---
type: article
status: Published
slug: "cicero-fato"
title: "On Fate"
author: "Marcus Tullius Cicero"
tradition: "roman"
language: "la"
genre: "philosophical treatise"
period: "44 BCE"
source_url: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi054/phi0474.phi054.perseus-lat2.xml"
certainty: observed
source: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi054/phi0474.phi054.perseus-lat2.xml"
---
# On Fate

## Original

### Chapter 1

[1]
[…] quia pertinet ad mores, quod ἦθος illi vocant, nos eam partem philosophiae de moribus appellare solemus, sed decet augentem linguam Latinam nominare moralem; explicandaque vis est ratioque enuntiationum, quae Graeci ἀξιώματα vocant; quae de re futura cum aliquid dicunt deque eo, quod possit fieri aut non possit, quam vim habeant, obscura quaestio est, quam περὶ δυνατῶν philosophi appellant, totaque est λογική, quam rationem disserendi voco. Quod autem in aliis libris feci, qui sunt de natura deorum, itemque in iis, quos de divinatione edidi, ut in utramque partem perpetua explicaretur oratio, quo facilius id a quoque probaretur, quod cuique maxime probabile videretur, id in hac disputatione de fato casus quidam ne facerem inpedivit.

[2]
Nam cum essem in Puteolano Hirtiusque noster, consul designatus, isdem in locis, vir nobis amicissimus et his studiis, in quibus nos a pueritia viximus, deditus, multum una eramus, maxime nos quidem exquirentes ea consilia, quae ad pacem et ad concordiam civium pertinerent. Cum enim omnes post interitum Caesaris novarum perturbationum causae quaeri viderentur iisque esse occurrendum putaremus, omnis fere nostra in his deliberationibus consumebatur oratio, idque et saepe alias et quodam liberiore, quam solebat, et magis vacuo ab interventoribus die, cum ad me ille venisset, primo ea, quae erant cotidiana et quasi legitima nobis, de pace et de otio.

### Chapter 2

[3]
Quibus actis Quid ergo? inquit ille, quoniam oratorias exercitationes non tu quidem, ut spero, reliquisti, sed certe philosophiam illis anteposuisti, possumne aliquid audire? Tu vero, inquam, vel audire vel dicere; nec enim, id quod recte existimas, oratoria illa studia deserui, quibus etiam te incendi, quamquam flagrantissumum acceperam, nec ea, quae nunc tracto, minuunt, sed augent potius illam facultatem. Nam cum hoc genere philosophiae, quod nos sequimur, magnam habet orator societatem; subtilitatem enim ab Academia mutuatur et ei vicissim reddit ubertatem orationis et ornamenta dicendi. Quam ob rem, inquam, quoniam utriusque studii nostra possessio est, hodie, utro frui malis, optio sit tua. Tum Hirtius: Gratissumum, inquit, et tuorum omnium simile; nihil enim umquam abnuit meo studio voluntas tua.

[4]
Sed quoniam rhetorica mihi vestra sunt nota teque in iis et audivimus saepe et audiemus atque hanc Academicorum contra propositum disputandi consuetudinem indicant te suscepisse Tusculanae disputationes, ponere aliquid, ad quod audiam, si tibi non est molestum, volo. An mihi, inquam, potest quicquam esse molestum, quod tibi gratum futurum sit? Sed ita audies, ut Romanum hominem, ut timide ingredientem ad hoc genus disputandi, ut longo intervallo haec studia repetentem. Ita, inquit, audiam te disputantem, ut ea lego, quae scripsisti. Proinde ordire. Considamus hic.

### Chapter 3

[5]
[…] quorum in aliis, ut in Antipatro poëta, ut in brumali die natis, ut in simul aegrotantibus fratribus, ut in urina, ut in unguibus, ut in reliquis eius modi, naturae contagio valet, quam ego non tollo, vis est nulla fatalis; in aliis autem fortuita quaedam esse possunt, ut in illo naufrago, ut in Icadio, ut in Daphita; quaedam etiam Posidonius (pace magistri dixerim) comminisci videtur; sunt quidem absurda. Quid enim? si Daphitae fatum fuit ex equo cadere atque ita perire, ex hocne equo, qui cum equus non esset, nomen habebat alienum? aut Philippus hasne in capulo quadrigulas vitare monebatur? quasi vero capulo sit occisus. Quid autem magnum aut naufragum illum sine nomine in rivo esse lapsum? (quamquam huic quidem hic scribit praedictum in aqua esse pereundum); ne hercule Icadii quidem praedonis video fatum ullum;

[6]
nihil enim scribit ei praedictum. Quid mirum igitur ex spelunca saxum in crura eius incidisse? puto enim, etiamsi Icadius tum in spelunca non fuisset, saxum tamen illud casurum fuisse. Nam aut nihil omnino est fortuitum, aut hoc ipsum potuit evenire fortuna. Quaero igitur (atque hoc late patebit), si fati omnino nullum nomen, nulla natura, nulla vis esset et forte temere casu aut pleraque fierent aut omnia, num aliter, ac nunc eveniunt, evenirent. Quid ergo adtinet inculcare fatum, cum sine fato ratio omnium rerum ad naturam fortunamve referatur?

### Chapter 4

[7]
Sed Posidonium, sicut aequum est, cum bona gratia dimittamus, ad Chrysippi laqueos revertamur. Cui quidem primum de ipsa contagione rerum respondeamus, reliqua postea persequemur. Inter locorum naturas quantum intersit, videmus; alios esse salubris, alios pestilentis, in aliis esse pituitosos et quasi redundantis, in aliis exsiccatos atque aridos; multaque sunt alia, quae inter locum et locum plurimum differant. Athenis tenue caelum, ex quo etiam acutiores putantur Attici, crassum Thebis, itaque pingues Thebani et valentes. Tamen neque illud tenue caelum efficiet, ut aut Zenonem quis aut Arcesilam aut Theophrastum audiat, neque crassum, ut Nemea potius quam Isthmo victoriam petat. Diiunge longius.

[8]
Quid enim loci natura adferre potest, ut in porticu Pompeii potius quam in campo ambulemus? tecum quam cum alio? Idibus potius quam Kalendis? Ut igitur ad quasdam res natura loci pertinet aliquid, ad quasdam autem nihil, sic astrorum adfectio valeat, si vis, ad quasdam res, ad omnis certe non valebit. At enim, quoniam in naturis hominum dissimilitudines sunt, ut alios dulcia, alios subamara delectent, alii libidinosi, alii iracundi aut crudeles aut superbi sint, alii a talibus vitiis abhorreant,—quoniam igitur, inquit, tantum natura a natura distat, quid mirum est has dissimilitudines ex differentibus causis esse factas?

### Chapter 5

[9]
Haec disserens, qua de re agatur, et in quo causa consistat, non videt. Non enim, si alii ad alia propensiores sunt propter causas naturalis et antecedentis, idcirco etiam nostrarum voluntatum atque adpetitionum sunt causae naturales et antecedentes. Nam nihil esset in nostra potestate, si ita se res haberet. Nunc vero fatemur, acuti hebetesne, valentes inbecilline simus, non esse id in nobis. Qui autem ex eo cogi putat, ne ut sedeamus quidem aut ambulemus voluntatis esse, is non videt, quae quamque rem res consequatur. Ut enim et ingeniosi et tardi ita nascantur antecedentibus causis itemque valentes et inbecilli, non sequitur tamen, ut etiam sedere eos et ambulare et rem agere aliquam principalibus causis definitum et constitutum sit.

[10]
Stilponem, Megaricum philosophum, acutum sane hominem et probatum temporibus illis accepimus. Hunc scribunt ipsius familiares et ebriosum et mulierosum fuisse, neque haec scribunt vituperantes, sed potius ad laudem; vitiosam enim naturam ab eo sic edomitam et conpressam esse doctrina, ut nemo umquam vinulentum illum, nemo in eo libidinis vestigium viderit. Quid? Socraten nonne legimus quem ad modum notarit Zopyrus physiognomon, qui se profitebatur hominum mores naturasque ex corpore, oculis, vultu, fronte pernoscere? stupidum esse Socraten dixit et bardum, quod iugula concava non haberet, obstructas eas partes et obturatas esse dicebat; addidit etiam mulierosum; in quo Alcibiades cachinnum dicitur sustulisse.

### Chapter 6

[11]
Sed haec ex naturalibus causis vitia nasci possunt, extirpari autem et funditus tolli, ut is ipse, qui ad ea propensus fuerit, a tantis vitiis avocetur, non est id positum in naturalibus causis, sed in voluntate, studio, disciplina. Quae tolluntur omnia, si vis et natura fati ex divinationis ratione firmabitur.

Etenim si est divinatio, qualibusnam a perceptis artis proficiscitur? (percepta appello, quae dicuntur Graece θεωρήματα). Non enim credo nullo percepto aut ceteros artifices versari in suo munere, aut eos, qui divinatione utantur, futura praedicere.

[12]
Sint igitur astrologorum percepta huius modi: “Si quis verbi causa oriente Canicula natus est, is in mari non morietur.” Vigila, Chrysippe, ne tuam causam, in qua tibi cum Diodoro, valente dialectico, magna luctatio est, deseras. Si enim est verum, quod ita conectitur: “Si quis oriente Canicula natus est, in mari non morietur”, illud quoque verum est: “Si Fabius oriente Canicula natus est, Fabius in mari non morietur.” Pugnant igitur haec inter se, Fabium oriente Canicula natum esse, et Fabium in mari moriturum; et quoniam certum in Fabio ponitur, natum esse eum Canicula oriente, haec quoque pugnant, et esse Fabium, et in mari esse moriturum. Ergo haec quoque coniunctio est ex repugnantibus: “Et est Fabius, et in mari Fabius morietur”, quod, ut propositum est, ne fieri quidem potest. Ergo illud: “Morietur in mari Fabius” ex eo genere est, quod fieri non potest. Omne ergo, quod falsum dicitur in futuro, id fieri non potest.

### Chapter 7

[13]
At hoc, Chrysippe, minime vis, maximeque tibi de hoc ipso cum Diodoro certamen est. Ille enim id solum fieri posse dicit, quod aut sit verum aut futurum sit verum, et, quicquid futurum sit, id dicit fieri necesse esse et, quicquid non sit futurum, id negat fieri posse. Tu, et quae non sint futura, posse fieri dicis, ut frangi hanc gemmam, etiamsi id numquam futurum sit, neque necesse fuisse Cypselum regnare Corinthi, quamquam id millensimo ante anno Apollinis oraculo editum esset. At si ista conprobabis divina praedicta, et, quae falsa in futuris dicentur, in iis habebis, ut ea fieri non possint [ut si dicatur Africanum Karthagine potiturum], et, si vere dicatur de futuro, idque ita futurum sit, dicas esse necessarium; quae est tota Diodori vobis inimica sententia.

[14]
Etenim si illud vere conectitur: “Si oriente Canicula natus es, in mari non moriere”, primumque quod est in conexo: “Natus es oriente Canicula”, necessarium est (omnia enim vera in praeteritis necessaria sunt, ut Chrysippo placet dissentienti a magistro Cleanthe, quia sunt inmutabilia nec in falsum e vero praeterita possunt convertere); si igitur, quod primum in conexo est, necessarium est, fit etiam, quod consequitur, necessarium. Quamquam hoc Chrysippo non videtur valere in omnibus; sed tamen, si naturalis est causa, cur in mari Fabius non moriatur, in mari Fabius mori non potest.

### Chapter 8

[15]
Hoc loco Chrysippus aestuans falli sperat Chaldaeos ceterosque divinos, neque eos usuros esse coniunctionibus, ut ita sua percepta pronuntient: “Si quis natus est oriente Canicula, is in mari non morietur”, sed potius ita dicant: “Non et natus est quis oriente Canicula, et is in mari morietur.” O licentiam iocularem! ne ipse incidat in Diodorum, docet Chaldaeos, quo pacto eos exponere percepta oporteat. Quaero enim, si Chaldaei ita loquantur, ut negationes infinitarum coniunctionum potius quam infinita conexa ponant, cur idem medici, cur geometrae, cur reliqui facere non possint. Medicus in primis, quod erit ei perspectum in arte, non ita proponet: “Si cui venae sic moventur, is habet febrim”, sed potius illo modo: “Non et venae sic ⟨cui⟩ moventur, et is febrim non habet.” Itemque geometres non ita dicet: “In sphaera maximi orbes medii inter se dividuntur”, sed potius illo modo: “Non et sunt in sphaera maximi orbes, et ii non medii inter se dividuntur.”

