Cicero's Tusculan Disputations

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,

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 prosopopœias. Cicero, therefore, makes Balbus distinguish between the person Liber, or Bacchus, and the Liber which is a part of nature in prosopopœia.

141

These allegorical fables are largely related by Hesiod in his Theogony.

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:

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 Ἄρειος Πάγος, 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, ἀὴρ; 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 Cœlestis; and all the figures here described by Aratus nearly agree with the maps of the same constellations in the Atlas Cœlestis, 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 ἐν γόνασιν (on his knees). Ἐνγόνασιν καλέουσ’, as Aratus says, they call Engonasis.

180

The crown is placed under the feet of Hercules in the Atlas Cœlestis; but Ophiuchus (Ὀφιοῦχος), 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 ὑπὸ ζώνῃ, 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. Hœdi, 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 Κασσίεπεια, 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 Cœlestis 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, Πληϊάδες; and they are placed at the neck of the Bull; and one of Perseus’s feet touches the Bull in the Atlas Cœlestis.

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 Cœlestis 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 Cœlestis.

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 Προκύων 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 Εἴδωλον, his “visionary likeness;” and adds that he himself

μετ’ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιτέρπεται ἐν θαλίῃς, καὶ ἔχει καλλίσφυρου Ἥβην,παῖδα Διὸς μεγάλοιο καὶ Ἥρης χρυσοπεδίλου.

which Pope translates—

A shadowy form, for high in heaven’s abodesHimself 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 δάκτυλοι (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 θαυμάζω, 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, Ἄνακτες, 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 νόμος, lex, a law.