Storia della Filosofia Romana -- PARTE I

Speranza La tradizione pragmatic oratoria nella STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA ROMANA: da Catone a Marc’Aurelio. My concern here is a basic one. I attempt to trace some obvious continuity between Latin philosophical prose (or lexicon, rather) and its Italian (or ‘vernacular’, as I prefer) counterpart. My references will be to Grice as his idea of ‘conceptual analysis’ guides most research in pragmatics. I will provide references to ITALIAN-language bibliographies on the names of the “ROMAN PHILOSOPHERS” (“parola chiave: FILOSOFIA ROMANA”). Our emphasis will be on a “Griceian” reading of “Ancient Roman Philosophy”. We will be concerned with theAncient Roman philosopher as he deals with issues of what Grice would call “conceptual analysis”. Our focus will be with the idea of the “antique” – what makes a Roman philosopher an “Ancient Roman” philosopher as such. The contemporary Griceian reference will be provided. While it is possible (and perhaps easy) to trace earlier sources for “Ancient Roman” philosophy, the standard starting point is 155 a. C. In 155 a.C., a famous embassy of three Greek philosophers was sent to ROMA by the city of Athens to appeal an unfavourable decision by Greek arbitrators in a dispute with Oropo (concerning taxes). The idea was that these Greek ambassadors would allow the Romans to revise their unfavourable decision towards them. It did NOT work. Quite the contrary, it proved, to the Romans, that Greek philosophy had been rather useless. These three philsophers were the so-called leading Athenian philosophers of the day, heads of three of the leading Athenian schools of philosophy: (a) – DIOGENE (di Babilonia), head of the Stoa. (b) -- CRITOLAO, head of the Peripatetics. (c) -- CARNEADE, head of the “Accademia” (The Epicurean school was not represented, presumably because of its doctrine of non-involvement in political affairs). It was the prerogative of the Roman senate to deal with foreign embassies, and the ambassadors made their case to the senators, interpreted, “in lingua latina” by the senator ACILIO. The presiding officer of the senate was the praetor, Aulo Postumio Albino. The senatorial setting for the embassy was extra-ordinary, with the leading roles taken by prominent Roman phil-hellenes and (evidently) a stage-managed favourable reception for these three Greek ambassadors. The three Greek ambassadors themselves had also prepared for a friendly reception by giving “public” (i.e. rather than in private “ville”) discourses “before a large crowd of Romans so as to advertise themselves”. It is CICERONE who describes the oratory of the three ambassadors. -(a) DIOGENE di BABILONIA, “stoico” CICERONE starts with DIOGENE di Babilonia. Cicerone says that Diogenes claimed to be able to teach “the art of good speaking,” and more importantly, of “distinguishing between the true and the false, which the Greeks call “dialectic””. As Cicerone goes on to point out, this “art” gives no guidance in finding out the true, but plenty for drawing intellectual fine distinctions and raising what Witters (Wittgenstein) would call “insoluble problems” (“unanswerable questions”). Diogene’s rather archaic Greek style was “thin, dry, concise and detailed”, compared to the Roman rhetoric with which CICERONE was acquainted with, which was copious and fluent, one that gave pleasure to one’s addressee and led one’s addressee to weigh the arguments “not in the goldsmith’s balance but in the scales of the people”. -(b) CRITOLAO, “peripatetico”. The second philosopher, CRITOLAO, on the other hand (in Cicerone’s opinion), was a more valuable speaker, because he had studied the “Rhetoric” of ARISTOTELE, who brought to this discipline (what Grice would call “pragmatics”) the same intellectual breadth and mental acumen as he had shown in his research into the physical world, whereas the Stoic DIOGENE studied only the “ars iudicandi” without considering the “ars inventionis”, how to develop the substance of an argument. (DIOGENE was, in spite of Cicerone’s appraisal, an influential philosopher, the tutor of PANEZIO, some of whose modifications in Stoic moral theory may well have been anticipated by him). -(c) CARNEADE, ‘accademico’. It was Carneade, however, who attracted the most attention with the Romans. CARNEADE’s rhetoric was powerful and varied, AND he was always persuasive, whether he was defending or attacking a proposition – what Grice calls the ‘eirenic’ approach to philosophy, which is also “NEUTRAL”. Like his two fellow-ambassadors, CARNEADE gave display ALSO “public” discourses that drew large Roman audiences up in the Campidoglio, which were distinguished by their brilliance and novelty. Whereas the peripatetic Critolao was elegant and polished, and Diogene was sober and modest in his style, Carneade impressed his audiences by the violence and power of his discourse. Notably, CARNEADE spoke in defence of “justice” as fairness on one day – a Tuesday. On the next day, a Wednesday, CARNEADE spoke against “justice’ as fairness, refuting all that he had said the previous day. (CICERONE will incorporate Carneade’s speeches in the reverse order into the third book of his “De Republica”, starting with the “against”, and ending with the “for”). CARNEADE denied that justice (as fairness) had any foundation in “natura” (i.e. that there was no such thing as “natural” justice. In fact, he went to to argue that Roman rule over Greece was based on something like “natural” INjustice. The embassy of these three Greek philosophers is held by historiographers of “Ancient Roman Philosophy” to have been a decisive event in the Roman experience of the discipline of philosophy. It was the first time that the method of “Greek philosophy” was publicly displayed, both before the august assembly of the Roman senate and in “public” lectures to large Roman audiences – as opposed to the rather more private tutorials and ‘convivial’ gatherings in suburban ville favoured by more aristocratic Romans. There had been, of course, plenty of interaction between Greeks and Romans for decades, going back to the time when the Romans finally achieved control over the Greek colonies in ITALIA in 272 a.C.. After the end of the second Punic War (202 a.C.) ROMA became irreversibly involved with Greece and the Greeks. The Ancient Roman historian Livio believed that a crucial stage in the relationship was reached with the return of the Roman army from Asia Minor in 188 a.C. after its victory the previous year over the Seleucid monarch, Antioco III. Livio focuses on the huge quantities of booty exhibited in the triumphal procession of the victorious general, Cn. Manlio Vulso, and on the “moral degeneration” that followed. The Greek hostage POLIBIO, a contemporary of these events, more accurately wrote that the victory of Emilio Paullo at Pidna over the Macedonian monarch, Perseo, in 168 was the crucial stage, a consequence of which was his own exile to ITALIA as one of 1,000 Achaean hostages. POLIBIO had became a friend and mentor of SCIPIONE EMILIANO, the leading Roman public figure of the day, whose successes at Cartago (146) and Numantia (133), witnessed by Polibio, gave him unparalleled authority at Roma. Polibio, who was about fifteen years older than Scipione (born in 185), tells how Scipione intervened to keep him in ROMA, whereas the other hostages were sent off to various towns elsewhere in Italy, and offered him his friendship. Scipione was then 18 years old. Polibio replied that “since there was a great crowd of Greeks flowing to Rome ” who were teachers (the Greek word for what they taught was “mathemata”, a general word for what the Romans called “studium”), Scipione would not lack for intellectual guidance. Yet Polibio could help him most “to speak and act so as to be worthy of his ancestors”, and that thereafter the two men were close friends. Polibio then goes on to give an encomium of Scipione’s virtues, which he contrasts with that of other aristocratic Romans, whose moral deterioration he dates to the time immediately after Pidna in 168. This is important for the information it gives us about the intellectual and cultural changes that convulsed Roman society after the battle of Pidna in 168. First, it shows that there was an influx of Greek philosophers into Rome, although we cannot tell how many of these came as prisoners and slaves. Second, it shows the delicate situation of SCIPIONE as the descendant of two of the greatest senatorial families. SCIPIONE was the son of the victor at Pidna, Emilio Paullo, and the adopted son of PUBLIO CORNELIO SCIPIONE, son of the great Scipione l’africano – vide “Il circolo di SCIPIONE” ). The influence of ancestral tradition in training Roman aristocrats (or ‘nobles’) was overwhelming. In offering to help Scipione remain true to that tradition, Polibio is meeting the most serious OBJECTION of conservative Romans to the influence of this new type of Greek way of doing philosophy. Scipione himself was of course before his ‘conversations’ with POLIBIO quite familiar with the Greeks and their customs. His adoptive father wrote a history in Greek, and Emilio Paullo, his father, spoke Greek. SCIPIONE’s early education was the traditional Roman one (which included “Greek” considerations, which he had studied “with more enthusiasm”. “Greek” PHILOSOPHY was just one of the disciplines, or “arts”. “Not only”, says Plutarch, “were there Greek “PHILOSOPHY” tutors, but tutors in rhetoric, and Greek sculptors and painters and also Greek experts with horses and hounds and teachers of hunting.” Scipione fought at Pidna in 168 a.C. when he was 16 years old, and he stayed behind in Greece to hunt in the Macedonian royal hunting preserves. Back in Rome, SCIPIONE was allowed to take what books he wanted from the library of the Macedonian king, which Emilio Paullo had brought to Rome after Pidna because he was “a lover of books” – a “swimming-pool librarian”, as we might say (“libreria del natatorio”) Thus, it is not surprising that SCIPIONE was amongst the Romans who enjoyed listening enthusiastically to the moral relativistic Carneade and his fellow-ambassadors in 155. Scipione represents the coming generation. Later his social, political and military “auctoritas” and “dignitas” were crucial to the success of what we may call Greek “philosophical analysis” in Ancient Roma. Greek intellectuals like POLIBIO and PANEZIO enjoyed Scipio’s patronage. SCIPIONE gave philosophers the protection and status that allowed new philosophical ideas to take hold in a society in thrall to ancestral tradition. Others, however, were more sceptical of Greek new philosophical influences, and their most prominent representative was Marco Porzio CATONE, born in 234 a.C., consul in 195, “censore” in 184, and active in politics until his death in 149. CATONE’s attitude towards what we may call (Ancient) “Greek philosophical analysis” was quite complex, far from the thorough going anti-Hellenism with which he is traditionally charged. CATONE could speak and write Greek, and in at the time of the Athenian embassy, he studied Greek and Latin literature. But knowledge does not imply approval, and Cato was hostile to the Greek “moral relativistic” philosophical ideas for specific reasons. In the first place, CATONE was hostile to Greek medicine (or science in general), believing that Greek doctors “had sworn a mutual oath to kill the Romans by their medicine.” This outburst comes in a passage written by Catone to his son. “I will speak about those Greeks in the appropriate place, telling you what I found out from my research at ATENA.” “I shall convince you of what is good in Greek literature to look at, but not to learn thoroughly (“inspicere, non perdiscere”). The Greeks are a most WICKED and undisciplined people, and here I will say something that you can consider to be the words of a prophet. When that nation gives us its literature and philosophy, it will corrupt everything — and all the more if it sends its doctors here. The essay “Ad Filium” was written in 170 a.C., twenty years BEFORE the Athenian embassy of the three philosophers, and was a collection of precepts, exhortations, instructions, and observations. It preceded the battle of Pidna by about seven years and it is important evidence for the caution with which Romans viewed the influence of Greek culture. For CATONE the greatest danger was the corruption of Romans by Greek philosophical ideas. “Educatio” was the real battle-field — hence his attack on the INDISCIPLINE of the Greeks and the power of Greek “moral relativistic” philosophy to weaken traditional Roman “absolute” values. CATONE knew enough of Ancient Greek philosophy to be convinced that it should never be studied too deeply. CATONE thought that the Romans had enough skill to heal the sick with their traditional remedies, without recourse to greedy and expensive Greek doctors (one of whom, Arcagatos, not long before hadearned the sobriquet of “carnifex”, “the terminator. CATONE had many other grounds for prejudice against the Greeks: - their political instability. -their general attitude. -their corruption in political life. -their capacity for dishonesty and treachery. Yet it is notable that CATONE admired at least three Greek leaders of an earlier age: Epaminonda, Pericle, and Temistocle. At the beginning of his “Origines” CATONE says that some of the aborigines of Italia were descended from Greeks – but not ENEA --, that the Italian city of Tibur was founded by the Greeks, and that at least some customs of the Sabines were derived from Sparta. CATONE’s anti-Hellenism, then, was not total. Rather, it was focused on the Greeks of his time and on their influence on Roman education. In Cato’s view, the purpose of Roman “education”, as far as the aristocratic “noble” class was concerned, was, at least, to prepare leaders in public affairs. Such nobles were to be active in the service of the Roman state. They were to exhibit the five traditional Roman virtues: courage, honesty, loyalty, incorruptibility, and justice. As a corollary, the Roman noble would avoid the vices that Roman conservatives associate with the Greeks and generally eastern peoples — avarice, dishonesty, luxurious living, extravagance, and sexual excess. The noble Roman would learn by example from his own ancestors, from senior members of his own family, and from reading and hearing about great Roman leaders of the past, especially those of his own family. The noble Roman learns from association with older leaders in the senate in Rome, from living with an older leader on military service (“contubernium”), and from experience in military campaigns. The two underlying principles were: First, recognition of tradition and experience in inculcating high moral principles or values, or virtues. Second, association with an older man of experience, achievement and austere morality. Despite such uncompromising practical principles, there was room in this system for cultivating the intellect, as the education of Scipione Emiliano showed, and as CATONE himself showed in his treatises and speeches, as well as in his training of his sons. But when non-Roman influences CLASHED with traditional Roman virtues, especially in training for public service to the Roman state, Cato’s hostility was aroused. This, then, was the underlying cause of CATONE’s hostility to Greek philosophy, which was openly displayed after the appearance of the Athenian embassy of three philosophers. CATONE exhorted that all Greek philosophers be escorted out of Roma, and that, specifically, an answer be given promptly to the Athenian embassy and a vote taken on their request. The three Greek philosophers could go home to their schools, and lecture to the Greeks, while the Romans could listen, as they did before, to the laws and their own magistrates. This CATONE did not because he was hostile to CARNEADE, but because he was opposed to Greek philosophy in general CATONE attacked all Greek philosophy in a partisan spirit, saying that Socrate was a violent philosopher, whose goal was tyranny over ITALIA. Socrates, Cato said, corrupted the morality of ATENA, dragged in views that were opposed to the laws, and changed the attitudes of some of the citizens. CATONE’s concern, then, was the effect of this Greek way of doing philosophy on the Roman aristocracy. The teachers of the future leaders of Rome should be “the laws and the magistrates”. The Greek philosophers were diverting the Romans from their proper focus on the traditions, laws and leaders of the Roman state. CATONE feared that the Romans would rather win a reputation through “rhetoric” than through deeds and military campaigns. That a senior senator such as ACILIO was so openly a philhellene added to Catone’s concern about role-models for the Roman elite. CATONE’s view of the moral and political destructiveness of Socrate extended to Greek philosophy in general, which he characterized as mere winding-sheets. The Greek philosophers were, in a word, subversive. To allow the Roman to study the Greek philosophical writings or, worse, to listen to their lectures, would be to invite a weakening of moral, political and military leadership at Rome. Cato was not alone in this view. Six years before the embassy (161 a.C.) the praetor M. Pomponio, on instructions from the Roman senate, refused permission for Greek tutors of teachers of philosophyand rhetoric to stay in Rome, the first of three such expulsions recorded by Gellio. The reason given by Gellio for the second and third expulsion was also valid for the first. The Greek tutors of philosophy, the Roman senators thought, were corrupting traditional Roman moral and practical principles, in particular by attracting the Romans to spend whole days slacking (the Latin word is “desidere”), instead of pursuing the traditional Roman military and political training. How the senate responded to Cato’s motion to send the Greek embassy back home in 155 is not recorded. It is known that in 154, the Roman Senate did vote to expel two Greek Epicurean philosophers, whose principle of “pleasure” was especially offensive to the conservative Roman. The period after Pidna, then, was one of change and adjustment to foreign influences. But those influences could not be annulled. Plutarco’s conclusion on Cato’s hostility is accurate. In that time ROMA grew to be very great and powerful, and it ended up being quite hospitable to Greek philosophy. Yet, a suspicion of the Greek type of philosophical analysis was a lasting feature of Roman political and cultural life. Two hundred years later, for example, the Roman philosopher SENECA was forbidden to train his pupil, the future emperor NERONE, in the field of philosophy, because it was contrary to one who was going to be a ruler. Cato was successful to the extent that the Ancient Romans were more interested in the practical applications of philosophy than in abstract arguments about philosophical conceptual analysis and logic and epistemology, which too often seemed esoteric and unproductive. Not surprisingly, the Greek philosophers achieved their most far-reaching influence in the field of ethics than in ‘rhetorics’ proper (what Grice calls “pragmatics”). PANEZIO, a decade after the visit of Carneade had greater influenc on the Romans than Carneade, because he reconciled Stoic ethical doctrine to Roman intellectual and practical needs. In a world where the spoken word was the dominant form of communication, the art of rhetoric was of the highest importance. The lectures of these three Greek philosophers, then -- Carneade, Diogenes and Critolao -- alarmed conservatives like Cato, and their arts of persuasion (“philosophical analysis”) were thought to be more dangerous than their doctrine of ‘moral relativism’. The “public” speeches of these three Greek philosophers brought the Romans face to face with the two aspects of logic (or “pragmatics”) in the context of the spoken word. Logic, along with physics and ethics, was one of the three divisions of philosophy accepted by the major schools, a system which Cicerone ascribes to Plato. There was already a triple system of philosophy originated by Plato. The first category concerned morality and how to live – ‘ethos’ – “mos”. The second concerned “natura” and her secrets. The third concerned PRAGMATICS, “dialectica”: speech and judging what is true and what is false, what is right or “appropriate” in discourse (and what is corrupt), and what is consistent and what is contradictory. The three Platonic categories, then, were ethics, physics and logic (in Cicero’s order), which Cicero, speaking for the Academics, further defined as “consisting of reason and discourse”. The Stoics, however, sub-divided “logic” into “rhetoric” and “dialectic” proper. Rhetoric was “the science of speaking well in continuous discourse”. “Dialectic” was (as DIOGENE LAERZIO puts it) the science of correct discussion conducted by question and answer, so that the Stoics also define it as the science of what is true and false and neither true nor false. CRISIPPO, head of the Stoic school from 232 to 207 a.C., had established “dialectic” as a part of logic, that is, of rational discourse, which includes modes of thought and speech. PLATONE himself, 150 years before CRISIPPO, had been concerned with dialectic that is based upon “what is true”, as distinct from persuasive discourse that is based on “what is likely” (CICERONE, “probabile”) The “dialectic” of SOCRATE was acceptable to Plato, because it was based on his knowledge of the truth. The Stoics followed Plato in believing that “the wise one” – “sapiens” -- alone is a “dialectician”. Thus the ethical dimension of dialectic was established by Plato and developed by the Stoics. In contrast, Plato’s student, Aristotele, begins his “Rhetoric” with these words. “Rhetoric” is the “antistrophe” to “Dialectic”. For Aristotele, “rhetoric” and “dialectic” together were the means for achieving persuasive discourse. Thus, ARISTOTELE defines “rhetoric” as “the power of discovering the possible means of persuasion on each topic”. The Stoics did not follow this Aristotelian “neutral” view of rhetoric and dialectic (or “Griceian pragmatics,” if you wish). Instead, like Plato, the Stoics believed that it was the virtuous person (“bonus”) was the only true dialectician. Ironically, in the Academic view, as Aristotle implied and Carneade practised, “dialectic” could be used to argue both sides of a question. This view could, and did, lead to the conclusion that certainty could not be achieved. Thus either one must accept that certainty (“scientia”) is not possible, or one must suspend judgement (cfr. Speranza, “The sceptic and the problem of language”). Now, Catone ALSO agrees with Plato and the Stoics about this non-neutral dimension of rhetoric. CATONE’s definition of the good citizen was ‘the good “vir” skilled in speaking’. The purpose of such a “vir”’s speech was wise leadership (“sapiens”) in service of the Roman state. Carneade, with his intellectual brilliance and his refusal to favour either side of an argument, represented the anti-thesis of Cato’s view. It is small wonder, then, that Cato was eager to remove such a philosopher, who not only tempted the Roman to divert himself from the traditional Roman training for leadership, but also presented arguments for and against the justice of Roman public policies, to show that “ the defenders of justice had no firm or certain arguments”. Carneade shows the impossibility of consistently identifying virtue (or ‘duty’), or ‘benevolence’, and self-interest. To put it another way, CARNEADE shows that there must be a distinction between “justice” and “prudence”. The Greek philosopher Carneade’s argument is a challenge to any moral philosopher who defends absolute value (as Grice does in “The conception of value”) and who seeks to show that justice (duty) and self-interest CAN be happily combined in a coherent ethical system. But the acute logical reasoning of Carneades was too “futilitarian” (if you must) for the practical Roman politician, represented by Catone. A century after the Greek embassy we hear an echo of the debate in Cicero’s “De Republica”, the dramatic date of which is 129 a.C.. Cicero makes Lucio Furio FILO defend the arguments of Carneade against ‘objective’ (or absolute) “justice” FILO was one of the Romans who did hear Carneade speak in 155, and himself was consul in 136. FILO deplores his task, but, he says that those who look for gold will endure every hard-ship. We, who are searching for justice, a thing much more valuable than gold, indeed must not avoid any hardship. So FILO, the friend of Scipione Emiliano and a Roman consul, is made to represent the arguments of Carneade, which he personally deplored. The actual date of the composition of CICERONE’s “De Republica” is 54 a.C.. CICERONE is reflecting on the consequences of the MORAL RELATIVISM of people like Carneade in the light of the collapse in his own day of the republican constitution, which by then was clear for all to see. Like Cato in 155, CICERONE answered Greek “neutral” and “relativistic” logical analysis with Roman common sense, affirmed in LELIO’s appeal to the universal, absolute” “natural law” (lex naturalis) of justice, which Carneade had set to demolish a century earlier. Carneade had the finest mind of the three ambassadors, yet his methods were incompatible with “the Roman mode”. Cicero is saying in the “De Republica” that CARNEADE’s methods were destructive in the context of Roman society and politics, just as Cato had contended in 155. Of the other ambassadors, Critolao seems to have made very little lasting impression, but Diogene perhaps had a lasting influence, for he was the teacher of PANEZIO, and he impressed LELIO, the friend of Scipione Emiliano. LELIO (190–125) was praetor in 145 and consul in 140. LELIO was the first Roman noble who can be called a “philosopher”, for he was known as “sapiens”, a title given him by the satirist LUCILIO. CICERONE makes LELIO the principal conversationalist in his dialogue “De Amicitia”, and LELIO responds to the arguments of Carneade in “De Republica”. Indeed, Cicero