Academica by Marcus Tullius Cicero

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In the year 51 Cicero, then on his way to Cilicia, revisited Athens, much
to his own pleasure and that of the Athenians. He stayed in the house of
Aristus, the brother of Antiochus and teacher of Brutus. His acquaintance
with this philosopher was lasting, if we may judge from the affectionate
mention in the _Brutus_[47]. Cicero also speaks in kindly terms of Xeno, an
Epicurean friend of Atticus, who was then with Patro at Athens. It was at
this time that Cicero interfered to prevent Memmius, the pupil of the great
Roman Epicurean Lucretius, from destroying the house in which Epicurus had
lived[48]. Cicero seems to have been somewhat disappointed with the state
of philosophy at Athens, Aristus being the only man of merit then resident
there[49]. On the journey from Athens to his province, he made the
acquaintance of Cratippus, who afterwards taught at Athens as head of the
Peripatetic school[50]. At this time he was resident at Mitylene, where
Cicero seems to have passed some time in his society[51]. He was by far the
greatest, Cicero said, of all the Peripatetics he had himself heard, and
indeed equal in merit to the most eminent of that school[52].

The care of that disordered province Cilicia enough to employ Cicero's
thoughts till the end of 50. Yet he yearned for Athens and philosophy. He
wished to leave some memorial of himself at the beautiful city, and
anxiously asked Atticus whether it would look foolish to build a [Greek:
propylon] at the Academia, as Appius, his predecessor, had done at
Eleusis[53]. It seems the Athenians of the time were in the habit of
adapting their ancient statues to suit the noble Romans of the day, and of
placing on them fulsome inscriptions. Of this practice Cicero speaks with
loathing. In one letter of this date he carefully discusses the errors
Atticus had pointed out in the books _De Republica_[54]. His wishes with
regard to Athens still kept their hold upon his mind, and on his way home
from Cilicia he spoke of conferring on the city some signal favour[55].
Cicero was anxious to show Rhodes, with its school of eloquence, to the two
boys Marcus and Quintus, who accompanied him, and they probably touched
there for a few days[56]. From thence they went to Athens, where Cicero
again stayed with Aristus[57], and renewed his friendship with other
philosophers, among them Xeno the friend of Atticus[58].

On Cicero's return to Italy public affairs were in a very critical
condition, and left little room for thoughts about literature. The letters
which belong to this time are very pathetic. Cicero several times contrasts
the statesmen of the time with the Scipio he had himself drawn in the _De
Republica_[59]; when he thinks of Caesar, Plato's description of the tyrant
is present to his mind[60]; when, he deliberates about the course he is
himself to take, he naturally recals the example of Socrates, who refused
to leave Athens amid the misrule of the thirty tyrants[61]. It is curious
to find Cicero, in the very midst of civil war, poring over the book of
Demetrius the Magnesian concerning concord[62]; or employing his days in
arguing with himself a string of abstract philosophical propositions about
tyranny[63]. Nothing could more clearly show that he was really a man of
books; by nothing but accident a politician. In these evil days, however,
nothing was long to his taste; books, letters, study, all in their turn
became unpleasant[64].

As soon as Cicero had become fully reconciled to Caesar in the year 46 he
returned with desperate energy to his old literary pursuits. In a letter
written to Varro in that year[65], he says "I assure you I had no sooner
returned to Rome than I renewed my intimacy with my old friends, my books."
These gave him real comfort, and his studies seemed to bear richer fruit
than in his days of prosperity[66]. The tenor of all his letters at this
time is the same: see especially the remaining letters to Varro and also to
Sulpicius[67]. The _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Paradoxa_, the _Orator_,
and the _Laudatio Catonis_, to which Caesar replied by his _Anticato_, were
all finished within the year. Before the end of the year the _Hortensius_
and the _De Finibus_ had probably both been planned and commenced. Early in
the following year the _Academica_, the history of which I shall trace
elsewhere, was written.

