Cicero by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero [Annas Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

1 Stoicism was noted for its precise distinctions of terminology; here Cicero couples this point with Antiochus’ claim, which will be prominent in books IV and V, that Stoic differences from the Aristotelian tradition are verbal rather than substantial. The issue is raised in 10 and following.

2 The dramatic date is 52, given by a reference to a ‘new’ law in book IV, 1. The setting is Tusculum, near Rome, where Cicero has come over from his own country house to that of the younger Lucullus (on Lucullus’ father see book II note 71). On Marcus Cato see Introduction, p. xvi.

3 This underlines the pathos of the fact, which Cicero assumes that his readers will know, that the younger Lucullus was killed in the civil war in 42, fighting against Caesar – as was Cato. The younger Lucullus was the ward of Cato, his mother’s step-brother, and Cicero seems to have had some informal responsibility for him. The reference to Caepio here is puzzling, and there is some confusion in the manuscripts (‘uncle’ translates a conjecture for ‘grandfather’, which produces impossible results). The person meant is probably Quintus Servilius Caepio, Cato’s step-brother and uncle to both Brutus and Lucullus, who died young and for whose son Cicero apparently also had some responsibility.

4 See Introduction, p. xxiii, especially note 20.

5 For Pyrrho and Aristo, see book II, note 30. Cicero here sketches an argument which will be prominent in book IV: Either the Stoics say that virtue is the only good, but that with health, wealth and so on, a life is better, in which case they are saying the same thing as Aristotle, but in different terminology. Or they are saying that virtue is the only good, and that health, wealth, etc. do not make a life better – in which case they are following Aristo and others who deny that there is any rational basis for choice among things other than virtue. On either option, the Stoics lack a substantial theory of their own. This claim is put forward to provoke Cato’s presentation of just such a theory.

6 “Ephippia” are saddles, and “akratophora” jars of neat wine. Perhaps these Greek words struck Cicero as being as clumsy as Zeno’s coinages “preferred” and “rejected” (or “dispreferred”), introduced to refer to the kind of value possessed by everything other than virtue.

Cato frequently refers to Stoic technical terms in Greek. His presentation is rather like a textbook, well informed but relatively graceless, contrasting with the amateur enthusiasm of Torquatus in book I and the polished rhetoric of Piso in book V.

7 Cato begins with the Stoic idea of oikeiôsis or familiarization (though no term for it). The idea is that of finding something congenial and regarding it as one’s own. From 16 to 25 Cato expounds ‘personal oikeiôsis’, which traces our earliest attempts at finding things congenial to our original rudimentary sense of self. As we grow, we come to have more mature conceptions of both what we really are and what is really congenial or akin to us.

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