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35 Otherwise, "while you consider, while you are yet alive, poor wretches, what is threatening after death."
36 Some read, "with shivering."
37 This is otherwise read, "Academic Pyrrhonists."
38 Cicero, de Natura Deorum, i. 22.
39 "Plautinae prosapiae." The expression is intended as a reproach against the humble occupations of many of the Christian professors. Plautus is said, when in need, to have laboured at a baker's hand-mill. Caecilius tells Octavius that he may be the first among the millers, but he is the last among the philosophers. Stieber proposes "Christianorum" instead of "pistorum" - "Christians" instead of "millers."
44 Some read "cavillaverit" instead of "vacillaverit," which would give the sense, "make captious objections."
45 This is otherwise given "certainty," which helps the meaning of the passage.
46 Otherwise, "Far from his guileless subtlety is so crafty a trickery." But the readings are very unsettled.
49 According to some, "point out" or "indicate."
50 Olives ripen in the month of December.
51 [In the case of Darius Hystaspes.]
54 According to some, "one fate."
55 These words are omitted by some editors.
56 Homer, Odyss., xviii. 136, 137.
58 Some read, "For these things are true."
59 Virgil, Georgics, iv. 221; Aeneid, i. 743.
61 The ms. here inserts, "Aristoteles of Pontus varies, at one time attributing the supremacy to the world, at another to the divine mind." Some think that this is an interpolation, others transfer the words to Theophrastus below.
62 Otherwise, "Aristo the Chian."
63 [See note on Plato, chap. xxvi.]
64 Some editors read, "mere wonders," apparently on conjecture only.
66 Four early editions read "instantius" for "in statuis," making the meaning probably, "more keenly," "more directly."
67 Otherwise, according to some, "of the historians."
68 This treatise is mentioned by Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christ., ch. xxviii. [See vol. ii. p. 143, this series.] Also by Augustine, de Civ. Dei., lib. viii. ch. iii. and xxvii. In the fifth chapter Augustine calls the priest by the name of Leo.
69 This passage is very doubtful both in its text and its meaning.
70 Otherwise, "carried about."
71 Otherwise, "his approach is drowned."
72 Otherwise, "do they not show what are the sports and the honours of your gods?"
73 These words are very variously read. Davis conjectures that they should be, "When Feretrius, he does not hear," and explains the allusion as follows: that Jupiter Feretrius could only be approached with the spolia opima; and Minucius is covertly ridiculing the Romans, because, not having taken spolia opima for so long a time, they could not approach Feretrius.
74 Otherwise, "pointed out," or "designated."
75 Otherwise corrupted into Aetna.
76 Some read, "and it is marvellous how these have prejudiced," etc.
77 Some read, "the truth itself."
79 Otherwise, "Then Vulcan fabricates," etc.
81 "Be created" is a more probable reading.
82 Otherwise, "that he had rashly been so deceived by the artificer in the material, as to make a god."
83 [Footbaths. See vol. ii., Theophilus, p. 92, and Athenagoras, p. 143.]
86 Some read "probra" for "morbos," scil. "reproaches."
87 Reipublicae; but it is shrewdly conjectured that the passage was written, "cum majore R. P. parte" - "with the greater part of the Roman people," and the mistake made by the transcriber of the ms.
89 [Octavius and Minucius had but one mind (see cap. i. supra), and both were philosophers of the Attic Academy reflecting Cicero. See my remarks on Athenagoras, vol. ii. p. 126, this series.]
90 According to some editors, "warns us that the desire of love is received."