CHAPTER THREE
The Gift of Philosophy
THE TREATISES AS TRANSLATIONS
Translation is service.
David Constantine
When you offer a translation to a nation, that nation will almost always look on the translation as an act of violence against itself.
Victor Hugo
. . . by what means were [the Romans] able so to enrich their language, indeed to make it almost the equal of Greek? By imitating the best Greek authors, transforming themselves into them, devouring them, and, after having thoroughly digested them, converting them into blood and nourishment, selecting, each according to his own nature and the topic he wished to choose, the best author, all of whose rarest and most exquisite strengths they diligently observed, and, like shoots, grafted them . . . and adapted them to their own language.
Joachim de Bellay
THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER discussed the role that philosophy played in Cicero’s correspondence with a focus on the period in which the philosophical corpus was produced. We saw how Cicero tried to integrate philosophy into his politically charged deliberations and relationships. With this chapter, I shift my investigation to the corpus itself. Here it is the introduction of politics into the realm of philosophy, and the cultural and social issues in which such integration is necessarily implicated that will be of primary importance. In the prefaces to most of his philosophical treatises, Cicero is explicit on the subject of the treatises’ potential political and social benefits. His repeated assertion of this claim shows clearly that he saw it as critical to justifying his project before the Roman public. The connection between philosophy and Roman political life, however, is by no means obvious, given the marginal status of the discipline, and of intellectual activity more generally in Roman society (discussed in chapter 1).
An examination of Cicero’s presentation of this connection and its potential effects on the ailing body of the republic will be revealing, then, in a number of ways. In the first place, Cicero’s account of his goals and motivations will demonstrate what he sees as some of the reasons behind the republic’s calamitous condition and how he conceives of his introduction of philosophy as a response designed to remedy those troubles. Moreover, the fact that these issues are presented explicitly, unlike a number of other, more embedded strategies that will be discussed in the following chapters, indicates that he expects a fairly broad portion of his intended audience to be in agreement with his analysis of the problems and willing to entertain the solutions that he proposes. Given Cicero’s skill at putting to use all available resources to manage the opinions and prejudices of his audience to his advantage, a skill so amply demonstrated in his speeches and letters, it is safe to say that what the prefaces contain is the most persuasive case one could make to a Roman audience on behalf of philosophy. As such, it is of great importance for broadening our understanding of the place of philosophy in late-republican Roman discourse.
At the center of Cicero’s claims about his project as a service to the state is the idea of translation. None of the philosophical works are translations in the strict sense of the word. They are the product of Cicero’s synthesis, adaptation, and rewriting of a multiplicity of Greek philosophical texts and ideas, but Cicero is acutely aware that it is the status of his works as translations from the Greek that will most influence his audience’s reception of them.1 As a work of translation, Cicero’s project is inherently contradictory. It lies at an uneasy middle ground between domesticating and foreignizing translation.2 Cicero’s intention is undoubtedly domesticating: he appropriates and molds the Greek material, illustrates it with Roman examples, puts it in the mouths of great Romans of the past and links it, though allusion and rhetoric, to Roman practices and Roman literature. What he envisions is an incorporation of Greek philosophy, as reconceived by him, into the cultural arsenal of the Roman elite.3 Yet the very novelty of his undertaking necessarily involves the creation of new words and the use of existing words in new ways.4 Such stretching of the language cannot help but have a foreignizing effect on the reader.5 The resulting ambivalent nature of the enterprise6 is reflected in Cicero’s negotiations with his fragmented readership7 on the meaning and value of translation.8
The themes that appear repeatedly in the explicit self-justificatory passages of the prefaces, and that will occupy me in this chapter, are encapsulated in the following section of the preface to book one of De Natura Deorum. This passage will thus serve as a convenient starting point for the discussion. On a general level, Cicero here presents the philosophical project as a fulfillment of his civic duty; and, more specifically, he highlights the act of translating philosophy from Greek into Latin9 as a significant part of the benefit he expects the civic body and the state to derive from this undertaking:
sin autem quis requirit quae causa nos inpulerit ut haec tam sero litteris mandaremus, nihil est quod expedire tam facile possimus. nam cum otio langueremus et is esset rei publicae status, ut eam unius consilio atque cura gubernari necesse esset, primum ipsius rei publicae causa philosophiam nostris hominibus explicandam putavi, magni existimans interesse ad decus et ad laudem civitatis res tam gravis tamque praeclaras Latinis etiam litteris contineri. eoque me minus instituti mei paenitet, quod facile sentio quam multorum non modo discendi, sed etiam scribendi studia commoverim. complures enim Graecis institutionibus eruditi ea quae didicerant cum civibus suis communicare non poterant, quod illa quae a Graecis accepissent Latine dici posse diffiderent; quo in genere tantum profecisse videmur, ut a Graecis ne verborum quidem copia vinceremur. (N.D. 1.7–8)
But if anyone further asks what cause moved me to entrust these matters to writing so late, there is nothing that I could explain so easily as that. For at a time when I was weary from lack of activity and the state of the republic was such that it was necessary for it to be ruled through the planning and caring of one man, I thought that, in the first place, for the sake of the republic itself philosophy had to be set forth before our men, since I think that it is of great importance for the glory and good reputation of the state to have such weighty and noble matters expressed in Latin. And I regret my decision all the less since I easily perceive that I have moved many to the pursuit not only of learning, but also of writing. For very many men who had received a Greek education were unable to share what they had learned with their fellow citizens because they had no confidence in their ability to express in Latin what they had been taught by the Greeks; and in this respect I seem to have made so much progress that we are not surpassed by the Greeks even in the abundance of words.
The first section of this passage presents the twofold and interconnected reasons behind the philosophical project. The state of the republic under one-man rule and Cicero’s resulting loss of place in the traditional, now-derelict republican machinery, lead him to posit an explicit link between philosophy and the well-being of the republic. Cicero is diplomatic here in his description of the current political situation, ascribing it to necessity. The evidence of his contemporary correspondence, however, makes it overwhelmingly clear that he saw Caesar’s rule as disgraceful and humiliating.10 This perception can be seen as largely responsible for the language that he employs to describe the arena in which philosophy is expected to contribute to the republic: instead of claiming that it will produce (or restore) a healthy state, he expects it to be productive of laus (praise) and decus (glory or dignity). This choice of words does not directly challenge the idea that Caesar’s rule will continue, but for those who, like Cicero, see it as dishonorable and improper, a republic worthy of praise is surely a republic restored and free from autocracy. References to the future laus and decus that will follow on Cicero’s introduction of philosophy into Roman society point, then, to their absence at the time of writing and to the need for their reestablishment.11
The content of the project is next described in terms that are consistent with this presentation of its objective. The adjectives Cicero uses are gravis (weighty) and praeclarus (honorable, glorious). The first summons to mind not only the seriousness and weightiness of the content, but also, given the virtual semantic merger of gravitas and dignitas, the notion of dignity, the traditional quality of those who run the republic in a manner befitting their position and status; thus, gravis looks back to decus. Similarly, praeclarus, which is connected with “glory,” is descriptive of the quality of those who deserve laus. Thus, the philosophical content of Cicero’s work is identified as a source of critical qualities that the Roman state in its current condition lacks. The implied conclusion is that there exists a natural link between the practice of philosophy and a state that deserves praise and exhibits dignity.
