a theophrastean excursus on god and nature and its aftermath in hellenistic thought

A Theophrastean Excursus on God and Nature and Its Aftermath in Hellenistic ThoughtAuthor(s): Jaap MansfeldSource: Phronesis, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1992), pp. 314-335Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182418 .

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A Theophrastean Excursus on God and Nature and its Aftermath in Hellenistic Thought*

JAAP MANSFELD

1. Theophrastus

An English translation of a fuller Arabic version of Theophrastus' Meta- rsiology, probably by Ibn al-Khammar, has been made available by Hans Daiber, who re-edits the fragmentary Syriac version and for the first time provides an edition of the complete Arabic text, with admirable introduction and commentary.' It now is certain (as already intuited by Berg- strasser) that this text is not an epitomized fragment of the Physikai Doxai. Bergstrasser's editio princeps and German translation with some comments of the abridged Arabic version of Bar Bahlil as well as the edition, German translation and more extensive commentary by Wagner and Steinmetz of the mutilated Syriac version discovered by Drossaart Lulofs are super- seded.2 Daiber argues that we now have the Metarsiology as Theophrastus

* This paper is based on a lecture given at Firenze 25 February 1992, in the context of an Erasmus programme directed by Antonina Alberti and sponsored by the EEC and the Philosophy Department of the University of Firenze. It is dedicated to my friends and colleagues at Firenze Bologna Pisa. ' H. Daiber, 'The Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation', in W.W. Fortenbaugh - D. Gutas (eds.), Theophrastus: His Psychological Doxographical and Scientific Writings, Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities Vol. V (1992) 166-293. 1 am very grateful to Hans Daiber for a preview of this highly important contribution. A facsimile of one manuscript of the fuller version was published by F. Sezgin in 1984; Daiber discovered several more. For details about the three versions see Daiber 170 ff., 199 ff., 218 ff. 2 G. Bergstrasser, 'Neue meteorologische Fragmente des Theophrast arabisch und deutsch', SB Heid. Phil.-hist. KI. 1918.9 (Heidelberg 1918) 10 ff.; English translation in C. Bailey, T. Lucretii Cari De rerum natura Vol. III, Commentary to Bks. Ill-VI (Oxford 1947, repr. 1966) 1745 ff. Bergstrasser knew one bad ms; a second and somewhat better ms was discovered later. H. Drossaart Lulofs, 'The Syriac Translation of Theophrastus' Meteorology', in Autour d'Aristote, Festschrift A. Mansion (Leuven 1955) 433 ff. E. Wagner - P. Steinmetz, 'Der syrische Auszug der Meteorologie des Theophrast', Abh. Mainz Geist.-sozialwiss. KI. 1964.1 (Wiesbaden 1964); Steinmetz' commentary remains

314 Phronesis 1992. Vol. XXXV1/3 (Accepted June 1992)



wrote it, that is to say the whole treatise,3 but this I believe can hardly be correct. The bibliography at Diogenes Laertius V 44 (Theophr. fr. 137.15a Fortenbaugh) has it consist of two books (METCtQLOkoyLXLv W'p3'), and Plut. Quaest. graec. 292C (fr. 192 Fort.) even refers to a fourth. Daiber says that according to Diogenes Laertius the treatise has "two parts" and that the final chapter, on earthquakes, is its second part.4 Plutarch's ?EV TETCaQTn

may perhaps be discounted as a mistake, but "books" not "parts" is what is meant in Diogenes Laertius and the chapter on earthquakes, though not small, is far too short to count as a book. What is more, several important meteorological phenomena discussed e.g. in Aristotle's Meteorology I-III, in Epicurus' Letter to Pythocles (correctly assumed by the majority of scholars to be indebted to Theophrastus' treatise),5 in Lucretius VI, in Seneca's Natural Questions and in Aetius' Placita III are lacking in Ibn al-Khammar's version. The rainbow, for instance, treated at length at Arist. Mete. III 4-5, and at lesser length at Epic. Ad Pythocl. 109.9-110.7

useful. Testimonia regarding the Metarsiology are at W.W. Fortenbaugh - P.M. Huby - R.W. Sharples - D. Gutas, Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence Pt.l, Philosophia antiqua Vol. LIV,I (Leiden 1992) 357 ff.

Daiber (supra, n. 1) 284, 287. Daiber (supra, n. 1n) 285. See e.g. Bergstrasser (supra, n.2) 28 ff. (including F. Boll's remarks); L. Robin in A.

Ernout - L. Robin, Lucrece: De rerum natura, Commentaire critique et exegetique T. III (Paris 1928, repr. 1962) 199 ff., 213 ff., 224 ff. (note that Robin only knew Bergstrasser's Bar Bahlul); the occasional references in Bailey's Commentary (supra, n.2); the appara- tus fontium et parallelorum in E. Boer, Epikur: Brief an Pythokles (Berlin 1954, still based on Bergstrasser's Bar Bahlul); Steinmetz' commentary in Wagner - Steinmetz (supra, n.2) 34 ff.; G. Arrighetti, Epicuro: Opere (Torino 21973) 524 f., who refers both to Bergstrasser's Bar Bahlul and to the Syriac fragment; and Daiber's succinct commentary in his edition (supra, n. 1) 272 ff. E. Reizenstein, Theophrast bei Epikur und Lukrez, Orient und Antike 2 (Heidelberg 1924), in many ways useful, should never- theless be consulted with caution. J. Bollack - A. Laks, Epicure a Pythoclhs: Sur la cosmologie et les phenomenes meteorologiques, Cahiers de Philologie 1 (Lille 1978) 20 briefly refer to the "fragment arabe et syriaque sur la meteorologie" which - as Reizen- stein and others before them - they wrongly believe to belong with the Physikai (or, as they say, Physikon) Doxai, but take no further notice. D. Clay, Lucretius and Epicurus (Ithaca/London 1983) 24, 210 ff., who as to the Ad Pythocl. is influenced by Bollack - Laks, dismisses the evidence of Bar Bahltul and of the Syriac fragment in a cavalier way; on the other hand, these texts are adduced passim in N. Gross, Senecas Naturales Quaestiones, Palingenesia XXVI1 (Wiesbaden 1989). - Because the Ad Pythocl. also discusses celestial phenomena, one may perhaps assume that to some extent it is based on Theophrastus' lost De caelo as well (testimonia at Fortenbaugh et al. (supra, n.2) 278, 319 ff.).

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Arr., is conspicuously absent.6 The treatise in the form in which it survives also lacks the introductory and concluding remarks which are standard in Theophrastean works extant in Greek. It begins abruptly with "the account of the causes of thunder".' Accordingly I assume that what survives is an abridged Metarsiology; leaving out entire sections is after all one of the ancient ways of fabricating an epitome.8 But there is no reason to assume that the chapters that are left have been abridged. Bar Bahlil's version however is a sort of epitomized Ibn al-Khammar, that is to say an abbreviat- ed translation of a Syriac original of which Ibn al-Khammar provides a full translation.

