No More Learning

Now Phoebus to a briefer path had shrunk his fountain deep Of radiance ; now waxed greater the shadowy horns of Sleep. For conquering Cynthia too began to wield an ampler reign, And hoar unsightly Winter to pluck the lovely train
Of Autumn's bounteous honors, see Bacchus aging too, And pluck, belated vintager, the grapes' ungathered few.
I shall probably be better understood if I say the month was October ; the third day of the Ides of October. I cannot tell you the hour with certainty — even philosophers would agree more readily than clocks. But it was between the sixth and seventh. — Oh, this is too rustic. Poets delight in labor, and not content with describing sunrise and sunset, must even molest the middle of the day : would you pass over so good an hour ?
For Phoebus on his car had halved the circuit of the blue,
And nearer night the golden reins was shaking as he flew, While in his course the swerving light in slanted rays he drew.
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 27
Claudius began to give up the ghost, but could not manage to die. Then Mercury, who was always beloved for his disposi tion, summoned one of the three Fates and said : " Why, you cruelest of women, do you suffer this man to be tortured? One should never be excruciated so long. It is the sixty-fourth year since he began to struggle with life. Why do you hate him ? Let the astrologers speak the truth some time or other : they have had him buried every year, every month, since he became prince. To be sure, it is not wonderful if they have been mistaken : no one knew his hour of birth, for no one ever believed he was born at all. Do what is to be done.
" To death consign him : let a nobler3 reign in his empty place. "
But Clotho replied : " Good gracious, I would devote little enough time to him, till he confers the citizenship on the very few that are left outside, — for he has constituted all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons, toga-wearers. But since he chooses to leave some foreigners for seed, and you order it so done, be it so. " She opens a little box and produces three spindles : one was for Augurinus, one for Baba, the third for Claudius. " These three," quoth she, " I have ordered to die in one year, divided by short intervals of time. I would not dismiss him unaccompanied ; for it is not fitting that he, who has now seen so many thousands of men following him, so many preced ing him, so many surrounding him, should be suddenly forsaken, alone. Meanwhile, he must be content with these convives. "
Thus spake she ; then from off the ugly spindle reeled the thread, And broke the life of sovereignty a stupid soul had led.
But now Lachesis, all her locks with wreaths and jewels gay, Crowning her tresses and her brow with twined Pierian bay,
Pulls from the snow-white fleece the fibers, measuring off the strands, That take new colors, drawn and spun by her auspicious hands :
The sisters gaze admiringly on the stint of shining bands.
The worthless wool transmutes to precious metal in her hold ;
Tn beauteous filaments from heaven comes down the age of gold. They know not any measure; draw out the happy fleece
And joy to fill their hands therewith ; fair is the woven piece. The work goes forward cheerily, and not in toilsome wise,
As stretching out the downy threads the twirling spindle flies ; Tithonus' years and Nestor's years were far a meaner prize. Phoebus is nigh, and joys in song, glad of the age to come ;
Now strikes the harp rejoicing, now serves out the golden thrum.
28 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
He holds the Three in music's thrall, and cheats the passing hour ; And while they praise the cithara and their brother's wondrous
power,
Their fingers weave beyond the wont ; the noble work exceeds
The lot of human fortunes. " Sister Fates," Apollo pleads,
" Let it not fall ; let him surpass the mortal breathing space —
He with a countenance like mine, and like to me in grace,
Nor less in music nor in voice ; the happy ages loom
Above the exhausted ; he shall burst the law's long-silent tomb.
As the flying throng of stars disperse when the dawn-star mounts
on high,
As Hesperus rises while the host retreat far down the sky,
As, when the shadows fade away, Aurora's primal birth
Brings rosy day on, and the sun looks down upon the earth, Glowing with light, and first sets free the wheels of day from
prison, —
Such Caesar stands before us, such the Roman world arisen Looks upon Nero ; radiant shines, with splendor mild and rare, His face and neck of beauty with its wealth of flowing hair. "
Apollo thus ; but Lachesis, who would favor the beautiful youth herself, has finished, spins with a full hand, and gives Nero many years of his own. They all order Claudius, like wise, 'xaipovra'i, evcjtrjfiovvTa^ eKirifiireiv Soficop [to bring from home rejoicings and acclaimings of good omen]. 4 And he actually bubbled out his soul, and thereby ceased to seem to live. He expired even while he was listening to comic actors, whom you know I have good cause to fear. His last speech heard among men — after he had emitted a mighty sound from
that part whence it was easiest to speak — was, " Alas !
have befouled myself. Why I did it I don't know. I have certainly befouled everything in existence. "
What was done on earth afterward it is worse than useless to relate. For you know quite well ; and there is no danger of its escaping from memories, the public joy has so impressed them. No one forgets his happiness. Listen to what was done in heaven : faith must be reposed in the writer. It was an nounced to Jove, " Some one has arrived, of good stature, very
I don't know what he is threatening, for he incessantly shakes his head and drags his right foot. I have asked him his nationality, and he answered — I can't tell what, with a confused sound and a mumbling voice. I don't under stand his language ; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor any known tongue. "
gray-haired.
