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The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... prevent a single leaf from being lost.... Every day I find greater satisfaction in study, so far as my forensic labours permit [37] ." At this period of his life Cicero spent much time in study at his estates near Tusculum, Antium, Formiae, and elsewhere. I dwell with greater emphasis on these facts, because of the idea now spread abroad that Cicero was a mere dabbler in literature, and that his works were extempore paraphrases of Greek books half understood. In truth, his appetite for every kind of literature was insatiable, and his attainments in each department considerable. He was certainly the most learned Roman of his age, with the single exception of Varro. One of his letters to Atticus [38] will give a fair picture of his life at this time. He especially studied the political writings of the Greeks, such as Theophrastus and Dicaearchus [39] . He also wrote historical memoirs after the fashion, of Theopompus [40] . The years from 59—57 B.C. were years in which Cicero's private cares overwhelmed all thought of other occupation. Soon after his return from exile, in the year 56, he describes himself as "devouring literature" with a marvellous man named Dionysius [41] , and laughingly pronouncing that nothing is sweeter than universal knowledge. He spent great part of the year 55 at Cumae or Naples "feeding upon" the library of Faustus Sulla, the son of the Dictator [42] . Literature formed then, he tells us, his solace and support, and he would rather sit in a garden seat which Atticus had, beneath a bust of Aristotle, than in the ivory chair of office. Towards the end of the year, he was busily engaged on the De Oratore, a work which clearly proves his continued familiarity with Greek philosophy [43] . In the following year (54) he writes that politics must cease for him, and that he therefore returns unreservedly to the life most in accordance with nature, that of the student [44] . During this year he was again for the most part at those of his country villas where his best collections of books were. At this time was written the De Republica, a work to which I may appeal for evidence that his old philosophical studies had by no means been allowed to drop [45] . Aristotle is especially mentioned as one of the authors read at this time [46] . In the year 52 B.C. came the De Legibus, written amid many distracting occupations; a work professedly modelled on Plato and the older philosophers of the Socratic schools. 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 p??p???? 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM] [x] [xi] [xii]
The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... 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. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM] [xiii] [xiv] [xv]
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