nean and to see the Euxine Sea on the east; what will be our rap-
ture, when we can see all the regions of the earth, with all their
various forms and productions!

Besides all this, we may consider, that at present we do not real-
ly see any thing, with our physical organs. These are the mere
inlets to the soul, which alone has any proper sensation. When
we come, then, to those upper regions, where we shall no longer be
impeded by any of our physical organs, nothing will hinder our
having the clearest, most extensive, and altogether satisfactory
views of every thing that we desire to know.-Such therefore will
be the state and condition of the soul.

And such being the case, I wonder at the strange conduct of the
Epicureans, who think it a great thing to have freed men from
the fear of the future, by shewing that the soul is of a mortai na-
ture, and expires with the body. To me the sentiment of Pythago-
ras and Plato is much more probable and welcome.

The objection made by many, viz. that they cannot understand what
the nature of the soul is, which is eternal, amounts to nothing; for
can they understand any better what the soul is, when in the body,
than when out of the body? To me it is much more difficult to see
how the soul can dwell in a habitation so foreign to its true nature,
and how it is to contemplate it as freed from such a habitation: un-
less, indeed, we are to maintain the position, that we can understand
nothing which we do not see with our eyes; and then we must dis-
believe the existence of the gods. Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus,
because they could not tell what the soul is, rejected the idea of
its existence. But when the oracle of Apollo said: I'voor oɛav-
Tov, it meant, that we should become acquainted with our souls,
which are our only proper selves.

Thus it is evident that one main design of Cicero, in the whole of
this apparent digression, is to remove objections against a future
state, made from the nature and dwelling place of the soul.

(60) P. 30. 1. 26. Censebant, i. e. antiqui hom-
ines censebant.-Frequens... theatri, the crowded
assembly at the theatre.-Audiens... carmen, when
hearing so pompous a strain. Adsum etc., I am
present, and I come from Acheron, with difficulty,
through a deep and dangerous passage; through
caves formed by rough rocks, over-hanging, huge ;
where the thick darkness of hell is immoveable; rigi-
da stat is a more probable reading than rigida
constat; the meaning of which former is stands
stiff, i. e. immoveable. The quotation is from the
Hecuba of Euripides, sub. init.-Valuit, did pre-
vail.-Sublatus, removed; the lexicons derive this

word from tollo, its own proper root being out of

use.

(61) P. 31. l. 5. Animos... complecti, they could not form any idea of minds living by themselves, i.e. existing independently of the body.-Aliquam, some kind of.—Tota vɛzvia, all the vɛxvia of Homer ; VEXvia means sacrifices and rites instituted for the dead, in order to evoke the shades (umbrae) from the under-world or Hades.—Nɛxqoμavtɛĩa, places where necromancy was practised.-Faciebat seems hardly to admit of a tolerable sense here. It may be rendered, procured, made, constructed, and possibly made of, i. e. esteemed, valued, for this is one of the senses of facio, even when it governs the Accusative; although it is seldom so used in such a connexion.

(62) P. 31. l. 9. Averni lacus was near to Cumae in Campania; hence in vicinia nostra. By this lake is the fabled entrance to the infernal regions, as described by Homer and Virgil.-Ostio... Acherontis, at the mouth of the deep Acheron; which (Acheron) here means a river in lower Italy that must have been near the lake mentioned; see Scheller's Lat. Lex.

What salt False blood

(63) P. 31. 7. 11. Falso sanguine; so I find it, in my edition of Ernesti's Cicero; but in Rath, Nobbe, and Carey, salso sanguine. blood is, I am unable to imagine. may very easily be attributed to the imagines mortuorum, i. e. mere umbrae or shadows of living beings; so Main in his version: "No mortal blood."

Ad oculos... referebant, i. e. they made every thing to be visible to the eye, in whose existence they believed.-Et... abducere, and to withdraw our thoughts from objects with which we are familiar.

(64) P. 31. l. 18. Itaque... dixit, therefore, (what in my opinion others had said for many ages, but, so far as we have it on record), Pherecydes of Syros first said, etc. Syrius (Zúgios), belonging to Syros, one of the Grecian islands (Cyclades), not far from Delos, and at the mouth of the Aegean Sea. The Syrius here has been mistaken by some for Syrus, a Syrian. Pherecydes was born about 595 B. C. and died about 535.