I have now finished the first portion of my task; I have shown Cicero as
the man of letters and the student of philosophy during that portion of his
life which preceded the writing of the _Academica_. Even the evidence I
have produced, which does not include such indirect indications of
philosophical study as might be obtained from the actual philosophical
works of Cicero, is sufficient to justify his boast that at no time had he
been divorced from philosophy[68]. He was entitled to repel the charge made
by some people on the publication of his first book of the later
period--the _Hortensius_--that he was a mere tiro in philosophy, by the
assertion that on the contrary nothing had more occupied his thoughts
throughout the whole of a wonderfully energetic life[69]. Did the scope of
this edition allow it, I should have little difficulty in showing from a
minute survey of his works, and a comparison of them with ancient
authorities, that his knowledge of Greek philosophy was nearly as accurate
as it was extensive. So far as the _Academica_ is concerned, I have had in
my notes an opportunity of defending Cicero's substantial accuracy; of the
success of the defence I must leave the reader to judge. During the
progress of this work I shall have to expose the groundlessness of many
feelings and judgments now current which have contributed to produce a low
estimate of Cicero's philosophical attainments, but there is one piece of
unfairness which I shall have no better opportunity of mentioning than the
present. It is this. Cicero, the philosopher, is made to suffer for the
shortcomings of Cicero the politician. Scholars who have learned to despise
his political weakness, vanity, and irresolution, make haste to depreciate
his achievements in philosophy, without troubling themselves to inquire too
closely into their intrinsic value. I am sorry to be obliged to instance
the illustrious Mommsen, who speaks of the _De Legibus_ as "an oasis in the
desert of this dreary and voluminous writer." From political partizanship,
and prejudices based on facts irrelevant to the matter in hand, I beg all
students to free themselves in reading the _Academica_.

II. _The Philosophical Opinions of Cicero_.

In order to define with clearness the position of Cicero as a student of
philosophy, it would be indispensable to enter into a detailed historical
examination of the later Greek schools--the Stoic, Peripatetic, Epicurean
and new Academic. These it would be necessary to know, not merely as they
came from the hands of their founders, but as they existed in Cicero's age;
Stoicism not as Zeno understood it, but as Posidonius and the other pupils
of Panaetius propounded it; not merely the Epicureanism of Epicurus, but
that of Zeno, Phaedrus, Patro, and Xeno; the doctrines taught in the Lyceum
by Cratippus; the new Academicism of Philo as well as that of Arcesilas and
Carneades; the medley of Academicism, Peripateticism, and Stoicism put
forward by Antiochus in the name of the Old Academy. A systematic attempt
to distinguish between the earlier and later forms of doctrine held by
these schools is still a great desideratum. Cicero's statements concerning
any particular school are generally tested by comparing them with the
assertions made by ancient authorities about the earlier representatives of
the school. Should any discrepancy appear, it is at once concluded that
Cicero is in gross error, whereas, in all probability, he is uttering
opinions which would have been recognised as genuine by those who were at
the head of the school in his day. The criticism of Madvig even is not free
from this error, as will be seen from my notes on several passages of the
_Academica_[70]. As my space forbids me to attempt the thorough inquiry I
have indicated as desirable, I can but describe in rough outline the
relation in which Cicero stands to the chief schools.

The two main tasks of the later Greek philosophy were, as Cicero often
insists, the establishment of a criterion such as would suffice to
distinguish the true from the false, and the determination of an ethical
standard[71]. We have in the _Academica_ Cicero's view of the first
problem: that the attainment of any infallible criterion was impossible. To
go more into detail here would be to anticipate the text of the _Lucullus_
as well as my notes. Without further refinements, I may say that Cicero in
this respect was in substantial agreement with the New Academic school, and
in opposition to all other schools. As he himself says, the doctrine that
absolute knowledge is impossible was the one Academic tenet against which
all the other schools were combined[72]. In that which was most
distinctively New Academic, Cicero followed the New Academy.