[16]
Quid est, quod non possit isto modo ex conexo transferri ad coniunctionum negationem? Et quidem aliis modis easdem res efferre possumus. Modo dixi: “In sphaera maximi orbes medii inter se dividuntur”; possum dicere: “Si in sphaera maximi orbes erunt”, possum dicere: “Quia in sphaera maximi orbes erunt”. Multa genera sunt enuntiandi nec ullum distortius quam hoc, quo Chrysippus sperat Chaldaeos contentos Stoicorum causa fore.

### Chapter 9

[17]
Illorum tamen nemo ita loquitur; maius est enim has contortiones orationis quam signorum ortus obitusque perdiscere. Sed ad illam Diodori contentionem, quam περὶ δυνατῶν appellant, revertamur, in qua, quid valeat id, quod fieri possit, anquiritur. Placet igitur Diodoro id solum fieri posse, quod aut verum sit aut verum futurum sit. Qui locus attingit hanc quaestionem, nihil fieri, quod non necesse fuerit, et, quicquid fieri possit, id aut esse iam aut futurum esse, nec magis commutari ex veris in falsa posse ea, quae futura, quam ea, quae facta sunt; sed in factis inmutabilitatem apparere, in futuris quibusdam, quia non apparet, ne inesse quidem videri, ut in eo, qui mortifero morbo urgeatur, verum sit “Hic morietur hoc morbo”, at hoc idem si vere dicatur in eo, in quo vis morbi tanta non appareat, nihilo minus futurum sit. Ita fit, ut commutatio ex vero in falsum ne in futuro quidem ulla fieri possit. Nam “Morietur Scipio” talem vim habet, ut, quamquam de futuro dicitur, tamen ut id non possit convertere in falsum; de homine enim dicitur, cui necesse est mori.

[18]
Sic si diceretur: “Morietur noctu in cubiculo suo vi oppressus Scipio”, vere diceretur; id enim fore diceretur, quod esset futurum; futurum autem fuisse ex eo, quia factum est, intellegi debet. Nec magis erat verum “Morietur Scipio” quam “Morietur illo modo”, nec magis necesse mori Scipioni quam illo modo mori, nec magis inmutabile ex vero in falsum “Necatus est Scipio” quam “Necabitur Scipio”; nec, cum haec ita sint, est causa, cur Epicurus fatum extimescat et ab atomis petat praesidium easque de via deducat et uno tempore suscipiat res duas inenodabiles, unam, ut sine causa fiat aliquid, ex quo existet, ut de nihilo quippiam fiat, quod nec ipsi nec cuiquam physico placet, alteram, ut, cum duo individua per inanitatem ferantur, alterum e regione moveatur, alterum declinet.

[19]
Licet enim Epicuro concedenti omne enuntiatum aut verum aut falsum esse non vereri, ne omnia fato fieri sit necesse; non enim aeternis causis naturae necessitate manantibus verum est id, quod ita enuntiatur: “Descendit in Academiam Carneades”, nec tamen sine causis, sed interest inter causas fortuito antegressas et inter causas cohibentis in se efficientiam naturalem. Ita et semper verum fuit “Morietur Epicurus, cum duo et septuaginta annos vixerit, archonte Pytharato”, neque tamen erant causae fatales, cur ita accideret, sed, quod ita cecidit, ⟨serie⟩ certa causarum casurum, sicut cecidit, fuit.

### Chapter 10

[20]
Nec ii, qui dicunt inmutabilia esse, quae futura sint, nec posse verum futurum convertere in falsum, fati necessitatem confirmant, sed verborum vim interpretantur. At qui introducunt causarum seriem sempiternam, ii mentem hominis voluntate libera spoliatam necessitate fati devinciunt.

Sed haec hactenus; alia videamus. Concludit enim Chrysippus hoc modo: Si est motus sine causa, non omnis enuntiatio, quod a)ci/wma dialectici appellant, aut vera aut falsa erit; causas enim efficientis quod non habebit, id nec verum nec falsum erit; omnis autem enuntiatio aut vera aut falsa est; motus ergo sine causa nullus est. Quod si ita est, omnia, quae fiunt, causis fiunt antegressis; id si ita est, fato omnia fiunt; efficitur igitur fato fieri, quaecumque fiant.

[21]
Hic primum si mihi libeat adsentiri Epicuro et negare omnem enuntiationem aut veram esse aut falsam, eam plagam potius accipiam quam fato omnia fieri conprobem; illa enim sententia habet aliquid disputationis, haec vero non est tolerabilis. Itaque contendit omnis nervos Chrysippus, ut persuadeat omne ἀξίωμα aut verum esse aut falsum. Ut enim Epicurus veretur, ne, si hoc concesserit, concedendum sit fato fieri, quaecumque fiant, (si enim alterum utrum ex aeternitate verum sit, esse id etiam certum et, si certum, etiam necessarium; ita et necessitatem et fatum confirmari putat) sic Chrysippus metuit, ne, si non obtinuerit omne, quod enuntietur, aut verum esse aut falsum, non teneat omnia fato fieri et ex causis aeternis rerum futurarum.

[22]
Sed Epicurus declinatione atomi vitari necessitatem fati putat. Itaque tertius quidam motus oritur extra pondus et plagam, cum declinat atomus intervallo minimo (id appellat ἐλάχιστον); quam declinationem sine causa fieri si minus verbis, re cogitur confiteri. Non enim atomus ab atomo pulsa declinat. Nam qui potest pelli alia ab alia, si gravitate feruntur ad perpendiculum corpora individua rectis lineis, ut Epicuro placet? Sequitur enim, ut, si alia ab alia numquam depellatur, ne contingat quidem alia aliam. Ex quo efficitur, etiamsi sit atomus eaque declinet, declinare sine causa.

### Chapter 11

[23]
Hanc Epicurus rationem induxit ob eam rem, quod veritus est, ne, si semper atomus gravitate ferretur naturali ac necessaria, nihil liberum nobis esset, cum ita moveretur animus, ut atomorum motu cogeretur. Id Democritus, auctor atomorum, accipere maluit, necessitate omnia fieri, quam a corporibus individuis naturalis motus avellere. Acutius Carneades, qui docebat posse Epicureos suam causam sine hac commenticia declinatione defendere. Nam cum docerent esse posse quendam animi motum voluntarium, id fuit defendi melius quam introducere declinationem, cuius praesertim causam reperire non possent; quo defenso facile Chrysippo possent resistere. Cum enim concessissent motum nullum esse sine causa, non concederent omnia, quae fierent, fieri causis antecedentibus; voluntatis enim nostrae non esse causas externas et antecedentis.

[24]
Communi igitur consuetudine sermonis abutimur, cum ita dicimus, velle aliquid quempiam aut nolle sine causa; ita enim dicimus “sine causa”, ut dicamus: sine externa et antecedente causa, non sine aliqua; ut, cum vas inane dicimus, non ita loquimur, ut physici, quibus inane esse nihil placet, sed ita, ut verbi causa sine aqua, sine vino, sine oleo vas esse dicamus, sic, cum sine causa animum dicimus moveri, sine antecedente et externa causa moveri, non omnino sine causa dicimus. De ipsa atomo dici potest, cum per inane moveatur gravitate et pondere, sine causa moveri, quia nulla causa accedat extrinsecus.

[25]
Rursus autem, ne omnes physici inrideant nos, si dicamus quicquam fieri sine causa, distinguendum est et ita dicendum, ipsius individui hanc esse naturam, ut pondere et gravitate moveatur, eamque ipsam esse causam, cur ita feratur. Similiter ad animorum motus voluntarios non est requirenda externa causa; motus enim voluntarius eam naturam in se ipse continet, ut sit in nostra potestate nobisque pareat, nec id sine causa; eius rei enim causa ipsa natura est.

### Chapter 12

[26]
Quod cum ita sit, quid est, cur non omnis pronuntiatio aut vera aut falsa sit, nisi concesserimus fato fieri, quaecumque fiant? Quia futura vera, inquit, non possunt esse ea, quae causas, cur futura sint, non habent; habeant igitur causas necesse est ea, quae vera sunt; ita, cum evenerint, fato evenerint. Confectum negotium, siquidem concedendum tibi est aut fato omnia fieri, aut quicquam fieri posse sine causa.

[27]
An aliter haec enuntiatio vera esse non potest: “Capiet Numantiam Scipio”, nisi ex aeternitate causa causam serens hoc erit effectura? An hoc falsum potuisset esse, si esset sescentis saeculis ante dictum? Et si tum non esset vera haec enuntiatio: “Capiet Numantiam Scipio”, ne illa quidem eversa vera est haec enuntiatio: “Cepit Numantiam Scipio.” Potest igitur quicquam factum esse, quod non verum fuerit futurum esse? Nam ut praeterita ea vera dicimus, quorum superiore tempore vera fuerit instantia, sic futura, quorum consequenti tempore vera erit instantia, ea vera dicemus.

[28]
Nec, si omne enuntiatum aut verum aut falsum est, sequitur ilico esse causas inmutabilis, easque aeternas, quae prohibeant quicquam secus cadere, atque casurum sit; fortuitae sunt causae, quae efficiant, ut vere dicantur, quae ita dicentur: “Veniet in senatum Cato”, non inclusae in rerum natura atque mundo; et tamen tam est inmutabile venturum, cum est verum, quam venisse, nec ob eam causam fatum aut necessitas extimescenda est. Etenim erit confiteri necesse: “Si hoc enuntiatum: “Veniet in Tusculanum Hortensius” verum non est, sequitur, ut falsum sit.” Quorum isti neutrum volunt; quod fieri non potest.

Nec nos impediet illa ignava ratio, quae dicitur; appellatur enim quidam a philosophis ἀργὸς λόγος, cui si pareamus, nihil omnino agamus in vita.

### Chapter 13

[29]
Sic enim interrogant: “Si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo convalescere, sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, convalesces; item, si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo non convalescere, sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, non convalesces; et alterutrum fatum est; medicum ergo adhibere nihil attinet.” Recte genus hoc interrogationis ignavum atque iners nominatum est, quod eadem ratione omnis e vita tolletur actio. Licet etiam inmutare, ut fati nomen ne adiungas et eandem tamen teneas sententiam, hoc modo: “Si ex aeternitate verum hoc fuit: “Ex isto morbo convalesces”, sive adhibueris medicum sive non adhibueris, convalesces; itemque, si ex aeternitate falsum hoc fuit: “Ex isto morbo convalesces”, sive adhibueris medicum sive non adhibueris, non convalesces”; deinde cetera. Haec ratio a Chrysippo reprehenditur.

[30]
Quaedam enim sunt, inquit, in rebus simplicia, quaedam copulata; simplex est: “Morietur illo die Socrates”; huic, sive quid fecerit sive non fecerit, finitus est moriendi dies. At si ita fatum erit: “Nascetur Oedipus Laio”, non poterit dici: “sive fuerit Laius cum muliere sive non fuerit”; copulata enim res est et confatalis; sic enim appellat, quia ita fatum sit et concubiturum cum uxore Laium et ex ea Oedipum procreaturum, ut, si esset dictum: “Luctabitur Olympiis Milo” et referret aliquis: “Ergo, sive habuerit adversarium sive non habuerit, luctabitur”, erraret; est enim copulatum “luctabitur”, quia sine adversario nulla luctatio est. Omnes igitur istius generis captiones eodem modo refelluntur. “Sive tu adhibueris medicum sive non adhibueris, convalesces” captiosum; tam enim est fatale medicum adhibere quam convalescere. Haec, ut dixi, confatalia ille appellat.

### Chapter 14

[31]
Carneades genus hoc totum non probabat et nimis inconsiderate concludi hanc rationem putabat. Itaque premebat alio modo nec ullam adhibebat calumniam; cuius erat haec conclusio: Si omnia antecedentibus causis fiunt, omnia naturali conligatione conserte contexteque fiunt; quod si ita est, omnia necessitas efficit; id si verum est, nihil est in nostra potestate; est autem aliquid in nostra potestate; at, si omnia fato fiunt, omnia causis antecedentibus fiunt; non igitur fato fiunt, quaecumque fiunt.

[32]
Hoc artius adstringi ratio non potest. Nam si quis velit idem referre atque ita dicere: “Si omne futurum ex aeternitate verum est, ut ita certe eveniat, quem ad modum sit futurum, omnia necesse est conligatione naturali conserte contexteque fieri”, nihil dicat. Multum enim differt, utrum causa naturalis ex aeternitate futura vera efficiat, an etiam sine aeternitate naturali, futura quae sint, ea vera esse possint intellegi. Itaque dicebat Carneades ne Apollinem quidem futura posse dicere nisi ea, quorum causas natura ita contineret, ut ea fieri necesse esset.

