FOOTNOTES:
[1] Archilochus was a native of Paros, and flourished about 714-676 b.c. His poems were chiefly Iambics of bitter satire. Horace speaks of him as the inventor of Iambics, and calls himself his pupil.
Parios ego primus Iambos
Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus
Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.
Epist. I. xix. 25.
And in another place he says,
Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo—A.P. 74.
[2] This was Livius Andronicus: he is supposed to have been a native of Tarentum, and he was made prisoner by the Romans, during their wars in Southern Italy; owing to which he became the slave of M. Livius Salinator. He wrote both comedies and tragedies, of which Cicero (Brutus 18) speaks very contemptuously, as “Livianæ fabulæ non satis dignæ quæ iterum legantur”—not worth reading a second time. He also wrote a Latin Odyssey, and some hymns, and died probably about 221 b.c.
[3] C. Fabius, surnamed Pictor, painted the temple of Salus, which the dictator C. Junius Brutus Bubulus dedicated 302 b.c. The temple was destroyed by fire in the reign of Claudius. The painting is highly praised by Dionysius, xvi. 6.
[4] For an account of the ancient Greek philosophers, see the sketch at the end of the Disputations.
[5] Isocrates was born at Athens 436 b.c. He was a pupil of Gorgias, Prodicus, and Socrates. He opened a school of rhetoric, at Athens, with great success. He died by his own hand at the age of ninety-eight.
[6] So Horace joins these two classes as inventors of all kinds of improbable fictions:
Pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.—A. P. 9.
Which Roscommon translates:
Painters and poets have been still allow’d
Their pencil and their fancies unconfined.
[7] Epicharmus was a native of Cos, but lived at Megara, in Sicily, and when Megara was destroyed, removed to Syracuse, and lived at the court of Hiero, where he became the first writer of comedies, so that Horace ascribes the invention of comedy to him, and so does Theocritus. He lived to a great age.
[8] Pherecydes was a native of Scyros, one of the Cyclades; and is said to have obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the Phœnicians. He is said also to have been a pupil of Pittacus, the rival of Thales, and the master of Pythagoras. His doctrine was that there were three principles (Ζεὺς, or Æther; Χθὼν, or Chaos; and Χρόνος, or Time) and four elements (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water), from which everything that exists was formed.—Vide Smith’s Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog.
[9] Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and is said to have saved the life of Plato by his influence with the tyrant Dionysius. He was especially great as a mathematician and geometrician, so that Horace calls him
Maris et terra numeroque carentis arenæ
Mensorem.
Od. i. 28.1.
Plato is supposed to have learned some of his views from him, and Aristotle to have borrowed from him every idea of the Categories.
[10] This was not Timæus the historian, but a native of Locri, who is said also in the De Finibus (c. 29) to have been a teacher of Plato. There is a treatise extant bearing his name, which is, however, probably spurious, and only an abridgment of Plato’s dialogue Timæus.
[11] Dicæarchus was a native of Messana, in Sicily, though he lived chiefly in Greece. He was one of the later disciples of Aristotle. He was a great geographer, politician, historian, and philosopher, and died about 285 b.c.
[12] Aristoxenus was a native of Tarentum, and also a pupil of Aristotle. We know nothing of his opinions except that he held the soul to be a harmony of the body; a doctrine which had been already discussed by Plato in the Phædo, and combated by Aristotle. He was a great musician, and the chief portions of his works which have come down to us are fragments of some musical treatises.—Smith’s Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog.; to which source I must acknowledge my obligation for nearly the whole of these biographical notes.
[13] The Simonides here meant is the celebrated poet of Ceos, the perfecter of elegiac poetry among the Greeks. He flourished about the time of the Persian war. Besides his poetry, he is said to have been the inventor of some method of aiding the memory. He died at the court of Hiero, 467 b.c.
[14] Theodectes was a native of Phaselis, in Pamphylia, a distinguished rhetorician and tragic poet, and flourished in the time of Philip of Macedon. He was a pupil of Isocrates, and lived at Athens, and died there at the age of forty-one.
[15] Cineas was a Thessalian, and (as is said in the text) came to Rome as ambassador from Pyrrhus after the battle of Heraclea, 280 b.c., and his memory is said to have been so great that on the day after his arrival he was able to address all the senators and knights by name. He probably died before Pyrrhus returned to Italy, 276 b.c.
[16] Charmadas, called also Charmides, was a fellow-pupil with Philo, the Larissæan of Clitomachus, the Carthaginian. He is said by some authors to have founded a fourth academy.
[17] Metrodorus was a minister of Mithridates the Great; and employed by him as supreme judge in Pontus, and afterward as an ambassador. Cicero speaks of him in other places (De Orat. ii. 88) as a man of wonderful memory.
[18] Quintus Hortensius was eight years older than Cicero; and, till Cicero’s fame surpassed his, he was accounted the most eloquent of all the Romans. He was Verres’s counsel in the prosecution conducted against him by Cicero. Seneca relates that his memory was so great that he could come out of an auction and repeat the catalogue backward. He died 50 b.c.
[19] This treatise is one which has not come down to us, but which had been lately composed by Cicero in order to comfort himself for the loss of his daughter.
[20] The epigram is,
Εἴπας Ἥλιε χαῖρε, Κλεόμβροτος Ὥμβρακιώτης
ἥλατ’ ἀφ’ ὑψηλοῦ τείχεος εἰς Ἀΐδην,
ἄξιον οὐδὲν ἰδὼν θανάτου κακὸν, ἀλλὰ Πλάτωνος
ἓν τὸ περὶ ψύχης γράμμ’ ἀναλεξάμενος.
Which may be translated, perhaps,
Farewell, O sun, Cleombrotus exclaim’d,
Then plunged from off a height beneath the sea;
Stung by pain, of no disgrace ashamed,
But moved by Plato’s high philosophy.
[21] This is alluded to by Juvenal:
Provida Pompeio dederat Campania febres
Optandas: sed multæ urbes et publica vota
Vicerunt. Igitur Fortuna ipsius et Urbis,
Servatum victo caput abstulit.—Sat. x. 283.
[22] Pompey’s second wife was Julia, the daughter of Julius Cæsar, she died the year before the death of Crassus, in Parthia. Virgil speaks of Cæsar and Pompey as relations, using the same expression (socer) as Cicero:
Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monœci
Descendens, gener adversis instructus Eois.—Æn. vi. 830.
[23] This idea is beautifully expanded by Byron:
Yet if, as holiest men have deem’d, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee
And sophist, madly vain or dubious lore,
How sweet it were in concert to adore
With those who made our mortal labors light,
To hear each voice we fear’d to hear no more.
