Friday, January 31, 2025
More Stupid than Melitides
Erasmus, Adagia IV iv 69, in Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 36: Adages IV iii 1 to V ii 51, tr. John N. Grant and Betty I. Knott (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), p. 108:
Stultior MelitideThe original:
As stupid as Melitides
Μωρότερος Μελιτίδου, More stupid than Melitides. Melitides was one of those lucky fools whom Homer made famous in his poetry. He is said to have come to help Priam when Troy had already been destroyed, as Eustathius mentions in his commentary on book ten of the Odyssey.1 Lucian in his Love Affairs: 'For heaven's sake, do you think that I am Melitides or Coroebus?'2 The proverb is cited by Zenodotus, who informs us that this fellow was a target for the abuse of the comic writers because of his stupidity: he could not count beyond five and he never laid a finger on a new bride when he married her for fear that she would lay accusations against him to her mother.3 In the same place he mentions another extremely stupid man who did not know which parent gave him birth. We have mentioned Coroebus, the friend of Melitides, elsewhere.4 Pausanias said that Aristophanes counted this man along with Butalio and Melitides as a fool.5 Suidas says the same, quoting these verses from Aristophanes: 'Up to now the most abject of men, idly gaping / They sit, like a Mamakuthes or a Melitides.'6
1 Eustathius 1669.51 on Odyssey 10.552, but he does not give the information recounted by Erasmus. This story is also mentioned in Adagia III i 17 To bring up the artillery when the war is over.
2 Lucian Amores 53
3 This does not appear in the collection of Zenobius in CPG, but is to be found in Zenobius (Aldus) column 59. The name of the other stupid man who did not know whether his mother or father gave him birth was Amphisteides. On Erasmus' use of the name Zenodotus (for Zenobius) see Adagia iv iii 72 n2 (44 above).
4 Adagia II ix 64 As foolish as Coroebus
5 The reference to Pausanias has not been identified. Perhaps Erasmus was thinking of Pausanias the Atticist, who is sometimes cited in the Suda (note the reference to 'Suidas' in the next sentence). There is nothing of this nature, however, in Erbse's edition of the fragments of Pausanias (see Adagia iv vi 17 n2, 221 below).
6 Suda B 468, quoting Aristophanes Frogs 989-91
Stultior Melitide.See also Menander, The Shield 269-270 (tr. W. G. Arnott):
Μωρότερος Μελιτίδου, id est Stultior Melitide. Melitides unus est e felicissimis illis fatuis, quos Homerus suo carmine nobilitavit. Hic jam eversa Troja venisse legitur auxilium laturus Priamo, ut meminit Eustathius decimum Odysseae librum enarrans. Lucianus in Amoribus: Μελιτίδην ἢ Κόροιβον οἴει με, πρὸς θεῶν; id est Melitidem aut Coroebum me putas, per deos? Proverbium refertur a Zenodoto, docens hunc comicorum conviciis fuisse traductum ob stultitiam nec potuisse numerare supra quimque et ducta uxore nuptam non attigisse, veritum ne se illa accusaret apud matrem. Commemorat eodem in loco et alium quendam insigniter stultum, qui dubitarit ex utro parente fuisset natus. De Melitidis sodali Coroebo meminimus alibi. Pausanias admonuit Coroebum una cum Butalione ac Melitide ab Aristophane inter fatuos numerari. Eadem Suidas, adferens hoc carmen ex Aristophane:Τέως δ᾿ ἀβελτερώτατοι κεχηνότες,id est
Μαμάκουθαι, Μελιτίδαι κάθηνται,Hactenus abjectissimi inhiantes
Mamacuthae, Melitidae desident.
By the gods, do you think you're talking to Melitides?I.e., "to a halfwit" (Kenneth Dover on Aristophanes, Frogs 991).
πρὸς θεῶν, Μελιτίδῃ / λαλεῖν ὑπείληφας;
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Good Things
Augustine, Sermons 339.6 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 46, col. 967; tr. Edmund Hill):
Just consider this point, my brothers and sisters; notice how many good things the Lord our God gives to the bad: light, life, health, springs, the fruits of the earth, offspring; frequently also honors, high positions, places of authority. These are all good things which he gives to both good and bad alike.Related posts:
Hoc considerate, fratres mei, videte Dominus Deus noster quanta bona det malis: lucem, vitam, salutem, fontes, fructus, generationes, plerumque honores, celsitudines, potestates; haec omnia dat bona et bonis et malis.
- Good Things (Sermons 29.5)
- Good Things (Sermons 61.2)
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Saving One's Life and Losing It
Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1.43 (tr. Robin Waterfield):
And there's something else that I've observed, my friends: in warfare those who seek to stay alive, no matter what it takes, are usually those who die cowardly and ignominious deaths, while those who have realized that death is the common lot of all men, and therefore strive for noble deaths, are those who, in my experience, are somehow more likely to reach old age and to enjoy the time they have while they are alive.Matthew 16:25 (KJV):
ἐντεθύμημαι δ᾽ ἔγωγε, ὦ ἄνδρες, καὶ τοῦτο, ὅτι ὁπόσοι μὲν μαστεύουσι ζῆν ἐκ παντὸς τρόπου ἐν τοῖς πολεμικοῖς, οὗτοι μὲν κακῶς τε καὶ αἰσχρῶς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, ὁπόσοι δὲ τὸν μὲν θάνατον ἐγνώκασι πᾶσι κοινὸν εἶναι καὶ ἀναγκαῖον ἀνθρώποις, περὶ δὲ τοῦ καλῶς ἀποθνῄσκειν ἀγωνίζονται, τούτους ὁρῶ μᾶλλόν πως εἰς τὸ γῆρας ἀφικνουμένους καὶ ἕως ἂν ζῶσιν εὐδαιμονέστερον διάγοντας.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ σῶσαι ἀπολέσει αὐτήν· ὃς δ’ ἂν ἀπολέσῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν.
Monday, January 27, 2025
A Dramatic Dialogue
Martial 3.38 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, with his note):
Thanks to Eric Thomson for pointing out that line 7 of the Latin is faulty in Martial, Epigrams. Edited and Translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Vol. I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993 =Loeb Classical Library, 94), p. 214 (read nobis for hobis):
What reason, what prospect brings you to Rome, Sextus? What do you hope or look for from there? Tell me.SB1 = D.R. Shackleton Bailey, "Corrections and Explanations of Martial," Classical Philology 73.4 (October, 1978) 273-296 (at 275-276).
You reply: “I shall plead cases more eloquently than Cicero himself and nobody in the three Forums shall be my match.”
Atestinus and Civis pleaded cases—you knew them both—but neither covered his rent.
“If nothing comes out of that, I’ll write poetry. Hear it, and you’ll say it’s Maro’s work.”
You’re crazy. All these people you see here in frosty cloaks are Nasos and Virgils.
“I’ll dance attendance on great halls.”
That line barely supported three or four, the rest of the crew is pale with hunger.
“Advise me what to do. For I’m determined to live in Rome.”
