Laudator Temporis Acti

When I was a boy, a gentleman in our neighborhood had a reputation for being a skinflint. A story circulated that when his son swallowed a nickel, he searched through the excrement until he recovered the coin. My brother also recalls this story.

I was reminded of this story recently when I read Josephus, Jewish Wars 5.420-421 (tr. H. St. J. Thackeray):

The people, however, were incited to desert; and selling for a trifling sum, some their whole property, others their most valuable treasures, they would swallow the gold coins to prevent discovery by the brigands, and then, escaping to the Romans, on discharging their bowels, have ample supplies for their needs.

ὁ δὲ δῆμος ἐκινήθη πρὸς αὐτομολίαν. καὶ οἱ μὲν τὰς κτήσεις ἐλαχίστου πωλοῦντες, οἱ δὲ τὰ πολυτελέστερα τῶν κειμηλίων, τοὺς μὲν χρυσοῦς, ὡς μὴ φωραθεῖεν ὑπὸ τῶν λῃστῶν, κατέπινον, ἔπειτα πρὸς τοὺς Ῥωμαίους διαδιδράσκοντες, ὁπότε ενέγκαιεν εὐπόρουν πρὸς ἃ δέοιντο.

The incident in Josephus had a horrible sequel. Two thousand of the Jews who escaped were disembowelled by Syrians who learned about the swallowed coins (5.550-552).

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Cicero, In Defense of Gnaeus Plancius 12.29 (tr. N.H. Watts):

For in my opinion filial affection is the basis of all virtues.

nam meo iudicio pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum.

Cf. id. 33.80-81:

For indeed, gentlemen, while I would fain have some tincture of all the virtues, there is no quality I would sooner have, and be thought to have, than gratitude. For gratitude not merely stands alone at the head of all the virtues, but is even mother of all the rest. What is filial affection, if not a benevolent gratitude to one’s parents? What is patriotism, what is service to one's country in war and peace, if it is not a recollection of benefits received from that country? What is piety and religion, save a due reverence and remembrance in paying to the immortal gods the thanks that we owe? Take friendship away, and what joy can life continue to hold? More, how can friendship exist at all between those who are devoid of gratitude?

Who is there of us that has received an enlightened upbringing who does not constantly ponder with grateful recollection upon those who had the care of him, upon his tutors and teachers, and even upon the inanimate scenes of his rearing and schooling?

etenim, iudices, cum omnibus virtutibus me affectum esse cupio, tum nihil est, quod malim quam me et gratum esse et videri. Haec est enim una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum. quid est pietas nisi voluntas grata in parentes? qui sunt boni cives, qui belli, qui domi de patria bene merentes, nisi qui patriae beneficia meminerunt? qui sancti, qui religionum colentes, nisi qui meritam diis immortalibus gratiam iustis honoribus et memori mente persolvunt? quae potest esse iucunditas vitae sublatis amicitiis? quae porro amicitia potest esse inter ingratos?

quis est nostrum liberaliter educatus, cui non educatores, cui non magistri sui, atque doctores, cui non locus ipse mutus ille, ubi altus aut doctus est, cum grata recordatione in mente versetur?

Horace, Epistles 1.10.14 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):

Do you know any place to be preferred to the blissful country?

novistine locum potiorem rure beato?

Telemaco Signorini (1835-1901), Buoi a Pietramala (Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano, Collezione Grassi, n. 119):

Ramsay MacMullen (1928-2022), Enemies of the Roman Order (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 7:

A child was born into a praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, all parts of which committed him to the character of earlier namesakes — to whom, as he grew up, he offered sacrifices in his home, and for whose deeds he was ridiculed or respected by his friends as son (or grandson, or great-grandson) of the man who did thus-and-so. Career and marriage were in the gift of the family, and at his death his merits were recalled and his very few faults sunk to the bottom of a sea of rhetoric by cousins and adherents whose powers qualified them to deliver a eulogy. The embrace of the clan thus received him from the womb, shaped him, delivered him to his grave, and hallowed his memory thereafter. By a custom most extraordinary, it even brought him to life again at his funeral; for at this moment an actor who looked and talked most like him, or perhaps some relative who resembled him, put on his death mask of wax, exactly painted, and walked ahead of his bier accompanied by dozens or (for a great man of a great family) by hundreds of his ancestors represented in turn by their masks, and by the robes and rites of the highest office they had attained, so that the whole procession brought together praetors and consuls, generals and party leaders reaching back through generations.

Id., p. 8:

Growing up in a house filled with one's own forebears, reading their stories and seeing them come to life and walk beside some relative's bier—all this must surely have had an effect on the stupidest boy. He would know what was expected of him with a vividness at times overwhelming. At the least he could continue the line with a carven correctness. He could be "a walking bust." But it was hard to stop there. The faces on the walls exercised a more powerful spell over the imagination. They made pride and obligation visible.

Diogenes Laertius 7.1.23 (on Zeno; tr. R.D. Hicks):

To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, "The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less."

πρὸς τὸ φλυαροῦν μειράκιον, "διὰ τοῦτο," εἶπε, "δύο ὦτα ἔχομεν, στόμα δὲ ἕν, ἵνα πλείονα μὲν ἀκούωμεν, ἥττονα δὲ λέγωμεν."

