P. [28] - [66.] sollicitam habere: 'to keep in trouble'. Sollicitus is, literally, 'wholly in motion', from sollus, which has the same root with ‛ολος, and citus; cf. the rare words sollifides, solliferreus. The perfect participle with habeo emphasizes the continuance of the effect produced. Zumpt, 634; A. 292, c; G. 230; H. 388, 1, n. — nostram aetatem: cf. [n. on 26] senectus. — esse longe: more usually abesse. — O miserum: 'O, wretched is that old man'. Cicero oftener joins O with the accusative than with the nominative: he rarely, if ever, uses the interjection with the vocative in direct address to persons. — extinguit animum: the doctrine of the annihilation of the soul after death was held by many of Cicero's contemporaries, professedly by the Epicureans (e.g. Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. 3, 417 et seq.; cf. also Caesar's argument at the trial of the Catilinian conspirators, Sall. Bell. Catil. c. 51, Cic. in Catil. 3, c. 4), practically by the Stoics, who taught that there is a future existence of limited though indefinite length. — deducit: cf. [n. on 63]. — atqui: see [n. on 6]. — tertium ... potest: 'nothing can be found as a third alternative': so in Tusc. 1, 82 quoniam nihil tertium est.
[67.] quid timeam etc.: so Tusc. 1, 25 quo modo igitur aut cur mortem malum tibi videri dicis? quae aut beatas nos efficiet, animis manentibus, aut non miseros, sensu carentis; ib. 1, 118 ut aut in aeternam domum remigremus aut omni sensu careamus. For mood see A. 268; G. 251; H 486, II. — aut non miser ... aut beatus: a dilemma, but unsound and not conclusive; for non miser is used with reference to annihilation, and the soul may exist after death in a state of unhappiness. — futurus sum: see [n. on 6] futurum est. — quamvis sit: prose writers of the Republican period use quamvis with the subjunctive only; see Roby, 1624, 1627; A. 313,a, g; G. 608; H. 515, III. and n. 3. — cui: see [n. on 38] viventi. — ad vesperum esse victurum: 'that he will be alive when evening comes', not 'that he will live till the evening'. With the prepositions ad, sub, in the form vesper is generally used, not vespera. With this passage cf. Fin. 2, 92 an id exploratum cuiquam potest esse quo modo sese habiturum sit corpus. non dico ad annum, sed ad vesperum? Also cf. the title of one of Varro's Menippean Satires, nescis quid vesper serus vehat, probably a proverb. — aetas illa ... adulescentes: some suppose that this sentence was borrowed from Hippocrates. — tristius: 'severioribus remediis'. Manutius. So Off. 1, 83 leviter aegrotantis leniter curant, gravioribus autem morbis periculosas curationes et ancipites adhibere coguntur. The adverb tristius, which has in prose a superlative but no positive, occurs in Fam. 4, 13, 5. — mens ... ratio ... consilium: cf. [n. on 41]. — qui ... nulli: cf. [n. on 46] qui pauci; but nulli here almost = non. — nullae ... fuissent: i.e. the young men would have brought every country to ruin; see 20. — cum ... cum: see [n. on 4].
[68.] in filio ... in fratribus: cf. Lael. 9. As to Cato's son cf. 15, 84. — tu: sc. sensisti. — exspectatis ad: a rare construction, perhaps without parallel; exspectatis is an adjective and takes the construction of aptus, idoneus etc., 'of whom hopes were entertained as regards honor'. — fratribus: the sons of Paulus Macedonicus, two of them died within seven days (Fam. 4, 6, 1), one just before and one just after Paulus' great triumph in 167 B.C. — idem: see [n. on 4] eandem. — insipienter: adversative asyndeton. — incerta ... veris: chiasmus avoided. With the thought cf. Off. 1, 18. — at ... at: the objection and its answer are both introduced by at, as here, in [35]. — at ... adulescens: these words look back to the preceding sentence, to which they are an answer. — ille ... hic: here hic denotes the person who is more important, ille the person who is less important for the matter in hand; the former may therefore be regarded as nearer to the speaker, the latter as more remote. A. 102, a; G. 292, Rem. 1; H. 450, 2, n.
