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Cicero's Doctrine of the Great Year P Document generated on 09/26/2021 11:01 p.m. Laval théologique et philosophique Cicero's Doctrine of the Great Year P. R. Coleman-Norton Volume 3, Number 2, 1947 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1019794ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1019794ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Laval théologique et philosophique, Université Laval ISSN 0023-9054 (print) 1703-8804 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Coleman-Norton, P. (1947). Cicero's Doctrine of the Great Year. Laval théologique et philosophique, 3(2), 293–302. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019794ar Tous droits réservés © Laval théologique et philosophique, Université Laval, This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit 1947 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Cicero’s Doctrine of the Great Year Among ancient authors M. Tullius Cicero appears to have the most separate references to the Great Year(annus magnus), as this celestial configuration commonly is called.1 Since mention of this theory is made only in his philosophical treatises, we may suppose not unreasonably that for Cicero this phaenomenon possessed a philosophical significance. But, on the other hand, even a casual scrutiny of Cicero’s philosophical works will show that in these there are not a few topics for which a philosophical connexion can not be claimed. If our inquiry will have supported this supposition, we shall inquire then what this doctrine meant to Cicero and how effective was Cicero’s employment of this tenet, — a subject not hith­ erto investigated. The origin of the tradition of the Great Yearadhuc is sub iudice: scholars are divided between an oriental and an occidental provenience for it.2 While our knowledge of the contribution of eastern speculation to western thought in antiquity is still somewhat scanty in spite of sweeping statements slavishly borrowed from book to book, yet especially in the astrological sector of the celestial arena is our information incomplete. From the ancient assertions, which are not likely to be augmented, until more textual treasures have been assembled, we may assume conjectures; certainty we can not attain, until more tractable testimony has been 1 So C ic e r o, Arati Phaenomena, 232;De Natura Deorum, II. 20. 51 and in another place of tins dialogue accordingServitis to (Commentarii in Vergilii Aeneida, III. 284); in Hortensius according toS er v iu s (op. cit., I. 269), but according to T acitus (Dialogus de Oratoribus, 16. 7) magnus et verus annus; De Re Publica, VI. 22. 24,vertens annus; Timaeus, 9. 33,absolutus annus perfectusque. Other variants forannus magnus are these: annus maximus (Censorin us, De Die Natali, 18. 11), which apparently represents^liyurros iviavrós in an unknown work of A r isto tele s; annus mundanus (M acrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, II. 11. 8, 10 (bis), 11, 12, 13(bis), 14, 17). So far as we know,C icero was the earliest Latin author who used this expression, for its appearance in his metrical version of Phaenomenathe ofA ratus (c. 86) ante­ dated its adoption by his younger contemporaries,L ucretiu s (De Rerum Natura, I. 1029,V. 644) and V er g iliu s (Aeneis, III. 284, which, however, refers only to the ordinary year; inEclogae, IV. 5, on the other hand, the majestic versemagnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo shows that the poet was not ignorant of the idea). On tlie Greek side we have of courseS ntyas hiavrcx from Pythagoras o f Sam os according toA e tiu s (De Placitis, II. 32. 2). Mí^os ivtavrbs (sine articulo) stands as part of the title of a work ascribedDemocritus to of Abderaby Diogenes Laertius(De Vitis et Dogmatibus et Apophthegmatibus Clarorum Philo­ sophorum, IX. 48ad init.). H . D ie ls in his Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th ed., Berlin 1934, I. 147. 1-5conjectures thatH eraclitus of Ephesusused 9«oDcnavrfc on the basis of whatA e tiu s (op. cit., II. 32. 3) and Censorinus(op. cit., 18. 10) report. FromP l a t o (Timaeus, 39 D ) comes ó t í Xm s iviavrtn. Aratus of Soli (Phaenomena, 458)uses jiaxpdjiviavrm, but also offers(op. cit., 741) piyas iviavrit, each without the article. Diodorus Siculus(Bibliotheca Historica, XII. 36. 