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Cicero

Caroline Bishop

in Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic

This chapter investigates Cicero’s desire to enshrine himself as a classic from a different perspective than the rest of the book. It analyses Cicero’s appropriation not of a classical Greek figure ... More

This chapter investigates Cicero’s desire to enshrine himself as a classic from a different perspective than the rest of the book. It analyses Cicero’s appropriation not of a classical Greek figure but of himself, by examining his self-quotation of his earlier poetry (primarily the Aratea) within his late philosophical dialogues De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. While Cicero likely found the Greek source for his poem, Aratus, quoted within the Greek philosophical works he used as sources for these dialogues, quoting his own poetry obviously carried a different charge. The chapter concludes that by staging the reading of his earlier works within these dialogues, Cicero was modelling the proper way to read his corpus: namely, as a set of works every bit as authoritative as the Greek classics he had adapted throughout his literary career.Less

The Ides of March and After

Andrew Lintott

in Cicero as Evidence: A Historian's Companion

This chapter begins with a discussion of Ciceros's letters following the assassination of Caesar. It then discusses his philosophical projects, which include De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, and De ... More

This chapter begins with a discussion of Ciceros's letters following the assassination of Caesar. It then discusses his philosophical projects, which include De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, and De Fato. Cicero's works on practical ethics, De Amicitia (On Friendship) and De Officiis (On Duties), and correspondence with Matius are considered.Less

Stoics, Epicureans, and the New Academy

in How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology

This chapter analyses the De natura deorum (DND), in which Cicero systematically covered what the three predominant philosophical currents of the time had to say on the various gods and on the ... More

This chapter analyses the De natura deorum (DND), in which Cicero systematically covered what the three predominant philosophical currents of the time had to say on the various gods and on the interpretations that each of these figures generated. Only fragments of the works of the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the philosophers of the New Academy have survived. Balbus, the representative of Stoicism, wonders about the origins of the gods of the popular religion, in the second book of DND. The doctrine against which the attacks of the Epicureans and the Academicians converge is that of the Stoics, which is characterized by two traits, that is, the acceptance of the existence of all the traditional divinities, and the allegorical justification of their nature. Hence, the allegorical interpretation advocated by the Stoics remained predominant for centuries despite of all the attacks.Less

‘Like a Stream of Tullian Eloquence’: Lactantius, Cicero, and the Critique of Roman Religion in the Divine Institutes

Mattias P. Gassman

in Worshippers of the Gods: Debating Paganism in the Fourth-Century Roman West

Formerly professor of Latin in the court of the emperor Diocletian, Lactantius responded to the Tetrarchic ‘Great Persecution’ with the most extensive defence and exposition of Christianity written ... More

Formerly professor of Latin in the court of the emperor Diocletian, Lactantius responded to the Tetrarchic ‘Great Persecution’ with the most extensive defence and exposition of Christianity written in Latin before Augustine’s City of God. His seven-book Divine Institutes, the last Christian apology written before Constantine’s rise to power, credited the invention of pagan cults to a historical King Jupiter. Building on this euhemeristic narrative, Lactantius reinterpreted the philosophical theories surveyed in Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods to attack polytheism as an irrational display of empty religiosity. With the help of Christian cosmology and eschatology, he set the present sufferings of Christians in a grand historical context, predicting the final victory over paganism at the return of Christ, a few centuries after his own day. Lactantius later hailed the victories of Constantine and Licinius as a divine vindication of persecuted Christians. Nevertheless, he still expected pagan domination and persecution to continue until Christ’s return. His eschatology, not the experience of imperial politics, set his basic approach to paganism before and after the ‘Constantinian revolution’.Less

With the Same Voice: Oratory as a Transitional Space

Yelena Baraz

in A Written Republic: Cicero's Philosophical Politics

This chapter examines Cicero’s use of oratory as a means of establishing a connection between his subject matter, philosophy, and traditional public life. The emphasis is on the connection between ... More

This chapter examines Cicero’s use of oratory as a means of establishing a connection between his subject matter, philosophy, and traditional public life. The emphasis is on the connection between philosophy and rhetoric as disciplines and the continuity between Cicero the orator and statesman and Cicero the philosopher. The chapter first considers how Cicero leverages the connection between Academic Skepticism and rhetoric, in contrast to the alienating thought and style of the Stoics exemplified by the person of Cato the Younger. The discussion focuses on the preface to the Paradoxa Stoicorum, which uses the figure of Cato the Younger to work out the relationship between philosophy and active political practice. Drawing on the preface to book one of De Natura Deorum and the preface to book one of Tusculan Disputations, the chapter concludes with an assessment of the continuity between Cicero the orator and Cicero the philosopher.Less