[69.] quamquam: see [n. on 2] etsi. — quid est ... diu: cf. Tusc. 1, 94 quae vero aetas longa est, aut quid omnino homini longum? ... quia ultra nihil habemus, hoc longum dicimus. For est see [n. on 72]. — Tartessiorum ... Gadibus: the whole of the south coast of Spain bore the name Tartessus, but the name is often confined to Gades, the chief city. — fuit: = vixit. — scriptum video: so in Acad. 2, 129; Div. 1, 31; cf. also N.D. 1, 72 ut videmus in scriptis; Off. 2, 25 ut scriptum legimus; also cf. [n. on 26] videmus. — Arganthonius: the story is from Herodotus 1, 163.
P. [29] — aliquid extremum: see [n. on 5]; cf. pro Marcello 27 — effluxit: strongly aoristic in sense 'at once is gone'. — tantum: — 'only so much'. — consecutus sis: 'you may have obtained'. The subjunctive is here used in the indefinite second person to give a hypothetical character to the statement of the verb. The indicative might have been expected; the expression almost = consecuti sumus, consecutus aliquis est. Roby, 1546; G. 252, Rem. 3; H. 486, III. — virtute et recte factis: the same opinion is enforced in Tusc. 1, 109. — quid sequatur: 'the future'; cf. Lucr. 1, 459 transactum quid sit in aevo, Tum quae res instet, quid porro deinde sequatur. — quod ... contentus: this passage with the whole context resembles Lucretius 3, 931-977; cf. especially 938 cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis; 960 satur ac plenus discedere rerum. Cf. also Hor. Sat. 1, 1, 117-118.
[70.] ut placeat: 'in order to secure approval'. — peragenda: cf. [n. on 50] comparandae. — plaudite: the Latin plays nearly always ended with this word, addressed by the actor to the audience; cf. Hor. A.P. 153 si plausoris eges aulaea manentis et usque Sessuri donec cantor 'vos plaudite' dicat. — breve tempus etc.: one of the poets has said that 'in small measures lives may perfect be'. Cf. also Tusc. 1, 109 nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere; Seneca, Ep. 77 quo modo fabula, sic vita: non quam diu, sed quam bene acta sit refert. — processerit: probably the subject is sapiens, in which case aetate must also be supplied from aetatis; the subject may however be aetas. — ostendit: 'gives promise of'; cf. Fam. 9, 8, 1 etsi munus (gladiatorial show) flagitare quamvis quis ostenderit, ne populus quidem solet nisi concitatus. With the whole passage cf. pro Cael. 76.
[71.] ut ... dixi: in [9], [60], [62]. — secundum naturam: = κατα φυσιν a Stoic phrase; cf. [n. on 5] naturam optimam ducem. — senibus: dative of reference; emori stands as subject to an implied est. — contingit: see [n. on 8]. — exstinguitur: there is the same contrast between opprimere and exstinguere in Lael. 78. — quasi ... evelluntur: it is rare to find in Cic. or the other prose writers of the best period a verb in the indicative mood immediately dependent on quasi, in the sense of sicut or quem ad modum. When two things are compared by quasi ... ita, the indicative verb is nearly always put in the second clause, and may be supplied in the clause with quasi; very rarely are there two different verbs for the two clauses. Cf. however Plautus, Stich. 539 fuit olim, quasi nunc ego sum senex; Lucr. 3, 492 agens animam spumat quasi ... fervescunt undae. — si ... si: for the more usual si ... sin. — accedam: see A. 342; G. 666; H. 529, II. — in portum: speaking of death, Cic. says in Tusc. 1, 118 portum potius paratum nobis et perfugium putemus: quo utinam velis passis pervehi liceat! Sin reflantibus ventis reiciemur tamen eodem paulo tardius referamur necesse est; cf. also ib. 1, 107.
