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If you thought the previous bits of Cato were fragmentary, wait until you see today’s! We’re now looking at his Origines, a sort of historical/cultural/geographical/god-knows-what treatise on the Italian people. Probably. We don’t have enough of it to know even how it was organized as a whole, but only a whole bunch of tiny other fragments as they were quoted by other authors for various reasons. (The most frustrating are the ones we get from authors primarily concerned with grammar, who’ll happily cite two or three words at a time, being only interested in a peculiar form of the accusative or what not. Argh.) I believe I’m starting with the largest chunk we have, but...well. We’ll see.
IV.7.19.
[This is from within someone else’s work, and is preceded by something like “We will submit not to our own words, but to the words of Cato himself:”]
The immortal gods gave military fortune to the tribune, out of his virtue. For it happened thus: although he was wounded in many places there, nevertheless no wound to his head occurred, and they recognized him, lying among the dead exhausted by his wounds and because his blood had flowed out. They raised him up and he regained his health, and afterwards he often gave his strong and vigorous work to the republic. And from this deed, which destroyed many soldiers, he served another army.
But the same benefit you invest in this place differs very much.* As for Leonidas the Spartan, who did a similar thing at Thermopylas, on account of his virtues the whole of Greece honored his excellent glory and graciousness with a most famous splendid monument. By signs, statues, elegies, and other things they remembered this most gracious deed of his; but little praise is left for the tribune on account of his deeds, who had done the same thing and had served the same matter.
II.2.
The Ligurians are all deceptive, just as Cato says in the second book of Origines.
II.3
The greater part of Gaul pursues two things with the greatest industry: military affairs, and speaking in arguments.
II.4
The Gallic poppy
II.5
He did not have enough, because he had corrupted her in secret, but that he dishonored her reputation in public.
II.6
...and the Libui, who seem to go fetch water as they do wood; they carry an axe and a leather cord, they cut out the solid ice, they bear it away bound up with the cord.
II.23
A Marsian killed the enemy before before Paelignus; they were afterward called the Marrucini, the name being distorted from Marsus.
II.27
In the field of Tiburtus when he harvested barley, he sowed the same thing in the mountains, where he reaped the same barley again.
II.28
In the Arcinan land, Egerius Baebius Tusculanus, the ruler of the Latins, dedicated a sacred grove to Diana. These men did it jointly: Tusculanus, Aricinus, Lanuvinus, Laurens, Coranus, Tiburtis, Pometinus, and Rutulus of Ardeans.
II.31
If anyone of Arpinum has died, the sacred objects are not passed on to his heir.
II.32
He was elevated into the greatest splendor and loftiest fame.
II.33
Whoever reigned in Rome...
II.34
If they were wishing to load the convpy from there into disgusting ships full of bilge-water...
II.35
And it was a fruitful matter, before legions...
II.36
From the sea, who was among the Carthaginians.
III.4
The Thesunti of Tarianum are named from the river, which flows nearby. The Aurunci first possessed this town, to which the Achaeans returned home from Troy. In their lands are six rivers; the seventh divides the Rhegum and Tarianum border; the name of this river is Pecoli. They say that Orestes, with Iphegenia and Pylades, came there for the absolution of murdering his mother, and the memory of this isn’t remote, since they see a sword in a tree, which Orestes is said to have left there while going away.
III.5
He answered the horses: “From where the bit came for me, seize the whip for yourselves.”
III.6
He had silphium as an appetizer.
III.7
Use a lot of relish.
III.8
I do not at all write to them in this way afterward, if not that the people are good and vigorous.
III.9
The discipline and life of Italy are praised, which both Cato in the Originem and Varro in the Race Of Roman People commemorate.
IV.1
He does not wish to write what is the greatest on a tablet at the house of the pontifex, how much the year’s yield costs, how much the fog obscured the light of the moon or the sun.
IV.2
They’re called “huts” where they live; they’re a sort of round enclosure.
IV.4
If anyone should rupture a limb or break a bone, the nearest relative will avenge him with a talio.**
IV.5
Often their mercenary soldiers killed many of each other amongst themselves in the camps, often many men deserted at the same time to the enemy, often they attacked the general.
IV.6
Our general, if anyone left the battle line, he fined that man.
IV.9
Then in the twenty-second year after the end of the war, which was twenty-four years, the Carthiginians left the sixth from wickedness.
IV.12
Battle and fighting began for the camps.
IV.14
Then the dictator ordered that the cavalry master be summoned on the next day: “I will send you, if you wish, with horses.”
“It is late,” said the cavalry master, “to learn now.”
IV.15
Two exiles to be exiled by public law.
---
* ...yeah, I’m sort of waving my hands vigorously at this one. I’m not following the sense of the words at all, not least of which because I can’t tell if it’s using a real relative clause (and if so, if it’s got the object of said clause outside of it, or if that’s the antecedent) or just using the relative pronoun as a connective. And what I’m translating as “differs” could be translating a half dozen ways. Lordy.
