BOOK VI.

SCIPIO'S DREAM.

I. Therefore you rely upon all the prudence of this rule,

which has derived its very name (_prudentia_) from foreseeing

(_a providendo_). Wherefore the citizen must so prepare

himself as to be always armed against those things which

trouble the constitution of a state. And that dissension of

the citizens, when one party separates from and attacks

another, is called sedition.

And in truth in civil dissensions, as the good are of more

importance than the many, I think that we should regard the

weight of the citizens, and not their number.

For the lusts, being severe mistresses of the thoughts,

command and compel many an unbridled action. And as they

cannot be satisfied or appeased by any means, they urge those

whom they have inflamed with their allurements to every kind

of atrocity.

II. Which indeed was so much the greater in him because

though the cause of the colleagues was identical, not only

was their unpopularity not equal, but the influence of

Gracchus was employed in mitigating the hatred borne to

Claudius.

Who encountered the number of the chiefs and nobles with

these words, and left behind him that mournful and dignified

expression of his gravity and influence.

That, as he writes, a thousand men might every day descend

into the forum with cloaks dyed in purple.

[_The next paragraph is unintelligible._]

For our ancestors wished marriages to be firmly established.

There is a speech extant of Lælius with which we are all

acquainted, expressing how pleasing to the immortal gods are

the * * * and * * * of the priests.

III. Cicero, writing about the Commonwealth, in imitation of

Plato, has related the story of the return of Er the

Pamphylian to life; who, as he says, had come to life again

after he had been placed on the funeral pile, and related

many secrets about the shades below; not speaking, like

Plato, in a fabulous imitation of truth, but using a certain

reasonable invention of an ingenious dream, cleverly

intimating that these things which were uttered about the

immortality of the soul, and about heaven, are not the

inventions of dreaming philosophers, nor the incredible

fables which the Epicureans ridicule, but the conjectures of

wise men. He insinuates that that Scipio who by the

subjugation of Carthage obtained Africanus as a surname for

his family, gave notice to Scipio the son of Paulus of the

treachery which threatened him from his relations, and the

course of fate, because by the necessity of numbers he was

confined in the period of a perfect life, and he says that he

in the fifty-sixth year of his age * * *

IV. Some of our religion who love Plato, on account of his

admirable kind of eloquence, and of some correct opinions

which he held, say that he had some opinions similar to my

own touching the resurrection of the dead, which subject

Tully touches on in his treatise on the Commonwealth, and

says that he was rather jesting than intending to say that

was true. For he asserts that a man returned to life, and

related some stories which harmonized with the discussions of

the Platonists.

V. In this point the imitation has especially preserved the

likeness of the work, because, as Plato, in the conclusion of

his volume, represents a certain person who had returned to

life, which he appeared to have quitted, as indicating what

is the condition of souls when stripped of the body, with the

addition of a certain not unnecessary description of the

spheres and stars, an appearance of circumstances indicating

things of the same kind is related by the Scipio of Cicero,

as having been brought before him in sleep.

VI. Tully is found to have preserved this arrangement with no

less judgment than genius. After, in every condition of the

Commonwealth, whether of leisure or business, he has given

the palm to justice, he has placed the sacred abodes of the

immortal souls, and the secrets of the heavenly regions, on

the very summit of his completed work, indicating whither

they must come, or rather return, who have managed the

republic with prudence, justice, fortitude, and moderation.

But that Platonic relater of secrets was a man of the name of

Er, a Pamphylian by nation, a soldier by profession, who,

after he appeared to have died from wounds received in

battle, and twelve days afterward was about to receive the

honors of the funeral pile with the others who were slain at

the same time, suddenly either recovering his life, or else

never having lost it, as if he were giving a public

testimony, related to all men all that he had done or seen in

the days that he had thus passed between life and death.

Although Cicero, as if himself conscious of the truth,

grieves that this story has been ridiculed by the ignorant,

still, avoiding giving an example of foolish reproach, he

preferred speaking of the relater as of one awakened from a

swoon rather than restored to life.

