The History of Roman Literature Part 50

[67] De Off. i. 2.

[68] De Fin. ii. 12.

[69] De Fin. ii. 12.

[70] _E.g._ the sophisms of the Liar, the Sorites, and those on Motion.

[71] Ac. Post. 20.

[72] De Leg. i. 13 fin. Perturbatricem autem harum omnium rerum Academian hanc ab Arcesila et Carneado recentem exoremus ut sileat. Nam si invaserit in haec, quae satis scite n.o.bis instructa et composita videntur, nimias edet ruinas. Quam quidem ego placare cupio, submovere non audeo.

[73] i. 28.

[74] Tusc, i. 12, a very celebrated and beautiful pa.s.sage.

[75] The Paradoxes are--(1) _oti monon to kalon agathon_, (2) _oti autarkaesaearetae pros eudaimonian_, (3) _oti isa ta amartaemata kai ta katorthomata_, (4) _oti pas aphron mainetai_. We remember the treatment of this in Horace (S. ii. 3). (5) _oti monos o sophos eleutheros kai pas athron doulos_, (6) _oti monos o sophos plousios_.

[76] A well-known fragment of the sixth book, the _Somnium Scipionis_, is preserved in Macrobius.

[77] _Latrant homines, non loquuntur_ is his strong expression, and in another place he calls the modern speakers _clamatores non oratores_.

[78] Calamus.

[79] Atramentum.

[80] Called _Librarii_ or _A manu_.

[81] Caesar generally used as his cipher the subst.i.tution of d for a, and so on throughout the alphabet. It seems strange that so extremely simple a device should have served his purpose.

[82] This is Servius's spelling. Others read _Temelastis_, or _Talemgais_, Orelli thinks perhaps the t.i.tle may have been _ta en elasei_ (_Taenelasi_, corrupted to _Tamelastis_) _i.e._ de profectione sua, about which he tells us in the first Philippic.

[83] Brut. 75.

[84] Brut. 80.

[85] s.e.xtilius Ena, a poet of Corduba. The story is told in Seneca, Suas.

vi.

CHAPTER III.

[1] Cicero went so far as to write some short commentarii on his consuls.h.i.+p in Greek, and perhaps in Latin also; but they were not edited until after his death, and do not deserve the name of histories.

[2] Cf. _ad. Fam._; v. 12, 1, and vi. 2, 3.

[3] X. i. 31. He calls it _Carmen Solutum_.

[4] See _Bell. Civ_. i. 4, 6, 8, 30; iii. 1.

[5] "_Clementia tua_," was the way in which he caused himself to be addressed on occasions of ceremony.

[6] B. G. iv. 12.

[7] B. G. ii. 34. and iii. 16.

[8] Ib. see vii. 82.

[9] It was then that, as Suetonius tells us, Caesar declared that Pompey knew not how to use a victory.

[10] B. G. v. 36.

[11] Ib. iii. 25.

[12] Ib. i. 6, 7.

[13] Ib. iii. 59.

[14] B. G. iii. 7.

[15] Suetonius thus speaks (_Vit. Caes._ 24) of his wanton aggression, "_Nec deinde ulla belli occasione ne iniusti quidem ac periculosi abstinuit tam federatis tam infestis ac feris gentibus ultro lacessitis._"

An excellent comment on Roman l.u.s.t of dominion.

[16] I am told by Professor Rolleston that Caesar is here mistaken. The pine, by which he presumably meant the Scotch fir, certainly existed in the first century B.C.; and as to the beech, Burnham beeches were then fine young trees. Doubtless changes have come over our vegetation. The linden or lime is a Roman importation, the small-leaved species alone being indigenous; so is the English elm, which has now developed specific differences, which have caused botanists to rank it apart. There is, perhaps, some uncertainty as to the exact import of the word _f.a.gus_.

[17] B. G. vi. 11, _sqq._

[18] Phars. i. 445-457.

[19] B. G. vi. 19.

[20] Ib. iii. 20.

[21] Ib. iv. 5.

[22] Ib. see i. 30; ii. 30.

[23] Ib. ii. 17; v. 5. Ib. iii. 16, 49, and many other pa.s.sages.

[24] B. G. ii. 16, 207.

[25] Brut. lxxv. 262.

[26] "_Calamistris inurere_," a metaphor from curling the hair with hot irons. The entire description is in the language of sculpture, by which Cicero implies that Caesar's style is statuesque.

[27] "_Praerepta non praebita facultas._"

[28] B. C. ii. 27, 28.