Jrsity of California uthern Regional ibrary Facility CICERO'S T USC ULAN DISPUTATIONS I. ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH. II. ON BEARING PAIN. III. ON GRIEF. IV. ON THE PASSIONS. V. IS VIRTUE SUFFICIENT FOR HAPPINESS ? TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1886. Copyright, 1886, BY ANDREW P. PEABODT. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. STACK ANNEX SYNOPSIS. BOOK I. 1. Reasons for discussing philosophical subjects in Latin. 2. Poetry and art cultivated in Rome at a comparatively late period. 3. Oratory cherished at an earlier time. Philosophy neglected. 4. Plan of the Tusculan Disputations. 5. " Whether death is an evil," proposed as the subject for the first day. 6. The stories about the under-world, fictitious. 7. The dead not miserable, if they have ceased to be. 8. Death, on that supposition, is not an evil. 9. Different theories as to the nature of the soul, and as to its fate when the body dies. 10. Aristotle's fifth element, as constituting the soul. 11. The theories of the soul inconsistent, and those con- sistent, with its continued life. 12. The belief of the ancients in immortality proved by com- memorative rites and the honor paid to sepulchres. 13. On this, as on every subject, the common sensejjf mankind is the law plnature. 14. Instinctive consciousness of immortality. 15. Men crave posthumous praise because they expect to enjoy it. j^ i ***. \ -v. N^* <^. ^ 16. Absurd notions'as to the shades of the dead. 17. Souls must tend upward when they leave the body. iv Synopsis. 18. Reasons for so believing. 19. The soul's flight traced. 20. Perception a function, not of the organs of sense, but of the soul. 21. Absurdity of the philosophy which denies the con- tinued existence of the soul. 22. No greater difficulty in conceiving of the soul's life when disembodied, than when in the body. 23. Plato's argument for the soul's future from its past eternity. 24. Alleged reminiscences of a previous existence. 25. The powers of the soul proofs of its immortality. 26. Poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, God inspired, and therefore tokens of a divine and immortal life. 27. A quotation from Cicero's Consolatio, on the divine origin of the soul. 28. The greatness of the soul attested by its capacity_qf contemplating the universe. 29. We know the soul in the same way in which we know God. The death of Socrates. 30. What Socrates said in dying about the destiny of souls. 31. Life apart from the body the only true life. 32. Objections to immortality. The soul inherits the qualities of its parents, and therefore begins to be, and whatever begins to be must cease to be. It is also liable to disease, and therefore mortal. 33. Heredity denied. Disease belongs to the body, not to the soul. 34. If death is the end of life, it yet is no evil. 35. Instances in which death would have been prefera- ble to continued life. 36. If death is the end of life, it involves no sense of want. 37. Instances in which death has been faced with alacrity. 38. The wise man will plan for eternity, whether he be immortal or not. Synopsis. v 39. We have no just claim to continued life beyond death. 40. The contempt of death shown by Theramenes. 41. Dying words of Socrates, quoted from the Phaedo. 42. Courage of the Spartans in near view of death. 43. Instances of the contempt of death on the part of philosophers. 44. Superstitions about the suffering of the unburied body after death. 45. Various modes of disposing of dead bodies. 46. Death in full prosperity to be desired rather than feared. 47. Instances in which death has been conferred by the gods as a pre-eminent benefit and blessing. 48. Instances in which death has been sought and wel- comed. 49. The disposition in which death should be waited for and met. BOOK II. 1. Grounds on which philosophy is distrusted or despised. 2. Desirableness of original writings in that department, instead of depending on the Greeks. 3. Worthlessness of the Epicurean treatises that have already appeared in the Latin tongue. 4. The true work of philosophy, though not always wrought for philosophers themselves. 5. The thesis for discussion, " Pain is the greatest of all evils." 6. Philosophers who have taken that ground. 7. Inconsistency of Epicurus. 8. Lamentation of Hercules on Mount Oeta, from the Trachiniae of Sophocles. vi Synopsis. 9. The same, continued. 10. Lamentation of Prometheus on Mount Caucasus, from Aeschylus. 11. Wrong notions propagated by the poets, whom Plato therefore excludes from his ideal republic. 12. On this subject they have been too well seconded by philosophers. 13. If disgrace is worse than pain, this consideration alone puts pain in the background. 14. Pain subdued by courage and patience. 15. Resemblance and difference between labor and pain. 16. Power of endurance developed in military service. 17. Examples of endurance in athletes, hunters, gladiators. 18. Pain not so much in endurance as it seems in thought. 19. Epicurus, on pain. 20. Virtue, personified, treats pain as of no account when compared with moral evil. 21. What self-government means. 22. Signal examples of brave endurance. 23. How far the sense of pain may have expression. 24. The strong manifestation of suffering unworthy of a man. 25. Contrasted examples of this and its opposite. 26. The power of the sentiment of honor. 27. How the capacity of bearing pain is to be strengthened. BOOK III. 1 . Sources of error in home life and nurture. 2. In the poets and in public opinion. 3. Disorders of the soul more numerous and harmful than those of the body. 4. Subject for discussion, " The wise man is liable to grief." Synopsis. vii 5. Distinction between " insanity " and " madness." 6 Grief to be not diminished, but extirpated. 7. The wise man is incapable of grief. 8. The virtues, considered separately and collectively, are incompatible with grief. 9. The wise man is never angry. 10. Nor yet liable to pity, or to envy. 11. False opinion, the cause of grief and of all other per- turbations of mind. Perturbations classified. 12. Groundlessness and frequent shamelessness of grief. 13. Grief, the severest and least tolerable of the pertur- bations. 14. Premeditation on possible misfortune, a remedy for grief. 15. Opinion of Epicurus on this point. 16. His remedy, that of calling the thoughts away from grief, impossible. 17. Imagined protest of one of the old philosophers against the Epicurean doctrine as to grief. 18. The theory of Epicurus as to pleasure, that it consists wholly in the gratification of the senses. 19. This theory applied to the relief of sorrow under heavy calamity. 20. Epicurus contradicts himself. 21. Cicero's theory of pleasure, diametrically opposed to that of Epicurus. 22. The opinion of the Cyrenaic school, that grief owes its intensity to its suddenness. 23. How far this is true. Efficacy of example as giving relief in sorrow. 24. Examples cited. 25. In some aspects the commonness and inevitableness of grief enhance, instead of diminishing, its in- tensity. 