VII. And before we look at the words of the dream we must

explain what kind of persons they are by whom Cicero says

that even the account of Plato was ridiculed, who are not

apprehensive that the same thing may happen to them. Nor by

this expression does he wish the ignorant mob to be

understood, but a kind of men who are ignorant of the truth,

though pretending to be philosophers with a display of

learning, who, it was notorious, had read such things, and

were eager to find faults. We will say, therefore, who they

are whom he reports as having levelled light reproaches

against so great a philosopher, and who of them has even left

an accusation of him committed to writing, etc. The whole

faction of the Epicureans, always wandering at an equal

distance from truth, and thinking everything ridiculous which

they do not understand, has ridiculed the sacred volume, and

the most venerable mysteries of nature. But Colotes, who is

somewhat celebrated and remarkable for his loquacity among

the pupils of Epicurus, has even recorded in a book the

bitter reproaches which he aims at him. But since the other

arguments which he foolishly urges have no connection with

the dream of which we are now talking, we will pass them over

at present, and attend only to the calumny which will stick

both to Cicero and Plato, unless it is silenced. He says that

a fable ought not to have been invented by a philosopher,

since no kind of falsehood is suitable to professors of

truth. For why, says he, if you wish to give us a notion of

heavenly things and to teach us the nature of souls, did you

not do so by a simple and plain explanation? Why was a

character invented, and circumstances, and strange events,

and a scene of cunningly adduced falsehood arranged, to

pollute the very door of the investigation of truth by a lie?

Since these things, though they are said of the Platonic Er,

do also attack the rest of our dreaming Africanus.

VIII. This occasion incited Scipio to relate his dream, which

he declares that he had buried in silence for a long time.

For when Lælius was complaining that there were no statues of

Nasica erected in any public place, as a reward for his

having slain the tyrant, Scipio replied in these words: "But

although the consciousness itself of great deeds is to wise

men the most ample reward of virtue, yet that divine nature

ought to have, not statues fixed in lead, nor triumphs with

withering laurels, but some more stable and lasting kinds of

rewards." "What are they?" said Lælius. "Then," said Scipio,

"suffer me, since we have now been keeping holiday for three

days, * * * etc." By which preface he came to the relation of

his dream; pointing out that those were the more stable and

lasting kinds of rewards which he himself had seen in heaven

reserved for good governors of commonwealths.

IX. When I had arrived in Africa, where I was, as you are aware,

military tribune of the fourth legion under the consul Manilius, there

was nothing of which I was more earnestly desirous than to see King

Masinissa, who, for very just reasons, had been always the especial

friend of our family. When I was introduced to him, the old man

embraced me, shed tears, and then, looking up to heaven, exclaimed--I

thank thee, O supreme Sun, and ye also, ye other celestial beings, that

before I depart from this life I behold in my kingdom, and in this my

palace, Publius Cornelius Scipio, by whose mere name I seem to be

reanimated; so completely and indelibly is the recollection of that

best and most invincible of men, Africanus, imprinted in my mind.

After this, I inquired of him concerning the affairs of his kingdom.

He, on the other hand, questioned me about the condition of our

Commonwealth, and in this mutual interchange of conversation we passed

the whole of that day.

X. In the evening we were entertained in a manner worthy the

magnificence of a king, and carried on our discourse for a considerable

part of the night. And during all this time the old man spoke of

nothing but Africanus, all whose actions, and even remarkable sayings,

he remembered distinctly. At last, when we retired to bed, I fell into

a more profound sleep than usual, both because I was fatigued with my

journey, and because I had sat up the greatest part of the night.

Here I had the following dream, occasioned, as I verily believe, by our

preceding conversation; for it frequently happens that the thoughts and

discourses which have employed us in the daytime produce in our sleep

an effect somewhat similar to that which Ennius writes happened to him

about Homer, of whom, in his waking hours, he used frequently to think

and speak.

Africanus, I thought, appeared to me in that shape, with which I was

better acquainted from his picture than from any personal knowledge of

him. When I perceived it was he, I confess I trembled with

consternation; but he addressed me, saying, Take courage, my Scipio; be

not afraid, and carefully remember what I shall say to you.

XI. Do you see that city Carthage, which, though brought under the

Roman yoke by me, is now renewing former wars, and cannot live in

peace? (and he pointed to Carthage from a lofty spot, full of stars,

and brilliant, and glittering)--to attack which city you are this day

arrived in a station not much superior to that of a private soldier.

Before two years, however, are elapsed, you shall be consul, and

complete its overthrow; and you shall obtain, by your own merit, the

surname of Africanus, which as yet belongs to you no otherwise than as

derived from me. And when you have destroyed Carthage, and received the

honor of a triumph, and been made censor, and, in quality of

ambassador, visited Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you shall be

elected a second time consul in your absence, and, by utterly

destroying Numantia, put an end to a most dangerous war.

