself, set it at the threshold, so that none of those could go out, and in any case that all these, unwilling, might see him sitting in the curule chair."

X. Historia super Euclida Socratico, cuius exemplo Taurus philosophus hortari adulescentes suos solitus ad philosophiam naviter sectandam.

10. History concerning Euclid the Socratic, by whose example the philosopher Taurus was accustomed to exhort his youths to pursue philosophy zealously.

1 Philosophus Taurus, vir memoria nostra in disciplina Platonica celebratus, cum aliis bonis multis salubribusque exemplis hortabatur ad philosophiam capessendam, tum vel maxime ista re iuvenum animos expergebat, Euclidem quam dicebat Socraticum factitavisse.

1 The philosopher Taurus, a man within our memory celebrated in the Platonic discipline, together with many other good and salubrious examples used to exhort to undertaking philosophy, and most especially he would awaken the minds of the youths by this practice, which he said Euclid, a Socratic, was wont to do habitually.

2 "Decreto" inquit "suo Athenienses caverant, ut, qui Megaris civis esset, si intulisse Athenas pedem prensus esset, ut ea res ei homini capitalis esset;

2 "By their decree," he said, "the Athenians had provided that whoever was a citizen of Megara, if he were caught having set foot in Athens, that matter would be capital for that man;

3 tanto Athenienses" inquit "odio flagrabant finitimorum hominum Megarensium.

3 "so greatly the Athenians," he said, "blazed with hatred of the neighboring people, the Megarians."

4 Tum Euclides, qui indidem Megaris erat quique ante id decretum et esse Athenis et audire Socratem consueverat, postquam id decretum sanxerunt, sub noctem, cum advesperasceret, tunica longa muliebri indutus et pallio versicolore amictus et caput rica velatus e domo sua Megaris Athenas ad Socratem commeabat, ut vel noctis aliquo tempore consiliorum sermonumque eius fieret particeps, rursusque sub lucem milia passuum paulo amplius viginti eadem veste illa tectus redibat.

4 Then Euclides, who was from that same place, from Megara, and who before that decree had been accustomed both to be in Athens and to hear Socrates, after they enacted that decree, toward night, as it was growing dusk, dressed in a long womanly tunic, wrapped in a multicolored pallium, and with his head veiled with a rica (women’s veil), from his house at Megara would travel to Athens to Socrates, so that even at some time of the night he might become a participant in his counsels and conversations; and again just before daybreak, a little more than 20 miles, covered with that same garment, he would return.

5 At nunc" inquit "videre est philosophos ultro currere, ut doceant, ad fores iuvenum divitum eosque ibi sedere atque opperiri ad meridiem, donec discipuli nocturnum omne vinum edormiant."

5 But now," he says, "one may see philosophers running of their own accord, in order to teach, to the doors of rich youths, and sitting there and waiting until midday, until the disciples sleep off all the night's wine."

XI. Verba ex oratione Q. Metelli Numidici, quae libuit meminisse, ad officium gravitatis dignitatisque vitae ducentia.

11. Words from the oration of Q. Metellus Numidicus, which it pleased me to remember, leading toward the duty of a life of gravitas and dignity.

1 Cum inquinatissimis hominibus non esse convicio decertandum neque maledictis adversum inpudentes et inprobos velitandum, quia tantisper similis et compar eorum fias, dum paria et consimilia dicas, atque audias, non minus ex oratione Q. Metelli Numidici, sapientis viri, cognosci potest quam ex libris et disciplinis philosophorum.

1 That one must not contend by reviling with the most defiled men, nor skirmish with maledictions against the impudent and the wicked, because for so long you become similar and a match to them while you say and hear equal and very similar things, can be known no less from the oration of Q. Metellus Numidicus, a wise man, than from the books and disciplines of the philosophers.

