Part iv

. of Varro's Exposition: Antiochus' _Ethics_. Summary. Although the old Academics and Peripatetics based knowledge on the senses, they did not make the senses the criterion of truth, but the mind, because it alone saw the permanently real and true (30). The senses they thought heavy and clogged and unable to gain knowledge of such things as were either too small to come into the domain of sense, or so changing and fleeting that no part of their being remained constant or even the same, seeing that all parts were in a continuous flux. Knowledge based _only_ on sense was therefore mere opinion (31). Real knowledge only came through the reasonings of the mind, hence they _defined_ everything about which they argued, and also used verbal explanations, from which they drew proofs. In these two processes consisted their dialectic, to which they added persuasive rhetoric (32).

§30. _Quae erat_: the Platonic ην, = was, as we said. _In ratione et disserendo_: an instance of Cicero's fondness for tautology, cf. _D.F._ I. 22 _quaerendi ac disserendi_. _Quamquam oriretur_: the sentence is inexact, it is _knowledge_ which takes its rise in the senses, not the criterion of truth, which is the mind itself; cf. however II. 30 and n. _Iudicium_: the constant translation of κριτηριον, a word foreign to the older philosophy. _Mentem volebant rerum esse iudicem_: Halm with his pet MS. writes _esse rerum_, thus giving an almost perfect iambic, strongly stopped off before and after, so that there is no possibility of avoiding it in reading. I venture to say that no real parallel can be found to this in Cic., it stands in glaring contradiction to his own rules about admitting metre in prose, _Orator_ 194 sq., _De Or._ III. 182 sq. _Solam censebant ... tale quale esset_: probably from Plato's _Tim._ 35 A thus translated by Cic., _Tim._ c. 7 _ex ea materia quae individua est et unius modi_ (αει κατα ταυτα εχουσης cf. 28 A. το κατα ταυτα εχον) _et sui simile_, cf. also _T.D._ I. 58 _id solum esse quod semper tale sit quale sit, quam_ ιδεαν _appellat ille, nos speciem_, and _Ac._ II. 129. _Illi_ ιδεαν, etc.: there is more than one difficulty here. The words _iam a Platone ita nom_ seem to exclude Plato from the supposed old Academico-Peripatetic school. This may be an oversight, but to say first that the school (_illi_, cf. _sic tractabatur ab utrisque_) which included Aristotle held the doctrine of ιδεαι, and next, in 33, that Aristotle crushed the same doctrine, appears very absurd. We may reflect, however, that the difference between Plato's ιδεαι and Aristotle's τα καθαλου would naturally seem microscopic to Antiochus. Both theories were practically as dead in his time as those of Thales or Anaxagoras. The confusion must not be laid at Cicero's door, for Antiochus in reconciling his own dialectics with Plato's must have been driven to desperate shifts. Cicero's very knowledge of Plato has, however, probably led him to intensify what inconsistency there was in Antiochus, who would have glided over Plato's opinions with a much more cautious step.

§31. _Sensus omnis hebetes_: this stands in contradiction to the whole Antiochean view as given in II. 12--64, cf. esp. 19 _sensibus quorum ita clara et certa iudicia sunt_, etc.: Antiochus would probably defend his agreement with Plato by asserting that though sense is naturally dull, reason may sift out the certain from the uncertain. _Res eas ... quae essent aut ita_: Halm by following his pet MS. without regard to the meaning of Cic. has greatly increased the difficulty of the passage. He reads _res ullas ... quod aut ita essent_; thus making Antiochus assert that _no_ true information can be got from sensation, whereas, as we shall see in the _Lucullus_, he really divided sensations into true and false. I believe that we have a mixture here of Antiochus' real view with Cicero's reminiscences of the _Theaetetus_ and of Xenocrates; see below. _Nec percipere_: for this see _Lucullus_ passim. Christ's conj. _percipi, quod perceptio sit mentis non sensuum_, which Halm seems to approve, is a wanton corruption of the text, cf. II. 101 _neget rem ullam percipi posse sensibus_, so 21, 119 (just like _ratione percipi_ 91), also I. 41 _sensu comprehensum_. _Subiectae sensibus_: cf. II. 74 and Sext. Emp. _Adv. Math._ VIII. 9, τα ‛υποπιπτοντα τη αισθησει. _Aut ita mobiles_, etc.: this strongly reminds one of the _Theaetetus_, esp. 160 D sq. For _constans_ cf. εστηκος, which so often occurs there and in the _Sophistes_. _Ne idem_: Manut. for MSS. _eidem_. In the _Theaetetus_, Heraclitus' theory of flux is carried to such an extent as to destroy the self-identity of things; even the word εμε is stated to be an absurdity, since it implies a permanent subject, whereas the subject is changing from moment to moment; the expression therefore ought to be τους εμε. _Continenter_: ουνεχως; cf. Simplicius quoted in Grote's Plato, I. p. 37, about Heraclitus, εν μεταβολη γαρ συνεχει τα οντα. _Laberentur et fluerent_: cf. the phrases ‛ροη, παντα ‛ρει, ‛οιον ‛ρευματα κινεισθαι τα παντα, etc., which are scattered thickly over the _Theaet._ and the ancient texts about Heraclitus; also a very similar passage in _Orator_ 10. _Opinabilem_: δοξαστην, so _opinabile_ = δοξαστον in Cic. _Tim_ ch. II. The term was largely used by Xenocrates (R. and P. 243--247), Arist. too distinguishes between the δοξαστον and the επιστητον, e.g _Analyt. Post._ I. 33 (qu. R. and P. 264).