Behold each mighty shade reveal’d to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right!
Childe Harold, ii.
[24] The epitaph in the original is:
Ὦ ξεῖν’ ἀγγεῖλον Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῐς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις.
[25] This was expressed in the Greek verses,
Ἀρχὴς μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον,
φύντα δ’ ὅπως ὤκιστα πύλας Ἀΐδϋο περῆσαι
which by some authors are attributed to Homer.
[26] This is the first fragment of the Cresphontes.—Ed. Var. vii., p. 594.
Ἔδει γὰρ ἡμᾶς σύλλογον ποιουμένους
Τὸν φύντα θρηνεῖν, εἰς ὅσ’ ἔρχεται κακά.
Τὸν δ’ αὖ θανόντα καὶ πόνων πεπαυμένον
χαίροντας εὐφημοῖντας ἐκπέμειν δόμων
[27] The Greek verses are quoted by Plutarch:
Ἤπου νήπιε, ἠλίθιοι φρένες ἀνδρῶν
Εὐθύνοος κεῖται μοιριδίῳ θανάτῳ
Οὐκ ἠν γὰρ ζώειν καλὸν αὐτῷ οὔτε γονεῦσι.
[28] This refers to the story that when Eumolpus, the son of Neptune, whose assistance the Eleusinians had called in against the Athenians, had been slain by the Athenians, an oracle demanded the sacrifice of one of the daughters of Erechtheus, the King of Athens. And when one was drawn by lot, the others voluntarily accompanied her to death.
[29] Menœceus was son of Creon, and in the war of the Argives against Thebes, Teresias declared that the Thebans should conquer if Menœceus would sacrifice himself for his country; and accordingly he killed himself outside the gates of Thebes.
[30] The Greek is,
μήδε μοι ἄκλαυστος θάνατος μόλοι, ἀλλὰ φίλοισι
ποιήσαιμι θανὼν ἄλγεα καὶ στοναχάς.
[31] Soph. Trach. 1047.
[32] The lines quoted by Cicero here appear to have come from the Latin play of Prometheus by Accius; the ideas are borrowed, rather than translated, from the Prometheus of Æschylus.
[33] From exerceo.
[34] Each soldier carried a stake, to help form a palisade in front of the camp.
[35] Insania—from in, a particle of negative force in composition, and sanus, healthy, sound.
[36] The man who first received this surname was L. Calpurnius Piso, who was consul, 133 b.c., in the Servile War.
[37] The Greek is,
Ἀλλά μοι οἰδάνεται κραδίη χόλῳ ὅπποτ’ ἐκείνου
Μνήσομαι ὅς μ’ ἀσύφηλον ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἔρεξεν.—Il. ix. 642.
I have given Pope’s translation in the text.
[38] This is from the Theseus:
Ἐγὼ δὲ τοῦτο παρὰ σοφοῦ τινος μαθὼν
εὶς φροντίδας νοῦν συμφοράς τ’ ἐβαλλόμην
φυγάς τ’ ἐμαυτῷ προστιθεὶς πάτρας ἐμῆς.
θανάτους τ’ ἀώρους, καὶ κακῶν ἄλλας ὁδοὺς
ὡς, εἴ τι πάσχοιμ’ ὠν ἐδόξαζόν ποτε
Μή μοι νέορτον προσπεσὸν μᾶλλον δάκοι.
[39] Ter. Phorm. II. i. 11.
[40] This refers to the speech of Agamemnon in Euripides, in the Iphigenia in Aulis,
Ζηλῶ σε, γέρον,
ζηλῶ δ’ ἀνδρῶν ὃς ἀκίνδυνον
βίον ἐξεπέρασ’, ἀγνὼς, ἀκλεής.—v. 15.
[41] This is a fragment from the Hypsipyle:
Εφυ μὲν οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐ πονεῖ βροτῶν
θάπτει τε τέκνα χἄτερ’ αὖ κτᾶται νεὰ,
αὐτός τε θνήσκει. καὶ τάδ’ ἄχθονται βροτοὶ
εἰς γῆν φέροντες γῆν ἀναγκαίως δ’ ἔχει
βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν.
Πολλὰς ἐκ κεφαλῆς προθελύμνους ἕλκετο χαίτας.—Il. x. 15.
Ἤτοι ὁ καππέδιον τὸ Ἀληΐον οἶος ἀλᾶτο
ὅν θυμὸν κατεδὼν, πάτον ἀνθρώπων ἀλεείνων.—Il. vi. 201.
[44] This is a translation from Euripides:
Ὥσθ’ ἵμερος μ’ ὑπῆλθε γῇ τε κ’ οὐρανῷ
λέξαι μολούσῃ δεῦρο Μηδείας τύχας.—Med. 57.
Λίην γὰρ πολλοὶ καὶ ἐπήτριμοι ἤματα πάντα
πίπτουσιν, πότε κέν τις ἀναπνεύσειε πόνοιο;
ἀλλὰ χρὴ τὸν μὲν καταθαπτέμεν, ὅς κε θάνησι,
νηλέα θυμὸν ἔχοντας, ἔπ’ ἤματι δακρυσάντας.—
Hom. Il. xix. 226.
[46] This is one of the fragments of Euripides which we are unable to assign to any play in particular; it occurs Var. Ed. Tr. Inc. 167.
Εἰ μεν τόδ’ ἦμαρ πρῶτον ἦν κακουμένῳ
καὶ μὴ μακρὰν δὴ διὰ πόνων ἐναυστόλουν
εἰκὸς σφαδάζειν ἦν ἂν, ὡς νεόζυγα
πῶλον, χάλινον ἀρτίως δεδεγμένον
νῦν δ’ ἀμβλύς εἰμι, καὶ κατηρτυκὼς κακῶν.
[47] This is only a fragment, preserved by Stobæus:
Τοὺς δ’ ἂν μεγίστους καὶ σοφωτάτους φρενὶ
τοιούσδ’ ἴδοις ἂν, οἶός ἐστι νῦν ὅδε,
καλῶς κακῶς πράσσοντι συμπαραινέσαι
ὅταν δὲ δαίμων ἀνδρὸς εὐτυχοῦς τὸ πρὶν
μάστιγ’ ἐπίσῃ τοῦ βίου παλίντροπον,
τὰ πολλὰ φροῦδα καὶ κακῶς εἰρημένα.
Ωκ. Οὐκοῦν Προμηθεῦ τοῦτο γιγνώσκεις ὅτι
ὀργῆς νοσούσης εἰσὶν ἰατροὶ λόγοι.