2 Verba haec sunt Metelli adversus C. Manlium tribunum plebis, a quo apud populum in contione lacessitus iactatusque fuerat dictis petulantibus:

2 These are Metellus’s words against Gaius Manlius, tribune of the plebs, by whom, before the people in a public assembly, he had been provoked and buffeted with petulant words:

3 "Nunc quod ad illum attinet, Quirites, quoniam se ampliorem putat esse, si se mihi inimicum dictitarit, quem ego mihi neque amicum recipio neque inimicum respicio, in eum ego non sum plura dicturus. Nam cum indignissimum arbitror, cui a viris bonis benedicatur, tum ne idoneum quidem, cui a probis maledicatur. Nam si in eo tempore huiusmodi homunculum nomines, in quo punire non possis, maiore honore quam contumelia adficias."

3 "Now as for that fellow, Quirites, since he thinks himself more considerable if he keeps declaring himself my enemy—whom I for my part neither accept as a friend nor regard as an enemy—I am not going to say more against him. For I judge him most unworthy to be spoken well of by good men, and not even suitable to be ill-spoken of by the upright. For if, at a time such as this, you name such a homunculus, when you cannot punish him, you treat him with greater honor than contumely."

XII. Quod neque "testamentum", sicuti Servius Sulpicius existimavit, neque "sacellum", sicuti C. Trebatius, duplicia verba sunt, sed a testatione productum alterum, alterum a sacro imminutum.

12. That neither "testamentum," as Servius Sulpicius supposed, nor "sacellum," as C. Trebatius (did), are duplicated words, but the former is produced from attestation, the latter diminished from sacred.

1 Servius Sulpicius iureconsultus, vir aetatis suae doctissimus, in libro de sacris detestandis secundo qua ratione adductus "testamentum" verbum esse duplex scripserit, non reperio;

1 Servius Sulpicius, a jurisconsult, the most learned man of his age, in the second book On the Detestation of Sacred Things—by what reasoning, being induced, he wrote that the word "testamentum" is double—I do not discover;

2 nam compositum esse dixit a mentis contestatione.

2 for he said that it is composed from a contestation of mind.

3 Quid igitur "calciamentum", quid "paludamentum", quid "pavimentum", quid "vestimentum", quid alia mille per huiuscemodi formam producta, etiamne ista omnia composita dicemus?

3 What then "calciamentum", what "paludamentum", what "pavimentum", what "vestimentum", what of a thousand others produced through a formation of this kind, shall we say that even all these are composite?

4 Obrepsisse autem videtur Servio, vel si quis est, qui id prior dixit, falsa quidem, sed non abhorrens neque inconcinna quasi mentis quaedam in hoc vocabulo significatio, sicut hercle C. quoque Trebatio eadem concinnitas obrepsit.

4 But it seems to have crept in upon Servius, or, if there is anyone who said it earlier, a certain, as it were, signification of mind in this vocable—false, to be sure, but not abhorrent nor incongruous—just as, by Hercules, the same concinnity crept in upon C. Trebatius as well.

5 Nam in libro de religionibus secundo: ""sacellum" est" inquit "locus parvus deo sacratus cum ara." Deinde addit verba haec: " "Sacellum" ex duobus verbis arbitror compositum "sacri" et "cellae", quasi "sacra cella"."

5 For in the second book On Religions: ""sacellum" is," he says, "a small place consecrated to a god with an altar." Then he adds these words: " "Sacellum" I judge to be composed of two words, "sacri" and "cellae," as if "sacred cella.""

6 Hoc quidem scripsit Trebatius; sed quis ignorat "sacellum" et simplex verbum esse et non ex "sacro" et "cella" copulatum, sed ex "sacro" deminutum?

6 This indeed Trebatius wrote; but who does not know that "sacellum" is a simple word and not compounded from "sacro" and "cella," but diminished from "sacro"?