### Chapter 15

[33]
Quid enim spectans deus ipse diceret Marcellum eum, qui ter consul fuit, in mari esse periturum? Erat hoc quidem verum ex aeternitate, sed causas id efficientis non habebat. Ita ne praeterita quidem ea, quorum nulla signa tamquam vestigia extarent, Apollini nota esse censebat; quo minus futura! causis enim efficientibus quamque rem cognitis posse denique sciri, quid futurum esset. Ergo nec de Oedipode potuisse Apollinem praedicere nullis in rerum natura causis praepositis, cur ab eo patrem interfici necesse esset, nec quicquam eius modi. Quocirca, si Stoicis, qui omnia fato fieri dicunt, consentaneum est huius modi oracla ceteraque, quae a divinatione ducuntur, conprobare, iis autem, qui, quae futura sunt, ea vera esse ex aeternitate dicunt, non idem dicendum est, vide, ne non eadem sit illorum causa et Stoicorum; hi enim urguentur angustius, illorum ratio soluta ac libera est.

[34]
Quodsi concedatur nihil posse evenire nisi causa antecedente, quid proficiatur, si ea causa non ex aeternis causis apta dicatur? Causa autem ea est, quae id efficit, cuius est causa, ut vulnus mortis, cruditas morbi, ignis ardoris. Itaque non sic causa intellegi debet, ut, quod cuique antecedat, id ei causa sit, sed quod cuique efficienter antecedat, nec, quod in campum descenderim, id fuisse causae, cur pila luderem, nec Hecubam causam interitus fuisse Troianis, quod Alexandrum genuerit, nec Tyndareum Agamemnoni, quod Clytaemnestram. Hoc enim modo viator quoque bene vestitus causa grassatori fuisse dicetur, cur ab eo spoliaretur.

[35]
Ex hoc genere illud est Ennii:
Utinám ne in nemore Pélio secúribus
Caesae áccidissent ábiegnae ad terrám trabes!
Licuit vel altius: “Utinam ne in Pelio nata ulla umquam esset arbor!” etiam supra: “Utinam ne esset mons ullus Pelius!” similiterque superiora repetentem regredi infinite licet.
Neve índe navis ínchoandi exórdium
Coepísset.
Quorsum haec praeterita? Quia sequitur illud:
Nam númquam era errans méa domo ecferrét pedem,
Medéa, animo aegra, amóre saevo saúcia,
†non ut eae res causam adferrent amoris.

### Chapter 16

[36]
Interesse autem aiunt, utrum eius modi quid sit, sine quo effici aliquid non possit, an eius modi, cum quo effici aliquid necesse sit. Nulla igitur earum est causa, quoniam nulla eam rem sua vi efficit, cuius causa dicitur; nec id, sine quo quippiam non fit, causa est, sed id, quod cum accessit, id, cuius est causa, efficit necessario. Nondum enim ulcerato serpentis morsu Philocteta quae causa in rerum natura continebatur, fore ut is in insula Lemno linqueretur? post autem causa fuit propior et cum exitu iunctior.

[37]
Ratio igitur eventus aperit causam. Sed ex aeternitate vera fuit haec enuntiatio: “Relinquetur in insula Philoctetes”, nec hoc ex vero in falsum poterat convertere. Necesse est enim in rebus contrariis duabus (contraria autem hoc loco ea dico, quorum alterum ait quid, alterum negat), ex iis igitur necesse est invito Epicuro alterum verum esse, alterum falsum, ut “Sauciabitur Philocteta” omnibus ante saeculis verum fuit, “Non sauciabitur” falsum; nisi forte volumus Epicureorum opinionem sequi, qui tales enuntiationes nec veras nec falsas esse dicunt aut, cum id pudet, illud tamen dicunt, quod est inpudentius, veras esse ex contrariis diiunctiones, sed, quae in his enuntiata essent, eorum neutrum esse verum.

[38]
O admirabilem licentiam et miserabilem inscientiam disserendi! Si enim aliquid in eloquendo nec verum nec falsum est, certe id verum non est; quod autem verum non est, qui potest non falsum esse? aut, quod falsum non est, qui potest non verum esse? tenebitur ⟨igitur⟩ id, quod a Chrysippo defenditur, omnem enuntiationem aut veram aut falsam esse; ratio ipsa coget et ex aeternitate quaedam esse vera, et ea non esse nexa causis aeternis et a fati necessitate esse libera.

### Chapter 17

[39]
Ac mihi quidem videtur, cum duae sententiae fuissent veterum philosophorum, una eorum, qui censerent omnia ita fato fieri, ut id fatum vim necessitatis adferret, in qua sententia Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristoteles fuit, altera eorum, quibus viderentur sine ullo fato esse animorum motus voluntarii, Chrysippus tamquam arbiter honorarius medium ferire voluisse, sed adplicat se ad eos potius, qui necessitate motus animorum liberatos volunt; dum autem verbis utitur suis, delabitur in eas difficultates, ut necessitatem fati confirmet invitus.

[40]
Atque hoc, si placet, quale sit videamus in adsensionibus, quas prima oratione tractavi. Eas enim veteres illi, quibus omnia fato fieri videbantur, vi effici et necessitate dicebant. Qui autem ab iis dissentiebant, fato adsensiones liberabant negabantque fato adsensionibus adhibito necessitatem ab his posse removeri, iique ita disserebant: Si omnia fato fiunt, omnia fiunt causa antecedente, et, si adpetitus, illa etiam, quae adpetitum sequuntur, ergo etiam adsensiones; at, si causa adpetitus non est sita in nobis, ne ipse quidem adpetitus est in nostra potestate; quod si ita est, ne illa quidem, quae adpetitu efficiuntur, sunt sita in nobis; non sunt igitur neque adsensiones neque actiones in nostra potestate. Ex quo efficitur, ut nec laudationes iustae sint nec vituperationes nec honores nec supplicia. Quod cum vitiosum sit, probabiliter concludi putant non omnia fato fieri, quaecumque fiant.

### Chapter 18

[41]
Chrysippus autem cum et necessitatem inprobaret et nihil vellet sine praepositis causis evenire, causarum genera distinguit, ut et necessitatem effugiat et retineat fatum. Causarum enim, inquit, aliae sunt perfectae et principales, aliae adiuvantes et proximae. Quam ob rem, cum dicimus omnia fato fieri causis antecedentibus, non hoc intellegi volumus: causis perfectis et principalibus, sed causis adiuvantibus [antecedentibus] et proximis. Itaque illi rationi, quam paulo ante conclusi, sic occurrit: si omnia fato fiant, sequi illud quidem, ut omnia causis fiant antepositis, verum non principalibus causis et perfectis, sed adiuvantibus et proximis. Quae si ipsae non sunt in nostra potestate, non sequitur, ut ne adpetitus quidem sit in nostra potestate. At hoc sequeretur, si omnia perfectis et principalibus causis fieri diceremus, ut, cum eae causae non essent in nostra potestate, ne ille quidem esset in nostra potestate.

[42]
Quam ob rem, qui ita fatum introducunt, ut necessitatem adiungant, in eos valebit illa conclusio; qui autem causas antecedentis non dicent perfectas neque principalis, in eos nihil valebit. Quod enim dicantur adsensiones fieri causis antepositis, id quale sit, facile a se explicari putat. Nam quamquam adsensio non possit fieri nisi commota viso, tamen, cum id visum proximam causam habeat, non principalem, hanc habet rationem, ut Chrysippus vult, quam dudum diximus, non ut illa quidem fieri possit nulla vi extrinsecus excitata (necesse est enim adsensionem viso commoveri), sed revertitur ad cylindrum et ad turbinem suum, quae moveri incipere nisi pulsa non possunt. Id autem cum accidit, suapte natura, quod superest, et cylindrum volvi et versari turbinem putat.

### Chapter 19

[43]
Ut igitur, inquit, qui protrusit cylindrum, dedit ei principium motionis, volubilitatem autem non dedit, sic visum obiectum inprimet illud quidem et quasi signabit in animo suam speciem, sed adsensio nostra erit in potestate, eaque, quem ad modum in cylindro dictum est, extrinsecus pulsa, quod reliquum est, suapte vi et natura movebitur. Quodsi aliqua res efficeretur sine causa antecedente, falsum esset omnia fato fieri; sin omnibus, quaecumque fiunt, veri simile est causam antecedere, quid adferri poterit, cur non omnia fato fieri fatendum sit? modo intellegatur, quae sit causarum distinctio ac dissimilitudo.

[44]
Haec cum ita sint a Chrysippo explicata, si illi, qui negant adsensiones fato fieri, †fateantur tamen eas non sine viso antecedente fieri, alia ratio est; sed, si concedunt anteire visa, nec tamen fato fieri adsensiones, quod proxima illa et continens causa non moveat adsensionem, vide, ne idem dicant. Neque enim Chrysippus, concedens adsensionis proximam et continentem causam esse in viso positam, [neque] eam causam esse ad adsentiendum necessariam concedet, ut, si omnia fato fiant, omnia causis fiant antecedentibus et necessariis; itemque illi, qui ab hoc dissentiunt confitentes non fieri adsensiones sine praecursione visorum, dicent, si omnia fato fierent eius modi, ut nihil fieret nisi praegressione causae, confitendum esse fato fieri omnia; ex quo facile intellectu est, quoniam utrique patefacta atque explicata sententia sua ad eundem exitum veniant, verbis eos, non re dissidere.

[45]
Omninoque cum haec sit distinctio, ut quibusdam in rebus vere dici possit, cum hae causae antegressae sint, non esse in nostra potestate, quin illa eveniant, quorum causae fuerint, quibusdam autem in rebus causis antegressis in nostra tamen esse potestate, ut illud aliter eveniat, hanc distinctionem utrique adprobant, sed alteri censent, quibus in rebus, cum causae antecesserint, non sit in nostra potestate, ut aliter illa eveniant, eas fato fieri; quae autem in nostra potestate sint, ab iis fatum abesse […]

### Chapter 20

[46]
Hoc modo hanc causam disceptari oportet, non ab atomis errantibus et de via declinantibus petere praesidium. Declinat, inquit, atomus. Primum cur? aliam enim quandam vim motus habebant a Democrito inpulsionis, quam plagam ille appellat, a te, Epicure, gravitatis et ponderis. Quae ergo nova causa in natura est, quae declinet atomum? aut num sortiuntur inter se, quae declinet, quae non? aut cur minimo declinent intervallo, maiore non? aut cur declinent uno minimo, non declinent duobus aut tribus?

[47]
Optare hoc quidem est, non disputare. Nam neque extrinsecus inpulsam atomum loco moveri et declinare dicis, neque in illo inani, per quod feratur atomus, quicquam fuisse causae, cur ea non e regione ferretur, nec in ipsa atomo mutationis aliquid factum est, quam ob rem naturalem motum sui ponderis non teneret. Ita cum attulisset nullam causam, quae istam declinationem efficeret, tamen aliquid sibi dicere videtur, cum id dicat, quod omnium mentes aspernentur ac respuant.

[48]
Nec vero quisquam magis confirmare mihi videtur non modo fatum, verum etiam necessitatem et vim omnium rerum sustulisseque motus animi voluntarios, quam hic, qui aliter obsistere fato fatetur se non potuisse, nisi ad has commenticias declinationes confugisset. Nam, ut essent atomi, quas quidem esse mihi probari nullo modo potest, tamen declinationes istae numquam explicarentur. Nam si atomis, ut gravitate ferantur, tributum est necessitate naturae, quod omne pondus nulla re inpediente moveatur et feratur necesse est, illud quoque necesse est, declinare, quibusdam atomis vel, si volunt, omnibus naturaliter […]

### Fragment 1

[1]
Itaque M. Cicero in libro, quem de fato conscripsit, cum quaestionem istam diceret obscurissimam esse et inplicatissimam, Chrysippum quoque philosophum non expedisse se in ea ait his verbis: Chrysippus aestuans laboransque, quonam ⟨pacto⟩ explicet et fato omnia fieri, et esse aliquid in nobis, intricatur hoc modo. Gel. N. A. 7.2.15

### Fragment 2

[2]
volvitque vices definitio fati secundum Tullium, qui ait: fatum est conexio rerum per aeternitatem se invicem tenens, quae suo ordine et lege variatur, ita tamen, ut ipsa varietas habeat aeternitatem. Serv. ad Vergil. A. 3.376

### Fragment 3

[3]
illi quoque versus Homerici huic sententiae suffragantur, quos Cicero in Latinum vertit:
Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse
Iuppiter auctiferas lustravit lumine terras.
Augstin. de civ. dei 5.8

### Fragment 4

[4]
Cicero dicit Hippocratem, nobilissimum medicum, scriptum reliquisse quosdam fratres, cum simul aegrotare coepissent et eorum morbus eodem tempore ingravesceret, eodem levaretur, geminos suspicatum. quos Posidonius Stoicus multum astrologiae deditus eadem constitutione astrorum natos eademque conceptos solebat asserere. ita, quod medicus pertinere credebat ad simillimam temperiem valetudinis, hoc philosophus astrologus ad vim constitutionemque siderum quae fuerat, quo tempore concepti natique sun. Augustin. de civ. dei 5.2

### Fragment 5

[5]
et ne vilior sit testis poeta, accipite adsertore Cicerone, in quo honore fuerit hic piscis apud P. Scipionem Africanum illum et Numantinum. Haec sunt in dialogo de fato verba Ciceronis: Nam cum esset apud se ad Lavernium Scipio unaque Pontius, adlatus est forte Scipioni acupenser, qui admodum raro capitur, sed est piscis, ut ferunt, in primis nobilis. Cum autem Scipio unum et alterum ex iis, qui eum salutatum venerant, invitavisset pluresque etiam invitaturus videretur, in aurem Pontius: “Scipio”, inquit, “vide, quid agas; acupenser iste paucorum hominum est.” Macrobius Saturnalia 3.16.3

## Translation — Mouseia

> Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the surviving Latin in separate source-only tasks. Sections 1–48 and five fragments/testimonia follow Müller’s 1915 edition; lost passages remain marked. Perseus source and these derived editions CC BY-SA 4.0.

