Neither should we ignore the ease with which the people were “manipulated”, impressed, to make damaging agreements even against democracy itself, when there emerge the “demagogues” who even impose “tyrants”.

Let us remember something as well known as the etymology of democracy, demagogy, tyranny:

Democracy: from the Greek nouns δῆμος, (demos = village, people) and κράτος (krátos = power): government of the people.

Demagogy: from Greek δῆμος –dēmos-, village, people and ἄγω –ago-, to run, to direct. According to the RAE (Real Academia Española, Royal Spanish Academy) Dictionary:

Political practice consisting in winning with praise the popular favor and also Degeneration of the democracy, in which politicians, by means of concessions and compliments to the elementary feelings of the citizens, try to obtain or to maintain the power.

Tyranny: from the Greek τύραννος (tyrannos) meaning  "master"; it appears to be a non-Indo-European, but  Lydian term; it has also been related to the Etruscan term "turan", which means “dama, lady”  applied to Venus. According to the RAE:

"person who obtains against the law the government of a State, especially if he governs it without justice and in accordance with his will"; And also: "a person who abuses his power, superiority or strength in any concept or matter, and also simply who imposes that power and superiority to an extraordinary degree."

See http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/tyranny-democracy-thucydides-dictator

Well, I'm going to tell an episode that occurred in Italy where Hannibal moved himself during the Second Punic War, defeating and annihilating the Latin armies and occupying one after another numerous cities, generating a sense of panic and total fear among all the Romans.

Specifically it occurs in Capua, capital of Campania about thirty kilometers from Naples, southern Italy, one of the most prosperous and wealthy and even more luxurious cities than the famous Sybaris and Crotona, according to the testimony of Polybius The Histories, VII, 1, y III, 91,6; Cicero, De Lege Agraria, II,95 ; or Strabo V,4,3. Capua  was communicated with Rome by the famous Via Apia from 312 BC.

We have tried sometimes about Sybaris or Crotona in this same blog.

http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/bed-of-roses-princess-and-pea-andersen

http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/zeuxis-virgins-of-crotone-imitation

In this episode we will observe the ease with which the malleable "mass" of citizens is handled by a skillful individual and what can happen when the people as a whole and each of its members are confronted with their own responsibility.

The citizens of Capua "hated" their senators who acted haughtily without consideration or even kept in touch with them, but when they had occasion to break up with them, they were unable to agree and propose substitutes for those whom they wished to make disappear . I reproduce a beginning text perhaps too long, but necessary to situate the facts in context.

Titus Livius, (Livy) , from his History of Rome from, Ab Urbe Condita Libri , book 23, chapters 1-4.

After the battle of Cannae and the capture and plunder of the camps, Hannibal had moved at once out of Apulia into Samnium, being invited into the land of the Hirpini by Statius Trebius, who promised that he would turn over Compsa to him. Trebius was a Compsan of high rank among his people, but opposed by the party of the Mopsii, a family made powerful by the favour of the Romans.  After the news of the battle of Cannae, and when the coming of Hannibal had been made known by utterances of Trebius, since the Mopsii had left the city, it was handed over to the Carthaginians without resistance and a garrison admitted. There Hannibal left all his booty and the baggage, divided his army, and ordered Mago either to take over such cities of that region as were deserting the Romans or to compel them to desert in case they refused. He himself made his way through the Campanian region to the Lower Se, intending to attack Neapolis, that he might have a seaport. On entering the territory of the Neapolitans, he stationed some of the Numidians in ambush, wherever he conveniently could (and most of the roads are deep-cut and the turnings concealed). Other Numidians he ordered to ride up to the gates, making a display of the booty they were driving along before them from the farms. Against these men, because they seemed to be few in number and disorganized, a troop of cavalry made a sally, but being drawn into the ambush by the enemy's purposely retreating, it was overpowered.  And not a: man would have escaped if the proximity of the sea and the sight of vessels, chiefly of fishermen, not far from the shore had not given those who could swim a way of escape.  However a number of young nobles were captured or slain in that battle, among them, Hegeas, a cavalry commander, who fell as he rashly pursued the retreating. From besieging the city the Carthaginian was deterred by the sight of walls such as by no means invited an attacker.

Hannibal then directed his march to Capua, which was pampered by its long-continued prosperity and the favour of fortune, but, along with the general corruption, especially from the licence of the common people, who enjoyed an unlimited freedom. As for the senate, Pacuvius Calavius, a noble who was at the same time of the people's party, but had gained his influence by base arts, had made it subservient both to himself and to the common people. He, being in their highest office, as is happened, in the year of the defeat at Lake Trasumennus, thought that the commons, long hostile to the senate, would use the opportunity of a revolution and dare to commit a great crime, namely, if Hannibal should come into the region with his victorious army, they would slay the senators and hand over Capua to the Carthaginians.  A bad man, but not utterly abandoned, he preferred to dominate a state still intact rather than one that had been wrecked, yet believed that none was intact if deprived of its deliberative body. He accordingly entered upon a scheme to save the senate and at the same time to make it submissive to himself and to the commons. Summoning the senate he began by saying that, unless it should prove necessary, a plan to revolt from the Romans would by no means have his approval, since he had  children by a daughter of Appius Claudius and had given a daughter in marriage to Marcus Livius at Rome. But, he went on to say, something much more serious and more to be dreaded was impending; for the common people were not aiming to rid the state of the senate by a revolt, but by the massacre of the senate wished to hand over the republic, left helpless, to Hannibal and the Carthaginians. From that danger he could free them if they should leave it to him, and, forgetting civil conflicts, trust him. When, overcome by fear, they unanimously left matters to him, “I will shut you up,” he said, “in the Senate House and, just as if I were myself a sharer in the crime intended, by approving plans which it would be vain for me to oppose, I will find a way to save you. For this accept a pledge, as you yourselves desire.” Having given the pledge he went out, ordered the Senate House to be closed and left a guard before the entrance, that no one might be able to enter the Senate House or leave it without his order.
Then calling the people to an assembly he said: “You have often desired, Campanians, to have the power to exact punishment from a base and odious senate. That power you have, not by riotously storming, with great danger to yourselves, the houses of individuals who defend them with garrisons of clients and slaves, but you have the power secure and unrestricted. As they are shut up there, every man of them, in the Senate House, seize them, left alone, unarmed! And do nothing in haste or at haphazard. I will give you the right to decide their fate in each separate case, so that each shall pay the penalty he has deserved.  But above all things you should vent your wrath with due regard to the conviction that your safety and advantage are worth more than wrath. For it is these senators that you hate, I think; it is not your wish to have no senate at all. In fact you must either have a king —save the mark! —or else a senate, the only deliberative body in a free state. And so you have two things to do at the same time —to do away with the old senate, and to choose a new one. I will order the senators to be called one by one and will consult you as to their fate. Whatever is your opinion in each case shall be done, but before punishment is inflicted on the guilty one you will choose in his place a brave and active man as a new senator.”He then sat down, and after the names had been placed in the urn, he ordered the first name drawn by lot to be called and the man himself to be led out of the Senate House. On hearing the name every man shouted his loudest, that he was a bad man and base and deserved punishment.  Upon that Pacuvius said: “I see what your verdict is in this man's case; therefore in place of a bad man and base nominate a good and just senator.” At first there was silence from their inability to suggest a better man. Then when someone, overcoming his timidity, named a man, at once there was a much louder outcry, some saying they did not know him, others taunting him, now with shameful conduct, now with low rank and sordid poverty and the disreputable nature of his trade or business. All the more was this done in the case of the second and third senator called. So it was clear that people were dissatisfied with the man himself, but had no one to put in his place. For nothing was gained by once more naming the same men, who had been named only to be reviled. And the rest were much lower in rank and less known than those who first came to mind. Accordingly men slipped away, saying that the most familiar evil is the most endurable, and bidding Pacuvius release the senate from confinement.

In this way Pacuvius, having made the senate much more subservient to himself than to the common people by saving their lives, ruled without arms, as all now gave way to him. Thereafter the senators, forgetting their rank and freedom, flattered the common people, greeted them, invited them graciously, entertained them at well appointed feasts;  invariably undertook cases, appeared as counsel, or as jurors gave a verdict, only for that side which was the more popular and better suited to win favour with the populace.  Moreover, nothing was done in the senate otherwise than if a meeting of the common people was being held there. The state had always been inclined to luxury, not only from defects in character, but also from the abundant opportunity for indulgences and the beguilement of all the charms of sea and land. But at that time, thanks to the servility of the leading men and the licence of the common people, they were so unrestrained that no limit was set to passion or to expense.  To their contempt for laws, the magistrates, the senate, there was now added, after the defeat at Cannae, their disparagement of the Roman power also, for which there used to be some respect. All that held them back from at once revolting was that the long-established right of intermarriage had united many distinguished and powerful families with the Romans, and that, although a considerable number were serving on the Roman side, the strongest bond was the three hundred horsemen, noblest of the Campanians, who had been chosen to garrison Sicilian cities by the Romans and sent thither.
(Translated by Frank Gardener Moore)

Hannibal post Cannensem pugnam castraque capta ac direpta confestim ex Apulia in Samnium moverat, accitus in Hirpinos a Statio Trebio pollicente se Compsam traditurum. compsanus erat Trebius nobilis inter suos; sed premebat eum Mopsiorum factio, familiae per gratiam Romanorum potentis.  post famam Cannensis pugnae volgatumque Trebi sermonibus adventum Hannibalis cum Mopsiani urbe excessissent, sine certamine tradita urbs Poeno praesidiumque acceptum est. ibi praeda omni atque impedimentis relictis, exercitu partito Magonem regionis eius urbes aut deficientis ab Romanis accipere aut detractantis cogere ad defectionem iubet, ipse per agrum Campanum mare inferum petit, oppugnaturus Neapolim, ut urbem maritimam haberet. ubi fines Neapolitanorum intravit, Numidas partim in insidiis—et pleraeque cavae sunt viae sinusque occulti—quacumque apte poterat disposuit, alios prae se actam praedam ex agris ostentantis obequitare portis iussit.  in quos, quia nec multi et incompositi videbantur, cum turma equitum erupisset, ab cedentibus consulto tracta in insidias circumventa est;  nec evasisset quisquam, ni mare propinquum et haud procul litore naves, piscatoriae pleraeque, conspectae peritis nandi dedissent effugium.  aliquot tamen eo proelio nobiles iuvenes capti caesique, inter quos et Hegeas, praefectus equitum, intemperantius cedentes secutus cecidit.  ab urbe oppugnanda Poenum absterruere conspecta moenia haudquaquam prompta oppugnanti.
inde Capuam flectit iter luxuriantem longa felicitate atque indulgentia fortunae, maxime tamen inter corrupta omnia licentia plebis sine modo libertatem exercentis.  senatum et sibi et plebi obnoxium Pacuvius Calavius fecerat, nobilis idem ac popularis homo, ceterum malis artibus nanctus opes. is cum eo forte anno quo res male gesta ad Trasumennum est in summo magistratu esset, iam diu infestam senatui plebem ratus per occasionem novandi res magnum ausuram facinus ut, si in ea loca Hannibal cum victore exercitu venisset, trucidato senatu traderet  Capuam Poenis, inprobus homo sed non ad extremum perditus, cum mallet incolumi quam eversa re publica dominari, nullam autem incolumem esse orbatam publico consilio crederet, rationem iniit qua et senatum servaret et obnoxium sibi ac plebi faceret. vocato senatu cum sibi defectionis ab Romanis consilium placiturum nullo modo, nisi necessarium fuisset,  praefatus esset, quippe qui liberos ex Appii Claudii filia haberet filiamque Romam nuptum M. Livio dedisset; ceterum maiorem multo rem magisque timendam instare; non enim per defectionem ad tollendum ex civitate senatum plebem spectare, sed per caedem senatus vacuam rem publicam tradere Hannibali ac Poenis velle; eo se periculo posse liberare eos, si permittant sibi et certaminum in re publica obliti credant,—cum omnes victi metu permitterent,  “claudam” inquit “in curia vos et, tamquam et ipse cogitati facinoris particeps, adprobando consilia quibus nequiquam adversarer, viam saluti vestrae inveniam. in hoc , fidem, quam voltis ipsi, accipite.” fide data egressus claudi curiam iubet, praesidiumque in vestibulo relinquit, ne quis adire curiam iniussu suo neve inde egredi possit.
tum vocato ad contionem populo “quod saepe” inquit “optastis, Campani, ut supplicii sumendi vobis ex improbo ac detestabili senatu potestas esset, eam non per tumultum expugnantes domos singulorum, quas praesidiis clientium servorumque tuentur, cum summo vestro periculo; sed tutam habetis ac liberam; clausos omnis in curia accipite, solos, inermis. nec quicquam raptim aut forte temere egeritis; de singulorum capite vobis ius sententiae dicendae faciam, ut quas quisque meritus est poenas pendat; sed ante omnia ita vos irae indulgere oportet, ut potiorem ira salutem atque utilitatem vestram habeatis. etenim hos, ut opinor, odistis senatores, non senatum omnino habere non voltis; quippe aut rex, quod abominandum, aut, quod unum liberae civitatis consilium est, senatus habendus est. itaque duae res simul agendae vobis sunt, ut et veterem senatum tollatis et novum cooptetis.  citari singulos senatores iubebo de quorum capite vos consulam; quod de quoque censueritis fiet; sed prius in eius locum virum fortem ac strenuum novum senatorem cooptabitis quam de noxio supplicium sumatur.”  inde consedit et nominibus in urnam coniectis citari quod primum sorte nomen excidit ipsumque e curia produci iussit ubi auditum est nomen, malum et inprobum pro se quisque clamare et supplicio dignum.  tum Pacuvius “video quae de hoc sententia sit; date igitur pro malo atque inprobo bonum senatorem et iustum.” primo silentium erat inopia potioris subiciundi; deinde cum aliquis omissa verecundia quempiam nominasset, multo maior extemplo clamor oriebatur, cum alii negarent nosse, alii nunc probra nunc humilitatem sordidamque inopiam et pudendae artis aut quaestus genus obicerent. hoc multo magis in secundo ac tertio citato senatore est factum, ut ipsius paenitere homines appareret, quem autem in eius substituerent locum deesse, quia nec eosdem nominari attinebat, nihil aliud quam ad audienda probra nominatos, et multo humiliores obscurioresque ceteri erant eis qui primi memoriae occurrerant. ita dilabi homines, notissimum quodque malum maxime tolerabile dicentes esse iubentesque senatum ex custodia dimitti.

hoc modo Pacuvius cum obnoxium vitae beneficio senatum multo sibi magis quam plebi fecisset, sine armis iam omnibus concedentibus dominabatur.  hinc senatores omissa dignitatis libertatisque memoria plebem 'adulari; salutare, benigne invitare, apparatis accipere epulis,  eas causas suscipere, ei semper parti adesse, secundum eam litem iudices dare quae magis popularis aptiorque in volgus favori conciliando esset;  iam vero nihil in senatu agi aliter quam si plebis ibi esset concilium. prona semper civitas in luxuriam non ingeniorum modo vitio sed afluenti copia voluptatium et inlecebris omnis amoenitatis maritimae terrestrisque,  tum vero  ita obsequio principum et licentia plebei lascivire ut nec libidini nec sumptibus modus esset. ad contemptum legum, magistratuum, senatus accessit tum, post Cannensem cladem, ut, cuius aliqua verecundia erat, Romanum quoque spernerent imperium.  id modo erat in mora ne extemplo deficerent, quod conubium vetustum multas familias claras ac potentis Romanis miscuerat,  et cum militarent aliquot apud Romanos, maximum vinculum erant trecenti equites, nobilissimus quisque Campanorum, in praesidia Sicularum urbium delecti ab Romanis ac missi.

In short, Capua fell into the hands of Hannibal, who set the camp there during the winter, but the luxury and comfort of life in this luxurious city so weakened his army and relaxed its discipline that as soon the cold passed, he removed it immediately to restore the spirit of sacrifice that must accompany every good soldier.

Cicero reminds it in the text whose reference I quoted earlier, De Lege Agraria, II, 95:

The Campanians were always proud from the excellence of their soil, and the magnitude of their crops, and the healthiness, and position, and beauty of their city. From that abundance, and from this affluence in all things, in the first place, originated those qualities; arrogance, which demanded of our ancestors that one of the consuls should be chosen from Capua: and in the second place, that luxury which conquered Hannibal himself by pleasure, who up to that time had proved invincible in arms. (Translated by C. D. Yonge)

DE LEGE AGRARIA ORATIO SECVUNDA CONTRA P. SERVILIVM RVLLVM TR. PLEB. IN SENATV
Cicero Leg. Agr. II. 95 Campani semper superbi bonitate agrorum et fructuum magnitudine, urbis salubritate, descriptione, pulchritudine. Ex hac copia atque omnium rerum adfluentia primum illa nata est adrogantia qua a maioribus nostris alterum Capua consulem postularunt, deinde ea luxuries quae ipsum Hannibalem armis etiam tum invictum voluptate vicit.

But this is another matter.

In any case, the anecdote of the citizens who mistreated their senators may perhaps move to some reflection current populist leaders willing to consult the people whenever they assume it coincident with their objectives. In our current societies democracy is representative, that is, the citizens elect their representatives in them they delegate their right to participate in political life in some aspects. Only on rare occasions of special importance it is resorted to referendum or consultation of all citizens entitled to participate.

Note: "referendum" is a verbal form called "gerundive" that means "obligation of …" from the verb re-fero, re-ferre, composed of re- (back, again) and fero, to carry. Consequently it means "to be consulted".

In the political context, therefore, it refers to the procedure by which a question or matter "must be taken or returned … to the people", that is to say, “it must to be consulted” with all the citizens who hold the sovereignty for ratification .

The RAE (Real Academia Española, Royal Spanish Academy) Dictionary , with its plausible concision, defines it as:

"Procedure by which popular laws or decisions are submitted to the popular vote with a decision-making or consultative character".

Plebiscite is a synonymous word with an absolutely Latin flavor. It is formed of plebis, genitive of plebs, which means plebs, people (remember the initial division of Roman citizens between "patricians", with all the rights and "plebeian"  who  would have to achieve them with a long struggle for equality, and "scitum", from the verb scio, scire, to know, and its inchoative compound  "sciscere", which initially means to inform, to try to know, and secondarily to deliberate, to vote, to decree, to solve.

Thus Cicero says  in Philippics I, 10,26

"Consules iure populum rogaverunt, populusque iure scivit",

that  translated says:

"the consuls according to law consulted the people and the people resolved according to law."

The Dictionary of the RAE (Real Academia Española; Royal Spanish Academy) defines it with all clarity and precision as follows:

From Latin  Plebiscītum .
1. Resolution taken by an entire town by majority vote
2. Enquiry that the public powers submit to the direct popular vote to approve or reject a certain proposal on a political or legal issue.
3. . In ancient Rome, a law which the plebs established at the suggestion of their tribune, separately from the upper classes of the republic, and which at first forced only the plebeians, but later all the people.

I avoid the pettifogger, never better denominated, discussion of the technical difference between plebiscite and referendum, which has produced not a few articles.

The post The citizens of Capua were consulted appeared first on History of Greece and Rome.

I will refer to an episode of the Second Punic War, also peppered with a story of corruption, which explains how this system was generated. All wars, before and now are always time and opportunity for big business, to which no matter  whether or not the benefits are stained with innocent blood.

Livy tells us the episode in his  The History of Rome from its origin (Ab urbe condita), on the book XXV, 3 et seq.

Rome is definitely facing up to Carthage because  its expansion in the Mediterranean and because it considers that  the Punics or Carthaginians are threat to their survival. This war began developing in Hispania, where the Carthaginians are already well established; It is then developed in the Italian territory itself, where Hannibal is gone from Hispania through the passes of the Alps in winter, and finally it will end years after with the destruction of Carthage. Hannibal`s  victorious campaigns in Italy (Ticino, Trebia, Trasimene, Cannas …) widespread panic among Romans.

It is precisely the situation of need of the Scipios in Hispania which forces  them to send a letter in 215 to the Senate of Rome for help. The expenses for war are such than the State does not have enough money to cope with them and therefore it resorted to the collaboration of the capitalists or  "publicans" who have been benefiting by the contracts of the State. These "publicani" or citizens with economic resources form three companies to supply the army. Given the circumstances of insecurity of time and distances that have to be transported some resources, it is included in the contract a clause according the which  the risk of shipwreck  must be borne by the State. We can imagine widespread panic situation by the presence of Hannibal  in Italy itself and the successive victories with which he is crushing the Roman armies.

In that context there were two individuals, two “publicani" who not enough happy with the lawful profits simulated accidental sinking of ships loaded with waste material and little valuable  to collect them as well.

From the foregoing we will draw important consequences about the constitution of these societies, but the episode has a second part very revealing. When fraudsters are discovered and reported to the Senate, it does not act immediately against them, given the affinity and convergence of interests in many cases between the class and families of the senators with the "publicans".  It must to be the people through their special representatives, the tribunes of the plebs (today we would say “the popular action”), which  demanded responsibilities and initiated legal proceedings.

While meeting the people's congress, it was interrupted by the violent action of the publicans, willing to avoid the conviction of one of their powerful members. Given the evidence of the charges and the danger of the situation, the Senate had no choice but to intervene more decisively.

I would conclude that it is equally as scandalous that contractors defraud the State that the State itself has no interest in punishing the fraudsters.

We leave for super specialists whether these tenants were really from the class or ordo of the "publicans" and on the historicity of supply contracts for the army, because this appears to be an isolated case in the historical context of late III century BC.

In any case, it does not take much imagination to set the resemblance to actual situations in which large powerful criminals avoid the action of justice, managed largely by people related to their social group. It is true that the ancient and modern situations do not are exactly alike and we should not exaggerate the resemblance, but once again we reaffirm the motto of this blog, "Nihil novum sub sole" "Nothing new under the sun".

As it is demanded for this blog, what is said, it must to be found in existing texts and there nothing is better than to reproduce the writings of Livy. In a later article I will explain how far  the interests of individuals and companies are confused with the public and state.

Livy,  The History of Rome (Ab urbe condita), book XXV, 3 et seq:

Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and Appius Claudius entered upon their consulship, the former for the third time. And the praetors received by lot the following assignments: Publius Cornelius Sulla, the duties of praetor urbanus and praetor peregrinus, previously two separate offices;  Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus, Apulia, Gaius Claudius Nero, Suessula, Marcus Junius Silanus, Etruria.  To the consuls were assigned by decree the war with Hannibal and two legions each. The one was to take over his troops from Quintus Fabius, consul in the previous year, the other from Fulvius Centumalus. Of the praetors, Fulvius Flaccus was to have the legions which had been at Luceria under the praetor Aemilius, Nero Claudius the one which had been in the Picene district under Gaius Terentius. They were themselves to enlist more recruits for the same. To Marcus Junius the city legions of the previous year were given for Etruria.  For Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Publius Sempronius Tuditanus their commands and provinces, Lucania and Gaul, with their armies, were continued.  And the same was done for Publius Lentulus, within the limits of the old province in Sicily, and for Marcellus, whose province was Syracuse and up to the former boundaries of Hiero's kingdom. The fleet was assigned to Titus Otacilius, Greece to Marcus Valerius, Sardinia to Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the Spanish provinces to Publius and Gnaeus Cornelius. In addition to the old armies two city legions were enrolled by the consuls, and the total that year amounted to twenty-three legions.

The consular levy was hampered by the conduct of Marcus Postumius of Pyrgi, which almost occasioned a serious insurrection. Postumius was a tax-farmer, who in many years had had no equal in dishonesty and avarice in the state, except Titus Pomponius Veientanus, whom the Carthaginians under Hanno's command had captured in the preceding year, while he was rashly ravaging the country in Lucania. These men, since the state assumed the risk from violent storms in the case of shipments to the armies, had falsely reported imaginary shipwrecks, and even those which they had correctly reported had been brought about by their own trickery, not by accident. They would put small cargoes of little value on old, battered vessels, sink them at sea, after taking off the crews in small boats that were in readiness, and then falsely declare that the shipments were far more valuable.  This dishonesty had been reported in the previous year to Marcus Aemilius, the praetor, and by him brought before the senate, but it was not branded by any decree of the senate, because the senators were unwilling to offend the tax-farmers as a class at such a crisis.

