Book 2

2.1 When Cotta had finished, Velleius said, “How rash I was to attempt a contest with an Academic who is also an orator! I should have had no great fear of an Academic without eloquence, or of an orator, however eloquent, without that philosophy. A torrent of empty words does not trouble me, nor do subtle arguments if their expression is dry. But you, Cotta, were powerful in both; all you lacked were an audience and a jury. Still, we can return to this another time. For now, let us hear Lucilius, if it suits him.”

2.2 Then Balbus said, “For my part, I should rather hear Cotta again, provided he uses the same eloquence to establish the true gods that he used to demolish the false ones. As a philosopher, as a pontiff, and as Cotta, he ought to hold a view of the immortal gods that is not wavering and uncertain, like the Academics’, but firm and settled, like ours. Enough and more than enough has been said against Epicurus. But I am eager to hear what you yourself believe, Cotta.”

“Have you forgotten,” he answered, “what I said at the outset—that I could more easily say what I did not believe than what I did, especially on such questions? Even if I had reached some clear conclusion, I should still want to hear you in your turn, after saying so much myself.”

2.3 Then Balbus said, “I shall oblige you and be as brief as I can. The exposure of Epicurus’ errors has, in fact, cut a long stretch out of my argument. Our school divides the whole inquiry into the immortal gods into four parts. First they show that gods exist; next, what they are like; then, that they govern the world; and finally, that they care for human affairs. In this conversation let us take the first two; the third and fourth are larger questions, and I think we should postpone them to another time.”

“Certainly not,” said Cotta. “We have leisure, and the matters we are discussing deserve precedence even over business.”

2.4 Then Lucilius said, “The first part hardly seems to need an argument. When we look up at the sky and contemplate the heavens, what could be more evident, more unmistakable, than that some divine power of surpassing intelligence governs them? If that were not so, how could Ennius have said, with everyone’s assent, ‘Look at this shining height, which all invoke as Jupiter’—and called him Jupiter indeed, ruler of all things, guiding everything by his movement, and, as Ennius also says, ‘father of gods and men,’ a god present among us and supreme in power? If anyone doubts this, I can scarcely understand why he should not equally doubt whether the sun exists or not.

2.5 “For how is the one more evident than the other? Unless our minds had grasped and understood this truth, the conviction would not remain so firm, would not be strengthened by the passage of time, and could not have grown old with the centuries and generations of humanity. We see that other opinions, false inventions without substance, have withered away over time. Who believes that a centaur or the Chimaera ever existed? What old woman could be found so witless as to fear those monsters in the underworld that people once believed in? Time erases the fictions of opinion; it confirms the judgments of nature.

2.6 “Thus among our own people and among others, worship of the gods and reverence for religion grow greater and better every day. This does not happen blindly or by chance, but because the gods often reveal their power in person. At Lake Regillus, during the Latin war, when the dictator Aulus Postumius fought Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, Castor and Pollux were seen fighting on horseback in our line. In more recent memory those same sons of Tyndareus announced the defeat of Perseus. Publius Vatinius, the grandfather of the young man we know, was traveling to Rome by night from the prefecture of Reate when two young men on white horses told him that King Perseus had been captured that day. When he reported this to the senate, he was at first thrown into prison for making a reckless statement about public affairs. Later, when a letter arrived from Paulus and the date proved to be the same, the senate rewarded him with land and exemption from public service. Again, tradition records that when the Locrians defeated the people of Croton in a great battle at the river Sagra, news of the battle was heard that very day at the games at Olympia. Often the voices of Fauns have been heard; often gods have appeared in visible form, compelling anyone who was neither dull-witted nor impious to acknowledge their presence.

2.7 “And predictions and foreknowledge of the future—what else do they reveal but that coming events are shown, signaled, foreshadowed, and foretold to human beings? Hence the Latin ostenta, monstra, portenta, and prodigia, from ostendi, monstrari, portendi, and praedici: being shown, signaled, foreshadowed, and foretold. Suppose we consider Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus inventions of poetic license—though even myths would not have adopted them as diviners if the facts had altogether ruled divination out. Shall we not learn even from examples at home and acknowledge the power of the gods? Will the recklessness of Publius Clodius in the First Punic War leave us unmoved? Mocking the gods even in jest, when the sacred chickens released from their cage would not feed, he ordered them plunged into water: since they would not eat, they should drink. That laughter, when his fleet was defeated, brought him many tears and the Roman people a great disaster. And his colleague Lucius Junius—did he not lose his fleet in a storm during the same war, after disobeying the auspices? Clodius was therefore condemned by the people, and Junius took his own life.

2.8 “Coelius writes that Gaius Flaminius fell at Lake Trasimene, with grievous harm to the state, because he neglected religious observance. Their destruction enables us to understand that the state was enlarged under the command of those who obeyed religion. If we choose to compare ourselves with foreign peoples, we shall find ourselves their equals, or even their inferiors, in other respects, but far their superiors in religion—that is, in the worship of the gods.

2.9 “Are we to despise that augur’s staff of Attus Navius, with which he marked out the regions of the vineyard to track down a pig? I might think so, had King Hostilius not conducted his greatest wars under his augury. But through the negligence of our nobility, the discipline of augury has been abandoned and the truth of the auspices scorned; only the outward form has been retained. Thus the greatest affairs of state, including the wars on which its safety depends, are conducted without any auspices. None are taken when rivers are crossed, none from the points of spears; no men are summoned, and consequently wills made before battle have disappeared. Our commanders now begin to wage war only when they have laid aside their auspices.

2.10 “Yet among our ancestors religion had such power that certain commanders, their heads veiled, consecrated even their own lives to the immortal gods for the state, using a prescribed formula. I could recall many utterances of the Sibyl and many answers of the diviners who inspect sacrifices to confirm what no one ought to doubt. Indeed, events themselves vindicated both the discipline of our augurs and that of the Etruscan diviners in the consulship of Publius Scipio and Gaius Figulus. When Tiberius Gracchus, consul for the second time, was presiding over their election, the first officer collecting the votes suddenly died on the spot, just as he reported their return. Gracchus nevertheless completed the election, but realized that the incident had aroused religious misgivings among the people, and referred it to the senate. The senate resolved that it should be referred to the usual authorities. The diviners were brought in and answered that the officer who had conducted the election was not properly qualified. Then Gracchus, as I used to hear from my father, blazed with anger:

2.11 “‘What? I was not qualified? I conducted the election as consul and augur, after taking the auspices! Do you Etruscans, you foreigners, understand the Roman people’s law of auspices, and can you interpret its elections?’ So he ordered them out. But later he wrote from his province to the college of augurs. While reading the books, he had remembered that there was a fault in his taking the augural station in Scipio’s gardens: after entering the sacred boundary of the city to hold a senate meeting, he had forgotten to take the auspices when he crossed that same boundary on his return. The consuls, therefore, had been elected under a religious defect. The augurs referred the matter to the senate; the senate ordered the consuls to resign; they resigned. What greater examples do we seek? A man of consummate wisdom, perhaps the most distinguished of all men, chose to confess his error, though he could have concealed it, rather than let religious guilt cling to the state; the consuls chose to surrender their supreme command at once rather than retain it for a single instant against religion.

2.12 “Great is the authority of the augurs; and is not the diviners’ art itself divine? Anyone who sees these things, and countless others of the same kind, must surely be compelled to acknowledge that gods exist. Those whose interpreters they are must certainly exist; and they are interpreters of the gods. Let us therefore admit that gods exist. Perhaps, however, not everything predicted comes true. Neither is medicine no art merely because not all the sick recover. Signs of future events are shown by the gods; if anyone has erred in reading them, the fault lies not with the divine nature but with human interpretation.

“Thus on the main point there is agreement among all people of every nation. Everyone has an inborn conviction, as though engraved upon the mind, that gods exist. What they are like is disputed; their existence no one denies.

2.13 “Our Cleanthes said that conceptions of the gods had taken shape in human minds for four reasons. First he placed the one I have just mentioned, arising from foreknowledge of the future. Second came the impression we receive from the greatness of the benefits furnished by the temperate climate, the fertility of the earth, and the abundance of many other advantages.

2.14 “The third was the terror inspired by lightning, storms, rain clouds, snow, hail, devastation, pestilence, earthquakes and often underground rumblings, showers of stones, and raindrops seemingly tinged with blood; then by landslides or sudden chasms in the earth, by unnatural and monstrous births among humans and livestock, by fiery lights seen in the sky, and by the stars the Greeks call ‘comets’ and our people ‘curly-haired stars,’ which recently, during the war with Octavius, foretold great disasters. There is also the appearance of a second sun, which, as I heard from my father, occurred in the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius—the very year in which Publius Africanus, another sun, was extinguished. Terrified by these things, people came to suspect the existence of some heavenly and divine power.

2.15 “The fourth reason, and perhaps the greatest, was the uniformity of motion and utterly constant revolution of the heavens, the distinctness, usefulness, beauty, and order of the sun, moon, and all the stars. Their very appearance sufficiently indicated that they were not products of chance. If someone enters a house, a gymnasium, or a public square and sees everything arranged with method, proportion, and discipline, he cannot suppose this has come about without a cause: he understands that someone presides and is obeyed. Far more, amid such mighty motions and alternations, amid the ordered sequences of things so numerous and so great—sequences in which the immeasurable, infinite past has never shown a failure—he must conclude that some intelligence governs these vast movements of nature.

2.16 “Chrysippus, for all his penetrating genius, speaks in a way that seems learned from nature herself rather than discovered by his own effort. ‘If there is anything in nature,’ he says, ‘that the human mind, reason, strength, and power cannot produce, then what produces it is certainly better than a human being. But the heavenly bodies, and all those things whose order is everlasting, cannot be made by humans. Therefore what makes them is better than a human being. And what would you call it rather than god? For if there are no gods, what can there be in nature better than a human being? Humans alone possess reason, and nothing can surpass reason. Yet for a human being to think that nothing in the whole world is better than himself is senseless arrogance. Therefore something is better. Therefore god certainly exists.’

2.17 “If you saw a large and beautiful house, you could not be persuaded, even without seeing its master, to believe it had been built for mice and weasels. Then if you think the world’s vast splendor, the great variety and beauty of the heavens, and the enormous power and extent of sea and land are your dwelling, not that of the immortal gods, would you not appear completely senseless? Do we fail to understand even this: everything above is better, while the earth lies lowest, surrounded by the densest air? Precisely for this reason—just as we see that the inhabitants of certain regions and cities have duller minds because of the greater density of their atmosphere—the same has happened to the human race, because humans have been placed on earth, in the densest region of the world.

2.18 “Yet from human intelligence itself we ought to infer that some mind exists, more penetrating than ours and divine. Where did a human being ‘snatch’ this intelligence, as Socrates asks in Xenophon? If someone asks where we obtained our moisture, the heat diffused through our bodies, the earthy solidity of our flesh, or finally that breath-like soul, the answer is clear. One thing we took from earth, another from water, another from fire, another from the air that we draw as breath. But that which surpasses all these—I mean reason, or, if you prefer more words, mind, judgment, thought, and practical wisdom—where did we find it? From where did we take it? Will the world possess everything else and lack this one thing of greatest worth? Certainly nothing in all existence is better than the world, nothing more excellent, nothing more beautiful. Not only does nothing better exist; nothing better can even be conceived. And if nothing is better than reason and wisdom, these must exist in what we acknowledge to be the best of all things.

2.19 “And who will not be compelled to accept my argument by the great, unbroken kinship of things, their mutual agreement and harmony? Could the earth flower at one season and in turn grow bare at another? Could the sun’s approach and withdrawal at the summer and winter solstices be recognized through so many changes in things themselves? Could the ocean tides and narrow straits be stirred by the moon’s rising or setting? Could the different courses of the stars be maintained within the single revolution of the whole sky? These things could certainly not occur with every part of the world in harmony unless one divine, all-pervading breath held them together.

2.20 “When these matters are discussed more richly and expansively, as I intend to discuss them, they more easily escape the Academics’ captious objections. But when they are compressed into brief, narrow deductions, as Zeno used to do, they are more exposed to criticism. Just as flowing water is hardly, if at all, corrupted, while stagnant water easily is, so a flowing argument washes away the critic’s abuse, while a tightly confined deduction cannot easily defend itself. Zeno compressed the matters I am developing into this form:

2.21 “‘What uses reason is better than what does not use reason. Nothing is better than the world. Therefore the world uses reason.’ In the same way it can be proved that the world is wise, happy, and eternal. All these qualities are better than their absence, and nothing is better than the world. From this it follows that the world is god.

2.22 “He also argues in this way: ‘No part of something lacking sensation can itself possess sensation. But parts of the world possess sensation. Therefore the world does not lack sensation.’ He presses on and tightens the argument: ‘Nothing devoid of life and reason can generate from itself something alive and rational. But the world generates living and rational beings. Therefore the world is alive and rational.’ He also completed his argument with an analogy, as he often does: ‘If flutes playing harmonious music grew on an olive tree, would you doubt that some knowledge of flute-playing existed in the tree? What if plane trees bore lyres sounding in rhythm? You would of course conclude that music existed in those plane trees. Why, then, should the world not be judged alive and wise, when it produces from itself living and wise beings?’

2.23 “But since I have begun to proceed differently from what I said at the outset—I said this first part needed no argument, because the existence of the gods was evident to everyone—I nevertheless want to confirm that very point by physical arguments, that is, arguments from nature. The fact is that everything nourished, everything that grows, contains a power of heat within itself; without it, neither nourishment nor growth would be possible. For everything hot and fiery is stirred and driven by its own motion, while whatever feeds and grows employs a certain steady, uniform motion. As long as that motion remains in us, sensation and life remain; when our heat cools and is extinguished, we ourselves die and are extinguished.

2.24 “Cleanthes also shows by the following arguments how great a power of heat exists in every body. No food, he says, is so heavy that it is not digested night and day; even the waste that nature rejects still contains heat. Again, veins and arteries never cease throbbing with a kind of fiery movement. It has often been observed that an animal’s heart, torn out of its body, goes on beating with such activity that it resembles the swiftness of fire. Thus everything that lives, whether animal or growth from the earth, lives because of the heat enclosed within it. From this we must understand that the nature of heat contains a life-giving power extending throughout the entire world.

2.25 “We shall see this more readily if we examine more closely the whole fiery element that penetrates everything. All the parts of the world—I shall touch only on the principal ones—are supported and sustained by heat. This can first be seen in the nature of earth. We see fire struck from stones by impact and friction, the earth steaming with warmth when freshly dug, and warm water drawn even from perennial wells. This happens especially in winter, because a great store of heat is contained in the earth’s hollows, and in winter the earth is denser and therefore holds its inherent heat more tightly.

2.26 “It would take a long discussion, with many arguments, to show that all the seeds the earth receives, and all the growths she produces from herself and holds fast by their roots, arise and increase through a due balance of heat. That heat is also mixed with water is shown first by water’s own fluidity and flow. It could not freeze in the cold or grow solid as snow and frost unless, with heat mixed into it, it could also melt, dissolve, and spread. Thus moisture hardens under north winds and other applications of cold, and in turn softens when warmed and melts with heat. Again, the seas grow so warm when stirred by winds that we can readily understand that heat is enclosed within those immense waters. That warmth must not be regarded as coming from outside or as something added, but as roused by agitation from the sea’s innermost depths—the same thing happens to our own bodies when movement and exercise warm them. Indeed air itself, though by nature extremely cold, is by no means without heat.

2.27 “In fact, it has a great deal of heat mixed into it, for it arises from the exhalation of water. Air must be regarded as a kind of vapor from water, produced by the movement of the heat contained in water. We can see a likeness of this in water boiling over a fire. Then there remains the fourth part of the world. This is itself fiery throughout its nature and imparts wholesome, life-giving heat to all the other elements.

2.28 “From this it follows that, since all the world’s parts are sustained by heat, the world itself is preserved through so long a duration by a like and corresponding power. All the more so because we must understand that this hot, fiery element is diffused throughout nature in such a way that it contains the power of procreation and the cause of generation: through it all animals and all things rooted in the earth must be born and grow.

2.29 “There is therefore a nature that holds the whole world together and preserves it, and that nature is not without sensation and reason. Every nature that is not solitary and simple, but joined and connected with something else, must have some governing principle within itself. In a human being this is the mind; in a beast, something resembling mind, from which impulses toward things arise. In trees and other growths from the earth, the governing principle is thought to lie in the roots. By ‘governing principle’ I mean what the Greeks call the hegemonikon: in each kind of being nothing can or ought to surpass it. Thus whatever holds the governing principle of all nature must also be best of all, and most worthy of power and dominion over everything.

2.30 “But we see that sensation and reason exist in parts of the world—for there is nothing anywhere in the world that is not a part of the whole. Therefore these qualities must exist in the part that contains the world’s governing principle, and in a sharper and higher degree. Consequently the world must be wise, and the nature that embraces and holds all things must excel in the perfection of reason. Therefore the world is god, and all the world’s power is sustained by a divine nature.

“Moreover, the world’s fiery heat is far purer, brighter, and more active than the heat we know, which preserves and invigorates the things familiar to us; for those reasons it is better suited to arousing sensation.

2.31 “It is therefore absurd to say that humans and beasts are held together by this heat, and through it move and feel, but that the world lacks sensation, though it is held together by a fire unspoiled, unfettered, pure, and at the same time intensely vigorous and active. Especially so, since the world’s fire is not set in motion by something else or by an external impulse, but moves by itself and of its own accord. What could be stronger than the world, to drive and move the heat by which the world is held together?

2.32 “Let us listen to Plato, a kind of god among philosophers. He holds that there are two kinds of motion, one originating within a thing, the other outside it; and that what moves by itself, of its own accord, is more divine than what is driven by another’s impulse. This self-originating motion he assigns to souls alone, and he thinks that from them motion takes its first beginning. Therefore, since all motion arises from the world’s fire, and that fire moves not by an external impulse but of its own accord, it must be a soul. From this it follows that the world is alive.

“We may also understand that it possesses intelligence from this: the world is certainly better than any particular nature. Just as no part of our body is worth as much as we ourselves, so the universe must be worth more than any part of the universe. If so, the world must be wise. Otherwise a human being, though a part of the world, would have to be worth more than the entire world because he possesses reason.

2.33 “Again, if we choose to advance from the first, rudimentary forms of nature to the highest and perfected forms, we must arrive at the nature of the gods. First we observe that nature sustains the things that spring from the earth. To these she has given nothing beyond preservation through nourishment and growth.

2.34 “To beasts, however, she has given sensation and motion, and an impulse by which they approach what is wholesome and withdraw from what is deadly. To humans she has given something more, adding reason to govern the mind’s impulses, now allowing them free play, now restraining them. But there is a fourth and highest level, belonging to beings born good and wise by nature, with right and steadfast reason implanted in them from the beginning. This must be held to surpass humanity and must be assigned to god—that is, to the world, in which that perfect and complete reason must exist.

2.35 “For it cannot be said that any order of things lacks some final, perfect attainment. In a vine or an animal, unless some force intervenes, we see nature proceeding by a course of her own to her final end. And just as painting, building, and the other arts achieve a finished work, so in all nature, and to a still greater degree, something must reach fulfillment and perfection. Many external things can prevent particular natures from reaching perfection; but nothing can hinder universal nature, because she herself embraces and contains every nature. Therefore that fourth and highest level must exist, beyond the reach of any force.

2.36 “This is the level at which the nature of all things stands. Since it is such that it rules everything and nothing can hinder it, the world must be intelligent, and indeed wise.

“What could be more ignorant than to deny that the nature embracing everything is the best, or, while admitting it is best, to deny that it is, first, alive; next, possessed of reason and judgment; and finally, wise? How else can it be best? If it resembles plants or even beasts, we should regard it as the worst rather than the best. And if it possesses reason but has not been wise from the beginning, surely the world’s condition will be worse than humanity’s. A human being can become wise; but if the world has been foolish throughout the eternity of past time, it will certainly never attain wisdom. Thus it will be inferior to a human being. Since that is absurd, we must hold that the world has been wise from the beginning and is god.

2.37 “For nothing apart from the world lacks nothing, is fitted together and perfected on every side, and is complete in every measure and part. Chrysippus puts it aptly: just as a cover is made for a shield and a sheath for a sword, so everything apart from the world has been brought into being for the sake of something else. The crops and fruits the earth produces are for animals, and animals for humans: the horse for riding, the ox for plowing, the dog for hunting and keeping watch. But the human being himself was born to contemplate and imitate the world—not perfect himself, but a small part of what is perfect.

2.38 “Since the world embraces everything, and nothing exists outside it, it is perfect in every respect. How, then, can it lack what is best? Nothing is better than mind and reason; therefore these cannot be absent from the world. Chrysippus again argues well, using comparisons to show that every quality is better in things fully developed and mature: in a horse than in a colt, in a dog than in a puppy, in a man than in a boy. Likewise, whatever is best in the whole world must exist in something perfected and complete.

2.39 “But nothing is more perfect than the world, and nothing better than virtue. Therefore virtue is a property of the world. Human nature is not perfect, yet virtue is achieved in a human being; how much more easily, then, in the world! Virtue therefore exists in it. Thus it is wise, and consequently a god.

“Once we recognize this divinity of the world, we must assign the same divinity to the stars. They arise from the most active and purest part of the ether, with no admixture of any other element, and are wholly hot and radiant. Thus it is entirely right to say that they too are alive, feel, and understand.

2.40 “Cleanthes thinks that the evidence of two senses, touch and sight, confirms that they consist wholly of fire. The sun’s heat and brightness are more intense than those of any fire, since it shines so far and wide throughout the boundless world. Its touch not only warms but often burns—neither of which it could do unless it were fiery. ‘Therefore,’ he says, ‘since the sun is fiery and feeds on the moisture of Ocean’—because no fire can persist without some nourishment—‘it must resemble either the fire we employ for everyday use and sustenance, or the fire contained in the bodies of living creatures.

2.41 “‘But this fire of ours, required for the uses of life, destroys and consumes everything; wherever it advances, it throws everything into disorder and scatters it. By contrast, the fire in the body is life-giving and wholesome: it preserves, nourishes, increases, and sustains everything, and endows it with sensation.’ Therefore he says there can be no doubt which of these fires the sun resembles, since it too makes everything flower and develop to maturity, each after its own kind. So, since the sun’s fire resembles the fires within the bodies of living creatures, the sun must also be alive—and so must the other heavenly bodies, which arise in the celestial fire called ether or heaven.

2.42 “Since some living creatures originate on land, others in water, and others in air, Aristotle thinks it absurd to suppose that no living creature is generated in the region best fitted to generate them. The stars occupy the region of ether. Since this is the finest substance, and is always active and vigorous, any creature generated in it must possess the keenest sensation and the swiftest motion. Thus, since the heavenly bodies arise in ether, it follows that they have sensation and intelligence, and consequently must be counted among the gods. We can indeed see that people inhabiting lands where the air is pure and thin have minds more acute and better fitted for understanding than those who live under a thick, heavy atmosphere.

2.43 “People even think that the food one eats makes some difference to mental sharpness. It is therefore reasonable to believe that the stars possess outstanding intelligence: they inhabit the world’s ethereal region and feed on moisture from sea and land, refined over the great distance it travels. But the clearest evidence of the stars’ sensation and intelligence is their order and constancy, in which there is nothing reckless, nothing variable, nothing accidental; for nothing can move by reason and measure without purpose. The stars’ order and constancy throughout all eternity indicate neither mere nature—for their movement is full of reason—nor chance, which delights in variation and rejects constancy. It follows, then, that they move of their own accord, through their own awareness and divinity.

