The Worlds of Aulus Gellius

TH E W OR LDS OF
AULUS GE LLIU S
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The Worlds of
Aulus Gellius
Edited by
LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENS
and
AMIEL VARDI
1
Preface
The idea for this book originated during the preparations for the
colloquium on ‘Aulus Gellius and his Worlds’ held at Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, on 17 May 2003. That occasion was to
our knowledge the Wrst conference ever devoted to Gellius; like-
wise this volume, incorporating all the papers delivered at the
colloquium but conceived on a larger scale, is the Wrst collection,
in any language, of Gellian essays by various hands.
The plural ‘Worlds’ in the title of colloquium and collection was
and is intentional, for Gellius moved in his own day, and has
moved since, in several worlds. We see him amongst lawyers and
philosophers, the student learning from his elders, the scholar
correcting the ignorant, the loving friend of the polymath Favor-
inus, the zealous recorder of Fronto’s verbal precision. He hears
lawsuits and visits libraries: he is at home in the study, but mixes
without awkwardness in society. At one moment he deals in philo-
sophical speculation about the nature of instantaneity; at another
he is telling tales of dolphins who doted on boys, or retailing his
favourite love-poems. We see him in Rome, in villeggiatura, and by
the sea, but also in Greece, now inspecting a manuscript at Patrae,
now travelling to the Pythian Games at Delphi, the rest of the time
at Athens or in Attica. He improved his command of Greek, and
studied philosophy with Taurus the Platonist; at one moment he
was the tourist visiting Euripides’ cave, at another the scholar
discussing Latin in the Lyceum; he attended Herodes Atticus at
his mansion, and the Cynic Peregrinus at his hovel; a boat-trip on a
starry night Wnds him testing by observation an etymology for
septemtriones, a journey back from Eleusis makes us conjecture
initiation in the Mysteries—a mark of respectability, not religi-
osity. Immersed as he had been, and soon would be, in the Roman
world, it is this Greek world (and its Roman representative Favor-
inus) that gave him ingenii cultus and breadth of mind, and it is to
the winter nights in Attica, nights that though objectively shorter
than those further north in Rome seemed long to Gellius in the
quiet deme where he resided, those nights he whiled away, when
not participating in the amusements of Saturnalia, by writing up
his notes, that we owe his work, with all its charm and erudition.
vi Preface
Indeed, if Antonine Athens had left no other trace, and in all other
respects meant no more to us than the donkey-bearing Athens of
the Turcocratia, still it would claim and receive our thanks for the
Attic Nights.
The question whether and in what respects we should view
Gellius as reXecting contemporary Greek cultural phenomena
(such as linguistic Atticism and the so-called Second Sophistic)
on the one hand, or independent Roman traditions on the other,
occupied much Gellian scholarship of the twentieth century, and
continues to receive consideration in the present volume. But the
numerous worlds of Antonine Rome and Greece do not exhaust
those of Aulus Gellius. After his death, he became a resource for
pagan and Christian alike, read by Nonius, Ammianus, and
Macrobius, by Minucius Felix, Lactantius, and Augustine, some-
times for his words, sometimes for his matter. In the Middle Ages,
though often read in Xorilegia rather than the original, and sub-
jected to the false name of Agellius, he was not neglected by those
who had access to him: his works were sought out, and as many
pre-1400 copies now lost are attested as now survive. The Renais-
sance eagerly adopted him not only as a source of information, but
as a model for its elegant presentation; indeed, it was he, rather
than Cicero, who deWned the humanists’ humanitas.
The Enlightenment even elevated Gellius to the next world, as
described in the Vision of the amateur philosopher Abraham Tucker.
At Wrst he does not appear entirely to his advantage: as John Locke is
made to explain, ‘having a very moderate capacity he could produce
little of his own’, but being no more than ‘a diligent honest creature’
(for which reason indeed ‘we acknowledge him for one of our line’)
whose talents were ‘industry and exactness’, he is set to recording the
narrator’s adventures. Yet at the end we Wnd he may have been both
less and more: on the one hand, it is conceivable that his records were
inaccurate: ‘if there be anything in them not consonant to the truth of
facts it is his fault for misleading me’; on the other he was capable of
original comment: ‘It vexed me that I could not recover his interlin-
eations for by the imperfect notion I have of them I imagine they tend
to harmonize Reason with Religion . . . ’.
Tucker thus corrects the very prejudice that he anticipates; for a
period was to follow in which, Gellius’ information appearing to
have been mined, like other authors who had the misfortune to
survive he was disparaged as an inferior substitute for his lost
sources. But now that scholarship has come to terms with his
blurred distinction between fact and Wction, and understood that
he is no mere transcriber, but has notions of his own and a design
Preface vii
that we should think as well as read, not only do we once more

acknowledge him for one of our line, but we have escorted him
back to the world that is rightly his, of authors deemed worthy of
study for their own sake.
It would be impossible to enclose all Gellius’ worlds within the
compass of one volume; a selection was necessary. The essays are
distributed into three Parts: ‘Contexts and Achievements’,
‘Ideologies’, and ‘Reception’.
In Part I Simon Swain examines the implications for Romans,
and in particular the Antonines—Apuleius and Fronto as well as
Gellius—of using, or not using, Greek within a Latin context.
Alessandro Garcea and Valeria Lomanto consider ancient
approaches to loan-words, and the diVerences between Fronto’s
and Gellius’ evaluations of the lively vulgarisms in Laberius’
mimes; Franco Cavazza elucidates Gellius’ linguistic skills as an
etymologist by seeking to isolate those derivations he hit on for
himself; Graham Anderson compares his skills as a narrator with
those of other writers, in particular Fronto and Aelian; Andrew J.
Stevenson considers his relation to the antiquarian tradition on
which he drew so extensively.
Part II was conceived as a tribute to the late René Marache, who
initiated the modern rehabilitation of Gellius and credited him with
an humanisme gellien in which the primary role was played by ethics
(‘le primat de la morale’). Amiel Vardi reviews the expectations that
Gellius raised by choosing to write in the genre of miscellany, and the
manner in which his departures from generic conventions allow him
to project his ideas about knowledge, learning, and the intellectual
world; Teresa Morgan demonstrates that his claim to educate his
readers in sound morality can be upheld on a more generous under-
standing of ethical instruction than recent critics have allowed;
Stephen M. Beall engages directly with Marache’s concept, which
he vindicates by reinterpreting it of mental and social improvement;
Wytse Keulen compares Gellius’ attitude to intellectuals with that of
Apuleius against a background of satirical tradition.
In the opening chapter of Part III, Leofranc Holford-Strevens
considers the medieval exploitation of a morally improving Gellian
text, false ascriptions to Gellius of matter from other sources, and
traces of his diVusion through manuscripts now lost or fragmen-
tary. Michael Heath studies his presence in sixteenth-century
France, covering his editorial history and his service to scholarship
and literature, above all Montaigne’s Essais; Wnally, Anthony Graf-
ton shows humanists learning from him how to accumulate infor-
mation, display their learning, and conduct their quarrels, but also
viii Preface
demonstrates how he stimulated scientiWc research—a surprising

achievement, it may be, but not inappropriate for the man who
wrote on missile trajectories and Wre-prevention.
As Gellius challenged the demarcations of specialized learning,
and changed masks between insider and outsider at will, so the
established and younger contributors to this volume include Gellian
experts looking out and specialists in other Welds looking in. They
also exhibit both traditional and new approaches. Gellius’ linguistic
interests are considered in the light of both ancient grammatical
doctrine and modern comparative philology within a context of
Quellenforschung (Cavazza) and stylistics (Garcea and Lomanto).
Several authors treat him against a broader social, cultural, and
literary background: ancient views on education and ethics (Mor-
gan, Beall); antiquarianism (Stevenson); the ambivalent place of the
intellectual (Keulen); a bilingual culture in which the choice of
language is seldom innocent (Swain); the learned miscellany
(Vardi); the practice of narrative (Anderson). Others consider Gel-
lius’ place in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque (Holford-
Strevens, Heath, Grafton), ranging in purview from manuscript
studies by way of homiletics to emblems, music, and mechanics.
Almost every paper touches on central issues in the history of ideas
such as concepts of language, tradition, and ethnicity and competing
views of knowledge, science(s), and intellectual life. Insights have
been gained from recent intellectual developments: the part played
by Xorilegia in medieval learning (Holford-Strevens); feminist and
post-modern views of ethics (Morgan); sociolinguistics and the play
of powers controlling choice of language (Swain); genre theory and
narratology (Anderson, Vardi); ironic self-presentation and subver-
sion (Keulen). Such approaches may be indicative of fascinating
developments in Gellian studies yet to come.
Our thanks are due to Bonnie Blackburn for preparing the music
example in Ch. 10 and for help with the indexes, to the Royal
Library in Brussels for Pl. 10. 2, and to Princeton University
Library for the illustrations in Ch. 12. We also owe a debt of
gratitude to all those who attended and contributed to the Corpus
colloquium, whether as speakers or as audience, but above all to
Ewen Bowie for proposing it in the Wrst place, for organizing it
with patience and enthusiasm, and for encouraging the publication
of the present volume.
Le o f r a n c Ho l f o r d -St r e v e n s
Oxford
Am i e l Va r d i
Jerusalem
22 March 2004
Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Abbreviations xiii
List of Contributors xv
PART I: CONTEXTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Antonine Rome:
Apuleius, Fronto, and Gellius 3
SIMON SWAIN
2. Gellius and Fronto on Loanwords and Literary Models:
Their Evaluation of Laberius 41
A L E SS A ND R O G A R CE A and V AL E R I A LO M A NT O
3. Gellius the Etymologist: Gellius’ Etymologies and
Modern Etymology 65
F R A N CO CA V A Z Z A
4. Aulus Gellius as a Storyteller 105
G R A HA M A ND E R SO N
5. Gellius and the Roman Antiquarian Tradition 118
A N D RE W J . S T E V E N S O N
PART II: IDEOLOGIES

6. Genre, Conventions, and Cultural Programme
in Gellius’ Noctes Atticae 159
A M I E L V A RD I
7. Educational Values 187
TERESA MORGAN
8. Gellian Humanism Revisited 206
S T E P HE N M . B E AL L
9. Gellius, Apuleius, and Satire on the Intellectual 223
W YT S E K E U L E N
x Contents
PART III: RECEPTION

10. Recht as een Palmen-Bohm and Other Facets of
Gellius’ Medieval and Humanistic Reception 249
L E O F R AN C H O L F O R D- ST RE V E N S
11. Gellius in the French Renaissance 282
M I C H A E L HE A T H
12. ConXict and Harmony in the Collegium Gellianum 318
A N T HO NY GR A F T O N
Bibliography 343
Index Locorum Potiorum 375
Index Verborum de quibus A. Gellius disputat 379
Index Rerum et Nominum 380
List of Illustrations
Plates
10.1. Emblem of the palm-tree, from Omnia Andreae

Alciati .V.C. emblemata (Paris, 1608) 257
10.2. First page in text order of Fragmentum
Egmondanum (Brussels, Royal Library,
MS IV 625/60 (Gellius 14. 2. 19–25) 267
12.1. Design for a bookwheel, from Agostino Ramelli,
Le diverse et artiWciose machine (Paris, 1588) 325
12.2. Design for a model of Archytas and his dove,
from Athanasius Kircher, Magnes: siue de arte
mechanica opus tripartitum, 3rd edn. (Rome, 1654) 340
Music example
10.1. Original text and melody of Anke van Tharaw,

stt. 6–7, from Heinrich Albert, FünVter Theil
der Arien (Königsberg, 1642) 258
Abbreviations
Blänsdorf Jürgen Blänsdorf, Fragmenta poetarum Lati-

norum (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1995)
Bonaria Mario Bonaria, Mimi Romani2 (Rome, 1965).
C. Codex Justinianus
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, series Latina
CGL Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum a G. Loewe
incohatum, ed. Georg Goetz, 7 vols. (Leipzig,
1888–1923; repr. Amsterdam, 1965)
Courtney Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin
Poets (Oxford, 1993)
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Lati-
norum
D. Digest
DK Hermann Diels, rev. Walther Kranz, Die
Fragmente der Vorsokratiker6 (Berlin, 1951)
DS Deutero-Servius
Funaioli Grammaticae Romanae fragmenta, ed. Gino
Funaioli (Leipzig, 1907)
GG Grammatici Graeci
GL Grammatici Latini, ed. Heinrich Keil (vols. i,
iv–vii), Martin Hertz (vols. ii–iii), Hermann
Hagen (suppl.), 8 vols. in all (Leipzig, 1855–
80)
Huschke–Seckel– Iurisprudentia anteiustiniana, ed. Ph. E.
Kübler Huschke, rev. Emil Seckel and Bernhard
Kübler, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1908).
J. Justinian, Institutiones
LHSz Lateinische Grammatik2, i: Manu Leumann,
Lateinische Laut- und Formenlehre; ii: J. B.
Hofmann, rev. Anton Szantyr, Lateinische
Syntax und Stilistik; iii: Fritz Radt and Abel
Westerbrink, Stellenregister und Verzeichnis
xiv Abbreviations
der nichtlateinischen Wo¨rter (Handbuch der

Altertumswissenschaft, II 2/1–3; Munich,
1977–9)
Malcovati Enrica Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum frag-
menta liberae rei publicae4 (Turin, 1976).
Mazzarino Grammaticae Romanae fragmenta aetatis Cae-
sareae, ed. Antonio Mazzarino, i (all pub-
lished) (Turin, 1955)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Peter Hermann Peter, Historicorum Romanorum re-
liquiae, 2 vols. (Leipzig, i 21914, ii. 1906; repr.
Stuttgart, 1967)
PF Pauli excerpta ex libris Pompei Festi de uerborum
signiWcatu, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Leipzig, 1913)
PG Patrologia Graeca
PL Patrologia Latina
Ribbeck2 Otto Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum poesis
fragmenta2, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1871–3; repr.
Hildesheim, 1962)
3
Ribbeck Otto Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum poesis
fragmenta3, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1897–8).
Schanz–Hosius Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Lite-
ratur bis zum Gesetzgebungswerk des Kaisers
Justinian4, rev. Carl Hosius, vols. i–ii (Hand-
buch der Altertumswissenschaft, 8; Munich,
1914–35, repr. with vols. iii–iv of the 3rd edn.,
1959–67).
Periodicals are abbreviated as in L’Anneé philologique.
Festus and PF are cited by page and line of Lindsay, Nonius in
the form ‘2 L. ¼ 3. 9 M.’ Stricter would be ‘p. 2 L. ¼ p. 3 Merc. l. 9
Mue.’: the pagination of Josias Mercerus’ second edition (Paris
and Sedan, 1614; reproduced line for line Leipzig, 1826) was
indicated by Lucian Mueller (2 vols., Leipzig, 1888), whose linea-
tion was cued to Mercerus’ pages and not his own; Mercerus’ pages
and Mueller’s lines are indicated by W. M. Lindsay (3 vols. Leip-
zig, 1903), and cited in preference to his own pages, though these
are sooner found.
List of Contributors
G r a h a m A n d e r s o n is Professor of Classics at the University

of Kent. His interests are in narrative literature in Antiquity, and
in the cultural history of the Roman Empire: he is the author of
Ancient Fiction (1984); Philostratus (1986), The Second Sophistic
(1993), Sage, Saint and Sophist (1994), and Fairytale in the Graeco-
Roman World (2000).
S t e p h e n M . B e a l l is Associate Professor of Classics at Mar-
quette University, Milwaukee. He is the author of a dissertation
entitled ‘Civilis eruditio: Style and Content in the ‘‘Attic Nights’’
of Aulus Gellius’ (University of California, Berkeley, 1988) and of
several articles relating to Gellius.
F r a n c o Ca v a z z a is Professor of the History of Linguistics
at the Università degli Studi di Bologna. His edition of Gellius
(Bologna, 1985– ) has reached the end of book 13; he is also
the author of Studio su Varrone etimologo e grammatico (1981),
Questioni di ortoepia e ortograWa latina (1999), and Lezioni di
indeoeuropeistica (2001–4), besides numerous articles on Gellius
and other subjects.
A l e s s a n d r o G a r c e a is Associate Professor at the Univer-
sité de Toulouse-Le Mirail and a researcher with the Laboratoire
d’Histoire des Théories Linguistiques (CNRS). His published
articles include substantial studies of Gellius, most notably ‘Gellio
e la dialettica’ (2000; based on his tesi di laurea at Turin). He is the
editor of Colloquia absentium: studi sulla comunicazione epistolare in
Cicerone (2003).
A n t h o n y G r a f t o n is Dodge Professor in the Department
of History, Princeton University. His many publications include
Joseph Scaliger (1983–93), Forgers and Critics (1990), Defenders of
the Text (1991), Commerce with the Classics (1997), and The Foot-
note (1998).
M i c h a e l He a t h is Professor of French at King’s College
London. He is the author of Crusading Commonplaces (1986) and
Rabelais (1996), the editor of René de Lucinge, and the translator
of numerous pieces for the Toronto Collected Works of Erasmus.
xvi List of Contributors
L e o f r a n c H o l f o r d - S t r e v e n s is Consultant Scholar-
Editor at the Oxford University Press. He is the author of Aulus
Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievement and (with Bonnie
J. Blackburn) of The Oxford Companion to the Year; also of nu-
merous articles on classical and other themes.
W y t s e K e u l e n is a postdoctoral researcher at the Rijks-
universiteit Groningen. His dissertation, entitled Apuleius
Madaurensis, Metamorphoses, Book I, 1–20: Introduction, Text,
Commentary (2003), will be published in the Groningen Commen-
taries on Apuleius.
V a l e r i a L o m a n t o is Associate Professor in the Diparti-
mento di Filologia, Linguistica, e Tradizione Classica ‘Augusto
Rostagni’ at the Università degli Studi di Torino. Her publications
include ‘Lessici latini e lessicograWa automatica’ (1980), Concor-
dantiae in Q. Aurelii Symmachi opera (1983), Index Grammaticus
(1990: with Nino Marinone), and ‘Cesare e la teoria dell’elo-
quenza’ (1994–5).
T e r e s a M o r g a n is Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at
Oriel College, Oxford. She is the author of Literate Education in the
Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (1998).
A n d r e w J. S t e v e n s o n is Departmental Administrator in
the Department of Continuing Education at Lancaster University.
He is the author of a thesis entitled ‘Aulus Gellius and Roman
Antiquarian Writing’ (King’s College London, 1993).
Si m o n S w a i n is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at
the University of Warwick. His publications include Hellenism and
Empire (1996), Dio Chrysostom (2003), Bilingualism in Ancient
Society (2003; with J. N. Adams and Mark Janse), and Approach-
ing Late Antiquity (2004; with M. J. Edwards).
A m i e l V a r d i is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of a dissertation
entitled ‘Aulus Gellius as Reader of Poetry’ (in Hebrew) and a
number of articles on Gellius and on Roman intellectual life in the
Wrst two centuries of our era.
I
CONTEXTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
1
Bilingualism and Biculturalism
in Antonine Rome
Apuleius, Fronto, and Gellius
Si m on Sw a in
Understanding the cultural context of Aulus Gellius might seem

straightforward. He was a highly educated Roman who had trav-
elled to Athens as a student, knew prominent Greek sophists and
philosophers, was an active member of the second-century
Kulturszene at Rome, and was appointed to the respectable pos-
ition of iudex extra ordinem. There is enough to interpret here
without going further. But if we are interested in Gellius’ attitude
to Greece and the Greek language, we cannot ignore the back-
ground of over two centuries of intense thinking and rethinking by
Romans of their relationship with the older and more prestigious
culture of their conquered neighbours. The legacy of this thought
is apparent in Gellius and his contemporaries both in their
responses to Greece and—more importantly—in how they viewed
themselves as the leading lights of Latin literature in their time.
For this reason I shall start this chapter by sketching relevant
aspects of that relationship from the time of Cicero down to
Apuleius. This sketch will necessarily be rapid and much of inter-
est and importance will be omitted. I shall then focus in more
detail on Fronto and on Gellius himself.
1. context and background:

cicero to apuleius
When Julius Caesar remarked that Cicero was more deserving of
a medal than any military commander because ‘it was more
I should like to thank the editors for their invitation to write this piece and for their
comments and assistance. I am very grateful to Jim Adams for suggestions and
encouragement.
4 Simon Swain
important to advance the boundaries of Rome’s ingenium than her

imperium’ (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7. 117), he knew what
he was talking about. Control of culture was the central part of
ancient education because it promised members of the governing
classes power. Yet in the time of Cicero’s boyhood professional
instruction in Latin rhetoric was still the object of suspicion at
Rome. Towards the end of his life Cicero records in his patriotic
history of Roman rhetoric, the Brutus, that the censors of 92 bc,
M. Antonius and L. Licinius Crassus, had in fact banned the
teaching of rhetoric in Latin. It is no coincidence that these two
men are identiWed by Cicero as having ‘equalled the glory of the
Greeks’ in their rhetorical powers (138). This privileged position
entitled them to condemn lesser talents and to reinforce the trad-
itional system of teaching the tricks of rhetoric through immersion
in Greek—as if we should learn to express ourselves in English by
practising Wrst in French. When Cicero presents Crassus discuss-
ing the edict in another late dialogue, On the Orator (3. 93–5), he
has him predict that a time will come when ‘that old and superior
wisdom of the Greeks’ will be transferred to Rome. Men of great
learning will be needed for this to happen; but, if they should
appear, ‘they will be ranked above the Greeks.’
In these remarks of Crassus, Cicero was praising his own suc-
cess. It is his generation that witnessed the maturity of Latin
culture. Already in Cicero’s 20s or 30s the author of the Ad Heren-
nium was pointing the way forward to formal, Greek-style rhet-
orical instruction in and for Latin. Cicero records that he still
declaimed in Greek to shape his Latin usage at this time (Brutus
310) and he continued to do so till the end of his life (Ad Att. 9. 4).
But things were changing. Translation complemented this process
by developing awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of Latin
in relation to Greek. Cicero’s little work, De optimo genere ora-
torum, from 46 is ostensibly an introduction to translations of On
the Crown and Against Ctesiphon.1 But the absence of the transla-
tions simply reinforces the purpose of what is in eVect a defence of
using Greek models to produce excellent Latin.
It is well known that Cicero and others of his epoch had a mixed
view of Greeks. They admired classical Greek civilization but
often despised the contemporary Greeks they ruled over.2 This
attitude reXects the particular circumstances of the time as much as
1
I accept the authenticity of this work, as J. G. F. Powell, ‘Cicero’s Transla-
tions’, 278 is inclined to do.
2
N. Petrochilos, Roman Attitudes, is a useful survey of Roman views.
Bilingualism and Biculturalism 5
anything. A combination of exploitative provincial government,

Roman civil wars, and Greek political chaos had made Greeks
despicable and cringing in Roman eyes. We should remember
that despite the Hellenizing tastes of many individuals in their
homes and private endeavours, Rome itself was hardly Hellenized
as a city in terms of its amenities. The Theatre of Pompey (inaug-
urated in 55) was the Wrst in a very long line of buildings that were
built under the inXuence of Greek (or rather Hellenistic–Greek)
styles and aspirations. This new Rome was Wrst realized in the long
reign of Augustus. Greek styles and inXuences permeate his build-
ings, and this reXects the very important but gradual change in the
status and character of the City during the Empire as it became
ever more cosmopolitan in appearance and population and the old
capital of the Roman Republic faded from sight.
The acquisition of Greek by the Romans of the Late Republic
may be seen as a process of Sprachanschluß (‘language annex-
ation’), as Wrst described by the sociolinguist Henrik Becker in
connection with the rise of Czech and Hungarian to national
standard languages in the context of the dominance of German.3
The process is a familiar one: codiWcation and enrichment, purism,
the development of the national literary language on the model of
an existing better-established code with a view to usurping and
replacing it. This is what Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, Varro, and the
late Republican and Augustan poets did at Rome. A fascinating
part of the Roman annexation of Greek is the phenomenon of
code-switching or the practice of using two or more languages in
the same utterance.4 Code-switching is not necessarily indicative of
bilingualism (which is the ability to deploy two languages equally
or fairly equally). Rather, it is an expression of a desire or a need to
deploy and negotiate two (or more) language-speciWc identities. In
the case of the Romans of the Late Republic—at least in the sole
extensive source of evidence, Cicero—using Greek tags, quota-
tions, or starting or Wnishing an utterance in Greek is, as I have
argued elsewhere, a sign of a wish to display knowledge of Greek
to those members of the Roman elite who shared their tastes.5
It stakes a claim to be recognized as a cultural equal. The evidence
points strongly to the fact that Romans’ Greek identity in language
usage was accessed mainly in private and—though proof on this
3
H. Becker, Sprachanschlüsse.
4
As deWned by Adams and Swain in J. N. Adams, M. Janse, S. Swain,
Bilingualism, 2.
5
Swain, ‘Bilingualism in Cicero?’
6 Simon Swain
point is lacking—between men.6 There is no evidence for the often

casual assumption that Romans regularly spoke in Greek to each
other. Greek was part of the construction of Romanness. More-
over, it was something to play down or hide in Roman public life.
We might expect Romans to have become more relaxed about
Greek from the Augustan period onwards. After all, Roman power
was indisputable and Roman intellectual and artistic worth was
assured by the establishment of their own canons and by the
beautiWcation of Rome and other Roman cities. But our sources,
though uneven in their value, show that tension continued. In the
Wfth decade of the Wrst century ad Seneca the Elder recalled the
performances he had seen at Rome by teachers of rhetoric who
were active for the most part under Augustus, the generation on a
par with, or ahead of, ‘insolent Greece’ owing to the eVorts of
Cicero (Controuersiae 1 pr. 6). Seneca’s recollections are especially
useful because he was writing for the beneWt of men who were
training to become lawyers. He recalls a world of Greek and
Roman declaimers who operated in both Greek and Latin. One
of his hate Wgures is the Greek L. Cestius Pius, who always spoke
in Latin. Cestius got above himself by attacking Cicero and, much
to Seneca’s satisfaction, was given a sound hiding by Cicero’s
son (Suasoriae 7. 12–13). Among the Romans Arellius Fuscus
declaimed ‘more often in Greek than in Latin’ (Suas. 4. 5) and is
charged with plagiarizing a Greek rhetor called Adaeus. ‘I did it
for training’s sake,’ he says. ‘Roman orators, historians, and poets
have not stolen sayings from the Greeks but have laid down a
challenge to them’ (Contr. 9. 1. 13–14). Seneca’s favourite
Roman rhetor, Porcius Latro, ‘could not be suspected of theft,
for he both despised the Greeks and was ignorant of them’
(Contr. 10. 4. 21). His most extensive comparison of a theme
(clearly Greek in origin) developed by both Greek and Latin
declaimers is intended to show ‘how easy is the passage from
Greek eloquence to Latin’ and how Latin has ‘as much resource-
fulness [as Greek], but less licence’ (Contr. 10. 4. 23).7
These attitudes are still visible at the end of the century and the
beginning of the next in Quintilian and Pliny the Younger (if such a
chronological leap may be excused). The comparability of Greek
and Latin literature is the subject of much of book 10 of Quintilian’s
Institutio oratoria, and he includes a short section (5. 2–3) on the
value of translation for expanding vocabulary and developing
6
On this aspect cf. O. Wenskus, ‘Wie schreibt man?’
7
Ut cogitetis Latinam linguam facultatis non minus habere, licentiae minus.
powers of expression. But the last book, book 12, is the most
interesting for our purposes. Here Quintilian concentrates on the
intellectual and moral qualities and the general knowledge needed
to produce a perfect orator. The penultimate chapter (10) is a
fascinating commentary on Roman bilingualism. Praise of Cicero
(the revival of whose style and concept of oratory is Quintilian’s
constant goal) leads to a Ciceronian deWnition of what constitutes
the true Roman ‘Attic’ orator (10. 12–26). The self-appointed
Roman ‘Attici’ of the Late Republic had attacked Cicero but failed
to appreciate that the best Attic oratory was to be found in Cicero’s
model, Demosthenes. Quintilian does not record this as historical
information.8 The view he opposes, that Lysias represented the best
in Athenian oratory, is, he says, still held by Greeks (10. 21, 24, 27).9
He is evidently sensitive to the ‘Atticizing’ renaissance of Greek
literature that was now Wrmly under way in the Greek world. Per-
haps for this reason he now jumps to a general comparison of Greek
and Latin (10. 27–39). Latin, he aYrms, closely resembles Greek in
many departments of rhetoric, but is inferior in its sounds and
elocution. It shows ‘extreme poverty’ in word-building (a major
worry for Quintilian: 1. 5. 32, 5. 70, 6. 31; 8. 3. 30–3, 6. 31–3). But
the demerits of Latin are turned into a major triumph. For if
Romans are not as ‘graceful’, they must win on the intellectual
resources available to them, viz. inventiveness, strength, weight,
and fullness of expression (12. 10. 36–9). Styling the major Roman
orators uelut Attici Romanorum, he asks about them, ‘Who is dis-
satisWed by something that cannot be bettered?’ (10. 39).10
Quintilian’s pupil, Pliny the Younger, saw himself as to some
extent standing in Cicero’s shoes (cf. Letters 4. 8. 4–5), so it is not
surprising that he displays a recognizably Ciceronian attitude
towards Greeks. Contempt towards the moderns is combined
with a self-conscious admiration of the classics. Pliny’s views
naturally bend with circumstance. The last letter in book 8 to a
certain Maximus who is going to Greece as an imperial trouble-
shooter contains obvious echoes of Cicero’s famous public letter to
his brother during his propraetorship of Asia (Ad Quintum 1. 1)
and is the clearest example of a negative and patronizing
8
On the Republican debate see J. Wisse, ‘Greeks’; Swain, Hellenism, 21–7 (the
wider Greek picture).
9
Inst. 12. 10. 27 in hac . . . opinione perseuerantis Graecos. Cf. e.g. Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, Lysias, and contemporary with Quintilian Plutarch’s ridicule of the
man who drinks only from Attic ware, has clothes of Attic wool, and ‘sits still and
inactive in the delicate, thin jacket of Lysias’ (De audiendo 42 d–e).
10
Cui porro non satis est quo nihil esse melius potest?
8 Simon Swain
viewpoint.11 The comments are literary pretension, but are not to

be dismissed on that account. They are a perfect example of the
normal Roman distinction between the present-day Greeks and
their cultural and racial ancestors. Two contemporary Greeks who
followed the ideals of the past are fulsomely praised. The Stoic
philosopher Euphrates at 1. 10 and the Atticist orator Isaeus at 2. 3
(sermo Graecus, immo Atticus), both well known from Greek
sources, virtually serve as models for Pliny’s own life (in the Letters
at any rate). Otherwise there are the familiar slurs. Pliny sneers at
the Bithynian noble Fonteius Magnus: ‘he is like most of those
Greeks in mistaking wordiness for word power—the result is that
you Wnd yourself overwhelmed by a torrent of sentences that are
lengthy, stilted, and monotonous’ (5. 20. 4).12 Naturally Pliny
found nothing odd about quoting Homer a little later in the same
letter to promote the merits of a ‘little speech’ of his own. In the
previous book he laments to Arrius Antoninus, ‘I envy the Greeks
when I see your preference for writing [verse] in their language.
The brilliant work you have done in that foreign tongue you have
learned means that I do not have to guess about your ability to
express yourself in your native speech (sermone patrio)’ (4. 3. 5).
Arrius’ Greek is of course more ‘Attic’ than the Athenians’ own, a
conceit we shall observe in other second-century authors.13 Later
in book 4 we read the fascinating letter about the exile Valerius
Licinianus, who was resident in Sicily. Formerly among the most
eloquent barristers at Rome, he has now become ‘a rhetor after
being an orator’, i.e. he has been reduced to the status of a teacher
of rhetoric from that of an active speechmaker at the Roman bar.
Pliny comments that Licinianus is obliged to enter the lecture hall
‘in a Greek cloak’, for he is banned from wearing the citizen’s toga,
and therefore has to begin by saying, ‘I am going to declaim in
Latin’ (4. 11. 1–3). Greek higher intellectual culture is Wne, but
popular activities are bound to be scorned. Thus Pliny crows
about the suspension of a Greek-style gymnastic competition at
Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis which ‘had been infecting the moral
character’ of the townsfolk (4. 22). When he himself acted as a
11
8. 24. 2–5 ‘reverence (Greece’s) ancient glory and its present old age . . . It is
Athens you are approaching, Lacedaemon you are ruling . . . Remember the past of
each city, without despising it because it is this no more (non ut despicias quod esse
desierit)’. Cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, ad loc.
12
Est plerisque Graecorum, ut illi, pro copia uolubilitas: tam longas tamque frigidas
perihodos uno spiritu quasi torrente contorquent.
13
Cf. Swain, ‘Bilingualism in Cicero?’, 148 for possible precedents in the char-
acterization of Pomponius Atticus.
governor in Bithynia he sneered to Trajan about the Greeks’

addiction to ‘gymnasia’ (10. 40. 2).
None of this is surprising, for Roman authors had for a long
time hypocritically condemned the material side of Greek culture
while openly appropriating and acknowleding its intellectual
opportunities.14 The use of Greek to validate one’s culture in
front of male Roman peers comes through again strongly. Pliny
tells Arrius that his Latin versions of Arrius’ Greek poems were
hampered by ‘what Lucretius calls ‘‘the poverty of our native
tongue’’ ’ (4. 18. 1).15 Pliny does not believe this any more than
Cicero or Quintilian.16 The invocation of Lucretius is a polite
apologia. The comparability of the two languages (see especially
the start of 7. 9 on translation as the key to original composition,
cf. 7. 30. 5 on Pliny and Demosthenes) is assumed. But it must be
remembered that the Romans’ Sprachanschluß meant that no
genuine equality was intended in their bilingual culture. The
diVerence in power was far too clear. And for Pliny this is neatly
expressed in his claim that his hendecasyllables (a Romanized
Greek metre) were ‘set to the cithara and the lyre by Greeks who
have learnt Latin out of love for my little book; but why should
I boast?’ (7. 4. 9).
Pliny’s generation witnessed further cosmopolitan develop-
ments in the capital. There were senators from the Greek East
for the Wrst time and the massive Hellenistic complex of Trajan’s
Forum on the design of Apollodorus of Tarsus.17 Trajan’s self-
presentation as a new Augustus, emphasizing the importance of
Italy through his alimentary foundations, is no more out of keeping
with this than the Greek verse of Pliny and his friends. On this
reading his successor Hadrian’s obsession with Greek culture
should be seen as part of a long-term process rather than as an
individual’s taste. Hadrian’s erection of the Wrst Greek-style
temple at Rome—Venus and Roma, where Roma as the spirit of
Empire was for the Wrst time worshipped at Rome itself—is a bold
14
Note Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 353 ‘Pliny is freer than most of his
contemporaries from the Roman dislike of Graeculi’.
15
For Lucretius (De rerum natura 1. 136–9, 832; 3. 260; cf. Seneca the Elder,
Contr. 7 pr. 3, Seneca the Younger, Letters 58. 1) see D. Sedley, ‘Lucretius’ Use of
Greek’. For a full survey of the evidence with attention to sociolinguistic categories,
see T. Fögen, Patrii sermonis egestas. Cf. S. M. Beall, below, p. 219.
16
Cicero: cf. De Wnibus 1. 10, 2. 13, 3. 15, 3. 51; De nat. deor. 1. 8; Disp. Tusc. 2.
35, 3. 11; Ad Atticum 12. 52. 3.
17
H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren, and ‘Die Senatoren aus den kleinasiatischen
Provinzen’; J. E. Packer, Forum of Trajan, esp. 174–200.
10 Simon Swain
but realistic assessment of the changing character of the City and

its role within a cosmopolitan empire.
At some point in the latter part of Trajan’s reign or the early part
of Hadrian’s Suetonius wrote his biographical accounts of Roman
history and culture. Suetonius sometimes wrote in Greek. Whom
for? The Suda ( 895) lists his works in Greek (of course) and this
has caused confusion. It is possible that lost works like that on
Roman customs (—æd ŒÆd H K ÆPB §
ø ŒÆd MŁH )
were written for educated Greeks, thereby documenting their
wish ‘to be informed about the Roman world to which they felt
they belonged’;18 but since it is probable that only two titles—the
fragmentarily surviving On the Games of the Greeks (—æd H
Ææ ‚ººØ ÆØØH ) and On Terms of Insult (—æd ıø
ºø
Ø ºÆØH )19—were actually written in Greek (these
are known to late Greek authors, whereas the other lost works are
quoted in the main by Latin authors), it is more likely that com-
position in Greek of what are essentially lexical commentaries with
copious quotation from the poets should be seen as a normal part of
a grammarian’s output and a display of Greek for Roman pupils
and friends. In fact there are a number of casual comments in the
Caesars which show the attitudes we have been considering well
enough. But a much more important work is the De grammaticis et
rhetoribus. Here Suetonius outlines the development of grammat-
ical and rhetorical studies at Rome and sketches the lives of some of
the leading practitioners from the end of the second century bc
down to the second half of the Wrst century ad. He is almost totally
silent about the role of Greeks in establishing the teaching of
language and letters at Rome. As Robert Kaster remarks, ‘the
Romans are seen to pull themselves up by their own cultural
bootstraps’.20 Suetonius, like Cicero, is evidently keen to accord
Latin culture its own pedigree. The same attitude is clear from the
less well-preserved section of his book which deals with Latin
rhetoric.
The attitudes of Quintilian, Pliny, and Suetonius are traditional:
well adjusted to the Empire politically, culturally they recall and
further the mindset of Cicero and the Late Republic. Behind the
application of this to contemporary culture we may, as has been
hinted, see a sign of a ‘purist’ reaction to the renaissance of Greek
18
A. Dihle, Greek and Latin Literature, 259. Plutarch, for example, oVers very
many explanations of Roman customs and institutions.
19
Ed. J. Taillardat, Sue´tone.
20
R. A. Kaster, edn. of Suetonius: De Grammaticis, p. xlv.
literature, especially rhetoric, that was well under way in the

Greek East by the reign of Trajan. Before turning to Fronto,
Gellius, and his contemporaries, something must be said about
this so-called ‘Second Sophistic’ movement and its reception at
Rome. Second Sophistic is the modern name for the Greek culture
of the Roman period. In recent work the phrase, which is found in
Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists (481, 507), has been applied to the
distinctive combination of literary and cultural activity and political
life that Philostratus records for the sophists—the rhetorical stars
and, speciWcally, the teachers of rhetoric—of the period from the
mid-Wrst to the mid-third century when he was writing. Philostra-
tus actually intends it as a description of the taste for Wctional
declamatory oratory that characterizes the sophists’ work; but he
spends much of his time describing their way of life and their civic
and political activity, and that is why ‘Second Sophistic’ has come to
take on a wider sense that includes but goes beyond literature alone.
More to the point, there is a very distinctive combination of classi-
cizing linguistic and literary tastes with a phenomenally successful
urbanism in the Greek world from c. ad 50 to 250. The word
‘sophist’ at this time means someone who teaches declamatory
oratory. It carried prestige because (and this was explicitly in Phi-
lostratus’ mind) it recalled the great sophists of classical Athens.21
There is a good deal of overlap with the unmarked term ‘rhetor’, and
at any one time the sense of teaching or declamatory virtuosity may
prevail.22 If Suetonius had lived a century later, we might have had a
list of Latin sophists comparable to that of Philostratus. Clearly
there were such Wgures who taught the art of Wctional declamation.
From the second century (probably) we have the Minor Declam-
ations attributed to Quintilian; but there is not much else.23 In fact
we know of no one who exactly matches the proWle of the sophists of
the Greek East.
That said, if we use the phrase Second Sophistic in its enlarged
sense (as we should), can we not then include Suetonius, Gellius,
Fronto, Marcus, Apuleius, and others like them within it? To my
mind such a usage adds little and causes confusion. There is no
obvious link in the western Empire between a thriving civic culture
21
Philostratus’ overuse of the term in his Lives (where it is applied to those who
rejected it like Aelius Aristides and Dio Chrysostom) is also due to the appointment
of oYcial sophists on public salaries from the 180s onward.
22
Swain, Hellenism, 97–8.
23
The declamations of Calpurnius Flaccus and the Major Declamations (also
Ps.-Quintilian) are of uncertain date.
12 Simon Swain
and a distinctive form of language and literature, as there is in the

Greek East. Thus it does not help to follow e.g. Barnes in calling
the Christian Latin author Tertullian a ‘sophist’. He was certainly
not one.24 The only possible candidate is Apuleius, and I wish to
examine his credentials in this regard more carefully, for his atti-
tudes to Greek and Latin high culture will help to illustrate those
of his contemporaries nicely. Even on an exclusively intellectual or
literary level Apuleius’ range and standard make him look quite
diVerent from comparable Greek Wgures. Apuleius was a showman
and a playboy, clever but shallow. He deserved to be condemned
for seducing a rich widow, but had the audacity to base his claim to
innocence on the intellectual aYnity between himself and the
judge (the Apology). His egotism made him publish four books of
highlights from his display speeches, which were thoughtfully
pruned in later antiquity (the Florida). Intellectual vanity led
him to write a hack account of Socrates and his Deity. Finally his
talents found a legitimate outlet in a comic novel about a man’s life
as an ass (the Metamorphoses), a story he plagiarized (perhaps)
from an anonymous Greek text called the Ass. The collection of
Florida looks like the sort of display rhetoric that Greek rhetors
and sophists had to perform for a living.25 But Apuleius did not
write Wctitious speeches or (pseudo-)historical declamations. He
did not write exercise books of rhetoric and no pupils are known. If
his style of writing was ‘sophistic’, i.e. jingly-jangly, ecphrastic,
archaizing, obscure, pretentious, what does this add up to? In any
case he claimed to be a ‘philosopher’. Perhaps we should just call
him an ‘intellectual’.26
Apuleius, like Gellius, had a huge admiration for classical Greek
culture. Contemporary Greece was a place to poke fun at (Meta-
morphoses). If we want to understand his cultural background, we
must place him in the same cultural mould as the other Roman
24
T. D. Barnes, Tertullian, ch. 14 (whose point is stylistic). At Adv. Valentinia-
nos 5. 1 Tertullian refers positively to the apologist Miltiades as the ‘sophist of the
churches’; Miltiades may have been a sophist before converting and using his talents
for apologetic. Elsewhere he uses the term, if at all, with disapprobation (e.g. De
idololatria 9. 7 as part of a rejection of all traditional teaching). In his training and
inclination Tertullian was simply a rhetor Romanus (P. Steinmetz, Untersuchungen,
231).
25
J. L. Hilton in S. J. Harrison et al., Apuleius: Rhetorical Works, 123–33.
26
Thus I cannot agree with S. J. Harrison, Apuleius, that Apuleius should be styled
a ‘Latin sophist’. Harrison is relying on the loose modern—Bowersockian—interpret-
ation of a sophist as a ‘virtuoso rhetor’; but the sense of teaching should always be part
of the deWnition. It is signiWcant that Apuleius keeps the term sophist to refer to the very
diVerent sophists of classical Athens: Fl. 9. 15; 18. 18, 19, 28; De Platone 2. 9.
authors we have been examining. For Apuleius was particularly

concerned to be known for his knowledge of Greek; that is, the
demonstration that he commanded Greek culture was a key part of
his self-presentation as a master of Latin. There is one passage
where he depends precisely on this for the basis of his personal
identity, and I shall come to it shortly. But the text which most
obviously presents his claim to high culture is the Apology, for
knowledge of both the languages, education, cosmopolitanism, and
intellectual broad-mindedness are the major planks of his defence.
If Latin and Greek were equals on the standard Roman view, a
view which is encapsulated in Romans’ use of the phrase ‘both the
languages’,27 other tongues and cultures were beyond the pale.
Thus Apuleius was free in this speech to impugn his enemies’
barbarian manners (10, 91). He could not have written a Greek
letter they had attributed to him because it was composed in such
‘barbarous language’ (87. 4). It suited his opponent better, who
could not read Greek at all (cf. 30. 11). He himself regards the
Greek classics as maiores meos and promptly produces for the
court—or alleges he did—a scientiWc treatise he had written in
Greek (36. 3). He uses Greek terms—taking care to express them
with a ‘Latin stamp’—because he is breaking new ground in sci-
ence (38). He combines a patriam barbaram (Madauros) with an
eloquentiam Graecam (25. 2), which (as he tells us elsewhere) had
been acquired in Athens (Florida 18. 15–16, 42–3; 20. 4). This
reference to his place of origin as ‘barbarian’ is of course ironic, as
is made plain by the preceding reference to the Scythian wise man,
Anacharsis (Apology 24. 6). As with Fronto when he decides to
write in Greek, Anacharsis is invoked by Apuleius to make it plain
that in his own opinion his Greek is as proWcient as any non-
Greek’s could be, and that his social and educational standing is
every bit as good as that of the legendary sage. This irony is not just
a ploy for the court, for the speech we have is addressed to a
general, reading audience, and has no doubt been tampered with
for the purpose.28 Apuleius does not think his background is
barbarian any more than he believes his opponent’s home is
‘your famous Attic Zarath’ (24. 10).29 He thinks of the barbarian
27
Cf. below n. 127, and pp. 9, 29. See T. Kotula, ‘Vtraque lingua eruditi’, on
Africa; M. Dubuisson, ‘Vtraque lingua’; N. Horsfall, ‘Doctus sermones’,
L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘Vtraque lingua’, for limitations.
28
Clear references to rewriting for publication can be found in Plin. Epp. 1. 20.
6–8, 3. 18. 1, 4. 9. 23; cf. Quint. Inst. 12. 10. 49–57. On this aspect of the Apology see
B. L. Hijmans, ‘Apuleius orator’, 1715–19.
29
Cf. Fronto fr. 51 (p. 271) illae uestrae Athenae Dorocorthoro (i.e. Reims).
14 Simon Swain
because it is a negation of being a Roman whose culture is assured

through the knowledge of Latin and Greek.30
In the famous preface to his Metamorphoses Apuleius teases
readers by asking who the author of the work is (Quis ille?).31 He
answers by saying that his ‘ancient stock’ is ‘Attic Hymettus and
Ephyrean Isthmus and Spartan Taenarus, fruitful lands preserved
for ever in even more fruitful books’; I take this to refer to a
cultural rather than a family background.32 ‘There’, he continues,
‘I served my stint with the Attic tongue in the Wrst campaigns of
boyhood. Soon afterwards, in the city of the Latins, as a newcomer
to Roman pursuits I took on and cultivated the native speech with
laborious eVort and no teacher to guide me.’ The Wrst sentence in
this section is explained by familiar Roman educational practices.
‘I prefer’, says Quintilian, ‘that a boy should begin by speaking Greek,
because Latin, being in general use, will be imbibed by him even if we do
not want it . . . I do not, however, wish that this principle should be
adhered to so religiously that he should for a long time speak and learn
only Greek, as is commonly done . . . Latin ought to follow at no great
interval and in a short time proceed side by side with Greek. The result
30
Cf. Claudius’ remark to ‘a certain barbarian’ who is holding forth in Greek and
Latin: ‘since you are trained in both our languages (cum utroque . . . sermone nostro
sis paratus)’ (Suetonius, Claud. 42. 1).
31
The preface is now the subject of a volume of essays in itself: A. Kahane and
A. Laird, Companion. My comments are designed to exemplify the development of
bilingual politics in the Antonine Empire rather than to engage with the plethora of
Apuleian scholars. The translation below in text is a conXation of versions by
Hanson (Loeb Classical Library) and Harrison and Winterbottom in Kahane and
Laird. For convenience the text (Harrison and Winterbottom; see also Nisbet’s
treatment of cola and clausulae in the same volume) is: At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio
uarias fabulas conseram auresque tuas beniuolas lepido susurro permulceam—modo si
papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreueris inspicere. Wguras
fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conuersas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas, ut
mireris, exordior. ‘quis ille?’ paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyraea et
Taenaros Spartiatica, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea uetus
prosapia est. ibi linguam Atthidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui; mox in urbe
Latia aduena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo
magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui. en ecce praefamur ueniam, siquid exotici ac
forensis sermonis rudis locutor oVendero. iam haec equidem ipsa uocis immutatio desul-
toriae scientiae stilo quem accessimus respondet: fabulam Graecanicam incipimus. lector
intende: laetaberis.
32
Cf. above, 13, for maiores meos at Apol. 36. 3. For Hymettus as a reference to
Attic oratory see van den Hout, Commentary, 261 on Fronto Ep. Ant. imp. 4. 2,
p. 106. 23. The reference to Corinth (‘Ephyraean Isthmus’) is interesting because of
course modern Corinth was Roman and however much it was Hellenized by the 2nd
c. (cf. below, 31) Greeks were well aware of its history: see e.g. Swain, Hellenism,
339, 347–8 on Pausanias. For the purpose of stressing his cultural aYliations
Apuleius uses an erudite name sanctioned by Latin poetry.
will be that, as soon as we begin to pay equal attention to both the
languages (linguam utramque), neither one will get in the way of the
other’ (Inst. 1. 1. 12–14).
Tacitus also mentions the early learning of Greek.33 This intro-
duction was consolidated by attendance on a grammaticus Graecus.
Such teachers were hired, of course, and there is perhaps a
reference to this expenditure in the prologue-speaker’s stipendiis.
Next Latin: ‘soon afterwards’ (cf. Quintilian’s ‘at no great interval
and in a short time’) the speaker went to Rome new to ‘Roman
pursuits’ to get to grips with the Latin of the capital’s lawcourts
(the ‘foreign speech of the forum’ in the next sentence) with ‘no
teacher to guide me’, not to learn Latin ab initio.34 The idea of
‘cultivating’ civilized accomplishments at Rome recurs at Fl. 17. 4
in an address to the proconsul of Africa in 163/4.35 And the
language of the city of Rome as a paradigmatic form of Latin is
speciWed again at Met. 11. 28. 6 ‘lawsuits in the Roman language’
(probably) and Fl. 18. 43 (surely).36
33
Dialogue on Orators 29. 1 at nunc natus infans delegatur Graeculae alicui ancil-
lae. For these Greek nurses cf. Soranus, Gynaecology 2. 19. 15: the wetnurse should
be ‘Greek so the infant nourished by her becomes accustomed to the fairest of
languages’.
34
Indigenam sermonem refers to Apuleius’ own Latin. For the antithesis ‘new-
comer’/’native speech’ (aduena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem . . . exco-
lui), cf. Met. 11. 26. 3: Lucius is ‘a newcomer to the shrine (of Isis on the Campus
Martius) but a native of the cult’ ( fani quidem aduena, religionis autem indigena).
35
semper ab ineunte aeuo bonas artes sedulo colui, eamque existimationem [i.e. the
governor’s correct appreciation of Apuleius’] morum ac studiorum cum in prouincia
nostra tum etiam Romae penes amicos tuos quaesisse me . . . testis es.
36
There are obvious linguistic links between 1. 1. 4 studiorum Quiritium indigenam
sermonem aerumnabili labore . . . exotici ac forensis sermonis, 11. 28. 6 patrocinia sermo-
nis Romani, and 11. 30. 4 gloriosa in foro . . . patrocinia . . . studiorum meorum laboriosa
doctrina. At Fl. 18. 43 Romanae linguae is paired with atticissabit as speciWc forms
following the couplings Graeco et Latino (38) and Graecum et Latinum (39). In the Met.
contrasts between Latin and Greek are noted as such (4. 32. 6, 9. 39, 11. 17. 3) and
‘Greek’ is always a marked usage (3. 9. 1, 3. 29. 2, 10. 10. 4, 10. 29. 4), not a starting
point. J. N. Adams, ‘ ‘‘Romanitas’’ ’, 191–7 shows that the paradigmatic value of the
Latin of Rome was an idea that only really enjoyed currency in the 1st c. bc; in
the Empire ‘Roman’ in lingustic contexts has no connection with Rome (cf. further
Flobert, ‘Lingua Latina’, 206–8; J. Kramer’s wide-ranging but pertinent Sprachbe-
zeichnungen). But he notes that the Ciceronian passages that express it (Verr. 5. 167;
esp. De orat. 3. 42–4 cum sit quaedam certa uox Romani generis urbisque propria, etc.) are
the basis of Quintilian, Inst. 8. 1. 3 (et uerba omnia et uox huius alumnum urbis oleant, ut
oratio Romana plane uideatur, non ciuitate donata). Apuleius like Quintilian is recalling
the Late Republican viewpoint (pace Adams). He has no technical concern with
dialect: it is a cultural-political assumption of the power of the centre that was, if one
wished to use it, as valid in Apuleius’ day as it had been in Cicero’s.
16 Simon Swain
Next Apuleius links bilingualism with the bicultural subject-

matter of his book. ‘Now in fact this very changing of language
corresponds to the style we have approached, which is like the skill
of jumping from one horse to another: we begin a story that is
Greek in form.’ ‘This very changing of language’ is the speaker’s
successive education in Attic Greek and Roman Latin, his bilin-
gualism. How does it ‘correspond to the style’ of the work? Since
adjectives in -cus could be ethnic (‘a Greek woman’) or ktetic
(‘a Greek yoghurt made in England’) in sense, Latin developed
suYxes to avoid the ambiguity, especially in technical contexts.
The word Graecanicus is one of these.37 Apuleius is writing a
Milesian tale, he says in the Wrst line. He refers of course to the
‘Milesian tales’ of Cornelius Sisenna. These were a translation
from a Greek source. But Apuleius is certainly not coming clean
about the fact that the Metamorphoses is a version of the anonym-
ous Ass. The Ass is a ribald, sexually explicit tale of life in Roman
Greece. It is written in good enough Greek, but not the Atticizing
Greek required for higher, formal literary genres in this period. It
was not the sort of text that a high stylist in Latin would want to
acknowledge in the context of talking up his own Latin and Greek
culture.38 What he means is that his story is Roman but Greek in
form/set in Greece. This is its style and the style recalls, he says,
the scientia of jumping from one horse to another. This expertise
refers to Apuleius’ own biculturalism.39 When he says his
‘changing of language corresponds’ to this style, he is not referring
to the Greek source of his book, but to its typology, which demon-
strates familiarity with Greek while staying carefully within the
bounds of what was sanctioned by the Latin heritage. Roman
bilingualism aYrmed the value of Roman culture through its
37
M. Dubuisson, ‘Graecus, Graeculus, Graecari’, 319–20 n. 31, referring to
M. Fruyt, Proble`mes me´thodologiques, 61–8, esp. 66–7. Harrison and Winterbottom’s
‘of Greek origin’ is quite wrong.
38
Given the nature and style of the Ass and its non-idealization of Greece and the
fact the hero is very probably Roman (since he and his brother have diVerent
praenomina: Swain, ‘Hiding Author’, 61), it is diYcult to envisage a Greek writer
from the period of the Second Sophistic. There is one obvious Roman candidate:
Apuleius (an old idea: see H. J. Mason, ‘Fabula Graecanica’, 3 ¼ 220; note also
Mason’s scepticism about Apuleius acknowledging the Ass: 6 ¼ 226, id., ‘The
Metamorphoses’). Cf. and contrast Harrison, Apuleius, 181–3 on the (possibly
pseudonymous) De mundo, which hides the fact it translates a particular text (ps.-
Aristotle —æd Œ
ı) but ensures mention of Aristotelen prudentissimum et doctis-
simum philosophorum et Theophrastum auctorem (§289).
39
M. Dubuisson, ‘Art de la voltige’, 612, sees desultoria scientia as a ‘désignation
imagée’ for ‘code-switching’; but there is no code-switching in the Met. in the
proper sense of the phrase.
command of Greek. The Metamorphoses takes on a Greek guise to

show it is Roman; and the speaker proves his knowledge of Greek
to show his standing in Latin. In this regard, not much had
changed since Cicero. This is how Apuleius wishes his identity to
be discovered.
2. c o r n e l i u s f ro n to
Apuleius’ bilingualism was theatrical: no Greek who spoke Latin
would have performed in both languages consecutively, as he
boasts of having done (Fl. 18. 38–43; ‘False Preface’ to De deo
Socratis, fr. 5). Yet the more he shows oV, the more he boasts,
the more worried he seems. Anyone who reads him will notice
immediately that he includes spectacular archaisms in his Latin,
especially in the comic Metamorphoses, but also in the excerpts of
the Florida.40 We know that this ‘goût archaı̈sant’ was shared,
though without anything approaching the contortions of Apuleius,
by Gellius and Fronto. Was Marache, who Wrst promoted the idea
of archaism, right to separate what was going on in Latin from the
classicizing and puristic Atticism of the Greek Second Sophistic?
From the literary point of view, the answer is ‘yes’.41 The pre-
Vergilian and pre-Ciceronian authors who were modish among the
archaizers (if I may use this term) did not enjoy the status of
canonical texts in a way comparable to the Greek classics. Vergil
and Cicero were certainly of huge importance too. Crucially, the
archaizers formed many more new words than they dredged up old
ones.42 So ‘archaism’ seems misleading. For what emerges from
Fronto and Gellius is the importance of knowing the whole of
Latin literature down to Vergil. We might do better to see these
second-century authors as linguistic nationalists whose aim was to
reinvigorate Latin as a language that was capable of change and
innovation but also rightly proud of its ancient pedigree.43 The
extension of this nationalism beyond literary circles is in doubt,
however, and it is diYcult to argue that we are dealing with a
‘movement’ as such. It looks much more like the personal tastes
40
See the studies of M. Bernhard, Stil; H. Koziol, Stil.
41
Marache, Critique litte´raire, 110–11. W. D. Lebek’s study of archaizing usages
in the literature of the Republican period is also important.
42
Marache, Mots nouveaux.
43
So F. Portalupi, Marco Cornelio Frontone, 21–38; cf. ead., Frontone, Gellio,
Apuleio; see too Steinmetz, Untersuchungen (on Fronto 171–87).
18 Simon Swain
of a limited group of intellectuals dedicated to grammatical and

exegetical researches rather than the ‘high’ end of an extended
linguistic continuum with ramiWcations down to the lower levels,
such as we Wnd in the case of the Atticism of the Greek world. On
the other hand, these intellectuals and grammarians were sensitive
to what was happening in Greek society. Apuleius’ Latin certainly
gave him a distinctive style and the appearance of intellectual
superiority from his command of all Latin literature. He alone of
the archaizers uses the verb atticissare of his Greek (Fl. 18. 43;
‘False Preface’, loc. cit.).44 He would have been fully aware of the
social prestige that linguistic Atticism expressed in the Greek East,
and to this extent he was surely trying to mimic or rival in Latin the
purism of his Greek contemporaries. He must have expected his
readers to approve, if not to follow, his endeavours. The fact that
he was the Wrst Roman litte´rateur of note to make his career in a
provincial environment may also be relevant: Apuleius was as free
from normative pressures as his later contemporary, the even more
contorted Tertullian. But he also had to demonstrate possession of
the highest culture to be taken seriously.
In an earlier study of Cicero’s bilingual practices I have
followed Carol Myers-Scotton’s use of the well-known concept
of ‘markedness’ to try to determine the function in Cicero’s Latin
of individual Greek words and runs of Greek. Unlike the modern
oral correspondents studied by Myers-Scotton, Cicero’s negoti-
ation of a Greek identity is (as I have remarked above) an expres-
sion of his Romanness rather than a genuine biculturalism. For the
most part code-switching into Greek as we see it in his letters is a
(paradoxically) unmarked choice. Cicero naturally uses a limited
quantity of Greek to some addressees in a private context within
and as part of his Latin speech. We have no idea how Apuleius
used Greek in non-public discourse since we have no private
letters. The works he wrote in Greek are obviously a marked
choice: a very clear expression of a Roman’s ability to control
Greek. But for the use of Greek code-switching and longer
passages of Greek in Antonine bilingualism we can turn to
Apuleius’ older contemporary Cornelius Fronto. Fronto’s letters
comprise a mixed bag of private and public correspondence
including especially letters to his pupil Marcus Aurelius Wrst as
Caesar under Antoninus Pius and then as emperor. Several of the
letters are in fact treatises or declamations. There are six letters
44
Plautus’ use of atticissare (Menaechmi 12), albeit non-linguistic (but cf. PF 26.
7–8 L.), would have been a welcome precedent.
(and a fragment of a seventh memo) by Fronto entirely in Greek, to

which I shall return. Language is naturally important in the Wve
scenes recorded (or invented) by Gellius.
Fronto taught Marcus rhetoric.45 The relationship of pupil and
master was always overshadowed by that of the client and the
prince. The two men used two codes to speak to one another.
The Wrst is profuse expressions of love and friendship. The second
is problems of health. These occupy much of the correspondence.
They may of course be taken at face value (and often are), but
probably should not be wholesale. Language purity and ability to
change register—to code-switch—into Greek is certainly import-
ant in the Wrst code, love, and it is on this that I shall be concen-
trating here. An example or two will be helpful.46 At Ep. M. Caes.
1. 3 (ad 144–5) Fronto expatiates on the excessiveness of Marcus’
love for him. ‘You wish to run to me, to Xy to me, the peculiar
behaviour of lovers’ (1, p. 3 v.d.H.2). Marcus’ mother is envious of
Fronto. Marcus should be ready to answer those who ask why he
loves Fronto so much. The causes can never be known—there is no
ratio behind it. ‘Let them doubt, discuss, dispute, guess, puzzle
over the origin of our amor as they do about the sources of the Nile’
(10, p. 5. 13–14). In a letter to Fronto during the latter’s consulship
(142) Marcus begins, ‘I surrender: you have won. Beyond question
your loving has beaten all the lovers who ever lived. Take the
crown and let the herald proclaim publicly before your own tribu-
nal this your victory: ‘‘M. Cornelius Fronto, consul, is the winner.
He is crowned in the contest of the Great Games of Love’’ (.
˚
æ ºØ
æ ø oÆ
ØŒA†, Æ
FÆØ e IªH Æ H ªºø
Øº
ø )’ (Ep. M. Caes. 2. 5. 1, p. 25. 23–6). Marcus will never
fail in his ‘prothymia’, a Plautine Graecism (hence in the Roman
alphabet) which leads him to make up a Plautine pastiche about
the rival love of Fronto’s wife, Cratia.47 It was not the eloquence
of Fronto’s letter to him, but its huge aVection that makes him feel
thus (2). He then comes to business: ‘that other letter of yours, in
which you indicated why you were putting oV delivering the
speech in which you will praise my Lord’ (i.e. Pius). Marcus took
the letter straight to Pius, who thoroughly enjoyed its ‘superlative
elegance’. The Lord Pius told Marcus that he approved Fronto’s
45
E. Champlin, Fronto, ch. 8.
46
Numeration of the letters follows that of van den Hout’s Teubner; translations
are based on Haines’s Loeb. Chronology follows van den Hout 292–4 as modiWed by
the recently corrected date of Fronto’s consulship (W. Eck, ‘Cornelius Fronto’).
47
On prothymia cf. Marache, Mots nouveaux, 95: ‘Le mot n’est pas senti comme
grec, mais comme plautien.’
20 Simon Swain
reasons in the course of the ‘long conversation we held about

you’ (3).
There is much in this exchange of signiWcance, not least being the
code-switch in §1. There is no need for scepticism about the aVec-
tion between Marcus and Fronto, though the diVerence in status
was far too great to make it equally balanced and some have been too
ready to take the expressions of love at face value. The language of
friendship is well known from the politics of the Late Republic as a
political discourse. This discourse is present in the letters of Fronto
to Marcus, Pius, and Verus.48 Yet there is nothing in the earlier
period to compare with the lovers’ talk used by Marcus and Fronto.
In the present letter the ‘long conversation’ about Fronto ‘no doubt
made your ears keep ringing in the Forum’. No doubt it did: yet
another Plautine comic term (tinnire) reinforces the courtier’s
status relative to the prince’s. The Greek code-switch itself is
complex: it is a joke and also a compliment, but one Marcus can
aVord to make.
Political realities should always be kept in mind. Consider the
following. Love is expressed in Greek at great length in the Greek
erotic letter Fronto sent to Marcus shortly after Marcus took the
name ‘Caesar’ in 139 (Addit. epist. 8, pp. 250–5). Fronto had
whetted Marcus’ appetite for this work by saying that very few of
his compositions pleased him as much, Marcus tells him (Ep.
M. Caes. 3. 9. 2, p. 42. 9–10). Fronto says his letter is a ‘third’
following letters ‘after’ Lysias and Plato (i.e. Socrates) in the
Phaedrus.49 Fronto is c KæH , ‘not a lover’. But he appreciates
Marcus’ beauty better than

ı, ‘this man’ (2). If Fronto gives
Marcus money, it is a gift; if KŒE
does, it is payment. You should
know, he continues, what disgrace comes upon you from the fact
that everyone knows ‘he is your erastes’—they suspect you of
B æø, ‘the act’, and call you ‘his eroˆmenos’, but I call you
kalos (5). This evil will stick to young men at the start of a long life
for longer (7). His erotic poems are disgusting. He is like a wild
beast driven on P
Yæ
ı, ‘by sexual desire’ (8). Tell the other
boys about the Xower which vainly loves the sun: ‘I shall show it
to you, if we go for a walk outside the wall as far as the Ilissus’
(10–11).
48
D. Konstan, Friendship, for the rosy view in general, with references to other
less amiable scholars.
49
Van den Hout, Commentary, 561 must be right in contending that Buttmann
and later editors were wrong to take Fronto as saying he had simply sent copies of
the Plato: rather, the phrases Øa ¸ı
ı and Øa —ºø
—referring to the two
earlier letters—mean a ‘cento of Plato’s Phaedrus with additions by Fronto himself ’.
Fronto’s remarks owe much to those of Plato’s Lysias (Phaedr.

230 e–234 c). He too is a ‘non-lover’. But for Lysias the non-lover
is in fact a sexual partner who is not handicapped by the usual
emotions of lovers. The contrast between this non-lover and the
‘lover’ is theoretical. Now Fronto begins from this; but for him
Marcus’ ‘lover’ is a real person, a real rival, who has composed
obscene poetry for him (not mentioned by Plato). Fronto himself
of course is a real non-lover: no sex for him. In his reply (Addit.
epist. 7, pp. 249–50) Marcus overturns his arguments by insisting
that he is the lover of Fronto (‘erasten tuum’) and sidesteps Fron-
to’s preference for ‘non amantibus’ by telling him he will go on
loving him for ever. He ignores Fronto’s Platonic insinuations and
casts himself in the role of the superior in their relationship. He
rejoices in the triumph of Fronto as his eroˆmenos (2). The triumph
is speciWcally Fronto’s command of Greek, which leads Marcus to
say that Fronto has ‘outstripped those Attici [here ¼ Atticists]
who are so self-satisWed and provocative’. Marcus is Socrates to
Fronto’s Phaedrus (3), another inversion of the pupil–master rela-
tionship. What or whom Fronto is really getting at in the erotic
letter is unclear.50 Among the many other expressions of love
between the two men we should at least mention Ep. M. Caes.
2. 10. 3, p. 30. 13, where Marcus writing to Fronto as consul
Wnishes by calling him mi semper anima dulcissima. This is almost
certainly a female form of address, used between women and to
women. Marcus is suggesting that he wears the trousers.51 As to
Fronto and his erotic letter, it is signiWcant that he appears to raise
a problem about the nature of their love in Greek, which is a typical
use of a diVerent linguistic register to discuss an awkward topic.
This has nothing to do with ‘bilingualism’ as such: it is a very
Roman matter. And it allows Marcus in his reply to praise Fronto
as superior to the Greek Atticists. If the above surmise is right,
Fronto may not have found this entirely satisfactory.
The superiority of Fronto’s language is often on Marcus’ lips
(e.g. Ep. Ant. imp. 1. 4. 2 ‘the elegance of your style . . . you speak
Latin, while the rest of us speak neither Latin nor Greek’, p. 92.
6–7). As to Greek, Fronto himself is conWdent. At Ep. Ant. Pium 8
(pp. 166–7, of c.156/7), where he asks to be excused from his
proconsulship, he tells the emperor as proof of his integrity that
50
Van den Hout, Commentary, 561, ‘This trivial work should not be taken
seriously’, is an inadequate dismissal of suspicions raised amongst others by
A. Barigazzi, Favorino, 162.
51
J. N. Adams, ‘Vindolanda’, 120 with n. 195. E. Dickey, Address, 158 misun-
derstands Adams’s point.
22 Simon Swain
he has already arranged for friends from Alexandria to deal with

his Greek correspondence. But this is administrative convenience.
We have in fact one letter in Greek to a Greek speaker on business:
Ad amic. 1. 2, p. 171. Thanks to a recently published inscription
from Side it is clear that the addressee, Apollonides, is Marcus’
and Verus’ ab epistulis Graecis, P. Aelius Apollonides.52 Fronto
asks him to aid Sulpicius Cornelianus (who would go on to be ab
epistulis Graecis under Commodus).53 Language choice is here
pragmatic. Apollonides dealt with the emperors’ Greek, and the
letter concerns a man whose career was heading in the same direc-
tion. Fronto wanted something done for him; hence he wrote in
Greek.54
More interesting than this letter of recommendation are the two
letters in Greek to Marcus’ mother Domitia Lucilla, the letters to
and from the historian and advocate Appian of Alexandria, and
the letter of consolation to Fronto’s sometime enemy the great
Herodes Atticus.
The Wrst letter to Domitia Lucilla is an elaborate apology for the
delay in producing his speech of thanks to the emperor for his
suVect consulship (Ep. M. Caes. 2. 3, pp. 21–4). It was ‘written in
Greek as a compliment to her high standard of education’.55 This
is true on one level. It is also a compliment to Marcus, since Fronto
sends the letter via Marcus (Ep. M. Caes. 2. 2. 8, p. 21. 12–15)
requesting him to correct any ‘barbarism’ in it ‘for you are fresher
from Greek (than I)’.56 He would not want Marcus’ mother to
think he was an ‘opicus’, a term which is used in second-century
authors to signal ignorance of Greek.57 Fronto says he has used
Greek out of ‘shamelessness’ (inpudentia). Certainly the letter
could have been written in Latin. But much of it is an elaborate
discussion of similes (NŒ ) oVering excuses for not having writ-
ten before. The vast majority of the Greek code-switches in the
Letters are in fact metalinguistic: Greek remained essential to
grammatical and rhetorical instruction.58 Thus it has a natural
52
W. Eck, ‘P. Aelius Apollonides’. He was apparently the Wrst to hold this post.
53
Champlin, Fronto, 29–30; Eck, op. cit.
54
Eck’s diagnosis of ‘eine besondere Reverenz vor seiner Stellung’ (op. cit. 240)
goes too far.
55
A. Birley, Marcus, 83; cf. J. Kaimio, Romans and Greek Language, 190, 249–50.
56
Cf. Cicero, Ad Att. 1. 19. 10.
57
See below, 38–9.
58
Examples: Ep. M. Caes. 3. 8. 2, p. 41. 20–4, technical terms, cum ¨
æ
ı locos
KØØæø tractaremus . . . in hac NŒ [on this ‘Mischform’, cf. O. Wenskus,
‘Triggering’, 175–8], quam de patre tuo teque depinxi, Ø H ıŒø ºÆ
,
Œº. (p. 41. 20–4); Marcus in Ep. M. Caes. 1. 4, pp. 5–8, a run of code-switches,
role here. But just as it allowed Fronto to praise Marcus’ command

of the other tongue, so he Xatters Domitia by asking her to disre-
gard anything which is barbarous or ‘not fully Attic’ (2. 3. 5. p. 24.
1–3). He compares himself to the wise Anacharsis who could not
‘Atticize fully’, but spoke sense. As we have seen, Apuleius invokes
this sage for similar reasons at Apology 24.
In the second letter, from the end of his consulship (so August
142), Fronto excuses himself from attending Domitia’s birthday
celebration (Ep. M. Caes. 2. 15, pp. 32–3). In his stead he has sent
his wife Cratia. As with the previous letter, he informs Marcus of
what he has done, though this time he does not send the Greek (Ep.
M. Caes. 2. 13, cf. 14, p. 32). Neither letter provides evidence for
the linguistic choice of Roman women.59 What we may note is that
both letters are excuses and suggest (and no more) that the shift
into Greek should be connected with this. It oVers an indirect
method of deXecting criticism and because of this is at the same
time a further admission of inferiority. As has been indicated, the
happy surface layer of Antonine politics should not blind us to
the realities of a courtier’s life in an autocratic regime, however
benevolent. Cratia is presented to Marcus as Domitia’s ‘clienta’:
the word is indeed ‘arresting’.60
I pass on to the Appian letters (Addit. epist. 4–5, pp. 242–8).
Appian of Alexandria the historian tells us himself that he worked
as an advocate at Rome for many years.61 At some point in the 150s
Fronto wrote to Pius for the third time to request an honorary
procuratorship for his long-standing friend (Ep. Ant. Pium 10,
p. 168). Appian was Fronto’s client. In Fronto’s correspondence
including quotations especially from the Odyssey (for the pattern, cf. Swain, ‘Bilin-
gualism in Cicero?’, 158), on which Fronto comments in the next letter, omnia istaec
inter Graecos uersus Latina ita scite alternata sunt a te et interposita, ut est ille in
pyrrhicha uersicolorum discursus, quom . . . (‘like the movements of the variously
coloured performers in the pyrrhic dance . . . ’, 1. 5. 4, pp. 8. 20–9. 3); De eloq.
2. 14, p. 142. 1–3 ÆFÆ Kd ÆhØ , ØÆŒıØ , <æ
ß>æªŁÆØ, Œº.
59
Note Apul. Apol. 78–87 on Pudentilla’s epistulam . . . Graecatiorem to her son
about her marriage to Apuleius and the letter to her written in Apuleius’ name in
bad Greek by his enemies. Generalization from this is hazardous; but cf. Juvenal’s
well-known comments at Sat. 6. 187–99 about Roman women using Greek to
express ‘their fears and troubles, their joy and anger . . . their heartfelt secrets’
(tr. Rudd) and for terms of endearment to arouse male lovers; this concerns switch-
ing register in the private domain: Swain, ‘Bilingualism in Cicero?’, 164–6. In
general, Wenskus, ‘Wie schreibt man?’
60
Champlin, Fronto, 109. It is another Plautine favourite. On the letters to
Domitia note Wenskus, ‘Wie schriebt man?’, 227–30.
61
Appian, Preface 15. 62 with É. Famerie, Le Latin, 8–13; cf. Champlin,
Fronto, 42.
24 Simon Swain
are two ‘polite but remarkably uninformative letters in Greek’

concerning two slave boys whom Appian had presented to Fronto
and whom Fronto had returned.62 In his letter to Pius Fronto had
stressed Appian’s probitas. The main point of the Greek letters is
that Appian had overstepped the mark by giving Fronto a gift that
was too costly. It is clear from the Wrst letter (Appian to Fronto)
that Fronto had simply returned the slaves. As a social inferior
Appian was due to pay his respects but had feigned illness (‘I could
not see you today either, as owing to gastric trouble last night I have
only just got up’, Addit. epist. 4. 1, p. 242. 13–14). That gave him
time to oVer up written arguments that might be ‘just’ or ‘pedan-
tic’ (
ºÆØŒ).63 He argues from the general behaviour of cities
and gods. With the letter he sent back the slaves and he ends by
demanding that they should not be returned. Fronto replies at
some length and without preamble. His language becomes strong.
The scale of the gift suggests an arrogant and tyrannical attitude on
the part of the receiver and makes him appear greedy (4, 6). Appian
has attempted to secure himself a reputation as ªÆºæø ,
whereas Fronto has been put upon and has lost repute.64 But he
will be ªÆºæø if he does not accept the gift. Exchange should
proceed on an equitable basis and people should do as Fronto does
in ‘sending back exactly what was sent’ (8).
Appian spoke Latin very well. Why Greek? Gifts are compli-
cated matters, especially between social unequals. There is a very
nice example from the 120s of a successful attempt by a social
inferior to foist a gift on a superior. The small town of Forum
Sempronii had decreed a statue to their local bigwig, C. Hedius
Verus. When he read the decree, he refused the honour. On the
base of the statue that was erected later the decurions record that
on the earlier occasion Verus had ‘as it were reproached us with our
feebleness’. They were right. The second time round they ‘did not
send the decree’. Rather, ‘so that you cannot turn it down, the
statue has already been made and is on its way’. It only remained
for Verus to write his own inscription.65 All this is very much in
keeping with Plutarch’s fascinating little essay, —æd ıøÆ. To
suVer dusôpia is to be ‘discountenanced’, and the essay reXects a
particular problem of high imperial society at this time, that of not
62 63
Champlin, loc. cit. Cf. van den Hout, Commentary, 551 ad loc.
64
Kb b KÆ
ı I
æE æ
ŁÆØ ØÆ
.
65
CIL 11. 6123 antea . . . (15) honore tantummodo te conten/tum esse rescriberes,
quae res tuam quidem / modestiam inlustraret, nobis uero uelut / segnitiam exprobraret.
igitur statua / decreta, ne quid negare possis, iam comparata / (20) aduehitur . . .
qualem inscriptionem dandam putas, petentibus facito notum.
being able to say no to superiors, for Plutarch speciWcally Romans,

and also to inferiors who eVectively have one cornered. As to
Fronto and Appian, Greek may seem a strange choice because
the superior is writing in the language of the inferior. But as
Plutarch realized, superiors in an autocratic regime do not have
absolute power. They are caught in perpetual negotiations over
status. The complexity of negotiation between Fronto and Appian
was carried out in Greek not because it gave Fronto the opportun-
ity to use Greek to a Greek, but because writing in Greek oVered a
subtler way of reminding Appian where power lay.
Finally, I turn to Herodes Atticus and the lawsuit in which he
and Fronto were rival advocates in what appears to be Herodes’
prosecution of one Demostratus (who is presumably the same man
who with others attacked Herodes in the 170s).66 Marcus ‘advises’
or, as he then says, ‘asks’ Fronto to ensure he deals with Herodes
honourably (honestissime, Ep. M. Caes. 3. 2. 1, p. 36). This letter
must be from near the beginning of their relationship, since
Marcus describes himself (ironically, of course) as a ‘little boy’
(puerulus), which surely means he is not much more than twenty.67
Fronto writes back to ask for ‘advice’ (Ep. M. Caes. 3. 3,
pp. 36–8). The trial will bring up many unpleasant matters. But
‘if I call him a Greekling and an ignoramus, it won’t be war to the
end’ (3). Fronto is obviously frightened, for he immediately sends
a short note telling Marcus who else will be opposing Herodes.68
Among them is ‘Marcianus noster’, where ‘our’ means from Cirta
like Fronto (Ep. M. Caes. 3. 4, p. 38). Fronto knew full well that
‘this age needs the adviser more than the helper’,69 and the accept-
ance of Marcus’ advice is rammed home in the following two
letters and the Wrst two of the next book. What is going on?
When Fronto went on the attack, he reached for a familiar slur:
66
For the whole matter see W. Ameling, Herodes, i. 74–6; ii. 30–5; Champlin,
Fronto, 62–3; G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists, 92–100 in full Symean mode.
67
Note also that Herodes had plainly not yet become his teacher: ‘I do not forget
that he was educated in the house of my grandfather P. Calvisius, and I educated
with you’ (p. 36. 20–1).
68
He shows similar concern much later on when he Wnds out from Marcus that
Lucius Verus, who has requested some of his work and had been sent Pro Demo-
strato as Fronto’s own choice, is likely to be oVended by remarks he had made
about a certain Asclepiodotus. Since the speech had long been in public circulation,
there was nothing to do but promise that Asclepiodotus (perhaps a successful
imperial freedman: Champlin, Fronto, 172 n. 113) would in future be amicissimum
just as Herodes is ‘despite the speech’: Ep. Ant. imp. 3. 4. 1 (p. 102. 17–19), Ep.
Ver. imp. 1. 8. 1 (p. 113. 12–14).
69
De eloq. 2. 18 (p. 144. 22–3).
26 Simon Swain
‘Greekling’.70 But ‘ignoramus’ (indoctus)? There may be aversion

from Atticist pretensions.71 But Fronto could hardly have believed
the charge. The Wnal chapter in the aVair is the death of Herodes’
neonate (c.144/5) and Marcus’ ‘wish’ that Fronto write to console
him (Ep. M. Caes. 1. 6. 10, p. 13. 14–16). The consolation was
written in Greek (Ep. M. Caes. 2. 1, pp. 16–17). The choice is again
interesting. In political standing Herodes was superior to Fronto
(having been consul ordinarius in 143). The register could reXect
this, or purvey sympathy to Herodes by writing in his own language.
Yet it is a consolation with a sting in the tail. That Herodes is told
not to mourn more than beWts a man of paideia is traditional advice
(though Herodes’ bouts of excessive grieving must have been
known about).72 But Fronto’s main point is to advise the Athenian
to concentrate on loving Marcus. ‘As long as he remains to us—for
I confess and make no secret of the fact that I am your anterastês—
everything else in our case is easily remediable and of far less
importance.’73 Fronto makes it plain that their good relations are
conditional on the existence of Marcus. He does this in Greek.
In Cicero’s letters there are two long continuous passages in
Greek at Ad Atticum 6. 4. 3 and 6. 5. 1–2. These are certainly
humorous in intention and concern the Wnancial practices of a
freedman with a signiWcant Greek name (Philotimos). Plutarch
apparently knew of letters by Cicero to Greeks in Greek.74 That is
as we should expect. In the same way freedmen might have been
spoken to and written to in Greek. In the case of Fronto we have a
fragment he quotes from a memo in Greek to a libertus of Verus
called Charilas (Ep. Ver. imp. 1. 12. 3, p. 116. 16–18). The powerful
freedman of an emperor was a very diVerent creature from any
Greek freedman Cicero had to deal with. Fronto asks this cham-
berlain(?) if it is convenient (hŒÆØæ
) to attend the emperors in the
diYcult situation following the death of Pius.75 He records this in a
70
Pliny, Ep. 10. 40. 2; Juvenal, Sat. 3. 78, 6. 186. Note that Graeculus is not in
itself pejorative, but takes its tone from the context: Dubuisson, ‘Graecus, Graecu-
lus, Graecari’.
71
Cf. Marcus’ impolite remarks about Polemon, with Fronto’s reply (Ep. M.
Caes. 2. 10. 1, pp. 29. 19–30. 6; 2. 2. 5, p. 20. 6–8), Marcus on the prouocantis Atticos
(Addit. epist. 7. 2, p. 249. 11), Fronto on the Atticists’ laboriousness(?) (Ep. Ant.
imp. 4. 2. 5, p. 106. 23–4).
72
Herodes’ grieving: cf. Gellius 19. 12. 2 ex morte pueri (with Philostr. VS
558–9).
73
a ÆººÆ ª Æ E PÆÆ ŒÆd

ı ÆŒæH † æÆ (p. 17. 14–15).
74
Plutarch, Cicero 24.
75
Chamberlain: cf. Ep. Ver. imp. 1. 7. 1 primum me intromitti in cubiculum iubebas
(p. 112. 2–3).
letter excusing his non-attendance to Verus in reply to a reproach-

ful, but (as he is keen to stress) aVectionate letter from the prince
(Ep. Ver. imp. 1. 11. pp. 114–15). Verus could aVord to be both:
the courtier himself needed a defensio. The appropriate register to
Verus was Latin; to his freedman, Greek; or rather, it was easier for
Fronto to seek instructions (‘you tell me—
Ø—as a man of
sense and a friend to me’) from this freedman in Greek without
compromising his status too nakedly.76 This is as much a sign of the
changed times as the composition of letters in Greek to Domitia
Lucilla.
For the most part, as I have said, Greek in Fronto is metalin-
guistic. There are in addition a handful of code-switches involving
matters of health or in greetings (Cicero is similar here). But there
is one Wnal matter to be addressed before passing to Gellius. Code-
switches and borrowing are obviously interrelated. Indeed, the
borrowing has been well deWned as ‘a code-switch with a full-
time job’.77 In his Meditations Marcus recalls that Fronto had
taught him that the Roman nobility lacked real aVection
(
ƒ ŒÆº

Ø . . . PÆæÆØ I
æªæ
ø N ).78 In a letter
to Verus asking him to support the impoverished senator, Gavius
Clarus, Fronto describes him as a man who has a ‘Øº

æªÆ
which is perhaps not Roman, for there is nothing I have found
less at Rome . . . than a man genuinely Øº
æª
. The reason
why there is not even a Roman word for this virtue must, I suppose,
be that in reality there is no one at Rome who is Øº
æª
’
(Ep. Ver. imp. 1. 6. 7, p. 111. 17–20). Only Marcus is addressed
as Øº
æª Æ Łæø (De fer. Als. 4. 2, p. 234. 13). In another
letter of recommendation, to the proconsul of Africa Lollianus
Avitus on behalf of his fellow-Cirtan Licinius Montanus, Fronto
describes Montanus as ‘worthy, upright, philostorgus . . . since
there is no term for this among the Romans’ (Ad amic. 1. 3. 4,
p. 173. 15–16). If we can trust the terribly diYcult codex of the
letters, Fronto here wrote it in the Latin alphabet. Clearly, to his
pupils Marcus and Lucius Verus, he used the word in Greek as
something that was untranslatable. Before code-switching was
studied properly, it was often thought that switches represented a
speaker’s attempt to plug gaps in the lexicon. This idea has
now been discarded because code-switches in the main duplicate
76
Van den Hout, Commentary, 285 notes that ‘Fronto cannot have a word with
Charilas himself: Charilas sends him a note (hortante eo).’
77
P. Gardner-Chloros, ‘Code-Switching’, 102.
78
Ad se ips. 1. 11.
28 Simon Swain
information and operate alongside synonyms in the matrix lan-

guage. Use of the term Øº

æªÆ is, however, a conscious at-
tempt to Wll a hole, and this is why the word in Fronto Xirts with
the status of a borrowing. In recent decades borrowing itself has
come to be viewed as a sociolinguistic process in which each
borrowing will be subject to a varying degree of phonological and
morphological integration.79 It may be suggested in addition that
the Latinization of the word in the letter to Lollianus Avitus felt
right in the public context of a letter of recommendation to a
governor (who was not an ex-pupil). But Fronto’s move to natur-
alize the term went too far: no other Roman uses a word which is so
implicitly critical of Roman practice,80 and which puts Fronto’s
expressions of amor to Marcus in their rightful place.
3. aulus gellius
Fronto shows key symptoms of what has been termed the ‘service
aristocracy’. The idea of a service aristocracy is in this context a
development of Norbert Elias’s classic work on the rise of the
mannered, courtly aristocracies of Europe in the late Middle
Ages.81 In the hands of Veyne and Foucault this was elaborated
into a thesis about the ‘privatization’ of aristocratic life in the High
Roman Empire and its disengagement from real power. As means
of public competition were removed from the nobility, manners
and conduct became increasingly important. Family life and the
aVective marriage relation assumed a crucial role in the noble-
man’s self-fashioning as the places where he must achieve
maximum control of himself. ‘Spiritual exercises’ were the par-
ticular route to ‘le souci de soi’. These exercises were for dedicated
Stoics like Seneca and of course Marcus Aurelius.82 But the cul-
ture of mutual and self-inspection was found among the elites of
East and West. I have argued elsewhere that the Veyne–Foucault
model does not work without modiWcation for the eastern, Greek-
speaking nobilities. For them we can certainly point to a clear
concern with internal and external evaluation of appearance, of
sexuality and marriage, of language; but the context of all this is
the still considerable local political power of their class in the great
79
Cf. the studies of R. Mougeon and E. Beniak, Linguistic Consequences.
80
Cf. Champlin, Fronto, 90.
81
N. Elias, Court Society and Civilizing Process.
82
P. Veyne, ‘La famille et l’amour’ and ‘The Roman Empire’; M. Foucault, Care
of the Self; P. Hadot, Inner Citadel.
cities of the East.83 The same is doubtless true of the majority of

the western elites. But the model is attractive for Fronto and
Gellius and anyone else who belonged to the court or its periphery
(and we need to take the idea of a periphery Xexibly, remembering
that we often know very little of individual aspirations and oppor-
tunities or institutional spurs). Thus the intensity of the discourse
of love and aVection between Fronto and Marcus marks it out as a
mannered response to the pressure of an unequal relationship.84
There is also a good deal in the letters on the perfect marriages of
Fronto and Cratia and his daughter and her husband AuWdius
Victorinus and on Fronto’s grandchildren.85 The longest of the
letters concerns the death of one of these (De nepote amisso 2, pp.
235–9) and ends with a ringing self-endorsement of Fronto’s life as
a faithful public servant, a signiWcant combination.86
Language was crucial as one of the primary means of self-
evaluation, external validation, and commentary. It was properly
the sphere of the language professional, the grammarian; but the
basis of his inXuence lay in the wide acceptance of his premisses and
their usefulness in determining social status and social integration.
In Aulus Gellius the grammarian’s interests and the cultural prac-
tices they reXect are presented to a general, educated audience. In
the preface to his book the practice of excerpting, which was the
beginning of the collection, explicitly reXects the activities of the
grammarian (§§2 V.). But the literary motive for writing is empha-
sized immediately: not for Gellius are the ‘witty titles’ ( festiuitates
inscriptionum) of writers of works like his in ‘both the languages’.
The Nights are here located in a bicultural environment, for of the
thirty titles Gellius now mentions nineteen are Greek. He con-
demns these predecessors and rivals for their studied prettiness.
He is rustic with no regard for elegantia; but he does not induce a
feeling of ‘repugnance’ (taedium) like the others—‘especially the
Greeks’—who aimed only at ‘volume’.87 He will stimulate quick
minds to learning, and rescue those who are busy with life ‘from an
ignorance (imperitia) of things and words which is disgraceful and
boorish’ (10–12). His reader is precisely the ‘educated member of
polite society’.88 The rest of the preface is an elaborate captatio
83
S. Swain, ‘Plutarch’s Moral Program’, 90–6.
84
That complications may have been felt (above, 23) is not surprising.
85
See esp. the aVective letter on Fronto petit-Wls, Ad amic. 1. 12, pp. 178–9.
86
§§8–9, p. 238. 6–25. The tone recalls Fronto’s letters of recommendation: here
he recommends himself.
87
Taedium: cf. 9. 4. 12, 10. 12. 1.
88
L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 37 [27] citing §13 of the Preface.
30 Simon Swain
beneuolentiae which culminates with Aristophanes’ call in the Frogs

(354–6, 369–71) for the uncultured to leave while the initiates of the
Muses ‘stir up our all-night revelling’.89 In all this Gellius styles his
reader a member of the in-group who will want to possess the fruits
of ‘both the languages’.
Gellius was an admirer of the great cultural Wgures of his day.
Some of these have professional expertise in grammar (Sulpicius
Apollinaris) or rhetoric (Antonius Julianus) or philosophy (Calve-
nus Taurus, Favorinus), others are over-educated amateurs who
combine high education and occasional teaching with politics
(Fronto, Herodes Atticus). The most appealing chapters of the
Attic Nights are dialogues or staged scenes presenting these char-
acters in discussion of Roman or Greek high culture. This is part of
the artistry of the work. But it is also a genuine reXection of a
culture where continuous evaluation by male peers was the name
of the game. Language looms large in Gellius’ focuses, of course;
and there is a good deal of thought on the relationship between
Romans, classical Greece, and contemporary Greek speakers.
What emerges very strongly from Gellius is a sense of the past as
a repository of correct social behaviour. This is hardly surprising
given the traditions of Roman historiography and the value
accorded to exempla in literature and art. What is new in Gellius
is the convergence of this tradition with linguistic correctness and
the bilingual/bicultural attitudes of Romans to Greece. I begin
with an example from the end of the Attic Nights which places
discussion of these matters in a familiar courtly and mannered
context. The scene is a debate between Favorinus and the jurist
Sextus Caecilius (Africanus), pupil and follower of the great
jurist-politician Salvius Julianus Aemilianus. For anyone investi-
gating Antonine culture, Favorinus has to be a focus. As we shall
see, Favorinus appears in Gellius as an expert on Greek and
Roman culture. He is biculturalism incarnate. Yet as Gellius was
quite aware, Favorinus presented himself Wrst and foremost as a
Hellenist.90 Favorinus came from Arelate in Gaul and we know
little of his background and education other than that he was very
rich.91 All his works were in Greek. His ‘conversion’ to Hellenism
is made explicit in a well-known passage of his Corinthian Oration,
which survives as Dio Chrysostom Or. 37.92 In this witty, ironic,
89
Cf. n. 105.
90
Cf. 13. 25. 4, on which see below, 33. Barigazzi, Favorino, 98–148 includes the
Gellian testimonia and fragments for Favorinus with useful comments.
91
M. Gleason, Making Men, 3–20, 131–58.
92
On this see the Wne study of J. König, ‘Favorinus’ Corinthian Oration’.
sarcastic speech he demands that the Corinthians retain his statue.

Greek Corinth was destroyed by the Romans in 146 bc and was
then founded as a Roman colony in 44 by Julius Caesar. In the
Hadrianic period its public epigraphy suddenly turns Greek.93
This may well have to do with Hadrian’s strenuous attempts to
repristinate the modern Greeks, for Corinth was promptly en-
rolled in the Panhellenion, the organization Hadrian set up to
promote classical Greek culture through worship of his own
cult.94 The Hadrianic eVort points to a city that was still strongly
Roman (as we should expect of the administrative capital of pro-
vincia Achaia), and it is this that Favorinus unkindly alludes to
after a panegyric of the classical Greek city.95 He has zealously
pursued Greek culture with greater success than any Roman here-
tofore and any Greek of the present day. He has sacriWced every-
thing ‘for one thing, to seem Greek and to be Greek’ (25). He
deserves a statue in every city, ‘in yours, because though Roman he
has been rendered Greek, as your own country has been’ (26).96
This arrogant claim to be a champion of Hellenic culture was
naturally contested by Greeks.97
For Gellius Favorinus’ Hellenism is not a problem, so long as it
respects Roman culture. At Attic Nights 20. 1 Favorinus disputes
Caecilius’ claim that the Twelve Tables were drawn up in the
‘choicest and most concise language’. To Favorinus they appeared
to be riddled with confusion and laid down punishments that were
either too harsh or too lenient. The cruelty of some punishments is
what particularly exercises him: there is ‘nothing more savage and
divergent from human nature (ab hominis ingenio)’ (19). The attack
focuses on hominis ingenium not for sentimental reasons only, but
because for Gellius’ circle being a human being—humanitas—
refers to the combination of education and civilization in society.98
93
J. H. Kent, Corinth, 18–19. Roman culture is taken as dominant in Ps.-Julian,
Letters 198 Bidez, which A. J. S. Spawforth, ‘Corinth’, convincingly dates to the 1st
c. ad.
94
Panhellenion: Swain, Hellenism, 69 n. 7, 75–6; C. P. Jones, ‘Panhellenion’; esp.
A. J. S. Spawforth, ‘Panhellenion’.
95
Even the panegyric is not free of spite: §18 Corinthian treachery at the Battle of
Salamis (‘I pay no attention to Herodotus’).
96
‘øÆÐØ
J Iºº Ł, uæ Ææd !æÆ. For the rare Iºº Ø
cf. Philo, Leg. ad Gaium 147, Pollux, Onom. 5. 154 s.v. "æ .
97
Galen, De opt. doctr. i. 41. 12–42.6 K., De diV. puls. viii. 587. 13 K.; Lucian,
Eunuch; Phrynichus, ¯Œº
ª 218 Fischer; Polemon, On Physiognomy (Script.
physiogn. i. 160–4 Foerster). Philostr. VS 489–92 is neutral.
98
See 13. 17. 1 ‘humanitatem’ appellauerunt id propemodum, quod Graeci ÆØÆ
uocant, nos eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artis dicimus. See too Beall, below,
Ch. 8.
32 Simon Swain
Gellius has Caecilius ‘embrace Favorinus with both arms’ and

praise his superlative command of Greek and Roman culture.
With a suspicion of philosophical discourse that is found elsewhere
in the Nights,99 he then bids him depart from his ‘sceptical pro-
cedures’ (i.e. his Academic scepticism, §21), and is presented as
justifying the Laws from Favorinus’ critique, culminating in a
defence of the ‘merciless and inhumane’ punishment of sundering
debtors Wdei gratia (§§47–54). ‘When Sextus Caecilius had said
these and other things to the approval and praise of everyone
present including Favorinus . . . ’ (§55): Gellius allows Favorinus’
Hellenism to be checked by a moral apology for early Roman
brutality.100
For most of the time Favorinus is a revered source of bilingual
knowledge. For example, at 2. 22 he discourses on the Latin and
Greek names for winds before apologizing for delivering an
IŒæÆØ KØØŒØŒ (25). In glossing the comments Gellius writes
quod supra autem dixi KÆ (30): Favorinus and Gellius are fused.
Later in the same book (2. 26) Favorinus and Fronto (in his Wrst
appearance in the Nights) discourse on Latin and Greek terms for
colours. Favorinus is made to say that Latin suVers form a greater
inopia than Greek in names for colours. Fronto defends Latin from
the Greek which ‘you seem to prefer’ with regard to terms for ‘red’
(7, cf. 17). The early borrowing poeniceus, ‘which you called
E Ø
in Greek, is ours’, whereas its ı ı
spadix (Vergil) is ‘ours
from the Greek’ (§9).101 ‘Therefore, my dear Favorinus, the
Greeks do not have more names for shades of red than we’ (16).
As to green, Vergil was happier ‘to use a well-known Greek term
[i.e. glaucus] than an unusual Latin one [i.e. caerulus]’ (18). Favor-
inus answers in an appropriately courtly manner: ‘Were it not for
you, and perhaps you alone, the Greek language would surely have
stood out in front; but you, my dear Fronto . . . ’, and he is
immediately enabled to explicate two lines of Ennius ‘which
I (previously) could not understand in the slightest’ (20–3).
It is important for Gellius to present Favorinus talking with
authority on Latin. So at the start of book 4 Favorinus squashes
the pretentions of ‘a certain man with a wealth of grammatical
material who was parading triXing matters from the classroom’
and dared to discourse on the word penus. While the man ‘prattles
99
e.g. 5. 15. 9.
100
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 128 [90]. Note 6. 15 for neutral infor-
mation on harsh early punishments (cf. Holford-Strevens, op. cit. 313–14); 6. 18 the
power of oaths in the Hannibalic War; further 7. 14, cf. 11. 18.
101
Cf. 3. 9. 9.
away’ (blatiret; another Plautine favourite), Favorinus speaks

‘quietly’.102 He ends by saying, ‘Although I have dedicated myself
to philosophy, I did not neglect to learn things like this. For Roman
citizens speaking Latin it is no less disgraceful not to designate a
thing by its proper term than it is to call a man by another’s name’
(4. 1. 18). There is an important gloss on this comment by Gellius:
‘this is how Favorinus took discussions on common matters like
this from the insigniWcant and the trivial to something much more
useful to hear and learn of, which was not dragged in irrelevantly,
nor for display, but arose from the context and accorded with it’
(§19).103 The explicit political comment turned remarks on the
usage of penus into something of general utility. At 11. 3. 1 Gellius
himself contends that trivial grammatical matters—such as the
usage of pro—‘are extremely important for acquiring a deep know-
ledge of the ancients’ writings and an understanding of the Latin
language’. At 13. 29. 6 he says something similar of Fronto’s
remarks on the meaning of mortales in the annalist (and favourite
Gellian author) Claudius Quadrigarius.104 He had included Fron-
to’s comments ‘lest a fairly thorough consideration of such words
should escape us’. For Gellius detailed linguistic knowledge was
the indispensable basis of culture.
Favorinus as an expert on Latin is the theme of 13. 25 on
manubiae and praeda and the role of synonyms. The setting is
courtly: Trajan’s Forum awaiting ‘his friend the consul who was
trying cases’ (§2). When a man with a reputation for doctrina
asserts that ‘ex manubiis means ex praeda’, Favorinus is made to
say, ‘Even though my principal and almost entire attention has
been given to the literature and arts of Greece, I am not so inatten-
tive to the Latin lexicon, which I study in an occasional and
haphazard manner, that I am unaware of this common interpret-
ation of manubiae, that makes it a synonym of praeda’ (§4). He then
proceeds to reveal his deep familiarity with Cicero and Cato,
backed up by quotations from Homer and Aristophanes to make
general points. The fact that the quotations are to some extent at
least those of Gellius reinforces the point that it is Gellius’ Favor-
inus who is moderating Latin usage.105
102
As recommended by 7. 11, cf. 6. 17 for Gellius himself; further 8. 14 (Favor-
inus; title only), 9. 2 (Herodes), 13. 20. 5 (Sulpicius Apollinaris), 18. 10. 5 (Calvenus
Taurus). For lack of courtesy in this regard cf. e.g 13. 21. 9 (Valerius Probus prope
inclementer), 14. 5 (wrangling grammarians), 18. 7. 2–3 (Domitius the Madman).
103
Indidem nata acceptaque.
104
Quadrigarius: cf. 17. 2 with Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 243 [179–80].
105
As Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 125 [88] points out, the Frogs is ‘the one
Aristophanic play that Gellius has demonstrably read’.
34 Simon Swain
This emerges explicitly in 14. 1 where Gellius writes up his

notes of a speech delivered by Favorinus against astrology.
The speech had been in ‘brilliant’ Greek. Gellius does not allow
continuous Greek into his Nights with the exception of quoted
passages, only one of which is long.106 At 14. 1 he includes much
direct speech, but it is evidently his. There is virtually no
Greek.107 At §32 Gellius apologizes for the pedestrian style in
which ‘we have touched on these mattters’. And after treating us
to a little more of Favorinus, he adds, ‘In addition to what I heard
Favorinus say, I can recall many testimonies of the ancient
poets . . . ’ (i.e. Pacuvius and Accius, §34). He adds, ‘The
same Favorinus . . . concluded with arguments of this sort . . . ’
(§§35–6). The interweaving of Favorinus and Gellius is manifest
and the quotation of similar thoughts in the old Roman poets
successfully Romanizes a Greek topic. A like apology for a transla-
tion comes at the end of 12. 1 after the rendition of Favorinus’
advice on breastfeeding to a Roman noblewoman. ‘I heard Favor-
inus say this in Greek, and I have reproduced his views, so far as
I can remember them, for the sake of general utility . . . [though]
hardly any Latin eloquence could equal his, and least of all my
slight powers’ (§24). As editors have noted, the Latin translation is
improved by echoes of Ovid.108 Gellius is highly conscious of his
mission to give information by presenting interesting examples
(pr. 16 V.). Here again advice which is suited to Greek—a medical
subject—is purveyed in Latin, though his audience would have
been perfectly capable of reading it in Greek.109 The Romanized
Favorinus is on show also in 14. 2, where he advises Gellius how to
proceed as a judge by aptly quoting a speech of Cato the Elder on
the fact that recourse must be had to character to decide disputes
where the evidence is insuYcient. At 17. 10 Favorinus is allowed to
compare Vergil unfavourably with Pindar (which suggests the
remarks are Favorinus’); but the criticism of what is for Favorinus
an unrevised passage shows why Vergil was in general ‘the most
elegant of poets’.110
106
Cf. 19. 2. 5 (Aristotle), 16. 3. 7–8, 10 (Erasistratus), and the long 10. 22. 4–23
(Plato).
107
Cf. 5 ut uerbo ipsius utar, Æıææ
(NB a colloquialism), 23. Gellius
several times quotes snippets of Favorinus in Greek.
108
Am. 2. 14. 7 at 12. 1. 8, Met. 15. 218 at 12. 1. 9.
109
Cf. 16. 3 for Favorinus on Erasistratus’ idea of appetite (with Gellius’ own
quotation in Greek of Erasistratus, cf. above, n. 106). For the importance of medical
knowledge to humanitas see 18. 10. 8.
110
Cf. Valerius Probus’ criticism at 9. 9. 12–17.
The function of the particular point as a spur to general know-

ledge has been alluded to already regarding the testimonies of
Favorinus and Fronto. Gellius was quite aware that some of his
recollections were boring and pedantic. He countered this by
placing dull information in an arresting or entertaining context—
the routing of an obstreperous grammarian, a boat trip on the star-
studded Saronic gulf, wandering home from the Vatican plain as
the sun set, and so on. Fronto’s discussion of words used mainly in
the singular or the plural attracts another apology: it is indeed ‘on a
trivial matter, but not at variance with the study of the Latin
language’ (19. 8. 2). Although the discussion is exclusively
Roman, the results tell us much about Antonine biculturalism.
Fronto is made to tell his audience to Wnd examples of the forms
he has been discussing in any orator or poet ‘provided they are
from the earlier band (e cohorte . . . antiquiore)’,111 which sort he
glosses as classicus adsiduusque aliquis scriptor, non proletarius (15).
The deWnition of a good ‘classical’ author is expressed in terms of
the old Republican constitutional arrangements as someone who is
‘good-class’ and ‘landowning’, not ‘proletarian’.112 It owes some-
thing to Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 752.113 But the political meaning
should not be ignored, and in three ways. First, intellectuals in the
ancient world tended to be restricted to the wealthy. Second,
grading citizens by class and making clear their duties and obliga-
tions to each other is something dear to Gellius.114 Third, for
Fronto and his like good Latin literature went back a long way
into the Republican period. Antiquity as a basis for sustaining the
idea of Latin’s parity with Greek was as important to Fronto and
Gellius as it had been to Cicero.
Bilingualism is explicit in the last appearance of Fronto in the
Nights, 19. 13. The subject is Fronto’s belief that the Latin word
pumilio should be used for ‘dwarf’ rather than the ‘vulgar and
barbarous’ nanus. Gellius’ teacher Sulpicius Apollinaris corrects
him by informing him portentously that nanus is not barbarous but
Greek. ‘Yet this word would have been given citizenship by you or
established in a Latin colony, if you had deigned to use it, and it
would be very much more acceptable than the low and vulgar
words which Laberius introduced into the Latin language’ (3).
111
Here antiquior means any one before Julius Caesar, whose De analogia is the
point of departure.
112
Cf. 6. 13; 16. 10 for Gellius’ interest in these terms.
113
Proletario sermone nunc quidem, hospes, utere.
114
See e.g. 2. 2 (fathers and sons), 2. 7 (children), 5. 13 (precedence of obliga-
tions), 12. 4 (Ennius on behaviour of inferiors).
36 Simon Swain
This is not much of a compliment; but Laberius’ use of the word

had stuck in Gellius’ mind.115 The idea of words being given
citizenship is a cliché.116 It is only partly humorous: the power of
Fronto to arbitrate on good Latin is aYrmed.117
Humour is on display again in the marvellous vignette of the
rhetor Antonius Julianus, ‘the public teacher of young men’
(including Gellius himself), and ‘a large number of Greeks’ who
derided Latin poetry (19. 9). The scene is a dinner party at a small
estate ‘near the City’ held by a young man of equestrian rank from
Asia for his friends and teachers, an unpromising mixture. The
man is a Greek who has come to Rome to learn Latin. Julianus asks
for some lyric, and Gellius includes a drinking song to relieve the
‘labour of his sleepless toils’. This is tongue in cheek, of course; but
also sets the scene for the Greeks to attack Julianus as a mere
‘ranter’ of a language devoid of Venus and the Muse. These Greeks
are Latin-speakers: they are ‘not uninterested in our literature’,
and ask Julianus whether there are any delightful poems in Latin
‘barring some of Catullus and Calvus. For those of Laevius are
involved, Hortensius’ lack charm, Cinna’s reWnement, Memmius’
are heavy, and in short all have written work which is unpolished
and discordant’ (§7).118 Julianus, roused to anger, then speaks pro
lingua patria tanquam pro aris et focis, attacks their ‘ditties’, and
proceeds to sing some early Latin epigrams ‘lest you should
condemn us, that is, the Latin Name, for I Ææ
ØÆ, as if we
were clearly without culture and taste’ (§9). There is plenty of
light-heartedness in all this; but when Gellius says he thinks
‘nothing can be found in Greek or Latin which is more elegant,
more charming, more polished, or more concise’119 than the Latin
poems he quotes, he is being quite serious.
Whether Gellius here records quotations actually delivered or
foisted on his speaker is irrelevant:120 it was he who chose to
publish them in his work. The Preface makes clear what is evident
throughout, that Gellius is a very ‘hands-on’ author who uses
115
See 16. 7. 10; cf. A. Garcea and V. Lomanto, below, Ch. 2, esp. 50---2.
116
O. Wenskus, ‘Markieren’, 234–6. On citizenship and Latin cf. Adams,
‘ ‘‘Romanitas’’ ’, 185–8.
117
Cf. §5 for the hierarchy of the grammarians.
118
Nam Laeuius inplicata et Hortensius inuenusta et Cinna inlepida et Memmius
dura ac deinceps omnes rudia fecerunt atque absona. On the attitudes here cf.
B. Rochette, Le Latin, 267–9, Fögen, Patrii sermonis egestas, 212–16.
119
Reading pressius; see A. D. Vardi, ‘Brevity’.
120
He sometimes claims to have ‘noted down the very words at the time’:
20. 6. 15. But at 12. 13. 17 he congratulates himself on a quotation he prepared
‘before coming to you (i.e. Sulpicius Apollinaris)’.
others’ material as he wants to purvey a strong moralizing tone and

to promote his belief in the association of antique virtue and
correct Latinity. This attitude is relevant to his control of Greek
material and his comments on it. The Nights contain a fair amount
of Greek (the overall quantity is of course very small), but most of
it is technical terminology or free-standing quotation. There is
virtually no code-switching which is not clearly connected with
grammatical, rhetorical, or philosophical subjects (the most
common type of code-switching in Latin literature).121 Most of
the technical switches are marked as ‘the Greeks say’, vel sim. The
Nights are not private letters: the private scenes Gellius gives us,
however Wctional, are presented to a male public audience.122
Hence code-switching as an unmarked choice as we see it in
Cicero’s private letters was not an option. The sketch of Julianus
certainly shows how relaxed Gellius can be with regard to contem-
porary Greeks; Fronto could never have laughed like this. Gellius
and his fellow-Romans went as students to Greece ‘ad capiendum
ingenii cultum’, which is not ‘in quest of culture’ (Loeb), but
rather ‘to train their intellects’ (1. 2. 1). Gellius had not the
slightest doubt that ‘culture’ was fully available at Rome. The
comparability of Roman and Greek culture is clear from the
same note 1. 2, which is set at a dinner held by Herodes Atticus
in Greece. Herodes is always introduced in the Nights as a consular
or senator, i.e. he is Romanized as well as celebrated for his
knowledge of Greek.123 In this note he demolishes the pretensions
of a pseudo-Stoic who sets himself above ‘all leaders of the Attic
language, the togaed race, and the Latin Name’ (§4). The abuse
accords both cultures equal status.
This belief in comparability is seen especially in Gellius’ prac-
tice of and concerns about translation from Greek.124 His fears of
121
Cf. 1. 5. 1 a Œ
ł illa ºÆ ŒØÆ (quoting Aeschines, In Tim. 131 a Œ
ła
ÆFÆ ºÆ ŒØÆ), 11. 15. 8 PØºø hercle Apollinaris noster . . . ait. Contrast 18.
7. 4 (said by Favorinus) Videtur enim mihi KØÆ ŁÆØ. Scitote . . . tamen intem-
periem istam, quae ºÆª
ºÆ dicitur, non paruis nec abiectis ingeniis accidere, Iººa
r ÆØ Ø e Ł