If you’re an honest man, Sextus, you can live at random.48
48 I.e. from hand to mouth; on the phrase casu vivere see SB1 (and cf. εἰκῆ ζῆν in Soph. O.T. 979). Only rogues can make a regular living in Rome.
Quae te causa trahit vel quae fiducia Romam,
Sexte? quid aut speras aut petis inde? refer.
‘causas’ inquis ‘agam Cicerone disertior ipso
atque erit in triplici par mihi nemo foro.’
egit Atestinus causas et Civis — utrumque 5
noras —; sed neutri pensio tota fuit.
‘si nihil hinc veniet, pangentur carmina nobis:
audieris, dices esse Maronis opus.’
insanis: omnes gelidis quicumque lacernis
sunt ibi, Nasones Vergiliosque vides. 10
‘atria magna colam.’ vix tres aut quattuor ista
res aluit, pallet cetera turba fame.
‘quid faciam suade: nam certum est vivere Romae.’
si bonus es, casu vivere, Sexte, potes.
14 bonus es codd.: penus est Shackleton Bailey
casu codd.: censu Håkanson
Thanks to Eric Thomson for pointing out that line 7 of the Latin is faulty in Martial, Epigrams. Edited and Translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Vol. I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993 =Loeb Classical Library, 94), p. 214 (read nobis for hobis):
Labels: typographical and other errors
Second Thoughts
Lysias 19.53 (tr. S.C. Todd):
But people say that the best and wisest men are most willing to change their minds.
φασὶ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀρίστους καὶ σοφωτάτους μάλιστα ἐθέλειν μεταγιγνώσκειν.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
The Death Penalty
Plutarch, Life of Solon 17.1-2 (tr. Ian Scott-Kilvert):
Under the Draconian code almost any kind of offence was liable to the death penalty, so that even those convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole fruit or vegetables suffered the same punishment as those who committed sacrilege or murder. This is the reason why, in later times, Demades became famous for his remark that Draco’s code was written not in ink but in blood. Draco himself, when he was once asked why he had decreed the death penalty for the great majority of offences, replied that he considered the minor ones deserved it, and so for the major ones no heavier punishment was left.
μία γὰρ ὀλίγου δεῖν ἅπασιν ὥριστο τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι ζημία θάνατος, ὥστε καὶ τοὺς ἀργίας ἁλόντας ἀποθνήσκειν, καὶ τοὺς λάχανα κλέψαντας ἢ ὀπώραν ὁμοίως κολάζεσθαι τοῖς ἱεροσύλοις καὶ ἀνδροφόνοις. διὸ Δημάδης ὕστερον εὐδοκίμησεν εἰπὼν ὅτι δι᾽ αἵματος, οὐ διὰ μέλανος, τοὺς νόμους ὁ Δράκων ἔγραψεν. αὐτὸς δ᾽ ἐκεῖνος, ὥς φασιν, ἐρωτώμενος διὰ τί τοῖς πλείστοις ἀδικήμασι ζημίαν ἔταξε θάνατον, ἀπεκρίνατο τὰ μὲν μικρὰ ταύτης ἄξια νομίζειν, τοῖς δὲ μεγάλοις οὐκ ἔχειν μείζονα.
Weather Signs
My father taught me this rhyme:
Red sky at night,Cf. Jesus' response to the Pharisees and Sadducees, when they asked him for a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:2-3 KJV):
sailors delight;
red sky in morning,
sailors take warning.
When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1975), p. 41:
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering.
ὀψίας γενομένης λέγετε· εὐδία, πυρράζει γὰρ ὁ οὐρανός·
καὶ πρωΐ· σήμερον χειμών, πυρράζει γὰρ στυγνάζων ὁ οὐρανός.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Judging Fairly
Cicero, In Defence of Cluentius 2.6 (tr. H. Grose Hodge):
For this reason, then, before I begin to deal with the case proper, I have a request to make to you, gentlemen. First, that, as is only just, you bring to this court no preconceived judgements (for indeed men will cease, not only to respect us as judges, but even to call us judges, unless in this place we base our judgements on the facts of the case, instead of applying to the facts the ready-made judgements we have brought from home). Next—supposing you already to have formed some opinion—that, if it be dislodged by reason, shaken by argument, or finally uprooted by truth itself, you dismiss it without resistance from your minds, if not gladly, at least without reluctance. And lastly, as I proceed to a detailed refutation of the charge, do not on your part make a mental note of any point against me, but wait till the end and allow me to develop the defence in my own way: the conclusion of my speech will be time enough for you to ask yourselves the reason for any omissions I may have made.
Quam ob rem a vobis, iudices, ante quam de ipsa causa dicere incipio, haec postulo: primum id, quod aequissimum est, ut ne quid huc praeiudicati adferatis (etenim non modo auctoritatem, sed etiam nomen iudicum amittemus, nisi hic ex ipsis causis iudicabimus ac si ad causas iudicia iam facta domo deferemus); deinde si quam opinionem iam vestris mentibus comprehendistis, si eam ratio convellet, si oratio labefactabit, si denique veritas extorquebit, ne repugnetis eamque animis vestris aut libentibus aut aequis remittatis; tum autem, cum ego una quaque de re dicam et diluam, ne ipsi, quae contraria sint, taciti cogitationi vestrae subiciatis, sed ad extremum exspectetis meque meum dicendi ordinem servare patiamini: cum peroraro, tum, si quid erit praeteritum, animo requiratis.
animo codd.: omnino Fausset
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Chains
Augustine, Sermons 335E.3 (C. Lambot, "Nouveaux sermons de S. Augustin. IV-VII. 'De Martyribus'," Revue Bénédictine 50 [1938] 3-25 [at 12-13]; tr. Edmund Hill):
So there are many chains binding the soul; love of wealth, love of power, love of the affection of wife, parents, children, brothers and sisters, love of country, love of one's land, love of this daylight, love of any sort of life simply because it's life.
Tenent ergo animam multa vincula: amor divitiarum, amor potestatum, amor affectus uxoris parentum filiorum fratrum, amor patriae, amor terrae suae, amor lucis huius, amor qualiscumque vitae tantum quia vitae.
The Odes of Horace
C.M. Bowra (1898-1971), "The Odes of Horace," in his Inspiration and Poetry (London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1955), pp. 26-44 (at 44):
[T]he four books of the Odes, with their hundred and three short poems, cover a wider range of experience and present it in a more satisfying form than almost any comparable book written by man.
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Aristophanes in Stone
Aristophanes, Frogs 454-459 (sung by chorus of Eleusinian initiates in the underworld; tr. Jeffrey Henderson):
See Nigel G. Wilson, "The Transmission of Aristophanes," in Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro, edd., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 655–666 (at 656-657), and Ivan Matijašić, "Base di statua da Rodi con citazione di Aristofane," Axon 1.2 (December, 2017) 215-223.
For us alone is there sunThese lines appear (preceded by Aristophanes' name in the genitive) on a 1st century BC inscription from Rhodes published by G. Pugliese Carratelli, "Versi di un coro delle Rane in un'epigrafe rodia," Dioniso 8.4 (1940) 119-123 (non vidi). The inscription is now in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes. I haven't been able to find a photograph of the stone on the World Wide Web.
and sacred daylight,
for we are initiated
and righteous was our behavior
toward strangers
and ordinary people.