In the present paper I am concerned with a section that is entirely new to us because it has been omitted by Bar Bahluil and the one and only ms of the Syriac version lacks the final pages. It is found in Daiber's penultimate chapter, viz. [141, "the account of the halo around the moon". Daiber correctly points out that it does not fit this chapter, for it is not concerned with this halo.9 Because it deals at some length with thunderbolts (Greek x?QavvoQ), Daiber argues that it should probably be reallocated to the beginning of the treatise, which has a long and interesting chapter on thunderbolts, viz. [6]. But to the present writer it seems more likely that this piece of theological reflection, which in many ways reminds one of the concluding chapter of Theophrastus' Metaphysics, originally was the final chapter not of the first but of the second book of the Metarsiology. This

6 P. Steinmetz, Die Physik des Theophrastos von Eresos, Palingenesia I (Bad Homburg etc. 1964) 201 f. argues that Arius Didymus in fr. 14 Diels ap. Stob. 1 241.22-4 W. (D. G. 455.14-6) has preserved a version of Theophrastus' definition of the rainbow. The argument is that this definition differs from Aristotle's in precisely the same way as that of the halo of the moon at Metars. [14J differs from Aristotle's; the rainbow is explained by means of the reflection of the light of the sun, not as caused by that of the visual ray. Though Arius Didymus in this fragment under the heading Aristotle indeed includes a post-Aristotelian Peripatetic view, one cannot be sure it has to be attributed to Theo- phrastus, but the idea is very attractive. In support one may adduce ps.Arist. De mund. 4.395a32-b3, where the explanation of the halo is Theophrastus' and that of the rainbow is the same as the anonymous explanation in Arius Didymus. ' This may be the original first chapter; the meteorology at Lucr. VI 96 ff. too begins with thunder and its causes. 8 Accordingly, Ibn al-Khammar's version is to some extent comparable with the Arabic translation of the Greek original of an Epitome of Aristotle's Meteorology, though here individual sections have been abridged as well. Edited and translated with introduction and commentary by H. Daiber, Ein Kompendium der aristotelischen Meteorologie in der Fassung des Hunain ibn Ishdq, Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus, Prolegomena et parerga I, Verh. KNAW Afd. Lett. N.R. 89 (Amsterdam/Oxford 1975). 9 Daiber (supra, n.1) 280.

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would entail that the chapter on earthquakes, viz. [151, is all that remains of the meteorological doctrines of book two, which originally may have included treatment of other so-called terrestrial phenomena, e.g. "the ad- vances and regressions of the sea and the extensions of the land".'1

Before turning to this important new section of the text, I must quote a passage from ch. [6]." Theophrastus here deals with two problems'2 (i.e. queries of an imaginary participant in a dialectical discussion) which he solves by giving an explanation in physical terms which is consistent with the aetiology of thunderbolts in terms of wind, clouds and fire that has been provided:

When (68) <someone> demands that we give the reason why thunderbolts are more frequent (69) in the spring, we can answer: For the thunderbolts to arise, clouds, (70) wind and fire are required; during winter clouds and winds exist, (71) not however much fire because of excessive coldness; but during (72) summer there is much fire, whereas no clouds can be found (73). However, because spring is a moderate and temperate time, one can find in it (74) enough fire, clouds and winds. '

When moreover someone demands that we give the reason (75) why thunderbolts are more frequent in high places,'4 (76) we can answer: That happens for two causes: firstly, because in high places (77) there are many winds and clouds; the thunderbolts come from them. (78) Secondly, because high places are close to the clouds, but low places (79) are remote from them. Therefore thunderbolts reach (80) the high places before they are dissipated; they do not reach the low places, (81) because they dissolve before that.

We may now turn to the remarkable new passage which is the second part of ch. [141:1s

These instances of what is TeE TT)V yfv are at Theophr. Met. 9. 10a27-b2; for the correct translation and interpretation see J. Vallance, 'Theophrastus and the Study of the Intractable', in W.W. Fortenbaugh - R.W. Sharples (eds.), Theophrastean Studies: On Natural Science, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Religion and Rhetoric, Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities Vol. III (New Brunswick/Oxford 1988) 28 ff. We must observe that Aristotle discusses such phenomena at the end of the first and in the first half of the second book of his Meteorology: rivers and springs in 1 13, climatic changes, coast erosion and silting in 1 14, the sea in 11 1-3 and earthquakes in II 7-8. " Lacking in Bar BahlfluBergstrasser, but for the most part preserved in the Syriac version translated by Wagner (352bIO-23) and completely preserved in Ibn al-Khammar. I quote Daiber's text and numeration; italics are mine. I? Some remarks at Steinmetz (supra, n.6) 180 f.

Steinmetz in Wagner - Steinmetz (supra, n.2) 48-9 has noticed the parallel at Lucr. VI 357 ff.; see however infra, text to n.34. " Steinmetz in Wagner - Steinmetz (supra, n.2) 49 has also noticed the parallel in Epic. Ad Pythocl. at Diog. Laert. X 103. See however infra, text to n.29. " I again quote Daiber's text and numeration; italics are mine.

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(14) Neither the thunderbolt (pi.) nor anything that has been mentioned has its origin in God. For it is (15) not correct (to say) that God should be the cause of disorder in the world: nay, (He is) the cause (16) of its arrangement and order. And that is why we ascribe its arrangements and order to God (17) and the disorder of the world to the nature of the world.

And moreover: (18) if thunderbolts originate in God, why do they mostly occur (19) during spring or in high places, but not (20) during winter or summer or in low places?

In addition: (21) why do thunderbolts fall on uninhabited mountains, on (22) seas. on trees and on irrational living beings? God (23) is not angry with those! Further, more astonishing would be the fact that thunderbolts (24) can strike the best people and those who fear God, (25) but not those who act unjustly and propagate evil. It is thus not right to (26) say <about> hurricanes that they come from God; (we may) only (say the following) about something that happens to us (27) to our harm or that diminishes divine power: It happens (28) without any order.

Consequently there is no indication of passing away in the case of God and any (29) indication of being like an angel (= godlike) is to be removed from us.'6

The first thing to be pointed out is that though thunderbolts figure very prominently in this passage, Theophrastus not only mentions hurricanes as well ([14] 26) but also includes other phenomena that have been explained in a scientific way in what came before, for he begins by saying ([141 14) that "neither the thunderbolt (p1.) nor anything that has been mentioned has its origin in God" (my italics). If, as I believe, the second part of ch. [141 originally was the conclusion of the treatise, the backward reference would include earthquakes - very frightening phenomena indeed. Earthquakes in the context of traditional Greek religion are explained as expressions of divine anger, and the thunderbolt is Zeus' main instrument. But Theo- phrastus' explanation is entirely in terms of rationalist physics. One may observe that the third argument explaining the origin of the conception of the gods ascribed to Cleanthes at Cic. De nat. deor. II 14 (SVF 1 528) is based on the "terror inspired by thunderbolts, hurricanes, rain, snow, hail,

Ih This sentence is a bit difficult. Daiber, op.cit. (supra, n. 1) 219 points out that the translator "follows the practice of the school of the Christian translator Hunain lbn Ishaq (808-873) in Baghdad by using the substitute "angel" for "god"". Dr Schofield wondered whether the meaning could be in passing away [sc. death by thunderbolt, hurricane etc. I there is no sign of god [sc. god's handiwork], and any inference that this is something divine is to be abandoned by us". At my request, Prof Daiber has kindly looked at the text again, and informs me that he sees no grounds for modifying his translation. He writes that the interpretation has to be that according to Theophrastus God cannot be thought of as the cause of passing away (this is also Schofield's view), and that man is not godlike as even the best people may be hit by thunderbolts. See also his note ad loc., op.cit. 281 (critique of the Platonic notion of "being made like God").

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floods" and other meteorological phenomena such as earthquakes and comets (also moreover by pestilence and monstrous births etc.).'7 This argument is cavalierly dismissed in two sentences at De nat. deor. III 16-17; as to such disasters (perturbationibus caelestibus et maritimis et terrenis), one cannot deny that many people fear them and believe them to be caused by the gods, but the issue is not what any number of people believe but whether or not the gods exist.

