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previous: Book VII This webpage reproduces a section of Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights) by A. Cornelius Gellius published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1927 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Book IX

(Vol. II) Gellius
Attic Nights

 p143  Book VIII

1 Whether the expression hesterna nocte, for "last night," is right or wrong, and what the grammarians have said about those words; also that the decemvirs in the Twelve Tables​1 used nox for noctu, meaning "by night."2

2 Ten words pointed out to me by Favorinus which, although in use by the Greeks, are of foreign origin and barbarous; also the same number given him me which, though of general and common use by those who speak Latin, are by no means Latin and are not to be found in the early literature.

3 In what terms and how severely the philosopher Peregrinus in my hearing rebuked a young Roman of equestrian rank, who stood before him inattentive and constantly yawning.

. . . and saw him continually yawning and noticed the degenerate dreaminess expressed in his attitude of mind and body.3

 p145  4 That Herodotus, that most famous writer of history, was wrong in saying​4 that the pine alone of all trees never puts forth new shoots from the same roots, after being cut down; and that he stated as an established fact​5 about rainwater and snow a thing which had not been sufficiently investigated.

5 On the meaning of Virgil's expression caelum stare pulvere​6 and of Lucilius' pecus sentibus stare.7

6 That when a reconciliation takes place after trifling offences, mutual complaints are useless; and Taurus' discourse on that subject, with a quotation from the treatise of Theophrastus; and what Marcus Cicero also thought about the love arising from friendship, added in his own words.8

7 What we have learned and know of the nature and character of memory from Aristotle's work entitled Περὶ Μνήμης or On Memory; and also some other examples, of which we have heard or read, about extraordinary powers of memory or its total loss.9

 p147  8 My experience in trying to interpret and, as it were, to reproduce in Latin certain passages of Plato.

9 How Theophrastus, the most eloquent philosopher of his entire generation, when on the point of making a brief speech to the people of Athens, was overcome by bashfulness and kept silence; and how Demosthenes had a similar experience when speaking before king Philip.

10 A discussion that I had in the town of Eleusis with a conceited grammarian who, although ignorant of the tenses of verbs and the exercises of schoolboys, ostentatiously proposed abstruse questions of a hazy and formidable character, to impress the minds of the unlearned.

Would wish a lying scoundrel.10

11 The witty reply of Socrates to his wife Xanthippe, when she asked that they might spend more money for their dinners during the Dionysiac festival.

12 On the meaning of plerique omnes, or "almost all," in the early literature; and on the probable Greek origin of that expression.

 p149  13 That eupsones, a word used by the people of Africa, is not Phoenician, but Greek.

14 A highly entertaining discussion of the philosopher Favorinus with a tiresome person who held forth on the double meaning of certain words; also some unusual expressions from the poet Naevius and from Gnaeus Gellius; and further, some investigations of the derivation of words by Publius Nigidius.

15 How the poet Laberius was ignominiously treated by Gaius Caesar, with a quotation of Laberius' own words on that subject.11

A pleasant and remarkable story from the books of Heracleides of Pontus.12

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The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 VIII.12.

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2 See Macr. Sat. I.4.

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3 This fragment is preserved by Nonius, II, p121, 19, s.v. halucinari.

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4 VI.37.

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5 II.22.

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6 "The sky on columns of dust upborne," Aen. XII.407, where the poet is describing the effect of an advancing troop of cavalry.

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7 "The breast with thorns is filled," Lucil. 213, Marx. According to Nonius, p392, 2, stat means "is full of." Donatus, ad Ter. Andr. IV.2.16 (69), quotes Lucilius for stat sentibus fundus, i.e., "the farm is full of thorns" (1301, Marx).

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8 Cf. I.3.10 f.

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9 See Nonius, s.v. meminisse, p441, 4, M.

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10 Whether these words, from Nonius, II, p120, 12, M., belong here is uncertain.

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11 See Macr. Sat. II.7.

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12 This heading, of uncertain number, is quoted in Grammatici Latini II.246, 6 K., and attributed to Agellius,º Noctium Atticarum VIII, or according to the greater number of MSS., VIIII.

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