2.44 “Aristotle also deserves praise for holding that everything in motion moves either by nature, by force, or by choice. The sun, moon, and all the stars move. Things moved by nature are carried either downward by their weight or upward by their lightness; neither happens to the stars, because their motion carries them around in a circle. Nor can it be said that some greater force makes the stars move against their nature—for what greater force could there be? It remains, therefore, that the motion of the stars is voluntary.

“Anyone who sees these things and denies that gods exist acts not only ignorantly but impiously. Nor does it make much difference whether one denies their existence or deprives them of all oversight and activity. To my mind, what does nothing seems not to exist at all. The existence of the gods is therefore so evident that I can scarcely regard anyone who denies it as sane.

2.45 “It remains to consider what their nature is like. Here nothing is harder than to draw the mind’s vision away from the familiar experience of the eyes. This difficulty has led both the ignorant multitude and philosophers who resemble the ignorant to be unable to conceive of the immortal gods except in human shapes. Cotta has refuted the worthlessness of that opinion; it does not need an argument from me. But since a settled conception in our minds gives us an intuitive awareness that god is, first, a living being, and next, that nothing in all nature surpasses him, I see nothing better suited to this intuition and conception than to judge, first of all, that this very world, which nothing can excel, is a living being and a god.

2.46 “Here Epicurus may joke as much as he likes—a man with little talent for jokes and none of the wit of his native land—and say that he cannot understand what a round, revolving god is like. He will nevertheless never shake me from this position, which even he approves. For he holds that gods exist because there must be some preeminent nature with nothing better than itself. But certainly nothing is better than the world, and undoubtedly what is alive and possesses sensation, reason, and mind is better than what lacks them.

2.47 “Thus it follows that the world is alive and possesses sensation, mind, and reason; and by this argument we conclude that the world is god. But a little later these matters will be more easily understood from the things the world itself produces. Meanwhile, Velleius, please do not parade your school’s utter lack of learning. You say that a cone, a cylinder, and a pyramid seem more beautiful to you than a sphere. Your eyes, too, have a novel way of judging! But let those shapes be more beautiful merely to look at—though even that I do not accept. What could be more beautiful than the one figure that embraces and contains every other figure, that can have no roughness or obstruction, no angular cuts or bends, no protrusions or hollows? There are two supremely excellent forms: among solids, the globe—for that is how I choose to translate the Greek ‘sphere’—and among plane figures, the circle or disk, called kyklos in Greek. These two forms alone have all their parts perfectly alike, and the outer edge everywhere equally distant from the center.

2.48 “Nothing could be more harmonious. But if you do not see this, because you have never touched the learned dust of geometry, could you not, even as natural philosophers, understand that this uniform motion and constant order could not have been maintained in any other shape? Nothing could therefore be more ignorant than the assertions you habitually make. You say that even this world is not certainly round, that it might have another shape, and that the countless other worlds have different shapes from one another.

2.49 “Epicurus would certainly not say such things if he had learned how much twice two makes. But while judging with his palate what is best, he failed to look up at ‘the palate of heaven,’ as Ennius calls it.

“There are two kinds of stars. One travels from east to west over unchanging distances, never deviating a step from its course; the other completes two continuous revolutions over the same distances and courses. Both reveal the world’s rotation, which could occur only in a globular shape, and the circular orbits of the stars.

“First comes the sun, which holds supremacy among the heavenly bodies. It moves in such a way that, after filling the earth with lavish light, it leaves that same earth in darkness, now in one region, now in another. For the earth’s own shadow, blocking the sun, produces night. The periods of night have the same regularity as those of day. The measured approach and withdrawal of that same sun regulate the degrees of cold and heat. For three hundred and sixty-five circuits of the sun, with about a quarter of a day added, complete the yearly revolution. Bending its course now toward the seven northern stars, now toward the south, the sun produces summers and winters, and the two seasons adjoining them, one following the waning winter, the other the summer. Thus the beginnings and causes of everything generated on land and sea derive from the changes of the four seasons.

2.50 “The moon, in its monthly periods, follows the sun’s yearly courses. Its light is faintest when it approaches closest to the sun, fullest whenever it withdraws farthest. Not only does its appearance and shape change, now waxing, now waning back to its beginning, but its position changes too. When this is northerly or southerly, there is something resembling a winter or summer solstice in the moon’s course as well. From the moon many influences stream and flow, nourishing living creatures and making them grow, and bringing the earth’s products to full development and maturity.

2.51 “Most wonderful, however, are the movements of those five stars falsely called ‘wanderers.’ Nothing wanders that preserves for all eternity its fixed and ordered forward and backward movements and all its other motions. This is the more wonderful in the stars we are discussing because they are now hidden, now revealed again; now they approach, now withdraw; now they move ahead, now follow behind; now they move faster, now more slowly; sometimes they do not move at all, but remain stationary for a time. From their differing motions mathematicians have named the Great Year, completed when the sun, moon, and five wandering stars have finished all their circuits and returned to the same positions relative to one another.

2.52 “How long this period is remains a great question, but it must be fixed and definite. The star called Saturn, which the Greeks name Phaenon, ‘the Shining One,’ is farthest from the earth and completes its course in about thirty years. In this course it produces many marvels, now advancing, now slowing, now disappearing in the evening, now revealing itself again in the morning; yet through the everlasting ages it never fails to produce the same effects at the same times. Below it, closer to the earth, travels the star of Jupiter, called Phaethon, ‘the Radiant One.’ It completes the same circle of twelve signs in twelve years and produces in its course the same variations as Saturn.

2.53 “The next orbit below belongs to Pyroeis, ‘the Fiery One,’ called the star of Mars. In twenty-four months less, I believe, six days, it traverses the same circle as the two above it. Below this is Mercury’s star—the Greeks call it Stilbon, ‘the Glittering One’—which traverses the zodiac in about a year and never departs more than one sign’s distance from the sun, now preceding it, now following. Lowest of the five wandering stars, and nearest the earth, is the star of Venus, called Phosphorus in Greek and Lucifer in Latin, ‘the Light-Bringer,’ when it precedes the sun, but Hesperus, ‘the Evening Star,’ when it follows. It completes its course in a year, traversing the breadth and length of the zodiac, as the higher stars also do. It never departs more than two signs’ distance from the sun, now preceding it, now following.

2.54 “I cannot understand this constancy in the stars, this immense agreement of their periods throughout all eternity amid such varied courses, without mind, reason, and purpose. Since we see these qualities in the stars, we cannot fail to count the stars themselves among the gods.

“Nor do the stars called fixed fail to show the same mind and foresight. Their daily revolution is harmonious and constant. Their courses are not part of the ether, nor are they attached to the sky, as most people say in their ignorance of natural science. For ether is not of such a nature that it can enfold the stars and whirl them about by its own force. Fine, translucent, and suffused with an even heat, ether does not seem well suited to holding the stars.

2.55 “The fixed stars therefore have their own sphere, separate and free from attachment to the ether. Their unceasing, perpetual courses, maintained with wonderful and incredible constancy, reveal that they possess divine power and intelligence. Anyone who does not perceive that these very stars possess the power of gods seems unlikely to perceive anything at all.

2.56 “In heaven, then, there is no chance, recklessness, wandering, or illusion; instead there is complete order, truth, reason, and constancy. Things devoid of these qualities, deceptive and false and full of error, move about the earth below the moon, the lowest of all the heavenly bodies, and upon the earth itself. Anyone who thinks that the wonderful order and incredible constancy of heaven, from which the preservation and safety of all things arise, are devoid of mind must himself be considered mindless.

2.57 “I shall not go wrong, I think, if I draw the beginning of this discussion from the foremost investigator of truth. Zeno defines nature as a creative fire advancing methodically toward generation. He thinks that creation and generation are the special function of art, and that what the hand accomplishes in the works of our arts, nature accomplishes with far greater artistry—that is, as I said, creative fire, the master of all the other arts. In this sense all nature is artistic, since it has, as it were, a method and path to follow.

2.58 “But the nature of the world itself, which embraces and contains everything within its compass, is described by the same Zeno as not merely artistic but an actual artist, planning and providing for every use and advantage. Just as all other natures are generated, grow, and are maintained through their own seeds, so the nature of the world has all its movements by choice. It applies its efforts and impulses—the Greeks call them hormai—and the actions corresponding to them, just as we ourselves do when moved by mind and sensation. Such, then, is the world’s intelligence, which for that reason can rightly be called prudence or providence—the Greek word is pronoia, ‘foresight.’ Above all, it provides for and chiefly occupies itself with these things: first, that the world should be as well fitted as possible to endure; next, that it should lack nothing; and most of all, that it should possess surpassing beauty and every splendor.

2.59 “We have spoken of the world as a whole, and of the stars as well. By now we can almost discern a multitude of gods, neither idle nor accomplishing what they do through toilsome and burdensome labor. They are not held together by veins, sinews, and bones; they do not consume foods or drinks that cause a buildup of humors too acrid or too thick; nor do they have bodies such that they dread accidents or blows, or fear illnesses arising from the exhaustion of their limbs. It was fear of these things that led Epicurus to invent gods like mere outlines, doing nothing.

2.60 “But these gods, endowed with the most beautiful form and stationed in the purest region of heaven, move and regulate their courses in such a way that they seem to have agreed together to preserve and protect everything.

“Many other divine natures have also been established and named, with good reason, both by the wisest men of Greece and by our ancestors, because of the great benefits they confer. Whatever brought great advantage to the human race was thought not to come about without divine goodness toward humanity. Sometimes, therefore, they called what a god had produced by the god’s own name, as when we call grain Ceres and wine Liber. Hence the line of

2.61 “Terence, ‘Without Ceres and Liber, Venus grows cold.’ At other times the thing itself, when it contains some greater power, is named in such a way that the power itself is called a god: Faith, for example, and Mind, whom we see enshrined on the Capitol, most recently by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus—though Faith had previously been consecrated by Aulus Atilius Calatinus. You see the temple of Virtue; you see that of Honor, restored by Marcus Marcellus, which Quintus Maximus had dedicated many years before, during the Ligurian war. What of Wealth, Safety, Concord, Liberty, Victory? Because the power of all these things was so great that it could not be governed without a god, the things themselves acquired the names of gods. From the same class come the consecrated names of Cupid, or Desire, Pleasure, and Venus the Goddess of Passion—things vicious rather than natural, though Velleius thinks otherwise. Still, these very vices often strike nature with unusual force.

2.62 “Thus the greatness of their benefits established as gods those who produced each benefit, and the names just mentioned declare the power belonging to each god.

“Human life and general custom have also adopted the practice of raising to heaven, in fame and gratitude, men distinguished for their services. Hence Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, and Liber too—I mean the Liber born of Semele, not the one our ancestors solemnly and reverently consecrated with Ceres and Libera. The nature of that worship can be understood from the mysteries. But because we call those born of us liberi, ‘children,’ the offspring of Ceres were named Liber and Libera: this connection is maintained in Libera’s case, but not likewise in Liber’s. Hence also Romulus, whom some consider identical with Quirinus. Since their souls survived and enjoyed eternity, they were rightly regarded as gods, being both supremely good and eternal.

2.63 “Another explanation, drawn from natural philosophy, has also given rise to a great multitude of gods. Clothed in human form, they have supplied poets with stories and filled human life with every kind of superstition. Zeno treated this subject, and Cleanthes and Chrysippus later explained it at greater length. For the ancient belief spread throughout Greece that Heaven was castrated by his son Saturn, and Saturn himself bound by his son Jupiter.

2.64 “A physical explanation of some elegance is enclosed in these impious stories. They meant that the highest, celestial, ethereal nature—that is, the fiery element—which generates everything by itself, lacks that part of the body which would require union with another to procreate. By Saturn they meant the power that maintains the course and revolution of periods and seasons. In Greek this god bears precisely that name: he is called Kronos, which is the same as chronos, ‘a span of time.’ He was called Saturnus because he is ‘sated,’ saturaretur, with years. The story represents him as habitually eating his own offspring, because time consumes its own periods and is insatiably filled with years gone by. He was bound by Jupiter so that his course should not be unrestrained, and so that Jupiter might bind him with the bonds of the stars. But Jupiter himself—that is, the ‘helping father,’ whom, with a change of grammatical form, we call Iovem, Jove, from iuvare, ‘to help’—is called by poets ‘father of gods and men,’ and by our ancestors ‘Best and Greatest.’ They put Best—that is, most beneficent—before Greatest, because to benefit everyone is greater, and certainly more welcome, than to possess great power.

2.65 “Ennius, then, names him as I said above, in these words: ‘Look at this shining height, which all invoke as Jupiter’—more plainly than in another passage of his: ‘Against him, with all the power I have, I shall invoke this shining thing, whatever it is.’ Our augurs also mean him when they say, ‘When Jove lightens and thunders’; for they mean, ‘When the sky lightens and thunders.’ Euripides, among his many splendid sayings, puts this briefly:‘You see the boundless ether spread on high,

which holds the earth in its soft, encircling clasp:

account him highest of the gods; call him Jove.’

2.66 “The air, however, lying between sea and heaven, is consecrated under Juno’s name, as the Stoics argue. She is Jupiter’s sister and wife because air resembles ether and is most closely joined with it. They made air feminine and assigned it to Juno because nothing is softer. But I believe Juno’s name comes from iuvare, ‘to help.’ Water and earth remained, to make the three kingdoms of the stories. Thus the entire kingdom of the sea was given to Neptune, another brother of Jupiter, as we maintain. Just as Portunus comes from porta, ‘a gate,’ so Neptune’s name was derived from nare, ‘to swim,’ with a slight change in the first letters. All the power and nature of earth was dedicated to Father Dis, ‘the Rich,’ called Pluton by the Greeks, because everything both returns to the earth and arises from it. †To him they assign Proserpina—a Greek name, for she is the one called Persephone in Greek. They mean her to be the seed of grain, and tell how her mother searches for her in hiding.

2.67 “Her mother is Ceres, from gerere, ‘to bear’ crops, as though her name were Geres, with the first letter changed, as also happens in Greek; for they too named her Demeter, as though ge meter, ‘Earth Mother.’ Mavors is the one who magna verteret, ‘overturns mighty things’; Minerva is she who either minueret, ‘diminishes,’ or minaretur, ‘threatens.’ Since beginnings and endings have the greatest force in everything, they gave Janus first place in sacrifices. His name derives from ire, ‘to go,’ and from this open passageways are called iani and doors at the thresholds of secular buildings ianuae. Vesta’s name comes from the Greeks, for she is the one they call Hestia, ‘Hearth.’ Her power concerns altars and hearths, and therefore all prayer and sacrifice end with this goddess, because she guards the innermost things.

2.68 “The Household Gods are not far removed from this power. Their name, Penates, comes either from penus—for that means the whole store of human food—or from their dwelling ‘deep within,’ penitus. For this reason poets also call them penetrales, ‘gods of the inner sanctuary.’ Apollo’s name, again, is Greek. They identify him with the sun, and think Diana and the moon likewise one and the same. The sun is called sol either because it is solus, alone among all the stars is so great, or because, when it rises and all the others are obscured, it alone appears. The moon, luna, is named from lucere, ‘to shine.’ She is also Lucina, the Light-Bringer; and so, just as the Greeks invoke Diana as the Light-Bringer in childbirth, our people invoke Juno Lucina. The same Diana is called ‘All-Wandering,’ not from hunting, but because she is numbered among the seven so-called wanderers.

2.69 “She was called Diana because at night she makes something like diem, ‘day.’ She is called upon in childbirth because pregnancies reach their term sometimes in seven, but usually in nine, circuits of the moon. These are called menses, ‘months,’ because they complete mensa spatia, ‘measured periods.’ Timaeus, neatly as in many other passages, after recording in his history that the temple of Diana at Ephesus burned down on the night Alexander was born, added that this was hardly surprising: Diana had wished to attend Olympias in labor and so had been away from home. The goddess who veniret, ‘comes,’ to all things our people named Venus; and venustas, ‘charm,’ derives from her name, rather than Venus from charm.

2.70 “Do you see, then, how a sound and useful understanding of natural things has been drawn aside toward imaginary, invented gods? This has bred false opinions, confused errors, and superstitions fit almost for old women. We know the gods’ shapes, ages, clothing, and adornment; their lineages, marriages, and kinships too—everything reduced to the likeness of human weakness. They are even represented with troubled minds: we have been told of the gods’ desires, sorrows, and fits of anger. Nor, according to the stories, have they been free from wars and battles, not merely as in Homer, when different gods defended the opposing armies, but even fighting their own wars against the Titans and the Giants. To tell and believe these things is utter foolishness; they are full of absurdity and the utmost frivolity.

2.71 “But once these stories have been scorned and rejected, we shall be able to understand who and what the gods are, and by what names custom has called them: the god pervading the nature of each thing, Ceres throughout the earth, Neptune throughout the sea, and the others in their several realms. These gods we ought to revere and worship. The best worship of the gods, the purest, holiest, and fullest of devotion, is always to revere them with mind and voice pure, whole, and uncorrupted. For not only philosophers but our ancestors too distinguished superstition from religion.

2.72 “Those who spent whole days praying and sacrificing that their children might ‘survive’ them were called superstitiosi, ‘superstitious,’ from superstites, ‘survivors’—a word whose meaning later grew wider. Those, however, who diligently reconsidered and, as it were, ‘reread’ everything belonging to the worship of the gods were called religiosi, ‘religious,’ from relegere, ‘to reread’; just as elegantes, ‘discerning,’ comes from eligere, ‘to choose,’ [just as] diligentes, ‘diligent,’ comes from diligere, ‘to cherish,’ and intellegentes, ‘intelligent,’ from intellegere, ‘to understand.’ All these Latin words contain the same force of legere, ‘to gather or read,’ as ‘religious’ does. Thus ‘superstitious’ became a term of blame, ‘religious’ one of praise. I think I have now sufficiently shown both that gods exist and what they are like.

2.73 “Next I must show that the world is governed by the providence of the gods. This is certainly a great subject, and one much assailed by your school, Cotta; indeed our whole contest is with you. For your school, Velleius, is less familiar with the way each doctrine is stated. You read only your own writings, cherish only your own, and condemn the others without hearing their case. Yesterday, for example, you yourself said that the Stoics introduce an old fortune-teller called Pronoia—that is, Providence. You said this through the mistaken belief that they invent providence as a separate goddess who governs and rules the entire world.

2.74 “But the expression is abbreviated. If someone says that the Athenian state is governed by a council, the words ‘of the Areopagus’ are left out; likewise, when we say that the world is governed by providence, understand that ‘of the gods’ is left out. Consider the full and complete expression to be this: the world is governed by the providence of the gods. So please do not expend on ridiculing us that wit which your tribe lacks. And, by Hercules, if you take my advice, do not even try: it does not suit you, you have no gift for it, you cannot do it. This applies not to you alone, polished as you are by our native manners and the urbane ways of our people, but to the rest of your school, and especially to its founder—a man without skill or learning, insulting everyone, with no sharpness, no dignity, no grace.

2.75 “I say, then, that the world and all its parts were established in the beginning, and are governed at every moment, by the providence of the gods. Our school generally divides this argument into three parts. The first derives from the reasoning that proves the existence of the gods: once this is granted, we must admit that the world is governed by their wisdom. The second shows that everything is subject to a sentient nature and that everything is managed by it in the most beautiful way. Once this is established, it follows that this nature arose from living first principles. The third argument derives from wonder at the things of heaven and earth.

2.76 “First, then, either we must deny that gods exist—as Democritus and Epicurus in a sense do, by introducing their apparitions and images—or those who grant that gods exist must admit that they do something, and something splendid. But nothing is more splendid than the governance of the world. It is therefore governed by the wisdom of the gods. If not, something must certainly exist that is better and more powerful than god, whatever it may be: either a lifeless nature or a necessity driven by mighty force, producing these most beautiful works we see.

2.77 “The nature of the gods, then, is not supreme in power or excellence if it is subject to that necessity or nature which rules heaven, sea, and land. But nothing surpasses god; therefore he must rule the world. God is consequently obedient or subject to no nature; he himself, therefore, rules all nature. For if we grant that the gods are intelligent, we also grant that they exercise foresight, and about matters of the greatest importance. Do they not know, then, what matters are greatest and how they must be handled and protected? Or do they lack the power to sustain and manage such great affairs? Ignorance is alien to the divine nature, and difficulty in fulfilling a task through weakness is utterly incompatible with the gods’ majesty. Thus we reach the conclusion we seek: the world is governed by the providence of the gods.

2.78 “Moreover, since gods exist—if indeed they do, as they certainly do—they must be living beings; and not merely living, but rational, joined together in something like a civic bond and fellowship, governing the one world as a common state and city.

2.79 “It follows that they possess the same reason as the human race, and that both share the same truth and the same law, which commands right and drives away wrong. From this we understand that wisdom and intelligence have also come to humans from the gods. For that reason, by ancestral institutions, Mind, Faith, Virtue, and Concord have been consecrated and publicly enshrined. How can it be consistent to deny that the gods possess these qualities, when we revere their august and holy images? If mind, faith, virtue, and concord exist among human beings, from where could they have flowed down to earth but from above? And since judgment, reason, and wisdom exist in us, the gods must possess these same qualities in a higher degree, and not merely possess them but employ them in the greatest and best affairs.

2.80 “But nothing is greater or better than the world; therefore it must be governed by the wisdom and providence of the gods. Finally, we have sufficiently shown that those beings whose outstanding power and radiant appearance we see are gods—I mean the sun and moon, the wandering and fixed stars, heaven, the world itself, and the power of those things throughout the whole world that bring great use and advantage to the human race. It follows that everything is governed by divine mind and foresight. Enough has now been said about the first part.

2.81 “Next I must show that everything is subject to nature, and is managed by her in the most beautiful way. But first we must briefly explain what nature herself is, so that the point we wish to prove may be more readily understood. Some think nature is a certain irrational force that sets necessary movements going in bodies. Others think it a force possessing reason and order, advancing, as it were, along a methodical path and revealing what it produces, for what purpose, and what end it pursues. No art, no hand, no craftsman can match her skill by imitation. A seed has such power that, tiny though it is, if it falls into a nature that receives and embraces it, and finds material by which it can be nourished and increased, it shapes and produces things each after its own kind: some merely to be nourished through their roots, others also to move, feel, seek what they desire, and generate their own likeness from themselves.

2.82 “Some, however, apply the name ‘nature’ to everything: Epicurus, for example, whose division makes the nature of all that exists consist of bodies, void, and their properties. But when we say that the world is constituted and governed by nature, we do not mean like a clod or a fragment of stone or something of that sort, with no inherent principle of cohesion, but like a tree or an animal, in which no randomness appears, but order and something resembling art.

2.83 “If the things held in the earth by roots live and flourish through nature’s art, surely the earth herself is sustained by that same power, by nature’s art. Pregnant with seeds, she bears everything and pours it out from herself; embracing roots, she nourishes and increases them, and is herself nourished in turn by the higher, external elements. Her exhalations nourish the air, the ether, and everything above. Thus, if the earth is sustained and made vigorous by nature, the same principle holds throughout the rest of the world. Plants cling to the earth, while living creatures are sustained by breathing air. Air itself sees with us, hears with us, sounds with us, for none of these things can occur without it. It even moves with us: wherever we go, wherever we move, it seems, as it were, to make room and yield.

2.84 “The things borne toward the world’s center, which is its lowest point, those borne upward from the center, and those carried in circular revolution around the center form the world’s continuous and single nature. There are four kinds of bodies, and through their interchange the world’s nature is kept continuous. From earth comes water, from water air, from air ether; then in reverse order, from ether air, from air water, and from water earth, the lowest element. Thus, as the elements of which everything consists pass upward and downward, to and fro, the union of the world’s parts is maintained.”