### Chapter 1

[1]
[…] because it concerns conduct—“character,” as the Greeks call it—we usually call this branch of philosophy the study of conduct; but anyone enriching the Latin language ought to call it “moral philosophy.” We must also explain the force and nature of statements, which the Greeks call “propositions.” What force these possess when they say something about the future, and about what can or cannot happen, is a difficult question, which philosophers call the question “of possibilities.” The whole subject belongs to logic, which I call the art of reasoning. In my books on the nature of the gods, and likewise in those I published on divination, I presented a sustained argument on each side, so that each reader might more readily accept the view that seemed most probable to him. In this discussion of fate, a particular circumstance prevented me from doing so.

[2]
I was at my villa near Puteoli, and our friend Hirtius, the consul-elect, was in the same neighborhood. He was a very dear friend of mine, devoted to those studies in which I have lived from boyhood, and we spent much time together, chiefly seeking ways to secure peace and harmony among our fellow citizens. For after Caesar's death, it seemed that every possible ground for fresh disturbances was being sought out, and we thought these must be forestalled. Almost all our conversation was therefore spent in these deliberations. This happened on many occasions; and on one day, freer than usual and less exposed to interruptions, he came to see me, and we began with what had become our daily, almost prescribed business: peace and public quiet.

### Chapter 2

[3]
When we had finished, he said, “Well, then? You have not, I hope, abandoned your exercises in oratory, but you have certainly given philosophy precedence over them. May I hear something?”

“You certainly may,” I said, “or speak yourself, if you prefer. For, as you rightly suppose, I have not deserted those rhetorical studies with which I kindled your own enthusiasm—though it was already blazing when you came to me. Nor do my present pursuits diminish that faculty; they enlarge it. The orator has much in common with the school of philosophy I follow: he borrows precision from the Academy and repays it with fullness of expression and the ornaments of eloquence. And so,” I said, “since both fields are ours, today the choice of which to enjoy shall be yours.”

“That is most welcome,” Hirtius replied, “and just like everything you do. Your goodwill has never refused any wish of mine to learn.

[4]
“But I know your teachings on rhetoric, and have often heard you speak on them and shall do so again. And since your Tusculan Disputations show that you have adopted the Academic practice of arguing against a thesis, I should like to put forward a proposition and hear your reply, if that is no trouble to you.”

“Can anything be a trouble to me,” I said, “that will give you pleasure? But you will be hearing a Roman, someone venturing cautiously into this manner of debate, someone returning to these studies after a long interval.”

“I shall listen to your arguments,” he said, “in the same spirit in which I read your writings. So begin. Let us sit here.”

### Chapter 3

[5]
[…] In some of these cases—in that of the poet Antipater, of those born on the winter solstice, of brothers falling ill together, of urine, of fingernails, and of the other examples of this kind—the interconnection of nature has its effect. I do not deny that interconnection; but there is no force of fate at work. In others there may be an element of chance, as with that shipwrecked man, with Icadius, and with Daphitas. Some instances, too, Posidonius seems to invent—with all respect to my teacher, let me say it; they are certainly absurd. For consider: if Daphitas was fated to fall from a horse and die in that way, was it from this “horse,” which was not a horse at all but bore a name not its own? Or was Philip being warned to avoid these little four-horse chariots on a sword hilt? As if it were the hilt that killed him! And what is so remarkable about that nameless shipwrecked man slipping into a stream? Though Posidonius does write that this man had been warned he would perish in water. As for Icadius the pirate, I swear I can see no fate at all in his case;

[6]
for Posidonius records no prediction made to him. What is surprising, then, about a rock falling from the cave onto his legs? Even if Icadius had not been in the cave at the time, I think that rock would still have fallen. Either nothing whatever happens by chance, or this very thing could have happened by chance. I ask, then—and this question will have far-reaching consequences—if fate had no name at all, no nature, no power, and most things or all things happened at random, by sheer chance, would they happen otherwise than they do now? What point is there, then, in forcing fate upon us, when without fate the explanation of everything can be referred to nature or to chance?

### Chapter 4

[7]
But let us take leave of Posidonius on friendly terms, as we should, and return to the snares of Chrysippus. Let us first answer him on this very interconnection of things; we shall pursue the rest afterward. We see how greatly places differ in their natural conditions: some are healthy, others pestilential; in some, people are phlegmatic and, as it were, overflowing with humors; in others, dried out and parched. There are many other striking differences between one place and another. At Athens the air is thin, which is even thought to make the Athenians keener of mind; at Thebes it is thick, and so the Thebans are stout and strong. Yet that thin air will not make someone attend the lectures of Zeno, Arcesilaus, or Theophrastus, nor will the thick air make him seek victory at Nemea rather than at the Isthmus. Take the distinction further.

[8]
What can the nature of a place do to make us walk in Pompey's Portico rather than on the Campus Martius? With you rather than with someone else? On the Ides rather than the Kalends? Just as the nature of a place has some bearing on certain things and none on others, so let the configuration of the stars have an influence on certain things, if you wish; it certainly will not influence everything. “But,” he says, “since people's natures differ—some delighting in sweet things, others in slightly bitter ones; some lustful, others irascible or cruel or proud, while others recoil from such vices—since, then, one nature differs so greatly from another, what wonder is it that these differences should arise from different causes?”

### Chapter 5

[9]
In arguing this way, he fails to see what the question is, or where the issue lies. The fact that natural, antecedent causes make different people more inclined toward different things does not mean that our acts of will and desire also have natural, antecedent causes. If that were so, nothing would be in our power. As it is, we admit that it does not rest with us whether we are sharp or dull, strong or weak. But anyone who thinks it follows that even sitting or walking is not a matter of choice fails to see what follows from what. People may be born clever or slow, strong or weak, through antecedent causes; it does not follow that their sitting, walking, or undertaking any action is likewise determined and settled by primary causes.

[10]
We have heard of Stilpo, the Megarian philosopher, a decidedly acute thinker, highly esteemed in his day. His own friends write that he was given to drink and women; they write this not to blame him, but rather to his credit. For through philosophy he had so mastered and subdued his vicious nature that no one ever saw him drunk, and no one ever saw in him a trace of lust. Again, have we not read how Zopyrus judged Socrates? Zopyrus was a physiognomist who professed to discern people's characters and natures from their bodies, eyes, faces, and foreheads. He declared Socrates stupid and dull because there were no hollows above his collarbones: those regions, he said, were obstructed and closed. He added that Socrates was given to women; at this, Alcibiades is said to have burst out laughing.

### Chapter 6

[11]
But though such vices may spring from natural causes, their being uprooted and utterly removed, so that the very person inclined toward them is drawn away from such great faults, depends not on natural causes but on will, effort, and training. All these are swept away if the force and nature of fate are to be established by an argument from divination.

For if divination exists, from what established principles of its art does it proceed? By “established principles” I mean what the Greeks call “theorems.” I cannot believe that other practitioners perform their work without any established principle, or that those who practice divination predict the future without one.

[12]
Let the astrologers' principles, then, be of this kind: “If someone was born, for example, at the rising of the Dog Star, he will not die at sea.” Be on your guard, Chrysippus, lest you abandon your position, over which you have so great a struggle with Diodorus, a formidable dialectician. For if this conditional is true, “If someone was born at the rising of the Dog Star, he will not die at sea,” then this is also true: “If Fabius was born at the rising of the Dog Star, Fabius will not die at sea.” These statements, then, conflict with one another: that Fabius was born at the rising of the Dog Star, and that Fabius will die at sea. And since it is taken as certain about Fabius that he was born at the rising of the Dog Star, these statements also conflict: that Fabius exists, and that he will die at sea. Thus this conjunction too is made up of incompatible statements: “Fabius exists, and Fabius will die at sea”—something that, on the assumption laid down, cannot even happen. Therefore “Fabius will die at sea” belongs to the class of things that cannot happen. Thus everything falsely asserted about the future is impossible.

### Chapter 7

[13]
But this, Chrysippus, is precisely what you do not want, and it is over this very point that your chief contest with Diodorus arises. For he says that only what is true or will be true is possible; whatever is going to happen, he says, must happen, and whatever is not going to happen, he denies can happen. You, on the other hand, say that even things that will not happen are possible: this gem, for instance, can be broken, even if it never will be. You also say it was not necessary for Cypselus to reign at Corinth, though Apollo's oracle had proclaimed it a thousand years before. But if you endorse these divine predictions, you will class false assertions about the future among impossibilities [as if one were to say that Africanus would take Carthage]; and if something is truly asserted about the future, and will happen as asserted, you will call it necessary. That is the whole doctrine of Diodorus, so hostile to your school.

[14]
For if this conditional is true, “If you were born at the rising of the Dog Star, you will not die at sea,” and its first clause, “You were born at the rising of the Dog Star,” is necessary—all truths about the past are necessary, according to Chrysippus, who here disagrees with his teacher Cleanthes, because they are unalterable and past events cannot change from true to false—then, if the first clause of the conditional is necessary, its consequence becomes necessary too. Chrysippus, to be sure, does not think this holds in every case; nevertheless, if there is a natural cause why Fabius will not die at sea, Fabius cannot die at sea.

### Chapter 8

[15]
At this point Chrysippus, in a fever of perplexity, hopes that the Chaldeans and the other diviners can be taken in, and will not use conditionals to state their principles in this form: “If someone was born at the rising of the Dog Star, he will not die at sea.” Instead, they are to say, “It is not the case both that someone was born at the rising of the Dog Star and that he will die at sea.” What laughable license! To avoid colliding with Diodorus himself, he teaches the Chaldeans how they ought to formulate their principles. For I ask: if the Chaldeans are to speak in this way, putting forward negations of indefinite conjunctions rather than indefinite conditionals, why cannot physicians do the same? Why not geometers? Why not all the other practitioners? A physician, in particular, will not state an established finding of his art in this form: “If someone's pulse beats in this way, he has a fever.” Instead, he will say, “It is not the case both that ⟨someone's⟩ pulse beats in this way and that he has no fever.” Likewise, a geometer will not say, “In a sphere, great circles bisect one another,” but instead, “It is not the case both that there are great circles in a sphere and that they do not bisect one another.”

[16]
What cannot be converted in this way from a conditional into the negation of a conjunction? Indeed, we can express the same things in other ways too. I just said, “In a sphere, great circles bisect one another.” I can say, “If there are to be great circles in a sphere”; I can say, “Because there are to be great circles in a sphere.” There are many forms of statement, and none more contorted than this one, with which Chrysippus hopes the Chaldeans will content themselves for the Stoics' sake.

### Chapter 9

[17]
Yet none of them speaks that way: mastering these contortions of language is a greater task than mastering the rising and setting of the constellations. But let us return to that argument of Diodorus which they call the argument “on possibilities,” an inquiry into the meaning of what is possible. Diodorus holds, then, that only what is true or will be true is possible. This bears on the claim that nothing happens which was not necessary, and that whatever can happen either already is or will be; that statements about the future can no more change from true to false than statements about the past. In past events, however, the unalterability is plain, while in some future events, because it is not plain, it is thought not even to exist. Thus, of someone in the grip of a fatal disease, it is true to say, “He will die of this disease”; but if the same thing is truly said of someone in whom the disease's power is not so apparent, it will happen nonetheless. It follows that even in the future no change from true to false can occur. For “Scipio will die,” though said of the future, has such force that it cannot change into a falsehood: it is said of a human being, who must die.

