Over the last two decades, a number of important new publications have contributed to the clarification of Newton's intellectual background from a variety of points of view. This is relevant to the historical origins of modem science: its basic concepts are not simply 'given', but are constructs peculiar to a specific sociocultural realm. Interest has shifted recently from ancient sources to more contemporarymainly theological -influences acting upon Newton while he was conceiving his ideas. This in itself is good, since it has filled a gap in our awareness of Newton's ideological environment. However, a certain tendency to play down the relevance of ancient influences on Newton accompanied these new results. Although we by no means intend to underestimate the importance of contemporary theological controversies, we want to stress, nevertheless, that these too remain marked profoundly by ancient metaphysical dilemmas, and therefore that, if one seeks a proper understanding of Newton's work, both should be taken into consideration. The emergence of the nova philosophia, the new natural science, was dogged by a fierce conflict between proponents and opponents of widely varying, though profoundly traditional, philosophical schools, whose new methodological underpinnings I coincided with prevailing religiously-coloured views of a new social climate. The fact that a study of these earlier roots may shed new light on fundamental dilemmas within modem physics is borne out by a renewed interest in the conceptual foundation of Newton's natural philosophy,-especially the philosophical background to his mechanics in his Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. To further the understanding of the precise links between Newton's two main influences, we shall develop a philosophical-linguistic text analytical study of the Neostoic and Neoplatonic influences on Newton's concept of 'gravity', based on one key text, namely the Scholium Generate.' THE SCHOLIUM GENERALEIn 1713 Newton published the Scholium Generale at the end of the second edition of his Principia:" This Scholium was again included in the third edition of the Principia (1726), and Andrew Motte published an English translation of the Latin text as early as 1729. 5 A French translation accompanied by a brief commentary was provided by Marie-Francoise Biamais in 1982. 6 A Dutch translation has not yet been undertaken. The topic of our present contribution was prompted by the lack of

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L'humaniste-philosophe zélandais Hadrien Beverland (1650-1716), connaisseur par excellence de la littérature érotique de l'antiquité, n'a pas cité moins de 142 fois Martial dans son manuscrit De Prostibuiis Veterum. Ces citations sont souvent accompagnées de commentaires. Citations et commentaires ont été pourvus des données nécessaires pour retracer les sources (mss et édd.) de Beverland.