XIII. De quaestiunculis apud Taurum philosophum in convivio agitatis, quae "sympoticae" vocantur.

13. On the little questions discussed at a banquet with Taurus the philosopher, which are called "sympotic" questions.

1 Factitatum observatumque hoc Athenis est ab his, qui erant philosopho Tauro iunctiores:

1 This was habitually done and observed at Athens by those who were more closely joined to the philosopher Taurus:

2 cum domum suam nos vocaret, ne omnino, ut dicitur, immunes et asymboli veniremus, coniectabamus ad cenulam non cuppedias ciborum, sed argutias quaestionum.

2 when he would invite us to his house, so that we might not come altogether, as they say, “immune” and “asymboli,” we conjectured that at the little supper there would be not dainties of food, but subtleties of questions.

3 Vnusquisque igitur nostrum commentus paratusque ibat, quod quaereret, eratque initium loquendi edundi finis.

3 Therefore each of us, having devised and prepared, went with something to inquire; and the end of eating was the beginning of speaking.

4 Quaerebantur autem non gravia nec reverenda, sed enthymematia quaedam lepida et minuta et florentem vino animum lacessentia, quale hoc ferme est subtilitatis ludicrae, quod dicam.

4 They were being asked, however, not grave nor venerable matters, but certain little enthymemes, charming and minute and provoking a spirit flourishing with wine, such as this almost is of playful subtlety, which I shall say.

5 Quaesitum est, quando moriens moreretur: cum iam in morte esset, an cum etiamtum in vita foret? et quando surgens surgeret: cum iam staret, an cum etiamtum sederet? et qui artem disceret, quando artifex fieret: cum iam esset, an cum etiamtum non esset?

5 It was asked, when a dying person dies: when he is already in death, or when he is still in life? and when a rising person rises: when he is already standing, or when he is still sitting? and one who is learning an art, when does he become an artificer: when he already is, or when he is still not?

6 Vtrum enim horum dices, absurde atque ridicule dixeris, multoque absurdius videbitur, si aut utrumque esse dicas aut neutrum.

6 For whichever of these you say, you will have spoken absurdly and ridiculously, and it will seem much more absurd, if you say either that both are so or that neither is.

7 Sed ea omnia cum captiones esse quidam futtiles atque inanes dicerent, "nolite" inquit Taurus "haec quasi nugarum aliquem ludum aspernari.

7 But when certain people were saying that all these were captious, futile, and inane quibbles, "do not," said Taurus, "spurn these as if they were some game of trifles."

8 Gravissimi philosophorum super hac re serio quaesiverunt: et alii moriendi verbum atque momentum manente adhuc vita dici atque fieri putaverunt, alii nihil in eo tempore vitae reliquerunt totumque illud, quod mori dicitur, morti vindicaverunt;

8 The most grave of the philosophers have inquired seriously about this matter: and some thought that the word and the moment of dying, with life still remaining, can be said and can occur; others left nothing of life in that time, and claimed the whole of that which is called dying for death;

9 item de ceteris similibus in diversa tempora et in contrarias sententias discesserunt.

9 likewise, about the other similar matters, they have diverged into different times and into contrary opinions.

10 Sed Plato" inquit "noster neque vitae id tempus neque morti dedit idemque in omni consimilium rerum disceptatione fecit.

10 But, "our Plato," he says, assigned that time neither to life nor to death, and he did the same in every disputation of similar matters.

11 Vidit quippe utrumque esse pugnans neque posse ex duobus contrariis altero manente alterum constitui quaestionemque fieri per diversorum inter se finium mortis et vitae cohaerentiam, et idcirco peperit ipse expressitque aliud quoddam novum in confinio tempus, quod verbis propriis atque integris ten exaiphnes physin appellavit, idque ipsum ita, uti dico," inquit "in libro, cui Parmenides titulus est, scriptum ab eo reperietis."

11 For he saw, indeed, that both were at odds, and that from two contraries, with the one remaining, the other could not be constituted; and that a question arises through the coherence of the diverse boundaries of death and life with one another; and therefore he himself brought forth and expressed a certain new time on the confine, which, in his own proper and integral words, he called ten exaiphnes physin, and this very thing thus, as I say," he said, "in the book whose title is Parmenides, you will find written by him."