I must
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
29
Then Jupiter orders Hercules, because he had wandered over the whole globe and seemed to have known all nations, to go and investigate what people he is of. Hercules at first sight of him is certainly disturbed, though he would not have feared even Junonian monsters. As he observed a face of a new type, an unwonted gait, the voice of no terrestrial animal, but (such as is usual with marine beasts) one hoarse and confused, he thought he had come to his thirteenth labor. Carefully stud ied, it is seen to be a man. He advanced, therefore, and said in Greek, as easiest to him, Tfc nroOev eh avSp&v, iroQi rol ttto- Xt? ; [What kind of a man are you, where is your city? ] Claudius, hearing this, rejoices that there are linguistic scholars here : he hopes there will be some place for his histories. So, signifying himself in a Homeric line to be Caesar, he says : —
'IXtoOcv /it <f>epu>ovtjiios KiKOvtacri iriXxura-tv. 5
[The winds, bearing me from Ilion, drove me upon the Ciconians. ]
There was also following a truer line, equally Homeric : —
TZvOa S* lytov ttoXiv tirpaOov, <3A«ra 8' avrous.
[At Ismarus, there I destroyed the city and slew the people. ]
And he would have imposed the tale on Hercules with very little risk had not Fever been there, who, leaving his fane behind, had come with him alone ; all the other gods he had left at Rome. " That man," said he, " is telling pure lies. I, who have lived with him so many years, say this to you : He was born at Lyons. You see one of Munatius' citizens ; as I am telling you, he was born at the sixteenth stone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So, as befitted a Gaul to do, he seized Rome. I turn over to you this native of Lyons, where Licinius reigned so many years. You indeed, who have trodden more places than any regular mule-driver, ought to know the Lyon- nese, and that many thousands exist between the Xanthus 6 and the Rhone. "
Claudius grows very hot at this point, and rumbles with all possible rage. What he was trying to say, no one could under stand. But he ordered Fever to be led off to execution by a gesture of his trembling hands, which however were firm enough for this one act, he was so used to decapitating men. He had ordered that one's neck lopped off. You would think they were all his freedmen, so little did anybody mind him.
Then Hercules : " Hear me, you," quoth he, " and stop playing fool : you have come here, where mice gnaw iron. 7
30 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Tell me the truth quickly, lest I strip you of your frills. " And that he might be more terrifying, he grew tragic, and saith he : —
" Haste and express what stock thy name reveals, Lest stricken with this club thou fall'st to earth : This staff hath oft demolished savage kings.
What sounds with hesitant utterance makest thou ? What land, what tribe produced that unfixed head, Expound. Sooth, while I sought the far-off realms Of the triple king, whence from the Western Sea To Inachus' town I bore the noble herd,
I saw a mountain bordering rivers twain,
Which Phoebus aye sees to the sunrise turned ;
Where mighty Rhone with rapid current flows,
And Arar [Saone], doubting where to urge his course, With quiet stream in silence laves his banks : "
Is not that land thy spirit's spring and nurse ?
This spiritedly and boldly enough. Nevertheless, he is not quite easy in his mind, and fears fiwpov irX^iy^v [a fool's blow]. Claudius, as he saw the valiant man, forgot his frivolity, and recognized that while there had been no one in Rome like him self, here he was not to have the same grace : every cock [Gaul] is first on his own dunghill. So, as far as he could be understood, he was observed to say this : —
"I have hoped that you, Hercules, bravest of the gods, would be with me in the presence of others : and if any one had asked me for a sponsor, I should have named you, who have known me best. For if you recall to memory, I was the one who was laying down law for you before your temple every day in the months of July and August. You know what mis eries I underwent there, when I heard pleaders both day and night ; of whom if you had happened to be one, mightily strong though you may seem, you would have preferred cleansing the sewers of Augeas. "
[Gap in Ms. here. Bouillet conjectures the argument to run thus : When Hercules has sufiered himself to be persuaded by Claudius, and favor him by voting for his admission into the number of the gods, he at once rashly bursts into their conclave with him, to commend his cause to them. But they, feeling the affair an indignity, inveigh bit terly against Hercules, and wrangle with him and each other in a tumultuous and disorderly fashion. Some unknown god speaks first and then another breaks in. ]
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 31
" No wonder you have forced an entrance into the curia ;
for nothing is closed to you. Now tell us what sort of god
you wish him to be. 'Eirt/eovpeto? ®eo? [an Epicurean god] he
cannot be, — ovre outos repaypa eyei, ovre aXXot; irapexei6 [one
who has no troubles himself and brings none to others]. Stoic?
how can he be round [complete], as Varro saith, without head
and without tail There something of Stoic god in him,
though, for he has neither heart nor head. " "Good Lord
Even he had asked this recommendation from Saturn, whose
month he celebrated every year while prince, he would not
have obtained that godhood from Jupiter, whom so far as in
him lay he condemned of incest. 9 For he slew L. Silanus, his
son-in-law. 10 ask, what for? his sister, the most enjoying
girl in Rome, whom everybody called Venus, he preferred to
call Juno. 11 Why, quoth he, for want to know, why foolishly
be so zealous over his sister? At Athens half one allowed,
at Alexandria full one. Because at Rome, quoth he, mice
lick meal, this man straightens our curves. 12 What he may do
in his chamber, know not he criticises even the quarters of
heaven, he wishes to become god. It not enough that he
has temple in Britain, where the barbarians worship him and
pray to him as a god, pxopov <fiv\aTT€iv p. rjvw [to ward off fool's
wrath]. "
At last enters Jove's mind to pass judgment on private
persons lingering within the curia, and to have no quarrels. "I had permitted you, Conscript Fathers," saith he, "to ask questions, but you have made mere country fair. wish you to preserve the discipline of the curia. Whatever kind of man this is, what will he think of us "
He being sent out, first Father Janus asked his judg ment he was designated in the Julian Kalends Afternoon Consul ;18 man sly enough, who always sees afia irpoaau) koX oirio-ffG)1* [at once before and after]. He spoke fluently — because he lives in the Forum —much that the stenographer could not follow, and so do not relate nor may put into other words what was spoken by him. He talked much of the greatness of the gods this honor ought not to be given to the crowd. " Formerly," quoth he, " was great thing to be made god; now you have made of very slight repute. That may not seem to give judgment on the person rather than the matter, my opinion is, that after to-day, no one should be made a god from those who apovprj<i Kapwbv eSovaiv16
I
a
: a
a
if
I ;
; a
itit it
; is
is a
a
a
I
is Iaa
?
