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What appeared of importance in philosophy such as Lucretius' representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero produced its effect and found its audience not through its philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific nor formal value.
His theology was based essentially on that strange medley, in which Greeks of a kindred spirit had intermingled Orphic and other very old or very new indigenous wisdom with Persian, Chaldaean, and Egyptian secret doctrines, and with which Figulus incorporated the quasi-results of the Tuscan investigation into nothingness and of the indigenous lore touching the flight of birds, so as to produce further harmonious confusion.
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 brambles house several of these: Solenius vagus, who stores up Flies; Psen atratus, who provides her grubs with a heap of Plant-lice; Trypoxylon figulus, who feeds them with Spiders. Solenius vagus digs her gallery in a bramble-stick that is lopped short, but still fresh and green. The house of this Fly-huntress, therefore, suffers from damp, as the sap enters, especially on the lower floors.
But such literary performances as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings concerning animals, winds, and generative organs.
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.
But such literary performances as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings concerning animals, winds, and generative organs.
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.
The most conspicuous among them were Atteius, a friend of Sallust; Epirota, the correspondent of Cicero; Julius Hyginus, a friend of Ovid; and Nigidius Figulus, an orator as well as grammarian. M. Vitruvius Pollio, the celebrated architect, deserves to be mentioned for his treatise on architecture. He was probably native of Verona, and served under Julius Caesar in Africa, as a military engineer.
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.
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