26. Grief enhanced by the belief or feeling that it is under certain circumstances fitting and right. viii Synopsis. 27. Grief in many cases voluntarily assumed, in some, voluntarily postponed. 28. There is then no actual necessity for it. 29. Reasons why the burden of grief is taken up. 30. That grief is removed by time while its cause re- mains, shows that it is unnecessary. 31. The doctrine of the Peripatetics, that in this, as in everything else, the right is the mean between two extremes. 32. Modes of administering consolation. 33. Different modes are required by different persons. 34. Philosophy proffers an entire and absolute cure for grief. BOOK IV. 1. The Pythagorean philosophy in Magna Graecia. 2. Vestiges of it in Roman history, institutions and cus- toms. 3. The study of philosophy in Rome. 4. The subject of discussion, "Whether the wise man is liable to perturbations of mind." 5. The soul divided by the ancients into the part pos- sessed of reason and that void of reason. 6. Perturbation denned as " a commotion of mind con- trary to reason." 7. Perturbations the consequence of false opinions. 8. Various forms of grief and of fear defined. 9. The phases of pleasure and of inordinate desire de- fined. 10. Diseases and sicknesses of soul, produced by pertur- bations. 11. The disgusts which are the opposites of these diseases and sicknesses. Synopsis. ix 12. Difference between occasional and habitual pertur- bations. 13. Analogy between imperfections of the mind and those of the body. 14. Healthy bodies can be, healthy minds cannot be, at- tacked by sickness or disease. 15. Virtue, the only cure for the diseased mind. 16. All the perturbations, whether painful or joyful, in their nature and effect pernicious. 17. Freedom from perturbations makes life happy. Ab- surdity in this respect of the Peripatetic doctrine of a mean between extremes. 18. Moderation in what is faulty is not only evil, but dangerous. 19. The grounds on which anger and inordinate desire are commended as serviceable. 20. The grounds on which grief in moderation is justified. 21. Anger never necessary. 22. Signal instances of courage without anger. . 23. Anger differs little from insanity. 24. Courage defined. 25. Inordinate desire is never serviceable. 26. Nor is emulation, detraction, or pity. 27. Curative treatment of the perturbations. 28. The best cure is the belief that they are vicious in their very nature. 29. The evil of inordinate desire is not diminished by the worth of its object. 30. Fear must be prevented or subdued by contempt for its objects. 31. All perturbations are matters of opinion, voluntary, under our own control. 32. Love, treated indulgently by the poets. 33. By some philosophers, also. 34. Platonic love unreal and absurd. 35. The cure of love. x Synopsis. 36. The sons of Atreus cited as instances of implacable anger. 37. Perturbations of mind always the result of error of belief or of judgment. 38. Therefore curable by philosophy. BOOK V. 1. Virtue, always superior to fortune. 2. Philosophy invoked as the sole safe guide and the supreme joy of life. 3. Wisdom immeasurably older than its name, "Philos- ophy." 4. Origin of this name. 5. Subject of discussion, " Whether virtue is sufficient for a happy life." 6. Virtue makes man happy by freeing him from pertur- bations of every kind. 7. Modes of discussion employed by the Stoics. 8. Does the necessary agency of virtue in producing hap- piness imply that virtue is the only good ? 9. Theophrastus maintains that misfortunes and calami- ties can make life miserable. 10. Happiness implies the absence of evil, and thus the non-reality of what are commonly called evils. 11. Cicero explains his own apparent lack of self-con- sistency. 12. Socrates cited, and his words, as given by Plato, quoted, as identifying happiness with virtue. 13. The soul designed and adapted for perfection. 14. Happiness must of necessity be impregnable. 15. What is not right cannot be good. 16. The objects, special or preferable, but not good, rec- ognized by the Stoics. Synopsis. xi 17. If vice produces misery, virtue, the opposite of vice, must of necessity produce happiness, the opposite of misery. 18. If virtue will not produce the happiest life possible, the worth of virtue is discredited. 19. Caius Laelius contrasted with Cinna; Catulus, with Marius. 20. The wretchedness of Dionysius, of Syracuse. 21. The story of Damocles. 22. The story of Damon and Phintias. 23. Dionysius and Archimedes compared. 24. Happiness of the wise man in the study and contem- plation of Nature. 25. The fruits of wisdom in character. 26. Epicurus, though illogically, maintains that the wise man is always happy. 27. Instances in which pain is cheerfully endured and incurred. 28. A happy life can stand the severest test of torture and suffering. 29. Reserve of the Peripatetics on the question at issue. 30. Various opinions as to the supreme good. 31. Yet, if self-consistent, the Peripatetics must admit that the virtuous man alone is happy. 32. Simple living praised. Examples of contentment with little. 33. Pleasures as classified by Epicurus. His rule for estimating pleasures and pains. 34. Temperance the means of the highest enjoyment, as regards food. 35. Simple fare and gluttony contrasted. Poverty no evil. 36. The lack of popularity is not to be dreaded. 37. Nor is unmerited exile an evil. 38. Blindness does not interfere with a wise man's hap- piness. Cases in point. xii Synopsis. 39. The blindness of Diodotus, Asclepiades, Democritus, Homer. 40. Deafness not destructive of happiness. Death a refuge from accumulated physical privations or sufferings. 41. The Stoics and Peripatetics substantially agreed as to the relation of virtue to happiness. INTRODUCTION. IN the sixty-second year of his age (B. c. 46), ] Cicero was overwhelmed by a series of public and domestic calamities. Julius Caesar, virtually sove- reign of the Eoman world, would have purchased \p -, his adherence at almost any price ; but Cicero was not a man to be bought. He remained loyal to the Republic, of whose restoration he despaired, but whose memory made the usurper's yoke intolerably galling and oppressive. Of course, there was no longer a place for a free man and a patriot in the sycophantic Senate, nor would his services as an advocate have been propitious to a client's interest, in courts of law created by, and slavishly subservi- ent to, the ruling power. His chosen vocation, that of an orator, was thus suspended, with little hope of an opportunity for resuming it ; while the Philip- pics, two years later, showed, in all that made him , the most eloquent man of his time, if not of all time, culmination, not decline. Meanwhile, his home, which would have been his ( not unwelcome refuge from the toil and care of public life, was made desolate. He was led, evi- xiv Introduction. dently not without reasons that would have seemed more than sufficient to the most rigid moralist of that age, to repudiate his wife Terentia, after a union of thirty-two years. About the same time, his utterly worthless