Πρ. ἐάν τις ἐν καιρῷ γε μαλθάσσῃ κεάρ
καὶ μὴ σφριγῶντα θυμὸν ἰσχναίνη βιᾳ.—
Æsch. Prom. v. 378.
[49] Cicero alludes here to Il. vii. 211, which is thus translated by Pope:
His massy javelin quivering in his hand,
He stood the bulwark of the Grecian band;
Through every Argive heart new transport ran,
All Troy stood trembling at the mighty man:
E’en Hector paused, and with new doubt oppress’d,
Felt his great heart suspended in his breast;
’Twas vain to seek retreat, and vain to fear,
Himself had challenged, and the foe drew near.
But Melmoth (Note on the Familiar Letters of Cicero, book ii. Let. 23) rightly accuses Cicero of having misunderstood Homer, who “by no means represents Hector as being thus totally dismayed at the approach of his adversary; and, indeed, it would have been inconsistent with the general character of that hero to have described him under such circumstances of terror.”
Τὸν δὲ καὶ Ἀργεῖοι μέγ’ ἐγήθεον εἰσορόωντες,
Τρωὰς δὲ τρόμος αἶνος ὑπήλυθε γυῖα ἕκαστον,
Ἕκτορι δ’ αὐτῷ θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι πάτασσεν.
But there is a great difference, as Dr. Clarke remarks, between θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι πάτασσεν and καρδέη ἔξω στηθέων ἔθρωσκεν, or τρόμος αἶνος ὑπήλυθε γυῖα.—The Trojans, says Homer, trembled at the sight of Ajax, and even Hector himself felt some emotion in his breast.
[50] Cicero means Scipio Nasica, who, in the riots consequent on the reelection of Tiberius Gracchus to the tribunate, 133 b.c., having called in vain on the consul, Mucius Scævola, to save the republic, attacked Gracchus himself, who was slain in the tumult.
[51] Morosus is evidently derived from mores—“Morosus, mos, stubbornness, self-will, etc.”—Riddle and Arnold, Lat. Dict.
[52] In the original they run thus:
Οὔκ ἐστιν οὐδὲν δεινὸν ὧδ’ εἰπεῖν ἔπος,
Οὐδὲ πάθος, οὐδὲ ξυμφορὰ θεήλατος
ἧς οὐκ ἂν ἀροιτ’ ἄχθος ἀνθρώπον φύσις.
[53] This passage is from the Eunuch of Terence, act i., sc. 1, 14.
[54] These verses are from the Atreus of Accius.
[55] This was Marcus Atilius Regulus, the story of whose treatment by the Carthaginians in the first Punic War is well known to everybody.
[56] This was Quintus Servilius Cæpio, who, 105 b.c., was destroyed, with his army, by the Cimbri, it was believed as a judgment for the covetousness which he had displayed in the plunder of Tolosa.
[57] This was Marcus Aquilius, who, in the year 88 b.c., was sent against Mithridates as one of the consular legates; and, being defeated, was delivered up to the king by the inhabitants of Mitylene. Mithridates put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat.
[58] This was the elder brother of the triumvir Marcus Crassus, 87 b.c. He was put to death by Fimbria, who was in command of some of the troops of Marius.
[59] Lucius Cæsar and Caius Cæsar were relations (it is uncertain in what degree) of the great Cæsar, and were killed by Fimbria on the same occasion as Octavius.
[60] M. Antonius was the grandfather of the triumvir; he was murdered the same year, 87 b.c., by Annius, when Marius and Cinna took Rome.
[61] This story is alluded to by Horace:
Districtus ensis cui super impiâ
Cervice pendet non Siculæ dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem,
Non avium citharæve cantus
Somnum reducent.—iii. 1. 17.
[62] Hieronymus was a Rhodian, and a pupil of Aristotle, flourishing about 300 b.c. He is frequently mentioned by Cicero.
[63] We know very little of Dinomachus. Some MSS. have Clitomachus.
[64] Callipho was in all probability a pupil of Epicurus, but we have no certain information about him.
[65] Diodorus was a Syrian, and succeeded Critolaus as the head of the Peripatetic School at Athens.
[66] Aristo was a native of Ceos, and a pupil of Lycon, who succeeded Straton as the head of the Peripatetic School, 270 b.c. He afterward himself succeeded Lycon.
[67] Pyrrho was a native of Elis, and the originator of the sceptical theories of some of the ancient philosophers. He was a contemporary of Alexander.
[68] Herillus was a disciple of Zeno of Cittium, and therefore a Stoic. He did not, however, follow all the opinions of his master: he held that knowledge was the chief good. Some of the treatises of Cleanthes were written expressly to confute him.
[69] Anacharsis was (Herod., iv., 76) son of Gnurus and brother of Saulius, King of Thrace. He came to Athens while Solon was occupied in framing laws for his people; and by the simplicity of his way of living, and his acute observations on the manners of the Greeks, he excited such general admiration that he was reckoned by some writers among the Seven Wise Men of Greece.
[70] This was Appius Claudius Cæcus, who was censor 310 b.c., and who, according to Livy, was afflicted with blindness by the Gods for persuading the Potitii to instruct the public servants in the way of sacrificing to Hercules. He it was who made the Via Appia.
[71] The fact of Homer’s blindness rests on a passage in the Hymn to Apollo, quoted by Thucydides as a genuine work of Homer, and which is thus spoken of by one of the most accomplished scholars that this country or this age has ever produced: “They are indeed beautiful verses; and if none worse had ever been attributed to Homer, the Prince of Poets would have had little reason to complain.
“He has been describing the Delian festival in honor of Apollo and Diana, and concludes this part of the poem with an address to the women of that island, to whom it is to be supposed that he had become familiarly known by his frequent recitations:
Χαίρετε δ’ ὑμεῖς πᾶσαι, ἐμεῖο δὲ καὶ μετόπισθε
μνήσασθ’, ὅπποτέ κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων
ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθὼν
ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὕμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν
ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα;
ὑμεῖς δ’ εὖ μάλα πᾶσαι ὑποκρίνασθε ἀφ’ ἡμῶν,
Τυφλὸς ἀνὴρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἐνὶ παιπαλοέσσῃ,
τοῦ πᾶσαι μετόπισθεν ἀριστεύουσιν ἀοιδαί.
Virgins, farewell—and oh! remember me
Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea,
A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore,
And ask you, ‘Maids, of all the bards you boast,
Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most?’
