On Fate

​Because it pertains to character, which they call ethos, we are accustomed to call this part of philosophy ‘on character’, but it is fitting for one who is enriching the Latin language to name it ‘moral’; and the force and logic of propositions, which the Greeks call axiomata, must be explained; as to what force they have when they say something about a future event and about that which can or cannot happen, this is an obscure question, which philosophers call ‘concerning possibilities’, and it is entirely logical, which I call the art of discussion. But whereas in other books, which are on the nature of the gods, and likewise in those which I published on divination, I did this—so that a continuous speech might be unfolded on both sides, in order that what seemed most probable to each person might be more easily approved by them—a certain circumstance prevented me from doing this in this discussion on fate.

​For when I was in my Puteolan villa and our friend Hirtius, the consul-designate, was in the same places—a man most friendly to us and devoted to these studies in which we have lived since childhood—we were much together, especially seeking those plans which might pertain to the peace and harmony of the citizens. For since after the death of Caesar all the causes of new disturbances seemed to be sought out and we thought they had to be confronted, almost all our conversation was consumed in these deliberations , and that both often at other times and on a certain day more free than usual and more vacant of intruders, when he had come to me, [we discussed] at first those things which were daily and as it were regular for us, concerning peace and leisure.

​These things having been done, ‘What then?’ he said, ‘since you have not indeed, as I hope, abandoned your rhetorical exercises, but certainly have preferred philosophy to them, can I hear something?’ ‘You indeed,’ I said, ‘may either hear or speak; for neither have I deserted those rhetorical studies—as you rightly think—by which I also inflamed you, although I had received you already most burning, nor do these things which I now treat diminish, but rather increase that faculty. For the orator has a great partnership with this kind of philosophy which we follow; for he borrows subtlety from the Academy, and in turn restores to it richness of speech and the ornaments of speaking. Therefore,’ I said, ‘since the possession of both studies is ours, today let the choice be yours, which of the two you would prefer to enjoy.’ Then Hirtius said: ‘Most grateful, and like all your actions; for your goodwill has never refused anything to my desire.’

’But since your rhetoric is known to me, and we have both often heard you in those matters and will hear you, and the Tusculan Disputations indicate that you have undertaken this Academic custom of disputing against a proposition, I wish, if it is not troublesome to you, to propose something to which I may listen.’ ‘Can anything be troublesome to me,’ I said, ‘which will be pleasing to you? But you will listen to me as a Roman, as one entering timidly into this kind of disputing, and as one returning to these studies after a long interval.’ ‘I will listen to you disputing,’ he said, ‘just as I read those things which you have written. Therefore, begin. Let us sit down here.’

​In some of these, as in the poet Antipater, as in those born on the winter solstice, as in brothers falling ill at the same time, as in urine, as in nails, as in other things of this kind, the contagion of nature is powerful, which I do not deny, but there is no fatal force; in others, however, there can be certain fortuitous things, as in that shipwrecked man, as in Icadius, as in Daphitas; some things indeed Posidonius (may I say so with my master’s leave) seems to make up; they are indeed absurd. For what? If it was Daphitas’s fate to fall from a horse and so perish, was it from this horse, which, since it was not a horse, had a borrowed name? Or was Philip warned to avoid these little four-horse chariots on his sword-hilt? As if indeed he was killed by a hilt! And what is so great about that nameless shipwrecked man slipping in a stream? (although to this man indeed he writes it was predicted that he must perish in water); nor indeed by Hercules do I see any fate of the pirate Icadius.