“Pro deum, popularium omnium, omnium adulescentium
clamo, postulo, obsecro, oro, ploro atque imploro fidem”

“ab amico amante argentum accipere meretrix non vult.”

“By heaven, I invoke and demand, beseech and entreat, weep for and implore the protection of all our fellow-countrymen, of all young men,”

“a courtesan refuses to take money from her lover,”

[14] sed ut assint, cognoscant, animadvertant, quid de religione, pietate, sanctitate, cærimoniis, fide, jure jurando, quid de templis, delubris, sacrificiisque sollemnibus, quid de ipsis auspiciis quibus nos præsumus, existimandum sit.  Hæc enim omnia ad hanc de dis immortalibus quæstionem referenda sunt ;  profecto eos ipsos, qui se aliquid certi habere arbitrantur, addubitare coget doctissimorum hominum de maxima re tanta dissensio.

VIII.  Vellejus then began, displaying, as is usual with his school, no lack of confidence, and afraid, beyond all things, of seeming to be in doubt upon any point, just as though he had that moment come down from the assembly of the gods and the inter-mundane spaces^⇊ 3 ⇊ of Epicurus. Listen, he said, to no groundless and fanciful beliefs; no fabricator and builder of the world, like the god from Plato’s Timæus; no prophetic beldame like the Πρόνοια of the Stoics (whom in our own language we may call Providence); no world itself, either, endowed with mind and sensation, a round and glowing and whirling deity, — the prodigies and marvels of philosophers who do not reason but dream. Why, by what manner of means could Plato, your pet authority, have beheld the construction of this great work, the construction with which he represents the world as being put together and built by God? How was so vast a fabric set about? What were the tools, and levers, and machines, and agents employed in it? On the other hand how could air, fire, water, and earth have been obedient and submissive to the architect’s will? And whence did those five forms arise^⇊ 4 ⇊ from which the other elements are formed, and which are so conveniently adapted for affecting the mind, and producing sensation?^⇊ 5 ⇊ It would be tedious to remark upon all his theories, which have more the appearance of day dreams than of ascertained results, but the prize instance is the following: he represented the world not merely as having come into existence, but as having been almost turned out by hand, and yet asserted that it would be everlasting. Now do you think that a man like this, who thinks that anything that has come into being can be eternal, has put, as the saying is, even the surface of his lips to physiologia, in other words, to natural philosophy? For is there any agglomeration that cannot be dissolved, or anything that, having a beginning, has not also an end? As for your Πρόνοια, Lucilius, if it is the same as the power we have been discussing, I ask, as I did just now, for the agents, machines, and all the planning and ordering of the entire work. If, on the other hand, it is something different, I ask why it made the world liable to perish,^⇊ 6 ⇊ instead of making it everlasting, as was done by the god of Plato.

IX.  And from both of you^⇊ 7 ⇊ I inquire why these powers suddenly appeared as constructors of the world, and why for innumerable ages they were asleep, for it does not follow, if there was no world, that there were no ages. By ages I do not now mean those that are made up of a number of days and nights by means of the yearly revolutions, for I acknowledge that ages in that sense could not have been attained without a rotatory movement of the heavens, but from infinitely far back there has existed an eternity, the nature of which in point of extent can be conceived, though it was not measured by periods of time.^⇊ 8 ⇊ I ask, then, Balbus, why during that limitless extent of time your Πρόνοια refrained from action. Was it labor that it shunned? But God was not affected by that, nor was there any, since all the elements, the air of heaven, the bodies composed of fire, the lands, and seas, were obedient to the divine will. What reason, again, was there why God should be desirous of decking the world, like an ædile, with figures and lights?^⇊ 9 ⇊ If he did so in order that he himself might be better lodged, it is clear that for an infinite amount of time previously he had been living in all the darkness of a hovel. And do we regard him as afterwards deriving pleasure from the diversity with which we see heaven and earth adorned? What delight can that be to God? And if it were a delight, he would not have been able to go without it for so long. Or was this universe, as your school is accustomed to assert, established by God for the sake of men? Does that mean for the sake of wise men? In that case it was on behalf of but a small number that so vast a work was constructed. Or was it for the sake of the foolish? In the first place there was no reason why God should do a kindness to the bad, and in the second place what did he effect, seeing that the lot of all the foolish is undoubtedly a most miserable one? The chief reason for this is the fact that they are foolish, for what can we name as being more miserable than folly? and the second is the fact that there are so many ills in life that, while the wise alleviate them by a balance of good, the foolish can neither avoid their approach nor endure their presence.

X.  As for those^⇊ 10 ⇊ who declared that the world itself was animate and wise, they were far from understanding to what kind of figure^⇊ 11 ⇊ it is possible for the quality of rational intelligence to belong, a point on which I will myself speak a little later. For the present I will not go farther than to express my astonishment at the dullness of those who represent an animate being, that is immortal and also blessed, as round, because Plato says that there is no shape more beautiful than that. Yet I find more beauty in the shape either of a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a pyramid. And what kind of life is assigned to this round divinity? Why, a kind which consists in his being whirled along at a rate of speed, the like of which cannot even be conceived, and in which I do not see where a foothold can be found for a steadfast mind and blessed life. Why, again, should not that be considered painful in the case of God, which would be painful if it were evidenced^⇊ 12 ⇊ to the slightest extent in our own bodies? For the earth, since it is a part of the world, is also of course a part of God. But we see vast tracts of the earth uninhabitable and uncultivated, some through being parched by the beating of the sun’s rays, and others through being bound with snow and frost owing to the distance to which the sun withdraws from them; and these, if the world is God, must, since they are parts of the world, be respectively described as glowing and frozen members of God!

XI.  Next Anaxagoras, who derived his system from Anaximenes, was the first to hold that the order and measure of all things was planned and accomplished by the power and intelligence of an infinite mind, in saying which he failed to see that there can be no activity joined with, and allied to, sensation^⇊ 13 ⇊ in what is infinite, and no sensation at all in anything that does not feel through its own nature being acted upon. In the next place, if he intended this mind of his to be some kind of living thing, there will be some inner part on the strength of which it may be called living; but there is no part more inward than mind; let mind, therefore, be surrounded with an outer body. Since he objects to this, what we get is pure, unbodied mind, with nothing added by means of which it may be able to receive sensation, a state of things which seems to surpass the powers of conception possessed by man’s understanding. Alcmæo of Croton, who assigned divinity to the sun, and moon, and other heavenly bodies, and also to the soul, was unaware that he was endowing the perishable^⇊ 14 ⇊ with immortality. As for Pythagoras, who held that the whole nature of things was traversed and permeated by a soul, from which our own souls are taken, he failed to see that by this division into human souls the divine soul was rent and lacerated, and that when the human souls experienced pain, as most of them would,^⇊ 15 ⇊ a portion of the divine soul also suffered, which is impossible.

Xenophon, too, makes in fewer words very much the same mistakes. In the record that he has given of the sayings of Socrates he represents Socrates as arguing that the form of God ought not to be made a subject of inquiry, and at the same time asserting the divinity both of the sun and of the soul, and as speaking of God at one moment in the singular, and at another in the plural, which statements are involved in pretty much the same error as those which we quoted from Plato.

XIII.  Antisthenes, again, destroys the significance and essential nature of the gods when he declares in the work entitled “On Natural Philosophy,” that there are many gods believed in by the people, but only one that is known to nature. Nor is Speusippus far different; following in the steps of Plato, who was his uncle, he attempts to wrest from our minds our knowledge of the gods by describing the deity as a kind of living energy, by which all things are directed. Aristotle gives a most confused account, on the same lines as his master,^⇊ 18 ⇊ in the third book of his treatise “On Philosophy,” where at one moment he ascribes absolute divinity to mind, at another represents the world itself as divine, at another places the world under the dominion of some other power, to which he assigns the function of guiding and preserving, by means of a kind of retrograde movement, the world’s motion, and at another speaks of the ethereal heaven as God, not understanding that the heaven is a part of that world to which he has himself given the title of God elsewhere. How, moreover, could the divine consciousness of the heaven be maintained when moving at such speed? and where will a place be found for the great number of other gods,^⇊ 19 ⇊ if we also count the heaven as God? When he further declares that God is incorporeal, he deprives him of all consciousness, and also of forethought; besides, if God has no body, how can he be moved? on the other hand, if he is constantly in motion, how can he know peace and happiness?

XV.  Persæus, who also was a pupil of Zeno, says that it was men who had discovered some great aid to civilisation that were regarded as gods, and that the names of divinities were also bestowed upon actual material objects of use and profit, so that he is not even content to describe these as the creations of God, but makes out that they are themselves divine. Yet what can compare with the absurdity either of endowing mean and unshapely objects with the honors of divinity, or of ranking among the gods men already cut off by death, whose worship would have had to consist entirely in mourning? We come next to Chrysippus, who is considered the most skilful exponent of the fantastic notions of the Stoics, and who gathers together a large band of deities so utterly removed from knowledge that, although our mind seems able to picture in imagination anything whatever, we cannot even form an idea of them by conjecture. For he tells us that divine power resides in reason and in the soul and mind of nature taken as a whole, and then again he declares that the world itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul, then that it is this same world’s guiding principle, operating in mind and reason, together with the common nature of things and the totality which embraces all existence, then the foreordained might (εἱμαρμένη “destiny”) and necessity of the future, then fire and the principle of æther that we have mentioned before, then those elements whose natural state is one of flux and transition, such as water, earth, and air, then the sun, the moon, the stars, the universal existence in which all things are contained, and also those human beings who have attained immortality. He further maintains that æther is that which men call Jove, and that the air which permeates the seas is Neptune, and that the earth is what is known by the name of Ceres, and he treats in similar style the titles of the other gods. He also identifies Jove with the power of uninterrupted, eternal law, the guide of life, as it may be called, and mistress of duty, which he also describes as fore-ordained necessity and the eternal truth of the future, though which he also describes as fore-ordained necessity and the eternal truth of the future, though none of these qualities are such as to give an appearance of divine power being resident in them. All this is in his first book on the nature of the gods; in the second his aim is to harmonise the stories of Orpheus, Musæus, Hesiod, and Homer with what he has himself said on the subject of the immortal gods in the first book, so that even the oldest poets, who had not so much as a conception of such things, are made to seem to have been Stoics. Diogenes of Babylon follows in his steps in the work entitled De Minerva, where he removes from mythology the travail of Jupiter, and birth of the maiden goddess, and transfers them to natural philosophy.

Any one who should reflect how unthinkingly and recklessly these ideas are advanced, ought to reverence Epicurus and place him among the number of those very beings that form the subject of this inquiry, for it was he alone who perceived, in the first place, the fact of the existence of the gods from the idea of them which nature herself had implanted in all men’s minds. For what nation or race of men is there that does not possess, independently of instruction, a certain preconception of them? It is this which Epicurus calls by the name of πρόληψις, that is, a certain idea of a thing formed by the mind beforehand, without which nothing can be understood, or investigated, or discussed; and we have learnt the purport and advantage of this exercise of the reason from that divine volume of his upon criterion and judgment.

XVII.  You see, then, that what constitutes the foundation of this inquiry is excellently well laid, for since the belief in question was determined by no ordinance, or custom, or law, and since a steadfast unanimity continues to prevail amongst all men without exception, it must be understood that the gods exist. For we have ideas of them implanted, or rather innate, within us, and as that upon which the nature of all men is agreed must needs be true, their existence must be acknowledged. Since their existence is pretty universally admitted not only among philosophers but also among those who are not philosophers, let us own that the following fact philosophers but also among those who are not philosophers, let us own that the following fact is also generally allowed, namely, that we possess a “preconception,” to use my former word, or “previous notion” of the gods (new designations that have to be employed when the objects of designation are new, just as Epicurus himself applied the term πρόληψις to what no one had described by that name before) — we possess, I say, a preconception which makes us think of them as blessed and immortal. For nature that gave us the idea of gods as such, has also engraved in our minds the conviction that they are blessed and eternal. If that is so, there was truth in the doctrine put forward by Epicurus, that what is blessed and eternal knows no trouble itself, and causes none to others, and is therefore unaffected by anger or favor, since, as he said, anything that is so affected is marked by weakness.

Enough would have now been said, if our aim were only to worship the gods with piety, and to be freed from superstition, for a divine nature of this exalted kind, being eternal and supremely blessed, would receive the pious worship of mankind (everything that is of surpassing excellence inspiring a just reverence), and also all fear arising from the violence and anger of the gods would have been dispelled, now that it is understood that anger and favor have no place in a blessed and immortal nature, and that, when those feelings have been removed, no terrors threaten us from the powers above. However, in order to confirm this belief,^⇊ 20 ⇊ the mind looks for form in God, and for active life, and the working of intelligence.

And then, Balbus, it is usual with your school to inquire from us what the life of the gods is like, and how they spend their days. In a way, you may be certain, which for blessedness and abundant possession of every good cannot be excelled even in imagination. For God does nothing, is involved in no occupations, and projects no works; he rejoices in his own wisdom and virtue, and is assured that his state will always be one of the highest felicity eternally prolonged.

XX.  We should be right in describing this God as blessed, but yours as a slave to toil. For if it is the world itself that is God, what can be less restful—and nothing that is not restful is blessed— than to revolve round the celestial axis without a moment’s pause and at a marvellous rate of speed? If, on the other hand, a god of some kind is resident in the world itself, who is to rule and direct it, to maintain the courses of the stars, and the changes of the seasons, and the ordered alternation of events, to have his eye upon lands and seas, and to guard the wellbeing and the lives of men, assuredly it is an oppressive and laborious task in which he is involved. We, on the contrary, make blessedness of life depend upon an untroubled mind, and exemption from all duties, for we were taught by him who taught us everything else, that the world was produced by the working of nature, without there having been any need for a process of manufacture, and that what your school declares to be capable of accomplishment only by means of divine intelligence is a thing so easy that nature will produce, and is producing, and has produced worlds innumerable. It is because you do not see how nature can accomplish this without the help of some kind of mind that, like the tragic poets, in your inability to bring the plot to a smooth conclusion, you have recourse to a god. Yet you would certainly feel no need for his agency if you had before your eyes the expanse of region, unmeasured and on every side unbounded, upon which the mind may fasten and concentrate itself, and where it may wander far and wide without seeing any farthermost limit upon which itself, and where it may wander far and wide without seeing any farthermost limit upon which to be able to rest. Now in this immensity of length and breadth and height there floats an infinite quantity of innumerable atoms which, in spite of the intervening void, nevertheless join together, and through one seizing upon one, and another upon another, form themselves into connected wholes, by which means are produced those forms and outlines of the material world which your school is of opinion cannot be produced without bellows and anvils. You have therefore placed our necks beneath the yoke of a perpetual tyrant, of whom we are to go in fear by day and night, for who would not fear a god who foresaw everything, considered everything, noted everything, and looked upon himself as concerned in everything,—a busy and prying god? From this has come, in the first place, your idea of preordained necessity, which you call εἱμαρμένη, meaning by the term that every event that occurs had its origin in eternal truth and the chain of causation—(though what is to be thought of a philosophy that holds the ignorant old crone’s belief that everything happens by destiny?)—and secondly your art of μαντική, or divinatio, as it is called in Latin, which, if we were willing to listen to you, would imbue us with such superstition that we should have to pay regard to soothsayers, augurs, diviners, prophets, and interpreters of dreams. From these terrors we have been released by Epicurus, and claimed for freedom; we do not fear beings of whom we understand that they neither create trouble for themselves, nor seek it for others, and we worship, in piety and holiness, a sublime and exalted nature.

However, before I come to the arguments that you have advanced, I will tell you what my feeling is about yourself. I have, I think, often heard your friend^⇊ 25 ⇊ place you unhesitatingly above all our own countrymen, and compare with you only a few of the Epicureans of Greece, but as I perceived that he was very much attached to you, I used to think that there was some exaggeration in what he said, due to his friendliness. I myself, however, though I shrink from praising a man to his face, nevertheless deliver it as my opinion that you have discussed an obscure and difficult subject with clearness, and not only with a fulness of statement, but also with more elegance of diction than is usual with your school. When I was at Athens I frequently attended the lectures of Zeno, whom our own Philo used to call the leading Epicurean; in fact I attended them at Philo’s own suggestion, in order, I suppose, that I might be better able to judge how ably their tenets were refuted, when I had heard from the chief of the school the way in which they were put forth. Now Zeno did not heard from the chief of the school the way in which they were put forth. Now Zeno did not speak as most Epicureans do, but in the same way that you did, clearly, weightily, and elegantly. Nevertheless there came to me a little while ago, when I was listening to you, the same feeling that I often had in his case, one, namely, of impatience that so much ability should have fallen, if you will forgive my saying so, into such trifling, not to say foolish, beliefs. At the same time I shall not now bring forward anything better myself, for, as I said a moment before, in almost all matters, but especially in matters of natural philosophy,^⇊ 26 ⇊ I should more readily say what a thing is not, than what it is.

XXII.  If you were to ask me what God is, or of what nature, I should plead the authority of Simonides, who, when this same question was put to him by the tyrant Hiero, asked for one day’s deliberation; when the question was repeated on the morrow, he begged for two, and when Hiero, upon his constantly doubling the number of days, inquired wonderingly why he did so, Because, he replied, the longer I reflect, the more obscure does the matter seem to me. Now, in the case of Simonides, whom we hear of as having been not only a delightful poet, but a wise and cultivated man in other ways as well, it is my belief that it was the number of acute and subtle considerations that occurred to him which made him doubt which of them was the truest, and so despair of all truth, whereas your Epicurus, with whom rather than with yourself I prefer to carry on the discussion,—what does he say that would be worthy, I do not say of philosophy, but of ordinary intelligence?

“Tubulus si Lucius unquam,

si Lupus aut Carbo aut Neptuni filius,”

ut ait Lucilius, putasset esse deos, ¿ tam perjurus aut tam impurus fuisset ?  [64] Non est igitur tam explorata ista ratio ad id quod vultis confirmandum quam videtur.  Sed quia commune hoc est argumentum aliorum etiam philosophorum, omittam hoc tempore ;  ad vestra propria venire malo.

XXIII.  You said that the fact of men of all races and nations being of that opinion was sufficiently good evidence to warrant us in acknowledging the existence of the gods, but the plea is not only trivial in itself, but also untrue. For in the first place how do you know that nations do hold that belief? I think myself that there are many races so barbarously savage as to be without any conception of such beings. And did not Diagoras, who was called Ἄθεος [“the Atheist”], and after him Theodorus, openly do away with the idea of a divine nature ? As for Protagoras of Abdera whom Theodorus, openly do away with the idea of a divine nature? As for Protagoras of Abdera whom you mentioned just now, and who was quite the most eminent sophist of that time, it was in consequence of his stating at the beginning of his work, “With regard to the gods I am unable to say either that they exist or do not exist,”^⇊ 28 ⇊ that he was banished by a decree of the Athenians from their city and territory, and his books burnt in the public assembly. This, in my opinion, made many people less inclined to confess to unbelief, after a case in which even the expression of doubt had not been able to escape punishment. Then, what are we to say of the sacrilegious, the impious, and the perjured? “If ever,” as Lucilius says,

“Lucius Tubulus, or Lupus, or Carbo, true son of Neptune,”^⇊ 29 ⇊

I grant that the gods exist; do you, then, inform me of their origin and place of abode, and of what they are like in body, mind, and life, for these are the points on which I wish for knowledge. What you do is to press into your service on all occasions the arbitrary rule of the atoms, to which you refer the composition and creation of everything that, as the saying is, “turns up.” But in the first place there are no such things as atoms, for there is nothing [ever so small in nature that cannot be divided;  next, in order for them to exist, they cannot be moved through a void, if indeed you call a void] what is empty of matter.^⇊ 30 ⇊  But every spot is occupied by portions of matter;^⇊ 31 ⇊  thus there can be no void and nothing that is indivisible.

