Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XIII

by Arnobius

13. Through her bosom, we are told,^[1] Nana conceived a son by an apple. The opinion is self-consistent; for where rocks and hard stones bring forth, there apples must have their time of generating.^[2] The Berecyntian goddess fed the imprisoned maiden with nuts^[3] and figs, fitly and rightly; for it was right that she should live on apples who had been made a mother by an apple. After her offspring was born, it was ordered by Sangarius to be cast far away: that which he believed to be divinely conceived long before, he would not have^[4] called the offspring of his child. The infant was brought up on he-goats’ milk. O story ever opposed and most inimical to the male sex, in which not only do men lay aside their virile powers, but beasts even which were males become mothers!^[5] He was famous for his beauty, and distinguished by his remarkable^[6] comeliness. It is wonderful enough that the noisome stench of goats did not cause him to be avoided and fled from. The Great Mother loved him—if as a grandmother her grandson, there is nothing wrong; but if as the theatres tell, her love is infamous and disgraceful. Acdestis, too, loved him above all, enriching him with a hunter’s gifts. There could be no danger to his purity from one emasculated, you say; but it is not easy to guess what Midas dreaded? The Mother entered bearing^[7] the very walls. Here we wondered, indeed, at the might and strength of the deity; but again^[8]we blame her carelessness, because when she remembered the decree of fate,^[9] she heedlessly laid open the city to its enemies. Acdestis cites to fury and madness those celebrating the nuptial vows. If King Midas had displeased him who was binding the youth to a wife, of what had Gallus been guilty, and his concubine’s daughter, that he should rob himself of his manhood, she herself of her breasts? “Take and keep these,” says he,^[10] “because of which you have excited such commotions to the overwhelming of our minds with fear.” We should none of us yet know what the frenzied Acdestis had desired in his paramour’s body, had not the boy thrown to him, to appease his wrath,^[11] the parts cut off.

Footnotes

1. Lit., “he says.”
2. Lit., “must rut”—suriant, as deer. The ms., first four edd., and Elm. read surgant—“rise,” corrected as above in the margin of Ursinus.
3. Lit., “acorns”—glandibus.
4. The ms. reads des-, emended as above ded-ignatus by Stewechius, followed by Heraldus and Orelli.
5. i.e., he-goats are made to yield milk.
6. Lit., “praiseworthy.”
7. Lit., “with.”
8. So the ms., both Roman edd., LB., Hild. and Oehler, reading rursus, for which the others receive the emendation of Gelenius, regis—“the king’s carelessness.”
9. Lit., “the law and fate.”
10. i.e., Attis.
11. The ms. reads satietati-s objecisset offensi, corrected as above by Hild., (omitting s), followed by Oehler. The conjectures of previous edd. are very harsh and forced.