The crowning claim in this nexus of ideas is based on the act of translation: Cicero’s project is beneficial because he is making philosophy available to the Roman audience in Latin. Its previous inaccessibility in the language of the state is thus construed as an obstacle to the welfare of the state that, as Cicero has just established, depends on the natural alliance between philosophy and the good republic. Cicero’s act of translation, then, is meant as a practical way to create a link that for the moment exists only theoretically, thereby enabling the state to derive practical benefit from a theoretical discipline.
Cicero thus identifies the two areas to be connected—the republic and philosophy—and forecasts the advantages that the one will derive from the introduction of the other. The means of effecting the connection is his project, and thus also he himself, as its author. Yet even in this brief outline, he does not ignore another essential element in the chain—namely, the reading public. Their willingness to accept Cicero’s arguments for philosophy’s beneficial potential is indispensable if the connection is to be established and laus and decus restored to the state. The reference to the public in this passage is brief and general; the audience of Cicero’s exposition of philosophy is identified as nostri homines, a vague, but nonetheless suggestive, phrase.
Later on in this chapter I will discuss Cicero’s more specific depictions of his potential audience, which he divides into groups based on their particular prejudices and preferences as reflected mainly in their knowledge of, and relationship to, Greek culture, and their reading practices. Here, however, the audience appears to be undifferentiated. Yet this first impression is not necessarily correct. Nostri in the context of translation might be understood to refer to all Romans as recipients of this corpus constituted from Greek knowledge and mediated through Cicero. But it also has broader implications: the nostri are likely to be men of the same class, men who share Cicero’s opinion of the general condition of the republic as he represents it in this passage. Like boni and optimi, similarly vague descriptions used by Cicero to describe his (real and imagined) political fellow-travelers,12 nostri is both general and positive in a way that invites potential readers to desire inclusion in the category and to validate the position of the speaker who presents himself as one who is able to welcome others into the group.
After the parameters of the project—its content, goal, and audience—have been established, the second half of the passage purports to offer proof that Cicero’s approach is working and is already having an effect on the citizen body. As a result of his earlier work, there has been an observable increase in the number of people practicing philosophy, both passively, through reading, and, following his lead, actively, through writing similar philosophical works. He once again refers to the situation prior to his having made philosophy available in Latin, and paints a picture of a state divided, with communication between fellow citizens disrupted. The image is of a communication barrier between speakers of the same language, who lack confidence in their ability to convey their thoughts so as to be understood by their fellows on a matter that has just been cited as of utmost importance for the future of the state. Cicero is clearly reminding his readers of the recent civil war: in particular of the situation just before the war began and in the early part of the hostilities, when Cicero himself was trying, unsuccessfully, to conduct negotiations between the two parties.13 The failure of those efforts does less to undermine his position as a middleman than their benefits, painfully obvious in hindsight, do to bolster his claim to know where the advantage of his fellow-citizens lies.
While the analogy is not, and could not have been meant to be, perfect, the allusion to a citizen body divided is sufficient, in the post–civil war environment, to make a case for a project that aims to remove barriers between citizens and improve their ability to understand one another. In its essence, this project of communication restoration is a logical continuation of the policy directed towards concordia ordinum that is a permanent feature of Cicero’s political thought and action, embodied most fully in his response to the crisis of Catilinarian conspiracy during his consulship and reconstituted, post-exile, as consensus omnium bonorum.14 In the end, Cicero’s claim extends well beyond any benefits that his own treatises might furnish to the Roman state; of even greater import is the expanded and improved communication that will follow on the introduction and dissemination of philosophical thought per se and the creation of a Latin philosophical vocabulary.
This expansion in the scope of his claims is accompanied by ambiguity in the use of the first person plural in the last clause of the passage—a slippage encouraged by Cicero’s fairly consistent use of pluralis auctoris in the treatises. Strictly speaking, Cicero himself is the agent of profecisse videmur, since the translation and vocabulary building efforts referred to are his. The subject of vinceremur, however, is set in opposition with “the Greeks,” and is thus most likely “we, the Romans.” Yet, since no change of subject is explicitly announced, a confusion of the two subjects is allowed to take place, the main rhetorical effect of which is the close identification of the author and his efforts with his nation and its best interest. At the same time Cicero’s wording does not merely blend him into the mass of the citizens, but reserves for him a prominent leading role.15 Thus, a positive model of leadership, with identity of purpose at its basis, is constructed to oppose and replace the negative model of leadership that is Caesar’s dictatorship.
THE SHAPE OF TRANSLATION: TUSCULANS I
The question of translation raises a number of uncomfortable issues. When he wants to see it in an exclusively positive light, Cicero presents translation primarily in two interconnected ways: as a means of freeing the Roman public from its dependency on the Greeks for access to philosophical knowledge, and of making the important resource that philosophy is available to a broader segment of the population.16 Yet even in these descriptions, seemingly so positive and straightforward, there are problems lurking. Linguistic dependence aside, the elevation of Greek philosophical knowledge to a privileged status in Cicero’s improved republic may mean recognizing a more significant dependence of the Roman state on Greek thought than his Roman audience is apt to find comfortable. While simple cultural dependence might be recognized and to a degree accepted, the suggestion that the Romans were indebted to the Greeks in those public areas where they had always perceived themselves as superior was likely to clash with their self-perception and national pride.
Furthermore, the projected better future that would result from the incorporation of philosophy into public discourse could cast an unwelcome shadow on the Romans’ ideas of their past. If the application of Greek philosophy to the everyday business of the republic is considered such a significant improvement, what does this say about the earlier republic, constituted and maintained exclusively through the mos maiorum? And yet an acknowledgement that something was lacking in the old republic and that Greek thought might supply the missing part is integral to Cicero’s project, though of course it cannot be openly acknowledged by a text that wants to integrate itself as naturally as possible into the existing Roman cultural fabric. Cicero thus finds himself in a perilous ideological position. He will need to employ a number of strategies in the prefaces to defend himself from criticism, as he attempts to navigate between his act of translation, Greek thought, and Roman tradition.