XXIV.  These are the oracular utterances of men of science of which I am now delivering myself, whether true or false I know not, but possessing at any rate a greater air of truth than the utterances of your school. That monstrous assertion, for instance, of Democritus, or perhaps before him of Leucippus also, that there are a number of particles some smooth and others rough, some round and others angular and pyramidal, and some hook-shaped and with a kind of curve, from which the sky and earth were formed, not through the compulsion of any natural law, but through a certain accidental concourse,—that belief, Vellejus, you have prolonged even to your present age, and you would be as easily diverted from the whole tenor of your life as from your acceptance of its authority. The fact is that you made up your mind that you must be an Epicurean before becoming acquainted with doctrines of that description, and you had, therefore, either to mentally assimilate these outrageous theories, or to forego the title of your adopted philosophy; for what would induce you to cease to be an Epicurean? “For my own part,” you say, “nothing would induce me to abandon truth and the means of a happy life.” Truth, then, is contained in your system? As to happiness of life I raise no contention, for you do not think that that is possessed even by God unless he is positively languid from inactivity. But where is truth resident? In the innumerable worlds, I suppose, of which, in each briefest instant of time, some are coming into being and others perishing. Or is it in the indivisible particles which form such admirable combinations without being directed by any natural law or particles which form such admirable combinations without being directed by any natural law or intelligence? But I embrace too much, forgetting the generosity which I began just now to extend to you. That all things, then, are composed of atoms I will grant, but what has that to do with the question, when it is the nature of the gods into which we are inquiring? Let them by all means be formed from atoms, they are not therefore eternal. For that which is formed from atoms came at some time into being; if so, the gods had no existence anterior to birth, and having known a beginning they must also know an end, as you were urging, a short time back, in the case of Plato’s world. Where then are your attributes of blessedness and eternity, the two words by which you indicate God? When you wish to prove them, you seek the shelter of the thickets, as was shown by your saying that there was no body in God, but quasi-body, and no blood, but quasi-blood.

His tactics are the same with regard to the divine nature; in the effort to avoid an accretion of indivisible particles, for fear it should be overtaken by dispersion and decay, he asserts that the gods have no body, but quasi-body, and no blood, but quasi-blood.

XXVI.  It seems marvellous that one soothsayer should not laugh at the sight of another, but it is more marvellous that you Epicureans should be able to keep from laughter among yourselves. “Not body, but quasi-body.” I should understand what this meant if it were applied to figures of wax or clay, but I cannot understand the meaning of quasi-body and quasi-blood as applied to God, or clay, but I cannot understand the meaning of quasi-body and quasi-blood as applied to God —, nor can you either, Vellejus, only you do not like to own it.

But come, what do you understand by your “quasi-body” and “quasi-blood”? That you are better acquainted with such matters than myself is a fact which I not only acknowledge, but submit to with equanimity, but when they have once been stated, what reason is there why Vellejus should be able to understand them, and Cotta should not? I understand, then, what body is and what blood is, but what quasi-body is, and quasi-blood, I simply do not understand at all. And it is not that you are keeping anything from me, as Pythagoras used to do from the uninitiated, or are speaking with intentional obscurity like Heraclitus, but if the remark may be allowed between us, you do not understand any better yourself.

XXVII.  I see that your contention is that the gods possess a kind of form which has no compactness, solidity, relief, or prominence, but is without admixture, and volatile, and transparent. Well, we will say of it what we say of the Venus of Cos. That figure is not a body, but resembles a body, that diffused glow intermingled with white is not blood, but a certain semblance of blood, and similarly we will say that in the god of Epicurus there is nothing real, but only the semblances of reality. Suppose me to be convinced of that which cannot even be understood, and acquaint me next with the forms and features of your shadowy deities. On this question there is not wanting an abundance of arguments by means of which you would be glad to prove that the gods are of human form; firstly, because our minds have formed an idea and preconception of them which makes the human form suggest itself to a man when he thinks of God; secondly, because the divine nature, since it excels in all respects, ought also to possess the most beautiful kind of form, and there is no form more beautiful than man’s; and thirdly, you bring forward the following argument,—because no other figure can be the abiding place of mind. Now I will ask you to consider the nature of each of these arguments in turn, for you seem to me to be arrogating to yourselves, as though in the exercise of a right that you possessed, an assumption that cannot by any means be allowed. Was there ever any one at all who looked upon the world with so blind an eye as not to see that these human figures of yours were attributed to the gods either designedly by wise men, in order that they might the more easily wean uninstructed minds from a degraded mode of life to the worship of the gods, or else in consequence of a superstitious desire for images, in paying homage to which men might believe that they were approaching the gods themselves? This same tendency, moreover, has been increased by the poets, painters, and workers in art, for it was not easy, in imitating other forms, to preserve the appearance of action and effort on the part of the gods. Perhaps, too, the feeling to which you referred contributed its share, man’s belief, I mean, in the superior beauty of man. But do you not see, my good natural philosopher, what an insinuating go-between, and, so to speak, pander to herself dame nature is? Or do you suppose that there is any creature in land or sea that is not most pleased by a creature of its own kind? If that were not the case, why should not a bull take pleasure in union with a mare, or a horse with a cow? Do you believe that an eagle, or lion, or dolphin prefers any shape to its own? And if in the same way nature has enjoined upon man that he should think nothing more beautiful than man, is it at all strange that this feeling should be the cause of our thinking the gods to be like men?

“constiteram exorientem Auroram forte salutans,

quum subito a læva Roscius exoritur.

Pace mihi liceat, cælestes, dicere vestra :

mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo.”

Do you not believe that, if animals possessed reason, each species would have assigned pre-eminence to itself?

XXVIII.  Yet really, if I am to express my own sentiments, though not devoid of self-complacency, I do not. for all that, venture to affirm that I am more beautiful than the bull that carried Europa; for we are considering at this moment outline and form, and not intelligence, or the human faculty of speech. And if it were our pleasure to invent and combine forms for ourselves, should you object to being like the Triton of the deep, who is depicted as riding upon swimming seacreatures that are attached to a human body? I am touching on difficult ground, for the force of nature is so great that no one who is a man wishes to be like anything but a man —, no, nor an ant, I presume, like anything but an ant! Still, like what kind of man? For it is only a few who are beautiful; when I was at Athens scarcely one would be found in each division of the ephebi.^⇊ 32 ⇊ I understand why you smile, but nevertheless the fact is so. Besides, those of us who take pleasure, as the ancient philosophers allow us to do, in the society of youths, often find even their imperfections charming. “A mole on a boy’s finger delights Alcæus.” Yet it is a bodily defect. To Alcæus, however, it seemed an ornament. Quintus Catulus, the father of the Quintus Catulus who is our contemporary, and my friend and colleague,^⇊ 33 ⇊ had a fondness for your fellow-townsman Roscius,^⇊ 34 ⇊ to whom he also addressed the following verses: —

« I chanced to have stood doing reverence to the rising dawn,

when suddenly Roscius rises on my left.

Powers of heaven, with your leave may I say it,

the mortal seemed to be fairer than the god. »

But I return to the consideration of the gods.

XXIX.  Do we suppose that any of them, if not so cross-eyed as Roscius, have still got something of a cast, or are marked with moles, or are snub-nosed, flap-eared, beetle-browed, or top-heavy, defects which exist amongst ourselves? Or is everything in them perfect? Let it be granted to you that the latter is the case; have they also all of them the same aspect? If not, it is necessary that the aspect of one should be more beautiful than that of another, and consequently there is some god that falls short of supreme beauty. If they all have the same aspect, the Academy must needs be the popular school in the upper world, for if there is no difference between god and god, there is no scope amongst them for perception and cognition.

And what, Vellejus, if your assumption that, when we think of God, the only form that suggests itself to us is that of a man, is itself wholly false? Will you still defend these absurd ideas? To us, perhaps, the suggestion is as you say, for from our childhood we have known Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and the other gods, under the aspect which painters and sculptors have laid down for us, and so with regard to their insignia, and age, and attire. But the Egyptians, the Syrians, and almost the whole of the uncivilised world have not so known them. You would find amongst them a firmer belief in certain animals than amongst us in the holiest temples and images of the gods, for many a shrine has, as we see, been plundered by our countrymen, and the images of the gods taken away from the holiest places, but no one has even so much as heard tell of a crocodile, or ibis, or cat having been dishonored by an Egyptian. What, then, is your opinion? Is it not that Apis, the sacred ox of the Egyptians, is regarded by them as divine? Of course he is, as much as your Juno Sospita is by you, that Juno whom you never see even in your dreams without a goat-skin, a spear, a small shield, and shoes turned up at the toe. As, however, neither the Argive Juno, nor the Roman, is of that description, it follows that the goddess is known under different forms by the Argives, the Lanuvinians, and ourselves. The form, moreover, of our Jupiter of the Capitol is different from that of the Jupiter Hammon of the Africans.

XXX.  Are you not ashamed, then, as a man of science, that is, an explorer and pursuer of nature, to seek a testimony to truth in minds imbued with habit? At that rate it will be open to us to say that Jupiter is always bearded, and Apollo beardless, that Minerva has grey eyes, and Neptune blue. There is, too, at Athens a much admired statue of Vulcan by Alcamenes, a draped, standing figure, in which a lameness which does not amount to deformity is slightly indicated. We shall, therefore, since we have received that account of Vulcan, think of the god as lame. We shall, therefore, since we have received that account of Vulcan, think of the god as lame. And then do we also represent the gods as having the same names as those by which we call them? Why, in the first place, there are as many names of the gods as there are languages among men, for Vulcan has not the same name in Italy, Africa, and Spain, in the same way that you, wherever you go, remain Vellejus. In the second place, even in our pontifical books the number of names is not a large one, and yet you say that the number of gods is infinite. Are they without names? So you are bound to say, for what point is there in their possessing a variety of names, when their aspect is uniform? How much more becoming it would have been, Vellejus, for you to have confessed your ignorance of things of which you were ignorant, than to have ejected the nonsense which you did, and aroused your own disgust. Or do you really think that God is like me or you? Of course you do not.

Well? Am I to say that the sun, or moon, or sky is God? Is he therefore also blessed? What pleasures does he enjoy to make him so? Is he wise? How can wisdom reside in a block of that kind? These are objections which your own school urges.^⇊ 35 ⇊ If, then, as I have shown, God does not possess a human aspect, nor, as you are convinced, any aspect of the kind just mentioned, what makes you hesitate to deny the existence of the gods? You do not dare to deny it, and there is wisdom in your not daring, although on an occasion like the present it is not the people of whom you are in fear, no, you are in fear of the gods themselves. I have known Epicureans who worshipped every little image, though I am aware that some people are of opinion that Epicurus, while he retained the gods in word, in order not to fall under the displeasure of the Athenians, in reality did away with them. Thus, amongst his short, selected maxims, which you call κυρίαι δόξαι, the first, I believe, runs as follows: That which is blessed and immortal neither knows trouble, nor does it cause trouble to any.

XXXI.  There are some who think that in this maxim thus expressed Epicurus intentionally produced an impression which was due simply to his awkwardness of style; they misjudge a man who is devoid of artifice.^⇊ 36 ⇊ It is, certainly, doubtful whether his words imply that some blessed and immortal nature does exist, or that, if it existed, it would be of the kind described, but his critics fail to notice that if he has spoken ambiguously in this passage, there are many others in which both he and Metrodorus have spoken as unmistakably as you did just now. The fact is that he believes in their existence, and I have never seen any one with a greater fear of what, according to him, did not need to be feared, I mean of death and the gods. The minds of all living men, he cries, are overcome with terror at what ordinary people do not find so particularly disquieting. So many thousands commit highway robbery with the penalty of death before them, and others plunder all the shrines that they can, terrified, I suppose, respectively by the fear either of death or of religion!

Yes, and you, Vellejus, exchanging your ordinary methods for those of the logicians, with whose processes you and your fraternity are absolutely unacquainted, have drawn up your argument in the form of a syllogism. You have assumed that the gods are blessed, which I allow. And that no one can be blessed without virtue.

XXXII.  I grant that too, and grant it willingly. Next you have assumed that virtue cannot exist without reason, which also must needs be admitted. And reason, you go on to say, is only to be found in a human form. Who do you think will grant you that? If it were a fact, what need would there have been for you to make your way to it step by step? You would have had a right to assume it. And what is the nature of this step by step process? I see that you have advanced by its means from beings that are blessed to virtue, and from virtue to reason, but how do you get from reason to the human form? There you take not the next step downwards, but a flying leap.

When you take into consideration the special usefulness and serviceableness of the limbs in a man’s body, does not even that incline you to the conclusion that human limbs are not required by the gods? What need is there for feet without walking, and for hands if nothing is to be grasped, and for all the other parts of the bodily system, that system in which there is nothing idle, or undesigned, or superfluous? God, then, will possess a tongue, and will not speak; he will possess, without any use for them, teeth, and palate, and throat; the organs with which nature has supplied the body for generative purposes he will possess in vain; and so it will be not only with the outer parts, but the inner as well, the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the rest. And if the usefulness of the latter is taken away, what do they possess in the way of charm?

I ask the question because it is with a view to beauty that you require the presence of these organs in God.^⇊ 37 ⇊

Was it trusting to such dreams as these that not only Epicurus and Metrodorus and Hermarchus spoke against Pythagoras and Plato and Empedocles, but even the courtesan Leontium^⇊ 38 ⇊ ventured to write against Theophrastus? She did so, it is true, in a neat and Attic style, but still —. Such was the licence assumed by the Garden of Epicurus, yet it is a common thing for you to complain on your own behalf, and Zeno actually went to law.^⇊ 39 ⇊ Of Albucius it is unnecessary for me to speak. As for Phædrus, though nothing could have exceeded his refinement and urbanity, the old man used to become angry if I said anything at all trenchant, although Epicurus made a most scurrilous attack upon Aristotle, was shamefully abusive to Phædo, the disciple of Socrates, devoted whole volumes to the dissection of Timocrates, the brother of his own intimate companion Metrodorus, because he differed from him upon some point in philosophy, showed ingratitude even towards Democritus, of whom he was a follower, and bore very hardly upon his instructor Nausiphanes, from whom he never would allow that he had learnt anything.

XXXIV.  Zeno, indeed, not only used to assail his contemporaries, Apollodorus, Silus, and the rest, with abuse, but used to say of Socrates himself, the father of philosophy, that he had been the Attic scurra (“clown”) — using the Latin word — and of Chrysippus he never used to speak except as Chrysippa.^⇊ 40 ⇊ You yourself a little while ago, when calling over the names, so to say, of the philosophic senate, kept describing men of the utmost eminence as idiots, fools, and madmen. Yet if none of these men apprehended the truth as to the nature of the gods, it is to be feared that no such nature exists at all.

But your constant cry is that the blessedness and immortality of God must be retained. Well, what prevents his being blessed, if he were something else than a biped? Or why is not this quality, whether we are to call it beatitas or beatitudo—both of them, it is true, harsh-sounding terms,^⇊ 41 ⇊ but it is for us to make words smooth by using them — why is it not, under whatever name, attributable to the sun above, or to this world of ours, or to some ever-enduring intelligence that is without form and bodily parts? All that you say is, “I have never seen a sun or world that was blessed.” Well, have you ever seen a world besides this one? You will say no. Why did you venture to say, then, not that there were some hundreds of thousands, but a countless number of worlds? “Reason taught me.” And will not reason, considering that what is being sought is a nature of supreme excellence, which is at the same time blessed and eternal, for only a nature with those attributes is divine, teach you that just as we are surpassed by such a nature in immortality, so we are surpassed in excellence of mind, and as in excellence of mind, so also in excellence of body? Why, then, seeing that we are inferior in other respects, are we equal in the matter of form? It was the virtue of man rather than his figure that came nearest to a likeness to God.

Can anything, to still pursue the same point, be named that would be more childish than for us to deny the existence of the different kinds of animals that are produced in the Red Sea, or in India? Why, the inquiries of even the keenest investigators do not enable them to hear of all the multitudes of creatures that exist in land and sea, in marshes and rivers; let us, then, deny their existence since we have never seen them.

XXXVI.  And yet you were abusing those who, judging from results so magnificent and glorious, when they looked upon the universe itself, and upon its parts, the sky, the lands, and the seas, and upon their ornaments, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and when they marked the maturing of the seasons, and their changes and alternations, conceived the existence of a sublime, exalted power that had created these things, and moved, and controlled, and directed them. Even though they stray from the path of true conjecture, still I can understand what principles they follow; but you—come, what great and notable work, with the appearance of having been produced by divine intelligence, can you point to as a foundation for your belief in the existence of the gods? “I had,” you say, “a kind of preconception of God implanted in my mind.” Yes, and of a bearded Jupiter, and helmeted Minerva, but do you then suppose that they answer to that description? How much better this question is treated by the ignorant multitude, who not only assign human limbs to God, but a use for those limbs as well, for they provide bow, arrows, spear, shield, trident, and thunderbolt, and if their vision does not extend to the actions of the gods, at any rate they cannot conceive of God as inactive. Even the much ridiculed Egyptians never deified an animal except with reference to some benefit which they derived from it. For instance, the ibis, being a tall bird, with legs that do not bend, and a long beak of horn, destroys a vast number of serpents; in killing and eating the winged snakes that are brought in by the south-west wind from the Libyan desert, it preserves Egypt from plague, the snakes being thus prevented from causing harm by their bite when living, or by their smell when dead. I could speak of services rendered by the ichneumenon, the crocodile, and the cat, but I do not wish to be lengthy, and will conclude by saying that it was at least in return for benefits that animals were deified by the barbarians, whereas on the part of your gods there not only exists no beneficent action, but not even action of any kind. “God has nothing to do,” says Epicurus, thinking, we must suppose, like a spoilt child that there is nothing better than idleness, thinking, we must suppose, like a spoilt child that there is nothing better than idleness.

XXXVII.  Yet even children, even when idle, amuse themselves with some active sport, and do we wish that God’s holiday-keeping should be one of such languid inertia as to make us fear that, if he moved, it would be impossible for him to be happy? Statements of that kind not only deprive the gods of motion and divine activity, but lead to inertness in men as well — if, that is, even God cannot be happy when engaged in action of any kind.

You were saying, for example, that the form of God is perceived by mind and not by sense, that it possesses no solidity and no unvarying self-identity, that the apprehension of it consists in its being discerned by means of the resemblance of the images and their passage before us, and in there being a never-failing addition, from amongst the countless sum of atoms, of similar images, with the result that our minds, which are intently fixed upon these images, believe the nature in question to be blessed and immortal.

XXXVIII.  Now what, in the name of those very gods of whom we are speaking, does this mean? If they can only impress the thinking faculty, and if their form possesses no solidity or relief, we might as well meditate on a Centaur as on God, for every mental conception of that kind is what other philosophers call a creation of the fancy, though you say that it results from images coming in contact with and entering the mind. In the same way, then, that I, when I seem to see Tiberius Gracchus haranguing in the Capitol, and presenting the urn that is to settle the order of voting on the question of Marcus Octavius, say that that is a creation of the fancy, while you say that the images of Gracchus and Octavius remain in existence, and that after betaking themselves^⇊ 43 ⇊ to the Capitol they are then carried to my mind,—so, according to you, it is with God, whose aspect constantly impinges on the mind, and who is thus recognised as is with God, whose aspect constantly impinges on the mind, and who is thus recognised as blessed and eternal. But granting that there are images which impinge upon the mind, it is only some description of form that they indicate to us; do they also indicate why that form should be blessed and eternal?

And what is the nature and origin of these images of yours? It is true that this fantastic notion was started by Democritus, but many have blamed him for it, you yourselves can reach no result, and the whole argument limps and totters. Is there anything, indeed, which it is so little possible to accept? Think of the images of all mankind coming before me, Homer, Archilochus, Romulus, Numa, Pythagoras, Plato, and not coming either in the form in which they lived!^⇊ 44 ⇊ How, then, do those characters suggest themselves to me? And whose are the images which do come? Aristotle tells us that there never existed a poet Orpheus, and it is a tradition of the Pythagoreans that the Orphic poem which we know was the work of one Cercops, yet Orpheus, that is, according to you, his image, presents himself to my mind frequently. And what do you say to the fact that different images of the same man present themselves to my mind and to yours, and that images present themselves of things which never existed at all, and could not have existed, such as Scylla and the Chimæra, and of persons, places, and cities that we have never seen, and that images appear the moment that I wish, and come without being summoned even when one is asleep? The whole thing is a delusion, Vellejus, and yet not content with thrusting the images upon our eyes, you thrust them upon our minds as well. So little do you care what nonsense you talk.

