Cicero was busy in the summer of 45 bc. He put the finishing touches to the five books of his De finibus, composed five books of the Tusculan Disputations, and set to work on the De natura deorum, all between the end of May and the end of August. Alongside these, he was also revising the Academica and recasting its characters for the new version.Footnote 1 He was working sometimes at his home in Arpinum and otherwise at his villa at Tusculum, some 16 or so miles south-east of the city of Rome, which became the setting for the Tusculans. His correspondence with Atticus from this period shows that he was not entirely devoted to philosophy or to the combination of morning rhetorical exercises and afternoon philosophical discussion that the Tusculans themselves suggest was his routine (e.g. 2.9; here Cicero also associates this combination of interests with the practice of the Academic sceptic Philo). He regularly received visitors and was in contact with some of the principal actors in the tense political situation of the time. Caesar had defeated the remaining forces loyal to Pompey at the battle of Munda in March and was returning to Rome where he held the position of dictator. The concerns of some senators, including Brutus, about Caesar’s intentions were evident and Cicero, unable or unwilling to make any interventions of his own, was clearly fretful about what Caesar on the one side and Brutus and friends on the other were planning. Cicero’s intention to stress a connection with Brutus is nevertheless clear from his choice of dedicatee for both De finibus and the Tusculans.Footnote 2 As ever, Cicero was preoccupied with thoughts about how Roman society viewed him and what reception his philosophical output was receiving.Footnote 3 He was also concerned about the fate of the various versions and copies of his new works that seem to have been in circulation, particularly since he felt that he was no longer in control of who had access to what and in what state of correction or revision.Footnote 4
He was also living with personal grief. In February of 45 bc, Cicero’s daughter Tullia died from complications after giving birth to her second son. On 8 March he wrote to Atticus
It is like you to want me to recover from my grief, but you are my witness that I have not been remiss on my own behalf. Nothing has been written by any author on the alleviation of grief which I did not read in your house. But my sorrow (dolor) is stronger than any consolation. I have even done something which I imagine no one has ever done before, consoled myself in a literary composition. I shall send you the piece as soon as the copyists have finished it. I can assure you there is no consolation as effective as this.
Some fragments of this consolatory work survive in quotations in Lactantius, and Cicero himself cites a passage from it concerning the divine nature of the soul at Tusc. 1.66. Tusc. 3.76 also refers to the Consolatio and suggests that it used all available methods of persuasion: Cicero’s soul was in such turmoil (erat enim in tumore animus) that every form of cure was attempted. Perhaps some indication of its contents, or at least the general manner in which Roman elites were prepared to discuss such losses, can be glimpsed in the letters sent to Cicero from Athens by Servius Sulpicius Rufus and Cicero’s reply.Footnote 5 These letters lack any obvious recourse to particular philosophical views, let alone any significant thoughts about the nature of the soul, but they both marshal general thoughts about how to understand and perhaps come to a less painful view of the loss of a loved one. A later exchange with Brutus, the dedicatee of the Tusculans, sheds further light on the ways in which personal grief and the more public performance of Roman friendship and virtue were closely intertwined. At some time towards the end of June 43 bc, Cicero writes to Brutus, who is in Greece with an army, because he has learned of the death of Porcia, Brutus’ wife.
I should do you the same office as you did for me in my bereavement and write you a letter of consolation if I did not know that you have no need in your grief of the remedies with which you alleviated mine. And I hope you find healing now in your own case easier than you found it in mine. It is not like so great a man as you to be unable to do the very thing he recommended to another. The arguments which you assembled and my respect for yourself held me back from undue sorrowing. For when you thought I was taking the blow less bravely than a man should, especially one who was in the habit of consoling others, you wrote and taxed me in terms more severe than you are accustomed to use. And so, esteeming your judgement highly and in awe of it, I pulled myself together and felt that all I had learned and read and been taught gained added weight from your authority.
