relates to the Academic philosophy, or because it was composed at the
villa of Puteoli, where a grove and portico were called by Cicero, from an
affected imitation of the Athenians, his Academy(416). There evidently
existed what may be termed two editions of the _Academica_, neither of
which we now possess perfect—what we have being the second book of the
first edition, and the first of the second. In the first edition, the
speakers were Cicero himself, Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius. The first
book was inscribed Catulus, and the second Lucullus, these persons being
the chief interlocutors in their respective divisions. The first dialogue,
or Catulus, was held in the villa of that senator. Every word of it is
unfortunately lost, but the import may be gathered, from the references to
it in the Lucullus, or second book, which is still extant. It appears to
have contained a sketch of the history of the old and the new Academy, and
then to have entered minutely into the doctrines and principles of the
latter, to which Catulus was attached. Catulus explained them as they had
been delivered by Carneades, whose lectures his father had attended, and
in his old age imparted their substance to his son. He refuted the
philosophy of Philo, where that writer differed from Carneades, (which,
though of the new Academy, he did in some particulars,) and also the
opinions of Antiochus, who followed the old Academy. Hortensius seems to
have made a short reply, but the more ample discussion of the system of
the old Academy was reserved for Lucullus. Previous, however, to entering
on this topic, our philosophers pass over from the Cuman villa of Catulus
to that of Hortensius, at Bauli, one of the many magnificent seats
belonging to that orator, and situated a little above the luxurious Baiæ,
in the direction towards Cumæ, on an inlet of the Bay of Naples. Here they
had resolved to remain till a favourable breeze should spring up, which
might carry Lucullus to his Neapolitan, and Cicero to his Pompeian villa.
While awaiting this opportunity, they repaired to an open gallery, which
looked towards the sea, whence they descried the vessels sailing across
the bay, and the ever changeful hue of its waters, which appeared of a
saffron colour under the morning beam, but became azure at noon, till, as
the day declined, they were rippled by the western breeze, and empurpled
by the setting sun(417). Here Lucullus commenced his defence of the old
Academy, and his disputation against Philo, according to what he had
learned from the philosopher Antiochus, who had accompanied him to
Alexandria, when he went there as Quæstor of Egypt. While residing in that
city, two books of Philo arrived, which excited the philosophic wrath of
Antiochus, and gave rise to much oral discussion, as well as to a book
from his pen, entitled _Sosus_, in which he attempted to refute the
doctrines so boldly promulgated by Philo. Lucullus was thus enabled fully
and faithfully to detail the arguments of the chief supporter and reviver
in those later ages of the old Platonic Academy. His discourse is chiefly
directed against that leading principle of the new Academy, which taught
that nothing can be known or ascertained. Recurring to nature, and the
constitution of man, he confirms the faith we have in our external senses,
and the mental conclusions deduced from them. To this Cicero replies, from
the writings of Clitomachus, and of course enlarges on the delusion of the
senses—the false appearances we behold in sleep, or while under the
influence of phrensy, and the uncertainty of everything so fully
demonstrated by the different opinions of the great philosophers, on the
most important of all subjects, the Providence of the Gods—the Supreme
Good and Evil, and the formation of the world.
These two books, the Catulus and Lucullus, of which, as already mentioned,
the last alone is extant, were written after the termination of the civil
wars, and a copy of them sent by Cicero to Atticus. It occurred, however,
to the author soon afterwards, that the characters introduced were not
very suitable to the subjects discussed, since Catulus and Lucullus,
though both ripe scholars, and well-educated men, could not, as statesmen
and generals, be supposed to be acquainted with all the _minutiæ_ of
philosophic controversy contained in the books bearing their names. While
deliberating if he should not rather put the dialogue into the lips of
Cato and Brutus, he received a letter from Atticus, acknowledging the
present of his work, but mentioning that their common friend, Varro, was
displeased to find that none of his treatises were addressed to him, or
inscribed with his name. This intimation, and the incongruity of the
former characters with the subject, determined the author to dedicate the
work to Varro, and to make him the principal speaker in the dialogue(418).
