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A NOTE ON THE TEXT AND INTERPRETATION OF CICERO, DE FATO 35
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2022
Abstract
De fato 35 is part of Cicero's argument against the Stoic theory of causation. He claims in general that the Stoic chain of causes consists of antecedent but not efficient causes. To the examples cited in the previous chapter he adds verses from the opening of Ennius’ Medea exul (lines 208–11 Jocelyn = FRL 2 and TRF 89.1–4) containing the Nurse's lamentation over the origins of the Argonautic expedition that led, ultimately, to Medea's current mental distress. Then follows the question quorsum haec praeterita? and the answer quia sequitur illud, ‘nam numquam era errans mea domo ecferret pedem | Medea, animo aegro, amore saeuo saucia’, non ut eae res causam adferrent amoris, citing Ennius, Medea exul 215–16 Jocelyn = FRL 2 and TRF 89.8–9. Editors and commentators have struggled to explain the relation of the answer to the question. Here it is argued that the relation becomes clear if one adopts non<ne> for non and punctuates with a query after amoris. The sense will be: ‘Why have these past events been cited? In view of the sequel … was it not so that they bring on the cause of love?’ In other words, the Nurse, like the Stoics in Cicero's view, cites antecedent events as if they were efficient causes.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
References
1 Ax, W. (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero: De divinatione, De fato, Timaeus (Leipzig, 1938)Google Scholar, with only trivial modifications in punctuation.
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4 Cf. Har. resp. 56 sequitur illud, ‘ne deterioribus repulsisque honos augeatur’; De or. 2.302 sermo ille sequitur: ‘occidit’; Leg. 3.42 sequitur illud: ‘intercessor rei malae salutaris ciuis esto’.
5 The same objections apply to the interpretation of Sharples, R.W. (ed.), Cicero: On Fate (De fato) and Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy IV.5–7, V (Warminster, 1991), 184Google Scholar, who takes sequitur as ‘follows’ in the logical sense, with the ut-clause as consecutive depending on it.
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8 Cf. also Weidemann (n. 6), 281–2 for another objection to Schäublin's thesis.
9 In this rendering, prolata sunt (or the like) is supplied; an alternative would be to understand quorsum haec praeterita pertinent, in which case adferrent would be attracted to the tense of the preceding ecferret; cf. Kühner, R. and Stegmann, C., Ausführliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache (Hannover, 1966 4), 2.195Google Scholar.
10 Cf. Dyck, A.R., Commentary on Cicero De Divinatione II (Ann Arbor, 2020), 29Google Scholar.
11 Here earum evidently refers back to eae res at §35. Cicero makes this point using the same Ennian passage as illustration at Top. 61: hoc igitur sine quo non fit ab eo in quo certe fit diligenter est separandum. illud enim est tamquam ‘utinam ne in nemore Pelio’. nisi enim ‘accidissent abiegnae ad terram trabes’, Argo illa facta non esset, nec tamen fuit in his trabibius efficiendi uis necessaria.