The Periander/Tarquin Tale

While the lower right quadrilobe of Figures 60 and 61 ties together diverse strands of Oresme's writings, the question remains whether without inscriptions the references in the first three quadrilobes to Periander's advice were intelligible to contemporary readers. Appearing in Herodotus, as well as in Aristotle, the story was certainly well known in antiquity.^[22] Periander was one of the Seven Sages, whose wise sayings or deeds were collected in both Greek and Latin sources.^[23] The Greek form of the tale is also included in a classical source of the third century A.D.: Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers .^[24] A Latin version of the story contained in the first book of Livy's History of Rome concerns the advice Tarquinius Superbus gave to his son Sextus in regard to the Gabii. While striking the heads of poppies (instead of the ears of grain) in the presence of messengers, Tarquinius's advice was understood by his son to mean "that he rid himself of the chief men of the state."^[25] Livy's account of the Periander/Tarquin tale exists also in the Factorum et dictorum memorabilium of Valerius Maximus.^[26]

In the Middle Ages the Latin version of the Periander/Tarquin tale survived through various channels. For instance, the writings of Valerius Maximus provide ample material for exempla used in popular forms of medieval literature such as sermons, commentaries on the Bible, and other sacred texts. Indeed, as Beryl Smalley points out, the original text of the Factorum et dictorum memorabilium itself was a collection of exempla "avant la lettre."^[27] Moreover, it was a common practice to introduce quotations from diverse classical sources, including Livy's History of Rome , into Psalter commentaries and other types of exegetical and didactic literature.^[28] Also used in sermons and other books of moral instruction were citations from Aristotle's Ethics, Politics , and Economics . It is, therefore, likely that the Periander/Tarquin story was well known from popular medieval literature.

The king and his counsellors also had at hand vernacular versions of the accounts by Livy and Valerius Maximus. As discussed in Chapters 1 and 3 above, Pierre Bersuire's French translation of the first, third, and fourth Decades of Livy executed for John the Good between 1354 and 1356 survives in a lavishly decorated manuscript commissioned by Charles V.^[29] Since the Tarquinius story occurs in Book I of Livy, it was included in Bersuire's translation. Furthermore, the original copy of Simon de Hesdin's translation of the first four books of Valerius Maximus commissioned by Charles V still survives.^[30] In short, Oresme could have assumed his reader's familiarity with the Periander/Tarquin tale through popular, classical, or vernacular sources.