Author: Nice, Alex
Title: Ennius or Cicero?: the disreputable diviners at Cic. de div. 1.132
Review/Collection: "Acta classica", XLIV
Year edition: 2001
Pages: 153-166
Keywords: Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy, Poesia - Poesie - Poetry, Religion - Religione - Religion, Stylistique et genres littéraires - Stilistica e generi letterari - Stylistics and literary genre
Description: At the end of the first book of Cicero's De Divinatione, Quintus remarks that, even though he believes in divination, there are some diviners whom he would not trust to give accurate predictions. These comments are followed by a quotation from Ennius' Telamo. Most modern scholars have assumed, therefore, that the previous lines also contain an echo, if not a paraphrase of Ennius' work. This supposition does not seem to be supported by the language or style employed by Cicero. The lines should rather be understood as embodying the parochial view that elite Romans had towards forms of divination that were foreign, rustic or mercenary and not practised by the Roman state.
Works:
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24595362?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Author initials: Nice 2001
Title: Ennius or Cicero?: the disreputable diviners at Cic. de div. 1.132
Review/Collection: "Acta classica", XLIV
Year edition: 2001
Pages: 153-166
Keywords: Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy, Poesia - Poesie - Poetry, Religion - Religione - Religion, Stylistique et genres littéraires - Stilistica e generi letterari - Stylistics and literary genre
Description: At the end of the first book of Cicero's De Divinatione, Quintus remarks that, even though he believes in divination, there are some diviners whom he would not trust to give accurate predictions. These comments are followed by a quotation from Ennius' Telamo. Most modern scholars have assumed, therefore, that the previous lines also contain an echo, if not a paraphrase of Ennius' work. This supposition does not seem to be supported by the language or style employed by Cicero. The lines should rather be understood as embodying the parochial view that elite Romans had towards forms of divination that were foreign, rustic or mercenary and not practised by the Roman state.
Works:
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24595362?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Author initials: Nice 2001