The people proved a more unsparing avenger of dishonesty; namely, two tribunes of the plebs, Spurius and Lucius Carvilius, were at length aroused, and seeing that the affair was unpopular and notorious, imposed a fine of two hundred thousand asses upon Marcus Postumius. When the day for his protest against this fine arrived, the assembly of the commons was so large that the open space on the Capitol could scarcely contain the crowd. After the arguments were concluded, there seemed to be but one hope, namely, if Gaius Servilius Casca, a tribune of the plebs who was a blood-relative of Postumius, should interpose his veto before the tribes should be called to vote. The tribunes provided witnesses,cleared the people away, and the urn was brought, that they might determine by lot in which tribe the Latins should vote. Meantime the tax-farmers pressed Casca to adjourn that day's hearing before the assembly. The people protested; and it so happened that the first seat at the end of the platform was occupied by Casca, whose mind was swayed at once by fear and shame. Finding in him no sufficient protection, the publicans, in order to prevent action, rushed in a wedge through the space cleared by removal of the crowd, while at the sametime they reviled the people and the tribunes. And it had almost come to a battle when Fulvius, the consul, said to the tribunes, “Do you not see that you are reduced to the ranks, and that this means an insurrection if you do not promptly dismiss the popular assembly?” it was said, a man whose exile would have been followed by the ruin of the city, had allowed himself to be condemned by the angry citizens;  that before his time the decemvirs, under whose laws they were then still living, and later many leading men in the state, had submitted to the judgment of the people in their cases; that Postumius of Pyrgi had wrested the vote from the Roman people, had brought to naught an assembly of the plebs, reduced the tribunes to the ranks, drawn up a battle-line against the Roman people, had taken his position, to separate the tribunes from the people and to prevent the tribes from being summoned to vote. Nothing had restrained men from slaughter and battle but the forbearance of the magistrates in yielding for the moment to the mad audacity of a few men, and in allowing themselves and the Roman people to be worsted, also in that, as regards the voting, which the defendant would have prevented by force of arms, they had of their own accord suspended it, to avoid giving excuse to those eager for the fray.  These words were interpreted by all the best citizens as deserved by an outrageous occurrence, and the senate declared that this violence had been employed against the state, setting a dangerous precedent. Thereupon the Carvilii, tribunes of the people, in place of the procedure to fix the amount of the fine, at once named a day for Postumius' appearance on a capital charge, and ordered that if he did not furnish sureties he should be seized by an attendant and taken to prison. Postumius furnished sureties, but did not appear. The tribunes put the question to the plebs and the plebs ordained that, if Marcus Postumius should not appear before the first of May, and on being summoned on that day should not reply nor be excused, it should be understood that he was in exile, and be decided that his property should be sold and himself refused water and fire. The tribunes then began to name a day for the appearance on a capital charge of each of those who had been instigators of riot and sedition, and to demand sureties from them.  At first they threw into prison those who did not give security, and then even those who were able to do so. Avoiding this danger many went into exile.   (Translation by Frank Gardener Moore. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940.)

Q. Fulvius Flaccus tertium Appius Claudius consulatum ineunt.  et praetores provincias sortiti sunt, P. Cornelius Sulla urbanam et peregrinam, quae duorum ante sors fuerat, Cn. Fulvius Flaccus Apuliam, C. Claudius Nero Suessulam, M. Iunius Silanus Tuscos. consulibus bellum cum Hannibale et binae legiones decretae; alter a Q. Fabio superioris anni consule, alter a Fulvio Centumalo acciperet;  praetorum Fulvi Flacci quae Luceriae sub Aemilio praetore, Neronis Claudi quae in Piceno sub C. Terentio fuissent legiones essent; supplementum in eas ipsi scriberent sibi. M. Iunio in Tuscos legiones urbanae prioris anni datae. Ti. Sempronio Graccho et P. Sempronio Tuditano imperium provinciaeque Lucani et Gallia cum suis exercitibus prorogatae;  item P. Lentulo qua vetus provincia in Sicilia esset, M. Marcello Syracusae et qua Hieronis regnum fuisset; T. Otacilio classis, Graecia M. Valerio, Sardinia Q. Mucio Scaevolae, Hispaniae. et Cn. Corneliis. ad veteres exercitus duae urbanae legiones a consulibus scriptae, summaque trium et viginti legionum eo anno effecta est. dilectum consulum M. Postumii Pyrgensis cum magno prope motu rerum factum impediit. publicanus erat Postumius, qui multis annis parem fraude avaritiaque neminem in civitate habuerat praeter T. Pomponium Veientanum, quem populantem temere agros in Lucanis ductu Hannonis priore anno ceperant Carthaginienses. hi, quia publicum periculum erat a vi tempestatis in iis quae portarentur ad exercitus et ementiti erant falsa naufragia et ea ipsa quae vera renuntiaverant fraude ipsorum facta erant, non casu. in veteres quassasque naves paucis et parvi pretii rebus impositis, cum mersissent eas in alto exceptis in praeparatas scaphas nautis, multiplices fuisse merces ementiebantur. ea fraus indicata M. Aemilio praetori priore anno fuerat ac per eum ad senatum delata nec tamen ullo senatus  consulto notata, quia patres ordinem publicanorum in tali tempore offensum nolebant. populus severior vindex fraudis erat, excitatique tandem duo tribuni plebis, Spurius et L. Carvilii, cum rem invisam infamemque cernerent, ducentum milium aeris multam M. Postumio dixerunt. cui certandae cum dies advenisset, conciliumque tam frequens plebis adesset ut multitudinem area Capitolii vix caperet, perorata causa una spes videbatur esse si C. Servilius Casca tribunus plebis, qui propinquus cognatusque Postumio erat, priusquam ad suffragium tribus vocarentur, intercessisset.  testibus datis tribuni populum summoverunt, sitellaque lata est, ut sortirentur ubi Latini suffragium ferrent.  interim publicani Cascae instare ut concilio diem eximeret; populus reclamare; et forte in cornu primus sedebat Casca, cui simul metus pudorque animum versabat. cum in eo parum praesidii esset, turbandae rei causa publicani per vacuum summoto locum cuneo inruperunt iurgantes simul cum populo tribunisque.,  nec procul dimicatione res erat cum Fulvius consul tribunis “nonne videtis” inquit “vos in ordinem coactos esse et rem ad seditionem spectare, ni propere dimittitis plebis concilium?”. plebe dimissa senatus vocatur et consules referunt de concilio plebis turbato vi atque audacia publicanorum:  M. Furium Camillum, cuius exilium ruina urbis secutura fuerit, damnari se ab iratis civibus passum esse;  decemviros ante eum, quorum legibus ad eam diem viverent, multos postea principes civitatis iudicium de se populi passos:  Postumium Pyrgensem suffragium populo Romano extorsisse, concilium plebis sustulisse, tribunos in ordinem coegisse, contra populum Romanum aciem instruxisse, locum occupasse, ut tribunos a plebe intercluderet, tribus in suffragium vocari prohiberet. nihil aliud a caede ac dimicatione continuisse homines nisi patientiam magistratuum, quod cesserint inpraesentia furori atque audaciae paucorum vincique se ac populum Romanum passi sint et comitia,  quae reus vi atque armis prohibiturus erat, ne causa quaerentibus dimicationem daretur, voluntate ipsi sua sustulerint. haec cum ab optimo quoque pro atrocitate rei accepta essent, vimque eam contra rem publicam et pernicioso exemplo factam senatus decresset,  confestim Carvilii tribuni plebis omissa multae certatione rei capitalis diem Postumio dixerunt ac, ni vades daret, prendi a viatore atque in carcerem duci iusserunt.  Postumius vadibus datis non adfuit.  tribuni plebem rogaverunt plebesque ita scivit, si M. Postumius ante kal. maias non prodisset citatusque eo die non respondisset neque excusatus esset, videri eum in exilio esse bonaque eius venire, ipsi aqua et igni placere interdici.  singulis deinde eorum qui turbae ac tumultus concitatores fuerant, rei capitalis diem dicere ac vades poscere coeperunt.  primo non dantis, deinde etiam eos qui dare possent in—carcerem coiciebant; cuius rei periculum vitantes plerique in exilium abierunt.  hunc fraus publicanorum, deinde fraudem audacia protegens exitum habuit.  comitia inde pontifici maximo creando sunt habita; ea comitia novus pontifex M. Cornelius Cethegus habuit.

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In these present times they appear occasionally comparisons of the fall of the Roman Empire with the present time of tensions between East and West. More specifically similarities are seen between the events of the year 378 which end with the defeat of the Romans at Adrianople, present-day Edirne in Turkey at the current borders of Greece and Bulgaria and the death of Emperor Valens in battle and the wars in Iraq and Syria, which move millions of displaced fugitives from one place to another.

I do not intend to take the comparison to the extent that some "ideologues",  certainly interested, intended  saying that so as the admission of the "barbarians" ended with the Roman Empire, just so  the admission of many fugitives and immigrants, almost all Muslims, will  end with the "Western civilization". Is this an exaggerated conclusion, in many cases xenophobic, rejecting the different. I do not will follow this path, without ignoring therefore the serious problems  that a little thoughtful intervention by the West in the East, intervention, in the background selfish and imperialistic, has caused.

I will just transcribe some texts of the History of Ammianus, covering the years cited, in which the erratic and selfish policy of the Roman emperors concerning the admission of immigrants and fugitives from the war, produces effects that remind us with all clarity to some current events.

The borders of the Empire are on the Danube, the called Ister, that from the center of Europe flows to the Black Sea. On the other side they inhabit several Goths peoples  and further east unknown tribes, of which unlimited cruelties and ways of life far removed from Western civilization are counted. One of these tribes is the  Alans  and another  the Huns;  all kinds of rumors about his savagery and cruelty are narrated.

Well, the Huns are allied with the Alans, no less rough and wild, and push the Goths, more civilized and Christianized even (arrians), to the border of the Danube, river of enormous flow that  difficult to cross.

The Goths ask the emperor that allows them to enter the Empire and settle them in this privileged area of peace and wealth.

It would be easy to translate all of this into modern language: the Huns and their cruelty are the ISIS or DAESH and its vileness, the Goths are the immigrants or refugees fleeing from the war, the Roman Empire is the European Union, the indecisive, contradictory and selfish policy of the emperor is this of the Brussels and other European countries, some specific details, such as transport, claims control runaways and corruption in the management of aid, are so similar to current than they produce certainly astonishment.

It matters little that these events occur a little further north than the current ones, in Thrace, in a territory that is now part correspond to Turkey and part to Bulgaria. Now they occur a little further south and east, between Syria and Turkey and the nearby Greek islands like Lesbos.

I leave it to the reader's consideration the draw any conclusion, if it is to be drawn, but history should serve to avoid making the same mistakes in similar situations and to better understand some facts and their causes.

Ancient Thrace projected on the current political map. The red blue corresponds to the Danube and red point to the situation of Adrianople, in modern Turkey, point very close to the Greek and Bulgarian borders, ie at the gates of Europe; the green point Greek is the  island of Lesbos

Who  best tells it us is Ammianus, Greek writer who was born about 330, although he writes in Latin, in his “The Roman history”, Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), Book 31

The book begins with a paragraph that lightened of Roman fondness for omens, is certainly prescient:

31.1.1: Meanwhile Fortune's rapid wheel, which is always interchanging adversity and prosperity, armed Bellona in the company of her attendant Furies, and transferred to the Orient melancholy events, the coming of which was foreshadowed by the clear testimony of omens and portents.
…

31.2.1 'However, the seed and origin of all the ruin and various disasters that the wrath of Mars aroused, putting in turmoil all places with unwonted fires, we have found to be this. The people of the Huns, but little known from ancient records, dwelling beyond the Maeotic Sea near the ice-bound ocean, exceed every degree of savagery.

Ammianus, collecting the popular opinion, paints the Huns with the most terrifying features:

31.2.3 But although they have the form of men, however ugly, they are so hardy in their mode of life that they have no need of fire nor of savory food, but eat the roots of wild plants and the half-raw flesh of any kind of animal whatever, which they put between their thighs and the backs of their horses, and thus warm it a little.
….

31.2.5 They dress in linen cloth or in the skins of field-mice sewn together, and they wear the same clothing indoors and out. ..

He also describes them as extraordinary horsemen and hardened warriors without fear for their own life and naturally, faithless, fickle, irrational and without respect for the gods:

31.2.11 In truces they are faithless and unreliable, strongly inclined to sway to the motion of every breeze of new hope that presents itself, and sacrificing every feeling to the mad impulse of the moment. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong; they are deceitful and ambiguous in speech, never bound by any reverence for religion or for superstition. …

31.2.12 This race of untamed men, without encumbrances, aflame with an inhuman desire for plundering others' property, made their violent way amid the rapine and slaughter of the neighbouring peoples as far as the Halani, once known as the Massagetae.

He describes  below  the many peoples who live across the Ister, especially the Alans, who extend  to eastward and "they are divided into large and populous nations" wandering from place to place with their cattle and wagons, without a fixed place to stand them.

The following paragraph can give us an idea  of  the fierceness of the "Alans" in war:

31.2.22 …. and there is nothing in which they take more pride than in killing any man whatever: as glorious spoils of the slain they tear off their heads, then strip off their skins 1 and hang them upon their war-horses as trappings.

Well, according to Ammianus, it occurs an alliance of the Huns with the Alans and they attack the Goths and expel them from their territory.  These people cause mass movements of Goths (who already maintained relations with the Romans and even some of them had been Christianized) to the Roman frontiers:

31.3.8 …  But while this well-planned work was being pushed on, the Huns swiftly fell upon him, and would have crushed him at once on their arrival had they not been so loaded down with booty that they gave up the attempt.

And now it begins the story of the terrible exodus which has many similarities with today:
Most of the Goths known as Tervingi, expelled from their lands, are driven by the Romans to Thrace with the consent of the emperor Valens after they  promise to deliver rewards  and military aid. The Gretungs  Goths also secretly cross the Ister with their ships.

31.4.1 Therefore, under the lead of Alavivus, they took possession of the banks of the Danube, and sending envoys to Valens, with humble entreaty begged to be received, promising that they would not only lead a peaceful life but would also furnish auxiliaries, if circumstances required.

31.4.2 While this was happening in foreign parts, terrifying rumours spread abroad that the peoples of the north were stirring up new and uncommonly great commotions: that throughout the entire region which extends from the Marcomanni and the Quadi to the Pontus, a savage horde of unknown peoples, driven from their abodes by sudden violence, were roving about the river Hister in scattered [p. 403] bands with their families.

31.4.3. In the very beginning this news was viewed with contempt by our people, because wars in those districts were not ordinarily heard of by those living at a distance until they were ended or at least quieted for a time.

31.4.4 But when the belief in what had taken place gained strength, and was confirmed by the coming of the foreign envoys, who begged with prayers and protestations that an exiled race might be received on our side of the river, the affair caused more joy than fear; and experienced flatterers immoderately praised the good fortune of the prince, which unexpectedly brought him so many young recruits from the ends of the earth, that by the union of his own and foreign forces he would have an invincible army; also that instead of the levy of soldiers which was contributed annually by each province, there would accrue to the treasuries  a vast amount of gold.

31.4.5. In this expectation various officials were sent with vehicles to transport the savage horde, and diligent care was taken that no future destroyer of the Roman state should be left behind, even if he were smitten with a fatal disease. Accordingly, having by the emperor's permission obtained the privilege of crossing the Danube and settling in parts of Thrace, they were ferried over for some nights and days embarked by companies in boats, on rafts, and in hollowed tree-trunks  ; and because the river is by far the most dangerous of all and was then swollen by frequent rains, some who, because of the great crowd, struggled against the force of the waves and tried to swim were drowned; and they were a good many.

31.4.6 With such stormy eagerness on the part of insistent men was the ruin of the Roman world brought in. This at any rate is neither obscure nor uncertain, that the ill-omened officials who ferried the barbarian hordes often tried to reckon their number, but gave up their vain attempt; as the most distinguished of poets says:

Who wishes to know this would wish to know
How many grains of sand on Libyan plain By Zephyrus are swept. (Virg., Georg. II, 106 ff.)

31.4.7 Well then, let the old tales revive of bringing the Medic hordes to Greece; for while they describe the bridging of the Hellespont, the quest of a sea at the foot of Mount Athos by a kind of mechanical severing, * and the numbering of the armies by squadrons at Doriscus, 2 later times have unanimously regarded all this as fabulous reading.

* I.e., cutting a canal through the isthmus of the peninsula on which the mountain stands.

31.4.8 For after the countless swarms of nations were poured through the provinces, spreading over a great extent of plain and filling all regions and every mountain height, by this new evidence the trustworthiness also of old stories was confirmed. First Fritigern and Alavivus were received, and the emperor gave orders that they should be given food for their present needs and fields to cultivate.

31.4.9 During this time, when the barriers of our frontier were unlocked and the realm of savagery was spreading far and wide columns of armed  men like glowing ashes from Aetna, when our difficulties and imminent dangers called for military reformers who were most distinguished for the fame of their exploits: then it was, as if at the choice of some adverse deity, that men were gathered together and given command of armies who bore stained reputations. At their head were two rivals in recklessness: one was Lupicinus, commanding general in Thrace, the other Maximus, a pernicious leader.

31.4.10 Their treacherous greed was the source of all our evils. I say nothing of other crimes which these two men, or at least others with their permission, with the worst of motives committed against the foreign new-comers, who were as yet blameless; but one melancholy and unheard-of act shall be mentioned, of which, even if they were their own judges  of their own case, they could not be acquitted by any excuse.

31.4.11 When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic; they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains.

31.4.12 During these days also Vithericus, king of the Greuthungi, accompanied by Alatheus and Saphrax, by whose will he was ruled, and also by Farnobius, coming near to the banks of the Danube, hastily sent envoys and besought the emperor that he might be received with like kindness.

31.4.13 ….. When these envoys were rejected, as the interests of the state seemed to demand, and were in doubt what course to take, ….

Tervingi, driven by hunger, insecurity and ill-treatment, and commanded by Alavivus and Frigiternus, rebel against Valents  and join to Lupicinus.

31.5.1. But now the Theruingi, who had long since been permitted to cross, were still roaming about near the banks of the river, detained by a twofold obstacle, both because, through the ruinous negligence  of the generals, they were not supplied with the necessaries of life, and also because they were purposely held back by an abominable kind of traffic.

31.5.2 When this became clear to them, they muttered that they were being forced to disloyalty as a remedy for the evils that threatened them, and Lupicinus, fearing that they might soon revolt, sent soldiers and compelled them to move out  more quickly.

31.5.3 The Greuthungi took advantage of this favourable opportunity, and when they saw that our soldiers were busy elsewhere, and that the boats that usually went up and down the river and prevented them from crossing were inactive, they passed over the stream in badly made craft and pitched their camp at a long distance from Fritigern.

31.5.4 But he with his natural cleverness in foresight protecting himself against anything that might happen, in order to obey the emperor's commands and at the same time join with the powerful Gothic kings, advanced slowly and in leisurely marches arrived late at Marcianopolis. There another, and more atrocious, thing was done, which kindled the frightful torches that were to burn for the destruction of the state.

31.5.5. Having invited Alavivus and Fritigern to a dinner-party, Lupicinus posted soldiers against the main body of the barbarians and kept them at a distance from the walls of the town; and when they asked with continual entreaties that they might, as friendly people submissive to our rule, be allowed to enter and obtain what they needed for food, great wrangling arose between the inhabitants and those who were shut out, which finally reached a point where fighting was inevitable. Whereupon the barbarians, becoming wildly excited when they perceived that some of their kindred were being carried off by force, killed and despoiled a great troop of soldiers.

Well, Ammianus continues to describe the situation of misery and despair that causes riots and clashes.

31.5.8 When report, that spiteful nurse of rumours, spread abroad what had happened, the whole nation of the Theruingi was fired with ardour for battle, and amid many fearful scenes, portentous of extreme dangers, after the standards had been raised according to their custom and the doleful sound of the trumpets had been heard, predatory bands were already rushing about, pillaging and burning the country-houses and making whatever places they could find a confusion of awful devastation.

Ammianus tells how the Goths, who had been taken earlier, rebel, kill the inhabitants of Adrianople, join Frigitern and rush to plunder Thrace. In the looting they are joining them all who had a bad situation:

31.6.5.  They approved the counsel of the king, who they knew would be an active participator in the plan, and advancing cautiously they spread over every quarter of Thrace, while their prisoners or those who surrendered to them pointed out the rich villages, especially those in which it was said that abundant supplies of food were to be found. Besides their native self-confidence, they were encouraged especially by this help, that day by day great numbers of their countrymen flocked to them, including those who had been sold some time before by the traders, as well as many other persons, whom those who were half-dead with hunger when they first crossed into the country had bartered for a drink of bad wine or bits of the poorest of bread.

31.6.7. With such guides nothing that was not [p. 425] inaccessible and out of the way remained untouched. For without distinction of age or sex all places were ablaze with slaughter and great fires, sucklings were torn from the very breasts of their mothers and slain, matrons and widows whose husbands had been killed before their eyes were carried off, boys of tender or adult age were dragged away over the dead bodies of their parents.

31.6.8. Finally many aged men, crying that they had lived long enough after losing their possessions and their beautiful women, were led into exile with their arms pinioned behind their backs, and weeping over the glowing ashes of their ancestral homes.

Ammianus tells us yet colorful the atrocities of the war and how mercilessly and indiscriminately hits  people and their families:

31.8.7. Then there were to be seen and to lament acts most frightful to see and to describe: women driven along by cracking whips, and stupified with fear, still heavy with their unborn children, which before coming into the world endured many horrors; little children too 1 clinging to their mothers. Then could be heard the laments of high-born boys and maidens, whose hands were fettered incruel captivity.

31.8.8. Behind these were led last of all grown-up girls and chaste wives, weeping and with downcast faces, longing even by a death of torment to forestall the imminent violation of their modesty. Among these was a freeborn man, not long ago rich and independent, dragged along like some wild beast and railing at thee, Fortune, as merciless and blind, since thou hadst in a brief moment deprived him of his possessions, and of the sweet society of his dear ones; had driven him from his home, which he saw fallen to ashes and ruins, and sacrificed him to a bloodthirsty victor, either to be torn limb from limb or amid blows and tortures to serve as a slave.

I think that nothing detracts the story of Ammianus from the chronic and visual reports that reporters today offer us about episodes of the war in Syria.

I invite the reader to complete reading the rest of the book 31 of the History of Ammianus, where wars and battles of enormous cruelty are reported in this and other areas of borders, until the end with the account of the episode more serious and echo in antiquity:

There comes a time when he is the emperor himself, Augustus Valens, who is directly involved in the fight and precipitates the battle of Adrianople to not share the victory with his nephew Gratian, who victorious comes to aid. Valens  loses the battle and dies burned refuged in a cabin. For many historians this is the evidence of the beginning of the inexorable "fall of the Empire."

We can read how tells how the death of Valens on 9 August 378:

31.13.11 To these ever irreparable losses, so costly to the Roman state, a night without the bright light of the moon put an end.

31.13.12 At the first coming of darkness the emperor, amid the common soldiers as was supposed (for no one asserted that he had seen him or been with him), fell mortally wounded by an arrow, and presently breathed his last breath; and he was never afterwards found anywhere. For since a few of the foe were active for long in the neighbourhood for the purpose of robbing the dead, no one of the fugitives or of the natives ventured to approach the spot.

31.13.14 Others say that Valens did not give up the ghost at once, but with his bodyguard  and a few eunuchs was taken to a peasant's cottage near by, well fortified in its second storey; and while he was being treated by unskilful hands, he was surrounded by the enemy, who did not know who he was, but was saved from the shame of captivity.

31.13.15 For while the pursuers were trying to break open the bolted doors, they were assailed with arrows from a balcony of the house; and fearing through the inevitable delay to lose the opportunity for pillage, they piled bundles of straw and firewood about the house, set fire to them, and burned it men and all.

(An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935)

The consequences were that in the year 382, four years after the Battle of Adrianople, Theodosius signed a treaty guaranteeing the Goths to enjoy autonomy within the Empire, and yet in 395 they attacked Constantinople; between 395 and 397 they invaded Greece, Thessaly, Macedonia; between 401 and 402 they invade Italy and sack Rome in 410. In the year 456 they entered Hispania, at the western end of the Empire. In the year 475 Romulus Augustulus (Little Augustus, he was only 15 years old) was deposed by Odoacer king of the Heruli and with him just the Western Empire ends.

Latin text

31.1.1: Inter haec  Fortunae volucris rota, adversa prosperis  semper alternans, Bellonam furiis in societatem adscitis, armabat, maestosque transtulit ad Orientem eventus, quos adventare praesagiorum fides clara monebat, et portentorum.
…
31.2.1 Totius autem sementem exitii et cladum originem diversarum, quas Martius furor incendio insolito 1 miscendo cuncta concivit, hanc comperimus causam. Hunorum gens monumentis veteribus leviter nota, ultra paludes Maeoticas glacialem oceanum accolens, omnem modum feritatis excedit.

31.2.3 In hominum autem figura, licet insuavi, ita victu  sunt asperi, ut neque igni neque saporatis indigeant cibis, sed radicibus herbarum agrestium, et semicruda cuiusvis pecoris carne vescantur, quam inter femora sua equorumque  terga subsertam, fotu calefaciunt brevi.
….
31.2.5 Indumentis operiuntur linteis vel ex pellibus silvestrium murum consarcinatis; nec alia illis domestica vestis est, alia forensis.

31.2.11 Per indutias infidi et inconstantes, ad omnem auram incidentis spei novae perquam mobiles, totum furori incitatissimo tribuentes. Inconsultorum animalium ritu, quid honestum inhonestumve sit, penitus ignorantes, flexiloqui et obscuri, nullius religionis vel superstitionis reverentia aliquando districti, …

31.2.12 Hoc expeditum indomitumque hominum genus, externa praedandi aviditate flagrans immani, per rapinas finitimorum grassatum et caedes, ad usque Halanos pervenit, veteres Massagetas, …

31.2.22 …nec quicquam est quod elatius iactent, quam homine quolibet occiso, proque exuviis gloriosis interfectorum, avulsis capitibus, detractas pelles pro phaleris iumentis accommodant bellatoriis.

