Aulus Gellius

“ But the philosopher availed himself of the reply of Aristippus the Socratic, who, on finding himself similarly bantered by a man of the same character, answered, “You had no cause for anxiety for the soul of a profligate debauchee, but I had reason to be alarmed for the soul of Aristippus.” The rich man being thus disposed of, Aulus Gellius asked the philosopher, in the interests of science and not to annoy him, what was the reason of his fear? ”

“ Aulus Gellius, who relates this anecdote with more detail than Herodotus, asserts that the slave himself was ignorant of the characters written on his scull, that Histiaeus selected a domestic who had a disease in his eyes—shaved him, punctured the skin, and sending him to Miletus when the hair was grown, assured the credulous patient that Aristagoras would complete the cure by shaving him a second time. According to this story we must rather admire the simplicity of the slave than the ingenuity of Histiaeus. ”

“ He confesses himself that he is writing in a language not familiar to him: In urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui; and the general impression of his style fully bears out his confession. Melanchthon is hardly too severe when he says that Apuleius brays like his own ass. The language of Aulus Gellius is much superior in purity; but still it abounds in rare and archaic words, e.g. edulcare, recentari, aeruscator, and in meaningless frequentatives like solitavisse. ”

“ Thereupon Fabricius passed his open hands from his ears to his eyes, then down to his nose, his mouth, his throat, and finally to the lower part of his belly; then he replied to the envoys: “So long as I can restrain and control all those members which I have touched, I shall never lack anything; therefore I cannot accept money, for which I have no use, from those who, I am sure, do have use for it.”
15 What a tiresome and utterly hateful fault is vain and empty loquacity, and how often it has been censured in deservedly strong language by the greatest Greek and Latin writers. ”

“ The only definite testimony on the subject is contained in a passage of Aulus Gellius, who says that in 431 Hellanicus "seems to have been " sixty-five years of age, Herodotus fifty-three, and Thucydides forty (Noct. Att., 15, 23) . The authority for this statement was Pamphila, a compiler of biographical and historical notices, who lived in the reign of Nero. She must have had access to Greek sources of the 4th century B.C.; and her precision though qualified, in the version of Gellius, by the word " seems " would warrant the supposition that she had taken some pains to secure accuracy. ”

“ His education was that of his day,—lavish rhetoric, and knowledge of that very wide character which in all his contemporaries is perhaps too suggestive of manual and {309} cyclopaedia [10] —works never so abundant in antiquity as then. But he was well taught, as a brilliant boy deserved, and his range of interests is remarkable. Nor is he overwhelmed by miscellaneous erudition, like Aulus Gellius for instance, or like Clement of Alexandria, to come to a man more on his own level. He is master of the great literature of Rome; he has read the historians and Cicero ”

“ Scarcely any specimens remain of Laberius' talent. Aulus Gellius says that he coined many strange words, and he seems to have made considerable use of alliteration.
We may suppose that the humour of Cicero was somewhat hereditary, for he records a saying of his grandfather that "the men of our time are like Syrian slaves; the more Greek [Pg 116] they know, the greater knaves they are!" It is fortunate the grandson inherited the old man's wit without his plebeian prejudices, and became as celebrated for his culture as for his readiness. ”

“ During the second century education continued to flourish. Lucian [213] introduces a Gaul οὐκ ἀπαίδευτος τὰ ἡμέτερα ... ἀκριβῶς Ἑλλάδα φωνὴν ἀφιείς, φιλόσοφος, ὡς οἶμαι, τὰ ἐπιχώρια, who discourses in learned fashion on the question whether Mercury or Hercules should be the patron god of the art of speaking. It was the time of the wandering rhetor—‘die zweite Sophistik’—and Greek flourished under the patronage of the philhellenic Hadrian. Aulus Gellius has left us a picture of the pupils escorting the sophist from place to place. ”

