CHAPTER SIX

Philosophy after Caesar

THE NEW DIRECTION

Then Brutus walked to the center of the hall. He brandished his dagger, shouted for Cicero by name and congratulated him on the recovery of freedom. The retired statesman, who had apparently made peace with the tyrant, was suddenly pushed to center stage. Hitherto scarcely able to believe his eyes, he could now scarcely believe his ears. It was as if the assassination had been staged especially for him—as a particularly savage benefit performance.

Anthony Everitt, Cicero: the Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician

IN THIS FINAL CHAPTER I will look at the consequences of the changed political situation in the wake of Caesar’s assassination to Cicero’s philosophical project. We are lucky to have a snapshot of Cicero’s presentation of his thoughts on the new circumstances as they affect his composition of philosophical works. The preface to the second book of De Divinatione captures him at the very moment of transition. His retrospective account of what he has produced under Caesar, itself colored by his attempt to come to terms with the changes, and his tentative thoughts on how the project might evolve will occupy me in the first section. A key metaphor that Cicero takes up as he reconceptualizes his earlier stance on philosophy as a substitution for politics is adoption. The sections that follow the discussion of De Divinatione will then build on the idea of Cicero as a parent. I will trace the gradual but unmistakable development of his works in the direction of a more explicitly authoritative, paternal voice. This development is apparent in two complementary spheres. On the one hand, the post-Caesarian works display a formal movement away from the open-endedness of dialogue towards an increasingly univocal and didactic authorial posture. On the other hand, the trajectory in Cicero’s choice of his dedicatees shows a new preference for junior friends, alluding to a more traditional, political model of adoption and legacy, which also reinforces Cicero’s position as an expert. Both tendencies culminate in the subject of the third section, which is Cicero’s final work, the De Officiis, a treatise composed entirely in epistolary form and addressed to Cicero’s son, Marcus.1

LOOKING BACK: DE DIVINATIONE II

Because of the date of its composition, De Divinatione occupies a unique position among Cicero’s treatises of the 40s. Cicero composed this dialogue in the beginning of year 44. Which exact portions of the work were composed before, and which after, the assassination of Caesar is the subject of continuing debate in the absence of concrete evidence. What is important to me here is that he definitely revised and published it after the Ides of March.2 Thus, the prefaces, usually the last part to be completed in any work, can be safely said to represent Cicero’s views of his work in a changed political environment.³

A different Cicero, one who no longer sees himself as forcibly removed from public service, and therefore, is no longer in need of the substitution provided by his philosophical project—a substitution that most of the prefaces to his treatises written under Caesar are devoted to justifying—now has to find another way to accommodate his project in his own life and career, as well as in the cultural and political world of what he thinks may be a reviving republic.⁴ It would seem a reasonable time, then, for him to look back over his philosophical production to date. De Divinatione 2.1–4 catalogues all the treatises and establishes relationships between their subjects in such a way as to demonstrate that all together they aim to encompass the entire sphere of philosophical knowledge.⁵ Even though Cicero promises to, and does, continue filling in the gaps in his projected corpus, this preface is a focal point of retrospective self-reflection and serves, in an important way, as a closing statement for the period of intense philosophical output during Caesar’s last years.6

It is important to note, then, that in this quasi-final analysis, Cicero keeps to the main ideas about the project that he has been developing in the earlier treatises. The substitution idea is the only one that, of necessity, disappears: with the author once again open to involvement in politics, it cannot, and need not, be maintained. But the central idea that writing philosophy in Latin is an important way of serving the state and bettering the citizen body remains in place. The goal of the project is nullum philosophiae locum esse pateremur qui non Latinis litteris illustratus pateret, “to allow no portion of philosophy to be left which is not, having been clearly explained in the Latin language, open and accessible” (Div. 2.4). This statement, punctuated by a word play on similar-sounding forms of patior and pateo, has a strangely democratic ring. Its purpose seems to be to allow speakers of Latin equal access and equal opportunity to understand and make use of the cultural capital that Cicero is making available to them. Of course, Cicero’s goals are not truly democratic. The equality that he seems to seek is equality within a very restricted circle of the Roman elite. Yet it should not surprise us that Cicero, the erstwhile novus homo, once looked down upon by his better-born peers,⁷ should be crusading for a democratization of sorts within the body of the Roman elite.

What, then, of the changes? While the overall structure of his thinking is the same as in the earlier, “Caesarian,” treatises, I believe that a difference in commitment can be detected. The first sign is the use of the verb patere, here with the meaning “to be readily available, open.”⁸ Cicero will again, in the very next sentence, use the verbs docere, “teach,” and erudire, “educate,” which are more in tune with his earlier statements: he is a teacher, the audience students. And he uses them here in reference to a specific segment of the audience, the youth, where the concept of active teaching on the part of the older and more experienced is natural and almost expected. But patere, which he uses in the more general statement of his goals, reveals that a different relationship is being posited between the writer and the audience, the benefactor and the beneficiaries. By using a stative verb Cicero excludes the effects of his project on the audience from explicit consideration. Cicero’s role as the agent in this scenario is simply to bring this state about, that is, to make the knowledge available to the readers.9 The audience is then left to its own devices: the material is available, there for the taking, but the one who introduced it takes no responsibility for its further fate. Despite the changes in the outside world, Cicero still wants philosophy out there, in Latin. But its role in his idea of the future has lost the crucial position that it had occupied earlier.

It may seem that this is reading too much into one word. But the rest of the passage, in my view, lends support to this interpretation. There is something new and cavalier in Cicero’s prediction of the limited nature of his project’s success, as well as in his self-indulgent surprise at the number of older men who are inspired to read his works and to attempt to write their own. At the same time, the sense of urgency and desperation to convince, characteristic of the earlier prefaces, is missing. In the new political environment that affords him the possibility of a return to active political life, his relationship to the project has changed. It is no longer his only option.

The rest of the preface, De Divinatione 2.6–7, presents an overview of Cicero’s political fortunes since the start of the civil war, focused on the function of philosophy. Indeed, his stance towards and involvement in philosophical practice is more explicitly rooted in politics in this description than anywhere else. Furthermore, this retrospective account finally exposes the truth, that for Cicero, in spite of his protestations, philosophy could never be a fully satisfactory substitute for public service. His initial turn to philosophy was justified in terms of his social standing: it was the only activity outside the res publica that Cicero found dignum, worthy of his time and effort as well as appropriate for someone of his status. It is clear from the earlier prefaces that this claim of social approval was self-generated, and Cicero worked hard to make it convincing in the eyes of his readers. Yet here, from a position of greater distance, when the more traditional sources of dignitas are again within his reach, Cicero can simply assign value without extensive justification. He is not, however, making a claim for equal dignitas:

ac mihi quidem explicandae philosophiae causam adtulit casus gravis civitatis, cum in armis civilibus nec tueri meo more rem publicam nec nihil agere poteram nec quid potius, quod quidem me dignum esset, agerem, reperiebam. (Div. 2.6)

And in fact it was the grave misfortune of the state that gave me a reason to explicate philosophy, when at the time of civil war I was able neither to watch over the state, as I used to, nor to remain inactive, and I could not find anything else I could do instead which would be worthy of me.

What is peculiar about this statement is the meaning and the imperfect tense of reperiebam. Whereas, earlier, Cicero would have had us believe that philosophy was the only equally valuable substitute for serving the state, now the picture is of a Cicero frantically looking for something to do so as not to be “doing nothing.” There is something of an exaggeration both in Cicero’s phrasing and in my interpretation of it, for philosophy was certainly not a new field of endeavor to him. He did not have to look very far to find it. But this way of describing his choice does make philosophy appear one of many potential activities, and his decision more the result of a process than the only natural step.

Such devaluation of philosophy may seem strange in the preface to yet another philosophical work, which Cicero is now publishing despite the changed circumstances. To understand why he is willing to do this, it is important to recognize that for him there is virtually no separation between his potentially different personae, as a statesman, an orator, a philosopher, an amicus.10 Instead, there is always a primary role that dominates in a particular context, while the other personae are put to its service. Thus, when Cicero’s primary occupation was writing philosophy, his friendships, as well as his past renown as a statesman and an orator, were used to promote that activity. In the new post-Caesarian world, his main focus of energy is his recently resumed involvement in politics. Politics and oratory, used as comparanda, could only help to raise the status of philosophy; putting philosophy on the same level as politics, by contrast, has the potential to damage one’s political standing. Therefore, in the preface to book two of De Divinatione, it is in Cicero’s interest to dissolve the equation he created in his other works.

We find a similar change in a more detailed account of the same process further on in the preface. Here Cicero once again describes his turn to philosophy as a substitute for political activity:

quod cum accidisset nostrae rei publicae, tum pristinis orbati muneribus haec studia renovare coepimus ut et animus molestiis hac potissimum re levaretur et prodessemus civibus nostris qua re cumque possemus. in libris enim sententiam dicebamus contionabamus, philosophiam nobis pro rei publicae procuratione substitutam putabamus. (Div. 2.7)

And after this [one-man rule] happened to our state, then, orphaned by the loss of our original duties, we began to take up anew these studies, in order that both our own spirit through this activity might be most effectively relieved from its troubles and that we might be of use to our fellow-citizens in whatever way we could. For it was in books that we were then giving our senatorial opinions, addressing the people, considering that philosophy had been given to us as a replacement for taking care of the republic.

The political change following the civil war that led to Cicero’s being ousted from the ruling circle is here strikingly described as having made him an orphan, orbati. Such language, on the one hand, is appropriate in the context of the civil war, which certainly did create many non-metaphorical orphans. While some may feel that by making that association Cicero is trivializing those more serious losses, we can also acknowledge that he is claiming for himself here a connection of a familial type, both in duty and in affection, to his country. His duties in the service of the state are like his parents, the sources of authority, stability, and status. They are indispensable for a member of the Roman elite, and their loss sends him in search of a new grounding occupation.11 The choice of the adjective pristinis to describe muneribus brings to the table, in addition to the simple indication of temporal priority, the connotation of authority stemming from age as well as that of original purity.

Thus far the power of the metaphor in its application to politics is clear. But what is the place left to philosophy in this image? The word Cicero uses, orbati, describes the loss of any close relation, child, parent, sibling.¹² Given that his relationship to philosophy as a substitute is primarily an active one, with Cicero directing his energies towards philosophy and producing philosophical works, it is difficult to think of it as a substitute parent. Philosophy is then more naturally taken to be like a foster child, or a child adopted to carry on the family name by an elite family without male issue. The implications of this positioning are worth working out, for we know that adoption in ancient Rome was a very different business from what it is today.13

In the world of the Roman republic elite adoption is usually a means of making up for the lack of a natural male child, so that there would be someone to carry on the family name and the worship of ancestral gods.¹⁴ Another important feature was the age of the male adopted. Since the purpose was to ensure the family’s continued survival, as expressed in name, property, and religious ritual, risks were minimized as much as possible. Given the low survival rates of children in the ancient world, children were rarely adopted.¹⁵ The arrangement was most often business-like in nature, with the mature adoptee’s relationship to the family being largely one of duty and respect, even when, as was often the case, a familial relationship existed between the two families involved.

Cicero’s adoption analogy, though not perfect, is nonetheless a productive way of thinking about the exact kind of substitution that he envisioned when he turned to philosophy to fill the vacuum left by his public duties. Just like an elite family without a male issue, he needs something that will carry on his name: something that will, quite literally, keep his name alive in the minds of his countrymen through its appearance in publications and will, more generally, add to his fame and reputation, just as fulfillment of his traditional political duties would have done. The need for continuation of the family cult can also be paralleled in Cicero’s continuing need, which he states repeatedly in the prefaces, to serve his country and benefit his fellow-citizens whatever the external circumstances.

