The presence of self-quotations from Cicero's Aratea and Prognostica in the De natura deorum (2.104–14 and 159) and the De diuinatione (1.13–15) is a topic to which recent critics have given ample discussion,Footnote 1 examining the origin of this citational practice, strategies for achieving self-canonization, and the narrative techniques employed by Cicero to craft these two dialogues and to shape the ‘second wave’ of his poetic reception—the first being, of course, Lucretius’ De rerum natura.Footnote 2 The purpose of this note is to contribute new evidence to this broader picture and to pinpoint a hitherto-undiscovered allusion to a passage from Aratus’ Phaenomena which has no correspondence in Cicero's extant fragments:Footnote 3 the myth of Dike.Footnote 4
While discussing the existence of divination, the character of Quintus uses the following words to shift from the ‘technical’ divination to the ‘natural’ (Diu. 1.79):Footnote 5
quid igitur expectamus? an dum in foro nobiscum di immortales, dum in uiis uersentur, dum domi? qui quidem ipsi se nobis non offerunt, uim autem suam longe lateque diffundunt, quam tum terrae cauernis includunt, tum hominum naturis implicant. nam terrae uis Pythiam Delphis incitabat, naturae Sibyllam.
What do we expect? For the immortal gods to walk with us in the forum, in the streets, in our homes? Though they do not overtly manifest themselves to us, they spread their power far and wide: they now enclose it in the hollows of the earth, now shroud the nature of human beings with it. Indeed, the Pythia at Delphi was stirred up by the power of the earth, the Sibyl by that of her own nature.
In this passage, the divine inspiration of the Greek Pythia and of the Roman Sibyl is explained according to a conception similar to the Stoic theory of pneuma pervading the universe.Footnote 6 The sentence introducing the gods and their physical absence from human life deserves special attention since it contains a ‘negative’ reference to the theme of theoxeny, that is, the cohabitation of gods and men notably during the Golden Age:Footnote 7 to quote just one poetic example chronologically close to Cicero's treatise, see Catull. 64.384–6 praesentes namque ante domos inuisere castas | heroum, et sese mortali ostendere coetu, | caelicolae nondum spreta pietate solebant (‘in previous times, when holy devotion was not yet despised, sky-dwellers were keen on visiting regularly the heroes’ pure abodes and showing themselves amidst mortal banquets’),Footnote 8 a passage which bears close thematic affinities with Cicero's qui … ipsi se nobis non offerunt. In addition to this passage, however, Cicero shows a striking connection with the Aratean tale of Dike (Arat. 100–7):
There is, however, another tale current among men, that once she actually lived on earth, and came face to face with men, and did not ever spurn the tribes of ancient men and women, but sat in their midst although she was immortal. And they called her Justice: gathering together the elders, either in the market-place or on the broad highway, she urged them in prophetic tones to judgements for the good of the people.
The description of the Golden Age is characterized by the ubiquitous presence of the goddess Dike, who, despite her immortal status (line 104), did not restrain from being in contact with mankind (lines 102–3) and drove them to justice in the assembly (lines 105–7). The strong verbal similarities between Aratus and Cicero make it likely that Cicero was rephrasing some expressions from Aratus’ passage while adapting it in a broader sense, that is, from Dike to all the gods. Cicero is even reproducing the very sequence of his model: first of all, he mentions the gods’ immortality (di immortales ~ ἀθανάτη περ ἐοῦσα); the same places where they do not manifest (dum in foro … dum in uiis uersentur ~ ἠέ που εἰν ἀγορῇ ἢ εὐρυχόρῳ ἐν ἀγυιῇ, reversing Aratus but maintaining a similar correlative structure);Footnote 9 then their public activities (in foro nobiscum di immortales … uersentur Footnote 10 ~ δημοτέρας ἤειδεν … θέμιστας); finally, the same face-to-face contact between men and gods (se nobis non offerunt ~ ἤρχετο δ’ ἀνθρώπων κατεναντίη).
So much for the description of what gods do not do. When describing the ‘positive’ actions performed by the gods (uim autem … implicant), Quintus’ words seem to take their departure from Aratus and follow instead the Stoic doctrine on pneuma. It is possible, however, that the depiction of the gods’ pervasive power can be considered as a further reference to Aratus (1–5):
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we men never leave unspoken. Filled with Zeus are all highways and all meeting-places of people, filled are the sea and harbours; in all circumstances we are all dependent on Zeus. For we are also his children …
This passage has a strong intratextual connection with the myth of Dike owing to the ‘spatial’ connotation of the benevolence of Jupiter and Dike: lines 2–3 and 106, in fact, offer the sole occurrences of the words ἀγυιά and ἀγορά in Aratus. It is not implausible, then, to suggest that this connection had already been appreciated by Cicero himself while crafting his passage of the De Diuinatione. In this second case, the parallels between the Greek text and the Latin passage are more thematic: the extension of the power of the gods in Quintus’ words (uim autem suam longe lateque diffundunt) matches the adverb πάντη in Aratus (line 4), while the idea of the gods shrouding human natures with their power (tum hominum naturis implicant) can be seen as a response to Aratus’ strong affirmation τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν. What is more, even the phrase quam tum terrae cauernis includunt may hint at an ‘Aratean’ expression: the expression terrae cauernae (‘the hollows of the earth’) points to a chthonic environment,Footnote 11 but at the same time is the antonym of the metaphor caeli cauernae (‘the upwards cavities of the sky’), already employed by Cic. Arat. 252 dicitur [sc. orbis Lacteus] … late caeli lustrare cauernas (‘the Milky Way is said to traverse the caves of the sky’).Footnote 12
This analysis aims to show that the character of Quintus should be credited not only with a double allusion to the most striking Aratean passages that encapsulate the Stoic divine logos pervading the universe (interpreted by him as Chrysippus’ pneuma:Footnote 13 Aët. 1.7.33 = SVF 2.1027 = 46A L.–S.) but also with an allegorical reading of the myth of Dike (Dike was not a goddess, rather it was the Stoic logos itself).Footnote 14 To convince his brother of the reliability of divination, he uses the same Stoic theology that Marcus was inclined to prefer at the very end of the De natura deorum (3.95 haec cum essent dicta, ita discessimus ut Velleio Cottae disputatio uerior, mihi Balbi ad ueritatis similitudinem uideretur esse propensior ‘Once all those arguments were made, we took our way home: Velleius thought that Cotta's arguments corresponded better to the truth, but to me the arguments of Balbus seemed to be closer to verisimilitude’). This point will in turn be refuted by Cicero in the second book of the De Diuinatione, where he argues that ‘We can easily get rid of divination, but it is necessary to retain the existence of gods’ (2.41 diuinatio enim perspicue tollitur; deos esse retinendum est). If read against Diu. 1.79, this last passage clearly represents an attempt to negotiate between a Stoic (and Aratean) authority and the Academic sceptical attitude towards the issue at stake in the treatise.Footnote 15
I conclude with a remark on a matter of editorial technique. I would not dare to say that we ought to attempt a reconstruction of Cicero's Latin translation of Aratus from the words uttered by Quintus, but this passage deserves to be mentioned in the discussion of how ubiquitous Aratus is in Cicero's works, from his early poems to his late philosophical treatises.
Open access