son-in-law Dolabella repudi- ated his beloved daughter Tullia, who was dearer to him than any other human being had ever been. Tullia, at her father's Tusculan villa, gave birth to a son, the offspring of that brief and ill-starred union, and died suddenly at a moment of apparent convalescence. Under these accumulated trials Cicero had re- course to philosophy for support and relief; and, an eclectic in feeling and habit even more than in principle, he sought in the writings of the various schools with which he was conversant such rem- edies as they proffered. With him reading and writing seem to have been simultaneous processes. His philosophical works always have the air of being composed with his books not only close at hand, but very fresh in his recollection. In the stress of sorrow he wrote the Consolatio, in which he compiled all the suggestions of comfort and hope that came to him from his favorite authors, in part as they fell under his eye, in part as, inwardly digested and assimilated, they took such shape as his own mind alone could have given them. Of this treatise we know little except from him, but so much through his frequent references to it and quotations from it as to make us deeply regret its Introduction, xv irrecoverable loss. It was manifestly an intensely subjective treatise, his own strong self-exhortation, bearing the deep impress of his grief-stricken soul and of the manly fortitude and courage with which he girded himself for his remaining life-work. In this treatise he laid full stress on the night-side of human experience, on the fickleness of fortune and the liability of the most prosperous life to bereave- ment in all that has been its joy, pride and glory ; but at the same time he half lifted the veil soon to be rent away by the Lord of life from the realm beyond the death-shadow, expressed his trem- bling hope of re-union there with her from whom it had been worse than death to part, and closed with what is called her apotheosis, which simply placed her alongside of the men who had passed from earthly greatness into immortality, whom he termed gods only because they had been so named by the credulity of the earlier ages. Thenceforward his writings had for the most part so distinctly an ethical purpose, of which we see few previous traces, that we can hardly be mistaken in believing that his disappointments and sorrows gave a new direction to his aim and endeavor. An ungrateful country spurns his services; he conse- crates them now to themes of world-wide and world-enduring interest. It was after this period that he produced, in rapid succession, the works that give him as jijnpral teacher the foremost place among ante-Christian philosophers. xvi Introduction. First in this series, and virtually a continuation of the Consolatio, we have the Tmculan Disputa- tions. The five books at first sight seem to have as man} 7 different subjects, not necessarily related. Yet no one can read them without feeling, or study them without perceiving in them, as veritable a unity as exists in the five acts of a classical drama. They are in the same key ; though, if we employ this metaphor, the key is, both and equally, minor and major. They throb throughout with the keen sensitiveness of a suffering soul that has survived not only all that it most prized of earthly goods, but also the capacity of enjoying them, were the past restored and the spring-tide of misfortunes rolled back. But they are full, too, of the vigor of a soul stronger than ever before, because it has re- treated within itself, made its own integrity its cit- adel, from behind whose impregnable walls it can look on the foes to its peace with defiant scorn. Yes, scorn, contempt of human fortunes was with Cicero the summit of virtue ; it remained for Him who made humanity divine to transfigure its brief and transient experiences into types, foreshadow- ings, foreshinings, prophecies of the eternal. These five books have, too, a clearly defined plan, a regular sequence of thought and reasoning, which can be easily outlined and interpreted from the circumstances under which they were written. The shadow of deatli still rested darkly on the Tusculan villa. The question nearest to Cicero's Introduction. xvii heart was that which furnishes the subject for the first book, What is death ? He believed it not to be the extinction of being. He recognized in man a supra-sensual element, capable of living in- dependently of the body. Vestiges of such belief seemed to have given shape to the rites of domestic piety, in which the men of an earlier time not so much commemorated their dead, as offered sacrifice and homage to their still living ancestors. Yet as there is no assured evidence of life beyond death, Cicero deems it necessary to meet the other alter- native. If the dissolution of the body is the close of life, he shows that it is not an evil, inasmuch as it cuts off all possibility of suffering and sorrow ; while prolonged life may be full of calamity ; nor are there wanting conspicuous instances in which many years of prosperity have had so dreary an ap- pendix of misfortune and grief as to make an earlier death seem eminently desirable. But for those who do not die young the question which has priority even of that of the soul's contin- ued existence is that of earthly well-being. Cicero had experienced the utter failure of the wonted resources for this end, and yet was clearly conscious, more so than in his prosperous days, of a happiness neither furnished by them nor impaired by their removal. He felt within his own soul a double selfhood, the one bereaved and wrecked ; the other, not only unimpaired, but enriched and en- nobled by all that he had suffered. This better b xviii Introduction. self must, however, wage severe conflicts. Bodily pain must be encountered by almost every one, and all need to be armed against it. Epicurus con- stantly the object of Cicero's ridicule or invective regarded pain as the greatest of evils, painless- ness as the supreme good ; yet maintained that pain 'can be borne cheerfully by the thought that if severe it must be brief, by the continued enjoy- ment of the pleasures that are not forfeited if the pain be moderate, and by the memory of past and the expectation of future pleasures. This en- tire structure of hedonism Cicero demolishes in his second book, and shows that pain can be neutral- ized only when moral evil is regarded as the sole evil, or as so immeasurably the greatest of evils that the ills of body and of fortune are held to be infinitesimally small in comparison with it. The argument based on this foundation, which pursues its continuous, though somewhat devious, course throughout the book, is interspersed with maxims of patience, fortitude and courage, and with impres- sive examples of brave endurance. Next to pain comes grief, which is the subject of the third book. The argumentative treatment of this is closely parallel to that of pain. But Cicero at the same time dwells largely on the selfishness of grief. He has much