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582 Book Reviews

William H. F. Altman, (2016) The Revival of Platonism in ’s Late Philosophy: Platonis aemulus and the invention of Cicero. Lanham, MD; London: Lexington Books. xxxii + 351 pp. $100.00. ISBN 9781498527118 (hbk).

In Altman’s two books on , Plato the Teacher (2012) and The Guardians in Action (2016), we find the traditional reading of Plato, i.e., the philosopher of ‘unchanging, eternal, and transcendent Ideas’ (p. xviii), combined with a rather unique interpretation of Plato as a pedagogue, whose main goal is not to instantiate the ideal state in reality but rather to spread an enlightened form of democracy through an ennobling education program of philosophy. Altman’s interpretation of Cicero as reader of Plato naturally progresses from these two books. Cicero is not the Academic Skeptic, as recent scholarship has argued, but rather an advocate for Platonic transcendence – and one no less relevant to our own historical moment than to the crisis for which Cicero’s philosophy was immediately intended: the fallen Republic. Central to Altman’s argument on Cicero is the main theme of his earlier work on Plato: the return to the cave. According to Altman, although Plato’s belief in transcendent Ideas of the world of intelligibility is genuine, the goal of Plato as philosophical pedagogue is not transcendence but rather a return to the chaotic world of becoming, in which politics take place. Cicero then, in his emulation and rivalry of Plato, is picking up where Plato left off. He is not merely indulging in Platonic transcendence but relying on his philosophical rhetoric at its most subtle level to win over an ideologically fraught and often incredulous Roman readership to political enlightenment and devotion to the Ideas. Altman’s unique reading relies partly on an unusual ordering of Cicero’s dialogues and partly on a repositioning of Cicero’s skeptical persona as an insincere stance, deployed to meet a skeptical readership halfway in order to win them over incrementally to Platonic transcendence. Altman derives his re-ordering of Cicero’s dialogues chiefly from Book 2 of the where Cicero oddly lists the , which had yet to be written, as second and the as the last of three items (de Divinatione 2.3). Altman argues that the only logical explanation for this unchronological ordering must be that Cicero had esteemed his de Re publica so highly that he saw the rest of his philosophical repertoire as existing to prepare the reader for it. Altman strengthens this position by pointing to the second reading list offered by Cicero in de Divinatione, which follows closely after the first but focuses instead on rhetoric, or ‘the precepts of speaking’ (Altman’s translation of dicendi prae- cepta) (p. xii). In this second list, it is striking that the third item is the in which Cicero, according to Altman, embraces the eternal, unchanging ideas

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/20512996-12340183Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 05:03:26AM via free access Book Reviews 583 that he had apparently rejected in his middle works. Viewing the de Re publica (especially, the ) and the Orator as the intended crescendo- pieces to Cicero’s political and rhetorical philosophy, respectively, furnishes Altman’s overall argument with the advantage of recasting works, such as the , as transitional moments in a pedagogical journey that ends with a genuinely felt embrace of Platonism. One of the more interesting moments of this pedagogical journey comes in Chapter 1, which is devoted to . Altman sees Cicero’s main rea- son for not finishing de Legibus in the fact that he makes his own Platonism all too transparent, which would have hurt Cicero’s pedagogical enterprise of disguising himself as a skeptic only to reveal the true light of his Platonism only at the end of his philosophical canon. The crux of his argument comes in Cicero’s own words, nemo ipsius tam similis esset quam omnes sunt omnium (‘no one is as similar to oneself as all are to all’ at 1.29, my translation), which is followed by an explanation of how individual error leads human beings not to recognize their common humanity. This argument has transcendent impli- cations for Stoic cosmopolitanism (the idea of all humans belonging to the rational, universal city of gods and men). For Cicero, however, this Stoic cos- mopolitanism finds its bedrock in Plato’s cave allegory: ‘An awareness of the contingency and comparative insignificance of the self depends on a prior awareness of an ethical and ontological center outside of oneself, and thus ethical altruism follows from an ontological Copernicanism that Plato had imagined in the Cave Allegory’ (p. 47). Altman, however, does go a bit too far in calling Cicero an altruist: ‘an altruistic return to the cave is considerably easier for someone who has overcome the illusion of ‘individuality’, and service to our fellow men is infinitely easier for those who regard everyone else as equal to, and essentially the same as, ourselves’ (ibid.). This myth of Cicero’s altruism is not only contradicted by the Roman senator’s acquisition of private property but also by the Ciceronian Scipio’s rejection of democracy in de Re publica: ‘and when all matters are administrated through the people, albeit a just and moderate people, equality itself becomes unfair (ipsa aequabilitas … iniqua), as it permits no degrees of difference in status (nullos gradus dignitatis)’ (de Re publica 1.43, my translation). This, of course, does not preclude an Aristotelian generosity, the precondition for which is private wealth. Altruism, however, is a far cry from generosity and is most successfully deployed as an ideological straw man requiring that no individual live for one’s own gain but rather must dedicate oneself wholly to others. Since Cicero advocates the pursuit of self- interest as well as devotion to the state, he is enlightened and generous, but not altruistic – and that’s a good thing!

Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from35 (2018)Brill.com10/02/2021 569-611 05:03:26AM via free access 584 Book Reviews

Chapter 4, on de Finibus, is important for carefully following the argumenta- tion over the course of five books to distinguish between Cicero’s Platonism (originating from the Academy of Antiochus) and Cato’s . Altman argues that it is Platonism rather than Stoicism that is able to defeat the self- centered ideology of Epicureanism by virtue of a ‘death-defying vision of to agathon’ (p. 123). This vision of to agathon is connected with Cicero’s daughter Tullia, who died in childbirth. Altman makes a convincing case for this linkage, as he cites a statement in Cicero’s fragmentary in which Tullia is compared with the parents of Hercules for her virtue (p. 122). Furthermore, he shows that the term aerumnae, used in de Finibus to describe Hercules’ labors, bears the connotation of childbirth (pp. 116-122). Furthermore, the theme of maternity is felt for its absence in Cato’s bull metaphor, as the latter attempts to make an argument for Stoicism as the most morally complete of ideolo- gies (p. 116). The absence of maternity proves his Stoicism to be incomplete. While I mostly agree with Altman’s conclusions, I find myself hesitating to embrace as Cicero’s final position the dichotomy Altman creates between ‘the gold of altruism’ and ‘the lead of [Epicurean] selfishness’ (p. 122). Although Altman carefully substantiates this dichotomy by citing Cicero’s argument for ranking Hercules’ virtuous adventures, divorced as they are from any hope of pleasure, above the Epicurean vision of the diametric opposite, i.e., a life of pleasure divorced from pain (p. 120), a holistic approach to Cicero’s life of philosophy, politics, and principled self-interest (both in the form of fame as well as material wealth) should assure us that this dichotomy is more of a thought-experiment than a normative expectation (and one that Cicero him- self proudly fell short of). In Chapter 5, Altman argues for ‘Womanly Humanism’ in the Tusculan Disputations. This is another highly innovative reading and requires the reader to ascertain that the main speaker of the three books intends the opposite of what he plainly says. Throughout the Tusculans, there is a leitmotif of prais- ing rational, stoic virtue as masculine and denigrating emotional softness as feminine (pp. 142-146). Altman argues that Cicero invites the reader to hold this dichotomy under scrutiny in order to discover a kind of womanly virtue, which is no less indispensable than its masculine counterpart. I have followed Altman’s evidence carefully, which has been judiciously chosen and effectively deployed to make this case. The evidence, however, leads me to a much dif- ferent conclusion on Ciceronian ‘feminism’, which thanks to the citations of this chapter, we need not dismiss as an oxymoron. First of all, there is no evi- dence that Cicero praises emotional softness as such. At best, the evidence from the Tusculan Disputations suggests that Cicero is willing to permit or

Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from 35 Brill.com10/02/2021(2018) 569-611 05:03:26AM via free access Book Reviews 585 forgive feminine softness as an indelible element of being human (pp. 146-147). Altman cites a passage from de Amicitia reworking the image of a shorn tree first used in the Tusculan Disputations. When we compare the two images, we notice that Cicero has gone from recommending a purgation of emotions in the Tusculans to defining the possibility for sorrow as the guarantor of friend- ship as a virtue (pp. 146-150). Even here, however, it is not emotions that make one virtuous but rather the assumption of emotional vulnerability for the sake of a higher good. It is clear, therefore, that Cicero does not praise sorrow as such but rather the human will to form friendships at the expense of emo- tional security. Returning to Altman’s evidence from the Tusculans, we find that Cicero’s feminism is essentially that of Plato. Both Cicero and Plato are willing to resort to a false dichotomy of masculine moral hardness and femi- nine emotional softness for the sake of making their arguments intelligible to an audience accustomed to think in such terms. However, both Plato and Cicero undermine this dichotomy by insisting that women are also capable of attaining to moral hardness and that men are liable to descend into emo- tional softness. In Plato, we see this through the rational character of Diotima in the Symposium as well as through the possibility of female guardians in the Republic; in Cicero, we see this in his own praise of Tullia’s virtue as well as his comparison of moral achievements and failings in both men and women in the second book of the Tusculan Disputations (pp. 129, 145). Although this makes Cicero less ‘postmodern’ for championing rationality over emotions, it also makes him a better – and more modern – feminist for holding men and women to the same moral standard rather than inventing a separate one to be designated ‘womanly’. Chapter 10, which rightly analyses Cicero’s Philippics and side by side, is another strong chapter, the main thrust of which is that Cicero rejected a permanent vacation in his beloved villa for one final bout in politics that would ultimately be filled with pain and danger and conclude with his bloody assassination. Especially interesting are discussions of Cicero’s presentation of his decision to leave Italy for Greece and then return in the first Philippic (p. 257) as well as passages of the de Officiis that outline Cicero’s personal attachments to the historical figures that overthrew the Republic: Cicero’s dia- logue, for instance, about the son preferring the safety of the fatherland to the safety of his father is understood as reflecting Cicero’s own ties to Octavian, who wrongfully placed his adoptive father before the state (p. 251). The chapter ends instructively with a comparison of Achilles to Cicero. Achilles returned to battle, as Cicero did to Rome, for the sake of inscribing himself within the klea andron that echo through time. This, of course, contradicts the

Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from35 (2018)Brill.com10/02/2021 569-611 05:03:26AM via free access 586 Book Reviews altruistic reading of Cicero Altman previously presented, and that is a good thing (for reasons I give above). It is somewhat curious that he does not also bring Socrates into this conclusion, as Socrates is Plato’s answer to Achilles. The Platonic Socrates was no less interested in kleos than Achilles, though he pursued it in a much different fashion. For Cicero, as for Plato, it is possible to be both ambitious and morally principled. To conclude my review, I will discuss the Introduction and Conclusion, which form an effective ring-structure in inspiring the reader to contem- plate Cicero’s rivalry of Plato. In addition to Quintilian’s elegant appraisal of Cicero as Platonis aemulus (‘Plato’s rival’), Altman notes how striking it is that Plutarch wrote about Dion and as parallel lives (p. 20). This, of course, implies that Plato was for Dion what Cicero was for Brutus. Altman returns to this implication in concluding with the Orator where he supposes that Shakespeare had read Orator himself and clearly had it in mind when drafting ‘Julius Caesar’. The tragedy of Brutus was not just his rhetorical ineptitude but his miscalculation of just how much power rhetoric can have (pp. 277-284). This is a worthy note to end the book on for a number of reasons. One is that a critical examination of the overlap between Shakespeare and Cicero has yet to be made. Secondly, it underlines one of the most important advantages Cicero has as a philosopher over others: a practical understanding of rhetoric. Though philosophy without rhetoric is possible, such philosophy would not be good, Cicero tells us. Cicero would say of philosophy and rhetoric what Einstein said of science and religion: philosophy without rhetoric is lame, and rhetoric with- out philosophy is blind. In conclusion, Altman has written an innovative book that uses close read- ings of Cicero and careful attention to his reading of Plato to challenge a number of orthodoxies and to push to see new elements of Cicero’s thought. Altman’s book is a rich source of evidence for disproving the old dismissal of Cicero as ‘merely an ambitious Roman whose first concern was to excel his fellows, and whose turn to politics was the inescapably Roman path for an ambitious young man’ (p. 23). This book will be valuable not solely to scholars of Cicero but anyone interested in intellectual history, as Cicero is one of the missing steps between Plato, , Hellenistic Philosophy and Modernity. Furthermore, the arguments of this book will challenge many preconceptions about Roman political history and any oversimplified, elitist interpretation of Cicero’s principled opposition to the populares.

Robert Dudley Duke University [email protected]

Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from 35 Brill.com10/02/2021(2018) 569-611 05:03:26AM via free access