person
Catius
also: Catius, Catium, Catii
Catius the Insubrian (a Gaul), a Latin popularizer of Epicureanism in the mid-1st century BC who wrote on physics and ethics; Cassius mocks his coinage 'spectra' (Greek eidola, the films Epicurean theory said objects shed) as 'Catian spectres' (Fam. 15.19). Cicero elsewhere calls him a recently dead Epicurean.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 15.16 §1 Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died not long ago, calls
Catius was a recently deceased Epicurean of Cisalpine Gaul. Cicero mocks his Latin coinage 'spectra' (spectres) for the Greek eidola, the perception-images of Epicurean and Democritean atomism.
- Ad Familiares 15.19 §1 Catian spectres
A jab at Catius the Insubrian Epicurean, who coined the Latin spectra to render Epicurus's eidola, the thin films Epicurean physics held that objects continually shed to produce sense-images and the appearances of the absent or dead.