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Friday, September 7, 2012

Storia della filosofia romana

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between 146 and 129. Laelius, consul in 140, can perhaps be called thefirst Roman philosopher. The century after the embassy of 155 wasessentially a period of

philosophia togata

, for it was Greeks whotaught the Romans at Rome and in Greece, especially at Athens andRhodes. Even discounting the biases of Cicero



s idealized picture of Scipio and Laelius, we can say that in this period the Romans broughtabout adaptations in Greek philosophy that were needed to make itacceptable in Roman culture. Here the readiness of Panaetius to adjustthe rigid doctrines of Stoicism is significant, and from his time thereemerges a distinctively Roman philosophy with a strong focus onethics, particularly the duty of Roman leaders towards the state and itsgods, towards humankind, and towards their families and dependants.Thus Greek philosophy in the Roman world was split, for its ethics hadpractical effects on Roman life and culture, while its logic and physicsvery largely continued to be studied and discussed, but with fewer prac-tical consequences. The leading Greek figures of middle Stoicism,Panaetius and Posidonius, were crucial in the development of Romanphilosophy.Important also were the consequences of the sack of Athens by Sullain 86 BCE.

12

Like Aemilius Paullus after Pydna, Sulla brought back toRome Greek cultural treasures, including the library of Apellicon,which



included most of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus



.

13

How this library was acquired, and its relationship to Aristotle



s ownlibrary, is a tangled story involving insoluble problems. JonathanBarnes, however, has shown that the standard picture in modern liter-ary histories, of a sudden appearance of Aristotle



s works in Romeafter 86, is false.

14

While Plutarch (and before him, Strabo) may havebeen factually accurate in saying that Aristotle



s works reached Romein this way, it is pressing their evidence too far to say that Cicero



sfreedman and friend, Tyrannio, and the Peripatetic scholar, Andronicusof Rhodes, revolutionized Aristotelian studies. Barnes has shown thatAristotle was already known in some form to Cicero, and that he hadcontinuously been known to the Greek Peripatetics in the period afterhis death (322 BCE), when, according to Strabo, his texts were unavail-able. The famous edition of Aristotle by Andronicus has been shownby Barnes to be little more than



amateur tinkering



, and his majorcontribution to Aristotelian studies at Rome was a catalogue (Greek,

Pinakes

) of Aristotle



s works. As Cicero showed, the Peripateticschool continued to be active in Athens, although the Lyceum (whereAristotle had taught) was destroyed by Sulla in 86.

15

Cicero himself makes the Academic Piso say that



with the exception of Plato, onemight rightly call Aristotle the chief of philosophers



,

16

which implies

4THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHERS















that Aristotle was known and read at Rome before the edition of Andronicus appeared, probably after the death of Cicero in 43 BCEand before 30 BCE.

17

While there were Romans who fancied themselves as philosophersin the first part of the first century BCE, Cicero was the first to defineand systematize

philosophia togata

. His adaptation of Greek philoso-phy stabilized Greek doctrines in ethics, epistemology and theology forRoman readers. Even more significantly, he transmitted these doctrinesin Latin, for which he developed a philosophical vocabulary. Despisedby Mommsen and largely neglected as a philosopher by English schol-ars, he has been in the last fifteen years (in the English-speaking world;somewhat earlier in Germany and France) justly rehabilitated as aphilosopher and transmitter of Greek philosophy. It is to him that weowe the Stoic emphasis on duty and control of the passions, eventhough he was himself an Academic. His originality as a philosopher isdebatable, and is chiefly to be found in his works on politics and law,in particular the