μόνοις γὰρ ἡμῖν ἥλιος
καὶ φέγγος ἱερόν ἐστιν, 455
ὅσοι μεμυήμεθ᾿ εὐ-
σεβῆ τε διήγομεν
τρόπον περὶ τοὺς ξένους
καὶ τοὺς ἰδιώτας.
See Nigel G. Wilson, "The Transmission of Aristophanes," in Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro, edd., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 655–666 (at 656-657), and Ivan Matijašić, "Base di statua da Rodi con citazione di Aristofane," Axon 1.2 (December, 2017) 215-223.
Reading a Greek Play
Kenneth Dover, ed., Aristophanes, Frogs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 104:
In reading a Greek play one should always try to visualize the positions of the characters at any given moment, their movements and gestures, and hear their tone of voice in the mind's ear. For this purpose it is a good thing to know one's way around Denniston's Greek Particles and also to know the main constraints under which Greek drama operated: action out of doors, in daylight, and the concealment of facial expression by masks.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Augustine on the Use of Amulets
Augustine, Sermons 335D.3 (C. Lambot, "Nouveaux sermons de S. Augustin. IV-VII. 'De Martyribus'," Revue Bénédictine 50 [1938] 3-25 [at 4-5]; tr. Edmund Hill, with his notes):
People though who belong to "man,"6 who are not sons of man, only care about health or salvation here, and reckon there is no other sort to follow it when it's passed away; so when they find this health beginning to be endangered, even if they are called Christians, they seek out diviners, they send to the astrologers, they hang unlawful charms round their necks. They desire health and tie things round their necks; they bind the neck of the outer self, and stifle the throat of the inner self.7Lambot's note on dematricula (p. 5):
But the one who says, "I won't do it"—when a friend suggests it, a neighbor mutters something about it, or a neighbor's maid, sometimes even his own old nurse8 —who says, "I won't do it; I'm a Christian. God prohibits this sort of thing. These are the sacraments of demons. Listen to the apostle: I do not wish you to become the associates of demons (1 Cor 10:20)"—well, he gets this answer from the one who is suggesting it: "Do it, and you'll get well. So-and-so and Such-and-such did it. What? Aren't they Christians? Aren't they believers? Don't they hurry off to church? And yet they did it and got well. So-and-so did it and was cured immediately. Don't you know Such-and-such, that he's a Christian, a believer? Look, he did it, and he got well."
6. An allusion to Ps 36:6, Men and cattle you will save, Lord.
7. The language, but not the thought, of 2 Cor 4:16.
8. Dematricula ejus; I am just guessing what this person could be; a wet nurse seems the most likely. She is unknown to Messrs Lewis & Short.
Homines autem pertinentes ad hominem, non filii hominis, quia non curant nisi istam salutem quam, cum transient, nullam existimant secuturam, quando eis coeperit salus ista periclitari, etiam si Christiani vocentur, sortilegos quaerunt, ad mathematicos mittunt, remedia illicita collo suo suspendunt. Salutem desiderant et collum sibi ligant, cervicem exterioris hominis ligant et guttur interioris suffocant.
Qui autem dicit: "Non facio" — suggerente amico, et mussitante vicino aut vicina ancilla, aliquando et dematricula eius — qui dicit: "Non facio: Christianus sum; Deus prohibet hoc; sacramenta sunt daemonum; audi Apostolum: Nolo vos socios fieri daemoniorum", respondetur illi ab illo qui suggerit: "Fac et sanus eris; ille et ille fecerunt. Quid? Non sunt Christiani? Non sunt fideles? Non ad ecclesiam currunt? Et tamen fecerunt et sani sunt. Ille fecit et continuo sanatus est. Illum non nosti quia Christianus est, fidelis? Ecce fecit et sanus est".
verbum penitus ignotum lexicographis; cum autem iterum occurrat infra l. 121, mutare illud non praesumpsi; idem significare videtur quod 'matercula'.Id. 335D.5 (at 8):
So restrain yourselves from unlawful things, from amulets, from spells, from astrologers, from soothsayers. When you fall sick, don't go looking for such things, and don't withdraw from God, or you will perish. Instead, you will say with the apostle, For when I am weak, then it is I am powerful (2 Cor 12:10). You are lying on your sickbed, and are one of God's athletes. You can't move hand or foot, and you're fighting battles to the finish. The fever doesn't leave you, and your faith goes ahead to God. But to and behold, a neighbor at your bedside, and a friend and a maid, even perhaps, as I said, your old nurse, bringing wax and an egg in her hand and saying, "Do this and get better. Why prolong your illness? Tie on this amulet. I heard someone invoke the name of God and the angels over it, and you will get better. To whose care will you leave your widowed wife, to whose care your young children?"Alexander Souter, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 94, s.v. dematricula, defines the word as "little mother." Cf. Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), p. 510:
Abstinete vos ergo ab illicitis rebus, a ligaturis, ab incantationibus, a mathematicis, a sortilegis. Cum aegrotatis, non talia requiratis et a Deo non recedatis, ne pereatis. Sed dices cum Apostolo: Cum enim infirmor, tunc potens sum. In lecto iaces et athleta Dei es. Non moves membra et peragis proelia. Febris non recedit et fides ad Deum praecedit. Sed ecce adstat vicinus et amicus et ancilla, etiam dixi, forte dematricula, ceram vel ovum manibus ferens et dicit: "Fac hoc et salvus eris. Quid prolongas tuam aegritudinem? Fac hanc ligaturam. Ego audivi qui nomen Dei et angelorum ibi invocat et eris sanus. Cui dimittis viduam coniugem tuam, cui teneros filios?
dematricula 'female purifier and healer'. Rather obscure figure, may be defined, e.g., as "friendly neighborhood witch."See also Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001; rpt. 2003), pp. 296-300.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Two Bodies
Cicero, Pro Murena 25.51 (tr. C. MacDonald; he = Catiline):
For he then said that the State had two bodies, one frail with a weak head, the other strong but with no head at all; and provided that it showed itself worthy of his leadership this body would never go short of a head so long as he was alive.Plutarch, Life of Cicero 14.4 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin ; he = Catiline):
tum enim dixit duo corpora esse rei publicae, unum debile infirmo capite, alterum firmum sine capite; huic, si ita de se meritum esset, caput se vivo non defuturum.
"What dreadful thing, pray," said he, "am I doing, if, when there are two bodies, one lean and wasted, but with a head, and the other headless, but strong and large, I myself become a head for this?"
"τί γὰρ," ἔφη, "πράττω δεινόν, εἰ, δυεῖν σωμάτων ὄντων, τοῦ μέν ἰσχνοῦ καὶ κατεφθινηκότος, ἔχοντος δὲ κεφαλήν, τοῦ δ᾽ ἀκεφάλου μέν, ἰσχυροῦ δὲ καὶ μεγάλου, τούτῳ κεφαλὴν αὐτὸς ἐπιτίθημι;"
Cerberus
Genoa, Museo di Archeologia Ligure, inventario RCGE 1049 (click once or twice to enlarge):
Hat tip: Eric Thomson.
