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THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL 106.1 (2010) 71–98

CICERO AND PHILOSOPHY AS TEXT*

Abstract: Philosophy for Cicero implies not only a way of life taught orally in a school but also reading and writing. This foreshadows his influence on the later Latin tradition, which identified philosophy with the meaning and evaluation of texts, and ultimately replaced its conception as an autonomous way of life. I propose four factors in Cicero’s influence: initiating the tradition of Latin philosophical prose; developing its vocabulary; the choice of a rhetorical over a dialectical mode; and locating discussion in the context of libraries, reading and book production.

y writing philosophical texts in Latin that achieved such a wide circulation, Cicero had a decisive influence on the growth in the western Roman world of a conception of philosophy he had not intended to promote, but which

subsequently became dominant. I will argue that, owing to certain distinctive features of these Ciceronian texts, their reception in late antiquity contributed significantly to the cultural reinterpretation of philosophy itself in western Europe as primarily located in the meaning of certain kinds of texts, and secondarily the activity of studying those texts. This is to be contrasted with the conception of philosophy, ubiquitous in antiquity, as essentially a way of life, to which Cicero himself subscribed.1

!" A version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Pacific Rim Latin Literature Semi-

nar at the University of British Columbia in August, 2008. Thanks to Toph Marshall for making that such a valuable experience; to Marcus Wilson, Lisa Bailey and Jon Hall for their occasional advice; and to the journal’s referees for useful criticism and suggestions. Remaining errors are my own. Schofield (2008) unfortunately did not become available to me before the present paper was finalised; it is concerned with a different topic, Cicero's authorial presence in the dialogues, but there are significant points of convergence with several parts of my argument, and disagreements are minor.

1 For the latter as characteristic of ancient philosophy generally, see Hadot (1995) 251–63; (2002) 2–5 and passim. His view has become standard: see Marrone (2003) 11–12 with n. 1; Marenbon (2007) 7; cf. Markus (1967) 345 (writing of Augustine); Bénatouïl (2006) 421, 424; Trapp (2007) xiii and 1–27. Hadot (2002) 23 dates the emergence of “the idea or concept of phi-losophy,” in the ancient sense of a way of life, to the schools founded by the various followers of Socrates. But whether or not Pythagoreans used the term (see Hadot (2002) 15 n. 1), their school surely anticipates the phenomenon. Hadot (2002) 9 rightly notes that the identification of the

B



72 DOUGAL BLYTH

Admittedly Cicero both aimed at the wide readership he reached,2 and intended to establish philosophical writing as a recognized genre of Latin literature.3 But for him philosophy was fundamentally an approach to the whole of life, both public and private, cultivated within a school by means of intellectual activity pursued in oral discourse.4 Cicero’s references to his own education, his revival of the dialogue form and his treatment of philosophical questions in terms of debates among schools, together make clear to a reader with knowledge of earlier Greek philosophy that his texts are meant to represent an oral practice informing a lifestyle. He wrote with the aim of promoting philosophy in this sense among his fellow citizens, and explicitly as an activity to be transacted in Latin.5

I first offer a brief account of the emergence of the new conception of philosophy as primarily related to the meanings of texts in the late antique Latin west and later. Second, I discuss Cicero’s understanding of the relation between philosophy and writing. Finally, I identify four factors that unintentionally contributed to the later reconceptualization of the nature of philosophy.

Two initial qualifications must be made.6

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!other presocratics as “philosophers” stems from Aristotle (who seeks to locate his own conception of “first philosophy,” i.e., a life devoted to theoria of the first principles of nature, as the fulfillment of anticipations by the physikoi).

First, there were of course other factors at work in this transformation. Greek philosophers had themselves pro-

2 E.g., Ac. 1.18; Fin. 1.10; N.D. 1.7. 3 E.g., Ac. 1.10–12; Fin. 1.4–12; Tusc. 1.5–6; 2.4–8; 4.6; N.D. 1.7–8, 13–14; Div. 2.1–7; cf.

Jones (1959) 26. 4 The same is the case for Cicero’s Epicurean contemporary Lucretius. On the Hellenistic

schools, see generally Lynch (1972); Glucker (1978); and in particular Hadot (2002) 91–145; Bénatouïl (2006), with extensive bibliography at 415–29.

5 For Cicero’s literary aims, see n. 3 above. For his ordinary conception of philosophy, most reliably inferred from prefaces in his philosophical works, e.g. Fin. 3.4 (ars est … philosophia vitae); Tusc. 2.13 (cultura animi philosophia est), 2.16 (magistra vitae philosophia); 5.5 (o vitae philosophia dux); cf. Off. 2.5 (nec quicquam aliud est philosophia … praeter studium sapientiae). For the range of his use of the terms philosophia, philosophari and philosophus see Merguet (1971) 3.74–84.

6 The present essay can be seen as a response to the question posed by Gigon (1957): what is new in Cicero’s philosophical works? Gigon’s own answer is that the novelty is not Cicero’s, but consists in the fact that Panaetius, Posidonius and Antiochus, his near Greek influences, revived the authority of the “ancients,” in particular Plato and Aristotle. This belittles Cicero’s own importance. The apologia by Striker (1995) does not correct that impression; cf. Long (1986) 229–31. Davies (1971), by contrast, recognizes that the question of Cicero’s originality cannot be reduced to a matter of doctrine or abstract inquiry, nor to any other single factor; my concern is rather with innovation in the conception of philosophy itself.



CICERO AND PHILOSOPHY AS TEXT 73

duced texts, many of which circulated outside schools; the Hellenistic schools by the 1st century BC were already being dispersed or disbanded;7 and Roman mores among the educated aristocracy at this time seem fairly resistant to the aban-donment of their traditional social role, and in particular to the adoption of the role of a “professional” philosopher.8

Second, the textual conception of philosophy took a long time to replace the older understanding. Later writers, particularly in the Stoic tradition, continued to present philosophy in the old way. Even within the Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity it is clear from biographical material that, notwithstanding the focus on texts, philosophy was considered a comprehensive approach to life involving ascetic discipline, religious worship and theurgy, and was not yet regarded exclu-sively as a literary-intellectual activity or product.

All these factors dating from Cicero’s time or before are relevant to the subsequent change, and more will appear in the dis-cussion below of later Latinate philosophy.

9

Nevertheless, the change in the Latin tradition, when it came, was in large measure due to Cicero’s influence.

!7 On the end or dispersal of the Hellenistic schools, see briefly, e.g., Bénatouïl (2006) 418;

Trapp (2007) x; in more detail Lynch (1972) 161–2, 180–2, 189–93, 197–207; Glucker (1978) 373–9, and generally 226–379.

8 E.g., de Orat. 1.221–2; Tac. Ag. 4. Against Quintus Lucilius Balbus, depicted as a full-time Stoic at N.D. 1.15, we should weigh, e.g., the model of Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger (interlocu-tor in Fin. 3–4), first and foremost an active Roman politician and only second a Stoic; Marcus Junius Brutus (author of a de Virtute and dedicatee of N.D., Tusc. and Fin.: see esp. Fin. 1.8 and 3.6), a follower of Antiochus; Gaius Aurelius Cotta (N.D. 3.5) as an Academic; and even the Epicureans Gaius Velleius, a senator (N.D. 1.15), and Lucius Manlius Torquatus (Fin. 1–2). Cf. also Marcus Varro (Ac. 1), another Antiochean (1.7; Fam. 9.8.1; Aug. C.D. 19.1–3); and some of the characters of Fin. 5 (Marcus Pupius Piso Calpurnianus and Cicero’s brother Quintus, also in Leg. and Div.); on the other hand Atticus and Lucretius, as Epicureans, do seem to have made philosophical com-mitments to avoid political life. The role of the professional philosopher no doubt seemed to the Roman elite a Greek, and therefore servile, life choice. (Cicero and many contemporaries sup-ported such philosophers in their own households: Cicero was host to the Stoic Diodotus from 84–59 BC; cf. N.D. 1.6.)