P. [30] — [72.] munus offici: see [n. on 29]. — tueri: 'uphold'. — possit: subject indefinite. — ex quo fit etc.: the argument seems to be that youth knows how long it has to last and is therefore less spirited than age, which knows not when it will end. — animosior ... fortior: Horace, Odes 2, 10, 21 rebus angustis animosus atque fortis appare; the two words are joined also in Cic. Mil. 92: animosus, 'spirited'. — hoc illud est etc.: 'this is the meaning of the answer made by Solon etc'. Cf. Div. 1, 122 hoc nimirum illud est quod de Socrate accepimus, also the Greek phrase ‛η τουτ' εκεινο. Est = valet as in 69. — Pisistratus: the despot of Athens, who seized the power in 560 B.C. Plutarch, who tells the story, 'An Seni Sit Gerenda Respublica' c. 21, makes Solon speak to the friends of Pisistratus, not to P. himself. — quaerenti: see [n. on 11] dividenti. — audaciter: Quintil. 1, 6, 17 condemns those who used audaciter for audacter, which latter form, he says, had been used by 'all orators'. Yet the form audaciter is pretty well attested by MSS. here and elsewhere in Cicero. [See Neue, Formenlehre, 1² 662.] For the two forms cf. difficiliter, difficulter. Audaciter is of importance as showing that c before i must have been pronounced just like c in any other position, not as in modern Italian. — certis sensibus: Acad. 2, 19 integris incorruptisque sensibus. — ipsa ... quae: see [n. on 26]. H. 569, I. 2 — coagmentavit: Cic. is fond of such metaphors; cf. Orat. 77 verba verbis quasi coagmentari; Phil. 7, 21 docebo ne coagmentari quidem pacem posse ('that no patched-up peace can be made'). — conglutinavit: a still more favorite metaphor than coagmentare. Cic. has conglutinare rem (Or. 1, 188); amicitias (Lael. 32 and Att. 7, 8, 1); voluntates (Fam. 11, 27, 2); concordiam. (Att. 1, 17, 10); in Phil. 3, 28 Cic. says of Antony that he is totus ex vitiis conglutinatus. — iam: 'further', so below. — conglutinatio: the noun occurs only here and Orat. 78 c. verborum. — reliquum: not infrequently, as here, used substantively with an adjective modifier. — sine causa: 'without sufficient reason'.
[73.] vetat Pythagoras etc.: the passage is from Plato, Phaedo 61 A-62 C. Plato makes Socrates there profess to quote Philolaus, the Pythagorean; Cic. therefore refers the doctrine to Pythagoras Cf. Tusc. 1, 74; Rep. 6, 15. The Stoics held the same view about suicide, which they authorized in extreme cases, but much less freely than is commonly supposed; cf. Sen. Ep. 117, 22 nihil mihi videtur turpius quam optare mortem. See Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, Ch. 12, C (2); cf. also Lecky, Hist. of European Morals, I. p. 228 et seq. (Am. ed.) — imperatoris ... praesidio: here Cic. seems to understand Plato's φρουραι as referring to warfare; in Tusc. and Rep. he understands it of a prison. — sapientis: Solon was one of the 'Seven Sages of Greece'. — elogium: the distich is preserved by Plutarch, and runs thus: μηδε μοι ακλαυστος θανατος μολοι, αλλα φιλοισι Καλλειποιμι θανων αλγεα και στοναχας. Cic. thus translates it in Tusc. 1, 117 Mors mea ne careat lacrimis, linquamus amicis Maerorem, ut celebrent funera cum gemitu. The epitaph of Ennius is also quoted there and is declared to be better than that of Solon (cf. Tusc. 1, 34). — volt se esse carum: 'he wishes to make out that he is beloved'; volt esse carus would have had quite a different sense. Cf. Fin. 5, 13 Strato physicum se volt, with Madvig's n. — haud scio an: see [n. on 56]. — faxit: the subject is quisquam understood from nemo. For the form see A. 142, 128, e, 3; G. 191, 5; H. 240, 4. The end of the epitaph is omitted here as in Tusc. 1, 117, but is given in Tusc. 1, 34 cur? volito vivas per ora virum. Notice the alliteration.
[74.] isque: cf. [n. on 13] vixitque. — aut optandus aut nullus: cf. [66] aut neglegenda ... aut optanda; nullus almost = non as in [67], but only in the Letters does Cic. (imitating Plautus and the other dramatists) attach nullus in this sense to the name of a particular person; e.g. Att. 11, 24, 4 Philotimus nullus venit. — sed ... esse: 'but we must con this lesson from our youth up'. For the passive sense of meditatum cf. [n. on 4] adeptam. In Tusc. 1, 74 Cic., imitating Plato, says tota philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est. So Seneca, tota vita discendum est mori. — sine qua ... nemo potest: these words bring the position of Cicero with regard to death wonderfully near that of Lucretius: the latter argues that for peace of mind one must believe 'nullum esse sensum post mortem'; the former's lesson is 'aut nullum esse sensum aut optandum'. — timens: = si quis timet; the subject of poterit is the indefinite quis involved in timens. A. 310, a; G. 670; H. 549, 2. — qui: = quo modo, as in [4]. — animo consistere: so in pro Quint. 77; also mente consistere in Phil. 2, 68; Div. 2, 149; Q. Fr. 2, 3, 2 neque mente neque lingua neque ore consistere. The word is, literally, 'to stand firm', 'to get a firm foothold'.