Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
book:
Chapter Headings of Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V
Chapter headings of Book VI
Book VII
Book VIII
BOOK IX
Book X
Book XI
Book XII
Book XIII
Chapter Headings of Book XIV
Book XV
Book XVI
Book XVII
Book XVIII
Book XIX
Book XX
Preface
BOOK I
Book II
Book III
BOOK IV
Book V
The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius: Book VI
BOOK VII
Book VIII
Book IX
Book X
BOOK XI
BOOK XII
Book XIII
Book XIV
Book XV
Book XVI
Book XVII
BOOK XVIII
Book XIX
Book XX
section:
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
ONE should not vie in abusive language with the basest of men or wrangle with foul words with the shameless and wicked, since you become like them and their exact mate so long as you say things which match and are exactly like what you hear. This truth may be learned no less from an address of Quintus Metellus Numidicus, a man of wisdom, than from the books and the teachings of the philosophers. These are the words of Metellus from his speech Against Gaius Manlius, Tribune of the Commons, 1 by whom he had been assailed and taunted in spiteful terms in a speech delivered before the people: “Now, fellow citizens, so far as Manlius is concerned, since he thinks that he will appear a greater man, if he keeps calling me his enemy, who neither count him as my friend nor take account of him as an enemy, I do not propose to say another word. For I consider him not only wholly unworthy to be well spoken of by good men, but unfit even to be reproached by the upright. For if you name an insignificant fellow of his kind at a time when you cannot punish him, you confer honour upon him rather than ignominy.” [p. 123]
1 O.R.F. p. 274, Meyer2.
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.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.