9 See generally, e.g., Fowden (1982); on theurgy, see Shaw (1995) 4–5 and passim; for the bi-ographies of Plotinus and Proclus, see Edwards (2000); and especially Hadot (2002) 146–71 with references. I make no claim here for or against the interpretation of philosophical texts as evidence and material for “spiritual exercises” constituting the core of philosophical activity in antiquity, for which see Hadot (1995) 49–77, 126–44 and (2002) 172–233, esp. 179–211; cf. 122–6, 135–9, 144–5. My concern is with the reformulation of the referent of the term “philosophy” (philosophia, primarily in Latin) as the significatum of a text, or the activity of apprehending or evaluating that significatum by mediation of the text (reading, interpretation and criticism); the reading or related reflection might or might not be construed as a spiritual exercise.



74 DOUGAL BLYTH

The Subsequent Transformation of Philosophy Three further factors in this change help to identify when and how it

occurred. These are the disappearance of competence in Greek in the Latin west, the cultural form in which the Latin tradition accepted Greek philosophical de-velopments and the influence of Christianity. By the middle of the 4th century AD, knowledge of Greek in the western empire, previously a standard feature of Roman education, was in serious decline; within a further century it was almost extinct.10 Surveys of Roman writers in the west (i.e., central and northern Italy, Gaul, Spain and Africa) from the second half of the 4th century onwards show that the ability even to read Greek became limited to those few old aristocratic families who maintained Roman cultural tradition by keeping private tutors, and to the increasingly rare individuals who learned Greek while living in the east. 11

During this period translations into Latin of Greek philosophical works became increasingly common. Cicero had translated Plato’s Protagoras and part of the Timaeus, and Apuleius in the 2nd century AD translated the Phaedo. But translations of three further kinds of philosophical works began to appear around the middle of the 4th century: Aristotelian logic,

By contrast, the Greek taught in schools was elementary, hardly ever used, and usually forgotten by adulthood.

12

!10 See McGuire (1959), esp. 13–17; Courcelle (1969), esp. 142–8 (Italy in the 5th century

AD), 208–23 (Africa); and, contra the claims of Courcelle (1969) 238–70 for a renaissance of Greek in late 5th-century Gaul associated with Sidonius Apollinaris and Mamertus Claudianus, Brittain (2001), esp. 259. On the initial development of a literature in Latin in the ages of Cicero and Augustus as a key factor in the decline of Roman Hellenism in the west, cf. Marrou (1956) 255–64; the development of a Christian Latin literature, particularly that of Augustine, was also important in the late period; see McGuire (1959) 11–12.

recent Neoplatonic metaphys-

11 On Augustine’s late learning of Greek, see Courcelle (1969) 149–65; McGuire (1959) 15 is more sceptical.

12 Before his conversion (c. AD 354), Marius Victorinus translated Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aris-totle’s Categories and de Interpretatione, while Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (d. 385) translated Themistius’ paraphrases of Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics, and probably produced the Decem Categoriae, possibly a translation of a Greek work. See Hadot (1971) 179–90; Gersh (1986) 7–16; and more briefly Bianchi and Cacouros (2000); Falcon (2008). Earlier works in Latin syn-thesizing Aristotelian and Stoic logic were Aelius Stilo’s lost treatise; the book on dialectic in his student Varro’s lost Nine Disciplines; and Apuleius’ Peri Hermeneias, on which Book 4 of Martianus Capella’s Marriage of Philology and Mercury (early 5th century AD) drew. Boethius’ logical works (see next page) were followed by Cassiodorus’ Institutes 2.3 (later 6th century AD).




ics,13 and histories of philosophical opinions.14 In addition (perhaps c. AD 350) Calcidius’ partial translation of the Timaeus with commentary appeared. This process culminated in Boethius’ plan at the beginning of the 6th century to trans-late and comment upon the whole of Plato and Aristotle,15

The demand for translations is evidence of the general loss of direct access to Greek philosophy among educated Latin speakers from the 4th century onwards. Nor is there evidence of any major philosophical school teaching in Latin at any time during the empire, and perhaps there was no formal teaching of philosophy in Latin at all,

fulfilled only partially for Aristotle’s Organon (with Porphyry’s Isagoge).

16 apart from dialectic. If this is all correct, the precondi-tions for an exclusively textual approach to philosophy were already present in the Latin west at this time.17

The case of dialectic, taught formally—and presumably orally—in a scholastic setting, is interesting. The separation of logic from ethics and physics, as the culmination of a Latin rhetorical education, suggests by contrast that the

!13 Marius Victorinus translated some of Plotinus’ Enneads, possibly with commentary by Por-

phyry, and probably other works of Porphyry such as the de Regressu animae. See Courcelle (1969) 165–96, esp. 171–89; Hadot (1971) 201–10; Brittain (2001) 259.

14 For references to these, see Courcelle (1969) 134–5 with n. 37, 140–1, 231 with n. 47, 256–8; Brittain (2001) 243.

15 Boethius de Interp. ed. sec. 2; PL 64, 433C–D (quoted by Courcelle (1969) 277 n. 32 from Meiser ([1880] 1987) 79.9).

16 Note the absence of any other western locations in Fowden (1982) 38–48, apart from Rome (for which see p. 40). For Mamertus Claudianus, see Brittain (2001), esp. 244 and 260. The Neoplatonist circle in Milan to which Augustine belonged cannot be called a philosophical school in the Greek sense, insofar as its main members (Ambrose, Simplicianus, Manlius Theodorus) subscribed to Christianity as their way of life; see further Courcelle (1969) 182–3, 231; Hadot (1971) 204. Only Maximus of Madaura (vir eximie, qui a mea secta deviasti, Ep. ad Aug. 16.4; PL 33, 82, of AD 390, cited by Courcelle (1969) 181) seems to have thought differently. The subscription to the poetry of Sedulius (c. AD 425–450), in Italia philosophiam didicit, bears no weight; see Cour-celle (1969) 141 n. 1. On the absence of trained professional teachers of philosophy in the Latin west, cf. Bolgar (1958) 36: “a grammarian would lecture on philosophy when he came across a philosophical passage in an author, much after the style of Macrobius’ commentary on the Som-nium Scipionis. If he did this well, if he was interested and made full use of his opportunities, he would earn the title of a philosopher.”

17 This can be correlated with wider cultural developments: Vessey in Halporn (2004) 37 as-serts that a “collective articulation of a Latin Christian textual culture that had been set in train by the great masters of the later 4th and early 5th centuries had a momentum and visible direction of its own long before Cassiodorus,” observing that his Institutes is “uniquely redolent of the new world of texts” (his emphasis).



76 DOUGAL BLYTH

rest of philosophy was not an oral discipline in the later Latin tradition.18 This isolation of dialectic from philosophy as a part, or sister-art, of rhetoric19 can be traced through the developing conception of the liberal arts in Latin literature, from Cicero and Varro to Cassiodorus,20 by way of Seneca, Quintilian, Augustine and Martianus Capella.21

Despite the lack of direct access to the practice of philosophy as a way of life, resulting from the demise of fluency in Greek and the absence of Latin philoso-phical schools, Romans in the late west could not yet be said to be unaware of this possibility. So long as the Greek schools in the east remained active and contin-ued to influence western ideas through the medium of translation, philosophy undoubtedly continued to be conceived, if not practiced, in the old sense. Even in late 5th-century Gaul the Christian Faustus’ disdain for philosophers, as opposed to philosophical thought, indicates the survival of this idea.

22

The key development here is the conflict between philosophy in the old sense, as a distinctly pagan ethos, and Christianity. The Christian church at the

!18 Augustine came upon Aristotle’s Categories as the pinnacle of his rhetorical training (Conf.

4.28), no doubt in Marius Victorinus’ translation. Victorinus had taught rhetoric in Rome using Cicero’s de Inventione as his textbook, followed by Cicero’s Topics, on both of which he produced commentaries; his own works on hypothetical syllogisms and definitions, and his translations of logical works by Porphyry and Aristotle were clearly meant to be used in his school. See Hadot (1971) 103–98, esp. 195–6. Since Victorinus was a teacher of rhetoric, he presumably did not teach the metaphysical texts of Plotinus and Porphyry he translated.