The precise tone of this letter is not easy to determine, perhaps deliberately so. Evidently, Brutus had admonished Cicero for failing to bear the death of Tullia in quite the proper manner (at least, that is how Cicero understood Brutus’ letter) and now Cicero returns the favour, reminding Brutus that he must already have a fine reservoir of advice to use for his own grief.Footnote 6 Nevertheless, Cicero is keen to let Brutus know how this was a useful impetus to restoring equanimity of a kind, once coupled with Cicero’s own extensive learning. Some of that learning, along with Cicero’s skill of expression, is set out in the Tusculans, with which Brutus should also be familiar. In any event, these letters should remind us that things were moving fast for Cicero and his friends and rivals. This was a period in which the civil wars were producing regular occasions for grief, sorrow, and the contemplation of the proper relationship between virtue, happiness, and suffering.
In short, the general picture we can assemble of Cicero in the summer of 45 bc is of a man still grieving for his daughter and desperately concerned for the future of the Roman Republic. He feels that political events are happening at some distance from him, even though the city of Rome is relatively close, and he has thrown himself into an intense period of philosophical writing partly because he can do little else.Footnote 7 The opening of Tusc. 1.1 euphemistically expresses his situation as one of being freed – liberatus – from the burdens of legal and senatorial matters. Cicero’s freedom is central to his self-presentation in this work; he is free not only from political and legal duties but also from partisan commitment to any particular philosophical school and so he is at liberty to pick and choose between whatever seems most plausible to him as he constructs his disputationes regardless of school origin.
Cicero explains the choice of topic and format for his work in the preface to Book 1. He tells Brutus that he has attempted to combine Roman eloquence with Greek philosophical insight and has put together what he terms scholae in ‘the manner of the Greeks’ (Tusc. 1.7). What this term means, precisely, is a matter of some debate. Cicero evidently thinks that it at least includes some notion of rhetorical extemporisation and perhaps also a teaching context. He tells Brutus that he has recently spent time in Tusculum with friends and called upon them to put forward some topic of their choosing and, in return, he would offer a disputatio as they sat and walked together. He also calls this a form of declamatio: an old man’s counterpart of the practice legal speeches that young lawyers were asked to produce as part of their rhetorical training (1.7).Footnote 8 This picture is then complicated by a further characterisation of the procedure:
That is why I have compiled the scholae of those five days, as the Greeks term them, in five books. We proceeded as follows: once whoever wished to be the respondent had set out his view (quid sibi videretur), I argued against it. For that, as you know, is the old Socratic method of arguing against someone else’s view. Socrates thought that this is how what is most like the truth (quid veri simillimum) was most easily discovered. But so that our discussions might be set out in as convenient a fashion as possible, I shall write them out as a direct dialogue (quasi agatur res) and not in a reported form (quasi narrator).
This understanding of the ‘Socratic method’ and its aim is familiar from the sceptical Academy to which Cicero elsewhere claims an allegiance. Certainly, the aim of finding not necessarily the truth but rather what most resembles the truth or is the most plausible position is associated with the procedure of the Academy and they certainly claimed to be following Socrates’ lead in this. We were told earlier that Cicero would invite some interlocutor to propose a topic for discussion or, more precisely, a topic about which they would like to listen to Cicero’s declamatio. But it soon becomes clear that this interlocutor not only proposed a topic but also offered an opinion on that topic for Cicero to oppose. This is, in fact, exactly the form in which the discussion of Book 1 begins with the interlocutor declaring: ‘It seems to me that death is a harm’. What follows this proposal in the rest of the book then combines a Socratic discussion of a form familiar from some of Plato’s dialogues with a longer form of extended persuasive speech. First, Cicero takes up the proposed view and, with some quick-fire questioning, rapidly shows the interlocutor that in fact he should abandon that view. Then, at 1.16, the interlocutor positively invites Cicero to offer an uninterrupted speech (continens oratio) in support of the proposition that death is not only not a harm but is in fact a benefit. That oratio continues for the remainder of the book.Footnote 9
