Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Part 41

[213] This is called the Scorpion in the original of Aratus.

[214] A southern constellation.

[215] A southern constellation.

[216] The Serpent is not mentioned in Cicero's translation; but it is in the original of Aratus.

[217] A southern constellation.

[218] The Goblet, or Cup, a southern constellation.

[219] A southern constellation.

[220] Antecanis, a southern constellation, is the Little Dog, and called _Antecanis_ in Latin, and [Greek: Prokyon] in Greek, because he rises before the other Dog.

[221] Pansaetius, a Stoic philosopher.

[222] Mercury and Venus.

[223] The proboscis of the elephant is frequently called a hand, because it is as useful to him as one. "They breathe, drink, and smell, with what may not be improperly called a hand," says Pliny, bk. viii.

c. 10.--DAVIS.

[224] The pa.s.sage of Aristotle's works to which Cicero here alludes is entirely lost; but Plutarch gives a similar account.

[225] Balbus does not tell us the remedy which the panther makes use of; but Pliny is not quite so delicate: he says, _excrementis hominis sibi medetur_.

[226] Aristotle says they purge themselves with this herb after they fawn. Pliny says both before and after.

[227] The cuttle-fish has a bag at its neck, the black blood of which the Romans used for ink. It was called _atramentum_.

[228] The Euphrates is said to carry into Mesopotamia a large quant.i.ty of citrons, with which it covers the fields.

[229] Q. Curtius, and some other authors, say the Ganges is the largest river in India; but Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus concurs with Cicero in calling the river Indus the largest of all rivers.

[230] These Etesian winds return periodically once a year, and blow at certain seasons, and for a certain time.

[231] Some read _mollitur_, and some _molitur;_ the latter of which P.

Manucius justly prefers, from the verb _molo_, _molis;_ from whence, says he, _molares dentes_, the grinders.

[232] The weasand, or windpipe.

[233] The epiglottis, which is a cartilaginous flap in the shape of a tongue, and therefore called so.

[234] Cicero is here giving the opinion of the ancients concerning the pa.s.sage of the chyle till it is converted to blood.

[235] What Cicero here calls the ventricles of the heart are likewise called auricles, of which there is the right and left.

[236] The Stoics and Peripatetics said that the nerves, veins, and arteries come directly from the heart. According to the anatomy of the moderns, they come from the brain.

[237] The author means all musical instruments, whether string or wind instruments, which are hollow and tortuous.

[238] The Latin version of Cicero is a translation from the Greek of Aratus.

[239] Chrysippus's meaning is, that the swine is so inactive and slothful a beast that life seems to be of no use to it but to keep it from putrefaction, as salt keeps dead flesh.

[240] _Ales_, in the general signification, is any large bird; and _oscinis_ is any singing bird. But they here mean those birds which are used in augury: _alites_ are the birds whose flight was observed by the augurs, and _oscines_ the birds from whose voices they augured.

[241] As the Academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them which side of a question they took.

[242] The keepers and interpreters of the Sibylline oracles were the Quindecimviri.

[243] The popular name of Jupiter in Rome, being looked upon as defender of the Capitol (in which he was placed), and stayer of the State.

[244] Some pa.s.sages of the original are here wanting. Cotta continues speaking against the doctrine of the Stoics.

[245] The word _sortes_ is often used for the answers of the oracles, or, rather, for the rolls in which the answers were written.

[246] Three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their country; the father in the Latin war, the son in the Tuscan war, and the grandson in the war with Pyrrhus.

[247] The Straits of Gibraltar.

[248] The common reading is, _ex quo anima dicitur;_ but Dr. Davis and M. Bouhier prefer _animal_, though they keep _anima_ in the text, because our author says elsewhere, _animum ex anima dictum_, Tusc. I.

1. Cicero is not here to be accused of contradictions, for we are to consider that he speaks in the characters of other persons; but there appears to be nothing in these two pa.s.sages irreconcilable, and probably _anima_ is the right word here.

[249] He is said to have led a colony from Greece into Caria, in Asia, and to have built a town, and called it after his own name, for which his countrymen paid him divine honors after his death.

[250] Our great author is under a mistake here. Homer does not say he met Hercules himself, but his [Greek: Eidolon], his "visionary likeness;" and adds that he himself

[Greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi terpetai en thalies, kai echei kallisphyrou Heben, paida Dios megaloio kai Heres chrysopedilou.]

which Pope translates--

A shadowy form, for high in heaven's abodes Himself resides, a G.o.d among the G.o.ds; There, in the bright a.s.semblies of the skies, He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.

[251] They are said to have been the first workers in iron. They were called Idaei, because they inhabited about Mount Ida in Crete, and Dactyli, from [Greek: daktyloi] (the fingers), their number being five.

[252] From whom, some say, the city of that name was called.

[253] Capedunculae seem to have been bowls or cups, with handles on each side, set apart for the use of the altar.--DAVIS.

[254] See Cicero de Divinatione, and Ovid. Fast.

[255] In the consuls.h.i.+p of Piso and Gabinius sacrifices to Serapis and Isis were prohibited in Rome; but the Roman people afterward placed them again in the number of their G.o.ds. See Tertullian's Apol. and his first book Ad Nationes, and Arn.o.bius, lib. 2.--DAVIS.

[256] In some copies Circe, Pasiphae, and aea are mentioned together; but aea is rejected by the most judicious editors.

[257] They were three, and are said to have averted a plague by offering themselves a sacrifice.

[258] So called from the Greek word [Greek: thaumazo], to wonder.