to say, also, on the degree to which it depends on opportunity, it being postponed or omitted in stress of need or peril ; on fashion, the outward show which prolongs the Introduction. xix feeling being often put on or continued solely be- cause the world expects it; and on a false estimate of the causes of grief, deficiencies in wisdom andvir-i tue, which ought to be the objects of the profound- est sorrow, occasioning less regret than is produced! by comparatively slight disappointments or losses. Pain and grief (in its simplest form) come to us without our seeking or responsibility, and may be so met, borne and overcome as not to interfere with our happiness and our permanent well-being. Still more hostile to our peace are the passions, for which we are responsible, and which are the subject of the fourth book. These Cicero classes under four divisions, grief (including its malig- nant forms, such as envy) and fear, excessive gladness and immoderate desire. Each of these is many-headed, and the several morbid affections of mind and soul included in each are specified and carefully defined. They all result from false opin- ions as to evil and good, grief and fear, from the belief that their objects are real and great evils; undue gladness and desire, from the belief that their objects are real and great goods. The only preventive or remedy is the regarding, with the Stoics, of virtue as the sole good, and moral deprav- ity a*s the sole evil, or, at the least, with the Peri- patetics, considering moral good and evil as so im- measurably the supreme good and the extreme of evil that no good or evil of body or of fortune can be of any comparative value or significance. xx Introduction. Pain and grief disarmed, the passions silenced and stultified, Virtue alone remains, and the fifth book is devoted to the demonstration of her peer- less radiance and her queenly power, of her entire sufficiency for a happy life, under all possible vicis- situdes, in poverty, in exile, in blindness, in deaf- ness, nay, in the maw of the bull of Phalaris. The discussion has a wide range, is rich in illustrations both of happiness and of misery as contingent on character and independent of circumstances, and is unequalled in pre-Christian literature for the exalta- tion of Virtue as the source of all in this earthly life that is worth living for. It will be seen that Cicero throughout the Tus- culan Disquisitions gives a foremost place to the philosophy of the Stoic school ; while as a disciple of the New Academy which adopted the ethical system of Aristotle, he constantly endeavors to show that his main positions are not invalidated by admitting the goods and evils of the body and of fortune to the inferior and subordinate place which the Peripatetics claimed for them. This place, in- deed, was virtually assigned to them by the later Stoics in admitting the class of objects which they designated as " preferable " or " desirable " (praeci- pua, producta, sumenda), though not worthy to be called " goods," which their disciples were at liberty to seek as secondary objects, without swerving from their allegiance to virtue as the sole good. Indeed the terms " supreme " and " sole " as applied to the Introduction. xxi Good, will cover the entire ethical difference be- tween the two schools as to this point. As to the ethical doctrine of Aristotle, that virtue is the mean between two extremes, Cicero here and always re- pudiates it. Indeed, he always shows himself a Stoic in his ethical sympathies, though tenderly disposed toward even the admitted errors of the New Academy. I cannot forbear quoting here a few sentences from the Preface of Erasmus to a new edition of the Tusculan Disputations. " A fresh perusal of the Tusculans has been of vast ben- efit to me, not barely in giving freshness to my style, which I count as of no little service, but much more in helping me to govern and bridle my passions. How often, while read- ing, have I thought with indignant scorn of the fools who say that if you take away from Cicero his pompous array of words, there remains nothing remarkable ! What proofs there are in his works that he possessed all that the most learned of the Greeks had written on right and happy liv- ing! What choice, what abundance of the soundest and the most holy maxims ! What knowledge of history, earlier and more recent! What loftiness of thought on man's true happiness! . . . When we see Pagans making so good a use of a leisure so sad as Cicero's, and instead of seeking the distraction of frivolous pleasures, finding consolation in the precepts of philosophy, how is it that we are not ashamed of our vain babbling and our luxurious living? I know not what others think ; but for myself I confess that I cannot read Cicero on the art of living well without believing that there was in his soul a divine inspiration, whence these writings came." xxii Introduction. The Brutus to whom the Tusculan Disputations are inscribed was Marcus Junius Brutus, best known as Julius Caesar's friend and assassin. Though he had served not without credit in various military and civil offices, he had been commonly regarded as deficient in worldly wisdom, an opinion which his subsequent career only too well justifies. But he was a man of great learning, and had written several philosophical works, among which were treatises "On Duties," " On Virtue," "On Patience." He belonged to the Peripatetic school The form of dialogue was, as is well known, a favorite method with the philosophers, from Plato downward, perhaps before him. The A. and M. of the Tusculan Disputations have been variously un- derstood to denote respectively, Auditor, Adolescens, Atticus, and Aulus; and Magister, and Marcus. I am inclined to believe that they stand for Auditor and Marcus. I have used Moser's text ; in a very few instan- ces, however, adopting a reading from the edition of Otto Heine. My aim, as in previous translations from Cicero, has been not to give what is com- monly called a " literal " version, but to put Cicero's thought unaltered into the best English forms at my command. In the Preface to my translation of the De Officiis I expressed my belief that many of the "connective and illative words that bind sentence to sentence" Introduction. xxiii used by Latin prose writers, which seem superflu- ous to the English reader, were "employed as catch- words for the eye, and that they served the purpose now effected by punctuation and by the capital letters at the beginning of sentences." On this subject I take pleasure in submitting to my read- ers the following letter from my friend Charles R Lanman, Ph.D., Professor of Sanskrit in Harvard University : " Your opinion respecting the use of connectives and illatives as catch-words for the eye is confirmed in an in- teresting way by the usages of the writings of the second period of Vedic literature, the Brahmanas. Their style is so peculiar, that it would, in cases unnumbered, be ex- tremely hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins, were it not for the frequent particle atha, which marks the beginning of a new clause, and the postpositive vai, which marks the preceding word as the first of its clause. It would often be quite wrong to translate them by a definite word. For written language, they do the work of our modern marks of punctuation ; and in spoken language, they must be rendered by inflection or by stress of voice. I may add that in the absence of capital letters, proper names are constantly distinguished from appella- tives of identical form by the added word nama, ' by name ' or 'named.' " CICERO'S TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS. BOOK I. ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 1. AT a period when I was entirely or in great part released from my labors as an advocate and my duties as a senator, chiefly by your advice, Bru- tus, I betook myself again to those pursuits which, never out of mind, though suspended by the de- mands upon my time, I renewed after a long inter- val ; and since the theory and practice of the arts that belong to the right mode of living are com- prised in the study of that wisdom which is termed philosophy, I deemed it fitting for me to discuss subjects of this class in Latin. Not that philosophy might not be learned from Greek books and teach- ers ; but it has always been my opinion that those of our own country either surpassed the Greeks in wisdom as to original thought, or made essential improvement in whatever, derived from the Greeks, they regarded as worthy of elaboration. Thus we certainly order the habits and rules of life, and everything appertaining to the home and the family, 1 2 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. with more propriety and dignity than they ; and it is equally certain that our ancestors were their superiors in the laws and institutions with which they maintained the well-being of the State. What shall I say of military affairs ? in which the men of our country have owed their eminent success, largely indeed to prowess, still more largely to discipline. Indeed, as to what they have attained by nature, not by books, they are far beyond the Greeks or any other nation; for what weight of character, what firmness, magnanimity, probity, good faith, what surpassing virtue of any type, has been found in any other people to such a degree as to make them the equals of our ancestors ? Greece surpassed us in learning and in every description of literature, in which it was easy to excel when there were no competitors ; for while with the Greeks the poets held the earliest place among men of culture if, as is believed, Homer and Hesiod lived before Rome was built, and Archilo- chus during the reign of Romulus, our poetry bore a later date. It was about five hundred and ten years after the foundation of Rome that Livius 1 wrote his first play, in the consulship of Caius Claudius, the son of Caecus, and Marcus Tuditanus, a year before the birth of Ennius, who was older than Plautus and Naevius. 2. It was, then, at a late period that poets were 1 Livius Andronicus, whose plays, Cicero says, are not worth a second reading. On the Contempt of Death. 3 known to our people or received l among them. It is, indeed, recorded in Cato's " Origines " 2 that the guests at entertainments used to sing the praises of eminent men with the accompaniment of the flute; but that poets were not held in honor appears from one of Cato's speeches, in which he makes it a reproach to Marcus Nobilior 3 that he took poets with him into one of the provinces, he having, as we know, when consul, taken Ennius to Aetolia. Meanwhile, the less the honor paid to poetry, the fewer there were who cultivated it; though such few of our people as showed great genius in this art did not fail to deserve equal reputation with the Greeks. But if Fabius, 4 a man worthy of the highest distinction, had received due praise as a painter, can we suppose that there would not have been many among us to emulate the fame of Poly- cletus and Farrhasius ? Honor nourishes the arts, and all are inflamed by the love of glory to the 1 None of the early Roman poets were natives of Rome. Thus Livius came from Tarentum ; Naevius and Lucilius, from Cam- pania ; Ennius, from Calabria ; Plautus, from Umbria ; Terence, from Carthage. 2 A work of Cato, purporting to give the history of Rome from its "origin" till the author's own time, together with the "ori- gins " of the old towns and cities of Italy. 8 Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, who, as a lover of Greek literature and art, drew upon himself Cato's hostility. Cato used to make sport with his name, calling him Mobilior. * Caius Fabius Pictor, who painted the temple of Salus, on the Quirinal Hill, about 300 B. c. He was the earliest Roman of distinguished rank who professed to be an artist. 4 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. pursuits by which it may be won, while those pur- suits that are held in disesteem languish in neg- lect. The Greeks regarded singing and playing on stringed instruments as the highest accomplish- ment. Thus Epaminondas, whom I consider as the greatest of the Greeks, is said to have been eminent as a singer and a lute-player, while, some years earlier, Themistocles was thought to be poorly educated because he declined to perform on the lyre at an entertainment. Therefore musicians flourished in Greece, and all learned music, nor was one who was ignorant of it thought to be properly educated. Geometry also was in the high- est esteem among them, and none were more illus- trious than the mathematicians; while in this art we go no farther than is needful for the purpose of measuring and calculating. 1 3. But, on the other hand, we early showed favor to orators, who at first had little culture, but were possessed of a fitness for public speaking, to which they afterward added a suitable education ; for the tradition is that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius were learned men, that Cato, who was their senior, was a man of studious habits, and so in later time were Lepidus, Carbo, the Gracchi. Thence till now we 1 With some exceptions. Cicero (De Officiis, i. 6) speaks of Caius Sulpicius as versed in astronomy, and of Sextns Pompeiws as equally an adept in geometry. As Caius Sulpicius is known to have calculated an eclipse, he must have been conversant with mathematical no less than with descriptive astronomy. On the Contempt of Death. 5 have had a series of orators so deservedly eminent that Greece has little or no advantage of us. Mean- while philosophy has been neglected down to the present day, nor has it had a single Latin author who has thrown light upon it. My purpose is so to illustrate it and place it before the public mind that if in my busy life I have been of any service to my fellow-citizens, I may, if possible, serve them in my leisure. It is incumbent on me to be the more elaborate, because it is said that there are already in this department many Latin books care- lessly written, by men who are indeed very good, but not sufficiently learned. 