THE “NOCTES ATTICÆ”--PECULIAR VALUE OF THE WORK--THE “LIVES OF THE
PHILOSOPHERS,” BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS--CHARACTER OF THE BOOK--THE
GOLDEN TRIPOS.
To the same class of production as the _Deipnosophistæ_ belongs the
_Attic Nights_ of Aulus Gellius. The information which the latter
affords is kindred in scope and character; and, though somewhat less
voluminous, it is almost equally multifarious and discursive. But the
_Noctes Atticæ_ did not profess, like the others, to be the offspring
of an imaginary scheme, in the same way as the _Decameron_ and the
_Arabian Nights_; its pages preserve to us, and to all who come
after us, the literary _Collectanea_ of a Roman jurist, scholar and
antiquary, and it will remain for ever one of the most delightful and
instructive of books in any language or any literature. It is certainly
remarkable that the same obscurity which surrounds the personal history
of Diogenes Laertius hangs over that of the Roman. That they both lived
about the same time, in the first or second century of our era, seems
to be settled; but a clear approximation, much less any biographical
_minutiæ_, are not forthcoming in either case.
Some few matters the two writers exhibit in common; which is the less
surprising when we consider their nearness in time to each other, and
bear in mind the plan on which Gellius at least worked. His preface
commences thus:--
“More pleasing works than the present may certainly be found; but my
object in writing this was to provide my children as well as myself
with that kind of amusement in which they might properly relax and
indulge themselves, at the intervals from more important business....
Whatever book came into my hand, _whether it was Greek or Latin_,
or whatever I heard that was either worthy of being recorded or
agreeable to my fancy, I wrote down without distinction and without
order.”
The result to us is, that we possess such a commonplace book as stands
fairly by itself without a rival, looking at its date, in Roman
literature, in the same way that Athenæus does in Greek.
It would not be possible to offer a complete introductory survey of
the subject under consideration without turning back to see what the
sources were to which later wits would resort--without inspecting the
basement of the edifice, so to speak. Otherwise, vastly interesting
as they are on literary and archæological grounds, such relics of
antiquity as Athenæus and Gellius yield mainly pure Anecdota in the
strict acceptation of the term. The pages of the former are more
redolent of the theatre and the gymnasium; those of the author of the
_Attic Nights_ breathe the atmosphere of the study, and where he tells
a story of some _hetaira_ or dancing-girl, he cites his original.
But Gellius has devoted much of his space to topics which were more
congenial than the adventures and amours of the gay folks of or about
the time; he is more profuse on philological dissertation, serious
pieces of personal history, and points relevant to the general costume
of the Rome which he knew. Now and then, but not so often as might have
been expected and excused, the lawyer peeps out. Here and there, too,
he reminds us of the _Deipnosophistæ_, as in the twenty-second section,
which opens with an account of the conversation and readings which
took place at the table of Favorinus; and the very following chapter
is occupied by a sample of dramatic criticism, in which his opinion
is given of some Roman play founded on the Greek comedians, as we now
adapt pieces for the stage from the French.
It is a most strangely heterogeneous, and at the same time most
charming, miscellany, lacking which our knowledge of Roman literature,
society and manners would be far less complete. But, as it has
been already indicated in a general way of all the books of the
sub-classical period, the _Noctes Atticæ_ does not prove of great
service to the gatherer of _facetiæ_; and the few scattered trifles
of that nature which the work contains would not be held of sufficient
consequence to find a place in a modern collection. Such as they are,
they occur for the most part in the early jest-books, and are precisely
such as an editor nowadays would instinctively skip as out of keeping
with present notions and demands.
This fact tends to substantiate the position which I have asserted,
that our ideas of wit and humour are widely and essentially different
from those of the ancients; for it is only, I apprehend, in this single
particular that Gellius fails to keep touch with us. He is in most
respects, like all eminent writers, remarkably modern and contemporary;
and, as a rule, the matters which he judged worth writing down so many
centuries ago, we read with gratitude and enjoyment.
_The Lives of the Philosophers_, by Diogenes Laertius, is a very
familiar title and even book. But it is at the same time almost to
be regarded and taken as the prototype of literary works based, with
every wish on the part of the writer to be accurate and veracious, on
hearsay and tradition. Diogenes is the Greek Aubrey. His transactions
in conjecture and conflicting opinions are marvellously large; and,
as a consequence, his text abounds with uncertainty and confusion.
