Adagia 3301–3400

[greek], Desperation of the Phocians, or [greek], Phocian desperation. Stephanus tells us that this was customarily said of stupid and irrational plans. From Plutarch of Chaeronea, however, we can conclude that it was usually said when people resorted to extreme measures in a desperate situation. The expression arose from the following circumstances. Between the Thessalians and the Phocians there was fierce hatred and irreconcilable enmity, and, to use Plutarch's words, [greek] 'A truceless war.' The Phocians had slaughtered on the same day every single leading man in the cities of Thessalia, while the Thessalians in turn had crucified 250 Phocian hostages. The Thessalians then gathered together all their forces and invaded Phocis by way of Locris, having issued a decree that no mature male was to be spared and that the women and children were to be taken off into slavery. Accordingly, Daiphantus, one of the three leaders of the Phocians, proposed that the Phocian men should go to meet the Thessalians to join battle with them, but that all the women and children in Phocis should be assembled and sequestered in one place under guard. A huge supply of wood should be heaped up around the location and the guards were to be instructed to set fire to it and burn to death the women and children immediately they learned that the Phocians had been defeated in battle. All agreed with this proposal except for one man who rose to his feet and said that this action was not right unless the women voted and approved it as well. If they disapproved, they should not be compelled to follow it. And so when the women learned of the proposal, they themselves met together in council. They praised Daiphantus for having considered the interests of Phocis in the best possible way and said that both the wives and their children agreed with the proposal. When this procedure was over, the Phocians joined battle with the Thessalians and emerged victorious. The Greeks called that decree 'madness of the Phocians.' The reason was that even though the situation had a happy ending they thought the decree extremely rash and very unwise. This is very much what Plutarch tells us. Pausanias gives a fairly similar account in his 'Phocis.' He also mentions this proverb, which he says is applied, because of this event, to 'all ruthless proposals.' Stephanus also mentions it, pointing out that it was customarily said of 'those who make ruthless proposals.'

Pliny in book six of his Letters said Suspensa man 'With a limp hand' in the sense of 'lightly' or 'very half-heartedly.' He writes, 'You ought not to commend to me with a limp hand those whom you think need to be assisted.' For the expression has more appeal if one transfers the sense from the physical to the mental. In Declamation 12 Quintilian uses levi manu 'with a light hand' in the same sense as if it were a proverb, while Cicero uses levi bracchio 'with a light arm,' about which I have spoken elsewhere. We also say suspenso pede 'on tiptoe' in the sense of 'gently and quietly.' Ammianus in book fourteen: 'They threw themselves into the skiffs suspensis passibus "quietly."'

In antiquity when children raced each other they often used to shout, 'The last one's a scab,' using these words to encourage every one to run fast and putting a curse on who was last. This became an adage used by those who indicated that they wanted to prevail by any means and would not allow themselves to be among the last. Accordingly, those who increase their wealth by fair means or foul so that they will not fail to be among the elite, those who by deceitful practices rise to the position of magistrates, and those who hunt unscrupulously for highly paid offices in the church can say to someone who urges them to behave differently, 'The last one's a scab.' And yet nothing prevents us from applying it differently in a good sense. Whoever strives with all his might not to be surpassed by his contemporaries in erudition or by a friend in kindnesses and the duties of friendship may say, 'The last one's a scab.' We credit this proverb, therefore, to children, as also [greek] 'Seek a wife of your own sort,' and this one in the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 11, 'We piped for you and you did not dance.' Horace used it in his Art of Poetry: 'The last one's a scab; it is a disgrace for me to be left behind.' Acron points out the origin.

It seems to be a common joke for thieves to be called [greek] 'Daysleepers,' because they sleep during the day and are awake in the night. So Hesiod in Works and Days: 'Let not him who is a [greek] "a sleeper by day" remove your goods.' It will be apt to apply it to a pilferer and a thief. There is also a fish of the same name, as Suidas points out - a phoca, I think.

The following words of Hesiod will suit those who have the greatest power to harm or help: [greek] 'For in them [Zeus and Poseidon] lies the supreme power of good and evil.' What was said by the poet about the gods we can apply also to a human being who has supreme authority or to something that is of very great importance. For example, to a prince or to something that is very highly-regarded, such as money if we wish to be facetious or literature and virtues if we are serious.

In fact I think what is in the same work, [greek] 'Do not entrust all your possessions to curved ships all at once,' should be regarded as a proverb if it is used in a figurative way. Do not attempt anything that will endanger everything. For you must not gamble all that you have on one throw. Sea commerce is dangerous; for a shipwreck carries off everything. It is safer to trade on land. We have reported elsewhere the saying of a Spartan, who said he did not like wealth that depended on the sheets of a ship.

This verse is used now and then in a proverbial sense by Plutarch, [greek] 'She burns him up without a firebrand and consigns him to old age.' This is said of course of a shameless wife who by her behaviour makes her husband prematurely old. The expression will have charm if one applies it to avarice, ambition, envy, shameful lust, and similar moral flaws to which humans are exposed and which torture them and cause them to waste away.

Whenever we mean that there is still hope and that time, which usually brings an opportunity for better fortune, still remains, those words of Theocritus from the Graces will be appropriate: [greek] 'The heavens are not yet weary and have not ceased to roll round the months and years.'
For what one year denies us the next confers of its own accord.

What follows next is a proverbial expression and is related in sense: [greek] 'There is many a horse that will move the wheel and make it turn.' In other words, there is still a lot of time remaining and many changes in circumstances will occur. This adage is commonly spoken even today in our own time. The interpretation of some that it relates to the Olympic games is quite unappealing. The poet is not dealing with these in this context, in a pastoral poem.

What is said in the same eclogue, is also proverbial: [greek] e 'No longer will there be even the name of war and discord.' Similarly Paul to the Ephesians: 'Let not fornication or indecency of any kind or greed be even named among you.' But why? Is it such a crime to say the words 'greed' or 'lust'? I do not think so, but the Apostle used a proverbial hyperbole to denounce strongly these vices. For both Judas and Pilate are named by the devout.

Among the adages that we use to signify a reversal of nature or what is impossible we should count too what appears in Theocritus in the Thyrsis: [greek] 'The stag drags off the hounds.' For it is a reversal of nature for a stag to hunt hounds. This is how the Theocritean verse runs: [greek] 'Now that Daphnis is dying, may the stag drag off the hounds.' Similarly, Virgil in the Pharmaceutria: 'Now may the wolf flee from the sheep.'

Also what immediately follows:[greek] 'And may the mountain owl sing to the nightingales.' When an inarticulate person tries to persuade someone who is eloquent, or an ignorant person tries to instruct someone who is very learned.

The eclogue entitled the Swineherds is full of proverbial expressions and figures. The first of these is [greek]; 'And when had that fellow ever laid eyes on oil?' This will suit those who are very ignorant of some profession or unskilled in it. For example, if anyone were to claim knowledge of medicine when he has never learned anything of that art, this verse will be a witty criticism of him. Athletes were smeared with olive-oil so that their limbs would be stronger. Because of this the contest itself is signified by the word 'oil.' The scholia, however, state that some take 'oil' to refer to the tree, since competitors in the Olympic games were awarded wreaths of olive or oleaster.

Also what follows in the same poem, [greek] 'And my mother said that I was better than Pollux.' When anyone is ranked higher than or reckoned equal to those with whom he in no way ought to be compared. For mothers are blinded by love for their sons and think that they are extremely handsome when they are ugly, and extremely brave when they are very cowardly. Pollux is believed to have been the best boxer, as Horace attests: 'Castor takes delight in horses, the other one born from the same egg takes delight in boxing.'

Again in the same poem: [greek] 'Milo, next persuade even wolves to go mad.' When someone turns his mind to doing something very foolish, which he would not attempt unless he were mad. For wolves are mad by their very nature. It is as if someone were to goad on a tyrant to be cruel when he has the natural disposition for excessive violence. Rabies is a characteristic of dogs. Accordingly, the scholiast of Theocritus thinks that these words are offered as a reversal of nature. But dogs are mad only sometimes, wolves are always rabid.

What is said of a skinny calf in the same Idyll will suit perfectly a person who is extremely thin: [greek] 'Does it live on dew like the cicada?' For in Doric the word for dew is [greek] because it falls [greek] 'in the morning.' In addition Pliny attests, in book eleven, chapter twenty-six, that cicadas feed on dew: 'They do not have a mouth, but on their breast, which is porous, they have a sharp needle like our tongues. They lick up the dew with this. When they are disturbed and fly off, they give off moisture, the only proof that they feed on dew. For they have no orifice to excrete the body's waste.' So also Virgil: 'As long as the bees will feed on thyme and the cicadas on dew.' The proverb will be more wittily used if applied to intellect or to a style of writing that is very spare and dry, or in irony to a person who is excessively fat.