says that he cannot name a single Roman “student” or lover of “wisdom” earlier than the time of LELIO and Scipione Emiliano. CICERONE implies that LELIO was encouraged by the philosophical public lectures of Diogene to study with PANEZIO, a tutor in philosophy whose influence in Roma was profound and lasting. Indeed, in “Pro Murena”, a speech delivered during Cicero’s consulship in 63, Cicero contrasts the easy manner of LELIO, which (says Cicero) he had learned from PANEZIO, with the harsh manner of CATONE UTICENSIS, the paragon of Stoicism in Cicero’s time. PANEZIO di Roda (185–109) came to ROMA some time after 146 a.C., and stayed there until he went to Athens in 129 as head of the Stoic school. Cicero says that PANEZIO lived in the house of Scipione Emiliano. Cicero also says that PANEZIO was Scipione’s only companion on the embassy. We should not infer from this that PANEZIO had any direct influence on the political activities of Scipione. Neither did his doctrine of “humanitas” (i.e. the qualities and behaviour proper to a civilized person) necessarily influence Scipione’s public actions. PANEZIO was significant at Rome, rather, because of the modifications that he made in Stoic THEORY, some of which were transmitted by Cicero. In “Pro Murena”, Cicero mocks the austerity of the CATONE uticensis’s doctrinaire Stoicism. We should not, of course, take the banter of a brilliant defence lawyer (who was also consul at the time) at face value. Nevertheless, we can see from the climactic reference to PANEZIO’s living in Scipione’s house that in Cicero’s time PANEZIO was revered for having made Stoicism less rigorous and dogmatic. Cicero is careful to add that for PANEZIO’s influence on Scipio’s character he relies on the testimony of senes, i.e. men who in 63 a.C. had talked with those who knew Scipione (who had died in 129 a.C.) or even had as children themselves seen him. Scipione’s “humanitas” can be claimed to have been limited. Cicerone, however, could be more dogmatic about the “comitas” (humane manners) of LELIO, who, he says,was more pleasant (“iucundior”), serious (“gravior”), and wise (“sapientior”), because of, inter alia, his studies with PANEZIO. In contrast, Catone uticensis remained true to the paradoxical doctrines of ZENONE — that the wise man (“sapiens”) is unmoved by others; that only the fool shows pity; that only the wise man is a king; that the wise man never changes his considered opinion, and that all moral delicts are equal, so that “he who wrings a chicken’s neck is equal to the man who strangles his father.” Cicero appeals to Plato and Aristotle as authorities for flexibility in making moral and political judgements, which are the mark of moderate and restrained human beings. These qualities — moderation and restraint — are prominent in the humanism of PANEZIO and of Cicero himself. Cicero ridiculed Catone uticensis because he was out of step with the ethics of his contemporaries, both Stoics and Academics. PANEZIO had returned to Plato and Aristotle, the ultimate sources of Stoic doctrine, in modifying the Stoic ethics of Zenone and Crisippo. Human nature rather than universal nature was Panaetius’primary interest, and because of this, his ethics focused on human beings as they are, including (but not limited to) the wise man. PANEZIO’s most influential work was “Peri kathekonton”, the source for Cicero’s “De Officiis”. The distinction between actual human beings and the Stoic ideal of the wise man (“sapiens”) is made clear in this passage from Cicero. Since we live NOT among human beings who are perfect and fully wise, but among those whose actions are exceptional if they achieve the “likeness” of virtue, I conclude that no one should be overlooked in whom some evidence of virtue appears. Indeed, we should cultivate most of all that human being who is most of all endowed with these gentler virtues — moderation, restraint and justice itself. For often the spirit of courage and nobility is too fervent in a man who is not perfect nor wise, while these virtues seem rather to belong to “the good person”. PANEZIO, therefore, made Stoic ethics less rigorous and more practical, and thus more attractive to Romans such as Scipione Emiliano, LELIO, and Cicero himself. Elsewhere Cicero (speaking in his own voice in answer to the Stoic orthodoxy of Cato) says of PANEZIO that he fled from the gloom and harshness of the rigorous Stoics and did not approve of their thorny arguments. In the branch of philosophy of ethics PANEZIO was more gentle, in the other, i.e. in physics and logic, he was clearer. PANEZIO was always quoting Plato, Aristotele , Senocrate, Teofrasto, and Dicearco. PANEZIO, however, did not reject the Stoic ideal of the wise man (“sapiens”), for Cicero says that the discourses and precepts of PANEZIO were pleasing to Catone Uticensis — which would not be the case if PANEZIO had totally rejected the rigorous ideals of orthodox Stoicism. Rather, PANEZIO includes the morally imperfect human being in his doctrine, showing how such a person could aspire to the virtue of the IDEAL wise man (“sapiens”). Cicero emphasizes that PANEZIO used popular (“vernacular”) vocabulary in discussing popular views and that his political discourse reflected “the everyday usage” of ordinary citizens. PANEZIO’s practical focus on ordinary people found a sympathetic response among his Roman contemporaries. It is the basis of Cicero’s moderate doctrine in the “De Officiis”, and it finds an echo in Seneca. Seneca quotes PANEZIO to show how the perfection of the wise man (“sapiens”) is separate from the efforts of ordinary people (“the man in the street”) to deal with the passions. In other areas of Stoic philosophy PANEZIO’s modifications seem to have been less influential, if only because they did not affect the actual day-to-day life of Romans. As Cicero says, PANEZIO was clearer than his predecessors, and so inclined to be more cautious with Stoic doctrine that could not be clearly justified. In cosmology PANEZIO believed the universe to be eternal and indestructible. PANEZIO rejects the Stoic doctrine of periodic dissolution of the universe by fire (“ekpyrosis”), followed by re-constitution of its material elements. PANEZIO was sceptical about “divination”, an important feature of Roman religious practice, and, unlike many Stoics, he rejected astrology. On the other hand, PANEZIO did not reject the Stoic doctrine of divine providence and fate, which he reconciled with individual moral responsibility. Cicero, without naming PANEZIO, explains this by reference to the dual nature of the human soul. Souls have a dual power and nature. One part resides in impulse (“appetitus”, Greek “horme”), which drives a human being in different directions. The other part of the soul resides in reason (“ratio”), which teaches and explains what should be done and what should be avoided. Thus it comes about that reason leads and impulse obeys. This is similar to Aristotle’s theory of the soul, according to which the soul consists of two parts, one without reason and the other having reason. It appears to modify the doctrine of CRISIPPO, who taught that impulse – what Grice has as the “pre-rational” -- was the result of “reason commanding action”. Whether PANEZIO was responsible for the modification is debatable. What is significant is that PANEZIO focused on the responsibility of human beings for their moral choices, a doctrine in keeping with the traditional emphasis on individual initiative among the Romans. Finally, PANEZIO was considered by Cicero to be an expert on politics. In the “De Republica”, CICERONE makes LELIO say to Scipione. “I remember that you very often used to discuss politics with PANEZIO in the presence of POLIBIO (the two Greeks perhaps the most expert on political matters), and that you would collect much material and argue that, by far, the best constitution is that which our ancestors have left us – “everything old is old again”. Scipione replies that he is like a craftsman in the practice of his profession. Despite his respect for the authority of his Greek sources (which certainly included the Republic of Plato and perhaps the Republic of Zeno, as well as the doctrines of Panaetius and Polybius), Scipione says he will contribute to his exposition what he has learned from his own experience and from his education at Rome, which included family tradition. “I am not content with these works on politics that the most distinguished and wisest of the Greeks have left us, yet I would not dare to prefer my opinions to them.” Therefore I ask you to hear me as one who is not entirely unfamiliar with Greek doctrine and as one who is NOT ready to prefer Greek works (just because they are Greek) in this field especially, to Roman doctrine!” “I ask you to hear me as a Roman (“unum ex togatis”), educated (thanks to my father’s diligence) liberally and from my childhood on fire with eagerness for learning, yet also trained much more by experience and by the precepts that I learned at home than by philosophy books. Thus Cicero, writing in the late 50s a.C., introduces his Republic, staking a claim through the persona of Scipione Emiliano for the practical political ideals of the Romans, derived from experience, without denying the Greek philosophers. The deliberate mention of PANEZIO indicates that he was one who, in Cicero’s view, understood the Roman claim and joined it appropriately to Greek theory. At the same time, the Stoic emphasis on the duty of the virtuous person to take part in the political life of the city was compatible with the Roman ideal of public service, which find their most eloquent expression in the Dream of Scipio, the final episode of Cicero’s Republic. We may also see the doctrine of PANEZIO behind Cicero’s doctrine of the ideal Roman. It is therefore the proper duty of the magistrate to understand that he wears the mask of the state (“personam civitatis”). The Roman’s duty is to uphold the dignity and honour of the Roman state, to preserve its laws and define its rights, and to remember that these things have been entrusted to his good faith. Note the precision of Cicero’s metaphor of the mask, which is usually translated by some form of the word “represent”. The ideal leader is recognized (as we recognize a person by his face) as being the state — his own appearance and personality are merged with those of the state which he leads and serves. Cicero was perhaps referring to the famous description of a Roman aristocrat’s funeral in Polibio, in which the dead man’s mask is prominent along with those of his ancestors, as an inspiration to his descendants to win glory in the service of the state. Some claim that it is difficult to see anything specifically and parochially “Roman” in the philosophy of PANEZIO This is true only in the narrow way that the modifications of PANEZIO stemmed from philosophical dissatisfaction with certain aspects of Stoicism. The importance of PANEZIO in the development of Roman philosophy lay in his perception of specific Roman needs, which he satisfied by the modification of Greek theory, especially in the fields of ethics and politics. Thus he answered, in a way, the criticism of Cato the Censor that Greek philosophers were corrupting the young. For by introducing flexibility into the rigorous ethical doctrine of Chrysippus he made Stoicism acceptable to the Roman senatorial class. By developing a theory of public duty he made it possible for Roman leaders to accept Greek political theories compatible with their own experience and responsibilities. In the period leading up to the formation of the First Triumvirate, Cicero criticized the political inflexibility of Catone Uticense. “Cato”, he said, “gives his political views as if he were in Plato’sRepublic, not among the ‘dregs’ of ROMOLO (i.e. the common people of Rome). The criticism reminds us of the achievement of PANEZIO in reconciling Greek theory and the realities of Roman politics and society. POSIDONIO, the greatest of the middle Stoic philosophers and the last original thinker of the school, studied under PANEZIO. POSIDONIO was a Greek, born in about 135 a.C. in Apamea. After his education at Athens POSIDONIO settled in Rhodes, where he became an honoured and prominent citizen, serving in public office and as an ambassador to Rome in 87 and, probably, 51, the year of his death. Like ERODOTO, POSIDONIO travelled to further his research, and he journeyed as far as Gadeira on the Atlantic coast, where he observed the Atlantic tides and the constellations visible from the coast. POSIDONIO mentions visits to the islands off North Africa, to the Lipari islands (in the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north of Sicily), to Gaul, and to Italy. In Rhodes POSIDONIO headed a Stoic school, which attracted students from Rome, including Cicero (in 79 a.C.), and was visited by Roman politicians and generals during their journeys to the east. Thus Cicero refers to him three times as “my close friend” and as “our Posidonio”. In 60, Cicero sent Posidonio a copy of his “Commentarii”, in the hope that he would elaborate them into a formal history, a request that Posidonio declines with admirable tact. Posidonio was twice visited by Pompeii, in 66 a.C., before his campaigns against Mitradate, and in 62, on his way back from Siria to Rome. Of the older generation of Roman political leaders, he knew P. Rutilio RUFO (consul in 105), who had served under Scipione Emiliano and had been a student of Panezio. RUTILIO is important as an example of the principled man who was ruined by his political enemies, being exiled in 92 a.C. to Smyrna, where he wrote a history of his own times, which was widely read. RUTILIO was a political enemy of MARIO, the most powerful Roman leader in the years from 106 to 86. Posidonius visited Marius in Rome shortly before his death (13 January, 86), and he is mentioned by Plutarco as one of the sources for his description of the final days of Mario, when he was ill and alcoholic, obsessed with fears and memories Thus Posidonius was a significant figure in Roman intellectual circles. His importance rests on the extraordinary range of his intellectual activities. Since none of his works survive complete, his philosophy must be reconstructed from the approximately 300 extant fragments, of which some are quite substantial. Cicerone, Strabone, Seneca, Galeno and many other ancient writers testify to his originality and importance. This has led many scholars to attribute to him more influence than can be proved. More sober assessments of the achievement of Posidonius have been made from the evidence of securely attested fragments. Posidonius accepted the traditional division of philosophy into “naturalia” (“physics”) (i.e. study of the natural world), “moralia” (“ethics”) and “logic”. He accepted the authority of the founders of Stoicism (most notably Chrysippus), but he believed in the progress of philosophy, which implies change and, where necessary, correction. Like Panaetius, he taught that physics was the area of philosophy from which others proceeded, whereas Chrysippus had put logic first. Consequently he wrote on natural phenomena, with works on astronomy, mathematics and meteorology, among others, including a major work “On Ocean” -- one of the lost books of antiquity one would most like to recover. From this comprehensive view of the world in which human beings exist he developed a simile for philosophy. The Stoics liken philosophy to a garden with all sorts of fruit, in which physics is like the height of the plants, ethics is like the productivity of the fruit, and logic is like the strength of the walls. Other Stoics say it is like an egg. They liken ethics to the yolk, physics to the white, and logic to the outer shell. But Posidonius, since the parts of philosophy are indivisible – cfr. Grice, “philosophy, like virtue, is one” --, thought it right to liken philosophy to a living creature, in which physics is like the blood and flesh, logic is like the bones and sinews, ethics is like the soul. The change from Chrysippus’s simile is fundamental for Posidonius’s method and views. Plants, fruit and walls are separate from each other, entailing the separation of the branches of philosophy. Thus logic was made the tool (organon) of philosophy, and therefore subordinate to the other parts. The simile of Posidonius makes logic an organic part of philosophy, to which it gives structure and movement. The tools of physics (natural philosophy) are particular sciences (geography, seismology, oceanography, etc.), which serve natural philosophy by explaining the causes of phenomena. Thus the philosopher observes natural phenomena (as Posidonius himself did on the Atlantic coast) and deduces their causes from his observations. By means of philosophy (especially logic), he will determine the right causes, distinguishing between various pieces of evidence, and he will relate his conclusions to the cosmos, which Posidonius saw as a living, organic and finite whole surrounded by an infinite void. Posidonius’s method was important. Posidonius communicates to others a sense for the wonders of nature and let us note that whereas others shrank from rising to contemplate all things, philosophy did not fear this. This is a desire for knowledge of the secrets of the universe on the basis of human penetration and not of supernatural revelation. Posidonius came to his conclusions on the basis of rigorous observation and logical deduction of causes from the evidence. Indeed, he was criticized by the geographer and Stoic Strabone (64 a.C. to 25 a.C.) for being “too much” concerned with “the cause”, in this, said Strabo, being an Aristotelian rather than a Stoic. Strabo’s facts are correct, as the Posidonian fragments show, except for the charge that the search for “the cause” was not typical of the Stoics. For Chrysippus had looked for “the cause”, but denied that the human mind could discover all causes. Posidonius argued (in the context of deducing causes for the weakening of emotions with time) that from study of actual human behaviour its “cause” could be deduced, just as evidence from observed natural phenomena led to the deduction of the underlying cause. This is something that fascinates Grice’s “causal” approach and “deference” (to the scientist in some fields). Posidonius used the methods of the scientist-philosopher to find the “cause” of human behaviour or historical events. Observation of physical and emotional behaviour or the evidence of history were the tools for the discovery of causes and therefore for acquiring knowledge of ethics, leading to correct moral choices. Posidonius developed his theory of ethics in “Peri pathon”, which can be partly reconstructed from quotations in Galen’s “On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato”. POSIDONIO saw that a cold examination of the emotions was the essential beginning of ethical enquiry. The enquiry about good and evil and about ends and about virtues starts from the correct enquiry (or “philosophical analysis”) about emotions. Posidonius accepts the traditional Stoic definition of pathos as an “excessive impulse”. He disagreed with Chrysippus about causes of the emotions, for Chrysippus had taught that emotion is caused by an error in judgement, which entails the possibility of reason itself being their cause. Posidonius differed from both Zeno and Chrysippus. He praises and accepts Plato’s doctrine and disagrees with the followers of Crisippo. He shows that emotion is neither a judgement nor the consequences of a judgement. An emotion is a “motion” of a separate irrational powers, which Plato called “desiring” and “spirited”. POSIDONIO asks Chrysippus and his followers what is the “cause” of excessive impulse. For reason could not exceed its own functions and limits. So it is clear that some other irrational power causes the impulse to exceed the limits of reason. Since reason cannot be subject to excess, and the evidence from observed human and animal behaviour contradicts Chrysippus, Posidonius renewed Plato’s theory of the soul, according to which reason is the highest faculty, while the two other irrational “faculties” account for the emotions of anger and desire. He then showed how in fact human beings and animals are naturally affected by the emotions, which CAN be controlled by reason (cfr. “incontinentia”). Thus his method relied on the observed facts, from which a consistent explanation of their causes could be deduced, leading to an understanding of correct moral choices. Chrysippus took the wise man as his starting point in arguing that reason led to correct moral choices, and errors in judgement to incorrect choices ruled by the emotions. Posidonius took human beings and animals as they are as his starting point, and his observations corresponded with the facts of human experience — that human beings and animals do show anger, fear and desire. From the observed evidence, he deduced his proof of the causes of the emotions, which is the basis for his ethical theory. Finally, his definition of the end (“telos”) of human life modifies Zenone’s definition, “to live in accordance with nature.” It is quoted by Clemente d’Alessandria (150–216) in a catalogue of Stoic defini-tions of the telos: to live contemplating the truth and order of the whole [i.e. allthings together], and organizing it [namely, the truth] coherently as far as possible, not being led in any respect by the irrational part of the soul. Thus Posidonius combined observation of nature, conclusions fromevidence deduced by reason, and the achievement of the good life — corresponding, respectively, to the philosophical disciplines of physics, logic and ethics — into a coherent system. Perhaps the most influential of Posidonius’ works was his “History”,written in fifty-two books. In time it began where the History of Polybius ended, 146 BC, and in scope it ranged over the whole of the Mediterranean world, from Spain to Asia Minor, and from northern Gaul to Egypt. It may have been unfinished, and it certainly continued down to the mid-80s a.C., since it contains the narrative of Posido-nius’ interview with Marius shortly before the latter’s death in Januaryof 86. Posidonius’usual method is apparent in the extant fragments: careful observation of human and natural phenomena, from which causes are deduced. He was especially concerned with the causes of human behaviour, both in individuals and groups, crowds and communities. This is clearly seen in the best known of the fragments, the account of the tyranny of Athenion in Athens in 88. The episode itself was not particularly significant, and Athenion quickly disappeared from the scene to be succeeded by a more formidable tyrant, Aristion, who was executed in the sack of Athens by Sulla in 86. The story of Athenion demonstrated Posidonius’interest in causes, and specifically in the psychological causes of morally bad (wicked, evil, “malus”) behaviour, both in the individual (Athenion) and the Athenian people. The same concern with the causes of human behaviour is apparent in the narrative of the interview with Marius. Many fragments show Posidonius’precise observation of the cus-toms of tribes and nations, for example of the Celts, from which again he deduced the causes of human behaviour. Posidonius is quoted at length by Seneca concerning the role of philosophy in human political, social and cultural development. Posidonius, as quoted by Seneca, believed that philosophers were the rulers in the Golden Age and that they were responsible for political,social and cultural developments. Seneca, however, while agreeing with the first two of these categories, disagreed with Posidonius about the role of philosophers in developing the arts and sciences. In another passage, Posidonius shows peoples of the Black Sea coast voluntarily submitting to others who were “more intelligent”. In his History, as in his other works, he deduced from the observed evidence that the greatest good is achieved by submitting to reason. People inthe golden age submitted to wise men because they used reason andwould provide the things that were necessary for a better life. The Mar-iandyni of the Black Sea coast submitted to the Heraclians because thelatter, with their superior use of reason, could provide the necessities of life for them. In both cases the submission of one group to another was voluntary: as Seneca says of the golden age philosopher—rulers, it was a duty to give commands, not a tyranny (“officium erat imperare,non regnum”). In the intellectual history of Rome, Posidonius’importance in the short term lay in his influence on Cicero. In the long term, however, the extraordinary range of hisenquiries encouraged Romans to share in the Greek tradition of universal enquiry. Most important, however, was his method of enquiry, withits rigorous focus on deduction of causes from observation. He lookedupon the universe as an organic whole, in which human beings had their place. In keeping with his simile of the body, he taught that justas the components of the universe are interdependent, so all knowledgeis subsumed into one coherent system. He changed the intellectual lifeof all Roman students of philosophy and history. Marco Tullio CICERONE (106–43 a.C.) was the most influential of the Roman philosophers. CICERONE most extensively interpreted Greek philosophy in Latin, and to do so he developed a Latin prose vocabulary that continued to be influential in Italy throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Only Seneca and AGOSTINO match CICERONE’s prolific output of Latin philosophical works, and they too each developed a new Latin style as the vehicle for their doctrines. All three were skilled orators, experienced in the arts of persuasion. It is usual to refer to “Cicero the Philosopher” (the title, for example, of a recent collection of papers on Cicero). But Cicero has as one of his ideals “the proper combination of philosophy and rhetoric”, which he saw as a particularly Roman development in the history of philosophy to reappear only with H. P. Grice. The canonical definition of the orator was that of Catone the Elder: “a good man skilled inspeaking” (“vir bonus, dicendi peritus”), implying that the orator who sought to be a political leader must be morally GOOD as well as skilled (“peritus”) in rhetorical techniques. Cicero announced this theme in “De Inventione”, and elaborated it in “De Oratore”. Cicero expands the implications of Cato’s “vir bonus”, and to do so invokes Plato. Like Panaetius and Posidoniu, CICERONE revered Plato as the fountain-head of philosophy, while he understood the importance of Plato’s eloquentia (style) in making philosophy attractive to his readers and hearers. In his “Orator”, whose subject is the perfect orator, Cicero says thathe seeks to find not an eloquent individual, but “eloquence itself,which can only be seen with the“eyes of the mind”. He is alluding to Plato’s theory of forms, which he had endorsed earlier in the Orator There he says that the orator to be described in the treatise is so perfect that he has perhaps never existed – cfr. Grice, “Logic and Conversation” (Oxford, 1965) when he discusses the ‘theoretical ideal’ of his system. But Cicero says he will search for the most excellent eloquence, whose beauty can be likened only to the ideal of oratory, which only the mind can comprehend. FIDIA, in creating his statues of GIOVE copied an IMAGE of beauty, not the beauty of an individual model. Cicero concludes: So just as there is something perfect and superior in a statue to whose appearance in the mind they are related (but itself it cannot be seen), so with our mind we see the appearance of perfect eloquence, we aim at its likeness with our ears. These forms of things Plato called “ideai”, Plato who is the most weighty authority and teacher not only of understanding but also of speaking. Plato had said that these “forms” do not come into being, but that they are eternal, and that they always are comprehended by reason and intelligence. Other things come into being, die, dissolve and disintegrate, and they do not exist any longer in one and thesame state. Therefore whatever exists and is the subject of methodical reasoning, must be referred to the Form and Idea of its class. Thus Cicero combines rhetoric and philosophy. The former comes intobeing through reason, the servant and interpreter of philosophy; thelatter needs rhetoric if its conclusions are to be communicated to andunderstood by a wide audience. Cicerone implies that, before he came on the scene, philosophy had been the special field of “the disputatious Greeks”, criticism of whom in Rome goes back at least to PLAUTO in the early second century a.C.. Through his rhetoric, founded on philosophy, CICERONE makes the doctrines of the Greeks intelligible to a Roman audience. His claim has proved to be justified. Cicero tells us a great deal about his rhetorical and philosophical training. In the last part of his “Bruto”, he recalls his years in Rome during the troubles of the 80s a.C. that culminated in the capture of the city by Sulla in 82 and the subsequent proscriptions. CICERONE says that he listened to the most prominent orators, some of whom he describes as “living on the speaker’s platform”. At this time (88) FILO di Larissa, the head of the Academy at Athens, fled to Rome from the imminent sack of Athens by Sulla. His arrival was important for Cicero. Then, when the tribune P. SULPICIO was making speeches to the people every day, Cicerone gained a deep knowledge of the whole field of rhetoric. And at the same time, when Philo, head of theAcademy, fled from his home with the leading men of Athens in the [first] Mithradatic War and came to Rome, Cicerone “gave myself over to him completely”. For Cicerone was stimulated by an amazing enthusiasm for philosophy. While the variety and importance of the subjects of philosophy kept Cicerone involved in it, one reason especially makes him more attentive — that the administration of justice through the courts seemed to have been permanently removed. Cicero goes on to tell how he did not make any speeches in those years. Instead, during that period he spends all my days and nights in the study of every philosophical doctrine. Cicerone consorts with the Stoic Diodoto, who died at his house, where he had made his home and had lived with him. DIODOTO made Cicerone practise dialectic most vigorously. Cicero is recalling 40 years later (46 a.C., but with a dramatic date of 49) the turbulent days of Marius and Sulla and explaining how he avoided the troubles in which many politicians and orators lost their lives. While his recollection is artfully narrated, he reveals four significant facts about his intellectual and professional development. First, this account anticipates and confirms the close union of philos-ophy and rhetoric. His diligence in those years enabled him to transmitGreek philosophy to Roman audiences later in his life. He notes that Diodotus taught him dialectic, an essential rhetorical and logical tool for philosophical argument. He says also that under Diodotushe declaimed rhetorical exercises every day, more often in Greek than in Latin, partly because he could then be taught and criticized by Greek teachers, partly because Greek oratory provided him with style andmodes of expression (his word is “ornamenta”) that could be transferredto Latin — significant evidence for the development of his Latin philo-sophical vocabulary. Second, Cicero shows that he turned to philosophy when free speechwas suppressed and he could not continue with his political and legalactivity. When he was in political eclipse after the renewal of the firsttriumvirate in 56, he turned to the writing of political philosophy in his De Re Publica and De Legibus. In the last years of his life, during thedomination of Caesar (and especially after the death of his daughterTullia in February, 45), he devoted himself to philosophical writing,and it is in these few years that the great bulk of his philosophical work was written. Writing late in 45 he said: When I was [politically] inactive in retirement and the conditionof the state was such that it was necessary for one man to governit with his responsibilities and policies, I thought that I shouldexpound philosophy to my fellow-Romans principally for thesake of the state. And I thought that it would increase the honourand glory of the state if I should include subjects so weighty andimportant in Latin literature.Cicero goes on to say that other Roman students of Greek philosophyhad been unable to translate Greek doctrine into Latin, whereas “now” (by which Cicero means after the publication of his Latin philosophicalworks) the Romans have a Latin style and vocabulary equal to those of the Greek philosophers. In the Brutus Cicero claimed that he had been consistently active onbehalf of the state: when it was impossible to speak freely in the forumor the courts or the senate, then he withdrew from public activity intophilosophical study and writing, an activity that was equally beneficialto the state and its citizens. This is Stoic doctrine: the wise man willparticipate in politics as far as he can. But if he is hindered — by dis-ease or disability or by the suppression of free speech — then he willpursue his activity (negotium) in retirement (otium). Third, to return to the passage from the Brutus, Cicero says that theteaching of the Academic sceptic, Philo, deeply influenced him. Hebecame a follower of the Academic school, whose scepticism, how-ever, led him to deduce the most probable conclusion from the evi-dence, even if it was one put forward by a rival school. Fourthly, Cicero says that the Stoic Diodotus became a lifelong friend. He taught Cicero dialectic (the importance of this for an under-standing of logic has been discussed inChapter 2) and supervised hisdaily rhetorical exercises. The association with Diodotus meant that,despite being an Academic, Cicero was sympathetic to Stoic ethics,with their emphasis on virtue and reason. He was always opposed toStoic inflexibility and lack of human sympathy. In “De Natura Deorum”, Cicero reviews his long involvementwith philosophy (40 years at the time of writing). I did not suddenly become involved with philosophy, and frommy youth I gave considerable effort and trouble to it. When Iseemed least to be involved, then was I most being a philoso-pher. You can see this from my speeches, which are stuffed withthe maxims of philosophers. You can see it from my close friend-ships with the most learned men, who have always lent distinction to my home. Chief among these were DIODOTO, FILO, ANTIOCO, POSIDONIO, who were Cicerone’s teachers. If all the teachings of philosophy are relevant to life, then I think that in my private life and my public career I have followed the precepts of reason and philosophy. Two of the four philosophers named by Cicero in this passage wereStoics — Diodotus and Posidonius. The others, Philo and Antiochus,were Academics, and their influence on Cicero was, by his ownaccount, the most significant in his philosophical development. In “Bruto”, Cicero describes the effect of the Greek philosopher FILO’s arrival inRome in 88 BCE: “I gave myself over to him totally”. Before this time Cicero had flirted with Epicureanism: writing in 51 BCE he tellsMemmius that “when we were boys” he and his friend Patron hadadmired the Epicurean philosopher, Phaedrus, “before I met Philo”. So Philo was the catalyst for Cicero’s mature philosophy, and from thetime of their meeting in Rome in 88 Cicero was a follower of the Aca-demic school. In 80 Cicero achieved fame as an orator through his defence of Sextus Roscius, having previously improved his rhetoric by studying withthe distinguished Greek orator, Molo of Rhodes, who had come toRome in 81 as an envoy of the Rhodians. The speech “Pro Roscio” attacked the partisans of Sulla, and Cicero prudently left Rome for twoyears, 79–77, although he also withdrew (as he says in Brutus 313–14) for reasons of health. Cicerone went first to Athens and there spent six months studying with the Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon, who may have visited Rome with Philo in 88. When I reached Athens I spent six months with Antiochus, thenoblest and wisest philosopher of the Old Academy. With hisencouragement I renewed philosophical studies once more,which I had never interrupted and had pursued and augmentedever since my first years as a young man, with him as mysupreme teacher.After the time in Athens, Cicero toured Asia Minor to study with theleading Greek orators. Finally, he visited Rhodes, where once more he studied under Molo. Cicero returned to Rome in 77 as a complete ora-tor, “not only better practised but almost changed”. Essential to his improvement was his renewed commitment to philosophy. His autobi-ography is fashioned to show how the two fields of endeavour wereinseparable. Philo taught rhetoric as well as philosophy, and this perhaps was onereason why he made such a deep impression on Cicero. When he fledto Rome he had been head of the Academy for over twenty years, andapparently he continued to act as head even in Rome, where he proba-bly spent the rest of his life (perhaps as much as a decade). Neither henor his most important pupil, Antiochus of Ascalon (a native of Syria,like Posidonius), was a philosopher of the stature of Carneades or Posi-donius, but their debate virtually put an end to the Academy as a func-tional school of philosophy. Nevertheless, there were still Academicsceptics, such as C. Aurelio Cotta, consul in 75 and one of the partici-pants in the dialogue “De Natura Deorum”, and Cicero himself. Hisolder contemporary, Marcus Terentius VARRONE (116–27), followed the Old Academy of Antiochus. Other sceptics adopted Pyrrhonism (not mentioned by Cicero), which was revived by Enesidemo some time in the first half of the first century. Although Cicero was a follower of Philo, he was sympathetic with much of Stoic doctrine. The humane Stoicism of “De Officiis”, his most influential work,represents views of which he himself approved. It is the bearingof philosophy on human conduct which matters most to Cicero.It is not surprising, therefore, that Cicero was more interested in ethicsthan in epistemology. Nevertheless, he would, as a lawyer, have foundscepticism attractive, with its method of examining both sides of aquestion. Psychologically (as we can see from many of his letters toAtticus), he was slow to come to a firm decision, and the built-indilemmas of scepticism suited him better than the dogmatism of theother schools.Scepticism had been the principal mode of Socrates’teaching, thatis, critical examination of both sides of a question, which would provethe fallibility of his interlocutor’s views. Socrates himself laid no claimto knowledge beyond knowing that he knew nothing. Plato savedSocrates’sceptical approach from total negativity through his magicalmastery of Greek prose, and by developing the theory of Forms (Ideas)as his answer to the problem of knowledge. But, as Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, pointed out, Plato separated the forms from the world in whichwe actually live, and the more realistic doctrines of other schools (mostnotably the Stoics) proved more attractive, so that the Academy lost itsvitality. The school was reinvigorated as the New Academy by Arcesilao, its head from about 268–242 a.C., who made the skeptical approach of Socrates (rather than the Platonic forms) its philosophical foundation. He taught that there could be no objective certainty aboutanything, and that the philosopher should, in the search for truth, sus-pend judgement. He argued particularly against the Stoic doctrine that a “comprehensio” (“cognitive impression”) could be the basis of knowledge. Neverthe-less, he allowed that even without assenting to anything (i.e. without certain knowledge) one could make decisions by following what was reasonable. Arcesilaus’doctrine was presented more systematically by Carneades, whose speeches for and against justice had so alarmed Catothe Elder. In particular he preferred what was persuasive as the crite-rion of truth, which must be convincing and thoroughly examined byphilosophers before they give their assent. Philo, who had been a student of Clitomachus, at first agreed withCarneades, but at about the time that he went to Rome he published two books in which he said that the Academy had always been one andthe same from Plato to his own time. Without reviving Plato’s theory of forms, he seems to have agreed with Plato that we can comprehenduniversals intellectually, even if we cannot know particular thingsbecause of the fallibility of our impressions. His effort to combine scep-ticism with dogmatism angered Antiochus so much that he wrote abook titled “Sosus”(not extant) against Philo. In it he rejected scepticismand adopted the Stoic theory of knowledge, going back not merely toZeno, the founder of Stoicism, but to the founder of the Peripatetic school, Aristotle, for his authority. Antiochus also adopted much of Stoic ethics and, it seems, physics. He said that the Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics in substance but differed in terminology. It is hardly surprising, then, that Cicero described him as “one who wascalled an Academic, and was in fact (with only a few changes) an abso-lutely genuine Stoic”. The conflict between Philo and Antiochus put an end to the unity of the Academy and to such vitality as it still had. It so upset the Aca-demic Aenesidemus that he dismissed it as “Stoics fighting with Sto-ics”, and left the Academy to revive the sceptical doctrines of Pyrrho(c.365–275 BCE). Cicero does not mention Aenesidemus, whose exactdates are unknown. His chief work on Pyrrhonism was dedicated to L. ELIO TUBERO, a younger contemporary and friend of Cicero, dated as not earlier than the 70s a.C. In any case, he is notsignificant for our understanding of Cicero’s scepticism, which is thatof Philo before the publication of the two books that had so upsetAntiochus. These Academic squabbles could be seen, as “esoteric bickering, unintelligible to the layman and unprofitable to the discipline.” Cicero himself says that to many people Academic skepticism “appeared to be taking away light and veiling the world in night-like darkness” Indeed, in Cicero’s world, philosophy was a guide to life:the conclusions that you reached intellectually had practical conse-quences. Philo, in going back to Plato, seems to have understood this,while Antiochus, in rejecting scepticism, most certainly did, for hesaid: The two greatest things in philosophy are discernment of the truth and the goal (“finem”) of things that are good. A man couldnot be wise who did not know that there was a beginning of com-ing to know and an end of searching, so as to be ignorant of hisstarting point and his goal. Thus Antiochus linked epistemology and ethics, the process of knowl-edge and the goal of the good life. Long has justly said that “he suc-ceeded in turning theAcademy back towards a positivist philosophy”. Epistemology is the most barren branch of philosophy if it is pur-sued as an intellectual chess game. Plato, Aristotle and Zeno hadshown that the answers to the questions of “What do we know?” and “ How do we know it?” must affect our moral and practical decisions. Plato’s theory of forms is one such example, and his belief in its practi-cal importance is eloquently and memorably expressed in Socrates’closing words of the Republic. In this way, Glaucon, the myth of Er was saved and did notperish. It would save us, too, if we obey it, and we shall cross theRiver of Forgetfulness [Lethe] safely and our souls will not bedefiled. But if we follow my words — that the soul is immortaland able to endure all things good and evil — then we shallalways stay on the upward path and practise justice with intelli-gence in every way. Our goal is to be dear to ourselves and to thegods, both while we remain here and when we receive her [Jus-tice’s] prizes, being rewarded like victors in the games. And hereand in the one-thousand-year journey which we have passedthrough we shall do well.Plato’s poetic eloquence makes us forget that this is the conclusion toan epistemological enquiry, that is, into a definition of the universal,Justice. He expanded the logical problem of defining universals to itsethical and practical consequences for the individual and society. Anti-ochus, as Barnes has said, “was prepared to publish a plain and conservative system of philosophy —and to commend his system to the rulersof the world”. This explains why Cicero, the Philonian sceptic, foundeven in the dogmatism of Antiochus features to guide him in his searchfor the good life.Cicero’s discussion of the Academic theory of knowledge is in the “Academica”, of which only part of one book (out of four) survives of the revised version and one complete book (out of two) of the first ver-sion. The composition of the work was exceptionally tortuous, as canbe seen from Cicero’s letters to Atticus in the period between March and July of 45 BCE. Cicero originally composed the work in two books, respectively titled “Catulus” and “Lucullus”. In “Catulus”, nowlost, the consul of 78, Q. Lutatius Catulus, expounded the skeptical views of Carneades, which were those held by his father, consul in 102and a victim in the Marian proscriptions of 87. He was answered by Ortensio (son-in-law of the elder Catulus), who defended the dogma-tism of Antiochus. The “Lucullus” is extant. In “Lucullus”, Lucullus expounds Antiochus’views to which Cicero replied witha defence of Philo’s skepticism. The choice of Lucullus to expound the views of Antiochus seemed at first logical, for he was a friend of Antiochus. M.Licinius Lucullus was consul in 74 and commander in the third war against Mithradates(which was brought to a successful conclusion by his successor, Pom-pey, in 66). He was beginning his political career at the time whenPhilo (and probably Antiochus) fled to Rome. In 87 Antiochus accom-panied him on a visit to Alexandria and there read the two books of Philo that upset him so much. He went with Lucullus on his campaignsin Armenia and was present at the battle of Tigranocerta in 69, of which he said “the sun had never seen such a battle”. He died not longafter. The “Catulus” and the “Lucullus” were completed in mid-May of 45,some 11 years after the death of Lucullus, with a dramatic date between 63 and 60. Cicero realized, however, that it was stretching the facts to make themilitary and political leader Lucullus into a philosopher discoursing onepistemology. In June he rewrote both books, so as to give Brutus andCato (Uticensis) the principal parts. He had already, however, beenthinking of transferring these parts to Varrone, and within two days of completing the second version he had done this. The third and finalversion of the work was in four books, with Varro and Cicero as interlocutors (Atticus was a third, but took a very small part), Varro speaking for Antiochus and Cicero for the scepticism of Philo. Only part of the first book is extant. In it Varro’ s speech occupies with afew interruptions from the interlocutors) and Cicero’ begins, the extant part breaks off. Cicero refers to the four books of thefinal version as “Academic Libri”, and the two books of the first versionas “Catulus” and “Lucullus”. Modern editors, however, usually refer to thetwo surviving books as “Academica”, even though they come from dif-ferent versions. These books are the principal source for the views of Antiochus, together with Book 5 of the “De Finibus”, in which M.Pupius Piso (consul in 61) is the speaker for his ethical doctrines, withCicero as respondent. The choice of M.Terentius VARRONE (116–27 BCE) for the revised “Aca-demici Libri” was appropriate, for he was among the greatest of Roman scholars and philsosophers, although he also had a public career, rising to the praetorship in the70s and serving as propraetor in the east in 67 and in Spain in 50–49. VARRONE’s range of scholarship was vast, but, of the fifty-five works whose titles are known, only two are extant to any great extent (“De Lingua Latina” and “De Re Rustica”. VARRONE did write a work “De Philosophia”, known from AGOSTINO’s description, and, as the second part of his monumental “Antiquitates Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum”, he wrote sixteen books (dedicated to Julius Caesar) on the gods and their worship. In a letter written towards the end of June, 46, Cicero expresseshis admiration of Varro for his immersion in study (which included philosophy) at such a time of political instability: CICERONE always considered VARRONE to be a great man, especially because in these stormy times you are almost the only one to be enjoying in harbour the fruits of learning. Varro had studied under Antiochus in Athens, and Cicero says of him, “no one is more fitting for the doctrines of Antiochus”. Cicero agonized over the choice of Varro, as we know from a seriesof letters to Atticus. He was never on close terms with him andVarro’s hot temper made him nervous. He was embarrassed by Varro’s failure (after nine years) to publish the work that he had promised to dedicate to Cicero. In the dedicatory letter of the “Academid Libri” toVarro, Cicero remarks that in fact the discussion between himself and Varro in the work had never taken place, striking evidence for the abil-ity of Rome’s two most distinguished intellectuals to work on parallel lines. At any rate, the revised “Academid Libri” were sent by Atticus toVarro before mid-July of 45. Cicero was anxious to know what Varro thought of the work. Varro’s response is not extant. Cicero himself was proud of the revised work, as he writes in several letters to Atticus. For example, writing in May of 45, he says: The books have turned out (unless human self-love deceives me)such that not even the Greeks have anything in this genre like them. They are far more brilliant, more concise, better (“splen-didiora, breviora, meliora”). In his mention of the “Academid Libri” in “De Divtnattone” Cicerofocuses on the approachability of the work, for he knew how intimidating Greek epistemology would be for his Roman audience. He says:I set forth in the four books of the “Academid Libri” the kind of philosophy that I thought would be least arrogant and most con-sistent and elegant. How seriously he took his task can be seen from the series of letters toAtticus, written during the revision of the first publication, to which wehave referred earlier. He took particular pride in making Greek phi-losophy intelligible to Roman readers in Latin whose style, Cicerone claims, outdoes that of the Greeks. Cicero dedicated the intermediate version of the “Academica” to BRUTO, and it is appropriate to say more here about this friend of Cicero. M. GIUNIO BRUTO (as he is usually called, although after his adoption into the family of the Servilii Caepiones he actually took his adoptive father’s name) was born (probably) in 85 a.C. and studied philosophy at Athens under ARISTO, the brother of Antiochus and his successor as head of the Old Academy. Although Cicero calls Brutus Antiochius, he almost certainly never heard Antiochus. Brutus, there-fore, was an Academic, despite the fact that he married (as his second wife) Porcia, daughter of M. Porcius Cato (Uticensis). In his publiccareer, which began in 58 with a controversial mission to Cyprus on Cato’s staff, he was efficient and (in Cyprus at least) rapacious, and hecould be high-handed. After the battle of FARSALIA (48), in which hehad fought on Pompeii’s side, BRUTO was pardoned by GIULIO CESARE, in part because his mother, Servilia, had been Caesar’s mistress. In 46 BRUTO was sent by Caesar to Cisalpine Gaul (i.e. northern Italy) as proconsul, and governed so well that he was elected Praetor for 44 and designated consul for 41. But when Caesar was made Dictator for life in Februaryof 44, Brutus could not ignore the demands of family tradition (for his ancestor, Lucius Junius Brutus, had ended the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus nearly five centuries earlier) and he became the leader of the conspiracy against Caesar which culminated in the murder on the Ides of March, 44. It is