§32. For this cf. _D.F._ IV. 8--10. _Notionibus_: so one MS. for _motionibus_ which the rest have. _Notio_ is Cicero's regular translation for εννοια, which is Stoic. This statement might have been made both by Aristotle and Plato, though each would put a separate meaning on the word _notio_. Επιστημη in Plato is of the ιδεαι only, while in Aristotle it is τον καθολου; cf. _Anal. Post._ I. 33 (R. and P. 264), λεγω νουν αρχην επιστημης. _Definitiones rerum_: these must be carefully distinguished fiom _definitiones nominum_, see the distinction drawn after Aristotle in R. and P. 265, note b. The _definitio rei_ really involves the whole of philosophy with Plato and Aristotle (one might almost add, with moderns too). Its importance to Plato may be seen from the _Politicus_ and _Sophistes_, to Aristotle from the passages quoted in R. and P. pp. 265, 271, whose notes will make the subject as clear as it can be made to any one who has not a knowledge of the whole of Aristotle's philosophy. _Verborum explicatio_: this is quite a different thing from those _definitiones nominum_ just referred to; it is _derivation_, which does not necessitate definition. ετυμολογιαν: this is almost entirely Stoic. The word is foreign to the Classic Greek Prose, as are ετυμος and all its derivatives. (Ετυμως means "etymologically" in the _De Mundo_, which however is not Aristotle's). The word ετυμολογια is itself not frequent in the older Stoics, who use rather ονοματων ορθοτης (Diog. Laert. VII. 83), the title of their books on the subject preserved by Diog. is generally "περι των ετυμολογικων" The systematic pursuit of etymology was not earlier than Chrysippus, when it became distinctive of the Stoic school, though Zeno and Cleanthes had given the first impulse (_N.D._ III. 63). Specimens of Stoic etymology are given in _N.D._ II. and ridiculed in _N.D._ III. (cf. esp. 62 _in enodandis nominibus quod miserandum sit laboratis_). _Post argumentis et quasi rerum notis ducibus_: the use of etymology in rhetoric in order to prove something about the thing denoted by the word is well illustrated in _Topica_ 10, 35. In this rhetorical sense Cic. rejects the translation _veriloquium_ of ετυμολογια and adopts _notatio_, the _rerum nota_ (Greek συμβολον) being the name so explained (_Top._ 35). Varro translated ετυμολογια by _originatio_ (Quintil. I. 6, 28). Aristotle had already laid down rules for this rhetorical use of etymology, and Plato also incidentally adopts it, so it may speciously be said to belong to the old Academico-Peripatetic school. A closer examination of authorities would have led Halm to retract his bad em. _notationibus_ for _notas ducibus_, the word _notatio_ is used for the whole science of etymology, and not for

## particular derivations, while Cic. in numerous passages (e.g. _D.F._ V. 74)

describes _verba_ or _nomina_ as _rerum notae_. Berkley's _nodis_ for _notis_ has no support, (_enodatio nominum_ in _N.D._ III. 62 is quite different). One more remark, and I conclude this wearisome note. The _quasi_ marks _rerum nota_ as an unfamiliar trans. of συμβολον. Davies therefore ought not to have placed it before _ducibus_, which word, strong as the metaphor is, requires no qualification, see a good instance in _T.D._ I. 27. _Itaque tradebatur_: so Halm improves on Madvig's _ita_ for _in qua_ of the MSS., which cannot be defended. Orelli's reference to 30 _pars_ for an antecedent to _qua_ (_in ea parte in qua_) is violent, while Goerenz's resort to _partem rerum opinabilem_ is simply silly. Manut. conj. _in quo_, Cic. does often use the neut. pronoun, as in _Orator_ 3, but not quite thus. I have sometimes thought that Cic. wrote _haec, inquam_ (cf. _huic_ below). _Dialecticae_: as λογικη had not been Latinised, Cic. is obliged to use this word to denote λογικη, of which διαλεκτικη is really one subdivision with the Stoics and Antiochus, ‛ρητορικη which is mentioned in the next sentence being the other; see Zeller 69, 70. _Orationis ratione conclusae_: speech drawn up in a syllogistic form which becomes _oratio perpetua_ under the influence of ‛ρητορικη. _Quasi ex altera parte_: a trans. of Aristotle's αντιστροφος in the beginning of the _Rhetoric_. _Oratoria_: Halm brackets this word; cf. however a close parallel in _Brut._ 261 _oratorio ornamenta dicendi_. The construction is simply a variation of Cic.'s favourite double genitive (_T.D._ III. 39), _oratoria_ being put for _oratoris_. _Ad persuadendum_: το πιθανον is with Arist. and all ancient authorities the one aim of ‛ρητορικη.

§§33--42.