The Theory of Moral Sentiments (68 page)

Borgia, Cesare
(1475-1507), Italian military and political leader whose grandiose ambitions and criminal methods were memorialized by Machiavelli.

Bristol, George Digby, second Earl of
(1612-1677), English statesman and principal figure in the civil wars in which he was a royalist sympathizer and later the great rival of Clarendon.

Brutus (
1
)
(Lucius Junius Brutus; 6th c. BC), honored by tradition as founder of the Roman Republic for having cast out the Tarquin kings following the rape and suicide of Lucretia in 509 BC; as consul he presided over the indictment and execution of his two sons for their participation in the conspiracy to restore the Tarquins.

Brutus (
2
)
(Marcus Junius Brutus; 85-42 BC), Roman politician who played a chief role in the conspiracy to murder Julius Caesar in 44 BC and variously regarded by posterity as a republican hero or ambitious regicide.

Buffier, Claude
(1661-1737), French Jesuit and philosopher and author of several works on metaphysics, epistemology, and language; his chief work,
Treatise on First Truths
(1717), set forth a theory of self-knowledge founded on common sense similar to that developed by several Scottish thinkers.

Butler, Joseph
(1692-1752), English philosopher and Bishop of Durham; chiefly known today for the collection of his sermons preached at Rolls Chapel (
Fifteen Sermons
, 1726) which examined the psychology of self-love and benevolence and criticized psychological egoism, and for his study of natural religion and personal identity (
Analogy of Religion
, 1736).

Butler, Samuel
(1613-1680), English poet, chiefly known for his satirical
Hudibras
, published in three parts between 1662 and 1678.

Caesar
(Gaius Julius Caesar; 100-44 BC), Roman commander, consul, and dictator; established supremacy in Rome through defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus, which ended the civil wars in 48 BC; assassinated four years later by conspirators jealous of his power and suspicious of his ambitions.

Calas, Jean
(1698-1762), merchant of Toulouse, executed for the crime of murdering his son for converting to Catholicism; his trial proceeded without evidence (the son in fact committed suicide) leading Voltaire to become a vocal advocate of Calas’s innocence.

Callisthenes
(ca. 360-327 BC), Macedonian author of a celebratory account of Alexander’s exploits; executed for his opposition to Alexander’s importation into Macedonia of the Persian custom of
proskynesis
, the prostration of inferior before superior.

Camillus
(Marcus Furius Camillus; 4th c. BC), Roman tribune and dictator celebrated for his role in preserving Rome from the invasion of the Gauls.

Catherine de Medici
(1519-1589), queen of France as wife of Henry II, but exercised chief political influence as advisor to her three sons, who ruled after her husband’s death in 1559 and whose reigns witnessed the height of the French Wars of Religion, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572.

Catiline
(Lucius Sergius Catilina; 1st c. BC), Roman praetor and aspiring consul whose conspiracy was discovered and denounced by Cicero; driven from Rome, he was killed in battle in 62 BC.

Catinat, Nicholas
(1637-1712), French commander under Louis XIV; elected Marshal of France for his early victories, he was defeated by Prince Eugene of Savoy in the War of Spanish Succession.

Cato (
1
)
(Marcus Porcius Cato, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor; 234-149 BC), Roman consul and great-grandfather of Cato the Younger, and a prominent orator famed for his moral and political rigidity.

Cato (
2
)
(Marcus Porcius Cato, Cato the Younger, or Cato of Utica; 95-46 BC), Roman republican hero renowned for his Stoic self-command, antipathy to corruption, and dedication to public service; he committed suicide after Caesar’s victory at Thapsus so as not to be subjected to Caesar’s rule.

Charles I
(1600-1649), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until his death; his reign witnessed the English civil wars that culminated in his trial, conviction, and execution for treason, which came to be hailed as a martyrdom.

Charles II
(1630-1685), son of Charles I and brother of James II, and king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until his death.

Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de
(1682-1761), French Jesuit missionary and author of
History and General Description of New France, with the Historical Journal of a Journey to North America
(1744).

Chrysippus
(ca. 280-207 BC), Stoic philosopher who followed Cleanthes as third head of the Stoic school in 232; chiefly commended for his diligent codification of Stoic doctrine.

Cicero
(Marcus Tullius Cicero; 106-43 BC), Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher; his political career ended with the ascendency of Casear, which prompted him in his retirement to turn to the composition of major works of moral philosophy which exercised a significant influence on Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, including
De legibus
(
On Laws
),
De officiis
(
On Duties
),
De finibus
(
On Ends
), and
De natura deorum
(
On the Nature of the Gods
).

Clarendon, Edward Hyde, first Earl of
(1609-1674), English politician and historian who, as a moderate royalist, was a principal figure in the struggles he chronicled in his
History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England
.

Clarke, Samuel
(1675-1729), English philosopher with principal contributions in metaphysics and natural theology; particularly influential were his two Boyle lectures of 1704 and 1705 in which he responded to the materialism and atheism of Hobbes and Spinoza:
A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God
and
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
.

Claudius
(Tiberius Claudius Drusus; 10 BC-AD 54), Roman emperor from 41 until his death, upon which he was succeeded by his adoptive son, Nero.

Cleanthes
(ca. 331-232 BC), Greek philosopher and successor to Zeno as second head of the Stoic school.