The preface to book one of the Tusculan Disputations contains an extended disquisition on the history of the interaction between Greek learning and Roman conventional wisdom:
. . . cum omnium artium quae ad rectam vivendi viam pertinerent ratio et disciplina studio sapientiae, quae philosophia dicitur, contineretur, hoc mihi Latinis litteris inlustrandum putavi, non quia philosophia Graecis et litteris et doctoribus percipi non posset, sed meum semper iudicium fuit omnia nostros aut invenisse per se sapientius quam Graecos aut accepta ab illis fecisse meliora, quae quidem digna statuissent, in quibus elaborarent. nam mores et instituta vitae resque domesticas ac familiaris nos profecto et melius tuemur et lautius, rem vero publicam nostri maiores certe melioribus temperaverunt et institutis et legibus. quid loquar de re militari? in qua cum virtute nostri multum valuerunt, tum plus etiam disciplina. iam illa, quae natura, non litteris adsecuti sunt, neque cum Graecia neque ulla cum gente sunt conferenda. quae enim tanta gravitas, quae tanta constantia, magnitudo animi, probitas, fides, quae tam excellens in omni genere virtus in ullis fuit ut sit cum maioribus nostris comparanda? doctrina Graecia nos et omni litterarum genere superabat; in quo erat facile vincere non repugnantes. (Tusc. 1.1–3)
. . . since understanding and practice of all arts which are relevant for the right way of living are contained within the study of wisdom, which is called philosophy, I thought that it behooved me to illustrate this field of study in the Latin language, not because philosophy could not be learned from Greek books and Greek teachers, but it was my judgment that our people either had themselves devised everything more wisely than the Greeks, or improved what they got from the Greeks if they thought it worthy of effort and improvement. For clearly we uphold our morals, practices, as well as domestic and family matters better and more nobly, and without a doubt our ancestors regulated the state with better institutions and laws. Why should I speak of their military skill? in which our men excelled not just because of their courage, but due even more to their discipline. And now what they accomplished through natural ability, not through learning, is beyond comparison with either Greece or any other nation. For who had such great dignity, such steadfastness, greatness of spirit, uprightness, faithfulness, what excellence of any kind was there in any people that can be set beside that of our ancestors? Greece surpassed us in learning and in every kind of literary endeavor, an area in which it was easy to conquer those who did not fight back.
The fact of translation and its centrality is made immediately felt through the juxtaposition of the two terms, one Latin, the other Greek, that broadly define the subject of the project: sapientia and philosophia.17 While studium sapientiae is a calque of the Greek term that Cicero alludes to in other places,18 the very fact that he is using the Greek term in addition to the apparent Latin parallel in this programmatic context serves to emphasize that more than simple translation, i.e. finding the Latin equivalent and substituting it for the Greek, is taking place.19 The paraphrase is the closest Latin comes to having an equivalent for philosophia, yet it is not deemed sufficient to describe the Greek phenomenon, and so Cicero must resort to a transliterated Greek alongside the Latin.20 Just as the very fact of his undertaking the philosophical project seems to entail an acknowledgement that there is something lacking in the mos maiorum, so his continued use of philosophia emphasizes a lack in the Latin language, and therefore, in the conceptual framework of its speakers.21
We can get a glimpse of Cicero’s own understanding of the difference between the two terms and what they represent by looking closely at how he uses them throughout the passage. Not surprisingly, it is philosophia that is available from Greek books and Greek teachers. But the establishment of institutions was conducted sapientius by the Romans than the Greeks, and sapientia, it is implied, was operating in choosing what to adopt from the Greeks and then how to improve it once it was taken over.22 The picture of the cultural relationship presented here prompts the question: if the Romans are so superior to the Greeks in the area of wisdom, then what can be the contribution of Cicero’s work that offers philosophia to the Roman audience? This is where the disjunction between the two terms becomes important. Cicero is obviously admitting that sapientia and philosophia overlap, but his retention of the Greek term can be taken as an indication that he does not see them as identical. On this interpretation, his statement about Roman superiority in the area of sapientia can be taken to apply only to the area where the two terms intersect. That leaves open the possibility that there is something more to philosophia that can be valuable to the Romans, something that has not to this point been assimilated. We can infer what that is by looking at what Cicero tells us it is not—for all the areas in which he finds the Romans to be superior must belong to that portion of sapientia that overlaps with philosophia.
Cicero portrays Roman achievement as superior to the Greek in virtually every area of human activity. Morals, customs, family life, state organization, law, and, of course, the military—in all these spheres the Romans are more accomplished.23 Defeat is conceded only in doctrina and litterae, and Cicero emphasizes that the Romans only lost there through non-participation. In fact, the language he uses to describe this particular non-encounter, erat facile vincere non repugnantes, is striking in that it is the language of military struggle. Coming as it does after a reference to the incontrovertible superiority of the Romans in the military arena, it clearly implies that had a real competition taken place, the victory would have gone, yet again, to the Romans.24
Cicero’s tone here is fairly disparaging—he seems to have gotten so caught up in his own hymn to Roman talent and invention that the narrow arena of Greek learning appears puny in comparison with the all-embracing Roman achievement. This dismissive assessment appears to work against Cicero’s overall goals in the prefaces—to convince the Romans that they do need philosophia after all—and is, moreover, specifically contradicted by much more enthusiastic valuations of Greek literature and philosophy in the treatises and many of the speeches. One can only conclude, therefore, that these discordant sentiments are reflective of Cicero’s own ambivalence, as well as of the difficulty he faces in presenting his project to a Roman audience in such a way as to maximize the chances of a favorable reception.25
The encomiastic recitation of Roman moral and institutional advantages is, typically for Roman discourse on the subject, centered on the past, with the most enthusiastic praise going to the maiores. Contemporary Romans are present in the passage as well, but Cicero makes an interesting distinction. Accomplishments in the domestic and family sphere are presented in the present tense (tuemur), and the choice of the verb depicts the Romans of Cicero’s day as successful guardians of what their ancestors established.26 But in the second half of the sentence, when he switches to the public sphere, he focuses on the ancestors only and leaves his contemporaries out of the picture. Moreover, the use of the adjective melioribus is ambiguous here: in the first half of the sentence, melius clearly compares the Romans favorably to the Greeks; in the second, though it would be more natural to take melioribus as continuing the same opposition, it can also be understood as making another comparison, between the maiores and Cicero’s contemporaries—and to the advantage of the former.27 The clear distinction that is thus established between Romans then and now, and the manifest fact of the republic’s collapse, goes some way towards reconciling the desire to reaffirm Roman superiority with the need for a cultural product derived from the Greek tradition. In this account, the one thing that Roman traditional virtues and institutions seem to lack is the ability to maintain themselves over time, as evidenced by widely alleged moral degeneration and institutional collapse. If it can be established that Greek learning, and philosophia in particular, will ensure the greater stability and durability of traditional Roman ideals without contaminating them, Cicero will have made his point and proven the value of his philosophical project to the state.28