De Re Publica

and

De Legibus

, both surviving only infragments. But after Cicero we can for the first time define a Romanphilosopher as a Roman student of Greek philosophy, who has adaptedGreek doctrines for the needs of Roman society and politics, with aprevailing focus on ethics.While Cicero and (if this picture is not totally imaginary) the Romanleaders of the generation of Scipio Aemilianus emphasized the publicduty of the aristocratic Roman philosopher, others, most notably theEpicureans, sought happiness (the Greek

eudaimonia

) through non-involvement in public life. Epicurean studies flourished particularly inCampania, in the cities around the Bay of Naples, whose origins forthe most part were Greek. Many Romans studied philosophy withPhilodemus (

c

. 110



40 BCE) at Herculaneum. Through the patronageof the aristocratic family of the Pisones, he had many friends in theRoman upper classes, many of whose members were Epicureansdespite their involvement in political life. The first truly originalRoman philosopher, Lucretius, was Epicurean, and he seems to havesucceeded in living as a private individual. His epic poem,

De Rerum Natura

, composed before 54 BCE, was inspired by Epicurus, whomLucretius praises consecutively as man, father and god. Derivative asthis sounds, the exposition of Epicurean doctrine in Latin hexameterverse called for an original genius, who created a new language, appro-priate for the dignity of epic verse, that expounded Epicurus



teachingwith power and intensity. Yet even Lucretius was principally con-cerned with ethics, for the goal of his teaching was to enable Romansto live a life free of the fear of death, and his exposition of physics,

PHILOSOPHIA TOGATA5















celestial phenomena and the development of civilization, was directedtowards this goal.Lucretius remained outside the mainstream of Roman philosophy,admired by later poets (Virgil, pre-eminently) but apparently notwidely read. In part this may have been due to the political convulsionsin the twenty-five years after his death, which, ironically, gave Cicerothe stimulus to produce a flood of philosophical works in the last threeyears of his life. When the social and political situation had been stabi-lized by Augustus, and the Principate had been formally established in27 BCE, the contexts for leadership and patronage had changed perma-nently. The philosophical poets of the Augustan age



Virgil, Horace,Ovid and Manilius



composed their poems against a background of power and patronage concentrated in the person of the emperor or (asin the case of Maecenas, patron of Virgil and Horace) his associates.Whatever the poets



personal philosophies, the doctrines of theirpoems were consistent with the ideology of the emperor. Thus theJupiter of the Epicurean Virgil was assimilated to Stoic Fate, and thehero, Aeneas, was driven by a Stoic sense of duty to the gods, to hisstate (present and future) and to human beings (again, present andfuture). So the Epicurean Horace, most notably in his six



Roman



odes (the first six odes of Book 3), advised young people to beinvolved in public duties. Ovid, whose attitude towards Augustus wasequally complex, expounded a form of Pythagoreanism and a largelyStoic cosmology without overt reference to the regime. The StoicManilius was careful to avoid offending Augustus and Tiberius in hisaccount of astrology, an exceptionally sensitive topic under the princi-pate. Even so, the custom of maintaining a



house philosopher



contin-ued: Augustus, for example, maintained the doxographer, Arius Didy-mus, in his home as friend and confidant.The Cynics stayed outside the mainstream of Roman philosophy andsociety, as would be expected from a group whose doctrines disre-garded political and social conventions. The Cynics never were a philo-sophical school like the Stoics, Academics and Epicureans, and theirmovement is better described as a way of life. Although the early Cyn-ics wrote copiously, their texts have disappeared, and their doctrinessurvive mainly in the form of epigrammatic statemerits or ripostes(

chreiai

). Thus their place in the history of Roman philosophy is hardto define.

18

Some features, however, can be clearly distinguished. The first is thetraditional association of the early hero of Cynicism, Diogenes of Sinope (

c

.412



324 BCE), with Socrates.

19

Even if Plato criticized Dio-genes as



Socrates gone mad



,

20

Diogenes shared with Socrates the

6THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHERS















need for an urban context for his teaching, disregard of physical com-fort, and a capacity for making his interlocutors uncomfortable by can-dour and rigorous interrogation. Second, there is a close relationshipbetween Stoic ethics and Cynicism. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, wasa follower of the Cynic, Crates (

c

.368



288 BCE). His treatise on theideal republic,

Politeia

, shared with the Cynics a disregard for conven-tional political, religious and social institutions, to such an extent thatlater Stoics were embarrassed by it.

