Pythagoras to belief in the immortality of the soul; it formed a part of
his doctrine of Metempsychosis. He was also noted for his numerical
speculations in Astronomy and Music. With him is said to have originated
the doctrine of the 'harmony of the spheres'. -- QUI ESSENT: 'inasmuch as
they were'. Cicero often tries to make out a connection between Pythagoras
and the early Romans; cf. Tusc. 4, 2; also Liv. 1, 18. -- EX UNIVERSA
MENTE: the world-soul. Diog. Laert 8 gives as Pythagorean the doctrine
ψυχην ειναι αποσπασμα του αιθερος και αθανατον. Similar doctrines occur in
Plato and the Stoics; cf. Div. 1, 110 _a qua (i.e. a natura deorum) ut
doctissimis sapientissimisque placuit, haustos animos et libatos habemus_;
Tusc. 5, 38 _humanus animus decerptus ex mente divina_; Sen. Dial. 12, 6,
7. -- HABEREMUS: imperfect where the English requires the present. A. 287,
_d_; H. 495, V. -- SOCRATES: in Plato's Phaedo. -- IMMORTALITATE ANIMORUM:
this is commoner than _immortalitas animi_, for 'the immortality of the
soul'; so Lael. 14; Tusc. 1, 80 _aeternitas animorum_. -- DISSERUISSET:
subjunctive because involving the statements of some other person than the
speaker. A. 341, _c_; G. 630; H. 528, 1. -- IS QUI ESSET etc.: 'a man great
enough to have been declared wisest'. See n. on Lael. 7 _Apollinis ...
iudicatum_. -- SIC: cf. _ita_ above. -- CELERITAS ANIMORUM: the ancients
pictured to themselves the mind as a substance capable of exceedingly rapid
movement; cf. Tusc. 1, 43 _nulla est celeritas quae possit cum animi
celeritate contendere_. -- TANTAE SCIENTIAE: as the plural of _scientia_ is
almost unknown in classical Latin, recent editors take _scientiae_ here as
genitive, 'so many arts requiring so much knowledge'. In favor of this
interpretation are such passages as Acad. 2, 146 _artem sine scientia esse
non posse_; Fin. 5, 26 _ut omnes artes in aliqua scientia versentur_. Yet
in De Or. 1, 61 _physica ista et mathematica et quae paulo ante ceterarum
artium propria posuisti, scientiae sunt eorum qui illa profitentur_ it is
very awkward to take _scientiae_ as genitive. -- CUMQUE SEMPER etc.: this
argument is copied very closely from Plato's Phaedrus, 245 C. -- PRINCIPIUM
MOTUS: αρχη κινησεως in Plato. -- SE IPSE: cf. n. on 4 _a se ipsi_. -- CUM
SIMPLEX etc: from Plato's Phaedo, 78-80. The general drift of the argument
is this: material things decay because they are compounded of parts that
fall asunder; there is nothing to show that the soul is so compounded;
therefore no reason to believe that it will so decay. Notice the imperfects
_esset ... haberet ... posset_ accommodated to the tense of _persuasi_
above, although the other subjunctives in the sentence are not; cf. n. on
42 _efficeret_. -- NEQUE ... DISSIMILE: in modern phraseology the whole of
this clause would be briefly expressed thus, -- 'and was homogeneous'. --
POSSET: _quod si_ ='whereas if', the subject of _posset_ being _animus_,
and _dividi_ being understood. -- MAGNO ARGUMENTO: ‛ικανον τεκμηριον in Pl.
Phaed. 72 A. Belief in the immortality of the soul naturally follows the
acceptance of the doctrine of pre-existence. -- HOMINES SCIRE etc.: See
Plato, Phaedo, 72 E-73 B. The notion that the souls of men existed before
the bodies with which they are connected has been held in all ages and has
often found expression in literature. The English poets have not
infrequently alluded to it. See Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of
Immortality from the Recollections of Early Childhood, 'Our birth is but a
sleep and a forgetting' etc.; also, in Tennyson's Two Voices the passage
beginning, --
'Yet how should I for certain hold,
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?'
REMINISCI ET RECORDARI: a double translation of Plato's αναμιμνησκεσθαι,
quite in Cicero's fashion; the former word implies a momentary act, the
latter one of some duration. -- HAEC PLATONIS FERE: 'so far Plato'.
79. APUD XENOPHONTEM: Cyropaedia, 8, 7, 17; for _apud_ cf. 30; when Cic.
says that a passage is 'in' a certain author (not naming the book) he uses
_apud_, not _in_. -- MAIOR: 'the elder'; cf. 59 _Cyrum minorem_. -- NOLITE
ARBITRARI: a common periphrasis. A. 269, _a_, 2; G. 264, II.; H. 489, I. --
DUM ERAM: the imperfect with _dum_ is not common; see Roby, 1458, _c_; A.