it a
I
it
I
a ?
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is
6<>
!
? ,2 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
[shall eat the fruit of the country], or from those whom £ie:'8<B/>o? apovpa 15 [the fruitful country] maintains. Whoever, contrary to this Senate decree, is made, fabricated, or depicted a god, to be given to the ghosts, his first function to be among the new gladiators, to flog them with whips. "
Next is asked for his judgment, Diespiter, son of Vica Pota,16 and himself designated Money-changer Consul. He lived by this trade, and was wont to sell franchiselets. 17 To him Hercules politely came up and touched his ear ; so he gives judgment in these words : —
" Since Holy Claudius is akin to Holy Augustus in blood, nor less to Holy Augusta, his grandmother, whom he himself has ordered to be a goddess, and far surpasses all mortals in wisdom, and there must be some one from the republic who can, like Romulus, " ferventia rapa vorare " 18 [devour smoking turnips], I judge that Holy Claudius from this day be a god, just as whoever before him was made with the best right ; and that the subject be added to Ovid's fierafioptpwaeK [Meta morphoses]. " There were various judgments, and Claudius seemed to conquer in the decision. For Hercules, who saw his sword in the fire,19 ran hither and thither and said : "Don't do me an ill service — my all is at stake : in return I will do whatever you wish, one after another ; one hand washes the other. "
Then Holy Augustus rose to speak in his turn, and dis coursed with the greatest eloquence. "Conscript Fathers, I have your witness that from the time I was made a god I have not uttered a word. I always mind my own business. But I cannot dissimulate longer, and hold back grief which shame makes heavier. For this have I begotten peace on land and sea? to this end have I curbed civil war? to this end have I based the city on laws, adorned it with works ? And what to say, Conscript Fathers, I cannot find ; all words are below my indignation. I must take refuge in the sentence of that most sagacious man, Messala Corvinus : He has destroyed the justice of the Empire ! This man, Conscript Fathers, who seems to us not able to stir up a fly, slew men as easily as a dog 20 falls. But what can I say of so many acts of justice ? a There is no time to deplore public slaughters in contemplating domestic calamities, so I will omit the former and allude to the latter. Even if he does not know these things, I know h> rv^omav [one happening] : he does not
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS. 33
know himself among the gods. He whom you see, hiding under my name for so many years, has repaid me with these thanks : he has slain my two great-granddaughters Julia, one by the sword and one by starvation ; one great-great- grandson, L. Silanus.
"You can see, Jupiter, whether I am speaking in a bad cause ; certainly in yours. If this man is to be among us — tell me, Holy Claudius, why every one of those you slew, you condemned before you knew about the case, before you heard it ? Is it customary to do this ? It is not done in heaven. Behold Jupiter, who is reigning so many years; he merely broke the leg of Vulcan, whom
'Piif/e iroSbs reraytov <tiro BiyXov Ocottc&ioio,*1
[Seizing his foot, he hurled from the threshold divine,]
because he was angry with his wife, and hung him up : whom did he ever kill ? You killed Messalina, of whom I was great- uncle equally with being yours. 'I don't know,' you say? May the gods curse you ; for that is viler, that you don't know, than that you killed her. He has not left off following the dead Caius Caesar [Caligula]. The latter slew her father-in- law : the former his son-in-law. Caius Caesar forbade the son of Crassus to be called the Great : this man restored the name to him, but took away his head. He killed in one house Cras sus the Great, Serbonia, Tristionia, Assario, though nobles ; — Crassus, it is true, such a fool that he might have been em peror.
" Think, Conscript Fathers, what a portent that he should desire to be received into the number of the gods ! Do you wish now to make this thing a god ? See his body, born under angry gods. At most he can say three words speedily, [' This is mine,'] and lead me off a slave. Who will worship this god ? Who will believe in him ? When you come at last to making such gods, no one will believe you are gods yourselves. Most of all, Conscript Fathers, if I have acted becomingly among you, if I have answered no one harshly, avenge my injuries. I adjudge this for my decision. " And he thus recited from the tablet : —
" Since Holy Claudius slew his father-in-law, Appius Sila nus, two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, the father-in-law of his daughter, Crassus Frugi, a man as like
vol. nr. —3
84 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
himself as egg to egg ; Scribonia, his daughter's mother-in-law, Messalina, his wife ; and the rest of whom he could not tell the number : it is my pleasure that he be severely censured, and not given a dispensation for judicial business ; and should be forthwith carried away, and leave heaven within thirty days, Olympus within three. "
This sentence was agreed upon. Without delay, Cyllenius [Mercury] drags him with a neck-twist to the shades,
Illuc unde regant redire quemquain.