31.3.8 …  Fama tamen late serpente per Gothorum reliquas gentes, quod invisitatum  antehac hominum genus, modo, nivium ut turbo montibus celsis, ex abdito sinu coortum apposita quaeque convellit et corrumpit: populi pars maior, quae Athanaricum attenuata necessariorum penuria deseruerat, quaeritabat domicilium remotum ab omni notitia barbarorum, diuque deliberans, quas eligeret sedes, cogitavit Thraciae receptaculum gemina ratione sibi conveniens, quod et caespitis est feracissimi, et amplitudine fluentorum Histri distinguitur ab arvis patentibus iam peregrini fulminibus Martis: hoc quoque idem residui velut mente cogitavere communi.

31.4.1 Itaque duce Alavivo ripas occupavere Danubii, missisque oratoribus ad Valentem, suscipi se humili prece poscebant, et quiete victuros se pollicentes, et daturos (si res flagitasset) auxilia.

31.4.2 Dum aguntur haec in externis, novos maioresque solitis casus versare gentes arctoas, rumores terribiles diffuderunt: per omne quicquid ad Pontum a Marcomannis praetenditur et  Quadis, multitudinem barbaram abditarum nationum, vi subita sedibus pulsam, circa flumen Histrum, vagari cum caritatibus suis disseminantes.

31.4.3. Quae res aspernanter a nostris inter initia ipsa accepta est, hanc ob causam, quod illis tractibus non nisi peracta aut sopita audiri procul agentibus consueverant bella.

31.4.4 Verum pubescente fide gestorum, cui robur adventus gentilium addiderat legatorum, precibus et obtestatione petentium, citra flumen suscipi plebem extorrem: negotium laetitiae fuit potius quam timori, eruditis adulatoribus in maius fortunam principis extollentibus, quae  ex ultimis terris tot tirocinia trahens, ei nec opinanti offerret, ut collatis in unum suis et alienigenis viribus, invictum haberet exercitum, et pro militari supplemento, quod provinciatim annuum pendebatur, thesauris accederet auri cumulus magnus.

31.4.5. Hacque spe mittuntur diversi, qui cum vehiculis plebem transferant truculentam. Et navabatur opera diligens, nequi Romanam rem eversurus relinqueretur, vel quassatus morbo letali. Proinde permissu imperatoris transeundi Danubium copiam, colendique adepti Thraciae partes, transfretabantur in dies et noctes, navibus ratibusque et cavatis arborum alveis agminatim impositi, atque per amnem longe omnium difficillimum, imbriumque crebritate tunc auctum, ob densitatem nimiam contra ictus aquarum nitentes quidam, et natare conati, hausti sunt plures.

31.4.6 Ita turbido instantium studio orbis Romani pernicies ducebatur. Illud sane neque obscurum est neque incertum, infaustos transvehendi barbaram plebem ministros, numerum eius comprehendere calculo saepe temptantes, conquievisse frustratos, ut eminentissimus memorat vates,

‘Quem qui scire velit, Libyci velit aequoris idem
Discere, quam multae zephyro truduntur 2 harenae. (Virg., Georg. II, 106 ff.)

31.4.7 Resipiscant tandem memoriae veteres, Medicas acies ductantes ad Graeciam: quae dum Hellespontiacos pontes, et discidio quodam fabrili, mare sub imo Athonis pede quaesitum exponunt et turmatim apud Doriscum exercitus recensitos, concordante omni posteritate, ut fabulosae sunt lectae.

31.4.8 Nam postquam innumerae gentium multitudines, per provincias circumfusae, pandentesque se in spatia ampla camporum, regiones omnes et cuncta opplevere montium iuga, fides quoque vetustatis recenti documento firmata est. Et primus cum Alavivo suscipitur Fritigernus, quibus et alimenta pro tempore, et subigendos agros tribui statuerat imperator.

31.4.9 Per id tempus nostri limitis reseratis obicibus, atque (ut Aetnaeas favillas armatorum agmina diffundente barbaria), cum difficiles necessitatum articuli correctores rei militaris poscerent aliquos claritudine gestarum rerum notissimos: quasi laevo quodam numine deligente, in unum quaesiti potestatibus praefuere castrensibus homines maculosi: quibus Lupicinus antistabat et Maximus, alter per Thracias comes, dux alter exitiosus, aemulae ambo  temeritatis.

31.4.10 Quorum insidiatrix aviditas materia malorum omnium fuit. Nam (ut alia omittamus, quae memorati vel certe, sinentibus eisdem, alii perditis rationibus in commeantes peregrinos adhuc innoxios deliquerunt) illud dicetur, quod nec apud sui periculi iudices absolvere ulla poterat venia, triste et inauditum.

31.4.11 Cum traducti barbari victus inopia vexarentur, turpe commercium duces invisissimi cogitarunt, et quantos undique insatiabilitas colligere potuit canes, pro singulis dederunt  mancipiis, inter quae et filii  ducti sunt optimatum.

31.4.12 Per hos dies interea etiam Vithericus Greuthungorum rex cum Alatheo et Saphrace, quorum arbitrio regebatur, itemque Farnobio, propinquans Histri marginibus, ut simili susciperetur humanitate, obsecravit imperatorem legatis propere missis.

31.4.13 …..Quibus (ut communi rei conducere videbatur) repudiatis, et quid capesserent anxiis, …

31.5.1. At vero Theruingi, iam dudum transire permissi, prope ripas etiam tum vagabantur, duplici impedimento adstricti, quod ducum dissimulatione perniciosa, nec victui congruis sunt adiuti, et tenebantur consulto nefandis nundinandi commerciis.

31.5.2 Quo intellecto, ad perfidiam instantium malorum subsidium verti mussabant, et Lupicinus ne iam deficerent pertimescens, eos admotis militibus adigebat ocius proficisci.

31.5.3 Id tempus opportunum nancti Greuthungi, cum alibi militibus occupatis, navigia ultro citroque discurrere solita, transgressum eorum prohibentia, quiescere perspexissent, ratibus transiere male contextis, castraque a Fritigerno locavere longissime.

31.5.4 At ille genuina praevidendi sollertia, venturos muniens casus, ut et imperiis oboediret, et regibus validis iungeretur, incedens segnius, Marcianopolim tarde pervenit itineribus lentis. Ubi aliud accessit atrocius, quod arsuras in commune exitium faces furiales accendit.

31.5.5. Alavivo et Fritigerno ad convivium corrogatis, Lupicinus ab oppidi moenibus barbaram plebem, opposito milite, procul arcebat, introire ad comparanda victui necessaria, ut dicioni nostrae obnoxiam et concordem, per preces assidue postulantem, ortisque maioribus iurgiis inter habitatores et vetitos, ad usque necessitatem pugnandi est ventum. Efferatique acrius barbari, cum necessitudines hostiliter rapi sentirent, spoliarunt interfectam militum magnam manum.

31.5.8 Haec ubi fama rumorum nutrix maligna dispersit, urebatur dimicandi studio Theruingorum natio omnis, et inter metuenda multa periculorumque praevia maximorum, vexillis de more sublatis, auditisque triste sonantibus classicis, iam turmae praedatoriae concursabant, pilando villas et incendendo, vastisque cladibus quicquid inveniri poterat permiscentes.

31.6.5. Laudato regis consilio, quem cogitatorum norant fore socium efficacem, per Thraciarum latus omne dispersi caute gradiebantur, dediticiis vel captivis vices uberes ostendentibus, eos praecipue, ubi alimentorum reperiri satias dicebatur, eo maxime adiumento, praeter genuinam erecti fiduciam, quod confluebat ad eos in dies ex eadem gente multitude, dudum a mercatoribus venundati, adiectis plurimis quos primo transgressu necati inedia vino exili vel panis frustis mutavere vilissimis.

31.6.7. Nec quicquam nisi inaccessum et devium praeeuntibus eisdem mansit intactum. Sine distantia enim aetatis vel sexus, caedibus incendiorumque magnitudine cuncta flagrabant, abstractisque ab ipso uberum suctu parvulis et necatis, raptae sunt matres et viduatae maritis coniuges ante oculos caesis, et puberes adultique pueri per parentum cadavera tracti sunt.

31.6.8. Senes denique multi, ad satietatem vixisse clamantes, post amissas opes cum speciosis feminis, manibus post terga contortis, defletisque gentilium favillis aedium ducebantur extorres.

31.8.7. tunc erat spectare cum gemitu facta dictu visuque praedira, attonitas metu feminas flagris concrepantibus agitari, fetibus gravidas adhuc immaturis, antequam prodirent in lucem, impia tolerantibus multa, implicatos alios matribus parvulos, et puberum audire lamenta, puellarumque nobilium, quarum stringebat fera captivitas manus.

31.8.8. Post quae  adulta virginitas, castitasque nuptarum, ore abiecto, flens ultima ducebatur, mox profanandum pudorem optans morte (licet cruciabili) praevenire. Inter quae cum beluae ritu traheretur ingenuus paulo ante dives et liber, de te, Fortuna, ut inclementi querebatur et caeca, quae eum puncto temporis brevi opibus exutum et dulcedine caritatum, domoque extorrem, quam concidisse vidit in cinerem et ruinas, aut lacerandum membratim, aut serviturum sub verberibus et tormentis crudo devovisti victori.

31.13.11  … Diremit haec numquam pensabilia damna, quae magno rebus stetere Romanis, nullo splendore lunari nox fulgens.

31.13.12 Primaque caligine tenebrarum, inter gregarios imperator, ut opinari dabatur (neque enim vidisse se quisquam vel praesto fuisse adseveravit), sagitta perniciose saucius ruit, spirituque mox consumpto decessit, nec postea repertus est usquam. Hostium enim paucis spoliandi gratia mortuos per ea loca diu versatis, nullus fugatorum vel accolarum illuc adire est ausus.

31.13.14 Alii dicunt Valentem animam non exhalasse confestim, sed cum candidatis et spadonibus paucis, prope ad agrestem casam relatum, secunda contignatione fabre munitam, dum fovetur manibus imperitis, circumsessum ab hostibus, qui esset ignorantibus, dedecore captivitatis exemptum.

31.13.15 Cum enim oppessulatas ianuas perrumpere conati qui secuti sunt, a parte pensili domus sagittis incesserentur, ne per moras inexpedibiles populandi amitterent copiam, congestis stipulae fascibus et lignorum, flammaque supposita, aedificium cum hominibus torruerunt.

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It is a Latin maxim remarkably rooted in the West because it has become a Latin proverb or phrase or sentence, like many others which in its conciseness and brevity are loaded with meaning content.

Many citizens who reject a stickler and mechanical application of the law, which, as it is  collected on Digesta Iustiniani, 40,  9.12 on another lapidary sentence also,  is always hard: Dura lex, sed lex, The law is harsh, but it is the law.

There are also many supporters of a harsh application. Perhaps without an enough  knowledge of the situation, I have the personal impression that the law is a stickler application in the US, although the Anglo-Saxon tradition of law based on the experience of the application, which applies in Britain, it would seem advise the opposite.

The origin of this phrase does not appear in the world of law itself, because it contains within itself a contradiction or denial of the law itself. It seems rather collect the value of experience in the application, which advised to consider the circumstances of the breach of the rule and its application.

From a rhetorical point of view it would be a kind of an oxymoron ((gr. Ὀξύμωρον) or union of two ideas of contradictory significance or "ingenious absurdity" as they call the Greek, or in Latin "contradictio in terminis" (contradictio in terms –linguistic terms-), which is explained by the context.  The word “oxymoron” comes from the Greek ὀξύς (oxys,  'sharp, stabbing') and μωρός (morós. 'flabby, dull, stupid'); so that the same word is a example of an oxymoron.

It can also be seen as a case of "etymological figure" or use of various forms derived from the same lexeme:  "iniuria", derived from “ius”, refuses it.

The phrase such as "summum ius summa iniuria" only appears in Cicero on his work “On Duties” (De officiis I, 33), which later I will comment.

It is cited as precedent a very similar text of a comedy of Terence.  Terence used in its Heautontimorumenos (The tormentor of himself) the term "summum ius saepe malitia summa'st", " Extreme law, often extreme evil”.

Terence, the Latin author of comedies, is directly inspired, if not literally translator,  in the Greek comedies of Menander.  This fact and the Greek influence  also in Cicero himself, suggests that the origin of the phrase would be in the Greek world, but we do not keep the work of Menander to check it.

In any case it is true that it is arisen in the Greek world the question of the relationship between justice δίκαιον, dikaion, νόμος , nomos, the law, and ἐπιείκεια, epiqueya, equity. 

Note that in the implementation of the right of Attica it is preferred the arbitration and the conciliatory proposals than the exclusive performance of the courts.

Cicero, collecting definitely  an opinion and widespread citizen feeling, rejects  or warns of the formalistic and literal rigidity of Roman law, as it is clear from the examples adduced in the text that I will immediately transcribe, without claiming why that the judgment Iuridicum question was part of the corpus iuridicum itself.

"Epikeia" ἐπιείκεια (equity), is a Greek term, with legal value, which refers to the concrete application of a law, which is always general, to the specific cases which are real. It is a moral virtue that allows a person not to apply the literal observation of a positive rule to respect and be faithful to the meaning or true spirit of the regulation itself. The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines it as: 1. f. Moderate and cautious interpretation of the law, according to the circumstances of time, place and person.

The ancients (Plato, Aristotle, …) devoted much time to this issue of "epikeia" and therefore the meaning and value of the law as an instrument for its application. This subject certainly deserves an article that I will do.

So the first Latin text with this phrase corresponds to Terence, who, as I  said in his Heautontimorumenos (The tormentor of himself), Act IV, Scene 5.48 (v. 796) uses the term "ius summum saepe summa'st malitia ".

Note: the  comedy of Terence, copy or a simply translation of one similar of Menander, was represented for the first time in the year 163 BC. On it Menedemus, another elderly father torments himself and regrets being too stern father who forced his son Clinias to run away from home  and enlist in a foreign army. Then the play is developed  around a love affair typical of these comedies.

HEAVTON TIMORVMENOS 795 (Act4,5,48)

SYRUS: But for my part, Chremes, I take it well and good, either way.

CHREMES: But still, I especially wish you to do your best for it to be brought about; but in some other way.

SYRUS: It shall be done: some other method must be thought of; but as to what I was telling you of,–about the money which she owes to Bacchis,–that must now be repaid her. And you will not, of course, now be having recourse to this method; "What have I to do with it? Was it lent to me? Did I give any orders? Had she the power to pawn my daughter without my consent?" They quote that saying, Chremes, with good reason, " Riorous law1 is often rigorous injustice."

CHREMES: I will not do so.

SYRUS: On the contrary, though others were at liberty, you are not at liberty; all think that you are in good and very easy circumstances. 
(Translation by Henry Thomas Riley, Ed.)

SYRUS: (servus)Caeterum equidem istuc, Chrene,
Aequi bonique facio.

CHREMES:  (pater)atqui quam maxume
volo te dare operam ut fiat, verum alia via.

SYRUS : fiat, quaeratur aliquid. sed illud quod tibi      790
dixi de argento quod ista debet Bacchidi,
id nunc reddendumst illi: neque tu scilicet
illuc confugies: "quid mea? num mihi datumst?
num iussi? num illa oppignerare filiam
meam me invito potuit?" verum illuc, Chreme,       795
dicunt: "ius summum saepe summast malitia."

CHREMES. haud faciam.

SYRUS. immo aliis si licet, tibi non licet:
“omnes te in lauta et bene acta parte putant.”

The phrase of Cicero is the only one that appears as such in Latin literature. It appears in his work On Duties (De officiis) lib.I, 33.

Injustice often arises also through chicanery, that is, through an over-subtle and even fraudulent construction of the law. This it is that gave rise to the now familiar saw, “More law, less justice.” Through such interpretation also a great deal of wrong is committed in transactions between state and state; thus, when a truce had been made with the enemy for thirty days, a famous general went to ravaging their fields by night, because, he said, the truce stipulated “days,” not nights. Not even our own countryman's action is to be commended, if what is told of Quintus Fabius Labeo is true—or whoever it was (for I have no authority but hearsay): appointed by the Senate to arbitrate a boundary dispute between Nola and Naples, he took up the case and interviewed both parties separately, asking them not to proceed in a covetous or grasping spirit, but to make some concession rather than claim some accession. When each party had agreed to this, there was a considerable strip of territory left between them. And so he set the boundary of each city as each had severally agreed; and the tract in between he awarded to the Roman People. Now that is swindling, not arbitration. And therefore such sharp practice is under all circumstances to be avoided.
Again, there are certain duties that we owe even to those who have wronged us. For there is a limit to retribution and to punishment; or rather, I am inclined to think, it is sufficient that the aggressor should be brought to repent of his wrong-doing, in [p. 37] order that he may not repeat the offence and that others may be deterred from doing wrong.

Then, too, in the case of a state in its external relations, the rights of war must be strictly observed. For since there are two ways of settling a dispute: first, by discussion; second, by physical force; and since the former is characteristic of man, the latter of the brute, we must resort to force only in case we may not avail ourselves of discussion. (English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.)

This story is told of Cleomenes, King of Sparta (520- 491 B.C.), in the war with Argos. (Plutarch, on  Apophthegmata Laconica, 223A) 

DE OFFICIIS LIBER PRIMVS 33

Existunt etiam saepe iniuriae calumnia quadam et nimis callida sed malitiosa iuris interpretatione. Ex quo illud "summum ius summa iniuria" factum est iam tritum sermone proverbium. Quo in genere etiam in re publica multa peccantur, ut ille, qui, cum triginta dierum essent cum hoste indutiae factae, noctu populabatur agros, quod dierum essent pactae, non noctium indutiae. Ne noster quidem probandus, si verum est Q. Fabium Labeonem seu quem alium–nihil enim habeo praeter auditum –arbitrum Nolanis et Neapolitanis de finibus a senatu datum, cum ad locum venisset, cum utrisque separatim locutum, ne cupide quid agerent, ne appetenter, atque ut regredi quam progredi mallent. Id cum utrique fecissent, aliquantum agri in medio relictum est. Itaque illorum finis sic, ut ipsi dixerant, terminavit; in medio relictum quod erat, populo Romano adiudicavit. Decipere hoc quidem est, non iudicare. Quocirca in omni est re fugienda talis sollertia.

Sunt autem quaedam officia etiam adversus eos servanda, a quibus iniuriam acceperis. Est enim ulciscendi et puniendi modus; atque haud scio an satis sit eum, qui lacessierit, iniuriae suae paenitere, ut et ipse ne quid tale posthac et ceteri sint ad iniuriam tardiores.

Atque in re publica maxime conservanda sunt iura belli. Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim, cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum, confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore.

Interestingly we find an appointment on Columella, author of a work on agriculture, based on the relationship of master and owner of the land with his colonists; He says in De re rustica, Book I, 7:

After all these arrangements have been acquired or contrived, especial care is demanded of the master not only in other matters, but most of all in the matter of the persons in his service; and these are either tenant-farmers or slaves, whether unfettered or in chains. He should be civil in dealing with his tenants, should show himself affable, and should be more exacting in the matter of work than of payments, as this gives less offence yet is, generally speaking, more profitable. For when land is carefully tilled it usually brings a profit, and never a loss, except when it is assailed by unusually severe weather or by robbers; and for that reason the tenant does not venture to ask for reduction of his rent.  But the master should not be insistent on his rights in every particular to which he has bound his tenant, such as the exact day for payment, or p81the matter of demanding firewood and other trifling services in addition, attention to which causes country-folk more trouble than expense; in fact, we should not lay claim to all that the law allows, for the ancients regarded the extreme of the law as the extreme of oppression. (The English translation  is that of the Loeb Classical Library edition: Vol. I (Books 1 4) by H. B. Ash, first published in 1941).

His omnibus ita vel acceptis vel compositis, praecipua cura domini requiritur, cum in ceteris rebus, tum maxime in hominibus. Atque hi vel coloni vel servi sunt, soluti aut vincti. Comiter agat cum colonis, facilemque se praebeat. Avarius opus exigat quam pensiones, quoniam et minus id offendit, et tamen in universum magis prodest. Nam ubi sedulo colitur ager, plerumque compendium, numquam (nisi si caeli maior vis aut praedonis accessit) detrimentum affert, eoque remissionem colonus petere non audet. Sed nec dominus in unaquaque re, cum colonum obligaverit, tenax esse iuris debet, sicut in diebus pecuniarum, ut lignis et ceteris parvis accessionibus exigendis, quarum cura maiorem molestiam quam impensam rusticis licet. Nec sane est vindicandum nobis quidquid licet. Nam summum ius antiqui summam putabant crucem.

Note that Columella replaced "iniuria" by "crucem", cross, with the meaning  of punishment, which also moves away  the expression of the legal technical language.

There is another curious appointment at the first of the letters of St. Jerome (c.340-420), which in this case he sends to his fellow Innocent. On it he tells the miraculous story of a Christian girl falsely accused by her husband of adultery. She denies the accusation relying on God's help. The executioner tries execute her six times in vain; every time he downloads the stroke of his sword on the neck of the young, the sword is stopped by contact with meat. A second executioner finally gets at the seventh attempt to kill the girl, who suddenly comes to life with God's help. Meanwhile another woman has died, who replaces  the first at the tomb; the revived girl is hidden on a nearby farm. But behold, a zealous officer suspects something and asks to see again the body of the young. That's when Jerome exclaims on paragraph 14 of the letter:
 
Before such opprobrious words the executioner retires in confusion, while the woman is secretly revived at home. Then, lest the frequency  of the doctor's visits to the church might give occasion for suspicion,    they cut her hair short and send her in the company of some virgins to a sequestered country house. There she changes her dress for that of a man, and scars form over her wounds. Yet even after the great miracles worked on her behalf, the laws still rage against her. So true is it that, where there is most law, there, there is also most injustice. (Freemantle, M.A., The Hon. W.H. Translator), 1892)

Tali invidia carnifice confuso clam domi mulier fodiatur et, ne forte creber ad ecclesiam medici commeatus suspicionis panderet viam, eum quibusdam virginibus ad secretiorem villulam secto crine transmittitur. Ibi paulatim virili habitu veste mutata in cicatricem vulnus obducitur. Et—‘ O vere ius summum summa malitia! ’—post tanta miracula adhuc saeviunt leges.
Interestingly, Jerome uses the term of Terence "summa malitia" and not that of Cicero "summa iniuria", which is what has become widespread later, probably by the colorful and rhetoric contrast "ius / in-iuria".

In short, the proverb warns us that rigorous and literal application of positive law, can produce great damage, so the judge or bailiff must act on the advice of the equity; otherwise the law and justice can become ironically an  injustice.

This explains what the Spanish Civil Code states in Article 3:

Article 3.

1. Rules shall be interpreted according to the meaning of his own words, in relation to the context, historical and legislative history, and the social reality of the time on that must be applied, mainly in response to the spirit and purpose of those.

2. Equity must be weighed in the application of the rules, although the decisions of the tribunals can only rest exclusively on it when the law expressly permits it.

The proverb, moreover, is widespread in all languages, including: on  English: Rigorous law is often rigorous injustice./ Extreme law, extreme injustice; on Italian: il sommo diritto è somma ingiustizia or Gran giustizia, grande offesa; on French: Excès de justice, excès d’injustice; on German: Das strengste Recht, das grösste Unrecht.

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The sky itself is a god and those bright points are also divine beings. So any signal that comes from heaven must  be observed, analyzed, countered if its effect is threatening.

Concerning the stars, one of the aspects that most interested the ancients  was the present position of the stars; some of them, the planets move, but others apparently remain fixed and anchored in heaven. Just the word "planet" πλανήτης, planetes in Greek, means "wanderer, moving"

From the position and appearance (ortho) and disappearance  (set) of the stars in the sky depend  two fundamental issues: one the determination of the calendar, the ability to organize and understand the cycles of nature; the other one  is related to the belief in the influence the stars have on the lives of men, especially the position of the stars at the time of birth. This question is studying since years  the "astrology" and irrational it may seem us, it has not yet ceased to have a large presence in contemporary life.

Well, to determine the position of the stars and their appearances and  cycles patient observations were made during thousands of years. The first were the Mesopotamians and Egyptians; from  them learned Greek, who incorporated this knowledge into their mythology and their fledgling science and developed it greatly.

One sign that most impressed the ancients, and that continues  fascinating us today, are the  eclipses, in our position especially they of the sun, but also of the moon.

The word eclipse comes from the Greek ἔκλειψις, ékleipsis, which means "disappearance, missing".
Strabo (ca. 63 BC-AD 19-24) in his Geography, 1, 1, 12 defines eclipses as συγκρίσεις ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης (syncríseis Heliou kay Selenes), ie as combinations, compositions or alignment of the sun and moon [to the earth]. This precise definition remains valid today.

According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy in astronomy eclipse it is "temporary total or partial hiding of a star by the interposition of another celestial body."

Eclipses can be solar eclipse or lunar eclipse. They are especially striking and dramatic the solar eclipses, which can be partial, total or annular according the  part of sun which is obscured by the interposition of the moon.

Solar eclipses, especially total eclipses, may cause fear and anxiety for people, even today where the scientific explanation, long ago established, is known worldwide. In this type, night falls in the middle of the day and some stars can see and though they did not last long, they alter the behavior of animals and impress people greatly.

It can not, therefore, surprise us the interest that eclipses arose in the ancient.

The Babylonians were remarkable observers of the sky and Egyptians and Greeks learned from then. And Babylonians were those who realized that the planets periodically returned to the same one position and established the so called "Saros cycle", which naturally inherited the Greeks. This cycle is a period of 18 years, 10 or 11 days and 1/3 day (ie, 6585.32 days), time between two solar or lunar eclipses  with similar conditions, when the Moon and Earth they are again in the same approximate position in their orbits: at the same stage, on the same node and at the same distance.