Oh! answer all, ‘A blind old man, and poor,
Sweetest he sings, and dwells on Chios’ rocky shore.’”
Coleridge’s Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets.
[72] Some read scientiam and some inscientiam; the latter of which is preferred by some of the best editors and commentators.
[73] For a short account of these ancient Greek philosophers, see the sketch prefixed to the Academics (Classical Library).
[74] Cicero wrote his philosophical works in the last three years of his life. When he wrote this piece, he was in the sixty-third year of his age, in the year of Rome 709.
[75] The Academic.
[76] Diodorus and Posidonius were Stoics; Philo and Antiochus were Academics; but the latter afterward inclined to the doctrine of the Stoics.
[77] Julius Cæsar.
[78] Cicero was one of the College of Augurs.
[79] The Latinæ Feriæ was originally a festival of the Latins, altered by Tarquinius Superbus into a Roman one. It was held in the Alban Mount, in honor of Jupiter Latiaris. This holiday lasted six days: it was not held at any fixed time; but the consul was never allowed to take the field till he had held them.—Vide Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Ant., p. 414.
[80] Exhedra, the word used by Cicero, means a study, or place where disputes were held.
[81] M. Piso was a Peripatetic. The four great sects were the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Academics, and the Epicureans.
[82] It was a prevailing tenet of the Academics that there is no certain knowledge.
[83] The five forms of Plato are these: οὐσία, ταὐτὸν, ἕτερον, στάσις, κίνησις.
[84] The four natures here to be understood are the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth; which are mentioned as the four principles of Empedocles by Diogenes Laertius.
[85] These five moving stars are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus. Their revolutions are considered in the next book.
[86] Or, Generation of the Gods.
[87] The πρόληψις of Epicurus, before mentioned, is what he here means.
[88] Στερέμνια is the word which Epicurus used to distinguish between those objects which are perceptible to sense, and those which are imperceptible; as the essence of the Divine Being, and the various operations of the divine power.
[89] Zeno here mentioned is not the same that Cotta spoke of before. This was the founder of the Stoics. The other was an Epicurean philosopher whom he had heard at Athens.
[90] That is, there would be the same uncertainty in heaven as is among the Academics.
[91] Those nations which were neither Greek nor Roman.
[92] Sigilla numerantes is the common reading; but P. Manucius proposes venerantes, which I choose as the better of the two, and in which sense I have translated it.
[93] Fundamental doctrines.
[94] That is, the zodiac.
[95] The moon, as well as the sun, is indeed in the zodiac, but she does not measure the same course in a month. She moves in another line of the zodiac nearer the earth.
[96] According to the doctrines of Epicurus, none of these bodies themselves are clearly seen, but simulacra ex corporibus effluentia.
[97] Epicurus taught his disciples in a garden.
[98] By the word Deus, as often used by our author, we are to understand all the Gods in that theology then treated of, and not a single personal Deity.
[99] The best commentators on this passage agree that Cicero does not mean that Aristotle affirmed that there was no such person as Orpheus, but that there was no such poet, and that the verse called Orphic was said to be the invention of another. The passage of Aristotle to which Cicero here alludes has, as Dr. Davis observes, been long lost.
[100] A just proportion between the different sorts of beings.
[101] Some give quos non pudeat earum Epicuri vocum; but the best copies have not non; nor would it be consistent with Cotta to say quos non pudeat, for he throughout represents Velleius as a perfect Epicurean in every article.
[102] His country was Abdera, the natives of which were remarkable for their stupidity.
[103] This passage will not admit of a translation answerable to the sense of the original. Cicero says the word amicitia (friendship) is derived from amor (love or affection).
[104] This manner of speaking of Jupiter frequently occurs in Homer,
——πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε,
and has been used by Virgil and other poets since Ennius.
[105] Perses, or Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, was taken by Cnæus Octavius, the prætor, and brought as prisoner to Paullus Æmilius, 167 b.c.
[106] An exemption from serving in the wars, and from paying public taxes.
[107] Mopsus. There were two soothsayers of this name: the first was one of the Lapithæ, son of Ampycus and Chloris, called also the son of Apollo and Hienantis; the other a son of Apollo and Manto, who is said to have founded Mallus, in Asia Minor, where his oracle existed as late as the time of Strabo.
[108] Tiresias was the great Theban prophet at the time of the war of the Seven against Thebes.
[109] Amphiaraus was King of Argos (he had been one of the Argonauts also). He was killed after the war of the Seven against Thebes, which he was compelled to join in by the treachery of his wife Eriphyle, by the earth opening and swallowing him up as he was fleeing from Periclymenus.
[110] Calchas was the prophet of the Grecian army at the siege of Troy.
[111] Helenus was a son of Priam and Hecuba. He is represented as a prophet in the Philoctetes of Sophocles. And in the Æneid he is also represented as king of part of Epirus, and as predicting to Æneas the dangers and fortunes which awaited him.
[112] This short passage would be very obscure to the reader without an explanation from another of Cicero’s treatises. The expression here, ad investigandum suem regiones vineæ terminavit, which is a metaphor too bold, if it was not a sort of augural language, seems to me to have been the effect of carelessness in our great author; for Navius did not divide the regions, as he calls them, of the vine to find his sow, but to find a grape.
[113] The Peremnia were a sort of auspices performed just before the passing a river.
[114] The Acumina were a military auspices, and were partly performed on the point of a spear, from which they were called Acumina.
[115] Those were called testamenta in procinctu, which were made by soldiers just before an engagement, in the presence of men called as witnesses.
[116] This especially refers to the Decii, one of whom devoted himself for his country in the war with the Latins, 340 b.c., and his son imitated the action in the war with the Samnites, 295 b.c. Cicero (Tusc. i. 37) says that his son did the same thing in the war with Pyrrhus at the battle of Asculum, though in other places (De Off. iii. 4) he speaks of only two Decii as having signalized themselves in this manner.
[117] The Rogator, who collected the votes, and pronounced who was the person chosen. There were two sorts of Rogators; one was the officer here mentioned, and the other was the Rogator, or speaker of the whole assembly.
[118] Which was Sardinia, as appears from one of Cicero’s epistles to his brother Quintus.
[119] Their sacred books of ceremonies.
[120] The war between Octavius and Cinna, the consuls.
[121] This, in the original, is a fragment of an old Latin verse,
——Terram fumare calentem.
[122] The Latin word is principatus, which exactly corresponds with the Greek word here used by Cicero; by which is to be understood the superior, the most prevailing excellence in every kind and species of things through the universe.