12 Tales aput Taurum symbolae taliaque erant mensarum secundarum, ut ipse dicere solitus erat, pragmata.

12 Such at Taurus were the symbolae and such the pragmata of the second tables, as he himself was wont to say.

XIV. Poeniendis peccatis tres esse rationes a philosophis attributas; et quamobrem Plato duarum ex his meminerit, non trium.

14. That for punishing sins three reasons have been attributed by the philosophers; and for what reason Plato made mention of two of these, not of three.

1 Poeniendis peccatis tres esse debere causas existimatum est.

1 It has been deemed that there ought to be three causes for punishing sins.

2 Vna est causa, quae Graece vel kolasis vel nouthesia dicitur, cum poena adhibetur castigandi atque emendandi gratia, ut is, qui fortuito deliquit, attentior fiat correctiorque.

2 One cause is that which in Greek is called either kolasis or nouthesia, when a penalty is applied for the sake of castigation and emendation, so that he who has erred by chance may become more attentive and more correct.

3 Altera est, quam hi, qui vocabula ista curiosius diviserunt, timorian appellant. Ea causa animadvertendi est, cum dignitas auctoritasque eius, in quem est peccatum, tuenda est, ne praetermissa animadversio contemptum eius pariat et honorem levet; idcircoque id ei vocabulum a conservatione honoris factum putant.

3 The second is what those who have more curiously divided these vocables call timorian. That is a cause for animadversion, when the dignity and authority of him against whom the sin has been committed must be defended, lest a neglected animadversion beget contempt of him and lower his honor; and for that reason they think that that vocable was fashioned for it from the conservation of honor.

4 Tertia ratio vindicandi est, quae paradeigma a Graecis nominatur, cum poenitio propter exemplum necessaria est, ut ceteri a similibus peccatis, quae prohiberi publicitus interest, metu cognitae poenae deterreantur. Idcirco veteres quoque nostri "exempla" pro maximis gravissimisque poenis dicebant. Quando igitur aut spes magna est, ut is, qui peccavit, citra poenam ipse sese ultro corrigat, aut spes contra nulla est emendari eum posse et corrigi aut iacturam dignitatis, in quem peccatum est, metui non necessum est, aut non id peccatum est, cuius exemplum necessario metu sanciendum sit: tum, quicquid ita delictum est, non sane dignum esse imponendae poenae studio visum est.

4 The third rationale of avenging is what is named paradeigma by the Greeks, when punishment on account of example is necessary, so that the rest may be deterred from similar offenses—which it is in the public interest to prevent—by fear of the known penalty. Therefore our elders too called “examples” the greatest and most grievous punishments. When, therefore, either there is great hope that the one who has sinned, without punishment, will of his own accord correct himself; or, conversely, there is no hope that he can be amended and corrected; or it is not necessary to fear any loss of dignity to him against whom the offense has been committed; or it is not that kind of offense whose example must necessarily be sanctioned by fear: then, whatever has been thus transgressed has not really seemed worthy of the zeal for imposing a penalty.

5 Has tris ulciscendi rationes et philosophi alii plurifariam et noster Taurus in primo commentariorum, quos in Gorgian Platonis composuit, scriptas reliquit.

5 These three methods of avenging have been left written both by other philosophers in many places and by our Taurus in the first of the commentaries which he composed on Plato’s Gorgias.

6 Plato autem ipse verbis apertis duas solas esse poeniendi causas dicit: unam, quam primo in loco propter corrigendum, alteram, quam in tertio propter exempli metum posuimus.

6 But Plato himself, in plain words, says that there are only two causes of punishing: one, which in the first place we have posited for correction, the other, which in the third we have posited for fear of the example.

7 Verba haec sunt Platonis in Gorgia: Prosekei de panti toi en timoriai onti hyp'allou orthos timoroumenoi e beltioni gignesthai kai oninasthai, e paradeigmati allois gignesthai, hina alloi hoi horontes paschonta phoboumenoi beltious gignontai.

