16 17 § 11. cum illo...praeclare: 'who would say that his destiny has not been glorious' lit. 'that he has not been dealt with (i.e. by the gods or fates) splendidly?' Cf. 15, l. 3, also Academ. 2, 128 quaeret noster sapiens ut vereatur temere opinari praeclareque agi secum putet si veri simile quod sit invenerit; Fam. 5, 18, 1 ea denique videtur condicio impendere legum iudiciorum temporum ut optime actum cum eo videatur esse, qui quam levissima poena ab hac re publica discesserit; ib. 4, 5, 3 non pessime cum eis actum quibus sine dolore licitum est mortem cum vita commutare; ib. 4, 5, 2 cogita quem ad modum adhuc fortuna nobiscum egerit; also ib. 4, 14, 1; 9, 24, 4; Acad. 2, 80; Verr. 3, 70; Sest. 51. quod ille minime putabat: 'a thought that he was far from entertaining'. 18 optare: rightly used here of a desire for the impossible; sperare would have implied that the fulfilment of the wish was possible. I have carefully drawn the distinction between the words in a n. on pro Balbo § 9, where see examples. Cf. also n. on 18, 1. 8. 19 20 21 22 23 24 quod...esset: an instance of the restrictive or limitative or defining subjunctive, on which see Kennedy, Gram. § 206, 3; Roby, § 1692. iam: strictly belongs to habuerunt. The word is often displaced, either, as here, to add emphasis to it (which it gains by being put close to puero) or to make the sentence or clause more euphonious. puero: for this and other references to Scipio's life see Introd., 17 sq. P. adulescens: this, not adolescens (which is the participle of adolesco), is the right spelling. factus consul: some scholars wish, quite unnecessarily, to strike out the word consul, on the strength of passages like Mur. 18 quaesturam una petiit et sum ego factus prior; dom. 52 consulatum ei petere liceret, cum factus esset... Cf. however Cic. leg. agr. 2, 3 me esse unum...qui consulatum petierim, cum primum licitum sit, consul factus sim, cum primum petierim. ante tempus: see Introd. p. 18. Tempus here=the proper or regular time = καιρόν. sibi: a so-called dativus commodi; 'as regards himself'; so 34, 1. 15 amicitiis; 18, 1. 15 sapienti. suo tempore: a man is said to gain office suo tempore when he is elected to the office at the earliest age which the law allows. sero: because the Numantine war had already continued eight years and had proved disastrous to the Romans. See Introd. p. 18. duabus: Carthage and Numantia. non modo...delevit: 'extinguished not only the wars then existing, but also those which were likely to happen' (i.e. from the action of the destroyed cities). It is of course strictly incorrect to speak of blotting out something in the future, but the incorrectness has a thousand parallels in every language. Delere bellum for the more usual conficere or profligare is found also in Nepos, Alcib. 8, 6. [Mr Shilleto (in MS note) appositely compares Thucyd. 6, 92 καὶ 'Αθηναίων τήν τε οὖσαν καὶ τὴν μέλλουσαν δύναμιν καθέλητε.] facillimis: 'most affable'. de pietate...liberalitate: it is impossible to give general rules for the insertion or omission of the preposition in the second and subsequent places. If, however, the preposition had been repeated here before liberalitate pietate and bonitate each of these qualities would have stood out with greater prominence and distinctness; would in fact have been more emphasized; cf. n. on 95, 1. 13. nota sunt vobis: 'you are well acquainted with all this'. quam...carus: for the separation of these words cf. 10 1. 8 quam id recte. maerore: the three words dolor maeror and luctus occur in one sentence of pro Balbo § 61. I repeat here my n. on that passage: 'dolor is grief as felt at the heart, luctus as expressed by material signs, in the dress, for instance, maeror as expressed by the condition or action of the sufferer, for example by the gloom on his countenance. The following is a striking passage-Att. 12, 28, 2 maerorem minui, dolorem nec potui nec si possem, vellem'. memini...disserere: n. on 2, l. 11. Laelius and Scipio are two of the interlocutors in the Cato maior, and Cic. strives artfully here to give an air of reality to the conversation he relates in that dialogue. mecum et cum: cf. 3, p. 27, 1. 