Valerius Maximus, Lib. VIII. c. 7. Valerius says, he was in his 86th year;
but Cato did not survive beyond his 85th. Cicero, in Bruto, c. 20. Pliny, Hist.
Nat. Lib. XIX. c. 1.
See Spon, Recherches Curieuses d’Antiquité. Diss. 27. Bayle, Dict. Hist.
art. Porcius, Rem. H.
In what degree of estimation medicine was held at Rome, and by what class of
people it was practised, were among the quæstiones vexatæ of classical literature in
our own country in the beginning and middle of last century. Dr Mead, in his
Oratio Herveiana, and Spon, in his Recherches d’Antiquité, followed out an idea
first suggested by Casaubon, in his animadversions on Suetonius, that physicians in
Rome were held in high estimation, and were frequently free citizens; that it was
the surgeons who were the servile pecus; and that the erroneous idea of physicians
being slaves, arose from confounding the two orders. These authors chiefly rested
their argument on classical passages, from which it appears that physicians were
called the friends of Cicero, Cæsar, and Pompey. Middleton, in a well known Latin
dissertation, maintains that there was no distinction at Rome between the physician,
surgeon, and apothecary, and that, till the time of Julius Cæsar at least, the
art of medicine was exercised only by foreigners and slaves, or by freedmen, who,
having obtained liberty for their proficiency in its various branches, opened a shop
for its practice.—De Medicorum apud veteres Romanos degentium Conditione
Dissertatio. Miscellaneous Works, Vol. IV. See on this topic, Schlæger, Histor.
litis, De Medicorum apud veteres Romanos degentium Conditione. Helmst.
1740.
We have many minute descriptions of the villas of luxurious Romans, from the
time of Hortensius to Pliny, but there are so few accounts of those in the simpler age
of Scipio, that I have subjoined the description of Seneca, who saw this mansion
precisely in the same state it was when possessed and inhabited by the illustrious
conqueror of Hannibal. “Vidi villam structam lapide quadrato, murum circumdatum
sylvæ, turres quoque in propugnaculum villæ utrimque subrectas.
Cisternam ædificiis et viridibus subditam, quæ sufficere in usum exercitûs posset.
Balneolum angustum, tenebricosum ex consuetudine antiquâ. Magna ergo me
voluptas subit contemplantem mores Scipionis et nostros. In hoc angulo, ille Carthaginis
horror, cui Roma debet quod tantum semel capta est, abluebat corpus laboribus
rusticis fessum; exercebat enim operâ se, terramque, ut mos fuit priscis, ipse
subigebat. Sub hoc ille tecto tam sordido stetit—hoc illum pavimentum tam vile
sustinuit.” Senec. Epist. 86.
Suetonius (De Illust. Gram.) says, that he was sent by Attalus, at the moment
of the death of Ennius. Now, Ennius died in 585, at which time Eumenes reigned
at Pergamus, and was not succeeded by Attalus till the year 595; so that Suetonius
was mistaken, either as to the year in which Crates came to Rome, or the king by
whom he was sent—I rather think he was wrong in the latter point; for, if Crates
was the first Greek rhetorician who taught at Rome, which seems universally admitted,
he must have been there before 593, in which year the rhetoricians were expressly
banished from Rome, along with the philosophers.
Jupiter, Juno, Saturnus, Vulcanus, Vesta, et alii plurimi quos Varro conatur ad
mundi partes sive elementa transferre. (St August. Civit. Dei, Lib. VIII. c. 5.)
It was long believed, that Pope Gregory the First had destroyed the works of
Varro, in order to conceal the plagiarisms of St Augustine, who had borrowed largely
from the theological and philosophic writings of the Roman scholar. This, however,
is not likely. That illustrious Father of the Christian Church is constantly
referring to the learned heathen, without any apparent purpose of concealment; and
he extols him in terms calculated to attract notice to the subject of his eulogy.
Nor did St Augustine possess such meagre powers of genius, as to require him to
build up the city of the true God from the crumbling fragments of Pagan temples.
Epist. ad Quint. Frat. Lib. II. Ep. 4. According to some writers, it was a
younger Tyrannio, the disciple of the elder, who arranged Cicero’s library, and
taught his nephew.—Mater, Ecole d’Alexandrie, Tom. I. p. 179.
