Atque philosophum Romanum Timaeum Platonis...

CJD2017

New Member

Hi all, looking for an accurate translation of the following:

Atque philosophum Romanum Timaeum Platonis non propter placita ipsa transvertendum curavisse, iam ex consilio, quo omnino res philosophicas tractabat, concludere possemus, etiamsi certos locos, ex quibus sententia Ciceronis de huius dialogi obscuritate et inconstantia elucet, non haberemus.
 
 

Dantius

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Is there more to the sentence or surrounding context? The verbs are in forms that would suggest this is not the full sentence but inside a subordinate clause.
 

CJD2017

New Member

Is there more to the sentence or surrounding context? The verbs are in forms that would suggest this is not the full sentence but inside a subordinate clause.

Yes:

Iam Madvigius opinatus est "eandem rationem Ciceronem in omnibus de philosophia libris instuisse, ut in singulis, quas erat tractaturus, philosophiae partibus unum fere aliquem sibi eligeret ducem, quem sequeretur et exprimeret." Atque philosophum Romanum Timaeum Platonis non propter placita ipsa transvertendum curavisse, iam ex consilio, quo omnino res philosophicas tractabat, concludere possemus, etiamsi certos locos, ex quibus sententia Ciceronis de huius dialogi obscuritate et inconstantia elucet, non haberemus. Huc accedit, quod ex locis, in quibus vocabula novantur et in quibus Latinus Graeco sermoni opponitur, intellegimus neminem nisi Romanum hunc Timaei sermonem suo nomine enarraturum.
 
 

Dantius

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  • Civis Illustris

Location:
in orbe lacteo
Thanks, that helped.
Atque philosophum Romanum Timaeum Platonis non propter placita ipsa transvertendum curavisse, iam ex consilio, quo omnino res philosophicas tractabat, concludere possemus, etiamsi certos locos, ex quibus sententia Ciceronis de huius dialogi obscuritate et inconstantia elucet, non haberemus.
The passage you are looking at is talking about why Cicero translated Plato's work Timaeus. The previous sentence says that in every part of philosophy that he was going to discuss, he picked one leader (presumably a famous philosopher/philosophical work) to follow and imitate/express.

This sentence says:
And we could conclude from this plan, by which he treated on philosophical matters entirely, that the Roman philosopher (i.e. Cicero) did not see to it that Plato's Timaeus be translated because of things themselves that pleased him (i.e. about the work), even if* we did not have certain passages, from which Cicero's opinion about the obscurity and inconstancy of this dialoge is apparent.

*The grammar gets slightly confused y the translation, but this "even if" goes with "we could conclude" or "we would be able to conclude", i.e. "we could conclude that bla bla bla, even if we didn't have this evidence."

So the main point of the sentence is: Cicero didn't translate Timaeus just because he liked it, in fact we have passages to show that he didn't like it.
 
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