21. viriditatem: 'freshness'. For the metaphorical use of the word cf. Verg. Aen. 6, 304 cruda deo viridisque senectus; Tac. Agr. 29 iuventus et quibus cruda ac viridis senectus; Verg. Aen. 5, 295 viridis iuventa. etiam nunc: even in the best writers nunc occasionally goes with a past tense, as Cic. Verr. 3, 47 quos ego campos antea nitidissimos vidissem, hos ita vastatos nunc videbam ut...In that passage tum would have been ambiguous after antea, so in ours tum might have been referred by the reader to the time of the conversation between Scipio, Cato and Laelius; so in Liv. 3, 19, 8. But often the motive is merely the desire to make the narrative vivid, as in Caes. B. G. 7, 62, 6 incerto nunc etiam exitu signa intulerunt; cf. ib. 6, 40, 6; Cic. Cat. 1, 9; Sallust, Iug. 109, 3. Etiamnum, which some editions have here, is a word probably not used by Cicero. § 12. vita...gloria: 'his life indeed was such, whether we speak of it as lucky, or as famous'; literally 'whether in respect of fortune or of fame'. [For the ablatives cf. Roby § 1210, Kennedy § 398.] Cic. means that some would look on Scipio's life as merely shewing the effect of luck or chance, while others would think of the renown attending it and assume that Scipio deserved it. Gloria here implies virtus. Fortuna and virtus are the two important attributes of the Roman general; cf. pro Balbo 9 (of Pompeius) in quo uno ita summa fortuna cum summa virtute certavit ut plus homini quam deae tribueretur; Fam. 10, 3, 2 virtute duce, comite fortuna. P. 31. I accedere: sc. vel ad fortunam vel ad gloriam. moriendi sensum: moriendi is the act or process of dying; mortis would have a different meaning and could not be here substituted. Cf. Cat. m. 74 sensus moriendi aliquis esse potest, post mortem quidem sensus aut optandus aut nullus est; Phil. 9, 13 si quis est sensus in morte. On Scipio's death see Introd. p. 18. 2 quo de genere mortis: i.e. death so sudden as his; for the form of expression cf. n. on 4, l. 15. 3 5 6 7 8 vere: there is a loose contrast with difficile dictu est, which implies nihil veri potest dici. celeberrimos: not 'most famous' but (literally) 'most attended by crowds', i.e. days on which Scipio was the centre of the popular interest. Cf. my n. on Arch. § 4. clarissimum: for the application of clarus to things, as well as persons, Nägelsbach quotes Div. 2, 85; Att. 6, 1, 22 clarissimi iuris iurandi. Notice the emphasis given by the repetition of diem from diebus. reductus est: it was the custom at times of excitement for leading statesmen to be escorted to the senate-house from their homes and back again by their admirers. For the escort away from home deducere is generally used, for the escort homewards reducere. See Cat. m. 63, where the two words occur together, as they do in Val. Max. 2, 1, 9. ad vesperum: with the prepositions ad, sub, in, the accusative of vesper is generally used and not that of vespera. populo Romano: simply=civibus, the burgesses, as opposed to the socii and Latini. sociis et Latinis: these two words must be taken together as forming one member of the enumeration, parallel with patribus conscriptis and populo Romano. When an enumeration consists only of two members Cicero, except in certain special cases, never omits the copula; when there are three or more members, he either puts et before each member after the first or leaves it out altogether. In our passage, if sociis and Latinis had each of them been entitled to rank separately in the enumeration, it would have been necessary to strike out et. Madvig has most thoroughly discussed this matter in a n. on Fin. 4, 56 and also in Opuscula 1, p. 333 sq. The practice of most other writers of the best period agrees on the whole with that of Cicero in this respect. Cf. n. on 84, 1. 5. superos...deos...inferos: the word deos is purposely_not_placed immediately after superos, in order to prevent the reader from understanding inferos to mean inferos deos. With this arrangement superos... deos means, as Seyffert explains it, superi, qui dei sunt. § 13. IO nuper: not quite accurate (cf. n. on 24, 1. 26, also on modo in 6, p. 28, 1. 32), inasmuch as the knowledge of the Greek speculations which denied the soul's existence after death had begun to spread among the educated classes at Rome long before Scipio's death. The Epicureans are chiefly, but not solely, hinted at. Some of the Peripatetics and also some of the New Academics held or at least sometimes advocated the same views. 