ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

BOOK V:  COSMOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY

Who [1] has such power within his breast that he could build up a song worthy of the majesty of nature and these discoveries? Who has such mastery of words that he could praise as he deserves the man who produced such treasures from his breast and bequeathed them to us? No one, I believe, whose body is of mortal growth. If I am to suit my language to the majesty of nature as revealed by him, he was a god [2] -a  god indeed, my noble Memmius - who first discovered that rule of life that now is called philosophy, who by his art rescued life from such a stormy sea, so black a night, and steered it into such a calm and sun-lit haven. [3] Only compare with his achievement those ancient discoveries of other mortals that rank as the work of gods. Ceres, it is said, taught men to use cereals, and Bacchus the imbibing of the vine-grown liquid; yet without these things we could go on living, as we are told that some tribes live even now. But life could not be well lived till our breasts were swept clean. Therefore that man has a better claim to be called a god whose gospel, broadcast through the length and breadth of empires, is even now bringing soothing solace to the minds of men.

As for Hercules, [4] if you think his deeds will challenge comparison, you will stray farther still from the path of truth. The gaping jaws of that Nemean lion, or the bristly Arcadian boar - what harm could they do us now? Or the Cretan bull and the Hydra with its palisade of venomous snakes, the pest of Lema? Or Geryon, with the triple strength of his three bodies? <...> Or the <foul birds> that haunted the Stymphalian lake, or Thracian Diomede's horses that breathed fire from their nostrils on the Thracian slopes of Ismara? Or if the scaly, fierce-eyed serpent guarded still the lustrous golden apples of the Hesperides, hugging the tree-trunk with huge coils, there by the  forbidding Atlantic shore where none of us ever goes nor even the natives venture? And the other monsters of this sort that met their death - if they had not been mastered, what harm would they do alive? None at all, that I can see. Even now the world swarms with wild beasts, enough and to spare - a thrill of terror lurking in thickets on the mountainside or in the depths of forests. But we usually have the power to avoid these places. However, if our breasts are not swept clean, then indeed what battles and perils we must get mixed up in, whether we like it or not! And, when a man harbors these, what sharp stabs of desire with their answering fears tear him to pieces! Pride, lust, aggressive behavior, self-indulgence, indolence - what calamities they inflict! The man who has defeated all these enemies and banished them from his mind, by words not by weapons, is surely entitled to a place among the gods. Remember, too, what inspired words he himself has uttered about the immortal gods, [5] and how by his teaching he has laid bare the nature of the universe.

Treading in his footsteps, I have been running arguments to earth and explaining in my verses the necessity that compels everything to abide by the compact under which it was created. For nothing has power to break the binding laws of eternity. As an instance of this, I have shown that the mind in particular is a natural growth: it is composed of a body that had first to be born, and it cannot remain intact for all time; but we are misled by images in sleep, when we fancy we see someone whose life has left him. [6]

The next stage in the argument is this. I must first demonstrate that the world also was born and is composed of a mortal body. Then I must deal with the concourse of matter that laid the foundation of land, sea and sky, stars and sun and the globe of the moon. I must show what living things have existed on earth, and which have never been born: how the human race began to employ various utterances among themselves for denoting various things; and how there crept into their minds that fear of the gods which, all the world over, sanctifies temples and lakes, groves and altars and images of the gods.

After that, I will explain by what forces nature steers the courses of the sun and the journeyings of the moon, so that we shall not suppose that they run their yearly races between heaven and earth of their own free will with the amiable intention [7] of promoting the growth of crops and animals, or that they are rolled round in furtherance of some divine plan. For it may happen that men who have learnt the truth about the carefree existence of the gods fall to wondering by what power the universe is kept going, especially those movements that are seen overhead in the borderland of ether. Then the poor creatures [8] are plunged back into their old superstitions and saddle themselves with cruel masters whom they believe to be all-powerful. All this because they do not know what can be and what cannot: how the power of each thing is limited, and its boundary-stone sticks buried deep.

And now, Memmius, [9] I will not hold you off any longer with promises. First of all, then, cast your eyes on sea, lands and sky. These three bodies so different in nature, three distinct forms, three fabrics such as you behold - all these a single day will blot out. The whole substance and structure of the world, upheld through many years, will crash. [10] I am well aware how novel and strange in its impact on the mind is this impending demolition of heaven and earth, and how hard it is for my words to carry conviction. This is always so when you bring to men's ears something outside their experience -something you cannot set before their eyes or lay hold of by hand, which is the shortest highway for belief to enter the human breast and the compartments of the mind. But, for all that, I will proclaim it. It may be that force will be given to my arguments by the event itself; that your own eyes will see those violent earthquakes in a brief space dash the whole world to fragments. From such a fate may guiding fortune [11] steer us clear! May reason rather than the event itself convince you that the whole world can collapse with one ear-splitting crack!

Before I attempt to utter oracles on this theme, with more sanctity and far surer reason than those the Delphic prophetess pronounces, drugged by the laurel fumes from Apollo's tripod,[12] I will first set your mind at rest with words of wisdom. Do not imagine, bridled with the reins of superstition, that lands and sun and sky, sea, stars and moon, must endure for ever because they are endowed with a divine body. Do not for that reason think it right that punishment appropriate to a monstrous crime should be imposed, as on the rebellious giants, [13] on all those who by their reasoning breach the ramparts of the world and seek to snuff out heaven's brightest luminary, the sun, [14] staining immortal beings with mortal speech. In fact these objects are so far from divinity, so unworthy of a place among the gods, that they may rather serve to impress upon us the type of the lifeless and the insensible. Obviously, it is only with certain bodies that mind and intelligence can coexist. A tree cannot exist in the ether, or clouds in the salt sea, as fishes cannot live in the fields or blood flow in wood or sap in stones. [15] There is a determined and allotted place for the growth and presence of everything. So mind cannot arise alone without body or apart from sinews and blood. If it could do this, then surely it could much more readily function in head or shoulders or the tips of the heels or be born in any other part, so long as it was held in the same container, that is to say, in the same man. Since, however, even in the human body we see a determined and allotted place set aside for the growth and presence of spirit and mind, we have even stronger grounds for denying that they can survive apart from all body or animal form in the crumbling clods of earth or the fire of the sun or in water or the high borderland of ether. These objects, therefore, are not endowed with divine consciousness, since they cannot possess even living spirit. [16]

Furthermore, you must not suppose that the holy dwelling-places of the gods are anywhere within the limits of the world. For the flimsy nature of the gods, far removed from our senses, is scarcely visible even to the perception of the mind. Since it eludes the touch and pressure of our hands, it can have no contact with anything that is tangible to us. [17] For what cannot be touched cannot touch. Therefore their dwelling-places also must be unlike ours, of the same flimsy texture as their bodies, as I will prove to you at length later on. [18]

Next, the theory that they deliberately created the world in all its splendor for the sake of man, so that we ought to praise this eminently praiseworthy piece of divine workmanship and believe it eternal and immortal and think it a sin to unsettle by violence the everlasting abode established for mankind by the ancient purpose of the gods and to worry it with words and turn it upside-down - this theory, Memmius, with all its attendant fictions is sheer nonsense. For what benefit could immortal and blessed beings reap from our gratitude, that they should undertake any task on our behalf? Or what could tempt those who had been at peace so long to change their old life for a new? The revolutionary is one who is dissatisfied with the old order. But one who has known no trouble in the past, but spent his days joyfully - what could spark a desire for novelty in such a being? [19] Or again, what harm would it have done us to have remained uncreated? Are we to suppose that our life was sunk in gloom and grief till the light of creation blazed forth? True that, once a man is born, he must will to remain alive so long as beguiling pleasure holds him. But one who has never tasted the love of life, or been enrolled among the living, what odds is it to him if he has never been created? [20]

Here is a further point. On what pattern did the gods model their creation? From what source did a mental image [21] of human beings first strike upon them, so that they might know and see with their minds what they wished to make? How was the power of the atoms made known to them, and the potential effect of their various combinations, unless nature itself provided a model of the creation? So many atoms, clashing together in so many ways as they are swept along through infinite time by their own weight, have come together in every possible way and realized everything that could be formed by their combinations. No wonder, then, if they have actually fallen into those groupings and movements by which the present world through all its changes is kept in being.

