Part 33 (1/2)
”In consequence of the letter which you wrote to me about Varro, I have taken the Academy entirely out of the hands of those distinguished persons, and transferred it to our friend. And from two books I have made it into four. These are longer than the others were, though there are several parts left out.... In truth, if my self-love does not deceive me, these books have come out in such a manner that there is nothing of the same kind like them even in Greek.”-Ep. 13.
”I have transferred the whole of that Academical Treatise to Varro.
It had at first been divided among Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius. Afterwards, as this appeared unsuitable, owing to those persons being, not indeed unlearned, but notoriously unversed in such subjects, as soon as I got home I transferred those dialogues to Cato and Brutus. Your letter about Varro has just reached me, and there is no one by whom the opinions of Antiochus could be more fitly supported.”-Ep. 16.
”I had determined to include no living persons in my dialogues; but since you inform me that Varro is desirous of it, and sets a great value upon it, I have composed this work, and completed the whole Academical Discussion in four books; I know not how well, but with such care that nothing can exceed it. In these, what had been excellently collected by Antiochus against the doctrine of incomprehensibility, I have attributed to Varro; to this I reply in my own person, and you are the third in our conversation. If I had made Cotta and Varro disputing with one another, as you suggest in your last letter, my own would have been a mute character....
”The Academics, as you know, I had discussed in the persons of Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius; but in truth the subject did not suit their characters, being more logical than what they could be supposed ever to have dreamt of. Therefore, when I read your letter to Varro, I seized on it as a sort of inspiration. Nothing could be more adapted to that species of philosophy in which he seems to take particular delight; or to the support of such a part that I could manage to avoid making my own sentiments predominant. For the opinions of Antiochus are extremely persuasive, and are so carefully expressed as to retain the acuteness of Antiochus with my own brilliancy of language, if indeed I possess any.”-Ep. 19.
The Antiochus mentioned above was a native of Ascalon, and the founder of the fifth Academy; he had been the teacher of Cicero while he studied at Athens; and he had also a school in Syria and another in Alexandria. Cicero constantly speaks of him with great regard and esteem. The leaders of the Academy since the time of Plato, (and Cicero ranks even him among those philosophers who denied the certainty of any kind of knowledge,) had gradually fallen into a degree of scepticism that seemed to strike at the root of all truth, theoretical and practical. But Antiochus professed to revive the doctrines of the old Academy, maintaining, in opposition to Carneades and Philo, that the intellect had in itself a test by which it could distinguish between what was real and what existed only in the imagination. He himself appears to have held doctrines very nearly coinciding with those of Aristotle; agreeing however so far with the Stoics as to insist that all emotions ought to be suppressed. So that Cicero almost inclines to cla.s.s him among the Stoics; though it appears that he considered himself as an Eclectic philosopher, uniting the doctrines of the Stoics and Academics so as to revive the old Academy.
2 t.i.tus Pomponius Atticus was three years older than Cicero, with whom he had been educated, and with whom he always continued on terms of the greatest intimacy; his daughter was married to Agrippa. He was of the Epicurean school in philosophy. He died B.C. 32.
3 Marcus Terentius Varro was ten years older than Cicero, and a man of the most extensive and profound learning. He had held a naval command against the pirates, and against Mithridates, and served as lieutenant to Pompey in Spain, at the beginning of the civil war, adhering to his party till after the battle of Pharsalia, when he was pardoned, and taken into favour by Caesar. He was proscribed by the second triumvirate, but escaped, and died B.C. 28. He was a very voluminous author, and according to his own account composed four hundred and ninety books; but only one, the three books De Re Rustica, have come down to us, and a portion of a large treatise De Lingua Latina.
In philosophy he had been a pupil of Antiochus, and attached himself to the Academy with something of a leaning to the Stoics.