At first glance, Cleanthes' view seems to be the perfect opposite of Theophrastus' and much different from that of Seneca, yet to be discussed. But one does not know that, or to what extent, he believed these fears to be justified, although according to his Hymn the thunderbolt is the instrument with which Zeus directs what occurs in the physical world (SVF I 537, p. 122.5-7). The very fullness of this list of terrifying meteorological (and other)'8 phenomena as reported by Cicero is perhaps a further argument in favour of the assumption that ch. 114] pt. 2 of the Metarsiology was the concluding chapter of the treatise. For what follows however the question whether it stood at the end of the first or of the second book is irrelevant.

Theophrastus argues that there is nothing that is divine or intentional about meteorological phenomena. The same physicalist view underlies Aristotle's exposition in Mete. I-III, but he never formulates it in an explicit

1' A form of this explanation of the origin of religion is ascribed to Democritus by Sext. M.IX 24 (Vorsokr. 68A75, V' text); here thunder, lightning, comets (60oTQwv avv66oug, cf. Arist. Mete. I 6.342b27 f. and Aet. III 2.2, not in the Democritus chapter but at Vorsokr. 59A81) and eclipses of sun and moon are mentioned as inspiring human fear (for the other half of Democritus' explanation see the better text of Vorsokr. 68A75 = Philod. De piet. 5d p. 69 Gomperz as published and explained by A. Henrichs, 'Two Doxographical Notes: Democritus and Prodicus on Religion', HSCP 79 (1975) 96 ff.). One may assume that Democritus argued that there is nothing divine about these phenomena, and that Theophrastus had seen this argument. See also infra, n.60. It is quite likely that Cleanthes knew the views of Democritus, Critias (see infra, n.20) and Theophrastus. De nat. deor. 11 14 is discussed by M. Dragona-Monachou, The Stoic Arguments for the Existence and the Providence of the Gods (Athens 1976) 82 ff., who argues that Cleanthes' argument is hard to reconcile with his known views about the nature of the divine or indeed with Stoic philosophy in general; she therefore suggests that it is directed against Epicurus. But Epicurus never denied that phenomena such as these are important from the point of view of the psychology of religion. "' Dragona-Monachou (see previous n.) and others have spoken of the Roman flavour of the illustrations listed by Cicero as given by Cleanthes. This is correct as to the portents and unnatural monstrosities; the combination of exceptional meteorological phenomena and pestilence can be paralleled from Polyb. XXXVI 17.2 (who however puts the god and fortune on a par: nFirL Toiirwv Lows 'av TLtg &noQdV W i T6V Or.6v &vaToe'av toLoLLatL xaQL tiv tIvXTIv).

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way. Theophrastus fills in this gap. We note that though he mentions hurricanes and refers to other phenomena his well-constructed exposition is focused on thunderbolts. He provides a set of arguments proving that it is absurd to assume that God throws thunderbolts because he is angry and really means to hit whatever is hit. He begins by asking why (1) thunderbolts are most frequent in spring or why (2) they fall most frequently on high places. These two problems, as we have noticed, had been solved in physicalist terms in ch. [6], which undoubtedly is the reason why he begins with them here. Next, he elaborates by asking why uninhabited mountains, (3) seas, (4) trees and animals are also hit. The "uninhabited mountains" take up the high places mentioned before, but with an important emphasis: there is no one around whom the angry divinity might wish to punish. I consider the reference to the seas a third argument because it is not a high but a low place. Trees and animals are mostly found in low places, and it would of course be absurd to ascribe the intention to punish these innocents to God.

It is clear that this list of the times when thunderbolts are most frequent and of the places and the things that are hit most frequently or without any intention has been compiled by a natural scientist whose mental view encompasses the whole inanimate and animate world. As a fifth point, Theophrastus adds (5) that it is absurd to assume that God spares the sinners and punishes the righteous. The argument as a whole is a revision of one already attested in Aristophanes, who at Clouds 398-402 has Socrates (who as we know in this play figures as a natural philosopher)19 point out that Zeus spares the perjurers but strikes his own temple and the promonto- ry of Sunium, and blasts high oaks that are innocent of perjury. Other early versions of what Aristophanes' Socrates affirms in this passage will no doubt have existed.20 The important difference, anyway, is that in Theo-

'9 Note moreover that at Nub. 404-7 Socrates gives a scientific answer of a Presocratic stamp to the question TL ... o-tv . .. 6 xeLavv6g (Nub. 403), and that the Peripatetic explanations of this phenomenon are indebted to the ideas of the Presocratics. 20 At Vorsokr. 88 B 25.29-32 (from Critias' Sisyphus) the person who is said to have invented the gods has them dwell in heaven, because he knows humans are afraid of lightning and thunder. For an educated guess at what the traditionalist's response to Aristophanes' Socrates might have resembled see K.J. Dover. Aristophanes: Clouds (Oxford 1970) 153 on Nub. 403. For the point about the temples in Lucretius see infra, n.36. Diagoras, one of the standard atheists, is said to have come round to the view that the gods do not exist when he was wronged by someone who then commited perjury and was not punished (Sext. M. IX 53). See also Eurip. fr. 286 N., where the speaker denies that the gods exist because tyrants, though they commit murder and perjury, and steal, and plunder cities, live happier lives than pious people. This perennial query about

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phrastus this point explicitly belongs with a statement of principle concerned with the nature of things in general. Phenomena, or rather epiphe- nomena, such as thunderbolts and hurricanes (and, as I assume, other natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods) that kill humans indis- criminately are to be explained in an entirely neutral and scientific way; there is nothing about them that is intentional or in any way related to questions of morality. In other words, though these phenomena all do have causes, we may say that they lack a purpose or 'end' (TEXog). One cannot avoid being reminded of the famous passage in Plato's Phaedo 97a ff., where Socrates speaks of his high expectations when first learning that Anaxagoras had introduced Mind as the cause in Nature. He assumed that Anaxagoras would explain in what way Mind "ordered everything ... as it was best that it should be, so that if anyone wanted to find out the cause of anything, how it came to be or passed away or existed, he just had to find out what kind of being was best for it". But he was very much disappointed, because Anaxagoras did not use Mind at all when it came to the details but introduced "airs and aethers and waters and a lot of other odd things as causes".' Apart from the Phaedo passage, one may also recall the extensive discussion about the existence and providential activities of the gods and of soul (qua self-moved mover and cause of motion) in book ten of the Laws, 885c5 ff. The philosophers of nature are here lumped together as atheists. At 886d we inter alia have a clear reference to Anaxagoras (whose name is not mentioned), because the atheists are said to hold that the heavenly bodies are "earth and stones"; see also 895a6, where the famous formula "all things together" is quoted. We also hear (889bc) that these men ascribe the natural phenomena and motions to nature, chance and necessity (e.g. 889c1-2, xaTa' T6XqVEv at vayx-r), a clear reference to the

divine justice often crops up in Plato as well; see e.g. Laws X 905c. See further Cic. De natur. deor. III 79-85 and note the remark, ibid. 84, that Jove failed to punish the sacrilegious tyrant Dionysius I with his thunderbolt (hunc igitur nec Olympius luppiter filmine percussit) and the notes in A.S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De natura deorum (Cambridge Mass. 1955-58 and later repr.) 1199 f. Cf. further esp. Aet. 1 7.10. That bad people may enjoy good fortune is a premise of the argument at Magn. mor. II 8 partly quoted infra, n.26. 2' Simplic. In Phys. 177.9 ff. points out that this critique is unfair: "what Socrates in the Phaedo criticizes Anaxagoras for, viz. that he uses materialist explanations not Mind in the individual etiologies, is something that after all is proper to physics (o'Leiov 1'jv (pUoLoXoyLciL). Even Plato himself in the Timaeus only introduces the Efficient Cause of all things in a general way, but when it comes to the details he introduces differences of corpuscles and shapes as the causes of heat and cold, and he proceeds in exactly the same way in regard to the other (natural phenomena)".