This change, and the reflection, perhaps, on certain defects in the
arrangement of the old work, as also the discovery of considerable
omissions, particularly with regard to the tenets of Arcesilaus, the
founder of the new academy, induced him to remodel the whole, to add in
some places, to abridge in others, and to bestow on it more lustre and
polish of style. In this new form, the _Academica_ consisted of four
books, a division which was better adapted for treating his subject: But
of these four, only the first remains. The dialogue it contains is
supposed to be held during a visit which Atticus and Cicero paid to Varro,
in his villa near Cumæ. His guests entreat him to give an account of the
principles of the old Academy, from which Cicero and Atticus had long
since withdrawn, but to which Varro had continued steadily attached. This
first book probably comprehends the substance of what was contained in the
Catulus of the former edition. Varro, in complying with the request
preferred to him, deduces the origin of the old Academy from Socrates; he
treats of its doctrines as relating to physics, logic, and morals, and
traces its progress under Plato and his legitimate successors. Cicero
takes up the discourse when this historical account is brought down to
Arcesilaus, the founder of the new Academy. But the work is broken off in
the most interesting part, and just as the author is entering on the life
and lectures of Carneades, who introduced the new Academy at Rome. Cicero,
however, while he styles it the new Academy, will scarcely allow it to be
new, as it was in fact the most genuine exposition of those sublime
doctrines which Plato had imbibed from Socrates. The historical sketch of
the Academic philosophy having been nearly concluded in the first book,
the remaining books, which are lost, contained the disputatious part. In
the second book the doctrines of Arcesilaus were explained; and from one
of the few short fragments preserved, there appears to have been a
discussion concerning the remarkable changes that occur in the colour of
objects, and the complexion of individuals, in consequence of the
alterations they undergo in position or age, which was one of Arcesilaus’
chief arguments against the certainty of evidence derived from the senses.
The third and fourth books probably contained the doctrines of Carneades
and Philo, with Varro’s refutation of them, according to the principles of
Antiochus. From a fragment of the third book, preserved by Nonius, it
appears that the scene of the dialogue was there transferred to the banks
of the Lucrine lake, which lay in the immediate vicinity of Varro’s Cuman
villa(419).
These four books formed the work which Cicero wished to be considered as
the genuine and improved Academics. The former edition, however, which he
had sent to Atticus, had gone abroad, and as he could not recall it, he
resolved to complete it, by prefixing an introductory eulogy of Catulus to
the first, and of Lucullus to the second book,—extolling, in particular,
the incredible genius of the latter, which enabled him, though previously
inexperienced in the art of war, merely by conversation and study, during
his voyage from Rome, to land on the coast of Asia, with the acquirements
of a consummate commander, and to extort the admission from his
antagonist, Mithridates, who had coped with Sylla, that he was the first
of warriors.
This account of the two editions of the Academics, which was first
suggested by Talæus(420), has been adopted by Goerenz(421); and it appears
to me completely confirmed by the series of Cicero’s letters to Atticus,
contained in the 13th book of his Epistles. It is by no means, however,
unanimously assented to by the French and German commentators. Lambinus,
seeing that Nonius quoted, as belonging to the fourth book of the
_Academica_, passages which we find in the Lucullus, or second book of the
first edition, considered and inscribed it as the fourth of the new
edition, instead of the second of the old, in which he was followed by
many subsequent editors; but this is easily accounted for, since the new
edition, being remodelled on the old, many things in the last or second
book of the old edition would naturally be transferred to the fourth or
last of the new, and be so cited by those grammarians who wrote when the
whole work was extant. Ranitz denies that there ever were two editions of
the _Academica_ made public, or preserved, and that, so far from the last
three books being lost, the Lucullus contains the whole of these three,
but from the error of transcribers they have been run into each
other(422). This critic is right, indeed, in the notion he entertains,
that Cicero wished the first edition of the _Academica_ to be destroyed,
or to fall into oblivion, but it does not follow that either of these
wishes was accomplished; and indeed it is proved, from Cicero’s own
letters, that the older edition had passed into extensive circulation.
