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‘A frustratingly mysterious figure, though he was a friend of Cicero and praetor in 58’ (Rawson 1985: 94), Nigidius Figulus died in exile, in May or June 45, before Cicero could utter any oratio ad clementiam Caesaris in his favour. Nevertheless, in the extant beginning of his Timaeus (§1 = test. 9 Swoboda), Cicero included a vibrant eulogy of his friend, whose character well suited that of the Pythagorean Timaeus of Locri Epizephyrii.1
The various chapters in this volume have shown how ubiquitous is the appeal to nature in writings about language in the first century BCE; several of them have explored further the place of linguistic naturalism in the overall structure of the philosophies, notably Stoicism, on which that naturalism was based. At the same time, however, even a rapid survey of the volume shows equally clearly not only how inconsistent the various claims about the relationship between nature and language are among one another – scarcely surprising, since they derive from widely divergent philosophical systems – but also how inconsistent the most important surviving text, Varro’s De lingua Latina, is in itself. Does naturalism have any meaning? Or rather, does ‘nature’ have any meaning? And what good is an appeal to nature if that nature is in itself as uncertain and unintelligible as it often seems to be?
How did the ancient Greeks and Romans conceptualise order? This book answers that question by analysing the formative concept of kosmos ('order', 'arrangement', 'ornament') in ancient literature, philosophy, science, art, and religion. This concept encouraged the Greeks and Romans to develop theories to explain core aspects of human life, including nature, beauty, society, politics, the individual, and what lies beyond human experience. Hence, Greek kosmos, and its Latin correlate mundus, are subjects of profound reflection by a wide range of important ancient figures, including philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles, the Pythagoreans, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus), poets and playwrights (Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Marcus Argentarius, Nonnus), intellectuals (Gorgias, Protagoras, Varro), and religious exegetes (Philo, the Gospel Writers, Paul). By revealing kosmos in its many ancient manifestations, this book asks us to rethink our own sense of 'order', and to reflect on our place within a broader cosmic history.