doubtful if solely philosophical principles led him to rid Rome of a tyrant (as has often been said), so much as the realization that with Caesar as Dictator free competition among Roman senators for political power would be ended. Brutus at first disapproved of the suicide of Cato, but he changed his mind before the battles of Philippi and said to Cassius: BRUTO says he used to blame Cato for his suicide, because it was not virtuous (“hosion”) nor “manly” (“virile”) to yield to the god rather than to accept events without fear, and instead to run away. “But now beset by fortune I have changed.” “If the god does not decide these events in my favour, I do not ask to make trial of other hopes but I shall leave with praise for Fortune, that I gave my life to mycountry on the Ides of March and have lived another life becauseof her with liberty and glory.” And so, after his defeat in the second battle of Philippi, Bruto killed himself. We may doubt if BRUTO’s decision was entirely a philosophical one, although Plutarch makes him seem to act as a Stoic. Rather, realiz-ing how hopeless his political position was after the victories of Antony and Octavian, he followed Cato in refusing to live under those who had destroyed the Republic. Plutarch also reports that the enemiessaid that he alone of the conspirators made it his goal to restore “thetraditional Roman constitution”— that is, they said that his motiveswere political. Brutus did not invite Cicero to join in the conspiracy against Caesar, but they corresponded after the murder until July of 43, by which time Brutus had left Italy for Greece and the east. It is a sad correspondenceto read, for it cannot conceal their deep political differences, especiallyover OTTAVIANO (the future first emperor AUGUSTO), whom Cicero underestimated and Brutus rightly distrusted. One hint of their common philoso-phy remains in the consolatory letter that Cicero wrote after the deathof Porcia, Brutus’wife, in June of 43. Brutus had been critical of Cicero’s grief in his letter consoling Cicero after the death of his daugh-ter, Tullia, in February of 45. Referring to this in his consolatory letter,Cicero reminds Brutus that his public position does not allow him togive way to his emotions. Though he has lost “one who had no equalon earth”, he cannot allow himself to appear weak in the eyes of “almost the whole world”. Brutus first wrote to Cicero from Asia, where he had gone afterPharsalus. Cicero says that this letter (which is not extant) first revivedhim from the depression that the defeat of Pompey had caused and hadbrought him back to the study of philosophy. It was a letter, saysCicero, full of prudent advice and friendly consolation, and it led to a period of intellectual closeness between Brutus and Cicero at the timewhen Cicero was most productive as a philosophical writer. Brutus himself wrote treatises (all lost) on “Virtue”, which was dedicated toCicero, on “Patience”, and on “Duty”. According to Quintiliano, BRUTO was a better philosophical writer than orator: “you would know that he felt what he said”, says Quintilian. Cicero naturally was sympathetic to an orator who was also a philosopher. The first work that he dedicated to Brutus, the “Bruto”, was a surveyof Roman oratory which included, as we have seen, an autobiographical account of Cicero’s own development in the 80s as an orator and philosopher. Cicero speaks warmly of Brutus’ friendship in the Brutus. Brutus and Atticus together as friends who were “so dear and pleasingto me, that at the sight of them all my anxieties about the state were allayed”. This did not stop Brutus from criticizing Cicero’s oratorywhich, so Tacitus tells us, quoting Brutus’own words, he said was “broken and dislocated”, with reference, however, more to the rhythmsthan to the content of his rhetoric. At the end of “Bruto”, Cicero laments the road-block (Cicero is using the metaphor of a char-iot) that the misfortunes of the state have thrown in the way of Brutus’ career. Therefore, he urges him to devote himself to his continuingstudies, that is, to philosophy. So, for a short time, Cicero saw in Brutus a serious philosopher, and, despite occasional irritation with him,he dedicated a series of works to him. After the “Brutus”, another work on oratory, the Orator , was dedicated in 46 at Brutus’request, to befollowed in 45 by the “De Finibus”, the “Tusculan Disputations” and the “De Natura Deorum”. Cicero also (in 46) dedicated to him a muchs lighter work, the “Paradoxa Stoicorum”, which was really a rhetorical exercise rather than a serious philosophical examination of the Stoic paradoxes. Of these dedications, those to Books 1, 3 and 5 of the “De Finibus” are especially interesting. Book 5 begins with the words, “When, Brutus, Ihad listened to Antiochus, as was my custom”, a direct reference totheir common allegiance to the Academy and a reminder of Cicero’s account in the “Brutus” of his time in Athens in 79. Cicero begins thework with a defence of the writing of Greek philosophy in Latin andreminds Brutus of the supreme importance of an enquiry into thenature of good and evil for the living of the virtuous life. The setting of Book 3 is the library in the Tusculan villa of the younger Lucullus(son of the Lucullus of the “Academica”), in which Cicero finds CatoUticensis, the guardian of the young Lucullus, whose mother was related to Cato. Cato is the speaker in defence of Stoic ethics, and Bru-tus, as Cicero remarks, is already proficient “in philosophy and in its best field” (i.e. ethics). While the dramatic date of Book 3 is the late50s, the date of writing was a year after the death of Cato. There ispoignancy in the dramatic presentation of Cato in a work written afterhis death and dedicated to Brutus, his son-in-law and nephew, himself destined to die in the same cause. M. Porcius CATONE uticense (“Catone in Utica”) (95–46 a.C.) is the major figure in the background of CICERO’s relations with BRUTO. éé To CICERONE, M. P. CATONE he was “stoicus perfectus” ,who introduced weighty philosophical discourse into his speeches in the Roman Senate. Cato did not travel to Athens to hear the philosophers’ lectures, and Plutarch says that “he did not study with others and noone heard him speak ”, that is, that he did not take part in the exercisesthat were part of the usual training in philosophy. On the other hand, he was a friend of the Stoic philosopher ANTIPATRO of Tyre, who aroused his interest in Stoicism: He made friends with ANTIPATRO of Tyre, a Stoic philosopher, andattached himself particularly to Stoic ethical and political doctrines. He was especially possessed, as if inspired, by everyaspect of virtue. He was an enthusiastic lover of that part of thegood that concerns inflexible justice, which never bends to allowleniency or special pleading. He trained himself also in rhetoricappropriate for addressing crowds, thinking that in a great city there would be controversy along with political philosophy. In 67 Cato went to Macedonia as military tribune, and during this ser-vice he travelled to Asia Minor, in order to meet Athenodorus Kordylion of Tarsus, who was then head of the Library at Pergamum. Athenodorus was a Stoic, and Plutarch tells how Cato cajoled him intoleaving Pergamum and returning with him to the camp in Macedonia. He eventually went to Rome, where he lived in Cato’s house until his death. Plutarch comments that Cato was especially impressed by hisrefusal to make friends with rulers and military leaders. Cato’s philosophy was, as it were, home-grown. He chose the styleof Stoicism that suited his austere, craggy character, and he practised itin his own fashion, regardless of the cost to his political career. It madehim a redoubtable political competitor, feared and hated by his oppo-nents. Yet even Cato could not always put philosophical principleahead of political expediency, as, for example, when he secured theelection to the consulship for 59 of Bibulus, his son-in-law, throughbribery In his public career Cato infuriated Cicero by his inflexibility. His rigid adherence to principle led him to block Cicero’s request for a“supplicatio” (a public thanksgiving, ranking below a triumph) in honorof his military achievements in Cilicia. This caused Cicero to remark to Atticus that Cato “has been disgracefully malevolent towards me”. His rigidity led most disastrously to his refusal of any compromisewith GIULIO CESARE in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War in January of 49. But Cicero admired and respected his devotion to theStoic principle of service to the state, which led to an extraordinarily selfless patriotism. Indeed, in the “Pro Murena”, CICERONE salutes Cato (whowas then thirty-two years old) as “born not for yourself, but for yourcountry”, words that the epic poet Lucan adapted and expanded, “believing that he was born not for himself but for the whole world”. After the victory of GIULIO CESARE at Thapsus in April, 46, CATONE did what he could to protect the people of Utica from harm, but for himself he resolved to die. CATONE would not accept clemency from Caesar, and he decided that he could not live under the rule of one man. Better to die, he believed, than to compromise with a tyrant. Therefore he committed suicide, a scene vividly described by Plutarco. Plutarco says that he had with him two philosophers, Apollonides Stoic and Demetrius Peripatetic, with whom he discussed philosophical matters on the evening before his death, until the discussion reached the Stoic paradox that “Only the good man is free.” Demetrio argued AGAINST this. Cato argued so violently FOR it, that those present realized that he had determined to die. Later, only the philosophers were left with him, and to them he reaffirmed his decision. They then left, and early in the morning he killed himself. Catone’s death was a public act based on Stoic principle. The virtuous man could not compromise with evil, neither could the man who was truly free live under a tyranny, nor could the Roman patriot live in a republic where the constitution had been rendered meaningless. While Stoic doctrine was ambiguous about suicide, it did allow for the wiseman to withdraw — whether from political activity or from life itself — when circumstances made it impossible to live a virtuous life. Thus Cato reasoned that he should die, and by that act he more effectively opposed Caesar than by any of his political acts, as Caesar himself saw. In a later age Catone’s suicide was a beacon of encouragement for Stoics (like Lucan and Seneca) who faced similar political and moral dilemmas After Catone’s death Cicero wrote a pamphlet praising him, at therequest of Brutus, who followed with one of his own. These stimulatedCaesar to publish as his response an “Anti-Catone” Thus Cato achieved more by his death on philosophical principles than he had been able toachieve in life by his politics. About ten years after his death Sallust wrote a comparison of Caesar and Cato as part of his narrative of the senatorial debate that preceded the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators in 63. In his speech Cato refers to his many earlier speechesin the senate “ lamenting the luxury and avarice of Roman citizens”,and a little later, consistent with Stoic doctrine, he refuses to showmercy or pity towards the accused, whose execution he called for. These sentiments he supported with appeals to patriotism and to histor-ical examples of harsh punishments in support of the best interests of Rome. In the comparison that follows, Sallust (himself a former Caesarian) says that in his time only two men were endowed with great virtue — Caesar and Cato. In the present context we may leave his estimate of Caesar on one side, while recognizing that for Sallust, as for many oth-ers, Cato had become the unique example in his time of the Roman who effectively transferred his philosophical principles into public life. We have reviewed Cicero’s early training in philosophy, and this has led us to review several of his friends who appear as philosophersin successive versions of the Academica. It is time now to turn to Cicero’s own review of his philosophical works, which he gave in De Divinatione. This work was written in early 44 BC, largely before the Ides of March (but completed later), so that it does not include the later works on Friendship, on Fate, on Topics and on Duty. Cicero’s list is part of his defence of his philosophical activity as ser-vice to the state. He particularly justifies his making Greek works available in Latin on the grounds of educating the young. “What greater or better duty could I perform for the state than in teaching and training the young, especially in these times of low moral standards, for the young have so far deteriorated that everyone should do what they can to discipline them and put the brakes on their moral decline? Thus Cicero answers the chief objection of Cato the Elder to the influ-ence of Greek philosophy. He says also that he became so activein philosophy because it was the activity most worthy of him, as a senior statesman, in a time when free political activity had been suppressed under the rule of one man. At this stage he is beginning toresume his public career, and so he expects that he will not have timeto devote his full attention to philosophy. Cicero’s survey begins with a lost work, the Hortensius, which he describes as an exhortation to study philosophy, written early in 45BC. More than 100 fragments survive, from which it has beendeduced that the work consisted of a debate between Hortensius (speaking against philosophy) and Catulo (defending its study), thus intro-ducing Cicero’s preferred style of presenting arguments for and againsta thesis. It has also been suggested that the work is largely based on Aristotle’s Protrepticus, a lost work defending the study of philoso-phy. The Hortensius is best known for its influence on Augustine,who has preserved many of its fragments. In his Confessions he tellshow he was affected as he read the work as part of the regular curricu-lum in his rhetorical education: That book contains Cicero’s own exhortation to philosophy andit is called Hortensius. It was that book that changed my feelingsand changed my prayers to you, Lord, and made my vows anddesires different.Augustine elsewhere quotes the Hortensius on living virtuously aspreparation for life after death. If, says Cicero, we go from this life tothe Islands of the Blessed, there will be no need there for the four car-dinal virtues, courage, justice, temperance and prudence. But in thislife they are necessary. Again, Augustine quotes the end of theHort-ensius, where Cicero ecstatically urges devotion to philosophy as themeans to “an easier ascent and return to the heavens”. The passageshares with Cicero’s Dream of Scipio a poetic vision of the rewards of virtue achieved through philosophy. Cicero next lists the Academica, which we have already discussed inreviewing Academic skepticism and its background. After this he men-tions the five books De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, which he wrotebetween March and June of 45 BC, concurrently with the revised Academici Libri. Their subject is ethics, literally On the Ends of Good and Evil. The Latin word finis translates the Greek term telos, which denotes both “end” (i.e. the extreme limit) and “ target or goal , butCicero preferred to use the plural “fines”. The title implies that the person who hits the target of what is good also reaches its ultimate limit (inLatin summum bonum), and so achieves the good life or, more specifi-cally, “happiness”, which the Greeks defined as eudaimonia andCicero translated as vita beata. Conversely, the person who reaches thefurthest limit of evil is afflicted with the worst life and the greatest unhappiness. The De Finibus is really an introduction to ethics, or, as Cicero says,it is the “foundation of philosophy”. Like university “basic” “founda-tion” courses, it deals with a huge topic attractively and comprehen-sively, with the obvious drawbacks of such a presentation. Because of its approachability it has been highly praised and, especially since a monumental commentary was published in1876, it has been more widely read than many of Cicero’s philosophi-cal works. Yet it does not reach the religious and emotional intensity of the De Natura Deorum or the intellectual precision of the Academica,or the Platonic enthusiasm of the Hortensius. Nevertheless, it is still among the most readable of Cicero’s philosophical works and it isespecially valuable for its exposition of the ethical doctrines of thethree major schools of philosophy. Cicero claims that he dealt with the topic completely (his word isexpurgatus est , literally “completelyflushed through”), which he himself admitted was not so, for in hisnext work, the “Tusculan Disputations”, he says. We ought to realize that when we have come to know (as far as ahuman being can know) the ends of good and evil, we can prayfor nothing greater or more useful from philosophy than thesethings which we have been discussing in these four days. The “Tusculan Disputations”, then, complemented the “De Finibus.” Cicero makes especially clear the importance of his Latin terminology in the De Finibus. In the dedication to Brutus he says that heknows that critics object to his presenting Greek philosophy in Latin, on the grounds that it is wasted effort, that it is beneath the dignity of a man of Cicero’s standing in public life, and that anyway they would prefer to read the original Greek. Cicero answers each criticism most passionately in and defends the dignity of the Latin language and the patriotism that his translations display. “I have often discoursed on the Latin language, that it is not poor (as is commonly thought), but that it is even richer than Greek. As for myself, since I have never (in my view) deserted my post in my work in the forum, in my labours for the public good, in my dangers, I certainly owe it now to the Roman people to labour to make my fellow-citizens better informed through my diligence, my research and my labour. For what in our lives— both in all of philosophy and in the discussions in these books— should we prefer in our enquiries to finding out the end, thelimit, the ultimate goal, to which every precept for the good lifeand morally right action has to be related? Or what should weprefer in our enquiries into what nature should follow, as themost desirable object to look for, and what it should avoid, as the worst of evils? The search for Latin terminology was especially important in the exposition of Stoic doctrine. Cicero says that the Stoics were the greatest innovators in philosophy, and that Zeno (their founder) was “not so much a discoverer of new things as he was of new words”. Therefore Cicero is justified, he says, in developing a new terminology. He admits that some Greek words (for example, philosophia) are established in Latin usage, but he argues that Latin has a rich vocabulary of its own for the translation of Greek terms. Thus the importantStoic concepts of proegmena (things preferred) and apoproegmena (things to be rejected) he translates by “praeposita” and “reiecta”. CICERONE uses “laetitia”, pleasure of body and mind, as opposed to “voluptas”, sensual pleasure, where the Greek uses the same word, “hedone”, for both, and the emotions (pathe) become in Latin “perturbations”. Cicero compliments Cato (the Stoic speaker) on his use of Latin. Indeed, Catone, you are using lucid vocabulary, whose words say exactly what you mean! And, in my opinion, you are teaching philosophy in Latin and, so to speak, making it a Roman citizen. Cicero certainly enjoyed the irony of giving Roman citizenship to a Greek term! The De Finibus consists of three separate dialogues, each with itsown dramatic date, and each devoted to the ethical doctrines of one of the major schools. The first dialogue (Books 1 and 2), whose dramaticdate is 50 BCE, focuses on Epicurean ethics. The setting is Cicero’svilla at Cumae — an appropriate choice, since there were many Epicure-ans living in the area round Naples. In Book 1, Epicurean doctrine isdefended by L.Manlius Torquatus, to whom Cicero responds in Book 2. Torquatus (90–46) was a friend of Cicero’s, although in 62 he wasthe prosecutor of P.Sulla, whom Cicero defended. Torquato was alsoa poet, and his marriage to Junia Aurunculeia was celebrated by Catul-lus with an epithalamium. He became Praetor in 49 (the year after thedramatic date of the dialogue) and fought on Pompey’s side in theCivil War. After the defeat at Thapsus he committed suicide, as didCato, the principal speaker in Book 3. Thus Cicero, by his choice of speakers, creates a memorial to those who perished in the Civil War. Torquatus’s exposition focuses on pleasure (“voluptas”) and pain (“dolor” ), which Epicuro had posited as the greatest good and the greatest evil. Cicero mentions that he himself had heard the Epicurean philosophers FEDRO and ZENONE (who preceded Phaedrus as head of the Epicureanschool at Athens), and he names two other Epicurean philosophers, SIRO and FILODEMO, as his close friends and sources for a further defence of Epicureanism. These four philosophers, rather than the writings of Epicurus himself, are likely to be the sources for Torquatus ’exposition of contemporary Epicurean doctrine. Cicero ’sresponse in Book 2 probably derives from Antiochus. CICERONE’s main argument is that pleasure is not by itself sufficient for the good life, for which only virtue is sufficient, while there are morally good objects of desire (courage, justice, etc.) which have nothing to do with pleasure. Similarly, the desire to avoid pain is not rational but natural, if unattainable. Cicero’s arguments, despite their Academic origin, are closer to Stoic ethics, which is understandable, given Antiochus’ ownacceptance of much of Stoic doctrine. Cicero seems to have respectedhis Epicurean teachers and friends, even though he was consistentlyoutspoken in his hostility to Epicureanism, and he admits that in Book 2 he is speaking rhetorically, rather than dialectically. This would explain a number of distortions of Epicurean doctrine that appear in hisspeech.Books 3 and 4 of the De Finibus consist of the second dialogue, anexposition of Stoicism by Cato and, in Book 4, a response by Cicero,again probably largely derived from Antiochus. The setting is the library of the villa of Lucullus near Tusculum, where Cicero comes upon Cato, who is “surrounded by many Stoic books”, and thedramatic date is 52 BC. Book 3 is among the most important of allCicero’s philosophical writings, for it contains the only continuousexposition of early Stoic ethical doctrine that is extant. In it Cicero takes great care with Latin terminology, and he is far more engagedwith the topic than he was in the dialogue on Epicureanism. Cato begins with the primal human instinct for self-preservation, developing the Stoic doctrine of “oikeiosis”, which Cicero translates by various forms of the verb “conciliare”, in English “affinity” or “affection”. From this derives the desire for what is good (“honestum”),which is found to be the only good, for other things that people think are good are in fact “indifferentia”, that is, they are not necessary to the good life. Some of them, to be sure, are to be preferred (“praeposita”) and some to be rejected, but it is virtue alone, gained through reason, that isnecessary and sufficient for the good life. CATONE defines the “summum bonum”. The highest good is to live using the knowledge of the things thathappen naturally, selecting those which are in accordance withnature and rejecting those which are against nature. This is to live a life that is in harmony with and consistent with nature. This definition is significant. It became the standard for the RomanStoics’idea of the good life, and it happens that we can see exactlyhow Cicero developed it from the definitions of CRISIPPO, Diogenesof Babylon (one of the ambassadors to Rome in 155), and Antipater of Tyre, Cato’s friend and teacher. Cato touches on many other topics, and he ends with praise of thewise man, in terms that recall the Stoic paradoxes (“only the wise manis a king, is beautiful, is free, is unconquered”). The wise man and hisphilosophy become divine: If it is true that only the good man is happy and all good men arehappy, then what should we revere more than philosophy orwhat is more god-like than virtue? Cicero’s response in Book 4 criticizes each of Cato’s arguments,mainly to show that the Stoics agree with the Peripatetics in much, butthat their arguments are poorly expressed and their ethical ideals areimpracticable. He agrees with the Stoic end as defined, but he objects to their arguments in support of it. Elsewhere hesupported the Stoic view, justifying his inconsistency by saying that Zeno’s doctrines derived from Plato, the source also for the views of the Peripatetics and Academics. Book 5 of the “De Finibus” consists of the third dialogue. It is set inAthens in 79 BC, where Cicero is walking with his friends, M. Pupius Piso (consul in 61, active in the Pompeian cause in 49, but dead by 47), T.Pomponius Atticus, his brother Quintus, and his cousinLucius Cicero. They start from the Gymnasium of Ptolemy, wherethey had heard Antiochus lecture, for it continued to function as an educational centre even after it had been sacked by Sulla in 86. Theypass by the Stoa Poikile, where Zeno taught, to the Dipylon Gate(about 500 metres) and thence to Plato’s Academy (six stades, saysCicero, or about 1,100 metres), passing by Epicurus’ garden. It is awonderfully evocative scene, recalling the setting of some of Plato’ s dialogues (for example, the Phaedrus) or of Cicero’s earlier work (forexample, Book 2 of the “De Legibus”). It enables Cicero to recall thehappy times of his youth and to remind us of his philosophical training in Athens. It also allows him to link himself with the great philoso-phers of the past — Plato and the Academy, Epicurus and the Garden,Zeno and the Stoa — along with their successors, of whom Aristotle,Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Carneades, Phaedrus and Antiochusare named. Cicero reminds Piso of a similarly evocative visit they hadmade to Metapontum (in southern Italy), where Pythagoras had lived and died. The great Athenian orators, Demosthenes and Aeschines, arementioned, thus linking philosophy and rhetoric. In every part of Athens, says Cicero, one is reminded of the great men of the past,but nowhere so much as in the Academy, where Carneades had lectured. The continuing presence of great men of the past was a prominent feature of Roman upper-class culture of the last two centuries of theRepublic. So Cicero makes Piso say that looking at the Academyreminds him of being in the senate house at Rome (he had entered thesenate as Quaestor in 83), where he could “see” Scipio (Aemilianus),Cato (the Censor), Laelius, and his own grandfather (L.Calpurnius PisoFrugi, consul in 133). Thus the introduction to Book 5 links Greek phi-losophy with Roman intellectuals and with rhetoric. It links Cicero andhis friends to the great philosophical schools of the past, and it remindshis audience in 45 of the very different world of his youth. It is one of Cicero’s finest pieces of writing, for it supports his principal claims asa writer of philosophical works — that he is interpreting Greek philoso-phy in Roman terms, and that in so doing he is acting as a patriot andpublic servant no less than the great leaders of the past, such as Scipioand Cato the Censor. The main part of Book 5 is the speech of Piso, skillfully linked to Brutus (to whom the work is dedicated). Pay close attention to Piso’s speech, Brutus, and see if he hassatisfactorily expounded the doctrines of Antiochus, which Ithink you approve of most of all, since you frequently attendedthe lectures of his brother, Aristus. Thus the doctrine of Book 5 is that of Antiochus (as Piso says) defining the fines bonorum of the so-called Old Academy. Piso essen-tially accepts the Stoic definition of 3. 