At the same time, his own feelings about philosophy as a repository for his talents are not unlike a hypothetical family’s feelings about an adopted heir. If they are able to adopt someone who is related to them and/or someone they respect and trust, they are grateful and secure in their thoughts about the future,16 but they would still prefer that a direct descendant carry on the family tradition. One need only think of Cicero’s tone in the prefaces, of the many hesitations and qualifications that betray his discomfort with a wholehearted embrace of philosophy as his main activity, and compare that with the tone of the Philippics, the great, if fatal, product of his active return to politics after the Caesarian hiatus. There, too, we perceive a clear difference in the intensity of Cicero’s devotion to politics versus writing philosophy. While Cicero’s interest in and commitment to philosophy as a field of study is undeniably strong, what he wants to be doing is participating in the areas of Roman political life that he refers to in the passage above: making speeches to the senate and the people.¹⁷ Philosophy is a substitute that is viable because, just as in those situations, he can address an audience in words. It is only here, in De Divinatione, that he can afford, in retrospect, to be honest with himself about the exact nature and the implied limitations of this substitution. He has not abandoned the goals he outlined in his earlier prefaces, but he can now, under the changed circumstances, relegate philosophy to the place it really occupies in his perception of himself. It is an ancillary pursuit. No matter the value of its fruits, no matter how useful in helping him to influence the minds of his countrymen and to secure his reputation in the eyes of posterity, philosophy must in the end be relegated largely to the sphere of otium.¹⁸

FROM THE IDES TO THE DE OFFICIIS

The preface to the second book of De Divinatione, I have argued, shows Cicero in the process of beginning to reconfigure the terms of his devotion to writing philosophy and the shape of his project in the post-Caesarian world, both for himself and for his readers. With political life once again an option, though at that stage a very uncertain one, the status of philosophy in his life and in the image he presents to his readers seems likely to undergo change. His ambivalence about practicing philosophy as a primary occupation can now be laid to rest as no longer relevant. Yet Cicero does not abandon the project, and the year 44, with its historic political struggles, sees philosophical production continuing at a high rate and culminating in the monumental De Officiis. What do the works composed during this time have to tell us about the changes in Cicero’s approach to writing philosophy and his conception of his project? What image of himself as an author of philosophical works does he leave to us in the prefaces to his last group of treatises? These are the questions that will occupy me in this section. The next section will revisit these texts and the issues they raise through the prism of dedication.

The first work that we are sure Cicero composed after the death of Caesar, De Fato, is only partially preserved. Plans to discuss the subject are briefly mentioned in both books of De Divinatione,19 and the surviving portion of the preface makes it clear that the treatise is meant to complete the triad begun with De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. Thus, the work’s conception, in general terms, belongs to the period before the assassination. Yet in the preface to De Fato Cicero explicitly signals a change in the structure of this work:

quod autem in aliis libris feci qui sunt de natura deorum, itemque in iis quos de divinatione edidi, ut in utramque partem perpetua explicaretur oratio, quo facilius id a quoque probaretur quod cuique maxime probabile videretur, id in hac disputatione de fato casus quidam ne facerem inpedivit. (Fat. 1)

Yet what I did in other books, ones concerning the nature of the gods, and similarly ones that I published on the subject of divination, namely that an uninterrupted speech expounding each view was presented so that each man could more easily endorse the view he found most probable, that method in this disputation on the subject of fate a certain occurrence prevented me from following.

In referring to his earlier works, Cicero emphasizes the connection between their form and the Academic method through his use of probare and probabile. Introducing each view successively is seen as the best means for producing assent in readers of different viewpoints. Why then does Cicero depart from this way of structuring his treatises—which in fact he will never use again? The referent of casus quidam that is responsible for the change has been something of a puzzle for critics, who have generally taken it to indicate an extra-textual event. Given the fragmentary nature of the introduction, it might be best to set the question aside.20 There is, however, another way of approaching the problem, and that is to look more closely at the flow of the text within which casus quidam is presented. The section quoted above is followed by a description of Cicero’s stay in Puteoli. Hirtius drops by and requests a philosophical discussion, setting the stage for the main portion of the work. This extensive prologue is introduced by nam, and a straightforward reading, not guided by presuppositions arising from the work’s date and its state of preservation, would be to interpret the occasion of Cicero’s interaction with Hirtius as the casus that leads to the composition of the work in this particular form. A further advantage of such an interpretation is that it fits well within the larger pattern found in many Ciceronian prefaces and discussed in detail in the previous chapter, of justifying various aspects of a work’s composition by referring them to the desires of the dedicatee.²¹ Thus, in the prefatory conversation Cicero leaves the choice of subject between oratory and philosophy to Hirtius and registers his interlocutor’s pleasure as the ultimate goal of the upcoming exercise, hodie utro [studio] frui malis optio sit tua, “let it be your choice, which of the two disciplines you prefer to enjoy today” (Fat. 3). In his response, Hirtius refers to Cicero’s willingness to fulfill his wishes (nihil enim umquam abnuit meo studio voluntas tua, Fat. 3) and ends his request for a disputation in the mold of the Tusculans with volo, “I want” (Fat. 4).

While this interpretation provides an explanation for casus quidam by situating it within the text, it reopens the question of Cicero’s reasons for changing the structure of his discussion from what he originally intended. He is careful to establish connections between his earlier output and the current treatise, on the one hand, by locating it in the context of his continuing commitment to Academic Skepticism,22 and, on the other, by emphasizing, through Hirtius, that the form of contra propositum disputatio that he requests is characteristic of the Academy no less than the oratio in utramque partem of De Divinatione and was adopted by Cicero previously in the Tusculan Disputations.²³ If, however, we see De Divinatione as the most Academic, the most open-ended of Cicero’s dialogues, it is clear that despite the interlocutors’ protestations De Fato represents a retreat in a number of ways that are intimately connected to Cicero’s formal departure from the original plan.²⁴ The differences that are most significant for my purposes have to do with the distribution of authority in the presentation of the material. What we see in De Fato is a return to an explicitly didactic model. The preface sets up a difference in the interlocutors’ levels of expertise—Cicero is experienced in oratory and has made his expertise available to Hirtius in the past; now Hirtius requests a similar exchange in the philosophical arena (Fat. 3). Thus, authority both over the context of the discussion and the rhetorical form that it will take is located exclusively in the hands of the main speaker. This is in sharp contrast to De Divinatione, where the two speakers are given the opportunity to fully present their opposing positions. Moreover, De Fato, as we have it, appears strikingly univocal even in comparison with the Tusculan Disputations, the text that Hirtius invokes as the precedent.²⁵ The earlier text allows for dialogue, however limited, between A. and M. and, as a result, for some expression of disagreement. There is no evidence of such participation on the part of the second interlocutor in De Fato.²⁶ In fact, Hirtius compares the anticipated experience of listening to Cicero’s disputatio on fate to reading his writings, ita . . . audiam te disputantem ut ea lego quae scripsisti (Fat. 4). This formulation reverses the pattern we saw in many of the earlier treatises, where the written work was presented as a substitute for a more traditional face-to-face exchange and its form encouraged active participation on the part of the audience mediated through a dedicatee or promoted by a multiplicity of voices and points of view. In this preface, instead, we have a paradoxical circularity. Once again we have a written work that purports to represent an encounter, a conversation. Yet the interlocutor who requests the discourse is represented as explicitly desiring that the experience of listening closely resemble the experience of reading. Hirtius shows no interest in a back and forth engagement.

I have claimed that these changes constitute a retreat, a change of course from the final dialogues composed under Caesar. One might reasonably object that the works composed during the period of high philosophical output in 45 and early 44 do not show a clear progression towards a more “skeptical,” open-form type of treatise, and that De Fato could, therefore, be simply a further instance of experimentation with the disputatio form. However, two factors militate against such a view. One is the originally intended triadic sequence of De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, and De Fato. The other is the fact that, as I am about to argue, there is a consistency of formal and, to an extent, thematic choices in the period following Caesar’s assassination.

Two texts that are linked to each other, De Senectute and De Amicitia, help elucidate another stage in the evolution of Cicero’s project. Both are works of practical ethics dedicated to Atticus with prefaces that are built on the long history of the two men’s close relationship.27 Both return to a model of speaker choice most reminiscent of Cicero’s earliest works, De Re Publica and De Oratore, so that the content of the treatises derives its authority from the great men of earlier generations and, furthermore, takes the shape of members of the older generation passing their wisdom down to the younger.²⁸ A comparison with those earlier works also reveals a number of structural differences between the two groups. In the later works the authority of the older generation is concentrated by allowing only one highly authoritative representative, Cato the Elder and Laelius respectively, to direct the discourse.²⁹ That is, De Senectute and De Amicitia are didactic and univocal in a way that the earlier dialogues were not. Thus, they also represent a movement in a direction broadly similar to that exemplified by De Fato.

It is, however, much more difficult to speak with certainty about how and when these works were conceived. The date of De Senectute is uncertain,30 with some scholars placing the composition before and others after the Ides of March. It was completed by May 11³¹ and predates the completion of De Divinatione and thus the composition of De Fato.³² It is referred to in the catalogue in the preface to the second book of De Divinatione as “recent” (nuper). All arguments beyond these facts are based on how individual scholars see the work in the context of others and in light of Cicero’s circumstances and state of mind. Given the potential importance of the date for understanding the direction of Cicero’s post-Caesarian output, it is worth examining the work’s mention in the catalogue in detail. The initial portion of the catalogue is chronological, starting with the first “Caesarean” work, the Hortensius. It ends with De Divinatione and a mention of the planned composition of De Fato. The remaining works are not listed chronologically, and their inclusion in the catalogue is given extra justification. The first to be named is De Re Publica, and the subject’s philosophical (specifically Peripatetic) pedigree is mentioned. Then Consolatio is singled out as a work initially composed for the author’s own consumption. After Consolatio comes the mention of De Senectute, followed by a list of rhetorical works, whose inclusion is once again justified by the authority of the Peripatetic tradition. De Senectute is introduced as follows: interiectus est etiam nuper liber is quem ad nostrum Atticum de senectute misimus, “Also recently has been added that book which we sent to our Atticus on the subject of old age” (Div. 2.3). Cicero clearly sees the work as sufficiently different from the main group to require some explanation, and he focuses on its didactic and ethical functions in justifying its inclusion. It is presented as an interruption or a side-project, not as the beginning of a new series. It is also the only work in the catalogue, other than the self-addressed and otherwise atypical Consolatio, that is identified by naming a dedicatee. Overall, this presentation suggests that at the time of writing Cicero does not yet see De Senectute as an essential part of his output or a work whose direction he plans to follow. It is thus less likely to be a new departure conceived right after the assassination.

The picture changes entirely once we consider the De Amicitia. The composition of this dialogue on friendship in a form that closely resembles that of De Senectute must be the result of a conscious decision to pick up that work, earlier described as a side-project, and retrospectively reposition it in the corpus by making it part of a series. In the new circumstances, it would seem, projects of this nature are more worth pursuing. The similarities between the two works are clear—a setting in the glory days of the republic, the choice of a highly authoritative and uniquely expert speaker, the departure from a strictly dialogic form, their length, and their dedication to Atticus. Apart from the setting in the past and the identity of the dedicatee, these are also features that they share with De Fato, an indication that this is in fact a direction in which Cicero has chosen to take his work.