4 Amafanius was one of the earliest Roman writers of the Epicurean school. He is mentioned by no one but Cicero.
5 We do not know who this Rabirius was.
6 Lucius aelius Praeconinus Stilo was a Roman knight, and one of the earliest grammarians of Rome. Cicero in the Brutus describes him as a very learned man in both Greek and Roman literature; and especially in old Latin works. He had been a teacher of Varro in grammar, and of Cicero himself in rhetoric. He received the name of Stilo from his compositions; and of Praeconinus because his father had been a herald.
7 Menippus was originally a slave, a native of Gadara in Cle Syria, and a pupil of Diogenes the Cynic. He became very rich by usury, afterwards he lost his money and committed suicide. He wrote nothing serious, but his books were entirely full of jests. We have some fragments of Varro's Satyrae Menippeae, which were written, as we are here told, in imitation of Menippus.
8 Cicero ranges these poets here in chronological order.
Ennius was born at Rudiae in Calabria, B.C. 239, of a very n.o.ble family. He was brought to Rome by M. Porcius Cato at the end of the second Punic war. His plays were all translations or adaptations from the Greek; but he also wrote a poetical history of Rome called Annales, in eighteen books, and a poem on his friend Scipio Africa.n.u.s; some Satires, Epigrams, and one or two philosophical poems. Only a few lines of his works remain to us. He died at the age of seventy.
Pacuvius was a native of Brundusium, and a relation, probably a nephew, of Ennius. He was born about B.C. 220, and lived to about the year B.C. 130. His works were nearly entirely tragedies translated from the Greek. Horace, distinguis.h.i.+ng between him and Accius, says-
”Aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis; Accius alti.”-Epist. II. i. 55.
9 From pe??pat??, to walk.
10 This Lucius Lucullus was the son of Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who was praetor B.C. 103, and was appointed by the senate to take the command in Sicily, where there was a formidable insurrection of the slaves under Athenion and Tryphon. He was not however successful, and was recalled; and subsequently prosecuted by Servilius for bribery and malversation, convicted and banished. The exact time of the birth of this Lucullus his son is not known, but was probably about B.C. 109. His first appearance in public life was prosecuting Servilius, who had now become an augur, on a criminal charge, (which is what Cicero alludes to here.) And though the trial terminated in the acquittal of Servilius, yet the part Lucullus took in it appears to have added greatly to his credit among his contemporaries. The special law in his favour mentioned a few lines lower down, was pa.s.sed by Sylla with whom Lucullus was in high favour; so much so that Sylla at his death confided to him the charge of revising and correcting his Commentaries. Cicero's statement of his perfect inexperience in military affairs before the war against Mithridates is not quite correct, as he had served with distinction in the Marsic war. The time of his death is not certainly known, but Cicero speaks of him as dead in the Oration concerning the consular provinces, delivered B.C. 56, while he was certainly alive B.C. 59, in which year he was charged by L. Vettius with an imaginary plot against the life of Pompey. His second wife was Servilia, half-sister to Cato Uticensis.
11 From s????, a heap.
12 From ???? an ant.
13 It is not even known to what work Cicero is referring here.
14 In the Heautontimorumenos. Act i. Sc. 1.
15 Caecilius Statius was the predecessor of Terence; by birth an Insubrian Gaul and a native of Milan. He died B.C. 165, two years before the representation of the Andria of Terence. He was considered by the Romans as a great master of the art of exciting the feelings. And Cicero (de Opt. Gen. Dic. 1.) speaks of him as the chief of the Roman Comic writers. Horace says-
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte.
16 Marcus Atilius, (though Cicero speaks of him here as a tragedian,) was chiefly celebrated as a comic poet. He was one of the earliest writers of that cla.s.s; but nothing of his has come down to us. In another place Cicero calls him ”duris simusscriptor.” (Epist. ad Att. xiv. 20.)
17 Diogenes was a pupil of Chrysippus, and succeeded Zeno of Tarsus as the head of the Stoic school at Athens. He was one of the emba.s.sy sent to Rome by the Athenians, B.C. 155, and is supposed to have died almost immediately afterwards.