78. PYTHAGORAN: see n. to 23. No ancient philosopher held more firmiy than Pythagoras to belief in the immortality of the soul; it formed a part of his doctrine of Metempsychosis. He was also noted for his numerical speculations in Astronomy and Music. With him is said to have originated the doctrine of the 'harmony of the spheres'. -- QUI ESSENT: 'inasmuch as they were'. Cicero often tries to make out a connection between Pythagoras and the early Romans; cf. Tusc. 4, 2; also Liv. 1, 18. -- EX UNIVERSA MENTE: the world-soul. Diog. Laert 8 gives as Pythagorean the doctrine ψυχην ειναι αποσπασμα του αιθερος και αθανατον. Similar doctrines occur in Plato and the Stoics; cf. Div. 1, 110 _a qua (i.e. a natura deorum) ut doctissimis sapientissimisque placuit, haustos animos et libatos habemus_; Tusc. 5, 38 _humanus animus decerptus ex mente divina_; Sen. Dial. 12, 6, 7. -- HABEREMUS: imperfect where the English requires the present. A. 287, _d_; H. 495, V. -- SOCRATES: in Plato's Phaedo. -- IMMORTALITATE ANIMORUM: this is commoner than _immortalitas animi_, for 'the immortality of the soul'; so Lael. 14; Tusc. 1, 80 _aeternitas animorum_. -- DISSERUISSET: subjunctive because involving the statements of some other person than the speaker. A. 341, _c_; G. 630; H. 528, 1. -- IS QUI ESSET etc.: 'a man great enough to have been declared wisest'. See n. on Lael. 7 _Apollinis ... iudicatum_. -- SIC: cf. _ita_ above. -- CELERITAS ANIMORUM: the ancients pictured to themselves the mind as a substance capable of exceedingly rapid movement; cf. Tusc. 1, 43 _nulla est celeritas quae possit cum animi celeritate contendere_. -- TANTAE SCIENTIAE: as the plural of _scientia_ is almost unknown in classical Latin, recent editors take _scientiae_ here as genitive, 'so many arts requiring so much knowledge'. In favor of this interpretation are such passages as Acad. 2, 146 _artem sine scientia esse non posse_; Fin. 5, 26 _ut omnes artes in aliqua scientia versentur_. Yet in De Or. 1, 61 _physica ista et mathematica et quae paulo ante ceterarum artium propria posuisti, scientiae sunt eorum qui illa profitentur_ it is very awkward to take _scientiae_ as genitive. -- CUMQUE SEMPER etc.: this argument is copied very closely from Plato's Phaedrus, 245 C. -- PRINCIPIUM MOTUS: αρχη κινησεως in Plato. -- SE IPSE: cf. n. on 4 _a se ipsi_. -- CUM SIMPLEX etc: from Plato's Phaedo, 78-80. The general drift of the argument is this: material things decay because they are compounded of parts that fall asunder; there is nothing to show that the soul is so compounded; therefore no reason to believe that it will so decay. Notice the imperfects _esset ... haberet ... posset_ accommodated to the tense of _persuasi_ above, although the other subjunctives in the sentence are not; cf. n. on 42 _efficeret_. -- NEQUE ... DISSIMILE: in modern phraseology the whole of this clause would be briefly expressed thus, -- 'and was homogeneous'. --