Gellius

“ But in fairness I must add that when this was repeated to Marcus Aurelius he retorted: 'Better a child than an iconoclast in the presence of beauty. I should call Gellius an honest errand boy in Athena's temple.' So there you have two ways of looking at your future host. If Lucian is the most enlightened wit of the day, Aurelius is the most Roman of us all and likely to rule over us when Antoninus rejoins the gods.
"On Gellius's return next year he is to be made a judge. He will study law painstakingly and apply it exactly. And Rome will never for him be one whit juster. ”

“ Soon shall thou find wherefor he be as lean as thou like.
Gellius is meagre: why not? He who lives with so good a mother, so healthy and so beauteous a sister, and who has such a good uncle, and a world-*full of girl cousins, wherefore should he leave off being lean? Though he touch naught save what is banned, thou canst find ample reason wherefore he may stay lean. ”

“ They decided that there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the Aulus Gellius. In portions it was true that between the lines other characters were partly legible; but this threw no slur on the MS. itself. Of the commentary on the book of Jasher, it will be remembered, they gave no decisive opinion, and it is still an open question. They expressed their belief that the Aulus Gellius was alone worth the price asked by Dr. Groschen. It only remained now for the University to advance a sum to the FitzTaylor for the purchase of this treasure. ”

“ They are not so called in any original MS. of Cicero, nor are they cited by this name in any ancient author, as Aulus Gellius, or Priscian. These writers generally quote each book of the Epistles by the name of the person to whom the first letter in that book is addressed. Thus Gellius cites the first book by the name of the Letters to Lentulus, because it commences with a letter to him. Nor are the MSS. in which the appellation of the Epistolæ Familiares is employed uniform in the title. ”

“ Indeed, throughout the wide fields of Roman antiquities, history of literature, grammar, etc., we have to depend chiefly upon various late Latin scrap-books and compilations, most of which are not even made up at first hand from creative classical authors. To Gellius, also, the imposing array of writers so constantly named by him was evidently known chiefly through compendiums and handbooks. It is suspicious, for instance, that he hardly quotes a poet within a century of his own time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 begins by quoting a comprecatio from the book of the Libri sacerdotum populi Romani. ‘In his scriptum est: Luam Saturni, Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini, Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani, Heriem Iunonis, Moles Martis Nerienemque Martis.’ A glance at the names thus coupled together is enough to show that Mars is not here thought of as the husband of Neriene; the names Lua, Salacia, &c., seem rather to express some characteristic of the deity with whose name they are joined or some mode of his operation [174] ”

“ Similar, but only similar qualities, appear in his accusation of the Roman legate, who, while travelling to Asia in a litter, caused a peasant to be scourged to death, for having asked his slaves if it was a corpse they were carrying. “The relation of these events,” says Gellius, “does not rise above the level of ordinary conversation. It is not a person complaining or imploring, but merely relating what had occurred;” and he contrasts this tameness with the energy and ardour with which Cicero has painted the commission of a like enormity by Verres234. ”

“ Nor are we sorry to hear that when the questioner still bored on, saying that he could not understand why one should be better in one place and another in another, Probus retorted, “You need not trouble yourself; it will do you no harm whatever you use.” Prope inclementer, says Gellius (“Served him right,” most of us will say) . But he goes on to accumulate some other instances of this application of the rule of euphony, and perhaps here draws as near to true criticism as he ever does. ”

“ Gellius, and Dionysius finds this much more worthy of belief. Wars arise from it; first with the neighbouring towns, which yielded one after the other; at last with the Sabines. There is no trace in the old tradition of the latter having been carried on to any length; yet in later times it was necessary to assume it, because another standard was then adopted. Lucumo and Cælius march forth to join [Pg 118] Romulus, an allusion to the inroad of Cæles Vibenna, which, however, took place much later. ”

“ Marcus Gellius,217 who was supposed not to be the son of free parents, was once reading some letters to the Senate with a clear and loud voice, when Cicero said, “Don’t be surprised; he too is one of those who have practised their voices.” When Faustus,218 the son of Sulla who had been dictator in Rome and proscribed many to the death, having got into debt and squandered most of his substance, advertised his household stuff for sale, Cicero said that he liked this proscription better than his father’s. ”

“ Moreover, the brotherly friendship in which Catullus lived with Calvus, and his earlier intimate relations with Caelius and Gellius, who were all born in or about the year 82 b.c., seem to indicate that he was nearer to them in age than he would have been if born in 87 b.c. Between the age of twenty and thirty a difference of five years is not frequent among very intimate associates, who live together on a footing of perfect freedom. ”

“ There the appearance of Gellius and his cohorts led to a brief stand being made; soon, however, these were routed and the victors attacked the camp. Volumnius encouraging his men by his own example led the attack upon one of the gates in person, whilst Appius was kindling the courage of his troops by repeatedly invoking "Bellona the victorious." They succeeded in forcing their way through rampart and fosse; the camp was captured and plundered, and a very considerable amount of booty was discovered and given to the soldiery; 6900 of the enemy were killed, 2120 made prisoners. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the whole of the book is a fabrication of more modern times; not by Schottus himself, but by a forger, of whom indeed there were so many towards the end of the fifteenth century. Messala also, Fenestella De Magistratibus, and others in that collection, date from the same period. Octavius may have been got at second hand by the author from the Scholiast of Horace; and Sextus Gellius from Dionysius, who says, “I write, what the Gellii and others have written.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ Most of the padding appears in the section devoted to the first two centuries of the Republic. In this portion the older statesmen-historians had shown their restraint by excluding oral tradition and confining themselves practically to the bare statements found in the priestly annals and in the archives. Piso, for instance, gave only two books to the two hundred years from 500 to 300 B.C., an average of about twelve lines a year. He apparently adhered [174] closely to archival material. Gellius devoted about twenty books to this period. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is perhaps most widely known and quoted on early Roman life and usages. Thus, one of his chapters gives a mass of curious information as to the choice of the Vestal Virgins. We are also largely indebted to him for citations from lost authors. We have already quoted under Ennius the sketch, in eighteen hexameters, of a scholar-soldier, believed to be a genial self-portraiture. These lines are the finest specimen we have of the 'Annales.' Similarly, under Cato, we have quoted the chief fragment of the great Censor's Roman history. For both these treasures we must thank Gellius. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was born the year after the consulship mentioned in the preceding note, and lived to see at least his seventy-sixth year, for Gellius informs us that at that age he wrote the twelfth book of his Annals.↑ Porcius Cato found Ennius in Sardinia, when he conquered that island during his praetorship. He learnt Greek from Ennius there, and brought him to Rome on his return. Ennius taught Greek at Rome for a long course of years, having M. Cato among his pupils.↑ Mallos was near Tarsus, in Cilicia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Literal English TranslationOriginal LatinLine
Often searching for you with a studious, hunting mind
so that I could send the poems of Callimachus
whereby I should appease you, nor you try
to send hostile spears right into my head;
I now see that this labor undertaken by me is in vain,
O Gellius, nor that my prayers have prevailed in this.
I'll escape those your hostile spears driven against us,
but you, pierced, will give me compensation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Despite its twenty "books" and nearly four hundred (short) chapters, the work is not only light and readable for the most part, but [Pg 6254] quite modest in total bulk: five hundred and fifty pages in the small page and generous type of Hertz's Teubner text. There is an English translation by Rev. W. Beloe, first printed in 1795, from which we quote below. Professor Nettleship's (in his 'Essays in Latin Literature') has no literary quality, but gives a careful analysis of Gellius's subjects and probable sources. There is a revival of interest in this author in recent years. ”

“ 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 ”