What about De Amicitia itself? In reading the individual works as indicative of changes in Cicero’s thinking about his philosophical project as a whole, are we to see it, as I suggested earlier, as a reprise of something he had tried in De Senectute, a confirmation that this is the right direction? Or does it represent a further development in the post-Caesarian trajectory? De Senectute and De Amicitia have commonly been seen as standing apart from both the major dialogues of the Caesarian period and De Officiis as more personally motivated and less technical.33 I have argued that, far from being a digression from the mainstream of Cicero’s philosophical output, these works, together with De Fato, represent his first tentative steps in a new direction. The treatment of old age, presented, as we have seen in the previous chapter, as shared by the author and the dedicatee and as having an obvious universal relevance, does in fact seem to have been a digression. But the subject of friendship had much more topical relevance in the period following Caesar’s assassination. De Amicitia shows an integration of philosophical ideas with questions of relevance to the state that has been an important feature of Cicero’s philosophical work throughout and that will culminate in the composition of De Officiis.³⁴

This is not to deny the personal significance of the subject for Cicero, whose relationship with Atticus was the only constant through all his changes of fortune. But in this case, as so often, the personal and the political are hard to disentangle. Many of those who participated in the assassination had long-standing ties of amicitia with Caesar, a circumstance that could not but raise questions about the meaning of the institution and its place in Roman politics. Two further facts add to this general picture. The first is Cicero’s correspondence with Matius, prompted by the allegation that Cicero disapproved of Matius’ grief at Caesar’s death.35 At the center of the exchange is tension between loyalty to the state and loyalty to a friend, presented by Cicero in philosophical terms reminiscent of the treatise. The second is the contestation of obligations imposed by amicitia in the public conflict between Cicero and Antony, which is known to us from Cicero’s first two Philippics and from the exchange of letters between the two men.³⁶ The uncertain dating of the treatise³⁷ and of the correspondence with Matius makes it difficult to map these texts against one another, but at the very least they demonstrate that the meaning of amicitia was an issue that was both important and contested during this general period.³⁸ The treatise can hardly then be seen as an escape from the hard realities of the day. It was, quite the contrary, a philosophical engagement with those very realities.³⁹

That such a relationship between the subject of the treatise and current events is part of Cicero’s intention for his work can be seen in the preface. After establishing his personal connection to Quintus Mucius Scaevola the Augur, from whom he claims to have heard Laelius’ discourse on friendship, Cicero appeals directly to Atticus for the first time in the work:

cum saepe multa, tum memini domi in hemicyclio sedentem, ut solebat, cum et ego essem una et pauci admodum familiares, in eum sermonem illum incidere, qui tum forte multis erat in ore. meministi enim profecto, Attice, et eo magis, quod P. Sulpicio utebare multum, cum is tribunus plebis capitali odio a Q. Pompeio qui tum erat consul dissideret, quocum coniunctissime et amantissime vixerat, quanta esset hominum vel admiratio vel querela. itaque tum Scaevola cum in eam ipsam mentionem incidisset, exposuit nobis sermonem Laeli de amicitia . . . . (Amic. 2–3)

Since I often think of him, so I remember him sitting in a semicircular recess in his house, as was his custom, and on this occasion I myself was present and a few close associates. He started to talk about the matter that was at the time discussed by many. For you, Atticus, must certainly remember, and especially because you spent much of your time in the company of Publius Sulpicius, when that man, a tribune of the plebs, went against Quintus Pompeius, who was consul at the time, with violent hatred, a man with whom he had lived in close and loving harmony, you must remember how greatly people were astonished or even aggrieved. And so then Scaevola, after he made mention of this very subject, reported to us the discourse of Laelius on friendship . . . .

It is the violent reversal in the two former friends’ sentiments towards each other that occasions Scaevola’s comment and the general discussion that provides the background for it. And yet Cicero represents the topic of friendship as more than a simply personal matter. In fact, he carefully portrays it as arising directly from the political situation of the day. The two men are holders of public office, a tribune and a consul. Even if we knew nothing further about their conflict, the implication would be clear: a falling out between friends who have an important part in the running of the state cannot help but be played out in the political arena; its effects of necessity go far beyond the personal. The friendships of elite men—how they are formed, how stable they are, what makes them endure, in other words, the subject of the treatise—have a direct bearing on the public interest. Cicero emphasizes this broader resonance by expanding his description of the public’s admiratio, “surprise,” even “shock,” with querela, a word that indicates considerable emotional involvement, perhaps even a feeling of grief.

The point, however, would have been much more obvious to Cicero’s contemporary readers than it appears to us, for they would remember, as Cicero expects Atticus to remember, or know about the affair and the events surrounding it.40 For it was by no means an isolated private episode that raised eyebrows, but rather a crucial first step in the escalation of the conflict between Marius and Sulla in 88 BC. The reader may also remember that, apart from its large-scale consequences, the personal costs of the affair were high: the son of Pompeius was killed in the violence that followed the consuls’ suspension of public business in order to block Sulpicius’ legislation, and Sulpicius himself was killed, having been declared a public enemy by the senate after Sulla’s march on Rome.

On this our sources agree.⁴¹ But none of them mentioned the prior amicitia of the tribune and the consul. They didn’t need to: there was plenty of violence and hatred in the narrative as it was, and their interest was in the major power struggle between Marius and Sulla. Cicero, however, in taking the seemingly personal out of its larger context, was blaming the disasters that followed, both public and private, at least in part on a failure of friendship. The importance of the institution and its proper functioning for the well being of the state was thus implicitly established. As personally important as this subject was for Cicero and Atticus, Cicero nonetheless introduced it in a way that connected it to the presentation of his earlier treatises, the core of his philosophical encyclopedia. He thus created a theoretical framework, rooted in Greek philosophical thought, for an institution whose stability would be of obvious benefit both to individuals and, more importantly, to the state.

I have suggested above that, despite their many similarities, De Amicitia constitutes a departure from the type of treatise first seen in De Senectute. Both projects focused on practical ethics, but whereas Cicero initially portrayed his effort as a side-project, he later came to view it as the next stage of his philosophical encyclopedia. The comparison between the two prefaces—in particular, the way in which Cicero handles the dedications and presents his reasons for choosing his topic—supports this conclusion. As we have seen in chapter 5, in the preface to De Senectute Cicero devotes a lot of his energy to the dedicatee, and in a particularly personal way: he explores his state of mind through a literary allusion and carefully establishes the connection between himself and Atticus in light of the theme of the treatise, old age. I have argued that even this very personal approach to the subject allows him to extend the bond between himself and Atticus to include the reader. But he does this primarily on the level of the individual. In the dedication of De Amicitia Cicero pays tribute to his relationship with Atticus (“reading this discourse, you will recognize yourself”42), but he balances the benefits of the treatise for their relationship with its public benefits: digna mihi res cum omnium cognitione tum nostra familiaritate visa est, “this subject, in my opinion, is as worthy of being made known to all as it is of our closeness.”⁴³ This treatise, then, is an important moment in the evolution of Cicero’s project, the place where a new direction towards practical ethics is reframed in terms familiar from the Caesarian treatises. This new direction receives its fullest and final expression in Cicero’s last great treatise, De Officiis.

FROM QUINTUS THE ELDER TO MARCUS THE YOUNGER: THE PATTERN OF DEDICATIONS

Before I conclude my discussion with a look at De Officiis, I want to turn once again to the question of the dedicatee. For that is another area in which the three major groups of treatises—pre–civil war, Caesarian, and post-Caesarian—show significant shifts that contribute to an understanding of the evolution of Cicero’s thinking about his philosophical production over time. Let me begin by summarizing what we know. The major works of the 50s—De Oratore and De Re Publica44—are dedicated to Quintus.⁴⁵ None of our sources mention the identity of the dedicatee of the lost Hortensius, the first post–civil war philosophical treatise.⁴⁶ But the rest of the Caesarian treatises show a pattern that is quite clear: virtually all, both rhetorica and philosophica, are dedicated to Brutus.47 There are three exceptions. Two of the three, the self-addressed Consolatio and De Senectute, dedicated to Atticus, were, as we saw, singled out by Cicero himself in his catalogue (De Divinatione, book two) as outside of the core of his project. The third, Academica, contains no explicit dedication, but a dedicatory letter that has been preserved tells us that Cicero dedicated it to Varro (Fam. 9.8; SB 254). De Divinatione itself, a work that, I have argued, is transitional, with its composition being completed after Caesar’s death, contains no explicit dedication. Of the post-Caesarian works, De Amicitia is dedicated to Atticus, Topica to Trebatius Testa, and De Officiis to Cicero’s son Marcus. We do not know to whom De Fato and De Gloria were dedicated.

Given the available evidence, how can we interpret these dedication patterns? The first set of dedications to Quintus provides a point of departure. A dedication to a brother can play a similar role in establishing and mediating the relationship between the author and the reader as a dedication to a friend: the reader has access to a personal, intimate exchange between Cicero and someone to whom he is very close. In fact, the bare fact of second-person address can activate the network of association and identification. But the invocation of a sibling in this context somewhat restricts the reader’s scope for entering into the relationship: the connection with a sibling is of necessity exclusive while the number of amici is potentially infinite. A familial relationship, unlike amicitia, does not extend in obvious ways beyond the purely personal. Cicero’s choice thus hints at a desire to give these works a public face that would locate them in the sphere of otium, part of an exchange of an even more intimate nature than that between friends. This fits well with the supporting, subsidiary role that Cicero publically assigns to his intellectual pursuits during the time when he is politically active.⁴⁸

Hortensius must, unfortunately, remain a mystery. But it is clear that during the years when Cicero was producing the bulk of his philosophical works, the core of his project, Brutus was his dedicatee of choice.⁴⁹ Given the nature of the relationship between Cicero and Brutus, never particularly close,⁵⁰ we cannot interpret Cicero’s decision here as a personal one, a sign of affection. Another interpretation would have it that the repeated dedications were an attempt on Cicero’s part to strengthen the bond between them. This is more plausible, and must in part be true,51 but it is not sufficient to explain the entire stream of dedications. Surely there were other relationships that could have benefited from such a gesture,⁵² and it is hard to see what the advantage of volume would have been after a certain point. Cicero and Brutus’ shared interest in philosophy and oratory is no doubt significant, but, again, by no means sufficient to explain such exclusive focus. The correspondence with Atticus does not offer much help. The dedication of De Finibus is mentioned at Att. 13.12.3 (SB 320, quoted below) in terms that make clear that Atticus is, as ever, acting as a mediator between Cicero and Brutus⁵³ and that Brutus welcomes the dedication in general terms (eum non nolle). Cicero returns to the Orator in May of 44 in the context of Atticus’ urging that he write and send to Brutus a contio (Att. 14.20.3; SB 374). Cicero expresses frustration at Brutus’ lack of receptiveness to Cicero’s rhetorical theory as well as to his oratorical practice. He mentions that he dedicated the Orator to him almost at his own request, ipsius precibus paene adductus. It is difficult to read back from this to the reality of the earlier situation. Cicero is irritated by Brutus’ stubborn adherence to his own style: Brutus had rejected Cicero’s draft of an edict, also offered up at Atticus’ prompting. This reminds Cicero of the ungrateful reception of the Orator: Brutus had informed both the author and Atticus that he could not agree with Cicero’s views (non modo mihi sed etiam tibi scripsit sibi illud quod mihi placeret non probari). So Cicero is irritated and remembering that Brutus himself had asked for the dedication adds more weight to his resistance to Atticus’ present request. Paene, moreover, hints that this is not quite accurate: “you could almost say I dedicated it to him because he asked.”

But the same letter offers a hint of different nature. As Atticus and Cicero negotiate about Cicero’s addressing ever more texts to Brutus now, after the Ides, they also seem to have a disagreement about his role in the future of the state. Cicero writes: quod errare me putas qui rem publicam putem pendere in Bruto, sic se res habet: aut nulla erit aut ab isto istiusve servabitur, “as to your thinking that I am wrong when I think that the republic depends on Brutus, here is how things are: either it will cease to exist or it will be saved by him, or by his friends.”54 Cicero sees Brutus as the one person who can be trusted to further the interests of the state. Of course, the fact of the conspiracy and the assassination plays into his belief. But it is not a stretch to extend a similar sentiment backwards. Despite occasional glimmers of hope and activity, Cicero in the post–civil war years was generally pessimistic and resigned to his circumstances. Brutus, himself an author of philosophical works,⁵⁵ became Cicero’s link to the political life of the state, or what was left of it, even a symbol of his hopes for the state.⁵⁶ By publically addressing his philosophical works to Brutus, then, Cicero accomplished two things. He reinforced his point that his work was meant to benefit the state by dedicating it to an active statesman, thus directing it to the place where it might have some chance of fulfilling his intentions. At the same time, rhetorically, he claimed public significance for the corpus, a significance that, I would argue, it could not have achieved if he had dedicated these works to his brother, similarly sidelined after being pardoned by Caesar, or to Atticus, an equestrian whose political influence was anything but public.