Even if I knew nothing of the atoms, I would venture to assert on the evidence of the celestial phenomena themselves, supported by many other arguments, that the universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections. In the first place, of all that is covered by the wide sweep of the sky, part has been greedily seized by mountains and the woodland haunts of wild beasts. Part is usurped by crags and desolate bogs and the sea that holds far asunder the shores of the lands. Almost two-thirds is withheld from mankind by torrid heat and perennial deposits of frost. The little that is left of cultivable soil, if the force of nature had its way, would be choked with briars, did not the force of man oppose it. It is man's way, for the sake of life, to groan over the stout mattock and cleave the earth with down-pressed plough. [22] Unless we turn the fruitful clods with the coulter and break up the soil to stimulate the growth of the crops, they cannot emerge of their own accord into the open air. Even so, when by dint of hard work all the fields at last burst forth into leaf and flower, then either the fiery sun withers them with intemperate heat, or sudden showers and icy frosts destroy them and gales of wind batter them with hurricane force. Again, why does nature feed and breed the fearsome brood of wild beasts, a menace to the human race by land and sea? Why do the changing seasons bring pestilence in their train? Why does untimely death roam abroad? The human infant, like a ship-wrecked sailor [23] cast ashore by the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless, [24] lacking all aids to life, when nature has first tossed him with pangs of labor from his mother's womb upon the shores of the sunlit world. He fills the air with his piteous wailing, and quite rightly, considering what evils life holds in store for him. But beasts of every kind, both tame and wild, have no need of rattles or a nurse to lull them with babbling baby-talk. They do not want to change their clothes at every change in the weather. They need no weapons or fortifications to guard their possessions, since every need is lavishly sup- plied by mother earth herself and nature, the clever inventor. [25]

In the first place, since the elements of which we see this universe composed - solid earth and moisture, the light breaths of air and torrid fire [26] - all consist of matter that is neither birthless nor deathless, we must believe the same of the world as a whole. [27] It is a matter of observation that objects whose component parts consist of configurations of matter subject to birth and death are certainly not exempt themselves. So, when we see the main component members of the world disintegrated and reborn, it is a fair  inference that sky and earth too had their birthday and will have their day of doom.

You need not tax me with begging the question when I assume that earth and fire are mortal and entertain no doubt about the death of wind and water or the rebirth and growth of all these elements.

Take the earth first. Part of it, parched by incessant sun and trampled by the tread of many feet, exhales a vapor and flying clouds of dust which strong winds scatter throughout the whole sky. Part of the soil is reconverted to flood-water by the rains, and gnawing rivers nibble at their banks. And whatever earth contributes to feed the growth of others is restored to it. It is an observed fact that the universal mother is also the common grave. [28] Earth, therefore, is whittled away and renewed with fresh increment.

As for water, it needs no words to show that sea and river and springs are perennially replenished and the flow of fluid is unending. The evidence confronts us everywhere in the mighty downrush of water. But the vanguard of the flood is perpetually skimmed away, and on balance the surface-level does not rise. The sea is reduced in volume partly by the strong winds that scour its surface, partly by the fiery sun's unraveling ray,  [29] partly because it seeps away in all directions under the ground. The brine [30] is filtered out, and the main bulk of the water flows back and reassembles in full at the fountain-head. Hence it flows overground, a steady column of sweet fluid marching down the highway already hewn with liquid foot for the guidance of its waves.

Now a word about air, whose whole mass undergoes innumerable transformations hour by hour. All the effluences that objects are for ever shedding are swept into the vast ocean of air. [31] Unless this in turn gave back matter to objects and rebuilt their ever-flowing shapes, they would all by now have been dissolved and turned to air. Accordingly it must be continuously generated from other things and retransformed into them, since it is an established fact that everything is in perpetual flux. [32]

The fiery sun, too, the lavish fount of liquid light, drenches the sky unwearyingly with fresh brilliance, never tardy to replace old light with new. For each successive flash of radiance, whatever may come of it, means a loss to the fountain-head, as you may learn from the following indication. No sooner do clouds begin to climb the sky and cut off the rays of sunlight than all the lower part of the rays immediately vanishes: where ever the clouds pass, the earth is overshadowed. So [33] you may gather that objects are always in need of new illumination; that every burst of radiance is short-lived; and that objects could never be seen in sunlight if a perpetual supply were not maintained by the fount of light itself.

So it is with those earthly lights that illumine the night -swinging lamps and flaring torches, their bright flames thick with sooty smoke. Fed by their burning, they race to supply new light, pressing onward, onward, with ever- flickering lames, leaving no gap in the unbroken stream of brilliance: so hastily is its extinction hidden by the swift new birth of flame from every fire. That is how you should picture sun and moon and stars - as showering their splendor in successive outbursts and for ever losing flash after flash of flame, not as enduring essences untouched by time.

Look about you and you will see the very stones mastered by age; tall towers in ruin and their masonry crumbling; temples and images of the gods defaced, their destined span not lengthened by any sanctity that avails against the laws of nature. Do we not see that the collapsed monuments of men ask whether you believe that they in their turn grow old? [34] The uprooted boulders rolling down a mountainside proclaim their weakness in the face of a lapse of time by no means infinite; for no sudden shock could dislodge them and set them falling if they had endured from everlasting, unbruised by all the assault and battery of time.

Last of all, consider this outer envelope that lies above and about the earth and holds it in its embrace. If it is this, as some assert, that generates all things from itself and reclaims them when their days are ended, then it too must consist wholly of matter that is neither birthless nor deathless; for everything that gives of itself to feed the growth of others must thereby be diminished, and be born anew when it reclaims its own.

Here is another line of reasoning. If earth and sky had no starting-point in time but have always existed, why have no poets sung of feats before the Theban war and the tragedy of Troy? [35] Why have so many heroic deeds recurrently dropped out of mind and not been grafted onto everlasting monuments of fame to flower there? The answer, I believe, is that this world is newly made: [36] its origin is a recent event, not one of remote antiquity. That is why even now some arts are being perfected: the process of development is still going on. Many improvements have just been introduced in ships. It is no time since musicians gave birth to their tuneful harmonies. Yes, and it is not long since the truth about nature was first discovered, and I myself am even now the first [37] who has been found to render this revelation into my native speech.

Alternatively, you may believe that all these things existed before, but that the human race was wiped out by a burst of fiery heat or its cities were laid low by some great upheaval of the world or engulfed by greedy rivers which persistent rains had driven to overflow their banks. [38] All the more reason, then, to concede my point and admit that an end is coming to earth and sky. If the world was indeed shaken by such plagues and perils, then it needs only a more violent shock to make it collapse in universal ruin. There is no clearer proof of our own mortality than the fact that we are subject to the same ailments as those whom nature has already recalled from life.

Again, there can be only three kinds of everlasting objects. The first, owing to the absolute solidity of their substance, can repel blows and let nothing penetrate them so as to unknit their close texture from within. Such are the atoms of matter whose nature I have already demonstrated. The second kind can last for ever because it is immune from blows. Such is empty space,  which remains untouched and unaffected by any impact. Last is that which has no available place surrounding it into which its matter can disperse and disintegrate. It is for this reason that the sum totality of the universe is everlasting, having no space outside it into which the matter can escape and no matter that can enter and disintegrate it by the force of impact. But, as I have shown, the world is not a solid mass of matter, since there is an admixture of vacuity in things. It is not of the same nature as vacuity. There is no lack of external bodies to rally out of infinite space and blast it with a turbulent tornado or inflict some other mortal disaster. And finally in the depths of space there is no lack of room into which the walls of the world may crumble away or collapse under the impact of some other shock. It follows, then, that the doorway of death is not barred to sky and sun and earth and the sea's unfathomed floods. It lies tremendously open and confronts them with a yawning chasm. So, for this reason, too, you must acknowledge them to have been born. For nothing with a frame of mortal build could have endured from everlasting until now, proof against the stark strength of immeasurable age.