276, _e_, n.; G. 572, 571; H. 519, I., 467, 4 with n.
P. 33. -- 80. NEC ... TENEREMUS: the souls of the dead continue to exert an
influence on the living, or else their fame would not remain; a weak
argument. -- MIHI ... POTUIT: cf. 82 _nemo ... persuadebit_. -- VIVERE ...
EMORI: adversative asyndeton. -- INSIPIENTEM: in Xen. αφρων, _i.e._ without
power of thinking. -- SED: 'but rather that ...'. -- HOMINIS NATURA: a
periphrasis for _homo_; cf. Fin. 5, 33 _intellegant, si quando naturam
hominis dicam, hominem dicere me; nihil enim hoc differt_. -- NIHIL ...
SOMNUM: poets and artists from Homer (Il. 16, 682) onwards have pictured
death as sleep's brother. Cf. Lessing, How the Ancients Represented Death.
81. ATQUI: see n. on 6. -- DORMIENTIUM ANIMI etc.: see Div. 1, 60 where a
passage of similar import is translated from Plato's Republic IX; ib. 115.
-- REMISSI ET LIBERI: cf. Div. 1, 113 _animus solutus ac vacuus_; De Or. 2,
193 _animo leni ac remisso_. -- CORPORIS: the singular, though _animi_
precedes; so in Lael. 13; Tusc. 2, 12, etc. -- PULCHRITUDINEM: κοσμον; Cic.
translates it by _ornatus_ in Acad. 2, 119 where _hic ornatus_ corresponds
to _hic mundus_ a little earlier. -- TUENTUR: see n. on 77 _tuerentur_. --
SERVABITIS: future for imperative. A. 269, _f_; G. 265, 1; H. 487, 4.
82. CYRUS etc.: see n. on 78. -- SI PLACET: cf. n. on 6 _nisi molestum
est_. -- NOSTRA: = _Romana = domestica_ in 12. -- NEMO etc.: this line of
argument is often repeated in Cic.; see Tusc. 1, 32 _et seq._; Arch. 29. --
DUOS AVOS ... PATRUUM: see nn. on 29. -- MULTOS: _sc. alios_. -- ESSE
CONATOS: loosely put for _fuisse conaturos_, as below, _suscepturum
fuisse_. So in the direct narration we might have, though exceptionally,
_non conabantur nisi cernerent_ for _non conati essent nisi vidissent_. --
CERNERENT: see n. on 13 quaereretur. -- UT ... GLORIER: in Arch. 30 Cic.
makes the same reflections in almost the same words about his own
achievements. -- ALIQUID: see n. on 1 _quid_.
P. 34. -- SI ISDEM etc.: cf. Arch. 29 _si nihil animus praesentiret ...
dimicaret_. -- AETATEM: = _vitam_. -- TRADUCERE: cf. Tusc. 3, 25 _volumus
hoc quod datum est vitae tranquille placideque traducere_. -- NESCIO QUO
MODO: A. 210, _f_, Rem.; G. 469, Rem. 2; H. 529, 5, 3). -- ERIGENS SE:
Acad. 2, 127 _erigimur, elatiores fieri videmur_. -- HAUD ... NITERETUR: in
Cicero's speeches _haud_ scarcely occurs except before adverbs and the verb
_scio_; in the philosophical writings and in the Letters before many other
verbs. -- IMMORTALITATIS GLORIAM: so Balb. 16 _sempiterni nominis gloriam_.
Cf. also Arch. 26 _trahimur omnes studio laudis et optimus quisque maxime
gloria ducitur_.