His laudationibus historia rerum nostrarum est facta mendosior. Multa enim
scripta sunt in iis, quæ facta non sunt—falsi triumphi, plures consulatus, genera
etiam falsa. Brutus, c. 16.
The question concerning the authenticity or uncertainty of the Roman history,
was long, and still continues to be, a subject of much discussion in France.—“At
Paris,” said Lord Bolingbroke, “they have a set of stated paradoxical orations.
The business of one of these was to show that the history of Rome, for the four first
centuries was a mere fiction. The person engaged in it proved that point so strongly,
and so well, that several of the audience, as they were coming out, said, the person
who had set that question had played booty, and that it was so far from being a paradox,
that it was a plain and evident truth.”—Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 197. It was
chiefly in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, &c. that this literary controversy
was plied. M. de Pouilly, in the Memoirs for the year 1722, produced his
proofs and arguments against the authenticity. He was weakly opposed, in the
following year, by M. Sallier, and defended by M. Beaufort, in the Memoirs of the
Academy, and at greater length in his Dissert. sur l’Incertitude des cinq premiers
siècles de l’Hist. Romaine, (1738,) which contains a clear and conclusive exposition
of the state of the question. The dispute has been lately renewed in the
Memoirs of the Institute, in the proceedings of which, for 1815, there is a long paper,
by M. Levesque, maintaining the total uncertainty of the Roman history previous
to the invasion of the Gauls; while the opposite side of the question has been
strenuously espoused by M. Larcher. This controversy, though it commenced in
France, has not been confined to that country. Hooke and Gibbon have argued
for the certainty, (Miscell. Works, Vol. IV. p. 40,) and Cluverius for the uncertainty,
of the Roman history, (Ital. Antiq. Lib. III. c. 2.) Niebuhr, the late German
historian of Rome, considers all before Tullus Hostilius as utterly fabulous.
The time that elapsed from his accession to the war with Pyrrhus, he regards as a
period to be found in almost every history, between mere fable and authentic
record. Beck, in the introduction to his German translation of Ferguson’s Roman
Republic, Ueber die Quellen der altesten Römischen Geschichte und ihren Werth,
has attempted to vindicate the authenticity of the Roman history to a certain extent;
but his reasonings and citations go little farther than to prove, what never can be
disputed, that there is much truth in the general outline of events—that the kings
were expelled—that the Etruscans were finally subdued; and that consuls were created.
He admits, that much rested on tradition; but tradition, he maintains, is so
much interwoven with every history, that it cannot be safely thrown away. The
remainder of the treatise is occupied with a feeble attempt to show, that more monuments
existed at Rome after its capture by the Gauls, than is generally supposed,
and that Fabius Pictor made a good use of them.
Ernesti has attempted, but I think unsuccessfully, to support the authenticity of
the Annals of Fabius against the censures of Polybius, in his dissertation, entitled,
Pro Fabii Fide adversus Polybium, inserted in his Opuscula Philologica, Leipsic,
1746—Lugd. Bat. 1764. He attempts to show, from other passages, that Polybius
was a great detractor of preceding historians, and that he judged of events more
from what was probable and likely to have occurred, than from what actually happened,
and that no historian could have better information than Fabius. To the interrogatories
which Polybius puts to Fabius, with regard to the causes assigned by
him as the origin of the second Punic war, Ernesti replies for him, that the Senate
of Carthage could no more have taken the command from Hannibal in Spain, or delivered
him up, than the Roman Senate could have deprived Cæsar of his army,
when on the banks of the Rubicon; and as to the support which Hannibal received
while in Italy, it is answered, that it was quite consistent with political wisdom, and
the practice of other nations, for a government involuntarily forced into a struggle,
by the disobedience or evil counsels of its subjects, to use every exertion to obtain
ultimate success, or extricate itself with honour, from the difficulties in which it had
been reluctantly involved.
He also probably suggested to Sallust a phrase which has given much scandal
in so grave a historian. Cicero says, in one of his letters, (Epist. Famil. Lib. IX.
Ep. 22,) “At vero Piso, in annalibus suis, queritur, adolescentes peni deditos esse.”
Römische Geschichte, Tom. I. p. 245.
As his account of Roman affairs was written in Greek, I omit in the list of Latin
annalists Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who was contemporary with Fabius, having
been taken prisoner by Hannibal during the second Punic war. But though his
history was in Greek, he wrote in Latin a biographical sketch of the Sicilian Rhetorician
Gorgias Leontinus, and also a book, De Re Militari, which has been cited
by Au. Gellius, and acknowledged by Vegetius as the foundation of his more elaborate
Commentaries on the same subject.