“ Hence we may argue that he had conceived himself to have risen in worldly circumstances. Nevertheless, we are informed by himself in this letter to Sextius that he had to borrow money for the occasion—so much so that, being a man now indebted, he might be supposed to be ripe for any conspiracy. Hence has come to us a story through Aulus Gellius, the compiler of anecdotes, to the effect that Cicero was fain to borrow this money from a client whose cause he undertook in requital for the favor so conferred. ”

“ He wrote almost as quickly as one speaks, and he alone could read his master’s writing, that the copyists could not decipher. He was more than a secretary for him, he was a confidant, and even a collaborator. Aulus Gellius asserts that he helped him in the composition of his works, [130] and the correspondence does not belie this opinion. One day when Tiro had remained ill in some country house, Cicero wrote to him that Pompey, who was then on a visit to him, asked him to read him something, and that he had answered that all was mute in the house when Tiro was not there. ”

“ Crossing to Greece, he finally took up his abode at Athens Here he devoted himself to the study and teaching of philosophy, and obtained a considerable number of pupils, amongst them Aulus Gellius, who speaks of him in very favourable terms But, having given offence by his attacks on Herodes Atticus and finding his popularity diminishing, he determined to create a sensation He announced his intention of immolating himself on a funeral pyre at the celebration of the Olympian games in 165, and actually carried it out. ”

“ Aristagoras being requested to examine his skull, he discovered the characters which commanded him to commence a revolt. To this measure Histiaeus was induced by the vexation he experienced from his captivity at Susa."
It is pretty evident that Nash took Aulus Gellius as his authority, from the insertion of the circumstance of the defective sight of the servant, which certainly is important, as giving Histiaeus an excuse for shaving his head. ”

“ There is Gesner's Bibliotheca swarming with frogs and tadpoles like a quagmire in honour of its printer, a German Frog, latinised Christopherus Froshoverus. [66] The Quæ Extant of Varro, printed at Dort, are adorned with many lively cuts of bears and their good-humoured cubs, because the printer's name is Joannis Berewout. So the Aulus Gellius, printed by Gryphius of Lyons, more than a hundred years earlier, begins and ends with formidable effigies of griffins. The device of Michael and Phillip Lenoir is a jet-black shield, with an Ethiopian for crest, and Ethiopians for supporters ”

“ There was not a great deal to be found that had not been known and read more or less all along, but the sense of its preciousness increased and a conviction developed that it was far better than anything that had been produced since the German Barbarians broke up the Roman Empire. The scholars who carried on this work had much to say of humanitas, by which they meant the culture to which man alone, of all creatures, is able to aspire. Cicero uses the word in this sense, and they found it defined for them by Aulus Gellius, a compiler who lived under Marcus Aurelius. ”

“ It is interesting to find signs of a common life among the students, the beginnings of a residential university. Aulus Gellius claims the authority of Pythagoras for this mode of life. ‘Here is another point we must not omit: all the students of Pythagoras, as soon as they had been admitted into that “corps” of his, pooled all their possessions, slaves, or money, and so a close and lasting society was formed.’ [681] Suetonius tells of one C. Albucius Silus of Novaria (Cisalpine Gaul) who came to Rome and was received into the ‘contubernium’ of Plancus, the orator, i.e. ”

“ He studied grammar and rhetoric at Rome and philosophy at Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. His teachers and friends included many distinguished men—Sulpicius Apollinaris, Herodes Atticus and Fronto. ”

“ Is it not clear that Varro made the same mistake about fur that Aelius did about lepus. For what the Greeks now call κλέπτης, or “thief,” in the earlier Greek language was called φώρ. Hence, owing to the similarity in sound, he who in Greek is φώρ, in Latin is fur. But whether that fact escaped Varro’s memory at the time, or on the other hand he thought that fur was more appropriately and consistently named from furvus, that is, “black,” as to that question it is not for me to pass judgment on a man of such surpassing learning.
19 The story of king Tarquin the Proud and the Sibylline Books. ”

