{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "cicero.de_fato",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/cicero/de-fato/reference-21/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "On Fate",
    "author": "Cicero",
    "date": "44 BCE",
    "summary": "In this fragmentary dialogue, Cicero asks whether causal chains and the truth of future statements abolish human freedom. Modal logic, causation, and responsibility meet in a rejection of inescapable fatalism.",
    "learning": "Separate determinism, fatalism, and foreknowledge, understand the problem of future contingents, and relate causation to moral responsibility.",
    "long_summary": "The text discusses Hellenistic responses to determinism, especially the Stoic attempt to reconcile universal fate with the agent’s own assent. Future propositions test whether logical truth and causal necessity should be identified.\n\nIncomplete survival makes reconstruction cautious. Cicero defends room for action without delivering a complete system; the work lies in distinctions among cause, necessity, prediction, and accountability.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Roman world, 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood.",
        "science": "Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory.",
        "medicine": "Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist.",
        "transport": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour.",
        "communication": "Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand.",
        "clothing": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood. Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory. Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky. Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "greek-roman-traditions",
        "label": "Greek and Roman traditions"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "lat",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/de_fato/representations/lat.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 48,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "aef84fdd31ab20312b1d5fb158d8d26235a3d1077b3b1940bc910f1ba9ceda12",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-de_fato-lat"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/de_fato/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 48,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "3fef337f8f282a6be14ab04dcfa8ef2e2703cc1b92d603c28013d99324e561f1",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/de_fato/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 48,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "14580dee7880a94be4f3aa8e48a358e95e50872b691e80e167f32137f1efb337",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_fr_24/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "af004972571ecacb0487592a71780cfd8d8a32b166ef6f34db7de1699e13c22a",
            "source_id": "wikisource-fate"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_fr_24/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "bb8443d8da2bc196be9cb0ec1fecfbfbe6316a4f080b27e32f84b8ce3b61038e",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "freedom",
            "label": "Freedom"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "cicero.de_fato",
        "cicero.translation_carrier_fr_24"
    ],
    "passages": 48,
    "word_count": 7134,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 7134,
        "fr": 7308,
        "lat": 5240
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "cicero-work-hierarchy-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "hierarchical_ref",
                "label_fr": "Division",
                "label_en": "Division"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Passage",
        "leaf_en": "Passage"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:cicero.de_fato:21",
    "canonical_ref": "21",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Hic primum si mihi libeat adsentiri Epicuro et negare omnem enuntiationem aut veram esse aut falsam, eam plagam potius accipiam quam fato omnia fieri conprobem; illa enim sententia habet aliquid disputationis, haec vero non est tolerabilis. Itaque contendit omnis nervos Chrysippus, ut persuadeat omne a)ci/wma aut verum esse aut falsum. Ut enim Epicurus veretur, ne, si hoc concesserit, concedendum sit fato fieri, quaecumque fiant, (si enim alterum utrum ex aeternitate verum sit, esse id etiam certum et, si certum, etiam necessarium; ita et necessitatem et fatum confirmari putat) sic Chrysippus metuit, ne, si non obtinuerit omne, quod enuntietur, aut verum esse aut falsum, non teneat omnia fato fieri et ex causis aeternis rerum futurarum.",
            "edition": "perseus-cicero-de_fato-lat",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-de_fato-lat",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Here, first, if I chose to agree with Epicurus and deny that every proposition is either true or false, I would rather accept that blow than approve the claim that everything happens by fate. For the former view admits of some argument, whereas the latter is intolerable. Chrysippus therefore strains every sinew to persuade us that every axiōma is either true or false. Just as Epicurus fears that, if he grants this, he must grant that whatever happens happens by fate, since if one of two alternatives has been true from eternity, it is also certain, and if certain, also necessary, so that both necessity and fate are established, so Chrysippus fears that, unless he secures the claim that everything asserted is either true or false, he cannot maintain that everything happens by fate and from eternal causes of future events.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Ici, si je voulais donner mon assentiment à Épicure et nier que tout énoncé soit vrai ou faux, je préférerais recevoir ce coup plutôt que d’admettre que tout arrive par le destin. Sa thèse offre en effet matière à discussion; l’autre est véritablement intolérable. Chrysippe tend donc toutes ses forces pour persuader que tout axiôma est vrai ou faux. Épicure craint que, s’il l’accorde, il faille également accorder que tout événement arrive par le destin, car si l’une des deux alternatives est vraie de toute éternité, elle est aussi certaine, et si elle est certaine, elle est nécessaire; il pense ainsi confirmer à la fois la nécessité et le destin. De même, Chrysippe redoute que, s’il ne réussit pas à établir que tout énoncé est vrai ou faux, il ne puisse maintenir que tout arrive par le destin et procède des causes éternelles des événements futurs.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "2ea1b3361f83a856626cc9f9d3101f6778e2aa0fee6f5b9e5f5dd996cb312cd8"
}