Brutus, c. 29. Some persons have supposed that Cicero did not here mean
Xenophon’s Cyropædia, but a life of Cyrus, written by Scaurus. This, indeed,
seems at first a more probable meaning than that he should have bestowed a compliment
apparently so extravagant on the Memoirs of Scaurus; but his words do not
admit of this interpretation.—“Præclaram illam quidem, sed neque tam rebus nostris
aptam, nec tamen Scauri laudibus anteponendam.”
Malheureux sort de l’histoire! Les spectateurs sont trop peu instruits, et les acteurs
trop interessés pour que nous puissions compter sur les recits des uns ou des
autres.—Gibbon’sMiscell. Works, Vol. IV.
The
authors of the Universal History suppose that these books were Phœnician
and Punic volumes, carried off from Carthage by Scipio, after its destruction, and
presented by him to Micipsa; and they give a curious account of these books, of
which some memory still subsists, and which they conjecture to have formed part
of the royal collection of Numidia.
It is curious into what gross blunders the most learned and accurate writers occasionally
fall. Fabricius, speaking of these letters, says, “Duæ orationes (sive
epistolæ potius) de Rep. ordinandâ ad Cæsarem missæ, cum in Hispanias proficisceretur
contra Petreium et Afranium, victo Cn. Pompeio.”—Bibliothec. Latin. Lib.
I. c. 9.
Asinius Pollio, however, as we learn from Suetonius, thought that the Commentaries
were drawn up with little care or accuracy, that the author was very credulous
as to the actions of others, and that he had very hastily written down what
regarded himself, with the intention, which he never accomplished, of afterwards
revising and correcting.—Sueton. in Cæsar. c. 56.
Neque Druides habent, qui rebus divinis præsint; neque sacrificiis student.
Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt, et quorum opibus aperte juvantur—Solem,
et Vulcanum, et Lunam: reliquos ne famâ quidem acceperunt. Lib. VI.
c. 21.
Deorum maximè Mercurium colunt, cui, certis diebus, humanis quoque hostiis,
litare fas habent. Herculem ac Martem concessis animalibus placant ... Lucos ac
nemora consecrant, deorumque nominibus appellant Secretum illud, quod solâ reverentia
vident. De Mor. Germ. c. 9.
See Plutarch In Cæsare, where it is related that Cæsar wrote verses and
speeches, and read them to the pirates by whom he was taken prisoner, on his
return to Rome from Bithynia, where he had sought refuge from the power of Sylla.
See also Blondellus, Hist. du Calendrier Romain. Paris, 1682, 4to; Bianchinus,
Dissert. de Calendario et Cyclo Cæsaris, Rom. 1703, folio; and Court de
Gebelin, Monde Primit. T. IV.
Mihi non illud quidem accidit, ut Alexandrino atque Africano bello interessem;
quæ bella tamen ex parte nobis Cæsaris sermone sunt nota. De Bell. Gall. Lib.
VIII.
Imperfecta ab rebus gestis Alexandriæ confeci, usque ad exitum, non quidem
civilis dissensionis, cujus finem nullum videmus, sed vitæ Cæsaris. De Bell. Gall.
“Duæ sunt artes,” says Cicero, “quæ possunt locare homines in amplissimo
gradu dignitatis: una imperatoris, altera oratoris boni: Ab hoc enim pacis ornamenta
retinentur; ab illo belli pericula repelluntur.”Orat. pro Muræna, c. 14.
De Orator. Lib. III. c. 60. Plutarch and Cicero’s accounts of the eloquence
of C. Gracchus, seem not quite consistent with what is delivered on the subject by
Gellius.
As a proof of his astonishing memory, it is recorded by Seneca, that, for a trial
of his powers of recollection, he remained a whole day at a public auction, and
when it was concluded, he repeated in order what had been sold, to whom, and at
what price. His recital was compared with the clerk’s account, and his memory
was found to have served him faithfully in every particular. Senec. Præf. Lib. I.
Controv.
Hortensius was first married to a daughter of Q. Catulus, the orator, who is one
of the speakers in the Dialogue De Oratore. (Cicero, De Oratore, Lib. III. c.
