Adagia 2601–2700

Κανθαρος ἀετὸν μαίεται, A dung-beetle hunting an eagle. Said when a weaker and less powerful person seeks to do harm to a far more powerful enemy and lays an ambush for him. There is another reading, one that in my judgment is more correct: ὁ κάνθαρος ἀετὸν μαιεύεται. The dung-beetle is midwife to the eagle.' The meaning is almost the same whether you read μαίεται sive μαιεύεται, for the adage is applicable to a weak and insignificant man who plots harm to someone far stronger by means of malicious traps and secret wiles. Aristophanes in the Lysistrata: 'I am furiously angry with you; when you the eagle lay your eggs, I shall be the dung-beetle serving as your midwife.' On this subject there is a rather fine Greek fable, by Aesop according to Lucian, when he says in Icaromenippus that Aesop related how once upon a time the beetles and the camels went up to heaven together. As far as the story of the beetle and the eagle is concerned it goes like this:
For a long time there has been, between the race of the eagles and the whole
tribe of beetles an old hostility, a long-standing, absolutely deadly feud; in fact
what the Greeks call a 'war without truce.'3 For they hate each other more than
people hated Vatinius; so much in fact that not even Jupiter himself, 'who
has the supreme power' and 'at whose nod all Olympus trembles,' has been
able to settle the matter between them and put an end to their strife - if the
fables tell the truth.
In short, there was no more agreement between them than there is between our palace gods and humble, obscure folk nowadays. But perhaps someone, ignorant of Aesop's fables or unfamiliar with them, will wonder what business a beetle could ever have with an eagle, what kinship, what similarity, what affinity there could be between two such different creatures; for it is between those who have close ties that enmity usually arises, especially between rulers. Besides, whatever could be the cause of such a terrible hatred? And then where did the beetle find courage enough to undertake without second thought a war with the eagle folk? What outrage offended the 'haughty spirit' of the eagle so deeply that he did not treat such a petty enemy with contempt and deem it unworthy of even his hatred? Clearly this is a vast subject, the injury is of long standing, the subsequent history long and tangled too, and the whole matter is beyond human eloquence to explain. But if the Muses, who were not reluctant at one time to dictate to Homer the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,' will condescend to leave Helicon for a moment and come to me, I shall try to give a complete account of the matter to the best of my ability. For nothing is too difficult for men to dare if the Muses help. But to provide a clearer light on the subject, before I come to the story itself, I shall describe in as few words as I can the habits, the appearance, the character, and the capabilities of the two protagonists. First then it occurs to me to wonder what came into the heads of the Romans - sensible people in other respects. Having taken this bird as their symbol, they extol themselves above all other peoples and count themselves closest to the gods, they win so many victories under its auspices and hold so many triumphs, yet far from being grateful to the well-deserving bird, they show an intolerable contempt for it. For this bird, of all birds the . most masculine and most vigorous, they emasculate and castrate, turn it into a sort of Tiresias, thereby making themselves less masculine, for in Greek [greek] is certainly masculine.
And this, if I am not mistaken, is much more fitting for one to whom the supreme father and king 'of men and of gods' 'gave dominion over the wandering birds, for Jupiter had found him trustworthy in the matter of flaxen-haired Ganymede.' He alone dares hand to angry Jove his 'triple bolt' while the other gods keep their distance; he is not frightened by the proverb 'Away from Jove and from the thunderbolt.' With good reason, I think, from among so many nations of birds and so many tribes the eagle has been considered the most suitable candidate for the monarchy, not only by the 'brotherhoods' of the birds but by the unanimous vote of the 'senate and people' of the poets. As far as the judgment of the birds is concerned, many were inclined to entrust the supremacy to the peacock; for kingship seemed to be its due because of its beauty, magnificence, exalted character, and quite regal loftiness. And the voting would have gone that way immediately if some birds with long experience, like the rooks and the crows, had not foreseen that, if they put the peacock in charge, things would turn out as we have seen for some years past in certain monarchies, namely that he would be king in name only and by the noise he made, and the eagle would rule just the same even without the popular vote. As for the poets, the wisest of men, I believe they realized that no better image to represent the conduct and life of kings could be conceived. I am speaking of most kings, not all (for in any field there always has been and always will be a scarcity of good people, and different times bring different men). But let me, if I may, look briefly at the dispute from the point of view of both parties. In the first place, if there is anything to be divined from a name (and there certainly is) the eagle is aptly called aero? in Greek, from [greek], which means roughly 'to rush violently along,' 'to plunge rapidly.' Some birds are quiet by nature and gentle, whilst some are wild but can be tamed and quietened by skill and training. The eagle alone is neither amenable to any training nor can be tamed by any effort. It is simply driven headlong by the force of instinct, and whatever it has conceived an appetite for it demands to be given. Would you like to see a picture of a chick of really aquiline spirit? It has been graphically painted by Horace:
'a winged servant of lightning ... Once youthfulness and inborn drive impel
him, unaware of hardships, from the nest, and the spring winds, sweeping
away the clouds, teach the startled bird their unaccustomed ways, then a swift
dive sends him down to attack the sheep-folds, then love of feast and battle
makes the writhing snakes his prey.'
This enigmatic simile is better understood by territories that have experienced the many evils that such unbridled violence in young rulers has cost them. It is philosophers who control their appetites and follow the guidance of reason in everything. 'But,' says the satirist, 'there is nothing more open to violence than the ear of a tyrant.' He is always ready with these words: 'This is what I want; this is what I order; let my will be the reason.' Then, while there are six kinds of eagle known, they all have in common a sharply hooked beak and no less sharply hooked claws, so that from the physical characteristics you can see the bird is a carnivore, an enemy of peace and quiet, born for fighting, rapine, and plunder. And as if it were not enough to be carnivores, there are some that are called bone-crushers - and well they may be. But at this point, dear reader, I hear immediately your unspoken question: what has this picture to do with a king whose proper claim to glory is to be merciful, to wish harm to no one despite being all-powerful, to be the only bee in the hive without a sting, and to devote himself entirely to the well-being of his people? This is so true that when the wise Niloxenus was asked what was the most helpful of all things he replied, 'A king,' signifying thereby that the proper quality of a true ruler is to harm no one as far as in him lies, to benefit everyone, and to be the best rather than the greatest. However, there is no way in which he can be the greatest other than by being the best, that is by being the most beneficent to all. For my part I admire the model ruler skilfully portrayed by philosophers, and I rather think the princes who administer Plato's state are of such a kind. But in history you will scarcely find one or two whom you would dare to compare with this portrait. Moreover if you consider the rulers of more recent times, I fear you may discover at every point they deserve the terrible reproach that Achilles hurls at Agamemnon in Homer: 'people-devouring king.' (Hesiod uses the expression 'gift-devouring' though he should have said 'all-devouring.')
Aristotle distinguished between a king and a tyrant by the very obvious sign that the latter thinks of his own private advantage and the former consults the good of his people. To the early and really great emperors of Rome the title of 'king' seemed excessive and one to be avoided for fear of envy, yet to some it is hardly enough unless it is accompanied by a long train of the most resounding lies: they must be called 'divine' when they are scarcely men; 'invincible' when they never came out of a battle except defeated; 'majestic' when they are petty-minded in everything; 'most serene' when they shake the world with the storms of war and mad political struggles; 'most illustrious' when they are enveloped in a black night of ignorance of all that is good; 'catholic' when they have anything in mind but Christ. And if these gods, these famous men, these victors have any leisure left from dicing, drinking, hunting, and whoring, they devote it to truly regal considerations. They have no other thought but how they may organize laws, edicts, wars, treaties, alliances, councils, and courts, ecclesiastical and lay, in such a way that they sweep the whole wealth of the community into their own treasury - which is like collecting it in a leaky barrel - and, like the eagle, cram themselves and their young with the entrails of innocent birds. Come now, if some honest reader of faces will take a careful look at the features and the mien of the eagle, the greedy, evil eyes, the menacing gape, the cruel eyelids, the fierce brow, and most of all the feature that Cyrus the Persian king found so pleasing in a ruler, the hook nose, will he not recognize a clearly royal likeness, splendid and full of majesty? Add to this the very colour, mournful, hideous, illomened, a filthy, dark grey. Hence anything dark or approaching black is called aquilus.
Then there is the harsh voice, the frightening, paralysing, threatening screech that every species of living thing dreads. Now this symbol is immediately recognized by anyone who has endured or indeed has seen the frightening nature of princes' threats, even when uttered in jest, and how all things tremble when this eagle's voice screeches out: 'If they do not give it, I shall come and help myself to your prize, or that of Aias; or I shall walk off with Odysseus'. And what an angry man I shall leave behind me!' Or this, which is no less 'kingly': 'Sit there in silence and be ruled by me, or all the gods in Olympus will not be strong enough to keep me off and save you from my unconquerable hands.' At this screech of the eagle, I declare, the common folk immediately tremble, the senate huddles together, the nobles fall into line, judges become obsequious, theologians are silent, lawyers assent, laws give way, and established custom yields: nothing can stand against it, not right, not duty, not justice, not humanity. However many eloquent, however many musical birds there are, however various are their voices and their tunes, which may even move stones, more powerful than all these is the harsh and unmusical screech of one single eagle. But there is one species of eagle that Aristotle approved of particularly, perhaps because he wanted Alexander, his own chick, to be like it: no less predatory and greedy than other species, but still a little more modest and quiet, and certainly having a little more compassion, because it rears its own chicks - others do the same as undutiful parents who abandon their young, though even tigers look after their cubs. And for this reason it is called [greek] meaning 'true-bred' and 'natural.' Homer saw this species, blind as he was; for he calls it [greek] and [greek], that is, 'black-backed' and 'a hunter,' words that would fit very well such rulers as Nero and Caligula and very many others. But some of these are much more like the true eagle, God knows, [greek] 'more aquiline' if I may say so; although close to the gods because of their sceptre and the images of their ancestors, yet sometimes they stoop to flatter even the common people and as it were play the sponger if they can expect some worthwhile plunder.
We are told in literature that the eagle is long-lived. When it reaches extreme old age it desires no other drink but blood and by drinking this it prolongs a life that is universally hated; in fact the 'upper beak grows so long' that it cannot eat flesh. This is the source of that very well-known adage 'An eagle's old age,' applied to old men who become addicted to wine, because all other birds of this genus that have hooked talons either do not drink at all or do so very rarely, if we are to believe Aristotle. When they do drink, however, they drink water. Only the eagle thirsts for blood. So by deforming the beak, Nature, who is certainly not always an unkind stepmother, seems to have taken thought for other animals and put some limit to this insatiable greed. For the same reason she has provided that the eagle should not be permitted to lay more than three eggs or to rear more than two chicks. In fact if we are to believe the line of Musaeus that Aristotle quotes as authority: 'It hatches two, lays three, and rears one.' And during the days in which it sits on its eggs - as it does for about thirty days - Nature's providence ensures that 'it has no food' by keeping the claws withdrawn, so that 'it cannot snatch the young of all the other wild creatures.' During that time 'their feathers become white through lack of food,' and therefore they come to hate their own young. (One can only wish for this constraint in the case of the Roman eagles, for it does not happen; they observe neither limit nor measure in pillaging the common people. Their thirst for spoil increases with age and they never oppress more heavily than when they have hatched a chick. Then indeed the population is struck with one tax after another.) As well as all these characteristics, Nature gave this one bird many enemies, about which we shall say more later. And no one will wonder at this careful provision of Nature if we accept as true what Pliny relates: this extraordinary evidence of insatiable voracity - hardly credible even on the testimony of Democritus, and even though Plutarch, one of the most serious of authors, tells it as established and acknowledged fact - namely, that even the feathers of eagles, if mingled with the plumes of other birds, eat them away and in a short time reduce them to almost nothing - such is the power of their innate greed. For myself I believe the same would happen if the bones of tyrants were mingled with the bones of common people, and that their blood can no more be mixed than that of the aegithus and the florus. Now just tell me whether this does not apply quite well to certain rulers. (I am not talking about the ones who are pious and good; and having said this once, I should like the reader to remember it at all times.) One pair of eagles needs a large tract of land to plunder, and they allow no other predator in the area, so they fix the limits of their territories.
And among our eagles too, what sovereignty is not thought to be too circumscribed? What zeal to keep enlarging their kingdoms! What sparring with neighbouring eagles or hawks about the limits of the kingdom, or rather of the area to be plundered! Perhaps the comparison is not quite exact in that this bird, however rapacious, does not plunder its neighbour, probably for fear that the harm it does will sooner or later fall back on its own head, but brings its plunder to the nest from much further away. Tyrants however do not spare even their own friends, or keep their greedy claws off their closest relatives or members of their household; indeed one is more exposed to this danger the closer one is to the prince, as if close to Jupiter and his thunderbolt.5 This ingrained greed for plunder, inherited from the parents, is much increased by upbringing too. For it is said that the eagle pushes its young out of the nest to hunt when they are barely able to fly, so that straight away and 'from the time their claws are soft,' as they say, they are accustomed to robbery and to living by their own talons. And in the case of many rulers, ye gods, how many incitements are added to this rapacity! In addition to a thoroughly corrupt upbringing, such a swarm of flatterers, so many unprincipled officials, corrupt advisors, stupid friends, and profligate companions who take delight in being able to do the public harm, even without provocation. Add to these pomp, pleasures, luxury, and entertainments, which no plundering can ever suffice to pay for; add silliness and inexperience, the most intractable of all evils if it is combined with wealth; and since even the most promising minds can be corrupted by these factors, what do you think will be the result if they are infused in a greedy and worthless nature like oil poured onto a fire? But the eagle would not have been equipped [greek] 'in kingly fashion' if it were armed only with hooked beak and hooked talons to carry off its prey; it had to have in addition eyes sharper than those of Lynceus, able to look unblinking at the brightest sunlight. It is said they use this ability as a test to decide whether their young are genuine. So any prey they intend to attack they can observe from a great distance. However the king of birds has only two eyes, one beak, a limited number of claws, and one stomach. But our eagles, wonderful to relate, have goodness knows how many eavesdroppers' ears, spies' eyes, officials' claws, governors' beaks, judges' and lawyers' stomachs with utterly unquenchable appetites, so that nothing can ever satisfy or be safe from them, not even things that are kept in the most private chambers or most secret drawers. Nevertheless, the eagle would perhaps not be so dangerous if its physical weapons and powers were not reinforced by a cunning mind - if, so to speak, the steel, deadly enough in itself, were not tipped with poison.
It retracts its claws when it walks in order not to blunt their points and make them less effective in hunting, something which it has in common with lions. And it does not attack at random, but only if it believes itself to be the stronger. Nor does it swoop suddenly down to the ground like other birds as it attacks but descends gradually so that the prey is not startled by a violent movement and frightened off. The eagle will not attack even a hare, its favourite prey, unless it sees that the hare has moved down onto level country. It does not rove about at all times, so that it cannot be caught out through weariness, but flies out hunting from breakfast time to noon, and sits idle for the rest of the time, until men gather again to do their business. Then it does not immediately devour what it has killed on the spot, lest a sudden hostile attack catch it off guard on its prey, but first tests its strength and, once it has recovered, carries off its prize to its nest, which is its fortress - I shall relate shortly the means by which it takes a stag, so much stronger than itself. One proof of its intelligence is particularly memorable: when it has caught a tortoise, it flies high, picks out a suitable place and drops the tortoise on a stone, so that it can eat the flesh from the broken shell. However, in the case of Aeschylus, the eagle that killed the poor man by dropping a tortoise on his shiny pate thinking it was a stone was scarcely 'eagle-eyed,' and for this one very good reason it has attracted the hatred of all the poets; and it still goes on doing it as if by right. In fact the eagle first tricked the tortoise, persuading it that it would learn to fly by itself. Then when the tortoise with this hope allowed itself to be carried up into the sky, the eagle dashed it down on a stone, so that, in the typical way of tyrants, it converted the tortoise's misfortune into its own pleasure. Nevertheless, anyone who considers the multifarious devices, the numerous contrivances, schemes, and juggling tricks that dishonest rulers make use of to despoil the common people - levies, fines, false titles, sham wars, denunciations, marriage duties - will declare the eagle is almost unworthy to be taken as an example of monarchy. It remains for us to describe in a few words what enemies this noble predator usually has to deal with. For it is true what the proverbs say: the eagle does not hunt flies, or look for worms. It disregards any prey that seems unworthy of its royal claws, unless there are some eagles related to Vespasian who thought 'profit smells good whatever it comes from.' There are some degenerate eagles that live on fish and that have no shame in taking carcasses left by others. But the more noble ones are like tyrants who leave something for the pirates and the robbers, from whom they are no different, as that famous pirate said in the presence of Alexander of Macedon, except in that tyrants ravage and plunder most of the world with their larger ships and greater forces.
Eagles leave small fry to hawks and sparrow-hawks while they do battle with the four-footed beasts. This they do, not without danger to themselves, but on the other hand not without hope of victory, as befits an enterprising leader. Among the quadrupeds, as I have said, the eagle hunts particularly the hare; whence one species has been given the additional name 'hare-hunter,' just as you might give a leader the title 'Africanus' or 'Numantinus.' It does not scorn unwarlike enemies, but hunts them as food, so that even if it gains little glory from the victory, it gets much benefit from it. But, as happens at times, it is especially when it is catching a hare that it is most likely to be caught itself, struck by a feathered arrow, and it may well utter the proverb we owe to it: 'We are shot with our own feathers.' It dares to do battle even with the stag, but is likely to be the loser if it does not 'put on a fox's skin'; for it makes up with craftiness what it lacks in strength. When it is about to engage in battle it first rolls in dust, then, alighting on the stag's antlers, it shakes the dust collected on its feathers into the stag's eyes and beats on its face with its wings until the stag is blinded and crashes into rocks. But with the snake the eagle has a fiercer, much more uncertain battle, even though it takes place in the air. The snake hunts for eagle's eggs with deadly cunning, whilst the eagle seizes a snake whenever it sees one. Now there is an irreconcilable feud between the eagle and the fox, and this will be no surprise to anyone who has heard how royally the one treated the other in days gone by. The eagle had formed a close friendship with her neighbour the fox, but when she was sitting on her eggs and had no food, she stole her neighbour's cubs and took them up to her nest. When the fox, on her return, saw the mangled remains of her brood, she did the only thing she could, which was to call on the gods and particularly on Jupiter Philios, avenger of violated friendship. And some god seems to have heard this prayer. A few days later the careless eagle chanced to deposit in her nest a live coal, which was stuck to some meat she had snatched from a sacrifice. When the eagle was away the wind fanned the fire and the nest began to burn. The chicks were terrified and threw themselves out, all unfledged as they were. The fox seized them when they fell, took them to her hole and ate them. From that moment no agreement of any sort has been possible between the eagle and the fox, although at great cost to the latter. I rather think the foxes deserve this, for at one time they refused help to the hares who sought an alliance against the eagle. This story is told in the chronicles of the quadrupeds, from which Homer took his 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice.' Then again there is bitter enmity between the eagle and the vulture, which uses the same methods and competes in greed; although in this respect the eagle is both more cruel and more noble because it eats only what it has killed and does not, out of laziness, settle on carcasses killed by others. It has reason to hate the nuthatch, which tries with marvellous cunning to break the eagle's eggs.
And it fights with herons, for this bird, relying on its claws, is not afraid to attack it sometimes, fighting so fiercely that it dies in the struggle. Nor is it surprising that there is little accord between the eagle and swans, truly birds of poetry; what is surprising is that they often get the better of such a warlike creature. The race of poets has not been too popular with kings who have a bad conscience, because they are free and talkative, and because sometimes, like Philoxenus, they prefer to be sent back to the quarries rather than keep silence. For if something pains them, they write it down in their black books, and divulge the secrets of kings to their own successors. Eagles have little liking for cranes too (I think because the latter have a strong preference for democracy, so hated by monarchs). Yet cranes are more intelligent, for when they migrate from Cilicia and are about to cross the mountains of Taurus, which are the haunt of many eagles, they carry large stones in their beaks to muffle their cries and fly in silence at night, thus deceiving the eagles and passing safely. But the eagle has a particular hostility toward the wren, as it is called, for no other reason, as that great old rambler thinks, than that it is also called king-bird and [greek] 'counsellor,' most commonly among the Latins. The eagle pursues it with extreme hate as a pretender to power, although this is not an enemy whose strength the eagle might fear, for the wren is weak and inclined to flee, but being skilful and intelligent it hides in thickets and holes so that it cannot easily be caught even by a more powerful enemy. And once, when it accepted a challenge to fly a race with the eagle, it won more by cunning than by strength. Finally the eagle wages war to the death with the cybindus, so deadly that they are often caught locked together.
The cybindus is a nocturnal hawk, and no kind of man is more hated by tyrants than those who do not conform in any way with commonly held opinion and can see all too clearly in the dark. But would I not be very foolish to try and enumerate all the enemies of a creature that is at war with everyone? Among the other species of living things there is sometimes war between them and sometimes friendship. The fox has many enemies, but it has a friend in the raven, who gives it help when the merlin harasses its cubs. It has a friendly relationship with snakes too, because they both like using rabbit-warrens. The crocodile has an enemy in the Nile rat, but a close intimacy with the crocodile-bird, so close that the bird is allowed to get right between the animal's jaws without harm. The eagle alone has no friendship with any animal at all, no kinship, no comradeship, no intercourse, no alliance, no truce. It is everyone's enemy and everyone is its enemy. For he who lives and gets fat by the misfortune of all cannot but be the enemy of all. Therefore, well aware of its guilt, it does not nest on the plain but on broken and lofty rocks, sometimes in trees, but only in the tallest, like one who repeats over and over to himself the tyrant's motto: 'Let them hate, as long as they are afraid.' And so, while storks are so sacred for the Egyptians that it is a capital offence to kill one, while geese were sacred for the Romans, while among the Britons no one will harm a kite, the Jews will not kill pigs, the ancients would not hunt dolphins (it was not permitted to harm one and if anyone did harm one by mistake while hunting, they were punished as if they were boys with a few lashes of the whip). For the eagle there is the same law among all nations as for the wolf and the tyrant, there is a reward for the one who kills the common enemy. Therefore the eagle has no love for, nor is loved by, any animal, any more than bad rulers are loved when they rule their empires for themselves and to the great harm of the state. Perhaps such affections are for private individuals; great satraps are so remote from them that sometimes they do not even love their own children, except for the gain they may bring, and often hold them in suspicion and hatred. Almost everyone believes that an animal as savage as the lion repaid a man who deserved well of it and saved his life because he had healed its paw. Many believe in the snake that rescued the man who had fed it and came swiftly at the call of his familiar voice.
There are some who believe the story told by Philarchus of the viper that used to come every day to a certain man's table; when it learned that its host's son had been killed by one of its own young, it killed its child to avenge the outrage to hospitality by its own offspring and out of shame never returned to that house.
Then there is a story of a panther, which Demetrius Physicus thought worth writing down and Pliny took the trouble to recount: because a man had rescued her cubs from a pit, she obligingly led him out of the desert and back to a road where people were to be found. Aristophanes the grammarian, who loved a girl of Stephanopolis, had an elephant as a rival; Plutarch recorded this as something well known to all and much talked about. He also speaks of a snake passionately in love with an Aetolian girl. The dolphins' love for man is generally acknowledged: one saved the life of Arion, one carried Hesiod to the shore, one saved the girl from Lesbos and her lover, and one gave a boy rides out of sheer friendliness. But even those who believe all these things do not believe that a virgin could be loved by an eagle. You may judge how ill-omened this creature is and what hatred it has for man by the fact that it was chosen to be the tormentor on Mount Caucasus of Prometheus, of all the gods the one who loved man the most. And yet with so many vices there is one thing we can approve. These most rapacious of creatures are not at all given to drink or lust. For when the eagle abducted Ganymede, it did so for Jupiter and not for itself. But you will find many of our 'eagles' who do commit abductions for themselves, and not just one Ganymede, but they abduct girls for themselves, they abduct married women for themselves, so that in this respect they are almost more insufferable than in their pillaging, for which they are already absolutely intolerable. So, there are innumerable species of birds, and among them some are admirable for their rich and brilliant plumage like the peacocks, others are remarkable for their snowy whiteness like the swans; some, by contrast, are a beautiful shiny black like the ravens, others are of extraordinary physical size like the ostriches, some are famous for legendary miracles like the phoenix, some are praised for their fertility like the doves, or appreciated at the tables of the great like partridges and pheasants; some are entertaining for their talk like parrots, or marvellous for their song like nightingales; some are outstanding for their courage like cockerels, others are born to be men's pets like sparrows. Yet of all of them the eagle alone has seemed to wise men to be a suitable image of the king, not beautiful, not melodious, not good to eat, but a carnivore, a raptor, a predator, a plunderer, a warmonger, solitary, hated by all, a universal bane, capable of the maximum of harm, yet seeking to do even more. On the same basis the lion is adjudged monarch of the quadrupeds, for there is no beast that is fiercer or more noisome. Dogs are useful for many purposes, and in particular for guarding people's property. Oxen till the soil. Horses and elephants go to war.
Mules and asses are useful for carrying loads. A monkey can play the scrounger. Even the snake is useful in that it showed the value of fennel for improving the eyesight. The lion has no quality but that of tyrant, enemy, and devourer of all, whose survival depends only on its strength and the fear it inspires - a right royal animal just like the eagle. This seems to have been understood by those who emblazoned on their noble shields lions with jaws agape and claws spread to catch their prey - though it seems Pyrrhus, who liked to be called an eagle, understood this better than Antiochus, who rejoiced in the nickname of the Hawk. But it is no surprise that the lion should rule over the four-footed kinds, since even among the gods invented by the poets it was Jupiter who was considered to be best fitted to exercise rule: undutiful son who castrated and drove out his father, incestuous husband of his sister, distinguished by so much debauchery, so many adulterous affairs, so many rapes, and despite all this, 'with sable brow and 'flaming bolt' striking terror into everyone.