2.85 “It must either be everlasting, with the very arrangement we see, or at least endure for an immense and almost measureless stretch of time. Whichever is true, it follows that nature governs the world. For what fleet under sail, what army drawn up for battle—or, to compare instead the works of nature, what growth of vine or tree, what living creature’s shape and arrangement of limbs—reveals as much ingenuity in nature as the world itself? Either, then, nothing is governed by a conscious nature, or we must acknowledge that the world is.”

2.86 “Indeed, since it embraces all other natures and their seeds, how can it itself fail to be governed by nature? Anyone who said that teeth and puberty arise by nature, but that the human being in whom they arise is not constituted by nature, would fail to understand that things which bring something forth from themselves possess more perfect natures than the things brought forth. Of everything governed by nature, the world is the inseminator, the sower, the parent, so to speak, the rearer and the sustainer; it nourishes and embraces everything as its own members and parts. But if the parts of the world are governed by nature, the world itself must be governed by nature. And in its government there is nothing to find fault with: out of the natures that existed, the best possible result has been achieved.”

2.87 “Let someone show, then, that it could have been better. No one ever will; and anyone who tries to correct anything will either make it worse or demand what could not have been done.”

“But if all the world’s parts are so constituted that they could neither be better suited to use nor more beautiful to behold, let us consider whether they are the work of chance, or are in a condition in which they could never have held together without the guidance of consciousness and divine providence. If, then, the achievements of nature are better than those of art, and art achieves nothing without reason, nature too must be held to possess reason. How is it consistent, when you see a statue or a painting, to recognize the application of art; when you see a ship moving in the distance, not to doubt that reason and skill direct its movement; or when you examine a sundial or a water clock, to understand that it tells the hours by art, not chance—and yet to suppose that the world, which embraces those very arts, their craftsmen, and everything else, is devoid of design and reason?”

2.88 “If someone took to Scythia or Britain the sphere recently made by our friend Posidonius, whose successive revolutions reproduce in the sun, the moon, and the five wandering stars the same movements that occur in heaven through successive days and nights, who in those uncivilized lands would doubt that reason had gone into its construction? Yet these men wonder whether the world, from which all things arise and come into being, was itself made by chance, by some necessity, or by divine reason and intelligence. They suppose that Archimedes showed greater powers in imitating the revolutions of the sphere than nature showed in producing them—although the originals were fashioned with many times the ingenuity of their imitations.”

2.89 “Think of the shepherd in Accius, who had never seen a ship before. When from his mountain he first caught sight, far off, of the Argonauts’ strange, divine vessel, he spoke in wonder and terror:Such a mighty mass comes gliding,

roaring from the deep with vast sound and breath;

it rolls the waves before it, violently raises eddies,

rushes headlong on, sprays the sea and blows it back.

“Now you would think a broken storm cloud rolled along,

now that a rock, hurled high by winds or storms,

was swept away, or rounded whirlwinds

rose from the clashing blows of waves—

unless the sea is raising havoc from the land,

or Triton, overturning caverns with his trident

deep beneath their roots in the surging strait,

has torn a rocky mass from the abyss up to the sky.At first he cannot tell the nature of the unfamiliar thing he sees. Then, when he has seen the young men and heard the sailors’ song:Like dolphins, †swift and eager, snorting through their snouts——and much else in the same vein—A song like the melody

of Silvanus reaches his ears and hearing—”

2.90 “Just as he believes at first sight that he is looking at something lifeless and without feeling, but afterward, from surer signs, begins to suspect the nature of what he had doubted, so the philosophers, if perhaps the world’s first appearance bewildered them, should afterward have seen its movements confined to their bounds and uniform, everything regulated in fixed ranks and with unalterable constancy, and understood that this heavenly, divine house contains not merely an inhabitant but a ruler and governor, the architect, as it were, of so great a work and so great a gift.”

“As things stand, they seem to me not even to suspect how marvelous the things of heaven and earth are.”

2.91 “To begin with, the earth, set in the middle of the world, is surrounded on every side by this life-giving, breathable substance called air—a Greek word, certainly, but one our people have now adopted through use: it passes freely as Latin. Air in turn is embraced by the boundless ether, composed of the fires on high. Let us borrow that word too, and say ‘ether’ in Latin as we say ‘air,’ although Pacuvius translates it: ‘What I speak of, our people call heaven; the Greeks call it ether’—as though the speaker were not himself a Greek. ‘But he is speaking Latin.’ Only if we are not to hear him as though he were speaking Greek! The same poet makes the point elsewhere:”

2.92 “‘Greek-born: his very speech reveals it.’ But let us return to greater matters. From the ether, then, arise the countless flames of the stars. Foremost among them is the sun, illuminating everything with its dazzling light, many times larger and more extensive than the whole earth; next come the other heavenly bodies, of immense size. These fires, so vast and so numerous, not only do no harm to the earth and earthly things, but benefit them so greatly that, if they were moved from their places and their heat lost its balance and restraint, the earth would inevitably burn up beneath those mighty blazes.”

2.93 “Am I not to wonder, then, that anyone can persuade himself that certain solid, indivisible bodies are borne along by their own force and weight, and that from the chance collision of these bodies the world is made, with all its beauty and order? If someone thinks this could have happened, I cannot understand why he should not also believe that, if countless copies of the twenty-one letters, made of gold or whatever material you please, were thrown together somewhere and then shaken out onto the ground, they could produce the Annals of Ennius in their proper, readable sequence. I doubt whether chance could accomplish so much even in a single line.”

2.94 “Yet how confidently these men assert that the world was made from tiny bodies possessing neither color nor any quality—poiotēs in Greek—nor sensation, but colliding at random and by chance; or rather that countless worlds are being born and others perishing at every instant! But if the collision of atoms can make a world, why can it not make a colonnade, a temple, a house, a city, which are less laborious—and many things easier still? Certainly they babble so recklessly about the world that I think they have never looked up at this marvelous array of heaven, which is the next subject before us.”

2.95 “Aristotle puts it admirably: ‘Suppose there were people who had always lived underground in fine, well-lit houses, adorned with statues and paintings and furnished with everything that those reputed fortunate possess in abundance. Suppose, however, that they had never come above ground, but had learned by report and hearsay that there was some divine presence and power. Then suppose that at some time the earth’s jaws opened and they could escape those hidden dwellings and emerge into these regions where we live. When they suddenly saw earth, sea, and sky; when they learned the vastness of the clouds and the force of the winds; when they gazed at the sun and learned not only its size and beauty but its power as well, since it makes the day by pouring light through the whole sky; and when night darkened the earth and they saw the entire sky picked out and adorned with stars, the moon’s changing brightness as it waxes and wanes, and the rising and setting of them all, their courses fixed and unalterable through all eternity—when they saw these things, they would surely believe both that gods exist and that these mighty works are the gods’ creation.’”

2.96 “So much for his words. Let us imagine instead a darkness as deep as that which is said once to have shrouded the neighboring regions when Etna’s fires erupted, so that for two days no one could recognize another person. When the sun shone on the third day, they felt they had come to life again. If this same thing happened to us after an eternity of darkness, and we suddenly saw the light, how would heaven appear to us? But daily familiarity and habitual seeing accustom our minds; we neither marvel at the things we always see nor seek their explanations—as though their novelty, rather than their greatness, ought to move us to inquire into their causes.”

2.97 “For who would call someone human if, after seeing the heavens’ movements so sure, the stars’ ranks so fixed, and everything so closely joined and fitted together, he denied that any reason was present in them and said that things happen by chance whose designing wisdom all our wisdom cannot fathom? When we see something moving by a mechanism—a sphere, a clock, or any of countless other things—we have no doubt that these are works of reason. But when we see the onrush of heaven moving and revolving with marvelous speed, completing its yearly alternations with perfect constancy and with the utmost benefit to the safety and preservation of everything, can we doubt that this comes about not merely through reason, but through reason surpassing and divine?”

2.98 “For now we may set aside the subtleties of argument and contemplate, with our eyes as it were, the beauty of the things we say divine providence has established.”

“First let us look at the earth as a whole, set in the world’s central seat, solid and spherical, drawn together on every side into a globe by its own inward pull, clothed in flowers, grasses, trees, and crops, all of them in incredible profusion, set apart by a variety of which we never tire. Add the cool, unfailing flow of springs, the translucent streams of rivers, the banks robed in deepest green, the hollow depths of caves, the rugged rocks, the heights of overhanging mountains and the immensity of plains. Add, too, the hidden veins of gold and silver and the endless supply of marble.”

2.99 “Then what kinds of animals there are, and how various, tame and wild alike! How birds glide and sing, how cattle graze, how woodland creatures live! What need I say of the human race? Established, as it were, as cultivators of the earth, they allow it neither to grow savage with monstrous beasts nor to become a wilderness of rough undergrowth. Through their labors fields, islands, and shores shine, marked out with houses and cities. If we could see these things with our eyes as we can in our minds, no one surveying the whole earth would doubt divine reason.”

2.100 “And how beautiful the sea is! What a sight it presents as a whole, what a multitude and variety of islands, what delightful coasts and shores! How many kinds of creatures, how unlike one another: some submerged, some floating and swimming, others clinging to rocks in the shells in which they were born! The sea itself, reaching toward the land, plays along the shores so that the two elements seem fused into one.”

2.101 “Next, the air bordering the sea changes between day and night. Sometimes it spreads and thins and rises on high; sometimes it thickens, gathers into clouds, collects moisture, and enriches the earth with rain; sometimes it streams this way and that and produces winds. It also brings the yearly changes of cold and heat; it supports the flight of birds, and, drawn in as breath, nourishes and sustains living creatures.”

“Last remains the encompassing vault of heaven, farthest above our homes, encircling and containing everything. This is also called ether, the outermost edge and boundary of the world; within it fiery forms trace out their ordered courses in a most marvelous way.”

2.102 “Among them the sun, many times greater in size than the earth, revolves around that very earth. Rising and setting, it makes day and night; now approaching, now withdrawing, it makes two opposite turnings back from its farthest points in each year. Between these it now makes the earth shrink, as though in sadness, and now gladdens it in turn, so that it seems to smile in joy with the sky.”

2.103 “The moon, which, as mathematicians show, is larger than half the earth, travels through the same region as the sun. Now joining the sun, now leaving it, it sends down to earth the light it has received from the sun, while undergoing various changes of light itself. Sometimes, too, it passes beneath the sun and stands in its way, obscuring its rays and light; at other times, falling into the earth’s shadow when directly opposite the sun, it is suddenly eclipsed by the earth’s intervention and interposition. Through the same region the stars we call wandering travel around the earth, and rise and set in the same fashion. Their movements now quicken, now slow,”

2.104 “and often even come to a halt: no spectacle can be more wonderful or more beautiful. Next comes the immense multitude of fixed stars, so arranged and distinguished that they have acquired names from their likeness to familiar shapes.”

At this point he looked at me and said, “I shall use the verses of Aratus, which you translated when you were very young. Because they are in Latin, they give me such pleasure that I remember many of them. So, as we constantly see with our eyes, without any alteration or change,all the other heavenly bodies glide in swift motion,

and are borne with heaven itself through nights and days,”

2.105 “and no mind eager to see nature’s constancy can ever have enough of contemplating them.And the extreme point at either end of the axis

is called the pole.Around this the two Bears are borne, never setting.Of these, one is called Cynosura among the Greeks,

the other is named Helice.We see her brightest stars throughout the night, those whichour people have been accustomed to call the Seven Plow Oxen;”

2.106 “and little Cynosura, marked out in the same way with the same number of stars, circles the same summit of the sky.In her as guide the Phoenicians trust by night upon the deep.

“But the former shines more brightly, picked out with stars,

and is seen far and wide as soon as night begins.

“This one is small, but in her lies the sailors’ advantage,

for she turns on an inner course, in a narrow circle.And to make the sight of these stars more wonderful,between them, like a river with a racing current,

the grim Dragon winds, coiling above and below

and forming curving loops out of his body.”

2.107 “His whole appearance is splendid, but especially worth seeing are the shape of his head and his blazing eyes:Not one star alone shines to adorn his head,

but his temples are marked with a double gleam,

and two hot lights blaze from his savage eyes,

while his chin shines with a single radiant star.

“His head is tilted, bent back on a rounded neck;

you would say he fixes his gaze on the Greater Bear’s tail.”

2.108 “And we see the rest of the Dragon’s body throughout the night;here this head suddenly hides itself for a little while,

where rising and setting mingle in a single region.Touching that head,a weary figure, like a mourner,

revolves,which the Greekscall Engonasin, the Kneeler, because he is borne along upon his knees.

“Here is set that Crown with its exceptional brilliance.It lies behind him; near his head is the Serpent Bearer,whom the Greeks call by the famous name Ophiuchus.”

2.109 “He holds the Snake in the twofold grip of his hands,

and is himself bound fast by its coiling body,

for the Serpent girdles the man below his breast.

“Yet, bracing himself, he plants his feet heavily

and presses the Scorpion’s eyes and breast beneath them.Following the Seven Plow Oxen comesArctophylax, the Bear Watcher, commonly called Boötes,

because he drives the Bear before him, yoked as to a wagon pole.Then come the following lines:”

2.110 “‘Beneath his’—that is, Boötes’—breast there seems fastened

a star flashing with rays, Arcturus, its illustrious name.Below his feet is borneVirgo, her body shining, holding the brilliant Ear of Grain.And the constellations are so laid out that divine ingenuity appears in these vast designs:Beneath the Bear’s head you will see the Twin Sons;

under her middle is the Crab, and beneath her feet

the great Lion, shaking a tremulous flame from his body.The Charioteerwill be borne beneath the Twins’ left side.

“Grim Helice watches his head before her.

“And the bright Goat occupies his left shoulder.Then the following:But she is endowed with a great and brilliant star;

in contrast, the Kids cast only a little fire upon mortals.Beneath his feetstands the horned Bull, braced upon his mighty body.His head is thickly sprinkled with stars;”

2.111 “these stars the Greeks have been accustomed to call the Hyades,from raining—for hyein in Greek means ‘to rain.’ Our people ignorantly call them Suculae, the ‘Little Pigs,’ as though they were named for pigs, not showers. Behind the Lesser Bear follows Cepheus with outstretched hands;for he wheels just behind the Cynosuran Bear.Before him goesCassiopeia, with a dim appearance of stars.

“Close beside her turns Andromeda, her body bright,

fleeing sorrowfully from her parent’s gaze.

“That Horse, shaking his mane with flashing brilliance,

touches the top of her head with his belly, and one star

joins them, holding two forms in its shared light,

seeking to bind an everlasting knot of stars.

“Next clings the Ram with his twisted horns.Beside him arethe Fishes, one of which glides a little ahead

and feels more keenly the North Wind’s shivering blasts.”

2.112 “At Andromeda’s feet Perseus is outlined,whom blasts from the farthest north strike.Besidehis left knee

you will see the Pleiades with their faint light.

“Then the Lyre is seen, lightly poised and curved.Thenthere is the winged Bird beneath the sky’s broad canopy.Nearest the Horse’s head is the Water Bearer’s right hand, and then the whole Water Bearer. Next,breathing icy cold from his mighty breast,

half-beast in body, comes Capricorn in the great circle;

when Titan has clothed him in unceasing light,

he turns and wheels his chariot at the winter solstice.”

2.113 “Here too is seenthe Scorpion, emerging high and showing himself,

dragging the curving Bow behind with his body’s force.Beside itthe Bird, bright with feathers, wheels about.

“And close by the Eagle bears itself along, its body blazing.Next the Dolphin.Then Orion, leaning forward with slanting body.”

2.114 “Following him,that burning Dog with the light of starsshines out. Behind it follows the Hare,never slackening its race with wearied body.

“And by the Dog’s tail Argo glides, winding along.

“The Ram covers her, and the scaly-bodied Fishes,

as her brilliant body touches the River’s banks.You will see that River ‘winding’ and flowing far away,and you will see the long Bonds,

placed at the Fishes’ tails to hold them fast.

“Then beside the Scorpion’s shining sting you will see

the Altar, caressed by the breath of the South Wind.Beside these the Centauradvances, hurrying to bring his horse’s parts beneath the Claws.

“Here, stretching out his right hand, which holds the huge four-footed beast,

he reaches forward and fiercely approaches the shining Altar.

“Here the Hydra raises herself from the lower regions;her body stretches far,and in the middle of her coil the gleaming Bowl shines out.

“At her far end the Raven, bright with feathered body,

strikes her with its beak; and here, just under the Twins, is that star

called Before-the-Dog, which bears the Greek name Procyon.”

2.115 “Can anyone in his senses suppose that this whole design of stars and this mighty adornment of heaven could have been made from bodies rushing here and there at random and by chance? Or could any other nature, devoid of mind and reason, have produced things which not only required reason to be made, but cannot be understood for what they are without reason of the highest order?”

“And these are not the only marvels. Nothing is greater than the world’s stability and coherence: nothing even imaginable could be better fitted to endure. For all its parts, seeking the center from every side, press toward it equally. And bodies remain joined together most firmly when bound as though by a cord passing around them. This is what that nature does which pervades the whole world, accomplishing everything by mind and reason, and draws and turns its outermost parts toward the center.”

2.116 “Therefore, if the world is spherical, and for that reason all its parts, evenly balanced on every side, are held together both in themselves and with one another, the same must happen with the earth. All its parts must tend toward the center—and in a sphere the center is the lowest point—so that nothing breaks the pull of gravity and weight and thereby weakens that mighty tension. In the same way the sea, though above the earth, nevertheless seeks the earth’s center and is drawn evenly into a sphere on every side: it never overflows or spills away.”

2.117 “The air adjoining it is indeed borne upward by its lightness, yet it spreads itself in every direction. Thus it is continuous and joined with the sea, and is naturally carried toward heaven; tempered by heaven’s fineness and heat, it supplies living creatures with a life-giving, wholesome breath. The highest part of heaven, called the ethereal region, embraces it, retains its own fine heat, unthickened by any admixture, and joins with the outermost air. In the ether the stars revolve, held together in globes by their own inward pressure, their shape and form themselves maintaining their balance. For they are round, the forms which, as I think I said before, are least vulnerable to injury.”

2.118 “The stars are fiery by nature. They are therefore nourished by the vapors of the earth, the sea, and the other waters, which the sun raises from the warming fields and from the waters. Sustained and renewed by these, the stars and the whole ether pour them out and draw them back again from the same place, so that almost nothing is lost, or only the very little consumed by the stars’ fire and the ether’s flame. From this our school believes that the event about which Panaetius was said to have doubts will follow: in the end the whole world will catch fire. Once the moisture is consumed, the earth could no longer be nourished, nor could air return, since with all water exhausted it could not arise. Thus nothing would remain but fire, and from it, as a living being and a god, the world would be renewed and the same ordered beauty arise again.”

2.119 “I do not wish to seem to you to dwell too long on the system of the stars, especially those called wandering. Their utterly unlike movements produce such harmony: the highest, Saturn, brings cold; Mars, in the middle, brings heat; Jupiter, set between them, brings light and tempers their extremes. Below Mars two stars obey the sun, while the sun itself fills the whole world with its light, and the moon, illuminated by it, brings pregnancy and birth and the ripening of new life. If this union of things, this fitting together of nature as though in agreement for the world’s preservation, leaves anyone unmoved, I know for certain that he has never reflected on any of these things.”

2.120 “Come, let us pass from things in heaven to things on earth. What is there here in which the reason of an intelligent nature does not appear? First, the roots of things that grow from the earth give stability to what they support and draw from the earth the sap that nourishes what is held by those roots. Trunks are covered with an inner or outer bark to give them greater protection from cold and heat. Vines, indeed, grasp their supports with tendrils as though with hands, and raise themselves up like living creatures. They are even said to recoil from cabbage stalks, if these are planted nearby, as from something deadly and harmful, and never to touch them at any point.”

2.121 “How great is the variety of living creatures, and how great their power to perpetuate each its own kind! Some are covered with hides, others clothed in shaggy hair, others bristling with spines. We see some overlaid with feathers, others with scales; some armed with horns, others given wings for escape. Nature has provided living creatures richly and abundantly with the food suited to each. I could recount the adaptations in their shapes for taking and digesting that food, the ingenious, delicate design of their parts, and the marvelous workmanship of their limbs. For everything enclosed within them has grown and been placed so that nothing is superfluous, nothing unnecessary to the maintenance of life.”

2.122 “The same nature has given animals both sensation and appetite: through the latter they strive to obtain their natural food, and through the former they distinguish the harmful from the wholesome. Again, some animals approach their food by walking, others by crawling, others by flying or swimming. Some seize it with their gaping mouths and their teeth themselves, some snatch it with the grip of claws, some with hooked beaks; some suck, some pluck, some gulp, some chew. Some, too, are so low to the ground that they easily reach food on it with their snouts; taller creatures, such as geese, swans, cranes, and camels, are helped by the length of their necks.”

2.123 “The elephant has even been given a hand, because its great bulk made access to food difficult. But to beasts whose food consists of †creatures of another kind, nature has given either strength or speed. Some have also been given a certain inventiveness and ingenuity. Among little spiders, for example, some weave a kind of net to dispatch whatever gets caught in it, while others […] lie in wait to take their prey by surprise; if anything falls into their reach, they snatch and devour it. The pinna—for that is its Greek name—with its two large, open shells, enters into a sort of partnership with a small shrimp to procure food. When little fish have swum into the gaping shell, the shrimp warns the pinna by a bite, and the pinna closes its shells. Thus two utterly unlike little creatures seek their food in common.”

2.124 “Here the wonder is whether they have joined together by some agreement or have been brought together from birth by nature herself. There is also much to wonder at in those aquatic animals that are born on land. Crocodiles, for instance, river turtles, and certain snakes, born out of water, seek water as soon as they can move. Indeed, we often put ducks’ eggs under hens. At first the young, when hatched, are fed by the hens as their mothers, which hatched and brooded them; then, as soon as they can see water, their natural home, they leave the hens and escape when they follow. So great a vigilance for self-preservation has nature implanted in living creatures. I have also read an account of a bird called the spoonbill, which seeks its food by flying up to birds that dive into the sea. When they emerge with a fish they have caught, it grips their heads in its beak and presses until they drop their catch; then it seizes the fish itself. This same bird is said habitually to fill itself with shellfish, digest them with the heat of its stomach, vomit them up, and so pick out what is edible.”

2.125 “Sea frogs are said to bury themselves in sand and move near the water; when fish approach them as though they were food, the frogs kill and devour them. There is a sort of natural war between kite and raven: each therefore breaks the other’s eggs wherever it finds them. And who can fail to marvel at this observation of Aristotle, from whom most of these accounts come? When cranes cross the seas in search of warmer regions, they form a triangle. At its foremost angle they push back the air in their path; then, gradually along either side, their wings act like oars to ease the birds’ passage. The triangle’s base, formed by the cranes, is helped by the winds as though from astern; and they rest their necks and heads on the backs of those flying ahead. The leader himself cannot do this, having nothing to lean on, so he flies back to rest in his turn, and one of those that have rested takes his place. This alternation is maintained throughout the journey.”

2.126 “I could give many examples of this kind, but you see their general character. More familiar still is the great care beasts take of themselves: how they look around while feeding, how they hide in their lairs. And these things are wonderful: dogs cure themselves by vomiting, and Egyptian ibises by purging their bowels—remedies that physicians’ ingenuity discovered only recently, that is, a few centuries ago. We have heard that panthers, trapped in foreign lands with poisoned meat, have a remedy which they use to escape death. Wild goats in Crete, when pierced by poisoned arrows, are said to seek a plant called dittany; when they have tasted it, the arrows fall from their bodies.”