7 These are the words of Plato in the Gorgias: It pertains to everyone who is in punishment, being rightly punished by another, either to become better and to be profited, or to become a paradigm for others, in order that others, seeing one suffering, becoming afraid, may become better.

8 In hisce verbis facile intellegas timorian Platonem dixisse, non ut supra scripsi quosdam dicere, sed ita ut promisce dici solet pro omni punitione.

8 In these very words you may easily understand that Plato said “timorian,” not, as I wrote above that some say, but thus as it is wont to be said promiscuously for any punition.

9 Anne autem quasi omnino parvam et contemptu dignam praeterierit poenae sumendae causam propter tuendam laesi hominis auctoritatem, an magis quasi ei, quam dicebat, rei non necessariam praetermiserit, cum de poenis non in vita neque inter homines, sed post vitae tempus capiendis scriberet, ego in medium relinquo.

9 Or whether he has, as if altogether small and worthy of contempt, passed over the reason for taking punishment for the sake of safeguarding the authority of the injured man, or rather has omitted it as if not necessary to the matter he was discussing, since he was writing about punishments to be taken not in life nor among men, but after the time of life, I leave open to the common forum.

XV. De verbo "quiesco", an "e" littera corripi an produci debeat.

15. On the verb "quiesco," whether the letter "e" ought to be shortened or lengthened.

1 Amicus noster, homo multi studii atque in bonarum disciplinarum opere frequens, verbum "quiescit" usitate "e" littera correpta dixit.

1 Our friend, a man of much study and frequent in the work of good disciplines, pronounced the word "quiescit" customarily with the letter "e" shortened.

2 Alter item amicus, homo in doctrinis quasi in praestigiis mirificus communiumque vocum respuens nimis et fastidiens, barbare eum dixisse opinatus est, quoniam producere debuisset, non corripere.

2 Another friend likewise, a man marvelous in doctrines as if in prestidigitation and excessively spurning and fastidious of common words, supposed that he had spoken barbarously, since he ought to have produced it, not to shorten it.

3 Nam "quiescit" ita oportere dici praedicavit, ut "calescit", "nitescit", "stupescit" et alia huiuscemodi multa.

3 For he proclaimed that "quiescit" ought to be said thus, as "calescit", "nitescit", "stupescit", and many other things of this kind.

4 Id etiam addebat, quod "quies" "e" producto, non brevi diceretur.

4 He also added this, that "quies" should be said with the "e" produced, not short.

5 Noster autem, qua est rerum omnium verecunda mediocritate, ne si Aelii quidem, Cincii et Santrae dicendum ita censuissent, obsecuturum se fuisse ait contra perpetuam Latinae linguae consuetudinem, neque se tam insignite locuturum, ut absona inauditaque diceret;

5 Our man, however, with that modest mediocrity in all matters which is his, says that he would not have complied against the perpetual custom of the Latin language, not even if Aelius, Cincius, and Santra had judged that it must be said thus, nor would he speak so conspicuously as to say absonant and unheard-of things;

6 litteras tamen super hac re fecit inter exercitia quaedam ludicra et "quiesco" non esse his simile, quae supra posui, nec a "quiete" dictum, sed ab eo "quietem", Graecaeque vocis et modum et originem verbum istud habere demonstravit rationibusque haut sane frigidis docuit "quiesco" "e" littera longa dici non convenire.

6 nevertheless he wrote a letter on this matter amid certain playful exercises and showed that "quiesco" is not similar to those which I set above, nor derived from "quies," but that from it comes "quietem," and he demonstrated that that word has both the mode and the origin of a Greek vocable; and by arguments by no means truly frigid he taught that it does not befit "quiesco" to be said with the letter "e" long.

XVI. Verbum "deprecor" a poeta Catullo inusitate quidem, sed apte positum et proprie; deque ratione eius verbi exemplisque veterum scriptorum.