F
æøœŒ et ueritates plerumque fortiter dicere, sed respe-
ctum non habere ŒÆØæ
F æ
ı; Favorinus is allowed to code-switch, and
maybe he did do so readily. For technical switching cf. n. 58.
122
It is worth noting that discussion of women in the Nights remains entirely
traditional: 1. 6; 4. 3, cf. 10. 23, 12. 1, 17. 21. 44, 18. 6; Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, 308–13.
123
See 1. 2. 1, 9. 2. 1, 18. 10. 1, 19. 12. 1.
124
Cf. L. Gamberale, La traduzione, chs. 2–3 on Gellius’ techniques of literary
translation, Fögen, Patrii sermonis egestas, 193–216; [Holford-Strevens, ‘An
Antonine Littétateur’]. For the wider context of Latin translation from Greek
consult A. Traina, ‘Le traduzioni’, G. J. M. Bartelink, Hieronymus.
38 Simon Swain
spoiling the Greek of Favorinus have been mentioned. At 10. 22. 3

he refrains from translating Plato’s words in the Gorgias, for ‘no
Latin speech could aspire to their qualities, much less my own’.125
Elsewhere he oVers a translation of a passage in the Symposium (17.
20. 3, 9; note the false modesty). On the other hand Epictetus is
translated without apology at 19. 1. 15–20,126 and in 19. 11 Gellius
is happy to oVer a verse paraphrase of the famous amatory epigram
attributed to Plato done by ‘a friend of mine,
PŒ Æ
ı
adule-
scens’. Unfortunately the note on his experiences of translating
Plato in book 8 is lost (8. 8). But the various comments on the
problems of and opportunities presented by translating longer
passages or individual words give suYcient indication that Gellius
thought some things were best left in Greek and at the same time
believed that Roman authors like Vergil could translate with real
Xair or could fall Xat.127
It is knowledge of Greek that is crucial. Symptomatic of this is
the development of the word opicus. In origin this was an ethnic, an
early form of Oscus. But a fragment of Cato the Elder makes it clear
that it was used by Greeks to disparage Romans.128 It then de-
veloped the sense of a Roman who failed to understand Greek.
Gellius quotes this usage from Cicero’s freedman, Tiro (13. 9. 4).
Philodemus’ use of the word (in Greek) is comparable.129 This
sense was current among second-century intellectuals (Juvenal,
Terentius Scaurus, Fronto, Marcus, Gellius).130 Gellius calls his
125
His quotation from Plato is the longest piece of continuous Greek in the Nights.
126
Similarly 9. 3. 5–6 (a letter attributed to Philip of Macedon). The story of
Arion at 16. 19 is a very free paraphrase of Herodotus; cf. Fronto’s declamation on
the same theme, pp. 241–2, with G. Anderson, below, 108---11.
127
Cf. 2. 23 (lengthy evaluation of Caecilius Statius’ unsucessful version of
Menander, with adverse judgement on Roman comedy in general, cf. Quint. Inst.
10. 1. 99–100; Fögen, Patrii sermonis egestas, 194–6); 9. 9 (Vergil); 11. 16
(
ºıæÆª
, with praise of Greek’s terseness at §9; Fögen 210–11); 16. 8
(IøÆ); 18. 13. 5 (examples of sophismata); 18. 14 (‘absurd’ to invent Latin
terms for hemiolios or epitritos; NB the MSS transliterate, but perhaps Greek script
should be restored; cf. 1. 20. 9); 19. 2. 2 (IŒºÆ
); 20. 5. 13 (ı ).
128
Cato, De medicina fr. 1 (Pliny, NH 29. 14) nos quoque dictitant barbaros et
spurcius nos quam alios Opicon appellatione foedant. On the development of the ethnic
(Opicus>Opscus>Oscus see O. Skutsch on Ennius, Ann. 291 (pp. 469–70 of his
commentary).
129
AP 5. 132. 7 ‘if she is an Opikeˆ and called Flora and cannot sing Sappho’.
130
Juvenal, Sat. 3. 207; Scaurus, De orthogr., GL vii. 23. 2; Fronto, Ep. M. Caes. 2.
2. 8, p. 21. 15 (cf. above, 22), Marcus ap. Fronto, Ep. M. Caes. 2. 11. 2, p. 31. 6; the
reading at Ep. M. Caes. 3. 6 (p. 39. 19) is very insecure. At Juvenal, Sat. 6. 455 female
language, but not speciWcally Greek, is at issue. The same usage occurs three
centuries later in Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. 8. 3. 1 (his ‘barbarian transcription’ of
Philostratus’ Apollonius). But in Ausonius, where the word is used several times,
fellow-students ‘opici’ in jest: ‘why don’t you barbarians . . . ?’,

and at 11. 16. 7 he applies it to a man who had failed to grasp his
explanation of
ºıæÆª
(cf. §2: the man is ‘ignorant of
Greek language and literature’). This humour is not without sign-
iWcance. In the grammarian Scaurus there is contempt for someone
who cannot follow his explanation of aspirated words in Greek. In
Fronto there is tension, in Marcus self-irony. Gellius’ attitude is
relaxed towards his companions. But the ignorant man was plainly
annoying: he is one of the ‘profane crowd’ to whom Gellius applies
the words of Aristophanes at the end of his Preface. Not to under-
stand Greek was not to belong.
The picture which emerges from Gellius is that of a man who

believed fervently in the association of culture and morality.
Knowledge of language and literature was the key expression of
this. When the grammarian Aelius Melissus published a book
‘within my memory’ with the ‘hugely attractive title’ of On Correct
Language, ‘who would regard himself as qualiWed to speak cor-
rectly and properly unless he had learned Melissus’ correct mean-
ings (proprietates)?’ (18. 6. 1–3). When Melissus had made a
mistake (as he had), who could fail to be disappointed?131 It is in
the nature of grammarians to pronounce on correct speech and
correct spelling (Scaurus’ De orthographia). But the interest of a
wider public in such matters—Gellius’ readers—implies a wide
concern about the role of language. But what role? As has been
remarked, Fronto, Gellius, and Apuleius oVer insuYcient evi-
dence of a widespread linguistic movement. In any case, trying to
look at things in terms of Greek purism is the wrong way to go
about it. Rather, Gellius and the others are concerned to demon-
state their command of all Roman culture and its transmission
through literature. This includes early Latin (the ueteres); but it
certainly does not stop with these authors. Their understanding of
the Latin language in its full development gave them the right in
their own eyes to innovate extensively. We should assume that they
would have been happy for those as cultured and as literary as
themselves to do the same. Tertullian has been seen as one of their
natural heirs in this regard.132 As the Wrst Latin churchman, he
the sense ranges from ‘obsolete’ to ‘indulging in oral sex’: see J. N. Adams,
‘An Epigram’, 100, 109 on the genital alphabet of Ep. 87.
131
Other good examples of Gellius confronting the experts: 6. 3, 6. 17, 13. 31, 14.
6, 15. 9.
132
Steinmetz, Untersuchungen, 231, 374.
40 Simon Swain
was trying in part to establish an intellectual Latin lexicon for the

new religion. This lexicon had perforce to contain and naturalize
Greek terminology.133 This is a further stage in the process of
Sprachanschluß that began with Republican authors and was con-
tinued by Fronto, Gellius, and Apuleius. All these men needed
Greek to show they possessed culture. They needed it to enrich
Latin as necessary. They needed it as an alternative register (for
technical subjects, the aVections, awkward or problematical rela-
tions). They needed to be in control of it in an era when the Greek
language was again at the height of its powers.
Favorinus and Marcus Aurelius (Meditations) are the most
striking surviving examples of Latin speakers making extensive
use of Greek at this time. But we should not forget Claudius Aelian
in the early decades of the next century. His two surviving miscel-
lanies, the Varia historia and De natura animalium, not to mention
his Letters of Farmers, would have excited the scorn of Gellius. In
them he makes bold claims for his choice of language (Atticizing
Greek) and his ability to sustain it (Nat. An. pr. ad Wn., epil. ad
Wn.; Letter 20 ad Wn.). Yet Aelian was exceptional. More interest-
ing is evidence for the continuing acceptability of Greek code-
switching in Latin in the same generation from the great jurist
Ulpian.134 Ulpian may have been a descendant of Roman or Italian
merchants. If his family were ‘Greek’, then he is the Wrst writer
from the Greek East whose political choices led him to write in
Latin. Whatever the case, he clearly expects his Latin readers to
know suYcient Greek to understand his switches and, more
importantly, to accept them as normal. There are in fact a very
few examples of code-switches in earlier jurists and a couple
immediately after Ulpian. But Ulpian’s usage is far more exten-
sive, with thirty-eight examples. This should perhaps be
connected with his conscious attempt to promote Roman law in
the new environment of the Constitutio Antoniniana. It may well
show that he was in fact a Greek speaker who failed to appreciate
the constraints on Greek in Latin public discourse (law). It also
shows an appreciation that Greek was a natural part of Latin
speech and that display of a Greek identity, far from being intru-
sive, was a sine qua non of the highest Roman culture. This is
something Gellius’ age understood perfectly.
133
See esp. Against the Valentinians 6 on the futility of translating Valentinus’
technical terms. Cf. Adv. Praxean 3. 3 ‘si quid utriusque linguae praecerpsi’. For
Tertullian’s innovative graphical procedures to aid Greekless readers see Adv. Val.
6. 2 with J.-C. Fredouille, edn. ii. 216–17.
134
T. Honoré, Ulpian, 90–2.
2
Gellius and Fronto on Loanwords
and Literary Models
Their Evaluation of Laberius
A l es sa n dr o Ga r ce a an d Va l er ia L om a nt o
In this chapter we shall focus on ch. 19. 13 of the Noctes Atticae,

where Fronto investigates the origin of the word nanus (§1). In his
analysis, Gellius recalls the linguistic categories of Latinus, Grae-
cus, barbarus, whose theoretical grounds we shall clarify (§2). After
considering the Latin texts where nanus occurs (§3), we shall
speciWcally discuss the case of Laberius, an author on whom Gel-
lius and Fronto have a diVerent opinion. We shall complete our
analysis with the study of the references to Laberius in the Noctes
Atticae (§4).
1. the hesitation of fronto between nanvs

and p v m i l i o (gellius 19. 1 3 . 1–2)
In Noctes Atticae 19. 13 Fronto (test. 9, p. 265. 3–14 v:d:H:2 )
doubts the Latinity of nanus, suspecting it to be a sordidum . . .
uerbum et barbarum. To nanus Fronto prefers the native term
pumilio, which is attested in the works of early writers. As Fronto
is not sure of his choice, he asks his friends, who are waiting with
him to pay the emperor their respects in the salutatio Caesaris:
C. Sulpicius Apollinaris, regarded by Gellius as an outstanding
grammarian, teacher of the future emperor Pertinax in the early
140s (HA Pert. 1. 4), and M. Postumius Festus, an orator of
Numidian origin, equally Xuent in Greek and Latin (cf. CIL vi.
1416 oratorem utraque facundia maximum).
We wish to thank Leofranc Holford-Strevens for discussing a previous version of

this paper.
42 Alessandro Garcea, Valeria Lomanto
1. Stabant forte una in uestibulo Palatii fabulantes Fronto Cornelius et
Festus Postumius et Apollinaris Sulpicius, atque ego ibi adsistens cum
quibusdam aliis sermones eorum, quos de litterarum disciplinis habebant,
curiosius captabam. 2. Tum Fronto Apollinari ‘fac me’ inquit ‘oro, magi-
ster, ut sim certus, an recte supersederim ‘‘nanos’’ dicere parua nimis
statura homines maluerimque eos ‘‘pumiliones’’ appellare, quoniam hoc
scriptum esse in libris ueterum memineram, ‘‘nanos’’ autem sordidum
esse uerbum et barbarum credebam.’
The term pumilio represents a sort of hyperonym for human,
animal, and vegetable varieties of dwarfs. In his Natural History,
Pliny, who had described Conopas as a minimus man and implicitly
Andromeda as a minima woman during the reign of Augustus
(7. 75), notes that there are dwarf kinds (pumiliones) of birds like
hens (10. 156), and, more generally, of all species of animals
(11. 260). Later on, he speaks of the pollard plane called chamae-
platanus, lit. ‘ground-plane’, stunted in height and belonging to
the genus pumilionum (12. 13). Finally, he describes the methods of
making a vine slow to fruit, shrivelled, and knotty, ‘with the
growth natural to dwarfs’ (pumilionum incremento 17. 176). The
use of pumilio with reference to human beings, lacking in Pliny,
occurs in Lucretius’ De rerum natura, which can be identiWed,
according to the present evidence, with the libri ueterum mentioned
by Fronto. While showing that love makes people blind to the
faults of the beloved, the poet quotes some examples of the ancient
topos of euphemistic terms of endearment and, more generally, of
the psychological mechanism of changing the objective reality in
bonam partem (4. 1160–70).1 A squat, dwarWsh woman (pumilio)
appears in the eye of her lover as one of the Graces, as the very soul
of wit: paruula pumilio ‘chariton mia’ ‘tota merum sal’ (4. 1162).
The reference to Lucretius is consistent with Fronto’s ideas on
style, according to which Lucretius is a linguistic model. Using
metaphorical expressions, Fronto conceives his literary theory in
three stages: the genus humile of mutterers (murmurantes), and two
levels of genus sublime, i.e. the lower, represented by the mugitus of
Ennius, Accius, and Lucretius, and the higher, represented by the
tuba of Cato, Gracchus, Cicero, and Sallust (De eloq. 4. 4, p. 148.
1
See the description of the behaviour of the I cæ KæøØŒ towards the ÆE in
Plato, Rep. 474 d 7–475 a 2 and Ovid’s imitation, Ars 2. 657–62; other examples of
Xattering terms applied to unattractive characteristics are found in the Hellenistic
handbook —æd Iæ
Øø by Philaenis (P. Oxy. 2891 fr. 3. 5–9); Theocr. 10. 26–37;
Hor. Serm. 1. 3. 38–67; Asclepiades, AP 5. 210. See R. Verdière, ‘L’euphémisme
amoureux’.
Loanwords and Literary Models 43
8–11 v:d:H:2 ).2 Fronto also expresses similar evaluations in a sort

of canon of ueteres who have operated dilectus uerborum. They
should be imitated, because their long-neglected language may
suggest insperata atque inopinata uerba, i.e. unconventional words:
Wherefore few indeed of our old writers have surrendered themselves to
that toil, pursuit, and hazard of seeking out words with especial diligence.
M. Porcius alone of the orators of all time, and his constant imitator C.
Sallustius, are among these; of poets Plautus especially, and most espe-
cially Q. Ennius and his zealous rival L. Coelius, not to omit Naevius and
Lucretius, Accius too, and Caecilius, also Laberius. Besides these, certain
other writers are noticeable for choiceness in special spheres, as Novius,
Pomponius and their like in rustic and jocular and comic words, Atta in
women’s talk, Sisenna in erotics, Lucilius in the technical language of each
art and business. (Ep. M. Caes. 4. 3. 2, pp. 56. 18–57. 4 v:d:H:2 , tr. C. R.
Haines, i. 5.)
The imitation of ancient authors, pursued by Fronto and Gellius3
in order to give new vitality and meaningfulness to the literary
language, must not hinder the perspicuity of communication. Both
the former (ibid. §3, p. 57. 24–7 v:d:H:2 ) and the latter (11. 7. 3)
think that the unsuitable use of archaisms, without clarity or
reWnement, betrays incomplete (semidoctus) or belatedly acquired
learning (OłØÆŁÆ) respectively. Such inadequate messages should
be replaced by common, even trite, expressions.
Gellius agrees with his master Fronto on the theoretical aspects of
his literary doctrine, but, as we shall see, he makes his own independ-
ent assessment of the authors to be imitated. The case of Laberius,
the Wrst to use the word nanus, is exemplary of this attitude.
2. the categories of l a t i n v s g r a e c v s
barbarvs ( gellius 19. 1 3 . 3 a )
In his answer to Fronto, Apollinaris admits that the word nanus
belongs to the sermo uulgaris. Yet he speciWes that it is not a
2
See the commentary by A. Pennacini, La funzione dell’arcaismo, 109–11 (mis-
interpreted by M. P. J. van den Hout, Commentary, 350–1) and P. Soverini, ‘Aspetti
e problemi’, 936–7. Fronto also proposes a quadripartite division of the genera
dicendi (gracilis, aridus, sublimis, mediocris), where Lucretius is deWned as sublimis
(De eloq. 1. 2, p. 133. 12 v:d:H:2 ). On the evaluation of Lucretius by Fronto, see
R. Poignault, ‘Lucrèce’, 179–83.
3
On the theoretical problem of archaism from Caes. Anal. fr. 2 Funaioli to Gell.
1. 10 (the source of this fragment), see V. Lomanto, ‘Cesare e la teoria del-
l’eloquenza’, 57–64; on Fronto, see also Soverini, ‘Aspetti e problemi’, 955–63.
barbarous word, but a Greek one (< A

,
): it occurs
in literary works such as Aristophanes’ comedy The Cargo
Boats ( ˇºŒ; fr. 441 Kassel–Austin), and—according to an
etymological principle—its brief extent is consistent with its
small referent.
‘Est quidem’ inquit ‘hoc’ Apollinaris ‘in consuetudine inperiti uulgi fre-
quens, sed barbarum non est censeturque linguae Graecae origine;
ı
enim Graeci uocauerunt breui atque humili corpore homines paulum
supra terram exstantes idque ita dixerunt adhibita quadam ratione etymo-
logiae cum sententia uocabuli competente et, si memoria’ inquit ‘mihi non
labat, scriptum hoc est in comoedia Aristophanis, cui nomen est ˇºŒ.’
The Greek origin of nanus is already attested in Varro, LL 5. 119,
where a jar shaped as a bearded dwarf is named nanus cum Graeco
nomine et cum Latino nomine . . . barbatus (see also Fest. 184. 25–7
L., where the Latin name of the same object is pumilio, and CGL ii.
28. 22 bardatus
e ŒF
). What is interesting in Apollinaris’
answer is the opposition between uerba Graeca and uerba barbara,
according to what is a conventional antithesis within Greek cul-
ture. The Greeks considered anyone who was not a Greek as a
barbarian, including the Romans (cf. Fest. 32. 14–15 barbari dice-
bantur antiquitus omnes gentes, exceptis Graecis).4 This viewpoint
was adopted by the Romans themselves in ethnic as well as in
linguistic terms. For the former, note Plautus’ description of Nae-
vius as poeta barbarus (Mil. 211);5 for the latter, the contrast
between Graecus and barbarus, the later designating Latin, can
already be found in the expression uortit barbare of Plautus (Trin.
19; Asin. 11) and is still current in Cic. Orat. 160. Here the author
criticizes the reproduction of Greek phonemes in Latin nominal
inXection (in barbaris casibus Graecam litteram adhibere).6
Soon, however, the employment of grammatical Greek patterns
for the description of Latin linguistic structures admitted the
4
See e.g. H. Diller, ‘Die Hellenen-Barbaren-Antithese’ and E. Lévy, ‘Nais-
sance’. In Greece, the deviations from the standard language are represented in
Plato’s Cratylus as ØŒ (forms not belonging to Attic) and foreign words not
understandable by Greek speakers (ÆæÆæØŒ). See B. Rochette, ‘Les ØŒ et les
ÆæÆæØŒa O ÆÆ’, 95–7. Aristotle, in ch. 22 of his Poetics, recommends grandeur
and avoidance of the ordinary in style. These qualities can be achieved by employing
unusual words ( ØŒ): however, their presence in the ºØ must not be excessive, in
order to avoid ÆY ØªÆ, i.e. surfeit of metaphors, and ÆæÆæØ, i.e. excess of foreign
terms (1458a 18–31). See R. Dupont-Roc and J. Lallot, edn. 357–60.
5
Cf. PF 32. 15–16. Whereas J. C. Dumont, ‘Plaute’, 70 considers Plautus’ line as
a ‘dérision des préjugés grecs de supériorité’, F. Desbordes, ‘Latinitas’, 38 observes
that Plautus ‘présente le point de vue des Grecs, non pas forcément qu’il l’assume’.
6
Cf. also Cic. Rep. 1. 58 (Romulus rules over ‘barbarian’ speakers).
theory that Latin was a kind of Greek,7 speciWcally a sort of Aeolic

dialect. Both Greek grammarians living and teaching in Rome
(Hypsicrates of Amysos, Philoxenus of Alexandria, Terentius
Tyrannio, Claudius Didymus, L. Ateius Praetextatus Philologus)
and native Latin grammarians (Santra, Clodius Tuscus, Cloatius
Verus) wrote on this subject between the beginning of the Wrst
century bc and the middle of the Wrst century ad.8 Varro, who
criticizes his master Aelius Stilo for systematically explaining
Latin words only out of other Latin words, does not on the other
hand follow the opposite ‘Hellenizing’ explanation. He points out,
however, some speciWc features common to ‘Aeolic’ and Latin:9
(1) the preservation of the Aeolic digamma = in the Latin semi-
consonant /w/ (a phenomenon typical of Cypriot and Pam-
phylian): =ØÆº > uitulus (LL 5. 96), =æÆ > uesper (LL
6. 6), æ
=ØE > prouidere (LL 6. 96); see also Priscian, Inst.,
GL ii. 15. 1–5, who quotes Varro’s opinion (fr. 71 Goetz–
Schöll ¼ 270, pp. 291–2 Funaioli) and Didymus fr. 1, p. 447
Funaioli on the identity of Aeolic = with Latin /w/;
(2) barytonesis, a phenomenon occurring in Asiatic Aeolic:
puteus< Aeolic
(Attic

; LL 5. 24–5);
(3)
> ı with nasal or labial voiceless consonant (see point 2);
typical of Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot;
(4) the preservation of ancient Æ (which excludes the Ionic–Attic
dialect): Aº
> malum (LL 5. 102).
Another similarity between ‘Aeolic’ and Latin is pointed out by
Philoxenus, who notices the absence of the dual in the nominal
inXection of both languages (fr. 323 Theodoridis ¼ Choerobosc.
In Theod., GG iv. 2. 34. 4–9).10 As we can understand from all these
phenomena, the concept of ‘Aeolic’ in these authors is an extended
7
See M. Dubuisson, ‘Le latin’, 67: ‘on peut considérer comme au moins
probable que l’élaboration de la théorie de l’origine éolienne du latin, indispensable
complément à la légende de l’origine grecque de Rome, fut l’œuvre des grammai-
riens grecs et romains de l’entourage de Pompée, suscités et encouragés par celui-ci’.
8
See T. Cupaiuolo, La teoria della derivazione, and R. Giomini, ‘Il grammatico
Filosseno’.
9
See G. Pascucci, ‘Le componenti linguistiche’, 356–8; F. Cavazza, Studio su
Varrone, 88–97; D. Briquel, ‘La conception du latin’, 1035–7; further observations
in K. Schöpsdau, ‘Vergleiche zwischen Lateinisch und Griechisch’, 117–21.
10
The fragment of Philoxenus which seems to make a connection between the
weakening of /g/ in Aeolic and the evolution of -gy-> -iy-> -i- in Latin (fr. 11,
p. 446 Funaioli ¼Etym. Gud. p. 377 Sturz: Ø
. . . KŒ
FÐ ÆªÆ
i.e. maiesta-
tis) is not retained in C. Theodoridis’ edn. (Die Fragmente, 49–50), because the
sentence Øº
. . . Ææ `N
ºFØ ªæÆc Øa
F NHÆ is declared to be a gloss
arising from fr. 542 (dealing with the allographs ªØæ
=ªØæ
).
one: it is the language of diVerent people who at various times

departed from Latium (Siculi: Varro, LL 5. 101 lepus > º
æØ)
or entered it (Pelasgi: Varro in Macr. Sat. 1. 7. 28–30; Evander’s
Arcadians, Hercules’ Argei: Varro, LL 5. 21, 45). This hypothesis
is parallel to, and probably convergent with, the annalistic tradition
of the Arcadian origin of Rome, as found in the fragments of Fabius
Pictor (1, p. 2 Funaioli ¼ 1, p. 5 Peter2 ), Cincius Alimentus (p. 2
Funaioli ¼ 1, p. 40 Peter2 ) and Cn. Gellius (2, p. 120 Funaioli ¼ 3,
p. 148 Peter2 ).11
Consequently, Greek and Latin form a pair frequently con-
sidered as a sort of unity, utraque lingua,12 while the word ‘barbar-
ian’ represents a tertium genus, including all other languages. Even
when Greek is incorporated in the domain of peregrinitas, as is the
case with the taxonomy of Quintilian, Inst. 1. 5. 55–8 (where Latin
and foreign words are diVerentiated: §55 uerba aut Latina aut
peregrina sunt), a special relationship between Greek and Latin is
nevertheless underlined. Greek loanwords are so many—Quintil-
ian claims—because Latin is derived from Greek and it also
borrows Greek terms when it lacks its own. The contributions
from diVerent languages, on the other hand, constitute a distinct,
composite ‘barbarian’ group.13
Increasing linguistic awareness among Latin grammarians is
indicated by the fact that, having at Wrst been deWned as a variety
of Greek, Latin eventually becomes the theoretical focus, in relation
11
See E. Gabba, ‘Il latino come dialetto greco’, 190: ‘È abbastanza chiaro in
primo luogo che la teoria del latino come dialetto eolico è collegata alla partizione
linguistica delle stirpi greche, riferita da Strabone ma certamente derivata dall’in-
dagine dialettologica dell’età alessandrina; in secondo luogo che essa è stata origi-
nariamente elaborata non sulla base di una qualsiasi indagine linguistica, ma come
conseguenza e riXesso di una teoria ‘‘storica’’ largamente accettata, vale a dire
dell’origine ‘‘arcadica’’ di Roma.’ On the role of Evander in the transmission of
the Greek alphabet to the Romans, see A. Garcea, ‘César et l’alphabet’, 159–60.
12
See M. Dubuisson, ‘Vtraque lingua’; Desbordes, ‘Latinitas’, 37. L. A. Hol-
ford-Strevens, ‘Vtraque lingua doctus’ gives a great number of important examples
of Greek knowledge of Latin as well as Roman knowledge of Greek.
13
According to Quintilian, Etruscan, Sabine, and Praenestine words can be
considered as Roman ones. Some Gaulish words, such as raeda ‘four-wheeled
travelling-carriage’, used by Cicero (cf. Mil. 28–9; Phil. 2. 58; Att. 5. 17. 1; 6. 1.
25) and petorritum ‘open four-wheeled carriage’, used by Horace (cf. Serm. 1. 6. 104;
Ep. 2. 1. 192), are also well established. Quintilian also mentions the Punic mappa
‘table-napkin’ and the Hispanic gurdus ‘blockhead, dolt’ (see infra, §4 and n. 55). On
this passage, see B. Rochette, ‘Latinitas—peregrinitas’, 104–5 and R. Müller,
Sprachbewußtsein, 44; on petorritum, see Gell. 15. 30, who quotes Varro’s Antiqui-
tates rerum diuinarum (§7: fr. 203 Cardauns ¼ 133, p. 236 Funaioli) in support of the
Gaulish origin of the term.
to which all other languages are diVerentiated.14 Thus the tripar-

tite pattern Latinus, Graecus, barbarus, which also occurs in ethnic-
cultural hyperboles,15 is now systematized in the grammatical
tradition, where Latin at all linguistic levels undergoes a triparti-
tion.
On the phonographematic level, for example, Diomedes (GL i.
426. 8–10) considers that the sign < z >, designating /z/, has been
introduced from Greek into Latin in order to transcribe both
Greek (e.g. Zenon, Zacynthus) and ‘barbarian’ words (e.g. Mezen-
tius, gaza). Moreover, according to Cassiodorus (in Eutych. GL
vii. 199. 13–15), both Greek (e.g. Halys, Hĕcuba, Hēgio, Hieron,
Hŏmerus, hymen, hōra, Thybris, Phoebus, chorus) and ‘barbarian’
(e.g. Rhenus, Hannibal) forms preserve the original aspiration in
Latin.
On the morphophonemic level, Varro (fr. 113 Goetz–Schöll ¼ 243,
p. 269 Funaioli) had already classiWed syllables as Greek (e.g.
hymnos, Zenon) or ‘barbarian’ (e.g. gaza) depending on language
of origin.16 Moreover, the norms ruling Latin accent do not apply
to interjections, i.e. marginal elements of lexicon, and loanwords.
But, while a barbarum nomen uel uerbum aliquod peregrinum takes an
arbitrary accent, non-integrated Graeca uerba save their original
accent (cf. Explan. GL iv. 483. 29–34).17
On the morphological level, the tripartition Latinum, Graecum,
barbarum applies to both variable and invariable forms. Priscian’s
Institutiones grammaticae oVer the most systematic treatment of
nominal inXection of barbarian words, according to their ending
in the nominative. He not only lists diVerent typologies (e.g. GL ii.
222. 1–4 on forms ending in -ar: Latin Caesar, Greek nectar,
‘barbarian’ Aspar, Bostar), but also illustrates some peculiarities
of the barbarian terms. For example, commenting on the toponyms
Suthul and Muthul, Priscian prefers to consider them as communia,
rather than neuter, because Punic, like Chaldaean, Hebrew, and
Syriac, lacks this gender (GL ii. 147. 18–148. 3). He adds that
barbarian words end frequently in phonological clusters which
14
See M. Baratin, La Naissance de la syntaxe, 350–8.
15
See e.g. Cic. Fin. 2. 49 a quo [sc. Epicuro] non solum Graecia et Italia, sed etiam
omnis barbaria commota est; Diu. 1. 84 si Graeci, si barbari, si maiores etiam nostri;
Juvenal 10. 138 Romanus Graiusque et barbarus induperator; Quint. Inst. 5. 10. 24 nec
idem [sc. mos] in barbaro, Romano, Graeco.
16
See J. Collart, Varron grammairien, 73–5.
17
See also Diomedes, GL i. 433. 31–4; [Prisc.] Acc., GL iii. 520. 23–5; Donatus,
Mai. 610. 9–10 Holtz; Cledonius, GL v. 33. 18–20; Jul. Tol. 172. 60–4 Maestre
Yenes.
are foreign to Latin and Greek and diYcult to adapt to Latin

inXectional classes (GL ii. 148. 7–12: e.g. Abraham, Ioachim, Loth,
Ruth, Iacob, David, Balac). This kind of problem was already
discussed by Varro, who attests to a polemic between Crates and
Aristarchus (LL 8. 64–5). The latter explained the invariability of
the uocabula litterarum, both in Greek and Latin, by their barbar-
ian, Chaldaean, origin (§64 non esse uocabula nostra, sed penitus
barbara). Varro agrees with this opinion in a fragment of his De
antiquitate litterarum (fr. 40 Goetz–Schöll ¼ 1, pp. 183–4 Funaioli):
the characters’ names cannot be adapted to the system of Latin
cases because they reproduce their original form in Chaldaean.
The taxonomy of linguistic units in three species hides their
diVerent contribution to the overall system of the Latin language.
In the vast corpus of the grammatici Latini, only barbarian proper
nouns18 are taken into account and admitted. On the other hand,
barbarian common nouns are generally proscribed as errors in
speech in chapters de uitiis et uirtutibus orationis, where the external
18
Barbara nomina ending in -al: Adherbal, (H)Annibal, (H)Asdrubal, Hamil-
car, Hiempsal, Mastanabal (Charis. 24. 24–6, 29–32, 44. 6–8 Barwick; Anon. Bob.
14. 8–12 De Nonno; Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 2. 147. 7–8, 214. 8–10, 312. 14–16; [Prisc.]
Acc., GL iii. 523. 8–9; [Probus] Cath., GL iv. 8. 27–9; Phocas, 9. 1, p. 35. 2–3
Casaceli; Sacerdos, GL vi. 473. 24–6; Martyr. GL vii. 187. 11–16); in -ar: Arar,
Aspar, Bostar, Hamilcar (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 149. 14–150. 6; 222. 1–4; 313. 12–14); in
-co: Sic(c)o, Franco ([Probus], Cath., GL iv. 9. 37–10. 1; Sacerdos, GL vi. 475. 8–9);
in -ēl : Michael, Gabriel, Abel, Nechamel, Daniel, Samuel, Isdrahel (Prisc. Inst., GL
ii. 147. 11–12; 214. 15; 312. 19–20; Sacerdos, GL vi. 473. 27–9); in -es: Tigranes,
Mithridates, Ariobarzanes (Prisc. Nom. 5. 10–13); in -on: Rubicon, Saxon ([Probus],
Cath., GL iv. 9. 12–18; Sacerdos, GL vi. 474. 18–19); in -ul: Suthul, Muthul (Charis.
30. 22, 44. 6–8 Barwick; Anon. Bob. 19. 14–15 De Nonno; Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 147.
18–148. 3; [Probus], Cath., GL iv. 8. 29–30; Sacerdos, GL vi. 473. 26–7); other
forms: Abodlas (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 42. 15–16); Abraham (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148.
7–12); Aizi (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 205. 6–7); Artabazes ([Probus] Cath., GL iv. 31.
17–18; Sacerdos, GL vi. 481. 25–6); Atax (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 164. 6–7; 166. 24–167.
2); Balac (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148. 10); Berzobim (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 205. 6–7);
Bocchus (Martyr. GL vii. 172. 6–8); Bogud (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 146. 18–19; 213.
14–214. 2); Brixo ([Probus] Cath., GL iv. 11. 10–11); David (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148.
10); Heriul ([Prisc.] Acc., GL iii. 523. 14); Iacob (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148. 9); Iliturgi
(Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 205. 5–6); Ioachim (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148. 9); Loth (Prisc. Inst.,
GL ii. 148. 9); Massiua (Martyr. GL vii. 172. 8–11, 4–10); Muluccha (Prisc. Inst.,
GL ii. 201. 15–17; Phocas 5. 2, p. 32. 20–1 Casaceli); Ormizas ([Probus] Cath., GL
iv. 31. 16–17; Sacerdos, GL vi. 481. 23–4); Pharnax (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 279. 5–8);
Ruth (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 148. 9); Tanaquil (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 214. 16); Tharros
([Probus] Cath., GL iv. 22. 25–7); Turia (Cledon., GL v. 41. 24; Phocas 5. 2, p. 32.
20–1 Casaceli); Volux (Prisc. Inst., GL ii. 166. 24–167. 2, 279. 5–6); Zidar ([Probus],
Cath., GL iv. 13. 24). Outside the few examples of barbarolexis, the only ‘barbarian’
common noun quoted in the corpus of grammatici Latini is nap(h)t(h)a(s) ([Probus]
Cath., GL iv. 22. 21–2, 29. 4–6, 30. 15–17; Sacerdos, GL vi. 480. 3–5, 481. 19–21).
opposition Latin/barbarian gives way to the internal opposition

Latin/barbarism.19 Quintilian, at Inst. 1. 5. 7–10,20 proposes a
tripartite classiWcation of such phenomena: one type is the ethnic
word (§8), another comes from an insolent or vulgar way of speak-
ing (§9), a third consists in the addition (addictio), omission (omis-
sio), substitution (immutatio), or transposition (transmutatio) of a
letter or a syllable (§10). The Wrst type is exempliWed by loanwords
such as the Gaulish cantus ‘iron tyre of a wheel’, used by Persius 5.
71, and ploxenum ‘carriage body’, used by Catullus 97. 6, casamo
(¼adsectator?), used by Labienus or Cornelius Gallus, and the
Sardinian mastruca ‘heavy cloak’, used by Cic. Scaur. 45h Clark
¼ 45d Olechowska. This last term also occurs among the examples
that Latin grammarians, following Donatus, derive from classical
authors in order to illustrate the phenomenon of barbarolexis.21
They conceive the use of a term which is neither indigenous nor
derived from Greek as a threat to the correct usage of their lan-
guage, i.e. Roman Latin.22 Their examples are given below:
(1) acinaces ‘Persian short sword’ (Hor. Carm. 1. 27. 5; Curt. 4.
15. 30; V.Fl. 6. 701; Tac. Ann. 12. 51);23
19
See Desbordes, ‘Latinitas’, 39.
20
See R. Vainio, Latinitas and Barbarisms, 25–6, 87–8, 131.
21
See Donatus, Mai. 653. 2–4 Holtz; Pompeius, GL v. 284. 20–8; Jul. Tol. 179.
13–18 Maestre Yenes; Consentius, Barb. 2. 6–10, 19. 9–16 Niedermann. Holtz, edn.
of Donatus, 150 comments upon these passages: ‘ce n’est pas n’importe quels mots
barbares qui sont cités, mais uniquement des termes qui ont pour eux l’auctori-
tas . . . Ces exemples sont classiques depuis longtemps . . . ’. See also the deWni-
tions of barbarolexis in Cominianus quoted by Charis. 350. 4–6 Barwick; Diom. GL
i. 451. 30–2; Serv. Mai., GL iv. 444. 7–8; Audax, GL vii. 361. 19–21; Isid. Etym. 1.
32. 2. The Wrst occurrence of the term barbarolexis (cf. TLL ii. 1735. 14–23) is found
in the 3rd-c. grammar attributed to Sacerdos (GL vi. 451. 4–15): according to this
text, ‘if a word—either a Latin or a Greek one—was corrupted by an element from
another language, this was a barbarolexis, a barbarous way of writing the word’
(Vainio, Latinitas and Barbarisms, 91). From Charisius on the term barbarolexis no
longer refers to Greek words. Holtz, edn. of Donatus, 137 rightly observes: ‘Il est
vraisemblable que le sens premier de ÆæÆæØ [i.e. language where foreign words
have penetrated] survit dans barbarolexis ( æÆæ
ºØ), terme qui lui-même
suppose la linguistique stoı̈cienne.’
22
As R. Coleman (‘Quintilian 1. 6’, 917) rightly observes, ‘Hellēnismós embraced
certain dialects outside Attic that enjoyed considerable and long established cultural
and political prestige [ . . . ], Latinitas by contrast was identiWed expressly with
Roman Latin.’ This is also the reason why Latin grammarians do not take into
consideration ‘regional’ loanwords, i.e. ‘the transfer of local terms belonging to
other languages into the Latin’ of diVerent areas of the Empire (see J. N. Adams,
Bilingualism, 443).
23
This word also occurs in a list of peregrina uerba by Consentius (Ars, GL
v. 364. 8–15): Gallic mannus, Persian acinacis and gaza, Punic tubur.
(2) cateia ‘curved missile’ (Verg. Aen. 7. 741 with DS ad loc.,

V. Fl. 6. 83; Sil. 3. 277; Gell. 10. 25. 2; cf. also Isid. Etym. 18.
7. 7);
(3) dellas ‘reed-grass, sedge’: Augustine, GL v. 496. 10;
(4) magalia ‘huts, tents’ (Hem. Hist. 38; Verg. Aen. 1. 421 with
DS ad loc., Aen. 4. 259 with. Serv. ad loc.; Liv. 41. 27. 12; cf.
also Char. 37. 8–9 Barwick; Isid. Etym. 15. 12. 4);24
(5) mastruca (cf. Isid. Etym. 19. 23. 5).
3. vulgarisms and disdain for laberius

( gellius 19. 13. 3b–5)
Apollinaris’ contrast between Latina and peregrina uerba explains
why Fronto hesitates to use the term nanus without knowing its
origin: he risks making an error of barbarolexis. In his answer,
Apollinaris not only quotes a reference showing the Greek origin
of nanus, but also acknowledges in his friend the right that Pom-
ponius Porcellus had denied to the emperor Tiberius, i.e. that of
conferring Roman or at least Latin citizenship upon every word he
uses. Anyway, nanus is considered a much less vulgar word than
those introduced into the Latin language by Laberius.
Fuisset autem uerbum hoc a te ciuitate donatum aut in Latinam coloniam
deductum, si tu eo uti dignatus fores, essetque id inpendio probabilius,
quam quae a Laberio ignobilia nimis et sordentia in usum linguae Latinae
intromissa sunt.
The theoretical assumption underlying the praise of Fronto by
Apollinaris is that correct linguistic usage must be evaluated
through the criterion of auctoritas, i.e. the warrant of the presti-
gious authors of Latin literature. In comparison with the deWnition
of Latinitas given by Varro (fr. 115 Goetz–Schöll ¼ 268, pp. 289–
90 Funaioli), where the four parameters of natura, analogia, con-
suetudo, auctoritas are mentioned, only the last one (the literary
tradition) is maintained in the Noctes Atticae, to the detriment of
linguistic system and common linguistic habits.25 According to
this theoretical pattern, in the concluding sections of Noctes Atti-
cae 19. 13, an anonymous grammarian is asked by Postumius
24
See D. Lippi, ‘Magalia’.
25
On the parameters of Latinitas in Varro and Quintilian, see V. Lomanto, ‘Il
sistema del sermo Latinus’ and Coleman, ‘Quintilian 1. 6’; on their reception by
Gellius, see F. Cavazza, ‘Gellio e i canoni (varroniani?)’ and A. Garcea, ‘Gellio e la
dialettica’, 189–94.
whether nanus, commonly26 applied to small mules and ponies, is

correct in Latin, and which authors have made use of it. In his
reply, the anonymous grammarian recalls some lines of Helvius
Cinna (fr. 9, p. 221 Blänsdorf ¼ p. 220 Courtney):
4. Tum Festus Postumius grammatico cuipiam Latino, Frontonis fami-
liari ‘docuit’ inquit ‘nos Apollinaris ‘‘nanos’’ uerbum Graecum esse, tu
nos doce, in quo de mulis aut eculeis humilioribus uulgo dicitur, anne
Latinum sit et aput quem scriptum reperiatur.’ 5. Atque ille grammaticus,
homo sane perquam in noscendis ueteribus scriptis exercitus, ‘si piacu-
lum’ inquit ‘non committitur praesente Apollinare, quid de uoce ulla
Graeca Latinaue sentiam, dicere, audeo tibi, Feste, quaerenti respondere
esse hoc uerbum Latinum scriptumque inueniri in poematis Helui Cin-
nae, non ignobilis neque indocti poetae’, uersusque eius ipsos dixit, quos,
quoniam memoriae mihi forte aderant, adscripsi:
at nunc me Genumana per salicta
bigis raeda rapit citata nanis.27
The example of the poeta nouus Cinna bestows on nanus the status
of a term perfectly integrated in the Latin lexicon, as is the case
with raeda, a word occurring in the same line and considered by
Quintilian (Inst. 1. 5. 57) as Gaulish (see above, §2). Fronto,
however, had doubted the propriety of using nanus not so much
for animals as for people. Gellius seems intentionally to forget
some occurrences of this term:
(1) Propertius 4. 8. 41 nanus (Paris. lat. 8233mg : Magnus ø) et
ipse suos breuiter concretus in artus, but this author is never
quoted in the Noctes Atticae;
(2) Juvenal 8. 32 nanum cuiusdam Atlanta uocamus, but this
author is never quoted in the Noctes Atticae;
26
Vulgo: see Müller, Sprachbewußtsein, 133: ‘Daß Gellius mit vulgus und vulgo
die Ausdrucksebenen der untadeligen consuetudo sermonis meinen kann, zeigen
mehrere Rechtfertigungen von Wortwendungen . . . ’.
27
These lines probably belong to a poem in Phalaecian hendecasyllables written
during a journey and perhaps to a verse letter (see K. Deichgräber, ‘Überlegungen’,
67; E. Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets, 220). The syntagm Genumana per
salicta, which has been interpreted by some scholars as an allusion to the Cisalpine
origin of Cinna (see A. Traglia, Poetae noui, 142; T. P. Wiseman, Cinna the Poet,
46–7; L. C. Watson, ‘Cinna and Euphorion’, 100; Courtney, op. cit. 220–1; contra
G. V. Sumner, review of Wiseman, op. cit., 394; G. E. Manzoni, ‘Elvio Cinna’,
18–19), recalls both the salicta of Enn. Ann. 39–40 Vahlen2 ¼ 38–9 Skutsch and
Euphorion’s use of personal and place-names. The Gaulish paroxytone pronuntia-
tion of Cenomăńi is adapted into Latin Cenomāńi or Cenómăni: the prosody Gĕnŭ-
mānă may be deemed a licence on Cinna’s part (see A. Grilli, ‘Sul nome’).
(3) Suetonius Tib. 61. 6 a quodam nano astante mensae inter

copreas, but this author is quoted only twice in Noctes Atti-
cae (9. 7. 3, 15. 4. 4);
(4) Laberius: Gellius (16. 7. 10) himself testiWes that Laberius,
2
in his mime Anna Peranna (fr. 3 Ribbeck3 ¼ 12 Bonaria ),
was the Wrst to use nanus for pumilio.
This strange forgetfulness is consistent with other pieces of evi-
dence spread in ch. 19. 13: Wrst, Fronto doubts the Latinitas of the
word nanus when it is applied to human dwarfs (§2); secondly,
Apollinaris considers this term as deriving from the variety of
sermo uulgaris and, at the same time, qualiWes many terms that
Laberius introduced in Latin as ignobilia nimis et sordentia (§3);
thirdly, an anonymous grammarian quotes some lines by Cinna
(§5), where nani is referred to animals, rather than Laberius, who
uses nani to refer to human beings. The argumentative structure of
Noctes 19. 13 tries to hide the discrepancy between Gellius and
Fronto in evaluating Laberius: Fronto introduces the mimogra-
pher in the canon of the ueteres who are most expert in dilectus
uerborum; Gellius, while not overturning his master’s judgement,
nevertheless corrects it.
4. laberius ’ lexicon
Gellius acknowledges Laberius’ narrative and descriptive skills. In
10. 17. 2, after reporting that Democritus deliberately blinded
himself to be able to concentrate better on his meditations, Gellius
praises Laberius’ retelling of this episode (72–9 R. ¼ 90–7 B.) for
its reWned construction and its detailed descriptiveness:
Id factum eius [sc. Democriti] modumque ipsum, quo caecitatem facile
sollertia subtilissima consciuit, Laberius poeta in mimo, quem scripsit
Restionem, uersibus quidem satis munde atque graphice factis descripsit.
In general our mimographer’s language is considered to be au-
thoritative on the morphological and syntactical level. In 6. 9
Gellius discusses the vocalism of the reduplicative perfect and
notes that the reduplicative syllable sometimes features the timbre
/ĕ/ as in Greek, e.g. tetuli, while at others the timbre of the root
vowel, e.g. cucurri. Even in this latter type, however, the correct-
ness of non-assimilated forms is vouched for by both archaic and
late Republican authors. Among these, Gellius includes Laberius:
in §§3–4 he quotes two fragments, one from Galli (49–50 R. ¼ 63–4
B.) de integro patrimonio meo centum milia j nummum memordi, and
the other from Colorator (27–8 R. ¼ 40–1 B.) itaque leni pruna
percoctus simul sub dentes mulieris j ueni, bis, ter memordit.28 In 1. 7.
12 a line from Gemelli (51 R. ¼ 65 B.) non putaui hoc eam facturum
is inserted among quotations from Plautus, Gaius Gracchus,
Claudius Quadrigarius, and Valerius Antias to justify the invari-
able form of future inWnitive in Cicero, Verr. 2. 5. 167: hanc sibi rem
praesidio sperant futurum.29 When relating a discussion with Sul-
picius Apollinaris on the alternative forms of the genitive of per-
sonal pronouns in 20. 6, Gellius quotes a line from Necyomantia
(62 R. ¼ 81 B.) dum diutius detinetur, nostri oblitus est to show the
correctness of the type nostri uestri as opposed to the type nostrum
uestrum.30
Gellius also approves of a number of Laberius’ word-choices.31
In 16. 9. 4 the line from Compitalia (29 R. ¼ 43 B.) nunc tu lentu’s,
nunc tu susque deque fers shows that the Latin syntagm susque deque
ferre is equivalent to the Greek IØÆ
æE .32 In 3. 18 Gellius ques-
tions the meaning of the formula pedarii senatores by contrasting the
interpretation given by Gavius Bassus (fr. 7, p. 490 Funaioli)33 with
that given by Varro (Men. 220 Astbury).34 In §9, he quotes a line
28
This fragment from Galli is also quoted by Nonius (205 L. ¼ 124. 24–5 M.).
On the reduplicative perfect, see LHSz i. 586–7; for a more detailed discussion, see
F. Bader, ‘Vocalisme et redoublement’, 167–75.
29
On the invariable future inWnitive, see LHSz i. 618–19, ii. 342–3. For a more
detailed discussion, see V. Bulhart, ‘InWnitiv auf -urum’; M. Leumann, ‘InWnitiv auf
-turum esse’.
30
On the genitive of personal pronouns, see LHSz i. 464–5.
31
In our discussion of the words used by Laberius, we shall point out only the
parallel passages drawn from literary texts predating Gellius.
32
On this syntagm, see LHSz ii. 263; see also A. Otto, Sprichwörter, n. 1723. The
nexus susque deque also occurs in Plautus, Amph. 886 atque id me susque deque esse
habituram putat; Lucilius 110–11 Marx ¼ 3 fr. 8 Charpin uerum haec ludus ibi, susque
omnia deque fuerunt, j susque et deque fuere, inquam, omnia ludus iocusque; Varro, Log.
fr. 65 Bolisani quod si non horum omnium similia essent principia ac postprincipia,
susque deque esset; Cicero, Att. 14. 6. 1 de Octauio susque deque. PF 371. 4 glosses
susque deque as plus minusue.
33
Gell. 3. 18. 4 Senatores [ . . . ] dicit [sc. Gauius Bassus] in ueterum aetate, qui
curulem magistratum gessissent, curru solitos honoris gratia in curiam uehi, in quo curru
sella esset, super quam considerent, quae ob eam causam ‘curulis’ appellaretur; sed eos
senatores, qui magistratum curulem nondum ceperant, pedibus itauisse in curiam; pro-
pterea senatores nondum maioribus honoribus ‘pedarios’ nominatos.
34
Ibid. §§5–6 M. autem Varro in satira Menippea, quae l
Œø inscripta est,
equites quosdam dicit pedarios appellatos uideturque eos signiWcare, qui nondum a
censoribus in senatum lecti senatores quidem non erant, sed, quia honoribus populi usi
erant, in senatum ueniebant et sententiae ius habebant. Nam et curulibus magistratibus
functi, si nondum a censoribus in senatum lecti erant, senatores non erant et, quia in
postremis scripti erant, non rogabantur sententias, sed, quas principes dixerant, in eas
discedebant.
from Stricturae (88 R. ¼ 109 B.) to conWrm that pedarius is to be

preferred to the barbarism pedaneus.35 In 17. 2. 21 Gellius points
out that arrabo, meaning pignus, though used by Claudius Quad-
rigarius (fr. 20, p. 215 Peter2 ), thereafter in sordidis uerbis haberi
coeptus est ac multo uidetur sordidius arra, quamquam arra quoque
ueteres saepe dixerint et compluriens Laberius (152 R. ¼ 125 B.).36
When discussing the words signiWcatione aduersa et reciproca in 9.
12, Gellius includes among the examples provided in §11 the line
from Sorores (86 R. ¼ 104 B.) ecastor mustum somniculosum, where
he assigns to the adjective somniculosum the causative meaning of
‘sleep-inducing’. Such a meaning is also attested in one of Cinna’s
fragments (10, p. 221 Blänsdorf, Courtney) somniculosam ut Poenus
aspidem Psyllus.37
However, Gellius does not always seem to consider Laberius’
selection of suYxes as grammatically correct or semantically clear.
In 3. 12 he disagrees with Nigidius’ proposal (fr. 26, p. 170
Funaioli) to describe the person who is bibendi auidus non only as
bibax, but also bibosus following the model of uinosus. The adjective
bibosus is attested only in Salinator, from which Gellius quotes the
line (80 R. ¼ 99 B.) non mammosa, non annosa, non bibosa, non
procax. Although in this context Laberius’ use of the suYx -ōsus
35
On the competition between the two suYxes -ārius and -āneus, see W. A.
Baehrens, Appendix Probi, who discusses the following pairs: extraneus/extrarius,
praecidaneus/praecidarius, praesentaneus/praesentarius, proletaneus/proletarius, ripa-
neus/riparius, subitaneus/subitarius, temporaneus/temporarius. In his gloss on pedarius
Festus 232. 6–10 reports the mocking comment by Lucilius (1102 Marx ¼ H fr. 103
Charpin): pedarium senatorem*signiWcat Lucilius*‘agi pes uocem mittere coepit’; qui ita
appellatur, quia tacitus transeundo ad eum, cuius sententiam probat, quid sentiat,
indicat. Pedaneus also occurs in Cic. Att. 1. 19. 9, 1. 20. 4 and Tac. Ann. 3. 65. 2.
On the technical meaning of pedaneus, see A. O’Brien Moore, Senatus, 680–1.
36
Although Gellius claims that the ueteres usually employed arra, i.e. the apoco-
pated form of the Graecism arrabo (cf. Varro, LL 7. 175 hoc uerbum item a Graeco
IææÆ ), in fact arra became widespread in the language of jurists and of the Church
only after Pliny (NH 29. 21, 33. 28). A. Ernout and A. Meillet (Dictionnaire, s.v.
arra) put down the apocope of arrabo to the frequency of this Graecism—perhaps
mediated by Etruscan—in the language of trade, and especially of procurers: arra
would then be an example of a vulgarism turning into a technical term. On the two
forms, see LHSz i. 382 and E. P. Hamp, ‘arr(h)a’.
37
Laberius’ line is also quoted by Nonius (254 L. ¼ 172. 26–7 M.). Cinna’s line is
also quoted by Gellius at the end of his analysis (9. 12. 7–12) of the twofold meaning,
both active and passive, of adjectives ending in -ōsus. In addition to the two lines by
Laberius and Cinna, somniculosus also occurs in Fronto, Ep. M. Caes. 4. 12. 4, p. 66.
13–14 v:d:H:2 : hoc unum ex Annalibus sumptum amoris mei argumentum poeticum et
sane somniculosum: see van den Hout, Commentary, 182. somniculosus is attested
much more often with the meaning of ‘sleepy, drowsy’: e.g. Cic. Sen. 36; Sen.
Nat. 5. 11. 1; Mart. 3. 58. 36; Suet. Claud. 39. 1.
is motivated by the pursuit of assonance and isosyllabism, Gellius

rightly observes that this suYx is to be joined to nominal stems
only.38 In 11. 15 Gellius’ consideration of the meaning of the suYx
-bundus starts from amorabunda, which occurs in Laberius’ Lacus
Auernus (57 R. ¼ 69 B.) and is called by Gellius uerbum inusitatius
Wctum. In his opinion, the interpretation of amorabunda is doubt-
ful, because according to Caesellius Vindex (pp. 232–6 Vitale)
words ending in -bundus are the same as present participles,
according to Terentius Scaurus (fr. 9, p. 3 Kummrow) they ex-
press simulation, according to Sulpicius Apollinaris they have an
intensifying force.39
Gellius’ reservations, hinted at in 3. 12 and 11. 15, are developed
at length in 16. 7. Here he reproaches Laberius for his excessive
boldness in coining neologisms and questions the correctness of
many of his word-choices; as the capitulum has it:40
Quod Laberius uerba pleraque licentius petulantiusque Wnxit; et quod
multis item uerbis utitur, de quibus, an sint Latina, quaeri solet.
On the basis of purist criteria and apart from any aesthetic evalu-
ations, Gellius identiWes two categories of words which he Wnds
equally blameworthy, namely neologisms and vulgarisms, i.e.
terms that are excluded from the literary tradition although they
are current in living Latin.41
In §§1–3 examples are given of neologisms coined praelicenter,
and for some of them the customary equivalent is also provided:
38
To the suYx -ōsus Gellius also devotes ch. 4. 9, where he contests Nigidius’
hypothesis (fr. 4, p. 162 Funaioli) that this suYx has a pejorative meaning, and from
adjectives, such as formosus, ingeniosus, oYciosus, he infers that -ōsus indicates the
abundance of a not necessarily negative quality or tendency. On this point, see
LHSz i. 341–2, and A. Ernout, Les Adjectifs; also F. Cavazza, below, Ch. 3, §3.5.
39
On the Gellian passage, see L. Dalmasso, ‘Aulo Gellio’, 204; M. Carilli,
‘ArtiWciosità’, 22 n. 15; Cavazza, below, Ch. 3, §3.13. On this formation, see
LHSz i. 332, and for a close analysis P. Langlois, ‘Les formations en -bundus’,
and E. Pianezzola, Gli aggettivi verbali in -bundus.
40
On this chapter, see Dalmasso, ‘Aulo Gellio’, 208–14, 480–4, with abundant
references to glossaries. On the composite character of Laberius’ lexicon, see Carilli,
‘ArtiWciosità’, 24–6, 32–3.
41
Gellius makes a partially identical distinction in 11. 7. 1, where he Wrst makes a
general condemnation (par . . . delictum) of both neologisms and trite terms, but
then, as if to rectify his strong censure (sed), distinguishes between the two categor-
ies, judging neologisms—by which he means both new coinages and terms which
have long been dismissed (cf. §3)—as more disagreeable and reprehensible (mole-
stius . . . culpatiusque): Verbis uti aut nimis obsoletis exculcatisque aut insolentibus
nouitatisque durae et inlepidae par esse delictum uidetur. Sed molestius equidem culpa-
tiusque esse arbitror uerba noua, incognita, inaudita dicere quam inuolgata et sordentia.
1. Laberius in mimis, quos scriptitauit, oppido quam uerba Wnxit praeli-
center. 2. Nam et ‘mendicimonium’ dicit et ‘moechimonium’ et ‘adulte-
rionem’ ‘adulteritatem’que pro ‘adulterio’ et ‘depudicauit’ pro ‘stuprauit’
et ‘abluuium’ pro ‘diluuio’ et, quod in mimo ponit, quem Cophinum
inscripsit, ‘manuatus est’ pro ‘furatus est’. 3. Et item in Fullone furem
‘manuarium’ appellat:
‘manuari’ inquit ‘pudorem perdidisti’,
multaque alia huiuscemodi nouat.
In the hapax legomena mendicimonium (150 R. ¼ 137 B.) and
moechimonium (150 R. ¼ 138 B.) the suYx -mōnium, which is
used to derive abstract nouns from nomina personalia designating
social or juridical condition, e.g. matrimonium, testimonium, is
joined to the native word mendicus and to the Graecism moechus
to deWne the condition of the beggar and the adulterer respect-
ively.42 Likewise, adulterio and adulteritas are both derived from
adulter, by means of the unprecedented attachment of two very
productive inXections, -iōn- (150 R. ¼ 122 B.) and -tāt- (150 R. ¼
123 B.) respectively, to the stem.43 In depudicare (150 R. ¼ 128 B.),
a verb derived from pudicus, the preWx de- retains the concrete
privative meaning shown in the likely models or parallels for
depudicare, Plautus’ deartuare (Capt. 641, 672) and Varro’s deuir-
ginare (Men. 409 Astbury).44Abluuium (150 R. ¼ 120 B.) is attested
only in the technical jargon of land-surveyors with the meaning of
‘Xood’ and features a mismatched preWx. Fronto had warned
against the selection of inappropriate preWxes, especially as far as
the compounds of luere and verbs derived from the same root are
concerned (Ad M. Caes. 4. 3. 4, p. 58. 5–13 v:d:H:2 ). With his
reWned linguistic sensitivity, Fronto considers colluere to be Wtting
to mean the act of rinsing one’s mouth, pelluere that of washing the
Xoor, lauere that of wetting one’s cheeks with tears, lauare that of
washing clothes, abluere that of wiping oV dust or one’s sweat,
eluere and elauere that of washing away a stain whether slight or
very stubborn, diluere that of diluting honeyed wine, proluere that
of gargling, subluere that of scraping the hooves of a beast of
burden.45 While manuari (39 R. ¼ 53 B.) occurs uniquely in
42
The two words are also quoted by Non. 205 L. ¼ 140. 32–3 M. On the suYx
-mōnium, see LHSz i. 297. On the possible parody of juridical language, see Carilli,
‘ArtiWciosità’, 27.
43
Adulterio is also quoted by Non. 97 L. ¼ 70. 3 M. On the two suYxes, see
LHSz i. 365–6, 272–4.
44
On the preWx de-, see LHSz ii. 263–4.
45
Nolim igitur te ignorare syllabae unius discrimen quantum referat. Os ‘colluere’
dicam, pauimentum autem in balneis ‘pelluere’, non ‘colluere’; lacrimis uero genas
Laberius’ corpus,46 manuarius (46 R. ¼ 60 B.) occurs elsewhere

but it is employed as a synonym of fur only by Laberius. As an
adjective, it is deWned in the DiVerentiae of Pseudo-Suetonius
(p. 311. 30 ReiVerscheid) quod manu tangitur aut sustinetur, and
occurs in legal language and in Suetonius’ De poetis (p. 20. 1–3
Rostagni), where it refers to the millstones that Plautus was com-
pelled to turn.47 It is not clear how this deWnition can be related to
the use made of manuarius in NA 18. 13. 4. In this chapter Gellius
tells that he has celebrated Saturnalia in Athens with some friends
and that they whiled away the time telling each other riddles. The
right solution to each riddle earned the prize of a sesterce; other-
wise, the penalty of a sesterce had to be paid: hoc aere conlecto quasi
manuario cenula curabatur omnibus, qui eum lusum luseramus.48
Much more numerous are the words in Laberius’ lexicon of
which Gellius disapproves as alien to literary language, a sort of
blemish or a jarring note in a stylistically lofty register. The survey
of such words opens in §4 with catomum (87 R. ¼ 107–8 B.), a term
resulting from the fusion of ŒÆ t
and indicating someone who
is heaved onto somebody else’s shoulders to be Xogged:
Neque non obsoleta quoque et maculantia ex sordidiore uulgi usu ponit,
quale est in Staminariis:
tollet bona Wde uos Orcus nudas in catomum.
Undoubtedly the syntagm in catomum had a certain vulgar
Xavour.49 This syntagm also occurs in Fam. 7. 25. 1, where Cicero
‘lauere’ dicam, non ‘pelluere’ neque ‘colluere’; uestimenta autem ‘lauare’, non ‘lauere’;
sudorem porro et puluerem ‘abluere’, non ‘lauare’; sed maculam elegantius ‘eluere’ quam
‘abluere’. si quid uero magis haeserit nec sine aliquo detrimento exigi possit, Plautino
uerbo ‘elauere’ dicam. tum praeterea mulsum ‘diluere’, fauces ‘proluere’, ungulam
iumento ‘subluere’. On this passage, see van den Hout, Commentary, 157–8.
46
This neologism is also quoted by Non. 205 L. ¼ 141. 1–2 M. On manuari and
manuarius, see Carilli, ‘ArtiWciosità, 27–8.
47
Plautus . . . propter annonae diYcultatem ad molas manuarias pistori se
locauerat. On the alternative suYxes -ālis (-āris) and -ārius, see LHSz i. 351; see
also Pliny (fr. 17, p. 249 Mazzarino ¼ Dub. serm. fr. 44 Della Casa): aqualium an
potius aquarium dici debeat quaerit Plinius Secundus et putat, ut laterale laterarium,
scutale scutarium, et manuale saxum, manuarium uas, proin aqualis aquarium dici.
48
Translators and dictionaries assign to the adjective as it occurs in this passage
the meaning of ‘won in a game of dice, at gambling’, which they infer from the
context in which Gellius compares exchanging riddles to playing dice, a kind of
entertainment typical of Saturnalia. But quasi suggests that by means of this com-
parison Gellius intends to associate the money collected through an erudite pastime
with that won by lucky gamesters.
49
For the numerous emendations proposed to Laberius’ text, see the apparatus
in Bonaria’s edn.
expresses his fear that Caesar, once returned from his victory at
Munda, would avenge himself on those who had shown sympathy
to Cato, now dead by suicide in Utica, just as a schoolmaster would
cane his undisciplined pupils: magister adest citius quam putaramus:
uereor ne in catomum Catonianos.50 Also the derivative verb cato-
midiare occurs in an informal context in Petronius, 132. 2, where it
means the punishment inXicted on Encolpius by a lady from
Croton: matrona . . . me iubet catomidiari.
The list of words of which Gellius disapproves goes on cadenced
by the anaphora of item in §§5–9, where isolated forms are found
together with quotations of entire lines:
5. Et ‘elutriare lintea’ et ‘lauandaria’ dicit, quae ad lauandum sint data, et
‘coicior’ inquit ‘in fullonicam’,
et
quid properas? ecquid praecurris Calidoniam?
6. Item in Restione ‘talabarriunculos’ dicit, quos uulgus talabarriones;
7. item in Compitalibus:
malas malaxaui;
8. item in Cacomnemone:
‘hic est’ inquit
‘ille gurdus, quem ego me abhinc menses duos ex Africa
uenientem excepisse tibi narraui.’
9. Item in mimo, qui inscribitur Natalicius, ‘cippum’ dicit et ‘obbam’ et
‘camellam’ et ‘pittacium’ et ‘capitium’:
‘induis’ inquit ‘capitium tunicae pittacium’.
The reasons for Gellius’ censure are not always clear. It can be
pointed out that many of the words he lists are either hapax
legomena or terms attested, in the age before Marcus Aurelius,
only in texts with technical content. Elutriare, which in Laberius
occurs with lintea as its object (150 R. ¼ 130 B.), is used by
Pliny with the same meaning of ‘to wash, to rinse’ in NH 9. 133,
where elutriare is said of the wool to be dyed purple. In NH 14.
114, elutriare refers to the ingredients of the oxymeli, a mixture
consisting mainly of honey and vinegar, and means perhaps ‘to
Wlter, to purify’. Lauandaria (150 R. ¼ 133 B.), in which the
gerundive suYx is joined to the suYx -ārius, is not attested
elsewhere as a neuter plural noun. The other occurrences of
50
A scrupulous exegesis of both Cicero and Laberius is provided by R. Y. Tyrrell
and L. C. Purser, v. 192, on Epist. 668 ¼ Fam. 7. 25.
fullonica (147 R. ¼ 127 B.) as a feminine noun are found only in

technical texts.51 One wonders how vulgarism may apply to Cali-
doniam, the emendation generally accepted for the caldonia read by
the extant manuscripts (148 R. ¼ 176 B.). It may be that Laberius
alludes to the mythical Atalanta, excellent huntress and unequalled
runner, who took part in the hunting of the Calydonian boar.52
Laberius used the vulgar word talabarrio even more sordidly in
the diminutive talabarriunculus (79 R. ¼ 98 B.); neither occurs
elsewhere and their meaning is obscure.53 In the alliterating syn-
tagm malas malaxaui (37 R. ¼ 42 B.), Laberius uses the Graecism
malaxare with a tranferred meaning. The verb malaxare, whose
origin is explained in Varro, LL 6. 96 (ab eo quod illi ÆºÆØ nos
malaxare),54 also occurs in Seneca, Ep. 66. 53 an potius optem ut
malaxandos articulos exsoletis meis porrigam? The vulgar character
and foreign origin of gurdus (13 R. ¼ 26 B.) are attested by Quin-
tilian, Inst. 1. 5. 57, where this term is included among examples
of uerba peregrina: ‘gurdos’, quos pro stolidis accipit uulgus, ex
Hispania duxisse originem audiui.55
Cippus (60 R. ¼ 76 B.) appears to be a technical term rather than
a vulgarism. It occurs in Varro, LL 5. 143, with the meaning of
‘boundary stone’ (cippi pomeri stant et circum Ariciam et circum
Romam), and poets use it with the meaning of ‘tombstone’. The
word is found in Lucilius (1255–6 Marx ¼ H fr. 105 Charpin) to
exemplify a sacrilegious robbery: homines nequam, malus ut quar-
tarius, cippos j collegere omnes; in Horace, Serm. 1. 8. 12–13, it
refers to communal graves: mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in
agrum j hic dabat; in Persius 1. 37 it is used with regard to a poet’s
lasting fame: non leuior cippus nunc inprimit ossa? From the latter
meaning, according to Caesar, BG 7. 73. 5, the soldiers’ habit
51
On fullonica, see LHSz i. 338.
52
Rolfe retains caldonia, which he relates to cal(i)dus and interprets as a vocative
addressed to either an attendant at the public baths or a ‘quick, hasty’ woman. Julien
accepts the emendation Calidoniam and suggests the translation ‘la chauVeuse’. Our
ignorance of the plot prevents our understanding the word.
53
J. Knobloch (‘Talabarriunculus’) recognizes in this neologism the juxtapos-
ition of two elements that he relates to barrire and to the Wrst element of the
onomatopoeic taratantara (Enn. Ann. 140 Vahlen2 ¼ 451 Skutsch), dissimilated
as tala. He speculates that the term could be assigned the meaning of ‘kleiner
Schreihals’.
54
The Latin verb is modelled on the Greek sigmatic aorist: see LHSz i. 552.
55
On Quintilian’s testimony, which has long been debated by both literary and
linguistic scholars, see e.g. F. Schöll, ‘Wortforschung’, 313–17, and J. Cousin,
‘Problèmes’, 63–4: both scholars acknowledge the vulgar connotation of gurdus,
but while the former allows its Spanish origin, the latter doubts it.
derives of calling cippi the network of branches emerging from the

trunks hammered into the ground to defend the camp.56 The elder
Seneca uses cippus with a more generic meaning in Contr. 7. 4. 7 to
designate the stand on which Calvus climbs during trials to make
his threats more telling: inponi se supra cippum iussit—erat enim
paruolus statura. Obba (60 R. ¼ 78 B.) too seems to be a technical
term. It is glossed poculi genus by Nonius (213, 874 L. ¼ 146. 8,
545. 1 M.) and used by Varro, Men. 114 Astbury: dolia atque
apothecas triclinaris {Melicas{ Calenas obbas et Cumanos calices,57
by Pers. 5. 147–8: Veiientanumque rubellum j exhalet uapida laesum
pice sessilis obba?, and by Tert. Apol. 13. 7: quo diVert ab epulo Iouis
silicernium, a simpulo obba, ab haruspice pollinctor? While obba
designates a vessel of above-average quality,58camella (60 R. ¼ 75
B.) indicates a rather rough vessel. It is attested in the literary
language both in Ovid, Fast. 4. 779–80 (tum licet adposita, ueluti
cratere, camella j lac niueum potes) and in several occurrences in
Petronius.59
The phrase capitium tunicae pittacium is of doubtful interpret-
ation (61 R. ¼ 77 B.) because the meaning of capitium is multifari-
ous and that of pittacium is very generic. In Varro, LL 5. 131,
capitium seems to designate a sort of brassiere: capitium ab eo quod
capit pectus, and this meaning is conWrmed by two fragments of the
De uita populi Romani (47–8 Riposati) where a number of women’s
garments are listed. The lexicographers, however, assign capitium
a diVerent meaning. Festus 230. 12–13 reports that Stilo (fr. 3,
p. 58 Funaioli) glossed pescia of the Carmen Saliare (fr. 5, p. 6
Blänsdorf) with the phrase capitia ex pellibus agninis facta. Nonius,
56
Truncis arborum aut admodum Wrmis ramis abscisis atque horum delibratis ac
praeacutis cacuminibus perpetuae fossae quinos pedes altae ducebantur. Huc illi stipites
demissi et ab inWmo reuincti, ne reuelli possent, ab ramis eminebant. Quini erant ordines
coniuncti inter se atque implicati: quo qui intrauerant se ipsi acutissimis uallis induebant.
Hos cippos appellabant.
57
In the second passage dedicated to the lexeme obba (874 L. ¼ 545. 1–6 M.),
Nonius quotes a fragment from the Menippeae as well as an extract from the Epistula
ad Marullum: utrum meridie an uesperi libentius ad obbas accedas, locus ac tempus
aduentus declarabit.
58
The name probably derives from the name of the African city of Obba,
mentioned in Livy 30. 7. 10, from where this artefact had spread.
59
Cf. Petronius, 64. 13: Trimalchio camellam grandem iussit misceri potionesque
diuidi omnibus seruis; 135. 3–4: Oenothea . . . camellam etiam uetustate ruptam pice
temperata refecit. tum clauum, qui detrahentem secutus cum camella lignea fuerat,
fumoso parieti reddidit; 137. 10: infra manus meas camellam uini posuit. According
to Ernout–Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. (cf. W. Heraeus, ‘Die Sprache des Petronius’,
80, with abundant evidence) the derivation of camella from the Graecism camera
(ŒÆæÆ) is rendered uncertain by the /ē/ of the Greek form ŒºÆ.
in turn, paraphrases capitia with capitum tegmina (870 L. ¼ 542. 23

M.).60 In Celsus 3. 10 the Graecism pittacium, which designates a
remnant of leather or of cloth, means a compress soaked in an
emulsion of vinegar and rose-water to be kept on the forehead as
a remedy for migraine. In Petronius 34. 6 pittacium designates a
label: statim allatae sunt amphorae uitreae diligenter gypsatae,
quarum in ceruicibus pittacia erant aYxa; and in 56. 7 a lottery
ticket: pittacia in scypho circumferri coeperunt.61
In §§10–12 Gellius lists a series of words drawn from three
mimes:
10. Praeterea in Anna Peranna ‘gubernium’ pro ‘gubernatore’ et ‘planum’
pro ‘sycophanta’ et ‘nanum’ pro ‘pumilione’ dicit; quamquam ‘planum’
pro ‘sycophanta’ M. quoque Cicero in oratione scriptum reliquit, quam
Pro Cluentio dixit. 11. Atque item in mimo, qui Saturnalia inscriptus est,
‘botulum’ pro ‘farcimine’ appellat et ‘hominem leuennam’ pro ‘leui’.
12. Item in Necyomantia ‘cocionem’ peruulgate dicit, quem ueteres ‘aril-
latorem’ dixerunt. uerba Laberi haec sunt:
duas uxores? hercle hoc plus negoti est, inquit cocio;
sex aediles uiderat.
The Graecism gubernius (3 R. ¼ 11 B.) is attested only in late Latin,
in particular Christian Latin, although it may have been common
in nautical parlance in pre-classical times.62 By contrast a few
occurrences of planus (3 R. ¼ 13 B.) are recorded in literary texts.
Gellius himself mentions Cicero, who, in Cluent. 72, calls Staie-
nus, one of his client’s antagonists, a planus improbissimus ‘most
wicked impostor’. The word occurs in Hor. Ep. 1. 17. 58–9, with
the meaning of ‘impostor’: nec semel inrisus triuiis attollere curat j
fracto crure planum. In Petronius 140. 15, planus refers to people
who live by their wits and exploit the gullibility and greed of the
mob: unde plani autem, unde leuatores uiuerent, nisi aut locellos aut
sonantes aere sacellos pro hamis in turbam mitterent? (cf. 82. 2). In
Plin. NH 35. 89, planus refers to a court jester: Apelles was invited
to a banquet by one of Ptolemy’s jesters, who was urged to do so by
the painter’s rivals, aware of the king’s dislike for him; at Ptolemy’s
request, Apelles then portrayed the jester who had invited him:
arrepto carbone extincto e foculo imaginem in pariete delineauit,
60
In Republican Latin, capitium designated a jacket or shawl that adhered to the
tunic so as to become an appendix to the tunic itself. Eventually, in late and
especially in ecclesiastical Latin, it came to mean the neck-opening of the tunic or
a hood: on the change in meaning, see Dalmasso, ‘Aulo Gellio’, 211–12.
61
See A. D’Ors, ‘ØŒØ
’.
62
See G. Gundermann, ‘Gubernius, gubernus’.
adgnoscente uoltum plani rege inchoatum protinus. Botulus (801 R. ¼

100 B.) occurs in texts that draw abundantly on slang. In PF 32. 8
the botulus is deWned as a genus farciminis, namely a kind of sausage;
like many words relating to cookery, it may be of Oscan origin.
Tomacula and botuli make up the stuYng of the pig laid, among
countless other courses, on Trimalchio’s table. Since the cook
pretends that he has forgotten to disembowel the pig, Trimalchio
orders him to do so in front of the guests, and suddenly (49. 10) ex
plagis ponderis inclinatione crescentibus tomacula cum botulis eVusa
sunt. A botulus is the subject of Martial’s epigram 14. 72, with
which the poet oVers a friend the sausage that he in his turn had
received as a present: qui uenit botulus mediae tibi tempore brumae, j
Saturni septem uenerat ante dies. Leuenna (801 R. ¼ 101 B.), whose
suYx is apparently of Etruscan origin, is not attested elsewhere.63
Cocio (63 R. ¼ 79 B.) occurs elsewhere only in Petronius (14. 7, 15.
4 and 8), that is in the episode where Encolpius and Ascyltos
manage to recover the stolen tunic in which they had hidden
their money by exchanging an elegant cloak for it.64 Paul glosses
Cocio as a synonym of arillator (19. 1) and suggests a meaningful
paraetymology (44. 15–16): coctiones dicti uidentur a cunctatione,
quod in emendis uendendisque mercibus tarde perueniant ad iusti pretii
Wnem.
The digest of Gellius’ censures ends in §§13–14 with the notice
about a Graecism, emplastrum, very widespread in the technical
jargon of medicine and agriculture. Gellius approves not so much
of its use as of the adherence to the original neuter gender:65
13. Sed enim in mimo, quem inscripsit Alexandream, eodem quidem, quo
uulgus, sed probe Latineque usus est Graeco uocabulo: emplastrum enim
dixit
PŁæø, non genere feminino, ut isti nouicii semidocti. 14. Verba
ex eo mimo adposui:
‘quid est ius iurandum? emplastrum aeris alieni’.
The use of emplastrum (1 R. ¼ 9 B.) as a feminine noun is not
attested in texts that either precede or are contemporary with
Gellius. Nor can the nouicii semidocti be identiWed who are held
responsible for the mistake. Perhaps they are the grammarians
of average education with whom Gellius often conducts a polemic.
However, in actual fact many Greek loanwords that came
into Latin through contacts among uneducated speakers show
63
See W. Schulze, Eigennamen, 283, and Carilli, ‘ArtiWciosità’, 32.
64
On this term, see LHSz i. 154, and the extensive treatment in Heraeus, ‘Die
Sprache des Petronius’, 56–7.
65
Cf. Cavazza, below, Ch. 3, §3.17.
alterations in both their gender and stem. For instance, Greek

neuters ending in -Æ with stem ending in a dental consonant
have been assimilated in Latin to feminine nouns in -ā- (e.g.
diadema, dogma, schema). Greek masculine and feminine conson-
ant-stems have been included among Latin nouns in -ā- (e.g.
cratera, crepida, lampada). Other such nouns are interpreted as
masculine nouns in -ŏ- (cf. abacus, delphinus, elephantus etc.).66
Gellius concludes the chapter so decidedly critical of Laberius
by pointing out his correctness as far as morphology is concerned,
consistently with his comments in other chapters. His disapproval
is limited to the lexicon, which, on the other hand, is the aspect of
the mimographer’s language that Fronto appreciates. In addition
to some terms that are not attested in texts predating the mid-
second century or are not attested elsewhere (mendicimonium, moe-
chimonium, adulterio, adulteritas, depudicare, manuari, manuarius
with the euphemistic meaning of ‘thief’, lauandaria meaning
‘laundry, washing’, talabarriunculus, gubernius, leuenna), Gellius
censures other words, whose vulgar character is evident either
from other sources (gurdus) or from the structure of the word itself
(catomum and perhaps malaxare). The vulgar connotation of a
number of terms apparently depends, above all, on the character
of their referent (garments: capitium; cooking utensils: obba,
camella; simple food: botulus; people living on the fringe of society:
planus, nanus, cocio), or on their use in the technical jargons of arts
and crafts (abluuium, elutriare, fullonica meaning ‘laundry’, cippus,
emplastrum), or on their generic meaning (pittacium). These words,
however, occur either in technical texts (of land-surveyors, med-
ical doctors, veterinary surgeons), or in literary, even poetic,
works, whose language deliberately draws on folk idioms (Luci-
lius, Varro the satirist, Horace’s Sermones and Epistulae, Persius,
Petronius, Martial).
5. conclusion
Among the vulgarisms mentioned in 16. 7 the most important term
in the light of 19. 13 is nanus, which in the former is only brieXy
criticized, while in the latter it is discussed in detail as to its origin
and use. Gellius’ perspective in the two chapters is not contradict-
ory: nanus is not a uerbum barbarum but a Graecism, it occurs in
Aristophanes and Cinna and therefore has the status of a literary
66
On this phenomenon, see LHSz i. 453–9.
word. These remarks, however, do not prevent Gellius from nega-

tively assessing the extension of the use of nanus from small
animals to people of short stature. Gellius and Fronto thus express
two divergent opinions of Laberius: the latter’s appraisal is unre-
servedly positive, the former is critical especially of Laberius’
lexical selections.67 This diVerence in opinion between disciple
and master not only shows that, at least on some occasions, Gellius
gives proof of his independence from Fronto, in spite of his great
admiration for his master. Most of all, such a discrepancy shows
that within a literary movement which is generally considered to be
homogeneous, one can record a variety of positions and that the
love for the ueteres does not necessarily imply an unconditional
approval.68 If 19. 13 reXects a real conversation between Fronto,
Postumius, and Sulpicius Apollinaris, 16. 7 represents a sort of
expansion of the reservations which Fronto had put forward with
regard to one or more of Laberius’ lexical choices. If, on the other
hand, the debate on nanus is Wctitious, the doubt attributed by
Gellius to Fronto could be seen as a trick on Gellius’ part to
make his master in some way share his own perplexity concerning
Laberius’ lexicon.
67
R. Marache, Critique litte´raire, 158, 232–3 attributes to Fronto and Gellius an
equal admiration for Laberius; by contrast, Müller, Sprachbewußtsein, 149 n. 40
hints at a diVerent evaluation by the two.
68
On a similar discrepancy between Gellius and Fronto with regard to Vergil,
see A. Garcea, ‘Gellio, il bilinguismo greco-latino’, 194–5. For a recent evaluation of
the archaist movement, see U. Schindel, ‘Archaismus als EpochenbegriV’.
Addendum. Although this chapter is the fruit of joint research, §§1–3 are
attributable to Alessandro Garcea, §§ 4–5 to Valeria Lomanto.
3
Gellius the Etymologist
Gellius’ Etymologies and Modern Etymology
Fr a nc o Ca v az za
1. introduction
1.1. Students of grammar and etymology have always known
that in antiquity these two disciplines fared unequally. Grammar,
which lent itself more both to theorizing and to direct analysis,
became so systematic that its study depends even now in part on
the ancients; etymology, not an independent science till the nine-
teenth century, was by its nature too technical, too dependent on a
scientiWc rigour unattainable in antiquity, to achieve successes and
stable results and to leave an inheritance for posterity. In conse-
quence, although the Stoics, unjustiWably conWdent in their
methods, proclaimed that there was no word whose etymology
could not be stated (Varro fr. 130 Goetz–Schöll ¼ 265. 125–7,
pp. 281–2 Funaioli), such etymologists as Plato and Varro have
bequeathed us only a few intuitions and guesses, not all without
merit. Quintilian’s substantial mistrust of etymology (Inst. 1. 6.
28–38) is expressed in words that betray the ancient linguists’
discomfort and uncertainty, despite the claim by many etymolo-
gists (whether or not they acknowledged the name) that etymology
discharged the special function of revealing the ueritas of a word
used for example in law or public institutions or religious ritual,
even at times of accounting for sociolinguistic phenomena.
1.2. That, in substance, is the spirit of Varronian etymology (the
most familiar to us), devised by the student of national IæÆØ
º
ªÆ
in order to investigate primitive Rome and her original institutions.
Clear and well known too is the connection of etymology with
philosophy, not only in the systematic structure of the etymological
Author and translator wish jointly to acknowledge fruitful discussions of this

chapter.
66 Franco Cavazza
chapters in De lingua Latina, but also in the search for the uerum of
things and the relation between the human mind and reality, for
which the etymological studies of Aristotle may serve as symbol.
2. gellius the etymologist and his sources

2.1. Gellius, heir to a similar intellectual tradition, could not
stand outside it; neither the knowledge nor the premisses for such
an advance were available, even had he been a titan of erudition. As
an etymologist we cannot expect him to do more than continue on
established lines with the methods, procedure, and to a lesser
extent ends already stated. Being the student and devotee of gram-
mar that he was, he is interested in etymology mainly as a means
towards correctness in the use of language. He had already seen
that it provided a key for the interpretation of linguistic facts:
correct spelling, correct expression, correct meaning all came
from the etymology of words. This is the essence of Gellius’
‘etymological thought’, even though, having been brought up on
previous researches, he did not always avoid philosophical schemes
of etymology related to the quest for the uerum, as when he puts
forward etyma, not his own, of soror and frater (13. 10).1
2.2. Gellius, despite some scholars’ opinion to the contrary, is an
independent thinker.2 And Gellius the etymologist is the same as
Gellius the historian, the jurist, the scientist (in the broad sense),
the archaeologist (in the Varronian sense), the philosopher, etc. He
depends on his sources, but has a mind of his own;3 he does not
merely weigh up other people’s ideas, he judges them, Wlters them,
and shows in his selection an individual personality: he aims at
aesthetic beauty, at linguistic correctness. He not only quotes his
sources but corrects them, as he not infrequently does in matters of
philology and literature. Sometimes he names them; at other times
we can identify them with a high degree of probability from his
mode of composition (since consecutive chapters may derive from
1
I cite Gellius by P. K. Marshall’s edn., but use my own text of books 1–13.
2
See F. Cavazza, ‘Gellio grammatico’, 259–60 ¼ 85–6 and passim, esp. 273–74 ¼
99–100.
3
Gellian source-criticism attracted most interest in the second half of the 19th c.;
I know of no more recent exhaustive or important works in the Weld. Amongst the
chief exponents (cited by Hosius in his edn.) are L. Mercklin, ‘Citiermethode’,
J. Kretzschmer, De Gellii fontibus, and L. L. Ruske, De A. Gellii fontibus (who was
concerned only with part of Gellius’ work), cited below as ‘M.’, ‘K.’, and ‘R.’
respectively.
Gellius the Etymologist 67
the same source), from other indirect evidence in his work, or by

legitimate conjecture. However, it is those etymologies that cannot
be assigned to his sources, and therefore may be considered his
own, with which I shall be concerned below.
2.3. Gellius has privileged and preferred sources for etymology;4
the most important are Favorinus (K. 104–6; R. 53–61), Sulpicius
Apollinaris (K. 106–8),5 P. Nigidius Figulus (K. 54–8), M. Verrius
Flaccus (K. 68–76; R. 38–40), M. Terentius Varro (K. 44–54; R.
21–33), and Valerius Probus (K. 82–92).6 These stand out clearly
for the abundance of references to their authority and conse-
quently give rise to the most problems relating to Gellius’ ety-
mologies. They plainly suYce, with their doctrina, to cover the
whole range of his interests, except perhaps for legal terms, and are
the main sources both of the etymologies and of the Noctes Atticae
as a whole.
2.4. In addition there are minor sources, mainly jurists but also
amateur etymologists (if the term is permissible for Antiquity),
including minimal sources cited in this context only once; amongst
these we may pick out Gellius’ teacher M. Cornelius Fronto
(K. 103), whose etymologies appear in seven passages, and his
friends and presumed oral sources Julius Celsinus and the poet
Julius Paulus.7
4
References to named authors, readily located in the respective editions, are
omitted on grounds of space; but I shall normally cite the passages in which
anonymous authors, less easily found, appear.
5
Cf. J. W. Beck, Sulpicius Apollinaris, 18–50.
6
Cf. J. Aistermann, De M. Valerio Probo [hereafter ‘Aistermann’], 115–56 (‘De
Probo Gellii auctore’).
7
Others are the emperor Hadrian (R. 43), Alfenus Varus (K. 65), Annianus
(K. 101), M. Antistius Labeo (K. 66; R. 65–6), Antonius Julianus (K. 101), M.
[immo C.] Asinius Pollio (K. 64, cf. Aistermann 132), Q. Asconius Pedianus (cf. H.
Nettleship, ‘The Noctes Atticae’, 411 ¼ 271), C. Ateius Capito (K. 66; R. 66–7),
Aurelius Opillus (K. 41–2), Calvenus (alias Calvisius) Taurus (R. 50–3), Sex. Cae-
cilius, Caesellius Vindex (K. 95), Ser. Claudius (K. 42–3), Q. Claudius Quadrigarius
(R. 17–19), Cloatius Verus (K. 98), P. Cornelius Scipio minor (R. 14–15), C. Aelius
Gallus (K. 61), Suetonius Tranquillus (R. 43–4), Ser. Sulpicius Rufus (K. 59–60; R.
65), Timaeus (K. 38–9; R. 5), certainly at second hand, Aelius Stilo (K. 41), Gavius
Bassus (K. 99–100; R. 38), Hypsicrates (K. 44), C. Julius Hyginus (K. 77; R. 40–1),
Julius Modestus (R. 38), read directly despite the single quotation, D. Laberius,
Laelius Felix (R. 71, cf. 66), P. Lavinius (K. 100), Masurius Sabinus (K. 79–80; R.
67–70), Q. Mucius Scaevola (K. 40–1; R. 64), perhaps at second hand (presumably
through Masurius Sabinus’ De iure ciuili, cf. R. 64), Neratius, read directly though
cited only once, C. Plinius Secundus (K. 13–15; see M. 641–3 and Beck, ‘Studia’,
5–25, esp. 9–11), M. Porcius Cato (K. 39–40; R. 10–14), Sempronius Asellio
(cf. K. 71), probably through Verrius, Sinnius Capito (K. 61–2), C. Trebatius,
probably at second hand, M. Tullius Cicero (K. 59), M. Tullius Tiro (K. 62–4),
M. Valerius Messala Augur (R. 65), Q. Valerius Soranus (in Varro, Quaest. epistol.),
68 Franco Cavazza
2.5. To these we should add anonymous persons, most of whom

are oral sources; in some cases they are probably Wctitious—not
covers for Gellius himself since he does not accept their etymolo-
gies. They are the intelligentsia of the time.8
2.6. Amongst the 366 etymologies advanced by Gellius,9 some
may be claimed for him in the absence of even hidden evidence for
a source; others, as I shall show, seem not to be original. Clearly,
not all the anonymous etymologies can be assigned to Gellius, in
view of the ancient (and modern) practice of ementiri doctrinam.
Without other evidence, it may be hard to tell what is truly Gellius’
own; take the case of Morta in 3. 16. 11. It has been suggested that
the treatment of some Greek words implies Gellius’ dependence
on Sulpicius Apollinaris (cf. K. 108) or Favorinus, although in
view of his visit or visits to Greece he might have been capable of
expressing his own opinion on the topic. Furthermore, the treat-
ment of homoptota (which more than once is anonymous) may
suggest he is applying a rule laid down by others. Yet it remains
possible, as we shall see, that some etymological comments genu-
inely belong to him and his doctrina. On the other hand, inconsist-
ent in this as in other matters, Gellius does not systematically pass
oV other people’s learning as his own, nor does he on principle hide
his own light under a bushel. We can but draw what inferences we
may on the authorship of, or responsibility for, the etymologies
proposed. It will be understood that a Gellian scholar likes to
think, where he can, that the etymological doctrine is Gellius’
and not another’s.
C. Valgius Rufus (K. 68), Velius Longus (K. 93), who is named in only one passage,
passed on by a doctus amicus, though K. 93 envisages direct use.
8
Quispiam (2. 21. 6–7), amicus (7. 15. 2–5), (erat) qui (diceret) (12. 14. 3), (fuit) qui
(diceret), homo in libris atque in litteris adsiduus (12. 14. 6), homo (15. 30. 2–3), nebulo
(16. 6. 12), cf. uulgus grammaticorum (2. 21. 6–7), turba grammaticorum nouicia (11.
1. 5), nouicii semidocti (16. 7. 13), commentarii ad ius pontiWcum (16. 6. 13).
9
This Wgure retains validity despite a degree of approximation. Etymologies of
related words, or words structurally associated by a common derivational mor-
pheme (e.g. -osus, -mentum, -ulentus), are open-ended as covering words not ex-
pressly mentioned. Sometimes no etymology as such is proposed for discussion, but
one is implicit in the discussion itself (e.g. of humanitas in 13. 17). Nevertheless, the
count attests Gellius’ undoubted interest in etymology: relative to his 398 chapters
it shows a ratio of 0.9 etymologies per chapter, which, allowing for miscounts, leads
to the rather high average for a miscellany of one etymology per chapter, proving
Gellius’ interest beyond doubt. The calculation comes from a study I have not had
time to prepare for publication; the list of etymologies, not reproduced here for
reasons of relevance and above all space, is available—though in need of revision and
possible corrections—for any interested party by email from <fcavazza@ipazia.
economia.unibo.it> or <franco.cavazza@unibo.it>.
3. gellius ’ etymologies
3.1. This said, we may now examine certain interesting passages
capable of attribution to Gellius and therefore useful in revealing
him to us as an etymologist in the ancient tradition; granted that he
shows no innovations in method, certain interesting observations,
certain correct proposals, or at least certain good intuitions conWrm
his grammatical competence.10
3.2. In 1. 18. 5, having noted that Varro challenged false ety-
mologies made by L. Aelius Stilo on Stoic principles,11 preferring
in accordance with common Latin practice12 to derive Latin words
from Greek when the sound seemed to match, Gellius remarks that
Varro made a like error in deriving Latin fur from furuus and not
from æ:13
Nonne sic uidetur Varro de fure, tamquam L. Aelius de lepore? Nam quod
a Graecis nunc Œº dicitur, antiquiore Graeca lingua æ dictus est.
Hinc per adWnitatem litterarum, qui æ Graece, est Latine ‘fur’.
3.2.1. The source is unknown. Hosius (edn. i, p. xxiv) denies
Gellius the credit for discovering Varro’s error. Since the passage
seems to be of legal interest, the source may be a jurist;14 but
although Hosius writes ‘Gellius videtur sua mutuatus esse a iuris-
consulto aliquo’, he may also have used an etymological, that is
to say grammatical source.15 Doubt is unavoidable. However,
10
See Cavazza, ‘Gellio grammatico’, esp. 269 ¼ 95, on Gellius the etymologist.
11
SpeciWcally the interpretation of lepus as le(ui)-pes, with false division. Plainly,
too, the ancients paid no attention to the consonantism of their etymologies or even
the vowel-quantities, audible as they still were.
12
Obviously the Latins could not imagine a common IE origin for Greek and
Latin, but only suppose the more prestigious language to be a superstrate over
another whose literature had a later historical origin, being thus superior both
absolutely and in age.
13
Varro . . . ‘furem’ dicit ex eo dictum, quod ueteres Romani ‘furuum’ atrum
appellauerint et fures per noctem, quae atra sit, facilius furentur (Gell. 1. 18. 3–4).
14
So Hosius (edn. i, p. xxiv); but the texts he cites with the Greek etymology are
from late Latinity: cf. D. 47. 2. 1. pr.; the author cited is Paul, who Xourished in the
early 3rd c. ad, hence later than Gellius. In this passage several etymologies are
cited, showing that uncertainty persisted in Paul’s day (from fraus, according to
Masurius Sabinus; from ferre or from Greek, according to others); cf. also J. 4. 1. 2,
which adds to the etymologies mentioned that of Varro cited above from Gellius.
Behind all this there will have been a long etymological tradition whose origin is lost
to us.
15
Hosius (ibid.) does not consider Cloatius Verus as Gellius’ source because
Gellius does not trust him (NA 16. 12). Indeed he does not; but some correct Greek
etymologies may still have reached him through Cloatius, of whom indeed he
admits (ibid. cap.) that, amidst his errors and absurdities, there were words he
satis commode . . . ad origines linguae Graecae redigit.
70 Franco Cavazza
since some jurists relate furtum to furuum (cf. Labeo, fr. 14, p. 561
Funaioli), others to æ with Gellius, there is no bar on supposing
a juristic source. Unfortunately Masurius Sabinus, whose De furtis
Gellius knows and quotes, does not help us resolve the problem, so
that this conjecture is only a partial solution. But other attestations
of a Greek etymology for fūr, albeit post-Gellian, may be of value
as coming from grammarians,16 and might tell against dependence
on a purely legal source. The grammarians are unlikely to depend
on Gellius; at best he and they have a common source, so that it is
legitimate to think of Probus,17 whether or not (in Gellius’ case)
transmitted through Sulpicius Apollinaris, even in respect of the
phonetic correspondence.18 Be the source legal or grammatical,
such reasoning is admissible only if Gellius is to be denied even a
modicum of authority; moreover, had he depended on a respected
source, he would not assert with his typical modesty (cf. 14. 1. 32,
14. 2. 25) that Varro might be right and that he dare not express a
view in the face of so great an authority.
There is no reason why Gellius’ contacts with the Greek world
should not have enabled him to detect similarities between Greek
and Latin words, and therefore to derive the latter from the
former. If so, he found conWrmation in other authors of a conjec-
ture he had made suo Marte.19 Although Gellius sometimes pre-
sents matter from the same source or on similar subjects in two
successive chapters, no such assistance is available in the present
case.
3.2.2. Gellius’ etymology is correct within the limits of the
ancient perspective: the connection between æ and fūr seems
beyond doubt. J. Pokorny, IEW 128–32 (esp. 129–30) derives
both words from the root *bher-, whose Greek (æø) and Latin
(ferō) descendants are Indo-Europeanist classics; the consonants
are regular, but the vowels require explanation. In the Greek word
16
Cf. Serv. on Georg. 3. 407, Aen. 2. 18, 9. 348, derived (not very convincingly)
by Hosius from Gellius (cited in Serv. Aen. 5. 738). Cf. too Prisc. GL ii. 11. 19–21.
17
For Servius’ and Priscian’s dependence on Probus cf. Nettleship, ‘The Noctes
Atticae’, 391 ¼ 248.
18
Festus, who cites various derivatives of furuus (PF 74. 11–12: Furuum nigrum,
uel atrum. Hinc dicta furnus, Furiae, funus, fuligo, fulgus, fumus), does not help us
here: fur is absent, but silence does not disprove its presence in Verrius, who appears
to be the source for the other passage presenting a phonetic relation between Greek
and Latin (13. 9, esp. §5). Unhelpful too is Val. Max. 2. 4. 5 (furuus ¼ niger); he
shares sources with Gellius, but only for history (cf. Nettleship, ‘The Noctes
Atticae’, 402–3 ¼ 261–2).
19
On fur and its etymological complex see R. Maltby, Lexicon, 248, whose
account, albeit incomplete, conWrms that Varro’s is the oldest attested.
the lengthened grade ō is a regular Indo-European Ablaut from the

normal grade e.20 The word, even though not Homeric, is an
archaic root-noun (*bhōr-) of a type that Indo-European languages
tend to eliminate,21 and ought to mean ‘carrier’: the sense of
carrying away what is not one’s own but has been stolen need not
be connected with the form of the word, given that Armenian bur˙n
(<*bhōr-), ‘hand, Wst, force’, has a diVerent sense, so that the Latin
word, even if independent, does not serve to conWrm the sense of
the Greek word as original. Chantraine, Walde–Hofmann,
Ernout–Meillet,22 and others feel obliged to account for the
Latin ū. Despite its widespread acceptance, I am not convinced
by Ernout–Meillet’s notion that the Latin word is indeed a Greek
loan (as Gellius will have it), but via Etruscan,23 which they take to
account both for the initial f- (but IE bh-> Lat. f- is normal, e.g. IE
*bhudh-underlies fundus) and, above all, for ū;24 I concur in
Gernet’s rejection of this theory.25 Ernout–Meillet also entertain
the possibility that Greek and Latin forms both come from a
non-Indo-European word; I disagree for three reasons: (i) the
20
Even though, like the corresponding long vowel in Latin, it is not conWned to
particular morphological categories, e.g. the nom. sg., but maintained throught the
declension: both æ øæ and fūr fūris illustrate a tendency, especially in Latin
(also found in Germanic, but rare or absent in other IE languages), to generalize the
lengthened grade throughout the paradigm. The nom. sg. is normally asigmatic in
masculines and feminines: cf. A. Ernout, Morphologie, 43–4, who also discusses the
lack of long/short vowel alternation between the nominative and the other cases
(citing monosyllables such as fūr and sōl), but also A. L. Sihler, New Comparative
Grammar, 211, who proposes *fer->*fōrs (sic) >fūr-, for Wnal *rs>rr>r comparing
(obscurely) făr, a neuter derived from the -s- stem *fars, farris (<*far(o)s,
*far(e)zes).
21
Besides æ, Greek had Œºł, which was early replaced by Œº, found once
in Homer.
22
P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire, 1238, A. Walde and J. B. Hofmann, LEW i. 569,
A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire, 262–3.
23
See too A. Ernout, ‘Éléments’, 93 n. 1.
24
Etruscan lacks o, like Hittite, but retains a, e, i, u: see V. I. Georgiev, Intro-
duction, 235—assuming that this student of Mediterranean and Balkan languages is
right to derive Etruscan from Hittite.
25
L. Gernet, ‘Notes’, 391–3, sees no reason to regard fūr, even if dialectal, as a
borrowing from Greek: in a loanword, Greek should not have given f in Italic (in
the broad sense, including Latin) but p(h), assuming no Etruscan mediation, even if
one of the various Latin f-sounds (the spirants G. Bottiglioni, Manuale, 87, calls
‘semiocclusive italiche’, comparing Gk. , Ł, ) corresponds precisely to Greek in
words derived directly from IE (ferō æø). In addition, Gernet does not think
that the legal sense of æ/fūr is suYciently explained by reference to æØ in the
sense ‘take (away)’ when theft is not violent but clandestine removal or the thief
is caught red-handed with his loot, himself carrying the corpus delicti. But that is
another question.
72 Franco Cavazza
Indo-European etymology presents no problems phonetic or

semantic, (ii) it is diYcult to imagine a ‘Mediterranean’ language
from which a term of the type and sense of fur could be borrowed,
(iii) in my opinion Alinei’s Continuity Theory must be borne in
mind.26 To be sure Ernout–Meillet do not forget what must be the
true etymology, but treat it as a folk-etymology and therefore
unscientiWc or parascientiWc, so that the verb ferre becomes a factor
of attraction, not a clear example of the original radical. Chantraine
appears to agree on a common Indo-European derivation with
Walde–Hofmann (who, however, show some reservations), given
that the development of Latin ū matches other instances of mono-
syllables such as cur<quor. A development of *ō > ū before r in
monosyllables is also accepted by Sihler,27 albeit from a laryn-
gealist point of view;28 he uses it to show the stability in Latin of
inherited Indo-European long vowels. Walde–Hofmann’s reserva-
tions are due to their allowing the possibility that the Latin word is
a borrowing from Greek. But in the latter case they rightly note
that mediation through Osco-(Samnite)-Umbrian29 or Etruscan
would not be certain, given that ūr < ōr may perfectly well be a
Latin development.
3.3. NA 2. 20. 1, 2, 5, 7–8 run as follows:
1. ‘Viuaria’, quae nunc dicuntur saepta quaedam loca in quibus ferae uiuae
pascuntur, M. Varro in libro de re rustica III. dicit ‘leporaria’ appellari.
2. . . . leporaria . . . te accipere uolo, non ea, quae tritaui nostri dicebant,
ubi soli lepores sint, sed omnia saepta, adWcta uillae quae sunt et habent
inclusa animalia quae pascuntur . . . 5. Sed quod apud Scipionem
omnium aetatis suae purissime locutum legimus ‘roboraria’, aliquot
Romae doctos uiros dicere audiui id signiWcare, quod nos ‘uiuaria’ dici-
mus, appellataque esse a tabulis roboreis, quibus saepta essent . . .
7. Lacus uero aut stagna piscibus uiuis coercendis clausa, suo atque
proprio nomine ‘piscinas’ nominauerunt. 8. ‘Apiaria’ quoque uulgus
dicit loca, in quibus siti sunt aluei apum.
26
M. Alinei, Origini, i. 365–488 and ii, passim: the Indo-Europeans were Cro-
Magnons, the Wrst, or amongst the Wrst, inhabitants of the Mediterranean, while
other peoples (the Basques and the Etruscans) may be considered bearers of adstrate
languages—not necessarily superstrate, since they did not conquer and settle (let
alone as pioneers) large areas of the Mediterranean.
27
Cf. Sihler, New Comparative Grammar, 49.
28
That is, the theory, not proved beyond refutation, that IE long vowels may be
due to a lost laryngeal; thus ō in an IE language may derive from PIE *ō, *oH, or *eH3 .
29
Oscan and Umbrian too lacked o, or rather their alphabets lacked the sign for o
(whether for graphic or for phonetic reasons, the o sound being closed to the point of
confusion with u), which is u in Old Oscan and Old Umbrian and ú in Late Oscan:
cf. Bottiglioni, Manuale, 13–14, 30–1.
3.3.1. The passage as presented above appears at Wrst sight to be

the fruit of Gellius’ independent thought and reading. It also
seems to have a certain coherence and connection with the next
two chapters, in which Greek and Latin words are set side by side
(as in §9) with references Wrst to Varro and then Favorinus (stated
to have been present). But this passage appears to stand apart. The
source problem is rather complex, since it is also necessary to
establish whether the chapter derives from a single source or
combines more than one, as sometimes happens in Gellius.
We have in this chapter etymologies for uiuaria, leporaria, robo-
raria, piscinae, and apiaria (besides Varro’s Graecism melissones in
§9). The obvious intuitive etymology of piscina30 may in all prob-
ability be assigned to Varro if only because it can be recovered
from book 3 of De re rustica (3. 17. 2); that book is explicitly also
the source for leporaria and also for melissones in §9. From the same
book, too, will come apiaria: the word is found, along with
ºØH (and uiuaria) in Colum. 8. 1. 4, where ºÆª
æ
EÆ
( ¼ leporaria) also appears. That leaves the sources for uiuaria
and Scipio’s roboraria.31 Varro’s treatment of formations in
-ariu(m) and the like make him the indirect source for all similar
instances of declinatio: cf. LL 5. 126, 128, 146, besides 5. 105 and 6.
2, turdarium, precisely amongst the examples of that procedure.
Viuarium is well attested in Pliny and must have been in use for
some time (cf. Hor. Epist. 1. 1. 79), for which reason the etymology
may come from an Augustan grammarian; Hosius (edn. i, p. xxviii)
regards Verrius a possible source for the whole passage. Varro
would then be the ultimate source, mediated (like Scipio) through
Verrius. If, unwilling to accept direct reading of Varro, with the
addition of uiuaria (from Gellius’ own experience of the spoken
language?) and of roboraria, supplied by unknown uiri docti in
Rome whom he had heard directly (cf. §5), we seek a mediator,
we may very well accept Verrius. A slight perplexity is caused by
Gellius’ rare and limited use of the De uerborum signiWcatu,32 and
by the weak support (as even Hosius admits) aVorded by PF 325.
1–6 robum . . . unde et materia . . . dicta est robur. Hinc . . . ro-
busti. Robus quoque in carcere dicitur is locus, quo praecipitatur
30
However, the etymology is not found earlier; it returns in late Latinity: cf.
Aug. Dialect. 6 (Varro, p. 239. 24–7 Goetz–Schöll ¼ 265. 161–4, pp. 282–3 Funaioli)
and Prisc. GL ii. 80. 15–16.
31
In his Wfth speech contra Claudium Asellum, as is expressly stated in §6 (fr. 20,
i. 129 Malcovati).
32
Quoted only in 5. 17. 1, 2 and 5. 18. 2, in two adjacent chapters and always with
reference to book 4 alone.
74 Franco Cavazza
maleWcorum genus, quod antea arcis robusteis includebatur. The pos-

sibility thus remains, however remote, that the etymology of
uiuaria is a proposal of Gellius’ own.
3.3.2. Whoever proposed it, it must be right. Words in -āri-u-s,
-āri-u-m constitute a prominent class of words,33 with a great
future before it in the Romance languages, forming an open class
of derivatives in -ier (French), -ero (Spanish), -aio (Italian).34 Its
origin seems to be Indo-European, even though the derivational
model is not at all secure, and corresponding forms are conWned
to Hittite.35 Latin -ārio- is matched by Oscan -asio-; it might
be derived from thematic formations in -ā (e.g. uiā-sio-), the
subsequently rhotacized -s-being conWrmed by such inXectional
forms as ancient genitives singular like uiās or locatives plural like
*uiāsi, making derivatives in -(i)o-. Adjectivization of the genitive
ending in -sio, Indo-European -syo, must also be considered,
even though it is conWned to stems in -o/e-. The problem remains
open, but would take us too far from our topic.36
3.4. In 3. 16. 11 Gellius writes:
Caesellius . . . Vindex in lectionibus suis antiquis: ‘Tria’ inquit ‘nomina
Parcarum sunt: ‘‘Nona’’, ‘‘Decuma’’, ‘‘Morta’’ ’ . . . Sed homo minime
malus37 Caesellius ‘Mortam’ quasi nomen accepit, cum accipere quasi
Moeram deberet.
3.4.1. Caesellius’ error thus consists in taking Morta as the name
of a Parca and not as generic for all three. The source is not
indicated and the etymology proposed, not found elsewhere,
appears to be Gellius’ own, which also seems to be suggested by
the manner in which he states it. The reference just before (§10) to
Varro, Res diuinae 14 (fr. 132, p. 235 Funaioli), concerns the
etymology of the names Parca, Nona, and Decima, not the passage
as a whole, so that identifying its source is a diYcult problem with
no certain solution. One might think of the emperor Hadrian in the
decree cited in §12, which does not preclude the note’s being
Gellius’ own insertion. But in any case, although citing the true
33
See F. Gaide, ‘Les dérivés’, who establishes three groups of collective deriva-
tives (words in -arium belonging to the same group as those in -ētum and -ına).
34
Dialectally (e.g. in romanesco) -aro; there are a few cases of dissimilation, like
armadio <armariu(m), which ought to have been *armaio. This was also due to the
suYx’s wide range of meaning, emphasized by E. W. Nichols, ‘Semantics’, and
after him by M. Fruyt, ‘Métaphore’, esp. 115–16.
35
Those in Germanic are borrowings; nor are assimilations in loanwords of the
Greek diminutive suYx -%æØ
to Latin -ārium or vice versa relevant.
36
See LHSz i. 300, with literature there cited.
37
On the meaning of minime malus see F. Cavazza, ‘Appunti’.
source last pertains to Gellius’ practice, although the ensuing

quotations may be explained as subsequent additions,38 and al-
though on chronological grounds Hadrian is the only person who
could have cited all the authors previously named, the hypothesis
does not explain why Gellius can claim to have read the texts
quoted in §§1–11 and present his acquaintance with Hadrian’s
decree as a later development. Let it be emphasized once for all
that Gellius’ work, chapter by chapter, is based on his own notes,
even if scattered over time and most importantly whether the mode
of presentation is truthful or a highly artiWcial Wgment. Mercklin
identiWed procedures that recur with incontestable persistence.39
But in our passage, as in others, I am inclined to take Gellius’ word
at face value: he has cited the ancient authors with legi, the decree
with legimus. Variatio apart, he could have read the former to check
the learned emperor’s display; the abundance and precision of the
quotations will thus result from direct reading, particularly as
Gellius reports that Hadrian had relied on the authority of phil-
osophers and physicians, which excludes (if not Varro) Plautus,
Menander, Caecilius, and Caesellius. None of this settles the
source for the etymology of Morta, but leaves the door open to
Gellian authorship40 (though if determined to deny it in all cases,
we may ascribe the etymology to Sulpicius Apollinaris, or even
Probus).
3.4.2. This etymology appears to be right, though hesitation
may be in order. That Moera is the transliteration of
EæÆ is
beyond doubt. The connection between Morta and the Greek
word, however, is fraught with diYculty (as shown by Pokorny’s
twofold etymology, IEW 735 and 969): Ernout–Meillet assign
them to a common root, IE *(s)mer-, ‘remember’,41 cf. Lat.
memor and perhaps Morta (<*(s)mert-), and hence ‘provide’, cf.
Gk. æ
ÆØ (<*(s)mer-iomai),
EæÆ (<(s)m-), Lat. mereō, ‘I
Ð
earn, acquire’, and the Gaulish divine name Ro-smerta. But others,
including Marstrander,42 connect the name (rightly in my opinion)
with the root *mer- of Lat. morior: Mor-ta seems to be a participial
form, cf. Skt. mr. tá-, ‘dead’, from *mr-to´-. Even those who do not
accept this interpretation cannot deny˚ that the word has undergone
the inXuence of morior, mors, mort-u-u-s (with -uu- on the analogy
38
So M. 655–6, followed by R. 1–3, and Hosius, edn. i, p. xxx.
39
So too, independently, K. 3–27.
40
Even Ernout–Meillet (Dictionnaire, 415) appear to accept it as Gellius’ own
work.
41
Cf. also P. Ramat, ‘L’etimologia’.
42
Cf. C. Marstrander, ‘Les noms’, 52.
76 Franco Cavazza
of uiuus): Marstrander sees in it an ancient abstract comparable

with porta (root *per-) and multa (an Italic word of uncertain
etymology); this too is not without diYculty, as Ernout–Meillet
note, but I prefer the connection with morior, disagreeing in this
with the last-named scholars, who further suggest the inXuence of
Mau(o)rs.43
3.5. In 4. 9. 2, 8, 12 Gellius discusses another class of derivatives,
those in -ōsus from a clearly deWned source:
2. Nigidius: ‘Hoc’ inquit inclinamentum semper huiuscemodi uerborum,
ut ‘‘uinosus’’, ‘‘mulierosus’’, ‘‘religiosus’’, signiWcat copiam quandam
immodicam rei, super qua dicitur. Quocirca ‘‘religiosus’’ is appellabatur,
qui nimia et superstitiosa religione sese alligauerat, eaque res uitio assi-
gnabatur . . . 8. Masurius autem Sabinus in commentariis, quos de indi-
genis composuit: ‘ ‘‘Religiosum’’ ’ inquit ‘est, quod propter sanctitatem
aliquam remotum ac sepositum a nobis est; uerbum a ‘‘relinquendo’’
dictum, tamquam ‘‘caerimoniae’’ a ‘‘carendo’’ ’ . . . 12. Quod si, ut ait
Nigidius, omnia istiusmodi inclinamenta nimium ac praeter modum
signiWcant et idcirco in culpas cadunt, ut ‘uinosus’, ‘mulierosus’, ‘moro-
sus’, ‘uerbosus’, ‘famosus’, cur ‘ingeniosus’ et ‘formosus’ et ‘oYciosus’ et
‘speciosus’, quae pariter ab ingenio et forma et oYcio <et specie> incli-
nata sunt, cur etiam ‘disciplinosus’, ‘consiliosus’, ‘uictoriosus’, quae M.
Cato ita aYgurauit, cur item ‘facundiosa’, quod Sempronius Asellio XIII.
rerum gestarum ita scripsit . . . , cur, inquam, ista omnia numquam in
culpam, sed in laudem dicuntur, quamquam haec item incrementum sui
nimium demonstrent? an propterea quia illis quidem, quae supra posui,
adhibendus est modus quidam necessarius?
3.5.1. These are easy, intuitive etymologies, with espressly
cited sources. Nigidius is quite right about the suYx, which indi-
cates that something abounds; he adduces uinosus, mulierosus, and
religiosus. Gellius for his part suggests various correct etymologies
on Nigidian lines: morosus, uerbosus, famosus, whose principal
is implicit (but then stated in §13), and ingeniosus, formosus, oY-
ciosus, speciosus, which he refers to ingenium, forma, oYcium; to
these must be added species (not in the manuscripts but restored,
though in §14 Gellius cites not species but gratia as the basis of gra-
tiosus, which has not appeared before). In this way, too, he inter-
prets Cato’s coinages disciplinosus, consiliosus, uictoriosus, and
Sempronius Asellio’s facundiosa, giving their principals in §14.
The sources are plainly Nigidius (fr. 4, p. 162 Funaioli)
and Masurius Sabinus (fr. 1, p. 357 Mazzarino ¼ 13, i. 75
43
Dictionnaire, 822; cf. M. Lejeune, ‘Discussions’, 438, who agrees with Ramat,
‘L’etimologia’, in separating Morta from Maurtia (sic <Mauortia), an adjectival
derivative from the name Mars.
Huschke–Seckel–Kübler),44 two authors of whom Gellius shows

direct knowledge, not only here. Simple as the etymologies are,
Gellius knows how to choose: he cites Sabinus at the semantic
level, but does not appear to accept his etymology.
Furthermore, Gellius rightly observes that this derivational
class is denominative and not deverbative: at 3. 12 (where the
source is not stated) he justly criticizes Nigidius for pairing bibax
with bibosus, incorrectly formed not from a nomen but from a verb.
As an example of correct derivation he cites uinosus, a word cited
by Nigidius at 4. 9. 2, but adds uitiosus ceteraque, quae hoc modo
dicuntur, quoniam a uocabulis, non a uerbo inclinata sunt (3. 12. 3).
Furthermore, in modifying Nigidius’ account Gellius anticipates
modern insistence on considering semantics as well as phonetics
(cf. e.g. 15. 3. 6 cohaerentia uocis), giving due weight to meaning.
Which etymology of religiosus does Gellius accept? From his
criticism of Nigidius’ semantics, he might seem to side with
Sabinus (¼ Ser. Sulpicius) in deriving the word from relinquere
(§10 dies religiosi dicti, quos ex contraria causa propter ominis dirita-
tem relinquimus). But in asserting against Nigidius (§§12–14—not
from the sources cited but on his own account, unless we posit
subsequent addition from some other source) that the excess of a
quality expressed by -ōsus is sometimes a fault and sometimes
laudable, depending on the quality, he seemingly reconnects reli-
giosus with religio (for its various senses see §§3–10). To that extent
Nigidius prevails, unless we will suppose that Gellius expounds
without choosing; elsewhere, though scrupulous in stating various
interpretations (as with indutiae, 1. 25), his regular tendency is to
accept a speciWc solution as probabilior. What interests us, how-
ever, is that Gellius’ etymological discussions take note of poly-
semy; his comments on -ōsus formations need not come from a
source (though cf. Varro, LL 8. 15 declinata . . . ab ingenio inge-
niosi), but may be his own in the wake of Nigidius or indeed Probus
(e.g. for 3. 12, to which add 9. 12, where other words in -ōsus
appear).
3.5.2. Words in -ōsus, whose meaning and derivation were
already understood by the ancients and are uncontested now,
44
This is a diVerent problem, but matters are slightly complicated by a passage
of Macrobius (Sat. 3. 3. 8) that attributes Sabinus’ etymology to Servius Sulpicius
(fr. 14, p. 425 Funaioli; fr. 14, i. 35 Huschke–Seckel–Kübler). A possible solution
(cf. K. 79–80) is that Masurius cited Servius (as on penus in NA 4. 1), so that both
Macrobius and Gellius are right. The only diYculty is that Macrobius is often
dependent on Gellius; however, the existence of exceptions makes this solution
probable.
78 Franco Cavazza
have continued to Xourished in the Romance languages.45 The

likeliest-seeming explanation combines morphology and semantics
in an apparently logical and convincing manner: if Lat. uinōsus, as
the ancients already supposed, corresponds to Gk.
N Ø, we
may posit a suYx *we/ont-, with related forms in Hittite
and Indo-Iranian; -Ø would thus come from *-
= - (with
the Indo-European possessive suYx) and -ōsus from -ownts -to-s.
However, since the extension in -to- seems unmotivated, ˚various
other explanations have been proposed (leading to the comparison
with Gk. -), which Ernout Wnds unsatisfactory. Neither way
are the phonetics satisfactory; starting from them, one might
speculatively derive uinōsus from uinōd (abl.) þ -to- (participial)
þs. It may be better to leave the problem to others, being content
to have pointed it out.
3.6. NA 6. 7, on the accentuation of ádfatim, ádmodum, exáduer-
sum, ádfabre, ádprobe, ádprobus, ends (§12):
Idem Liuius in Odyssia ‘praemodum’ dicit, quasi admodum: ‘Parcentes’
inquit ‘praemodum’, quod signiWcat ‘supra modum’, dictumque est quasi
‘praeter modum’, in quo scilicet prima syllaba acui debebit.
3.6.1. Not only does the oral source seem obvious—Gellius cites
the poet Annianus—but we may suppose that Annianus too had an
oral source, namely Probus.46 It is evidence for the initial stress or
‘intensive’ accent of archaic Latin (cf. intentio §5), which many
scholars believe to be demonstrated by known facts of language,
short internal vowels being subjected to either change of timbre or
syncope.47 Clearly, then, the etymological phenomenon known to
the ancient grammarians as compositio (uerborum) is here seen as
leading to the creation of new words no longer felt as compounds,
which behave like simplicia (cf. §10) even though etymologically
they remain compositiones.
The last section, which presents a diVerent case, not concerning
ad-compounds, seems, and not only from its position, to be
45
Their remote origin, as adjectives denoting abundance, in competition with
forms in -ulentus, was studied by A. Ernout, Adjectifs, 5–9, following M. Leumann
in F. Stolz et al., Lateinische Grammatik, i. 231, cf. 228–9, LHSz i. 341–2. On this
chapter see too A. Garcea and V. Lomanto, above, 54–5.
46
Cf. Aistermann 118–19, who compares NA 4. 7. M. 675–81 (following H. E.
Dirksen, ‘Die Auszüge’, 37–49 ¼ 28–38), supposes that all Gellius’ oral sources,
chief of whom are Favorinus and Sulpicius Apollinaris, are in fact quoted from a
written text, so that the scenes described by Gellius result from artiWce. In my
opinion this may be true in certain cases but not as an absolute rule.
47
Cf. e.g. M. Niedermann, Phone´tique, 18–36.
Gellius’ own addition. The chapter is thus in two parts; the ques-
tion is whether the second begins at §6, with other compounds in
which the long vowel of the second syllable tells against Wxed
accentuation on initial intensive ad, or consists solely of §12. Un-
certain as the source of §§6–11 may be,48 I am inclined to think that
the reference to práemodum, not envisaged in the previous quota-
tions, is Gellius’ own; to be sure the word is said to match admodum
in sense, but on the one hand the equation of prae with praeter may
echo Verrius,49 on the other when the adprime of 6. 7. 7 reappears
in 17. 2. 14 amongst words and phrases from book 1 of Claudius
Quadrigarius, Gellius expressly states that his notes are the result
of his studies and his memory (§§1–2), which may be plausibly said
of this passage too.
3.6.2. Gellius’ etymology is either an apparent parahaplology, so
to speak, or a case of syncope, if praemodum be understood as from
práe[tĕr]mŏdum, or else asserts homosemy of ad, prae, and
praeter¼supra. Since in ancient etymologists dictum quasi normally
indicates derivation, his quasi ‘praeter modum’ points to the former.
The homorrhizy of prae and prae-ter, comparable with in and in-
ter, prope and prop(e)-ter, sub and sub-ter, suggests that Gellius’
etymology (whether or not he understood the concept) is correct,
particularly as the sense is acceptable.
3.7. To explain how in ordinary speech nequitia was given an
incorrect sense Gellius has methodically correct recourse to ety-
mology; in 6. 11. 8 he cites from Varro (LL 10. 81, with a slightly
diVerent text) the words:
Vt ex ‘non’ et ex ‘uolo’ inquit ‘nolo’, sic ex ‘ne’ et ‘quicquam’ media syllaba
extrita compositum est ‘nequam’.
3.7.1. That is to say, the etymology of nequam, ‘worthless’, be-
stows a purely negative connotation on nequitia, such as ‘insigniW-
cance’, in contrast to the sense of ‘skilfulness’ and ‘cunning’ that it
had in Gellius’ own day. On the basis of the preceding chs. 7, 9,
and 10, Josef Aistermann took 6. 11 to be mediated through
Probus; his arguments have varying force.50 In any case, the
48
If a second source is suggested, it is not by any reWnement in the linguistic
judgement, but only by the new word-class.
49
Cf. Fest. 224. 6 praepetes aues quidam dici aiunt, quia secundum auspicium
faciant praeteruolantes and cf. Gellius 7. 6 and the equivalence of praepetere with
anteire at Fest. 286. 14–16. Intermediation through Sulpicius Apollinaris is
possible, not that that matters here.
50
Aistermann 136. Whereas the case for attributing 6. 10 to Probus seems sound,
that for ch. 11 is more doubtful: although Aistermann adduces some repetitions and
80 Franco Cavazza
etymologies, whatever their immediate source, are clearly Varro’s.