The name "Saros" (Greek σάρος), which first was used in 1691 by Edmond Halley taking from  encyclopedia or from  Byzantine lexicon of eleventh century "Suda", which says:

[The saros is] a measure and a number among Chaldeans. For 120 saros-cycles make 2222 years according to the Chaldeans' reckoning, if indeed the saros makes 222 lunar months, which are 18 years and 6 months.

The Greeks in turn seems that they took  the word "saros" from the Babylonian "Saru", which meant the number 3,600.

Ptolemy and Pliny refer to this cycle, but they do not call it that. Pliny (23-79 AD) devotes the whole chapter 10 of Book II to the analysis of the recurrence of eclipses, solar and lunar, taking it from Hipparchus:

Pliny, Naturalis Historia, II, 10 (56-57)

It is ascertained that the eclipses complete their whole revolution in the space of 223 months, that the eclipse of the sun takes place only at the conclusion or the commencement of a lunation, which is termed conjunction, while an eclipse of the moon takes place only when she is at the full, and is always a little farther advanced than the preceding eclipse. Now there are eclipses of both these stars in every year, which take place below the earth, at stated days and hours; and when they are above it they are not always visible, sometimes on account of the clouds, but more frequently, from the globe of the earth being opposed to the vault of the heavens. It was discovered two hundred years ago, by the sagacity of Hipparchus, that the moon is sometimes eclipsed after an interval of five months, and the sun after an interval of seven; also, that he becomes invisible, while above the horizon, twice in every thirty days, but that this is seen in different places at different times. But the most wonderful circumstance is, that while it is admitted that the moon is darkened by the shadow of the earth, this occurs at one time on its western, and at another time on its eastern side. And farther, that although, after the rising of the sun, that darkening shadow ought to be below the earth, yet it has once happened, that the moon has been eclipsed in the west, while both the luminaries have been above the horizon. And as to their both being invisible in the space of fifteen days, this very thing happened while the Vespasians were emperors, the father being consul for the third time, and the son for the second. (The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.)

defectus ccxxiii mensibus redire in suos orbes certum est, solis defectus non nisi novissima primave fieri luna, quod vocant coitum, lunae autem non nisi plena, semperque citra quam proxime fuerint; omnibus autem annis fieri utriusque sideris defectus statis diebus horisque sub terra nec tamen, cum superne fiant, ubique cerni, aliquando propter nubila, saepius globo terrae obstante convexitatibus mundi.
intra ducentos annos hipparchi sagacitate compertum est et lunae defectum aliquando quinto mense a priore fieri, solis vero septimo, eundem bis in xxx diebus super terras occultari, sed ab aliis hoc cerni, quaeque sunt in hoc miraculo maxime mira, cum conveniat umbra terrae lunam hebetari, nunc ab occasus parte hoc ei accidere, nunc ab exortus, quanam ratione, cum solis exortu umbra illa hebetatrix sub terra esse debeat, semel iam acciderit ut in occasu luna deficeret utroque super terram conspicuo sidere. nam ut xv diebus utrumque sidus quaereretur, et nostro aevo accidit imperatoribus vespasianis patre iii. filio consulibus.

Ptolemy tells us something similar in his Almagest, IV, 2 in its Latin version:

De periodicis lunae temporibus
The ancient considered that this period was approximately 6585 days and third day, ie 8 hours, because at that time they saw that they ran approximately 223 months (lunar), or 239 revolutions of the anomaly, however 242 around the same latitude, but 241 revolutions in length and 10.40 degrees plus on 18 revolutions at this time

Prisci ergo admodum tempus hoc esse putabant directum 6585 dies et tertiam unius diei partem utpote horas 8 in tanto enim tempore 223 menses proxime colligi videbant: Revolutiones aut inaequalitatis quidem 239. Latitudinis autem 242, longitudinis vero revolutiones 241 et ad haec gradus 10.40 quoque in 18 revoutionibus in praedicto tempore.

In the Greco-Roman world the astronomy (currently defined as "The science which is the study of that which is related to the stars, and especially to the laws of their movements") and astrology (currently defined as "Study of the position and movement of the stars through whose interpretation and observation it is to know and predict the fate of men and predict terrestrial events. ") are confused, they are the same science. So the myths and beliefs that come from the mists of time are mixed with that reason and science find out. Gradually the astronomy  was expressed in mathematical and geometric language without thereby the “astrology” disappear.

I will summarize this long process, in regard to eclipses, on a few  ancient texts, from  hundreds of interesting,  that have been remained.

Homer in his Odyssey, XX, 350 et seq.  refers to an eclipse, which he presents  as a premonition of the terrible end of the suitors of Penelope at the hands of Odysseus in his palace in Ithaca:

Then the godlike Theoclymenus spake among them:
'Ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer?
Shrouded in night are your heads and your faces and your knees,
and kindled is the voice of wailing, and all cheeks are wet with tears,
and the walls and the fair main-beams of the roof are sprinkled with blood.
And the porch is full, and full is the court,
of ghosts that hasten hellwards beneath the gloom,
and the sun has perished out of heaven,
and an evil mist has overspread the world.'
(The Odyssey of Homer, done into English prose by S.H.Butcher, M.A. and A.Lang.Ma. Project Gutenberg)

Archilochus reminded us that eclipses are the work of the gods. Greek poet Archilochus  lived in the seventh century BC and he  refers to an eclipse, probably that of the year 648, as a work of Zeus. He says in the fragment 122 (West):

Zeus and the  Eclipse (fragment 122 West)

Nothing is unexpected, nothing can be declared impossible
or wonderful, since Zeus, father of the Olympians,
made night at midday keeping back to the light
even sun was shining; and fear fell upon men.
From this time men can believe all things, they can wait all things.
None of you may  be surprised in the future, even when you
beasts change places with dolphins and go to pasture
in the deep, when the resonant waves of the sea become
dearer than the land, and the dolphins love the wooded hills.

Men do not know what causes eclipses, which as disturbance of the natural order of heaven  produce enormous fear. Sometimes they believe they are caused by the own magic action of men.

Some authors, like Democritus of Abdera (450a.C. – ca. 370 BC) think the sun or the moon become invisible when they descend from their orbits. The responsible for this descent are witches or wizards, according to popular belief.

Plato reflects this belief that he puts on the mouth of Socrates in Gorgias, 513a:

see if this is to your advantage and mine, so that we may not suffer, my distinguished friend, the fate that they say befalls the creatures who would draw down the moon—the hags of Thessaly; that our choice of this power in the city may not cost us all that we hold most dear. (Translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.)

According to popular belief they turn blind, suffered burns and were left with broken legs for the effort.

Aristophanes uses the belief on The Clouds, v. 750 ff .:

Strepsiades. I have got a device for cheating them of the
             interest.

Socrates. Exhibit it.

Strep. Now tell me this, pray; if I were to purchase a
      Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night,  and
      then shut it up, as if it were a mirror, in a round
      crest-case, and then carefully keep it—

Soc. What good, pray, would this do you?

Strep. What? If the moon were to rise no longer
     anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

Soc. Why so, pray?

Strep. Because the money is lent out by the month.
                  (Translated by William James Hickie)

Pliny also tells us how men believed that eclipses were the result of witchcraft and how they produced them enormous fear, that they tried to ward producing great noise. He says in a text on that he values the great work of the men who liberated the men from fear to these phenomena. He says it in Naturalis Historia, II, 12 (54):

These were indeed great men, superior to ordinary mortals, who having discovered the laws of these divine bodies, relieved the miserable mind of man from the fear which he had of eclipses, as foretelling some dreadful events or the destruction of the stars. This alarm is freely acknowledged in the sublime strains of Stesichorus and Pindar, as being produced by an eclipse of the sun. And with respect to the eclipse of the moon, mortals impute it to witchcraft, and therefore endeavour to aid her by producing discordant sounds. In consequence of this kind of terror it was that Nicias, the general of the Athenians, being ignorant of the cause, was afraid to lead out the fleet, and brought great distress on his troops. (The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.)

viri ingentes supraque mortalia, tantorum numinum lege deprehensa et misera hominum mente iam soluta, in defectibus scelera aut mortem aliquam siderum pavente – quo in metu fuisse stesichori et pindari vatum sublimia ora palam est deliquio solis – aut in luna veneficia arguente mortalitate et ob id crepitu dissono auxiliante – quo pavore ignarus causae nicias atheniensium imperator veritus classem portu educere opes eorum adflixit

Livy also, commenting on the site by the Romans in the city of Capua, occupied by the Carthaginians, and describing the noise and clamor of the battle in that also is  involved Anibal, says in (Ab Urbe Condita libri), 26, 5 9,:

The battle commenced not only with the usual clamour and tumult, but in addition to the din of men, horses, and arms, a multitude of Campanians, unable to bear arms, being distributed along the walls, raised such a shout together with the clangour of brazen vessels, similar to that which is usually made in the dead of night when the moon is eclipsed, that it diverted the attention even of the combatants. (Translated by D. Spillan and Cyrus Edmonds)

proelium non solito modo clamore ac tumultu est coeptum, sed ad alium virorum, equorum armorumque sonum disposita in muris Campanorum inbellis multitudo tantum cum aeris crepitu, qualis in defectu lunae silenti nocte cieri solet, edidit clamorem, ut averteret etiam pugnantium animos.

Boethius (480-ca.526), still reminds us of the established practice of beating  bronze objects to ward off the evil spell of the solar eclipse, in his Consolation of Philosophy, Book IV, M (etro) 5, 7, -12

palleant plenae cornua lunae
infecta metis noctis opacae,
quaeque fulgenti texerat ore,
10 confusa Phoebe detegat astra:
commouet gentes publicus error
lassantque crebris pulsibus aera.

When the full-orbèd moon grows pale
In the mid course of night,
And suddenly the stars shine forth
That languished in her light,
Th' astonied nations stand at gaze,
And beat the air in wild amaze.
(Translated by H.R. James, M.A., CH. )

The texts that reflect these fears are numerous. Thucydides (460-396) provides an interesting text commenting on the magnitude of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides puts in relation the disasters of war with the misfortunes of all kinds that occurred then.

History of the Peloponnesian War, I, 23:

The Median war, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land. The Peloponnesian war was prolonged to an immense length, and long as it was it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it brought upon Hellas. [2] Never had so many cities been taken and laid desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending （the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others）; never was there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in the strife of action. [3] Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late war,… (London, J. M. Dent;)

Note: Thucydides in his History mentions two solar eclipses, in II, 28 and IV, 52.1; he also refers to one lunar eclipse in VII, 50.4:

All was at last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of the Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers. (Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.)

Pindar also uses the same idea and belief that eclipses carry great misfortunes in his Pean 9 (52K Fragment Maehler, A1 Rutherford):

Beam of the sun ! O thou that seest afar, what
wilt thou be devising } O mother of mine eyes ! O
star supreme, reft from us in the daytime. Why
hast thou perplexed the power of man and the way
of wisdom, by rushing forth on a darksome track }
Art thou bringing on us some new and strange
disaster? Yet, by Zeus, I implore thee, thou swift
driver divine of steeds ! do thou, O queen I change
this worldwide portent into some painless blessing
for Thebes . . .

[Is it because, in thine anger at the presumptuous
sons of mortals, thou art unAvilling utterly to blot
out the pure light of life ?] ^

But art thou bringing a sign of some war, or wasting
of produce, or an unspeakably violent snow-storm, or
fatal faction, or again, some overflowing of the sea
on the plain, or frost to bind the earth, or heat of
the south-wind streaming with raging rain ? Or wilt
thou, by deluging the land, cause the race of men to
begin anew ? I in no wise lament whate'er I shall
suffer with all the rest.

(English translation by  Sir John Sandys, Lttt.D., F.B.A. The Loeb Classical Library)

Some commentators appreciate precedent of this paean in Egyptian poems to the sun.

Seneca, in a long and rhetorical choir singing in his tragedy "Thyestes" poetizes on the status of cosmic disorder and panic generated by eclipses:

At the crime of Atreus who killed the children of Thyestes and had offered as food in a terrible feast, the sun goes back. The choir, stunned, fears that the whole structure of the world comes down and then all returns to the old chaos.

The choir at the end of his Thyestes, v. 789-884:

Chorus

Whither, O father of the lands and skies, before
whose rising thick night with all her glories flees,
whither dost turn thy course and why dost blot out
the day in mid-Olympus? Why, O Phoebus, dost
snatch away thy face ? Not yet does Vesper,
twilight's messenger, summon the fires of night ; not
yet does thy wheel, turning its western goal, bid free
thy steeds from their completed task; not yet as day
fades into night has the third trump sounded; the
ploughman with oxen yet unwearied stands amazed at
his supper-hour's quick coming. What has driven
thee from thy heavenly course? What cause from
their fixed track has turned aside thy horses? Is
the prison-house of Dis thrown wide and are the
conquered Giants again essaying war? Doth sorewounded
Tityos renew in his weary breast his ancient
wrath ? Has Typhoeus thrown off the mountainous
mass and set his body free? Is a highway being built
by the Phlegraean foe, and does Thessalian Pelion
press on Thracian Ossa?

Heaven's accustomed alternations are no more;
no setting, no rising shall there be again. The dewy
mother of the early dawn, wont to hand o'er to the
god his morning reins, looks in amaze upon the
disordered threshold of her kingdom; she is not
skilled to bathe his weary chariot, nor to plunge his
steeds, reeking with sweat, beneath the sea. Startled
himself at such unwonted welcoming, the sinking
sun beholds Aurora, and bids the shadows arise,
though night is not yet ready. No stars come out;
the heavens gleam not with any fires : no moon
dispels the darkness' heavy pall.

But whatever this may be, would that night
were here ! Trembling, trembling are our hearts,
sore smit with fear, lest all things fall shattered in
fatal ruin and once more gods and men be o'erwhelmed
by formless chaos; lest the lands, the encircling sea,
and the stars that wander in the spangled sky, nature
blot out once more. No more by the rising of his
quenchless torch shall the leader of the stars, guiding
the procession of the years, mark off the summer and
the winter times; no more shall Luna, reflecting
Phoebus' rays, dispel night's terrors, and outstrip
her brother's reins, as in scantier space she speeds
on her circling path. Into one abyss shall fall the
heaped-up throng of gods. The Zodiac, which,
making passage through the sacred stars, crosses the
zones obliquely, guide and sign-bearer for the slowmoving
years, falling itself, shall see the fallen
constellations ; the Ram, who, ere kindly spring has
come, gives back the sails to the warm West- wind,
headlong shall plunge into the waves o'er which he
had borne the trembling Helle ; the Bull, who
before him on bright horns bears the Hyades, shall
drag the Twins down with him and the Crab's widecurving claws;
Alcides’Lion, with burning heat inflamed, once more
shall fall down from the sky ; the Virgin shall fall to the earth
she once abandoned, and the Scales of justice with their weights
shall fall and with them shall drag the fierce Scorpion down;
old Chiron,who sets the feathered shafts upon
Haemonian chord, shall lose his shafts from the
snapped bowstring; the frigid Goat^ who brings
back sluggish winter, shall fall and break thy urn,
whoe'er thou art ; with thee shall fall the Fish, last
of the stars of heaven, and the Wain, which was
ne'er bathed by the sea, shall be plunged beneath
the all-engulfing waves ; the slippery Serpent which,
gliding like a river, separates the Bears, shall fall,
and icy Cynosura, the Lesser Bear, together with the
Dragon vast, congealed with cold; and that slow-
moving driver of his wain, Arctophylax,no longer
fixed in place, shall fall.
Have we of all mankind been deemed deserving that heaven,
its poles  uptorn, should overwhelm us? In our time has the last day come?
Alas for us, by bitter fate begotten, to misery
doomed, whether we have lost the sun or banished
it! Away with lamentations, begone, O fear!
Greedy indeed for life is he who would not die
when the world is perishing in his company.
(Translated by Frank Justus Miller, Ph.D.LL.D., The Loeb Classical Library)

Chorus
Quo terrarum superumque parem,
cuius ad ortus noctis opacae
decus omne fugit, quo vertis iter
medioque diem perdis Olympo?
cur, Phoebe, tuos rapis aspectus?
nondum serae nuntius horae
nocturna vocat lumina Vesper;
nondum Hesperiae flexura rotae
iubet emeritos solvere currus;
nondum in noctem vergente die
tertia misit bucina signum:
stupet ad subitae tempora cenae
nondum fessis bubus arator,
quid te aetherio pepulit cursu?
quae causa tuos
limite certo deiecit equos?
numquid aperto carcere Ditis
victi temptant bella Gigantes?
numquid Tityos pectore fesso
renovat veteres saucius iras?
num reiecto
latus explicuit monte Typhoeus?
numquid struitur via Phlegraeos
alta per hostes et Thessalicum
Thressa premitur Pelion Ossa?
solitae mundi periere vices?
nihil occasus, nihil ortus erit?
stupet Eoos
assueta deo tradere frenos
genetrix primae roscida lucis
perversa sui limina regni;
nescit fessos
tinguere currus nec fumantes
sudore iubas mergere ponto.
ipse insueto novus hospitio
Sol Auroram videt occiduus,
tenebrasque iubet surgere nondum
nocte parata: non succedunt
astra nec ullo micat igne polus,
non Luna gravis digerit umbras.
Sed quicquid id est, utinam nox sit!
trepidant, trepidant
pectora magno percussa metu:
ne fatali cuncta ruina
quassata labent iterumque, deos
hominesque premat deforme chaos,
iterum terras et mare cingens
 et vaga picti sidera mundi
natura tegat.
non aeternae facis exortu
dux astrorum saecula ducens
dabit aestatis brumaeque notas,
non Phoebeis obvia flammis
dement nocti Luna timores
vincetque sui fratris habenas,
curro brevius limite currens;
ibit in unum
congesta sinum turba deorum,
hic qui sacris pervius astris
secat obliquo tramite zonas
flectens longos signifer annos,
lapsa videbit sidera labens;
hic qui nondum vere benigno
reddit Zephyro- vela tepenti,
Aries praeceps ibit in undas,
per quas pavidam vexerat Hellen;
hic qui nitido Taurus cornu
praefert Hyadas, secum Geminos
trahet et curvi bracchia Cancri;
Leo flammiferis aestibus ardens
iterum e caelo cadet Herculens,
cadet in terras Virgo relictas
iustaeqne cadent pondera Librae
secumque trahent Scorpion acrem;
et qui nervo tenet Haemonio
pinnata senex spicula Chiron,
rupto perdet spicula nervo;
pigram referens hiemem gelidus
cadet Aegoceros frangetque tuam,
quisquis es, urnam; tecum excedent
ultima caeli sidera Pisces,
Plostraque numquam perfusa mari
merget condens omnia gurges;
et qui medias dividit Vrsas,
fluminis instar lubricus Anguis
magnoque minor iuncta Draconi
frigida duro. Cynosura gelu,
custosque sui tardus plaustri
iam non stabilis ruet Arctophylax.
Nos e tanto visi populo
digni premeret quos everso
cardine mundus?
in nos aetas ultima venit?
o nos dura sorte creatos,
seu perdidimus solem miseri,
sive expulimus!
abeant questus, discedo, timor:
vitae est avidus quisquis non vult
mundo secum pereunte mori.

Virgil (70-19 BC), relates sun signals (Phoebus) to the assassination of Caesar and the wars and misfortunes that will befall on Rome in his Georgics I, vv. 464-468:

He it is who warneth oft
Of hidden broils at hand and treachery,
And secret swelling of the waves of war.
He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched,
For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled
In iron-hued darkness, till a godless age
Trembled for night eternal;
(Translated by J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900.)

… Ille etiam caecos instare tumultus
saepe monet fraudemque et operta tumescere bella;
ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit
impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem.

Virgil also, at the end of Book I of the Aeneid, when Aeneas has been
taken away by Dido to the palace, presents the court poet singing  the stars and their movements. He does it in verses 736 ff.

Aeneid, I,736-750

The goblet then she took, with nectar crown'd
(Sprinkling the first libations on the ground,)
And rais'd it to her mouth with sober grace;
Then, sipping, offer'd to the next in place.
'T was Bitias whom she call'd, a thirsty soul;
He took challenge, and embrac'd the bowl,
With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceas'd to draw,
Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw.
The goblet goes around: Iopas brought
His golden lyre, and sung what ancient Atlas taught:
The various labors of the wand'ring moon,
And whence proceed th' eclipses of the sun;
th' original of men and beasts; and whence
The rains arise, and fires their warmth dispense,
And fix'd and erring stars dispose their influence;
What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays
The summer nights and shortens winter days.
With peals of shouts the Tyrians praise the song

Those peals are echo'd by the Trojan throng.
th' unhappy queen with talk prolong'd the night,
And drank large draughts of love with vast delight;
Of Priam much enquir'd, of Hector more;
(Translated by John Dryden)

Dixit, et in mensam laticum libavit honorem,
primaque, libato, summo tenus attigit ore,
tum Bitiae dedit increpitans; ille impiger hausit
spumantem pateram, et pleno se proluit auro
post alii proceres. Cithara crinitus Iopas
personat aurata, docuit quem maximus Atlas.
Hic canit errantem lunam solisque labores;
unde hominum genus et pecudes; unde imber et ignes;
Arcturum pluviasque Hyadas geminosque Triones;
quid tantum Oceano properent se tinguere soles
hiberni, vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.
Ingeminant plausu Tyrii, Troesque sequuntur.
Nec non et vario noctem sermone trahebat
infelix Dido, longumque bibebat amorem,
multa super Priamo rogitans, super Hectore multa;

Virgil  repeated almost verbatim the same ideas although in another context, now singing the excellence of the old Roman farmer and happy worker of his land; curiously they repeated here two upright lines of the previous text corresponding to the Aeneid, in Georgics, II, v. 475 et seq .:

Me before all things may the Muses sweet,
Whose rites I bear with mighty passion pierced,
Receive, and show the paths and stars of heaven,
The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons,
From whence the earthquake, by what power the seas
Swell from their depths, and, every barrier burst,
Sink back upon themselves, why winter-suns
So haste to dip 'neath ocean, or what check
The lingering night retards. But if to these
High realms of nature the cold curdling blood
About my heart bar access, then be fields
And stream-washed vales my solace, let me love
Rivers and woods, inglorious.
(Translated by J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900.)

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae,
quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore,
accipiant caelique vias et sidera monstrent,
defectus solis varios lunaeque labores;
unde tremor terris, qua vi maria alta tumescant
480obicibus ruptis rursusque in se ipsa residant,
quid tantum Oceano properent se tinguere soles
hiberni, vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.
Sin, has ne possim naturae accedere partis,
frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis:
485rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
flumina amem silvasque inglorius.

Plutarch (50-120d.C.) offers an interesting text on the fear instilled in the army by eclipses, lunar in this case. He says it in the biography of the Roman general Paulus Aemilius (229-160 BC) describing an eclipse that took place on June 21, 168 BC immediately before the battle of Pydna when  the Romans consolidated their dominance in Macedonia:

Plutarch, Life of Paulus Aemilius, XVII, 3 ff .: (1821, II, 160)

Now, when night had come, and the soldiers, after supper, were betaking themselves to rest and sleep, on a sudden the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, grew dark, lost its light, took on all sorts of colours in succession, and finally disappeared.
The Romans, according to their custom, tried to call her light back by the clashing of bronze utensils and by holding up many blazing fire-brands and torches towards the heavens; the Macedonians, however, did nothing of this sort, but amazement and terror possessed their camp, and a rumour quietly spread among many of them that the portent signified an eclipse of a king.

Now, Aemilius was not altogether without knowledge and experience of the irregularities of eclipses, which, at fixed periods, carry the moon in her course into the shadow of the earth and conceal her from sight, until she passes beyond the region of shadow and reflects again the light of the sun; however, since he was very devout and given to sacrifices and divination, as soon as he saw the moon beginning to emerge from the shadow, he sacrificed eleven heifers to her.

And as soon as it was day, he sacrificed as many as twenty oxen to Hercules without getting favourable omens; but with the twenty-first victim the propitious signs appeared and indicated victory if they stood on the defensive. Accordingly, having vowed to the god a hecatomb and solemn games, he ordered his officers to put the army in array for battle; but he himself, waiting for the sun to pass to the west and decline, in order that its morning light might not shine in the faces of his men as they fought, passed the time sitting in his tent, which was open towards the plain and the enemy's encampment.

The story also appears with some variation in Livy XLIV, 37, 4 ff.

The king, though he was disposed to have given battle that day, was yet satisfied; since his men knew, that, the delay was owing to the enemy: and he led back his troops to their station. When the camp had been thoroughly fortified, Caius Sulpicius Gallus, a military tribune of the second legion, who had been praetor the year before, with the consul’s permission collected the soldiers in assembly, and gave them notice, lest they should any of them consider the matter as a prodigy, that, “on the following night, the moon would be eclipsed, from the second hour to the fourth.” He mentioned that, “as this happened in the course of nature, at stated times, it could be known, and foretold.