16. The verb "deprecor" by the poet Catullus is used indeed unusually, yet aptly placed and properly; and concerning the rationale of that verb and the examples of the ancient writers.

1 Eiusmodi quispiam, qui tumultuariis et inconditis linguae exercitationibus ad famam sese facundiae promiserat neque orationis Latinae usurpationes rationesve ullas didicerat, cum in Lycio forte vespera ambularemus, ludo ibi et voluptati fuit.

1 Someone of that sort, who by tumultuary and unpolished exercises of the tongue had promised himself a reputation for facundity and had learned no usages or principles at all of Latin oration, when we were walking by chance in the Lyceum at evening, was there a source of sport and pleasure.

2 Nam cum esset verbum "deprecor" doctiuscule positum in Catulli carmine, quia id ignorabat, frigidissimos versus esse dicebat omnium quidem iudicio venustissimos, quos subscripsi:
Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam
de me: Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat.
quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam
assidue, verum dispeream nisi amo.

2 For when the word “deprecor” had been somewhat learnedly set in a poem of Catullus, because he did not know it, he said the verses were the most frigid—though by the judgment of all they are most charming—which I have subscribed below:
Lesbia says ill of me always and is never silent
about me: Lesbia—may I perish if she does not—loves me.
By what sign? Because mine are the very same: I deprecate her
continually, but may I perish if I do not love.

3 "Deprecor" hoc in loco vir bonus ita esse dictum putabat, ut plerumque a vulgo dicitur, quod significat "valde precor" et "oro" et "supplico", in quo "de" praepositio ad augendum et cumulandum valet.

3 The good man thought that "deprecor" in this place had been said as it is for the most part by the common crowd, which signifies "I pray greatly" and "I entreat" and "I supplicate," wherein the preposition "de-" avails for augmenting and cumulating.

4 Quod si ita esset, frigidi sane versus forent.

4 But if it were so, the verses would indeed be frigid.

5 Nunc enim contra omnino est: nam "de" praepositio, quoniam est anceps, in uno eodemque verbo duplicem vim capit. Sic enim "deprecor" a Catullo dictum est, quasi "detestor" vel "exsecror" vel "depello" vel "abominor":

5 For now, indeed, it is altogether the opposite: for the preposition "de," since it is ambivalent, in one and the same word takes on a double force. For thus "deprecor" is said by Catullus, as if "I detest" or "I execrate" or "I repel" or "I abominate":

6contra autem valet, cum Cicero Pro P. Sulla ita dicit: "Quam multorum hic vitamst a Sulla deprecatus."

6 but on the contrary it prevails, when Cicero in the speech For P. Sulla thus says: "How many men's life has this man obtained from Sulla by pleading?"

7 Item in dissuasione legis agrariae: "Si quid deliquero, nullae sunt imagines, quae me a vobis deprecentur."

7 Likewise in the dissuasion of the agrarian law: "If I have committed any delinquency, there are no ancestral images which might intercede for me with you."

8 Sed neque solus Catullus ita isto verbo usus est. Pleni sunt adeo libri similis in hoc verbo significationis, ex quibus unum et alterum, quae subpetierant, apposui.

8 But Catullus was not alone in using that word thus. To such a degree are the books filled with a similar signification in this word, from which I have appended one or another that had come to hand.

9 Q. Ennius in Erechtheo non longe secus dixit quam Catullus:
"qui nunc" inquit "aerumna mea libertatem paro,
quibus servitutem mea miseria deprecor;"
signat "abigo" et "amolior" vel prece adhibita vel quo alio modo.

9 Q. Ennius in the Erechtheus said not far otherwise than Catullus:
“who now by my hardship I prepare liberty,
from whom by my misery I deprecate servitude;”
he signifies “I drive off” and “I remove,” either with prayer applied or in some other way.