Even if many praise the state system of the bees, in which the king is the only one who may not bear a sting, no one imitates it, any more than they do the state system of Plato. But I come back to the eagle; for the truly royal qualities I have described and the extraordinary services it has rendered to every kind of animal, the 'senate and people' of the poets have unanimously declared, first, that it should receive the title of 'universal king' and even be called [greek], that is 'divine.' Second, they gave it a quite important place among the constellations and decorated it with a few little stars. Finally they gave it the honourable divine task of alone bringing to angry Jupiter the arms with which he makes the whole world tremble. And so that it can do this with impunity, they also gave it the power, alone among living creatures, to be unafraid of the thunderbolt and not to be harmed by it, but to look on a flash of lightning with the same stare that it turns directly on the sun. To these attributes those very wise, ancient Romans added this, that the eagle should have first place among the standards of their legions, that it should be, as it were, the ensign-bearer of all their standards, taking precedence over wolves, the nurses of the Roman nation, over minotaurs and boars, not animals of the greatest rapacity, finally even over horses. For standards decorated with these four creatures followed the eagle in those times. In a short while it would not allow them even to accompany it, but leaving them behind in camp went forth to battle alone. This bird alone, I repeat, they considered worthy to be the ornament on everything belonging to the monarch of the whole world: sceptre, banner, shield, house, clothing, cups, and livery, although, if I am not mistaken, it was on an augury given by vultures, not by eagles, that Roman rule was founded.
The college of augurs added this: that if an eagle should perch on anyone's house,1 or drop a cap on his head, it was a portent that he would rule. So much for one of these leaders; I come now to the dung beetle. It is an animal - perhaps scarcely even an animal since it lacks some senses - belonging to the lowest order of insects, which the Greeks call by the notorious term kantharos and the Romans 'scarab,' nasty to look at, nastier to smell, and nastiest of all in the noise it makes; its wings are covered by a scaly sheath. Indeed it would be more exact to say this whole scarab is nothing but a shell. It is born in excrement, that is in the droppings of animals, and it is in these that it lives, makes its home, delights, and revels. Its chief occupation is to make balls as large as possible, like pastilles, not out of sweet-smelling materials but with dung, especially goat's dung, which smells to the beetle like marjoram. These it rolls backwards with tremendous efforts, thrusting upwards with its back legs, which are extra long, and with its head touching the ground. If, as happens sometimes when they are pushing their burden uphill, the balls slip away from them and run back down the slope, you would think you were watching Sisyphus rolling his stone. They never tire, they never rest, so eager are they to pursue their labour until they have got the ball down into their hole. They themselves were born in these balls, and they bring up their new-born in the same way, and continue to keep them warm in these nests against the winter's cold while they are young. I of course am aware that the dungbeetle is well known to everyone, for it is to be found everywhere, except perhaps where there is no dung. But they are not all of the same species; for there are some whose shell is a sort of shiny greenish black, and several are a repellent filthy black. Some are larger, armed with extra long twopronged horns with serrated tips like pincers; with these they can grip and squeeze to bite at will. Some are reddish, and these are very large; they dig in dry ground and make their nests there. There are some that make a terrible loud buzzing noise as they fly and give quite a fright to the unwary. There are others that differ by their shapes.
But this they all have in common: they are born in dung, they feed on dung, their life and their delight is in dung. I imagine there will be some eager supporter of Roman generals who will deplore the lot of the eagle, such a regal bird, destined to fight such a humble and low-born enemy, whom it would be no glory to conquer, by whom it would be utter disgrace to be defeated, and who would gain enormous credit by confronting the eagle even if he is beaten. According to the poets, Ajax was ashamed to have such an unwarlike opponent as Ulysses; was the eagle to be obliged to contend with the beetle? Another person will wonder rather where this basest of insects found such courage, such daring, that it was not afraid of beginning a war with this by far the most bellicose of birds. And where did it find the resources, the strength, the means, the allies to be able to carry on the war for so many years? But in truth, if anyone will open up this Silenus and look more closely at this despised creature, in its own setting as it were, he will see it has so many uncommon gifts that, all things well considered, he will almost prefer to be a scarab rather than an eagle. But let no one cry out or contradict me before he knows the facts. First of all, even the dung-beetle has an advantage over the eagle in this, that every year it casts off its old age and immediately regains its youth. This in itself is such an advantage that I imagine even certain Roman pontiffs, who may go straight to heaven because they have the keys, would nevertheless prefer, when they reach an unlovable old age, which obliges them to renounce all pleasures, to slough off their old shell like the scarab sooner than accept a sevenfold crown in place of the triple one. Second, what strength of heart it has in such a small body, what heroic mental powers, what energy in attack! Homer's fly is nothing compared to the dung-beetle! This is why, if I am not mistaken, some beetles are called bulls.
And since not even lions will rashly attack bulls, it is even less likely that eagles will. It is also endowed with no ordinary intelligence - or are we to think the Greek proverb 'As cunning as Cantharus,' which seems to assign to the beetle a quite unusual and unrivalled wisdom, arose and became universally known for no good reason? It makes no difference to my argument if someone objects that the beetle is poorly lodged in an ugly house. As far as even physical beauty goes, if we only keep our judgment free of vulgar prejudice, there is no reason to despise the scarab. For if the philosophers are right when they say that the shape they call a sphere is not only the most beautiful but in every way the best, and that the demiurge found this the most pleasing for the shape of the heavens, by far the fairest of all things, why should the scarab not seem beautiful, which comes far closer to this shape than the eagle? If a horse or a dog is beautiful among its kind, why should a beetle not be beautiful among its kind too? Or must we measure the beauty of all other things by our own, so that whatever does not conform to human beauty will always be judged ugly? The colour of the scarab, I think, no one will denigrate for it has the quality of jewels. The fact that it uses the droppings of animals for its own purposes is a matter for praise, not accusation. As if doctors do not do exactly the same, not only smearing their patients with various animal and even human excrement, but putting it in potions for the sick. Alchemists, obviously godlike men, are not ashamed to use dung in the search for their 'fifth essence'; nor farmers, who were at one time the most honoured sort of men, to feed their fields with manure. There are also some peoples who use dung instead of gypsum to plaster their walls. This same material, pounded and dried in the sun, is used to keep fires going instead of wood. The Cypriots fatten their cattle with human dung, and not only fatten them but doctor them even. But, you say, this stuff, however putrid, smells sweet to the beetle. Well, it would be stupid to expect the beetle to have the nose of a man. As a matter of fact man is peculiar in that he finds the smell of his own excrement offensive; this is not the case with any other creature. So the beetle is not dirtier than us, it is luckier. But it is also true that men are offended not so much by excrement itself as by the current view of it; to the earliest mortals this substance was not so disgusting as it is to us, for they called it by the very auspicious name of laetamen, and they had no hesitation in giving the god Saturn the nickname of Sterculeus, and this was a compliment if we believe Macrobius. According to Pliny, Stercutus the son of Faunus acquired not only a name from this source, but even an immortal memory in Italy. Further, in Greece the same substance brought fame to two kings: Augeas who devised the task and Hercules who made it famous. Then there is the unforgettable story of the regal old man whom Homer pictured for posterity (as Cicero tells in his Cato) fertilizing his fields with his own hands and with the very substance that is the beetle's delight.
The stench of urine did not trouble a certain Roman emperor if there was money attached to it. And why should a beetle be frightened away from a thing of so many uses by such a slight inconvenience? - if it is an inconvenience at all. Finally, seeing that the beetle in the midst of dung remains clean and always keeps its shell shining, whilst the eagle stinks even in the air, pray tell me which of the two is the cleaner? Indeed I think the name is derived from this; it is called [greek], as if it were [greek] 'clean, pure' (unless one prefers the derivation of cantharus from Centaurus). For you should not think, because it is of a squalid nature, that the beetle despises luxurious living; it has an extreme fondness for roses and covets them above all else - if we believe Pliny. These qualities may seem slight and commonplace, but there is one that no one will deny makes the beetle great, a real feather in its cap. In ancient times it was given first place among sacred images and in sacred rites as the most apt symbol of the eminent warrior. Plutarch tells us in his essay 'On Isis and Osiris' among the hieroglyphic images of the Egyptians the picture of the king was an eye placed on a sceptre, signifying watchfulness combined with just government of the state; in those days, I believe, kings were of this nature, very different from eagles. He says that at Thebes there were preserved images without hands representing judges, who must distance themselves as far as possible from all bribery by gifts; among these images there was one without eyes also, which signified the president of the court because he must be entirely without preference, and consider only the case itself without thought of the person. There too, not like 'blue pimpernel among the vegetables' as the proverb says, but among the sacred images, was the scarab, carved on a seal. And what pray did those wisest of theologians intimate to us by this new symbol? Not something banal at all, but a great and undefeated general. This too is in Plutarch, in case anyone thinks I have made it up, as some ignorant theologians sometimes contrive allegories. But some uninformed person will ask, 'What has a beetle to do with a military general?' In fact they have many points in common. In the first place you can see that the beetle is covered with gleaming armour and no part of its body is not carefully protected by scales and plates; Mars does not seem to be better armed when Homer equips him in his fullest panoply. Then there is its aggressive approach with terrifying, unnerving thrum and truly warlike voice. For what is harsher than the blare of trumpets, what is more vulgar than the roll of drums? The sound of trumpets, which delights kings so much nowadays, was intolerable to the Busiritae of old, because it seemed to them like the braying of an ass, and the ass was one of the things that nation considered detestable.
Then there is the beetle's patient labour in rolling its burdens along, its unconquerable courage and its disregard for its own life. Add to this that it is claimed no female scarabs are to be found but that all are males. What, I ask, could be more apt for a strong leader? Indeed it is also fitting, as Plutarch also reports, that they use those dainty balls I have described to give birth to, nurture, feed, and bring up their offspring; their birthplace is their food. Do not think this esoteric aptness is easy for me to explain. It could be better explained by military commanders who know what it is 'to be the guest of one's shield,' who are familiar with [greek] 'beds on the ground,' who have endured hard winters lightly clad during sieges and often harder famines, who have dragged out a grim life by eating not only roots of plants but rotten food, who have spent months at sea. If you consider the squalor of this life, the beetle will seem pure; if you consider its wretchedness, the beetle is to be envied. What I have described, in case anyone should sneer at it, is the lot and the condition of the most brilliant generals. In passing, I like to wonder why our sabre-rattlers prefer to have in their coats of arms, which they think are the foundation of their whole title to nobility, leopards, lions, dogs, dragons, wolves, or some other animal, which either chance has thrown in their way or they have adopted themselves; whereas their proper symbol is the beetle, which is both the most appropriate and is attested and consecrated by that very antiquity that is the sole begetter of nobility. Finally no one will think the dung-beetle is entirely despicable if they consider that wise men and doctors obtain remedies from the creature for the worst human ills. For example the horns of the stag-beetle, or 'lucanian beetle' as this species is called, are not only carried in purses, but hung around the neck, sometimes set in gold, as a protection against all childhood diseases. Shall not the beetle be granted equal power with the eagle for offering the most effective cures, and ones that would be hard to believe if it were not for the authority of Pliny? I mean 'that formidable type' of scarab that is carved on an emerald, for as the proverb says 'you can't carve a Mercury out of any and every wood'; the scarab does not consider every gem worthy of itself, but if carved on the emerald, the brightest of all gems, and hung from the neck as I said (but only with the hair of an ape or at least a swallow's feathers), it affords an immediate remedy against all poisons, and is no whit less effective than the 'moly' that Mercury once gave to Ulysses. It is not only effective against poisons, but also an uncommon asset for anyone seeking an audience somehow or other with a king, so this sort of ring should be worn especially by those who have it in mind to ask the king for some fat benefice or archdeaconry or bishopric, as they are called. Likewise it prevents headaches - not a minor ill, by heaven, especially for drinkers. As far as these quite remarkable curative powers are concerned, wise physicians make no distinction between the eagle and the scarab.
So who would scorn this beetle, whose very image carved on a stone has such power? The mention of gems suggests to me that I should add this too: if the eagle takes some pride in a gemstone called 'eagle-stone,' the scarab yields nothing to it in this respect either. For to the scarab the cantharias owes its name, presenting a wonderfully complete picture of the animal, so that you would say it is not a picture but the real living beetle set in the stone. To conclude with something which is perhaps also to the point, this beetle, born in dung, is distinguished by no fewer proverbs than the eagle, king of birds. If some supporter of the eagle's party should say that in this respect the scarab is not to be compared with it because the eagle used to be considered one of the divinities by those loutish fellows, the Thebans, I shall not deny it; but let him remember that this sort of honour is shared by the eagle with crocodiles and long-tailed apes, together with onions and the rumblings of the stomach, inasmuch as all these portents were honoured as divine among the Egyptians. And if the word 'divinity,' meaningless in this assemblage of things divine, is worth anything on this argument, many attributed divinity to the scarab also. Now we have painted both leaders, such as they are. It remains for us to examine the causes of such a ferocious war. Once upon a time on Mount Etna an eagle was pursuing a hare; its claws were poised and it was so close to grasping its prey that the hare, timid by nature and terrified by the eagle's hot breath, fled for refuge into the nearest beetle's hole. So it is at a critical moment, when things are desperate, we look and hope for shelter wherever we can. However, this scarab was, in Homer's words, 'good and great'; for on that mountain the scarab nation was considered to be of a particularly healthy stock, so that the 'Etna beetle' has become proverbial, probably because of its exceptional physical size. So the hare took refuge in this hole and threw itself at the beetle's feet begging and praying that his household gods should protect him against this cruellest of enemies. Now the beetle was not a little pleased by the very fact that someone existed who, first, was willing to owe his life to him and believed that such a great thing was in his power; and who, second, found his hole, which all men passed by cursing and holding their noses, suitable as a place in which to hide for safety, like a sacred altar or the king's statue. Without delay therefore the scarab flew to meet the eagle and sought to mollify the angry creature with these words: 'The greater your power the more becoming it is that you should spare the harmless. Do not defile my household gods with the death of an innocent animal. In return, may your nest be always safe from such disaster. It is the mark of a noble and kingly spirit to pardon, even the unworthy. One who has committed no crime should have the right to respect for his home, which should be safe and inviolate for everyone, as justice wills, the law allows, and custom approves. If the suppliant has no authority, at least let his zeal speak for him.
For though you may despise our race and scarabean arms,
Yet be certain the gods are mindful of good and ill.
If you are not worried that your own hearth may be violated - a fate that will befall you some day - at least respect supreme Jupiter, whom you will offend in three ways with the same deed. This is my guest, so you will offend against the law of hospitality; he is my suppliant and thereby he is also yours, so you will offend against the law of supplication; finally I am a friend supplicating for a friend, so you will offend against the law of friendship. You know how sure is the wrath that Jupiter conceives when he is angered, how sharp is his revenge when he is provoked, you who bring him his weapons when he rages. Not everything is allowed to his people, nor is everything condoned for those he loves.' The beetle was about to say more, but the eagle beat him with her wings and threw him contemptuously to the ground. The hare pleaded in vain; she slew it with the greatest cruelty before the beetle's eyes, tore it to pieces and carried the mangled remains away to her savage nest. Neither prayers nor threats from the beetle had the slightest effect on her. But she would not have scorned the beetle in this fashion if her good sense had been equal to her audacity and strength, nor if it had occurred to her that once upon a time a lion in immediate peril of its life had been saved by a mouse; the king of all the quadrupeds was given at the right moment a gift that was almost beyond the power of the gods by such a weak and despised little beast. Or she might have remembered that the ant was inspired by a kindness received and saved the life of the dove by biting the heel of the bird-catcher. In truth, none is so humble, so lowly, that he cannot on occasion be a beneficent friend or a dangerous enemy even to the most powerful. But at that time none of this occurred to the eagle, who was concerned only to take the present booty and to enjoy it. This outrage sank deeper into the heart of the generous scarab than anyone would have believed. His lofty and titanic soul was roused by shame that his authority had been worth little in such a just cause, by pity that a harmless and peaceful animal had been so savagely torn to pieces, and by grief that the eagle's savage contempt for him could go unpunished when, as it seemed to him, he deserved no contempt at all. For personal dignity is no slight matter to anyone. Already it occurred to him that the whole race of beetles would be put to shame if the eagle's deed should go at all unpunished. At that moment the beetle, though powerless to take his revenge, showed an altogether regal quality, the one that Calchas spoke of with respect to Agamemnon and other kings: 'Even if the king swallows his anger for the moment, he will nurse his grievance till the day he can settle the account.' And so he pondered all sorts of arts and tricks. It was no common punishment but extermination and 'total destruction' he contemplated. But he considered it too dangerous to risk war directly with such a fierce enemy as the eagle, not only because his forces were inferior, but because Mars is a stupid and frenzied god, as blind as Plutus himself, or Cupid, and usually backs the guiltier cause. For even if their forces were exactly equal, even if those who had right on their side were to win, he saw there was a way to torment the eagle more and to satisfy his hatred with greater vengeance, if she was deprived of descendants and suffered a slow death while still alive and fully aware. There is no means by which parents can be tormented more than through their children; those who can ignore the cruellest tortures of their own bodies cannot endure the sufferings of their children. He had seen asses plunge through fire to save their colts with marvellous disregard for their own lives, he had seen examples of this courage in many living creatures. He believed the eagle was no stranger to these common feelings. Finally he judged it would be safer for his species if he destroyed the very stock, as they say, of such a tenacious enemy. I think he had heard that well-known proverb 'He's a fool who kills the father and spares the children.' He was also tickled by a certain alluring hope that, if the act succeeded and the eagle were overthrown, he might himself take power. And since grief not only gives strength and courage but wisdom too he looked industriously for the place where his enemy had hidden her hope of posterity. When he had found it he went to Vulcan, who was something of a friend of his because of their similarity in colour. He persuaded the god to forge armour for him which, without being too heavy for a flying creature, would protect him against an attack of moderate force. Vulcan armed the scarab from the top of his head to his hindmost heels with the armour that he still wears (for before that he was unarmed, like a fly). The eyrie was far away from there, on a high, sheer crag, hedged around and defended with lots of branches and brushwood. Whether our extraordinary beetle flew there forthwith or crawled there is not clear, but he did reach it. Some say when he was struck by the feathers of the eagle he clung to them in secret and was carried unwittingly by her up into the nest. And so the beetle found a way into a place where not even man, who is more cunning and more ingenious at doing harm than any other creature, had been able to reach. He lay in ambush, hidden among the brushwood, and grasping his opportunity pushed the eggs out of the nest, one after the other, until not one was left. They were smashed by the fall, and the still unformed chicks were dashed pitifully on the rocks, deprived of life before they had any consciousness at all. With even this cruel punishment the beetle's wrath was not satisfied. There is a precious stone, one of the best known, called by the Greeks from the name of the eagle aetites 'eagle-stone'; it is not unlike an egg, and there is a male and a female form, for in the female you can find a foetus enclosed rather like a chicken.
It has a marvellous power to induce delivery at birth, and for this reason it is still placed nowadays on women in labour to speed delivery. So the eagle, who would otherwise never be able to lay eggs and certainly not to hatch them, usually places a couple of these stones in its nest. It was this great treasure that the scarab threw out of the nest, thereby destroying all power of bearing offspring; the stones were shattered into fragments as they struck the pointed rocks. Yet not even this was enough to assuage the beetle's anger; he thought it would be too slight an outrage unless he could enjoy the enemy's grief and lamentations, and so he hid again in the twigs. The eagle returned, perceived the calamity that had just struck her offspring, saw their mangled and torn entrails, and the incalculable loss of the noble stone. She moaned, she cried, she howled, she shrieked, she wailed, she called on the gods, and searched around with those eyes of hers, already sharpened even more by grief, for the enemy with such power. And as she thought, anything and everything came into her mind rather than the despised beetle. Terrible were her threats, terrible her curses on whoever was the author of this outrage. Imagine what delight meanwhile the beetle felt in his heart as he listened to this. What could the wretched eagle do? She had to fly off again to the Fortunate Isles to find another pair of eagle-stones, for it is not to be obtained anywhere else. The nest she removed to another much more isolated and lofty place. Once again she laid eggs, and here again, just the same, the unknown enemy penetrated; everything was destroyed and the whole preceding tragedy played again. Once again the eagle moved to a safer refuge, laid more eggs, obtained more eagle-stones. And once again the beetle was there. There was no limit to flight and no end to pursuit until, exhausted by so many disasters, the bird decided to 'let go the sheet anchor,' to stop trusting in her own powers and flee to the gods for protection. She went to Jupiter and explained the whole drama of her misfortune: how her enemy was powerful and, worst of all, anonymous, so that however much she suffered, she had no means of revenge. She added that this calamity of hers concerned Jove himself, for the imperial office that he had bestowed would cease to exist and he would have to change his armour-bearer, if the enemy continued to do what he had started; there was some value in using known and established servants, even if the novelty of Ganymede's appointment had turned out well. Jupiter was moved by the danger in which his attendant stood, especially as her recent service in the abduction of Ganymede was still in his mind. He commanded the eagle to lay her eggs, if she wished, in his very own bosom. There they would be absolutely safe, if nowhere else. The eagle complied and laid the last hope of her race in the bosom of supreme Jove, entreating him by the blessed eggs that Leda bore him long ago to guard her own faithfully. What can deep-seated grief of mind not do? I fear the story may seem to some beyond belief. Up to the very stronghold of supreme Jove flew the unconquerable beetle, helped, I rather think, by some divine power. Into his bosom he dropped a ball of dung specially made for the purpose. Jupiter is not used to squalor for he lives in the purest region of the world, separated from earthy contamination by a very wide space. Offended by the filthy smell he tried to shake the dung out of his bosom and carelessly dropped the eagle's eggs, which perished as they fell from that great height even before they hit the ground. Then at last the author of so many deaths became known; and this was the culmination of the beetle's joy, for he had the pleasure of being acknowledged.
On the other hand, for the eagle - she learned the whole story from Jupiter himself - there was the very heavy additional grief that the author of her calamity was such a contemptible creature. (It is no small consolation for misfortune if one is beaten by a noble enemy.) Hence the pitiless war broke out anew between them: the eagle harried the beetle race with all her strength wherever she found it, carrying them off, trampling them down, destroying them; the beetle for his part strained every nerve to ruin the eagle. And so it seemed 'there would never be pause or rest,' nor any end to predation, ambush, and slaughter, except by the complete and equal destruction of both races - a Cadmean victory, you might say - such was 'the gladiatorial spirit with which they attacked each other.' The eagle could not be defeated; the beetle did not know the meaning of surrender. In the end Jupiter thought he should intervene in such a dangerous state of affairs and tried to settle the matter between them privately. The harder he tried the more violent their hatred became, the hotter their anger, the fiercer their battles. He was himself, without a doubt, more inclined to the eagle's side; on the other hand, he was influenced by the fact that a very harmful example was set if anyone were to be allowed to hold the laws of supplication, friendship, and hospitality in contempt. So he did what he usually does at critical moments; he called a council of the gods. After making a few preliminary remarks, he explained the course of the affair. Through his herald Mercury, opinions were asked and given. Their inclinations were divergent. Almost all the lesser gods supported the beetle, and even among the greatest Juno was strongly on his side, being hostile to the eagle's cause out of hatred for Ganymede. Finally they agreed to the decree proclaimed in a clear voice by Mercury and carved in bronze by Vulcan: that the scarab and the eagle should wage eternal war as they wished; that if either suffered harm, he could not complain in law, it must be considered the fortune of war. Whatever each one seized, he would hold by right of conquest. Nevertheless the gods did not desire the extermination of any species. For this reason there was to be a cessation of fighting and a truce was to be observed for the thirty days in which the eagle sits on her eggs.
The beetle was forbidden to appear in public during that time so that the eagle should not be burdened with the fatigue of war as well as fasting and the labour of caring for her brood. Because of his partiality Jupiter also declared, despite the protests of not a few: 'It is fair that a small corner of this vast world should be a refuge for my attendant, where she may be safe from the scarabs' attacks. I am not creating a precedent. There are places where there are no wolves, where no poisons can enter, where moles cannot live. I myself will measure out an area of a certain number of acres in Thrace near Olynthus in which it shall be a capital offence for the beetle to set foot, deliberately or not, willingly or not; he shall not leave if once he has entered, but shall live in torment there until he die. The name that is given to this place is Beetlebane, so that, warned by this name, the beetle may know that it will be the end of him if he dares to intrude into that place against our decree. The eagle is banished from Rhodes, lest anyone should think it cruel that the beetle is shut out of Olynthus.' Thus he spoke and made all Olympus tremble at his nod. The whole assembly of the gods murmured their assent. The decree holds good to this day and always will. War to the death continues between scarabs and eagles; during the days when the eagle sits on her eggs, the descendants of the beetle are nowhere to be seen. The place that Jupiter designated is carefully avoided; any beetle taken there dies at once. This is a fact, and if anyone asks, Pliny is witness to it in book 11 chapter 28, as is Plutarch, a weightier author, in his essay 'On Tranquillity of Mind.' But I know well enough, dear reader, that you have been thinking for some time, 'What is this fellow thinking of, chattering on to us with so much nonsense about nothing and making, not exactly an elephant out of a fly as they say, but a giant out of a beetle? Has he not made enough work for us to go through all the pages of these thousands of proverbs without tormenting us as well with these never-ending fables?' But let me say a word. Everyone has his own opinion, and some will think that my explanations of these adages are pinched and starved, for they think that the really grand thing is to expand a volume to an immense size. I wanted to show these people certainly that I have chosen to be brief in the rest of the book; otherwise I would not have been short of matter to enrich it if I had thought more of showing off my eloquence than of giving pleasure to the reader. But let us come back to the business of proverbs: the comic poet Aristophanes recalls this tale in his Peace in these lines:
It is said in Aesop's fables
To be the only creature with wings that ever reached the gods.
O Father, Father, that's an incredible story,
That a filthy stinking brute should reach the gods.
Yet once he did get there, I say, because of the bitter feud
He had with the eagle, rolling out her eggs
And seeking revenge upon his enemy.
The fable teaches us that no one should despise an enemy however humble. There are some little men, of the meanest sort but malicious nevertheless, no less black than scarabs, no less evil-smelling, no less mean-spirited, but by their obstinately malicious spirit (since they can do no good to any mortal) they often make trouble for great men. Their blackness is terrifying, their noise is disturbing, their stench is an annoyance; they fly round and round, they cannot be shaken off, they wait in ambush. It is preferable by far sometimes to contend with powerful men than to provoke these beetles whom one may even be ashamed to beat. You cannot shake them off nor fight with them without coming away defiled.

