{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "cicero.de_fato",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/cicero/de-fato/reference-39/",
    "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"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        }
    ],
    "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:39",
    "canonical_ref": "39",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Ac mihi quidem videtur, cum duae sententiae fuissent veterum philosophorum, una eorum, qui censerent omnia ita fato fieri, ut id fatum vim necessitatis adferret, in qua sententia Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristoteles fuit, altera eorum, quibus viderentur sine ullo fato esse animorum motus voluntarii, Chrysippus tamquam arbiter honorarius medium ferire voluisse, sed adplicat se ad eos potius, qui necessitate motus animorum liberatos volunt; dum autem verbis utitur suis, delabitur in eas difficultates, ut necessitatem fati confirmet invitus.",
            "edition": "perseus-cicero-de_fato-lat",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-de_fato-lat",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "For my part, it seems to me that, whereas the ancient philosophers held two views, one belonging to those who thought that everything happened by fate in such a way that fate imposed the force of necessity, a view held by Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle, and the other belonging to those who thought that the voluntary motions of minds existed without any fate, Chrysippus wished, like an honorary arbitrator, to strike a middle course. Yet he inclines more toward those who wish the motions of minds to be freed from necessity. While using his own terminology, however, he slips into such difficulties that he unwillingly confirms the necessity of fate.",
            "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": "Il me semble que, face aux deux doctrines des anciens philosophes, l’une soutenant que tout arrive par un destin qui impose la force de la nécessité, doctrine de Démocrite, Héraclite, Empédocle et Aristote, l’autre estimant que les mouvements volontaires de l’esprit échappent à tout destin, Chrysippe a voulu, tel un arbitre honoraire, adopter une position moyenne. Il se rapproche pourtant davantage de ceux qui veulent affranchir les mouvements de l’esprit de la nécessité; mais lorsqu’il emploie son propre vocabulaire, il glisse dans des difficultés telles qu’il confirme malgré lui la nécessité du destin.",
            "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": "cb3bc021607af5c0498715690e47de04eb470aaea1445e929fca6a7983a83a6c"
}