[The bourne from whence no traveller returns. ]
While they descend through the sacred way, what does that concourse of men desire for itself, now Claudius has had his funeral? And it was the most beautiful of all and full of costly preparations, as you know a god is proclaimed, — flute, horn, and such a throng, such a gathering of every class of sena tors, that even Claudius could hear it. All joyful, hilarious, the Roman people walked about as if free. Agatho and a few pet tifoggers mourned, and clearly from the heart. Jurisconsults came out of the shadows, pale, thin, scarce having life, as if they had revived with the greatest difficulty. One of these, when he had seen the pettifoggers putting their heads together and deploring their fortunes, came up and said, " I told you the Saturnalia would not last forever. " Claudius, as he saw his funeral, understood that he was dead. For with great p. eya\rj- yop(a [pomposity] the dirges are sung : —
Pour ye out weeping, Send ye forth wailing, Fabricate mourning ; Sadly resoundeth
The Forum with clamor : Dead in his beauty
The sapient man
Than whom no other
On the whole planet Stouter existed.
He could the fleet ones Down in the race course Speedily conquer
He could demolish The Parthian rebels,
;
is,
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Follow those faithless ones Armed with their light darts, While he sure-handed
Drew up the bowstring ;
He could the foemen Rushing against him
Fix with a slight wound, Likewise the Medes' backs Painted and flying.
He too the Britons Living beyond the known Shores of the ocean,
With the blue-shielded Tribe of Brigantes,
Forced to surrender Necks to the Roman Fetters, and Ocean's Very self tremble
Over the new laws
Made for Rome's safety.
Weep for the hero,
Than whom no other
Could with more swiftness Cases decide on,
Not having listened
Save but to one side,
Often to neither.
Who will as judge now Listen to cases
All the long year through ? You he shall yield to, Leaving his high seat,
You who a silent
People give laws to, Holding a hundred Towns of the Cretans. Beat on your bosoms, O pettifoggers,
Genus of hirelings. Bards, do you also Mourn at this sad news; You too the chiefest, Who had made ready For winning great lucre Shaking the dice-box.
36 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Claudius was delighted with his praises, and wished to gaze longer. The Talthybius of the gods [Mercury] took his hand and dragged him along with head turned, lest some one should recognize him, through the Campus Martius ; and between Tiber and the covered way he descended to the shades. The freedman Narcissus had gone before by a shorter road to inter cept his patron ; and runs up to him on his arrival, shining as if just out of the bath, and says, "What have the gods sent to men? " " Go quickly," said Mercury, " and announce our com ing. " But he wished to fawn on his patron longer; when Mercury again ordered him to hasten, and shortened his linger ing with a rod. No sooner done than Narcissus flies.
Every thing is favorable ; he descends easily. 24 So, gouty as he was, he arrived at the door of Dis, where Cerberus — or, as Horace says, "the hundred-headed beast"26 — lay, moving about and shaking his rough shag. He was a little disturbed (he was used to having a white dog for his pleasure) on seeing him to be a shaggy black dog, evidently one you would not wish to have come at you in the dark. And in a loud voice, he says, "Claudius Caesar comes. " Behold, at once they came forth, clapping their hands and singing : —
[We have found him, we rejoice with him ! ] *
Here was C. Silius, consul designate, Juncus Praetorius, Sex. Trallus, M. Helvius, Trogus Cotta, Vectius Valens, Fabius, — Roman knights whom Narcissus had ordered to be executed. In the midst of this crowd of singers was Mnester the panto- mimist, whom Claudius on account of his beauty had made a head short. Nor was the rumor slow in spreading to Messalina that Claudius had come. First of all, the freedmen flock together, — Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, and Phero- nactes, all whom, that he might not be unprovided anywhere, he had sent ahead. Then the two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufus son of Pompeius. Then his friends, Saturnius Luscius, and Pedo Pompeius, and Lupus, and Celer Asinius, consulars. Last came a brother's daughter, a sister's daughter, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, all full kin by blood. And the train being formed, they rush to Claudius. When Claudius saw them, he exclaimed, " Tldvra <j>(\a>v irX^prj ! [All full of friends! ] How did you come here? " Then Pedo Pompeius : " What are you saying, you cruelest of men ? Do
THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
37
you ask, How? Why, who else sent us here but you, the
He leads him to the tribune of jEacus ; the latter under the Cornelian law asked what was established concerning assassins, he demands that his name be taken, he announces the record : Senators slain, 30 ; Roman knights, 315 and more ; other citi zens, oaa -^-aimOo'i re «ow? Te [as the sand on the seashore]. Claudius, greatly terrified, cast his eyes around everywhere ; he searches for some patron who can defend him. Advocate he finds none. Finally, P. Petronius comes forward — his old con vive, a man fluent in the Claudian tongue [stutterer], and de mands the advocacy. It is not granted. Pedo Pompeius makes accusation with a great clamor. Petronius begins to intend to answer. vEacus, an exceedingly just man, forbids. With the other side so far unheard he condemns Claudius, and says : —
EtKC irdOoi ra k </>c£e,SCkt) k Weia yevotro.
