Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/826

Rh 814 SEXTUS. tical art, which is based on experience ; and admit that a useful art of life may be derived from the observation of many particular cases. {Adv. Math. viii. 8.) It is an exemplification of the nature of the sceptical doctrines, as exhibited by Sextus, that the objections to mathematical science are not directed against reckoning by number and against mensuration, but against the scientific form of mathematics, and mainly against its fundamental notions ; against the admissibility of proof, and against axioms, against the notion of body, divisi- bility into equal parts, and the like. The object of the modern scepticism thus appears to be to stop all progress in science which has not utility for its object, and to treat it as a pestilent luxury ; in which view there is both wisdom and folh' ; wisdom, inasmuch as some purpose of utility is the end of all science, and folly, inasmuch as utility is not always best attained by proceeding directly towards it. The Sceptici did not go so far as to deny that much useful knowledge was traditional, and might be communicated by speech and writing ; for no man's sole experience is sufficient to give him all useful knowledge. Ritter admits that the Sceptici have urged many things that are well worthy of consideration, both against the form and the matter of the sciences ; and this is true. Their notion of the relation of cause and effect was connected with their notion of the being of God, whom they acknowledged to be the supreme activity (Pyrrh. Hyp. in. 2, dpacTTi- K(t)TaTou airiov). They showed clearly the con- tradictions which existed in all attempts to define the nature of God after the measure of human notions : that pfissions and motives are attributed to him, which passions and motives imply some change in the patient, and this is inconsistent with the nature of God. Even the attributing of parti- cular virtuous qualities to God is an inconsistency, inasmuch as God, a perfect being, cannot be said to exercise virtues which in themselves imply the possibility of vice. The sum of their objections, properly viewed, is this, that God is incompre- hensible. It is difficult to form a just estimate of the value of what Sextus has collected. A good translation and a careful analysis of the work would be worth a man's labour. The sceptical arguments were directed against proof; but there is evidence which is not demonstration, and yet is sufficient, not only for practical purposes, but for a philosophical con- viction. All conviction is not and cannot be founded on demonstration. The ultimate truths do not, in their nature, admit of demonstration, for there is nothing from which the demonstration can proceed. If a man, then, cannot have a conviction of these ultimate truths, he must reject them, or live in doubt. [G. L.] SEXTUS RUFUS. Onuphrius Panvinius pub- lished at Frankfort in 1558, along with his work on the Roman Republic, a tract bearing the name of Sextus Rufus., and entitled De Regionibus LIrbis Romae, which he professed to have found in an ancient MS. It corresponds closely with the cata- logue of Publius Victor [Victor}, but is less com- plete, and is much mutilated. The MS. of Panvinius has disappeared, and no codex containing either of these productions is known to exist of a date earlier than the fifteenth century. They are believed by the best topographers to have been compiled at a late SIBYLLA. period, are not regarded as documents of au- thority, and have even been stigmatised as modern forgeries. Biondo Flavio, in his Roma Instaurata (Veron. 1482), quotes from an old description of Rome by Sextus Ruffus Vir Consularis, a copy of which he had seen in the library attached to the monastery of Monte Casino. There can be little doubt that the piece thus described is the same with that printed by Panvinius ; but there are no grounds whatever for establishing a connection between this personage, whoever he may have been, and Sextus Rufus the historian. The De Regionibus will be found in Graevius, Tliesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, vol. iii. p. 25, and was published separately with notes by Miin- nich, 8vo. Hannov, 1815. (See the remarks on the Regionarii appended to Mr. Bunbury's paper on the Topography of Rome, in the tenth number of the Classical Museum, p. 373.) [W. R.] SEXTUS RUFUS. The name prefixed to an abridgment of Roman History, entitled Sexti Rvfi Breviarium de Victoriis et Frovinciis Populi Ro- mani, executed by command of the emperor Valens, to whom it is dedicated. The prince had instructed the author to be brief (brevem fieri dementia taa praecepit), and the injunction was most scrupu- lously obeyed, for the events of more than eleven hundred years, from the foundation of the city until the death of Jovianus, are compressed within the limits of twenty-eight short chapters, couched in plain and unpretending language. A more lofty exposition, however, of contemporary achievements is promised in the concluding sentence, " Quam magno deinceps ore tua, princeps invicte, factaj inclita sunt personanda ? quibus me, licet imparei dicendi nisu, et aevo gravior, praeparabo ; " but whether this project was ever carried into effec we have no means of discovering, since nothing ii^ known with regard to the personal history of th«l writer. The Breviarium was first printed by Sixtui Ruesinger at Rome, about 1470, and many edi- tions appeared before the close of the fifteenth cen- tury. The text was established upon a satisfactory basis. by Cuspinianus, who collated many MSS. and published it with annotations in his Commen'_ taria de consulihus Romanis., fol. Francf. 160] Since that time it has generally been included ii the larger editions of Eutropius, and of the minor ' Roman historians. A new recension, by Raffiiello Mecenate, from the Vatican and other MSS., was published at Rome, 8vo. 1819. [W. R.] SIBU'RIUS, a physician of Burdigala {Bour- deaux) in the fourth century after Christ, men- tioned, along with Ausonius and Eutropius, by Marcellus Empiricus {De Medicam. praef. p. 242), as being one of his fellow-citizens and immediate predecessors. He wrote a pharmaceutical work, which is noticed by Marcellus, but is not now ex- tant. Fabricius {Bibl. Gr. vol. xiii. p. 423, ed. vet.) conjectures that in the passage referred to we should read Scribonius idstead of Siburius: but this is certainly an oversight ; as 1. Scribonius is mentioned (by the name Designatianus) as a dif- ferent person in a former clause of the same sen- tence ; 2. he lived in the first century, not in the fourth ; and 3. there is no reason for believing that he was a native of Bourdeaux. [W. A. G.] SIBYLLA (2igt>AAa) is tlie name by which several prophetic women are designated who occur