61.) He afterwards asked, and obtained from Cato, his wife Marcia; who, having
succeeded to a great part of the wealth of Hortensius on his death, was then taken
back by her former husband. (Plutarch, In Catone.) By his first wife, Hortensius
had a son and daughter. In his son Quintus, he was not more fortunate than his
rival, Cicero, in his son Marcus. Cicero, while Proconsul of Cilicia, mentions, in
one of his letters, the ruffian and scandalous appearance made by the younger Hortensius
at Laodicea, during the shows of gladiators.—“I invited him once to supper,”
says he, “on his father’s account; and, on the same account, only once.”
(Epist. Ad Attic. Lib. VI. Ep. 3.) Such, indeed, was his unworthy conduct, that
his father at this time entertained thoughts of disinheriting him, and making his
nephew, Messala, his heir; but in this intention he did not persevere. (Valer.
Maxim. Lib. V. c. 9.) After his father’s death, he joined the party of Cæsar, (Cicero,
Epist. Ad Att. Lib. X. Ep. 16, 17, 18,) by whom he was appointed Proconsul of
Macedonia; in which situation he espoused the side of the conspirators, subsequently
to the assassination of Cæsar. (Cicero, Philip. X. c. 5 and 6.) By order
of Brutus, he slew Caius Antonius, brother to the Triumvir, who had fallen into his
hands; and, being afterwards taken prisoner at the battle of Philippi, he was slain
by Marc Antony, by way of reprisal, on the tomb of his brother. (Plutarch, In M.
Bruto.)
Hortensia, the daughter, inherited something of the spirit and eloquence of her
father. A severe tribute having been imposed on the Roman matrons by the Triumvirs,
Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, she boldly pleaded their cause before these
noted extortioners, and obtained some alleviation of the impost. (Valer. Maxim.
Lib. VIII. c. 3.)
Quintus, the son of the orator, left two children, Q. Hortensius Corbio, and M.
Hortensius Hortalus. The former of these was a monster of debauchery; and is
mentioned by his contemporary, Valerius Maximus, among the most striking examples
of those descendants who have degenerated from the honour of their ancestors. (Lib. III. c. 5.) This wretch, not being likely to become a father, and the
wealth of the family having been partly settled on the wife of Cato, partly dissipated
by extravagance, and partly confiscated in the civil wars, Augustus Cæsar, who was
a great promoter of matrimony, gave Hortensius Hortalus a pecuniary allowance to
enable him to marry, in order that so illustrious a family might not become extinct.
He and his children, however, fell into want during the reign of his benefactor’s
successor. Tacitus has painted, with his usual power of striking delineation, that
humiliating scene, in which he appeared, with his four children, to beg relief from
the Senate; and the historian has also recorded the hard answer which he received
from the unrelenting Tiberius. Perceiving, however, that his severity was disliked
by the Senate, the Emperor said, that, if they desired it, he would give a certain
sum to each of Hortalus’s male children. They returned thanks; but Hortalus, either
from terror or dignity of mind, said not a word; and, from this time, Tiberius
showing him no favour, his family sunk into the most abject poverty: (Tacit. Annal.
Lib. II. c. 37 and 38.) And such were the descendants of the orator with the
park, the plantations, the ponds, and the pictures!
“Exactis deinde regibus leges hæ exoleverunt; iterumque cœpit populus Romanus
incerto magis jure et consuetudine ali, quam per latam legem.”—Pompon. Lætus, De Leg. II. § 3.
“Decem tabularum leges,” says Livy, “nunc quoque, in hoc immenso aliarum
super aliis acervatarum legum cumulo, fons omnis publici privatique est
juris.”
It must be admitted, however, that Cicero, in other passages of his works, has
given the study of civil law high encomiums, particularly in the following beautiful
passage delivered in the person of Crassus: “Senectuti vero celebrandæ et ornandæ
quid honestius potest esse perfugium, quàm juris interpretatio? Equidem mihi hoc
subsidium jam inde ab adolescentiâ comparavi, non solum ad causarum usum forensem,
sed etiam ad decus atque ornamentum senectutis; ut cùm me vires (quod
fere jam tempus adventat) deficere cœpissent, ab solitudine domum meam vindicarem.”
(De Oratore, Lib. I. c. 45.) Schultingius, the celebrated civilian, in his
dissertation De Jurisprudentia Ciceronis, tries to prove, from various passages in his
orations and rhetorical writings, that Cicero was well versed in the most profound
and nice questions of Roman jurisprudence, and that he was well skilled in international
law, as Grotius has borrowed from him many of his principles and illustrations,
in his treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis.
