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PHIL0S0PH7 OF THE ROMANS »
The Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia were the first to introduce
Greek philosophy into Italy. Pythagorean philosophy, however,
never took deep root in Roman soil. Indeed, although Pythago-
rean speculation flourished in Italy as early as the sixth century,
1 Cf. Cicero, Acad., XXXIX.
* Cf. Zeller, Eclectics, pp. 5 if. ; Ritter and Preller, op. cit., pp. 452 fif.
I go HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
it was not until the beginning of the second century before Christ
that Rome began to feel the power of Greek literature and
Greek art, and it was about the same time that the influence
of Greek philosophy was first felt. That the Romans did not
accept without a struggle this imposition of a foreign culture
is evident from the fact that in i6r B.C. residence in Rome
was, by a decree of the Senate, forbidden to philosophers and
rhetoricians. Later, however, the conquest of Greece and
the military expeditions of Pompey, Caesar, Antony, and Augus-
tus broadened the minds of the Romans, rendered them sus-
ceptible to the beauty of Greek literature, and led to the
inflow of Greek learning and to the establishment in Rome
of the representative teachers of Greek philosophy. Cicero
was, therefore, contrasting his own age with the more con-
servative past when he said: " Philosophia jacuit usque ad
hanc aetatem."
In accepting the philosophy of Greece, the Roman spirit
asserted its practical tendency^ selecting what was more easily
assimilated, and modifying what it accepted, by imparting to it
a more practical character. Thus it was the ethical philosophy
of the Epicureans and Stoics and the Eclectic systems of later
times, rather than the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, that
throve when transplanted to Roman soil.
CICERO
Life. Marcus Tullius Cicero is the best known representative of Roman
Eclecticism. He was born at Arpinum io6 B.C. and died at Formiae
43 B.C. He had for teachers Phaedrus the Epicurean, Philo of Larissa,
representing the New Academy, Diodotus the Stoic, and Antiochus, an
exponent of the later Eclecticism of the Academy. In addition to the advan-
tages to be derived from such a training, he possessed a knowledge, widely
extended if not always accurate, of the philosophical literature of pre-
Socratic and Socratic schools. He did not lay claim to any great independ-
ence as a philosopher, being willing, as he tells us, to take credit merely for
the art with which he clothed Greek philosophy in Roman dress : ** Verba
CICERO 191
tantum affero, quibus abundo."^ In this self-appointed task Cicero is not
always successful, his account of the doctrines of the pre-Socratic philoso-
phers being especially inaccurate.
Sources. Cicero^s principal philosophical works are : Academica, or
Qucestiones Academicce^ Tusculance Disputationes^ De Finibus, De Natura
Deorum, De Officiis, De Divinatione (unfinished), De Republica (of which
about a third part was discovered and published in 1822 by Cardinal Mai),
Paradoxa Stoicorum^ De Senectute, De Amicitia^ De Fato,
Doctrines
General Idea of Philosophy. Cicero describes himself ^ as a
member of the New Academy. His philosophy is, in point of
fact, an Eclecticism based on Scepticism. So impressed was he
with the war of philosophical systems that he despaired of arriv-
ing at certainty and was content to accept probability as the
guide of conduct. But whenever he discovered that philosophi-
cal schools could be reconciled, he strove to coordinate the com-
mon elements into a system loosely connected, as is every system
of Eclecticism.
Theory of Knowledge. All our knowledge rests, in ultimate
analysis, on immediate certainty, which is variously called
notiones innatcB^ notiones nobis insitce^ or, since immediate
knowledge is common to all men, consensus gentium* In the
Tusculan Disputations^ for example, Cicero speaks of the prin-
ciples of morality as innate ; " sunt enim ingeniis nostris semina
innata virtutum." ^ These elements of knowledge are antecedent
to all experience. We have, therefore, in Cicero's theory of
knowledge, the first explicit expression of the doctrine of innate
ideas.
Theological Notions. Cicero, in his proof of the existence
of God, falls back on the innate idea of God, the presence of
which in the minds of all men is proved by the universality
of the belief in a Supreme Being. He brings forward also the
1 Ad Atticum, XII, 52. ^ Tusc, V, 4. « Op. cit. III, I.
192 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
teleological argument in its Stoic form, contending that the Epicu-
rean doctrine of chance is as absurd as would be the expectation
that the twenty-one letters of the Latin alphabet could, by being
poured out at random, produce the Annals of Ennius.^ He
attaches great importance to the doctrine of Providence and of
the divine government of the universe.
Anthropology. With the belief in God is intimately asso-
ciated the conviction of the dignity of man. The soul is of
supernatural origin: ''Animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri
potest.** 2 It is different from matter. Still, Cicero does not alto-
gether exclude the Stoic idea of the soul as a firelike substance.