XXXIX.  And how extravagant you are! “There is,” you say, “a stream of phenomena constantly passing before us, the multitude of which results in one phenomenon being perceived.” I should be ashamed to say that I did not understand this statement, if you who defend it understood it yourselves. For how do you prove a continuous succession of images? Or, granting that they are continuous, how are they eternal? “There exists,” we are told, “a countless supply of atoms.” Will that, then, make everything immortal? You take refuge in the theory of equilibrium, by which term we will, if you have no objection, render ἰσονομία, and you say that since there is a mortal nature, there must also be an immortal. According to that argument, since men are mortal, some men would be immortal, and since men are born upon the earth, some men would be born upon the water. “And since there are some agencies which destroy, there are others which preserve.” Let there be such by all means, but let them preserve things that are in existence, which I do not perceive your gods to be. In any case, how are all these counterparts of objects formed from indivisible particles? Even if these particles existed, which they do not, though they might perhaps be able to strike against one another, and to be set in motion amongst themselves by the impact, they would not be able to supply form, or outline, or color, or life. In no way, then, do you prove the immortality of God.

XL.  Now let us consider his blessedness. That certainly is altogether impossible without virtue; but virtue is active, and your God does nothing; he is, therefore, without virtue, and so without blessedness either. What, then, is his life? “An abundance of goods,” you say, “without any intervening ills.” Well, of what kind of goods? Of pleasures, I presume, and of course of those relating to the body, for you are acquainted with no mental pleasure that does not arise from and refer back to the body. I do not look upon you, Vellejus, as resembling the rest of the Epicureans in the shame which they feel at certain utterances of Epicurus, in which he avers that he has not even a conception of any good that is unconnected with voluptuous and sensual pleasures, all of which in fact he enumerates by name without a blush. Tell me, then, with what food and drink, or with what different sounds or flowers, or with what appeals to the sense of touch and smell will you ply the gods so as to steep them in pleasures—in the same way that the poets provide banquets, and either Hebe or Ganymede serving the cups. But what will you do, Epicurus? For I do not see either where your god is to get such things from, or how he is to make use of them. Consequently, man’s nature, since it enjoys a greater variety of pleasures, is better equipped for a life of blessedness than God’s. You reply that you regard these as the more trivial pleasures, by which a kind of “titillation,” for so Epicurus calls it, is applied to the senses. How far will you carry your trifling? Why, our own Philo was just as unable as I am to endure from the mouth of the Epicureans a repudiation of effeminate and voluptuous pleasures. He used with marvellous memory to recite, in the very words in which they had been written, a long string of the maxims of Epicurus, while from Metrodorus, who is Epicurus’ colleague in wisdom, he used to quote several utterances of a more shameless kind. For Metrodorus takes his own brother Timocrates to task for hesitating to make the belly the standard in everything relating to blessedness of life, and expresses himself in that way not once only, but many times. I see that you assent, for the facts are known to you; if you denied them, I should produce the book. Nor in thus speaking am I finding fault with you for referring everything to pleasure, which is a different question; what I do urge is that your gods are without pleasure, and therefore, by your own judgment, without blessedness also.

XLI.  But they have no pain, you say. Is that enough to constitute this supremely blessed life which overflows with good? God constantly reflects, we are told, having nothing else to occupy his thoughts, upon his blessedness. Picture then in your mind, and summon before your eyes a God whose only reflection through all eternity is “Capital berth, this!” and “Blessed am I!” Yet I do not see how the God who enjoys this blessedness is not afraid of perishing, seeing that he is uninterruptedly beaten and shaken by the never-ending storm of atoms, and that images are constantly emanating from himself. It is thus shown that your God is neither blessed nor eternal.

But Epicurus, it will be said, has also written books on holiness and on piety towards the gods. He has, but how does he speak in these books? In a way which would make you say that you were listening to Tiberius Coruncanius or Publius Scævola, the chief pontiffs, not to the man who did away altogether with all religion, and who overturned with his reasonings, instead of, like Xerxes, with his hands, the temples and altars of the immortal gods. For what ground have you for saying that men ought to pay regard to the gods, when the gods not only show no regard for men, but do not care for or do anything at all? You reply that they possess a nature regard for men, but do not care for or do anything at all? You reply that they possess a nature of a supremely excellent and exalted kind which ought of itself to attract the worship of a wise man. Now can there be anything supremely excellent in a nature which luxuriates in its own well being, and which never has, never does, and never will perform an action? And what piety is owed to a being from whom you have received nothing? What in fact can be owed at all to one from whom no benefit proceeds? Piety is right dealing towards the gods, but what question of right can there be between us and them, when man has no community with God? Holiness, again, consists in the knowledge of how to worship the gods, but why they should be worshipped when no good is either received or expected from them, I do not understand.

XLII.  And what reason is there for our reverencing the gods out of admiration for a nature in which we see nothing excellent?

“Ubi initiantur gentes orarum ultimæ,”

“Nocturno aditu occulta coluntur
silvestribus sæpibus densa” ;

“Where the world’s farthest nations are initiated.”

“are celebrated in secret with approach by night, close hid in leafy covert.”

But it was when he deprived the immortal gods of the attributes of help and benevolence that Epicurus tore religion from men’s hearts by the roots. Although he says that the divine nature is supremely high and excellent, he nevertheless denies the existence of benevolence in God, taking away that which is the most essential characteristic of a supremely high and excellent nature, for there is nothing higher or more excellent than kindness and beneficence. When you assert that God does not possess this, you assert that no one, god or man, is dear to God, that no one is loved by him, and no one esteemed, from which it follows that the gods are not only regardless of men, but are in their own persons mutually regardless of one another.

XLIV.  What a much better account is given by the Stoics, whom you and your school take to task. Why, they maintain that one wise man is friendly to another even when he does not know him. There is, in truth, nothing more lovable than virtue, and the man who has attained to that will possess our affection in whatever part of the world he is. But what harm you yourselves do in describing friendly action and friendly feeling as due to weakness! Putting the question of the divine nature and attributes aside, do you believe that even men would have shown no beneficence and good-will, if it were not for their weakness? Is not one good man naturally dear to another? The word “dear” is in itself a term of affection (verbum amoris), and it is from the latter word that amicitia, or friendship, is derived; if we make it tend to our own advantage instead of to the good of the person to whom we are attached, it will not in that case be friendship, but a kind of self-interested traffic. To meadows and fields and herds of cattle we are attached in that way, because advantages are derived from them, but the affection and friendship of men are given freely. How much more, then, is this the case with the gods, who have no needs, and who are both attached to one another and heedful for the welfare of men. If it were not so, why do we reverence and pray to them? Why do pontiffs preside over the sacred rites, and augurs over the auspices? What is it that we hope from the immortal gods? What is the meaning of our vows? But there is also a book by Epicurus upon holiness. He is trifling with us, not that he is a humorist so much as a man who abandons himself freely to reckless writing. For what holiness can there be if the gods have no care for human affairs? And what animate nature can there be that has no care for anything? Undoubtedly, then, there is more truth in what our common friend Posidonius urged in his fifth book on the nature of the gods, that Epicurus has no belief in their existence, and that what he said on the subject of the immortal gods he said for the in their existence, and that what he said on the subject of the immortal gods he said for the sake of deprecating odium. He would not, surely, have been so foolish as to imagine a god resembling a mere mortal, with only surface features and an unsubstantial body, possessing all the limbs of a man without even the slightest use for them, a kind of attenuated, transparent being who has no consideration for any one, performs no service for any one, cares for nothing at all, and does nothing at all. In the first place the existence of such a nature is impossible, and Epicurus, seeing that, in reality does away with the gods, while verbally retaining them. In the second place, if the main characteristic of God is his emancipation from beneficence and love for man, good-bye to him! Why should I say, “May he be gracious”? He cannot be that to any one, for according to you all service and love arise from weakness.

‘aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem’

‘patrem divumque hominumque’

II.  The first point, Lucilius then said, does not seem to even need discussion, for what can be clearer and more obvious, when we have lifted our eyes to the sky, and have gazed upon the heavenly bodies, than that there exists some divine power of exalted intelligence by which these are ruled? If it were not so, how could Ennius have said in words which meet with universal assent,

‘Look upon yonder dazzling sky, which all address as Jove’?

‘of gods and men,’

III.  And then predictions and premonitions of the future, what is it that they declare if not that the future is indicated, and foreshown, and portended, and predicted to man, whence the terms indications, foreshowings, portents, and prodigies?^⇊ 1 ⇊  If, however, we believe that the stories told of Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus were invented by the licence of fable, though even fable itself would not have accepted them as augurs if the facts were absolutely opposed to it, will not even the instances in our own history teach us to acknowledge the power of the gods? Shall we remain unimpressed by the tale of the presumptuous conduct of Publius Claudius in the first Punic war, who, when the sacred chickens, on being let out of the coop, refused to feed, ordered them to be plunged into the water, that they might, as he said, drink, since they would not eat? He only ridiculed the gods in jest, but the mockery cost him many a tear (for his fleet was utterly routed), and brought a great disaster upon the Roman people. And did not his colleague Junius in the same war lose his fleet by storm after disobeying the auspices? Claudius was in consequence condemned by the people, and Junius committed suicide. Cælius records that the disregard shown by Caius Flaminius for religion led to his overthrow at Trasimene, which entailed serious injury upon the state, and it may be to his overthrow at Trasimene, which entailed serious injury upon the state, and it may be understood from these men’s disastrous end that it was under the leadership of those who had observed the requirements of religion that the state became great. If, moreover, we care to make a comparison between our own characteristics and those of foreign nations, while the latter will be found equal, or even superior to us in other respects, in religion, that is, in the worship of the gods, we shall be found to far excel them. Is the crooked staff of Attus Navius to be despised with which he marked out the quarters of the vineyard in order to trace his pig? I should believe so, if King Hostilius had not waged great wars under his augury. But through the system of augury having been allowed to drop owing to the carelessness of the nobles,^⇊ 2 ⇊ the real observance of auspices has come to be despised, and only the form has been retained. Consequently the most important departments of state, including war, on which the safety of the state depends, are administered without auspices. None are observed when crossing a river, none in connection with the spear points,^⇊ 3 ⇊ and none when the men are summoned to action, so that the practice of making wills on the eve of battle has ceased.^⇊ 4 ⇊ Indeed, the time at which our generals begin the conduct of wars is when they have laid down the right to take the auspices.^⇊ 5 ⇊ Amongst our ancestors, on the other hand, the influence of religion was so great that some generals even offered up their own lives to the immortal gods on behalf of their country, veiling their heads and using a set form of speech. There are many instances which I could quote from the Sibylline prophecies and the answers of soothsayers, by which to establish a truth which ought to be doubtful to no one.

IV.  But in the case of the consuls Publius Scipio and Caius Figulus, the science both of our own augurs and of the soothsayers of Etruria was confirmed by actual facts. When Tiberius Gracchus during his second consulship was presiding at their election, the first polling-clerk, as he gave in their names, suddenly died upon the spot. Gracchus nevertheless completed the election, but feeling that the incident had roused religious scruples amongst the people, reported the matter to the senate. The senate decreed that it should be referred to the customary authorities, and the soothsayers, having been introduced, made answer that the holder of the election had not been properly qualified. Upon this, as I have heard my father tell, Gracchus exclaimed in hot anger, “What! I not properly qualified who, when I presided, was both consul, and augur, and had taken the auspices? And is it Tuscans and barbarians like you who control the Roman people’s system of augury, and can interpret the requirements of an election?” So he ordered them on that occasion to withdraw, but afterwards sent a letter to the college^⇊ 6 ⇊ from his province, saying that when reading the augural books he remembered that his post of observation, which was the gardens of Scipio, had been improperly taken, because, after taking it, he had entered the city boundary line in order to preside at a meeting of the senate, and on his return, when crossing the boundary line again, had forgotten to take the auspices; there had therefore, he said, been a flaw in the election of the consuls. The augurs laid the matter before the senate, who decreed that the consuls should abdicate, which they did. What more striking instances do we seek? The wisest, and perhaps I might say the they did. What more striking instances do we seek? The wisest, and perhaps I might say the most eminent man of his time, preferred to confess his fault, though it might have been concealed, rather than that a sense of guilt should attach itself to the state, and the consuls preferred at once to lay down the highest office rather than retain it for an instant in defiance of religion. Would not a man who had these, and innumerable instances of the same kind, before his eyes, be forced to acknowledge the existence of the gods? For beings of whom there exist interpreters, must certainly exist themselves; interpreters of the gods do exist, so let us acknowledge that the gods exist. But it may be that not everything that is predicted comes to pass. Neither do all sick men recover, and therefore, I shall be told, there is no art of healing! Signs of future events are disclosed by the gods, and whenever any one has been mistaken in these, it is not the divine nature, but human conjecture that has been to blame.

1. primam posuit eam, de qua modo dixi, quæ orta esset ex præsensione rerum futurarum ;

2. alteram, quam ceperimus ex magnitudine commodorum, quæ percipiuntur cæli temperatione, fecunditate terrarum aliarumque commoditatum complurium copia ;

3. [14] tertiam quæ terreret animos fulminibus, tempestatibus, nimbis, nivibus, grandinibus, vastitate, pestilentia, terræ motibus et sæpe fremitibus lapideisque imbribus et guttis imbrium quasi cruentis, tum labibus aut repentinis terrarum hiatibus, tum præter naturam hominum pecudumque portentis, tum facibus visis cælestibus, tum stellis — eis quas Græci κομήτας, nostri cincinnatas vocant, quæ nuper bello Octaviano magnarum fuerunt calamitatum prænuntiæ —, tum sole geminato, quod, ut e patre audivi, Tuditano et Aquilio consulibus evenerat, quo quidem anno P. Africanus, sol alter, exstinctus est, quibus exterriti homines vim quandam esse cælestem et divinam suspicati sunt ;

4. [15] quartam causam esse eamque vel maximam, æquabilitatem motus constantissimamque conversionem cæli, solis lunæ siderumque omnium distinctionem, utilitatem, pulchritudinem, ordinem, quarum rerum aspectus ipse satis indicaret non esse ea fortuita :  ut, si quis in domum aliquam aut in gymnasium aut in forum venerit, quum videat omnium rerum rationem, modum, disciplinam, non possit ea sine causa fieri judicare, sed esse aliquem intellegat, qui præsit et cui pareatur, multo magis in tantis motionibus tantisque vicissitudinibus, tam multarum rerum atque tantarum ordinibus, in quibus nihil unquam immensa et infinita vetustas mentita sit, statuat necesse est ab aliqua mente tantos naturæ motus gubernari.

And so upon the main point all men of all nations are agreed, for the existence of the gods is an idea natural to all, and engraven, as it were, upon the mind. There are different opinions as to their nature, but no one denies that they exist.

V.  Now Cleanthes, who belongs to our own school, said that ideas of the gods had been formed in men’s minds owing to four causes.

1. First he placed the cause just mentioned by me, which had had its origin in premonitions of the future;

2. second, the one which we have found in the greatness of the advantages obtained from temperate climate, the fertility of the earth, and a plentiful number of other sources of benefit;

3. third, the terror caused to the mind by lightning, tempest, storm-clouds, snow, hail, desert places, pestilence, the movements and frequent rumblings of the earth, showers of stones, rain-drops with the appearance of blood, landslips or sudden openings in the earth, monstrous human and animal portents, torch-like appearances in the sky, stars of the kind which the Greeks call κομήται, and our countrymen cincinnatæ,^⇊ 7 ⇊ which in the recent struggle with Octavius^⇊ 8 ⇊ were the precursors of great calamities, the phenomenon of a double sun, which I have heard from my father occurred during the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, the very year in which the light of that other sun Publius Africanus was extinguished —, things which by the terror they inspired made men conceive the existence of some kind of divine and heavenly power.

4. As the fourth and most important cause of all he names the uniformity of motion, the revolutions of the heavens, the grouping of the sun, and moon, and all the stars, their serviceableness, beauty, and order, the mere appearance of which things would be a sufficient indication that they were not the result of chance. Just as a man going into a house, or gymnasium, or market-place, would find it impossible, when he saw the plan, and scale, and arrangement of everything, to suppose that these things came into being uncaused, but would understand that there was some one who superintended and was obeyed, so in the case of such vast movements and alternations, in the orderly succession of phenomena so numerous and so mighty, in which the measureless and infinite extent of past time has never deceived expectation, it is much more inevitable that he should conclude that such great operations of nature are directed by some intelligence.

VII.  And the element which surpasses all these, I mean reason, and if we care to express it by a variety of terms, intelligence, design, reflection, foresight, where did we find, whence did we secure it? Shall the universe possess all other qualities, and not this one which is of most importance? Yet surely in all creation there is nothing nobler than the universe, nothing more excellent and more beautiful. There not only is not, but there cannot even be imagined anything nobler, and if reason and wisdom are the noblest of qualities, it is inevitable that they should exist in that which we acknowledge to be supremely noble. Again, who can help assenting to what I say when he considers the harmonious, concordant, and unbroken connection which there is in things? Would the earth be able to have one and the same time for flowering, and then again one and the same time in which it lies rough? Or could the approach and departure of the sun be known, at the time of the summer and winter solstice, approach and departure of the sun be known, at the time of the summer and winter solstice, by so many objects spontaneously changing? Or the tides of the sea, and of narrow straits, be affected by the rising or setting of the moon? Or the dissimilar movements of the planets be maintained by the one revolution of the whole sky? It would be certainly impossible for these things to come to pass in this way, with such mutual harmony amongst all parts of the universe, if they were not held together by one divine and all-pervading spirit.

And this position, if argued, as I intend to argue it, in a fuller and more flowing style, is better able to escape the cavilling of the Academics, whereas if expressed more briefly and concisely in syllogistic form, as it used to be by Zeno, it is more exposed to criticism. For just as it is either difficult or impossible for a running stream to be tainted, while this may easily happen to water that is confined, so the onward flow of argument sweeps away the detractions of the critic, while that which is confined within narrow limits has hard work to defend itself. These arguments, for instance, which are expanded by modern Stoics, used to be compressed by Zeno as follows:

VIII.  “That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.” In the same way it may be proved that the universe is wise, blessed, and eternal, for all objects that possess these qualities are more excellent than those which do not possess them, and there is nothing of greater excellence than the universe. By this means it will be proved that the universe is divine. He has also the following: “No part can be sentient where the whole is not sentient; parts of the universe are sentient, therefore the universe is sentient.” He goes further and urges his point in more precise terms. “Nothing,” he says, “that is inanimate and without reason can produce from itself a being that is animate and possessed of reason; the universe produces beings that are animate and possessed of reason, therefore the universe is animate and possessed of reason.” He also, as his habit frequently was, stated the argument in the form of a comparison, which was to this effect: “If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?”

We shall discern this more easily if the whole of this all-pervading element of fire is described more precisely. All the divisions, then, of the universe (I will touch upon the most important) are maintained by the support of heat, as may be perceived first in the case of the element of earth. For we see that by the striking and rubbing together of stones fire is elicited; and that after recent digging the earth is hot and smokes, and that hot water is drawn even from perennial wells, this happening most of all in winter time, because, it is supposed, a great store of heat is held in the hollows of the earth, and in winter the earth, being more compact, holds the heat that has been implanted in it more tightly.