31, but he examines closelywhat is meant by “good” and by “nature”, and hence proves that thevirtuous life is the life lived according to nature, but that “virtue” includes many specific good things in life besides the abstract qualityof virtue, which the Stoics said was the only thing necessary for the good life. Cicero, more Stoic than Academic here, criticizes Piso in thedialogue and so the work ends.The “De Finibus” is amongst Cicero’s finest works. This certainly can be said of the opening of Book 5, and the importance of Book 3 cannotbe denied, whatever shortcomings it may have in its philosophical argumentation. Next, in the “De Divinatione” survey, Cicero mentions the five booksof the “Tusculan Disputations”, probably his most approachable work and therefore amongst the most popular of his philosophical writings. Cicero calls them “an old man’s declamations”, and both in form andstyle they are indeed more rhetorical than the earlier dialogues. Instead of the dialogue form in which one speaker develops a point of view and is then criticized by another, Cicero’s unnamed interlocutorproposes a thesis, which he then opposes in a virtually uninterruptedspeech. The setting is his villa at Tusculum, and from his letters and the information given in the dedication to Brutus in 1. 7, it seems thatthe date of the five dialogues (one to each day) was an actual one, June16–20, 45. Cicero summarizes the work as follows: The same number of books [i.e. as for the De Finibus] of Tusculan Disputations followed. They explained the things most necessary for achieving the happy life. For the subject of the first is despising death; of the second, enduring pain (“dolor”). Of the third, allaying mental distress (“aegritudo animi”); of the fourth, the other psychological disturbances (“perturbationes animi”). The fifth contains the subject that throws the most light on the wholefield of philosophy, for it teaches that virtue by itself is sufficientfor achieving the happy life. The subject of Book 1 is the same as one of the central themes of Lucretius’s Epicurean poem, and its goal is the same, that is, to rid thereader of the fear of death. It is remarkable that Cicero pays very littleattention to Lucretius’principal argument, that is, that thesoul, being corporeal, disintegrates at death, so that there is nothing tofear thereafter, and instead he argues for the immortality of the soulalong Platonic and Stoic lines. Again, it is striking that Virgil (in Aeneid 6) devoted some of his finest poetry to an account of theUnderworld in its relationship to present and future lives and to pastand future history. But Cicero, only two decades earlier, has very littleto say about the Underworld and its traditional function as a place of judgement and punishment. Cicero deals with matters that were particularly promi-nent in Stoic ethics, pain, grief and other emotions. Cicerone’s inter-locutor proposes the thesis that “pain (dolor ) is the greatest of all evils”. Cicero responds that those (like the Epicureans) who say thatpain is the ultimate evil are as wrong as those who (like the Stoics) saythat it is not an evil at all. Instead Cicero shows that theantidote to pain, which is an undeniably bad human experience, is reason exercised through philosophy. As the length of Book 2 shows (little more than half that of Book 1) Cicero was not as deeply engaged with its subject as with that of deathin Book 1. Again, he is quite brief and not very profound with the sub- jects of Books 3 and 4. In 3. 12 the interlocutor proposes the thesis that “the wise man will suffer from mental distress”. Cicero replies thatsuch distress (of which grief is the most difficult manifestation) is incompatible with the virtues of the wise man, and that again, reason isits antidote. Therefore the wise man, being ruled by reason, will not suffer from it. The interlocutor suggests that “the wise man cannotavoid all psychological disturbances”, inviting a discussion of the emotions. Again, Cicero takes a Stoic point of view and shows that reasonis the antidote, so that the wise man will not be subject to the “pathe”. Book 4 is remarkable for the focus on terminology, for precision is necessary where medical terms are being used as metaphors for emotional disturbances. Cicero’s discussion of the “pathos” of love is thin, but he does consider the question of the Greek attitude towards homosexual love, once again proposing reason as an alternative. With Book 5 “TheTusculan Disputations” take on new energy. In it the interlocutor proposes that “virtue cannot be sufficient forliving a happy life”. In the preface Cicero rises to heights of passionate eloquence in praise of philosophy, whose historical devel-opment he surveys. It corrects all human faults and vices, it is theharbour of refuge from the storms of life. Then Cicero utters a paean of praise, composed in the form of a Greek hymn, in which the formaladdress to the god is followed by a narrative of the god’s deeds, aprayer and expressions of hope for future favour: O Philosophy, guide of life! O tracker (“indagatrix”) of virtue andexpeller of vice! What could not only I, but all living humanbeings have done without you? You have brought cities intobeing, you have brought separated human beings together into alife of community, you have linked them first by means of homes, then by marriage, then by the common sharing of lan-guage and writing, you have been the discoverer (inventrix) of laws, you have been the teacher of morality and orderly living.In you we take refuge, from you we pray for help, to you I givemyself, as I did formerly in large part, so now completely andthoroughly. Indeed, one day spent in accordance with your pre-cepts is better than eternity spent in doing wrong. The punctuation of the narrative element (“You have brought…”) shows the flood of emotion with which Cicero recalls the good deedsof philosophy, expressed in a flow of paratactic clauses quite unusualin the complex syntactic structure of Cicero’s prose. Cicero invents the majestic titles ending in “-trix” (a suffix denoting activity), and “indaga-trix” is a hunting metaphor. Finally, the compressed account of human progress contrasts both with the myths of degeneration (bestknown from Hesiod’s five ages) and with Lucretius’extended accountin Book 5 of the “De Rerum Natura”. The rest of Book 5 is devoted to proof that virtue aloneis sufficient for happiness. As Cicero admits, this is Stoic doctrine. He therefore argues also for the Academic view, that thereare good things in addition to virtue that add to happiness, and in thissection he argues along the lines of Antiochus. Cicero does not resolve the dilemma between the doctrine of the Stoics (that virtue alone is sufficient) and that of the Academics. And this is significant for our understanding of his philosophy, for in this, as in so much of his political career, he was able to see all sides of a question and unable to make a firm decision. The Tusculan Disputations are a completion of the “De Finibus”. They also complete the list of Cicero’s major philosophical works given in the “De Divinatione”, and it seems that Cicero looked upon these twoworks and the “Academica” at the time of writing as a complete pro-gramme for epistemology and ethics. Separately he mentions the DeSenectute (On Old Age) and the Cato, written after Cato’s suicide,which is not extant. Still to be written were the works on friendship, “De Amicitia” and duty “De Officiis”. Cicero also mentions his “Consolatio”, a lost work which should be discussed here, since it is relevant to several parts (mostly in Books 1and 3) of theTusculan Disputations. Cicero’s daughter, Tullia, died inFebruary of 45 BCE, and he addressed a “Consolation” to himself, being, so he said, the first to do so. The Consolation was a well-known literary form, going back at least to the Academic philosopher CRANTOR (335–275 BCE), whose own “Consolation” (not extant) was Cicero’s model. Unlike the Cynics and Epicureans, Crantor and his succes-sors did not deny that the grief of bereavement was natural. Instead they sought to use arguments to make it tolerable and so to “heal” themourner and enable him or her to resume a normal life. Their purpose, then, as Cicero says of his own Consolatio , was to lessen grief rather than to deny it. Cicero refers to his Consolatio so many times that itsmain outlines are known. He brought in arguments other than those of Crantor, such as those later used in the Tusculan Disputations on thenature of the soul. Since, as he argued, the soul was divine and the souls of the virtuous ascended after death to join the gods (or rather, inStoic doctrine, god) in heaven, Tullia’s soul had joined the gods andshe herself had become divine. Lactantius observes that this was not “the ravings of one stricken with grief, but rather a conclusion reachedby reason.Cicero’s Consolatio was widely admired, and the consolatory genrecontinued to be practised. Among surviving consolations, the introduc-tion to Book 3 of Cicero’s "De Oratore", written in 55, is a consolation for the death of L.Licinius Crassus and other distin-guished men. The letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero about Tullia’s death is one of the shortest and most remarkable. Seneca wrote several "Consolations". Juvenal satirized the genre in his thirteenth satire,and, centuries later (524 CE), BOEZIO had Philosophy herself consolehim in prison with "The Consolation of Philosophy" , the greatest and lastrepresentative of the genre. In "De Divinatione" Cicero next (after the Tusculan Disputations) lists three theological works, "De Natura Deorum", "De Divinatione", and "De Fato" The "De natura deorum", CICERONE describes as completed by the time of writing the De Divinatione, that is, March 44 BCE, and we know from several letters to Attico that he was working on it during the summer of 45. It may have been published before the end of 45, while the other two works followed in the spring of 44 (De Divinatione) and beforeNovember of 44 (De Fato). CICERONE says that the "De Natura Deorum" was a complete examination of its subject, while the other two works wouldextend and complete his enquiry into the whole field of religion. "De Natura Deorum" is “the crown of all Cicero’s philosophical work", and there are many who would agree, as against the “communis opinion” that this title should be awarded to the “De Finibus” or the De Officiis. Cicero was deeply engaged with its subject (he had been a member of the College of Augurs -- high officials in Roman state religion since 53) and here,as much as anywhere in his philosophical writings, he was most successful in transmitting his Greek sources to a Roman audience, in the Latin language. In "The Dream of Scipione" in the "De Republica", published six or seven years earlier, CICERONE had already shown how contemplation of the divine sphere, to which human souls would ascend after death, inspired him to write prose of poetic intensity as the vehicle for philosophical doctrine, religious exaltation and patriotic fervour. These are attributes also of the De Natura Deorum, particularly in the second book. The work is in three books. Cicero sets the dramatic dialogue at the house of C. Aurelio Cotta, a senator who had been exiled in the political troubles of 91–90 and who returned in 82 to resume a career that brought him to the consulship in 75, the year in which Cicero himself entered the senate as a quaestor. The occasion was the religious festival of the “feriae Latinae” (the annual festival that celebrated the union of Rome with Latin tribes) in 76, the year before Cotta’s consulshipand after Cicero’s return from his study-tour in the east. Cicero takes virtually no part in the dialogue, as befits a young man in the presenceof an elder statesman. The main speakers are C.Velleius, a member of the senate and a leading Epicurean, and Q. Lucilio Balbo, who, says Cicero, was so expert a Stoic that he could compete with Greek Stoic philosophers. Little else is known of these two men. The dialogue seems to take place within one day, although it is likely (from internal evidence) that Cicero originally planned it for three days, one for each book. In the first book Velleio sets forth the Epicurean doctrine on the gods. He does not discuss the gods’immortality or where they are located. His speech is easily refuted by Cotta. As he says, why should human beings worship gods who (according to Epicurean doctrine) have no concern with human affairs? He quotes Posidonio, who said that in fact Epicuro did not really believe in the gods. The second book is devoted to Balbo’s exposition of Stoic doctrine about the gods. Here Cicero devotes four times as much space as he had allotted to Velleio, and the exposition is carefully structured. Balbo divides his speech into four sections: The Stoics divide the enquiry about the immortal gods into four parts. First, they demonstrate that the gods exist. Second, they discuss their nature. Third, they show that the universe is regulated by them. Finally, they prove that the gods are concerned with human affairs. In each section Balbus adduces detailed arguments, advancing cumula-tively to the climax, which is the proof of the interaction between godsand human beings. This is especially appropriate for a Roman audience, for the successful conduct of public affairs depended on theproper relationship of gods and human beings. Proof, then, of the indissoluble bonds between the divine and the human, would have a special resonance for Cicero’s readers. Here we may quote the first section of the fourth set of proofs as an example of the union of Stoic, religiousand political fervour: First, the world itself was created for the sake of human beings, and the things in it were produced and discovered for the advantage of humankind. For the world is, so to speak, the common home of gods and human beings, or it is the city-state of both, for they alone live making use of reason, justice and law. So just as we must suppose that Sparta was founded for the advantage of the Spartans — and everything that is in Sparta is rightly said to belong to her citizens — so everything that is in the whole world must be supposedto belong to the human beings. Balbus continues with various aspects of the created world — the heav-ens, the earth and its products, the animal realm — to support this com-prehensive statement. The doctrine of the two worlds — the ideal worldof the Forms and the physical world of particular objects — is Platonic,and, as Aristotle pointed out, it is flawed because of Plato’s separationof the two. The Stoics to some extent succeeded in uniting themthrough the doctrine quoted here, which proved to be so powerful inRoman thought. It is brilliantly presented in the Dream of Scipio, and itwill find new expression in the works of Seneca, not least in his treatises "De Tranquillitate" and "De Otio". Cicero, then, is showing that the divine is not, as the Epicureans said, separate from the human. On the contrary, it is intertwined with humanexperience, and the Stoic god (as Cleanthes had said in his Hymn to Zeus) was both the origin and the ultimate home of the human soul. In Roman life this had the practical consequence that the gods were verymuch a part of public activities, whose success they would further bytheir goodwill. In Book 3, Cotta, the Academic, criticizes the Stoic view, using thefour-part division of Balbus. Unfortunately nearly all of his third set of arguments (against the government of the world by the gods) is lost,and with it some of the validity of his counter-arguments. Neverthe-less, he quotes the proofs of human mortality from Carneades, whichno Stoic was ever able to refute. Like Balbus, he stresses the impor-tance of the gods to him as a Roman, as pontifex (priest, the title of high officials in the state religion) and as a senator. So he prefaces hisspeech with an appeal to Roman tradition: As a Cotta and pontifex I should defend both the views about theimmortal gods that I have inherited from my ancestors and thesacrifices, ceremonies and religious rituals. I will defend themalways, and I have always defended them, nor will any speech of anyone — whether scholar or amateur — move me from the views about the worship of the immortal gods that I have inheritedfrom my ancestors. I follow Coruncanio, Scipione and Scaevola,all chief priests (Pontifices Maximi), not Zeno or Cleanthes orChrysippo. I am convinced that Romulus, by taking the auspices, and Numa, by establishing religious rituals, laid the foundations of our state, which never could have grown so great without the gaining the complete favour of the gods This is a truly Roman statement and Cicero deserves credit for originality in casting his discussion of the gods in such a light. It is true that Greek sources can be identified for most of the De Natura Deorum (inparticular Carneades, Panaetius and Posidonius), but the political grounds for the pious observance of Roman religion are Cicero’s own contribution. Not surprisingly, he is less than whole-hearted in his support of the Academic doctrine. Cotta himself at the end of his speechexpresses scepticism: This is more or less what I have had to say about the nature of the gods. My purpose is not to deny its existence, but to haveyou understand how obscure it is and how difficult to explain. In the last sentence of the work Cicero says that the Epicurean,Velleius, was inclined to support Cotta’s view, but that he himself believed that the views of the Stoic, Balbus, “seemed to be closer tothe likeness of truth". As an Academic sceptic, Cicero could onlycommit himself to probability. Theology was part of the philosophical category of physics, and soCicero gives considerable attention to natural phenomena both on earthand in the heavens. Since he did not write a treatise on the physicalaspects of the world it is worth mentioning here that he did, as a young man, translate into Latin hexameters the poem of the Stoic Arato (c.315–240). Entitled "Phaenomena", Arato’s poem gave an account of the constellations and of weather-signs, usually given a separate title, "Dio-semeiai". As part of the Stoic proof of divine governance of the world, Cicero quotes about eighty-five lines from his poem which was published perhaps six years before the dramatic date (76) of the dialogue. By quoting the lines here Cicero is not showing any deep interest in astronomy or physics, and he is probably accurate when he makes Balbus say: “I will quote your Aratea, which so delight me, because they are Latin.” Cicero elsewhere makes Quintus quote twenty-three lines from the poem, which concern weather-signs. Another Latin poet, VARRONE of Atax (born in 82 BCE), at about the time when Cicero was writing the De Natura Deorum, may have been com-posing his Ephemeris (“Almanac”), in which he adapted many lines from Arato. Only two fragments are extant, and it is not knownwhether Cicero had any knowledge of the poem. Balbus complains that Cotta is passing over important topics — specifically divination and fate — in silence, not giving him a chance to discuss them. Cicero had reserved them for sep-arate works, De Divinatione and De Fato, both written in the first half of 44. In the preface to Book 2 of the De Divinatione, Cicero refers tothe resumption of free political activity, that is, to the situation after themurder of Caesar on 15 March, while in De Fato 2 he makes anenquiry into the causes of the troubles after Caesar ’s death — the start-ing point for the work’s discussion of causation. The extraordinaryevents of the time of composition made these works especially timely,for the custom of Roman state religion demanded that the will of thegods be discovered in times of crisis, not least by means of divination.And knowledge of the divine will inevitably involved considerations of human free will, destiny and fate. “De Divinatione” is in two books. In the first, Quinto Cicerone (Cicero’s brother) expounds the case for divination, which MarcusCicero demolishes in the second. Quintus argues the Stoic case, whichCicero includes in his historical survey of divination that serves as thepreface to Book 1. Introducing his response, Cicero says to Quintus(2. 8), You have defended Stoic doctrine in the Stoic manner and (athing which gives me the greatest pleasure) you have used manyRoman examples. So I must reply to your discourse but in sucha way that I should affirm nothing and question everything.This is a neat summary of the problems that Cicero solved in composing the De Divinatione. For divination was indeed prominent in theRoman religious and political landscape. ROMULUS himself had founded ROMA with the aid of augury, and the Romans had early intheir history adopted Etruscan methods of divination, to say nothing of the Sibylline Books, which had been consulted in Cicero’s own life-time. There was considerable contemporary interest in divinationand augury. For example, Cicero ’s friend, Aulus Caecina (from an Etruscan family), had written a work on the “Disciplina Etrusca”, which was used extensively by Seneca in his discussion of thunder and lightning. In his correspondence with Caecina, Cicero shows great respect for him as a scholar but bases his political predictions on other grounds than divination, since GIULIO CESARE had exiled Caecina from Italy and appeared to be implacable. Divination was approved by the Stoics. Zeno approved of it, and both Chrysippus and Posidonius (as well as other Stoics) had writtenworks on it, although PANEZIO had had doubts. There was, then, abasis in philosophy, as well as in Roman religious and political cus-tom, for arguments in support of divination. As a Roman statesman and augur Cicero could not dismiss them outright, but he could expressdoubt, that is, he could (and did) approach the topic from the point of view of Academic scepticism, relying particularly on Carneades forarguments against the Stoics. Cicero skilfully varied his methods, to produce a multilayered work of surprising obliqueness and complexity. In Book 1 Quintus indulges in what Schofleld calls “the rhetoric of anecdote”, that is, hesupports his case with a multitude of examples, largely chosen fromRoman history. In Book 2, however, Cicero uses the rhetoric of cross-examination , for example, the sharp questioning. “Should we wait for animals to speak? ”, he asks, as opposed to actingon the best judgement of human reason. Or in 2. 