[greek], Plutus is a coward. This is how Aristophanes introduces his Plutus, as does Lucian imitating him in his Timon, as one who is afraid of everything and trusts no one. Wealth brings a very similar state of mind to the rich, whereas poverty, on the contrary, sleeps sound on either ear. Aristophanes indicates that the fearfulness of the wealthy was a common joke when he says: 'Nay all repeat it, / The most cowardly state of all is wealth.' The scholiast tells us the comic poet was alluding to this line of Euripides: [greek] 'Prosperity is a thing that is eager for life, an evil state full of fear.' The reason for this saying is that there are many who set traps for the rich: robbers, would-be heirs, rulers, flatterers, sometimes even a wife and children. This is why Euripides adds [greek] 'an evil state clinging to life': because of their wealth they want to live longer than people of meagre fortune, or are often in fear of their lives for the same reason. Juvenal explains it neatly when he says: Though you carry but few plain silver vessels
With you in a night journey, you will be afraid of the sword and cudgel of a freebooter,
You will tremble at the shadow of a reed shaking in the moonlight;
But the empty-handed traveller will whistle in the robber's face.
In short, in any business the rich man is more fearful than the poor. He is more careful in making his house secure for fear of thieves. He is afraid of storms because of the crops in his fields, and because of the cargoes that he has at sea. He fears his friends in case he is obliged to give them something when they ask; he fears his enemies who may do him harm. He is more timid in reviling others because he is afraid of being fined. All his words and deeds are more cautious for fear of the false accusations that are brought particularly against the rich because they have the resources that can be taken from them. If war threatens, it is the rich man who is most worried. And finally he is not free of the superstition that some unfriendly god intends him harm.