19 See Hadot (1971) 191: “La ‘dialectique’ a été d’abord à Rome une discipline d’inspiration stoïcienne, intimement liée à la rhetorique”; cf. Hadot (1971) 195; Ramelli (2008).

20 Cassiodorus Inst. 2.3.4–7 prefaces his summary of dialectic by treating it as part of philoso-phy, but in doing so he borrows directly from recent Greek Neoplatonism, as the parallels from Ammonius quoted by Halporn (2004) 189–90 nn. 88–95 show; see Vessey in Halporn (2004) 72–4 on his sources, with p. 85 for further references. By contrast, the texts Cassiodorus prescribes for the study of dialectic (Inst. 2.3.18; cf. 8–17) are the standard translations and original works of the Latin tradition, supplemented by Boethius’ recent commentaries.

21 The origin of this conception is clearly the Greek idea of an enkyklios paideia. Precisely when it developed into the form in which it was transmitted to the middle ages as the trivium and quadrivium is a matter partly of definition, partly of interpretation; see Hadot (2005) passim. But whether Porphyry’s conception influenced Latin writers from Augustine on is a real question. Hadot (2005) 100, followed by Vessey in Halporn (2004) 65, answers yes, but cf. Gwynn (1926) 82–92, who finds the standard seven subjects first in Cicero’s de Orat. (p. 84); similarly Marrou (1956) 177. On Martianus Capella, see Stahl et al. (1977) 232; on Cassiodorus, see Vessey in Halporn (2004) 64–79. On the significance of the inclusion of logic, see Bolgar (1958) 36–7; Ramelli (2008).

22 See Brittain (2001) 247 with n. 45; cf. the letter from Eucherius to Valerian of AD 432 (PL 50, 724A, cited in Courcelle (1969) 231 n. 46).




end of antiquity seems to have sealed off the possibility of pursuing philosophy as an autonomous way of life. Thus philosophy became thereafter either merely a literary-intellectual adjunct to religion or at most a purely theoretical pursuit, and the church alone retained the authority to prescribe and embody a way of life. This apparently occurred in two related ways. First, the Neoplatonist school in Athens disappeared, either as an eventual result of the edicts of Justinian of AD 529 and probably 531 (Cod.Just. 1.5.18.4 and 1.11.10.2) or at the latest by the time of the Slavonic invasions (c. AD 580).23 In any case, with the cessation of the oral dimension of independent Neoplatonic teaching there was an end to the practical autonomy of philosophy within the empire as a “spiritual vision.” The school in Alexandria accommodated to Christianity from the late 5th or early 6th century AD. Under Olympiodorus it seems to have restricted itself to innocuous textual exegesis, and it eventually ceased teaching Plato entirely, moving to Con-stantinople in AD 610. The beginnings of Syriac textual work on Aristotle are contemporary with this. But there was a clear break even in the east until Arabic philosophy (in the medieval sense) emerged after AD 750.24

Second, more generally in the west, Latin Christian philosophy developed the role of “handmaiden to faith.”

25 The originally autonomous spiritual vision of Neoplatonism as a way of life, the only prominent form of philosophy in late an-tiquity, became assimilated to and appropriated by Christianity, as is evidenced for instance in the case of Augustine’s conversion.26

!23 Cf. Malalas Chronicle 18.47; Agathias 2.30–1. Watts (2004) 179–80 dates the decrees. For

doubt about the significance of Justinian’s measure, see Cameron (1969); followed by Lynch (1972) 163–9, 177; Glucker (1978) 322–9. For a defence of their effect, see Watts (2004). For extended bibliography, see Wildberg (2005) 330 n. 39.

This is strikingly confirmed by Cassiodorus (c. AD 490 – c. 590) in a series of definitions of philosophy bor-

24 On philosophical activity outside the schools in the east, see Wildberg (2005) 322–4 (324: “philosphical inquiry and debate, understood as a search for the truth, never ceased to be of central concern,” despite the marginalization of the “pagan sage” as a type; i.e., philosophy continued but not as a way of life). On the Alexandrian school, see Wildberg (2005) 325 and 333–6. On the pe-riod generally and the break before Arabic philosophy, see Marenbon (2007) 56–60.

25 Cf. Hadot (2002) 253–61 with further references; Marrone (2003), esp. 16–18, 43, 45–6. The conception behind the expression philosophia ancilla theologiae began with Philo (e.g., Congr. 14.79–80), from whom ancient Christian writers adopted it (e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.5; PG 8, 721A–724A), and it attained its classic formulation with the medieval Peter Damian (de Divina omnipotentia 5; PL 145, 603C–D, velut ancilla dominae); see further Wolfson (1948) 145–57.

26 See Conf. 7.9.13, 7.20; 8.1.2, 2.3, 8.19; cf. de Beata vita 1.4. For the clearly similar conversion of Marius Victorinus, see Hadot (1971) 235–52.



78 DOUGAL BLYTH

rowed from Neoplatonists (Inst. 2.3.5).27 The first three are consistent with a textual conception of philosophy. But the fourth, of philosophy as a preparation for dying (meditatio mortis), derived from Plato’s Phaedo (e.g., 64a, 67e) and repeated by Cicero at Tusc. 1.74, clearly represents the older view of a way of life; Cassiodorus immediately appropriates this with the words “which is better suited to Christians…” (quod magis convenit Christianis). Following the demise of Latin philosophical writing after Cassiodorus, there was a break, corresponding to but longer than that in the east, before the Carolingian revival at the end of the 8th century AD.28 John Marenbon concludes from the study of Carolingian texts:29

the three ways in which philosophy would take place in the Latin world up to about 1200 are already evident: in the form of, and in thinking stimulated by, logic; in presenting and analysing Christian doctrine; and—so Alcuin’s use of the Confessions and the citation of Chalcidius among his followers hint—in connection with a small group of ancient philosophical works, which would come properly into use, along with a wider range of logical texts in the following century. This analysis makes clear by omission that by the time of Charlemagne the conception of philosophy as a way of life had completely disappeared in the west, replaced by a conception that locates it exclusively in the meaning of designated texts and methods of reasoning about them and about Christian doctrine. Subsequently, as a secular pursuit in modernity, academic philosophy has for long been reconceived almost exclusively as the realm of intellectual justification or more generally of abstract inquiry.30

!27 See Courcelle (1969) 342–3; Halporn (2004) 190 nn. 92–5.

28 See Marenbon (2007) 46–7, 70–2. 29 Marenbon (2007) 72; cf. Bolgar (1958) 133. In addition to the recovery of the logica vetus,

on Latin Platonist texts available from this time forth, see Klibansky (1981) 21–9 (noting the im-portance of Cicero as a source for knowledge of Plato, p. 22), supplemented by Gersh (1986) 22–3. On the evidence for medieval study of Cicero’s philosophical works, see Bolgar (1958) 197, 249; Gersh (1986) 787–96, 806 and n. 123.

30 Hadot (2002) 261–70 also documents repeated occasional recognitions since antiquity of the potential of philosophy to define a way of life, while Marenbon (2007) 7 states: “The contrast between ancient philosophy as a way of life and philosophy in later centuries is not, however, abso-lute. And, in the Middle Ages, at certain moments, for certain thinkers, philosophy—as distinct from theology, and in spite of institutional structures—did seem to offer, as it had done to the ancients, a way of life.” But Marenbon provides no further explanation of his first claim, and the qualifications in the second make clear that he acknowledges that in the medieval period what was generally called philosophy was indeed something quite different from the norm in antiquity.




Cicero’s Own Conceptions of Philosophy and his Task

Cicero characteristically identifies philosophical theories in terms of schools

and depicts philosophy in his dialogues as transacted by oral discussion. Never-theless this image of a socially located, intellectual way of life coincides with frequent indications that his idea of philosophy is actually broader and less precise than that. The evidence even contains elements implying a quite different conception, a rhetorical conception of the nature of philosophy in which, more-over, texts play a central part. This is suggested by the literary form of Cicero’s philosophical works, and his letters occasionally reveal explicitly this different conception of philosophy itself.