[Let him suffer the evils he dealt, that justice and right may exist. ]
There was a great silence. All were stupefied, astounded by the novelty of the thing ; they said this had never been done. To Claudius it seemed more iniquitous than novel. What sort of punishment he ought to undergo was long debated. There were those who said that if they must create a burden for one god, Tantalus would perish with thirst unless help was brought to him ; Sisyphus could never lift his load ; some time or other poor Ixion's wheel ought to be stopped. It was resolved, how ever, not to give a discharge to any of these veterans, lest Claudius
might some time hope for the same. It seemed best that a new penalty should be devised, to institute a fruitless labor for him, and an image of his desires without end or accomplishment. Then ^acus orders him to gamble with a dice-box minus a bot tom. And now he has begun to chase the flying dice and to effect nothing.
For however oft he endeavored to throw from the resonant dice-box, Both dice fled from pursuit and escaped through the bottom removed ; And when he adventured to cast once more with the squares re
collected,
Still to be mocked in like manner, and always in quest of illusion, Cheating his trust ; he flies after, and once again, right through his
fingers,
Slips the deceitful tessara, filled with perpetual craft
murderer of all your friends ? We must be in a court ; show you the judges' chair. "
I will
38 THE APOCOLOCYNTOSIS.
Thus whenever attained are the peaks of the loftiest mountains, Fruitless the ponderous burden rolls back upon Sisyphus' neck.
Suddenly Caius Caesar appeared, and began to claim him as a slave; he produces witnesses who saw Claudius writhing under whips, rods, buffets, from himself. He was adjudged to Caesar ; Macus gives him over. Caius transferred him to Me- nander his freedman, to be his private helper.
Notes.
1 Tobe abletodoas helikes.
2 Virgil, iEneid, ii. 720, but in a wholly different sense ; a gibe at Claudius' lameness.
3 The rest of the verse is from Virgil, Georgics, iv. 90.
4 Euripides, from " Cresphontes. "
5 Homer, Odyssey, ix. 39.
6 At Troy : a sneer at Claudius' pretense of Trojan ancestry.
7 The sword is powerless.
8 From Epicurus' theory of the gods, whom he supposed to dwell be tween the worlds in perfect peace, and leaving men undisturbed.
9 By harrying Silanus to death for doing what Jupiter had done.
10 Not quite accurately : Silanus took his own life in fear of the
future. But it would hardly have been spared long.
11 I. e. to be a permanent husband to her, as Jupiter to Juno, while the others had temporary amours with her, Venus-wise.
12 Thinks the moral government of the world needs straightening out because Romans are licentious.
13 Moderator for the day of the money exchange around Janus' temple in the Forum. During the July holidays this business was suspended, so that even if the god had taken the post there was nothing to do.
14 Homer, Iliad, iii. 109.
15 Homer, familiarly. A sneer at Claudius' boorish ways and his
preferences in food.
16 Jupiter son of Victress and Possessoress, or the Goddess of Vic
tory ; a comic god in derision of the many specialized gods of the Pantheon.
17 The franchise for small provincial towns.
18 Martial, xiii. 16.
19 His influence hanging in the balance.
20 The worst throw of dice.
21 Executions : the euphemism is precisely that of the Spanish autos-
da-fe.
22 Homer, Iliad, i. 591.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 89
23 As no honors were decreed him.
24 Virgil, JEneid, vi. 126 : " facilis descensus Averni. "
25 Odes, ii. 18, 84.
26 The song of the priests of Apis when a new calf was found to
worship.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. By AULUS GELLIUS.
(Translated for this work. )
[Aulus Gellitts was born probably about a. d. 120, and died about 180. He was a man both of letters and affairs, and held high office at Rome. His one extant work is the "Attic Nights," a collection of scraps from his commonplace book, on a vast number of things heard, seen, or read. ]
Against those who call themselves Chaldaeans or genethliacs [natal-timers], and profess to be able from the motions and positions of the stars to tell what will happen in the future, we
once heard the philosopher Favorinus of Rome make an excel lent and luminous speech in Greek ; but whether to find him self employment, or display his genius, or because he wished to give a serious and judicial estimate of them, is not for me to say. But the leading instances and arguments he used which I could remember, brought away from my hearing of him there, I hastily noted down. They were approximately to this effect : —
That the doctrine of the Chaldaeans is not of as great antiq uity as they wish it to appear ; nor are those the chiefs and authors of it whom they pretend ; but that the crew who have fabricated these illusions and conjurings are professional money- hunting jugglers, seeking victuals and cash by lying tricks ; and because they have seen that certain terrestrial things, situate among mankind, move in accordance with the humor and lead ing of celestial things, — for instance, that the ocean, as if a companion of the moon, grows old and young at the same time with her, — they set this up as an argument that we should believe all human affairs, great and small, similarly bound up with the stars and heavens, led and ruled by them.
40 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But this is in the highest degree inept and absurd ; that because the tide follows the course of the moon, the business likewise of anybody who has, say, a case before a judge involv ing the control of water with comarchers, or of a party wall with a neighbor, — that we must consider that business also as if it were governed by some cable from heaven tied to it. That even if by some divine power and reason it could be done, he considered it by no means possible for the mind of man to comprehend and perceive it in so short and scanty a space of life, however much it can do, though a few of certain things can be guessed — I will use the word itself — irayyfi&pka-rtpov [clumsily], conceived on no basis of science, but confused and vague and arbitrary, so far is the penetration of our eyes from piercing the middle spaces of vapor. For the chief difference between gods and men would be removed if men also were to know everything which is to come later.