13 mortuis...iura: the principal 'reverent rites' paid to the dead are mentioned in Cic. Leg. 2, 55 sq.; cf. especially 57 multa religiosa iura. Our passage has also much resemblance to Tusc. 1, 26 sq. 14 15 16 17 18 si...arbitrarentur: cf. Tusc. 1, 27 caerimonias quas maximis ingeniis praediti nec tanta cura coluissent... nisi haereret in eorum mentibus mortem non interitum esse omnia tollentem atque delentem sed quandam quasi migrationem. Observe the tense of arbitrarentur and haereret, for which modern feeling would require the pluperfect. Cic. realises the past (for the moment) as present, and so looks on the condition as not wholly past but still continuing. The usage is in fact similar to the substitution of the present for the past (for the sake of vividness) in historical narratives. Often both protasis and apodosis contain a verb in the imperfect where we should expect the pluperfect (e.g. Verr. 5, 89; Sest. 63); but it does not often happen that the apodosis has a verb in the pluperfect, while the verb in the protasis stands in the imperfect, as in Cat. m. 19 consilium ratio sententia nisi essent in senibus, non summum consilium maiores nostri appellassent senatum. Irregularities of the same sort are common in Greek conditional sentences. ad eos pertinere: cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1, 10, 3 dokeî yàp elvai tɩ tậ τεθνεώτι καὶ κακὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν. fuerunt: 'lived'. The followers of Pythagoras are meant. nunc quidem: 'now, I admit'; for the concessive use of quidem cf. 74, 1. 14. tum: some adversative particle (corresponding to sed autem vero or the like) would be inserted in any modern language. This so-called adversative asyndeton is especially common in Caesar, as in B. G. 1, 18, 1 celeriter consilium dimittit, Liscum retinet; cf. also n. on 5, 1. 25; 55, 1. 22; 59, 1. 32; 62, 1. 58. institutis et praeceptis: 'principles and maxims'; cf. Madv. Fin. 5, 7. vel eius: in Cat. m. 78 Cic. appeals just as he does here to the Pythagoreans and to Socrates as authorities for the immortality of the soul. qui: sc. dicebat; cf. for the ellipse 1, 1. 10 sed de hoc alias. tum hoc tum illud: the later Academics, particularly Arcesilas and Carneades, professing to follow Socrates, made a practice of arguing on both sides of every question, and declared that certainty was unattainable, though probable conclusions might be formed. They prided them. 19 20 21 23 24 25 selves on not being obliged to support dogmatically any set of views; while others were in bondage to doctrines, they only were free to put forward now this now that'. Cf. Cicero's Academica passim, but particularly 2, 134 tum hoc mihi probabilius, tum illud videtur; 2, 121 modo hoc modo illud probabilius videtur; also N. D. 1, 47 Cotta meus modo hoc modo illud. ut in plerisque: the oblique case of the neuter adj. used as substantive is unusual where there is not some word in the context to clearly indicate the gender. To avoid ambiguity Cic. generally writes in plerisque rebus and the like, but occasionally lets the neuter stand. Cf. n. on 50, l. 7 similium sui. idem semper, animos etc.: Cic. is thinking of Socrates as he appears in the dialogues of Plato, particularly in the Phaedo, Apology, Phaedrus, and Timaeus. The principal arguments in favour of the soul's immortality which are put into Socrates' mouth in the Phaedo are many times reproduced by Cicero, and especially in Tusc. 1, Somn. Scip. and Cato maior. In the words esse divinos and reditum in caelum patere Cic. recalls those arguments in favour of the soul's pre-natal existence which the Platonic Socrates usually joins with his arguments for the soul's life after the death of the body. ex corpore: used for corporibus, since (both in Greek and Latin) when a number of persons are mentioned and then some one thing common to them all, that thing is often put into the singular, where our idiom would require the plural. Seyffert is, I think, mistaken in understanding corpore in the abstract sense of 'the body'. Cf. Tusc. 1, 40 animos, cum e corpore excesserint; ib. 1, 72 animorum e corpore excedentium; Cat. m. 81; on the other hand Cat. m. 80 animos, dum in corporibus essent mortalibus, vivere, cum excessissent ex eis emori. optimoque...expeditissimum: cf. Tusc. 1, 40 sq.; also Plato, Phaedo 114 B. Diog. 8, 31; Sen. Suas. 6, 6; Sen. ep. 86, I. § 14. praesagiret: on this word cf. Cic. Div. 1, 65 sagire enim sentire acute est: ex quo sagae anus quia multum scire volunt, et sagaces dicti canes. Is igitur qui ante sagit quam oblata res est dicitur praesagire, id est, futura ante scire. Philus: see Introd. p. 19. Manilius: see Introd. p. 19. adesset: observe the singular after et...et, and cf. Mur. 15 et proavus Murenae et avus praetor fuit; Phil. 11, 27 et Brutus et Cassius, multis iam in rebus ipse sibi senatus fuit; Att. 4, 17, 4 et ego et Cicero meus flagitabit; also see below, 70, 1. 19 confertur. alii plures: cf. Brut. 36 Hyperides et Aeschines et Lycurgus et Dinarchus aliique plures. triduum disseruit: the discourse is represented by Cicero's work De re publica. |