_Tusculanæ Disputationes_, are so called by Cicero, from having been held
at his seat near Tusculum—a town which stood on the summit of the Alban
hill, about a mile higher up than the modern Frescati, and communicated
its name to all the rural retreats in its neighbourhood. This was Cicero’s
chief and most favourite villa. “It is,” says he, “the only spot in which
I completely rest from all my uneasiness, and all my toils.”—“It stood,”
says Eustace, “on one of the _Tumuli_, or beautiful hills grouped together
on the Alban Mount. It is bounded on the south by a deep dell, with a
streamlet that falls from the rock, then meanders through the recess, and
disappears in its windings. Eastward rises the lofty eminence, once
crowned with Tusculum—Westward, the view descends, and passing over the
Campagna, fixes on Rome, and the distant mountains beyond it.—On the
south, a gentle swell presents a succession of vineyards and orchards; and
behind it towers the summit of the Alban Mount, once crowned with the
temple of Jupiter Latiaris. Thus Cicero, from his portico, enjoyed the
noblest and most interesting view that could be imagined to a Roman and a
Consul; the temple of the tutelary divinity of the empire, the seat of
victory and triumph, and the theatre of his glorious labours,—the Capital
of the World(423).” A yet more recent traveller informs us, that “the
situation of the ancient Tusculum is delightful. The road which leads to
it is shaded with umbrageous woods of oak and ilex. The ancient trees and
soft verdant meadows around it, almost remind us of some of the loveliest
scenes of England; and the little brook that babbles by, was not the less
interesting from the thought, that its murmurs might perchance have once
soothed the ear of Cicero(424).”
The distance of Tusculum from Rome, which was only four leagues, afforded
Cicero an easy retreat from the fatigues of the Senate and Forum. Being
the villa to which he most frequently resorted, he had improved and
adorned it beyond all his other mansions, and rendered its internal
elegance suitable to its majestic situation. It had originally belonged to
Sylla, by whom it was highly ornamented. In one of its apartments there
was a painting of his victory near Nola, during the Marsic war, in which
Cicero had served under him as a volunteer. But its new master had
bestowed on this seat a more classical and Grecian air. He had built
several halls and galleries in imitation of the schools and porticos of
Athens, which he termed Gymnasia. One of these, which he named the
Academia, was erected at a little distance from the villa, on the
declivity of the hill facing the Alban Mount(425). Another Gymnasium,
which he called the Lyceum, stood higher up the hill than the Academy: It
was adjacent to the villa, and was chiefly designed for philosophical
conferences. Cicero had given a general commission to Atticus, who spent
much of his time in Greece, to purchase any elegant or curious piece of
Grecian art, in painting or sculpture, which his refined taste might
select as a suitable ornament for his Tusculan villa. He, in consequence,
received from his friend a set of marble Mercuries, with brazen heads,
with which he was much pleased; but he was particularly delighted with a
sort of compound emblematical figures called _Hermathenæ_ and _Hermeraclæ_
representing Mercury and Minerva, or Mercury and Hercules, jointly on one
base; for, Hercules being the proper deity of the Gymnasium, Minerva of
the Academy, and Mercury common to both, they precisely suited the purpose
for which he desired them to be procured. One of these Minerval Mercuries
pleased him so wonderfully, and stood in such an advantageous position,
that he declared the whole Academy at Tusculum appeared to have been
contrived in order to receive it(426). So intent was he on embellishing
this Tusculan villa with all sorts of Grecian art, that he sent over to
Atticus the plans and devices for his ceilings, which were of stucco-work,
in order to bespeak various pieces of sculpture and painting to be
inserted in the compartments; as also the covers for two of his wells or
fountains, which, by the custom of those times, were often formed after
some elegant pattern, and adorned with figures in relief(427).
La Grotta Ferrata, a convent of Basilian friars, is now, according to
Eustace, built on the site of Cicero’s Tusculan villa. Nardini, who wrote
about the year 1650, says, that there had been recently found, among the
ruins of Grotta Ferrata, a piece of sculpture, which Cicero himself
mentions in one of his Familiar Epistles. In the middle of last century,
there yet remained vast subterranean apartments, as well as a great
circumference and extent of ruins(428). But these, it would appear, have
been still farther dilapidated since that period. “Scarce a trace,” says
Eustace, “of the ruins of Tusculum is now discoverable: Great part
remained at the end of the 10th century, when a Greek monk from Calabria
demolished it, and erected on the site, the monastery of Grotta Ferrata.
At each end of the portico is fixed in the wall a fragment of basso
relievo. One represents a philosopher sitting with a scroll in his hand,
in a thinking posture—in the other, are four figures supporting the feet
of a fifth of colossal size, supposed to represent Ajax. These, with the
beautiful pillars which support the church, are the only remnants of the
decorations and furniture of the ancient villa. ‘_Conjiciant_,’ says an
inscription near the spot, ‘_quæ et quanta fuerunt_.’(429)”
When Cæsar had attained the supremacy at Rome, and Cicero no longer gave
law to the Senate, he became the head of a sort of literary or
philosophical society. Filelfo, who delivered public lectures at Rome, on
the Tusculan Disputations, attempted to prove that he had stated meetings
of learned men at his house, and opened a regular Academy at
Tusculum(430). This notion was chiefly founded on a letter of Cicero to
Pætus, where he says that he had followed the example of the younger
Dionysius, who, being expelled from Syracuse, taught a school at Athens.