When we tell someone to confine himself to his own place and not to come into ours, the words from the same author's the Wayfarers will be very fitting: [greek] 'Why don't you walk on your own land and keep to your own oak trees?' It will be suitable when we do not trust someone very much and do not want to allow him to frequent our house.

To signify a comparison of things that are in no way equal the words from the same poem will be effective: 'It is foolish to compare a kynosbatos or an anemone / With roses.' Kynosbatos means 'dog's-bramble' in Greek. It is a kind of bush, but produces a rose that is extremely unattractive and has a most unpleasant smell. Dioscorides seems to make the anemone a kind of poppy.

[greek], So that you may not cast the evil eye on me. Customarily said when someone has received something pleasant and shares part of it with those present to avoid annoying others by enjoying it alone. Aristotle explains this in item 34 of Problem 20. When someone was taking something from the common table for himself alone, he would share it with anyone who saw him, saying, 'So that you may not cast the evil eye on me.' In addition, before eating they would eat rue to protect them against the evil eye. For at that time people used to fear its harmful power whenever they ate too greedily, or when they were gripped with fearful anticipation of some misfortune, or when they were suspicious of the food they were eating. As a result of this they were always extremely anxious when they ate or drank, and gulped in air at the same time. If this was expelled, food came out with it; if the air was retained, it caused colic. Therefore rue was eaten first and this warmed the stomach and the rest of the body so that the trapped air could be dispersed and be got rid of. Because of this, 'there's need of rue' has also a proverbial ring about it, signifying that there is danger of some harm, as we have said elsewhere about hazelwort and celery.

Just as the words of Virgil, 'All fields do not produce all things,' will be a proverb if it is used metaphorically of different talents or to mean that we should not seek just anything from just anyone, so the words of Theocritus in the Cyclops, 'Some flowers bloom in summer, some in winter grow,' will have the force of a proverb when we want to say that a young man and an old man should engage in different activities, and that we should not behave in the same way at different times. Virgil beautifully describes in the Georgics what is produced by each kind of soil, as does Hermippus, quoted in Athenaeus book one.

What is in the same poet's Thyonichus also has the appearance of a proverb: [greek] 'We should be active while our knees are fresh.' We ought to study literature when our minds are still sharp. We should take a wife, but do so when we are young. Similarly, Horace:
And while our knees are fresh
And while it is appropriate, let us smooth out the furrowed brow of old age.
And yet the figure genu viret 'green-kneed' is itself proverbial when-
ever we use it to mean 'youthful.'

We can indicate average quality in this way: [greek] 'Neither worst nor first.' It will be quite witty if used to praise someone's abilities. For in Theocritus in Thyonichus it is said of a soldier who speaks of himself in modest terms.

Those words from the Women of Syracuse will suit those who are inquisitive and try to find out what everyone is doing in his own home: [greek] 'Women know everything, even how Jupiter once married Juno.' The scholiast of Theocritus thinks that this is a reference to the secret marriage of Jupiter and Juno, as described by Homer: 'They went to bed without the knowledge of either parent. He adds the story told by someone called Aristotle in a work that he wrote about the temple of Hermione. When Jupiter was plotting against his sister's virginity and saw by chance that she had been separated from the other gods (for it is not safe even for young female goddesses to stroll about on their own), he turned himself into a cuckoo and took up position on a mountain, now called Coccyx, but previously Thronax. On that day Jupiter stirred up a great storm. And so it happened that Juno, who was all on her own, came to the mountain and sat down in that very spot where there is now the temple of Juno Telia (that is, Juno Allpowerful). The cuckoo, unkempt and shivering because of the storm, flew down and perched on Juno's knees. Juno took pity on it and covered it with her clothes. Thereupon the King of the Gods suddenly abandoned the form of the cuckoo and became himself again and embraced Juno. When she refused to have intercourse out of fear of her mother, Jupiter promised that he would marry her. This is thought to be the origin of the proverb. The scholiast adds that a statue of Juno had been placed in the temple, depicting her as sitting on a throne, holding in her right hand a sceptre, on the tip of which sat a cuckoo. For my part, I can scarcely believe that this story is to be found in the ancient writers. Rather, I suspect that it has been concocted by some idle schoolteacher, so much does it smack of an old wife's tale. What Plautus writes in the Three-shilling Day is very similar to this:
They knew what the king of the gods whispered to the queen,
They know what Juno said to Jupiter;
What won't happen or hasn't happened - they still know it.

In the same eclogue, [greek] 'Give orders to those you have fed.' The women say these words in reply to someone who upbraids them for being too talkative and tells them to be silent. The proverb will suit an occasion when someone keeps issuing orders to those whom he has no right to treat in such a way.

What is written in Seneca's humorous bagatelle has the appearance of a proverb. 'He realized,' he says, 'that no one had been his equal in Rome but that he did not have the same popularity there. A cock has most power on its own dunghill.' Seneca is referring to the emperor Claudius, born in Lyon. Today it is commonly said of a dog that 'it dares the most on its own dunghill.' We are all somewhat timid in someone else's domain; all of us are fiercer and braver in our own.

Those who worked at something with great but futile effort were said to be digging through the Isthmus. Taken from the Isthmus of Corinth, the existence of which forced ships to circumnavigate the peninsula, close to the shore, in a long and dangerous voyage. Because of this several persons undertook to dig across it at its narrowest point: 'King Demetrius, the dictator Caesar, the emperor Gaius, Domitius Nero - an ill-omened enterprise, as is clear from how all of them died.' The source is Pliny chapter four of book four. Tranquillus informs us that the same deed was attempted by Caligula. Philostratus in the Life of Apollonius says that it was not the difficulty of the enterprise that forced Nero to give it up, but rather the fear that bringing the sea onto the Isthmus might portend the destruction of Aegina or the beginning of revolution in the Roman empire. For Egyptian prophets had foretold this. In fact, the very early writer Herodotus also tells us in the first book of his History that the Cnidians began to dig through their isthmus at its narrowest point, five stades in length, to create an island. When the rocks were struck, however, the fragments leapt back into the eyes of the diggers. The Delphic Apollo was consulted and gave the following reply in trimeters:
Gird not the Isthmus with walls nor through it dig.
For in the brine would Jove have placed it if that was his desire.
Finally, Nicanor Seleucus began work on the isthmus that separates the Black and Caspian Seas, but did not complete the project, because of his death at the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunus.

In antiquity persons of humble means used salt as relish, just as nowadays some use vinegar. This custom also resulted in a proverb even if it is not quite clear what the proverb was. But it may be better to append the words of Pliny himself on this subject, from book thirty-one, chapter seven. 'Varro,' he says, 'is our source for telling us that the ancients used salt as a relish. For they were accustomed to eat salt with bread and cheese, as is apparent in a proverb.' Persius in his fifth Satire:
Swear falsely. 'But Jupiter will hear.' Alas,
Varus, if you want to live in accordance with Jupiter's wishes, you'll go on,
As now, content to scrape out the salt cellar with your finger,
Even when you have already licked it again and again.
In other words, you will live a life of great poverty.

A humorous proverb was directed at persons who were boastful and excessively swollen with pride; they were said [greek] 'To act like Sellus.' Suidas tells us that it was taken from the habits of someone called Sellus who strove to be thought of as rich although he was of very poor means. It can be applied also to those who boast of their learning and use their reputation to promote themselves even though they are strangers to literature. Hesychius points out that in Greek [greek] means the same as [greek] 'to stutter.' Plato uses this word once or twice in the Gorgias. And a person who pronounces 's' indistinctly is called a [greek]. We touched on this to some extent in the proverb '[greek] 'The girl who stammers doesn't b-b-believe.' Hesychius adds that sometimes [greek] is the same as [greek] 'to boast,' clearly agreeing with Suidas.

[greek], Like Cecides and the Buphonia. Of something extremely ancient that, because of its antiquity, has long since fallen into disuse and been cast aside. Aristophanes in the Clouds: 'These are ancient things, to be sure, and hoary, and filled with cicadas, with things like Cecides and the Buphonia.' For Cecides was a very early dithyrambic poet, whose writings smelled of mould, so to speak; because of this, his poetry became the butt of popular humour. So today we laugh with justification at those who have an excessive and inappropriate fondness for archaisms and use diction from the Twelve Tables, Ennius and Lucilius, 'as if they are speaking with Evander's mother.' They think nothing is elegant unless it is far removed from popular and contemporary use. Similarly, the Buphonia, given this name because of the slaughter of an ox, was an Athenian festival that had been neglected and abandoned because of its antiquity. We see that such festivals still endure in Italy, especially in Rome, called Bull-games, even now still clearly bearing the traces of ancient madness. The adage can be used in a humorous way to point out that something is neglected just because it is thought to be extremely ancient. For example, some popes, bishops and priests regard as old-fashioned what the gospels teach us about poverty, about the need to accept injury without retaliation, and about the insignificance of this earthly life; or they have the same attitude to what the early popes decreed about simony, about bribery having no place in choosing bishops, and about the removal from office of wicked men. If you want to impugn such persons, you will be able to say, 'Such teaching and decrees are treated by them like Cecides and the Buphonia!'

