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NAM DUM SUMUS etc.: the whole of this doctrine is Platonic; cf. Lael. 13. MUNERE NECESSITATIS ET ... OPERE: 'function and task allotted as by fate'. IMMORTALIS: Cicero rarely mentions the gods without this epithet. SPARSISSE: Horace calls the soul divinae particulam aurae. TUERENTUR: rule, or guard, or care for.
Sed credo deos immortalis sparsisse animos in corpora humana, ut essent qui terras tuerentur quique caelestium ordinem contemplantes imitarentur eum vitae modo atque constantia. Nec me solum ratio ac disputatio impulit ut ita crederem, sed nobilitas etiam summorum philosophorum et auctoritas.
PULCHRITUDINEM: κοσμον; Cic. translates it by ornatus in Acad. 2, 119 where hic ornatus corresponds to hic mundus a little earlier. TUENTUR: see n. on 77 tuerentur. SERVABITIS: future for imperative. A. 269, f; G. 265, 1; H. 487, 4. CYRUS etc.: see n. on 78. SI PLACET: cf. n. on 6 nisi molestum est. NOSTRA: = Romana = domestica in 12.
The only things actually alleged to be archaisms are the use of deponent participles as passives in §§ 4, 59, 74, a thing common enough in Cicero; the occurrence of quasi = quem ad modum in § 71; of audaciter = audacter in § 72; of tuerentur for intuerentur in § 77; of neutiquam in § 42; of the nominative of the gerundive governing an accusative case in § 6.
Most editors wrongly take tuerentur to be for intuerentur, 'to look upon', and regard it as an intentional archaism. But cf. CONTEMPLANTES IMITARENTUR: perhaps more Stoic than Platonic; the Stoics laid great stress on the ethical value of a contemplation and imitation of the order of the universe. Cf. N.D. 2, 37 ipse homo ortus est ad mundum contemplandum et imitandum; Sen.
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