In addition to the actual content of Cicero’s contribution, his project fits well the successful pattern of adaptation which obtained, according to his description, in all earlier cases of cultural borrowing; that is, it presents itself as an instance of the Roman improvement (meliora fecisse) of the Greek material.29 The preface itself serves as a small-scale example: the comparison around which it is structured is, in fact, as Richard Harder demonstrated, a Romanized variation on a topos borrowed from Greek discussions of their own borrowings from other nations.30
The passages discussed so far engage primarily with the question of the content of Cicero’s contribution. A later section of the preface to the Tusculans deals with the issues of proper form. Through most of the prefaces the impression that Cicero is the first to attempt introducing this particular cultural product to the Roman audience is insinuated in two main ways. In the first place, his very musings on the nature of the project and on the difficulties inherent in its execution and reception lead to the inference that he is dealing with these issues for the first time, that what he is attempting is something new in his specific cultural and social environment. Secondly, Cicero’s self-positioning as an expert on philosophy second to none, which I will discuss in more detail in chapter 5, neutralizes his brief mentions of others engaged in philosophy, such as Brutus and Varro, and so reinforces the picture of Cicero facing his subject and his public alone. Yet in the context of formal, stylistic considerations Cicero allows “competition” to enter his prefaces. The account of the state of Latin philosophy he gives in the following passage is a good example of contradictions in his presentation of his position that he does not attempt to resolve:
philosophia iacuit usque ad hanc aetatem nec ullum habuit lumen litterarum Latinarum; quae inlustranda et excitanda nobis est, ut, si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus nostris, prosimus etiam, si possumus, otiosi. in quo eo magis nobis est elaborandum, quod multi iam esse libri Latini dicuntur scripti inconsiderate ab optimis illis quidem viris, sed non satis eruditis. fieri autem potest ut recte quis sentiat et id quod sentit polite eloqui non possit; sed mandare quemquam litteris cogitationes suas, qui eas nec disponere nec inlustrare possit nec delectatione aliqua allicere lectorem, hominis est intemperanter abutentis et otio et litteris. itaque suos libros ipsi legunt cum suis, nec quisquam attingit praeter eos, qui eandem licentiam scribendi sibi permitti volunt. quare si aliquid oratoriae laudis nostra attulimus industria, multo studiosius philosophiae fontis aperiemus, e quibus etiam illa manabant. (Tusc. 1.5–6)
Philosophy lay untouched up until this age and received no illumination in Latin letters; and it must now be brought to light and raised up by me so that, if I was of some use to my fellow citizens when engaged in public life, I may also be of use, if I can, when at leisure. And I must work the harder, since they say that there are now many books in Latin written without due care by men who are certainly perfectly good people, but not sufficiently educated. And it is possible that someone thinks correctly and is unable to express what he thinks in a polished way; but for someone to entrust his opinions to writing if he can neither set them in order, nor elucidate them, nor attract the reader by some pleasantness, that reveals a man who immoderately misuses both his free time and his writing. And so they read their own books themselves together with their followers, and no one reaches an audience beyond those men who wish that the same freedom of writing be permitted to them. Therefore if I have won some oratorical praise with my diligence, so much more industriously will I lay open the sources of philosophy from which those prior accomplishments flowed.
The first sentence is typical of Cicero’s presentation of Latin philosophy throughout most of the prefaces. Philosophy is entirely neglected. No one (with the obvious exception of the author) writes on the subject in Latin, and, as a result, Cicero’s entry into the field can be portrayed as uniquely significant. The metaphors of inlustranda and excitanda call to mind the sun in his chariot throwing light on previously dark areas of the world and calling forth all kinds of life. Given that Cicero seems here to occupy a life-giving, semi-divine position as a benign force revealing useful truths to his audience, it comes as a surprise when, in the section immediately following, we learn that he is but one of a number of men engaged in a rather similar project of writing philosophy in Latin. Yet what is more striking is the apparent lack of tension between the two pictures. The contemptuous tone that Cicero adopts towards the other philosophical writers allows him to smooth the transition and preserve his position and his viewpoint, as it were, from on high. Nonetheless, the change in perspective is significant. From the philosophical desert, we are suddenly transported into a world inundated with philosophical works.31 What is the reason behind this change? What makes it worthwhile for Cicero to temporarily abandon his bastion of primacy and allow the reader to countenance the thought of competition? The answer must be that discussions of form provide different rhetorical opportunities and serve different ends than discussions of content.
In discussing the content of his project, Cicero’s task is to show that philosophy has intrinsic value and can make an important contribution to Roman society. While there is some implicit advantage to him personally if he gets his point across, since he would then be seen as a benefactor, his own position would be rendered somewhat precarious. If what he introduces is judged to be of value and others follow in his footsteps—an outcome he explicitly desires—what will become of his unique status, his primacy in the field? Establishing an enduring claim to an elevated position is, ironically, more easily done when there are others with whom to compare oneself.32 One avenue that was open to Cicero for comparative self-elevation lay in the area of content: he could have presented his work as enduringly superior due to the kind of philosophy that he promoted. It is certainly the case that the writers he refers to so contemptuously above would serve that purpose well, since all of them are Epicureans. But, with minor exceptions, Cicero in his prefaces avoids discussing differences between schools.33 Promoting philosophy, he seems to think, is hard enough without clouding the issue by weighing the advantages of different schools. That will be a matter left to the main body of the works, for readers who have moved past the preface and have consented to enter the philosophical world of the treatise. Instead, Cicero chooses an area of comparison where his expertise is beyond doubt and his victory all but certain: literary style.34
His basic assumption is that subject matter cannot be allowed to stand on its own merits: the manner of its presentation is essential to its ultimate reception by the public.35 It is this need for proper style to ensure the success of the project that secures Cicero’s place in this endeavor: the many others whom he mentions are incompetent writers and do not understand the importance of style.36 Cicero’s insistence on the relevance of his oratorical background is of particular import in this context, because the skills that he enumerates as his special qualifications for the task of presenting philosophy to a Roman audience are skills shared with oratory. The feeble writers he singles out not only lack style but also persuasiveness. They cannot reach anyone beyond their narrow circle, with the result that their discourse is incestuous and decidedly barren. It is instructive to contrast this inbred pattern of text circulation with the traditional pattern that Cicero uses in his prefaces, which will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.