What Plutarch says in 'On Distinguishing a Flatterer from a Friend' has the appearance of a proverb as much as an egg is an egg: [greek] 'He brings clouds to a clear sky.' About the person who in the midst of merriment and gaiety dispenses poison that spoils the happy atmosphere and prompts others to frown and scowl. In the same way Horace in book three, ode fifteen, says of an ugly old woman who joined a group of young girls, that 'she casts a cloud over shining stars.'

In antiquity a humorous proverb was applied to persons who were extremely thin, feeble, and pallid: [greek] 'Mere outlines.' Lucilius: 'A man scarcely alive and a mere outline.' Again the same poet elsewhere: 'Such is the piety of a mere outline.' Nonius Marcellus says that it was taken from a picture that is fashioned from a shadow before it is filled in with colours. Marcellus is certainly not wrong, but the adage will have more charm if we think of ancient painting. All agree that this initially started with the tracing round of a person's shadow, a process called delineation. When painters began to use one colour, such paintings were called [greek] 'one-colour paintings.' Soon the art developed and the use of light and shade was discovered, so that some things seemed to stand out, while others were hidden and concealed through the difference in colours. Then brightness was added, by which is meant something other than light, but something midway between light and shade. This is why they call this tonos 'contrast.' For to the joining together and gradations of colours they give the name [greek] 'attunement.' Such for the most part is what Pliny says in book thirty-five, chapter five. The expression will suit, then, an unsightly person whose face either has no colour at all or is all the same colour, like the representations of the ancients. Marcus Tullius in book two of On the Nature of the Gods: For they [the gods] are not held together by veins and sinews and bones. Nor do they feed on food or drink so as to contract too sharp or too sluggish a condition of the humours. Nor do they have bodies such as to make them fear either a fall or blow or make them frightened of illness because of physical exhaustion. It was through fear of such dangers that Epicurus invented the notion of the gods as being insubstantial (monogrammoi) and inactive. They are endowed, however, with the most beautiful form, and live in the purest region of the heavens, moving around and controlling their courses in such a way that they seem to have conspired to save and preserve everything. Cicero calls those who have no form and no appearance monogrammoi.

[greek], He is a doctor to others, but covered in sores himself. These words of some poet, reported by Plutarch in his essay 'On Distinguishing a Flatterer from a Friend' remain very popular even in our times. He also uses it in the essay entitled 'Against Colotes.' It will suit those who are wise in other persons' affairs, but not in their own, who are observant and careful for others, but not for themselves. They know how to console others, but they themselves do not bear their own misfortunes with equanimity. Christ used it in the same sense in the Gospel according to Luke. When the Jews marvelled at his deeds and words and said, 'Is not this the son of Joseph?' he replied in this way: 'Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Physician, heal yourself."' 'What we have heard you did in Capernaum, do here also in your own country.'

It will be witty to say that those who live very frugally and poorly 'Live on charlock.' The soldiers of Caesar took turns in taunting him in verse that they had lived on charlock at Dyrrachium, and it is generally agreed that this jest gave rise to a popular expression. Lapsana is a vegetable that grows wild and is very common, growing everywhere. It has three leaves, and is of the cabbage family, if I am not mistaken. If anyone, however, wants the words of Pliny, this is what he says in book nineteen, chapter eight: 'There is also a kind of wild cabbage, three-leaved, well-known because of the verses directed at the deified Julius, especially in the soldiers' jests. For they took turns in taunting him in verse about how they had lived on charlock at Dyrrachium, complaining in jest about his meanness in rewarding them. For charlock is a wild cabbage.'So says Pliny. In book twenty the same writer says that cyma 'wild cabbage' is unwholesome and difficult to digest. He explains [elsewhere], however, that cyma is the name given to a more delicate and more tender sprout growing on cabbages and that this goes well with burdock and asparagus. Dioscorides says that lapsana is also called napium by the Romans and that its stalk is boiled and eaten as well as its leaves. He thinks that this is more wholesome than sorrel, which Horace mentions when he talks about a frugal dinner: 'Or the sorrel that loves the meadows and mallows that are good for a sick body.'

[greek], Not against the door, meaning something that is inappropriate to a subject and unsuited to what is being discussed. This was used, certainly in a proverbial sense, by Aristotle in book four of his Physics: [greek] 'these do not confront the question against the door.' Argiropolo translates [greek] as non recte 'not directly,' and quite correctly (neque non recte) at that! It has the same meaning as ad scopum 'on target.' Consider, reader, whether this adage is related to [greek] 'Who could miss the gate?'

Those who are prepared to perform any task for the rich, even the most sordid one, can humorously be called [greek] 'Little stairs.' This was the name given as a common insult to certain Cyprian women, flatterers living in Syria, who allowed kings' wives to board their chariots by using them as stairs. Plutarch mentions it in his essay 'On Distinguishing the Flatterer from a Friend.' Athenaeus too in book six of Doctors at Dinner. Also Valerius Maximus in book nine, chapter one.

'[greek], Away with friend as well as foe. This suits those who are completely engrossed in themselves and think no more of a friend than an enemy. Timon the famous misanthrope is said to have been such a person. Plutarch in the essay that we have just cited: 'If that saying "Away with friend as well as foe" does not please us in any way.' The Greek expression is the hemistich of a trochaic verse.

[greek], Worthy of a Manes, a Phrygian proverb applied to great and outstanding achievements. It derives from a certain Manes, an early king of theirs who they say was extremely powerful and wonderfully brave. The source is Plutarch in his essay 'On Osiris.' In fact in Latin too something that is out of the ordinary is described as 'mad': 'It pleases me to be mad,' and 'it pleases me to indulge a mad labour.'

'Not even with minerals and timber excluded.' This was without doubt said in a proverbial sense by Cicero in book two of the Making of an Orator in the sense of 'not even anything': 'But he will say that when you were selling your house, you did not hold back any of your father's estate, not even minerals and timber being excluded.' At this point I must point out in passing that in the printed editions of Tullius reliquisse 'to have left' is read for recepisse 'to have excluded,' wrongly, as can be clearly seen from Nonius Marcellus, who adduces this very passage from Cicero when discussing the word receptitius. For here recipere has the same sense as excipere 'to exclude.' In addition the meaning of ruta caesa is abundantly clear from book nineteen of the Pandects (the words are peculiar to the legal writers) in law 18. Ulpian says:
If minerals and timber are excluded in a sale, in law minerals constitute those
that have been quarried, like sand and similar materials, and the timber con-
stitutes trees that have already been cut and charcoal and similar things. Gal-
lus Aquilius, whose opinion Mela reports, is right in saying that exclusions
about minerals and timber in the law of sale are pointless, because if they are
not specifically for sale negotiations for including them can still take place.
A seller should be less concerned about cut timber, quarried stones, or sand
than about all the other things that are more valuable.
Marcus Cicero also mentions minerals and timber in his Topica: 'For, to avoid passing over anything that might pertain to producing arguments of every kind I have included perhaps more than you needed. I have done what generous vendors often are wont to do. When they have sold their house or farms, minerals and timber excluded, they nevertheless give the buyer something that seems to be an appropriate adornment.' He also mentions it in his Parts of a Speech. And when we want to mean that everything is removed quite ruthlessly and that nothing at all is left, it will be witty to say, in lawyers' terms, 'not even minerals and timbers excluded.'

'An Etna, an Athos.' These mountains were used to express proverbially the idea of troublesomeness or weariness, as is attested by Lucilius, cited in book sixteen, chapter nine, of Aulus Gellius, even if the passage is thought to be corrupt. The verses of Lucilius that he adduces are the following:
All this was sport to us, to us it was all one.
It was all one, I say, all sport and play.
Hard toil it was when Setia's land we neared.
Henceforward, as they say, mountains, all Etnas, rough Athoses.
This was said of Etna, a mountain in Sicily, because according to the poets it covers a giant with its great mass, or because its frequent fires once posed serious and deadly danger to the inhabitants. Because of this Marcus Tullius also says in his Cato the Elder 'a weight heavier than Etna.' About Athos we have spoken elsewhere, that because of its vast height the shade it casts is a nuisance; its shadow is three hundred stades in length extending right as far as Lemnos. Pomponius Mela tells us that its peak is too high for rain to fall upon it. The basis for this conjecture is that 'ashes are not washed away from the altars that it has on its summit but remain in the pile in which they were left.' It is also a barrier to sailors since it protrudes from the mainland far into the sea with its long ridge. Because of this Xerxes dug a channel through it. Athenaeus in book ten mentions a certain Erysichthon who had an insatiable appetite and was commonly called [greek] 'an Athos of gluttony.'

