Book 2, Chapter 45
Original Latin
94 Sed quae tanta dementia est, ut in maxumis motibus mutationibusque caeli nihil intersit, qui ventus, qui imber, quae tempestas ubique sit? quarum rerum in proxumis locis tantae dissimilitudines saepe sunt, ut alia Tusculi, alia Romae eveniat saepe tempestas; quod, qui navigant, maxume animadvertunt, cum in flectendis promunturiis ventorum mutationes maxumas saepe sentiunt. Haec igitur cum sit tum serenitas, tum perturbatio caeli, estne sanorum hominum hoc ad nascentium ortus pertinere non dicere [quod non certe pertinet], illud nescio quid tenue, quod sentiri nullo modo, intellegi autem vix potest, quae a luna ceterisque sideribus caeli temperatio fiat, dicere ad puerorum ortus pertinere? Quid? quod non intellegunt seminum vim, quae ad gignendum procreandumque plurimum valeat, funditus tolli, mediocris erroris est? Quis enim non videt et formas et mores et plerosque status ac motus effingere a parentibus liberos? quod non contingeret, si haec non vis et natura gignentium efficeret, sed temperatio lunae caelique moderatio.
95 Quid? quod uno et eodem temporis puncto nati dissimilis et naturas et vitas et casus habent, parumne declarat nihil ad agendam vitam nascendi tempus pertinere? nisi forte putamus neminem eodem tempore ipso et conceptum et natum, quo Africanum. Num quis igitur talis fuit?
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the Latin in separate source-only tasks and reviewed throughout against it. Both books, all 130 chapters and 282 numbered sections; no historical English translation used. Latin transcription credited to the Perseus Project under CC BY-SA 4.0, Müller’s 1915 Teubner edition.
94 “What madness, though, to hold that amid the greatest movements and changes in the heavens it makes no difference what wind, rain, or weather prevails in a place! Such conditions often differ so greatly in neighboring places that Tusculum has one sort of weather and Rome another. Sailors notice this especially, often feeling the greatest shifts of wind as they round a headland. When the sky is now so clear and now so stormy, is it sane to deny that this affects a child’s birth—though it certainly has no such effect—and yet to assert that births are affected by some elusive, subtle thing, wholly imperceptible and scarcely comprehensible, the atmospheric balance produced by the moon and other heavenly bodies? And is it a trifling error not to see that this entirely abolishes the power of the seed, which has the greatest force in generation and reproduction? Who fails to see that children reproduce their parents’ features, characters, and most of their postures and movements? That would not happen if these effects came not from the power and nature of the parents but from the moon’s conditioning influence and the heavens’ control.
95 “And when people born at one and the same instant differ in nature, life, and fortune, does that not show plainly enough that the time of birth has no bearing on the conduct of life? Unless, perhaps, we suppose no one was conceived and born at precisely the same times as Africanus. Was anyone else, then, like him?
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the Latin, never from the Musean edition. Both books and every numbered section; a separate Latin-source model review covered the entire text. No human specialist review is claimed.
94 “But what madness it is to say that, amid the sky's great movements and changes, the wind, rain, and weather in each place make no difference! These things often vary so much even between nearby places that the weather at Tusculum is often different from the weather at Rome. Sailors notice this especially: as they round headlands they often feel huge changes in the wind. The sky is sometimes clear and sometimes stormy in this way. Is it sane to deny that this affects children at birth—which certainly it does not—yet say their births are affected by some vague, subtle thing we cannot sense at all and can hardly understand: the condition of the sky produced by the moon and the other stars? And is it a small mistake not to see that they completely wipe out the power of the seed, which is so important in conception and reproduction? Everyone can see that children take after their parents in appearance and character, and in most of the ways they hold themselves and move. If the moon's influence and the arrangement of the heavens controlled these things rather than the parents' own nature and power, no such resemblance would occur.
95 “And people born at exactly the same instant have different characters, lives, and experiences. Isn't that clear enough proof that the time of birth makes no difference to the course of a life? Unless perhaps we think no one was conceived and born at the very same times as Africanus. Was anyone else like him?
About this section
Book 2, Chapter 45 is part of On Divination by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 103 of 130 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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