Book 18
7
DOMITIUS was a learned and famous grammarian in the city of Rome, who was given the surname Insanus, or The Madman, because he was by nature rather difficult and churlish. When our friend Favorinus, in my company, chanced to have met this Domitius at the temple of Carmentis, Favorinus said: I pray you, master, tell me whether I was in error in saying contiones, when I wanted to turn dhmhgori/ai into Latin; for I am in doubt and should be glad to be informed whether any of the men of old who spoke with special elegance used contio of words and of a speech. Contio, from coventio ( =conventio) meant first an assembly, then a speech to an assembly, and finally the place of meeting. It is used in the sense of a speech by Cicero, Caesar, and other good writers. Then Domitius, with excited voice and expression, replied: There is absolutely no hope left of anything good, when even you distinguished philosophers care for nothing save words and the authority for words. But I will send you a book, in which you will find what you ask. For I, a grammarian, am inquiring into the conduct of life and manners, while you philosophers are nothing but mortualia, or 'winding sheets,' as Marcus Cato says: Frag. incert. 19, Jordan. for you collect glossaries and word-lists, filthy, foolish, trifling things, like the dirges of female hired mourners. And I could wish, said he, that all we mortals were dumb! for then dishonesty would lack its chief instrumentiinstrument. When we had left him, Favorinus said: We approached this man at an unseasonable time. For he seems to me to be clearly mad. Know, however, said he, that the disorder which is called melagxoli/a, or 'melancholia,' does not attack small or contemptible minds, but it is in a way a kind of heroic affliction and its victims often speak the truth boldly, but without regard to time or moderation. For example, what think you of this which he just said of philosophers? If Antisthenes or Diogenes had said it, would it not have seemed worthy of remembrance?
