Chapter I: Cicero as a Writer on Philosophy

(i.) STATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN CICERO'S TIME.

In Philosophy the Romans originated nothing. Their energies in the earlier years of the state were wholly absorbed in organization and conquest. Resting in a stern and simple creed, they had little speculative interest in matters outside the hard routine of their daily life. But with the close of the Period of Conquest came a change. The influx of wealth from conquered provinces, the formation of large landed estates, the excessive employment of slave labor, and the consequent rise of a new aristocracy, prepared the way for a great revolution. The old religion lost its hold on the higher classes; something was needed to take its place. With wealth and luxury came opportunity and desire for culture. Greece, with Art, Literature, and Philosophy fully developed and highly perfected, stood ready to instruct her rude conqueror.[1]

In Cicero's time the productive era of Greek Philosophy had well-nigh passed. Its tendency was less speculative, more ethical and practical than in the earlier time. There were four prominent schools, the New Academy, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. The supporters of the last-named advocated in Science the doctrine of the atom, in Ethics the pursuit of pleasure, in Religion the complete inactivity of the gods.

The Stoics and Peripatetics were divided by comparatively unimportant differences. In Ethics, considered by them as almost the whole of Philosophy, which was itself defined as 'the art of living', the main question between the two schools was the amount of importance to be attributed to Virtue,--the Stoics declaring that in comparison with Virtue all other things sink into absolute insignificance, while the Peripatetics maintained that these have a certain though infinitesimally small significance. The New Academy taught at this time no complete philosophical system. It simply proclaimed the view that in the field of knowledge certainty is unattainable, and that all the inquirer has to do is to balance probabilities one against the other. The New Academic, therefore, was free to accept any opinions which seemed to him to have the weight of probability on their side, but he was bound to be ready to abandon them when anything appeared which altered his views of the probabilities. He not only might be, but he could not help being, _eclectic_; that is, he chose such views promulgated by other schools as seemed to him at the moment to be most reasonable or probable. Cicero called himself an adherent of this school. On most points however, although eclectic, he agreed with the Peripatetics, but with a decided leaning toward the Stoic ethical system. The Stoic opinion that it is the duty of the wise man to abstain from public life, which the Peripatetics contested, Cicero decisively rejected. With the Epicureans he had absolutely no sympathy. Up to this time these schools and their teachings were known to the Romans only through the medium of the Greek. The only Latin philosophical literature was Epicurean, and, excepting the poem of Lucretius (_De Rerum Natura_), scarcely famous as yet, consisted entirely of books rudely written, although considerably read.

(ii.) THE MISSION OF CICERO IN PHILOSOPHY.

Cicero made no claim to originality as a philosopher, nor even to complete acquaintance with every detail of the Greek systems.[2] In early life he had studied with enthusiasm and success all the learning of the Greeks, but especially in the two departments of Rhetoric and Philosophy, then closely connected, or rather hardly distinguished. He not only sought the society of learned Greeks, but spent considerable time in study at Rhodes and Athens, which had become not merely the 'school of Greece', as Thucydides makes Pericles call her, but the school of the civilized world.[3] When, by reason of political troubles, he was forced to retire to private life, he began to carry out a great plan for interpreting the best philosophical writings of the Greeks to his fellow-countrymen. For this work his liberal views as a New Academic peculiarly fitted him. His usual method was to take one or two leading Greek works on the subject with which he was dealing, and to represent freely in his own language their subject-matter, introducing episodes and illustrations of his own. He thus presented to the Romans in their own tongue the most significant portions of the Greek Philosophy; and in his writings there has come down to us much, especially of the Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, that was doomed to oblivion in the original Greek. But further than this, to Cicero more than to any other Roman is due the formation of a Latin philosophical vocabulary, by which the language was enriched and fitted for the part it has since taken as the Language of the Learned. While on many points Cicero's own views can hardly be determined with perfect exactness, the exalted sentiments and the exquisite literary finish of his philosophical writings have always won admiration; and through them he has exerted no small influence on the literature and life of modern times.[4]

(iii.) THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO.

During the whole of an exceptionally busy public life Cicero devoted his spare moments to reading and to the society of the learned. After his exile in 58 and 57 B.C. his political career, except for a brief period just before his death, was over, and it is at this time that his period of great literary activity begins, In 55 he produced the work _De Oratore_, in 54 the _De Re Publica_, and in 52 the _De Legibus_, all three works, according to ancient ideas, entitled to rank as philosophical.[5]

From 51 to 46 B.C., owing first to his absence in Cilicia, then to the civil troubles, Cicero almost ceased to write. But in the latter year he was reconciled with Caesar, and as the Senate and law courts were closed against him on his refusal to compromise his political principles, he betook himself with greater devotion than ever to literature. The first work written in 46 was the _Hortensius_, or _De Philosophia_, now lost. It was founded on a lost dialogue of Aristotle, and set forth the advantages of studying Philosophy. During the same year Cicero completed several oratorical works, the _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Brutus_, or _De Claris Oratoribus_, and the _Orator_, all of which are extant.

Early in 45 Cicero lost his beloved daughter Tullia. He passed the whole year in retirement, trying to soothe his grief by incessant writing. In quick succession appeared

_De Consolatione_, an attempt to apply philosophy to the mitigation of his own sorrow and that of others;

_Academica_, an exposition of the New Academic Philosophy, advocating probability rather than certainty as the foundation of philosophy;

_De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_, a work criticising the most prominent views entertained concerning Ethics;

_Disputationes Tusculanae_, treating of certain conditions essential to morality and happiness;

_De Natura Deorum_, an examination of the principal theories regarding the nature and power of the gods;

_Cato Maior_, on old age; _Laelius_, on friendship;

_De Fato_, discussing Fate and Free Will;

_Paradoxa_, a book setting forth certain remarkable views of the Stoics;

_De Officiis_, a treatise on practical ethics, the application of moral principles to the questions and difficulties of ordinary life.

These works, written mostly in 45 and 44, are, except the _De Cons.,_ still extant. To the list may be added also other works of a rhetorical nature, such as the _Topica_ and _De Optima Genere Dicendi_, and some lost philosophical books, such as _De Gloria_.

Even though allowance be made for the fact that Cicero was giving in Latin the substance of Greek books with which he had been familiar from boyhood, the mental vigor and literary power exhibited by this series of works appear prodigious when we consider their great compass and variety and the generally high finish of their style.

_References._--For a fuller account of Cicero's philosophical views and writings consult Ritter, 'History of Ancient Philosophy', Vol. 4, Ch. 2; Maurice, 'Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy', Ch. 7, § 5; Tennemann and Morell, 'History of Philosophy', Ch. 3; Ueberweg, 'History of Philosophy', Vol I, § 61; J.B. Mayor, 'Sketch of Ancient Philosophy', pp. 223-244; Teuffel, 'History of Roman Literature', Vol. i, § 172 _et seq._ Cruttwell, 'History of Roman Literature', Bk. II. Part 1, Ch. 2; 'Cicero', by Collins, in Ancient Classics for English Readers, Ch. 10, et seq.; also the Introduction to Reid's edition of the _Academica_, and the account of Cicero by Prof. Ramsay in Smith's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology. The most attractive biography of Cicero in English is that by Forsyth. That by Trollope is able but quite partisan. On the philosophy, consult also Zeller's 'Eclectics.'