1 One may think cor- rectly, yet be unable to give elegant expression to what he thinks; and in that case for a man to com- mit his thoughts to writing when he can neither arrange them, nor illustrate them, nor attract read- ers by anything that can give them delight, is the part of a man who outrageously abuses both leisure and letters. Such writers read their own books with their intimate friends, nor does any one else touch them except those who crave for themselves like liberty of writing. If then by my industry I have won any reputation as an orator, with all the 1 We have the names hardly anything more of several writers of the Epicurean school who were before Cicero. One of these was Amannius, whom Cicero elsewhere criticises as deficient in arrangement and in style. Catius also is mentioned by Cicero as a writer not otherwise than agreeable, but of little substantial merit. Cicero always speaks contemptuously of the Epicurean philosophy and its expounders. 6 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. more strenuous industry I shall open the fountains of philosophy, from which my success has flowed. 4. But as Aristotle, a man of consummate genius, learning, and versatility of resource, moved by the fame of Isocrates, the rhetorician, began himself to teach young men to speak, and thus to unite wisdom with eloquence, so it seems good to me, without laying aside my old pursuit of oratory, to busy myself in this greater and more fruitful de- partment of philosophy ; for I have always thought it the perfection of philosophy to be able to discuss the most momentous questions copiously and ele- gantly. To this exercise I have devoted myself so zealously that I would now even dare to hold dis- putations after the manner of the Greeks. Thus lately, after you had left Tusculum, several friends being with me, I tried what I could accomplish in this way ; for as I used to declaim forensic pleas, and did so longer than any one else, so this is now the declamation of my old age. I asked for the nam- ing of a subject on which any person present wanted to hear me speak, and I discussed it either sitting or walking. I have here put the dispu- tations schools 1 the Greeks call them of five days into as many books. When he who started the discussion had said what he wanted to say, I answered him. This is, as you know, the ancient and Socratic method of discoursing against another person's opinion ; for Socrates thought this the best On the Contempt of Death. 7 way of determining what has the nearest semblance to truth. In order to put our disputations into a more convenient form, I will write them out in dialogue, not in narrative. So then we will begin. 5. A. Death seems to me an evil. M. To those who are dead, or to those who are going to die ? A. To both. M. It is then a cause of misery, since it is an evil. A. Certainly. M. Then both those to whom death has already happened and those to whom it is going to happen are miserable. A. So I think. M. Therefore there is no one who is not miserable. A. Absolutely no one. M. In truth, if you mean to be consistent with yourself, all who ever have been born or will be born are not only miserable, but also perpetually miserable. For if you were to call those miserable who were going to die, you could except no one of those who were living, since they all must die ; yet there might be an end of misery in death. But since the dead also are miserable, we are born to eternal misery; for those must be miserable who died a hundred thousand years ago, indeed, this must be true of all who were ever born. A. Such is my opinion. M. Tell me, I pray you, are you terrified by such 8 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. things as the three-headed Cerberus in the infernal regions ? The murmur of the current of Cocytus ? The ferry across the Acheron ? Tantalus " Half-dead with thirst, up to his chin in water " ? 1 Or the story "Of panting Sisyphus, rolling the rock, Which still rebounds, and never nears the summit " ? z Or, perchance, of those inexorable judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus ? before whom neither Lucius Crassus nor Marcus Antonius will defend you, nor yet, while the judges are Greeks, can you command Demosthenes as your advocate, but must plead your own cause before a vast multitude. You per- haps fear these things, and therefore regard death as an eternal evil. 6. A. Do you think that I am such a fool as to believe these things ? M. Do you not believe them ? A. By no means. M. I am sorry to hear you say so. A. "Why ? pray. M. Because I could be eloquent in talking against those stories. A. Who would not be eloquent on such a theme ? What difficulty is there in showing the falsity of the horrors invented by poets and painters ? M. Yet the books of philosophers are full of ar- guments against these very things. 1 A verse from some lost poem. 2 From Lucilius. On the Contempt of Death. 9 A. This is utterly needless; for who is so feeble- minded as to be moved by them ? M. If then there are no miserable beings in the underworld, 1 there are no beings at all in the under- world. A. That is precisely what I think. M. Where then are those whom you call misera- ble ? Or what place do they inhabit ? For if they exist, they cannot be nowhere. A. But I think that they are nowhere. M. Then do you think that they do not exist ? A. Precisely so; and yet I regard them as miser- able for the very reason that they do not exist. M. Now I would rather have you afraid of Cer- berus, than that you should utter yourself about these matters so foolishly. A. What do you mean ? M. You deny and affirm the existence of the same person. Where is your discernment? For when you say that a dead person is miserable, you say that he exists who does not exist. A. I am not so stupid as to say this. M. What do you say then ? A. That Marcus Crassus, for instance, who lost that immense fortune by death, is miserable ; that Cneius Pompeius, who was deprived of such great glory, is miserable ; in fine, that all are miserable who lack the light of this world. M. You come round again to the same point; 1 Latin, apud inferos. 10 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. for if they are miserable, they must of necessity exist ; but you just now denied the existence of those who are dead. If then they are not, they cannot be anything, therefore they are not miserable. A. I perhaps fail to express what I mean ; for I think it the extreme of misery not to be, after hav- ing been. M. What ? More miserable than never to have been at all ? So those who are not yet born are already miserable, because they do not exist ; and we, if we are going to be miserable after death, were miserable before we were born. But I do not re- member having been miserable before I was born. If you have a better memory, I should be glad to know what you recollect about yourself. 