The sources of Ad Nationes

1. Virgil 1 authority · 1 refuted · 1 extended 3 citations

   book 1 · book 2 2 passages anchored here

   The passage quotes and then substantially develops the classical poetic characterization of Report as lying and evil.

   For by a private title you commonly call Jupiter "the Best," and there is Virgil's "Jove the Just.

2. historical records of Saturn's human life Cassius Severus 3 authority 3 citations · 1 passage

   book 2

   Cited as one of the historians whose record supports Saturn's humanity.

   We read it in Cassius Severus, in the Cornelii Nepos and Tacitus, among the Greeks too in Diodorus, and whoever else have collected the hoary records of antiquity.

3. Homer 1 authority · 1 refuted 2 citations

   book 1 · book 2

   Homer is explicitly named as the poet whose depiction of the gods is relied upon as evidence.

   He, I suppose, is the one who treated the divine majesty after the human condition, steeping the gods in human chances and passions;

4. Plato 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations · 4 passages

   book 1 · book 2 3 passages anchored here

   Plato is named directly as the recorder of the sunken continent, used as evidence in the argument.

   Therefore, since this world contains the elements — to treat summarily of the whole, as supplying its parts (for whatever its condition is, the same surely will be that also of the elements and members) — it must either have been instituted by someone, as Plato's humaneness has it, or by no one, as Epicurus's hardness has it;

5. Cornelius Nepos 1 authority 1 citation

   book 2

   Cited as one of the historians whose record supports Saturn's humanity.

   Plainly your god Saturn altogether is reviewed, in the records of the ancients, on earth, of human quality.

6. Pindar 1 authority 1 citation

   book 2

   Cited to confirm that Aesculapius's death was a deserved punishment.

   But indeed Pindar did not conceal his merit:

7. Proverbs Solomon 1 authority 1 citation

   book 2

   Explicitly introduced as 'the divine pronouncement of Solomon' and relied on as authoritative.

   Him whom they had not thoroughly admitted, they could neither know nor fear, nor thence be wise — straying, of course, from the beginning of wisdom, that is, the fear of God.

Each stands at a single passage. The chapter carries the anchors.

book 1 8 sources

Account of Persian customs · Histories (Book 4) · Pagan writings asserting transmigration of souls · Poetic and philosophical traditions on judgment of the dead · Principle that no case is judged without hearing both sides · Reports on Egyptian deities and satirical writings · Roman laws against the Christians · the Pythian oracle's pronouncement on Socrates

book 2 8 sources

Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (Divine Antiquities) · Classification of the gods (threefold species) · Epicurean doctrine of nature · Sibylline verse on Saturn's generation · Stoic doctrine distinguishing born gods from deified men · Stoic doctrine of fire and matter · Varro's account of the gods · report on Aesculapius's illegitimate parentage