Greek and Roman literature has bequeathed us a variety of perspectives on old age. Old age, in ancient times before there were palliatives for pain and devices to compensate for failing sense, such as eyeglasses and hearing aids, could be painful and humiliating. At the same time, old age commanded a certain respect, for the wisdom that time and experience brought, and it afforded pleasures of its own, such as memories of former goods. If erotic passion and attractiveness were diminished, (...) this might be considered a benefit rather than a loss. An aged person might still be able to manage personal affairs, and if death was closer, it was not something to be feared, if one had lived a full life. Old age was a stage in life, the final one, but not less valuable for that. (shrink)

In twenty important passages located throughout De rerum natura, Lucretius refers to natural things happening spontaneously (sponte sua; the Greek term is automaton). The most important of these uses include his discussion of the causes of: nature, matter, and the cosmos in general; the generation and adaptation of plants and animals; the formation of images and thoughts; and the behavior of human beings and the development of human culture. In this paper I examine the way spontaneity functions as a cause (...) in other Greek and Latin writers, beginning with Homer and Hesiod, and including Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus; among Latin writers Cicero, Pliny, Horace, Vergil and Ovid. I argue that the most important influence (immediately or via Epicurus) on Lucretius’ concept and use of this cause is the natural philosophy of Democritus and his followers and critics. I argue that understanding the nature of spontaneity, and how it differs from chance, is crucial to understanding Lucretius’ account of the cosmos and nature, and also how some of the actions of humans and other animals are “free” and “voluntary”. For in the famous passage at II.251-293 he contrasts free action with action caused or constrained by external forces and outside influences. (shrink)

A recent piece in this journal by Morgan and Taylor made the case that C. Memmius is not to be seen as an active prosecutor of Epicureanism but rather as an Epicurean himself, who merely has disagreed with the grimly orthodox Epicurean sect in Athens. As such, Memmius’ building intentions for Epicurus’ home could have been to create an honorary monument or possibly even construct a grander locus for pilgrimage and the practice of Epicureanism. This note adds to their findings (...) by considering allusions to De Rerum Natura found in Fam. 13.1 and the implications of Cicero speaking to Memmius in Lucretius’ striking language. Cicero expresses his judgement on De Rerum Natura, famously, at QFr. 2.10.3, Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum ueneris, uirum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris, hominem non putabo, and Memmius, of course, is the addressee of De Rerum Natura. This Lucretian language, unremarked on by previous scholars, points to the shared literary culture of Cicero and Memmius as well as Memmius’ own ability to recollect and contextualize the references. By echoing Lucretius in this letter, Cicero hints at Memmius’ sophistication and learning, underscores Lucretius’ own fervent devotion to Epicurus’ strictures, and suggests the need for Memmius to achieve ataraxia, at the very least, in regards to his building plans and the furore it is causing in Athens. (shrink)

"The Eternal City, Rome offers endless insights through its millennia of history, its centrality to European art and religion, and the generations of travelers that have sought it out. This book from philosopher Scott Samuelson offers readers a thinker's tour of Rome. Samuelson shows how people have made sense of Rome as a scene of human nature and then envisioned the good life-philosophers such as Lucretius and Seneca, but also poets and artists such as Horace and Caravaggio, filmmakers like Fellini, (...) and adventurers like Rosa Bathurst. He roots these explorations and visions in the city of Rome itself: Samuelson introduces us to some of the most famous sites in Rome by sharing illuminating moments in their histories; and he discusses great works of art to be found in Rome by getting to the heart of the knotty ethical and emotional questions they pose. And, practicing philosophy in place, he tackles head-on the profound questions that most tours of Rome only bracket: What does it mean to see the Forum through the eyes of Cicero? Does all this art about God really signify anything? Should visitors really be impressed by these incredible sites built on the slaughter and domination of others? What does all this history tell us about who we are? And, most important, how can an afternoon Negroni help us find the good life? Samuelson's aim is to provide an eclectic guide to Rome and happiness-a portable approach, blending history and philosophy, for tourists and dreaming readers alike"--. (shrink)

Designed to offer a critical survey of trends and developments in recent scholarship on Philodemus of Gadara and Hellenistic literary theory, the essays in this volume treat the papyrus texts of Philodemus' treatises on poetry and the related subjects of rhetoric and music, establishing links with his Roman contemporaries Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, and Virgil. The volume contains a complete translation of Philodemus' On Poems Book 5. The essays evaluate Philodemus' formalism, which denied the moral utility of poetry as it sought (...) to demonstrate the convergence of the Epicurean and the traditionally poetic. The distinguished contributors are D. Obbink, D. Clay, E. Asmis, D. Sider, M. Wigodsky, R. Janko, J. Porter, D. Blank, D. Armstrong, and S. Oberhelman. (shrink)

Lucretius’ juxtapositions of (per)manare (‘percolate’) and rarus (‘porous’), with reference to atomistic permeability and the ‘void’, imply derivation of manare from μανός (‘porous’). The ‘etymology’ thus created acknowledges a scientific debt to the early Atomists. It was later promulgated in Verrius’ De Significatu Verborum and is reflected, with echoes of Lucretius, in Horace’s programmatic Odes 4.1.