7. A. You are in jest in representing me as call- ing those who are not born, and not those who are dead, miserable. M. You at least say that those who are dead are miserable. A. Yes, I say that they are miserable because they are not, yet have been. M. Do you not see that you are uttering contra- dictory things ? For what can be so contradictory as to say that he who is not is miserable, or is any- thing else whatever ? When as you leave the city by the Capena gate you see the tombs of Calatinus, the Scipios, the Servilii, the Metelli, do you think those men miserable ? On the Contempt of Death. 11 A. Since you take umbrage at a mere word of mine, I hereafter will not say that they are miser- able, but will only call them miserable for the very reason that they are not. M. You do not say then, "Marcus Crassus is miserable," but only " Miserable Marcus Crassus." A. That is what I mean. M. As if it were not necessary that whatever you thus speak of either is or is not. Are you not con- versant with the rudiments of logic ? This is among its first principles : Every proposition for thus I would, as now advised, express what is meant by a%i(ojj,a ; l I will afterward give another definition if I find a better every proposition asserts that its predicate is either true or false as to its subject. When therefore you say, " Miserable Marcus Cras- sus," you either say, " Marcus Crassus is miserable," so that it can be determined whether the assertion is true or false, or you say nothing at all. A. I grant that those who are dead are not mis- , erable, since you have compelled me to confess that those who do not exist at all cannot be miserable. Yet are not we who live miserable, seeing that we must die ? For what pleasure can there be in life, while by day and by night we cannot but think that we may die at any moment ? 1 Axiom. The term, however, is not used in its mathematical sense of a self-evident truth. It is employed to denote a logical proposition. The logical principle here referred to is the law of Excluded Middle, " Everything must either be or not be." > 12 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. 8. M. Do you not then understand of how much evil you have relieved the condition of man ? A. How? M. Because if death made the dead miserable, we should then have among the conditions of life a certain infinite and eternal evil. But now I see a goal, which reached, there is nothing more to be feared. But you seem to me to follow the opinion of Epicharmus, a man of discernment, and, for a Sicilian, 1 not without good sense. A. What does he say ? for I do not know. M. I will give you what he says, in Latin, if I can ; but you are aware that I am not wont to put Greek into Latin any more than Latin into Greek. A. And you are in the right there ; but I want to hear this opinion of Epicharmus. M. " I dread to die, but dread not being dead." a A. I recognize the Greek 8 in this. But since you have compelled me to grant that those who are 1 Epicharmus was born in Cos, but was taken in his infancy to Sicily, and lived for the rest of his days, first iu Megara, and then in Syracuse. He was both a comic poet and a Pythagorean phi- losopher ; and in the fragments of his comedies that are extant there is a strange mixture of buffoonery and philosophy. Though he wrote much expressly on philosophical subjects, the verse quoted here is evidently from one of his comedies. 2 The Greek verse of Epicharmus is lost, though among his fragments there are sentiments not unlike that expressed in Cicero's translation. Cicero's verse is, " Emori nolo; sed me esse mortuum nihil aestumo." I * The Greek weakness, effeminacy, timidity, as opposed to the defiant hardihood and bravery in which the Romans took pride. On the Contempt of Death. 13 dead are not miserable, convince me, if you can, that it is not misery to be under the necessity of dying. M. This will give me no trouble; but I shall attempt yet greater things. A. How can this give you no trouble ? And what are the greater things of which you speak ? M. To answer your first question, Since after death there is no evil, death surely is not an evil. Immediately succeeding it is the time after death, in which you grant that there is no evil. There- fore the necessity of dying is not an evil ; for dying is but reaching the condition which, as you and I agree, is not an evil. \ iV* VU A^> v)L ^ ^ r*--j[. A. I beg you to explain this more clearly; for these somewhat subtile arguments compel me to admit their force before I feel fully convinced. Then too, what are the greater things which you promise to attempt ? M. To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a good. A. This I by no means claim from you, yet I shall be glad to hear your reasoning; for though you may not fully accomplish your purpose, you will at least prove that death is not an evil. But I will not interrupt you. I would rather hear a continuous discourse. M. What do you mean ? If I ask you a ques- tion, will you not answer ? A. To refuse to answer would, indeed, be inso- 14 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. lent ; but I would rather that you would not ask me anything, unless it be necessary. 9. M. I will do as you say, and will explain these things to the utmost of my ability, yet not with the assurance befitting the Pythian Apollo, that all that I say is certain and beyond dispute, but as an ordinary man l endeavoring to conjecture what is probable ; for I will go no further than to state probabilities, while those will speak with certainty, who both maintain that these things can be ascertained with precision, and profess them- selves to be possessed of infallible wisdom. A. Take the course that seems to you best. I am ready to listen. M. We ought, then, first to see what death, which seems to be thoroughly well known, really is. There are those who think that death is a sep- aration of the soul from the body, and others who maintain that there is no separation, but that soul and body perish together, the soul being extin- guished in the body. Of those who think that the soul leaves the body, some say that it is immedi- ately dispersed so as to have no longer a separate existence ; others, that it continues long in being ; 2 others still, that it lives on forever. Then again, there is a wide difference of opinion as to what the 1 Latin, homu-ttculus umis e multis, literally, "One little man out of many." 2 Many of the Stoics believed that the human soul would retain its individual existence till the dissolution of the material universe, when it will be reabsorbed into the soul of the universe. On the Contempt of Death. 15 soul is, or where, or whence. Some suppose that the heart is the soul, whence the terras heartless, 1 foolish-hearted, 2 of kindred heart? and the name given to that wise Nasica who was twice consul, Dear Little Heart? and "The noble-hearted Catus Aelius Sextus." 