This chapter assess the philosophical foundation for Cicero’s views on human social relationships and community in the Roman Republic. Starting from De officiis 1.153, I argue that such a foundation is provided by the specifically Stoic notion of the community of gods and human beings, and of human beings as sharing rationality. The De officiis is then assessed on the basis of Cicero’s emphasis on the social aspect of virtue. The remainder of the chapter traces this same theme throughout Cicero’s theoretical writings (including his works on rhetoric), first in the earlier De inventione, De legibus, and De republica, and second in the De finibus and the Tusculanae Disputationes. Hence the commitment to this Stoic foundation for sociability is a constant in Cicero’s oeuvre.

This chapter provides a critical account of Cicero’s discussion of the nature of the soul and the emotions in the Tusculan Disputations. The first two sections trace the key steps of Cicero’s argumentation as he critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various competing views in the Greek philosophical tradition. Cicero ultimately purports to favor Plato’s position on the immortality of the soul and the Stoics’ cognitivist account of the emotions. The final section draws attention to the ways in which Cicero employs and evaluates these philosophical resources in the realm of therapeutic practice, as he reflects on his own experience of suffering and loss. Cicero showcases the practical utility of a flexible therapeutic model that focuses on the transformation of beliefs: while he clearly favors the Stoic explanation of the emotions, he does not feel compelled to recommend only the therapy in agreement with that explanation. This pragmatic approach can be seen as a distinctive aspect of Cicero’s own philosophical practice.