2.127 “And shortly before giving birth, hinds purge themselves with a little plant called seseli. Again, we see how each creature defends itself with its own weapons against force and fear: bulls with horns, boars with tusks, lions by charging. Some protect themselves by flight, others by concealment; cuttlefish by pouring out ink, torpedo fish by numbing their foes; many also drive off pursuers with an unbearably foul smell.”

“To make the world’s adornment perpetual, the providence of the gods has taken great care that the kinds of animals, trees, and everything rooted in the earth should always exist. All these possess within themselves the power of seed, so that many may be generated from one. This seed is enclosed in the innermost part of the fruits produced by each plant; these same seeds both provide abundant food for human beings and fill the earth with new plants of the same kind.”

2.128 “Need I speak of the wisdom that appears in animals for the perpetual preservation of their kind? First, some are male, others female, an arrangement nature devised for perpetuation; next, their bodily parts are perfectly suited to begetting and conceiving, and both male and female feel extraordinary desires to join their bodies. When the seed has settled in its place, it draws almost all nourishment to itself, and, surrounded by this, shapes a living creature. Once this has slipped out and fallen from the womb, in animals nourished by milk almost all the mothers’ food begins to turn to milk; and the newborn, with no teacher but nature for their guide, seek the breasts and are filled from their abundance. To make us understand that none of this is accidental and that all of it is the work of a provident, ingenious nature, creatures that produce many young, such as pigs and dogs, have been given many teats, while those that bear few have few.”

2.129 “Need I speak of the great love animals show in rearing and guarding their offspring until they can defend themselves? Fish, admittedly, are said to abandon their eggs when they have laid them, since the water easily supports the eggs, and the young hatch from them. Turtles and crocodiles, too, are said to bury their eggs after laying them on land and then depart; thus the young are born and rear themselves on their own. But hens and other birds seek a quiet place for laying, build themselves resting places and nests, and line them as softly as possible so that their eggs may be kept safe with the greatest ease. When they have hatched their chicks, they guard them, warming them with their wings against injury from cold and placing themselves between them and the sun when it is hot. Once the chicks can use their little wings, the mothers accompany their flights and are released from the rest of their care.”

2.130 “Human ingenuity and diligence also contribute to the preservation and well-being of some animals and some of the things the earth produces. For many cattle and plants cannot survive without human care.”

“Great advantages for human life and prosperity are also found in different places. The Nile waters Egypt: after keeping it submerged and flooded throughout the summer, it withdraws, leaving fields softened and coated with silt for sowing. The Euphrates makes Mesopotamia fertile, bringing it what amount to new fields every year. The Indus, the greatest of all rivers, not only enriches and softens the fields with water but even sows them, for it is said to carry down with it a great quantity of seeds resembling grain.”

2.131 “I could produce many other memorable examples from other places, many fertile fields bearing different crops. But how generous nature is, producing so many foods, so varied and so delightful, and not at just one season of the year, so that both freshness and abundance may always give us pleasure! And how timely, how beneficial she has made the Etesian winds, not only for human beings but also for cattle and indeed everything that springs from the earth! Their breath tempers excessive heat, and they also guide voyages at sea, swift and sure. Much must be passed over, yet much is being said.”

2.132 “For there is no counting the advantages of rivers; the sea’s tides, with their †great advance and retreat; the clothed and wooded mountains; the salt deposits farthest from the seashore; the lands richly stocked with healing medicines; and finally the innumerable arts necessary to sustenance and life. Again, the alternation of day and night preserves living creatures, assigning one time for action and another for rest.”

“Thus from every side, by every line of reasoning, the conclusion follows: divine intelligence and design govern everything in this world in a marvelous way for the well-being and preservation of all.”

2.133 “But suppose someone asks for whose sake this vast construction was made. For trees and grasses, which, though without sensation, are nevertheless sustained by nature? That would be absurd. For animals? It is no more plausible that the gods took such pains for the sake of dumb, uncomprehending creatures. For whose sake, then, would one say the world was made? Clearly, for those living beings that use reason: gods and human beings. Nothing, certainly, is better than they, since reason surpasses everything. Thus it becomes credible that the world, and everything in that world, was made for the sake of gods and human beings.”

“And we shall understand more easily that the immortal gods have provided for human beings if we examine the whole construction of the human body, the entire form and perfection of human nature.”

2.134 “Since the life of living creatures is sustained by three things—food, drink, and breath—the mouth is perfectly fitted to receive them all, with the adjoining nostrils adding to its supply of breath. The food is chewed by the teeth set in the mouth, and is broken down and softened by them. The sharp front teeth divide the food by biting; the innermost teeth, called molars, grind it up, a process in which the tongue too appears to help.”

2.135 “Joining the tongue at its root, the gullet receives what has been taken into the mouth, which first slips down into it. Touching the tonsils on either side, it ends at the farthest, innermost part of the palate. When the tongue’s activity and movements have pushed the food down, thrust it downward as it were, the gullet receives it and drives it on. Its parts below the swallowed food expand, while those above it contract.”

2.136 “But the windpipe—the ‘rough artery,’ as physicians call it—has its opening joined to the tongue’s roots a little above the point where the gullet meets the tongue. It extends as far as the lungs, receives the air drawn in by breathing, and exhales and returns it from the lungs. It is covered by a sort of lid, provided to prevent the obstruction of the breath if any food should happen to fall into it. Now the stomach, situated below the gullet, is a receptacle for food and drink, while the lungs and heart draw breath from outside. The stomach has many wonderfully fashioned parts, consisting chiefly of sinewy tissue. It is full of folds and windings, and confines and holds whatever it has received, dry or moist, so that it may be changed and digested. It now contracts, now relaxes, pressing together and mixing everything it has received, so that through its abundant heat, its grinding of the food, and the breath as well, everything may easily be digested, fully processed, and distributed through the rest of the body. The lungs have a certain porousness and a softness like that of sponges, perfectly suited to drawing breath. They contract as they breathe and then expand with †breath, so that this food of life, which above all sustains living creatures, may be drawn in repeatedly.”

2.137 “From the intestines, the juice that nourishes us, †separated in the stomach from the rest of the food, passes to the liver through certain channels drawn and directed from the middle intestine to the liver’s gates, as they are called. These reach the liver and attach to it; from there other channels […] extend, through which the food passes as it flows from the liver. Once the bile and the fluids discharged from the kidneys have been separated from this food, the remainder turns into blood and flows together at those same gates of the liver to which all its channels lead. Passing through them, the food pours, at this very point, into the vein called the vena cava; through it, now fully processed and digested, it flows to the heart. From the heart it is distributed throughout the body by a great many veins extending into every part.”

2.138 “How the remnants of food are expelled by the intestines’ alternate contraction and relaxation is not at all difficult to describe, but it should nevertheless be passed over, lest our discussion contain anything unpleasant. Let us explain instead nature’s incredible workmanship. The air drawn into the lungs in breathing is warmed first by the act of breathing itself and then by contact with the lungs. Part of it is returned in exhalation, while part is received by a portion of the heart called a ventricle. Joined to this is another like it, into which blood flows from the liver through that vena cava. In this way, from these parts blood is poured through the veins into the whole body, and breath through the arteries. Both sets of vessels, numerous and closely woven throughout the body, bear witness to an incredible power of skillful, divine workmanship.”

2.139 “What shall I say of the bones? Forming the body’s supporting structure, they have marvelous joints, fitted both to give stability and to define the limbs, and adapted to movement and every bodily action. Add to these the sinews that hold the joints together, and their interlacing network extending through the whole body: like the veins and arteries, they are drawn out and issue from the heart, and are carried throughout the body.”

2.140 “Many things can be added to this account of nature’s diligent and ingenious forethought, showing how great and how outstanding are the gifts the gods have bestowed upon human beings. First, the gods raised them from the ground and set them tall and upright, so that by gazing at heaven they might gain knowledge of the gods. For human beings come from the earth not as mere residents and inhabitants, but as spectators, so to speak, of the things above and of heaven—a spectacle that belongs to no other kind of living creature. The senses, interpreters and messengers of the world, are wonderfully made and placed in the head, as in a citadel, to meet our needs. The eyes, like sentinels, occupy the highest position, from which they may see the most and perform their duty;”

2.141 “and the ears, having to perceive sound, which naturally travels upward, are rightly placed in the upper parts of the body. The nostrils, too, are rightly set high, because every odor travels upward; and since they have an important role in judging food and drink, they have been placed near the mouth for good reason. Taste, which had to distinguish the kinds of things we eat, dwells in that part of the mouth where nature has opened a passage for food and drink. Touch is spread evenly throughout the body, so that we can feel every blow and every excessive impact of cold or heat. And just as architects, in buildings, turn away from their owners’ eyes and noses the outlets whose unavoidable discharge would contain something offensive, so nature has banished similar things far from the senses.”

2.142 “What craftsman but nature, whose skill nothing can surpass, could have achieved such ingenuity in the senses? First she clothed and enclosed the eyes in exceedingly thin membranes, making these transparent so that we could see through them, yet strong so that the eyes would be held in place. But she made the eyes slippery and mobile, so that they could turn aside from anything harmful and direct their gaze easily wherever they wished. The actual point of vision, with which we see, called the pupil, is so small that it easily avoids things that could harm it. The eyelids, the eyes’ coverings, are exceedingly soft to the touch, so as not to injure the organ of vision, and perfectly fashioned both to close over the pupils and keep anything from falling in, and to open them. Nature provided that this could be done over and over with the greatest speed.”

2.143 “The eyelids are fortified, too, with a sort of palisade of hairs, to repel anything falling in when the eyes are open; and when they close in sleep, when we do not need our eyes for seeing, the eyes rest wrapped up, as it were. Moreover, the eyes are advantageously recessed and sheltered on every side by raised parts. Above, the eyebrows covering them ward off sweat flowing down from the head and forehead; below, the cheeks protect them, set beneath and slightly projecting; and the nose is so placed that it seems like a wall between the eyes.”

2.144 “But the organ of hearing is always open, for we need its perception even when asleep; and when it receives a sound, we are awakened from sleep itself. Its passage is winding, to keep anything from entering that might enter if it lay open in a straight, direct line. Provision has also been made that, if the tiniest creature tries to force its way in, it should stick in the earwax as though in birdlime. Outside project the parts called ears, made both to cover and protect the organ of hearing and to keep the sounds that reach them from slipping away and wandering off before they strike that organ. Their entrances, however, are hard and almost hornlike, with many windings, since surfaces of this kind reflect and amplify sound. For this reason, too, stringed instruments resonate through a tortoiseshell or horn, and sounds are returned louder from winding, enclosed spaces.”

2.145 “Similarly, the nostrils, which are always open to perform their necessary functions, have rather narrow entrances to keep anything harmful from penetrating them. They always contain moisture, useful for warding off dust and many other things. Taste is splendidly protected: it is enclosed in the mouth in a position suited both to its use and to keeping it safe.”

“And all human senses far surpass those of animals. First, the eyes discern many things more finely in the arts that fall under their judgment—in painted, modeled, and carved forms, and also in bodily movement and gesture. They judge the †beauty, order, and, so to speak, appropriateness of colors and shapes, and even greater things as well. For they recognize virtues and vices: they recognize the angry and the kindly, the joyful and the grieving, the brave and the cowardly, the bold and the timid.”

2.146 “The ears likewise possess a marvelous, finely skilled judgment, by which they distinguish the variety, intervals, and separation of sounds in the music of the voice, pipes, and strings, and the many kinds of voice: ringing and dark, smooth and rough, low and high, flexible and rigid. Only human ears judge these things. The nose, taste, and †to some extent touch likewise have great powers of discrimination. More arts have even been invented than I could wish for receiving and fully enjoying the pleasures of these senses. For it is plain how far the blending of perfumes, the seasoning of foods, and the embellishment of bodies have gone.”

2.147 “Indeed, anyone who fails to see that the human soul and mind themselves, reason, judgment, and practical wisdom, have been perfected by divine care seems to me to lack these very things. In discussing them, Cotta, I wish I might be given your eloquence. How you would describe the greatness, first, of our understanding, and then of our ability to connect and comprehend consequences in relation to their premises! Through this, evidently, we judge what follows from what and reach conclusions by reasoning; we define individual things and encompass them within precise limits. From this we understand the power and nature of knowledge, than which nothing even in a god is more excellent. And how great are those capacities which you Academics undermine and abolish: that through both senses and mind we perceive and grasp the things outside us;”

2.148 “and by bringing these perceptions together and comparing them, we also create arts, some required for the uses of life, others for enjoyment. Then how splendid, how divine, is the power of speech, ‘mistress of the world,’ as you like to call it! First, it enables us to learn what we do not know and to teach others what we do. Then by it we exhort, by it we persuade; by it we comfort the afflicted, by it we lead the terrified away from fear; by it we restrain the overexcited, by it we quench desire and anger. It has bound us together in a community of justice, laws, and cities; it has drawn us away from a savage, bestial life.”

2.149 “Unless you pay close attention, it is incredible how much workmanship nature has devised for the use of speech. First, the windpipe extends from the lungs to the innermost part of the mouth; through it the voice, originating in the mind, is received and poured out. Then in the mouth lies the tongue, bounded by the teeth. It shapes and limits the voice’s unrestrained outpouring and makes its sounds distinct and clear-cut by striking both the teeth and other parts of the mouth. Thus our people commonly compare the tongue to a plectrum, the teeth to strings, and the nostrils to the horns that resonate with the strings in music.”

2.150 “And what useful hands nature has given human beings, servants of how many arts! For the fingers contract and extend easily, and thanks to their flexible joints and articulations they find no movement difficult. Thus by applying its fingers the hand is suited to painting, modeling, carving, and drawing sounds from strings and pipes. These arts serve pleasure; others serve necessity: I mean cultivating fields, building houses, making coverings for the body, woven or sewn, and every kind of work in bronze and iron. From this we understand that, by applying craftsmen’s hands to the mind’s discoveries and the senses’ perceptions, we have obtained everything that enables us to be sheltered, clothed, and safe, and to possess cities, walls, homes, and shrines.”

2.151 “Again, human labor—that is, human hands—provides both variety and abundance of food. Fields yield many things procured by the hand, either for immediate consumption or to be put away in storage for the years ahead. Besides, we eat animals of land, water, and air, some by catching them, others by rearing them. By taming four-footed beasts we also provide transportation; their speed and strength give us strength and speed ourselves. We place burdens on some beasts; we put them under yokes. We make full use, for our own advantage, of elephants’ exceedingly keen senses and dogs’ tracking abilities. We extract iron from the earth’s caverns, a substance necessary for cultivating fields; we discover deeply hidden veins of copper, silver, and gold, suited both to practical use and to beautiful adornment. By felling trees we use timber of every kind, cultivated and wild, partly to warm our bodies with fire and soften our food, partly to build, so that, enclosed in houses, we may ward off cold and heat;”

2.152 “it is also immensely useful for making ships, whose voyages supply all the necessities of life from every quarter. Thanks to our knowledge of seamanship, we alone control those most violent forces nature has produced, the sea and the winds, and we enjoy and use a great many products of the sea. Likewise, the advantages of the land are entirely under human dominion. We enjoy the plains, we enjoy the mountains; the rivers are ours, the lakes are ours. We sow crops, we plant trees; by bringing in water we give the land fertility; we confine rivers, straighten them, divert them. In short, with our own hands we attempt to make, within the natural world, a second nature, as it were.”

2.153 “And has not human reason penetrated even into heaven? Alone among living creatures, we have learned the risings, settings, and courses of the stars; the human race has defined the day, the month, the year. Eclipses of sun and moon have been understood and predicted for all future time: which will occur, how great they will be, and when they will happen. By contemplating these things, the mind approaches knowledge of the gods. From this arises reverence, with which justice and the other virtues are joined; from these comes a happy life, equal and similar to the gods’, inferior to the heavenly beings in nothing but immortality, which has no bearing on living well.”

“Having set out these matters, I seem to have shown sufficiently how greatly human nature surpasses all living creatures. From this we must understand that neither the shape and arrangement of our limbs nor such powers of intelligence and mind could have been produced by chance.”

2.154 “It remains for me to show—and at last bring my speech to its close—that everything in this world which human beings use has been made and provided for their sake.”

“First, the world itself was made for gods and human beings, and the things within it were provided and devised for human benefit. For the world is, as it were, the shared home of gods and human beings, or the city of both; they alone, using reason, live by justice and law. Just as we must think Athens and Sparta were founded for the Athenians and Spartans, and rightly say that everything in those cities belongs to those peoples, so we must think that everything in the whole world belongs to gods and human beings.”

2.155 “Again, the revolutions of sun, moon, and the other stars, though they also contribute to the world’s coherence, nevertheless offer human beings a spectacle. No sight is more inexhaustible, none more beautiful or more remarkable for its rational order and ingenuity. For by measuring their courses we have learned the seasons’ ripening, variety, and changes. If human beings alone know these things, we must judge that they were made for human beings’ sake.”

2.156 “And the earth, rich in crops and the many kinds of legumes it pours forth with the greatest generosity: does it seem to produce these for wild beasts or for human beings? What need I say of vines and olive groves, whose exceedingly abundant and flourishing fruits have nothing at all to do with animals? For no beasts have any knowledge of sowing, cultivating, harvesting and gathering fruit at the right time, or storing it and putting it away; the use and care of all these things belong to human beings.”

2.157 “Just as we must say that lyres and pipes were made for those who could use them, so we must acknowledge that the things I have mentioned were provided only for those who use them. If some animals steal or snatch something from them, we shall not say they came into being for those animals too. For human beings do not store grain for mice or ants, but for their spouses, children, and households. Thus the animals, as I said, enjoy it by stealth; its owners do so openly and freely;”

2.158 “we must therefore admit that these abundant resources have been provided for human beings. Unless, perhaps, the great abundance and variety of fruits, and the pleasure they give not only to taste but also to smell and sight, cast doubt on whether nature has bestowed them on human beings alone! So far are these things from having been provided for animals as well that we see the animals themselves were brought into being for human benefit. What do sheep provide except clothing for human beings, when their wool has been worked and woven? Without human cultivation and care they could not have been fed or sustained, or yielded any benefit. And dogs—their faithful watchfulness, their loving fawning on their masters, their hatred of strangers, their incredibly keen noses for tracking, their eagerness in the hunt—what else do these signify but that they were brought into being for human advantage?”

2.159 “What shall I say of oxen? Their very backs proclaim that they were not shaped to carry burdens, while their necks were born for the yoke, and their broad, strong shoulders for †drawing plows. When the race of gold, as the poets call it, used them to till the earth by breaking up its clods, they never suffered any violence:Then suddenly arose a race of iron,

the first that dared to forge the deadly sword

and taste the young ox tamed and yoked by human hands.So great was the benefit thought to come from oxen that eating their flesh was held a crime. It would take too long to pursue the uses of mules and donkeys, which were certainly provided to serve human beings.”

2.160 “What does a pig have to offer except food? Chrysippus indeed says its very soul was given to it as salt, to keep it from rotting; and because this animal was suited for human consumption, nature produced nothing more prolific. Why speak of the abundance and deliciousness of fish, or of birds? They give us so much pleasure that our Providence sometimes seems to have been an Epicurean. Nor could birds even be caught without human reason and ingenuity; though we believe that some birds, both those that give signs by flight and those that give signs by voice, as our augurs call them, were born for the purpose of foretelling events.”

2.161 “Again, we capture huge, wild beasts by hunting, both to eat them and to train ourselves in hunting as an imitation of military discipline, to use them when tamed and thoroughly trained, as we use elephants, and to select from their bodies many remedies for diseases and wounds. We do the same with certain plants and herbs, whose uses we have learned through long practice and experiment. You may survey the whole earth and all the seas with your mind as though with your eyes: you will see the immense, fruitful stretches of plain, the mountains’ dense covering, the pastures of cattle, and then voyages across the sea at incredible speed.”

2.162 “And not only above the earth: even in its innermost darkness lie hidden the useful properties of countless things, produced for human use and discovered by human beings alone.”

“But the point which each of you may seize upon for criticism—you, Cotta, because Carneades liked to assail the Stoics, and you, Velleius, because Epicurus ridicules nothing so much as the prediction of future events—seems to me to offer perhaps the strongest confirmation that the gods’ foresight cares for human affairs. For divination certainly exists, appearing in many places, circumstances, and times, both in private life and especially in public affairs:”

2.163 “the diviners who inspect sacrifices discern much; augurs foresee much; much is revealed through oracles, much through inspired prophecies, much through dreams, much through portents. By understanding these, people have often obtained many results that accorded with their wishes and interests, and have averted many dangers as well. Therefore this capacity—whether a power, an art, or a natural endowment—for knowing future events has certainly been given by the immortal gods to human beings and to no other creature.”

“If these individual arguments happen not to move you, still, taken as a whole, connected and joined together, they certainly ought to have done so.”

2.164 “And the immortal gods regularly care and provide not only for the whole human race but also for individuals. We may narrow down the whole of humankind, reduce it step by step to smaller groups, and finally reach individuals. For if, on the grounds we have already given, we think the gods care for all human beings wherever they are, in whatever region or part of lands separated from the continuous stretch of this land we inhabit, they also care for the people who inhabit these lands with us from east to west.”

2.165 “But if they care for those who inhabit that great island, as it were, which we call the inhabited world, they also care for those who occupy parts of that island—Europe, Asia, Africa. Therefore they also cherish parts of those regions, such as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and Rhodes; and, apart from the whole body of citizens, they cherish individuals in those cities: Curius, Fabricius, and Coruncanius in the war with Pyrrhus; Calatinus, Duilius, Metellus, and Lutatius in the First Punic War; Maximus, Marcellus, and Africanus in the Second; after them Paulus, Gracchus, and Cato, and, within our fathers’ memory, Scipio and Laelius. Our own state and Greece have produced many other exceptional men besides, none of whom, we must believe, could have become what he was without a god’s help.”

2.166 “This reasoning led the poets, especially Homer, to assign particular gods to the foremost heroes—Ulysses, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Achilles—as companions amid crises and dangers. Moreover, the gods’ own frequent appearances, such as those I recalled earlier, show that they care for communities and individual people alike. This is also understood from signs of future events, which are presented to us sometimes asleep, sometimes awake. We receive many warnings, too, through marvels, many through the entrails of sacrifices, and through many other things which long experience has so carefully observed that it has produced the art of divination.”

2.167 “No man, then, has ever been great without some divine inspiration. Nor should we try to refute this by judging that, if a storm has damaged someone’s crops or vineyards, or if chance has taken away some of life’s advantages, the person who suffers one of these things is either hated or neglected by a god. The gods care for great things and disregard small ones. For great men, however, all things always turn out well—if, indeed, our school and Socrates, the foremost philosopher, have spoken adequately about the richness and abundance of virtue.”

2.168 “These, more or less, were the things that occurred to me which I thought should be said about the nature of the gods. But you, Cotta, if you listen to me, should plead the same case, remembering that you are both a leading citizen and a pontiff. Since your school permits you to argue on either side, choose this side instead, and direct toward it that power of discussion which you gained from rhetorical exercises and which the Academy has enlarged. For arguing against the gods is a wicked and impious practice, whether it is done sincerely or in pretense.”

2.1 When Cotta finished, Velleius said, “I really was careless to take on someone who belongs to the Academy and is also a trained speaker. An Academic who couldn’t speak well wouldn’t have frightened me. Neither would a speaker, however eloquent, without that philosophy. A flood of empty words doesn’t upset me, nor does a subtle argument presented in a dry style. But you, Cotta, were strong on both sides. All you lacked was a crowd and a jury. Still, we can return to that another time. Now let’s hear Lucilius, if it suits him.”