That of nolo, accepted by subsequent grammarians (cf. Cornut. fr.
7, p. 179 Mazzarino) down to late antiquity (cf. Maltby, Lexicon,
413), is almost right; that of nequam is (in part) wrong, whereas that
proposed in PF 185. 6 nequam, qui ne tanti quidem est, quam quod
habetur minimi, is correct as to compositio but wrong in the inter-
pretation of quam.51 If Gellius accepts Varro’s etymology, he
shares his error in allowing compositio of nĕ to yield nē.
3.7.2. Nēquitia (also nēqu-iti-ēs) is rightly derived from nequam.
The etymology is easy, intuitive, and correct, which means that it
may be due to Gellius, who implicitly states it. However, obvious
as the etymology is, an interpretation of the word had already been
given, and almost inevitably in error, by Cicero, Tusc. 3. 18 nequi-
tia ab eo (etsi erit hoc fortasse durius, sed temptemus: lusisse putemur,
si nihil sit) ab eo quod nequidquam est in tali homine, ex quo idem
‘nihili’ dicitur. Cicero may, recalling Varro, have lumped nequam
together with nequitia; Gellius may not have known the passage or
else thought it not worth mentioning after Varro. Thus Gellius
may err after and with Cicero without knowing it, or else, as we
have supposed, hit the mark. In any case he does not express
himself clearly on the etymology, but simply, and rightly, connects
nequam with nequitia. He may have been wrong on the origin of
nequam; but a modern etymologist may also wonder whether nequi-
tia stands to malitia as nequiter<nequam to turpiter (for the connec-
tion see Cic. Tusc. 3. 36 turpiter et nequiter).
3.8. In 6. 17. 3, 12 we read:
3. Quis adeo tam linguae Latinae ignarus est, quin sciat eum dici ‘ob-
noxium’, cui quid ab eo, cui esse ‘obnoxius’ dicitur, incommodari et
noceri potest, ut qui habeat aliquem noxae, id est culpae suae con-
scium? . . . 12. . . . si quis . . . uolet non originem solam uerbi istius,
sed signiWcationem quoque eius uarietatemque recensere, ut hoc etiam
Plautinum spectet, adscripsi uersus ex Asinaria [284–5]: . . .
adeo ut aetate—ambo ambobus nobis sint obnoxii
nostro deuincti beneWcio.
textual resemblances between this and other chapters, it is typical of the entire
Noctes Atticae for particular theses to be expressed with speciWc stylemes, whereas
individuals’ utterances are often linked to stereotypical formulae or generic citations
(as already noted by M. 656–8, 696–8).
51
Nolo, of course, comes from nĕ (not nōn) þuŏlō, which yields *nŏuŏlō (standing
to it as nouos to =
) >nōlō. Nēquam is as Verrius saw a compound of nē þ quam, but
the quam is not the comparative conjunction but the indeWnite quam of quis-quam (in
fact quis underlies both elements), which partly rehabilitates Varro’s etymology.
3.8.1. The speaker in §3 is one of those anonymous grammarians

of whom Gellius frequently makes fun. He does not accept as the
sole sense that propounded by his interlocutor, ‘culpae suae con-
scius’ (§3), maintaining that the word has several meanings.52 Nor
does he give a clear account of the etymology, despite three state-
ments of his intention to do so (cap., §§1, 12). True, it may be
deduced from the passage of Plautus cited above, where obnoxii
appears to be explained by deuincti: it appears that Gellius wrongly
rejects the obvious and straightforward etymology from ob þ noxa
in favour of ob þ necto, nexus, for the sake of the parallelism uincire
nectere. Nor is the source evident. As in other passages one may
look to jurists as well as grammarians. Hosius (edn. i, p. xxxvi)
‘suspects’ Verrius, but as he himself admits PF 207. 10, obnoxius
poenae obligatus ob delictum does not help much and seems to stand
halfway between Gellius’ etymology and that (from noxa) of the
grammaticus nebulo, who in his embarrassment goes so far as to say
that it applies to obnoxius and not obnoxie (§5). However, Hosius
does not seem to have recalled the other passage of Festus 180.
25–32, where, on the authority of a jurist, Ser. Sulpicius Rufus
(fr. 4, p. 423 Funaioli ¼ 9, i. 35 Huschke–Seckel–Kübler), obnoxius
seems to be linked to noxa, in the sense culpa, peccatum, and hence
poena: which appears to exclude dependence on Verrius. The
matter is all the more confused by Isidore’s assertion, Etym. 10.
198, obnexus [obnoxius?], quia obligatus est nexibus culpae, on the
face of it a curious synthesis between what we have attributed to
Gellius and what was stated by the nebulo; in essence, Isidore,
while apparently reporting Gellius’ (?) etymology, clearly follows
the deWnition found in Paulus. This suggests Verrius, already
ruled out as a possible source for Gellius; it is precisely in relation
to culpa, which obnoxius does not always imply, that Gellius dis-
agrees with the suggested interpretations and asserts his independ-
ence. Those who deny that he excerpted his own quotations must
think of Probus (¼ Sulpicius Apollinaris?), at least for those from
Vergil, Sallust, Plautus, and Ennius, authors whom, together with
Cicero, Probus often cites in Gellius. But given the overall uncer-
tainty, we prefer to credit the implicit etymology to Gellius him-
self; it will naturally also apply to obnoxiosae, cited in §10, plainly
derived from obnoxius þ ōsus (cf. above, §§3.5–3.5.2), despite the
irregularity (the suYx is normally attached to substantives).
52
However, in order to bestow coherence on Gellius’ exposition it is necessary to
mistranslate Plaut. Stichus 497, cited in §4; cf. my edn. iii. 215 n. 6.
82 Franco Cavazza
3.8.2. Noxa and noxius, related according to Ernout–Meillet

(Dictionnaire, 435) with nex and noceo, apparently have nothing
to do with obnoxius. The confusions, sometimes due to manuscript
corruption, between nexa(e) and noxa(e) (e.g. CGL iv. 454. 27
nexe conligate, iv. 540. 40 nexa coniuncta ligata; iv. 126. 23, v. 468.
45 noxe ligat(a)e), and between obnexae (Acc. Trag. v. 257 Rib-
beck2) and obnoxae, cause Ernout–Meillet (loc. cit.) to include s.v.
nectō a reference to obnoxius even while preferring another explan-
ation,53 that the ancients connected obnoxius ‘subject (to)’ . . . with
noxa (no doubt noxius assisted the process). Obnoxius, it is argued,
owes its primary sense ‘subjected/exposed (to)’ to a root *nok-
(*no k-),54 also found in the -to- formation nactus, an adjective
related to nancıscor.55 But on the one hand the ‘straightforward’,
quasi-popular etymology of the ancients must have inXuenced the
word’s semantic evolution and its frequency of use in a speciWc
meaning, ‘guilty’, and a particular, namely legal, Weld of refer-
ence,56 so that this use, though in fact a later development,
appeared to be the original sense, derived from noxa, and under-
went expansion in the manner familiar to students of semantics. In
fact, Walde–Hofmann, LEW ii. 155, Wnd the connection between
obnoxius and nancıscor neither formally nor semantically convin-
cing; I concur, not least because the connection felt by the ancients
makes sense. Certaintly the whole group is related to nex (whence
the denominative necō and the o-grade causative noc-eýe/o-, i.e.
noceō), and the radical *nek-, *nok-, or rather *nek̂-, to judge by
the sat m languages, seems correct for a whole family of words of
e
which noxa and obnoxius should form part. Walde–Hofmann
(ibid.) also take pains to exclude a link with nectō, for which no
o-grades are attested, so that in the doublets cited above involving
nexae vs. noxae and obnexae vs. obnoxae only the -e- forms will be
correct. None of this aVects Ennius’ and Plautus’ obnoxiosus, in any
event a derivative in -ōsus.
3.9. An interesting passage is 7. 12, an entire chapter with two
etymologies, one of which applies to a word-class:
Seruius Sulpicius iureconsultus uir aetatis suae doctissimus, in libro de
sacris detestandis secundo qua ratione adductus ‘testamentum’ uerbum
53
For which see ibid. 214–15 n. 4. The present discussion supplements and
partly corrects the commentary, since I now prefer Walde–Hofmann’s explanation
to Ernout–Meillet’s.
54
Structure and sense require ex hypothesi, in addition to this root, a -s- marking
the desiderative, so that ob-noks-ius is to be interpreted as ‘inclined/subject to’.
55
Or nancio(r), found only in the grammarians, cf. Prisc. GL ii. 513. 16.
56
Cf. obnoxios criminum (C. 3. 44. 1), cuiusdam criminis obnoxius (C. 9. 2. 2).
esse duplex scripserit, non reperio; nam compositum esse dixit a mentis
contestatione. Quid igitur ‘calciamentum’, quid ‘paludamentum’, quid
‘pauimentum’, quid ‘uestimentum’, quid alia mille per huiuscemodi for-
mam producta, etiamne ista omnia composita dicemus? Obrepsisse autem
uidetur Seruio, uel si quis est, qui id prior dixit, falsa quidem, sed non
abhorrens neque inconcinna quasi mentis quaedam in hoc uocabulo si-
gniWcatio, sicut hercle C. quoque Trebatio eadem concinnitas obrepsit.
Nam in libro de religionibus secundo: ‘ ‘‘sacellum’’ est’ inquit ‘locus
paruus deo sacratus cum ara’. Deinde addit uerba haec: ‘ ‘‘Sacellum ex
duobus uerbis arbitror compositum ‘‘sacri’’ et ‘‘cellae’’, quasi ‘‘sacra
cella’’ ’. Hoc quidem scripsit Trebatius; set quis ignorat ‘sacellum’ et
simplex uerbum esse et non ex ‘sacro’ et ‘cella’ copulatum, sed ex ‘sacro’
deminutum?
3.9.1. Obvious as the truth was, Gellius here avoids the traps—
of illustrious Stoic origin at that—into which an amateur etymolo-
gist might no less easily fall. If he knew the passages from the two
authors directly, the refutation is his own. This is likely enough to
be the case, if only for his assertion that the productio in -mentum is
an obvious form of declinatio (understood as ‘derivation’) and his
implication that everyone else is as well aware as he is that sacellum
is the diminutive of sacrum. Contrariwise, if the authors are cited
indirectly, the whole chapter should come from a single source,
given the close relation between the two critiques of etymological
errors involving imaginary compositiones. Who, in those pioneering
times, could collect gross errors in etymology except for a well-
trained grammarian? Hence, if we refused to credit Gellius with
the refutation, we should have to disregard the juridical and reli-
gious theme and seek his source amongst grammarians rather than
legal scholars and practitioners, even though these include Ser.
Sulpicius and C. Trebatius.57 One might have thought of Varro,
had not Donatus on Ter. Ad. 576 reported his assertion (fr. 453,
p. 369 Funaioli) sacellum . . . sacra cella est.58 In the face of this
crass error, Varro’s credit could be saved only by supposing that he
intended not an etymology but a deWnition, since LL 5. 180 sacra-
mentum a sacro shows the word as the basis for a productio in
57
Interestingly, and curiously, the false etymologies of testamentum known to
us are of juristic origin except for the fantasy in Isid. Etym. 5. 24. 2 testamen-
tum . . . testatoris monumentum, which nevertheless pays its homage to the law: see
J. 2. 10. pr. testamentum ex eo appellatur, quod testatio mentis est, pointing to a
tradition of legal etymology.
58
Varro’s misinterpretation of sacellum had become standard with the sacral
lawyers; Gellius was the only writer to give a correct account, but amongst the
grammarians there is an echo at Prisc. GL ii. 27. 17, who by listing sacrum sacellum
after labrum labellum shows that he recognized the diminutive.
84 Franco Cavazza
-mentum; if so, he was grievously misunderstood by Ser. Sulpicius.

But Donatus’ evidence seems to condemn Varro unequivocally, at
least for sacellum, so that nothing results from comparing Donatus’
quotation with Varro, LL 7. 84 in aliquot sacris ac sacellis, which
might seem to refute Trebatius in advance and to be Gellius’
source, ultimate or direct. Nor is Festus 422. 15–17 (¼ PF 423. 6)
sacella dicuntur loca dis sacrata sine tecto grounds for attributing to
Verrius the correct etymology of sacellum. If Gellius is to be denied
responsibility for the correction, a plausible source will be one of
his masters in grammar.59 To conclude, Gellius’ good etymo-
logical training—good amidst all the pitfalls of the age—is respon-
sible for the etymology; but it would seem to be his own, based on
observations and considerations arising from his own knowledge.
To be sure, it is elementary and trivial for us, and was easy even for
Gellius, but it was not so easy for those whose misunderstandings
he corrected. His etymologies are correct for both words, and for
all the derivatives in -mentum.
3.9.2. The latter cannot be separated form the neuters in -men,
plainly Indo-European in origin (cf. nouns in -in-, nom. -en, and
forms in -mentum: e.g. agmen and fragmentum). Both types are
highly productive in Romance (-mentum more than -men). But
however probable the extension in -to-, i.e. -men-to-m, the latter
remains unexplained. One might posit a suYx *-mn-to- and com-
pare Greek formations in -Æ (< mn), whose genitive ˚ -Æ
shows
an Erweiterung in -t- and whose plurals˚ in -ÆÆ recall the Latin
neuter plural -menta (-mn-t-a) (?).60 Diminutives in -ellus (also
-illus), another living class˚ in all Latinity down to late times and
inherited by Romance, are now interpreted as coming from various
secondary suYxations, often themselves formed from diminutives:
59
Hosius (edn. i, p. xxxvii) merely refers the passage to Gellius’ quoted authors
(implicitly crediting the refutations to him?); K. 59, starting from M. 648, proposes
an intermediary for the citations (and the corrections?), but leaves him totally
anonymous. We have no right to think of Fronto, since the attribution to him of
the work De diV. (see GL vii. 523. 26–7 sacellum paruulum aediWcium diis consecra-
tum) is a Renaissance fantasy.
60
Cf. J. Perrot, Les De´rive´s, 11–30: Latin derivatives in -men and -mentum are
connected with an important, ancient, and well-represented IE group, based on
*-m(e/o)n-, with thematization in *-m(e)no- (cf. Sanskrit and Greek passive parti-
ciples) or with added dental element *-ment-, or on a composite suYx *-mnto->
Lat. -mentum. From *-men- Latin has thus derived two productive neuter types, ˚ one
in -men, the other in -mentum, alive in Romance but not in their original semantic
relation. Cf. too LHSz i. 369–72, and Sihler, New Comparative Grammar, 297, who
envisages two IE suYxes, an -n- stem *-mon- forming nomina agentis (m.) and
nomina actionis (n.), and a secondary derivative -me =o nt- forming possessive adjec-
tives often substantivized as neuters (cf. Latin abstracts in -mentum).
their bases are *-(e)l-(e)lo-, *-(e)r-(e)lo-, *-en-(e)lo- (the alveo-

lar lateral liquid l is often regressively assimilated and thus gemin-
ated); of this last a well-known example is bellus <*duenelos, going
back to bonus.61 Ð
3.10. An apparently relevant passage, albeit lost, is 8. 2, of which
we have only the capitulum:
Quae mihi decem uerba ediderit Fauorinus, quae usurpentur quidem a
Graecis, sed sint adulterina et barbara; quae item a me totidem acceperit,
quae ex medio communique usu Latine loquentium minime Latina sint
neque in ueterum libris reperiantur.
3.10.1. The particular interest and importance of this passage lie
in the possibility of crediting etymologies to Gellius in person; far
from depending on his teachers, he is capable in his turn of
informing one of them about the etymologies of certain words.
It is of course impossible, in the absence of the text and any
source (barring Favorinus, in part only), to reconstitute the sub-
ject-matter; nor is it clear whether barbara is a mere synonym for
adulterina or denotes derivation from another language. In the
latter case, the words discussed will not have come from Italic
dialects, if they are recent coinages not found in ancient authors,
even if that could be meant by saying they are minime Latina, since
ancient etymologists had no notion of linguistic aYliations and
(with the exception of Varro) paid little attention to dialectal
variants. Nor will they be Greek, or Gellius would surely have
expressed himself diVerently and indicated their provenance ex-
plicitly. We may therefore suppose they are words from one or
more barbarian languages, but cannot say whether they were also
found in Greek usage. Perhaps they resembled cupsones, to which
we turn next.
3.11. Another capitulum from the lost book 8 (ch. 13) encourages
the notion that Gellius himself was responsible for an etymology:
‘Cupsones’, quod homines Afri dicunt, non esse uerbum Poenicum sed
Graecum.
3.11.1. This aVords us no opportunity for speculation about the
source, unless one thinks of Favorinus.62 But, as in the preceding
61
Cf. LHSz i. 305–11, with bibliography (on bellus i. 306). For the Latin
consonant groups yiedling -ll- see Sihler, New Comparative Grammar, 209–10.
62
Where the main topic is etymology or lexicology connected with etymology,
Gellius tends (though it is not an absolute rule) to indicate the relevant source(s) in
the capitulum: besides 8. 2 see e.g. 2. 4, 2. 26, 5. 7, 13. 10, 13. 11, 16. 12. Where he
has authority for an etymology, it is speciWed in the course of the chapter, even
though there are cases in which the primary source is suppressed: at 16. 10. 13, 15
86 Franco Cavazza
instance, the possibility remains open of attributing the etymology

to Gellius, who was not devoid of Greek. Leaving aside the textual
uncertainty,63 we Wnd cupsones in Augustine (Serm. 46. 39, PL 38.
293),64 which seems to support Marshall’s thesis that that is the
correct reading, not eupsones. However, the sense of the word
remains obscure. Augustine is an African writer; either this, or
Gellius’ statement that it is used by Africans, have led some
scholars to make Gellius his compatriot, in a broad and general
sense, as an Afer.65 Baldwin dissents,66 denying the possibility of
African origin for Gellius, whether on this footing or on others; it
would be interesting or even decisive for establishing the origin of
the etymology, which might then be Gellius’ own, but rejection of
Gellian Africitas in no way diminishes the possibility that the
etymological discussion is his own.
Although source-criticism is hampered by the loss of the text,
certain points may be made. As to Favorinus: Greek-speaker as he
was (a plausible Greek etymology is proposed), the next chapter
(8. 14) proves nothing, nor does the recourse to Greek. There is no
more reason to suppose an African source, or to detract in any way
from Gellius’ etymological auctoritas. Moreover, in stating that the
word is not Punic,67 Gellius is correcting an extant opinion (as in
Gellius gives the respective etymologies of proletarii and adsiduus, both stated orally
by Julius Paulus, though of the two interpretations of adsiduus one (ab aere dando)
goes back to Aelius Stilo (fr. 6, p. 59 Funaioli) and had been taken up by others.
63
The MSS are divided between eupsones (read by Hertz, Hosius, and Rolfe) and
cupsones, for which see P. K. Marshall, ‘Four Lexicographical Notes’, 273, followed
by Marache (edn. ii. 111) and me (edn. iii. 279–80). G. Bernardi Perini also sides
with Marshall (as always except as noted in edn. i. 45–76).
64
In Numidia . . . muscarium uix inuenitur, in cupsonibus habitant. Here too the
reading is not entirely secure.
65
Cf. P. Monceaux, Les Africains, 250. The suggestion has never met with much
approval (cf. next n.). It arises not so much from this very weak, not to say irrelevant
evidence, as from the fact that the chief cultural Wgures of the age, Apuleius, Fronto,
and Sulpicius Apollinaris, with the last two of whom Gellius was in close contact,
were of African origin. On Apollinaris’ Carthaginian origin see Beck, Sulpicius
Apollinaris, 3. See too L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 14–15, 83–4 [11–12,
61–2].
66
Studies in A. Gell. 6 (though he reads eupsones); so already A. Milazzo, Àulo
Ge`llio, 9–17 ¼ 256–62, locating Gellius’ patria in Rome; Marache, edn. i, p. viii.
67
A slight indication that Probus is the source is the likelihood that the preceding
chapter, 8. 12, is derived from him (cf. Donatus on Ter. Andr. 55: so Aistermann
139), but although, living in Berytus, he might have acquired some Phoenician, the
argument is very weak, weaker even than that for Favorinus, who is at least named
in 8. 14. cap. As might be expected, Punic words have very little presence in Gellius;
apart from any discussed in 8. 2, the prosody of Hannibāl, Hasdrubāl, and Hamilcār
is treated in 4. 7, expressly taken from Probus’ Epistula ad Marcellum.
15. 30, though there he cites Varro, perhaps mediated through

Verrius): this may indicate that the word is well known, or that it
had been studied by some lexicographer or etymologist. We shall
therefore credit the etymology to Gellius, whose learning here, as
elsewhere, may come from books (so Baldwin). The Greek etymol-
ogy is correct, if we adopt cupsones and the Maurists’ suggestion
(cited by Migne) that ‘in cupsonibus’ means in rupibus et spelun-
cis,68 supported by Marshall’s highly apposite observation that
Gellius must have derived cupsones from ŒØ , ‘bend forward’.
3.12. In 10. 5. 1, 3 there is a passage I Wnd particularly interest-
ing, as I indicated in edn. iv. 233:69
‘Auarus’ non simplex uocabulum, sed iunctum copulatumque esse P.
Nigidius dicit in commentariorum undetricesimo. ‘Auarus enim’ inquit
‘appellatur, qui auidus aeris est. Sed in ea copula ‘‘e’’ littera’ inquit ‘detrita
est’ . . . 3. . . . de ‘auaro’ ambigitur: cur enim non uideri possit ab uno
solum uerbo inclinatum, quod est ‘aueo’, eademque esse Wctura, qua est
‘amarus’, de quo nihil dici potest, quin duplex non sit?
3.12.1. As often Gellius does not cite the source of his etymol-
ogy, which is correct as to the derivation from aueo and probably
also the comparison with amārus.70 If we are unwilling to make it
Gellius’ own, attention as always falls on his teachers: but no
evidence accrues, since the DiVerentiae uerborum edited under
Fronto’s name are not his work.71 Furthermore, the meagreness
of the DiVerentiae apart, oral tradition too must be rejected: that
the passage derives directly from Nigidius’ Commentarii (fr. 14,
p. 166 Funaioli) seems to be shown by the preceding chapter, taken
from the same source. Even Gellius’ mode of expression leaves no
doubts. He is not so much of a forger as to use such language for
presenting genuine research of his own; the etymology must be his,
without a precursor. There is a strange recurrence in Isidore
(Etym. 10. 9), who gives Gellius’ etymology for auidus and auarus
68
TLL s.v., col. 1438. 50–1 oVers no explanation; Latin etymological dictionar-
ies say nothing of the word at all.
69
‘Dopo aver fatto un’indagine su quelle che appaiono etimologie ‘‘gelliane’’
autonome ci pare di poter aVermare che l’etimologia qui proposta non è mediata da
altri o almeno che Gellio scrive qui dopo una meditazione e una ricerca personale;
e coglie nel segno.’
70
Ernout–Meillet, Dictionnaire, 25: ‘Comme le remarque déjà Aulu-Gelle, 10, 5,
3, la formation rappelle celle de auārus à côté de aueō; elle n’est pas répresentée
autrement.’
71
See n. 59; they include locuples (GL vii. 525. 4–5), another word presumed to
result from compositio, which Gellius discusses in this chapter without raising any
objection, and auarus auidus (which recurs in Non. 710 L. ¼ 442. 9–16 M.).
88 Franco Cavazza
(hinc [sc. ab auendo] et auarus), but concludes with Nigidius’

auarus . . . auidus auri.
3.12.2. Latin words in -ārus are listed in the ever-useful reverse
index of Otto Gradenwitz.72 As said, Gellius’ etymology is correct,
even though it is a mere comparison without the kind of explan-
ation that we moderns should give but cannot expect of an ancient.
Yet these words, few in number, give rise to several diYculties. An
ancient (nor are we any better oV) could Wnd only a few theoretic-
ally comparable words, amārus, auārus, cārus, clārus, (gnārus),
rārus, and uārus; amongst these adjectives Gellius certainly does
not choose ill. SuYce it to indicate the verbal roots to be found in
auārus (aueō<*au-, *auē(i)-, ‘love, favour’), cārus (from a root
Ð
*kā-, ‘desire’, with extension in -ro-)73, clārus (a root *kel-,
*k(e )lē/ā-, ‘shout’, accounts for Lat. calō, clāmor, clāmo, clārus),
and (g)nārus (*gên-, ‘know’, >*gˆnō-ro, with the Ablaut form *ĝn̄-
ro->gnārus). For rārus, recourse to a root *er-, *er -, or thematic
e ˚
*(e)r-e-, ‘slow, retarded’, yields few certainties and leaves the
word rārus with nothing better than the contrived reconstruction
< *e r -ro´-s. The same extension must be posited for amārus (*om-,
e
*o m-ro-, ‘raw, bitter’: cf. Skt. amlá-, ‘acid’)74 and uārus (from *uā-,
‘wide apart’, used by itself in this word, but otherwise always with Ð
extensions; cf. Germ. *waþwan-, ‘curve’ > Old Icelandic vo˛ðvi,
‘muscles, esp. the large muscles of the arms and legs’, OHG wado,
‘calf, fetlock’, MHG wade¼ German Wade), e.g. *ua ˘ t-> Latin
uătāx, ‘having deformed feet’, probably related to uārus). Ð In any
event Gellius has chosen well, basing his comparison on the only
homosyllabic word amongst those cited; accounting for -ā- and
reconstructing the suYx *-ro- would be too much to ask of him.
3.13. Our next passage, 11. 15. 6, like those discussed in §§3. 5, 9,
concerns not individual words but word-classes, formations in
72
See O. Gradenwitz, Laterculi, 511–12. The few relevant adjectives are dis-
cussed in the text.
73
The Sanskrit forms listed by Pokorny, IEW 515, are unconvincing: where the
initial consonant is not k- but c-, the Collitz–Saussure palatal law requires not -ā- in
the root but -ē-.
74
Amārus has been discussed by various scholars; against the comparison with
Sanskrit see W. F. Wyatt, Indo-European /a/ 20–1, who sees diYculties in the
uncertainty of the Sanskrit accent, in the -ā- of the Latin word (which needs to be
explained in all these words, not necessarily in the same way; alternation between
long vowel and shwa will be invoked, or laryngeal suYxes by adherents of laryngeal
theory), and also in the initial vowel (Pokorny, IEW 777–8 cites only *om-, which
Wts other languages but not Latin, which requires *am-; Wyatt prefers *om(a)-ro-
as starting-point for IE languages). Gellius’ acuity is further demonstrated by the
contrast with A. Zimmermann, ‘Zu auārus’.
-bundus, explained (erroneously) by Sulpicius Apollinaris,75 and in

-ulentus, for which (I would suggest) it is Gellius himself who
accounts:
Hoc enim fuit potius requirendum in istiusmodi Wgurae [sc. the particle or
suYx -bundus] tractatu, sicuti requiri solet in ‘uinulento’ et ‘lutulento’ et
‘turbulento’, uacuane et inanis sit istaec productio, cuiusmodi sunt, quae
ÆæÆªøª Graeci dicunt, an extrema illa particula habeat aliquid suae
propriae signiWcationis.
3.13.1. Although Gellius may reasonably be credited with the
explanation of these words, we are not given a true etymology,
since the interpretation of -lentus is a problem merely mentioned
but not resolved like that of the other ÆæÆªøª -bundus. Neverthe-
less, even dividing the word into stem and -lentus is to etymologize,
inasmuch as the question is raised—though not answered—
whether the origin of this productio is such as to give it a particular
meaning. As we have seen, the source for Gellius’ account of words
in -bundus is Sulpicius Apollinaris, as usual orally. But the
reported observation and the comparison between the two suYxes
may perfectly well be Gellius’; one reason is that we lack the
exhaustive explanation to be expected from Apollinaris. However,
Gellius does not give an etymology for -lentus, suggesting that this
productio is an extension of the word, and therefore that we have a
declinatio in the sense of derivation pure and simple. Conversely,
the fact that in §5 Gellius calls -bundus a particula suggests that he
and his source allow semantic autonomy to the suYx, a lexeme in
its own right. Assuming correct use of terminology, formations in
-lentus, only half-etymologized as unexplained productiones, count
as declinationes, whereas (even though the passage as a whole seems
to discuss productiones in general, what the Greeks call ÆæÆªøªÆØ)
the fact that every formation in -bundus not only habeat aliquid suae
propriae signiWcationis, but is also deemed a copula with abundare/
abunde, classes it with compositiones uerborum.
3.13.2. The etymology is correct within its limits. Words in
-ulentus (also -ilentus and -olentus after -i-: cf. uiolentus, uinolentus
[earlier uinulentus], sangui(no)lentus) have been studied more
than once. They have no clear counterparts in other languages,
which tells against Szemerényi’s suggestion below. Hence the many
conjectures about their origin.76 It is unclear whether this (not
75
Cf. Garcea–Lomanto, above, 55.
76
See e.g. LHSz i. 336, after Ernout, Adjectifs, esp. 98–100, O. Szemerényi,
‘The Latin Adjectives’ (cf. id., Syncope, 147), R. Aitzetmüller, ‘Lateinisch -lentus’,
131–4; cf. my edn. v. 129–32, with further bibliography.
90 Franco Cavazza
particularly rich) adjective-class has a common origin or results

from diVerent suYxes: but overall there seems to be an underlying
suYx -lent-, which remains to be accounted for. Other possibilities
are formations in -en-ont-, a primitive form IE *op-enont- being
dissimilated to -el-ont-> Old Lat. *opelont->*opelent->*opolent-,
whence *opolentus>opulentus, corresponding to Hitt. happinant-,
‘rich’ (so Szemerényi, ‘The Latin Adjectives’ 277–9, and Syncope,
147),77 or fusion of two suYxes, -ul(o)- and -ento- (so Ernout), or
even development of the Indo-European suYx went- (Skt. -vant-,
Gk. = ) into Lat. -ent- (<*ē-went-) or -lent- through processes
of dissimilation, e.g. after stems like uio- or uino- (so various
scholars).78
3.14. NA 12. 3. 1–2, 4 is of particular interest, not least for Latin
historical phonology and the study of Indo-European:
Valgius Rufus in secundo librorum, quos inscripsit de rebus per epistulam
quaesitis, ‘lictorem’ dicit a ‘ligando’ appellatum esse, quod, cum magi-
stratus populi Romani uirgis quempiam uerberari iussissent, crura eius et
manus ligari uincirique a uiatore solita sint, isque, qui ex conlegio uia-
torum oYcium ligandi haberet, ‘lictor’ sit appellatus; utiturque ad eam
rem testimonio M. Tulli uerbaque eius refert ex oratione, quae dicta est
pro C. Rabirio: ‘Lictor’, inquit ‘conliga manus’. Haec ita Valgius (§§1–2).
Then, in refuting Tullius Tiro’s etymology (‘lictor’ a ‘limo’ uel a
‘licio’), Gellius adds (§4):
Si quis autem est, qui propterea putat probabilius esse quod Tiro dixit,
quoniam prima syllaba in ‘lictore’, sicuti in ‘licio’, producta est et in eo
uerbo, quod est ‘ligo’, correpta est, nihil ad rem istuc pertinet. Nam sicut a
‘ligando’ ‘lictor’, et a ‘legendo’ ‘lector’ et a ‘ui[u]endo’ ‘ui[c]tor’ et ‘tuendo’
‘tutor’ et ‘struendo’ ‘structor’ productis, quae corripiebantur, uocalibus
dicta sunt.
3.14.1. As regards lıctor (ı is attested by Gellius and inscrip-
tions) the source seems clearly to be Valgius Rufus himself, nor is
there reason to suppose intermediation through Verrius (cf. PF
103. 1 lictores dicuntur quod fasces uirgarum ligatos ferunt), least of
77
Á. Pariente, ‘Sobre los compuestos’, esp. 115–16, 123–4, 140 assumes a similar
starting-point but a diVerent process: *poleo (¼polleo without expressive gemin-
ation) >*polens> *oppolens>*oppulentus, which, simpliWed to opulentus, underlay
the entire adjective class, giving rise to a suYx -ulentus.
78
But Aitzetmüller (n. 76) does not see a direct relation between -went- and
-lent-, which have in common a group -nt- with elative force (reconstructed from
various languages), whereas the possessive sense (‘furnished with’) puts the preced-
ing -l- of the Latin suYx on the same plane as the -w- of the Greek, as already
having that sense, like the -li- of Lat. Wdēlis (cf. M. Leumann, ‘Lat. Laut- u. Form.
1955–1962’, 100).
all since, though the etymology is the same, the explanation is

diVerent. Problems arise with the other deverbatives. If the pas-
sage of Valgius Rufus and Tiro are allowed to be direct quotations,
the last part of the chapter may be Gellius’ own; dependence on
Varro for so obvious a suYx, on the basis of LL 6. 36 ab lego lectio
et lector, 8. 57 a legendo lector, is not very likely. Only those who
deny all originality to Gellius—even though, as in other cases, he
appears to list a series of examples derived from his own reading—
will think (as not even Aistermann does) of Probus, mediated by
Sulpicius Apollinaris (perhaps even for the quotations); there is no
evidence in favour of such a notion.
3.14.2. Gellius’ etymology is correct inasmuch as the Romans,
perhaps by folk-etymology, associated lictor with ligare; but direct
derivation is impossible. The list of -tor formations that follows is
not only correct in itself, but bears out a law that nomina agentis
have a long stem-vowel even if in the present on which they are
based it is short. This is indeed generally the case, as with the past
pasticiples and frequentatives discussed in 9. 6, provided the Wnal
consonant of the stem is devoiced before the suYx and not origin-
ally voiceless.79 However, it is not absolute: in particular, /i/ is not
lengthened in the past participle or nomen agentis when it is short in
the present.80 Hence, although lıctor could in principle come from
a hypothetical *ligere, this would have to be not the *lıgere implied
by Gellius’ explanation but *lıgere.
3.15. In 13. 9. 5 we have a list of Latin words supposedly derived
from Greek, two of which may be Gellian etymologies:
ueteres nostri non usque eo rupices et agrestes fuerunt, ut stellas hyadas
idcirco ‘suculas’ nominarent, quod o Latine ‘sues’ dicantur; sed ut, quod
Graeci !æ, nos ‘super’ dicimus, quod illi oØ
, nos ‘supinus’, quod illi
!
æ, nos ‘subulcus’, quod item illi o
, nos primo ‘sypnus’, deinde
per ‘y’ Graecae Latinaeque <o> litterae cognationem ‘somnus’: sic, quod
ab illis !, a nobis primo ‘syades’, deinde ‘suculae’ appellatae.
3.15.1. Tiro had asserted (§4; fr. 13, p. 402 Funaioli) that the
ueteres had calqued suculae on !, which they had wrongly
79
This appears to be a corollary of Lachmann’s much-debated Law, which can
no longer be accepted as a universal principle, but remains a sound observation of
certain facts: see K. Lachmann, In T. Lucr. De rerum nat. libros, 54–5, also my edn.
iv. 185–9 on NA 9. 6, vi. 120–7 on 12. 3. The bibliography is endless; I have taken
account of most of it in the 70-odd pages I devote to the topic in the forthcoming
vol. iii/2 of my Lezioni di indoeuropeistica, §6. 3 V.
80
This is one of the few certainties in the debate over Lachmann’s Law. Note too
pıstor from pınso, with secondary lengthening before /ns/.
92 Franco Cavazza
derived from o instead of oØ .81 Gellius denies that they had
mistaken the etymology, and credits them for noticing what
appeared to have escaped Tiro, that Greek !- corresponds to
Latin su-; hence ! was Wrst Latinized as syades, then adapted
to give suculae. He would seem to have this etymology from Ver-
rius: see Fest. 394. 13–15 (super) uerum ponitur etiam pro de,
Graeca consuetudine, ut illi dicunt !æ and above all 390. 11–19
(where Tiro’s explanation is probably faulted); cf. 370. 20–4 sup-
pum antiqui dicebant, quem nunc supinum dicimus ex Graeco, uidelicet
pro aspiratione ponentes <s> litteram. Over suculae < !82 (cf.
Fest. 390. 17) there seems to be no real disagreement between Tiro
and Verrius, since the two relationships o sues and !
suculae are set side by side; at most Tiro’s only explanation for
the initial s of suculae may seem to be the false semantic—not
phonetic—association with sues, whereas Gellius’ source clearly
demonstrates that in the words listed Greek !- corresponds to
Latin su-. The phonetic relations are correct, but having no con-
ception of diachronic comparison, the Romans, including Gellius,
had to envisage the Latin words as straightforwardly derived from
Greek. However, the surviving parallel accounts do not include
subulcus and somnus; they might well have been in Gellius’ source,
but it seems better to suppose them his own additions.
3.15.2. Even phonetically these etymologies are correct within
ancient limitations, some formal inaccuracies apart, given that
forms with a common root do not always correspond. As regards
the two ‘Gellian’ words, I repeat my comments in edn. vii. 130–1:
sŭbulcus is derived from sūs, with short stem-vowel in alternation
with the long (cf. sŭ-cerda) on the pattern of bŭbulcus,83 derived
from bōs, where -bulcus/-fulcus may correspond to ıºÆŒ, even
though caution is needed.84Subulcus and !
æ85 are not an exact
match, but remain valid as regards the Wrst syllable, which is
precisely Gellius’ point here. Inexact, but basically correct, is the
81
In fact this last is a folk-etymology, whereas !, formed like ºØ, does
indeed seem related to y, ‘sow’; Lat. suculae will be either a semantic calque or an
independent word.
82
Cf. Cic. ND 2. 111, Arat. fr. 28 Soubiran, Plin. NH. 2. 106. The etymology of
suculae (and !) is taken up by Isid. Etym. 3. 71. 12.
83
A dialectal variant, with internal -f-, was bufulcus, which remains in Italian
bifolco<*bofolco.
84
So O. Lagercrantz, ‘Lat. worterklärungen’, 177–81; but see Ernout–Meillet,
Dictionnaire, 74 (s.v. bōs, Wn.), Walde–Hofmann, LEW i. 119, and Chantraine,
Dictionnaire, 1232 (s.v. ºÆ).
85
From the !- of y þ
æ, from the root of
æ, ‘fodder, pasture’, and
æø, ‘I feed’.
link between o
and sŏmnus: sypnus is unattested and has every
appearance of being invented by Gellius for the sake of his argu-
ment. The root is *swep-/*sup- (cf. Pokorny, IEW 1048), which in
its verbal form does not survive in Latin (cf. dormio in contrast to
the causative sōpio), but does in *swop-no-, with the normal o-grade
and the suYx -no-,86 while Greek presents the zero grade
*(s)up-no. Immediately after etymologizing somnus, in which he
posits a parallel evolution, Gellius states the etymology that gives
rise to the chapter, suculae<syades< !, a calque (probably
understood as phonetic rather than semantic) or a loan, even if
apparently by a diVerent process from somnus. But Gellius, as we
have already seen, is content here, as the ancients often were, with
Wrst-syllable correspondence, hastening past the false association
of -culae and -.
3.16. In 15. 3. 4–8, on autumo and the preverb au-, Gellius
combines factual observation and criticism of another scholar’s
opinion with an etymological proposal:
Inuenimus . . . in conmentario Nigidiano uerbum ‘autumo’ compositum
ex ‘ab’ praepositione et uerbo ‘aestumo’ dictumque intercise ‘autumo’ quasi
‘abaestumo’, quod signiWcaret ‘totum aestumo’ tamquam ‘abnumero’. Sed,
quod sit cum honore multo dictum P. Nigidii, hominis eruditissimi, auda-
cius hoc argutiusque esse uidetur quam uerius. ‘Autumo’ enim non id
solum signiWcat ‘aestumo’, sed et ‘dico’ et ‘opinor’ et ‘censeo’, cum quibus
uerbis praepositio ista neque cohaerentia uocis neque signiWcatione senten-
tiae conuenit. Praeterea uir acerrimae in studio litterarum diligentiae M.
Tullius non sola esse haec duo uerba [sc. ‘aufugio’ et ‘aufero’] dixisset, si
reperiri posset ullum tertium. Sed illud magis inspici quaerique dignum
est, uersane sit et mutata ‘ab’ praepositio in ‘au’ syllabam propter lenitatem
uocis, an potius ‘au’ particula sua sit propria origine et proinde, ut pleraeque
aliae praepositiones a Graecis, ita haec quoque inde accepta sit.
3.16.1. The passage is preceded by one from Cicero’s Orator
(158) asserting that aufugio and aufero are compounds with the
preposition ab, transformed into au to soften the pronunciation,
and that there are no other instances. Cicero’s ostensibly correct
etymology—I call it so because it has its own logic and (albeit
invented) phonetic principle—does not exceed the limits of his
observation, but also serves, indirectly, to refute Nigidius’ deriv-
ation of autumo from ab(aes)tumo by deminutio of a syllable. Gel-
lius in his justiWed objection makes good use of Cicero’s statement
and also appeals to the meanings of the words discussed. There
86
The process is *swep-no-, *swop-no-> *sop-no-> som-no-, with regressive
assimilation (cf. O. Szemerényi, Einführung, 41).
94 Franco Cavazza
also seems to be merit in his implicit intuition, inexact but coher-

ent, that Nigidius’ etymology is phonetically unsound, since the
particle ab > au- in au-tumo is not in the required phonological
situation (preceding an f ), unless that is to over-interpret him.
Unfortunately he says nothing else on the etymology of autumo,
leaving us unable to pass a Wnal judgement on his comment, not
least because we lack his analysis of the word: evidently not as
au-tumo, but we do not know whether he considered it a uerbum
Latinum et uetus, or perhaps connected with words in -tumu-s (see
his discussion of aeditumus and similar forms in 12. 10). Specula-
tion apart, Gellius’ hesitation, this time legitimate, about the origin
of au- does not extend to autumo, but only to the two verbs
mentioned by Cicero. His suggestion of a Greek etymology for
au is thus well founded (perhaps the only case in Antiquity: see
below) and seems to counter Cicero’s thesis of euphonic mutation
of ab. We shall return to the etymologies below.
As for the source, here too I prefer to see Gellius as independent.
Not so Hosius (edn. i, p. xlix), who after evaluating other scholars’
conjectures proposes Velius Longus, who lived approximately in
Gellius’ time or a little earlier, in the Wrst half of the second century
ad. He cites the same passage of Cicero (GL vii. 60. 6–10), but does
not mention Nigidius; moreover, the work concerned is De ortho-
graphia. Gellius does cite Velius Longus, but only in 18. 9, for his
commentarius de usu antiquae lectionis, featuring archaic Latin
authors and passages of Homer. But other considerations arise
here, since several problems are rolled into one: the Ciceronian
passage, Nigidius’ etymology of autumo, and the Greek etymology
of au-. It is possible that Cicero was mediated (through Velius
Longus?),87 but Gellius (if we may trust what he writes) has said
legimus in §1, which, used with reference to himself (as usual in the
pluralis maiestatis, cf. e.g. 13. 18. 3 nobis praesentibus), makes
Cicero the immediate source. That would exclude Velius, who
contributes at most the Homeric verses of §8. It is better to suppose
that Gellius read Cicero directly and that the quotation from
Orator is all his own work.
As others have noted, NA 15. 3 reappears almost word for word
in Macrobius (GL v. 600. 17–22 and 637. 19–31 ¼ 15. 14–16, 17 De
Paolis, besides v. 637. 19–31, also incorporating Gell. §8); given his
propensity to quote Gellius, there is no need to posit a common
87
An alternative source would be Probus, whose concern for euphony is attested
in 13. 21 and who may be Sulpicius’ (or Gellius’) source in 4. 17 (Aistermann
132–4); however, the arguments adduced by Hosius for deriving 2. 17 from him
are unsatisfactory.
source. The grammarians, well acquainted as they are with the

Ciceronian passage, do not cite further instances (cf. Prisc. GL ii.
18. 14, 39. 3–4, 46. 15–16; so already Quint. inst. 1. 5. 69); there is
no question of adducing Nigidius’ autumo. Hence, although Velius
Longus cites Cicero’s examples too, he need not necessarily be
Gellius’ source, as Hosius would have it; his comparison with 18. 9,
derived from Velius, is insuYcient proof, since there Velius seems
only a partial source, either because he is (in part?) cited indirectly
(perhaps a mere literary device), or because the vague expression
doctores . . . et interpretes uocum Graecarum (§9) seems to exclude
him, unless it is a blind concealing a single source (cf. K. 6 V.). But
then whom do the Greek verses come from? Perhaps from the
anonymous doctores et interpretes or even Gellius himself (know-
ledge of Homer was not a mark of extraordinary erudition; cf. Gell.
15. 6. 1), but despite the above comments they may yet go back
to Velius, who might therefore also be the source for those in
15. 3. 8.88 Even so, Gellius may be credited with the observation
on the nature of au (with reference to Greek), not found in any
previous Latin author. His usual modest tone in making this
suggestion, together with the comparison with other prepositions
supposedly derived from Greek (cf. super in 13. 9. 5), which he
might have observed for himself, may vindicate paternity of the
proposal for him.
In conclusion, although there are no certainties, both the
manner of expression and the structure of the passage bring me
back once again, but more willingly, to Gellius himself.
3.16.2. As for the etymologies, one is not actually present, and
Gellius’ doubt tells against Cicero’s seemingly correct suggestion,
not otherwise disputed in antiquity. For us too the etymology of
autumo is uncertain. One might relate it to autem as nego to nec,
neg-, but without the excessive conWdence of Walde–Hofmann,
LEW i. 88, or rather the authors they cite. Negumo, or rather
negumate for negate in the carmen of the uates Cn. Marcius, cited
by Festus (162. 5–7), gets us nowhere, being (if it ever existed) a
uocabulum Wctum based on autumo. As for au-, Gellius deserves
credit for writing an potius ‘au’ particula sua sit propria origine:
although, like all ancient scholars, he ascribes correspondences
between words with a common Indo-European origin to deriv-
ation from Greek, his intuition, though hesitantly expressed, is
exceptional and well founded. It is not certain that he had in
88
Gellius’ failure to cite Velius outside the passage quoted does not mean he did
not use him elsewhere.
96 Franco Cavazza
mind Greek Æs (related to Lat. aut, autem), which as even an

ancient might have seen is an independent particle and not a
preverb. In fact the (Aeolic) Greek forms he cites should be ana-
lysed as follows: in ÆPæıÆ , ÆP- comes from *I -=æø, whereas
ÆPÆ
Ø breaks down as I-=-=Æ
Ø, with uncertainty whether I- is
copulative-intensive (perhaps better) or privative. The examples,
in short, are not correct, but the basic fact remains that au-, or
rather au, has an origin of its own. Ernout–Meillet, Dictionnaire, 2,
write: ‘le au- qui devant f sert de préverbe, dans au-ferō . . . ,
au-fugiō . . . répond à v. irl. ó, ua et à v. pruss. au-, v. sl. u, lit.
au, hitt. u-wa (correlatif), cf. skr. áva et lat. uē-. C’est un mot
diVérent [sc. from ab].’89 Naturally other scholars agree, not so
much on fero, aufero, or fugio, aufugio, as in treating au as an
independent word.90 Gellius’ intuition, besides being valid, is all
the more meritorious for having no ancient counterparts and even
being advanced against the authority of Cicero, whose prestige
erects a barrier for the ancients, and without reference to whom
they did not discuss the subject.91
3.17. In 16. 7. 13 we have a Graecism:
[Laberius] in mimo, quem inscripsit Alexandream, eodem quidem, quo
uulgus, sed probe Latineque usus est Graeco uocabulo: ‘emplastrum’
enim dixit
PŁæø, non genere feminino, ut isti nouicii semidocti.
3.17.1. The correction (emplastrum is etymologically neuter!),92
directed against ignorant innovators, may be ascribed to one of
Gellius’ teachers, for instance Sulpicius Apollinaris, who in
19. 13. 3 cites a Greek word adopted in Latin (nanus), but deemed
vulgar and censurable (contrast our present passage) and also
mentions Laberius. Either then it is Sulpicius who transits and
comments on him orally, or, since the etymology is simple, we may
89
F. Metzger, ‘Latin uxor’, 171, exploits this diVerence to propose another
etymology for a much-vexed word: ‘we may . . . explain uxor as IE *u-k-sor, in
which u belongs with IE *au(e) ‘‘away’’ (Latin aufero, Skt. avabharati, Latin
aufugio, Got. auþeis, etc.)’.
90
Walde–Hofmann, LEW i. 79 (cf. 485; less clearly 556), LHSz i. 61, citing Gk.
ÆPØ , ‘retire, retreat’ ¼ I ÆøæE , I ÆŁÆØ (Hesych.), and Pokorny, IEW
72–3, on the root *au-, *aue-, *uē˘-, ‘down, away from’, with congeners in at least
nine Indo-European phyla.Ð Ð
91
See too Maltby, Lexicon, 1–2, cf. 65, on the (casus) ablatiuus: Sergius (or
Seruius), Explan. in Don., GL iv. 534. 31–535. 1–2 ablatiuus, quod per eum auferre
nos ab aliquo aliquid signiWcemus, ut ‘ab hoc magistro’, 544. 14 ablatiuus ab auferendo
dictus, ‘aufer ab eo’ (cf. Isid. Orig. 1. 7. 32). All this established a tradition and leaves
Gellius in splendid isolation.
92
Cf. Garcea–Lomanto, above, 62.
need look no further than Gellius himself. (The word is ancient; it

is attested in Cato, Agr. 39. 2).
3.17.2. The etymology is correct (the word, a medical term, has
entered Romance), as a borrowing from Greek ºÆæ
; plaus-
ible too seems Gellius’ observation that the feminine emplastra is
incorrect. It may be one of those cases, frequent in the Romance
languages, in which neuters plural, in both everyday words and
technical terms—have been popularly interpreted as feminines
singular, because of the common ending -a (cf. folia> It. foglia,
mirabilia> It. meraviglia).
3.18. In 17. 2. 4, commenting on selected passages of Claudius
Quadrigarius, Gellius presents an etymology by compositio:
‘Ea’ inquit ‘dum Wunt, Latini subnixo animo <ex uictoria inerti consilium
ineunt.’ ‘Subnixo animo>’ quasi sublimi et supra nixo, uerbum bene
signiWcans et non fortuitum; demonstratque animi altitudinem Wduciam-
que, quoniam, quibus innitimur, iis quasi erigimur attollimurque.
3.18.1. Quadrigarius has been read directly; the etymology
seems to be Gellius’ own. Essentially we have an interpretation,
but its etymological connection may be inferred both from Gellius’
need to explain the word and the contrast between this sense of
subnixus, ‘buoyed up, ‘relying on’, and its rare opposite ‘subdued’
(cf. Nonius below), found at Tert. De patientia 4. 3 de homini-
bus . . . seruitute subnixis (subnexis J. J. Scaliger). This is not the
only place where Gellius explains compositiones with a praepositio,
or uses etymology to ascertain the true sense of a word.93 Attempts
have been made to discern a double interpretation, non only from
sub þ nitor, but—given Gellius’ twofold paraetymology, a typical
ancient approximation—from the sup- of supra, and sub- (sub-
limis)94þ nitor, with support from Nonius (652 L. ¼ 405. 23–8
M.), who presents both senses and after inapposite quotations for
the Wrst follows Gellius for the second: subnixum subditum . . .
subnixum sublime, hoc est susum nixum.
93
Cf. e.g. 2. 17 and obnoxius (6. 17: above, §3.8), deprecor (7. 16), proXigo (15. 5),
and further obesus (19. 7; see below. §3.19). For the two senses, ‘placed under’ and
‘supported’, and for other nuances cf. CGL ii. 465. 45 $
subnixus; v. 42. 11
(Plac.) subnixus est instructus aliquo auxilio. item subnixus suVultus ex omni parte ¼
100. 17 and 155. 10 and cf. iv. 288. 10; iv. 394. 24 subnixus submisus humilis; 177. 35
subnixus humilis uel subpositus aut incumbens; iv. 177. 26 ¼ 287. 41 ¼ 570. 9 subnexa
(subnixa) subiecta (uel) supposita (subp.) and cf. v. 153. 26 subnexa. subiecta sub-
posita. set melius. suVultam uel subWrmata; v. 419. 22 ¼ 427. 55 subnixis subiunctis.
94
Sublımis (explained at PF 401. 5–6 with a play on superior and supra) comes
from sub þ lımis (¼lımus, ‘oblique’) and means etymologically ‘rising aslant’, then
generally ‘which raises itself’.
98 Franco Cavazza
Aiming to reproduce the compositio, Gellius explains the sense

‘supported by’ for subnixus by a word of similar though not identi-
cal meaning, sublimis; his use of supra, though not connected with
the word in question, is not etymologically incorrect, given that sub
(sup) and super clearly share a root despite the ancient, that is Indo-
European, opposition between the two senses. For Quadrigarius,
mediation through Probus (or even Sulpicius Apollinaris, his pos-
sible conduit to Gellius) is rendered conceivable by some features
of the discussion, such as the apparent borrowing of §§5–6 from a
peritus antiquitatis (etymology fruniscor < fruor) and of §9 from a
specialist in the lingua castrensis (etymology copiari < copia) who
exhibits the preference of historical and lexical over aesthetic in-
terpretations, of which latter Gellius is not free. The suspicion that
§§5–8, 9 may not be his own might have induced us to credit
Gellius with only one of the Wve etymologies in this chapter; but
such a decision would be highly questionable. Rather, all the
etymologies in the passage should be ascribed to him. Citing
words from Quadrigarius, Gellius writes (§§5–16):
‘<Frunisci>’ rarius quidem fuit in aetate M. Tulli ac deinceps infra
rarissimum, dubitatumque est ab inperitis antiquitatis, an Latinum
foret. Non modo autem Latinum, sed iucundius amoeniusque etiam uer-
bum est ‘fruniscor’ quam ‘fruor’, et ut ‘fatiscor’ a ‘fateor’, ita ‘fruniscor’
factum est a ‘fruor’ . . . 9. . . . ‘<Copiantur>’ uerbum castrense est, nec
facile id reperias apud ciuilium causarum oratores, ex eademque Wgura est,
qua ‘lignantur’ et ‘pabulantur’ et ‘aquantur’ . . . 14. . . . ‘Adprime’ cre-
brius est, ‘cumprime’ rarius traductumque ex eo est, quod ‘cumprimis’
dicebant pro eo quod est ‘inprimis’ . . . 16. . . . Inusitate ‘diurnare’ dixit
pro ‘diu uiuere’, sed ea Wguratione est, qua dicimus ‘perennare’.
3.18.2. Gellius’ etymology of subnixus, from sub-nitor, despite a
somewhat ambiguous interpretation, admittedly of homorrhiza, is
correct.95
3.18.3. That of fruniscor is correct and, obvious though it is, is
stated here for the Wrst time. It is an archaic (never classical)
doublet of fruor, from which it derives, and resembles a few
verbs with (expressive?) double suYx, -n- þ -ısc-, e.g. conquinisco
or ocquinisco.96 The comparison with fatiscor/fateor is inopportune
95
Cf.Walde–Hofmann, LEW ii. 171, who rely on Gellius’ quotation from Quad-
rigarius for the Wrst attestation of subnixus.
96
The etymology of fruor, inseparable from frux, poses the problem that -g- is
absent from the present stem; the IE root is *bhrūg-, with congeners in Germanic
(Pokorny, IEW 173, proposes that *frūgor, whence *frūg-nıscor > frūnıscor, was
supplanted by *frūguor).
Ð
(there is no double suYx) and etymologically false: fatiscor has

nothing to do with fateor, but is related to *fatis, found in ad
fatim>aVatim, and hence to fatigo. The etymologies of copiari,
lignari, pabulari, and aquari, which are found here for the Wrst
time, unstated but implicit in the technical term Wgura (so too
in Wguratione at §16), are correct, though these are obvious deno-
minatives (cf. Prisc. GL ii. 433. 10) of unambiguous meaning
(Gellius adds only that they belong to a special language): that
of copiari reappears, this time explicitly, in Non. 123 L. ¼ 87. 3–6
M. copiatur a copia . . . ut lignantur et pabulantur et aquantur,
obviously derived from Gellius, those of pabulor and aquor
in Prisc. GL ii. 433. 20, 17–18 respectively a pabulo ‘pabulor,
pabularis’; ab aqua ‘aquor, aquaris’. The derivation of cumprime
from a compositio, namely cumprimis, is also correct and obvious,
the basis clearly being primus; so too is that of diurnare, like that of
perennare and other denominative verbs. The former is based not
on diū but on diurnus, which in turn seems to be formed
not directly from dies but from diu-, formed from dies on the
basis of nocturnus (Italian retains in full use the verb soggiornare
<*subdiurnare), the latter on perennis or *perennus as in Anna
Perenna, whence Macrobius (Sat. 1. 12. 6) derives annare and
perennare.
3.19. In 19. 7. 3 we Wnd an etymology of the relatively rare type
ŒÆ I æÆØ , explicitly so designated:
‘Obesum’ hic [in Laevius’ Alcestis] notauimus proprie magis quam usitate
dictum pro exili atque gracilento; uulgus enim IŒæø uel ŒÆ I æÆØ
‘obesum’ pro ‘uberi’ atque ‘pingui’ dicit.
3.19.1. The source for text and meaning is Laevius, read dir-
ectly, but the thoughts on obesus come from Gellius himself, or his
friend Julius Paulus, uir bonus et rerum litterarumque ueterum
inpense doctus (§1), or else Julius Celsinus, another friend of Gel-
lius’, with whom he considers Laevian vocabulary (§2). But it was
Gellius’ custom to note or memorize words or expressions worthy
of consideration and use (cf. M. 695), which was also the case here.
He indicates two opposite senses for obesus (one, the more frequent
and longer-lasting, being ŒÆ I æÆØ ), each with its own legit-
imacy, the one from etymology, the other from established spoken
usage. The etymology is not expressly stated, but is clearly im-
plied: obēsus is the participle of ob-ĕdo, ‘gnaw’, and that is what
ought in Gellius’ view to establish the word’s correct and original
sense, namely ‘thin’, ‘proprement ‘‘rongé’’ . . . , sens très rare’
(Ernout–Meillet, Dictionnaire, 454). Non. 573 L. ¼ 361. 15 M.
100 Franco Cavazza
follows Gellius and his quotation, but the opposite sense of obesus
appears in PF 207. 8 L.: obesus pinguis, quasi ob edendum factus, an
etymology that casts light on its grammatical and semantic devel-
opment, ob taking on the causal sense. In fact, Laevius’ oddity (a
semantic hapax) apart, the past participle of obĕdo has passed, like
pōtus and prānsus, from passive, ‘gnawn away’, to active, ‘one who
has eaten much, too much’. And that is the sense preserved, albeit
at learned level, in Romance.
3.19.2. It follows that in this case too Gellius has (indirectly)
stated a correct and semantically well-justiWed etymology.
3.20. In 19. 7. 4–5, again concerning a passage of Laevius,
presented as a Xouter of normal usage, we read:
Notauimus . . . quod hostis, qui foedera frangerent, ‘foedifragos’, non
‘foederifragos’ dixit.
3.20.1. Notauimus and our comments on obesus bring us back to
Gellius, Julius Celsinus, and Julius Paulus. Granted that the
etymology is obvious, we may note how Gellius, strangely, com-
ments on a word not only used in classical authors whom he might
have called ueteres,97 as authorities for good language, but on the
evidence considerably commoner than the alternative he lays
before the reader, which indeed is a hapax known from him
alone. The evidence is the Italian fedifrago, found in educated
usage (and in literature from Machiavelli onwards) but not rare
even now, which suggests a tradition behind it.98 It may be less
relevant or noteworthy that he takes a dogmatic position on the
admissibility, in compositio, of syllabic syncope (foed[er]i-), which
ancient etymologists sometimes allowed with a freedom due to the
very methods of ancient etymologizing. Certainly we cannot doubt
that Gellius perceived the word to have been put together by
licensed exception in what I have taken to be the ordinary way
from foed(us) and -fragus, rather than using the rhotacized genitive
stem, with the composition vowel -i- and -fragus, as he would
(rightly) prefer. Ernout–Meillet, Dictionnaire, 243, write: ‘dans le
composé archaı̈que et poétique [but also classical, see above] foedi-
fragus, le thème *bhoido- survit peut-être; mais, en composition, le
latin a souvent des formes de ce genre en face du thème en -es-:
97
Cic. De oV. 1. 38; deleted by Weidner and some editors, but accepted by
Winterbottom, who takes the word for Ennian, and by the OLD s.v.
98
To be sure there is a paraetymology from fede, but the association already
existed in antiquity (Varro, LL 5. 86). At all events the formation satisWes a native
speaker’s Sprachgefühl.
ainsi uulni-Wcus en face de uulnus; cf. homicıda de *homō(n)-’. For

the form see too LHSz i. 389–90, where the link-vowel -i-99 in
foedi-fragus is said to cause the -in- or -er- in -n- and -s- stems to be
suppressed as an unnecessary suYx, so as to produce a ‘Kürzung
des Stammes’.
3.20.2. Such reWnements apart, Gellius’ proposal is correct;
modern linguistic science has found itself obliged to explain the
phenomenon concerned.
4. conclusions
4.1. This study has added nothing to what was known of ancient
etymology; rather, it conWrms the Wndings of ‘Gellio grammatico’
concerning certain characteristics of Gellius as an exponent of the
ars grammatica,100 which make him, within antiquity, a scholar
fully worthy of respect. He shows certain indisputable pecularities
of technique and method, which emerge even from a limited study
such as this, conWned as it is to etymologies for which Gellius
appears to be reponsible, not to all those found within his work;
they are:
(a) dexterity in applying the etymological techniques of his times,
and therefore
(b) good knowledge of the ‘etymological categories’ employed by
ancient grammarians: etymologies Ø (cf. 10. 4, a passage of
Nigidius outside our scope), Graecisms, barbarisms, phenom-
ena of compositio, of declinatio per similitudinem, ŒÆ I æÆØ ,
paronomasia, and declinatio in the general sense of ‘derivation’;
(c) ability to advance etymologies apparently his own, not merely
to depend on others;101
99
On this -i- see esp. F. Bader, Formation, 13–30, ‘Apophonie’, esp. 238–41; F.
Cavazza, ‘Gli aggettivi in -ı-tımus’, 581–6. É. Benveniste, Origines, 77 points out
that ‘-i- en Wn de composé peut aussi bien reposer sur *-o-’ (cf. agri-cola).
100
Gellius’ studies are not conWned to Latin; even in the etymologies attributed
to him there is considerable reference to Greek. That is no surprise, but simply
demonstrates a fair acquaintance with the language. Gellius, the pupil of Favorinus
and Herodes Atticus, was probably in Greece more than once (cf. my edn. i. 17–18;
he attended the Pythian Games of ad 143 or 151) and stayed there for extended
periods (cf. ibid.). This lasting relationship with Greece is symbolized by his very
title, otherwise inexplicable.
101
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 183–4 [134–5].
102 Franco Cavazza
(d) ability to correct other etymologists (as with words in -mentum,

above, §3.9);
(e) to choose with judgement between two conXicting options or
etymologies;
(f ) a positive success-rate in hitting the target (see the striking
percentages in the summary table below);
(g) appreciation for the importance of semantics, inseparable from
modern scientiWc etymology: Gellius uses etymology to ex-
plain the exact meaning of words, standing in a long Graeco-
Roman tradition from Platonic sound-symbolism to Varronian
IæÆØ
º
ªÆ and juristic etymology that explains the facinus by
the uerba;
(h) concern for accuracy: Gellius checks what he says; see the
comment of R. Marache, Critique, 311, who after pointing
out that the Attic Nights preserve much on Gellius’ masters
and their opinions adds:
Jamais cependant Aulu-Gelle ne nous transmet un jugement sans le con-
trôler, sans en peser les termes et les raisons. S’il n’est pas l’inventeur de ce
qu’il dit, il sait ce qu’il dit. Il s’appuie presque toujours sur des citations. Il
donne ainsi à son lecteur la possibilité de contrôler ce qu’il avance, de voir
si ce qu’on lui propose est juste ou vraisemblable. Mais il donne d’abord
l’assurance qu’il a fait lui-même ce contrôle et qu’il a une opinion person-
nelle sur la question.
And that is naturally what he also does in the Weld of etymology.
(i) non-amateurishness: once again he demonstrates expert
knowledge of the ars grammatica, as I sought to show in ‘Gellio
grammatico’.
4.2. I conclude with a table showing the main words or the
fundamental morphemes of those amongst the Wfty-odd etymolo-
gies studied for which Gellius’ paternity appears to be estab-
lished,102 together with a possible source for those determined a
priori to deny it. The correctness of the etymology must be under-
stood in the light of ancient approximations: thus the phrase uox
Graeca deliberately does not distinguish between actual borrowing
from Greek and common Indo-European derivation.
102
Owing to this limitation, and to the omission (besides a lost passage discussed
in the text) of etymologies not stated clearly, those left in doubt without a suggestion
(except for au-, a genuine personal intuition), and those relating to verbal or
nominal categories of which only one example is cited, the number of etymologies
does not reach 50, but only 25.
word type verdict presumed source
1 fur uox Graeca right (Probus?)

2 uiuaria declinatio right (Verrius?)
3 Morta uox Graeca right? (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
4 -ōsus declinatio103 right (Probus?)
5 praemodum compositio right (Verrius?)
6 nequitia declinatio right (Probus?)
7 obnoxius compositio wrong (Probus?)
8 -mentum declinatio right (a grammarian?)
9 sacellum declinatio right (a grammarian?)
10 cupsones uox Graeca right (?)
11 auarus declinatio right (?)
12 -lentus declinatio right (?)
13 -tor declinatio right (Probus?)
14 subulcus uox Graeca wrong (Verrius?)
15 somnus uox Graeca right (Verrius?)
16 au- uox Graeca (?) right (?)
17 emplastrum uox Graeca right (Sulpicius Apoll.?)
18 subnixus compositio right (?)
19 fruniscor declinatio right (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
20 fatiscor declinatio wrong (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
21 copior declinatio right (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
22 cumprime declinatio right (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
23 diurnare declinatio right (Sulpicius Apoll.,
Probus?)
24 obesus ŒÆ I æÆØ right (Julius Celsinus?)
25 foedifragus compositio right (Julius Celsinus?)
4.3. A percentage calculation gives a very favourable assessment

of Gellius’ etymologies: out of twenty-Wve discussed only three are
certainly wrong, that is 12% wrong to 88% right. Surveying Greek
103
The technical meaning of declinatio varies (see F. Cavazza, ‘Come si forma’,
138–41, ‘Due note’, 212–14, ‘L’etimologia classica’, 22–7) from ‘declension’ to
‘derivation’, which is more frequent in ancient etymology, so that in theory a
declinatio may also be a borrowing from the Greek; the term is subjected here to a
useful diVerentiation.
104 Franco Cavazza
and Latin etymological literature as a whole, we can only conclude

that Gellius is among the best etymologists of antiquity. This is
going too far for one who did not write systematically on the
subject and has left us not a minimal but still a limited number of
etymologies; nevertheless, having favourably assessed his etymo-
logical practice, methods, and technical knowledge, we are no less
bound to take a favourable view of the practical results of Gellius’
labours in this Weld of the ancient ars grammatica.
Translated by Leofranc Holford-Strevens
4
Aulus Gellius as a Storyteller
G ra h am A nder s on
Among students of ancient storytelling Gellius is likely to excite

perhaps the least interest as a narrator in his own right.1 And
among Gellian scholars his storytelling skills are not likely to be
celebrated either.2 The same reasons hold good for scholars of
narrative and scholars of Gellius: his reputation as an individualist
antiquarian tends to distract us from his performance in an activity
which would have been regarded as much humbler3 than the arts of
philological footnoting. But this is the very reason why it is useful
to look at his storytelling techniques. Gellius promises to show us a
routine rather than a gifted performance in a despised line of
activity.
Here I examine three facets of his storytelling: the sorts of things
we might like to notice about his choice of tales; how he can be
measured against others in well-known tales which exist in other
variants; and what sort of storytelling he was able to make his own,
as the narrative of grammatical discovery (‘seated one night in the
lamplight . . . ’).
I am grateful for a number of participants’ observations at the seminar discussion,

and for additional references supplied by Dr Holford-Strevens.
1
For example Gellius rates only a single mention in the author-index of
W. F. Hansen, Ariadne’s Thread (for 5. 14), despite the considerable amount
of popular material in the Noctes Atticae; P. Steinmetz’s detailed and perceptive
discussion (Untersuchungen, 276–91) focuses on anecdote rather than narration as
such.
2
L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius tends to mention the topic only inciden-
tally e.g. 59–93, 79–80, 246 [43–5, 57–8, 181–2] (in contexts of style, sources, and
historiography respectively). [See also id., ‘An Antonine Littérateur’, §§3.10–11.]
3
For major new perspectives on popular storytelling, W. F. Hansen, Greek
Popular Literature; id., Ariadne’s Thread.
106 Graham Anderson
1. some aspects of repertoire

In the Noctes Atticae we can notice a sprinkling of the normal tales
and kinds of tales4 that any educated Imperial author would be
expected to know and be inclined to collect or reproduce: anec-
dotes about Alexander the Great (characteristically, his gallantry
with female captives); or Regulus and the Carthaginians; or Fabri-
cius refusing a bribe from the Samnites. Here we have the sort of
material we should expect to Wnd Wlling the exemplum Wles of
Valerius Maximus5 and his like. But even here there are surprises.
The story of Alexander respecting Darius’ wife and daughter is
joined to an instance where Valerius Antias asserts that Scipio
Africanus did not respect a female captive in his custody (7. 8).
We should of course expect Gellius to pay lip service to traditional
exempla uirtutis; but he is just as likely to be interested or titillated
by gossip about the lapses of the great and the good.
In a similar vein, on the subject of Regulus (7. 4), it is not the
famous Wnest hour of the Roman commander calmly returning to
Carthage that Gellius chooses to record: it is rather the Carthagin-
ian tortures when he arrives back, and the divergence between the
accounts of Tubero and Tuditanus as to what these tortures actu-
ally were. Nor are these atrocities used to support Carthaginian
wickedness as opposed to Roman virtue: Gellius will just as readily
cite the sanctity of an oath maintained by Hannibal (6. 18), perhaps
again for the sake of paradox: even the Wgure who represents the
Roman idea of the devil incarnate is still pledged to maintain
universal human values.
Beside the historical exempla we Wnd samples of para-historical
chreia-style anecdotes: there is a variant of ‘what the bishop said to
the actress’, as when Demosthenes tells the courtesan Lais that the
price of folly is too expensive (1. 8):
PŒ T
FÆØ ıæø æÆH
ÆºØÆ . This is quoted from a philosophical source, Sotion,
and might be supposed to carry a moral message; but again the
suspicion of entertainment or titillatory value may not be wholly
absent. Or we have the words of Scipio Africanus to Sulpicius
Gallus for wearing an eVeminate chirodyta (6. 12). Here we
might detect the typical texture of antiquarian detail and moral
posturing: we have to be reminded of the development of the
Roman dress code, as well as a puritanical prejudice against eVe-
minate mannerisms.
4
See still J. Bompaire, Lucien ećrivain, 443–68.
5
On the latter’s approach, C. Skidmore, Practical Ethics, esp. 83–92; W. M.
Bloomer, New Nobility, 59–146 passim.
Aulus Gellius as a Storyteller 107
Other stories are more straightforward to account for: simple

paradox would be enough to explain the inclusion of an extract
from Apion on boy and dolphin (6. 8), though it may tell us
something that Gellius has to go to Apion for it, rather than draw
on more immediate contemporary information, as the Younger
Pliny had done for a very similar tale (Ep. 9. 33); in the latter
case it arises in ordinary dinner conversation. We note a typically
piquant line in unusual anecdote (6. 5), where the actor Polus
acts the part of Sophocles’ Electra while holding the ashes of his
own son as those of Orestes: one thinks of the kind of extreme
situation in the elder Seneca, where an artist paints Prometheus,
using the body of a criminal under torture as his model (Sen.
Contr. 10. 5).
Others turn out unusual in other ways. I cannot think of a close
parallel to the story of Papirius Praetextatus (1. 23): a child attends
the senate with his father: forced by his mother to divulge its
conWdential proceedings, he makes up the subjects that they were
debating—whether a husband should have two wives or a wife two
husbands: for Gellius this is a iucunda historia, but with the typical
taste for old Roman grauitas: sons must learn to take after their
fathers, and not trust secrets even to their own mothers, who have
no proper appreciation of the conWdentiality of the senate.
All this sort of subject-matter, then, we expect, even if the odd
detail or mannerism surprises us, but in each case we should at
least Wnd ourselves asking: ‘Why this tale and not such-and-such
another?’ We might bypass the question altogether and invoke the
miscellanist’s privilege:6 but it should still be worth asking about a
story as lively and ben trovato as 1. 19, the story of Tarquin and the
Sibyl. Gellius tells us that this example occurs in antiquis annalibus,
but does not cite a speciWc source, which may well be his way of
telling us that he does not have the source in front of him. The
story is of interest because it is so obviously a traditional story type,
though neither Hansen nor I can Wnd any very close parallel. There
is no special storytelling technique required to tell it, because the
tale is inherent in the mechanism of the action. We have a typical
folktale rule of three: twice Tarquin refuses to buy the books, and
only the third time does he realize their worth; but the price has
now gone up to 300%. The reason for Gellius’ telling is in the last
sentence: it explains an established custom of antiquarian religious
lore, how the quindecimuiri came to consult the Sibylline Books in
6
For the miscellanist’s procedures, G. Anderson (1994), 1840–52; A. D. Vardi,
below, Ch. 6.
108 Graham Anderson
the Wrst place. In Gellius we cannot always say ‘the tale’s the thing’
or ‘it’s how you tell it’; often he may be just as interested in
whatever nugget he can attach to it.
2. gellius on two well-known tales:

‘arion and the dolphin’ and
‘ androcles and the lion ’
And so to Gellius’ own performance over two ‘measured miles’. It
is typical of Gellius’ preference to opt for a handling of narrative
material that we should regard as halfway between translation and
paraphrase. The main sequence of events in a clearly stated source
is followed with minimal deviation, but with small expansions,
roundings oV, or other minor adjustments which we can then
attempt to explain. We can do this most eVectively for Gellius’
version of Herodotus 1. 23–4 at Gellius 16. 19, where we are in
a position to compare not only the author’s working with an
extant original, but also with a near-contemporary version by
Gellius’ own philological acquaintance and literary senior Marcus
Cornelius Fronto.7 As Yvette Julien notes, both authors produce
freestanding versions not shaped by any speciWc context, and
hence ideally suited to comparison with their obvious source
and with each other. Although in some sense Gellius was at some
point Fronto’s pupil, there is no compelling evidence of his know-
ledge of the latter’s working of the story,8 as there is none of its use
as an exemplum for the latter’s pupil Marcus Aurelius.9
In the Wrst instance Herodotus tells us that Arion was the most
distinguished musician of his day, and that he was regarded as the
inventor of the dithyramb, which he practised at Corinth itself:
K Æ ŒØŁÆæfiøe H K ø
P e æ
. This nugget of
information might be important to Herodotus himself (as it is to
us); but from a second-century Roman perspective it is rather less
so: hence we Wnd from Fronto Arion Lesbius . . . cithara et dithy-
7
Text pp. 241–2 v:d:H:2 . On the relationship, E. Champlin, Antonine Rome,
46–50; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 131–9 [93–9]. There is valuable and
detailed discussion of the Fronto version in Y. Julien, ‘Histoire d’Arion’, 323–38;
and (succinctly and independently) in M. van den Hout, Commentary, 543–50.
8
[Resemblances are interpreted by Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 135 n. 26
[96 n. 19] as evidence for Gellius’ use of Fronto; others have argued that Fronto
used Gellius.]
9
So van den Hout, Commentary, 544 (pace Julien 326), reminding us that it is not
actually a letter at all.
rambo primus (Arion 1, p. 241 v:d:H:2 ) and in Gellius only ‘Vetus’,

inquit (sc. Herodotus), ‘et nobilis Arion cantator Wdibus fuit’ (16. 19.
2). Then Gellius rather trivially chooses to make heavy weather of
his place of origin: for Herodotus the musician is simply
Łı ÆE
, for Fronto Lesbius. Only Gellius has to explain pon-
derously:
is loco et oppido Methymnaeus, terra atque insula omni Lesbius fuit.
As to his home town he belonged to Methymna, as to his homeland and
island he belonged to Lesbos (16. 19. 3).
Then the respective narrators have to explain his relationship to
Periander: for Herodotus (1. 24. 1) the matter is straightforward:
e
ººe
F æ
ı ØÆæ
Æ Ææa —æØ æfiø. The information
is actually delayed in Fronto, but Gellius oVers a little Xourish of
his own:
Eum Arionem rex Corinthi Periander amicum amatumque habuit artis
gratia.
This Arion King Periander of Corinth treated as a much-loved friend
because of his skill (16. 19. 4).
Both Latin authors choose to inXate Arion’s successful concert
tour: what was merely KæªÆ
. . . æÆÆ ªºÆ in Herodotus
becomes in Gellius:
auresque omnium mentesque in utriusque terrae urbibus demulsit, in
quaestibus istic et uoluptatibus amoribusque hominum fuit.
he tickled the ears and minds of all in the cities of both countries, and there
he was popular and a source of delight and devotion (16. 19. 6).
Once the hero is on the high seas on the deliberately Corinth-
ian ship, Herodotus is again the simplest:
f b K H† ºªœ
KØ
ıºØ e `æ
Æ KŒÆº Æ Ø a æÆÆ. This is now in
Gellius
nauique in altum prouecta praedae pecuniaeque cupidos cepisse consilium
de necando Arione.
When the ship was far out at sea, they conspired in their greed for loot and
money to kill Arion (16. 19. 9).
If we thought at Wrst this was purely accidental alliteration,10 we
soon realize that it is not, when we also Wnd
Wdes capere et canere carmen casus illius sui consolabile,
10
For the diYculties of assessing the phenomenon, L. P. Wilkinson, Golden
Latin Artistry, 25–8.
110 Graham Anderson
to take his lyre and sing a song that would console him for his condition
(16. 19. 12).
Gellius does not produce ornament at every opportunity, but he
is not averse to it either.
Fronto is best at the sense of occasion, with Arion on the poop
and the crew scattered over the ship, in what amounts to a sophistic
performance, complete with his gold-embroidered robe, in con-
trast to Herodotus’ simple AÆ c Œı . Gellius interestingly
retains Herodotus’ detail that Arion sang the carmen, quod
‘orthium’ dicitur (16. 19. 14), which Fronto leaves out: for our
author this is again valuable antiquarian detail. He misses out,
however, on the climactic farewell, with only a uoce sublatissima,
though when the dolphin arrives he does give us a little extra:
Sed nouum et mirum et pium facinus contigit.
But an unexpected, amazing, and dutiful act chanced to take place
(16. 19. 16).
Come the dolphin, Fronto comes into his own:
delphinus excipit, sublimem auehit, naui praeuortit, Taenaro exponit,
a dolphin caught him, carried him aloft, swam ahead of the ship, and put
him ashore at Taenarus (p. 241. 16–17);11
and the brachylogy continues with
Arion inde Corinthum proWciscitur: et homo et uestis et cithara ac uox
incolumis.
from there Arion made his way to Corinth; his voice, his robes, his lyre,
and his voice were all intact (§2, p. 241. 19–20).
By contrast Gellius has a rather feeble incolumique . . . corpore et
ornatu (§16).
So far honours even perhaps: but when we Wnd ourselves back
with Periander, Herodotus is very terse: Periander ! IØÆ has
Arion shut away and awaits the arrival of the sailors. All this
amounts to is that Periander Wnds the matter suYciently unusual
to conduct an independent investigation, where of course the
sailors will condemn themselves out of their own mouths. Fronto
gets this exactly right:
rex homini credere, miraculo addubitare:
he believed the man, but was sceptical about the amazing event (p. 241. 22);
11
To say with van den Hout (547) that ‘here Fronto cuts the story short’ rather
misses the artistic point of the tetracolon.
Gellius by contrast seems to go oV the rails and takes his LCL

translator J. C. Rolfe with him: Regem istaec parum credidisse,
Arionem, quasi falleret, custodiri iussisse (LCL ‘The king did not
believe the story, but ordered that Arion be imprisoned as an
impostor’ 16. 19. 18–19).
Come the hearing itself, as Julien has well shown, Fronto comes
into his own as interested in the judicial proceedings, as we should
expect from his profession as an advocate; Gellius, likewise
with considerable legal background and experience at least by
the time of the redaction of the Noctes Atticae, misses out on the
opportunity.12
When we step back far enough from the three versions we can
see that Herodotus’ account is easily the most consistently unvar-
nished and economical, and one can well see why it should Wgure so
prominently in the subliterature of progymnasmata for its value as a
narrative exercise.13 Neither imitator sets out to be extravagant in
his paraphrase. Fronto’s version reXects in a discreetly limited way
the values of a sophistic rhetorical culture: verbal elegance is
carefully calculated, not by any means overdone, nor is Herodotus
necessarily ‘improved’; but the telling is elegant and polished, yet
still in line with its model; archaism is correspondingly re-
strained.14 By comparison, Gellius seems to me at any rate a little
naı̈ve, a little ponderous, a little unimaginative, but perhaps worst
of all despite the runs of alliteration a little colourless as well, and
we should be tempted to add ‘full of missed opportunities’. It is a
workaday eVort, of a competent Latinist going through the
motions. He is a competent enough narrator; but here he can be
compared with two excellent ones. Van den Hout15 suggests that of
Herodotus’ many imitators on this subject ‘only Fronto16 and Gell.
16. 19 try to narrate it in a style that is even simpler than Hero-
dotus’ own version’, and one might agree with the implication that
neither quite succeeds. If we want to see creative or Xamboyant
development of Herodotus, we must certainly look elsewhere: the
12
Fronto, Arion 2 (Julien 330–3); Gell. 16. 19. 18–23.
13
Amongst many others, Nicolaus, Progymn. 2. 7 (Rhetores Graeci, i. 271 Walz);
ps.-Liban. Progymn., narr. 29 (viii. 52 Förster).
14
Not always evident in printed texts: Julien (327) restores possiet on rhythmical
grounds at Arion 1.
15
Commentary, 544.
16
I am less convinced than van den Hout (545) that Fronto’s literary ambitions
were very limited, on the strength of a gesture of literary modesty; he himself
eVectively contrasts the rhetorical panache of Fronto’s other excursions into
belles-lettres with the Arion (544).
112 Graham Anderson
prominent account in Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages 18

(160 e–162 b) combines charm and immediacy, reported in mid-
action at precisely the point where word reaches Periander’s court
itself; still more so is the account in Lucian’s Dialogi Marini
(5 Macleod) where the tale is (not wholly accurately) paraphrased
in the mouth of a dolphin reporting to Poseidon, again close in time
to the event. In neither case has the author set himself the task of
mere ‘retelling’, but of resetting the tale from an unexpected point
of view which considerably enhances the literary opportunities.17
We can do a similar, but less detailed, overview of the version of
Androclus and the lion (5. 14), but not with the same hope of
success. Here the stated source in Apion is lost apart from Gellius’
own version, but there is what seems to be an independent version
of the same event in Aelian’s Natura animalium (7. 48).18 The
diVerences here are again quite minor, and it is clear that Aelian
is treating the matter as a genuine event, just as Apion himself had
done; it is useful to remind ourselves of Aelian’s Italian back-
ground:19 he would have been well enough equipped to have got
the story from Roman oral tradition itself, since the whole of the
circus is supposed to have witnessed the event.
Both narrators agree on the three-year sojourn in Libya by the
runaway; Aelian engagingly adds that Androcles cooked his share
of the lion’s meat, and emphasizes the aspect of xenia in their living
arrangements. DiVerent accounts are oVered of why he had to
leave the lion, and in Aelian it actually kills a leopard meant to
kill him instead. But Aelian slips up on an eyewitness detail sup-
plied by Apion through Gellius: he assumes that the news travels
through the crowd by word of mouth, whereas Gellius preserves
what seems a unique detail: that the story is circulated round the
crowd quickly by means of placards—again a detail to appeal to
Gellius, who prefers a written text of anything. Note too that
Aelian is vague about Androcles’ master—simply a senator, rather
than a proconsul, and about the giver of the show, anonymous in
Aelian; whereas the emperor is present, if not the actual benefactor,
in Gellius. An Italian has no problem with Roman rankings, about
which someone culturally Greek is more likely to be unconcerned.
17
Other brief versions based on Herodotus include Strabo 13. 2. 4; Ovid, Fasti 2.
83–118; Pliny, NH 9. 28, and Favorinus (Corinth. ¼ ps.-Dion of Prusa Or. 37. 1–4);
those of Hyginus, Fabula 194 and D.S. on Ecl. 8. 55 have access to considerably
diVerent details.
18
For the folktale tradition, K. Ranke, ‘Androklus’; but of course Gellius sees his
version in relation only to its literary source Apion.
19
So Philostr. VS 624–5.
But Gellius does have a narrative trump card here: he describes the
lion itself in very great detail in the arena scene itself, and this he
places Wrst: then he has Androclus tell the whole story in Wrst-
person Xashback: altogether much more of a storyteller’s presenta-
tion than the simple curiosity of animal memory we are oVered in
Aelian.20
Unfortunately we are less well served by a further Gellian doub-
let. The fable of the Lark and her young can be inferred to come
from a tetrameter account in Ennius’ Saturae, of which the Wnal
moral is actually quoted (2. 29).21 Comparison with the versions in
both Babrius 88 and Avianus 21 show that Gellius is following an
expansive and prolix version, which feels the need to explain why
the bird needs to move her family: normally such a bird times her
nest-building so that her brood will be able to Xy by harvest; but
this year she built it in a Weld sown rather early and so has to have
the Xedgelings alert to when the harvest is to take place. We then
have reported speech of the farmer and the Xedglings on each of the
three occasions, rather than just the concluding speech on the part
of the lark to underline the moral to trust oneself rather than
friends or family. In this version too the father plausibly teams
up with his son, rather than operate single-handed: a plausible
interlocutor is thus made available.
3. gellius on cultural exchanges

By contrast Gellius is in a very diVerent storytelling mode when he
narrates his own personal experiences, either as eyewitness of other
people’s contemporary encounters, or as narrator of his own. Here
the bookishness is of a completely diVerent kind: the traditional
academic/antiquarian subject-matter is there, but the events relat-
ing to it are actually happening in the here and now. We have in the
nature of things next to no control here for Gellius’ narrative: he is
the sole reporter.
The Wrst such encounter is between Herodes Atticus and a
would-be Stoic (1. 2). We can notice this to be much more elabor-
ately written up than the materials so often sparely reported or
paraphrased from annalistic sources. It has the characteristic form
of a discussion leading up to the ipsissima uerba of a quoted text
20
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 80 n. 57 [58 n. 48].
21
[See, however, M. J. Luzzatto, ‘Note su Aviano’, 82–4; L. Del Vecchio and
A. M. Fiore, ‘Fabula in satura’, 59–67.]
114 Graham Anderson
(Arrian’s Epictetus). The lead-in to the conversation actually con-

tains a little ecphrasis of the cool shade aVorded by Herodes’ villa,
although the details could be said to arise naturally out of his
explaining how the party avoided summer and autumn heat. The
sentence-structure of the encounter between Herodes and the
would-be Stoic bore is ambitious and expansive (it might be said
to inXate with the pretensions of the student himself ); Herodes can
then abase himself with grovelling mock-humility before he leaves
Epictetus to do his demolition for him. While the material is stock
and likely to replicate itself naturally in academic situations, one
has a sense that Gellius is both directly engaged with his material
and able to narrate the course of events eVectively. This is not a
stereotypical chreia, but an artistically expanded anecdote capped
with an erudite antiquarian Xourish.
In other instances, however, Gellius may choose to be less
expansive. At its crudest an anecdote purporting to present per-
sonal experience may run as follows (14. 5. 1):
Defessus ego quondam diutina commentatione laxandi leuandique animi
gratia in Agrippae campo deambulabam. Atque ibi duos forte grammati-
cos conspicatus non parui in urbe Roma nominis certationi eorum acerri-
mae adfui, cum alter in casu uocatiuo ‘uir egregi’ dicendum contenderet,
alter ‘uir egregie’.
The arguments are then reported in due detail until (§4):
cum . . . eaque inter eos contentio longius duceretur, non arbitratus ego
operae pretium esse eadem istaec diutius audire clamantes conpugnan-
tesque illos reliqui.
In such episodes we sense Gellius wishing to have the best of both
worlds: to home in on any grammatical debate, since that is in his
own view where the action is; then to aVect contempt of the excess
and misapplied enthusiasm of others. We sense the same sort
of attitude in Lucian’s taking his leave of eminent philosophers
telling ghost stories (Philops. 39), or stopping Lexiphanes’ self-
indulgent parade of hyper-Atticism (Lex. 16). The narrator uses
the story to advertise his own superiority and moderation(!). Yet in
a sense this scenario is not just Gellius’ idea of a story: it is the story
of Gellius’ life, as we say.
Holford-Strevens22 has noted Gellius’ aversion to conventional
visual description and to detailed physical description of the sub-
jects of his anecdotes, and both traits are relevant to his outlook
and technique as a narrator: he sees his own-life experiences
22
‘Aulus Gellius: The Non-Visual Portraitist’.
through an academic prism where reputation and pretension rather

than their outward manifestation are what seem to matter to him,
and much of the supporting detail of anecdote material is trimmed
down to suit such an emphasis: we can Wnd more of the same
tradition in the tantalizingly brief reminiscences preserved in the
rhetorical exercises of the Elder Seneca, doubtless for similar
reasons.
We can note too that Gellius’ accounts of encounters with Her-
odes Atticus or Favorinus are quite diVerent in the telling from the
sort of incidents reported in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists and
in the sophistic tradition generally, even though the focus of both
sets of tales is often on the same kind of oneupmanship. The closest
we get in Philostratus is that Philagrus of Cilicia oVended the
pupils of the purist Herodes by perpetrating an Œıº
ÞBÆ (VS
578). Philostratus as usual is interested in the incident because of
its eVect on Philagrus’ temper, and arranges the incident round a
one-liner of Herodes: Philagrus has simply mismanaged his intro-
duction. What he does not bother to tell us is what the Œıº
ÞBÆ
actually was. In comparable incidents where Herodes or Wgures of
equivalent standing are involved, the word or quotation itself will
take pride of place in the discussion, with the bad manners of the
arrogant challenger to Gellius’ idol a matter of secondary import-
ance. The Wnal arbiter, and the close of the anecdote, will if possible
be a book, where for Philostratus the spoken word is king.
Similarly, if we compare the kind of anecdotes we Wnd in Lucian
on his favourite hobby-horse—attacks on false philosophers, a
standard second-century commonplace23—we Wnd that Gellius
puts such an attack in the mouth of Herodes himself (9. 2), when
a philosophic beggar asks him for money; but he then goes on to
load the anecdote with what we might think of as antiquarian
material: how the Athenians decreed that the names Harmodius
and Aristogeiton could not be used as slave-names, and that names
of disgraced patricians could not be given to patricians of the
same gens.
Sometimes Gellius seems to oVer a measure of spontaneity in
narrating details leading up to his own lexical discoveries, or indeed
in doing down others, as in the story of the books at Brundisium
(9. 4). Gellius comes here as close as he can to making an exciting
story of the discovery of books, only allowing himself one antiquar-
ian observation on the name Brundisium itself, that it was called
23
e.g. C. P. Jones, Culture and Society, 31–2, though as usual he emphasizes
experience against literary stereotype.
116 Graham Anderson
praepes (‘propitious’) in Ennius. Sometimes he will become elo-

quent in attack on those he thinks he has worsted, as when he
presents his own mock-humility against a reputable Roman gram-
marian, carefully putting his own ignorance of grammar à la mode
with that of Plautus, and dramatizing the tongue-tied fool as ille
oscitans et alucinanti similis . . . At nebulo quidem ille . . . (6. 17.
11–12). Or he will revel at second hand when wrong-headed
detractors outlaw a correct Ciceronian idiom by calling the master
manifestarius (‘caught in the act’), like the adulterer in Plautus
(Bacch. 918), for perpetrating futurum for futuram (1. 7. 3).
One issue which pehaps looms larger than most others in dis-
cussing Gellian storytelling is the line between truth and Wction.
How far did he ‘write up’ his genuine reminiscences in particular,
and construct them into little dramas of his own to embody his
personal preoccupations, or how far do they represent authentic
occurrences?24 This is a problem which faces autobiographical
material in most writers who purport to provide it, perhaps most
obviously in a second-century context in the case of Lucian; but
one might entertain suspicions in literary letter-writing in the case
of the Younger Pliny,25 or in the case of Arrian’s Epictetus.
I suspect that, where Gellius is concerned, and no glaring impossi-
bility or implausibility can be shown, it is very hard to disqualify
the shorter narrative sketches from at least a reasonable basis of
authenticity, though interpolation in the light of further reading
can never be ruled out. What seems obvious is that Gellius projects
himself as so straightforward and simplistic a persona that he
seems incapable of the level of artiWce one can readily credit to a
Lucian or Philostratus. We can also say that the outlook of a
grammarian and bibliophile are quite substantially divergent
from that of a rhetor or sophist, and that Gellius very obviously
falls on the grammatical side of the divide.
To sum up: Gellius selects often quaintly angled stories for
retelling, as miscellanists do; in the actual telling itself he does
not in the main aim at much more than report; but in reminiscence
or purported reminiscence his own enthusiasms begin to emerge.
We should ask how storytelling adds to our total picture of the
nature and guiding principles of Gellius’ activity; and how it
contributes in a broadly educational context.26
24
Cf. L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘Fact and Fiction’; id., Aulus Gellius, 64–72 [47–51].
25
On which A. N. Sherwin-White, Letters, 11–20.
26
See Morgan, below, Ch. 7.
Gellius is not a gifted storyteller, but rather a testimony to what

happens to narratives at the hands of an erudite collector of curi-
osities from the twilight zone between the grammaticus and the
wider world of higher education. He conspicuously lacks the
sophistic panache of Apuleius, whose Florida cover fairly similar
territory in a brilliantly verbose way; nor is he aZicted with the
clumsy prolixity of a Valerius Maximus.27 His is not the world of
‘did you hear the one about—?’; it is rather the world of ‘you’ll
never guess what book I found this in, here are the author’s exact
words!’ In some respects Gellius is closer to the mental world and
limitations of the Plinys, with the lack of imagination that that
implies, than to the world of sophists so easily found in the Athens
in which he immersed himself.
27
On the Florida, see now S. Harrison, Apuleius, 89–135; on this aspect of
Valerius, C. J. Carter, ‘Valerius’, 42–5.
5
Gellius and the Roman Antiquarian Tradition
A n d r e w J. S te v en so n
Ancient Rome was as interested in her past as are historians today

and antiquarian writing was an important written outlet for this
interest. But, while the literary character of Roman historiography
is well known, Roman antiquarian writing and its importance in
the intellectual life of Rome has largely gone unnoticed.1 Antiquar-
ianism in ancient Rome was the scholarly study of the past in all its
aspects. It was a scholarly genre, lacking literary pretension, which
could admit discussions of detail and could cite documentary
evidence, as well as other writers. Other key features of Roman
antiquarianism are the systematic rather than chronological treat-
ment by the antiquarians of their material, and its use of the learned
monograph.2 It can also take in the accumulated baggage of trad-
ition that would be too trivial for ‘history’. It was, then, a sort of
non-Kunstprosa history, possibly more recognizable as ‘history’ to
modern historical scholarship than is ancient historiography. The
indiVerence towards literary style and rhetorical inXuences is one
of several characteristics shared with other scholarly genres and
1
Notable contributions have been H. Peter’s chapter on ‘Die antiquarischen
Studien und die Curiositas’ (Die geschichtliche Litteratur, i. 108–58), the essays by
A. D. Momigliano on ‘Ancient History and the Antiquarian’ and E. Rawson on
‘Cicero the Historian and Cicero the Antiquarian’, together with the chapter on
antiquarianism in ead., Intellectual Life and A. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius. Wallace-
Hadrill rightly stresses the antiquarian background to Suetonius’ biographies, while
Rawson’s Intellectual Life is probably the Wrst work, in English at least, to see
antiquarianism as an intellectual discipline in its own right, which would repay
modern study. In my unpublished thesis (A. J. Stevenson, ‘Gellius’) I attempt to
identify the antiquarian scholars of Rome and those works which contain antiquar-
ian material and which can tell us something of the antiquarian tradition at Rome,
and I develop at greater length the themes introduced here.
2
E. Rawson, ‘Logical Organisation’, 12 ¼ 324–5 rightly notes that the systematic
organization found in Varro and other scholarly writers of the late Republic repre-
sents a signiWcant intellectual advance on the chronological organization of material.
The Roman Antiquarian Tradition 119
juristic writing. Antiquarian writing was also in prose: there was a

close verse relation in aetiological poetry, though the two seem to
have remained largely separate.3
1. the antiquarian tradition at rome

Historiography and antiquarian writing emerged together at Rome
early in the second century bc, and it would seem to be only with
the development of the Kunstprosa of historiography that anti-
quarian writing became recognizable as a distinct mode of enquiry
into Rome’s past. The Wrst antiquarian works seem to have been
produced in the later second century bc by men such as M. Junius
Gracchanus, though the elder Cato’s writings may already have
had some antiquarian content. In the earlier half of the Wrst cen-
tury bc, Aelius Stilo is the most prominent among a number of
shadowy scholars who contributed to antiquarian scholarship. Not
least of Stilo’s contributions was undoubtedly his role in the edu-
cation of Cicero and Varro. Cicero evidently had some sympathy
with antiquarian scholarship, and made use of antiquarian material
on a number of occasions, most notably in the works De re publica
and De legibus, though he never, as far as we know, wrote an
antiquarian work. Varro, however, became the antiquarian scholar
par excellence, and was apparently regarded as such by contempor-
aries and certainly by later scholars. It is worth noting at this point
that there was no Latin word for an antiquarian scholar, and that
those whom I call antiquarians were simply those whose interests
included antiquarianism.
The Varronian oeuvre represented the acme of Roman antiquar-
ian writing. Varro’s most important work was probably the Anti-
quitates rerum humanarum et diuinarum, a systematic study of
Rome and her past, which probably introduced the term antiqui-
tates for antiquarian studies. It was certainly his most important
antiquarian work. His antiquarian scholarship is evident in all his
works, even including the De lingua Latina, but it is the Antiqui-
tates which seem to have formed the most important source for
later antiquarians and other scholars, who copied, commented on,
and epitomized it, to the extent that much of the material circulat-
ing in the antiquarian tradition derived ultimately from this work.
3
On the chief representatives of Roman antiquarian verse writing, cf. J. F. Miller,
‘Callimachus’. Varro wrote a work entitled Aetia, but it is unclear whether this was
in verse or prose (or both).
120 Andrew J. Stevenson
And Varro’s inXuence continued through the Imperial period: for

all he is doctissimus Romanorum (others may be doctissimi, but only
of their age); and it would seem that he was regarded as the
deWnitive auctoritas on matters concerning public and private life.
The overall impression is of the vast, indeed overwhelming,
inXuence of Varro. As far as we know his works formed the Wrst
complete encyclopaedia of Roman Wissenschaft (which was no
slight achievement). Yet it is unclear whether Varro’s importance
lay in an innovative approach to the study of Rome’s past, in
considerable original research and thought, or simply in being
the Wrst to collect and collate existing research. All three doubtless
contributed: it is unlikely that in compiling his works he did not on
occasion have to add the results of his own research to that con-
tained in his sources. His use of documentary sources tends to
conWrm this; yet there are also occasions when the names of earlier
writers are mentioned along with that of Varro, or are cited by him.
Varro’s dominance of Roman scholarly writing has concealed the
contribution of earlier, contemporary, and later scholars, for the
deWnitive authority of Varro’s name could eclipse that of an inter-
mediary source. The excesses of nineteenth-century Quellen-
forschung have devalued the study of the sources used by ancient
writers, but it is notable that it is often not very diYcult to Wnd a
connection between the antiquarian interests of later scholars
and those of Varro; the one question which is probably impossible
to answer is that of Varro’s relation to his predecessors. It is
quite remarkable that we should have so little of such inXuential
works.
Antiquarian research seems to have thrived at times of crisis or
change: the two major Xowerings of antiquarianism coincided with
the Gracchi and the civil wars of the late Republic down to the
establishment of the Augustan Principate. The works produced in
these periods, but particularly the second, seem to have set the
focus for all subsequent antiquarian writing, just as the consti-
tutional changes in those years largely formed the basis of political
life under the emperors.
Such antiquarian writing was of particular, practical use to
Augustus in that it could provide authoritative precedents and
arguments for the workings of the Principate, though I would
avoid suggesting that the antiquarians wrote proactively with that
aim. Furthermore, interest in antiquarianism continued through-
out the Principate and on into late antiquity, when it shows little
sign of ceasing to be of interest. There is a more or less continuous
thread throughout the Imperial period, linking eras of evident
interest in antiquarian matters, as represented in, for example, the

works of Ateius Capito, the younger Seneca (whose criticisms
must have had an aim), Suetonius, Aulus Gellius, and Macrobius,
and continued by such men as John Lydus, Isidore, and Petrarch.4
While these Wgures, whose works are known today, now represent
highlights, there is no indication of a waning of interest in anti-
quarian studies between them. Such men as Pliny and Gellius did
not see themselves as somehow ‘rescuing’ knowledge; and the
sense that later writers such as Macrobius and Lydus were rescu-
ing their antiquarian information from oblivion in order to restore
a lost past may be more our perception than theirs. We simply do
not know whether the extracts and information preserved by (say)
Gellius are those which were not well known, perhaps even almost
lost, or part of a common patrimony.
Not only the mere existence of a tradition of antiquarian writing
at Rome, but also its quantity, suggest that antiquarianism was of
interest to many of the educated of all periods. That much anti-
quarian information is found in commentaries such as those of
Servius, in digressions in annalistic histories and in encyclopaedic
works such as Pliny’s Naturalis historia and Gellius’ Noctes Atticae
conWrms that antiquarianism was a central discipline in the intel-
lectual life of Rome. Antiquarianism provided the ‘factual back-
ground’ to public life. It explained institutions, procedures, and
customs: matters which were apparently not within the curriculum
of Roman education. It could also—as, for instance, in the Noctes
Atticae—entertain: when the massive works of, for example, Varro
were condensed, and ‘the best bits’ selected, the result was a digest
of information of general interest.
2. gellius the antiquarian scholar?