[123] The passage of Aristotle to which Cicero here refers is lost.
[124] He means the Epicureans.
[125] Here the Stoic speaks too plain to be misunderstood. His world, his mundus, is the universe, and that universe is his great Deity, in quo sit totius naturæ principatus, in which the superior excellence of universal nature consists.
[126] Athens, the seat of learning and politeness, of which Balbus will not allow Epicurus to be worthy.
[127] This is Pythagoras’s doctrine, as appears in Diogenes Laertius.
[128] He here alludes to mathematical and geometrical instruments.
[129] Balbus here speaks of the fixed stars, and of the motions of the orbs of the planets. He here alludes, says M. Bonhier, to the different and diurnal motions of these stars; one sort from east to west, the other from one tropic to the other: and this is the construction which our learned and great geometrician and astronomer, Dr. Halley, made of this passage.
[130] This mensuration of the year into three hundred and sixty-five days and near six hours (by the odd hours and minutes of which, in every fifth year, the dies intercalaris, or leap-year, is made) could not but be known, Dr. Halley states, by Hipparchus, as appears from the remains of that great astronomer of the ancients. We are inclined to think that Julius Cæsar had divided the year, according to what we call the Julian year, before Cicero wrote this book; for we see, in the beginning of it, how pathetically he speaks of Cæsar’s usurpation.
[131] The words of Censorinus, on this occasion, are to the same effect. The opinions of philosophers concerning this great year are very different; but the institution of it is ascribed to Democritus.
[132] The zodiac.
[133] Though Mars is said to hold his orbit in the zodiac with the rest, and to finish his revolution through the same orbit (that is, the zodiac) with the other two, yet Balbus means in a different line of the zodiac.
[134] According to late observations, it never goes but a sign and a half from the sun.
[135] These, Dr. Davis says, are “aërial fires;” concerning which he refers to the second book of Pliny.
[136] In the Eunuch of Terence.
[137] Bacchus.
[138] The son of Ceres.
[139] The books of Ceremonies.
[140] This Libera is taken for Proserpine, who, with her brother Liber, was consecrated by the Romans; all which are parts of nature in prosopopœias. Cicero, therefore, makes Balbus distinguish between the person Liber, or Bacchus, and the Liber which is a part of nature in prosopopœia.
[141] These allegorical fables are largely related by Hesiod in his Theogony.
Horace says exactly the same thing:
Hâc arte Pollux et vagus Hercules
Enisus arces attigit igneas:
Quos inter Augustus recumbens
Purpureo bibit ore nectar.
Hâc te merentem, Bacche pater, tuæ
Vexere tigres indocili jugum
Collo ferentes: hâc Quirinus
Martis equis Acheronta fugit.—Hor. iii. 3. 9.
[142] Cicero means by conversis casibus, varying the cases from the common rule of declension; that is, by departing from the true grammatical rules of speech; for if we would keep to it, we should decline the word Jupiter, Jupiteris in the second case, etc.
[143] Pater divûmque hominumque.
[144] The common reading is, planiusque alio loco idem; which, as Dr. Davis observes, is absurd; therefore, in his note, he prefers planius quam alia loco idem, from two copies, in which sense I have translated it.
[145] From the verb gero, to bear.
[146] That is, “mother earth.”
[147] Janus is said to be the first who erected temples in Italy, and instituted religious rites, and from whom the first month in the Roman calendar is derived.
[148] Stellæ vagantes.
[149] Noctu quasi diem efficeret. Ben Jonson says the same thing:
Thou that mak’st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.—Ode to the Moon.
[150] Olympias was the mother of Alexander.
[151] Venus is here said to be one of the names of Diana, because ad res omnes veniret; but she is not supposed to be the same as the mother of Cupid.
[152] Here is a mistake, as Fulvius Ursinus observes; for the discourse seems to be continued in one day, as appears from the beginning of this book. This may be an inadvertency of Cicero.
[153] The senate of Athens was so called from the words Ἄρειος Πάγος, the Village, some say the Hill, of Mars.
[154] Epicurus.
[155] The Stoics.
[156] By nulla cohærendi natura—if it is the right, as it is the common reading—Cicero must mean the same as by nulla crescendi natura, or coalescendi, either of which Lambinus proposes; for, as the same learned critic well observes, is there not a cohesion of parts in a clod, or in a piece of stone? Our learned Walker proposes sola cohærendi natura, which mends the sense very much; and I wish he had the authority of any copy for it.
[157] Nasica Scipio, the censor, is said to have been the first who made a water-clock in Rome.
[158] The Epicureans.
[159] An old Latin poet, commended by Quintilian for the gravity of his sense and his loftiness of style.
[160] The shepherd is here supposed to take the stem or beak of the ship for the mouth, from which the roaring voices of the sailors came. Rostrum is here a lucky word to put in the mouth of one who never saw a ship before, as it is used for the beak of a bird, the snout of a beast or fish, and for the stem of a ship.
[161] The Epicureans.
[162] Greek, ἀὴρ; Latin, aer.
[163] The treatise of Aristotle, from whence this is taken, is lost.
[164] To the universe the Stoics certainly annexed the idea of a limited space, otherwise they could not have talked of a middle; for there can be no middle but of a limited space: infinite space can have no middle, there being infinite extension from every part.
[165] These two contrary reversions are from the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. They are the extreme bounds of the sun’s course. The reader must observe that the astronomical parts of this book are introduced by the Stoic as proofs of design and reason in the universe; and, notwithstanding the errors in his planetary system, his intent is well answered, because all he means is that the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, and their dependencies, are demonstrations of a divine mind. The inference proposed to be drawn from his astronomical observations is as just as if his system was in every part unexceptionably right: the same may be said of his anatomical observations.
[166] In the zodiac.
[167] Ibid.
[168] These verses of Cicero are a translation from a Greek poem of Aratus, called the Phænomena.
[169] The fixed stars.
[170] The arctic and antarctic poles.
[171] The two Arctoi are northern constellations. Cynosura is what we call the Lesser Bear; Helice, the Greater Bear; in Latin, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.
[172] These stars in the Greater Bear are vulgarly called the “Seven Stars,” or the “Northern Wain;” by the Latins, “Septentriones.”
[173] The Lesser Bear.
[174] The Greater Bear.
[175] Exactly agreeable to this and the following description of the Dragon is the same northern constellation described in the map by Flamsteed in his Atlas Cœlestis; and all the figures here described by Aratus nearly agree with the maps of the same constellations in the Atlas Cœlestis, though they are not all placed precisely alike.
[176] The tail of the Greater Bear.