2.2 Then Balbus said, “I’d rather hear more from Cotta himself, provided he brings in the real gods with the same eloquence he used to get rid of the false ones. A philosopher, a priest, and a man like Cotta should have a firm, certain view of the immortal gods, as our school does—not a shifting, unsettled view like the Academics. You’ve said enough against Epicurus, and more than enough. But what I’m eager to hear, Cotta, is what you yourself think.”

“Have you forgotten what I said at the start?” Cotta replied. “It’s easier for me to say what I don’t think than what I do, especially on subjects like these. Even if I had reached a clear conclusion, I’d still want to hear from you in turn, after saying so much myself.”

2.3 Then Balbus said, “I’ll do as you ask and keep it as brief as I can. Now that Epicurus’s errors have been exposed, there’s a long stretch of argument I can leave out. Our school divides this whole inquiry about the immortal gods into four parts. First, they show that gods exist. Next, they explain what the gods are like. Then they show that the gods govern the universe. Finally, they show that the gods look after human affairs. Let’s take the first two in this discussion. The third and fourth are bigger subjects, so I think we should leave them for another time.”

“Certainly not,” said Cotta. “We’ve got the time, and these subjects deserve to come before even our business.”

2.4 Then Lucilius said, “The first part hardly seems to need an argument. When we look up at the sky and study the heavenly bodies, what could be plainer or clearer than that some supremely intelligent divine power governs them? If that weren’t so, how could Ennius have said, with everyone’s agreement, ‘Look at this shining expanse above, whom everyone calls on as Jupiter’? Yes, Jupiter—the ruler of everything, who governs it all through motion. As Ennius also calls him, ‘father of gods and men’: a god present among us and supreme in power. If someone doubts that, I really don’t see why he couldn’t also doubt whether the sun exists or not;”

2.5 “Why is the one clearer than the other? Unless our minds had recognized and firmly grasped this, the belief wouldn’t have stayed so steady. Time wouldn’t have strengthened it, and it couldn’t have grown old along with the generations and ages of humanity. We see that other beliefs, made up and empty, have faded away over time. Who believes there ever was a centaur or a Chimaera? Can we find any old woman so foolish that she fears those horrors in the underworld that people once believed in? Time wipes out what people invent but confirms what nature tells us.

2.6 “So, among our people and among others, worship of the gods and sacred religious observances keep growing and improving day by day. This doesn’t happen at random or by chance. The gods themselves often appear and show their power. At Regillus, during the war with the Latins, the dictator A. Postumius was fighting Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum. Castor and Pollux were seen fighting on horseback in our ranks. In more recent memory, those same sons of Tyndareus announced that Perseus had been defeated. P. Vatinius, the grandfather of the young man here, was traveling to Rome from the prefecture of Reate. At night, two young men with white horses told him that King Perseus had been captured that day; <when> he reported this to the senate, he was first thrown in prison for supposedly making a reckless statement about public affairs. Later, a letter arrived from Paulus and confirmed the same date. The senate then rewarded Vatinius with land and exemption from military service. It’s also recorded that when the Locrians defeated the people of Croton in a great battle at the river Sagra, news of that battle reached the games at Olympia that very day. The voices of Fauns have often been heard, and the forms of gods have often been seen. These have forced anyone who wasn’t dull-witted or irreverent to admit that the gods were present.”

2.7 “What else do predictions and foreknowledge of the future show? They show that coming events are pointed out, displayed, foreshadowed, and foretold to human beings. That gives the Latin names ostenta, monstra, portenta, and prodigia: from ostendi, ‘be pointed out,’ monstrari, ‘be displayed,’ portendi, ‘be foreshadowed,’ and praedici, ‘be foretold.’ Suppose we think that stories have freely invented Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus. Yet even the stories wouldn’t have taken them in as prophets if the facts had ruled prophecy out altogether. Won’t examples from our own country teach us to recognize the gods’ power? Will we learn nothing from Publius Clodius’s reckless conduct in the First Punic War? He made a joke of mocking the gods. When the sacred chickens were let out of their cage and wouldn’t eat, he ordered them thrown into the water, so that they could drink, since they wouldn’t eat. The defeat of his fleet turned that joke into many tears for him and a great disaster for the Roman people. And didn’t his colleague Lucius Junius lose his fleet in a storm in the same war, after disregarding the auspices? Clodius was therefore convicted by the people, and Junius killed himself.

2.8 “Coelius writes that C. Flaminius fell at Trasimene because he ignored religious obligations, and that the republic suffered a terrible blow with him. Their destruction helps us see that the republic grew under the commands of men who obeyed religious requirements. And if we want to compare ourselves with foreign peoples, we’ll find that in other respects we’re their equals or even their inferiors. But in religion—that is, worship of the gods—we’re far ahead.”

2.9 “Should we dismiss that curved staff of Attus Navius, with which he marked off the parts of a vineyard to search for a pig? I might think so, if King Hostilius hadn’t fought great wars under his guidance as an augur. But the nobles’ carelessness has let the study of augury fall away. The reality of the auspices has been rejected, and only the outward appearance remains. So the most important business of the state, including the wars on which its safety depends, is carried on without auspices. No signs at river crossings are observed, nor any from spear points. No men are summoned, and that has put an end to wills made before battle. Our commanders now begin to wage war only after giving up their auspices.

2.10 “But among our ancestors religion had such force that some commanders even covered their heads and used a set form of words to devote their own lives to the immortal gods for the state. I could recall many Sibylline prophecies and many answers given by readers of sacrificial entrails to confirm things no one should doubt. An actual event proved the skill both of our augurs and of the Etruscan readers of entrails, when Publius Scipio and Gaius Figulus became consuls. Tiberius Gracchus, in his second consulship, was conducting their election. The first voting officer suddenly died on the spot just after reporting their election. Gracchus nevertheless completed the assembly. When he realized that this had caused religious anxiety among the people, he referred the matter to the Senate. The Senate decided to consult the people it usually consulted. The readers of entrails were brought in. They answered that the official conducting the election assembly hadn’t been acting lawfully. Then Gracchus flared up in anger, as I used to hear from my father:

2.11 “‘Really? I wasn’t qualified, even though I held the election as consul, as augur, and after taking the auspices? Or do you Etruscans, you barbarians, understand the rules for the Roman people’s auspices? Are you qualified to interpret their elections?’ So he told them to leave. Later, though, he wrote to the college from his province. While reading the books, he’d remembered a religious fault in his choice of a tent site in Scipio’s gardens. After choosing it, he’d entered the pomerium to hold a senate meeting. On his way back, when he crossed that same sacred city boundary, he’d forgotten to take the auspices. The consuls had therefore been elected through a faulty procedure. The augurs referred the matter to the senate. The senate told the consuls to resign. They resigned. What stronger examples could we ask for? An exceptionally wise man—perhaps the most outstanding man of all—preferred to admit a mistake he could have hidden rather than leave the republic burdened with a religious violation. The consuls preferred to give up the highest command immediately rather than hold it for a single moment against religious requirements.”

2.12 “The augurs have great authority. And isn’t the skill of the readers of entrails also divine? If someone sees these cases and countless others like them, isn’t he forced to admit that gods exist? Those whose messages they interpret must certainly exist. They interpret the gods’ messages. So let’s admit that gods exist. But perhaps not every prediction comes true. Well, not every sick person recovers, but that doesn’t mean there is no medical skill. The gods show us signs of future events. If anyone misreads them, the fault lies not in the gods’ nature but in human interpretation.

“And so people of every nation agree on the main point. Everyone has an inborn belief, engraved, as it were, in the mind, that gods exist. Opinions differ about what they are like. No one denies that they exist.

2.13 “Cleanthes, one of our own school, said that ideas of the gods took shape in people’s minds for four reasons. First he put the reason I just mentioned: foreknowledge of future events. Second came our awareness of the great benefits we receive from a balanced climate, fertile land, and a rich supply of many other useful things.

2.14 “His third reason was the fear stirred in our minds by lightning, storms, rain clouds, snow, hail, devastation, plague, earthquakes, frequent rumblings of the earth, showers of stones, and raindrops that seem like blood. There are landslides and sudden chasms in the earth. There are unnatural births among people and cattle. There are fiery lights seen in the sky and the stars the Greeks call ‘long-haired’ comets and our people call ‘curly-haired stars.’ These recently warned of great disasters during the war with Octavius. There is also the appearance of a double sun. My father told me this happened when Tuditanus and Aquilius were consuls, in the very year when Publius Africanus, our second sun, went out. Frightened by these things, people came to think that some heavenly, divine power existed.

2.15 “The fourth reason, perhaps the strongest of all, is the sky’s even movement <and perfectly steady> rotation, together with the distinct arrangement, usefulness, beauty, and order of the sun, the moon, and all the stars. Just looking at these things would be enough to show that they haven’t come about by chance. Suppose someone walked into a house, a gymnasium, or a public square and saw how everything was planned, regulated, and organized. They couldn’t think this had happened without a cause. They’d realize that someone was in charge and that others followed his directions. How much more clearly must someone recognize this when faced with such enormous movements and changes, such orderly arrangements of things so numerous and so vast? Throughout the immeasurable, endless past, nothing in them has ever gone wrong. We must conclude that some mind governs these immense movements of nature.”

2.16 “Chrysippus has an exceptionally sharp mind. Even so, what he says sounds as though he learned it from nature itself rather than worked it out on his own. ‘If there’s anything in nature,’ he says, ‘that the human mind, human reason, human strength, and human power can’t produce, then whatever produces it must be better than a human being. But humans can’t produce the heavenly bodies or any of the things whose order lasts forever. So whatever produces them is better than a human being. What would you call that, if not a god? Besides, if there are no gods, what in nature can be better than a human being? Humans alone have reason, and nothing can be more excellent than reason. But it’s foolish arrogance for a person to think there’s nothing in the whole universe better than themselves. So there is something better. That means there certainly is a god.’”

2.17 “Suppose you see a large, beautiful house. Even without seeing its owner, no one could persuade you that it was built for mice and weasels. Then think of the world’s great order, the vast variety and beauty of the heavens, and the great force and size of the sea and land. If you think this is your home and not the home of the immortal gods, wouldn’t you seem completely foolish? Don’t we even understand that everything above is better, while the earth is lowest, with the thickest air around it? In some regions and cities we see people’s minds grow dull because of the greater density of the atmosphere. The same thing has happened to the human race, because it has been placed on the earth, in the thickest region of the world.

2.18 “And yet human ingenuity itself should lead us to believe that there’s a mind sharper than ours, a divine mind. Where did humans ‘grab’ this ability from, as Socrates puts it in Xenophon? Suppose someone asks where we got the moisture and the heat spread through our bodies, or the solid, earthy material of our internal organs, or, finally, that breathlike spirit of ours. The answer’s obvious. We took one thing from earth, another from moisture, another from fire, and another from the air that we call breath. But what about what’s better than all of these? I mean reason—or, if you’d like more words, mind, judgment, thought, and practical wisdom. Where did we find it? Where did we get it from? Will the universe have everything else, but lack this one thing that’s worth the most? Surely, of everything that exists, nothing is better than the universe, nothing more excellent, nothing more beautiful. Not only does nothing better exist; we can’t even imagine anything better. And if nothing is better than reason and wisdom, they must be present in what we agree is the best thing of all.”

2.19 “Who wouldn’t be forced to accept what I’m saying by this great harmony of things, their shared activity, and their unbroken connection? Could the earth flower at one time and then be bare at another? Could the sun’s approach and retreat at the summer and winter solstices be recognized through the way so many things change of themselves? Could the tides of the sea and the narrow straits be stirred by the moon’s rising and setting? Could the stars keep their different courses within the single turning of the whole sky? These things, with all the world’s parts working together, certainly couldn’t happen unless one divine, unbroken breath held them together.

2.20 “When these matters are discussed more fully and at greater length, as I intend to do, they more easily escape the Academics’ petty objections. But when, as Zeno used to do, they are drawn together in short, tight arguments, they are easier to attack. A flowing river can hardly be polluted, if at all, while standing water is easily spoiled. In the same way, a stream of speech washes away a critic’s abuse, while a tightly compressed argument has trouble defending itself. Zeno squeezed the points we expand into this form:

2.21 “‘Whatever uses reason is better than whatever doesn’t. But nothing is better than the universe. So the universe uses reason.’ The same approach can prove that the universe is wise, that it’s happy, and that it’s eternal. Anything with these qualities is better than things that lack them, and nothing is better than the universe. It follows that the universe is a god.”

2.22 “He also argues this way: ‘No part of something that lacks sensation can itself have sensation. But parts of the universe have sensation. So the universe doesn’t lack sensation.’ He goes on to press the point more closely: ‘Nothing that lacks a soul and reason can produce a living, rational being from itself. But the universe produces living, rational beings. So the universe is alive and has reason.’ As he often does, he also uses a comparison to complete his argument: ‘Suppose flutes grew from an olive tree and played in tune. Would you doubt that the olive tree had some knowledge of flute-playing? And suppose plane trees bore little lyres that played rhythmically. You’d obviously think those trees had musical skill. So why shouldn’t we judge the universe to be alive and wise, when it produces living, wise beings from itself?’”

2.23 “But I’ve started doing something different from what I said at the outset. I said that this first part needed no argument, since everyone could see that gods exist. Still, I want this very point confirmed by arguments from physics—that is, from nature. The fact is that everything that feeds and grows contains a force of heat. Without it, nothing could feed or grow. Everything hot and fiery stirs and acts through its own motion. Anything that feeds and grows has a certain steady, even motion. As long as that motion stays in us, sensation and life stay too. But when our heat grows cold and goes out, we ourselves die and go out.

2.24 “Cleanthes also uses these arguments to show how powerful heat is in every body. He says that even the heaviest food is digested, night and day. Heat is even present in the waste that nature throws out. Again, the veins and arteries never stop throbbing, with what seems a fiery motion. People have also often noticed that when the heart of an animal is torn out, it beats so rapidly that it seems to imitate the speed of fire. So everything alive, whether an animal or something the earth produces, lives because of the heat shut inside it. From this we should understand that this kind of heat has within it a life-giving power that reaches throughout the world.

2.25 “We’ll see this more easily if we explain more carefully this whole fiery substance that passes through everything. All the world’s parts depend on heat for support and survival. I’ll touch on the largest ones. We can see this first in the earth. We see fire struck from stones when they hit or rub together. We see freshly dug earth give off steam from its warmth. We also draw warm water from wells that never run dry. This happens especially in winter, because a great amount of heat is held in the earth’s hollows. The earth is denser in winter, so it holds its own inner heat more tightly.

2.26 “It would take a long discussion, with many arguments, to show that this balance of heat brings into being and nourishes all the seeds the earth receives, and all the things it produces itself and holds in place by their roots. Water, too, has heat mixed into it. The first evidence is its very fluidity, its ability to flow. It couldn’t freeze in cold weather or thicken into snow and frost unless that same water also spread out, melted and loosened by the heat mixed into it. So moisture hardens when north winds and other sources of cold act on it. Then, in turn, it softens when warmed and melts with heat. Seas, too, grow warm when winds stir them up. That makes it easy to recognize the heat enclosed in those enormous masses of water. We shouldn’t regard that warmth as something foreign that comes from outside. The stirring brings it out from the sea’s deepest parts. The same thing happens in our own bodies when movement and exercise warm them up. Even air, which is extremely cold by nature, is far from being without heat;”

2.27 “In fact, a great deal of heat is mixed into it. Air itself rises from water as it breathes out. We should think of it as a kind of vapor from water. It is produced by the action of the heat held in water. We can see something similar in water that boils over a fire. Now take the remaining, fourth part of the world. Its whole nature is hot, and it gives all the other elements a healthy, life-giving heat.

2.28 “This leads to a conclusion. Since heat sustains every part of the universe, a similar force of the same nature must preserve the universe itself throughout its long existence. There’s all the more reason to accept this once we recognize that this hot, fiery element spreads through all of nature and holds the power to reproduce and the cause of generation. It must be the source from which all living creatures, and everything rooted in the earth, come into being and grow.”

2.29 “So there is a nature that holds the whole universe together and protects it, and it isn’t without sensation and reason. Every natural thing that isn’t isolated or simple, but joined and connected with something else, must have a ruling element within it. In a human being, that’s the mind. In an animal, it’s something like a mind, which gives rise to its desires for things. In trees and other things that grow from the earth, people think the ruling element is in the roots. By ‘ruling element’ I mean what the Greeks call ἡγεμονικὸν. In each kind of thing, nothing can or should rank above it. So whatever holds the ruling position in the whole of nature must be the best of all things, and the most deserving of power and authority over everything.”

2.30 “We see sensation and reason in parts of the universe—and there’s nothing anywhere in the universe that isn’t part of the whole. So these must also exist in the part that rules the universe, and in a sharper and greater form. The universe must therefore be wise. The nature that embraces and holds everything must excel through the completeness of its reason. It follows that the universe is a god, and that all its power is contained within a divine nature.”

“What’s more, the universe’s fiery heat is much purer, clearer, and more mobile than the heat here around us, which sustains the things we know and keeps them thriving. Those qualities make it much better suited to producing sensations.”

2.31 “So it’s absurd to say that the universe has no sensation. This heat holds humans and animals together, and enables them to move and feel. Yet the universe is held together by a fire that’s undiminished, unhindered, pure, and at the same time extremely intense and mobile. Besides, the universe’s fire isn’t stirred by anything else or pushed from outside. It moves by itself, of its own accord. After all, what could be more powerful than the universe, so as to push and move the heat that holds it together?”

2.32 “Let’s listen to Plato, a kind of god among philosophers. He recognizes two kinds of motion: motion that comes from a thing itself, and motion that comes from outside. He considers something that moves by itself, of its own accord, more divine than something set in motion by an outside push. Only souls, he says, have this self-generated motion, and he thinks motion originally comes from them. Now all motion arises from the universe’s fire, and that fire moves of its own accord, not from an outside push. So it must be a soul. It follows that the universe is alive.”

“We can also recognize that it has intelligence from this: the universe is certainly better than any other natural thing. Every part of our body is worth less than we ourselves are. In the same way, the universe as a whole must be worth more than any part of it. If that’s so, the universe must be wise. Otherwise a human being, who is part of the universe, would have to be worth more than the entire universe because he has a share in reason.”

2.33 “Also, if we choose to move from the earliest, unfinished forms of nature to the highest, completed ones, we must reach the nature of the gods. First we notice that nature sustains the things that grow from the earth. It gives them nothing beyond the nourishment and growth needed to preserve them.

2.34 “But it gives animals sensation and movement, along with an impulse to approach things that help them and avoid things that harm them. To human beings it gives something more: reason. Reason directs the mind’s impulses, now letting them go, now holding them back. The fourth and highest level belongs to beings born naturally good and wise. Right and steady reason is inborn in them from the start. We must regard this as above the human level and assign it to god—that is, to the world. In the world that complete and perfect reason must be present.

2.35 “We can’t say that any order of things lacks a final stage of completion. Take a vine or a farm animal. Unless some force gets in the way, we see nature follow its own course to the end. Painting, building, and the other crafts likewise have an outcome in which the work is finished. So nature as a whole must also reach completion and perfection—and there’s even more reason for it to do so. Many outside things can stop other natural things from reaching completion. But nothing can obstruct nature as a whole, because it encloses and contains all those other natures. So that fourth and highest level must exist, which no force can reach.”

2.36 “That’s the level occupied by the nature of all things. Since it rules everything and nothing can obstruct it, the universe must be intelligent—and wise as well.”

“What could be more ignorant than to say that the nature embracing everything isn’t the best? Or to admit that it’s the best, but deny that it’s first of all alive, then capable of reason and planning, and finally wise? How else could it be the best? If it were like plants, or even like animals, we should regard it as the worst rather than the best. And even if it has reason, its condition would still be worse than ours if it hasn’t been wise from the beginning. A human being can become wise. But if the universe was foolish throughout the endless stretch of past time, it certainly will never gain wisdom. That would make it worse than a human being. Since that’s absurd, we must regard the universe as wise from the beginning, and as a god.”

2.37 “Nothing except the universe lacks nothing, fits together on every side, and is complete in every detail and every part. Chrysippus makes a good point here. Just as a cover exists for a shield and a sheath for a sword, everything except the universe was brought into being for something else. The crops and fruits the earth produces exist for animals, and animals for human beings: the horse for riding, the ox for plowing, the dog for hunting and guarding. Human beings themselves came into being to study and imitate the universe—not perfect themselves by any means, but a small part of what is perfect.”

2.38 “But the universe embraces everything. There’s nothing that isn’t within it, so it’s complete in every way. How, then, could it lack what’s best? Nothing is better than mind and reason. So the universe can’t lack them. Here again Chrysippus argues well. He adds comparisons to show that everything is better in things that are fully developed and mature: in a horse rather than a foal, a dog rather than a puppy, a man rather than a boy. Likewise, whatever is best in the entire universe must exist in something complete and fully developed;”

2.39 “Nothing is more perfect than the universe, and nothing is better than virtue. So virtue must belong to the universe. Human nature isn’t perfect, yet virtue develops in human beings. How much more easily, then, must it develop in the universe! So the universe has virtue. That makes it wise, and therefore a god.”

“Once we’ve recognized the universe as divine, we must recognize the stars as divine too. They form from the most active and purest part of the ether, with no other kind of substance mixed in. They’re entirely hot and transparent. So we’re fully justified in saying that they too are alive, have senses, and understand.”

2.40 “Cleanthes thinks two of our senses, touch and sight, confirm that the stars consist entirely of fire. The sun’s heat and brightness surpass those of any other fire. After all, its light reaches far and wide through this enormous universe. And when we feel it, it doesn’t just warm us; it often burns us. It couldn’t do either unless it were fire. ‘So,’ he says, ‘since the sun is made of fire and feeds on the moisture of Ocean’—because no fire can last without something to feed it—‘its fire must resemble either the fire we use for our everyday needs and food, or the fire contained in living bodies.’”

2.41 “‘But our everyday fire, the kind we need to live, destroys and consumes everything. Wherever it spreads, it throws everything into disorder and breaks it apart. The fire inside bodies does the opposite. It gives life and health. It preserves, feeds, grows, and supports everything, and gives it sensation.’ So he says there’s no doubt which of these two fires the sun resembles. The sun too makes everything flourish and grow to maturity, each thing according to its kind. Since the sun’s fire resembles the fires inside living bodies, the sun must also be alive. The same holds for the other stars, which form in the burning region of heaven called ether or sky.”

2.42 “Some living things originate on land, others in water, and others in the air. So Aristotle thinks it’s absurd to suppose that no living thing originates in the region best suited to producing life. Now, the stars occupy the region of ether. It’s the finest substance, always moving and full of energy. Any living thing born there must therefore have exceptionally sharp senses and be able to move exceptionally fast. Since the stars form in the ether, it follows that they have sensation and intelligence. And that means we must count the stars among the gods. We can actually see that people who live in places where the air is pure and thin have sharper minds, better suited to understanding, than people who live under a thick, dense atmosphere.”

2.43 “People even think the food you eat makes some difference to the sharpness of your mind. So it’s reasonable to think that the stars have outstanding intelligence. They live in the universe’s region of ether, and they feed on moisture from sea and land that has become very fine during its long journey. But the clearest evidence that the stars have sensation and intelligence is their orderly, steady movement. Nothing can move according to a rational plan and fixed measures without intelligence directing it. Their order contains nothing haphazard, nothing changeable, nothing accidental. The stars’ order and their unbroken regularity through all eternity can’t be put down to nature, since that order is full of reason. Nor can they be put down to chance, which loves variety and rejects regularity. So the stars must move of their own accord, through their own awareness and divine nature.”