Cleomenes III
(3rd c. BC), king of Sparta from 235 to 222; after having been driven out of the Peloponnesus by Antigonus, he traveled to Alexandria, where he committed suicide in 220 after failing to instigate a popular revolt.

Clermont, Bishop of
. See Massillon.

Clytus
(Cleitus; 4th c. BC), Macedonian noble and cavalry commander; once a favorite of Alexander for having saved his life in 330 in the battle against the Persians at the Granicus, he was murdered by Alexander at a drinking party in 328 for having dared to criticize Alexander’s divine pretentions.

Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de
(1621-1686), French commander under Louis XIV, chief figure in the aristocratic unrest of mid-century (the Fronde), and renowned as one of the great military geniuses of his age.

Cowley, Abraham
(1618-1667), English poet who wrote on political, biblical, and classical themes; his chief work of love poetry was
The Mistress
(1647).

Crassus (
1
)
(Marcus Licinius Crassus; 1st c. BC), Roman commander and statesman, remembered for his suppression of the slave revolt of Spartacus, his membership in the First Triumvirate with Casear and Pompey, and his wealth and ostensible greed.

Crassus (
2
)
(Lucius Licinius Crassus; 140-91 BC), Roman statesman and orator, particularly celebrated by Cicero for his rhetorical abilities.

Cudworth, Ralph
(1617-1688), English philosopher and one of the principal Cambridge Platonists; author of
The True Intellectual System of the Universe
(1678), which sought to reconcile Platonism and revealed religion in countering atheism, and the
Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality
(pub. 1731), which sought to counter Epicurean and Hobbesian positivism.

Czar Peter of Muscovy
: see Peter the Great.

Davila, Arrigo Caterino
(1576-1631), Italian historian and author of
The History of the Civil Wars in France
(1630); he was a first-hand participant in the subjects he chronicled, having served as a soldier in France and as a page in the court of Catherine de Medici.

Demosthenes
(384-322 BC), Athenian statesman and orator particularly famed for his
Philippics
, a series of speeches delivered between 351 and 341 to encourage Athenian military resistance to the Macedonian king Philip.

Descartes, René
(1596-1650), French mathematician and philosopher with important contributions in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics that shaped Enlightenment philosophical debates; Smith’s engagement with Descartes is largely limited to the physical and astronomical ideas of his
Principles of Philosophy
(1644).

Diogenes Laertius
(3rd c. AD), Greek historian of philosophy about whom almost nothing is known; his
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
provides biographical and intellectual sketches that have been generally poorly regarded as philosophical commentaries but greatly valued for their quotations and transcriptions of works otherwise lost.

Domitian
(Titus Flavius Domitanus, AD 51-96), Roman emperor from 81 until his death; his heavy-handed administration saw the banishment of philosophers from Rome in 89.

Dryden, John
(1631-1700), English poet, playwright, critic, and translator; among his many well-known poetic works is his
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681).

Dubos, Jean-Baptiste, Abbé
(1670-1742), French author of works of history and literary criticism; chiefly known for the aesthetic and psychological theories set forth in his
Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting
(1719).

Epaphroditus
(1st c. AD), former slave of Nero, secretary to Nero and Domitian, and himself master of Epictetus.

Epictetus
(1st-2nd c. AD), Roman Stoic philosopher whose life and writings are principally dedicated to matters of practical morality; he wrote nothing, dedicating himself exclusively to teaching, but his lessons were transcribed by his student Arrian under the title
Discourses
.

Epicurus
(341-270 BC), Greek philosopher whose hedonistic moral philosophy was built on the foundations of a materialist metaphysics derived from earlier atomistic theories.

Eugene, Prince of Savoy
(1663-1736), French military commander whose chief renown came from his service to the Austrian state and the Hapsburgs in their battles against the Ottoman Empire and in the War of Spanish Succession.

Eumenes
(ca. 361-316 BC), Macedonian military commander; a favorite of Alexander, he was one of the chief generals vying for supremacy in the wake of Alexander’s death, but was defeated by Antigonus at Gabiene.

Euripides
(5th c. BC), with Sophocles and Aeschylus, one of the three principal dramatists of the golden age of Athenian tragedy; among his nineteen extant plays are several dealing with figures and themes with which Smith engaged, including
Hippolytus
.

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier, Sieur de
(1657-1757), French author and key figure of the early Enlightenment; renowned for his dialogues on astronomy and Copernican cosmology (
Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
, 1686), his defense of the moderns against the ancients, and his
éloges
of his fellow members of the French Academy of Sciences.

Frederick II
(Frederick the Great; 1712-1786), king of Prussia from 1740 to his death, and renowned for his success as a military commander, his study and patronage of Enlightenment philosophers, and an approach to domestic administration that combined moderate liberal reforms with strong centralized authority (so-called enlightened absolutism).

Genghis Khan
(ca. 1162-1227), Mongol emperor from 1206 to his death; at its height his empire stretched from modern China to the Middle East, and was reputed for the brutal destruction that accompanied its expansion.

Gracchi
(Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus; ca. 164-133 BC) and his younger brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (154-121 BC) were Roman tribunes who advocated moderate legal reforms that generally benefited the plebs they represented.

Gray, Thomas
(1716-1771), English poet greatly admired by Smith; chiefly known for his
Odes
and his
Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard
(1751).