Experience the richness of classical literature and philosophy with this insightful analysis of the language used by two of its most famous practitioners: Lucretius and Cicero. Katharine C. Reiley provides a detailed examination of key terms and concepts, shedding new light on the complexity and sophistication of their foundational works. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In February 54b.c. Cicero concludes a missive to his brother with a passing and – for us – tantalizing remark:Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum veneris. virum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo. Quintus had, it seems, readDe rerum natura, or at least parts thereof, just before he left Rome for an undisclosed location nearby, and he shared his enthusiasm with his brotherper codicillos. Meanwhile, he was corresponding with Julius (...) Caesar, whose staff in Gaul he was about to join. When, a few months later, he was stationed with Caesar, he was involved in another literary affair, this time concerning his brother who wrote to him, inquiring about his autobiographicalDe temporibus suis:quo modo nam, mi frater, de nostris versibus Caesar? nam primum librum se legisse scripsit ad me ante, et prima sic ut neget se ne Graeca quidem meliora legisse; reliqua ad quendam locum ῥᾳθυμότερα (hoc enim utitur verbo). dic mihi verum: num aut res eum aut χαρακτὴρ non delectat?(Q.fr.2.15.5). (shrink)

Although repeated attempts have been made over the last half-century to make sense of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy as an exposition of classical republicanism, such endeavours are bound to fail. After all, Machiavelli rejected the teleology underpinning the discursive republicanism of the ancients, and his understanding of the ends pursued by republics was profoundly at odds with the understanding predominant in ancient Greece and Rome. If he had a classical mentor, it cannot, then, have been Aristotle or Cicero or one (...) of the ancient historians. If he had such a mentor, it was surely Lucretius, the leading Roman critic of ancient political idealism--a figure so important to the Florentine that in the late 1490s he copied by hand in its entirety De rerum natura and that he drew on it throughout his subsequent career. Machiavelli's republicanism is best understood as an appropriation, critique and reworking of ancient Epicureanism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek WisdomBrad InwoodDavid Sedley. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xviii + 234 pp. Cloth, $59.95."Lucretius used poetry to illuminate philosophy. My aim in this book is to use philosophy to illuminate poetry" (xv). This opening remark will take many by surprise, especially those familiar with Sedley's specialist work on ancient philosophy. General readers will associate him (...) primarily with The Hellenistic Philosophers (edited by A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, Cambridge University Press, 1987), a work which excerpts the ancient literary texts which it takes as sources, fragmenting them in the interests of philosophical reconstruction; but in this tightly argued new book Sedley reverses the process, taking as his aim the proper understanding of a whole work, De Rerum Natura, and wielding an unparalleled mastery of the fragmentary philosophical literature written during the half-millennium which begins with Plato.Students of Lucretius will recognize the tradition, for Sedley signals his deliberate continuity with the work of Bailey (xi) and states that his main audience is "readers who have themselves come to Lucretius through the study of Latin poetry" (xviii). He develops a sustained argument for the propositions (1) that Lucretius used only Epicurus' On Nature as a source; (2) that he did so in a spirit of "fundamentalist" reverence for the founder of his school; (3) that Lucretius' principal literary model was Empedocles; and (4) that in the poem there exist clear signs of two plans of composition and that our DRN represents an incomplete revision of an earlier plan. This will be for many the most important conclusion of Sedley's work, but Latinists and ancient philosophers alike will also learn much from his analysis of Lucretius' method of translation and adaptation from his Greek prose source and from his reconstruction of Epicurus' own intellectual environment.Chapter 1 builds a case for the view that Lucretius' proem was modeled on the now fragmentary On Nature of Empedocles (and, more specifically, on the proem of that work). Sedley argues (1-2), from a careful rereading of Cicero Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.9.4, that Cicero meant to offer a direct comparison of Lucretius and the Empedoclea of Sallustius, and that a contemporary reader would have recognized the Empedoclean character of DRN. He then tackles several problems in Empedoclean scholarship, taking account of the newly discovered papyrus fragments of Empedocles and arguing, for example, that Purifications was a separate poem offering only ritual advice and that a good deal of what used to be assigned to the "religious" poem, especially B115 DK, belongs in On Nature. He subsumes many familiar observations about Empedoclean features of DRN and exploits the puzzle of Lucretius' sympathy for Empedocles to support his argument.Chapter 2 will interest anyone dealing with the Roman reception of Greek literature and culture. The analysis of Lucretius' and Cicero's handling of technical terms from Greek philosophy shows how distinctively poetic Lucretius' [End Page 156] response to the challenge was, and how subtly he emulated the poetic qualities of his model Empedocles in adapting the technical prose of Epicurus. Bailey's treatment of Grecisms in Lucretius is rejected in favor of a demonstration that such borrowings are used intentionally in nontechnical contexts, simultaneously to signal the foreignness of Greek philosophy and to display, through the conversion of technical matters into Latin verse, the universality of Epicurus' gospel.Chapter 3 is the core of the book. Here Sedley reestablishes the once standard view on Lucretius' philosophical sources, that he looked only to Epicurus' On Nature as a source. If this is right, then what sort of picture does this paint of Lucretius as an intellectual? Epicurus had been dead for two centuries, centuries which had seen enormous developments in philosophy, even within the conservative Epicurean school. Moreover, Lucretius lived during a philosophical revival centered in Italy, marked by a particular strength in the very school he adhered to. Yet he ignored all of this and looked only to Epicurus. This, Sedley argues, is the work of a "fundamentalist," a man obsessed with the vital importance of only one thing.Establishing the sources for... (shrink)