The Joy of Vengeance
Livy 21.2.6 (on Hasdrubal; tr. B.O. Foster):
But peace brought him no security. A barbarian whose master he had put to death murdered him in broad daylight, and when seized by the bystanders he looked as happy as though he had escaped. Even when put to the torture, his delight at the success of his attempt mastered his pain and his face wore a smiling expression.Valerius Maximus 3.3 ext 7 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):
ceterum nihilo ei pax tutior fuit; barbarus eum quidam palam ob iram interfecti ab eo domini obtruncavit; comprensusque ab circumstantibus haud alio quam si evasisset vultu tormentis quoque cum laceraretur, eo fuit habitu oris ut superante laetitia dolores ridentis etiam speciem praebuerit.
A barbarian slave, angry with Hasdrubal because he had killed his master, suddenly attacked and slew him. Apprehended, he suffered all manner of torments, but resolutely maintained upon his face the joy his vengeance had given him.
servus barbarus Hasdrubalem, quod dominum suum occidisset graviter ferens, subito adgressus interemit, cumque comprehensus omni modo cruciaretur, laetitiam tamen, quam ex vindicta ceperat, in ore constantissime retinuit.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
A Samnite Ritual
Livy 10.38.5-12 (293 BC; tr. B.O. Foster):
Update: Kevin Muse points out to me that apparitor appears in English dictionaries.
[5] There, at about the middle of the camp, they had enclosed an area, extending approximately two hundred feet in all directions, with wicker hurdles, and roofed it over with linen. [6] In this place they offered sacrifice in accordance with directions read from an old linen roll. The celebrant was one Ovius Paccius, an aged man, who claimed to derive this ceremony from an ancient ritual of the Samnites which the forefathers of those present had formerly employed when they had gone secretly about to get Capua away from the Etruscans. [7] On the conclusion of the sacrifice, the general by his apparitor commanded to be summoned all those of the highest degree in birth and deeds of arms; and one by one they were introduced. [8] Besides other ceremonial preparations, such as might avail to strike the mind with religious awe, there was a place all enclosed, with altars in the midst and slaughtered victims lying about, and round them a guard of centurions with drawn swords. [9] The man was brought up to the altar, more like a victim than a partaker in the rite, and was sworn not to divulge what he should there see or hear. [10] They then compelled him to take an oath in accordance with a certain dreadful form of words, whereby he invoked a curse upon his head, his household, and his family, if he went not into battle where his generals led the way, or if he either fled from the line himself or saw any other fleeing and did not instantly cut him down. [11] Some there were at first who refused to take this oath; these were beheaded before the altars, where they lay amongst the slaughtered victims — a warning to the rest not to refuse. [12] When the leading Samnites had been bound by this imprecation, the general named ten of them and bade them choose every man another, and so to proceed until they had brought their number up to sixteen thousand. These were named the "Linen Legion," from the roof of the enclosure wherein the nobles had been sworn, and were given splendid arms and crested helmets, to distinguish them from the rest.I don't understand why Foster in section 7 translated viatorem by another Latin word (apparitor). I would translate it as agent — see Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. uiator, sense 2.
[5] ibi mediis fere castris locus est consaeptus cratibus pluteisque et linteis contectus, patens ducentos maxime pedes in omnes pariter partes. [6] ibi ex libro vetere linteo lecto sacrificatum sacerdote Ovio Paccio quodam, homine magno natu, qui se id sacrum petere adfirmabat ex vetusta Samnitium religione, qua quondam usi maiores eorum fuissent cum adimendae Etruscis Capuae clandestinum cepissent consilium. [7] sacrificio perfecto per viatorem imperator acciri iubebat nobilissimum quemque genere factisque: [8] singuli introducebantur. erat cum alius apparatus sacri qui perfundere religione animum posset, tum in loco circa omni contecto arae in medio victimaeque circa caesae et circumstantes centuriones strictis gladiis. [9] admovebatur altaribus magis ut victima quam ut sacri particeps adigebaturque iure iurando quae visa auditaque in eo loco essent, non enuntiaturum. [10] dein iurare cogebant diro quodam carmine, in exsecrationem capitis familiaeque et stirpis composito, nisi isset in proelium quo imperatores duxissent et si aut ipse ex acie fugisset aut si quem fugientem vidisset non extemplo occidisset. [11] id primo quidam abnuentes iuraturos se obtruncati circa altaria sunt; iacentes deinde inter stragem victimarum documento ceteris fuere ne abnuerent. [12] primoribus Samnitium ea detestatione obstrictis, decem nominatis ab imperatore, eis dictum, ut vir virum legerent donec sedecim milium numerum confecissent. ea legio linteata ab integumento consaepti, in quo sacrata nobilitas erat, appellata est: his arma insignia data et cristatae galeae, ut inter ceteros eminerent.
Update: Kevin Muse points out to me that apparitor appears in English dictionaries.
Friday, January 17, 2025
Dancing
Cicero, Pro Murena 13 (tr. C. MacDonald):
Cato calls Murena a dancer. Strong language from a forceful prosecution, if there is any truth in it; slanderous abuse, if it is false. A man of your stature, then, Marcus Cato, should not pick a piece of dirt from the street corner or from parasites' invective or lightly abuse a consul of the Roman people in this way. You should look around for the other vices with which a man must be tainted before you can sustain this charge. Hardly anyone dances except in his cups, either by himself or at any respectable party, unless of course he is out of his mind. Dancing comes at the end of a seasonable meal, in attractive surroundings and after a wealth of sensuous enjoyment. You are seizing upon this climax of debauchery but leave out those attendant vices without which it cannot exist. You do not produce any disgraceful party, any love-making, riotous behaviour, loose and extravagant living, and since there is no sign of behaviour that goes by the name of pleasure but is really vice, do you think that you can find the shadow of debauchery where you cannot find the substance?Elaine Fantham ad loc.:
Saltatorem appellat L. Murenam Cato. Maledictum est, si vere obicitur, vehementis accusatoris, sin falso, maledici conviciatoris. Qua re cum ista sis auctoritate, non debes, M. Cato, adripere maledictum ex trivio aut ex scurrarum aliquo convicio neque temere consulem populi Romani saltatorem vocare, sed circumspicere quibus praeterea vitiis adfectum esse necesse sit eum cui vere istud obici possit. Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, neque in solitudine neque in convivio moderato atque honesto. Tempestivi convivi, amoeni loci, multarum deliciarum comes est extrema saltatio. Tu mihi adripis hoc quod necesse est omnium vitiorum esse postremum, relinquis illa quibus remotis hoc vitium omnino esse non potest? Nullum turpe convivium, non amor, non comissatio, non libido, non sumptus ostenditur, et, cum ea non reperiantur quae voluptatis nomen habent quamquam vitiosa sunt, in quo ipsam luxuriam reperire non potes, in eo te umbram luxuriae reperturum putas?