He was the teacher of Pythagoras; and with the disciples of Pythagoras, Plato was intimate; so that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul seems to have come down from Pherecydes directly to Plato.—Antiquus sane; for, as the above dates shew, Pherecydes was born almost 500 years before Cicero.

(65) P. 31. l. 21. Meo regnante gentili, during the reign of my relative, (Main renders: my namesake Tullus), i. e. during the reign of Servius Tullius, which was from 578 B. C. to 534 B. C. Serv. Tullius was the son of Ocrisia and Tullius, who belonged to Corniculum, a town of the Sabines, a little north of the river Anio, and but a short distance from the city of Rome. In a war between the Sabines and Romans, Tullius the husband of Ocrisia was killed, and she came into the hands of Tarquin the Elder, king of Rome, as a slave. Tarquin presented her to his wife; who brought up her son, Servius Tullius, in the palace.

After

wards Tarquin gave to Tullius his daughter as a wife; and upon the death of this king, S. Tullius, his son in law, was made king, and reigned 34 years. He was the last of the ancient Roman kings, save one, viz. Tarquin the Proud; who is

mentioned in the next sentence, and who married the daughter of S. Tullius, himself being the grandson of Tarquin the Elder. Tarquin the Proud began to reign 534 B. C., and 25 years afterwards was expelled from the throne. Cicero retained the name of the family (Tullius), from which he was descended.

(66) P. 31. l. 23. Maxime confirmavit; Pythagoras and his disciples appear to have been much in earnest on the subject of the immortality of the soul. The so called Golden Verses of Pythagoras, (composed probably by some of his followers), bear testimony to a high state of moral and religious feeling among this sect of philosophers. Plato seems to have fully imbibed their ardour in respect to these matters, by being conversant with them. Superbo, i. e. Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the ancient Romish kings; as just stated above.-In Italiam venisset, i. e. to the south part of it, which was usually called Magna Grecia; where, particularly at Metapontum and Crotona on the Tarentine Bay, he effected a great moral and political reformation. All this line of coast was filled, in those days, with Grecian colonies. Hence the name, Magna Grecia; which is mentioned in the next clause.-Tenuit, lit. restrained, held in; but here it seems to mean, exercised influence over. Cum... auctoritate, as well by the credit of his learning, as by his weight of character.

§ 14.

(67) P. 31. 1. 29. Redeo ad antiquos here means, that he reverts from the saecula postea which he had just named, to those individuals whom he had been previously mentioning.-Non fere reddebant,

they scarcely rendered.-Nisi... explicandum, unless what might be explained either by numbers or by imagery. He refers here to the Pythagorean numerical harmony of the universe (as stated in Note 38); and as to descriptionibus, I understand it to mean, the mythic stories which were told concerning the souls of men after their decease, their transformations, appearances, etc.—Nisi quid dicis, unless you have some objections to make.-Et hanc ....relinquamus, and relinquish the whole of this topic in regard to the hope of immortality.

Cicero

seems to say this, rather for the sake of whetting the curiosity of his Collocutor, or for the sake of ascertaining whether he had succeeded so as to create in him an interest in the subject proposed.Macte virtute, bravo! well done! lit. elevated in virtue; used by way of exclamation. Macte seems to be a participle, from the obsolete mago, maxi, mactum, to enlarge, to elevate, etc.

(68) P. 32. l. 13. Num... hoc, shall we then doubt this also, as we do most other things? Quamquam... minime etc., certainly this least of all, for mathematicians etc. Quamquam, to be sure, forsooth, German freilich.-Terram... vocant, that the earth, situated in the midst of the universe, in respect to the compass of the whole heaven, acquires as it were the likeness of a point, which they [the mathematicians] call névτoov, the centre. Cicero seems plainly to refer here to the astronomical and mathematical speculations of the Pythagoreans, who placed the earth in the centre of the universe, and made the planets and stars revolve around it in concentric orbits, which were circumscribed at intervals from each other that corresponded, as to their