First, philosophy can be an activity properly involving writing. Thus in a letter to Atticus (15.13a.2) referring to his composition of de Officiis in late 44 BC Cicero writes, nos hic (quid enim aliud?) et

magnifice explicamus (“Here I philosophize—what else?—and expound the subject of what is appropriate on a magnificent scale,” trans. after Shackleton Bailey). The connective et is epexegetic: his philosophizing here is his writing.31

But philosophizing for Cicero can also occasionally be reading, in a way that demonstrates that books for him have to some extent replaced oral discourse, although still within the older conception of philosophy as an activity conducive to the life or health of the soul. In another letter to Atticus written several months earlier (14.21.3), after fretting about Marcus Antonius’ actions since Caesar’s death, Cicero observes wryly, legendus mihi saepius est “Cato maior” ad te missus. amariorem enim me senectus facit. stomachor omnia. (“I should read more often the Cato the Elder I dedicated to you. Old age makes me increasingly irritable; I get upset at everything”).

32

!31 Cf. Tusc. 2.1: in justifying the writing of this work, Cicero explains that he must philosophari.

Similarly at 2.5: “philosophy should be born in Latin writing” (here Cicero is justifying writing in Latin as such, not the writing of philosophy, but what he says is nonetheless indicative of his as-sumption that writing is required for Latinate philosophy).

The word saepius (“more often”) might suggest repeated reading of the text such as would constitute a “spiritual exercise” of the kind Pi-

32 Unattributed translations are my own. Cf. Hoffer (2007) 95 on the display of emotion in this passage.



80 DOUGAL BLYTH

erre Hadot argues characterizes ancient philosophy.33

At this point we can broaden our perspective and identify three reasons why Cicero occasionally emphasizes the identification of philosophy with texts.

But more generally the proposed aim is clearly therapeutic, for the reason that the cited work is meant to be persuasive (in a manner similar to a consolatio or the discourses in the Tusculan Disputations). Cicero thus implies that written philosophy falls within the ambit of oratory.

34 The first is the role he attributes to writing in rhetorical preparation; the second is his use of letters to discuss philosophy with friends; and the third is his literary project, to found a Latin genre of philosophical texts. The first reason can be elaborated from points Cicero has Crassus make in de Oratore. Reference to this text helps, since rhetoric, the art of persuasion, is the key element in Cicero’s way of thinking here. At 1.150 (and cf. 151–3) Crassus advises, quam plurimum scribere. stilus optimus et praestantissimus dicendi effector et magister (“write as much as possible. The pen is the best and most eminent author and teacher of elo-quence,” trans. Rackham). Even a primarily aural effect such as prose rhythm, absolute mastery of which was one of the reasons for Cicero’s own eminence,35 should be practiced not only by declamation but by writing, according to Crassus at 3.190–1; this provides a measure of how comprehensively Cicero identifies rhetorical preparation with writing. He himself, of course, wrote up many of his speeches, but he also wrote and published speeches that were never delivered, and he sometimes wrote speeches out in full before delivery.36

!33 For references, see n. 9 above. Shackleton Bailey’s (1999) translation (“I ought to re-read

the Cato the Elder”, SB no. 375) obscures the possibility.

His own practice thus confirms the close connection between oratory and writing.

34 There are no doubt also biographical reasons, relating to changes in Cicero’s political for-tunes and opportunities, and also to his grief at his daughter’s death, for his focus on writing at different periods of his life. Yet these circumstantial developments, important as they are for under-standing Cicero’s own actions, do not contribute directly to an understanding of the conception behind his references to reading and writing as forms of philosophizing.

35 See e.g., Dyck (2003) 204–5, with earlier bibiography. 36 On two speeches written to be delivered ex scripto after Cicero’s recall in 57 BC, see Lintott

(2008) 8–9. In the event, only the speech to the senate was so delivered; for other instances, see Lintott (2008) 9 n. 18. On the importance of writing in Cicero’s oratory generally, see Butler (2002). I tend to agree with an anonymous reviewer for this journal that Cicero’s ongoing frustra-tions in practical politics dating from the time of his exile and recall are responsible for his innova-tions in circulating texts as a replacement for, and not merely a supplement to oral delivery, an observation that extends to his political theoretical writings, including de Orat., published in 54.




The relevance of this to Cicero’s tendency to associate philosophy with texts is evident from one particular requirement by Crassus. Clearly influenced by Plato’s Phaedrus (although disputed by his companion Antonius: see 1.221–2), Crassus is given to state that the orator requires a thorough knowledge of at least moral philosophy (1.68–9), and if he is to say anything about them, similarly of logic and physics, the other parts of philosophy (1.65). At 3.60 he goes further, blaming Socrates for separating philosophy and rhetoric, “which in reality belong together” (re cohaerentes).37 Philosophy can thus be identified closely with or as a part of the art of oratory.38

What is important here, and possibly original to Cicero, is the association of this unified conception of philosophy and rhetoric with the practice of writing. I argued above that Cicero means that writing is involved comprehensively in the preparation of practically every part of oratory (except of course the techniques of oral delivery), and certainly for the invention and exposition of the content. The implication here is then that mastery of philosophy too will come by writing. Cicero himself states this explicitly in his preface to de Natura deorum, at 1.9: omnes autem eius [i.e., philosophiae] partes atque omnia membra tum facillime noscuntur, cum totae quaestiones scribendo explicantur (“Every part and every branch of [philosophy] can be grasped most easily when the whole range of its subject matter is discussed in writing”). The specific motive for covering all schools of philosophy is Cicero’s adherence to a form of Academic scepticism.

39

!37 For dispute about the origin of the theory of the unity of philosophy and rhetoric, see Mar-

rou (1956) 212; Hadot (2005) 46–51 with references. Both scholars derive it from the New Acad-emy (cf. Part. 139), and suggest that Cicero learned it orally from Philo of Larissa.

Owing to his plan to found the genre of Latin philosphical writing, Cicero devotes much more space in such prefaces to justifying writing in Latin (as opposed to Greek)

38 Cf. de Orat. 3.76, and note Tusc. 1.6–7 (just as philosophy is necessary for expertise in ora-tory, oratory is necessary for the fulfillment of the promise of philosophy); Div. 2.4 (appealing to the example of Aristotle and Theophrastus in adding his works on rhetoric to his list of philosophi-cal writings). MacKendrick (1989) 13 asserts as his major thesis that “the whole structure of Cicero’s philosophy was shaped by the rhetorical foundations of his thought.” See also Grimal (1962), an appreciation of Michel (1960). Zetzel (2003) 132–4 similarly relates this to Cicero’s idea of a distinctly Roman prudential virtue embodied in the thinking leader, to be contrasted with the Greek case.

39 See N.D. 1.11, quod facere iis necesse est quibus propositum est ueri reperiendi causa et contra om-nes philosophos et pro omnibus dicere (“This is what we must do if in the interests of discovering the truth we decide both to criticize and to support the views of each individual philosopher,” trans. Walsh).



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than to justifying writing about philosophy as such. Nevertheless the latter is, in effect, the point: to philosophize in Latin, he must write in Latin.40

The passives in the Latin quoted above leave it ambiguous whether the beneficiary of such written exposition is the writer or a different reader. Cicero presumably means both,

41

Philippa Smith has questioned whether Cicero is justified in writing philosophy rhetorically, on the ground that this involves a certain degree of non-rational manipulation of the reader. She canvasses three answers: that arguing both sides of a philosophical case as Cicero does in the dialogues is just as well designed to reach the truth as in the adversarial court system; that rhetorical features are necessary to the goal of entertaining as well as instructing; and that it is impossible to separate rhetoric from philosophy.

although the implied benefit for the writer is more illuminating. Just as the orator benefits by writing out any rhetorical speech, since this helps him clarify to himself the required points, arguments and progression of topics, so the philosopher benefits philosophically by writing. Writing thus tends to replace dialectic in Cicero’s oratorical conception of philosophy as the means to conceptual clarification. I discuss his use of dialectic further below.