“Parvis de rebus,” says he, “sed fortasse necessariis consulimur, Patres conscripti. De Appiâ viâ et de monetâ Consul—De Lupercis tribunus plebis refert.
Quarum rerum etsi facilis explicatio videtur, tamen animus aberrat a sententiâ, suspensus
curis majoribus.”—C. I.
He ultimately, however, met with a well-merited and appropriate fate. Having
refused to give up his Corinthian vases to Marc Antony, he was proscribed for their
sake, and put to death by the rapacious Triumvir.
Wolf, in the preface to his edition of the Oration for Marcellus, mentions having
seen a scholastic declamation, entitled, Oratio Catilinæ, in M. Ciceronem. It
concludes thus,—“Me consularem patricium, civem et amicum reipublicæ a faucibus
inimici consulis eripite; supplicem atque insontem pristinæ claritudini, omnium
civium gratiæ, et benevolentiæ vestræ restitute. Amen.”
See Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes. Harles, also, seems to suppose that Bishop
Ross was in earnest:—“Orationem pro Sulla spuriam esse audacter pronunciavit
vir quidam doctus in—A Dissertation, in which the defence of P. Sulla, &c. is proved
to be spurious.”—Harles, Introduct. in Notitiam Literat. Rom. Tom. II. p. 153.
“Cum Appendice De Oratione, quæ vulgo fertur, M. T. Ciceronis pro Q. Ligario,”
in which the author attempts to abjudicate from Cicero the beautiful oration for
Ligarius, which shook even the soul of Cæsar, while he has translated into his own
language the two wretched orations, Post Reditum, and Ad Quirites, insisting on
the legitimacy of both, and enlarging on their truly classical beauties! In his Preface,
he has pleasantly enough parodied the arguments of Wolf against the oration
for Marcellus, ironically showing that they came not from that great scholar, but
from a pseudo Wolf, who had assumed his name.
Brutus, c. 91. Is dedit operam (si modo id consequi potuit) ut nimis redundantes
nos juvenili quâdam dicendi impunitate et licentiâ reprimeret; et quasi extra
ripas diffluentes coerceret.
Hæc in philosophiâ ratio contra omnia disserendi, nullamque rem aperte judicandi,
profecta a Socrate, repetita ab Arcesilao, confirmata a Carneade, usque ad
nostram viguit ætatem. De Nat. Deor. Lib. I. c. 5.
Dans la Grèce, aprés ces épreuves, commençoit enfin la vie champêtre dans les
jardins du Lycée ou de l’Academie, où l’on entreprenoit un cours de philosophie,
que les véritables amateurs avoient l’art singulier de ne jamais finir. Ils restoient
toute leur vie attachés à quelque chef de secte comme Metrodore à Epicure, moudroient
dans les écoles, et étoient ensuite enterrés à l’ombre de ces mêmes arbustes,
sous lesquels ils avoient tant médité. (De Pauw, Recherches Philosophiques sur
les Grecs, T. II.)
Quæque de optimâ republicâ sentiremus, in sex libris ante diximus; accommodabimus
hoc tempore leges ad illum, quem probamus civitatûs statum. De Legib.
Lib. III. c. 2.
Classical Excursion from Rome to Arpino, p. 99. Cicero always considered
the citizens of Arpinum as under his particular protection and patronage; and it is
pleasant to find, that its modern inhabitants still testify, in various ways, due veneration
for their illustrious townsman. Their theatre is called the Teatro Tulliano,
of which the drop-scene is painted with a bust of the orator; and even now, workmen
are employed in building a new town-hall, with niches, destined to receive
statues of Marius and Cicero.
Nec esse, nec dici posse novum opus, ac penitus mutatum; sed tantummodo
correctum, magis politum, et quoad formam et dictionem, hîc et illic, splendidius
mutatum. De Lib. Cic. Academ. Comment.
Eustace, Classical Tour, Vol. II. c. 8. Grotta Ferrata was long considered both
by travellers (Addison, Letters on Italy, Blainville, Travels, &c.) and antiquarians
(Calmet, Hist. Univers. Cluverius, Italic. Antiq.) as the site of Cicero’s Tusculan
villa. The opinion thus generally received, was first deliberately called in question
by Zuzzeri, in a dissertation published in 1746, entitled Sopra un’ antica Villa
scoperta sopra Frescati nell appartenenze della nuova villa dell collegio Romano.