A person whom the Greeks call [greek] is called immunis in Latin, meaning someone who contributes nothing to a banquet. Horace in the Odes:
A small onyx-box of nard will elicit a jar ...
I do not intend ... like a rich man in a full house
To steep you, who are empty-handed, in my cups.
But it will be more attractive if it refers metaphorically to mental activities, for example, scholarship, poetry, or some such thing. Aulus Gellius in book six, chapter thirteen, shows that this word had become a common proverb: 'So that we might not come completely empty-handed, as the saying goes, and without a contribution, we brought to the meal, not dainty foods, but clever topics of conversation.' Terence in his Phormio: 'Oh, that you should come from the baths, washed and anointed, without a contribution!' According to Athenaeus Ephippus wittily said 'a non-contributing hand': 'When you go in, learn how to eat someone else's food and how to stretch out a non-contributing hand to the meal.'

It is clear that the 'Couches of Soterichus' was an expression commonly used to make fun of anything that was cheap, old, crudely made, and in no way attractive. For this is what Seneca says when mocking some verses of Ennius about Cethegus: 'Those who love verses of this kind would admire the couches of Soterichus too.' Aulus Gellius (for these words are reported by him in book twelve, chapter two): 'Seneca would surely appear worthy of being read and studied by the young when he has compared the dignity and beauty of early Latin with the couches of Soterichus, the latter being very unattractive and obsolete and despised!' One can conjecture that Soterichus was some artisan whose works displayed primitive and crude simplicity. For Pliny attests, in book thirty-three, chapter eleven, that in later times at Rome the rich had silver couches. Horace points out in his Satires that among painters Fulvius, Rutuba, and Placidianus were like Soterichus:
Or when, madman, you swoon over a painting of Pausias,
How are you less in error than I when, with knee bent stiff,
I wonder at the battles of Fulvius, Rutuba, or Placideianus,
Painted in red chalk or charcoal?

When someone has been reduced to such a state that he cannot undertake some action without incurring great harm, but cannot safely shrink from it, then this common expression, originally an oracle, is often used: 'I'll be dead if I don't, thrashed if I do.' It is reported by Aulus Gellius in the third book of his Nights, chapter three, from the comedy of Plautus entitled Fretum. These are the verses of Plautus:
Now here we have the oracular response of Arietinus at the great games:
I'll be dead if I don't, thrashed if I do.
Gellius himself attests that the story behind the oracle was not clear to him and that he had copied out these verses of Plautus with the intention of investigating it. The verses are iambic tetrameters catalectic. Because of this we have removed the word dicitur (for in the printed editions the text is magnis ludis dicitur), which was added in my opinion by a scholiast.

The comparison of a spider weaving its web from its own body and of a person making up lies also seems to be proverbial. For this is what Plutarch says in his essay entitled 'On Osiris': 'Poets and orators are like [greek] "the spiders who create material that is their very own" and is not supplied by others, and start to weave their webs and then expand them.' Pliny reports that the larger spiders stretch their webs on the ground over the small openings of their holes, and that the smallest spiders do not weave webs, and that a third type is distinguished by the adroitness of its workmanship. He says, 'The spider begins with the warpthreads and its belly supplies the material for such a great enterprise, either bowel-matter that decays at a fixed time, as Democritus holds, or from some internal organ for producing thread. Employing its own weight and with a careful use of its claw the spider draws out smooth and even threads of finely controlled thickness. Then it begins from the centre with the creation of the weft, attaching it to the warp to make circles, at gradually increasing intervals, though each circle is equidistant from the preceding one. The mesh, though very fine, is tied together by an indissoluble knot.' This agrees with what Aristotle relates in the Nature of Animals, book nine. Aristotle adds that spiders produce thread as soon as they have been born, not from inside their bodies, like waste material, as Democritus thinks, but from the body's surface, like the bark of a tree, or like a porcupine that shoots spines from its skin. Only the females spin webs or hunt. The male shares in the spoils, not in the labour.

[greek], Hunting the hare with the ox. This is said of those who undertake something that is ridiculous, foolish, and absurd. For example, if anyone in the Curia at Rome were to seek election as a bishop without having any money. Plutarch in his essay 'On Tranquillity of Mind':
For it is not a question of ill luck if someone wishes to shoot arrows with a
plough and hunt a hare with an ox. Nor is it a question of divine malevolence
if someone does not catch deer with fishing nets. Rather, it is foolishness or
perversity in undertaking what cannot be done.
There is not a single thing that is suited for all circumstances. For example, whoever entrusts the conduct of a war or the government of the state to a person who is naturally disposed to learning and a life of peace 'is hunting a hare with an ox.' Or if someone were to entrust court judgments to a fool or a dullard. In the same essay Plutarch cites these verses, of Pindar if am not mistaken:
Horses for chariot, ox to the plough,
A dolphin can swim as fast as any ship.
For a wild boar bent on slaughter a hound of great courage must be found.
I quote these lines, since they too have a proverbial look about them.

Plutarch in his essay 'On the Difference between a Flatterer and a Friend': 'A flatterer always sings in one key ([greek]) whatever is pleasing and agreeable; he does not know how to object to any action or how to say anything hurtful. All he can do is agree with what the other person wishes, always being in accord and harmony with him.' '[greek] 'In one key.' This obviously has the appearance of a proverb. A diagramma is also a diagram or illustration used by philosophers to show something in visual terms. It means, then, the same as if one were to say de eadem formula 'by the same formula.'

I think that the following can be included in the verses of famous poets that are used by the learned in a proverbial way: [greek] 'You are not the son of Achilles, but Achilles himself.' It seems to have been taken from some tragedy or comedy since the verse is an iambic trimeter. It is used by Plutarch in the same essay, entitled 'How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend.' For he says that a flatterer acts the part of a friend in every way so that one can say of him, 'You are not the son of Achilles, etc' Similarly Terence's Parmeno, speaking of Gnatho, who slavishly goes along with whatever Thraso says, remarks, 'Heavens, one could say this fellow is born from this other one.'

In the same essay that I have just mentioned Plutarch uses this verse of Homer, from Odyssey 22, which has the appearance of a proverb: [greek] 'Then Ulysses stripped off his cheap rags.' One can apply this to those who experience a sudden change in their circumstances, becoming rich instead of poor, elegant instead of filthy, happy instead of sad. For as soon as Ulysses stripped off the rags that he wore when pretending to be a beggar among the suitors and was decked out with magnificent clothes, he suddenly seemed a different person. Plutarch applies this to a flatterer, who, like a cuttlefish, adapts himself to everyone's pursuits. While living with a friend devoted to philosophy, he wears a long beard and cloak and is completely immersed in his books, prattling on about Plato's numbers, rectangles, triangles, and nothing else. A short time later, if by chance he falls in with a friend who is a voluptuary, his appearance suddenly changes as if he has been transformed by Circe, and he becomes a Sardanapalus.

Similarly, Plutarch also applies the words of Homer, from book sixteen of the Odyssey, to a person who suddenly changes and seems to have become someone else: '[greek] 'Friend, you appear to be someone different from who you were a little while ago.' Similar to this are the words of Theocritus: 'Surely the gods have not turned me into someone else?'

It will be appropriate to apply to a person who is excessively rigid and implacable those words of Homer, from book ten of the Odyssey: [greek] 'You have a heart in your breast that cannot be enchanted.' In his essay 'On Distinguishing a Flatterer from a Friend' Plutarch says that Antony's entourage often used this verse to rebuke him, because his love for Cleopatra did not match her consuming passion for him.

[greek], Like a bath-keeper's mule. This was said of those who enjoyed no fruit from their labour. Plutarch in his essay 'On Desire for Riches': 'Deriving no benefit, like a bath-keeper's mule that carries logs and wood, always smothered in smoke and ash, but never enjoying a bath, warmth or cleanliness.' He is speaking about a rich man who is mean and niggardly; although he is laden with riches, he never enjoys them.