X.  A long exposition and many arguments might be employed in showing that all the seeds which the earth receives in its bosom, and all the things which it holds that have been spontaneously generated, and are attached by means of roots, owe their birth and increase to duly regulated heat. That there has also been an admixture of heat in water is proved, in the first place, simply by the fluidity of water, which would not be turned into ice by frost, or become fixed in the shape of snow and rime, if it did not also liquefy, and break up, and dissolve at the admixture of heat. For this reason moisture solidifies beneath a north wind, and at the application of the other kinds of cold, and is in turn warmed, and softened, and melted by heat. The way, moreover, in which the seas become warm when they have been disturbed by winds makes it easy to be understood that heat has been enclosed in those vast bodies of water, for the warmth in question is not to be regarded as external and acquired, but as evoked by disturbance from the inmost parts of the sea, a principle which operates also in our own bodies when they become heated by motion and exercise.

This fiery glow which the universe possesses is also far purer, clearer, and nimbler, and on that account better fitted to arouse sensation, than this heat of ours, by which the objects known to us are preserved and made strong. Since, then, men and animals are maintained by this heat, and through it possess motion and sensation, it is absurd to say that the universe is without sensation, when it is maintained by a burning heat which is unmixed, and free, and pure, and at the same time in the highest degree vivid and nimble, especially considering that the heat which belongs to the universe is moved by itself and its own action, and is not stirred by anything distinct from itself, or by impact from outside. For what can be mightier than the universe, so as to act upon and set in motion the heat by which the universe is to be held together?

XII.  Let us hear Plato on this question, Plato, the god of philosophers, as he may be called. He holds that there are two kinds of motion, one self-imparted and the other derived, and that a thing which is self-moved by its own action is more divine than that which is set in motion by impact from something else. The former kind of motion he declares to exist in soul alone, and he is of opinion that it was from soul that the first principle of motion was derived. Consequently since all motion arises from the heat possessed by the universe, and since that heat is moved by its own action, and not by impact from anything else, it must of necessity be soul, by which means it is proved that the universe is possessed of soul. It may also be understood that intelligence exists in the universe, from the fact that the universe is undeniably understood that intelligence exists in the universe, from the fact that the universe is undeniably of greater excellence than any form of being. For just as there is no part of our body which is not less important than ourselves, so the whole universe must be more important than a part of the universe. If that is so, the universe must be intelligent, for if it were not, man, who is a part of the universe, would, as participating in reason, necessarily be of more importance than the entire universe.

If, again, we wish to trace the advance from the first and rudimentary stages of being to the final and perfect, it is to a divine nature that we must come. For we observe that the first things maintained by nature are those which spring from the earth, to which nature has assigned nothing more than protection by means of nurture and development. To animals she has given sensation, movement, an impulse, combined with a certain desire, towards what is beneficial, and an avoidance of what is hurtful. To man she has given more in having added reason, which was meant to regulate the desires of the mind, at one time allowing them their way, and at another holding them in check.

XIII.  The fourth and highest stage consists of beings who are created naturally good and wise, in whom right reason in an unchanging form is innate from the beginning, that reason which must be regarded as more than human, and must be assigned to what is divine, that is, to the universe, in which this complete and perfect reason must needs exist. For it cannot be said that in any order of things there is not something final and perfect. Just as in the case of vines or cattle, we see that, unless some force interposes, nature arrives by a way of her own at perfection, and just as a certain attainment of consummate workmanship exists in painting and architecture and the other arts, so it is inevitable that in collective nature there should much more be a progress towards completion and perfection. Many external influences can prevent the other kinds of being from reaching perfection, but nothing can stand in the way of universal nature, because it itself limits and contains all kinds of being. That, therefore, must be the fourth and highest stage, which no force can come near. Now it is in that stage that universal nature has its place, and since it is the characteristic of that nature that all things should be inferior to it, and nothing able to stand in its way, it necessarily follows that the universe is intelligent, and more than that wise.

XIV.  It was, indeed, an ingenious remark of Chrysippus that just as the cover was created for the shield, and the sheath for the sword, so all other things with the exception of the universe were created for the sake of something else, the crops and fruits, for instance, which the earth produces, for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of men, as the horse for carrying, the ox for ploughing, and the dog for hunting and keeping watch. As for man himself, he was born in order to observe and imitate the universe, being in no wise perfect, but a particle, so to speak, of that which is, for it is only the universe to which nothing is wanting, and which is knit together on every side, and is perfect and complete in all its numbers and parts. Now since the universe embraces all things, and there is nothing that is not contained within it, it is perfect at every point. How, then, can that which is of most excellence be lacking to it? There is nothing more excellent than mind and reason, so it is impossible that these should be lacking to the universe. Chrysippus, therefore, is again right when he declares, adding instances, that in what is matured and perfect everything is of higher excellence, in a horse, for example, than in a colt, in a dog than in a whelp, in a man than in a boy, and in like manner that whatever is best in the whole world, must reside in something that is perfect and complete. As there is nothing more perfect than the universe, and nothing more excellent than virtue, it follows that virtue is an attribute of the universe. Human nature is not indeed perfect, yet virtue is attained in man, so how much more easily in the universe! Virtue, then, does exist in the universe, which is therefore wise, and consequently divine.

XV.  Having thus ascertained the divinity of the universe, we must attribute the same quality to the heavenly bodies, which are created from the purest and most mobile portion of æther, without being intermingled with any other element, and are throughout glowing and transparent, so that it is with entire correctness that they too are described as animate, and as possessing feeling and intelligence. That they are throughout of a fiery nature Cleanthes thinks is confirmed by the testimony of two senses, those of touch and sight. For the brightness of the sun, considering how far and wide it shines notwithstanding the immensity of the universe, is more vivid than that of any flame, and its action is such as not only to warm, but often even to consume, neither of which effects would it have unless it were of a fiery nature. “Therefore,” he says, “since the sun is of a fiery nature, and is fed by the moisture of the sea, for no fire would be able to maintain itself without some nourishment, it must either resemble the fire which we employ for purposes of use and sustenance, or that which is contained in the bodies of animate beings. But this fire of ours, which is required by the uses of life, is the destroyer and consumer of all things, and wherever it moves works universal havoc and ruin. The fire, on the other hand, belonging to the body, which is life-promoting and healthful, preserves and nourishes and increases and sustains all things, and endows them with sensation.” He says, therefore, that there is no doubt which of these two fires the sun resembles, since it too causes all things to flourish and ripen, each in its own kind. Consequently, since the fire of the sun resembles the fire which is in the bodies of animate beings, the sun also must be animate, and so indeed must the other stars, as they have their origin in the celestial glow which is called æther or heaven.

Now since some forms of life are developed upon the earth, others in the æther or heaven. Now since some forms of life are developed upon the earth, others in the water, and others in the air, it is, according to Aristotle, absurd to suppose that no animate existence is produced in that part which is best fitted for the production of what is animate. But the stars occupy the region of æther, and since that is highly rarefied, always in motion, and of potent quality, it is inevitable that the animate existence which is produced in it should be of the keenest sensitiveness and the readiest mobility. Since, therefore, the stars are produced in that region, it follows consistently that they possess feeling and intelligence, and by this means it is proved that they ought to be ranked among the number of divine beings.

XVI.  We may, indeed, observe an intelligence more acute and quicker of comprehension in those who inhabit districts in which the air is pure and rare, than in those who breathe a thick and cloudy atmosphere; in fact it is even thought to make some difference to mental keenness, what it is that one uses as food. The stars, therefore, may be allowed to possess the highest intelligence, as they are placed in the part of the universe which belongs to æther, and are nourished by moisture from the sea and land, which the long distance between causes to rarefy. Their sentience and intelligence are, moreover, decisively declared by their order and regularity (for it would be impossible for anything to move by rule and measure without forethought), in which there is nothing random, variable, or fortuitous. Now the order of the stars and their regularity through all eternity do not point either to a working of nature,^⇊ 13 ⇊ for such regularity is altogether rational, or to chance, which inclines to variety and abhors constancy. It follows, therefore, that they move voluntarily of themselves, of their own consciousness and divinity. Aristotle, indeed, is entitled to praise for having laid down that everything which moves does so either by nature, necessity, or choice; the sun, he says, and moon, and all the stars move, but things which move by nature are carried either downwards by their weight or upwards by their lightness, neither of which movements belongs to the stars, since their course is directed in a circle. And it certainly cannot be said that it is some more potent necessity which makes the stars move in a way unknown to nature, for what more potent necessity can there be? It remains, therefore, to conclude that the movement of the stars is voluntary, and the man who should look upon them would be acting impiously as well as foolishly, if he denied the existence of the gods. Whether he does that, or deprives them of all superintendence and action, makes, indeed, little difference, for a being who does nothing does not seem to me to exist at all. That the gods, then, do exist is so evident that I should scarcely regard the man who denied it as being of sound mind.

XVII.  It remains for us to consider what their nature is like, a subject on which it is of the utmost difficulty to disengage the intelligence from the habitual experience of the eyes.^⇊ 14 ⇊ This difficulty made the general body of the uneducated, and philosophers who resembled them, unable to form any conception of the immortal gods except by assigning to them human shapes, a baseless belief which, as it has been refuted by Cotta, does not need to be discussed by me. baseless belief which, as it has been refuted by Cotta, does not need to be discussed by me. The fact is that a firmly fixed idea gives us a preconception of god as being in the first place animate, and in the second place more exalted than anything in the whole of nature, and that being so, I see nothing by which I should sooner satisfy this preconception and idea of ours than by pronouncing, firstly, this universe itself, which nothing can surpass in excellence, to be animate and divine. Here let Epicurus jest as he will (he is not very well suited to the part, and savors but little of his country),^⇊ 15 ⇊ and let him declare himself unable to understand what a round and whirling deity is like: for all that he will never move me from this position, which is one that even he himself admits. For he does believe in the existence of gods on the ground that there must necessarily be some exalted nature, which nothing transcends in excellence. Now there is certainly nothing more excellent than the universe, and it is undoubted that that which is animate, and possesses feeling, and reason, and intelligence, is more excellent than that which is without these qualities. It is thus proved that the universe is animate, and that it is endowed with feeling, intelligence, and reason, and hence the conclusion that the universe is divine. These facts will, however, be recognised more easily a little later on from the actual working of the universe.

XVIII.  Meanwhile, Vellejus, do not, I entreat, parade in your own person the utter ignorance of your school on matters of science. You say that a cone and cylinder and pyramid appear more beautiful to you than a sphere, which even as an ocular judgment is a strange one. However, let it be granted that merely in appearance they are more beautiful, though I do not allow even that. For what is more beautiful than the figure which alone contains all other figures within itself,^⇊ 16 ⇊ and which it is impossible should have any unevenness of outline, any point against which to impinge, any indentation in the form of angles or curves, any projection, or any depression? And since the globe, for so I propose to render σφαῖρα, among solid figures, and the circle or orb, which is called in Greek κύκλος, among plane figures, are the two forms of greatest excellence, it is characteristic of these two forms alone that all their parts are precisely similar, and the circumference at every point equidistant from the center, which provides the closest possible kind of interconnection. But if you are blind to these facts through never having handled the student’s dust,^⇊ 17 ⇊ have you not even been able, as natural philosophers, to understand that this uniform motion and unchanging array of the stars could not have been maintained in connection with a different shape? Nothing, therefore, can show greater ignorance than the assertion which is commonly made by your school, your saying, I mean, that the roundness of this world itself is not beyond question, since it may possibly be of another shape, and since there are innumerable worlds in existence which differ in form. If Epicurus had learnt how much twice two was, he certainly would not speak in this way, but while he makes the palate his test of the highest good, he has not lifted his eyes to what Ennius calls “the palate of the sky.”^⇊ 18 ⇊

XX.  But there is most matter for wonder in the movements of the five stars which are falsely called wandering; falsely, because nothing wanders which through all eternity preserves its forward and retrograde courses, and its other movements, constant and unaltered. And this is the more wonderful in the case of these stars of which we are speaking, as they are at one time concealed, and at another restored to view, at one time advancing, at another retreating, at one time preceding the sun, at another following it, sometimes moving with increased, sometimes with diminished speed, and sometimes not even moving at all, but remaining for a time stationary. On their dissimilar movements mathematicians have based what they call the Great Year, which is completed when the sun and moon and the five wandering stars, having accomplished their several courses, have come round again to the same relative positions. How long the revolution takes is a much disputed point, but that it is fixed and definite is a matter of necessity. For instance, the star which is farthest from the earth, which is known as the star of Saturn, and is called by the Greeks Φαίνων, accomplishes its course in about thirty years, and though in that course it does much that is wonderful, first preceding the sun, and then falling off in speed, becoming invisible at the hour of evening, and returning to view in the morning, it never through the unending ages of time makes any variation, but performs the same movements at the same times. Beneath it, and nearer to the earth, moves the planet of Jupiter, which is called in Greek Φαέθων; it completes the same round of the twelve signs in twelve years, and performs in its course the same variations as the planet of Saturn. The circle next below it is held by Πυρόεις, which is called the planet of Mars, and traverses the same round as the two planets above it in four and twenty months, all but, I think, six days. Beneath this is the planet of Mercury, which is called by the Greeks Στίλβων; it traverses the round of the zodiac in about the time of the year’s revolution, and never withdraws more than one sign’s distance from the sun, moving at one time in advance of it, and at another in its rear. The lowest of the five wandering stars, and the one nearest the earth, is the planet of Venus, which is called Φωσφόρος in Greek, and Lucifer in Latin, when it is preceding the sun, but Ἕσπερος when it is following it; it completes its course in a year, traversing the zodiac both latitudinally and longitudinally, as is also done by the planets above it, and on whichever side of the sun it is, it never departs more than two signs’ distance from it.

XXI.  This constancy, then, among the stars, this marked agreement of times through the whole of eternity, though the movements are so various, I cannot understand as existing without mind and reason and forethought, and since we find that these qualities are possessed by the heavenly bodies, we cannot but assign to those bodies themselves their place among the number of divine beings.

In the heavens, then, there is no chance, irregularity, deviation, or falsity, but on the other hand the utmost order, reality, method, and consistency. The things which are without these qualities, phantasmal, unreal, and erratic, move in and around the earth below the moon, which is the lowest of all the heavenly bodies. Any one, therefore, who thinks that there is no intelligence in the marvellous order of the stars and in their extraordinary regularity, from which the preservation and the entire well-being of all things proceed, ought to be considered destitute of intelligence himself. Having laid this foundation, I shall not, I think, do wrong if I make the discussion of this question^⇊ 20 ⇊ begin with him who led the way in the investigation of truth.

XXII.  Zeno, then, defines nature by saying that it is artistically working fire, which advances by fixed methods to creation. For he maintains that it is the main function of art to create and produce, and that what the hand accomplishes in the productions of the arts which we employ, is accomplished much more artistically by nature, that is, as I said, by artistically working fire, which is the master of the other arts. Indeed, on this principle every department of nature is artistic, since it has, so to speak, a path and prescribed course to follow. But in the case of the universe itself, which encloses and contains all things in its embrace, he says that the nature which exists in that is not only artistic, but in the fullest sense an artificer, taking counsel and provision for everything serviceable and advantageous. And just as it is by their own seeds that the other parts of nature are severally created and increased, and in their own seeds that they are contained, so all the movements which belong to universal nature, and its strivings and desires, which the Greeks call ὁρμαί, are self-imparted, and it fits these with corresponding actions in the same way that we ourselves do, who are moved by feelings and sensations. The mind of the universe being, then, of such a kind, may in consequence be rightly described either as foresight or providence, its Greek name being πρόνοια, and what it is mainly provident for, and chiefly busied with, is in the first place that the universe may be as well equipped as possible for permanence, and in the second that it may lack nothing, but may possess in the highest degree exquisite beauty and completeness of adornment.

“sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus”,

But there are many other divinities to which on account of their great services a status and a name have been given, not without reason, both by the wisest men of Greece and by our own ancestors, for they thought that whatever conferred great advantage upon the human race did not come into existence except by divine benevolence towards men. And so they used sometimes to describe the object produced by the god by the name of the god himself, as when we speak of corn as Ceres, and wine as Liber, which is the origin of the line of Terence —

“Without Ceres and Liber Venus languishes.”

“pater divumque hominumque”

“Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem”

“Cui quod in me est exsecrabor hoc quod lucet, quicquid est” ;

“Vides sublime fusum immoderatum æthera,

qui terram tenero circumjectu amplectitur :

¡ hunc summum habeto divum, hunc perhibeto Jovem !”

XXV.  By Saturn, again, they meant him who controlled the course and revolution of periods and times, the god who in Greek bears that actual name, for he is called Κρόνος, which is the same as χρόνος, that is, a period of time. And he was named Saturn because, it was supposed, he was “made full” (saturo) with years, for it is because time swallows up the periods of time, and is loaded, without being satisfied, with the years of the past, that Saturn is represented as having been accustomed to devour his own offspring, and it was in order that he might not having been accustomed to devour his own offspring, and it was in order that he might not have an unrestricted course, and that Jupiter might fetter him with the yoke of the stars,^⇊ 22 ⇊ that he is represented as having been bound by Jupiter. Jupiter himself, that is, juvans pater, to whom, by a change of inflections, we give the name of Jove from juvare, is called by the poets

“father of gods and men,”

“Look upon yonder dazzling sky, which all address as Jove,”

“Wherefore with all my might will I curse yonder shining sky, whatsoever that is.”

“You behold the boundless æther diffused on high, which with soft embrace encompasses the earth: consider this the highest god, hold this as Jove.”

Now, in the first place, either the existence of the gods must be denied, as Democritus by introducing his phantasms, and Epicurus his images, do more or less deny it, or those who grant their existence must acknowledge that they perform some function, and that function an exalted one; but there is nothing more exalted than the administration of the universe; consequently the universe is administered by the divine fore-thought. If that is not so, there must of course be something of some description which is more excellent and endowed with greater power than god, whether inanimate nature, or necessity speeding on with mighty force, and producing these most beautiful results which we see. The divine nature, then, if it is indeed subject to a power which, whether in the form of nature or necessity, controls the sky and sea and land, is supreme neither in might nor excellence; but there is nothing which surpasses god; the universe, therefore, must needs be controlled by him. God is not, then, obedient or subject to any natural power, consequently he controls the whole of nature himself. Indeed, if we grant that the gods are intelligent we grant that they are also provident, and provident for what is of most importance. Is it then that they are ignorant what things are of most importance, and in what way those things ought to be dealt with and cared for, or is it that they have not the strength with which to sustain and administer what is so vast? But ignorance of things is alien to the divine nature, and difficulty in sustaining a duty because of weakness is by no means consistent with the divine majesty. In this way that which we wish is proved, namely, that the universe is administered by the divine providence.

XXXI.  Now it is necessary, since the gods exist, granting, as is assuredly the case, that they do exist, that they should be animate, and not only animate but also possessed of reason, and bound together by a citizen-like unity and fellowship, ruling a single universe as though it were a corporate state and kind of city. It follows that there is the same reason in them as in the human race, the same truth in both, and the same law, which consists in the enjoining of good and the warding off of evil. From this it is understood that it was from the gods that prudence also and intelligence made their way to men, on which account intelligence, faith, virtue, and concord were, by the regulation of our ancestors, deified and publicly enshrined. How can we reasonably deny, considering that we worship the august and holy images of these qualities, that they belong to the gods? If, on the other hand, intelligence, faith, virtue, and concord exist in mankind, whence could they have descended upon the earth except from the powers above? And since forethought, and reason, and prudence do exist in us, it must needs be that the gods possess these same qualities on a greater scale, and not only possess them, but also the gods possess these same qualities on a greater scale, and not only possess them, but also employ them in connection with what is supremely great and excellent; but there is nothing greater or more excellent than the universe; the universe must, therefore, be administered by the forethought and providence of the gods. Lastly, since I have sufficiently shown the divinity of these objects whose signal might and brilliant appearance are before our eyes, I mean the sun, the moon, the wandering and fixed stars, the sky, the universe itself, and the multitude of things present in every part of the universe to the great profit and advantage of mankind, it is proved that everything is ruled by the divine intelligence and prudence. On the first part of the question enough has been said.