[18]
Likewise, if someone had said, “Scipio will die at night in his own bedroom, struck down by violence,” he would have spoken truly. He would have said that something was going to happen which was in fact going to happen; and that it was going to happen must be understood from the fact that it did happen. “Scipio will die” was no truer than “He will die in that way”; it was no more necessary for Scipio to die than to die in that way; “Scipio has been killed” is no more incapable of changing from true to false than “Scipio will be killed.” Since this is so, Epicurus has no reason to dread fate and seek refuge in atoms, diverting them from their course and taking on, at one stroke, two insoluble difficulties. The first is that something should happen without a cause, from which it will follow that something comes from nothing—a view acceptable neither to him nor to any natural philosopher. The second is that, when two indivisible bodies travel through the void, one should move in a straight line and the other swerve.

[19]
For Epicurus may concede that every statement is either true or false without fearing that everything must therefore happen by fate. The truth of a statement such as “Carneades goes down to the Academy” does not arise from eternal causes flowing from the necessity of nature; yet neither is it without causes. There is a difference between causes that have chanced to precede an event and causes that contain within themselves a natural power to produce it. Thus it was always true that “Epicurus will die after living seventy-two years, in the archonship of Pytharatus.” Yet there were no fated causes why it should happen in that way. Rather, because it did turn out so, it was going to turn out, through a fixed ⟨sequence⟩ of causes, just as it did.

### Chapter 10

[20]
Those who say that future events are unalterable and that a truth about the future cannot turn into a falsehood do not establish the necessity of fate; they explain the force of words. But those who introduce an everlasting chain of causes strip the human mind of free will and bind it in the necessity of fate.

Enough of this; let us consider something else. Chrysippus argues as follows: “If there is motion without a cause, not every statement—what dialecticians call a ‘proposition’—will be either true or false; for whatever has no efficient causes will be neither true nor false. But every statement is either true or false. Therefore there is no motion without a cause. If that is so, everything that happens happens through antecedent causes. If that is so, everything happens by fate. It follows, then, that whatever happens happens by fate.”

[21]
Here, to begin with, if I chose to agree with Epicurus and deny that every statement is either true or false, I would rather take that blow than endorse the view that everything happens by fate. The former position at least admits of argument; the latter is intolerable. And so Chrysippus strains every nerve to persuade us that every proposition is either true or false. For Epicurus fears that, if he concedes this, he must concede that whatever happens happens by fate. He thinks that if one of two alternatives has been true from eternity, it is also certain, and if certain, necessary; in this way, he thinks, both necessity and fate are established. In just the same way, Chrysippus fears that, unless he secures the principle that every statement is either true or false, he cannot maintain that everything happens by fate and through eternal causes of future events.

[22]
But Epicurus thinks the necessity of fate can be avoided by the atom's swerve. Thus, besides motion from weight and from a blow, a third kind of motion arises, when an atom swerves by the smallest interval—what he calls “the minimum.” That this swerve occurs without a cause he is compelled to admit in substance, if not in words. For an atom does not swerve because another atom strikes it. How can one be struck by another if, as Epicurus holds, the indivisible bodies are carried by their weight perpendicularly downward in straight lines? It follows that, if one is never driven aside by another, neither does one ever touch another. From this it follows that, even if an atom exists and swerves, it swerves without a cause.

### Chapter 11

[23]
Epicurus introduced this account because he feared that if the atom were always carried along by its natural and necessary weight, we would have no freedom: the mind would move as the motion of the atoms compelled it. Democritus, the originator of the atomic theory, preferred to accept this—that everything happens by necessity—rather than strip indivisible bodies of their natural motions. Carneades took a shrewder course. He taught that the Epicureans could defend their position without this invented swerve. Since they maintained that there could be a voluntary movement of the mind, they would have done better to defend that than to introduce a swerve for which, above all, they could discover no cause. Once they had defended this, they could readily resist Chrysippus. For in granting that there is no motion without a cause, they need not grant that everything that happens happens through antecedent causes: our will has no external, antecedent causes.

[24]
We thus stretch the ordinary usage of language when we say that someone wants or does not want something without a cause. By “without a cause” we mean without an external, antecedent cause, not without any cause at all. When we call a vessel empty, we are not speaking as the natural philosophers do, for whom ‘empty’ means containing nothing whatever; we mean, for example, that the vessel contains no water, wine, or oil. So too, when we say that the mind moves without a cause, we mean that it moves without an antecedent, external cause, not altogether without a cause. The atom itself may be said to move without a cause when it travels through the void by its own gravity and weight, since no cause acts on it from outside.

[25]
Yet again, lest all the natural philosophers laugh at us for saying that anything happens without a cause, we must draw a distinction. We must say that it is the nature of the indivisible body itself to move by weight and gravity, and that this very nature is the cause of its moving as it does. Likewise, no external cause need be sought for the mind’s voluntary movements. Voluntary movement contains within itself the nature that makes it lie in our power and obey us; nor is this without a cause, for its very nature is the cause of that.

### Chapter 12

[26]
Since this is so, why must we grant that whatever happens happens by fate before we can say that every proposition is either true or false? “Because,” he says, “there can be no truth about future events that have no causes to bring them about. Things that are true must therefore have causes; and so, when they occur, they will have occurred by fate.” The business is settled—if, indeed, we must grant you that either everything happens by fate or something can happen without a cause.

[27]
Can the proposition “Scipio will take Numantia” be true in no other way than if, from all eternity, cause begetting cause will bring this about? Could it have been false if it had been uttered six hundred centuries before? And if the proposition “Scipio will take Numantia” was not true then, neither is the proposition “Scipio has taken Numantia” true even after the city’s destruction. Can anything, then, have happened that it was not true would happen? For just as we call statements about the past true when their present-tense statements were true at an earlier time, so we shall call statements about the future true when their present-tense statements will be true at a later time.

[28]
Nor does it follow at once, if every proposition is either true or false, that there are immutable, eternal causes which prevent anything from turning out otherwise than it will. The causes that make such future statements as “Cato will come to the Senate” true are chance causes, not causes locked into the nature of things and the universe. Yet, when it is true that he will come, that is as unalterable as his having come; and this gives us no reason to fear fate or necessity. For we shall have to admit: “If the proposition ‘Hortensius will come to the Tusculan villa’ is not true, it follows that it is false.” These people want neither alternative, which is impossible.

Nor shall we be hindered by what is called the idle argument. There is an argument the philosophers call the “idle argument”; if we obeyed it, we would do nothing at all in life.

### Chapter 13

[29]
For this is how they put the question: “If it is your fate to recover from this illness, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or not. Likewise, if it is your fate not to recover from this illness, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or not. And one or the other is your fate. There is therefore no point in calling in a doctor.” This kind of questioning has rightly been called idle and inert, since the same reasoning will remove all action from life. You may even alter it so as not to introduce the word ‘fate,’ and still retain the same meaning, as follows: “If the statement ‘You will recover from this illness’ has been true from all eternity, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or not. Likewise, if the statement ‘You will recover from this illness’ has been false from all eternity, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or not”—and then the rest. Chrysippus criticizes this argument.

[30]
“Some things,” he says, “are simple, others conjoined. ‘Socrates will die on that day’ is simple. Whether he does anything or not, his day of death has been fixed. But if the fated statement is ‘Oedipus will be born to Laius,’ one cannot say ‘whether Laius has intercourse with a woman or not.’ The matter is conjoined and co-fated.” That is the term he uses, because it is fated both that Laius will sleep with his wife and that he will father Oedipus by her. Thus, if it had been said, “Milo will wrestle at the Olympic Games,” and someone replied, “Then he will wrestle whether he has an opponent or not,” he would be mistaken. For “he will wrestle” is conjoined with something else, since there is no wrestling without an opponent. All sophisms of this kind are therefore refuted in the same way. “You will recover whether you call in a doctor or not” is a sophism, since calling in a doctor is as much fated as recovering. These, as I said, he calls co-fated events.

### Chapter 14

[31]
Carneades did not approve of this entire kind of reasoning, and thought that the argument had been brought to its conclusion far too heedlessly. He therefore pressed the case in another way, without any quibbling. His argument was this: if everything happens through antecedent causes, everything happens in an interwoven, interlocking natural chain. If that is so, necessity brings everything about. If that is true, nothing is in our power. But something is in our power. Yet if everything happens by fate, everything happens through antecedent causes. Therefore, not everything that happens happens by fate.

[32]
This reasoning cannot be drawn any tighter. For if someone wished to turn the same argument back and say, “If every future event has been true from all eternity, so that it will assuredly occur just as it is going to occur, everything must happen in an interwoven, interlocking natural chain,” he would be saying nothing. There is a great difference between a natural cause making future events true from all eternity, and our being able to understand that future events may be true even without an eternal natural cause. Carneades therefore used to say that not even Apollo could foretell future events, except those whose causes were so contained in nature that they must occur.

### Chapter 15

[33]
For what could the god himself consult to foretell that Marcellus, who was consul three times, would perish at sea? This had indeed been true from all eternity, but it had no causes to bring it about. Carneades thus believed that not even past events were known to Apollo if no signs of them survived as traces—much less future events! Only when the causes producing each event were known could one know what would happen. Thus Apollo could not have made a prediction about Oedipus, or anything of that kind, unless causes had already been laid down in the nature of things that made it necessary for him to kill his father. Accordingly, if the Stoics, who say that everything happens by fate, are consistent in accepting such oracles and the other evidence drawn from divination, while the same need not be said of those who say that future events have been true from all eternity, consider whether their position is really the same as the Stoics’. The Stoics are more tightly hemmed in; the others’ reasoning is unfettered and free.

[34]
But if we grant that nothing can occur without an antecedent cause, what is gained by saying that this cause is not linked to eternal causes? A cause is that which brings about the thing of which it is the cause: a wound causes death, indigestion illness, fire heat. Thus we must not understand a cause to mean whatever precedes a thing, but whatever precedes it in such a way as to produce it. My going down to the Campus was not the cause of my playing ball; nor was Hecuba the cause of the Trojans’ destruction because she gave birth to Alexander; nor Tyndareus the cause of Agamemnon’s destruction because he fathered Clytemnestra. For by this reasoning a well-dressed traveler, too, will be called the cause of a highwayman’s robbing him.

[35]
Of this kind are those lines of Ennius:
“If only in Pelion’s grove no axes
Had felled the firwood timbers to the earth!”
He might have gone back still further: “If only no tree had ever grown on Pelion!” Further still: “If only there had never been a Mount Pelion!” In the same way, retracing earlier events, one may go back without end.
“And from that place no start on building a ship
Had ever been made.”
Why recall these past events? Because this follows:
“For then my deluded mistress would never have set foot outside her home,
Medea, sick at heart, wounded by savage love,”
†not that those things brought about her love.

### Chapter 16

[36]
They say, however, that there is a difference between something without which an effect cannot be produced, and something with which an effect must be produced. None of those things, then, is a cause, since none by its own force produces the thing of which it is called the cause. A cause is not that without which something does not happen, but that which, when it is present, necessarily produces the thing of which it is the cause. Before Philoctetes had been wounded by the snake’s bite, what cause was contained in the nature of things that would bring about his being abandoned on the island of Lemnos? Afterwards, however, there was a cause closer and more directly linked to the outcome.

[37]
The course of the event, then, reveals the cause. Yet the proposition “Philoctetes will be abandoned on the island” had been true from all eternity, and could not change from true to false. For of two contradictory propositions—and here I call contradictory those of which one affirms something and the other denies it—of these, I say, one must be true and the other false, despite Epicurus. Thus “Philoctetes will be wounded” was true through all the preceding ages, and “He will not be wounded” was false. Unless, perhaps, we wish to follow the view of the Epicureans, who say that such propositions are neither true nor false; or, when they are ashamed of that, still say something more shameless: that disjunctions of contradictories are true, but neither of the propositions they contain is true.

[38]
What astonishing license, what pitiable ignorance of reasoning! For if something stated is neither true nor false, it is certainly not true. But how can what is not true fail to be false? Or how can what is not false fail to be true? ⟨Therefore⟩ the position defended by Chrysippus will stand: every proposition is either true or false. Reason itself will compel the admission both that some things have been true from all eternity and that they are not bound to eternal causes, but are free from the necessity of fate.

### Chapter 17

[39]
There were two views among the ancient philosophers. One was held by those who thought everything happened by fate in such a way that fate brought with it the force of necessity; Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle held this view. The other was held by those who thought that the mind’s voluntary movements were free of fate altogether. It seems to me that Chrysippus, like an arbitrator chosen by the parties, wished to strike a middle course; yet he inclines rather toward those who wish the mind’s movements to be freed from necessity. But in using his own terminology he slips into such difficulties that, against his will, he establishes the necessity of fate.