It is easy to see what there was in such a tenet to attract Cicero. Nothing
was more repulsive to his mind than dogmatism. As an orator, he was
accustomed to hear arguments put forward with equal persuasiveness on both
sides of a case. It seemed to him arrogant to make any proposition with a
conviction of its absolute, indestructible and irrefragable truth. One
requisite of a philosophy with him was that it should avoid this
arrogance[73]. Philosophers of the highest respectability had held the most
opposite opinions on the same subjects. To withhold absolute assent from
all doctrines, while giving a qualified assent to those which seemed most
probable, was the only prudent course[74]. Cicero's temperament also, apart
from his experience as an orator, inclined him to charity and toleration,
and repelled him from the fury of dogmatism. He repeatedly insists that the
diversities of opinion which the most famous intellects display, ought to
lead men to teach one another with all gentleness and meekness[75]. In
positiveness of assertion there seemed to be something reckless and
disgraceful, unworthy of a self-controlled character[76]. Here we have a
touch of feeling thoroughly Roman. Cicero further urges arguments similar
to some put forward by a long series of English thinkers from Milton to
Mill, to show that the free conflict of opinion is necessary to the
progress of philosophy, which was by that very freedom brought rapidly to
maturity in Greece[77]. Wherever authority has loudly raised its voice,
says Cicero, there philosophy has pined. Pythagoras[78] is quoted as a
warning example, and the baneful effects of authority are often
depicted[79]. The true philosophic spirit requires us to find out what can
be said for every view. It is a positive duty to discuss all aspects of
every question, after the example of the Old Academy and Aristotle[80].
Those who demand a dogmatic statement of belief are mere busybodies[81].
The Academics glory in their freedom of judgment. They are not compelled to
defend an opinion whether they will or no, merely because one of their
predecessors has laid it down[82]. So far does Cicero carry this freedom,
that in the fifth book of the _Tusculan Disputations_, he maintains a view
entirely at variance with the whole of the fourth book of the _De Finibus_,
and when the discrepancy is pointed out, refuses to be bound by his former
statements, on the score that he is an Academic and a freeman[83]. "Modo
hoc, modo illud probabilius videtur[84]." The Academic sips the best of
every school[85]. He roams in the wide field of philosophy, while the Stoic
dares not stir a foot's breadth away from Chrysippus[86]. The Academic is
only anxious that people should combat his opinions; for he makes it his
sole aim, with Socrates, to rid himself and others of the mists of
error[87]. This spirit is even found in Lucullus the Antiochean[88]. While
professing, however, this philosophic bohemianism, Cicero indignantly
repels the charge that the Academy, though claiming to seek for the truth,
has no truth to follow[89]. The probable is for it the true.

Another consideration which attracted Cicero to these tenets was their
evident adaptability to the purposes of oratory, and the fact that
eloquence was, as he puts it, the child of the Academy[90]. Orators,
politicians, and stylists had ever found their best nourishment in the
teaching of the Academic and Peripatetic masters[91]. The Stoics and
Epicureans cared nothing for power of expression. Again, the Academic
tenets were those with which the common sense of the world could have most
sympathy[92]. The Academy also was the school which had the most
respectable pedigree. Compared with its system, all other philosophies were
plebeian[93]. The philosopher who best preserved the Socratic tradition was
most estimable, _ceteris paribus_, and that man was Carneades[94].

In looking at the second great problem, that of the ethical standard, we
must never forget that it was considered by nearly all the later
philosophers as of overwhelming importance compared with the first.
Philosophy was emphatically defined as the art of conduct (_ars vivendi_).
All speculative and non-ethical doctrines were merely estimable as
supplying a basis on which this practical art could be reared. This is
equally true of the Pyrrhonian scepticism and of the dogmatism of Zeno and
Epicurus. Their logical and physical doctrines were mere outworks or
ramparts within which the ordinary life of the school was carried on. These
were useful chiefly in case of attack by the enemy; in time of peace ethics
held the supremacy. In this fact we shall find a key to unlock many
difficulties in Cicero's philosophical writings. I may instance one passage
in the beginning of the _Academica Posteriora_[95], which has given much
trouble to editors. Cicero is there charged by Varro with having deserted
the Old Academy for the New, and admits the charge. How is this to be
reconciled with his own oft-repeated statements that he never recanted the
doctrines Philo had taught him? Simply thus. Arcesilas, Carneades, and
Philo had been too busy with their polemic against Zeno and his followers,
maintained on logical grounds, to deal much with ethics. On the other hand,
in the works which Cicero had written and published before the _Academica_,
wherever he had touched philosophy, it had been on its ethical side. The
works themselves, moreover, were direct imitations of early Academic and
Peripatetic writers, who, in the rough popular view which regarded ethics
mainly or solely, really composed a single school, denoted by the phrase
"Vetus Academia." General readers, therefore, who considered ethical
resemblance as of far greater moment than dialectical difference, would
naturally look upon Cicero as a supporter of their "Vetus Academia," so
long as he kept clear of dialectic; when he brought dialectic to the front,
and pronounced boldly for Carneades, they would naturally regard him as a
deserter from the Old Academy to the New. This view is confirmed by the
fact that for many years before Cicero wrote, the Academic dialectic had
found no eminent expositor. So much was this the case, that when Cicero
wrote the _Academica_ he was charged with constituting himself the champion
of an exploded and discredited school[96].