42 The first two answers do not really address the charge of manipulation, and the third seems to come clos-est to the truth, although it overlooks the key consideration. Philosophy itself is not obviously inseparable from rhetoric, at least when conceived as a way of life devoted to the oral, dialectical pursuit of truth. The latter is implied in Cicero’s letter to Papirius Paetus (Fam. 9.24.3), in which he admonishes him that happiness most of all depends on spending time with good and pleasant friends; here Cicero calls this informal advice itself “philosophizing” (philosophando).43

!40 At the end of N.D. 1.7 Cicero begins the first of two reasons for the present work, viz, that it

will explain philosophy in Latin to his fellow citizens. Dyck (2003) ad loc. notes that this is con-trasted (primum … etiam) with the second reason at 1.9, that writing is a means to knowledge.

41 This point is obscured by the otherwise elegant translation of Walsh (1998), “The easiest way to gain acquaintance with all [philosophy’s] constituent parts and branches is to deal with the topics fully in writing.”

42 Smith (1995) 317–23. 43 On shared life rather than books as true philosophy, cf. Tusc. 2.11–13; 4.5; Sen. Ep. 6.6.

Powell (1995b) 2 refers to what he considers Cicero’s definition of philosophy at Ac. 2.29 as aiming at the judgment of truth and falsity, good and bad, right and wrong. But this is Antiochus’ reported view not Cicero’s own, and is designed tactically to support his historical claim to represent the Old Academy doctrinally; see Brittain (2006) 19 n. 37 ad loc., who notes that Cicero himself rejects the implied position at 2.109–10.




What is inseparable from rhetoric is, by contrast, written philosophy, philosophy as text, because this literature is a form of oratory.

Comparison and contrast with Plato may be of use here.44 Scholars increas-ingly acknowledge that rhetoric pervades Plato’s dialogues in the form of protreptic arguments, occasionally extended dramatic attempts at practical persuasion, and deliberate and sometimes insincere manipulation by Socrates of his interlocutor’s beliefs during refutation. It is not difficult to describe certain passages in Plato effectively in terms of technical parts of rhetoric such as discov-ery of arguments, arrangement, control and variation in diction, establishment of ethos and even solicitation of pathos.45

A second reason for this tendency can be found in Cicero’s epistolatory practices. As his letters make abundantly clear, he communicated with his con-temporaries in the Roman ruling class as much by writing as face to face, and we may assume that his correspondents did the same with one another, if perhaps not quite so copiously. No doubt there are good reasons for this: responsibilities and power relations required contact, yet limited the occasions for meeting; events and opportunities dispersed these Romans around Italy and the Mediter-ranean world; and their wealth led to possession of and frequent residence at widely dispersed villas. While letters here replace and in some respects imitate the

Plato’s dialogues, unlike Cicero’s, are not normally structured on explicitly forensic principles, with formal speeches for and against a position. On the contrary, Plato shows that philosophical rhetoric need not be forensic (contrary to Smith’s first suggestion) but still threatens (at least) to be manipulative. Again, Plato clearly uses his rhetorical abilities to enter-tain, but he is quite capable of using these same skills protreptically to persuade the reader of the essential seriousness of philosophy (contra Smith’s second claim). Rhetoricality is a natural consequence of producing philosophical writing for a public readership, as both Plato and Cicero do, rather than for students in a school; addressing the public is the business of oratory. I discuss Cicero’s choice of a non-Platonic, forensic mode of rhetoric below. At this stage it is sufficient to note how his practical assimilation of oratory to writing, along with his both theoretical and practical association of philosophy with rhetoric, help to explain his conception of writing as a mode of philosophizing. This then tends to lead him to conceive of philosophy itself as associated with texts.

!44 Thanks are due to an anonymous referee for this journal, who suggested that I clarify my

point here by reference to Plato. 45 The literature is huge. For a start, see Sprague (1962); Rutherford (1995); Michelini

(2003).



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varieties of personal conversation, such imitation is itself a literary effect. Cicero’s correspondence demonstrates artful construction and is in any case disciplined by the mechanical and social conventions involved in formulating one’s thoughts as text.

As a result of the pervasiveness of this practice in maintaining his social rela-tionships, Cicero not infrequently uses letters to discuss philosophy in addition to his many other interests and concerns. Miriam Griffin identifies 17 correspon-dents expected to understand philosophical remarks to some degree or other.46 Accordingly, quite apart from his literary-philosophical projects, Cicero is used to writing in Latin about philosophy in discussing it with his contemporaries. Nearly all of them would have learned their philosophy in Greek, and Cicero frequently uses Greek philosophical terms. Nevertheless he does not do so exclusively, and in some letters he discusses philosophical ideas with no resort to Greek (e.g. Fam. 9.16.5–6, in which in July 46 BC he gives the Epicurean Paetus a Stoic moral justification of his relations with Caesar).47

The third reason for this conception is Cicero’s own literary project, repeat-edly expressed in the prefaces to the series of works from 46–43 BC, of establish-ing philosophy as a Latin genre of literature.

Cicero’s use of letters, an artful and conventional genre in which texts are exchanged independent of oral contact, as the location of philosophy thus helps explain his tendency to conceive of philosophy in terms of writing.

48

!46 See Griffin (1995) 330. See especially Fam. 7.12; 9.4, 9.16.5–6; 15.16.1–3, 15.17.3, and

15.19 (by Cassius, in defence of Epicureanism).

Cicero locates his project as the culmination of the achievements of earlier Roman writers in emulating and mas-tering Greek genres, and in this respect his aim would not have been possible or

47 Baldwin (1992) 4–5 notes that about half of Cicero’s letters to Paetus contain Greek; yet Adams (2003) 313–16 shows that most of this is not code-switching (expressing himself in Greek), but quotations, references to Greek expressions and so forth. For code-switching in phi-losophical letters, see Adams (2003) 316–18. On the distribution of Greek in the letters and the reasons for its use, see Steele (1900) 389–90; Baldwin (1992) 2 and passim; Dunkel (2000) 127–9; Adams (2003) 308–47, esp. 321–3, 344–7.

48 See n. 3 above. Note particularly Tusc. 1.5 (claiming that while Roman oratory is measured by speakers, the lack of philosophy in Rome is measured by the absence of texts in Latin); cf. Tusc. 2.6. See Davies (1971) 105–10, 118–19 for a balanced appreciation of Cicero’s originality in this regard, which he shows is a comprehensively cultural influence. MacKendrick (1989) 6, 25 sug-gests that Cicero’s literary innovation extends not merely to the Latin philosophical dialogue as such, along with its prologue, but also to the revival of a form not even used by the Greeks since Aristotle, but this is uncertain, and perhaps the Sosus of Antiochus was a dialogue: see Glucker (1978) 417–20 with refs.




motivated without the existence of an authoritative body of Greek philosophical texts. Nevertheless, among the Greeks down to Cicero’s own times production of philosophical texts was always an addendum to the oral activity of the schools, as Loveday Alexander has clearly demonstrated.49

Cicero’s philosophical literature is nominally linked to the sceptical Acad-emy by his own protestations of allegiance and the form the texts take, presenting the doctrines of both Epicureans and Stoics and following each with sceptical criticism. But the school had formally ended with the death of Philo, Cicero’s teacher, in 84/3 BC and, whether he supported Philo’s own teaching or Clitoma-chus’ divergent interpretation of Carneades’ scepticism,

50 apart from Cicero’s literary revival these were no longer living schools of thought.51

!49 Alexander (1990) 230–7; see her conclusions pp. 236–7, and cf. pp. 237–42 on the special

case of Plato.

Unlike his Greek models, then, Cicero’s Latin philosophical texts are not merely epiphenomenal to an ongoing institutional presence. He no doubt did expect philosophy to continue in the informal private conversational and epistolatory mode to which he was accustomed. But the formal public expression that would support it

50 Ac. 2.12 makes clear that in the lost first book of the first edition of the work (the Catulus) the form of scepticism discussed was not Philo’s; in the lost books of the second edition this was presumably expounded by the character Cicero. Later in Book 2 of the first edition (2.64–147) Cicero responds to Lucullus’ presentation of Antiochus’ views with Clitomachus’ version of Carneades’ scepticism: Clitomachus’ books are cited for what follows at 2.98 and 102. See also Brittain (2006) xvi–xix and n. 23. Confusingly, on the other hand, at Fam. 9.8.1 Cicero identifies his role as Philo’s spokesman (mihi sumpsi Philonis).