The central Wgure in any account of antiquarian studies at Rome
should be Varro. In the mid-Wrst century bc Varro wrote his Anti-
quitates rerum humanarum et diuinarum, which set antiquarian
studies on a Wrm footing at Rome. Varro’s works made him a role
model for later scholars, none of whom ever entirely superseded
him. But what are seen as Varro’s antiquarian works survive only
4
Indeed it seems likely that further research would show a continuous tradition
of antiquarian studies from Varro through to the antiquaries of the Renaissance and
later. G. Maslakov, ‘Roman Antiquarian Tradition’, looks brieXy at Ausonius’ and
Augustine’s relation to especially Varro.
in fragments, which are moreover often extremely brief and give

little idea of the context and none of the works as a whole.
Furthermore, very little of the work of other Roman antiquarian
writers survives. The modern student needs a guide to help him
along the shady and uncertain paths of Roman antiquarian schol-
arship: Gellius is an excellent guide.
In 1883 Henry Nettleship remarked: ‘The name of Gellius is
perhaps most familiarly connected in the minds of modern stu-
dents with the subject of Roman antiquities, social, political and
religious.’ That is, Gellius was an antiquarian. To a certain extent
Nettleship’s essay succeeded in adjusting this view to the beneWt of
Gellius’ notes on language and literature, and indeed Holford-
Strevens all but ignores Gellius’ antiquarian interests.5
To call Gellius an antiquarian scholar would be wrong. But he
was a man with antiquarian interests, and the Noctes Atticae con-
tains much antiquarian material. Gellius is indeed the source of
many of the fragments which we have from earlier antiquarian
writers, particularly of the late Republic and Augustan period,
and he is especially valuable in that he occasionally gives us some
indication of the place of these fragments in their original context.
Unlike the lexicographers (principally Nonius Marcellus), Gellius
uses Varro for the substance of his argument rather than simply for
the exempliWcation of words; and Gellius also preserves more
coherent fragments, with more of Varro’s argument or line of
thought, than do the commentators (notably Servius on Vergil).
Furthermore his Noctes Atticae is essentially a compendium of
miscellaneous information on virtually every subject under the
sun. This means that there is scope for the inclusion of a greater
variety of antiquarian material than we might expect to Wnd in
works of a more limited nature.
Out of the apparent and probably deliberate chaos that is Gel-
lius’ organization of his material it is virtually impossible to pro-
duce an entirely satisfactory table of subjects covered, so
miscellaneous is the collection. Nettleship produced a ‘rough
analysis’, which divided the Noctes Atticae into a number of
broad subject areas, though Gellius would have resisted the im-
position of such a scheme.6 Similarly, it is not always easy to place
into a single category many of the articles (a word I prefer to
5
H. Nettleship, ‘The Noctes Atticae’, 406 ¼ 266. L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, ch. 13, ‘History’, hardly strays beyond a catalogue of historians used by Gellius
and a brief account of ‘Gellius’ Attitude towards Antiquity’ (255–9 [188–91]).
6
Nettleship, ‘The Noctes Atticae’, 399–413 ¼ 258–74. Cf. Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius, 65 [47], 33–5 [25–6].
‘chapters’) which make up this patchwork. They are often com-

plex, combining more than one theme: a number of articles contain
antiquarian details, or simply suggest the methods of the antiquar-
ian, without either the lemmata or the subject-matter of those
articles giving any such indication. Taking into account these latter
articles, we Wnd that antiquarian scholarship appears in one form
or another in approximately 120 articles: almost a third of the total.
Distinctions are not always easy, but we can break down Gellius’
antiquarian discussions as follows: the institutions of daily life
(covering such matters as costume, music, shaving, eating, etc.)
are mentioned nearly Wfty times; legal matters on about thirty-Wve
occasions; religious institutions appear some twenty-seven times;
political institutions twenty-two times; military institutions eleven
times; and physical antiquities appear on seven occasions. There is
in addition a quantity of miscellaneous material, which may be
characterized as at least related to antiquarian scholarship: this
includes such matters as the search for good texts, genealogy, an
account of the diVerence between historia and annales, and the
topography of Rome.
The vast majority of Gellius’ articles are comparable (in spirit at
least) to many of those in early editions of, for example, The
Classical Weekly or Quarterly; and both the parts and the whole
bear a marked similarity to the periodical Notes and Queries. This
was Wrst published in 1849 with the subtitle A Medium of Inter-
Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists,
etc. Each issue still explains on the inside front cover that ‘It is
devoted principally to English language and literature, lexicog-
raphy, history and scholarly antiquarianism. Emphasis is on the
factual rather than the speculative.’ One would need only to change
the word ‘English’ to ‘Latin’ to get an accurate description of
Gellius’ Noctes Atticae.7 Unlike today’s Notes and Queries, how-
ever, the Noctes Atticae does not for the most part present original
research. Rather Gellius seeks to present a digest of information on
a wide variety of subjects, for the use of gentleman scholars and
those too busy in public life to make a serious study of these
subjects. In short the Noctes Atticae represents a compendium of
the sorts of things with which a man of aVairs in the second century
7
Taking—entirely at random—vol. 237 (ns 35), no. 1 of Notes & Queries (March
1988), we Wnd contributions on the origins of place-names (cf. Gell. 16. 17), on
corruption and metre in Old English poetry (cf. Gell. 1. 21, 2. 6, 2. 16, 5. 8, 6. 7,
etc.); the use made by (e.g.) Marlowe and Spenser of earlier works, respectively
Justinian’s Institutes and Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (cf. Gell. 2.
23); and on Shakespearian epitaphs (cf. Gell. 1. 24).
would be expected to be familiar. It is signiWcant for the import-

ance of antiquarianism in the intellectual life of Rome that anti-
quarian topics recur in the Noctes Atticae.
3. the methods of roman antiquarianism

It is surprising how little has as yet been established concerning the
characteristics of Roman scholarship in general. The indications
are that the techniques of antiquarian writing had much in
common with other branches of scholarship, though further
research is needed. Here I introduce some of the characteristic
methods of the Roman antiquarians.8
Most of our evidence for antiquarian methodology and interests
comes from within antiquarian works themselves, but a few
remarks from outside the antiquarian tradition indicate that there
were some commonly accepted ways in which an antiquarian
scholar was expected to go about his business. Yet many of these
comments on antiquarian writing amount to little more than the
perception of antiquarian scholars as being learned men who pur-
sued their studies in an expert, scholarly manner. Seneca’s criti-
cism of the scholar’s emphasis on detail when discussing Cicero’s
De re publica informs us of one characteristic of antiquarian
writing, and it is interesting that, in the De re publica itself, Cicero
is also able consciously to break from what would seem an estab-
lished scholarly method, for, at the start of the discussion of the
res publica, he has Scipio announce his intention not to start at the
very beginning, ‘which is what learned men would do’. Scipio also
says that he will begin his discussion according to the rule ‘which
I believe should be used in discussing anything, if you want to
avoid making mistakes: that the meaning of the name of whatever
is under discussion should be explained.’9 Thus we see one reason
for the widespread use of etymologies by the antiquarians.
From these comments we learn three characteristics of Roman
antiquarian writing: the discussion of speciWc details, rather than
the construction of a general picture; a tendency to explain matters
by looking at the origins of whatever is under discussion; and,
clearly connected with the last, the use of the etymology of the
name of whatever is under discussion as an integral part of an
8
For a fuller account see the chapter on ‘The Methods and Characteristics of
Roman Antiquarian Writing’ in Stevenson, ‘Gellius’, 127–85.
9
Sen. Ep. 108. 30–1; Cic. Rep. 1. 38.
explanation. In addition, we may detect several other features

common to much antiquarian writing: more or less apparent ves-
tiges of the question-and-answer process which seems to have
formed the basis of much ancient scholarship, with a tendency to
present a number of alternative views as the answer; the division
and subdivision of works into separate sections, each with its own
rubric or lemma as a heading; the provision of indexes and lists of
contents; and the acknowledged use of earlier antiquarians, or, in
other words, the propagation of the tradition.
3.1. The Use of Earlier Antiquarians

The clearest sign of a consciousness that the antiquarians were
writing within a pre-existing tradition comes from their naming
of their sources and the giving of references. In virtually all sur-
viving antiquarian writing, from Varro to Lydus (and no doubt, if
one cared to look, beyond), we Wnd the explicit citation by name of
the authors’ (usually antiquarian) sources, often with reference to
book number and occasionally to the part of the book. Macrobius
provides the exception which proves the rule.
This awareness of a tradition in which they were writing is at its
most apparent in the prefaces of Pliny and Gellius. Both include a
list of titles ‘which many other (Greek and Latin) writers devised
for works of this sort’. Similarly, in the preface to his books
De rebus rusticis, Varro also includes a list of some Wfty-two, mainly
Greek writers on agriculture. But Varro presents this as a guide to
further reading.10
Gellius undoubtedly follows Pliny in this (some of the titles given
are the same), and indeed there are further marked similarities
between the two prefaces. For instance, Pliny stresses that he
makes no claims to completeness, adding that ‘I am human and
beset with duties and pursue these studies in my spare time, that is
at night.’ We may compare Gellius, who twice explains the title of
his work from the fact that he did much of the work ‘during the long
winter nights in the land of Attica’. The theme of working at night is
one that recurs in the Noctes Atticae and in much of Latin literature
whenever there is any suggestion of scholarly activity. This may
well be largely rhetoric, though it does betray a certain prejudice:
that the production of scholarly works was somehow secondary to
10
Gell. pr. 4; Varro, RR 1. 1. 7 (the list follows); Col. 1. 1. 4–15 also lists those
works the reader should consult before involving himself with agriculture.
one’s daytime negotium. And indeed the antiquarian scholars usu-

ally appear as amateurs who studied in their spare time.11
Both Pliny and Gellius present their lists of titles in order to
distinguish from them their own works; and it is interesting that
Varro too distinguishes his work on agriculture from those of the
Carthaginian Mago, his translator Cassius Dionysius Uticensis,
and his epitomator Diophanes of Bithynia: Varro’s distinction,
however, is merely one of length.12 Pliny bemoans the mira felicitas
of the titles which Greeks give to their works and distinguishes
what he sees as the more serious titles used by Roman scholars
(Antiquitates, Exempla, Artes for—his—example), though he also
notes that Varro gave striking titles to his satires which—in contrast
to Greek works—contained much interesting information. Gellius
does not make the distinction here between Greek and Roman
festiuitates inscriptionum (‘witty titles’) and even includes in the
list the Naturalis historia.13 But Gellius does not have quite the
same polemical purpose as Pliny—it is elsewhere that he refers to
libri Graeci miraculorum fabularumque pleni, res inauditae, incredu-
lae14—for he is concerned mainly to point out that his title is
unsophisticated and merely descriptive (neither of which it is).
Pliny simply states that he could not be bothered to think up any
witty title.15
This simultaneous adherence to and (at least claimed) diver-
gence from the tradition of one’s predecessors is unlikely to be a
mark of Gellius and Pliny alone. Indeed Wallace-Hadrill, who is
much concerned to set Suetonius against his scholarly background,
points out the contrasts between Suetonius’ works and those of
other ancient biographers.16 As Gellius shows clearly, a writer had
to be fully aware of the tradition in which he was writing in order to
11
Plin. NH pr. 18; Gell. pr. 4, 10, cf. §§12, 19; 9. 4. 5, 13. 31. 10, 15. 7. 3. Cf.
T. Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, 97–8, 147–8. Cf. also Cic. Fin. 5. 48.
12
RR 1. 1. 11. Somewhat later, Priscian shows himself aware of previous writing
on the ars grammatica, in order to distance himself from those earlier works (ep. ded.
1–4: GL ii. 1–2).
13
Plin. NH pr. 24; Gell. pr. 4–9.
14
NA 9. 4. 3, though some of the miracula and fabulae he also found in Pliny’s
NH. On Gellius’ view of Pliny, cf. Holford-Strevens, Gellius, 165–6 [121–2].
15
NA pr. 10; NH pr. 26. Of course, the rhetoric of prefaces is in play here: cf.
Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, 98–100, 124–41, 145–9. Gellius’ title belongs precisely
among the festiuitates inscriptionum, and indeed has a better claim to be included
there than some, such as Naturalis historia, Antiquae lectiones, and Epistulae morales,
which give a far better idea of the content of these works and which are present in
Gellius’ list.
16
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 70.
take the decision to diverge from it. Given that Macrobius also
diverges from the mainstream of the tradition (by using a continu-
ous dialogue format), it is worth noting here that the preface of the
Saturnalia contains much that is similar to, if not indeed repro-
duced from that of the Noctes Atticae.17
3.2. Indexes and Contents Lists

Another important link between the Noctes Atticae and the Natu-
ralis historia is the table of contents which follows the preface in
each work.18 Both Gellius and Pliny state that this is for the
reader’s convenience: as Friderici noted, such indexes are com-
monly said by their authors to be intended to facilitate the use of
their works.19 Although the Noctes Atticae and Naturalis historia
are rare among surviving Latin literature in preserving such
indexes (rarer still in their being accepted as genuine by modern
scholars), they were clearly not unprecedented in antiquity for, as
Pliny mentions, one Valerius Soranus had, apparently for the Wrst
time in Latin literature, included a list of contents at the beginning
of his ¯Ø. Soranus seems to belong to Cicero’s youth and is
cited by Varro: so such contents’ lists were not a new feature of
Latin scholarship (the festiuitas of Soranus’ inscriptio places him
clearly in the tradition), although Pliny implies that he is the Wrst to
follow Soranus in this. But an index also appears to have been
included by Columella in his De re rustica, written only a few years
before Pliny’s Naturalis historia. Again it is suggested that this is
for the reader’s convenience, ‘so that, should the need arise, it will
be easy to Wnd what is sought’.20
Since Columella appears as a source for seven books of the
Naturalis historia, Pliny cannot mean that he was the Wrst
since Soranus to include an index (though the authenticity of
17
Cf. e.g. NA pr. 2–3, 11 Sat. 1. pr. 2–3, 10 respectively.
18
On this topic and that of §3.3 cf. R. Friderici, De librorum divisione, which
seeks, generally convincingly, to establish the authenticity and the origin of the
division of ancient works into capita, of the provision of lemmata for these capita,
and of the compilation of capitum indices or summaria. See A. D. Vardi, below,
174–8.
19
Gell. pr. 25 ut iam statim declaretur quid quo in libro quaeri inuenirique possit;
Plin. NH pr. 33 ut quisque desiderabit aliquid id tantum quaerat, et sciat quo loco
inueniat; Friderici, De librorum divisione, 52–3.
20
NH pr. 33; Varro, LL 7. 31, 65, 10. 70; id. ap. NA 2. 10. 3, Serv. Aen. 1. 277.
Columella’s index comes at the end of the eleventh book (bk. 12 being added later):
omnium librorum meorum argumenta subieci, ut cum res exegisset, facile reperiri possit,
quid in quoque quaerendum et qualiter quidque faciendum sit.
Columella’s index has been doubted). Friderici, noting that Cato’s

De agri cultura may have had an index prefaced to it, argued that
Pliny means that he was the Wrst since Valerius Soranus to place his
index in a separate book. This is convincing, in that it would
explain why there is no suggestion in Columella that the provision
of an index was anything novel, as is the case also for Pliny’s near
contemporary Frontinus, who also provided an index to the con-
tents of each book of his Strategemata.21 Such is the case also of the
full index included in the Compositiones of Scribonius Largus
( Xoruit under Claudius); here also the index is included quo facilius
quod quaeretur inueniatur.
Another index appears at the start of what are commonly known
as the Fabulae of the mythographer Hyginus.22 Some of the better
manuscripts of Suetonius’ De grammaticis et rhetoribus also contain
an index that may well be genuine, as indeed Roth allowed and
ReiVerscheid asserted: the latter presumed that this index was
typical of others which would have been placed at the start of
each section of Suetonius’ De uiris illustribus, suggesting that
their inclusion would have been ex more antiquitatis satis noto.23
Of course I cannot claim that all (if any) of the ‘indexed’ works
just mentioned are antiquarian works, though they are all technical
works, with the exception of Hyginus’ Fabulae. What then of the
antiquarians: were their works indexed? In the absence of their
works we do not know, though we may assume from the silence of
Pliny that Varro’s Antiquitates were not indexed, at least to the
same degree as the Naturalis historia. On the other hand, the
delineation of subjects to be covered appears in Varro, though
here it comes not as a separate entity in the form of an index, but
in the body of the text.
21
Friderici, De librorum divisione, 56: on p. 55 he suggests that Gellius’ index
should be seen as a separate libellus. We should believe Pliny: he was very interested
in the Wrst appearance or discovery of things. For his use of Columella see NH
19. 68 Col. 11. 3. 53.
22
H. J. Rose, Hygini Fabulae, p. viii: mihi quidem non ita ueri dissimile uidetur
Hyginum nostrum Antoninorum fere aetate scripsisse. One suspects that the work of
Gellius’ (anonymous) familiaris, which was lent to Gellius and which he charac-
terizes as full of mera miracula, may have had more than a little in common with this
work of Hyginus: NA 14. 6.
23
C. L. Roth, edn., p. lvii; A. ReiVerscheid, edn. 370. R. P. Robinson, however,
argued (edn. 1 ad loc.) that the index was composed ‘longe post Suetoni aetatem’.
Cf. R. A. Kaster, edn. 41–2: ‘That the lists are authentically Suetonian is
unlikely . . . Yet even if the lists are not Suet.’s work, they are probably
ancient’, giving reasons to suppose them older than Jerome; also Wallace-Hadrill,
Suetonius, 51.
The clearest instances of this come in the De lingua Latina, at the

start of the Wfth book and at the beginning and end of Book 7,
together with a further recapitulation at the start of Book 8. Thus,
for example, Book 5 is de uocabulis locorum and Book 6 is de uocabulis
temporum, divisions that correspond to two of the four divisions
found in both parts of Varro’s Antiquitates. Within these divisions
there are further subdivisions, and so, at the start of Book 7, Varro
sets out the four divisions of that book, but with the qualiWcation si
quid excedit ex hac quadripertitione, tamen in ea ut comprehendam
(§5). There is a similar account of the contents of the Res rusticae
and this can easily be detected in other works also.24
From the Wrst book of the De uita populi Romani, Nonius pre-
serves Varro’s statement of the order in which he will deal de re
familiari ac partibus, de uictuis consuetudine primigenia and de
disciplinis priscis necessariis uitae. Riposati places this at the head
of a postulated section on ‘condizione giuridiche e domestiche
dell’antica Roma’, but it could well either belong to or resume a
longer summary from the beginning of the work.25 Nonius also
provides what may have been part of Varro’s explanation of the
structure of his Logistoricus, ‘Cato, de liberis educandis’.26 Agahd
noted that Augustine no doubt found the plan of the Antiquitates
rerum diuinarum set out in the Wrst book of that work;27 one may
wonder whether Censorinus’ account of Varro’s distinction of
three periods of history (Nat. 21. 1–5) might not have come from
a similar introductory passage in the Wrst book of (perhaps) the De
gente populi Romani. As the Wrst book of the Res diuinae was
introductory, so was that of the Res humanae and may well have
included a discussion of the division of the work; certainly the
twentieth book, which was introductory to the Wnal hexad de
rebus, contained a recapitulation of the division of the work: et ea
quae ad mortalis pertinent quadrifariam dispertierim: in homines, in
loca, in tempora, in res.28
24
LL 5. 1, 10, 7. 5, 109–10, 8. 1; RR 1. 5. 3–4. Cf. G. Boissier, Varron, 135–8;
J. E. Skydsgaard, Varro, 92–3.
25
Non. 792 L. ¼ 494. 9–12 M. ¼ fr. 24 Rip. Cf. B. Riposati, De vita populi
Romani, 132–3. In the ‘serie dei frammenti’ of Book 1 (pp. 91–3) he indeed places
this fragment directly after those assumed to be from the preface.
26
Non. 718 L. ¼ 447. 35–448. 1 M.: educit enim obstetrix, educat nutrix, instituit
paedagogus, docet magister.
27
R. Agahd, ‘Rerum divinarum libri’, 15–16.
28
Non. 131 L. ¼ 92. 11–13 M. ¼ RH 20, fr. 1 Mirsch. This division recurs
throughout Varro’s works, so much so that Boissier found it boring and monoton-
ous (Varron, 136–7). But it means that if one is familiar with one work (or book), one
may more easily Wnd one’s way round another.
The inclusion of such indexes was not, however, a unique fea-

ture of antiquarian scholarship: not only are Pliny’s Naturalis
historia and Gellius’ Noctes Atticae not purely antiquarian works,
but, as we have seen, indexes seem also to have been used in
agricultural works and, I may now add, also in grammatical
works: the Ars grammatica of Charisius and the Institutiones gram-
maticae of Priscian contain indexes:29 the epistula dedicatoria of the
latter ends with the familiar note that titulos etiam universi operis
per singulos supposui libros, quo facilius, quicquid ex his quaeratur,
discretis possit locis inveniri (GL ii. 3. 3–4). The concept of provid-
ing an exposition of the most important parts of one’s argument
was far from unknown: as Friderici noted, the partitiones of
speeches provide a clear parallel.30 Rather indexes seem character-
istic of Roman scholarship in general: it might be the case that
such indexes or summaries were more common than has been
presumed, whether provided by the writers themselves or by
librarii. Certainly the repeated emphasis on their practical utility
is no mere rhetoric.
3.3. Rubrics and the Question-and-Answer Process

Clearly such indexes would be most eYcacious in those works
where the individual items included in the index were paralleled
by similar headings, lemmata (‘capita rerum’) or rubrics in the
main body of the text, and these recur in antiquarian writing.
Even where there is no trace in the manuscripts of an ancient
division of the text into sections, each headed by a rubric, the
method is often apparent in the construction of the work, or in
the way that the writer proceeds, or both. This reXects the system-
atic nature of antiquarian scholarship: the organization of the
material to be presented, its categorization, and the subsequent
division and subdivision of the work to reXect those categories are
an important characteristic of Roman antiquarian writing.31
There are traces of what one might call the ‘rubric mentality’
in Pliny’s Naturalis historia: thus, for example, Isager’s study
of Books 33–7 is structured according to the rubrics according
to which Pliny seems to have written.32 But Pliny’s text is not
29
GL i. 2–6; ii. 3–4.
30
Friderici, De librorum divisione, 45. Cf. Quint. Inst. 4. 5.
31
Note also Rawson, ‘Logical Organisation’. Compare Scribonius Largus, who
says (ep. ded. 15) that he has numbered his various compositiones for ease of
reference.
32
J. Isager, Pliny.
provided with separate rubrics, and an essential diVerence between

the contents lists of Gellius and Pliny is that the latter’s has more of
the character of a summary of the work. Pliny lists the subjects
covered and gives total numbers of res et historiae et obseruationes
(etc.) for each book: these form the main divisions of his material.
Gellius, however, merely presents what now appears to be more
like a table of contents as we know it: he lists the titles of the articles
to be found in each book.
While Gellius’ lemmata can be quite discursive, most of those of
Hyginus consist merely of the name of the subject of each fabula.
In the latter part of the collection, however (Fabulae 224–77), there
is a more pronounced rubric form, comparable to the individual
clauses of Pliny’s index, and in some cases even the subject-matter
would not have been out of place in the Naturalis historia. Possibly
the most ‘Plinian’ are those on who Wrst held games, who dis-
covered something, who founded towns, on large islands, and on
those who invented something (Fabulae 273–7). Invention and
institution are common in antiquarian works. It may be that
Hyginus’ index and lemmata are not merely an attempt to imitate
one characteristic of the scholarly tradition (and hence to give his
Fabulae an air of greater legitimacy), but they also indicate Hygi-
nus’ familiarity with the antiquarian tradition. In Greek we may
compare the `Ø ØÆ ¯ºº ØŒ and `Ø ØÆ øÆœŒ of Plutarch, in
which various questions are posed and act as rubrics: the use of
rubrics may also be detected in Plutarch’s other works.33 Perhaps
Varro’s Aetia was constructed along similar lines? On the evidence
of the Digest at least, the works of the jurists also contained rubrics
(as did the laws themselves): these are anyway often not unrelated
to those of the antiquarians.
The systematizing of Roman antiquarianism suggests that such
headings would naturally have found a place in antiquarian works,
and it is notable that Gellius could identify the sections into which
Book 21 of Varro’s Res humanae was divided (NA 13. 13. 5). The
alphabetical order in which Verrius Flaccus arranged his material
reXects a similar systematizing, and it is interesting that Pliny’s
lists of artists are arranged in alphabetical order.34
It is worth noting that indexes and rubrics would be rather more
useful in the context of personal consultation (rather than public
33
Cf. D. A. Russell, Plutarch, 45–6. The form may go back to Aristotle’s
—æ
ºÆÆ. Cf. Roman Questions, tr. H. J. Rose, 49.
34
NH 33. 155; 34. 85–91; 35. 138–44, 146. Note also the alphabetical order of
Pliny’s discussion of gemstones, NH 37. 138–85. Cf. Isager, Pliny, 75, 103, 113,
135–6.
declamation) of the works, and indeed rubrics would be disruptive

in poetry or historiography. Rather, the use of rubrics in a work
marks out that work as one intended for reference (or alternatively
for dipping into) and also, perhaps, as a scholarly one.35 Works
such as the Noctes Atticae and the Naturalis historia reXect either
an alternative to, or a trend away from, public performance as the
prime means of publication. Similarly, one would imagine that
works such as Varro’s Antiquitates and Verrius Flaccus’ De uer-
borum signiWcatu were singularly ill suited to public declamation,
and indeed they seem to have been designed to be reference works.
Particularly in view of their scale, such works must have had a
limited circulation, which would partly explain their poor survival,
and few could or would aspire to own something like Varro’s
Antiquitates. Atticus may have had a copy; Cicero did not, and
references to the work often suggest that it has been consulted in a
library. We should perhaps not underestimate the extent to which
the libraries of Rome served as reference institutions and to which
works were written for deposition in them. Many of Varro’s works
must have remained largely inaccessible, both in terms of their size
and the restricted number of copies available; this diYculty seems
to have been met by Varro’s own production of epitomes of, for
example, the Antiquitates and the De lingua Latina; similarly Fes-
tus’ epitome of Verrius Flaccus’ De uerborum signiWcatu probably
had a similar purpose, and it is perhaps not entirely irrelevant
that Mommsen also produced an Abriß of his own Römisches
Staatsrecht.36
Of course, the division of material under rubrics was a common
feature of much ancient scholarship. Wallace-Hadrill is right to
link it ‘with the basic exercise of Greek and Roman education: the
reading of the literary classics, and their elucidation through a
word by word question and answer exchange between master and
pupil.’37 Not only has each article in the Noctes Atticae its own
rubric following the preface, but within the articles themselves we
can frequently see the clear application of this method: a consider-
able number of articles begin with such phrases as quaeri solitum
est, and many take as their starting point a phrase or word in a
literary work, a law or whatever, although Gellius sometimes
35
Cf. Friderici, De librorum divisione, 23, 25: facile intelligimus in libris, qui ad
perlegendum scripti erant, lemmata superXua fuisse.
36
T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht3; id., Abriß des römischen Staatsrechts.
37
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 42–3. Cf. Suet. Tib. 70. 3 for examples of the
quaestiones with which Tiberius used to test grammatici; and Gramm. 11 for a
grammaticus who could ‘solve all quaestiones’.
disguises his use of this method by only placing at the end of the
article whatever was the stimulus for the point which he has just
made.38
The use of this method is by no means unique to Gellius. The
Wrst sentence of Book 10 of Varro’s De lingua Latina, for instance,
ends with the words multi quaesierunt and there are numerous
traces of the question-and-answer process to be found in his
works: Boissier noted that in his works of literary criticism Varro
proceeded by deWnitions and categories.39 There is, however, no
evidence that he broke up his text with separate sub-headings,
though as we have seen he did divide his books into various
sections: how that division was indicated remains unknown.40
In Macrobius’ Saturnalia, despite the dialogue form, it is very
easy to identify where headings might have been placed, had
Macrobius so wished, and indeed several editors have inserted
appropriate rubrics.41 Similarly, it would not be diYcult to supply
suitable lemmata for Pliny’s Naturalis historia. It is, however,
improbable that rubrics would have been removed at some stage
in the transmission of the texts of Macrobius and Pliny; rather one
would expect the medieval copyists to have inserted them. Instead,
this should be seen as a conscious eVort on the part of Pliny and
Macrobius to write continuous prose uninterrupted by headings.
Unlike those of Plutarch, Gellius’ rubrics rarely take the form of a
question, but usually give an abstract of the information presented.
Possibly Gellius was making a related eVort (at least to vary the
style of his articles): one could easily supply a question for many of
his articles (that is where he himself does not), to which he then
provides an answer. Yet the presence of the lemmata in the Noctes
Atticae might suggest that Gellius wrote more ‘traditionally’.42
Wallace-Hadrill has shown how all Suetonius’ works were
dominated by rubrics: these exist in the fragments of the lexico-
graphical works (and here one may compare Verrius Flaccus), but
38
Typical of examples too numerous to cite in full are NA 2. 19, 3. 18, 13. 3, 22.
H. Berthold, Aulus Gellius, 23 notes that ‘allenthalben wird der Leser einbezogen in
das Fragen und Wissenwollen, in das Suchen . . . und Finden’; he produces lists of
such recurrent phrases (ibid. 73–4, 87–94).
39
Boissier, Varron, 158.
40
On the various methods of division available, cf. Friderici, De librorum divi-
sione, 21, 24–5, 27–33, 43.
41
Cf. e.g. the Dring and Harper edn. of 1694 and the Nisard edn. of 1850. Of
course the dialogue form itself leads to progression by question and answer: the
procedure is at its clearest in Sat. 7. 8–13. Cf. also 7. 16. 1–12.
42
E. Tuerk, ‘Macrobe’, sees Macrobius as aiming to create a homogenous work,
in terms of both style and content, in contrast to the lack of organization in the NA.
also lie behind the arrangement of the antiquarian and biographical

works:
Even within the lives the construction is often around rubrics, topic after
topic, though since this is consecutive prose, the reader is normally spared
the abruptness of a one-word heading at the top of a paragraph. But always
the old method shows through: Suetonius’ thought runs not in consecutive
narrative like a historian’s, nor in developing argument like a philoso-
pher’s, but in word-heading and commentary with instances.43
It is clear, then, that there was a common method: the question-
and-answer process, which seems on occasion at least to have been
developed into the use of rubrics.
3.4. Ancient Antiquarian Research

It is unfortunate that we know little of the preparatory stages
of Roman scholarship: where and how did the authors get their
information?44 In the early days there must have been a combin-
ation of essentially empirical research and the codiWcation of oral
tradition: how else could much of the information have Wrst found
its way into the antiquarian tradition?45 But by the time we get to
Pliny and Gellius, the key preparation was reading, as they make
clear.
We know that there were aids to the reading of books and docu-
ments. A fragment of a text survives which may belong to a work De
litteris singularibus of M. Valerius Probus—perhaps the most
important grammarian of the Wrst century, whom Suetonius
includes in the Wnal place of his list of grammatici.46 This is the
so-called De iuris notarum, which is perhaps merely an extract from
the original work: what we have is a list of abbreviations (together
with their expanded forms) as used in various forms of documents.
After a brief introduction, the Wrst section deals with abbreviations
43
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 44. It is interesting to note in connection with the
mention of a philosopher’s method that Gellius (NA 14. 1. 2) could discern head-
ings within what the philosopher Favorinus had to say. In the Vitae Caesarum
Suetonius’ rubrics are not always merely notional, but sometimes appear in the
questions which Suetonius seems to have set himself: cf. e.g. Aug. 9, 61. 1; Claud.
22; Galba 3. 1; Dom. 3. 2.
44
Cf. Rawson, Intellectual Life, 239: ‘To our eyes Roman antiquarianism omit-
ted the essential preparatory stages . . . ’.
45
Cf. e.g. LL 5. 125, where Varro discusses the use of one sort of table me puero.
Cf. also J. F. Miller, ‘Callimachus’, 402: ‘In general, Ovid’s method of ‘‘research’’
seems to be a combination of scholarly work and recollection.’
46
Suet. Gramm. 24. On Probus see Schanz–Hosius ii. 734–41; for the texts see
GL iv.
found in oYcial, historical, and religious writing, the second with

juristic abbreviations found in laws and plebisscita, the third with
those in legis actiones, and the fourth with those found in edicts. The
manuscript breaks oV here, though some further abbreviations (of
legal terminology) are preserved elsewhere.47 It is tempting to
suppose that the De occulta litterarum signiWcatione in epistularum
C. Caesaris scriptura (ascribed to Probus by Gellius) may have
formed part of a larger work, which also included the original of
De iuris notarum: it certainly suggests Probus’ interest in the area.48
Probus was not alone in his writing on this subject: we know of a
work by Suetonius On Signs in Books, which may have been similar,
and Verrius Flaccus also explained some abbreviations.49
Such works on abbreviations were clearly designed to facilitate
the reading of documents: as such material was not commonly part
of the school curriculum, then one may presume it was intended
for the scholar and interested amateur; and the whole work must
have proved a valuable tool for the antiquarian, who consulted
documents. Yet it is strange that such self-evident abbreviations
as SPQR and AVC, and those of praenomina, are included in what
remains of Probus’ work. These might be later interpolations,
though they would also reXect the same desire for completeness
as is found in Pliny’s Naturalis historia.
Pliny claims to have read about two thousand volumina from a
hundred diVerent authors and his nephew makes clear the method:
‘a book was read and he made notes on it and excerpts from it’.
Thus the younger Pliny inherited 160 papyrus rolls Wlled on both
sides with his uncle’s notes.50 This was, of course, a very common
method: Skydsgaard, who devotes most of his discussion of ‘The
Roman Scholar’ to how these excerpts were kept, traces the
method back to the Alexandrians and notes its presence also in
Cicero, Plutarch, Livy, and Dio. And generally, reading often
appears as synonymous with excerpting: as Marache notes in the
introduction to his Budé edition of Gellius, Fronto and Marcus
Aurelius were so aware of this synonymity that they use the ex-
pression legere ex. Nonius’ initial method was similar too: Lindsay
47
Edited by T. Mommsen in GL iv. 267–76. For other lists of abbreviations,
apparently from late antiquity and the Middle Ages cf. ibid. 277–352.
48
Gell. 17. 9. Suetonius also refers to Julius Caesar’s use of cipher (Jul. 56. 6).
Cf. Mommsen, GL iv. 267.
49
On Suetonius cf. p. 281 Roth; Festus explains RR ( ¼ rationum relatarum) at
340. 27–30 L. s.v. R duobus; QRCF ( ¼ Quando Rex Comitiauit Fas) and QSDF ( ¼
Quando Stercus Delatum Fas) 310. 11–25 s.vv.
50
Plin. Ep. 3. 5. 10, 17; cf. Plin. NH pr. 17.
distinguished forty-one separate word-lists, including one from

the Noctes Atticae, Wve compiled directly from various works of
Varro (mainly the satires), and two from what Lindsay regarded as
probably a glossary compiled mainly from Varro, which included
Varro’s Epistulae and the twentieth book of the Res humanae.51
This method is evident also in Varro’s writings: in the De lingua
Latina he has extracted information from separate parts of his own
work, the Antiquitates, and reassembled it in a diVerent form for
the discussion of something else.
Reitzenstein detected a similar modus operandi in Verrius Flac-
cus’ De uerborum signiWcatu (though unlike Nonius, Verrius had
begun to revise his work on a more recognizably alphabetical
basis).52 This has been conWrmed by Strzelecki and Bona. The
latter identiWed three phases in the construction of the De uerborum
signiWcatu: Wrst, the initial conception of the work and basic prep-
aration, in which Verrius collected the works from which he
intended to excerpt the individual glosses; then the reading and
excerpting of those works, including the arrangement of the
glosses according to the alphabetical order of the Wrst letter of
each lemma and the order in which the various works were
examined. The Wnal phase involved the rearrangement of the
glosses already collected, following the alphabetical order of the
Wrst syllable, or, occasionally, preserving a thematic connection
between adjacent glosses.53
It is interesting that this implies some intermediate state and
format in the written work: Bona speaks in terms of ‘index cards’;
Pliny had his 160 papyrus rolls.54 Gellius’ procedure was much the
same, as he tells us: ‘whenever I read a Greek or Latin book, or
heard something worth remembering, I would note down what-
ever took my fancy and place it in a sort of literary store’ (pr. 2).
Plutarch also had his own ‘literary store’: at the start of the De
tranquillitate animi he explains that he has merely cobbled together
material from his notebooks (!
ÆÆ 264 f).55 It is interesting
51
Skydsgaard, Varro, 101–16 (he is mainly concerned with the meaning of
commentarii and !
ÆÆ); R. Marache, edn. i, p. xv; Fronto, Ep. M. Caes. 4.
6. 1 (p. 62. 10–11 v:d:H:2 ); W. M. Lindsay, Nonius, 3. 7–10.
52
R. Reitzenstein, Verrianische Forschungen, 73 n.3.
53
W. Strzelecki, Quaestiones Verrianae, 80, 93–103; F. Bona, Contributo, 165–8,
esp. 167.z
54
Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 15: ‘Sometimes we get the impression of a
large card-index system at work.’
55
Cf. NA 9. 4. 5, 12. On the form of these ‘literary stores’ cf. Skydsgaard, Varro,
102–15.
that Gellius never refers to his having a book read to him—he

either does his own reading or is the guest of someone who has
laid on a reader as part of the entertainment for his guests—and it is
signiWcant that we often Wnd Gellius at work in or browsing
through the shelves of a library, or in a bookshop.56 As Verrius
Flaccus had intended to do, Gellius then reworked his initial
collection of material, embellishing it considerably. Gellius’ ultim-
ate intention was, of course, diVerent, which perhaps makes it all
the more signiWcant that his initial method was the same.
There is always an attempt to form a literary whole out of these
excerpts: even Gellius and Macrobius do more than simply write
out these excerpts one after another. The Roman antiquarians treat
their sources in a not unsophisticated manner: they show them-
selves clearly able to select from the same source information on
diVerent topics, and to collect information on one topic from
several sources. Gellius is a prime example: he can dismember a
continuous account to provide information on various odds and
ends.57 It is probably this use of their sources which places the
antiquarian scholars above being ‘mere compilers’, a label which
has probably been applied to them precisely because they readily
acknowledge their sources.
Quoting from existing works was naturally common, but it is
worth remembering that somebody must have done the research in
the Wrst place: it is unfortunate that we do not know who. But there
were undoubtedly independent additions made by at least some
scholars to the information contained in the antiquarian tradition.
Such additions are by and large diYcult to detect now, for they are
rarely advertised: the regard for the auctoritas of the ueteres scri-
ptores must have meant that some independent research was sub-
sumed under the name of, say, Varro, whose name lent one’s own
work a degree of auctoritas. For example, Gellius has an extract
from Varro’s ¯NÆªøªØŒ/Epistolicae quaestiones, which seems to
have been updated to take account of the institutions of the
Augustan principate (14. 7). Pliny also tells us that he has added
many facts unknown to his predecessors or discovered by subse-
quent experience (pr. 17). Pliny’s standard procedure is to present
what his written sources say, following this with his own observa-
tions; Isager argues that much of what he says concerning works of
art in Rome represents his own contribution. And indeed, Gellius
56
Libraries: NA 9. 14. 3, 11. 17, 13. 20, 16. 8. 2, 19. 5. 4; cf. 7. 17. Bookshops:
NA 5. 4, 13. 31, 18. 4. Cf. J. E. G. Zetzel, Latin Textual Criticism, 59–65.
57
For Pliny’s reworking of his notes, cf. Isager, Pliny, 168, 187.
reproduces an extract ‘which Pliny said in Book 7 of his Natural

History was not something he had heard or read, but which he
himself knew to be true and had observed’ (9. 4. 13).58
Pliny is probably our best source for autopsy as part of the
antiquarian methodology. But he is not unique and we may, for
example, compare the use of the evidence of statues made by Varro
and Gellius to shed light on ancient shaving habits, and with
Suetonius’ use of a bronze statuette to show that as a child Augus-
tus was called Thurinus.59 There is also evidence for the use of
epigraphic evidence: Varro, Cincius, Verrius Flaccus, Pliny,
Suetonius, Gellius, and Plutarch are among those who noticed
the evidence of inscriptions.60
3.5. Emphasis on Detail

One of the most characteristic features of Roman antiquarianism is
a predilection for detail: it would seem that the antiquarian
scholars of Rome rarely took a general view of whatever they
discussed (discussion rather than narrative is another characteristic
of antiquarian writing); instead they selected matters of detail,
often, it would seem now at least, of obscure or arcane detail.61
Again this is true of the jurists also. It would even seem that the
more obscure, or the more arcane a subject was, the greater was
the antiquarian interest, though we cannot but wonder just how
obscure and arcane these matters remained after the repeated
attention of the antiquarian scholars.
The treatment of topics in detail is particularly evident in the
Noctes Atticae. Gellius has a marked preference for working with
matters of detail, and even when he considers a more general topic,
such as questions of precedence of magistrates or of grammar, he
does so in terms of detail, perhaps only drawing the general point
in a closing sentence. It is signiWcant that Suetonius also has a
delight in detail: as Wallace-Hadrill notes, ‘extraction of the rele-
vant detail is Suetonius’ characteristic method’ and it should be
58
Ibid. 82, 139, and esp. 160–8.
59
Plin. NH 33. 26–8; Varro, RR 2. 11. 10; Gell. 3. 4; Suet. Aug. 7. 1.
60
Cf. A. Stein, Römische Inschriften. Note also the ancient literary ‘falsiWcations’
of inscriptions collected at CIL vi/5. 1*. Some of this alleged autopsy was no doubt
found in pre-existing literary sources: but again we must remember that somebody
must originally have made these observations.
61
Note that Seneca’s main criticism of antiquarianism (Ep. 108. 30–1) was its
detailed approach in contrast to the wider view of the philosopher.
noted that such detail generally appears in connection with anti-

quarian subjects.62
Varro explicitly expresses his preference for detail in three frag-
ments from the De uita populi Romani, particularly by comparing
himself to Callicles, the painter of miniatures.63 It is, then, by no
means insigniWcant that the vast majority of Varronian fragments
deal with points of precise detail. For example, from Book 21 of the
Res humanae we have the discussion of only the rights of arrest and
summons of magistrates.64 Yet even if one were to suggest that there
existed in that book a wider, more general discussion of the Roman
magistracies, then it would be signiWcant that it is the detailed
discussion which was preserved in the antiquarian tradition.
3.6. Presentation of Alternative Views

Almost in contrast to the emphasis on detail would seem a charac-
teristic which we Wnd in various forms in a number of antiquarians:
an unwillingness to commit oneself to a particular view or explan-
ation. The accumulation of several explanations can be detected in
Suetonius, Pliny, Verrius Flaccus, Varro, Plutarch’s Roman Ques-
tions, Macrobius, and elsewhere: a statistical analysis of antiquar-
ian vocabulary would probably reveal a greater than average
frequency for words such as sed, autem, or tamen, marking an
alternative explanation. This is undoubtedly at its most apparent
in the Noctes Atticae, to the extent that it almost becomes repetitive
when one reads the whole collection of articles from beginning to
end (which is not how Gellius intended his work to be read).
Berthold sees this reluctance to reach a conclusion as an imper-
fection of the work and identiWes various categories of this: Gellius
may declare himself unWt to give his own verdict, reserve judge-
ment, put oV giving a decision, or hide behind authorities.65
To list all the examples of Gellius’ unwillingness to commit
himself is unnecessary, but there are several points which should
be made. Firstly, this does seem to be a characteristic of Gellius the
man, as well as of Gellius the writer, if we are to believe what he
tells us of himself. This is made clear when he gives, or rather does
not give, his verdict on the case before him in his capacity as a
judge: iuraui, mihi non liquere, atque ita iudicatu illo solutus sum
62
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 15, cf. 129.
63 64
Frr. 1–3 Rip. Cf. Boissier, Varron, 169–70. NA 13. 12–13.
65
Berthold, Aulus Gellius, 23–6. He gives examples of each of these categories.
The principal exceptions are when idiots or those who pretend to learning are
ridiculed: in these cases there is little ambiguity as to Gellius’ views.
(14. 2. 25). Secondly, in this he seems to follow not only the

antiquarian tradition but also his mentor Favorinus, who at one
point says Scis enim solitum esse me, pro disciplina sectae quam colo,
inquirere potius quam decernere (20. 1. 9), and indeed Favorinus
often appears in the Noctes Atticae as the questioner.66 Finally, it is
important to notice that often one may infer precisely the opposite
of what Berthold saw as ‘Schülerscheu vor eigenem Urteil’; that is,
rather, the teacher’s attempts to get his students to provide the
answer themselves, or to reach their own decision on a subject.67
On at least two occasions this is made explicit and Gellius tells us
that he has left something unexplained in order to exercise his
readers’ minds.68 Elsewhere he directs his readers towards further
consideration of the matter in hand,69 and we may compare his
account of how Fronto inspired him and others to the studium
lectitandi (19. 8. 6). On occasion, however, Gellius’ desire to dem-
onstrate the thoroughness of his scholarship can pre-empt such
further research, as, for instance, when he includes a variant ety-
mology ‘lest it appear to some critic of these Nights better, simply
because it seemed to have escaped my notice’ (1. 25. 18).
This accumulation of diVerent explanations reappears in most
antiquarian writing (and also in much juristic literature). Della
Corte suggests of Suetonius that he ‘intends to stimulate interest:
he collects the facts—all the facts—and displays them as if in
support of a judgement, but this judgement never becomes expli-
cit, but is entrusted to the readers.’70 This is applicable to a greater
or lesser degree to all the known antiquarians. Remarkably the
idea that the accumulation of facts was all-important is probably
less applicable to Suetonius than it is to others, for as Bradley
noted, if this were the case then we should expect the later lives
to have been longer and more detailed.71 The presence of alterna-
tive explanations can also be detected in Varro, in Verrius Flaccus,
in Pliny, and in Macrobius.72 But generally there is less reticence
66
The sect is the Academic sceptics: cf. NA 11. 5. 3, 5; L. A. Holford-Strevens,
‘Favorinus’, 207–17.
67
Berthold, Aulus Gellius, 24. This is, of course, connected with the marked
educational impulse, which may be detected throughout the Noctes Atticae and so is
not an imperfection of the work. See T. Morgan, below, Ch. 7.
68
NA 12. 6, 19. 14. 5.
69
NA 2. 22. 31 (unless this is a note to Gellius himself: cf. 3. 3. 8), 6. 3. 55, 7. 8. 4,
17. 6. 11. For a diVerent slant on this theme cf. 15. 9. 11.
70
F. Della Corte, Svetonio, 160.
71
K. R. Bradley, Historical Comentary, 16 n. 15.
72
e.g. Varro, LL 5. 18, 68, etc.; Plin. NH 2. 138–41, 28. 29; PF 82. 16–22
Xaminius camillus (though Paulus at times fails to distinguish between alternative
in the Saturnalia about the giving of conclusions: this decisiveness

may be due to the dialogue form of the work.73 It is noticeable that
conclusions are more readily reached in the Noctes Atticae when
the discussion is set within the framework of a dialogue.
That Varro was accustomed to oVer more than one explanation
is shown by a comment in Macrobius’ Saturnalia: his a Varrone
praescriptis intellegere possumus id potissimum ab eo probatum quod
ex sua consuetudine in ultimo posuit (3. 4. 3). Gellius agrees when he
presents Varro’s opinions as to the origin of the name of the
constellation Septentriones and adds ex his duabus . . . rationibus
quod posterius est, subtilius elegantiusque est uisum (2. 21. 8–9).74
This is very interesting: not only did Macrobius (or his source)
relay Varro’s alternatives and actually make a decision about which
should be preferred, but that decision is based on what we are led
to believe was Varro’s usual habit: that he usually put his favoured
view last. Is this something that Varro had at some point made
clear, or is it a result of the study of Varro’s works by later scholars?
If the latter, then it is interesting to note that someone must,
however cursorily and for whatever purposes, have looked at Var-
ro’s methods, rather than, as is commonly assumed, only the
results of his scholarship having been used by later generations.
Plutarch provides a useful comparison: in his `Ø ØÆ he usually
presents at least two (often more) alternative answers to his ‘ques-
tion’ and Russell notes that ‘the most favoured solution usually
comes last’. Plutarch may have borrowed this from Varro, though
it seems to be a characteristic of aitiological works: Russell derives
it (ultimately, I might add) from Aristotle and it also recurs in the
aetiological verse of Propertius and Ovid. It is not, however, a
method universally adhered to in the antiquarian tradition.75
4. the interests of roman antiquarianism

Antiquarianism merged easily into grammatical, literary, historical,
and legal scholarship: there was a tendency towards encyclopaedic
explanations); Fest. 152. 28–33 maximum praetorem, 154. 4–5 maiorem consulem;
Macr. Sat. 1. 7. 18–28, 32–3 (both give three alternatives).
73
Cf. e.g. Macr. Sat. 1. 15. 14–17; also 1. 10. 18, 1. 11. 50.
74
Cf. Varro, LL 7. 74 (which has only the Wrst explanation!).
75
Russell, Plutarch, 45. Cf. Prop. 4. 2, 4. 10. 45–8 and, in general, Miller,
‘Callimachus’, 391–2, 411–12. At NA 6. 4 Gellius says the Wrst (of two explanations)
is better.
coverage, both in terms of breadth of subjects and of the reference

nature of many works, information being presented as a summary
of facts, with the minimum of narrative. Hence Roman antiquarian
writers were indeed less ‘antiquarian writers’ than ‘writers whose
interests included antiquarian scholarship’.76 The most general
antiquarian subject is simply ‘the past’: other interests of the
Roman antiquarian scholars are merely subdivisions of this.
Hence antiquarianism appears as no less than the scholarly study
of the past in all its aspects. This study was further divided into the
four main subject areas of homines, loci, tempora, and res. Natur-
ally, however, certain aspects lent themselves better to the system-
atic nature of the antiquarian treatment. Indeed certain subjects
seem ‘traditionally’ to have become objects of antiquarian treat-
ment and interest: it almost seems that works on Roman religion
and its institutions, or on the magistracies, were antiquarian by
deWnition. Today, the most evident of the interests of Roman
antiquarianism is the study of the institutions of Roman public
life perfected in Mommsen’s Staatsrecht.
The Roman antiquarian interest in ‘institutions’ extends to two
senses of the word. On the one hand the interest is in ‘an estab-
lished law, custom, usage, practice, organization, or other element
in the political or social life of a people’. On the other hand there is
an interest, and at times this almost appears to be the greater
interest, in ‘the action of instituting or establishing; setting on
foot or in operation’ or, more simply, in the origins of these insti-
tutions.77 (Antiquarian interest is also aroused by any action which
changed customary or ‘instituted’ practices.) This then goes a long
way to explaining the frequent presence of etymologies of words in
Roman antiquarian writing: the origin or original meaning of the
institution’s name is used to reXect its original nature and/or
purpose. As Wallace-Hadrill correctly identiWes ‘institute’ as
‘a favourite antiquarian’s word’, so Rawson does etymology
as ‘that favourite weapon of the antiquarians’.78 In this respect at
least there was a relation between the studies of the antiquarian and
of the grammarian, as well as those of the jurist.
76
It is perhaps not irrelevant that the library of the Warburg Institute in London
shelves the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius and some works by and on Varro under
encyclopaedias. The dilettantism of Roman scholars was stressed by H. Dahlmann,
‘Der römische Gelehrte’, passim, but esp. 186 ¼ 2.
77
OED s.v. ‘institution’, deWnitions 6a and 1a.
78
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 139 (and cf. his index s.v. ‘institutions’); Rawson,
‘Cicero’, 37 ¼ 65.
In a sense Varro’s De uita populi Romani is the archetypal

antiquarian work: in the Wrst book Riposati has identiWed sections
on the institutions of the kings (including the tribal and centuriate
division of the people), socio-economic conditions, temples, reli-
gion and the calendar, cult and funerary practice, marriage, and the
houses, foods, domestic equipment, and clothes of the Roman
people in the regal period. In the second book the institutions of
the early Republic, the army, and games, in the third coinage, and
in the fourth luxury appear as additional subjects. All these recur
in later antiquarian writing.79 But should we not take the Anti-
quitates as the archetype? Certainly the name suggests that we
should; and much of the material in the De uita came from it.
But we know too little of precisely what Varro discussed: we do
not even know the titles of the individual books and the fragments
are not always particularly enlightening.
For example, in several of Varro’s works we may detect a section
de hominibus: we have little idea of what the hexad de hominibus of
the Res humanae contained, though Boissier saw the hexad as
eVectively a de uiris illustribus, and indeed we can detect the traces
of such a treatment in the De uita. But it is diYcult to see biog-
raphy and works de uiris illustribus as being antiquarian, though of
course no study of the past could dissociate itself entirely from the
important Wgures of that past. This is, of course, only an assump-
tion and we have no idea of Varro’s approach here. Turning to the
corresponding divisions of the ¯NÆªøªØŒ ad Cn. Pompeium and
the Res diuinae, we Wnd that Varro discusses magistrates and
priests respectively. Again, when he discusses ‘men’ in the De
lingua Latina it is the names of magistracies, priesthoods, military
ranks, and of several occupations which are his subject. But Gellius
tells us that the magistracies were discussed in the twenty-Wrst
book of the Res humanae in the hexad de rebus, and there is no
reason to disbelieve him.80 So in the Res humanae, either Varro had
a diVerent idea of what he should discuss de hominibus or he
repeated himself.
The Roman magistracies form a good example of Roman anti-
quarian scholarship. Not only do we possess some fairly coherent
fragments from antiquarian writers dealing with the magistracies,
but we also have some antiquarian-inXuenced passages concerning
magistracies from writers who would not be regarded as antiquar-
ians. Dio’s narrative can assume an antiquarian air, as for instance
79
Riposati, De uita populi Romani.
80
Varro, LL 5. 80–94; Gell. 13. 12. 5–6, 13. 13. 4–6.
when he digresses on the tribunate, and such is also the case for
Tacitus, for example in his digression on the urban prefecture.81
Besides the magistracies, we can still detect an antiquarian inter-
est in Rome’s other political institutions. The senate was an insti-
tution closely connected to the magistracies, and the apparent
emphasis in the fragments on the senators themselves, rather
than seeing the senate as an institution per se, combined with the
interest in the magistracies suggests that antiquarian writing
reXects much of the interests of the senatorial elite. Suetonius
appears particularly concerned with the maintenance of senatoria
dignitas and similarly the section of the Digest which is de senato-
ribus concentrates on the status and rank of senators and their
families.82 The interest in the privileges and duties of senators
extends to certain aspects of their dress, particularly their foot-
wear: this also reXects the antiquarians’ interest in costume.83
The emphasis on the interests of the senatorial elite is largely
substantiated by antiquarian writing on religion which tends to
concentrate on the priestly colleges, the members of which were
largely drawn from that elite. Yet it may also be merely the acci-
dent of transmission, and indeed Gellius has one article (14. 7)
which presents a range of information about the senate, drawing
(ultimately and indirectly) on Varro’s ¯NÆªøªØŒ ad Cn. Pom-
peium: it is interesting to consider that Gellius was not a senator,
and that the ¯NÆªøªØŒ was written as an introduction to the
senate and its procedures for one (Pompey) who had never entered
the curia. In what remains of antiquarian writing on the senate
there is also a marked interest in the locations where meetings of the
senate could be held: a similar interest recurs in other areas of
antiquarian interest, such as religious institutions (where temples,
shrines, and similar receive much attention), and points towards a
periegetic tendency of much antiquarian scholarship.84
It is also unclear what Varro meant by loci in the Res humanae: in
the ¯NÆªøªØŒ and Res diuinae these are the places where the
senate met and temples, shrines, and other religious places. Pre-
sumably Varro presented what would now be seen as a study of the
81
Zon. 7. 15 (from Dio bk. 4); Tac. Ann. 6. 11. On antiquarian writing on the
magistracies, cf. Stevenson, ‘Gellius’, 220–81.
82
Cf. e.g. Suet. Jul. 4. 11, 76. 3; Aug. 35; Nero 15. 2, 37. 3; Vesp. 9. 2; D. 1. 9.
83
Plin. NH 9. 65 (citing Fenestella); Plut. Quaest. Rom. 76 (282 a–b); Gell. 13.
22; Fest. 128. 3–11 mulleos; Serv. Aen. 8. 458; Lydus, Mag. 1. 7, 17.
84
Cf. e.g. Gell. 14. 7. 7; Fest. 358. 1–6 religioni; 470. 5–13 senacula; PF 43. 1–4
curia; Varro, De uita populi Romani fr. 70 Rip.; LL 5. 13, 155–6, 6. 46, 7. 10; Serv.
Aen. 1. 446, 7. 153, 11. 235.
topography and monuments of Rome, as is reXected in the De

lingua Latina, but there must have been considerable duplication
of material with that in the corresponding section of the Res
diuinae, unless Varro had some dividing line which may no longer
be perceived.85 The marked paucity of fragments from these Wrst
two hexads of the Res humanae suggests that Varro’s information
de hominibus and de locis was regarded by later antiquarians as of
lesser importance and not something that should interest them.
It is, however, clear that the rest of the Antiquitates contained
material suitable for antiquarianism. Information on the calendar
reappears throughout antiquarian writing, as does that on magis-
tracies, the senate, the assemblies, the organization of the people in
peace and particularly at war—antiquarian research into the army
and its institutions and customs is particularly frequent86—reli-
gious rites, priesthoods, temples, clothes, foodstuVs, the law, coin-
age, festivals and games, and the theatre. To discuss and list
examples of antiquarian writing on all these subjects would require
more space than the present study allows. It is interesting to note,
however, that within these broad subjects there were items of
particular interest to the antiquarians, or at least those of which
there is more frequent discussion in what we have of their works.
Generally, most interest is displayed in what would seem the
more arcane subjects and in the creation of institutions and
customs. The former is exempliWed by such discussions as those
of tribunician sacrosanctity, of the Xamen Dialis and of augury.
The creation of institutions and customs is found frequently, for
instance in Suetonius, but is perhaps at its clearest in the elder
Pliny, who hardly ever fails to mention the Wrst use or introduction
to Rome of the many things which he discusses.87
Religious institutions are strongly represented in what survives
of Roman antiquarian writing, but we should beware of allotting
too great an importance to this aspect of Roman antiquarianism,
for we owe the survival of most fragments on religion to the
Christian writers, of whom Augustine is particularly important.
While the preservation of these fragments is extremely valuable,
it must be remembered that the Christian interest in the pagan
past has seriously unbalanced the surviving remains of Roman
85
LL 5. 41–56, 145–65.
86
Cf. e.g. Varro, LL 5. 87–91, 115–17, 7. 52, 56–8; Gell. 1. 11, 1. 25 (from RH de
bello et pace), 5. 6, 10. 8–9, 10. 25, 16. 4, etc. Cf. Rawson, Intellectual Life, 240–1;
Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 129–31.
87
On Suetonius cf. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 77–8, 127, 130 n. 12, 139.
antiquarian writing.88 An idea of the range of the antiquarians’, or

at least Varro’s, studies in this Weld may be gained from what
Augustine has to say of the institutions and rites of Roman pagan-
ism and from the edition and commentary on Varro’s Res diuinae
by Burckhart Cardauns. It is, however, worth noting that there is
an emphasis in what survives on the priesthoods, particularly their
various competences, most interest being shown in the Xamen
Dialis, the augurs, fetiales, and the Vestals.
Religious institutions were clearly of greater interest to the
antiquarians than the deities themselves. The section of Varro’s
Res diuinae on the gods (de dis) formed a less important part of the
whole, and we have Augustine’s testimony that this section was
little more than an appendix to the work. Varro’s account was, of
course, inXuenced by the nature of Roman religion: Roman pagan-
ism was not a ‘book religion’ and any religious laws were concerned
more with prescribing practices than belief.89 Similarly, Gellius
seems not to have consulted the Res diuinae, or even the section
on the gods, primarily for information on gods; and in general,
there is little sign of religious piety or superstition in the Noctes
Atticae.90
But there is little indication that Varro took any less care when
writing about the gods, and one should presume also that August-
ine’s enumeration of the gods discussed by Varro is probably only
a brief précis of what Varro had written. Varro returned to gods, as
he did to most of the subjects of the Antiquitates, in the De lingua
Latina and discussed the names of several gods and their origins.91
There was then a precedent for antiquarians to discuss the gods,
though probably not theology: besides Varro in the Wrst book of
the Res humanae it would seem to be only Pliny and Macrobius
who had thoughts on theology.92
88
Maslakov, ‘Roman Antiquarian Tradition’, 101–2 overemphasizes the reli-
gious studies of Roman antiquarianism; he does not note the role played by the
interests of the Christian writers. Moralizing probably should not receive the
emphasis given it by Maslakov either.
89
CD 6. 3. On the Indigitamenta, libri rituales, libri haruspicum, and libri fulgu-
rales as merely prescribing formulae and rituals cf. Boissier, Varron, 202–3 and
Agahd, edn. of RD 130–4.
90
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 286–9 [212–14].
91
LL 5. 57–74.
92
Pliny’s thoughts are essentially that it is all nonsense. Cf. NH 2. 14, 17, 143–4,
11. 273, 28. 17, 22–9. See also T. Köves-Zulauf, ‘Plinius’, 193–9. Macrobius (Sat. 1.
17–23) discusses a number of gods, listing their attributes and the origins of their
names: by the 5th c. ad such matters may largely have become the province of
antiquarian research alone. Macrobius’ main purpose, however, is to show that all
Only twice does Gellius discuss a god per se (5. 12, 13. 23) and in
one of these articles he is as much concerned with the pronunci-
ation and declension of the name as he is with the attributes of
the god. Furthermore, both articles start from the presence of
the gods’ names in prayers. Another article (2. 28) illustrates
the uncertainty at Rome as to which god sacriWce should be oVered
when there is an earthquake: Gellius’ main point is the procedure
of the sacriWce. Gellius’ three other references to gods (all of which
also mention Varro) all present information for which the names
of the gods merely provide supporting evidence.93 It is interest-
ing that in the fragments of the De uita populi Romani Varro
discusses religious matters only in the Wrst book, that on the regal
period; and furthermore the relevant fragments relate to the cult of
the gods. If we were to see gods as having a place in the antiquarian
tradition, then we might expect antiquarian interest to focus on the
early period and more particularly on the attitudes of the ueteres to
the gods and so on the development of their cult.
An interest in games is widespread among the antiquarian
writers, much of this no doubt originating in Books 9 and 10 of
the Res diuinae, which were de ludis circensibus and de ludis scaenicis
respectively, though Suetonius’ Ludicra historia was no doubt
also important for later writers.94 It is unclear how far the anti-
quarians regarded games as religious institutions: they were aware
of their religious origins, but few of the fragments suggests any
deep interest in their religious character, which was by the late
Republic in any case subsumed beneath their value as spectacle.
Certainly, Suetonius in his Caesares is most interested in games as
spectacle.
There was also considerable antiquarian interest in the calendar,
which again had religious origins and retained religious connota-
tions: the existing fragments concentrate on the explanation of dies
atri, dies fasti, dies nefasti, nundinae and so on, and the division of
time, particularly of the day. It is worth noting that these matters
these gods should be seen merely as individual manifestations of one god, Sol.
Outside the section in which he presents these views, it is signiWcant that gods
appear only as the objects of the rites he discusses.
93
NA 3. 16. 9–11 (on the length of pregnancy), 16. 16. 4 (on the origin of the
name Agrippa), 16. 17. 2 (on the origin of the name of the ager Vaticanus).
94
We also know of lost works by Varro De actionibus scaenicis, De scaenicis
originibus, De actibus scaenicis, and the Theatrales libri, if this is not a general title
for the previous three, which may in any case represent an epitome or republication
of RD 10. Augustine is again an important source (cf. e.g. CD 6. 7, 7. 21), as is
Tertullian, De Spectaculis.
are those which would probably most aVect the elite in practical
terms in that, for example, they governed the working hours of
the senate.95
The problems of the (non-)survival of texts make it diYcult to
be certain, though the indications are that there was less interest in
other institutions. Such is the case for the development of the
equestrian order, most interest being shown by the elder Pliny.
Suetonius documents the reforms of the equestrian order or career
structure introduced by the emperors, as well as the recognitiones
equitum, which are Gellius’ main concern regarding the equestrian
order, and Verrius Flaccus explained a few relevant terms.96
A similar level of interest is evident in the popular assemblies,
most interest being shown by Gellius and Verrius Flaccus, though
the latter referred to Varro’s discussion of praerogatiuae centuriae
in Book 6 of the Res humanae, which would suggest that Varro
dealt with the various comitia and concilia, presumably as exhaust-
ively as he seems to have done other institutions.97 Rawson noted
the antiquarian interest in military institutions, concluding that
‘here the antiquarian tradition is revealed as better than the annal-
istic’: it is interesting and characteristic for antiquarian writing
that military tactics and tales of heroism appear very rarely, and
95
Varro, LL 6. 3–34 (at 6. 18 he refers the reader to the Antiquitates for further
details: RH 14–19 were de temporibus); De uita populi Romani fr. 18 Rip.; Plut.
Quaest. Rom. 19 (267 f–268 d), 24 (268 b–d), 25 (269 e–270 d), 84 (284 c–f); Suet.
Jul. 40; Aug. 31; Gaius 15, 16. 4, 17. 2; Claud. 11. 3; Nero 55; Dom. 13. 3; Gell. 4. 9.
5, 5. 17, 7. 7. 6–7, 8. 1, 10. 24, 20. 1. 42; also Fest. 186. 23–9 Nonarum, nundinas; PF
33. 26–7 concilium, 28 conciliabulum, 34. 1–3 contio, 12–13 comitiales dies, 36. 21–7
conuentus, 44. 7–8 cum populo agere, 76. 17–19 ferias, 78. 4–5 fastorum libri, 83. 7–8
fastis diebus, 251. 25–6 procalare, 311. 1–5 quandoc rex comitiauit fas, quandoc stercus
delatum fas; Macr. Sat. 1. 14–16, 3. 2. 14. Note also Ovid’s Fasti and L. Cincius’ De
fastis (cited by Macr. Sat. 1. 12). Division of year, month, day: Plin. NH 2. 187–8, 7.
212–15; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 19 (267 f–268 d), 84 (284 c–f); Gell. 3. 2 (citing the book
de diebus in RH); Censorinus, Nat. 20. 2–12 (citing Fenestella, Junius Gracchanus,
Varro, Suetonius, et al.); Macr. Sat. 1. 3, 1. 4. 17–19, 1. 12–13.
96
Plin. NH 33. 29, 32–6; Suet. Aug. 38–40; Gaius 30. 2; Claud. 6. 1; 25; Vesp. 9.
2; Titus 6. 1; Gell. 4. 12. 2, 4. 20. 11, 6. 22; PF 36. 16–17 conscripti, 71. 18 equestre
aes, 91. 10 hordiarium aes; Fest. 266. 11–15 priuato sumtu.
97
Gell. 5. 19, 18. 7 (citing Verrius Flaccus), 15. 27 (drawing on juristic sources).
Fest. 290. 27–34 praerogatiuae centuriae, cf. 184. 8–12 niquis sciuit, 264. 17–22
populi, 268. 13–22 prohibere comitia, 326. 17–24 rogatio, 368. 11–18 respici, 372.
20–2 scita plebei, 442. 28–444. 1 scitum populi, 450. 23–452. 22 sexagenarios, 452.
32–5 sex suVragia; PF 33. 26–7 concilium, 34. 1–3 contio, 43. 9 curiata comitia, 47. 3–4
centuriata comitia, 58. 5 contio, 100. 20 in conuentione. Cf. Fest. 277. 2–3 patricios,
citing a work De comitiis by L. Cincius.
then only if they help explain the name or origin of some custom
or institution of the army.98
But antiquarian scholarship was not limited to public life. There
was also much antiquarian writing on institutions of private life,
such as marriage, funerary practice, shaving, the drinking of wine,
sitting or reclining at table, the use of foodstuVs and domestic
utensils. Again it is the institutions that were central to their inter-
est, rather than any attempt to write a social history of Rome.
Subjects which had no place in Roman historiography, such as
the origins and history of foodstuVs and domestic equipment, also
recur in antiquarian writing. ‘Private life’ happens, however, to be
less well represented in the surviving fragments of the antiquarian
tradition than are such subjects as religious and political institu-
tions, costume, the calendar (which was also a political and religious
institution), coinage, the institutions of the Roman army, and
games of all types, including the theatre.99 We cannot simply dis-
count that the elite of Rome found these aspects of their past
interesting, as many today Wnd their own past interesting. Possibly
antiquarian writing on such private institutions could also serve as
something approaching a handbook of etiquette. It is also possible
that, having produced systematic histories of political and religious
institutions, the antiquarian writers turned their attention to the
institutions of private life, in a spirit of intellectual inquiry: to see
whether, and to what extent the methods which they had developed
(or at least adopted) for political and religious institutions could
also be applied to other areas. The subject of political institutions of
course overlaps considerably with juristic interests in public law;
and the jurists’ lost works on public law must have had much in
common with many antiquarian works.
One further institution which governed life in ancient Rome and
which was of interest to antiquarian scholarship was the civil and
98
Rawson, Intellectual Life, 240–1; Varro, LL 5. 87–91, 115–17, 7. 56–8; De uita
populi Romani frr. 87–8 Rip.; Gell. 1. 11, 1. 25, 2. 11, 5. 6, 6. 4, 10. 8–9, 10. 25, 11. 1.
6, 16. 10; Fest. 202. 14–204. 19 opima spolia, 294. 3–9 procincta classis, 484. 9–14
turmam; PF 17. 1–2 accensi, 41. 11–12 caduceatores, 67. 15–18 endo procinctu, 96.
28–9 in procinctu, 251. 19–21 procincta classis, 506. 23–8 uelati.
99
Rawson, Intellectual Life, 240–2, recognized the Roman army and Roman
coinage as ‘a couple of subjects of antiquarian investigation’; Wallace-Hadrill
rightly stresses games, comprehending spectacula, board games, party games, and
children’s games (Suetonius, 126–8, 44) and notes (p. 16) that Suetonius is con-
cerned not with wars and battles fought by his subjects, but with military insti-
tutions. Similarly, Della Corte, Svetonio, 158 sees as characteristic of
antiquarianism, works ‘on the laws’, ‘on the customs of Rome’, ‘on the Roman
calendar’, and ‘on habits’.
criminal law. This was, of course, the province of the jurists, but
there were many points of contact between legal and antiquarian
literature, and a considerable proportion of what is today known of
Roman law, particularly its development, comes from antiquarian
writers: as Wieacker notes,
Die rechtshistorisch ergiebigsten erhaltenen Werke sind Varros libri de
lingua latina, A. Gellius’ Noctes Atticae, der Verrius-Auszug des Sex.
Pompeius Festus und dessen Epitomierung durch den Langobarden Pau-
lus Diaconus und die Notae (Siglen) des großen Grammatikers Valerius
Probus, die Compendiosa doctrina des Grammatikers Nonius Marcel-
lus . . . sowie die Vergilkommentare des Grammatikers Servius . . . 100
Gellius refers to reading juristic works (NA 14. 2. 1, 20. 10. 6),
and it is unlikely that such reading would have come as a particu-
larly unpleasant task for him: the scholarly nature of much legal
writing is well known, and it often recorded antiquarian details.
Cicero, in the De oratore, makes Crassus speak of one of the results
of occupation with the ius ciuile being an interest in the antiquitates
(1. 193, cf. Brutus 81); Tacitus has the jurist C. Cassius Longinus
speak of the amor antiqui moris of some of his colleagues (Ann. 14.
43); and the Younger Pliny says of Aristo, quantum antiquitatis
tenet! (Ep. 1. 22. 2; cf. NA 11. 18. 16). Similarly the Digest (and
in particular title 50. 16, de uerborum signiWcatione) contains many
examples of the jurists’ use of etymology to understand the origin
and hence explain the meaning of matters under discussion: we
may compare Quintilian’s reference to jurists quorum summus circa
uerborum proprietatem labor est (Inst. 5. 14. 34). Furthermore, it is
perhaps not insigniWcant that one of the earliest known works of
Roman jurisprudence is Q. Mucius Scaevola’s liber ‹æø , a ‘book of
deWnitions’, the few surviving fragments of which suggest that it
deWned concepts and institutions of law.101
Another aspect of Roman antiquarianism is that it is distinctly
‘Roman’, in that it is remarkably Romanocentric: very little inter-
est is shown in anything outside the city of Rome, and when such
an interest is shown, there is usually some connection with Rome.
This is evident in, for example, Varro’s Antiquitates, as well as his
satires. When Varro mentions in the De lingua Latina some other
towns of Latium, it is only in so far as they were connected with the
stirps Romana (5. 144). This Romanocentricity is perhaps at its
100
F. Wieacker, Römische Rechtsgeschichte, 101.
101
Schanz–Hosius ii. 240. Note also the De signiWcatione uerborum quae ad ius
ciuile pertinent of Aelius Gallus (ibid. 597; 2 frr. in O. Lenel, Palingenesia iuris
civilis, i. 1).
clearest in Lydus’ De magistratibus: although writing in sixth-

century Constantinople to show the continuity between the magis-
tracies, especially the prefecture, of the Byzantines in the age of
Justinian and those of earlier times, it is the magistracies of old
Rome which are his main subject. Lydus’ De mensibus and De
ostentis display similar characteristics and are clearly based on
similar works of earlier Roman writers. The former ‘deals espe-
cially with the ancient Roman calendar and its feasts’, the latter
‘with the origin and progress of the art of divination’, though the
Etruscan and Roman doctrinae were apparently adapted to Byzan-
tine matters.102 As Isager notes, ‘Pliny cites Roman exempla wher-
ever they can be found’ and it is noticeable that when Gellius is
outside Rome he does not discuss antiquarian matters.103
There are no Wrm distinctions between what is antiquarian
subject-matter and what is not. Any aspect of the Roman past
could be written about in an antiquarian manner, though some
aspects, such as political and religious institutions, lent themselves
more than others (accounts of warfare or political intrigue, for
example) to the systematic nature of antiquarian writing. It is
worth noting that at some point a conscious decision must have
been made to identify and treat such subjects separately (from
historiography), and that such a decision must have been in
response to, or in anticipation of a need for information on the
subject in question. And once such a subject had been treated in
this manner, it then became natural for future accounts on the
same and similar subjects to be presented in the same manner. It
is tempting to suggest that Varro may have made that decision.
5. antiquarianism for pleasure:

gellius’ world of antiquarianism
Under Augustus, antiquarian writing turned to the justiWcation of
monarchy, though there was also still an element of elite self-
deWnition, or rather now self-redeWnition. When we turn to the
later periods—the Wrst and second centuries ad, and the age of
Gellius—we may still detect an element of self-deWnition, and
there is still an element of the justiWcation of the monarchy; but
now there is also an element of an interest for interest’s sake. While
antiquarian writing on Rome’s Staatsrecht could still provide a
102
A. C. Bandy, edn. of Lydus, pp. xxviii, xxix.
103
Cf. Isager, Pliny, 59–60.
useful written tirocinium fori, and that on private life a useful

handbook of etiquette, there appears to be an interest in acquiring
knowledge for its own sake. In addition, there were also social
pressures behind this, as the Noctes Atticae shows clearly. But
antiquarian works were not simply isagogic, to be read, learnt,
and then discarded; rather they provided a valuable reference
tool, made more accessible by their systematic nature.
It is not clear that ancient students of Rome’s past felt quite the
same urgent necessity to establish the relevance of their subject as
sometimes can modern scholars. One thing is clear: not all anti-
quarianism was relevant in the second century ad; nor even for
that matter was everything in Varro’s works relevant to the Wrst
century bc. At least as far as we know. But what should we count as
relevant? If we take the Noctes Atticae as a reXection of second-
century society at Rome—and it was written by a man who wants
us to know, or at least to believe, that he was part of learned society
at Rome in the second century—then we need look no further for
reasons why antiquarian works continued to be produced: there
was an appetite among men of learning, and those who pretended
to learning, for antiquarian information. These men seem also to
have had an appetite for what are apparently trivia, which they
used to entertain each other.
Antiquarian knowledge and trivia on a wide variety of matters
were relevant to the sort of dinner parties which Gellius attended:
need we look for any further relevance? They liked it and found it
interesting: the popularity of antiquarianism could have been quite
superWcial; it need not have had any ulterior motive. Furthermore,
there is little indication that the elite of earlier generations at Rome
were any less interested in antiquarian scholarship for its own sake.
However hard we try to discover the ‘real’ reasons or the ‘true
relevance’ of antiquarian subjects, there will always be some mis-
cellaneous, or even bizarre, material left over. Mirabilia for instance
were of no practical use to anyone—except perhaps the entertainer
or story-teller. Most modern forms of (especially mass) entertain-
ment have little practical use—some indeed owe their success to
their uselessness, to the triviality of their pursuits. Varro and the
elder Pliny might have regarded games of Trivial Pursuits as be-
neath their dignity, but Gellius shows us these games in progress at
a house-party in Athens during the Saturnalia (NA 18. 2, 18. 13).
On one occasion (18. 6. 3) Gellius writes of a work De loquendi
proprietate by Aelius Melissus, saying that ei libro titulus est ingentis
cuiusdam inlecebrae ad legendum (which is highly applicable to the
Noctes Atticae). This is worthy of notice. Gellius could regard a
work’s title as an enticement to read it and a clever title could

attract the reader. If Gellius could see the eYcacy of such a title,
then this indicates that he—and others like him—were accustomed
to looking through shelves or catalogues of books, and that their
attention could be caught by the title of a work which they would
then buy or more probably read. Put more simply, they had a
choice of what to read, and their decision could be based on
nothing more signiWcant than the work’s title. This stray remark
by Gellius provides a clear picture of a milieu where books were
read at leisure and for pleasure because they were, or at least
sounded, interesting. We do not have to extrapolate very far from
this to reach the parallel conclusion that at least some authors
wrote for such an audience.104
There can be little doubt that antiquarianism could also enter-
tain. (It is, of course, worth noting that entertainment and educa-
tion can be closely related, and the former can contribute to the
eVectiveness of the latter.) There was a social constraint to know
about one’s past: both the constraint and the superWcial nature of
much of this knowledge are well reXected in the contents of the
Noctes Atticae, of Macrobius’ Saturnalia, and also in much surviv-
ing epistolography. Kaster notes that the grammarian Pompeius
is intent on preparing the reader . . . for situations in which he can expect
to be put on his mettle. ‘If anyone asks you’ is a constant refrain, together
with the negative counterpart, ‘Take care lest anyone put a question to you
in this matter.’ You must anticipate the question, How do you prove this?105
Similarly, the Noctes Atticae provides a preparation for the trials
and tribulations of, at least, social, dinner-party chit-chat, if not
public life. One’s knowledge was assumed to be broad-based, as
indeed it would be following the grammarian’s education. Yet we
occasionally encounter the realization that this was not always
adequate. In the De re rustica, Varro says nemo enim omnia potest
scire (2. 1. 2): Varro’s purpose in his writings could be seen as
providing a means by which one could at least Wnd out about
virtually anything. If one’s knowledge were indeed so disjointed
then it is evident that there would be a need for something (books,
lectures, ‘lifelong learning’ of some form) which could provide a
‘unifying relationship’. Gellius’ Noctes Atticae might be seen as a
collection of titbits, the result of an education at the hands of one of
Kaster’s grammarians, but there is also a deeper insight to be
104
Cf. the book of mera miracula lent to Gellius by a friend who thought he
would Wnd it useful for the Noctes Atticae (NA 14. 6)
105
R. A. Kaster, Guardians, 165.
found in some articles. Gellius’ account of Roman legislation

concerning theft, for example, if rather more concise, does not
diVer in essentials from that of Gaius in his Institutiones.106 It is
surely not unreasonable to suggest that such apparent expertise
may have extended to other areas in the works of other antiquar-
ians, if not of Gellius.
There is a point at which the interest in a subject becomes an
interest for its own sake: the accumulation and deployment of
knowledge for pleasure, as a relaxation. This is stressed by Gellius
throughout the Noctes Atticae. Similarly the participants in the
dialogue of Macrobius’ Saturnalia are supposedly there for their
own enjoyment, and such is also—though to a lesser degree—the
case for Cicero’s dialogues. The dialogue form is of course an
artiWce, a literary device to make the material presented more
palatable. But can we deny all verisimilitude? It is worth noting
that these are not professional seminars, or dialogues at the Fonda-
tion Hardt: the participants are explicitly said to be at leisure. If we
deny that this was a way in which the educated elite might like to
spend their leisure, then we deny the eVectiveness of the literary
device of the dialogue, for the dramatic situation would seem so
unreal that it could not serve its purpose. It is worth noting the
growing importance in the second century of literature which
could entertain: we need compare only one of the major phenom-
ena of the age, the Konzertredner of the Second Sophistic.
Possibly there was also some idea that the past should be kept
alive because it might become relevant. If antiquarian writing on the
magistracies could turn out to be relevant in the second century ad,
might not antiquarian writing on, for example, the calendar? How
the ancient Latins dealt with dowries might have helped provide a
precedent in an intractable lawsuit about a dowry, and so on. These
are the arguments which Gellius might—and does—use to justify
the inclusion of such material in the Noctes Atticae.
Eduard Norden condemned the intellectual world of the second
century ad: he saw the people of the century as old men who
remembered a happier childhood. Norden was too preoccupied
with the idea of the decline of literature in the second century to
see that the varied interests of literary society might be a sign of
intellectual vitality: there may not have been poetae nouelli, but the
popularity of sophistic rhetoric combines with appreciation of
Cicero, Vergil, Ennius, and others. Gellius is as eager to listen to
106
NA 11. 18. 6–15; Gaius, Inst. 3. 184–202. Similarly, on the legis actio sacra-
mento in rem cf. NA 20. 10. 7, 9 Gaius Inst. 4. 5, 17 respectively.
the sophist Favorinus, or the contemporary poet Julius Paulus, as

he is the Ennianista at Puteoli.107
If Vergil and Cicero continued as the mainstay of grammatical
and rhetorical education, why should Varro’s writings not con-
tinue as the reference works which formed the further education
for those in public life? What is perhaps more surprising than the
dominance of Varronian scholarship, is that we hear of no com-
mentaries on Varro. It is interesting in this connection that Gellius
seems to feel little need to explain Varro; for the most part he
simply reproduces relevant extracts. This suggests that the sys-
tematic presentation of Varro’s works with his unrhetorical lan-
guage did away with the obscurities, to the explanation of which in
Vergil’s works the grammarians devoted so much energy, and so
Varro’s works needed little ‘explanation’.
In the second century there was a realization of the intellectual,
linguistic and historical patrimony of the Roman state: quite prob-
ably at least in part a result of, or reaction to, Greek inXuence. This
is very clearly represented by Fronto: the study of old orators,
which he recommends to Marcus Aurelius, is not to enable one
to live, or pretend to live, in the past or to speak in the language of
the past (something which Gellius is strongly against). Rather it
serves two purposes: Wrst, to make Marcus Aurelius aware of the
amplitude of Latin vocabulary available to him, and so to enable
him always to use words which convey his meaning precisely
(something that exercises Gellius too). Secondly, of course, the
study was to extend Marcus’ awareness of his cultural inheritance.
And this is more widely applicable. The second century seems to
have witnessed a desire for self-identiWcation, to set the present in
its historical and cultural context. The impetus for this desire no
doubt came largely from Hadrianic and Antonine policies of con-
solidation and uniWcation. Within the new, uniWed empire which
Hadrian sought to create, and at a time of increasing participation
of Greeks in the administration of Rome, the need for self-
identiWcation of the old elite of Rome may have been felt more
acutely. This is the world in which Aulus Gellius lived and wrote,
and he found antiquarian scholarship a useful, if not essential part
of that world.
107
E. Norden, Kunstprosa, 345–9. Favorinus: NA passim; cf. Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius, 98–130 [72–92]. Julius Paulus: NA 1. 22. 9, 5. 4, 16. 10. 9, 19. 7.
Ennianista: NA 18. 5.
II
IDEOLOGIES
6
Genre, Conventions, and Cultural Programme
in Gellius’ Noctes Atticae
Am i el V ar di
Modern genre theory has taught us how important generic expect-

ations are for the manner in which a literary work is interpreted
and evaluated. ‘We identify the genre to interpret the exemplar’,
says Alastair Fowler in one of the most inXuential studies in this
Weld, and: ‘when we investigate previous states of the type, it is to
clarify meaningful departures that the work itself makes’ since
‘literary meaning works by departing from generic forms’.1 It is
within this theoretical framework that the present paper aims to
highlight and interpret Gellius’ departures from the conventions
of contemporary literary kinds with which his work seems to be
aYliated. But in order that readers may evoke the right set of
generic expectations, they must be provided with a clear indication
of the sort of work they are about to read. Our Wrst task is therefore
to establish the generic aYliation of Gellius’ composition and the
sort of expectations his contemporary readers might have associ-
ated with his literary kind.
1. generic indicators
To help the reader identify the genre of a work from the outset,
generic indications are often embodied in titles and prefaces.2 As
I have suggested elsewhere, whether or not it was in Athens that
Gellius embarked on the making of his book, the title Noctes Atticae
is primarily meant to convey erudition (by evoking Hellenic
1
A. Fowler, Kinds, 38, 46; also J. Culler, Structuralist Poetics, 145–8.
2
Fowler, Kinds, 88–105.
160 Amiel Vardi
scholarship and nocturnal toil) and possibly also the plurality of

self-contained items (by the plural form).3 In his preface Gellius
also provides us with a list of representative predecessors of the
kind of composition with which he associates himself. This he does
by way of explaining the title he chooses for his book and contrast-
ing it with the names of several Greek and Latin works which he
feigns to be far more imaginative than his own:
4. Sed quoniam longinquis per hiemem noctibus in agro, sicuti dixi, terrae
Atticae commentationes hasce ludere ac facere exorsi sumus, idcirco eas
inscripsimus noctium esse Atticarum nihil imitati festiuitates inscriptio-
num, quas plerique alii utriusque linguae scriptores in id genus libris
fecerunt. 5. Nam quia uariam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctri-
nam conquisiuerant, eo titulos quoque ad eam sententiam exquisitissimos
indiderunt. 6. Namque alii Musarum inscripserunt, alii siluarum, ille
º
, hic `ÆºŁÆ ŒæÆ, alius ŒÆæØÆ,4 partim ºØH Æ, quidam lectionis
suae, alius antiquarum lectionum atque alius I ŁæH et item alius !æø .
7. Sunt etiam, qui º
ı inscripserint, sunt item, qui æøÆE, sunt
adeo, qui Æ ŒÆ et ¯ºØŒH Æ et æ
ºÆÆ et KªØæØÆ et ÆæÆØÆ.
8. Est qui memoriales titulum fecerit, est qui æÆªÆØŒ et ææªÆ et
ØÆŒÆºØŒ, est item qui historiae naturalis, est <qui> Æ
ÆB
ƒ
æÆ, est praeterea qui pratum, est itidem qui ªŒÆæ
, est qui ø
scripserit; 9. sunt item multi, qui coniectanea, neque item non sunt, qui
indices libris suis fecerint aut epistularum moralium aut epistolicarum quae-
stionum aut confusarum et quaedam alia inscripta nimis lepida multasque
prorsum concinnitates redolentia. (pr. 4–9.)
This extensive list leaves very little doubt as to the aVected nature
of Gellius’ modesty. He thus employs a conventional feature of
ancient prefaces5 ironically to draw attention to the uniqueness and
ingenuity of his title.6 But Gellius’ list of titles also reveals to us the
kind of compositions he considers to be similar to his own, or even
to belong to the same literary category, as the words in id genus
libris suggest. Though the Latin term genus may refer to what we
should nowadays call ‘genre’, I hesitate to employ this modern
term here since genus was not a strict technical term in antiquity
3
A. D. Vardi, ‘Why Attic Nights?’, 300–1.
4
For the reading, see L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘Analecta Gelliana’, 292–3.
5
Cf. Plin. NH pr. 24–5; Clem. Str. 6. 2. 1. For the works listed by Gellius, see
P. Faider, ‘Praefatio’, 203–8; Vardi, ‘Why Attic Nights?’, 299–300; for those in
Clement’s list, A. Méhat, Études sur les ‘Stromates’, 99–106. For Gellius’ preface,
see also A. Maréchal, ‘Préface’.
6
See L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 27–8 [20–1]; Vardi, ‘Why Attic
Nights?’ Note that Pliny, clearly in Gellius’ mind when composing his list of titles,
chose a title that really is as sterilis as his material.
Genre, Conventions, Cultural Programme 161
and could refer to any category of works, whether grouped ad hoc

or generally accepted and sanctioned by literary theorists. In fact,
unlike the poetic genres, for which we have a fairly standard
generic system reiterated in school-books and works of literary
theory, we possess no evidence for an ancient attempt to establish
a systematic classiWcation of prose works of the sort Gellius
writes.7 This, of course, does not mean that Gellius and his con-
temporaries could not have shared a concept of a literary kind
whose deWnition was never formulated and for which they had no
standard tag,8 but of which they could have framed a certain set of
expectations that would inXuence their reading in the same way as
stricto sensu generic conventions would function.
Introducing his list of titles Gellius also provides us with the
unifying element which makes him group his book with these
works: their authors, he says, chose such titles quia uariam et
miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctrinam conquisiuerant. Works of
this sort thus collect knowledge (doctrina), in a variety of Welds, and
in a disorderly manner (or seemingly so). We may note that
throughout his preface Gellius repeatedly ascribes such features
to his own composition (esp. pr. 2, 3, 13), and that further on in the
work we Wnd these key notions evoked again in his descriptions of
some of the writings mentioned in his list of titles. He thus
describes Sotion’s Cornum copiae ( `ÆºŁÆ ŒæÆ, mentioned in
pr. 6) as a librum multae uariaeque historiae refertum (1. 8. 1), and
provides the following explanation for the title of Tiro’s compil-
ation (—Æ ŒÆØ, mentioned in pr. 7):
2. Is libros compluris de usu atque ratione linguae Latinae, item de uariis
atque promiscis quaestionibus composuit. 3. In his esse praecipui uiden-
tur, quos Graeco titulo Æ ŒÆ inscripsit, tamquam omne rerum atque
doctrinarum genus continentis. (13. 9. 2–3.)9
Even more telling is Gellius’ account of a book presented to
him by an anonymous contemporary who thought it contained
material that might suit the Noctes Atticae. The book is said to
be grandi uolumine doctrinae omnigenus, the result of multis et uariis
et remotis lectionibus (14. 6. 1). Without entering the vexed question
of whether the words doctrinae omnigenus hint at Favorinus’
7
For the difficulty of classifying the Noctes Atticae in ancient generic terms, see
N. Horsfall, ‘Generic Composition’, 130; M. L. Astarita, Cultura, 14, 19–23.
8
‘Miscellany’, under which Gellius’ book normally goes nowadays, is of course
not an ancient term, and seems to have been first used as a title by Poliziano; see
R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, ii. 45.
9
Cf. 9. 16. 3 on Pliny’s Libri studiosorum.
162 Amiel Vardi
—Æ
Æc Ø
æÆ,10 we can take this anecdote to indicate that
doctrina and variety constituted two key notions of the expectations
Gellius’ contemporaries would have had of the type of work he was
writing. What Gellius’ friend did not take into account is a criter-
ion of discrimination by which Gellius wants to dissociates himself
from other miscellanists—his collection, he maintains, avoids mere
polymathy and includes only what is either useful or entertaining
(pr. 11–12, 4. 6. cap., 5).11
Gellius normally refers to his work collectively as commentarii,
using the singular for individual chapters.12 The term clearly
bears generic overtones, but it is by no means unequivocal. By
Gellius’ day it could carry the traditional Latin meanings of
‘oYcial records’, ‘a private journal’, and ‘a collection of notes
for private use’ (or a published book posing as such), but also
the variety of meanings of the Greek term !
ÆÆ (and occa-
sionally also of I

ÆÆ13), with which it has become
associated. It could thus denote ‘a scholarly treatise or textbook’,
‘a commentary’, ‘private memoirs or a collection of private notes
or excerpta’ and hence also ‘a collection of memorable things’.14
In the NA Gellius uses the term to refer to exegetical commen-
taries on both Latin15 and Greek works,16 as well as for scholarly
treatises dedicated to various speciWc issues. In some of these the
word commentarius clearly formed part of the original title of
10
For a summary of this debate, see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 116–18
[82–3]. —Æ
Æc ƒ
æÆ features in Gellius’ list of fanciful titles (pr. 8), as also
does `ÆºŁÆ ŒæÆ (pr. 6) which might be hinted at in the words tamquam . . .
copiae cornum further on in the chapter (14. 6. 2). Though at 1. 8. 1–2 he suggests
Cornum copiae as a Latin equivalent to Sotion’s `ÆºŁÆ ŒæÆ, Gellius need not
have had a specific work in mind when referring to this title here or in pr. 6 (cf. Plin.
HN pr. 24), since the title might have been an old and common one (see below,
n. 26).
11
Cf. 9. 4. 11–12, 10. 12. 4; and see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 36–44
[27–33]; S. M. Beall, ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 89–90.
12
Notably five times in the preface (3, 13, 20, 22, 25), but also 1. 23. 2, 1. 24. 1, 9.
4. 5, 13. 7. 6, 18. 4. 11; for the distinction between the finished commentarii or
commentationes, and annotationes, the rudimentary notes taken while compiling the
material, see R. Marache, edn. i, pp. xv f.
13
See below, n. 18.
14
F. Bömer, ‘Commentarius’, 210–50, Méhat, Études sur les ‘Stromates’, 106–12.
For commentarii as a private collection of excerpta, see Plin. Ep. 3. 5. 10, 17; further
J. E. Skydsgaard, Varro the Scholar, 102–15.
15
e.g. Hyginus’ commentary on Vergil, which Gellius often mentions, and
Labeo’s on the XII Tables (1. 12. 18).
16
e.g. Taurus’ on Plato’s Gorgias (7. 14. 5 cf. 1. 26. 3), and Plutarch’s on Hesiod
(20. 8. 7).
the work, such as in the case of Nigidius Figulus’ Grammatici

commentarii (cited passim) or the liber commentarius de familia
Porcia mentioned at 13. 20. 17. But when Gellius says, for in-
stance, [Pompeius] M. Varronem familiarem suum rogauit, uti com-
mentarium faceret NÆªøªØŒ —sic enim Varro ipse appellat (14. 7.
2, cf. cap.), it is not quite clear whether the word commentarius is
his own manner of indicating the type of this work, or whether it
had already served as the substantive qualiWed by the adjective
in -Œ in Varro’s original title or in some autoreferential prefatory
remark. The same holds for several other instances in which
Gellius refers to scholarly works using the term commentarius as
a substantive qualiWed by an adjectival form, a genitive, or a
de formula, i.e. in the position that the more general liber would
occupy.17
More interesting for our case are a number of instances where
Gellius uses commentarii to refer to works of miscellaneous char-
acter. The term is employed thus in the capitulum of ch. 13. 9 with
reference to Tiro’s —Æ ŒÆØ, a book which, as we have seen,
is later described as dealing with uariis atque promiscis quaestionibus
(§2), and is also mentioned in Gellius’ list of works similar to
his own. He also uses commentarii to translate the title of Xeno-
phon’s `

ÆÆ (14. 3. 5),18 and that of Pamphile’s
$
ÆÆ (15. 17. 3), a miscellany which might have been one
of the major models of the Noctes Atticae.19 It is undoubtedly to
works of this type that Gellius’ autoreferential commentarii was
meant to refer: works of a primarily Greek literary kind going back
to Callimachus, Aristoxenus, and Philodemus of Cyrene, which
was probably also familiar to Gellius from the `

ÆÆ of
Favorinus, perhaps also from a similarly named work of Plutarch
(Lampr. no. 125), and one with which Clement associated his
17
Cf. Gellius’ references to Masurius Sabinus’ commentarii ‘quos de indigenis
composuit’ (4. 9. 8; Bremer, Iurisprudentia ii/1, p. 364), Velius Longus’ commenta-
rius ‘quod fecisset de usu antiquae lectionis’ (18. 9. 4), Aelius Stilo’s commentarius de
proloquiis (16. 8. 2; Funaioli p. 54. 19), and book 8 of Ateius Capito’s Coniectanea
‘qui inscriptus est de iudiciis publicis’ according to 4. 14. 1, but is cited as commen-
tarius de iudiciis publicis in 10. 6. 4 (Bremer ii/1, p. 283).
18
This form of Xenophon’s title is attested by Ps. DH Rh. 9. 11, but Eustathius
on Il. 13. 126 has !

ÆÆ; see R. Hirzel, Dialog 1. 144 n. 3. For the affinity
between the forms in !
-and in I
-, cf. the title of Persaeus’ doxographic miscel-
lany cited as $
ÆÆ ı
ØŒ in DL 7. 1, but (probably) as `

ÆÆ
in the list of his works at DL 7. 36.
19
I have no explanation for the fact that only in rendering Pamphile’s title does
Gellius use the singular commentarius instead of the plural that is consistent with the
Greek forms.
164 Amiel Vardi
Stromateis not many years later.20 From what we know of such

productions we can characterize this literary kind as consisting of
collections of isolated and self-contained pieces of knowledge, in a
variety of Welds, and which the author deems worthy of remem-
brance.21 As we have seen, most of the components of this tentative
deWnition Wt in with Gellius’ description of the works with which
he classes his own book in pr. 5, and the principle of memoratu
digna is also evoked in his preface and serves him as a criterion for
what is deemed worthy of inclusion in his collection.22 All this,
I believe, brings us closest to an idea of the kind of compositions
Gellius himself would have classed his book with, and one that is
the least tainted by our modern conceptions of literary typology.
For the sake of convenience, I see no reason why we should not tag
this type of literary prose ‘miscellanies’.
Yet diYculties arise the minute we check this deWnition
against the works mentioned in Gellius’ list of writings similar
to his own. Indeed, if we look at the manner in which modern
scholars deWne the works mentioned in this list, we shall Wnd
not only that they class them under a variety of categories of
literary prose, such as Xorilegia, miscellanea, hand-books, or
encyclopaedias, but also that very often diVerent scholars class
particular works under diVerent categories.23 A literary category
which comprises works such as the Ps.-Aristotelian —æ
ºÆÆ,
Accius’ Didascalica, Seneca’s Epistulae morales, Pliny’s Naturalis
historia, and Gellius’ own Noctes seems too loose for our modern
generic conceptions, and we might well hesitate to ascribe
Gellius’ uariam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam to some of
the works in his list. Indeed, were we obliged to abstract the
20
e.g. Clem. Str. 1. 182. 3, 3. 110. 3, 5. 141. 4, 6. 1. 1; see further Méhat, Études
sur les ‘Stromates’, 96, 106–12; F. Montanari, DNP s.v. Hypomnema; P. Steinmetz,
Untersuchungen, 278–81.
21
For this meaning of the Latin commentarii, see TLL s.v. commentarius I. B:
Collectio, congestio rerum locorum uerborum ad memoriam siue scientiam firmandam
augendam facta. For the association of commentarius with memory cf. Vitruv. 1. 1. 4,
and with the notion of ‘collection’ or ‘piling up’, Quint. Inst. 3. 6. 59.
22
For memoria in Gellius, see S. M. Beall, Civilis Eruditio, 69–72, and below,
215–17. The notion of ‘memory’, etymologically associated with both the Greek and
the Latin term, also finds expression in his presentation of the process of excerpting
and taking notes as a subsidium memoriae (pr. 2). For this notion of the collection as
an aide-me´moire, cf. Clem. Str. 1. 11. 1, 1. 14. 2, 6. 2. 2, and see Marache, edn., i, p.
xv; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 31 [23].
23
See e.g. H. Fuchs, RAC s.v. Enzyklopädie; H. Chadwick (tr. J. Engermann),
RAC s.v. Florilegium; S. Fornaro and K. Sallmann, DNP s.v. Enzyklopädie;
H. Krasser, DNP s.v. Buntschriftstellerei.
distinctive features of such a group we should have probably

ended up with not much more than ‘a collection of more or less
self-contained items of knowledge’, a deWnition that seems far too
wide and would apply to a great part of Imperial prose treatises
(think for instance of Vitruvius, Pausanias, or Diogenes Laertius).
In fact it would apply to whatever may fall under the title commen-
tarius/-i, be it a treatise dedicated to a speciWc type of knowledge,
an exegetical work discussing successive elements of a continuous
text, or a miscellaneous collection of things worthy of remem-
brance. But wide as it may be, it is nevertheless a signiWcant
deWnition, since the three notions of collection, selection, and
itemization appear to characterize a special class of ancient litera-
ture intended, as it often presents itself, for a special class of
readers—those deeming themselves too busy to engage in leisurely
and voluminous reading.
There is, furthermore, very little point in arguing with the
long-dead Gellius about the validity of his generic concepts; it
would be far more useful to contrast his work with those he
lists as belonging to the same kind in order to enhance the special
characteristics of the Noctes Atticae within this group. In
what follows I shall try to delineate these particular traits of
Gellius’ work from four main aspects: the selectivity of the mater-
ial; the range of Welds discussed; the organization, or rather lack
of organization, of this material within the book; and the generic
diversity of the individual chapters. Many of these special charac-
teristics of Gellius’ miscellaneous composition have already
been pointed out, and have served scholars to form their idea of
Gellius’ style and technique, or were regarded as reXecting
his personal tastes and intellectual capacities, or the concerns of
Roman readers of his day. But, as I shall try to show, we can also
consider these traits of Gellius’ miscellany as well-calculated
devices deliberately adopted to serve a programme he set for his
work and a number of cultural ideas he wanted to promote. At the
risk of appearing trendy, I shall maintain they were ideologically
motivated.
2. selectivity
We can Wrst note that in his list Gellius couples miscellanies
together with what in modern terms would be called encyclopaedic
works. I call ‘encyclopaedic’ works that purport to oVer a system-
atic and comprehensive account of the state of knowledge in a
166 Amiel Vardi
deWned range of subjects.24 These can be compositions covering a

relatively broad range of Welds, such as Varro’s Disciplinae, in nine
books, or the more extensive Artes of Cornelius Celsus,25 but also
encyclopaedic presentations of particular branches of learning,
such as Pliny’s Naturalis historia, which is included in Gellius’
list of titles. Miscellanies like that of Gellius, on the other hand,
purport neither comprehensiveness nor systematic arrangement,
but rather present their readers with a muddled series of isolated
discussions of particular issues belonging to a large variety of
Welds.
When Gellius published his Noctes Atticae some time around
the middle of the second century ce, miscellanies of this type were
in their heyday. Indeed, if we examine our repertory of ancient
miscellanies, we can note that the great majority of them were
produced from the mid-Wrst century ce on. There are, of course,
earlier examples, dating back at least to the Wfth century bce.26 Yet
since the Wrst century ce works of this sort appear to have enjoyed a
remarkable increase of popularity, and from that time on miscel-
lanies of various types continued to be very common in the
Graeco-Roman world, for which we have ample secondary
evidence as well as a number of extant examples.
Modern scholarship tends to regard this Xourishing of miscel-
laneous collections, together with a similar increase in the produc-
tion of other types of selective compilations of learned material,
such as excerpta, epitomes, and all sorts of compendia, lexico-
graphic, gnomologic, doxographic, or mythographic, as reXecting
24
Note that the attempt to organize the body of knowledge into a series of
systematic and comprehensive wholes is taken by E. Rawson (‘Logical Organisa-
tion’) as a major development in Roman intellectual history. For a survey of such
works, see M. Fuhrmann, Das systematische Lehrbuch.
25
Gellius makes no mention of Celsus, but is familiar with Varro’s Disciplinae.
26
e.g. Hippias’ &ı Æªøª, D–K 86 B 4; R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholar-
ship, i. 51–4. Note that Clement quotes Hippias (without specifying a work) as
an authority on the legitimacy of compilatory miscellanies (Str. 6. 15. 1–2; D–K
86 B6). For the Horae of Prodicus, D–K 84 B 1–2; Pfeiffer, op. cit. i. 30–1. Among
the titles of Democritus’ works, Diogenes Laertius lists `ÆºŁ ŒæÆ and
$
ÆÆ MŁØŒ under ethical works, `
æÆÆ under physical works, and an
` ØÆØ ØŒ
Ø (DL 9. 46–7; no fragments are explicitly referred to any of these). In
the 4th c.: Alcidamas’ Museion; see J. V. Muir (ed.), Alcidamas: The Works and
Fragments (London, 2001), pp. xix f.; L. Radermacher, Artium scriptores (Vienna,
1951), fr. 13 p. 134; Pfeiffer, op. cit. i. 50–1. The earliest works figuring in Gellius’
list are Aristotle’s Peplos, and the Problemata, which probably refers to the Ps.-
Aristotelian collection which he often cites and takes to be genuine (e.g. 19. 4.
1 Problemata physica, 20. 4. 3 —æ
ºÆÆ KªŒŒºØÆ, and passim).
a cultural moment in which, even among the litterati, mastering all

the knowledge accumulated through the ages in the various discip-
lines of Hellenic research was felt to be beyond the abilities of an
average individual. Such a feeling is indeed expressed by authors
of the early Empire, who often rely on it to explain the need for the
sort of compilatory works they oVer.27 Furthermore, in many such
compilations we Wnd the notions of collection, selection, and brev-
ity associated with expediency, and especially with the needs of
‘busy people’.28 Gellius too presents his book as intended for
homines aliis iam uitae negotiis occupatos (pr. 12), and in this respect,
therefore, we can regard his miscellany as a true representative
of the literary production and the view of learning common in
his day.
3. range of fields
The Noctes Atticae should also be distinguished from another class
of works mentioned in Gellius’ list, such as the Epistulae morales of
Seneca, the Antiquae lectiones of the grammarian Caeselius Vindex,
and the Coniectanea, a title reserved, it seems, to works dealing with
law.29 Though such compositions lay no claim to oVer an inclusive
and systematic account of a branch of knowledge, they are never-
theless dedicated to a speciWc Weld, be it law, grammar, rhetoric, or
philosophy. We also know of similar compilations of uniform
material that does not appertain to one of the traditional disciplines,
such as collections of mirabilia or stories concerning animal behav-
iour, as in Aelian’s medley. Sympotic miscellanies, such as those
of Plutarch and Athenaeus, often centre around issues which
are somehow connected to food and sympotic customs. But since
they also purport to illustrate the kind of topics appropriate for
dinner-table conversation, they tend to encompass a large variety
27
e.g. Cic. De Or. 1. 81; Val. Max. 1 pr.; Sen. Ep. 88. 37; Tranq. 9. 5; Quint. Inst.
1. 8. 18–21, 10. 1. 37–42; Frontin. Strat. pr. 3; see further D. A. Russell, Plutarch,
42; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 29 [21]; G. Sandy, Apuleius, 73–91.
28
e.g. Vitruv. 1. pr. 1, 5. pr. 2–3, 5; Val. Max. 1. pr., 3. 8. ext. 1, 4. 1. 12, 6. 4. pr.;
Plut. Coniug. praec. 138 c; Reg. et imper. apoptheg. 172 e; Frontin. Strat. pr. 1–2;
Polyaenus, Strat. 1. pr. 13, 2. pr. See T. Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, 152–5;
C. Skidmore, Practical Ethics, 31–4, and for this topos in addresses to the emperor
cf. Hor. Epist. 2. 1. 1–4.
29
Possibly connected with the technical term coniectio causae. Gellius is our
only source for the title, which he ascribes to books by Ateius Capito and Alfenus
Varus.
168 Amiel Vardi
of subject-matter.30 And the little we have from Favorinus’

—Æ
Æc ƒ
æÆ also represents a rather broad range of Welds
including, at least, doxography, chronology, and ethnography.31
Gellius’ miscellany inhabits the opposite extremity of this
spectrum. It oVers the widest variety of subjects, covering all the
traditional Welds of KªŒŒºØ
ÆØÆ, including some that did not
normally form part of Roman learning, such as music, geometry,
physiology, and other Welds of ‘natural philosophy’, together
with the ever popular matters of antiquarianism, mythography,
and mirabilia.32 As suggested by Maria Laura Astarita, this broad
picture of knowledge goes very well with Gellius’ dislike of the
tendency of professional experts to specialize in limited areas and
thus to eVectuate a diVraction of knowledge into distinct Welds,
which runs against the traditional Roman ideal of a wide general
learning.33 This attitude of Gellius’ is particularly notable at
several points where he decries the attempts of experts to evade
diYcult questions by claiming they do not appertain to their Weld
of expertise, as well as in instances where he praises the wide scope
of learning of the experts he admires.34 We can thus take the fact
that Gellius’ miscellany covers such a wide range of topics from a
variety of disciplines to reXect his objection to the specialized type
of knowledge upheld by the experts, and of his struggle to maintain
the ideal of broad general learning traditionally endorsed by the
Roman elite.35
Yet in none of these areas does Gellius provide the reader with
more than mere glimpses of knowledge, anecdotes, and short
30
Cf. e.g. Plut. Quaest. conv. 2 pr. (629 c–d); see J. Martin, Symposion, 171,
179–80; A. Lukinovich, ‘Play of Reflections’, 265.
31
For the range of fields covered in this work, see E. Mensching, Favorin, 29–35;
L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘Favorinus’, 205–6; Beall, ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 88–92;
M.-L. Lakmann, ‘Favorinus’, 235; cf. his description in the Suda as
ºıÆŁc ŒÆa
AÆ ÆØÆ . For Gellius’ familiarity with the works of Favorinus, see Holford-
Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 115–16 [81–2].
32
For the range of fields covered in the NA, see H. Nettleship, ‘Noctes Atticae’;
T. Vogel, ‘De Noctium Atticarum compositione’; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius,
157–328 [115–235]; Astarita, Cultura, 35–171. For Gellius and the antiquarian
tradition see A. F. Stevenson, above, Ch. 5.
33
Ibid. 31, 203.
34
For experts censured for the narrowness of their specialization, see esp. 4. 1.
13–14, 16. 6. 11, 16. 10. 4, 20. 10. 2; praised for their wide learning, e.g. 4. 1. 18, 13.
10. 1, 20. 1. 20; cf. Ath. 1. 1 c. See further Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 297–8
[221]; Astarita, Cultura, 117, 149–51, 171, 203; A. D. Vardi, ‘Gellius against the
Professors’, 45–7; V. Binder, ‘Vir elegantissimi eloquii’, 111–12.
35
For possible social overtones of this struggle, see R. A. Kaster, Guardians of
Language, 50–60; Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’, 46–50, 53–4.
discussions of speciWc issues. ‘For what purpose?’ one might ask.