At all events, it was his custom, in the opportunities of his leisure, to
carry some friends with him from Rome to the country, where the
entertainments they enjoyed were chiefly speculative. In this manner,
Cicero, on one occasion, spent five days at his Tusculan villa; and after
employing the morning in declamation and rhetorical exercises, retired in
the afternoon with his friends to the gallery, called the Academy, which
he had constructed for the purpose of philosophical conference. Here
Cicero daily offered to maintain a thesis on any topic proposed to him by
his guests; and the five dialogues thus introduced, were, as we are
informed by the author, afterwards committed to writing, nearly in the
words which had actually passed(431). They were completed early in 709,
and, like so many of his other works, are dedicated to Brutus—each
conference being at the same time furnished with an introduction
expatiating on the excellence of philosophy, and the advantage of
naturalizing the wisdom of the Greeks, by transfusing it into the Latin
language. In the first dialogue, entitled _De Contemnenda Morte_, one of
the guests, who is called the _Auditor_ through the remainder of the
performance, asserts, that death is an evil. This proposition Cicero
immediately proceeds to refute, which naturally introduces a disquisition
on the immortality of the soul—a subject which, in the pages of Cicero,
continued to be involved in the same doubt and darkness that had veiled it
in the schools of Greece.
It is true, that in the ancient world some notion had been entertained,
and by a few some hope had been cherished, that we are here only in the
infancy of our existence, and that the grave might be the porch of
immortality, and not the goal of our career. The natural love that we have
for life, amidst all its miseries—the grief that we sometimes feel at
being torn from all that is dear to us—the desire for posterity and for
posthumous fame—the humiliating idea, that the thoughts which wander
through eternity, should be the operations of a being destined to flutter
for a moment on the surface of the earth, and then for ever to be buried
in its bosom—all, in short, that is selfish, and all that is social in our
nature, combined in giving importance to the inquiry, If the thinking
principle was to be destroyed by death, or if that great change was to be
an introduction to a future state of existence. Having thus a natural
desire for the truth of this doctrine, the philosophers of antiquity
anxiously devised arguments, which might justify their hopes. Sometimes
they deduced them from metaphysical speculations—the spirituality, unity,
and activity of the soul—sometimes from its high ideas of things moral and
intellectual. Is it possible, they asked, that a being of such excellence
should be here imprisoned for a term of years, only to be the sport of the
few pleasures and the many pains which chequer this mortal life? Is not
its future destination seen in that satiety and disrelish, which attend
all earthly enjoyments—in those desires of the mind for things more pure
and intellectual than are here supplied—in that longing and endeavour,
which we feel after something above us, and perfective of our nature? At
other times, they have found arguments in the unequal distribution of
rewards and punishments; and in our sighs over the misfortunes of virtue,
they have recognized a principle, which points to a future state of
things, where that shall be discovered to be good which we now lament as
evil, and where the consequences of vice and virtue shall be more fully
and regularly unfolded, than in this inharmonious scene. They have then
looked abroad into nature, and have seen, that if death follows life, life
seemingly emanates from death, and that the cheerful animations of spring
succeed to the dead horrors of winter. They have observed the wonderful
changes that take place in some sentient beings—they have considered those
which man himself has undergone—and, charmed by all these speculations,
they have indulged in the pleasing hope, that our death may, like our
birth, be the introduction to a new state of existence. But all these fond
desires—all these longings after immortality, were insufficient to dispel
the doubts of the sage, or to fill the moralist with confidence and
consolation. The wisest and most virtuous of the philosophers of
antiquity, and who most strongly indulged the hope of immortality, is
represented by an illustrious disciple as expressing himself in a manner
which discloses his sad uncertainty, whether he was to be released from
the tomb, or for ever confined within its barriers.
In the age of Cicero, the existence of a world beyond the grave was still
covered with shadows, clouds, and darkness. “Whichsoever of the opinions
concerning the substance of the soul be true,” says he, in his first
Tusculan Disputation, “it will follow, that death is either a good, or at
least not an evil—for if it be brain, blood, or heart, it will perish with
the whole body—if fire, it will be extinguished—if breath, it will be
dissipated—if harmony, it will be broken—not to speak of those who affirm
that it is nothing; but other opinions give hope, that the vital spark,
after it has left the body, may mount up to Heaven, as its proper
habitation.”