Then the observation itself of the heavens and stars, which they profess to be the origin of their science, he thinks by no means clearly established ; for if the chiefs of the Chaldaeans, who dwelt in the open fields, contemplating the motions and paths and discessions and conjunctions of the stars, had observed that something was effected by them, this science, he says, clearly might make way ; but only under that aspect of the sky under which the Chaldaeans were ; for it is not possible, he says, that the calculations from the Chaldaean observations should remain valid, if any one should wish to use it thus under different regions of the sky. For who does not see, he says, how great is the diversity of the parts and circles of the sky from the divergency and convexity of the earth ? Therefore, the same stars by which they contend that all divine and human things are borne on and led, do not for instance everywhere excite cold or heat alike ; but change and vary, and at the same time in some places actuate placid seasons, in others stormy : why should they not also actuate one set of personal and pub lic happenings in Chaldaea, another in Gaetulia, another on the Danube, another on the Nile ? On the other hand, he says, it does not follow that if the same body and constitution of such a deep atmosphere should not remain the same under one and another curvature of the sky, yet in the affairs of men those stars must be thought always to show the same, from whatever land you contemplated them.
Moreover, it was wonderful that anybody should hold it proved that those stars which they declare were observed by
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 41
the Chaldaeans and Babylonians and Egyptians (which many call erratic, Nigidius wandering') [comets] should not be more numerous than is currently said ; for he considered it possible that there were also other planets with equal power, without which correct and steady observation could not be carried on, yet men could not discern them on account of their superiority either in brightness or altitude. For some other stars, he said, are seen from other countries, and are known by the people of those countries; but these very ones do not appear from all the rest of the earth, and are everywhere unknown by others ; and as only just so many of these stars, he says, and from one part of the earth, must needs be observed, what finally was the limit of that observation, and what time can we know to be enough for perceiving what the conjunction of the stars, or their motion around or across each other's paths, may presage ? For if an observation has been commenced, in such manner that it shall be noted in what guise, in what form, and in what position of the stars any one is born, and then successively from the beginning of life his fortune and habits and talents, and the circumstances of his private affairs and his business, and finally the very close of his life, shall be anticipated, and all these things, as they have come about in experience, shall be committed to writing ; and a long time afterward, when those very things shall be in that same place and in that same guise, it shall be assumed that the same things also will happen to the rest who may be born at that time, — if in that way, he says, observation has begun, and from that observation a certain science has been constructed that cannot by any means make way ; for let them tell us in how many years, or rather in how many ages of the earth, these observations could be perfected ? [by the same order of the heavenly bodies returning]. He said it was agreed among astrologers that the stars which they call wandering, which seem indicative of every one's fate, return only after an almost infinite and countless number of years to the same place whence in the same guise they all set out at once ; that no course of observation, nor any memory or form of record, could endure for such a period.
And he thought this also must be taken into account in some way, that there would be one train of stars when a man was first conceived in his mother's womb, and another later when after ten months he was brought to the light. And he asked how a diverse indication could come to the same thing, as those people say, another and another situation and connection
if,
42 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
of stars give other and other fortunes. But also at the time of nuptials, by which children are sought, and also at the coition itself of male and female, he said it must be evident that from a certain fixed and necessary order of the stars such and such persons and with such fortunes must be born ; and also long before when the father and mother themselves were born, the geniture from them could then be foreseen, —whoever of old were still to be, whom they were to beget, and so farther and farther back to infinity. So that if that science were framed on any basis of truth, back as far as the hundredth century, or still more, to the first beginning of the heavens and the earth, and then successively with continuous indication — as many progenitors of the same race as were born, those stars must foreshow that such and with such fate must be in the future whoever is born to-day.
But how, he says, can any one believe that by the form and position of any star whatever one man's chance and fortune are altogether fixed and destined, and that that form, after an immense number of ages, is restored, unless the signs of the life and fortunes of the same man, in such short intervals, through the ranks of his ancestors one by one, and through an infinite order of successions, themselves are denoted by the same ap pearance of the stars ? That if such can be, and if that diver sity and variety is admitted through every step of antiquity, to point out the beginnings of those men who shall afterward be born, this inequality disturbs observation, and every reason ing of the science is confounded.
Now he thought it was really not in the least assertable that not only extrinsic happenings and events which take place, but even the counsels and decisions of men themselves, and the various wills and longings and aversions, and the casual and unforeseen impulses and recoils of the mind in the lightest things, they should hold to be actuated and excited from the heavens above ; as, if you should happen to desire to go to the baths, and then did not desire to, and again desired to, it should happen not from some irregular and haphazard stir of the spirit, but by some necessary reciprocation of the wander ing stars ; that men in that case would plainly seem not to be what are called Xoyiicd fiua (rational beings), but ridiculous and to be jeered at, a sort of vevpocriracrra (puppets), if they do nothing of their own will, nothing by their own judgment, but with the stars leading and making carriage horses of them.
WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE. 43
And he says, could be positively predicted for King Pyrrhus whether M. Curius was to be vanquished in battle, why pray do they not dare also to say with dice, or pebbles, or the tray, who of the players shall win Do they know great things and not know small things, and are the lesser things less knowable than the greater But they vindicate them selves by the greatness of things, and say the great are clearer and can be more easily comprehended, wish, he says, they would answer me as to what, in this contemplation of the whole world, in the works of mighty nature, they think great in such brief and petty affairs as those of mankind And wish also, he says, that they would answer me this so small and fleeting the moment of time in which person at con ception receives his fate, whether in that same point under that same circle of the heaven many must not needs be born at once in the same conjunction therefore twins are not in the same fortune of life because not brought forth at the same point of time urge, he says, that they answer that course of time flying past, which can hardly be comprehended by the cogita tion of the mind — by what sort of method or expedient can they apprehend it, or ascertain or discover to themselves, when in such headlong dizzying whirl of days and nights they say the least changes make huge mutations
Finally he asked what there was to be said in answer to this that while people of both sexes and all ages are brought to life under diverse motions of the stars, the regions far apart under which they are born, yet all those who perish either in yawnings of the earth, or tumblings of houses, or stormings of towns, or drownings in the waves in the same ship, die by the same sort of death, at the same stroke of time in the universe all at once. Now, he says, this never could happen the moments of birth allotted to separate individuals had each the same laws. But
he says, they allege that in the death and life of men, even brought forth at diverse times, some like and harmonious things can befall by certain like conjunctions of the stars at later times, why does not everything come out alike at last, so that there may exist, through such concourses of the stars, the similitudes both of Socrates and Antisthenes at once, and many Platos, alike in race, form, talent, habits, in all life and death which in short, he says, cannot by any means be so. This argument, therefore, cannot well be used against the unlike births of men and their like deaths.
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44 WHY ASTROLOGY CANNOT BE TRUE.
But, he said, this would present itself to them, even though he should not inquire into it : if of the life and death of men, and of all human things, there was season and reason and cause in heaven and among the stars, what did they say of flies or worms or hedgehogs, and many other very small things animat ing the earth and sea ? whether those also were born under the same laws as men, and extinguished under the same ; whether also the fates of birth for frogs and gnats were attributed to the motions of the heavenly bodies ; or if they did not think that, no reason was apparent why the same power of the stars should be operative for men and lacking for the rest.
Favorinus likewise admonished us to beware lest those parasites should creep on toward making converts, because some of them seemed from time to time to babble or inter sperse truths. For they do not tell understood things, he says, nor defined nor perceived ones ; but glittering with slippery and roundabout guesswork, they walk step by step among falsehoods and truths, as if marching through shad ows. Either, while handling many subjects they suddenly and imprudently tumble into the truth ; or while great credulity leads on those who consult them, they shrewdly arrive at conclusions which are true : for that reason they seem to copy truth more easily in past matters than future. Yet all the things about which they either rashly or skillfully tell the truth, he says, are not a thousandth part of the ones in which they lie.
The same Favorinus, wishing to deter and repel the youth from those genethliacs and others of the sort, from going to and consulting in any way that tribe who profess to tell the future by magic arts, concluded with these arguments : Either they foretell adverse fortunes, he said, or prosperous. If they fore tell prosperous ones and deceive, you will be wretched from mistaken expectation. If they foretell adverse ones and lie, you will be wretched from mistaken fear. But if they answer truly — in case affairs are not prosperous, then you will be wretched through your mind, before being so through fate ; if they promise happiness and it so befalls, then obviously there will be two undesirable results : expectation will weary you with hope deferred, and hope will have robbed you of the fruit of joy to come. Therefore, future events should not in any way be given to human forecast.
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 45
AN ANCIENT GULLIVEK. By LUCIAN.
[LnciAN, one of the foremost humorists and men of letters of all time, was born in Asia Minor during Trajan's reign, about a. t>. 100. He studied for a sculptor, but finally went to Antioch and devoted himself to literature and ora tory. He died in extreme old age. His works, written in Greek, are largely satirical burlesques on pagan philosophy and mythology and on the literature of his day, with some stories. ]
Ctesias wrote an account of India, in which he records matters which he neither saw himself, nor heard from the mouth of any creature in the world. So likewise a certain Jambulus wrote many incredible wonders of the great sea, that are too palpably untrue for any one to suppose they are not of his own invention, though they are very entertaining to read. Many others have in the same spirit written pretended voyages and occasional peregrinations in unknown regions, wherein they give us incredible accounts of prodigiously huge animals, wild men, and strange and uncouth manners and habits of life. Their great leader and master in this fantastical way of im posing upon people was the famous Homeric Ulysses, who tells a long tale to Alcinous and his silly Phaeacians about King . rfEolus and the winds, who are his slaves, and about one-eyed men-eaters and other the like savages ; talks of many-headed beasts, of the transformation of his companions into brutes, and a number of other fooleries of a like nature. For my part I was the less displeased at all the falsehoods, great and numerous as they were, of these honest folks, when I saw that even men who pretend that they only philosophize, act not a hair better ; but this has always excited my wonder, how they could im agine their readers would fail of perceiving that there was not a word of truth in all their narratives.