2.44 “Aristotle also deserves praise for his view that everything that moves does so either by nature, by force, or by choice. The sun, moon, and all the stars move. But things that move by nature go either downward because they’re heavy or upward because they’re light. Neither happens to the stars: their movement takes them around in a circle. Nor can we say that some greater force makes the stars move against their nature. What force could be greater? The only possibility left is that the stars move by choice.”

“Anyone who sees these things and still denies that gods exist shows not just ignorance but a lack of reverence. And there’s really little difference between denying their existence and denying them any management or activity. To my mind, something that does nothing doesn’t exist at all. So the existence of gods is so clear that I can hardly consider anyone who denies it to be in their right mind.”

2.45 “What remains is to consider what their nature is like. Here the hardest thing is to turn the mind’s eye away from what our eyes are used to seeing. That difficulty has led ordinary uneducated people, and philosophers who resemble them, to think of the immortal gods only in human shapes. Cotta has already exposed how flimsy that belief is. It doesn’t need an argument from me. But we have a firm idea in our minds, an advance awareness, that a god is first of all alive and second that nothing in all nature is more excellent. Nothing, I think, fits that awareness and idea better than judging, first, that this world itself is alive and a god, since nothing more excellent can exist.

2.46 “Epicurus can joke about this as much as he likes. He isn’t very good at jokes, and shows very little of his native country’s spirit. Let him say he can’t understand what a round, spinning god is like. He will never move me from this position, which he himself also accepts. He believes that gods exist because there must be some excellent being with nothing better than it. But certainly nothing is better than the world. And there is no doubt that something alive, possessing sensation, reason, and mind, is better than something that lacks them.

2.47 “So we establish that the universe is alive and possesses sensation, intelligence, and reason. This line of argument leads to the conclusion that the universe is a god. But a little later, the things the universe itself produces will make this easier to understand. Meanwhile, Velleius, please don’t advertise your school’s complete lack of learning. You say you find a cone, a cylinder, and a pyramid more beautiful than a sphere. Even your eyesight makes unusual judgments! Still, let’s allow that those shapes are more beautiful to look at, though I don’t agree even with that. What could be more beautiful than the one shape that encloses all the other shapes within itself? It can have no roughness, nothing to catch against, no angular cuts or winding bends, no projections or hollows. There are two outstanding shapes: among solid shapes, the ball, or globus—that’s how I prefer to translate the Greek σφαῖραν, ‘sphere’—and among flat shapes, the circle or disk, called κύκλος in Greek. Only these two shapes have all their parts as much alike as possible and their outer boundary everywhere the same distance from the center,”

2.48 “and nothing could be better suited to its purpose. But suppose you don’t see this because you’ve never touched the dust where people draw their learned diagrams. Even as students of nature, couldn’t you understand that no other shape could maintain such even movement and such a steady arrangement? So nothing could show less learning than the claim your school regularly makes. You don’t even say for certain that this universe is round. You say it could have some other shape, and that the countless other universes have all sorts of different shapes.”

2.49 “Epicurus certainly wouldn’t have said that if he’d learned how much twice two is. But while he was deciding what tasted best to his palate—his palatum—he never looked up at ‘caeli palatum,’ the ‘palate of the sky,’ as Ennius calls it.”

“There are two kinds of stars. One travels from east to west over unchanging distances and never turns aside from its course at any point. The other continually completes two revolutions over the same distances and along the same paths. Both show us that the universe rotates, which would be impossible unless it were shaped like a ball, and that the stars travel in circular circuits.”

“First, take the sun, which holds first place among the stars. Its movement fills the earth with abundant light, then darkens that same earth, now in one region and now in another. It’s the earth’s own shadow, shutting out the sun, that makes night. Nighttime intervals have the same regularity as daytime intervals. The sun also regulates cold and heat by coming closer and moving farther away in measured stages. It completes a year’s cycle in three hundred and sixty-five circuits, with roughly a quarter of a day added. As it bends its course now toward the Seven Oxen in the north, now toward the south, it produces summers and winters, along with the two seasons that come after winter as it fades and after summer. So the changes among the four seasons provide the starting points and causes of everything that grows on land and in the sea.”

2.50 “The moon follows the sun’s yearly courses in monthly stretches. Its light is thinnest when it comes closest to the sun, and fullest whenever it moves farthest away. Not only does its appearance and shape change, growing and then waning back to its starting point. Its position changes too. When it is north or south, its course also has something like a winter and a summer solstice. Many influences stream and flow from it. These feed living creatures and make them grow, and bring the things that spring from the earth to full growth and ripeness.

2.51 “But most remarkable of all are the movements of the five stars wrongly called ‘wanderers.’ Nothing wanders if, through all eternity, it keeps its forward and backward movements, and all its other movements, steady and fixed. This is all the more remarkable in the stars we’re discussing. Sometimes they disappear, then reappear. Sometimes they approach, then retreat. Sometimes they move ahead, then follow behind. Sometimes they move faster, sometimes slower. Sometimes they don’t move at all but remain still for a while. From these different movements, mathematicians have defined what they call the Great Year. It’s completed when the sun, moon, and five wandering stars have all finished their courses and returned to the same positions relative to one another;”

2.52 “How long this lasts is a major question. But it must have a fixed, definite length. The star called Saturn, which the Greeks name Phaenon (Φαίνων), ‘the shining one,’, is the farthest from earth. It completes its journey in about thirty years. Along the way it does many remarkable things. Sometimes it moves ahead, sometimes it slows down. Sometimes it disappears in the evening, then shows itself again in the morning. Yet through endless ages it never changes: it always does the same things at the same times. Below it, closer to earth, travels the star of Jupiter, called Phaethon (Φαέθων), ‘the radiant one,’. It goes around the same circle of twelve signs in twelve years. Its journey shows the same variations as Saturn’s.”

2.53 “The next lower orbit belongs to Pyroeis, ‘the fiery one,’ the star called Mars. It goes around the same circle as the two above it in twenty-four months less, I think, six days. Below it is the star of Mercury, called Stilbon, ‘the glittering one,’ by the Greeks. It goes around the zodiac in about a year. It never moves farther from the sun than the distance of one sign, sometimes going ahead of it, sometimes following behind. The lowest of the five wandering stars and nearest the earth is the star of Venus. When it goes ahead of the sun, it is called Phosphorus in Greek and Lucifer in Latin, meaning ‘light-bringer.’ When it follows behind, it is called Hesperus, ‘evening star.’ It completes its course in a year, passing across both the width and length of the zodiac, as the stars above it also do. It never goes farther from the sun than the distance of two signs, sometimes going ahead, sometimes following behind.

2.54 “I can’t understand how the stars could be so steady, or how such different journeys could keep such perfectly coordinated times forever, without intelligence, reason, and planning. We see these qualities in the stars. So we can’t help counting the stars themselves among the gods.”

“The stars we call fixed also show this same intelligence and foresight. Their daily rotation is regular and consistent. Their paths aren’t carried along by the ether, nor are the stars fastened to the sky, as most people say because they don’t understand how nature works. The ether doesn’t have the kind of nature that would let it grip the stars and whirl them around by its own force. It’s thin and transparent, with warmth spread evenly through it. That hardly seems suited to holding the stars in place;”

2.55 “So the fixed stars have their own sphere, separate and free from any connection with ether. Their everlasting, unbroken courses, with their astonishing, unbelievable steadiness, show that they have divine power and mind. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that these very stars possess divine power seems incapable of recognizing anything at all.

2.56 “So in heaven there is no chance, no recklessness, no wandering, and no unreality. Instead, everything there is order, truth, reason, and steadiness. Things that lack these qualities—false, unreal things full of error—move around the earth below the moon, which is the lowest of all the heavenly bodies, and on the earth itself. If someone thinks that heaven’s wonderful order and unbelievable steadiness have no mind behind them, he must be considered mindless himself. All the preservation and safety of everything spring from that order.

2.57 “So I don’t think I’ll go wrong if I begin this discussion with the leader in the search for truth. Zeno defines nature as a skilled fire that goes about producing things in a methodical way. He thinks that making and producing things is the special work of a craft. What our hands do in the work of our crafts, nature does with far greater skill. By nature I mean, as I said, a skilled fire that teaches all the other crafts. In this sense, nature in every form works skillfully. It has something like a method and a course to follow.”

2.58 “But Zeno says that the nature of the world itself, which embraces, encloses, and holds everything, is not only skilled but an actual craftsman. It plans and provides for everything useful and fitting. Other natural beings are each born, grow, and are sustained from their own seeds. In the same way, the world’s nature has all its motions by choice. Its efforts and impulses, which the Greeks call hormai, ‘urges,’ and the actions that follow them are just like ours, as we are moved by our minds and senses. Since the world’s mind is like this, it can rightly be called forethought or providence—the Greek word pronoia means ‘thinking ahead.’ It provides above all for these aims and is chiefly occupied with them: first, to make the world as well fitted as possible to last; next, to ensure that it lacks nothing; and most of all, to give it outstanding beauty and every kind of order.

2.59 “I have spoken about the world as a whole, and also about the stars. By now we can almost see the great number of gods. They aren’t idle, and they don’t perform their tasks with burdensome, tiresome labor. They aren’t held together by veins, sinews, and bones. They don’t consume food and drink of the sort that could build up fluids that are too sharp or too thick. Their bodies aren’t such that they must fear falls or blows, or dread diseases caused by tired limbs. It was fear of these things that made Epicurus invent his gods, mere outlines that do nothing.

2.60 “They have the most beautiful form and occupy the purest region of the sky. They move and manage their journeys in a way that makes them seem to have agreed to work together to preserve and protect everything.”

“There are also many other forms of divinity that the wisest Greeks and our own ancestors recognized and named because of their great benefits. They had good reason. They thought that anything bringing a great benefit to the human race must come from divine kindness toward us. Sometimes, then, they gave something produced by a god the name of that god. We do this when we call grain Ceres and wine Liber. That’s the source of the line from”

2.61 “Terence, ‘Without Ceres and Liber, Venus grows cold.’ At other times, something with an especially great power gets a name that makes the power itself a god. Examples are Fides, Good Faith, and Mens, Mind. We see their shrines on the Capitol, dedicated most recently by M. Aemilius Scaurus. Fides had already been consecrated earlier by <A.> Atilius Calatinus. You can see the temple of Virtus, Courage. You can also see the temple of Honos, Honor, which M. Marcellus restored. Q. Maximus had dedicated it many years earlier during the Ligurian War. And what about Ops, Plenty; Salus, Safety; Concordia, Harmony; Libertas, Freedom; and Victoria, Victory? All these things had such great power that they couldn’t be controlled without a god. So the things themselves received the names of gods. The sacred names of Cupid, Pleasure, and Venus Lubentina, Venus of Desire, belong to this same group. These are corrupt impulses, not natural ones—though Velleius thinks otherwise. Still, these very faults often stir our nature with particular force.”

2.62 “So the greatness of these benefits led people to recognize as gods those who produced each kind of benefit. The names I mentioned a little earlier show what power each god has.”

“Human society and common practice also came to raise men who had done outstanding good into heaven through their praise and goodwill. That’s how Hercules became a god, and Castor and Pollux, and Aesculapius, and Liber too. I mean the Liber born to Semele, not the one our ancestors solemnly and reverently worshiped together with Ceres and Libera. What that means can be understood from the mysteries. But because we call our own children liberi, Ceres’ children were named Liber and Libera. People keep this parentage for Libera, but not for Liber. Romulus belongs here too; some think he’s the same as Quirinus. Since these men’s souls lived on and enjoyed everlasting life, people rightly regarded them as gods. They were both supremely good and eternal.”

2.63 “A different line of thought, this time about the workings of nature, also produced a great number of gods. Dressed in human form, they supplied the poets with stories and filled human life with every kind of superstition. Zeno dealt with this subject, and Cleanthes and Chrysippus later explained it at greater length. An old belief spread throughout Greece that Caelus, the Sky, was castrated by his son Saturn, and that Saturn himself was bound by his son Jupiter:”

2.64 “Hidden inside these irreverent stories is a rather clever account of nature. The highest heavenly substance is ether, or fire. It produces everything by itself. So they meant that it had no use for the bodily part that needs a partner to produce offspring. Saturn, in their account, was the power that governed the course and cycle of periods of time. The god’s Greek name expresses that very thing. He’s called Κρόνος, Cronus, which they identify with χρόνος, ‘time,’ or a stretch of time. The Latin name Saturnus comes from saturaretur annis, ‘he was filled with years.’ The story says he used to eat his own children because time devours its own stretches and fills itself endlessly with the years that have passed. Jupiter bound him to keep his course from running out of control, tying him down with the bonds of the stars. Jupiter himself is the helping father: Iuppiter, explained as iuvans pater. When we change the grammatical case, we call him Iovem, connecting the name with iuvando, ‘helping.’ The poets call him ‘father of gods and humans.’ Our ancestors called him Best and Greatest. And they put Best, meaning most generous, before Greatest. That’s because helping everyone is a greater thing, and certainly more welcome, than having great”

2.65 “wealth. This, then, is the god Ennius names, as I said earlier, in the words ‘Look at this shining thing above, whom everyone calls Jupiter.’ That’s clearer than his wording elsewhere: ‘Against him I’ll call on whatever this shining thing is to bring a curse, as far as it’s in my power.’ Our augurs also mean this god when they say ‘when Jupiter flashes and thunders.’ What they’re saying is ‘when the sky flashes and thunders.’ Euripides has many excellent sayings, and puts this one briefly:You see the boundless ether spread above,

holding the earth in a gentle embrace:

take this as the highest god, and call him Jupiter.”

2.66 “The air lies between the sea and the sky. According to the Stoics’ account, it’s worshiped under the name Juno. She’s Jupiter’s sister and wife because air resembles ether and is very closely joined to it. They made air feminine and assigned it to Juno because nothing is softer. But I think Juno’s name, Iuno, comes from iuvando, ‘helping.’ Water and earth remained, making three kingdoms to divide up as the stories tell. So Neptune, whom we regard as Jupiter’s brother, received another of them: the entire kingdom of the sea. Just as Portunus comes from porta, ‘gate,’ Neptunus was formed from nando, ‘swimming,’ with a small change to the opening letters. All the earth’s power and nature were assigned to Father Dis. His name means ‘rich,’ from Latin dives, just as the Greeks call him Pluton (Πλούτων), the Rich One. That’s because everything returns to the earth and everything rises from it. †With him is Proserpina (that’s a Greek name, since she’s the one called Persephone, Περσεφόνη, in Greek)—they take her to be the seed of crops and tell the story that her mother searches for her while she’s hidden away.”

2.67 “The mother, in turn, is Ceres. Her name comes from gerendis frugibus, ‘bearing crops,’ as though it were geres. The first letter happened to change, just as it did in Greek. The Greeks, too, called her Δημήτηρ, as though the name were γῆ μήτηρ, ‘earth mother.’ Mavors gets his name from magna verteret, ‘he would overturn great things.’ Minerva is the goddess who would either minueret, ‘diminish,’ or minaretur, ‘threaten.’ Beginnings and endings matter most in everything. So people decided that Janus should come first in sacrifices. His Latin name, Ianus, comes from eundo, ‘going.’ That’s also why passages that people can walk through are called iani, and doors at the entrances of buildings that aren’t sacred are called ianuae. Vesta’s name comes from Greek: she’s the goddess the Greeks call Hestia (Ἑστία), ‘Hearth.’ Her power concerns altars and hearths. Because she guards what’s deepest inside, every prayer and sacrifice ends with her.”

2.68 “The household gods, the Penates, have much the same power. Their name may come from penu, ‘food supply’—penus means everything people eat. Or it may come from penitus insident, ‘they live deep inside.’ That’s also why poets call them penetrales, ‘gods of the inner rooms.’ Apollo’s name is Greek. People identify him with the sun, and they think Diana and the moon are the same goddess. The sun is called sol either because he alone—solus—among all the stars is so large, or because, once he rises and all the others are hidden, he alone appears. The moon is called luna from lucendo, ‘shining.’ She’s also Lucina, the goddess who brings light. So during childbirth the Greeks call on Diana as Lucifera, ‘the light-bearer,’ while our people call on Juno as Lucina. This same Diana is called Omnivaga, ‘the all-wandering one.’ That’s not because she hunts, but because she’s counted among the seven heavenly bodies described as wanderers;”

2.69 “She’s called Diana because at night she makes something like diem, ‘daylight.’ People call on her during childbirth because babies are ready to be born after seven circuits of the moon in some cases, or nine in most. These circuits cover mensa spatia, ‘measured stretches,’ which is why they’re called menses, ‘months.’ Timaeus made a neat point here, as he often does. In his history, he said that Diana’s temple at Ephesus burned down on the very night Alexander was born. He added that this was hardly surprising: Diana had wanted to be there when Olympias gave birth, so she’d been away from home. Our people named Venus as the goddess who came to everything—from veniret, ‘would come.’ And venustas, ‘charm,’ comes from Venus, rather than Venus from venustas.”

2.70 “So do you see how good, useful discoveries about nature were developed into imaginary, made-up gods? This produced false beliefs, confused errors, and superstitions fit for old women. We know the gods’ shapes, ages, clothes, and ornaments, and also their family lines, marriages, and relationships. Everything has been made to resemble human weakness. They are even presented as emotionally disturbed. We have heard of their lust, grief, and anger. Nor, as the stories tell it, were they free of wars and battles. This wasn’t just as in Homer, where different gods defended the two opposing armies. They also fought wars of their own, against the Titans and against the Giants. It is extremely foolish to tell and believe these stories. They are full of nonsense and utter silliness.

2.71 “Still, once we reject and put aside these stories, we can understand the gods who extend through the nature of each thing—Ceres through the land, Neptune through the seas, and the others through other things. We can understand who they are, what they are like, and what names custom has given them. We ought to honor and worship these gods. The best, purest, holiest, and most devoted worship of the gods is always to honor them with clean, whole, uncorrupted minds and voices. It wasn’t just philosophers who distinguished superstition from religion. Our ancestors did too.

2.72 “For people who spent whole days praying and offering sacrifices so that their children would outlive them—would be superstites—were called superstitiosi, ‘superstitious.’ Later, that word took on a wider meaning. But <those> who carefully went back over everything involved in worshipping the gods, as though reading it again, were called religiosi, ‘religious,’ from relegendo, ‘going over again.’ This is <just as> elegantes, ‘discerning,’ comes from eligendo, ‘choosing,’ [just as] diligentes, ‘careful,’ comes <from> diligendo, ‘loving,’ and intellegentes, ‘understanding,’ comes from intellegendo, ‘understanding.’ All these words contain the same force of legere, ‘gather or read,’ that’s present in religioso, ‘religious.’ That’s how ‘superstitious’ became a word of criticism and ‘religious’ a word of praise. I think I’ve now shown well enough both that gods exist and what they’re like.”

2.73 “Next I need to show that the gods’ foresight governs the world. This is certainly a major subject, Cotta, and your school has attacked it. In fact, the whole debate is with your people. You and your school, Velleius, are less familiar with how each question is discussed. You read only your own writings and love only your own teachings. You condemn everyone else without hearing their case. For example, yesterday you yourself said that the Stoics bring in a fortune-telling old woman called Pronoea—that is, Providence. You said that because you mistakenly think they invent Providence as a separate goddess who steers and rules the entire world.”

2.74 “But that is an abbreviated way of speaking. Suppose someone says that the state of Athens is ruled by a council, leaving out ‘of the Areopagus.’ In the same way, when we say that providence runs the world, you should understand that ‘of the gods’ has been left out. The full, complete statement is this: the world is run by the providence of the gods. So please don’t use up on mocking us the wit that your tribe doesn’t possess. By Hercules, if you take my advice, you won’t even try! It doesn’t suit you; you haven’t been given the gift; you can’t do it. This doesn’t apply just to you, whose manners have been polished by family training and the sophistication of our people. It applies to the rest of your school and especially to the man who produced those ideas: a man without training or learning, who attacks everyone, without any sharpness, weight, or charm.

2.75 “So I say that the world and all its parts were first formed by the gods’ providence and are always governed by it. Our school usually divides this argument into three parts. The first starts from the reasoning that proves that gods exist. Once that is granted, we must admit that their planning runs the world. The second shows that all things are subject to a natural power that has sensation, and that this power manages everything in the best way. Once that is established, it follows that this nature was produced from living principles. The third line of argument comes from wonder at the things of heaven and earth.

2.76 “First, then, we must either deny that gods exist—which, in a way, is what Democritus does when he introduces likenesses, and Epicurus when he introduces images—or, if we admit that gods exist, we must admit that they do something, and something outstanding. But nothing is more outstanding than governing the world. So the world is governed through the gods’ planning. If that isn’t so, something must certainly exist that’s better and more powerful than a god, whatever that something may be. It might be lifeless nature, or necessity driven by immense force, producing these wonderfully beautiful works we see;”

2.77 “In that case, the gods’ nature isn’t supremely powerful or outstanding. It’s subject to the necessity or nature that rules the sky, seas, and lands. But nothing is superior to a god. So a god must rule the world. A god therefore doesn’t obey any natural power or stand under its authority. Instead, he rules all of nature himself. After all, if we admit that the gods have intelligence, we also admit that they plan ahead—and plan for the most important things. So do they not know what the most important things are, or how to manage and protect them? Or do they lack the power to keep such great things going and run them? But ignorance is foreign to the gods’ nature. And struggling to carry out a duty because of weakness is completely out of keeping with their greatness. That establishes what we set out to prove: the gods’ foresight governs the world.”

2.78 “Now, since there are gods—if indeed there are, as there certainly are—they must be alive. And not just alive: they must have reason and be joined together by something like the bonds and fellowship of citizenship. They rule one world as a shared state and city.

2.79 “It follows that they have the same reason as the human race. Truth is the same in both, and so is law, which commands what is right and forbids what is wrong. From this we understand that good sense and intelligence have also come to human beings from the gods. That is why our ancestors established the consecration and public dedication of Mind, Faith, Virtue, and Harmony. How can we consistently deny that these qualities belong to the gods, when we honor their revered and holy images? If mind, faith, virtue, and harmony exist in the human race, where could they have flowed down to earth from, except from those above? And since we possess planning, reason, and good sense, the gods must possess these same things on a greater scale. They must not only possess them but also use them on the greatest and best things.

2.80 “Nothing is greater or better than the world. So it must be run by the gods’ planning and providence. Finally, we have sufficiently shown that these are gods whose remarkable power and brilliant appearance we can see. I mean the sun, the moon, the wandering and fixed stars, the sky, and the world itself, along with the power of those things present throughout the world that bring great use and benefit to humanity. It follows that everything is ruled by divine intelligence and good sense. Enough has been said about the first part.

2.81 “Next I must show that everything is subject to nature and that nature manages it in the best way. But first we must briefly explain what nature itself is, to make the point we want to prove easier to understand. Some think nature is a force without reason that causes necessary movements in bodies. Others think it is a force that shares in reason and order, proceeds along a kind of path, and makes clear why it produces each result and what end it pursues. No art, no human hand, no craftsman can match its skill by imitation. A seed, they say, has such power that, tiny though it is, it can enter a natural setting that receives and holds it, find material to feed on and grow from, and then shape and produce each thing according to its kind. Some things merely feed through their roots. Others can also move, feel, desire, and produce from themselves others like themselves.

2.82 “Some people use ‘nature’ as a name for everything. Epicurus, for example, divides it this way: the nature of everything that exists consists of bodies, empty space, and what happens to them. But when we say that nature holds the world together and runs it, we don’t mean that it is like a clod of earth, a piece of stone, or something of that kind, with no inner principle of cohesion. We mean it is like a tree or an animal, in which we see no random activity but order and something resembling skill.