56, where he cites the Theban seers who foretold the victory of Leuctra from the crowing of cocks. “That [i.e. the crowing] was the miracle”, you say. “Well, what a surprise! As if fishes were crowing, not cocks! Yet Cicero mustrespect the established place of divination and augury in Roman public life. Like the sceptical Cotta in “De Natura Deorum”, he defends them asan augur and a patriotic Roman: In accordance with the opinion of the people and because these things are of great advantage to the state, we still maintain the customary ritual of augury, its religious rites and discipline, the augural laws and the college of augurs. Near the end of the work Cicero expands this by distinguishingbetween religion and superstition: It will be greatly to our advantage and that of our fellow Romans to root out superstition. But in removing superstition we must not remove religion. A wise man will preserve the traditionalinstitutions by maintaining their rituals and ceremonies.And having thus spoken as a Roman he ends as a sceptic: The particular method of the Academy is not to interpose its own opinion but to approve those things which seem to be most likethe truth. It will compare causes and expound the supportingarguments for each side. It will not bring its own authority to bear, but it will leave enquirers free to make their own judge-ment without prejudice.Cicero calls this the Socratic method, and so the dialogue ends with anappeal to the iconic source of Academic scepticism. In the third and final treatise on religion, De Fato, Cicero adopts quite a different method. It is technical, dense, intense, full of subtle dialectical twistsand turns and devoted to an abstruse metaphysical topic. It con-veys the interplay of ingenious minds arguing and putting freshand unexpected lines of thought to each other better than any of Cicero ’s other philosophical writings. It is the Ciceronian trea-tise philosophers most enjoy reading. Schofield admits that works like theDe Divinatione take “a lot of getting through for philosophers: it is too popular a read for them”, which is testimony to Cicero’s success in transmitting Greek philosophy to aRoman upper-class public which, by definition, was NOT made up of professional philosophers. The text of “De Fato” is fragmentary (perhaps one quarter of the whole is extant). Ostensibly a dialogue with Aulo Irtio (consul designate for 43, the year in which he died) held at Cicero’s villa at Puteoli shortly after Caesar’s murder, it was written in May and June of 44, when the usual topics of discussion between Cicero and his friends were peace and withdrawal from public life (“paxet otium”). But the stunning events of 15 March inevitably led to consideration of their causes, and so to a discussion of fate. In “De Divinatione” Quintus says that I will demonstrate in another place [that] everythinghappens by fate, a promise fulfilled by the De Fato (with Marcus asthe speaker). In “De Fato” Irtio asks Cicero to propose a thesis and discuss it in the fashion of the Tusculan Disputations. The thesis (which is not given in the surviving part of the manuscript) must havebeen that contained in Quintus’words in De Div.: “everythinghappens by fate”(fato omnia fiunt ), and Cicero is the sole speaker discussing it.Fate, providence and free will were prominent topics for the Stoics, Epicureans and Academics. The Stoics believed in the supremacy of fate, and Chrysippus (whom Cicero quotes here extensively) had writ-ten a work On Fate. Likewise, Panaetius wrote a work on Providence,and Posidonius one on Divination and one on Fate. Closely con-nected was the question of free will, which the Stoics allowed, for,they said, human beings still had moral choices which allowed them tochoose to follow fate willingly. While (a century after Cicero) Seneca made this the principal topic of his dialogue De Providentia and of his107th letter (in which he quotes lines from the Hymn to Zeus of Clean-thes expressing the doctrine), Cicero was more interested in the ques-tion of causation, which lies at the heart of the problems of fate andfree will. Cicero first denies the validity of the Stoic doctrine of “sympathy”, that is that external factors (such as climate) determine human action. Later he turns to the so-called “lazy argument”, which Chrysippus had criticized. Cicero here relies onthe syllogistic argument of Carneades. Finally, Cicero himself attacksthe Epicurean grounds for positing free will, most notoriously by thedoctrine of the “swerve” (Latin, clinamen) of atoms. Cicero had long been concerned with the question of free will. In aletter to Varro written in May, 46, he says that he has written a work on things possible (Peri Dunaton) which, he says, he had discussedwith Diodotus, who did not agree with him. Since Diodotus died in59, Cicero had been thinking about the problem for at least fifteen years when he came to write the De Fato. As in the other theological works he takes the Academic approach, relying most particularly onCarneades’proof. This states that if we extend the chain of causalityback infinitely, nothing can be left to free will: but, since we do makechoices (and therefore exert free will), it cannot be said that all thingshappen through fate. Cicero argues the sceptical point of view withskill and exemplary logic, in a fashion quite different from the other theological works. Cicero says that he was eager to finish his pro-gramme of philosophical works but was interrupted by the events of the Ides of March. If he had done so, he says, “I would not have left any philosophical subject that was not open to all and illuminated bythe Latin language”. He believed then (shortly after the murder of Cae-sar) that he would immediately resume political activity and be unableto devote so much time to philosophy. Since his effective politicalactivity did not begin until September, 44, he still had time to write theshort treatises on old age (which he does mention in the “De Divinatione” list), on glory (now lost), and on friendship, and his final major philosophical work, “De Officiis”, on duties, which was completed byDecember, 44, a year before his death. During this period he also wrote “Topica”, which, like the Paradoxa Stoicorum (written in 46), is more rhetorical than philosophical – although the same could be said of Grice, “Logic and Conversation”! We will postpone discussion of theseworks and turn now to other works that he names in the De Divina-tione list. First is the De Republica, published in 51 and written “when I stillwas steering the ship of state”. This is accurate only in so far as Cicero was active in the senate and the courts, which continued to functionaccording to the republican constitution. But in fact the constitutionwas inexorably and violently disintegrating and, since 60, politicalpower rested with those who had money and military backing, that is,the members of the extra-constitutional alliance called the first triumvi-rate. These men (Pompey, Crassus and Caesar) renewed their alliancein 56, and soon after silenced Cicero, who had already been exiled in58–57 with their tacit approval. For the next twelve years he was moreor less impotent politically, although his oratory was occasionally use-ful when called for by the triumvirate, and he was proconsul of Ciliciafor the year 51–50. Therefore he turned to philosophy as the way inwhich to continue his service to the state. Between 55 and 51 he wrotethree works that linked philosophy to political leadership, perhaps hismost original idea and certainly one foreshadowed in his early rhetori-cal work, De Inventione. The first of the three works was the De Ora-tore, published in 55. Since Cicero lists it after the De Republica as one of the oratorii libri, we will discuss it after the two political works, De Republica and De Legibus. The De Republica is one of the fragmentary works of the ancientworld whose missing parts are an inestimable loss. It was widely readin Cicero’s time and into late antiquity, but by the seventh century itwas so little valued that at the monastery of Bobbio a vellum manuscript, written in the fourth or early fifth century in a beautiful uncial hand (i.e. in large letters), was washed off and a manuscript of AGOSTINO’s Commentary on the Psalms was written over it. Thus the De Republica disappeared from sight, beyond fragmentary quotationsin various Latin authors (including Augustine) and the Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis) of Book 6, which survived intact in a separate tradition. In 1819 the Prefect of the Vatican Library, Angelo MAI, discovered much of Cicero’s text beneath that of AGOSTINO, and he published it in 1822. Apart from the Somnium we have about two-thirds of Book 1, about half of Book 2, perhaps one-sixth of Book 3,and very little of the other three books. As for the Somnium, it survived with a Neoplatonist commentary by the fifth-century Christian author, Macrobius TEODOSIO. Macrobius saw in Cicero’s main speaker, Scipio Aemilianus, the union of all the virtues, and in the Somnium the union of all branches of philosophy. Cicero did not have such an ambitious goal. The title of the work immediately draws attention to the model that he was emulating, Plato’s Republic, although in the De Divinatione passage he mentions several other Utopias by Peripatetic authors, while omitting the most notorious one, the Republic of the founder of Stoicism, Zeno. To him the subject was “important and appropriate for philosophy”, precisely because it united politics and ethics, a traditional Roman atti-tude, implicit in Cato the Censor’s definition of the orator, “the goodman skilled in speaking”. Plato had begun his Republic with asearch for justice in the individual, which he expanded (by analogy) to justice in the state, returning finally to justice in the individual. Cicero found the unreality of Plato’s ideal world unsatisfactory. In the intro-duction to his work he points out the contrast between the philosophers’ teaching and the practical “school” of experience: It is not enough to have virtue as if it were some sort of an art,unless you use it. It is true, I’ll grant, that you can keep an artthrough knowledge, even if you do not use it. But virtue exists totally through its use. And its greatest use is the government of the state and the performance in real life, not in words, of thosethings that the philosophers lecture on in their corners. For thereis nothing that the philosophers have said — at least nothing rightand honourable — that has not been evolved and confirmed bythose who have been lawgivers for states. Thus Cicero’s Republic will not be a Utopia. His search will be for theideal government and the ideal leadership for an actual state, Rome. His Republic is the reality of which Plato’s is but the idea — an ironic reversal! Cicero’s first problem was to choose the dramatic time and the par-ticipants. He decided against setting the dialogue in his own time, for itwould have been politically dangerous to have living statesmen as thespeakers. As we have already seen, he looked back to the third quar-ter of the second century as the period when the Roman republic beganto decay politically and morally, and he saw Scipio Aemilianus as thebest Roman leader, whatever flaws there actually were in his characterand policies. We have seen also how external events of the mid-secondcentury (the defeat of Perseus of Macedon, the destruction of Carthage, Corinth and Numantia), and in Rome the influx of Greek intellectualsand the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, caused cultural, social and polit-ical upheavals. Cicero was shrewd to set the dialogue in Rome of 129,a time, like the late 50s, of political instability and shortly before the death of Scipio himself, whom he made the principal speaker. The dialogue is set in the grounds of the leader’s suburban villa at the timeof the feriae Latinae. Scipione is joined by eight friends, four seniorpoliticians and four younger men. Of the former group, LELIO “the wise” had been consul in 140. Furio Filo had been consul in 136, and MANILIO (an expert on the law), had been consul in 149, when Sci-pio served under him as military tribune. The fourth senior, Spurio Mummio, was the brother of the Mummio who destroyed Corinth and was one of the two senators, along with Scipio (who was accompanied by Panaetius), sent by the senate on the embassy to Egypt and theeast in 140–139. Of the four younger men, only Rutilio RUFO deserves mention here. He would have been 25 years old in 129, and Cicero visited him when he was in exile in Smyrna fifty years later. Cicero claims that Rutilio was the source for the conversations in Sci-pio’s garden. The introduction to Book 1 is elaborate. Its apparent purpose is struc-tural, to bring together the nine participants in the dialogue. But its main function is to establish the proper subjects for philosophical enquiry in Rome. The conversation is directed towards celestial events,in which, Scipio says, “our friend Panaetius used to be such a carefulobserver”. But, he adds, Socrates was wiser for turning away fromsuch subjects. Eventually, after some discussion of astronomy, LELIO leads the conversation to affairs at Rome. Those “Greek studies”, he says, are valuable for sharpening the minds of the young, but they are preparatory for more important studies: those arts that make us useful to the state. For I think that that isthe most excellent function of wisdom, and that it is the best evidence of virtue and its highest duty. Therefore, let us ask Scipio to explain to us what he thinks is the best form of government (“optimum statum civitatis”). Thus Cicero establishes his topic. Perhaps we can be critical of thelength of the introduction, but it is intrinsically important for the contrast it draws between Greek enquiries into the physical world (it is convenient here for Cicero to overlook Greek ethical and political philosophy!), and the record of the Romans in political administration. It was a commonplace among Romans that the Greeks, for all their intellectual brilliance, never achieved political unity, and evidence for that was the conquest of Greece by Rome, only seventeen years before the dramatic date of the dialogue. Now, says Laelius, at a time whenRoman political unity is threatened, no topic could be more important than “those arts that make us useful to the state”. Further, the abortivediscussion of astronomy is structurally connected with the dream withwhich the work ends. The work begins with the heavens as an object of study, and it ends with them as the proper home of the souls of the vir-tuous. It begins with the heavens separated from human beings, and itends with the undivided universe, which human and divine beingsshare in timeless unity. There are two subjects in the main discussion, as Cicero hadexplained in the letter to his brother Quintus. First, “What is the bestconstitution of the state?”, and, second, “Who is the best citizen?” The first question occupies the first two books and the second the last two.Book 5 began with a quotation of Ennius’famous line, “the Roman state stands firm by means of old-fashioned customs and men of old-fashioned character.” Book 6 ended with the description of the idealleader and his place in the universe and in eternity, as opposed to theparticular place and time of Rome in 129 BC. Books 3 and 4 con-tained a discussion of the education and laws that would produce theideal citizen. The dialogue took three days, two books for each day. Scipio’s accepts Laelius’invitation, once again drawing the contrast between Greek theory and his own training in traditional Roman pre-cepts and his practical experience in public service. He will speak as “one of those who wear the [Roman] toga”. His main expositionbegins with the brief definition of a republic. A republic belongs to thepeople. Then he considers the development of societies and sur-veys three types of government (monarchy, aristocracy anddemocracy), concluding that the best form is the “mixed” constitution,with elements of all three. When pressed by LELIO, Scipio admits thatmonarchy is the best of the three, because the sole ruler is the strongestexecutive. In this Scipione seems to be anticipating arguments for a single “governor of state” (“rector reipublicae”) in Books 5 and 6, which, however, apply tomore than one rector at the same time. Here, the argument in favour of monarchy emphasizes the problems of administration rather than the problem of rights. Thus the discussion of the mixed constitution, which draws so much from Book 6 of Polybius’s Histories and Book 8 of Plato’s Republic, is given a Roman colouring appropriate to the problems of political rights and political power that (in Cicero’s view) began with the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus and led to the imminent collapse of the republic in the 50sBC. In Book 2 Scipio surveys the historical development of the Roman state. While Cicero owes much here to Polybius, the key statement is at the beginning, where Scipio acknowledges his debt to Cato theElder. CATONE used to say that the reason for the superiority of our constitu-tion was that in other states a single man had established the constitution by his laws and institutions. The Roman state had beenestablished, not by the genius of one man, but of many. It hadevolved not in the lifetime of one man, but over a period of manycenturies and ages. Whatever this passage says about Cato’s theory of history, it givesScipio’s basis for his view of Roman history, summed up in the linefrom Ennius quoted above. Scipio shows that the Roman constitutionhas evolved through the labours and virtues of individuals, but, as Tubero objects (2. 64), he has not discussed the education (“disciplina”), customs (“mores”) and laws (“leges”) which establish and maintain the state. These are the topics of Books 3 and 4.Book 3 is concerned with the laws and therefore with justice in the state. As we have seen in the second chapter, Philus unwillingly undertakes to argue Carneades’view that a state cannot be successful without injustice. Less is extant of Laelius’reply defending justice,which he bases on natural law. His definition is eloquent. True law is right reason in accordance with nature. It applies toall human beings, it is unchanging and eternal. It calls one to duty by its command, and it deters one from wrongdoing by itsprohibition. It never commands good people in vain, and neveraffects the bad by its commands or prohibitions. This law cannot be superseded, amended or repealed. Indeed, neither the senatenor the people can release us from this law, which needs neithercommentary nor interpretation. Nor will there be one law inRome, another in Athens. One now, another in the future, for oneeternal and unchangeable law will apply to all peoples at alltimes. There will be one master and commander for all — the god,who proposed, arbitrated and carried this law. He who disobeysthis law is running away from himself and despising humannature. The basis of this noble ideal is Stoic, for the Stoics taught that moralprinciples were laws of nature applicable to all human beings, of what-ever time or place. Whereas Plato had separated his world of ideasfrom the world of particulars, the Stoics emphasized the unity of the whole universe. Cicero goes further in applying the ideal of natural lawto the Roman state, which, as LELIO says, “ought to be so con-stituted as to be eternal”. Thus a particular Roman statesman, LELIO, at a particular time, enunciates to an audience of Roman leaders anideal that will be attainable in the Roman state. To underline this,Cicero uses Roman legal terms throughout the passage — the words forthe processes of proposing and legislating, emending and annulling, are all common in the Latin technical and legal vocabulary. We may deplore the irony that the ideals of LELIO in 129, and of Cicero in 54–51, were little heeded and quite disconnected from the harsh realitiesof political power, but we must admire Cicero’s vision of a betterRoman political life. Very little remains of Book 4, but enough to show that the discus-sion now turned to the training of the good citizen. Thus, Cicero pre-pared the way for consideration of the good citizen, the second of hismajor subjects, which is the topic of the third day’s discussion, con-tained in Books 5 and 6. Book 5 (which survives only in a few frag-ments) begins with the oracular line from Ennius, immediately estab-lishing a Roman context for the ideal citizen. Scipio evidentlydescribed the virtues of the ancient Roman leaders, which he applied tothe ideal of the virtuous leader. This leader is called by the terms“gov-ernor”, “steersman”, “driver” (in Latin, respectively, rector , guberna-tor , moderator ), all significant metaphors. As “rector”, the leader keepsthe state and its citizens on a straight path with upright morality. As “gubernator”, he steers the ship of state (a metaphor that goes back to thepoems of Alcaeus in the seventh century BCE). As “moderator”, he drives the team of the chariot of state, reining in the citizens or relaxing hiscontrol in accordance with what is right. Cicero is not describing a sin-le rector rei publicae, but the qualities and attributes of an ideal rector who might be one of several existing at the same time or, exceptionally, a single rector if the times demand such a statesman. It is most unlikely that Cicero had any particular contemporary leader in mind, and it is a waste of time to try to see in his rector a model for modern leaders, as has been attempted, most unfortunately, by too many commentators and politicians. What is important is, first, thatCicero linked morality to political life; second, that he described his rector in a Roman context and in Roman terms. None of Book 6 survives in the Vatican manuscript, but a few quotations by ancient authors survive, along with the Dream of Scipio and the commentary of Macrobius, which were combined only in fivemedieval manuscripts. Scipio introduces the subject of the rewards of the virtuous leader, which, in contrast to the metal statues and fading triumphal laurels of Roman leaders, are lasting and for ever fresh (6.8). Laelius invites him then to describe them. The dream is Scipio’s reply. It takes his hearers back to the heavens, where the discussionhad begun on the first day. But now the heavens are in the same uni-verse as that of the participants: the union of ideal and particular thatunderlies Laelius’definition of natural law finds its climax inthe cosmos, the home of the divine human soul and the place to whichit returns, the more quickly if its corporeal life on earth has been virtu-ous. And Cicero has already shown that the most virtuous person is theone who serves his country well. Such a person was Scipio (at least forthe purposes of the “De Republica”). In the introduction to Book 6 Cicero mentions the myth of Er, withwhich Plato’s “Republic” ends, and this undoubtedly was his model. Here again he successfully transferred his myth from the realm of theimpossible to the Roman world. The Somnium requires no suspension of disbelief. A real Roman leaderrelates his dream, and he sets it in a real place, the palace of the Numid-ian king, Masinissa, in north Africa, at an actual time, 149 BCE(whether or not Scipio did visit Masinissa that year, rather than twoyears earlier, is irrelevant). At the dramatic date of the dream Masinissa was about ninety years old, and he provides the historicallink with the Roman heroes of the second Punic war (which ended in202 BCE), when he was the staunch ally of Scipio Africanus Maior,the grandfather (by adoption) of Scipio Aemilianus. The elder Scipio,together with the younger Scipio’s natural father (Aemilius Paullus, another Roman military hero), are the principal speakers in the Somnium — another way in which Cicero unites the ideal world with Roman real-ity. Thus the divine cosmos and the actual Roman world are joined, forthe virtuous leader ascends to the divine realm, to rejoin god, who isthe rector of the universe. Raised to the heavens, Scipio (the dreamer)looks down on the earth and sees the universe in its true perspective.The earth is central, but its scale — and therefore the glory of its virtu-ous leaders — is insignificant in comparison with the heavens and theeternal glory which the virtuous soul will attain. At the beginning of the dream Africanus foretells Scipio s career and death: he enunciates the reward for Scipio’s virtuous actions. For all who have saved, defended or increased their fatherland, aspecial place in the heaven has been assigned, where they mayenjoy an eternal life of happiness. For nothing that is done onearth is more pleasing to that supreme god, who governs the whole universe, than the councils and assemblies of men whohave joined in just communities, which are called states (“civitates”). Those who govern and defend them come from this place,and to this place they return.Thus the relationship between the virtuous leader and the eternal cos-mic reward is established. Scipio’s natural father, Aemilius Paullus,then appears and urges Scipio to recognize the high serious-ness of his duty in life, when his immortal soul is imprisoned in a mor-tal body, to act virtuously and not to leave the body (Aemilius is refer-ring to suicide) until god releases it. He has been assigned a duty in lifeas if it were a military assignment: to leave it would be the equivalentof desertion. Paullus then succinctly describes this duty. Imitate your grandfather, imitate me, your father, and love jus-tice and duty (pietas), which is owed to parents and family, andmost of all to one’s fatherland. This is your way to heaven.And then Paullus and Africanus show Scipio the cosmos asit is in its true proportions, and they explain its astronomical organiza-tion: in this Cicero is to some extent imitating Plato (in the myth of Erand in theTimaeus), but his purpose is different, which is to show theproper relationship of the earth and its temporal events to the cosmosand eternity. Scipio on earth is encouraged to fix his gaze on the heav-ens and be drawn to the true and eternal rewards of virtue. Speaking of the soul, Africanus says, “Know, then, that you are a god”: likegod the soul is self-moving and eternal, and therefore should beemployed in the highest calling. Use this soul, then, in the noblest activity, which is the service of your country. And if the soul is trained and engaged in suchdeeds, it will fly more quickly to this, its dwelling-place andhome.So ends the De Republica (at least, as we now have it: perhaps therewas a closing passage in which the participants left Scipio in his gar-den). More than any other of Cicero’s philosophical works it shows theextent of his originality. It makes no pretence of complete originality, for Roman authors preferred to practise “aemulatio” ratherthan imitation or innovation, not that the latter modes were ignored. Cicero, then, acknowledges his debt to Plato (which is clearly shown tobe to the “Fedro” as well as to the Republic and the Timaeus), but he recasts the Platonic material — and, no doubt, much else from theGreek philosophers — in the context of Roman history, politics and society. Cicero’s doctrine that there is a practical connection betweenthe morality of citizens and their leaders and the success of the state, isquite different from Plato’s analogy of the just state to the just individ-ual. Finally, Cicero presents his republic in Latin of remarkable flexibil-ity and range of style, which rises in Laelius’speech and Scipio’sdream to a sublime level. The third of Cicero’s political/philosophical treatises from the 50sBCE was the “De Legibus”, which he does not mention in the list in the De Divinatione. He seems to have begun it in 52 and left it unfin-ished when he went to Cilicia in 51. There is no firm evidence that hereturned to it, and it was not published during his lifetime. Survivingare most of the first three books, but we do not know how many bookswere planned or written, beyond a single reference by Macrobius toBook 5. In this work Cicero himself is the main speaker, and the partic-ipants are his brother Quintus and his friend Atticus. The setting is asummer day at his family property at Arpinum, lovingly described atthe beginning of each of the first two books, where the dialogue is set on the banks of the River Liris and on an island in the river. In theintroduction to Book 2 (2. 