One of the main components in the aristocratic pattern of text exchange is the secondary status of the text itself and the primacy of the relationship between the partners in the exchange. A text is only one of many kinds of objects that can be exchanged in such a relationship, and, like any other object, it brings with it a particular set of meanings: the aspect of the bond between the partners that is emphasized when the object of exchange is textual is shared intellectual interest. The primary ostensible goal of exchange, however, is not the furthering of the author’s ambitions or even the recognition of the recipient’s intellectual pursuits, but the recognition and the reinforcement of the bond between the two men. The exchange that is described above patently falls short of the ideal of aristocratic exchange. The works exchanged lack the necessary qualities to make them valuable objects in and of themselves. In Cicero’s depiction his rivals fail to apply the thought and planning (inconsiderate) as well as the patience that would be required to produce a polished piece of work (polite) such as would have value. This is not surprising since they lack the education that would qualify them to participate in intellectual exchange (non eruditis). The directionality of intention in this pseudo-exchange is also off. Instead of directing their intention to the bond and the partner, Cicero represents these men as primarily interested in themselves, and only taking part in the exchange to ensure that their own work will have an audience. Because they are not interested in benefiting the recipients of their work, they do not exert the effort necessary to make the experience pleasant for them (nec delectatione aliqua allicere lectorem).37 Thus, their efforts cannot but fail to meet the standards of a traditional exchange.
However, while Cicero exploits the traditional model to his advantage in the prefaces, in reality his own work does not conform precisely to the ideal pattern either. The main point of deviation is the intended audience: through the dedicatees of his works Cicero addresses a much broader audience than a conventional exchange would include. Yet Cicero presents this deviation as a positive one, necessitated by the wider applicability of the benefits inherent in his chosen subject. On this score, the incestuous philosophical circle also fails. Their interest is limited to having their work read by a narrow group of likeminded readers, and so there is no need for an effort towards expanding the appeal of their work. Thus, their occupation is singularly futile: their work is read by people who already share their views. In contrast, Cicero positions himself as building on the traditional model to include and benefit the wider community of Romans.38
WHY TRANSLATION? DE FINIBUS I
Cicero confronts the issue of translating philosophy from Greek to Latin most explicitly in the preface to book one of De Finibus. The discussion is framed as a response to critics whose objection, to which Cicero refers briefly, is twofold:
non eram nescius, Brute, cum quae summis ingeniis exquisitaque doctrina philosophi Graeco sermone tractavissent ea Latinis litteris mandaremus, fore ut hic noster labor in varias reprehensiones incurrere. . . . erunt etiam, et ii quidem eruditi Graecis litteris, contemnentes Latinas, qui se dicant in Graecis legendis operam malle consumere. (Fin. 1.1)
I was not unaware, Brutus, when I set about entrusting to Latin letters those things that philosophers had treated with highest talent and refined learning in the Greek language, that my work would run into various reproaches . . . there will also be those, and they indeed educated in Greek letters, who despise Latin, who say that they prefer to spend their energy reading Greek.
The main point of the criticism is directed against the act of translation itself. Cicero ascribes to his critics a preference, plain and simple, for works written in Greek.39 A further objection, embedded in the relationship between the tenses of tractavissent and mandaremus, has to do with the temporal positioning of Cicero’s project: his subject has been treated already; he is redoing something already done, and he is doing it in an inferior medium. That is, on the issue of translation, Cicero is dealing with the problem of the Romans’ sense of cultural secondariness. This may seem paradoxical in light of the tone of the rest of Cicero’s apologia, in which for the most part he tries to convince his Roman audience that the Greek cultural heritage he is introducing has something of value to offer them. One way to resolve the paradox is suggested by Cicero’s own tactic of dividing his critics into groups: we can postulate that arguments defending translation are not addressed to the same audience segment as arguments defending the value of philosophical practice in general. The fact that the critics in the above passage spend time reading Greek would certainly seem to indicate some approval of Greek culture. And their objection to translation presupposes that they have the means for comparison, unlike the mass of readers who, Cicero often claims, have no access to philosophy, being unable to read Greek on the necessary level.
While this division is certainly valid, and the different types of criticism, real or anticipated, would originate from different groups, it is also the case that the contradictions between the two sets of concerns are reflective of a more general paradox in the Romans’ relationship to Greek culture. On the one hand, there is a pervasive sense of cultural inferiority, a resigned feeling that no Roman achievement could ever surpass what the Greeks have accomplished, especially “the Greeks of old.” On the other hand, just as pervasive is the perception of Roman superiority in the realm of morals and statehood, and the concomitant contempt for what contemporary Greece and Greeks have to offer.40
This chronological split in Roman perception is illustrated by the well-known episode of the tomb of Archimedes, narrated by Cicero in Tusc. 5.64–66.41 In Sicily during his quaestorship, young Cicero was shocked to discover that the Syracusans did not know where their famous compatriot was buried. Cicero found the tomb and made his discovery public to the joy of the local population under whose very noses it had been the entire time. Cicero sums up the episode thus: ita nobilissima Graeciae civitas, quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi monumentum ignorasset, nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset, “in this way the exceedingly noble city of Greece, one that at one time was even most learned, would have remained ignorant of the memorial to its cleverest citizen, had it not learned it from a man of Arpinum” (Tusc. 5.66). The moral of the story is clear: not only is the learning of the Greeks all in the past, but that past is admired, sought after, and preserved by the Romans more respectfully than by contemporary Greeks, who have lost touch with it. Thus, one young Roman demonstrates his superiority to an entire (most noble!) Greek city.42
In addition to the chronological split in the perception of Greek culture, the Romans also preferenced certain Greek genres over others. Tragedy was admired without reservation, as were other genres practiced long ago that had not survived with any vitality in Greece into the present day. A discipline like philosophy, however, was in a markedly different position. Practiced in Greece without interruption and imported to Rome by its contemporary practitioners since the time of Cato the Elder, it was, due to the political decline of the Greek world, as well as to the perception of the personalities of the philosophers themselves (seen as impractical at best, dissolute and unprincipled at worst), much more liable to arouse cultural hostility.43 The complex nature of the Roman relationship to Greek culture makes it impossible to entirely separate the responses of the two groups to Cicero’s project, and, as a result, his reaction to the anticipated criticism of one set of readers cannot be read in isolation from his reaction to the other. Since the concerns of the two overlap in Roman discourse, Cicero’s response has to be satisfactory in the eyes of both.
As it happens, Cicero, in his typical fashion, uses one set of concerns to battle the other. Implied in the Romans’ willingness to accept Greek preeminence in certain areas and not in others is their ultimate confidence that the areas of Roman superiority are themselves infinitely superior. In other words, satisfaction with their moral and political virtues creates a position of strength from which they are able to concede the control of other, in their view less significant, spheres to others.44 Thus, in De Finibus 1.4, Cicero begins his rebuttal to anti-translation critics by moving the debate out of the arena of philosophy into the literary sphere, an area that has no direct application to public life of the sort he postulates for philosophy and is thus potentially less productive of controversy. Literature was also a natural place to look to for an analogy, as there was no shortage of Latin translations of Greek tragedy and comedy, many of which Cicero cites by name.