As, therefore, they did not wonder at the regular rising and setting of the sun and moon, or at the moon’s sometimes shining with a full orb, and sometimes in its wane, showing only small horns, so neither ought they to construe as a portent, its being obscured when covered with the shadow of the earth.” When on the night preceding the day before the nones of September, at the hour mentioned, the eclipse took place, the Roman soldiers thought the wisdom of Gallus almost divine; but the Macedonians were shocked, as at a dismal prodigy, foreboding the fall of their kingdom and the ruin of their nation; nor did their soothsayers explain it otherwise. There was shouting and yelling in the camp of the Macedonians, until the moon emerged forth into its full light.

Both armies had been so eager for an engagement, that, next day, both the king and the consul were censured by many of their respective men for having separated without a battle. The king could readily excuse himself, not only as the enemy had led back his troops into camp, openly declining a battle; but, also, as he had posted his men on ground of such a nature, that the phalanx (which even a small inequality of surface renders useless) could not advance on it.

The consul, besides appearing to have neglected an opportunity of fighting, and to have given the enemy room to go off in the night, if he were so inclined, was thought to waste time at the present, under pretence of offering sacrifice, though the signal had been displayed, at the first light, for going out to the field.  At last, about the third hour, the sacrifices being duly performed, he summoned a council, and there, too, he was deemed by several to spin out, in talking and unseasonable consultation, the time that ought to be employed in action; after the conversation, however, the consul addressed to them the following speech. (Translated by William A. McDevitte)

rex quoque, cum sine detractatione paratus pugnare eo die fuisset, contentus eo, quod per hostem moram fuisse scirent, et ipse in castra copias reduxit. castris permunitis C. Sulpicius Gallus, tribunus militum secundae legionis, qui praetor superiore anno fuerat, consulis permissu ad contionem militibus vocatis pronuntiavit, nocte proxima, ne quis id pro portento acciperet, ab hora secunda usque ad quartam horam noctis lunam defecturam esse.  id quia naturali ordine statis temporibus fiat, et sciri ante et praedici posse.
itaque quem ad modum, quia certi solis lunaeque et ortus et occasus sint, nunc pleno orbe, nunc senescentem exiguo cornu fulgere lunam non mirarentur, ita ne obscurari quidem, cum condatur umbra terrae, trahere in prodigium debere.
nocte, quam pridie nonas Septembres insecuta est dies, edita hora luna cum defecisset, Romanis militibus Galli sapientia prope divina videri; Macedonas ut triste prodigium, occasum regni perniciemque gentis portendens, movit nec aliter vates. clamor ululatusque in castris Macedonum fuit, donec luna in suam lucem emersit.
postero die—tantus utrique ardor exercitui ad concurrendum fuerat, ut et regem et consulem suorum quidam, quod sine proelio discessum esset, accusarent— regi prompta defensio erat, non eo solum, quod hostis prior aperte pugnam detractans in castra copias reduxisset, sed etiam quod eo loco signa constituisset, quo phalanx, quam inutilem vel mediocris iniquitas loci efficeret, promoveri non posset.
consul ad id, quod pridie praetermisisse pugnandi occasionem videbatur et locum dedisse hosti, si nocte abire vellet, tunc quoque per speciem immolandi terere videbatur tempus, cum luce prima ad signum propositum pugnae exeundum in aciem fuisset.
tertia demum hora sacrificio rite perpetrato ad consilium vocavit; atque ibi, quod rei gerendae tempus esset, loquendo et intempestive consultando videbatur quibusdam extrahere. adversus eos sermones talem consul orationem habuit.

Pliny also makes reference to episode in his Natural History II, 9 (12) (53)

The first among the Romans, who explained to the people at large the cause of the two kinds of eclipses, was Sulpicius Gallus, who was consul along with Marcellus; and when he was only a military tribune he relieved the army from great anxiety the day before king Perseus was conquered by Paulus; for he was brought by the general into a public assembly, in order to predict the eclipse, of which he afterwards gave an account in a separate treatise. Among the Greeks, Thales the Milesian first investigated the subject, in the fourth year of the forty-eighth olympiad, predicting the eclipse of the sun which took place in the reign of Alyattes, in the 170th year of the City. After them Hipparchus calculated the course of both these stars for the term of 600 years3, including the months, days, and hours, the situation of the different places and the aspects adapted to each of them; all this has been confirmed by experience, and could only be acquired by partaking, as it were, in the councils of nature. (Translated by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A)

Et rationem quidem defectus utriusque primus Romani generis in vulgum extulit Sulpicius Gallus, qui consul cum M. Marcello fuit, sed tum tribunus militum, sollicitudine exercitu liberato pridie quam Perses rex superatus a Paulo est in concionem ab imperatore productus ad praedicendam eclipsim, mox et composito volumine. apud Graecos autem investigavit primus omnium Thales Milesius Olympiadis XLVIII anno quarto praedicto solis defectu, qui Alyatte rege factus est urbis conditae anno CLXX. post eos utriusque sideris cursum in sexcentos annos praececinit Hipparchus, menses gentium diesque et horas ac situs locorum et visus populorum complexus, aevo teste haut alio modo quam consiliorum naturae particeps.

Also it appears in Frontinus, Stratagems, I, 12; Zonaras, 9.23., Valerius Maximus, 8, 11.1

Cicero adds some interesting nuances in Republic I, 15, 23:

Scipio:
—I had myself a great affection for this Gallus, and I know he stood very high in the estimation of my father Paulus. I recollect in my early youth, when my father, as consul, commanded in Macedonia, and we were in the camp, our army was seized with a pious terror, because that suddenly, in a clear night, the bright and full moon became eclipsed. Gallus, who was then our lieutenant, the year before that in which he was declared consul, hesitated not, next morning, to state in the camp that it was no prodigy, and that the phenomenon which had then appeared would always appear at certain periods, when the sun was so placed that he could not affect the moon with his light.
Tubero.
—Did he succeed in conveying his philosophic doctrine to the rude soldiery? Did he venture to say as much to men so uninstructed, and so fierce?
Scipio.
—He did,—and with great credit too; for his opinion was no result of insolent ostentation, nor was his declaration unbecoming the dignity of so learned a man,—indeed, he achieved a very noble action in thus freeing his countrymen from the terrors of an idle superstition.
(Translated by Francis Barham)

. … fuit, quod et ipse hominem diligebam et in primis patri meo Paulo probatum et carum fuisse cognoveram. Memini me admodum adulescentulo, cum pater in Macedonia consul esset et essemus in castris, perturbari exercitum nostrum religione et metu, quod serena nocte subito candens et plena luna defecisset. Tum ille, cum legatus noster esset anno fere ante, quam consul est declaratus, haud dubitavit postridie palam in castris docere nullum esse prodigium, idque et tum factum esse et certis temporibus esse semper futurum, cum sol ita locatus fuisset, ut lunam suo lumine non posset attingere. Ain tandem? inquit Tubero; docere hoc poterat ille homines paene agrestes et apud imperitos audebat haec dicere? S. Ille vero et magna quidem cum … …
[24] neque insolens ostentatio neque oratio  abhorrens a persona hominis gravissimi; rem enim magnam adsecutus est, quod hominibus perturbatis inanem religionem timoremque deiecerat.

Polybius also includes how astronomical knowledge of Galus served the Romans to beat Macedonia Perseus in Pydna; in XXIX, 16 (6)

Battle of Pidna

An eclipse of the moon occurring, the report went abroad, and
was believed by many, that it signified an eclipse of the king. And
this circumstance raised the spirits of the Romans and depressed those
of the Macedonians. So true is the common saying that “war has many a
groundless scare.”...( Translation by Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh)

Tacitus (55-120 AD), also has the reaction much later of Roman legionaries before an eclipse. He tells how Drusus  Julius Caesar used the eclipse to quell a rebellion. He narrates it in his Annals, I, 28:

The night that followed seemed big with some fatal disaster, when an unexpected phenomenon put an end to the commotion. In a clear and serene sky the moon was suddenly eclipsed. This appearance, in its natural cause not understood by the soldiers, was deemed a prognostic denouncing the fate of the army. The planet, in its languishing state, represented the condition of the legions: if it recovered its former luster, the efforts of the men would be crowned with success. To assist the moon in her labours, the air resounded with the clangour of brazen instruments with the sound of trumpets, and other warlike music. The crowd, in the mean time, stood at gaze : every gleam of light inspired the men with joy; and the sudden gloom depressed their hearts with grief. The clouds condensed, and the moon was supposed to be lost in utter darkness. A melancholy horror seized the multitude ; and melancholy is sure to engender superstition. A religious panic spread through the army. The appearance in the heavens foretold eternal labour  to the legions ; and all lamented that by their crimes they had called down upon themselves the indignation of the gods. Drusus took advantage of the moment. The opportunity was the effect of chance; but, rightly managed, might conduce to the wisest purpose.

He gave orders that the men who by honest means were most in credit with the malcontents, should go round from tent to tent. Among these was Clemens, the centurion. They visited every part of the camp;
they applied to the guards on duty; they conversed with the patrole, and mixed with the sentinels at the gates. They allured some by promises, and by terror subdued the spirit of others. "How long shall
we besiege the son of the emperor? Where will this confusion end? Must we follow Percennius and Vibulenus? And shall we swear fidelity to those new commanders? Will their funds supply the pay of the legions? Have they lands to assign to the veteran soldier? For them shall the Neros and the Drusi be deposed? Are they to mount the vacant throne, the future sovereigns of Rome? Let us, since we were the last to enter into rebellion, be the first to expiate our guilt by well-timed repentance. Demands in favour of all, proceed but slowly ; to individuals, indulgence is more easily granted ; deserve it separately, and the reward will follow."

This reasoning had its effect: suspicion and mutual distrust began to take place; the new raised soldiers went apart from the veterans ; the legions separated ; a sense of duty revived in the breast of all; the gates were no longer guarded ; and the colours, at first promiscuously crowded together, were restored to their proper station. (Translated by Arthur Murphy, Esq.)

Noctem minacem et in scelus erupturam fors lenivit: nam luna claro repente caelo visa languescere. id miles rationis ignarus omen praesentium accepit, suis laboribus defectionem sideris adsimulans, prospereque cessura qua pergerent si fulgor et claritudo deae redderetur. igitur aeris sono, tubarum cornuumque concentu strepere; prout splendidior obscuriorve laetari aut maerere; et postquam ortae nubes offecere visui creditumque conditam tenebris, ut sunt mobiles ad superstitionem perculsae semel mentes, sibi aeternum laborem portendi, sua facinora aversari deos lamentantur. utendum inclinatione ea Caesar et quae casus obtulerat in sapientiam vertenda ratus circumiri tentoria iubet; accitur centurio Clemens et si alii bonis artibus grati in vulgus. hi vigiliis, stationibus, custodiis portarum se inserunt, spem offerunt, metum intendunt. 'quo usque filium imperatoris obsidebimus? quis certaminum finis? Percennione et Vibuleno sacramentum dicturi sumus? Percennius et Vibulenus stipendia militibus, agros emeritis largientur? denique pro Neronibus et Drusis imperium populi Romani capessent? quin potius, ut novissimi in culpam, ita primi ad paenitentiam sumus? tarda sunt quae in commune expostulantur: privatam gratiam statim mereare, statim recipias.' commotis per haec mentibus et inter se suspectis, tironem a veterano, legionem a legione dissociant. tum redire paulatim amor obsequii: omittunt portas, signa unum in locum principio seditionis congregata suas in sedes referunt.

Again Plutarch narrates  a similar episode now referred to an eclipse that took place many years before in 357 BC, time that also has other wonders, in Life of Dion, 24:

But after the libations and the customary prayers, the moon was eclipsed. Now, to Dion this was nothing astonishing, for he knew that eclipses recurred at regular intervals, and that the shadow projected on the moon was caused by the interposition of the earth between her and the sun. But since the soldiers, who were greatly disturbed, needed some encouragement, Miltas the seer stood up amongst them and bade them be of good cheer, and expect the best results; for the divine powers indicated an eclipse of something that was now resplendent; but nothing was more resplendent than the tyranny of Dionysius, and it was the radiance of this which they would extinguish as soon as they reached Sicily. This interpretation, then, Miltas made public for all to know; but that of the bees, which were seen settling in swarms upon the sterns of Dion's transports, he told privately to him and his friends, expressing a fear that his undertakings would thrive at the outset, but after a short season of flowering would wither away. It is said that Dionysius also had many portentous signs from Heaven. An eagle snatched a lance from one of his body-guards, carried it aloft, and then let it drop into the sea. Furthermore, the water of the sea which washed the base of the acropolis was sweet and potable for a whole day, as all who tasted it could see. Again, pigs were littered for him which were perfect in their other parts, but had no ears. This the seers declared to be a sign of disobedience and rebellion, since, as they said, the citizens would no longer listen to the commands of the tyrant; the sweetness of the sea-water indicated for the Syracusans a change from grievous and oppressive times to comfortable circumstances; an eagle, moreover, was servant of Zeus, and a spear, an emblem of authority and power, wherefore this prodigy showed that the greatest of the gods desired the utter dissolution of the tyranny. Such, at all events, is the account which Theopompus has given. (Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. 6.)

The post The eclipses announce extraordinary events (I) appeared first on History of Greece and Rome.

Homer describe us how armies in their movements raise clouds of dust clearly visible in the distance, on Iliad III 8-17:

But the Achaeans came on in silence, breathing fury, eager at heart to bear aid each man to his fellow.

Even as when the South Wind sheddeth a mist over the peaks of a mountain, a mist that the shepherd loveth not, but that to the robber is better than night, and a man can see only so far as he casteth a stone; even in such wise rose the dense dust-cloud from beneath their feet as they went; and full swiftly did they speed across the plain.

Now  when they were come near, as they advanced one host against the other, among the Trojans there stood forth as champion godlike Alexander, bearing upon his shoulders a panther skin and his curved bow, and his sword; and brandishing two spears tipped with bronze he challenged all the best of Argives to fight with him face to face in dread combat.
(Translated by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. London: William Heinemannn LTD. New York: G.P.Putnam’s sons. 1928)

Already Seneca in a letter to his friend Lucilius (they are preserved 124) notes this possible  cause of confusion. Perhaps the source for the transformation of the dust of the sheep in dust of hosts is here.

Seneca, Epistle to Lucilius, 13.8:

“This certain, Lucilius, we lie open to impression, without duly, weighing the things that strike us with sudden fear; we will not give ourselves time to examine them; we tremble; and then turn our backs, like those soldiers, whom the dust raised by a flock of sheep have drove from the camp; or whom some false story, without knowledge of the author, hath terrified and put to flight. (Translation by Thomas Morrell, 1786)

Ita est,mihi Lucili, cito accedimus opinioni; non coarguimus illa quae nos in metum adducunt, nec excutimus, sed trepidamus et sic vertimus terga,quemadmodum illi quos pulvis motus fuga pecorum exuit castris aut quos aliqua fabula sine auctore sparsa conterruit.

Many years earlier, around 447 BC, the great Greek tragedian Sophocles wrote a tragedy (the first of only seven conserved; tradition ascribes him some 123 pieces, including tragedies and satirical dramas) that he named  “Ajax” in which he dramatizes the madness and death of the leader Ajax, notable for his courage, his strength and his stubbornness and persistence.

On the death of Achilles, he thinks the weapons of Achilles are his reward for services rendered in the fight against the Trojans; Heritage also seeks but the wily Odysseus or Ulysses aims also the heritage; Odysseus is who finally gets  them. Ajax angry as only a great heroes and with uncontrollable rage, launches decided to end the life of the Achaean or Greeks chiefs themselves, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus … The goddess Athena, ever vigilant, channeled the anger of Ajax  toward the flocks of sheep and other animals taken as booty from  the Trojans, which in the eyes and mind of Ajax are presented as the Greeks themselves who have taken away the spoils; Ajax, in his madness, takes them and makes an enormous carnage and chains many others to be beaten. But his madness is temporary.

When they told what really happened, his anger is appeased, as if the death of the animals was a ritual sacrifice, but he feels a great shame because his military fellows,   have not recognized their collaboration in the cause and he must return to their homeland without trophies. He takes a last tragic decision: he will use precisely the sword snatched from the Trojan Hector to end his life. Like a ritual sacrifice is involved, the death of the sheep had appeased the wrath of Ajax.

Sophocles tells us in Ajax, 228 et seq.

Chorus
In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.

Tecmessa

You will hear all that took place, since you are involved.  In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, “What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition,  neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now.” But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: “Woman, silence graces woman.” And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone.

What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others  he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid.  After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat  with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in.  And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing  was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull.
And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink,  the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can.  Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.  (Sophocles. The Ajax of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.)

The episode of Don Quixote which Cervantes tells us on chapter XVIII of the first part may not have to do with Ajax anything beyond the basic fact of both accounts: two angry soldiers in their  madness confuse  meek lamb and animals with fierce contending armies, with the important difference that the madness of Ajax, produced by the gods, is fleeting but with  fatal consequences; that one of Don Quixote seems persistent and confirmed, because when  the episode is finished,  Quixote insists they are charmers  who have changed his soldiers in sheep to deprive him of victory:

“and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into droves of sheep”.

So Cervantes and Don Quixote with collaboration of  evil spirits, make a fantasy from reality and  reality from fantasy. Don Quixote, crazy at times, places, where it is possible, the vision of "knight", according to his readings, to the vision of his physical senses. The truth, which is in the alternative dynamic between fantasy and reality, serves to Cervantes repeatedly to place us in what unknown place, real or imagined,  because in their view the two are equally plausible.

That is, Don Quixote, and incidentally all of us, were locked in a vicious circle end: are the herds of sheep armies or are the armies herds of sheep by Art enchantments? What is real?

Note: Cervantes, Don Quixote, makes a numerous  list of the "alleged" contenders. What Don Quixote makes is an imitation of the enumerations which traditionally is done in battles from the Iliad itself, and as Francisco Rico, accurate commentator of Don Quixote of Cervantes, it is a piece for the literary brilliance from Homer.

Cervantes says on I, XVI:

Thus talking, Don Quixote and his squire were going along, when, on the road they were following, Don Quixote perceived approaching them a large and thick cloud of dust, on seeing which he turned to Sancho and said:

"This is the day, Sancho, on which will be seen the boon my fortune is reserving for me; this, I say, is the day on which as much as on any other shall be displayed the might of my arm, and on which I shall do deeds that shall remain written in the book of fame for all ages to come. Seest thou that cloud of dust which rises yonder? Well, then, all that is churned up by a vast army composed of various and countless nations that comes marching there."

"According to that there must be two," said Sancho, "for on this opposite side also there rises just such another cloud of dust."

Don Quixote turned to look and found that it was true, and rejoicing exceedingly, he concluded that they were two armies about to engage and encounter in the midst of that broad plain; for at all times and seasons his fancy was full of the battles, enchantments, adventures, crazy feats, loves, and defiances that are recorded in the books of chivalry, and everything he said, thought, or did had reference to such things. Now the cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great droves of sheep coming along the same road in opposite directions, which, because of the dust, did not become visible until they drew near, but Don Quixote asserted so positively that they were armies that Sancho was led to believe it and say, "Well, and what are we to do, senor?"

"What?" said Don Quixote: "give aid and assistance to the weak and those who need it; and thou must know, Sancho, that this which comes opposite to us is conducted and led by the mighty emperor Alifanfaron, lord of the great isle of Trapobana; this other that marches behind me is that of his enemy the king of the Garamantas, Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, for he always goes into battle with his right arm bare."

"But why are these two lords such enemies?"

"They are at enmity," replied Don Quixote, "because this Alifanfaron is a furious pagan and is in love with the daughter of Pentapolin, who is a very beautiful and moreover gracious lady, and a Christian, and her father is unwilling to bestow her upon the pagan king unless he first abandons the religion of his false prophet Mahomet, and adopts his own."

"By my beard," said Sancho, "but Pentapolin does quite right, and I will help him as much as I can."
"In that thou wilt do what is thy duty, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for to engage in battles of this sort it is not requisite to be a dubbed knight."

"That I can well understand," answered Sancho; "but where shall we put this ass where we may be sure to find him after the fray is over? for I believe it has not been the custom so far to go into battle on a beast of this kind."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "and what you had best do with him is to leave him to take his chance whether he be lost or not, for the horses we shall have when we come out victors will be so many that even Rocinante will run a risk of being changed for another. But attend to me and observe, for I wish to give thee some account of the chief knights who accompany these two armies; and that thou mayest the better see and mark, let us withdraw to that hillock which rises yonder, whence both armies may be seen."

They did so, and placed themselves on a rising ground from which the two droves that Don Quixote made armies of might have been plainly seen if the clouds of dust they raised had not obscured them and blinded the sight; nevertheless, seeing in his imagination what he did not see and what did not exist, he began thus in a loud voice:

"That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon his shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the valiant Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge; that one in armour with flowers of gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an azure field, is the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia; that other of gigantic frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless Brandabarbaran de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour wears that serpent skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to tradition, is one of those of the temple that Samson brought to the ground when by his death he revenged himself upon his enemies. But turn thine eyes to the other side, and thou shalt see in front and in the van of this other army the ever victorious and never vanquished Timonel of Carcajona, prince of New Biscay, who comes in armour with arms quartered azure, vert, white, and yellow, and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto which says Miau, which is the beginning of the name of his lady, who according to report is the peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke Alfeniquen of the Algarve; the other, who burdens and presses the loins of that powerful charger and bears arms white as snow and a shield blank and without any device, is a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres Papin by name, lord of the baronies of Utrique; that other, who with iron-shod heels strikes the flanks of that nimble parti-coloured zebra, and for arms bears azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte." And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names. In this other squadron there come those that drink of the crystal streams of the olive-bearing Betis, those that make smooth their countenances with the water of the ever rich and golden Tagus, those that rejoice in the fertilising flow of the divine Genil, those that roam the Tartesian plains abounding in pasture, those that take their pleasure in the Elysian meadows of Jerez, the rich Manchegans crowned with ruddy ears of corn, the wearers of iron, old relics of the Gothic race, those that bathe in the Pisuerga renowned for its gentle current, those that feed their herds along the spreading pastures of the winding Guadiana famed for its hidden course, those that tremble with the cold of the pineclad Pyrenees or the dazzling snows of the lofty Apennine; in a word, as many as all Europe includes and contains."

Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to each its proper attributes with marvellous readiness; brimful and saturated with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung upon his words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if he could see the knights and giants his master was describing, and as he could not make out one of them he said to him:

"Senor, devil take it if there's a sign of any man you talk of, knight or giant, in the whole thing; maybe it's all enchantment, like the phantoms last night."

"How canst thou say that!" answered Don Quixote; "dost thou not hear the neighing of the steeds, the braying of the trumpets, the roll of the drums?"

"I hear nothing but a great bleating of ewes and sheep," said Sancho; which was true, for by this time the two flocks had come close.

"The fear thou art in, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "prevents thee from seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to derange the senses and make things appear different from what they are; if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;" and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying, "Come back, Senor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight, nor cats, nor arms, nor shields quartered or whole, nor vair azure or bedevilled. What are you about? Sinner that I am before God!" But not for all these entreaties did Don Quixote turn back; on the contrary he went on shouting out, "Ho, knights, ye who follow and fight under the banners of the valiant emperor Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, follow me all; ye shall see how easily I shall give him his revenge over his enemy Alifanfaron of the Trapobana."

So saying, he dashed into the midst of the squadron of ewes, and began spearing them with as much spirit and intrepidity as if he were transfixing mortal enemies in earnest. The shepherds and drovers accompanying the flock shouted to him to desist; seeing it was no use, they ungirt their slings and began to salute his ears with stones as big as one's fist. Don Quixote gave no heed to the stones, but, letting drive right and left kept saying:

"Where art thou, proud Alifanfaron? Come before me; I am a single knight who would fain prove thy prowess hand to hand, and make thee yield thy life a penalty for the wrong thou dost to the valiant Pentapolin Garamanta." Here came a sugar-plum from the brook that struck him on the side and buried a couple of ribs in his body. Feeling himself so smitten, he imagined himself slain or badly wounded for certain, and recollecting his liquor he drew out his flask, and putting it to his mouth began to pour the contents into his stomach; but ere he had succeeded in swallowing what seemed to him enough, there came another almond which struck him on the hand and on the flask so fairly that it smashed it to pieces, knocking three or four teeth and grinders out of his mouth in its course, and sorely crushing two fingers of his hand. Such was the force of the first blow and of the second, that the poor knight in spite of himself came down backwards off his horse. The shepherds came up, and felt sure they had killed him; so in all haste they collected their flock together, took up the dead beasts, of which there were more than seven, and made off without waiting to ascertain anything further.

All this time Sancho stood on the hill watching the crazy feats his master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing the hour and the occasion when fortune had made him acquainted with him. Seeing him, then, brought to the ground, and that the shepherds had taken themselves off, he ran to him and found him in very bad case, though not unconscious; and said he:

"Did I not tell you to come back, Senor Don Quixote; and that what you were going to attack were not armies but droves of sheep?"

"That's how that thief of a sage, my enemy, can alter and falsify things," answered Don Quixote; "thou must know, Sancho, that it is a very easy matter for those of his sort to make us believe what they choose; and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into droves of sheep. At any rate, do this much, I beg of thee, Sancho, to undeceive thyself, and see that what I say is true; mount thy ass and follow them quietly, and thou shalt see that when they have gone some little distance from this they will return to their original shape and, ceasing to be sheep, become men in all respects as I described them to thee at first. But go not just yet, for I want thy help and assistance; come hither, and see how many of my teeth and grinders are missing, for I feel as if there was not one left in my mouth."

Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth; now just at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote, so, at the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he discharged all its contents with more force than a musket, and full into the beard of the compassionate squire.

"Holy Mary!" cried Sancho, "what is this that has happened me? Clearly this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth;" but considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the colour, taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the flask which he had seen him drink; and he was taken with such a loathing that his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his very master, and both were left in a precious state. Sancho ran to his ass to get something wherewith to clean himself, and relieve his master, out of his alforjas; but not finding them, he well-nigh took leave of his senses, and cursed himself anew, and in his heart resolved to quit his master and return home, even though he forfeited the wages of his service and all hopes of the promised island.

Don Quixote now rose, and putting his left hand to his mouth to keep his teeth from falling out altogether, with the other he laid hold of the bridle of Rocinante, who had never stirred from his master's side-so loyal and well-behaved was he==and betook himself to where the squire stood leaning over his ass with his hand to his cheek, like one in deep dejection. Seeing him in this mood, looking so sad, Don Quixote said to him:

"Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he does more than another; all these tempests that fall upon us are signs that fair weather is coming shortly, and that things will go well with us, for it is impossible for good or evil to last for ever; and hence it follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh at hand; so thou must not distress thyself at the misfortunes which happen to me, since thou hast no share in them."

"How have I not?" replied Sancho; "was he whom they blanketed yesterday perchance any other than my father's son? and the alforjas that are missing to-day with all my treasures, did they belong to any other but myself?"

"What! are the alforjas missing, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"Yes, they are missing," answered Sancho.

"In that case we have nothing to eat to-day," replied Don Quixote.

"It would be so," answered Sancho, "if there were none of the herbs your worship says you know in these meadows, those with which knights-errant as unlucky as your worship are wont to supply such-like shortcomings."

"For all that," answered Don Quixote, "I would rather have just now a quarter of bread, or a loaf and a couple of pilchards' heads, than all the herbs described by Dioscorides, even with Doctor Laguna's notes. Nevertheless, Sancho the Good, mount thy beast and come along with me, for God, who provides for all things, will not fail us (more especially when we are so active in his service as we are), since he fails not the midges of the air, nor the grubs of the earth, nor the tadpoles of the water, and is so merciful that he maketh his sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and sendeth rain on the unjust and on the just."

"Your worship would make a better preacher than knight-errant," said Sancho.

"Knights-errant knew and ought to know everything, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for there were knights-errant in former times as well qualified to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an encampment, as if they had graduated in the University of Paris; whereby we may see that the lance has never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance."

"Well, be it as your worship says," replied Sancho; "let us be off now and find some place of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers, nor phantoms, nor enchanted Moors; for if there are, may the devil take the whole concern."
"Ask that of God, my son," said Don Quixote; and do thou lead on where thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach me here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw, for it is there I feel the pain."

Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked him, "How many grinders used your worship have on this side?"

"Four," replied Don Quixote, "besides the back-tooth, all whole and quite sound."

"Mind what you are saying, senor."

"I say four, if not five," answered Don Quixote, "for never in my life have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been destroyed by any decay or rheum."

"Well, then," said Sancho, "in this lower side your worship has no more than two grinders and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any at all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my hand."

"Luckless that I am!" said Don Quixote, hearing the sad news his squire gave him; "I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a mill without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond; but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at whatever pace thou wilt."

Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction in which he thought he might find refuge without quitting the high road, which was there very much frequented. As they went along, then, at a slow pace-for the pain in Don Quixote's jaws kept him uneasy and ill-disposed for speed-Sancho thought it well to amuse and divert him by talk of some kind, and among the things he said to him was that which will be told in the following chapter. (Translated by John Ormsby)

En estos coloquios iban Don Quijote y su escudero, cuando vio Don Quijote que por el camino que iban venía hacia ellos una grande y espesa polvareda, y en viéndola se volvió a Sancho, y le dijo:

-Este es el día, oh Sancho, en el cual se ha de ver el bien que me tiene guardado mi suerte; este es el día, digo, en que se ha de mostrar tanto como en otro alguno el valor de mi brazo, y en que tengo de hacer obras que queden escritas en el libro de la fama por todos los venideros siglos. ¿Ves aquella polvareda que allí se levanta, Sancho? Pues toda es cuajada de un copiosísimo ejército que de diversas e innumerables gentes compuesto, por allí viene marchando.

-A esa cuenta, dos deben de ser- dijo Sancho, porque desta parte contraria se levanta asimesmo otra semejante polvareda.

Volvió a mirarla Don Quijote, y vió que así era la verdad; y alegrándose sobremanera, pensó sin dudaalguna que eran dos ejércitos que venían a embestirse y a encontrarse en mitad de aquella espaciosa llanura, porque tenía a todas horas y momentos llena la fantasía de aquellas batallas, encantamientos, sucesos, desatinos, amores, desafíos, que en los libros de caballería se cuentan; y todo cuanto hablaba, pensaba o hacía, era encaminado a cosas semejantes, y a la polvareda que había visto la levantaban dos grandes manadas de ovejas y carneros, que por el mismo camino de dos diferentes partes venían, las cuales con el polvo no se echaron de ver hasta que llegaron cerca; y con tanto ahínco afirmaba Don Quijote que eran ejército, que Sancho le vino a creer, y a decirle:

-Señor, ¿pues qué hemos de hacer nosotros?

-¿Qué? dijo Don Quijote. Favorecer y ayudar a los menesterosos y desvalidos; y has de saber, Sancho, que este que viene por nuestra frente lo conduce y guía el gran emperador Alifanfaron, señor de la grande isla Trapobana; este otro, que a mis espaldas marcha, es el de su enemigo el rey de los Garamantas, Pentapolin del arremangado brazo, porque siempre entra en las batallas con el brazo derecho desnudo.

-Pues ¿por qué se quieren tan mal estos dos señores? preguntó Sancho.

– Quiérense mal- respondió Don Quijote, porque este Alifanfaron es un
furibundo pagano, y está enamorado de la hija de Pentapolin, que es una muy hermosa y además agraciada señora, y es cristiana, y su padre no se la quiere entregar al rey pagano si no deja primero la ley de su falso profeta Mahoma, y se vuelve a la suya.

– ¡Para mis barbas- dijo Sancho, si no hace muy bien Pentapolin, y que le tengo de ayudar en cuanto pudiere!.

– En eso harás lo que debes, Sancho– dijo Don Quijote, porque para entrar en batallas semejantes no se requiere ser armado caballero.

-Bien se me alcanza eso -respondió Sancho-; pero ¿dónde pondremos a este asno, que estemos ciertos de hallarle después de pasada la refriega, porque al entrar en ella en semejante caballería no creo que está en uso hasta agora?

-Así es verdad, -dijo Don Quijote-; lo que puedes hacer dél es dejarle a sus aventuras, ahora se pierda o no, porque serán tanto los caballos que tendremos después que salgamos vencedores, que aún corre peligro Rocinante no le trueque por otro ; pero estáme atento y mira, que te quiero dar cuenta de los caballeros más principales que en estos dos ejércitos vienen, y para que mejor los veas y los notes, retirémonos a aquel altillo que allí se hace, de donde se deben descubrir los dos ejércitos.

Hiciéronlo así y pusiéronse sobre una loma , desde la cual se veían bien las dos manadas que a Don Quijote se le hicieron ejército, si las nubes del polvo que levantaban no les turbara y cegara la vista; pero con todo esto, viendo en su imaginación lo que no veía ni había, con voz levantada comenzó a decir:

-Aquel caballero que allí ves de las armas jaldes, que trae en el escudo un león coronado rendido a los pies de una doncella, es el valeroso Laurcalco, señor de la Puente de Plata. El otro de las armas de las flores de oro, que trae en el escudo tres coronas de plata en campo azul, es el temido Micocolembo, gran duque de Quirocia. El otro de los miembros gigantes que está a su derecha mano, es el nunca medroso Brandabarbar an de Boliche, señor de las tres Arabias, que viene armado de aquel cuero de serpiente, y tiene por escudo una puerta, que según es fama, es una de las del templo que derribó Sanson cuando con su muerte se vengó de sus enemigos. Pero vuelve los ojos a estotra parte, y verás delante y en la frente de estotro ejército al siempre vencedor y jamás vencido Timonel de Carcajona, príncipe de la Nueva Vizcaya, que viene armado con las armas partidas a cuarteles azules, verdes, blancos y amarillos, y trae en el escudo un gato de oro en campo leonado con una letra que dice "Miau", que es el principio del nombre de su dama, que según se dice es la sin par Miaulina, hija del duque de Alfeñiquen del Algarbe. El otro, que carga y oprime los lomos de aquella poderosa alfana, que trae las armas como nieve blancas, y el escudo blanco y sin empresa alguna, es un caballero novel, de nación francés, llamado Pierres Papin, señor de las baronías de Utrique. El otro, que bate las hijadas con los herrados carcaños a aquella pintada y lijera cebra, y trae las armas de los veros azules, es el poderoso duque de Nervia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, que trae por empresa en el escudo una esparraguera con una letra en castellano, que dice así: "Rastrea mi suerte".

Y desta manera fué nombrando muchos caballeros del uno y del otro escuadrón que él se imaginaba, y a todo s les dió sus armas, colores, empresas y motes de improviso, llevado de la imaginación de su nunca vista locura, y sin parar prosiguió diciendo:

-A este escuadrón frontero forman y hacen gentes de diversas naciones; aquí están los que beben las dulces aguas del famoso Janto, los montuosos que pisan los masilíscos campos, los que criban el finísimo y menudo oro en la felice Arabia, los que gozan las famosas y frescas riberas del claro Termodonte, los que sangran por muchas y diversas vías al dorado Pactolo, los mumidas dudosos ensus promesas, los persas en arcos y flechas famosos, los partos, los medos, que pelean huyendo, los árabes de mudables casas, los citas tan crueles como blancos, los etíopes de horadados labios, y otras infinitas naciones cuyos rostros conozco y veo, aunque de los nombres no me acuerdo. En estotro escuadrón vienen los que beben las corrientes cristalinas del olivífero Betis, los que tersan y pulen con el licor del siempre rico y dorado Tajo, los que gozan las provechosas aguas del divino Genil, los que pisan los tartesios campos de pastos abundantes, los que se alegran en elíseos jerezanos prados, los manchegos ricos y coronados de rubias espigas, los de hierro vestidos, reliquias antiguas de la sangre goda, los que en Pisuerga se bañan, famoso por la mansedumbre de su corriente, los que su ganado apacientan en las extendidas dehesas del tortuoso Guadiana, celebrado por su escondido curso, los que tiemblan con el frío del silboso Pirineo y con los blancos copos del levantado Apenino; finalmente, cuantos toda la Europa en sí contiene y encierra.

¡Válame Dios, y cuántas provincias dijo , cuántas naciones nombró, dándole a cada una con maravillosa presteza los atributos que le pertenecían, todo absorto y empapado en lo que había leído en sus libros mentirosos!

Estaba Sancho Panza colgado de sus palabras sin hablar ninguna, y de cuando en cuando volvía la cabeza a ver si veía los caballeros y gigantes que su amo nombraba, y como no descubría a ninguno le dijo:

-Señor, encomiendo al diablo, si hombre, ni gigante, ni caballero de cuantos vuestra merced dice parece por todo esto, a lo menos yo no los veo; quizá todo esto debe ser
encantamiento como las fantasmas de anoche.

¿Cómo dices eso? –respondió Don Quijote, no oyes el relinchar de los caballos, el tocar de los clarines, el ruido de los atambores?

-No oigo otra cosa, -respondió Sancho- sino muchos balidos de ovejas y carneros,

Y así era la verdad, porque ya llegaban cerca los dos rebaños.

-El miedo que tienes, -dijo Don Quijote- te hace, Sancho, que ni veas ni oyas a derechas, porque uno de los efectos del miedo es turbar los sentidos, y hacer que las cosas no parezcan lo que son; y si es que tanto temes, retírate a una parte y déjame solo, que solo basto a dar la victoria a la parte a quien yo diere mi ayuda.

Y diciendo ésto puso las espuelas a Rocinante, y puesta la lanza en el ristre bajó de la costezuela como un rayo.

Diole voces Sancho, diciéndole:

-Vuélvase vuestra merced, señor Don Quijote, que voto a Dios que son carneros y ovejas las que va a embestir: vuélvase, desdichado del padre que me engendró: ¡qué locura es ésta! Mire que no hay gigante ni caballero alguno, ni gatos, ni armas, ni escudos partidos ni enteros, ni veros azules ni endiablados. ¿Qué es lo que hace? Pecador soy yo a Dios.

Ni por esasvolvió Don Quijote, antes en altas voces iba diciendo:

-¡Ea, caballeros, los que seguís y militais debajo de las banderas del poderoso emperador Pentapolin del arremangado brazo, seguidme todos! ¡Vereis cuán facilmente le doy venganza de su enemigo Alifanfaron de la Trapobana!

Esto diciendo, se entró por medio del escuadrón de las ovejas, y comenzó de alanceallas con tanto con coraje y denuedo, como si de veras alanceara a sus mortales enemigos. Los pastores y ganaderos que con la manada venían, dábanle voces que no hiciese aquello; pero viendo que no aprovechaban, desciñéronse las ondas, y comenzaron a saludarle los oídos con piedras como el puño. Don Quijote no se curaba de las piedras; antes discurriendo a todas partes, decía:

– ¿Adónde estás, soberbio Alifanfaron? Vente a mí, que un caballero solo soy, que desea de solo a solo probar tus fuerzas y quitarte la vida en pena de la que das al valeroso Pentapolin Garamanta.

Llegó en ésto una peladilla de arroyo, y dándole en un lado, le sepultó dos costillas en el cuerpo. Viéndose tan maltrecho, creyó sin duda que estaba muerto o mal ferido, y cordándose de su licor, sacó su alcuza, y púsosela a la boca, y comenzó a echar licor en el estomago; mas antes que acabase de envasar lo que a él le parecía que era bastante llegó otra almendra, y dióle en la mano y en la alcuza tan de lleno, que se la hizo pedazo s, llevándole de camino tres o cuatro dientes y muelas de la boca, y machucándole malamente dos dedos de la mano.

Tal fue el golpe primero, y tal el segundo o, que le fue forzoso al pobre caballero dar consigo del caballo abajo. Llegáronse a él los pastores, y creyendo que le habían muerto, y así con mucha priesa recogieron su ganado, y cargaron de las reses muertas, que pasaban de siete, y sin averiguar otra cosa se fueron.

Estábase todo este tiempo Sancho sobre la cuesta, mirando las locuras que su amo hacía, y arrancábase las barbas, maldiciendo la hora y el punto en que la fortuna se le había dado a conocer. Viéndole, pues, caído en el suelo, y que ya los pastores se habían ido, bajó de la cuesta y llegóse a él, y hallándole de muy mal arte, aunque no había perdido el sentido, y díjole:

-¿No le decía yo, señor Don Quijote, que se volviese, que los que iba a acometer no eran ejércitos, sino manadas de carneros?

-Como éso puede desaparecer y contra hacer aquel ladrón del sabio mi enemigo, respondió Don Quijote: sábete, Sancho, que es muy fácil cosa a los tales hacernos parecer lo que quieren, y este maligno que me persigue, envidioso de la gloria que vío que yo había de alcanzar desta batalla, ha vuelto los escuadrones de enemigos en manadas de ovejas. Si no haz una cosa, Sancho, por mi vida, porque te desengañes y veas ser verdad lo que te digo: sube en tu asno y síguelos bonitamente, y verás cómo, en alejándose de aquí algún poco, se vuelven en su ser primero, y dejando de ser carneros, son hombres hechos y derechos, como te los pinté primero, pero no vayas ahora, que he menester tu favor y ayuda; llégate a mí, y mira cuántas muelas y dientes me faltan, que me parece que no me ha quedado ninguno en la boca.

Llegóse Sancho tan cerca, que casi le metía los ojos en la boca, y fue a tiempo que ya había obrado el bálsamo en el estómago de Don Quijote, y al tiempo que Sancho llegó a mirarle la boca, arrojó de sí, más recio que una escopeta, cuanto dentro tenía, y le dió con todo ello en las barbas del compasivo escudero.

– ¡Santa María!-dijo Sancho-. ¿Y qué es ésto que me ha sucedido? Sin duda este pecador está herido de muerte, pues vomita sangre por la boca.

Pero reparando un poco más en ello, echó de ver en la color, sabor y olor, que no era sangre, sino el bálsamo de la alcuza que él le había visto beber; y fué tanto el asco que tomó, que revolviéndosele el estómago, vomitó las tripas sobre su mismo señor, y quedaron entrambos como de perlas. Acudió Sancho a su asno para sacar de las alforjas con qué limpiarse y con qué curar a su amo, y como no las halló, estuvo a punto de perder el juicio; maldíjose de nuevo; y propuso en su corazón de dejar a su amo y volverse a su tierra, aunque perdiese el salario de lo servido y las speranzas del gobierno de la prometida ínsula.

Levántose en esto Don Quijote, y puesta la mano izquierda en la boca, porque no se le acabasen de salir los dientes, asió con la otra las riendas de Rocinante, que nunca se había movido de junto a su amo (tal era de leal y bien acondicionado), y fuese a donde su escudero estaba, de pechos sobre su asno, con la mano en la mejilla en guisa de hombre pensativo, además, y viéndole Don Quijote de aquella manera, con muestras de tanta tristeza, le dijo:

-Sábete, Sancho, que no es un hombre más que otro si no hace más que otro: todas esta borrascas que nos suceden son señales de que presto ha de serenar el tiempo, y han de sucedernos bien las cosas, porque no es posible que el mal ni el bien sean durables, y de aquí se sigue que, habiendo durado mucho el mal, el bien está ya cerca, así que no debes congojarte por las desgracias que a mí me suceden, pues a ti no te cabe parte de ellas.

-¿Cómo no? -respondió Sancho-; ¿Por ventura el que ayer mantearon era otro que el hijo de mi padre? ¿y las alforjas que hoy me faltan son de otro que del mismo?

-¿Qué, te faltan las alforjas, Sancho? -dijo Don Quijote.

-Sí que me faltan, -respondió Sancho.

-¿De ese modo, no tenemos que comer hoy? -replicó Don Quijote.

-Eso fuera, -respondió Sancho- cuando faltaran por estos prados las yerbas que vuestra merced dice que conoce, con que suelen suplir semejantes faltas los tan mal aventurados caballeros andantes, como vuestra merced es.

-Con todo eso, -respondió Don Quijote- tomara yo más aina un cuartel de pan, o una hogaza y dos cabezas de sardinas arenques, que cuantas yerbas describe Dioscórides, aunque fuera el ilustrado doctor Laguna; mas con todo ésto, sube en tu jumento, Sancho el bueno, y vente tras mi, que Dios, que es proveedor de todas las cosas, no nos ha de faltar, y más andando tan en su servicio como andamos, pues no falta a los mosquitos del aire, ni a los gusanillos de la tierra, ni a los renacuajos del agua, y es tan piadoso, que hace salir su sol sobre los buenos y malos, y llueve sobre los injustos y justos.

-Más bueno era vuestra merced, -dijo Sancho-, para predicador que para caballero andante.

De todo sabían y han de saber los caballeros andantes, Sancho, -dijo Don Quijote-, porque caballero andante hubo en los pasados siglos, que así se paraba a hacer un sermón o plática en un camino real, como si fuera graduado por la universidad de París, de donde se infiere, que nunca la lanza embotó la pluma, ni la pluma la lanza.

-Ahora bien, sea así como vuestra merced dice, -respondió Sancho-; vamos ahora de aquí y procuremos donde alojar esta noche, y quiera Dios que sea en parte donde no haya mantas, ni manteadores, ni fantasmas, ni moros encantados, que si los hay, daré al diablo el hato y el garabato.

-Pídeselo tú a Dios, -dijo Don Quijote-, y guía tú por donde quisieres, que esta vez quiero dejar a tu elección el alojarnos; pero dame acá la mano, y atiéntame con el dedo, y mira bien cuántos dientes y muelas me faltan deste lado derecho de la quijada alta, que allí siento el dolor.

Metió Sancho los dedos, y estándole atentándo le dijo:

-¿Cuántas muelas solía vuestra merced tener en esta parte?

– Cuatro -respondió Don Quijote- fuera de la cordal todas enteras y muy sanas.
-Mire vuestra merced bien lo que dice, señor, -respondió Sancho.

– Digo cuatro, si no eran cinco, -respondió Don Quijote-, porque en toda mi vida me han sacado diente ni muela de la boca, ni se me ha caído, ni comido de neguijon, ni de reuma alguna.

-Pues en esta parte de abajo, -dijo Sancho-, no tiene vuestra merced más de dos muelas y media, y en la de arriba, ni media ni ninguna, que toda está rasa como la palma de la mano.

¡Sin ventura yo! -dijo Don Quijote-, oyendo las tristes nuevas que su escudero le daba, que más quisiera que me hubieran derribado un brazo, como no fuera el de la espada; porque te hago saber, Sancho, que la boca sin muelas es como el molino sin piedra, y en mucho más se ha de estimar un diente que un diamante; mas a todo esto estamos sujetos los que profesamos la estrecha orden de la caballería. Sube, amigo, y guía, que yo te seguiré al paso que quisieres.

Hízolo así Sancho, y encaminose hacia donde le pareció que podía hallar acogimiento, sin salir del camino real, que por allí iba muy seguido.

Yéndose, pues, poco a poco, porque el dolor de las quijadas de Don Quijote no le dejaba sosegar, ni atender a darse priesa, quiso Sancho entretenelle y divertirle diciéndole alguna cosa, y entre otras que le dijo, fue lo que se dirá en el siguiente capítulo.

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We are witnessing these days the plundering which subjects  territories archaeologically rich like Syria or Iraq exploiting the violence of war. Egypt  is being systematically for hundreds of years. It has always been the same since the "homo Necans", "the man who kills",  discovered his capacity for violence with his peers. All lavish museums of the civilized Europe are filled with the fruit  of war and colonial plunder. This is well known and well painful.

In the Antiquity wars were so frequent and destructive as today and  examples of destruction and looting of art are well numerous. I will quote two or three texts which show the insensitivity of Roman  "Legionnaire"  against Greek art, which is systematically plundered.

Perhaps the most famous case of destruction of an immense cultural either the award of the burning of the Library of Alexandria by the army of Julius Caesar in 48 or 47 BC in Caesar's war with Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra's brother. Actually the confusion of texts and subsequent survival of the Library does not reveal it to be burned and destroyed the Library as such; it seems rather that the fire was confined to papyrus scrolls packages prepared in the docks for export, which was part of the economic strength of Alexandria. See http://www.antiquitatem.com/en/destruction-of-library-of-alexandria

But it is very curious  what happened in the conquest of Greece by the Romans. Corinth is one of the most famous ancient cities by their artistic creativity. Its bronze figures and  objects are desired and demanded across the ancient world. Corinth was conquered and sacked by the Romans in 146 BC. Well, the texts I reproduce are very significant of the valuation of the  masterpiece of art by professionals of militia and army.

Strabo, Geography, 8.6.23

The Corinthians, when subject to Philip, espoused his party very zealously, and individually conducted themselves so contemptuously towards the Romans, that persons ventured to throw down filth upon their ambassadors, when passing by their houses. They were immediately punished for these and other offences and insults. A large army was sent out under the commaud of Lucius Mummius, who razed the city.1 The rest of the country, as far as Macedonia, was subjected to the Romans under different generals. The Sicyonii, however, had the largest part of the Corinthian territory. 

Polybius relates with regret what occurred at the capture of the city, and speaks of the indifference the soldiers showed for works of art, and the sacred offerings of the temples. He says, that he was present, and saw pictures thrown upon the ground, and soldiers playing at dice upon them. Among others, he specifies by name the picture of Bacchus2 by Aristeides, (to which it is said the proverb was applied, ‘Nothing to the Bacchus,’) and Hercules tortured in the robe, the gift of Deïaneira.

3  This I have not myself seen, but I have seen the picture of the Bacchus suspended in the Demetreium at Rome, a very beautiful piece of art, which, together with the temple, was lately consumed by fire. The greatest number and the finest of the other offerings in Rome were brought from Corinth. Some of them were in the possession of the cities in the neighbourhood of Rome. For Mummius being more brave and generous than an admirer of the arts, presented them without hesitation to those who asked for them.4 Lucullus, having built the temple of Good Fortune, and a portico, requested of Mummius the use of some statues, under the pretext of ornamenting the temple with them at the time of its dedication, and promised to restore them. He did not, however, restore, but presented them as sacred offerings, and told Mummius to take them away if he pleased. Mummius did not resent this conduct, not caring about the statues, but obtained more honour than Lucullus, who presented them as sacred offerings.

Corinth remained a long time deserted, till at length it was restored on account of its natural advantages by divus Cæsar, who sent colonists thither, who consisted, for the most part, of the descendants of free-men.  On moving the ruins, and digging open the sepulchres, an abundance of works in pottery with figures on them, and many in brass, were found. The workmanship was admired, and all the sepulchres were examined with the greatest care. Thus was obtained a large quantity of things, which were disposed of at a great price, and Rome filled with Necro- Corinthia, by which name were distinguished the articles taken out of the sepulchres, and particularly the pottery. At first these latter were held in as much esteem as the works of the Corinthian artists in brass, but this desire to have them did not continue, not only because the supply failed, but because the greatest part of them were not well executed.