XXXII.  I have next to show that all things are subject to nature and are most exquisitely administered by it. But first it must be briefly explained what nature is itself, in order that what I wish to establish may be more easily intelligible. For some maintain that nature is a kind of irrational force producing compulsory movements in bodies, others that it is a force possessing reason and order, advancing, as it were, methodically, and showing clearly what it does to achieve each result, and what end it follows,—a force to whose skill no art, or handiwork, or artificer can attain by imitation. For such, they say, is the potency of seed that, although it be extremely small, nevertheless, if it has fallen into a substance which receives and encloses it, and has obtained material from which it can derive nurture and increase, it contrives and effects, each in its own kind, for some things to be simply nourished by their own roots, and for others to be further capable of impressions, feelings, instincts, and the creation from themselves of beings like themselves. Others, again, give the name of nature to the whole sum of things, like Epicurus, according to whose division all existence is made up of bodies, void, and the attributes of these. As for our own school, when we say that the universe is kept together and administered by nature, we do not say so as we would of a clod, or fragment of stone, or something of that kind, in which there is no principle of cohesion, but as we would of a tree or animal, in which there is nothing fortuitous, but in which order and something like art are manifest.

XXXIII.  But if the things which the earth maintains by means of roots owe their life and vigour to the handiwork of nature, surely the earth itself is maintained by the same power, seeing that after it has been impregnated by seed it produces and puts forth from itself all things, nourishes and increases their roots by its embrace, and is in turn nourished itself by the elements above which are external to it. Its own exhalations also nourish the air, æther, and everything on high. If, then, nature upholds and invigorates the earth, there is the same principle of action in the rest of the universe. For, while roots cleave to the earth, living things are sustained by being breathed upon by air, and it is air which aids us in seeing, hearing, and producing sound, for none of these things can be done without air. In fact it even aids us in movement, since wherever we go and wherever we move, it seems, as it were, to give way and yield. The substances, moreover, which are carried towards the center of the universe, which is its lowest substances, moreover, which are carried towards the center of the universe, which is its lowest part, and upwards from the center, and by a circular revolution round the center,^⇊ 32 ⇊ make the nature of the universe one and continuous. It is made continuous by the substances, of which there are four kinds, changing one into another, water being formed from earth, air from water, and æther from air, and in the reverse order again air from æther, water from air, and earth, which in position is the lowest, from water. In this way by the passage up and down, and backwards and forwards, of these elements, of which all things are composed, the connection of the parts of the universe is maintained. This connection must either be eternal, under the same form as this which we behold, or at any rate of very considerable duration, lasting on for a long and almost immeasurable time. Taking whichever view you please, it follows that the universe is administered by nature. For the sailing of a fleet, the arrangement of an army, or, to again compare the works of nature, the generating of a vine or tree, the figure, moreover, and formation of limbs of a living creature do not indicate so much skill on nature’s part as the universe itself. Either, then, there is nothing which is ruled by sentient nature, or it must be acknowledged that the universe is so ruled. How, indeed, can that which contains all other forms of nature and their seeds, fail to be itself administered by nature? If any one were to say that teeth, and the hair which is a sign of puberty, were created by nature, but that the man himself, in whom they were created, was not formed by nature, he would similarly fail to understand that the things which produce something from themselves possess a more perfect nature than the thing produced.

XXXIV.  Now of all the things which are administered by nature the universe is, so to speak, the originator, begetter, parent, rearer, and supporter, and it cherishes and contains them as members and parts of itself. But if the parts of the universe are administered by nature, the same must be the case with the universe itself; at any rate there is nothing in the administration of it which can be found fault with, for the best that could have been produced from the elements which there were has been produced. If that is denied, then let some one show that better could have been produced. But no one ever will show this, and whoever wishes to amend anything will either make it worse, or will be regretting the absence of that which could not have been attained.

XXXV.  Yet the Epicureans doubt as to whether the universe, from which all things arise and are created, was itself the result of chance or some kind of necessity, or of intelligence and the divine mind, and they think that Archimedes did more in imitating the revolutions of the sphere than nature did in producing them, although the original was wrought with far more cunning than the imitation.

                                  “tanta moles labitur

fremebunda ex alto, ingenti sonitu et strepitu :

præ se undas volvit, vertices vi suscitat,

ruit prolapsa ;  pelagus respergit, reflat.

Ita dum interruptum credas nimbum volvier,

dum quod sublime ventis expulsum rapi

saxum, aut procellis, vel globosos turbines

exsistere ictos undis concursantibus ;

nisi quas terrestres pontus strages conciet,

aut forte Triton, fuscina evertens specus,

subter radices penitus undanti in freto

molem ex profundo saxeam ad cælum eruit.”

“Sicut inciti atque alacres rostris perfremunt delphini”

“Silvani melo

consimilem ad aures cantum et auditum refert.” —

“So great a mass glides echoing from the deep with loud roar and blast. It rolls the waves before it, and raises eddies by its force, throws itself headlong, and scatters and blows back the sea. And so you might think, now that a deep-edged thunder-cloud was rolling on, now that some rock had been uprooted and was being driven on high by winds or tempests, or that round water-spouts were rising, beaten by the warring billows, unless it be that the sea is preparing ruin for the land, or that Triton, perchance, upheaving with his trident the caves beneath their foundations, far down in the surging waters, is casting up from the depths a rocky mass to the light of heaven.”

“So,” he says, “do the swift eager dolphins noisily cleave a way with their snouts.”

“Like to the strain of Silvanus is the song and the hearing it gives to the ears.”

“hoc, quod memoro, nostri cælum, Grai perhibent æthera” —

“Grajugena :  de isto aperit ipsa oratio.”

“This that I speak of our countrymen call sky, the Greeks call æther.”

“His very speech proclaims yonder Greek.”

However, let us return to what is of more importance. From æther, then, there proceed innumerable fiery stars of which the chief is the sun, which illumines all things with the brightest light, and is many times greater and larger than the whole earth, while the other stars, which are of untold magnitude, come next. And these fiery bodies, which are so great and numerous, not only do no harm to the earth and what is upon the earth, but are beneficial in this way, that if they were moved from their place the earth would inevitably be consumed by their intense heat, when it had ceased to be controlled and moderated.

XXXVII.  Must I not here express my wonder that any one should exist who persuades himself that there are certain solid and indivisible particles carried along by their own impulse and weight, and that a universe so beautiful and so admirably arrayed is formed from the accidental concourse of those particles? I do not understand why the man who supposes that to have been possible should not also think that if a countless number of the forms of the one and twenty letters, whether in gold or any other material, were to be thrown somewhere, it would be possible, when they had been shaken out upon the ground, for the annals of Ennius to result from them so as to be able to be read consecutively,—a miracle of chance which I incline to think would be impossible even in the case of a single verse. Yet, as the Epicureans assure us, it was from minute particles possessing neither color, nor any kind of quality (what the Greeks call ποιότης [“quality”]), nor sensation, but coming together by chance and accident, that the world was produced, or rather that innumerable worlds are, within each instant of time, either coming into being or departing from it. But if a concourse of atoms is able to form the universe, why cannot they form a portico, or temple, or house, or city, things which are less, far less elaborate? Really, they talk such heedless nonsense on the subject of the universe as to give me at any rate the impression that they have never looked up to yonder marvellous ordering of the heavens which forms our next topic.

“Si essent,” inquit, “qui sub terra semper habitavissent bonis et illustribus domiciliis, quæ essent ornata signis atque picturis instructaque rebus his omnibus, quibus abundant ii, qui beati putantur, nec tamen exissent unquam supra terram, accepissent autem fama et auditione esse quoddam numen et vim deorum, deinde aliquo tempore, patefactis terræ faucibus, ex illis abditis sedibus evadere in hæc loca, quæ nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent ;  quum repente terram et maria cælumque vidissent, nubium magnitudinem ventorumque vim cognovissent aspexissentque solem ejusque quum magnitudinem pulchritudinemque, tum etiam efficientiam cognovissent, quod is diem efficeret toto cælo luce diffusa, quum autem terras nox opacasset, tum cælum totum cernerent astris distinctum et ornatum, lunæque luminum varietatem tum crescentis, tum senescentis, eorumque omnium ortus et occasus atque in omni æternitate ratos immutabilesque cursus — quæ quum viderent, profecto et esse deos et hæc tanta opera deorum esse arbitrarentur.”

“If,” he says, “there were men who had always lived underground in fine and well-lit houses which had been adorned with statues and paintings, and equipped with all the things which those who are considered well-to-do possess in abundance, who had, however, never come forth into the upper world, but had learned by fame and hearsay of the existence of certain divine powers and natures, and had then at some time, through the jaws of the earth being opened, been able to come forth from those hidden regions, and to pass into these parts which we inhabit,—when they had suddenly obtained a sight of the land and seas and sky, and had marked the vastness of the clouds, and the force of the winds, and had beheld the sun, and had marked not only its size and beauty, but also its power, since by diffusing light over the whole sky it caused day —, and when, again, after night had overshadowed the earth, they then perceived the whole sky studded and adorned with stars, and the change in the light of the moon as it alternately waxed and waned, and the rising and setting of all these bodies, and the fixity and unchangeableness of their courses through all eternity, — when they saw those things, they would assuredly believe both that the gods existed and that these mighty works proceeded from them.”

XXXVIII.  This is what Aristotle says. For our own part let us imagine a darkness as great as that which is said to have once, in consequence of an eruption of the fires of Ætna, obscured the neighboring country to such a degree that for the space of two days no human being recognised another, and when the sun began to shine on the third day men felt then as though they had been restored to life. But what aspect would the heavens present if this same sudden view of the light were to come to us after an eternity of darkness? Through daily repetition, however, and constant ocular experience the mind becomes used to the sight; it feels no wonder, and does not look for the reasons of things which it always sees, just as though it were the novelty rather than the importance of things which ought to urge us to inquire into their causes. Why, who would ascribe the intelligence of a man to him who when he saw such regularity in the movements of the heavens, such stability in the order of the stars, such interconnection and mutual coherence in all things, denied the presence of any reason in these, and described as the result of chance things which are administered with a skill to which we cannot by any skill attain? Or is it that when we see anything such as a globe, or horologe, or numerous other things, moving by means of some kind of mechanism, we make no question of their being the work of intelligence, and yet are sceptical, although we see the heavens rushing on with marvellous speed, and bringing about with the utmost regularity the yearly recurring changes of the seasons by their revolution, ensuring thereby the most complete well-being and preservation of all things,—are we, I say, sceptical as to such phenomena being the result not merely of intelligence, but of an intelligence which is exalted and divine?

“cetera labuntur celeri cælestia motu

cum cæloque simul noctesque diesque feruntur,”

[105] quorum contemplatione nullius expleri potest animus, naturæ constantiam videre cupientis.

“Extremusque adeo duplici de cardine vertex

dicitur esse polus.”

“Ex his altera apud Grajos Cynosura vocatur,

altera dicitur esse Helice,”

“nostri Septem soliti vocitare Triones.” ;

“the rest of the heavenly bodies glide on with rapid course, and by day and night move together with the sky.”

“And the very endmost tip of either axis is called the pole.”

“Of these one is named amongst the Greeks Cynosura,^⇊ 37 ⇊ the other is called Helice.”^⇊ 38 ⇊

“These our countrymen are wont to call Septentriones.”^⇊ 39 ⇊

“Hac fidunt duce nocturna Phœnices in alto.

Sed prior illa magis, stellis distincta, refulget

et late prima confestim a nocte videtur.

Hæc vero parva est, sed nautis usus in hac est ;

nam cursu interiore brevi convertitur orbe.”

“In this the Phoenicians trust as a guide by night upon the deep. But Helice shines with stars more clearly marked, and at once after nightfall is seen far and wide, whereas the Cynosura is small, and yet of service to sailors, for it revolves in a narrow circle with its course nearer to the pole.”

“has inter, veluti rapido cum gurgite flumen

torvus Draco serpit subter supraque revolvens

sese conficiensque sinus e corpore flexos.”

[107] Ejus quum totius est præclara species, tum in primis aspicienda est figura capitis atque ardor oculorum :

“Huic non una modo caput ornans stella relucet,

verum tempora sunt duplici fulgore notata

e trucibusque oculis duo fervida lumina flagrant

atque uno mentum radianti sidere lucet ;

obstipum caput, ac tereti cervice reflexum

obtutum in cauda Majoris figere dicas.”

“between them, like a river with rushing torrent, winds the grim Dragon, uncoiling itself above and beneath them, and forming its body into curving folds.”

“Not one star alone shines as the adornment of its head, but its temples are marked with a double gleam, and two glowing lights blaze from its fierce eyes, and its chin is bright with one flashing star. Its head is slanted, drawn back from the rounded neck; you would say that it bent its gaze on the tail of the Greater Bear.”

“hoc caput hic paulum sese subitoque recondit,

ortus ubi atque obitus parte admiscetur in una.”

Id autem caput attingens

“defessa velut mærentis imago vertitur,”

“Its head yonder, sinking beneath the water, hides itself for a little where its risings and settings meet at one point.”

“there revolves a weary image as of one mourning,”

“Engonasin vocitant, genibus quia nixa feratur.”

“Hic illa eximio posita est fulgore Corona.”

Atque hæc quidem a tergo, propter caput autem Anguitenens,

“quem claro perhibent Ophiuchum nomine Graji.”

“Hic pressu duplici palmarum continet Anguem

atque ejus ipse manet religatus corpore torto ;

namque virum medium Serpens sub pectora cingit.

Ille tamen nitens graviter vestigia ponit

atque oculos urget pedibus pectusque Nepai.”

Septentriones autem sequitur

“Arctophylax, vulgo qui dicitur esse Boötes,

quod quasi temone adjunctam præ se quatit Arctum.”

call Engonasin (Ἐνγόνασιν),^⇊ 40 ⇊ because, they say, it moves supported on its knees. In its neighborhood is placed the brilliant light of yonder Crown.”

“whom the Greeks call Opiuchus,^⇊ 41 ⇊ a bright-shining star. He grips the Snake with the double pressure of his hands, and remains himself bound by its coiling body, for the Snake girdles the man’s waist, creeping beneath his breast. Nevertheless he plants his steps heavily, straining hard, and treads with his feet the eyes and breast of the Scorpion.”

“Arctophylax,^⇊ 42 ⇊ who is commonly called Bootes,^⇊ 43 ⇊ because he drives the Bear before him as though yoked to a wain.”

“subter præcordia fixa videtur

stella micans radiis, Arcturus nomine claro” ;

“there is seen fixed a star with glittering rays, Arcturus of the famous name,”

“Spicum illustre tenens splendenti corpore Virgo.”

Atque ita dimetata signa sunt, ut in tantis descriptionibus divina sollertia appareat :

“Et Natos Geminos invisses sub caput Arcti ;

subjectus mediæst Cancer, pedibusque tenetur

magnus Leo tremulam quatiens e corpore flammam.”

Auriga

“sub læva Geminorum obductus parte feretur.

Adversum caput huic Helice truculenta tuetur.

At Capra lævum umerum clara obtinet.”

and underneath that moves

“Virgo, lustrous in form, holding a bright ear of corn.”

XLIII.  Then comes the continuation of that passage.

“And beneath the Bear’s head you will behold the Twins. Under the middle of the Bear is placed the Crab, and the mighty Lion, flashing from his body a quivering flame, is held by the Bear’s feet.”

“will be found moving under cover of the Twins upon their left. The head of Helice with fierce gaze confronts him, the bright Goat holds the place of his left shoulder.”

Tum quæ sequuntur :

“Verum hæc est magno atque illustri prædita signo ;

contra, Hædi exiguum jaciunt mortalibus ignem.”

Cujus sub pedibus

“corniger est valido connixus corpore Taurus.”

[111] Ejus caput stellis conspersum est frequentibus ;

“has Græci stellas Hyadas vocitare suerunt”

a pluendo — ὕειν enim est pluere ;  nostri imperite Suculas, quasi a subus essent, non ab imbribus nominatæ.  Minorem autem Septentrionem Cepheus passis palmis post terga subsequitur ; 

“namque ipsum ad tergum Cynosuræ vertitur Arcti.”

Hunc antecedit,

“obscura specie stellarum, Cassiepia.”

“Hanc autem illustri versatur corpore propter

Andromeda aufugiens aspectu mæsta parentis.”

“Huic Equus ille, jubam quatiens fulgore micanti,

summum contingit caput alvo ;  stellaque jungens

una tenet duplices communi lumine formas

æternum ex astris cupiens connectere nodum.”

“Exin contortis Aries cum cornibus hæret.”

Quem propter,

“Pisces, quorum alter paulum prælabitur ante,

et magis horriferis aquilonis tangitur auris.”

Now

“the Goat has been given a great and brilliant sign, but the light which the Kids send forth for mortals is scanty.”

“is the horned Bull toiling with strong body.”

“These the Greeks are wont to call Hyades.”

“For he himself revolves behind the Bear Cynosura.”

“Cassiopia with stars of dim aspect. By her moves Andromeda, bright of form, avoiding sadly her mother’s^⇊ 45 ⇊ gaze. The Horse yonder, shaking his mane with a twinkling light, touches the top of Andromeda’s head with his belly, and one connecting star, eager to bind their constellations in eternal union, holds their twin forms in one radiance. Next is the fixed star of the Ram with twisted horns.”

“the Fish, one of which moves on a little in advance, and is visited more by the ruffling breath of the north wind.”

“quem, summa ab regione aquilonis, flamina pulsant.”

Cujus

“propter lævum genum”

“Vergilias tenui cum luce videbis.”

“Inde Fides leviter posita et convexa videtur.”

Inde

“est ales Avis lato sub tegmine cæli.”

Capiti autem Equi proxima est Aquarii dextra, totusque deinceps Aquarius.  Tum

“gelidum valido de pectore frigus anhelans,

corpore semifero, magno Capricornus in orbe ;

quem, quum perpetuo vestivit lumine Titan,

brumali flectens contorquet tempore currum.”

[113] Hic autem aspicitur

“sese ostendens emergit Scorpios alte,

posteriore trahens flexum vi corporis Arcum.”

“Nitens pinnis convolvitur Ales.”

“At propter, se Aquila ardenti cum corpore portat.”

Deinde Delphinus.

“Exinde Orion obliquo corpore nitens.”

“him in the topmost quarter of the sky the blasts of the north wind buffet.”

“you will see the faint light of the Pleiades. The Lyre is placed next, and in aspect is slightly arched. Next under the broad cover of the sky is the winged Bird.”

“Then in the great circle comes Capricorn, half animal in form, breathing icy cold from his strong breast. When the Sun has clothed him with continuous light, then at the time of the winter solstice he turns his chariot into another course.”

“how the Scorpion shows itself rising high, drawing with its strong hinder part the bent Bow.”

“the Bird revolves with straining wings. The Eagle with glowing body bears itself hard by.”

“Then Orion pushing on with body turned sideways.”

[114] Quem subsequens

“fervidus ille Canis stellarum luce”

refulget.  Post, Lepus subsequitur,

“curriculum nunquam defesso corpore sedans.

At Canis ad caudam, serpens prolabitur Argo.”

“Hanc Aries tegit et squamoso corpore Pisces

Fluminis illustri tangentem corpore ripas.”

Quem longe “serpentem” et manantem aspicies

“proceraque Vincla videbis,

quæ retinent Pisces caudarum a parte locata.”

“Inde Nepæ cernes propter fulgentis acumen

Aram, quam flatu permulcet spiritus austri.”

Propter quæ Centaurus

“cedit, Equi partes properans subjungere Chelis.

Hic dextram porgens, quadrupes qua vasta tenetur”,

“tendit et illustrem truculentus cedit ad Aram.

Hic sese infernis e partibus erigit Hydra,”

cujus longe corpus est fusum,

“in medioque sinu fulgens Cretera relucet.

Extremam nitens plumato corpore Corvus

rostro tundit, et hic Geminis est ille sub ipsis

Ante Canem, ‘Προκύων’ Grajo qui nomine fertur.”

Closely following him,

the fiery Dog yonder glows with its light of stars.”

The Hare comes in its rear,

“its weary body never slackening its course. By the Dog’s tail Argo glides slowly on. It^⇊ 47 ⇊ is screened by the Ram and the scaly Fish, as it touches with shining breast the banks of the River.”