[greek], Livers-by-lamplight. This is obviously a proverbial expression humorously describing those who spend their lives in lamplight. It can be applied, therefore, to a nocturnal drinker, to an excessively studious person, since, as was said of Demosthenes, such a person uses more oil than wine, or to mean and niggardly persons, because they were thought to subsist on lamp-oil. Seneca in book twenty-two of his Letters, letter 122, points out that this was said of someone who shunned daylight and who lived in a topsy-turvy way, doing at night whatever ordinary people usually do in daytime. He would rise at nightfall and go to bed at dawn. Varus, a very witty raconteur, made a joke against such a person, saying that he lived extremely frugally, since the only thing he spent was night. And when some people said that such a man was mean and miserly, he said, 'You should call him a lychnobius "a liverby-lamplight."' There is, however, some ambiguity in the joke. You can understand it to mean that this person was so far from being miserly that he actually used up all his lamps or that he was so tight-fisted that he lived by lamplight. But the allusion was really to a person's topsyturvy way of life like that of a certain Atilius Buta described in the same letter.

Sutrium is a very old town in Etruria. At one time the Sutrians had revolted from the Romans, with whom they had formed an alliance. Camillus was chosen by the senate to force them to keep faith. So that little time would be wasted in procuring supplies and so that the Sutrians would be caught out by his quickness in getting there, he ordered each soldier to bring with him a three-day supply of food. This then ['As if going to Sutrium'] became proverbial, customarily being used whenever someone worked for others at his own expense. For this is how Festus Pompeius interprets it in some fragments that are to be found in Rome. I think this is the same story as the one that Titus Livius tells, somewhat differently, in book six of From the Founding of the City. Plautus in Cassina: 'Then also see to it that they come as if they are going to Sutrium.' Alcesimus is ordering him [Lysidamus] to send his servants to his house, but they are to be equipped with their own food. The poem of Catullus in which he invites Fabullus to dinner, but only if he brings with him all that is needed for an elegant meal, is well known.

Those who cultivated friends not out of true feeling for them but for the sake of their bellies were called [greek] 'Those who carry their own oilflask,' a popular word coined because such persons travelled to and fro of their own accord with an oil-flask and attended banquets, though uninvited. In his essay entitled 'How One can Distinguish between a Flatterer and a Friend' Plutarch attests that these same persons were called 'frying-pan friends and post-prandial pals' by Eupolis and were also termed [greek] 'table-men': 'But are we not to think, as ordinary people do, that those socalled autolecythoi and 'table-men' who are to be heard, as someone said, only after the call of "water for hands" are flatterers?' Demosthenes used this word in his speech Against Conon. Commentators explain it in different ways, as describing either those who are prepared to put up with anything at all, or poor people who possess only a cheap bowl, or those who are quick to take money, because some people are in the habit of keeping their money in such bowls, and in other ways as well, none of which agrees with Plutarch's view. In Athenaeus, book four, those who take pleasure 'in living at other men's tables' are called [greek] 'those who eat other persons' food.' In the same book he relates a story that is not without wit. A dispute arose about which water was the best. Some preferred the water of Lerna, others the water from Pirene, others had different choices. Then Carneus said, adopting an expression of Philoxenus, The sweetest water is "water poured over your hands."' For when the host bids the guests wash, this shows that the meal is ready. This proverb is similar to what has been said elsewhere: Fervet olla, vivit amicitia 'When the pot boils, friendship thrives.'

[greek], A Maltese lapdog. This was applied to someone whose services were of no use for any serious purpose but who was kept only for amusement. There is no small number of such persons in the households of the rich. Different dogs serve different purposes. Some are entrusted with guarding the house, so that they keep watch at night against thieves. These are called [greek] 'watchdogs.' There are some whom we use for hunting, called [greek]i 'hunting dogs.' Some serve no useful purpose except to amuse idle, spoiled women and even today it is surprising how popular such pets are. These are called 'Maltese' from the island of Malta situated between Corcyra Nigra and Illyricum. The source is Pliny, book three, in the final chapter. Also Strabo and Stephanus. Aristotle mentions these in problem fourteen of book ten, pointing out their whole bodies were very tiny and thin. They are attractive because of this, in the same way that some cannot live without having dwarfs and pigmies. In Lucian in the Lapiths the jokester calls Alcidamas, the Cynic philosopher, 'A Maltese lapdog.' In his twelfth book Athenaeus writes that Maltese dogs were very special favourites of the Sybarites. Among dogs these seem to be the equivalent of dwarfs and pigmies among humans. Masinissa is deservedly praised for preferring to rear children instead of monkeys and puppies and he did so until they were three, only then giving them back to their parents. It is more intolerable, however, that in Britain many persons keep groups of dancing bears, a dangerous animal that has a voracious appetite. Monkeys too are like these, although less voracious. Is it not shameful for Christians to have such playthings when so many poor persons go hungry? Yet why do we deplore this when some people follow a custom that began in Italy and stroll about parading a young boy or girl who has been taught to act in a silly way, and when the dreadful plight of one girl occupies the leisure time of four or five sturdy wastrels? Christians, however, look at such idle sport without blinking an eye.

In his Problems in section 13 Aristotle gives this verse without citing the author but as if it were a common saying: [greek] [greek] 'It is suddenly winter once the south wind calls forth the north wind.' He gives this reason, that by its very nature the south wind gathers clouds and rain in abundance. Therefore, if the north wind gets up at such a time, everything freezes because of this wind's coldness, and so suddenly there is winter. In the same problem he adds another verse expressing much the same: [greek] 'If the North wind comes upon mud, immediately there is winter.' Even if it is clear that this is a simple and common saying, nevertheless we can apply it to mean that a great danger threatens us if one misfortune is followed by another. For example, if someone who is excessively tortured by the labours of study also falls in love, or if someone not well liked by his ruler also incurs the hatred of the common people, or if a very lenient and easy-going king is succeeded by one who is extremely strict, or vice versa. For such sudden changes usually stir up the greatest unrest.

Galen in book nine of his Medical Treatment: To be sure, these neither search out nor have knowledge. In fact, as the proverb says, [greek] "They fit the same shoe on everyone.'" He is speaking about some inexperienced doctors who lack knowledge of diseases and apply the same remedies to all ailments, although different illnesses need different treatment. It is very similar to what we have said elsewhere: 'You know how to paint a cypress tree.' Related to this expression is what Jerome adduces at the beginning of his preface of the commentary that he wrote on the Epistle to the Ephesians: 'And not to wish, like an inexperienced doctor, to treat the eyes of all with the same salve.'

[greek], A snail's life. Said of those who live frugally and on little, or have withdrawn from business and are aloof from the activities of commercial daily life. The creature from whom the metaphor has been taken is well known. Plutarch in his essay 'On Love of Wealth': 'You are beset by many troubles, you torture and upset yourself when you live a snail's life because of your stinginess.' We have quoted elsewhere from the Two Captives of Plautus about how snails 'live on their own juice ... when it is hot weather.'

'[greek], From enemy land. Used when anyone spends extravagantly. For we are accustomed to squander quickly and rashly whatever has been plundered from enemies. Even today we have heard this adage being commonly said everywhere of gluttons and spendthrifts. Plutarch in his essay that he entitled 'Advice about Good Health': 'They fill themselves with expensive food at another's table and enjoy it, ladening themselves with food as if it were booty from an enemy.' He also uses this in the sixth problem of the seventh decade of the 'Table-talk.' In book four of Athenaeus Satyrus describes such persons in these words: 'Trampling on their land, plundering their household, selling their possessions as if they were [greek] "selling the spoils of war.'" For [greek] means 'to put up for sale booty that has been seized from the enemy.' Because of this, those who dissipate their assets in luxurious living are called [greek] in Greek, as Athenaeus points out in book eleven. Suidas points out that such squandering is called [greek] and that [greek] means 'to plunder,' or 'to squander extravagantly' or 'to consume completely.' For [greek] means spoils taken from living enemies, while the spoils taken from dead enemies are [greek] 'armour.'

If anyone denies that 'Gritty bread,' mentioned by Seneca in book two of On Kindnesses, is a proverb, I shall certainly not fight to the death with him. But it certainly deserves to be included in the company of adages because of how frequently it is used. For this is what Fabius Verrucosus called a kindness that a hard-hearted man pitilessly gives to someone who in his hunger has no choice but to accept it. Such a kindness, he says, is cruel and harsh. Some people spoil a kindness by giving it with a scowl or a truculent expression, or by speaking sharply or by flaunting it in an annoying way. The result is that if any one can do without the kindness he will not accept it.

'[greek], From the house of Patrocles. Of mean persons, taken from the character of a certain Patrocles, an Athenian, who was certainly very rich but also parsimonious and miserly in spending money. Old Comedy depicts him very much as Plautus depicts Euclio. The evidence comes from a scholiast on Aristophanes whose words are reported by Suidas as well, who also regards this as a proverb. It is in the Plutus of Aristophanes. Since Wealth was grubby, dishevelled, and covered in dirt, he was asked from where he had come: 'Tell me where you are coming from since you are so dirty and unkempt?' And he replied, 'From the house of Patrocles, who has never washed from the day he was born.'

