' ,0 0. V? / ^ ' B * <, >.oq. < '"* 3 x V*' '. *© o %4 v 4> ^ W : ' i i-i #' * < THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS OF CICERO. %. THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS OF CICERO A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED, BY W. H. MAIN. " O vitae Philosophia dux! o virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque vitiorum ! quid non modo nos, sed omniuo vita hominum, sine te, esse potuisset V Cic. Tusc. Qu^est. lib. v. §. 1. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY W. PICKERING, 57, CHANCERY LANE. MDCCCXXIV. T. White, Printer, Johneon's Conrt, London. CONTENTS. BOOK I. Page On the Contempt of Death 1 BOOK II. On bearing Pain 77 BOOK III. On Grief of Mind 118 BOOK IV. On other Perturbations of the Mind 170 BOOK V. Whether Virtue alone be sufficient for a happy Life . Wll 'V THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. BOOK I. ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH. I. As I am, at length, entirely, or to a great degree, freed from the fatigue of defending clients, and the duties of a senator, I have recourse again, Brutus, principally by your advice, to those studies which never have been out of my mind, although neglected at times, and which after a long interval I have resumed : and since the reason and pre- cepts of all arts which relate to living well, depend on the study of wisdom, which is called philosophy, I have thought of illustrating this in the Latin tongue ; not because philosophy could not be understood in the Greek language, or by Greek masters ; but it was always my opinion, that we have been more happy at inventing than the 2 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS Greeks, or that we have improved on whatever we have received from them, which they have thought worthy their care and pains : for, with regard to manners and economy, family and domestic affairs, we certainly now manage them with more elegance, and hetter than they did ; and our ances- tors have, beyond all dispute, formed the republic on better laws and customs. What shall I say of our military affairs; in which, as our ancestors excelled them much in valour, so more in disci- pline ? As to those things which are attained not by study, but nature, neither Greece, nor any nation, is comparable with them; for with whom was ever that gravity, that steadiness, that greatness of soul, probity, faith — such distinguished virtue of every kind, as to equal them with ours ? Greece excelled us in learning, and all kinds of literature, and it was easy to do so where there was no competition ; for amongst the Greeks the poets were the most ancient species of learned men. Of these Homer and Hesiod were before the foundation of Rome ; Archilochus, in the reign of Romulus. We received poetry much later; Livy gives us a fable near five hundred and ten years after the building of Rome, in the consulate of C. Claudius, the son of Caecus, and M. Tuditanus, a year before the birth of Ennius, who was older than Plautus and Naevius. II. It was, therefore, late before poets were : OF CICERO. • 3 either known or received amongst us ; though we find in Cato de Originibus that the guests used to sing at their entertainments, the praises of famous men, to the sound of the flute ; but a speech of Cato's shows the custom to have been in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior, for carrying poets with him into his province for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with him into ^Etolia. Therefore the less esteem poets were in, the less were those studies pur- sued : not but if, had there been amongst us any of great abilities that way, they would not have been at all inferior to the Greeks. Do we ima- gine that, had it been commendable in Fabius, a man of the first quality, to paint, we should have been without many Polycleti and Parrhasii ? Honour nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies ; those studies are always neglected, which are a kind of disgrace to any. The Greeks held vocal and instrumental music as the greatest erudition, and therefore it is recorded of Epami- nondas, who, in my opinion, was the first man amongst the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute ; and Themistocles some years be- fore was deemed ignorant because he refused at an entertainment to play on the lyre. For this reason musicians flourished in Greece ; music was a general study ; and whoever was unacquainted with it, was not considered as fully instructed in 4 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS learning. Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honourable than mathematicians ; but we have confined this art to bare counting and measuring. III. But on the contrary, we soon entertained the orator ; no ways eloquent at first, but capable enough for an harangue, he soon became elo- quent ; for it is reported that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius, were men of learning; that even Cato was studious, who was an age before them : then succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators after them, even to our times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the Greeks. Philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this present time, and had no assistance from our own language, which I have undertaken to raise and illustrate ; so that, as I have been of service to my countrymen, when employed in public affairs, I may, if possible, be so to them in my retirement. In this I must take the more pains, because many books are said to be written inaccurately, by excellent men, but not erudite scholars : for indeed it may be that a man may think well, and yet not be able to express his thoughts elegantly; but for any one to publish thoughts which he can neither methodize, nor illus- strate nor entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and retirement : they, therefore, read their books to one another, which were never taken OF CICERO. 5 up by any but those who claimed the same privi- lege of writing. Wherefore, if oratory has acquired any reputation from my application to it, I shall, with more pains, open the fountains of philosophy, from which flowed all the advantages of the other. But, IV. As Aristotle, a man of excellent parts, abundant in all knowledge, being moved at the glory of the rhetorician Isocrates, commenced teacher of youth, and joined philosophy with elo- quence : so it is my design not to lay aside my former study of oratory, and yet employ myself in this greater and more fruitful art ; for I always thought, that to be able to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions, was the most consummate philosophy, to which sub- ject I have so diligently applied myself, that I have already ventured to have Disputations like the Greeks. And lately when you left us,'having many of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tus- culum what I could do in that way ; for as I formerly practised declaiming, which nobody con- tinued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age. I ordered a person to propose something he would have discussed : I disputed on that, either sitting or walking, and have compiled the scholas as the Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. It was in this manner : when he who was the hearer had said O THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS what he thought proper, I disputed against him ; for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method of disputing against another's opinion; for Socrates thought the truth might thus the easier be disco- vered. But to give you a better notion of our dis- putations, I will not barely send you an account of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on ; therefore let the introduction be thus. V. A. To me death seems to be an evil. M. What, to those who~are already dead ? or to those who must die ? A. To both. M. It is a misery then, because an evil ? A. Certainly. M. Then those who must soon die, and those who must die some time or other, are both miserable ? A. So it appears to me. M. Then all are miserable ? A. Every one. M. And, indeed, if you are consistent with yourself, all that are already born, or shall be, are not only miserable, but always will be so; for should you maintain those only to be miserable, who must die, you would not except any one living, for all must die ; but there should be an end of misery in death. But seeing that the dead are miserable, we are born to eternal misery, for they must of consequence be miserable who died a hundred thousand years ago ; or rather, all that have been born. A. So indeed I think. M. Tell me, I beseech you, are you afraid of the three- headed Cerberus below, the roaring waves of Cocytus, the passage over Acheron, Tantalus ex- ; OF CICERO. 7 piling with thirst, while the water touches his chin or Sisyphus, Who sweats with arduous toil to gain The steepy summit of the mount in vain? Perhaps, too, you dread the inexorable judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus, before whom nor Crassus, nor M. Antonius can defend you ; nor, since the cause lies before Grecian judges, De- mosthenes. But you must plead for yourself before a very great assembly : you dread perhaps these, and therefore look on death as an eternal evil.