[I]t is most unlikely that Servius and his subscriptores had produced the charge of being a "dancer" out of the blue. Did it spring from allegations (not acknowledged by Cicero) of bad behavior or debauchery committed by Licinius Murena after returning from military service? Did his antagonists depict him as a party animal like Verres and his associates or Catiline's cronies, who danced nudi (not naked but clad only in a tunic or subligaculum); cf. Verr. 2.3.23; Cat. 2.23; Pis. 22? Our locus classicus for dancing as ill-becoming a consul is Gabinius, against whom Cicero's chief sources of mockery were his carefully curled hairstyle and his dancing (saltatrix calamistrata, Red. Sen. 13), and Nepos, who introduced his Lives of Foreign Generals with an expression of surprise that Greek biographers praised Epaminondas of Thebes for his skillful dancing and flute-playing. Roman gentlemen did not dance: hence Demea's mockery of Micio dancing with a skipping rope between his daughter-in-law and a sex-slave (Ter. Ad. 752) and Cicero's report that the orator Titius pranced so much as he spoke that his name was given to a kind of dance (Brut. 225). However, we need to distinguish such solo performance from dancing in a religious rite and note the changing associations of saltare with the coming of pantomime under Augustus. Cicero maintains that no one dances unless drunk, nemo fere saltat sobrius. But such behavior may have been pretty common in the parties of the younger generation. And what form did this dancing take? We are not talking about dancing with a sexual partner or as part of a male group. Perhaps the best evidence is the Ionic solo number performed by Plautus's Pseudolus (Ps. 1274), a staggering display of teetering pyrotechnics. For ladies dancing, cf. Sempronia in Sall. Cat. 25 saltare elegantius quam necesse est probae and Horace Od. 2.12.19 on Licymnia dancing (ludere) ceremonially with other women.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
The Fairest Thing
Diogenes Laertius 6.2.69 (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. R.D. Hicks):
Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied, "Freedom of speech."This is fragment 473 of Diogenes the Cynic in Gabriele Giannantoni, ed., Socraticorum Reliquiae, Vol. II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983), p. 585.
ἐρωτηθεὶς τί κάλλιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ἔφη, "παρρησία."
As for Me
Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560), Les Regrets, sonnet 5, tr. Richard Helgerson:
Those who are in love will sing their loves. Those who love honor will sing of glory. Those who are near the king will publicize his victory. Those who are courtiers will boast of their favors.
Those who love the arts will speak of learning. Those who are virtuous will make themselves known for it. Those who love wine will talk of drinking. Those who have leisure will write tales.
Those who speak ill of others will take pleasure in slander. Those who are less irksome will tell jokes for a laugh. Those who are more valiant will boast of their valor.
Those who are overly pleased with themselves will sing their own praises. Those who wish to flatter will make an angel of a devil. I, who am unhappy, will complain of my unhappiness.
Ceulx qui sont amoureux, leurs amours chanteront,
Ceulx qui ayment l'honneur, chanteront de la gloire,
Ceulx qui sont pres du Roy, publiront sa victoire,
Ceulx qui sont courtisans, leurs faveurs vanteront,
Ceulx qui ayment les arts, les sciences diront,
Ceulx qui sont vertueux, pour tels se feront croire,
Ceulx qui ayment le vin, deviseront de boire,
Ceulx qui sont de loisir, de fables escriront,
Ceulx qui sont mesdisans, se plairont à mesdire,
Ceulx qui sont moins fascheux, diront des mots pour rire,
Ceulx qui sont plus vaillans, vanteront leur valeur,
Ceulx qui se plaisent trop, chanteront leur louange,
Ceulx qui veulent flater, feront d'un diable un ange:
Moy, qui suis malheureux, je plaindray mon malheur.
Truth and Falsehood
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), "Blucher and Sandt," Imaginary Conversations (Sandt speaking):
Many things are true which we do not believe to be true; but more are false which we do not suspect of falsehood.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Rejuvenation
Aristophanes, Frogs 341-353 (my translation):
Raising flaming torches in your hands you have come,Critical apparatus from N.G. Wilson's Oxford Classical Text edition:
Iacchus, o Iacchus,
Light-bearing star of nocturnal rite.
The meadow gleams with light.
Old men's knees leap.
They shake off pains
And lengthy lapses of old years
By sacred worship.
But you, shining with a torch,
As you advance, lead forth to the flowering marshy
Ground, o blessed one, the dancing youthful band.
ἐγείρων φλογέας λαμπάδας ἐν χερσὶ προσήκεις, 340
Ἴακχ᾽ ὦ Ἴακχε,
νυκτέρου τελετῆς φωσφόρος ἀστήρ.
φλογὶ φέγγεται δὲ λειμών·
γόνυ πάλλεται γερόντων· 345
ἀποσείονται δὲ λύπας
χρονίους τ᾽ ἐτῶν παλαιῶν ἐνιαυτοὺς
ἱερᾶς ὑπὸ τιμῆς.
σὺ δὲ λαμπάδι φέγγων 350
προβάδην ἔξαγ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθηρὸν ἕλειον
δάπεδον χοροποιόν, μάκαρ, ἥβην.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Loaves and Fishes
Matthew 15:37 (tr. Robert K. Brown), in The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament ... Translators: Robert K. Brown and Philip W. Comfort (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1990), p. 60:
AND EVERYONE-ATE AND THEY WERE SATISFIED AND THE LEFTOVERS OF THE FRAGMENTS WERE SEVEN BASKETS FULL.The Greek (from the United Bible Societies' 4th corrected edition):
καὶ ἔφαγον πάντες καὶ ἐχορτάσθησαν καὶ τὸ περισσεῦον τῶν κλασμάτων ἦραν ἑπτὰ σπυρίδας πλήρεις.Brown seems to have regarded ἦραν as some form of the copulative verb εἰμί (perhaps confusing it with the imperfect ἦσαν), but in fact it's the aorist of the transitive verb αἴρω = lift up, remove.
Labels: typographical and other errors
Monday, January 13, 2025
How Not?
Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 122-123 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth, slightly modified):
ELECTRASee also William Allan, "The Ethics of Retaliatory Violence in Athenian Tragedy," Mnemosyne 66.4/5 (2013) 593-615 (at 602-603).
And is this a righteous thing for me to ask of Heaven?
CHORUS
How not? To requite an enemy evil for evil?