6) Cicero compares the setting to the famousopening of Plato’sPhaedrus, another example of his emulation of Plato. His attention to the setting is purposeful, for it establishes his personal involvement with ITALIA and with ROMA and its historical virtues, not least among which is the rule of law. In Book 1 he showsthat the De Legibus is essentially a continuation of the De Republica,for, he says (§ 20). Since we must maintain and preserve that constitution which Sci-pio showed to be the best in those six books, and since all lawsmust be fitted to that sort of state, and since we must sow theseed of morality (and must not prescribe everything in writing) — since this is so, I will review the origin of law in Nature. She willbe our guide for the whole of our discussion.Cicero, then, repeats the theory of natural law expounded by Laelius inBook 3 of the De Republica and once again links ethical values to polit-ical institutions.In Book 1 Cicero discusses natural law, which is the basis of justice,and therefore of relations between human beings (1. 28). Justice mustbe pursued for its own sake, and this principle will apply to all thevirtues (1. 48). Quintus makes the objection that the discussion of ethical principles has little to do with the main subject, that is the laws (1.57), but, as Marcus replies, the law must reform vice and commendvirtue (1. 58). Therefore wisdom — the result of the search for virtue — is indeed relevant to a discussion of the law, and Cicero ends the book with a speech in praise of wisdom (1. 62). The discussion, then, reaf-firms the conclusion of the De Republica , that moral excellence mustbe the foundation of the successful state.In Book 2 Cicero discusses religious laws. Like a lawgiver (or, asQuintus points out, 2. 23, like Numa, the founder of Roman religiouslaws), Cicero pronounces the text of his laws and then gives a commen-tary. Next, in Book 3, he discusses the offices, powers and functionsof the magistrates, giving the text of his laws, followed by his commen-tary. Both books are remarkable for Cicero’s use of Latin legal language and for the adaptation of Greek ideas to a Roman context. He acknowledges his debt to Plato’s Laws, but he adds: “Who could ever imitate Plato?” It is, to be sure, very easy to translate his opinions, and this I would do, if I did not clearly want tobe my own person. For how much effort is it to say the samethings in translation in the same words? This is crucial to our estimate of Cicero’s originality here and in the “De Republica” He names his Greek models including Theophrastus and others who had written on the laws. Most of the Greek works, he says, were theoretical, but he praises DEMETRIO of Phalerum (a student of TEOFRASTO and governor of Athens in thelate fourth century) as the first to bring the discussion of law “out of the shadows of scholarship into the sunlight and dust”of practical poli-tics. Cicero emphasizes that he too is one who has excelled in theoretical studies and in political leadership. Thus, he claims that he hasexpanded legal theory from its basis in Greek philosophy by adaptingit to Roman law and custom and creating a Roman legal terminology. CICERONE claims further that his political career and his experience as an ora-tor and jurist qualify him uniquely to propose a Roman legal code. As in the “De Republica”, Cicero seeks to construct an ideal Roman system,and he appeals to his knowledge of Greek philosophy and theory, onthe one hand, and to his practical experience in Roman life, on theother, to support his goal of “being his own person”. It has been sug-gested above that there is considerable originality in the “De Republica”, and we can confidently say the same of the “De Legibus”. At the end of the “De Divinatione” list Cicero says tha the followed the example of Aristotle and Theophrastus in composing rhetorical works which united the precepts of rhetoric with philosophy. Here he names three works: “De Oratore”, “Brutus”, and “Orator”. The first of these was written in 55, and therefore belongs to the period of Cicero’s political impotence, during which he wrote the “De Republica and some of the “De Legibus.” It is the most important of the three for an under-standing of Cicero’s philosophy. The “Brutus” (written in 46) is valuablefor Cicero’s account of his own philosophical development and for hiscriticism of the Stoic, Academic and Peripatetic schools in so far asthey concern the orator. The work is chiefly important as a critical review of Roman orators, while the “Orator”, also from 46), is principally a rhetorical work, although it, too, stresses the link between phi-losophy and rhetoric. Cicero had focused on this link in his earliest rhetorical work, Rhetorici Libri (usually referred to as “De Inventione”), which he does not name in the “De Divinatione” list. “De Inventione” was written in the late 80s, that is, before Cicero made his journey to Athens and the east (probably before 84). Cicero dismisses it as being the unpolished product of a very young man,“not worthy of this age [i.e.Cicero’s maturity] and of the experience that I have gained in so manyimportant cases”. Yet the “De Inventione” announces Cicero’s conviction, as was Grice’s, that philosophy and rhetoric are interdependent. CICERONE says that “wisdom is the guide (“moderatrix”) in everything”, and he shows in the introduction to the work how political leaders who have eloquence without wisdom are demagogues who ruin the state. These are fun-damental themes in the “De Oratore” and the “De Republica”, and it is in order to boost the mature works that Cicero depreciates his early work. The “De Oratore” is one of Cicero’s most original works, although its length (three long books) has limited its popularity in modern times. It is a dialogue taking place over two days, set in the grounds of the Tusculan villa of Marc’Antonio (consul in 99) during the “Ludi Romani” of September 91. Five of the seven participants are Roman senior statesmen, and two are younger politicians of great promise. Except for C. AURELIO COTTA (exiled in 90 but recalled in 82: consul in 75) all died within a short time of the dramatic date of the dialogue, four of them murdered or driven to suicide by the supporters of Marius in the early80s. The principal speaker is L.Licinius Crassus (consul in 95), the greatest orator of his day and revered by Cicero, whose opinions are closest to those of Cicero. LICINIO CRASSO died ten days after the dramatic date of the dialogue, which honours his memory. The introduction to Book 3 is a deeply felt tribute to him and a lament for the fate of the other participants who died violently shortly afterwards. The second principal speaker is MARC’ANTONIO, consul in 99, and the closest rival to Crassus as an orator. MARC’ANTONIO was murdered by the Marians in 87. In the dialogue he takes a “pragmatic view” (alla Grice) of oratory and defines the ideal orator in narrower terms than Crassus. The older generation is represented by Q. Muzio Scaevola, consul in 117 and known as “the Augur”, who participates only in Book 1, the first day’s conversation. Two other senior statesmen participate in the second day’s conversations (Books 2 and3), Q.Lutazio Catulo (consul in 102 and father-in-law of Cicero’s friend and rival, Ortensio), and C. Julius Caesar Strabo, aedile in 90, the year following the dialogue. Both of these men died in the Marian troubles — Catulus driven to suicide and Strabo murdered. Closer in age to Cicero were P. SULPIZIO (tribune in 88), who was murdered bythe Marians, and COTTA (the only one of the seven participants to survive for any length of time), whom Cicero made the principal conversationalist in the “De Natura Deorum”. COTTA is represented as the source for the con-versations of the “De Oratore”. Cicerone’s choice of participants is significant. Writing in 55 and observing the collapse of constitutional processes, he looks back toanother year, 91, when the principled statesmanship of leaders such asCrassus and Antonius was about to give way to the violence of the fol-lowing decade, in which so many of the participants perished. The mes-sage is clear. Only if political leaders (who are, by definition, orators) are men of principle and versed in philosophy, can constitutional gov-ernment survive. On a personal level, Cicero pays homage to the leadding orators of his early days, several of whom had been associates of Scipio Aemilianus and his friends. In the introduction to Book 1, Cicero calls philosophy “the mother of all the praiseworthy arts” . Later, Crassus repeats that leaders who were both philosophers and orators unified scattered communities and organized them into states with stable constitutions. Crassus recalls his visit to Athens twenty years earlier, where he had associated with philosophers who had themselves been students of Panaetius or Critolaus or Carneades, all of whom segregated philosophy from public life. As Crassus goes on to say, Plato himself, in pouring scorn on orators, showed himself to be a supreme orator. Antonius replies to Crassus’description of the orator and his training. He defines the political leader “as the man who maintains and uses those things which result in the advantage and growth of the Roman state”. ANTONIO then gives his definition of the philosopher, “he who studies to know the power, the nature and the causes of all things divine and human, and to obtain and pursue every rational precept for the good life”. In amplifying his definitions (which extend also to the jurist and the orator) ANTONIO is forthright on the limits of the orator’s training. He needs to be clever in discerning the expectations and psychology of the people he seeks to persuade. As for philosophy, let him reserve the philosophers’s books for himself for a holiday like the one we are enjoying today at Tusculum, when we are not being active in politics, so that if he does ever have to make a speech about justice and good faith, he will not need to borrow from Plato. And, as Antonius continues to point out, Plato’s “Republic” had little to do with the politics and ethics of real cities like ROMA. Cicero resolves the debate between Crassus and Antonius in Book 3, where Crassus introduces a long digression on philosophy into his discussion of style. CRASSO shows that the greatest leaders in Greece and Rome were also “sapientes”, and he shows that even in the heroic age those who were tutors in living well were also teachers of oratory. Homer’s Phoenix taught Achilles how to speak and how to act. So philosophy was not segregated from rhetoric, for “she was the mistress both of right actions and right words”, once again the allusion isto Cato’s definition of the orator. CRASSO ends his argument for the union of philosophy and rhetoric by modifying and uniting the definitions of Antonius. Now if anyone wishes to define the philosopher who provides us with a supply of subject-matter and words, as far as I am concerned he can call him an orator. And if he prefers to call the orator, who (I say) combines wisdom and eloquence, a philosopher, I won’t stop him. If I do have to choose between a knowledgeable but incompetent speaker and one who is ignorant but loquacious, I would prefer tongue-tied wisdom to eloquent foolishness. Crassus speaks here for Cicero. In good Academic fashion, he has examined all sides of the question (a type of argument that he refers to), and he has reached the most probable conclusion. It is one that is best for the state, and, for Cicero writing in 55 BC, one that best prepares him for writing “De Republica” and “De Legibus”. In the “De Divinatione” list Cicero mentions his work “De Senectute”. It is one of three shorter treatises that he wrote in 44 a.C. and the only one that preceded the “De Divinatione”. The others were the “De Gloria” and the “De Amicitia”, both completed before the “De Officiis”. The “De Gloria” (a nice knock-down argument) is lost, but from Cicero’s letters and the DeOfficiis we know that it was in two books, and that Cicero was pleased with it. From the introduction to Valerio Massimo’s chapter “De Gloria” we can guess that Cicero dealt with the origins and definition of “glory”, and its relationship to virtue. The “De Senetute”, or CATONE Maior from the name of its principal conversationalist, is perhaps the most attractive of Cicero’s philosophical works, and it is one of very few that has kept a regular place in schools. It appeals to the young, who have found in its atmosphere of friendship and self-fulfilment an attractive invitation to consider the inevitable experience of old age. This may be a distant prospect to the young, but to Cicero (and to Atticus, to whom the work is dedicated) it was more immediate (Cicero was sixty-two years old at the time of writing, and Atticus was sixty-six). Thus the work is not only a review of the life of the elder CATONE, but also of Cicero’s own life and career. He found in it comfort for his own situation in 44 BC and he rightly chose to make a historical Roman figure (Catone) the speaker, rather than to set the discussion in a mythical context, as Ariston had done. Cato’s listeners are LELIO and Scipione Aemilianus, and the setting is Cato’s house in 150 a.C., a few months before his death. Cicero takes us to the world of the “De Republica” and its ideals. Just as he (in 44 a.C.) is reviewing his life for the benefit of the young, so Cato is portrayed with two prominent leaders of the next generation. His speech, then, is a legacy for them. Cicero himself admits that Cato is made to argue more eruditely than he ever did in reality, but he also points out that in his old age Cato was a serious student of stuff. Cicero does not address the problem that strikes modern readers, that is, how to reconcile Cato’s mellow persona in this work with his well-known austerity and frequent inhumanity. Rather than try to defend Cato, it is better to admit that Cicero overlooked this unattractive side of him in the interests of portraying him as a patriot and defender of the republic. LELIO proposes the topic. Old age is a hateful burden to most old men. Cato, after some preliminary dialogue, replies with an unbroken speech. CATONE identifies four reasons to support Laelius’s thesis: -that old age compels one to retire from activity. -that it results in physical weakness. -that it removes physical pleasures. -that it is close to death. Each of these he refutes in turn, often with reference to his own life and with a wealth of examples from Roman history. One remarkable passage is his praise of the pleasures of farming, Cicero’s special tribute to the author of the “De Agricultura”, but also a statement of the traditional prejudice of the Roman senatorial class for income from land-owning rather than business activities. Cato cites as an example of the political leader who serves hiscountry selflessly L.Quinctius Cincinnatus, the historical icon of theleader—farmer. He was called from the plough to serve as Dictatorin the crisis of 458 BCE and laid down his office within sixteen dayson completion of his task. At the end of his speech Cato puts his owncareer in a perspective that we have already met in the De Repub-lica. The reward of a virtuous life spent in service of the state is thefame of posterity and reunion with the souls of the virtuous after death. No one will ever persuade me, Scipio, that your father, Paullus,or your grandfathers, Paullus and Africanus, would haveattempted such great deeds, if they did not think that posterityhad a direct connection with them. Or do you think that Iwould have undertaken such huge tasks night and day, in peaceand in war, if I had thought my glory was to be limited to theterm of my life? Would it not have been much better for me tohave lived a peaceful and retired life, without any labour andcompetition? Yet somehow my soul was alert and always hadposterity in view, as if it would then finally be alive once it hadleft this life. And if it were not the case that the soul is immortal,the souls of the best men would not strive most of all to winimmortal glory. The line from the “De Republica” through the “De Senectute” to the “DeOfficiis” is unbroken. Virtue in the service of the state is for Cicero thehighest calling and brings the greatest reward.The third of the shorter treatises is the “De Amicitia ( “OnFriendship”). Here Cicero makes Q.Mucius Scaevola (the Augur) thefirst speaker. He had taken part in the first book of the “De Oratore” andCicero brings him on stage here as the son-in-law of Laelius, who isthe principal speaker: the dialogue is often referred to as Laelius. Laelius himself, as the friend of Scipio Aemilianus, was a paragon of friendship. The dramatic date of the conversation that Scaevola reportsto his student, the young Cicero, is 129 BCE, a few days after the deathof Scipio Aemilianus. Cicero returns, then, to the contemporaries of Scipio for his evocation of virtuous relationships in public life.Laelius’main speech extends, with interruptionsfrom Fannius (consul in 122), the third participant. Fannius defines the subject. Tell us, Laelius, your views on the nature of friendship and give us precepts for it.” Laelius gives a famous definition. The great power of friendship can be realised from this, that from the unbounded community of the human race (ties that nature herself has established) friendship has been so concentrated that all affection is between two, or a few, persons.Friendship was of great importance in Greek life, as Aristotle’s treat-ment of it in Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics shows, and forthe Romans it was important not only in personal relationships but alsoin public life. The stresses caused in friendships by political differ-ences are vividly displayed in Cicero’s exchange of letters with hisfriend, Matius, in August of 44 Matius had been an intimate friend,confidant and adviser of Caesar. He had been loyal to Caesar’s mem-ory after the Ides of March, and Cicero had been critical of this and of Matius’closeness to Caesar when he was alive. Cicero’s criticisms hadreached Matius, who asked their mutual friend, Trebatius, to complainto Cicero. Cicero then wrote to Matius to answer his complaint andreassure him of his unshaken friendship, and Matius, in his turn,accepted Cicero’s defence but still held to his own views of his friend-ship with Caesar. These letters illuminate some of the arguments madein the “De Amicitia”, notably the precepts on candour, and they show the practical side of the theoretical discussion in thedialogue.Friendship was problematic for all the chief philosophical schools.For the Stoics it was inconsistent with the ideal of self-sufficiency, andthey based their theory of friendship on virtue, saying that friendshipcould exist only between virtuous people. Laelius, indeed, says that “friendship can only exist between good people”, but hepoints out also that the Stoic ideal of friendship between wise men isimpractical, because the Stoic sapiens is an impossible ideal. Thereforehe gives his precepts in practical terms: his examples are drawn fromRoman history, and his precepts are attainable. He ends with a glowingtestimony to Scipio’s friendship. It was the greatest of allblessings in his life, and his memory of Scipio will never perish,because their friendship was founded on virtue. So Laelius concludeswith this advice for his younger hearers:I encourage you so to value virtue (without which friendship isnot possible) that you think that nothing, except virtue, can bepreferred to friendship. The Stoics, then, were closer to the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle.Plato saw friendship as an effort, based on reason, to achieve an idealrelationship in this temporal life, while Aristotle saw friendship in thecontext of the life of the community — a doctrine consistent with theStoic ideal of public service. Epicurus took quite a different approach,for he based his theory on the usefulness of friendship as a meanstowards a tranquil life of pleasure. Cicero expounds the Epicurean the-ory in Torquatus’ speech in Book 1 of De Finibus, refuting it himself in the next book. The difference between the Stoic and Ciceronianviews and that of the Epicureans has some bearing on theDe Amicitia,in that the work was dedicated to Atticus, who was an Epicurean. Itseems that Atticus enjoyed friendship for its own sake, whatever thetheory behind it, and he would have approved of Laelius’statement at De Amicitia 27 BCE:friendship seems to me to spring from nature, not from need;from the attachment of the soul together with a feeling of love,more than from calculation of how useful it will be.Before we turn to theDe Officiis, we should briefly mention two otherphilosophical works. The first is theTopica, which Cicero says hewrote for his friend, Trebatius, during the sea voyage between Veliaand Rhegium (towns on the south-western coast of Italy about 225kilometers apart by sea), on his abortive journey to Athens in July of 44. He wrote it without access to books, and his purpose was to helpTrebatius study Aristotle’s “Topica”, which he had begun to read inCicero’s library. Cicero’s “Topica”, however, is nothing likeAristotle’s “Topica”, which he probably had not read. The work isboth rhetorical and philosophical. Cicero divides rhetorical theory(“ratio disserendi”) into two parts, invention (devising of arguments) and iudtcandum (evaluating their validity), and he says that Aristotle wasthe major figure in discussing them. The Stoics, he says, elaborated thelatter in their dialectic, but they ignored the former (inventio, Greek topike), which is to be his primary subject. The work, then, derivesultimately from Aristotle, although there can be no certainty about theextent and depth of Cicero’s reading of Aristotle. In the discussion of consequences and antecedents which Cicero describes as “atopic appropriate to dialectic”, and the following discussion of causes Cicero shows that he is master of logical argument, forexample, in his use of the syllogism. BOEZIO (c.520CE) certainly took CICERONE’s “Topica” seriously as a philosophical work and wrote a commentary in seven books, of which five and a part of thesixth survive, covering seventy-six of the 100 chapters. The second work still to be mentioned is Cicero’s translation of partof Plato’sTimaeus, of which only part of the preface and the transla-tion of Timaeus are extant. Cicero made the translation after thedeath in 45 of his friend Nigidius Figulus, said to be the most learnedof Romans after Varro. NIGIDIO was a Pythagorean (as Cicero says inthe first chapter of theTimaeus), who wrote works on the natural worldand the cosmos, as well as on grammar. He was especially interested indivination and astrology, which we will discuss later in connectionwith Manilius. He was a senator (Praetor in 58) and a supporter of Pompey, and he went into exile after Caesar’s victory at Pharsalus. InAugust of 46 Cicero wrote a moving consolation to him to comforthim in exile. To Cicero he was“the most learned and the purest of men”, whose friendship had been shown in his support when Cicerohad been in despair. The Timaeus is a memorial to Nigidius. In itspreface Cicero describes how Nigidius had met him at Ephesus, incompany with the Peripatetic philosopher, Cratippus, when he wastravelling to take up his post as governor of Cilicia in 51. Nigidiuswould have been Cicero’s interlocutor in the missing parts of the intro-duction to the translation. It was appropriate for Cicero to associatePlato’s dialogue on cosmology with the scholar who, of all his contem-poraries, was most interested in the stars and the cosmos.Cicero’s last philosophical work has also proved to be the mostinfluential. The De Officiis (usually translated as On Duties) was writ-ten in the later part of 44, the period when Cicero had resumed politi-cal activity as the most outspoken opponent of Mark Antony. He firstmentions the work in a letter to Atticus of 25 October, and less thantwo weeks later (5 November) he reports that he has finished the firsttwo books. The third book seems to have been completed before 9December. Thus the work was written in a very short time indeed(even supposing that Cicero had been reflecting on it as early as July of 44), and it is both more personal and less carefully written than thedialogues. We do not know when it was published: Horace’s poem onRegulus probably echoes Cicero’s discussion of Regulus. The poemwas published in 23 BCE, giving a possible terminus ante quem forpublication.The work is addressed to Cicero’s son, Marcus, at the time a studentin Athens under the Peripatetic philosopher, Cratippus. Cicero hadknown Cratippus since at least 51, when he joined Nigidius Figulus atEphesus, and Cicero had used his influence with Caesar to obtainRoman citizenship for him. Marcus (the son) was neither diligent nor disciplined, and Cicero was sufficiently anxious about him to contem-plate (and begin) a voyage to Athens in July, 44. The political newsfrom Rome, however, made him turn back, and the De Officiis took theplace of his visit. Thus the work is in the form of a letter, and eachof the three books has a preface addressed to Marcus. It is more thanlikely that Cicero had in mind Cato the Elder, who in his old ageaddressed a hortatory work, Ad Marcum, to his son. Ciceroaddresses Marcus 32 times directly: when he uses the formal addressof “Marcus, my son”(Marce fili), he is speaking with full paternalauthority, a powerful concept in Roman society. Thus at 1. 78, he says:I have the right, Marcus, my son, to boast to you, for yours is thelegacy of my glory and the [duty of] imitating my deeds.We are inescapably reminded of the Roman funeral in Polybius (6. 