In Book 1 Cicero combines, therefore, in series if not in parallel, a short period of Socratic interrogation with a display of what Roman eloquence can do with Greek philosophical material.Footnote 10 And Book 1 offers a relatively clear example of the kind of philosophical method that Cicero employs. He argues against the initial proposition in two ways. First, he shows the interlocutor that they themselves should not hold that opinion and then he offers a defence of the opposite opinion. By ‘opposite’ here, I mean not just that Cicero defends the negation of the initial proposition (‘Death is not a harm’) but rather that he defends at length a contrary view (‘Death is a benefit’). The interlocutor is then made to explain just how effective Cicero’s methods are. At 1.112, after reassuring Cicero that the speech was certainly not over-long, he explains that at first the effect was to make him long for death but that now the whole oratio is completed, he finds himself of the view that death is not a harm.Footnote 11 This final position, we are to assume, is what turns out to be the most plausible and is therefore the position to adopt with all the usual Academic disclaimers. That is to say, it is the position which the principal participants in the dialogue at hand end up finding the most plausible while usually retaining the freedom to reconsider the matter in the light of any new suggestions.Footnote 12 In Book 1, at least, we are therefore presented with a form of therapy via the presentation of a sustained argument in support of a view that is incompatible with the original proposition. Insofar as Cicero’s character ‘A’ eventually finds it plausible that death is indeed a benefit then this will weigh against his initial opinion (what seems to him to be the case) that death is a harm. The final position he arrives at is that he has abandoned this initial opinion and that seems to be the principal object of Cicero’s procedure rather than the intention to put some specific alternative positive commitment in its place.Footnote 13 Cicero gives more support for the notion that the general method in the Tusculans is to argue against a position when he has Hirtius present this interpretation of the work early in On Fate:
But I am acquainted with the rhetorical discourses of your school; I have often heard you engage in them and shall also hear you do so in the future. Moreover, your Tusculan Disputations show that you have adopted this Academic practice of arguing against a thesis someone proposes (contra popositum disputandi); consequently, I am willing to propose some thesis in order to hear the counterarguments (ad quod audiam), provided this is not disagreeable to you.
This report is a little surprising, not because it does not fit what we find when we read the Tusculans but because the Tusculans themselves are not as consistent as we might like in describing the procedure being presented. As we have seen, Tusc. 1.8 promises the Socratic method of arguing against a thesis and this is what Hirtius refers to as an ‘Academic practice’ (Academicorum consuetudo). However, in the preface to Book 2 of the Tusculans, the practice claimed for both the Peripatetics and the Academy which is supposedly followed by the conversations at Tusculum is described with the slightly different formula of ‘arguing on opposing sides of the dispute’ (in contrarias partes disserendi: 2.9).Footnote 14 We might remark that there is very little attempt in Book 1 to present an argument in defence of the view that death is a harm – what we find there is closer to Hirtius’ description of arguing against a proposal – but perhaps we are supposed to imagine that this propositum that death is a harm is a view that is so immediately plausible that no further argument on that side is needed; rather, we have to spend all our time proving an argument against the proposal to balance it out. Nevertheless, there is nothing like the pairing of speeches that we find in De finibus, De natura deorum, or De divinatione first in favour of a certain philosophical view and then against. In fact, if there is any arguing on both sides of a question to be found in the Tusculans then it tends to be in the form of an argument between philosophical schools rather than a sustained debate both for and against the assertion, for example, that pain is the greatest evil.Footnote 15 Nevertheless, this method of arguing on both sides of a proposition is said at Tusc. 2.9 to have the very same epistemological benefit of revealing the view most like the truth as was ascribed to the ‘Socratic’ method of arguing against a thesis (propositum) at 1.8. There is little interest in insisting on any significant difference between arguing against a thesis and arguing on both sides of a dispute, except that the former is principally associated with Socrates and the latter is mostly associated with the Peripatetics – Aristotle is said to have been the first to practise it – and the Hellenistic Academy. This latter version is also associated with the development of oratorical excellence.Footnote 16 Cicero remains consistent in his general view of the broad history of philosophy to his day. In short, he tended to the view that all the ‘ancient’ philosophers were in general agreement about most every matter of genuine philosophical importance, particularly questions concerning the importance of virtue as a necessary and sufficient condition of living well. But their overall methods are said also to be understood as broadly of a piece with one another.Footnote 17