[177] That is, in Macedon, where Aratus lived.
[178] The true interpretation of this passage is as follows: Here in Macedon, says Aratus, the head of the Dragon does not entirely immerge itself in the ocean, but only touches the superficies of it. By ortus and obitus I doubt not but Cicero meant, agreeable to Aratus, those parts which arise to view, and those which are removed from sight.
[179] These are two northern constellations. Engonasis, in some catalogues called Hercules, because he is figured kneeling ἐν γόνασιν (on his knees). Ἐνγόνασιν καλέουσ’, as Aratus says, they call Engonasis.
[180] The crown is placed under the feet of Hercules in the Atlas Cœlestis; but Ophiuchus (Ὀφιοῦχος), the Snake-holder, is placed in the map by Flamsteed as described here by Aratus; and their heads almost meet.
[181] The Scorpion. Ophiuchus, though a northern constellation, is not far from that part of the zodiac where the Scorpion is, which is one of the six southern signs.
[182] The Wain of seven stars.
[183] The Wain-driver. This northern constellation is, in our present maps, figured with a club in his right hand behind the Greater Bear.
[184] In some modern maps Arcturus, a star of the first magnitude, is placed in the belt that is round the waist of Boötes. Cicero says subter præcordia, which is about the waist; and Aratus says ὑπὸ ζώνῃ, under the belt.
[185] Sub caput Arcti, under the head of the Greater Bear.
[186] The Crab is, by the ancients and moderns, placed in the zodiac, as here, between the Twins and the Lion; and they are all three northern signs.
[187] The Twins are placed in the zodiac with the side of one to the northern hemisphere, and the side of the other to the southern hemisphere. Auriga, the Charioteer, is placed in the northern hemisphere near the zodiac, by the Twins; and at the head of the Charioteer is Helice, the Greater Bear, placed; and the Goat is a bright star of the first magnitude placed on the left shoulder of this northern constellation, and called Capra, the Goat. Hœdi, the Kids, are two more stars of the same constellation.
[188] A constellation; one of the northern signs in the zodiac, in which the Hyades are placed.
[189] One of the feet of Cepheus, a northern constellation, is under the tail of the Lesser Bear.
[190] Grotius, and after him Dr. Davis, and other learned men, read Cassiepea, after the Greek Κασσίεπεια, and reject the common reading, Cassiopea.
[191] These northern constellations here mentioned have been always placed together as one family with Cepheus and Perseus, as they are in our modern maps.
[192] This alludes to the fable of Perseus and Andromeda.
[193] Pegasus, who is one of Perseus and Andromeda’s family.
[194] That is, with wings.
[195] Aries, the Ram, is the first northern sign in the zodiac; Pisces, the Fishes, the last southern sign; therefore they must be near one another, as they are in a circle or belt. In Flamsteed’s Atlas Cœlestis one of the Fishes is near the head of the Ram, and the other near the Urn of Aquarius.
[196] These are called Virgiliæ by Cicero; by Aratus, the Pleiades, Πληϊάδες; and they are placed at the neck of the Bull; and one of Perseus’s feet touches the Bull in the Atlas Cœlestis.
[197] This northern constellation is called Fides by Cicero; but it must be the same with Lyra; because Lyra is placed in our maps as Fides is here.
[198] This is called Ales Avis by Cicero; and I doubt not but the northern constellation Cygnus is here to be understood, for the description and place of the Swan in the Atlas Cœlestis are the same which Ales Avis has here.
[199] Pegasus.
[200] The Water-bearer, one of the six southern signs in the zodiac: he is described in our maps pouring water out of an urn, and leaning with one hand on the tail of Capricorn, another southern sign.
[201] When the sun is in Capricorn, the days are at the shortest; and when in Cancer, at the longest.
[202] One of the six southern signs.
[203] Sagittarius, another southern sign.
[204] A northern constellation.
[205] A northern constellation.
[206] A southern constellation.
[207] This is Canis Major, a southern constellation. Orion and the Dog are named together by Hesiod, who flourished many hundred years before Cicero or Aratus.
[208] A southern constellation, placed as here in the Atlas Cœlestis.
[209] A southern constellation, so called from the ship Argo, in which Jason and the rest of the Argonauts sailed on their expedition to Colchos.
[210] The Ram is the first of the northern signs in the zodiac; and the last southern sign is the Fishes; which two signs, meeting in the zodiac, cover the constellation called Argo.
[211] The river Eridanus, a southern constellation.
[212] A southern constellation.
[213] This is called the Scorpion in the original of Aratus.
[214] A southern constellation.
[215] A southern constellation.
[216] The Serpent is not mentioned in Cicero’s translation; but it is in the original of Aratus.
[217] A southern constellation.
[218] The Goblet, or Cup, a southern constellation.
[219] A southern constellation.
[220] Antecanis, a southern constellation, is the Little Dog, and called Antecanis in Latin, and Προκύων in Greek, because he rises before the other Dog.
[221] Pansætius, a Stoic philosopher.
[222] Mercury and Venus.
[223] The proboscis of the elephant is frequently called a hand, because it is as useful to him as one. “They breathe, drink, and smell, with what may not be improperly called a hand,” says Pliny, bk. viii. c. 10.—Davis.
[224] The passage of Aristotle’s works to which Cicero here alludes is entirely lost; but Plutarch gives a similar account.
[225] Balbus does not tell us the remedy which the panther makes use of; but Pliny is not quite so delicate: he says, excrementis hominis sibi medetur.
[226] Aristotle says they purge themselves with this herb after they fawn. Pliny says both before and after.
[227] The cuttle-fish has a bag at its neck, the black blood of which the Romans used for ink. It was called atramentum.
[228] The Euphrates is said to carry into Mesopotamia a large quantity of citrons, with which it covers the fields.
[229] Q. Curtius, and some other authors, say the Ganges is the largest river in India; but Ammianus Marcellinus concurs with Cicero in calling the river Indus the largest of all rivers.
[230] These Etesian winds return periodically once a year, and blow at certain seasons, and for a certain time.
[231] Some read mollitur, and some molitur; the latter of which P. Manucius justly prefers, from the verb molo, molis; from whence, says he, molares dentes, the grinders.
[232] The weasand, or windpipe.
[233] The epiglottis, which is a cartilaginous flap in the shape of a tongue, and therefore called so.
[234] Cicero is here giving the opinion of the ancients concerning the passage of the chyle till it is converted to blood.
[235] What Cicero here calls the ventricles of the heart are likewise called auricles, of which there is the right and left.
