The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations Part 34

36 Themista was a female philosopher, wife of a man named Leonteus, or Leon, and a friend and correspondent of Epicurus.

37 He means when he was banished, and when Torquatus joined in promoting the measures for his recal.

38 Cicero alludes here to the story of Damon, who, when his friend Pythias was condemned to death by Dionysius of Syracuse, pledged his life for his return in time to be put to death, if the tyrant would give him leave to go home for the purpose of arranging his affairs, and Pythias did return in time.-See Cic. de Off. iii. 10; Just. Div.

v. 22.

39 B.C. 363.

40 B.C. 480.

41 The Greek line occurs in the Orestes, 207.

? p?t??a ???? t?? ?a??? ?? e? ?????.

Virgil has the same idea-

Vos et Scyllaeam rabiem, penitusque sonantes Accetis scopulos, vos et Cyclopia saxa Experti; revocate animos, moestumque timorem Pellite: forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.-aen. i. 200.

Which Dryden translates-

With me the rocks of Scylla have you tried, Th' inhuman Cyclops and his den defied: What greater ills hereafter can you bear?

Resume your courage and dismiss your care; An hour will come with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past as benefits of fate.

42 That is, of the past, the present, and the future.

43 This seems to refer to the Greek epigram-

??? ?a??? ?a? p??t?? ?e?f?e?sa?s? ?e?e?????, ?a?t?? ?pe????, pe??p???? pe??????.

?? t??ssa?? d???t?? ??at??t?s?? ?ste?e? ????

Sp??t?? a?s???es?? ???ea ?a? pe????.

Which may be translated-

Him who the paths of land and sea disturb'd, Sail'd o'er the earth, walk'd o'er the humbled waves, Three hundred spears of dauntless Sparta curb'd.

Shame on you, land and sea, ye willing slaves!

44 The Latin is _aerumnae_: perhaps it is in allusion to this pa.s.sage that Juvenal says-

Et potiores Herculis _aerumnas_ credat, saevosque labores Et Venere et cnis, et pluma Sardanapali.

Sat. x. 361.

45 The great Lucullus, father of this young Lucullus, was married to Servilia, half-sister to Cato, and daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio, who was killed in the Social war, having been decoyed into an ambush by Pompaedius, B.C. 90. The young Lucullus was afterwards killed in the battle of Philippi.

46 "Malitia, badness of quality ... especially malice, ill-will, spite, malevolence, artfulness, cunning, craft."-Riddle and Arnold, Lat.

Dict.

47 The Greek proverb was, ??? ?a???t?? ?a?a ????t? p???.

48 The Curia Hostilia was built by Tullus Hostilius, and was originally the only place where a Senatus Consultum could be pa.s.sed, though the senate met at times in other places. But, under Caesar, the Curia Julia, an immense edifice, had been built as the senate-house.

49 Pope's Homer, Odys. xii. 231.

50 Archilochus was a native of Paros, and flourished about 714-676, B.C. His poems were chiefly Iambics of bitter satire. Horace speaks of him as the inventor of Iambics, and calls himself his pupil.

Parios ego primus Iambos Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.

Epist. I. xix. 25.

And in another place he says-

Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo.-A. P. 74.

51 This was Livius Andronicus: he is supposed to have been a native of Tarentum, and he was made prisoner by the Romans, during their wars in Southern Italy; owing to which he became the slave of M. Livius Salinator. He wrote both comedies and tragedies, of which Cicero (Brutus 18) speaks very contemptuously, as "Livianae fabulae non satis dignae quae iterum legantur,"-not worth reading a second time. He also wrote a Latin Odyssey, and some hymns, and died probably about B.C.

221.

52 C. Fabius, surnamed Pictor, painted the temple of Salus, which the dictator C. Junius Brutus Bubulus dedicated B.C. 302. The temple was destroyed by fire in the reign of Claudius. The painting is highly praised by Dionysius, xvi. 6.

53 For an account of the ancient Greek philosophers, see the sketch at the end of the volume.

54 Isocrates was born at Athens, B.C. 436. He was a pupil of Gorgias, Prodicus and Socrates. He opened a school of rhetoric, at Athens, with great success. He died by his own hand at the age of 98.

55 So Horace joins these two cla.s.ses as inventors of all kinds of improbable fictions-

Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas.-A. P. 9.

Which Roscommon translates-

Painters and poets have been still allow'd Their pencil and their fancies unconfined.

56 Epicharmus was a native of Cos, but lived at Megara, in Sicily, and when Megara was destroyed, removed to Syracuse, and lived at the court of Hiero, where he became the first writer of comedies, so that Horace ascribes the invention of comedy to him, and so does Theocritus. He lived to a great age.

57 Pherecydes was a native of Scyros, one of the Cyclades; and is said to have obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the Phnicians. He is said also to have been a pupil of Pittacus, the rival of Thales, and the master of Pythagoras. His doctrine was that there were three principles, ?e??, or aether, ????, or Chaos, and ??????, or Time; and four elements, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, from which everything that exists was formed.-Vide Smith's Dict.

Gr., and Rom. Biog.

58 Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and is said to have saved the life of Plato by his influence with the tyrant Dionysius. He was especially great as a mathematician and geometrician, so that Horace calls him

Maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenae Mensorem-Od. i. 28. 1.

Plato is supposed to have learnt some of his views from him, and Aristotle to nave borrowed from him every idea of the Categories.

59 This was not Timaeus the historian, but a native of Locri, who is said also in the De Finibus (c. 29) to have been a teacher of Plato.

There is a treatise extant bearing his name, which is, however, probably spurious, and only an abridgment of Plato's dialogue Timaeus.

60 Dicaearchus was a native of Messana, in Sicily, though he lived chiefly in Greece; he was one of the later disciples of Aristotle.

He was a great geographer, politician, historian, and philosopher, and died about B.C. 285.

61 Aristoxenus was a native of Tarentum, and also a pupil of Aristotle.