But when you have entered the Capitol in your triumphal car, you shall

find the Roman Commonwealth all in a ferment, through the intrigues of

my grandson Tiberius Gracchus.

XII. It is on this occasion, my dear Africanus, that you show your

country the greatness of your understanding, capacity, and prudence.

But I see that the destiny, however, of that time is, as it were,

uncertain; for when your age shall have accomplished seven times eight

revolutions of the sun, and your fatal hours shall be marked put by the

natural product of these two numbers, each of which is esteemed a

perfect one, but for different reasons, then shall the whole city have

recourse to you alone, and place its hopes in your auspicious name. On

you the senate, all good citizens, the allies, the people of Latium,

shall cast their eyes; on you the preservation of the State shall

entirely depend. In a word, _if you escape the impious machinations of

your relatives_, you will, in quality of dictator, establish order and

tranquillity in the Commonwealth.

When on this Lælius made an exclamation, and the rest of the company

groaned loudly, Scipio, with a gentle smile, said, I entreat you, do

not wake me out of my dream, but have patience, and hear the rest.

XIII. Now, in order to encourage you, my dear Africanus, continued the

shade of my ancestor, to defend the State with the greater

cheerfulness, be assured that, for all those who have in any way

conduced to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native

country, there is a certain place in heaven where they shall enjoy an

eternity of happiness. For nothing on earth is more agreeable to God,

the Supreme Governor of the universe, than the assemblies and societies

of men united together by laws, which are called states. It is from

heaven their rulers and preservers came, and thither they return.

XIV. Though at these words I was extremely troubled, not so much at the

fear of death as at the perfidy of my own relations, yet I recollected

myself enough to inquire whether he himself, my father Paulus, and

others whom we look upon as dead, were really living.

Yes, truly, replied he, they all enjoy life who have escaped from the

chains of the body as from a prison. But as to what you call life on

earth, that is no more than one form of death. But see; here comes your

father Paulus towards you! And as soon as I observed him, my eyes burst

out into a flood of tears; but he took me in his arms, embraced me, and

bade me not weep.

XV. When my first transports subsided, and I regained the liberty of

speech, I addressed my father thus: Thou best and most venerable of

parents, since this, as I am informed by Africanus, is the only

substantial life, why do I linger on earth, and not rather haste to

come hither where you are?

That, replied he, is impossible: unless that God, whose temple is all

that vast expanse you behold, shall free you from the fetters of the

body, you can have no admission into this place. Mankind have received

their being on this very condition, that they should labor for the

preservation of that globe which is situated, as you see, in the midst

of this temple, and is called earth.

Men are likewise endowed with a soul, which is a portion of the eternal

fires which you call stars and constellations; and which, being round,

spherical bodies, animated by divine intelligences, perform their

cycles and revolutions with amazing rapidity. It is your duty,

therefore, my Publius, and that of all who have any veneration for the

Gods, to preserve this wonderful union of soul and body; nor without

the express command of Him who gave you a soul should the least thought

be entertained of quitting human life, lest you seem to desert the post

assigned you by God himself.

But rather follow the examples of your grandfather here, and of me,

your father, in paying a strict regard to justice and piety; which is

due in a great degree to parents and relations, but most of all to our

country. Such a life as this is the true way to heaven, and to the

company of those, who, after having lived on earth and escaped from the

body, inhabit the place which you now behold.

XVI. This was the shining circle, or zone, whose remarkable brightness

distinguishes it among the constellations, and which, after the Greeks,

you call the Milky Way.

From thence, as I took a view of the universe, everything appeared

beautiful and admirable; for there those stars are to be seen that are

never visible from our globe, and everything appears of such magnitude

as we could not have imagined. The least of all the stars was that

removed farthest from heaven, and situated next to the earth; I mean

our moon, which shines with a borrowed light. Now, the globes of the

stars far surpass the magnitude of our earth, which at that distance

appeared so exceedingly small that I could not but be sensibly affected

on seeing our whole empire no larger than if we touched the earth, as

it were, at a single point.

