The Religious Experience of the Roman People From the...

804 For the Pythagoreanism of the Neo-platonic movement in the third century A.D. consult Bussell, Marcus Aurelius and the Later Stoics (Edin. 1910), p. 30 foll., who explains the reaction from Stoicism to Neo-Platonism. See also Caird, Gifford Lectures, ii. 162 foll.

805 Schmekel, Die mittlere Stoa, p. 403, says that it had ceased to exist for centuries as a philosophy, but cautiously adds in a note that the knowledge of it was not extinct. The famous Orphic tablets from South Italy are taken as dating from the third and fourth centuries B.C., and if not actually Pythagorean, they are next door to being so. See Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 660.

806Tusc. Disp. i. 38.

807 See, e.g., Prof. Taylor's little book on Plato (Constable), p. 11.

808 See above, p. 349.

809 Sextus Empiricus, adv. Physicos, ii. 281 foll.

810 For the devotion of the believers to the founder and his ipse dixit, see Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 5. 10.

811 The relation of Posidonius to Roman literature has been much discussed of late. See, e.g., Norden, Virgil, Aen. vi., index, s.v. "Stoa"; Schmekel, Die mittlere Stoa, 85 foll., 238 foll.

812 For Panaetius' enthusiasm for Plato and his teaching, see Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 32. 79; the whole passage indicates, though it does not exactly prove, an approach to the Platonic psychology.

813 Caird, Gifford Lectures, vol. ii. p. 85.

814 See above, p. 75. The idea that the practice of cremation influenced the ideas of the Roman about the soul was first, I think, suggested by Boissier, Religion romaine, i. 310. Cicero himself hints at this conclusion in Tusc. Disp. i. 16. 36: "In terram enim cadentibus corporibus, hisque humo tectis, e quo dictum est humari, sub terra censebant reliquam vitam agi mortuorum. Quam eorum opinionem magni errores consecuti sunt; quos auxerunt poetae."

815 This point is well put by Dill, p. 493 of Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. See also Dieterich, Eine Mithras-Liturgie, p. 200 fol.; Stewart, Myths of Plato, 352-53.

816 Schmekel, Die mittlere Stoa, p. 400 foll.

817De Rep. vi. 26.

818Ib. The word providet reminds us that this transcendental philosophy supplied the later Stoics with an explanation of divination. See Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de divination, i. 68; Dill, op. cit. p. 439; Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. 52, fully accepted divination. Cp. Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 37. 66, where he quotes his own Consolatio; see above, p. 388. Panaetius, however, had courageously denied divination: Cic. Div. i. 3. 6; Zeller, Stoics, etc., p. 352.

819De Rep. vi. 15, 26, and 29.

820Tusc. Disp. i. 16. 36 foll. On the whole subject of the rise of the soul after death see Dieterich, Eine Mithras-Liturgie, p. 179 foll.

821 Schmekel, op. cit. p. 438; Stewart, Myths of Plato, p. 300.

822 For Nigidius, see Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Literatur (ed. 2), vol. ii. p. 419 foll.

823 "Nigidius Figulus Pythagoreus et magus in exilio moritur" is the notice of him in St. Jerome's Chronicle for the year 45 B.C.

824 These letters are in the 12th book of those to Atticus, Nos. 12-40.

825Ad Att. xii. 36. The translation is Shuckburgh's.

826 A good example is Virg. Aen. viii. 349, but it is needless to multiply instances of the religio loci. Serv. ad Aen. i. 314 defines lucus as "arborum multitudo cum religione."

827Ad Att. xii. 36; cp. 35. He uses the Greek word ἀποθἑωσιϛ in 35. 1, which seems to have come into use in his own time; see Liddell & Scott, s.v.

828 See above, p. 58.

829Aen. vi. 743. The meaning of these words seems to be quite plain, though commentators have worried themselves over them from Servius downwards. The mistake has been in not sufficiently considering the force of quisque, and puzzling too much over the vague word Manes. Henry discerned the true meaning in our own time. See his Aeneidea, vol. iii. p. 397. Cp. the words quoted above from Somn. Scip.: "mens cuiusque is est quisque." M. S. Reinach (Cultes, etc. ii. 135 foll.) is not far out: "Nous souffrons chacun suivant le degré de souillure de nos âmes."

830C.I.L. i. 639, with Mommsen's note.

831 See R.F. p. 308.

832Tusc. Disp. i. 12. 27. For the "ius Manium," de Legibus, ii. 22 and 54 foll.

833Ad Att. xii. 18: "Longum illud tempus cum non ero magis me movet quam hoc exiguum," etc. Cp. Tusc. i. ad fin.

834Ad Fam. iv. 5. 6: "Quod si quis apud inferos sensus est, qui illius in te amor fuit pietasque in omnes suos, hoc certe illa te facere nonvult."

835 Sall. Cat. ch. 51: "Mortem cuncta mortalium dissolvere, ultra neque curae neque gaudio locum esse." This is the Epicurean doctrine, which Caesar was said to hold.

836 Catull. 5. 6; Pliny, N.H. vii. 188. The whole passage is worth quoting: "Post sepulturam vanae Manium ambages. Omnibus a supremo die eadem quae ante primum, nec magis a morte sensus ullus aut corpori aut animae quam ante natalem. Eadem enim vanitas in futurum etiam se propagat et in mortis quoque tempora sibi vitam mentitur, alias immortalitatem animae, alias transfigurationem, alias sensum inferis dando et Manes colendo deumque faciendo qui iam etiam homo esse desierit, ceu vero ullo modo spirandi ratio ceteris animalibus praestet, aut non diuturniora in vita multa reperiantur quibus nemo similem divinat immortalitatem," etc.

837 There is an essay on this form of literature in the Études morales sur l'antiquité of Constant Martha, p. 135 foll.

838Tusc. Disp. i. 27. 66.

839 Lact. Inst. i. 15. 20.

840 Lact. iii. 18.

841 See Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Literatur, vol. ii. p. 376.

842 Fragments 54 and 55.

843 P. 158 foll.