ΗΛΕΚΤΡΑ
καὶ ταῦτά μοὔστιν εὐσεβῆ θεῶν πάρα;
ΧΟΡΟΣ
πῶς δ᾿ οὔ, τὸν ἐχθρόν γ᾿ ἀνταμείβεσθαι κακοῖς;
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Possession
Augustine, Sermons 335C.8 (C. Lambot, "Nouveau sermon de S. Augustin pour la fête d'un martyr," Revue Bénédictine 46 [1934] 398-409 [at 401-402]; tr. Edmund Hill):
You know, dearly beloved, on what advice people greedy for money act, when they see they have accumulated an amount of coins. What do they say? "The thing's round, it rolls, it vanishes; it must be tied up with some purchase of real estate." And they want to tie their money up by buying a country house. And hey, presto, they've bought a house in the country, they will have a house in the country. Will the country house, though, always have them? But neither will they have it always, seeing that after a short while they will move on without any deferment. You can't tie up your soul to the place where you've tied up your money. The time will come, you see, when your soul will be required of you; what you have bought, whose will it be then?" So you won't have the country house, and the house in the country won't have you, except perhaps as regards your body, if you're buried there when you're dead. Why, then indeed somehing wonderful happens; it will have you, you won't have it.I don't have access to François Dolbeau, "Le s. Lambot 2 (335 C): un sermon d'Augustin prêché à Carthage pour la fête du martyr Salvius?" Revue d'Études Augustiniennes et Patristiques 70.1 (2024) 85-111.
Nostis, carissimi, quo consilio agant cupidi pecuniae quando vident se aliquid nummorum habere. Quid dicunt? "Rotunda est res, volvitur, perit, aliqua possessionis emptione liganda est". Et volunt ligare pecuniam suam emendo villam. Et ecce emerunt villam, habebunt villam. Numquid eos semper habebit villa? Sed nec ipsi habebunt unde post modicum tempus sine dilatione migrabunt. Ubi ligasti pecuniam tuam, ligare ibi non potes animam tuam. Veniet enim tempus quando reposcetur a te anima tua. Quod emisti, cuius erit? Ergo nec villam habebis, nec villa te habebit, nisi forte secundum corpus ibi fueris mortuus sepultus. Fit enim tunc mirum aliquid: ipsa te habebit, tu illam non habebis.
The Fox and the Lion
Horace, Epistles 1.1.70-75 (tr. Colin Macleod):
But if the Roman people asked me whyAesop, Fables 147 Hausrath, 197 Chambry (tr. Olivia and Robert Temple):
I walk where they do, but do not think like them,
and do not share their tastes or their aversions,
I should reply like the canny fox in the fable
to the sick lion: "Those foot-prints frighten me;
all of them point towards you, and none back."
quod si me populus Romanus forte roget, cur 70
non ut porticibus sic iudiciis fruar isdem,
nec sequar aut fugiam quae diligit ipse vel odit,
olim quod volpes aegroto cauta leoni
respondit, referam: "quia me vestigia terrent,
omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum." 75
A lion who was getting old and could no longer obtain his food by force decided that he must resort to trickery instead. So he retired to a cave and lay down pretending to be ill. Thus, whenever any animals came to his cave to visit him, he ate them all as they appeared. When many animals had disappeared, a fox figured out what was happening. He went to see the lion but stood at a safe distance outside the cave and asked him how he was. 'Oh, not very well,' said the lion. 'But why don't you come in?' But the fox said: 'I would come inside if I hadn't seen that a lot of footprints are pointing inwards towards your cave but none are pointing out.'
Wise men note the indications of dangers and thus avoid them.
λέων γηράσας καὶ μὴ δυνάμενος δι᾽ ἀλκῆς ἑαυτῷ τροφὴν πορίζειν ἔγνω δεῖν δι᾽ ἐπινοίας τοῦτο πρᾶξαι. καὶ δὴ παραγενόμενος εἴς τι σπήλαιον καὶ ἐνταῦθα κατακλιθεὶς προσεποιεῖτο τὸν νοσοῦντα καὶ οὕτω τὰ παραγενόμενα πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν ζῷα συλλαμβάνων κατήσθιε. πολλῶν δὲ θηρίων καταναλωθέντων ἀλώπηξ τὸ τέχνασμα αὐτοῦ συνεῖσα παρεγένετο καὶ στᾶσα ἄπωθεν τοῦ σπηλαίου ἐπυνθάνετο αὐτοῦ, πῶς ἔχοι. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος· «κακῶς» καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν ἐρομένου, δι᾽ ἣν οὐκ εἴσεισιν, ἔφη· "ἀλλ᾽ ἔγωγε εἰσῆλθον ἄν, εἰ μὴ ἑώρων πολλῶν εἰσιόντων ἴχνη, ἐξιόντος δὲ οὐδενός".
οὕτως οἱ φρόνιμοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐκ τεκμηρίων προορώμενοι τοὺς κινδύνους ἐκφεύγουσι.
Laughing at the Gods
Kenneth Dover, ed., Aristophanes, Frogs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 41:
Adherents of monotheistic religions which treat God as omnipotent and omnipresent have difficulty in coming to terms with the handling of gods in the Greek theatre, and particularly with the readiness of a comic poet to ridicule the god of the dramatic festivals even to the extent of portraying him as defecating in fear (479-89).Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought, tr. T.G. Rosenmeyer (tr. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), p. 41:
We find it difficult to understand how the gods of one's faith could be subjected to Aristophanic jests. But laughter is part of the meaning, the fruitfulness, the positive side of life, and it is therefore, in the eyes of the Greeks, more godlike than the sour solemnity which we associate with piety.Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 133:
The occasional fun poked at the gods in comedy is no evidence against the religious conservatism of the common man; it is when religion is sure of itself that such amusement is permitted.Richard Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13-16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 170 (on 14.153-353):
Few Greeks ever took their gods wholly seriously: this is, perhaps, the Greeks' greatest gift to civilization.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Truth and the State
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Untimely Meditations, III: Schopenhauer as Educator, § 8 (tr. R.J. Hollingdale):
The state never has any use for truth as such, but only for truth which is useful to it, more precisely for anything whatever useful to it whether it be truth, half-truth or error.
Dem Staat ist es nie an der Wahrheit gelegen, sondern immer nur an der ihm nützlichen Wahrheit, noch genauer gesagt, überhaupt an allem ihm Nützlichen, sei dies nun Wahrheit, Halbwahrheit oder Irrthum.
Friday, January 10, 2025
Education
Plato, Protagoras 338e-339a (Protagoras speaking; tr. W.R.M. Lamb):
I consider, Socrates, that the greatest part of a man's education is to be skilled in the matter of verses; that is, to be able to apprehend, in the utterances of the poets, what has been rightly and what wrongly composed, and to know how to distinguish them and account for them when questioned.
ἡγοῦμαι, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐγὼ ἀνδρὶ παιδείας μέγιστον μέρος εἶναι περὶ ἐπῶν δεινὸν εἶναι· ἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο τὰ ὑπὸ τῶν ποιητῶν λεγόμενα οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι συνιέναι ἅ τε ὀρθῶς πεποίηται καὶ ἃ μή, καὶ ἐπίστασθαι διελεῖν τε καὶ ἐρωτώμενον λόγον δοῦναι.
Party
Theognis 997-1002 (tr. S. Douglas Olson):
While the sun is just now driving his solid-hoofed horses sideways through the upper air, occupying the mid-point of his daily journey, let us bring our dinner to a close whenever anyone's heart urges him to do so, favoring our bellies with good food of every sort; and let a pretty Spartan girl immediately carry the washing-water out and bring in garlands with her soft hands.
