Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Part 43

[304] He means Scipio himself.

[305] There is again a hiatus. What follows is spoken by Laelius.

[306] Again two pages are lost.

[307] Again two pages are lost. It is evident that Scipio is speaking again in cap. x.x.xi.

[308] Again two pages are lost.

[309] Again two pages are lost.

[310] Here four pages are lost.

[311] Here four pages are lost.

[312] Two pages are missing here.

[313] A name of Neptune.

[314] About seven lines are lost here, and there is a great deal of corruption and imperfection in the next few sentences.

[315] Two pages are lost here.

[316] The _Lex Curiata de Imperio_, so often mentioned here, was the same as the _Auctoritas Patrum_, and was necessary in order to confer upon the dictator, consuls, and other magistrates the _imperium_, or military command: without this they had only a _potestas_, or civil authority, and could not meddle with military affairs.

[317] Two pages are missing here.

[318] Here two pages are missing.

[319] I have translated this very corrupt pa.s.sage according to Niebuhr's emendation.

[320] a.s.siduus, ab aere dando.

[321] Proletarii, a prole.

[322] Here four pages are missing.

[323] Two pages are missing here.

[324] Two pages are missing here.

[325] Here twelve pages are missing.

[326] Sixteen pages are missing here.

[327] Here eight pages are missing.

[328] A great many pages are missing here.

[329] Several pages are lost here; the pa.s.sage in brackets is found in Nonius under the word "exulto."

[330] This and other chapters printed in smaller type are generally presumed to be of doubtful authenticity.

[331] The beginning of this book is lost. The two first paragraphs come, the one from St. Augustine, the other from Lactantius.

[332] Eight or nine pages are lost here.

[333] Here six pages are lost.

[334] Here twelve pages are missing.

[335] We have been obliged to insert two or three of these sentences between brackets, which are not found in the original, for the sake of showing the drift of the arguments of Philus. He himself was fully convinced that justice and morality were of eternal and immutable obligation, and that the best interests of all beings lie in their perpetual development and application. This eternity of Justice is beautifully ill.u.s.trated by Montesquieu. "Long," says he, "before positive laws were inst.i.tuted, the moral relations of justice were absolute and universal. To say that there were no justice or injustice but that which depends on the injunctions or prohibitions of positive laws, is to say that the radii which spring from a centre are not equal till we have formed a circle to ill.u.s.trate the proposition. We must, therefore, acknowledge that the relations of equity were antecedent to the positive laws which corroborated them." But though Philus was fully convinced of this, in order to give his friends Scipio and Laelius an opportunity of proving it, he frankly brings forward every argument for injustice that sophistry had ever cast in the teeth of reason.--_By the original Translator_.

[336] Here four pages are missing. The following sentence is preserved in Nonius.

[337] Two pages are missing here.

[338] Several pages are missing here.

[339] He means Alexander the Great.

[340] Six or eight pages are lost here.

[341] A great many pages are missing here.

[342] Six or eight pages are missing here.

[343] Several pages are lost here.

[344] This and the following chapters are not the actual words of Cicero, but quotations by Lactantius and Augustine of what they affirm that he said.

[345] Twelve pages are missing here.

[346] Eight pages are missing here.

[347] Six or eight pages are missing here.

[348] Catadupa, from [Greek: kata] and [Greek: doipos], noise.