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The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... clause in Brut. 24, and considitur in De Or. III. 18. Mihi vero: the omission of inquit, which is strange to Goer., is well illustrated in M.D.F. I. 9. There is an odd ellipse of laudasti in D.F. V. 81. §§15—42. Antiochus' view of the history of Philosophy. First part of Varro's Exposition, 15—18. Summary. Socrates rejected physics and made ethics supreme in philosophy (15). He had no fixed tenets, his one doctrine being that wisdom consists in a consciousness of ignorance. Moral exhortation was his task (16). Plato added to and enriched the teaching of his master, from him sprang two schools which abandoned the negative position of Socrates and adopted definite tenets, yet remained in essential agreement with one another—the Peripatetic and the Academic (17, 18). §15. A rebus ... involutis: physical phenomena are often spoken of in these words by Cic., cf. 19, Timaeus c. 1, D.F. I. 64, IV. 18, V. 10, N.D. I. 49. Ursinus rejected ab here, but the insertion or omission of ab after the passive verb depends on the degree to which natura is personified, if 28 be compared with Tim. c. 1, this will be clear. Involutis = veiled; cf. involucrum. Cic. shows his feeling of the metaphor by adding quasi in II. 26, and often. Avocavisse philosophiam: this, the Xenophontic view of Socrates, was the popular one in Cicero's time, cf. II. 123, T.D. V. 10, D.F. V. 87, 88, also Varro in Aug. De Civ. Dei, VIII. 3. Objections to it, however occurred to Cic., and were curiously answered in De Rep. I. 16 (cf. also Varro in Aug. De Civ. Dei, VIII. 4). The same view is supposed to be found in Aristotle, see the passages quoted by R. and P. 141. To form an opinion on this difficult question the student should read Schleiermacher's Essay on the Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher (trans. by Thirlwall), and Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools, Eng. Trans., pp. 112—116 [I dissent from his view of Aristotle's evidence], also Schwegler's Handbook, so far as it relates to Socrates and Plato. Nihil tamen ad bene vivendum valere: valere is absent from MSS., and is inserted by Halm, its use in 21 makes it more probable than conferre, which is in ed. Rom. (1471). Gronovius vainly tries to justify the MSS. reading by such passages as D.F. I. 39, T.D. I. 70. The strangest ellipse with nihil ad elsewhere in Cic. is in De Leg. I. 6. §16. Hic ... illum: for this repetition of pronouns see M.D.F. IV. 43. Varie et copiose: MSS. omit et, but it may be doubted whether Cic. would let two adverbs stand together without et, though three may (cf. II. 63), and though with pairs of nouns and adjectives, et often is left out, as in the passages quoted here by Manut. Ad Att. IV. 3, 3, Ad Fam. XIII. 24, XIII. 28, cf. also the learned note of Wesenberg, reprinted in Baiter and Halm's edition, of Cic.'s philosophical works (1861), on T.D. III. 6. Varie et copiose is also in De Or. II. 240. Cf. the omission of que in 23, also II. 63. Perscripti: Cic. like Aristotle often speaks of Plato's dialogues as though they were authentic reports of Socratic conversations, cf. II. 74. Nihil adfirmet: so T.D. I. 99. "Eoque praestare ceteris" this is evidently from Plato Apol. p. 21, as to the proper understanding of which see note on II. 74. Ab Apolline, Plato Apol. 21 A, Omnium: Dav. conj. hominum needlessly. Dictum: Lamb., followed by Schutz, reads iudicatum, it is remarkable that in four passages where Cic. speaks of this very oracle (Cato Mai. 78, Lael. 7, 9, 13) he uses the verb iudicare. Una omnis: Lamb. hominis, Baiter also. Omnis eius oratio tamen: notwithstanding his negative dialectic he gave positive teaching in morals. Tamen: for MSS. tam or tum is due to Gruter, Halm has tantum. Tam, tum and tamen are often confused in MSS., e.g. In Veri (Act II.) I. 3, 65, II. 55, 112, V. 78, where see Zumpt. Goer. abuses edd. for not knowing that tum ... et, tum ... que, et ... tum, correspond in Cic. like tum ... cum, tum ... tum. His proofs of this new Latin may be sampled by Ac. II. 1, 43. Ad virtutis studium cohortandis: this broad assertion is distinctly untrue; see Zeller's Socrates 88, with footnote. §17. Varius et multiplex, et copiosus: these characteristics are named to account for the branching off from Plato of the later schools. For multiplex "many sided," cf. T.D. V. 11. Una et consentiens: this is an opinion of Antiochus often adopted by Cic. in his own person, as in D.F. IV. 5 De Leg. I. 38, De Or. III. 67. Five ancient philosophers are generally included in this supposed harmonious Academico-Peripatetic school, viz. Aristotle, Theophrastus, Speusippus, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM]