Indeed some modern scholars look down on such collections of bits
and pieces, regarding them as intended only to give the uncultured
some impressive glimpses of learning to talk about in polite soci-
ety.36 Gellius himself says they should be taken only as ‘Wrst-fruits’
(primitiae) or ‘appetizers’ (libamenta), meant to stimulate the
reader to the independent pursuit of further learning (pr. 13). ‘I
ask my readers’, he proceeds, ‘to consider these things written not
so much for the sake of instruction, as for the sake of suggestion,
and so to speak to be contented with a demonstration of a way, that
they may afterwards pursue, if they wish, by Wnding either books
or teachers’ (pr. 17). His mode of presenting mere glimpses of
knowledge thus suits his declared programme since, as he states
in his preface, a primary purpose of the Noctes Atticae is to lure
people of ordinary education, who are by now engaged in the
business of daily life, to devote whatever spare time they have to
broadening their learning, and thus to redeem themselves from
shameful and boorish ignorance (pr. 12; cf. 18. 10. 8). It is, of
course, quite likely that many of his ancient readers never did go
beyond the titbits of knowledge he oVered them, but what Gellius
attempts to do is to yoke even the selectivity characteristic of
ancient miscellanies to his cultural programme.
4. o r d o r e r v m f o r t v i t v s
Whereas diversity of subject-matter characterizes ancient miscel-
lanies from a very early date, works of this kind nevertheless tend
to gather it into more or less homogeneous thematic groups.
Among extant miscellanies we can note this tendency, for instance,
in Athenaeus and Macrobius.37 Even in Plutarch’s &ı
ØÆŒa
æ
ºÆÆ, which is not as neatly organized,38 book 9 centres
around issues relating to the Muses (9 pr., 736 c) and topics
involving, e.g., hunger and thirst are grouped in successive chap-
ters (6. 1–3; cf. 2. 8–9, 6. 4–6, 9. 8–9). Thematic organization may
36
e.g. N. Horsfall, JRS 80 (1990), 217; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 8 [6].
37
For Athenaeus, see Martin, Symposion, 279–80; J. Wilkins, ‘Dialogue and
Comedy’; C. Jacob, ‘Athenaeus the Librarian’, 103–4. Macrobius’ is the most
schematically disposed sympotic miscellany we possess, and deliberately so, as is
made manifest in his polemic allusion to Gellius’ preface (Sat. 1 pr. 2–3); see
E. Tuerk, ‘Macrobe’, 382–3; Astarita, Cultura, 27–8.
38
Plut. Quaes. conv. 2 pr. (629 d) &
æ I ÆªªæÆÆØ ŒÆd
P ØÆŒŒæØ ø.
See Martin, Symposion, 177–9.
170 Amiel Vardi
be easily traced even in miscellanies which explicitly proclaim

disorderliness, such as those of Clement and Solinus.39 We are,
of course, familiar with a similar thematic arrangement in ancient
gnomologia, and collections of exempla and mirabilia,40 as well as in
some Hellenistic poetry books and anthologies. Even in Meleager’s
Stephanos the principle of
ØŒØºÆ allows for homogeneous
sequences of poems and on the larger scale this anthology too
seems to have been arranged in thematically uniWed books.41
Gellius, on the other hand, arranges his discussions of diverse
topics in what looks like a random sequence, with no trace of
regularity or arrangement by subject, discipline, chronology, or
what have you. Indeed, as scholars have often shown, we can detect
signs of deliberate disruption in his arrangement.42 This is not
entirely surprising in a work that professes diversity since irregular
arrangement of the material enhances the impression of a vast
range of topics worth knowing. Yet, since many miscellanies
nevertheless reveal a degree of regularity in the arrangement of
consecutive items, I think we should dwell a little longer on the
reasons that led Gellius to insist on a random arrangement.
Random arrangement of the kind we Wnd in Gellius seems to
have governed one of the most inXuential of ancient miscellanies,
the '
æØŒa !
ÆÆ of Pamphile of Epidaurus, composed
during Nero’s reign, cited by Gellius and Diogenes Laertius, and
possibly evoked by Favorinus and several other miscellanists.43 In
her preface, so we learn from Photius’ description of the work, this
39
Clem. Str. 6. 2. 1
E ‰ ı Kd KºŁ
FØ ŒÆd B§ Ø B§
æØ ØÆŒŒÆŁÆæ
Ø, ØÆæ
Ø b K I Æ, H &æøÆø E
!
øØ ºØH
Œ
ŒØºÆØ; Solin. pr. 3–4 Quorum meminisse ita uisum
est, ut inclitos terrarum situs et insignes tractus maris, seruata orbis distinctione, suo
quaeque ordine redderemus. Inseruimus et pleraque differenter congruentia, ut si nihil
aliud, saltem uarietas ipsa legentium fastidio mederetur. For the organization of
Clement’s work, see Méhat, Études sur les ‘Stromates’, 223–46.
40
Skidmore, Practical Ethics, 35–42.
41
For the arrangement of Meleager’s anthology, see A. Cameron, The Greek
Anthology, 26–33; K. J. Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 281–322. We now have even
earlier evidence for a thematically homogeneous arrangement of poetry books in the
New Posidippus, which is divided into groups of epigrams devoted to a single theme
separated by titles such as ºØŁØŒ,
Nø
Œ
ØŒ, ƒØŒ, and so on; see Epigrammi, ed.
G. Bastianini and C. Gallazzi, 24–7.
42
Maréchal, ‘préface’; Marache, edn. i, pp. xvi f.; Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, 31–6 [24–7]; G. Bernardi-Perini, edn. i. 14. This is one feature of Gellius’
work that his humanist followers did not appreciate; see A. Grafton below, 326.
43
Gell. 15. 17. 3, 15. 23. 2. See FHG iii 520–2; O. Regenbogen, RE xviii/2
(1949), s.v. Pamphila 1, who considers her influence on Plutarch, Favorinus, Aelian,
Athenaeus, and Sopatros (ibid. 318–26).
well-educated woman explained that her collection consisted of a

variety of memorable things she had either heard from others or
learned from her own reading (Phot. Bibl. 175, 119b8–27). Of all
these, Photius continues, whatever seemed to her worthy of con-
sideration and remembering, she recorded in her ‘varied notes’
(!
ÆÆ ıØªB) without separating each distinct item into
its appropriate subject, but rather recording them casually and in
the order that she encountered them (
oø NŒB § ŒÆd ‰ ŒÆ

KBºŁ ), and that, so she said, not because she had diYculty in
distinguishing them by type, but because she considered intermix-
ture and variety (e I ÆØª
ŒÆd c
ØŒØºÆ ) more pleasing
and elegant than thematic homogeneity.44
The charm of variety is also evoked by Aelian and Clement,45
who compare their respective collections to trees dispersed in
orchards or variegated Xowers in a meadow (ºØ ) or a garland
(Æ
), thus recalling both the tradition of giving miscellanies
metaphorical titles from the Xoral world,46 and the even longer line
of such nomenclature in poetic anthologies. In such collections

ØŒØºÆ is considered a purely aesthetic norm.47 By having
recourse to this aesthetic standard the authors of our miscellanies
reveal that they intend their collections not only to be useful and
instructive, but also to provide their readers with pleasure, a
double intention which characterizes much of the literary produc-
tion of the second and third centuries.48 Gellius too embraces both
intentions, and in contrast to the elder Pliny, who explicitly rejects
any stylistic elements that would render his sterilis materia ‘pleas-
ant to relate or attractive to read’ (NH pr. 12–13), presents his
44
Photius, Bibl. 175, 119b 27–33 TÆFÆ b Æ, ‹Æ ºª
ı ŒÆd ÆPB § ¼ØÆ
KŒØ, N !
ÆÆ ıØªB ŒÆd
P æe a NÆ !
ŁØ ØÆŒŒæØ
ŒÆ

ØºE , Iºº
oø Ø ŒB
§ ŒÆd ‰ ŒÆ
KBºŁ I ÆªæłÆØ, ‰
Pd Æºe
ıÆ, ,
e ŒÆ r
ÆPa ØºE , KØææ
b ŒÆd ÆæØæ
e I ÆØª
ŒÆd c

ØŒØºÆ
F

Ø
F

ıÆ.
45
Ael. NA, epil. fiH
ØŒºfiø B I Æª ø e K
ºŒe ŁæH ŒÆd c KŒ H ›
ø
ºıªÆ I
ØæŒø ,
Ø
d ºØH Ø Æ j Æ
‰æÆE
Œ B
ºıæ
Æ, ‰
I Łæø H fiø ø H
ººH , T fi Ł E !A Æ ŒÆd ØÆºÆØ c ıªªæÆ ;
Clem. Str. 6. 2. 1 ¯ b
s fiH ºØH Ø a ¼ Ł
ØŒºø I Ł
F Æ ŒI fiH ÆæÆfiø
H IŒæ
æø ıÆ
P ŒÆa r
ŒÆ
ŒæØÆØ H Iºº
ª H (w § ŒÆd ¸ØH
Ø ŒÆd ¯ºØŒH Æ ŒÆd ˚æÆ ŒÆd —º
ı ı Æªøªa Øº
ÆŁE
ØŒºø KÆ ŁØ
Ø
ı ªæłÆ
); cf. ibid. 4. 4. 1, 7. 111. 1–3, Méhat, Études sur les ‘Stromates’, 339–43.
46
Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, 80–3; Vardi, ‘Why Attic Nights?’, 299.
47
Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands, 227–36.
48
Steinmetz, Untersuchungen, 239–95, esp. 275–6; Lukinovich, ‘Play of Reflec-
tions’, 267–8; L. Romeri, ‘¸
ªØ
’; J. Davidson, ‘Pleasure and Pedantry’; A. D.
Vardi, ‘Book of Verse’, 93.
172 Amiel Vardi
work as intended ad alendum studium as well as ad oblectandum

fouendumque animum, and to oVer his readers only such material
that can ‘render men’s minds more vigorous, their memory better
supported, their eloquence more resourceful, their diction purer,
and the pleasures of their leisure hours more respectable—delectatio
in otio atque in ludo liberalior’ (pr. 16). It is noteworthy that in these
last words it is not pleasure in itself that Gellius designates among
the desired eVects of his work, as is customary in other miscellanies,
but rather the habituation of his readers to Wnd pleasure in learning
per se and to prefer this cultured manner of enjoying their leisure
hours to other, less respectable, joys that otium can provide. Even
the conventional appeal to the pleasure miscellanies claim to oVer is
thus harnessed by Gellius to serve his cultural programme.
Another standard explanation for disarrayed organization is that
it maintains the reader’s interest: ‘The variety of my reading-
matter’, says Aelian, ‘is intended to attract the reader and avoid
the tedium arising from monotony’ (Ael. Nat. An. epil.), and
Solinus explains: Inseruimus et pleraque diVerenter congruentia, ut
si nihil aliud, saltem uarietas ipsa legentium fastidio mederetur (Solin.
pr. 4).49 Though Gellius does not resort to this argument to
explain his insistence on random arrangement, his deep concern
to keep his readers’ interest is manifest throughout his preface.
The closest Gellius himself gets to an explanation of his system
of arrangement comes in the mutilated passage which opens his
preface:
*** iucundiora alia reperiri queunt, ad hoc ut liberis quoque meis partae
istiusmodi remissiones essent, quando animus eorum interstitione aliqua
negotiorum data laxari indulgerique potuisset. 2. Vsi autem sumus ordine
rerum fortuito, quem antea in excerpendo feceramus. Nam proinde ut
librum quemque in manus ceperam seu Graecum seu Latinum uel quid
memoratu dignum audieram, ita quae libitum erat, cuius generis cumque
erant, indistincte atque promisce annotabam . . . 3. Facta igitur est in his
quoque commentariis eadem rerum disparilitas, quae fuit in illis annota-
tionibus pristinis, quas breuiter et indigeste et incondite <ex> auditioni-
bus lectionibusque uariis feceramus. (pr. 1–3.)
Gellius’ claim usi autem sumus ordine rerum fortuito, quem antea in
excerpendo feceramus (and the explanation that follows) resembles
Pamphile’s statement that she arranged her material ‰ ŒÆ

49
Cf. Plin. Ep. 8. 21. 4 (also 2. 5. 7–8, 4. 14. 3, where the argument is that variety
ensures every reader may find something he likes). See further Janson, Latin Prose
Prefaces, 154; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 31–6 [21–6]; S. M. Beall, ‘Aulus
Gellius 17. 8’, 56.
KBºŁ . We Wnd the same principle evoked in other miscellanies and

collections, as for instance in the programmatic letter of the younger
Pliny: Collegi non seruato temporis ordine (neque enim historiam
componebam), sed ut quaeque in manus uenerat (Ep. 1. 1. 1).50 We
do not have enough of Pamphile to judge the accuracy of her claim,
but Pliny’s aYrmation has been proven manifestly false,51 and the
details provided by Gellius about the circumstances in which he
encountered some of the topics Wguring in his commentarii cannot
sustain the assumption that he reproduced them in the actual order
in which they occurred to him.52 But there is no need to understand
Gellius’ words so strictly. A no less natural rendering of usi sumus
. . . ordine would be that the haphazard arrangement adopted in
his work is meant to reXect the randomness he experienced in
collecting his material rather than to follow it. This, in turn,
makes perfectly good sense if we assume Gellius wants his own
experience as it is reXected in his book to serve as a model of a life
devoted to learning. And I believe this is exactly what he has
in mind, since, whatever we make of the beginning of the sentence
preceding his explanation of his random arrangement, it clearly
states that he composed his book ‘in order that similar recreation
might be provided for [his] children, whenever they might
have some respite from their aVairs and could relax and gratify
themselves’ (pr. 1). As we have already seen, Gellius wants the
material contained in his book to serve only as a model of learning,
or as ‘a demonstration of a way, that they may afterwards pursue’
as he puts it (pr. 17). We can thus note an analogy between what
he says about the subject matter of his book (i.e. that it is meant
to be taken as a model of knowledge) and the principle of its
arrangement, which is intended to serve as a model of a life of
learning.53 Furthermore, because of the haphazard arrangement of
the material, anyone who reads Gellius’ book consecutively will
experience the same random occurrence of diverse erudite items.
50
Similarly Plut. Quaest. conu. 2 pr.
æ I ÆªªæÆÆØ ŒÆd
P ØÆŒŒæØ ø
Iºº ‰ ŒÆ
N qºŁ (629 d).
51
See A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny, 21–3, 42–51 (with bibliog-
raphy).
52
Taken at face value e.g. in Skydsgaard, Varro the Scholar, 103; J. P. Small,
Wax Tablets, 179; contrast J. C. Rolfe’s and Marache’s translations with those of
F. Cavazza and Bernardi-Perini.
53
See also Astarita, Cultura, 31. Athenaeus too wants his Larensis, the Roman
amateur, committed to learning though burdened with imperial responsibilities, to
serve as a model for his readers (Ath. 1. 2 b ff.; cf. 9. 398 e–939 a); see D. Braund,
‘Learning, Luxury and Empire’, 5–10; but contra T. Whitmarsh, ‘Parasitism’, 308.
174 Amiel Vardi
Gellius thus manages to compel his readers actually to adopt his

model of a varied life of learning if only for the duration of their
reading.54
But is this the way the work was meant to be read? In 9. 4. 5
Gellius tells us how he read some old collections of mirabilia he
purchased from a bouquiniste in Brundisium: omnis duabus proximis
noctibus cursim transeo.55 On the other hand, the relatively short
and self-contained chapters of Gellius’ collection allow, perhaps
even invite, an interrupted reading. Such a reading would, of
course be convenient for ‘busy people’ trying to squeeze a moment
of reading in the short respites from their daily routine, but it
might also obscure the overall impression one might get from a
consecutive reading. Yet, like most itemized literature of his day,
Gellius’ chapters are short enough for several of them to be read in
a single reading session,56 and the impression of a random occur-
rence of diverse learned items would be maintained from going
through either any sequence of his chapters or a haphazard selec-
tion from them. More interesting is Gellius’ inclusion of a table of
contents at the end of his preface, since this device appears to invite
selective reading of chapters dealing with a speciWc issue. Indeed,
Pliny introduces his table of contents as a mechanism meant to
free his readers from the need to read the entire work through,
and to allow them, instead, to look only for the particular point
they want:
quid singulis contineretur libris, huic epistulae subiunxi summaque cura,
ne legendos eos haberes, operam dedi. tu per hoc et aliis praestabis ne
perlegant, sed, ut quisque desiderabit aliquid, id tantum quaerat et sciat
quo loco inueniat. (Plin. NH pr. 33.)
Pliny’s explanation is particularly relevant here since it is fairly

certain that Gellius took the idea of concluding his preface with a
list of capita rerum directly from Pliny, who was manifestly very
54
Thus also Astarita, Cultura, 31.
55
Gellius reports to have bought there books by Aristeas of Proconnesus, Isigo-
nus of Nicaea, Ctesias, Onesicritus, Polystephanus (sic!), and Hegesias. This list
seems to be adapted from Plin. 7. 9–26 and the list of sources to that book, where
Philostephanus’ name is cited properly; see L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘Fact and
Fiction’, 65–6; Aulus Gellius, 69–71 [50–1]. But the fact that this story is a clear
example of Gellius’ fictionality takes nothing from the validity of this evidence,
since it is the manner in which he would read a miscellany that concerns us.
56
See Fowler, Kinds, 62–4 for the basic distinction by size of literary kinds which
require more than a single reading session, those whose size corresponds more or
less to one reading session, and those of which one can read several in one session.
much in his mind when composing the praefatio.57 However, the

device was by no means a novel idea of Pliny’s.58 Pliny himself
mentions that it was already used in the mysterious ¯Ø of
Valerus Soranus:59 hoc ante me fecit in litteris nostris Valerius
Soranus in libris, quos K
ø inscripsit (pr. 33). This has led
some scholars to see Pliny as the reintroducer of a device that had
been out of use for almost two centuries. But the evidence shows
otherwise: a table of contents is incorporated at the end of the
dedicatory epistle to the medical treatise of Scribonius Largus
(Compositiones, epist. dedic. 4), there is explicit evidence that
there originally was one at the end of book 11 of Columella’s Res
Rustica (11. 3. 65),60 and it has been suggested that though the
extant capitula librorum opening Valerius Maximus’ collection
are probably not original, the collection did contain some sort of
a table of contents.61 Both Valerius Maximus and Columella were
known to Pliny,62 and he might well also have been acquainted
with his nephew’s friend Frontinus, who oVers a general scheme of
his Strategemata in his preface (1. pr. 2) and a detailed table
of contents at the beginning of each book. The words ante nos
fecit in litteris nostris seem also to indicate that Pliny knew of
Greek examples. In this he might have been thinking of the general
schemes of distribution of material into books customary in the
prefaces of Hellenistic historiographical works,63 or the more
detailed tables of contents sometimes added at the beginnings of
57
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 27 [20].
58
For ancient ‘tables of contents’, see H. Mutschmann, ‘Inhaltsangabe’;
R. Friderici, De librorum divisione, 43–58; P. Petitmengin, ‘Capitula’; Stevenson,
above, Ch. 5, §3.2; some interesting ideas also in R. Pearse, ‘Capituli: Some Notes
on Summaries, Chapter Divisions and Chapter Titles in Ancient and Medieval
Manuscripts’, a ‘work in progress’ offered at <http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/
manuscripts/chapter_titles.htm>.
59
For the title, see Friderici, De librorum divisione, 56–7; K.-E. Henriksson,
Büchertitel, 176–7.
60
i.e. in what looks like the original end of the work before he decided to add
book 12, which deals with the duties of the bailiff’s wife and the preparation and
storage of agricultural products.
61
Schanz–Hosius ii. 589 n. 1. Our MS traditions sometimes have a table of
contents at the beginning of books in technical and historical works (e.g. Apicius,
Mela, Florus, Josephus AJ; for Latin authors see Petitmengin, ‘Capitula’, 491 n. 3),
but the authenticity of these is not certain.
62
Val. Max. is listed in Pliny’s bibl. to books 7, 33; Columella in that to books 8,
11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, and cited passim. Val. Max. is also known to Gellius (9. 11).
63
e.g. Polyb. 3. 1. 5; Diod. Sic. 1. 4. 6 ff.; DH Ant. Rom. 1. 7–8; Joseph. BJ pr.
7–12 (1. 19–31); App. Praef. 14–15; and the precepts of Lucian, Hist. conscr. 53. See
D. Earl, ‘Prologue-form’, 842–4; J. Irigoin, ‘Titres et sommaires’ 130–1.
176 Amiel Vardi
books64 or at the end of an entire work.65 But lists of ŒºÆØÆ

F
Øº
ı are also attested in the preface of a rhetorical treatise (DH
Comp. 1) and a little after Pliny’s day also in technical works such
as Aelianus’ Strategemata,66 and the Conica of Apollonius of Perga
(epist. dedic. ad Wn.). It thus appears that from at least the second
century bce on the device was not uncommon in both historio-
graphical and technical Greek and Roman writings.
It is also noteworthy how unanimous our sources are on the
function of this device: it is meant to facilitate the Wnding of
particular issues that might interest the reader, and thus pre-
empt the need to read the entire work through.67 Occasionally, as
in Pliny, it is also speciWcally associated with the needs of the
¼
º
.68 Indeed, if we think of Pliny for instance, his table of
contents is a very convenient tool, with a title stating the general
subject of each book, and an enumeration of the individual topics
of each chapter listed underneath. Looking for eels? Go quickly
through the general titles of the books till you reach aquatilium
natura in book 9, and then through the contents of that particular
book to Wnd them in chapter 38. But because of Gellius’ random
arrangement, this is a facility his table of contents cannot supply.69
And yet he introduces his table of contents with the same standard
explanation:
Capita rerum, quae cuique commentario insunt, exposuimus hic uniuersa,
ut iam statim declaretur, quid quo in libro quaeri inuenirique possit.
(pr. 25.)
64
See a discussion of these æ
ªæÆÆ in Polyb. 11. 1a, with F. W. Walbank,
Commentary, ii. 266.
65
Polyb. 39. 3. 3; see Walbank, Commentary, iii. 743. Polybius is also among
Pliny’s sources (bibl. to books 4, 5, 6, 8, 31), but Gellius shows no first-hand
knowledge of him (6. 14. 10 probably through Varro; Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, 247 [182]).
66
The authenticity of this table of contents, which opens the work, is evidenced
in pr. 7. Aelianus might have adopted the device directly from Frontinus, whom he
knew.
67
Polyb. 11. 1a. 2 æe b

Ø A e

"
ø Ø !æE Øa

ı;
Scrib. Comp. epist. dedic. 4 quo facilius quod quaeretur inueniatur; Col. 11. 3. 65 ut
cum res exegisset, facile reperiri possit, quid in quoque quaerendum; Ael. Strat. pr. 7 Øa

Ø a I
ºÆ æ
ªæÆłÆ a ŒºÆØÆ H I
ØŒ ı ø , ¥ Æ æe B I Æª ø

F Øº
ı e KªªºÆ
F ıªªæÆ
Ø Oºªø ŒÆÆ
fi ŒÆd
Rs i KØfi
I Æª øŁB ÆØ
ı Þfi Æø !æŒø
f æ
ı c æfi; Prisc. Inst. pr. 5 (GL ii. 3.
3–4) quo facilius, quicquid ex his quaeratur, discretis possit locis inueniri. See Petit-
mengin, ‘Capitula’, 504–5.
68
Ael. Strat. pr. 7; cf. Vitruv. 5. pr. 5.
69
Pace Small, Wax Tablets, 35; Jacob, ‘Athenaeus the Librarian’, 107–8.
Quaeri inuenirique is indeed less speciWc than Pliny’s id tantum

quaerat et sciat quo loco inueniat, but for once Gellius’ relish for
grouping synonyms or near-synonyms together might have led
him astray: inueniri had better been left without the quaeri, as
anyone who has had the frustrating experience of looking for
what Gellius says on a particular issue can testify. For this purpose
one would do much better to search the Noctes Atticae by means of
the systematic surveys of its material produced by modern
scholars. But then it was not for scholars that Gellius intended
his book, and the selective manner of reading that a table of
contents allows must serve the reader of a disorderly miscellany
for purposes completely unlike those of readers wishing to consult
a particular point in a systematic exposition of a particular branch
of knowledge, which, as we have seen, is the type of work where
all other examples of ancient ‘tables of contents’ appear.70 Keeping
in mind Gellius’ intended readers and proclaimed programme
I believe, therefore, that his table of contents was designed
less as a search tool to be consulted by those who know what they
are looking for, and more as a general repertory of the topics
discussed in his work. It is thus meant to be read through, to
exhibit the rich variety of material that learning consists of, and
to invite the reader to open the occasional chapter as the fancy takes
him.71 Thus, if we want to vindicate Gellius from the charge
of negligent adherence to the wording of Pliny, we can maintain
that the object to be supplied to his quaeri is not a speciWc issue that
the reader is looking for (Pliny’s ut quisque desiderabit aliquid), but
simply something interesting to read about. If so, in adopting
Pliny’s phraseology, Gellius might have employed an ironic tech-
nique similar to the one we have seen him using while introducing
his list of ‘fanciful’ titles: The echo of his model’s words is meant
to mark the diVerence between what he and Pliny do, or, in terms
70
See Petitmengin, ‘Capitula’, 500, 503–4. It is tempting to assume a connection
between these ‘tables of contents’ and the definition of divisions and subdivisions
characteristic of the prefaces of systematic and logically organized works; see
Rawson, ‘Logical Organisation’, 12 ¼ 324.
71
This might explain another Gellian departure from Pliny: whereas the latter’s
table of contents consists of the headings of the issues he discusses, Gellius provides
short summaries of the chapters, of the ‹Ø=‰ type found e.g. in Joseph. BJ pr. 7–12
(1. 19–30) and Ael. Strat. (cf. Columella’s use of the term argumenta to introduce his
table of contents (11. 3. 65); see Mutschmann, ‘Inhaltsangabe’, 102. For the sug-
gestion that Gellius’ collection was intended for the reading of single chapters at
random, see also V. D’Agostino, ‘Aulo Gellio’, 26; cf. Skidmore, Practical Ethics,
48–50; Cavazza, edn. i. 21 n. 11.
178 Amiel Vardi
of genre, it serves Gellius to deWne the type of his own composition

by dissociating it from a predominant near kin and from the class
of systematic treatises in which ancient ‘tables of contents’ nor-
mally appear.72
Before going on to examine the variety of forms Gellius gives his
individual chapters, it is worth dwelling on one more important
aspect of the formal structure of the Noctes Atticae as a whole.
Whether intentionally or not, Gellius’ selective collection of a
broad range of learned material presented as an disarrayed
sequence of self-contained items reXects a view of knowledge
which stands in sharp contrast to the perception of the body of
knowledge as an organic system that modern science shares with
many ancient scholars.73 One might suspect that this fragmented
view of the body of knowledge is embodied in miscellany as a
genre; indeed, discussing the Deipnosophistae, Christian Jacob
maintains that Athenaeus’ manner of handling his material in-
volves a fragmentation of knowledge. But because of Athenaeus’
thematic arrangement of the material, so Jacob continues, he also
takes a step towards its reorganization in a diVerent manner.74 It is
precisely this further step that Gellius’ ordo rerum fortuitus denies
his readers, leaving them with a fragmented and disarrayed view of
knowledge. But is this really how Gellius viewed knowledge, or is
it just an accidental by-product of his insistence on a haphazard
arrangement in presenting his material? On the one hand, it is
important to note that Gellius is not incapable of marking relations
between some of the issues he discusses and of bringing a number
72
For Gellius’ ambivalent attitude to Pliny the Elder, see Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius, 41, 165–6 [30–1, 121–2]; W. H. Keulen, below, Ch. 9, §3.1.
73
Contrast e.g. Cic. De orat. 1. 187–8 Omnia fere, quae sunt conclusa nunc artibus,
dispersa et dissipata quondam fuerunt; ut in musicis numeri et uoces et modi; in
geometria lineamenta, formae, interualla, magnitudines; in astrologia caeli conuersio,
ortus, obitus motusque siderum; in grammaticis poetarum pertractatio, historiarum
cognitio, uerborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus; in hac denique ipsa
ratione dicendi excogitare, ornare, disponere, meminisse, agere—ignota quondam omni-
bus et diffusa late uidebantur. Adhibita est igitur ars quaedam extrinsecus ex alio genere
quodam, quod sibi totum philosophi adsumunt, quae rem dissolutam diuulsamque con-
glutinaret et ratione quadam constringeret. See Rawson, ‘Logical Organisation’. It is
characteristic of Gellius that even when he reads Cicero’s De iure ciuili in artem
redigendo, a work which seems to have dealt directly with the process of reducing a
body of knowledge into a system, what interests him is a special usage of superesse (1.
22. 7). Post-Enlightenment science is nowadays claimed no longer to uphold this
view of a systematic body of knowledge, for which see e.g. A. MacIntyre, Three
Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.
74
Jacob, ‘Athenaeus the Librarian’, 103–4.
of items together under a more or less general rule.75 But on the

other hand such interconnections and generalizations are of a very
limited scope and do not form anything like a uniWed system.76
Furthermore, as noted by two other contributors to this volume,
each of them approaching Gellius from a diVerent angle, he seems
much more interested in concrete particular details than in abstract
universals or general rules.77 We certainly cannot detect in the
Noctes a preference for the universal over the particular of the
kind we Wnd, for instance, in Plato’s Symposium and the whole
philosophical tradition from Thales to the Platonic Theory of
Ideas. And Wnally, Gellius’ objection to specialization in depart-
mentalized disciplines seems also to support the view that he really
did not conceive knowledge as a structured system. In contrast to
the vectorial and vertical view of specialized knowledge which is
inWnite in terms of higher and deeper, his might be better imagined
as a two-dimensional continuum, a plane dotted with an inWnite
multitude of items, occasionally meeting to form temporary and
limited categories.
5. diversity in the form and genre of

individual chapters
The multiformity of the Noctes Wnds expression not only in its
material, but also in the formal traits of the individual chapters or
commentarii, and the question of literary kind is thus relevant not
only to the book as a whole, but also to the individual chapters of
which it is comprised. Some of these can be considered chreiai,
others have been tagged hypomnemata and diatribes, many can be
classed as varieties of the dialogue or the symposium.78 Occasion-
ally a chapter will even change its formal features mid-way and
turn from, say, a representation of a learned discussion to a report
of further relevant material the author had hit upon in some book.
Only a few chapters have the form of pure excerpta, and the
75
e.g. 5. 12. 10 16. 5. 5–7 (noting relation between items); 9. 9 (a number of
items under a general rule). See further Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 33–4
[25–6]; Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’, 44–5.
76
Cf. Binder, ‘Vir elegantissimi eloquii’, 106–7, 118.
77
T. Morgan, below, 196---7; Beall, below, 213; cf. also Stevenson, above,
124. Contrast Rawson’s ‘pyramidal structure’ of artes (‘Logical Organisation’,
passim).
78
R. Marache, ‘Mise en scène’; id. edn. i, pp. xxxi–xxxvi; Steinmetz, Untersu-
chungen, 281–7; Beall, Civilis Eruditio, 115–33.
180 Amiel Vardi
authorial ‘I’ has a dominant presence throughout the book. In

many chapters there are further narrative elements such as dra-
matic setting, characterization of the interlocutors, and occasion-
ally even a miniature plot.
This makes the Noctes Atticae unique in ancient literature.
A great part of ancient miscellanies have no dramatic setting at
all, whereas dialogues and sympotic miscellanies normally have
only an overall mise en sce`ne for the entire composition, with the
occasional introduction of a new interlocutor, or a change of ses-
sion or location, which sometimes also entails a turn in the devel-
opment of the conversation.79 There could, however, have been
other miscellanies made up of chapters with distinct formal struc-
tures. As Ewen Bowie once pointed out to me, we might conjecture
the presence of a degree of variety in the presentation of distinct
items in Pamphile’s miscellany. In her preface, so Photius tells us
(Bibl. 175, 119b 18–27), she states that her collection consists of
what she had learnt from her husband, what she heard from the
many distinguished guests who frequented their house, and what
she acquired from her own reading. This might imply a combin-
ation of hypomnemata, excerpta, and dialogues, some of them per-
haps sympotic. But more important is a remark Photius adds
further on in his book report: ‘In passages in which she recalls
what she remembers from previous authors her style shows more
variation’ (ibid. 120a 2–4).80 Let us note that in order to make such
an assertion Photius must have been able to distinguish within the
miscellany between items that were based on Pamphile’s own
reading and what she acquired from others, which might well
imply that the latter type of material was put in the mouths of
personae loquentes, her husband and his guests for instance.81 For
all we know, such a structure might have been present in other
ancient miscellanies too, and we must keep in mind that by the
very nature of our indirect sources on these compositions they are
not likely to preserve information on the formal aspects of such
works, but only on their subject-matter.82
79
For mise en sce`ne as a generic feature, see Fowler, Kinds, 68.
80
¯
r b a H IæÆØ
æø I

ıÆ ºªØ,
ØŒØºæ
ÆPB
§ ŒÆd
P ŒÆŁ
£ r
ªŒØÆØ › ºª
.
81
But in that case it is surprising that Photius should detect more stylistic variety
in what she says in propria persona than in things she puts in the mouths of her
interlocutors.
82
If Gellius were known only from quotations, what should we know about the
nature of his work beyond its containing at least one personal reminiscence (19.
1 cited by Augustine, CD 9. 4)? On the basis of its title, E. Bowie (‘Hadrian,
Be that as it may, my purpose is not to establish Gellius’ origin-

ality, but to understand why he chose to adopt this particular form
of presenting his learned material. Again, giving pleasure and
maintaining the interest of his readers is a likely answer. And
again we can assume that the narrative elements in Gellius’ chap-
ters are there to serve a programme too. It has long been estab-
lished that the dramatic setting and characters in Cicero’s
dialogues form part of the apparatus he employs to deliver his
message, for which we have Cicero’s own explicit evidence.83
The narrative elements of Gellius’ chapters, on the other hand,
were for many years taken as actual reports of real incidents or as
containing a degree of Wction, yet aiming to achieve verisimilitude
and thus allowing us to consider them as reliable reXections of
the
x Æ i ª
Ø
in Antonine society.84 But owing, perhaps, to
the growing interest in narratology, we have come to understand
the dramatic setting, characterization, and plots of Gellius’ chap-
ters also as narrative techniques devised to serve him in delivering
his message.85 Trendy as this approach might seem, I think there is
strong support for its application to Gellius inasmuch as he was
undoubtedly familiar with Cicero’s discussions of the consider-
ations that underlie the choice of characters and dramatic settings
of his dialogues.86
A notable characteristic of the dramatic settings of Cicero’s
dialogues is that they all take place during public holidays, and as
noted by Stephen Beall, otium is the dramatic setting of almost all
the chapters of the Noctes.87 Such a setting is, of course, very
common in ancient dialogue and sympotic literature and may be
regarded simply as a standard element of the Platonic tradition.
Favorinus, and Plutarch’, 5–6) assumes that there were some reminiscences of an
autobiographical nature in Favorinus’ `

ÆÆ; see also Mensching,
Favorin, 56 n. 44.
83
See esp. Amic. 4; Att. 13. 12. 3, 13. 16. 1, 13. 19 .5; Q. fr. 3. 5. 1. For formal
aspects of Cicero’s dialogues, R. E. Jones, ‘Characterization’; P. Levine, ‘Cicero and
the Literary Dialogue’; G. Zoll, Cicero Platonis aemulus, 73–124.
84
See Holford-Strevens, ‘Fact and Fiction’.
85
For a ‘narratological’ approach to Gellius’ characters and scenes, see, e.g. L. A.
Holford-Strevens, ‘Portraitist’ (Dr Holford-Strevens kindly permitted me to quote
his reaction to the mention of his article in this list: ‘I no more knew that I was being
narratological than M. Jourdain knew he was speaking prose!’); Beall, ‘Aulus
Gellius 17. 8’; Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’. For a similar approach to
Athenaeus, Braund, ‘Learning, Luxury and Empire’; Wilkins, ‘Dialogue and
Comedy’, 24–5.
86
See A. Gaos Schmidt, ‘El plan rector’, esp. 123 ¼ edn. i, p. xxviii.
87
Beall, Civilis Eruditio, 34–9.
182 Amiel Vardi
Yet the Greek attitude to leisure was very diVerent from that of the
Romans, who had to accommodate it with an ideology that privil-
eges oYcium and hence also negotium (cf. Gell. 11. 16. 7). There-
fore the fact that the appropriate use of otium forms part of the
conversation in some of Cicero’s dialogues and is addressed in
propria persona in his speeches Pro Archia and Pro Sestio,88
makes it clear that his choice of these occasions as a dramatic
setting for his dialogues is designed to present learned conversa-
tion as a model for the occupation appropriate for a gentleman’s
otium.89 The same is certainly also true of Gellius, who declares
that a primary aim of his book is to entice homines aliis iam uitae
negotiis occupatos to dedicate whatever spare time they have to the
pursuit of learning. And again Gellius sets his own life as a model
for this, stating he devoted to study every spare hour he could steal
from his daily business (pr. 12) and promising to continue doing so
for the rest of his life (pr. 23).
We can also note how careful Gellius is to represent the activities
of an otium litteratum, such as private reading or educated conver-
sation, not only as digniWed and worthwhile, but also as an enjoy-
able occupation for one’s leisure. Consider, for instance, his setting
for a conversation between two philosophers: ‘when we were all
with Favorinus at Ostia. And we were walking along the shore in
springtime, just as evening was falling’ (18. 1. 2; cf. 1. 2. 2, 19. 7. 2).
Even traditional generic settings such as the locus amoenus or the
pleasures of the symposium are thus invoked by Gellius to suit one
of the professed goals of his book: to make his readers’ spare-time
pleasures more suitable for a gentleman.
But compared with other dialogue literature and sympotic mis-
cellanies, the independent settings of Gellius’ chapters allow him
to present his learned discussions as taking place on a large variety
of occasions, at dinners, in public libraries and book-shops, at the
bed-side of a sick friend, while waiting for the salutatio in the
vestibule of the imperial palace, on board ship, in classrooms and
theatres, or simply while taking a stroll. By now we can surmise
that these settings are there not only for ornament or to entertain
the reader, nor merely to recall the conventions of the Platonic
dialogue, but also to illustrate the variety of opportunities that the
busy people to whom his book is addressed can nevertheless take
advantage of to engage in intellectual pursuits. Furthermore,
whereas Cicero sets his dialogues on occasions of otium aVorded
88
Sest. 138–9; Arch. 16; cf. Off. 2. 4, 3. 1-4; De orat. 2. 22–4; Hort. fr. 6–7 Grilli.
89
For otium litteratum in Cicero, J.-M. André, L’Otium, 279–334.
by public holidays, Gellius’ scenes are also set in the intervals of

spare time within the daily routine and even on occasions on which
one can indulge in a short learned conversation and fulWl one’s
social duties simultaneously, as for instance while travelling,
waiting for the salutatio, or attending a sick friend. Again this
recalls the way he depicts his own experience of acquiring know-
ledge per omnia semper negotiorum interualla, in quibus furari otium
potui (pr. 12), and we can also note how suitable his self-contained
items of knowledge presented in short reading-units (his chapters)
are for such stolen free moments.
Authors living closer to Gellius’ day, particularly the younger
Pliny and Fronto, seem to have taken leisure quite seriously and we
consequently Wnd in them a relatively large variety of otium oppor-
tunities.90 As beWts a gentleman, many of these are devoted to
reading, writing, and learned conversation. But whereas Pliny
and Fronto are not insensible to the joys of, say, hunting, riding,
or grape-picking,91 such divertissements have no place in the
Noctes Atticae, which presents intellectual activities as the only
respectable occupation for a gentleman’s otium. The same pre-
occupation with the intellectual world is also manifest in Gellius’
choice of interlocutors, where he is much closer to the Greek
tradition of, say, Plutarch, Lucian, or Athenaeus, whose main
characters are always the ÆØı
Ø, than to the dialogues of
Cicero, whose dramatis personae are for the most part members of
the senatorial elite distinguished by the authority and prestige won
in political activity and the courts of law. Almost all Gellius’
interlocutors are men of letters, students, teachers, or what we
might term ‘professional intellectuals’, and the few who are not
are represented as having intellectual interests. Indeed if we com-
pare Gellius with, say, the younger Pliny, Juvenal, Fronto, or
Apuleius, it is amazing how little he has to say about contemporary
politics and military aVairs, about legacies and real-estate business,
even about his own experience in court, which is only mentioned as
the starting point of intellectual discussions. Similarly Erucius
Clarus, the city prefect, is represented merely as a uir morum et
litterarum ueterum studiossimus (13. 18. 2) seeking an answer from
90
Esp. Plin. Ep. 1. 3. 3, 1. 9, 2. 2. 3, 9. 32; Fro. Fer. Als. 3 (pp. 227–33 v. d.
Hout2 ). See further A.-M. Guillemin, Pline, 14–16; J.-M. André, ‘Le de Otio de
Fronton’; J. P. Toner, Leisure, 25–32; Vardi, ‘Book of Verse’, 88–9.
91
e.g. Plin. 5. 6. 46 (with Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny, 330), 5. 18. 2, 9.
10. 1, 9. 15. 3, 9. 36; Fronto, Ep. M. Caes. 4. 5. 3, 4. 6. 1–2 (pp. 61–3 v. d. Hout2 );
contrast Gell. 10. 25. 1 (contemplating sedens in reda; cf. 11. 3. 1) and 20. 8. 1 (a jolly
celebration of the uindemia, but Gellius tells us only of the learned conversation).
184 Amiel Vardi
Sulpicius Apollinaris the grammarian, and a uir consularis and

governor of Crete who comes with his father to visit Taurus at
2. 2. 1 is introduced just by virtue of his relations with the eminent
intellectual. We can notice the same focusing on aspects of intel-
lectual life in Gellius’ miniature plots. I have recently tried to show
this regarding the recurrent scene in which arrogant experts are
exposed and put to public ridicule.92 Other Gellian plot structures
seem to reXect his ideas concerning, for instance, the right manner
of teaching, intellectual authority versus independent critical
judgement, the proper degree and suitable occasions for the appli-
cation of one’s learning in everyday life, the etiquette of learned
conversation, and the constraints of hierarchies both within the
intellectual circle and between intellectuals and people whose
social standing derives from parenthood, rank, or oYce.
But to return to the manner in which the formal diversity of
Gellius’ individual chapters reXects on the Noctes as a whole, I shall
conclude this study with an examination of an important plot we
Wnd embedded in the entire work and of the manner he depicts one
principal character—himself. As we have seen, Gellius often pre-
sents his own experience as a model for a life of learning. But the
dominant presence of the author’s ‘I’ in his chapters does more
than that. It also provides us with an autobiography, which may be
more or less accurate, but is manifestly partial and focused on his
intellectual life alone. Furthermore, the details of this intellectual
autobiography, which modern scholars are eager to reconstruct,
are scattered randomly among his chapters without any consider-
ation of chronology or a sense of development from his early school
years to his mature life. It is important to note that Gellius could
have presented his self-contained items of knowledge in an ordo
rerum fortuitus (for one or more of the reasons adduced above)
while still setting these items within a consecutive framework of a
diachronic biography. The idea might not have occurred to him,
but whether deliberately or not, the result is that his readers are
presented with a fragmented and disarrayed autobiography. One
key notion of intellectual biographies that such an arrangement
obscures is that of progression in learning93 and, though I admit
I am getting speculative here, this seems to suit the delineation
of Gellius’ view of knowledge ventured on above. If the body of
92
Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’.
93
Admittedly, the notion of progression in learning is not common in ancient
bioi, but it finds its place e.g. in Cicero’s self-presentations, and its importance in a
career is prominent in authors concerned with education such as Quintilian and
Fronto.
knowledge is indeed conceived as an unsystematic amalgam of

isolated items, the diachronic order in which these items are ac-
quired becomes irrelevant and there is no room for the notion of
progression in learning, only of its accumulation.94
Turning from these abstract conceptions back to social ones, we
can note that the absence of the notion of progression in a biog-
raphy also entails a renunciation of the idea of a career. Since
Gellius’ narration does not involve the world of negotium, it is of
course not a civic or political career that we are missing. Within the
intellectual world we have indeed seen that Gellius’ view of learn-
ing also involves the renunciation of specialization and therefore of
the career of a professional expert. But with Favorinus and Herodes
Atticus around, yet another career-centred manner of life comes to
mind, that of the contemporary sophists. Like Gellius, they too
seem to privilege the pursuit of general rather than specialized
knowledge, but the notion of a career is central to their manner
of life, which involves progression in terms of rhetorical and per-
formative technique, of gaining public acclaim, of attracting large
retinues of pupils, and of mastering the art of manipulating civic
privileges and honours. Philostratus’ Bioi of the sophists are thus
dotted with anecdotes marking the pitfalls and climaxes of such a
career,95 and Lucian’s Somnium provides an example of yet an-
other traditional constituent of career stories—the turning point.96
Though Gellius too is not devoid of competitiveness and rather
likes portraying himself having the upper hand in intellectual
confrontations, he does not present any of these incidents as a
signiWcant moment in an intellectual career. We might associate
this with the fact that from schooldays to maturity Gellius prefers
to place himself in the position of a sectator of the great luminaries
of his day, never as one of them. But more important is that the
renunciation of a career is quintessential to the idea of amateurism,
which modern scholars like to associate with Gellius’ ideal of
learning whether in the neutral or the pejorative sense of the
term. Therefore, though I should hesitate to suggest that Gellius
deliberately chose to present his autobiography in a disarrayed and
fragmented manner in order to mark his renunciation of an intel-
lectual career, it seems safe to assume that had the notion of career
94
Cf. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 149–50.
95
See G. Anderson, Philostratus, 44–53.
96
For Lucian’s presentation of paideia as a career, cf. Rhet. praec., Merc. cond.;
and see further G. Anderson, Lucian, 165; S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 308–12.
186 Amiel Vardi
formed part of his view of intellectual life he would not have

adopted this way of presenting it.
To conclude, Gellius’ handling of the generic conventions of

ancient miscellanies seems to indicate that his book is about intel-
lectuals and intellectual life no less than it is a source of learned
information for those wishing to appear as such. This, in turn,
conforms with the interests of at least part of the tradition of
ancient miscellanies, as it is represented, for instance, in Plutarch
and Athenaeus97 and more generally with the concerns of second-
century Greek society, in which, as Simon Swain has shown,
paideia became the distinctive feature of the elite.98 On the other
hand, Gellius’ view of learning and intellectual life preserves some
distinctly Roman ideas of the gentleman-scholar, in which he
seems much indebted to Cicero. Many of these ideas are also
expressly evoked in Gellius’ preface, and though we tend to sus-
pect ancient prefatory propositions because of their conventional
nature, it appears that Gellius manages to adapt both the conven-
tional components Wguring in his preface and the conventions of
his literary kind to serve his declared goals and cultural pro-
gramme.
97
G. Anderson, ‘Athenaeus’, 2183–4.
98
Swain, Hellenism and Empire, esp. 139–45, 308–29.
7
Educational Values
T er es a M o r g a n
The idea that the aim of Noctes Atticae is either education or ethics
has often been raised and almost as often dismissed. Miscellanists,
it has been pointed out, nearly always claim that their works are
useful, but in comparison with bona Wde educational writers, Gel-
lius is sketchy and unsystematic, having little or nothing to say
about the process or its precise content. As a work of ethics, Noctes
Atticae has crippling defects: ‘we miss Wrm guidance on ethical
choices likely to confront the reader’, says Holford-Strevens; in the
middle of a philosophical discussion, Gellius wanders oV into
antiquarianism; he raises questions he cannot answer, and: ‘If we
take Gellius’ protestations seriously, we shall be dismayed by the
yawning gulf between them and his practice.’1
In the terms in which it has been expressed, this is true enough.
Gellius does not oVer a full or systematic discussion of either ethics
or education. But in what follows I shall argue that there is room
for a broader deWnition of both subjects and that on this deWnition,
Noctes Atticae is both an educational and an ethical work.
It is safe to assume that most ethics in Gellius’ world was not
done in the style of high philosophy: theoretical, systematic,
exhaustive, and exact. (Not much of what philosophers wrote can
claim all those qualities, either.) People doubtless learnt, as they
still learn, ethical precepts, questions, and ways of thinking from
family, friends, and acquaintances, from the forum, the theatre,
the palace, and the barracks. And from literature, including plays,
mimes, epics, histories—anything that could be heard or read in
public or private. Like language, ethics could be picked up anyhow
1
L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 1st edn. 31–3 (reconsidered in 2nd edn.
41–6) with useful bibliography at n. 75. R. Marache, Critique litte´raire, argues
that Favorinus regarded the liberal arts as adornment of the human spirit (255–7)
and practically good, but says he cannot see the moral point of most of the work
(261–3, 265); G. Maselli, Lingua, 81 points out the miscellaneous nature of Gellius’
grammar.
188 Teresa Morgan
and sorted out later. Like language, it is unlikely that most people
felt the need for a theoretical grasp of ethics before practising it,
and most people probably never did grasp it as a system, even
supposing it was one. Ethics, in most people’s everyday lives, was
(and is) an incorrigibly unsystematic aVair. (This is not to say that
it has no logic at all: I think most people’s ethics do have some logic
to them, and I shall try to show that Gellius’ have.)
Teaching ethics was not the main aim of much of the literature
which found itself being read that way.2 But some works do clearly
have an ethical agenda. Didactic poetry, fables, collections of
gnomic quotations, works like the Book of Proverbs, the Sermon
on the Mount, and the Instruction of Ankhsheshonq are explicitly
ethical. They are also typically unsystematic, anecdotal, and any-
thing but exhaustive, to the point where it seems plausible to
suggest that the typical form of ancient Greek, Roman, and Near
Eastern ethical literature outside the realms of serious philosophy
was miscellaneous. This complements the unsystematic nature of
everyday ethical education I sketched above. To those of us who
have been educated in ethics as a branch of philosophy it still seems
very odd, but in the second half of the chapter I shall come back to
why it might in fact be highly functional. For now, we can say that
being a miscellany does not debar Noctes Atticae from being a work
of ethics. That does not prove it is one, but I shall try to show that
its content is also ethical.
Since even works of ethical theory by philosophers cannot be
divorced from the teaching of ethics themselves,3 ethical works are
by deWnition educational works of a kind. Miscellanies, too, usu-
ally claim to be educational in the broadest sense that they are
useful.4 (Not always, however, which makes it more likely that
we can trust Gellius when he does say so.) So it should not be
controversial to say that in a broad sense, Gellius is writing educa-
tionally. But in that broad a sense, so are many ancient authors.
Can we say that Noctes Atticae is meant to be educational in any
more precise and interesting sense?5
2
T. Morgan, Literate Education, chs. 3–4; cf. R. Lamberton, Homer, 22–31,
S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 240–4.
3
Attempts to do this have been discredited in recent years (so B. Williams,
Ethics, 72–4).
4
Plin. NH. pr. 12–16, Val. Max. 1 pr., Clem. Strom. 6. 2. 2 are among those who
claim to be useful; Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists and Plutarch’s miscellanies among
those that do not.
5
Given his wealth and devotion to the cultured life, it is surprising how few
authors Gellius cites (fewer than Quintilian recommends that children should read
Educational Values 189
I think we can. The preface makes a number of programmatic

statements. Gellius begins by saying that he is writing for his
children, to entertain them when they are relaxing from business
(§1). The fact that they are already grown up, or will be when they
read this, does not mean that he is not still trying to educate them.
This is one of the expanded senses in which a work can be educa-
tional, and not a particularly controversial one: we accept that
philosophers may be engaged in an educational process with
adult pupils, so why not Gellius?
Gellius explains that he has selected items quae aut ingenia
prompta expeditaque ad honestae eruditionis cupidinem utiliumque
artium contemplationem celeri facilique compendio ducerent aut
homines aliis iam uitae negotiis occupatos a turpi certe agrestique
rerum atque uerborum imperitia uindicarent (pr. 12). He calls these
primitias quasdam et quasi libamenta ingenuarum artium (pr. 13),
which implies that he hopes readers will go on to learn more by
themselves. Not to know this material, he says, is si non inutile, at
quidem certe indecorum, a common sentiment in educational texts
from elementary writing exercises upwards.6 Short of announcing
himself as a teacher, it is hard to see how Gellius could have made
it clearer that he regards this as at least partly an educational work.
There are good reasons why Gellius does not call himself a teacher.
Although education was highly valued in both the Greek and
Roman worlds, teachers, on the whole, were not. To deWne oneself
as a professional was to segregate oneself from the majority of the
educated upper class. On the other hand, it was normal for a wide
range of family, friends, and relations to take an informal interest
in the education of upper-class children. Pliny and Jerome are
among those who have left letters of guidance to parents or chil-
dren themselves about their education.7 Historically, young men
were lent to family friends and connections to learn how to behave
in public life. By announcing that his work is for the education of
at 1. 8. 5–12, 10. 1. 46–131). At lower social levels, papyrological evidence indicates
that the educational reading and copying of authors was highly selective, a few
authors and passages recurring widely across place and time (Morgan, Literate
Education, 100–19). It would be natural to assume that wealthier children (and
adults) read much more widely, and some evidently did. But perhaps fewer than
we assume: Gellius, and also Fronto, Apuleius, and Favorinus display reading
patterns much closer to those of their provincial cousins. The main diVerence is
that they seem to have read more widely in some central authors, notably Vergil.
6
P. Bouriant 1, Papyri from Mons Epiphanius II 615; Hagedorn–Weber,
‘Menandersentenzen’.
7
Plin. Ep. 4. 13; Jerome, Ep. 107, 128; see T. Morgan, ‘Assessment’, 16–17;
H.-I. Marrou, Education, pt. 3, ch. 1, sect. ‘Family Education’, 232–4.
190 Teresa Morgan
his sons, then publishing it for the ediWcation of a wider public,

Gellius positions himself in the ranks of responsible Roman fathers
in a line from Cato the Elder.
Gellius emphasizes that his miscellany is going to include
material on grammar, dialectics, geometry, and law (pr. 13). Gram-
mar and geometry are staples of education above the most basic
level; philosophy and law, the classic higher education of wealthy
Romans. (It is striking that Gellius does not mention rhetoric here,
though he will include some stories about orators. Perhaps, like
other late Wrst-and second-century authors, he feels that rhetoric
is awkwardly placed in an era where serious deliberative oratory, at
least at Rome, is dead and forensic oratory compromised. It is
noticeable that even Fronto and Herodes Atticus are praised for
their general culture rather than speciWcally for their rhetoric.)
Apart from these programmatic statements, Noctes Atticae is
scattered with ideas which can be paralleled in educational
writings. In particular, though Gellius gives no indication that he
knows Quintilian’s recent Institutio Oratoria, the two share a
number of concerns. Gellius takes an interest in eugenics. At
12. 1 he has Favorinus tell a woman to breastfeed her own baby,
to make sure the baby does not imbibe another woman’s inferior
qualities.8 He censures children who eat and sleep too much: they
will not develop properly (4. 19). Like Quintilian, he believes that
natural talent plays a crucial, if not decisive, role in education, and
that having a good memory is particularly important.9 He quotes
Philip’s letter to Aristotle, in which Philip says that Alexander is
lucky to have been born in Aristotle’s lifetime, presumably because
he wants him to have the best possible education (9. 3).10 And like
Quintilian, Gellius regards the liberal arts as not just agreeable, but
useful, in both public and private life.11
It has been pointed out that if education is Gellius’ aim, a lot of
his material looks pretty unimproving.12 Could he not, at least,
have come up with a more suitable opening chapter? NA 1. 1
reports how Pythagoras worked out the height of Hercules, by
8
Cf. Ps.-Plut. De lib. educ. 3 c.
9
NA 5. 3; cf. Quint. Inst. 1 pr. 26, 1. 3. 1, Ps.-Plut. De lib. educ. 9 e, and for
the importance of memory in the NA S. M. Beall, below, 215---17.
10
At 7. 10 he reports Taurus as complaining, formulaically, that young men are
less keen on education than they used to be.
11
By not specifying that he expects his readers to be political rulers, Gellius
avoids Quintilian’s problem that he is, in theory, educating an entire class of orators
to rule, in a state where only one person rules at a time.
12
Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 40–1 [30].
taking the length of a foot in the stadium at Olympia, traditionally

paced out by the hero, and comparing it with the length of a foot in
other stadia. Hercules, he deduced, was taller than other men in
the same proportion as the course at Olympia was longer than
other courses. Now why is this either good or useful to know? It
is curious and erudite, which makes it a neat gobbet for dinner-
party conversation, and as such socially useful. It shows that
mathematics has a function beyond counting your revenue and
calculating your taxes, a point which Quintilian also makes against
the prejudices of other litterati (Inst. 1. 10. 34–49). But beyond
that, Gellius appears simply to be telling us that it is educational—
it is the kind of thing that is worth knowing. Why? Because it is the
kind of thing that people in his circle do know. And that, as I hope
to show by the end of the chapter, is not only an educational but an
ethical statement.
Noctes Atticae is clearly not intended to show systematically how
to acquire a conventional literate education. But if we look more
closely at the grammatical, mathematical, rhetorical, philosoph-
ical, and legal material, we can see Gellius making what one might
call a meta-educational argument: he is trying to show us why
education is worth having. Four reasons recur: it is enjoyable,
social, useful, and moral. And Gellius makes a considerable eVort
to show that these qualities (in variable proportions) are true of
even the driest technical material.
To judge by the zest with which Gellius reports numerous
disputes and points of grammar, he regards grammar as intrinsic-
ally interesting and entertaining. More surprisingly, perhaps,
grammar is a sociable activity: grammatical points are often pre-
sented as debates between rivals or put-downs of outsiders by
Gellius’ friends. At 2. 26. 1 we Wnd Gellius accompanying Favor-
inus on a visit to Fronto, who is laid up with the gout. Other
learned men are present, and a discussion develops about colours
and words for them. Another occasion (4. 1) Wnds Favorinus and
friends among a group of scholars and others in the entrance hall of
the Palatine palace, waiting to oVer salutatio to the emperor. An
ignorant grammarian starts an impromptu lecture on nouns, and
Favorinus takes him up, entertaining his friends, leading the topic
round to a moralizing conclusion, and making a fool of the gram-
marian to everyone else’s satisfaction. Another grammarian is the
victim of what Gellius reports as a lepidissima altercatio with
Favorinus about words with double meanings (8. 14). On a less
adversarial note, Gellius remembers Taurus’ philosophical
dinners in Athens, when all the guests had to bring an interesting
192 Teresa Morgan
topic for discussion. Stories like these show that for Gellius (as
nowadays), belonging to a group is one of the prime rewards of
education, all the better when the group can have fun at the
expense of people less learned, wise, or virtuous than themselves.
Grammar teaches other things too. It explains oddities of lan-
guage, and shows how Latin has changed since the time of the
earliest widely read authors—important to know in a culture
where to speak and write correctly is so important. Gellius tells
several stories about people who made themselves look foolish by
misunderstanding or misusing the language.13 But Gellius does not
by any means approve of all grammarians and their works. On
several occasions he defends favourite authors against critics who
accuse them of misusing language.14 This is an unusual attitude to
take in an educational context, perhaps because most of what we
hear about grammar comes from the pens of professionals. It im-
plies, though, a shrewd observation about the relationship between
education and culture. Grammarians were among the chief pre-
servers of the texts and status of canonical authors. But by anato-
mizing and criticizing them, they must have made them less
palatable to many readers, especially children—just as great poetry
is made less attractive to schoolchildren nowadays by being treated
with literary criticism. Worse, grammarians undermine the author-
ity of great authors by suggesting that they can make mistakes.
Highly as he values grammar, Gellius never forgets that it is
poets, orators, philosophers, and historians who make his cultural
world the rich one that it is, and that enjoying them is the main
point of education.
Still, grammar has its uses, and even beyond the literary sphere.
It can help to elucidate laws (11. 17) and explain religious practices
(5. 12). It can rule that to be religiosus is not a ‘great’ or absolute
virtue, on the basis of the grammatical formation of the word.15
Last but not least, Gellius is interested in the comparison of Greek
and Latin words and the relationships between them. He occasion-
ally records Greek origins for Latin words, and notes that both
languages contain barbarisms (8. 2, 13. 6). He talks about the
diYculties of translation, and compares Greek and Latin words
13
NA 1. 10, 6. 17, 8. 10, 11. 7. 3–6.
14
Cicero, 1. 7, 12. 2; Ennius, 12. 2; Quadrigarius and Lucilius, 1. 16; Vergil, 2. 6,
2. 16, 7. 6, 9. 10; Catullus, 7. 16.
15
NA 4. 9; Gellius raises the interesting question whether there are any ambigu-
ous words, but in two chapters where he discusses it (11. 12, 12. 9) comes to
diVerent conclusions; cf. 5. 12. 9–10, 9. 12, 16. 5. 6–7, 19. 7. 3.
for colours, for instance—and concludes that in some cases, Latin

is better equipped (2. 26).
This is part of Gellius’ interest in comparing Latin with Greek
culture in general, and since this comparison is a point of interest
among educational writers, it is worth reviewing brieXy. He begins
with what looks like a conventional move (1. 2): he has left Italy for
Greece in search of culture. But, and here he departs from conven-
tion, apparently not because Greek culture is better. Writing in
Greece and no doubt generally speaking Greek, he prefers to write
in Latin. He is capable of making conventional statements about
the superiority of Greek culture: at 2. 23 he says that Latin comedy
is less interesting than its Greek models and at 13. 27 that a line of
Vergil less good than one of Homer’s. But at other times, Latin
poets compare well with Greek. Ennius rivals Euripides at 11. 4; at
9. 9. 3–4 Vergil is praised as a translator of Homer and other poets,
and even improves on Theocritus. More often still, Gellius refers
to Greek and Latin literature as if they were a seamless garment. In
this, he is close to Quintilian and seems to have made a little
progress over writers of the previous two centuries, who found it
hard to be unequivocally proud of Latin literature other than
oratory.
The educational value of philosophy, and sometimes even rhet-
oric, are as evident in Noctes Atticae as that of grammar. Being a
rhetorician, in his view, goes with authority and wisdom, two obvi-
ously socially functional, not to mention ethical qualities. Early on
he says that a true orator speaks like Odysseus, uirum sapienti
facundia praeditum, uocem mittere ait non ex ore, sed ex pectore,
quod scilicet non ad sonum magis habitumque uocis quam ad senten-
tiarum penitus conceptarum altitudinem pertineret . . . (1. 15. 3).
Elsewhere, he praises the wisdom of Demosthenes (10. 19. 3) and
the auctoritas and grauitas of the rhetorician Castricius, whom
Hadrian admired for his mores atque litteras (13. 22. 1). When the
rhetorician Antonius Julianus analyses a syllogism about debts of
money and debts of gratitude in Cicero’s Pro Cn. Plancio, he
teaches his audience something not only about language, but also
about Roman social and economic relations. Since this is Rome,
rhetoric is also a tool of social competition, and among those whom
Gellius praises for putting people down with a quick or clever
word are Hortensius (1. 5. 3), Demosthenes (1. 8), and Cicero
(12. 12).
The most important thing about rhetoric is that it should be
eVective, to the point that at 6.3 Gellius spends Wfty-Wve sections
showing why, despite the criticism of Tullius Tiro that it is not
194 Teresa Morgan
technically correct, Cato’s successful speech in defence of the

Rhodians is Wrst-class rhetoric. An anecdote about Demosthenes
and Philip (2. 27) shows that rhetoric has the power to make people
see things they have not realized before. Demosthenes describes
how Philip has suVered one injury and mutilation after another in
pursuit of conquest and ignores them all, bringing home to the
Athenians, as almost nothing else he said was able to do, just how
dangerous Philip was. All these stories act protreptically, to show
why rhetoric is worth studying—though the diVerence between
the opportunities open to Cicero or Demosthenes and those open
to Fronto or Herodes are tactfully ignored.
If good rhetoric is both morally and socially responsible and
eVective, philosophy is far more so. Almost all the philosophical
anecdotes Gellius records have some kind of moral point—indeed,
as has often been pointed out, other branches of philosophy appear
rather rarely, and Gellius is rather dismissive of them. The only
time he suggests that philosophy may not be for everyone, and that
too much of it may not be a good thing, is when he is recording two
philosophical disputes about the nature of vision and whether the
voice is corporeal (5. 15–16). The much admired Taurus is known
to us as a Platonist who wrote on cosmogony and commentated on
the Timaeus, but no hint of this comes through in Gellius, who is
interested only in Taurus’ moral ideas. Democritus is defended by
Gellius (10. 12), but we hear nothing about his natural philosophy,
only that he put out his own eyes in order to sharpen his mind
(10. 17).16
About moral philosophy, though, and also the social ideas and
behaviour of philosophers, Gellius is enthusiastic. He reports what
philosophers have to say about endurance (12. 5), fate and nature
(13. 1), and the dangers of public life (13. 28). He admires the way
Pythagoreans share their goods and form a societas inseparabilis
(1. 9. 12), Aristotle’s shrewdness in ruling the Lyceum (13. 5), the
wisdom of Solon as a lawmaker (2. 12), and the care with which
philosophers have considered in what circumstances, if any, it is
possible to bend or break the law (1. 3. 9). He is interested in
diVerent philosophers’ views about crime and punishment (7. 14),
anger (1. 26), friendship (8. 6), and obedience (2. 7). He also
pictures philosophy as an enjoyable and sociable activity, like
grammar, whose practitioners meet not only to talk but to eat,
drink, and relax together. At 10. 22. 24 he sums up his view of
philosophy: uirtutum omnium disciplina est . . . in publicis simul et
16
But is this a moral or a cautionary tale, or both?
priuatis oYciis excellit ciuitatesque et rempublicam, si nihil prohibeat,

constanter et fortiter et perite administrat . . . Philosophy teaches
one how to live; it makes good citizens, in both public and private
life. Gellius could hardly make it clearer why he thinks a philo-
sophical education is worth having.
A training in the law is a traditional part of Roman education,
whether it takes the form of memorizing the Twelve Tables,
following an experienced orator in his court appearances, or,
increasingly through the Imperial period, studying at some centre
of legal expertise. Noctes Atticae, however, is not designed to
promote the study of contemporary law, just as it is not con-
cerned—or concerned not—to draw a clear picture of contempor-
ary political life and how a man of culture might Wt into it. Most of
Gellius’ stories about the law, as about men and women in public
life in general, are historical anecdotes which illustrate the moral
role of the law in society. He comments approvingly, for instance,
that early Romans were frugal both by law and training (2. 24). We
hear how censors punish people for bad manners (4. 20) as well as
for neglecting their land or their public horse (6. 22),17 and how the
aediles once Wned the daughter of Appius Claudius Caecus for
arrogance (10. 6). In the course of a chapter on theft laws, Gellius
remarks that he should not pass over quam caste autem ac religiose a
prudentissimis uiris quid esset ‘furtum’ deWnitum sit (11. 18. 19).
Theft, on this deWnition, includes even thinking about stealing
something (§§23–4). It is clear that for Gellius, the moral force of
the law is one of its most important aspects. The majority of other
laws Gellius cites relate to the family: laws about marriage and
dowries (1. 6, 4. 3), pregnancy (3. 16), children (2. 15), adoption
(5. 19), adultery (10. 23), and slaves (4. 2, 6. 4). There is nothing
very surprising about this, since family law made up an important
division of Roman law, but it suggests that he thinks the family is
one of the arenas in which a good life is lived.
I have suggested that for Gellius, the life and pastimes of an
educated Roman are variously enjoyable, social, useful, and moral.
By presenting Noctes Atticae as educational, and making a feature
of grammar, dialectics, geometry, and law, he shows why a con-
ventional education is worth having: it leads to the kind of life that
it is desirable for an upper-class Roman to live. And this brings me
to my second claim. In what sense, if any, can this be called an
ethical work?
17
Gellius approves of people taking their share of responsibility for the state and
cites Solon’s law about it at 2. 12.
196 Teresa Morgan
Since Plato attributed it to Socrates in the Republic (352 d), the

deWning question of ethical enquiry has been, how should one live?
Gellius is obviously not conducting a systematic philosophical
enquiry into this question from Wrst principles.18 He never even
raises it in so many words. But it is impossible to read his notes,
quotes, and anecdotes without stumbling constantly over value
judgements: who and what is right and wrong, good and bad,
more and less laudable. Good and bad ways to live are implicit in
almost every chapter. This might mean no more than that authors
commonly have ethical views which tend to inform their works,
and we can excavate them if we like. Can we go further and say that
Gellius has an ethical project? If he does, what is it? In the absence
of a programmatic statement we cannot be sure of the Wrst, but his
statement of educational intent in the prologue, coupled with his
pervasive moral language, makes a highly suggestive combination.
And we can, I think, say that the reasons why Gellius has been
thought in the past not to have an ethical project, do not hold. We
have seen that being partial, anecdotal, and miscellaneous is no bar
to being an ethical text. A number of interesting ideas brought
forward by modern moral philosophers may help us understand
why it is a positive advantage.
In recent years, a number of philosophers have been independ-
ently crystallizing their objections to a cluster of ideas inherited
from Plato via Kant, which among other things characterized
ethical actors as rational agents, making detached choices, on
objective grounds, in favour of things which could ideally be
defended as universal goods, on the metaphysical basis that there
is such a quality as good-in-itself in which good things partake.19
(This is a broad-brush characterization of many subtly diVerent
positions, of course, but I hope not unrecognizable.) These
scholars do not follow another current trend, which is to downplay
the role of individuals in constructing societies: they all want to
believe that ethical actors exist. But in comparison with previous
writers, they think that people act on rather diVerent principles.
Ideas from two philosophers are particularly helpful as we try to
understand ancient miscellaneous ethical texts. In Situating the
Self, Seyla Benhabib argues that we should see ourselves not as
detatched rational intelligences, but as embedded and embodied in
our social contexts and individual histories. Our judgements and
18
Cf. A. D. Vardi, above, 179.
19
Williams, Ethics, 197, 201; S. Benhabib, Situating the Self, 3–5; P. Singer,
Practical Ethics, 2–4, 314–35.
decisions are aVected by the way we see ourselves and our environ-
ment, and becoming an ethical actor is a process of growth based
on intuitions interacting with the world around us.20 Benhabib
sees women, living mostly outside the mainstream of Western
intellectual history, as having a stronger sense of this kind of
identity than men. For the same reason, women are more attuned
than men to stories and examples as ways of explaining the nature
of the world and how we should live.21 ‘How one should live’ is not
for women a metaphysical question with an answer which theoret-
ically works for everyone, or even a whole class of people. It is a
practical, individual, context-dependent question, with no rules,
but with a wealth of stories and examples of how other people have
lived, to give us ideas and guidance.
I suspect that this way of approaching ethics is not so much
distinctive to women as true of most people outside philosophical
elites, and it may explain why stories, histories, chreiai, and collec-
tions of often mutually contradictory maxims are all widespread
forms of ethical text. Most people probably do not look for advice
to a system of ideas that coheres in the abstract, and they do not
expect detailed instructions for every moment they live. On the
other hand, it is certainly not true that every human experience and
situation is totally diVerent from anything that ever happened
before. A collection of stories of behaviours and attitudes that
worked well in particular situations gives a reader a repertoire of
ideas to add to other kinds of advice and experience: examples,
analogies, and horrible warnings, things to bear in mind, cast aside
as irrelevant, adapt to one’s own situation, or take over wholesale.
It is as easy to imagine many of Gellius’ stories working like that,
as it is hard to imagine them adding up to a philosophical theory.
And if it sounds like a recipe for social chaos, it is not, because in
practice, in ethics as in most other things, most people are not
radical individualists, and tend to follow the example of those
around them, modifying it only marginally to suit their own cir-
cumstances. A society coheres by being made up of many overlap-
ping ethical communities whose individuals have much, if not
everything, in common in the way they interpret precedents and
the way they behave.
In Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot pursues another idea which
may also be helpful here. She argues that moral evil is ‘a kind of
natural defect’ and that what makes a human being good, like a
plant or an animal, is doing or being what one is meant to do or be;
20 21
Benhabib, Situating the Self, 5–8. Ibid. 14.
198 Teresa Morgan
‘human defects and excellencies are . . . related to what human

beings are and what they do.’22 Being good means being good of
one’s kind. Justice, for instance, is a virtue because we are social
animals and justice is necessary to keep us living together in
harmony.
As philosophical theories, both Benhabib’s and Foot’s ideas are
open to criticism. It is hard to see how Benhabib avoids relativism,
or explains how, if the way we think is even partly determined by
environment, there are such things as reliable ethical intuitions.
Foot also has diYculty avoiding relativism, and seems to assume
that it is not too hard to discern what it is natural for human beings
to be and do, while many of us would think that from our (or
Romans’) position within a highly developed and complex society,
what is natural to human beings is a formidably complex, if not
irrecoverable question. But what each of them puts forward is
an important intuition about the way most people think. Most
people think in concrete, situational, biographical terms. For
most people, being good probably does mostly mean being good
of one’s kind: being a good mother, or farmer, or senator; doing
what it makes sense for you to do, and quite likely your neighbour
and possibly your patron too, though quite possibly not your
emperor or your wife or slave, and certainly not some abstract
being in unidentiWed circumstances in a theoretical world.
If such common intuitions are an unsatisfactory basis for a
philosophical argument, it does not matter, because hardly anyone
thinks in terms of arguments, let alone lets them govern everyday
life. To identify and understand a sub-philosophical ethical text,
what we need are ordinary intuitions. These two intuitions to-
gether help us to understand how Gellius’ ethics, and those of
other miscellanies, work.
What Gellius understands as a good life, I suggest, is one in
which he and his friends are able to live in accordance with their
birth, education, and interests; one in which they can Xourish in
the future in a way which is connected to their past and their sense
of potential; in fact, they want to be able to be good of their kind.
Gellius does not worry about presenting a complete set of precepts
for every social group; on the other hand, he does not exclude the
possibility of others’ being good of their kind in diVerent ways—
women, for example.23
Gellius has been written oV as an ethicist because reformation of
manners is not his aim.24 This too, I think, is a misunderstanding
22 23
P. Foot, Natural Goodness, 5–9, 15. NA 6. 1, 7. 7, 13. 4.
24
Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 43 [34].
of what ethical texts do. Some radical and anti-social texts, and
groups, certainly aim to change things (one thinks of the Essenes or
some early Christians). More probably aim to teach people to
function in the world as it is, and present themselves as uncontro-
versial. Presenting oneself as uncontroversial might also be a rhet-
orical ploy, of course, to cover a degree of innovation. Either way,
the fact that Gellius does not claim to be saying anything original,
and may well not be, does not mean this is not an ethical text.
What, then, can we say about Gellius’ ethics? We can tell a good
deal about the kind of people with whose good life he is concerned,
by the stories he tells. Emperors appear in them only rarely, but
aristocrats and the well-to-do down to Gellius’ own relatively
modest level are everywhere. Women and slaves make occasional
appearances. Educated men from east and west belong to the same
group, but there is also a strong sense of the boundary between
Romans and foreigners, even if it is mainly expressed through
stories of past wars. Male, free, Roman, educated, wealthy, not
necessarily high-born but a touch snobbish: this Wts what we know
of Gellius’ own background and it would make sense if it were also
his target audience.
For such people, the good life is not lived in isolation. They
belong, principally and simultaneously, to three types of group:
the Roman state, friendship groups, and families. In this Gellius
diVers, for instance, from Epictetus, who claims the whole world
for his context, or early Christians, who are mainly interested in
their immediate social context and the Kingdom of Heaven.25
Noctes Atticae abounds in stories which show the importance of
the state. A favourite type is the story of great men who sank their
political diVerences for the common good, like Aemilius Lepidus
and Fulvius Flaccus, when they were elected censors together
(12. 8. 5–6), or Ti. Sempronius Gracchus when he had an oppor-
tunity to imprison L. Scipio Asiaticus (6. 19), or Gaius Fabricius
when Cornelius RuWnus was a candidate for the consulship (4. 8).
Then there are the stories of heroic military exploits in the state’s
defence: Horatius Cocles and T. Manlius Torquatus are here,
along with L. Sicinius Dentatus the ‘Roman Achilles’, Atilius
Regulus, Valerius Corvinus, Q. Caedicius, and highlights of the
careers of such as P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Q. Caecilius
Metellus Numidicus. Famous generals like Africanus or
C. Fabricius are remembered for embodying Romanitas oV the
battleWeld too, as on the occasion when a group of grateful
25
Epict. 1. 9. 1–7, 2. 10. 3–4, 3. 24. 9–10; W. A. Meeks, Origins, ch. 3.
200 Teresa Morgan
Samnites oVered Fabricius a large sum of money in return for his

many acts of kindness to them. Fabricius, passing his hands over
his ears, eyes, nose, mouth, throat, and genitals, replied proudly
that as long as he could restrain all these organs, he had no need of
money (1. 14).
The importance of having friends shines through the work, with
its many reminiscences of the times Gellius spent in the circles of
Apollinaris, Taurus and Favorinus, Fronto and Herodes Atticus.
It is among groups of friends that otium is enjoyed, literature and
philosophy discussed, conversation honed, opinions forged, and
people improve themselves and show that they are higher than the
animals (pr. 16). We may suspect that patronage must have fea-
tured as largely as friendship in Gellius’ own life, but he has very
little to say about it, evidently not regarding it as one of the
deWning features of a good group. When he does mention it, he
emphasizes the honour in which patrons and clients should hold
each other, rather than contracts, favours, or obligations, putting
himself in a distinguished tradition of clients who have presented
clientela as far as possible as a form of amicitia. At 5. 13 he records a
discussion about the honour in which various groups of people
ought to be held. The participants agree that parents hold the
highest honour, followed by wards, clients, guests, and other rela-
tions by blood and marriage. At 12. 4 he quotes with high approval
some verses of Ennius on how one should behave to a higher-
ranking friend, and glosses them by saying that such a man should
be tactful, courteous, modest, faithful, restrained and proper in
speech, knowledgeable, and trustworthy with secrets: in other
words, hardly distinguishable from any good friend.
Members of Gellius’ group are expected to have families, but
despite addressing his work to his sons, he is not very interested in
families as social groups, though he does admire lines like the
Scipiones or the Porcii which have many famous members. Several
stories about fathers and sons are really about how you behave to
another man in public when he happens to be related to you.26
Marriage is a means of improving one’s political or social status
(2. 15); in itself it is neither good nor bad (1. 6), but a bad one will
teach you endurance, which is useful in life in general (1. 17).
Women can contribute to the fame of a family by bearing excep-
tional children, or by being the objects of conspicuous chivalry like
26
NA 2. 2. At 1. 23, the emphasis is on the fact that father and son share a public
life which is closed to the wife and mother; at 2. 7, interestingly, sons are not obliged
to obey their fathers just because they are their fathers.
that of P. Scipio Africanus to an unnamed Spanish woman, or

Alexander the Great towards Darius’ wife (7. 8. 3).27 Gellius
seems to have some interest here in minimizing conXicts between
public and private spheres of life; he does it by indicating that
men’s main existence is on the public side of it. Interestingly, he
also argues, though perhaps with less than absolute conviction
(1. 3. 14–20), that if it comes to a clash between the public interest
and one’s friends, friendship comes Wrst.
If the state, groups of friends and to a lesser extent one’s family
are the spheres within which Gellius imagines people living good
lives, he has a much weaker sense of metaphysical context. He
includes Chrysippus’ views on Fate and Providence (7. 1–2) and
says that Time brings evil deeds to light (12. 11). He shares the
view common in wisdom literature that what goes around, comes
around: bad advice will somehow eventually ruin the giver (4. 5).
He quotes, with approval, Pericles as saying that one ought to help
one’s friends, but only as far as the gods allow (1. 3. 20), and
Metellus as saying that we should not expect the gods to be more
indulgent to us than our parents when we do wrong (1. 6. 8). He
observes that to the Romans, oaths are sacred (6. 18. 1), and reports
that Valerius Corvinus had divine help when he defeated the leader
of the Gauls in 349 bce (9. 11). He is conventionally pious, but that
Gellius has any strong personal sense that his ethics are divinely
ordained seems unlikely.
The real guarantor of ethics for Gellius is the social group itself.
The eVect of his carefully selected stories of Roman history is to
tell us not just that some Romans have been good generals, good
politicians, or good men, but that you can take your moral bearings
from looking at the Roman past, which implies that what good
Romans do is good. Gellius knows, and his readers know, that
there are other stories of Roman history to be told, but because
they are suppressed here, being good, being Roman, and being a
good Roman are eVectively equated.
Within this framework, Gellius uses a wide vocabulary of praise
and blame. Among the qualities he praises are friendship, duty,
self-control, endurance, modesty, temperance, bravery, frugality,
wisdom, masculinity, resilience, good manners, nobility, loyalty,
attachment, self-respect, dignity, tact, obedience, anger, reconcili-
ation, pleasure, courtesy, faithfulness, restraint, propriety, keeping
27
Few women, unsurprisingly, appear in their own right: notably Acca Larentia,
Gaia Taracia (7. 7), and Artemisia (10. 18); also Roman women as a group (11. 6).
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 308–13.
202 Teresa Morgan
conWdences, and ‘virtue’ itself. Among those he censures are theft,

adultery, avarice, arrogance, fastidiousness, and neglect of duty.
I have set these down in no particular order because it is impos-
sible to establish that they have any order within the work. But
there are various ways we can classify them, which do tell us a little
more about the ethical landscape of Gellius’ world. For a start,
some come up more often than others. The commonest, and pre-
sumably the most important to Gellius (they come up three times
or more) are frugality, bravery, obedience, and group solidarity.28
We hear, for instance, that early Romans were frugal by both law
and training (2. 24), that one who has much needs much (9. 8) and
that it is better to lack much and desire less (13. 24), and that
repeated bravery made Rome the power she is.
Some virtues are described as always good, while others depend
on circumstances. Duty, self-control, endurance, modesty, tem-
perance, bravery, civic involvement, group solidarity, frugality,
masculinity, resilience, nobility, loyalty, self-respect, dignity,
tact, appropriate behaviour, truthfulness, and morality in war are
always good. Among the things which are not always good are
wealth, friendship, obedience, anger, conciliatoriness, pleasure,
courtesy, modesty, faithfulness, restraint, and conWdentiality.
Very few of these terms tell us speciWcally what to do or not
to do. We should not lie, steal, or commit adultery—and that is
about it. A great many, however, tell us how to do things: they are
executive virtues, like courage, self-control, courtesy, loyalty, tact,
endurance, obedience, resilience, restraint, and so on. It is worth
noting that all the virtues which come up most often are in this
class: apart from that one should not lie, steal, or adulter, how one
behaves is evidently more important to Gellius than precisely
what one does. It is also worth noting that apart from obedience,
all the virtues which come up most often are ones which are always
good.
A high proportion of Gellius’ virtues are relational: you have to
have someone to practise them on. Tact, courtesy, loyalty, attach-
ment, duty, civic involvement, and obedience are good examples.
The perfect poorer friend of 12. 4 needs a richer friend, the
chivalrous general of 7. 8 a helpless female, the good Roman
Rome. (Self-control, self-respect, endurance, and temperance
are examples of those which one could practise equally well in
28
Marache, Critique litte´raire, 273–80 identiWes frugality, loyalty, and dignity as
paradigmatic of ancient Romans; dignity is not often praised in so many words
(though often implied); bravery is.
solitude.) There is a high correlation between circumstantial and

relational virtues, which suggests that right behaviour often
depends on who you are and how you relate to others.
We can put these observations together to draw a picture of a
world in which a good life is sometimes a matter of individual
choice and self-discipline, but where the groups, large and small,
that people live in are more important. Within groups, there are
a few things which no one should do—lie, steal, or commit
adultery—but absolute demands are few, and more common are
stronger and weaker norms, which guide rather than dictating
behaviour. Most ethics are executive, where what matters is not
what you do but how you do it. This makes it possible for people to
hold many diVerent positions in the group, but the same prin-
ciples. The fact that some absolute virtues are not relational, but
that group solidarity is one of them, suggests that in Gellius’ moral
world individuals and groups exist in some tension, each claiming
priority. Philosophers have faced this problem before, but not
being a serious philosopher, Gellius does not try to solve the
tensions he expresses.
Nothing in this world is expressed as a straightforward demand,
human or from a higher power, and even Gellius’ few moral
absolutes are expressed by stories or put in the mouths of philoso-
phers. Instead of telling his readers outright to take part in public
life, Gellius recommends Solon’s law about it (2. 12). He indicates
that theft is absolutely condemned by discussing only what the
punishment should be (11. 18). The message is not, you must
behave like this, but, if you want to belong to this group, this is
how we behave (though, as Gellius observes at 6. 12, even our
customs change).
Such a text might represent the ethical complexities of Gellius’
own life or world-view, but would it work as an educational text?
Could any reader take such a jumble of praise and blame, maxims
and examples, and work out how to behave from it, or even have his
existing ideas meaningfully reinforced or eVectively challenged?
The fact that so many ethical texts are as disorganized as this one
strongly suggests that there must be a way of using them eVec-
tively. And here the insights of Benhabib and Foot may give us a
clue. Clearly these texts do not work by trying to provide exhaust-
ively for the situations of all possible readers: that approach would
either produce a rigidly narrow set of commandments or an inWnite
quantity of material. They do not explicitly legislate for any par-
ticular community. If readers are to make sense of the material,
they must be bringing something to it themselves—identifying
204 Teresa Morgan
material and imposing an order which makes sense to them.

I suggest that we imagine every reader as a key which unlocks the
text in a unique way. He brings to it his own history, circum-
stances, hopes, and expectations; he brings his understanding of
himself, his environment and the relationship between them;
he brings a willingness to take the ethics of this particular text
seriously; he takes from it whatever strikes him as helpful, challen-
ging, reassuring, or improving. There are guidelines implicit in the
text—it would be hard to read it and conclude that treason, theft,
or self-indulgence are acceptable—but within limits, every reader,
on every reading, could take away something diVerent.
We now begin to see why ethical miscellanies might be highly
socially functional. They are capable of guiding readers to a
degree, by deWning the subjects they should be thinking about.
By including some ideas and not others, some ideas more often
than others, and more diverse judgements on some ideas than
others, they create not a system, but as it were a constellation of
possibilities by which individuals and groups can navigate. By
presenting themselves in the form of stories, exempla, precepts,
chreiai, and sayings, they tell us that these values go with the
society, or the social group, whose stories, and so on, they are.
This creates an eVective tautology: being a good member of the
group is the same as being a good member of the group, because
goodness means by deWnition being good of one’s kind. Finally,
these texts make it possible for any number of people to feel that
they belong to the same society, by using the same ethical material,
while living any number of diVerent lives.
This, Wnally, is why I think it is fair to regard Gellius as having
an ethical agenda. As we have seen, he presents not a philosophical
theory, but a far from incoherent map of an ethical landscape in
which at least people of a certain fairly elastic social stratum can
operate as good Romans. Some features of this landscape are more
important than others, and there is more than one pathway
through it, but that is part of what makes it work. It allows people
to live diVerent lives without losing their shared identity, and it
provides a handbook of ethics which is certainly of his choosing,
but which, he can claim, is drawn from Roman society and Graeco-
Roman culture themselves.
It is notable that nearly all Gellius’ stories about historical
heroes are about Romans, with the occasional adopted hero such
as Alexander. Committed as he is to the equal status of Greek and
Latin literature in the creation of a cultural and ethical community,
when it comes to historical exemplars he is much less ready to
admit foreigners. Is this patriotism, or bending to the prejudice of

his likely readership, or an assertion that since Rome is the most
powerful state, it must have the most moral leaders? Perhaps
something of all these. What is less clear is whether he would
expect only Roman readers to accept Roman role-models—how
far this is a community-speciWc ethical work—or indeed,
who would count as a ‘Roman reader’. Perhaps in a century in
which Aelius Aristides could describe the walls of the city as
conterminous with the ends of the earth,29 Gellius is deliberately
enclosing everyone in the same fold, and making Roman ethics
everyone’s ethics.
Every surviving miscellany with an ethical dimension is likely to
be subtly diVerent in emphasis. Gellius makes more of a feature of
the state and loyalty to it than does Epictetus; he is concerned with
a good quality of life where fables tend to concentrate on just
getting by. Valerius Maximus is more interested in the gods,
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius in the role of the emperor, to give
just a few examples. But all these, and others, also have areas of
overlap which make it easy to imagine readers of them all (some of
them the same readers, too) being able to operate, within their
diVerent social groups, in the same state. And that trick, of being
both speciWc and general, both Xexible and inclusive, is part of
what makes this such a successful work.
29
Aelius Aristides, To Rome, 61; cf. Dio, Or. 1. 42.
8
Gellian Humanism Revisited
S t e p he n M . B ea ll
Scholarship has its seasons: criticism of Aulus Gellius is no excep-

tion. Faithfully copied in the Middle Ages and imitated in the
Renaissance, Gellius fell on hard times towards the end of the
nineteenth century, when he was dismissed as an ‘insipid’ anti-
quarian, ‘devoid of imaginative power’.1 The mid-twentieth cen-
tury saw a curious reaction, in which he was portrayed as a kind of
Roman Shaftesbury: a miscellanist with a partially concealed, but
earnest philosophical agenda.2 More recent scholarship has oVered
other, somewhat divergent accounts of his intentions and charac-
ter. Nevertheless, we still Wnd ourselves asking, what was Aulus
Gellius ‘all about’? Can we identify a set of core values or attitudes
that motivated and informed his work? What, if any, relevance do
these values have today?
1. marache’ s humanisme gellien

One of the Wrst scholars to tackle these questions directly was René
Marache, the late editor of the Budé Nuits Attiques and the author
of several studies on Gellian topics.3 It was Marache who coined
the term ‘Gellian humanism’ to designate a complex of judgements
1
H. Nettleship, ‘Noctes Atticae’, 414–15 ¼ 276; cf. R. Ohl, ‘Literateur’, 99 and
passim. E. Yoder, ‘Classical Scholar’, 293–4, is somewhat more generous. On
Gellius’ more positive reception in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, see L. A.
Holford-Strevens, below, Ch. 10, A. Grafton, below, Ch. 12, H. Baron, ‘Aulus
Gellius in the Renaissance’, and S. Beall, Civilis eruditio, 209–37.
2
For an overview of this strand of Gellian scholarship, see L. A. Holford-
Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 42 n. 75 [33 n. 75]. Its chief exponent, after R. Marache
(discussed below), was H. Berthold; see e.g. his ‘Interpretationsprobleme’, esp.
13–14.
3
See the appreciation by M. L. Astarita, ‘Un evoluzione’, 173–5.
Gellian Humanism Revisited 207
about the ‘good life’ and the kind of learning most conducive to it.4
The key to Gellius’ programme, as Marache described it, is the
motto
ºıÆŁ

P ØŒØ, quoted from Heracleitus in pr.
12.5 This implies a rejection of all so-called knowledge that appeals
to one’s curiosity, but has no ‘use’ in the conduct of life. Thus
puriWed, Gellian erudition is the very antithesis of pedantry and
aVectation of learning; what counts is to know how to live and to
live accordingly. Marache added that this equation of ‘true’ know-
ledge with ‘the wisdom of life’ can be traced, by way of popular
philosophy, back to Socrates;6 it resonates as well with the golden
age of Roman antiquity, which Gellius so much admired.7 In Wne,
Gellius’ ideal is fundamentally ‘humanist’ because man, or human
moral agency, is the measure of all things.8
Recent critics, however, have not found Marache’s arguments for
the ‘doctrine of limitation’ and the ‘primacy of morality’ altogether
convincing. Leofranc Holford-Strevens put the problem most
succinctly: if we take Marache’s Gellian loci at face value, ‘we
shall be dismayed by the yawning gulf between them and his prac-
tice.’9 At times, Gellius himself seems aware of self-contradiction.
In one chapter, for example, he introduces a list of miracula with a
curious disclaimer: haec inuiti meminimus, quia pertaesum est (10. 12.
1; cf. 9. 4. 12).10 Perhaps we can make allowance for a few such
‘involuntary’ digressions, but the Nights contain many other things
that have little to do with the conduct of life. This prompts us to
ask, again with Holford-Strevens, whether Gellius’ professions of
utility were ‘conventional clichés that took away the need to devise
a guiding principle, and whose mechanical repetition dulled the
perception of conXict or neglect’.11
While this view remains attractive, two elements of Marache’s
thesis cannot, in my opinion, be entirely dismissed. The Wrst is the
4 5
Marache, Critique litte´raire, 249. Edn. i, p. xxiv.
6
Ibid., pp. xxvii f., ‘Mise en scène’, 85, Critique litte´raire, 261–2.
7
Edn. i, pp. xxx f., Critique litte´raire, 249, 273–86.
8
Critique litte´raire, 256; edn. i, p. xxiv. Marache’s understanding of ‘humanism’
is somewhat broader than Gellius’ deWnition of humanitas (13. 17), although the
latter also has an ethical component; cf. R. Kaster, ‘ ‘‘Humanitas’’ and Roman
Education’, esp. 6–7.
9
Aulus Gellius, 1st edn. 32. Marache himself seems to have been conscious of
this diYculty: ‘en dépit de lui-même il [Gellius] reste un érudit qui dit du mal de
l’érudition, et tomberait sous le coup de sa propre théorie, si la foi en la vertu
rédemptrice de l’antiquité ne le sauvait’ (edn. i, p. xxxvi, cf. Critique litte´raire,
265–6).
10
I use the corrected OCT text of P. K. Marshall (Oxford, 1990).
11
Aulus Gellius, 42 [32].
208 Stephen M. Beall
idea that a ‘Socratic’ theme runs through the Attic Nights,

investing the entire work, such as it is, with a philosophical quality.
The second element—which is related to the Wrst—is the assump-
tion that, for Gellius, certain kinds of learning are more ‘useful’
and valuable than others because they improve one’s quality of
life.12 In these two respects, I believe, Marache tapped into the
complicated thinking of our author, and so points the way to a
modiWed, but still coherent notion of ‘Gellian humanism’.
2. sympotic philosophy
We may begin, then, with the Wrst of Marache’s intuitions, and
follow the ‘Socratic’ thread in the Attic Nights. If Marache himself
eventually lost this thread, it is because he focused his later work
on popular philosophy or ‘diatribe’ (la diatribe), in which Cynic
and Stoic themes predominate.13 The error is understandable; in
several chapters, Gellius evinces an interest in Stoic ethics and
cosmology (1. 2, 7. 1, 7. 2, 12. 5, 17. 19, 19. 1), and he claims to
have paid frequent visits to the famous Cynic Peregrinus ‘Proteus’
(12. 11. 1; cf. 8. 3. cap.). Nevertheless, it stands to reason that his
primary allegiance was not to the Stoa, but to the ‘Academy’.14 He
was, after all, a pupil of L. Calvenus Taurus, himself a disciple of
Plutarch (1. 26. 4). While in Athens, Gellius studied the Platonic
dialogues in some detail, and (as H. A. S. Tarrant has shown) some-
times reXects the subtle commentaries of his teacher.15 Gellius also
presents himself as a sectator and intimate of the philosopher-
orator Favorinus of Arles (14. 2. 11). Favorinus evidently
regarded himself as an ‘Academic’ in the sceptical tradition of the
school (cf. 20. 1. 9),16 and made the life and character of Socrates a
particular object of study (2. 1. 3).17 These two Wgures, then,
12
Critique litte´raire, 258–66.
13
Marache’s concept of ‘diatribe’ was inXuenced by A. Oltramare, Les Origines
de la diatribe romaine (Lausanne, 1926); see ‘Mise en scène’, 89 n. 20, and edn. i,
pp. xxvii–xxx.
14
That is, to the Academici of his day, especially in the line of Plutarch; the
school itself had evidently ‘disintegrated’. See D. N. Sedley, OCD3 , s.v. Academy.
15
‘Platonic Interpretation’, esp. 177–87.
16
See A. M. Ioppolo, ‘The Academic Position of Favorinus’, esp. 188–96, and
Holford-Strevens, ‘Favorinus’, 207–17, esp. 213–17 on the disagreements between
Academics and Pyrrhonians.
17
Ioppolo, ‘Academic Position of Favorinus’, 212 n. 110; see also J. Opsomer,
‘Favorinus versus Epictetus’, esp. 28–9.
provided Gellius with a double claim to aYliation with the ‘So-

cratic’ enterprise, as mediated by the Academy.
This aYliation is important. For as Marache demonstrated,
Gellius owed as much to the ambience and dramatic repertory of
philosophy as to its doctrinal content. Not only did he adapt the
formal elements of ‘diatribe’ literature (the chreia, memoir, and
informal sermon) to the chapters of the Attic Nights,18 but he also
appropriated an important vehicle of the Academic tradition: the
erudite banquet or symposium.19 Gellius indicates the importance
of this genre by giving Taurus himself, on two occasions, the role
of symposiarch (7. 13, 17. 8); the topics discussed are, not surpris-
ingly, reminiscent of Plutarch’s Quaestiones sympoticae.20 Gellius,
however, seems especially interested in the setting and ‘ground
rules’ of the philosophic feast. We learn, for example, that Taurus
served a very simple meal, consisting of beans and gourds (17. 8.
2). In 7. 13, Gellius spends nearly half the chapter describing the
‘fee’ for admission to Taurus’ dinners: his young guests had to
bring their own ‘sweetmeats’ in the form of intellectual puzzles for
discussion (§12). Delicacies of this sort, Gellius notes, represent a
healthy alternative to the kind enjoyed at most banquets (§2); they
also help to stimulate the mind when it has been mellowed by
drinking (§4). Throughout, Gellius seems as much concerned
with the ‘how’ of these symposia as with the ‘what’.
This double focus, I believe, enables him to adapt the philo-
sophical banquet to his own purposes. If what counts is not so
much the content of these conversations as the ‘respectable’ mode
of entertainment they represent, all similar banquets become
‘philosophical’. We note, for example, the similarity between
Taurus’ pot-luck feasts (7. 13. 2)21 and the Saturnalia that Gellius
and his fellow Romans celebrated in Athens (18. 2. 1–6; cf. 18. 13.
1–6). Here, too, the entertainment consisted mainly of brain-
teasing quaestiunculae. In a list of the topics featured at such
gatherings (18. 2. 6), Taurus’ captiones are inserted into a broader
18
Edn. i, pp. xxxi–xxxvi; ‘Mise en scène’, 86–8.
19
Edn. i, xxxii f.; ‘Mise en scène’, 85.
20
See Beall, ‘Aulus Gellius 17. 8’, 58–9; Marache, ‘Mise en scène’, 85. Gellius
himself hints at the connection at 7. 13. cap. with the expression quaestiunculae
sympoticae.
21
[Editorial note: This is US English for E
Ie ı
ºH . There seems to
be no British equivalent; ‘to take pot luck’ is to have whatever one’s hosts are
preparing for themselves. When in 1967 a translation was needed for Ter. Eun.
540 in Eduard Fraenkel’s Oxford seminar, an Australian participant volunteered
‘Dutch shout’. L.A.H.-S.]
context, which includes the investigation of ‘rare and unusual

words’ and of oddities in verbal syntax. As Iancu Fischer noted,
the whole list gives us a fair summary of the Attic Nights.22 It is
remarkable, then, that Gellius feels obliged to justify these parties
with a bon mot from the venerable Stoic Musonius Rufus: ‘to relax
one’s mind is like losing it’ (18. 2. 1). Evidently, he wants to
emphasize that these early experiments in ‘good clean fun’ (hone-
stae sermonum inlectationes, 18. 2. 1; cf. honesta alea, 18. 13. 1) had a
philosophical foundation. This fusion of philosophy and respect-
able polymathy also characterizes his post-graduate dinners. On
one occasion, we Wnd him reclining with Favorinus, the ‘philoso-
pher’, as he ponders a Latin etymology (3. 19. 1). On another, he is
the guest of the ‘poet’ Julius Paulus, who, like Taurus, feeds his
tablemates with vegetables and fruit (19. 7. 1).23 At table, distinc-
tions of genre and profession are blurred; what counts, as Muso-
nius would say, is to stimulate the mind while keeping one’s head.
Marache’s thesis, then, receives some paradoxical support from
Gellius’ banquet scenes. Philosophy does indeed furnish a general
model of inquiry in the Attic Nights. It appears most signiWcantly,
however, in its convivial, Plutarchan guise, which is expanded to
include all the artes ingenuae. This model does not exclude a certain
ascetical commitment, symbolized by Taurus’ pot of beans. In the
last analysis, however, this discipline more closely resembles the
‘mindfulness diet’ of aZuent Californians than the Stoic method of
training for hard times. One episode, perhaps, best illustrates the
relationship in Gellius between ‘sympotic’ philosophy and moral
diatribe. At an elegant dinner in the home of Herodes Atticus, a
young Stoic advertises his learning and moral convictions to the
annoyance of all present (1. 2. 3–5). Herodes rebukes him with a bit
of authentic diatribe, borrowed from Epictetus (§§8–12). The occa-
sion shows that moral philosophy has its place—provided that it
occurs in aid, rather than to the detriment, of a pleasant dinner.
3. the elegant gadfly

We should not be too quick, however, to limit Gellius to the
status of philosophical ‘couch potato’. For as Marache observed,
22
In D. Popescu’s translation, p. lxix n. 2.
23
Compare also Favorinus’ table discourse on winds (2. 22) and a conversation
about oysters hosted by ‘the poet Annianus’ (20. 8). At 19. 9. 9–10, the rhetor
Antonius Julianus assumes the veil of Socrates to defend Latin elegy.
Favorinus provides a diVerent link to the Socratic tradition by

showing how the homme bien élevé should conduct himself
in public.24 Not only his good manners, but also his profession of
Academic Ø (20. 1. 9) made Favorinus an ideal dialogue
partner (2. 26, 20. 1) and even referee (18. 1. cap.). These qualities
also enabled him to challenge, in Socraticum modum, the preten-
sions of self-inXated ‘experts’ in other Welds, including grammar
(4. 1. cap.). As Marache noted, we Wnd Gellius imitating his
mentor’s behaviour in a similar encounter, in which he challenged
a professor to deWne the word obnoxius (6. 17).25 Gellius maintains
that he posed the question non hercle experiundi uel temptandi
gratia, sed discendi magis studio et cupidine (§1). The Socratic para-
digm, now applied to grammar, is Wrmly in place.26
One wonders, of course, to what extent Favorinus’ scepticism
was a convenient rhetorical strategy; he could argue any side of any
question, while remaining free of limiting and compromising
philosophical commitments. As I have suggested elsewhere,27 Gel-
lius may have adopted a similar strategy in his self-presentation in
the Attic Nights. What remains to be seen, however, is whether, as
Alain Michel suggested, Gellius adopted a ‘Pyrrhonian’ method in
his approach to philosophy and other subjects.28 This would help
to explain his handling, or rather non-handling, of controversial
questions such as the extent of one’s obligation to help a friend in
trouble (1. 3) or to obey an order (1. 13). He also relates that while
serving as judge extraordinary, he recused himself from a morally
ambiguous case (14. 2. 25)—in spite of contrary advice from
Favorinus himself.29 For each of these problems, Gellius sets out
alternative opinions and explores their dialectical weaknesses,
just as Favorinus, at Ostia, pointed out a Xaw in the Aristotelian
critique of Stoicism (18. 1. 12–13). The solution, however, remains
‘up for grabs’. In more speculative contexts, as Tarrant has
24
Critique litte´raire, 253–7.
25
‘Mise en scène’, 88; cf. NA 16. 6. 1–12. Gellius is somewhat more peevish, but
no less ironic at 15. 9. 7. A Socratic persona is also attributed to Sulpicius Apollin-
aris (18. 4. 1).
26
Compare also the uerecunda mediocritas of an unnamed friend (7. 15. 5) and the
placidity of Favorinus towards the irascible Domitius (18. 7. 4). In praise of this
virtue, Gellius invokes the authority of Q. Metellus Numidicus (7. 11).
27
Beall, ‘Favorinus’, 101–4.
28
‘Rhétorique et philosophie’, 40–3.
29
It is noteworthy that Favorinus, while giving Gellius some direction on the
point at issue, incidentally proposed several other questions about which ‘there is
disagreement’ (§§12–19).
suggested,30 Gellius seems to adopt the ‘sceptical’ strategy of

setting out contradictory opinions and then dismissing them as
irrelevant. Thus his commentaries on the nature of voice and
vision (5. 15, 5. 16) end with the Ennian line, philosophandum est
paucis, nam omnino haud placet.31 Finally, Gellius seems to relish
opportunities to defend what appear, at Wrst glance, to be ‘unten-
able’ positions, namely the absence of any obligation to obey one’s
father (2. 7. 6), the reasonableness of Solon’s law against political
neutrality (2. 12; cf. 20. 1), and Chrysippus’ stern portrait of justice
(14. 4). These passages may reXect Favorinus’ method, so congen-
ial to the orator, of arguing utramque in partem.32
While it is true, as Amiel Vardi points out,33 that Gellius would
have disagreed with true Pyrrhonians about the status of grammar
and the other liberal arts, we nonetheless Wnd indications of a
sceptical attitude in his treatment of these subjects, as well. For
example, after summarizing Varro’s case for linguistic anomaly
(2. 25), he notes that the great Roman argued just as forcefully
for analogy (§§10–11). Another chapter relates an argument
between two grammarians about the correct vocative form of
egregius (14. 5): is it egregi or egregie? After stating both cases in
some detail, Gellius walks away, like a true sceptic, from this
‘pointless’ contest (§4). A number of other chapters in the Nights
pit authorities against each other; even Gellius’ heroes come in
for occasional contradiction.34 In this way, perhaps, he meant
to encourage his readers to ‘question authority’—including his
own (6. 3. 55, 7. 2. 2).35 Elsewhere he more or less tactfully
indicates mistakes committed by the venerable Nigidius (4. 9),
Hyginus (7. 6), and Cornelius Nepos (15. 28. cap.).36 In a few
30
Tarrant, ‘Platonic Interpretation’, 190–1.
31
Likewise, his survey of views on pleasure ends with Taurus’ sharp dismissal of
hedonism (9. 5. 8). Leofranc Holford-Strevens (pers. comm.) compares Gell. 15. 9.
7 with S.E. PH 3. 280–1, on sceptics’ deliberate use of weak arguments.
32
This practice is the basis of Galen’s attack on Favorinus in De optima doctrina;
see Ioppolo, ‘The Academic Position of Favorinus’, esp. 188. Gellius’ infamis
sententia at 2. 7. 6 recalls Favorinus’ infames materiae (17. 12. 1); Favorinus is
actually cited at NA 2. 12. 5, and may be the source of the whole passage.
33
A. Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’, 45.
34
Varro in particular receives this treatment; he is set up against Opilius (1. 25),
Soranus (2. 10), Accius (3. 11), Ateius Capito (14. 7), and with Capito against Junius
(14. 8). See also Cato against Masurius Sabinus (5. 13), Chrysippus against his
various detractors (7. 2), and the extended dialogues in which Favorinus is refuted
by Fronto (2. 26) and Sextus Caecilus (20. 1).
35
Gellius explicitly challenges the auctoritas of Verrius Flaccus at 17. 6. 4.
36
Also Valerius Antias (6. 19. 8), Cloatius Verus (16. 12), and Caesellius Vindex
(18. 11. 1). Like Favorinus (3. 1. 14), however, he also shows himself willing to give
a faltering authority the beneWt of the doubt (1. 18. 6).
places, Wnally, Gellius leaves a question unresolved (7. 14. 9, 16. 3.

9, 17. 3. 5), or explicitly invites his readers to decide for themselves
(6. 3. 55, 17. 6. 11).
Thus it is plausible that the sceptical and Socratic posture of
Favorinus, like the sympotic arrangements of Taurus, became
paradigmatic for the Attic Nights. By questioning common and
authoritative opinions, and by ‘inquiring rather than deciding’ in a
signiWcant number of situations, Gellius can distinguish himself
from the dogmatic and self-conWdent ‘experts’ he so frequently
derides. He can also draw his readers into a virtual dialogue, with
the potential for further inquiry—one of the stated aims of the
preface (§§17–18). His only condition is that they too should take
the time to ‘weigh’ the evidence (et rationes rerum et auctoritates
hominum pensitent, §18). Gellius does not, of course, refrain from
judgement in what he considers ‘obvious’ matters—just as Favor-
inus embraced plausible views on the Plautine canon (3. 3. 6) and
Roman etymology (3. 19. 3–5). Nor is he completely averse to
taking a moral position. In certain chapters, indeed, there emerge
the outlines of a Gellian ‘rule of life’, notably regarding friendship
(12. 4), self-reliance (2. 29), good faith (6. 18), and (above all) the
evils of drunkenness and gluttony (15. 8. 1; cf. 6. 16. 6, 15. 2, 15.
12, 15. 19, 19. 2). Nevertheless, his moralia lack a dogmatic foun-
dation; they might be described as practical, conventional, and
‘platform-independent’.37 And like the sceptics of his time
(whether Pyrrhonian or Academic), he was content ‘to conform
to the customs, laws and institutions of his country, and to follow
his natural tendencies and dispositions . . . ’.38 Thus the Attic
Nights are unimpressive as an example of ‘diatribe’, but they do
anticipate the secular conservatism of neo-classical sceptics such as
Bacon, Montaigne, and Charron.39
37
See also T. Morgan, above, Ch. 7.
38
P. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, 145.
39
A Gellian allusion (cf. NA 13. 17), and something of our author’s moral
temper, is found in Bacon’s essay ‘Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature’ (13);
see B. Vickers, Oxford World’s Classics edn. 167. On Montaigne’s aYnity with
Gellius, see C. Magnien-Simonin, ‘Montaigne et Aulu-Gelle’, esp. 15–18, and
M. J. Heath, below, 308–17. For Charron, see De la Sagesse 3. 14. 4, citing with
approval Gellius’ (or rather Favorinus’) dissertation on mother’s milk (NA 12. 1);
another Gellian echo occurs in 3. 4. 12 (on taking part in public divisions; cf. NA 2.
12). Moral sentiments similar to Gellius’ are also audible in e.g. 3. 39–40 (on food,
drink, and clothing); on the other hand, Charron’s estimate of memory (1. 17 ¼
Lennard 1. 15; cf. 1. 15. 6–9, not translated) is rather diVerent from Gellius’
(NA 13. 8).
4. h o n es t a e r v d i ti o
Taurus and Favorinus, then, indicate two ways in which Gellius
could ‘formally’ identify with the Socratic philosophical tradition,
as mediated by the Academy. The Plutarchan symposium became
a model of relaxed scholarly investigation, while the Socratic irony,
questioning, and suspension of judgement exempliWed by Favor-
inus may have inXuenced his general investigative method. It
appears, after all, that the currents of philosophy run deep in
Gellius—though not as much, perhaps, from the Cynic and Stoic
sources emphasized by Marache.
It remains to be seen, however, whether there is also some truth in
Marache’s contention that a ‘humanistic’ principle informed the
content of the Attic Nights: speciWcally, that the work was designed
to be ‘useful’ for the conduct of life. His argument is based mainly
on scattered remarks in Gellius about the sort of thing one should
not study: ‘amazing’ people, places, and events (14. 6. 3, 9. 4. 7–12),
racy historical anecdotes (7. 8. 4), minutiae of the physical sciences
(5. 15, 5. 16), and even the Wner points of speculative philosophy (10.
22. 24).40 These incidental remarks resonate with Gellius’ claim in
the preface (§12) that he has conWned himself ‘to those (items)
which, by furnishing a quick and easy short cut, might lead active
and alert minds to a desire for respectable learning (honesta eruditio)
and the contemplation of the useful arts (utilium artium contempla-
tio)’.41 Here Gellius seems indeed to be a polymath with a diVer-
ence.
As we have seen, however, critics have been reluctant to accept
these statements at face value; they appear both conventional and
insincere, given the actual contents of the collection. On the other
hand, Gellius insists rather strongly upon the ‘utility’ of his
work, to which he adverts at various points throughout the Nights
(pr. 2, 11–13; 14. 6. 5; cf. 1. 4. 1, 9. 4. 12). Could his ancient readers
have been so hypnotized by these clichés that they did not hold
him, to some degree, accountable for them? Perhaps we can escape
this impasse by shifting our focus from the idea of ‘useless’ know-
ledge and by looking instead at the things Gellius regards as
important. We might also begin with one of our author’s more
candid moments, in pr. 16:
40
Marache, Critique litte´raire, 259–62; edn. i, pp. xxiv f.
41
Here, as elsewhere, slightly adapted from the Loeb translation of J. C. Rolfe
(Cambridge, Mass., 1946).
Quae porro noua sibi ignotaque oVenderint, aequum esse puto, ut sine
uano obtrectatu considerent, an minutae istae admonitiones et pauxillulae
nequaquam tamen sint uel ad alendum studium uescae uel ad oblectan-
dum fouendumque animum frigidae, sed eius seminis generisque sint, ex
quo facile adolescant aut ingenia hominum uegetiora aut memoria admi-
niculatior aut oratio sollertior aut sermo incorruptior aut delectatio in otio
atque in ludo liberalior.
Here Gellius seems almost to admit that his work does, in many
places, resemble other miscellanies in all their ‘frigidity’. Thus he
dispenses with Greek tag lines, and oVers a more comprehensive
and speciWc statement of his values. This statement has two
themes. The Wrst is the ‘cultivation’ of the intellect (ad fouendum
animum), later speciWed as the development of one’s ability to
think, remember, and communicate (ingenia uegetiora, memoria
adminiculatior, oratio sollertior, sermo incorruptior). The second
theme is that mental culture should be pleasurable (ad oblectandum
animum); among all the diversions available to a well-born Roman,
this kind of delectatio is more becoming to a ‘free man’ (delectatio in
otio atque in ludo liberalior). As we shall see, these themes can be
understood as two sides of the same coin: a man enjoys his own
being more honourably and more ‘freely’ to the extent that he takes
the trouble to ‘cultivate’ himself, especially in those capacities
which deWne him as a man and citizen.
5. memoria adminicvlatior
This, then, is the notion of scholarly worth or value to which
Gellius commits himself at the outset of his work. But do we Wnd
it elsewhere in the Nights? To answer this question, we may
concentrate Wrst on the sub-theme of a ‘better-stocked’ or ‘more
serviceable’ memory (memoria adminiculatior). This could well be
a cliché, since memory-training was important at all levels of
Roman education.42 Gellius, however, represents it as a lifelong
occupation, appropriate even for the gentleman at leisure. It can be
practised in a solitary carriage ride (10. 25. 1), or after dinner, in
friendly company; thus Gellius and his comrade Julius Celsinus
Numida would stroll together and rack their brains for ‘rhetorical
Wgures or some new, striking use of words’ for ‘future use by
ourselves’ (19. 7. 2). Moreover, Gellius insists that the Nights
originated as a subsidium memoriae (pr. 2), consisting of things he
42
See T. Morgan, Literate Education, 250–1.
had read or heard that were ‘worth remembering’ (memoratu digna,

ibid.) and ‘useful to remember’ (usui meminisse, pr. 11; cf. 17. 2. 1).
In Gellius’ mind, then, there is a clear relationship between the
exercise of memory and the ‘utility’ he extols in the preface. But
what is the connection?
Good memory was clearly a social asset, and could prove handy
in a wide range of situations. For example, Gellius once solved a
procedural question with his instant recollection of a passage from
Varro (13. 13). Likewise, Antonius Julianus could oVer on-the-
spot advice on Wre-prevention—alas, too late for the inhabitants of
a nearby building (15. 1). Memory also had a role in ‘self-help’ and
moral improvement. Gellius follows Afranius in making Wisdom
the daughter of Experience and Memory (13. 8. 1–3); accordingly,
he recommends that we pause occasionally to reXect on the ‘acts
and events’ of our lives. When he also urges us to memorize the
words of Panaetius on prudence (13. 28. 2), of Ennius on friend-
ship (12. 4. 3), or of another ancient writer on gluttony (15. 8. 1), he
reXects the ancient belief that words, deeply planted in the
memory, have the power to change attitudes and conduct. Last,
but not least, memory plays an important role in Gellius’ career as
a writer. In composing the Nights, he often indicates his reliance on
memory (1. 3. 10, 6. 16. 4, 7. 2. 2, 10. 3. 9, 14. 1. 2, 17. 2. 2). As we
have seen, not only facts and quotables, but also Wgures and words
(19. 7. 2) make up his ‘literary storehouse’ (quasi quoddam litte-
rarum penus, pr. 2). It is not surprising, then, that unusual words
that constitute the object of study in one Gellian chapter turn up as
uerba insperata in others (e.g. penus itself, explained in 4. 1; cf.
soloecon, explained in 5. 20, and used at 17. 2. 11).
Gellius is not content, however, with a purely ‘instrumental’
approach to memory. He regards it not only as a tool or repository
to be employed for ulterior ends, but also as a faculty to be ‘nur-
tured’ (uegetanda) for its own sake (17. 2. 1). He does so in part
because, as he points out in 19. 7, the exercise of memory is a
pleasant way to Wll one’s spare time (his nos inter uiam uer-
borum . . . adnotatiunculis oblectabamus, §12).43 At such moments,
in fact, it keeps the mind from slipping into a kind of vacant
stupidity. And so, when the trivialities of daily life overwhelm
him, Gellius searches his memory for the names of ancient darts,
swords, and boats (10. 25. 1).44 In short, his references to the use
43
Cf. M. Pugliarello, ‘Disparilitas e memoria’, 104: ‘Se le annotationes sono state
prese ad subsidium memoriae, i commentarii sono memoriarum delectatiunculae.’
44
Cf. 18. 12. 10, where Gellius produces, again from memory, a list of old
deponent verbs.
and exercise of memory indicate two distinct but, in practice,

interrelated notions of value or ‘utility’. On the one hand, a well-
stocked memory furnishes the material required for polite conver-
sation and literary projects. On the other, it is almost intrinsically
valuable as a source of pleasure and a hedge against the tedium of
daily life; it is the mark of a higher sort of intellect.45 As it turns
out, this twofold approach to memory replicates the programme
outlined in the preface, which combines the cultivation of socially
useful faculties with delectatio liberalior. Thus we begin to see a
certain consistency in the shape of Gellian culture.
6. oratio sollertior, sermo incorrvptior

We may now inquire whether the same approach characterizes a
second and larger element of Gellius’ programme: ‘more eVective
eloquence’, which includes ‘purer diction’. This, too, was the
ordinary object of a Roman liberal education, which involved
long years with the grammaticus and rhetor. Another cliché, per-
haps? Gellius’ choice of terms, however, is instructive. Both adjec-
tives, sollers, with its overtones of linguistic pragmatism, and
incorruptus, suggesting a moral or aesthetic view of language,
anticipate his complicated approach to the entire subject.
A typical fault of professional grammarians, according to Gel-
lius, was to be more concerned with the formal categories of
language than with meaning. We have seen that he had little
time for arguments over the ‘correct’ vocative of egregius (14. 5),
just as Favorinus was mystiWed by the ‘expert’ who could state the
gender of penus, but could not say what it means (4. 1). Likewise
Nigidius, whom Gellius praises for his ‘clever’ theory on the
natural origin of pronouns (10. 4. 4), is also condemned for ‘laugh-
able’ attempts to regularize Latin morphology and orthography
(13. 26. 2). For Gellius, the bottom line in language is communi-
cation. This serves, somewhat paradoxically, as a justiWcation
for his researches into pre-classical lexicography and etymology.
He is especially interested in the phenomenon of semantic change.
Humanitas, for example, had by Gellius’ day lost its associations
with intellectual culture (13. 17). A similar shift had occurred
in other value-charged words, such as leuitas and nequitia (6. 11)
and elegans (11. 2). Elsewhere he notes the gradual confusion of
45
On Gellius’ claim to a kind of moral superiority for himself and other students
of the artes liberales, cf. Kaster, ‘ ‘‘Humanitas’’ and Roman Education’, esp. 8–9.
near-synonyms, such as uanus and stolidus (18. 4), uitium and

morbus (4. 2), and mendacium dicere and mentiri (11. 11). Gellius
takes a dim view of this kind of change: it is due to the ‘temerity’ of
people who use words without understanding them. The result is a
specious and faulty system of communication: uidemur magis
dicere quod uolumus, quam dicimus (16. 5. 1; cf. 16. 13. 1). The
implication is that some of these slips can be corrected. For
guidance, we may refer to classical authors, qui proprie atque signate
locuti sunt (13. 25. 32, cf. 1. 20. 8, 3. 14. 20, 6. 11. 2, 17. 1. 1). In a
pinch, etymology reveals the true and original ratio of a word (6.
17. 1, 16. 5. 4, 16. 14. 3, 16. 17. cap.), and so controls its use.46
Nevertheless, following Favorinus (1. 10), Gellius condemns
archaism when it clearly inhibits communication. An example of
‘senseless’ archaism would be the advocate who described his
adversary as a bouinator (‘shuZer’), to the mystiWcation of all
present (11. 7. 7; cf. 16. 9. 2). Gellius avoids such excesses in his
own prose; above all, he wants to be understood.
Nevertheless, his pragmatic stance appears, in the end, incapable
of sustaining his classicism—as one of his contemporaries was
quick to point out (16. 10. 7–8, cf. 5. 21. 7). Another kind of
argument is necessary, which makes the study of the ancient
language virtually an end in itself. Something of the sort is indi-
cated in Favorinus’ remarks to the incompetent grammarian of 4. 1.
Referring to his own interest in grammar, Favorinus says, ‘this
information, although I had devoted myself to philosophy, I yet
did not neglect to acquire; since for Roman citizens speaking
Latin it is no less disgraceful not to designate a thing by the proper
term than it is to call a man by the wrong name’ (§18). In other
words, a thorough knowledge of Latin is part of the ‘indelible
character’ of a Roman citizen, not only at work but also at leisure.
This assertion echoes the preface, where Gellius proposes a certain
level of knowledge of both ‘things and words’ (cf. pr. 2) as a
minimum requirement for the ‘man educated for citizenship’ (uir
ciuiliter eruditus, pr. 13).47 The civic metaphor occurs in a diVerent
form in a conversation between three notable savants, Fronto,
Festus Postumius, and Sulpicius Apollinaris (19. 13). Fronto
46
Elsewhere, Gellius uses the origin of a word to illuminate some part of its
current meaning (3. 19, 12. 14, 15. 3, 16. 12). Etymology is especially helpful
in distinguishing synonyms (e.g. uestibulum and atrium, 16. 5. 5–10; festinare
and properare, 16. 14. 4–5). See too F. Cavazza, above, Ch. 3.
47
The same justiWcation is given for learning medical terminology: existimaui
non medico soli, sed omnibus quoque hominibus liberis liberaliterque institutis turpe esse
ne ea quidem cognouisse (18. 10. 8).
wonders whether nani, the current word for ‘pygmies’, is ‘really’

Latin. Apollinaris replies that the word is admittedly (quidem)
vulgar, but is not barbarous and is registered (censetur) as Greek.
‘Nevertheless’, he says to Fronto, ‘this word would have been given
citizenship by you, or established in a Latin colony, if you had
deigned to use it’ (§3). The personiWcation of words, to the extent
that they acquire a consular patron, may strike us as bizarre. Never-
theless, it shows how closely Gellius associated Latinitas with
Romanitas.
This association, as I have indicated elsewhere, helps to explain
Gellius’ fascination with the comparison of Greek and Latin vo-
cabulary.48 In one of these essays in comparison, however, we Wnd
another signiWcant (and familiar) metaphor. When Favorinus
remarks on the relative paucity of words for colours in Latin, Fronto
replies, Non proinde inopes sumus, ut tibi uidemur (2. 26. 7).49 He then
conjures a host of ancient shades, such as rutilus and spadix (both
varieties of red). These words had quite disappeared even from
erudite speech, but Fronto and Gellius evidently regarded them as
permanent assets of the Latin language—a source of credit when,
as in this case, there was insuYcient cash on hand. Indeed, Gellius
appears to collect and savour words (e.g. 11. 3. 1) with the same
zeal that some of our contemporaries collect Roman coins. In
Gellius, however, words have the status of a national treasure,
and it is the sacred duty, as well as the diverting pastime, of the
uir ciuiliter eruditus to know and to protect his linguistic birthright.
7. the s cholarly life

Thus there appears to be something in Marache’s contention that
Gellian ‘utility’ goes beyond the usual meaning of the term. We
may think of it as one aspect of a complex cultural ideal: through the
exercise of memory and the study of language, among other things,
Gellius invites his reader to a ‘higher’ and ‘more respectable’
manner of life. His characterization of this life, however, is also
rather complex. In pr. 12, as we have seen, Gellius indicates that he
has composed the Nights with the hope of leading ‘active and alert
minds to a desire for respectable learning (honesta eruditio) and the
48
See Beall, ‘Aulus Gellius 17. 8’, 62–3; on aemulatio Graecorum in translation,
see id., ‘Translation’, esp. 217–19.
49
On the ‘poverty’ of Latin as a literary topos, see T. Fögen, Patrii sermonis
egestas, esp. 180–220; cf. S. Swain, above, p. 9.
contemplation of the useful arts (utilium artium contemplatio)’. Here

the themes of ‘utility’ and ‘respectability’ are intertwined with
‘contemplation’ and even ‘desire’ (cupido). The satisfaction of this
desire, as we have seen and as Gellius soon makes clear (pr. 19),
entails a kind of uoluptas or delectatio, which is nevertheless insep-
arable from labor. Thus he banishes from his Nights all ‘those who
have found neither pleasure nor labour in reading, inquiring,
writing and taking notes, who have never spent wakeful nights in
such employments, who have never improved themselves by dis-
cussion and debate with rival followers of the same Muse’.50
This simultaneous emphasis on pleasure and toil would seem
paradoxical, were it not for another group of metaphors whose
import is less obvious. For Gellius, a taste for learning is some-
thing to be ‘nourished’ or ‘fed’ (ad alendum studium, pr. 16), so that
one’s intellectual capacities can ‘mature’ (adolescant, ibid.). These
organic metaphors, to which we may add that of cultus (pr. 11, 1. 2.
1, 10. 22. 2, 19 .8. 1, cf. 19. 12. 7–10; litterarum cultu, 14. 6. 1) and
uegetus (ingenia uegetiora, pr. 16; memoriae uegetandae gratia, 17. 2.
1; cf. 10. 17. 1),51 add up to the Gellian notion of ‘integral human
Xourishing’. For Gellius did not regard amateur scholarship
merely as an agreeable diversion and a ‘respectable’ employment
of one’s time. For him, it was something like life itself.
Thus the preface concludes with the promise, sadly not fulWlled,
of a sequel to the Attic Nights: ‘as much longer life as the gods’ will
shall grant me, and as much respite as is given me from managing
my aVairs and attending to the education of my children, every
moment of that remaining and leisure time I shall devote to col-
lecting similar brief and entertaining memoranda’ (pr. 24). Gellius,
it seems, attributed fully a third, and perhaps the best third, of his
‘quality of life’ to these studia in otio. He appears to have been a
responsible man who performed the oYces of citizen, family man,
and friend with care, perhaps even with a certain scrupulosity. Yet
we feel he would have appreciated the inscription on a sundial in
Herculaneum:52
zæÆØ Ł
Ø ƒŒÆ ÆÆØ Æƒ b ÆPa
ªæÆØ ØŒ ÆØ ˘HÏ ºª
ıØ æ

E
50
Cf. Gellius’ emphasis on cura and disciplina in connection with authentic
humanitas; see Kaster, ‘ ‘‘Humanitas’’ and Roman Education’, 7.
51
Agricultural metaphors are common in the educational literature of antiquity;
see Morgan, Literate Education, 255–9.
52
G. Pfohl, Griechische Inschriften, 161.
Six hours of toil are quite enough;
those that come after spell LIVE!
Gellius ‘lived’ in his scholarly leisure, and so prayed that his body
would not outlast the work of ‘writing and note-taking’ he had
begun as a young man in Athens (pr. 24).
If, then, we are looking for a single formula that captures the
‘humanism’ of the Attic Nights, we probably come closest to the
truth with delectatio in otio atque in ludo liberalior. As Gellius saw
it, a ‘free man’ is deWned by his pleasures—nil cum Wdibus graculost,
nihil cum amaracino sui (pr. 19). In his leisure time, moreover, a
man lives and acts for himself, and becomes an end in himself.
This, as Irving Babbitt maintained, distinguishes authentic ‘hu-
manism’ from its ‘humanitarian’ counterfeits, both ancient and
modern.53 Finally, if Renaissance humanism was predicated
upon man’s potential for communion with the divine, Gellius
anticipated even this idea in a programmatic quotation from Aris-
tophanes (pr. 21, from Ra. 354–6, 369–71):
PE æc ŒIÆŁÆØ
E æ
ØØ
æ
EØ
‹Ø ÆØæ

ØH ºªø j ª fi c ŒÆŁÆæØ
j ª Æø ZæªØÆ
ıH r Kæı . . .
!E I ªæ
ºc
ŒÆd Æ ıÆ a æÆ, ÆQ B § æ
ıØ "
æB
§ .
All evil thought and profane be still; far hence, far hence from our choirs
depart,
Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart;
Who ne’er has the noble revelry learned, or danced the dance of the Muses
high . . .
. . . But ye, my comrades, awake the song,
The night-long revels of joy and mirth, which ever of right to our feast
belong.54
The motif of nocturnal ‘revels’ seems a bit exotic, given our
author’s insistence on order and temperance. But it does express
the momentary exaltation we all experience, perhaps during our
own solitary lucubrations, when ‘some knotty or troublesome
topic’ (pr. 13) is suddenly resolved, and the true shape of antiquity
is disclosed.
To conclude this assessment of Marache’s humanisme gellien,
I shall borrow a page from Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay on Tolstoy,
The Hedgehog and the Fox (3–4). A fragment from the work of
Archilochus reads, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog
53
I. Babbitt, Literature and the American College, 5–12.
54
B. B. Rogers, edn. 57; cited in J. C. Rolfe’s Loeb edn.
knows one big thing.’ Berlin observed that among intellectuals

there are ‘foxes’, who are captivated by the inWnite variety of
things, and ‘hedgehogs’, who relate everything to a single, central
vision. Gellius, it is safe to say, was a fox. If Marache sometimes
failed to grasp the true bent of Gellius’ mind, it was because he
tried to make him a hedgehog, by interpreting the Attic Nights
according to master-ideas such as the ‘primacy of morality’ and the
‘doctrine of limitation’. Nevertheless, even a fox might attempt to
account for his life and interests; above all, he would try to convey,
by example and illustration, the pleasures of being a fox. Gellius
may defy our scholarly categories, but he expresses, perhaps better
than most ancient writers, the full range of the artes ingenuae and
their power to delight, improve, and elevate the mind. In an age in
which academic humanists are obliged to justify themselves in
increasingly narrow terms, Aulus Gellius, a fox among hedgehogs,
is delightful company indeed.
9
Gellius, Apuleius, and Satire on
the Intellectual
W y t s e K eu len
The present study aims to compare Gellius’ and Apuleius’ tech-

niques of characterizing and satirizing certain types of intellectuals
in the light of Greek and Roman literary traditions familiar to both
authors, and to place this in the context of second century polem-
ics. Both Gellius and Apuleius give literary shape to a theme which
is popular in their age: the satire on the (pseudo-)intellectual.
Their individual treatment of this theme may seem very diVerent,
in line with the diVerent genre and scope of their respective literary
works. Still, a comparison of Gellius’ Attic Nights and Apuleius’
Metamorphoses may reveal some common threads that inform us
about issues that both authors were concerned with and responded
to. Gellius and Apuleius, both admirers of Plutarch, use ‘Socratic’
motifs in their satirical representations of intellectuals. They were
both Romans who shared a characteristically Roman sense of satire
and wit. They both lived in an age in which satire was thriving,
especially satire on the intellectual tendencies of the time. This
entails another important question: being representative intellec-
tuals of their age, to what extent did Gellius and Apuleius satirize
themselves? How can we use Gellius’ criticism of intellectuals to
recognize self-satire in Apuleius, and vice versa?
I thank Dr Stephen M. Beall, Dr Stephen Harrison, Dr Maaike Zimmerman, and

the editors of the present volume for their comments, which helped to improve the
form and content of this chapter.
224 Wytse Keulen
1. gellius , apuleius , and their

intellectual world
1.1. Fronto, Gellius, and Apuleius

Did Apuleius know Gellius and Fronto, just as Gellius and Fronto
knew each other from intellectual meetings in Rome? In the works
of Fronto and Gellius there is no mention of Apuleius, nor does
Apuleius mention either of them. Still, Apuleius probably
belonged to the same network of men of culture who dominated
literary life and society in Rome, in which Fronto, the emperor’s
teacher of rhetoric, played such a prominent role. Fronto and
Apuleius, both Africans who became famous in Rome,1 are con-
nected through their acquaintance with the proconsul Lollianus
Avitus; Apuleius’ praise of him is reminiscent of Frontonian doc-
trine.2 Gellius and Apuleius were possibly acquainted through
their studies in Athens, where they could have met as Taurus’
pupils. Perhaps Gellius and Apuleius met again in Rome, as guests
of Apuleius’ African compatriot Fronto.3 Both Gellius and Apu-
leius proudly parade their erudition and laborious studies in their
literary works,4 which reveal many shared interests. In Noctes
Atticae 19. 9, Gellius’ teacher of rhetoric Antonius Julianus recites
four early Latin love epigrams by three relatively obscure poets, to
prove that Roman erotic poetry can compete with the Greek ac-
complishments in that Weld; in his Apology (9), Apuleius mentions
the same three poets, and in the same order, but without quoting
them.5 It is possible that the young man mentioned by Gellius
(19. 11) as author of a Latin translation of an epigram of Plato, was
Apuleius.6
1
For Apuleius’ claim to a literary reputation in Rome cf. Flor. 17. 4, with
V. Hunink, Florida, 173–4 ad loc.; on Apuleius’ ‘Roman period’ see K. Dowden,
‘Apuleius’ Roman Audience’, 424–5; S. J. Harrison, Apuleius, 6 n. 22.
2
Cf. Apul. Apol. 24. 1, 94. 3, 95. 6; see E. Champlin, Fronto, 31–2.
3
L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 22–3 [16–17]; Dowden, ‘Apuleius’
Roman Audience’, 429; G. Sandy, ‘West meets East’.
4
Gell. pr. 12; Apul. Flor. 18, 20; see A. Vardi, ‘Why Attic Nights?’, 301.
5
See Vardi, ‘An Anthology’, on the much-debated issue of the relationship
between Gellius’ list and that of Apuleius.
6
See H. Dahlmann, Ein Gedicht des Apuleius?; S. J. Harrison, ‘Apuleius Eroti-
cus’, 88–9; Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 23 n. 59 [17 n. 57]; Vardi, ‘An Anthol-
ogy’, 148 n. 5.
Satire on the Intellectual 225
1.2. Plutarch and the Erudite Symposium