“ One of these taboos forbade the use of wine, the other forbade persons to name their father or daughter.586
[pg 232]
Evidence of Aulus Gellius as to the marriage of the Roman gods. Paternity and maternity of Roman deities. Further, the learned Roman antiquary Aulus Gellius quotes from “the books of the priests of the Roman people” (the highest possible authority on the subject) and from “many ancient speeches” a list of old Roman deities, in which there seem to be at least five pairs of males and females.587 More than that he proves conclusively by quotations from Plautus, the annalist Cn. ”

“ He obtained some distinction as a painter [132] , and he is supposed to have written his tragedies late in life. Jerome records of him, 'picturam exercuit et fabulas vendidit.' Cicero represents Laelius as speaking of him as a friend, 'amici et hospitis mei.' A pleasing anecdote is told by Aulus Gellius [133] of his intercourse with his younger rival, L. Accius. 'When Pacuvius, at a great age, and suffering from disease of long standing, had retired from Rome to Tarentum, Accius, at that time a considerably younger man, on his journey to Asia, arrived at that town, and stayed with Pacuvius. ”

“ Just as in the Greek language, without any suspicion of error, words such as ἐρεῖν, ποιήσειν, ἔσεσθαι, and the like, are used in all genders and all numbers without distinction.” He added that in the third book of the Annals of Claudius Quadrigarius are these words: “While they were being cut to pieces, the forces of the enemy would be busy there (copias . . . futurum) ” ; and at the beginning of the eighteenth book of the same Quadrigarius: “If you enjoy health proportionate to your own merit and our good-will, we have reason to hope that the gods will bless the good (deos . . . facturum) ” ”

“ Though this opinion has a great deal of antiquity on its side; Aulus Gellius says—it was borrowed from the Chaldeans, who possibly might receive it from Pythagoras, whose philosophy teemed much in numbers, and who imagined a very extraordinary virtue in the number 7. The principal authors on climacterics are—Plato, Cicero, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius. Among the ancients—Argal, Magirus, and Solmatheus. Among the moderns—St. ”

“ Pericles, the great Athenian, a man of noble character and endowed with all honourable accomplishments, declared his opinion — in a single instance, it is true, but yet very clearly. For when a friend asked him to perjure himself in court for his sake, he replied in these words: “One ought to aid one’s friends, but only so far as the gods allow.”
Theophrastus, however, in the book that I have mentioned, discusses this very question more exhaustively and with more care and precision than Cicero. ”

“ This story has been looked upon by some of the modern scholars as a fiction of the poets.
976 This explanation of the name is given by Aulus Gellius, B. xvi. c. 6.—B. It is very doubtful what are the roots from which it is formed; though Pliny evidently thinks that the word is only a corruption of the Latin “ægre partus,” “born with difficulty;” a notion savouring of absurdity.
977 M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, having married his dissolute daughter, Julia. He was the son of Lucius Agrippa, and was descended from a very obscure family. ”

“ There is one notice, indeed, of a class of [page 41] men who practised the profession of minstrelsy. This passage, which is quoted by Aulus Gellius from the writings of Cato, implies the very lowest estimation of the position and character of the poet, and points more naturally to the composers of the libellous verses forbidden by the laws of the Twelve Tables, than to the authors of heroic and national lays:—'Poetry was not held in honour ”

“ Quæst. B. i. c. 80; but Ajasson remarks, that the resemblance mentioned by Cicero refers to the mind and manners, not to the body; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 67.—B.
992 Aulus Gellius says, that he was one of the royal family.
993 This man resembled Antiochus III., surnamed the Great, to such a degree, that when that monarch had been slain in a tumult by his people, his wife, Laodice, daughter of Mithridates V., King of Pontus, put Artemon into a bed, pretending that he was the king, but dangerously ill. Many persons were admitted to see him ”

“ But parents, if their children persist in wrong-doing, disinherit them. What different application of justice then are we to look for from the immortal gods, unless we put an end to our evil ways? Those alone may fairly claim the favour of the gods who are not their own worst enemies. The immortal gods ought to support, not supply, virtue.”
7 In these words of Cicero, from his fifth oration Against Verres, hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futurum, there is no error in writing or grammar but those are wrong who do violence to good copies by writing futuram ”