21

More significant for the RomanStoics was Cynic asceticism, that is the practice of physical hardship(Greek,

askesis

, literally



training



) as a means towards attainingvirtue. Stoic emphasis on the unimportance of physical comforts anddiscomforts, relative to reason and virtue, has its origins in Cynic prac-tice. Finally,



living according to nature



was a fundamental doctrineof both Cynics and Stoics.The common ground between Cynicism and Stoicism, therefore,further blurs the outlines of Cynic philosophy in the Roman world. Yetthere is evidence for Cynicism in Rome in the late Republic, althoughthis seems also to have been the period of Cynicism



s lowest fortunesat Rome. Varro (116



37 BCE), as quoted by Augustine, included Cyni-cism in his list of 288 philosophical sects, but he distinguishedbetween the Cynics and formal philosophical sects in that the



mannerand custom of the Cynics



did not include an enquiry into the supremegood (

finis boni

).

22

His interest in Cynicism is indicated also by thetitle of his

Saturae Menippeae

, which derives from the Cynic writer of the third century BCE, Menippus of Gadara. Cicero was at pains todistinguish Stoic candour from the plain speaking of the Cynics, whichoften was obscene.

23

Further, the Roman satiric tradition owed a greatdeal to the popularizing Cynic diatribes of Bion of Borysthenes (

c

.335



245 BCE) and his younger contemporary, Teles of Megara. Horace,indeed, refers to



diatribes in the style of Bion



,

24

and the tradition of forthright moral criticism, spiced with obscenity, is a prominent featurein the satires of the four great Roman satirists, Lucilius, Horace, Per-sius and Juvenal.Cynicism seems to have flourished in the Roman world during thefirst two centuries CE. R.Bracht Branham defines the goal of Cynicismas



to live well in order to be happy



.

25

This is consistent with theStoic emphasis on virtue (i.e.



living well



) in a period when individu-als turned to Stoicism for answers to the problems of preserving moraland intellectual independence under a monarchy. There are manyCynic expressions in Seneca



s letters and dialogues, and Seneca him-self was a friend and admirer of the Cynic philosopher, Demetrius. Themost explicit exposition of Cynic doctrine for a Roman audience is that

PHILOSOPHIA TOGATA7















of Epictetus, and an important contemporary source for Cynicism isthe orator, Dio Chrysostom (

c

.40



110 CE), who before his exile fromRome had been a follower of the Stoic, Musonius Rufus.

26

Nevertheless, there were strong objections to the Cynics in Rome,and Cynicism was practised mostly in the Greek east of the empire.

27

The basic objection stemmed from Cynic contempt for social conven-tions. A central metaphor of Cynicism was



defacing the currency



,that is, showing the hollowness of the usual rituals and conventions of civilized life. While this led to an asceticism that was admired by manyRomans, especially Stoics, it was displayed in public behaviour offen-sive to Roman ideas of

decorum

and

gravitas

, appropriate behaviourand dignity.

28

Cynics made people uncomfortable, especially in thedecorous (not to say, prudish) society described by Cicero, and theirextremism in despising the comforts of life was unacceptable to those,like Seneca, who preferred to compromise between wealth and philo-sophical principles. Further, the Cynics



disregard of social and politi-cal conventions inevitably encouraged non-participation in politics anddevaluation of public reputation. For the Cynics the central Romanaristocratic virtues of

officium

and

pietas

(i.e. duty in public and pri-vate contexts) were irrelevant. Finally, the Cynics



exclusive focus onethics was at variance with Stoic emphasis on the unity of knowledge,which enjoined the study of logic and physics in order to be proficientin ethics.Seneca deplores the feeble state of philosophy (he is thinking princi-pally of Roman philosophers) in the century between Cicero



s deathand his own time. He records the rise and fall of the only completelyRoman school of philosophy, that of the Sextii (father and son), whichbegan probably in the 40s BCE, and he says that the established Greek schools suffered from absence of leadership.

