{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-physicists/livre-9/passage-376/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Against the Physicists, Books IX-X of Against the Learned",
    "author": "Sextus Empiricus",
    "date": "c. 180-220 CE",
    "summary": "Sextus tests physicists’ claims about gods, causes, wholes and parts, place, time, motion, and number. Each concept encounters competing definitions and incompatible consequences.",
    "learning": "Follow aporiai concerning cause, place, time, and motion, compare cited schools, and assess Sextus as a polemical witness to lost doctrines.",
    "long_summary": "Books IX and X summon Stoic, Epicurean, Aristotelian, and other traditions to oppose their explanations of the world. Sextus asks what causation presupposes, how body occupies place, and whether motion can be conceived without contradiction.\n\nAccumulation does not propose a sceptical physics. It seeks persuasive equality between assertion and denial using sources Sextus selects and reformulates. The quotations also preserve lost doctrines, but their polemical mediation must remain visible.",
    "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": "skepticism",
        "label": "Skepticism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "grc",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/representations/grc.ndjson",
            "language": "grc",
            "records": 791,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "582e9253011cacafb685a7299e878ce9de39e1fb5cc4bcab6a8dc28fdc44cce5",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/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": 791,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "02b8e25fe7cea669e14bd15ab9ff8e286731f0b1b05b7c5597e0c320c6f61afc",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/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": 791,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "9ac07f9913e4f4d80bd4c63262c585ac296e149152be8d9eb9c61c8e99dfadb8",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "equipollence",
            "label": "Equipollence"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "suspension_of_judgment",
            "label": "Suspension of judgment"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists"
    ],
    "passages": 791,
    "word_count": 51318,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 51318,
        "fr": 53636,
        "grc": 42626
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "sextus-book-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:sextus_empiricus.against_physicists:9.376",
    "canonical_ref": "9.376",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "μῆκος μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν, ἐπεὶ τὸ μέγιστον ἦν τοῦτο τοῦ σώματος διάστημα, ὅπερ λέγεται παρὰ τοῖς μαθηματικοῖς γραμμή, ἡ δὲ γραμμὴ ἦν στιγμὴ ἐρρυηκυῖα, καὶ ἡ στιγμὴ σημεῖον ἀμερὲς καὶ ἀδιάστατον. ὅθεν εἰ μηδὲν ἔστι σημεῖον ἀμερὲς καὶ ἀδιάστατον, οὐδὲ γραμμὴ γενήσεται, μὴ οὔσης 29a δὲ γραμμῆς οὐδὲ μῆκος ἔσται, μήκους δὲ μὴ ὄντος οὐδὲ σῶμα ὑποστήσεται· σὺν μήκει γὰρ σῶμα νοεῖται.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "For there is no length, since this was the greatest dimension of body, which mathematicians call a line, while a line was a point flowing, and a point a partless and dimensionless sign. Hence, if there is no partless and dimensionless sign, neither will there be a line; if there is no line, there will be no length; and if there is no length, no body will subsist, for body is conceived together with length.",
            "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 n’existe pas de longueur, car elle était la plus grande dimension du corps, celle que les mathématiciens appellent ligne ; or la ligne était un point qui s’est écoulé, et le point un signe sans parties et sans étendue. Par conséquent, s’il n’existe aucun signe sans parties et sans étendue, il n’y aura pas non plus de ligne ; en l’absence de ligne, il n’y aura pas de longueur ; et en l’absence de longueur, aucun corps ne subsistera, puisque le corps est conçu avec la longueur.",
            "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": "8ca720e54352037af61bdc7dbc2f37ad653baa9fdee637adbe8be44d14c4bca3"
}