Reported argument; cicero quoted by julian
Against Julian 5.5.23
Augustine reports that Julian regarded desire as more commendable because other bodily parts serve to excite it: eyes seeing in order to desire, and other members in kisses and embraces.
When drunken young men, excited also by flute music as often happens, were breaking down a chaste woman’s door, Pythagoras is said to have told the flute player to play a solemn spondaic rhythm. When she did, the slowness of the measures and gravity of the song quieted their raging insolence. [Cicero, On His Own Counsels, a lost work.]
It receives consent rather than commands.
It is excited by other stimuli, or broken and quieted by music.
Latin
Commendatiorem fieri putas, quod ei serviunt, ut ardentius excitetur, etiam ceterae corporis partes, sive oculi videntes ad concupiscendum, sive alia membra in osculis et amplexibus
consentitur ei potius quam imperatur
aliis concitatur stimulis, vel modulamine frangitur et sedatur
About this text
Earlier four-book work to Turbantius, surviving as excerpts arranged by Augustine’s witness. Latin source text is on each section when recovered.
English follows Julian’s words as Augustine excerpts them in Against Julian. This is not a recovered complete To Turbantius.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Augustine, Against Julian (Latin · Excerpts arranged by Augustine’s books)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.