Consider another possibility. Since civil strife rages among the world's warring elements on so vast a scale, it may [39] be that their long battle will some day be decided. Perhaps the sun and heat will overcome and drink all the waters dry. They are struggling to do this now, but have not yet accomplished their aim: the rivers maintain such ample resources and threaten on their side to deluge everything from the deep reservoir of the ocean. They, too, are thwarted: their ranks are thinned by the ocean- scouring winds and the fiery sun's unraveling rays, confident of their power to dry up every drop before the water can achieve the goal of its enterprise. So these opposing forces maintain their heated conflict, contending on equal terms for gigantic issues. But legend [40] tells of one occasion when fire got the upper hand and once when water was king over the land.

For fire was victorious and went round scorching many parts of the earth when the galloping steeds that draw the chariot of the sun swept Phaethon from the true course, right out of the zone of ether and far over all the lands. Then the Father Almighty, in a fierce gust of anger, struck down the aspiring Phaethon with a sudden stroke of his thunderbolt, [41] down out of the chariot to the earth. But the sun intercepted his fall and took up the everlasting torch of the firmament, and brought the trembling steeds back to the yoke from their stampede and, guiding them along their proper course, restored the universe to order. Such is the story as recited by the ancient bards of Greece, [42] a story utterly rejected by true doctrine. What may really lead to the triumph of fire is an increase in the accumulation of its particles out of infinite space. Then comes the crisis: either its forces for some reason suffer a setback, or the world shrivels in its parching blasts and comes to an end.

Another legend [43] tells how water likewise once massed its forces and began to prevail, till many men were drowned beneath its waves. Then, when there came some diversion and withdrawal of the reinforcements mustered out of the infinite, the rains halted and the rivers checked their flow.

I will now set out in order the stages by which the initial concentration  [44] of matter laid the foundation of earth and sky, of the ocean depths and the orbits of sun and moon. Certainly the atoms did not post themselves purposefully in due order by an act of intelligence, nor did they stipulate what movements each should perform. But multitudinous atoms, swept along in multitudinous courses through infinite time by mutual clashes and their own weight, have come together in every possible way and tested everything that could be formed by their combinations. So it comes about that a voyage of immense [45] duration, in which they have experienced every variety of movement and conjunction, has at length brought together those whose sudden encounter often forms the starting-point of substantial fabrics - earth and sea and sky and the races of living creatures.

At that [46] time the sun's bright disc was not to be seen here, soaring aloft and lavishing its light, nor the stars that crowd the far-flung firmament, nor sea nor sky nor earth nor air nor anything in the likeness of the things we know - nothing but a hurricane raging, a newly congregated mass of atoms of every sort. From their disharmony sprang conflict, which provoked wars in their interspaces, courses, unions, thrusts, impacts, collisions and motions, because owing to their diversity of shape and pattern they could not all remain in the combinations in which they found themselves or mutually reconcile their motions. From this medley they started to sort themselves out,  like combining with like, [47] and to divide out the world, setting out its separate limbs and laying out its main sections: they began, in fact, to separate the heights of heaven from the earth, to single out the sea as a receptacle for water detached from the mass and to set apart the fires of pure and isolated ether.

In the first place all the particles of earth, because they were heavy and intertangled, collected in the middle and took up the undermost stations. The more closely they cohered and clung together, the more they squeezed out the atoms that went to the making of sea and stars, sun and moon and the outer walls of this great world. For all these are composed of smooth round seeds, much smaller than the particles of earth. The first element to break out of the earth through the pores in its spongy crust and to shoot up aloft was ether, the generator of fire. Owing to its lightness, it carried off with it a quantity of fire. We may compare [48] a sight we often see when the sun's golden rays blush with the first flush of dawn among the dew-spangled herbage: the lakes and perennial watercourses exhale a vapor, while at times we see the earth itself steaming. It is these vapors, when they all coalesce and combine their substance in the upper air, that weave a cloudy curtain under the sky. Just so in those days the ethereal fire, buoyant and expansive, coalesced at the circumference and turned this way and that till it became generally diffused and enveloped the other elements in an ardent embrace.

On this ensued the birth of the sun and moon, whose globes revolve at middle height in the atmosphere. The earth did not claim them for itself, nor did the transcendent ether because they were neither heavy enough to sink and settle nor light enough to soar through the uppermost zones. Yet in their midway station they are so placed as to revolve actual bodies and to form parts of the world as a whole. Just so in our own bodies, while some members remain fixed at their posts, others are free to move.

When these elements had withdrawn, the earth suddenly caved in, throughout the zone now covered by the blue extent of sea, and flooded the cavity with surging brine. Day by day the encircling ethereal fires and the sun's rays by continual bombardment of the outer crust from every quarter compressed the earth into an ever narrower compass, so that it shrank into itself in its middle reaches and cohered more compactly. So even ampler floods of salty fluid perspired from the body to swell the billowy plain of ocean. Ever fresh contingents of those particles of heat and air of which I have spoken slipped out to reinforce the sparkling vault of heaven far up above the earth. As the plains settled down, the mountain steeps grew more prominent; for the crags could not sink in, and it was not possible for every  part to subside to the same extent.

So the earth by its weight and the coalescing of its substance came to rest. All the sediment of the world, because it was heavy, drifted downwards together and settled at the bottom like dregs. Then sea and air and fiery ether itself were each in turn left unalloyed in their elemental purity, one being lighter than another. Ether, as the clearest and the lightest, floats upon the gusty air and does not mingle its clear substance with the air's tempestuous tumult. It leaves the lower regions to be spun round by eddying whirlwinds, tossed to and fro by veering squalls. lt bears its own fires on a steady course as it glides along. The possibility of such a regular and constant flow as this of ether is demonstrated by the Black Sea, [49] which flows with a uniform tide, maintaining perpetually the single tenor of its current.

Let us now take as our theme the cause of stellar movements. First, let us suppose that the great globe of sky itself rotates. We must then say that the poles of the celestial sphere are held in place and hemmed in at either extremity by the external pressure of air on both of them. In addition, there must be another current of air, either flowing above in the same direction in which the flashing lights of the ageless firmament revolve, or else moving below in the reverse direction, so that it rotates the sphere on the same principle as we see rivers turning the scoops of waterwheels.

There remains the alternative possibility that the sky as a whole is stationary while the shining constellations are in motion. This may happen because swift currents of ether are shut up inside and in their search for an outlet whirl round and round and roll their fires at large across the night-thundering regions of the sky. Or an external current of air from some other quarter may whirl them along in its course. Or they may creep forward of their own  accord, each responsive to the call of its own food, and feed their fiery bodies in the broad pastures of the sky. Which of these possibilities is the truth, so far as this world is concerned, is not easy to establish. [50] But my argument shows what could and may happen througout the universe in the various worlds formed on various patterns. So I have worked through the list of causes that may produce stellar motions throughout the universe. One of these causes must certainly operate in our world also to speed the march of the constellations. But to lay down which of them it is lies beyond the range of our stumbling progress.

We have now to consider how the earth remains fixed in the middle of the world. The answer is that its mass gradually attenuates and dwindles away and that its lower parts are formed of another substance, and this ever since the beginning of time has been combined and united with the airy regions of the world on which it is grafted and lives. [51] That is why it is no burden to the air and does not press down upon it. We know that a man's own limbs, so far as he himself is concerned, have no weight; his head is not a burden to his shoulders, and we do not feel the whole bulk of our bodies pressing down on our feet. But weights of external origin that are laid upon us are burdensome, though often they are much less. The decisive factor is the extent of the power possessed by each particular object. In the same way, the earth is not a foreign body suddenly introduced and plumped down upon unfamiliar air. It is a definite part of the world, conceived simultaneously with it at birth, as we know our own limbs are with us.

Again, when the earth is suddenly shaken by a sizeable thunderclap, it involves all the atmosphere above it in the shock. This it could not possibly do if it were not attached to the airy regions of the world and to the sky. In fact, they have been linked together and united from the beginning of their existence and cling to each other by common roots.