5 The city of Corinth was large and opulent at all periods, and produced a great number of statesmen and artists. For here in particular, and at Sicyon, flourished painting, and modelling, and every art of this kind.

The soil was not very fertile; its surface was uneven and rugged, whence all writers describe Corinth as full of brows of hills, and apply the proverb, “ Corinth rises with brows of hills, and sinks into hollows. (Translation by H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed)

Notes:
– Aristides of Thebes, the painter of  the famous "Bacchus", was a contemporary of Alexander the Great. At a public sale  of the spoils of Corinth, King Attalus offered   so large an amount of money for this "Bacchus" that Mummius, who knew nothing of art and unknowing its value, thought that the picture had some magical power that he  did not know, and sent it to Rome in spite of the protestations of Attalus. In another text of this article I put in evidence the ignorance of this rough Mummius.

– The story of Hercules and Deianira forms  the subject of Sophocles' tragedy “The Tarquiniae”.

Velleius Paterculus says us it in his Roman I, 13 History:

13  Cato, the constant advocate of her destruction, died three years before the fall of Carthage, in the consulship of Lucius Censorinus and Manius Manilius. In the same year in which Carthage fell Lucius Mummius destroyed Corinth to her very foundations, nine hundred and fifty-two years after her founding by Aletes, son of Hippos.  The two conquerors were honoured by the names of the conquered races. The one was surnamed Africanus, the other Achaicus. Before Mummius no new man earned for himself a cognomen won by military glory.

The two commanders differed in their characters as in their tastes. Scipio was a cultivated patron and admirer of liberal studies and of every form of learning, and kept constantly with him, at home and in the field, two men of eminent genius, Polybius and Panaetius. No one ever relieved the duties of an active life by a more refined use of his intervals of leisure than Scipio, or was more constant in his devotion to the arts either of war or peace. Ever engaged in the pursuit of arms or his studies, he was either training his body by exposing it to dangers or his mind by learning. Mummius was so uncultivated that when, after the capture of Corinth, he was contracting for the transportation to Italy of pictures and statues by the hands of the greatest artists, he gave instructions that the contractors should be warned that if they lost them, they would have to replace them by new ones. Yet I do not think, Vinicius, that you would hesitate to concede that it would have been more useful to the state for the appreciation of Corinthian works of art to have remained uncultivated to the present day, than that they will be appreciated to the extent to which they now are, and that the ignorance of those days was more conducive to the public weal than our present artistic knowledge.  (Translation  of Frederick W. Shipley, Loeb Classical Library, Velleius Paterculus and Res Gestae Divi Augusti, first published in 1924).

Velleius Paterculus,  Historia Romana I, 13

13 Ante triennium quam Carthago deleretur, M. Cato, perpetuus diruendae eius auctor, L. Censorino M'. Manilio consulibus mortem obiit. Eodem anno, quo Carthago concidit, L. Mummius Corinthum post annos nongentos quinquaginta duos, quam ab Alete Hippotis filio erat condita, funditus eruit. Uterque imperator devictae a se gentis nomine honoratus, alter Africanus, alter appellatus est Achaicus; nec quisquam ex novis hominibus prior Mummio cognomen virtute partum vindicavit.
Diversi imperatoribus mores, diversa fuere studia: quippe Scipio tam elegans liberalium studiorum omnisque doctrinae et auctor et admirator fuit, ut Polybium Panaetiumque, praecellentes ingenio viros, domi militiaeque secum habuerit. Neque enim quisquam hoc Scipione elegantius intervalla negotiorum otio dispunxit semperque aut belli aut pacis serviit artibus: semper inter arma ac studia versatus aut corpus periculis aut animum disciplinis exercuit.  Mummius tam rudis fuit, ut capta Corintho cum maximorum artificum perfectas manibus tabulas ac statuas in Italiam portandas locaret, iuberet praedici conducentibus, si eas perdidissent, novas eos reddituros.  Non tamen puto dubites, Vinici, quin magis pro re publica fuerit manere adhuc rudem Corinthiorum intellectum quam in tantum ea intellegi, et quin hac prudentia illa imprudentia decori publico fuerit convenientior.

The final consideration of the text of Velleius Paterculus is due to the moralizing character of his work, which rejects the luxury and oriental influence that has prevailed in Rome and perhaps claiming to be a compliment to the austerity policy of Tiberius.

Pliny  also gives us information about this so rude Mummius, who was used as a prototype in rhetorical exercises,  in his Natural History, XXXV, (8), 24.

The high estimation in which the paintings of foreigners were held at Rome commenced with Lucius Mummius, who, from his victories, acquired the surname of "Achaicus." For upon the sale of the spoil on that occasion, King Attalus having purchased, at the price of six thousand denarii, a painting of Father Liber by Aristides, Mummius, feeling surprised at the price, and suspecting that there might be some merit in it of which he himself was unaware, in spite of the complaints of Attalus, broke off the bargain, and had the picture placed in the Temple of Ceres; the first instance, I conceive, of a foreign painting being publicly exhibited at Rome. After this, I find, it became a common practice to exhibit foreign pictures in the Forum. (English  translation by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., 1855)

Tabulis autem externis auctoritatem Romae publice fecit primus omnium L. Mummius, cui cognomen Achaici victoria dedit. namque cum in praeda vendenda rex Attalus VI emisset tabulam Aristidis, Liberum patrem, pretium miratus suspicatusque aliquid in ea virtutis, quod ipse nesciret, revocavit tabulam, Attalo multum querente, et in Cereris delubro posuit. quam primam arbitror picturam externam Romae publicatam, deinde video et in foro positas volgo.

Corinth is a famous arts center. From its artistic production they are especially sought its  bronzes, its making jewelery, the famous " Corinthian bronzes" (cups, trays, jugs, flowers and other objects), which had a characteristic color and odor that made them highly prized by the Romans, who collected them as a sign of wealth.

The freedman and nouveau riche Trimalchius, star of much of the Satyricon of Petronius, has no qualms about giving a crazy version of the origin of these famous glasses, even if it means to make the biggest anachronism:  the fall of Troy and the Carthaginian  Anibal are contemporaries. Petronius tells us it in his Satyricon, 50:

The whole household burst into unanimous applause at this; "Hurrah for Gaius," they shouted. As for the cook, he was given a drink and a silver crown and a cup on a salver of Corinthian bronze. Seeing that Agamemnon was eyeing the platter closely, Trimalchio remarked, "I'm the only one that can show the real Corinthian!" I thought that, in his usual purse-proud manner, he was going to boast that his bronzes were all imported from Corinth, but he did even better by saying, "Wouldn't you like to know how it is that I'm the only one that can show the real Corinthian? Well, it's because the bronze worker I patronize is named Corinthus, and what's Corinthian unless it's what a Corinthus makes? And, so you won't think I'm a blockhead, I'm going to show you that I'm well acquainted with how Corinthian first came into the world. When Troy was taken, Hannibal, who was a very foxy fellow and a great rascal into the bargain, piled all the gold and silver and bronze statues in one pile and set 'em afire, melting these different metals into one: then the metal workers took their pick and made bowls and dessert dishes and statuettes as well. That's how Corinthian was born; neither one nor the other, but an amalgam of all. But I prefer glass, if you don't mind my saying so; it don't stink, and if it didn't break, I'd rather have it than gold, but it's cheap and common now." (Translation by W. C. Firebaugh)

Plausum post hoc automatum familia dedit et "Gaio feliciter!" conclamavit. Nec non cocus potione honoratus est, etiam argentea corona poculumque in lance accepit Corinthia. Quam cum Agamemnon propius consideraret, ait Trimalchio: "Solus sum qui vera Corinthea habeam." Exspectabam ut pro reliqua insolentia diceret sibi vasa Corintho afferri. Sed ille melius: "Et forsitan, inquit, quaeris quare solus Corinthea vera possideam: quia scilicet aerarius, a quo emo, Corinthus vocatur. Quid est autem Corintheum, nisi quis Corinthum habeat? Et ne me putetis nesapium esse, valde bene scio, unde primum Corinthea nata sint. Cum Ilium captum est, Hannibal, homo vafer et magnus stelio, omnes statuas aeneas et aureas et argenteas in unum rogum congessit et eas incendit; factae sunt in unum aera miscellanea. Ita ex hac massa fabri sustulerunt et fecerunt catilla et paropsides statuncula. Sic Corinthea nata sunt, ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud. Ignoscetis mihi quod dixero: ego malo mihi vitrea, certe non olunt. Quod si non frangerentur, mallem mihi quam aurum; nunc autem vilia sunt.

It is a shocking anachronism to make contemporaries the fall of Troy and Anibal, but no less shocking is that Isidore collect from Petronius this anecdote, it is true that removing the anachronism, in his Origins or Etymologies 16, 20.4:

The "Corinthian bronze" is an alloy of all metals that was first mixed by chance during the burning of Corinth, when the city was conquered. Indeed, when Hannibal captured the city, he raised a pyre with all the bronze and  gold and silver statues, and set them on fire: the workmen took  material from  this resulting mixture and manufactured plates. Thus Corinthian bronze, created from  all the metals and not just this neither one particular,  was discovered. Therefore, to the present  today it is known as "Corinthian bronze" or "Corinthian vessels"  it which is derived from the same alloy or from an imitation of it.

Corintheum  est commistio ómnium metallroum, quod casus primum miscuit, Corintho, cum caperetur, incensa. Nam dum hanc civitatem Hannibal cepisset, omnes statuas aeneas et aureas et argenteas in unum rogum congessit et eas incendit: ita ex hac commistione fabri sustulerunt et fecerunt parapsides. Sic Corinthea nata sunt ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud. Unde et usque in hodiernum diem sive ex ipso sive ex imitation eius aes Corintheum vel Corinthea vasa dicuntur.

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Octavian was born in September of the year 63 B.C. and he died in August 14 AD, (regardless of chronological accuracy by difficulty of the changes, adaptations and adjustments of the calendar, that his uncle Julius Caesar  reformed until today). So just fulfilled 2,000 years and this may be a good opportunity to discuss any details.

Augustus was one of numerous honorary names that  Caesar Octavius accumulated in his person. The word is related to "augeo" which means to increase, grow, gain strength and “augurium”, "omen", "observation and interpretation of the positive messages from the gods". So  "august" comes to mean "consecrated by the auguries, with favorable omens, holy, venerable, the chosen or favored by divinity. " Even today in Italian the word “auguri” is used to express "best wishes" to someone. Until Octavius, the term "augustus" was applied only to things and not to people.

The poet Ovid tells us about the meaning of the term. By chanting the festival and ceremonies of January 13 dedicated to Augustus, tells us in his Fasti 1. 607 et seq.

Yet these are human honours bestowed on all.
Augustus alone has a name that ranks with great Jove.
Sacred things are called august by the senators,
And so are temples duly dedicated by priestly hands.
From the same root comes the word augury,
And Jupiter augments things by his power.
May he augment our leader’s empire and his years,
And may the oak-leaf crown protect his doors.
By the god’s auspices, may the father’s omens
Attend the heir of so great a name, when he rules the world.
(Translated by A. S. Kline)

sed tamen humanis celebrantur honoribus omnes:

hic socium summo cum Iove nomen habet,
sancta vocant augusta patres, augusta vocantur
templa sacerdotum rite dicata manu;
huius et augurium dependet origine verbi,
et quodcumque sua Iuppiter auget ope.
augeat imperium nostri ducis, augeat annos,
protegat et vestras querna corona fores,
auspicibusque deis tanti cognominis heres
omine suscipiat, quo pater, orbis onus

According to sources, at least the ones I know, Augustus was three times in Hispania and from the three there are some relevant facts and anecdotes.

The first trip took place in the year 45 BC, when he was just 18. He must have traveled before with his uncle, but illness prevented him from walking. So he came alone without company to be in Tarraco with Julius Caesar. The trip was wrecked to when he arrived, his uncle was not there, so he must to march through hostile enemy territory to Andalusia where he was fighting in the civil war against Pompey's sons.

Nicholas of Damascus tell that in his Life of Augustus, FGrH F 127, … (10-11)

(10)… Many were eager to accompany him on account of his great promise but he rejected them all, even his mother herself, and selecting the speediest and strongest of his servants he hastened on his journey and with incredible dispatch he covered the long road and approached Caesar, who had already completed the whole war in the space of seven months.
11) When Octavius reached Tarraco it was hard to believe that he had managed to arrive in so great a tumult of war. Not finding Caesar there, he had to endure more trouble and danger. He caught up with Caesar in Spain near the city of Calpia. Caesar embraced him as a son and welcomed him, for he had left him at home, ill, and he now unexpectedly saw him safe from both enemies and brigands. In fact, he did not let him go from him, but he kept him at his own quarters and mess. He commended his zeal and intelligence, inasmuch as he was the first of those who had set out from Rome to arrive. And he made the point of asking him in conversation, for he was anxious to make a trial of his understanding; and finding that he was sagacious, intelligent, and concise in his replies and that he always answered to the point, his esteem and affection for him increased. After this they had to sail for Carthago Nova, and arrangements were made whereby Octavius embarked in the same boat as Caesar, with five slaves, but, out of affection, he took three of his companions aboard in addition to the slaves, though he feared that Caesar would be angry when he found this out. However, the reverse was the case, for Caesar was pleased in that Octavius was fond of his comrades and he commended him because he always liked to have present with him men who were observant and who tried to attain to excellence; and because he was already giving no little thought to gaining a good reputation at home. (Translated by Clayton M. Hall)

The speed and courage with which the young Octavius came  and the common sense to responsibility with which he performed during the stay in Hispania impressed favorably Julius Caesar, who probably began to think on  him as his heir, as will be found in the opening of his will that the priestess Vestal Maxima had guarded.

This information is also offered by Suetonius in his Life of Augustus VIII:

Upon his uncle's expedition to Spain against the sons of Pompey, he was followed by his nephew, although he was scarcely recovered from a dangerous sickness; and after being shipwrecked at sea, and travelling with very few attendants through roads that were infested with the enemy, he at last came up with him. This activity gave great satisfaction to his uncle, who soon conceived an increasing affection for him, on account of such indications of character. (Translated by Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

profectum mox auunculum in Hispanias aduersus Cn. Pompei liberos uixdum firmus a graui ualitudine per infestas hostibus uias paucissimis comitibus naufragio etiam facto subsecutus, magno opere demeruit, approbata cito etiam morum indole super itineris industriam.

And Veleius Patérculus, 2.59.3 reminds us how his uncle Caesar took him to Hispania at eighteen and kept it with him, even by mounting his chariot.

Though he had been reared in the house of his stepfather, Philippus, Gaius Caesar, his great-uncle, loved this boy as his own son. At the age of eighteen Octavius followed Caesar to Spain in his campaign there, and Caesar kept him with him thereafter as his p179companion, allowing him to share the same roof and ride in the same carriage, and though he was still a boy, honoured him with the pontificate. (Translated by Frederick W. Shipley, in the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1924)

Quem C. Caesar, maior eius avunculus, educatum apud Philippum vitricum dilexit ut suum, natumque annos duodeviginti Hispaniensis militiae adsecutum se postea comitem habuit, numquam aut alio usum hospitio quam suo aut alio vectum vehiculo, pontificatusque sacerdotio puerum honoravit.

The second trip was made between 27 and 24 BC and he went to Spain to direct personally the war against the Cantabrian and Asturian. In 26 he retired ill himself to Tarraco , having suffered before a mishap of enormous importance to a Roman citizen.

During a night march, (Augustus preferred to travel at night) it is triggered a major storm and one lightning, thrown undoubtedly by the mighty Jupiter, killed one of the bearers of his litter, leaving perhaps unconscious or seriously damaged  Octavius himself . This lightning  left him forever aftermath , apparently a kind of trembling that occasionally  was present on him.

Suetonius tells us how Octavius dedicated a temple to Iuppiter Tonans, Jupiter the Thunderer on the Capitol for having rid of this lightning. Thunderer is precisely the adjective expressing the superstitious terror that Iuppiter makes to Roman citizen  with his thunder and lightning. Of all the epithets given to Jupiter, none conveyed more terror to superstitious minds than that of the Thunderer.

In the Life of Augustus, 29, 3

He dedicated the temple to Jupiter Tonans in acknowledgment of his escape from a great danger in his Cantabrian expedition; when, as he was travelling in the night, his litter was struck by lightning, which killed the slave who carried a torch before him. (Translated by Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

Tonanti Iovi aedem consecravit liberatus periculo,cum   expeditione Cantabrica per nocturnum iter lecticam eius fulgur praestrinxisset servumque praelucentem exanimasset.

Suetonius refers to  disease that pushed him to Tarraco, perhaps a result of the lightning that almost killed him. Life of Augustus, 81, 1:

During the whole course of his life, he suffered, at times, dangerous fits of sickness, especially after the conquest of Cantabria; when his liver being injured by a defluxion upon it, he was reduced to such a condition, that he was obliged to undergo a desperate and doubtful method of cure: for warm applications having no effect, Antonius Musa1 directed the use of those which were cold.  (Translated by Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

Graues et periculosas ualitudines per omnem uitam aliquot expertus est; praecipue Cantabria domita, cum etiam destillationibus iocinere uitiato ad desperationem redactus contrariam et ancipitem rationem medendi necessario subiit: quia calida fomenta non proderant, frigidis curari coactus auctore Antonio Musa

Dio Cassius in History of Rome in 53, 25 reminds us of the coming of Augustus from Gaul to Spain "to restore order" in 27 BC and how he personally directed the war:

Augustus was planning an expedition into Britain, since the people there would not come to terms, but he was detained by the revolt of the Salassi and by the hostility of the Cantabri and Astures. The former dwell at the foot of the Alps, as I have stated, whereas both the other tribes occupy the strongest part of the Pyrenees on the side of Spain, together with the plain which lies below.
…..
Augustus himself waged war upon the Astures and upon the Cantabri at one and the same time. But these peoples would neither yield to him, because they were confident on account of their strongholds,  nor would they come to close quarters, owing to their inferior numbers and the circumstance that most of them were javelin-throwers, and, besides, they kept causing him a great deal of annoyance, always forestalling him by seizing the higher ground whenever a manoeuvre was attempted, and lying in ambush for him in the valleys and woods.  Accordingly Augustus found himself in very great embarrassment, and having fallen ill from over-exertion and anxiety, he retired to Tarraco and there remained in poor health. Meanwhile Gaius Antistius fought against them and accomplished a good deal, not because he was a better general than Augustus,  but because the barbarians felt contempt for him and so joined battle with the Romans and were defeated. In this way he captured a few places, and afterwards Titus Carisius took Lancia, the principal fortress of the Astures, after it had been abandoned, and also won over many other places. (Translation by Earnest Cary).

Other historians such as Florus, in his Epitome Rerum Romanorum 2,33,12, 46 ff. and Orosius in his "Historiae adversus paganos"  6, 20-21 also remind the Cantabrian Wars and how after they are finished, as it is determined by Augustus in 24,  but they were extended until 19 BC, the doors of temple of Janus in Rome were  closed after two hundred years, because they must to remain open during wartime. Thus began the "peace of Augustus" (pax augusta) ..

Precisely during this trip Dio Cassius tells us how 25 BC Augustus disbanded veterans soldiers and he founded Augusta Emerita, the modern city of Mérida.

Dio Cassius 53, 26, 1

26 1 Upon the conclusion of this war Augustus discharged the more aged of his soldiers and allowed them to found a city in Lusitania, called Augusta Emerita. For those who were still of military age he arranged some exhibitions in the very camps, under the direction of Tiberius and Marcellus, since they were aediles. (Translation by Earnest Cary).

The third trip took place between 16 and 13 BC. First he went to Gaul and Hispania them from there.
In Narbonne, in February of the year 15 B.C. Augustus issued edicts referred to "Paemeiobrigenses" and "Aiiobrigiaecini", both in the Bierzo, which appear in the" tessera Paemeiobrigensis "or Edict of the Bierzo. They  rewarded people who remained faithful in the Cantabrian wars. No doubt these decrees and many other measures concerning the promotion of the status of many cities in Hispania in recent years are related to the fact Augustus  came to Spain for the third time, although sources does not prove it directly.

Just after  return to Rome, the Senate decided to build an altar to peace, the famous Ara Pacis, which seems to refer Dio Cassius in his History of Rome, 54, 25:

25 1 Now when Augustus had finished all the business which occupied him in the several provinces of Gaul, of Germany and of Spain, having spent large sums from others, having bestowed freedom and citizenship upon some and taken them away from others, he left Drusus in Germany and returned to Rome himself in the consulship of Tiberius and Quintilius Varus. 2 Now it chanced that the news of his coming reached the city during those days when Cornelius Balbus was celebrating with spectacles the dedication of theatre which is even to day called by his name; and Balbus accordingly began to put on airs, as if it were he himself that was going to bring Augustus back, — although he was unable even to enter his theatre, except by boat, on account of the flood of water caused by the Tiber, which had overflowed its banks, — and Tiberius put the vote to him first, in honour of his building the theatre. 3 For the senate convened, and among its other decrees voted to place an altar in the senate-chamber itself, to commemorate the return of Augustus, and also voted that those who approached him as suppliants while he was inside the pomerium should not be punished. (Translation by Earnest Cary).

Augustus himself refers to it in his Res Gestae divi Augusti (Monumnetum Ancyranum), 12:

When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, after having successful operations in those provinces when Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius were consuls, the senate voted for  my return the consecration of the altar to Pax Augusta in the Campus Martius, and on this altar it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to offer annual sacrifices.

Cum ex Hispania Gallaque, rebus in iis provincis prospere gestis, Romam redi Ti. Nerone P. Quintilio consulibus, aram Pacis Augustae senatus pro reditu meo consacrandam censuit ad campum Martium, in qua magistratus et sacerdotes et virgines Vestales  anniversarium sacrificium facere iussit.

Ovid also refers to the foundation of the Ara Pacis: Fasti 1 709 ss. He refers to the “Fasti” of the day January 30. These final verses of the book are  a celebration of peace, which I would play:

My song has led to the altar of Peace itself.
This day is the second from the month’s end.
Come, Peace, your graceful tresses wreathed
With laurel of Actium: stay gently in this world.
While we lack enemies, or cause for triumphs:
You’ll be a greater glory to our leaders than war.
May the soldier be armed to defend against arms,
And the trumpet blare only for processions.
May the world far and near fear the sons of Aeneas,
And let any land that feared Rome too little, love her.
Priests, add incense to the peaceful flames,
Let a shining sacrifice fall, brow wet with wine,
And ask the gods who favour pious prayer
That the house that brings peace, may so endure.
(Translated by A. S. Kline)

Ipsum nos carmen deduxit Pacis ad aram.
haec erit a mensis fine secunda dies.
frondibus Actiacis comptos redimita capillos,
Pax, ades et toto mitis in orbe mane. 
dum desint hostes, desit quoque causa triumphi:
tu ducibus bello gloria maior eris.
sola gerat miles, quibus arma coerceat, arma,
canteturque fera nil nisi pompa tuba.
horreat Aeneadas et primus et ultimus orbis:
si qua parum Romam terra timebat, amet.
tura, sacerdotes, pacalibus addite flammis,
albaque percussa victima fronte cadat,
utque domus, quae praestat eam, cum pace perennet
ad pia propensos vota rogate deos.

This phrase, “domus utque, quae praestat pacem, cum pace perennet”, could be the old version of the maxim: "If you want peace, work for peace."

The post Octavian Augustus in Hispania (in its two thousandth anniversary) appeared first on History of Greece and Rome.

But the issue of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria has generated much controversy among modern authors, who analyzed the sources, in large part confusing.

It's certainly no one glorious operation to destroy a library, so no one has claimed. But probably the biggest reason was the decline and cultural apathy that was invading the ancient world from the V century, but also the ideological wars and clashes between Christians and pagans.

There are numerous texts which  refer to the destruction of the Library generally of questionable historical value by the remoteness of the facts they recount and  sometimes being  mere reproductions and contamination of one or the other, some are even contradictory. If anything it can be interesting  playing some because they are the expression of the attention which was given to the issue in antiquity itself.

There are two preliminary questions that should be left clear. Firstly there is no free and grandiose building as a place in which the books are collected, stored and read  such as large current libraries are now. The word •bibliotheca”, "library", comes from Latin Bibliotheca, and this from  Greek βιβλιοθήκη composed of βιβλίον, biblion, book, and  θήκη, theke, meaning "box, tank, receptacle, wardrobe …". βιβλίον or βίβλος also means rind or leaf of papyrus, which was used to support writing on it, from which the meaning of "book, writing paper, letter …" comes. So really “bibliotheca”, "library", means a shelf or shelves where volumes are placed.

Second in Alexandria were actually two libraries, this one  known as the "Royal Library" (real property, the Hebrew writer Aristeas calls them  "royal books" or "books of the King" (Letter of Aristeas, 38)) or large library (μεγάλη βιβλιοθήκη of μέγας, megas, large), which was part of the palace complex and the Museum, without its own building in the neighborhood Bruqión (actually the palace, which was a fortress, occupied the whole neighborhood) and another one library, attached to the Serapeion, in the neighborhood of Rakhotis; some sources, such as Bishop Epiphanius,  IV century, call this small the "daughter" of the  larger library.

According to the texts, the libraries  of Alexandria suffered several mishaps and fires along the  history.

