NOTES ON THE FRAGMENTS.
BOOK I.
[1]. Mnesarchus: see II. [69], De Or. I. 45, and Dict. Biogr. 'Antipater'; cf. II. [143], De Off. III. 50. Evidently this fragment belongs to that historical justification of the New Academy with which I suppose Cicero to have concluded the first book.
[2]. The word concinere occurs D.F. IV. 60, N.D. I. 16, in both which places it is used of the Stoics, who are said re concinere, verbis discrepare with the other schools. This opinion of Antiochus Cic. had already mentioned [43], and probably repeated in this fragment. Krische remarks that Augustine, Cont. Acad. II. 14, 15, seems to have imitated that part of Cicero's exposition to which this fragment belongs. If so Cic. must have condemned the unwarrantable verbal innovations of Zeno in order to excuse the extreme scepticism of Arcesilas (Krische, p. 58).
BOOK II.
[3]. This fragm. clearly forms part of those anticipatory sceptical arguments which Cic. in the first edition had included in his answer to Hortensius, see Introd. p. [55]. The argument probably ran thus: What seems so level as the sea? Yet it is easy to prove that it is really not level.
[4]. On this I have nothing to remark.
[5]. There is nothing distinctive about this which might enable us to determine its connection with the dialogue. Probably Zeno is the person who serius adamavit honores.
[6]. The changing aspects of the same thing are pointed to here as invalidating the evidence of the senses.
[7]. This passage has the same aim as the last and closely resembles Lucullus [105].
[8]. The fact that the eye and hand need such guides shows how untrustworthy the senses are. A similar argument occurs in Luc. [86]. Perpendiculum is a plumb line, norma a mason's square, the word being probably a corruption of the Greek γνωμων (Curt. Grundz p. 169, ed. 3), regula, a rule.
[9]. The different colours which the same persons show in different conditions, when young and when old, when sick and when healthy, when sober and when drunken, are brought forward to prove how little of permanence there is even in the least fleeting of the objects of sense.
[10]. Urinari is to dive; for the derivation see Curt. Grundz p. 326. A diver would be in exactly the position of the fish noticed in Luc. [81], which are unable to see that which lies immediately above them and so illustrate the narrow limits of the power of vision.
[11]. Evidently an attempt to prove the sense of smell untrustworthy. Different people pass different judgments on one and the same odour. The student will observe that the above extracts formed part of an argument intended to show the deceptive character of the senses. To these should probably be added fragm. [32]. Fr. [19] shows that the impossibility of distinguishing eggs one from another, which had been brought forward in the Catulus, was allowed to stand in the second edition, other difficulties of the kind, such as those connected with the bent oar, the pigeon's neck, the twins, the impressions of seals (Luc. [19], [54]), would also appear in both editions. The result of these assaults on the senses must have been summed up in the phrase cuncta dubitanda esse which Augustine quotes from the Academica Posteriora (see fragm. [36]).
BOOK III.
[12]. This forms part of Varro's answer to Cicero, which corresponded in substance to Lucullus' speech in the Academica Priora The drift of this extract was most likely this: just as there is a limit beyond which the battle against criminals cannot be maintained, so after a certain point we must cease to fight against perverse sceptics and let them take their own way. See another view in Krische, p. 62.
[13]. Krische believes that this fragment formed part of an attempt to show that the senses were trustworthy, in the course of which the clearness with which the fishes were seen leaping from the water was brought up as evidence. (In Luc. [81], on the other hand, Cic. drew an argument hostile to the senses from the consideration of the fish.) The explanation seems to me very improbable. The words bear such a striking resemblance to those in Luc. [125] (ut nos nunc simus ad Baulos Puteolosque videmus, sic innumerabilis paribus in locis esse isdem de rebus disputantis) that I am inclined to think that the reference in Nonius ought to be to Book IV. and not Book III., and that Cic., when he changed the scene from Bauli to the Lucrine lake, also changed Puteolosque into pisciculosque exultantes for the sufficient reason that Puteoli was not visible from Varro's villa on the Lucrine.
[14]. The passion for knowledge in the human heart was doubtless used by Varro as an argument in favour of assuming absolute knowledge to be attainable. The same line is taken in Luc. [31], D.F. III. 17, and elsewhere.
[15]. It is so much easier to find parallels to this in Cicero's speech than in that of Lucullus in the Academica Priora that I think the reference in Nonius must be wrong. The talk about freedom suits a sceptic better than a dogmatist (see Luc. [105], [120], and Cic.'s words in [8] of the same). If my conjecture is right this fragment belongs to Book IV. Krische gives a different opinion, but very hesitatingly, p. 63.
[16]. This may well have formed part of Varro's explanation of the καταληψις, temeritas being as much deprecated by the Antiocheans and Stoics as by the Academics cf. I. [42].
[17]. I conjecture malleo (a hammer) for the corrupt malcho, and think that in the second ed. some comparison from building operations to illustrate the fixity of knowledge gained through the καταληψεις was added to a passage which would correspond in substance with [27] of the Lucullus. I note in Vitruvius, quoted by Forc. s.v. malleolus, a similar expression (naves malleolis confixae) and in Pliny Nat. Hist. XXXIV. 14 navis fixa malleo. Adfixa therefore in this passage must have agreed with some lost noun either in the neut. plur. or fem. sing.
