Adopting the teachings of the Academy also allowed Cicero to pick and choose whatever he wanted from the other philosophical schools, and he claims to do this at various points in his writings. Finally, his allegiance to the Academy helps to explain his use of the dialogue form: it enables Cicero to put a number of arguments in the mouths of others without having to endorse any particular position himself.
However, Cicero did not consistently write as a member of the Academy. It may not be a problem if trained, knowledgeable philosophers are skeptical about things like whether the gods exist or whether the laws are just.
Thus, while Cicero is willing to accept Academic Skepticism in some areas, he is not willing to do so when it comes to ethics and politics. For doctrines in these areas, he turns to the Stoics and Peripatetics. Cicero believed that these two schools taught essentially the same things, and that the difference between them was whether virtue was the only thing human beings should pursue or whether it was merely the best thing to be pursued.
According to the first view, things like money and health have no value; according to the second, they have value but nowhere near enough to justify turning away from virtue to attain them. This was a difference with little practical consequence, so far as Cicero was concerned, and there is no need to take it up here. Since, according to the teachings of the Academy, Cicero was free to accept any argument that he found convincing, he could readily make use of Stoic teachings, and he did so particularly when discussing politics and ethics.
In the Laws , for example, he explicitly says that he is setting aside his skepticism, for it is dangerous if people do not believe unhesitatingly in the sanctity of the laws and of justice. Thus he will rely on Stoicism instead. He puts forth Stoic doctrines not dogmatically, as absolutely and always true, but as the best set of beliefs so far developed. We ought to adhere to them because our lives, both individually and collectively, will be better if we do.
It is essentially Stoic ethical teachings that Cicero urges the Roman elite to adopt. Stoicism as Cicero understood it held that the gods existed and loved human beings. The gods had also provided human beings with the gift of reason. Since humans have this in common with the gods, but animals share our love of pleasure, the Stoics argued, as Socrates had, that the best, most virtuous, and most divine life was one lived according to reason, not according to the search for pleasure.
This did not mean that humans had to shun pleasure, only that it must be enjoyed in the right way. It was fine to enjoy wine, but not to the point of shameful drunkenness. Finally, the Stoics believed that human beings were all meant to follow natural law, which arises from reason. The natural law is also the source of all properly made human laws and communities. Because human beings share reason and the natural law, humanity as a whole can be thought of as a kind of community, and because each of us is part of a group of human beings with shared human laws, each of us is also part of a political community.
This being the case, we have duties to each of these communities, and the Stoics recognized an obligation to take part in politics so far as is possible in order to discharge those duties. The Stoic enters politics not for public approval, wealth, or power which are meaningless but in order to improve the communities of which they are a part. What matters is that the virtuous life requires it. For the Epicurean philosophy Cicero had only disdain throughout most of his life, though his best friend Atticus was an Epicurean.
However, this is not what Epicurus, who founded the school, or his later followers actually taught. Epicurus did claim that nature teaches us that pleasure is the only human good, and that life should therefore be guided by the pursuit of pleasure. But he meant by pleasure the absence of pain, including the pain caused by desires for wealth, fame, or power. This did not mean living life as one long Bacchanalia. Instead it meant withdrawing from politics and public life and living quietly with friends, engaged in the study of philosophy, which provided the highest pleasure possible think of a monastery without the Bible and the rigorous discipline.
The notion that the life of philosophy is the most pleasant life, of course, also comes from Socrates. Epicureans were also publicly atheists. Their atheism was based on a theory of atomism, which they were the first to propose. Everything in the universe, they argued, was made up of atoms, including the heavenly bodies; the gods did not exist.
This knowledge was not a cause of despair but a cause of joy, they believed, since one of the greatest human pains is the pain caused by the fear of death and what lies beyond it.
Thus there was no reason to fear it, because there was no divine judgment or afterlife. It is easy to see why Cicero, a man deeply involved in politics and the pursuit of glory, would find any doctrine that advocated the rejection of public life repulsive. It is also easy to see why someone concerned with the reform of character and conduct would reject public atheism, since fear of divine punishment often prevents people from acting immorally.
During his forced exile from politics at the end of his life, however, some of his letters claim that he has gone over to Epicureanism, presumably for the reasons he hated it previously. No longer able to take part in public life, the best he could hope for was the cultivation of private life and the pleasures that it had to offer. Since Cicero abandoned this idea as soon as the opportunity to return to public life arose, there is no reason to take his professed conversion seriously — unless we wish to see in it an example of changing his beliefs to reflect changing circumstances, and thus an example of his commitment to the Academy.
Unfortunately, several of them have been lost almost entirely Hortensius , on the value of philosophy, the Consolation , which Cicero wrote to himself on the death of his beloved daughter Tullia in order to overcome his grief, and On Glory , almost totally lost and several of the others are available only in fragmentary condition notably the Laws , which Cicero may never have finished, and the Republic , fragments of which were only discovered in in the Vatican.
These will be discussed in more detail below. While each of them is dedicated and addressed to a particular individual or two, they were intended to be read by a wide audience, and even at the end of his life Cicero never gave up entirely on the hope that the Republic and his influence would be restored.
Hence these are not purely philosophical writings, but were designed with a political purpose in mind, and we are entitled to wonder whether Cicero is being entirely candid in the opinions that he expresses.
Also, the dialogue form is useful for an author who wishes to express a number of opinions without having to endorse one. We should not assume too quickly that a particular character speaks for Cicero. Instead we should assume that, unless he explicitly says otherwise, Cicero wanted all the viewpoints presented to be considered seriously, even if some or all of them have weaknesses.