Although we cannot prove that Gellius and Apuleius knew each
other, they can obviously be compared as sophisticated and
successful Latin authors from the same period, sharing the same
intellectual and cultural background. Gellius and Apuleius are
both interesting witnesses to the intellectual world of the second
century, and can be fruitfully studied in juxtaposition to get a
glimpse into this world. Both pay homage to their intellectual
pedigree by mentioning Plutarch at the outset of their works of
sophisticated entertainment, Gellius’ Attic Nights (1. 1. 1), and
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (1. 2. 1).7 The young aristocrat Lucius,
the satirical alter ego of the author Apuleius and both narrator and
protagonist of the Metamorphoses, uses his family connection with
Plutarch in order to present himself as a distinguished intellectual,
participating in the excellent cultural tradition founded by Plu-
tarch.8 As scholars have observed, this was a genuine strategy of
intellectuals in Apuleius’ time.9 Plutarch’s standing in Antonine
culture is similarly honoured by Gellius, whose interest in him as a
source of information and a teacher of morality is obvious through-
out his work; notably, Plutarch’s name is the Wrst word of the
opening chapter of the Attic Nights.10 For both Gellius and Apu-
leius, Plutarch was an authority in his own right, as he would be for
centuries afterwards.11
The Plutarchan background partly explains the aYnity shared
by Gellius and Apuleius with the literary form of the sophisticated
7
Gell. 1. 1. 1 Plutarchus in libro, quem de Herculis, quantum inter homines fuit,
animi corporisque ingenio atque uirtutibus conscripsit, scite subtiliterque ratiocinatum
Pythagoram philosophum dicit in reperienda modulandaque status longitudinisque eius
praestantia. Apul. Met. 1. 2. 1 Thessaliam—nam et illic originis maternae nostrae
fundamenta a Plutarcho illo inclito ac mox Sexto philosopho nepote eius prodita gloriam
nobis faciunt—eam Thessaliam ex negotio petebam; cf. 2. 3. 3 familia Plutarchi
ambae prognatae sumus.
8
For Lucius’ characterization as a man of culture in the Metamorphoses see
H. J. Mason, ‘The Distinction’, 137, 141; Harrison, Apuleius, 216–17;
W. H. Keulen, ‘Swordplay—Wordplay’, 161–2. For references to Lucius’ doctrina
cf. Met. 3. 15. 4, 11. 15. 1 ipsa, qua Xores, . . . doctrina; 11. 30. 4 studiorum meorum
laboriosa doctrina.
9
In IG ii2. 3814 the 3rd-c. sophist Nikagoras called himself —º
ıæ
ı ŒÆd
&
ı Øº
ø Œª

. See C. P. Jones, Plutarch and Rome, 11–12; Mason, ‘The
Distinction’, 138; W. H. Keulen, ‘Lucius’ Kinship Diplomacy’, 261 n. 3.
10
See further Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 283 [209]. Cf. also 1. 26. 4
(Gellius quotes Taurus) Plutarchus noster, uir doctissimus ac prudentissimus; 4. 11.
11 Plutarchus . . . homo in disciplinis graui auctoritate.
11
See D. A. Russell, Plutarch, especially 6–7, 143–4; L. A. Holford-Strevens,
‘The Non-Visual Portraitist’, 104–5.
226 Wytse Keulen
symposium, or quaestiones conuiuales, which inspired both authors

in their use of dramatic settings and character depiction. Both
Gellius’ Attic Nights and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, and especially
the programmatic Wrst book of the latter, depict dialogue scenes of
vivid intellectual exchange, in which the exposure of impostor
Wgures plays a central role.12 Plutarch’s moral writings, including
his Table Talk, form an invaluable frame of reference to understand
and judge Apuleius’ literary use of the symposium and his technique
of portraying immoral character types in the Metamorphoses.13 Both
Lucius and other characters from the Metamorphoses, such as
Socrates, who appear as dubious storytellers in degraded sympo-
sium situations, seem to suVer from the very moral ailments of
which Lucius’ pretended ancestor wished to cure his readers,
such as curiosity (
ºıæÆª
; cf. Gell. 11. 16) and superstition
(ØØÆØ
Æ). Moreover, the form of quaestiones conuiuales was
not only a viable literary genre, associated with the authority of
Plutarch,14 but it also deWned the meetings of the intellectual
world of Fronto and Gellius,15 to which Apuleius too may have
belonged.
2. socrates and socratic dialogue:

exposure and satire
2.1. Sophistic Personae and Sophisticated Views

Both Gellius and Apuleius are aware of the venerable Socratic
tradition behind the literary form of the sympotic debate and the
theme of exposure and irony, and show this awareness by allusions
to the Platonic dialogue as a literary model.16 Interestingly, Gellius
points out that in a Platonic dialogue the author may introduce
12
On Gellius’ familiarity with Plutarch’s Quaestiones conuiuales (‘Table Talk’)
and his use of the form of the ‘erudite symposium’ as a dramatic setting for several
scenes in his miscellany Attic Nights see S. M. Beall, ‘Aulus Gellius 17.8’, 58–9.
Apuleius himself wrote a miscellany called Quaestiones conuiuales: see below, n. 56.
13
See Keulen, ‘Lucius’ Kinship Diplomacy’, 263–4.
14
On Plutarch’s use of the symposium as a literary genre see J. Mossman,
‘Plutarch’s Dinner’, 119–27.
15
See Champlin, Fronto, 48–9.
16
For explicit allusions to Platonic (Socratic) dialogue cf. Gell. 4. 1. cap. Sermo
quidam Fauorini philosophi cum grammatico iactantiore factus in Socraticum modum;
10. 22; 18. 4. 1 (cited below). Such Platonic allusions also underline the Wctional
element of the Gellian scenes; see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 69, 83 [50, 61].
The parody of philosophical dialogue in the Wrst book of the Met. is illustrated by
the appearance of a character called Socrates (1. 6–19), and by the comic homage to
personae who are not to be imitated or taken seriously (persona . . .

non grauis neque idonea, 10. 22. 1), or indeed of unsound character
(non proba, 10. 22. 24), but still feature as the mouthpiece of
authorial ideas and opinions.17 The reader, then, is encouraged to
Wnd truths behind the words of sophists or other morally dubious
interlocutors featuring in such a written dialogue.
This remark by Gellius tells us something about the attitude he
expected of the readers of his own ‘erudite dialogues’. Gellius’
educated readership was obviously not only familiar with the liter-
ary form of the Socratic dialogue, but also prepared to look actively
behind the masks of sophist-like interlocutors to learn truths that
originated from the author. Apuleius’ intended reader, not very
diVerent in attitudes and judgements, would be able to see through
an ambiguous persona like Lucius, who is a morally dubious charac-
ter, but at the same time alter ego and mouthpiece of the author
Apuleius.18 In the Socratic dialogue framing the Wrst inset tale of the
Met., both Lucius and his sceptic interlocutor appear as comic
Wgures (cf. e.g. 1. 2. 5 exerto cachinno), who voice sophisticated
ideas about accepting or rejecting Wction, which are programmatic
for the novel, and which a second-century reader would possibly
identify with opinions of the author. Moreover, these ideas are
phrased in a terminology that would remind the reader of the con-
temporary scholarly debate about rejecting or approving speech.19
In a similar way, in the Attic Nights, the grammarian Domitius
Insanus is apparently exposed—as many grammarians are in Gel-
lius’ Socratic dialogues—as a ridiculous Wgure (18. 7. 1–2, 4), but
then, in a kind of role reversal, sharply criticizes word-hunting
as a second-rate activity from a moral-philosophical standpoint,
attacking both the hero of the Nights, Favorinus, and the very
essence of the literary pursuit in which Gellius and his admired
teachers are engaged throughout the Nights.20 A contemporary
the opening of the Phaedrus, one of the most famous Platonic dialogues in Apuleius’
time (1. 18. 8, 1. 19. 7–8).
17
Similarly D.L. 3. 52; see H. A. S. Tarrant, ‘Platonic Interpretation’, 178–86.
18
For Lucius as an ambiguous Wgure, being both the target of the hidden
author’s satire and the mouthpiece for his ideas on Wction, see Keulen, ‘Sword-
play—Wordplay’, 169–70.
19
Cf. Met. 1. 2. 5 tam absurda tamque immania; 1. 3. 2 crassis auribus . . . respuis;
1. 20. 1 respuebat. For the rhetorical-stylistic terminology cf. Fronto, Ep. M. Caes.
3. 16. 1 (p. 47. 21–2 v:d:H:2 ); De eloqu. 4. 8 (p. 150. 10–11 v:d:H:2 ); De orat. 14
(p. 159. 15–16 v.d. H:2 ); Gell. 11. 16. 4, 15. 25. 1 (absurdus), 15. 9. 3 (immanis), 13.
21. 12 (respuent . . . aures).
20
For the irony in the reversal of roles in Gell. 18. 7 see S. M. Beall, ‘Homo fandi
dulcissimus’, 92.
228 Wytse Keulen
reader would probably not identify Domitius’ criticism with Gel-

lius’ own views, but would still recognize in the words of this
comic persona an intelligent criticism that Gellius would be pre-
pared to encounter in discussions with rival intellectuals. More-
over, both Lucius and Domitius Insanus may also embody a
certain amount of self-satire on the part of the authors Gellius
and Apuleius (see below, §3.2).
2.2. The Figure of Socrates

In addition, Gellius and Apuleius share a fascination with the
character, appearance, and gestures of the Wgure of Socrates.21
No doubt, Gellius and Apuleius were aware of the signiWcance of
Socrates as a paradigm for intellectual self-presentation and role-
playing in their age.22 In both the Attic Nights and in the Meta-
morphoses we Wnd a visual homage to the historical Socrates by
means of his characteristic gesture of covering the head before
beginning to speak.23 Both the Gellian and the Apuleian Socrates
(the Wctional character from Met. 1) embody satire and irony.
Gellius explicitly mentions Socrates’ name as the model of the
techniques of exposure and irony followed by Gellius’ revered
teachers to unmask sham experts:24
Cum iam adulescentuli Romae praetextam et puerilem togam mutassemus
magistrosque tunc nobis nosmet ipsi exploratiores quaereremus, in
Sandaliario forte apud librarios fuimus, cum ibi in multorum hominum
coetu Apollinaris Sulpicius, uir in memoria nostra praeter alios doctus,
21
Although the Socrates in Apul. Met. 1. 6–19 is a Wctive character, featuring in
the novel’s Wrst inserted tale, he still bears many signiWcant traits of the historical
Socrates (see W. H. Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, 110 n. 5). In Met. 10. 33. 3, the
narrator refers to the historical Socrates as diuinae prudentiae senex.
22
See M. W. Gleason, Making Men, 151: ‘those who aspired to the status of
philosopher were acutely conscious of the need to harmonize their self-presentation
with the great paradigms of the philosophic pantheon.’ On Apuleius’ assimilation of
his activities to famous Greek paradigms, especially Plato and Socrates, see
G. Sandy, The Greek World of Apuleius, 183–4.
23
Gell. 19. 9. 9 (Gellius quotes his teacher Antonius Iulianus) permittite mihi,
quaeso, operire pallio caput, quod in quadam parum pudica oratione Socraten fecisse
aiunt; Apul. Met. 1. 6. 4 et cum dicto sutili centunculo faciem suam iam dudum
punicantem prae pudore obtexit; 1. 7. 1 capite uelato (cf. Gell. 19. 9. 10 capite
conuelato). In Plato’s Phaedrus (237 a), Socrates covers his head before he starts
his Wrst speech on eros, using a Socratic technique of concentration (see K. J. Dover
on Ar. Nub. 735 KªŒÆºıł
).
24
For the signiWcance of Socrates for the Attic Nights as the archetype of the true
philosopher who exposes the false expert see S. M. Beall, above, 208–9; for his
inXuence on Favorinus see id., ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 91.
iactatorem quempiam et uenditatorem Sallustianae lectionis inrisit inlu-
sitque genere illo facetissimae dissimulationis, qua Socrates ad sophistas
utebatur.25 (18. 4. 1.)
The Socrates who appears in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses book 1 is
also a Wgure who mocks, teases, and jokes (e.g. Met. 1. 7. 4 cauil-
lum . . . dicacitas; 1. 12. 4 inlusit aetatulam; 1. 18. 6 subridens), but
he rather behaves like a buVoon on a comic stage, revealing traits of
a Cynic philosopher, and becoming an object of ridicule himself.26
In the Attic Nights, Socrates is depicted as an example of
temperance and strength (2. 1).27 By contrast, the Socrates in
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 1 appears as a self-indulgent hypochon-
driac. Just like the Gellian Socrates, the Apuleian Socrates is
characterized as completely immobile at the outset. Whereas the
Gellian Socrates is standing all the time to train his physical
endurance (NA 2. 1. 2), the Apuleian Socrates is sitting on the
ground, expressing with his posture his complete lack of endur-
ance and an almost deliberate suVering from bad health (Met. 1. 6.
1). Whereas the Gellian Socrates deliberately stands to strengthen
his body against any chance demands upon its endurance (2. 1.
1 fortuitas patientiae uices), the Apuleian Socrates seems too weak
to give up his sitting position, and prefers to retain this position to
express his submission to fortune (1. 6. 4–1. 7. 1). Whereas the
Gellian Socrates has the reputation of abstinence, the Apuleian
Socrates indulges in food, wine, sex, and cheap entertainment
(Gell. 2. 1. 5 a uoluptatum labe cauisse Apul. Met. 1. 7. 5 dum
uoluptatem . . . consector).28 Whereas the Gellian Socrates stands
out for his fortitude (Gell. 2. 1. 3 fortitudine), the Apuleian Socra-
tes almost continuously reveals symptoms of weakness and disease
(Met. 1. 6. 1 paene alius lurore, ad miseram maciem deformatus; cf. 1.
18. 7, 1. 19. 1).
Thus, at Wrst sight, Gellius’ and Apuleius’ representations of
the Wgure of Socrates seem diametrically opposed. In the Attic
25
For the terminology of exposure and irony in the dialogue scenes of the Attic
Nights cf. also 6. 17. 2, 17. 3. 2, 18. 4. cap., 9, 19. 1. 8 (illudere); 1. 21. 4 (ridere). See
also A. D. Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’, 51 with n. 63, who collects
instances of laughter as the response of those present at an exposure, e.g. 16. 6. 12
facetias nebulonis hominis risi; 19. 10. 14 cum id plerique prolixius riderent.
26
For a detailed analysis of the Apuleian Socrates as a satirical Wgure who reXects
the comic ambiguity of the Metamorphoses see Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, esp.
114–18.
27
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 110 [80] with further references.
28
Cf. also Apul. Met. 1. 8. 1 uoluptatem Veneriam; contrast, however 1. 11. 4
insolita uinolentia, which is perhaps a humorous allusion to the historical Socrates’
abstemiousness.
230 Wytse Keulen
Nights, Socrates features as the archetype of the philosopher, the

role model of Gellius’ admired teachers; in Metamorphoses book 1,
he appears as the anti-philosopher. The contrast seems almost
deliberate, but at the same time it draws our attention to a topic
that was of central interest to both Gellius and Apuleius. This
topic is satire on the sham philosopher, which was popular not
only with the Greek authors of the Imperial age (especially
Lucian), but also with their Latin contemporaries Fronto, Gellius,
and Apuleius. The Apuleian Socrates appears to be symbolic of
such satire, as he resembles the stereotype of the pseudo-philoso-
pher, with ragged cloak and all, a stereotype that we encounter in
all three Antonine Roman writers.29
By representing his Socrates with an emaciated body and a pale
skin, Apuleius follows a literary tradition of satire on intellectual-
ism, a tradition that goes back to Aristophanes’ Clouds.30 The
popularity of the stereotype of the false philosopher symbolized a
general concern of his age, a deep concern about the prevalence of
teachers who engaged in higher education without displaying any
inclinations or qualities considered relevant for those who should
be an intellectual and moral example to their pupils.31 Signi-
Wcantly, in his Apology (4. 10; 22), Apuleius even applies to himself
the very stock features that deWne the satirical portrayal of Socrates
in the Metamorphoses, like pallor, emaciation, and a philosopher’s
regulation outWt, in order to characterize himself as a philoso-
pher.32 Thus he is able to turn a well-known instrument of satirical
attack into a form of self-parody.
29
Met. 1. 6. 1 scissili palliastro semiamictus; for the stereotype cf. Met. 11. 8. 3 Nec
ille deerat, . . . qui pallio baculoque et baxeis et hircino barbitio philosophum Wngeret.
In the age of Fronto, Gellius, and Apuleius, the pallium was associated with the
cloak of the hypocritical philosopher; cf. Apul. Flor. 7. 10; 9. 9; Gell. 9. 2. 4 Video
barbam et pallium, philosophum nondum uideo; 13. 8. 5 Nihil . . . Weri posse indignius
neque intolerantius . . . quam quod homines ignaui ac desides, operti barba et pallio,
mores et emolumenta philosophiae in linguae uerborumque artes conuerterent. See van
den Hout, A Commentary, 323 on Fronto, De eloqu. 1. 4 (p. 135. 7 v.d. H:2 ); Keulen,
‘Comic Invention’, 114 n. 16, 119 n. 26.
30
With his representation of Socrates, Apuleius pays homage to the earliest
portrait known to us of the philosopher Socrates, his caricature in Clouds (cf. 103
TæØH Æ); see Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, 111. This portrait corresponds to the
Greek stereotype of the intellectual, which ridicules his wasted appearance; see
P. Zanker, The Mask of Socrates, 32–3.
31
For the great concern about teachers with dishonest motives in Gellius’ time,
see Tarrant, ‘Platonic Interpretation’, 173. For the topos of exposing the sham
philosopher see Vardi, ‘Gellius against the Professors’, 43–4 with nn. 14 and 17.
Cf. Gell. 13. 24. 2 Graecae istorum praestigiae, philosophari sese dicentium umbrasque
uerborum inanes Wngentium.
32
See Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, 111 n. 8, 114 n. 16
2.3. The Satire on Intellectualism

Deep feelings of distrust against pseudo-intellectuals were not an
exclusive characteristic of the age of Fronto, Gellius, and Apuleius,
nor were they merely part of a literary tradition with a Greek origin.
They also embody a fundamentally Roman attitude of scepticism
towards people who pretend to be philosophers, which the Romans
expressed through the genre of satire, a genre they held to be their
own. Although the Attic Nights is generically speaking not a work of
satire, it nevertheless reveals this Roman characteristic: Gellius’
interest in Varro’s Menippean Satires is not merely focused on
Latin idiom, but also embraces Varro’s humour and sympotic wit,
which does not exclude a particular sense of self-irony.33
Both Apuleius and Gellius, then, are interested in the theme of
exposing the sham philosopher, which was both an actual issue of
their age and a literary topos, going back to Aristophanes’ Clouds.
Moreover, satirizing and mocking pseudo-philosophers belonged
to a characteristically Roman outlook that both Antonine authors,
full of reverence for the Roman past, would be likely to share. It is
also likely that both authors, who were highly sophisticated and
had read Aristophanes, were aware of the Greek literary origins of
the literary topos of mocking the sham intellectual. What is more,
for Roman Antonine authors such as Apuleius and Gellius, the
stock elements of satirical attacks on personae non gratae seemed to
have been so familiar and well worn that they could also be used in
certain witty forms of self-portrayal (as we see in Apuleius’ Apol-
ogy), which displayed a self-conscious sense of humour.
Apuleius’ and Gellius’ shared interest in the satire of intellec-
tualism and their indebtedness to Aristophanes will now be illus-
trated in more detail. Just as Strepsiades becomes an initiate in the
mysteries of the Socratic æ
ØæØ
, so the Apuleian Socrates
initiates his friend Aristomenes into a secretive dialogue that will
turn him from a sceptic into a superstitious believer in the super-
natural. Socrates’ language of mystic initiation and his gestures
reveal his superstitious fear that others may overhear their conver-
sation about a religious subject that is strictly taboo. His behaviour
creates an atmosphere of initiation, calling for a mystic silence that
is required for the revealing of things of a higher order:
33
For the traditionally Roman suspicion of pseudo-intellectuals and the links
with the Menippean satire see J. C. Relihan, Ancient Menippean Satire, 54–9 on
Gellius, esp. 54; see also p. 69, where he quotes Gellius’ anecdote of the braggart
scholar who claimed to understand Varro’s Menippeans (Gell. 13. 31. 1–3).
232 Wytse Keulen
At ille digitum a pollice proximum ori suo admouens et in stuporem
attonitus ‘tace, tace’ inquit et circumspiciens tutamenta sermonis:
‘parce’, inquit, ‘in feminam diuinam, nequam tibi lingua intemperante
noxam contrahas.’ (Met. 1. 8. 2.)
The initiation performance of this Socrates, which serves as an
introduction to his fantastic stories about the witch Meroe, echoes
the care of the Platonic Socrates to take a good look round before
starting a philosophical discussion, to make sure no ‘non-initiate’ is
listening (Plat. Theaet. 155 e `ŁæØ b æØŒ
H Ø H
Iıø !ÆŒ
fi ). In the tradition of Clouds, which parodied the
Platonic analogy between philosophical-rhetorical instruction and
mystic initiation,34 Apuleius’ Metamorphoses introduces a charac-
ter with the signiWcant name Socrates, a superstitious outcast
Wgure who seems to represent the negative aspects of intellectual-
ism such as exclusiveness and arrogance.35
A similar type of behaviour is displayed in the main story by the
protagonist Lucius, who shares many interests and inclinations
with the Socrates of the Wrst inset tale.36 In his diatribe against
scepticism, Lucius uses the invective technique of representing his
opponent as an ignorant fool. Confuting the sceptic’s incredulity,
Lucius tries to live up to his philosophical credentials (1. 2. 1 a
Plutarcho), and strikes a rather pedantic tone, as if he were the
superior intellectual. He phrases belief in the incredible in terms of
an intellectual process for which not everyone is intelligent
enough.37 Contrasting the wrong beliefs of ordinary mortals
(1. 3. 3 prauissimis opinionibus) with the genuine perception of the
one who uses his senses accurately, and using a singular address
(si . . . accuratius exploraris . . . senties), Lucius assumes a didac-
tic-philosophical stance. His attack on those stubborn folk who do
not believe the things that lie beyond the grasp of the human mind
(1. 3. 2–3) echoes Socrates’ attack on non-intellectuals in Plat.
Theaet. 155 e cited above (cf. also Soph. 246 a–b). There Socrates
calls ‘non-initiates’ (the Apuleian Socrates behaves similarly, as we
have seen above) those who think nothing exists beyond what they
can grasp in their two hands (cf. 1. 3. 3 supra captum cogitationis).
34
See Sommerstein on Clouds 140; of Dover on 143 ıæØÆ; P. Green, ‘The
Abuses of Intellectualism’.
35
Cf. Socrates’ reference to Aristomenes’ ignorance in 1. 6. 4 Aristomene, . . . ne
tu fortunarum lubricas ambages et instabiles incursiones et reciprocas uicissitudines
ignoras.
36
See Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, 108–9, with further references.
37
Cf. 1. 3. 2 crassis auribus, 1. 3. 3 minus hercule calles; see Keulen, ‘Swordplay—
Wordplay’, 162.
Theaetetus agrees and calls such persons ‘stubborn and obstinate’

(Œºæ
. . . ŒÆd I Ø
ı; cf. 1. 3. 2 obstinato corde).
Lucius’ arrogance and exclusive stance characterize him as a
comic Wgure, resembling contemporary targets of satire. Both in
his arrogant posing as the superior intellectual and in his stance of
superstitious credulity, resembling Stoic philosophers (1. 4. 2, 1.
20. 3, 2. 15. 1), he exposes himself as a pseudo-philosopher.38
His arrogant and exclusive stance of the intellectual resembles
Gellius’ portrayal of a young loquacious and self-proclaimed
Stoic philosopher, who during an after-dinner conversation
immoderately praises his own philosophy and boasts of his own
intellect (1. 2. 4).39 Strikingly, Lucius’ behaviour is not unlike that
of his spiritual father Apuleius in his Apology, who poses as the
superior intellectual throughout the work, while denigrating his
opponents as ignorant fools.
Just like Apuleius, Gellius employs the topic of exclusion for the
comic characterization of persons exposed as would-be intellec-
tuals in the debate-scenes of his Attic Nights. In 19. 10. 14, a
grammarian, who is at a loss in a discussion with Fronto about
the word praeterpropter, resorts to a mechanism of exclusion in
an unsuccessful attempt to save himself from an embarrassing
exposure:
Et grammaticus sudans multum ac rubens multum, cum id plerique
prolixius riderent, exsurgit et abiens: ‘Tibi’, inquit, ‘Fronto, postea uni
dicam, ne inscitiores audiant ac discant.’
At the same time, the topic of exclusion as a marker for satire on
intellectualism draws our attention to a curious paradox within
Gellius’ own work, a paradox that seems also relevant for Apu-
leius, who strikingly resembles his alter ego Lucius (see above).
With a signiWcant remark in his preface (20), Gellius reveals his
anxiety to protect his writings from the profestum et profanum
uolgus, a ludo musico diuersum (‘the profane and uninitiate throng,
38
For Lucius’ characterization as a pseudo-philosopher and a comparison with
Greek contemporary parallels (Lucian) see Keulen, ‘Swordplay—Wordplay’, esp.
162, 165.
39
Cf. 1. 2. cap. quendam iactantem et gloriosum adulescentem, specie tantum philo-
sophiae sectatorem. 1. 2. 4 praeque se uno ceteros omnes . . . rudes esse et agrestes
praedicabat. [ . . . ] asseuerabat nulli esse ulli magis ea omnia explorata, comperta
meditataque (cf. Apul. Met. 1. 3. 3 Quae si paulo accuratius exploraris, . . . compertu
euidentia . . . senties). For the conceited behaviour of the professionals that Gellius
puts to shame in the Attic Nights and the connection with the contemporary Greek
quarrel between the new sophists and philosophers, see Vardi, ‘Gellius against the
Professors’, 52 with n. 68.
234 Wytse Keulen
averse to the Muses’ play’), which apparently reveals an elitist

attitude not unlike that of some characters put to shame in the
Attic Nights.40 However, as it is likely that Gellius anticipated
possible charges of intellectualism himself, we should not overlook
the possibility that he made this remark with a certain sense of
irony. It may not be a coincidence that his programmatic statement
of excluding the ‘uninitiated’ from his elite audience is tactically
backed up by a quotation from Aristophanes, the archetypical
satirist of exclusive intellectual movements.41
3. lucius the sophist

In the previous part, we have observed that Gellius and Apuleius
not only share an interest in ‘Socratic’ motifs in their satirical
representations of intellectuals, but also appear to turn the same
satire on themselves. The third part of this article focuses on the
intriguing Wgure of Lucius in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, investi-
gating further characteristics that correspond to certain personal-
ities from Gellius’ Attic Nights, and thus may reveal in Lucius’
characterization possible dimensions of contemporary satire. It
also explores whether this kind of satire implies certain repercus-
sions for Gellius and Apuleius themselves, being intellectuals who
represent the typical tastes of their own time. Gellius’ criticism of
sophistic rivals not only turns out to reveal a certain self-conscious
irony about his position as an author of a miscellany, but also helps
us to recognize forms of self-satire in Apuleius through his Wctional
alter ego Lucius.
The close identiWcation of the narrator Lucius, who also poses as
the writer of this text,42 with the concrete author Apuleius, is a
much-discussed theme in Apuleian studies,43 although few studies
40
However, the diVerence should be noted that whereas the grammarian of 19.
10 is covering his retreat, having been happy enough to parade his learning while it
seemed superior, Gellius himself, in his preface, is warning oV those who are not
interested in his kind of learning.
41
The quotation is from the parabasis of Frogs, vv. 354–6, 359–61.
42
Cf. e.g. 1. 1. 1 papyrum . . . calami inscriptam; 10. 2. 1 sed ut uos etiam legatis,
ad librum profero; 10. 7. 4 sed quae plane comperi, ad istas litteras proferam. See D. van
Mal-Maeder on 2. 12. 5 historiam magnam et incredundam fabulam (edn. 215–16).
43
On the deliberate association between Lucius and the author Apuleius in the
Metamorphoses (cf. 11. 27. 9 Madaurensem) see R. Th. van der Paardt, ‘The
Unmasked I’; J. L. Penwill, ‘Ambages reciprocae’, 15–16; on various parallels be-
tween Lucius and Apuleius see P. Junghanns, Erzählungstechnik, 14; Harrison,
Apuleius, 10, 217–18 (with references). See below, n. 75.
pay attention to its in my view most important aspect, that of

humour and satire. Lucius, who notably speaks in the Wrst person,
truly appears as the satirical alter ego of Apuleius, who lends traits
and concerns of his own to his hero, but nevertheless makes him
the object of his satire.44
A recent study of Apuleius calls Lucius the ‘sophistic protagon-
ist’ of the Metamorphoses, whose characterization as a well-edu-
cated, ambitious young sophist in the making seems to justify the
deWnition of the Metamorphoses as ‘a sophist’s novel’.45 In my
view, the satirical dimension in Lucius’ characterization, which
we may call ‘sophistic’, can be further explored by comparing him
with certain types of intellectuals attacked by Apuleius’ contem-
porary Gellius. Indeed, Lucius strikingly resembles the declaimer
of the type Philostratus identiWes with the Second Sophistic, as he
emerges as a bilingual show-orator and a professional sophist who
earns money with his rhetoric,46 not unlike some contemporary
rhetoricians that Gellius includes as targets of derision in his
Nights.47 Again, parallels emerge with Apuleius: Vardi (‘Gellius
against the Professors’, 42 n. 5) compares sophista ille IÆı
,
who makes some embarrassing mistakes concerning the dates of
Carneades and Panaetius while publice disserens (17. 21. 1), with the
performance of Lucius’ spiritual father Apuleius, whom he calls ‘a
contemporary sophist’ engaging in similar public declamations,
and making similar mistakes.
Just like the guide to the easy road to rhetoric satirized in
Lucian’s Teacher of Rhetoric, Lucius personiWes an eVeminate,
honey-sweet, and ear-soothing sing-song rhetoric.48 He reveals
himself as a sophisticated performer, stunning his audience with
44
See above, n. 18.
45
See Harrison, Apuleius, 215–16. For scepticism about the links between Apu-
leius and the Greek Second Sophistic see the review of Harrison by S. Swain,
‘Apuleius Sophista’; see also Swain, above, 11–12.
46
For Lucius’ bilingualism cf. Met. 1. 1. 4 linguam Attidem . . . merui . . . mox
Quiritium indigenam sermonem . . . excolui. Lucius more than once demonstrates his
superb command of the sermo Quiritium; a good example is his performance as a
brilliant orator at his mock-trial in 3. 1–12. At the novel’s end, Lucius’ successful
rhetorical activities in Rome even become his source of income (11. 28. 6 quaesticulo
forensi nutrito per patrocinia sermonis Romani; 11. 30. 2 stipendiis forensibus bellule
fotum).
47
Cf. Gell. 17. 5. 3 rhetoricus quidam sophista, utriusque linguae callens, haut sane
ignobilis ex istis acutulis et minutis doctoribus qui ØŒ
appellantur; 17. 21. 1.
48
1. 1. 1 aures . . . tuas beniuolas lepido susurro permulceam; 1. 1. 3 Hymettos
Attica; 1. 1. 6 ipsa uocis immutatio; see W. H. Keulen, comm. 16–19 (‘1.2.2 EVemi-
nate style and ‘‘singing’’ performance’). For the Roman ambivalence towards aures
permulcere, cf. Titus Castricius’ warning, quoted by Gellius, that the ear-pleasing
236 Wytse Keulen
an unrestrained use of archaisms and neologisms, and becoming

the embodiment of those qualities that contemporary satire
mocked in sophists.49
3.1. Miracula Graecanica: Lucius, Apion, and Pliny the Elder

3.1.1. Polymathy
In the prologue and in other metanarrative statements, Lucius
poses as an eloquent entertainer in performance, who seduces his
audience with his enchanting voice.50 At the same time, he mani-
fests himself as the polymathic writer of a work of Wction of Greek
origin, containing a variety of stories designed to startle and enter-
tain the audience (1. 1. 2 ut mireris):
At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio uarias fabulas conseram auresque tuas
beniuolas lepido susurro permulceam, modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argu-
tia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreueris inspicere. (1. 1. 1.)
Come, let me join various tales for you in this Milesian conversation, and
let me beguile your ears into approval with a charming whispering, at least
if you will not disdain to take a look at Egyptian pages written with the
cleverness of a Nilotic pen.
Fabulam Graecanicam incipimus. Lector intende: laetaberis. (1. 1. 6.)
We begin a Grecian story. Reader, pay attention: you will be delighted.
The symposium-like context of storytelling and conversation
(sermo) evoked by the prologue is connected with allusions to
miscellaneous learning and Egyptian lore.51 Lucius’ behaviour as
sound of a well-modulated phrase has the danger of confounding our judgement of

the sense of the speech (11. 13). For the satire on sophistic bel-canto rhetoric (see
Gleason, Making Men, 121–30), cf. Lucian, Rhet. praec. 11–17, possibly reXecting a
more general tendency of this period (cf. e.g. Hadrian of Tyre, Philostr. VS 589),
which is illustrated by Lucius.
49
Archaisms: cf. e.g. Met. 1. 1. 5 prosapia; 1. 6. 5 aerumnae; 1. 16. 2 exanclasti; see
M. Bernhard, Stil, 130–5; Harrison, Apuleius, 17 n. 68 with further references.
Neologisms: cf. e.g. 1. 10. 2 coronalibus; 1. 12. 1 (with an archaic ring) naturalitus;
Bernhard, Stil, 138–43. For the contemporary satire on over-enthusiastic users of
archaic language cf. e.g. Lucian, Lex. 17, 20; Demonax 26; Gell. 1. 10, 11. 7.
50
Cf. also 9. 14. 1 fabulam denique bonam, prae ceteris suaue comptam, ad auris
uestras adferre decreui. In my view, we may safely identify the speaking voice in the
Prologue with the narrator Lucius, as many scholars nowadays do. For a collection
of essays dealing with this much-debated question and other issues related to the
Apuleian Prologue, see A. Kahane and A. Laird (eds.), Companion to the Prologue.
51
Notably, the sermo referred to in the Apuleian prologue is a sermo Milesius:
according to some scholars, this phrase alludes to the narrative framework of
Aristides’ ØºØÆŒ
d ºª
Ø as a miscellaneous collection of short stories narrated
a character in the story often seems to look forward to the collector

of miscellaneous stories evoked by the narrating voice of the pro-
logue, as he appears to be a sophisticated and highly curious young
man, whose travelling around seems closely connected with his
taste for the unusual and the spectacular.52 This inclination of
Lucius is aptly illustrated with the passage in which he compares
himself to Odysseus, and observes that his adventurous life as an
ass has made him multiscius:
nam et ipse gratas gratias asino meo memini, quod me suo celatum teg-
mine uariisque fortunis exercitatum, etsi minus prudentem, multiscium
reddidit.53 (Met. 9. 13. 5.)
The keyword for Lucius’ sophistic characterization is multiscius,
which is explicitly distinguished from prudens in this passage. The
portrayal contains an inversion of a Greek dictum known from
Heracleitus,
ºıÆŁ

P ØŒØ (DK 22 B 40, quoted by
Gell. pr. 12; cf. Aeschylus fr. 390 Radt, › æØ N,
P › ºº
Ng
). The adjective multiscius is almost exclusively
Apuleian.54 Apuleius never uses it of himself. However, he signi-
Wcantly uses two of Wve instances in descriptions of Greek sophists
from the Wfth century bc with whom he is keen to compare
himself.55 Moreover, their shared interest in miscellaneous learn-
ing forms one of the many signiWcant links between Lucius and
Apuleius. Apuleius not only manifests himself as a polymath
throughout his Florida and Apology, but is also known to have
written other works of a miscellaneous nature.56
during sympotic conversations; see H. Lucas, ‘Zu den Milesiaca’, 24; B. E. Perry,
The Ancient Romances, 95; T. Hägg, The Novel, 188; for a diVerent view see
Harrison, ‘The Milesian Tales’, 65. For Gellius’ and Apuleius’ shared interest in
the literary form of the erudite symposium, see above, §1.2, and nn. 12, 56. For the
connection between polymathy and a sympotic context cf. e.g. Gell. 2. 22. 25–6.
52
Cf. 1. 2. 6 sititor alioquin nouitatis . . . non quidem curiosum; 2. 6. 5 ex uoto
diutino poteris fabulis miris explere pectus with van Mal-Maeder ad loc. (edn. 134–5).
53
For an extensive discussion of this passage and its literary sources see
E. J. Kenney, ‘In the Mill with Slaves’, 167–70.
54
See B. L. Hijmans et al., edn. of book 9, p. 132.
55
Cf. Flor. 9. 24 (on Hippias) Quis autem non laudauit hominem tam numerosa arte
multiscium, totiugi scientia magniWcum, tot utensilium peritia daedalum?; 18. 19 Pro-
tagora, qui sophista fuit longe multiscius et cum primis rhetoricae repertoribus perfa-
cundus. The other two instances are used of Apollo (Flor. 3. 9 coma intonsus et genis
gratus et corpore glabellus et arte multiscius) and of Homer (Apol. 31. 5 Homerum,
poetam multiscium uel potius cunctarum rerum adprime peritum). Cf. Gell. 5. 10. 3
Protagoram, sophistarum acerrimum.
56
For Florida as a title of a miscellany see Vardi, ‘Why Attic Nights?’, 299 n. 7.
A lost specimen of the genre of miscellany is Apuleius’ Quaestiones conuiuales;
238 Wytse Keulen
Lucius’ characterization as a writer of a miscellaneous book full

of marvels, who has learnt many things but not acquired much
wisdom, comes very close to Gellius’ portrayals of the polymathic
writers Apion and Pliny the Elder. Although Gellius quotes and
uses both authors as sources of information, he makes it more or
less clear that he considers them as sophistic producers of marvels,
who merely wish to impress their audience with their miscellan-
eous collections of trivia.57 The most striking parallels can be
drawn between Lucius and Apion, whom Gellius quotes as the
author of an Aegyptiaca, ‘Wonders of Egypt’ (5. 14. 4, 6. 8. 4), a
title revealing a similar interest in incredible stories, symbolized by
the geographical reference to Egypt, to that in the programmatic
statement of the Apuleian Prologue, 1. 1. 1 papyrum Aegyptiam
argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam.58 Gellius’ reference to Apion’s
miscellaneous learning seems to insinuate that his erudition was
multa, but did not amount to multum, and should probably not be
taken as a compliment:
Apion, qui ‘Plistonices’ appellatus est, litteris homo multis praeditus
rerumque Graecarum plurima atque uaria scientia fuit. (5. 14. 1.)
The nearest that Gellius comes to this elsewhere in the Nights is in
his comment on Pliny the Elder, who, just like Lucius, combines
extensive and miscellaneous learning with the aim of pleasing the
ears of the audience:
In his libris (sc. Studiosorum) multa uarie ad oblectandas eruditorum
hominum aures ponit. (9. 16. 3.)
Notably, in 9. 4. 13 (quoted below), Gellius explicitly puts Pliny’s
writings on a par with a collection of Greek wonder-tales, which he
found in a number of shabby, remaindered books at Brundisium
(§3): Erant autem isti omnes libri Graeci miraculorum fabularumque
pleni, res inauditae, incredulae. One of these books could have
been a text like Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, or even the Greek
Harrison, Apuleius, 30–1. For the contemporary popularity of the genre of miscel-
lany see also A. D. Vardi, above, Ch. 6.
57
For Apion as a boastful sophist who sought employment through self-
advertisementcf. Gell. 5. 14. 3 fortassean uitio studioque ostentationis sit loquacior—
est enim sane quam in praedicandis doctrinis sui uenditator; see Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius, 61 [50]. Apion called himself —ºØ
Œ, ‘Supreme Champion’
(Gell. 5. 14. 1); Tiberius called him, as Pliny reports (NH pr. 25), cymbalum
mundi. For Gellius’ critical views on Apion and Pliny, see Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, 41, 157, 165–6 [30–1, 115, 121–2]. Another swollen-headed sophist was
Varus (Philostr. VS 540).
58
See Keulen, comm. 65–6.
Æ
æØ.59 Against this background, Lucius, Apion, and
Pliny the Elder appear as fellow writers of a less respectable
genre, that of Unterhaltungsliteratur.60 From the perspective of a
Gellius, Lucius is a clearly negative representative of a genre such
as pursued by Apion and Pliny, and exempliWed by the collections
of trivia and marvels—especially the Greek ones—from which
Gellius is at pains to distinguish his own miscellany.61 According
to Gellius’ programmatic statement, his own work does not aim at
a quantity of learning, but is conWned to ‘useful knowledge’:
Ego uero, cum illud Heracliti Ephesii uiri summe nobilis uerbum cordi
haberem, quod profecto ita est
ºıÆŁ

P ØŒØ;62 ipse quidem
uoluendis transeundisque multis admodum uoluminibus . . . , exercitus
defessusque sum, sed modica ex his eaque sola accepi, quae . . . (pr. 12.)
3.1.2. Autopsy and Fiction

Another shared feature revealing the close aYnity between Lucius
and Gellius’ portrayals of Apion and Pliny is their use of autopsy to
back up their incredible stories. The ancients considered an eye-
witness account more credible than hearsay;63 the topic was of
interest to both Gellius (5. 14. 4, 6. 8. 4, 9. 4. 13) and Apuleius
(Flor. 2. 3; Met. 1. 4. 2). However, such conWrmations of autopsy
had become commonplace in paradoxography, and could therefore
be interpreted as a marker of Wction. In Gellius’ and Apuleius’
time, resorting to autopsy had become a topic of satire: in the
59
The Greek Æ
æØ are preserved only in a summary by Photius (Bibl.
cod. 129), who attributes them to Loukios of Patrai, the protagonist of the novel.
Scholars now generally agree this work to be the common source of both the extant
Greek epitome (the ˇ
transmitted amongst Lucian’s works) and Apuleius’
Metamorphoses. See Harrison, Apuleius, 218; Keulen, ‘Comic Invention’, 131 n. 50.
60
See F.-F. Lühr, ‘Res inauditae, incredulae’; G. Schepens and K. Delcroix
‘Ancient Paradoxography’ (on Gellius, 410–25).
61
For Gellius’ criticism of contemporary miscellanies in his programmatic pref-
ace see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 27–8 [20–1]; cf. pr. 5 (implicit criticism of
heterogeneous nature of works as betrayed by their titles, amongst them Pliny’s
Naturalis Historia) Nam quia uariam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctrinam
conquisiuerant, eo titulos quoque ad eam sententiam exquisitissimos indiderunt; §11
(criticism of writers of miscellany, especially the Greeks) Namque illi omnes et
eorum maxime Graeci multa et uaria lectitantes, in quas res cumque inciderant, ‘alba’
ut dicitur ‘linea’ sine cura discriminis solam copiam sectati conuerrebant, quibus in
legendis ante animus senio ac taedio languebit, quam unum alterumue reppererit, quod
sit aut uoluptati legere aut cultui legisse aut usui meminisse. Contrast, however, the
positive view of miscellany in 13. 9. 2–3.
62
For the omission of Heracliti before Ephesii in V see Holford-Strevens, Aulus
Gellius, 36 n. 51 [27 n. 47]. For Heracleitus’ dictum see above, 237.
63
See Russell’s notes on Dio Chrys. Or. 7. 1 and 12. 71 (with references);
Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 166 [122].
240 Wytse Keulen
prologue to True History (1. 3), Lucian mocks Ctesias of Cnidos’

use of the autopsy topos,64 and emphasizes that he himself did not
see the true facts that he is going to recount (VH 1. 4). Explicit
references to eyewitness accounts, then, may function to unmask
the inventor of untrue stories. In view of Gellius’ portrayals of
Apion and Pliny as miracle-mongers, his emphasis on the fact that
they claim to be eyewitnesses of the miraculous things they recount
should probably be interpreted ironically:
hoc autem, quod in libro Aegyptiacorum quinto scripsit, neque audisse
neque legisse, sed ipsum sese in urbe Roma uidisse oculis suis conWrmat.65
(5. 14. 4.)
Libitum tamen est in loco hoc miraculorum notare id etiam, quod Plinius
Secundus, uir in temporibus aetatis suae ingenii dignitatisque gratia auc-
toritate magna praeditus, non audisse neque legisse, sed scire sese atque
uidisse in libro naturalis historiae septimo scripsit. (9. 4. 13.)
In a similar way, Lucius is exposed as a cheap miracle-monger,
when he backs up his programmatic anecdote of an amazing per-
formance by a sword-swallower by assuring emphatically that he
himself witnessed this miraculous spectacle with his own eyes in
Athens at the Stoa Poikile.66
Et tamen Athenis proxime et ante Poecilen porticum isto gemino obtutu
circulatorem aspexi equestrem spatham praeacutam mucrone infesto
deuorasse . . . (Met. 1. 4. 2.)
On the level of the story, Lucius’ obvious intention with this anec-
dote is to prove to the sceptic interlocutor that the impossible
is possible. However, on a diVerent level, his recourse to the eye-
witness account invites the reader to unmask Lucius’ untrust-
worthy persona, and to take a sceptical position towards his
authenticating and autobiographical stance, both in his anecdote
and in the narrative as a whole.
64
See P. von MöllendorV, Auf der Suche, 53–4 n. 62.
65
Gell. 6. 8. 4 Verba subscripsi `ø
, eruditi uiri, ex Aegyptiacorum libro
quinto, quibus delphini amantis et pueri non abhorrentis consuetudines, lusus, gesta-
tiones, aurigationes refert eaque omnia sese ipsum multosque alios uidisse dicit: `Pe
Æs r
. . .
66
For the programmatic meaning of this episode and the signiWcant use of
juggling imagery (circulator, praestrigiator) as a metaliterary reference to ‘sophistic’
rhetoric, see Keulen, ‘Swordplay—Wordplay’, 167–8. Gellius frequently uses such
metaphors to expose the ‘sophistic’ qualities of intellectuals and their writings,
notably Pliny (10. 12. 6 His portentis atque praestrigiis a Plinio Secundo scriptis non
dignum esse cognomen Democriti puto); cf. also the grammaticus praestigiosus (8. 10.
cap.); 7. 15. 2 homo in doctrinis quasi in praestigiis miriWcus; 13. 24. 2 Graecae istorum
praestigiae (cited fully above, n. 31).
3.2. Lucius, Apuleius, and Gellius: Three of a Kind?

In Lucius’ characterization, then, we Wnd an accumulation of
elements that Gellius would attribute to intellectuals he is anxious
to distinguish himself from: he is a Greek collector of Egyptian
marvels, an ambitious polymath, and an ear-pleasing word-jug-
gler. At the same time, Gellius’ pains to distinguish his work from
the sort of trivia he found in Brundisium (9. 4), or in Pliny’s or
Apion’s work, or in a friend’s rival miscellany (14. 6),67 reveal a
certain ironic consciousness of his own position as a miscellanist.
The fact that he explicitly professes to have abjured polymathy,
and claims for his Nights a status or utility superior to that of his
competitors, indicates that he anticipated the charge of being an
Apion or a Pliny himself. There is a fundamental paradox in the
way Gellius distinguishes himself from the polymaths to whom
he owes a great deal for his own work. It cannot be denied
that he follows them in his choice of genre, and that his predeces-
sors provided him with a considerable amount of information.68
With his Attic Nights, he too provides us with a literary
source of marvels, and this made him vulnerable to contemporary
criticism.69
We could perhaps explain this paradox in terms of competition
for literary immortality. No doubt, Gellius’ ambition was not to
be ranked with an Apion, a Seneca, or a Pliny, whom he credited
merely with a temporary fame and a reputation of a transitory
nature. With his Attic Nights, Gellius may have aspired to be-
come more than just ‘the most learned man of his age’ (cf.
the malicious tone directed at Pliny in 9. 4. 13 in temporibus
aetatis suae). He probably preferred to be ranked with a Cato, a
Varro, or a Cicero, who were authorities in their own right, and
had acquired an undisputed position in the curriculum of Roman
education.
67
14. 6. 1 Homo nobis familiaris . . . dat mihi librum grandi uolumine doctrinae
omnigenus, ut ipse dicebat, praescatentem, quem sibi elaboratum esse ait ex multis et
uariis et remotis lectionibus, ut ex eo sumerem, quantum liberet rerum memoria
dignarum. The homo familiaris is often identiWed with Favorinus; on this issue see
Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 116–18 [82–3]; Beall, ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’,
101–2, who concludes: ‘the coincidence is too obvious to be dismissed entirely;
second-century readers would reasonably have counted Favorinus among Gellius’
negative precedents.’
68
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 40–1 [30–1].
69
See Beall, ‘Aulus Gellius 17.8’, 60; id., ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 89–90: ‘By the
late second century, to write a miscellany was a risky business. It had become a well-
worn genre, to judge from the variety of titles cited by Gellius himself (praef. 5–9).’
242 Wytse Keulen
In spite of such legitimate motivations, Gellius may well have

been aware of the aforementioned paradox in his work.70 It was a
paradox he shared with other intellectuals of the age, notably
Apuleius. As we have observed above, both Gellius and Apuleius
reveal the paradox of satirizing certain intellectual inclinations in
other (Wctional) characters featuring in their works, which never-
theless turn out to resemble their own tendencies. The most telling
example of this paradox is Lucius versus Apuleius. Lucius is the
mirror of second-century satire on the intellectual: he combines
the ambitious bilingual rhetorician, the arrogant philosopher, the
polymathic sophist, and the enthusiastic archaist satirized by,
among others, Gellius and Lucian. In Lucius, unavoidably, Apu-
leius not only satirizes the intellectual world he grew up in, but also
satirizes himself as a typical exponent of this world. Another
typical exponent was Gellius. If we compare Lucius with some
Wgures created by Gellius, we Wnd that the kind of satire embodied
by Apuleius’ alter ego works for Gellius as well. Gellius also shared
a sense of humour and a taste for satire with his contemporary
Roman Apuleius, a kind of self-irony that seems to have belonged
to the intellectual culture of their age.71 Two instances from the
Nights may illustrate this.
In a passage discussed earlier, the grammarian Domitius Insa-
nus severely criticizes the philosopher Favorinus for his word-
hunting (18. 7. 3), and even cites the venerable Cato to back up
his diatribe:
‘Nulla . . . prorsus bonae salutis spes reliqua est, cum uos quoque, philo-
sophorum inlustrissimi, nihil iam aliud quam uerba auctoritatesque uer-
borum cordi habetis. ( . . . ) Ego enim grammaticus uitae iam atque
morum disciplinas quaero, uos philosophi mera estis, ut M. Cato ait,
‘‘mortualia’’; glosaria namque conligitis et lexidia, res taetras et inanes et
friuolas, tamquam mulierum uoces praeWcarum.’
Although Gellius probably did not openly share this criticism,

directed at the man who embodies the intellectual values of his
Attic Nights, he was presumably aware of the fact that some scenes
70
For a diVerent view on the amount of self-awareness we may expect of Romans
see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 41 [31].
71
I am strongly indebted here to the views put forward by Beall, ‘Homo fandi
dulcissimus’, 102. See also Gleason, Making Men, 151 on Favorinus’ fundamental
irony and self-consciousness about the various roles he played while performing as
an intellectual.
in his work asked for such criticism. A second-century reader may

also have agreed with Domitius, for as Beall well observes, ‘it
strikes us as odd that Gellius should invoke the authority of a
philosopher when dealing with a question obviously pertaining to
grammar’ (cf. Gell. 2. 26, 3. 19).72 Gellius not only recognized this
paradox, but also exploited it to create the ironical role-reversal in
18. 7, featuring the comic Wgure of Domitius Insanus as the
mouthpiece of the sharp criticism that Gellius himself anticipated
or actually encountered in the lively contemporary intellectual
discussions.
In another scene from the Nights, Gellius even features himself
as a character who forms the target of intellectual attack. In one of
his anecdotes about his student life, during a lecture on Plato’s
Symposium, his master of philosophy Taurus exposes the young
Gellius as a kind of sophist, calling him a rhetoriscus (‘young
rhetorician’) in class (17. 20. 4):
Haec uerba ubi lecta sunt, atque ibi Taurus mihi: ‘heus’ inquit ‘tu,
rhetorisce’,—sic enim me in principio recens in diatribam acceptum
appellitabat existimans eloquentiae unius extundendae gratia Athenas
uenisse— . . . 73
With this anecdote, Gellius this time gives himself the unexpected
role of the young charlatan exposed by the professional, not
unlike the arrogant Stoic exposed by Herodes Atticus in 1. 2.74
Taurus’ remarks, like Domitius’ tirade, should not be completely
identiWed with Gellius’ own judgements about himself. Neverthe-
less, these vivid vignettes show that Gellius not only appreciated
the negative light in which his own literary activities could
be viewed, but even used such views for his own purposes of
literary play. Just as Apuleius represents his satirical alter ego
Lucius as a young ear-pleasing sophist, who became the writer
of his autobiography, Gellius represents his younger self as a
rhetoriscus, who seems only interested in rhetoric and language
72
Beall, ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 89.
73
Cf. 1. 9. 10–11 ‘Est etiam . . . pro Iuppiter! qui Platonem legere postulet non
uitae ornandae, sed linguae orationisque comendae gratia, nec ut modestior Wat, sed ut
lepidior.’ Haec Taurus dicere solitus, nouicios philosophorum sectatores cum ueteribus
Pythagoricis pensitans.
74
See above, n. 39.
244 Wytse Keulen
and not in true philosophy.75 For this young sophist Gellius,

enticing the ear with well-modulated phrases is more important
than penetrating to a philosophical content.76 Satire and irony are
essential to this form of self-presentation,77 and also imply that
there is some truth in Taurus’ characterization of the young Gel-
lius, who later became the mannerist Gellius, the author of the
Attic Nights.78
4. conclusion
Gellius and Apuleius lived in an age marked by a lively intellectual
debate, in which rival intellectuals, both Greek and Roman,
deWned their own superior status by exposing their adversaries as
‘sophists’ as a deprecatory term, in the same vein as ‘impostor’,
‘pseudo-philosopher’, ‘bad linguist’, or ‘shallow expert’. Gellius’
and Apuleius’ literary works seem widely separated by generic
boundaries: the Metamorphoses are not a miscellany, and the
Attic Nights are not a satirical novel. Yet both works are permeated
with similar topics and ideas, and reveal a shared literary and
intellectual pedigree. Following the literary tradition of the So-
cratic dialogue, and paying homage to Plutarch as their shared
intellectual ancestor, both Gellius and Apuleius wrote sympotic
dialogue scenes with the exposure of fraudulent pretensions and
unsound doctrines as an important underlying theme. Their so-
phisticated Roman audience was prepared to look behind the
masks of the literary personae featuring in their works, and to
recognize authorial views and allusions to the contemporary intel-
lectual debate. Neither Apuleius nor Gellius considered or called
himself a sophist: Apuleius proudly calls himself a philosophus
Platonicus; Gellius, being much more modest, manifests himself
as a serious Roman scholar whose literary eVorts rise above the
75
There is a striking similarity between Gell. 17. 20. 4 ‘heus . . . tu, rhetorisce’
and Apul. Met. 2. 10. 2, where Photis mockingly calls Lucius a scholasticus: ‘heus tu,
scolastice’, ait, ‘dulce et amarum gustulum carpis’.
76
Cf. 17. 20. 7 Haec admonitio Tauri de orationis Platonicae modulis non modo non
repressit, sed instrinxit etiam nos ad elegantiam Graecae orationis uerbis Latinis adfe-
utandam. See too Plut. De aud. 9 (Mor. 42 e).
77
See Beall, ‘Homo fandi dulcissimus’, 104, who mentions the important role of
sophistic role-playing, which Gellius may have learned from his teacher Favorinus,
and who also points to the programmatic aim of literary entertainment of the Nights:
delectatio in otio atque in ludo liberalior (pr. 16).
78
For Gellius as a representative of the 2nd-c. stylistic tendency of mannerism
see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 48–64 [35–46] (‘Language and Style’).
miscellaneous works of rival polymaths. Yet both Roman authors

share a taste for satire and paradoxical self-irony, which serves
their aim of literary entertainment. Both Apuleius in his Meta-
morphoses, and, in a much less extreme and more indirect way,
Gellius in his Attic Nights, stage literary personae whom their
readers are sometimes invited to expose as inventive polymaths,
over-enthusiastic archaists, arrogant sophists, or second-rate
word-collectors. At the same time, these personae embody charac-
teristics that rival intellectuals could very well use against Gellius
and Apuleius themselves, since these characteristics form topics of
a Werce contemporary intellectual debate, from which neither Gel-
lius nor Apuleius could have been excluded. Both Gellius and
Apuleius, then, gave new literary shapes to the traditional theme
of ‘satire on the intellectual’, shapes that both reXect the lively
intellectual world of Antonine Rome and reveal undeniable con-
nections with the contemporary Greek Second Sophistic.79
79
Lucius’ Greek identity is essential also in this respect (cf. Harrison, Apuleius,
216); for the links between Gellius and the Greek Second Sophistic see Vardi,
‘Gellius against the Professors’, 42 n. 5; on 52 n. 68, Vardi observes that the
exposure of the ambitious Stoic in 1. 2 is signiWcantly staged in Attica. See above,
n. 39, and sect. 3, with nn. 45–9.
III
RECEPTION
10
Recht as een Palmen-Bohm and Other Facets
of Gellius’ Medieval and
Humanistic Reception
L eo f r a n c H o l f o r d -St r ev en s
A full reception history of Gellius after the fall of the Western

Empire remains to be written; the pages dedicated to the subject by
Hertz in his great edition (ii, pp. xxii–li), though they pre-date
thorough appreciation of the part played by indirect sources in
medieval authors’ knowledge of the classics, have still been rather
supplemented than replaced. The following remarks are intended
as contributions to that history, in particular to the enhancement of
Gellius’ standing as an auctor.
1. the wood of the palm-tree

Ancient authors were not always received whole, or even in large
part; to take a notorious example, Bede did not know Macrobius’
Saturnalia, beyond the abridgement of 1. 12–15 called the Dispu-
tatio Cori [sic] et Praetextati. As a miscellanist Gellius lent himself
more than most to excerpting; a striking case is aVorded by an
individual chapter that is found transmitted in the most unex-
pected company.
In NA 3. 6 Gellius, following Aristotle and Plutarch, declares
that the reason for awarding wreaths of palm to athletic victors was
palm-wood’s resistance to pressure; since on the one hand this
crown had long been transferred from the agon of sporting contests
to the agonia of martyrdom, on the other the palm was the type of
the Xourishing righteous and had been strewn before Christ on his
entry into Jerusalem, this chapter proved so congenial to church-
men that it was suVered to accompany excepts from Doctors of the
Church on the characteristics of the tree. For the sake of moral
paraenesis, which occupies a greater place in the practice of
250 Leofranc Holford-Strevens
religious as of philosophical teaching than systematic and original

thought,1 Gellius was thus made to serve a faith he had not deigned
to notice.
1.1. The Direct Tradition

Gellius, Noctes Atticae 3. 6
1. Per hercle rem mirandam Aristoteles in septimo problematorum et
Plutarchus in octauo symposiacorum dicit.2 2. ‘Si super palmae’ inquiunt
‘arboris lignum magna pondera inponas, ac tam grauiter urgeas oneresque,
ut magnitudo oneris sustineri non queat, non deorsum palma cedit, nec
intra Xectitur, sed aduersus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recuruatur-
que.’ 3. ‘Propterea’ inquit Plutarchus ‘in certaminibus palmam signum
esse placuit uictoriae, quoniam ingenium ligni eiusmodi est, ut urgentibus
opprimentibusque non cedat.’
Codicum in orthographia errores consulto omisi Per om. R spatio
relicto rem mirandam CP: remirandam VR ac: at Rac tam
Flor. Val-Gell., recc.: tamen VCPR oneris: arboris oneris R
intra VCPR: in terra Flor. Val.-Gell. (in terram S)
Such is the text preserved by the twelfth-and thirteenth-century
manuscripts of the direct tradition, VCPR, and the Valerio-
Gellian Xorilegium, compiled in the eleventh century; the latter
in §2 preserves tam for the tamen of the former but changes intra
(‘inwards’, into a concave proWle) to in terra, which in turn was
syntactically adjusted in the oldest manuscript (S ¼ Cambridge,
Trinity College R 16. 34, c.1100) to in terram.
1.2. The Florilegium Vetus

However, there are two older witnesses to this chapter, Trier,
Stadtbibliothek 2500 (olim Sammlung Ludwig XII. 3), c.840, fo.
73v , hereafter Tre(virensis),3 which may have originated at Reims,
1
Cf. T. Morgan, above, Ch. 7; S. M. Beall, above, Ch. 8.
2
Arist. fr. 229 Rose ¼ 733 Gigon; Plut. Quaest. conu. 8. 4. 5 (724 e–f) Ø Ø
b
Ææa ÆFÆ Æ ŒÆd d ıŒe "æfiø e ºº
ºªŁÆØ
ØŒ
ªaæ º
i
Æ øŁ KØŁd æ Øfi,
P Œø ŁºØ
K øØ , Iººa Œıæ
FÆØ æe
P Æ

uæ I ŁØ
H† ØÆ
fiø
F
c ŒÆd æd
f IŁºØŒ
f IªH KØ
f
b ªaæ ! IŁ Æ ŒÆd ÆºÆŒÆ Ø Œ
Æ ÆP
E Ø
ıØ Œ
,
ƒ Kææø ø
!

c ÆŒØ
P

E ÆØ Iººa ŒÆd
E æ
ÆØ KÆæ
ÆØ ŒÆd
Æh
ÆØ (Aristotle is not mentioned).
3
A. Borst, Reichskalender, i. 143–6 (MS c 2), cf. A. von Euw and J. Plotzek,
Handschriften der Sammlung Ludwig, iii. 145–53; C. de Hamel and R. Nolden, ‘Die
Recht as een Palmen-Bohm 251
but at any rate by 876 was at Laon,4 and Valenciennes, Bibliothè-

que municipale 174, c.890, fo. 41r , hereafter Val(entianensis), from
Saint-Amand (in Hucbald’s hand?).5 In Tre, the chapter is
followed by three texts on the palm-tree:
Est etiam . . . rursus attollit (Ambrose, Exameron 3. 13. 55. CSEL 32.
97–8)
Nec immerito . . succrescit (Gregory, Moralia in Hiob 19. 27. 49, CSEL
143A. 995), together with a few lines adapted from 19. 27. 48 (CSEL 143A.
994–5)
Palma dicta . . . conWteantur agnoscant (Isidore, Etym. 17. 7. 1 þ 6. 18.
13–15),6 plus the words s{c}anctumque Ineo .cXrisma conWteantur and some
extracts from the Liber glossarum.
Val has only Gellius, one sentence from Ambrose, no Gregory, and
Isidore down to 6. 18. 14 infantum [sic etiam Tre] qui at the end of
the page; fo. 41v contains an extract from Jordanes’ Historia
Romana 85 (p. 9. 30–p. 10. 2 Mommsen).
It is evident that both draw on an early Xorilegium on the palm-
tree that I shall call F(lorilegium)V(etus). Collation of the Gellian
text against that of the modern editors shows that FV gave the
reference as A. GELLIVS NOCTIV ATTICARV LIBRO IIII
ET CAP VI’, to which was attached the book-number of
Plutarch, omitted in the text; it summarized the content as res
neuerworbene Beda-Handschrift’. I am grateful to Elizabeth Teviotdale for this last

reference, and for help in tracing the MS (no. 121 in Bede, De temporum ratione, ed.
C. W. Jones, 160).
4
Where c.870 Martin the Irishman appended to Bede, DTR 5, in Berlin, SBB,
MS Lat. 130 ¼ Phillipps 1832 (no. 18 Jones, p. 149) an extract from Gell. 3. 2. 1–6,
the book being misnumbered libro IIIIo as in the extracts considered below; see
P.Gautier Dalché, ‘Deux lectures’, 127–30, who postulates as source a commentary
by Eriugena. To Laon or its environs, as internal references show, belongs the letter
written by one A. to Master E. in the 870s (MGH ep. 6. 186. 3–4, from Leiden UB,
MS Voss. O 88, fo. 24r ) et Terentium mittite aut Agellium noctium atticarum aut
Philonis Iudei historiam. Another Carolingian scholar, Dunchad of Reims, quotes
Agellius in septimo commentario Noctium Atticarium, capitulo xxiiii (NA 6. 14. 10,
1–2) on Mart. Cap. 4. 327, v. 12 ¼ p. 151. 10 Dick (pp. 15–16 Lutz); but the note on
4. 331 ¼ p. 153. 14 (p. 18 Lutz) need not be Gellian. NA 3. 1. 6 is exploited in the
Ps.-Byrhtferth gloss on Bede, DTR 8 (PL 90. 326–7; Auxerre, c.900).
5
See Borst, Reichskalender, i. 153–4 (MS c 8); cf. Catalogue geńe´ral des manuscrits
des bibliothe`ques publiques de France: De´partements, xxv (Paris, 1894), 263–4; Jones
157 (no. 87).
6
At 17. 7. 1 for quia manus uictricis ornatus, nascatur, nucales FV has qua manus
uictrix ornata, nascitur, mucales (this with the direct tradition); at 6. 18. 13–14 for
dies palmarum, hunc it has palmarum dies, eum (this with T) and omits in eo. After Val
drops out, for accederent, §15 hoc, competentibus Tre has accesserint, hac, plebi ‘ bus· .
admiranda de ligno palmae, and spelt per ercle, aristotiles, and

urgueas.7 However, it retained tam, and also the adverb intra.
1.3. The Florilegium

At §2 in terram, read by S, also stood in the Xorilegium perhaps
created by William of Malmesbury (d. 1143?)8 and certainly
exploited by him in his Polyhistor and also by John of Salisbury
(c.1115–80); in addition, its contents are divided between two
twelfth-century manuscripts both now in the Bodleian Library,
Oxford, namely Rawlinson G 139, coventionally called K,9 and
Lat. class. d. 39 ¼ L.10 Our chapter is cited by William (in abbre-
viated form), Polyhistor, p. 66 Ouellette, hereafter Malm(esbu-
riensis), and by John, Policraticus 5. 6 (i. 303 Webb), hereafter
Saris(beriensis); it also appears in K fo. 152v . The underlying text
may be reconstructed as follows.
Per herculem rem mirandam Aristotiles in septimo Problematorum et
Plutarcus in octauo Simposiacorum dicunt. ‘si super palme’ inquiunt
‘arboris lignum magna inponas pondera, ac tantum grauiter urgeas oneres,
ut magnitudo oneris sustineri non queat, non deorsum cedit, nec in terram
Xectitur sed aduersus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recuruaturque.
‘Propterea’ inquit Plutarchus ‘in certaminibus palma est signum uictorie,
quoniam ligni ingenium eiusmodi est ut urgentibus opprimentibusque
non cedat.’
Per herculem om. Saris. admirandam Saris. probleumatum
Saris. pultarcus K simposiacorum K: simph Malm.: memo-
rabilium Saris. ac . . . nec] non Malm. in terram] iter K (unde
inter cod. Pupiensis) aduersus pondus resurgit et om. Malm. in-
quit Plutarchus om. Malm. pultarcus inquit K in certaminibus
palmam signum esse placuit uictorie K: in certaminibus palma est signum
uictorie Malm: placuit palmam signum esse uictoriae in certaminibus
Saris. ligni ingenium] lignum Malm. eiusmodi] huiusmodi
Saris.
7
In addition Tre explains in the upper margin the hard words Gellius had not
used: C$—ˇCIˇ˝ .i. c̄uiuium ex quo C$M—ˇC'`˚ˇC .i. c̄uiui(alis)
j —ˇ´¸˙` .i. questio ł propositio unde —ˇ´¸˙`+'jˇ˝ .i. questiuncula,
misspells symphosiacorū, adds a sidenote Cur placuerit palmam signum esse uictorie˛,
and in Isidore has insigne˛ 17. 7. 1 where Val has rightly insigne.
8
See R. M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, 189–98.
9
The extracts from K, together with its text of Cicero, De oYciis, were copied
into MS Poppi, Bibl. Com. Rilliana 39 (s. xii); see Thomson, William, 195 with
n. 31.
10
Olim London, Sion College, Arc. L. 40. 2/L. 21.
John of Salisbury being a widely read author, his In terram was

brought to light by Christopher Coler, Parergorum liber singularis,
74: ‘Sarisberiensis habet in terram pro intrà. nescio quàm benè.’
This was cited by J. F. Gronovius in his posthumous edition of
1687, who rightly added ‘Et videtur alterum scitius, nam intra est
in sese’; that is to say, as Rolfe renders it, the wood is ‘made
concave’. Nevertheless the Russian translator Afanasij Ivanov
rendered John’s reading (k zemlě),11 which J. H. Onions, ‘Notes
on Gellius’, 78 took for the original text, on the assumption that
int̃rã (misprinted intrā) had lost its tittles en route; he of course did
not know that such a corruption would have had to antedate the
ninth century.
1.4. The Florilegium Nouum

Meanwhile, the texts of FV had been incorporated into a longer
catena, which I call F(lorilegium)N(ouum), represented by
Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale 1926, s. xiimed , fo. 97v , hereafter
Aug(ustobonensis), and Vatican City, BAV Reg. lat. 223, s. xiiex ,
fo. 86v , herafter Reg(inensis); Ambrose comes Wrst, then Gregory
and Isidore, both much abridged, followed by Gellius; next comes
a sentence from elsewhere in Isidore, Splene ridemus. felle irasci-
mur. corde sapimus. iecore amamus. quibus iiii elementis constantibus
integrum est animal (Etym. 11. 1. 127), and after that quotations,
not all faithful, from Bede, In cantica canticorum 3. 4. 11 (CCSL
119B. 262), Solinus 33, p. 149 Mommsen, and Gregory, Homi-
liarum in euangelia libri duo 2. 34. 11, 12 (CCSL 141. 309. 258–70,
312, 336–55). Aug here adds a Carolingian text, Bernard the
Deacon, Capitularium 6. 77, i. 935 Baluze,12 before joining Reg
in citing Augustine, Super Genesim ad litteram 6. 13 (CSEL 28/1.
188. 3–7); various other passages of the same author follow, most
but not all common to both manuscripts, including Augustine, De
baptismo 4. 1. 1 (CSEL 51. 223). An abridgement of this catena
appears in the Excepciones [¼Excerptiones, a common medieval
conXation] Roberti de Braci (hereafter Bra) contained in London,
British Library, MS Royal 8 D viii (written between the founda-
tion of Lanthony Priory in 1136 and the canonization of Edward
the Confessor in 1161) at fo. 119rb , where our chapter follows
excerpts from Cassian’s Collationes and precedes Augustine, De
baptismo 4. 1. 1. The text runs:
11
M. Mignon reads ‘intra’ but translates ‘jusqu’à terre’.
12
Cf. PL 78. 341: ‘Caroli et Ludouici’.
Agellius Lignum palme impositis ponderibus renititur ideoque eam
signum uictorie esse uoluerunt per ercle mirandam rem aristotiles in
septimo problematum et plutarchus in octauo simphoniacorum dicit. Si
super palme˛ inquiunt arboris lignum magna pondera imponas, ac tam
grauiter urgeas oneresque ut magnitudo oneris sustineri non queat non
deorsum palma cadit nec infra Xectitur sed aduersus pondus resurgit et
sursum nititur recuruaturque propterea inquit plutanus in certaminibus
palmam signum placuit esse uictorie˛ quoniam ingenium ligni huiusmodi
est ut urgentibus opprimentibusque non cedat.
eam] eı̄ Aug percle Aug mirandam] iurandam Reg ari-
stotiles] aritotiles Bra problematorum] problematum AugReg:
probleumatum Bra) plutarchus] plutr.a‘ r· chus Bra sinphonia-
corum] sinphoniachorum Bra non queat Bra: nequeat
AugReg queat in rasura Bra plutarchus] ita et in ordine et
contra Bra: plutarcus Aug: plutanus Reg ingenium] ‘ i uirtus· Aug:
uirtus et ingenium Bra
Here too intra has caused trouble, being corrupted into infra. This
latter is also found in MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
II. I. 72 (s. xv), and in Erasmus, Adagia 1. 3. 4;13 it was proposed
by Daniel Wilhelm Triller of Merseburg in a letter to Christian
Falster dated 12 June 1722,14 and adopted by Marache from chi-
merical ‘edd.’
1.5. Other Quotations

The chapter does not appear in the Florilegium Gallicum, which
leaps from 2. 29 to 5. 10, nor in the Florilegium Angelicum, which
draws only on books 9–20; however, it was excerpted independ-
ently of in MS B (no later than 1198) of Radulphus de Diceto’s
Abbreuiationes Chronicorum:15
[mg. Agellius lib. iii cap. quinto] Si super palme arboris lignum magna
pondera imponas ac tam grauiter urgeas oneresque ut magnitudo oneris
sustineri non queat, non deorsum palma cedit nec intra Xectitur sed
aduersus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recuruatur. Propterea inquit
13
Opera omnia, II i. 316, without comment. F. Weiss renders ‘inwendig
(abwärts)’, H. Berthold in his selective translation (194) ‘und sie läßt sich auch
nicht niederbeugen’.
14
Copenhagen, Det kongelige Bibliotek, E don. var. 6, 2o , p. 7, rejecting John of
Salisbury’s in terram: ‘Nil nos mutandum censemus; si quid tamen, putem: nec
infra Xectitur; quod de palma verum.’ Falster himself in his Gellian lexicon ‘Noctes
Ripenses’, MS E don. var. 4, 2o , p. 663, s.v. palma, writes ‘lego, introXectitur’, cf.
‘Specimen’, 141.
15
British Library, Cotton Claudius E iii, fo. 13v ; ed. W. Stubbs, i. 51 n. 3. On
Radulphus’ excerpts see P. K. Marshall et al., ‘Clare College MS. 26’, 373–4.
plutarcus in certaminibus palmam signum esse placuit uictorie quoniam
ingenium ligni eiusmodi est ut urgentibus opprimentibusque non cedat.
tam] sequitur litura duarum litterarum, nimirum en eiusmodi] ejus-
dem perperam Stubbs in editione Radulphi
It was also excerpted in the twelfth-century MS Cambridge, St
John’s College 91 (D 16), otherwise known as MS J of Quintilian,
which at vol. i, fo. 72v , under the heading De palma mirabile ;
habetur Dictum, reproduces (in a later but still twelfth-century
hand) NA 3. 6 with tamen for tam, neris by haplography for oneris,
and interXectitur for intra Xectitur,16 but otherwise correctly as far
as quoniam, then continues signi [sic] eiusmodi etc. before running
without a break into 6. 13. In the Quattrocento 3. 6 is found in the
Gellian epitome Venice, BNM lat. XIV. 216 (4630), fo. 6r ;17 BAV,
Chigi L VII 248, fo. 184v ,18 Vat. lat. 11189, fo. 87va ;19 Pavia,
Biblioteca Universitaria, Aldini 367, fo. 39r .20
16
Also in BL Harley 2768, Naples BN V. B. 6, BAV Urb. lat. 1174 (all s. xv);
note too intus Xectitur Pesaro, Bibl. Oliveriana 37 (with sensim for sursum); irata
Xectitur Munich, BSB Clm. 5359.
17
It begins: Aristotiles in vij problematum rem per hercle mirandam et Plutarchus in
viij symphosiacorum dicit, with the marginal note Nota de uiribus palme, then con-
tinues as in standard texts but with the two variants uictorie placuit and ingenium
eiusmodi lignum [sic].
18
Aulus Gelius in iiij [sic] libro Noctium Atticarum. j [mg propterea inquit] Plu-
tarchus in Certaminibus palmam signum esse placuit uictorie˛ quoniam ingenium eius-
modi lignum [cf. n. 17] est ut urgentibus opprimentibusque non cedat.
19
Rem mirandam Aristoteles viio problematum dicit. Si super palme arboris lignum
magna pondera ı¯ponas et grauiter urgeas honeresque, ut magnitudo honeris sustineri non
queat: non deorsum palma cedit: nec intra Xectitur: sed aduersus pondus resurgit et
sursum nititur recuruaturque. The MS is a commonplace-book bearing the arms of
Cardinal Marco Barbo, a magniWcent collection deserving publication. Besides
numerous quotations from Gellius and other ancient authors, there are more
modern exempla: fo. 35rb---va His [the well-known fable of the bundle of sticks] simile
est illud Caroli malatestae principis prudentissimi qui aliquando posita congerie ligno-
rum in igne sese ac fratres habunde calefaciebat, postea ignem per thalamos cuiusque
diuidens nemo se calefacere poterat, per hoc docens eos una debere conuiuere; 48ra Blasius
Parmensis uir aetate nostra in philosophia et astrologia doctissimus atque acutissimus
cum preuidisset se ab equi pondere periturum, equos omnes uelut uite sue hostes fugiebat,
adeo ut si quo eum ire oporteret iter pedibus conWceret. Verum nec sic infortunium euitari
potuit. Nam apud patriam urbem philosophiam docens cum uisitandi cuiusdam discipuli
sui causa in hospitium quoddam publicum cui equus ligneus insigne esset accessisset,
cumque prae foribus colloqueretur, equus uetustate nimia consumptus cecidit in caput
eius eumque suo pondere ac ruina oppressit. The subject of this tale is Biagio Pelacani,
d. 1416, known as doctor diabolicus (Naples, Bibl. Naz. Vittorio Emanuele III, MS
VIII G. 74 (paper, s. xiv–xv), Xyleaf, cit. P. O. Kristeller, Iter, i. 428.)
20
Ex A. Gellio de ui et natura Palme arboris. Per hercle rem mirandam Aristoteles
in vijo problematum et Plutarchus in viij simphosicorum scribit Si super palmæ inquit
arboris lignum magna pondera imponas ac tam grauiter urgeas oneresque ut magnitudo
1.6. From Wood to Tree

The corruptions in terra(m) and infra, which have each had their
champions in modern times, seem to indicate not only semantic
interference from deorsum, but failure to recognize that the subject
is timber, not the living tree.21 This failure, already implicit in the
construction of FV and FN, becomes explicit in Guibert of Tour-
nai (below, §3.1), and was frequent in the Renaissance; it recurs in
Erasmus’ Parabolae siue similia:
Vt palmae arboris ramus, imposito onere non deXectitur in terram caete-
rarum more, sed renititur et ultro aduersus sarcinae pondus erigit sese, ita
uiri fortis animus quo plus negociis premitur. quoque magis seuit fortuna,
hoc est erectior.22
whence it passed into Alciato’s Emblemata (Pl. 10. 1) and (despite a
false reference to Pliny) Paolo Giovio’s Imprese.23 In consequence,
when we Wnd it in Gysbertus Longolius’ translation of Plutarch,
Natural Questions 32, from a Greek text now lost:
Cur inter omnes arbores sola palma contra impositum onus assurgit?
Vtrum quod ignea et spirabilis facultas, qua maxime pollet, quum tentatur
et irritatur, sese exercens magis et magis erigit? An quoniam pondus ramos
subito urgens, aerem omnem qui in his est, oppressum cedere retro cogat,
qui deinde resumptis paulo uiribus, aduersum onus acrius rursus instat?
An molles et tenerae uirgae impetum non sustinentes, quum onus quiescit,
paulatim se erigunt, et speciem, quasi contra illud assurgant, praebent?24
we may suspect that it is due not to Plutarch, but to the translator’s
love of Ciceronian fullness, which compelled the addition of detail
not present in the original.25
oneris sustineri non queat: non deorsum palma cedit nec intra Xectitur: sed aduersus
pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recuruaturque Propterea inquit Plutarchus in certa-
minibus palmam signum esse placuit uictorie˛ quoniam ingenium huiuscemodi ligni est ut
urgentibus prementibusque non cedat. The readings are mostly those of Bussi’s ed. pr.,
which has Symphosicorum and eiuscemodi (Jenson gives eiusmodi).
21
Timber is speciWed (lignum) as at Plut. Mor. 734 e, cf. Strabo 15. 3. 10; careless
reading might overlook the fact at Xen. Cyrop. 7. 5. 11, Thphr. HP 5. 6. 1, Plin. NH
16. 223.
22
Opera omnia, I v. 302, no. 3295.
23
See V. Woods Callahan, ‘Andrea Alciato’s Palm Tree Emblem’, who considers
the origins, development, and afterlife of this emblem; cf. Paolo Giovio, Dialogo
dell’imprese militari e amorose, ed. M. L. Goglio, 89–90; G. de Tervarent, Attributs
et symboles, cols. 295–7; A. Henkel and A. Schöne, Emblemata, col. 192.
24
Quoted from ‘Plutarchi de causis naturalibus’, in Opuscula, ed. Henricus
Stephanus, iii. 275; cf. F. H. Sandbach in the Loeb Moralia, xi. 214–16.
25
See Sandbach 142 and 214–15 n. 2.
Pl. 10.1. Emblem of the palm-tree, from Omnia Andreae Alciati .V.C.
emblemata (Paris, 1608), 231
Ex. 10.1. Original text and melody of Anke van Tharaw, stt. 6–7, from
Heinrich Albert, Fünffter Theil der Arien (Königsberg, 1642), no. 21
So far, the burden has still been imposed by human hand; but in
the famous seventeenth-century song published by Heinrich
Albert,26 ‘Anke van Tharaw’, stt. 6–7 (see Ex. 10. 1), the agency
becomes Nature herself:
26
H. Albert, FünVter Theil der Arien, no. 21, ‘Aria incerti Autoris’ (¼ com-
poser). Nor is the poet named; the 18th-c. tradition that the words were written by
Simon Dach for the wedding of Johann Portatius and Anna Neander (a pastor’s
daughter from Tharau, now Vladimirovo, whose statue now stands before the
Dramos teatras at Klaipėda), is denied by W. Ziesemer, edn. of Dach, ii. 393–4,
who attributes them to Albert himself, but defended by I. Ljungerud, ‘Ehren-
Rettung’. At pp. 71–6 Ljungerud discusses the palm-tree (a device in the Portatius
arms, p. 49), which was also used as a symbol of sexual desire (cf. Plin. NH. 13.
34–5). The text, written in Samland (Zemland) dialect, is nowadays sung in High
German to a melody by Friedrich Silcher (1789–1860); whereas in J. G. Herder’s
original adaptation v. 11 was rendered word for word ‘Recht als ein Palmenbaum
über sich steigt’, it now begins more idiomatically ‘So wie’, as in the chapter-
heading of Berthold’s translation, 194.
Recht as een Palmen-Bohm äver söck stöcht/
Je mehr en Hagel on Regen anföcht.
So wardt de Löw’ ön onß mächtich on groht/
Dörch Kryhtz/ dörch Lyden/ dörch allerley Noht.
Or in Longfellow’s free translation, ‘Annie of Tharaw’:
As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall,
The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall,—
So love in our hearts shall grow mighty and strong,
Through crosses, through sorrows, through manifold wrong.
2. gellius and pseudo-gellius

Like other ancient authors, Gellius is sometimes cited without
acknowledgement in the Middle Ages and, in the very same text,
credited with matter that he did not write; I return below to an
instance inadequately treated in a previous article.
2.1. The Palm-Tree in a Franciscan Sermon

Some years ago I discussed an echo of NA 3. 6, as refashioned by
John of Salisbury, in an Easter Monday sermon on the text ReXo-
ruit caro mea (Ps. 27: 7 Vulg.) attributed to St Bonaventure
(c.1217–74) and printed in the ninth and least satisfactory volume
of the Quaracchi edition, noting that the true author appeared to be
Guibert of Tournai (c.1200–84),27 and expressing some scepticism
about the integrity of the editors’ text.28 This scepticism did not go
far enough. The text is presented in three parts:
‘Sermo’ (pp. 281–6): an editorial conXation of two sermons for
Easter Sunday (not Monday) on the Resurrection (one of them
itself conXated from two diVerent reportationes), resulting in a very
Wne sermon that unfortunately was never preached;
‘Collatio’ (pp. 286–8): another sermon by Guibert;29
‘Schema’ (pp. 288–9): said to be of a sermon preached by Bona-
venture at Toulouse,30 but matching Guibert’s part in the ‘Sermo’.
27
J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium, i. 607, Bonaventure nos. 215–16; ii. 296, Guibert
no. 179.
28
Holford-Strevens, ‘Gellius among the Friars Minor’.
29
Schneyer, Repertorium, no. 180. The editors Wnd it only in Hi (where it
appears as a collatio) and Au4 (where it is a new sermon, but much abbreviated);
in fact it is present in Tu, but preceding Guibert 179 instead of following. It also
appears after 179 in Au1---3 Va, and independently (so ibid. vi. 276, no. 31) in Turin,
Bib. Univ. I D 10.
30
‘Sermo fratris Bonaventurae in Conventu Tolosae’, from Milan, Bibl.
Ambrosiana A 11 sup., fo. 117r---v ¼ Fidelis a Fanna, Ratio novae collectionis, 113
I have now examined the passage that concerns us in eight

manuscripts,31 including the four (indicated by asterisks) from
which the Quaracchi editors, or Claraquenses, concocted the text
of the ‘Sermo’:
Au(gustobonensis)1 ¼ Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale 775,
s. xiii–xiv, fos. 74ra ---75vb ;
s. xiii, fos. 256ra ---258rb ;
s. xiii, fos. 133va ---136va ;

s. xiv, fos. 109vb ---111vb ;32
Tu(ders) ¼ Todi, Biblioteca comunale L. Leonj 140, s. xiv, fos.
320v ---325r ;33
Va(ticanus) ¼ Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 11444,
s. xiv, fos. 107va ---110vb .
These manuscripts, of which Au1 and Au3 expressly ascribe their
contents to Gilbert, carry essentially the same text (recension A).
All four Augustobonenses come from Clairvaux.
Hi(lariensis) ¼ Wilhering, Stiftsbibliothek IX 36, s. xiv, fos.
99v ---101v ;34 the same sermon, but in a diVerent reportatio (recen-
sion B).35
(under ‘Dominica Resurrectionis’), no. 220, also found without the heading in Paris,
BNF lat. 14595, fos. 42r ---43r ; both s. xiv.
31
Schneyer, Repertorium, ix. 324, no. 42 also cites Prague, Státnı́ knihovna České
republiky I. G. 10 (s. xiv–xv) ¼ J. Truhlář, Catalogus, i. 120–1, no. 284. Enquiries
after this MS made before and after the Xood of August 2002 have not been answered.
32
Catalogue geńe´ral des manuscrits des bibliothe`ques publiques des de´partements, ii
(Paris, 1855), 320, 342, 744, 885–6, citing a ghostly Parisian edn. of 1518 in conse-
quence of two errors: the Bodleian catalogue of 1684, i. 290, misdated 8o T 34 Th,
Guibert’s reprinted Sermones ad omnes status (Paris, 1513), to ‘1518’; the Histoire
litte´raire de la France, xix (Paris, 1838), 139, mistook them for the Sermones de
dominicis et festis in these MSS. Cf. J. G. Bougerol, Les Manuscrits franciscains, 54,
82, 229, 298, nos. 775bk, 823bo, 1778bm, 2052ap.
33
L. Leònij, Inventario, 50, no. 140, ‘Miscellanea . . . Il codice era del convento
di Todi, e di frate Andrea di Todi, che lo ebbe da frate Francesco di Todi nel 1419.’
The Quaracchi editors wrongly cite fo. 349v .
34
O. Grillnberger, in Handschriften-Verzeichnisse, ii. 17: ‘Sermones Guillelmi’.
The Quaracchi editors wrongly cite fo. 31. Microfilm kindly provided by Hill
Museum and Manuscript Library, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN.
35
As we have seen, Hi appends Guibert 180 as a collatio to 179; it also reports and
expounds in both texts a prothema ‘Cognouerunt Dominum in fractione panis’
(Luke 24: 35).
Ba(sileensis) ¼ Basel, Universitätsbibliothek B X 4, s. xiv

(c.1300), fos. 42v (¼ pt: 2, fo: 29v )---44v (31v ).36 A diVerent
sermon, in a section ascribed to Bonaventure by a late hand.
In the edition, a subdiuisio on the Xowers and trees that the
reXowered Xesh resembles ends as follows (ix. 284; italics original):
Floruit etiam ut palma per dotem impassibilitatis, quae attribuitur palmae.
Unde Aristoteles in septimo libro Problematum dicit: ‘si super palmae
arboris lignum magna pondera imponas ac tam graviter urgeas oneresque,
ut magnitudo oneris sustineri non queat, non deorsum palma cedit nec
intra Xectitur, sed adversus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recurvatur-
que.’ Et Plutarchus philosophus, magister Traiani imperatoris, in octavo
libro Memorabilium: ‘Propterea, inquit, placuit, palmam signum esse
victoriae in certaminibus, quoniam ligni huius ingenium est, ut urgentibus
opprimentibusque non cedat.’ Et ideo merito Xore impassibilitatis illa caro
Xoruit, quae tam nobiliter triumphavit; Psalmus: Iustus ut palma Xorebit,
sicut cedrus Libani multiplicabitur. Sicut enim in cedro soliditas partium
resistit sectioni aut divisioni, sic habitus gloriae impassibilitatis resistit in
corporibus gloriWcatis, ne qualitates elementares agant aut discussionem
complexionis aut divisionem partium corporis.
This represents the text of recension A, partly corrected from
Gellius:
Xoruit etiam ut palma per dotem impassibilitatis, quae attribuitur palme.
Vnde Ari. in vij li. probleumatum dicit si super palme arboris lignum
magna pondera inponas ac tantum grauiter urgeas honeres ut magnitudo
honeris sustineri non queat, non deorsum cedit nec in terram Xectitur sed
aduersus pondus resurgit et sursum nititur recuruaturque. et plucarius
philosophus, magister Traiani imperatoris, in viij li. Memorabilium pro-
pterea inquit placuit palmam signum esse uictorie in certaminibus quo-
niam ligni huius ingenium est ut urgentibus opprimentibusque non cedat
et ideo merito Xore inpassibilitatis illa caro Xoruit que tam nobiliter
triumphauit Ps Iustus ut palma Xorebit, sicut cedrus libani multiplica-
bitur; Sicut enim in cedro soliditas partium resistit sectioni seu diuisioni,
sic habitus gloriae inpassibilitatis resistit in corporibus gloriWcatis, ne
qualitates elementares agant aut discrasiam complectionis aut diuisionem
partium corporis.37
36
G. Meyer and M. Burckhardt, Die mittelalterlichen Handschriften, ii. 466–73 at
466–7.
37
For comparison, Hi reads: Quarto Xoruit ut Xos palme in qua inmarcessibilitas
signiWcatur. vnde dicit philosophus in vijo problematum quod palma lignum est et si
super lignum arboris palme pondus inponas non cedit nec Xectitur. sed contra resurgit et
eleuatur unde in hoc datur intelligi dos inpassibilitatis quia corpus Christus [sic: xp̄c̄]
resurrexit sicut palma contra pondus se erigit et extollit; Ba: Quarto Xoruit ut palma
propter gloriosi trophei triumphatiuam potestatem/ et hoc propter dotem inpassibilitatis.
Bene enim per palmam signiWcatur triumphatiua potestas gloriosi trophei/ nam/ ad
dotem] dote Va problematum] probleumatum Au14 dicit om.
Va inponas] ponas Va tantum om. Va: tam Claraquenses
Gellium secuti honeres] honores Auuv 1 Va: oneresque Claraquenses
Gellium secuti non queat] nequeat Au4 non2 ] aut
Au4 deorsum] þ palma Claraquenses Gellium secuti cedit]
tendit Tu in terram] intra Claraquenses Gellium secuti in] ad
Va et] etiam Tu plucarius Au23 : lucarius TuVamg : lucarius an
lucanus incertum Au1 : lucanus Au4 : lieteuius Vaordo philosophus
om. Va Traiani om. Au4 signum esse] esse signum Va: lignum
esse cett. urgentibus opprimentibusque] opprimentibus urgentibus
que Au4 caro] ½½caro ita male scriptum ut paene caio legas caro
Au2 Ps(almus)] sc. 91. 13 Vulg. Xorebit] Xo. Au34 : hucusque
Va sicut . . . multiplicabitur] &c Au4 sectioni] sestioni
Au1 aut1 ] a˛ (¼ autem) j aut Au3 : seu Au4 diuisioni] diuisions
[diōns] sic Au2 ne]: nec Au4 aut discrasiam . . . corporis om.
Au4 discrasiam] sc. ıŒæÆÆ : discussionem Claraquenses propter
inscitiam aut2 ] a’ (¼ aut) Au1 complectionis Au1 : completio-
nis Au23 : complesionis Tu
That John is the source is indicated by memorabilium instead of
symposiacorum, by the word-order of placuit palmam signum [or li-
gnum] esse uictorie in certaminibus, and probably by huius (cf. John’s
huiusmodi); it is conWrmed by the description of Plutarch as magister
Traiani imperatoris, for the very book of the Policraticus from which
the Gellian passage is taken begins with the Institutio Traiani.
2.2. More Falsa Gelliana

In the same sermon (p. 285) an anecdote concerning Alexander the
Great, based on the Collatio Alexandri et Dindimi, is ascribed to
Gellius but in fact taken from John of Salisbury, Policraticus 4. 11
(i. 267 Keats-Rohan),38 attached to one about Plato from Policra-
ticus 4. 4. 55–8 (i. 242–3 Keats-Rohan).39 The Quaracchi text gives:
litteram ut dicit ysidorus palma est arbor/ victoria/ et manus victorum seu victoris seu
triumphatoris adornatur/ cum ea/ vnde et pueri ebreorum triumphatori mortis cum ramis
palmarum obuiauerunt/ clamantes Osanna Wlio dauid benedictus qui venit &c per
itaque signiWcatur in Christo dos inpassibilitatis quia palma est arbor/ nobilis et
insignis/ sempiterne pulchritudinis/ et uigoris/ conseruans folia sua tempore hyemis et
estatis/ truncus etiam eius valde solidus est/ et conpactus et inputribilis Wrmitatis/ vnde
corpus illud domini gloriosum/ et gloriWcatum vltra putrescere ledi vulnerari et pati non
potest/ Christus enim resurgens ex mortuis vltra non moritur &c.
38
Reused in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale 4. 66 ¼Speculum maius, iv.
135 (a notoriously dishonest edition).
39
A. S. Riginos, Platonica, 82–3, no. 28, knows no previous source, but cites Rep.
566 b, 567 d; cf. Cic. Tusc. 5. 58. It reappears in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum
doctrinale 5. 7, 7. 30, ed. cit. ii. 407–8, 578.
Tertio debemus Xorere per iustitiam; unde Canticorum secundo [Cant.
2: 1]: Ego Xos campi et lilium convallium.—Flos campi omnibus accessibilis
iustitia est, quae est omnibus communis, ut possint pauperes accedere ad
superiores. Non sunt Xores campi quidam pontiWces et praelati, sed verius
pompiWces et Pilati, tot habentes circa se cum fustibus et gladiis [Matt.
26: 55]. Aliquod grande Xagitium perpetrasse putandi sunt qui ita diligen-
ter custoditi sunt, sicut refert Historia gentium, Platonem Dionysio ty-
ranno Siciliae dixisse: ‘Quantum Xagitium commisisti, quia cum tanta
diligentia custodiris?’ Et isti non sunt Xos campi, non horti. Sed nunquid
isti sunt lilia convallium? Non; sed vepres montium ad pauperes
impugnandos. Sed utinam quotquot pauperes impugnant recolant illud
Auli Gellii, Noctium Atticarum, quod Alexander Magnus ultimum littus
Oceani devicerat et venerat expugnare insulam Fragmariae. Qui miserunt
ei litteram in haec verba: Divitias non habemus, quarum cupiditate nos
debeas expugnare; esca nobis est pro divitiis, pro cultibus et auro vilis et
rara vestis; antra nobis duplicem usum praestant: tegumentum in vita,
sepulturam in morte. Quem locum habet vindicta, ubi nulla fuit iniuria?
his motus Alexander nullam ratus victoriam, si eorum turbaret quietem,
eos in pace dimisit. Et utinam ita facerent qui pauperes opprimunt!
This combines, sometimes skilfully, the readings of the two repor-
tationes. Recension A has:
De tercio cant. ij ego Xos campi et lilium conuallium. Xos campi omnibus
est accessibilis. Iustitia est que est omnibus communis ut possint pauperes
accedere ad superiores. non sunt Xores campi quidam pontiWces et prelati
sed uerius pompiWces et pylati tot habentes satellites circa se cum fustibus
et gladiis ut non uideantur Xores campi sed orti diligentissime custoditi.
aliquod grande Xagitium perpetrasse putandi sunt qui ita diligenter custo-
diti sunt, sicut refert historia gentium platonem dyonisio tyranno sicilie
respondisse. non sunt similiter lilia conuallium sed uepres montium ad
pauperes inpugnandos. sed utinam quotquot pauperes inpugnant recolant
illud agellii noctium atticarum, cum Alexander Magnus ultimum litus
Occeani perlustrasset debellare uolebat insulam Bragmanorum. qui mise-
runt ei epistolam in haec uerba: ‘diuicias non habemus, quarum cupiditate
nos debeas expugnare; esca nobis est pro diuiciis, pro cultibus et auro uilis
et rara uestis. antra nobis duplicem usum prestant, tegumentum in uita,
sepulturam in morte. quem locum habet uindicta, ubi nulla Wt iniusticia?’
hiis motus Alexander nullam ratus uictoriam si eorum turbaret quietem
eos in pace dimisit.
ij] 7 Va accessibilis1 ] þ etAu4 est] þ virtus Au1-4 omnibus
om. Au123 : est Au4 possint om. Va pauperes] pauper
Va ad] sicut Va non sunt . . . prelati] sed non quidam pon-
tiWces et prelati sunt Xores campi Au4 sed . . . pylati om.
Au3 Va pompiWces] pontiWces Au2 tot om. Au4 habentes]
þ tot Va cum fustibus et gladiis] etc. Au4 ut] quod
Va campi om. Au4 diligentissime] -mi Va: diligenter
Au4 custoditi1 ]þ sunt Au13 Tu: þ sicut Va aliquod . . . re-
spondisse om. Au4 aliquod] a d Au1 Tu: ad Au2 grande om.
Va putandi] ½½perpetrandiputandi Va ita] ı̃ Va hystoria
Au13 Tu: ystoria Au2 Va gentium] gencium Au12 : gentilium Au3 :
om. Va dyonisio] dionisio Va sicilie respondisse] re-
spondisse scicilie Tu similiter om. Au4 ad . . . dimisit] etc.
Au4 inpugnandos] þ{ Au2 agellii] agelli Va noctium]
notum Va atticarum cum om. Va in ordine, add. mg cum om.
Tu occeani Au2 : octeani Au1 : oceani Au3 Va uolebat] uoluit
Tu insulam] per insulam Au2 qui (que Au2 , qui j q. Va) mi-
serunt ei epistolam in haec uerba Au123 Tu diuicias] diuitias
Va esca] exca Va diuiciis] diuitis Va rara] þ nobis
Tu habet]: habeat Tu uindicta] uicdicta Va Wt] sit
Au2 iniusticia] þ{ Au2 hiis] et hiis Au3 uictoriam] uici-
toriam Va
In recension B the text runs (underlining as in Hi):

Tertio debemus Xorere per iustitiam; unde can. [blank]. ego Xos campi et
lilium convallium. Xos campi signiWcat iustitiam quia sicut Xos campi
omnibus communiter sic iustitia omnibus communis esse dicitur. et
utinam haberent hanc iustitiam prelati et pontiWces. sed multi sunt qui
melius possent dici pilati quem prelati. quia causas pauperum ad se
admittunt. et isti sunt Xores orti non campi. legimus enim in historiis
antiquis de platone qui uidens dyonisium tyrannum cicilie dixit ‘quantum
Xagitium commisisti, quia cum tanta diligentia custodiris?’ is ipse timuit
eum: et isti non sunt Xores campi non orti. sed numquid sunt ipsi lilia
conuallium? non, sed uepres montium quia pauperes uulnerant. legimus
in agellio quod alexander ultimum litus occidentale deuicerat et uenerat
expugnare insulam fragmariae. qui scripserunt ei: Diuicias non habemus,
quarum cupiditate nos debeas expugnare; esca nobis pro diuiciis, pro cultu
½½7 ca tenuis et rara et prope nulla uestis; antra nobis usum duplicem
prestant, tegumentum in uita, et in morte sepulturam. quem locum habet
uindicta, ubi nulla fuit iniuria?’ et cum ille hoc audisset arbitratus est quod
si illos inquietaret non multum tenderet in uictoriam et gloriam eius et
recessit. et utinam ita facerent illi qui pauperes opprimunt.
The Quaracchi editors, who had failed to trace the source of either
passage, were no more successful with another passage from Hi,
also on p. 285:
Legitur de quodam philosopho, cui cum irrogarentur convicia,
dixit: ‘Didicisti maledicere, et ego, teste conscientia, didici maledicta
contemnere.’
This too comes from John, Policraticus 3. 14 (i. 222 Keats-Rohan
¼ i. 224 Webb): Quid Xenofon? Tu, inquit, cuidam didicisti
maledicere et ego teste conscientia didici maledicta contemnere.40 The

chreia was combined by Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale 3.
67,41 with a reference to Gellius 14. 3:
Actor. De xenofonte refert agellius quod quidam putauerunt inter ipsum
et platonem fuisse rancores et discordias, quia magis assequutus est famam
et palmam eloquencie quam omnes alii socratis discipuli post platonem; et
inter pares semper uidetur esse quedam emulatio. Huius dicitur esse illa
sententia, quam sibi maledicenti respondit: tu, inquit, male dixisti, ego
consciencia teste didici maledicta contempnere.
Walter Burley, De vita et moribus philosophorum, c. 32 (‘Xeno-
phon’), having mentioned the rivalry with Plato, by an easy mis-
reading ascribes the anecdote to Gellius:
Agellius de Xenophonte sic ait: Cum quidam ei malediceret sic respondit:
Tu studium tuum ad maledicendum dedisti, ego uero, consciencia teste,
didici maledicta contempnere (p. 150 Knust).
Likewise at c. 30 (‘Socrates’), following a reference to the notori-
ous matrimonial problems mentioned by Gellius in 1. 17. 1–3,
Burley writes:
Item ut ait Agellius Wlios habebat ex Xantippe Socrates matri similes
sibique moribus ualde dissimiles, discolos [sc. ıŒº
ı] et inquietos, et
tamen cum illis paciWce uixit (p. 118 Knust).42
3. fragmentary manuscripts
The rest of this chapter is devoted to sidelights on the manuscript
tradition as evidence for Gellius’ diVusion, beginning with scraps
of manuscripts salvaged from the wreck of time.
3.1. Fragmentum Egmondanum

In Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België/Bibliothèque
Royale de Belgique (KBR), item 60 in the fragment-collection
MS IV 625 comprises a bifolium that alone survives from the
40
Cf. 8. 15 (ii. 346 Webb) and the passages cited by E. WölZin in his edition of
‘Caecilius Balbus’, pp. 16, 31, 39; on p. 31 a similar tale is ascribed to Aristippus, for
which see I A 72–3 Giannantoni, 91 A–C Mannebach.
41
Ed. cit. iv. 108; but I cite from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 287, fo.
57v , kindly brought to my attention by Professor Nigel Palmer (in which the book is
numbered 4). Gellian passages in Vincent are noted by Hertz, ed. mai. ii, pp. xl f.,
M. Manitius, ‘Gellius bei Vinzenz von Beauvais’.
42
Cf. Sen. Ep. 104. 27 with Arist. Rhet. 2. 15, 1390b 29–31, Plut. Cat. mai. 20. 4
Gellian portion of a manuscript in which the Noctes Atticae (prob-

ably books 9–20) originally followed Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputa-
tiones down to 3. 36 nequiter facere; the latter text is preserved in
the Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit Leiden as Codex Lipsiensis
30, which bears above the title the words Liber Abbatis Stephani
and at the end, in the hand of its Wfteenth-century corrector, the
note: Particula prima tercij libri et quartus et quintus libri tuscula-
narum questionum totidem sunt enim libri hic deWciunt. [Xourished
signature and ornament] Sequitur A. Gellius noctium Atticarum sed
incompletus. Sunt enim in toto libri decem et nouem.43 It is natural to
identify these remnants with the manuscript of Gellius and the
Tusculans that along with many other books entered the abbey
library of Sint Adalbert at Egmond under its Wfth abbot Stephen or
Steppo (r. 1057–1105).44
Although the library stamp and shelf-mark (together with an
older marking ‘Mss. divers 3547’) appear on the recto of the
smooth side, the text of the manuscript, which I hereby designate
E(gmondanus), begins on the recto of the hairy side (Pl. 10. 2) with
14. 2. 19 eodemq(ue) intempore (Marshall ii. 435. 17). It has been
trimmed with the loss of up to Wve or six letters at the end of each
line on this face, in which the preserved text ends at §25 cognouisset
(sic, see below; 436. 6–7) and the beginning of each line on the
verso, which resumes at -nasse (436. 7) and ends with 14. 3. 2
sectatorum (437. 3). The conjunct leaf begins with 14. 8. 2 cclviiii
(445. 13, where Marshall adopts Strzelecki’s IIII); the last word
of chapter and book, plebiscitum, is followed by the heading
A GELLII NOCTIVM j ACTICAR(um) LIB(er). without
book-number and the capitula of book 15 down to the page-turn
43
For the Gellian fragment see Richard H. Rouse at Marshall et al., ‘Clare
College MS. 26’, 378 n. 50; cf. id. in L. D. Reynolds (ed.), Texts and Transmission,
134; it was again brought to my notice by Barbara Haggh-Huglo and Michel Huglo.
For the readings of Cod. Lips. 30 see H. Deiter, ‘Ein Tusculanen-codex’.
44
Recorded in a partial catalogue (UB Leiden, B.P.L. 611, fos. 144r ---148r )
compiled in 1530 and Wrst published by H. van Wijn, Huiszittend Leeven, i.
316–33; identiWed with Cod. Lips. 30 by H. G. Kleyn, ‘De catalogus’, 150 n. 10.
Cf. W. Lampen, ‘Catalogus’, 31, 56 (no. 62); id., ‘De boekenlijst’, 82. Munk Olsen,
L’Étude, i. 197, C. 205 objects that ‘l’écriture semble pourtant trop évoluée pour que
le ms. puisse remonter à la seconde moitié du xie siècle’; however, J. P. Gumbert,
‘Wanneer werkte C?’, 188–91, groups it with MSS copied at Egmond in Abbot
Stephen’s time. An 11th-c.date is accepted by Rouse (n. 43), whose obit of 1083 for
Stephen follows the error of Johannes a Leydis, Chronicon Egmundanum, ed.
A. Matthaeus, 15, corrected in Matthaeus’ own note, pp. 188–9. Two other items
from Abbot Stephen’s reign survive at Leiden: Lampen no. 56, Angelomus and
Williramus on the Song of Songs ¼ B.P.L.130, and no. 73, Lucan ¼ Burm. Q 1. B.
Pl. 10.2. First page in text order of Fragmentum Egmondanum (Brus-
sels, Royal Library of Belgium, MS IV 625/60 fo. 2r: Gellius 14. 2. 19–25),
with Germanic legal term uadio instead of suadeo in l. 7 (§21). Copyright
Royal Library of Belgium
at 15. 5. cap. insci-jteque (451. 19), after which the text continues to
the end of the verso at 15. 14. cap. metellus (460. 24).45
Alas, E contributes no reading both true and new; its chief claim
to virtue is the correct coniectatoria at 14. 3. 1 (436. 25–6) as in the
Valerio-Gellian Xorilegium (present in 14. 2. 21–5, 14. 3. 1–2).
Nevertheless, it is of interest as complicating the stemma of
books 9–20, in which Marshall Wnds three families, F,
ª (XOPGvN), and (QZ); the alternative view makes F a contam-
ination of ª with proto-.46
E agrees, always in truth, with Fª against at:
14. 2. 21 Turio (435. 25)
14. 2. 23 petit (436. 3)
14. 2. 26 est (436. 19)47
14. 3. 1 mutue˛ (also Q2 ; 436. 25)
14. 8. 2 tribunis (445. 16; FON only)
15. 4. cap. ignobili (450. 11)48
15. 6. cap. erratum (452. 26)
15. 8. cap. cum (454. 18)
Cf. 15. 6 cap. secundum (432. 26), Fª rightly secundo, om. .
When E sides with against Fª it is in error at 14. 2. 25
cognouisset (436. 6–7), 14. 8. 2 ad sensum (445. 15, though strictly
speaking this is a matter of interpretatio); but at 14. 2. 26 fecissent
for fecisset (436. 16), as a lectio diYcilior, is likely to be right.49 At
14. 2. 20 (435. 18) E doubtless agrees in truth with F against ª,
for huiuscemodi is far more frequent in Gellius than huiusmodi;
at 14. 3. 2 exsenophontis (437. 1 Xenophontis) is based on
exenophontis Fac Y.50
45
As in other MSS a new chapter XII is begun at 15. 11. cap. item, the subse-
quent chapter-numbers being raised in accordance.
46
L. Gamberale, ‘Note’, 49–55; so Bernardi Perini, edn. i. 29; Cavazza, having
concurred at edn. i. 46, has doubts at iii, p. ix. On Marshall’s theory (though not
always in his practice), the agreement of F with either ª or yields the reading of the
hyparchetype (the Xorilegium being in any case independent); on Gamberale’s that
of Fª proves nothing, that of F only that the variant is of Carolingian date.
(Marache, edn. ii, p. x cannot be right in assigning F to ª simpliciter.)
47
The extent of the trim appears to require est not et.
48
Having in his ed. mai. adopted ’s ignobile, Hertz repented in the ed. min. alt. of
1886.
49
Read by editors before Marshall, it has been reinstated by Bernardi Perini; so
too in Cato (fr. 206 Malcovati ¼ 186 Sblendorio Cugusi). See LHSz ii. 433–4.
50
At §1 E preserves Qui de xenophontis, corrupted in some MSS to Quid e(x)
xenofontis.
Finally, E’s peculiar errors apart from the aforementioned secun-

dum:51
14. 2. 21 uadio52 (435. 24 suadeo), utar (24 utare), m̄dii53 (M. ¼ Marci)
14. 2. 23 duos (436. 2 duo; also v)
14. 2. 25 ita om. (9)
14. 2. 26 accipi (also Q1 ; 12 accepi); either res or ges(sissent) omitted by
haplography (14);54 [gelliu]s quam tyrius cum tyroni uir melior esset [tyriu]s
(16–17 Gellius cum Turio ni uir melior esset Gellius quam Turius)55
14. 3. 1 quosdam motus (quosdam Z; 23–4 motus quosdam)
14. 8. 2 sententia (16 sententiam), uinii (Iunii)
15. 3 cap. quam (449.6 quae), tertia (7 an in), ista eo (8 ista P, ista haec rell.),
debent (debeat)
15. 7 cap. diuirausti (22 diui Augusti)
15. 8 cap. cenarium (454.17 cenarum), luxuria (18 luxuriae), obprobatione
(also Z; obprobratione)
15. 11 cap. exigujendis (457. 7 exigendis); rethoricam et (9 rhetoricam)
15. 13. cap. ex (459. 2 a).56
3.2. Other Fragments

No better than E are the excerpts in the twelfth-century manu-
script KBR 10615–729 (Hertz’s ‘Br’),57 fo. 230vb , immediately
following Guy d’Amiens’s Carmen de Hastingae proelio,58 and
comprising 14. 5 whole, 15. 2. 7 expers . . . compulerit, 15. 4. 3
concurrite factus est. In 14. 5 it agrees in truth with Fª against at §2
egregi (439. 25), us (31), ea (440. 1), quoniam (4), appellabatur (11),
§3 tenet (17; tenent ), §4 oppositu (19; -to , -tione PG); in truth
with FPX2 Gv against the rest of ª and the Valerio-Gellian Xori-
legium at §4 duceretur (440. 25); in error with FONQ at §2 u (440. 8).
51
At 14. 2. 19 (435. 18) Marshall’s uideantur is a misprint inherited from Hosius;
E, like the other MSS, reads uideatur.
52
A Germanic legal term meaning ‘I pledge myself’; cf. English ‘wed’, ‘wage’,
‘gage’ respectively from Old English, Norman French, and francien; also e.g. Dutch
wedden, German wetten, ‘bet’.
53
For medii (cf. Chassant 54)? But it is abundantly evident that the scribe did not
understand this passage.
54
The previous line ends with duo; after the trim the text resumes with sent,
˙
evidently preceded by either [gessis] or [ressis].
55
The spelling ty-here and in ll. 18, 19 is paralleled in various other MSS
including F.
56
The preceding et (7) appears to have been squeezed into the word-space
between dn̄r and ex.
57
A collection of various texts in various hands, formerly the property of the
Sankt-Nikolaus-Hospital, Kues and hence familiar in Manilian studies as the Codex
Cusanus until it was exposed as a copy of L ¼ Leipzig, UB 1456.
58
Partial illustration of extract in F. Barlow, edn., p. xcii.
At §4 Et (18; Sed) it agrees in error with the Xorilegium against the

direct tradition; it also has peculiar errors.59 At 15. 2. 7 the text has
been doctored to begin Expers sum si eum forte; at 15. 4. 3 fabricabat
for fricabat agrees with the Xorilegium and O1 .
Nothing but obvious errors are contributed by two fragmentarily
preserved Wfteenth-century copies: British Library, Add. 38651 C,
two leaves and a few scraps removed from a binding,60 and Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 622, a single leaf containing 13. 14. 6
idcirco (ii. 397. 9)–13. 17. 1 humanitatem ap- (399. 27) from the
personal papers of Lucien Pissarro, held on loan from the Pissarro
Collection of the Ashmolean Museum.61 But Quattrocento interest
in Gellius is well known; twelfth- or even eleventh-century
manuscripts and excerpts, however bad their text, increase our
awareness of his medieval presence.
4. remembrance of a humanist pope

