A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

814 SEXTUS. SIBYLLA.
tical art, which is based on experience; and admit period, are not regarded as documents of authat a useful art of life may be derived from the thority, and have even been stigmatised as modern
observation of many particular cases. (Adv. Math. forgeries. Biondo Flavio, in his Roma Instaurata
viii. 8.) (Veron. 1482), quotes from an old description of
It is an exemplification of the nature of the Rome by Seixtus Ruff'us Vir Consedaris, a copy of
sceptical doctrines, as exhibited by Sextus, that which he had seen in the library attached to the
the objections to mathematical science are not monastery of Monte Casino. There can be little
directed against reckoning by number and against doubt that the piece thus described is the same
mensuration, but against the scientific form of with that printed by Panvinius; but there are no
mathematics, and mainly against its fundamental grounds whatever for establishing a connection
notions; against the admissibility of proof, and between this personage, whoever he may have
against axioms, against the notion of body, divisi- been, and Sextus Rufus the historian.
bility into equal parts, and the like. The object The De Regionibus will be found in Graevius,
of the modern scepticism thus appears to be to Thesaurus AntiquitatumRomanarum, vol. iii. p. 25,
stop all progress in science which has not utility and was published separately with notes by Miinfor its object, and to treat it as a pestilent luxury; nich, 8vo. Hannov. 1815.
in which view there is both wisdom and folly; (See the remarks on the Regionarii appended to
wisdom, inasmuch as some purpose of utility is the Mr. Bunbury's paper on the Topography of Rome,
end of all science, and folly, inasmuch as utility is in the tenth number of the Classical Museum, p.
not always best attained by proceeding directly 373.) [W. R.]
towards it. The Sceptici did not go so far as to SEXTUS RUFUS. The name prefixed to an
deny that much useful knowledge was traditional, abridgment of Roman History, entitled Sexti Rnfi
and might be communicated by speech and writing; Breviarium de Victoriis et Provinciis Populi Rofor no man's sole experience is sufficient to give mani, executed by command of the emperor Valens,
him all useful knowledge. to whom it is dedicated. The prince had instructed
Ritter admits that the Sceptici have urged many the author to be brief (brevenz fieri Clementia tiea
things that are well worthy of consideration, both praecepit), and the injunction was most scrupuagainst the form and the matter of the sciences; lously obeyed, for the events of more than eleven
and this is true. Their notion of the relation of hundred years, from the foundation of the city
cause and effect was connected with their notion of until the death of Jovianus, are compressed within
the being of God, whom they acknowledged to be the limits of twenty-eight short chapters, couched
the supreme activity (Pyrrh. Hyp. iii. 2, apaetn- in plain and unpretending language. A more lofty
IKC'TaTov aY'rTov). They showed clearly the con- exposition, however, of contemporary achievements
tradictions which existed in all attempts to define is promised in the concluding sentence, "Quam
the nature of God after the measure of human magno deinceps ore tua, O princeps invicte, facta
notions: that passions and motives are attributed inclita sunt personanda? quibus me, licet imparem
to him, which passions and motives imply some dicendi nisu, et aevo gravior, praeparabo;" but
change in the patient, and this is inconsistent with whether this project was ever carried into effect
the nature of God. Even the attributing of parti- we have no means of discovering, since nothing is
cular virtuous qualities to God is an inconsistency, known with regard to the personal history of the
inasmuch as God, a perfect being, cannot be said writer.
to exercise virtues which in themselves imply the The Breviarium was first printed by Sixtus
possibility of vice. The sum of their objections, Ruesinger at Rome, about 1470, and many ediproperly viewed, is this, that God is incompre- tions appeared before the close of the fifteenth cenhensible. tury. The text was established upon a satisfactory
It is difficult to form a just estimate of the value basis by Cuspinianus, who collated many MSS.
of what Sextus has collected. A good translation and published it with annotations in his Coinozenand a careful analysis of the work would be worth taria de consulibuns Ronoanis, fol. Francf. 1601.
a man's labour. The sceptical arguments were Since that time it has generally been included in'directed against proof; but there is evidence which the larger editions of Eutropius, and of the minor
is not demonstration, and yet is sufficient, not only Roman historians. A new recension, by Rafftello
for practical purposes, but for a philosophical con- Mecenate, from the Vatican and other MSS., was
viction. All conviction is not and cannot be founded published at Rome, 8vo. 1819. [W. R.]
on demonstration. The ultimate truths do not, in SIBU'RIUS, a physician of Burdigala (Bourtheir nature, admit of demonstration, for there is deaux) in the fourth century after Christ, mennothing from which the demonstration can proceed. tioned, along with Ausonius and Eutropius, by
If a man, then, cannot have a conviction of these Marcellus Empiricus (De Medicam. praef. p. 242),
ultimate truths, he must reject them, or live in as being one of his fellow-citizens and immediate
doubt. [G. L.] predecessors. He wrote a pharmaceutical work,
SEXTUS RUFUS. Onuphrius Panvinius pub- which is noticed by Marcellus, but is not now exlished at Frankfort in 1558, along with his work tant. Fabricins (Bibl. Gr. vol. xiii. p. 423, ed. vet.)
on the Roman Republic, a tract bearing the name conjectures that in the passage referred to we
of Sextus Rufus, and entitled De Regionibus Urbis should read Scribonius idstead of Siburius: but
Romae, which he professed to have found in an this is certainly an oversight; as 1. Scribonius is
ancient MS. It corresponds closely with the cata- mentioned (by the name Designatianuzs) as a diflogue of Publius Victor [VICTOR], but is less com- ferent person in a former clause of the same senplete, and is much mutilated. The MS. of Panvinius tence; 2. he lived in the first century, not in the
has disappeared, and no codex containing either of fourth; and 3. there is no reason for believing
these productions is known to exist of a date earlier that he was a native of Bourdeaux. [W. A. G.]
than the fifteenth century. They are believed by the SIBYLLA (idgvAXa) is the name by which
best topographers to have been compiled at a late several prophetic women are designated who occur