The paper aims at reconstructing the influence of Simonides on a contiguous series of Horatian poems . The starting point is provided by the discovery of new Simonidean fragments published by Peter Parsons and by Martin West in 1992. But the research casts a wider net, including the influence of Theocritus on Horace-and of Simonides on Theoocritus-and the simultaneous and competing presence of Pindar and Simonides in late Horatian lyric. The influence of Simonides is seen in specific textual pointers-e.g., a (...) simile on the death of Achilles in 4.6, the idea of caducity in 4.7-as well as in the composite role-model of Simonides, the immortalizing poet, the flexible praise-singer. Some wider questions are put in perspective: As for Horace's approach to the poetic tradition, the Roman poet is able to glance across whole genealogies of models, without necessarily making a choice, but making the invocation of several predecessors, already linked in a tradition, relevant to his new text. "Odes" 4.7, for instance, features a dialogue of Horace, Homer, Mimnermus and Simonides. The oscillation in modern criticism between an "Alexandrian" and a "classicizing" Horace could be better explained by constructing a complex model of intertextuality: "Pindar" plus "the Pindar in Callimachus"; "Simonides" plus "the Simonides in Theocritus." The dominating influence of Pindar in Book IV could be a part of a richer picture of influence, now difficult to reconstruct since all we have is the four Pindaric books of epinicia, not necessarily the only widely read choral lyric in antiquity. The reuse of early-classical praise poetry includes references to social constructs and cultural models of patronage, gift exchange, and poetic addressee: they are important in Augustan lyric precisely because they are felt as distant and impossible to recreate, and become a part of Horace's deft and often ironical negotiations with the problem of being a lyric poet in Augustan Rome. (shrink)

Cicero's letter to his brother Quintus from February 54 is best known for containing the sole explicit contemporary reference to Lucretius’De rerum natura, but it is also notable as the source of the only extant reference of any kind to another (presumably) philosophical didactic poem, Sallustius’Empedoclea(Q. fr.2.10(9).3= SB 14):Lucretii poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt: multis luminibus ingenii, multae tamen artis. sed, cum ueneris. uirum te putabo, si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo.Lucretius’ poems are just as you write: they show (...) many flashes of inspiration, but many of skill too. But more of that when you come. I shall think you a man, if you read Sallustius’Empedoclea; I shan't think you a human being. (shrink)

