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Fiery Particles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Attenderes Physicis; quaereres, utrumne ignis esset initium rerum, an vero. minutis editus et mirabilibus ementis perpetuus hie mundus, an mortalis esset.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1976
References
1 The Minor Declamations cannot be dated; but it is noteworthy that utrumne… an vero… is a late usage: LeumannHofmann-Szantyr, Lateinische Grammatik ii.466 (Cyprian); also Thes.Ling.Lat. s.v. an co1.12,27 (an vero Ulpian). As to the author, he was, if not Quintilian, someone who had read Quintilian. For the present passage, compare inst.or. 7.2.2 'ergo cum de re agitur aut quid factum sit in dubium venit aut quid fiat aut quit sit futurum, ut in generalibus “an atomorum concursu mundus sit effectus, an providentia regatur, an sit aliquando casurus”…
2 See Aristotle, de anima A2, 405a11 
(sc. Democritus). 
Mr. R.D. Brown, to whom I am much indebted for his help with this matter, points out to me that according to the scholiast on Epic, ad Hdt. 66.5 (cf. Lucretius 2.456–63) Epicurus regarded fire atoms as considerably different from the smooth, round soul atoms.
3 He could have supplied more: for fire as origin of things 1.635 seq., for the time span of the world 2.1105 seq.