XVII. And as I continued to observe the earth with great attention, How

long, I pray you, said Africanus, will your mind be fixed on that

object? why don't you rather take a view of the magnificent temples

among which you have arrived? The universe is composed of nine circles,

or rather spheres, one of which is the heavenly one, and is exterior to

all the rest, which it embraces; being itself the Supreme God, and

bounding and containing the whole. In it are fixed those stars which

revolve with never-varying courses. Below this are seven other spheres,

which revolve in a contrary direction to that of the heavens. One of

these is occupied by the globe which on earth they call Saturn. Next to

that is the star of Jupiter, so benign and salutary to mankind. The

third in order is that fiery and terrible planet called Mars. Below

this, again, almost in the middle region, is the sun--the leader,

governor, and prince of the other luminaries; the soul of the world,

which it regulates and illumines; being of such vast size that it

pervades and gives light to all places. Then follow Venus and Mercury,

which attend, as it were, on the sun. Lastly, the moon, which shines

only in the reflected beams of the sun, moves in the lowest sphere of

all. Below this, if we except that gift of the Gods, the soul, which

has been given by the liberality of the Gods to the human race,

everything is mortal, and tends to dissolution; but above the moon all

is eternal. For the earth, which is the ninth globe, and occupies the

centre, is immovable, and, being the lowest, all others gravitate

towards it.

XVIII. When I had recovered myself from the astonishment occasioned by

such a wonderful prospect, I thus addressed Africanus: Pray what is

this sound that strikes my ears in so loud and agreeable a manner? To

which he replied: It is that which is called the _music of the

spheres_, being produced by their motion and impulse; and being formed

by unequal intervals, but such as are divided according to the justest

proportion, it produces, by duly tempering acute with grave sounds,

various concerts of harmony. For it is impossible that motions so great

should be performed without any noise; and it is agreeable to nature

that the extremes on one side should produce sharp, and on the other

flat sounds. For which reason the sphere of the fixed stars, being the

highest, and being carried with a more rapid velocity, moves with a

shrill and acute sound; whereas that of the moon, being the lowest,

moves with a very flat one. As to the earth, which makes the ninth

sphere, it remains immovably fixed in the middle or lowest part of the

universe. But those eight revolving circles, in which both Mercury and

Venus are moved with the same celerity, give out sounds that are

divided by seven distinct intervals, which is generally the regulating

number of all things.

This celestial harmony has been imitated by learned musicians both on

stringed instruments and with the voice, whereby they have opened to

themselves a way to return to the celestial regions, as have likewise

many others who have employed their sublime genius while on earth in

cultivating the divine sciences.

By the amazing noise of this sound the ears of mankind have been in

some degree deafened; and indeed hearing is the dullest of all the

human senses. Thus, the people who dwell near the cataracts of the

Nile, which are called Catadupa[348], are, by the excessive roar which

that river makes in precipitating itself from those lofty mountains,

entirely deprived of the sense of hearing. And so inconceivably great

is this sound which is produced by the rapid motion of the whole

universe, that the human ear is no more capable of receiving it than

the eye is able to look steadfastly and directly on the sun, whose

beams easily dazzle the strongest sight.

While I was busied in admiring the scene of wonders, I could not help

casting my eyes every now and then on the earth.

XIX. On which Africanus said, I perceive that you are still employed in

contemplating the seat and residence of mankind. But if it appears to

you so small, as in fact it really is, despise its vanities, and fix

your attention forever on these heavenly objects. Is it possible that

you should attain any human applause or glory that is worth the

contending for? The earth, you see, is peopled but in a very few

places, and those, too, of small extent; and they appear like so many

little spots of green scattered through vast, uncultivated deserts. And

those who inhabit the earth are not only so remote from each other as

to be cut off from all mutual correspondence, but their situation being

in oblique or contrary parts of the globe, or perhaps in those

diametrically opposite to yours, all expectation of universal fame must

fall to the ground.

XX. You may likewise observe that the same globe of the earth is girt

and surrounded with certain zones, whereof those two that are most

remote from each other, and lie under the opposite poles of heaven, are

congealed with frost; but that one in the middle, which is far the

largest, is scorched with the intense heat of the sun. The other two

are habitable, one towards the south, the inhabitants of which are your

antipodes, with whom you have no connection; the other, towards the

north, is that which you inhabit, whereof a very small part, as you may

see, falls to your share. For the whole extent of what you see is, as

it were, but a little island, narrow at both ends and wide in the

middle, which is surrounded by the sea which on earth you call the

great Atlantic Ocean, and which, notwithstanding this magnificent name,

you see is very insignificant. And even in these cultivated and

well-known countries, has yours, or any of our names, ever passed the

heights of the Caucasus or the currents of the Ganges? In what other

parts to the north or the south, or where the sun rises and sets, will

your names ever be heard? And if we leave these out of the question,

how small a space is there left for your glory to spread itself abroad;

and how long will it remain in the memory of those whose minds are now

full of it?