The following words of Plautus in his play entitled Two Captives have the appearance of a proverb: 'This is as easy for you as it is for raindrops to fall when there are showers.' For proclive properly describes what hangs downwards. And indeed it is difficult to push heavy objects up a hill, but they roll down it of their own accord.

I would not argue very strongly that the epiphonema of Seneca in book eleven of his Letters, 'Even after a bad harvest we must sow,' is a proverb although it is very similar to one. It may be used whenever something has not turned out at all as we thought, meaning that we must not give up trying. Seneca, however, is talking about those who shrink from doing a kindness to any one because they have once encountered ingratitude. What Seneca adds in the same passage, 'post naufragium maria tentantur ', 'after shipwreck sailors try the seas again,' is of the same kind.

In his essay 'How to Keep Well' Plutarch points out that there was a common proverb about hope, although he does not reveal what it was: 'Using a proverb to defend their weakness and intemperance, most people are led by hope to take to their customary way of life the moment they leave their beds.' On the identification of the proverb that people use to excuse their intemperance he makes it clear in what follows: 'As if they will cast off and dispel wine with wine, drunkenness with drunkenness.' It is obvious from this that Plutarch was alluding to the proverb 'To drive out one nail by another.' Even today this is an equally common expression among fellow imbibers. They add a joke about 'the hair of a rabid dog' and put into practice a witticism that can prove fatal to many. There is a passing allusion to this proverb ['Hope saves the afflicted'] in the sayings that have been culled, so it appears, from comedies: [greek] 'good hope saves a man in adversity.' These words of Naso are well known: 'Good hope gives strength, good hope strengthens the mind as well. I have seen a person on the point of death living through hope.' Then those words of Pindar almost became proverbial among the learned: '[greek] 'Hope the nourisher of old age.' For so Plutarch in his essay 'On Tranquillity of Mind': 'And a more pleasant and stable memory than that hope of Pindar's, the nourisher of old age.' And indeed Plato recalls this Pindaric passage in book one of the Republic: 'Because to him who has lived an upright and pious life hope is a friend, hope that is sweet and gladdens the heart, hope that nourishes old age, hope that especially guides the resilient minds of mortals.'

This too, in the same work, appears to have been spoken as a proverb, since he reports it without naming its source. But it is better to give his actual words: 'Accordingly, it is a splendid saying, that the most wholesome things are to stop eating before one is full, never to shrink from toil, to preserve the seed of nature.'

In his work entitled 'How One Should Distinguish between Friend and Flatterer' Plutarch uses this verse (which occurs frequently in Homer) as if it were proverbial: [greek] 'With head brought near, so that the rest might not be able to hear.' In this passage Plutarch is advising that if a friend deserves a rebuke this should be done, first of all, at the appropriate time, secondly, in a friendly and affable manner, and finally, privately with no witnesses present: 'And so, this is what is best, "With head brought nearer."' Instead of this expression, Livy used conferre capita in book ten of From the Founding of the City: 'The consuls capita conferunt "put together their heads" as if in deliberation.'

In the same essay Plutarch also makes use of this verse of Homer from Iliad, book eleven: [greek]; 'Son of Tydeus, what has happened that we have forgotten our martial valour?' We may use it whenever we recognize a fault that we share with a friend and thereby indicate that it was wrong to have stopped in some action.

Whenever we advise that some vice or something harmful in other respects ought .to be cast far away, this verse (of Homer, if I am not mistaken) will be appropriate: [greek] 'On to a mountain or into the swollen waves of the roaring sea.' So too Horace in his Odes, book three, ode fourteen:
Let us cast into the Capitol,
Where clamour calls and the supporters throng,
Or into the nearest sea
Our gems and our rare stones and useless gold,
Of deepest wrong the occasion and the means,
If we are truly sorry for our crimes.
Theognis, however, bids us throw into the mighty sea not wealth, but poverty itself. Similarly, we say that an extremely dangerous person ought to be deported to the remotest of islands.

Plutarch in the essay that he wrote 'Against the Stoics':
It is a much more shameful belief and one going against all reason that nothing
can catch up with anything, [greek]
'not even if the swift steed of Adrastus were in pursuit of a
tortoise,' as the proverb says.
An appropriate use will be when we mean that something is being done in a quite absurd and unnatural way. It is related to what we have said elsewhere: 'You match a tortoise against Pegasus' and 'Sooner will the tortoise outrun the hare.'

[greek], More stupid than Melitides. Melitides was one of those lucky fools whom Homer made famous in his poetry. He is said to have come to help Priam when Troy had already been destroyed, as Eustathius mentions in his commentary on book ten of the Odyssey. Lucian in his Love Affairs: 'For heaven's sake, do you think that I am Melitides or Coroebus?' The proverb is cited by Zenodotus, who informs us that this fellow was a target for the abuse of the comic writers because of his stupidity: he could not count beyond five and he never laid a finger on a new bride when he married her for fear that she would lay accusations against him to her mother. In the same place he mentions another extremely stupid man who did not know which parent gave him birth. We have mentioned Coroebus, the friend of Melitides, elsewhere. Pausanias said that Aristophanes counted this man along with Butalio and Melitides as a fool. Suidas says the same, quoting these verses from Aristophanes: 'Up to now the most abject of men, idly gaping / They sit, like a Mamakuthes or a Melitides.'

Plutarch in his 'Natural Causes' gives this verse as a proverb among the ancients: [greek] 'The rain stops on the night that the wild sow farrows.' He is enquiring into why domesticated sows farrow fairly often and at different times of the year, while wild sows do so only once and almost on the same day each year. This occurs at the beginning of summer, the season of the year that has least rain, especially in Greece. I do not see any use for the proverb other than to indicate that there will be fair weather, once spring or autumn is over. But if you want to apply it in a more metaphorical way, it will be possible to use it humorously to indicate that there will be an end of troubles for us when something or other that will happen soon has come to pass.

'[greek], Clearer than amber. Of something extremely translucent or about an object that is exceptionally bright, since amber shines in a marvellous way. Accordingly, Virgil calls it liquidus 'clear': liquidove potest electro. Lucian in his Love Affairs: 'More translucent than amber, as the saying goes, or than Sidonian glass.' He describes glass as 'Sidonian' because Sidon was once famous for the manufacturing of glass.

Festus Pompeius points out that a frequently spoken proverb was 'As precarious as a bean on the edge,' the reason for the proverb being 'that beans growing on the edge [of a plot] are generally either trampled on or picked by passers-by.' It will suit, then, an individual or a thing that is exposed to all kinds of harm from everyone. For example, if one were to say that theology is as precarious as a bean on the edge because there is no place where the most ignorant men do not engage in it and defile it.

'Tyrian seas' was said proverbially about a situation that was very turbulent and fraught with danger. Festus Pompeius says that the adage arose because 'the Carthaginians, who originated in Tyre, had great control of the sea. Accordingly, a voyage that would take one through them was dangerous for all.' And he cites Afranius, since he said of some individual 'that he was stirring up Tyrian seas,' in other words, that he was stirring up great troubles.

[greek], He is carrying water in one hand and fire in the other. One can apply this figuratively to someone who flatters a man to his face but privately does him harm. Or to someone who speaks with two tongues, sometimes praising, sometimes reviling, or to someone whose feelings are quite different from what he says. It is related to those words of Plautus, 'He bears a stone in one hand and offers a loaf in the other.' It is reported by Plutarch in 'The Principle of Cold': 'Deceitfully she brought water in one hand, and fire in the other.' He is talking about a woman whose intentions are quite different from and contradictory to what she professes. It is surprising, however, that the same saying, in almost the same words, is commonly on our lips today.

'You be flogged, Papiria.' Sisinius Capito writes that this was a proverb frequently used whenever persons wanted to show that they did not pay any attention to someone else's threats. We find this only in the fragments of Festus Pompeius. I suspect that it originated with Papirius Praetextatus, whose mother tried to extract from him what had happened in the senate, in vain, even though she threatened a flogging. Therefore one should read Papiri, not Papiria, unless one prefers to understand lege 'law,' so that the words are a threat to inflict the punishment of the lex Papiria Unless you prefer to understand it as referring to Papiria, the wife of Paulus Aemilius, who was divorced by her husband although no one could find the reason for it. What can one do? We must engage in conjecture when no sources can help us.