51 In some works (e.g. Rep., Leg., Tusc., Parad.) Cicero supports Stoic views, and on occasion he explains that sceptical probabilism allows him to adopt them provisionally as most likely for practical purposes. But this does not amount to conversion to the Stoic school, whose epistemol-ogy he clearly rejects (see especially the Ac.), while he rejects Epicureanism totally. This together implies that he does not aim to revive “school” philosophizing of the sort he and his contemporaries had temporarily experienced as students either in Rome with Philo, or in Athens with Antiochus or Rhodes with Posidonius. Grimal (1962) 121–2 argues that since Panaetius, Greek philosophy served Romans not as a search for truth but as a justification of Roman certainties. While this suits the political works of Cicero he focuses on, it does not do justice to the late works. Somewhat simi-larly, but more plausibly, Habinek (1994) suggests that Cicero’s aims during his “retirements” involved a pursuit of politics by other means: championing cultural as opposed to military, leader-ship. Yet this does not explain why philosophy in particular should be the flagship of culture. The comment by Lévy (1992a) 292 on Tusc. 5.5 o vitae philosophia dux is especially pertinent: Cicero’s conception of philosophy here transcends the differences among the schools, unified with respect to the end they all pursue, the human good.



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thereafter among his compatriots would no longer be the Greek school but a genre of Latin literature.52

Cicero’s Contribution to the Transformation of Philosophy I turn now to the factors I identify in Cicero’s contribution to the way this

conception, by the end of antiquity in the west, had generally supplanted the older one of philosophy as an oral-intellectual way of life. The most immediately obvious factor in this transformation was the development, stimulated largely by Cicero, of an autonomous Latin tradition of philosophical writing.53 While this tradition was continually sensitive to evolving Greek modes of philosophy, it produced enough figures of independent literary-intellectual authority (Seneca, Apuleius, the Latin church fathers, in particular Lactantius, Minucius Felix, Marius Victorinus and Augustine, and also Macrobius, Martianus Capella and Boethius)54

!52 Cf. Powell (1995b) 32: “The actual writing of philosophy was, of course, only the tip of

what must have been a fairly large iceberg of both formal and informal philosophical discussion both in Greek and Latin.” King (1927) xxiii–xxiv puts together Cicero’s report (Fam. 9.16.7) that in July 46 BC he was teaching Hirtius and Dollabella oratory with the statement in Tusc. 2.9 (written 45 BC) that “M” and his interlocutors spend their mornings at rhetoric and afternoons on the phi-losophical discussion depicted in that dialogue, to speculate that Cicero himself actually led disputa-tiones of this sort with other Roman citizens, as a school. But I find this implausible, given the lack of corroborating evidence (see, on the contrary, the invitation to Varro, Fam. 9.8.2, which suggests an exchange between equals, comparable with those in the dialogues with named interlocutors, and in particular the Posterior Ac., in which Varro converses with Cicero). Douglas (1995) 204 com-ments: “It is not enough to suggest that what went on in Greek ‘schools’ has been simply trans-ferred to the more typically Roman setting found in Cicero’s other theoretical writings.”

that the post-Roman Latin-speaking west maintained its core intel-lectual traditions by reference to these writers despite the iconoclastic influence of Christianity and ultimately quite independent of the Greek philosophical schools.

53 Cf. Trapp (2007) x on Cicero, Lucretius and Varro as pioneers of “Roman philosophy” or rather “philosophy in Latin;” Powell (1995b) 30–2. On Cicero’s philosophical influence on poster-ity, see Zielinski (1912); supplemented by MacKendrick (1989); and briefly Dyck (2003) 14–16.

54 On the importance of Latin to the later philosophical tradition, see Grimal (1992). Mor-ford (2002) 190 identifies Apuleius as the only Roman philosopher writing in Latin after Seneca, but he excludes Christian writers. Trapp (2007) 24–5, although not distinguishing by language and similarly limiting his range, provides a list of later philosophical writers that is more sensitive to the ancient conception of philosophy. For Cicero’s influence on the Latin Christian writers, see Zielinski (1912) 87–130; cf. Hadot (1995) 238–50. On the correlated importance of Cicero’s Topics for Roman dialectic, see briefly Hadot (1971) 180, 192.




Cicero’s significance here is revealed by the very contingency of this development. It is possible that without his model Romans writing philosophy subsequently would have chosen to continue using Greek, the language of the schools and of the only texts they might (in that case) have read. As it was, in later antiquity after the loss of Greek in the west all that was available was the work of this Latin tradition dating from Cicero, of which Augustine was the most impor-tant exponent, and the limited number of translations discussed above. Cicero is directly influential on both accounts, as an inspiration to Augustine and as an originator of Latin translations of Greek philosophical works (Plato’s Protagoras and Timaeus, and Aratus), as well as indirectly, by initiating the tradition of Latin philosophical literature.

Cicero’s influence on Augustine is particularly significant in this regard. Augustine’s citations of the Latin classics show both that Cicero had the most influence on him of any pagan writer, and that the philosophical works were by far the most important in this regard.55 But Augustine himself was, if not the most, certainly one of the two or three most important philosophers for later western antiquity and the whole medieval period.56 These two points combined offer an overall external measure of Cicero’s role in establishing the new textual concep-tion of philosophy that emerged at the end of antiquity, particularly given that Augustine’s frequent citations of him, and the survival of his philosophical works, ensured a continuing readership.57

There were Epicureans before Cicero who wrote in Latin, although poorly—at least according to him—of whom we have the names Amafinius,

!55 See Hagendahl (1967) vol. 1: one third of the testimonia from the Latin classics (134 out of

359 pages: 324 out of 969 items) are for Cicero, and three quarters of these (104 pages; 221 items) are from the philosophica exclusive of the rhetorica; cf. Hagendahl (1967) 570 for his own analysis. Augustine attributes his philosophical awakening to reading Cicero’s Hortensius (Conf. 3.56–7; de Beata vita 1.4; Soliloquies 1.10.17). Hagendahl (1967) 586 identifies Cicero as Augustine’s most important source of information on Greek philosophy; cf. Courcelle (1969) 167–71. Gersh (1986) 782 notes that he is also, uniquely among pagan writers, a source of doctrine; cf. Hagendahl (1967) 585: “Much as Augustine owes to Cicero in matters of language and eloquence, he is per-haps still more indebted to the philosopher.” For the stages of Cicero’s influence on Augustine, see Hagendahl (1967) 570–8; Gersh (1986) 783–4; see also Riley (1969).

56 This is uncontroversial, but see, e.g., Spade (1994) 57–8 (Augustine was much more im-portant than Aristotle until late, and than Plato, who was known only indirectly, mainly through Augustine); Marenbon (2008): “Along with Augustine and Aristotle he [Boethius] is the funda-mental philosophical or theological author of the Latin tradition.”

57 On the medieval reception of Cicero, see the references in nn. 29 and 53–4.



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Rabirius and Catius.58 There were also unnamed Latin Stoic writers,59 while Cicero’s friend Brutus wrote a de Virtute presumably along the lines of his Greek philosophical teacher, the dogmatic synthesist Antiochus.60 Yet it was Cicero who effectively initiated the surviving tradition of writing and reading philosophy in Latin, as his influence, explicitly acknowledged by later writers such as Lactan-tius and Augustine, demonstrates.61

A second factor in Cicero’s contribution to the transformation of the primary sense of philosophy from a way of life to the meanings of texts and their evaluation arose from the fact that he, like Lucretius, faced and solved the problems of expressing philosophical ideas in Latin. Unlike Lucretius, Cicero did not regard the “poverty of his native tongue” (Lucretius 1.136–9) as an obstacle to philosophy; he even dared to boast that in certain respects Latin is more suited to philosophy than Greek (see, e.g. Fin. 1.10). Not only did Cicero thus provide the material means for later Latin philosophizing, but the textual self-consciousnessness of this challenge (shared with Lucretius) focuses attention on the written formulation of ideas and suggests that philosophy culminates in its written expression, rather than as a way of life.