83. NON VIDERE: either _non videre_ or _non item_ was to be expected, as
Cicero does not often end sentences or clauses with _non_. -- COLUI ET
DILEXI: so 26 _coluntur et diliguntur_. -- VIDENDI: Cic. for the most part
avoids the genitive plural of the gerundive in agreement with a noun, and
uses the gerund as here. Meissner notes that Latin has no verb with the
sense 'to see again', which a modern would use here. -- CONSCRIPSI: in the
_Origines_. -- QUO: = _ad quos_; see n. on 12 _fore unde_. -- PELIAN: a
mistake of Cicero's. It was not Pelias but his half-brother Aeson, father
of Iason, whom Medea made young again by cutting him to pieces and boiling
him in her enchanted cauldron. She, however, induced the daughters of
Pelias to try the same experiment with their father; the issue, of course,
was very different. Plautus, Pseud. 3, 2, 80 seems to make the same
mistake. -- SI QUIS DEUS: the present subjunctive is noticeable; strictly,
an impossible condition should require the past tense, but in vivid
passages an impossible condition is momentarily treated as possible. So
Cic. generally says _si reviviscat aliquis_, not _revivisceret_. -- DECURSO
SPATIO: 'when I have run my race'. See n. on 14. Lucretius 3, 1042 oddly
has _decurso lumine vitae_. -- AD CARCERES A CALCE: _carceres_ were the
barriers behind which the horses and cars stood waiting for the race;
_calx_ (γραμμη), literally 'a chalked line', was what we should call 'the
winning post'. Cf. Lael. 101; Tusc. 1, 15 _nunc video calcem ad quam cum
sit decursum, nihil sit praeterea extimescendum._
84. HABEAT: concessive. A. 266, _c_; G. 257; H. 484, 3. -- MULTI ET EI
DOCTI: as Nägelsbach, Stilistik § 25, 5, remarks, Cic. always uses this
phrase and not _multi docti_. One of the books Cic. has in view is no doubt
that of Hegesias, a Cyrenaic philosopher, mentioned in Tusc. 1, 84. --
COMMORANDI ... DIVORSORIUM: 'a hostelry wherein to sojourn'. The idea has
been expressed in literature in a thousand ways. Cf. Lucr. 3, 938 _cur non
ut plenus vitae conviva recedis_; Hor. Sat. 1, 1, 118 _vita cedat uti
conviva satur_. Cicero often insists that heaven is the _vera aeternaque
domus_ of the soul (cf. Tusc. 1, 118). Cf. Epist. to the Hebrews, 13, 14
'Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come'. -- CONCILIUM
COETUMQUE: so in Rep. 6, 13 _concilia coetusque hominum quae civitates
vocantur_. The words here seem to imply that the real _civitas_ is above;
what seems to men a _civitas_ is merely a disorganized crowd.
P. 35. -- CATONEM MEUM: see 15, 68; so Cicero in his letters often calls
his own son _meus Cicero_. -- NEMO VIR: see n. on 21 _quemquam senem_. --
QUOD CONTRA: = ‛ο τουναντιον, 'whereas on the contrary'; cf. n. on Lael. 90
where, as well as here, many of the editors make the mistake of taking
_quod_ to be the accusative governed by _contra_ out of place. -- MEUM:
_sc. corpus cremari_. -- QUO: put for _ad quae_, as often. -- VISUS SUM:
'people thought I bore up bravely'. -- NON QUO ... SED: a relative clause
parallel with a categorically affirmative clause. The usage is not
uncommon, though Cic. often has _non quo ... sed quia_. For mood of
_ferrem_ see A. 341, _d_, Rem.; G. 541, Rem. 1.; H. 516, II. 2.
85. DIXISTI: in 4. -- QUI: here = _cum ego_, 'since I ...'. -- EXTORQUERI
VOLO: n. on 2 _levari volo_. -- MINUTI PHILOSOPHI: for the word _minutus_
cf. n. on 46; Cic. has _minuti philosophi_ in Acad. 2, 75; Div. 1, 62; in
Fin. 1, 61 _minuti et angusti (homines)_; in Brut. 265 _m. imperatores_;
cf. Suet. Aug. 83 _m. pueri_. -- SENTIAM: future indicative. -- PERACTIO:
the noun is said to occur only here in Cic.; cf. however 64 _peragere_; 70.
-- HAEC ... DICEREM: the same words occur at the end of the Laelius; for
_habeo quod dicam_ Cic. often says _habeo dicere_, as in Balb. 34.
[1] Horace, Ep. 2, 1, 156:--
_Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio._
[2] De Off. 1, 1 2: _philosophandi scientiam concedens multis_ etc.
[3] To judge rightly of Cicero it must be remembered that he was a
politician only by accident: his whole natural bent was towards literature.
[4] To see the truth of this it is only necessary to refer for example to
the weight given to the opinions of Cicero in the heated political
discussions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[5] Almost every branch of learning was ranked under the head of
Philosophy. Strabo even claimed that one branch of Philosophy was
Geography.
[6] 2, 3 _interiectus est nuper liber is quem ad nostrum Atticum de
senectute misimus._ No argument can be founded on the words _interiectus
est_, over which the editors have wasted much ingenuity. They simply mean
'there was inserted in the series of my works'.
[7] See 2, 23.
[8] 14, 21, 3; 16, 3, 1; 16, 11, 3.
[9] See Att. 14, 21, 1.
[10] It was certainly not written, as Sommerbrodt assumes, in the intervals
of composing the _De Divinatione_. The words in 2, 7 of that work--_quoniam
de re publica consuli coepti sumus_ etc.--point to the end of September or
beginning of October, 44, when Cicero returned to Rome and began to compose
his Philippic orations.