As for the Stoics, they too are often embraced in this lineage. At Tusc. 4.6, for example, M refers to the ‘true and refined’ (vera et elegans) philosophy that began with Socrates and has been preserved by Peripatetics and Academics. The Stoics are then said to have said the same thing as the Peripatetics, although in their mutual disagreements they used different terms. We can leave aside for now, at least, the plausibility of that interpretation of the state of philosophy in the late Hellenistic period or, for that matter, in the 300 or so years leading up to Cicero’s time. Detailed accounts of whether and how Cicero manages to accommodate material from all of these various schools can be left to the discussions of each book and each theme in the chapters that follow. What is important, for now, is the simple point that Cicero begins the Tusculans with an attitude that is prepared to make use of the best of what all of these schools have to offer, worrying only if absolutely necessary about material differences between them. Such a view certainly fits nicely with Cicero’s own general stance and his commitment only to propose what seems plausible to him without any commitment to any specific school’s view. But it also is well suited to a consolatory mood according to which the principal aim of the discussion is to remove fear, grief, and other disturbances. The one school of philosophers who are not to be welcomed into the general consensus are, of course, the Epicureans. While they may be right to think that death is not a harm, they come to that conclusion based on the disreputable view that the soul is mortal. And their view that physical pain is a harm is dismissed even more quickly. Epicurus is right to say that the wise person will never be unhappy but M has no time for the Epicureans’ advice on avoiding distress and much less for the style in which they express themselves (3.32–51, 5.31). Anything the Epicureans have to say beyond the most general platitudes is based upon their woefully misguided hedonism.
It is not the place of this introduction to cover the details of the various books and their respective arguments and methods. The chapters that follow will cover that material in some depth. But there are patterns discernible throughout the work.Footnote 18 And it may be of use to set out in brief terms how it is organised. In De divinatione Cicero summarised the Tusculans in his catalogue of his own philosophical works so far:
And, since the foundation of philosophy rests on the distinction between good and evil, I exhaustively treated that subject in five volumes in such a way as to make known the conflicting views of the different philosophers. Next, and in the same number of volumes, came the Tusculan Disputations, which made plain what is most necessary for a happy life. The first volume is about indifference to death, the second enduring pain, the third the alleviation of distress, the fourth of other psychological disturbances; and the fifth contains a topic which particularly illuminates all of philosophy since it teaches that virtue is sufficient by itself for attaining happiness.
The list of the respective topics of each book is clear enough and tallies perfectly with the work as we have it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this summary, however, is the general characterisation of the Tusculans as making plain (aperuerunt) those things that are most necessary for living a good life. In other words, these are the most crucial attitudes for anyone who is interested in a happy life: they need to have no fear of death, to withstand pain, to be able to alleviate mental distress and other psychological disturbances and, finally, hold the opinion that virtue is sufficient for happiness. These are, we might say, the bare bones of any general understanding of human well-being and the Tusculans set out to make a case for each of these opinions in turn. Whereas De finibus is dedicated to setting out the conflicting views on final goods and evils from different philosophical schools, the Tusculans have the different aim of making evident to everyone those core opinions necessary for a good life and attempting to inculcate those opinions through the persuasive demolition of their denial.Footnote 19
Books 1 and 2 portray discussions on consecutive days and involve the same two discussants. The discussants are marked in most manuscripts simply as ‘M’ and ‘A’, where ‘M’ certainly seems to stand for Marcus since Cicero the author presents this role in the first person and M is evidently the host in the villa in Tusculum. ‘A’, on the other hand, is not named and we get to know relatively little about him other than that he is presumably one of the friends who was staying with Cicero in Tusculum and that he is relatively young: M refers to him as ‘adulescens’ at 2.28. We might add that A has a good background in general literary education and in some philosophy. At least, he seems to have a liking for Plato and has read the Phaedo more than once (1.24, 1.39). He has been to Athens and listened to some philosophy lectures there (2.26). In short, A is a good and well-educated Roman youth and we need to know no more about him. But A is an ideal interlocutor for Cicero in various ways. He is refreshingly open to changing his mind and promises, using what we might recognise as a Socratic refrain, to ‘follow the argument wherever it leads’ (2.15; cf. Pl. Euthyphro 14c3–5, Republic 394d8–9). While offering some, albeit short-lived, resistance to M’s train of thought, he is both appreciative of the length and splendour of his declamation and also appropriately benefitted by the therapy it provides.
