Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
[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: Prokyon] in Greek, because he
rises before the other Dog.
[221] Pansaetius, 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: Eidolon], his "visionary
likeness;" and adds that he himself
[Greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi
terpetai en thalies, kai echei kallisphyrou Heben,
paida Dios megaloio kai Heres 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 Idaei, 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] Capedunculae 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 AEa are mentioned together;
but AEa 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: thaumazo], 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: Opis] 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 Caecilius that is not
commonly met with, which is _praestigias praestrinxit;_ Lambinus gives
_praestinxit_, for the sake, I suppose, of playing on words, because it
might then be translated, "He has deluded my delusions, or stratagems;"
but _praestrinxit_ is certainly the right reading.
[274] The ancient Romans had a judicial as well as a military praetor;
and he sat, with inferior judges attending him, like one of our
chief-justices. _Sessum it praetor_, 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 Laetorian 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
Caesa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes.
Translated from the beginning of the Medea of Euripides--
[Greek: Med' en napaisi Pelion pesein pote
tmetheisa peuke.]
[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'Abbe
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."