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Atomist view, and that natural phenomena and processes according to them are produced and occur "neither through mind . . . nor through a god", so lack both purpose and intention.22 We must note that these atheist natural philosophers are already Plato's opponents at Soph. 265cd; they hold that all things are produced "by a spontaneous cause which makes them grow without intention (avFv b&avofag)".

Plato's Socrates in the Phaedo is concerned with purpose, or intention, in Nature, and he wants it whole. The Athenian stranger in the Laws argues forcefully - though in entirely general terms - in favour of intentionality, that is to say of the view that things in the cosmos are taken care of by the divinity down to its smallest parts, for instance human beings (892b, 897c, 899b, 900c-901d, 903bd). Even what is not good is not devoid of intentionality, because it is caused by an evil soul (e.g. 897dl).

Theophrastus' view is a more nuanced one. In his Metarsiology, the "odd things" of the Phaedo passage make their come-back, because, as he argues, though some things are for a purpose, or for the best, others definitely are not. Thunderbolts according to him are side-effects which come about in a variety of ways - some rather regular, others highly erratic. They regularly occur in spring or fall on high places because on these occasions we have the most suitable initial conditions for their coming to be or hitting something. These initial conditions themselves, however, are instances of the sort of irregularities that are found on and in the earth and in what is close to it. Theophrastus follows, and to some extent improves on, Aristotle by insisting that though numerous events in our environment occur for a purpose, that is to say in an orderly and regular way, there are also numerous quite common phenomena that are hard or even impossible to explain as being directed at some end or other. They occur as "side- effects or inevitably".23 This, at any rate, is his view in the final chapter of his Metaphysics.24 The present passage in the Metarsiology goes even fur-

22 See also infra, n.32. W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. V: The Later Plato and the Academy (Cambridge 1978 and later repr.) 361 f. insists that Plato's opponents here are not just the Sophists but also "Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxag- oras" etc. See further F. Solmsen, Plato's Theology (Ithaca 1942, repr. New York 1967) 148 ff., who adduces 903b-04a and points out (ibid. 154) that for Plato not soul but the Demiurge is "the designer ... of the teleological world-order"; but in the Laws this Demiurge "does not bother at all" "about material forces in the Universe" (ibid. 156). 23 Met. 9.10a26-7, T\a pv oUtT WatLxCg, T'a b'&v6yxn tIVL.

24 See esp. Vallance (supra, n.10) 25 ff. on Theophr. Met. 9; also compare G. Most, 'The Relative Date of Theophrastus' Metaphysics', in Fortenbaugh - Sharples (supra, n. 10) 225 ff., and L. Repici, 'Limits of Teleology in Theophrastus' Metaphysics?, AGPh 72 (1990) 182 ff. I add in passing that the arguments of Most and others in favour of an early

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ther in that it is even more explicit about the involvement of the divine. God is the cause of arrangement and order in the cosmos; what is disorderly is due to the nature of the cosmos itself. The constraints are that what is to be ascribed to God should, in the terminology of the Metaphysics chapter, be "always uniform and unvaried".25 In the Metarsiology chapter, Theophras- tus points out that there are limits to divine power.26 Again, at Met. 9.11b6-10 he refers approvingly to the view of those who, though they "ascribe causation to God, hold that even God cannot guide everything to what is best; but that if He does so at all, it is only so far as is possible".27 There are unmistakable echoes here of the Timaeus, but in an entirely Peripatetic setting. What is especially noteworthy is that Theophrastus, unlike Aristotle, seems to suggest (with tantalizing brevity) that "coinci- dence and inevitability" are not only found in most terrestrial phenomena but to some extent also among celestial phenomena.28 It would follow that God is the cause of order and regularity in both the celestial and the

date for the Met., viz. to the period immediately before the redaction of Aristotle's Hist. animal. etc., are not entirely cogent. It seems better to take the information deriving from Nicolaus of Damascus preserved in the scholium at the end of the Met. seriously and to assume that the Sitz im Leben of this short tract is to serve as a sort of introduction to the study of, or afterword to, e.g. Arist. Met. A. For the study of Aristotle's treatises in the schools of his pupils we have some evidence in the report about the correspondence between Eudemus and Theophrastus at Simplic. In Phys. 923.7 ff. = Eudem. fr. 6 Wehrli. 25Met. 9. 10b20, aEEi XaT6 lauta XClL 6jo3rTw. On this surprisingly Platonic formula (cf. e.g. Laws X 898a8-9) see Most (supra, n.24) 228 f.; one may indeed assume that Theophrastus did think of Plato's well-known views as expressed in e.g. the Phaedo and Laws X (see supra, text to nn.21-22). 26 [ 141 26-7, "something . . . that diminishes divine power". A related point of view is expressed in the discussion of good fortune in the Early Peripatetic Magna moralia B 8.1207a7 ff.; "if God is the disposer of such things, he assigns both good and evil in accordance with desert, whereas chance and the things of chance do really occur as it may chance. But if we assign such a dispensation to God, we shall be making him a bad judge or else unjust. And this is not befitting to God. ...] Nature, then, is left as being most connected with good fortune" (rev. Oxford transl., my emphasis). 27 Tr. Ross-Fobes. 28 Met. 9. 10a27, 'v . . . TOL; oieQavVoLq (cf. also 1 lb17 ff., where it is affirmed that among sensibles the things in the heavens possess order to the highest degree that is possible). One may for instance think of the eclipses of the sun and the moon (found frightening and explained in religious terms by some people) which are necessary side-effects but serve no particular purpose. Also compare the difficult discussion of the varieties of the celestial motions and the remark that circular motion is not the best motion there is (there being one better kind of motion, viz. that of the soul) in Met. 2. In Met. 9 only instances of gross terrestrial irregularities are given.

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terrestrial spheres, but that irregularity is quite common under the moon and that beyond the moon perhaps not all things are entirely optimal. We shall see presently to what extent this hint was taken up and pursued by others.

2. Epicurus and Theophrastus

In the Epitome of Epicurus' views on cosmology, astronomy and meteorology, the Letter to Pythocles,29 the account of the thunderbolt is quite brief (103.4-104.4 Arr.). The various causal explanations of the phenomenon submitted resemble those proposed by Theophrastus. Because of Daiber's new text, we are now in a position to pinpoint a precise echo. At Metars. [6] 75, Theophrastus says that "thunderbolts are more frequent in high places". At Metars. [14] 19 he again speaks of "high places", which at [14] 21 he further specifies as "uninhabited mountains". Epicurus says that clouds may be compressed, "often against some high mountain, where thunderbolts mostly fall".' This sentence was athetized as a gloss by Usener (followed by a hesitant Bailey)," but the parallel in Theophrastus proves him wrong. Epicurus adds without going into the details that further explanations of the thunderbolt are feasible, "provided myth be excluded". This statement, compared with what Theophrastus has to say about thunderbolts and God, is lapidary to a degree, but we should recall that the Letter is an epitome and that in his introduction and elsewhere in the Ad Pythocl. Epicurus makes this point much more explicit. It is of course a well-known fact that he removes the gods from the cosmos and that his main purpose in circulating this epitome is to assist his followers in achieving tranquillity of mind. The gods, or "myth", i.e. the traditional religious and a number of philosophical explanations of the cosmic phenomena must be kept at bay. There is no reason whatever to be afraid of divine anger.