The high moral tone of Horace's Reguhls ode makes it unsurprising that the poet should employ the traditional imagery of philosophers, both in the speech of Regulus and in the final simile. I should like here to point out some instances which seem to have escaped the notice of commentators.This passage is intended to illustrate the lost ‘virtus’ of the prisoners in Carthage, who, Regulus claims, will be of no greater use to the Romans if ransomed since they were cowardly (...) enough to surrender in the first place. For the first image of dyeing wool Kiessling–Heinze refer the reader to Lucretius 6.1074–7:purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur unacorpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam,non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,non mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.This gives the first hint that the image belongs to the philosophical tradition, though it does not seem to occur in the extant remains of Epicurus. This is confirmed by a passage of Plato, who at Rep. 429d ff. has an elaborate image taken from the dyer's art. The Guardians of the ideal city are to be carefully selected and prepared like wool for the dyeing process of education; then, as good wool keeps its colour after dyeing, so the Guardians will keep right opinions when they are taught them. The image is summarized by Socrates at 430a ff. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to ApuleiusWilliam S. AndersonElaine Fantham. Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. xv 1 326 pp. Cloth, $39.95.This is a book that needed to be written, in answer to a deep gap in our resources on Latin literature. As our current time and our students keep raising questions along the lines of cultural history, (...) we are obliged to seek answers about the circumstances that conditioned the production and consumption of [End Page 135] poetry and prose. Fantham’s book is a significant start on a project which, I dare predict, others in coming generations will be inspired to continue.Fantham modestly declares at the outset that she is contributing to the search “toward a social history of Latin literature.” If we ask her to elaborate on the extent of her project, she obliges as follows: “I see as important aspects of any literary work its author in his social and political setting, its recipients and their culture, and the medium or nature of its presentation” (2). Fleshing out each of these three aspects (author, audience, and medium of presentation), she devotes most attention to the various circumstances that affect the author. First of all, the author is almost universally male: Sulpicia is a precious exception that proves the rule. But then his social class may vary widely, as will his civil status in Rome. Fantham instances for contrast Cato and Ennius, the first a novus homo and therefore an almost fanatic advocate of Roman values, a thorough politician (consul, censor, senator), a celebrated speaker and a writer of prose (history and treatises on agriculture and education); the second a noncitizen Calabrian who came to Rome and won patronage for his poetry, then citizenship, practicing a variety of genres that looked to the Hellenistic world—a poet, not a politician. (An even greater contrast would have used Terence, a slave brought to Italy from Carthage and eventually freed because of his literary talents.) Fantham does not elaborate on how the different social and civil backgrounds affected the literary culture, except to say that senators and some equestrians did not need to resort to patronage, whereas of course outsiders and equestrians like Horace did. We would expect that social background would often have had decisive and particular influence on writers, but that is an area where we still are groping for reliable methodology. How often did men use their literary presentation to turn their backs on their socially inferior or non-Roman background? How often did they look at Roman culture obliquely from the alien cultural position of their origins?A writer’s education was obviously very important. We have a fair sense of how senatorial sons and wealthy equestrians were educated; Horace’s father, who wasn’t exactly poor, but rather undignified in the way he personally took the boy to and from school, saw to it that Horace was given an education that equaled the training of senatorial sons, both in Rome and later in Athens. Boys were taught Latin grammar, style, and the classics of Latin literature; and they were given a grounding in Greek. The amount of Greek and the relative mastery of that language would vary according to the century and the social and political intentions of the future writer. A young man whose family destined him for a political career and who one day might retire to write history, like Sallust or later Tacitus, would be unlikely to become as thoroughly bilingual and bicultural as a poet like Vergil, Horace, or Ovid, whose entire career was centered on poetry and achieving effective intertextuality with the great poets of Classical Greece and the Hellenistic world. There were men like Cato who ostentatiously [End Page 136] put Greek culture down (while instinctively exploiting it), and men like Catullus, a century later, who idolized the literary culture of Alexandria.As Fantham notes, the word “audience” (auditores) does not fully cover what we today mean by the literary public, but it was accurate to start with. Since the first literary material was tragedy and comedy, it was aimed at the... (shrink)

Roman Political Thought is the first comprehensive treatment of the political thought of the Romans. Dean Hammer argues that the Romans were engaged in a wide-ranging and penetrating reflection on politics. The Romans did not create utopias. Instead, their thinking was relentlessly shaped by their own experiences of violence, the enormity and frailty of power, and an overwhelming sense of loss of the traditions that oriented them to their responsibilities as social, political, and moral beings. However much the Romans are (...) known for their often complex legal and institutional arrangements, the power of their political thought lies in their exploration of the extra-institutional, affective foundations of political life. The book includes chapters on Cicero, Lucretius, Sallust, Virgil, Livy, Seneca, Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine and discussions of Polybius, the Stoics, Epicurus, and Epictetus. (shrink)

Cicero's praise of Caesar in thePro Marcelloof September 46b.c.e.has been much discussed for its sincerity or otherwise. Here I would like to point out some unobserved literary colour which may make some contribution to the argument, namely Cicero's subtle evocation of Hercules in describing the achievements of the victorious Caesar. Such an analogy is not unlikely in the context of Roman military image-making: Sulla in 78b.c.e.and Crassus and Pompey in 70b.c.e.had earlier encouraged connections with Hercules in analogous victorious contexts, and (...) similar comparisons are later made between the foreign conquests of Augustus and those of Hercules in both Virgil and Horace. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to enquire how far we can trace in the works of Horace the use of the plural forms of the first person which have been pointed out by Professor R. S. Conway in his essay on The Use of the Singular nos in Cicero's Letters , from which it appeared that the idiom throws valuable light upon the inner workings of Cicero's mind.

