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His three next treatises, the Orator, the Tusculan Disquisitions, and the De Natura Deorum, have all been graced, or intended to be graced, by the name of Brutus. And yet, from what we know, we can hardly imagine two men less likely to be brought together by their political ambition.
During the ensuing year, which is the last of his life, in the midst of the confusion and anxieties consequent on Cæsar's death, and the party warfare of his Philippics, he found time to write the De Naturâ Deorum, De Divinatione, De Fato, De Senectute, De Amicitiâ, De Officiis, and Paradoxa, besides the treatise on Rhetorical Common Places above mentioned.
Claudian, a new edition of his works, "cum notis variorum," in the manner of Burman. Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them. Tully's De Natura Deorum, a translation of those books. Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated. Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated.
It is known to us best by the extracts from it given by the author himself in his treatise, De Naturâ Deorum. It must be owned that it is not pleasant reading. But translated poetry seldom is pleasant, and could hardly be made so on such a subject by a boy of eighteen.
"Deus stetit in synagoga deorum: in medio autem Deus dijudicat " chanted strong, nasal voices, issuing from the small window, which continued in full chorus one of the psalms, interrupted by blows of the hammer an infernal deed beating time to celestial songs. One might have supposed himself near a smithy, except that the blows were dull, and manifested to the ear that the anvil was a man's body.
He mentions a number of authors, Homer, for example, and Æschylus, who supplied a motto for 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ; he reads Demosthenes, partly with a view to Greek law; dips into Plato and Aristotle, and is intensely interested by Cicero's 'De Natura Deorum. He declares, as I have said, that he cared little for literature in itself; and it is no doubt true that he was generally more interested in the information to be got from books than in the mode of conveying it.
Moreover, what was it else but reason’s light which made Cambyses to fear that the superstition of Egypt could not be well rooted out if the temples wherein it was seated were not taken away; so that offensus superstitionibus AEgyptiorum, Apis cœterorumque Deorum œdes dirui jubet: ad Ammonis quoque nobilissimum templum expugnandum, exercitum mittit, saith Justinus.
I know which is proper; but sometimes I speak according to the licence of the present fashion, so far as to say Proh Deûm, or Proh Deorum; and at other times I speak as I am forced to, when I say trium virûm, not virorum, and sestertiûm nummûm, not nummorum; because with respect to these words there is no variety of usage.
The whole of their so-called religion consisted, and particularly in the towns, in some of the deorum majorum gentium having temples here and there, in which the aforesaid worship was conducted as an affair of state, when in reality it was an affair of police. No one, except the functionaries engaged, was obliged in any way to be present, or even to believe in it.
Nap had twice put executions in his principal residence, and had refused to discharge the latter of the two till he had extorted a bond from his Lordship which compelled him to comply. "Referre sermones Deorum et Magna modis tenuare parvis." Horace.
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