Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
[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 Scaevola, 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 hod' eipein epos,
Oude pathos, oude xymphora theelatos
hes ouk an aroit' achthos anthropon 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 Caepio, 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 Caesar and Caius Caesar were relations (it is uncertain in
what degree) of the great Caesar, 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 impia
Cervice pendet non Siculae dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem,
Non avium citharaeve 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 Caecus, 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
mnesasth', hoppote ken tis epichthonion anthropon
enthad' aneiretai xeinos talapeirios elthon
o kourai, tis d' hymmin aner hedistos aoidon
enthade poleitai kai teo terpesthe malista;
hymeis d' eu mala pasai hypokrinasthe aph' hemon,
Typhlos aner, oikei de Chio eni paipaloesse,
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 Caesar.
[78] Cicero was one of the College of Augurs.
[79] The Latinae Feriae 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, kinesis.]
[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: prolepsis] 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: pater andron te theon te,]
and has been used by Virgil and other poets since Ennius.
[105] Perses, or Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, was taken by
Cnaeus Octavius, the praetor, and brought as prisoner to Paullus AEmilius,
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 Lapithae, 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 AEneid he is also
represented as king of part of Epirus, and as predicting to AEneas 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 vineae 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