[greek] is what the ancients called a sudden but irrational confusion of mind. For the ancients believed that the god Pan inspired sudden terror and confusion of mind, very like insane ravings, which are so unrestrained that they are not just unreasonable but mindless. In fact it happens not uncommonly, as in an army when both men and horses are thrown into confusion with no apparent sufficient cause. This is something Euripides recalls too in the Rhesus: 'Hath Zeus' son Pan with the scourge of quaking / Struck thee' are the words that Hector speaks to the guards who bring the message that a new disturbance has occurred in the camp, and Hector replies that it is a panic impulse. In the Nemean Odes Pindar writes that brave men ought not to be blamed if they flee during such a disturbance: 'Faced with divine terrors even the children of the gods flee,' using the expression 'divine terrors' for panic. The same god is said in legend to have been the first to discover the twisted, cone-shaped shell that is called in Greek [greek] 'tortoise'; by blowing through this, he is said to have put the Titans to flight when he was waging war against them. In his book on Phocis Pausanias says: 'But at night a panic fear broke out among them, such groundless terrors as they say are inspired by this god.' The subject is discussed at greater length with quotations from other Greek sources by Angelo Poliziano in his Miscellanies, chapter 28. This proverbial expression is used several times by Cicero in his Letters to Atticus: 'I believe there will be a most terrible war, unless, to use an expression you are familiar with, there is a "wave of panic."' In another passage: 'In the case of Ventidius I believe there was a panic.' Again: 'They bring a strong rumour that all the corn is being taken to Antony at Rome, this is certainly a panic.' Elsewhere: 'Meanwhile (for you know such words as "panic" and "the uncertainties of war" are bandied about) at the rumour of my arrival even Cassius, who was besieged in Antioch, took courage, and fear was spread among the Parthians.' Likewise in the letter to Tyro: 'And yet our Atticus, who thought that I had at one time been upset by "panic," still thinks the same and does not see by what philosophical defences I am protected. And by Hercules, because he himself is a coward, [greek] "he makes an uproar," and is affected by panic.' I think Apuleius too alluded to this in his Golden Ass, when he causes Pan to meet Psyche as she is trying to commit suicide.

Pliny states in book 18 chapter 6 that among the ancients this was considered as good as a proverb. He says:
One dictum of the ancients it may seem rash to quote, and perhaps it will be
judged almost unbelievable; it is that nothing pays less well than really good
farming. Lucius Tatius Rufus was of the humblest birth, but won a consulship
by his efficiency as a soldier. Though he was in other respects a man of old-
fashioned thriftiness, he spent about one thousand sicli (or, as some prefer
to read it, sestertii), which he had accumulated through the generosity of the
emperor Augustus, even to the point of disadvantaging his heir, by buying up
land in Picenum and farming it with a view to making a name for himself. Do
I think then that this meant ruination and starvation? No indeed, but in my
judgment moderation in all things is the most useful criterion. It is essential
to be a good farmer, but to be the best is ruinous.
This is what Pliny has to say. Terence referred to this too when he says in the Phormio: 'It is our fault that it is profitable for men to be rogues, while we try too hard to be known as honest and generous.' Then there is this line of Horace: 'Avoiding a fault leads to error, if it is done without skill.' And finally there is the Hebrew proverb that warns us not to be too rigorous in justice.

Cooked as quick as asparagus. Said of something done with great speed. There are certain proverbial expressions that were particular favourites of Octavius Augustus, and among them this one is recorded by Suetonius, who writes that he used to talk of the speed of some rapid action by saying 'Cooked as quick as asparagus.' He often uses it in his letters too. Asparagus is a prickly type of grass, a useful medicine and pleasant food as well; before it grows hard, the top is cooked lightly, but only enough to take away the rawness. It is called asparagus because, as Athenaeus says, the finest types do not grow from seed. Scholars tell us that there is a similar expression about pickled fish, 'Cooked as quick as pickled fish,' because some sorts of fish that have been preserved in salt or dried in smoke or the open air are also eaten raw or lightly cooked, but I have not found the proverb in Athenaeus whom they give as their source. It is very close to a proverb that will be given elsewhere: 'Whitebait on the fire.'

Τὸ προσώπειον ἀφελεῖν τῇ φιλίᾳ, To remove the mask of friendship, as we are said to do when we act and talk frankly as we feel among friends, and show outwardly what is hidden in our heart. For a face that does not reflect the mind is more truly a mask than a face. Seneca had a very neat remark about Caesar: 'The mask he prefers rather than the face,' meaning how he prefers to appear rather than how he is. Marcus Tullius writes in the fifth book of his Tusculan Disputations that Epicurus did no more than wear the mask of philosophy. Martial says: 'You falsely ape youth, Lentinus, with dyed hair, / So suddenly a raven who were but now a swan. / You don't deceive all; Proserpine knows you are hoary: / She shall pluck the mask from off your head.' But the word 'mask' does not always have a pejorative sense. When Marcus Tullius writes in his On Moral Obligation: 'For he puts off the mask of a friend when he wears that of a judge,' he does not speak of a false friend or a false judge. The source of the saying is the masks of the theatre.

Απονέμου τῆς σῆς ἁμαξης, τῶν δ᾽ ὄνων οὐδὲν μέλει, Use your own wagons and you won't have to worry about asses. The line is a trochaic tetrameter. The proverb counselled people to look after their own property and to enjoy it, without being concerned or worried for that of others. The figure is derived from the idea that those who have their own wagon at home have no need to hire asses from somewhere else to carry their loads.

Λιβυκὸν θηρΐον, An African beast. This is recorded by Diogenianus. It used to be said of a cunning man, shrewd, changeable, equivocal, double-natured. Catiline was a monstrous prodigy of this sort according to Cicero. The origin is the practice they have in Africa of mixing different species and from them producing for the circus strange new monsters, which provincial rulers export to Rome.

From the same source comes this too: '[greek], Africa always produces something evil, because, as I have said, monsters were exported from there to Rome. From this sense it can be turned to apply to the customs and mentality of a race; for if a region is prolific in poisons, the people who inhabit it are malevolent by nature. It will be particularly appropriate for those who break alliances and make changes to agreements.

Very similar to that is this one from Pliny, which he records in his History of the World: 'Africa always produces something novel.' The saying came about because in a very dry region many species of wild animals were obliged to come together at one particular river bank to drink, and there, through various violent interbreedings, different forms of monsters were continually born. Moreover Pliny took this from Aristotle who relates it in book 2 chapter 5 of On the Generation of Animals? In Athenaeus book 14 Anaxilas turned it wittily to the subject in hand:[greek]
But music, by heaven, just like Africa
Always brings forth each year some new creature.
I know that the last Greek line does not hold good, but this is what is found in the Aldine edition, and I cannot make a satisfactory surmise about how it can be restored, unless perhaps we should read [greek], although even so the metre is still incorrect; perhaps [greek] should be left out and [greek] should be put in place of [greek]. It will be suitably applied to men of slippery faith who are forever greedy of change.

[Λιβυκὸν ὄρνεον, An African bird. Applied according to Suidas to exceptionally big things, because birds of immense size are exported from that region. Horace used it of a particularly splendid one:
No African bird would make for me a meal
...
More pleasing than olives gathered
From the most fertile branches of the trees.
In former times Africa provided particularly big fowl, which are also called Numidian fowl. Acron seems to take it to mean the ostrich, a bird that is also said to have a marvellously large body. In my opinion it would not be inappropriate to use it of a man who is remarkable for his strange dress. Plautus somewhere calls his Carthaginian a bird because of his long sleeves hanging down on each side like wings. The proverb is recorded in Aristophanes' Birds. The scholiast indicates that it suits barbarians and timid people. Exceptionally big men are mostly rather timid, as in Terence: 'This big fellow is a good-for-nothing.'