How does the dedication of the Academica to Varro fit into the model that I am building?⁵⁷ For Varro was in the exact same position as Cicero, a Pompeian pardoned by Caesar and allowed to return to Italy. Cicero’s relationship with Varro, like his relationship with Brutus, was never as familiar as Cicero would have wished it to be, and Cicero was eager for the exchange of dedications to bring them closer.58 But the dedication in this case was not public: the brief preface sets the stage without a direct address to any dedicatee. Varro is introduced as a character in the dialogue, a public homage in itself,⁵⁹ but the presentation of the work to Varro took place privately, in a letter. Significantly, the plan to find some way of including Varro in a work of Cicero’s dates back at least to 54 BC, when Cicero was working on De Re Publica, with Atticus, always the mediator between the two, prompting Cicero in this direction both in 54 and in 45. In the earlier exchange, Atticus asked that Varro be mentioned somehow within the body of the treatise. Cicero sees no possibility for such a gesture given the setting of his works in the past, but does suggest that he might address one of the prefaces to Varro.⁶⁰ The idea is reintroduced by Atticus in the middle of year 45.⁶¹ In the meantime, Varro had pledged a work to Cicero, but had been taking a long time completing it.⁶² In his response to Atticus, Cicero outlines a plan:

nunc illam sane mihi probatam Bruto, ut tibi placuit, despondimus, idque tu eum non nolle mihi scripsisti. ergo illam in qua homines nobiles illi quidem sed nullo modo philologi nimis acute loquuntur, ad Varronem transferamus. etenim sunt Antiochia, quae iste valde probat. Catulo et Lucullo alibi reponemus, ita tamen si tu hoc probas; deque eo mihi rescribas velim. (Att. 13.12.3; SB 320)

Now, that composition On Ends, which I rather like, I designated for Brutus, with your approval, and you wrote to me that he is well disposed to the idea. Therefore, that Academica, in which characters, noble without a doubt, but not scholarly by any stretch, speak in rather too clever a manner—let us transfer it to Varro. For the views are Antiochean, which he very much approves. We’ll pay our debt to Catulus and Lucullus in another place, and do this, that is, if you are agreeable; please write me back about this matter.

This makes clear another issue that sets this dedication outside of the main group: the dialogue was not originally intended for Varro.63 We have no indication to whom Cicero initially planned to dedicate it when it was set in the past, but we do know that, before he wrote the version with Varro, he had already changed the identity of the speakers and had created a version with Cato and Brutus as interlocutors (Att. 13.16.1; SB 323). Even after writing the Varronian version, Cicero, anxious about Varro’s approval, had concerns about how the gesture would be received and considered once again changing the addressee—to Brutus, the default dedicatee of this period.⁶⁴ The dedication of the Academica to Varro is thus atypical for a number of reasons: the pressure from Atticus, the long-term negotiations between Cicero and Varro for an expression of their intellectual bond, and Cicero’s multiple alterations of the characters assigned to the work. All of these factors make the choice not to attach an addressed preface to the dialogue but to express the dedication in a letter appear logical.

Cicero’s hesitations and the final shape of his dedication also make clear the significance of his dedications to Brutus. If we imagine that the pattern were reversed, that the bulk of Cicero’s philosophical works under Caesar had been dedicated to a man like Varro, a fellow senior statesman, now on the sidelines after his pardon and similarly engaged in large-scale intellectual projects, the public positioning of the project would change. It would likely be interpreted as a retired politician’s attempt to escape from the disappointments of contemporary politics. The constant summoning of Brutus prevents this from being the case.

De Divinatione, the first work that was put into circulation after the Ides of March, marks, like the Hortensius, the first treatise composed after the civil war, a transition to a new stage in Cicero’s thinking about the place of his philosophical project. Those who refer to the treatise as dedicated to Quintus are assuming that dedication based on the fact that Quintus is the only interlocutor.65 But, as we saw in the case of the Academica, that is not necessarily the case. Here we also lack the invaluable evidence that Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus provides for so many of the other works: we have no letters between late December of 45 and April 7 of 44. So we must remain in the dark about any intentions Cicero may have had regarding a dedicatee. The first work in the triad of which it is a part, De Natura Deorum, was dedicated to Brutus, and it is quite possible that Cicero originally planned to add De Divinatione to the long list of works he had already addressed to him. In any case, the fact that revision, whatever its scope may have been, undoubtedly took place after the Ides, coupled with Cicero’s well-attested habit of attaching his prefaces after the main work of composition has been completed, suggests that the decision to leave the work unaddressed was taken after Caesar’s death.⁶⁶ It seems to reflect the state of affairs at the time. With Caesar gone and the future uncertain, Cicero breaks the long chain of works addressed to Brutus. The regime that had prevented his participation in politics was seemingly destroyed together with its leader, and the function that those dedications had played was, therefore, no longer operative. As we saw, Cicero took the opportunity to look back and reflect on the project and to express his intention to continue producing philosophical works, but his new direction was not yet clear. Thus, an earlier pattern is suspended, but nothing new is put in its place.

The new pattern is more difficult to discern, given the gaps in our knowledge. But what we do know is suggestive. The first treatise that followed Caesar’s death is De Fato, which is very likely to have been dedicated to Hirtius,⁶⁷ though the degree to which this dedication was public, that is, whether Hirtius, Cicero’s interlocutor in the dialogue, was addressed directly in the preface, must remain an open question. In political terms, this dedication would seem to continue the pattern exemplified by the serial dedications to Brutus: Hirtius, consul-designate at the time of Caesar’s death, increased his attentions to Cicero, de facto head of the senatorial opposition to Antony, and was in turn increasingly cultivated by him as representing, along with his co-consul, Pansa, the most stable and promising element among Caesarians.⁶⁸ Yet it should be noted that, however it may have been expressed in the preface, Hirtius’ position in relation to Cicero, within the context of the treatise, differed markedly from that of Brutus. Where Brutus was addressed as an equal, an intellectual partner, Hirtius is at best a beginner in the field of artes and litterae. Thus, his choice as an interlocutor is very much in tune with the more didactic form of the dialogue itself.

The reasons behind the dedication of De Amicitia to Atticus are certainly multiple. I have argued that this work signals a change of direction in the type of philosophy that Cicero sees as central to his project, but that it also retroactively incorporates De Senectute into the project thus modified. A dedication to a close friend, while infinitely suitable to the subject, would also seem to shift the location of Cicero’s writing back into the sphere of subsidiary activity, where we saw it positioned in the 50s. Topica is also dedicated to a friend, but a very much junior friend. The disparity in age and status, as we saw in chapter 5, allows Cicero to present himself as an authority in a qualitatively different way. The author’s posture now is didactic as well as solicitous. Cicero dispenses with even the minimally dialogic form that he used in De Fato to produce a treatise that is in its entirety a discourse by Cicero addressed to Trebatius. The De Officiis then represents yet a further development of this positioning: Cicero dedicates it to the most appropriate object of his teachings, his son,⁶⁹ and the work, although much larger in scale and scope, takes the same form as the Topica. It is a continuous discourse that, taken together with an addressed preface, has been described as quasi-epistolary.⁷⁰ The shift may appear paradoxical: just as Cicero’s philosophical work is becoming more directly relevant to, and more closely engaged with, political issues, his dedication moves in the opposite direction, away from the public sphere and back towards the family and the schoolroom/lecture hall model.⁷¹ Yet the two changes of direction are consistent as part of the same trend: as real political engagement becomes a possibility and then a reality, Cicero both moves into the areas of philosophy where practical implications are immediate and more clearly apprehended, and at the same time repositions his philosophical activity as subsidiary to his political duties.

THE FINAL ENCOUNTER: DE OFFICIIS

Cicero’s final work,72 a treatise on appropriate actions,⁷³ is addressed to his son Marcus who, at the time, was studying philosophy in Athens.⁷⁴ Cicero first mentions the project in a letter to Atticus written from Puteoli, shortly after he left Rome in late October. In the letter, he comments on the appropriateness of the theme to a treatise dedicated by a father to his son: nos hic (quid enim aliud?) et magnifice explicamus Ciceroni. qua de re enim potius pater filio? “Here we philosophize (for what else is there?) and explicate the subject of appropriate action on a grand scale and address it to Cicero. On what topic can father better address his son?” (Att. 15.13a.2; SB 417). On November 5, in response to Atticus’ query about the title of the work, Cicero informs him of his progress (the first two, Panaetian, books of the work are completed), mentions the title, and adds: autem Ciceroni filio; visum est non , “furthermore, I address it to the younger Cicero; it seemed to be not unfitting” (Att. 16.11.4; SB 420). It is difficult to place the decision about the dedication within the frame of the work’s genesis, which is controversial. A. A. Long, motivated by the contrast between the pervasive nature of Cicero’s reworking of Panaetius⁷⁵ and the rate of composition (if we assume that the first letter coincides with the beginning of the project), wants to see Cicero planning and perhaps even writing already in the summer.⁷⁶ A. R. Dyck, who argues that we have to take seriously the work’s function as a substitute for an aborted visit to Marcus in Greece, dates the work’s inception to Cicero’s arrival in Puteoli.77 I hope to have shown that Cicero’s choice of dedicatees is rarely motivated by personal reasons alone; and it is clear from the letters as well that it is the appropriateness of the topic to a father’s didactic relationship with his son, rather than a desire to communicate with Marcus via a treatise, that is Cicero’s primary motivation.⁷⁸ It is at least equally important that this public face of the work brings the treatise into the tradition of fathers’ dedications that goes back to the Elder Cato.⁷⁹

The circumstances of the dedication provided Cicero with an opportunity once again to look back over his philosophical output and reevaluate its contribution. Marcus’ position as the student of a Greek philosopher invites consideration also of the role of philosophical work in Latin:

quamquam te, Marce fili, annum iam audientem Cratippum idque Athenis, abundare oportet praeceptis institutisque philosophiae propter summam et doctoris auctoritatem et urbis, quorum alter te scientia augere potest, altera exemplis, tamen, ut ipse ad meam utilitatem semper cum Graecis Latina coniunxi neque id in philosophia solum sed etiam in dicendi exercitatione feci, idem tibi censeo faciendum, ut par sis in utriusque orationis facultate. quam quidem ad rem nos, ut videmur, magnum attulimus adiumentum hominibus nostris, ut non modo Graecarum litterarum rudes sed etiam docti aliquantum se arbitrentur adeptos et ad discendum et ad iudicandum. (Off. 1.1)

Marcus, my son, since it has been a year already that you have been listening to the teachings of Cratippus, and that in Athens, no less, you must be rich in precepts and practices of philosophy due to the highest authority both of your teacher and of the city itself: he is able to furnish you with knowledge; she, with examples. Nevertheless, since I myself have always joined things Greek and Latin to my great benefit, and done so not only in the sphere of philosophy, but also in the practice of speaking, I advise you to do the same, so that you attain equal ability in both languages. And indeed to that very end we appear to have provided a great deal of assistance to our countrymen so that not only those who are ignorant of Greek letters, but even the learned believe that they have gained something of value both for learning and for making judgments.

We saw that in the Topica Cicero, through Trebatius, rejected a Greek teacher of rhetoric, a doctissimus rhetor, and instead presented himself as the only instructor who had both the knowledge and the rhetorical skill to teach Trebatius what he needed. Here the picture is strikingly different: in the field of philosophy, teaching appears to be yielded easily to the Greeks, and not only the teaching of abstract knowledge, but also the more practical instantiation of abstract precepts in real life examples, which Athens as the capital city of philosophy is expected to provide. Cicero’s initial presentation of his contribution is, by contrast, rather restricted. There is no suggestion that using the Latin language to express philosophical ideas will be of benefit to Marcus philosophically; rather, the benefit to him will be confined to improving his Latin skills and achieving equal mastery of the material in both languages. Similarly, what had been formulated in the earlier prefaces as benefiting the state, reappears in this preface in more specific terms: adiumentum hominibus nostris.