[18]. This and fragm. [19] evidently hang very closely together. As Krische notes, the Stoic εναργεια had evidently been translated earlier in the book by perspicuitas as in Luc. [17].
BOOK IV.
Further information on all these passages will be found in my notes on the parallel passages of the Lucullus.
[21]. Viam evidently a mistake for the umbram of Luc. [70].
[23]. The best MS. of Nonius points to flavum for ravum (Luc. [105]). Most likely an alteration was made in the second edition, as Krische supposes, p. 64.
[28]. Corpusculis: Luc. [121] has corporibus. Krische's opinion that this latter word was in the second edition changed into the former may be supported from I. [6], which he does not notice. The conj. is confirmed by Aug. Contr. Ac. III. 23.
[29]. Magnis obscurata: in Luc. [122] it is crassis occultata, so that we have another alteration, see Krische, p. 64.
[30]. Only slight differences appear in the MSS. of the Luc. [123], viz. contraria, for in c., ad vestigia for contra v.
[31]. Luc. [137] has dixi for dictus. As Cic. does not often leave out est with the passive verb, Nonius has probably quoted wrongly. It will be noted that the fragments of Book III. correspond to the first half of the Luc., those of Book IV. to the second half. Cic. therefore divided the Luc. into two portions at or about [63].
UNCERTAIN BOOKS.
[32]. I have already said that this most likely belonged to the preliminary assault on the senses made by Cic. in the second book.
[33]. In the Introd. p. [55] I have given my opinion that the substance of Catulus' speech which unfolded the doctrine of the probabile was incorporated with Cicero's speech in the second book of this edition. To that part this fragment must probably be referred.
[34]. This important fragment clearly belongs to Book II., and is a jocular application of the Carneadean probabile, as may be seen from the words probabiliter posse confici.
[35]. Krische assigns this to the end of Varro's speech in the third Book. With this opinion I find it quite impossible to agree. A passage in the Lucullus ([60]) proves to demonstration that in the first edition this allusion to the esoteric teaching of the Academy could only have occurred either in the speech of Catulus or in that of Cicero. As no reason whatever appears to account for its transference to Varro I prefer to regard it as belonging to Cic.'s exposition of the positive side of Academic doctrine in the second book. Cic. repeatedly insists that the Academic school must not be supposed to have no truths to maintain, see Luc. [119], also [66] and N.D. I. 12. Also Aug. Contra. Ac. II. 29.
[36]. It is difficult to see where this passage could have been included if not in that prooemium to the third book which is mentioned Ad. Att. XVI. 6, 4. I may here add that Krische seems to me wrong in holding that the whole four books formed one discussion, finished within the limits of a single day. Why interrupt the discussion by the insertion of a prologue of so general a nature as to be taken from a stock which Cic. kept on hand ready made? (Cf. Ad Att. as above.)
Besides the actual fragments of the second edition, many indications of its contents are preserved in the work of Augustine entitled Contra Academicos, which, though written in support of dogmatic opinions, imitated throughout the second edition of the Academica of Cic. No writings of the Classical period had so great an influence on the culture and opinions of Augustine as the Academica and the lost Hortensius. I give, partly from Krische, the scattered indications of the contents of the former which are to be gathered from the bishop's works. In Aug. Contr. Ac. II. 14, 15, we have what appears to be a summary of the lost part of Book I. to the following effect. The New Academy must not be regarded as having revolted against the Old, all that it did was to discuss that new doctrine of καταληψις advanced by Zeno. The doctrine of ακαταληψια though present to the minds of the ancients had never taken distinct shape, because it had met with no opposition. The Old Academy was rather enriched than attacked by the New. Antiochus, in adopting Stoicism under the name of the Old Academy, made it appear that there was a strife between it and the New. With Antiochus the historical exposition of Cic. must have ended. From this portion of the first book, Aug. derived his opinion (Contra. Ac. II. 1) that New Academicism was excusable from the necessities of the age in which it appeared. Indications of Book II. in Aug. are scarce, but to it I refer Contra. Ac. I. 7 placuit Ciceroni nostro beatum esse qui verum investigat etiam si ad eius inventionem non valeat pervenire, also ibid. III. 10 illis (Academicis) placuit esse posse hominem sapientem, et tamen in hominem scientiam cadere non posse. These I refer to Cicero's development of the probabile in Book II., although I ought to say that Krische, p. 65, maintains that the substance of Catulus' exposition in the Ac. Priora transferred to Book IV. of the Ac. Posteriora. As this would leave very meagre material for Book II., nothing indeed excepting the provisional proof of the deceptiveness of the senses, I cannot accede to his arrangement; mine, I may remark, involves a much smaller departure from the first edition. Allusions in Aug. to the attack on the senses by Cic. in Book II. are difficult to fix, as they apply equally well to the later attack in Book IV. As to Books III. and IV., I do not think it necessary here to prove from Aug. the points of agreement between them and the Lucullus, which will find a better place in my notes on the latter, but merely give the divergences which appear from other sources. These are the translation of σοφισματα by cavillationes in Luc. [75] (Seneca Ep. III.), and the insertion in [118] of essentia as a translation of ουσια.