Cicero's ethics, then, stand quite apart from his dialectic. In the sphere
of morals he felt the danger of the principle of doubt. Even in the _De
Legibus_ when the dialogue turns on a moral question, he begs the New
Academy, which has introduced confusion into these subjects, to be
silent[97]. Again, Antiochus, who in the dialectical dialogue is rejected,
is in the _De Legibus_ spoken of with considerable favour[98]. All ethical
systems which seemed to afford stability to moral principles had an
attraction for Cicero. He was fascinated by the Stoics almost beyond the
power of resistance. In respect of their ethical and religious ideas he
calls them "great and famous philosophers[99]," and he frequently speaks
with something like shame of the treatment they had received at the hands
of Arcesilas and Carneades. Once he gives expression to a fear lest they
should be the only true philosophers after all[100]. There was a kind of
magnificence about the Stoic utterances on morality, more suited to a
superhuman than a human world, which allured Cicero more than the
barrenness of the Stoic dialectic repelled him[101]. On moral questions,
therefore, we often find him going farther in the direction of Stoicism
than even his teacher Antiochus. One great question which divided the
philosophers of the time was, whether happiness was capable of degrees. The
Stoics maintained that it was not, and in a remarkable passage Cicero
agrees with them, explicitly rejecting the position of Antiochus, that a
life enriched by virtue, but unattended by other advantages, might be
happy, but could not be the happiest possible[102]. He begs the Academic
and Peripatetic schools to cease from giving an uncertain sound (balbutire)
and to allow that the happiness of the wise man would remain unimpaired
even if he were thrust into the bull of Phalaris[103]. In another place he
admits the purely Stoic doctrine that virtue is one and indivisible[104].
These opinions, however, he will not allow to be distinctively Stoic, but
appeals to Socrates as his authority for them[105]. Zeno, who is merely an
ignoble craftsman of words, stole them from the Old Academy. This is
Cicero's general feeling with regard to Zeno, and there can be no doubt
that he caught it from Antiochus who, in stealing the doctrines of Zeno,
ever stoutly maintained that Zeno had stolen them before. Cicero, however,
regarded chiefly the ethics of Zeno with this feeling, while Antiochus so
regarded chiefly the dialectic. It is just in this that the difference
between Antiochus and Cicero lies. To the former Zeno's dialectic was true
and Socratic, while the latter treated it as un-Socratic, looking upon
Socrates as the apostle of doubt[106]. On the whole Cicero was more in
accord with Stoic ethics than Antiochus. Not in all points, however: for
while Antiochus accepted without reserve the Stoic paradoxes, Cicero
hesitatingly followed them, although he conceded that they were
Socratic[107]. Again, Antiochus subscribed to the Stoic theory that all
emotion was sinful; Cicero, who was very human in his joys and sorrows,
refused it with horror[108]. It must be admitted that on some points Cicero
was inconsistent. In the _De Finibus_ he argued that the difference between
the Peripatetic and Stoic ethics was merely one of terms; in the _Tusculan
Disputations_ he held it to be real. The most Stoic in tone of all his
works are the _Tusculan Disputations_ and the _De Officiis_.

With regard to physics, I may remark at the outset that a comparatively
small importance was in Cicero's time attached to this branch of
philosophy. Its chief importance lay in the fact that ancient theology was,
as all natural theology must be, an appendage of physical science. The
religious element in Cicero's nature inclined him very strongly to
sympathize with the Stoic views about the grand universal operation of
divine power. Piety, sanctity, and moral good, were impossible in any form,
he thought, if the divine government of the universe were denied[109]. It
went to Cicero's heart that Carneades should have found it necessary to
oppose the beautiful Stoic theology, and he defends the great sceptic by
the plea that his one aim was to arouse men to the investigation of the
truth[110]. At the same time, while really following the Stoics in physics,
Cicero often believed himself to be following Aristotle. This partly arose
from the actual adoption by the late Peripatetics of many Stoic doctrines,
which they gave out as Aristotelian. The discrepancy between the spurious
and the genuine Aristotelian views passed undetected, owing to the strange
oblivion into which the most important works of Aristotle had fallen[111].
Still, Cicero contrives to correct many of the extravagances of the Stoic
physics by a study of Aristotle and Plato. For a thorough understanding of
his notions about physics, the _Timaeus_ of Plato, which he knew well and
translated, is especially important. It must not be forgotten, also, that
the Stoic physics were in the main Aristotelian, and that Cicero was well
aware of the fact.