The development over centuries of an abstract Latin vocabulary, including Cicero’s contribution, has been studied by Marouzeau,62 and Cicero’s techniques in translating Greek terms and his literary discussions of his innovations have been analyzed by numerous scholars.63

!58 Ac. 1.5; Tusc. 4.6 (cf. 1.6; 2.7–8); Fam. 15.16.1 (to Cassius) and 15.19.1–2 (from Cassius).

But the frequency, extent and detail of Cicero’s commentary on terminology in the philosophical works, as nowhere else, are an index of how intimately this challenge is connected with his self-appointed task of initiating a Latin literary philosophical genre.

59 Rusticos Stoicos (Cassius at Fam. 15.19.1). On the Roman reception of philosophy before Cicero, see Lynch (1972) 159–60; Powell (1995b) 14–17; Morford (2002). On earlier Latin philosophical writers, see further Bardon (1952) 205–11; Powell (1988) 8 and (1995b) 26–30.

60 E.g., Att. 13.25.3; cf. Tusc. 5.1, 12, 121. 61 E.g., M. Tullius, qui non tantum perfectus orator, sed etiam philosophus… (Lactantius, de Falsa

religione 1.15); ipse itaque ut vir magnus et doctus et vitae humanae plurimum ac peritissime consulens… (Augustine, C.D. 5.9); unus e numero doctissimorum hominum idemque eloquentissimus omnium, Mar-cus Tullius Cicero… (C.D. 22.6).

62 Marouzeau (1949) 107–24, esp. 119–22 on Cicero’s contribution. 63 See briefly Jones (1959) 31–3; Douglas (1962) 49; Dyck (2003) 12–13; at greater length

Lévy (1992b); Michel (1992); Powell (1995c); Nicolas (2005). Passages that illustrate Cicero’s achievement in self-consciously defining a Latin philosophical vocabulary include Ac. 1.40–41; 2.17–18, 22, 30–31; Fin. 3.3–5, 15, 20–1, 24, 26, 32–5, 39–40, 45, 51–7, 69; 4.72; N.D. 2.29, 47, 53, 58; Tusc. 3.7–11, 16–18.




A third factor is Cicero’s choice of a non-Platonic style of philosophical dialogue consisting of extended speeches, one best suited to his own rhetorical abilities. This reinforced the effect of his closer Greek sources’ literary choices of either the same dialogical style (often called Aristotelian)64 or the written discourse modelled on the kind of lecture apparently called either thesis or scholê, or perhaps diatribê.65 While the format of Cicero’s texts may have its origins in an oral practice, it was already a highly formalized practice, stylistically most like a written text, and so a model for later writers. In sum, from the outset philosophiz-ing in Latin responded to a model that abandoned effective engagement in inter-personal oral dialectic and thus promoted a literary conception of philosophy.66

!64 While Aristotle seems to have made use of long expository speeches in his dialogues, he is

not necessarily the only or the main model for this style of dialogue to influence Cicero, and Cicero’s own reference to an Aristoteleios mos (Att. 13.19.4) is specifically to the writer’s presenta-tion of himself as the main speaker. In another letter (Q. fr. 3.5.1) Cicero makes a distinction on this basis between Aristotle in some of his lost dialogues and the early Academic Heraclides Ponticus; Att. 13.19.4 makes clear that Heraclides regularly included himself as a minor character only, pre-sumably for quasi-historicity, and that until the Ac. (excluding the unpublished Leg., whose charac-ter attributions may in any case be late) Cicero only used the deceased as the main speakers of philosophical works, so as not to give grounds for jealousy to the living (cf. Q. fr. 3.5.2). Accordingly, Cicero’s dialogues take two forms, those set in the relatively remote past with speakers of previous generations (de Orat., Rep., Sen., Amic.), and those set in contemporary or recent circumstances, in which he is himself a character (Leg., Brutus, both editions of the Ac., Fin., apparently the Tusc. [“M”], N.D. [where he is not a major speaker], Div., and Fat.; the fragmentary Hortensius presumably had the cast of the prior Ac. I omit the lost de Gloria). Andrieu (1954) 286–7, 297–300, 312–14, 324–7 provides analysis of the dialogical technique and literary style of Cicero’s philosophical works in comparison with dialogue in drama and other genres of Greek and Latin literature.

65 Jocelyn (1982) and (1983) argues against use of diatribê to refer to a specific kind of text. See also Glucker (1978) 159–66. Cicero uses schola as a Latin term at Tusc. 1.7–8 (cf. 2.26), but in a way that seems to include the possibility of Socratic dialectic, on which see further below. Douglas (1995) 197–204 argues that scholê has a meaning vaguer than “lecture” and should be distin-guished from the term thesis (wherein a teacher argues against a student’s proposition), suggesting that it implies a therapeutic discourse. Given its original sense, I doubt that scholê can be limited in precisely this way; “lesson” or “class” might be more apt (thus including, as one form, the thesis, since that is the mode of the Tusc. books). On the role of the thesis in teaching in the Greek schools, see Hadot (2002) 104–6; Bénatouïl (2006) 421.

66 Musonius Rufus, by contrast, taught in Greek: see Lutz (1947) 17 with n. 62, and cf. 25–30 on his oral teaching style. In any case, notwithstanding Lutz’ defence of his significance (3–5, 24) and his role in teaching Epictetus (17–20 with n. 79), Musonius seems only to have become par-ticularly well-known as a result of his dealings with emperors. See also Van Geytenbeek (1963); Gill (2000) 46–7, cf. 35.



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In two passages, Fin. 2.1–17 and Tusc. 1.9–17, Cicero demonstrates that he can write Socratic dialectic, drawing out the implications of a speaker’s claims, depicting his character by his intellectual reactions, and even producing an explicitly signalled refutation at Tusc. 1.14. But the de Finibus passage is more self-reflective. It begins by distinguishing Socratic dialectic from the speeches of Gorgias and notes that, while Arcesilaus, the first sceptic head of the Academy, revived dialectic (2.2), later Academics, like teachers in other schools, preferred to deliver a speech to refute a student’s claim (which is the characteristic proce-dure Cicero employs in the Tusculans). Cicero, as a character in de Finibus, then goes on to claim and justify a preference for dialectic (2.3), and after some methodological remarks he seeks a definition of pleasure from the Epicurean Torquatus (2.5–6). This leads to an argument about the equivalence of the Latin and Greek terms voluptas and hêdonê, and an extended attack on the Epicurean distinction between different kinds of pleasure, on the ground that both terms must mean just one thing (2.7–17). This attack takes the form of a speech, occasionally stopping to demand answers from Torquatus, something paralleled in some passages of Plato’s Gorgias, for instance where Callicles is grilled at 505d–10a. The de Finibus similarly depicts the breakdown of dialectic as a result of the inability of the respondent. Torquatus finally asks Cicero to give a continuous speech instead (2.18).

Part of Cicero’s point here seems to be to show the consequence of the Epicurean rejection of logic as a part of philosophy. Nevertheless, if we could not compare the (not exactly) parallel passage in the Tusculans, we might mistakenly think that Cicero himself was incapable of writing effective dialectic. This opens the question as to why he otherwise characteristically avoids it in his dialogues, a matter well discussed by Douglas.67

!67 Douglas (1962) 46.

Douglas notes that since Plato’s time, rhetoricians had reduced dialectic to a logical game, so that in context it no longer tended to be persuasive, and also that Cicero’s general aim is to explain and compare systems of thought, for which the continuous speech is more useful. In fact, ideas and conflicts among ideas are generally foregrounded by Cicero over personal intellectual progress, or lack of it, as in Plato. Cicero does not usually write dialectic because his aims include instruction and persuasion: instruction in the range of theories available on a topic among the schools, and persuasion, if not to adopt any of them at least to evaluate them critically. This rhetorical, protreptic aim assimilates his presentation of philosophy to oratory and so (as




with his dissemination of other kinds of oratory in written form) to the require-ment of writing speeches that a reader can evaluate.