One is reminded nearly at every page of the story of the Southern
gentleman who once undertook a journey to the Highlands of Scotland to
inquire for _Meester Grant_; and, singularly enough, the source of the
difficulty is very much the same. Diogenes made himself the biographer
of a people whose choice of names was limited, and among whom the
same name was of common occurrence. So long as the men themselves
lived, it signified little or nothing; but if they became famous and
historical, or if one out of several did so, the facilities for mixture
of identity were, as a matter of course, immense. This circumstance,
which is not casual, but is the rule _not_ proving the exception,
sensibly diminishes the value of the _Lives_ as an authority; and it
is easy to see how the taint has been communicated to the best of our
modern Cyclopædias, where the contributors of articles are obliged
to own repeatedly, that some fact or other is attributed by half a
dozen ancient writers to as many different persons of the same name,
nationality and approximate period.
I shall pass over the circumstance that the biography of Diogenes is
almost as involved and obscure as his text, for I am merely dealing
with him and his celebrated book in a prefatory way. I should be very
sorry indeed to undervalue such a unique and fascinating magazine of
gossip and tradition; nor have I at present to concern myself with the
contradictory statements, not only about men of inferior fame, but
about such prominent characters as Thales and Plato; and, besides, in
relation to the most important events of their careers and the points
most vital to their reputation.
Take, for instance, in the account of Thales, the well-aired anecdote
of the _Golden Tripos_. I quote from the old English translation. “As
for what is recorded,” says he, “concerning the _Tripos_ found out by
the fishermen, and sent to the _Wise Men_ by the _Milesians_, it still
remains an undoubted Truth.” He then narrates this “undoubted truth”;
and when he has done so, he successively furnishes three other versions
materially differing; and we have to go only a step further, when we
encounter a saying of Thales as to his gratitude for three things--that
he was a man, and not a beast; that he was a man, and not a woman; and
that he was a Greek, and not a barbarian--which, it seems, is as likely
to have been a saying of Socrates. We have all heard something very
similar of Dr. Parr and Sir James Mackintosh.
These discrepancies are very thickly sown throughout the _Lives_, and
throughout those of whom it might be conceived that, in the time at
least of Diogenes, something like authentic and consistent information
would have been preserved in Greece, at all events regarding salient
facts. Yet between the era of the biographer and that of many, if not
most, of his subjects, the lapse of years was more than sufficient,
in the absence of systematic records, to accumulate a vast amount of
error and entanglement, especially when so many individuals of the
same name flourished about the same date. We perceive that even as to
the number of the Wise Men, and who they were, there is a conflict
of opinion. But, on the other hand, in his memoir of Solon, Diogenes
is remarkably minute, and supplies us with the very words which he
employed in addressing the Athenian Assembly and the texts of several
letters written to contemporaries, which, to be just, he does also
in the case of Thales. His tone, however, in the life of Solon is
more confident; and he does not trouble himself or us with parallel
traditions and various readings. We may discern equally strong ground
for scepticism here and there; but he felt his footing surer, as Homer,
in some parts of the Odyssey, evidently writes from report, and in
others from personal information. Where, as he does so freely in the
case of Thales and others, he lays before us all the theories about
an event or a fact, Diogenes reminds us of Herodotus, who so often
absolves himself from responsibility by setting down all the accounts
which had reached him, and leaving us to pick out the truth among them.
A considerable proportion of the aphorisms ascribed to the Wise
Men strike us as rather commonplace; but that may be the result of
familiarity. James I. observed that he was a bold man who first ate an
oyster; but the attributes of strangeness and courage have alike ceased
to exist. Perhaps one of the maxims which still most preserves its
verdure is that of Pittacus of Mitylene: _To observe the season_, which
is just our Selden’s _Distingue tempora_.
The anecdotes with which the pages of Diogenes are plentifully
illustrated are, as I have hinted, familiar to the point of
indifference; and I believe that they almost invariably suffer from
translation into a foreign idiom and epoch. If we are scarcely able
to relish the good things which passed current in our own country in
the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts, what likelihood is there of a
cordial sympathy with such fragments of the wit and wisdom as have
survived of men who lived at such an immeasurably greater distance
of time under wholly different conditions and influences? From an
historical and philosophical point of view we try to make the best of
them; but jocularly they amount to very little indeed.
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