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P. Nigidius Figulus supported Cicero during the Catiline conspiracy. Lucretius dedicated his poem to him. My friend L. Lucceius, the most delightful fellow in the world, has expressed in my presence amazingly warm thanks to you, saying that you have given most complete and liberal promises to his agents.
Pompey makes every sort of promise, and so does Cæsar: but my confidence in them is not enough to induce me to drop any of my preparations. The tribunes-designate are friendly to us. The consuls-designate make excellent professions. Some of the new prætors are very friendly and very brave citizens Domitius, Nigidius, Memmius, Lentulus the others are loyalists also, but these are eminently so.
The New Pythagoreanism Nigidius Figulus But by far the most remarkable phenomenon in this domain was the first attempt to mingle crude faith with speculative thought, the first appearance of those tendencies, which we are accustomed to describe as Neo-Platonic, in the Roman world.
He was at no time really affected by Pythagoreanism, like his friend Nigidius Figulus, whose works, now lost, had a great vogue in the later years of Cicero's life, and much influence on the age that followed.
So also did Quintus his brother, and Publius Nigidius, one of his philosophical friends, whom he often made use of in his most weighty affairs of state. The next day, a debate arising in the senate about the punishment of the men, Silanus, being the first who was asked his opinion, said, it was fit that they should be all sent to prison, and there suffer the utmost penalty.
Nigidius was a mystic, and devoted much of his time to Pythagorean speculations, and the celebration of various religious mysteries. His Commentarii treated of grammar, orthography, etymology, &c. In the latter he appears to have copied Varro in deriving all Latin words from native roots. One or two references are made to him in the curious Apology of Apuleius.
No course remained but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded was utterly arbitrary.
The fortunes and character of Jacob and Esau, however, should manifestly have been similar, which was certainly not the case, if their history has been correctly handed down to us. An astrologer of the time of Julius Cæsar, named Publius Nigidius Figulus, used a singular argument against such reasoning.
No course remained but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded was utterly arbitrary.
Among the ancients his admiration was chiefly bestowed on Virgil and Cicero as representatives of literature, on Varro and Nigidius Figulus, as representatives of science. His power of criticism is narrowed by pedantry and small passions, but when these are absent he can use his judgment well. He preserves many interesting points of etymology and grammar, and is a mine of archaic quotation.
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