Augustine, Sermons 350B.1 (F. Haffner, "Unveröffentlichtes Fragment einer verlorenen Predigt des hl. Augustinus," Revue bénédictine 77 [1967] 325-328 [at ?]; tr. Edmund Hill, with his note):

So listen to me, Mr. Rich Man, and let my advice win your approval. Redeem your sins with almsgiving. Don't sit on your gold like a hen on eggs. Naked you came from your mother's womb, naked you are going to return into the earth! And if you are going to return naked into the earth, for whom are you amassing all these things upon the earth? I imagine, if you could carry anything with you, you would have devoured people alive. Look, you came forth naked, why not be bountiful with your money, whether you've made your pile by fair means or foul? Send ahead what makes you such an admired figure, make balloons of your much admired goods,⁴ in order to reach the kingdom of heaven.

4. Fac inflationes rerum permirarum; literally, make inflations of your much admired goods. But I doubt if they talked about inflation in the monetary sense in those days, though they certainly experienced it. They called it adulterating the coinage. So I am treating inflationes as if it means inflated objects, that is, balloons. Did they have balloons in those days? I don't know; perhaps this text is evidence that they did. Anyway, it is a pleasant image: send your wealth up to heaven by balloon.

Audi ergo me, o dives, et consilium meum placeat tibi. Peccata eleemosinis redime. Noli incubare auro; nudus existi de utero matris tuae, nudus es rediturus in terram. Et si nudus rediturus es in terram, cui congregas supra terram? Credo, si aliquid tecum portare possis, vivos homines devorasses. Ecce, nudus egredieris, cur non pecuniam vel bone vel male congregatam largiris? Promitte, quo mirus es, fac inflationes rerum permirarum, ut pervenias ad regnum caelorum.

Julian, Orations 6.197 C (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. Wilmer Cave Wright):

Once when, in a crowd of people among whom was Diogenes, a certain youth made an unseemly noise, Diogenes struck him with his staff and said "And so, vile wretch, though you have done nothing that would give you the right to take such liberties in public, you are beginning here and before us to show your scorn of opinion?"

ἐπειδὴ γάρ τις τῶν νέων ἐν ὄχλῳ, παρόντος καὶ τοῦ Διογένους, ἀπέπαρδεν, ἐπάταξεν ἐκεῖνος τῇ βακτηρίᾳ φάς· εἶτα, ὦ κάθαρμα, μηδὲν ἄξιον τοῦ δημοσίᾳ τὰ τοιαῦτα θαρσεῖν πράξας ἐντεῦθεν ἡμῖν ἄρχῃ δόξης καταφρονεῖν;

"Made an unseemly noise" is a euphemism. The Greek is more plainspoken — ἀπέπαρδεν = farted.

Diogenes himself thought he was justified in taking similar liberties in public (id. 6.202 C):

On the other hand when Diogenes made unseemly noises or obeyed the call of nature or did anything else of that sort in the market-place, as they say he did, he did so because he was trying to trample on the conceit of the men I have just mentioned, and to teach them that their practices were far more sordid and insupportable than his own. For what he did was in accordance with the nature of all of us, but theirs accorded with no man's real nature, one may say, but were all due to moral depravity.

ἐπεὶ καὶ Διογένης εἴτε ἀπέπαρδεν εἴτε ἀπεπάτησεν εἴτε ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον ἔπραξεν, ὥσπερ οὖν λέγουσιν, ἐν ἀγορᾷ, τὸν ἐκείνων πατῶν τῦφον ἐποίει, διδάσκων αὐτούς, ὅτι πολλῷ φαυλότερα καὶ χαλεπώτερα τούτων ἐπιτηδεύουσι. τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἡμῖν πᾶσι κατὰ φύσιν, τὰ δὲ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδενί, πάντα δὲ ἐκ διαστροφῆς ἐπιτηδεύεται.

Here we have two euphemisms. "Made unseemly noises" in the Greek is ἀπέπαρδεν = farted, and "obeyed the call of nature" is ἀπεπάτησεν = shat, although one could argue that ἀποπατέω is itself a euphemism (literally walk away, withdraw, i.e. for the purpose of defecating).

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Juvenal 8.30-32 (tr. Peter Green):

                                                 Who'd claim high nobility
for one who falls short of his breeding, whose only distinction
is a famous name?

         quis enim generosum dixerit hunc qui
indignus genere et praeclaro nomine tantum
insignis?

Julian, Orations 7.205 C (tr. Wilmer Cave Wright):

Now one could no more discover where myth was originally invented and who was the first to compose fiction in a plausible manner for the benefit or entertainment of his hearers, than if one were to try to find out who was the first man that sneezed or the first horse that neighed.

ὁ πρῶτος ἐπιχειρήσας τὸ ψεῦδος πιθανῶς συνθεῖναι πρὸς ὠφέλειαν ἢ ψυχαγωγίαν τῶν ἀκροωμένων, οὐ μᾶλλον εὔροι τις ἂν ἢ εἴ τις ἐπιχειρήσεις τὸν πρῶτον πταρόντα ἢ χρεμψάμενον ἀναζητεῖν.