The second category is the speeches Cicero made as a lawyer and as a Senator, about 60 of which remain. Many of them also describe the corruption and immorality of the Roman elite. In addition, the speeches that we have are not verbatim recordings of what Cicero actually said, but are versions that he polished later for publication the modern American analogy would be to the Congressional Record , which allows members of Congress the opportunity to revise the text of their speeches before they are published in the Record.
In some cases such as the Second Philippic the speech was never delivered at all, but was merely published in written form, again with some political goal in mind. Finally, roughly letters to and from mostly from Cicero have been preserved. Most of them were addressed to his close friend Atticus or his brother Quintius, but some correspondence to and from some other Romans including famous Romans such as Caesar has also been preserved.
The letters often make an interesting contrast to the philosophic dialogues, as they deal for the most part not with lofty philosophical matters but with the mundane calculations, compromises, flatteries, and manipulations that were part of politics in Rome and which would be familiar to any politician today.
The serious student of Cicero, however, will not want to ignore them. Written while Cicero was still a teenager, it is a handbook on oratory. Cicero later dismissed it and argued that his other oratorical works had superceded it. A lengthy treatise, in the form of a dialogue, on the ideal orator. While it is full of detail which can be tedious to those who are not deeply interested in the theory of rhetoric, it also contains useful discussions of the nature of and the relationships among law, philosophy, and rhetoric.
Cicero places rhetoric above both law and philosophy, arguing that the ideal orator would have mastered both law and philosophy including natural philosophy and would add eloquence besides. He argues that in the old days philosophy and rhetoric were taught together, and that it is unfortunate that they have now been separated. The best orator would also be the best human being, who would understand the correct way to live, act upon it by taking a leading role in politics, and instruct others in it through speeches, through the example of his life, and through making good laws.
This dialogue is, unfortunately, in an extremely mutilated condition. It describes the ideal commonwealth, such as might be brought about by the orator described in On the Orator. In doing so it tries to provide philosophical underpinnings for existing Roman institutions and to demonstrate that Roman history has been essentially the increasing perfection of the Republic, which is superior to any other government because it is a mixed government.
By this Cicero means that it combines elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in the right balance; the contemporary reader may well disagree. But even this government can be destroyed and is being destroyed by the moral decay of the aristocracy. Thus Cicero describes the importance of an active life of virtue, the foundations of community, including the community of all human beings, the role of the statesman, and the concept of natural law. It also includes the famous Dream of Scipio.
This dialogue is also badly mutilated, and may never have been finished. In it Cicero lays out the laws that would be followed in the ideal commonwealth described in On the Republic. Therefore any valid law is rooted in nature, and any law not rooted in nature such as a law made by a tyrant is no law at all.
The gods also share in reason, and because of this they can be said to be part of a community with humanity. They care for us, and punish and reward us as appropriate. Much of what remains of this dialogue is devoted to religious law. This dialogue too is in a mutilated condition.
It is a history of oratory in Greece and Rome, listing hundreds of orators and their distinguishing characteristics, weaknesses as well as strengths. There is also some discussion of oratory in the abstract. Such a person will have the tools necessary to become a leader of the commonwealth.
Not a dialogue; Cicero lays out six Stoic principles called paradoxes which the average listener would not be likely to agree with and tries to make them both understandable and persuasive to such a listener.
It is, he says, an exercise in turning the specialized jargon of the Stoics into plain speech for his own amusement which obviously does not require Cicero to actually agree with any of the Stoic beliefs. This statue depicts Marcus Tullius Cicero, a famous orator and writer on the politics and society of the Roman Rebulic.
Unfortunately, his opinions on politics were not always popular, and he was ultimately declared a public enemy and executed in 43 B. Marcus Tullius Cicero was born outside of Rome in B. Born to a wealthy family, Cicero received a quality education.
After he served in the military , Cicero studied Roman law. Cicero remained loyal to the Roman Republic during his career. He viewed the informal alliance known as the First Triumvirate to be in direct opposition to the principles of the republic and authority of the Senate.
By refusing to join this alliance, Cicero left himself vulnerable to attacks from his political enemies. This became an issue for Cicero when he came under fire for speaking out against the political figure and tribune Publius Clodius. When Clodius was elected as a tribune, he introduced a bill that revoked the citizenship of anyone who killed a Roman citizen without granting them a trial. This was designed to strike at Cicero for his role in putting down an uprising known as the Catalonian rebellion.
Cicero ordered the execution of the revolutionaries without a trial due to the urgency that the rebellion needed to be ended. When Cicero returned to Rome, he was forced to stay out of politics, so he turned to writing. He established himself as a prolific Roman author. Once Cicero denounced Antony, he was declared a public enemy and was executed in 43 B.
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The Roman politician and general Mark Antony 83—30 B. His romantic and political Julius Caesar was a renowned general, politician and scholar in ancient Rome who conquered the vast region of Gaul and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he became dictator of the Roman Empire. Despite his brilliant military prowess, his political skills and his He is best known for his debaucheries, political murders, persecution of Christians and a passion for music that led to the probably He shrewdly combined military The son of a great military leader, he escaped family intrigues to take the throne, but his Known for his philosophical interests, Marcus Aurelius was one of the most respected emperors in Roman history.
He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Growing up, Marcus Aurelius was a dedicated student, learning Latin and Greek. But his greatest In B. He then marched his massive army across the Pyrenees and Alps into central Italy in what would be remembered as one of the most Cleopatra VII ruled ancient Egypt as co-regent first with her father, then with her two younger brothers and finally with her son for almost three decades.
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