[236] The Stoics and Peripatetics said that the nerves, veins, and arteries come directly from the heart. According to the anatomy of the moderns, they come from the brain.
[237] The author means all musical instruments, whether string or wind instruments, which are hollow and tortuous.
[238] The Latin version of Cicero is a translation from the Greek of Aratus.
[239] Chrysippus’s meaning is, that the swine is so inactive and slothful a beast that life seems to be of no use to it but to keep it from putrefaction, as salt keeps dead flesh.
[240] Ales, in the general signification, is any large bird; and oscinis is any singing bird. But they here mean those birds which are used in augury: alites are the birds whose flight was observed by the augurs, and oscines the birds from whose voices they augured.
[241] As the Academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them which side of a question they took.
[242] The keepers and interpreters of the Sibylline oracles were the Quindecimviri.
[243] The popular name of Jupiter in Rome, being looked upon as defender of the Capitol (in which he was placed), and stayer of the State.
[244] Some passages of the original are here wanting. Cotta continues speaking against the doctrine of the Stoics.
[245] The word sortes is often used for the answers of the oracles, or, rather, for the rolls in which the answers were written.
[246] Three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their country; the father in the Latin war, the son in the Tuscan war, and the grandson in the war with Pyrrhus.
[247] The Straits of Gibraltar.
[248] The common reading is, ex quo anima dicitur; but Dr. Davis and M. Bouhier prefer animal, though they keep anima in the text, because our author says elsewhere, animum ex anima dictum, Tusc. I. 1. Cicero is not here to be accused of contradictions, for we are to consider that he speaks in the characters of other persons; but there appears to be nothing in these two passages irreconcilable, and probably anima is the right word here.
[249] He is said to have led a colony from Greece into Caria, in Asia, and to have built a town, and called it after his own name, for which his countrymen paid him divine honors after his death.
[250] Our great author is under a mistake here. Homer does not say he met Hercules himself, but his Εἴδωλον, his “visionary likeness;” and adds that he himself
μετ’ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι
τέρπεται ἐν θαλίῃς, καὶ ἔχει καλλίσφυρου Ἥβην,
παῖδα Διὸς μεγάλοιο καὶ Ἥρης χρυσοπεδίλου.
which Pope translates—
A shadowy form, for high in heaven’s abodes
Himself resides, a God among the Gods;
There, in the bright assemblies of the skies,
He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.
[251] They are said to have been the first workers in iron. They were called Idæi, because they inhabited about Mount Ida in Crete, and Dactyli, from δάκτυλοι (the fingers), their number being five.
[252] From whom, some say, the city of that name was called.
[253] Capedunculæ seem to have been bowls or cups, with handles on each side, set apart for the use of the altar.—Davis.
[254] See Cicero de Divinatione, and Ovid. Fast.
[255] In the consulship of Piso and Gabinius sacrifices to Serapis and Isis were prohibited in Rome; but the Roman people afterward placed them again in the number of their gods. See Tertullian’s Apol. and his first book Ad Nationes, and Arnobius, lib. 2.—Davis.
[256] In some copies Circe, Pasiphae, and Æa are mentioned together; but Æa is rejected by the most judicious editors.
[257] They were three, and are said to have averted a plague by offering themselves a sacrifice.
[258] So called from the Greek word θαυμάζω, to wonder.
[259] She was first called Geres, from gero, to bear.
[260] The word is precatione, which means the books or forms of prayers used by the augurs.
[261] Cotta’s intent here, as well as in other places, is to show how unphilosophical their civil theology was, and with what confusions it was embarrassed; which design of the Academic the reader should carefully keep in view, or he will lose the chain of argument.
[262] Anactes, Ἄνακτες, was a general name for all kings, as we find in the oldest Greek writers, and particularly in Homer.
[263] The common reading is Aleo; but we follow Lambinus and Davis, who had the authority of the best manuscript copies.
[264] Some prefer Phthas to Opas (see Dr. Davis’s edition); but Opas is the generally received reading.
[265] The Lipari Isles.
[266] A town in Arcadia.
[267] In Arcadia.
[268] A northern people.
[269] So called from the Greek word νόμος, lex, a law.
[270] He is called Ὦπις in some old Greek fragments, and Οὖπις by Callimachus in his hymn on Diana.
[271] Σαβάζίος, Sabazius, is one of the names used for Bacchus.
[272] Here is a wide chasm in the original. What is lost probably may have contained great part of Cotta’s arguments against the providence of the Stoics.
[273] Here is one expression in the quotation from Cæcilius that is not commonly met with, which is præstigias præstrinxit; Lambinus gives præstinxit, for the sake, I suppose, of playing on words, because it might then be translated, “He has deluded my delusions, or stratagems;” but præstrinxit is certainly the right reading.
[274] The ancient Romans had a judicial as well as a military prætor; and he sat, with inferior judges attending him, like one of our chief-justices. Sessum it prætor, which I doubt not is the right reading, Lambinus restored from an old copy. The common reading was sessum ite precor.
[275] Picenum was a region of Italy.
[276] The sex primi were general receivers of all taxes and tributes; and they were obliged to make good, out of their own fortunes, whatever deficiencies were in the public treasury.
[277] The Lætorian Law was a security for those under age against extortioners, etc. By this law all debts contracted under twenty-five years of age were void.
[278] This is from Ennius—
Utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibus
Cæsa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes.
Translated from the beginning of the Medea of Euripides—
Μήδ’ ἐν νάπαισι Πηλίον πεσεῖν ποτε
τμηθεῖσα πεύκη.
[279] Q. Fabius Maximus, surnamed Cunctator.
[280] Diogenes Laertius says he was pounded to death in a stone mortar by command of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus.
[281] Elea, a city of Lucania, in Italy. The manner in which Zeno was put to death is, according to Diogenes Laertius, uncertain.
[282] This great and good man was accused of destroying the divinity of the Gods of his country. He was condemned, and died by drinking a glass of poison.
[283] Tyrant of Sicily.
[284] The common reading is, in tympanidis rogum inlatus est. This passage has been the occasion of as many different opinions concerning both the reading and the sense as any passage in the whole treatise. Tympanum is used for a timbrel or drum, tympanidia a diminutive of it. Lambinus says tympana “were sticks with which the tyrant used to beat the condemned.” P. Victorius substitutes tyrannidis for tympanidis.
[285] The original is de amissa salute; which means the sentence of banishment among the Romans, in which was contained the loss of goods and estate, and the privileges of a Roman; and in this sense L’Abbé d’Olivet translates it.