Let us compare this language to what we have seen before. In discussing how his work would benefit the public and the state, Cicero’s preference has been to use forms of prosum.80 Neither adiumentum nor any form of adiuvare occurs in similar contexts of benefiting the state or the prospective readership.⁸¹ Prosum conveys the idea of actively benefiting someone or something, working on their behalf, whereas the ad- in adiumentum expresses quite strongly the sense of “additional” help; ornamentum is a common synonym. Hominibus nostris, likewise, is less strong than civibus in many of the earlier passages. Finally, the vague political ambitions that he posited for his project earlier have been diluted as well to a more specific and therefore more limited claim of having improved readers’ abilities in learning and forming judgments.

Cicero continues in a similar vein in the next section. He leaves the impact of the content of the work up to Marcus’ (and thus the reader’s) judgment (de rebus ipsis utere tuo iudicio), but expresses confidence about the positive effects on his Latinity (orationem autem Latinam efficies profecto legendis nostris pleniorem). He even abandons claims to his authority as a philosopher, sticking to oratory as his true area of expertise, thus reversing the rhetorical move that we discussed in chapter 4 of presenting philosophical practice as a natural outgrowth of his oratorical experience: nam philosophandi scientiam concedens multis, quod est oratoris proprium, apte, distincte, ornate dicere, quoniam in eo studio aetatem consumpsi, si id mihi assumo, videor id meo iure quodam modo vindicare, “for while I yield to many in the knowledge of how to do philosophy, if I appropriate that which belongs to the orator, namely, to speak appropriately, clearly, elegantly, I think that it is, in a certain sense, my right to claim it as my own” (Off. 1.2). What we have seen before was a tension between, on the one hand, the image of a philosophical desert in which Cicero alone was able and willing to practice philosophy, and, on the other, a world crawling with mediocre philosophers. Here, we have neither: Cicero not only opens up the field, but willingly acknowledges the superior qualifications not just of some, but of many. During the Caesar years he was heavily invested in being primus in the philosophical arena, but that distinction has lost much of its weight since he is once again competing in the political arena: one of the few surviving senior consulars, he is in an open confrontation with Antony now and is considering how to react to the rise of Octavian while consulting with all the major players in person and by letter.⁸² His earlier posture could only be maintained so long as he excluded the Greeks from consideration and limited “philosophy” to what he was doing in Latin and for a Roman audience. By choosing to admit a Greek philosopher to the first clause of the preface to his new work, he changes the terms in which the reader is to think of the philosophical enterprise. The language he uses to refer to it, scientia philosophandi rather than philosophia, emphasizes the technical, professional aspects of philosophy as a discipline. Scientia is also what is ascribed to Cratippus in the passage quoted above.⁸³ Cicero’s own primary achievement, by contrast, is relocated to the fields where it used to center, to oratory and politics.84 It is in this context that Cicero, in a passage we discussed in chapter 4, finally comes to propose Demetrius of Phaleron as the best model for joining together oratory and philosophy. Demetrius, after all, was first and foremost a statesman.

As Cicero proceeds to define the subject of the work in front of us, he cites its relevance in concrete and vigorous terms:

nam cum multa sint in philosophia et gravia et utilia accurate copioseque a philosophis disputata, latissime patere videntur ea quae de officiis tradita ab illis et praecepta sunt. nulla enim vitae pars neque publicis neque privatis neque forensibus neque domesticis in rebus, neque si tecum agas quid neque si cum altero contrahas, vacare officio potest, in eoque et colendo sita vitae est honestas omnis et neglegendo turpitudo. (Off. 1.4)

For while within philosophy there are many subjects both weighty and beneficial that philosophers have discussed with care and eloquence, I think that it is the teachings on the subject of appropriate actions handed down by them that have the broadest relevance. For there is no part of life, in matters public or private, in the marketplace or at home, if you are conducting business that concerns yourself or if you enter into a partnership with another, there is nothing that can be without appropriate action and in cultivating it all integrity in life is found; in neglecting it, all baseness.

A.A. Long, in a seminal paper,⁸⁵ has transformed our understanding of this work in its immediate political and biographical context. He has argued for the radical nature of Cicero’s project of reconceptualizing the ways Romans think of the relationship between utilitas and honestas. In Long’s analysis, Cicero uses the tools of Greek philosophy to lend stability to Roman ideology, which recent cataclysmic events have revealed as precarious in its underpinnings. Here, in presenting his subject, Cicero is emphatic as to its universal applicability (latissime patere86) to virtually every area of life in which elite Romans are likely to find themselves engaged.⁸⁷ Finally, to show how urgent it is that his intended audience reach a correct understanding of officium, he makes their claim to honestas depend entirely on their understanding of what he is about to tell them. Approaching the audience through the dedication to Marcus harmonizes perfectly with these all-embracing claims. Cicero says that he chose the subject based on his son’s age and his own authority (quod et aetati tuae esset aptissimus et auctoritati meae, Off. 1.4). The audience consists of beginners, adulescentes, about to embark on a life of public service and intellectual engagement that Cicero, the father, the consular, the orator, and the philosopher, is looking back on. They are in need of global instruction, precepts they can apply in every area of endeavor. The treatise, coming at what is for us the end of Cicero’s philosophical output is actually introduced as the first installment of a prospective new incarnation of the philosophical project directed to the younger generation (multa posthac).⁸⁸ The work that has been called Cicero’s political testament,⁸⁹ an afterthought to his planned cycle,⁹⁰ was meant to be a new beginning.

Cicero uses the preface to book two to flesh out what is implied in auctoritati meae, to give, once again, an overview of his career and justify his near-exclusive occupation with writing philosophy during the Caesar years. Much of what he says is familiar: there are those whose judgment he generally values (boni) who are strongly opposed to philosophy and don’t understand why someone of Cicero’s stature would devote to it his time and effort. In other prefaces we have seen Cicero engage in some detail with the variety of reasons that might lead someone to be against philosophy as practiced by Cicero. Here they are collapsed into a very general hostility that is left unexplored: Cicero is in a stronger position now and need not engage with the details of individual objections. The account that follows shows a progression in the presentation of the role of philosophy that is similar to the progression we saw in the preface to book one, moving from limited and partial claims to the assertion of universal relevance and great significance.91

He begins by making a clear distinction between the early part of his career, spent in public service, and the enforced otium under Caesar that led him to the writing of philosophical works, an honorable option preferable to the others that were available: giving in to grief or pleasure or resigning himself to total idleness.⁹² In speaking of his pre–civil war service to the state he omits all mention of his intellectual projects, referring only to the publication of his speeches and presenting his turn to writing as a reaction to the silencing of the traditional arenas for a statesman’s speech, the senate and the courts.⁹³ Then, the rhetoric of a return to philosophy that is so prominent in the Caesarian prefaces, the rhetoric of continuity reappears (me ad philosophiam retulissem, I brought myself back to philosophy). As a youth Cicero was enthusiastic in the study of philosophy, but once his life of public service had begun in earnest, he had little time for it.⁹⁴ Finally, before he makes a transition to the main body of the book by discussing his Academic principles, he sets out an evaluation of his philosophical achievement: maximis igitur in malis hoc tamen boni adsecuti videmur, ut ea litteris mandaremus, quae nec erant satis nota nostris et erant cognitione dignissima, “therefore I think that amid such great misfortune I was nonetheless able to achieve something good, namely, that I entrusted to writing matters that were not sufficiently well known to our fellow citizens and yet were most deserving of their knowledge” (Off. 2.5). Cicero presents his contribution as a “good.” This term that in his usage draws together the philosophical and the political is here given special resonance by his reference to the opponents of philosophy as the boni.⁹⁵ It is particularly shortsighted and inexplicable that “good” men cannot see the “good” that his writings have produced.

The essence of this good is a pared down version of what we saw in many of the prefaces: making the appropriate and necessary knowledge available to his countrymen. What follows is most likely a summary of the lost Hortensius, but we can also see it as a mini-version of the famous hymn to philosophy found in the preface to the last book of the Tusculans (Tusc. 5.5).96 Given that Cicero often returns to the general theme of his protreptic in his prefaces, it is safe to assume that the differences between its treatment in the Tusculans and De Officiis reflect his changed approach to the subject. One such significant difference is that in the Tusculans, as in the Caesarian prefaces by and large, Cicero used the term philosophia, whereas here what he praises is sapientia. We saw in chapter 3 that Cicero juxtaposes the two terms in the preface to the first book of the Tusculans in a way that both grants the Romans superiority in sapientia and allows for additional content to philosophia that can be of use to them. Here, instead, he equates the two: philosophia is studium sapientiae; the definition of sapientia is given by old philosophers. This definition, knowledge of things human and divine and of the causes that control them, is broad enough that everyone should acquiesce in praising such a discipline: cuius studium qui vituperat haud sane intellego quidnam sit quod laudandum putet, “I can hardly understand what sort of a thing a man who disparages the pursuit of wisdom could find praiseworthy” (Off. 2.5). This totalizing statement is followed immediately, as so often, by a retreat. Having made a great, sweeping claim for philosophy, Cicero then identifies delight for the mind and a rest from cares (oblectatio animi requiesque curarum) as the foremost benefits that this pursuit can furnish. The grand claim is thus weakened by assigning to philosophy a subsidiary role of the sort that Cicero had proposed for the arts at the height of his career in the Pro Archia.⁹⁷ The addition that philosophy is also the way to attain constancy and virtue cannot quite recover the ground Cicero yielded by highlighting philosophy’s auxiliary functions. Conceptualized in this way, philosophy cannot hope to attain the parity with politics that Cicero, with some qualifications, assigned to it in the treatises of the Caesarian period. Paradoxically, as Cicero’s renewed engagement in politics guides him to philosophical topics whose political implications become more and more obvious, this very change in his circumstances and self-conception leads him to consign philosophy to an ancillary position.

The final preface engages for one last time with the question of otium and writing, and in doing so it draws on the two customary sources of Cicero’s thought: the mos maiorum and Greek philosophy. He reaches back now into the Roman past to bring back two great men who featured as authoritative speakers in his dialogues, Cato the Elder and Scipio Africanus. Cato, Cicero says, wrote down a favorite saying of Scipio’s: numquam se minus otiosum esse quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum quam cum solus esset, “he was never less at leisure than when he was at leisure, never less alone than when he was alone” (Off. 3.1).98 Cicero presents Scipio’s attitude with its hint at the energizing effects of leisure and solitude, as an unattainable ideal that he can admire but not emulate. In this initial presentation, it is a failure on Cicero’s part, a sign of his shortcomings when seen against the great men of the past, that he experiences his solitude and his otium as discomforts.