He teaches that the soul is immortal^ having recourse to the
Platonic arguments as well as to inner conviction and universal
consent. In his incomplete treatise De Fato he proves the
freedom of the will by similar arguments.
Ethics. In this portion of his philosophy Cicero is a fol-
lower of the Eclectic Stoics. On the one hand he rejects the
Epicurean doctrine that pleasure is the highest good; but when,
on the other hand, he adopts the Stoic doctrine of virtue, he is
too much of a man of the world not to recognize that the Stoic
morality is too exalted or too severe to be applied to everyday
life. Accordingly, he modifies the severity of Stoicism by intro-
ducing the Platonic and Aristotelian teaching, that honors, wealth,
etc., are goods, although subordinate to virtue, which is the chief
good.^ He teaches that while virtue is sufficient for vita beata,
external goods also are necessary for vita beatissima^ — a distinc-
tion borrowed from Antiochus of Ascalon. The morally good
{honestum) is that which is intrinsically praiseworthy.
Historical Position. Cicero, as has been said, laid no claim to
originality as a philosopher. He merely collected and assimi-
lated the philosophical doctrines of the Greeks. He is the truest
representative of the Eclecticism of this period.
1 De Nat. Deorum, II, 37. ^ Tusc, I, 27.
3 Cf. De Fin., IV, 6 ff.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE ROMANS 193
Chief among Cicero's followers was Varro (i 16-27 bc.), whom
Seneca calls doctissimus Rantanorutn, He was more famous as
a scholar than as an independent philosopher. Like Cicero, he
was a Stoic and an Eclectic. Unlike the other philosophers
of Rome, Titus Lucretius Cams (95-51 B.C.) is not an Eclectic.
In his poem, De Rerum Natura, he adheres closely to the doc-
trine of Epicurus.^
Under the first emperors, the school pf the Sextians acquired
considerable importance. The founder, Quintus Sextius, was bom
about 70 B.C. He was succeeded by his son, under whose
leadership the school came to include among its adherents
Sotion, Celsus, and Fabianus. Soon, however, it dwindled into
insignificance, so that in Seneca's time it had entirely ceased to
exist. From the few scattered utterances of the Sextians which
have come down to us and from the account given by Seneca, it
is evident that the teaching of the school was Stoicism tinged
in one or two points of doctrine with Pythagoreanism.
In the first century of our era there flourished in Rome an
important branch of the Stoic school. It included Lucius Annaeus
Comutus (died a.d. 68), Aulus Persius Flaccus (a.d. 34-62), Lucius
Annsus Seneca, and his nephew Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (a.d. 39-65).
Seneca, the most important of these, was bom about the beginning
of the Christian era at Corduba in Spain. He owed his philo-
sophical training to the Sextians and other Stoics. In a.d. 65,
he committed suicide by order of Nero, whose counselor he had
been. His writings possess great value as sources for the his-
tory of the Stoic school. He agrees in all essentials with the
early Stoics, although in many points of detail he follows the
later representatives of the school, who modified the doctrines
of Zeno and Chrysippus in more than one respect.
Towards the end of the first century Musonius Rufus was
distinguished in Rome as a teacher of Stoic philosophy. He
1 QC p. 176. On the influence of Lucretius on mediaeval philosophy, cf. Philippe,
Lucrlce dans la theologie chritienne (Paris, 1896).
194 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
confined his teaching, however, more strictly than Seneca had
done, to the ethical application of Stoicism. The most impor-
tant of his disciples was Epictetus, the philosopher-slave, a
Phrygian, who lived in Rome from the time of Nero to that
of Trajan (a.d. 117). The works, entitled Aiarpi/Sai and
*E7;^€tf)tStoi/, contain the discourses of Epictetus as written
down by his disciple, Arrian. Epictetus defines philosophy to
consist in learning what^to avoid and what to desire. In accord-
ance with this definition, he develops a system of practical phi-
losophy, teaching, with the Stoics, that happiness is to be found
in independence of external things.
Closely allied to Epictetus is the emperor-philosopher, Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus (a.d. 121-180). His work, entitled to, eh
€avr6v, consists of aphorisms written down in the form of memo-
randa, or notes for personal guidance. His teaching agrees with
that of the Stoics. He insists more than did the other Stoics on
the kinship of man to God, In order to secure happiness, man
must loose his soul from the bonds of interest in things exter-
nal and, retiring within himself, learn to become like to God
by becoming resigned to the will of God, and by loving all his
fellow-men, excluding neither the weak and erring nor the
ungrateful and hostile.
Retrospect. The philosophy of the Romans reflects the
essential traits of the Roman character. It is practical in its
aims ; it subordinates theoretical inquiry to problems of conduct,
thus depriving itself of the power of systematic development,
and condemning itself to the circumscribed task of assimilating
and applying what the Greek masters had taught.
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