Probably the most famous and known fire is what occurred in the year 48 or 47 BC in Caesar's war with Ptolemy XIII, in which a number of books or volumes were burned, but it is not possible to say that they are books of Library that was in the Museum. As the fire occurred in the warehouses of the docks, it is considered that they were prepared packages of books or rolls for export, very important activity in Alexandria.

The incident apparently occurred in this way: Caesar tried to mediate in the conflict between the brothers children of Ptolemy Auletes, between Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII. During the celebration of a feast in the palace, the general Aquila and tutor of King Potinus  attempted an attack  to Caesar that was discovered. Aquila escaped and prepared  the insurrection of Alexandria, in which Caesar felt backed himself into the palace. That's when the men of Caesar burned the ships of Ptolemy to break the siege by sea. The fire spread from boats to warehouses and then to part of the city. After the war, which Caesar won, he placed Cleopatra and her other brother Ptolemy XIV as her husband on the throne.

Plutarch(between ca 46 and 120),  tells us In Life of Julius Caesar, 49.6:

in the second place, when the enemy tried to cut off his fleet, he was forced to repel the danger by using fire, and this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great library (English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919)

And Aulus Gellius, who was born around the year 130,  tells us that Library had 700,000 (in some manuscripts it is read 70,000) volumes; he also tells us that they disappeared in a fire during Caesar's war, but it happened by accident, also blaming it to the auxiliary troops:

Gelius, Noct. Attic. VII, 17,3:

but these were all burned during the sack of the city in our first war with Alexandria,  not intentionally or by anyone's order, but accidentally by the auxiliary soldiers. (The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.)

sed ea omnia bello priore Alexandrino, dum diripitur ea civitas, non sponte neque opera consulta, sed a militibus forte auxiliaris incensa sunt.

But the poet Lucan, who entertains himself a little in describing the fire, as a good poet, tells us in his Bellum Civile (or Pharsalia), X, 486-505, it was Caesar who ordered the ships burn:

Held fast the palace as a battlement.
Nor failed they to attack from ships of war
The regal dwelling, where its frontage bold
Made stand apart the waters of the deep:
There, too, was Caesar's all-protecting arm;
For these at point of sword, and those with fire
He forces back, and though besieged he dares
To storm th' assailants: and as lay the ships
Joined rank to rank, bids drop upon their sides
Lamps drenched with reeking tar.  Nor slow the fire
To seize the hempen cables and the decks
Oozing with melting pitch; the oarsman's bench
All in one moment, and the topmost yards
Burst into flame: half merged the vessels lay
While swam the foemen, all in arms, the wave;
Nor fell the blaze upon the ships alone,
But seized with writhing tongues the neighbouring homes,
And fanned to fury by the Southern breeze
Tempestuous, it leaped from roof to roof;
Not otherwise than on its heavenly track,
Unfed by matter, glides the ball of light,
By air alone aflame
This pest recalled
Some of the forces to the city's aid
From the besieged halls
(Ed. Sir Edward Ridley. London. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1905.)

nec non et ratibus temptatur regia, qua se
protulit in medios audaci margine fluctus
luxuriosa domus. sed adest defensor ubique
Caesar et hos aditus gladiis, hos ignibus arcet,
obsessusque gerit, tanta est constantia mentis,                  490
expugnantis opus. piceo iubet unguine tinctas
lampadas inmitti iunctis in uela carinis;
nec piger ignis erat per stuppea uincula perque
manantis cera tabulas, et tempore eodem
transtraque nautarum summique arsere ceruchi.                  495
iam prope semustae merguntur in aequora classes,
iamque hostes et tela natant. nec puppibus ignis
incubuit solis; sed quae uicina fuere
tecta mari longis rapuere uaporibus ignem,
et cladem fouere Noti, percussaque flamma                  500
turbine non alio motu per tecta cucurrit
quam solet aetherio lampas decurrere sulco
materiaque carens atque ardens aere solo.
illa lues paulum clausa reuocauit ab aula
urbis in auxilium populos.

Ammianus Marcellinus  (325/330-after 391), Roman History, XXII, 16, 12 also gives a figure of 700,000 volumes burned in this war:

Besides this there are many lofty temples, and especially one to Serapis, which, although no words can adequately describe it, we may yet say, from its splendid halls supported by pillars, and its beautiful statues and other embellishments, is so superbly decorated, that next to the Capitol, of which the ever-venerable Rome boasts, the whole world has nothing worthier of admiration. In it were libraries of inestimable value; and the concurrent testimony of ancient records affirm that 70,000 volumes, which had been collected by the anxious care of the Ptolemies, were burnt in the Alexandrian war when the city was sacked in the time of Caesar the Dictator. (Translated by C.D.YONGE)

His accedunt altis sufflata fastigiis templa, inter quae eminet Serapeum, quod licet minuatur exilitate verborum, atriis tamen columnatis amplissimus, et spirantibus signorum figmentis, et reliqua operum multitudine ita est exornatum, ut post Capitolium, quo se venerabilis Roma in aeternum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat.   In quo bybliothecae fuerunt inaestimabiles: et loquitur monumentorum veterum concinens fides, septingenta voluminum milia, Ptolomaeis regibus vigiliis intentis composita, bello Alexandrino, dum diripitur civitas, sub dictatore Caesare conflagrasse.

Cassius Dio,  as  Orosius and  Lucan, the most extensive sources,  seem to be  based on the lost text of Livy.

  Cassius Dio, (155 – after 235), Roman History, XLII, 38, 2.

After this many battles occurred between the two forces both by day and by night, and many places were set on fire, with the result that the docks and the storehouses of grain among other buildings were burned, and also the library, whose volumes, it is said, were of the greatest number and excellence. Achillas was in possession of the mainland, with the exception of what Caesar had walled off, and the latter of the sea except the harbour. (Loeb Classical Library edition, 1916; Translation by Earnest Cary.)

This same Cassius Dio  also refers us in LXXVIII 7 the crazy threat of Caracalla of burning the Museum to avenge Alexander the Great, poisoned by Aristotle, as he believed. Caracalla was a crazy fan of Alexander.

Toward the philosophers who were called Aristotelians he showed bitter hatred in every way, even going so far as to desire to burn their books, and in particular he abolished their common messes in Alexandria and all the privileges that they had enjoyed; his grievance against them was that Aristotle was supposed to have been concerned in the death of Alexander. 4 Such was his behaviour in these matters; any more, he even took about with him numerous elephants, that in this respect, also, he might seem to be imitating Alexander, or rather, perhaps, Dionysus. (Loeb Classical Library edition, 1916; Translation by Earnest Cary.)

Seneca (4-65), certainly tighter in the number and fanciful yet undoubtedly,   tells us in De tranquillitate animi, 9,9,4 ff.

Forty thousand books, superb monument of royal opulence, were destroyed by fire in Alexandria. Others apply to boast this library called by Livy masterpiece of taste and care of kings

Quadraginta milia librorum Alexandriae arserunt ;  pulcherrimum regiae opulentiae monimentum alius laudaverit, sicut T. Livius, qui elegantiae regum curaeque egregium id opus ait fuisse

Note that Seneca quotes  Livius as the source.

Orosius (c.383-c.420), History Against the Pagans, VI, 15, 31. says “four hundred thousand”(zero plus zero less …)

During the combat orders were issued to set fire to the royal fleet, which by chance was drawn on shore. The flames spread to part of the city and there burned four hundred thousand books stored in a building which happened to be nearby. So perished that marvelous monument of the literary activity of our ancestors, who had gathered together so many great works of brilliant geniuses. In regard to this, however true it may be that in some of the temples there remain up to the present time book chests, which we ourselves have seen, and that, as we are told, these were emptied by our own men in our own day when these temples were plundered—this statement is true enough—yet it seems fairer to suppose that other collections had later been formed to rival the ancient love of literature, and not that there had once been another library which had books separate from the four hundred thousand volumes mentioned, and for that reason had escaped destruction.

in ipso proelio regia classis forte subducta iubetur incendi. ea flamma cum partem quoque urbis inuasisset, quadringenta milia librorum proximis forte aedibus condita exussit, singulare profecto monumentum studii curaeque maiorum, qui tot tantaque inlustrium ingeniorum opera congesserant.  unde quamlibet hodieque in templis extent, quae et nos uidimus, armaria librorum, quibus direptis exinanita ea a nostris hominibus nostris temporibus memorent – quod quidem uerum est -, tamen honestius creditur alios libros fuisse quaesitos, qui pristinas studiorum curas aemularentur, quam aliam ullam tunc fuisse bibliothecam, quae extra quadringenta milia librorum fuisse ac per hoc euasisse credatur.

Interestingly, several authors who agree to give the number of 40.000 burned volumes, as Seneca, Orosius, Lucan, seem to depend from Livius  text, which  has been lost, but the content is kept in Florus: Epitome of Livy, II, 13, 59:

"And first  he pulled away the projectiles of attackers enemies with fire of nearby buildings and naval stores."

“ ac primum proximorum aedificorum atque navalium incendio infestorum hostium tela submovit”

So  the  the details of burning stockpiles or port warehouses, burning rolls which  were goods at the port and were there by chance,  should be doubt to Livy; They do not were therefore Museum books; it should be  also of Livy the  reference to that fire pulled away the enemies from palace and allowed the defense of the people who attended there (Lucan)

The fire of AD 48. C. by the troops of Julius Caesar was perhaps not as serious as some sources reflect: it was  goods stores which accidentally were there in the port destined to foreign markets (some modern interpreters have interpreted that perhaps the destination outside should be Rome where the rich people created their bulky libraries, as Seneca recounts ). It is the most consistent interpretation according the  texts:

Then later, in the confrontation between Octavian and Antony became  the concerned  rumor  that Marcus Antonius tried to repair the damage of the fire caused by Caesar giving to Cleopatra 200,000 volumes from  the library of Pergamum; in fact it is a slander, among others, to discredit the ignorant Marcus Antonius.  Plutarch says in  Life of Antony, LVIII:

Again, Calvisius, who was a companion of Caesar, brought forward against Antony the following charges also regarding his behaviour towards Cleopatra: he had bestowed upon her the libraries from Pergamum in which there were two hundred thousand volumes;( Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1920. 9.)

because shortly later in  the beginning of ch. LIX Plutarch himself tells us:

However, most of the charges thus brought by Calvisius were thought to be falsehoods;

Finally, it remains curious that Caesar who refers to this war in their Civil War, III, 111. Does not mention the burning of the Library or of a certain number of books, about which he will certainly not be very proud.

As I said earlier, it seems that the fateful end of every library is a fire, that sometimes it is tried  to alleviate with reconstruction measures. Thus, according to Suetonius, Domitian also collaborated in the replacement ofn works of the Library of Alexandria:

Suetonius (c.70-126), Domi. 20, 1

In the beginning of his reign, he gave up the study of the liberal sciences, though he took care to restore, at a vast expense, the libraries which had been burnt down; collecting manuscripts from all parts, and sending scribes to Alexandria, (Translated by Alexander Thomson, )

Liberalia studia imperii initio neglexit, quanquam bibliothecas incendio absumptas impensissime reparare curasset, exemplaribus undique petitis missisque Alexandream qui describerent emendarentque.

The hardest blow to the Library could take place in the third century, when Aurelian in 272 AD during its war with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, swept the city and destroyed the Bruquión, where the library was.

Ammianus tells us in XXII, 16,15:

Alexandria itself was not, like other cities, gradually embellished, but at its very outset it was adorned with spacious roads. But after having been long torn by violent seditions, at last, when Aurelian was emperor, and when the intestine quarrels of its citizens had proceeded to deadly strife, its walls were destroyed, and it lost the largest half of its territory, which was called Bruchion, and had long been the abode of eminent men. (Roman History. London: Bohn (1862))

Sed Alexandria ipsa non sensim, ut aliae urbes, sed inter initia prima aucta per spatiosos ambitus, internisque seditionibus diu aspere fatigata, ad ultimum multis post annis Aureliano imperium agente, civilibus iurgiis ad certamina interneciva prolapsis dirutisque moenibus amisit regionis maximam partem, quae Bruchion appellabatur, diuturnum praestantium hominum domicilium.

In times of Diocletian, in the year 296, the city was sacked again by quelling a revolt. Of course, the Library, housed in Serapeion must have suffered a decisive blow in year 391 when Theodosius ordered the destruction of pagan temples and the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria  closed then and  many wise leave the city of science and culture. From the time of Theodosius the Library would degrade gradually  and books would disappeared.

In the year 415 it takes place the murder by the Christians of the daughter of Theon, Hypatia, philosopher, musicologist, mathematician who studied conic curves, astronomer, in the context of the decline of paganism and Christian groups internal struggles.

Christian Orosius just visited Alexandria in 415 and included in his work the destruction of the library by Christians or what it tarry  as we quoted above. Orosius (c.383-c.420), History Against the Pagans, VI, 15, 31: 

In regard to this, however true it may be that in some of the temples there remain up to the present time book chests, which we ourselves have seen, and that, as we are told, these were emptied by our own men in our own day when these temples were plundered—this statement is true enough—yet it seems fairer to suppose that other collections had later been formed to rival the ancient love of literature, and not that there had once been another library which had books separate from the four hundred thousand volumes mentioned, and for that reason had escaped destruction.

unde quamlibet hodieque in templis extent, quae et nos uidimus, armaria librorum, quibus direptis exinanita ea a nostris hominibus nostris temporibus memorent – quod quidem uerum est -, tamen honestius creditur alios libros fuisse quaesitos, qui pristinas studiorum curas aemularentur, quam aliam ullam tunc fuisse bibliothecam, quae extra quadringenta milia librorum fuisse ac per hoc euasisse credatur.

Among other things, the books have changed  their appearance, so now they are parchments s but  not scrolls, and they are  copied with many mistakes because the Greek was forgotten.

The fourth century was certainly a bad century for libraries, which were disappearing, some destroyed by fires and  wars or simply closed by  cultural apathy that is spreading.

Ammianus, several times quoted, (325/330-after 391) (what remains of his work relates to what happened between the years 353 and 378), as reminds us Luciano Cánfora, says in XIV, 6, 18:

and while the libraries are shut up forever like tombs

In consequence of this state of things, the few houses that were formerly famed for devotion to serious pursuits now teem with the sports of sluggish indolence, re-echoing to the sound of singing and the tinkling of flutes and lyres. In short, in place of the philosopher the singer is called in, and in place of the orator the teacher of stagecraft, and while the libraries are shut up forever like tombs, water-organs are manufactured and lyres as large as carriages, and flutes and instruments heavy for gesticulating actors. (Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum , John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D., Ed. )

Quod cum ita sit, paucae domus studiorum seriis cultibus antea celebratae, nunc ludibriis ignaviae torpentis 1 exundant, vocabili sonu, perflabili tinnitu fidium resultantes. Denique pro philosopho cantor, et in locum oratoris doctor artium ludicrarum accitur, et bibliothecis sepulcrorum ritu in perpetuum clausis, organa fabricantur hydraulica, et lyrae ad speciem 2 carpentorum ingentes, tibiaeque et histrionici gestus instrumenta non levia.

This happened in Alexandria, Pergamum, Antioch, Rome, Athens, Byzantium.

In  Arabic time Library have ceased to exist, but the Arabs met many Greek works, because some of them were known in the medieval West through translations into Arabic and then from Arabic to Latin. In Spain at that time there were some in the famous School of Translators of Toledo and elsewhere.

Only retained what was stored in monasteries and convents .

In any case it is still interesting and funny the episode and phrase attributed to Caliph Omar, who was in Constantinople, who ruled between 634 and 644, and answered the question he asked Amr ibn al-As, the conqueror of city of Alexandria in 642, about the fate of the books in the Library.

Reference to this episode in Eutyches, Annals, II (p. 316 Pococke edition) is made. The core of the dialogue  is in the book  of  Ibn al-Quifti "Ta'rikh al-Hukama (The Chronicle of wise men), of  the thirteenth century.

The conqueror asked the Caliph to the question put to him by John Philoponus, known as the tireless,  commentator of Aristotle, what to do with library books. The episode, fictional undoubtedly, circulated widely in the east and has even survived until recent times among Egyptian Copts, without  rational and historical foundation. The Caliph replied:

"If the library contains only what is in the Koran, it is useless and should be burned; if it contains more than the Koran, then it is bad and also must be burned. "

I reproduce the  translation into Latin made in 1650 by Pococke  of the  work  of Bar Hebraeus, also known as Abu'l Faraj, who wrote in Syriac his Chronicum Syriacum in the thirteenth century.

So, after having written a letter to Omar, he told him what John had said, and he brought  a letter from Omar, in which (Omar) wrote: "About  the books that you have made me mention: if they contain what is according to God's book, in the book of God is what is sufficient without them, but if they are so repugnant to the book of God, no way we need them and  order  that they  be taken out away. Therefore, Amr ibn al-As ordered  to disperse them among  the baths of Alexandria and  to burn them to heat;. well they were consumed in the space of six months.  Listen to what was done, and marvel.

Scriptis ergo ad Omarum literis, notum ei fecit, quid dixisset Johannes, perlataeque sunt ad ipsum ab Omaro literae, in quibus scripsit,  “Quod ad libros quorum mentionem fecisti: si in illis contineatur, quod cum libro Dei conveniat, in libro Dei [est] quod sufficiat absque illo; quod si in illis fuerit quod libro Dei repugnet, neutiquam est eo [nobis] opus, jube igitur e medio tolli.”    Jussit ergo Amrus Ebno’lAs dispergi eos per balnea Alexandriae, atque illis calefaciendis comburi;  ita spatio semestri consumpti sunt. Audi quid factum fuerit et mirare.

The funny thing is that this phrase is a copy of the said above two and half centuries ago by St. Augustine in his "On Christian Doctrine, Book II, chap. XLII:

Sacred Scripture compared with profane authors
But just as poor as the store of gold and silver and garments which the people of Israel brought with them out of Egypt was in comparison with the riches which they afterwards attained at Jerusalem, and which reached their height in the reign of King Solomon, so poor is all the useful knowledge which is gathered from the books of the heathen when compared with the knowledge of Holy Scripture. For whatever man may have learnt from other sources, if it is hurtful, it is there condemned; if it is useful, it is therein contained. And while every man may find there all that he has learnt of useful elsewhere, he will find there in much greater abundance things that are to be found nowhere else, but can be learnt only in the wonderful sublimity and wonderful simplicity of the Scriptures.
When, then, the reader is possessed of the instruction here pointed out, so that unknown signs have ceased to be a hindrance to him; when he is meek and lowly of heart, subject to the easy yoke of Christ, and loaded with His light burden, rooted and grounded and built up in faith, so that knowledge cannot puff him up, let him then approach the consideration and discussion of ambiguous signs in Scripture. And about these I shall now, in a third book, endeavour to say what the Lord shall be pleased to vouchsafe. (Tr. by  James J. O'Donnell)

Sacrae Scripturae cum profana scientia comparatio.
Quantum autem minor est auri, argenti vestisque copia, quam de Aegypto secum ille populus abs tulit, in comparatione divitiarum quas postea Hierosolymae consecutus est, quae maxime in Salomone rege ostenduntur 72, tanta fit cuncta scientia quae quidem est utilis, collecta de libris Gentium, si divinarum Scripturarum scientiae comparetur. Nam quidquid homo extra didicerit, si noxium est ibi damnatur, si utile est, ibi invenitur. Et cum ibi quisque invenerit omnia quae utiliter alibi didicit, multo abundantius ibi inveniet ea quae nusquam omnino alibi, sed in illarum tantummodo Scripturarum mirabili altitudine et mirabili humilitate discuntur. Hac igitur instructione praeditum cum signa incognita lectorem non impedierint, mitem et humilem corde, subiugatum leniter Christo et oneratum sarcina levi, fundatum et radicatum et aedificatum in caritate quem scientia inflare non possit, accedat ad ambigua signa in Scripturis consideranda et discutienda, de quibus iam tertio volumine dicere aggrediar, quod Dominus donare dignabitur.

But the question really curious and striking is that most of the millennium and a half after St. Augustine and just after  Caliph, there are people, and there are not few who still consider sacred religious books like encyclopedias with the same scientific reasoning: everything is in the Bible, in the Koran or in the Torah or any other book dictated by divinity; and what is not in them is false and unacceptable and the author or owner is deserving of the greatest punishment on earth and in the hereafter …

Of course the wars and intransigence and fanaticism are the greatest enemies of books. Sometimes the fire is the most effective instrument in their destruction and of course there is some kind of topical tradition that the end  of the libraries is always the fire. In the history of the Christianization of Europe there have been numerous episodes of burning books.

The paper (I do not know if papyrus also but their parameters will be similar) burns at  an no excessively high temperature at 451 degrees Fahrenheit or 233 degrees Celsius. "Fahrenheit 451" is just the title of a novel by the American Ray Bradbury and of a famous film of François Truffaut 1966.

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria by fire or successive fires is the most striking symbol of the destruction of culture, the arts and sciences by fanaticism, often religious, that too often seizes men. So in the history of the Christianization of Europe there have been episodes of burning books. Recent episodes of the destruction of the Library of Sarajevo, the destruction of archaeological and historical remains in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali … unfortunately  feed the tradition.
 

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It is based on the apocryphal story , perhaps real, perhaps possible and probably false , happened to Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (Spanish Grand Capitán) when after the campaign of Naples that put  Italy practically available to the king of Aragon, Ferdinand the  Catholic asked accounts of the enormous expenses.  Some  verses ran soon  glossing  the proud  attitude  of the noble lord , because it was consistent with the Spanish character. The most famous verse of  a long litany of ironic or cocky explanations is :

in picks, shovels and hoes , one hundred million …

en picos, palas y azadones, cien millones…

Well, in the war it thinks that  the important thing is to win , regardless of expense . There in the ancient world a story referred to the great Scipio Africanus, victorious  of Hannibal, not exactly coincident but with some resemblance .

Aulus Gellius tells us in his Noctes Atticae , lib . IV , 18.7 :

There is also another celebrated act of his. Certain Petilii, tribunes of the commons, influenced they say by Marcus Cato, Scipio's personal enemy, and instigated to appear against him, insisted most vigorously in the senate 2 on his rendering an account of the money of Antiochus and of the booty taken in that war; for he had been deputy to his brother Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, the commander in that campaign. Thereupon Scipio arose, and taking a roll from the fold of his toga, said that it contained an account of all the money and all the booty; that he had brought it to be publicly read and deposited in the treasury. “But that,” said he, “I shall not do now, nor will I so degrade myself.” And at once, before them all, he tore the roll across with his own hands and rent it into bits, indignant that an account of money taken in war should be required of him, to whose account the salvation of the Roman State and its power ought to be credited.  (An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.)

Item aliud est factum eius praeclarum. Petilii quidam tribuni plebis a M., ut aiunt, Catone, inimico Scipionis, comparati in eum atque inmissi, desiderabant in senatu instantissime ut pecuniae Antiochinae praedaeque in eo bello captae rationem redderet;  fuerat enim L. Scipioni Asiatico, fratri suo, imperatori in ea provincia legatus.  Ibi Scipio exsurgit et, prolato e sinu togae libro, rationes in eo scriptas esse dixit omnis pecuniae omnisque praedae;  illatum, ut palam recitaretur et ad aerarium deferretur.  “Sed enim id iam non faciam,” inquit, “nec me ipse afficiam contumelia,” eumque librum statim coram discidit suis manibus et concerpsit, aegre passus quod cui salus imperii ac reipublicae accepta ferri deberet rationem pecuniae praedatae posceretur.

Earlier, this Scipio showed his respect for the clear accounts. Around the year 204 BCE Africa was accompanied by Cato the Elder, Cato the Censor. The sumptuousness and cockiness of Scipio married wrong with frugality and rigidity of censor. Cato  asked to Scipio for accounts and he replied, as Plutarch says in  “Life of Cato the Elder, 3:

"Scipio answered (…) I did not need as severe quaestor, because of what he had to account to the town for their actions and not the money."

Cato returned to Rome and he favored an action in the Senate to send a delegation to investigate the costs of Scipio. The "investigation committee" found no evidence of waste general Scipio, who won battles.

Says the text of Plutarch

In the same spirit he did not hesitate to oppose the great Scipio, a youthful rival of Fabius, and thought to be envious of him. When he was sent out with Scipio as quaestor for the war in Africa,1 he saw that the man indulged in his wonted extravagance, and lavished money without stint upon his soldiery. He therefore made bold to tell him that the matter of expense was not the greatest evil to be complained of, but the fact that he was corrupting the native simplicity of his soldiers, who resorted to wanton pleasures when their pay exceeded their actual needs. Scipio replied that he had no use for a parsimonious quaestor when the winds were bearing him under full sail to the war; he owed the city an account of his achievements, not of its moneys. Cato therefore left Sicily, and joined Fabius in denouncing before the Senate Scipio's waste of enormous moneys, and his boyish addiction to palaestras and theatres, as though he were not commander of an army, but master of a festival. As a result of these attacks, tribunes were sent to bring Scipio back to Rome, if the charges against him should turn out to be true. Well then, Scipio convinced the tribunes that victory in war depended on the preparations made for it; showed that he could be agreeable in his intercourse with his friends when he had leisure for it, but was never led by his sociability to neglect matters of large and serious import; and sailed off for his war in Africa. Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 2.

“Ratio et numeri cedant  armis” , "the (clear) accounts yield to arms" seems to be the behavior yesterday and today, judging by darkness and lack of transparency with which usually occur the "war exploits". This famous Scipio lived only 2220 years ago.

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