Cicero paints an environment in which reading Greek originals and avoiding Latin translations would be extremely unpatriotic and a sign of unhealthy self-hatred on the part of the hypothetical Roman.45 Using a device common in his speeches, he poses a rhetorical question to create this straw man in terms that will preclude any member of his audience from being comfortable with anything less than Cicero’s point of view. The language of hatred and hostility used in describing this reader is extreme: he is an enemy of the very Roman name (inimicus nomini Romano); he scorns, rejects, and hates Roman plays (spernat aut reiciat, oderit). His preference for Greek works is couched in terms of pleasure and delight, a portrayal that again summons notions of self-hatred on the part of those who do not enjoy their own language (non delectet eos sermo patrius).
To this hypothetical bad Roman reader Cicero opposes his own reading practice. Just as the hypothetical reader exemplifies an extreme rejection of Roman literature, so Cicero is a model of unconditional acceptance. Whereas the authors rejected by the hypothetical reader are Ennius, Pacuvius, Caecilius and Terence, all generally recognized masters of Roman playwriting, Cicero, as a sign of his patriotism, parades before the audience his willingness to read even the Electra of Atilius, described by Lucilius as ferreum scriptorem, an “iron writer,” with the same attention as the Electra of Sophocles.46 Cicero leaves no doubt that Atilius’ play is without literary merit, but insists that the very fact that Atilius is a Roman writing in Latin is enough to make any self-respecting Roman want to read his composition.47 This is a domesticating, nationalistic impulse taken to its logical extreme.
The condemnation that follows no longer applies to the hypothetical reader alone: rudem esse omnino in nostris poetis aut inertissimae segnitiae est aut fastidii delicatissimi, “To be altogether unacquainted with our poets is a sign of either most indolent inactivity or of most delicate fastidiousness” (Fin. 1.5). The insinuation of a connection between, from the Roman point of view, the reprehensible moral qualities of contemporary Greeks (laziness and an inability to act on the one hand, effeminacy connected to over-sophistication on the other) and the moral character of those who prefer reading Greek to the exclusion of Latin reinforces the overall impression that moral character and national values are at stake in a Roman’s choice of reading material. Thus, Cicero is able to turn the anti-Greek attitudes of one group of his potential critics, which he himself struggles against at other points in his prefaces, against the other group, which is opposed to the idea of translation.
The literary parallel serves to establish the viability of translation in general on patriotic grounds. The case for translating philosophy does not follow along the same lines, but is taken as already established a fortiori through a comparison between the two types of texts:
iis igitur est difficilius satis facere qui se Latina scripta dicunt contemnere. in quibus hoc primum est in quo admirer, cur in gravissimis rebus non delectet eos sermo patrius, cum idem fabellas Latinas ad verbum e Graecis expressas non inviti legant. (Fin. 1.4)
It is more difficult to satisfy those who say that they look down on things written in Latin. In whom the following is the first issue that astonishes me, why in most serious matters the language of their ancestors does not please them, when the same men not unwillingly read light plays literally translated from the Greek.
Just as there is a difference between the areas of strength of the two nations being compared, so it seems that, to Cicero’s mind, the texts under discussion are of unequal weight as well. Plays are light stuff: a somewhat contemptuous diminutive is used, hinting at the frivolous and the unnecessary. By contrast, philosophy is referred to as gravissimae res, thus linked to the virtue of gravitas, which is both very Roman and most decidedly not light or frivolous.48 The unexpressed conclusion of the twofold comparison is that the Greek language is more suited to plays, whereas Latin is destined for the writing of philosophy. The two arguments combine to produce an epiphany of the philosophica as the best possible kind of writing: texts in the Latin language which demand attention and respect from any Roman, about subject matter indisputably more serious than any literature that aims merely to entertain.
Typically, Cicero’s practice is to refute an objection and then claim that it does not in fact apply to him in the first place. Here also, once he has led his ideal reader down a path of argument that confers automatic sanction on any philosophy written in Latin, Cicero moves on to show that what he is actually doing goes above and beyond that basic definition:
quid? si nos non interpretum fungimur munere, sed tuemur ea quae dicta sunt ab iis quos probamus eisque nostrum iudicium et nostrum scribendi ordinem adiungimus, quid habent cur Graeca anteponant iis quae et splendide dicta sint neque sint conversa de Graecis? nam si dicent ab illis has res esse tractatas, ne ipsos quidem Graecos est cur tam multos legant quam legendi sunt. (Fin. 1.6)
So? If we do not perform the function of translators, but preserve things that were pronounced by those authors that we approve of, and to their teachings we add our own judgment and our own structural arrangement, what reason do they [the critics of Latin translations] have to prefer Greek writings to those that are elegantly put together and have not been simply translated from the Greek? For if they claim that these matters have been treated by them [the Greeks], there is no reason why they read quite so many of the Greek authors themselves as one has to read.
The passage goes on to describe a high degree of redundancy in the writings of Greek philosophers. Cicero’s final point is to show up the hypocrisy of critics who are willing to read repetitive writings as long as they are in Greek, thus again attributing their objections to their contemptible self-hatred. But while battling his detractors, Cicero begins to give us as well an important glimpse into how he views his role as the author of the philosophica vis-à-vis the Greek “originals” that he uses as his source material. This is interesting not only in terms of our efforts to understand the project and its cultural positioning in its own time, but also because it speaks to concerns that were in the earlier part of the last century, and still are, to a certain degree, central to modern scholarship on the philosophica. The question of originality versus mere translation has occupied Cicero scholars as much as it did his (possibly imaginary) critics.49 The modern preoccupation with originality that has led some scholars to dismiss Cicero as uninteresting on his own terms has of course very different roots from Roman hellenophiles’ sense of cultural inferiority. The two perspectives nonetheless add up to the same basic picture in which an uninspiring (and uninspired) Cicero meticulously strings together passages culled from the treasure trove of Greek philosophical tradition.50 As we see when we look more closely at his own account of his project, the source for such a low estimation of his accomplishment in the modern world may lie in a misunderstanding of his aims. Cicero never laid claim to original philosophical insights of the sort that would satisfy the modern definition of “originality,” a notion rooted in the Romantic tradition. Yet his project is deeply original in a different sense, as he himself realized and as recent Cicero scholarship acknowledges.51
To get back to the passage at hand. Cicero has claimed the office of “mere translator” as one deserving of merit.52 Now he begins to define his role as something quite different. Cicero does not translate any work wholesale.53 He never presents to us a text that corresponds in its entirety to one Greek original: his sources are always many.54 He is translating ideas from various sources and intervening to shape them using his own, entirely original iudicium. When one works with multiple sources and aims to produce from them one coherent whole, significant judgments have to be made at many points.55 First, it was not all and sundry Greek philosophers who were translated. They were subject to the author’s approval and selection. Then, the author had to determine the order of presentation and delineate connections between their various points of view. It was the arrangement, or, rather, the resulting argument, that really made the work. The skills that Cicero foregrounds here are, not coincidentally, also the ones that he castigates the Latin Epicureans for lacking in the preface to book one of Tusculan Disputations (discussed in the previous section).56 Cicero does not mention here, because it is not relevant to the battle he is fighting, the other elements that contribute to the true originality of his work: the incorporation of Roman literary and historical lore into the framework of Greek philosophy, intertwining his two main types of sources so that they work towards the same end.57 None of the treatises are simply translations, and while we may sometimes feel that his project was never sufficiently coherent to be successful, we cannot deny its original contribution.58
The introduction of Roman material into the philosophica is further significant in light of the always-looming accusation of un-Romanness that any Roman who engaged in a task largely rooted in Greek culture could expect. The presence of Latin literary and historical maiores served as an implicit defense, though Cicero was not above defending himself more directly as well. Thus, he ends his response to the critics of translation, as he so often does when defending himself against conflicting objections, by conceding that there are cases when something Roman can go too far in trying to be Greek. He dissociates himself from such over-Greekness by presenting it in its most laughable guise and channels an aggressively Roman persona—he quotes at length Lucilius’ lines that describe Mucius Scaevola’s mocking address in Athens to a Greeked-out Albucius:59
Graecum te, Albuci, quam Romanum atque Sabinum,60
municipem Ponti, Tritani, centurionum,
praeclarorum hominum ac primorum signiferumque,
maluisti dici. Graece ergo praetor Athenis,
id quod maluisti, te, cum ad me accedis, saluto:
inquam, “Tite!” lictores, turma omnis chorusque:
Tite!” Hinc hostis mi Albucius, hinc inimicus. (Fin. 1.9)
You preferred, Albucius, to be called a Greek rather than a Roman and a Sabine, a townsman of Pontius and Tritanus, centurions, illustrious and first-rate men, and standard-bearers.