The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosopher of the day, and Lucretius, foremost among the representatives and supporters of (...) Epicureanism at the time. Throughout the volume, the impact of such disparate reception on the part of these leading authors is explored in a way that illuminates the popularity as well as the controversy attached to the followers of Epicurus in Italy, ranging from ethical and political concerns to the understanding of scientific and celestial phenomena. (shrink)

In these lines from the fourth poem of his first collection of satires, Horace defines his poetic identity against the figures of his satiric predecessor Lucilius and his contemporary Stoic rival Crispinus. Horace emerges as the poet of Callimachean restraint and well-crafted writing in contrast to the chatty, unpolished prolixity of both Lucilius and Crispinus. A proponent of the highly wrought miniature over the sprawling scale of Lucilius, Horace knows when enough is enough. And, owing to a playful link between (...) what is satis and satura, this makes Horace not only a skilful poet but also the consummate satirist. I suggest that this programmatic message is both emphasized and illustrated by a piece of wordplay beginning in line 14. In a previously unnoticed telestich, the last letters of lines 14–18 spell out the word satis. Moreover, this hidden word—made possible only by the particular arrangement of words in all five of its lines—anticipates and deepens the poem's later interest in the matter of compositio, or artful word-arrangement. While this may be unique as an example of a Horatian telestich, Horace does engage in various forms of wordplay elsewhere, and could look not only to Hellenistic poets but also to Lucretius as a predecessor in this regard. In the Satires, a collection in which problems of libertas make forms of implication and veiled speech especially significant, a wide range of hidden words and wordplay has been detected and suggested. The instance observed here reaffirms Horace's interest in wordplay, while its uniqueness as a telestich is, as I hope to show, particularly suited to its context in this poem. (shrink)

This is an overview of the main schools of philosophy in Rome. The study of the thought of the most significant Roman philosophers (Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius) is presented in reference to the partition between physics, ethics and logic, previously opened by Academician Xenocrates.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume’s Dialogues and Paradise LostPeter DendleDiscussions of the background of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) tend to focus more on scientific, philosophical, and theological sources than on literary ones, which is only natural given that the work is a philosophical dialogue. Yet the epistolary-dialogue form, a departure from Hume’s usual expository philosophical style, encourages exploring the Dialogues as a work of literature independently of its contribution to the (...) history of philosophy. 1 Newton, Clarke, and the French skeptics are crucial background figures in understanding the importance of Hume’s criticism of natural theology, and the influence of classical writers such as Cicero and Lucretius is equally obvious; but it is not sufficiently appreciated that more recent literary figures such as Milton, Dryden, and Pope also inform the Dialogues. Their influence is not as great as that of those others named, perhaps, but it represents a significant substratum, illuminating in many ways Hume’s conceptualization of the cosmological and philosophical principles to which he responds. The Restoration and Augustan poets, essayists, and even novelists contribute images evoked and examples raised by the disputants in Hume’s dialogue, and an understanding of how these images are used in the Dialogues contributes toward a broader understanding of the conceptual foundations of Hume’s philosophy in relation to the intellectual mainstream of the Enlightenment in general.Among the various works Hume quotes in the Dialogues, including those of Dryden, Lord Bacon, and Lucretius, Paradise Lost provides the longest quotation and is the only source quoted more than once. In the opening pages of the Dialogues (D 134) Philo quotes five lines from Book 2 of Paradise Lost (PL, 565–69), in which the fallen angels, emerging from their great pandemonic council, [End Page 257] take to philosophical speculation. 2 He cites the passage out of context, to demonstrate that skepticism, if forced, is not meaningless and that “Vain Wisdom all and false Philosophy” may yet “charm Pain” and “arm the obdurate breast / With stubborn Patience.” Thus Philo defends against Cleanthes’ charge that skepticism amounts to empty raillery and can have no practical consequences in one’s behavior. The image of the demonic council, confounded in meandering speculation, is an appropriate lead-in for the work as a whole: like the characters in the Dialogues, Milton’s devils “reasoned high.... And found no end, in wandering mazes lost” (PL, 2.558–61).The second of the three quotations from Paradise Lost occurs a third of the way through the Dialogues, when Philo notes in Part V, “The two great sexes of male and female, says MILTON, animate the world” (D, 168; PL, 8.151). Here the innocent adage of Edenic proliferation becomes twisted into an impertinent analogy concerning the sexuality of deities: “Why must this circumstance [sexual reproduction], so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited Deities?” (D, 168). 3 It is among the insolent analogies that Philo claims must follow from Cleanthes’ principles. In Part X (D, 195–96) Demea offers a third quotation from Paradise Lost, the longest in the Dialogues, in his attempt to portray the misery of the human condition in this world. The nine lines from Book 11 of Paradise Lost he cites express the wretchedness of the human condition rather morbidly. 4 Thus, the three quotations from Paradise Lost are either distorted for an insalutary effect or are unwholesome to begin with, and they loosely mark the beginning, middle, and latter part of the Dialogues (just as they are taken from the beginning, middle, and latter part of Paradise Lost).The world of Paradise Lost is very much one of counsel and debate, discourse and dialogue: the heavenly and hellish councils of books 2 and 3 give way to the more pastoral conversations within the garden, where Adam and Eve struggle to understand their condition, Raphael and Michael offer wisdom, and Satan tempts. Although the backdrop is the entire cosmos rather than Cleanthes’ library, Milton’s epic no less than Hume’s Dialogues progresses through its stages by the primary vehicle of dialogue rather than action. Paradise Lost affirms the very role of dialectical (as opposed to intuitive) reasoning... (shrink)