Or consider [52] how all the bulk of our body is upheld by the flimsy tissue of the spirit, because the two are so closely interlinked and united. What is it that lifts the body up in a vigorous jump if not the pervasive spirit that directs the limbs? Here, then, is evidence of the strength a flimsy substance can possess when it is united with a massive one, as the air is with the earth or the human mind with the human body.

Next, as to the size and heat of the sun's disc: it cannot in fact be either much larger or much smaller than it appears to our senses. [53] So long as fires are near enough both to transmit their light and to breathe a warm blast upon our bodies, the bulk of their flames suffers no loss through distance: the fire is not visibly diminished. Since, therefore, the heat of the sun and the light it gives off travel all the way to our senses and cause the world to shine, its shape and size also must appear as they really are, with virtually no room for any lessening or enlargement.

The moon, too, whether it sheds a bastard light upon the landscape in its progress or emits a native radiance from its own body, is not in either case of bulkier dimensions than those with which it appears to our eyes. For objects seen at a distance through a thick screen of air appear blurred in outline before they are diminished in bulk. [54] It follows that the moon, which presents a sharp outline and a precise shape, must appear to us up there just as it is, with its limits truly defined and in its actual dimensions.

So too  with every spark of ethereal fire that is visible from the earth. The magnitude of fires that we see on earth is very little changed in appearance, one way or the other, by distance so long as their flickering is still distinct and their blaze perceptible. This does not exclude the possibility that the stars may be just a shade smaller than they look or the least little bit bigger.

How then, if the sun is so small, can it give off such a flood of light, enough to deluge lands and seas and sky and permeate the world with a glow of warmth? There is nothing miraculous about this. It is quite possible that from this one outlet the light of all the world may break out and gush in an abounding fountain, this being the centre at which all the atoms of heat gather together from all the world. This universal confluence then becomes the source from which the radiance is again dispersed. See how widely a tiny spring may sometimes water the meadows and inundate the plain. There is the further possibility that heat issuing from the relatively small fire of the sun may set the air ablaze, if it happens that there is air available that is readily kindled by contact with small emanations of heat. Just so we sometimes see a general conflagration in corn or stubble started by a single spark. It may be, again, that round the sun's ruddy torch, where it flares on high, there extends a wide zone of fire, charged with invisible heat with no distinguishing effulgence. Such a heat-bearing zone might add its share to the impact of the rays.

There is no obvious way of accounting by a simple and straightforward hypothesis for the movements of the sun from its summer quarters to its midwinter turning-point of Capricorn and back again upon its tracks to its midsummer tropic of Cancer, or of explaining how the moon is seen to cover in a month the distance on which the sun in its travels spends a full year. No simple cause, I repeat, can be assigned to these phenomena.

The first possible explanation that suggests itself is that advanced by the revered authority of the great Democritus. [55] On this view, the nearer the heavenly bodies are to the earth, the less are they caught up in the vortex of the heavens. The rushing and impulsive energy of the vortex, it is supposed, fades out and dwindles at lower levels. So the sun, whose path lies far below the ardent constellations, gradually lags behind and drops towards their rear. Much more the moon: the more its lowlier course falls short of the sky and approaches the earth, the less can it keep pace with the stars. The more sluggish the vortex in which it is involved, down here below the sun, the sooner it is overtaken and passed by in the cyclic march by each successive constellation. That is why the moon seems to return more rapidly than the sun to each constellation: it is they in fact that catch up faster on the moon.

Another possibility [56] is that two crosscurrents of air blow through the sky, alternating with the seasons: one drives the sun down from the summer constellations towards the ice-bound frigidity of its midwinter turning-point; the other tosses it back out of the cold and dark into the heat-bearing region and the torrid stars. So also with the moon and with the planets, which complete great years in orbits as great: we may picture them as blown before winds from alternating quarters. See how the clouds at different levels move in different directions, impelled by conflicting winds. Why should not the heavenly bodies, out in the wide zones of ether, be sped on their several courses by conflicting currents?

The reason why night shrouds the earth in far-flung gloom may be that the sun, exhausted by its long day's journey, has reached the utmost limits of the sky and puffed out its travel-spent fires, [57] enfeebled by excess of air. Alternatively, it may be driven to double back under the earth by the same force that guided its globe above the earth. Correspondingly, when Matuta [58] at the determined hour diffuses its rose-red glow through the ethereal regions and flings wide the light of day, it may be that the same sun, which we have pictured as doubling back under the earth, takes possession of the sky with precursive rays and strives to set it ablaze. Or it may be that at the determined hour there is a concentration of fires, a confluence of many particles of heat, which regularly causes the solar radiance to be born anew. So it is related that from the heights of Mount Ida at daybreak scattered fires are seen in the East coalescing as it were into a ball till they form a single sphere. There would be nothing miraculous about such a confluence of fiery particles at such a regularly determined time rebuilding the sun in its splendor. In every department of nature we see a host of phenomena recurring at a determined time. The trees have a set time for blossoming and for shedding their blossoms. At a set time age decrees the shedding of teeth, the growth of a soft down on the downless skin and with it the sprouting of a soft beard from either cheek. Even climatic phenomena - thunderstorms, snow, rain, clouds, winds -do not occur at wholly undetermined seasons of the year. In a world in which the operative causes began in this particular way and phenomena at the outset fell into this pattern, they continue even now to recur consecutively in the same pattern.

As to the lengthening of the day coupled with the wasting away of night, and the waning of daylight when night is waxing, various views are again tenable. It may be that the same sun traverses unequal arcs of the ethereal sphere below the earth and above, dividing its daily orbit into a greater part and a less. Thus, what it has subtracted from the one half it adds to the opposite one in its revolution, till it comes round to that constellation in which the equinox equates the shades of night with the light of day. At the mid- point of the sun's flight before the north [59] wind and again before the south wind, the sky holds apart the tropics at an equal distance on either side of the sun. This follows from the position of the whole zodiacal belt through which the sun creeps to complete its annual cycle, lighting heaven and earth with radiance cast aslant. Such is the account given by those who have plotted all the regions of the sky and marked the ordered sequence of constellations.

Or it may be that the air in certain regions is denser, so that the flickering glow of fire loiters beneath the earth and cannot easily win through and struggle out to its rising; and that this is why the long winter nights drag on till the advent of day's flashing banner.

Or again, for the same reason it may be that the fiery particles flow together more slowly or more quickly at alternate seasons of the year; these determine the place where the sun rises. Therefore those people <who say that no single cause can be assigned to these things> seem to be telling the truth.

What, then, of the moon? It may be that it shines only when the sun's rays hit it. Then day by day, as it moves away from the sun's orb, it turns more of its illumined surface towards our view till in its rising it gazes down face to face upon the setting sun and beams with luster at the full. Thereafter, it is bound to hide its light bit by bit behind it as it glides round heaven towards the solar fire from the opposite point of the zodiac. Such is the view of those who picture the moon as a spherical body moving in an orbit below the sun.

It is equally possible that it rolls round with a luster of its own [6o] and displays changing shapes of luminosity. For there may be another body that glides along by its side, masking and obstructing it in every way but remaining invisible because it sheds no light. [61]

Or perhaps the moon is a rotating sphere of which one half is gilded with resplendent light. Then in the course of its rotation it displays changing shapes, until it turns towards our wide-eyed gaze that half which is enriched with fire. Thereafter by the reverse process it veers round and turns away  the luminous half of its rounded globe. Such is the contention by which the Babylonian lore of the Chaldaeans [62] strives to confute the skill of the astronomers - as though the theory for which either party fights might not be true, and there were any reason why you should be more reluctant to adopt the one than the other.

