Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick
page 27 of 196 (13%)
page 27 of 196 (13%)
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[2] Zeller _Op. cit._ III. p. 39.
A part of Sextus' books also may have been written in Alexandria. [Greek: Pros phusikous] could have been written in Alexandria.[1] If these were also lectures, then Sextus taught in Alexandria as well as elsewhere. The history of Eastern literature for the centuries immediately following the time of Sextus, showing as it does in so many instances the influence of Pyrrhonism, and a knowledge of the _Hypotyposes_, furnishes us with an incontestable proof that the school could not have been for a long time removed from the East, and the absence of such knowledge in Roman literature is also a strong argument against its long continuance in that city. It would seem, however, from all the data at command, that during the years that the Sceptical School was removed from Alexandria, its head quarters were in Rome, and that the Pyrrhonean _Hypotyposes_ were delivered in Rome. Let us briefly consider the arguments in favour of such a hypothesis. Scepticism was not unknown in Rome. Pappenheim quotes the remark of Cicero that Pyrrhonism was long since dead, and the sarcasm of Seneca, _Quis est qui tradat praecepta Pyrrhonis?_ as an argument against the knowledge of Pyrrhonism in Rome. We must remember, however, that in Cicero's time Aenesidemus had not yet separated himself from the Academy; or if we consider the Lucius Tubero to whom Aenesidemus dedicated his works, as the same Lucius Tubero who was the friend of Cicero in his youth, and accordingly fix the date of Aenesidemus about 50 B.C.,[2] even then Aenesidemus' work in Alexandria was too late to have necessarily been known to Cicero, whose remark must have been referred to the old school of Scepticism. Should we grant, however, that the statements of |
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