(1) deinde ibidem homo acutus, cum illud occurreret, si omnia deorsus e regione ferrentur et, ut dixi, ad lineam, numquam fore ut atomus altera alteram posset attingere †itaque† attulit rem commenticiam: declinare dixit atomum perpaulum …
(Fin. 1.19)The above is Reynolds's text. itaque has puzzled editors since Paulus Manutius, there being no preceding main verb to coordinate with attulit. Some would posit a lacuna, either before itaque (Reid) or after it (Usener). Reynolds cites Simplicius on Aristotle, Physics 216a17 (quoted by Reid ad loc.) and Lucretius 2.221-4. But the parallel at Nat. D. 1.69 suggests that this is essentially the information Cicero thought appropriate for his argument (and/or found in his doxographical source):
uelut Epicurus cum uideret si atomi ferrentur in locum inferiorem suopte pondere nihil fore in nostra potestate quod esset earum motus certus et necessarius, inuenit quo modo necessitatem effugeret, quod uidelicet Democritum fugerat: ait atomum cum pondere et grauitate directo deorsus feratur declinare paululum.
Vahlen, who cited Nat. D. 1.69 in this connection, suggested that our text presents an anacoluthon, Cicero proceeding as if he had written not deinde ibidem homo acutus, cum illud occurreret but rather deinde ibidem homini acuto occurrit. In this he is followed by Moreschini, who prints the transmitted text with a dash before itaque. To strengthen his case, Vahlen cites Balb. 32, where the subject quaedam foedera leads the sentence, with examples then specified (ut Cenomanorum etc.); Cicero continues not with in quibus exceptum est but with quorum in foederibus exceptum est.Footnote 1 But on Vahlen's interpretation these two passages present very different kinds of anacolutha. It is easy to assume intervening nouns being given prominence by making them the antecedent of the relative, with colour and specificity thereby added, much harder to suppose that Cicero had in mind deleting the cum-clause, changing its verb to the main verb and the subject of the sentence to a dative following that verb, especially when Cicero had successfully implemented the same structure of subject/cum-clause/verb at Nat. D. 1.69.Footnote 2
Perhaps what Cicero wrote was not itaque but ilico ‘on the spot, without further ado’, suggesting rash action on Epicurus' part and in keeping with the criticism implied in the following rem commenticiam; cf. Quinct. 48 (criticizing Naevius' procedure): ilicone ad praetorem ire conuenit? The corruption would have been relatively simple: i followed by a letter with raised hasta, easily taken for t, then ic, in some scripts easily read as a; then a rounded letter. A hasty scribe copying a philosophical text could all too easily fall into itaque.
(2) Epicurus autem, qui res occultas et penitus abditas non modo uideat animo sed etiam sic tractet ut manu, docet eam esse uim et naturam deorum, ut (a) primum non sensu sed mente cernatur, nec soliditate quadam nec ad numerum, ut ea quae ille propter firmitatem στερέμνια appellat, sed imaginibus similitudine et transitione perceptis, (b) cum infinita simillimarum imaginum species ex innumerabilibus indiuiduis existat et a deis adfluat, cum maximis uoluptatibus in eas imagines mentem intentam infixamque nostram intellegentiam capere quae sit et beata natura et aeterna.
(Nat. D. 1.49)_____
a deis Davies: adeos uel ad deos codd.
Pease ad loc. has described this sentence as ‘the most difficult and disputed in the whole work, if not in all the works of Cicero …’; it is also of capital importance for understanding Epicurean theology. Many points have been recently clarified, however, by the illuminating discussion of Essler, to which the reader is referred for detail.Footnote 3 The transmitted text is printed above except that Davies's a deis is substituted for the transmitted adeos/ad deos.Footnote 4 Essler disappoints, however, in his handling of the overall structure of the text. Noting that scholars have faulted the transmitted text because primum appears to lack coordination with a following point, Essler points out that elsewhere -que is used as a coordinator and proposes to find the missing -que in nec.Footnote 5 The problem is that nec here is coordinated with another nec, both attaching items that explain how mental perception (mente cernatur) works or, rather, does not work. Hence for the prior nec also to correlate with primum muddles the clear balanced structure one expects in a Ciceronian period.
A better solution is cited by Essler himself, who quotes Beate Beer as noting the presence of tum instead of the first cum in a part of the transmission, an easy mistake.Footnote 6 If this is right, we have a parallel construction, with primum, as expected, taken up by the following tum,Footnote 7 with the mode of reception (a) balanced against the origin and flow of the images (b). It is worth noting that tum appears instead of the second cum in C and B1. This reading is sometimes adopted but still would require attaching Schoemann's -que to the preceding cum in order to achieve coordination with primum, a result that can be achieved more economically by replacing the prior cum with tum.Footnote 8 The variations cum/tum in this passage suggest that scribes were confronted by both forms in the transmission but confused as to the correct insertion point for tum. Footnote 9