XXI. Besides all this, if the progeny of any future generation should

wish to transmit to their posterity the praises of any one of us which

they have heard from their forefathers, yet the deluges and combustions

of the earth, which must necessarily happen at their destined periods,

will prevent our obtaining, not only an eternal, but even a durable

glory. And, after all, what does it signify whether those who shall

hereafter be born talk of you, when those who have lived before you,

whose number was perhaps not less, and whose merit certainly greater,

were not so much as acquainted with your name?

XXII. Especially since not one of those who shall hear of us is able to

retain in his memory the transactions of a single year. The bulk of

mankind, indeed, measure their year by the return of the sun, which is

only one star. But when all the stars shall have returned to the place

whence they set out, and after long periods shall again exhibit the

same aspect of the whole heavens, that is what ought properly to be

called the revolution of a year, though I scarcely dare attempt to

enumerate the vast multitude of ages contained in it. For as the sun in

old time was eclipsed, and seemed to be extinguished, at the time when

the soul of Romulus penetrated into these eternal mansions, so, when

all the constellations and stars shall revert to their primary

position, and the sun shall at the same point and time be again

eclipsed, then you may consider that the grand year is completed. Be

assured, however, that the twentieth part of it is not yet elapsed.

XXIII. Wherefore, if you have no hopes of returning to this place where

great and good men enjoy all that their souls can wish for, of what

value, pray, is all that human glory, which can hardly endure for a

small portion of one year?

If, then, you wish to elevate your views to the contemplation of this

eternal seat of splendor, you will not be satisfied with the praises of

your fellow-mortals, nor with any human rewards that your exploits can

obtain; but Virtue herself must point out to you the true and only

object worthy of your pursuit. Leave to others to speak of you as they

may, for speak they will. Their discourses will be confined to the

narrow limits of the countries you see, nor will their duration be very

extensive; for they will perish like those who utter them, and will be

no more remembered by their posterity.

XXIV. When he had ceased to speak in this manner, I said, O Africanus,

if indeed the door of heaven is open to those who have deserved well of

their country, although, indeed, from my childhood I have always

followed yours and my father's steps, and have not neglected to imitate

your glory, still, I will from henceforth strive to follow them more

closely.

Follow them, then, said he, and consider your body only, not yourself,

as mortal. For it is not your outward form which constitutes your

being, but your mind; not that substance which is palpable to the

senses, but your spiritual nature. _Know, then, that you are a

God_--for a God it must be, which flourishes, and feels, and

recollects, and foresees, and governs, regulates and moves the body

over which it is set, as the Supreme Ruler does the world which is

subject to him. For as that Eternal Being moves whatever is mortal in

this world, so the immortal mind of man moves the frail body with which

it is connected.

XXV. For whatever is always moving must be eternal; but that which

derives its motion from a power which is foreign to itself, when that

motion ceases must itself lose its animation.

That alone, then, which moves itself can never cease to be moved,

because it can never desert itself. Moreover, it must be the source,

and origin, and principle of motion in all the rest. There can be

nothing prior to a principle, for all things must originate from it;

and it cannot itself derive its existence from any other source, for if

it did it would no longer be a principle. And if it had no beginning,

it can have no end; for a beginning that is put an end to will neither

be renewed by any other cause, nor will it produce anything else of

itself. All things, therefore, must originate from one source. Thus it

follows that motion must have its source in something which is moved by

itself, and which can neither have a beginning nor an end. Otherwise

all the heavens and all nature must perish, for it is impossible that

they can of themselves acquire any power of producing motion in

themselves.

XXVI. As, therefore, it is plain that what is moved by itself must be

eternal, who will deny that this is the general condition and nature of

minds? For as everything is inanimate which is moved by an impulse

exterior to itself, so what is animated is moved by an interior impulse

of its own; for this is the peculiar nature and power of mind. And if

that alone has the power of self-motion, it can neither have had a

beginning, nor can it have an end.