Cicero then proceeds to exhaust the whole Platonic reasoning for the
soul’s immortality, and its ascent to the celestial regions, where it will
explore and traverse all space—receiving, in its boundless flight,
infinite enjoyment. From his system of future existence, Cicero excludes
all the gloomy fables feigned of the descent to Avernus, the pale murky
regions, the sluggish stream, the gaunt hound, and the grim boatman. But
even if death is to be considered as the total extinction of sense and
feeling, our author still denies that it should be accounted an evil. This
view he strongly supports, from a consideration of the insignificance of
those pleasures of which we are deprived, and beautifully illustrates,
from the fate of many characters distinguished in history, who, by an
earlier death, would have avoided the greatest ills of life. Had Metellus
died sooner, he would not have laid his sons on the funeral pile—had
Pompey expired, when the inhabitants of all Italy were decked with wreaths
and garlands, as testimonies of joy for his restoration to health from the
fever with which he was seized in Campania, he would not have taken arms
unprepared for the contest, nor fled his home and country; nor, having
lost a Roman army, would he have fallen on a foreign shore by the sword of
a slave(432). He completes these illustrations by reference to his own
misfortunes; and the arguments which he deduced from them, received, in a
few months, a strong and melancholy confirmation.—“Etiam ne mors nobis
expedit? qui et domesticis et forensibus solatiis ornamentisque privati,
certe, si ante occidissemus, mors nos a malis, non a bonis abstraxisset.”
The same unphilosophical guest, who had asserted that death was a
disadvantage, and whom Cicero, in charity to his memory, does not name, is
doomed, in the second dialogue, _De Tolerando Dolore_, to announce the
still more untenable proposition, that pain is an evil. But Cicero
demonstrated, that its sufferings may be overcome, not by remembrance of
the silly Epicurean maxims,—“Short if severe, and light if long,” but by
fortitude and patience; and he accordingly censures those philosophers,
who have represented pain in too formidable colours, and reproaches those
poets, who have described their heroes as yielding to its influence.
In the third book, _De Ægritudine Lenienda_, the author treats of the best
alleviations of sorrow. To foresee calamities, and be prepared for them,
is either to repel their assaults, or to mitigate their severity. After
they have occurred, we ought to remember, that grieving is a folly which
cannot avail us, and that misfortunes are not peculiar to ourselves, but
are the common lot of humanity. The sorrow of which Cicero here treats,
seems chiefly that occasioned by deprivation of friends and relatives, to
which the recent loss of his daughter Tullia, and the composition of his
treatise _De Consolatione_, had probably directed his attention.
The fourth book treats _De Reliquis animi Perturbationibus_, including all
those passions and vexations, which the author considers as diseases of
the soul. These he classes and defines—pointing out, at the same time, the
remedy or relief appropriate to each disquietude. In the fifth book, in
which he attempts to prove that virtue alone is sufficient for perfect
felicity—_Virtutem ad beate vivendum se ipsâ esse contentam_—he coincides
more completely with the opinions of the Stoics, than in his work _De
Finibus_, where he seems to assent, to the Peripatetic doctrine, “that
though virtue be the chief good, the perfection of the other qualities of
nature enters into the composition of supreme happiness.”
In these Tusculan Disputations, which treat of the subjects most important
and subservient to the happiness of life, the whole discourse is in the
mouth of Tully himself;—the Auditor, whose initial letter some editors
have whimsically mistaken for that of Atticus, being a mere man of straw.
He is set up to announce what is to be represented as an untenable
proposition: but after this duty is performed, no English hearer or Welsh
uncle could have listened with less dissent and interruption. The great
object of Cicero’s continued lectures, is by fortifying the mind with
practical and philosophical lessons, adapted to the circumstances of life,
to elevate us above the influence of all its passions and pains.
The first conference, which is intended to diminish the dread of death, is
the best; but they are all agreeable, chiefly from the frequent allusion
to ancient fable, the events of Greek and Roman history, and the memorable
sayings of heroes and sages. There is something in the very names of such
men as Plato and Epaminondas, which bestows a sanctity and fervour on the
page. The references also to the ancient Latin poets, and the quotations
from their works, particularly the tragic dramas, give a beautiful
richness to the whole composition; and even on the driest topics, the mind
is relieved by the recurrence of extracts characteristic of the vigour of
the Roman Melpomene, who, though unfit, as in Greece,