2) has ris itiyas iviavrm. Arius Didymus(Epitomes Fragmenta Physica, 37) furnishes ó níyioToí iviavrós. Cf. Hesiodus,Theogonia, 799, for the earliest use ofpiyas with kviavrfa. For both the Latin and the Greek I have given only the earliest citation in each instance. I may add that the phrasemagnus Platonicus annus has no ancient an­ cestry, since it seems to date from the end of our sixteenth century; on its history J. A d a m in his critical edition ofThe Republic of Plato, Cambridge 1921, II. 304-305, has an illuminating instruction. 2 Since for C i c e r o this dilemma posed no difficulty and therefore was of no importance for him, it is necessary merely to refer the curious reader, who may rejoice in a roster of proponents, to the industry ofB oP. y a n c é ,who has collected some of such names in his Etudes sur le Songe de Scipion, Bordeaux 1936, p.161, nn.2, 3. 294 LAVAL THÉOLOGIQUE ET PHILOSOPHIQUE acquired. But, even if we accept the pro-oriental proponents’ position that the Greeks and through them the Romans received from the Chal- daeans their tradition about the Great Year, it can not be denied that this theory wended its way westward in time to be taken by Plato1 for his Timaeus, where we find the first full account of it in Greek,2 at least a century and perhaps two centuries ere its earliest authentic appearance east of the Aegaean.3 On the other hand, we can not claim that Plato 1 The Platonicloci concerning the Great Year are these:Politicus, 269 C - 273 E, Politeia, 546 BC,Timaeus, 38 B - 39 E. While the chronology ofP lato ’s dialogues never has been settled to the satisfac­ tion of all scholars, I adopt the order of these three as proposed byT aylor A. E. in his Plato: The Man and His Work, 2nd ed., New York 1927, pp.371, 437, where the Politicus precedes the Politeia and thePoliteia precedes the Timaeus. The clearest account of the Great Year is in the last, curiously enough, for the Timaeus is the most difficult of his dialogues to understand, even in English. We can claim with confidence thatC icer o knew Greek better than any modern scholar and, while he knew whatP lato wrote, yetC icero failed to give the readers of his version of theTimaeus a clear idea of whatP lato meant. C icero himself may have considered his translation a failure, because in telling us that obscurity may be due to abstruseness of subject and not of style he proffers in testimonyP lato ’s Timaeus (De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, II. 5. 15). This judgment is justified by St. J erom e (Sophronius E usebiu s H iero ny m u s), who calls theTimaeus anobscurissimus .. .liber... qui ne Ciceronis quidem aureo ore fit planior (Commentarii in Amos, II. 5. 283). 2 P lato concludes a description of celestial mechanics begunTimaeus, in 37 D, to illustrate the conception of Time, which came into existence along with Heaven (38 B) and which is constituted by the wanderings of the planets (39 D), with the statement that it is possible to perceive that the complete number of Time(6 rlXeos αριθμός χρόνου) fulfills the Complete Year (ό τίλκκivLavrós) at the time when the re­ lative speeds of all the eight circuits(reploSoi: of Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Whorl of Fixed Stars C[38 with Politeia, X 616 D - 617 B]), having finished together, come to a head(Ιχειν κεφαλήν, after having been measured by the revolution(<c buXos) of the Same and Similarly-Moving (39 D). SoC ic also er o, Timae­ us, 9. 33, in his version. That is to say, when all the planets, which move at va­ rious but definite speeds in one direction (36 D), and the circle of fixed stars, which surrounds these and moves in another direction (36 D), have returned simultaneous­ ly to the points whence they have started, the Great Year is accomplished. EarlierP lato appears to have considered the duration of the Great Year in his Politeia, VIII. 546 C, in a passage which not only has puzzled many commentators but also has defied some translators. But taken in conjunction with the myth of two cycles of equal and enormous duration Politicus,in his 269 C - 273 E, it seems that each of the two harmonies (one a square and one an oblong)Politeia of the (loc. cit.) represents a Great Year. FromP lato ’s matnematical maze the Great Year then may be calculated at 36,000 ordinary years. The evidence on this point is presented elaborately byA dam , op. cit., II. 206-208, 295-305. But, on the other hand, there is not sufficient testimony to connect this figure with the riXeosbiavris as found in theTimaeus, where the phrase is set in a purely planetary sense. On this observation one may consultA. E. T aylor’s A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Oxford 1928, pp.216-219.
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