Now, as I cannot resist the vanity of transmitting to pos terity a little work of my own composing, and though I have nothing true to relate (for nothing memorable has happened to me in all my life), I see not why I have not as good a right to deal in fiction as another :
honester mode of lying than the generality of my compeers : for I tell at least one truth, by saying that I lie ; and the more confidently hope therefore to escape the general censure,
I resolved, however, to adopt an since my own voluntary confession is a sufficient proof that I
46 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
desire to impose upon no one. Accordingly I hereby declare, that I sit down to relate what never befell me ; what I neither saw myself, nor heard by report from others ; aye, what is more, about matters that not only are not, but never will be, because in one word they are absolutely impossible, and to which there fore I warn my readers (if by the bye I should have any) not to give even the smallest degree of credit.
Once on a time, then, I set sail from Cadiz, and steered my course with a fair wind to the Hesperian ocean ; taking along fifty companions and a most experienced pilot.
We sailed a day and a night with favorable gales, and while still within sight of land, were not violently carried on ; on the following day at sunrise, however, the wind blew fresher, the sea ran high, the sky lowered, and it was impossible even to take in the sails. We were therefore forced to resign ourselves to the wind, and were nine and seventy days driven about by the storm. On the eightieth, however, at daybreak, we de scried a high and woody island not far off, against which, the gale having greatly abated, the breakers were not uncommonly furious. We landed therefore, got out, and, happy after sus taining so many troubles to feel the solid earth under us, we stretched ourselves at ease upon the ground. At length, after having rested for some time, we arose, and selected thirty of our company to stay by the ship, while the remaining thirty accompanied me in penetrating farther inland, to examine into the quality of the island.
When we had proceeded about two thousand paces from the shore through the forest, we came up to a pillar of brass, on which in Greek letters, half effaced and consumed by rust, this inscription was legible : Thus far came Bacchus and Her cules. We also discovered, at no great distance from it, two footmarks in the rock, one of which measured a whole acre, but the other was apparently somewhat smaller. I conjectured the lesser one to be that of Bacchus, and the other that of Hercules. We bowed the knee, and went on, but had not proceeded far when we came to a river, that instead of water ran with wine, which both in color and flavor appeared to us like our Chian wine. The river was so broad and deep, that in many places it was even navigable. Such an evident sign that Bacchus had once been here served not a little to confirm our faith in the inscription on the pillar. But being curious to learn whence
AN ANCIENT GULLIVER. 47
this stream derived its origin, we went up to its head ; but found no spring, and only a quantity of large vines hung full of clusters, and at the bottom of every stem the wine trickled down in bright transparent drops, from the confluence whereof the stream arose. We saw likewise a vast quantity of fishes therein, the flesh of which had both the color and flavor of the wine in which they lived. We caught some, and so greedily swallowed them down, that as many as ate of them were com pletely drunk ; and on cutting up the fishes we found them to be full of lees. It occurred to us afterwards to mix these wine fishes with water fishes, whereby they lost their strong vinous taste, and yielded an excellent dish.
We then crossed the river at a part where we found it ford- able, and came among a wonderful species of vines : which toward the earth had firm stocks, green and knotty ; but up wards they were ladies, having down to the waist their several proportions perfect and complete ; as Daphne is depicted, when she was turned into a tree in Apollo's embrace. Their fingers terminated in shoots, full of bunches of grapes, and instead of hair their heads were grown over with tendrils, leaves, and clusters. These ladies came up to us, amicably gave us their hands, and greeted us, some in Lydian, others in Indian lan guage, but most of them in Greek ; they saluted us also on the lips ; but those whom they kissed immediately became drunk, and reeled. Their fruit, however, they would not permit us to pluck, and screamed out with pain when we broke off a bunch. Some of them even showed an inclination to consort with us ; but a couple of my companions, in consenting to it, paid dear for their complaisance. For they got so entangled in their embraces, that they could never after be loosed ; but every limb coalesced and grew together with theirs, in such sort as to become one stock with roots in common. Their fin gers changed into vine twigs, and began to bud, giving promise of fruit.
Leaving them to their fate, we made what haste we could to our ship, where we related all that we had seen to our com rades, whom we had left behind, particularly the adventure of the two whose embraces with the vine women had turned out so badly. Hereupon we filled our empty casks partly with common water, partly from the wine stream ; and after having passed the night not far from the latter, weighed anchor in the morning with a moderate breeze. But about noon, when we
48 AN ANCIENT GULLIVER.
had lost sight of the island, we were suddenly caught by a whirlwind, which turned our vessel several times round in a circle with tremendous velocity, and lifted it above three thou sand stadia aloft in the air, not setting it down again on the sea, but kept it suspended above the water at that height, and carried us on, with swelled sails, above the clouds.
Having thus continued our course through the sky for the space of seven days and as many nights, on the eighth day we descried a sort of earth in the air, resembling a large, shining, circular island, spreading a remarkably brilliant light around it. We made up to it, anchored our ship, and went on shore, and on examination found it inhabited and cultivated. Indeed, by day we could distinguish nothing : but as soon as the night came on, we discerned other islands in the vicinity, some bigger, some less, and all of a fiery color. There was also, very deep below these, another earth, having on it cities and rivers and lakes and forests and mountains ; whence we con cluded that it might probably be ours.
Having resolved on prosecuting our journey, we came up with a number of horse vultures or hippogypes, as they are called in this country, who immediately seized our persons. These hippogypes are men who ride upon huge vultures, and are as well skilled in managing them as we are in the use of horses. But the vultures are of a prodigious bulk, and for the most part have three heads ; and how large they must be, may be judged of by this, that each of the feathers in their wings is longer and thicker than the mast of a great corn ship.