“And you will behold the long Chains which hold back the Fish, placed in the region of their tails. Then, by the sting of the bright Scorpion, you will perceive the Altar, upon which the breath of the south wind softly blows.”

“moves on, hastening to join a horse’s limbs to the under part of the Claws. He advances stretching out on, hastening to join a horse’s limbs to the under part of the Claws. He advances stretching out his right hand, in which a huge beast is held, and sternly fells it at the shining Altar. Here, from the region below, the Hydra lifts itself.”

“In its center fold the gleaming Bowl shines out; its hinder parts the Raven, straining with feathered body, smites with its beak. Here, too, just beneath the Twins, behold Antecanis, who bears the name Προκύων in Greek.”

Can any sane person think that all this grouping of the stars, and this vast ordering of the heavens, could have resulted from atoms coursing to and fro fortuitously and at random? Or could, indeed, any kind of nature that was destitute of mind and intelligence have produced these results, which not only needed intelligence in order to be produced, but which cannot be understood in their nature without a very considerable amount of intelligence?

[117] Huic autem continens aër fertur ille quidem levitate sublimi, sed tamen in omnes partes se ipse fundit ;  itaque et mari continuatus et junctus est et natura fertur ad cælum, cujus tenuitate et calore temperatus vitalem et salutarem spiritum præbet animantibus.  Quem complexa summa pars cæli, quæ ætheria dicitur, et suum retinet ardorem tenuem et nulla admixtione concretum, et cum aëris extremitate conjungitur.  In æthere autem astra volvuntur, quæ se et nisu suo conglobata continent et forma ipsa figuraque sua momenta sustentant ;  sunt enim rotunda — quibus formis, ut ante dixisse videor, minime noceri potest.  [118] Sunt autem stellæ natura flammeæ ;  quocirca terræ, maris aquarumque reliquarum vaporibus aluntur his, qui a sole ex agris tepefactis et ex aquis excitantur ;  quibus altæ renovatæque stellæ atque omnis æther in terram effundunt et rursum trahunt itidem, nihil ut fere intereat aut admodum paululum quod astrorum ignis et ætheris flamma consumat.  Ex quo eventurum nostri putant id, de quo Panætium addubitare dicebant — ut ad extremum omnis mundus ignesceret, quum, umore consumpto, neque terra ali posset nec remearet aër, cujus ortus, aqua omni exhausta, esse non posset ;  ita relinqui nihil præter ignem, a quo rursum, animante ac deo, renovatio mundi fieret atque idem ornatus oriretur.

XLVI.  In the æther revolve the stars, which are made spherical by their own gravity, and are thereby held together, while they are maintained in their movements by their actual form and outline; for they are round, and forms of that kind, as I think I said before, are least able to be injured. The stars are of a fiery nature; they are, therefore, fed by those vapours from the earth, and sea, and other waters, which are drawn forth by the sun from soil which it has warmed, and from water, and they and the whole æther, after being fed and renewed by these, pour the same back and draw them again from the same source, so that scarcely anything perishes, or only the very little which the fire of the heavenly bodies and the flame of the æther consume. Only the very little which the fire of the heavenly bodies and the flame of the æther consume. It is thought by our school that in consequence of this consumption the thing which one used to be told Panætius was inclined to doubt, will come to pass, I mean the final conflagration of the whole universe; for when moisture has been exhausted the earth could not be nourished, and there would be no returning stream of air, as its creation would be impossible when the water had all been used up; nothing, therefore, they say, is left except fire as the agency, vivifying and divine, by which the universe should be renewed again, and the same external order called into being.

I do not wish to seem to you unduly prolix on the subject of the stars, and especially so on the subject of what are called the wandering stars; so great is their harmony, which is obtained from the most dissimilar movements, that while the planet of Saturn, which is the highest, causes cold, and the planet of Mars, which is in the middle, causes burning heat, the planet of Jupiter, which is placed between these, has a bright and moderating influence, the two planets^⇊ 48 ⇊ under Mars move in obedience to the sun, the sun itself fills the whole world with its light, and the moon, which is lit up by the sun, brings pregnancy and parturition and the completed period of birth. The man who is not impressed by this connection between things, this solidarity of nature, conspiring, as it were, for the safety of the universe, has never, I am quite sure, taken any of these facts into consideration.

XLVII.  Well, to pass from the things of the sky to those of the earth, what do the latter contain in which the reason possessed by intelligent nature is not apparent? In the first place, the roots of the things which spring from the earth both give stability to what they sustain, and draw moisture from the earth by which the things maintained by their means may be nourished, while the trunks are covered by rind or bark in order that they may be safer from cold and heat. Vines, again, take hold of the props with tendrils which act like hands, and raise themselves up as though they were endowed with life. Indeed, it is even said that if cabbages have been planted near them, the vines shrink from them as from something deadly and injurious, and come nowhere into contact with them.

Then, too, how great a variety of living creatures there are, and what provision is made for their preservation in their different species! Some of them are cased in hides, others clothed with hair, and others are rough and bristly; some we see covered with feathers, and others with scales, some armed with horns, and others possessing a means of escape in wings.

[122] Dedit autem eadem natura beluis et sensum et appetitum, ut altero conatum haberent ad naturales pastus capessendos, altero secernerent pestifera a salutaribus.  Jam vero alia animalia gradiendo, alia serpendo ad pastum accedunt, alia volando, alia nando ;  cibumque partim oris hiatu et dentibus ipsis capessunt, partim unguium tenacitate arripiunt ;  partim aduncitate rostrorum ;  alia sugunt, alia carpunt, alia vorant, alia mandunt.  Atque etiam aliorum ea est humilitas, ut cibum terrestrem rostris facile contingant.

Some, moreover, are of such low stature as to easily reach with their mouths the food that grows upon the ground,

[123] Quæ autem altiora sunt, ut anseres, ut cycni, ut grues, ut cameli, adjuvantur proceritate collorum ;  manus etiam data elephantost, quia propter magnitudinem corporis difficiles aditus habebat ad pastum.  At quibus bestiis erat is cibus, ut † aliis generis escis vescerentur, aut vires Natura dedit aut celeritatem.  Data est quibusdam etiam machinatio quædam atque sollertia, ut in araneolis aliæ quasi rete texunt, ut, si quid inhæserit, conficiant, aliæ autem ex inopinato observant et, si quid incidit, arripiunt idque consumunt.  Pina vero (sic enim Græce dicitur) duabus grandibus patula conchis cum parva scilla quasi societatem coit comparandi cibi ;  itaque quum pisciculi parvi in concham hiantem innataverunt, tum admonita a scilla pina morsu comprimit conchas :  sic dissimillimis bestiolis communiter cibus quæritur.

[124] In quo admirandum est, congressune aliquo inter se, an jam inde ab ortu natura ipsa congregatæ sint.  Est etiam admiratio nonnulla in bestiis aquatilibus eis, quæ gignuntur in terra ;  veluti crocodili, fluviatilesque testudines, quædamque serpentes ortæ extra aquam, simul ac primum niti possunt, aquam persequuntur.  Quin etiam anatum ova gallinis sæpe supponimus ;  e quibus pulli orti primo aluntur ab his ut a matribus, a quibus exclusi fotique sunt ;  deinde eas relinquunt et effugiunt sequentes, quum primum aquam quasi naturalem domum videre potuerunt :  tantam ingenuit animantibus conservandi sui natura custodiam.

while those that are taller, such as geese, swans, cranes, and camels, are helped by their length of neck. A trunk was added to the elephant, because, owing to its size of body, it had a difficulty in approaching its food.

XLVIII.  To creatures, on the other hand, that subsisted by feeding upon those of another species, Nature gave either strength or speed. To some a certain power of contrivance and ingenuity was also given, as in the case of spiders, some of which weave a kind of net in order that they may despatch whatever becomes entangled in it, while others lie in wait, and unexpectedly clutch anything that falls into their hiding-place, and consume it. The pina^⇊ 49 ⇊ (for so it is called in Greek), which has two large shells standing open, forms a kind of partnership for obtaining food with the small pea-crab, according to which it is warned by a bite of the pea-crab when little fish have swum into the open shell, and thereupon closes the valves. In this way food is sought in common by small creatures that are quite unlike each other, and one cannot but wonder in regard to this whether they were united by coming together themselves, or were originally united by Nature herself at the time of birth. There is some further cause for wonder in the aquatic creatures that are born upon the land; crocodiles, for instance, and river tortoises, and some serpents, though they were not born in the water, seek it as soon as they are first able to crawl. Indeed, we often place the eggs of ducks under hens, and the chicks produced from these are at first reared by the hens as though they were their mothers, the hens having hatched and tended them, but afterwards, upon the first sight that they have obtained of the water, which seems to them their natural home, they leave the hens, and run from them when they pursue them. So great is the need for its own preservation that Nature has implanted in what is animate.

I could bring forward many facts of that kind, but you see the main type. It is, moreover, even better known with what care animals guard themselves, looking round when they are feeding, and keeping themselves hid when they are couched.

L.  Another wonderful thing is that a dog cures itself by vomiting, and the Egyptian ibis by purging the stomach,—remedies which were discovered in more recent times by the science of physicians. We are told that panthers, which in savage countries are caught by means of poisoned meat, possess some kind of remedy by the use of which they escape death, and that wild goats in Crete, when pierced by the arrows of the hunter, seek a herb called dittany; this they taste, and the arrows then drop out of their body. Deer, moreover, shortly before giving birth, thoroughly purge themselves by means of a small herb named seseli. We see, too, how each animal defends itself against attack and threatened danger by its own weapons, bulls by their horns, boars by their tusks, and lions by their teeth; some creatures protect themselves by flight and others by hiding, the sepia by the discharge of a black fluid, the torpedo-fish by causing numbness, while many animals repel pursuit by an intolerably offensive stench.

I need not say how much love is shown by the brutes in rearing and guarding their offspring until such time as they are able to defend themselves, although fish, it is said, leave their eggs after laying them, since the eggs are easily preserved by the water, and are easily delivered in it of their contents.

LII.  We hear that tortoises and crocodiles, when they have brought forth upon the land, bury their eggs, and then depart; their young, consequently, come into being of themselves, and rear themselves. Hens and all other birds seek a quiet spot for laying, and build themselves beds and nests, which they line as softly as they can underneath, in order that there may be the greatest possible facility for the eggs being kept safe. Such is their care for the chicks, when they have hatched them from the eggs, that they cherish them with their wings, to prevent their being hurt by the cold, and shield them, if there is heat from the sun. But when the young birds are able to use their wings, which as yet are small, the mothers, though they accompany their flight, are relieved of the rest of their cares. To the preservation and safety of some animals, and of the products of the earth, human skill and diligence also contribute, for there are many beasts and plants that without the care of man cannot escape injury.

Great facilities, moreover, are found in different places for human cultivation and abundant harvests. The Nile overflows Egypt, and keeps it buried and inundated the whole summer; after that it retires, leaving the fields, which it has softened and covered with mud, to be sown. The Euphrates fertilises Mesopotamia, bringing it, so to speak, fresh fields every year. The Indus, which is the greatest of all rivers, not only enriches and softens the soil with its water, but sows it as well, for it is said to carry down a great quantity of seeds resembling corn. I could bring forward many other noteworthy phenomena occurring in other places, and many instances of lands variously fertile in different kinds of produce.

LIII.  But how great is Nature’s kindness in producing things to eat in such number and variety, and of so pleasing a kind, and in not restricting them to one period of the year, so that we have the constant gratification of novelty and abundance. How timely, again, are the Etesian^⇊ 54 ⇊ winds which she has given, and how serviceable not only to the race of men, but of animals also, and lastly to everything that springs from the earth, for it is their breath that tempers the excessive heat, and it is they, too, which direct, swiftly and surely, the course of ships over the sea. There are many facts that must be passed by,^⇊ 55 ⇊ for it is impossible to enumerate the advantages of rivers, the ebb and flow of the tides of the sea, the clothed and wooded mountains, the salt-pits so far from the sea-shore, the lands so full of healing remedies, and finally the countless arts necessary for subsistence and life. The alternation, moreover, of day finally the countless arts necessary for subsistence and life. The alternation, moreover, of day and night preserves animate beings by assigning one time for action, and another for rest.

The conclusion is thus reached upon every hand, and from every consideration, that everything in this universe is marvellously administered by the divine intelligence and forethought with a view to the safety and preservation of all things. But it will be asked for whose sake so vast a work was carried out. Was it for the sake of trees and herbs, which though without sensation are nevertheless sustained by Nature? No, that at any rate is absurd. Was it for the sake of animals? It is equally improbable that the gods went to such pains for beings that are dumb and without understanding. For whose sake, then, would one say that the universe was formed? For the sake, undoubtedly, of those animate beings that exercise reason. These are gods and men, whom nothing assuredly transcends in excellence, since reason is the highest of all things. It is thus credibly established that the universe and everything that is in it were made for the sake of gods and men.

LIV.  And that heed was taken by the immortal gods for men will be understood more easily if we examine the whole structure of man, and the entire human figure in its complete development. There being, then, three things by which the life of animate beings is maintained, namely, food, drink, and air, the mouth is peculiarly well adapted for the reception of all these, as owing to its connection with the nostrils it is abundantly supplied with air, while by the compression of the teeth in the mouth the food is chewed, and reduced to fragments, and ground. The front teeth divide the morsels by biting, the back ones, which are called jawteeth, masticate them, and the mastication seems to be aided by the tongue as well. The tongue ends in the gullet, to which its roots are attached, and into which what has been received by the mouth first descends. The gullet reaches upon each side to the tonsils, and is terminated by the inner extremity of the palate; it expels, after receiving it, the food which is passed down, I might almost say, thrust down, by the working and movements of the tongue. Those of its own parts which are below what is being swallowed, expand, those which are above, contract.

The rough artery,^⇊ 56 ⇊ as it is called by physicians, has its opening near to the roots of the tongue, a little above where the latter unites with the gullet, and it extends as far as the lungs, receiving the air which is drawn in by the breath, and exhaling and giving back the same from the lungs. It is therefore covered with a kind of lid, which was given with a view to prevent the breathing being interrupted by any food accidentally falling in. The stomach is placed below the gullet, and there is much in it that is marvellously contrived, for it is the receptacle of food and drink, and air is supplied to it from without by the lungs and heart. It is composed for the most part of fibres, and has many layers and coils; all the substances which it has admitted, whether solid or liquid, it confines and holds, so that they may be able to be changed and digested; it contracts and expands alternately, and whatever it has received it combines and fuses together, in order that everything, after being digested and reduced by the abundant heat which the stomach possesses, and the crushing which the food undergoes, and also by air, may be easily distributed amongst the rest of the body.

LV.  The lungs, again, are of a loose consistency and sponge-like softness, which is admirably adapted for the drawing of breath; they alternately contract in expiration and expand in inspiration, in order that the aerial nutriment by which animate beings are mainly supported, may be constantly inhaled. The juice, in the next place, that is separated from the rest of the food, and upon which our sustenance depends, flows from the intestines to the liver through certain passages directed and carried from the middle intestine as far as what are called the gates of the liver, and these passages extend on to and connect with the liver. Thence a number of passages extend in different directions, through which the chyle^⇊ 57 ⇊ falls on its dispersion from the liver. When the bile, and the fluid that is discharged from the kidneys, have been separated from the chyle, the rest of it turns to blood, and flows in a body to the beforementioned gates of the liver, to which all the passages of the blood conduct; after passing through these, it is poured just at that point into what is called the hollow vein, and passes on, as finally digested and assimilated food, through that to the heart, whence it is distributed to the entire body through a vast number of veins extending to every part of the body.

The mode in which the food that is left is expelled by the opening and closing of the bowels can be very easily stated, but must nevertheless be passed by, that my discourse may contain nothing offensive. Let me rather set forth the following wonderful contrivance of Nature. The air that is drawn into the lungs by the breath is made warm, in the first place, simply by being inhaled, and in the second place by contact with the lungs; part of it is returned in expiration, part is gathered in a part of the heart called the ventricle of the heart; to this another similar ventricle is attached, into which blood flows from the liver through the hollow vein, and in this way blood is diffused from these parts over the whole body through the veins, and air through the arteries. Both veins and arteries, with which the entire body is thickly and numerously threaded, bear witness to artistic, heavenly workmanship of extraordinary power. What shall I say of the bones which are placed beneath the body and which have wonderful articulations, calculated to ensure stability, and suitable for ending off the joints and for motion and every bodily activity? To these we must add the nerves, by which the joints are kept in place, and which extend in a network over the whole body; like the veins and arteries they are drawn from, and have their starting point in the heart, and are carried through the entire frame.

Hearing, on the other hand, is always open, for it is a sense that we need even when sleeping, and we are actually roused from sleep when sound has been received by it. It has a winding passage in order that nothing may be able to enter, which might happen if the opening were simple and direct; care was also taken that if any tiny creature did attempt to insinuate itself, it should become fixed in the wax of the ear as though in bird-lime. On the outside there project what are called the ears, which were made for the sake of covering and protecting the sense of hearing, and to prevent the sounds that arrived from slipping off and wandering away before they had struck upon the sense. The entrance of the ear is hard and like horn, and has many windings, since it is by substances of this kind that sound is returned like horn, and has many windings, since it is by substances of this kind that sound is returned and heightened. This is the reason why resonance is attained in the lyre by means of tortoiseshell or horn, and why sounds are given back in greater volume from a place that winds in and out and is enclosed. In like manner the nostrils, which are always open for necessary service, have a somewhat contracted entrance, that nothing may be able to make its way into them that might injure them, and they always contain a moisture that is of use for getting rid of dust and many other things. The sense of taste is admirably protected, for it is enclosed by the mouth in a way which is suited both to its function and to the maintenance of its safety. Moreover, every sense of man far surpasses those of animals.

LVIII.  For, in the first place, in the arts upon which judgment is passed by the eyes, in forms painted, moulded, and graven, and also in the movement and action of the body, there are many things of which the eyes of a man have a subtler discernment. They judge of the beauty, and arrangement, and propriety, if I may so express it, of colors and shapes, and of other matters of more moment as well, since they recognise virtues and vices, the angry man and the goodhumored, the glad and the sorrowful, the brave and the cowardly, the bold and the timid.

by bringing these together and comparing them, we also call the arts into being, of which some are necessary for the uses of life and others for enjoyment.

How glorious, again, and god-like is the power of eloquence, the mistress of things, as you orators^⇊ 60 ⇊ are wont to call it. It enables us, in the first place, to learn that of which we are ignorant, and to teach to others that which we know, and secondly it is by means of it that we exhort, and persuade, and cheer the afflicted, turn the terrified from fear, restrain the exultant, and extinguish desire and anger; it is this that has knit us together by a common bond of justice and laws and cities, and this that has removed us from a life of savageness and barbarism. It is incredible, moreover, if we look at the facts closely, with what care nature has arranged for the exercise of speech. First of all, the windpipe extends from the lungs as far as the back of the mouth, and through it the voice, which has its origin in the mind, is received and given forth; then in the mouth there is placed the tongue, enclosed by the teeth; this manipulates and restricts the voice, which in its first gush is inarticulate, and makes the sounds distinct and precise by driving them against the teeth and other parts of the mouth. It is thus a common saying with us Stoics that the tongue is like a quill, the teeth like chords, and the nostrils like the horns^⇊ 61 ⇊ which in playing give back the sound of the strings.

Timber, moreover, affords great facilities for the construction of ships, by the voyages of which all the means to life in every part are made ours; we alone, by our knowledge of seamanship, possess control over the elements of made ours; we alone, by our knowledge of seamanship, possess control over the elements of sea and wind, which nature has created full of turbulence, and we have the enjoyment and use of very many products of the sea. All dominion, too, over the resources of the earth belongs to man. We enjoy the mountains and the plains, the rivers and the lakes are ours, we sow the crops and trees, we give fertility to the land by conveying water to it, we confine the streams, we straighten or divert their course — in short, by means of our hands we endeavor to create in nature a kind of second nature.

