Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/86

 78 CICERO. names to phantasia, syncatathem, epoJchc, catalepsis^' atomon, ameres, Jcenon, and otlier such technical terms, which, either by metaphors or other means of accommodation, he suc- ceeded in making inteUigible and expressible to the Romans. For his recreation, he exercised his dexterity in poetry, and when he was set to it, would make five hundred verses in a night. He spent the greatest part of his time at his country-house near Tusculum. He wrote to his friends that he led the life of Laertes,f either jest- ingly, as his custom was, or rather from a feeling of ambition for public employment, which made him impa- tient under the present state of affairs. He rarely went to the city, unless to pay his court to Caesar. He was commonly the first amongst those who voted him honors, and sought out new terms of praise for himself and for his actions. As, for example, what he said of the statues of Pompey, which had been thrown down, and were after- wards by Caesar's orders set up again : that Caesar, by this by some external object, "impul- the fingers begin to close, this, he sione oblata extrinsecus," Cicero proceeded, is assent, syncatathesis ; renders by visum ; syncHtSthesis, by closing his hand he exemplified the act of acceptance on our part, comprehension or catalepsis ; and, he calls assensio or assensus ; epokhe at last, seizing it with his left, such, is the suspension of assent, " sus- he said, is knowledge. Phantasia, pensio assensionis " ; catalepsis, or of course, is etymologically our comprehensio, is the next step in fancy, and epokhe, in the sense of a perception after assensio ; alomun point in time to pause at, our has been turned, but not by Cicero, epoch. into insecabile ; he calls atoms in- f " Who," says the description dividua corpora, or individua, using in the first book of the Odyssej', the same word also for ameres ; " comes no more to the city, but kenon is inane or vacuum. Most of lives away in pain and grief on his these terms are introduced in the land, with one old woman to feed Academics, see I. 11, II. 6 and 18, him, when he tires himself with and the curious illustration from tottering about his vineyard." So, Zeno in 47. Pointing with his also, when Ulysses goes to see him, left hand to his right, as it lay open in the last book, and outspread. Here, said he, is
 * Phantasia, sensation excited sensation, visum, phantasia ; letting