The publication of the complete remains of the Metarsiology, including the important theological excursus in ch. [14], which now we may link with the parallel passages in the Metaphysics, enables us to see for the first time

' Assuming it to be genuine, which after all is the most likely assumption. It must at any rate be earlier than the generation of Philodemus' teachers. For its dependence on Theophrastus see supra, n.5 and text thereto. 3 103.11-104.1 Arr., -to TV nokU nQ6g 6Qog xt iUV-kov, ?v W, tlalkfla XEQaVvot nt7rrouoLv. 3' C. Bailey, Epicurus: The Extant Remains (Oxford 1926 repr. Hildesheim etc. 1989) 307. The sentence is bracketed in the Loeb Diogenes Laertius but kept by Boer and Arrighetti and of course by Bollack - Laks.

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to what extent Epicurus is indebted not only to his Atomist predecessors (or to the position Plato in Laws X ascribes to the natural philosophers in general)32 but also to Theophrastus. This is not merely a matter of Theo- phrastean pluralities of causes of single phenomena, or of specific causal explanations. Theophrastus argues that God is not causally or intentionally involved with meteorological phenomena such as thunderbolts, hurricanes etc., and that perhaps even in the celestial regions not all things occur according to intentions one might be tempted to ascribe to the divinity. Epicurus accepts this, but goes several highly important steps further. Theophrastus was prepared to have the responsibility for all that is orderly in the cosmos rest with God and to accept that the celestial phenomena are far more regular than the terrestrial, and so more divine. Epicurus is capable of integrating Theophrastus' argument into the world-view of the Atomists and of deciding that he does not need God, or as he prefers to say the gods, to explain such regularities as exist in nature. What according to Theophrastus holds for the sublunary region holds for the supralunary cosmos too according to Epicurus.33 This helps to explain why, having discussed the heavenly bodies, their orbits and sizes and the various phenomena connected with or caused by them at Ad Pythocl. 90.6-99.2 Arr., he returns to the theme of the various motions of the heavenly bodies (adding a section on shooting stars and further elaborating his point about the weather signs) at 112.1-116.3 Arr. Theophrastus had said that there is no reason to be afraid of meteorological manifestations of divine anger. Epicurus says one has no reason whatsoever to be afraid of the gods because they would be involved in natural phenomena of whatever kind, and adds that it is equally out of the question that they exercise benevolent providence towards us.

A quite startling echo of Metars. [14].14-55, "it is not correct (to say) that God should be the cause of disorder in the world" is found in the theological

32 See supra, text to n.22, and for Democritus' explicit view supra, n.17. Note Plato's division (which does not spell out all the options that are possible) of his opponents' positions at 885b (on which he falls back throughout in what follows): they either (a) hold that the gods do not exist or (b) that, if they exist, (b') they do not care about humans or, (b2) if they care, (b2.') they are easily persuaded to change their mind by sacrifice and prayer. Epicurus, who rejects (a) and (b2) + (b2 l), accepts (b) + (b') and so opts for the second position as outlined (and rejected) by Plato. The Stoics accept (b) + (b2) and reject (a) and (b2 ') and so follow in Plato's footsteps. "' Cf. Epic. Ad Herod. 76-7. In their comments on Epicurus' theology, Long and Sedley (see infra, n.41) Vol. 1 146 point out that "Theophrastus [viz., as a predecessor in this respect of Epicurus] had advanced beyond his master in querying even the last vestiges of god's causal influence in the world". We now see that this statement is too sweeping.

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passage near the end of the Letter to Menoeceus, 133-4, where Epicurus argues against Necessity, introduced by some people (scil., Democritus), and chance (T6xn). He says that one should not follow the many and assume that chance is a god, "for nothing is done by a god in a disorderly way" (oiU0Ev y&( a'TaxXsW 0W nQa'TTETCU).

I have already pointed out that Epicurus' short account of the thunderbolt is much less detailed than the long chapter at Theophrastus' Metars. [61 and the excursus at Metars. [141. But what we find in Theophrastus can be paralleled point by point from Lucretius. We therefore must assume that Lucretius, at least for his sections dealing with thunderbolts, did not use the Letter, and may surmise that a much longer epitome of Epicurus' views on cosmology and meteorology was available to him (assuming he did not consult the difficult Physics). It follows that in the books of his Physics on which this epitome was based Epicurus followed Theophrastus very closely; at any rate this can be proved for the argument about thunderbolts.

In the first place, Lucretius VI 357-61 gives the same explanation as Theophrastus for the fact that thunderbolts occur most frequently in the spring (note that he, or rather his immediate source, adds the autumn).34 In the rather long and impressive passage (VI 379-422;31 cf. the shorter parallel at 11 1100-04) that comes next he repeats virtually all the arguments

3 See supra, n. 13 and text thereto. I cannot explain why the autumn is not mentioned in the Syriac and Arabic texts; note that Ibn al-Khammar omits it both in ch. [61 and in ch. [141. 3 Discussed by E. Ackermann, Lukrez und der Mythos, Palingenesia XII (Wiesbaden 1979) 137 f. (insufficient reference to Bergstrasser's Bar Bahlul ibid. n.50). It is interesting to read W. Luck, Die Quellenfrage im 5. und 6. Buch des Lukrez (diss. Breslau, 1932; this useful study regrettably lacks indexes) 94: "Zuletzt wendet sich Lukrez noch gegen den religiosen Aberglauben, daB die Blitze mit der Vorstellung von einer gott- lichen Macht in Verbindung zu bringen sind. Es ist kaum anzunehmen, daB die zahl- reichen Einwande gegen eine solche Auffassung alle schon in der einen Quelle - Epikur - gestanden haben. Eher mochte man annehmen, daB die Argumente in dieser Fulle aus irgendeiner Spezialschrift zusammen-getragen sind". He adduces (94 f.) the parallels at Cic. De Div. II 45 - for which, as others before and after him, he thinks of Clitomachus/ Carneades as the source - and Sen. Nat. Quaest. II xlii.1 and xlvi, and appeals to his Doktorvater W. Kroll, Die Kosmologie des Plinius (Breslau 1930) 39, for the view that "diese Beweisstucke der epikureisch-skeptischen Polemik gegen die Mantik entlehnt sind". He concludes that this proves beyond doubt "die Benutzung jungerer Epikureer bei Lukrez". The cautious Robin is a bit more right in pointing out (supra, n.4) 235: "La similitude des objections chez Ciceron, chez L[ucrece], et chez Seneque, donne a penser qu'il s'agit Ia d'arguments traditionnels"; M. Bollack, La raison de Lucrece. Constitution d'une poetique philosophique avec un essai d'interpretation de la critique lucretienne (Paris 1978) 312 f. adds nothing.