Very few words are necessary in order to characterize Cicero's estimate of
the Peripatetic and Epicurean schools. The former was not very powerfully
represented during his lifetime. The philosophical descendants of the
author of the _Organon_ were notorious for their ignorance of logic[112],
and in ethics had approximated considerably to the Stoic teaching. While
not much influenced by the school, Cicero generally treats it tenderly for
the sake of its great past, deeming it a worthy branch of the true Socratic
family. With the Epicureans the case was different. In physics they stood
absolutely alone, their system was grossly unintellectual, and they
discarded mathematics. Their ethical doctrines excited in Cicero nothing
but loathing, dialectic they did not use, and they crowned all their errors
by a sin which the orator could never pardon, for they were completely
indifferent to every adornment and beauty of language.

III. _The aim of Cicero in writing his philosophical works_.

It is usual to charge Cicero with a want of originality as a philosopher,
and on that score to depreciate his works. The charge is true, but still
absurd, for it rests on a misconception, not merely of Cicero's purpose in
writing, but of the whole spirit of the later Greek speculation. The
conclusion drawn from the charge is also quite unwarranted. If the later
philosophy of the Greeks is of any value, Cicero's works are of equal
value, for it is only from them that we get any full or clear view of it.
Any one who attempts to reconcile the contradictions of Stobaeus, Diogenes
Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, Plutarch and other authorities, will perhaps
feel little inclination to cry out against the confusion of Ciceros ideas.
Such outcry, now so common, is due largely to the want, which I have
already noticed, of any clear exposition of the variations in doctrine
which the late Greek schools exhibited during the last two centuries before
the Christian era. But to return to the charge of want of originality. This
is a virtue which Cicero never claims. There is scarcely one of his works
(if we except the third book of the _De Officiis_), which he does not
freely confess to be taken wholly from Greek sources. Indeed at the time
when he wrote, originality would have been looked upon as a fault rather
than an excellence. For two centuries, if we omit Carneades, no one had
propounded anything substantially novel in philosophy: there had been
simply one eclectic combination after another of pre-existing tenets. It
would be hasty to conclude that the writers of these two centuries are
therefore undeserving of our study, for the spirit, if not the substance of
the doctrines had undergone a momentous change, which ultimately exercised
no unimportant influence on society and on the Christian religion itself.

When Cicero began to write, the Latin language may be said to have been
destitute of a philosophical literature. Philosophy was a sealed study to
those who did not know Greek. It was his aim, by putting the best Greek
speculation into the most elegant Latin form, to extend the education of
his countrymen, and to enrich their literature. He wished at the same time
to strike a blow at the ascendency of Epicureanism throughout Italy. The
doctrines of Epicurus had alone appeared in Latin in a shape suited to
catch the popular taste. There seems to have been a very large Epicurean
literature in Latin, of which all but a few scanty traces is now lost. C.
Amafinius, mentioned in the _Academica_[113], was the first to write, and
his books seem to have had an enormous circulation[114]. He had a large
number of imitators, who obtained such a favourable reception, that, in
Cicero's strong language, they took possession of the whole of Italy[115].
Rabirius and Catius the Insubrian, possibly the epicure and friend of
Horace, were two of the most noted of these writers. Cicero assigns various
reasons for their extreme popularity: the easy nature of the Epicurean
physics, the fact that there was no other philosophy for Latin readers, and
the voluptuous blandishments of pleasure. This last cause, as indeed he in
one passage seems to allow, must have been of little real importance. It is
exceedingly remarkable that the whole of the Roman Epicurean literature
dealt in an overwhelmingly greater degree with the physics than with the
ethics of Epicurus. The explanation is to be found in the fact that the
Italian races had as yet a strong practical basis for morality in the legal
and social constitution of the family, and did not much feel the need of
any speculative system; while the general decay among the educated classes
of a belief in the supernatural, accompanied as it was by an increase of
superstition among the masses, prepared the way for the acceptance of a
purely mechanical explanation of the universe. But of this subject,
interesting and important as it is in itself, and neglected though it has
been, I can treat no farther.

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