[11] § 1.
[12] It is perhaps not a mere accident that the prowess of L. Brutus _in
liberanda patria_ is mentioned in § 75. There may be a reference to the
latest Brutus who had freed his country.
[13] In March, 45.
[14] § 12.
[15] § 84.
[16] See p. iii. above.
[17] In the notes exact references will be given to the places in the
original where the other passages mentioned may be found.
[18] Particularly the first book of the _Tusculan Disputations_, the _De
Republica_, and the _Laelius_.
[19] See 4, below.
[20] § 3.
[21] Works on Old Age are said to have been written by Theophrastus and
Demetrius Phalereus, either or both of which Cicero might have used. One
passage in § 67, _facilius in morbos ... tristius curantur_, is supposed by
many to have been imitated from Hippocrates; but the resemblance is
probably accidental. Cf. De Off. 1, 24, 83.
[22] See § 2.
[23] See Att. 16, 11, 3; 16, 3, 1; 14, 21, 3.
[24] § 2.
[25] As Cicero's intention was to set old age in a favorable light, he
slights Aristo Cius for giving to Tithonus the chief part in a dialogue on
old age. See § 3; cf. also Laelius, § 4.
[26] See below (ii.), 1.
[27] On the whole subject of Aristotle's dialogues see Bernays' monograph,
_Die Dialoge des Aristoteles_.
[28] § 32 _quartum ago annum et octogesimum_. Cf. Lael. 11 _memini Catonem
ante quam est mortuus mecum et cum Scipione disserere_ etc.
[29] Cicero always indicates this date; cf. § 14. Some other writers, as
Livy, give, probably wrongly, an earlier date.
[30] He himself says (Festus, p.28l) _ego iam a principio in parsimonia
atque in duritia atque industria omnem adulescentiam, abstinui agro
colendo, saxis Sabinis silicibus repastinandis atque conserendis_. Cf.
Gell. _Noct. Att._ 13, 23.
[31] See Cat. M. 44.
[32] Plut. C. 1; Cat. M. §§ 18, 32: Cato himself ap. Fest. s.v.
_ordinarius_ says _quid mihi fieret si non ego stipendia in ordine omnia
ordinarius meruissem semper?_
[33] § 10.
[34] If Plutarch may be trusted, Cato at the age of 30 had won for himself
the title of 'the Roman Demosthenes'.
[35] § 10.
[36] In § 10 Cicero makes the quaestorship fall in 205, but he refers to
the election, not to the actual year of office.
[37] Nepos (or pseudo-Nepos), Cat. 1.
[38] Cato afterwards made it a charge against M. Fulvius Nobilior that he
had taken Ennius with him on a campaign (Tusc. 1, 3). But Cato used Ennius
as soldier while Nobilior employed him as poet.
[39] It is difficult, however, to fix the date of this enactment. Some
authorities place it after Cato's return from Spain.
[40] Livy 34, cc. 1-8.
[41] See Livy, 34, 18.
[42] _i.e._ he was _legatus consularis_. It was at the time a common thing
for ex-consuls to take service under their successors. So Liv. 36, 17, 1,
but Cic. Cat. M. c 10 says _tribunus militaris_.
[43] Cicero's statements throughout the treatise concerning the relations
between Cato and Africanus the elder, particularly in § 77 where Cato calls
his enemy _amicissimus_, are audaciously inexact.
[44] See Cato M. § 42.
[45] We possess the titles of 26 speeches delivered during or concerning
his censorship.
[46] He is said to have undergone 44 prosecutions, and to have been
prosecutor as often.
[47] See Lael. 9; Cat. M. 12 and 84.
[48] Cf. Livy, 39, 40.
[49] The common view is that Cato said nothing of Roman history from
509-266 B.C.
[50] Cf. Cic. pro Arch. 7, 16.
[51] See Coulanges, 'Ancient City', Bk. II. Ch. 4.
[52] See §§ 12, 41 etc.
[53] De Or. 2, 170; Fam. 9, 21, 3; Qu. Fr. 2, 3, 3.
[54] In _De Re Publica_ 2, 1 Cicero makes Scipio talk extravagantly of
Cato.
[55] See Introduction to the Laelius, pp. vi, vii.
[56] A. = Allen and Greenough's Grammar, Revised Ed.; G. = Gildersleeve's
Grammar; H. = Harkness's Grammar, Rev. Ed. of 1881. In quoting from the
works of Cicero reference is made to sections, not to chapters.
End of Project Gutenberg's Cato Maior de Senectute, by Marcus Tullius Cicero