Publius Nigidius Figulus (c. 98 – 45 BC) was a scholar of the Late Roman Republic and one of the praetors for 58 BC. He was a friend of Cicero, to whom he gave his support at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Nigidius sided with the Optimates in the civil war between

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

and Pompeius Magnus. Among his contemporaries, Nigidius's reputation for learning was second only to that of Varro. Even in his own time, his works were regarded as often abstruse, perhaps because of their esoteric Pythagoreanism, into which Nigidius incorporated Stoic elements. Jerome calls him ''Pythagoricus et magus'', a "Pythagorean and mage," and in the medieval and Renaissance tradition he is portrayed as a magician,

diviner Diviner, also referred to as the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE), is an infrared radiometer aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, part of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program which is studying the Moon. It has been used to create ...

, or occultist. His vast works survive only in fragments preserved by other authors.

Political career

By 63 BC, Nigidius had been admitted to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. He may have been aedile in 60 BC, when Cicero mentions that Nigidius was in a position to cite (''compellare'') a jury, or a tribune of the ''plebs'' in 59. He was praetor in 58, but no further official capacity is recorded for him until he serves as a legate 52–51 BC in Asia under Quintus Minucius Thermus. He left the Asian province in July 51. Arnaldo Momigliano tried to explain the apparent contradictions between Nigidius's active political career and his occult practices: Even Varro, though schooled in the

Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asser ...

Aelius Stilo __NOTOC__ Lucius Aelius Stilo Praeconinus (, ; c. 154 – 74 BC), of Lanuvium, was the earliest known philologist of the Roman Republic. He came from a distinguished family and belonged to the equestrian order. He was called Stilo (from Latin , "p ...

and in skeptical Antiochean Platonism, requested a Pythagorean funeral for himself. The 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen compared the occult interests of the Late Republic to the “ spirit-rapping and tablemoving” that fascinated “men of the highest rank and greatest learning” in the Victorian era. Pythagoreanism was not associated with a particular political point of view at Rome. Nigidius remained staunchly among the conservative republicans of the senate, but Publius Vatinius, the other best-known Pythagorean among his political contemporaries, was a fierce and long-term supporter of Caesar. The three eminent Roman intellectuals of the mid-1st century BC — Cicero, Varro, and Nigidius — supported Pompeius in the civil war. Caesar not only showed clemency toward Varro, but recognized his scholarly achievements by appointing him to develop the public library at Rome. Both Cicero and Varro wrote nearly all their work on religion under Caesar's dictatorship. But despite Cicero's “rather inept and embarrassed” efforts, Nigidius died in exile before obtaining a pardon.

Scholarship

According to Cicero, Nigidius tried with some success to revive the doctrines of Pythagoreanism, which would have included

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, astronomy and astrology, and arcana of the magical tradition. He is supposed to have foretold the greatness of Octavian, the future Augustus, on the day of his birth. Apuleius records that, by the employment of magic boys (''magici pueri''), he helped to find a sum of money that had been lost. His ''Commentarii grammatici'' in at least 29 books was a collection of linguistic,

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

and

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

notes. Nigidius viewed the meaning of words as natural, not created by humans. He paid special attention to orthography, and sought to differentiate the meanings of grammatical cases of like ending by distinctive marks: the apex to indicate a long vowel was once incorrectly attributed to him, but has now been proven to be older. In etymology he tried to find a Roman explanation of words where possible; for example, he derived ''frater'' ("brother") from ''fere alter'', "practically another (self)."

Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...

speaks of a

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

al treatise ''De gestu'' by him. The scholarly approach of the ''Commentarii'' may be compared to that of Varro in its combination of grammatical subjects and antiquarianism, but Nigidius's esoteric and scientific interests distinguish him. Known titles of his works include two books on the

celestial sphere In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an abstract sphere that has an arbitrarily large radius and is concentric to Earth. All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphere, ...

, one on the Greek system and the other on "barbarian", or non-Greek, systems, a surviving fragment of which indicates that he treated Egyptian astrology. His astrological work drew on the Etruscan tradition and influenced Martianus Capella, though probably through an intermediary source. Nigidius also wrote on the winds and on animals. Piacenza Bronzeleber

His works on theology and other religious topics such as

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...

included ''De Diis'' ("About the Gods"), an examination of various cults and ceremonials, and treatises on

(''De augurio privato'' and ''De extis'', the latter covering haruspicy) and the

interpretation of dreams ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' (german: Die Traumdeutung) is an 1899 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author introduces his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation, and discusses what w ...

(''De somniis''). The

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

Gian Biaggio Conte notes that "the number of his fragments that has come down to us does not correspond to the general admiration felt by posterity for this interesting scholar-philosopher-scientist-magician" and attributes this loss to "the vastness and especially the obscurity of the works."

In literature

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...

concludes Book 1 of his epic ''Bellum civile'' (also known as the ''Pharsalia'') with a portrayal of Nigidius uttering dire prophecies, based in part on astrological readings.

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...

discusses the astronomical implications of the passage with Herwart von Hohenburg in their correspondence of 1597. An English translation of the relevant letters is availabl
online.

Primary sources

Primary sources for the life of Nigidius Figulus include several references in Cicero's letters, and the scholiast on Lucan, ''Bellum civile'' I. 639. Major sources for the fragments include

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...

,Leofranc Holford-Strevens looks at several references to Nigidius in ''Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and His Achievement'' (Oxford University Press, 2005), limited previe
online
search Nigidius. Pliny, and Nonius. Important 19th-century scholarship on Nigidius includes Teuffel, ''History of Roman Literature'', 170, and M. Hertz, ''De N. F. studiis atque operibus'' (1845).

Editions

The fragments of Nigidius's works are collected by A. Swoboda, ''P. Nigidii Figuli Operum Reliquiae'' (Amsterdam 1964, updated from the 1889 edition), with ''Quaestiones Nigidianae'', a long and very useful introduction in Latin. Swoboda includes a conspectus of sources for the fragments (pp. 138–140).

References