A fourth and final factor for Cicero’s influence on the later conception of philosophy is the implication of both his dialogic settings and his dedicatory practices that philosophy is primarily a literary activity. The dialogues do depict oral philosophical exchanges among their characters, but these are located in a context of books and libraries often enough to suggest that texts are the primary location of philosophy, from which oral discussion is derivative. Books 3–4 of de Finibus take place in the younger Lucullus’ library, where Cicero comes to look for some works of Aristotle and meets Cato, who is studying there (3.7). Discus-sion of books continues until 3.10. De Divinatione Book 2 takes place in Cicero’s own library (2.8), following, in the preface, the most complete list Cicero offers of his own philosophical books to that point (2.1–7). Again, the dialogue in both the surviving second book of the first version of the Academica and the first book of the second, revised, version, takes its start from the controversy caused by Antiochus’ publication of his Sosus to refute the apparent innovations of Philo’s Roman Books (Ac. 2.11–12, 18; 1.13).

The location in the dialogues, where specified, is almost always a villa,68 and the occasion either explicitly ludi (e.g., in de Re publica) or implicitly a similar occasion of otium, when otherwise books might be read, disconnected from the public life of a Roman aristocrat in the forum and curia. The remark at Fin. 3.7 that Cato would even read in the curia while waiting for the senate to assemble is the exception that proves the rule here. Philosophy is identified with reading as opposed to practical life. Again, Cicero presents his opportunity to write philosophy, in both the early political dialogues and the series of later works, as a consequence of enforced leisure. Perhaps this is politics carried on by other means, but the means are certainly other than practical politics and public life. Philosophy is no longer a life but a leisurely, literary adjunct to life.69

!68 In the Brutus, the history of oratory that begins Cicero’s last period of literary work (47 or

46–43 BC), the location seems to be his townhouse. But the depicted contemporary occasion, following Caesar’s victory against Pompey, again presents the conversation as occurring during a hiatus in public life, not as the mode of an entirely alternative form of life.

69 The public presentation of philosophy in Cicero’s speeches, by contrast, is clearly con-trived, for the purposes of attacking Cato at Mur. 61–3 and deprecating Cicero’s own knowledge in Pis. 59–70, and is thus of little signficance for his influence on later conceptions of philosophy; see Griffin (1995) 325–6.



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The dedications of Cicero’s books in the prefaces contribute further to identifying philosophy as a literary activity. To Brutus, who had written the lost de Virtute (see e.g. Fin. 1.8), Cicero dedicates not just his Orator and, by implication, his history of Roman oratory, the Brutus, but also, more relevantly, de Finibus, the Tusculans, de Natura Deorum, and the Paradoxa Stoicorum. The conception of philosophy as transacted by the exchange of books is also suggested by Cicero’s revision of the Academica to include Varro as a character, which amounts to a dedication. We can trace this through a series of 12 letters. The first, Att. 13.12.3, of June 45 BC, seems to show that Atticus had reported that Varro sought a dedication from Cicero, to whom Varro had two years previously promised to dedicate his not yet forthcoming de Lingua Latina. Cicero responds by remarking on Varro’s appropriateness as a spokesman for Antiochus’ views.

In the sequence of letters over the following month Cicero reports progress in the revision of Academica, speculates that Varro was motivated by jealousy of Brutus, and frets as to whether it is a good idea to include Varro, mainly, one assumes, lest he be offended by the treatment of his role.70 Finally we have the letter from Cicero to Varro (Fam. 9.8) that serves as the dedication, presenting the revised Academica as a reminder that Varro owes him a dedication. The replacement of oral philosophy by literature is explicitly remarked, puto fore, ut, cum legeris, mirere, nos id locutos esse inter nos, quod numquam locuti sumus. sed nosti morem dialogorum ( “I suppose that on reading it you will be amazed at our having discussed between ourselves something we have never discussed; but you know the practice in dialogues,” 9.8.2). Cicero continues by promising real conversa-tions with Varro, but only once the Republic has been re-established. In light of this comment, the death of the Roman Republic might seem to the modern age like a fateful omen of the eventual (much later) death of lived philosophy. The overall implication of these dedicatory practices of Cicero and his literary associ-ates is thus that philosophy is to be pursued by the composition and exchange of texts, in which oral conversation is at best an imaginary literary artifact, while ultimately philosophy is a genre of literature.71

!70 Att. 13.13/14.1; 14/15.1; 16; 18; 19.3–5; 21a.1; 22.1; 23.2; 24.1; 25; 35/6.2.

71 The letters contain other indications of the treatment of philosophy as literature. In addi-tion to many references in the letters to Atticus to the publication of Cicero’s own works (see, e.g., n. 70), there is for instance Cicero’s request in August 45 BC for a book by the Epicurean Phaedrus Peri theôn and (on a textual restoration, at least) one by Diogenes of Babylon Peri Pallados (Att. 13.39.2). The latter is cited at N.D. 1.41, and at 1.93 an angry response in person by Phaedrus, who had taught Cicero, is reported when he pressed the former on the Epicurean conception of the




Conclusion

This implication was not entirely clear to Cicero himself. As noted above, he

generally and primarily accedes to the contemporary Hellenistic conception of philosophy as an institutionally committed way of life based on an orally transacted intellectual practice, although he is not consistent in this regard. I have argued that, without recognizing this as anything different, Cicero sometimes implies that he thinks of philosophy as instead a matter of reading and writing (and moreover as a leisure activity divorced from practical life). This much alone is not so remarkable, but its importance lies in the fact that these indications that Cicero himself occasionally conceives of philosophy in terms of texts would have been recognized by later readers of Cicero as confirming their practice and conception of philosophy. The post-antique future of philosophy, in this transformed sense, depended on the survival and revival in western Europe of practices of reading, interpreting, emulating and innovating upon classical Latin texts, in particular Latin philosophical texts, beyond the closure of the later Greek schools in the east.72

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!gods. When he came to write N.D., Cicero presumably checked Phaedrus’ book to see if there was a better answer to his question there, but found none. Again this depicts the reference away from philosophy as a rational and interpersonal mode of life to literature as the location of rationality. Cicero’s philosophical works themselves contain several other references to his reading of Greek texts, e.g., Div. 1.6 listing Stoic texts on the topic, although the report at 1.7 of Carneades’ response may derive from Philo’s oral teaching. MacKendrick (1989) 13, citing Putz (1925), calls Cicero’s library “one of the best private collections of all time.”

This brings us back to the question as to how this practice and conception arose and became dominant. My main claim is that, quite apart from the evidence for Cicero’s own thinking, the later reception of his philoso-phical texts played a significant role. Their formal characteristics, in conjunction with their foundational influence in the Latin tradition, modelled and insinuated the idea that philosophy is primarily related to texts. Hence Cicero’s philosophi-cal books contributed significantly to the evolution and eventual dominance of this conception. His works functioned as the primary model of Latin philosophi-cal prose (and of philosophy as prose) in this productive context; he initiated the

72 I do not mean to deny the importance of Arabic philosophy, merely to say that later Lati-nate medieval and modern philosophy would not have developed as they did without the influence of Cicero in the Latin tradition. Without the responsiveness of this western tradition of philosophi-cal reading and writing, medieval Arabic philosophical texts and ideas would not have had the influence they did beyond their own culture.



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process of forging a Latin philosophical vocabulary, both producing terms him-self and discussing how to do so; the frequent use in his dialogues of sequences of extended quasi-formal speeches from different philosophical points of view minimizes the extent to which philosophy is represented as consisting in oral conversation; and his depictions of philosophical practice, by himself as author and by his characters, frequently invoke libraries, reading and book production as the defining context for philosophizing in Latin.

In these respects the reception of Cicero’s philosophical works played a sig-nificant part in the evolution of a new understanding of the nature of philosophy, as primarily a matter of the meanings of texts and the intellectual evaluation of the claims and arguments presented in them. This conception is already sug-gested in the Latin intellectual tradition by the late 4th century and became defini-tive with the late 8th-century Carolingian revival, surviving the general domination of Christianity in late European antiquity over intellectual and moral life in a manner the older conception of philosophy as an autonomous way of life did not.

DOUGAL BLYTH University of Auckland, [email protected]

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Cicero and Philosophy as Texta

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