2.83 “Now, if things rooted in the earth live and thrive through nature’s skill, surely that same power, nature’s skill, holds the earth itself together. Pregnant with seeds, the earth gives birth to everything and pours it out of itself. It embraces roots, feeds them, and makes them grow. In return, it’s fed by the natural things above and outside it. The earth’s own exhalations also feed the air, the ether, and everything higher up. So if nature holds the earth together and keeps it thriving, the same reasoning applies to the rest of the world. Plants cling to the earth, while living creatures depend on breathing air. The air itself sees with us, hears with us, and makes sounds with us: none of these things can happen without it. It even moves along with us. Wherever we go, wherever we move, it seems to make room and give way.”

2.84 “Things carried toward the world’s center, its lowest point, things carried upward away from the center, and things carried in a circle around the center form the world’s single, continuous nature. There are four kinds of bodies, and their interchange makes the world’s nature continuous. Water comes from earth, air from water, and ether from air. Then, in reverse, air comes from ether, water from air, and earth, the lowest, from water. So these elements, of which everything consists, move up and down, back and forth, and keep the world’s parts joined together.

2.85 “It must either last forever, just as we see it now, or at least endure for an extremely long, almost limitless time. Either way, it follows that nature runs the universe. What fleet under sail, what army in formation, shows as much skill in nature as the universe itself? Or, to compare things that nature produces, what growing vine or tree, what animal’s shape and arrangement of limbs, shows as much? So either nothing is governed by a nature that has awareness, or we have to admit that the universe is governed that way.”

2.86 “The universe contains all other natural things and their seeds. How can it itself not be managed by nature? That would be like saying that teeth and puberty arise naturally, but the human being in whom they arise is not a natural structure. Anyone who says that fails to understand that things which produce something from themselves have a more complete nature than the things they produce. Of everything managed by nature, the universe is the source of seed, the sower, and, so to speak, the parent that raises and feeds them. It feeds and holds everything together as its own limbs and parts. If nature manages the parts of the universe, nature must manage the universe itself. And there is nothing in the way it is managed that anyone can fault. Given the materials available, the best possible result has been achieved.”

2.87 “Then let someone show that it could have been better. No one ever will. Anyone who tries to correct something will either make it worse or ask for something that could not have been done.

“Now all the parts of the universe are so arranged that they could neither work better nor look more beautiful. Let us ask whether this is an accident, or whether their arrangement could not possibly hold together without intelligent control and divine planning. Things made by nature are better than those made by skill. Skill produces nothing without reason. So we must not think that nature lacks reason either. When you look at a statue or a painting, you know skill went into it. When you see a ship moving in the distance, you have no doubt that skill and reason are making it move. When you look at a sundial, with its marked lines, or a water clock, you understand that it tells the hours by skill, not chance. How, then, can you think the universe has no plan or reason? It contains those very skills, the people who practice them, and everything else.”

2.88 “Suppose someone took to Scythia or Britain the sphere our friend Posidonius recently made. Each turn of it reproduces the movements that the sun, moon, and five wandering stars make in the sky each day and night. Who in those uncivilized lands would doubt that reason went into making that sphere? Yet these people doubt whether the universe itself, from which everything comes into being and is made, was produced by chance, by some kind of necessity, or by divine reason and intelligence. They think Archimedes was more capable of copying the sphere’s rotations than nature was of producing them. And yet the real movements are made with far greater skill than these imitations.”

2.89 “Think of the shepherd in Accius who had never seen a ship. From his mountain he spotted the Argonauts’ strange, godlike craft in the distance. Amazed and terrified at first, he says:Something so huge slides along,

roaring out at sea with an enormous noise and blast:

it rolls waves ahead of it and forces whirlpools up,

surges forward, splashes the sea, and blows the spray back;

one moment you’d think a broken storm cloud was rolling along,

another, that some rock flung high by winds was being swept away

or driven by gales, or that rounded whirlwinds

were rising where crashing waves struck them—

unless the sea is heaving up some wreckage from the land,

or perhaps Triton, tearing caves apart with his trident,

far below their roots, deep in the surging strait,

is hauling a mass of rock from the depths to the sky:At first he can’t tell what this unfamiliar thing he’s looking at might be. Then he sees the young men and hears the sailors singing:just as †swift and lively dolphins snort through their snouts—and much else along the same lines—Much like Silvanus’s tune,

a song and sound reach his ears—”

2.90 “So at first sight this man thinks he is looking at something lifeless, without awareness. Then clearer signs make him begin to guess the nature of the thing he had been uncertain about. Philosophers should have done the same. Perhaps their first view of the universe confused them. But later they saw its movements were regular and steady, and that everything was controlled by a fixed order that never changed. Then they should have understood that this heavenly, divine home has someone in it—not just an occupant, but a ruler and director, a kind of architect of this enormous work and gift.

“As it is, I do not think they even begin to grasp how wonderful the things of heaven and earth are.”

2.91 “To begin with, the earth sits at the center of the universe. All around it lies the life-giving, breathable substance called air, or aer. That’s a Greek word, of course, but our people have already taken it into everyday use. It’s familiar enough to count as Latin. Around the air, in turn, stretches the boundless ether, made of the fires highest above us. Let’s borrow this word too: aether can be Latin just as aer is. Pacuvius does translate it: ‘What I’m speaking of, our people call caelum, “sky”; the Greeks call it aether.’ As though the person saying that weren’t Greek! ‘But he’s speaking Latin.’ Only if we aren’t listening to him as someone who’s supposed to be speaking Greek. The same writer makes the point elsewhere:”

2.92 “‘A Greek by birth: his speech itself makes that clear.’ But let us return to more important things. From the ether come the countless fires of the stars. Chief among them is the sun. It lights everything with its brilliant light and is many times bigger and wider than the whole earth. Next come the other stars, also of immense size. These fires, so great and so numerous, do no harm at all to the earth or to things on it. In fact, they help them so much that, if they were shifted out of place, the earth would inevitably burn up. The restraint and balance that keep such great heat in check would be gone.”

2.93 “After all this, shouldn’t I be amazed that anyone can convince himself of the following? Certain solid, indivisible bodies move under the force of their weight, and their accidental collisions produce this wonderfully ordered and beautiful universe. If someone thinks that could happen, I don’t see why he wouldn’t also believe this: take countless copies of the twenty-one letters, made of gold or anything else, throw them together somewhere, and shake them out onto the ground. They could form Ennius’s Annals, ready to read straight through in order! I doubt chance could manage even a single line.”

2.94 “Yet these people insist that the universe was completed by tiny bodies colliding blindly and by chance—bodies with no color, no quality of any kind, what the Greeks call ποιότητα, and no sensation. Or rather, they say countless universes are being born and dying at every instant. But if a collision of atoms can make a universe, why can’t it make a colonnade, a temple, a house, or a city? Those take less work, and there are plenty of much easier things too. They certainly spout such reckless nonsense about the universe that I don’t think they’ve ever looked up at the wonderfully ordered display of the heavens. That’s our next topic.”

2.95 “So Aristotle puts it very well: ‘Suppose there were people who had always lived underground, in fine, well-lit homes. These were decorated with statues and paintings and supplied with everything that people considered fortunate have in plenty. But they had never come up above ground. They had heard reports and stories, though, of some divine power, some force belonging to gods. Then one day the earth opened up. They could leave their hidden homes and come out into the places where we live. Suddenly they would see the earth, the seas, and the sky. They would learn how huge the clouds are and how powerful the winds. They would see the sun and discover not just its size and beauty, but what it does: it makes the day by flooding the whole sky with light. Then, when night darkened the earth, they would see the whole sky dotted and decorated with stars. They would see the changing brightness of the moon, now growing, now shrinking, and the risings and settings of all these bodies, and their fixed, unchanging courses through all eternity. Once they saw these things, they would certainly believe both that gods exist and that these great works belong to the gods.’”

2.96 “That’s what he said. Now let’s picture darkness as thick as the darkness that once reportedly covered the regions near Mount Etna when its fires erupted. For two days no one could recognize another person. When the sun shone out on the third day, people felt they’d come back to life. Suppose the same thing happened to us after everlasting darkness, and we suddenly saw the light. What would we think of the sight of the sky? Instead, our minds grow used to what our eyes meet every day. We neither wonder at the things we always see nor ask how they work—as though their novelty, rather than their greatness, ought to move us to look for their causes.”

2.97 “Who would call someone human if he saw the sky’s movements so dependable, the stars’ order so fixed, and everything so closely connected and fitted together, yet denied that there was any reason behind it? He says things happen by chance, though we cannot use our own planning to grasp how much planning goes into them. When we see something moved by a mechanism—a sphere, a clock, or any number of other things—we have no doubt that it is the work of reason. But we see the sky rush round and turn at an astonishing speed. It unfailingly brings about the yearly changes, keeping everything safe and sound. Can we doubt that this happens through reason, and not just any reason, but an outstanding, divine reason?”

2.98 “We can now put aside fine points of argument and, in a way, look with our own eyes at the beauty of the things we say were arranged by divine care.

“First, look at the earth as a whole. It sits at the center of the universe, solid and round. The pull of all its parts toward their own center makes it a globe. It is covered with flowers, grasses, trees, and crops. Their incredible numbers come in a variety we can never get tired of. Add to these the cool, never-failing springs, the clear flowing rivers, the lush green covering of their banks, the deep hollows of caves, the rough rocks, the towering heights of mountains, and the vast plains. Add, too, the hidden veins of gold and silver, and the endless supplies of marble.”

2.99 “Then there are so many different kinds of animals, tame and wild. Think of birds gliding and singing, herds grazing, wild creatures living in the woods. And what should I say of human beings? They have been placed on earth as its caretakers, so to speak. They do not let savage beasts turn it into a wilderness or let rough undergrowth overrun it. Through their work, fields, islands, and coastlines shine with houses and cities spread across them. If we could see all this with our eyes as we can with our minds, no one looking at the whole earth would doubt that divine reason was at work.”

2.100 “And how beautiful the sea is! Think of its appearance as a whole, its many different islands, and its lovely coasts and shores. Think how many kinds of creatures it holds, and how different they are: some underwater, some floating, some swimming, and some clinging to rocks in the shells they grow with. The sea itself reaches toward the land and plays along its shores, until the two substances seem blended into one.”

2.101 “Next comes the air beside the sea, with its alternation of day and night. Sometimes it spreads out, grows thin, and rises high. Sometimes it thickens and gathers into clouds, collects moisture, and enriches the earth with rain. Sometimes it streams this way and that, making winds. It also brings the yearly changes of cold and heat. It supports birds in flight, and, as living creatures breathe it in, it feeds them and keeps them alive.”

“Last comes the surrounding vault of the heavens, highest and farthest from our homes. It encloses everything and holds everything in. This is also called ether, the universe’s outermost edge and boundary. Within it, fiery shapes trace their orderly courses in a most wonderful way.”

2.102 “Among these is the sun, many times larger than the earth, which revolves around the earth itself. By rising and setting it makes day and night. Moving closer and then farther away, it makes two turns each year, in opposite directions from the farthest points of its path. Between these points, at one time it makes the earth shrink, as though in sadness, and at another makes it glad again, so that it seems to share the sky’s happiness.”

2.103 “The moon, which mathematicians show is more than half the earth’s size, travels the same stretches of sky as the sun. Sometimes it meets up with the sun; sometimes it moves away. It sends down to earth the light it receives from the sun, while its own light goes through various changes. Sometimes it moves below and directly in front of the sun, blocking its rays and light. At other times, when it’s opposite the sun, it enters the earth’s shadow. With the earth coming between them and blocking the way, the moon suddenly disappears. The stars we call wanderers also travel around the earth through these same stretches of sky. They rise and set in the same way, and their movements sometimes speed up and sometimes slow down,”

2.104 “and often they even stand still. Nothing could be more wonderful or beautiful to watch. Next comes the great number of fixed stars. Their arrangement is so clearly marked out that they have been named for their likeness to familiar shapes.”

At this point he looked at me. “I will use the poems of Aratus,” he said. “You translated them when you were very young. I enjoy them so much in Latin that I remember many passages by heart. So, as we constantly see with our own eyes, without any change or variation,the other heavenly bodies glide in the sky’s swift motion,

and travel with the sky through nights and days.”

2.105 “and anyone who wants to see nature’s regularity could never get enough of watching them.The very tip at either end of the axis

is called a pole.Around this circle the two Bears, which never set.The Greeks call one of these Cynosura,

the other is called Helice,whose brightest stars we see all night long. These are the starsour people have long called Septem Triones, the Seven Plow Oxen;”

2.106 “Little Cynosura circles the same pole of the sky, with the same number of stars laid out much the same way.The Phoenicians trust her as their guide at night on the open sea.

“But that first Bear shines brighter, with more clearly marked stars,

and as soon as night falls, she’s the first seen far and wide.

“This one is small, but sailors find her useful:

she turns on an inner course, in a smaller circle.And to make these stars still more wonderful to look at,between them, like a river with a rushing current,

fierce Draco winds, curling above and below

and making twisting loops with his body.”

2.107 “His whole appearance is splendid, <and> especially worth looking at are the shape of his head and the blaze of his eyes:Not just one star shines to adorn his head:

his temples are marked by a double glow,

two burning lights blaze from his fierce eyes,

and his chin shines with a single radiant star;

his head is tilted, <but> bent back on his rounded neck—

you’d say his gaze was fixed on the larger Bear’s tail.”

2.108 “We see the rest of Draco’s body all night long,but this head briefly, suddenly, hides itself here,

where rising and setting meet in a single region.“Close to this head,a shape like a tired, grieving person

turns.“The Greekscall him Engonasin, because he moves resting on his knees.

“Here is set the Crown, shining exceptionally bright.“This is behind him. By his head is the Serpent Bearer,whom the Greeks call by the familiar name Ophiuchus.”

2.109 “He holds the Snake tightly between his two hands,

and is himself bound by its twisted body,

for the Serpent circles the man’s waist below his chest.

“Still he plants his feet, straining hard,

and presses the Scorpion’s eyes and chest with them.“Following the Seven Plow Oxen comesArctophylax, the Bear Keeper, commonly called Boötes,

because he drives the Bear ahead as though hitched to a wagon pole.“Then comes what follows:”

2.110 “‘Beneath this man’s’—Boötes’s—chest a star seems fixed,

its rays shining: its famous name is Arcturus.“Below his feet movesthe Maiden, her body shining, holding the bright Ear of Grain.“The constellations have been mapped out in such a way that divine skill shows in these vast designs:You would see the Twin Sons below the Bear’s head.

“Under her middle is the Crab, while at her feet lies

the great Lion, shaking flickering flame from his body.“The Charioteerwill move across below the Twins’ left side.

“Fierce Helice watches his head facing her.

“The bright Goat occupies his left shoulder.“Then comes what follows:But she is marked by a great and brilliant star,

while the Kids, in contrast, send only a little light to mortals.“Below his feetthe horned Bull stands firm with his powerful body.“His head is sprinkled with many stars.”

2.111 “The Greeks have long called these stars the Hyadesfrom raining—ὕειν means ‘to rain.’ Our people ignorantly call them Suculae, ‘little sows,’ as though they were named after pigs, subus, rather than showers of rain. Cepheus follows the smaller Bear <behind> her back, with his palms spread out:he turns right behind the Bear Cynosura.Ahead of him isCassiepia, with stars that are hard to see.

“Beside her turns the bright figure

of Andromeda, sad and fleeing her mother’s gaze.

“The Horse, tossing his mane in flashing light,

touches the top of her head with his belly, and a linking star—

one shared light—holds both figures together,

wanting to tie an everlasting knot of stars.

“Next Aries stands fixed, with his twisted horns.Beside him arethe Fish, one of which moves a little farther ahead

and feels more of the north wind’s chilling blasts.”

2.112 “At Andromeda’s feet is the figure of Perseus,whom winds strike <from> the far northern reaches.Andbeside his left knee

you’ll see the Vergiliae faintly shining.

“Next the Lyre appears, gently tilted and curved.Nextthere’s the winged Bird beneath the sky’s wide canopy.Near the Horse’s head is Aquarius’s right hand, followed by the whole figure of Aquarius. Then,breathing icy cold from his powerful chest,

half-beast Capricorn stands on the great circle;

when Titan clothes him in unbroken light,

he swings his chariot around, making his turn at the winter solstice.”

2.113 “Here can be seenthe Scorpion rising high into view,

with his hindquarters forcefully dragging the curved Bow.“Near himthe Bird turns round, shining with its wings.

“And close by, the Eagle moves with blazing body.“Then the Dolphin.Next Orion, straining with his body at an angle.”

2.114 “Following him,that blazing Dog shines in the lightof the stars. Behind comes the Hare,never tiring enough to slow its run.

“At the Dog’s tail, Argo winds and glides along.

“The Ram and the scaly-bodied Fish cover her

as her shining body touches the River’s banks.You’ll see the River ‘winding’ and flowing far,and you’ll see the long Chains,

set beside the Fish’s tails to hold them.

“Then, near the shining Scorpion’s pointed tip, you’ll see

the Altar, gently brushed by the south wind’s breath.Close to these the Centaurmoves along, hurrying to bring his horse parts beneath the Claws.

“Here he holds out his right hand, which grips a huge four-legged beast,

and fiercely reaches toward the shining Altar.

“Here the Water Snake rises from the lower regions,her body stretching far,and the bright Cup shines in the middle of her coils.

“At her tail the Raven, his feathered body gleaming,

pecks with his beak. And here, right beneath the Twins, is

the Dog’s Forerunner, known in Greek as Procyon.”

2.115 “Could any sane person think that this whole arrangement of stars, this vast and beautiful order of the sky, could have been made by bodies rushing here and there blindly and by chance? Could any other kind of nature, without mind and reason, have made these things? They needed reason not only to be made. We cannot even understand what they are like without the highest use of reason.

“And these are not the only wonderful things. Nothing is greater than the fact that the universe is so stable and holds together so well that we cannot even imagine anything better fitted to last. All its parts press equally toward the center from every side. Bodies stay joined most firmly when they are held together as though by a band wrapped around them. This is what nature does as it spreads through the whole universe, making everything with mind and reason, drawing and turning the outermost parts toward the center.”

2.116 “So, if the universe is round, and that shape keeps all its parts evenly balanced on every side, both on their own and in relation to each other, the same must hold for the earth. All its parts press toward the center, which is the lowest point in a sphere. Nothing can break that concentrated pull of weight and heaviness and make it give way. The same reasoning applies to the sea. Although it lies above the earth, it still seeks the earth’s center. That makes it round and evenly balanced on every side, so it never overflows or spills away.”

2.117 “The air touching the sea rises upward because it is light. Still, it spreads out in every direction. So it is joined directly to the sea and naturally moves toward the sky. The sky’s thinness and heat temper it, and it supplies living things with healthy, life-giving breath. The highest part of the sky, called ether, surrounds the air. It keeps its own heat, thin and unthickened by any mixture, and joins with the air’s outer edge. The stars turn in the ether. Their own inward pressure holds them together as globes, and their very shape and form keep them balanced. They are round, and, as I think I said before, this is the shape least open to damage.”

2.118 “The stars are fiery by nature. So they feed on vapors from the earth, the sea, and the other waters, drawn up by the sun from the warmed fields and waters. Fed and renewed by these vapors, the stars and all the ether pour them out and draw them back from the same places. Almost nothing, or very little, is lost, consumed by the stars’ fire and the ether’s flame. From this our school thinks there will come the event that Panaetius was said to doubt: in the end the whole universe will catch fire. When the moisture has been used up, the earth could no longer be fed and the air could not return. With all the water exhausted, air could not arise. So nothing would be left but fire. Then this fire, a living being and a god, would renew the universe, and the same ordered world would arise again.”

2.119 “I do not want you to think I am spending too long on the stars, especially those called wanderers. Their very different movements make such a harmony. The highest, Saturn’s star, cools things; the middle one, Mars’s, burns them. Jupiter’s, between these two, lights things and keeps them in balance. Below Mars, two stars obey the sun. The sun itself fills the whole universe with its light. The moon, lit by the sun, brings pregnancy and birth and the right times for bringing life into being. If someone is not moved by this linking of things, this fitting together of nature in harmony, so to speak, to keep the universe safe, I know for certain that he has never thought about any of it.”

2.120 “Now let’s come down from the heavens to things on earth. Is there anything here that doesn’t show nature working intelligently? Start with the things that grow from the earth. Their roots support what rests on them and keep it steady. Those roots also draw nourishment from the earth to feed the plants they hold in place. A covering of inner or outer bark protects their trunks against cold and heat. Then look at vines. They take hold of supports with their tendrils, as if they were hands, and pull themselves upright like animals. In fact, people say that if cabbage stalks are planted nearby, vines shrink away from them as though they were deadly and harmful. They won’t touch any part of them.”

2.121 “What a variety of animals there is! What power they have to keep each kind going! Some are covered with hides, others clothed in hair, others bristling with spines. We see some covered in feathers, others in scales, some armed with horns, others equipped with wings to escape. Nature has provided animals with a rich, plentiful supply of the food suited to each. I could list how their shapes help them get and process that food, how skillfully and precisely their parts are arranged, and how wonderfully their limbs are built. Everything enclosed inside them is made and placed so that none of it is useless, none unnecessary for keeping them alive.”

2.122 “Nature has also given animals senses and appetite. Appetite drives them to seek their natural food; their senses let them tell what’s harmful from what’s healthy. Some animals reach their food by walking, others by crawling, flying, or swimming. Some take it into their open mouths with their teeth. Others seize it with gripping claws or hooked beaks. Some suck, some pluck, some gulp, and some chew. Some are low enough to reach food on the ground easily with their beaks. Taller animals—geese, swans, cranes, and camels—have long necks to help them;”

2.123 “the elephant was even given a hand—its trunk—because its huge body made food hard to reach. For beasts whose diet meant eating †other kinds of animals, nature supplied either strength or speed. Some were also given a kind of ingenuity and skill. Among spiders, for example, some weave something like a net so they can kill whatever gets caught in it. Others […] watch for a chance to strike unexpectedly, seize whatever comes their way, and eat it. The pina—that’s its Greek name—opens wide in its two large shells and forms a sort of food-gathering partnership with a little shrimp. When small fish swim into the open shell, the pina, alerted <by> the shrimp, bites its shells shut. That’s how two very different little creatures get their food together;”

2.124 “and it’s remarkable to ask whether they came together through some agreement or whether nature itself joined them from birth. There’s also something quite remarkable about water animals that are born on land. Crocodiles, river turtles, and certain snakes are born outside the water, but as soon as they can move, they make for it. We even put ducks’ eggs under hens quite often. At first, the ducklings are fed by the hens that hatched them and kept them warm, as though these were their mothers. But as soon as they’ve caught sight of water, their natural home, they leave the hens and escape when the hens follow them. Nature has planted such a strong instinct for self-preservation in animals. I’ve also read about a bird called the platalea. It gets food by flying up to birds that dive into the sea. When they come up with a fish, it keeps squeezing their heads with its beak until they drop their catch, and then it snatches it. This same bird is also said to fill itself with shellfish. After digesting them with the heat of its stomach, it throws them up and picks out the edible parts.”

2.125 “Sea frogs are said to bury themselves in sand and move about near the water. Fish come toward them as though they were food, only to be killed and eaten by the frogs. The kite and the raven seem to have a natural war with each other. So either one breaks the other’s eggs wherever it finds them. And who could fail to marvel at this observation of Aristotle’s, who supplied most of these examples? When cranes cross the seas on their way to warmer places, they form a triangle. At its leading point they push aside the air coming toward them. Then, along both sides, their wings work like oars and gradually make the birds’ flight easier. The cranes forming the triangle’s base get help from the winds, as if the wind were pushing at a ship’s stern. They rest their heads and necks on the backs of the birds flying ahead. The leader can’t do that, since it has nothing to lean on. So it flies to the rear to get some rest too, and one of the rested birds takes its place. They keep taking turns like this throughout the journey.”