Lastly, why should not a new moon be created periodically with a definite sequence of determinate shapes? Why should not each in turn dwindle day by day, and in its place another be built up to play the same part? It is hard to formulate any convincing argument that would rule this out when so many things are created in a definite sequence. Spring comes, and Venus, and Venus' winged courier Cupid runs in front. And all along the path that they will tread mother Flora [63] carpets the whole trail of Zephyr with a wealth of blossoms exquisite in hue and fragrance. Next follows parching heat, hand in hand with dusty Ceres [64] and the north wind's Etesian [65] blasts. Then autumn steps on the scene, with Bacchus' [66] revel rout. Soon other seasons follow and other winds, high thundering Vulturnus [67] and the south wind, ablaze with its lightning. To end the pageant, midwinter brings back its snows and stiffening frost, attended by that old tooth-chatterer, cold. What wonder, then, if the moon is born at a set time and again at a set time effaced, when so many things are created in a definite sequence?

In the same way you must understand that various causes may account for eclipses [68] of the sun and the moon's occultations. If the moon can cut off sunlight from the earth, up rearing its obstructive head between the two and planting a dark sphere in the path of the glowing rays, why should we not picture the same effect as produced by another body that glides round for ever lusterless? Or why should not the sun periodically fail and dim its own fires and afterwards rekindle its light when it has passed through a stretch of atmosphere uncongenial to its flames, which causes the quenching and quelling of its fire? And again, if the earth in turn can rob the moon of light by screening off the sun that shines below while the moon in its monthly round glides through the clear-cut cone [69] of shadow, why should not some other body equally well pass under the moon or glide over the solar orb so as to interrupt the radiant stream of light? And, supposing that the moon shines by its own luster, why should it not grow faint in a determinate quarter of the heavens while it is passing through a region uncongenial to its particular light?

I have explained the processes by which the various phenomena may be brought about in the blue expanses of the firmament. I have made intelligible the forces that may actuate the movements of the sun and the moon's wanderings. I have shown how both may suffer eclipse through the obscuration of their light and plunge the unsuspecting earth into gloom, as though they blinked and then with reopened eye surveyed the world, aglow with limpid radiance. I return now to the childhood of the world, to consider what fruits the tender fields of earth in youthful parturition first ventured to fling up into the light of day and entrust to the fickle breezes.

First of all, the earth girdled its hills with a green glow of herbage, [70] and over every plain the flowery meadows gleamed with verdure. The trees of every sort were given free rein to join in an eager race for growth into the gusty air. As feathers, hair and bristles [71] are generated at the outset from the bodies of winged lords of the air and four-footed creatures, so then the new-born earth first flung up herbs and shrubs. Next in order it engendered the various breeds of mortal creatures, different in their many modes of origin as in form. The animals cannot have fallen from the sky, [72] and those that live on land cannot have emerged from the briny gulfs. [73] We are left with the conclusion that the name of mother has rightly been bestowed on the earth, since out of the earth everything is born.

Even now multitudes of animals are formed out of the earth [74] with the aid of showers and the sun's genial warmth. So it would not have been surprising if more and bigger ones had taken shape and developed in those days, when earth and ether were young. First, the various breeds of winged birds were hatched out of eggs in the spring season, just as now the cicadas in summer crawl out spontaneously from their tubular integuments in quest of livelihood and life. Then it was that the earth brought forth the first mammals. There was a great superfluity of heat and moisture in the soil. So, wherever a suitable spot occurred, there grew up wombs, [75] clinging to the earth by roots. These, when the time was ripe, were burst open by the maturation of the embryos, rejecting moisture now and struggling for air. Then nature directed towards that spot the pores of the earth, making it open its veins and exude a juice resembling milk, just as nowadays every female when she has given birth is filled with sweet milk because all the flow of nourishment within her is directed into the breasts. The young were fed by the earth, clothed by the warmth and bedded by the herbage, which was then covered with abundance of soft down. The childhood of the world provoked no sharp frosts or excessive heats or winds of boisterous violence. [76] For all things keep pace in their growth and the attainment of their full strength. Here then is further proof that the name of mother has rightly been bestowed on the earth, since it brought forth the human race and gave birth at the appointed season to every beast that runs wild among the high hills and at the same time to the birds of the air in all their rich variety.

Then, because there must be an end to such parturition, the earth ceased to bear, like a woman worn out with age. [77] For the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. Everything must pass through successive phases. Nothing remains for ever what it was. Everything is on the move. Everything is transformed by nature and forced into new paths. One thing, withered by time, decays and dwindles. Another grows strong and emerges from ignominy. So the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. The earth passes through successive phases, so that the earth which used to be able to bear can do so no longer, while mammals which could never bear in the past can now produce.

In those days the earth attempted [78] also to produce a host of monsters, grotesque in build and aspect-hermaphrodites, halfway between the sexes yet cut off from either, creatures bereft of feet or dispossessed of hands, dumb, mouthless brutes, or eyeless and blind, or disabled by the adhesion of their limbs to the body, so that they could neither do anything nor go anywhere nor keep out of harm's way nor take what they needed. These and other such monstrous and misshapen births were created. But all in vain. Nature debarred them from increase. They could not gain the coveted flower of maturity nor procure food nor be coupled by the arts of Venus. For it is evident that many contributory factors are essential to be able to forge the chain of a species in procreation. First, it must have a food- supply. Then it must have some channel by which the procreative seeds can travel outward through the body when the limbs are relaxed. Then, in order that male and female may couple, they must have some means of interchanging their mutual delight.

In those days, again, many species must have died out altogether and failed to forge the chain of offspring. Every species that you now see drawing the breath of life has been protected and preserved from the beginning of the world either by cunning or by courage or by speed. In addition, there are many that survive under human protection because their usefulness has commended them to our care. The surly breed of lions, for instance, in their native ferocity have been preserved by courage, the fox by cunning and the stag by flight. [79] The intelligent dog, loyal of heart and light of sleep, all beasts of burden of whatever breed, fleecy sheep and horned cattle, over all these, my Memmius, man has established his protectorate. They have gladly escaped from predatory beasts and sought peace and the lavish meals, procured by no effort of theirs, with which we recompense their service. But those that were gifted with none of these natural assets,  unable either to live on their own resources or to make any contribution to human welfare, in return for which we might let their race feed in safety under our guardianship - all these, trapped in the toils of their own destiny, were fair game and an easy prey for others, till nature brought their race to extinction.

But there never were, nor ever can be, centaurs [80] - creatures with a double nature, combining organs of different origin in a single body so that there may be a balance of power between attributes drawn from two distinct sources. This can be inferred by the dullest wit from these facts. First, a horse reaches its vigorous prime in about three years, a boy far from it: for often even at that age he will fumble in sleep for his mother's suckling breasts. Then, when the horse's limbs are flagging and his mettle is fading with the onset of age and the ebbing of life, then is the very time when the boy is crowned with the flower of youth and his cheeks are clothed with a soft down. You need not suppose, therefore, that there can ever be a centaur, compounded of man and draught-horse, or a Scylla, [81] half sea- monster, with a girdle of mad dogs, or any other such monstrous hybrid between species whose bodies are obviously incompatible. They do not correspond in their maturing, in gaining strength or in losing it with advancing years. They blaze differently with the flame of Venus. Their habits are discordant. Their senses are not gratified by the same stimuli. You may even see bearded goats fattening on hemlock, which to man is deadly poison. [82] Since flame sears and burns the tawny frames of lions no less than any other form of flesh and blood that exists on earth, how could there be a chimera [83] with three bodies rolled into one, in front a lion, at the rear a serpent, in the middle the she-goat (that her name implies) belching from her jaws a dire flame born of her body? If anyone pretends that such monsters could have been begotten when earth was young and the sky new, pinning his faith merely on that empty word 'young', he is welcome to trot out a string of fairy tales of the same stamp. Let him declare that rivers of gold in those days flowed in profusion over the earth: that the trees bore jewels for blossoms, or that a man was born with such a stretch of limbs that he could bestride the high seas and spin the whole sky around him with his hands. [84] The fact that there were abundant seeds of things in the earth at the time when it first gave birth to living creatures is no indication that beasts could have been created of intermingled-shapes with limbs compounded from different species. The growths that even now spring profusely from the soil - the varieties of herbs and cereals and lusty trees - cannot be produced in this composite fashion: each species develops according to its own kind, and they all guard their specific characters in obedience to the laws of nature.