[40]
If you please, let us examine how this works in the case of acts of assent, which I discussed at the beginning of my discourse. Those ancient thinkers who held that everything happens by fate said that acts of assent were produced by force and necessity. Those who disagreed with them freed assent from fate, and denied that necessity could be removed from acts of assent if fate were applied to them. They argued as follows: if everything happens by fate, everything happens through an antecedent cause; and if impulse does, so too do the things that follow impulse, and therefore acts of assent as well. But if the cause of impulse does not lie in us, neither is impulse itself in our power. If that is so, neither do the things brought about by impulse lie in us. Neither acts of assent nor actions, then, are in our power. It follows that neither praise nor blame, neither honors nor punishments, are just. Since this is wrong, they think they have plausibly established that not everything that happens happens by fate.

### Chapter 18

[41]
Chrysippus, however, rejecting necessity yet unwilling that anything should occur without prior causes, distinguishes kinds of causes so as both to escape necessity and to retain fate. “Of causes,” he says, “some are complete and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence, when we say that everything happens by fate through antecedent causes, we do not mean through complete and principal causes, but through auxiliary [antecedent] and proximate causes.” Thus he meets the argument I concluded a little earlier as follows: if everything happens by fate, it does indeed follow that everything happens through prior causes, but not through principal and complete causes; rather, through auxiliary and proximate causes. If these causes themselves are not in our power, it does not follow that impulse is not in our power either. That would follow if we said that everything happens through complete and principal causes: since those causes were not in our power, impulse too would not be in our power.

[42]
That argument will therefore hold against those who introduce fate in such a way as to attach necessity to it; but it will have no force against those who will not call antecedent causes complete or principal. Chrysippus thinks he can readily explain what is meant by saying that acts of assent occur through prior causes. Although assent cannot occur unless stirred by an impression, nevertheless, since that impression serves as a proximate, not a principal, cause, assent, as Chrysippus maintains, has the character we described a little earlier. Not that it can occur without some force being aroused from outside—for assent must be stirred by an impression—but he returns to his cylinder and spinning top, which cannot begin to move unless struck. Once that happens, however, he holds that for the rest the cylinder rolls and the top spins by their own nature.

### Chapter 19

[43]
“Just as the man who pushed the cylinder,” he says, “gave it the beginning of its motion, but did not give it its capacity to roll, so an impression presented to the mind will indeed impress and, as it were, stamp its own image upon it, but our assent will be in our power. And that assent, as we said of the cylinder, once set in motion from outside, will move for the rest by its own force and nature. If anything were brought about without an antecedent cause, it would be false that everything happens by fate. But if it is likely that a cause precedes everything that happens, what reason can be offered for not admitting that everything happens by fate? Only let the distinction and difference between causes be understood.”

[44]
Now that Chrysippus has explained matters in this way, if those who deny that acts of assent occur by fate †nevertheless admit that they do not occur without a preceding impression, that is a different account. But if they grant that impressions precede, yet hold that acts of assent do not occur by fate because that proximate and immediate cause does not set assent in motion, consider whether they are not saying the same thing. Nor will Chrysippus, in granting that the proximate and immediate cause of assent lies in the impression, [nor will he] grant that this is a cause which necessitates assent, so that, if everything happens by fate, everything happens through antecedent and necessitating causes. Likewise, those who disagree with him, while acknowledging that acts of assent do not occur without impressions coming first, will say that if everything happened by a fate of such a kind that nothing happened without a cause going before it, one would have to acknowledge that everything happens by fate. From this it is easy to understand that, since both parties, once they have disclosed and explained their meaning, reach the same conclusion, they disagree in words, not in substance.

[45]
In general, the distinction is this: in some cases it can truly be said that, once these causes have gone before, it is not in our power to prevent the events of which they were the causes from occurring; in other cases, even when causes have gone before, it is still in our power for the outcome to be otherwise. Both parties approve this distinction. But one party holds that those events which, once their causes have gone before, it is not in our power to make turn out otherwise occur by fate, whereas events that are in our power are exempt from fate […]

### Chapter 20

[46]
This is how the case should be argued, rather than seeking refuge in atoms wandering and swerving from their path. “The atom swerves,” he says. First, why? Atoms already had one kind of force of motion from Democritus, that of impact, which he calls a blow; from you, Epicurus, they had that of gravity and weight. What new cause, then, is there in nature to make the atom swerve? Or do they draw lots among themselves to decide which will swerve and which will not? Why do they swerve by a minimal interval, and not a greater one? Why do they swerve by one minimal interval, but not by two or three?

[47]
This is wishful thinking, not argument. For you do not say that an atom is struck from outside, displaced, and made to swerve; nor that in the void through which the atom travels there was any cause for it not to travel in a straight line; nor has any change taken place in the atom itself to make it cease to follow the natural motion of its own weight. Thus, although he has offered no cause to bring about that swerve, he still thinks he is saying something when he says what everyone’s mind rejects and repudiates.

[48]
Indeed, no one seems to me to have done more to establish not only fate but the necessity and compelling force of all things, and to abolish the mind’s voluntary movements, than this man who admits he could not otherwise have withstood fate without taking refuge in these invented swerves. For even if atoms existed—though their existence cannot in any way be established to my satisfaction—those swerves could still never be explained. For if nature’s necessity has bestowed on atoms their movement by gravity, since every weight must move and be carried along when nothing hinders it, then this too must be necessary: that certain atoms—or, if they wish, all atoms—should naturally swerve […]

### Fragment 1

[1]
Thus Marcus Cicero, in the book he wrote on fate, while calling this question exceedingly obscure and entangled, says that the philosopher Chrysippus too failed to extricate himself from it. These are his words: “Chrysippus, tossing in uncertainty and struggling to explain in what ⟨way⟩ everything happens by fate and yet something lies in our power, becomes entangled in the following way.” Gel. N. A. 7.2.15

### Fragment 2

[2]
“And brings round the changes”: the definition of fate according to Tullius, who says, “Fate is a connection of things holding one another fast through eternity, varying according to its own order and law, yet in such a way that the variation itself is eternal.” Serv. ad Vergil. A. 3.376

### Fragment 3

[3]
Those lines of Homer, too, support this view; Cicero translated them into Latin:
“Men’s minds take their temper from the light with which the Father
Jupiter himself has bathed the fruitful earth.”
Augstin. de civ. dei 5.8

### Fragment 4

[4]
Cicero says that Hippocrates, that most distinguished physician, left a written account of certain brothers whom he suspected of being twins because they began to fall ill together, and their illness grew worse at the same time and abated at the same time. The Stoic Posidonius, much devoted to astrology, used to insist that they had been born under matching configurations of the stars, and their conceptions too had taken place under matching configurations. Thus what the physician believed belonged to the closest similarity in their bodily constitution, the philosopher-astrologer attributed to the influence and configuration of the stars at the time when they were conceived and born. Augustin. de civ. dei 5.2

### Fragment 5

[5]
And lest a poet be thought too slight a witness, hear on Cicero’s authority in what esteem this fish was held by that great Publius Scipio Africanus and Numantinus. These are Cicero’s words in the dialogue On Fate: “When Scipio was at his own place near Lavernium, with Pontius there as well, a sturgeon happened to be brought to him. It is very rarely caught, but is, they say, a fish of the very highest distinction. Scipio had invited first one and then another of those who had come to pay their respects, and seemed likely to invite still more, when Pontius whispered in his ear: ‘Scipio,’ he said, ‘take care what you do: that sturgeon is a fish for only a few.’” Macrobius Saturnalia 3.16.3

## Translation — Mouseia

> Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted direct-Latin Plain English translation. Initial drafts used separate Latin-only tasks; later source-based editorial revisions were made by a reviewer with prior editorial access to Musean, not from its English wording. Includes all 48 sections and five fragments/testimonia, with lost passages marked. Perseus source and these derived editions CC BY-SA 4.0.

### Chapter 1

[1]
[…] since its subject is conduct, or what the Greeks call “character,” we generally refer to this branch of philosophy as the study of conduct. To expand Latin's vocabulary, though, we should give it the name “moral philosophy.” Statements also need explaining: what they mean and how they work. The Greek name for them is “propositions.” There is a difficult question about their force when they concern future events or things that may or may not happen. Philosophers name that question “possibilities.” The whole inquiry falls within logic, my term for the method of argument. My books On the Nature of the Gods and On Divination set out each side's case at length. That allowed readers to choose the position they found most convincing. Something happened that prevented me from using that approach here, in discussing fate.

[2]
Hirtius and I were staying near Puteoli, where I have a house. He was consul-elect, a close friend, and keenly interested in the studies that had occupied me from childhood. We saw a great deal of each other. Our main concern was finding ways for our fellow citizens to live peacefully together. Since Caesar's death, everyone seemed to be searching for occasions to cause fresh disturbances. We felt we must head those off. That question took up nearly all our talk. Besides our many other conversations, there was a day when we had unusually little to do and visitors were less likely to interrupt. He called on me. We started with what had become our daily duty, almost a fixed routine: discussing peace and public calm.

### Chapter 2

[3]
When we had finished, he said, “Well, then? You haven't given up practicing public speaking, I hope. But you have certainly put philosophy ahead of it. Could I hear something?”

“Of course,” I said. “You can listen or speak yourself. As you rightly suppose, I haven't abandoned the study of public speaking. I helped kindle your enthusiasm for it too, though you were already on fire when you came to me. My present work doesn't reduce my ability as a speaker. It actually improves it. A speaker has a lot in common with the kind of philosophy we follow. He borrows precise reasoning from the Academy and gives it richness of expression and verbal polish in return. So,” I said, “since both fields belong to us, you can choose which one you would rather enjoy today.”

“That's very kind,” Hirtius replied, “and just like everything you do. You have never refused to help with anything I wanted to study.

[4]
“But I'm familiar with your teaching on rhetoric. I've heard you speak on it often, and I will again. Your Tusculan Disputations show that you've adopted the Academic practice of arguing against a proposed position. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to put forward a position and hear your response.”

“Could anything that will please you be a bother to me?” I said. “But listen to me as a Roman, someone making a cautious start in this kind of argument and returning to these studies after a long break.”

“I'll listen to your arguments in the same spirit in which I read your books,” he said. “So begin. Let's sit down here.”

### Chapter 3

[5]
[…] Take some of those examples: Antipater the poet, people whose birthday falls at the winter solstice, the brothers who became ill together, urine, fingernails, and the others of that sort. Nature's interconnectedness operates in them. I accept that interconnectedness. But it has nothing to do with a power of fate. Some other examples may be chance events, such as the shipwrecked man, Icadius, or Daphitas. And Posidonius seems to have made up some of his stories—my teacher must forgive my saying so. They certainly make no sense. If Daphitas was destined to die by falling off a horse, did that mean a thing that merely went by the borrowed name “horse,” although it was no horse? Was Philip really being warned against those tiny four-horse chariots pictured on the hilt? Surely the hilt didn't kill him! Is it remarkable that an unnamed survivor of a shipwreck should slip into a stream? Admittedly, the writer says that man's death in water had been predicted. But I cannot see any fate at all in the robber Icadius's case;

[6]
no prediction about him is recorded. So a stone fell from the cave onto his legs: why is that strange? In my view, it would have fallen even if he hadn't been there. We must either deny chance altogether or allow that chance could have produced this very event. Here is a question with much wider consequences. Imagine there were no such thing as fate: no word for it, no nature belonging to it, no force it exerted. Imagine that most events, or even all events, occurred accidentally and at random. Would events turn out any differently from how they turn out now? Why insist on fate, then? Even without it, everything can be explained through nature or chance.

### Chapter 4

[7]
We should part amicably from Posidonius, as fairness requires. Back now to Chrysippus and his traps. First we must answer what he says about things being interconnected. The other questions can wait. We can see enormous natural differences between places. Some are good for health; others bring disease. In some places people have too much phlegm, as though their humors were overflowing. Elsewhere they are dried out and parched. There are many other major local differences. Athens has thin air, and people think this helps make its inhabitants mentally sharper. Thebes has thick air, so its people are stout and physically powerful. But thin air won't determine that you listen to Zeno, Arcesilaus, or Theophrastus. Nor will thick air determine that you compete for victory at Nemea instead of the Isthmus. Carry that separation further.

[8]
How could local conditions determine our walking in Pompey's Portico instead of the Campus Martius? How could they determine our walking with you rather than another person? Or doing it at the Ides instead of the Kalends? A place's nature affects some things and has no effect on others. Allow the arrangement of the stars some influence too, if you like. It still won't affect everything. “But human natures differ,” he says. “One person enjoys sweet flavors; another likes a slightly bitter taste. Some people are sexually uncontrolled, angry, cruel, or arrogant. Others reject those faults. Given such great natural differences, why be surprised that different causes produced them?”