τῆμος δ᾿ ἠέλιος μὲν ἐν αἰθέρι μώνυχας ἵππους
ἄρτι πάραντ᾿ ἐλάοι μέσσατον ἦμαρ ἔχων,
δείπνου δὲ λήγοιμεν, ὅπου τινὰ θυμὸς ἀνώγοι,
παντοίων ἀγαθῶν γαστρὶ χαριζόμενοι, 1000
χέρνιβα δ᾿ αἶψα θύραζε φέροι, στεφανώματα δ᾿ εἴσω,
εὐειδὴς ῥαδιναῖς χερσὶ Λάκαινα κόρη.
998 παράντ' ἐλάοι West: παραγγέλλοι codd.
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
We Love It, All the Same
Augustine, Sermons 335B.3 (Sancti Aureli Augustini Tractatus; sive, Sermones inediti ex codice Guelferbytano 4096, ed. G. Morin [Zurich: Rascher, 1918] p. 139; tr. Edmund Hill):
What is the activity engaged in by this life, which is loved so much? To desire, to fear, to hope, to be disappointed, to toil, to get ill; real sadness, bogus cheerfulness; pouring out prayers, fearing temptations and trials. What's this life like? Who can possibly have the eloquence adequately to describe its wretchedness? We love it, all the same.
actio vitae huius, quae sic amatur, quae est? cupere, timere, sperare, falli, laborare, aegrescere: vera tristitia, falsa laetitia: fundere orationes, timere temptationes. qualis haec vita? quis eius aerumnam quavis eloquentia describere potest? amatur tamen.
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
Hymn to Demeter
Aristophanes, Frogs 384-393 (chorus of initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries; tr. Stephen Halliwell):
Demeter, mistress of holy rites,T.G. Tucker ad loc.: Ludwig Radermacher ad loc.: Kenneth Dover, ed., Aristophanes, Frogs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 58:
Come stand amidst our ranks yourself,
Safeguard this chorus that is your own,
And grant that all day long in safety
We'll celebrate in play and dance.
And may we utter many jokes
But many serious things as well,
And may we serve your festival
In a worthy spirit of playful humour
And win the ribbons of victory!
Δήμητερ, ἁγνῶν ὀργίων
ἄνασσα, συμπαραστάτει, 385
καὶ σῷζε τὸν σαυτῆς χορόν·
καί μ᾿ ἀσφαλῶς πανήμερον
παῖσαί τε καὶ χορεῦσαι.
καὶ πολλὰ μὲν γέλοιά μ᾿ εἰπεῖν,
πολλὰ δὲ σπουδαῖα, καὶ 390
τῆς σῆς ἑορτῆς ἀξίως
παίσαντα καὶ σκώψαντα νι-
κήσαντα ταινιοῦσθαι.
Monday, January 06, 2025
No Loitering
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV.813 (from Pompeii; my translation):
This isn't a place for idlers: depart, loiterer.See Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), The Street Altar, in Bedford, The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum (accession number P.637; click once or twice to enlarge):
otiosis locus hic non est: discede, morator.
The Pope's Ignorance of Scripture
Perkin Amakaraj, "Pope Francis calls out nuns with 'vinegar faces': Pontiff tells sisters to be more friendly and avoid gossip," Daily Mail (January 5, 2025):
'The Lord has shown us that he spoke with everyone, except … there was one person that the Lord never spoke with: the Devil.'Matthew 4:1-10 (KJV):
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Political Ads
Frank Frost Abbott (1860-1924), "Municipal Politics in Pompeii," in his Society and Politics in Ancient Rome: Essays and Sketches (1909; rpt. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912), pp. 3-21 (at 14-18):
Among the group inscriptions two or three are found which deserve passing mention. One reads "I beg you to support A. Vettius Firmus as sedile. He deserves well of the state. I ask for your support. Ball-players, support him."1 Other still more astonishing recommendations are found in the announcements: "All the sleepy men nominate Vatia as sedile," "the petty thieves propose Vatia for the sedileship," and "I ask your support for M. Cerrinius Vatia for the sedileship. All the late drinkers nominate him. Florus and Fructus painted this notice."2 We are not surprised at the eagerness which Firmus's friend shows to win the support of the ball-players. They were held in high favor by the people. One of them in his epitaph celebrates his popularity, and records the fact that he had played ball frequently with the emperor.3 As for the "sleepy-heads," the "sneak thieves," and the "heavy drinkers," the support of such people is sought to-day by some politicians, but they are studiously kept in the background for fear of frightening away serious citizens. Shall we conclude that the Pompeians were less scrupulous or fastidious on this point than we are? The city was a wicked one, and its people were surprisingly frank in recognizing the existence of human vices and weaknesses, and scholars seem to be agreed in regarding these three recommendations as striking illustrations of Pompeian depravity or of Latin frankness in such matters. In this conclusion they find confirmation in the fact that the placard of the "heavy drinkers" was put on the wall by the professional painters Florus and Fructus, who, as we have noticed above, were working in the interest of Vatia. This hypothesis, however, seems to me to put too great a strain on our credulity. Is it possible that Vatia was the candidate of the underworld, and stood for a "wide open town"? That explanation seems improbable, because some of his supporters whose names appear in other posters were men of standing in the community. Possibly these organizations are social clubs which have taken humorous names, or have good-humoredly accepted a sobriquet given them by others, but there would seem to be no parallel to such a name in any of the other hundreds of guild and club inscriptions which have come down to us. It is much more probable that all three posters are the work of a wag or of a malicious opponent of Vatia who wished to intimate that all the bad elements in the city were rallying to his support. The announcement at the end of the third notice that Vatia's employees, "Florus and Fructus, painted it" would only show a keener sense of humor on the part of the supposed wag, or would be a more convincing proof of the authenticity of the placard in the eyes of the passer-by, if it emanates from one of Vatia's enemies. This explanation is supported by the fact that these three recommendations are all found in the same street and, therefore, may well be the work of the same person. A friend suggests that the same humorous or malicious hand was at work in painting the inscription quoted above, "To Vatia for the sedileship Verus Innoces gives his support," and that this supporter of Vatia existed only in the imagination of the composer of the notice. If we accept this conjecture we may be sure that the quick-witted Pompeian would see the point in the statement that Verus Innoces, or "the truly guileless man," was supporting Vatia in his candidacy for the office of police commissioner, especially when he read on neighboring walls the endorsements which Vatia had received from the three groups mentioned above.References in footnotes 1-2 are to Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV.
1 A. Vettium Firmum aed(ilem) o(ro) v(os) f(aciatis). Dignum rei publicae. O(ro) v(os) f(aciatis). Pilicrepi facite, 1147.
2 Vatiam aed. rogant ... dormientes universi, 575; Vatiam aed. furunculi rog., 576; M. Cerrinium Vatiam aed. o. v. f. Seribibi universi rogant. Scr(ipsit) Florus cum Fructo, 581.
3 CIL. VI, 9797.
Seven Sisters
[Only of interest to my family].