The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... Xenocrates, Polemo (cf. D.F. IV. 2), sometimes Crantor is added. The harmony was supposed to have been first broken by Polemo's pupils; so Varro says (from Antiochus) in Aug. De Civ. Dei XIX. 1, cf. also 34. Antiochus doubtless rested his theory almost entirely on the ethical resemblances of the two schools. In D.F. V. 21, which is taken direct from Antiochus, this appears, as also in Varro (in Aug. as above) who often spoke as though ethics were the whole of philosophy (cf. also De Off. III. 20). Antiochus probably made light of such dialectical controversies between the two schools as that about ?dea?, which had long ceased. Krische Uber Cicero's Akademika p. 51, has some good remarks. Nominibus: the same as vocabulis above. Cic. does not observe Varro's distinction (De L. L. IX. 1) which confines nomen to proper nouns, vocabulum to common nouns, though he would not use vocabulum as Tac. does, for the name of a person (Annals XII. 66, etc.). Quasi heredem ... duos autem: the conj. of Ciaconus "ex asse heredem, secundos autem" is as acute as it is absurd. Duos: it is difficult to decide whether this or duo is right in Cic., he can scarcely have been so inconsistent as the MSS. and edd. make him (cf. Baiter and Halm's ed., Ac. II. 11, 13 with De Div. I. 6). The older inscr. in the Corpus vol. I. have duo, but only in duoviros, two near the time of Cic. (C.I. vol. I. nos. 571 and 1007) give duos, which Cic. probably wrote. Duo is in old Latin poets and Virgil. Chalcedonium: not Calchedonium as Klotz, cf. Gk. ?a???d?????. Praestantissimos: Halm wrongly, cf. Brut. 125. Stagiritem: not Stagiritam as Lamb., for Cic., exc. in a few nouns like Persa, pirata, etc., which came down from antiquity, did not make Greek nouns in -?? into Latin nouns in -a. See M.D.F. II. 94. Coetus ... soliti: cf. 10. Platonis ubertate: cf. Quintilian's "illa Livii lactea ubertas." Plenum ac refertam: n. on 11. Dubitationem: Halm with one MS., G, gives dubitantem, Baiter dubitanter, Why alter? Ars quaedam philosophiae: before these words all Halm's MSS., exc G, insert disserendi, probably from the line above, Lipsius keeps it and ejects philosophiae, while Lamb., Day read philosophia in the nom. Varro, however, would never say that philosophy became entirely dialectical in the hands of the old Academics and Peripatetics. Ars = te???, a set of definite rules, so Varro in Aug. (as above) speaks of the certa dogmata of this old school as opposed to the incertitude of the New Academy. Descriptio: so Halm here, but often discriptio. The Corp. Inscr., vol. I. nos. 198 and 200, has thrice discriptos or discriptum, the other spelling never. §18. Ut mihi quidem videtur: MSS. transpose quidem and videtur, as in 44. Quidem, however nearly always comes closely after the pronoun, see M.D.F. IV. 43, cf. also I. 71, III. 28, Opusc. I. 406. Expetendarum fugiendarumque: ?a??et?? ?a? fe??t??, about which more in n. on 36. The Platonic and Aristotelian ethics have indeed an external resemblance, but the ultimate bases of the two are quite different. In rejecting the Idea of the Good, Aristotle did away with what Plato would have considered most valuable in his system. The ideal theory, however, was practically defunct in the time of Antiochus, so that the similarity between the two schools seemed much greater than it was. Non sus Minervam: a Greek proverb, cf. Theocr. Id. V. 23, De Or. II. 233, Ad Fam. IX. 18, 3. Binder, in his German translation of the Academica, also quotes Plutarch Præc. Polit. 7. Inepte ... docet: elliptic for inepte docet, quisquis docet. Nostra atque nostros: few of the editors have understood this. Atticus affects everything Athenian, and speaks as though he were one of them; in Cic.'s letters to him the words "tui cives," meaning the Athenians, often occur. Quid me putas: i.e. velle. Exhibiturum: Halm inserts me before this from his one MS. G, evidently emended here by its copyist. For the omission of me, cf. note on 7. §§19—23. Part II. of Varro's Exposition: Antiochus' Ethics. Summary. The threefold division of philosophy into ?????, f?s???, d?a?e?t???. Goodness means obedience to nature, happiness the acquisition of natural advantages. These are of three kinds, mental, bodily, and external. The bodily are described (19); then the mental, which fall into two classes, congenital and acquired, virtue being the chief of the acquired (20), then the external, which form with the bodily advantages a kind of exerciseground for virtue (21). The ethical standard is then succinctly stated, in which virtue has chief part, and is capable in itself of producing happiness, though not the greatest happiness possible, which requires the possession of all three classes of advantages http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM]
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