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marshalled by Theophrastus at Metars. [14], though not in the same order. The first to be worked out (the last argument in Theophrastus) is that concerned with the perennial question why criminals are spared and good people harmed (VI 390-5). Next Lucretius wonders why the gods strike "'uninhabited places" (loca sola, 396); cf. the "uninhabited mountains" at Theophr. Metars. [141 21 and note that Lucretius works this out poetically at some length. He also wonders in an impressive set of lines for what reason the sea could be a reasonable target (in mare qua porro mittit ratione, 404 ff.); Theophr. Metars. [14] 22 briefly lists the "seas". At the end of the passage (421-2) he repeats a by now well-known Theophrastean problem: "why does he aim mostly at high places and why do we see most traces of his fire on mountain tops?", without however providing the solution. Presum- ably he assumed that this question speaks for itself.36

3. Cicero

In book two of the On Divination, in which Cicero has Marcus argue con, we find a passage about thunderbolts (fulmina) which contains interesting parallels with what we find in Theophrastus.3 Their fear of thunderbolts (iactus . . . fulminum) and similar phenomena has led men to believe that these are the work of almighty Jove (II 42). Marcus first points out (II 44) that the Stoics do not accept the myth according to which the Cyclopes fabricated the thunderbolt for Jove, but have a doctrine (placet enim Stoicis etc.) which provides a causal explanation in purely physical terms (vi naturae) for the origin of thunder, lightning and thunderbolts, in which winds and clouds play a major role. This Stoic doctrine, we may observe, is a relative of those of the Presocratics and the Peripatetics. Marcus then points out that such phenomena therefore have no relevance in forecasting

3 See the parallel at V 1127-28 and those canvassed at A.S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De divinatione libri duo (Urbana III. 1920-3, repr. Darmstadt 1977) 428. Comparison with the Theophrastean original is also rewarding for one's understanding of Lucretius as a poet. We may assume that Theophrastus' argument was modified and further worked out by Epicurus (who for instance may have added the point about the god striking his own temples - already attested, as we have noticed, at Aristoph. Nub. 401, see supra, text to n.20 - and statues VI 416-20, cf. 11 1101), but this still leaves a lot for Lucretius. The opening lines on the Tyrrhenian prophecies (VI 381 ff.) are a fine example of what he is able to contribute, though for the point itself he may have had predecessors writing in Latin about Etruscan augury. " De div. II 42-45 quidem. Parts of this passage have often been compared with what is in Lucretius and Seneca, and conversely. Pease's (supra, n.36) lists of parallels 423 ff. are useful, as they always are.

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future events; they are meaningless. He goes quite a bit farther than either Theophrastus or Lucretius/Epicurus in asserting that there is "no regularity, no fixed time at all" for these phenomena (nulla constantia, nullo rato tempore videmus effici). His other points are familiar from Theophras- tus and Lucretius/Epicurus. If Jove would use the thunderbolt in a mea- ningful way (si . .. significaret, 1I 44), i.e. intentionally, he would hardly throw so many for no purpose at all (tam multa frustra fulmina emitteret). For he strikes the sea (medium mare) and often hits the highest mountains (altissimos montis), or places where no one lives (desertas solitudines).38

4. Seneca

The second book of Seneca's Naturales quaestiones is devoted to thunderbolts, lightning and thunder (De fulminibus et tonitribus).39 I am only concerned with some of the chapters dealing with thunderbolts (fulmina). Though Seneca, just as Aristotle and his Presocratic predecessors, as Theophrastus, as Epicurus/Lucretius and as the Stoics cited by Cicero at De divin. II 45 provides an aetiology that is entirely physicistic,4 he is in a more difficult position because, as a Stoic, he is a determinist and accepts divination (e.g. Nat. quaest. II xxxii.2-8), fate and divine providence (e.g. ibid. II xxxv-vi). Yet he is capable of taking the objections against the assumption that the divinity throws each individual thunderbolt according to a plan or purpose, first formulated by Aristophanes' source(s) and by Theophras- tus, into account and even of integrating them. He does so by appealing to the well-worn argument of Stoic theodicy that fate, or the divine plan, is only concerned with the course of events in general and that God does not care about minor details on the one hand,4' and that such natural disasters

3 Cicero, or his Academic source, adds as a last point that thunderbolts also fall in regions whose inhabitants do not bother about their significance. 3 H.M. Hine, An Edition with Commentary of Seneca Natural Questions, Book Two (Salem N.H. 1981, 21984) is excellent. See also F.W. Waiblinger, Senecas Naturales Quaestiones. Griechische Wissenschaft und romische Form, Zetemata H. 70 (Munchen 1977) 59 ff. and passim, and Gross (supra, n.5) 64 ff. I accept Hine's argument, 2 ff., that this book originally was the last of the treatise; Gross 307 ff. argues con. J.J. Hall, 'Seneca as a Source for Earlier Thought (Especially Meteorology)', Cl. Qu. N.S. 27 (1977) 409 ff. is not relevant in the present context. A. Setaioli, Seneca e i Greci: Citazioni e traduzioni nelle opere filosofiche (Bologna 1988) 385 ff. is not helpful; his bibliography does not list Wagner - Steinmetz (supra, n.2) and there is only an insufficient reference to Bergstrasser's Bar Bahlul ibid. 409 n. 1908 (regarding Nat. quaest. VI, on earthquakes). 40 His own view, a relative of those of his predecessors, is found Nat. quaest. II lvii (taking up that started at xxi ff.).

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(cosmic evils) as befall humans, which moreover may be for the good of the whole, are irrelevant from the point of view of morality and felicity on the other.42 But he also follows another strategy. Theophrastus, Lucretius/ Epicurus and Cicero list the arguments against the idea that the occurrences of thunderbolts are to be ascribed to the intentions of the divinity in well-organized single passages. Seneca cuts them up, distributes them over his overall account, and neutralizes them in a plurality of fashions, I shall follow him part of the way.

The ancient belief, or doctrine, that Jove punishes evildoers by blasting them with his thunderbolt is contradicted by the fact that he "aims at columns, trees, on occasion even at his own statues" and that "while profanators, assassins and arsonists are immune from punishment, he strikes innocent sheep" (Nat. quaest. II xlii. 1; cf. also ibid. 2). It would be otiose to repeat in detail the parallels in Aristophanes, Theophrastus, Lucretius and Cicero, but one may note that Seneca's "innocent sheep" (pecudes innoxiae) instantiate the "irrational living beings" at Theophr. Metars. [14] 22, and that these are not mentioned by either Lucretius or Cicero. Seneca accepts the objections, but he points out that the ancients were not stupid but propagated the belief to instill fear and morality into the population, i.e. he appeals to a familiar topos.43

He further pursues the problem in Nat. quaest. II xlvi, again asking (or rather having his imaginary dialectical opponent ask) "why does Jove fail to strike those who are deserving to be struck and why does he strike the innocent?" His answer is that this question is so complicated that it has to be

"' Nat. quaest. II xxxv-xxxviii; compare Cic. De nat. deor. 11 167, magna di curant, parva neglegunt, and ibid. III 86 (where among the smaller disasters the gods do not care about we have hail damaging vine-yards); see Pease (supra, n.20) 973, 1102 ff. On Stoic theology and the doctrine of causation and fate see A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (London 1974, Berkeley 21990) 163 ff. and the texts collect- ed, translated and explained by A.A. Long - D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers Vol. I (Cambridge 1987) 323 ff., 333 ff. - Vol. II 312 ff., 332 ff. See further e.g. my paper 'Providence and the Destruction of the Universe in Early Stoic Thought' in M.J. Vermaseren (ed.), Studies in Hellenistic Religions, EPRO 78 (Leiden 1979; repr. as 'Study I' in my Studies in Later Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism (London 1989) 130 ff., 137 f., 144 ff. P.L. Donini, in P.L. Donini - G.F. Gianotti, Modelli filosofici e letterari. Lucrezio, Orazio, Seneca (Bologna 1979) 209 ff. is original and good on the Platonizing aspects of the Nat. quaest., but book two is "una mera illustrazione del cosmo stoico" (ibid. 210). See also A. Wlosok, Res humanae- res divinae. Kleine Schriften (Heidelberg 1990) 25 ff. 42 Nat. quaest. II lix; cf infra, nn.67-69 and text thereto. I. See Pease (supra, n.20) 395.

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treated on another occasion," but adds that though Jove does not throw each individual thunderbolt all things have been arranged in such a way that even those things which he does not do in person do not come about without a reason which is part of him (quae ab illo non fiunt tamen sine ratione non fiant quae illius est).