This writer places the site close to the villa and convent of Ruffinella, which is
higher up the hill than Grotta Ferrata, lying between Frescati and the town of Tusculum.
He was answered by Cardoni, a monk of the Basilian order of Grotta Ferrata,
in his Disceptatio Apologetica de Tusculano Ciceronis, Romæ, 1757. Cardoni
chiefly rests his argument on a passage of Strabo, where that geographer says,
that the Tusculan hill is fertile, well watered, and surrounded with beautiful villas.
Now Cardoni, referring this passage (which applies to the Tusculan hill in general)
solely to the Tusculan villa, argues somewhat unfairly, that Strabo’s description answers
to Grotta Ferrata, but not to Ruffinella. (p. 8, &c.) Nibby in his Viaggio
Antiquario, supports the claims of Ruffinella, on the authority of a passage in Frontinus,
which he interprets with no greater candour or success. (T. II. p. 41.) With
exception of Eustace, however, all modern travellers, whose works I have consulted,
declare in favour of Ruffinella. “At the convent of Ruffinella, says Forsyth, farther
up the hill than Grotta Ferrata, his (Cicero’s) name was found stamped on some
ancient tiles, which should ascertain the situation of a villa in preference to any
moveable.”—Remarks on Italy, p. 281. See also Rome in the Nineteenth Century,
Vol. III. Letter 92, and Kelsall’s Classical Excursion, p. 192.
Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the method of writing in dialogue,
are stated by Mr. Hume, in the introduction to his Dialogues concerning
Natural Religion, (London, 1779, 8vo,) a work apparently modelled on Cicero’s
Nature of the Gods.
In the Herculanensia, (p. 22,) Sir William Drummond contends, at considerable
length, that a work On Piety according to Epicurus, (Περι Ευσεβεῖας κατ’ Επικουρον,) of which a fragment has been discovered at Herculaneum, was the prototype
of a considerable part of the discourse of Velleius. The reader will find a
version of the passages in which a resemblance appears, in the Quarterly Review,
(No. V.) where it is also remarked, “that Sir William seems to us to have failed
altogether in rendering it probable that Cicero had ever seen this important fragment,
the passages in which there is any resemblance, relating, without exception,
to what each author is reporting of the doctrines of certain older philosophers, as
expressed in their works; and the reports are not by any means so precisely similar
as to induce us to suppose that Cicero had even taken the very justifiable liberty of
saving himself some little trouble, by making use of another author’s abstract, from
Chrysippus, and from Diogenes the Babylonian.” Schütz, the German editor of
Cicero, enumerates some works, which he thinks Cicero had read, and others,
which he seems to have known merely from summaries and abridgments. The
following is his conjecture with regard to the writings of Epicurus:—“Epicuri
denique κυριας δοξας,
ejus κανονα seu libros, de Judicio, item
περι φυσεως et
περι ὁσιοτητος, non ex aliorum tantum testimoniis, sed ex suâ ipsius lectione ei notos
fuisse, facile, tot locis ubi de eo agitur inter se collatis, intelligitur.” (Cicer. Opera,
Tom. XV. p. 27.) Perhaps the treatise, περι Ὁσιοτητος, was a similar work to
that, Περι Ευσεβεῖας.
In his Dialogues on Natural Religion, Mr. Hume puts two very good remarks
into the mouth of one of his characters. Speaking of Cicero’s argument for a Deity,
deduced from the grandeur and magnificence of nature, he observes, “If this argument,
I say, had any force in former ages, how much greater must it have at present,
when the bounds of nature are so infinitely enlarged, and such a magnificent scene is
opened to us!” P. 103.—Again, in mentioning that the infidelity of Galen was
cured by the study of anatomy, (which was much more extended by him than it had
been in the days of Cicero,) he says, “And if the infidelity of Galen, even when
these natural sciences were still imperfect, could not withstand such striking appearances,
to what pitch of pertinacious obstinacy must a philosopher in this age have
attained, who can now doubt of a Supreme Intelligence!” P. 23.—See also Lactantius,
De Opificio Dei.
There was published, Bononiæ, 1811, M. T. Ciceronis de Naturâ Deorum
Liber Quartus: e pervetusto Codice MS. Membranaceo nunc primum edidit P.