[286] The forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid is unanimously ascribed to him by the ancients. Dr. Wotton, in his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, says, “It is indeed a very noble proposition, the foundation of trigonometry, of universal and various use in those curious speculations about incommensurable numbers.”
[287] These votive tables, or pictures, were hung up in the temples.
[288] This passage is a fragment from a tragedy of Attius.
[289] Hipponax was a poet at Ephesus, and so deformed that Bupalus drew a picture of him to provoke laughter; for which Hipponax is said to have written such keen iambics on the painter that he hanged himself.
Lycambes had promised Archilochus the poet to marry his daughter to him, but afterward retracted his promise, and refused her; upon which Archilochus is said to have published a satire in iambic verse that provoked him to hang himself.
[290] Cicero refers here to an oracle approving of his laws, and promising Sparta prosperity as long as they were obeyed, which Lycurgus procured from Delphi.
[291] Pro aris et focis is a proverbial expression. The Romans, when they would say their all was at stake, could not express it stronger than by saying they contended pro aris et focis, for religion and their firesides, or, as we express it, for religion and property.
[292] Cicero, who was an Academic, gives his opinion according to the manner of the Academics, who looked upon probability, and a resemblance of truth, as the utmost they could arrive at.
[293] I.e., Regulus.
[294] I.e., Fabius.
[295] It is unnecessary to give an account of the other names here mentioned; but that of Lænas is probably less known. He was Publius Popillius Lænas, consul 132 b.c., the year after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and it became his duty to prosecute the accomplices of Gracchus, for which he was afterward attacked by Caius Gracchus with such animosity that he withdrew into voluntary exile. Cicero pays a tribute to the energy of Opimius in the first Oration against Catiline, c. iii.
[296] This phenomenon of the parhelion, or mock sun, which so puzzled Cicero’s interlocutors, has been very satisfactorily explained by modern science. The parhelia are formed by the reflection of the sunbeams on a cloud properly situated. They usually accompany the coronæ, or luminous circles, and are placed in the same circumference, and at the same height. Their colors resemble that of the rainbow; the red and yellow are towards the side of the sun, and the blue and violet on the other. There are, however, coronæ sometimes seen without parhelia, and vice versâ. Parhelia are double, triple, etc., and in 1629, a parhelion of five suns was seen at Rome, and another of six suns at Arles, 1666.
[297] There is a little uncertainty as to what this age was, but it was probably about twenty-five.
[298] Cicero here gives a very exact and correct account of the planetarium of Archimedes, which is so often noticed by the ancient astronomers. It no doubt corresponded in a great measure to our modern planetarium, or orrery, invented by the earl of that name. This elaborate machine, whose manufacture requires the most exact and critical science, is of the greatest service to those who study the revolutions of the stars, for astronomic, astrologic, or meteorologic purposes.
[299] The end of the fourteenth chapter and the first words of the fifteenth are lost; but it is plain that in the fifteenth it is Scipio who is speaking.
[300] There is evidently some error in the text here, for Ennius was born 515 a.u.c., was a personal friend of the elder Africanus, and died about 575 a.u.c., so that it is plain that we ought to read in the text 550, not 350.
[301] Two pages are lost here. Afterward it is again Scipio who is speaking.
[302] Two pages are lost here.
[303] Both Ennius and Nævius wrote tragedies called “Iphigenia.” Mai thinks the text here corrupt, and expresses some doubt whether there is a quotation here at all.
[304] He means Scipio himself.
[305] There is again a hiatus. What follows is spoken by Lælius.
[306] Again two pages are lost.
[307] Again two pages are lost. It is evident that Scipio is speaking again in cap. xxxi.
[308] Again two pages are lost.
[309] Again two pages are lost.
[310] Here four pages are lost.
[311] Here four pages are lost.
[312] Two pages are missing here.
[313] A name of Neptune.
[314] About seven lines are lost here, and there is a great deal of corruption and imperfection in the next few sentences.
[315] Two pages are lost here.
[316] The Lex Curiata de Imperio, so often mentioned here, was the same as the Auctoritas Patrum, and was necessary in order to confer upon the dictator, consuls, and other magistrates the imperium, or military command: without this they had only a potestas, or civil authority, and could not meddle with military affairs.
[317] Two pages are missing here.
[318] Here two pages are missing.
[319] I have translated this very corrupt passage according to Niebuhr’s emendation.
[320] Assiduus, ab ære dando.
[321] Proletarii, a prole.
[322] Here four pages are missing.
[323] Two pages are missing here.
[324] Two pages are missing here.
[325] Here twelve pages are missing.
[326] Sixteen pages are missing here.
[327] Here eight pages are missing.
[328] A great many pages are missing here.
[329] Several pages are lost here; the passage in brackets is found in Nonius under the word “exulto.”
[330] This and other chapters printed in smaller type are generally presumed to be of doubtful authenticity.
[331] The beginning of this book is lost. The two first paragraphs come, the one from St. Augustine, the other from Lactantius.
[332] Eight or nine pages are lost here.
[333] Here six pages are lost.
[334] Here twelve pages are missing.
[335] We have been obliged to insert two or three of these sentences between brackets, which are not found in the original, for the sake of showing the drift of the arguments of Philus. He himself was fully convinced that justice and morality were of eternal and immutable obligation, and that the best interests of all beings lie in their perpetual development and application. This eternity of Justice is beautifully illustrated by Montesquieu. “Long,” says he, “before positive laws were instituted, the moral relations of justice were absolute and universal. To say that there were no justice or injustice but that which depends on the injunctions or prohibitions of positive laws, is to say that the radii which spring from a centre are not equal till we have formed a circle to illustrate the proposition. We must, therefore, acknowledge that the relations of equity were antecedent to the positive laws which corroborated them.” But though Philus was fully convinced of this, in order to give his friends Scipio and Lælius an opportunity of proving it, he frankly brings forward every argument for injustice that sophistry had ever cast in the teeth of reason.—By the original Translator.
[336] Here four pages are missing. The following sentence is preserved in Nonius.
[337] Two pages are missing here.
[338] Several pages are missing here.
[339] He means Alexander the Great.
[340] Six or eight pages are lost here.
[341] A great many pages are missing here.
[342] Six or eight pages are missing here.
[343] Several pages are lost here.
[344] This and the following chapters are not the actual words of Cicero, but quotations by Lactantius and Augustine of what they affirm that he said.
[345] Twelve pages are missing here.
[346] Eight pages are missing here.
[347] Six or eight pages are missing here.
[348] Catadupa, from κατὰ and δοῖπος, noise.