A few chapters later, moreover, Seneca adduces a diaeresis of thunderbolts devised by the Stoic Attalus (Nat. quaest. II l-li).45 In order to save determinism and divination and to account for the arguments con Attalus distinguished between thunderbolts which mean something that is relevant to us (i.e. which are expressive of intentionality) on the one hand and thunderbolts which either have no meaning or one that escapes us on the other. The first subdiaeresis is further divided (according to a standard pattern familiar from Stoic definitions) into those which are propitious, those which are dangerous and those which neither propitious nor dangerous. The second subdiaeresis is not divided further, but Seneca points out that among the thunderbolts without significance (or expressive of one that is lost on us) are those that "fall into the immense sea or upon lonely places where no one lives" (illa quae in vastum mare sparguntur aut in desertas solitudines, Nat. quaest. II li). This sea and these deserts had been listed by Theophrastus and Lucretius/Epicurus.'

Finally, another fact used as an argument against intentionality by Theo- phrastus and those who follow him, viz. that concerned with the high mountains, is cited a number of pages further down, at Nat. quaest. II lviii.3. Having given his own explanation of thunderbolts at II Ivii,47 Seneca in the next chapter briefly discusses three particular questions all of which are resolved in a properly physicalistic way. The third of these is "why are mountain tops frequently hit?". The by now familiar answer is that these are close to the clouds, and that what falls from heaven finds them in its

path. We do not know whether Attalus found a place for these thunderbolts

4 It is usually supposed that this could be in the context of an argument concerned with ethics and theodicy, but see Hine (supra, n.39) 399 f. I am inclined to believe that Seneca also has the concluding chapter of book two in mind. 4 Attalus noster, vir egregius, a person only known from Seneca's pages; he seems to have been a personal acquaintance, see Hine (supra, n.39) 402; for Attalus' division ibid., 410 ff. For diaeresis in general and Stoic diaeresis in particular see Appendix 2 in my Heresiography in Context: Hippolytus' Elenchos as a Source for Greek Philosophy, Philosophia antiqua Vol. LVI (Leiden 1992) 326 ff. 4 Hine (supra, n.39) 416 f. suggests that Attalus implicitly anticipates such Skeptical attacks as are found at Cic. De div. II 44-5. " See supra, n.40.

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in his diaeresis; if he did, they will probably have counted as being without significance. Seneca does not pronounce himself on this matter. A reason why he treats them in a separate chapter may be that a scientific explanation for mountain tops being struck by thunderbolts existed, while no such explanation was available for those which fall into the sea etc.

5. Strato and Theophrastus

In the Skeptical dialectical discussion of problems in philosophy at the end of the Lucullus (or Ac. pr. I1), Cicero among other things adverts to the traditional issue of divine providence.48 Against the Stoics, who defend it, he cites the view of Strato of Lampsacus, Theophrastus' successor as scholarch of the Peripatos. Although there is no mention of thunderbolts in this passage, it is worth our while to quote its main part:49

(Strato) holds the view that all things that are have been produced by nature, though he does not agree with him who says that these have been compounded from rough and smooth and hook-shaped and crooked corpuscles interspersed with void - his verdict is that these are dreams50 on Democritus' part, not (doctrines) of someone who offers proof but of one who wants (something to be the case). Reviewing the individual parts of the cosmos5' one by one, he himself holds that whatever either is

4 See supra, text to nn.21-22, and cf. e.g. Aet. II 3; see further my preliminary remarks at "Gibt es Spuren von Theophrasts Phys. op. bei Cicero?", in W.W. Fortenbaugh - P. Steinmetz (eds), Cicero's Knowledge of the Peripatos, Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities Vol. IV (New Brunswick/London 1989) 133 ff., repr. in my Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy (Assen 1990) 238 ff., and at 'Physikai Doxai and Zetemata Physika from Aristotle to Aetius (and Beyond)', in Fortenbaugh - Gutas (supra, n. i) 88, 91. 4 Luc. 121 = Strat. fr. 32 W., who for no good reason ascribes this testimonium to the nIeiA Orwv. But his observation, F. Wehrli, Straton von Lampsakos, Die Schule des Aristoteles H. V (Basel 21969) 53, "die eigentliche Diskussion geht . . . um die Ent- scheidung zwischen teleologischer oder causaler Naturerklarung", is useful. Cf. also M. Gatzemeier, Die Naturphilosophie des Straton von Lampsakos. Zur Geschichte des Problems der Bewegung im fruhen Peripatos, Monographien zur Naturphilosophie Bd. X (Meisenheim a. Glan 1970) 108 ff., who however throughout contrasts Strato with Aristotle only and overemphasizes the distinction between "chance" and "the spontaneous" (for which see fr. 35 W. cited infra, n.56). L. Repici, La natura e l'anima: Saggi su Stratone di Lampsaco (Torino 1988) 121 ff. submits that Strato's argument is in line with the position of Aristotle as expressed at Physics B 1. 192b8 ff. Forgetting about the Platonists, she believes that is directed against the Stoics; Theophrastus is not mentioned. i' somnia . . . Democriti; cf. e.g. De nat. deor. I 18 somniantium; 1 39 Stoicorum somniorum . . interpres, I 93 somniis. 5' mundipartes usually means "the elements", but here it presumably has a wider sense, embracing (a) both the major sections of the cosmos, i.e. the terrestrial and the celestial

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or comes to be, is or has been produced by natural forces of gravitation and motion. He certainly frees God from a great task and me from fear.52.

We are now in a position to compare Strato's view with that of Theophras- tus as expressed at Met. 9 and Metars. [14]. We have seen above53 that Theophrastus, instantiating meteorological phenomena such as the thunderbolt, affirmed that God cannot be the cause of what is disorderly in the cosmos but only of what is orderly. We have also seen that he argues that a number of terrestrial and even some celestial phenomena lack a clear and definite purpose.5 Above, I have not dwelt on the detailed series of strange and less strange phenomena in the biological domain discussed at Theophr. Met. 9.10b7 ff. If we combine Met. 9 and Metars. [14], we may certainly affirm that Theophrastus reviewed the individual parts of the cosmos one by one, as Cicero says Strato did. Theophrastus to a large extent eliminated the direct or purposeful input of the divinity from the terrestrial and apparently to some extent from the celestial55 sphere. It now becomes clear that Strato not only argues against the views of the Platonists (and possibly those of the Stoics) but also attempts to improve upon Theophrastus' position by radically eliminating divine causation from the cosmos as a whole. There is no exception to his rule that everything that occurs is the effect of natural causes, and of natural causes only.56 Everything that happens or comes to be can be explained in terms of weight and motion. To be sure, he is prepared (at least according to some of our sources)57 to say that Nature is God, or conversely. But, as Cicero's Epicurean affirms, this is a god "entirely without sensation or shape" (careat omni et sensu et figura)58 or, as Seneca suggests,59 a god "without a mind" (sine animo). A

spheres, (b) the elements, and (c) its smaller parts, such as animals and plants. Repici, op.cit. (supra, n.49) 126 argues that the elements as well as the animals and plants are meant. 52 Tr. Rackham, modified; italics mine. 53 p. 318. 54 p. 319f. 5 See supra, n.28 and text thereto. 5 Cf. Plut. Colot. 11 15B = fr. 35 W., he says . . . that the cosmos is not animate and that nature is the result of chance, for the spontaneous initiates the motion, and only in this way are the various natural processes brought to a conclusion" (tr. Cherniss, modified). If everything is included, thunderbolts are too. 5 Cic. De nat. deor. 1 35 = fr. 33 W., Max. Tyr. XI 5e = fr. 36 W. Gatzemeier (supra n.49) 111 f. is unsatisfactory. 58 Loc. cit. (supra, n.55). The point about the divinity's lack of shape is especially suitable in an Epicurean context; Gatzemeier (supra, n.47) 109 affirms that the words I have italicized are a "Zusatz". " Fr. of Seneca's De superst. in Aug. C. D. VI 10 = fr. 37 W. Accordingly, I believe that

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god deprived of sensation or mind cannot wish, want or plan anything, and such a divinity is indeed the perfect opposite of the virtually omnipresent divine efficient cause, the poioun, of the Stoics (and of the Platonic Demi- urge and younger gods). In Strato's philosophy God does not possess the special limited status he still enjoyed in that of Theophrastus, and all natural processes without exception take place in a natural environment where intentionality is entirely absent.