This English translation of On Anger provides a newly read and supplemented Greek text of one of the most important "Herculaneum papyri," the only collection of literary texts to survive the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. On Anger is our sole evidence for the Epicurean view of what constitutes natural and praiseworthy anger, as distinguished from unnatural pleasure in vengeance and cruelty for their own sake, a view that can be shown to have influenced Latin authors like Cicero, Horace (...) and Virgil. (shrink)

When the Romans adopted Greek literary genres and artistic techniques, they did not slavishly imitate their models but created vibrant and original works of literature and art in their own right. The same is true for philosophy, notwithstanding the fact that the rich Roman philosophical tradition is still all too often treated as a mere footnote to the history of Greek philosophy. This volume aims to reassert the significance of Roman philosophy and to explore the "Romanness" of philosophical writings and (...) practices in the Roman world, endeavoring to show that the Romans in their creative adaptation of Greek modes of thought developed sophisticated forms of philosophical discourse shaped by their own history and institutions, concepts, and values--and last--but not least--by the Latin language, which nearly all Roman philosophers used to express their ideas.This volume of thirteen chapters by an international group of specialists in ancient philosophy, Latin literature, and Roman social and intellectual history moves from Roman attitudes to and practices of philosophy to the great late Republican writers Cicero and Lucretius, then onwards to the early Empire and the work of Seneca the Younger, and finally to Epictetus, Apuleius, and Augustine. Using a variety of approaches, the essays demonstrate the diversity and originality of Roman philosophical discourse over the centuries. (shrink)

This cutting-edge monograph has extensively demonstrated that allegoresis was part and parcel of philosophy, and more specifically a tool of philosophical theology, in Stoicism and Middle and Neoplatonism, “pagan” and Christian alike. Many Stoics and ‘pagan’ Platonists applied philosophical allegoresis to theological myths, and this operation provided the link between theology and physics (in the case of the Stoics) or metaphysics (in the case of the Platonists). Many Christian Platonists in turn, starting from Clement and Origen, applied philosophical allegoresis to (...) the theological discourse in Scripture. [Arguments in this monograph, and further in more recent essays in English in International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie, Mnemosyne Supplements, the Brill Companion to the Reception of Homer, etc.]. This research is also extremely relevant to the intertwining of philosophy and religion in antiquity and late antiquity. It investigates one of the ways in which religion became part of the philosophical discourse, and at the same time philosophy became indispensable to religion, be this traditional “pagan” mythology and cults or newly expanding Christianity. Monograph in nine chapters plus bibliography. Chaps. I (before Stoicism), II (Ancient Stoa), III (Apollodorus and Crates of Mallus), IV (Palaephatus, his followers, and Conon), V (Cicero, Philodemus, Lucretius and other Epicureans; Philo and Josephus), VI (Cornutus and other Roman Stoics; Cornutus and Heraclitus: a comparison), VII (Chaeremon, Cebetis Tabula, Ecphantus, De vita et poësi Homeri, Plutarch), and IX (conclusions) and Bibliography by I. Ramelli; chap. VIII (Heraclitus Rhetor) by G. Lucchetta. Pp. 550. (shrink)

This paper applies Greco-Roman thinking about wisdom to contemporary business and management practice. The first section outlines the contexts in which Greek and Roman writers referred to wisdom and related terms. Hesiod, Aeschylus, Pericles, Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle were concerned with sophia and phronésis. Cicero, Horace and Seneca referred to prudentia and sapientia. The second section consists of examples from contemporary business and management behaviour which ranged from the “cunning/clever to the intelligently wise”. Reference is made to current research highlighting (...) concepts such as commonsense wisdom, conventional wisdom, contrarian wisdom and experienced based wisdom. A wise person knows how to use moral skills in the service of the right aims.1. (shrink)

According to an ancient stereotype, prominent in Cicero’s writings, Stoics hated rhetoric and were really bad it. But Horaces’ Satires are populated with lecturing Stoics using colorful, effusive language to cure their audience. The paper asks how “rhetorical” Stoics really were and argues that there was a continued tradition of Stoic rhetoric linking the diatribic speech of the Imperial period to its Hellenistic practitioners. It surveys the evidence for Stoic orators and rhetorical writers in the Hellenistic period and presents evidence (...) that Greek Stoics were more eloquent than their stereotype. The paper also suggests reasons for the wood-cut and sometimes fictitious representation of Stoic rhetoric in ancient accounts, in particular a propensity for classification in rhetorical theory, Cicero's dissatisfaction with Stoic terminology, and Cicero's own agenda in self-fashioning his image as an orator and writer of philosophy. (shrink)