Do you, therefore, exercise this mind of yours in the best pursuits.

And the best pursuits are those which consist in promoting the good of

your country. Such employments will speed the flight of your mind to

this its proper abode; and its flight will be still more rapid, if,

even while it is enclosed in the body, it will look abroad, and

disengage itself as much as possible from its bodily dwelling, by the

contemplation of things which are external to itself.

This it should do to the utmost of its power. For the minds of those

who have given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as

it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated

the laws of God and man; and therefore, when they are separated from

their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived,

and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have

been purified by the revolution of many ages.

Thus saying, he vanished, and I awoke from my dream.

A FRAGMENT.

And although it is most desirable that fortune should remain forever in

the most brilliant possible condition, nevertheless, the equability of

life excites less interest than those changeable conditions wherein

prosperity suddenly revives out of the most desperate and ruinous

circumstances.

THE END.

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

Phoenicians. 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 ([Greek: Zeus], or Æther; [Greek: Chthôn],

or Chaos; and [Greek: Chronos], 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,

[Greek: Eipas Hêlie chaire, Kleombrotos Hômbrakiôtês

hêlat' aph' hypsêlou teicheos eis Aidên,

axion ouden idôn thanatou kakon, alla Platônos

hen to peri psychês gramm' analexamenos.]

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 Monoeci

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:

[Greek: Ô xein' angeilon Lakedaimoniois hoti têde

keimetha, tois keinôn peithomenoi nomimois.]

[25] This was expressed in the Greek verses,

[Greek: Archês men mê phynai epichthonioisin ariston,

phynta d' hopôs ôkista pylas Aidyo perêsai]

which by some authors are attributed to Homer.

[26] This is the first fragment of the Cresphontes.--Ed. Var. vii., p.

594.

[Greek: Edei gar hêmas syllogon poioumenous

Ton phynta thrênein, eis hos' erchetai kaka.

Ton d' au thanonta kai ponôn pepaumenon

chairontas euphêmointas ekpemein domôn]

[27] The Greek verses are quoted by Plutarch:

[Greek: Êpou nêpie, êlithioi phrenes andrôn

Euthynoos keitai moiridiô thanatô

Ouk ên gar zôein kalon autô oute goneusi.]

[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] Menoeceus was son of Creon, and in the war of the Argives against

Thebes, Teresias declared that the Thebans should conquer if Menoeceus

would sacrifice himself for his country; and accordingly he killed

himself outside the gates of Thebes.

[30] The Greek is,

[Greek: mêde moi aklaustos thanatos moloi, alla philoisi

poiêsaimi thanôn algea kai stonachas.]

[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,

[Greek: Alla moi oidanetai kradiê cholô hoppot' ekeinou

Mnêsomai hos m' asyphêlon en Argeioisin erexen.]--Il. ix. 642.

I have given Pope's translation in the text.

[38] This is from the Theseus:

[Greek: Egô de touto para sophou tinos mathôn

eis phrontidas noun symphoras t' eballomên

phygas t' emautô prostitheis patras emês.

thanatous t' aôrous, kai kakôn allas hodous

hôs, ei ti paschoim' ôn edoxazon pote

Mê moi neorton prospeson mallon dakoi.]

[39] Ter. Phorm. II. i. 11.

[40] This refers to the speech of Agamemnon in Euripides, in the

Iphigenia in Aulis,

[Greek: Zêlô se, geron,

zêlô d' andrôn hos akindynon

bion exeperas', agnôs, akleês.]--v. 15.

[41] This is a fragment from the Hypsipyle:

[Greek: Ephy men oudeis hostis ou ponei brotôn

thaptei te tekna chater' au ktatai nea,

autos te thnêskei. kai tad' achthontai brotoi

eis gên pherontes gên anankaiôs d' echei

bion therizein hôste karpimon stachyn.]

[42]

[Greek: Pollas ek kephalês prothelymnous helketo chaitas.]--Il. x. 15.

[43]

[Greek: Êtoi ho kappedion to Alêion oios alato

hon thymon katedôn, paton anthrôpôn aleeinôn.]--Il. vi. 201.

[44] This is a translation from Euripides:

[Greek: Hôsth' himeros m' hypêlthe gê te k' ouranô

lexai molousê deuro Mêdeias tychas.]--Med. 57.