According to the same author, another attractive proverb was spoken by Scipio Aemilianus when addressing the people. He said, 'You will be protection for us and the state, as a collar protects a hound.' For millus is a collar for hunting dogs, made of leather, in which are embedded iron nails that protrude to repel attacking wolves. By using this proverb, then, we shall indicate a sure and strong means of protection.

Plutarch in his essay 'On Tranquillity of Mind' cites the following expression, which he says was commonly spoken and which shows its proverbial nature in any case by the trope: Οὔτε ποδάγρας ἀπαλλάττει καλτίκιος, οὔτε δακτύλιος πολυτελὴς παρωνυχίας, οὔτε διάδημα κεφαλαλγία 'A sandal does not cure gout, nor an expensive ring a hangnail, nor a diadem a headache.' The Greek word for hangnail is παρωνυχίαν, the Latin for which is reduvia. Plutarch uses it to express the idea that if wealth and the other gifts of good fortune do not remove physical illnesses, how much less can they cure flaws of the soul. A ring is the mark of a doctorate, but it does not remove dullness of intellect. A diadem is the symbol of kings, but it does not free a person of stupidity. A red cap is the mark of outstanding piety, but not even this frees one from impious thoughts.

'With one little finger' describes the ability to do something with the utmost ease. Terence in the Eunuchus:
You who are lucky enough now to open the door with one little finger
Will often strike it with your feet in vain, I warrant it.
Jerome in the Dialogue of Luciferianus and Orthodoxus: 'This spear, then, that you have hurled with all your might, with which you threaten us, I shall parry with one little finger, as the saying goes.' The adage we have spoken of elsewhere, Minimo provocare, to indicate that we can prevail even with no effort at all, is also relevant.

'Marian mules,' a proverb of the army camp, was applied to soldiers suffering from varicose veins who were accustomed to carry their loads on a board that rested on a fork-shaped yoke, a practice instituted by their leader Caius Marius. Festus Pompeius is also our source for this. But Plutarch in his Life of Caius Marius gives two explanations of the adage's origin. When the general Marius was building up his soldiers by making them go on training runs and on different kinds of forced marches, and by making them carry heavy loads, they became accustomed to these activities and put up with them in silence and without rancour. By a camp joke they were called [greek] 'Marian mules.' From this the expression was applied to anyone who readily obeyed orders. Julius Frontinus also mentions the adage in book four of his Strategies in this way: 'In order to cut down the baggage with which an army on the move is especially burdened, equipment and the soldiers' provisions were fitted into baskets and placed on fork yokes. The purpose was to make the weight easier to bear and to allow the soldiers to rest more easily. Because of this "Marian mules" became a proverb.' This was doubtless because of the soldiers' great tolerance of toil, since Homer continually calls mules [greek] 'toil-enduring.' Some give a different origin for the adage. For when Scipio was besieging Numantia and decided to inspect not only the soldiers' weapons but also their horses, mules, and chariots to see how each had trained and prepared them, Marius had led out a horse that had been extremely well looked after by him, and in addition a mule that far surpassed all others in its physical condition, obedience, and strength. And so since the general was delighted by Marius' animals and continually referred to them, the outcome was that anyone who was untiring, strong, and hard-working in performing his duties was called 'a Marian mule' as a humorous term of praise. This other origin for the proverb is given by Plutarch in his Life of Marius, which I have just cited. In his humorous bagatelle directed at the emperor Claudius Seneca describes mules as perpetuarii 'non-stop workers.' It will be rather amusing if it is applied to someone completely engrossed in an immense project or in never-ending business.

Festus Pompeius points out that 'An Osculan battle' was a proverb customarily used whenever those who had been defeated were later victorious. It originated when the general Valerius Laevinus was first defeated by Pyrrhus and then a little later crushed the same king. He cites Ticinius who mentioned the adage. However, this passage in Festus, like others, is corrupt and lacunose.

'Speaking Oscan,' an old proverb applied to those who spoke in a disgusting and shameless way. The allusion is taken from the customs of the Oscans; for among them the practice of satisfying foul desires went unpunished. Because of this some think that whatever is disgusting in word or deed is also called obscene (obscaena), though Festus Pompeius rejects this. And indeed he cites a certain Ticinius who wrote as follows: 'They speak Oscan and Volscian, because they do not know how to speak Latin.'

Plutarch in his essay 'On Those Punished Late by the Gods': " [greek] 'I do not see the value in those mills of the gods that are said to grind slow.' But from what precedes in the same passage one can infer that it was frequently said of those who finally, though belatedly, were punished for their misdeeds by an avenging god.

Plutarch in his essay 'On Bringing up Children': 'But they learn this ' [greek] "On the run," as if they are just having a taste.' The metaphor clearly has the flavour of a proverb. Instead of this expression Quintilian used in transitu. Pliny prefers in transcursu; obiter means the same.

'In three words' is a proverbial expression for 'in very few words.' St Jerome in the Dialogue of Luciferianus and Orthodoxus: 'You have solved that huge problem in three words, as the saying goes.' Similarly Terence's Geta says in the Phormio that some persons 'will not exchange three words.' Pindar in the Nemeans in hymn twelve: [greek] "three words" will suffice.' And yet I am fully aware that on this passage the commentators philosophize quite superstitiously on 'three words.' Marcus Tullius in For Cluentius: 'He accused Scamandrus in three words; the poison has been seized .. .' Using the same trope we say 'six hundred' to mean 'many': 'Bring six hundred suits against me then.' In the opposite way a person who explains in a few words is said 'to complete the matter in a word' and the person who says nothing at all is said 'to expend not even a syllable on the matter.' So Galen, speaking against Erasistratus, I think: 'How is it he has no shame? He has made distinctions about problems in digestion, saying that they are many and occur from different causes, but has said not even one word, not even one syllable, about deficiencies in blood-production.'

St Jerome in his Letters: 'Let us follow in the footsteps of the Apostolic will and not depart by even a point, as the saying goes, or a nail's breadth from its tenets.' For the mathematicians a point is the smallest unit of measurement. It cannot be divided and if imaginarily extended vertically it produces a line. Again if the line is extended horizontally it makes a plane figure. Similarly Terence in the Woman of Andros: 'Moreover, I have only a point of time for this.'

[greek], Spur your horse close to the line or turning point. This was said when a speaker's words were wandering from what had been prescribed. It seems to have its origin in Homer's Iliad, book twenty-three. When Nestor is instructing his son Antilochus at great length how he ought to steer his horse, he adds this: 'But let the boundary of the turning post graze the horse on the left.' Taken from a horse race which took place between fixed turning points and boundaries beyond which it was forbidden to go. Undoubtedly Fabius alludes to this in book eleven of his Principles of Oratory, when he recalls that Cassius Severus used to demand that a line be drawn to thwart those who crossed over to their opponents' seats, on the grounds that they were transgressing a prescribed boundary. It is related to 'Beyond the olive trees' and also to 'To overleap the pit.' Gregory of Nazianzus uses it in a proverbial way in his speech On Holy Easter: 'But at this point perhaps one of those who like festivals and are rather hot-headed may say to us, "Steer your horse close to the turning point and talk about the festival."' He also uses the same proverb in his speech On the Birthday of Jesus Christ. He also varied it somewhat in the speech Against the Eunomians: 'Let us not, like excited and unmanageable horses unseating their riders, shake off reason and religious caution that properly restrain us within the bounds; let us not run far from the turning point.'

No expression is more frequent in the vernacular than this one: 'Better envied than pitied.' For envy is generally the companion of good luck, pity of disaster. It is in Herodotus in his Thalia where Periander says this to his son: [greek] 'You who have learned how better it is to be envied than pitied.' There survives a Greek epigram of Palladas on this idea:
Pity is worse than envy, says Pindar,
For those assailed by envy prosper.
Pity befalls those whose lot is cruel.
I do not wish for either,
To be too lucky or to be pitied by any.
For it's better moderation in all things,
Since peril sits next to lofty lot
And he who bears the unbearable is crushed low.
The expression is to be found in Pindar in the Pythians hymn one: 'But envy is better than pity. Do not abandon what is good, guide your army with a just rudder.' Again in the Nemeans, hymn eight: 'Slander is the food of the envious. It is aimed at those who are upright, it has no concern with the inferior.' Again, in the eleventh hymn of the Pythians: 'For prosperity incurs much envy. But the roars of a man who is weak and humble go unheard.'

Plautus, cited by Festus Pompeius, said, 'I'll never seek food from that trap,' using what is certainly a proverb. Cicero too in Letters to Atticus in book fifteen, the final letter: 'I've decided to leave this trap, not that I may flee, but that I may have better hope of death.' A nassa is a 'kind of container for fishing, from which a fish cannot escape once it has entered.' Because of this the following are also proverbial: in nassam incidere 'to fall into a fishtrap' and e nassa elapsus 'having escaped from a fishtrap.'

