Historical Relations of Sextus Empiricus. 15

Sextus' lectures must have been given in some center of philosophical schools and of learning. He never opposes Roman relations to those of the place where he is speaking, as he does in regard to Athens and Alexandria. He uses the name "Romans" only three times,¹ once comparing them to the Rhodians, once to the Persians, and once in general to other nations.² In the first two of these references, the expression "among the Romans" in the first part of the antithesis is followed by the expression "among us" in the second part, which Haas understands to be synonymous. The third reference is in regard to a Roman law, and the use of the word "Roman" does not at all show that Sextus was not then in Rome. The character of the laws referred to by Sextus as "among us" original: "παρ' ἡμῖν" shows that they were always Roman laws, and his definition of law³ is especially a definition of Roman law. This argument might, it would seem, apply to any part of the Roman Empire,⁴ but Haas claims that the whole relation of law to custom as treated of by Sextus, and all his statements of customs forbidden at that time by law, point to Rome as the place of his residence. Further, Haas considers the Herodotus mentioned by Galen⁴ as a prominent physician in Rome to have been the predecessor and master of Sextus, in whose place Sextus says that he is teaching.⁵ Haas also thinks that Sextus' refutation of the identity of Pyrrhonism with Empiricism evidently refers to a paragraph in Galen's Subfiguratio...