[45]

[Greek: Liên gar polloi kai epêtrimoi êmata panta

piptousin, pote ken tis anapneuseie ponoio;

alla chrê ton men katathaptemen, hos ke thanêsi,

nêlea thymon echontas, ep' êmati dakrysantas.]--

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.

[Greek: Ei men tod' êmar prôton ên kakoumenô

kai mê makran dê dia ponôn enaustoloun

eikos sphadazein ên an, hôs neozyga

pôlon, chalinon artiôs dedegmenon

nyn d' amblys eimi, kai katêrtykôs kakôn.]

[47] This is only a fragment, preserved by Stobæus:

[Greek: Tous d' an megistous kai sophôtatous phreni

toiousd' idois an, oios esti nyn hode,

kalôs kakôs prassonti symparainesai

hotan de daimôn andros eutychous to prin

mastig' episê tou biou palintropon,

ta polla phrouda kai kakôs eirêmena.]

[48]

[Greek: Ôk. Oukoun Promêtheu touto gignôskeis hoti

orgês nosousês eisin iatroi logoi.

Pr. ean tis en kairô ge malthassê kear

kai mê sphrigônta thymon ischnainê bia.]--

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."

[Greek: Ton de kai Argeioi meg' egêtheon eisoroôntes,

Trôas de tromos ainos hypêlythe gyia hekaston,

Hektori d' autô thymos eni stêthessi patassen.]

But there is a great difference, as Dr. Clarke remarks, between [Greek:

thymos eni stêthessi patassen] and [Greek: kardeê exô stêtheôn

ethrôsken], or [Greek: tromos ainos hypêlythe gyia].--_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:

[Greek: Ouk estin ouden deinon hôd' eipein epos,

Oude pathos, oude xymphora theêlatos

hês ouk an aroit' achthos anthrôpon physis.]

[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:

[Greek: Chairete d' hymeis pasai, emeio de kai metopisthe

mnêsasth', hoppote ken tis epichthoniôn anthrôpôn

enthad' aneirêtai xeinos talapeirios elthôn

ô kourai, tis d' hymmin anêr hêdistos aoidôn

enthade pôleitai kai teô terpesthe malista;

hymeis d' eu mala pasai hypokrinasthe aph' hêmôn,

Typhlos anêr, oikei de Chiô eni paipaloessê,

tou pasai metopisthen aristeuousin aoidai.]

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: [Greek: ousia, tauton, heteron,

stasis, kinêsis.]

[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 [Greek: prolêpsis] of Epicurus, before mentioned, is what he

here means.

[88] [Greek: Steremnia] 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,

----[Greek: patêr andrôn te theôn te,]

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

prosopopoeias. Cicero, therefore, makes Balbus distinguish between the

person Liber, or Bacchus, and the Liber which is a part of nature in

prosopopoeia.

[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 [Greek: Areios

Pagos], 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, [Greek: aêr]; 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 Coelestis; and all the figures here described by

Aratus nearly agree with the maps of the same constellations in the

Atlas Coelestis, 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 [Greek: en

gonasin] (on his knees). [Greek: Engonasin kaleous'], as Aratus says,

they call Engonasis.

[180] The crown is placed under the feet of Hercules in the Atlas

Coelestis; but Ophiuchus ([Greek: Ophiouchos]), 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 [Greek:

hypo zônê], 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. _Hoedi_, 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 [Greek: Kassiepeia], 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

Coelestis 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,

[Greek: Plêiades]; and they are placed at the neck of the Bull; and one

of Perseus's feet touches the Bull in the Atlas Coelestis.

[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 Coelestis 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 Coelestis.

[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 [Greek: Prokyôn] 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 [Greek: Eidôlon], his "visionary

likeness;" and adds that he himself

[Greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi

terpetai en thaliês, kai echei kallisphyrou Hêbên,

paida Dios megaloio kai Hêrês chrysopedilou.]

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 [Greek: daktyloi] (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 [Greek: thaumazô], 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, [Greek: Anaktes], 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 [Greek: nomos], _lex_, a law.

[270] He is called [Greek: Ôpis] in some old Greek fragments, and

[Greek: Oupis] by Callimachus in his hymn on Diana.

[271] [Greek: Sabazios], 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--

[Greek: Mêd' en napaisi Pêlion pesein pote

tmêtheisa peukê.]

[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 [Greek: kata] and [Greek: doipos], noise.