Cicero - Anthony Everitt [148]
He also took the opportunity to justify his overall project by responding to two criticisms he put into Varro’s mouth: first, anyone seriously interested in Greek philosophy could look up the original authors and, second, the Latin language lacked the necessary technical terminology. To counter these objections, Cicero argued that Latin poetry was read and appreciated even though it was heavily dependent on Greek models. Latin was a richer language than Greek; but it was true that an accepted philosophical terminology was needed. This was precisely what he intended to produce.
Posterity has largely justified this defense. While Latin has disadvantages (the lack of a definite article, for one), to some extent Cicero succeeded in widening its range. Some of the terms he coined have had a long afterlife—qualitas, moralis and essentia, for example, are the antecedents of “quality,” “moral” and “essence.”
The next dialogue in the series, On Supreme Good and Evil (De finibus bonorum et malorum), was composed more or less at the same time as the Academic Treatises. In the preface, Cicero makes the point that he is not a mere translator but is trying to express in his own words what lies at the heart of his subject. It is a justifiable claim. He is, indeed, more than a transcriber or even a high-quality journalist. He has read philosophy all his life and feels at ease with it. What he offers is a mature synthesis in which other people’s ideas grow in the field of his own experience of life. His expositions are not only thought but deeply felt.
The different chapters of the book, which has survived in its entirety, are given roughly contemporary settings: Cicero’s villa at Cumae in 50; Tusculum in 52; and then Athens during his grand tour in 79. Epicureanism and Stoicism are examined and rejected. To the Epicurean who asserts that the chief good is pleasure in the sense of an absence of pain and advocates a simple, virtuous and detached life, Cicero replies that what he is talking about is not pleasure in any customary sense. Also he rejects as disgraceful the notion that the man who measures his desires by utilitarian criteria has the firmest grasp on happiness.
If Epicureans say “it is good because it is pleasant,” Stoics answer that “it is pleasant because it is good.” Cato is now given the task of representing the Stoic view that virtue is what we naturally desire, which Cicero rebuts as not taking into sufficient account humanity’s lower faculties. Cicero argues that virtue will not necessarily produce happiness, if, as is admitted, pain is an evil. On Supreme Good and Evil ends on a cautiously optimistic note; virtue outweighs everything and even if the good man is not supremely happy, he is on balance happy.
The Conversations at Tusculum (Tusculanae disputationes) were written in the summer of 45 when Cicero had begun to recover somewhat from Tullia’s death. Again the form is a dialogue set in Cicero’s beloved villa at Tusculum. The two speakers are identified only by the initials M and A, standing either for Marcus and Atticus or Magister (master) and Adulescens (young man). Either way it is M who does most of the talking and the book is a series of essays rather than debates.
Having examined the nature of the good life in the previous books of the cycle, Cicero now turns to practicalities. How is the good life to be lived? He answers the question by citing many instances of human behavior both from the past and from his own time. He mentions the deaths of Cato and Pompey and hints at his feelings for Tullia, while acknowledging that grief is useless and should be put aside. His underlying purpose is to show that right attitudes and a philosophical cast of mind can alleviate misfortune and suffering. Death, he argues, is not an evil, being either a change of place for the soul or annihilation. Physical suffering is of no real importance and can be borne with fortitude. Mental suffering and distress, whether caused by mourning, envy,