Book 3 presents the discussion from day three, which again takes place in the afternoon in Cicero’s ‘Academy’. Again, M’s interlocutor is labelled ‘A’ in the manuscripts but we should not assume it is the same person as in the previous two books, although we are encouraged to assume that this A is one of those present on the two previous days who were called upon to reconvene at the usual time at the end of Book 2 (2.67). Book 3 begins when ‘someone’ (aliquis) is called upon to propose the topic and chooses to offer the opinion that the wise person is subject to distress (aegritudo; 3.7). This interlocutor has even less to say than the counterpart interlocutor in Book 2. The pattern of Book 3 is repeated in Book 4 where it seems the interlocutor is the same as in Book 3 (4.8). In Book 5.11 a new unnamed ‘someone’ proposes an opinion and M declaims in response.Footnote 20 There is no reason to think that any of the last three days’ discussions are prompted by the same interlocutor as in the first two books and, in fact, the interlocutor becomes little more than a convenient prompt for Cicero’s lengthy exposition. They are given little characterisation and there is certainly no sense in which Cicero is striving to ensure that what his characters say will be appropriate to any specific individuals, which was the motivation in part for his decision to produce a radical revision of his Academica earlier that year.Footnote 21 Overall, by far the most commanding voice is Cicero’s own and we are offered no reason to make any distinction between the M who presents the long disputationes and the Marcus Cicero whom we know as the author of the five books.Footnote 22 In fact, we are positively encouraged to identify M with Cicero the author. On the fifth day, the interlocutor says that he has just read De finibus 4 and offers a brief summary of its stance on the differences between Peripatetic and Stoic ethics. M takes the opportunity to remind us that he is indeed free and not bound by anything he has said or written previously: he lives ‘day by day’ and accepts what strikes him at any moment as most plausible, no matter whatever else may previously have seemed to him to be plausible.Footnote 23
The close of the work also draws attention to its textuality and careful composition. M announces that they have come to the end of their five days of discussion but in doing so promises the swift production of the very work these words conclude:
But, since we have to leave in the morning, let us hold in our memory the discussions of the last five days. As for me, I think I will also write them up – what better use is there of my leisure, no matter its cause? – and I will send these additional five books to my friend Brutus, who not only encouraged me to write philosophy but also challenged me to do so. I cannot easily say what benefit I might receive from this. For my own pains, at any rate, so severe as they are and the various surrounding problems, no other consolation could be found.
Having just sent the five books of De finibus to Brutus, Cicero will now record the discussions of the last five days and without delay send those to Brutus too. In this way the end of the work points us back to the beginning and to its dedication. Brutus had only just left Tusculum a few days before the discussions the Tusculans present. How fortunate he must have felt to be able to catch up so soon on what he missed.
Whatever we make of Cicero and his concern for his own self-presentation, the final words of this work are hard to read without thinking again of the fact that he was indeed suffering not only grief and anguish at the death of his daughter but also considerable concerns and fears for his own life and for the well-being of his friends and the Republic itself. It is perhaps worth remarking that M does not say that his own personal sorrows have been removed by these Tusculan Disputations but only, in terms that are echoed in his letter to Atticus of 8 March, that these disputationes provide the only consolation available and that no other consolation is more effective.Footnote 24