Therefore I, a praetor, in Athens, in Greek,
as you preferred it, address you when you approach me:
“Chaere,” I say, “Titus!” and my lictors, the whole crowd, in unison:
“Chaere, Titus!” Thence is Albucius my enemy, in public and in private.
The section concludes with Cicero luring his hellenophile critics into his camp by framing the moral of the satire as the need to respect domesticae res, and, most importantly, the Latin language:61 Albucius’ failure and the source of his ridiculousness is located by Cicero not in the discrepancy between his Roman essence and his Greek outer trappings, but in the degree of Greekness that he is taking on to the exclusion of fundamental Roman traits.62 Thus, the possibility of something remaining essentially Roman, and, therefore, respectable, despite its incorporating a significant amount of Greek material, is affirmed.
Cicero then concludes the preceding apologia of his overall project before moving on to define and justify his choice of subject for the specific treatise he is introducing:
ego vero, quoniam forensibus operis, laboribus, periculis non deseruisse mihi videor praesidium in quo a populo Romano locatus sum, debeo profecto, quantumcumque possum, in eo quoque elaborare ut sint opera studio labore meo doctiores cives mei, nec cum istis tantopere pugnare qui Graeca legere malint, modo legant illa ipsa, ne simulent, et iis servire qui vel utrisque litteris uti velint vel, si suas habent, illas non magnopere desiderent. (Fin. 1.10)
But I, since I believe that, in my works, toils, and dangers undertaken in the public sphere, I did not abandon the station in which I was placed by the Roman people, I indeed ought to, to the extent that I am able, in this matter also to work hard in order that thanks to my effort, enthusiasm, and toil, my fellow-citizens may become more learned, and I should not struggle so greatly against those who prefer to read Greek writings, provided that they actually do read them, not pretend to do so, and I must serve either those who want to make use of both literatures, or those who, if they have books in their own language, have no great yearning for others.
As often in the closing of a somewhat specious argument, Cicero comes back to the image of himself as the linchpin bringing together all the threads of past, present, and future for his readers and his country. I will discuss this type of ethical argument and the way Cicero employs it when he invokes his past achievement as an orator in justifying his philosophical project in detail in chapter 4.63 Here, a more general claim is implied. The fact that one and the same agent is demonstrating steadfast commitment to several goals is advanced as evidence that all of his aims are on the same, meritorious level. The assumption is that someone who once exerted himself in the service of the fatherland will continue to do so, even if in an unusual venue. While the identity of the agent and his effort is asserted, and the equality of the goals he promotes established, the role of one element in the equation is reversed. In the earlier period when Cicero’s service to the state was traditional in nature, he identified the populus Romanus as the ultimate source of his own agency. His role was markedly passive, locatus sum. He was chosen and placed where the people thought he belonged. His claim to have fulfilled his duty in that post is, then, more than empty boasting. He is laying claim to a gradual development in the course of his public engagement that puts him now in a different position vis-à-vis the people in general and the audience of the treatises in particular. His duties as a statesman, which at their inception he chooses to portray as lying entirely within the choice of others, are now decidedly active; in addition to fairly passive experience of pericula (“dangers”), they involve operae and labores (“toils” and “works”), the performance of which is presumably responsible for the change in agency from the second to the first clause (the temporal order is reversed: the performance of duties is described before the assignment). Thus, in the first clause, not only is Cicero the sole subject of two verbal ideas, videor and deseruisse, but he is also acting as the quasi-external assessor of his own actions, mihi: his agency has become all encompassing. The very temporal reversal of the order of the clauses to foreground the one that asserts Cicero’s agency can itself be seen as a testament to that agency.
Having effected such a change of agency positions in the course of his public career allows Cicero to take the next logical step and assume towards the people a position somewhat analogous to the one they occupied towards him at the start of their relationship. He is now going to assign them a station and direction, that of increasing their degree of learning. The application of the same nouns, opera and labor, with the addition of studium, meaning both zeal and study, implies a fundamental continuity in Cicero’s purpose, which is that of benefiting the public cause. The analogy implied by the symmetry of the role reversal requires similar effort on the part of the reading public, almost as a repayment for Cicero’s earlier services to them. As is often the case, the important element of obligation on the part of the audience—that is, their obligation to approach the treatises with seriousness and receive them with favor within the framework of the exchange of services—has entered the preface near to its conclusion. 64
The section ends with a final nod to those potential detractors who occupied Cicero for a good portion of this preface, the men who would dismiss his work because it was written in Latin. Again, in the closing of the argument, Cicero’s preferred methods for dealing with objections are dismissal and insinuation. His opponents are referred to with a vaguely derogatory istis, while Cicero assumes a position of superiority. Now he claims that there was never a need for him to address their issues in the first place—the use of tantopere suggests a waste of effort that might have been put to better use. The very objection is rephrased at this point in milder terms so that Cicero’s detractors are now expressing only a preference for Greek and not outright contempt for Latin writings in general. Such a concluding stance invites a reinterpretation of Cicero’s apparently more serious attempts earlier in the preface to tackle these potential objections: now he appears to have engaged with those issues in a somewhat condescending way, almost as a favor to the confused. Having indulged them so far he now transfers his energies to the real subject of his treatise, as is appropriate at the end of a preface.