### Chapter 5

[9]
That argument misses both the subject under discussion and the point on which the case rests. Natural causes that come before an event may give people different inclinations. That does not establish natural, prior causes for our choices and desires as well. If it did, we would control nothing. Of course, we accept that we don't choose whether we are clever or slow, strong or weak. But it doesn't follow that whether we sit or walk is beyond our choice. Anyone who draws that conclusion has failed to follow the implications. Earlier causes may explain why people are born quick-witted or slow, strong or feeble. That doesn't mean primary causes have also fixed their sitting down, their walking, or any other action they undertake.

[10]
Accounts describe the Megarian philosopher Stilpo as a very sharp thinker, admired in his own time. His friends themselves say he was addicted to alcohol and women. They mean that as praise, not criticism. His philosophical training had brought those bad tendencies so thoroughly under control that nobody saw him intoxicated or noticed a sign of sexual excess. We also read about Zopyrus's assessment of Socrates. Zopyrus claimed to read a person's nature and character from their body, eyes, face, and forehead. That was his profession. He pronounced Socrates stupid and slow. Socrates had no hollow spaces at his collarbones, he said; those parts were blocked and closed up. He also accused him of a weakness for women. That reportedly made Alcibiades laugh out loud.

### Chapter 6

[11]
Such faults can arise from natural causes. But removing them completely, roots and all, so that someone once drawn toward serious vices turns away from them, is another matter. That depends on choice, sustained effort, and education, not on natural causes. All of those disappear if arguments based on divination establish fate's nature and power.

If divination exists, what established principles does its practice start from? By “established principles” I mean the Greek “theorems.” I cannot believe other specialists do their jobs with no principles to guide them. Nor can I believe people predict future events through divination with no principles either.

[12]
Suppose an astrologer's principle runs like this: “Someone born as the Dog Star rises will not meet death at sea.” Be careful, Chrysippus! You are wrestling hard with Diodorus, a powerful logician. Don't surrender your case. If that conditional rule is correct, this one is correct as well: “If Fabius's birth took place as the Dog Star rose, he won't die at sea.” His being born at that rising and his later dying at sea are therefore incompatible. And we assume his birth at that rising is certain. So these are incompatible too: Fabius exists, and Fabius will meet death at sea. Combine them into “Fabius exists and will meet death at sea,” and you have combined contradictory claims. Under the stated assumption, their combination cannot happen at all. That places “Fabius will meet death at sea” among the impossible things. So every false claim about a future event describes something impossible.

### Chapter 7

[13]
Chrysippus, that is exactly the conclusion you reject. This very issue is your main dispute with Diodorus. According to him, a thing is possible only if it is true now or will become true. Whatever is going to occur has to occur; whatever will never occur is impossible. You say a thing may be possible without ever happening. This gemstone could break, for example, even if it never does. And you say Cypselus didn't have to become king of Corinth, although Apollo's oracle announced his reign a thousand years earlier. But approve those divine predictions, and you must put false predictions in the category of impossibilities [as when someone says Africanus will capture Carthage]. You must also call a future event necessary if it is predicted truly and will occur as predicted. That is Diodorus's whole position, the one opposed to yours.

[14]
Consider this true conditional: “Being born as the Dog Star rises means you won't die at sea.” Its first part is “You were born as the Dog Star rose.” That part is necessary. Chrysippus holds that all true statements concerning past events are necessary, disagreeing here with his teacher Cleanthes. The past cannot change; something true about it cannot turn false. Once the first part of a conditional is necessary, the part following it becomes necessary too. Admittedly, Chrysippus doesn't accept that rule in every case. But if nature supplies a cause that prevents Fabius's death at sea, dying at sea is impossible for him.

### Chapter 8

[15]
Chrysippus gets agitated at this point. He hopes the Chaldeans and other diviners will be fooled. He wants them to stop expressing their principles as conditionals, such as “Anyone born when the Dog Star comes up won't die at sea.” Instead they should say, “A person's birth at the Dog Star's rising and that person's death at sea cannot both be true.” What a ridiculous freedom to change the rules! To avoid running into Diodorus, he tells the Chaldeans how to formulate their own principles. But suppose they use denials of general both-and statements instead of general if-then statements. Why shouldn't doctors do that too? Or people studying geometry? Or other specialists? A doctor, in particular, could replace “A pulse beating this way means the patient has a fever” with “⟨Someone's⟩ pulse beating this way and that person having no fever cannot both be true.” A geometer could stop saying “Great circles within a sphere cut each other into equal halves.” Instead: “There being great circles within a sphere and their not cutting each other into equal halves cannot both be true.”

[16]
What conditional could not be changed into a denial of both-and statements like that? We can express the same matters in other forms too. A moment ago I said, “Great circles within a sphere cut each other into equal halves.” I could say, “If there are going to be great circles within a sphere.” Or I could say, “Because there are going to be great circles within a sphere.” Statements come in many forms. None is more twisted than the form Chrysippus hopes the Chaldeans will accept to accommodate the Stoics.

### Chapter 9

[17]
Not one of them actually speaks that way. Learning those verbal twists would be harder than learning when the constellations rise and set. Let us return to Diodorus's disputed theory of “possibilities,” which examines what being possible amounts to. He allows possibility only to what is already true or will eventually be true. This connects with the claim that every event had to happen. Whatever is possible is either already the case or will become the case. A true statement concerning a future event cannot become false any more than a true statement concerning a past event can. We can see that the past is fixed. Some future events do not look fixed, so people think they are not. For example, a patient may clearly be dying of a disease. “This disease will kill him” is true. If those same words are true of someone whose disease looks less serious, that person will die just the same. A future truth, then, has no possibility of changing into a falsehood either. Even though “Scipio will die” concerns the future, it cannot become false. It concerns a human being, and human beings must die.

[18]
Suppose someone said, “Scipio will suffer a violent death during the night in his own bedroom.” The statement would be true: it predicts what would actually happen. The fact that it happened shows that it was going to happen. Saying “Scipio will die” was no truer than specifying that death. Death itself was no more necessary for him than dying in that particular manner. Nor is “Scipio was killed” any less able to change from truth to falsehood than “Scipio will be killed.” With matters standing like this, why should Epicurus fear fate? Why look to atoms for safety, turn them off their course, and accept two problems that cannot be untangled? One is an event with no cause, which leads to something's coming from nothing. Neither Epicurus nor any other natural philosopher accepts that. The other is this: two indivisible bodies move through empty space, yet one continues straight ahead while the other turns aside.

[19]
Epicurus can accept truth or falsity for every statement without fearing that he must then accept fate for every event. Take “Carneades goes down to the Academy.” Its truth does not come from eternal causes flowing necessarily from nature. It does have causes, however. Causes that happen to come earlier differ from causes with a natural power to produce an effect built into them. Again, the statement “Epicurus will die after seventy-two years of life, with Pytharatus as archon” was true all along. Yet fate supplied no causes requiring that particular death. Rather, since events turned out that way, they were going to turn out that way through a definite ⟨sequence⟩ of causes.

### Chapter 10

[20]
To say that future events cannot change, or that something true about the future cannot become false, does not establish necessary fate. It explains what words mean. Introducing an endless chain of causes is different. That takes free choice from the human mind and ties it to fate's necessity.

Enough on that subject. Let us look at another. Chrysippus reasons this way: suppose some movement has no cause. Then some statements—“propositions,” as logicians call them—will have no truth or falsity. Anything lacking causes that produce it would lack truth or falsity. But truth or falsity belongs to every statement. Therefore, movement with no cause does not occur. On that basis, earlier causes bring about every event. If that holds, fate brings about every event. So whatever takes place does so through fate.

[21]
My first response is this. I could side with Epicurus and deny that truth or falsity must belong to every statement. I would sooner take that hit than accept fate for everything. Epicurus's view at least leaves room for debate. The other view cannot be tolerated. Chrysippus therefore puts all his strength into persuading us that a proposition must be true or false. Epicurus fears that accepting this would force him to accept that fate governs all events. His reasoning is that one alternative's having been true forever makes it certain; certainty makes it necessary. He thinks that establishes both necessity and fate. Chrysippus has the opposite fear. Without establishing truth or falsity for every assertion, he fears he cannot maintain that fate, and eternal causes of future events, govern everything.

[22]
Epicurus thinks an atom's change of course lets him avoid fate's necessity. Weight and impact already produce two kinds of movement. Now he adds a third: an atom shifts sideways by the smallest distance, which he calls “the minimum.” Whether he admits it in words or not, he has to admit in substance that this sideways shift has no cause. No collision with another atom makes it turn aside. On his theory, indivisible bodies move straight downward under their own weight. How, then, could one hit another? If none ever knocks another aside, none even comes into contact with another. That shows that even if atoms exist and turn aside, they do so without a cause.

### Chapter 11

[23]
Here is why Epicurus came up with this account. Suppose an atom's weight always carried it along in a natural, unavoidable way. The movement of atoms would then force our minds to move as they did. Epicurus feared that this would leave us no freedom. Democritus, the originator of the atomic theory, chose the other option. He accepted necessity as the explanation of everything, rather than strip indivisible bodies of their natural movements. Carneades took a more perceptive approach. In his teaching, the Epicureans could make their case without inventing a swerve. They held that a movement of the mind could be voluntary. Defending that position was the better course. Why bring in a swerve, particularly when they could find no cause for it? Defending voluntary movement would let them answer Chrysippus easily. They could accept a cause for every movement and still reject preceding causes as the explanation of everything that occurs. Our will, on this account, does not have causes outside itself that come before it.

[24]
Our everyday way of speaking is loose, then, when we say that someone wants something, or does not want it, “for no reason.” In saying “for no reason,” we mean that there is no outside cause coming first. We do not mean that there is no cause of any sort. Take the way we call a container empty. We do not mean what the students of nature mean: for them, a void has nothing in it. We mean, for instance, a container without water, wine, or oil. It is the same when we speak of the mind moving “without a cause.” We are denying a cause outside it and prior to it, not denying all causes. Even an atom could be said to travel causelessly through the void as its own heaviness and weight carry it along. No cause from outside comes into play.

[25]
Still, we must distinguish the senses. Otherwise every student of nature will laugh at us for allowing a causeless event. We should put it this way. Movement by heaviness and weight belongs to the very nature of an indivisible body. That nature itself explains why the body travels in that fashion. Apply the same point to voluntary mental movements: there is no need to seek a cause outside them. What makes a movement voluntary is its own nature, which makes it answer to us and leaves us in charge of it. This is not causeless either. The cause is precisely that nature.

### Chapter 12

[26]
Given all that, why should we have to accept fate as the explanation of every event before we can call every statement true or false? Here is his reply: “A claim that something will happen cannot be true unless there are causes that will make it happen. So anything truly going to happen must have causes. When it occurs, then, fate will have brought it about.” Well, that settles the business—provided you really have to choose between fate governing all events and the possibility of a causeless event.

[27]
Consider this statement: “Scipio is going to take Numantia.” Must an everlasting succession of causes, each generating the next, bring this result about before that statement can be true? Imagine someone making it six hundred centuries earlier. Could it have been false? If “Scipio is going to take Numantia” was not true back then, “Scipio took Numantia” is not true even after Numantia has been destroyed. So could an event ever have taken place without its having been true that it would take place? We call a statement about the past true when what it says held true at some earlier point. The same applies to the future: we will call the statement true when what it says will hold true at a later point.

[28]
Classifying every statement as true or false does not at once establish eternal, unalterable causes. Such causes would rule out any outcome different from the one that is coming. A statement like “Cato is coming to the senate” gets its truth from chance causes. Those causes are not locked into nature and the universe. Yet if his coming is true, that truth cannot change, any more than the truth that he came can change. There is no reason here to be frightened of either necessity or fate. We will certainly have to admit the following: “Suppose ‘Hortensius is coming to the house at Tusculum’ is not true. It must, then, be false.” These people refuse both alternatives. That is impossible.

The argument called “lazy” will not stop us either. Philosophers call a certain line of reasoning the “idle argument.” Following it would mean never doing anything at all in our lives.

### Chapter 13

[29]
They put their challenge this way: “Suppose fate has decreed your recovery from this illness. You will get well, doctor or no doctor. Now suppose fate has decreed that you will not recover from this illness. You will not get well, doctor or no doctor. Fate has decreed one of these two outcomes. So why bother getting a doctor?” “Lazy” and “idle” are apt names for this kind of challenge. Apply its reasoning generally, and you remove all activity from life. You can also change the wording to omit fate entirely and still make the same point. Here is how: “Suppose ‘You will get over this illness’ has been true for all eternity. You will get well, doctor or no doctor. Now suppose ‘You will get over this illness’ has been false for all eternity. You will not get well, doctor or no doctor.” The rest of the argument stays the same. Chrysippus objects to this reasoning.