'One should trust neither a woman nor your lap.' Festus also points out that this proverb was in frequent use: 'The reason is that a woman has a wavering and fickle mind, and often what has been placed in the lap is forgotten and falls when one stands up.' In the same way, things placed close to your breast drop to the ground if your garment falls loose. Accordingly, when promising to say nothing, Cicero says, 'It's in my bosom. I shall not be ungirt.'

In some passages in his 'Table-talk' Plutarch points out that it was the custom in antiquity to offer prayers to all the gods whenever a religious ceremony was being conducted for any one of them. Clearly the purpose was to avoid a repetition of the tragedy of the Calydonian boar. When they were invoking the gods, they would add these words as if they were an established part of the ritual: "[greek] 'Along with temples and altars.' He does not say explicitly that this is a proverb, but he appears to use it in such way that one can infer these words were customarily spoken in a proverbial way when people wanted to show that nothing at all had been overlooked. Even today common sayings are una cum vestibus et calciamentis 'with clothes and shoes,' and demigrarunt una cum sarcinis et imvedimentis 'they left along with bag and baggage.

'[greek], Mercury has now arrived. It was the custom to say these words whenever a silence fell over a large gathering. The meaning was that it was not proper to speak when Mercury was present since he was the inventor of speech. Even today it is thought ominous whenever a sudden silence occurs at a meeting or a party. The adage is reported by Plutarch in his essay 'On Garrulity.' Related to this is what is said elsewhere: 'The wolf in the story.'

[greek], Sweet is the apple when the guard is away. The verse is proverbial and one may use it to mean that impunity tempts the wicked to sin. The metaphor is taken from children and young persons who cannot restrain themselves from stealing apples if they are aware that the guard is absent. Plutarch uses it in his essay entitled 'On Love' against philosophers who employ the pretext of philosophy to satisfy their own desires: And so friendship and virtue are used as excuses. He is befouled with dust, he
washes in cold water, he raises his eyebrows and says that he is a philosopher.
In public he is sober because of the law, but then secretly at night 'Sweet is
the apple when the guard is away.'
It is to be found in the proverbs of the Hebrews: 'Stolen waters are sweeter.' And Pindar in hymn six of the Isthmians: 'A most bitter end awaits what is sweet but dishonourable.'

Undoubtedly Juvenal's words 'You are healthier than a fish' were used proverbially. For people, even today, commonly say, 'You are as healthy as a fish.' This arose from the belief that fish did not experience sickness. And yet Aristotle in book eight of the Nature of Animals opposes this view and Pliny followed him in book nine. For fisherman infer that fish can be sick because among plump and healthy fish they sometimes find some of the same species that are extremely thin, discoloured, and languid. And yet disease does not attack a whole species of fish, as frequently happens in the case of humans and all other animals, wild as well as tame ones.

Plutarch in his essay 'On the Education of Children': 'The sexual practices of the Thebans and the people of Elis should be shunned as should what is called [greek] "Booty from Crete." Those of the Athenians and the Spartans should be imitated.' It is clear that these words indicated secret love-making, because sometimes young girls were brought from there by traders.

In his 'Table-talk' Plutarch used what is clearly a proverbial expression: [greek] 'Like Euparyphus from comedy.' He is referring to a man wearing luxurious clothes and trailing behind him a huge crowd of slaves. For this is how braggart soldiers are depicted in comedies. Their distinguishing mark is a red cloak, as Donatus points out. So Lucian on a soldier: 'I mean that Euparyphus, that man in the cloak.' Because of this the Greeks call all rich men who are splendidly garbed [greek], and this on its own has something of the characteristics of a proverb. For a paryphis is a kind of garment, mentioned by Julius Pollux in book seven. This had a red border on each side, because in Ionic Greek paryphi is the word for red threads woven into a garment. He also tells us that [greek] is a word in New Comedy. By contrast, poor and low-born persons, not distinguished by any elegant garb, are called tunicati 'tunicked.' Cornelius Tacitus in his Dialogue on the Orators: 'As these pass by, very often the inexperienced throng and those tunicked people call them by name and point to them.' Similarly Horace: 'Selling cheap trash to the tunicked rabble.' For the praetexta was the distinguishing mark of nobles, while the toga was that of citizens. Marcus Tullius in Against Rullus: 'Now what fear there was of those tunicked men.' Also in For Marcus Caelius: 'In times past we were given a year to keep our arms restrained in our toga and to enjoy exercise and sport on the Campus clad in tunics.'

Seneca in a letter to Lucilius: 'A storm does not so much impede a pilot's skill as reveal it. For, as they say, in a calm sea anyone can be a pilot.' What he is saying there is that misfortune and difficult circumstances, so far from harming the wise man, allow his virtue, which lies hidden in prosperity and peace, to reveal itself then especially. It is no great achievement to govern a state when there is complete concord.

Μήτε Λυδῶν κάρυκας, μήτε μαστίγων ψόφους, Neither Lydian black-puddings nor the crack of whips. This will scan as a trochaic tetrameter catalectic if one adds the definite article (Μήτε τῶν Λυδῶν) and if we read κάρυκκας, with a double kappa, as in Hesychius and Athenaeus. Hesychius tells us that καρύκκη is a mixture made from blood and different spices. Athenaeus adduces these verses: 'You are wont to mix together honey, flour, and eggs. / For all these are quite different from each other.' Therefore καρυκκάζειν means 'to mix together different kinds of things,' and καρακκεύματα means 'foods with different spices' and καρυκκεία 'a rather exotic sauce.' He shows later, in book twelve, the ingredients of this kind of food and how it is made, saying that it was the invention of Candaulus, who thereby made a great name for himself. Suidas gives the adage, but does not explain it. One can guess that it was customarily said to indicate an average mode of living, one that was both removed from the greatest luxury and free of the worst misfortune. For we read that the Lydians had been extremely corrupted by luxury and pleasures, so much so that they gave their name to ludii 'pantomime actors.' It is certain too that barbarians, perhaps the Lydians but certainly the Etruscans, were accustomed to whip their slaves to the accompaniment of the flute, thus bringing together extreme tenderness and extreme cruelty. The adage will have more charm if it is applied metaphorically to intellectual things, for example, to a speech that is neither completely crude in style nor too carefully polished. Accordingly the term καρακκεύειν 'to make a hodge-podge' can be said not only of those who use different spices with their food, but also of those who spice up their style of speaking with an excessive and meretricious adornment of words and figures, or of those who put together a sermon from contradictory elements that do not cohere well, the custom of certain show-offs. They expound upon the Scripture in a few words, they insert a problem from the Sorbonne, and stitch on something from imperial law, something from canon law, then from Aristotle, and from poets. As a colophon they add an old wife's tale. This is truly καρακκεύειν 'to create a hodge-podge.' But we have mentioned this adage elsewhere, if I am not mistaken.

Very like a proverb too is that phrase of Cicero in Definitions of Good and Evil, book two, Tamquam de narthecio 'As if from the medicine box,' meaning what is ready and at hand. For by narthecium he means the box from which druggists take out their medicines. Cicero's words are these: 'Now let them take out those Epicurean treatments for pain, as if from the medicine box. If the pain is severe, it will be short, if long, it will be slight.'

The pronouncements of Cato (oracles, one might say) seem to have become proverbial in antiquity, like those of Apollo: 'Know thyself,' and 'Nothing too much.' From their number the one that Seneca reports in a letter to Lucilius is extremely useful, 'What you do not need to have is dear at a penny.' Cato means that a careful head of the house likes to sell, not to buy, and buys not what he wants, but what is necessary. 'For what you do not need to have,' he says, 'is dear at penny.' He terms as 'necessary' something that one cannot do without, for example, a plough to a ploughman, as 'wanted' something that may be useful if one has it but is such that one can do without it. Whatever you do not need to have is quite superfluous and useless. The adage can be adapted so as to have several meanings. If someone says that some skill can be learned with the minimum of effort - a skill, however, that will bring no profit, a possible response would be, 'What you do not need to have is dear at a penny.'

It was said of someone who was already working on some enterprise that 'his iron was in the fire.' For iron is first softened by fire before it is worked upon. So Seneca in his humorous bagatelle On the Death of the Emperor Claudius.
For since Hercules saw that his iron was in the fire, he ran now to this one,
now to that, saying, 'Don't begrudge me this. It's my case that is at stake.
If you want anything after this, I'll return the favour. One hand washes another.'
The point of this is that Hercules too had been a mortal who became a god, something that Claudius was seeking. When Alexander the Great was asked how he had taken possession of Greece, he replied, 'By never procrastinating.' This is cited by the scholiast on Homer at Iliad, book two.