A further point of interest is that Strato, according to Cicero, explicitly said that one need not for that reason believe in the "dreams of Democri- tus" and assume that all things consist of atoms and void. The alternative to the atomist view he offered is of no concern to us here. What matters is that already Theophrastus rejects Democritus' view (Met. 9.1 Ib21-3)? which of course he knows to be the perfect opposite of a vision according to which the cosmos for the most part is orderly and according to which it is the divine which is the cause of this order. So Strato takes up a specific point made by Theophrastus. He is a contemporary of Epicurus; we may safely assume that his sneering reference to Democritus is also directed against Epicurus.

6. Conclusion

Cicero's remark61 that Strato "frees God from a great task and me from fear" is a bit odd in the context of a discussion where the emphasis is on providence. I therefore assume that Cicero (via the Skeptical tradition he is indebted to) echoes something Strato really said. Confirmation for this assumption is once more forthcoming from Theophrastus, who at Metars.

at Nat. quaest., praef. 14-5 Seneca not only argues against Democritus and Epicurus (thus Donini (supra, n.41) 213) but also against Strato; he does not refer to the atoms and void but to chance (fortuitum et casu, cf. Strat. fr. 35 W., cited supra, n.56), and says that though these savants attribute a provident mind to themselves (cf. Strat. frr. 108 ff. W.) they believe that "the cosmos in which we find ourselves lacks a mind and is carried along haphazardly or by a Nature which does not know what it does" (universum . . . expers consilii aut ferri temeritate quadam aut natura nesciente quid faciat). For the Epicurean view of Nature without mind see e.g. Cic. De nat. deor. I 53 (natura efficere sine aliqua mente), for Epicurean temeritas see ibid. II 82. Compare also Cic. De nat. deor. 11 76, where the views of Strato and the Atomists are put on a par: sive inanima natura sive necessitas vi magna incitata etc., cf. also ibid. 11 115; for Strato also ibid. 11 81, alii naturam censent vim quandam sine ratione cientem mowus in corporibus necessarios. "'Unless one were to assume the shapes (RoQqxCtg) of the form Democritus posits of the atoms"; for Theophrastus and Democritus see also supra, n. 17. The shapes, as we have seen, are to some extent spelled out by Strato. "' Supra, text to n.52.

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[14] 22 f. argues that thunderbolts are in no way an expression of God's anger. This of course (and as we have seen) anticipates the Epicurean argument that we need not be afraid of the gods because of their supposed involvement in celestial and meteorological phenomena. If Strato further developed Theophrastus's view as to why we need not believe God is angry when thunderbolts fall or hurricanes are blowing, he indeed provided a reasonable alternative to the Epicurean doctrine without needing (let alone wishing) to base this on the assumption that all things consist of atoms and void. Regrettably, little to nothing is known about Strato's moral philosophy apart from the fact that he wrote a number of treatises specifically devoted to ethical questions.62

Of course neither Theophrastus nor Epicurus (nor, presumably, Strato) meant that thunderbolts or hurricanes or earthquakes or floods are not dangerous, let alone that one should welcome them;63 what they wish to prove, and what Seneca wishes to prove, is that there are no grounds for irrational anxiety. But there is a further question, viz. whether we are justified in being afraid of natural disasters even though these can be proven not to have their origin in God's will. I do not know about Theophrastus (ch. 16 of the Characters, on the deisidaim6n, is not helpful in this respect because it deals with superstition or at any rate exaggerated behaviour in the context of traditional religion), but Epicurus' position must have been that we need not really fear these at all, because strong pains are brief and death is nothing to us.' It is most interesting to note that Seneca takes a similar stand, though he provides a somewhat different justification. At Nat. quaest. II lix65 he argues at eloquent length that we need not be afraid of thunderbolts simply because death is to be despised (contemne mortem, lix.3). Death - thus the standard Stoic definition' adduced by Seneca - is

62 Listed at Diog. Laert. V 59-60 = frr. 132-43 W.; among them a treatise On the Good in three books from which a definition of the good has been preserved (fr. 134 W.), one On Happiness, one On Ways of Life, one On Pleasure (particularly interesting if one thinks of Epicurus), etc. Cicero's perpauca de moribus (De fin. V 13 = fr. 12 W.) is an understatement. For speculations on their contents see Wehrli (supra, n.49) 78 ff. 6 Speaking of the coming destruction of our cosmos Lucr. V 107 says quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans.

See e.g. Epic. Rat. sent. ii and iv. 65 On this passage see the excellent pages of Waiblinger (supra, n.39) 71 ff., and on its parallel in Nat. quaest. VI (no need to be afraid of earthquakes) ibid. 81 f.; see also ibid. 99 ff. I See e.g. the verbatim quotation of Chrysippus at Plut. De Stoic rep. 1052C (SVF II 604) and a similar one at Nemes. De nat. hom. 22.3 ff. Morani (SVF 11 790).

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nothing but the separation of body and soul, and it is to come about sooner or later anyway in one way or other. The philosophical background to this view is of course the fundamental Stoic doctrine that death is not an evil but an indifferent,67 and that fear, defined as the "expectation of evil",' is one of the four cardinal affections69 that have to be eliminated.

If Hine is right that book two is the last book of the Natural Questions,70 the finale of this interesting treatise, for all its pessimism, sounds a firm note of encouragement. Man is free and unafraid as soon as he gets to know and accepts the real world, and so achieves self-knowledge. Epicurus and Lucretius too had set themselves the task of liberating humanity from Angst by means of natural philosophy. In this respect, there is no difference between the two most important Hellenistic schools; but this we already knew. We now also know that, and to what extent, Theophrastus' view belongs with the ideas which inspired this philosophical liberation move- ment7' .

University of Utrecht

"7 See e.g. the conclusion of Zeno's syllogism at Sen. Ep. 82.9 (SVF I 196), mors non est malum, and Ar. Did. ap. Stob. II 58.2 W. (SVF I 190), abLiqoQCt & T6 totcTCa CWhv O6vatov xXk. e Diog. Laert. VII 112 (SVF III 407), o ibE (p6og iort' nQoooxia xaxov). Cf. Ar. Did. ap. Stob. 11 90.12 W. (SVFIII 394), ps. Andron. n. inau0v 223.14-5 Glibert-Thirry (SVF 111 391). h4 See e.g. Ar. Did. ap. Stob. 11 88.15 W. (SVFI 211 and III 378), Diog. Laert. VII 111 (SVFI 211), ps. Andron. 7t. naOw v 223. 10 Glibert-Thirry (SVF III 391). 71' See supra, n.39.

I lt is interesting to note that Virgil (unlike Lucretius and Seneca) sticks to traditional Roman religion; his Jove is addressed as qui. . . fulmine terres (Aen. 1 229-30); see Wlosok, o.c. (supra, n. 41) 379 f.

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a theophrastean excursus on god and nature and its aftermath in hellenistic thought

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