The present article is an edition of the Pathologia (1706), a Latin manuscript on the passions by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713). There are two parts, i) an introduction with commentary (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2012.679795), and ii) an edition of the Latin text with an English translation (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2012.679796) . The Pathologia treats of a series of topics concerning moral psychology, ethics and philology, presenting a reconstruction of the Stoic theory of the emotions that is closely modelled on Cicero and (...) Diogenes Lærtius. It contains a most detailed typology of the passions and affections as well as an analysis of a series of psychological connections, for example between admiration and pride. On the basis of his reconstruction of Stoic moral psychology and ethics, Shaftesbury argues that in one of his phases, Horace should be interpreted as a Stoic rather than as an Epicurean. The translation and the commentary draw attention to the relations between the Pathologia and Shaftesbury's English writings, most importantly Miscellaneous Reflections and the Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit, which sheds light on several features of Shaftesbury's relation to Stoicism. (shrink)

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction The ancient biography of Epicurus The extant letters Ancient collections of maxims Doxographical reports The testimony of Cicero The testimony of Lucretius The polemic of Plutarch Short fragments and testimonia from known works: * From On Nature * From the Puzzles * From On the Goal * From the Symposium * From Against Theophrastus * Fragments of Epicurus' letters Short fragments and testimonia from uncertain works: * Logic and epistemology * Physics and theology * Ethics Index.

Voula Tsouna presents a comprehensive study of the ethics of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, who taught Virgil, influenced Horace, and was praised by Cicero. His works have only recently become available to modern readers, through the decipherment of a papyrus carbonized by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Tsouna examines Philodemus's theoretical principles in ethics, his contributions to moral psychology, his method, his conception of therapy, and his therapeutic techniques. The Ethics of Philodemus will be of considerable interest to (...) scholars and students of classics, ancient philosophy, and ethics. (shrink)

Greek had held an important place in Roman society and culture since the Late Republican period, and educated Romans were expected to be bilingual and well versed in both Greek and Latin literature. The Roman school ‘curriculum’ was based on Hellenistic educational culture, and in theDe grammaticis et rhetoribusSuetonius says that the earliest teachers in Rome, Livius and Ennius, were ‘poets and half Greeks’ (poetae et semigraeci), who taught both Latin and Greek ‘publicly and privately’ (domi forisque docuisse) and ‘merely (...) clarified the meaning of Greek authors or gave exemplary readings from their own Latin compositions’ (nihil amplius quam Graecos interpretabantur aut si quid ipsi Latine composuissent praelegebant,Gram. et rhet.1–2). Cicero, the Latin neoteric poets and Horace are obvious examples of bilingual educated Roman aristocrats, but also throughout the Imperial period a properly educated Roman would be learned inutraque lingua. The place of Greek in Quintilian'sInstitutio Oratoriareveals the importance and prevalence of Greek in Roman education and literature in the late first centurya.d.Quintilian argues that children should learn both Greek and Latin but that it is best to begin with Greek. Famously, in the second centurya.d.the Roman author Apuleius gave speeches in Greek to audiences in Carthage, and in hisApologiamocked his accusers for their ignorance of Greek. (shrink)

The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosopher of the day, and Lucretius, foremost among the representatives and supporters of Epicureanism at the (...) time. Throughout the volume, the impact of such disparate reception on the part of these leading authors is explored in a way that illuminates the popularity as well as the controversy attached to the followers of Epicurus in Italy, ranging from ethical and political concerns to the understanding of scientific and celestial phenomena. (shrink)

It is possible to find in Machiavelli an expression of the original consent to explain the origin of the political communities. This paper investigates this hypothesis in the approach of the roman political thought. With Lucretius and Cicero, it is clear the terms of the pact, covenant, consensus, and the primitivism of the difference between man and beasts, the fear and the common safety to founder the political community under the leadership of one man. The paper also debates the Aristotelian (...) premises of the political nature of man and explores some examples of the Machiavellian time, that aims to confirms the existence of the language of the Aristotelianism within the original consent. It concludes that Machiavelli does not have a substantial theory to explain the origins of the political community, because politics and its study requires the research of the cities in the historical mean. This contractual language in accordance with that Aristotelian is used as a rhetoric strategy in the beginning of the Discourses. (shrink)