LXI.  Then again, has not human reason reached as far as to the sky? Yes, for we alone of animate beings have learnt the risings and settings and courses of the stars; the day and month and year have been defined by man, and the nature, extent, and date of the eclipses of the sun and moon have been ascertained and foretold for all future time. By contemplation of these things the mind arrives at a knowledge of the gods, from which knowledge springs piety; with piety justice and the other virtues are bound up,^⇊ 62 ⇊ and from these a blessed life results, equal and similar to that of the gods, and yielding to that of the heavenly beings in nothing except immortality, which has no connection with right living.

By setting forth these facts I think that I have sufficiently shown how far the nature of man surpasses that of all living creatures, and this should make it understood that neither his shape and the disposition of his limbs, nor such powers of ability and intelligence, could have been the result of chance. It remains for me to show, and so to at length conclude, that everything that there is in this universe, everything of which men make use, was made and prepared for the sake of men.

LXII.  In the first place the universe itself was made for the sake of gods and men, and the things that are in it were prepared and devised for the advantage of men. For the universe is, as it were, the common home of gods and men, or the city belonging to both, since they are the only beings that exercise reason, and live according to justice and law. As, then, we must suppose that Athens and Lacedæmon were established for the sake of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, and as everything that there is in these cities is rightly described as belonging to those peoples, so whatever there is in the entire universe must be supposed to belong to the gods and to men. Moreover, the revolutions of the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies, though they also contribute to the coherence of the universe, afford, nevertheless, a spectacle at the same time to man; for there is no sight of which it is less possible to tire, none that is more beautiful, and more remarkable for reason and skill. By measuring the courses of these bodies we have learnt the culminating points, and varieties and changes, in their periods, and if these things are known to man alone, it must be concluded that they were created for the sake of man.

And does the earth, teeming with crops and the different kinds of leguminous produce, which it puts forth in the utmost profusion, seem to bear these for the sake of beasts or of men? I need not speak of vines and olive-groves, whose abundant and luxuriant fruit exists altogether without reference to animals, for the brutes have no knowledge of sowing, or altogether without reference to animals, for the brutes have no knowledge of sowing, or cultivating, or plucking fruit at the right time and gathering it in, or of storing and laying by, but the practice and charge of all those matters belong to man.

LXIII.  Just as it must be said, then, that lyres and flutes were made for the sake of those able to use them, so it must be acknowledged that the things I have spoken of were prepared only for those who make use of them, and if certain animals steal or seize anything from among them, we will not say that they were created for their sake as well. It is not for mice and ants that men store up provision, but for their own wives and children and households, which is the reason why animals, as I said, enjoy by stealth, but the master of the house openly and freely. It must, then, be admitted that this wealth of things was provided for man, unless, perhaps, it is the great abundance and variety of fruits, and the pleasantness not only of their taste, but also of their smell and appearance, that throws a doubt upon their having been bestowed by nature upon man alone!  created with a view to man. What other end do sheep serve except that of clothing men with their wool, when it has been prepared and woven? Indeed, without human care and superintendence it would have been impossible for them to have been reared or kept alive, or to have yielded any profit. Then, the faithful watch that is kept by dogs, the loving way in which they fawn upon their masters, their strong dislike to strangers, their marvellous keenness of scent for following a track, their eagerness in the hunt —, what do these indicate if not that dogs were created for the convenience of men?

“Ferrea tum vero proles exorta repente’st

ausaque funestum prima’st fabricarier ensem

et gustare manu junctum domitumque juvencum” :

tanta putabatur utilitas percipi e bubus, ut eorum visceribus vesci scelus haberetur.  Longum est mulorum persequi utilitates et asinorum, quæ certe ad hominum usum paratæ sunt.  [160] ¿ Sus vero quid habet præter escam ?  Cui quidem, ne putesceret, animam ipsam pro sale datam dicit esse Chrysippus ;  qua pecude, quod erat ad vescendum hominibus apta, nihil genuit natura fecundius.  ¿ Quid multitudinem suavitatemque piscium dicam ?, ¿ quid avium ? ;  ex quibus tanta percipitur voluptas, ut interdum Pronœa nostra Epicurea fuisse videatur.  Atque eæ ne caperentur quidem, nisi hominum ratione atque sollertia ;  quanquam aves quasdam, et alites et oscines, ut nostri augures appellant, rerum augurandarum causa esse natas putamus.

Of oxen it is unnecessary to speak. Their very backs proclaim themselves as not having been shaped for the reception of burdens; on the other hand their necks were meant for the yoke, and the strength and breadth of their shoulders for drawing the plough along. No violence, the poets say, was used towards them by the men of the golden age, because by their means the clods were broken up, and the earth in that way subdued.

“But then an offspring of iron suddenly arose, and first dared to forge the deadly sword, and to taste the steer that had been yoked and tamed by man’s hand..”

LXIV.  It would be tedious to enumerate the advantages, which were undeniably provided for human use, of the mule and of the ass. As for the pig, it possesses no utility beyond that of furnishing food; in fact Chrysippus says that its very life was given it in place of salt, that it might not become rotten. Since it was well adapted for human consumption, nature made it the most prolific animal that she produced. Need I mention the numbers and the delicious taste of birds and fishes? The pleasure obtained from them is so great (and even their capture would be impossible without human intelligence and skill) that it seems sometimes as though our Stoic πρόνοια had been of the Epicurean school, although we do think that certain birds both of the flying and the note-giving kind,^⇊ 63 ⇊ as they are called by our augurs, were created in order that auspices might be taken on questions.

Nor is it only for mankind as a whole, but also for individuals, that the immortal gods are accustomed to take heed and forethought, since it is possible to narrow down the sum total of mankind, and reduce it gradually to a smaller number, and finally to individuals.

LXVI.  For if we believe, for the reasons previously given, that the gods take heed for all men wherever existing, on whatever shore and in whatever parts of lands remote from this tract of land which we inhabit,^⇊ 64 ⇊ they do so for these men as well who occupy these lands with us from east to west. But if they take heed for these inhabitants of the vast island-like expanse which we call the world, they also do so for those who occupy the parts of that island,—Europe, Asia, and Africa; consequently, they also cherish the parts of the latter, such as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and Rhodes, and the individual members of those cities apart from the whole community. For instance, in the war with Pyrrhus they showed regard for Curius, Fabricius, and community. For instance, in the war with Pyrrhus they showed regard for Curius, Fabricius, and Coruncanius, in the first Punic war for Calatinus, Duellius, Metellus, and Lutatius, in the second for Maximus, Marcellus, and Africanus, at a later date for Paulus and Gracchus, and within the memory of our fathers for Scipio and Lælius; and many other remarkable men have been produced both by our own state and by Greece, not one of whom, we must believe, would have been what they were except by divine aid.

This consideration led the poets, and especially Homer, to associate with the chief among the heroes, Ulysses, Diomed, Agamemnon, and Achilles, particular deities as the companions of their risks and dangers. The frequent appearances, moreover, such as I have recorded above, of the gods in person show that the interests both of nations and individuals are consulted by them, as indeed is also understood from the indications of future events, which are foreshadowed to men sometimes in their waking, and sometimes in their sleeping hours. We receive many further warnings from prodigies, from entrails, and a number of other phenomena, of which a long experience has been so observant as to have produced an art of divination. No great man, then, has ever been without some divine inspiration, and to him all circumstances are always good, if, that is, the writers of our own school, and Socrates, the father of philosophy, have sufficiently set forth the fulness and richness of virtue. Nor must we run counter to this by supposing, if a storm has injured any one’s crops or vineyards, or if fortune has taken away any of the good things of life, that the man to whom anything of this kind has happened, was either hateful to God or neglected by him. The gods are careful for great things, but neglect small.

LXVII.  These, or something like them, occurred to me as the remarks which I thought ought to be made on the subject of the divine nature. And you, Cotta, if you took my advice, would plead for the same cause; you would bethink yourself that you are both a leading citizen and pontiff, and since it is open to your school to argue on either side, you would choose this in preference, and bring rather to it that skill in discussion which you acquired from a training in rhetoric, and which the Academy has developed for you. For the practice of arguing in opposition to the gods is wrong and impious, whether one does so honestly or assumes the part.

Very good, said Cotta; then let us do as the speech itself shall guide us.

II.  But before I deal with the question I will say a few words about myself. You must know then, Balbus, that I am not a little moved by your authority, and by the closing words of your Balbus, that I am not a little moved by your authority, and by the closing words of your discourse urging me to remember that I am both Cotta and pontiff, which meant, I suppose, that I should defend the beliefs relating to the immortal gods that we have received from our ancestors, and the sacred rites, and ceremonies, and religious observances. Now I always will and always have defended these, and no one’s utterances, be he learned or unlearned, shall ever move me from those convictions with regard to the worship of the immortal gods that I have inherited from our forefathers. But in questions of religion I follow the chief pontiffs, Tiberius Coruncanius, Publius Scipio, and Publius Scævola, and not Zeno, or Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, and in Caius Lælius, who is at the same time an augur and a philosopher, I have an authority to whose remarks upon religion, in that famous speech of his,^⇊ 1 ⇊ I prefer to listen rather than to any leader among the Stoics. Since, moreover, the whole religious system of the Roman people has been divided into sacred rites and auspices, with the addition of a third part consisting of the prophetic warnings derived, by the interpreters of the Sibyl or by soothsayers, from portents and prodigies, it has been my opinion that none of these observances ought ever to be treated with contempt, and I have convinced myself that it was by means of auspices and the establishment of sacred rites that Romulus and Numa respectively laid the foundations of our state, which certainly could never have been so great without the most assiduous cultivation of the good will of the immortal gods.

You are in possession of my opinions, Balbus, both as an individual and as pontiff; let me now understand yours, for from you who are a philosopher I ought to receive a reasoned account of religion, whereas it is my duty to believe our ancestors even when they offer no such account.

III.  What account, then, said Balbus, do you require from me, Cotta? Your division, replied the latter, was fourfold; first you wished to establish the existence of the gods, next their nature, then that the universe is ruled by them, and lastly that they take heed for human affairs. These, if I remember rightly, were the different heads. Quite right, said Balbus, but I am waiting to hear what it is you want from me.

Let us, said Cotta, examine each point in turn, and if that of the existence of the gods comes first, upon which all but the most impious are agreed, and which cannot possibly be eradicated from my own mind, still you give me no information as to why that very thing, of which I am convinced upon the authority of our ancestors, is so. If you are convinced of it, said Balbus, what reason is there for wishing to receive information from me?

Because, replied Cotta, I approach this discussion as though I had never heard and never thought about the immortal gods; take me as an uninstructed learner new to the subject, and give me information upon the points on which I want it.

Tell me, then, said Balbus, what it is you want. What I want? said Cotta. In the first place I want to know why you spoke at such length upon the very point which you said in your division did not even need to be discussed, as it was evident and accepted by all. I did so, he said, because I have often noticed that you too, Cotta, when speaking in the forum, if the case only gave you the chance, brought to bear upon the judge as many arguments as you could. The same thing is done by philosophers, and so far as I was able I did it myself. As to your inquiry, it is like asking me why I look at you with both eyes able I did it myself. As to your inquiry, it is like asking me why I look at you with both eyes and do not close one, although I could get the same sight with one.

“Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem”,

« Look upon yonder dazzling sky, which all address as Jove ».

As though, indeed, any one of us would apply the title of Jove to such a deity rather than to the god of the Capitol, and as though the divinity of those bodies, which Vellejus and many others do not even allow to you to be possessed of life, were obvious and universally accepted. You regarded it, too, as a weighty argument that a belief in the immortal gods is both general and constantly increasing. Is it, then, thought well that our judgment on matters of such importance should be determined by the beliefs of fools, especially by your school which says that the foolish are mad?

V.  But I shall be told that we see the actual forms of the gods, as Postumius did at Regillus, and Vatinius on the Via Salaria; and there was also some story or other about the fight of the Locrians by the Sagra. Well, do you think that the Tyndaridæ, as you called them, implying that they were men, and the offspring of a man,^⇊ 2 ⇊ who according to Homer, who lived soon after their time, were buried at Lacedæmon, came on white nags and without grooms to meet Vatinius, and announced the victory of the Roman people to him, a mere rustic, rather than to Marcus Cato, who was then chief of the senate? Do you, then, also believe that the mark upon the rock, resembling the print of a hoof, which is to be seen to this day at Regillus, was made by the horse of Castor?

But physicians also, you said, are often deceived. I ask in reply what resemblance there is between medicine, of which I perceive the principles, and divination, the origin of which is not understood by me. You also think that the gods were propitiated by the self-sacrifice of the Decii, but was their injustice so great that they could not be made propitious to the Roman people except by the death of such men? We see in that act the device of a general, what the Greeks call a στρατήγημα, but they were generals who aimed at their country’s good, and were prodigal of their own lives; for they thought that if they spurred their horses, and flung themselves upon the enemy, they would be followed by their men, which proved to be the case. As for the voice of a Faun, I have never heard it myself; if you say that you have heard it, I will believe you, though I do not at all know what a Faun is.

VII.  So far, then, as you are concerned, Balbus, I do not as yet understand that the gods exist; I believe in their existence myself, but the Stoics make me no wiser.

but the question is not whether there are some who believe that the gods exist, but whether the gods do exist or not.

With regard to the remaining reasons which Cleanthes brings forward, one of which is concerned with the abundance of benefits that we obtain, and the other with the order of the seasons and the uniformity of the heavenly phenomena, we will discuss these when we deal with the question of divine providence, on which you, Balbus, spoke at considerable length;

• eodemque illa etiam differemus, quod Chrysippum dicere ajebas :  quoniam esset aliquid in rerum natura quod ab homine effici non posset, esse aliquid homine melius ;

• quæque in domo pulchra cum pulchritudine mundi comparabas, et quum totius mundi convenientiam consensumque afferebas ;

• Zenonisque brevis et acutulas confusiones in eam partem sermonis quam modo dixi, differemus ;

• eodemque tempore illa omnia, quæ a te physice dicta sunt de vi ignea deque eo calore, ex quo omnia generari dicebas, loco suo quærentur ;

• omniaque, quæ a te nudius tertius dicta sunt, quum docere velles deos esse, quare et mundus universus et sol et luna et stellæ sensum ac mentem haberent, in idem tempus reservabo.

• and we will defer till the same point the statement you quoted from Chrysippus to the effect that since there was something in the nature of things that could not be produced by man, there existed something more excellent than man;
• the comparisons also that you made between a beautiful house and the beauty of the universe, your representations of the symmetry and harmony of the entire universe,
• and the syllogisms of Zeno, with their conciseness and petty ingenuity, will be deferred to that part of the discourse which I have just mentioned,
• when, too, all your observations of a scientific kind about the energy of fire, and the heat from which you said everything was generated, will be examined in their own place.
• I shall also reserve for the same occasion all the reasons that you gave the day before yesterday, when you were attempting to establish the existence of the gods, for the possession of feeling and intelligence by the universe as a whole, and by the sun and moon and stars.

But again and again you will hear that same question from me —, by what arguments do you satisfy yourself that the gods exist?

VIII.  For my own part, replied Balbus, I consider that I have provided arguments, but your way of refuting them is, when you seem on the point of questioning me, and I have prepared myself to answer, to change suddenly the course of your speech, and give me no opportunity of answering. Consequently, most important points connected with divination and fate have gone by undiscussed, questions on which you touch slightly, but which it is the custom of our school to treat at length. As, however, a distinction is made between those questions and our present inquiry, I will ask you, if you have no objection, not to make your treatment too comprehensive, so that we may devote this discussion to clearing up that which is the object of our search.

But when you say that nothing is more excellent than the universe, what do you mean by excellent? If you mean more beautiful, I agree; if you mean universe, what do you mean by excellent? If you mean more beautiful, I agree; if you mean better adapted for our convenience, I agree to that also; but if you mean that there is nothing wiser than the universe, I disagree entirely, not because it is difficult to detach the mind from what one sees, but because, the more I do detach it, the less I am able to understand your position.

IX.  There is, you say, nothing in all nature more excellent than the universe. Nor is there anything on earth more excellent than our own city, but do you therefore suppose that it possesses reason, and reflection, and intelligence? On the other hand, do you think that a city of this beauty is to be considered, because it does not possess these qualities, inferior to the ant, since a city is not sentient, whereas the ant is not only sentient, but has also intelligence and, reason, and memory? You ought to ascertain, Balbus, how much is conceded to you, and not assume yourself what you wish.

“Europam Libyamque rapax ubi dividit unda” ?

But it is not everything that has a fixed and uniform movement, Balbus, that is to be referred to a divine instead of to a natural principle.

X.  Do you think that anything can surpass the uniformity of the Chalcidic Euripus in its continual motion to and fro, or of the Straits of Sicily, or of the sea which rages in that part

“Where the devouring wave parts Europe and Libya” ?

But an explanation has to be given of all such phenomena, and when your school is unable to do that, it flies to a divine being as to an altar of refuge.

You thought, too, that there was point in the observation of Chrysippus, who was undoubtedly adroit and skilful (I use the word adroit (versutus) of those whose mind moves quickly (versatur), and skilful (callidus) of those whose intelligence has become skilled (concalluit) by practice, in the same way that the hand does by working). Well, his observation is as follows: If there is something which man could not create, he who does create it is more excellent than man; man cannot create these things that are in the universe; therefore he who was able to create them is superior to man; but no one could be superior to man except god, who is thus shown to exist. All this is involved in the same error as the remarks quoted from Zeno,

The means by which it may be proved and conclusively established that there is nothing possessing sensation that does not perish, are innumerable; for the very things that produce sensation, such as cold, heat, pleasure, pain, and the rest, are, when carried to excess, destructive; there is no animate being without sensation; therefore no animate being is eternal.

XIV.  Again, the nature of an animate being is either simple, that is, composed either of earth, fire, air, or water, though what such a being is like cannot even be conceived, or it is a compound of several elements,^⇊ 9 ⇊ each of which has its own sphere, one the lowest, another the highest, and another the one between, to which it is carried by a natural tendency. These elements can cohere for a certain time, but cannot by any means do so always, for it is inevitable that each of them should be caught away to its own sphere. No animate being, therefore, is everlasting.

“sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem.”

“The dazzling sky, which all address as Jove.”

“in monte Œtæo illatæ lampades”

“in domum æternam patris”

“torches were laid on Mount Œta”

“to his sire’s eternal home,”

1. antiquissimum Jove natum — sed item Jove antiquissimo, nam Joves quoque plures in priscis Græcorum litteris invenimus :  ex eo igitur et Lysithoë est is Hercules, quem concertavisse cum Apolline de tripode accepimus.

2. Alter traditur Nilo natus Ægyptius, quem ajunt Phrygias litteras conscripsisse.

3. Tertius est ex Idæis Digitis ;  cui inferias afferunt Cretes.

4. Quartus Jovis est et Asteriæ, Latonæ sororis, qui Tyri maxime colitur, cujus Carthaginem filiam ferunt.

5. Quintus in India, qui Belus dicitur.

6. Sextus hic ex Alcmena, quem Juppiter genuit, sed tertius Juppiter,

1. The most ancient is the son of Jupiter, and, moreover, of the most ancient Jupiter (for in the early writings of the Greeks we find also more than one Jupiter); from that Jupiter, then, and Lysithoë comes the Hercules of whom we hear that he struggled with Apollo for the tripod.

2. The second is reported to have been an Egyptian, the son of Nilus, and he, it is said, drew up the Phrygian books.

3. The third is one of the Digiti of Ida,^⇊ 14 ⇊ and receives funeral honors from the Coans.

4. The fourth is the son of Jupiter and Asteria, the sister of Latona, and is worshipped principally at Tyre, the mother city, according to tradition, of Carthage.

5. The fifth belongs to India, and is called Belus.

6. The sixth is the one we know, born from Alcmena and begotten by Jupiter, that is, by the third Jupiter,

The first Æsculapius is the son of Apollo; he is worshipped by the Arcadians, and is said to have been the first to invent the probe and to bandage wounds; the second is the brother of the second Mercury; he was struck by lightning, and is said to have been buried at Cynosuræ; the third is the son of Arsippus and Arsinoe, and according to report first introduced purging and the extraction of teeth; his tomb and grove are shown in Arcadia not far from the river Lusius.

