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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



2298
Cicero, On Laws, 2.1


nanATTICUS: Do you feel inclined, since we have had walking enough for the present, and have arrived at a new period of our discussion, to vary our situation. If you do, let us pass over to the island which is surrounded by the Fibrenus, for such, I believe, is the name of the other river, and sit down while we prosecute the remainder of our discourse? MARCUS: I like your proposal. That is the very spot I generally select when I want a place for undisturbed meditation, or uninterrupted reading or writing. ATTICUS: In truth, now I am come to this delicious retreat, I cannot see too much of it. Would you believe, that the pleasure I find here makes me almost despise the magnificent villas, the marble pavements, and the sculptured palaces? Who would not smile at the artificial canals which our great folks call their Niles and Euripi, after he had seen these beautiful streams? Just as you referred all things to Nature in our recent conversation on Justice and Law, you seek to preserve her domination, even in those things which are constructed to recreate and amuse the mind. I was therefore most agreeably surprised, since your letters and your verses had led me to expect nothing better in this neighbourhood than hills and rocks, to find it so delightfully ornamented by all the decorations of art. My present wonder is, how, when you retire from Rome, you condescend to rusticate in any other spot.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

13 results
1. Herodotus, Histories, 1.65-1.66 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

1.65. So Croesus learned that at that time such problems were oppressing the Athenians, but that the Lacedaemonians had escaped from the great evils and had mastered the Tegeans in war. In the kingship of Leon and Hegesicles at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians were successful in all their other wars but met disaster only against the Tegeans. ,Before this they had been the worst-governed of nearly all the Hellenes and had had no dealings with strangers, but they changed to good government in this way: Lycurgus, a man of reputation among the Spartans, went to the oracle at Delphi . As soon as he entered the hall, the priestess said in hexameter: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You have come to my rich temple, Lycurgus, /l lA man dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes. /l lI am in doubt whether to pronounce you man or god, /l lBut I think rather you are a god, Lycurgus. /l /quote ,Some say that the Pythia also declared to him the constitution that now exists at Sparta, but the Lacedaemonians themselves say that Lycurgus brought it from Crete when he was guardian of his nephew Leobetes, the Spartan king. ,Once he became guardian, he changed all the laws and took care that no one transgressed the new ones. Lycurgus afterwards established their affairs of war: the sworn divisions, the bands of thirty, the common meals; also the ephors and the council of elders. 1.66. Thus they changed their bad laws to good ones, and when Lycurgus died they built him a temple and now worship him greatly. Since they had good land and many men, they immediately flourished and prospered. They were not content to live in peace, but, confident that they were stronger than the Arcadians, asked the oracle at Delphi about gaining all the Arcadian land. ,She replied in hexameter: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You ask me for Arcadia ? You ask too much; I grant it not. /l lThere are many men in Arcadia, eaters of acorns, /l lWho will hinder you. But I grudge you not. /l lI will give you Tegea to beat with your feet in dancing, /l lAnd its fair plain to measure with a rope. /l /quote ,When the Lacedaemonians heard the oracle reported, they left the other Arcadians alone and marched on Tegea carrying chains, relying on the deceptive oracle. They were confident they would enslave the Tegeans, but they were defeated in battle. ,Those taken alive were bound in the very chains they had brought with them, and they measured the Tegean plain with a rope by working the fields. The chains in which they were bound were still preserved in my day, hanging up at the temple of Athena Alea.
2. Aristotle, Athenian Constitution, 7.1-7.2 (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

3. Ovid, Fasti, 1.531-1.534 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1.531. It’s decreed this family will hold the reins of empire. 1.532. So Caesar’s son, Augustus, and grandson, Tiberius 1.533. Divine minds, will, despite his refusal, rule the country: 1.534. And as I myself will be hallowed at eternal altars
4. Philo of Alexandria, On The Sacrifices of Cain And Abel, 131 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

131. There is also another opinion bruited about, as something of a secret, which it is right to lay up in the ears of the elders, not divulging it to the younger men; for of all the most excellent powers which exist in God, there is one equal to the others in honour, that is the legislative one (for he himself is a lawgiver and the fountain of all laws, and all particular lawgivers are subordinate to him), and this legislative power is divided in a twofold division, the one having reference to the rewarding of those who do well, and the other to the punishment of those who have sinned;
5. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 2.129 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

2.129. The perplexity raised by some, however, should be laid to rest: Seeing that the law mentions all members of the family, the deme, and the tribe in the order of succession to inheritances, why did it remain silent only about parents, who, it would seem, should be just as eligible to inherit their children's property as the children are to inherit theirs? Here is the answer, my good fellow! Since the law is divine, and since it always aims at following the logic of nature, it did not wish to introduce any ill-omened provisions; for parents pray to leave behind living offspring who will have succeeded to their name, their lineage, and their property, while their worst enemies call down the opposite on them as a curse, namely, that the sons and daughters should die before their parents.
6. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 2.48 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

2.48. for he was not like any ordinary compiler of history, studying to leave behind him records of ancient transactions as memorials to future ages for the mere sake of affording pleasure without any advantage; but he traced back the most ancient events from the beginning of the world, commencing with the creation of the universe, in order to make known two most necessary principles. First, that the same being was the father and creator of the world, and likewise the lawgiver of truth; secondly, that the man who adhered to these laws, and clung closely to a connection with and obedience to nature, would live in a manner corresponding to the arrangement of the universe with a perfect harmony and union, between his words and his actions and between his actions and his words.
7. Philo of Alexandria, That The Worse Attacks The Better, 68 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

68. Therefore, he here clearly asserts that the good man is the guardian of the words and of the covet of God. And, indeed, in another place he has shown that he is the best interpreter and declarer of his justifications and laws; the faculty of interpretation being displayed through its kindred organ--the voice, and guardianship being exerted through the mind, which having been made by nature as a great storehouse, easily contains the conceptions of all things, whether bodies or things. It would therefore have been worth the while of this self-loving Cain to have been the keeper of Abel; for if he had kept him he would have attained to a compounded and moderate kind of life, and would not have been filled with unmodified and absolute wickedness. XX.
8. Vitruvius Pollio, On Architecture, None (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

9. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 1.9, 1.11-1.41 (1st cent. CE

10. Plutarch, Solon, 15.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

15.2. But those things wherein he hoped to find them open to persuasion or submissive to compulsion, these he did, Combining both force and justice together, Solon, Frag. 36. 14 (Bergk) as he says himself. Therefore when he was afterwards asked if he had enacted the best laws for the Athenians, he replied, The best they would receive. Now later writers observe that the ancient Athenians used to cover up the ugliness of things with auspicious and kindly terms, giving them polite and endearing names.
11. Aelius Aristides, Orations, 26.32 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

12. Theodosius Ii Emperor of Rome, Theodosian Code, 15.4.1 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)

13. Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, 2.131.1



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
draco Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
elites, romans govern through, emperor, divinity of' Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (2013) 391
lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) Dinter and Guérin, Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome (2023) 92
living law ideal, in philo Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
lycurgus Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
mosaic law, for ordinary people Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
mosaic law, philos view of, as divine Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
moses Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
solon Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (2003) 95
tullius cicero, m. Dinter and Guérin, Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome (2023) 92
velleius paterculus Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (2013) 391
victory, theology of Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (2013) 391