Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/113

 Anecdota. 103 Fragments of Cic. De Fato. Gott. Gel. Anz. Dec. 1853. p. 1917 sqq. " Estratto dal Messagere di Modena, n. 847, 14 Ottobre: Nuovi frammenti del libro di Cicerone De Fato di recente scoperti in pergamene palimpseste dal. Ch. Cavaliere nobile uorao avvocato Luigi Grisostomo Ferrucci." Sm. 8vo, pp. 4, Modena. In all MSS. hitherto known, Cicero's work De Fato is defi- cient at the beginning and end, besides a considerable gap in what remains. Last summer Mr Ferrucci discovered on three palimpsest parchment leaves, which had been used in binding an old book, the beginning of the treatise De Fato, or, as this MS. gives the title : De Fato disputacio. The MS. is not very legible, nor does Mr F. seem very exactly to have followed it in point of orthography. The MS. begins thus : " Fatum esse nutum Jovis O. M. placi- tumque deorum immortalium, fides est philosophorum et vulgi communis. Sed quia philosophus nemo vel haberi vel dici solet, nisi parumper a vulgo desciscat, iccirco visum est nonnullis fati necessitatem aut antecessione causarum naturalium quodammodo circumscribe^ aut ratione voluntatum atque appetitionum varia quasi fulmen e ccelo deducere." The words " voluntatum atque appetitionum," recur in the treatise as before known, 9. The last clause is rather obscure. Some, it appears to mean, represent fate as a corrective in the hand of the gods, whereby they punish men after their deserts. "Some make fate descend like fire from heaven according to the various character pf men's aims and desires." [It seems needless to read variarum with Sclinei- dewin."] To this passage, which occupies the first leaf, Mr F. wrongly, as it seems, proposes to join the opening words of the old fragment : " Quia pertinet," &c. The second leaf on the first side begins with the words " Vide quid agas," which occur in the passage cited by Macrob. in. 16. 4 (al. ii. 11), and continues : "Vide quid agas; acipenser iste paucorum hominum est. Quaeso, quod exclusi triclinio plures acipenseris deliciis caruere, an vis immutatae voluntatis, quae plaga Democrito est, effecit ex eo quod in aurem Scipionis