The human beings that peopled these fields were far tougher than the men of today, [85] as became the offspring of tough earth. They were built on a framework of bigger and more solid bones, fastened through their flesh to stout sinews. They were relatively insensitive to heat and cold, to unaccustomed diet and bodily ailments in general. Through many decades of the sun's cyclic course they lived out their lives in the fashion of wild beasts roaming at large. No one spent his strength in guiding the curved plough. No one knew how to work the earth with iron, or to plant young saplings in the soil or lop the old branches from tall trees with pruning hooks. Their hearts were well content to accept as a free gift what the sun and showers had given and the earth had produced unsolicited. Often they stayed their hunger among the acorn-laden oaks. Arbutus berries, whose scarlet tint now betrays their winter ripening, were then produced by the earth in plenty and of a larger size. In addition the lusty childhood of the earth yielded a great variety of tough foods, ample for poor mortals. Rivers and springs called to them to slake their thirst, as nowadays a clamorous cataract of water, tumbling out of the high hills, summons from far away the thirsty creatures of the wild. They lived in those woodland sanctuaries of the nymphs, familiar to them in their wandering, from which they knew that trickling streams of water issued to bathe the dripping rocks in a bountiful shower, sprinkled over green moss, and gushed out here and there over the open plain.

They did not know as yet how to enlist the aid of fire, or to make use of skins, or to clothe their bodies with trophies of the chase. They lived in thickets and hillside caves and forests and stowed their rough limbs among bushes when driven to seek shelter from the lash of wind and rain.

They could have no thought of the common good, no notion of the mutual restraint of morals and laws. [86] The individual, taught only to live and fend for himself, carried off on his own account such prey as fortune brought him. Venus coupled the bodies of lovers in the woods. Mutual desire brought them together, or the male's mastering might and profligate lust, or a bribe of acorns or arbutus berries or choice pears. Thanks to their surpassing strength of hand and foot, they hunted the woodland beasts by hurling stones and wielding ponderous clubs. They were more than a match for many of them: from a few they took refuge in hiding-places.

When night overtook them, they flung their jungle-bred limbs naked on the earth like bristly boars, and wrapped themselves round with a coverlet of leaves and branches. It is not true [87] that they wandered panic-stricken over the countryside through the darkness of night, searching with loud lamentations for the daylight and the sun. In fact they waited, sunk in quiet sleep, till the sun with his rose-red torch should bring back radiance to the sky. Accustomed as they were from infancy to seeing the alternate birth of darkness and light, they could never have been struck with amazement or misgiving that the withdrawal of the sunlight might plunge the earth in everlasting  night. They were more worried by the peril to which unlucky sleepers were often exposed from predatory beasts. Turned out of house and home by the intrusion of a slavering boar or a burly lion, they would  abandon their rocky roofs at dead of night and yield up their leaf-strewn beds in terror to the savage visitors.

The proportion of mortal men that relinquished the dear light of life lamenting before it was all spent was not appreciably higher then than now. [88] Then it more often happened that an individual victim would furnish living food to a beast of prey: engulfed in its jaws, he would fill thicket and mountainside and forest with his shrieks, at the sight of his living flesh entombed in a living sepulchre. [89] Those who saved their mangled bodies by flight would press trembling palms over ghastly sores, calling upon Orcus in heart-rending voices, till life was wrenched from them by savage torments. They had no source of help in their ignorance of the treatment that wounds demand. But it never happened then that many thousands of men following the standards were led to death on a single day. Never did the ocean levels, lashed into tumult, hurl ships and men together, upon the reefs. Here, time after time, the sea would rise and vainly vent its fruitless ineffectual fury, then lightly lay aside its idle threats. The crafty blandishment of the unruffled deep could not tempt any man to his undoing with its rippling laughter. [90] Then, when the mariner's presumptuous art lay still unguessed, it was lack of food that brought tailing limbs at last to death. Now it is superfluity that proves too much for them. The men of old often served poison to themselves out of ignorance. Now, with greater skill, they give it out to other people. [91]

As time went by, men began to build huts and to use skins and fire. Woman mated with man, moved into a single <home and the laws of marriage> were learnt as they watched over their joint progeny. Then it was that humanity first began to mellow. Thanks to fire, their chilly bodies could no longer so easily endure the cold under the canopy of heaven. Venus subdued brute strength. Children by their wheedling easily broke down their parents' stubborn temper. The neighbors began to form mutual alliances, wishing neither to do nor to suffer violence among themselves. [92] They appealed on behalf of their children and womenfolk, pointing out with gestures and inarticulate cries that it is right for everyone to pity the weak. It was not possible to achieve perfect unity of purpose. Yet a substantial majority kept faith honestly. Otherwise the entire human race would have been wiped out there and then instead of being propagated, generation after generation, down to the present day.

As for the various sounds of spoken language, [93] it was nature that drove men to utter these, and practical convenience that gave a form to the names of objects. We see a similar process at work when babies are led by their speechless plight to employ gestures, such as pointing with a finger at objects in view. For every creature has a sense of the purposes for which he can use his own powers. A bull-calf, before even his horns have grown and sprouted from his forehead, butts and thrusts with them aggressively when  his temper is roused. Panther kittens and lion cubs tussle with paws and jaws when their claws and teeth are scarcely yet in existence. We see every species of winged bird trust in its wings and seek unsteady help from flight. To suppose that someone [94] on some particular occasion allotted names to objects, and that by this means men learnt their first words, is stark madness.  Why should we suppose that one man had this power of indicating everything by vocal utterances and emitting the various sounds of speech when others could not do it? Besides, if others had not used such utterances among themselves, from what source was the mental image [95] of its use implanted in him? Whence did this one man derive the power in the first instance of seeing with his mind what he wanted to do? One man could not subdue a greater number and induce them by force to learn his names for things. It is far from easy to convince deaf listeners by any demonstration what needs to be done. They would not endure it or submit for long on any terms to have unfamiliar noises senselessly dinned into their ears.

And what, after all, is so surprising in the notion that the human race, possessed of a vigorous voice and tongue, should indicate objects by various vocal utterances expressive of various feelings? Even dumb cattle and wild beasts utter distinct and various sounds when they are gripped by fear or pain or when joy wells up within them. Indeed we have direct evidence of such distinctions. Molossian [96] hounds, for instance, when first their gaping flabby jowls are drawn back in a grim snarl that bares their hard teeth, give vent to a gruff growl. Very different is the sound when the growl  was grown to a loud-mouthed reverberating barking. Different again is the soft crooning with which they fondle their pups when they fall to licking them lovingly with their tongues or when they toss them with their paws, snapping with open jaws in a playful pretence of gobbling them up with teeth that never close. And different from all these are the howls when left alone in the house, or the whimpering with which they shrink and cringe to avoid the whip. In the same way, when a stallion in the prime of his youth is let loose among the mares, smarting from the prick of winged Cupid's darts, and snorts defiance to his rivals through distended nostrils, his neigh is surely not the same that shakes his limbs on other occasions. So also with the various species of winged birds. The hawks and ospreys and gulls that seek a livelihood among the salt sea waves all have distinctive cries that show when they are squabbling over their food and their prey is fighting back. Some birds even vary their note according to the weather. So the hoarse-throated cawing of long-lived [97] ravens and gregarious rooks varies from time to time according to whether they are clamoring for showers of rain, as it is said, or summoning wind and breezes. If the animals, dumb though they be, are impelled by different feelings to utter different cries, how much the more reason to suppose that men in those days had the power of distinguishing between one thing and another by distinctive utterances!

Here is the answer to another question that you may be putting to yourself. The agent by which fire was first brought down to earth and made available  to mortal man was lightning. [98] It is from this source that the blaze of fire has spread. Think how many things we see ablaze with heaven-sent flame implanted in them, when a stroke from heaven has endowed them with heat.  There is also, however, another possible source. When a branching tree, struck by the winds, is swaying and surging to and fro and stooping to touch the branches of another tree, the violent friction squeezes out seeds of fire, till sometimes from the rubbing of bough against bough, trunk against trunk, there flashes out a blazing burst of flame. Either of these occurrences may have given fire to mortals. Later it was the sun that taught them to cook food and soften it by heating on the flames, since they noticed in roaming through the fields how many things were subdued and mellowed by the impact of its ardent rays.

