BOOK I cH. xX § 25. 101

pare tis dpOapotas dddorpioy pyTe THs wakapiornTos mpdoanre’ may S€ Td guddrrew avrod Suvduevov tiv pera apOapolas paxapidrnta epi avrov ddéate). All opinions which are inconsistent with this are ridiculed as absurdities ; as we read in Philodemus! p. 96 ‘the Epicureans condemn all who differ from them os av vmevavria th mporn ee SoypatiCovrov’. Further there is no attempt at accuracy in giving the opinions of the earlier philosophers : rather they are intentionally caricatured in order to make them more open to attack. C. in fact has put into the mouth of Vell. a speech suitable to his own description of the Epicurean mode of con- troversy; fidenter sane, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur N. D. 1 18, vestra solum legitis, vestra amatis, ceteros causa incognita condemnatis (spoken by Balbus N.D, 11 73). If Cotta afterwards praises the speech (ut tu, distincte, graviter, ornate § 59; enumerasti memoriter et copiose, ut mihi quidem admirari luberet in homine esse Romano tantam scientiam, usque a Thale philosophorum sententias § 91;) this is a part of his well-known courtesy (comiter ut solebat § 57). How far the inaccuracies of the speech are to be attributed to C. himself or to his Epicurean authorities is discussed in the Jntroduction. Minucius (c. 19) gives a summary of this section to prove an opposite conclusion, viz. that all philosophers agree in asserting that God exists and that he isa spirit, cf. § 42 n.
qualia vero—repetam. The text is uncertain, and presents difficulties whichever reading we adopt. If we insert alia after vero with two of Orelli’s mss, this is in the first place hardly a suitable term for what promises to be an exhaustive disquisition on the earlier systems (ab ultimo repetam); Sch. therefore (Opusc. 111 305 and 359) would prefer either to read cetera for alza, or to transfer swpertorum with Déderlein, placing it before ab ultimo, which would then be taken absolutely as in Jnvent. 1 28 brevis erit, si unde necesse est, inde initium sumetur, et non ab ultimo repetetur; and, in the second place, all these readings are inconsistent with the fact that a large part of the subsequent polemic is directed against the Stoics. I am inclined therefore to retain the old reading, translating ‘Such is a general statement of the Stoic doctrines: I will now proceed to show how they are related to the older philosophies’; more literally ‘to show what their character is, I will trace back their history to its earliest source’, Probably there may have been some Stoic history of philosophy professing to show that their doctrines were substantially the same as those held by the most esteemed of the earlier philosophers. The Epicureans would meet this by endeavouring to prove that such support could only damage their cause. Fortsch (Quaest. Tull. 1837) explains it differently, cujus vero generis sint, ita nunc ostendam ut exordiar ab ultimo superiorum, t.e. ea ejusdem generis esse, ita nihili esse; but Vell. has been proving that the Stoic doctrines nihili esse for the last page or more.
1 The references are to Gomperz’s edition of the Herculanean treatise wept evoeBelas, on which see Introduction.
102 BOOK I CH. x § 25.
Thales!. The statement here made as to the two principles assumed by T. is opposed to all the more ancient authorities. Thus Aristotle (Metaph. A. 3) makes him the leader of those who started from one material principle, and contrasts Anaxagoras with all his predecessors as having first felt the need of a separate intelligent principle. It is true that by water T. understood something more than mere lifeless matter moved by mechanical causes, like the atoms of Democritus. Water was a living substance endued with a @eia duvapis xivytixn (Stob. “cl. 1 56) whence Aristotle says (de An.15 17) kat €v tO do tives Wuxry pepiyOat dao, d0ev icws kai Garis On Tavta ANN Gedy eivat, to which C. alludes Leg. 11 26; but the system was a pure ‘hylozoism’. It was therefore by a mere misunderstanding that later compilers such as Stobaeus, ].c. and Plutarch Plac. Phil. 17 p. 881 8, attributed to T., who left no writings be- hind him, (Diog. L. 1 23) the statement that God was the soul of the world.