This is still commonly used even nowadays, when someone is too demanding, too hard and insistent: 'What? Do you want my skin as well?' - as if to say it would be enough to be satisfied with the wool. As a proverb it was invented or certainly used by Tiberius Caesar, according to Suetonius. When he was advised by friends that he should raise taxes in the provinces, he wrote back: 'A good shepherd should shear his sheep, not skin them.' Deglubere means to remove the skin, and the expression is derived from peasants who say deglubere for 'to tear open a shell or pod' and 'to strip the peel from a seed.' Because of this Catullus gave it an obscene sense, saying that a man is 'skinned' by a woman; and Fotis in Apuleius says she is accustomed to 'skin men alive.' Those who 'shear' therefore strip in such a way that they leave a portion from which growth can occur; those who 'skin,' leave nothing. For fleece that has been shorn grows again; when the skin is torn off there is nothing that you can subsequently remove. Alexander, king of the Macedonians titled the Great, expressed the same idea with a different metaphor: when someone proposed to him that much more tax could be extracted from the population, he replied thus: 'And I hate the herbalist who pulls out the herb root and all.' And to conclude there is this: [greek] and [greek] and likewise in Latin radicitus 'roots and all,' stirpium tenus 'down to the roots,' a stirpe 'by the root,' ab ima stirpe 'by the deepest root,' and other figures of this sort have something of a proverbial flavour.

The following was a witty but disgusting mot of Vespasian; he put a tax on urine, being greedy to the point of baseness, and was reproved over what he had done by his son for making a profit out of such a malodorous thing. Shortly afterwards he waved the money so collected under his son's nose and asked him, 'Does this stink somehow?' Whence this line of Juvenal: 'Profit smells good whatever it comes from.' Ammianus alluded to this in book 22 when he said: 'And they smell out a profit from every opportunity .. .' And then there was that line of Ennius that not only entered into men's speech but right into the way they thought and lived: 'Where you get it from no one cares, but it is important to have it.' And why should we not take seriously what Horace said ironically: 'O citizens, citizens, seek money first, / Virtue after coin.' Cephisodorus in Athenaeus book 3 tells us in the writings of famous poets and wise men there are some blameworthy statements to be found, such as this one of Archilochus: 'Fleece (or despoil) any man.' In Theodorus: 'urging people to seek superiority of possessions, but to praise equality.' In Euripides: 'As for what he may have said, only his tongue has sworn,' which I have discussed elsewhere. In Sophocles:
I say these things to please you, I do not command,
But you yourself, do as wise men are accustomed to,
Praise just deeds, but keep the profit firmly in mind.
The same writer said somewhere else: 'Nothing is bad that brings profit with it.' Homer has Juno plotting against Jupiter, he pictures Mars as an adulterer. All this is in Athenaeus. It is surprising however that people become indignant at poets and actors whenever they speak of such things in the theatre; they should be more indignant at themselves, because they do things in real life that they could not tolerate being shown in the theatre.

Κέρδος αἰσχύνης ἄμεινον, Profit is preferable to shame. Plautus in the Pseudolus: 'What causes shame is far easier to bear than what causes annoyance.' He expressed the same idea in another way in the Trinummus: 'By Pollux! Shame beats annoyance, and with the same number of letters.'- a sentiment unworthy of a good man, and that is why in the former case it is uttered by a pimp and in the latter by an old man. But the sentiment is aptly brought in to convince the audience even if it is dishonourable. In general it is far better to accept the sacrifice of a thing than loss of reputation. This is what Terence alluded to in the Phormio: 'Aren't you ashamed of your vanity? - No, as long as it's to my advantage.' Indeed even nowadays there is a common proverb that bids us say farewell to shame where money is concerned. In his essay 'On Listening to Poets' Plutarch quotes these lines from an unknown poet: 'Scorn the opinion of the just and follow the man / Who does whatever offers hope of profit.' He also records this from Sophocles: 'Profit is pleasant even when gained by lies.'

Βαίτη κᾂν θέρει, καὶ ἐν χειμῶνι ἀγαθόν, A baeta is fine in winter and in summer. Suidas recalls this adage and adds that a baeta is a type of leather garment that seems to be suitable for both seasons, for in winter it keeps out the winds and in summer the heat. Julius Pollux in book 7 of his Vocabulary mentions baeta when listing leather clothing; he says it was an extra long tunic, which covered the whole body. So the expression is suitable for something that will be useful for many purposes, such as learning, which is an ornament for both young and old, or philosophy, which in prosperity keeps us from arrogance, and in adversity protects us from discouragement.

Γραῶν ὕθλος, Ravings of silly old women. Describes the meaningless trifles that old women babble about when the defect of age is added to the defect of their sex and multiplies their disease of talking nonsense. The proverb occurs in Plato's Theaetetus: 'For these are indeed what are usually called ravings of silly old women.' Likewise Cicero talked in the speech Concerning His House about 'old women's superstition.'

Something is said to be 'before your feet' when it is obvious, and present or about to appear. Terence: 'This is to be wise, to see not only what is before your feet but to foresee even things that are to come.' Likewise Pindar in his last ode: 'Whatever is before your feet is always better.' Lucian in the Pretended Critic: 'Because you are ignorant of these things both commonly known and everywhere in your way.' Philostratus in the Phoenix: 'But where are you going, with your nose in the air and despising what is before your feet?' And the expression 'at your feet' means what is close or imminent; to be [greek] means to be in the way, and [greek] the opposite. [greek] is found several times in Plato, meaning 'thrown at one's feet,' what has been revealed, as it were. For example in the Republic book 4: 'For a long time now, O happy one, it seems to lie before our feet ([greek]), and we do not see it; but we were silly, like people who hold something in their hands, yet search for what they already have.' Using a not dissimilar figure Maro said 'at hand': 'The land is near at hand; I shall not keep you here with a long ode, with digressions and lengthy preludes.'

A proverb in appearance is this expression of Plautus in the Persian: 'I warrant those fellows would never appear, / Who attack other people's property with their white nets.' By 'net' he means the tricks of informers and spongers. 'White' refers to the petitions, actions, and summonses by which a dispute is instituted and conducted. And it would be quite amusing if it were to refer to the praetor's tablet on which laws and rules for disputes were published. For laws, according to Solon even, are like spiders' webs.

This is a proverbial phrase in Plautus' Truculentus and in the Comedy of Asses too: 'Everyone ought to keep a sharp eye for his own advantage.' If this is used more broadly in a figurative sense, it will be rather more witty. For example one may be after money, another seeks fame, another is greedy for pleasures, another hungry for literature, another may strive after piety. Each one is watchful for what he desires.

In the The Two Menaechmuses by the same author there is a proverbial hyperbole for 'searching carefully for something': 'I believe you would have found a needle, if you were looking for a needle.' For a needle is an extremely difficult thing to find, because its fineness makes it easily invisible to the eye of the searcher.

Υπηνέμια τίκτει, His progeny are full of wind. Said of ideas that are empty and trivial, a figure derived from birds, which, in the false belief that they have had sexual intercourse, conceive eggs that are empty, that is, in which no foetus is formed. Aristophanes in the Birds: 'Blackfeathered night bears first a wind-egg.' These births happen mostly among birds that are not good fliers and do not have crooked claws, such as the partridge, and the cock, as Aristotle shows in book 3 of On the Generation of Animals; the cause is that they produce greater quantities of excrement. Birds that fly and have crooked claws are not lustful and not prolific, because in them a fertile part of the excrement goes to form feathers and claws. Such foetuses are conceived in some cases from the sound of the voice of the male, as in the case of partridges, in some cases when the birds rub themselves in the dust, and sometimes when the females, because of a shortage of males, cover each other. The authority for this is Pliny. Such eggs the Greeks call ὑπηνέμια 'wind eggs,' or ζεφύρϊα 'zephyr eggs,' after the west wind. From this useless ideas are said to be avejuifiia 'full of wind.' Plato in the Theaetetus: 'But come now let us look at this together and see whether it is a real conception or a wind egg.' And Homer: 'to speak words of wind,' meaning empty utterances like so much wind. Marcus Tullius in the Letters to Atticus uses 'airy nothings' of empty rumours that are carried by the wind: 'About the gladiators and the other things you call 'airy nothings,' keep me informed daily.'

[greek], Another Phrynondas. Said of a dishonest man. Lucian in the False Prophet recalls this name among other wicked celebrities. Phrynondas, though a stranger in Athens, was involved in the Peloponnesian negotiations. He was crafty, maleficent, and mendacious, a masterly contriver of evil deeds, with the result that the name of the man became the term for the thing, and in fact whenever they wanted to characterize someone as particularly evil and wicked they referred to him as 'Phrynondas.' Thus we find Aristophanes in the Amphiareus, as Suidas quotes him: 'You abomination, you vilest Phrynondas.' Plato used it too in the Protagoras. Such men are recalled too by Aeschines in the speech against Ctesiphon: 'Not Phrynondas, not Eurybatus, nor any other of the old evil-doers was ever such a quack and a liar.'

[greek], A pig among the roses. However in other sources I find [greek]. For me neither version seems right; I believe we should read [greek], from [greek], making a diminutive form of it. And rhoea is the Greek word for pomegranate. Eudemus quotes the proverb from the playby Crates entitled The Neighbours, where he indicates that it is usually said of rustic, or intransigeant people. They are like pigs that cannot easily be lead past apples.

[greek], The ass is a bird. This is in the Birds of Aristophanes. It is derived from some augury. A certain man, consulted about a person who was in bad health, saw by chance an ass getting to its feet from a fall and at the same time heard someone else saying, 'See how he got up, even though he is an ass.' Seizing on this as an omen our man immediately takes it to mean that the sick man would recover. So Aristophanes' joke is that an ass is also like a bird in being something of an omen. The origin of this proverb is not the comedy but popular speech used for a humorous purpose by the comic poet. The right moment for it is when we infer something from some silly sign or other.

[greek], The wiles of Sisyphus, a term for resourceful and cunning advice. Aristophanes in the Acharnians: 'Then bring out the clever tricks of Sisyphus.' Further, the reason why the name of Sisyphus should be proverbial for cunning is this line of Homer: 'Sisyphus, the craftiest man in the world.' And again in the Iliad book 6: 'Here lived a man called Sisyphus, as cunning a rogue as ever there was.' From him was descended Ulysses, whom Homer always portrays as crafty and clever.

[greek], A man like Thales. A proverbial irony for a fool who strives to be thought wise. Aristophanes in the Birds: 'Meton is a man like Thales.' In the Clouds by the same author: 'What reason then had we for regarding this man as a Thales?' - for Thales was one of the seven wise men. In Plautus too there is 'Hail Thales!' though it designates a fool.

[greek], A Sardanapalus. His name became a proverb because of the man's extraordinary effeminacy. Aristophanes in the Birds: 'Who is this Sardanapalus?' Sardanapalus was the son of Anacyndaraxis and king of Nineveh, a region of Persia, who occupied both Tarsus and Anchialea, two cities of Cilicia, on the same day, but was so effeminate in his vices that he habitually lounged among his eunuchs and girls dressed as a girl himself. Apollodorus, who is quoted by the scholiast of Aristophanes, reports that the epitaph on his tomb, carved in Assyrian letters, said 'Eat, drink, make love, for all else is nothing.' Suidas recounts this version from Callisthenes: 'But you, my guest, eat, drink, play, and give not a fig for any other mortal thing.'

In the Birds Aristophanes says: 'What is there in the end that feet could not do?' The scholiast shows that this is an allusion to the proverb [greek] ; 'What is there finally that cannot be made with hands?' suggesting that there is nothing in the world that cannot be made with skill and labour. Aristophanes' version might aptly be applied to cowardly infantry for whom any protection and hope of safety lies not in their hands but in their feet.

We say 'One pot smashed against another' when two forces come into conflict to the ruin of both. Aristophanes in the Peace: 'And reacting in anger one pot damages another.' Disputes between warring kings are just like the dashing of one pot against another: frequently both perish. Certainly neither one escapes without very serious harm. But it seems to me fate disposes things most unfairly: although the misfortunes of war should fall on the heads of those who start the war and whose advantage is in conquest, the greater share of evil falls on those who take up the fight against their will and in detestation of it, and those to whom, even if they fight successfully, not a farthing will be paid in compensation.

Aristophanes in the Peace:
I was indeed mistaken in this, but you will forgive me;
For my mind at that moment was entirely on hides.
However I have recalled this proverb elsewhere. It is very like Terence's expression 'My mind is on dishes.' Then there is what Athenaeus has in book 1 of the Doctors at Dinner: 'Let no one speak; we shall never be able to understand, / For the mind itself is too close to the table.' The scholiast reminds us of this proverb: 'He has hides before his eyes,' said of those who expect war, as we have shown elsewhere. A good moment to use it would be when someone is distracted by worry from the matter in hand.

Aristophanes in the Acharnians: [greek], For them no altar, no faith, no agreement stands. Used of the utterly treacherous. It was said of the Spartans, who were reproached for their treachery by Euripides: 'Inhabitants of Sparta; counsels of treachery.' Nowadays it fits courtiers not at all badly.

This is very banal certainly but it is a proverbial expression in Greek writers; [greek] means figuratively 'they plunder or harass in a hostile manner.' If the expression is applied to a mental state, it will become much more humorous. Aristophanes does this in the Clouds: 'By heavy interest payments and cruellest creditors I am driven and carried off, wretch that I am, putting up my possessions as security.' Lucian used [greek] to mean 'He drags you wherever he wants, at his whim.' Cornelius Tacitus said something very similar in his Dialogue on Orators: 'Nowadays the leading men in the emperor's circle of friends agunt feruntque cuncta "get their own way in everything" and are esteemed by the emperor himself with a sort of reverence. Homer in book 5 of the Iliad: 'For I do not have anything here / Such as the Greeks could drive away and carry off.' These are the words of Sarpedon as he exhorts Hector to fight in defence of his country, for he himself was fighting even though he had nothing that the Greeks could take away, being from Lycia. Then there is Virgil in book 2 of the Aeneid: 'Others rape and rob burning Pergamum,' meaning they 'destroy and plunder it.' In a very similar expression Livy said in book 8 of his Macedonian War: 'Then at last their endurance was broken as they saw their possessions carried and driven away.' In Herodotus Croesus says the same thing to his conqueror Cyrus: 'Now not one of these things is mine, it is yours they plunder.' The expression seems to be borrowed from military custom, where men and beasts are driven off and burdens are carried off. In the Laws Plato says: 'Let no one drive or take away anything belonging to anyone else.' Quintus Curtius, in book 4, translated [greek] : 'Let them scoff who are persuaded that human affairs are guided and driven arbitrarily and rashly.' In the same book he used ferri agique: 'Still carried away and driven by frenzy, throwing down their arms .. .' The words give a clear picture of military disorder and confusion.

[greek], To lick salt. People are said to lick salt if they live an extremely meagre life. In Persius, for example: 'Varus, if you mean to keep up with Jupiter, you will have to go on being content with scraping the salt cellar with your finger as you have often done before. When Diogenes was invited by a certain very rich citizen called Craterus to come and enjoy his hospitality and his liberality, he replied that he preferred to lick salt in Athens than to enjoy sumptuous meals in his house. Likewise Plautus in the Curculio: 'Today in my house you will have never a lick of salt.'

Βδέειν λιβανωτόν, To fart frankincense, has the appearance of a proverb. It will be apt for those who enjoy their own vices or those who are deeply in love. The cause of the former is φίλαυτια 'love of self,' because everyone enjoys his own vices and finds them pleasant, even if they are of the most nauseous sort. The cause of the latter is extravagant love: 'Even Agnes' polyp delights Balbinus,' as Horace writes. And Aristophanes in the Plutus: 'I am not accustomed to farting frankincense.' The expression will also suit flatterers who praise the vilest things instead of the most noble.