As time went by, men learnt to change their old way of life by means of fire and other new inventions, instructed by those of outstanding ability and mental energy. Kings began to found cities and establish citadels for their own safeguard and refuge. They parceled out cattle and lands, giving to each according to his looks, his strength and his ability; for good looks were highly prized and strength counted for much. Later came the invention of property and the discovery of gold, which speedily robbed the strong and the handsome of their status. The man of greater riches finds no lack of strong frames and comely faces to follow in his train. And yet, if a man would guide his life by true philosophy, [99] he will find ample riches in a modest livelihood enjoyed with a tranquil mind. Of that little he need never be beggared. Men craved for fame and power so that their fortune might rest on a firm foundation and they might live out a peaceful life in the enjoyment of plenty. An idle dream. In struggling to gain the pinnacle of power they beset their own road with perils. [100] And then from the very peak, as though by a thunderbolt, they are cast down by envy into a foul Tartarean [101] abyss of ignominy. For envy, like the thunderbolt, most often strikes the highest and all that stands out above the common level. Far better to lead a quiet life [102] in subjection than to long for sovereign authority and lordship over kingdoms. So leave them to sweat blood in their wearisome unprofitable struggle along the narrow pathway of ambition. Since their wisdom is taken from the mouths of other people and their objectives chosen by hearsay rather than by the evidence of their own senses,[103] it avails them now, and will avail them, no more than it has ever done.

So the kings [104] were killed. Down in the dust lay the ancient majesty of thrones, the haughty scepters. The illustrious emblem of the sovereign head, dabbled in gore and trampled under the feet of the rabble, mourned its high estate. What once was feared too much is now passionately downtrodden. So the conduct of affairs sank back into the filthy lower depths of mob rule, with each man struggling to win dominance and supremacy for himself. Then some men showed how to appoint state officials, to establish civil rights and duties so that men would want to obey the laws. Mankind, worn out by a life of violence and enfeebled by feuds, [105] was the more ready to submit of its own free will to the bondage of laws and institutions. This distaste for a life of violence came naturally to a society in which every individual was ready to gratify his anger by a harsher vengeance than is now tolerated by equitable laws. Ever since then the enjoyment of life's prizes has been tempered by the fear of punishment. A man is enmeshed by his own violence and wrongdoing, which commonly recoil upon their author. It is not easy for one who breaks by his acts the mutual compact of social peace to lead a peaceful and untroubled life. Even if he  hides his guilt from gods and men, he must feel a secret misgiving that it will not rest hidden for ever. [106] He cannot forget those oft-told tales of men  betraying themselves by words, spoken in dreams [107] or delirium, that drag out long-buried crimes into the daylight.

Let us now consider why reverence for the gods [108] is widespread among the nations. What has crowded their cities with altars and inaugurated those solemn rites that are in vogue today in great and powerful states? What has implanted in mortal hearts that chill of dread which even now rears new temples of the gods the wide world over and packs them on holy days with  pious multitudes? The explanation is not far to seek. Already in those early days men had visions when their minds were awake, and more clearly in sleep, [109] of divine figures, outstanding in beauty and impressive in stature. To these figures they attributed feeling, because they were seen to move their limbs [110] and give voice to lordly utterances appropriate to their stately features and their tremendous strength. They further credited them with eternal life, because the substance of their shapes was perpetually renewed and their appearance unchanging and in general because they thought that beings of such strength could not lightly be subdued by any force. They pictured their lot as far superior to that of mortals, because none of them were tormented by the fear of death, and also because in dreams they saw them perform all sorts of miracles without the slightest effort.

Again, men noticed the orderly succession of celestial phenomena and the round of the seasons and were at a loss to account for them. So they took refuge in handing over everything to the gods and making everything dependent on their whim. They chose the sky to be the home and headquarters of the gods because it is through the sky that the night and the moon are seen to tread their cyclic course, moon, day and night and night's ominous constellations and the night-flying torches and soaring flames of the firmament, clouds and sun and rain, snow and wind, lightning and hail, the sudden thunder-crash and the long-drawn-out intimidating rumble.

Poor humanity, [111] to saddle the gods with such responsibilities and throw in a vindictive temper! What griefs they hatched then for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our posterity! This is not piety, [112] this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a stone; [113] this bustling to every altar; this kowtowing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of altars with the blood of beasts; this heaping of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind.

When we gaze up at the supernal regions of this mighty world, at the ether poised above, studded with flashing stars, and there comes into our minds the thought of the sun and moon and their migrations, then in hearts already racked by other woes a new anxiety begins to waken and rear up its head. We fall to wondering whether we may not be subject to some unfathomable divine power, which speeds the shining stars along their various tracks. It comes as a shock to our faltering minds to realize how little they know about the world. Had it a birth and a beginning? Is there some limit in time, beyond which its bastions will be unable to endure the strain of jarring motion? Or are they divinely gifted with everlasting surety, so that in their journey through the termless tract of time they can mock the stubborn strength of measureless time?

Again, who does not feel his mind quailing and his limbs creep with shuddering dread of the gods when the parched earth reels at the dire stroke of the thunderbolt and tumult rolls across the breadth of heaven?  Do not multitudes quake and nations tremble? Do not proud monarchs flinch, stricken in every limb by terror of the gods and the thought that the time has come when some foul deed or arrogant word must pay its heavy price?

Or picture a storm at sea, the wind scouring the water with hurricane force and some high admiral of the fleet swept before the blast with all his mighty legions and battle elephants. [114] How he importunes the peace of the gods with vows! How fervently he prays in his terror that the winds, too, may be at peace and favoring breezes blow! But, for all his prayers, the tornado does not relax its grip, and all too often he is dashed upon the reefs of death. So irresistibly is human power ground to dust by some unseen force, which seems to mock at the majestic rods and ruthless axes [115] of authority and trample on them as a joke.

Lastly, when the whole earth quakes [116] beneath their feet, when shaken cities fall in ruins or hang hesitantly tottering, what wonder if mortal men despise themselves and find a place in nature for superhuman forces and miraculous divine powers with supreme control over the universe?

We come next to the discovery of copper, gold and iron, weighty silver and useful lead. This occurred when fire among the high hills had consumed  huge forests in its blaze. The blaze may have been started by a stroke of lightning, or by men who had employed fire to scare their enemies in some woodland war, or were tempted by the fertility of the country to enrich their large ploughlands and turn the wilds into pasturage. Or they may have wished to kill the forest beasts and profit by their spoils; for hunting by means of pitfall and fire developed earlier than fencing round a glade with nets and driving the game with dogs. Let us take it, then, that for one reason or another, no matter what, a fierce conflagration, roaring balefully, has devoured a forest down to the roots and roasted the earth with penetrative fire. Out of the melted veins there would flow into hollows on the earth's surface a convergent stream of silver and gold, copper and lead. Afterwards, when men saw these lying solidified on the earth and flashing with resplendent color, they would be tempted by their attractive luster and polish to pick them up. They would notice that each lump was molded into a shape like that of the bed from which it had been lifted. Then it would enter their minds that these substances, when liquefied by heat, could run into any mold or the shape of any object they might desire, and could also be drawn out by hammering into pointed tips of any slenderness and sharpness. Here was a means by which they could equip themselves with weapons, chop down forests, rough-hew timber and plane it into smooth planks and pierce holes in it by boring, punching or drilling. At the outset they would try to do this with silver or gold no less than with tough and stubborn bronze. [117] But this would not work. These metals would give under the strain, lacking strength to stand up to such exacting tasks. So bronze was more highly prized, and gold with its quickly blunted edge was despised as useless. Now it is bronze that is despised, while gold has succeeded to the highest honors. So the circling years bring round reversals of fortune. What once was prized is afterwards held cheap. In its place, something else emerges from ignominy, is daily more and more coveted and, as its merits are detected, blossoms into glory and is acclaimed by mankind with extravagant praises.

