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[p. 273]

XXI

[21arg] The times after the foundling of Rome and before the second war with Carthage at which distinguished Greeks and Romans flourished. 1

I WISHED to have a kind of survey of ancient times, and also of the famous men who were born in those days, lest I might in conversation chance to make some careless remark about the date and life of celebrated men, as that ignorant sophist did who lately, in a public lecture, said that Carneades the philosopher 2 was presented with a sum of money by king Alexander, son of Philip, and that Panaetius the Stoic was intimate with the elder Africanus. 3 In order, I say, to guard against such errors in dates and periods of time, I made notes from the books known as Chroicles 4 of the times when those Greeks and Romans flourished who were famous and conspicuous either for talent or for political power, between the founding of Rome and the second Punic war. 5 And these excerpts of mine, made in various and sundry places, I have now put hastily together. For it was not my endeavour with keen and subtle care to compile a catalogue of the eminent men of both nations who lived at the same time, but merely to strew these Nights of mine

1 Leuze has shown (see Biogr. Note, i. p. xxiv) that, besides the Chroica of Cornelius Nepos, Gellius made use of Varronian sources, which used a different chronology. According to the source which he followed, Gellius' dates are reckoned from 751 (Nepos) or 753 B.C. (Varro) as the date of the founding of Rome. He does not, however, confuse these epochs in speaking of the same event. In my notes the Varronian chronology is followed, except as otherwise indicated; for full details see the article of Leutze.

2 Carneades, who was one of the envoys sent from Athens to Rome in 155 B.C., lived more than a hundred years after the death of Alexander.

3 Panaetius, born about 185 B.C., was the teacher and personal friend of the younger Africanus.

4 Chronic (χρονικά) were chronological lists of historical events. The Chronica of Nepos seem to have given the important dates in foreign, as well as in Roman, history, including mythology.

5 218–202 B.C.

The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

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