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IN FIDEM UXORIAM.

On faithfulness in a wife

Couple sitting holding hands under an apple tree, puppy at their feet
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Ecce puella viro quae dextra iungitur, ecce
U [=Ut] sedet? ut catulus lusitat ante pedes.
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [D2v]Haec fidei est species Veneris quam si educat ardor,
Malorum in laeva non male ramus erit.
Poma etenim Veneris sunt, sic echeneida[1] [=Scheneida] vicit,
Hippomanes, petiit sic Galathea[2] virum.

See here a girl, her right hand clasping her husband’s. See how she sits, how a puppy plays at her feet. This is a representation of faithfulness, and if Venus’s ardour nurtures it, a branch bearing apples may well be seen in on the left. For apples are Venus’s fruit; by them Hippomenes defeated Schoeneus’s daughter; with them Galatea sought her man.

Notes:

1.  Scheneida, ‘Schoeneus’ daugher’, i.e. Atalanta. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.560ff. for the story: Atalanta would marry none but the man who could beat her at running. Hippomenes tricked her into losing the vital race by throwing down in turn three golden apples given him by Venus.

2.  Galatea, a girl who throws apples at the man she fancies: Vergil, Eclogues 3.64-5.

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NEC QUESTIONI
quidem cedendum.

Do not yield even to torture

Figure of a lioness with raised paw.
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Cecropia effictam quam cernis in arce leaenam,
Harmodii an nescis hospes, amica fuit?
Sic animum placuit monstrare viraginis acrem,
More ferae, nomen vel quia tale fuit.[1]
Quod fidibus contorta suo non prodidit ullum,
Indicio, elinguem reddidit Iphicrates.[2]

This lioness that you see represented on the Athenian citadel was Harmodius’s lover - stranger, you must know the story. This was how they decided to proclaim the brave woman’s fierce spirit, by representing her as a lioness. Besides, her name was Lioness too. Tortured on the rack, she betrayed no-one by her evidence, and so Iphicrates represented the beast without a tongue.

Notes:

1.  Later editions read tulit.

2.  Harmodius and Aristogeiton conspired to kill Hipparchus, the brother of the Athenian tyrant Hippias. Harmodius was killed, Aristogeiton arrested and tortured. Also tortured was Leaena (‘Lioness’) a courtesan, beloved of Harmodius, as she too was suspected of being in the conspiracy. She however revealed nothing. After the fall of Hippias, the two men were treated as tyrannicides and bronze statues were erected in their honour (509 BC). To avoid appearing to honour a courtesan, the Athenians had Leaena represented by Iphicrates (or Amphicrates) as a lioness without a tongue, indicating both her name and the reason for remembering her. See Pliny, Natural History 34.19.72; Plutarch, De garrulitate 505E.

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