All humorous expressions of this sort have the character of adages; we appear to correct what is said, but with another word that either has the same meaning or has a stronger meaning. As when someone says 'He didn't steal, he purloined' or 'He didn't steal, he plundered.' Aristophanes in the Plutus: 'So you did not steal - You robbed?' And in the same play: ' [greek] 'Not blind, just eyeless.' The slave is playing on an ambiguous word, which says both that Plutus is endowed with eyes and that he does not make use of them.

Aristophanes in the Peace: [greek], Till the wolf mates with the sheep. Said of those who have an incurable discord between them. Horace used a very similar figure: 'Goats would sooner mate / With the wolves of Apulia.' Plautus in the Pseudolus: 'You would sooner leave wolves among your sheep than these fellows in charge in your house.' It will be more humorous if applied to an idea; for example you may say the pursuit of money and the study of literature do not belong together and adapt the proverb to that meaning.

The same author in almost exactly the same place: [greek] , When the polecat flees, it usually leaves a bad smell. Said of people who break ranks and bring shame on themselves. The sphondyla is a kind of insect with an absolutely filthy smell. In book 27 chapter 13 Pliny recalls a sphondyla serpens 'snake beetle,' which does enormous damage to tree roots, though he does not make it clear what kind it is. There is however a snake of this sort, slim bodied and blackish in colour, which emits a very oppressive smell when it dies. Hesychius tells us that among Attic people spondyle was a word for a polecat. In Aristophanes there is the phrase [greek] 'as pungent as a polecat,' said of acid wind from the stomach.

Aristophanes in the Peace:
If you try to make the crab walk forwards you will never succeed,
And you will never succeed in changing anything that has already been done.
The poet delivers this as a humorous oracle: what has been set by nature you cannot change by any effort. For crabs naturally walk sideways. The second of these lines is pertinent to an adage that was recorded earlier, 'To reopen a closed subject.'

Aristophanes used [greek] for 'to be in a frenzy' in the Wasps: 'Either you are really insane or you are acting like a Corybant.' This term is often used by Lucian, in his Timon, in the Saturnalian Letters, in Lexiphanes, and Hermotimus. Its source is the Corybantes, the priests of Cybele who clashed their cymbals as they were seized with a sacred madness, and drove others into a similar madness. Elsewhere the same writer calls this [greek] 'being possessed by an evil demon.'

[greek], To bite with a voting token, as people are said to do when they injure or take revenge on a man by means of a vote. Aristophanes in the Acharnians: 'They are concerned only with biting with their vote.' For this was the commonest way for the ordinary people to avenge an offence. They expressed their opposition in the assembly when the votes were cast by means of tokens. So they could bite, not with their teeth, which would be unsafe, but with their tokens.

These are also proverbial hyperboles: a man who is an exceptional glutton, drinker, robber, gourmand is called a Charybdis or a Barathrum. Aristophanes in the Knights: 'A tax-gatherer and a ravine and an abyss of plunder.' I think I should add here that Diogenes, according to Laertius, called the stomach the 'Charybdis of one's livelihood.' Horace said of some glutton: 'The maw and whirlwind, the barathrum of the market-place.'

Aristophanes in the Peace: '[greek], The tongue is cut out separately. The scholiast tells us this was used as a proverb and derived from Homer, book 3 of the Odyssey: 'Well, come now, cut out the tongues'; and he quotes Callistratus as author of the phrase. Again in the Plutus: 'For the heralds their tongues were cut out.' Callistratus, according to the scholiast, relates that in ancient sacrifices the tongue was cut out and given to the heralds. For there are those who say that the tongues of victims are Mercury's due. But Aristophanes' words contain an ambiguity, not without humour, because the 'tongues' may be either those of the oxen or of the heralds. The scholiast tells us there is an allusion to the proverbial saying 'The tongue for the herald.' We should be using this correctly if we want to signify that some recompense is due to someone who helped to the best of his ability to conclude an affair, or that [greek] 'a reward' is to be given to the messenger who brings glad news. [greek] is what Homer calls the small reward that was usually given to those who brought good news. In Plutarch, when Demades, already a weak and broken old man, was mentioned, Antipater says: 'He is like sacrificial victims, only the stomach and tongue remain' It seems that the tongue, being a profane organ, is not acceptable in sacred rites. And Pittacus sends to king Amasis the tongue of a victim as being both the worst and the best member of the body. Heralds however have venal tongues, and at sacrifices they admonished the people to 'be favourable with their tongues.' Thus Plautus in the prologue of the Carthaginian:
Raise your voice, by which you live and worship.
For unless you shout, famine will come upon you at once.

There are two proverbial figures that are used to describe an excessive or uncontrollable desire for something. The first is in Aristophanes Wasps:
Unless he has by chance been the first to sit on the bench
He finds not a grain of sleep all night.
By 'first bench' he means the front row [at the theatre]. Paspale is a Greek word for the most finely ground cornmeal. Juvenal said similarly: 'A dispute makes some people sleep.' The second figure occurs in the Eclogues of Maro: 'For if you had not hurt him in some way, you would have died.' The first is to be found in the Hebrew paroemiographer: 'For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong, and their sleep is taken away unless they have made someone stumble.'

In book 7 of his 'Table-talk' Plutarch quotes this line of verse: [greek] , You will be able to think better when you have filled your belly. When hunger intrudes, we cannot stop for careful consideration; consideration requires time and calmness of mind, but hunger increases bile. This can be turned round to mean that we should do what is urgent and demanding, and deliberate about what comes later. It will also apply to those who consult about the most serious matters when they are drunk, as was the habit of the Persians according to Herodotus book 1. And Persius: 'See now, over their cups they seek to know, / These sated sons of Romulus, what divine poetry may have to say.'

A feeble, uncertain hope is described as 'slender' by the poets, and the figure has been noted as a proverbial one by the commentators, particularly Suidas. Aristophanes in the Knights: [greek] 'That hope is a slender one in which we trust.' Euripides talked of a 'cold' hope in the Iphigenia in Aulis: 'This is cold hope indeed.' Marcus Tullius in the speech for Roscius the actor: 'It is with a vain, slender hope that you console yourself.' Aristophanes has derived the metaphor from sailors when he says [greek], and it was from them that Marcus Tullius took the expression 'He hopes some breeze will blow from this direction' to mean that some hope is held out; for example, in the sixth indictment against Verres: I see what I have done; he sits up, he hopes some breeze may blow his way in this accusation.' This is a figure borrowed from seamen, who, becalmed in a windless sea, predict from some little cloud or from some distant ripple on the water that a wind will come. Plato used a similar figure in book 3 of the Laws: 'a poor salvation.' In Athenaeus book 13 there is a quotation from Callimachus: 'Hopes so far troubled that they require help from the enemy.'

Whenever we want to say something is a great burden to us, we say even in the vernacular that we grow older. Aristophanes in the Frogs:
Take care what you do; for whenever I see
Any of this sort of business,
I come out of it, believe me, a year older immediately.
Weariness and dissatisfaction bring on old age, as Homer declares too: 'Quickly do mortals surrounded by many ills grow old.'

[greek], To glare like a bull, meaning 'fiercely.' Aristophanes in the Frogs: 'And so with lowered head he glares up like a bull.' Plato indicates this was Socrates' habit, to stare with eyes like a bull. And Virgil uses the word torva 'wild' or 'fierce' of a cow: "The best type of cow is fiercelooking.'

Aristophanes in the Plutus: '[greek], How convenient it is if you have several names. This is appropriate for those who carry on several professions at the same time, so that they can make greater profits, or who belong to various parties. Like the bat in the fables who is sometimes a mouse and sometimes a bird. But it is a saying used of Mercury, who is recorded as having manifold names: he is called Strophaios 'twister,' either because he brings business round to a good conclusion or because he is crafty and fickle; Empolaios 'merchant,' because he presides at auctions and trading; Hegemonios because he is a guide, as for Priam in Homer; Dolios 'deceitful,' because he is the inventor of lying and illusions; Kerdoos 'bringer of gain,' because he increases traders' profits; Enagonios because he acts as herald in disputes; Diakonos 'servant,' because he is the messenger of the gods. Bacchus is also said to have many names. The proverb could also be turned nicely against those who are never without titles and nominations, as they are called, and who are all set, like nets, to catch benefices. Or those who profess several skills, so that they can make their fortune by one means or the other, like the men at royal courts who act as priest, minister, steward, pimp, and buffoon.

[greek], Limodorians. In the collections of proverbs that goes under the name of Plutarch I find the following story: At a time when the Peloponnese was suffering from a failure of the crops, certain people driven by hunger gathered together their goods and emigrated from the region; after wandering hither and thither with no fixed settlement, they were taken by the Tripoliti into their city, and this Tripoli is in Rhodes. They were therefore given the name Limodorians. Hesychius adds, on the authority of Didymus, that the Dorians who lived near Mt Oeta were so called because, given the infertility of the soil, they had to cope often with famine. The name 'Dorians' seems to be derived in Greek from words meaning 'gift' and 'going.' And so those who brought hunger as they moved about were said to be Limodorians (bringing the gift of hunger). Anyway, the Dorians do not live in the Peloponnese, but between the Locrians and the Aetolians, as Strabo says in book 9. The expression will be appropriate for people who are driven by famine to emigrate somewhere, just as the common people in Italy call almost all foreigners Limodorians, as if they were driven by hunger to visit that country. Festus Pompeius tells us that people of little substance and slender fortune were formerly called canalicolae 'gutter-snipes,' because they gathered around the canales 'gutters' in the forum.

Plautus in the Curculio: 'If you want it in three throws, I would like a cloak.' He used 'in three throws' to mean 'briefly,' like 'in three words.' I say this because Terence appears to take bolus to mean what the Greeks call [greek] 'a morsel of bread.' And indeed what is swallowed at once is said to be eaten tribus bolis 'in three bites.'

[greek], To follow like a shadow. This is said of someone who is never absent. For the shadow attends the body, willy-nilly. Plautus in the Casina: 'I am resolved / To follow like your shadow, wherever you may go.' Hence individual attendants are called shadows, as are those who, without being asked, accompany others to banquets, as explained elsewhere in the proverb 'Shadows.' Marcus Tullius in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations: 'For if there is nothing in fame itself that it should be sought, it nevertheless follows virtue like a shadow.'

A lead penny is a proverbial hyperbole, which stands for the smallest possible amount of money. Plautus in the Casina: 'Today this man has not a lead penny to his name.' The same author in the Trinummus: 'For the life of me, I would never trust him with a lead penny.' This is very closely related to what he also has in the Two Captives: 'Funny people don't rate a farthing with them any more' But this is described elsewhere.

In his anthologies Nicolaus Stobaeus quotes this statement as a proverb: [greek], Luxury breeds brutality, inexperience joined with power breeds madness. Wealth saps intelligence; and if power is joined to inexperience, then the situation can go as far as madness. It chimes in with that other one, 'He has hay on his horn.' In the Olympian Odes Pindar turns the idea round and says: 'Insolence is the mother of surfeit.' But he is reproached by the scholiast, who prefers to approve Homer's verse: 'Luxury breeds arrogance, when a wicked man acquires wealth.' I do not remember reading this line in Homer, and it does not seem to be genuinely Homeric; what is certain is that it is extant in the Maxims of Theognis.

[greek]; What's a blind man doing with a mirror? This is very close to 'A jackdaw has no business with a lute.' The verse is quoted by Stobaeus from Epicharmus: 'To one deprived of eyes what use is there for a mirror?' What need for books for one who cannot read? To what end is a kingdom found for a fool, or riches for one who does not know how to use them?

To reap a bad harvest is to pay the penalty for one's misdeeds. Not at all inconsistent with one we have recorded elsewhere, 'As you have sown, so also shall you reap.' Stobaeus quotes these verses from Euripides' Ion:
But at present, you scoundrels, you gather offices
And prize great wealth, striving to get it from any source
Indiscriminately by good or bad means; later
You reap for these deeds a grim and bitter harvest.'
Aeschylus in the Persians:
Flourishing arrogance bore a crop
Of calamities, whence it reaps a plenteous harvest of tears.
Plato in the Phaedrus: 'What sort of harvest do you think he will later reap from the oratory he sowed?' In his Rhetoric book 3 Aristotle quotes from Gorgias: 'You have sown foul seeds and reaped a wretched harvest.'

Euripides in the Antigone: '[greek] We have come down to the ultimate mark of evil. And Horace: 'We have come to the ultimate.' The line in the stadium and in games has been described elsewhere more than once.

In his Little Chest Plautus used a term, original certainly but quite neat: 'ballasted,' for stuffed with food. The metaphor is derived from ships, which are loaded with sand or clay so that they are not tossed and rolled about in the waves. I would not have listed this as an adage, if it were not commonly used even in the vernacular. Plautus' words are as follows:
I too share what is the vice of a large portion of us women
Who are in business here. When we are well ballasted,
We become talkative immediately.
It will be more witty, if the image is taken further: if someone says, for example, that his ears are ballasted by someone else's endless chatter. Alternatively, someone's mind is ballasted with the precepts of philosophy so that he is not tossed about by the storms of circumstances.

In the Casino. Plautus used 'Talk like 1 2 3' to mean fluently and concisely. Festus explains it as 'quickly or rapidly,' quoting many other authors as well as this passage in Plautus. But in Festus the text is so corrupt that I would be reluctant to refer to him, if it were not that we learn there that the ancients not only said 'Talk like 1 2 3', but 'Learn like 1 2 3,' 'Do like 1 2 3', 'Rub out like 1 2 3,' 'Believe like 1 2 3,' and 'Arrive like 1 2 3' meaning to reach a place easily and quickly. Nonius Marcellus thinks numero is used for multum 'a great deal,' but the examples he gives show rather that it is taken to mean 'quickly and easily' or 'immediately' - something which he admits at the end. The same author in the Amphitryon: 'It came to my mind like 1 2 3.' It is used by him in several other places.

[greek], To grope with the hand in the dark. This is what people are said to do who try to understand a matter by vague guessing. Aristophanes in the Peace: 'Previously we groped with our hands at this business as if in the dark. Now we shall be able to consider everything by the light of the lamp.' The poet has alluded to the trickery by which Hyperbolus, a 'lychnopole' or dealer in lamps, was made ruler. Plato uses the same proverbial saying in the Phaedo. And people say this nowadays about uncertain guesses: [greek].