Seraphinus Ord. Fr. Min.—This tract was republished, (Oxonii, 1813,) by Mr.
Lunn, who says in a prefatory note, that “he entertains no doubt, from the opinion
of several of his friends, of this production being a literary forgery.” Of this, indeed,
there can be no doubt, as appears among various other proofs, from the minute
account of the Jews.—“Sed etiam plures adhibere deos vel divos, a quibus ipsi
regantur, quos nomine Elohim designare soleant, secundi ordinis,” &c. (p. 12.)—There
is some humour in the manner in which the Italian editor, in a preface written
in the rude style of a simple friar, obtests that the work is not a forgery.—“Sed ne
quis existimet, me ipsum fecisse hunc librum, testor, detestor, obtestor, et contestor,
per S. Franciscum Assissium, me talem facere non posse, qui sacris incumbere
cogor, nec profanis possum,” &c.
Multis etiam sensi mirabile videri, eam nobis potissimum probatam esse philosophiam,
quæ lucem eriperet, et quasi noctem quandam rebus offunderet, desertæque
disciplinæ et jampridem relictæ patrocinium nec opinatum a nobis esse susceptum.—(De
Nat. Deor. Lib. I. c. 3.)
Warburton, Divine Legation, Vol. II. p. 168. Ed. 1755. Warburton here
alludes to Bentley—Remarks on a late Discourse of Free-thinking, Part II.
Rem. 53.
Fuerint qui judicarent oportere statui per Senatum ut aboleantur hæc scripta,
quibus religio Christiana comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas.—Arnobius,
Adversus Gentes, Lib. III.
In the preface to the second book of this treatise, De Divinatione, Cicero,
enumerating his late philosophical compositions, says, “Quibus libris editis, tres
libri perfecti sunt De Naturâ Deorum * * quæ ut plene essent cumulateque perfecta,
De Divinatione ingressi sumus his libris scribere.”—(De Div. Lib. II. c. 1.)
At least so says Middleton, (Vol. III. p. 297,) and he quotes as his authority
Spartian’s Life of Hadrian, (c. 25.) Spartian, however, only tells, that he was buried
at Cicero’s villa of Puteoli—“Apud ipsas Bajas periit, invisusque omnibus sepultus
est in villâ Ciceronianâ Puteolis.”
“Fuit enim hoc in amicitiâ quasi quoddam jus inter illos, ut militiæ, propter
eximiam belli gloriam, Africanum ut deum coleret Lælius; domi vicissim Lælium,
quòd ætate antecedebat, observaret in parentis loco Scipio.”
Epist. Famil. Lib. VII. ep. 18. In palimpsesto, laudo equidem parsimoniam,
sed miror, quid in illâ chartulâ fuerit, quod delere malueris quam hæc non scribere;
nisi forte tuas formulas: non enim puto te meas epistolas delere, ut reponas tuas.
Mai published the De Republicâ at Rome, with a preface, giving a history of
his discovery, notes, and an index of emendations. It was reprinted from this edition
at London, without change, 1823; also at Paris, 1823, with the notes of Mai,
and excerpts from his preface; and cura Steinacker at Leipsic, 1823. To this German
edition there is a prefatory epistle by Hermann, which I was disappointed to
find contained only some observations on a single passage of the De Republicâ,
with regard to the division of the citizens into classes by Servius Tullius. In the
same year an excellent French translation was published by M. Villemain, accompanied
with an introductory review of the work he translates; as also notes and dissertations
on those topics of Education, Manners, and Religion, which he supposes
to have formed the subjects of the last three books which have not yet been recovered.
The above quotation is from the XL. Number of the North American Review,
July 1823. It is highly creditable to the scholarship of our Transatlantic brethren,
that the work De Republicâ, should on its first publication, have been the subject
of an article in one of their principal literary journals, while, as far as I know, the
reviews of this ancient land of colleges and universities, have passed over, in absolute
silence, the most important classical discovery since the age of the Medici.
