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Don’t you see that all that is, is right; and all that was, is wrong? ‘Te nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,’ says your poet; well, I drink ‘to the fortunes of Rome,’—while it lasts.” “You’re a young man,” answered Cornelius, “a very young man, and a Greek. Greeks never understand Rome. It’s most difficult to understand us. It’s a science.
'Quia enim Deus operatur ipsum velle, quo efficacius operatur, eo magis volumus; quod autem, cum volumus, facimus, id maxime habemus in nostra potestate. It is true that when God causes a volition in us he causes a free action.
Cultione agri or something of the kind might have been expected. The collocation of appetentem with occupatum in 56 is no less awkward. FACIT: n. on 3 facimus. RES RUSTICAE LAETAE SUNT: 'the farmer's life is gladdened'. APIUM: this form is oftener found in the best MSS., of prose writers at least, than the other form apum, which probably was not used by Cic. OMNIUM: = omnis generis.
On the whole I should say that he was not, for he did not consider himself so; he was too religious to consider Fortune a deity at all; he took whatever she gave and never thanked her, being firmly convinced that whatever he got to his own advantage was of his own getting. And so it was, after Fortune had made him able to get it. "Nos te, nos facimus, Fortuna, deam," exclaimed the poet.
LAELIUM ... SCIPIONEM: see Introd. FACIMUS ADMIRANTIS: 'we represent as expressing astonishment'. For facere, in this sense, Cic. more often uses inducere 'to bring on the stage', as in Lael. 4 Catonem induxi senem disputantem. Cf. however 54 Homerus Laerten colentem agrum facit; also Brut. 218; Orat. 85.
Instead of facimus we might have expected either fecimus to correspond with misimus and tribuimus above, or faciemus to correspond with videbitur below. On the use of the participle see A. 292, q; G. 536; H 535, I. 4. ERUDITIUS DISPUTARE: Cic. not infrequently in his dialogues makes people talk with more learning than they really possessed.
Of course, there was always a protest. There is the famous Nullum numen habes si sit prudentia: nos te, Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, taken by Juvenal from the Greek. She is worshipped with insults, counted as fickle and often as blind, wandering, inconsistent, elusive, changeful, and friend of the unworthy. . . . We are so much at the mercy of chance that Chance is our god.
Cicero, in his book on Divination, saw clearly that if the cause could produce an effect towards which it was entirely indifferent there would be a true chance, a genuine luck, an actual fortuitous case, that is, one which would be so not merely in relation to us and our ignorance, according to which one may say: Sed Te Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, caeloque locamus,
The doctrine of fate, preached by Lucan as well as by Seneca in other places, is here inculcated with every variety of point. We quote a few lines from the Oedipus: Fatis agimur: cedite fatis. Non sollicitae possunt curae Mutare rati stamina fusi Quicquid patimur, mortale genus, Quicquid facimus venit ex alto; Servatque suae decreta colus Lachesis, dura revoluta manu.
Omnem autem sermonem tribuimus non Tithono, ut Aristo Cius, parum enim esset auctoritatis in fabula, sed M. Catoni seni, quo maiorem auctoritatem haberet oratio: apud quem Laelium et Scipionem facimus admirantis, quod is tam facile senectutem ferat, eisque eum respondentem, qui si eruditius videbitur disputare quam consuevit ipse in suis libris, attribuito litteris Graecis, quarum constat eum perstudiosum fuisse in senectute.
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