The next section begins with sed: of course, there is an important difference between Cicero’s circumstances and Scipio’s. The language that he used to describe the state in crisis under Caesar, the suspension of normal activity in the senate and in the courts, returns here, this time in an implied reference to Antony’s deleterious doings. These conditions result in two different definitions of otium: Scipio’s is the outcome of a desire for rest and recovery (studium requiescendi); Cicero’s, of the unavailability of his normal occupation (negotii inopia).⁹⁹ For otium to function in the ideal way, Cicero is suggesting, it has to be actively sought out. His otium, because it is forced, cannot but lead him to seek a substitute activity. At this point Cicero departs from modeling himself exclusively on the maiores and invokes a philosophical model for dealing with misfortune: he must find some way to squeeze out some good, quid boni, from evils, mala. This justifies his making use of his otium and, in contrast to Africanus, writing. Scipio left no written testament of his retirement, but he is still held up as the superior model. It is unease, a desire to escape solitude and idleness, that leads Cicero to write. Yet the old model is simply not applicable in present-day circumstances. It can be praised, but the conditions that made it possible are no more. For dealing with the new kind of otium, philosophy is a necessary tool, and philosophy leads to writing. Furthermore, the terms in which Cicero praises Scipio are ambiguous enough that we might well wonder whether we are to take his admiration at face value. When he says nulla enim eius ingenii monumenta mandata litteris, nullum opus otii, nullum solitudinis munus extat, “no monuments to his talent have been entrusted to letters, there is no work that was the outcome of his leisure, no service that was the product of his solitude” (Off. 3.4), is it possible to go along with the approval that follows without registering that these things—monumenta, opus, munus—are normally highly valued as lasting contributions to the state and to posterity? Is it possible not to wonder whether in fact Cicero’s model is better precisely because it is productive? Another aspect of Cicero’s presentation that invites a comparison that is not necessarily favorable to Scipio is Cicero’s focus on Scipio’s periods of otium while active in public life (otium sibi sumebat aliquando, Off. 3.2) and not during his retirement at the end of his life. The restorative breaks in a life devoted to the state do not have to produce anything beyond renewal for the man of action, but that paradigm does not necessarily apply to prolonged periods of inactivity when no return to public service is anticipated. Furthermore, if Leo’s conjecture is correct, Cato, Scipio’s frequent opponent,100 quoted Scipio in the preface to the Origines,¹⁰¹ next to a sentiment expressed in his own voice: clarorum virorum atque magnorum non minus oti quam negoti rationem exstare oportere, “it is fitting that the leisure of illustrious and great men be no less subject to account than their business.”¹⁰² It is very likely then that, in presenting his choice to write, Cato was taking a position contrary to Scipio’s. And Cicero in expressing admiration for Scipio is at the same time aligning his, seemingly inferior, disposition and choices with Cato’s, a model who at the very least rivals Scipio.¹⁰³

When Cicero next speaks of philosophy, he uses a series of vivid agricultural metaphors that cannot but bring to the reader’s images of actual farming: tota philosophia . . . frugifera et fructuosa nec ulla pars eius inculta ac deserta sit, “all of philosophy is fruit-bearing and fertile and no part of it is uncultivated and left barren” (Off. 3.5). The study of officia is described with two additional words for agricultural productivity, feracior and uberior. It is impossible not to think of Scipio in his retirement as described to us by Seneca, working the land on his simple villa.¹⁰⁴ His literal cultivation has produced one munus, the unwritten one of his undeniably powerful and enduring exemplum. But Cicero does not mention this aspect of his retirement.105 He focuses on the negative, the lack of tangible evidence of intellectual activity. Against it he sets his many munera, the treatises that are the products of his otium. His choice of words encourages the reader to weigh the two patterns, his professed inadequacy notwithstanding. And indeed when he proposes a model for Marcus in closing the preface it is he, not Scipio, who is to be imitated: sustines enim non parvam expectationem imitandae industriae nostrae, magnam honorum, nonnullam fortasse nominis, “you will carry with you not a small expectation of imitating my industry, but a great one that you will achieve similar political honors, and some expectation also that you will perhaps attain a comparable reputation” (Off. 3.6). Cicero’s industria is the first thing that Marcus is urged to emulate (labor occurs twice in the rest of the exhortation), and that industria is not limited to a particular arena. His incredible output during the 40s, mentioned just earlier in the preface, is certainly an important way in which this industria manifested itself. Honores are explicitly political and public, but nomen, like industria, embraces all areas of Cicero’s achievement. Scipio may be a model for Cicero, but in this final didactic moment it is Cicero himself, statesman and philosopher, who becomes the principal exemplum for the new generation of the Roman elite.

•    •    •

It is appropriate that Marcus was his father’s last dedicatee. His failure to live up to his father’s expectations was matched by two parallel failures of Cicero’s project.¹⁰⁶ He did not succeed in recreating and stabilizing Roman values, and the republic that was the object of his efforts died. Nor was he able to reverse Roman resistance to philosophy. Despite occasional bursts of brilliance and some significant contributions in the political sphere, for the most part philosophy in Rome remained the province of professional intellectuals, important in the education of future elites, but often regarded with suspicion when it transgressed beyond that finite domain. Never again do we see the kind of integration of the political and the philosophical self that Cicero recommended among those whom he could have seen as his potential successors.107 Marcus Aurelius, whom history has judged both one of the best emperors and a preeminent Roman philosopher,¹⁰⁸ chose to write his philosophical work in Greek,¹⁰⁹ and it was a self-addressed work not meant for circulation,¹¹⁰ written in order to withdraw into himself and there in solitude to seek renewal.¹¹¹ His Meditations thus stand as witness that philosophy in Rome did not follow the path Cicero had envisioned for it.

¹Steel 2005.138 sees a new direction, rather than an “abrupt shift,” beginning with De Divinatione.

²Durand 1903, seconded by Pease 1920.13–15, argues that the entire body of the treatise was completed before the assassination, but allows for editorial changes and additions after the event and prior to publication. For a recent overview of the debate on the dating, see Wardle 2006.37–43, who posits minor alterations to the whole work and the composition of the preface to the second book after Caesar’s assassination.

³It is particularly tempting to follow those who take book one to have been composed before the assassination and book two after (e.g., Long 1995.221), because the political change that took place between the composition of the two books can be taken to explain the location of the most extensive description by Cicero of his philosophical treatises as a unified body of work, since it would make this preface the first one written after the death of Caesar.

⁴For a different interpretation of this change, see Bringmann 1971, who in his account of Cicero’s “Return to Politics” (the title of the chapter, 182–95) sees a narrow political focus in the post-Caesarian works (already in this preface) that sharply contrasts with the largely cultural goals of the earlier works.

⁵For a discussion of the structure of the catalogue, see Schofield 1986.48–49.

⁶For an account of the placement of the catalogue that privileges the content and structure of the treatise over the timing of its composition, see Fox 2007.218–20.

⁷Dugan 2005 and van der Blom 2010 rightly emphasize the centrality of Cicero’s status as a “new man” to his rhetorical self-fashioning and to his choice of exemplary models respectively.

⁸TLL s.v. CAPVT PRIVS II B 1 a quae praesto, prompta sunt.

⁹The open-ended authorial position in this treatise is at the core of Schofield’s (1986) excellent discussion. A similar approach is generalized to the entire corpus of Cicero’s philosophical works by Fox 2007. Krostenko 2000 is an attractive reading that sees the text as positively pointing towards a dialectical solution.

¹⁰Cf. remarks of Boyancé 1936 on philosophy as ancilla eloquentiae in the rhetorical works and on Cicero’s use of philosophy in political contexts. On the unity of Cicero the philosopher and Cicero the politician, see Görler 1990; of Cicero the philosopher and Cicero the rhetorician, the work of Michel, and Gildenhard 2011. For an argument for the unity of the corpus and for the importance of reading across genres, see also Stem 2006. For an opposing view that posits a significant break between Cicero the orator and Cicero the philosopher, see Fox 2007. An excellent integrated treatment of different parts of Cicero’s corpus in light of his political career is Steel 2005.

¹¹For a reversal of this metaphor, with Cicero as parent, cf. Fam. 9.20.3 (SB 193): patriam eluxi iam et gravius et diutius quam ulla mater unicum filium, “I have already mourned for my country both more gravely and for a longer period than any mother for her only son.”

¹²Virtually the same expression is used in a passage that explains Cicero’s turn to writing philosophy under Caesar in similar terms: hoc autem tempore tantum nobis declarandum fuit cur orbati rei publicae muneribus ad hoc nos studium potissimum contulissemus, “but at this time we had to set forth only why, when we were orphaned by the loss of our duties to the republic, we had directed ourselves to this pursuit above all others” (Off. 2.6). In the Brutus, Cicero used the same metaphor to describe eloquentia (Brut. 330); see Stroup 2010, ch. 8.

¹³For a discussion of Roman adoption practices, see Lindsay 2009, Gardner 1998.114–208, Corbier.1991b.63–76; cf. Dixon 1992.112–13, Corbier 1991a.142.

¹⁴Cf. Cicero’s comment in Dom. 35 in a discussion of counter-examples to the irregular adoption of P. Clodius: quas adoptiones sicut alias innumerabilis hereditates nominis pecuniae sacrorum secutae sunt, “And in these adoptions, just as in others, too many to count, inheritance of the name, of property, and of religious rites followed.” On the adoption of Clodius see Lindsay 2009, ch.14.

¹⁵The obvious counter-example is Augustus’ adoption of Gaius and Lucius. Many aspects make this a rather special case. The needs of the incipient royal family are largely responsible for Augustus’ desire not to simply adopt the boys as heirs, but to raise them as such. Thus, the need for appropriate upbringing, the opportunity to have them recognized as heirs by the public over a long period of time, as well as Augustus’ own security in having two heirs in public view are responsible for the early adoption. No examples are known from among the republican elite. Dixon 1992.112, n.69 lists a couple of examples of the adoption of young children in Roman Egypt. On the special circumstances surrounding the adoption of Gaius and Lucius, see Severy 2003.70–72.

¹⁶A large number of adoptions were in fact of nephews and grandsons: Dixon 1992.112.

¹⁷On the language of substitution, cf. Butler 2002.110–11.

¹⁸The change of priorities is made explicit at the end of the preface: nunc quoniam de re publica consuli coepti sumus, tribuenda est opera rei publicae, vel omnis potius in ea cogitatio et cura ponenda, tantum huic studio relinquendum quantum vacabit a publico officio et munere, “now, since I have begun to be consulted about the affairs of the state, my attention must be give to the republic, or, rather, all my thought and care must be devoted to it; to this pursuit I must leave only what is free from public duties and responsibilities” (Div. 2.7).

¹⁹The projected work is included in the catalogue found in the preface to the second book, Div. 2.3, and the fact that the subject will be taken up in the future is mentioned by both speakers, Div. 1.127 and 2.19. On the date, see Yon 2002.ii–v, cf. Sharples 1991.5–6.

²⁰Sharples 1991.5 takes it to refer to external circumstances (in Fat. 2 Cicero explicitly references the novae perturbationes that followed the death of Caesar), but in a footnote quotes Büchner (1964.415) who takes it the same way, but interprets it as a literary device that Cicero uses to justify the formal change. Sharples then suggests that both explanations can be true. Yon 2002.viii–ix, with n.1, sees the difficulty of the subject and the pressure of other matters as the reason for the change, similarly joining the external and the substantive. Yon’s assumption that, as a result of haste, Cicero followed one source closely is successfully countered by Boyancé 1936.

²¹Cf. in particular the analysis of the Topica preface in ch. 5. The language of burning, found there, is used here as well in reference to Cicero’s inspiring Hirtius’ enthusiasm for oratory: oratoria illa studia . . . quibus etiam te incendi, quamquam flagrantissimum acceperam, “those oratorical pursuits . . . with which I ignited your desire, even though I had encountered you already in flames” (Fat. 3).

²²Cicero the speaker discusses the close connection between oratory and Academic philosophy for Hirtius’ benefit (Fat. 3).

²³Fat. 4. On disputatio in utramque partem and Cicero’s use of paired speeches in the dialogues, see Leonhardt 1999.

²⁴The following comments about De Fato are based on our incomplete knowledge of the treatise, and for that reason are provisional.

²⁵For a different take on the relationship between the two works, see Gildenhard 2007 83–86.

²⁶Another work that, based on its subject, is likely to belong to the post-Caesarian period, De Virtutibus, is presented in the Teubner edition of Off. and Virt. (1971) as a dialogue between A. and M. The editors’ decision appears to be based on the model of the Tusculans. But the “fragments” are derived from a fifteenth century work, La Salade by the French writer Antoine de la Sale, and the original French (for which see the 1908 Teubner edition by H. Knöllinger) is too ambiguous to determine whether the questions posed reflect the form of the original or are a literary device employed by de la Sale.

²⁷On some of the complications in the traditional picture of Cicero and Atticus as ideal friends, see Citroni Marchetti 2009.