29

Yet individual Romanspursued philosophical studies in Rome and in Greece, and the majorschools of Greek philosophy continued to exist. The Stoics were themost successful survivors, and in Seneca (d. 65 CE) they produced thesecond great Latin prose author of Roman philosophy. Like Cicero,Seneca based his authority on a new Latin prose style, at once rhetori-cal and dogmatic. But, unlike Cicero, the minister of Nero was com-pelled by circumstances to distinguish between his public life and hisprivate doctrines. The great division between his political actions (hissupport of the murder of Nero



s mother, Agrippina, in 59 CE, beingperhaps the philosopher



s nadir) and his doctrine of morally goodinvolvement in public affairs, between his wealth and his doctrine of alife lived according to nature, have made Seneca, in his own time andever since, a controversial figure. But of his importance as a Roman

8THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHERS















philosopher there can be no doubt, and, for centuries, in Europe of theRenaissance and the Enlightenment, he was the most influential of Roman philosophers, surpassing even Plato and Aristotle in northernEurope towards the end of the sixteenth and early in the seventeenthcenturies. Seneca



s focus was almost exclusively ethical: his

NaturalesQuaestiones

, his only surviving work in physics, has never beenwidely read or admired.Seneca and his contemporaries were compelled by their social andpolitical contexts to be very different in their philosophical goals andstrategies from the Roman philosophers of Cicero



s time. They werestill indebted to Greek philosophy and Greek teachers, but their studieswere directed towards honourable survival under a regime that wasintermittently immoral, led by a monarch who had the

de facto

arbi-trary power of life and death over them. Roman politicians whose phi-losophy led them into politically dangerous utterance did not survive



the fate of Lucan, Thrasea and Seneca himself under Nero, and of boththe Helvidii under the Flavians. All these men were executed on politi-cal grounds, but their philosophy provided them with the language of political dissent and the principles on which to persevere.Even the satirists were muted. Whereas Lucilius (a friend of ScipioAemilianus) had openly criticized his political contemporaries andHorace had criticized the morals of Roman society, Persius (d. 62 CE)adopted a more private mode of expression and was saved from beingdrawn into political controversy by his early death. A generation later,Juvenal, the greatest of Roman satirists, could not publish his satiresuntil after Domitian



s death in 96 CE, and he explicitly denied anyphilosophical allegiance.

30

His philosophical passages are not alignedwith any one school, and he never supported imperial policy in the waythat Horace did.

31

He preferred to continue the moralizing tradition of Roman satire by means of rhetorical brilliance and sustained indigna-tion behind a mask of irony.The period between the death of Seneca in 65 CE and the accessionof Hadrian in 118 brought change and occasional turbulence to intellec-tuals and philosophers in the Roman world. Like Nero, the Flavianemperors (Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, 69



96) preferred to silencephilosophers if their doctrine and speech were politically offensive, forexample, by expelling them from Italy in 74 and 93. This period alsosaw the rise of Greek orators who made some claim to being philoso-phers. These are the orators of the Second Sophistic (so named early inthe third century by Philostratus), few of whom deserved the title of



philosopher



: among these Favorinus of Aries (

c

.85



165) is perhapsunique.

32

The Second Sophistic was symptomatic of developments in

PHILOSOPHIA TOGATA9









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Mark Morford - Roman Philosophers - Routledge











.






Sections

■PHILOSOPHIA TOGATA
■THE ARRIVAL OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ROME
■CICERO AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
■LUCRETIUS AND THE EPICUREANS
■PHILOSOPHERS AND POETS IN THE AUGUSTAN AGE
■SENECA AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
■STOICISM UNDER NERO AND THE FLAVIANS
■FROM EPICTETUS TO MARCUS AURELIUS
■BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
■NOTES
■REFERENCES
■PHILOSOPHERS NAMED IN THE TEXT
■PASSAGES DISCUSSED
■GENERAL INDEX


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