Keeping off the flies is still said jokingly nowadays of someone who does an unnecessary and useless job. Aristophanes in the Wasps: 'Yes, he has a vigilant hand, even taking care [greek] "to drive away the flies." '

[greek], You're combing it out thinly. Suidas wrote that this used to be said of people who scrape a living like the poor. The metaphor appears to be derived from women carding wool. (Unless we prefer to read [greek], 'scrape'; for in the printed editions we find [greek], a word whose meaning is not apparent to me at all.) However, whether you read [greek] or [greek], it will refer either way to the carefulness of poor people about very small amounts, which the Greeks call [greek] 'pettiness' - so careful that they were said even to 'split cummin.' Moreover, in Latin too poor people are called tenues, and Terence said 'rather poorly' of a young man who is in love but has little money. Sometimes tenuis is applied to careful precision and fine distinctions, as in Horace's Satires: 'For these were subtle matters thoroughly discussed in subtle language.' Likewise in the Clouds Aristophanes used [greek] 'subtle speculation' and [greek] 'very slender arguments' and [greek] 'to talk subtleties,' when he was mocking the excessively careful and subtle conceits of philosophers. Seneca declared that Chrysippus' intellect was like this, in that he pricked a subject but did not penetrate it. Moreover, just as appropriate and correct analysis throws much light on language, so this indiscriminate cutting of things into what are more properly bits than organic parts sometimes means that, by seeking to understand too much, we understand nothing. Hence those who avoid this excessive refinement are said to speak 'roughly and broadly.' Ulpian, in book 15 of the Pandects, under the heading 'On Property,' in the section beginning Quam Tuberonis: 'One is certainly not obliged of necessity to know each and every detail, but to know it [greek] "roughly," and Pomponius inclines to this opinion.' The term seems to be composed from [greek] 'coarse' and [greek] 'division.' In the opposite sense, those who examine every detail however minute are said to talk in quibbles. Instead of [greek], Aristotle in book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics said: 'It would be pleasing therefore when discussing such subjects and arguing from them to state the truth [greek] "roughly and in a summary outline." , He is of the opinion that doubts about exceptions should be left out when dealing with an inexperienced hearer, and that one should speak of things as they commonly are or as they are considered by ordinary people. Again in book 2 of the same work: 'Any statement about moral actions must be made in rough, not precise terms.' In Greek authors we frequently find the expression 'so to speak,' when they feel that they are not expressing the matter exactly as it is, but that they are indicating it with a word or two, alluding to it rather than designating it.

[greek], A monkey covered with paint. Said of an old woman, ugly but painted and made up with a prostitute's enticements. [greek] is what the Greeks call the colouring with which once only prostitutes used to paint their faces and hide the defects of old age and features. Now, God help us, even respectable matrons do so. Aristophanes in the Women in Parliament:
Is a monkey painted with different colours?
Can an old woman return from deepest hell?
It can be adapted to an idea; for example, if someone dresses up an immoral argument with rhetorical trappings so that it seems honest. [greek] is 'to disguise with pretences and allurements,' whence [greek] 'aping.' Aristophanes in the Knights: 'O poor me! Would you get round me with these [greek] "monkey tricks"?'

In his 'Table-talk' Plutarch declares that in olden times certain nicknames were given, by way of a proverbial joke, to those who arrived at a banquet rather late and in leisurely fashion; they were sometimes called [greek] 'hinder-dinners,' sometimes [greek] 'dusk-diners,' sometimes [greek] 'dinner-chasers.' If we may guess at the explanation of these names, I think those who delayed their arrival were seen to be a hindrance, because others were kept waiting and could not dine; in the second case, by their slowness they caused the banquet to be prolonged until nightfall. The third nickname seems to be given by way of 'an antiphrasis.' It is said by someone in Plutarch however that Pittacus was called 'Zophorodorpis' by Alcaeus, not because he arrived late at the banquet but because he enjoyed sordid, low-class drinking-parties. In ancient times, however, it was considered unfashionable and uncivil for a guest to arrive late at a banquet. Hence Polycharmus, in the defence in which he gave account of his life to the Athenians, included this in his favour: 'In addition to these things, Athenians, I have never arrived late at a meal.' A reason for this view about arriving late for dinner was rather wittily revealed by Battus, a court jester, in the entourage of Augustus Caesar. He used to call those who came late to banquets 'Epithumodipnoi,' 'dinner-devotees' you might say, because, although they were occupied with business, they had a great desire for meals and would not decline any invitations they received. All this is in Plutarch. But Terence in the Self-Tormentor indicates that it was impolite to arrive punctually or too early at a banquet, when Chremes says his guests have been in his house for some time and that he is keeping them waiting, no doubt indicating the opposite was usually the case. In Aristophanes' Women in Parliament there are several allusions to this: 'I'm coming to the feast.' And in the same play: T shall sing some dinner-time song.'

Aristophanes in the Clouds: [greek] 'So anyone who finds such things amusing cannot enjoy what I do.' This has the air of a proverb which could be used when we want to indicate that there is a large difference between our thinking and that of others. The Greek line limps, being one syllable short; it will be complete if we read [greek] instead of [greek]. Maro has the opposite of this: 'Any one who does not hate Bavius could like your poems, Maevius.' About two poets who were of the same ilk and equally despicable.

[greek] was a proverbial reproach for knaves and villains. The term seems to have been used in former times of those who were in the habit of lurking about around altars and setting traps to snatch the victims, or who made sacrifices and prayed for a good return from making accusations against others. In the Icaromenippus of Lucian, Jupiter hears the prayers of this sort of mortal. Likewise [greek] is a term for those who, when a sacred rite is being performed, do not pray to the gods but gossip about trivialities - a habit which nowadays is indulged particularly by great personages who think it is perfectly good manners if, during a mass, they busily fill someone's ear with chatter. Aristophanes in the Clouds has 'And an altar scrounger.' And in the same play: 'If any one of them should act the altar-scrounger and ring some changes.' There is the suggestion of a proverb in 'ring some changes' too. The same author in the Knights: 'Now for some mountebank device, my soul' - meaning that his adversary has conceived some unusual villainy, which he calls [greek] as if it were extraordinarily flattering. The word is derived from [greek] 'altar' and [greek] 'a snare' - for even there, there are those who steal food or seek it by begging. From this sense it is transferred to those who use abject flattery to fill their stomachs, and so base flatteries are called [greek] and [greek]. Sometimes the term [greek] is used of soothsayers, seers, flute-players and the sort of people who follow the scent of altar smoke. Finally the use of the word spreads to all sorts of people who seek gain by dishonest tricks.

[greek], And first let the crested cock crow twice. (This will constitute a line of Greek verse if we read [greek] instead of [greek].) That is quite early, before daybreak. It is derived from the ancient custom of marking the end of night and the approach of day by the crowing of the cock, since time-keeping sundials had not yet been invented. The cock crows three times to announce the day. Pliny talks about this in book 10 chapter 21: 'And these night watchmen of ours, which Nature created to waken mortals to their work and to put an end to their sleep, know the stars and mark the time of day every three hours with their crowing. They go to sleep with the sun, and recall us to business and labour in the fourth watch, preventing sunrise from stealing up on us unprepared, announcing the approaching day with their call, and the call itself with the flapping of their wings.' All this is in Pliny. The reason why cocks do this is thought by Democritus, quoted by Marcus Tullius, to be that it serves their digestion, their food being propelled at that time from their craw and carried throughout the body. The poets allude to the fable that Lucian recalls in his Cockerel. I prefer the reason given by Ambrogio Leoni of Nola, a man whom I do not hesitate in truth to compare, for his researches on the mysteries of Nature, with any of the ancient philosophers. In his Quaestiones this writer gives it as his opinion that the cock's crowing arises from its exceptional lasciviousness. For this bird more than all others is devoted to its hens, and extraordinarily anxious to procreate as much as possible; so much so that one cockerel can rule a large number of hens, can satisfy such a crowd on his own as husband, and will fight with the utmost vigour for his hens and chicks. Moreover there is sufficient support for the idea that the cockerel's crowing is caused by the prospect of intercourse in the fact that before they are mature enough to mate with hens they are silent. Among the other birds likewise there are several that give voice during coitus or when they desire it, such as ducks, sparrows, swallows, and partridges. And indeed the call of the male among birds has such power to stimulate the desire for intercourse that some hens conceive eggs at the mere sound of it. Among these are the partridges. And so the cock, as his food spreads through his entrails and as he wakes up - at a time when bodies are stirred naturally to intercourse - he immediately thinks of his hens and stimulates them with the allurement of his song so that his offspring shall be the more plentiful. The reason for his repeated crowing is that the cock's sleep is intermittent and not at all continuous, especially as they reach mature age, and this, as you will understand also springs from lasciviousness. But to come back to the interpretation of the adage, the ancients set the beginning of the day immediately after the passing of midnight and call the following period gallicinium 'cock-crow,' because at that time cocks have a presentiment of daylight long in advance and begin to crow; the third hour was called conticinium 'quiet time,' since the cocks were silent and men slept at that time; the fourth hour was called diluculum 'break of day,' because daylight begins to appear. The fifth was called mane 'morning,' when the day is already bright and the sun risen. So the cock's second call precedes the rising of the sun by a long time. Hence Juvenal:
But what he does at the second cock-crow
The nearest shop-keeper will know before daylight.
Very similar is this in Aristophanes' Women in Parliament:
Not in the least.
Not even if you had been there at the time
When the cock had crowed a second time.
This expression occurs in the gospels.

A proverbial hyperbole [greek], He gave not even a head of garlic. Aristophanes in the Wasps: 'No one adds even a head of garlic to the stew.' Appropriate for one who is mean and parsimonious in the extreme.

'[greek], To ruminate the business, or chew the cud, is said of someone who turns a matter over in his mind, weighing it up again and again. The metaphor originates with animals who bring their food back into their mouths and chew it again, and then transfer it to another stomach. This occurs of course only in those that have two stomachs. Aristophanes in the Wasps: 'The case was scarcely known, when they had ruminated.' This is also called [greek]. Lucian too uses this adage somewhere.

'[greek] chew one's lips. Even nowadays someone is said to do this when he is irritated and angry in his mind. Taken from the action of those who are impatient. Aristophanes in the Wasps: 'Chewing his lips with anger.' The same in Homer too, Odyssey book 20: 'But they all held their lip with their teeth.'

[greek] was a word in ancient times for 'to defile.' Aristophanes in the Wasps: 'She who already pollutes her drinking companions.' The infamous vice, which is performed with the mouth, called fellatio, I think, or irrumatio, is said to have originated with the people of Lesbos, and among them it was first of all something which women had to perform. The scholiast cites as witness to this Theopompus in his Ulysses: 'Let me not speak aloud with my own lips of that ancient practice, that the vulgar prate about, which the Lesbians are said to have invented.' He also quotes the Troilus of Strattis: 'Do not ever, O son of Jove, come to this point, / Leave this to the Lesbians and let them bid farewell to it.' These appear to be two senarii, but somewhat corrupt. Aristophanes points to the same in the Women in Parliament: 'But you seem to me to be the lambda of Lesbians.' alluding to the ordinary letter lambda, which is the first letter of both 'Lesbians' and the obscene verb [greek] . This, if I am not mistaken, is Greek for what the Latins call 'performing fellatio.' The term remains of course, but I think the practice has been eliminated.

[greek], To have a fierce and warlike expression. This derives from the pyrriche, a dance that is performed by armed youths. Athenaeus testifies to it in the Doctors at Dinner book 14, where he explains that it represents an image of fighting, the drive and fierceness of those advancing and the haste of those retreating. And Aelius Spartianus in his Hadrian says, 'He often put on displays of military pyrriche dances for the people.' Tranquillus likewise recalls the pyrriche dances: 'The children of the princes of Asia and Bithynia performed Pyrrhic dances.' Julius Pollux, book 4 chapter 14, among several kinds of dance records the emmeleia of the tragedians, the cordax of the comedians, the sicinnis of the satirical drama, and the pyrriche and the telesia, which he calls enoplioi 'war dances,' because they were danced by armed men. He also indicates here that the xifismos was so called because it was performed with swords, and the podismos because they made their bodies spin with wonderfully fast steps. The same author also records other sorts of dance that represented war, the komos and the tetrakomos, which he says was sacred to Hercules. And another, called the Karike 'Carian,' which was also performed with weapons. In book 7 of the Laws Plato tells us that there were two principal types of dance, one warlike and frenzied, which was called the pyrriche, the other was more restrained, which was the emmeleia. He describes the pyrriche thus: 'You are right to call this the pyrriche, which imitates movements to avoid blows and missiles by the bending of bodies and every sort of pliancy, by crouching down and leaping up, and on the other hand the opposite actions to these, which train the body to movements designed to make it agile, which seek to represent images of fighting, first with the firing of bows and the hurling of spears, and then striking all sorts of blows. At the same time the uprightness and strength seen in all these representations of healthy bodies and minds, which do a great deal for the physical fitness of those who take part, is held to be right, and whatever spoils it wrong.' The scholiast of Homer's Iliad book 16 too recalls three kinds of dances, the pyrriche, the sicinnis (which is performed at sacred rites) and the cordax, which is not respectable and is suitable for lay people. The pyrriche was Cretan and was performed with weapons. Hence Homer, when he wants to signify a man who is nimble in warlike actions, calls him a dancer: [greek]. This sort of fighting is neatly described in a passage from Xenophon quoted by Athenaeus, book 1: 'First the Thracians got up and danced to the tibia and leapt in the air, very lightly and brandishing their swords. At the climax one struck another, so that he seemed to everyone to have landed the blow. The man struck pretended to fall, and everyone immediately cried out. Then the one who appeared to have struck the blow, having stripped the other of his arms, went off singing the Sitalcas, and the other Thracians carried off the fallen man as if he were dead, though he was not harmed at all.' Athenaeus also describes three other sorts of dance, if anyone would like to know about them. Finally Homer, in the Iliad book 16, calls a Cretan who is a vigorous fighter a 'dancer,' because of the pyrriche we have talked about which is familiar to the Thracians. The scholiast describes the three sorts of dance thus: the pyrriche is a war-dance, the sicinnis was suited to sacred rites, and the cordax was base and profane. Aristophanes in the Birds: 'The messenger / Runs up to us looking like one dancing the pyrriche.' Hence the name of the 'pyrrhic' measure, because it has the rhythm of soldiers rushing into battle, either from Pyrrhus the son of Achilles (which Pliny in book 7 chapter 56 seems to accept when he writes: 'The Curetes taught dancing with weapons, Pyrrhus taught the pyrriche, both in Crete'), or, as Athenaeus thinks, from a Spartan called Pyrrhichus (for there are some very warlike Spartans to whom this dance was special and they learned it as children right from the age of five; they called it [greek] and the dancers pyrrichistae), or it gets its name from its fiery vigour. Julius Pollux, in the passage that I have just quoted, says the pyrriche is the same as the telesia and that both men were judges of competitions of this sort. Indeed this expression too will look like an adage, if someone who is raging and burning with anger is said to be 'dancing the pyrriche.' Using a similar figure Timocles in Athenaeus book 6 says:
A man who hates speech, never contradicting
Anything, but speaking war in his ferocious mien.
The poets also say torva tuens 'looking daggers,' and the Greeks [greek] 'looking fierce.'

[greek], There's not a drop of olive oil in the bottle. Used of course when we want to say that prayers are useless with a pitiless man. It is found in Aristophanes' Birds. However, there is a play on the word, because [greek] means 'oil' and [greek] 'pity,' and I rather think one is derived from the other.

[greek], He is happier than someone who sloughs off old age. Of someone who is extremely happy and exulting in his enjoyment. Aristophanes in the Peace:
Indeed I am happy at having got rid of my shield; I rejoice, I fart,
I laugh more than someone who has cast off old age,
It is derived from snakes and grasshoppers, which periodically slough off old age and are, as it were, reborn.

[greek], But this is plainly the malady of an honest man. Suidas quotes this as more or less a proverb, and indeed it is to be found in Aristophanes' Wasps. It could be used when something is held to be shameful which ought rather to be considered praiseworthy. It is very close to this from Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis: 'You have upbraided me with an honourable reproach.' Or it can be used ironically of dreadful deeds and serious vices, which although they may be quite terrible, are yet less likely to cause scandal because great and respected men are afflicted with them. Who, for example, would not deplore theft? But adultery is far more detestable, yet princes almost congratulate themselves on it. To be envious, to slander, to seek to accumulate wealth, is far more heinous than to have a girl whom you take into your bed because of her fear of the dark, as St Jerome says. But the priest who does this is called a good-for-nothing and a cesspit, whilst those who are swollen with ambition, who waste away with avarice, who breathe the poison of envy on everyone, are considered wholesome and holy because, if you please, these are the maladies of good men.