I do not know that this distinguishing feature of the character of Cicero has
been anywhere so well described as in the following passage of M. Villemain, in
which he has introduced in this respect a beautiful comparison between Cicero and
the most illustrious writer of his own nation. Talking of the digression concerning
the Parhelion and Orrery, he admits it was little to the purpose, but he adds, “Peut
on se défendre d’un mouvement de respect, quand on songe à ce beau caractère de
curiosité philosophique, à ce goût universel de la science dont fut animé Cicéron,
et qui au milieu d’une vie agitée par tant de travaux, et dans un état de civilisation
encore dénué de secours, lui fit rechercher avec un insatiable ardeur tous les moyens
de connoissances nouvelles et de lumières? “Cet homme qui avait si laborieusement médité l’art de l’éloquence, et le pratiquait
chaque jour dans le Forum, dans le sénat, dans les tribunaux; ce grand orateur,
qui même pendant son consulat plaidait encore des causes privées, au milieu d’une
vie toute de gloire, d’agitations, et de périls, dans ce mouvement d’inquiétudes et
d’affaires attesté par cette foule de lettres si admirables et si rapidement écrites, étudiait
encore tout ce que dans son siécle il était possible de savoir. Il avait cultivé
la poésie: il avait approfondi et transporté chez les Romains toutes les philosophies
de la Grèce; il cherchait à récueillir les notions encore imparfaites des sciences
physiques. Nous voyons même par une de ses lettres qu’il s’occupa de faire un
traité technique de géographie, à peu près comme Voltaire compilait laborieusement
un abrégé chronologique de l’histoire d’Allemagne. Ces deux génies ont eu
en effet ce caractère distinctif de méler aux plus brillans trésors de l’imagination et
de goût, l’ardeur de toutes les connoissances, et cette activité intellectuelle qui ne
s’arrête, ni ne se lasse jamais. “Sans doute il y avait entre eux de grands dissemblances, surtout dans cette
vocation prédominante qui entrainait l’un vers l’éloquence et l’autre vers la poésie;
sans doute aussi la diversité des temps et des situations mettait plus de difference
encore entre l’auteur Français de dix huitième siécle, et le Consul de la republique
Romaine: mais cette ardeur de tout savoir, ce mouvement de la pensée qui s’appliquait
également à tout, forme un trait éminent qui les rapproche; et peutêtre le
sentiment confus de cette vérité agissait il sur Voltaire dans l’admiration si vivement
sentie, si sérieuse, que cet esprit contempteur de tant de renommées antiques
exprima toujours pour le génie de Cicéron.”—P. LXII.
This first book occupied in the palimpsest 211 pages. Of these, 72 are wanting;
but two short fragments belonging to this book are to be found in Lactantius
and Nonius, so that about a third of the book is still lost.
Mai cannot exactly state how much of the second book is wanting in the
palimpsest, but he thinks probably a third part; enough remains of it to console the
reader for the loss.
Tiraboschi, Stor. dell. Letter. Ital. Part. III. Lib. III. c. 4. § 14.—Ginguené
thinks that Tiraboschi has completely succeeded in justifying Alcyonius. Hist.
Litter. d’Ital. T. VII. p. 254.
A few unimportant letters which had passed between these two great men,
during Cicero’s proconsulship in Cilicia, were included among the Epistolæ Familiares,
and are of undisputed authenticity. It does not seem clear, whether they ever
formed part of the great collection of eight books, which contained the subsequent
correspondence between Cicero and Brutus.
Antiquitates Italiæ Med. Ævi, Tom. III. p. 818. The most valuable books
of the Bobbian collection were transferred, in the seventeenth century, by the Cardinal
Borromeo, to the Ambrosian library at Milan; and it is from the Bobbian Palimpsesti
there discovered, that Mai has recently edited his fragments of orations of
Cicero, and plays of Plautus.
Muretus, in a letter dated about this time, (1581,) and addressed to his friend
Paullus Sacratus, mentions, in the strongest terms of regret and resentment, that a
Plautus, on the correction and emendation of which he had bestowed the labour
and study of twenty-five years of his life, had been stolen from him by some person
whom he admitted to his library. (Epist. Lib. III. Ep. 28.)
See Goujet, Bibliotheque Françoise, Tom. V. p. 18. Fabricius, however,
says, that he does not know who was the author of this verse translation, and Mr
Good, in the preface to his Lucretius, attributes it to one James Langlois, who, he
says, translated not from the original Latin, but from Marolles’ prose version.
B. Flavii, Ital. Illust. p. 346. ap. Meiners, Lebenschreibung Beruhmter manner,
Tom. I. p. 39. Ginguené, Hist. Lit. Tom. II. Pet. Victor, in Castigat. ad
Cicer. post castig. in Paradox.