[30]
He says: “Events can be single or linked together. Take ‘Socrates is going to die on that date.’ That is single. His date of death is fixed regardless of anything he does or leaves undone. But take this decree of fate: ‘Laius is going to father Oedipus.’ You cannot add, ‘Whether Laius sleeps with a woman or not.’ Here the events are linked and jointly fated.” He uses that expression because fate decrees both Laius' sleeping with his wife and his having Oedipus by her. Compare “Milo is going to compete in wrestling at the Olympics.” Someone would be wrong to answer, “Then he will wrestle, opponent or no opponent.” Wrestling is a linked event: it cannot take place without an opponent. This same reply disposes of all such trick arguments. It is a trick to say, “You will get well, doctor or no doctor.” Getting a doctor is no less decreed by fate than getting well. “Jointly fated,” as I said, is his name for these events.

### Chapter 14

[31]
Carneades would have none of this approach. In his view, people arrived at the conclusion of this argument much too hastily. He therefore pressed his attack on another front, without any dishonest quibbling. Here was his reasoning. Let preceding causes account for every event. That would put every event in an interconnected, interwoven chain of nature. In that case, necessity produces every event. If that is right, we have control over nothing. Yet we do have control over something. Now, to say fate accounts for every event is to give every event preceding causes. Therefore fate cannot account for every event that occurs.

[32]
There is no way to make this reasoning tighter. But suppose someone tried to turn the same reasoning around: “Suppose it has been true for all eternity that every future event will take place. Its outcome is therefore certain to be exactly as it is going to be. So every event must belong to an interconnected, interwoven chain of nature.” That would be an empty argument. The two questions are very different. Is a natural cause making the future true for all eternity? Or can we understand that something is truly going to happen without there being an eternal natural chain? Carneades accordingly said that even Apollo could tell the future only in cases where nature held causes that made the outcome unavoidable.

### Chapter 15

[33]
What could the god himself consult to announce that Marcellus—the three-time consul—would lose his life at sea? That had indeed been true for all eternity. But there were no causes producing that result. Carneades therefore believed Apollo could not even know about past events if they left no marks, no footprints, so to speak. Still less could he know what lay ahead! To know the future, you first have to know the causes that produce each event. On that basis, Apollo could not have made a prediction about Oedipus unless nature already contained causes making his killing his father inevitable. The same applies to any similar prediction. The Stoics say fate accounts for all events. Accepting oracles of this sort, and the other evidence taken from divination, fits their position. But people who say the future has been true for all eternity are not committed to the same claim. Ask yourself, then, whether their case is really identical to the Stoics' case. The Stoics are much more restricted. The others' reasoning has room to move freely.

[34]
Now grant that an event cannot occur without a cause coming before it. What is gained by denying that this cause is tied to an eternal series of causes? To be a cause, something must produce the result attributed to it. Think of a deadly wound, indigestion that causes sickness, or fire that causes heat. Something's merely coming first does not make it a cause. It has to come first in a way that actually brings about the result. Going down to the field did not cause me to play ball. Giving birth to Alexander did not make Hecuba the cause of the Trojans' ruin. Nor did fathering Clytemnestra make Tyndareus the cause of Agamemnon's ruin. On that basis, when a bandit robs a smartly dressed traveler, the traveler himself would count as the cause.

[35]
This passage from Ennius is a case in point:
“If only the axes in Pelion's woods
had never chopped the fir trunks down to the earth!”
He could have started even earlier: “If only Pelion had never grown a single tree!” Or earlier still: “If only there had never been any mountain called Pelion!” Keep tracing earlier events like that, and you can go backward without end.
“And if only the work of starting that ship
had never begun with that timber.”
Why run through these earlier events? Because of what comes next:
“For my deluded mistress would never have put a foot outside her home,
Medea, her mind sick, hurt by violent love,”
†not that these things brought about her love.

### Chapter 16

[36]
They draw a distinction between a circumstance without which something cannot happen and one whose presence makes the result unavoidable. On that account, none of the things mentioned is a cause. None produces, by its own power, what it is said to cause. Something's being indispensable does not make it a cause. A cause must necessarily bring about its effect when it comes into play. Before Philoctetes received the snakebite wound, what cause existed in nature for his being left on Lemnos? After the bite, a cause did exist, closer to the outcome and more directly connected with it.

[37]
So understanding the outcome shows us what caused it. Still, the statement “Philoctetes will be left behind on the island” was always true. It could not change from a truth into a falsehood. Consider a pair of opposites. Here I mean statements in which one says yes to something and the other says no. Despite Epicurus' objections, there must be a true statement on one side and a false one on the other. Throughout all past ages, for instance, it was true to say “Philoctetes will suffer a wound.” Saying “He will suffer no wound” was false. Unless, of course, we choose to follow the Epicureans! They say that statements of this kind have no truth or falsity. Or, embarrassed by that position, they take an even more shameless one. In their view, an either-or statement made from a contradictory pair is true, but neither of the statements forming that pair is true.

[38]
What extraordinary freedom to say anything! What a sorry failure to understand argument! Suppose someone says something that has no truth or falsity. At least it is not true. But how can something not true avoid being false? And how can something not false avoid being true? ⟨So⟩ Chrysippus' claim stands: every statement has one of two values, true or false. Reason itself will force this conclusion on us: some things have always been true, yet they have no chain of eternal causes binding them. Fate places no necessity on them.

### Chapter 17

[39]
I see it this way. Among the earlier philosophers there were two positions. For one group, fate determined everything, and that fate brought unavoidable compulsion with it. This was the position of Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle. For the other group, movements of our minds that we freely choose had nothing to do with fate. Chrysippus seems to have wanted a compromise, as though serving as an arbitrator by agreement. In practice he sides more with those who want mental movements freed from necessity. But his own terminology gets him into trouble. Without meaning to, he ends up upholding the very necessity of fate.

[40]
We can look, if you wish, at assent to see what this amounts to. I dealt with assent at the opening of my discussion. Those earlier philosophers who attributed all events to fate also attributed assent to force and necessity. Their opponents exempted assent from fate. You could not, they said, subject assent to fate while keeping it free of necessity. Their reasoning went like this. Assume fate governs everything. Each event must then have a prior cause. If this holds for impulses, it holds for what follows from impulses, including assent. But if the cause of an impulse is not located in us, the impulse itself is beyond our control. What the impulse produces must then be beyond our control as well. That leaves us without control of either our assent or our actions. Consequently there would be no justice in praise or blame, in honors or punishments. They regard that as an unacceptable result. So, they think, it is reasonable to conclude that not all events are fated.

### Chapter 18

[41]
Chrysippus rejects necessity but wants nothing to happen without prior causes. So he distinguishes kinds of causes, hoping both to escape necessity and to keep fate. “Some causes,” he says, “are complete and primary; others are contributing and immediate. So when we say that everything happens by fate through preceding causes, we do not mean complete and primary causes. We mean contributing [preceding] and immediate causes.” This is how he answers the argument I set out a little earlier. If everything happens by fate, it does follow that everything happens through prior causes. But these are not primary and complete causes. They are contributing and immediate ones. Even if these causes themselves are not under our control, it does not follow that impulse is not under our control either. That would follow if we said everything happened through complete and primary causes. Then, because those causes were not under our control, impulse would not be under our control either.

[42]
So the earlier argument will work against people who introduce fate in a way that also brings in necessity. But it will have no force against people who say that preceding causes are not complete or primary. Chrysippus thinks he can easily explain what it means to say that assent happens through prior causes. Assent cannot happen unless an impression stirs it. Still, because it has that impression as its immediate cause, not its primary cause, it fits the account we gave earlier, as Chrysippus intends. Not that assent can happen without some outside force setting it in motion: an impression must stir assent. But he goes back to his cylinder and his spinning top. These cannot start moving unless they are pushed. Once that happens, however, he thinks the cylinder keeps rolling and the top keeps spinning because of their own nature.

### Chapter 19

[43]
He says: “Pushing a cylinder gives it the start of its motion, not its capacity for rolling. An impression presented to the mind does something similar. It leaves its own likeness stamped there, rather like a seal. But giving assent remains our decision. Assent, like the cylinder in our example, receives a push from outside. After that, its own power and nature carry on the movement. A single event without a prior cause would disprove the claim that fate governs everything. But a prior cause seems likely for every event that takes place. What could justify refusing to acknowledge fate as the explanation of all events? Only be sure you understand how the kinds of causes differ and how they must be distinguished.”

[44]
That is Chrysippus' explanation. Now take the people who deny that fate governs assent. If they †still acknowledge that an impression has to precede assent, the argument is different. But suppose they allow that impressions come first while still rejecting fated assent, because that immediate and closely connected cause does not set assent in motion. Look at whether their point is actually the same as his. Chrysippus allows the impression to be assent's immediate and closely connected cause. He does not [nor] allow it to be a cause that forces assent, making all events both caused in advance and compelled if they are all fated. His opponents likewise accept that impressions must arrive before assent. They will say this: “If saying that all events are fated means that each event requires a cause to come before it, we must acknowledge that all events are fated.” It is therefore easy to understand their disagreement. When each party opens up and explains its position, both arrive at one result. Their words differ; their actual views do not.

[45]
In general, the distinction runs as follows. For some events, after certain causes have come first, we can truly say we have no power to stop the resulting events from occurring. For others, the causes may already have come first, yet we retain the power to change the result. Both parties accept that division. One party, however, calls an event fated when its preceding causes leave us unable to change its outcome. Things we can control, they say, have no fate attached to them […]

### Chapter 20

[46]
That is the right way to conduct this debate. There is no point seeking support from atoms that stray and turn off course. He tells us, “The atom takes a swerve.” My first question is: why? There was already another force moving atoms. In Democritus' account it was a push—his term is a blow. In your account, Epicurus, it was heaviness and weight. What new natural cause, then, turns an atom aside? Do atoms perhaps draw lots to settle which one swerves and which does not? Why should the distance of the swerve be the least possible, never any larger? Why just one of those smallest units, rather than two or three?

[47]
That is wishing, not reasoning. Your account does not say that a blow from outside displaces an atom and makes it turn aside. Nor does it supply anything in the void it travels through to explain why its travel should cease to be straight. And nothing has changed inside the atom to stop it keeping to the natural motion its own weight gives it. He has supplied no cause for the swerve at all. Even so, he believes he has made a point, although what he says meets rejection and refusal in everyone's mind.

[48]
Indeed, to my mind nobody does more than this man to confirm fate and, beyond fate, the compulsion and necessity governing all events. Nobody does more to abolish freely chosen movements of the mind. He admits that he could not oppose fate by any other means: his only escape was to invent these swerves. Let us even grant the existence of atoms, though I cannot possibly be persuaded of it. That would still leave those swerves unexplained forever. Suppose natural necessity assigns atoms their motion by weight. After all, anything heavy must move and travel unless something gets in its way. Then swerving must also happen of necessity, as a natural property of some atoms—or of all atoms, if that is what they want […]

### Fragment 1

[1]
In the book he wrote about fate, Marcus Cicero calls this question very hard to understand and very tangled. He adds that the philosopher Chrysippus, too, failed to disentangle himself from it. Cicero puts it this way: “Chrysippus is all worked up, struggling to explain in what ⟨way⟩ everything can happen through fate while something is still up to us. He gets himself into the following tangle.” Gel. N. A. 7.2.15

### Fragment 2

[2]
“And brings the changes around”: the definition of fate follows Tullius' account. He says: “Fate means events connected to one another through all eternity. This connection varies by its own rule and order. Yet the variation itself lasts eternally.” Serv. ad Vergil. A. 3.376

### Fragment 3

[3]
These lines of Homer also support this view. Cicero translated them into Latin:
“People's minds are like the light with which Father
Jupiter himself has lit the crop-bearing earth.”
Augstin. de civ. dei 5.8

### Fragment 4

[4]
According to Cicero, the celebrated physician Hippocrates recorded a suspicion about two brothers: he thought they were twins. They had started being ill together. In both brothers, the illness grew worse at once and eased at once. The Stoic Posidonius, a keen follower of astrology, regularly insisted that the brothers had matching arrangements of stars when they were born and matching arrangements when they were conceived. To the physician, their very similar bodily makeup explained the case. To the philosopher who studied the stars, the explanation was the stars' power and arrangement when the brothers were conceived and when they were born. Augustin. de civ. dei 5.2

### Fragment 5

[5]
And so that a poet may not be considered a witness of too little weight, take Cicero as your authority for how highly this fish was valued by the famous Publius Scipio Africanus, also called Numantinus. These are Cicero's words in the dialogue On Fate: “Scipio was at his place near Lavernium, with Pontius there too. A sturgeon happened to be brought to Scipio. It is very rarely caught, but people say it is one of the finest fish. Scipio had invited one and then another of the people who had come to pay their respects and seemed likely to invite still more. Pontius whispered in his ear: ‘Scipio, watch what you are doing. That sturgeon is for a small number of people.’” Macrobius Saturnalia 3.16.3