²⁸We cannot know whether the lost De Gloria, composed in the summer of 44 and also dedicated to Atticus, shared any of the other characteristics of the two surviving works.

²⁹See ch. 5 on the authority of Cato in De Senectute. Laelius’ authority is similarly based on his traditionally famous friendship with Scipio (Amic. 4). See Gotter 1996b.346 on the political significance of Cicero’s choice of Laelius. Zetzel 1972 has effectively argued against reconstruction of a “Scipionic circle” on the basis of Cicero’s dialogues and for seeing these texts in the context of the time of their composition; cf. Zetzel 1995.12–13. For the most recent argument for the historicity of Laelius’ discourse, see Burton 2007.

³⁰The most recent extensive discussion of the date is Powell 1988, Appendix 1 (267–68). Powell opts for a substantial portion of the treatise having been composed before the assassination.

³¹Att. 14.21.3 (SB 375).

³²Div. 2.3.

³³E.g., Powell 1990a.7: “the Cato and Laelius . . . are not works of academic philosophy . . . but constitute a more intimate and personal expression of Cicero’s own ideas and preoccupations.”

³⁴On the political relevance of Cicero’s presentation of amicitia, see Gotter 1996b. The difference between De Senectute and De Amicitia, both in the resonance of the topic and the overall tone, is noted by Zetzel 1972.177.

³⁵Cicero’s letter to Matius: Fam. 11.27 (SB 348); Matius’ response: Fam. 11.28 (SB 349). Griffin 1997 is an excellent study of the interconnections between the exchange and the dialogue. Cf. Bringmann 1971.270–77. For a brief discussion in the context of Caesar’s friendships, see Steel 2009.123–24. For the discussion of the date, August or October, as well as further bibliography, see Shackleton Bailey’s introduction to his commentary on Fam. 11.27 (SB 348; 1977.489). For an analysis of the strategies Cicero uses to heal the breach caused by his disapproval of Matius, Hall 2009a.60–66.

³⁶In the first Philippic, delivered at the senate meeting held on September 2, Cicero paid lip service to his friendship with Antony while criticizing his actions. Antony reacted with anger and accused Cicero of violating their amicitia (Phil. 2.3, cf. Phil. 5.19), a charge that Cicero then took up in the second Philippic, a speech with a fictional date of September 19, but which he never delivered. In accusing Cicero, Antony read out a flattering letter from him (Att. 14.13B; SB 367B), an action that Cicero in turn characterized as a violation (Phil. 2.7). For a concise narrative of these events in their larger historical context, see Ramsey 2003.9; cf. Rawson 1994.476–77, Gotter 1996a.26–30, Osgood 2006.41–42; with a focus on Cicero’s textual production, Butler 2002.113–15. For the uneasy politeness of the letters exchanged by the two men, see Hall 2009a.93–99.

³⁷On the date of De Amicitia, see Powell 1990a.5–6; cf. Zetzel 1972.177–78, Bringmann 1971.215.

³⁸Bringmann 1971.207 in arguing against linking the composition of De Amicitia to the “so-called Mattius affair” rightly emphasizes that this episode represents a chance survival of what must have been a fairly typical example of Caesar’s friends’ continuing loyalty to him after his death.

³⁹Cf. Long 1995.222: “The ties of amicitia were an urgent problem in the confusion following the assassination of Caesar.” Habinek 1990.166–67 discusses both the topical and the broader political significance of the subject. For a reconstruction of the political implications of De Gloria, sent to Atticus on July 11th (Att. 16.2.6; SB 412), see Long 1995.223–24 with the following discussion of glory in De Officiis. On De Gloria, cf. Bringmann 1971.196–205.

⁴⁰Atticus would of course have a more intimate knowledge of the events as they concerned Sulpicius, having been not only a close associate, as Cicero here indicates, but also a relative. Nepos (Att. 2) attributes Atticus’ disinclination to pursue a senatorial career to his having been exposed to danger due to his relationship with Suplicius (propter affinitatem P. Sulpicii . . . non expers fuit illius periculi).

⁴¹The main sources are App. BC 1.55–61, Plut. Sul. 8–10 and Mar. 34–35, and Liv. Per. 77. Many of the details of the events are controversial, but the broad outline is not in doubt. In a detailed reconsideration of Sulpicius’ motivations that rightly rejects an account based on party politics, Powell (1990b) argues that Sulpicius miscalculated in expecting support from Pompeius and others. Such a misapprehension of the nature and stability of his amicitia would be especially relevant in the context of the treatise and in the political climate in which Cicero composed the work. For a general narrative that sees a change of allegiance on the part of Sulpicius, see Keaveney 2005.45–63; cf. Seager 1994.165–73.

⁴²Amic. 5: quam legens te ipse cognosces.

⁴³Amic. 4.

⁴⁴The date of De Legibus, a work that Cicero did not complete and publish (it is not mentioned in the catalogue in Div.2), is controversial. I accept the prevailing view that dates the conception and the bulk of the composition to the late 50s, following De Re Publica. On the issues of dating and stages of composition, see Dyck 2004.5–12. The dialogue does not have prefaces in the author’s voice, one of the results of its incompleteness. It is most likely that, had it been completed in the 50s, it too would have been dedicated to Quintus, one of the interlocutors. Of the six partially surviving books of De Re Publica, only the first book preserves a preface. The beginning, where Quintus would have been addressed by name, is missing, but he is addressed again (tibi) in the last section of the preface (Rep. 1.13).

⁴⁵See Stroup 2010.191–202 on the complex dynamics of dedication of De Oratore and the Brutus.

⁴⁶Stroup 2010.197 suggests that it was dedicated to Atticus.

⁴⁷These are Brutus, Orator, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De Finibus, Tusculans, and De Natura Deorum.

⁴⁸The composition of these works in the mid and late fifties, as Cicero is sidelined politically after the formation of the First Triumvirate, is of course no coincidence. On his position during this period, see, e.g., Mitchell 1991.181–204.

⁴⁹The first dedication that we are certain of, the Brutus, is presented as a return on Brutus’ De Virtutibus, one of the referents of litterae at Brut. 11 and 12, presented as the stimulant that encouraged Cicero to write again (the other referent is Atticus’ Annales).

⁵⁰Cf. Douglas 1966.xviii–xix. See also Gotter 1996a.221–23.

⁵¹Cf. Rawson 1983.211: “The Brutus itself was not the only work that Cicero dedicated at this time to his important and able young friend, with whom he was anxious for so many reasons to be on close terms”; Dyck 1996.11: “Most of his [Cicero’s] literary projects of these years aimed to secure the allegiance of one of the leading members of the younger generation, M. Brutus.”

⁵²Caelius had asked for a treatise in 51 (Fam. 8.3.3; SB 79). It is not difficult to see that such a dedication would confer prestige on the recipient and could have become, had Cicero wanted it, a useful social tool. Cicero refers in general terms to those who expressed the wish to appear in his dialogues as characters at Att. 12.12.2 (SB 259): incredibile est quam ea quidam requirant, “it is unbelievable how much demand for it there is in certain circles.” Given this enthusiasm, it is all the more remarkable that Cicero stays with Brutus so consistently. See Stroup 2010.183–85 on requests for dedications.

⁵³On the close relationship between Brutus and Atticus, see Shackleton Bailey 1965.52–53. On Atticus’ attempts to mediate in the rather unsavory affair of Brutus’ usury during Cicero’s tenure as governor of Cilicia, see Rawson 1983.177–80, Mitchell 1991.223–24.

⁵⁴In reading istiusve I depart from Shackleton Bailey and adopt the reading of the majority of the manuscripts (only b reads istisve). Shackleton Bailey rejects istiusve because it excludes Brutus: istiusque would solve that problem, but that is not what we have. His choice is quite plausible—Atticus would know to whom Cicero was referring. But I think that in the context, with its focus on Brutus, istiusve gives better sense. I would interpret it as positing a situation in which Brutus himself, for whatever reason, is unable to carry on. The hope would then be that his group of associates could continue his work.

⁵⁵On Brutus’ philosophical views, see Sedley 1997. Gotter 2000 provides the best biographical sketch; cf. Gotter 1996a.213–32.

⁵⁶On this larger political meaning of the dedications to Brutus, cf. Henderson 2006.174–75, who notes “the unquestionably fundamental authority of Brutus to sign for SPQR”; see also Gildenhard 2007.93–95. Wassmann 1996, ch. 7, following Strasburger 1990, reads all the dedications and the choices of speakers in dialogues of this period as specifically anti-Caesarian. Dugan 2005.233–48 effectively reads the Brutus as Cicero’s response to Brutus’ De Virtute, designed to encourage him to follow his ancestors by becoming a tyrannicide.

⁵⁷For a different interpretation, see Wassmann 1996.229–32, who treats the choice of Varro as parallel to that of Brutus.

⁵⁸For an analysis of the tensions, see Wiseman 2009.107–29, who sees Varro rather than Cicero as truly in the service of the Roman people; for a different view of the difference between their Caesarian projects that emphasizes Varro’s incorporation of Caesar’s views on religion in the Antiquities, see Bloomer 1997.53–55; for bibliography on the relationship, see ch. 2, n.82.

⁵⁹Giving someone a part in the dialogue and dedicating the work to him are not always clearly differentiated, but Cicero does distinguish the two in this case: in Att. 13.19.5 (SB 326) he writes that he is happy with Varro as an interlocutor, but still unsure about the dedication. The two types of homage are joined together in Att. 13.18 (SB 325).

⁶⁰itaque cogitabam, quoniam in singulis libris utor prohoemiis ut Aristoteles in iis quos vocat, aliquid efficere ut non sine causa istum appellarem, id quod intellego tibi placere, “so I was thinking that since I am affixing prefaces to individual books, just as Aristotle in those books he called exoteric, I could name him not inappropriately; I understand that this would please you” (Att. 4.16.2; SB 89). Cicero refers back to this earlier discussion in similar terms in 45: quod ad me de Varrone scribis, scis me antea orationes aut aliquid id genus solitum scribere ut Varronem nusquam possem intexere, “as to what you write to me concerning Varro, you know that earlier I used to write speeches or other things of a sort that did not allow me to insert Varro” (Att. 13.12.3; SB 320).

⁶¹Atticus claimed that Varro was jealous of others who had become part of Cicero’s work: Att. 13.13–14.1 (SB 321) and 13.18 (325).

⁶²Varro did dedicate books V–XXV of De Lingua Latina to Cicero, but there is no further evidence that would allow us to date them with any more certainty than between the date of this letter and Cicero’s death.

⁶³The dedication to the second version has been preserved. The beginning of the surviving part of the earlier version, Lucullus, is lost. For the different compositional stages, see Griffin 1997; cf. Rösch-Binde 1997.346–94, van der Blom 2010.171–72.

⁶⁴Att. 13.25.3 (SB 333): qua re si addubitas, ad Brutum transeamus, “therefore, if you have any doubt, let us transfer it to Brutus.”

⁶⁵Formally, then, it looks similar to the Brutus, which also lacks an address in its preface, but the title itself (used by Cicero in the catalogue in Div. 2.4) constitutes a dedication to Brutus who is one of the interlocutors. In addition, the final exhortatory sections of the dialogue are addressed to Brutus.

⁶⁶There is no doubt that the preface to Div. 2 was written after the Ides. I contend that the one to the first book was at the very least revised at that time as well.

⁶⁷Cf. Rawson 1985.58 and Dyck 1996.11.

⁶⁸See Gotter 1996a.67–69.

⁶⁹Another work that should be mentioned here is Partitiones Oratoriae, perhaps the most explicitly didactic in its form in Cicero’s corpus, that presents a dialogue between Cicero the father and Cicero the son. The dating of the work is highly controversial (see Gaines 2002.447–66, Arweiler 2003.210–14). Gaines, after effectively rejecting attempts to date the dialogue based on dating its setting, leaves the question wide open: between 65 and 44. I find it most plausible that this work was composed in the same general period as the Topica and De Officiis.