At this point, Memmius, you should find it easy to puzzle out for yourself how men discovered the properties of iron. The earliest weapons were hands, nails and teeth. Next came stones and branches wrenched from trees, and fire and flame as soon as these were discovered. Then men learnt to use tough iron and bronze. Actually the use of bronze was discovered before that of iron, because it is more easily handled and in more plentiful supply. With bronze they tilled the soil. With bronze they whipped up the clashing waves of war, scattered a withering seed [118] of wounds and made a spoil of flocks and fields. Before their armaments all else, naked and unarmed, fell an easy prey. Then by slow degrees the iron sword came to the fore, the bronze sickle fell into disrepute, the ploughman began to cleave the earth with iron and on the darkling field of battle the odds were made even.

The art of mounting armed on horseback, guiding the steed with reins and keeping the right hand free for action, came earlier than braving the hazards  of war in a two-horsed chariot. [119 This again preceded the yoking of two pairs in one harness and the charge of armed warriors in chariots set with scythes. [120] Later the 'Lucanian oxen', [121] the snake-handed elephants, their bodies crowned by towers, were taught by the men of Carthage to endure the wounds of war and embroil the long-drawn ranks of Mars. So tragic discord gave birth to one invention after another for the intimidation of the nation's fighting men and added daily increments to the horrors of war.

Bulls, [122] too, were enlisted in the service of war and the experiment was made of launching savage boars against the enemy. Some even tried an advance guard of doughty lions with armed trainers and harsh masters to discipline them and keep them on the lead. But these experiments failed. The savage brutes, inflamed by promiscuous carnage, spread indiscriminate confusion among the squadrons, as they tossed the terrifying manes upon their heads this way and that. The riders failed to soothe the breast of their steeds; panic-stricken by uproar, and direct them with reins against the enemy. The lionesses hurled their frenzied bodies in a random spring, now leaping full in the face of oncomers, now snatching the unsuspecting victims from behind and dragging them to the ground, mortally wounded in the embrace and gripped fast by tenacious jaws and crooked claws. The bulls tossed men of their own side and trampled them underfoot and with their horns gored the flanks and bellies of horses from below and hacked up the very earth with minds determined on violence. The infuriated boars with their stout tusks slashed their allies. They reddened with their own blood the weapons broken in their bodies. They mowed down horse and foot pell-mell. The horses would shy away, or rear up and paw the air in a vain attempt to escape the savage onslaught of those tusks. But down you would see them tumble hamstrung, and bury the earth beneath their fallen mass. Even such beasts as their masters had once thought tame enough at home were seen to boil over in the stir of action - wounds, yells, stampedes, panic and turmoil: and none of them would obey the recall. Brutes of every breed were rushing wildly about. The sight must have been such as is sometimes seen in our own times when these 'Lucanian oxen', badly wounded by the steel, run wild after turning savagely upon their own associates. If, indeed, the experiment was ever tried. [123] For my part, I find it hard to believe that men had no mental apprehension and premonition of this mutual disaster and disgrace before it could happen. It would be safer to assert that this has happened somewhere in the universe, somewhere in the multiplicity of diversely formed worlds, than in any one specific globe. In any event it must have been undertaken more to spite the enemy than with any hope of victory, by men mistrustful of their own numbers and armaments but not afraid to die.

As to costume, plaited clothes came before woven ones. Woven fabrics came after iron, because iron is needed for making a loom. Apart from it no material can be made smooth enough for treadles and spindles and shuttles and clattering heddles. Nature ordained that this should be men's work before it was women's. For the male sex as a whole is by far the more skilful and gifted in the arts. [124] But eventually it was damned as effeminate by a censorious peasantry, so that they chose rather to leave it to women's hands while they joined in the endurance of hard labor and by the hardness of their toil hardened hands and limbs.

For the sowing and grafting of plants the first model was provided by creative nature herself. Berries and acorns, lying below the trees from which they had fallen, were seen to put forth a swarm of shoots in due season. From the same source men learnt to engraft slips in branches and to plant young saplings in the soil of their fields. After that they tried one type of  cultivation after another in their treasured plot. They saw the wild fruits grow mild in the ground with cosseting and humoring. Day by day they kept forcing the woodland to creep further up the hillside, surrendering the lower reaches to village. Over hill and plain they extended meadowland, reservoirs, watercourses, cornland and laughing vineyards, with the distinctive strip of grey-green olives running between, rippling over hump and hollow and along the level ground. So the countryside assumed its present aspect of varied beauty, interspersed with luscious orchards and marked out by encircling hedges of luxuriant trees.

Men learnt to mimic with their mouths the trilling notes of birds long before they were able to enchant the ear by joining together in tuneful song. It was the whistling of the breeze through hollow reeds that first taught countryfolk to blow through hollow hemlock stalks. [125] After that, by slow degrees, they learnt those plaintive melodies that flow from the flute at the touch of the player's fingers, melodies that took shape far from the busy highways, amid groves and glades and thickets in the solitudes where the shepherd spends his sunlit leisure. These are the tunes that soothed and cheered their hearts after a full meal: for at such times everything is  enjoyable. So they would often recline in company on the soft grass by a running stream under the branches of a tall tree and refresh their bodies pleasurably at small expense. Better still if the weather smiled upon them and the season of the year emblazoned the green herbage with flowers. [126] Then was the time for joking and talking and merry laughter. Then was the heyday of the rustic muse. Then light-hearted jollity prompted them to wreathe head and shoulders with garlands twisted of flowers and leaves and dance out of step, moving their limbs clumsily and with clumsy foot stamping on mother earth. This was matter enough for mirth and boisterous laughter. For these arts were still in their youth, with all the charm of novelty.

In the same occupation the wakeful found a means to while away their sleepless hours, pitching their voices high or low through the twisted intricacies of song and running over the pipes with curving lips. This remains a recognized tradition among watchmen to this day, and they have now learnt to keep in tune. But this does not mean that they derive any greater  enjoyment from it than did the woodland race sprung from the soil. For what we have here and now, unless we have known something more pleasing in the  past, gives the greatest satisfaction and is reckoned the best of its kind. Afterwards the discovery of something new and better blunts and vitiates our enjoyment of the old. So it is that we have lost our taste for acorns. So we have abandoned those couches littered with herbage and heaped with leaves. So the wearing of wild beasts' skins has gone out of fashion. And yet I daresay that the invention of this costume provoked such envy that its first wearer met his death in an ambush and the costume itself was so daubed with blood and torn to shreds by rival claimants that it could not be used by anyone. Skins yesterday, purple and  gold today - such are the baubles that embitter human life with resentment and waste it with war. In this, I do not doubt, the greater blame rests with us. To the earth-born generation in their naked state the lack of skins meant real discomfort through cold; but we suffer no distress by going without robes of purple, brocaded with gold and extravagant figures, so long as we have some plebeian wrap to throw around us. So mankind is perpetually the victim of a pointless and futile martyrdom, fretting life away in fruitless worries through failure to realize what limit is set to acquisition and to the growth of genuine pleasure. [127] It is this discontent that has driven life steadily onward, out to the high seas, and has stirred up from the depths the surging tumultuous tides of war.

It was the sun and moon, the watchmen of the world, encircling with their light that vast rotating vault, who taught men that the seasons of the year revolve and that there is a constant pattern in things and a constant sequence.

By this time men were living their lives fenced by fortifications and tilling an earth already parceled out and allotted. The deep sea flowered with sail-flying ships. Societies were bound together by compacts and alliances. Poets were beginning to record history in song. But letters were still a recent invention. Therefore our age cannot look back to see what happened before this stage, [128] except in so far as its traces can be uncovered by reason.

So we find that not only such arts as seafaring and agriculture, city walls and laws, weapons, roads and clothing, but also without exception the amenities and refinements of life, poetry, pictures and statues, artfully carved and polished, all were taught gradually by usage and the active mind's experiments as men groped their way forward step by step. So each particular development is brought gradually to the fore by the advance of time, and reason lifts it into the light of day. Men saw one notion after another take shape within their minds until by their arts they scaled the topmost peak. 

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