XXIII.  The oldest Apollo is the one of whom I spoke just now as the son of Vulcan and protector of Athens; the second is the son of Corybas, and was born in Crete, and is said to have contended for that island with Jupiter himself; the third is the son of the third Jupiter and Latona, and there is a tradition that he came from the land of the Hyperboreans to Delphi; the fourth was born in Arcadia, and is called by the Arcadians Νόμιος, because, they say, they received laws^⇊ 18 ⇊ from him.

If, moreover, it is characteristic of the gods to take part in human affairs, Natio, to whom, when we go the round of the shrines in the Æduan territory, we are accustomed to make sacrifice, must also be considered divine; she was so named from the offspring that is born (nascentibus), because, it was supposed, she aids the delivery of matrons. If she is divine, so are all those whom you were mentioning, Honour, Faith, Mind, and Concord, and therefore also Hope, and Memory, and everything that we can conceive by imagination in our own minds. If this is not probable, neither is the position which leads to these results.

XIX.  And if those beings whom we worship and know by tradition are gods, what reason do you give why you should not number Serapis and Isis in the same class, or why, if we do that, we should repudiate the gods of the barbarians? We shall, then, assign to oxen, horses, ibises, hawks, asps, crocodiles, fish, wolves, cats, and a multitude of other creatures their place among the number of divine beings. If we reject these conclusions, this will involve also the rejection of the premises from which they sprang.

Great and quite unnecessary pains were taken first by Zeno, and afterwards by Cleanthes, and then by Chrysippus to provide an explanation of the legendary stories, and to set forth the reasons for the form of each proper name. Of course in doing so your school acknowledges that the facts are widely different from the popular belief, for you maintain that what are called gods are abstract qualities, and not divine persons.

XXV.  And this error extended so far that even hurtful things had not only the title of gods assigned to them, but also sacred rites instituted in their honor. We see, for instance, the shrine of Fever upon the Palatine, the shrine of Bereavement by the temple of the Lares, and the altar of Evil Fortune dedicated on the Esquiline.

[Aliqua Lacunæ Fragmenta]

E Firmiano Lactantio, Divinæ Institutiones, 2,3,2 :

“Non esse illa vulgo disputanda, ne susceptas publice religiones disputatio talis exstinguat.”

Ex Arnobio, Adversus Nationes 3,6 :

“Adduci enim primum hoc ut credamus non possumus, immortalem illam præstantissimamque naturam divisam esse per sexus et esse partem unam mares, partem esse alteram feminas.”

E Firmiano Lactantio, Divinæ Institutiones, 2,8 (/9),14 : 

[Nam Cicero, de natura deorum disputans, sic ait :]  “Primum igitur non est probabile eam materiam rerum unde omnia orta sunt esse divina providentia effectam, sed et habere et habuisse vim et naturam suam.  Ut igitur faber, cum quid ædificaturus est, non ipse facit materiam, sed utitur ea quæ sit parata, fictorque item cera, sic isti providentiæ divinæ materiam præsto esse oportuit, non quam ipsa faceret, sed quam haberet paratam.  Quodsi materia non est a Deo facta, ne terra quidem et aqua et aër et ignis a Deo factus est.”

In scholiis Vernonensibus ad Æneidem 5,95 (in P.G. Walsh) :

[nam ait {Scaurus}] “ex medullis corporum angues nasci, ut equorum et boum et vitulorum apes e visceribus effervescunt, [quo]d antiqui eos in monumentis defodibant ;  ... de Cleomene Lacedæmonio. ...”

E Firmiano Lactantio, De Ira Dei, 13, 9—12 :

“[Sed Academici contra Stoicos disserentes solent quærere] cur, si omnia Deus hominum causa fecerit, etiam multa contraria et inimica et pestifera nobis reperiantur, tam in mari quam in terra.  Quod Stoici, veritatem non perspicientes, ineptissime reppulerunt.  Ajunt enim multa esse, in gignentibus et in numero animalium, quorum adhuc lateat utilitas, sed eam processu temporum inventuri, sicut jam multa prioribus sæculis incognita necessitas et usus invenerit.  ¿ Quæ tandem utilitas potest in muribus, in blattis, in serpentibus reperiri, quæ homini molesta et perniciosa sunt ?  ¿ An medicina in his aliqua latet ? Quæ si est, inveniatur aliquando, nempe adversus mala, ¡ quum id illi querantur esse omnino malum !  Viperam ferunt exustam, in cineremque dilapsam, mederi ejusdem bestiæ morsui.  ¡ Quanto melius fuerat, eam prorsus non esse, quam remedium contra se ab ea ipsa desiderari !

13, 20-21 : “‘Deus,’ inquit, ‘aut vult tollere mala et non potest, aut potest et non vult, aut neque vult neque potest, aut et vult et potest.  Si vult et non potest, imbecillus est, quod in Deum non cadit ;  si potest et non vult, invidus, quod æque alienum est a Deo ;  si neque vult neque potest, et invidus et imbecillus est, ideoque nec Deus ;  si et vult et potest (quod solum Deo convenit), ¿ unde ergo sunt mala, aut cur illa non tollit ?’”

Diomedes Art. Gramm. ed. Heinrich Keil, Grammatici Latini, vol. 1, p. 313, 10 (in P.G. Walsh) :

“homines omnibus animalibus antecedunt.”

[Several fragments supplied from elsewhere for this lacuna]

From Firmianus Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 2:3,2 :

“Those things ought not to be discussed openly lest such a discussion extinguish the religious beliefs that have been publicly accepted.”

From Arnobius, The Case against the Pagans 3:6 :

“For in the first place we cannot be induced to believe this, that that immortal and most extraordinary nature [i.e., of divinity] goes by a division of sexes, one part males, the other part females.”

From Firmianus Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 2:8 (/9),14 : 

[Cicero, discussing the nature of the gods, speaks thus:]  “Firstly, therefore, it is not probable that the matter of things whence all things have sprung was effected by divine providence, but that it has its own nature and power.  For when a carpenter is going to make anything, he does not himself make the material, but he uses that which is prepared, and the moulder likewise uses wax;  so for that divine providence it was necessary for the material to be at hand, not that which providence itself made, but that which it had ready at hand.  Now if the material was not made by God, then even the earth and water and air and fire have not been made by God.”

In the scholiasta Vernonensis on the Aeneid, 5:95 :

[For {Scaurus} says] “Snakes are born out of the innards of bodies, as bees swarm up out of the intestines of horses and oxen and calves, since the ancients would dig them up in graves. ;  ... from the Lacedæmonian [general] Cleomenenes”

From Firmianus Lactantius, The Wrath of God, 13:9—12 :

“[But the Academics, arguing against the Stoics, are accustomed to ask] why, if God made all things for the sake of men, many things are found even opposed, and hostile and injurious to us, as much in the sea as on the land.  And the Stoics, without any regard to the truth, most foolishly repelled this.  For they say that there are many things among natural phenomena ^{[gignentibus]} and reckoned among animals, the utility of which hitherto escapes notice, but that this is discovered in process of the times, as necessity and use have already discovered many things which were unknown in former ages.  What utility, then, can be discoverd in mice, in cockroaches, in serpents, which are troublesome and pernicious to man?  Is it that some medicine lies concealed in them?  If there is any, it will at some time be found out, namely, as a remedy against evils, whereas they complain that it is altogether evil.  They say that the viper, when burnt and reduced to ashes, is a remedy for the bite of the same beast.  How much better had it been that it should not exist at all, than that a remedy should be required against it drawn from itself?

13, 20-21 : “‘God,’ [Epicurus] says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable;  or He is able and is unwilling;  or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.  If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God;  if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God;  if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God;  if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils?  or why does He not remove them?’”

Diomedes Art. Gramm. ed. Heinrich Keil, Grammatici Latini, vol. 1, p. 313, 10 (in P.G. Walsh) :

“Humans surpass all animals [i.e., in reason]”

“Nequaquam istuc istac ibit ;  magna inest certatio.
¿ Nam ut ego illi supplicarem tanta blandiloquentia, ni ob rem ?”

“In no such wise shall this matter leave here; in it there is great strife contained. For is it to be thought that I would entreat them with such soft words, were it not for a gain?”

“Qui vult, quod vult :  ita dat se res, ut operam dabit”,

“Ille transversa mente mihi hodie tradidit repagula,
quibus ego iram omnem recludam atque illi perniciem dabo ;
mihi mærores, illi luctum, exitium illi, exilium mihi.”

“For him who wishes that his wish should be accomplished, things come to pass according to his handling.”

“He with purpose all astray has delivered to me today the bars^⇊ 30 ⇊ with which I shall unloose all my wrath, and give destruction to him, and sorrow to myself, grief and ruin to him, and exile to myself.”

“postquam pater

appropinquat jamque pæne, ut comprehendatur, parat,
puerum interea obtruncat membraque articulatim dividit
perque agros passim dispergit corpus :  id ea gratia,
ut, dum nati dissipatos artus captaret parens,
ipsa interea effugeret, illum ut mæror tardaret sequi,
sibi salutem ut familiari pareret parricidio.”

You see, then, do you, how valuable is this gift of the gods with which we are endowed?

“And the same Medea, flying from her father and native land, When that her father drew near, and was now well-nigh making ready for her to be seized, slew meanwhile the boy, and severed his limbs joint by joint, and strewed his body on every side over the fields, doing so with this intent, that while the father was picking up the scattered limbs of his son, she might in the meantime escape, that grief might hinder him from pursuing, and she might win safety for herself by the slaughter of her own kin.”

“Major mihi moles, majus miscendum’st malum,
qui illius acerbum cor contundam et comprimam”

“qui non sat habuit, conjugem illexe ^{[= illexisse]} in stuprum.”

“Quod re in summa summum esse arbitror
periclum, matres coinquinari regias,
contaminari stirpem, admisceri genus.”

“Addo,” inquit, “huc, quod mihi portento cælestum pater
prodigium misit, regni stabilimen mei,
agnum inter pecudes aurea clarum coma
quondam Thyestem clepere ausum esse e regia,
qua in re adjutricem conjugem cepit sibi.”

“I must stir up a greater hardship, a greater misdeed, with which to beat down and crush his cruel heart.” ^{(Accius, Atreus in Cicero, De Oratore, 3:219)}

“Who thought it not enough to have enticed a wife to dishonor.”

“A deed which in the greatest estate I think the greatest crime, that a royal mother should be defiled, the stock polluted, the race mixed with alloy.”

“To this,” says Atreus, “add the prodigy which the father of the gods sent me as a sign, the stay of my rule, a lamb amongst the flocks shining with golden fleece, and that Thyestes dared to steal it secretly from the palace, in which thing he made my wife his helper.”

If, then, it is supposed that the divine intelligence and will consulted the interests of men, because it bestowed reason upon them, it consulted the interests only of those whom it endowed with right reason, and we see that these are extremely few, if indeed there are any such. But it cannot be supposed that the immortal gods consulted the interests of only a few; it follows, therefore, that no one’s interests were consulted by them.

XXVIII.  This position you are accustomed to meet thus. It does not, you say, follow that the best provision was not made for us by the gods, because many put their kindness to a wrong use; many men also make an ill use of their patrimony, but the kindness done them by their fathers is none the less a kindness on that account. Does any one deny it? Or what is the point of resemblance in such a comparison? Deianira did not wish to injure Hercules when she gave him the tunic which had been dipped in the blood of the Centaur, nor did the man whose sword laid open the tumor, which the physicians had been unable to cure, wish to benefit Jason of Pheræ. Many, in fact, have done good when they wished to do harm, and done harm when they wished to do good. That which is given, therefore, affords no certain indication of the purpose of the giver, and it does not follow, if the recipient makes a profitable use of that which he has received, that he who gave it did so in a friendly spirit.

Then again,^⇊ 31 ⇊ what lust, or avarice, or crime is either embarqued upon without the exercise of forethought, or accomplished without the mental activity and reflection which constitute reason? For every belief is a manifestation of reason, of right reason, we may add, if it is true, and of wrong if it is false. But from God we have merely reason, if indeed we have that; right reason or its opposite we derive from ourselves. For the divine favor did not bestow reason upon men in the same way that a patrimony is bequeathed, since what else would the gods have given to men, if their wish had been to injure them? From what seeds, moreover, would injustice, intemperance, and timidity spring, if these vices had not reason as their base?

XXIX.  Just now it was Medea and Atreus, heroic characters, whom we were quoting as planning their monstrous crimes by entering upon calculations and balancing results.

“¿ Quid igitur faciam ?”

“Exclusit, revocat ;  ¿ redeam ?  Non, si me obsecret.”

“in amore summo summaque inopia, suave”

“parentem habere avarum, illepidum, in liberos
difficilem, qui te nec amet nec studeat tui,”

“What then shall I do? . . . She has denied me entrance; she recalls me. Shall I return? No, not if she should entreat me.”

“When one is very much in love and very poorly off, it is a pleasure,”

“to have a father who is niggardly, churlish, and harsh to his children, who does not love you or concern himself for you.”

“Aut tu illum fructu fallas, aut per litteras
avertas aliquod nomen, aut per servulum
percutias pavidum ;  postremo a parco patre
quod sumas, ¡ quanto dissipes libentius !”

“Quem neque quo pacto fallam, nec quid inde auferam,
nec quem dolum ad eum aut machinam commoliar
scio quicquam :  ita omnes meos dolos, fallacias,
præstigias præstrinxit commoditas patris.”

“Cedo senem ;  jam instructa sunt mihi in corde consilia omnia.”

“You can either cheat him of his revenues, or by means of a letter intercept some debt, or strike terror into him through a slave, and lastly what you obtain from a parsimonious father you can spend with so much more zest!”

“I know not at all in what way to cheat him, nor how to steal from him, nor what guile or plot to set in motion against him; so has my father’s complaisance spoilt all my stratagems and guiles and tricks.”

“Send the old man this way; now have I all my plans ready in my breast.”

1. Inde illa actio :  “OPE  CONSILIOQUE  TUO  FURTUM  AJO  FACTUM  ESSE.”

2. Inde tot judicia de fide mala :  tutelæ ;  mandati ;  pro socio ;  fiduciæ ;  reliqua quæ ex empto aut vendito aut conducto aut locato contra fidem fiunt.

3. Inde judicium publicum rei privatæ, lege Plætoria.

4. Inde everriculum malitiarum omnium, judicium de dolo malo, quod C. Aquillius familiaris noster protulit ;  quem dolum idem Aquillius tum teneri putat, quum aliud sit simulatum, aliud actum.

1. It is reason that gave occasion for the form of indictment, “I say that theft was committed by your aid and counsel”;

2. reason that occasioned so many actions for breach of faith, including those in connection with guardianship and commission, those entered into in the capacity of partner, those in connection with trusts, and the other violations of good faith which are committed in buying and selling, letting and hiring;

3. to reason is due the institution of a public process, under the Plætorian law, in a civil case,^⇊ 33 ⇊

4. and the action for fraud, that dragnet of every kind of roguery, published by my friend Gaius Aquillius,^⇊ 34 ⇊ who considers that fraud is established when one thing has been pretended and another done.

“¡ ne in nemore Pelio securibus

cæsæ accidissent abiegnæ ad terram trabes !,”

“O that in the grove of Pelion the fir-tree had not fallen, smitten by the axe, to the ground!”

“Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis — quod nunc abest.”

“For if they cared for them, it would be well with the good, and ill with the evil, which now is not so.”

The day would be too short if I wished to enumerate the good men for whom things have turned out ill, and equally so if I were to record the bad men who have prospered. Why, for instance, had Marius the good fortune to die at an advanced age, and in his own house, and while holding his seventh consulship? Why did Cinna, who was unsurpassed for cruelty, exercise despotic power for so long? I shall be told that he paid the penalty.

XXXIII.  It would have been better that he should have been prevented and restrained from putting so many leading men to death, than that he should have eventually paid the penalty himself. The ruthless Quintus Varius expired under torture and suffering of the most intense kind. If this was because he had removed Drusus by the sword, and Metellus by poison, it would have been better that they should have been preserved, than that Varius should have made atonement for the crime. For eight and thirty years Dionysius was tyrant of a wealthy and flourishing state,

He also commanded the silver tables to be taken away from all the shrines, and as, according to the custom of ancient Greece, they bore the inscription, Of the Good Gods, he said that he desired to avail himself of their goodness. Besides this he used to carry off without scruple the bowls and crowns, and small golden statues of Victory, which were held in the outstretched hands of the images, saying that he did not steal, but accepted them, since it was folly, when the powers from whom we prayed for good things, held them out and gave them, to be unwilling to take them. It is also recorded of him that after robbing the temples of these things which I have mentioned, he brought them out into the market-place and sold them by auction, and that, after calling in the money, he issued a proclamation that all who had in their possession anything from a sanctuary, should return it in each case before a fixed date to the temple to which it belonged. In this way he added injustice to men to impiety towards the gods.

XXXV.  Well, Jupiter on Olympus did not strike him with a thunderbolt, nor was he worn away by painful and lingering disease, and despatched by Æsculapius, but he died in his own bed — without objection from the gods —, and so that the drama of tyranny might have a splendid end,^⇊ 37 ⇊ was carried to the pyre, and as though the power which he had himself acquired by crime were just and lawful, he handed it on as an inheritance to his son.

It will be said (for so your school argues), that the gods neglect things of small importance, and do not make a strict inquiry as to each individual person’s plot of land and modest vineyard, and that if any one has suffered loss through blight or hail, the fact did not need to be noticed by Jupiter, and that in the same way a king does not pay attention to every trifle in a kingdom,—as though I had been expressing regret just now for Publius Rutilius’ estate at Formiæ, and not for his loss of civic rights!

XXXVI.  Besides, all men are agreed on this point, that it is the external goods, vineyards, corn-fields, olive-groves, teeming crops and fruits, in short all the advantages and successes of life, that they obtain from the gods, whereas no one ever imputed his virtue to God.

“¿ Quinam Tantalidarum internecioni modus
paretur ?  aut ¿ quænam unquam ob mortem Myrtili
pœnis luendis dabitur satias supplici ?”

We are told that the gods do not notice everything, and that kings do not do so either, but what is the resemblance? For a king is greatly to blame if he passes things over knowingly, whereas God is without even the excuse of ignorance.

“What measure can be found for the destruction of the descendants of Tantalus? Or what satiety of vengeance will ever be vouchsafed to the penalties paid for the death of Myrtilus?”

• neque enim, quem Hipponactis ïambus læserat, aut qui erat Archilochi versu vulneratus, a deo immissum dolorem, non conceptum a se ipso, continebat ;

• nec quum Ægisthi libidinem aut quum Paridis videmus, a deo causam requirimus, quum culpæ pæne vocem audiamus ;

• nec ego multorum ægrorum salutem non ab Hippocrate potius quam ab Æsculapio datam judico ;

• nec Lacedæmoniorum disciplinam dicam unquam ab Apolline potius Spartæ quam a Lycurgo datam.

• Critolaus, inquam, evertit Corinthum, Carthaginem Hasdrubal ;  hi duo illos oculos oræ maritimæ effoderunt, non iratus aliqui, quem omnino irasci posse negatis, deus.

• The pain, for instance, which possessed those who had smarted under the iambics of Hipponax, or had been stung by the verses of Archilochus, was not sent upon them by God, but was derived from themselves,

• and when we behold the incontinence of Ægisthus or Paris, we do not look to God for the cause, for we hear their guilt almost proclaiming itself aloud.

• I am of opinion, too, that many a sick man’s recovery has been due to Hippocrates rather than to Æsculapius,

• and I will never allow that the system of the Lacedæmonians was given to Sparta by Apollo and not by Lycurgus.

• I say that it was Critolaus who caused the ruin of Corinth, and Hasdrubal of Carthage. It was they who exterminated the two noblest of maritime cities, they, and not some angry deity, who, according to you, is altogether incapable of anger.