Gasparino Barzizza of Padua arranged for Lazzarino Resta of
Milan62 to write him a Gellius from an exemplar borrowed by
Daniele Vitturi of Venice oV the great collector Pietro
Miani (Emiliani), bishop of Vicenza,63 after 22 November
1410.64 Miani’s manuscript is lost, but the copy survives as
Vatican, Ottoboni lat. 2019,65 a ‘complete Gellius’ containing all
59
§2 littera i (440. 1; i littera), litteram (6; littera), §3 Impius inscius (12–13; inscius
et impius), qui (15; quae), syllabam om. (16); §4 secrecius (25; sed rectius), ista (28;
ista haec v, ista et Xor.), conpugnantes (25–6; conpugnantesque). It corrects its own
errors at §2 dicebat>dici (439. 25; before censebat); nomina>omnia (440. 4; Hertz’s
informant missed the point beneath the initial n); §4 colligisset > collegisset (20),
diWnierat > deWnierat (21), quidam (so Z) > quidem (25); esse added above line (27).
60
Most easily legible are 4. 13. 1 tibicen (Marshall i. 179. 20)–4. 15. 1 facundia
(for Wngendi 180. 23) and 5. 1. 6 -mentis (191. 5)–5. 3. 3 proximo (192. 9); there are
also snippets from 9. 8, 9. 9. Add. 38651 contains other binding fragments, includ-
ing music: see M. Bent, ‘New and Little-Known Fragments’, 137–41, 154–5.
61
Italian, 1460s, by scribe of Florence, Bibl. Laur. Med. pl. 65. 22 (Diog. Laert.,
tr. Traversari: ex-libris of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici); London, BL Add. 18784
(Petrarch, Canzoniere, TrionW: arms of Gherardesca of Florence?); Harl. 3385
(Petrarch, TrionW: arms of Tedaldi of Florence).
62
On whom see F. Calvi, Famiglie notabili milanesi, ii, Resta, tav. VII ‘Dirama-
zioni staccate’.
63
See D. Girgensohn, ‘Il testamento di Pietro Miani’; Miani’s son Giannino
married Vitturi’s sister Margherita (ibid. 25–7).
64
See G. Barzizza, Opera, ed. J. A. Furietti, i. 110, 113; cf. i. 193 Lazarinus Resta
singularis amicus meus.
65
Cf. É. Pellegrin et al., Les Manuscrits classiques latins, i. 748–9: ‘Initiales
enluminées de style lombard. . . . Origine: italienne, probablement milanaise,
nineteen preserved books followed by the preface,66 after which on

fo. 186r in the main scribe’s hand, but a diVerent ink and slightly
smaller script, stand the words:
Gratias ago tibi semper Alexander V Pontifex maxime cuius ingenij claritas
sacri dogmatis abundantia Parisiense studium omnisque uirtutum
numerus ab minorum ordine ad Vicariatum Ihesu christi sublimatum
illustrarunt et eo graui ac pestilenti tempore quo Petrum de luna et Ange-
lum Corario [sic] dira pertinacia notoriaque heresi de papatu contendentes
Pisanum Concilium inueterati Scismatis nutritores damnatos heresis cri-
mine iusto dei iudicio ab ecclesia eiecit. Tua siquidem summa beniuolentia
Secretariatus decorem <Iob fratri optimo mg.> ipsique ac Ione caracterem
sacris manibus tuis ı̄pressisti.67 ego quoque gratia tua exubero. Quibus
rebus mihi ocium et Ione studendi facultatem concessisti, digneris itaque
quos in hac uita caros habueris tunc etiam in te micabat quaedam celestis
species. conWrmatus in acie beatorum usque in Wnem protegere, demum in
futuro seculo penes te suscipere quorum Wdelia obsequia in peregrinatione
ista beniuolo aspectu recipere dignatus es.
Alexander V was the Cretan humanist Pietro Filargi, elected Pope
at the Council of Pisa in 1409 to displace the existing claimants: the
Aragonese canonist Pedro de Luna at Avignon, who styled himself
Benedict XIII, and the Venetian nobleman Angelo Correr at
Rome, otherwise known as Gregory XII. The grief caused by his
early death on 3 May 1410, to which this note testiWes, is also
manifest in a letter of 29 May from Barzizza to Lazzarino and
Giobbe.68
écriture gothico-humanistique régulière, assez arrondie et épaisse, peut-être de la

main de Lazzarino Resta de Milan, secrétaire du pape Alexandre V.’
66
A later hand, possibly from Pomponio Leto’s circle, has added an index also
found in Chicago, Newberry Library f90; London, British Library Burney 176;
Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana C 213 inf.; BAV Vat. lat. 1532, 1536.
67
Lazzarino’s brothers Giobbe and Gian Giona; see Calvi (n. 62); R. G. G.
Mercer, The Teaching of Gasparino Barzizza, 126; ‘Lettere e orazioni’, ed. R.
Sabbadini, passim.
68
Furetti i. 93–4, where Ioanni is mistakenly put for Iob; see e.g. British Library,
MS Add. 14786, fo. 58r , ‘Lettere e orazioni’, ed. Sabbadini, 580. The same grief is
expressed in the ballata Dime Fortuna, perhaps by Antonio Zacara da Teramo, ll.
6–12: ‘Subito, falsa, tu te recordasti j Videndome già star per trarme fuore, j De la
promissione facta de cuore, j Se Alessandro a Roma gito fosse. j Fortuna, al tuo
despecto uscia de fosse; j Or scia maldicta, tanto mal pensasti’ (see A. Ziino, Il
Codice T. III. 2, 47–9). Zacara, later chapel-master to Alexander’s promoter and
successor Baldassare Cossa (‘John XXIII’), had switched his allegiance from Bene-
dict in 1409: see G. Di Bacco and J. Nádas, ‘The Papal Chapels’, 57. Miani, in his
will, ordered prayers for Alexander (who had bishoped him) along with himself and
his family (Girgensohn, ‘Il testamento di Pietro Miani’, 48).
Barzizza’s manuscript remained in Milanese territory,69 in mid-

century it was copied in MS Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Brai-
dense, AC. XII. 43, olim Phillipps 2252, which bears the arms of
the Milanese poet Johannes Stephanus Cotta (d. 1523). At the end
(fo. 258v ), after possit and a line-space, the letter is added without
change of hand or size; for omnesque uirtutum numeri the copyist
writes omnisque uirtutum numerus; the words Iob fratri optimo are
incorporated into the text.70
5. lost manuscripts
Just as sunt lacrimae rerum has in modern literary usage been
disengaged from its location in Carthage, so Terentianus Maurus’
dictum pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli has been trans-
formed by omission of the Wrst three words into a statement
about physical books; these fates may indeed be dramatic, as
when we read in Naples, Bibl. Naz. Vittorio Emanuele III, V. B.
7 (s. xv), fo. iiv the note A. Iani Parrhasii, et amicorum Genuae
emptus ex praeda piratica aureis quatuor.71
I subjoin a summary list of lost or untraced manuscripts known
to have existed,72 not only in the interests of reception history, but
in case any should reappear, as that used by Johann ScheVer
69
É. Pellegrin, La Bibliothe`que, Supple´ment, 59: ‘Rien ne permet d’aYrmer que
le manuscrit ait été primitivement destiné au pape Alexandre V. Il dut rester dans la
région milanaise puisqu’on distingue au bas du fo. 1 la guivre des Visconti dans un
écu gratté; le cardinal Ascanio Sforza Wt ajouter de chaque côté ses initiales AS. MA.
et au<->dessus le chapeau de cardinal nettement visibles malgré le grattage.’
70
The letter does not appear in the kindred manuscript Baltimore, Walters Art
Museum, W. 357, included with which is a letter from P. K. Marshall dated 7 Jan.
1963, suggesting that it is related to Ottob. lat. 2019, but not a direct copy; a note
from A. C. de la Mare of 19 July 1974 reads ‘deWnitely Milanese, 3/4 of 15th C.’ In
notes of 7 Aug. 1991 kept with W. 412 (two initials from a missal) Anna Melograni
compares W. 357 with Huntington Library HM 1033 (Aristotle’s Ethics), signed
Hieronymus Mediolanensis: ‘writing and initials similar’.
71
See C. Tristano, La biblioteca, 140, no. 164. Parrhasius (1470–85) left the MS
to Antonio Seripandi (1485–1531; see fo. 193r ), who gave his collection to his
brother Girolamo (1492/3–1563), the future Cardinal and founder of the monastic
library at S. Giovanni a Carbonara, where our MS was recorded before 1570:
D. Gutiérrez, ‘La Biblioteca di San Giovanni a Carbonara’, 157, no. 1402, ‘Aulus
Gellius manuscriptus in membranis’ (pace Tristano, La biblioteca, 276, no. 552).
72
This list incorporates data in M. Manitius, ‘Philologisches aus alten
Bibliothekskatalogen’; K. Manitius, Handschriften antiker Autoren, 147–8. Add
the source of F, lent by Einhard to Servatus Lupus and appropriated for copying
by Hrabanus Maurus (Marshall, ‘Aulus Gellius’, 178).
reappeared as Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket C 915.73 Those

marked * are possibly identical with known manuscripts; those
marked { appear to have been destroyed.74
5.1 In Ecclesiastical Libraries
*Alcobaça
In 1441 Poggio Bracciolini was informed, apparently by the con-
sistorial advocate Vasco Rodrigues of Lisbon, of a manuscript in
the twelfth-century Cistercian house at Alcobaça: Vir clarissimus
Valascus tuus, uel noster potius, retulit dudum mihi te reperisse in
monasterio Altobassi A. Gellium Noctium Acticarum integrum neque
lacerum ut noster est.75 There is no trace of it in the Index Codicum
Bibliothecae Alcobatiae (Lisbon, 1775),76 but the third (unnum-
bered) page of the Praefatio notes that Philip II, having added the
crown of Portugal to that of Spain, had taken some Alcobaça
manuscripts for his new foundation at El Escorial; of the Gellian
manuscripts there the only candidate is e. III. 6, olim VII. E. 9–III.
F. 16 (parchment: s. xv), with illuminated initials, which was
rebound in house.77
Bamberg
Michelsberg, 1112 23: a list headed hi sunt libri quod Ruotgerus in
librario inuenit sub Wolframmo abbate including (no. 116) liber
73
See É. Pellegrin, ‘Manuscrits d’auteurs latins’, 16–17; M. Andersson-Schmitt
et al., Mittelalterliche Handschriften, vii. 344–5; F. Cavazza, ‘Un ‘‘nuovo Gellio’’ ’,
74 n. 20.
74
I excluded, as in all probability printed books, Altzella, ‘Index bibliothecae
Veteris Cellae coenobii Cisterciensis in Misnia. MDXIIII’: R 3 Auli Gellii com-
mentariorum libri XX (L. Schmidt, ‘Beiträge’, 258), and Vienna, University, Fac-
ulty of Arts, 1470: Sedecima die Iulii . . . fuerunt empti pro facultate Titus Liuius et
Aulus Gellius disligati in sexternis [¼ ‘gatherings’ (S. Rizzo, Lessico, 42–7)] pro 23
Xorenis (Th. Gottlieb, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge, i. 483, no. 1470). The
next entry concerns the purchase of Plinius in papiro impressus et Augustinus de ciuit.
item in papiro impressus pro 23 Xorenis Hungaricalibus; the two purchases, identical in
price, are comparable in bulk.
75
Lettere, ed. H. Harth, ii (Florence, 1984), 373–4, 20 Sept. 1441. Cf.
A A. Nascimento, ‘Poggio’; id., ‘La Réception’, 50–1.
76
The surviving MSS were transferred to the National Library: see Biblioteca
Nacional de Lisboa, Inventário dos Códices Alcobacenses.
77
G. Antolı́n, Catálogo, ii. 71, ‘Iniciales de adorno en oro y colores; capitales azul
y rojo, alternando<;>epı́grafes en rojo’; L. Rubio Fernández, Catálogo, 76.
semiscriptus de legibus Agelii (??).78 In the thirteenth century, a

‘Gellius’ is recorded at the Cathedral.79
*Canterbury, Christ Church

In the time of Henry de Eastry, prior 1285–1331, the last volume
listed amongst the Libri sancte thome is said to contain, following
various works by St Ambrose: Prima pars titi liui, Secunda pars titi
liui, Agellius Noctium atticarum.80 Since the two parts of Livy,
that is to say the Wrst and third decades, were separately
bound in 1508,81 the ‘second’ being now Cambridge, Trinity
College R. 4. 4,82 it is quite likely that Gellius too was separated,
and is now Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 13038 ¼ G, containing books
9–20.83
Cesena
Copy left to Convento di S. Francesco by Giovanni Marco da
Rimini, 1474, apparently not Bibl. Malatestiana S XVI 4.84
Cluny
In list 1158–61: [454] Volumen in quo continetur Agellius noctium
atticarum;85 [551] Volumen in quo continetur Iuuenalis, habens
in principio categorias Augustini et partem Agellii noctium
atticarum.86 In list for Abbot Yves I, 1256–75: [85] Aulus Gelius
in libro noctium atticarum.87 Abbot Jean III de Bourbon (reigned 2
Nov. 1456–2 Dec. 1485), bishop of Le Puy (directly subject to
the Pope), gave books including Aulus Gellius in libro Noctium
Atticarum.88
Corvey
s. XII: Reinald of Hildesheim asks Wibald of Corvey and Stablo:
mittite igitur nobis Agellium noctium Atticarum et Originem super
78 79
G. H. Becker, Catalogi, 80. J. Petzholdt, ‘Bibliothekskatalog’, 277.
80
BL Cotton Galba E iv, fo. CLXVr ¼ 139r ; see M. R. James, The Ancient
Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, 83, no. 817.
81 82
Ibid. 158. Id., Western Manuscripts, ii. 132–3.
83
A. C. de la Mare et al., ‘Pietro da Montagnana’, 223–4.
84
R. Zazzeri, Sui codici e libri a stampa, 389 discounts the possibility that this is
the extant MS: ‘ma avendo il presente Codice lo stemma della famiglia Malatesta,
siamo d’avviso che il Codice di Giovanni Marco da Rimini venisse, o allora, o in
epoca posteriore commutato con altro Volume’.
85
L. V. Delisle, Cabinet, ii. 476; id. Inventaire, 366.
86
Id., Cabinet, ii. 480, Inventaire, 372.
87 88
Id., Inventaire, 382. M. Marrier, Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, col. 1684.
Cantica Canticorum; they reply: misimus tibi pro monimentis

librorum uestrorum Originem in Cantica Canticorum et pro Aggellio
Noctium Atticarum quem in praesens habere nequaquam potuimus
librum quem Grece Strategemmaton uocant, quod militare est.89
Durham
Catalogue of 2 February 1391/2: D. Prima pars Agellii Noccium
Acticarum, II fo. Vnde ea nos accepimus [pr. 18], with the note
Accommodatur J. Whixlay; E. Secunda pars Agellii, cum tabula. II
fo. eciam mox barbam [9. 4. 15].90 Clearly item D had the preface in
its proper place like our surviving manuscripts of books 1–7; the
nature of the tabula in item E is uncertain, since other copies of
books 9–20 do not gather the capitula into a single place. The
volumes were still present on 15 January 1416/17, when item E
was said to be in quaterno albo.91
{Florence, Convento del Santo Spirito

The catalogue of 20 September 1451 records Item alius liber medi-
ocris forme qui dicitur agellius Noctium aticharum copertus corio nigro
cum suis requisitis cuius principium est Plutarchus in libro. Finis uero
Inueniri q3 possit, signatus littera [blank].92 Evidently a complete
manuscript, destroyed in the Wre of 22/3 March 1471.
Lobbes
Acquired 1074 1150: Agelli noctium atmeticarum lib. Vol. I.93
Orléans?
Both halves used by annotator of Bern, Burgerbibliothek
89
Ph. JaVé, Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, i. 327–8, nos. 207–8; the MS
of Frontinus’ Strategemata has not been identiWed. A Gellius at Corvey is sug-
gested by the quotation from NA 11. 11 at i. 258, no. 153 (Hertz, ed. mai. ii,
p. xxxvi).
90
J. Raine, Catalogi veteres, 31. Whixlay also had out a volume containing
Hildeberti de eVectibus animae [¼ Hildebert de Lavardin, Liber de querimonia et
conXictu carnis et spiritus seu anime, PL. 171. 989–1004]. Hugon. de informatione
Nouiciorum [¼ Hugh of St Victor, De institutione nouiciorum, PL. 176. 926–51] cum
quibusdam uersibus in uno quaterno. II fo. Ostende [PL 171. 993 C]: ibid. 24.
91
Ibid. 109.
92
A. Goldmann, ‘Drei italienische Handschriftenkataloge’, 143 from Bibl. Med.
Laur. Ashburnham 1897 (1800), fo. 13v .
93
F. Dolbeau, ‘Un nouveau catalogue’, 32, no. 264, immediately following Anicii
M(anlii) S(everini) B(oethii) geometrice et arithmetice artis ab editione [ ¼ Euclide]
geometre translatae lib. V; cf. ibid. 225. The last item, no. 347, is Titus Lucretius de
natura rerum. Vol. I.
276;94optimae membranae cited in Carrio’s Castigationes et notae

appended to some copies of his edition (Paris, 1585).
Paris, Saint-Victor?
Catalogue of unidentified library s. XII includes Agellium.95
Sainte-Colombe-les-Sens
Manuscript requested by Count Henry the Liberal of Champagne
(1152–81) from Becket’s follower Herbert of Bosham,
who replied: Sciatis quod liber qui Agellii noctium Atticarum
inscribitur, quem a me multoties requisistis, non meus, sed Sanctae
Columbae sit;96 apparently the source of P and its gemellus G.97
Saint-Omer
Manuscript belonging to canon Jacques de Houchin sold in post-
humous auction of his library 17 September 1480 for 22s. to the
dean of Dole: Aulugelii noctium atticarum commentarium.98
{Westminster Abbey
Plut. 12, nos. 5–6; destroyed in Wre of 1694.99
5.2. In Noble Libraries

Bourges, library of Jean duc de Berry
Manuscript of books 11–20 (‘Biturigensis’), collated by Cujacius;100
was the Zaluscianus (see below under Kraków) the other half?101
Manuscript reading eupsones at 8. 14. cap. (Hertz ad loc.).
94
Marshall et al., ‘Clare College MS. 26’, 382, 389–91.
95
Paris, BN lat. 14614, from Saint-Victor, cit. Delisle, Cabinet, ii. 511, no. 4; but
there is no Gellius amongst the Saint-Victor MSS now in the BNF (ms. lat.
14232–15175). The Agerius listed between Priscian and Micrologus (Guido of
Arezzo rather than Bernold of Konstanz or Ricardus Anglicus) in BNF ms. lat.
5926, s. xiiiin (ibid. iii. 5, no. 21) will be Agroecius, Ars de orthographia (see
M. Pugliarello, edn. 16). [See Addendum, p. 281.]
96
Ep. 1, ed. J. A. Giles, ii. 217; see De la Mare et al., ‘Pietro da Montagnana’,
223 n. 22.
97
Ibid. 222 (relation of P to G), 223–4 (Sainte-Colombe MS as source).
98
Bibliothèque municipale de Saint-Omer, MS 2. g. 473, ex rel. Andrew
Kirkman; O. Bled, ‘Une bibliothèque de chanoine’, 14 (supplied by good offices
of Dr Kirkman).
99
J. A. Robinson and M. R. James, The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey, 21, 30.
100
Hertz, ed. mai. ii, p. cxviii with n.***; add Giphanius’ to Muretus, 28 Jan.
1570 (Muretus, Epist. 1. 78). But cf. S. Scipioni, Codici, 109 on Turin BNU I. II. 6.
101
A division after book 10 is also implied by the Florilegium Gallicum, which
contains extracts from bks. 1–10 only, and whose independence is suggested
by unique preservation of (fuisset) et 5. 10. 7, deprehendendi 10. 23. 1.
Ferrara, ducal library

Manuscript copied in 1438 by Biagio Busoni of Cremona, mini-
atures by Giacomino of Arezzo, for Leonello d’Este.102
Heidelberg, Palatine Library
MS cited in 1618, while the library was still intact, by Janus
Gebhardus, Antiquarum lectionum libri duo 1. 2 (pp. 14–16);
many of the readings quoted are the normal, or a normal, manu-
script, but it alone is cited by Hertz for quampluribus 1. 7. 3, alteri
1. 25. 7, deceret: philosophum irasci 1. 26. 7; dilucior 1. 26. 14;
reuincti 7. 2. 13; opimas 9. 4. 8; æ ªÆ Iø. The manu-
script is not among the Vatican or Heidelberg Palatini.
Kraków, library of the Counts Załuski
The eighteenth-century catalogue includes: CCLXIII. Codex
chartaceus, ante annos prope quingentos, characteribus minusculis,
initio capitum, auro illitis, concinnatus, habet: A-gellii noctium atti-
carum libros decem priores cum annotatiunculis, a manu longe recen-
tiori, margini haud infrequenter adscriptis.103
Milan, Sforza library
Records from 1491 register a paper Gellius in red leather;104
neither of the known Sforza manuscripts, Burney 175 and Otto-
boni lat. 2019, is on paper.105
Peñı́scola, papal library
Pedro de Luna, deposed from his papacy, held out here from 1415
till his death in 1423; an ‘Inuentarium librarie maioris Castri
Paniscole’ records Item Aggelius noctium atticarum.106
102
Payment records in A. Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara, 189–90, items 428c, f.
103
J. A. A. Janocki, Specimen, 79; cf. Hertz, ed. mai. ii, p. lxxi n. y, who was
informed that it was not amongst the Załuski MSS in St Petersburg; these latter,
having been removed to Warsaw, were destroyed during the Second World War.
104
E. Fumagalli, ‘Appunti’, 174, no. 42: Libro uno in papiro coperto de corio rosso
quale comenza: Plutarchus in libro, and 175, no. 49 Libro uno in papiro de corio rosso
Auli Gelii Noctium Atticarum; from Archivio di Stato di Milano, Potenze Sovrane
1606.
105
The former appears to be the Libro uno in carta [¼ parchment!] coperto de
corio cosso Auli Gelii Noctium Atticarum listed ibid. 173, no. 21 (cf. É. Pellegrin, La
Bibliothe`que, 363); for the latter see above, n. 65.
106
Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 5156a, fo. 136r , ed. M. Faucon, Librairie, ii. 139, item
928. Item 933 (ii. 140) was a collection of excerpts incorporating texts from the
Florilegium Angelicum, including Agelius in libro noctium atticalium; cf. M. A. and
R. H. Rouse, Authentic Witnesses, 187–8.
5.3. In Academic Libraries

Cambridge, University Library
Attested in catalogue of 1583 in ‘classis prima ab ostio; à dextra
intranti’; lost by 1697.107
{Leuven, Collegium Trilingue
The Codex Buslidianus, so called after Hieronymus Busleiden
(d. 1517), contained both parts (though evidently not book 8), in
an abnormal order: our book 1 was its book 18, its book 1 was our
book 14. The surviving citations alone preserve the beginning of
18. 9, and together with A that of 1. 3; besides good and unique
readings they present numerous minor revisions, but often
preserve or invent longer versions of the text. Probably destroyed
in the Dutch Revolt; otherwise by subsequent neglect.108
Oxford, Duke Humfrey’s Library
On St Catherine’s Day, 25 November 1439, Humfrey Duke of
Gloucester gave Aulus Gellius noctium Atticarum, secundo folio
[blank].109 On 1 July 1441 his requests to Pier Candido Decembrio
included Aulumgelium perfectum, but Gellius was not amongst the
books given to the library on 25 February 1443/4.110
5.4. In Scholars’ Hands

Poggio Bracciolini and circle
Poggio asked Niccolò Niccoli for a Gellius on 14 September 1426
and again on 23 October. On 15 September 1428 he sought Niccoli’s
help in getting a copy from Leonardo Bruni, on 2 October he sent a
reminder, on the 30th he acknowledged receipt, saying that his
copyist would soon begin work on Gellius, but on 13 November
complained that the parchment Niccoli had sent him was unsuit-
able; by the 27th De A. Gellio nescio quid erit, so diYcult the copyists
are proving. On 2 April 1429 Poggio contemplated sending him the
new manuscript by Lorenzo de’ Medici; on 15 July, when it had
reached Niccoli, he asked for it to be illuminated and bound, even
though incomplete (see above, 273). In the meantime, Nicholas
107
University Archives, CUR 31.1 (10), fo. 5ra ( E. Leedham-Green and
D. McKitterick, ‘A Catalogue’, 204); not in E. Bernard, Catalogi.
108
On the background to its disappearance see L. A. Holford-Strevens, ‘ ‘‘And
by the bitter fruit’’ ’, 310.
109
H. Anstey, Munimenta, ii. 765.
110
See M. Borsa, ‘Correspondence’, 524, no. XVIII; Anstey, Munimenta, ii.
776–72.
Cusanus had told Poggio that he had a complete Gellius and a Q.

Curtius containing book 1 (Poggio to Niccoli, 26 February 1429);
but he brought to Rome only A. Gellium truncum et mancum, et cui
Wnis sit pro principio, namely with the preface in the right place, and
an obviously spurious principium Curtii (same to same, 8 May
1430).111
Calderini, Giovanni
Canonist (d. 1365); heirs said in 1375 to have totus Agellius.112
Decembrio, Angelo
Aulus Gellius cum optimo greco among books stolen at Rodez in
May 1465 by agents of Jean V, Count of Armagnac.113
Giphanius, Hubertus (c.1535–1604)
Hertz, editio maior, ii, pp. lxxx f. n. {.114
Giselinus, Victor (1539–91)

MS (called membranae or scidae) from which Lipsius cites readings
in book 9 in Epistolicae quaestiones 3. 6, 4. 2, 5. 8 (pp. 97–8, 132,
199–201); most notably at 9. 4. 6 pueria, repeated in the margin like
other hard words.
Miani, Pietro
See above, §4.
Puteanus, Claudius
Carrio cites two Puteani; one is G, the other has not been identi-
fied.
111
Lettere, ed. Harth, i. 172, 175, 182, 185, 191, 192–3, 207, 212–13, 78, 104. Cf.
A. Grafton, below, 321.
112
Coluccio Salutati to Benvenuto da Imola, 22 May 1375 (Epistolario, ed.
F. Novati, i. 203).
113
Ch. Samaran, La Maison d’Armagnac, 149–50; C. S. Celenza, ‘Creating
Canons in Fifteenth-Century Ferrara’, 55–6 with references.
114
In this note Hertz is puzzled by Muretus’ statement (Variae lectiones 11. 17)
that ‘in vetere libro Fulvii Vrsini’ insuper habendam (1. 19. 8) is written as one word,
‘cum id neque ex V neque ex Y neque aliunde enotaverim’; reference to the ‘Fulvia-
nus’ in Muretus and Giphanius are to V, but in both MSS the space is suYciently
narrow for one scholar to recognize it and another not. P. de Nolhac’s suggestion,
La Bibliothe`que de Fulvio Orsini, 224 n. 2, of Vat. lat. 3453 is reasonable but
wrong.
Richard of Fournival (X. 1246–60)

His Biblionomia includes Agellii liber noctium Atticarum uno uolu-
mine cuius signum est littera K.115
Scioppius, Gaspar (1576–1649)
Source of readings noted by Jac. Gronovius (Hertz, ed. mai. ii,
pp. lxxvii f.)
William the Philosopher (X. 1178)
Leiden, Bibliotheek der Universiteit, B.P.L. 1925: the conclusion
of MS B (fos. 111r ---117r ) is followed in the same section by (fo.
117v ) Isid. Etym. 5. 1. 1–3, 5–6 absol ‘ e· uerunt (sic); 118r (half-page)
blank, 119v (half-page) verses on unlucky (‘Egyptian’) days and
hours; fo. 119r , details of a Gellian MS, perhaps the source of B:
ex ^ [¼ septem] quaternis et 39 foliis habeo 2os quaternos et dimidium.
quinto decimo commentario [¼ book 13] insunt xxvi [recte xxxi] capitula
‘ folia vii et dimidium· . xo vio libro [¼14] insunt viii capitula et iiiior folia.
xo viio [¼ 15] insunt xxxii capitula [so counted in many MSS] et v folia.
xviiio . 18. libro [¼ 16] insunt xx capitula et folia v. xviiii [¼ 17] insunt xxi
capitula: folia viii ulti(mum) capł habet i ‘ foł · et plus’ xxo libro [¼ 18]
insunt capitula xv folia iiiior fere. in xxo io [19] sunt folia iiiior capitula nulla
numerata post sequit<ur> xx9 iii9 liber [¼ 20] habens capitula viii8 folia ii
et dimidium et fere dimidium dimidii. inter xxu iu et xxu iiiu non possum
inuenire xxu iiu tamen dicit incipit xx9 i9 . et in Wne eiusdem explicit
x9 ½½ix0 ii9 secundum[?] quod prius dixit explicit xxi9 . incipit xxii9 . similiter
dicit de xo iiiio et xvo confuse xxiii9 est ultimus in hoc uolumine si tot sint.
anima est corpus subtile atomis insertum sua mobilitate cuilibet cor-
p{er}ori peruium.
After notes alchemical, astronomical, etc. (fos. 119v ---120v ) the
section ends at the foot of fo. 120v : anno ab incarnatione domini
mo co lxxo viiio iiio Kał. octobris Guilelmus philosophus fuit annorum
xxxii dierum x̄ı¯dclxxxviii 11688 festo Sancti Michaelis archangeli.
Wouver, Jan, of Hamburg (1574–1611)
Source of his annotations in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-
Bibliothek 363 Gud. Lat. 8o (edn. printed by Geo. de Caballis,
Venice, 1565) and of the Lindenbrogs’ annotations in copies of
115
Delisle, Cabinet, ii. 530, no. 89: this manuscript was exploited in Thomas of
Ireland, Manipulus Xorum (a.1306; ed. pr. Piacenza, 1483), see Marshall et al.,
‘Clare College MS. 26’, 379–80, 391–2. Richard also owned a Florilegium Ange-
licum, including extracts Tertio decimo, de libro Agellii noctium Atticarum (Delisle,
Cabinet, ii. 529, no. 84).
Johann Heil’s (Soter’s) second edition (Cologne, 1533) and Tor-

naesius (Lyon, 1592).116
Excerpts from Gellius, no longer extant, are also attested from

Florence, where by 1337 Petrarch owned a volume of ‘Ex(cerpta)’
from Macrobius’ Saturnalia and ‘Agellius’;117 from Pavia, in the
Visconti library, as inventoried on 4–8 January 1426: [217] Iero-
nimi epistole, et quidam Xores Apulegij, Agellij Quintiliani Ciceronis,
et multorum aliorum philosophorum, coperte corio rubeo, hirsuto.
Incipit in rubrica tabula epistolarum omnium, et Wnitur in ultimo §
postquam de freto siculo. sig. DCCCC XX;118 and from York,
where the Austin Friars’ catalogue of 8 September 1372 attests
excerpta ex libro Agellii noxium Atticarum.119
The late Wfteenth-or early sixteenth-century commentaries by
Bernard André of Toulouse120 and John Claymond of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford,121 are lost, as in more recent times is
‘P. Herman, La technique d’Aulu-Gelle, Diss. Louvain 1931–1932’
registered at APh 8 (1933), 46, but preserved at neither Louvain-la-
Neuve nor Leuven, and absent from the ‘unitaire catalogus / bezit
tot 31.12.1970’ in the central library of the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven; it must be presumed to have perished during the Nazi
bombardment of May 1940.122
116
Hertz, ed. mai. ii, pp. lxxvii–lxxx.
117
P. de Nolhac, ‘Le Catalogue’, 342.
118
MS BN Braidense AD. XV 18. 4, ed. [G. d’Adda], Indagini, 22; cf. Pellegrin,
La Bibliothe`que, no. 217.
119
Trinity College Dublin, MS 359; see K. W. Humphries, The Friars’ Librar-
ies, 105, no. 519, item e. For the spelling noxium cf. Cambridge, St John’s College 97
(D22), fo. 226r Agelli noxium dicta (excerpts from Florilegium Angelicum). Also lost
to damp is Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut, in-folio 18 (Florilegium Gallicum,
including excerpts from Gellius; Bouteron–Tremblot, Bibliothe`que, p. iii).
120
Item 30 at F. Roth, ‘A History of the English Austin Friars’, 458 ¼The
English Austin Friars, i. 505, citing the list of André’s works, including classical
commentaries, in Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 360 (418 T.L.; 16 June 1500),
fos. T–U: cf. D. Carlson, ‘The Writings of Bernard André’, 248. On the MS see
H. Martin, Catalogue, i. 225–6; Kristeller, Iter, iii. 212.
121
A. Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, i. 106.
122
Also destroyed in the same month was Tournai, Bibliothèque de la Ville 96,
dated 14 July 1501, copied from Bussi’s edn. (Scipioni, Codici, 32).
Addendum to p. 276 n. 95. A MS of Gellius is recorded as lost in the 1514
Saint-Victor catalogue by Claude de Grandrue: see Gilbert Ouy, Les
Manuscrits de l’ Abbaye de Saint-Victor, 2 vols. (Turnhout, 1999), ii. 631.
11
Gellius in the French Renaissance
M ic h ae l He a t h
It would be rash to pretend that Aulus Gellius played a leading role

in the revival of classical scholarship in France from the end of the
Wfteenth century, but his presence is undeniable. A large number
of increasingly scholarly editions culminated in the critical text
produced in 1585 by Louis Carrion and Henri Estienne, while
scholars, miscellanists, and satirists plundered Gellius’ philosoph-
ical and linguistic hoard. Most distinguished among them was
Michel de Montaigne, whose Essais of 1580 owe more than a little,
in both substance and style, to the Noctes Atticae.
1. editions and translations

It took Gellius nearly forty years to cross the Alps. The Roman
editio princeps, a somewhat arbitrary redaction of a late manuscript
published by Joannes Andreas de Buxis in 1469, had been im-
proved by Philippus Beroaldus the elder in his Bolognese edition
of 1503, and this text supplied what appears to be the earliest
French edition, completed in Paris on 22 March 1508: Auli Gellii
linguae et graecae et latinae fulgentissimi syderis, noctium atticarum
libri xx. The publisher was Jean Petit (Parvus) and the printer Jean
Marchand.1 Beroaldus’ name and preface were omitted, however,
and the only liminary material, apart from an eight-page Tabula
alphabetica, is a sixty-line ode by Aegidius Maseriensis, Ad insignes
moratosque Parrisianae uniuersitatis adolescentes carmen. Maserien-
sis (Gilles de Maizières, also and better known as Maserius) was to
be associated with a number of the early French editions. His poem
identiWes the target audience, undergraduates in need, as always, of
1
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Rés. Z.627. The colophon reads: Commen-
tarii ad unguem leuigati in Bellouisu [the address of Marchand] pro Iohanne Petit
Wdelissimo impressore.
Gellius in the French Renaissance 283
a handy compendium of knowledge; as a marginal note puts it, Au.

Gelio duce nil ignoratur. The poet regrets the students’ indolence
and lack of polish (Surgite! Barbariem pellite!) and their deplorable
taste for more sensational or tragic material than Gellius’ sparkling
linguistic scholarship.
Sales must have been encouraging, since three years later Parvus
commissioned one Joannes Connellus (Jean Conneau) of Chartres
to refurbish Beroaldus’ text: Auli Gellii uiri disertissimi Noctium
Atticarum libri xx. Summa accuratione Joannis Connelli Carnotensis
ad recognitionem Beroaldinam repositi: cum alphabetico indice.2 In
this case, Beroaldus’ preface is restored, the index is revised and
expanded, and Maserius’ ode is replaced, at the end, by a brief
exchange of compliments: a six-line poem, again by Maserius, Ad
ingenuum bonaeque indolis adolescentem MC carmen, with a four-
line reply from the unidentiWed ‘MC’. The only signed contribu-
tion from Connellus is a brief note at the end of the index (sig. a
viiiv ) on spelling and abbreviations, in which the editor endorses
the practice of his praeceptor, Aleander (who was teaching Greek in
Orléans at this time), of Aldus Manutius, and of Politianus. Con-
nellus also refers the interested reader to Jacobus Bononiensis’
Adnotationes for an exhaustive discussion (longo verborum curri-
culo) of Homer’s birthplace, proposing to read Chios rather than
Ios in Gell. 3. 11. 6. A valediction in the colophon conWrms the
book’s function as a student crib:
Io. Connellus lectoribus. Accipite Romanae militiae studiosi adolescentes
quam diligentissime Auli Gellii noctes micantissimas. In quibus uigilias
somnusque uestrum reponatis pacatissime. Sint uobis manuale enchiri-
dionque (nihil enim Gellio duce in latialis eloquii Xoribus occurret expe-
tendum).
Oddly, this passage, except for Romanae militiae and the Wnal
sentence, is copied from the title page of Nicolaus Ferrettus’
1509 Venetian edition, which contributes, unacknowledged, to
Connellus’ revision of the text. It is also possible that Connellus
had access to MS Burney 175 (now in the British Library, but in
France at the time), which produced further emendations, includ-
ing the restoration of the play on scriptio/inscriptio in Praefatio 10.
Connellus also includes in the text corrections (as had the 1508
edition) to 15. 1. 2 and 20. 8. 6 which Beroaldus had published
but omitted from his text, and which Ferrettus had placed in
2
Bodleian C 16.14(1) Linc. Venundantur in edibus Ioannis Parvi sub lilio; the
colophon points out that this is the second French edition of the Beroaldus text.
284 Michael Heath
the margin.3 This edition was reprinted unaltered, but with an

additional table of Greek characters, in Lyon by Bartholomaeus
Trot in 1512.
The students seem to have made the investment, since three
more printings appeared in Paris between 1517 and 1519, all the
work of the foremost Parisian scholar-printer, professor of letters,
and publisher of Siluae morales,4 Jodocus Badius Ascensius (Josse
Bade). He knew of the textual problems, having published several
pages of Beroaldus’ commentary in his Annotationes,5 which also
included eulogies of Gellius by Baptista Egnatius (togatorum eru-
ditissimus, fo. cxviv ) and Baptista Pius (facundissimi eloquii scriptor,
fo. cxcviir ) that again reXect the uses to which the book was
customarily put. Ascensius’ Wrst two editions6 were very similar
to their predecessors. He did provide a new epistle (followed,
nonetheless, by Beroaldus’), addressed to the ill-fated Louis de
Berquin, destined for the stake in 1529 but at this time a notable
patron to whom Ascensius had already dedicated his 1512 edition
of Politianus’ Opera. In the epistle Ascensius evokes, clumsily,
Gellius’ festiuum leporem & lepidam festiuitatem, while regretting
the textual obscurities which have scarcely been resolved by the
recent Italian editions. His emendations have had a mixed recep-
tion: for instance, in the epistle he draws attention to his reading, at
3. 3. 5, uterus rather than uetus, where modern editors read uenter;
but his proposal to emend utile to inutile in pr. 13 has been readily
accepted by most modern editors.7 Ascensius added notes on the
Greek, and numerous marginal headings, doubtless to assist his
idle students in their skimming.
3
See L. A. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 28 n. 7 [20 n. 5, cf. 241 n. 3, 252].
4
Cf. Gell. pr. 6; on this activity of Ascensius, see Ann Moss, Printed Common-
place-Books, 90–1. The colophon of the 1511 edition of Gellius names Ascensius as
printer.
5
Annotationes doctorum uirorum in grammaticos, oratores, poetas, philosophos,
theologos ac leges (Paris, J. Paruus and J. Badius, 1511); in particular fos. lxviii f.
deal with Atabulus in 2. 22. 25, Cispium in 15. 1. 2, aelurorum in 20. 8. 6, and Aius in
16. 17. 2. In several later passages Beroaldus exploits Gellius to elucidate Roman
customs.
6
The title of the 1518 edition reads: Auli Gellii noctium atticarum libri undeuiginti
(nam octauus desideratur) una cum haud aspernandis Iodoci Badii Ascensii annotatio-
nibus cumque indicio diligentissime collecto atque grecorum explanatione suis locis
inserta. It was printed for Ascensius by Bernard Aubri.
7
Cf. Les Nuits attiques, ed. R. Marache, i, 4 n. 2: ‘elle paraı̂t à peu près certaine,
bien que Mommsen ait proposé uile, Maehly futile, car inutilis a tout naturellement
en latin le sens de nuisible.’
However, in 1519 Ascensius produced a more luxurious edition

in a larger format and cleaner type,8 the most elegant since the
Venetian edition of 1509. Though shorn of prefatory matter, it was
embellished with extensive scholia, many based on the notes of
the same Aegidius Maserius who had provided liminary verses for
the 1508 and 1511 editions. The scholia, placed at the end of each
chapter, oVer grammatical observations, interpretative commen-
tary, and a little textual criticism, in which Ascensius assesses his
predecessors. For example, at the end of 1. 1, having demonstrated
Gellius’ idiosyncratic formulation of certain adverbs, Ascensius
triples the height of Hercules (as calculated by Pythagoras), in
rejecting the reading (attributed to Beroaldus) ducentos pedes, and
rebukes Petrus Crinitus for pondering but failing to impose the
now accepted reading sescentos.9 The scholia, now at the head of
their chapters, were expanded for a revised edition of 1524, and
again in 1530, when Ascensius made use of the commentary of
Petrus Mosellanus (Schade), whose Annotationes appeared, post-
humously, at Basel in 1526 and as an appendix to Soter’s Cologne
edition of that year. In fact Mosellanus’ commentary has little to
oVer on the text, containing a few remarks on manuscripts but
consisting mainly of historical information, literary parallels, and
occasional linguistic observations. Erudite rather than polemical,
Mosellanus rarely takes issue with his predecessors, although he
does contend that the ‘last chapter’, numbered 20. 11, is correctly
positioned: Sed certe autoris peroratio est. Previous editors had all
considered it a prologue, Auctoris tanquam praefationis admonitio in
operis totius summa de noctium ordine, though no one had the
courage to place it Wrst until Gronovius in 1651.10
Ascensius reprinted Mosellanus’ notes, which appeared in
Cologne editions until at least 1563, as a separate monograph in
1528 and again in 1534. When Ascensius died in December 1535
the task of supplying Gellius to Parisian readers was assumed by
Michel Vascosan, whose 1536 edition (shared with Jean Petit, Jean
Loys, and Jean de Roigny) included both Ascensius’ notes and
Mosellanus’ Annotationes, though the latter took the form of
unsold copies of the 1534 printing bound in at the back. Demand
8
A.Gellii Noctium Atticarum libri undeuiginti . . . cum indicio . . . et Graecorum
explicatione . . . cumque scholiis Ascensianis . . . collectis fere ex annotationibus Aegi-
dii Maserii.
9
The emendation (which in fact follows the manuscripts) had been Wrst pro-
posed by Aldobrandus in an edn. of 1514 (ex. rel. L. A. Holford-Strevens).
10
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 341–2 [241–2], and above, 271, 275,
279.
286 Michael Heath
for Gellius in Paris was still relatively high, and at the same time
production resumed in Lyon, with at least a dozen editions pub-
lished by the house of Gryphius between 1532 and 1585. In an odd
display of parochialism, all these editions reproduce the somewhat
outdated text of Ferrettus, without liminary material or list of
chapters, but with some rejected readings Xagged in the margins
and, to serve the hard-pressed scholar, an enormous index nominum
et rerum replacing, says the anonymous editor, the list of chapters,
and supplemented by shorter lists of philosophical, ethical, histor-
ical, and linguistic topics.
Ascensius’ notes and Mosellanus’ commentary continued to
appear in later sixteenth-century Paris editions, until Henri Es-
tienne removed them in 1585. In theory they were to be replaced
in his edition by the notes of Ludovicus Carrio (Louis Carrion, a
scholar of Belgo-Hispanic parentage). However, although Carrio
supplied Estienne with what amounts to the Wrst critical text,11 he
failed to produce the promised commentary, much to Estienne’s
annoyance, and printing began without it. At a late stage some of
Carrio’s Castigationes et notae Wltered through to Estienne and
were printed as an appendix in perhaps one-quarter of the copies.12
It was probably just as well for Parisian paper supplies that the full
version never turned up, since Carrio’s notes break oV at 1. 25. 9,
yet still amount to 120 closely printed pages. Unlike his predeces-
sors, Carrio devotes the great majority of his notes to textual
questions. We are given interesting glimpses of work in progress
as the scholar compares vulgate and manuscript readings, espe-
cially from the membranae Buslidianae, an important source
now lost and for which Carrio is the main authority.13 He fre-
quently sets out all known variants and chooses from among them
for reasons which range from the cogent to the arbitrary. Although
Carrio does also adduce Roman grammarians and poets to
11
Cf. Marache, edn. i, p. lix: ‘le texte de Carrion est un vrai texte critique, fondé
sur la comparaison de plusieurs manuscrits dont le fameux b [Buslidianus], deux
Puteani et divers autres qui appartiennent tous à la classe des recentiores. Il ne
s’eVraie pas de s’écarter de la vulgate des éditions précédentes, ce qui a choqué.
Quant au degré de conWance que Carrion mérite, il est diYcile de le mesurer. Son
texte en tous cas devint le modèle auquel se conformèrent toutes les éditions postér-
ieures jusqu’à Gronove.’ The title of the edition is Auli Gellii Noctes Atticae seu
Vigiliae Atticae quas nunc primum a magno mendorum numero magnus ueterum exem-
plarium numerus repurgauit. It falls into Wve parts, with separate pagination.
12
This unscientiWc estimate is based on the fact that both the British Library and
the Bibliothèque Nationale have four copies of the 1585 edition, of which only one
contains the notes by Carrio (BL 1089 e 1, BN Z12554).
13
See Marache, edn. i, p. l.
illustrate linguistic points, social and historical commentary is

much reduced by comparison with Ascensius and Mosellanus,
despite the interest shown in these aspects of Gellius by almost
all his Renaissance readers. It is as though Carrio were playing the
censor: his commentaries, dedicated to the celebrated Burgundian
diplomat and man of letters Augier Ghislain de Busbecq, are Wlled
with his wonder at the errors of his predecessors and the faults of
the manuscripts. We get some hints of a waspish personality
almost predestined to clash with the irascible Henri Estienne.
For example, where Ascensius had mildly reproved Crinitus for
questioning the reading ducentos in 1. 1. 2 but failing to impose the
obvious sescentos, Carrio subjects Crinitus to a thrashing:
Crinitus, dum aliorum inscientiam ac ineptias, ut ipse loquitur, uult
euitare, praebet se ridiculum, et aliud nihil quam risum uidetur consulto
uoluisse captare: ait Pythicum stadium pedibus millenis Wniri . . . uides
Censorinum aperte aduersus Crinitum litem dare. (12.)
It is not entirely surprising that Carrio’s notes, and indeed his
name, were omitted from reprints of Estienne’s edition, such as
that of Frankfurt, 1603, where the prefatory epistle to Estienne’s
son Paul was Wlleted in order to exclude the irksome details. The
rest of Estienne’s paratextual material was retained, however, in-
cluding a dedicatory epistle, four indexes (scriptorum, legum, rerum
et uerborum, and Graecarum uocum), an Apologia aduersus Lud.
Viuem (discussed in §2 below), and Estienne’s own Noctes Parisi-
nae, though these are not, as might be expected, Gellian pastiche
but yet more textual observations. The epistle, to Henri III’s
Grand Almoner Pierre d’Elbene, begins in the customary courtly
style of an e´p^ıtre de´dicatoire, but the irrepressible Estienne rapidly
transforms it into a philippic against Vives, bristling at the Span-
iard’s tam maledica quam maleuola censura . . . O quid maleuolentia,
quid uindictae cupiditas non audet! (sig. A iiir ); Vives has turned
Estienne’s former love of Spain (quatenus et quantum a uero Gallo
amari Hispania potest) into hatred. After this foretaste of the Apo-
logia, Estienne addresses a second epistle to his eldest son Paul and
echoes many predecessors in extolling Gellius’ educational value:
Est enim alioqui scriptor eiusmodi, ut te in deliciis atque oblectamentis
eum habere, paucisque aliis scriptoribus Latinis posthabere uelim (1).
The embarrassing paterfamilias chides his son, a boy lacking in
fortitude as well as in poetic talent, fearing that the lad (future
printer, in fact, of Sophocles and the younger Pliny) may not
uphold the family tradition. The remedy for all this lies in Gellius,
uir quidem (ut opinor) probus, sed tamen ethnicus, de liberis suis hac
288 Michael Heath
in parte . . . sollicitus (6). The parallels do not end there: Henri

himself has imbibed from Gellius the Stoical indiVerence that
must fortify his son, even against such events as the recent earth-
quake (see Gell. 2. 28); the boy is strong enough physically, thanks
to the mother’s breastfeeding (as recommended by Favorinus in
12. 1) that was denied his siblings. This leads Henri to maudlin
reXections upon his late wife, including a belated epitaph, and to a
delightful portrayal of his own literary childhood in his publisher
father’s household, where even grandmother and servants
conversed in Latin with the foreign proofreaders.14 Henri con-
cludes with further admonitions based on Gellius: eschew the
careers of soldier or athlete (unlike Euripides in 15. 20. 3), and
abstain from alcohol to avoid the sorry fate of Gellius’ Greek
youth: Crebris et ingentibus poculis omne ingenium ingurgitabat (15.
2. 3; Gellius’ conciseness here even oVers a sample of the style to
cultivate). Henri at last abandons parental hectoring to explain the
delay in publication, for which he blames Carrio, and to account
for his own Noctes Parisinae, a title simply reXecting the sleep-
less nights imposed by publishing deadlines—and the Frankfurt
book fair.
The results of Estienne’s midnight oil fall into four sections,
eccentrically numbered according to the nights when they were
composed. The Apologia against Vives, numbered II and III,
‘commissioned’ by the historian Estienne Pasquier (who made
surprisingly little use of Gellius), exploits the conclusions of Noctes
IV and V, an Admonitio de titulis. In no fewer than forty-Wve pages
Estienne casts justiWable doubt on the relationship between some
of the capita and the content of the chapters they introduce; he
attributes the discrepancies to an unidentiWed Pseudogellius.
Noctes VI to VIII contain a Specimen seu ˜¯'ˆ` emendationum,
sixty pages of textual suggestions based both on ueteres libri and
Estienne’s own hunches. Less conjectural is the Wnal section, an-
other sixty pages presenting Emendationes coniecturales, but actu-
ally derived from some work on one of two Wfteenth-century
manuscripts known as Puteani. In a letter to the diplomat Johann
Vulcob, preceding the Apologia, Estienne outlines the projected
contents of Noctes IX–XX, abandoned because the printer could
not be persuaded to include them, nec prece nec pretio (4). As well as
further textual emendations, they would have included some thirty
(rather random) quaestiones on Gellius and an assessment of Gel-
lius’ translations from Greek, so skilful ut linguae Latinae cum
14
Cf. A. Grafton, below, 330–1.
Graeca quodammodo certantis spectaculum nobis alicubi exhibeat

(11). Finally, Estienne embarks on preliminary discussion of a
number of linguistic questions designed to illustrate and excuse
Gellius’ verbal idiosyncrasies. Estienne’s Noctes Parisinae cer-
tainly reXect their model in their variety and lack of order, but
will have been less useful to the earnest scholar (or even to Paul
Estienne) than the textual editing of Carrio, the most advanced
until the 1651 Amsterdam edition of Gronovius, who had the
advantage of consulting the twelfth-century manuscript known as
Regius or Parisinus.15
Despite this strenuous textual work, the Noctes Atticae were to
be unavailable to the Latinless for nearly two centuries more. The
Wrst substantial (and very bad) French translation of Gellius did
not appear until 1776, while in the sixteenth century, curiously
enough, a single chapter found its way into the vernacular—twice!
Favorinus’ discourse on breastfeeding (12. 1), highly regarded by
medical professionals,16 was added in 1534 to a translation of
Plutarch’s Praecepta gerendae reipublicae17 Wrst published in
1532. It was followed by a brief treatise, based on Aristotle and
Cicero, on the ‘Estatz de la chose publique’. The connection
between the two political works and Gellius’ medical and moral
homily is nowhere explained, but the translation, though some-
times clumsily literal, is extremely accurate and generally readable;
for instance, the anonymous translator succumbs only twice to the
contemporary mania for unauthorized doublets, and often strives
to achieve natural French syntax by reordering complex sentences.
He is a good deal more faithful than Laurent Joubert, whose
translation of 1578 is discussed in the next section.
2. s c h o l a r s
The dearth of translations indicates that Gellius remained largely
the property of scholars, and of those fortunate undergraduates to
whom the early editions were dedicated. Following Petrarch
and Politianus, among others, French scholars prized the Noctes
15
Cf. Marache, edn. i, pp. lviii f., ii, p. viii, and Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius,
341–2 [241–2].
16
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 114 n. 79 [79 n. 37], including another
French translation of 1797, in which it was compared favourably with book 1 of
Rousseau’s Émile.
17
Politiques, ou civiles institutions pour bien regir la chose publique, tr. GeoVroy
Tory (Lyon: Guillaume Boulle) (Bodleian, Bywater R. 6. 18), fos. 95r ---99v .
290 Michael Heath
Atticae as both encyclopaedia and lexicon. Their approval was not

unqualiWed. In 1513 Nicolas Bérault, the foremost humanities
lecturer in Paris, gave a course on Politianus’ Rusticus. His inaug-
ural praelectio reveals the tastes of the discriminating humanist:
‘dans l’héritage ancien lui-même il choisit et hiérarchise, se met-
tant en déWance d’Aulu-Gelle ou d’Apulée, exaltant sur tous
Cicéron et Virgile.’18 But if Gellius represented a less distin-
guished strand of the tradition, contemporary scholars were suY
ciently broad-minded to recognize his role in the recovery of
Roman civilization, acknowledged, for example, in Connellus’
dedication of his edition to students of the Roman military.
Foremost among these scholars was Guillaume Budé, prince of
French humanists and a colleague of Gellius’ editor Ascensius,
who in 1514 published Budé’s unique study of ancient economics,
De asse et partibus eius. While Pliny is Budé’s principal source,
Gellius is quoted frequently and Budé even proposes textual
emendations. His liking for a good story leads him to paraphrase
the petulant outburst of Caecus’ daughter (Gell. 10. 6. 2) in order,
ostensibly, to discuss the principle of mulcta contumaciae
(fo. cxxxir ); Budé Wnds Gellius particularly informative on the
language of Wnes. Budé also calculates, with the help of Gell. 11.
1. 2, that the Wne of 25,000 lb. of bronze was the equivalent of 250
oxen (ibid.). But selective quotation is not all: association of ideas
leads Budé immediately to Wllet Gellius’ chapter on sumptuary
laws (2. 24) and to propose an emendation. Where the printed
texts have sestertii millies as the limit prescribed for banquet ex-
penditure under the lex Iulia (§14), Budé argues that such absurd
exaggeration compels us to read mille (fo. cxxxiv ); the emendation
appeared in the Ascensius edition of 1519 and is accepted by
modern editors.
In another case, Pliny is emended by way of Gellius. Pondering
the price of Alexander’s steed Bucephalus, Budé sets the 13 talents
quoted in Gell. 5. 2. 1 against the 16 mentioned by Pliny. In this
case, given Plutarch’s support for the Gellian version, it is Pliny
(8. 154) who requires correction (fo. lxiv ). This again reminds
Budé of a crucial piece of evidence (testimonium locupletissimum)
for which Gellius is the sole authority, namely that the drachma
weighed the same as the denarius in the time of Hadrian. However,
Budé claims that the sum of money mentioned, 10,000 denarii, was
worth a mere 40 sestertia, not 100, and that the allusion must be to
minae. This digniWed technical discussion is only slightly under-
18
M.-M. de La Garanderie, Christianisme et lettres profanes, 57.
mined by the context: the sum is that demanded of an appalled

Demosthenes by the toothsome Lais in Gell. 1. 8. 5. Gellius has a
knack of providing light relief alongside hard facts.
Similar features appear in Budé’s supplement (altera editio) to
his monumental legal treatise Annotationes in Pandectas.19 Gellius
provides linguistic clariWcation, such as the validity of the form
mulctam dicere (16, based on Gell. 11. 1. 6) and the range of
meaning of rogatio (51, based on 10. 20. 7–9); Gellius’ own legal
career (14. 2. 1) informs a discussion of iudicia priuata (112). Budé
considers Gellius a most reliable guide to the Laws of the Twelve
Tables, and quotes him extensively on the right to kill a thief in the
night (40, quoting 11. 18. 7) and on the power of the plebs over the
comitia (51, based on 15. 27). But a picturesque anecdote enlivens a
discussion of defendants’ dress (7), with Gellius’ description of
the haughty Scipio refusing, when treacherously arraigned, to put
oV his white garments or even, as was customary, to stop shaving
(3. 4. 1). In this important book, Budé again turns to Gellius as
both artist and magpie.
This dual function is further illustrated by Julius Caesar Scali-
ger, the pugnacious physician-scholar of Agen. In his inXuential
Poetices libri septem,20 Scaliger enthuses over the Anacreontic
verses preserved by Gellius (19. 9. 6): extant apud Gellium suauis-
sima, et sparsa per aliorum libros quaedam plenissima mellitae sim-
plicitas (60). However, he enlists Gellius’ support (19. 9. 10–14) for
his controversial thesis that Latin is more than capable of equalling
Greek achievements in light lyrical poetry.21 Scaliger devoted
nearly half book 5 to a notoriously tendentious comparison
between Homer and Vergil which owes most to Macrobius but
something also to Gellius (e.g. 9. 9 and 13. 27). Gellius’ literary
criticism played a still greater role in Scaliger’s celebrated contri-
bution to the Ciceronian debate, the Oratio pro M. Tullio Cicerone
contra Des. Erasmum,22 which so stung the great Dutchman’s
admirers that they bought and destroyed almost the entire
print run. Despite their eVorts, this resounding polemic survived
and was occasionally republished over the next century, on the
last occasion accompanied by Scaliger’s Problemata Gelliana,23 a
19
References are to Michel Vascosan’s edition (Paris, 1542).
20
Published posthumously at Lyon by A. Vincent in 1561. Page references are to
this edition.
21
See M. Magnien, ‘Anacréon, Ronsard et J.-C. Scaliger’, 408–9.
22
Paris: P. Vidoue, 1531; a second oration appeared in 1537. References are to
the modern edition by Michel Magnien, Orationes duae contra Erasmum.
23
Problemata Gelliana ex Iul. Caesar Scaligeri familiarum exercitationum libris
(Toulouse, 1620). The two works were reissued the next year, together with the
292 Michael Heath
curious compendium found among his papers and published by an

admirer despite being lacerata, hiulca & inemendata (52). The 111
problems are not observations on textual diYculties but questions
on historical and linguistic topics, with bibliography, apparently
designed as school exercises, though one may question the propri-
ety of Problem 9, Quaere quae de Laı¨de dicuntur (cf. Gell. 1. 8).
In the Oratio, a furious reply to Erasmus’ satirical Ciceronianus
(1528), Scaliger enlists as many of Cicero’s devotees as he can Wnd
and improves his case by extravagant praise of them; hence a series
of tributes to Gellius. This doctissimus uir, he declares (118), not
only exposed the fatuity of Seneca’s attacks on Cicero (NA 12. 2, a
chapter that was to incur the wrath of Juan Luis Vives), but also
preserved for the enjoyment of posterity the ignorance and impu-
dence of Cicero’s critics Asinius Gallus and Larcius Licinus (17. 1).
Gellius, magnus iudex (122), rightly esteemed Cicero above even
Gaius Gracchus, that summus uir, for eloquence and breuiloquium
(10. 3). It is noticeable that Scaliger assumes his reader’s familiar-
ity with whole chapters of Gellius. The eulogy reaches a climax on
the question of Greek inXuence, quam rem, quoniam a politissimo
autore Gellio luculenter tractatur, diVusius non occupabo (125).
Would that Erasmus were as scrupulous as Gellius, that uir bonus
ac doctus, in expounding both sides of a question (the reference is
to Gell. 1. 7. 16–20)! Stung by Erasmus’ exploitation of Cicero’s
confusion of Ajax and Hector (pointed out in Gell. 15. 6), Scaliger
(126) riXed his copy of the Noctes Atticae for evidence that even the
most distinguished were liable to such slips, including Plato
(13. 19. 1–2) and Gaius Gracchus (11. 10), not to mention mere
historians (3. 7. 21 and 3. 8. 5); further proof of Gellius’ impartial-
ity. Scaliger’s arguments descend to the trivial, however, when he
asserts (131) that mere chronology equipped Gellius better than
Erasmus to correct errors in classical texts. In addition to these
appeals to Gellius’ judgement, Scaliger did not neglect his custom-
ary role as supplier of exempla,24 citing for example (102) three
instances of Roman moral rigour, RuWnus and Fabricius (4. 8),
Manlius Torquatus (9. 13. 20), and a famous joke punished by a
humourless censor (4. 20. 1–6).25 Similarly, Gellius’ preservation
second oration of 1537 and an edition of the Ciceronianus itself; this package also
reappeared in 1623. The Problemata alone were reprinted in 1643, added to an
Amsterdam edition of Aristotle’s Problemata.
24
On this topic in general during the Renaissance, see J. D. Lyons, Exemplum,
12–34.
25
Erasmus had enjoyed retelling this gag in the Institutio Christiani matrimonii:
Collected Works, lxix. 223.
of fragments of lost authors and of obscure lexical and grammatical

quirks frequently serves Scaliger’s rhetoric; a passage of Ennius
(12. 4. 4–5) exposes Erasmus’ self-satisfaction (114), Laberius’
inventive verve (16. 7. 2) illustrates the inconsistency of the Dutch-
man’s lexical prescriptions (117), and two Gellian chapters (10. 14,
21) are cited in succession to mock Erasmus’ arrogance in matters
grammatical (127–8).
Inheriting his father’s interest, Joseph Justus Scaliger, perhaps
the target of the Problemata Gelliana, appears to have contem-
plated publishing an edition. He annotated a copy of the 1521
Strasburg text,26 expanding and revising the translations of the
Greek, adding marginal headings and identifying further sources.
He adds names and topics to the already substantial index. Most
interestingly, he includes a number of textual emendations and
commentaries, citing Beroaldus, Crinitus, and Mosellanus in par-
ticular. He notes for example the insistence of the Wrst two upon
ducentos in 1. 1. 2, proposes an implausible legentium for legendum
in 1. 4. 4, and a more likely possit for posset in 1.4.5 (though modern
editors accept the palimpsest reading postulat). Joseph even
embellishes the title page with a verse eulogy already published by
Nicolas Bourbon, which he seems prepared to pass oV as his own:
Attica nox haec est, nulli cessura diei;
Quod dedit egregiae Gellius artis opus.
Sermonis Veneres hic sunt omnesque Latinae
Delitiae; uulgo non patet ista penus.27
It seems likely that the appearance of the Estienne edition in 1585
halted this enterprise, since the entry under Gellius in Joseph’s
anthology of Scaligerana includes, alongside judgements that echo
his father’s, an unexpectedly generous review:
Gellii octauus liber periit: habet stylum antiquum: est optimus Autor,
inWnita fragmenta habet, & propterea bonus. Caput illud de Legibus
duodecim tabularum est optimum . . . Gellii editio Parisiensis est satis
correcta: multa uocabula sunt Barbara in Gellio, non integer reperitur.28
Lexicographers, of course, greatly appreciated this preservation
of unconventional Latin. Robert Estienne’s remarkable Thesaurus
Linguae Latinae naturally ransacked him for examples of usage
from abdicare sese to zona. Gellius also appears in the prefatory
26
British Library C. 45. b. 13.
27
Bourbon, Nugae (Paris, 1533), quoted in Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius,
p. vi [viiii].
28
Edition of Cologne: G. Scagen, 1667, 93.
294 Michael Heath
discussion of linguistic principles, Epistola Adriani Cardinalis de

sermone latino, as an authority on semantic change (cf. Gell. 6. 11)
and on neologism. As well as contributing many deWnitions and
even anecdotes (Androdus . . . historia lectu dignissima), Gellius is
acknowledged as the principal or only source for certain legal and
technical terms (arrogatio, 5. 19; deiurium, 6. 18. 8; chiridota, 6. 12).
By contrast, a few terms discussed by Gellius are omitted, perhaps
for their exceptional rarity: imparilitas (5. 20. 1), rumpia (10. 25. 4),
and sympoticus (7. 13). In at least one instance, Gellius receives as
much as he gives: on ueiouis the reader is referred to Gell. 5. 12, to
which, unexpectedly, Estienne proposes an emendation, plausibly
suggesting that Auerruncus (¼ Auruncus: Varro, LL 7. 102) be
substituted for the incomprehensible Arungus.
Gellius’ role in the recreation of ancient civilization went beyond
the legal and linguistic, extending into both the spiritual and the
physiological domains: by the end of the sixteenth century he was
appearing in the most diverse contexts—and in French. The royal
historiographer Nicolas Vignier’s Fastes des anciens Hebreux, Grecs
et Romains,29 for example, is a comparative study of the ancient
calendars. Vignier was best informed on the Roman version,
centring his study, naturally, on Ovid and Macrobius. However,
he had read Gellius attentively, and frequently resorted to him for
conWrmation of details like the date of Cicero’s birth (8r ; Gell. 15.
28. 3). Gellius’ chapters on Roman religious ceremonial, such as
the highly circumstantial account of the Xamen Dialis (10. 15),
were particularly pertinent. Vignier extracted dozens of procedural
details, from the sacriWces performed by the priest (15v ) to such
minutiae as the condition of the Xaminica’s hair during solemn
processions (41v ). The historian also cites Gellius on what might
be termed doctrinal issues, from the prohibition of sacriWce on
certain days (97v , based on Gell. 5. 17) to the distinction between
beneWcent and maleWcent deities, dioues and uedioues, compared to
Plato’s daemones (38r , based on Gell. 5. 12).
At the other extreme, Laurent Joubert, academic physician of
Montpellier and me´decin ordinaire du roi, was attracted by Gellius’
physiological material. Joubert’s most inXuential vernacular trea-
tises, Erreurs populaires (1578) and Traite´ du ris (1579), draw on
familiar parts of Gellius. In the Erreurs populaires, Joubert
impugned the lower ranks of the medical profession, barbers,
29
Paris: Abel l’Angelier, 1588. Vignier’s historiographical masterpiece, La
Bibliothe`que historiale, was published in 1587.
apothecaries, and midwives. His assertion of the rights of the

academic professional was naturally underpinned by much hu-
manist learning, and an important chapter against midwives is
built on Favorinus’ celebrated eulogy of maternal breastfeeding
(Gell. 12. 1). In addition to the 1534 translation, this chapter had
already inspired the polymath Pierre Boaistuau to include a sur-
prisingly extensive passage on breastfeeding, ‘Cruauté des meres
qui ne daignent nourrir leurs enfans’, in a book on the miseries of
life from the cradle to the grave.30 Joubert’s ‘Exhortation à toutes
meres, de nourrir leurs enfans’31 begins with a translation of
Gellius, ‘une si belle remonstrance . . . que j’ay pensé de la repre-
senter icy, pour un preambulle.’ The translation is less faithful
than that of 1534, as Joubert abbreviates what he considers super-
Xuous detail and makes additions to strengthen his case from time
to time: the uecordia (‘lascheté’ in 1534) of reluctant mothers
becomes ‘folie et forcenerie’ and, satirically, their concern for
their aequor uentris (‘rondeur’ in 1534) develops into a narcissistic
‘lizeur [sc. lissure, sleekness] et polie planure’ (404). Most strik-
ingly, Joubert inserts into the passage on the identity of blood and
breast-milk (Gell. 12. 1. 11–12) a commentary on the obsession
with caste in contemporary matchmaking: ‘Et toutefois on regarde
fort aux conditions de l’homme et de la femme, à leur race, au sang,
aux meurs, pour avoir lignee de la meilleure qu’on peut’ (405); no
such care is taken over the nursing of the infant. Joubert oVers no
commentary at the end of Favorinus’ speech, perhaps because
none is required beyond these satirical embellishments. The rest
of the chapter is based on Antonio de Guevara’s Libro aureo de
Marco Aurelio (published in French as the Horloge des princes),
from which Joubert draws a mixed bag of arguments, ranging from
the humanist (Scipio, Nero, and Antipater all treated their nurses
more humanely than they did their blood-relatives) to the social
(the carnality of husbands) and the hygienic (the danger of con-
tracting syphilis from a nurse). The lucidity of Favorinus’ oration,
translated as a unit, contrasts strikingly with the somewhat indis-
criminate adaptation of Guevara, in which Joubert’s polemical
bent often gets the better of him.
30
P. Boaistuau, Theatre du monde, fos. 24v ---27v . A particularly Gellian echo can
be heard in this denigration of wetnurses: ‘La nourrice est louche, subjete à ebrieté
ou maladie, ou autrement de mœurs corrompues’ (26r ; cf. Gell. 12. 1. 17).
31
Erreurs populaires, 5. 1. 401–35. References are to the Wrst edition, Avignon,
1578. An English translation by Gregory de Rocher was published in 1989.
296 Michael Heath
Joubert’s ‘Exhortation’ was closely echoed by a colleague, Jac-

ques Guillemeau, in the preface to his book on paedology,32 ‘Epis-
tre liminaire aux Dames, aWn de les exhorter de nourrir leurs
enfans’. Gellius is in fact given pride of place, since these are the
opening words:
J’estime qu’Aule Gelle avoit raison, lorsqu’il ne faisoit point de diVerence
de la femme qui dédaigne de nourrir son enfant, avec celle qui le faict
mourir soudain qu’elle l’a conceu, craignant de recevoir l’incommodité de
le porter neuf mois dedans son ventre. (sig. a iiiir .)
This echo of Gell. 12. 1. 8 is supported with further wisdom from
Favorinus. Although subsequent examples are lifted from Gue-
vara, the moral impetus of the epistle is unquestionably provided
by Gellius. But it must be said that he was considered the less
colourful; a chapter on the same topic by the Amiens schoolmaster
Jean des Caurres is derived entirely from Guevara.33
Gellius performs his more usual role of supplying exempla in
Joubert’s chapter on multiple births, where Aristotle and Augus-
tus Caesar, by limiting the ancient experience to quintuplets (Gell.
10. 2), prove that in this respect at least the new world has sur-
passed the old.34 Joubert treated Gellius as on authority on death
as well as on birth. In his intriguing Traite´ du ris the question of
death from joy is examined, naturally enough (alongside such gems
as ‘six problems concerning tickling’).35 Joubert’s rather heartless
conclusion is that to die laughing is not unexpected, ‘puisqu’on
void tous les jours d’une assés petite liesse evanouı̈r jans [gens]
for[t] delicas’ (80). Joubert’s Wrst examples of this phenomenon are
a close but unattributed paraphrase of Gell. 3. 15. After Polycrita,
Philippides, and the mother of Cannae, Gellius inspires what may
be the debut of a neologism,36 though admittedly one of limited
use:
32
De la Nourriture et gouvernement des enfans, de`s le commencement de leur
naissance (Paris, 1609). Gellius also supplies material on the composition of breast-
milk (3).
33
Œuvres morales (Paris, 1584), 198–9. Des Caurres cites Gellius quite fre-
quently elsewhere, most extensively on Archelaus’ tower (637; Gell. 15. 1. 6–7);
he also questions his medical lore (197; Gell. 10. 10. 2).
34
Erreurs populaires, 3. 1. 254.
35
Traite´ du ris, 201–9. In this treatise, as can be seen, Joubert adopts an eccentric
form of phonetic spelling. An English translation was published by Gregory de
Rocher in 1980.
36
Pancratiaste: the Grand Robert dates this to 1579, while the Tre´sor de la langue
française cites a work of Guillaume du Choul Wrst published in 1555, but refers to
the edition of 1581.
Aulu Gelle raconte qu’un nommé Diagore randit l’ame devant les yeus et
és mains de ses Wls, ayant trois jouvenceaus, l’un pugil, l’autre pancra-
tiaste, et le dernier luycteur, les voyant tous trois victorieus, et etre cou-
ronnés un maime jour Olympique. (79.)
The list is completed by similarly well-known examples from Val.
Max. 9. 12. Equally predictably, the laughing philosopher Dem-
ocritus Wgures prominently in Joubert’s discussion. He concurs
with Gellius’ view (10. 17. 1) that the philosopher put out his eyes
‘pour mieus s’adonner à la contemplacion, comme dit Aule Gelle’
(9), preferring this to Tertullian’s claim that it was to avoid carnal
temptation.
Given the widespread acknowledgement by scholars of Gellius’
utility and intelligence, it is a shock to come upon Juan Luis
Vives’s brief but remarkably pungent attack on him, to which
Henri Estienne replied vigorously in the edition of 1585. In his
encyclopedic survey of intellectual history, De tradendis disciplinis
(1531; 3. 8), Vives includes Gellius among the philologi, in such
distinguished company as the Augustine of the Ciuitas Dei and the
Erasmus of the Adagia. However, whereas they and such lesser
lights as Macrobius and Caelius Rhodiginus are treated with re-
spect (as Estienne points out, Vives is normally generous, pau-
corum uituperator, multorum laudator), Gellius is subjected to a
vivid attack:
Aulus Gellius, homo rhapsodus plane, congestor potius quam digestor, et
ostentator, quam peritus; loquaculus sine eruditione, in uerbis ac senten-
tiis putidulus; quae de signiWcatu uocum disserit, sunt friuola et plerum-
que imperita ac falsa; legendus est quidem, sed ita ut rem leuem scias
inspicere; sanior est aemulus ejus Petrus Crinitus.37
This is not all. Turning to style, Vives contends that Cicero and
Quintilian are without equal, that Quintus Curtius and Justinus
have merit, but that post hinc periculosa sunt omnia: Gellius duris-
simarum elegantiarum aVectator; Apuleius in Asino plane rudit . . .
Macrobius melius est his, atque explanatior (340).
The pugnacious Henri Estienne gave this judgement more pub-
licity than it perhaps deserved by including in the liminary mater-
ial of his edition a 31-page Auli Gelli Apologia (id est, pro Aulo
Gellio) aduersus Lud. Viuem. As a captatio beneuolentiae, Estienne
himself admits that breaking the silence surrounding Vives’s
judgement may do Gellius a disservice. But the hesitation is
37
Opera omnia, vi. 337; see Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 329 n. 2 [237 n. 2]
for some less disparaging remarks by Vives elsewhere.
298 Michael Heath
momentary. First, Estienne seeks to understand Vives’s motives,

ut Gellium, uirum de literaria republica tam bene meritum, non aliquo
dicterio perstringeret, sed ejus famam . . . grauiter sauciaret (3).
Tentatively, Estienne suggests some instinctive dislike, or some
distemper on Vives’s part, before proceeding to a point-by-point
refutation in which, unlike his opponent, he will cite book and
chapter.
How can rhapsodus be a term of reproach, since it was originally
applied to Homer and Hesiod? Is Gellius a mere consarcinator or
consutor? For Estienne, he did in fact exercise his judgement, in
choosing the most suitable material for our pleasure and ediWca-
tion, but to expect him to act as digestor is to misunderstand the
genre of the commentarius, as practised by Gellius, Aelian, and
their many followers. A passage in the Praefatio (§2) reveals delib-
erate negligentia rather than imperitia in Gellius, who aims to
challenge the reader rather than bore him to sleep. Where is
Vives’s evidence of Gellius as ostentator? Is it his (remarkably
indulgent) criticism of Caesellius (6. 2), or of Vergil (2. 6), which
is in truth a defence of the poet against earlier detractors? Any
apparent arrogance here stems from the capita, which, as Estienne
also argues in the contemporary Admonitio de titulis, are by another
hand. The same applies to 2. 9, 10. 22, and 17. 20. Such is Gellius’
humility, indeed, that he unfailingly acknowledges his sources and
regularly distributes praise: frequenter liberaliterque ac propemodum
prodige laudat (12). As for peritus: in a Wne display of pedantry
Estienne exposes the vagueness of Vives’s charge, concluding that
the category peritus litterarum exists only in the Spaniard’s lexicon
of abuse. Estienne is on surer ground with loquaculus: for him,
Gellius observes a mean between the silence of the night and the
copiousness of his material; has Vives so much as read his remark-
able chapters (1. 2, 15) denouncing futilis loquacitas with the sup-
port of Epictetus, Homer, Cicero, and Cato? As for erudition,
Estienne can scarcely enumerate the Welds, from semantics to
philosophy, in which Gellius has enlightened posterity. Estienne’s
indignation grows: the gratuitously insulting putidulus can only be
answered in kind: Immo tu ipse putidissime ac uanissime hoc de uiro
loqueris (22). An tu, Ludouice, putidulum rancidulumque his in uerbis
Aulum Gellium esse, dicere audebis? (28, on the stylistic felicity of
1. 2). Vives stands convicted of pure malice, his Spanish nose
sniYng faults undetectable to all devotees of Gellius’ stylish sen-
tentiae; Estienne conjectures, on slender evidence, that Gellius
actually polished the rough-hewn utterances of contemporaries
such as Macedo (13. 8. 4).
Vives’s Wnal shaft moves Estienne to spluttering indignation:

Proh, deûm atque hominum Wdem, quid est aperte mentiri, quid est
improbe impudenterque calumniari, si hoc non est? Rage (and lack of
space?) overwhelms him: quum ea prae stomacho nunc eloqui non
possim, alii cogor tempori reseruare (30). But what, Wnally, of Vives’s
motives? There have been sporadic references to his nationality,
and now Estienne delivers the coup de grâce: Vicit te amor patriae!
(30). All this bile because Gellius noster attacked Vives’s compatriot
Seneca on similar grounds in 12. 2, with the backing of the worthy
Quintilian and the somewhat less worthy Caligula. Ironically,
Estienne concludes this entertaining rant by recommending mod-
eration—on grounds proposed, appropriately, by Favorinus: Eum
qui maledicit et uituperat, quanto id acerbius facit, tam maxime pro
inimico duci, et plerumque propterea Wdem non impetrare (19. 3. 2).
Estienne’s defence is worth reading, since from the bluster and
invective there emerges an estimation of the Gellian qualities most
valued by Renaissance scholars: the historical interest of his
material, the originality of his style, the objectivity of his judge-
ments, and the modesty of his character.
3. miscellanists
It was the Wrst of these that impressed compilers of exempla.
Gellius himself commented on the fashion in his own time for
the learned anthology, uariam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam
doctrinam, and on the exquisitissimos titulos these works were
given (pr. 5–6). Renaissance humanists enthusiastically revived
the genre of commentarii or commentationes. Some used the very
titles mentioned by Gellius, such as Siluae (Ascensius, Mexia) and
Antiquae lectiones (Caelius Rhodiginus).38 Appropriately, Gellius
provided material as well as titles and (lack of) form: the antholo-
gist was thoroughly anthologized.
In his attack on Gellius, Vives called the Florentine Petrus
Crinitus his aemulus sanior, and the De honesta disciplina libri xxv
do indeed echo Gellius’ formlessness. Though Wrst published at
Florence in 1504, the book quickly became more familiar in Paris,
where Ascensius published at least four editions between 1508 and
1525, adding a copious index.39 Crinitus considers Gellius a uir
38
See Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books, 17 and 24, also distinguishing between
these miscellanies and commonplace-books proper; on Rhodiginus, see 98–9.
39
References are to Ascensius’ edition of 1525. There was an additional Paris
edition of 1518 by Nicolas Crispin; a series of editions appeared from the Lyon press
of Gryphius from 1543 onwards.
300 Michael Heath
graui consilio in rebus humanis (9. 4, fo. 27r ) and quotes him regu-
larly on Roman customs, such as the wearing of togas (3. 7, fo. 10r )
and Servius Tullius’ ‘three ages of life’ (5. 19, fo. 17r ), though one
of the longest borrowings from Gellius, Favorinus’ diatribe against
the Chaldaeans or astrologers (14. 1), is not attributed to him (8. 9,
fo. 26). Crinitus also proposes several emendations to the text. In a
passage derided by Carrio, he attempts to resolve the controversy
over the size of stadia (Gell. 1. 1. 2) quo inscitiam quorundam atque
ineptias deuitemus (21. 10, fos. 61v ---62r ). Also rejected by later
editors was his attempt to emend scirpus to scrupus in 12. 6. 1,
reproaching nostri fere omnes grammatici for accepting Gellius’
word alone for this sense of the term (9. 13, fo. 29v ). Crinitus
oVers a new Latin version of the Anacreontic ode (19. 9. 6)
whose Greek text, he claims, has been deprauatum by Gellius (9.
4, fo. 27v ).
Crinitus’ observations were well enough known to be picked over
by most French editors of Gellius. However, the most inXuential
early humanist miscellany of French origin was the OYcina of
Joannes Ravisius Textor (Jean Tixier de Ravisy) of Nevers,40
professor of rhetoric at the colle`ge de Navarre and rector of the
university of Paris, for whose fortunate students he provided an-
other short cut to erudition. Though heavily dependent on Raphael
Volaterranus’ Commentarii and Caelius Rhodiginus’ Antiquae le-
ctiones, Ravisius also consulted the original sources and most fre-
quently cites Gellius in catalogues of disaster and disease. Among
the strange deaths lifted almost verbatim from Gellius are those of
the Milesian virgins who committed mass suicide (viiiv ; Gell. 15.
10), of the treasonous Alban Mettus Fufetius, torn apart by char-
iots (xixv ; 20. 1. 54), of Euripides, dismembered by dogs (xxiv ; 15.
20. 9), and of Milo of Croton, trapped in an oak and devoured by
wild beasts (xxiv ; 15. 16. 4). Ravisius’ chapter on death from joy
(XXIX), pillaged by Rabelais in chapter 17 of the Quart Livre,
makes much of the famous quartet in Gell. 3. 15. Among the merely
mutilati appear Croesus’ son, mute until his father stood in mortal
danger (xlvr ; 5. 9. 1–4), the blind Democritus celebrated by Laber-
ius (xlvir ; 10. 17), and the deluded Psylli who took up arms against
the South Wind (xlixv ; 16. 11. 4–7). Compiler rather than commen-
tator, Ravisius was content to register these and other mirabilia
scattered through Gellius’ work, and doubtless fostered the per-
ception that Gellius dealt extensively in lurid anecdote.
40
First edition 1520; references are to the revised edition of 1532; on Textor, see
Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books, 114–15.
A less successful miscellany, though it did provide material for

one of the worst tragedies ever written, appeared in Paris in the
following year, 1521, the work of the Berrichon humanist Guy de
Fontenay.41 His rubric De morte uiolenta ac subitanea (1104–7)
included all four of Gellius’ deaths from joy, alongside Milo,
though Fufetius is omitted and the Milesian virgins appear under
the heading De crudelitate (1127). Less commonplace are the clas-
siWcation of the abstemious Roman matrons (10. 23. 1) under De
gulonibus (1122) and of the ambitious Cornelius RuWnus (4. 8. 2–8)
under De muniWcis et auaris (1136). While most of these allusions
are relatively brief, in three cases Fontenay virtually transcribed
whole chapters of Gellius, two of them under the rubric De for-
tunatis (1139, 1141), the edifying tale of Ventidius Bassus (15. 4)
and the epic adventures of Sicinius Dentatus (2.11). As a counter-
weight, Fontenay could not resist including, under De pudicis et
impudicis (1173), the entire comic tale of Demosthenes and Lais
(1. 8. 5–6). A roster of favourite chapters was emerging.
Neither Textor nor Fontenay was translated into French, but
many of Gellius’ more intriguing anecdotes were relayed to the
Francophone public by Claude Gruget’s translation of Pedro
Mexia’s Silva de varia lecion, which had the unusual distinction
of being published at Lyon in 1556 in the original Spanish and
in Italian. Les Diverses Leçons had Wrst appeared in Paris in 1552
and was republished many times in the sixteenth century, from
1592 with a supplement compiled by the bibliographer Antoine du
Verdier. It included such familiar episodes as Democritus’ blind-
ness (1. 36), Androcles and the lion (2. 2), and the chastity of
Alexander and Scipio (2. 29); the book’s ubiquity complicates
questions of transmission.42 However, it popularized the genre of
the miscellany in the vernacular, and the most successful native
version was soon launched by the proliWc Pierre Boaistuau, sei-
gneur de Launay, translator of Bandello and best known as the
compiler of Histoires tragiques (1559). He admitted a voracity
characteristic of his type: ‘Je n’ay pardonné à autheur quelconque,
41
De rebus humanis uariorum exemplorum liber; references are to the reprint in
Johann Heroldt, Exempla uirtutum et uitiorum (Basel, 1555), 1102–76. The tragedy
is Gabriel Bounin’s La Soltane, published in 1561 and re-edited by M. Heath
(Textes Littéraires; Exeter, 1977); entire limping tirades are based on enumerations
in Fontenay.
42
Cf. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, p. xv [x] on this problem in general: ‘It
would be no easy task to collect even the admitted borrowings, to segregate the false
citations, to recognize unacknowledged and often distorted echoes, to distinguish
direct from indirect quotations.’
302 Michael Heath
sacré ou prophane, Grec, Latin, ou vulgaire, duquel je n’aye tiré

cuisse ou aesle.’43 He indulged the contemporary passion for mon-
sters and portents with his Histoires prodigieuses (1560), whose
single illustrated volume had grown to six, by various hands,
before the end of the century.44 These volumes indicate a trend
in the evolution of the genre away from humanist compilation,
with Gellius a revered predecessor, towards a more sensational
or polemical agenda, in which he had no part to play. Gellius
is most obviously present in the original volume of 1560,
though even here his material is wrenched into odd contexts.
In a chapter on disWgurement (6: 17r ), Gellius supplies details
of the perfection required of Vestal Virgins (1. 12. 3), while a
remarkable tale of a man who washed in molten lead naturally
brought to mind Gell. 15. 1. 6–7 on the comparable incombust-
ibility of alum. Boaistuau abridges and dramatizes Sulla’s frustra-
tion by Archelaos:
Silla . . . ne sçeut oncques endommager une tour de bois, encores qu’il
l’eust environnée de tous costez des Xammes ardantes: par ce qu’elle estoit
frotée de certain alum par dedans: ce qui engendra grand espouventement
à Silla. (9: 30r .)
The longest adaptation of a Gellian tale occurs in a chapter on the

strange behaviour of dogs, into which Androcles and the lion are
inserted with only the barest of apologies (30. 147r ---50v ). Though
attributed to Gellius, there is no attempt to moralize, and the tale
borrows romantic features and dialogue from the Letters of
Antonio de Guevara.45 At least Boaistuau omits the courtly para-
phernalia concerning Gonsalvo de Cordoba with which Guevara
further bastardizes the story.
The second volume of Histoires prodigieuses, compiled by
Claude de Tesserant and published in 1567, has less to oVer. The
compiler’s eye had been caught, unsurprisingly, by the title of
Gell. 9. 4, De barbararum gentium prodigiosis miraculis, and, al-
though the bulk of his Wrst chapter, on the monstrous diversity of
humankind, is derived (like Gellius’) from book 7 of Pliny, he cites
43
Boaistuau, Theatre du monde, sig. [a5]r . Montaigne used the same metaphor
of Plutarch: ‘Je ne le puis si peu racointer que je n’en tire cuisse ou aile’ (Essais,
3. 5. 875).
44
References are to the complete six-tome Paris edition, dated 1598 (i, vi) and
1597 (ii–v).
45
Recently published in France as Les Epistres dorees (Lyon, 1558), i. 97–104
(letter dated 25 Aug. 1529).
Gellius for the description of the monocular Arimaspians (9. 4. 6)

and his examples of sudden sex-change (9. 4. 15).46 Otherwise
Gellius contributed little, and in 1571 the polymath François de
Belleforest added a third book of prodigies for which Gellius did
not qualify at all, since, for example, his remarks on quintuplets
(10. 2), and his philosophical treatment of earthquake (2. 28) and
shipwreck (19. 1), could not compete with the extravagant multiple
births and lurid natural disasters meticulously recorded from con-
temporary sources by Belleforest. The taste for more sensational
matter than Gellius could supply was combined with sectarian
polemic in the fourth and Wfth volumes to remove the collection
still further from mere miscellanea. The short fourth book simply
listed recent portents of divine anger against schismatic Christians,
while in the Wfth Belleforest translated a Tractatus de monstris by
the Wery bishop Arnaud Sorbin de Sainte-Foy. In this Traicté des
monstres naiz et produicts dès le temps de Constantin le Grand jusque
à nostre siecle, Gellius’ fellow anthologist Valerius Maximus is
exploited polemically: the patriotism and altruism of Cimon of
Athens, dutiful son and citizen, are contrasted with the treachery
and self-interest of the Reformers, while Aemilius Lepidus’ aban-
donment of his private quarrel becomes a lesson for contemporary
rebels and narcissists.47 Less controversially, Jean de Marconville
completed the long history of the Histoires prodigieuses with a
recital of monsters from 1581 to 1596, a supplement to his own
Recueil memorable d’aucuns cas merveilleux advenus de noz ans of
1564. The shift from classiWed moral exempla to contemporary
sensation and polemic reached a peak when the Calvinist apologist
and historian Simon Goulart, a great collector of tales, came to
compile his own Histoires admirables et memorables de nostre temps,
recueillies de plusieurs autheurs, memoires, et avis de divers endroicts
(1600). His favoured sources were the increasingly numerous
and melodramatic news pamphlets, whose classical forerunners,
including Gellius, seemed insipid by comparison.
4. r a b e l a i s a n d t h e cymbalvm mvndi
One of the anthologists’ best customers was François Rabelais. For
an encyclopaedic writer who used taxonomies as both comic and
philosophical ballast, they were a godsend. However, identifying
46
Histoires prodigieuses, ii. 24; some of the same examples in Montaigne, Essais,
1. 21. 98–9.
47
Histoires prodigieuses, v. 120 and 133; Val. Max. 5. 3. ext. 3 and 3. 1. 1.
304 Michael Heath
borrowings from Gellius in an imaginative work exacerbates the

usual problems concerning transmission and attribution. Help-
fully, Rabelais names Gellius half a dozen times—more than Mon-
taigne, who used Gellius more—and there are a few other sightings
about which we may be tolerably sure, just as we know that, for
example, the list of deaths from joy in Gargantua, 10. 33,48 featur-
ing ‘A. Gellius li. III, XV’ among the references, is culled from
Ravisius Textor; it includes Gellius’ four victims, but in a diVerent
order and without details. When Rabelais returns to the topic of
bizarre deaths in chapter 17 of the Quart Livre, Gellius is not even
among the half-dozen authorities cited. In Gargantua, 40. 110, the
monkish cowl is said to attract obloquy ‘tout ainsi comme le vent
dict Cecias attire les nues’, but the direct source of this incongru-
ous simile is much more likely to be Erasmus (Adagia 1. 5. 62) than
Gellius (2. 22. 24). Similarly, a comic comparison between the axe-
wielding Panurge (demonstrating his possession of the cardinal
virtue of Fortitude) and Milo of Croton probably derives from
humanist commonplace rather than either Gellius (15. 16) or
Valerius Maximus (9. 12. ext. 9).
However, a few direct allusions to Gellius are undeniable. In
Pantagruel, 24. 300, Panurge the humanist code-breaker includes
in his futile recital of erudition ‘la Wnesse que mect Aulle Gelle’, a
reference to the Spartan communication system described in Gell.
17. 9; sadly, the messenger here lacks the necessary baston (one
suspects a mild obscenity). It is interesting that the audience is
assumed to recognize the allusion. In the Cinquiesme livre, 2. 731,
an elaborate play on Siticines (trumpeters) and Sicinnistes (dancers)
is clearly derived from their juxtaposition in Gell. 20. 2–3, though
other encyclopaedists are mentioned in a characteristically over-
stocked bibliography. Rabelais’s mockery of sumptuous humanist
erudition often features Gellius. Another booklist, this one
borrowed from Rabelais’s lawyer friend André Tiraqueau, in-
cludes ‘Gellius li. III ca. XVI’ as an authority on lengthy preg-
nancies, among other ‘anciens Pantagruelistes’. Tiraqueau had
himself plundered Gellius’ bibliography in 3. 16.49 Thus Gellius’
contribution to the chapter on Gargamelle’s eleven-month preg-
nancy is already considerable, but he is given a moment in the
spotlight when Rabelais attributes to him the glossing of a
Homeric myth:
48
All references are to the Pléiade Œuvres comple`tes, ed. Mireille Huchon (Paris,
1994), in the form book, chapter, page.
49
See Rabelais, Œuvres comple`tes, 1071 n. 4 and 1072 n. 10.
Comme dict Homere que l’enfant (duquel Neptune engroissa la nymphe)
nasquit l’an aprés revolu: ce fut le douziesme mois. Car (comme dict A.
Gelle lib. III.) ce long temps convenoit à la majesté de Neptune, aYn
qu’en icelluy l’enfant feust formé à perfection. (Gargantua, 3. 15)
The fact that Gellius dismisses this and other readings of Odyssey
11. 248 as nugalia (Favorinus provides a plausible explanation at 3.
16. 17), and that the whole chapter is a discussion rather than a
resolution of the question, obviously did not trouble Tiraqueau,
still less Rabelais’s narrator, who is keen to prove that all this
erudition authorizes recent widows to make merry, preferably
with him, and ‘franchement jouer du serrecropiere [closebuttock,
translates Sir Thomas Urquhart] à tous enviz et toutes restes,
deux moys aprés le trespas de leurs maris.’ Even this Rabelaisian
sally may have been suggested by Gellius’ Wrst-hand account of a
widow whose paternity case was personally decided by Hadrian
(3. 16. 12).50
Another episode to which Gellius contributed much is the after-
math of the consultation with the superannuated judge Bridoye.
Bridoye’s bizarre methods of deciding cases remind the sage Panta-
gruel of Gellius’ story of the murderous widow (12. 7). Pantagruel’s
version (Le Tiers Livre, 44. 488–9) expands the tale of the judgment
of Dolabella and the Areopagites on this casus perplexus. Pantagruel
rearranges the opening narrative, restoring chronology but,
surprisingly, cushioning the impact of Gellius’ shockingly direct
exposition (mulier uirum et Wlium eodem tempore . . . interfecerat).
The giant adds psychological depth by exploring the motives of
the murderous stepfather and his son (‘comme vous sçavez que
rare est l’aVection des peratres, vitrices, noverces, et meratres
envers les enfans des defuncts premiers peres et meres’), and
damns them further by expanding Gellius’ simple insidiis into the
triplet ‘occultement, en trahison, de guet à pens’. Furthermore,
the widow avenges their ‘trahison et meschanseté’ by unspeciWed
means, losing Gellius’ suggestion of reciprocal perWdy, uenenis
clam datis (§2). Pantagruel’s more sympathetic presentation of
the woman’s case continues in the trial before Dolabella, rhetoric-
ally balanced in Gellius, but weighted in Rabelais not only by
repetition of their treachery ‘en trahison, de guet à pens’, but also
by his invention of another dastardly motive: ‘non par luy [the
victim] oultragez ne injuriez, seulement par avarice de occuper
le total heritage.’ The Areopagites in Rabelais give a little more
50
For further comments on this chapter see the edition of Gargantua by M. A.
Screech (Geneva, 1970), 32–5.
306 Michael Heath
colour to their hundred-year adjournment by claiming to need

more information; thus their refusal to judge looks less like mere
evasion of responsibility. This was not the Wrst time that the tale
had been ampliWed,51 but it does present an unusual apologia
for the widow which further illustrates the humane pro-feminist
character of Rabelais’s giant.
A Wnal Rabelaisian allusion to Gellius suggests a certain satirical
empathy. Gellius is named once more, to round oV the episode of
the jargon-spouting Escolier Limousin. The latter’s discomWture by
Pantagruel and death from thirst produce, unusually for Rabelais,
a concluding moralization:
ce faisant la vengeance divine, et nous demonstrant ce que dit le Philo-
sophe et Aule Gelle, qu’il nous convient parler selon le langaige usité. Et
comme disoit Octavian Auguste qu’il faut eviter les motz espaves en
pareille diligence que les patrons des navires evitent les rochiers de mer.
(Pantagruel, 6. 235.)
This conclusion is adapted from Gell. 1. 10. 4. Rabelais’s ‘langaige
usité’ represents Gellius’ uerbis praesentibus and thus conveys the
diVerence between the Limousin scholar’s theatrically inspired
contamination of French with Latin (the escumeur de Latin was a
familiar Wgure in French farce who survived into Molière) and
Favorinus’ injunction to avoid archaism (Quibus uerbis compel-
lauerit Fauorinus philosophus adulescentem casce nimis et prisce
loquentem, 1. 10. cap.). The idea had been presented more literally
by Scaliger in the previous year.52 A second textual change perhaps
indicates a closer correlation of thought between Gellius and Rabe-
lais. Originally, Rabelais had translated Gellius’ inauditum atque
insolens uerbum as ‘motz absurdes’, a rendering that does convey
much of the sense of Gellius’ doublet and was possibly inspired by
John of Salisbury. In his Wnal revision Rabelais substituted ‘motz
espaves’. The semantic Weld of ‘espaves’ did not yet include its
modern association with Xotsam, and thus a tempting connection
with Caesar’s nautical simile is ruled out. Rather, ‘espaves’ sug-
gests words that are out of control and irrevocable, as described in
parallel passages in Plutarch’s De garrulitate (9, Moralia 507 a) and
Erasmus’ Lingua. The contemporary discussion of proprietas in
language becomes, punningly, a matter of ownership. Finally, the
51
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 79–80 [57] and nn., and his article
‘Getting Away with Murder’; [also D. Campanile, ‘Cornelio Dolabella’ for the
historical background. L. A. H.-S.].
52
Orationes duae, 117 and nn. 219, 227. This demonstrates the actuality of this
debate.
suggestion of distance between the words and their speaker, the

absence of sincerity, recalls an adjacent chapter of Gellius, 1. 15. 1
(orationem . . . in ore nasci, non in pectore), helping to transform
this episode from a mere comic turn of the contemporary stage into
a darker portrayal of hypocrisy.53 In this case Gellius may be
considered more an engine of satire than a mere source of anecdote.
Another satire to refer to the same chapter is the enigmatic
Cymbalum mundi, a quartet of Lucianic dialogues published in
1537 and usually attributed to Bonaventure Des Périers. In the
Wnal section the dog Hylactor recounts his nocturnal escapades in
the streets of Athens, where the scene is set:
Puis, quant j’ay bien faict toutes les follies de mes nuictz attiques, jusques
au chapitre: Qui sunt leues et importuni loquutores, pour mieulx passer le
demourant de mes phantasies, ung peu devant que le jour vienne, je me
transporte au parc de noz ouailles faire le loup en la paille . . . 54
The reference to Gell. 1. 15. 1 (one of few humanist allusions in
the Cymbalum mundi) is apt, since Hylactor’s pranks consist in
exploiting his unexpected capacity for speech and his unquench-
able loquacity: ‘c’est une grand peine de se taire, mesmement
[surtout] à ceulx qui ont beaucoup de choses à dire, comme moy!’
The impenetrable Cymbalum mundi has been interpreted as advo-
cating everything from orthodox Catholicism to libertinism, and
there is no agreement on the identity of the characters.55 However,
there is little disagreement that one of the work’s targets is the
incurable garrulity of humankind, as condemned by Gellius in the
chapter cited. Ironically, the turbulence of Hylactor’s ‘Attic
nights’ could hardly be further from Gellius’ own use of the term
to denote retreat into scholarly contemplation. Moreover, the title
Cymbalum mundi clearly recalls Tiberius’ description of Apion, as
noted by Pliny in the Preface to the Naturalis historia (§25).
Readers of Gellius would recall his ambivalence towards a philoso-
pher who awarded himself the title Plistonices and delighted to
boast of his learning: est enim sane quam in praedicandis doctrinis
sui uenditator (5. 14. 3)—but who provided the most celebrated
53
For the full working of this hypothesis, see Christophe Clavel, ‘Sens et archi-
texture: l’écolier et le géant’, Actes du Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle, forthcoming. I am
very grateful to M. Clavel for a copy of his paper.
54
Cymbalum mundi, 90–1.
55
A pertinent example: Malcolm Smith identiWed Hylactor as the free-thinking
Estienne Dolet, partly on the grounds that ‘attique’ here recalls Cicero’s famous
friend, and might allude to Dolet’s much-mocked claim to be the new Cicero: ‘A
Sixteenth-Century Anti-Theist’, 603.
308 Michael Heath
Gellian anecdote, Androcles and the lion. Such learned ironies

expand the appeal of this most mysterious of satires.
5. montaigne
Scattered allusions to Gellius show him playing a minor role in the
revival of learning and letters in the French Renaissance. With
Montaigne something more complex emerges. In the penultimate
chapter of Les Essais, Montaigne is characteristically ironical about
the fashion for anthologies, which belies the humanist enthusiasm
for recourse ad fontes:
Tel allegue Platon et Homere, qui ne les veid onques. Et moy ay prins des
lieux assez ailleurs qu’en leur source. Sans peine et sans suYsance . . .
j’emprunteray presentement s’il me plaist d’une douzaine de tels ravau-
deurs . . . Il ne faut que l’espitre liminaire d’un alemand pour me farcir
d’allegations, et nous allons quester par là une friande gloire, à piper le sot
monde. Ces pastissages de lieux communs, dequoy tant de gents mesna-
gent leur estude, ne servent guere qu’à subjects communs; et servent à
nous montrer non à nous conduire. (3. 12. 1056.)56
Despite this apparently damaging admission of his own indolent
enslavement to the ‘botchers’ (ravaudeurs), in the next and Wnal
chapter Montaigne paradoxically claims emancipation from the
unthinking subservience to classical authority that characterizes
the moral philosophy of his age:
Mais moy, qui ne mescrois non plus la bouche que la main des hommes, et
qui sçay qu’on escript autant indiscretement qu’on parle, et qui estime ce
siecle comme un autre passé, j’allegue aussi volontiers un mien amy que
Aulugele et que Macrobe, et ce que j’ay veu que ce qu’ils ont escrit. (3. 13.
1081.)
This is one of only three references57 to Gellius by name in
the Essais. He and Macrobius doubtless represent the pedlars
of second-hand erudition indispensable to the unscrupulous
Renaissance humanist. While it is true that Montaigne increasingly
56
References to Montaigne are to the one-volume Villey–Saulnier PUF edition
of Les Essais (1965), in the form book, chapter, page.
57
A second is cited in my conclusion. The third was excised from the 1595
edition and thus from modern editions; it occurred in the Apologie de Raymond
Sebond (2. 12. 505 n. 13) and associated Gellius’ judgement on Pyrrho (see 11. 5. 4)
with the similar opinions of Diogenes Laertius and Lucian.
invokes his personal experience and opinions,58 and that he borrows

from Macrobius only twice, at most, he is less than just to Gellius
here.59 Pierre Villey identiWed more than twenty probable or
possible borrowings from Gellius and, although the majority
appear in the Wrst edition of 1580, he concluded that ‘Aulu-Gelle
est donc un auteur qui reste constamment sous la main de notre
philosophe et dont il fait cas.’ Catherine Magnien-Simonin has
added to the list recently.60
It is certain that Montaigne possessed a copy of the Noctes
Atticae, though, unlike a good many of his books, it has failed to
survive. It was not the Estienne edition of 1585, since Gellius
appears in some of the earliest chapters of the Essais, composed
in about 1572. The only direct quotations are four lines of verse
preserved by Gellius, two by Publilius Syrus, one by Pacuvius,
and a proverb derived from Hesiod.61 Of course, Montaigne may
have found these in some other anthology and, as is certainly the
case with Macrobius and Athenaeus, most allusions in the Essais to
Gellius may be indirect. It is clear, for example, that on the
hackneyed topic of death from joy—characteristically included in
the chapter De la tristesse (1. 2. 14)—Montaigne turned to the well-
thumbed chapter in Ravisius Textor, since only the mother of
Cannae survives from Gellius’ quartet in 3. 15. 4. Similarly, Gel-
lius’ circumstantial chapter on Mithridates inuring himself to
poison (17. 16) is reduced to a single anonymous line (‘ce Roy’)
in De la coustume (1. 23. 109), whose source is probably Pedro
Mexia.62 An important example of Gellian inXuence via a third
party occurs at the end of De la constance (1. 12. 46–7), a passage
added in the last redaction of the Essais and which considerably
58
A pertinent example occurs in De l’aVection des peres aux enfans (2. 8. 399),
where a lengthy passage on breastfeeding ignores the almost mandatory Gell. 12. 1,
and evokes instead the local custom of employing goats as wetnurses!
59
His two allusions to Favorinus are also somewhat hostile. In De l’incommodite´
de la grandeur (3. 7. 920), an anecdote from the life of Hadrian in the Historia
Augusta, 15 (probably via Crinitus, 12. 2), shows the philosopher pusillanimously
yielding to Hadrian in debate, while in De l’experience (3. 13. 1099) Montaigne
denounces an opinion found in Gell. 15. 8, wrongly attributing it to Favorinus
rather than to his opponents (though the reference to Gellius’ mentor is now
thoroughly discredited).
60
P. Villey, Les Sources, i. 76–7 (quotation i. 77; on Macrobius i. 191),
C. Magnien-Simonin, ‘Montaigne et Aulu-Gelle’.
61
Respectively Essais, 1. 38. 234 ¼ Gell. 17. 14. 4. 7; 2. 1. 332 ¼ 17. 14. 4. 1; 1. 25.
135 ¼ 13. 8. 4; 2. 5. 367 ¼ 4. 5. 5.
62
Les Diverses Leçons, 1. 26; this episode is closely paraphrased in Boaistuau’s
Theatre du monde, fo. 120r , in a chapter on human eccentricity.
310 Michael Heath
alters the chapter’s conclusion. This account of the psychology

of fear, modifying the earlier portrayal of Stoic impassivity, is
apparently based on the celebrated storm in Gell. 19. 1.63 Some
phrases even suggest direct translation, but, as Villey proved,
Montaigne was in fact following Augustine’s distillation of the
Gellian chapter (City of God 9. 4). The clinching argument is
that only Augustine cites the highly pertinent line of Vergil (Aeneid
4. 449) with which Montaigne closes his chapter.
By contrast, Montaigne seems to have distilled a number of
Gellian chapters for himself. His essay on warhorses includes the
essence of Gell. 5. 2, but surprisingly omits the account of Buceph-
alus’ epic death. Interestingly, Montaigne suggests the wide diVu-
sion of Gellius’ information:
Car chacun sçait du cheval d’Alexandre, Bucefal, qu’il avoit la teste
retirant à celle d’un toreau, qu’il ne se souVroit monter à personne qu’à
son maistre, ne peut estre dressé que par luy mesme, fut honoré après sa
mort, et une ville bastie en son nom. (Des destries, 1. 48. 288–9.)
Similarly, he adapts from Gell. 10. 28. 1 a conclusion that suits his
thesis in De l’aage: ‘Servius Tullius dispensa les chevaliers qui
avoient passé quarante sept ans, des courvées de la guerre’ (1. 57.
327) and, in Que nostre desir s’accroit par la malaisance (2. 15. 615),
transforms a historical observation (that no one at Rome took
advantage of the right to divorce for more than Wve hundred
years: Gell. 4. 3. 1) into a satirical comment on the contemporary
prohibition on divorce—which merely increases marital discon-
tent. In Des boyteux (3. 11. 1030) the famous case of Martin
Guerre, whose condemnation Montaigne apparently considered a
miscarriage of justice, inspires him to wish for a third verdict,
baZement, or ‘La court n’y entend rien’—a more honest admis-
sion than that of the Areopagites who told the parties to return in
100 years (Gell. 12. 7. 6). In all these adaptations Montaigne fulWls
his pledge not simply to quote his sources, but to make them his
own.
Sometimes Montaigne will tinker more directly with Gellius’
text to make his point. He puts a diVerent spin on the ferum . . .
gladiatorem qui, cum uulnera eius a medicis exsecabantur, ridere
solitus fuit (12. 5. 13). Gellius denied the gladiator true courage,
since his apparent fortitude arose either from stupidity or from
inescapable necessity. In Montaigne’s stoical chapter, Que le goust
63
Tellingly exploited by Erasmus in a discussion of Christ’s kenosis: De taedio
Jesu, Collected Works, lxx. 29 and nn. 62–3; Erasmus retains much of Gellius’
colourful description, whereas Montaigne’s account is largely abstract.
des biens et des maux depend en bonne partie de l’opinion que nous en
avons, the gladiator reappears in a heterogeneous list of those who
fortify themselves against pain, including women in labour, Spar-
tan schoolboys, Mucius Scaevola, and the Senecan philosopher
who laughed at his torturers. ‘Mais c’estoit un philosophe. Quoy?
un gladiateur de Cæsar endura tousjours riant qu’on luy sondat et
detaillat ses playes’ (1. 14. 59). Montaigne has dropped the adjec-
tive ferus and added the excruciating sonder (‘to probe’) to illustrate
his contention that even the humblest and least cerebral are
capable of detachment and self-control—quite the opposite of
Gellius’ point. In Coustume de l’isle de Cea (2. 3. 354), Montaigne
abridges the wordy tale of the suicide of the Milesian virgins but
retains its essential narrative shape; however, to suit his theme of
lethal collective madness (‘humeurs fantastiques’), Montaigne
attributes their behaviour to a ‘conspiration furieuse’, where
Gellius, like Plutarch (De mul. uir. 11, 249 b), had confessed
himself baZed: repente sine ulla euidenti causa (15. 10. 1).
Elsewhere, Montaigne’s taste for the epigrammatic also leads
him to abridge Gellius. In De la praesumption (2. 17. 652) he strips
Gell. 5. 3 to its barest elements, omitting the names and circum-
stances of Democritus and Protagoras to produce a crude general-
ization: ‘On conjectura anciennement à Athenes une aptitude à la
mathematique en celuy à qui on voioit ingenieusement agencer et
fagotter une charge de brossailles.’ He has cleared the way for a
neat antithesis, comically deprecating his own lack of practical
skills: ‘Vrayement on tireroit de moy une bien contraire conclu-
sion: car, qu’on me donne tout l’apprest d’une cuisine, me voilà à la
faim.’ In De l’experience (3. 13. 1106) Montaigne reduces Gell.
13. 11 to a tidy formula: ‘Varro demande cecy au convive: l’assem-
blée de personnes belles de presence et agreables de conversation,
qui ne soyent ny muets ny bavards, netteté et delicatesse aux vivres
et au lieu, et le temps serain.’ Montaigne resists the lure of the
clumsy puns, such as si belli homunculi conlecti sunt, si electus locus,
si tempus lectum, si apparatus non neglectus (13. 11. 3). More of
Varro’s prescriptions for the ideal dinner party are in fact scattered
over the next page or two in Montaigne, but, in this most personal
of all his essays, the Frenchman has largely assimilated his source.
A number of more extensive borrowings from Gellius again
show Montaigne conscientiously adapting his source in a number
of ways: modifying his conclusions, embellishing his dialogue, or
exploiting his portraits of the mighty for satire. Montaigne learned
much about Scipio from Gellius, but tempered the latter’s hero-
worship. De la conscience originally concluded with three anecdotes
312 Michael Heath
concerning the upright but embattled Africanus (2. 5. 368). The