"A GROUP OF SEVEN SISTERS. Each is the Mother of a Family and All But One Lives in Brunswick," Brunswick Record (March 17, 1905), p. 1:
A better image of the photograph:
"A GROUP OF SEVEN SISTERS. Each is the Mother of a Family and All But One Lives in Brunswick," Brunswick Record (March 17, 1905), p. 1:
Standing—Mrs. Noe Bouchard, Mrs. Baptiste Girard, Mrs. Virginia BelangerThe sisters were daughters of Alphonse Dupuis (1811-1887) and Domithilde Bouchard (1817-1881). Mrs. Philip Racine, i.e. Mrs. Philibert Racine (née Philomène Dupuis) is my 2nd great-grandmother (my maternal grandfather's maternal grandmother).
Sitting—Mrs. Fabien Racine, Mrs. Philip Racine, Mrs. Alphonsine Dupres, Mrs. Prudent Racine
A remarkable group picture made in this town recently, includes seven sisters, all of whom except one live in Brunswick. These ladies have all passed the fiftieth milestone, their ages ranging from 50 to 67. It is doubtful if any family in Maine could duplicate such a group. Mrs. Girard of Lisbon is the only one of the sisters to move away from Brunswick. They have one brother, who lives in Canada. Every one of these seven sisters has raised up families and their sons and daughters are well known among the young people of the town.
A better image of the photograph:
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Exclamatory Genitives
Greek Anthology 5.132 (by Philodemus; tr. Niall Rudd):
O feet! O legs! O thighs for which I died (and with good reason)! O buttocks, O fringe, O flanks, O shoulders, O breasts, O slender neck, O arms, O eyes that fill me with madness, O clever movement, O superlative kisses, O little cries of 'love me!' If she's Italian and her name is Flora and she does not sing Sappho—well, Perseus loved the Indian Andromeda.See David Sider, The Epigrams of Philodemus. Introduction, Text, and Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 103-110 (epigram number 12).
ὦ ποδός, ὦ κνήμης, ὦ τῶν ἀπόλωλα δικαίως
μηρῶν, ὦ γλουτῶν, ὦ κτενός, ὦ λαγόνων,
ὦ ὤμοιν, ὦ μαστῶν, ὦ τοῦ ῥαδινοῖο τραχήλου,
ὦ χειρῶν, ὦ τῶν μαίνομαι ὀμματίων,
ὦ κατατεχνοτάτου κινήματος, ὦ περιάλλων 5
γλωττισμῶν, ὦ τῶν θῦ᾽ ἐμὲ φωναρίων.
εἰ δ᾽ Ὀπικὴ καὶ Φλῶρα καὶ οὐκ ᾁδουσα τὰ Σαπφοῦς,
καὶ Περσεὺς Ἰνδῆς ἠράσατ᾽ Ἀνδρομέδης.
Descendants of the Puritans
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), The Sea Lions, Chapter VII:
Of such materials are those descendants of the Puritans composed; a mixture of good and evil; of the religion which clings to the past, in recollection rather than in feeling, mingled with a worldly-mindedness that amounts nearly to rapacity; all cloaked and rendered decent by a conventional respect for duties, and respectable and useful, by frugality, enterprise, and untiring activity.
Saturday, January 04, 2025
Scarcely Profitable Reading
Arthur Palmer, ed., The Satires of Horace (1883; rpt. London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 132 (on Satire 1.2):
The subject of this satire is summed up in the twenty-fourth verse: Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt. The death of Tigellius Sardus, a man freehanded to a fault, furnishes Horace with his text, Nil medium est. Men are either too generous or too stingy, too dainty or too rude; some given to the coarser and lower forms of vice, others to high and dangerous intrigues. The latter subject occupies the greater part of the satire, from 24 ad fin., but the method Horace has selected for its treatment makes it scarcely profitable reading.Similarly James Gow, ed., Q. Horati Flacci Saturarum Liber I (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1901), p. 48:
The last 110 lines of this Satire are not read.The entire satire is printed, with notes, in the college edition of Horace's Satires by Edward P. Morris (New York: American Book Company, 1909).
Friday, January 03, 2025
Restriction on Land Ownership
Livy 10.13.14 (tr. B.O. Foster):
In that year many men were prosecuted by the aediles on the charge of possessing more land than the law allowed. Hardly anybody was acquitted, and exorbitant greed was sharply curbed.
eo anno plerisque dies dicta ab aedilibus, quia plus quam quod lege finitum erat agri possiderent; nec quisquam ferme est purgatus vinculumque ingens immodicae cupiditati iniectum est.
Good Advice
Matthew 10:17 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):
Beware of people...The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, s.v. προσέχω, sense 5:
προσέχετε δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων...
be on one's guard — W. από + GEN. against someone or sthg. NT.
Thursday, January 02, 2025
A Wise Beast
Plautus, Truculentus 865-870 (Phronesium to Diniarchus; tr. Wolfgang de Melo):
For parallels to lines 868-870 see Heinrich Bebel, Proverbia Germanica, ed. W.H.D. Suringar (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1879), pp. 389-391, number 305 (Misera est vulpes, quae unum tantum latibulum habet).
I know that you have a betrothed and a son from your betrothed,Line 867 is garbled in the Digital Loeb Classical Library edition, with the presence of the nonsensical thanme: The text of Truculentus is poorly preserved as it is, and the Digital Loeb Classical Library just makes it worse here.
that you need to marry her now, and that your mind is already elsewhere,
so that you'll treat me as an abandoned girl. But still,
think what a clever animal the little mouse is;
it never entrusts its life to a single hole
without already having chosen another shelter if one is being besieged.
scio equidem sponsam tibi esse et filium ex sponsa tua, 865
et tibi uxorem ducendam iam, esse alibi iam animum tuom,
ut <me> quasi pro derelicta sis habiturus. sed tamen
cogitato mus pusillus quam sit sapiens bestia,
aetatem qui non cubili <uni> umquam committit suam,
quin, si unum [odium] opsideatur, aliud <iam> perfugium <ele>gerit. 870
867 ut me Lambinus: et BC, e D
869 uni add. Bücheler
870 quin si Bothe: quia si B, quasi CD
odium B: om. CD, ostium Camerarius
iam perfugium elegerit Leo: perfugium gerit P
For parallels to lines 868-870 see Heinrich Bebel, Proverbia Germanica, ed. W.H.D. Suringar (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1879), pp. 389-391, number 305 (Misera est vulpes, quae unum tantum latibulum habet).
Labels: typographical and other errors
Wednesday, January 01, 2025
After an Exorcism
Matthew 9:33 (tr. Robert K. Brown), in The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament ... Translators: Robert K. Brown and Philip W. Comfort (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1990), p. 32:
Newer› ‹Older
... ἐκβληθέντος τοῦ δαιμονίου ...The interlinear translation here is wrong. CASTING OUT suggests that the participle ἐκβληθέντος is present active, whereas it's aorist passive. Similarly THE DEMONS suggests that τοῦ δαιμονίου is plural, whereas it's singular. The three words form a genitive absolute construction, meaning "the demon having been cast out."
... CASTING OUT THE DEMONS ...
Labels: typographical and other errors