[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.