10 Item Ennius in Cresphonte:
ego cum meae vitae parcam, letum inimico deprecer.

10 Likewise Ennius in the Cresphontes:
I, while I spare my life, would avert (deprecate) death from my enemy.

11 Cicero in libro sexto de republica ita scripsit: "Quod quidem eo fuit maius, quia, cum causa pari collegae essent, non modo invidia pari non erant, sed etiam Claudi invidiam Gracchi caritas deprecabatur"; hic quoque item non est "valde precabatur", sed quasi propulsabat invidiam et defensabat invidiam, quod Graeci propinqua significatione paraiteisthai dicunt.

11 Cicero in the sixth book of On the Republic wrote thus: "Which indeed was the greater for this reason, that, although the colleagues were equal in cause, not only were they not equal in envy, but even the affection for Gracchus was deprecating the envy toward Claudius"; here too likewise it is not "was greatly praying," but as if he were repelling envy and defending against envy, which the Greeks, with a proximate signification, call paraiteisthai.

12 Item pro Aulo Caecina consimiliter Cicero verbo isto utitur. "Quid" inquit "huic homini facias? nonne concedas interdum, ut excusatione summae stultitiae summae improbitatis odium deprecetur?"

12 Likewise in For Aulus Caecina Cicero similarly uses this word. “What,” he says, “would you do to this man? Would you not sometimes concede that, by the excuse of utmost stupidity, he deprecate the odium of utmost improbity?”

13 Item in Verrem actionis secundae primo: "Nunc vero quid faciat Hortensius? avaritiaene crimina frugalitatis laudibus deprecetur? At hominem flagitiosissimum, libidinosissimum nequissimumque defendit." Sic igitur Catullus eadem se facere dicit, quae Lesbiam, quod et malediceret ei palam respueretque et recusaret detestareturque assidue et tamen eam penitus deperiret.

13 Likewise in Against Verres, of the second action, the first: "Now then, what is Hortensius to do? Shall he deprecate the crimes of avarice by praises of frugality? But he is defending a most disgraceful, most libidinous, and most nefarious man." Thus, then, Catullus says that he does the same things as Lesbia, since he both speaks ill of her, spits her out publicly, and refuses and detests her continually, and yet he utterly perishes for her.

XVII. Quis omnium primus libros publice praebuerit legendos; quantusque numerus fuerit Athenis ante clades Persicas librorum in bibliothecis publicorum.

17. Who of all was the first to provide books publicly to be read; and how great a number of books there was at Athens before the Persian disasters, in the public libraries.

1 Libros Athenis disciplinarum liberalium publice ad legendum praebendos primus posuisse dicitur Pisistratus tyrannus. Deinceps studiosius accuratiusque ipsi Athenienses auxerunt; sed omnem illam postea librorum copiam Xerxes Athenarum potitus urbe ipsa praeter arcem incensa abstulit asportavitque in Persas.

1 It is said that the tyrant Pisistratus was the first to set up at Athens books of the liberal disciplines to be provided publicly for reading. Thereafter the Athenians themselves increased them more studiously and more accurately; but later Xerxes, having gotten possession of Athens, with the city itself burned except for the citadel, removed and carried off all that abundance of books into Persia.

2 Eos porro libros universos multis post tempestatibus Seleucus rex, qui Nicanor appellatus est, referendos Athenas curavit.

2 Moreover, many seasons later, King Seleucus, who was called Nicanor, took care that all those books be returned to Athens.

3 Ingens postea numerus librorum in Aegypto ab Ptolemaeis regibus vel conquisitus vel confectus est ad milia ferme voluminum septingenta; sed ea omnia bello priore Alexandrino, dum diripitur ea civitas, non sponte neque opera consulta, sed a militibus forte auxiliaris incensa sunt.

3 Afterwards a vast number of books in Egypt was either sought out or compiled by the Ptolemies, the kings, to nearly seven hundred thousand volumes; but all these, in the earlier Alexandrian war, while that city was being plundered, were burned not by intention nor by deliberate counsel, but by chance by auxiliary soldiers.