This paper discusses ἐπιβολαὶ τῆς διανοίας, which later Epicureans are supposed to have elevated to a fourth criterion of truth to complement perceptions, preconceptions and feelings. By examining Epicurus’ extant writings, the paper distinguishes three different senses of the term: ‘thought in general’, ‘act of attention’ and ‘mental perception’. It is argued that only the sense ‘mental perception’ yields a plausible reading of ἐπιβολαί as a criterion of truth. The paper then turns to the textual evidence on ἐπιβολαί in later (...) authors. While the term ἐπιβολή is not used by Cicero, Lucretius and Philodemus in the sense of mental perception, it is argued that this still is the most plausible way of understanding ἐπιβολή as a criterion of truth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Concept of Will in EarlyLatin Philosophy NEAL W. GILBERT AN HISTORICALDISCUSSIONOf the concept of will is best begun with an analysis of the use of voluntas in Latin philosophy, from its earliest occurrences in Lucretius and Cicero on down to Augustine and medieval times. This development can be traced without much controversy because the line of transmission and development is more or less unbroken. But the correlating of (...) Latin psychological terms with their Greek originals presents problems. Greek philosophy was indeed the source from which Latin philosophical psychology developed: Lucretius reflects Epicurean doctrine, while Cicero and Seneca were strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy when they discussed moral action. However, many modern scholars are convinced that the Greeks had no word that corresponds to our "will" at all, and so we seem to be left with no choice but to regard the will as an original creation of Latin philosophy. But this would be to overlook the fact that ancient Latin writers sometimes specifically equated voluntas with certain Greek terms, and such evidence ought not to go unexamined. Voluntas was well established in Latin usage before Roman writers began to concern themselves with philosophical problems, but it did not have a technical sense. It meant simply "good will," or "favor," or concretely, a "will, or testament. ''I Clustered around it were other derivatives of "volo," such as "benevolentia" and "malevolentia," "well-wishing" and "ill-wishing." When Roman writers began to deal with philosophical problems, there were a number of different contexts in which voluntas could play a leading role. Chief among them, naturally, was the "freedom of the will" which, then as now, intrigued the ordinary man or the moralist. However, discussions revolving around the determinist-libertarian issue often fail to clarify the concept of the will itself. Major philosophers (Chrysippus, Augustine, or Hume, for example) offer fine distinctions within moral action when considering the determinist-libertarian dispute, but lesser figures are apt to "C'est seulement lots de la creation du vocabulairephilosophiqueque voluntas a pris le sens abstrait et technique de 'volont6'." Ernout, A., and A. Meillet,Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue latine, 4th ed. (Paris, 1959),sub "volo." [17] 18 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY neglect the detailed analysis of moral action in favor of sweeping metaphysical pronouncements. When a Latin writer wished to say that a person did something of his own accord, the locution most natural to him was "sua sponte," an ablative absolute derived from the same root as our word "spontaneous." The nominative case of "sponte" ("spons") was almost never used, so that dictionaries are perhaps somewhat misleading in suggesting that the word "spons" means "free will": it would be more correct to say that the phrase "sua sponte" means "of his own free will." Latin writers also indicate that someone did something willingly by saying that he did it "non invitus" ("not unwillingly "). Finally, they could apply the adjective "voluntarius" to such an action, or say that it was done "ex voluntate." When the latter term begins to be used as a designation for a separate faculty of the soul distinct from reason or intelligence, it begins to resemble the modern concept of will. Augustine is usually given credit for introducing the concept of will into philosophy, but even the earliest Latin treatment of the free-will problem framed the issue in terms of voluntas. Nevertheless, I think that the received view is substantially correct, although it would be more proper to say that what Augustine introduced into philosophy was not the concept of will in general but the concept of the evil will. What Augustine called the "good" will ("bona voluntas") was closely related to the "reasonable desire" of the Stoic sage, rendered into Latin by Cicero as voluntas, without any adjective. The addition of the evil will altered the outlines of moral analysis considerably, involving among other things the major shift from a Socratic or Platonic psychology and ethics (usually labeled "intellectualistic") to a Christian psychology and ethics (usually labeled "voluntaristic"). Such a characterization is likely to be drawn too sharply, and to overlook anticipations of voluntarism in Greek thought or reminiscences of Greek intellectualism in Christian thought. Hence it may be useful... (shrink)

This essay offers a reading of a difficult passage in the first book of Lucretius' "De Rerum Natura" in which the poet first explains the Epicurean account of time and then responds to a worry about the status of the past (1.459-82). It identifies two possible readings of the passage, one of which is compatible with the claim that the Epicureans were presentists about the past. Other evidence, particularly from Cicero "De Fato", suggests that the Epicureans maintained that all true (...) assertions must have a contemporaneous truth-maker and that no contingent future-tensed assertions are true. It appears, however, that they did not assert a symmetrical view of past-tensed assertions. There is no compelling reason, therefore, to think that the Epicureans were presentists about the past. (shrink)

This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the (...) finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the period of the Scientific Revolution, when it displaced scholastic Aristotelianism. Both modern social contract theory and utilitarianism in ethics were grounded in its tenets. Catherine Wilson shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural and social worlds took hold in philosophy, and how it is an acknowledged, and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or "mechanical" philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the author makes a persuasive case for the significance of materialism in seventeenth-century philosophy without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this deeply-researched inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy. (shrink)

An Archaeology of Disbelief traces the classical origin of secular philosophy in ancient Greece based on a close examination of its few relevant texts still available today. More than a dozen pre-Socratic philosophers are examined as well Aristotle and such later figures as Strato, Carneades, Lucretius, and Cicero.

Taking passages from Heraclitus, Parmenides, Lucretius, and Cicero as well as Plato andAristotle, this guide provides an insight into the influence of its ..