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Cornelius Nepos · Atticus §14.1-14.3

Atticus's Simple Banquets and Moderation in Wealth

Passage 14 of 22 · Latin

Summary

Describes Atticus's preference for reading at banquets, his moderate lifestyle which remained unchanged despite a huge increase in wealth, and his modest property ownership focused on practical returns.

§14.1Nemo in convivio eius aliud acroama audivit quam anagnosten, quod nos quidem iucundissimum arbitramur; neque umquam sine aliqua lectione apud eum cenatum est, ut non minus animo quam ventre convivae delectarentur: namque eos vocabat, quorum mores a suis non abhorrerent.
No one at his banquets ever heard any other entertainment than a reader, which we indeed consider most delightful; nor was dinner ever eaten at his house without some reading, so that the guests were delighted no less in mind than in stomach; for he used to invite those whose manners did not differ from his own.
§14.2cum tanta pecuniae facta esset accessio, nihil de cottidiano cultu mutavit, nihil de vitae consuetudine, tantaque usus est moderatione, ut neque in sestertio viciens, quod a patre acceperat, parum se splendide gesserit neque in sestertio centiens affluentius vixerit, quam instituerat, parique fastigio steterit in utraque fortuna.
Although so great an accession of money had been made, he changed nothing of his daily style of living, nothing of his habits of life, and exercised such great moderation that neither in his fortune of two million sesterces, which he had received from his father, did he conduct himself with too little splendor, nor in his fortune of ten million sesterces did he live more luxuriously than he had established, but stood on an equal level in both fortunes.
§14.3nullos habuit hortos, nullam suburbanam aut maritimam sumptuosam villam, neque in Italia, praeter Arretinum et Nomentanum, rusticum praedium, omnisque eius pecuniae reditus constabat in Epiroticis et urbanis possessionibus.
He had no gardens, no luxurious suburban or maritime villa, nor any rustic estate in Italy, except those at Arretium and Nomentum, and the entire income of his money consisted of his possessions in Epirus and in the city.
ex quo cognosci potest usum eum pecuniae non magnitudine, sed ratione metiri solitum.
From this it can be understood that he was accustomed to measure the use of money not by its magnitude, but by reason.

Notes

  1. §14.1anagnosten — The Greek accusative singular form of the first-declension noun ἀναγνώστης, imported directly into Latin.
  2. §14.1cenatum est — An impersonal passive of the intransitive verb ceno (to dine). Literally "it was dined," meaning "they dined" or "dinner was taken."
  3. §14.2sestertio viciens ... sestertio centiens — Expressions for Roman monetary and property values. The numeral adverbs viciens (20 times) and centiens (100 times) imply the omission of centena milia (100,000 sesterces), thus representing '2,000,000 sesterces' and '10,000,000 sesterces' respectively. sestertio is the ablative of sestertium.
  4. §14.2gesserit ... vixerit ... steterit — Perfect subjunctives in a consecutive (result) ut-clause. Although the main verbs (mutavit, usus est) are in historical tenses, the perfect subjunctive is used instead of the imperfect to emphasize the result as an actual, independent historical fact.

Cite this passage

Cornelius Nepos, Atticus §14.1-14.3. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0588.abo025.humanitext-lat2:14.1-14.3

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