6 Empedocles thinks that the blood diffused through the heart constitutes the soul. Some suppose that a certain portion of the brain holds the sovereignty that belongs to the soul. Others are not satisfied with regarding the heart or any part of the brain as the soul, and of these some say that the soul has its seat or dwelling-place in the heart ; some, in the brain. Yet others and such is the general opinion in my school of philosophy think that the breath or spirit constitutes the soul. Indeed, we use the term breath or spirit 6 to denote soul, as to draw arid to exhale the vital breath, 7 and spirited, 8 and of right spirit, 9 and in harmony with one's spirit. 10 Moreover our word for soul is derived from the word that means breath. 11 Still further, Zeno the Stoic supposed the soul to be fire. 10. These beliefs as to the soul's being heart, blood, brain, breath, fire, have been largely diffused ; others have had a more limited acceptance. Many 1 Excordcs. a Vecordes. 3 Concordes. * Corculum, a diminutive, used as a term of endearment. 6 A verse of Ennius. ' Anima. ' Agere animam et efflare. 8 Animosi. 9 Bcne animnti. 10 Ex animi sententia. 11 Animus, from anima. 16 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. of the ancients, and latest among them Aristoxenus, who was both a musician and a philosopher, main- tained that the soul is a certain tension of the members and organs of the body analogous to what is called harmony in singing or in stringed instru- ments, so that the various movements of the human being are called forth from the nature and confor- mation of the body, like sounds in music. Ari- stoxenus adhered to his theory, and yet its real significance and value had long before been stated and explained 1 by Plato. Xenocrates denied that the soul has form or anything corresponding to body, but said that it consists of number, which, as Pythagoras had already taught, is the greatest force in nature. Plato, the teacher of Xenocrates, made the soul threefold, placing its sovereign, reason, in the head ; while he separated the two parts subject to its command, anger and desire, giving to anger its seat in the breast, and to desire, under the dia- phragm. Dicaearchus, in the three books which purport to contain the discussions of certain learned men at Corinth, introduces many speakers in the first book, and in the other two, Pherecrates, 2 an old 1 Latin, explanation. Wyttenbach proposes, instead of this, explosum as a conjectural reading, as in the Phaedo there is an elaborate demonstration of the baselessness and inadequacy of this theory. But a theory must be explained in order to be exploded, and the structure of the sentence is such that explanatum, while in better taste, would be equivalent to explosum. Aristoxenus was a disciple and the expectant successor of Aristotle. 2 A fictitious name, under which Dicaearchus probably stated hia own theory of the soul. On the Contempt of Death. 17 man from Phthia, whom he calls a descendant of Deucalion, who maintains that the soul is noth- ing at all, that it is a mere empty name, that such terms as animals and animated beings 1 are unmean- ing, that there is no soul or mind in either man or beast, and that all the force with which we either act or feel is equally diffused in all bodies, and is inseparable from body, indeed, has no existence of its own, so that nothing exists save body sole and simple, so shaped that it can live and feel by virtue of its natural organism. Aristotle, far transcending i all but Plato in genius and in industry, recognizing the four primitive elements in which all things had their origin, maintains that there is a fifth natural substance from which mind is derived ; for it ap- pears to him that to reflect, to foresee, to learn, to teach, to invent, and so many other things, to re- member, to love, to hate, to desire, to fear, to be grieved, to be glad, these and the like cannot have their source in the four elements. He adds to them a fifth, for which he finds no existing name, and he therefore calls the soul by a new name, evTe\e%eiav? as if it were prolonged and perpetual motion. 11. Unless some have escaped my memory, these are nearly all the opinions concerning the soul ; for we may leave out of account Democritus, who, 1 Animalia and animantes, names which denote in their struc- ture the presence of soul or mind, animus or anima. a Intellect. Probably tiveXexeia. was originally written Xa, which implies continuity. 2 18 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. great man as he was, yet regarded the soul as resulting from a certain fortuitous concourse of smooth and round particles of matter. Forsooth, in the opinion of philosophers of this class, there is nothing which cannot be brought to pass by the swirl of atoms. Which of the opinions that I have named is true, some god must determine ; which is the most probable is the great question for us. Shall we attempt to discriminate among them, or shall we return to our original purpose ? A. I should be glad of both, were it possible; but it is difficult to pursue both lines of discussion together. Therefore, if without treating of these opinions we can get rid of the fear of death, let this be our present endeavor; but if this requires the previous discussion of the origin of souls, such dis- cussion must have the precedence, and the other subject must be postponed. M. I regard the course which you propose as the more suitable ; for reason will show that, whichever of the opinions that I have named may be true, death is either no evil, or still more is a good. For if the soul is heart, or blood, or brain, since it is body, it will perish with the rest of the body ; if it is breath, it will be dissipated ; if fire, it will be quenched ; if the harmony of Ari- stoxenus, it will be dissolved. What shall I say about Dicaearchus, who asserts that the soul is nothing at all? According to all these opinions nothing that belongs to any man can remain after On the Contempt of Death. 19 death; for consciousness is lost equally with life, and to one who has no consciousness no event, prosperous or adverse, can be of any concern. The opinions of the other philosophers whom I have named offer the hope if that gives you pleasure that the soul when it departs from the body may pass on to heaven, as to its own proper home. A. This hope is truly delightful to me. I would desire it first of all, and even were it not true, I should want to be convinced of it. M. What need then is there of any help fromi me ? Can I surpass Plato in eloquence ? Study carefully his book about the soul, 1 and you can ask for nothing more. A. I have done so, by Hercules, and indeed over and over again ; but somehow, while I am reading I agree with Plato ; when I lay down the book, and reflect in my own thoughts on the immortality of souls, all that assurance vanishes. M. How is this ? Do you admit that souls either continue in being after death, or perish at the mo- ment of death ? A. Certainly. M. What is the case if they continue in being ? A. I grant that they are happy. M. What, if they perish at death ? A. I grant that they are not miserable, because they are not in being ; for this you forced me to admit a little while ago. 1 The Phaedo. tvb CyvA^ N/^Mj>> ^ \\AAA*. VWO v O- _ I. -