53–54), with its focus on the dead man’s moral legacy to the next genera-tion. Thus, the work is both an exhortation to Marcus and Cicero’s tes-tament. In tone it is personal and urgent, yet in style discursive. Cicerohimself was proud of the work. Writing to Atticus, while the work wasin progress, he says, “my exposition is splendid”, and in the finalparagraph of the work, addressing Marcus, he says: Marcus, my son, here is my gift—in my view a great one, but itsvalue will depend on your reception of it…Since my voice hastravelled to you in these books, give them as much time as youcan…Farewell, my Cicero, and be assured that you are indeedmost dear to me—much more dear, however, if you take plea-sure in such advice and rules [as these].The work is in three books: Book 1 concerns moral goodness (hones-tum); Book 2, expediency (utile, “beneficial”);Book 3, cases where honestum and utile are in conflict. For the firsttwo books Cicero’s principal source was Panaetius, who wrote a treatise in three books “Peri tou Kathekontos”, which Cicero translated as “De Officiis”. The word “officium” is troublesome, and Attico criticized Cicero’s use of it to translate the Greek “kathekon”, which literally means “coming down” and then, in the philosophical sense, “fitting or proper.” Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, used the word in an ethical ‘use’, evidently in the sense of “an action in accordance with reason”, and this seems to have been the basic ‘use’ of the term in Panaetius’ title. But “officium” in Latin meant (in Cicero’s time) “ that which ought to be done”, with the specifically Roman connotation of one’s duty towards others in a particular social context. As Attico points out, it would be difficult to speak of a citizen’s “officium” towards thestate, as opposed to his officium towards an individual or a socialgroup. Cicero clearly wants to extend the term to the political context, particularly the preservation of the established order, and he did not accept Atticus’criticism. “Give me a better word” (da melius) was his reply, and so the title remained “De Officiis”. Although some have argued for “appropriate action” as the closest Englishequivalent for officium, I have kept the translation, “duty”, which is both more familiar and less cumbersome. Cicero compressed the three books of Panaetius’work into two. But his work was not just a translation of Panaetius: we remember hisinsistence in the “De Legibus” that he intends to be “his own person”, and he says here of Panaetius, “I have followed him to a great extentbut have not translated him”. He gives a Roman cast to Panaetius’philosophy, and the “officia” are actions appropriate for a member of theRoman senatorial class. He uses Roman examples, most notably that of Regulus in Book 3. Panaetius, however, only went so far. He didnot, as Cicero complains, fulfil his promise of dealing with caseswhere the good (“kalon”, Latin “honestum”) and the expedient (sympheron ,Latin, “utile”) were in conflict. Cicero did consult a version of the “Peri Kathekontos” of Posidonius, but he found its usefulness very limited.Therefore he was left largely on his own for Book 3, although he mayhave had some help from the Stoic Athenodorus (Sandon), who hadprocured at least a summary of Posidonius’work for him. Cicero should be believed when he says: I shall fill out this gap [i.e. in Panaetius’work] without any sup-port, but, as they say, under my own auspices (Marte nostro). The first book is the most varied and the most interesting. After theintroduction, Cicero starts with a definition of “officia”, which he classi-fies as those which concern the “end of the good” and those which “consist of rules to which every part of our experience of life couldconform”. Thus the first class is theoretical, the second practical,and it is this that is the subject of the work. Cicero then subdivides histopic into the good, the expedient, and cases where the two are in con-flict. To these categories he adds two of his own, comparisons, respec-tively, between good actions and expedient actions. Then he turns todiscuss “honestum”, which he bases on four cardinal virtues: justice, wis-dom, greatness of spirit (magnitudo animi, Greek megalopsychia), andmoderation. These are then analysed and discussed: wisdom very briefly, justice more fully, as we would expect from the social and civilcontext of Cicero’s official. The second part of the discussion of jus-tice extends to liberality, an appropriate attribute for aristocrats.Cicero’s treatment of one of the most prominent of Roman social rela-tionships, that between patron and client, is at best superficial. Whenhe turns to greatness of spirit he argues for the superiority of civilcourage (domesticae fortitudines) over military courage, putting at thecentre his own career and achievements. In general, however, thissection develops themes familiar from the De Republica and politicalspeeches, arguing for patriotic loyalty and subordination of the ambi-tions of the individual to the needs of the state. Finally, Cicero dis-cusses moderation. Here the notion of what is “seemly” (decorum) predominates, allowing Cicero to expand on behaviour appropriate to aperson of his son’s rank.Cicero ends the first book with a comparison of virtues, answeringthe first of the two questions that he had added to Panaetius’topics. He gives the first place to wisdom, which he defines as “knowledge of things divine and human”. But since “officium” is exercised in a socialcontext, the virtue that is based on community (i.e. justice) must be thegreatest. Therefore justice must be ranked ahead of “mere knowledge”,so that wisdom, the “foremost virtue”, is wisdom exercised for thegood of the community. (Cicero’s argument here is confusing and apparently inconsistent.) The best officium, then, is that which is basedon life in a community. Cicero adds his own definition of the hierarchyof officia, a variation of Panaetius’definition which he had quoted ear-lier: In our life as members of a community there are priorities induties, so that it is easy to understand which duty takes prece-dence in each case. Thus our primary duties are owed to theimmortal gods; secondly, to our country; thirdly, to our parents,and then the rest in descending order of priority.Thus Cicero ends the book with a reaffirmation of the moral, socialand political perspectives that had inspired the Dream of Scipio. In Book 2 Cicero turns to “utile”, that is, what is expedient or benefi-cial. Here his subject is “the things that concern a civilized way of lifeand the means of getting those things that are useful, and that concerninfluence and wealth”. In the first book he had followed Stoic doc-trine mostly, “using my own judgement”, and here also he announcesthat he will follow the conclusions that he finds most probable. Hedeplores the general custom of separating the good (“honestum”) from the useful, and he will show that the good (part of which is the just)and the expedient cannot be separated. Cicero’s focus, however, in this book is exclusively on the thingsthat are useful for pursuing a political career. Since the official are exer-cised in a community, the support of other human beings is the firstexpedient thing, and the first goal of the utile is to persuade otherhuman beings to support our own interests, which some people in pub-lic life do through immoral methods such as bribery. The personwho seeks support by virtuous methods will be loved rather thanfeared: he will acquire glory through good will and friendship, exercis-ing the virtues of good faith and honour. In the pursuit of glory, jus-tice will be an essential virtue, and the young man ambitious for glorywill always act with integrity. Cicero refers to his previous works onglory (De Gloria) and on friendship (De Amicitia) to excuse thebrevity of his discussion of these subjects: he does have plenty to sayabout friendship, however, in Book 3. Cicero then turns to liberality and beneficence, that is, doing good toothers, whether by giving them money or doing good deeds on theirbehalf. In discussing the former he criticizes extravagance in courtingpublic favour, for example in the games given by aediles. He ismore interested, however, in liberality shown through service to indi-viduals and to the state. Here, as mentioned above, he deals very gin-gerly with the client —patron relationship, and Miriam Griffin rightlydraws attention to “his lack of interest in relations with socialinferiors”. The importance of the subject is shown by its extensivetreatment in the “Satires” and “Epistles” of Horace, in the Satires of Juve-nal, and in Seneca and Pliny the Younger. Since legal representationwas a common duty of the patron towards his client, Cicero could havespoken with authority, beyond the jejune remarks that he makes here.He is more interested in service to the state. The first principle, hesays, that public officials must observe is the inviolability of propertyrights, and, after discussing the moral integrity needed for public ser-vice, he returns to this subject at the end:Guardians of the republic will avoid the type of gift-giving bywhich things are taken away from one group and given toanother. Above all they will work to see that each person keepswhat is his by means of the fairness of justice and the lawcourts.Cicero develops this economic conservatism as a justification forincreasing the Roman empire, for such imperialism will increase thewealth of the state, and the military leaders who benefit the state in this way will win great glory for themselves. The book ends with a perfunc-tory comparison of things that are useful and expedient and an anec-dote about Cato the Elder, which Cicero tells to indicate his preferencefor income gained from farming rather than from money-lending. Book 2, although it is founded ostensibly on Panaetius, clearly hasCicero’ s stamp upon it. The examples are mostly Roman, and thesocial and economic values are those that Cicero himself proclaimedthroughout his career, those of a conservative politician concernedwith the stability of a social and economic order in which his affluenceis assured. Those who have seen the De Officiisas the work of an anima naturaliter Christiana will have a hard time reconciling theirview with those expressed by Cicero.In Book 3 Cicero is left without Panaetius to fight his own battle.The subject of the book is both necessary and interesting: what pre-cepts are to be followed when the good and the expedient are in appar-ent conflict? Here again Cicero’s focus is largely political: the contextsof his dilemmas are mostly Roman, as are the examples. His viewsare conditioned by the pessimism that he felt at his own political impo-tence, and his disgust at the corruption of political life under the mili-tary leaders who had destroyed the republic. In the most politicalpassage of the book he attacks Marius, Pompey and Caesar. Although these examples are brought in to support the conclusion that “nothing can be expedient that is not good”, the intensity of Cicero’shatred is the most striking feature of the passage.The major ethical principle in Book 3 is that where there is apparentconflict, the good must prevail over the expedient. To act otherwise iscontrary to nature and destroys the bonds of society and of humanityitself. Cicero illustrates this from a series of historical and hypotheti-cal examples, in which he makes it clear that the interests of the stateoutweigh those of the individual. Thus, as Andrew Dyck observes, “theutilttas reipublicaetends to become…a criterion of conduct almost… equal to the honestum itself’. Cicero reveals that he has been discussing moral conflictswithin the framework of the four virtues established in Book 1. In fact,from 3. 40 onwards, he has been using wisdom and justice as his crite-ria, and now he turns to the other two virtues—greatness of spirit andtemperance. For the former he cites the Stoic mythical example of Ulysses, just as he had used another favourite Stoic exemplar, Her-cules, as an example of virtuous labour for the good of humankind.The mythical Ulysses soon yields to an example of virtue (not merelygreatness of spirit) drawn from Roman history—M.Atilius Regulus,consul in 267 and 256, who was captured by the Carthaginians in255. In Cicero’s narrative Regulo was sent back to Rome underoath to negotiate for the return of high-ranking Carthaginian prisonersin exchange for his freedom. At Rome he argued against the exchangeand returned to Carthage, where he was executed slowly and horribly. The story fits the context — Regulus knew what was “utile” but chosewhat was “honestum”. But Cicero goes much further. It is a perversion of nature to choose expediency over the good. Regulus exempli-fied justice in keeping his oath, a topic that Cicero develops forthe rest of the episode, with other supporting examples from Roman history. The conflict between “uttle” and “honestum” is resolved in termsof the virtues analysed in Book 1, but Cicero adds a wholly Romanperspective to the discussion. Thus the virtue of justice is identifiedwith the supremely Roman virtue of “fides”(good faith, including specifically the observance of one’s oath). Regulus’actions at Rome were inaccordance with the Roman law and constitution; his personal bearingwas dignified, worthy of a Roman, a senator and an exconsul. To haveacted otherwise would have been shameful (the Latin word is “turpe”, with wider moral connotations than “shameful”). Cicero sums up Regu-lus’dilemma elegantly: he was in better condition when he was being executed by beingkept awake, than if he had stayed at home as an old man—but aprisoner of war, and as an ex-consul—but one who had brokenhis oath.Finally Cicero turns to the fourth virtue, temperance. Here he doesnot use historical examples, taking pleasure as the antithesis of temper-ance and using it as the basis for attacking the Epicureans. He repeatsin summary form many of the arguments of Book 2 of theDe Finibus,and concludes by emphasizing his basic principle, that nothing can be “utile” that is in conflict with “honestum”. Therefore, since pleasure is con-trary to the good, and nothing that is truly utile conflicts with the good,pleasure can never be utile. And so the work ends (3. 121) with thepersonal farewell to young Marcus quoted above. The “De Officiisis” in the view of many scholars the most influentialof Cicero’s philosophical works. In late antiquity it was read andadmired by Christians and pagans. Ambrose, for example, used andadapted Cicero for his work (writtenc.390 CE), De Officiis Ministro-rum. In the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was widely read and admired. Over 700 manuscripts were copied in the period from thetwelfth to the fifteenth centuries, and it was the first work printed inItaly, at Subiaco in 1465, and the first classical book ever printed (also in 1465). The high point of its popularity was in theeighteenth century, most notably in England and France, whereVoltaire was moved to call it “the best work of moral philosophy thatever has been, or ever will be, written”. Yet there have been othervoices. Wilhelm Suss confesses that he has “the greatest difficulty inestablishing a lively relationship with theDe Officiis”, and he quotes Montaigne. Cicero’s discussions are good for the school, the court-room andthe pulpit, where we have the leisure to snooze and, a quarter of an hour later, enough time to pick up the thread.The fact is that Cicero’s work is rhetorical, and therefore political aswell as ethical. It presents unambiguous political and social prejudices that will appeal to those who are conservative, comfortable and complacent, like the eighteenth-century snob, Lord Chesterfield. ButCicero, although conservative, was neither comfortable nor complacent. His work was overshadowed by the collapse of the Roman republic, and his views were coloured by the disappointment of seeing the “tyrant”(Caesar) replaced by something worse. This gives his ethicalprinciples dignity and often nobility: each reader must decide whetherthese attributes outweigh the limitations of his political and socialviews.This chapter began with the dogmatic statement that “Cicero is themost influential of Roman philosophers”. Each reader of Cicero mustdecide whether this is justified. The statement was accepted as trueuntil the middle of the nineteenth century, when Theodor Mommsen(following W. Drumann) with gleeful ferocity demolished Cicero as apolitician, philosopher, orator and human being. Mommsen’s authority guaranteed that Cicero’s philosophical writings would be undervalued for more than a century, as they were in Germany, the UK andNorth America (at least) until less than 20 years ago. Except for the “De Oratore” and “Topica”, the standard English series of classical texts, the Oxford Classical Texts, did not include a single philosophical work of Cicero until 1994, and only the works on Old Age and Friendship were regularly included in school and undergraduate reading. Even as late as 1982, the authoritative Cambridge History of Classical Literature is at best patronizing, although the author does admit that De Officiis laid the foundations of liberal humanism for Europe and the world. Cicero is over-annotated by classicists and underestimated by recent philosophers. Not all of this can be laid at the door of Mommsen. We have seen that Cicero’s political and social views were conservative and “laissez- faire”, and that the “De Officiis” appealed especially to readers whoshared these views — hence Cicero’s popularity in the eighteenth cen-tury. In times when strong leaders are admired or perceived to be desir-able, milder politicians such as Cicero are out of fashion. Mommsen preferred “men of iron”, and the most influential of twentieth-century ancient historians, R. Syme, had little use for Cicero’s philosophi-cal writing in the face of autocrats such as Caesar (in Cicero’s time)and Hitler (in Syme’s time — his “Roman Revolution” was published in1939). In times when political, social and economic change is needed,there will be little sympathy for Cicero’s conservatism: such timeshave existed in the Western world ever since the end of World War I.Cicero himself is also to blame. Not only have his political andsocial views been found to be unacceptable to opinion-makers, but hisstyle — rich, rhetorical and orotund — has fallen out of favour, when thesententious angularity of Sallust and Tacitus has been more popular. His efforts to make philosophy intelligible to non-philosophers naturally have degraded his value to professional philosophers, who find the “De Fato” and the “Academica” more enjoyable than the “easy” works. For a long time the school of Quellenforschung (the search for sources)dominated among scholars, so that Cicero tended to be diminished as a mere reporter or compiler of the works of Greek philosophers. So much for the negatives. The fact remains that from his own day until the nineteenth century the philosophical works of Cicero were generally admired and at least respected. The record is clear in late antiquity, including the Church Fathers. Boethius thought him worth a commentary, and many of his works were read and copied in the Car-olingian age. From the twelfth century his popularity and influence increased, as the huge number of manuscripts of several of his worksattest. His readers were not concerned whether or not he was an original thinker, but rather with the worth of what he actually had to say. In a world where few could read (and fewer understand) Greek, Cicero’s Latin was priceless, and continued to be so even after the Renaissance rediscovery in the West of Greek works. Even in our day, he still is animportant source for our knowledge of many Hellenistic philosophers. The antithesis between the Greeks as philosophers and the Romansas practical men of action is especially false where Cicero is con-cerned. He interpreted Greek philosophy for his contemporaries in a language that he himself developed and enlarged. He did this through the filter of Roman society and politics, in effect creating new works. He developed a new Latin literary form in his dialogues (based on the model of Aristotle rather than Plato), which was appropriate for his Academic scepticism, while being less negative in its methods andresults than the Socratic dialogue. His philosophical doctrines were tosome extent original in the political dialogues and in the Roman colour-ing of the De Officiis. The names of authors and thinkers influenced byhim are impressive. Other Roman philosophers — Seneca, Augus-tine, Boethius — may dispute the title of “most influential”, butCicero’s achievement simply in terms of language and range of thought is indisputable. As for originality, the author of the De Republica (especially Laelius’speech in Book 3 and the Somnium) and the De Oratore, and even the more obviously derivative third book of the “De Finibus”, needs no apology. Finally —and most importantly — Ciceroexpressed the loftiest ideals of human moral attainment. To define thenature and express the meaning of humanity is a supreme achievement. We now turn to LUCRETIUS AND THE EPICUREANS. The poem of Lucretius, “De Rerum Natura” is the most powerful work in all of Roman philosophy. Yet hardly any-thing is known of its author beyond his name, Tito Lucrezio Caro, and the approximate dates of his life, c.95–54 BCE. Only one of hiscontemporaries, Cicero, mentions him: The poetry of Lucretius (as you say in your letter) is illuminatedby many flashes of genius (ingenium), yet it also shows muchcraftsmanship (ars). But when you come, I shall think you a heroif you have read the “Empedoclea”of Sallustius, but hardly ahuman being.Cicero, then, had read the poem —indeed, Jerome, writing about 400CE, says that Cicero edited it (emendavit ), which may mean no morethan that he corrected it for copying before publication. Given Cicero’shostility to Epicurean doctrine and his own pretensions as a poet, hisrecognition of Lucretius’ excellence in the two essential areas of poetry (inspiration and technique) is significant. Nothing is known of Sallustius, but the title of his work suggests that his Empedoclea was atranslation of the poem (or poems) of Empedocles, just as Cicero hadcalled his translation of AratusAratea. Evidently Sallustius’poemrequired superhuman endurance of its readers.Lucretius worked alone, and no other contemporary mentions him.He seems to have had little or no contact with other Epicureans andtheir schools in Italy. Cicero tells us that two authors, Amafinius andRabirius, had written popular works explaining Epicurean philosophyin non-technical terms. The speaker in this passage, Varro, says that Romans cannot study philosophy without knowledge of Greek lan-guage and doctrines. Amafinius, he says, had written on all three branches of Epicurean philosophy (logic, physics, ethics) withoutusing any Greek methods of argument, while in his ethics he equatedhuman good with the good of cattle. But, as Cicero complains,Amafinius’works found a large audience: they were the best of a badbunch, for they were easy reading, and their focus on the Epicureanideal of pleasure was attractive. After him, says Cicero, many otherauthors wrote Epicurean works, so that “they filled the whole of Italy”. These works (now all lost), according to Cicero, made no intellec-tual demands, misleading their readers into thinking that they provideda firm foundation for the student of Epicureanism. It is clear that theEpicureans shared in the vigorous revival of philosophy in Rome andItaly which Cicero describes in the Brutus. Alone of the four majorphilosophical schools the Epicureans did not join in the Athenianembassy of 155, in accordance with the Epicurean doctrine of “lathe biosas”(“live unobtrusively”), which involved non-participation in poli-tics, unless there were an overriding reason to participate. Nevertheless, Cicero shows that Epicureanism did take root in Italy. The ideal of pleasure and the superficial intelligibility of the school’s doctrineswere attractive just because they were not austere and impossible toachieve (as were the ideals of the Stoics), or full of intellectual sub-tleties (as were those of the Academics and Peripatetics). Yet Cicero’sEpicurean speaker, Torquatus, with more truth describes the school as“ serious, disciplined, austere”, epithets that apply to Lucretius, if not toAmafinius and his imitators. Cicero himself was at first attracted to the Epicureans by Phaedrus,but he turned to the Academic doctrines of Philo and Antiochus. Hisclose friend and confidant, Atticus, was an Epicurean, and he kept upfriendship with Caesar’s murderer, Cassius, who was converted to Epi-cureanism in 46. Writing to Cassius in January 45, Cicero jokes aboutthe Latin terminology of Cassius’“new friends” In his reply Cassiuspoints out that Epicurean pleasure and freedom from mental distur-bance cannot be achieved without justice and virtue, but he agrees thatpeople like Amafinius have misinterpreted the words of Epicurus him-self. Cicero had only contempt for the bad Latin of popularizers suchas Amafinius, but with serious Epicureans like Atticus and Cassius hediscussed Epicurean doctrine, for differences inphilosophy did notstand in the way of friendship. Cicero is, nevertheless, almost uni-formly critical of the school. He devoted the first dialogue of theDeFinibus to an exposition and demolition of its ethics, and he did thesame with its theology in the first book of theDe Natura Deorum. Thechief target of his criticism in the former was the Epicurean doctrine of pleasure, and in the latter the doctrine that the gods do not concernthemselves with human affairs. He spent less effort in criticizing Epi-curean epistemology and physics, both prominent in Lucretius’work.Epicureanism flourished particularly in Campania (i.e. the areaaround Naples), where Philodemus (c.110–40) headed a school at Her-culaneum. Cicero says that Philodemus and Siro (another leading Epi-curean in Campania) were his personal friends (familiares).