** A handy Latin word meaning “a punishment in kind equal to the injury sustained.” So, it’s the whole eye-for-an-eye thing in one word!
IV.7.19.
[This is from within someone else’s work, and is preceded by something like “We will submit not to our own words, but to the words of Cato himself:”]
The immortal gods gave military fortune to the tribune, out of his virtue. For it happened thus: although he was wounded in many places there, nevertheless no wound to his head occurred, and they recognized him, lying among the dead exhausted by his wounds and because his blood had flowed out. They raised him up and he regained his health, and afterwards he often gave his strong and vigorous work to the republic. And from this deed, which destroyed many soldiers, he served another army.
But the same benefit you invest in this place differs very much.* As for Leonidas the Spartan, who did a similar thing at Thermopylas, on account of his virtues the whole of Greece honored his excellent glory and graciousness with a most famous splendid monument. By signs, statues, elegies, and other things they remembered this most gracious deed of his; but little praise is left for the tribune on account of his deeds, who had done the same thing and had served the same matter.
II.2.
The Ligurians are all deceptive, just as Cato says in the second book of Origines.
II.3
The greater part of Gaul pursues two things with the greatest industry: military affairs, and speaking in arguments.
II.4
The Gallic poppy
II.5
He did not have enough, because he had corrupted her in secret, but that he dishonored her reputation in public.
II.6
...and the Libui, who seem to go fetch water as they do wood; they carry an axe and a leather cord, they cut out the solid ice, they bear it away bound up with the cord.
II.23
A Marsian killed the enemy before before Paelignus; they were afterward called the Marrucini, the name being distorted from Marsus.
II.27
In the field of Tiburtus when he harvested barley, he sowed the same thing in the mountains, where he reaped the same barley again.
II.28
In the Arcinan land, Egerius Baebius Tusculanus, the ruler of the Latins, dedicated a sacred grove to Diana. These men did it jointly: Tusculanus, Aricinus, Lanuvinus, Laurens, Coranus, Tiburtis, Pometinus, and Rutulus of Ardeans.
II.31
If anyone of Arpinum has died, the sacred objects are not passed on to his heir.
II.32
He was elevated into the greatest splendor and loftiest fame.
II.33
Whoever reigned in Rome...
II.34
If they were wishing to load the convpy from there into disgusting ships full of bilge-water...
II.35
And it was a fruitful matter, before legions...
II.36
From the sea, who was among the Carthaginians.
III.4
The Thesunti of Tarianum are named from the river, which flows nearby. The Aurunci first possessed this town, to which the Achaeans returned home from Troy. In their lands are six rivers; the seventh divides the Rhegum and Tarianum border; the name of this river is Pecoli. They say that Orestes, with Iphegenia and Pylades, came there for the absolution of murdering his mother, and the memory of this isn’t remote, since they see a sword in a tree, which Orestes is said to have left there while going away.
III.5
He answered the horses: “From where the bit came for me, seize the whip for yourselves.”
III.6
He had silphium as an appetizer.
III.7
Use a lot of relish.
III.8
I do not at all write to them in this way afterward, if not that the people are good and vigorous.
III.9
The discipline and life of Italy are praised, which both Cato in the Originem and Varro in the Race Of Roman People commemorate.
IV.1
He does not wish to write what is the greatest on a tablet at the house of the pontifex, how much the year’s yield costs, how much the fog obscured the light of the moon or the sun.
IV.2
They’re called “huts” where they live; they’re a sort of round enclosure.
IV.4
If anyone should rupture a limb or break a bone, the nearest relative will avenge him with a talio.**
IV.5
Often their mercenary soldiers killed many of each other amongst themselves in the camps, often many men deserted at the same time to the enemy, often they attacked the general.
IV.6
Our general, if anyone left the battle line, he fined that man.
IV.9
Then in the twenty-second year after the end of the war, which was twenty-four years, the Carthiginians left the sixth from wickedness.
IV.12
Battle and fighting began for the camps.
IV.14
Then the dictator ordered that the cavalry master be summoned on the next day: “I will send you, if you wish, with horses.”
“It is late,” said the cavalry master, “to learn now.”
IV.15
Two exiles to be exiled by public law.
---
* ...yeah, I’m sort of waving my hands vigorously at this one. I’m not following the sense of the words at all, not least of which because I can’t tell if it’s using a real relative clause (and if so, if it’s got the object of said clause outside of it, or if that’s the antecedent) or just using the relative pronoun as a connective. And what I’m translating as “differs” could be translating a half dozen ways. Lordy.
** A handy Latin word meaning “a punishment in kind equal to the injury sustained.” So, it’s the whole eye-for-an-eye thing in one word!
From:
no subject
(lol, the Gauls spend half their time arguing yes they do.)
From:
no subject