{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "cicero.lucullus",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/cicero/lucullus/reference-71/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Lucullus, Book Two of the Academica",
    "author": "Cicero",
    "date": "45 BCE",
    "summary": "The Lucullus pits a defence of certain knowledge against Cicero’s sceptical reply. At the centre stands the cognitive impression: can it bear a mark that guarantees truth and therefore warrants assent?",
    "learning": "Reconstruct both positions on assent, distinguish doubt from inability to act, and assess the function of probability in sceptical inquiry.",
    "long_summary": "Lucullus presents the position inherited from Antiochus, according to which action and learning collapse without reliable perceptions. Cicero answers with perceptual errors, philosophical disagreement, and the possibility of governing conduct by what appears probable.\n\nThe debate is not a simple denial of all knowledge. It tests the claim to possess an infallible criterion and asks what degree of commitment suits a fallible mind. The strength of both cases keeps the question open.",
    "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/lucullus/representations/lat.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 148,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "1550a58030654bd47d5f216cfd470d26c1f6be52f020998b817fb29647e2b6f4",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-lucullus-lat"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/lucullus/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": 148,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "b438f35e2c2d2cb939bd014e37b3c7fbd8d5b631c454101a26ebb4af3c5f1e9e",
            "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/lucullus/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": 148,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "1a5de7338cc12c579511fb54abf68fb320a548a4d75e213ea4a19c56772bceb3",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "academic_skepticism",
            "label": "Academic skepticism"
        },
        {
            "id": "honestum_and_utility",
            "label": "Moral rightness and utility"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "pleasure",
            "label": "Pleasure"
        },
        {
            "id": "probable_judgment",
            "label": "Probable judgment"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "cicero.lucullus"
    ],
    "passages": 148,
    "word_count": 25042,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 25042,
        "fr": 24713,
        "lat": 17995
    },
    "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.lucullus:71",
    "canonical_ref": "71",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "quoque solebat uti argumento tum cum ei placebat nihil posse percipi, cum quaereret, Dionysius ille Heracleotes utrum conprehendisset certa illa nota qua adsentiri dicitis oportere, illudne quod multos annos tenuisset Zenonique magistro credidisset, honestum quod esset id bonum solum esse, an quod postea defensitavisset, honesti inane nomen esse, voluptatem esse summum bonum — qui ex illius commutata sententia dooere vellet nihil ita signari in animis nostris a vero posse quod non eodem modo possit a falso, is curavit quod argumentum ex Dionysio ipse sumpsisset ex eo ceteri sumerent. Sed cum hoc alio loco plura; nunc ad ea quae a te Luculle dicta sunt.",
            "edition": "perseus-cicero-lucullus-lat",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-lucullus-lat",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "“Consider also the argument he used when he still accepted that nothing could be perceived. He asked whether Dionysius of Heraclea had comprehended, by that certain mark to which you say assent must be given, the doctrine he maintained for many years in reliance upon his teacher Zeno, that only what was honorable was good, or the doctrine he afterward persistently defended, that ‘honorable’ was an empty name and pleasure was the supreme good. Antiochus wished to demonstrate from Dionysius’s change of opinion that nothing arising from truth could be marked in our minds in a way that could not also arise from falsehood. He ensured that others could direct against him the very argument he had himself drawn from Dionysius. But more about this elsewhere. Let us now turn to the points you made, Lucullus.”",
            "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 avait coutume d’employer l’argument suivant lorsqu’il admettait encore que rien ne pouvait être perçu. Il demandait si Denys d’Héraclée avait compris, grâce au signe certain auquel vous dites qu’il faut donner son assentiment, soit la doctrine qu’il avait soutenue pendant de nombreuses années en se fiant à son maître Zénon, à savoir que seul ce qui est moralement beau est bon, soit celle qu’il avait ensuite défendue, à savoir que le beau moral est un nom vide et que le plaisir est le bien suprême. Lui qui voulait enseigner, par ce changement d’opinion de Denys, que rien venant du vrai ne pouvait être marqué dans nos esprits d’une manière telle que le faux ne pût l’être pareillement, fit en sorte que les autres tirassent de lui-même l’argument qu’il avait tiré de Denys. Mais nous en dirons davantage ailleurs. J’en viens maintenant, Lucullus, à ce que tu as dit.",
            "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": "be655c980cd7b0db1068022067177872005dee15021cc0ee72eb54836bb496b1"
}