Cicero makes another move that gives him a rhetorical advantage at this important juncture: he stops treating individual groups of opponents as endless ill-defined subcategories inside the mass of the Roman people/the readership. Instead, on the issue of reading in Greek or Latin, he divides the entire populus into groups based on the choices they make in their reading practice, and so presents a more complete picture. The divisions he produces are logically determined and therefore unsurprising, but he is able to move them beyond the obvious. The three groups are further separated by the author’s estimation of the proper application of his energies.
The first group, the readers who prefer Greek, is, as I mentioned above, identified primarily as not worth the effort of writing for;65 the other two groups, those who read in both languages and those who stick to Latin exclusively, are granted an exactly opposite value. They are natural objects of Cicero’s exertions: they first appear in an emphatic position as objects of the verb servire. The verb in this context does double duty: once again identifying the task Cicero is undertaking as one deserving the same kind of serious reception as his other services to the country and at the same time marking and honoring the reading audience that does apply itself to his treatises by assigning them the same position in the schema as the country and the people occupied in the earlier days of Cicero’s activity.
Thus, the very division of the reading public into two groups, one that does not read Latin and one that reads it with a varying degree of commitment, serves to marginalize the first group and discount its objections. Cicero calls their position further into question with a snide proviso: modo legant illa ipsa, ne simulent is a very rich insinuation. The previous clause, though condescending, still allowed that a reader might have a preference for reading in Greek. The preference may not be worth considering as a serious factor by an author who writes in Latin, but it is not necessarily indicative of any cultural or personal flaw in the reader. The proviso clause, however, takes back the slight indulgence present in malint, and replaces it with an accusation. Instead of being a personal choice, Cicero now suggests that his Greek-only reader is taking a cultural stance, alleging a preference for all things Greek (and, potentially, all things foreign, un-Roman) on principle. We are back to the idea of self-hatred, but with an additional element of pretence, which further undermines the position. The members of this group, who assert a preference for reading in Greek, but may not actually be reading anything at all, are, in the structure of the proviso clause, worse than poor mocked Albucius. Though contemptible in his over-eagerness for things Greek, he is at least sincere in his admiration. These fellows, on the other hand, are sham hellenophiles, contemptible both for their extreme preference and for their dishonesty.
Before ending the discussion of this section, it is worth looking into the two groups Cicero puts above the false hellenophiles: those who read Greek and Latin and those who read Latin only. On the face of it, the two groups are identified as equally deserving of Cicero’s attention and of the honor that implies. But Cicero does make a distinction. The preference of the group that reads both languages is defined in terms of its willingness, velint, whereas that of the exclusively Latin group, in terms of its wanting, desiderent. Furthermore, the first group’s preference is described without qualification, while the second gets an additional clause: si suas habent. Given the earlier section that followed the Lucilius passage on Albucius, and the strong endorsement of domesticae res in that passage, this clause must be read as a positive comment on those who choose to stick with their own to the exclusion of all others. Cicero, then, while introducing Greek thought into Roman society appears to approve of a rather insular Romano-centric intellectual stance—an apparently contradictory position.66
I will not try to resolve this contradiction, for I believe that no resolution is to be found. I do, however, want to point out that Cicero’s contradictory views are fairly consistent throughout the body of the prefaces, and that these contradictions are not random results of an inability to construct a coherent position: on the contrary, they give expression to a contradictory, and ultimately logically untenable position that Cicero creates for himself in the prefaces. As I discuss in chapter 5, his ideal reader and, by extension, the ideal Roman, is a man like Trebatius Testa as he is represented in the preface to the Topica: earnest, ready to learn, reasonably open-minded, but unable to teach himself because of his limited knowledge of Greek.67 Trebatius wants to learn about Aristotle’s Topica, but his chosen way is not to improve his Greek, but rather to have Cicero write a treatise explaining Aristotle’s work to him in Latin. In other words, Trebatius falls into the third group of Cicero’s language-preference divisions, which is constructed as the ideal audience for the kind of domesticating project that Cicero is engaged in.
So far Cicero seems consistent in his preferred readership. The contradiction centers, as most issues in the prefaces do, on the person of the author himself. His ideal reader/citizen seems to be one who becomes doctior through his reading in Latin. But Cicero himself is far from fitting that description. Consistently throughout the prefaces, he portrays himself as doctissimus, as a true expert in his subject.68 He is also, necessarily, quite emphatic about his interest in and knowledge of Greek philosophy. After all, it is that knowledge that qualifies him to introduce the subject to the Roman public. Is he, therefore, not his own ideal citizen? The answer seems to be that Cicero does not apply the same standards to the ideal Roman of the recovered republic as he applies to himself (and maybe a small select circle of men like Brutus and Varro). The existence of Cicero, who is uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between things Greek and things Roman, is as important as that of the army of men who will only read Latin. One cannot help but wonder what Cicero would say about the future. Assuming that his project succeeds in improving the minds and morals of the Roman elite and, through them, the republic, will there be a need for men like Cicero ever again, or will his be the last act of translation?69
• • •
To define and defend his project Cicero has to perform a difficult balancing act. Translation of Greek philosophical thought into Latin is problematic on both sides of the process. The traditionally minded might not welcome the treatises because of the perceived foreignness of philosophy and the implied criticism of Rome’s pre-philosophical past. For them, no translation may be domesticating enough. Those already conversant with the essentials of the works’ content might sneer at its reincarnation in a language that they believe is not sufficiently equipped to convey its nuances. They are satisfied with their access to the foreign texts themselves and see no benefit in translation. Cicero carefully constructs his defense to stand up to these contradictory criticisms. The basis of his response is the idea that translation is ultimately patriotic. Cicero’s presentation placates the traditionalists with its emphasis on the importance of communication in Latin: the foreignness of philosophy is diminished by the very use of the Latin language and by the translator’s intent to benefit the Roman state. By the same token, those who would look down on the treatises precisely because they are in Latin are branded as hostile to the state, not truly Roman. Yet in the end Cicero’s presentation of his goals in the philosophica, though revealing of what he thought might convince a contemporary audience, is full of contradictions he never acknowledges, contradictions that have deep roots in Rome’s complex cultural position vis-à-vis Greece. It is also significant that Cicero is vague about the exact manner in which his treatises will help the republic. I will return to the question of what lies behind these difficulties in the final chapter, when I discuss the transformation that Cicero’s philosophical project undergoes following the change in his political circumstances after the death of Caesar.
ist nicht unbedingt gleich virtus, ein 
ist kein bonus, 
ist nicht amicitia.”
and the juxtaposition of Latin turma and Greek chorus, see Baier 2001.38–39.