Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/756

 by Q. Lutatius Catulus, L. Licinius Lucullus, Balbus the Stoic, Cicero himself, and perhaps other personages. The work was composed and published в. с. 45, immediately before the Academica, but the imaginary conversation must have been supposed to have been held at some period earlier than в. с. 60, the year in which Catulus died. A considerable number of unimportant fragments have been preserved by St. Augustin, whose admiration is expressed in language profanely hyperbolical, and by the grammarians. These have been carefully collected and arranged by Nobbe, and are given in Orelli's Cicero, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 479-486. (Cic. de Divin. ii. 1, Tuscul. ii. 2.)

Timaeus s. De Universo.

We possess a fragment of a translation of Plato's Timaeus, executed after the completion of the Academica, as we learn from the prooemium. It extends from p. 22, ed. Bekker, with occasional blanks as far as p. 54, and affords a curious specimen of the careless and inaccurate style in which Cicero was wont to represent the meaning of his Greek originals. It was first printed in the edition of Sweynheym and Pannartz, 1471, and with a commentary by G. Valla, at Venice, in 1485. It is given in Orelli's Cicero, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 495—513.

Protagoras ex Platone.

A translation of the Protagoras of Plato into Latin. At what period this was executed we cannot determine, but it is generally believed to have been an exercise undertaken in early youth. A few words seem to have been preserved by Priscian on Donatus, which will be found in Orelli's Cicero, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 477. (Comp. Cic. de Off. ii. 24 ; Quintil. x. 5. § 2.)

.

De Natura Deorum Libri III.

Three dialogues dedicated to M. Brutus, in which the speculations of the Epicureans and the Stoics on the existence, attributes, and providence of a Divine Being are fully stated and discussed at length, the debate being illustrated and diversified by frequent references to the opinions entertained upon these topics by the most celebrated philosophers. The number of sects and of individuals enumerated is so great, and the field of philosophic research thrown open is so wide, that we can scarcely believe that Cicero could have had recourse to original sources for the whole mass of information which he lavishes so profusely on his subject, but must conclude that he made use of some useful manual or summary, such as were doubtless compiled by the preceptors of those days for the use of their pupils, containing a view of the tenets of different schools presented in a condensed form. Be that as it may, in no production do we more admire the vigorous understanding and varied learning of the author, in none does he display a greater command over appropriate language, in none are liveliness and grace more happily blended with lucid arrangement and brilliant eloquence. Although the materials may have been collected by degrees, they were certainly moulded into shape with extraordinary rapidity, for we know that this work was published immediately after the Tusculan Disputations, and immediately before the De Divinatione (de Div. ii. 1), and that the whole three appeared in the early part of в. с. 44. The imaginary conversation is supposed to have been held in the presence of Cicero, somewhere about the year B. C. 76, at the house of C. Aurelius Cotta, the pontifex maximus (consul в. с. 75), who well sustains the part of a New Academician, attacking and overthrowing the doctrines of others without advancing any dogma of his own, while the discipline of the Porch, mixed up however with much that belongs rather to Plato and Aristotle, is developed with great earnestness and power by Q. Lucilius Balbus, the pupil of Panaetius, and the doctrines of the Garden are playfully supported by Velleius (trib. pleb. в. с. 90), who occupies himself more in ridiculing the speculations of different schools than in any laboured defence of those espoused by himself. Accordingly, in the first book he opens with an attack upon Plato and the Stoics; he then adverts briefly to the theories of no less than 27 of the most famous philosophers, commencing with Thales of Miletus and ending with Diogenes of Babylon, characterizing them, in many cases not unjustly, as little superior to the dreams of madmen, the fables of poets, or the superstitions of the vulgar. Passing on from this motley crew to Epicurus, he pronounces him worthy of all praise, first, because he alone placed the argument for the existence of gods upon its proper and only firm basis,—the belief implanted by nature in the hearts of all mankind; secondly, because he assigned to them their real attributes, happiness, immortality, apathy; representing them as dwelling within themselves, susceptible of neither pleasure nor pain from without, bestowing no benefits and inflicting no evils on men, but fit objects of honour and worship on account of their essential excellence, a series of propositions which are carefully elucidated by an inquiry into the form, the mode of existence, and the mental constitution of divine beings. Cotta now comes forward, takes up each point in succession, and overturns the whole fabric piecemeal. He first proves that the reasons assigned by Epicurus for the existence of gods are utterly inadequate; secondly, that, granting their existence, nothing can be less dignified than the form and attributes ascribed to them ; and thirdly, granting these forms and qualities, nothing more absurd than that men should render homage or feel gratitude to those from whom they have not received and do not hope to receive any benefits.

The second book contains an investigation of the question by Balbus, according to the principles of the Stoics, who divided the subject into four heads. 1. The existence of gods. 2. Their nature. 3. Their government of the world. 4. Their watchful care of human affairs (providence), which is in reality included under the third head. The existence of gods is advocated chiefly a. From the universal belief of mankind; b. From the well-authenticated accounts of their appearances upon earth; c. From prophesies, presentiments, omens, and auguries; d. From the evident proofs of design, and of the adaptation of means to a beneficent end, everywhere visible in the arrangements of the material world; e. From the nature of man himself and his mental constitution; f. From certain physical considerations which tend clearly and unequivocally to the establishment of a system of pantheism, the introduction of which is somewhat curious in this place, since, if admitted, it would