Nigidius Figulus

[10] The 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen compared the occult interests of the Late Republic to the “spirit-rapping and tablemoving” that fascinated “men of the highest rank and greatest learning” in the Victorian era.

Nigidius remained staunchly among the conservative republicans of the senate, but Publius Vatinius, the other best-known Pythagorean among his political contemporaries, was a fierce and long-term supporter of Caesar.

According to Cicero,[13] Nigidius tried with some success to revive the doctrines of Pythagoreanism, which would have included mathematics, astronomy and astrology, and arcana of the magical tradition.

He paid special attention to orthography,[3] and sought to differentiate the meanings of grammatical cases of like ending by distinctive marks: the apex to indicate a long vowel was once incorrectly attributed to him, but has now been proven to be older.

The scholarly approach of the Commentarii may be compared to that of Varro in its combination of grammatical subjects and antiquarianism, but Nigidius's esoteric and scientific interests distinguish him.

The literary historian Gian Biaggio Conte notes that "the number of his fragments that has come down to us does not correspond to the general admiration felt by posterity for this interesting scholar-philosopher-scientist-magician" and attributes this loss to "the vastness and especially the obscurity of the works.

"[21] Lucan concludes Book 1 of his epic Bellum civile (also known as the Pharsalia) with a portrayal of Nigidius uttering dire prophecies, based in part on astrological readings.

Primary sources for the life of Nigidius Figulus include several references in Cicero's letters, and the scholiast on Lucan, Bellum civile I.

The fragments of Nigidius's works are collected by A. Swoboda, P. Nigidii Figuli Operum Reliquiae (Amsterdam 1964, updated from the 1889 edition), with Quaestiones Nigidianae, a long and very useful introduction in Latin.