'Not even a drop' remains even nowadays a very banal hyperbole for 'very little.' Aristophanes in the Acharnians: 'But give me one little drop of peace.' The same author in the Wasps had an expression of similar form: [greek] 'Not even a grain of sleep,' meaning 'Not even the least sleep.' For paspale is the Greek word for the smallest particle of copper or grain, as we have said before. Plautus in the Pseudolus: 'Not one drop of sound advice ready, / Let alone a silver coin.' These expressions, of course, are more pleasing if they are used figuratively of abstract things; for example, 'He has not a drop, or a crumb, or a single hair, of good sense.'

[greek] was a popular word used of those who stuttered and whose tongue was hesitant and hampered, something the Greeks call [greek]. Marcus Tullius in the Letters to Atticus book 6: 'I infer from the [greek] "stuttering" of my wife's freedman .. .' This defect arises from an excess of humours, according to Hippocrates, and Galen confirms this in his sixth Commentary. Hence it often occurs in children and in intoxicated people; although he says there are other causes, pointing out that it happens most frequently with the letters t and r, which are pronounced as tl, so that they proclaim their own defect painfully, [greek] 'stuttering.' The question of children and why they stutter more than adults, is examined by Aristotle in problem 30 of section 11. The philosopher distinguishes there between 'lisping,' 'defective speech,' and 'stammering.' Traulosis 'lisping' he defines as when someone cannot pronounce a letter, not any letter but some particular one (this is what Theodorus renders as blesitas); 'defective speech' is when some letter or syllable is omitted, as when people say [greek] for [greek] (this Theodorus renders as balbuties); and 'stammering' when people are unable to link one syllable to another smoothly as they speak (which Theodorus renders as linguae hesitantia 'being tonguetied'). These defects occur more frequently, as we have said, in children, old people and the intoxicated, so that Flaccus talks of 'stammering old age.' The cause, Aristotle thinks, is a physical weakness that cannot be brought under the control of the mind. Yet Tullius seems to take [greek] to mean almost 'chatter.' In this way it can be applied to those who babble trifles, and so [greek] is a word for triviality, a word borrowed from the name Battus, a certain Theban who had a weak voice and barely articulate speech. The Pythian priestess said to him, 'Battus, you have come to ask for a voice.' Hesychius recounts this, adding that some take the word to be an onomatopoeia, like [greek] 'din' and many others. They also use the term [greek] 'verbosity' from Battus a certain poet who was in the habit of padding out his poems with repetitions. Suidas recalls both of them. But this adds nothing to what Cicero means. It seems to me rather that he said [greek] for 'to act deceitfully,' because among the Cyrenians the fox is called [greek], as Herodotus testifies, just as Latin speakers also say vulpinari 'to play the fox.' Battarus was the leader of a colony sent to Cyrene. We have talked about psellismus elsewhere.

In the Two Captives Plautus used a proverbial hyperbole: 'The old man could get dripping from it,' meaning enormous riches. However the passage seems to be corrupt. The measure of the trochaic line tells us we should read opimae 'fertile,' 'rich,' not optimae 'best.' This is Plautus' line as it appears in the printed editions:
Quid divitiae, suntne optimae? Unde excoquat sevum senex.
How about his property? Pretty fat one, eh?
Old Goldfields could get dripping from it.
Sevum, or as others have it sebum, is the harder fat of animals, which the Greeks call [greek] 'stear.'

'To shake the yoke' is to bear the obligation of service improperly. A figure derived from oxen insufficiently trained to the yoke. Juvenal: 'They have learned under the schooling of life not to fret against the yoke.' Rather like 'You are kicking against the goad.' The misfortune that you bear too impatiently is doubled, but diminished by tranquillity of mind. As Plautus says: 'In an evil pass it helps if you face it with courage.'

Like oil merchants in the Velabrum. A proverbial comparison for people who have conspired and carry on a business by collusion. Plautus in the [greek] Captives: 'It's the same story. They collude to do all their business, like the oil merchants in the Velabrum.' Varro tells us that the Velabrum was the place in Rome where the oil merchants put up their oil for sale. It is the custom of this class of individuals to collude among themselves about the price and so to sell at a higher price.

The same author in the same play talks of parasites as 'men belonging on the lowest bench,' because they were admitted to feasts provided they sat in the lowest places. He says: 'Not a bit of use have they nowadays for Spartans, men of the lowest bench.' And in his Stichus the parasite comes on saying, 'I do not demand to be seated on the highest couch. You know that for some time I have been a man of the lowest bench.' Horace too says: 'And a mocker of the lowest couch,' meaning a jester. It will be appropriate for the humble sort of guests whom these wealthy people never invite except to the lowest places.
The figure will be wittier if it is extended further, for example to those who are of the lowest rank among nobles at court or the last among scholars, those whom we might call lower class, the bottom class, and those of lowest quality. The last of these expressions seems to derive from merchandise having a label attached that shows the maximum price; the first comes from the ancient Romans' census. For those who belonged to the first class possessed one hundred and twenty thousand asses in bronze, and these alone were known as classici - all the rest, for there were several classes, were said to be infra classem 'lower class.' The authority for this is Aulus Gellius book 7 chapter 13. However, some versions of the text have xxv instead of xx, and Titus Livy says 'one hundred thousand asses in bronze.'

Festus Pompeius shows that the poets used this word manticulari for 'to deceive,' or 'to act slyly,' and he quotes Pacuvius as saying: 'Adroitly he moves closer to rifle the wallet.' It is derived from manticulae, the 'wallets' that thieves run their fingers over in order, of course, to steal from them. As for myself, I am inclined to think the metaphor is derived from the fact that people who wish to dissemble at feasts cover their faces with their napkins as if wiping their mouths. As Horace says in his Satires: 'Using a napkin to stifle laughter.' Plautus too in the Two Captives uses mantellum for a cloak and hiding place by which a piece of trickery could be covered:
There is no cloak anywhere for my crafty lies.
No cloak is ready at hand for my flatteries and deceits.
For my part I rather think this figure is what we have in Origen's fifth Homily on Ezekiel: 'He says to his neighbour "God forgives us our sins." For even in these sacraments we make a joke, promising each other in turn "God will provide a napkin," ' that is, He will cover our infamies by placing a napkin over them. But since I do not have access to the Greek manuscript, it would be better to play the sceptic on this point. Let the scholars who do have access to it examine this passage now I have called their attention to it. Tertullian uses the same expression in his book Against the Valentinians: 'But with the drop of a napkin, as they say.'

A proverbial figure used by Plautus in the Bacchis Sisters:
But isn't this Theotimus a rich man? - How can you ask?
The soles of his sandals are fastened with gold.
Said of an exceptionally rich person who has such an immense quantity of gold that he wears it on his feet. He used the word solum 'sole' for the bottom of the sandals, or at least for the flooring.

'[greek], At the altars. This is contained in the Collected Proverbs that are ascribed to Plutarch in the title, but without explanation. For my part I think it means much the same as if one says 'once the business is actually in hand,' as in the proverb we have quoted elsewhere in which we are forbidden to have discussions at the altar.

[greek], The Laura at Samos. A saying commonly directed against those given to shameful pleasures. The Laura at Samos was a narrow street in which the luxuries of eating houses and cabarets were sold by prostitutes trained for this purpose. This adage too is extant in the commentaries attributed to Plutarch, and Athenaeus repeats it from Clearchus in book 12 adding that it was introduced by Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, and that he planned this corruption of the city on the model of the Elbow at Sardis, which was proverbially called the Sweet Elbow according to Plato.

[greek], A Taenarian bane. If some exceptionally cruel punishment was inflicted on slaves it was called a Taenarian bane, because in former times the Spartans put to death recaptured slaves who had fled to Taenarus. In this case Taenarus is a city of Laconia, whose inhabitants are called Taenaritae, and a headland of that country with a cave that is an entrance to the underworld.

'[greek], Lesbian Prylis. In the Collected Proverbs Plutarch, if the title is not wrong, informs us that this proverbial expression is derived from an allegorical figure. Prylis was the son of Mercury and skilled in divination. However [greek] means in Greek a foot soldier.

This adage is recorded in an amputated form and it is not completely clear what it means. It is recorded by Cicero in book 2 of The Making of an Orator thus: In this class are included proverbs like the one used by Scipio, when Asellus boasted that he had visited every province while he was a soldier: "You can drive the ass, etc." That is all Tully says, and I do not want to repeat what Omniboni proposes here, though he is otherwise a good commentator. However it seemed proper to put this adage on the table so that I could at all events offer scholars an occasion for research. Perhaps the reading should be agaso asellum 'A stable boy for an ass,' for the ancient Romans elided vowels, like the Greeks, even in writing. Then the meaning would be that each man does the things that are appropriate to him: prodigals get drunk, the glutton eats himself to ruin, the soldier fights, the pimp commits perjury, the lawyer tells lies. This word agaso became a proverbial term of contempt, which is more humorous in Greek because of the nature of the language. For the Dorians call an ass not ovos like the others but [greek], and a stable-boy not [greek] but [greek], as Pollux affirms in the Vocabulary book 7. Relevant to this perhaps is what Flaccus wrote in his epistle 19 to Lollius: 'In the end / He will become a gladiator, or the hired driver of a greengrocer's nag.

[greek], A long-haired Samian. This was said of someone, considered naive at first, who conducted himself in an affair more cleverly than expected. It is said that some boxer in Samos was treated as a joke by his opponents because he had long hair, but he won his bouts when matched with them. Hence the expression became proverbial whenever anyone undertakes to compete with people who turn out to be stronger than expected. Not unlike Sulla's warning: 'Beware the ill girt boy.' The adage is included in the Collected Proverbs of Plutarch.

[greek], I maintain no servant, / Unless he fought to save his flesh / In the sea battle. That is: I accept no servant unless he is proved by a lot of serious tests.' This verse is in Aristophanes' Frogs, and is quoted by me elsewhere. The commentators point out that there are two readings, 'for his flesh' and 'for the bodies.' 'For his flesh' is taken to mean 'for his life,' 'flesh' being used for the body, and when slaves fight, since they have no possessions, they are struggling only for their life. Those who read 'bodies' adduce this story. In the naval battle that took place at Arginusae the Athenians were the victors; they ordered that the bodies of the dead should not be taken away, and there was a quarrel over this. In this battle we read that the slaves acted so zealously that they were given their freedom. The proverb is recorded in the Collected Proverbs of Plutarch.

[greek], A third head and For a third brain. Said of porters who carry their loads not only on their shoulders but on their head. Recorded in the same Collected Proverbs that I have just mentioned. It could be fittingly adapted to men torn this way and that by diverse affairs.

'[greek], You seem to want to sell yourself like a Corinthian woman. Against a woman behaving wantonly at an unsuitable age. We have spoken elsewhere of the women prostitutes at Corinth. [greek] is a neologism, which I take to mean 'to sell one's body for money,' since [greek] means a woman's sex. This adage too is recorded in the same Collected Proverbs.

[greek], A Cyrnian disaster. Used of great losses and plunderings. The island of Cyrnus is off the coast of Apulia, and its inhabitants are believed to be long-lived because of the honey that they eat commonly (they are neighbours of the island of Sardinia) of which there is a great supply there, according to Stephanus. This island was formerly inaccessible to sailors because of the robbers and pirates that frequented the waters around it. Hence the popular proverb. In book 4 chapter 12 Pliny speaks of Cyrnus but as distinct from Corsica, though Strabo tells us Cyrnus is the place that the Romans call Corsica, a sparsely populated island because of the roughness of the terrain and inaccessibility of much of the area, but particularly because the people who control the mountains and live by robbery are more savage than the very beasts. If on occasion some of them were captured by Roman commanders and taken to Rome, it was a source of wonder how wild and bestial their behaviour was. For they either killed themselves or, if they lived, they so exhausted their masters with their sullenness and stupidity that, however little the latter had paid for them, they still regretted the purchase. This was Corsica in former times; now it supplies the pleasureseekers of Rome with the most highly praised wines. So it was because of the barbarity of the robber bands and the wildness of the people that the saying 'A Cyrnian disaster' arose, just like 'A Cilician ending,' which we have noted elsewhere. We mentioned this present adage earlier in 'A land like Cyrnus.'

[greek], Pillage at the Cotytia. The Cotytia was a festival of the Sicilians in which traditionally little cakes and the fruits of trees were bound up with twigs and these bundles were offered up and torn apart. The expression is recorded in the Collected Proverbs of Plutarch without explanation. However it is easily seen that it would be said of good things heedlessly squandered and pillaged.

[greek], What comes from the old city, 'of Tyre' being understood. This amounts to exactly the same as saying the greatest trouble and the worst evil. Tyre, which was called the 'Old' (the words are put together in the form Palaityros), was cruelly treated by Alexander when he captured it and joined the island to the mainland by creating a dyke. He inflicted many penalties on it, giving rise to the proverb 'What comes from the old city,' meaning wrongs as numerous as those suffered by ancient Tyre. It is recorded in the Proverbs of Plutarch and in Zenodotus. The story is to be found in Quintus Curtius.

[greek], Three-headed Mercury. Seems to have been said about people whose nature or intention is uncertain or who are extremely cunning. Mercury was represented thus in ancient times either because of the great power of the spoken word or because this same god is the one who indicates the road to take. So on each head he had an inscription showing where this or that road would lead. According to Philochorus, the first to portray this sort of Mercury was Proclides.

[greek], A danake. This was the name of the small copper coin that was the fare paid to Charon for transport across the Stygian marsh; Lucian recalls it in his Charon and Apuleius in the tale of Psyche. It is recorded in the Collected Proverbs of Plutarch but the use is not indicated. I think it is used correctly when an old person is told to get his danake ready, signifying that it is time for him to leave this life. Or, if someone has left absolutely nothing, that not a danake remained to him. Juvenal has an expression with this meaning in his third Satire, though he calls the coin a triens: 'The unhappy man has no hope of a ferry to cross the murky flood, no copper in his mouth to tender.'

[greek], You were standing like Bagas. Said of someone dull and speechless. Bagas was like someone struck dumb - dull and insipid. He is mentioned in the Collected Proverbs of Plutarch. I think the name should be Bagoas rather than Bagas; Bagoas was a eunuch and this sort is fearful and cowardly.

[greek], You're teaching a crab to walk forwards. Of someone who teaches the unteachable. It is recorded in the same Collected Proverbs. Very similar to, or rather the same as, the one I noted not far back from Aristophanes in the proverb, 'You'll never make crabs walk forwards.' It belongs to the class of [greek] 'impossibles': 'You are washing an Ethiopian,' etc. For this animal walks only with its body turned sideways and moves thus in all directions. It is thought that it is called [greek] from [greek] 'by moving the head.' It is said to give birth through the head.

[greek], You are emptying out the sea. Said of someone who attempts what cannot be done. For mountains can be penetrated by some means or other, but the sea cannot be emptied.

Curtius declares in book 7 that a proverb commonly used by the Bactrians went something like this: 'A nervous dog barks more violently than he bites.' It is the role of a Thraso to hurl exaggerated threats of calamities but a Chremes is quicker to get something done. History records too that the Athenians were more adept at speaking eloquently than at acting energetically. Ajax was not a ready speaker nor Ulysses a ready fighter. And the Spartans were very sparing of words but outstanding in courage. In Homer the Greeks go into battle silently but breathing fury, whilst the barbarians rush forward with a frightful noise. And finally women wage war with their tongues better than men. Quintus Curtius adds in the same passage an allegorical figure similar to this: "The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.'