Wrst, little more than an epigram, is from Plutarch (De se ips. laud.
4, 540 f). The others, providing a substantial conclusion, are
adapted from Gell. 4. 18 and illustrate Montaigne’s manipulation
of Gellian narrative. Scipio’s arraignment by Marcus Naevius is
abridged by omission of the tribune’s name and some details of the
charges, but retains the dramatic speech with which Scipio sweeps
from the presence of his accuser, while reducing its air of self-
satisfaction.64 Most interestingly, however, Montaigne rehabili-
tates the accuser by omitting the insulting nebulo and, unlike
Gellius (relicto tribuno), including him among the awe-struck
crowd hastening to follow the hero to the Capitol. Thus Mon-
taigne’s version, with its hint of repentance and reconciliation, is
less triumphalist and more edifying than its source. The second
story, attributable by its details to Gellius (4. 18. 7–12) rather than
to Livy (38. 52), is virtually translated by Montaigne,65 except that
here he turns direct speech into oratio obliqua. However, Mon-
taigne tones down Gellius’ gloriWcation of Scipio as the salus
imperii (and thus above suspicion), preferring a moral conclusion
that better Wts his championing of conscience in public life: ‘Je ne
croy pas qu’une ame cauterizée [coupable] sçeut contrefaire une
telle asseurance.’
Another transposition, equally indicative of Montaigne’s less
respectful view of authority, occurs at the climax of Un traict de
quelques ambassadeurs (1. 17. 74), with the story of Crassus and the
Greek engineer (Gell. 1. 13. 9–13). Montaigne strips out superXu-
ous geographical detail and quickens the climax, but otherwise
transcribes fairly closely. The diVerence, again, lies in the moral-
ization of the tale. Gellius concludes this conXict between obedi-
64
‘Allons, dit-il, mes citoyens, allons rendre graces aux Dieux de la victoire qu’ils
me donnarent contre les Carthaginois en pareil jour que cettuy-cy’ (2. 5. 368);
Memoria, inquit, Quirites, repeto, diem esse hodiernum quo Hannibalem Poenum
imperio uestro inimicissimum magno proelio uici in terra Africa pacemque et uictoriam
uobis peperi inspectabilem. Non igitur simus aduersum deos ingrati et, censeo, relinqua-
mus nebulonem hunc, eamus hinc protinus Ioui optimo maximo gratulatum (4. 18. 3).
65
Compare: Ibi Scipio exurgit et, prolato e sinu togae libro, rationes in eo scriptas
esse dixit omnis pecuniae omnisque praedae; illatum, ut palam recitaretur et ad aera-
rium deferretur. ‘Sed enim id iam non faciam, inquit, nec me ipse aYciam contumelia,’
eumque librum statim coram discidit suis manibus et concerpsit (4. 18. 9–12); ‘Scipion,
estant venu au Senat pour cet eVect, produisit le livre des raisons [comptes] qu’il
avoit dessoubs sa robbe, et dit que ce livre en contenoit au vray la recepte et la mise;
mais comme on le luy demanda pour le mettre au greVe, il le refusa, disant ne se
vouloir pas faire cette honte à soy mesme; et, de ses mains, en la presence du senat, le
deschira et mit en pieces’ (2. 5. 368).
ence and initiative with Crassus’ conviction that even reasoned

disobedience will weaken authority: Corrumpi atque dissolui
oYcium omne imperantis ratus, si quis ad id quod facere iussus est
non obsequio debito, sed consilio non desiderato respondeat. Though
Montaigne abridges this very faithfully: ‘On corrompt l’oYce du
commander, quand on y obeit par discretion, non par subjection’,
he makes it the introduction not the conclusion to the anecdote.
His own conclusion qualiWes the authoritarianism of the original:
‘Et Crassus, escrivant à un homme du mestier, et luy donnant
advis de l’usage auquel il destinoit ce mas, sembloit-il pas entrer
en conference de sa deliberation et le convier à interposer son
decret?’ Gellius had suggested pragmatically (1. 13. 7) that suc-
cessful disobedience would depend on the moral weakness of the
superior; Montaigne’s equally subversive suggestion hints more
subtly at his incompetence!
The (comic) foibles of the mighty are again exposed in another
close adaptation of a Gellian anecdote, in De l’incertitude de nostre
jugement. The famous tale of Hannibal’s ironical reply to Antio-
chus (NA 5. 5) is retold by Montaigne with great panache: ‘Antio-
chus, montrant à Hannibal l’armée qu’il preparoit contr’eux,
pompeuse et magniWque en toute sorte d’equipage, et luy deman-
dant: Les Romains se contenteront-ils de cette armee?—S’ils s’en
contenteront? respondit-il; vrayement, c’est mon, pour avares
qu’ils soyent’ (1. 47. 283). Montaigne hastens the punchline by
omitting the details of the army’s accoutrements, comically hu-
manizes Hannibal with the demotic ‘c’est mon [sc. avis]’, and
avoids Gellius’ clumsy explanations of the joke, both within the
anecdote (Tum Poenus, eludens ignauiam imbelliamque militum eius
pretiose armatorum . . . ) and afterwards (rex de numero . . . quae-
siuerat, respondit Hannibal de praeda). It may be said in defence of
Gellius that the context in Montaigne makes interpretation sim-
pler.
Montaigne often develops the comic potential of a Gellian anec-
dote. In the story of the drubbing of Plutarch’s slave (1. 26. 5–9),
retold in De la colere (2. 31. 716–7),66 Montaigne enjoyed the lively
tale enough to expand the dialogue, having the slave reproach his
master ironically ‘qu’il n’estoit pas philosophe, comme il s’en
vantoit’ (ut philosophum deceret), and making Plutarch’s verbal
pursuit of the hapless slave all the more comical by extending the
66
This follows another possible Gellian reminiscence, concerning the Spartan
ephors (Gell. 18. 3. 6), though the source is more likely Plut. De recta rat. aud.
7 (41 b).
314 Michael Heath
use of the interrogative: ‘Rougis-je? escume-je? m’eschappe-il de

dire chose de quoy j’aye à me repentir? tressaux-je? fremis-je de
courroux?’ (neque in spumam ruboremue eVeruesco neque pudenda
dico aut paenitenda neque omnino trepido ira et gestio). One can
almost hear the rhythm of the accompanying lashes. While Mon-
taigne does make use in the chapter of Gellius’ technical discussion
of anger, this expert development of the dialogue suggests that his
interest was caught mainly by the portrayal of the philosopher’s
private life.67
In many of these exempla Montaigne adapts and abridges Gellius
in the interests of irony as well as of brevity, but in one remarkable
case it is clear that Gellius’ account coincided exactly with Mon-
taigne’s requirements, and he translated almost verbatim. The
story of Androcles (Androdus) and the lion, Gellius’ most famous
bequest to us (5. 14), found a natural home in the sceptical Apologie
de Raimond Sebond (2. 12. 477–8), in which Montaigne provoca-
tively exalted the animal kingdom at the expense of humankind.
This illustration of gratitude even in the most savage of beasts had
of course been recounted many times, most recently and circum-
stantially by Antonio de Guevara,68 from whom Montaigne may
have gleaned a few details, such as Androcles’ Dacian origin. But
otherwise Montaigne, having jettisoned the opening discussion of
Apion’s reliability as irrelevant, devoted his considerable narrative
skills to a faithful rendering of Gellius’ original tale. Clearly he
found the style congenial, including as it does many of the doublets
of which Montaigne was fond: sensim atque placide ‘d’une façon
molle et paisible’, rem miriWcam atque admirandam ‘une histoire
nouvelle et admirable.’ Montaigne occasionally introduces doub-
lets of his own, such as ‘tout transi d’eVroy et hors de soy’ (exani-
mati) and ‘alegé de son mal et soulagé de cette douleur’ (medela
leuatus), but it is remarkable how little he alters this consummate
piece of storytelling.69 Moreover, apart from a brief introductory
remark on gratitude, he follows Gellius in making no attempt to
draw a moral from the tale, unlike most predecessors.70
Thus Montaigne the self-conscious anthologist makes conven-
tional use of Gellius as a source of sententiae and exempla,71 though
more willing than most to adapt and abridge:
67
See also the passage quoted below in the conclusion to this chapter.
68
See above, 302.
69
For further comments on Montaigne’s adaptation, see Magnien-Simonin,
‘Montaigne et Aulu-Gelle’, 10.
70
See Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 52 n. 75 [33–4 n. 75].
71
On Montaigne’s practice in general, see Lyons, Exemplum, ch. 3.
Comme quelqu’un pourroit dire de moy que j’ay seulement faict icy un
amas de Xeurs estrangeres, n’ayant fourny du mien que le Wlet à les lier.
Certes j’ay donné à l’opinion publique que ces parements empruntez
m’accompaignent. Mais je n’entends pas qu’ils me couvrent, et qu’ils me
cachent. (3. 12. 1055.)
As the qualiWcation here suggests, Montaigne was also deliberately
weakening the fashionable hold of classical authority by thorough
assimilation: ‘Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d’autant plus me dire’
(1. 26. 148). He further undermined the conventions of moral
philosophy by his apparently arbitrary choice and organization of
topics, and it can be argued that here again Gellius oVered a
model.72
Two of Montaigne’s earliest chapters suggest such a debt to
Gellius. In Des menteurs, the central section of the short original
text73 revolves around a linguistic crux: ‘Je sçay bien que les
grammairiens font diVerence entre dire mensonge, et mentir’ (1.
9. 35). The grammarians in question are of course Publius Nigi-
dius and Aulus Gellius. The title of Gell. 11. 11 reads: Verba P.
Nigidii, quibus diVerre dicit ‘mentiri’ et ‘mendacium dicere’. In the
body of the chapter, Montaigne’s reasoning is similar to Gellius’,
though not textually identical; if anything, Gellius is the more
subtle. The label grammairien is more likely to apply to Gellius74
than to Mexia, another regular source of Montaigne who also
quotes this passage (Les Diverses Leçons, 5. 18). Similarly, it
appears that Montaigne had Gellius in mind, or even before his
eyes, when composing an important passage in his early chapter De
l’amitie´. Most of the chapter is based, naturally, on Cicero and
Plutarch, but the attribution of a crucial sententia to ‘Chilon’ rather
than (as in Aristotle and Cicero) to Bias, conWrms that Montaigne
had read Gell. 1. 3 with some attention: ‘‘‘Aymés le (disoit Chilon)
comme ayant quelque jour à le haı̈r; haı̈ssez le, comme ayant à
l’aymer’’’ (1. 28. 190; cf. Gell. 1. 3. 30). There are also echoes of
Gellius’ contention, in response to Cicero and Theophrastus, that
each case should be considered on its merits, when Montaigne
makes an exception of his own friendship with Estienne de La
Boëtie. In these early chapters, Montaigne was consciously con-
structing a patchwork from classical sources, and in these cases
72
Cf. T. Morgan, above, Ch. 7; A. D. Vardi, above, 169–79.
73
As usual, the 1580 text was much expanded in the editions of 1588 and 1595.
74
This is probably how Montaigne categorized Gellius—not entirely a compli-
ment. Cf. Montaigne’s disbelief in the opening line of Des destries: ‘Me voicy devenu
Grammairien, moy qui n’appris jamais langue que par routine et qui ne sçay encore
que c’est d’adjectif, conjunctif et d’ablatif’ (1. 48. 287).
316 Michael Heath
Gellius’ contribution is clear. Still more intriguing is his potential

role in inspiring, much later, one of Montaigne’s most controversial
chapters, Sur des vers de Virgile. This inoVensive title conceals an
extraordinarily frank discussion of sexuality, whose starting point
and title were probably suggested by Gellius. In 9. 10 Gellius
reports on the controversy over the passionate depiction in Aeneid
8. 404–6 of the nuptial bed of Vulcan and Venus. Since this debate
is principally known through Gellius, he seems to have provided
the impetus for Montaigne’s initial analysis of sex in Latin verse,
centring on these very lines (3. 5. 849), which sets in motion a
remarkably carnal chapter.75
Besides indicating textual parallels and common attitudes as
diverse as scorn for pedantry and veneration for Cato, both Pierre
Villey and Catherine Magnien-Simonin have proposed generic
similarities between Gellius and Montaigne which, given the
formal originality of Montaigne’s enterprise, suggest a more far-
reaching role for Gellius than anything so far discussed. For Vil-
ley, the similarity lies in Montaigne’s earliest mode, as a compiler
and commentator on the most diverse, not to say random, moral
questions: ‘Ce livre [the Noctes Atticae] est un des modèles du
genre des Leçons auquel les Essais se rattachent par leur origine.’76
Magnien-Simonin goes further in detecting a ‘gémellité trou-
blante’ between the two: ‘L’attitude d’Aulu-Gelle lorsqu’il utilise
les œuvres d’autrui, sa réXexion sur l’autorité et sa pratique de
l’écriture ressortissent à une poétique qui annonce celle de Mon-
taigne.’77 There are indeed striking parallels between Gellius’
Praefatio and Montaigne’s Au Lecteur (and other reXections on
writing), in respect of their claims to originality, their idiosyncratic
choice of topics, their sublime neglect of order, and their chosen
audience of family and friends. They share an ambition to provoke
the reader into participation and the exercise of judgement; their
joint disdain for compositional norms was perhaps symbolized for
Montaigne by the fact that Gellius’ preface, his reXections on his
craft, was positioned, unprecedentedly, as a postscript in contem-
porary editions. Thus encouraged, Montaigne scattered his own
reXections on writing far and wide. At various points Montaigne
asserts that ‘nous allons conformément et tout d’un trein, mon
livre et moy’ (3. 2. 806), that he will go on ‘sans cesse et sans
travail’ as long as there are paper and ink in the world (3. 9. 945),
and that ‘de ma mort seulement, si je la rencontrois babillarde
75
Cf. M. A. Screech, Montaigne and Melancholy (London, 1983), 55.
76 77
Les Sources, i. 76. ‘Montaigne et Aulu-Gelle’, 17, 15.
. . . donnrois je encores volontiers advis au peuple en deslogeant’

(3. 12. 1057). The reader is reminded irresistibly of the conclusion
to Gellius’ Praefatio (§§23–4), and this in particular:
Progredietur ergo numerus librorum, diis bene iuuantibus, cum ipsius
uitae quantuli quique fuerint progressibus, neque longiora mihi dari spatia
uiuendi uolo quam dum ero ad hanc quoque facultatem scribendi com-
mentandique idoneus.
In his introduction to the tale of Plutarch’s slave, Montaigne
named Aulus Gellius, for only the third time. But in this case we
get a glimpse of the sixteenth-century Frenchman’s attitude to-
wards Gellius, and of the value he placed on his writings.
Les escrits de Plutarque, à les bien savourer, nous le descouvrent assez, et
je pense le connoistre jusques dans l’ame; si voudrois-je que nous eussions
quelques memoires de sa vie; et me suis jetté en ce discours à quartier à
propos du bon gré que je sens à Aul. Gellius de nous avoir laissé par escrit
ce conte de ses meurs qui revient à mon subjet de la cholere. (2. 31. 716)
Gellius is not Plutarch, and Montaigne has no wish, apparently, to
know the details of his existence, but he feels no small gratitude
towards a secondary writer who performed the signal service to
posterity of preserving the life and manners of the late Roman
world. If Gellius has here, as so often, inspired a digression (‘dis-
cours à quartier’), it neatly summarizes his status in the French
Renaissance as a provider of fruitful diversion on almost any topic.
12
ConXict and Harmony in the
Collegium Gellianum
A nt h on y G ra ft o n
The strongest emotion academics normally feel is neither love nor

hate, but Schadenfreude. And no Renaissance text describes the
inXiction of pain in an academic setting—or evokes the ways that
bystanders enjoy the spectacle—more vividly than the De politia
literaria of the Milanese humanist Angelo Decembrio. Decembrio
set his massive series of dialogues at the Ferrarese court of Leo-
nello d’Este, who ruled during the 1440s. A pupil of Guarino da
Verona, Leonello ranked with the most learned rulers of the brief
moment when Cosimo de’ Medici amused himself by reading
Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job and Federigo da Montefeltre
corresponded in Latin with the scholars and oYcials of the states
that hired him to Wght on their behalf. Decembrio portrays Leo-
nello’s Ferrarese Politia literaria as a court that fosters true learn-
ing by exposing and denouncing its opposite. Again and again,
Leonello and his courtiers humiliate humanists whose pedantry
and lack of taste belie their pretensions to learning.1
In one exemplary chapter, the poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi
describes an encounter with an old schoolmaster, one who had
become senile ‘uti plerunque solent paedagogi assidua puerorum
infestatione’. The schoolmaster boasted that he knew his Vergil by
heart. Meeting Tito and his friends ‘in triuiis’, he regularly made
them an oVer: if they quoted any verse, he would supply the next
two. ‘Then’, says Tito, ‘I turned up and said: Vrbem quam dicunt
Romam, Meliboee, putaui: now give me the other two.’ Drawing
himself to his full height, the schoolmaster began, as he had to:
Stultus ego . . . ‘So’, answered Tito exultantly, ‘it wasn’t enough
for you to be a fool unless you could make it clear to others as well.
1
On the Ferrarese literary world and Decembrio’s portrayal of it see in general
M. Baxandall, ‘A Dialogue on Art’, and A. Biondi, ‘Angelo Decembrio e la cultura
del principe’.
Conflict and Harmony 319
Now, since you have openly confessed that you are a fool, why
don’t you give up the study of letters and join your shepherds and
their Xocks, and bring up the oVspring of their sheep and cows?’2
Elsewhere, the singer Ugolino Pisani, known in elegant circles as
‘cercopithicus literatus’, turns up with an elegantly bound copy of
his dialogue De coquinaria confabulatione, in which pots, pans, and
foodstuVs discuss their own use. Tito and his friends make short
work of this premature convert to foodie culture. When Ugolino
praises ‘the very pretty hand of the scriptor’ whom he commis-
sioned to produce the presentation copy of his work, Tito inter-
rupts, gleefully scoring a point about usage: ‘Veh tibi, your Latin
has been corrupted by the vernacular. You said scriptor when you
should have said librarius.’ More important, in the course of a
ruthless interrogation he forces Ugolino to admit that what matters
in a book is not its script, the material it is written on, or its
binding, but its content. At the end of the dialogue, even Ugolino
admits that his dialogue does not belong in Leonello’s select library
in the company of Homer and Seneca. ‘And so’, Decembrio hap-
pily concludes, ‘we passed that day joking.’3
Readers of Gellius will recognize at once that Decembrio took
the Noctes Atticae as his model for these scenes. For Gellius too
was a connoisseur of Schadenfreude, and no subject was dearer to
his large heart than the humiliation of incompetent grammarians.4
2
Decembrio, De politia literaria 5. 58. 1–2, pp. 394–5 Witten: ut Palamedem
praeceptorem, qui bucolica pueris legens—erat enim is ludi magister ludibundus ea
tempestate Ferrariae, ridiculus senex, uti plerunque solent paedagogi assidua puerorum
infestatione desipere—saepe gloriari soleret id opus totum mente sola percurrere, quod
alii forte et quidem doctissimi uiri nescirent. At Leonellus: Quid deinde? Titus: Id cum
saepe in triuiis interque aequales meos scire iactaret diceretque rei fore testimonium, si
uersum unum ei praedicerent undecunque uellent, duos et plures se protinus insequentes
additurum: idque a nemine Weri posse, nisi qui totum opus memoria retineret. Tum ego
forte superueniens: Ecce unum: Vrbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putaui;
redde tu caeteros! At ille confestim in pedes erectus adiecit: Stultus ego . . . At ego
rursus: Non igitur te stultum esse satis fuerit, nisi te etiam stultum esse sciat alter. Ita
cum te stultum esse plane professus sis, cur non omissis potius litterarum studiis ad
pastores ac uestros greges acceditis, cum quibus ouium foetus et boues educatis? Digna
res omnibus cachinnatione uisa. Witten’s immensely learned edition puts a usable text
and a vast amount of source material at the reader’s disposal. His analysis of the
textual tradition does not quite seem to agree, however, with those put forward in B.
Curran and A. Grafton, ‘A Fifteenth-Century Site Report on the Vatican Obelisk’;
and, with a far richer base of evidence, Daniela Friggè, ‘Redazioni e tradizione’.
3
Decembrio, Politia 5. 60, pp. 397–400 Witten; J. P. Perry, ‘A Fifteenth-
Century Dialogue on Literary Taste’.
4
For this side of Gellius see above all R. A. Kaster, Guardians of Language, 50–1,
53, 57–60, 65. My debt to Kaster and to the classic work of L. A. Holford-Strevens,
Aulus Gellius, will be evident throughout.
320 Anthony Grafton
We will come back to Decembrio and his ways of using Gellius

later on. More important, for the moment, is a slightly larger point:
that Gellius played a central role in the Wfteenth- and sixteenth-
century revival of learning. The humanists who carried out this
movement found in him a pedagogical, literary, and technical
model—a writer who gave them fundamental help in understand-
ing and describing their own social and literary situation, and in
dealing with what some of them viewed as an intellectual and
scholarly crisis. By returning to the decades in which the full text
of the Noctes Atticae came back into circulation, we can grasp the
Wahlverwandtschaft that the humanists felt for their ancient col-
league—and understand why they could, in some ways, appreciate
his work better than some of their more professional successors in
later centuries.
Heinz Berthold, the German scholar whose excellent short art-
icles on Gellius’ afterlife give a vivid sense of his wide readership
and lasting impact, identiWes Gellius above all as a ‘Vermittler’—
one whose work oVered a stock of materials to be plundered at will
by later writers in need of high cultural plums to sweeten what
would otherwise have been plain, dull prose.5 Even in Antiquity,
many readers treated Gellius just this way. In the City of God—
itself a massive work of compilation—Augustine abridged Noctes
Atticae 19. 1, on the emotions. He described his source as uir
elegantissimi eloquii et multae undecunque scientiae (9. 4). Two
years later, quoting the same passage from memory, he cited the
author’s name, and instructed to his secretary to look up the
original: sed considerandum est quemadmodum hoc dicat A. Gellius
et diligenter inserendum (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, 1. 30). Evi-
dently Augustine saw the Noctes Atticae rather as some modern
undergraduates see the World Wide Web—as a splendid source of
colourful information, nicely captured in bite-size pieces that one
can simply plug into one’s own work. Through the Middle Ages,
during which the Noctes Atticae circulated in two large sections
(books 1–7 and 9–20 respectively), writer after writer acknow-
ledged Gellius’ erudition.6 Though Isidore and Bede did not
know the Noctes Atticae, Einhart did, and had copies of it made
for libraries and learned friends. One of them, Lupus of Ferrières,
himself an able textual critic, read the text with special interest.
5
See generally H. Berthold, ‘Aulus Gellius. Seine Bedeutung als Vermittler’; id.,
‘Interpretationsprobleme’.
6
See generally P. K. Marshall, ‘Aulus Gellius’, and, for the wider context,
H. Baron, ‘Aulus Gellius in the Renaissance’ (Baron’s ascription of the Newberry
MS to Guarino is to be treated with reserve).
Twelfth-century scholars also read, excerpted, and sometimes

cleverly corrected the Noctes Atticae. Petrarch, accordingly, did
not stand out from his predecessors when he made extensive use of
Gellius in annotating his manuscripts of the Roman historians.
In the early Wfteenth century, however, the humanists trans-
formed Gellius’ text. They did so, moreover, in a highly particular
context, one that ensured that the Noctes Atticae came to be seen as
a methodogical model that created considerable excitement.
During the 1420s and 1430s, the scholars who dominated the
Wrst great stage of modern classical scholarship—what anthropolo-
gists of an older generation would have called the gathering,
hunting, and collecting stage—regularly exchanged rumours that
someone—the heirs of Giovanni Calderini in Bologna, perhaps, or
Alfonso, bishop of Burgos—had totus Agellius. By 1429, Nicholas
of Cusa had found what he took to be a complete text—evidently
one that had the fragmentary preface not at the end of book 20,
where it usually appeared, but at the start of book 1. Poggio made
fun of what he thought Cusanus’ exaggerated excitement: ‘His
Agellius is mutilated, and has its end at the beginning.’ In fact,
however, Nicholas was right about the nature and true position of
the preface, which he copied out, and by the early 1430s friends
were asking him for copies.7
At much the same time, Guarino, the great schoolmaster who
settled in Ferrara in 1429, was at work emending the text. He and
others—we are not sure who—brought the two halves of the text
together and put them into circulation as a whole. Giovanni
Lamola—who corrected Caesar with Guarino at Ferrara in
1432—Wnished his copy of Gellius’ text, now Vat. Lat. 3453, on
31 October of the same year.8 The manuscript shows the results of
systematic correction—correction based not only on collation of
other texts of the Noctes Atticae, but also on comparison between
the Greek passages quoted in the text and their sources in Plutarch
and Herodotus. Guarino, who had studied Greek in Constantin-
ople, belonged to the handful of Italians capable of making such
corrections in the 1430s. It seems certain, as Sabbadini argued,
that he played a central role in creating the vulgate version of the
complete text that circulated very widely for the next century.
7
R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte, ii. 24–5. Poggio wrote: Agellium scilicet truncum et
mancum et cui Wnis sit pro principio. Cf. L. A. Holford-Strevens, above, 279.
8
Vat. lat. 3453, fo. iv : Iste liber est mei Iohannis Lamolae: quem propria manu
tamen scripsi; fo. 159r : Auli Gellii Noctium Atticarum liber uigesimus et ultimus
feliciter explicit. M o CCCCXXXII. pridie Kalendas Nouembrias. See R. Sabbadini
at Guarino da Verona, Epistolario, iii. 307; id., La scuola, 118–19.
322 Anthony Grafton
The more than 100 surviving Wfteenth-century manuscripts indi-

cate the great popularity that the text achieved.
It was not only the intrinsic merits of the Noctes Atticae, how-
ever, that explained the eager reception it met with in its new, more
complete and correct form. The humanists of the early Wfteenth
century, as Ernst Gombrich explained long ago, were engaged in
nothing less than a revolution in taste. Eager aesthetes like Niccolò
Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini hoped to see a new style transform
every aspect of the literary economy.9 In place of the spiky, per-
pendicular Gothic scripts that they found repellent, they devised a
new bookhand based on Caroline minuscule and a new, more rapid
italic hand. In place of the non-classical orthography that had
deformed ancient texts in the Middle Ages, they elaborated a
new one based on the ancient grammarians. In place of the non-
classical syntax and usage that had deWled the letters and dialogues
written in the Middle Ages, they insisted on following classical
models down the line. Some historians have thought that long
polemics about the need to write nihil, rather than nichil, amounted
to much ado about nothing. But as Gombrich showed, they could
not have been further oV the mark. Niccoli—who rejected the
Latin writings of his contemporaries as Wt only for use in the
outhouse, not for reading; lived in a small house crammed with
manuscripts written in his own neat hand, and fragments of clas-
sical sculpture; wore ancient robes and ate his meals oV crystal
plates—was as pure and original a votary of life lived as a form of
art as Oscar Wilde centuries later, and his ideal of antiquity was
almost Winckelmannian in its spurious and obsessive chastity. The
pursuit of classicism enchanted intellectual leaders across Italy,
from Leon Battista Alberti, who reared Roman-looking churches
and palaces for his patrons, to Pope Nicholas V, who equipped the
papacy with Europe’s best secular library, stuVed with classical
texts.10
The problem, of course, was how to attain the formidable level
of stylistic purity and correctness that Niccoli and other critics
called for. How could modern young men, brought up like Ugolino
Pisani, speaking Italian, immersed in the liturgical Latin of the
9
Not surprisingly, the great bibliophile Niccoli produced his own copy of books
9–20, which he emended and supplemented, and in which he (not Ambrogio
Traversari) entered the Greek passages, early in the 1430s: Florence, Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale, MS Conv. soppr. J IV. 26, olim San Marco 329. See Marshall,
edn. i, pp. xv f. (MS N). [Gellius’ editors wrongly assign this MS to the Fondo
Magliabecchiano, which even the current shelf-mark refutes. L.A.H.-S.]
10
E. H. Gombrich, ‘From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts’.
church, and ignorant of ancient history and myth, ever produce

Latin works that seemed satisfyingly classical? Anyone who failed
risked just the sort of humiliation that Gellius enjoyed describ-
ing—the sort that Poggio, for example, experienced when Lorenzo
Valla wrote a dialogue in which Guarino’s German cook and
stable-boy read one of Poggio’s works aloud and dissect its errors,
solecism by solecism.11 The humanist teachers of the early
Wfteenth century met this challenge in one simple, eVective way:
by instructing their pupils to compile systematic notebooks of
everything they read. Guarino, for example, told his most eminent
disciple, Leonello, to compile notebooks as he read—or, if he
found himself too busy to do so, to employ a bright but poor
young man to do the compiling for him. The teacher’s son Battista
made clear what this discipline implied. Every word or turn of
phrase, every fact or anecdote of interest, must be recorded in
systematic collections: ‘But they should hold fast to the practice
of always making excerpts of what they read, and they should
convince themselves of the truth of Pliny’s dictum, that ‘‘there is
no book so bad that it is totally useless’’.’12 Then, as Guarino
reassuringly told Leonello, whenever one found oneself at a loss
for the classical word or ancient story, ‘the notebook will be at hand
like a diligent and attentive servant to provide what you need.’13
From this point onwards—as Ann Moss, Ann Blair, and others
have shown—the making of notebooks became a central preoccu-
pation of humanist scholarship.14 Reading became hard to distin-
guish from writing: both activities were carried out with strenuous
attentiveness, pen in hand, and with the aid of elaborate equip-
ment, and both served the same end: recycling a stock of appropri-
ate phrases, quotations, and factoids from ancient to modern texts.
Early humanist writers not only used this system when they read,
but referred to and highlighted it in the compositions in which
they displayed their hard-won classical knowledge. Alberti, for
example, regularly introduced into his literary works discussions
of the loci or headings used in his preparatory notebooks. In one of
his dialogues, a dead man reappears at his own funeral and
11
See R. PfeiVer, ‘Küchenlatein’.
12
Battista Guarino, De ordine dicendi et studendi 31, p. 294 Kallendorf: Sed
omnino illud teneant, ut semper ex iis quae legunt conentur excerpere, sibique persua-
deant, quod Plinius dictitare solebat, ‘nullum esse librum tam malum ut non in aliqua
parte prosit’ [cit. Plin. Ep. 3. 5. 10]; translation ibid. 295.
13
Guarino, Epistolario, ep. 679. 129–30, ii. 270 Sabbadini: praesto codicillus erit
qui sicuti minister strenuus et assiduus petita subiciat.
14
A. Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books; A. Blair, The Theater of Nature.
324 Anthony Grafton
complains that the preacher has failed to use the proper loci in
preparing his eulogy. The passion for good method in notebook-
making never waned: Rudolf Agricola and Erasmus both wrote
inXuential sets of instructions for the art, and hundreds practised
what they preached. As late as the end of the sixteenth century, Sir
Philip Sidney still saw the making of accurate, systematic note-
books as the key to the kingdom of good letters:
but that I wish herein, is this [he told his younger brother], that when yow
reade any such thing, yow straite bring it to his heade. not only of what art,
but by your logicall subdivisions, to the next member and parcell of that
art. And so as in a table be it wittie word of which Tacitus is full, sentences,
of which Livy, or similitudes wherof Plutarch, straite to lay it upp in the
right place of his storehouse, as either militarie, or more spetiallie defen-
sive militarie, or more perticularlie, defensive by fortiWcation and so lay it
upp. So likewise in politick matters . . . 15
Through the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, engin-
eers and craftsmen competed to make magniWcent contraptions
designed to facilitate this sort of systematic, comparative note-
book-making (Pl. 12. 1).
Modern historians have searched far and wide for the origins of
these textual practices. Robert Bolgar noted that Byzantine
scholars had combined systematic compilation with the compos-
ition of classical prose, and suggested that Guarino might have
brought his mastery of notebook-making, like his Greek, home to
Italy from Constantinople.16 But another connection may be more
plausible, and is certainly more direct. The preface to the Noctes
Atticae, as we have seen, came back into circulation and became
the object of discussion, with the complete texts of the work, in the
late 1420s and early 1430s—just when the notebook method estab-
lished itself in humanist education. And Gellius exhaustively
described his own practices as a note-taker in the preface: ‘For
whenever I had taken in hand any Greek or Latin book, or had
heard anything worth remembering, I used to jot down whatever
took my fancy, of any and every kind, without any deWnite plan or
order; and such notes I would lay away as an aid to my memory,
like a kind of literary storehouse, so that when the need arose of
a word or a subject which I chanced for the moment to have
forgotten, and the books from which I had taken it were not at
15
Sidney, letter of 15 Oct. 1580 OS, Complete Works, iii. 131–2 Feuillerat. On
this text see E. S. Donno, ‘Old Mouse-Eaten Records’, 284–7, esp. 286–7.
16
See R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its BeneWciaries from the Carolin-
gian Age to the End of the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1954), 87–8, 268–70.
Pl. 12.1. Design for a bookwheel, from Agostino Ramelli, Le diverse et
artificiose machine (Paris, 1588), fig. 188. Photograph used by permission
of Princeton University Library
326 Anthony Grafton
hand, I could readily Wnd and produce it’ (NA pr. 2).17 Gellius
made clear that notebooks could reinforce the normal scholar’s
fallible memory. He even dramatized the literary value of his
notes, since he stated that his Wnished commentarii, the Noctes
Atticae themselves, followed the order of his original notes. Here
he exaggerated, to be sure, but he also struck the imaginations of
his Wfteenth-century readers.
Sicco Polenton, whose pioneering history of Latin literature
reached completion in the late 1430s, revealed exactly how central
a role the preface played in his enthusiastic assessment of the
Noctes Atticae:
A. Gellius made 20 books full of examples and many good things worth
knowing. He had much grace in speaking, and his prowess was such that
thanks to his memory, he either excelled all others, or had few peers, in
this sort of study. His language is polished and smooth, rich in content and
decorous. But unlike others, he did not adopt a Wxed order, but used an
arbitrary one. Unlike Valerius Maximus and Frontinus, he does not place
anything under a Wxed leader and standard, but Wghts on his own. As he
picked up any Greek or Latin book or heard anything worth remembering,
he noted it down, without any deWnite plan or order.18
Polenton thus neatly managed both to praise Gellius’ skills at
compilation and to emulate them at one and the same time. At a
moment when notebook-making had assumed a new and powerful
cultural value, Gellius providentially reappeared in complete
form, as the classical master practitioner of a literary technology
that suddenly mattered a good deal. Pliny, everyone knew, had
made systematic notes: but Gellius showed how the thing was
done. No wonder that Guarino seized upon his work and edited
17
Vsi autem sumus ordine rerum fortuito, quem antea in excerpendo feceramus. Nam
proinde ut librum quemque in manus ceperam seu Graecum seu Latinum uel quid
memoratu dignum audieram, ita quae libitum erat, cuius generis cumque erant, indi-
stincte atque promisce annotabam eaque mihi ad subsidium memoriae quasi quoddam
litterarum penus recondebam, ut quando usus uenisset aut rei aut uerbi, cuius me repens
forte obliuio tenuisset, et libri ex quibus ea sumpseram non adessent, facile inde nobis
inuentu atque depromptu foret.
18
Sicco Polenton, Scriptorum illustrium latinae linguae libri xviii, bk. 8, pp. 221–2
Ullman: Libros uero A. Gellius exemplis ac rebus plurimis scitu bonis plenos XX fecit.
In dicendo quidem multum gratiae habuit atque tantum ualuit quod memoria sua hoc in
genere studii aut omnes excelleret aut paucos sibi adaequandos haberet. Dictio nanque
sua perpolita est atque suauis, rebus grauis et commoda; ordine uero haudquaquam certo,
ut solent caeteri, sed fortuito pro eius arbitrio ac iure usus est. Nihil enim, ut est apud
Valerium Maximum atque Frontinum, certo sub duce ac signis locat sed uagus militat,
quod, perinde ac librum quemquam seu Grecum seu Latinum in manus caperet aut quid
memoratu dignum audiret, indistincte ac promiscue annotaret.
it, or that his son Battista, just before he told his pupils who were
advanced enough to read on their own to make notebooks, urged
that ‘they should make an eVort to read miscellaneous works like
Gellius, Macrobius’ Saturnalia, and Pliny’s Natural History’.19
Erasmus, the author of such best-selling collections of ancient
lore and sayings as the Adagia and the De copia, praised Gellius’
‘commentarii’—a carefully chosen term, and Gellius’ own—in the
former work as exemplary encyclopaedic texts, ‘quibus nihil Weri
potest neque tersius, neque eruditius’.20 At the very least, the
Noctes Atticae provided an ancient model for the new practices of
classical learning. More likely, Gellius served as the chief source
from which Guarino and his contemporaries derived their central
pedagogical technique. Giovanni Andrea Bussi expressed some-
thing of the esteem Gellius enjoyed among the humanists in his
preface to the Wrst printed edition, which appeared in 1469. Bussi
described the Noctes Atticae as uniquely useful: at once encyclo-
paedic in coverage (‘scarcely anything worth knowing can be found
that Gellius does not deal with to some extent’) and uniquely pure
in style (‘others used styles that were their own and idiosyncratic,
but Aulus oVered the perfect model of elegant, pure writing’).21
Bussi also followed earlier humanists when he recommended that
readers work through the preface, which Gellius had curiously put
all the way at the end of his book, with special care, in order to gain
some understanding of his intentions and methods as a writer.22
But Gellius oVered even more than a particularly eVective
device for torturing schoolboys and enabling their elders to escape.
The humanists usually looked backwards in their search for cul-
tural ideals—backwards to Greece and Rome, but also to ancient
Etruria and to the Trecento world of Dante, Petrarch, and Boc-
caccio. Gellius—the friend of Fronto and Herodes Atticus—often
did the same. And Gellius oVered devices that made it far easier for
the humanists to envisage themselves as engaged in a powerful,
even fashionable, pursuit of an ideal past. In the Wrst place, Gellius
19
Battista Guarino, loc. cit. (n. 12): Vbi primum per se studere incipient, operam
dabunt ut eos uideant qui uariis ex rebus compositi sunt, quo in genere est Gellius,
Macrobius Saturnalium, Plinii Naturalis historia . . .
20
Erasmus, Adagia 1. 4. 37, ‘Nihil graculo cum Wdibus’, Adagiorum chilias
prima, Opera omnia, II 1. 437.
21
Bussi, Prefazioni, ed. M. Miglio, 19. Bussi claimed that he printed 275 copies
of Gellius, as many as he did of Caesar, Livy, or Apuleius (ibid. 83).
22
Ibid. 26: Quisquis igitur A. Gelium lecturus es, uir studiose, nostro arbitratu recte
feceris si ante omnia uiri illius Prooemium lectitaris, quod in librorum calce ab eo est
reiectum, ut et tituli rationem discas et scriptionis causam modumque pertingas et quibus
scribendi laborem desumpserit uir clarissimus atque elegantissimus non ignores.
328 Anthony Grafton
oVered for imitation and adaptation a new form of learned dia-

logue, a genre that most humanists preferred to the straightfor-
ward treatise: one far, far shorter, and perhaps even more varied
in tone and content, than the Ciceronian dialogues which they
already knew.23 As we have already seen, Ferrara became the
locus classicus for Gellian studies in the Wrst half of the Wfteenth
century. Decembrio made clear that he modelled his Politia litera-
ria on the Noctes Atticae—though in characteristic humanist
fashion, he combined his central formal inspiration with another,
quite diVerent text to create a new, mixed genre: ‘To help you
understand the sequence of the work that you are about to encoun-
ter,’ he told the reader, ‘note that it is modelled on Gellius’ Noctes
Atticae or rather on Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, maintaining
the same order of parts and books.’24 In fact, the Politia also draws
heavily on the grammatical works of Priscian and others, sources
perhaps too humble and familiar to be mentioned in the preface,
but vital for a book that devoted long chapters to the use of
diphthongs and other questions of orthography. But Decembrio
did owe Gellius a primary debt. Gellius showed him, as he ex-
plained, how to form a cast of Wgures whose conversations would
frame the issues he wished to cover: ‘Gellius, above all—and it is
his image, and that of Quintilian, that I promised to imitate in
these books—decided to choose Favorinus and a few others as the
masters to whom he would appeal with the greatest frequency. I too
chose Leonello, the prince, Guarino of Verona, and a few of their
more prominent partners in disputation as the masters in this
politia.’25 Gellius oVered a model for the elegiac reconstruction
of a learned circle that now lay somewhere in the past—an import-
ant consideration for Decembrio, who wrote after Leonello had
died, his courtiers had scattered, and Decembrio himself had
moved to the court of Alfonso of Aragon in Naples.
Above all, Gellius showed Decembrio how to stage a learned
conversation, and how to add the sort of details about books that
could give it special appeal. Like Gellius, Decembrio liked to set
23
D. Marsh, The Quattrocento Dialogue.
24
Decembrio 1. 1. 5, p. 146 Witten: Cuius futuram seriem ut breuibus intelligas, seu
ad opus A. Gellii noctium Atticarum seu potius ad Quintiliani institutionem orato-
riam formatus est partium et librorum opportunitate eadem fere seruata.
25
Ibid. 1. 3. 1, p. 148 Witten: Placuit in primis A. Gellio, cuius imaginem et
Quintiliani pariter pollicitus sum his libris imitari, Fauorinum et quosdam paucos ueluti
frequentiores sibi magistros eligere. Mihi quoque in hac politia Leonellum principem
Guarinumque Veronensem et qui cum eis clariores facti disputare consueuerant, deligen-
dos institui.
his scenes before vividly evoked backdrops—for example, the

library of Giovanni Gualenghi, set in his garden, where Leonello
and his court repaired early in the morning, the dew still on the
Xowers, to enjoy a stirrup-cup among the books, themselves
strewn with spring Xowers, or the great oak at Belriguardo, the
Este country house, which made a nice counterpart to the country
villa of Herodes Atticus, Cephisia.26 Like Gellius, as we have
already seen, Decembrio particularly enjoyed staging scenes of
humiliation; scenes in which the learned and polished members
of Leonello’s entourage humiliated inept outsiders showed that
they could not reach the Ferrarese standard of civility. Like
Gellius, who represented Fronto discussing the question whether
a given word had been used by somone e cohorte illa dumtaxat
antiquiore uel oratorum aliquis uel poetarum, id est classicus adsiduus-
que aliquis scriptor, non proletarius (19. 8. 15), Decembrio devoted
much time to sorting out the writers who deserved inclusion in
the material embodiment of the canon—the ideal library that he
represented Leonello and his friends as creating.27 Like Gellius
above all, Decembrio inserted a good many details into his work
about the books he and his protagonists most prized. If Gellius
boasted of his success in Wnding fasces librorum uenalium at Brun-
disium on his way home from Greece to Italy and then at buying
the accounts of wonders in these bundles very cheaply (9. 4. 1–5),
Decembrio had Gualenghi give a speech about the pretty copies
of ancient works, their texts supposedly corrected by the Wnest
Florentine humanists, that all Italians bought, if they could
aVord them, from the Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci
(7. 75. 7).28
Outside Ferrara as well as inside the city, humanists found this
model powerfully attractive. Poggio probably had Gellius in mind
when he started his dialogue on the unhappiness of princes—a
work in scale and content more Ciceronian than Gellian—with a
description of how he encountered Cosimo de’ Medici and Niccoli
examining a splendid copy of Ptolemy’s Geography.29 Bussi wrote
no dialogues in the Gellian vein. But he made clear in his preface to
the Wrst edition of Gellius that he constructed his own relation to
patrons in Gellian terms. As Gellius praised Favorinus the Gaul, a
man of great learning and beloved of Hadrian, so Bussi praised the
26
See A. Grafton, Commerce with the Classics, 32–3.
27
On this point see Grafton, Commerce, ch. 1, and C. S. Celenza, ‘Creating
Canons in Fifteenth-Century Ferrara’.
28
Decembrio, p. 459 Witten.
29
Poggio Bracciolini, De infelicitate principum.
330 Anthony Grafton
Cardinal of Rouen, a Frenchman of great wisdom and generosity

and beloved of the pope—and did so in an elegantly oblique way,
bringing Gellius, who praised Favorinus so eloquently, back to
light.30
Later in the Wfteenth century, even the austere Poliziano devoted
a couple of chapters of his Miscellanea to evoking his hours of work
in various libraries with Pico della Mirandola. His pupil Pietro
Crinito pursued the subject far more systematically in his De
honesta disciplina of 1502, in which he described, in awkward but
eVective emulation of Gellius, the conversations that Pico held
with Poliziano at home and with Savonarola and others in the
library of San Marco, the tears into which Pico and Poliziano
burst when they heard that their friend Barbaro was ill at Rome
(not to mention the packet of scorpion’s oil and asp’s tongues that
Pico sent oV to heal his friend, sadly too late), and the discussions
of history and antiquities that Xowered in the gardens of the
Rucellai family—the same place where Machiavelli, some years
later, would deliver the lectures that became his discourses on
Livy.31
And the genre persisted. In the spring of 1585, Henri Estienne—
the great Stephanus of the Wrst modern Greek Thesaurus—pre-
pared a new edition of Gellius in Geneva. HorriWed by the suVer-
ings of his fellow Protestants in the French religious wars,
bankrupted by the expense of his great Greek dictionary, and
haunted by the memory of his youth, in which he had explored
the libraries of Europe, Estienne accompanied his edition with a
Gellian evocation of his youth in the Paris of the 1530s and 1540s.
Challenging Gellius’ standards of social class, if not erudition, he
described the learned circle that had assembled in his father
Robert’s printing house. Robert had employed ten correctors,
many of them very learned, and no two of them from the same
country. They spoke Latin at table, Estienne recalled, and so the
servants and the female members of Robert’s family had also learnt
Latin, ‘as the French learn French and the Italians learn Italian’,
by immersion. Henri’s mother had understood Latin almost as
well as French, and his sister Catherine could read and understand
30
Bussi, Prefazioni, p. 21 Miglio: sciens elegantissimum scriptorum Gelium supra
omnis homines Fauorinum in Galliis ortum merito praedicare, quippe qui sua aetate
princeps in omni excellentiae genere uirorum summorum fuerit et Hadriano imperatori
illi doctissimo et gloriossimo acceptissimus, statui dignissimo etiam cardinali Rotoma-
gensi praestare ut Fauorinus suus, uir tantus, ab omnibus facilius quodammodo Gelio
laudatore nosceretur.
31
Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, 2. 2, 3. 2, 1. 7, 8. 5, 10. 10, 21. 4, 2. 14.
the language with no help, and ‘can say a good deal in that language
herself, and well enough that everyone understands her, even if
she sometimes stumbles.’32 The text vividly evoked this lost,
Latin-speaking Utopia—a forgotten country of international
understanding and exact scholarship, inspiring to remember if
impossible to recreate in a Europe torn by religious and civil war.
Half a century later, the Gellian model found a diVerent, more
optimistic employment in another war-torn land. Beginning at
Advent in 1641, a group of scholars in Leipzig emulated the
Roman expatriates in Gellius who met on the Saturnalia to discuss
a wide range of festive questions. Every week, these men met
after services on Sunday and discussed ‘matters connected with
philology’. They called themselves the Collegium Gellianum. Later
still, the Hamburg humanists in the circle of J. A. Fabricius learnt
from Gellius and Macrobius how to carry on conversation that was
learned and morally instructive, but not pedantic, in their
‘Teutsch-übende Gesellschaft’.33 The Noctes Atticae, in other
words, not only gave the humanists a way to describe the social
worlds they created, but actually helped to shape these.
These connections make clear that the form—as well as the varied
and erudite content—of the Noctes Atticae played a considerable
role in its appeal. They are also a little sobering. The most vivid
recreations we have of humanist literary life—so it seems—appear
in works Wtted to an existing, classical last. It is all too possible,
then, that they are at least partly Wctional—that they can be used,
like Gellius’ own work, to describe what could have been discussed
in Wfteenth-century Ferrara or Florence, but not what actually was
discussed.
Even as notebook-making became commonplace and modern
compilations began to appear next to the Noctes Atticae on human-
ist bookshelves, Gellius continued to stimulate new forms of liter-
ary and philological writing. The numerous testimonia and
fragments that he cited from older Latin literature soon attracted
attention. Sicco Polenton was no master of the critical method.
Having decided that one Seneca had written the rhetorical and
philosophical works, another the tragedies, he found himself con-
fronted with a problem. Seneca mentioned in the rhetorical works
32
Henri Estienne, letter to Paul Estienne, 12–13. Cf. R. Colie, The Resources of
Kind, and M. J. Heath, above, 288.
33
See R. Häfner, ‘Philologische Festkultur’, for a rich study of both the uses of
Gellius in these erudite late humanist circles and the larger intellectual context
within which Fabricius and his colleagues worked.
332 Anthony Grafton
that he could have heard Cicero speak, had the civil wars not
intervened. Hence he must have been at least 14 years old when
the great orator died in 43 bc. Yet chronicles unanimously set the
death of Seneca the philosopher in ad 65. Unperturbed, Polenton
explained that Seneca must have lived to the modest age of 118.
Yet this same scholar, reading Gellius, saw that he could compile a
new kind of notebook—a historical one—as he did so. On Plautus,
for example, he wrote:
Comoedias tres ipso etiam in pistrino esse ab eo et scriptas et uenditas
M. Terentius Varro, nominis sui cultor, scribit. Annos denique nec
multos ante bellum quod tertium ac ultimum populus Romanus cum
Poenis gessit mortuus est Romae Plautus, P. Claudio et L. Porcio con-
sulibus. Censor tum erat Cato superior. Epigramma uero sibi hoc Plautus
lapidi incidendum fecit: ‘Postquam est morte captus Plautus, Comoedia
luget . . . (53.)34
Here Polenton assembled, like the pieces of a smashed mosaic,
fragments of Varro preserved by Gellius in 3. 3. 14 and 1. 24. 3.
Much of what he said about Ennius came from the same source.
Half a century later, Poliziano and others went much further in the
same direction. Using the Greek text of Euripides’ Medea, Poli-
ziano identiWed a fragment of Ennius’ version of the text in one of
Cicero’s letters. The study of Gellius—who preserved so many
testimonia and fragments, and compared Latin texts with the
Greek originals they adapted—led his modern readers to devise
forms of collection and commentary that would enable them, over
time, to reconstruct substantial portions of Rome’s lost early lit-
erature.
Gellius also helped to spread other tastes. In the 1520s, when
enemies were gathering around Erasmus and criticizing him for
the arrogance of the motto on his seal, ‘Concedo nulli’, he referred
his choice back to what he saw as another sort of Gellian scholar-
ship—the riddling form of Platonic pedagogy so brilliantly
expounded by Edgar Wind in Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance.
A pupil, Alexander Stewart, had given Erasmus an ancient gem
while he was in Italy in 1509. ‘A certain Italian antiquary’ pointed
out that the Wgure on the stone was Terminus. Thanks to Poli-
ziano, every scholar in Erasmus’ generation knew what Terminus
said. For Gellius cited, as an example of an enigma, three iambic
trimeters that he thought very old, and which Varro had discussed:
34
Sicco Polenton, bk. 2, p. 53 Ullman.
Semel minusne an bis minus sit, nescio:
An utrumque eorum, ut quondam audiui dicier,
Ioui ipsi regi noluit concedere.
I know not if he’s minus once or twice,
Or both of these, who would not yield his place,
As I once heard it said, to Jove himself. (12. 6. 2, tr. J. C. Rolfe.)
Poliziano, in the Miscellanea that he modelled on the Noctes Atti-
cae, solved the riddle handily: Terminum signiWcare uidetur, qui
deus concedere Ioui noluit, cum capitolium exaugurabatur. Ouidius
fastorum secundo (36), and even his critics, like Lilio Gregorio
Giraldi, accepted his solution: Angelus Politianus, cuius immaturo
obitu multum nuper amisimus, primus (quod sciam) scrupeas aenig-
matis huius ambages explicauit. Erasmus explained that he had
taken the gift of the stone as an omen of his approaching death
(he was, after all, already 40 years old).35 When he had ‘concedo
nulli’ engraved on his seal, accordingly, he meant only to suggest
that Mors enim uere Terminus est, qui nulli cedere nouit. Even if, as
Edgar Wind argued in a classic article, Erasmus used the chapter
from the Noctes Atticae for protective coloration, Gellius and the
scholars who imitated him certainly became a fashionable source
for similar puzzles.36 In fact, the Noctes Atticae became so syn-
onymous with riddles that some of his Renaissance readers, like
Ludovico Ricchieri (who styled himself Caelius Rhodiginus),
found them where they did not exist. In 2. 3, his chapter on the
letter h, Gellius noted that the inhabitants of Attica had pro-
nounced NŁ as ƒŁ (§2). Ricchieri devoted a whole chapter of
his Lectiones antiquae to arguing, on the basis of an immense range
of sources, that Gellius had referred to a ƒŁf ƒæ, a holy Wsh.37
Petrus Mosellanus, whose commentary on the Noctes Atticae Wrst
appeared in 1526, expressed pity and contempt for his predecessor,
‘who tortures himself in the most extraordinary way on the sacred
Wsh, and compiles a great deal of foreign material about the name
of the sacred Wsh, so that he shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that
he has no idea what Gellius is talking about. I take the passage as a
35
Poliziano, Miscellanea I 36, in Opera, 256; Giraldi, Aenigmata, ‘Aenigma
Termini’, in Opera, ii. 457. 47–9; Erasmus, Ep. 2018. 55, vii. 432 Allen.
36
E. Wind, ‘ ‘‘Aenigma Termini’’ ’, citing all three authors. Erasmus clearly
prized Gellius for his ability, like Erasmus’ own, to Wnd extended and curious senses
in proverbial sayings: see Adagia 1. 4. 37 (Opera omnia, II i. 436): A. Gellius
Noctium Atticarum extrema lucubratione sane quam eleganter hoc adagium [‘Nihil
cum Wdibus graculo’] torquet in quosdam pinguiore ingenio homines stolidaque loqua-
citate praeditos . . .
37
Caelius Rhodiginus, Lectionum antiquarum libri 7. 12 (in later edns. 12. 7).
334 Anthony Grafton
simple discussion of aspirated words.’38 In fact, however, Ric-

chieri’s interpretative misstep reveals much. He assumed that
any passage in Gellius, however simple it appeared, might oVer
riddles like that of Terminus, riddles whose solution required a
parade of classical erudition. No wonder, then, that Gellius
became such a favoured source for the aphorisms, mottoes, and
emblems that Wfteenth- and sixteenth-century scholars loved to
devise, and that became a staple of conversation in the Italian
academies of the sixteenth century. And even this was only one
particularly attractive feature of the Noctes Atticae. Guarino’s
friend and disciple Giovanni Lamola, for example, took a special
interest in the role of history in Gellius. He commented on the
chapter in which Gellius discussed the distinction between historia
and annales and ransacked Greek texts for parallel accounts of
the events Gellius described—not all of which seemed to agree
with him.39
One feature of Gellius’ specialized interests, however, proved far
more inXuential than the rest—and this story has its paradoxes.
Gellius made clear, from early on in the Noctes Atticae, that he saw
himself as living in an age of textual corruption, a time when
ignorant grammarians changed perfectly correct forms in the
works of Cicero and Vergil. He set himself to repel these ignorant
and impudent boarders, these men who—as he put it in the title of
1. 7—bonos libros uiolant—for example, by replacing correct but
unusual forms, like the genitive uestrum (rather than uestri) in
Sallust (Cat. 33. 2; NA 20. 6. 14). To defend the classical writers
against such inept eVorts at emendation, Gellius scrutinized a good
many real manuscripts and, perhaps, a few Wctional ones as well.
Often, he claimed, he followed copies that had belonged to the
authors themselves, or members of their familiae. Thus he found
what he took as the correct text of a passage in Cicero’s Wfth oration
against Verres in libro spectatae Wdei, Tironiania cura atque disci-
plina facto (1. 7. 1, cf. 13. 21. 16). He also noted an interesting
correction entered in a copy of book 2 of the Aeneid, which he
38
Mosellanus, Annotationes on 2. 3: Ludouicus Caelius libro septimo cap. xii.
torquet se in pisce sacro miris modis, atque peregrina multa conuerrit de piscis sacri
appellatione, ut satis indicet se quid Gellius uelit non intellegere. nos simpliciter accipi-
mus locum de uocibus aspiratis . . .
39
Vat. lat. 3453, fo. 46r on the discussion of history in 5. 18. 1: Cicero tamen ita
diYnit: Historia est res gesta sed ab aetatis nostrae memoria remota; fo. 75r on
Democritus’ self–blinding, 10. 17. 2: De Democriti occaecatione aliter sentit Plu-
tarchus in eo libello: qui est æd
ºıæÆª
inscriptus; fo. 116v on 15. 17. 2–3: Et
apud plutarchum in uita alcibiadis initio fere; ibid. on 15. 18. 2–3: Plutarchus in uita
caesaris hoc aYrmat.
described as mirandae uetustatis, emptum in Sigilariis uiginti aureis,

quem ipsius Vergilii fuisse credebatur (2. 3. 5) Most interestingly,
Gellius scrutinized even the oldest manuscripts to which he had
access for evidence that they too might have undergone a process of
revision and emendation. Unsure whether Claudius Quadrigarius
had used facies as a genitive form in place of faciei, he noted that he
had found corruptos . . . quosdam libros . . . in quibus faciei scriptum
est, illo quod ante scriptum erat oblitterato (9. 14. 2). In the library at
Tibur, by contrast, he had found a copy in which facies appeared in
the text, facii in the margin, and he admitted that the form with the
double i could also be genuinely archaic (§§3–4). The grinding
hatred of scholarly incompetence that characterized Gellius’ book
was inspired, to a considerable extent, by what he portrayed as a
wave of textual emendations that threatened the stability of the
canonical Latin texts.
In the last decades of the Wfteenth century, as scholars like
Domizio Calderini and Poliziano set to work correcting more and
more diYcult texts and collecting more and more recondite infor-
mation, they began to devote the lion’s share of their miscellanies
to questions of textual philology. Some decades before, in the
Naples of Alfonso of Aragon, humanists had fought and torn one
another’s emendations in the ore del libro that the king—himself no
doubt a reader of Gellius—had liked to stage. Now, they did the
same in print—and used the form devised by Gellius to move from
one passage on which they had something to say to another, rather
than trying to comment on whole texts and risking boredom in
their readers.40
Like Gellius, Poliziano saw himself as living in a time of textual
crisis, when semidocta sedulitas threatened the stability of texts.
Curiously Bussi, the eager editor of Gellius, helped to precipitate
this atmosphere of crisis. His edition of Pliny’s Natural History
provoked not cries of admiration, but demands for formal censor-
ship of the press. Niccolò Perotti denounced him for adding speci-
mens of his own composition—notably his prefaces—to the ancient
texts he edited, and for altering them arbitrarily. Bussi’s edition of
the Noctes Atticae was a striking case in point. It included, as he
had to admit in his preface, actual additions to the original text—
the Latin translations by Theodore Gaza, prefaced by id est,
that followed the dozens of Greek quotations in the text.41 Bussi
40
See now M. Campanelli, Polemiche e Wlologia.
41
Bussi, Prefazioni, p. 25 Miglio: Erat mihi mens eadem, quoniam ardui operis
munus fore perspiciebam, ut uel mediocri excusatione possent nostra Gelianis interseri:
uerum impressoribus erat paenitus nostris impossibile quicquam in marginibus eYngere et
336 Anthony Grafton
admitted that he disliked intervening directly in the body of the

Noctes Atticae. But his printers claimed that they could not repro-
duce Gaza’s translations as marginal glosses. Accordingly, he had
had to make the Noctes Atticae—the ancient Latin world’s strongest
plaidoyer for conservatism in the defence of canonical texts—as well
as Macrobius and Apuleius into an example of the practices its
author hated most. His profession, in the preface, that ‘I tried to
understand Gellius, and if I did not manage to understand every-
thing without a blot or an error, I still opened the way for better men
to attain some sort of understanding’, was not calculated to
assuage Poliziano’s feelings.42
Poliziano responded to this edition—as well as to the writings of
his critics—in his Centuria prima. Here he made clear, over and
over again, that the vulgate texts of the greatest Latin authors were
pocked, and even honeycombed, with mistakes. He denounced the
editors and printers who, working quickly in order to nail down
their proWts, forced the pace of textual work and froze textual
traditions in print without establishing the genealogical relation
of their sources—much less working from the manuscripts that
represented the oldest identiWable stage in their transmission. And
he made clear—just as Gellius had—that the only way to improve
the texts in circulation was to ransack libraries—the Florentine
ones in the Wrst instance—for relevant materials, line by line and
word for word. Again and again, Poliziano drew corrections not
from his mother wit but from the manuscripts he had collated in
the library of San Marco and elsewhere. Again and again, he
localized the manuscripts he used, naming their owners and loca-
tions. He too carefully examined individual manuscripts, looking
for evidence of their origins—like the transposed gatherings that
in commentariolo separatim nulla poterant uia seponi quae ad intelligendi operis neces-
sitatem pertinebant. Ne tamen non foret ex nobis etiam testata distinctio . . . rubrica ego
meorum laborum additamenta descripsi semperque uerbum id est anteposui ut et qui
castigatiore ingenio ac auribus in iudicando tersioribus forent et qui eadem trutina non
possent expendere, omnes tamen adiuncta discernerent . . . For the details of Bussi’s
critical work see ibid., pp. xxxviii–xliii. Battista Egnazio described how he later set
the text to rights in the Aldine edition of 1515, sig. R1r , at the start of a section
devoted to Latin translations of Gellius’ Greek quotations: Quoniam in hisce Atticis
noctibus graecae dictiones multae, et uersus, ac loci complures graeci erant: ea omnia
latine seorsum hic subnectenda curauimus: quando Gellius ipse graece tantum citarat:
nec latina fecerat. Consuluimus autem cum ipsi Gellio, quem integrum, impollutumque
esse uoluimus: tum etiam studiosis omnibus: quando et emendati complures loci sunt: qui
uitiati admodum erant.
42
Bussi, Prefazioni, p. 23 Miglio: Si omnia non recte pureque intelleximus ad
aliquam tamen intellectionem patefecimus melioribus uiam.
enabled him to identify one manuscript of Cicero’s Familiares as

the source of the rest. Optimistically, he even looked for the
working manuscripts of the ancients—and believed he had found
one in the Florentine codex of the Digest, though in fact he leapt to
a wrong conclusion in that case. Most important, Poliziano based
his proud, deWant manifesto on how to reverse the mass degener-
ation of the canon more directly on Gellius than on any other
ancient author—to the point that he, like his ancient model,
devoted part of a chapter title to denouncing his unidentiWed
enemies as men ‘who violate good books’.43 Gellius, in other
words, presided like a dead but eVective midwife over the birth
of modern philology from the spirit of the Second Sophistic, and
the Gellian literature that followed in the wake of Poliziano’s
Miscellanea amounted, in eVect, to the Wrst real body of technical
literature on philology to be produced in the modern world.44
Historians of classical scholarship have often denounced these
works as trivial—especially since the great Joseph Scaliger noted in
his autobiography that ‘I have made many notes on authors both
Greek and Latin, from which there might spring a vast progeny of
Various Readings, Old Readings, Miscellanies, and other things of
this sort, the sport of the self-advertising philologians of today.’
Instead of doing philology in a minor key, he had dedicated himself
to ‘the expounding and textual correction of entire authors. For we
rightly judged that we could do this without any suspicion of self-
advertisement.’45 But Scaliger, in his Gascon way, was exagger-
ating—he had in fact produced a miscellany of his own, under a
pseudonym, a few years before he wrote the words in question.
And his passing remark misled most readers, until Carlo Dionisotti
explained the true state of aVairs.46 Scaliger—like Pier Vettori and
many others—owed more to Poliziano’s Miscellanea than to any
other work by a contemporary or near-contemporary scholar.
Through Poliziano and his rivals and readers, Gellius shaped the
origins of modern classical scholarship, infecting generations with
his besetting interests in textual criticism and the comparison of
Latin texts with their Greek counterparts.
Even in the seventeenth century, Gellius retained his fascin-
ation—and proved that he could stimulate the well-trained
43
Poliziano, Miscellanea I 69 (Opera, 282): Oarion synceriter esse apud Catullum,
quod Aorion isti legunt, qui bonos uiolant libros.
44
Later, in his second Miscellanea, Poliziano ceased to adhere so closely to the
Gellian model. See V. Branca, Poliziano, 230.
45
J. J. Scaliger, Autobiography, tr. G. Robinson, 32.
46
C. Dionisotti, ‘Calderini, Poliziano e altri’.
338 Anthony Grafton
humanists who attacked the reign of philology just as much as he

had stimulated the philologists. His work was, after all, the source
from which Pietro Aretino and others drew the aphorism Veritas
Wlia Temporis. When Francis Bacon made this phrase the basis of
his radical calls for change and progress in the sciences, he was
drawing on the most respectable of ancient writers, even though he
suppressed the author he drew on to make his call for change seem
more novel than it was, as his rhetoric forced him to: ‘Reverence
for antiquity has impeded men’s progress in knowledge and almost
enchanted them . . . So far as authors are concerned, it is the
deepest cowardice to attribute everything to them, but to deny to
the author of all authors, and thus of all authority, time itself, its
rights. For truth is rightly called the daughter of Time, not
Authority.’47 And Bacon’s colleagues and followers did the same.
Gellius, in fact, oVered them not only a motto, but a central story,
which served more than once as a piece of evidence to clinch the
case for man’s powers of invention.48
The learned magi of the Renaissance—and the critics who iden-
tiWed them with witches—were haunted by the passage in which
Apuleius, as they thought, described how the Egyptian priests had
conjured daemons down into their statues, to make them talk and
move.49 Early in the sixteenth century, the scholar and architect
Francesco Giorgi suggested a way to explain these phenomena
without accepting that their creators had invoked devils. Perhaps,
he said, what looked like diabolical creations were actually the
result of man’s tireless eVorts to ape the Creator, using natural
means—as Archytas of Tarentum had done when (according to the
printer) he created a Wery Xying dove.50 Giorgi, of course, was
quoting the passage where Gellius described—and evaluated with
47
Bacon, Nouum organum 1. 84 (Works, i. 190–1): Rursus uero homines a progressu
in scientiis detinuit et fere incantauit reuerentia antiquitatis . . . Authores uero quod
attinet, summae pusillanimitatis est authoribus inWnita tribuere, authori autem
authorum atque adeo omnis authoritatis, Tempori, ius suum denegare. Recte enim
Veritas Temporis Wlia dicitur, non Authoritatis.
48
See esp. F. Saxl, ‘Veritas Wlia Temporis’.
49
The classic study of F. Yates, Giordano, remains the best analysis of this side of
Renaissance Egyptomania.
50
Francesco Giorgi, De harmonia mundi, canticum III, tonus IV, cap. IX, sig.
[f7]rv : Et quamuis solius Dei sit miracula facere, nihilominus humanum genus auda-
cissimae (ut Zoroastres inquit) naturae opus, et audax omnia perpetrare, fauente
maxime antiquo et ualido serpente, qui se simiam summi OpiWcis semper conatus est
exhibere, multa aggressum est, in quibus homo Dei, et naturae aemulator apparuit.
Archyta Tarentinus (ut fertur) columbam < l >igneam fecit uolitantem per aerem.
Quod et aliqui nostri temporis facere gloriantur.
some ambivalence—Favorinus’ report of the wooden, rather than

Wery, dove that Archytas had made, ratione quadam disciplinaque
mechanica, and that a combination of weights and cunningly con-
cealed currents of air caused to Xy (10. 12. 9–10).51 Archytas, at
once a political Wgure and a mathematician, made a natural hero for
moderns dreaming that philosophy could give men power.52
According to Diogenes Laertius, after all, Archytas had been the
Wrst ‘to make mechanics into a system by applying mathematical
principles to them’ (8. 83).53 He soon became a canonical and
heroic Wgure. Henry Cornelius Agrippa quoted the same passage,
to the same eVect, in his De occulta philosophia of 1533, the
Renaissance magician’s desk reference. So did Petrus Ramus,
who took Archytas’ ability to make a Xying automaton as proof
that mathematics could and should serve practical purposes.54
A number of modern engineers supposedly emulated Archytas’
achievement—from Regiomontanus, who devised both an iron
Xy and a model eagle that Xew out from the walls of Nuremberg
to greet the Holy Roman Emperor, to Turrianus, who crafted
moving models of men and horses that marched up and down the
imperial dinner table and mechanical passerculi that Xew above
them.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, when Descartes
asserted that men could forge automata that emulated human or
animal movements in every way and envisaged animals as autom-
ata of this kind, he was for once not making a bold and individual
claim but stating a view that many others held. Athanasius Kircher
and Gaspar Schott also saw animals, and even humans, as organic
machines—from the vomiting lobster that illustrated the principle
of the siphon to the professional regurgitators who amused them in
51
Cf. Lamola’s comment on Archytas’ dove, Vat. lat. 3453, fo. 73v on 10. 12. 9:
Mirum de columba. Lamola probably classed this report with those sceptically
recounted by Gellius, drawing on books of wonders, in 9. 4. On these Lamola
remarks, fo. 64r on §6: Mirabilia quaedam.
52
On Archytas’ political career see K. von Fritz, Pythagorean Politics in South
Italy, 97, and the recent summary of his life by C. Riedweg, ‘Archytas’, with
references to the literature.
53
See the brief but helpful discussion in W. K. C. Guthrie, History, i. 335. For a
more detailed discussion and a full bibliography, see M. Pugliara, ‘La colomba di
Archita’.
54
Henry Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta philosophia libri tres, bk. 2, ch. 1,
pp. 249–50: Leguntur etiam statuae Mercurii quae loquebantur et columba Architae
quae lignea uolabat . . . On the importance of these stories in the 16th c. see O. Mayr,
‘Automatenlegenden in der Spätrenaissance’; J. P. Zetterberg, ‘The Mistaking’;
P. Zambelli, ‘Cornelius Agrippa’; Minsoo Kang, ‘Wonders of Mathematical Magic’.
Pl. 12.2. Design for a model of Archytas and his dove, from Athanasius
Kircher, Magnes: siue de arte mechanica opus tripartitum, 3rd edn. (Rome,
1654), p. 264, fig. 23. Photograph used by permission of Princeton
University Library
the Piazza Navona. They Wlled Kircher’s museum in the Collegio

Romano of the Jesuits with ingenious machines and automata of
every kind, most of them based on the hydraulic and pneumatic
devices of Hero of Alexandria.55 Both men took a deep interest in
Archytas’ Xying automaton. But all Kircher could devise, when he
tried to imagine how the device had worked, was a miniature
version that avowedly did nothing more than imitate the motions
of the original. He began with a tiny model of a bird, into which he
inserted a metal strip. A magnet, Wxed above the top of the vessel in
which the bird moved, held it up in the air. When turned, the
magnet made the bird look as if it were Xying in circles. The line
that connected it to the hand of a tiny model of Archytas, set to
pivot on a needle, made the human Wgure revolve in its turn, as if it
watched the progress of its bird. It was an ingenious fake, but a
fake none the less—rather like Kircher’s more celebrated sun-
Xower clock, which also used the power of magnetism to simulate
what Kircher saw as the genuine principles of cosmic sympathy in
action.56 In the end, Schott had to confess that he could not see
how to make a bird like this. Both air and moving parts might help
make it Xy (Pl. 12. 2); but neither could impart suYcient power on
its own (after all, Schott noted, footballs rise both because of the air
they contain and because of the violent motion men impart to
them). ‘Something more is needed, then,’ he wrote, ‘and as many
complain, up to now authors have left this unexplained.’57 At the
height of the ScientiWc Revolution, Gellius still mattered. He not
only supplied a vital slogan, Veritas Wlia Temporis, but also pro-
vided an ideal case in point: the automaton of Archytas, which
could be seen either as an ancient achievement that no known
modern technique could replicate or as a problem like Fermat’s
Last Theorem. In either event, it served—as things in Gellius so
55
For a general introduction to the world of Kircher and Schott, see I. Rowland,
Ecstatic Journey, and D. Stolzenberg (ed.), The Great Art of Knowing. For their
mechanical principles and devices see Gaspar Schott, Technica curiosa.
56
For the dove see Kircher, Magnes, bk. 2, pt. 4, ch. 1, probl. 10, pp. 263–5. On
Kircher’s sunXower clock see T. Hankins and R. Silverman, Instruments and the
Imagination.
57
G. Schott, Mechanica hydraulico-pneumatica, pars II, classis I, caput III,
machina X, p. 243: Duo tam prodigiosi uolatus principia indicat Gellius: inclusum
aerem, et partium libramentum. Vt tamen utrumque conferre, ita neutrum suYcere,
optime obseruarunt Mechanici; neque enim sola aeris densatione, sed impulsu ualido
folles lusorii agitantur in sublime: nec ullum partium aequilibrium innatae contranititur
grauitati, ne quod pondere praeualet, deprimatur deorsum, nedum ut sursum eleuetur.
Aliquid igitur ulterius requiritur, quod hactenus inexplicatum ab Authoribus fuisse
plerique dolent et conqueruntur.
342 Anthony Grafton
often did—to stretch the minds of yet another generation of

readers.
The Noctes Atticae, in other words, served as a great quarry—
rather like the city of Rome itself. But like Rome, it also played
many other roles. It inspired readers to devise new forms of schol-
arly play and work. It helped to deWne the new antiquarianism and
philology of the Wfteenth and sixteenth centuries, for which Gellius
provided indispensable stylistic and methodological models. It
suggested that classical scholarship, rightly understood, was still
vital in the age of the New Philosophy—as much for those who
carried out radical experiments as for those who wrote manifestos.
Above all, however, the case of Gellius underlines a rather diVer-
ent and more signiWcant point. The creators of modern classical
scholarship found not just the objects of their study, but most of
the tools they applied to them, in the same body of ancient texts.
Even their most original and innovative scholarly practices were
often formed by inference, emulation, or imagination from the
examples of ancient scholarship that they knew best. The history
of early modern philology could thus be seen as a sort of extended
Collegium Gellianum. And even Gellius, that master of false mod-
esty well and truly expressed, would surely have found satisfaction
in his modern fate.
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Index Locorum Potiorum
loci gelliani 2. 2. 1: 184

2. 3: 333, 335
pr. (at large): 29, 316 2. 20: 72–4
pr. 1–3: 172–3, 225–6 2. 21. 8–9: 141
pr. 1: 172–3, 189–90 2. 22: 32
pr. 2: 136, 215–17, 298, 324, 326 2. 25: 212
pr. 4–9: 126, 160–1 2. 26: 32
pr. 4: 125–6 2. 26. 1: 191, 192–3
pr. 5: 164, 239, 299 2. 27: 194
pr. 11–12: 162 2. 28: 147, 288, 303
pr. 11: 216 2. 29: 113
pr. 12: 167, 169, 182, 189, 207, 214,
216, 219, 237, 239, 284
3. 4: 291
pr. 13: 169, 189, 190, 218, 221
3. 6: 249–58
pr. 16: 34, 172, 200, 215, 216, 220
3. 12: 54–5
pr. 17–18: 213
3. 15: 296, 300, 301, 304,
pr. 17: 169, 173
309
pr. 19: 220, 221
3. 16: 304–5
pr. 20: 233
3. 16. 11: 68, 74–6
pr. 21: 221
pr. 23–4: 317
4. 1: 32–3, 191, 218
pr. 23: 182, 184
4. 9: 55 n. 38, 76–7
pr. 24: 220, 221
pr. 25: 127, 176
5. 2: 290, 310
5. 3: 311
1. 1: 190–1
5. 5: 313
1. 1. 1: 225
5. 12: 294
1. 1. 2: 285, 287, 293, 300
5. 13: 200
1. 2: 37, 113–14, 193, 210, 298
5. 14: 112–13, 238, 240, 294, 301,
1. 2. 4: 233
302, 307, 314
1. 7: 292, 334
5. 15–16: 194, 212
1. 8: 106, 291, 292, 301
1. 10. 4: 306
1. 12: 302 6. 1: 301
1. 15. 3: 193 6. 3: 193–4
1. 15: 298, 307 6. 5: 107
1. 18. 5: 69–72 6. 7. 12: 78–9
1. 19: 107–8 6. 8: 107
1. 23: 107 6. 11. 8: 79–80
1. 26. 5–9: 313–14, 317 6. 12: 106
376 Index Locorum Potiorum
6. 17: 80–2, 211 13. 9. 2–3: 161
6. 18: 106 13. 11: 311
13. 18. 2: 183–4
7. 4: 106 13. 22. 1: 193
7. 8: 106 13. 25: 33
7. 12: 82–5 13. 29: 33
7. 13: 209
14. 1: 34
8. 2: 85 14. 2: 34
8. 13: 85–7 14. 2. 25: 139–40
8. 14: 191 14. 5: 114, 212
14. 6. 1: 161–2
9. 2: 115 14. 7: 137
9. 4: 302–3, 329, 339 n. 51
9. 4. 3: 126 15. 1. 6–7: 302
9. 4. 5: 174 15. 3: 93–5
9. 4. 13: 138, 238, 240, 241 15. 4: 112–13, 301
9. 10: 316 15. 10: 300, 301, 311
9. 14: 335 15. 16: 292, 300, 304
9. 16. 3: 238
16. 5. 1: 218
10. 2: 296, 303 16. 7: 55–63, 293
10. 2. 9–10: 338–41 16. 7. 1–3: 55–7
10. 5: 87–8 16. 7. 4–9: 57–61
10. 12. 1: 207 16. 7. 10–12: 52, 61–2
10. 17: 297, 300, 301 16. 7. 13–14: 62–3
10. 17. 2: 52–5 16. 7. 13: 96–7
10. 19. 3: 193 16. 19: 108–12
10. 22: 227
10. 22. 3: 38 17. 2. 4: 97–8
10. 22. 24: 194–5 17. 2. 5–6: 98–9
17. 10: 34
11. 1. 6: 291 17. 20. 4: 243
11. 7. 3: 43
11. 15: 55, 88–90 18. 1. 2: 182
11. 18: 154, 195, 203 18. 4. 1: 228
18. 6. 1–3: 39
12. 1: 34, 190, 288, 289, 295–6, 18. 6. 3: 152–3
309 n. 58 18. 7: 227, 242–3
12. 2: 292, 299
12. 3: 90–1 19. 1: 303, 310, 320
12. 4: 200 19. 7. 2: 215
12. 6: 300, 333 19. 7. 3: 99–100
12. 7: 305–6, 310 19. 7. 4–5: 100–1
19. 7. 12: 206
13. 8. 1–3: 216 19. 8. 2: 35
13. 9: 91–3 19. 8. 6: 140
Index Locorum Potiorum 377
19. 8. 15: 329 Epistulae ad familiares
19. 9: 36, 224 7. 25. 1: 57–8
19. 9. 6: 300 Orator
19. 9. 10–14: 291 160: 44
19. 10. 14: 233 Rep.
19. 11: 38, 224 1. 38: 124
19. 13: 35–6, 41–52, 63–4, 218–19
‘Dio of Prusa’
20. 1: 31–2 Oratio 37 [really Favorinus]: 30–1
20. 1. 9: 140
20. 1. 54: 300 Fronto
20. 6: 334 Ad amicos
1. 2: 22
Additamentum epistularum
4–5: 23–5
loci alieni 7: 21
8: 20
Aelian Arion: 108–11
Nat. anim. De eloquentia
7. 48: 112–13 4. 4: 42
Epistulae ad M. Caesarem et invicem
Apuleius 1. 3: 19
Apologia 1. 6: 26
9: 224 2. 1: 26
Metamorphoses 2. 2: 22
1. 1: 14–16 2. 3: 22–3
1. 1. 1–6: 236–8 2. 5. 1: 19–20
1. 2. 1: 225, 232 2. 10. 3: 21
1. 3. 2–3: 232 2. 15: 23
1. 4. 2: 240 3. 2: 25
1. 8. 2: 231–2 3. 3: 25
9. 13. 5: 237 3. 4: 25
3. 9. 2: 20
Aristophanes 4. 3. 2–3: 43
Ranae 354–6, 369–71: 221, 233–4 Epistulae ad Antoninum
Imperatorem et invicem
Bonaventure (Ps.-) 1. 4. 2: 21
Sermo, Quaracchi edn. ix. 281–9: 8: 21–2
259–62 Epistulae ad Verum imperatorem et
invicem
1. 12. 3: 26
Cicero
De oratore Heracleitus
3. 93–5: 4 DK 22 B 40: 207, 237
Epistulae ad Atticum
6. 4. 3: 26 Herodotus
6. 5. 1–2: 26 1. 23–4: 108–12
378 Index Locorum Potiorum
John of Salisbury 4. 11. 1–3: 8
Policraticus 4. 22: 8
4. 11: 262–5 5. 20. 4: 8
5. 6: 252–3 7. 4. 9: 9
8. 24: 7–8
Lucian 9. 33: 107
Dialogi maritimi
5 Macleod: 112 Plutarch
Vera Historia Quaestiones conuiuales
1. 3–4: 240 8. 5. 4: 249, 250
Quaestiones naturales
Macrobius 32: 256
Saturnalia Septem sapientium conuiuium
1. pr. 2–3, 10: 127 18: 112
3. 4. 3: 141
Quintilian
Philostratus Institutio Oratoria
Vitae Sophistarum 1. 1. 12–14: 14–15
481: 11 12. 10: 7
507: 11
578: 115 Seneca the Elder
Controversiae
Pliny the Elder 1. pr. 6: 6
Natural History 9. 1. 13–14: 6
pr. 10: 127 10. 4. 21, 23: 6
pr. 12–13: 171 10. 5: 107
pr. 17: 137 Suasoriae
pr. 18: 126 4. 5: 6
pr. 24: 126, 160 7. 12–13: 6
pr. 25: 307
pr. 26: 126 Seneca the Younger
pr. 33: 127, 174–5 Epistulae morales
35. 89: 61 108. 30–1: 124
Pliny the Younger Vergil

Epistulae Aeneid
1. 1. 1: 173 8. 404–6: 316
4. 3. 5: 8
Index Verborum
de quibus A. Gellius disputat
abluuium 56, 63 lictor 90–1

admodum 78–9 malaxare 58, 59, 63
adprime 79, 98 manuari, -arius 56–7, 63
adulterio, -ritas 56, 63 mendicimonium 56, 63
apiarium 72–4 -mentum 68 n. 9, 82–5
au- 93–6, 102 n. 102 moechimonium 56, 63
auarus 87–8 Morta 68, 74–6
autumo 93–6 nanus 35, 41–52, 61, 63, 64, 96, 219
botulus 61, 62, 63 nequitia 79–80
-bundus 55, 89–90 obba 58, 60, 63
Calidonia 58–9 obesus 99–100
camella 58, 60, 63 obnoxius 80–2
capitium 58, 60–1, 63 -osus 54–5 and n. 38, 68–9, 76–8
catomum 57–8, 63 perennare 98–9
cippus 58, 59–60, 63 piscina 72–3
cocio 61, 62, 63 pittacium 58, 60–1, 63
cumprime 98–9 planus 61–2, 63
cupso 85–7 praemodum 78–9
depudicare 56, 63 pumilio 41–2, 44, 61
diurnare 98–9 see also nanus
elutriare 58, 63 roborarium 72–4
emplastrum 62, 63, 96–7 sacellum 83–5
foedifragus 100–1 somnus 91–3
frunisci 98–9 subnixus 97–8
fullonica 58–9, 63 subulcus 91–2
fur 69–72 suculae 91–3
gubernius 61, 63 super 91–2
gurdus 46 n. 13, 58–9, 63 supinus 91–2
lauandaria 58, 63 talabarrio, -unculus 58–9, 63
-lentus (-o/ulentus) 89–90 testamentum 82–4
leporarium 72–4 uiuarium 72–4
leuenna 61, 62, 63
Index Rerum et Nominum
abbreviations, ancient lists see also under Cicero; etymology;

of 134–5 genre; institutions; law; Pliny,
Academic philosophy, see under elder; Romanocentrism; Varro
Gellius; philosophy; antiquities, physical 123, 144
scepticism Apion 107, 112, 238–41 passim,
accentuation 47, 78–9 307, 314
Accius 42, 43 I

ÆÆ, see commentarii;
Aelian 40, 111–12, 167, 171, 172, Favorinus; Plutarch
298 Appian 23–5
Aelius Melissus 152 Apuleius 183, 223–45, 290, 297,
Aelius Stilo, L. 45, 68, 69, 119 336, 338
Aeolic dialect 45–6 acquaintance with G. 224
Agricola, Rudolf 324 archaism in 17–18
Agrippa, Henry Cornelius 339 bilingualism in 12–17
Albert, Heinrich, see ‘Anke van not a sophist 12
Tharaw’ reading 189 n. 5
Alberti, Leon Battista 322, 323 sympotic dialogue 244
Alciato, Andrea 256–7 Arcadian origin of Rome 46
Aleander, Hieronymus 283 Arcado-Cypriot dialect 45
Alexander III, king of archaism 12, 17–18, 43, 111, 218,
Macedon 190, 204, 262–3, 236, 242, 245
301, 310 Archelaos, condottiero 302
chastity of 106, 201, 301 Archytas, his mechanical
Alexander V (Pietro Filargi), dove 338–42
Pope 271 Areopagites, see Dolabella
Alfonso, bishop of Burgos 321 Aretino, Pietro 338
Alfonso V, king of Aragon (I of Arion and the dolphin 108–12
Naples) 328, 335 Aristarchus 48
alternative views, presentation Aristophanes 44, 63, 234
of 139–41, 211–12 Clouds 230, 231
amateurism 185 Frogs 221, 233–4
Androcles (Androclus, Aristotle 194, 249, 250, 289, 296,
‘Androdus’) 112–13, 294, 301, 315
302, 308, 314 etymological studies 66
‘Anke van Tharaw’, song 258–9 Philip’s letter to 190
Annianus 78 Problems 141, 249
Antiochus III 313 Ascensius, Jodocus Badius (Josse
antiquarianism 106, 107, 113, 114, Bade) 284–7, 290, 299
118–55 passim, 168, 342 Asinius Gallus 292
Ateius Capito, C. 67 n. 7, 121 bilingualism 5–9, 13, 16–17, 18,
Athenaeus 167, 169, 178, 183, 186, 21, 30, 32, 35
309 see also code-swiching
Attic, Atticism: birth, multiple 296, 303
culture 13–14 Boaistuau, Pierre 295, 301–2
language 16, 17–18, 23, 26, 40, Bonaventure, St 259, 261
and see hyper-Atticism Bononiensis, Jacobus (Giacomo
style 7 Cristiani) 283
Atticists, Greek, outstripped by booksellers 329
Roman 8, 21 Bourbon, Nicolas 293
auctoritas, linguistic 50–3 Bracciolini, Poggio 273, 278–9,
audience, target, see readers, 321, 322–3, 329
intended breastfeeding 34, 190, 288, 289,
Augustine 50, 86, 129, 145–6, 297 295–6
adapts G. 310, 320 Brundisium 174, 238, 241, 329
Augustus 120, 138, 296 Bruni, Leonardo 278
by error for Julius Caesar 306 Bucephalus 290, 310
authorial ‘I’ 179–80, 184 Budé, Guillaume 290–1
see also self-presentation Burley, Walter 265
automata 339, 341, and see Busbecq, Augier Ghislain de
Archytas 287
autopsy 112–13, 138, 239–40 Busleiden, Hieronymus 278
‘busy people’ 165, 167, 169, 174,
Bacon, Francis 213 n. 39, 176
338 see also readers, G’s intended
barbarism (barbarolexis, barbarus): Buxis, Joannes Andreas de
in Greek 13, 22, 85, 192 (Giovanni Andrea
in Latin 41, 43–50, 54, 101, 192, Bussi) 256 n. 20, 282, 327,
and see Index Verborum s.v. 329–30, 335–6
nanus
see also opicus Caecilius Statius 43, 75
barytonesis 45 Caesar, C. Julius 5, 31, 35 n. 111,
Barzizza, Gasparino 270–2 135 n. 48, 327 n. 21
Bassus, Ventidius 301 compliments Cicero 3
Bede 249, 253, 320 confused with Augustus
Belriguardo, Este country 306
house 329 Caesellius Vindex 55, 67 n. 7,
Benedict XIII, antipope, see Luna, 93–4, 212 n. 36, 298
Pedro de Calderini, Domizio 335
Benhabib, Seyla 196–8, 203 Calderini, Giovanni 279, 321
Bérault, Nicolas 290 calendar 143, 145, 147–9, 151, 154,
Bernard the Deacon 253 294
Beroaldus, Philippus, the Cannae, survivor’s mother 296,
elder 282–5, 293 309
Berquin, Louis de 284 canonical texts 329, 335–6, 337,
bibliographical references, in 339
ancient works 125–7 career 185–6
382 Index Rerum et Nominum
Carrio, Ludovicus (Luis Carrión, code-switching 3–40 passim
Lodewijk/Louis and borrowing 26–8
Carrion) 276, 282, 286–9, 300 defined 5–6
Cassiodorus Senator 47 in expressions of love and
Cato, elder 33, 34, 241, 298, 332 affection 19–21
and antiquarianism 119 in G. 36–7
cited for etymology 67 n. 7 as mark of inferiority 23, 24–5
as father 190 as mark of superiority 24–5
language 38, 76, 97, 242, 268 n. metalinguistic 22, 27
49 in technical terms 37
style 42 Collegium Gellianum 331
works: De agri cultura 128; Pro Columella, L. Junius 127–8, 175,
Rodiensibus 194 177 n. 71
Cato, younger 58 commentarii (I

ÆÆ,
Cephisia 329 !
ÆÆ) 162–5, 179–80,
Cestius Pius, L. 6 299–303, 327
Chaldaean (¼ Aramaic) 47–8 compositio (morphological) 78, 80,
chapters, G.’s, see commentarii; 83, 97–9, 101, 103
variety comprehensiveness 135, 165–6,
characters, see dialogues, dramatis 187–8
personae see also encyclopaedic works
Charron, Pierre 213 Connellus, Joannes (Jean
chreiai 106, 114, 179, 265 Conneau) 283, 290
Cicero 132, 194, 241, 289, 298, 315 contents, table of 125, 127–30,
antiquarianism in 118 n. 1, 119, 174–8
124, 150 Corinth 31
in Antonine era 154–5 Correr, Angelo, see Gregory XII,
dates of birth and death 294, 332 Pope
dialogues 154, 181–2, 183, 186, Crassus Dives Mucianus, P.
328, 329 Licinius 312–13
as etymologist 67 n. 7, 80, 81, Crates of Mallos 48
93–6 Crinitus, Petrus (Piero Del Riccio
Familiares, manuscript tradition Baldi, Pietro Crinito) 285,
of 337 287, 293
and Greek 3–6, 17, 18, 26 as imitator of G. 297, 299–300,
note-taking 135 330
repartee 193 Ctesias of Cnidos 240
style 42, as model for imitation cultivation of intellect 215
(Ciceronianism) 290, 291–2, Cymbalum mundi 307–8
297 Cynicism, see under Gellius;
usage not recognized by ignorant philosophy
grammarians 116, 334
Cinna, C. Helvius 51, 52, 54, 63 death from joy 296, 300, 301, 304,
ciuilis eruditio 218–19 309
classicus 35, 329 Decembrio, Angelo 279, 318–19,
Clement of Alexandria 160 n. 5, 328–9
163–4, 166 n. 26, 170, 171 Decembrio, Pier Candido 278
declinatio 73, 83, 89, 101 Egnatius, Baptista (Giovanni
Democritus’ self-blinding 52, 297, Battista Cipelli) 284, 336 n. 41
300, 301, 311, 334 n. 39 Egyptian priests 338
Demosthenes 7, 9, 106, 193, 194, Einhart 320
291, 301 Elbene, Pierre d’ 287
denarius, rate against drachma 290 eloquence, betterment of 217–19
Descartes, René 339 emblems 256–7
Des Périers, Bonaventure 307 encyclopaedic works 119–20, 135,
dialogues 154, 180–4, 302, 328–31 138, 164–5, 303–4, 327
dramatis personae 180, 183–4, see also comprehensiveness
225–6, 328, 330–1 Ennius 32, 42–3, 81–2, 154, 332
mise en sce`ne 180, 181–3, 225–6, on friendship 200, 216
329 rivals Euripides 193
Platonic/Socratic 181, 182, Erasmus, Desiderius 256, 291–3,
226–7, 244 306, 324
sympotic 180, 181, 226, 244 Adagia 254, 297, 304, 327
see also Athenaeus; Cicero; motto 332–3
Macrobius; Plutarch Este, Leonello d’ 277, 318–19, 323,
diatribe 179, 208–10, 213, 232, 328, 329
242, 300 Estienne, Henri 282, 286–9,
Didymus, Claudius 45 293–4, 309, 315, 330–1
digamma 45 Auli Gelli Apologia 297–9
diminutives 74 n. 35, 83–5 Noctes Parisinae 287–8
Diomedes, grammarian 47 Estienne, Paul 287–8, 289
diversity, formal, of G.’s Estienne, Robert 293–4, 330–1
chapters 179–80, and see ordo Estouteville, Guillaume d’,
rerum fortuitus Cardinal of Rouen 330
see also variety ethics 39, 195–205, 208, 213
Dolabella, Cn. (immo P.) see also miscellanies; moral
Cornelius, judgment virtues
of 305–6, 310 etymology 62, 65–104, 218
dolphin stories 107 in antiquarian tradition 124–5,
see also Arion 142, 150
Domitius Insanus 33 n. 102, 211 n. philosophical theories of 65
26, 227–8, 242–3 see also compositio; declinatio;
Donatus, Aelius 49 ŒÆ I æÆØ ; Favorinus;
dove, mechanical, see Archytas Fronto; Nigidius Figulus;
dramatic setting, see dialogues, mise Stoic philosophy; Sulpicius
en sce`ne Apollinaris; Varro
Euripides 288, 300, 332
education 187–205, 287 excerpta 132–8, 162, 166–7,
as sociable activity 191, 194, 179–80, 323–7
195 exclusiveness, intellectuals’ 232–4
value of: in grammar 191–3; exempla 30, 106, 151, 170, 204, 303
in law 194; in philosophy Fronto’s Arion not so used 108
193, 194–5; in rhetoric 190, taken from G. 292, 296, 299, 314
193–5 as title 126
experts 184, 185 as linguistic nationalist 17, 35
G.’s objection to 168, 212–13, and Marcus 18–28, passim
217 note-taking 135
exposure scenes 116, 168–9, 184, reading 189 n. 5
226, 227, 228, 243 as represented in G. 50–2, 56,
in humanist writings 318–19, 140, 190, 191, 329, and see
323, 329 Index Verborum s.v. nanus
as rhetorician 194
Fabricius, J. A. 331 on sham philosophers 230
family 199, 200–1 theory of style 42–3
Favorinus 30–1, 185 see also love
as etymologist 67, 68, 73, 85–6 Fronto, Ps.-, Differentiae 84 n. 59,
quoted from G. 299, 300, 306, 87
339 Fufetius, Mettius 300, 301
philosopher 30, 187 n. 1, 208–9,
210, 242 Gaius, Institutiones 154
as prototype 328–30 games, Roman 147
reading 189 n. 5 Gaulish 75
as represented in G. 31–4, 140, Gavius Bassus 53, 67 n. 7
155, 191, 208–10, 217, 305; Gellius, A.:
condemning incomprehens- Academic philosophy in 208–13
ible archaism 218; discussing acquaintance with Apuleius 224
Latin 32, 218–19, 242–3 African origin 85–6
as sceptic 140, 208–9, 211–14 alternative views in 139–41
sophist 155, 185, 227 antiquarianism in 118–55
works: `

ÆÆ 163, bibliographical lists in 125
180–1 n. 82; ˚
æØ ŁØÆŒ 30–1; Cynic philosophy in 208, 214
—Æ
Æc ƒ
æÆ 161–2, as etymologist, 65–104
168, 241 n. 67 Greek in 37–9, 44, 52, 53, 62; in
see also breastfeeding etymologies 69–71, 91–7, 101,
Federigo da Montefeltre 318 103
Ferrara 277, 318–19, 328, 331 humanisme gellien, see Marache
Ferrettus, Nicolaus 283, 286 independent thinker 52, 63–4,
fiction 37, 116, 181, 331 66–8, 70–97 passim
Filargi, Pietro, see Alexander V manuscripts of: fragmentary
florilegia 164, 249–55, 268 265–70; lost 272–81
Fontenay, Guy de 301 as model 289, 315, 316–17,
Foot, Philippa 197–8, 203 322–31, and see Crinitus
friendship 200 narrative manner 105–17
Frontinus 128, 175, 176 n. 66, oral sources 67–8, 73, 78, 89,
326 96
Fronto 42–3, 56, 64, 155, 183, 224, plots 180, 184
226, 327 reading 189 n. 5
authority in Latin 218–19 repertoire of tales 105–8
code-switching in 18–28 as rhetoriscus 243–4
correspondence 18–28 scene-setting 182, and see
as etymologist 67 dialogues, mise en sce`ne
scepticism in 211–13 Greek 3–40 passim
as source 94, 169, 249–342 as source of Latin 44–5, 69–73,
passim 85–6, 91–3, 94–9
as stimulus 331–42 see also Aeolic; Gellius, Greek in
Stoicism in 208, 210, 214 Gregory XII (Angelo Correr),
see also Augustine; authorial ‘I’; Pope 271
bilingualism; code-switching; Gronovius, Johannes Fredericus
commentarii; contents, table of; 253, 280, 285, 289
dialogues; diversity; exempla; Gruget, Claude 301
experts; exposure scenes; Gryphius (Greif), printing
Favorinus; Fronto; headings; family 286, 289 n. 39
Herodes Atticus; knowledge; Gualenghi, Giovanni 329
Macrobius; ordo rerum Guarino, Battista 323, 327
fortuitus; otium; palm-tree; Guarino da Verona 318, 321–2,
philosophy; Pliny, elder; 323, 326–7, 328, 334
Politianus; question-and- Guerre, Martin 310
answer process; Quintilian; Guevara, Antonio de 295, 296,
range of fields; readers; 302, 314
Romanocentrism; self- Guibert of Tournai 256, 259–62
presentation; sexuality; Guillemeau, Jacques 296
Socrates; translation; Tucker;
utility; variety; Verrius Hadrian 9–10, 31, 74–5, 155, 290,
Flaccus 305, 329
genre 159–86, 298, 299–303, Hannibal 106, 313
316–17 headings (capitula; lemmata) 125,
antiquarianism as 118 130–3, 177 n. 71, 298
departures from 165–86 G.’s ascribed to ‘Pseudogellius’
diversity of, see diversity; variety by Stephanus 288
expectations of 126–7, 159, see also contents, table of
165–86 hedgehog and fox 221–2
generic indicators 159–65 Hercules 190–1, 285
of individual chapters 179–86 Hero of Alexandria 341
see also dialogues; miscellany; Herodes Atticus 25–6, 185, 327,
symposium 329
Giorgi, Francesco 338–9 as represented in G. 113–15,
Giovio, Paolo 256 190, 210, 243
Giraldi, Lilio Gregorio 333 Herodotus 108–12, 321
gladiator, imperial 311 Hesiod 298, 309
gnomologia 166, 170 Hittite 74, 78, 90
Gracchanus, M. Junius 119 Homer 283, 291, 297, 298, 305
Gracchus, C. Sempronius 42, 53, homoptota 68
292 humanisme gellien, see Marache
Graecisms 44–50, 56, 59, 61–2, 63, humanitas 31, 207 n. 8, 217,
96–7, 101 220 n. 50
grammar 39, 66, 138, 142, 167, humiliation scenes, see exposure
190, 191–3 scenes
see also education Hyginus (fabulist) 128, 131
Hyginus, C. Julius (grammarian) Larcius Licinus 292
67 n. 7, 162 n. 15, 212 lark and her young 113
hyper-Atticism 114 Latin, supposed poverty of 7, 9
Latinus, Latina uerba 44–50
inscriptions, use of 138 law 167, 195
institutions: legal matters, as antiquarian
as antiquarian theme 142–51 theme 123, 149–50
of daily life 123, 149 see also education
military 123, 148–9 libraries 182, 329, 330, 335
political 123, 143–5, 148–9 public 132, 137
religious 107–8, 123, 144, 145–7 link-vowel 101
intellectuals and intellectual Livy 135, 274, 312, 324, 330
life 183–6, 223–45, esp. 223, Lollianus Avitus 27, 28, 224
230–4 Longolius, Gysbertus 256
irony 160, 177, 228, 240, 242–3 love:
directed at oneself 231, 234, expressions of 19–21, 28
242–4, 245 sexual and non-sexual 20–1
Socratic (Næø Æ) 214 see also sexuality
see also modesty, false; satire Lucian 112, 115, 116, 183, 230,
Isidore of Seville 81, 87, 121, 242
251–3, 320 Somnium 185
itemization 124, 137–9, 163–4, Teacher of Rhetoric 235
165, 177–8, 184–5 True History 240
Lucius, fictional protagonist of
Jerome 189 Apuleius’ Met. 223–45
John of Salisbury 252–3, 259, 262, passim, esp. 234–40
264–5, 306 Lucretius 9, 42–3
Joubert, Laurent 289, 294–7 Luna, Pedro de (‘Benedict
Julianus, Antonius 30–6, 37, 193, XIII’) 271, 277
210 n. 23, 216, 224 Lupus of Ferrières 320
Julius Celsinus 67, 99, 100, 215 Lydus, John 121, 151
Julius Paulus 67, 99, 100, 210
Juvenal 183 Macedo, philosopher 298
Machiavelli, Niccolò 330
ŒÆ I æÆØ 99, 101 Macrobius 99, 137, 249, 281, 291,
Kircher, Athanasius 339–41 294, 336
knowledge 161–2 alternative views in 139–41
G.’s view of 178–9, 184–5 antiquarianism in 121, 153
commended in Renaissance 297,
Laberius, D. 35–6, 41–64 passim, 327
96, 300 dialogue form in 127, 154
La Boëtie, Estienne de 315 as model 331
Lachmann’s Law 91 nn. 79, 80 in Montaigne 308–9
Laevius 36, 99–100 structure of Saturnalia 133,
Lais 106, 291, 292, 301 169
Lamola, Giovanni 321, 334, 339 n. uses G. 94
51 magi, Renaissance 338–9
manner of life 172–4, 182, 185–6, Mosellanus, Petrus (Peter
219–22 Schade) 285–6, 293, 333,
see also intellectuals and 334 n. 38
intellectual life Musonius Rufus 210
Manutius, Aldus 283
Marache, René vii, 206–22 passim nationalism, Roman 199–200,
Marcus Aurelius 205 219
as correspondent of Fronto, see linguistic 17
Fronto wards off Greek attacks 32, 33,
marvels, see mirabilia 35–7
Maseriensis/Maserius, Aegidius see also Roman culture
(Gilles de Maizières) 282–3, comparable with Greek;
285 Romanocentrism
Masurius Sabinus 70, 76–7 neologisms 55–7, 293–4, 296
Medici, Cosimo de’ 270 n. 61, 279, Nepos, Cornelius 212
318, 329 Niccoli, Niccolò 278–9, 322,
Meleager of Gadara 170 329
memory 164–5, 215–16 Nicholas V, Pope 322
Menander 38 n. 127, 75 Nicholas of Cusa 279, 321
Mexia (Mejı́a), Pedro 299, 301, Nigidius Figulus, P. 54–5, 163,
309, 315 212, 217, 315
Miani, Pietro 270, 271 n. 68, 279 on etymology 67, 76–7, 87–8,
Miletus, maidens of 300, 301, 311 93–5, 101
Milo of Croton 300, 301, 304 Nonius Marcellus 60, 72, 74, 97,
mirabilia (marvels, miracula) 152, 122, 129, 135–6
168, 207, 214, 238–41, 300 notebooks 323–7, 331–2
collections of 167, 170, 174,
302–3 opicus 22, 38–9
miscellany 159–86 passim, 215, 239 ordo rerum fortuitus 122, 161,
and n. 61, 241, 299–303, 327, 165–6, 169–79, 288, 315–16,
335, 337 326
ethics in 189–90, 196, 198, 204–5 ore del libro 335
as genre 160–2, 237, 238 organization:
sympotic 167, 180, 181–2, 226 alphabetical 131, 136
as title 161, 330 systematic/logical 130, 165,
mise en sce`ne, see under dialogues 176–8, 304, 323, 326–7; of
Mithridates VI of Pontus 309 philosophy 187–8, 196
modesty, false 160, 177–8, 342 thematic 169–70
see also irony see also ordo rerum fortuitus
Montaigne, Michel de 213, 282, Oscan 72, 74
304, 308–17 otium 172, 200, 215, 216, 218,
moral virtues 201–3 220–1
executive virtues 202 Roman view of 125–6
relational virtues 202–3 as setting for dialogues 154,
see also ethics 181–3
morphology 47, 52, 63, 78 see also ‘busy people’
morphophonemics 47 Ovid 294
Pacuvius 309 Plato 42 n. 1, 44 n. 4, 65, 102
palm-tree, wood of 249–59 Platonic pedagogy 332
Pamphile 163, 170–1, 172–3, 180 see also dialogues, Platonic/
Parvus, Joannes (Jean Socratic
Petit) 282–3, 285 Plautus 19, 43, 44, 75, 80–2, 213,
Pasquier, Estienne 288 332
past, reconstructed 294, 328, 331 his language 20, 33, 35, 53, 56,
patronage 19–20, 23, 24–5, 57, 116
199–200 pleasure 182, 191–2, 195, 217, 291
Pelacani, Biagio, doctor in learning 151–4, 172, 190, 215,
diabolicus 255 n. 19 216–17, 220–1
peregrina uerba 46, 50 in philosophy 194
Perotti, Niccolò di 335 in variety 171–2, 181
Pertinax, P. Helvius 41 see also otium
Petrarch 121, 281, 289, 321, 327 Pliny, elder 137, 171, 302, 307,
Petronius 58, 60, 61–2, 63 323, 326–7, 335
Philip II, king of Macedon 38 n. alternative views in 139–41
126, 190, 194 and the antiquarian
philology, critical 334–7, 341–2 tradition 121, 124–7
philosophy 30, 33, 167, 308, 315, autopsy in 137–8, 239–40
339 bibliographical lists in 125
Academic, see under scepticism comprehensiveness 135
Cynic 208, 214 emended from G. 290
and etymology 65, 69, 83 G. on 238–41 and n. 61
in G. 168, 214, 298; his genre of NH 164, 166
approach to 187–8, 190–1, mirabilia in 238–9, 241, 302
194–5, 200; and see under note-rolls 136
Gellius systematic organization 130–3
New 337–42 table of contents 127–30, 174–7
popular 207, and see diatribe uses inscriptions 138
Pyrrhonian, see under scepticism vocabulary 42, 58, 61, 73
Pythagorean 194 see also encylopaedic works
sham 233, and see sham Pliny, younger 6–10, 116, 150,
philosophers 173, 183, 189, 287
Stoic 28, 208, 210, 211, 214; and narrative in 107
etymology 69, 83; in plots, G.’s, see under Gellius
Renaissance 288, 310, 311 Plutarch 135, 141, 183, 186, 210,
sympotic 208–10 290, 321, 324
see also education; Favorinus alternative views in 139, 141
philostorgia 27–8 headings/rubrics in 131
Philostratus 11, 115, 116, 185, 285 in Antonine culture 223, 225–6,
Philoxenus, grammarian 45 244
phonographematics 47 in Montaigne 311, 312, 315, 317
Pico della Mirandola, notebooks 136
Giovanni 330 on Romans and Roman
Pisani, Ugolino 319, 322 culture 24–5, 26
Pius, Baptista 284 his slave 313–14, 317
sympotic dialogues 167, Quintilian 10–11, 14–15, 46, 49,
169, 183, 209, 210, 214, 51, 59, 65
225–6 on comparability of Greek and
as Trajan’s tutor 261–2 Latin 6–7, 9
uses inscriptions 138 and G., resemblances in
works: `

ÆÆ 163; De outlook 190–1, 193
garrulitate 306; De uitioso as model in Renaissance 297,
pudore 24–5; Praecepta 328
gerendae reipublicae 289;
Quaestiones conuiuales 167, Rabelais, François 300, 303–8
169, 209, 226; Quaestiones Radulphus de Diceto 254
Graecae 131; Quaestiones Ramus, Petrus 339
Romanae 131, 139; (spurious) range of fields 165–6, 167–9
Institutio Traiani 262 readers, G.’s intended 29–30, 39,
see also palm-tree, wood of 165, 177, 198–9, 204–5
Polenton, Sicco 326, 331–2 and Montaigne’s 316
Politianus, Angelus (Agnolo degli see also ‘busy people’
Ambrogini da Montepulciano, Regiomontanus (Johann
Angelo Poliziano) 283, 284, Müller) 339
290, 330, 331 Resta, Lazzarino 270, 271
and G. 289, 333, 335–7 brothers of 271
Miscellanea 330, 333, 337 rhetoric 11, 115, 167, 190–1, 193–4
polymathy 162, 236–40 Atticist 7, 8
Postumius Festus, M. 41–2, 50–1, bilingual, at Rome 6, 8, 242
64 and the Second Sophistic 11,
pregnancy, duration of 304–5 111, 154–5, 235, 242
principles, general/ teaching in Latin forbidden 4
universal 178–9, 196–7, see also education
198 rhetoriscus, see under Gellius
Priscian 45, 47, 70 n. 17, 99, 130, Rhodiginus, Caelius (Ludovico
328 Ricchieri) 297, 299, 300,
Probus, M. Valerius 33 n. 102, 333–4
34 n. 110, 134–5 riddles 56–7, 332–4
as etymologist 67, 70, 75, 77–8, Roman culture comparable with
79, 81, 91, 98 Greek 37–8
professionals, see experts Romanocentrism:
Protagoras 311 of antiquarian tradition 150–1
Pseudogellius, see under headings in G. 204–5
Ptolemy, his Geography 329 Rouen, Cardinal of, see Estouteville
Publilius Syrus 309 Rufinus, P. Cornelius 301
Punic 47, 85–6
Pythagoras 190, 285 Sallust 5, 42, 43, 81, 334
Sardinian, ancient 49
Quadrigarius, Q. Claudius 53, 54, satire 223–45
79, 97–8, 335 self-satire 223, 228, 230, 231,
question-and-answer process 125, 242–3
132–4 see also irony
Savonarola, Girolamo 330 sordida uerba, see vulgarism
Scaliger, Joseph Justus 293, 337 Soter, Joannes (Johann Heil) 285
Scaliger, Julius Caesar 291–3, 306 Sotion 106, 161
scepticism 32, 211–13, 227, 231, Sprachanschluß (language
232 annexation) 5, 9, 40
Academic 32, 140 n. 66, 208–9, Stewart, Alexander 332
213 Stoicism, see under philosophy
Pyrrhonian 211, 213 in G., see under Gellius
see also under Gellius Strozzi, Tito Vespasiano
Schott, Gaspar 339, 341 318–19
Scientific Revolution 341 Suetonius 10–11, 52, 57, 121, 126,
Scipio, elder 311–12 128, 134–5
chastity of 201, 301, denied 106 alternative views in 139–40
Scipio, younger 72–3, 124, 291 emphasis on detail 138–9
Scribonius Largus 128, 175 interest in institutions 144–8
Second Sophistic 11–12, 154, passim
234–6, 244–5, 337 systematic organization in 133–4
see also sophists Suetonius, Ps.- 57
selectivity 165–7 suffixes:
self-presentation 116, 184–6, -alis (-aris) 57 n. 47
211–12, 228, 231, 240–3 -aneus 54 n. 35
see also authorial ‘I’ -arius, -arium 54 n. 35, 57 n. 47,
Seneca, elder 6, 60, 107, 115 58, 74
Seneca, younger 28, 121, 124, 164, -monium 56
167, 292, 299 see also Index Verborum
Senecas, Sicco Polenton’s Sulla 302
distribution of authorship Sulpicius Apollinaris, C. 35, 41–2,
between 331–2 43–4, 50–2, 53, 55, 184, 229
service aristocracy 28–9 and etymology 67, 75, 81, 89, 96
sexuality, Montaigne’s treatment as source for Probus’
inspired by G. 316 opinions 70, 75, 81, 91, 98
sham philosophers 115, 230–3, 244 Sulpicius Rufus, Ser. 77, 81,
Sidney, Sir Philip 324 82–4
slaves 195, 199 suspension of judgement 213–14
see also under Plutarch see also alternative views;
Socrates, fictional character in scepticism
Apuleius’ Met. 226, 228–30, symposium 167, 179, 182, 225–6,
231–2 231, 236
Socrates, son of Sophroniscus: see also Apuleius; Athenaeus;
in G. 228–30 dialogues, sympotic;
Socratic themes 208–13 miscellany, sympotic;
see also under dialogues; irony philosophy, sympotic;
Solinus 170, 172, 253 Plutarch
sophists 11–12, 116, 154, 185,
234–6, 237, 243–4 Tacitus 15, 144, 150, 324
see also Second Sophistic tales, G.’s repertoire of, see under
Sophocles 287 Gellius
Taurus, L. Calvenus 184, 191, see also under pleasure
194, 208–10, 213, 214, 224, Varro 311, 332–3
243–4 alternative views in 139–41
Terentius Scaurus 38–9, 55 and the antiquarian tradition
Terminus 332–4 (IæÆØ
º
ªÆ) 65, 102, 116–55
Tertullian 12, 39–40, 297 passim
Tesserant, Claude de 302–3 bibliographical lists in 125
Textor, Joannes Ravisius (Jean emphasis on detail 139
Tixier de Ravisy) 300, 304, etymology in (general) 45, 65,
309 67, 85; (specific) 44, 46, 47,
theft, thieves 154, 195, 202–4, 291 48, 53, 59, 60, 69, 72–3, 74,
Theodore Gaza 335–6 79–80, 83–4, 91
thieves, see theft interest in institutions 143–51
Tiraqueau, André 304–5 method of writing 136
Tiro, M. Tullius 90–2, 161, 163 systematic organization in 130–2
titles, of ancient works 125–6, table of contents in 125, 128–9
152–3, 159–64 passim uses inscriptions 138
translation 4, 6–7, 34, 37–8, 108, works: Aetia 131; Antiquitates
192–3, 310 119–20, 121–2, 132, 139,
from G. 289, 295; by 143–8, 150, epitomated 132,
Montaigne 312, 314; by recycled 136, structure
Rabelais 306 of 129, unindexed 128; De
Trebatius, C. 83–4 lingua Latina 66, 119, 143,
Trot, Bartholomaeus 284 145, 146, 150, epitomated
Tucker, Abraham, G. in vi 132, structure of 129, 133,
Turrianus (Gianello 136; De re rustica 125; De uita
Turriano) 339 populi Romani 129, 139,
Twelve Tables 31, 195, 291 143–4, 147; Disciplinae 166;
¯NÆªøªØŒ 137, 162–3;
Ulpian 40 Epistolicae quaestiones 137,
utility 33, 162, 171–2, 207, 214–22, 143–7; Logistorici 129;
239, 241 Menippean Satires 231
in antiquarianism 130, 155 Vascosan, Michel 285
educational 188, 190–1, 195 Velius Longus 94–5
!
ÆÆ, see commentarii Vergil 17, 155, 290, 298, 310, 316,
318, 334–5
Valerius Antias 106 compared with Greek authors
Valerius Maximus 106, 117, 205, 32, 34, 38, 193, 291
297, 303, 304, 326 Veritas filia temporis 338, 341
contents, table of 175 Verrius Flaccus 132, 135, 136,
not source for etymology 70 n. 138, 139, 148, 150
18 alphabetical order in 131–2
Valerius Soranus 127–8, 175 alternative views in 140
Valgius Rufus 90–1 etymology in 67, 73, 79, 87, 92
Valla, Lorenzo 323 not G.’s source 81, 84, 90–1
variety 161–3, 289, 316, and see rubrics in 133
diversity; ordo rerum fortuitus Vespasiano da Bisticci 329
Vestal Virgins 146, 302 William of Malmesbury 252
Vignier, Nicolas 294 Wind, Edgar 332, 333
Vincent of Beauvais 262 nn. 38, 39, women 37 n. 122, 197, 199, 200–1,
265 311
Vitturi, Daniele 270 their language 21, 23, 43
Vives, Juan Luis 287, 288, 292, names for their garments 60
297–9 see also breastfeeding
Volaterranus, Raphael 300
Vulcob, Johann 288 Xenophon 163
vulgarism 49, 50–2, 54, 55, 57–63,
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The Worlds of Aulus Gellius

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TH E W OR LDS OF

that we should think as well as read, not only do we once more

demonstrates how he stimulated scientiWc research—a surprising

PART I: CONTEXTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

PART II: IDEOLOGIES

PART III: RECEPTION

10.1. Emblem of the palm-tree, from Omnia Andreae

10.1. Original text and melody of Anke van Tharaw,

Blänsdorf Jürgen Blänsdorf, Fragmenta poetarum Lati-

der nichtlateinischen Wo¨rter (Handbuch der

G r a h a m A n d e r s o n is Professor of Classics at the University

Understanding the cultural context of Aulus Gellius might seem

1. context and background:

important to advance the boundaries of Rome’s ingenium than her

anything. A combination of exploitative provincial government,

point is lacking—between men.6 There is no evidence for the often

viewpoint.11 The comments are literary pretension, but are not to

governor in Bithynia he sneered to Trajan about the Greeks’

but realistic assessment of the changing character of the City and

literature, especially rhetoric, that was well under way in the

and a distinctive form of language and literature, as there is in the

authors we have been examining. For Apuleius was particularly

because it is a negation of being a Roman whose culture is assured

Next Apuleius links bilingualism with the bicultural subject-

command of Greek. The Metamorphoses takes on a Greek guise to

of a limited group of intellectuals dedicated to grammatical and

(and a fragment of a seventh memo) by Fronto entirely in Greek, to

reasons in the course of the ‘long conversation we held about

Fronto’s remarks owe much to those of Plato’s Lysias (Phaedr.

he has already arranged for friends from Alexandria to deal with

role here. But just as it allowed Fronto to praise Marcus’ command

are two ‘polite but remarkably uninformative letters in Greek’

being able to say no to superiors, for Plutarch speciWcally Romans,

‘Greekling’.70 But ‘ignoramus’ (indoctus)? There may be aversion

letter excusing his non-attendance to Verus in reply to a reproach-

information and operate alongside synonyms in the matrix lan-

cities of the East.83 The same is doubtless true of the majority of

beneuolentiae which culminates with Aristophanes’ call in the Frogs

sarcastic speech he demands that the Corinthians retain his statue.

Gellius has Caecilius ‘embrace Favorinus with both arms’ and

away’ (blatiret; another Plautine favourite), Favorinus speaks

This emerges explicitly in 14. 1 where Gellius writes up his

The function of the particular point as a spur to general know-

This is not much of a compliment; but Laberius’ use of the word

others’ material as he wants to purvey a strong moralizing tone and

spoiling the Greek of Favorinus have been mentioned. At 10. 22. 3

fellow-students ‘opici’ in jest: ‘why don’t you barbarians . . . ?’,

The picture which emerges from Gellius is that of a man who

was trying in part to establish an intellectual Latin lexicon for the

In this chapter we shall focus on ch. 19. 13 of the Noctes Atticae,

1. the hesitation of fronto between nanvs

We wish to thank Leofranc Holford-Strevens for discussing a previous version of

8–11 v:d:H:2 ).2 Fronto also expresses similar evaluations in a sort

barbarous word, but a Greek one (< A

theory that Latin was a kind of Greek,7 speciWcally a sort of Aeolic

one: it is the language of diVerent people who at various times

to which all other languages are diVerentiated.14 Thus the tripar-

are foreign to Latin and Greek and diYcult to adapt to Latin

opposition Latin/barbarian gives way to the internal opposition

(2) cateia ‘curved missile’ (Verg. Aen. 7. 741 with DS ad loc.,

3. vulgarisms and disdain for laberius

whether nanus, commonly26 applied to small mules and ponies, is

(3) Suetonius Tib. 61. 6 a quodam nano astante mensae inter

their bases are -(e)l-(e)lo-, -(e)r-(e)lo-, *-en-(e)lo- (the alveo-