⁷⁰Gibson and Morrison 2007.9–13, in the context of defining the limits of the epistolary genre.

⁷¹Dyck 1996.10–11 sees the dedications to Brutus and these post-Caesarian dedications to younger men as part of the same turn towards the younger generation. Yet Brutus, though certainly a junior, both is and is treated by Cicero much more as an equal, both in politics and as a fellow philosopher.

⁷²There is disagreement on how to characterize Cicero’s philosophical position in this work. Cicero himself asserts that, though he is following the Stoics, his own approach remains that of an Academic skeptic (Off. 1.6; cf. 2.7–8). Annas 1989.172 reads the work in this way. Dyck 1996.36–37 finds the univocal nature of the presentation in conflict with Cicero’s earlier Academic method and argues that Cicero’s reasons are rhetorical.

⁷³I follow Dyck in translating officium/ as “appropriate action” rather than “duty.” For Cicero’s choice of officium and Atticus’ objections, see Dyck 1996.3–8.

⁷⁴On Marcus’ unsatisfactory performance as a student, see Dyck 1996.12–13; on his equally disappointing career, 15–16.

⁷⁵For a treatment of the relationship between Cicero’s work and Panaetius’ treatise that emphasizes the difference in the orientations of the two works and Cicero’s originality, see Lefèvre 2001.

⁷⁶Long 1995.220–21. I agree with Long that it is likely that Cicero had started thinking about a next project once De Gloria was completed, but I also feel that we often underestimate how quickly Cicero was able to work.

⁷⁷Dyck 1996.8, n.20. For a fuller presentation of his view of the centrality of the fatherson relationship to the generation of the work, see 12–16.

⁷⁸Cf. Griffin and Atkins 1991.xvii–xviii, who emphasize the importance of the wider audience, especially the young members of the elite. They cite Cicero’s son-in-law Dolabella and nephew Quintus as examples.

⁷⁹Bits of Cato’s Praecepta ad Filium are preserved in Pliny the Elder’s NH. Cicero himself mentions a cautionary letter from Cato to his son (Off. 1.37). On ad Filium see Astin 1978.183 and 332–40. Other dedications to sons before Cicero: the jurist Marcus Brutus, a dialogue on civil law (Cluent. 141, de Orat. 2.223–24; see Leeman, Pinkster, and Rabbie 1989, ad loc.); Scribonius Curio, also a dialogue whose subject is uncertain (Brut. 218: the general anti-Caesarian tenor of the work, set after a senate meeting in 59, is clear, but not how it fits into the work as a whole); see Fantham 2004.50–51 on the two works as pre-Ciceronian Roman dialogues.

⁸⁰Div. 2.1: quaerenti mihi multumque et diu cogitanti, quanam re possem prodesse quam plurimis, ne quando intermitterem consulere rei publicae; Div. 2.7: haec studia renovare coepimus ut et animus molestiis hac potissimum re levaretur et prodessemus civibus nostris, qua re cumque possemus; Tusc. 1.5: quae [philosophia] inlustranda et excitanda nobis est, ut, si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus nostris, prosimus etiam, si possumus, otiosi; Luc. 6: quis reprendet otium nostrum, qui in eo non modo nosmet ipsos hebescere et languere nolumus sed etiam ut plurimis prosimus enitimur; Top. 72 haec ita ad te scribuntur ut etiam in aliorum manus sint ventura, detur opera, ut quam plurimum eis quos recta studia delectant prodesse possimus. Cf. Amic. 4: itaque feci non invitus, ut prodessem multis rogatu tuo; Tusc. 2.2: sed tamen in vita occupata atque, ut Neoptolemi tum erat, militari pauca [in philosophia] ipsa multum saepe prosunt et ferunt fructus; Fin. 3.65: impellimur autem natura ut prodesse velimus quam plurimis in primisque docendo rationibusque prudentiae tradendis. In De Officiis the benefits of legal knowledge are described in similar terms: nam in iure cavere, consilio iuvare atque hoc scientiae genere prodesse quam plurimis vehementer et ad opes augendas pertinet et ad gratiam (Off. 2.65).

⁸¹Adiuvare is used in the context of helping philosophy be reborn in Latin at Tusc. 2.5.

⁸²Cf. Dyck 1996.8–10, Long 1995.219–24; Griffin and Atkins 1991.xii–xv. Gotter 1996a is the most detailed historical treatment of Cicero’s political position between the Ides and his death; see esp. 137 and 145 on the role of his correspondence. Stone’s (2008) discussion of the influence of Off. on Cicero’s rhetoric in the Philippics is often reductive.

⁸³In the preface to book one of De Re Publica, Cicero opposes scientia and ars as abstract knowledge to the exclusively practical nature of virtus: nec vero habere virtutem satis est quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare; etsi ars quidem cum ea non utare scientia tamen ipsa teneri potest, virtus in usu sui tota posita est, “But it is not sufficient to possess virtue, as if some skill, if you do not use it; for while a skill, when you do not use it, can nonetheless be possessed based on knowledge, virtue is located entirely in the exercise of it” (Rep. 1.2). He uses the word commonly to refer to professional knowledge. It occurs very frequently in De Oratore, where the knowledge base of a good orator is being established.

⁸⁴Cf. Tusc. 1.7, discussed in ch. 4, where very similar language is used to describe rhetorically effective philosophy: hanc enim perfectam philosophiam semper iudicavi, quae de maximis quaestionibus copiose posset ornateque dicere, “For I have always judged to be the most excellent the kind of philosophy that which knows how to discuss the most important questions with elegance and eloquence.”

⁸⁵Long 1995.

⁸⁶TLL s.v. CAPVT ALTERVM II A patent ea, quae ad multa pertinent vel referri possunt aut in multis valent sim.; quantum pateant indicatur per: adv. late.

⁸⁷Cf. Off. 1.7: quibus [praeceptis] in omnis partis usus vitae conformari possit, “by these precepts all aspects of everyday life can be shaped.”

⁸⁸Philippson 1939.1173 suggests that the reference here and in Att. 15.14.6 (SB 402) may be to the lost De Virtutibus.

⁸⁹Long 1995.214.

⁹⁰Dyck 1996.1; see 36–39, where he puts Off. together with Consolatio as lying outside of the main corpus of the philosophica. It is largely the didactic and moralistic slant of the work that is responsible for his conclusion. While I agree with his view of Off., I see it as the culmination of the development that begins after Caesar’s death, not to be seen in isolation.

⁹¹Dyck 1996.60 sees the progression in the preface to book one as from personal and literary to more generally applicable.

⁹²Off. 2.2: nec me angoribus dedidi . . . nec rursum indignis homine docto voluptatibus, “I did not indulge in my suffering . . . nor did I in turn abandon myself to pleasures unworthy of a man of learning.” Cf. Sallust’s justification of his decision to spend his retirement in writing by eliminating the other, unworthy, options (ch. 1, under the heading “Sallust, or Anxiety about Writing”) and Off. 2.4: nihil agere autem cum animus non posset, “when my spirit was unable to do nothing.”

⁹³Off. 2.3: illae scilicet litterae conticuerunt forenses et senatoriae, “those speeches that used to be given in court and in the senate fell silent.” Cf. the reference to the breaking of a long silence in the first sentence of Pro Marcello: diuturni silenti, patres conscripti, quo eram his temporibus usus, “that long silence, conscript fathers, that had been my habit in these times.”

⁹⁴Off. 2.4.

⁹⁵On Cicero’s use of the term, cf. ch.2, “Philosophy as Basis for Action,” with nn.23–25.

⁹⁶At the end of this praise passage, Cicero directs the reader to a “certain other work” for the full protreptic to philosophy. Cf. Straume-Zimmermann 1976.33. She does not list the Tusc. 5.5 passage among her testimonia because there is no explicit reference to the earlier work and no parallels to later writers’ citations from it.

⁹⁷See Zetzel 2003.124–26 on Cicero’s approach to the value of culture as instrumental in this speech; on culture as “nourishment of eloquence” in the Pro Archia, Narducci 1997.8–11; on the exchange and the blurring of the boundaries between the poet and the orator in the speech, Dugan 2005.31–40; on Archias’ value to Rome’s glory specifically as a poet who writes in Greek, Steel 2001.82–98.

⁹⁸One of a number of quotations that clearly resonated with Cicero: he uses it, in slightly different form, in Rep. 1.27.

⁹⁹Off. 3.2.

¹⁰⁰On Cato’s role in bringing about the circumstances that led to Scipio’s withdrawal from Rome to Liternum, see Scullard 1970.210–24.

¹⁰¹Leo 1913.269. Leo notes the contrast: “Aber Africanus las und Cato schrieb.”

¹⁰²Quoted by Cicero in Planc. 66. In that speech, delivered in 54, Cicero holds this quotation up for praise in the context of his claim that he works to be always in the public eye and aligns himself with Cato by claiming that he himself is never truly otiosus because his “leisure” is occupied with writing speeches.

¹⁰³A similar dynamic may be in play in Sallust’s preface to Jug., where an allusion to the same phrase from Cato’s preface (maiusque commodum ex otio meo quam ex aliorum negotiis rei publicae venturum, “a greater benefit will come to the republic from my leisure than from the work of others”) is immediately followed by explicitly invoking the exemplum of Scipio (Jug. 4).

¹⁰⁴Sen. Ep. 86.5: in hoc angulo ille Carthaginis horror cui Roma debet quod tantum semel capta est abluebat corpus laboribus rusticis fessum. exercebat enim opere se terramque (ut mos fuit priscis) ipse subigebat, “In this corner that ‘terror of Carthage,’ to whom Rome owes the fact that it has been captured only once, used to wash his body exhausted from working the fields. For it was his habit to occupy himself with work and to cultivate the land with his own hands, as was the custom of the ancestors.” On Scipio in Seneca’s letter, see Henderson 2004, chs.9–12; see Mayer 1991.159 on the exceptional scale on which Seneca develops this exemplum.

¹⁰⁵Nor does Sallust, who both uses Scipio as an exemplum in the preface to Jug. and disparages otium spent in agricultural labor as an occupation worthy of a slave (see ch. 1). I see no compelling reason to agree with D’Arms 1970.9 in dismissing Seneca’s account as his own invention rather than part of a larger tradition, whether or not such a tradition reflects a historical reality.

¹⁰⁶“Failure” is the title that Catherine Steel gives the last chapter of her 2005 book on Cicero’s textual achievement in relation to his public goals.

¹⁰⁷Seneca, also a statesman and a philosopher, never attempts to reconcile the different parts of his persona in his writings, which has led to centuries of accusations of hypocrisy. Griffin’s study (1976) responds to the problem by demonstrating thematic connections between what we know about Seneca the politician from historical sources and the corpus of his philosophical writings. Seneca’s prefaces do not contain any general engagement with the dedicatees on the subject of philosophy in general. Instead they often focus on the importance of the particular area of philosophy to which a particular treatise is devoted.

¹⁰⁸On the ways in which Marcus’ devotion to philosophy manifested itself in his public life once he became emperor, see Hadot 1998.17–20. Stanton 1969 shows that Marcus’ acts as emperor are not reflections of his philosophical views, but are in line with those of his predecessors.

¹⁰⁹Rutherford 1989.7–8 interprets the choice as due to the influence of Epictetus and reflecting the status of Greek as the language of philosophy. Hadot 1998.51–53 feels that the difficulty of translating technical terms combined with a lack of interest in circulating the work is responsible. It should be noted, however, that writing philosophy in Latin after Cicero and Seneca did not present difficulties that continued deployments of the trope of patrii sermonis egestas might suggest. An important facet of Marcus’ decision is achievement of greater separation between his public and private personae.

¹¹⁰See Hadot 1998.30–34 on the Meditations as daily notes to self; cf. Brunt 1974.

¹¹¹See Rutherford 1989.8–21 on the place of the Meditations in the tradition of self-directed philosophy and philosophy as therapy.