And I have so diligently applied myself to this pursuit, that I have already ventured to have a school like the Greeks. And lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used to practice declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age.
I desired anyone to propose a question which he wished to have discussed, and then I argued that point either sitting or walking; and so I have compiled the scholae, as the Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books.
We proceeded in this manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what he thought proper, I spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method of arguing against another’s opinion, for Socrates thought that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at.
But to give you a better notion of our disputations, 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: . . .
I can hardly claim to understand all the subtle agreements and disagreements between the different Ancient thinkers, but one can hardly avoid the common tension between the philosophers and the rhetoricians about the merits of their respective trades.
What Cicero suggests, however, is that we should rather see these two endeavors as being complementary instead of contradictory, and that the love of wisdom can only be strengthened through the beauty of words. Rightly understood, the medium will glorify the message.
In this way, Cicero can attempt to join together the best of Greece and Rome, the gifts of thinking and speaking, and the needs of both theory and practice. What he offered then is just as necessary for us now.
At his villa in Tusculum, Cicero followed the example of Socrates by engaging in philosophical conversations with his companions, in which the interplay of questions and answers can better help us to grasp the many sides of a problem, as well as follow the chains of reasoning by which we may arrive at a conclusion.
I do not know to what degree these dialogues are accounts of the actual discussions Cicero describes above, or if they are rather offered more as symbolic literary devices, but in either case they get right to heart of the matter about critical life questions.
One of the guests (“A”, the auditor) opens with a statement, and the host (”M”, Marcus Tullius Cicero himself) offers a response. The topics are certainly not as abstract or obscure as they may seem at first, because no one can really struggle through a day without making some meaningful sense of them.
On the contempt of death. We may assume that dying is to be avoided at all costs, but a closer understanding of what makes life worth living might allow us to conquer such a fear.
On bearing pain. We run after pleasure, and run away from pain, and yet we overlook our far deeper dignity and worth as creatures of moral action.
On grief of mind. Loss seems the greatest pain, to the point where it can feel unbearable. Can consolation perhaps follow from reconsidering where the true gains and losses are to be found?
On other perturbations of the mind. All sorts of passions try to push us this way and that, though a proper judgment of good and evil provides a context for taming them.
Whether virtue alone be sufficient for a happy life. If we want to be happy, we need to know what is worth possessing. Of all the things we might believe to be beneficial, is anything really necessary beyond the excellence of our own thoughts and deeds?
Cicero draws a very strong influence from Stoicism in these Disputations, though he also makes use of a wide variety of other traditions, and he by no means limits himself to the teachings of this or that school. He is broad and eclectic in this regard, as I would humbly propose we should all try to be in this life.
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