2.126 “I could give many examples like these, but you see the general pattern. Then there are the more familiar ways animals take such pains to protect themselves: looking around while they feed and hiding in their dens. And these things are amazing: dogs treat themselves by vomiting, and Egyptian ibises by clearing out their bowels. Doctors only worked out these treatments recently—that is, a few centuries ago. We’ve heard that panthers caught with poisoned meat in uncivilized lands have a remedy that keeps them from dying when they use it. And people say that when wild goats in Crete have been pierced by poisoned arrows, they look for a plant called dictamnus. Once they’ve tasted it, the arrows fall out of their bodies;”

2.127 “and shortly before giving birth, female deer thoroughly purge themselves with a little plant called seselis. We can also see how each animal uses its own weapons to defend itself against force and danger. Bulls use their horns, boars their teeth, and lions their speed. Some protect themselves by running away, others by hiding. Cuttlefish release ink; torpedo fish numb their attackers. Many animals also drive off pursuers with an unbearably foul smell.”

“To keep the world’s beauty lasting forever, the gods in their foresight took great care that there would always be kinds of animals, trees, and all the things held in the earth by roots. All of these carry within them the power of seed, so that many can grow from one. This seed is enclosed deep inside the berries produced by each kind of plant. Those same seeds both provide abundant food for people and fill the earth with fresh growth of the same kinds of plants.”

2.128 “Why go into the careful planning we can see in animals, which keeps their species going forever? To start with, some are male and others female. Nature arranged this so their kind could continue. Then there are the body parts, ideally suited for producing offspring and conceiving them. Both males and females also feel a remarkable urge to mate. Once the seed has settled in place, it draws almost all the nourishment to itself. Enclosed in that nourishment, it develops into an animal. When the young animal slips out of the womb and is born, almost everything its mother eats begins turning into milk, in those animals that feed their young this way. The newborns seek out the teats without anyone teaching them. Nature guides them, and the plentiful milk fills them up. There’s another way we can see that none of this happens by chance, and that it’s all the work of a nature that plans ahead and knows what it’s doing. Animals that have large litters, like pigs and dogs, have been given many teats. Those that have few young have only a few.”

2.129 “Need I describe how much love animals show in raising and protecting their young, until they can defend themselves? Fish, though, are said to leave their eggs once they have laid them. The water easily supports the eggs, and they hatch out their young. Turtles and crocodiles, they say, lay their eggs on land, bury them, and leave. So the young hatch and grow up by themselves. Hens and other birds look for a quiet place to lay their eggs. They build themselves nesting places and nests, and line them as softly as they can to keep the eggs as safe as possible. When they have hatched their chicks, they protect them, warming them with their wings so the cold will not hurt them, and shielding them from the sun when it is hot. When the chicks can use their little wings, the mothers go with them on their flights. Their other work of caring for them is over.”

2.130 “Human skill and care also help keep some animals and plants alive and well. Many farm animals and cultivated plants couldn’t survive without people looking after them.”

“Different places also offer different, very useful resources for human life and prosperity. The Nile waters Egypt. It keeps the land completely flooded and covered all summer, then retreats, leaving the fields soft and coated with silt, ready for sowing. The Euphrates makes Mesopotamia fertile. Every year it brings in what amounts to fresh farmland. The Indus, the largest of all rivers, doesn’t just enrich and soften the fields with water. It even sows them. It’s said to carry along a great quantity of seeds resembling grain.”

2.131 “I could mention many other remarkable things in different places, and many fertile fields producing different crops. And how generous nature is! It produces so many kinds of food, with so many different pleasant tastes. They don’t all come at one time of year, either. That way we always have both fresh variety and plenty to enjoy. Then consider the Etesian winds. How well timed they are, and how healthy—not just for humans, but for farm animals too, and indeed for everything that grows from the earth. Their breezes take the edge off excessive heat. Those same winds also give ships fast, reliable passages at sea. There’s much I have to leave out, though I’m still saying a great deal.”

2.132 “We cannot list all the uses of rivers, the tides †advancing and retreating over great distances, mountains covered in plants and woods, salt deposits far from the seashore, lands full of healing medicines, and, finally, the countless skills needed for food and life. Then the alternation of day and night preserves living things, giving one time for activity and another for rest.

“So from every side and by every line of reasoning, the conclusion is that divine intelligence and planning manage everything in this universe wonderfully, for the safety and preservation of all.”

2.133 “Suppose someone asks who all this vast construction was undertaken for. Was it for trees and plants? Nature does support them, even though they have no sensation. But that answer is absurd. Was it for animals? It’s no more believable that the gods went to so much trouble for creatures that can’t speak and understand nothing. Who, then, would anyone say the world was made for? Clearly, for living beings that use reason: gods and humans. Surely nothing is better than they are, since reason stands above everything else. So it becomes believable that the world, and everything in it, was made for gods and humans.”

“It will be easier to understand that the immortal gods have provided for humans if we examine the whole construction of a human being, and the entire shape and finished design of human nature.”

2.134 “An animal’s life depends on three things: food, drink, and breath. The mouth is perfectly suited to taking all of these in, with the adjoining nostrils giving extra help in breathing. The teeth set in the mouth chew the food, breaking it down and softening it. The sharp front teeth cut food into pieces with a bite. The back teeth, called molars, grind it up. The tongue also seems to help with this grinding.”

2.135 “The gullet joins the tongue at its roots. This is the first passage that things taken into the mouth slip into. It touches the tonsils on either side and ends at the very back and innermost part of the palate. The tongue stirs and moves, pushing the food down, almost shoving it in. Once the gullet receives it, it pushes it farther down. The parts below the food being swallowed widen, while those above it tighten.”

2.136 “But the windpipe—the doctors call it the ‘rough artery’—has its opening next to the roots of the tongue, a little above the point where the gullet joins the tongue. It reaches right down to the lungs. It receives the air drawn in by breathing, then lets that same air out again from the lungs. A sort of lid covers it. This was provided so that breathing wouldn’t be blocked if some food happened to fall into it. The stomach lies below the gullet and receives food and drink, while the lungs and heart draw breath from outside. The stomach has many wonderfully constructed features, made mostly of fibrous tissue. It has many folds and twists. Whatever it receives, dry or wet, it holds in and keeps there so it can be changed and digested. The stomach alternately tightens and loosens, pressing and mixing everything it has taken in. It contains a great deal of heat. That heat, the grinding of the food, and the action of breath make it easy for everything to be digested and processed, then distributed through the rest of the body. The lungs, meanwhile, have a porous structure and a softness like sponges, ideally suited to drawing in breath. They alternately contract as they breathe and expand †with breath, so that the food of life, which provides living creatures with their chief nourishment, is drawn in repeatedly.”

2.137 “The fluid that nourishes us separates from the rest of the food and seeps from the intestines—†the belly—to the liver. It travels along certain channels laid out from the middle of the intestine right to the liver’s ‘gates,’ as they’re called. These channels reach the liver and attach to it. From there, other channels […] extend, and the food flows down through them after leaving the liver. Once the bile and the fluids discharged from the kidneys have been separated from this food, the remainder turns into blood. It flows together at those same gates of the liver, where all its channels meet. The food passes along these channels and, at this very spot, pours into the vein called the hollow vein. It then travels through that vein to the heart, now fully processed and digested. From the heart it’s distributed throughout the body through a great many veins that reach every part.”

2.138 “It wouldn’t be very hard to explain how the intestines get rid of the leftover food by alternately tightening and loosening. Still, let’s pass over that, so the discussion doesn’t become unpleasant. Instead, let’s explain this incredible piece of nature’s construction. The air drawn into the lungs by breathing is warmed first by the breathing itself, then by contact with the lungs. Some of it is sent out again when we breathe out. Some is taken into a part of the heart called a ventricle. A second, similar chamber is attached to it, and blood from the liver flows into that chamber through the hollow vein just mentioned. From these chambers, then, blood spreads through the veins into the whole body, and breath spreads through the arteries. Both kinds of vessels form a dense, extensive network woven throughout the body. They bear witness to an incredible power of skilled, divine craftsmanship.”

2.139 “What about the bones? They support the body and have remarkable joints, suited to keeping it stable, defining its limbs, allowing movement, and carrying out every bodily action. Add to these the sinews, which hold the joints together, and their interwoven network extending throughout the body. Like the veins and arteries, they start from the heart and spread out through the whole body.”

2.140 “We can add many things to this account of nature’s careful, skillful planning. They show how great and exceptional the gods’ gifts to humans have been. To begin with, humans were raised up from the ground and made tall and upright, so they could look at the sky and gain knowledge of the gods. Humans come from the earth not simply to live and settle here, but to watch the things above us in the heavens. No other kind of animal gets to see that spectacle. The senses explain things to us and bring us reports. They’re wonderfully made and positioned to do their necessary jobs, up in the head as if in a fortress. The eyes, like lookouts, hold the highest position. From there they can see the most and carry out their task;

2.141 “And the ears are rightly placed high on the body, since they have to pick up sound, which naturally travels upward. The nostrils rightly point upward too, since every smell rises. And there’s a good reason they’re close to the mouth: they play a big part in judging food and drink. Taste needs to recognize the different things we eat, so it lives in the part of the mouth where nature has opened a route for food and drink. Touch, meanwhile, is spread evenly through the whole body. That lets us feel every blow and every excessive exposure to cold or heat. Architects keep a building’s necessarily foul discharges away from its owners’ eyes and noses. In the same way, nature has put similar things far away from the senses.”

2.142 “What craftsman could have designed the senses so skillfully, except nature? Nothing could be more ingenious. First, nature covered and enclosed the eyes in very thin membranes. It made these transparent so we could see through them, but strong enough to hold the eyes in place. It made the eyes smooth and movable, so they could turn away from anything harmful and easily look wherever they wanted. The part we actually see with, called the pupil, is so small that it can easily avoid things that might hurt it. The eyelids cover the eyes. They’re extremely soft to the touch, so they won’t hurt the pupil, and perfectly suited to covering it so nothing falls in, and then uncovering it again. Nature also arranged for this to happen over and over, extremely quickly.”

2.143 “The eyelids are defended by a sort of fence of hairs. When the eyes are open, these push back anything that might fall into them. When the eyes close in sleep and we do not need them for seeing, these hairs let them rest as though wrapped up. The eyes are also usefully set back and protected on every side by raised parts. First, the brows covering them above turn aside sweat flowing down from the head and forehead. Then the cheeks protect them from below, set beneath them and sticking out a little. The nose is placed so that it seems like a wall between the eyes.”

2.144 “Hearing is always open, because we need this sense even when asleep. When it receives a sound, it can even wake us from sleep. It has a winding passage, so nothing can get in, as it could if the opening were straight and direct. Nature has also arranged that any tiny creature trying to force its way in will stick in earwax, as though in birdlime. The parts we call ears stick out on the outside. They were made to cover and protect the organ of hearing, and to keep incoming voices from slipping away and scattering before they strike it. Their entrances are hard, almost like horn, and have many bends, because sound reflected by surfaces like these grows louder. That is why string instruments resonate through tortoise shell or horn, and why sounds come back louder from winding and enclosed places.”

2.145 “The nostrils, similarly, are always open because their work is essential. But their entrances are narrow, to keep anything harmful from getting through. They are always moist too, which is useful for keeping out dust and many other things. Taste is wonderfully protected. It is contained in the mouth, well placed both to do its work and to stay safe.

“All human senses are far better than those of animals. First, in the arts judged by sight—painted, modeled, and carved shapes—and even in bodily movements and gestures, the eyes see many finer points. They also judge the †beauty, order, and, so to speak, right arrangement of colors and shapes. And they judge greater things as well. They recognize good and bad qualities. They recognize someone who is angry or friendly, happy or grieving, brave or cowardly, bold or afraid.”

2.146 “The ears, too, have an amazing, finely developed ability to judge. They distinguish the variety of sounds, their intervals, and their separate notes, both in the voice and in music from pipes and strings. They also recognize many kinds of voice: ringing and husky, smooth and rough, low and high, flexible and stiff. Only human ears can judge these differences. The nose and the senses of taste and †to some extent touch also have great powers of judgment. People have invented even more crafts than I’d like for producing and fully enjoying these sensations. It’s obvious how far the blending of perfumes, the seasoning of food, and ways of making bodies alluring have gone.”

2.147 “Anyone who doesn’t see divine care at work in perfecting the human mind and intellect, reason, judgment, and practical wisdom seems to me to lack those very things. Cotta, I wish I had your eloquence while discussing this. How well you’d describe, first, our great capacity for understanding, and then our ability to connect and grasp what follows from our starting points. That’s how we judge what results from each thing and reach conclusions through reasoning. We define individual things and grasp them within clear boundaries. That shows us what knowledge can do and what it’s like. Even in a god, there’s nothing better. And what great abilities you Academics undermine and dismiss: we use both our senses and our minds to perceive and grasp things outside us,”

2.148 “and by bringing these perceptions together and comparing them, we also develop skills we need, some for everyday life and some for enjoyment. Then there’s the power of speech, which you like to call the ruler of everything. How wonderful it is, and how divine! First, it lets us learn what we don’t know and teach others what we do know. We use it to encourage; we use it to persuade. We use it to comfort people in distress; we use it to free terrified people from their fear. We use it to restrain people carried away with excitement; we use it to put out desire and anger. Speech has bound us together through shared rights, laws, and cities. Speech has taken us out of a savage, brutal way of life.”

2.149 “Unless you’ve looked closely, you wouldn’t believe how much equipment nature has put together to make speech possible. First, the windpipe runs from the lungs right up to the back of the mouth. Through it, the voice, which starts in the mind, is received and sent out. Then there’s the tongue, placed inside the mouth and bounded by the teeth. It shapes and controls the unchecked flow of the voice. By striking the teeth and other parts of the mouth, it makes vocal sounds distinct and clear. That’s why our people often compare the tongue to a pick, the teeth to strings, and the nostrils to the horns that resonate with the strings in music.”

2.150 “And what useful hands nature has given human beings, ready to serve so many skills! The fingers bend and straighten easily. Their supple connections and joints let them move effortlessly in every direction. By moving its fingers, the hand can paint, model, engrave, and draw sounds from strings and pipes. Those things provide enjoyment. Others meet our needs: I mean farming, putting up buildings, weaving or sewing coverings for our bodies, and every kind of work in copper and iron. So we can see how we’ve obtained everything we need. We’ve applied craftspeople’s hands to discoveries made by the mind and things perceived by the senses. That has given us shelter, clothing, and safety, along with cities, walls, homes, and shrines.”

2.151 “Human work—that is, our hands—also provides variety and abundance in food. The fields produce many things obtained by hand, either to be eaten at once or stored away for later use. We also eat animals of the land, water, and air, getting them partly by catching them and partly by raising them. By taming four-footed animals, we also make transport possible. Their speed and strength give us speed and strength. We load some beasts with burdens; we put them under the yoke. We use elephants’ very sharp senses and dogs’ ability to track for our own advantage. We draw iron out of the earth’s caverns, a material needed for farming. We find deeply hidden veins of copper, silver, and gold, useful for practical purposes and beautiful for decoration. We cut down trees and use every kind of timber, cultivated or wild. Some we burn to warm our bodies and soften our food; some we use for building, so that roofs over us can keep out cold and heat.”

2.152 “It is also extremely useful for building ships. Their voyages bring us all life’s supplies from every direction. Nature has produced nothing more violent than the sea and the winds, yet we alone can control them, thanks to our knowledge of navigation. We also enjoy and use a great many things from the sea. Human beings likewise have complete control over the benefits of the land. We enjoy the plains; we enjoy the mountains. The rivers are ours; the lakes are ours. We sow crops; we plant trees. We make the land fertile by bringing water to it. We hold rivers back, straighten their courses, and divert them. In short, with our own hands we try to create what amounts to a second nature within the natural world.”

2.153 “And hasn’t human reason reached right up into the sky? Alone among living creatures, we’ve learned when the stars rise and set and what courses they follow. Human beings have defined the day, the month, and the year. We’ve understood eclipses of the sun and moon and predicted them for all time to come: which will happen, how large they’ll be, and when they’ll occur. As the mind studies these things, it moves toward knowledge of the gods. That knowledge gives rise to religious devotion, which is joined with justice and the other virtues. From these comes a happy life, equal and similar to the life of the gods. It falls short of the gods in heaven only in immortality, which contributes nothing to living well.”

“Now that I’ve explained these things, I think I’ve shown well enough how far human nature surpasses all other living creatures. We should recognize, then, that neither the shape and arrangement of our limbs nor the power of our intelligence and mind could have been made what they are by chance.”

2.154 “What remains is to show, and at last to bring my speech to a close, that everything in this universe that human beings use was made and prepared for their sake.

“First, the universe itself was made for gods and humans, and the things in it were provided and brought into being for human benefit. The universe is a sort of shared home of gods and humans, or a city belonging to both. They alone use reason and live by justice and law. We should think of Athens and Sparta as founded for Athenians and Spartans. Everything in those cities is rightly said to belong to those peoples. In the same way, we should think that whatever is in the whole universe belongs to gods and humans.”

2.155 “Then there are the circuits of the sun, the moon, and the other stars. These help hold the universe together, but they also give human beings a spectacle to watch. There’s no sight we tire of less, none more beautiful, and none more outstanding in its rational order and skill. By measuring their courses, we’ve learned when the seasons arrive and how they differ and change. If only human beings know these things, we should conclude that they were made for human beings.”

2.156 “The earth is rich in crops and many kinds of legumes, which it pours out with immense generosity. Does it seem to produce them for wild animals or for human beings? And what should I say about vines and olive trees? Their abundant, flourishing fruits have nothing at all to do with animals. Livestock know nothing about planting or cultivation, harvesting and gathering produce at the right time, or storing it and putting it away. Human beings both use all these things and take care of them.”

2.157 “So, just as we must say that lyres and pipes were made for people who could use them, we must admit that the things I’ve mentioned were provided only for those who use them. If some animals steal or snatch something from them, we won’t say that these things grew for those animals too. People don’t store grain for mice or ants. They store it for their wives, children, and households. So, as I said, the animals enjoy it secretly, while the owners do so openly and freely;”

2.158 “We must therefore admit that these abundant resources were provided for human beings. Unless, perhaps, the great richness and variety of fruits, with their pleasing taste, smell, and appearance, make us doubt that nature gave them to people alone! These things are so far from being provided for animals as well that we can see the animals themselves were produced for human benefit. What else do sheep provide except wool to be worked and woven into clothing for people? Without human tending and care, they could not be fed, maintained, or made to yield any benefit. Dogs keep such faithful watch, show their owners such loving affection, hate strangers so much, have such an incredible sense of smell for tracking, and are so eager in the hunt. What else does this show but that they were born for human convenience?”

2.159 “What about oxen? Their backs alone show that they weren’t shaped to carry loads. Their necks, though, were made for a yoke, and their strong, broad shoulders for †pulling plows. In the golden age, as the poets call it, people used oxen to work the earth and break up its clods. They never used any violence against them:Then suddenly a race of iron sprang up

and was the first to dare to forge a deadly sword

and taste the young ox its own hands had yoked and tamed:People thought oxen were so useful that eating their flesh was considered a crime. It would take a long time to go through all the uses of mules and donkeys. Those uses were certainly provided for human benefit.”

2.160 “What does a pig offer besides food? Chrysippus actually says its soul was given to it as a kind of salt, to keep it from rotting. Since this animal was suitable for people to eat, nature made no farm animal more fertile. And what about the great numbers and delicious taste of fish and birds? They give us so much pleasure that our Pronoea sometimes seems to have been an Epicurean herself. Yet those birds couldn’t even be caught without human intelligence and ingenuity. Still, we think some birds were born to help us predict events: both those whose flight gives signs and those whose calls do, as our augurs classify them.”

2.161 “Then there are the huge, wild beasts we catch by hunting. We eat them, and hunting gives us practice similar to military training. We also tame and train them for use, as we do elephants. From their bodies we take many remedies for diseases and wounds, just as we do from certain plants and herbs. We’ve learned what these are good for through long experience and trial. We can survey the whole earth and all the seas with our minds, as though with our eyes. You’ll see vast stretches of productive farmland, mountains covered in dense growth, pastures for livestock, and then sea voyages made at incredible speed.”

2.162 “And not just on the earth’s surface, but also deep in its inner darkness lie hidden a great many useful things. They came into being for human use and are discovered by human beings alone.

“Both of you may seize on the following point to criticize it: you, Cotta, because Carneades enjoyed attacking the Stoics; you, Velleius, because Epicurus ridicules nothing so much as predictions of the future. Yet I think it gives the strongest support for the belief that the gods’ foresight looks after human affairs. Divination certainly exists. It appears in many places, circumstances, and times, in private affairs but above all in public ones.”

2.163 “People who examine sacrificial entrails see many things; augurs foresee many things. Much is revealed through oracles, much through prophecies, much through dreams, and much through portents. Understanding these signs has often brought about results <in line with> people’s wishes and interests, and has also kept many dangers away. So whatever this ability to know the future is—a power, an art, or a natural capacity—the immortal gods have certainly given it to human beings and no other creature.”

“Perhaps none of these points moves you on its own. Still, taken together, with all their connections and links, they certainly ought to have moved you.”

2.164 “The immortal gods regularly care and provide not just for the human race as a whole, but also for individuals. We can narrow down the whole human race, moving step by step to smaller groups and finally to individuals. Suppose, for the reasons we’ve already given, we think the gods care for all people everywhere, on any coast or in any region of lands cut off from the landmass we inhabit. Then they also care for the people who share these lands with us, from east to west.”

2.165 “And if they care for the people who inhabit what is, in effect, the great island we call the inhabited world, they also care for those who occupy its different parts: Europe, Asia, and Africa. So they care about parts of those regions too, such as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and Rhodes. And within those cities, they care about individuals separately from the population as a whole. During the war against Pyrrhus, for example, there were Curius, Fabricius, and Coruncanius; during the first Punic War, Calatinus, Duellius, Metellus, and Lutatius; during the second, Maximus, Marcellus, and Africanus. After them came Paulus, Gracchus, and Cato, and within our fathers’ memory, Scipio and Laelius. Our own country and Greece have produced many other outstanding men as well. We must believe that none of them could have become what he was without a god’s help.”

2.166 “This reasoning led poets, especially Homer, to assign particular gods to the leading heroes—Ulysses, Diomedes, Agamemnon, and Achilles—as companions in their crises and dangers. Besides, the gods have often appeared in person, as in the cases I mentioned earlier. These appearances show that they care for people both [in] communities and as individuals. We can also recognize this care in signs of future events, which appear to people both asleep and awake. We receive many warnings through unusual occurrences, many through sacrificial entrails, and many through other things. Long experience has recorded these in a way that has produced the art of divination.”

2.167 “So no great man has ever lived without some divine inspiration. Nor is this a valid way to argue against it: if a storm damages someone’s crops or vineyards, or chance takes away some of life’s comforts, we shouldn’t conclude that the person it happens to is hated or neglected by a god. The gods care about big things and ignore small ones. For great men, though, everything always turns out well—assuming our own school and Socrates, the leading figure in philosophy, have said enough about the abundance and wealth that virtue brings.”

2.168 “These are pretty much the points that came to mind which I thought I should make about the nature of the gods. Now, Cotta, if you take my advice, you will argue the same case. Remember that you are both a leading citizen and a priest. Since your school lets you argue either side, choose this side instead. Direct toward it that power of argument which you gained from rhetorical training and which the Academy has developed. The habit of arguing against the gods is bad and irreverent, whether you do it sincerely or only pretend.”