1 (1) Pythagoras of Samos instructed the region of Italy once called ...

This is the complaint of Philippus: that there were not “two thousand men in the state
who had a thing.” 47 Sometimes the point is utility, as in ‘it’s the thing’ or ‘it’s just your
thing,’ (21) and sometimes the question is what the question is (which pertains to the next
book, however), as in Cicero’s work On the Laws: “Is there such dissension about just
one thing, which is what is actually ‘pertinent to the thing’?” 48 And it is no wonder that
one word has so many special meanings since it includes them all comprehensively.
(22) ‘Thing’ works better (I feel) than the Greek ‘pragma,’ which is usually translated as
‘action,’ though we too sometimes say ‘action’ for ‘thing,’ as Cicero does in the Rhetoric
when he states that arguments derive from what is alleged either of ‘persons’ or of
‘actions,’ and Sallust likewise in the Jugurthine War: “Every authority transfers his own
guilt to the actions of others.” 49 This may be what Ulpian means: “it was actually
established in the nature of things that there are more actions than words.” 50 And this
may also have been the reason why Aristotle wanted to use ‘to on’ more often than
‘pragma,’ though he would have used ‘pragma’ rather than ‘to on’ had he attended to the
character and meaning of the words. 51
(23) I have had much to say of the first three terms, which are almost the same in
character. I shall also discuss the other three, which have different features, treating them
as honored guests and not discharging them dishonorably – all the more since we would
seem to insult those to whom we have denied the rank of transcendental. But no one who
fairly denies someone a greater honor causes him insult, though perhaps it would be fair
for me to allow more because I have seemed to put them on the same level with
‘something,’ the term that contrasts with nothing but ‘nothing’ itself. (24) ‘Many’
contrasts with ‘one,’ however, and ‘evil’ with ‘good’ and ‘false’ with ‘true,’ which
themselves are ‘something.’ ‘One’ occurs as ‘one thing,’ moreover, as in ‘just one I seek
from you, judges.’ I hardly dare say that ‘good’ is taken’ as ‘good thing’ since we read
that ‘all aim at the good.’ 52 ‘True’ for ‘true thing’ I do not recall finding, but it is used for
‘truth,’ as ‘false’ is used for ‘falsity’ – likewise, ‘good’ for ‘goodness,’ ‘evil’ for
‘wickedness’ and, yes, ‘one’ for ‘unity’ (or actually for ‘one thing’) as in ‘from one to a
hundred.’
(25) Aristotle claims that one is not a number but the ‘beginning’ of number, as if
beginnings of things were not parts of those same things but, consequently, things in
themselves. 53 Someone who reads the beginning of a book reads a book; someone who
touches a person’s head touches a person; someone who sees the beginning of a swamp
sees a swamp. These facts must be ascribed not to the chicanery of sophists but to the
47
Cic. Off. 2.73: Cicero describes Lucius Marcius Philippus, consul in 91 and a great orator, who made this
remark in defending an agrarian law.
48
Cic. Leg. 1.53-4: the text of Cicero’s Laws that Valla cites is corrupt, but the sense of ‘res’ is the same.
49
Zippel cites Cic. Rhet. Her. 2.1; Sall. Jug. 1.
50
Dig. 19.5.4: Ulpian is thinking of legal transactions rather than actions in general, and the former is closer
to ‘negotium.’
51
In fact, pragma is more common than to on in Aristotle, but its range is broader.
52 a
Valla alludes to the famous opening of the Nicomachaean Ethics: Arist. EN 1094 1-3.
53 Arist. Meta. 1052b23-4; 1088 a 6-7.
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