History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume II Part 10

It appears, that in Rome, as well as in Greece, oratory was generally considered as divided into three different styles-the Attic, Asiatic, and Rhodian. Quintilian, at least, so cla.s.ses the various sorts of oratory in a pa.s.sage, in which he also shortly characterizes them by those attributes from which they were chiefly distinguishable. "Mihi autem," says he, "orationis differentiam fecisse et dicentium et audientium naturae videntur, quod _Attici_ limati quidem et emuncti nihil inane aut redundans ferebant. _Asiana_ gens, tumidior alioquin et jactantior, vaniore etiam dicendi gloria inflata est. Tertium mox qui haec dividebant adjecerunt genus _Rhodium_, quod velut medium esse, atque ex utroque mixtum volunt(351)." Brutus and Licinius Calvus, as we have seen, affected the slender, polished, and somewhat barren conciseness of Attic eloquence. The speeches of Hortensius, and a few of Cicero's earlier harangues, as that for s.e.xtus Roscius, afforded examples of the copious, florid, and sometimes tumid style of Asiatic oratory. The latter orations of Cicero, refined by his study and experience, were, I presume, nearly in the Rhodian taste. That celebrated school of eloquence had been founded by aeschines, the rival of Demosthenes, when, being banished from his native city by the influence of his compet.i.tor, he had retired to the island of Rhodes. Inferior to Demosthenes in power of argument and force of expression, he surpa.s.sed him in copiousness and ornament. The school which he founded, and which subsisted for centuries after his death, admitted not the luxuries of Asiatic diction; and although the most ornamental of Greece, continued ever true to the principles of its great Athenian master. A chief part of the two years during which Cicero travelled in Greece and Asia was spent at Rhodes, and his princ.i.p.al teacher of eloquence at Rome was Molo the Rhodian, from whom he likewise afterwards received lessons at Rhodes. The great difficulty which that rhetorician encountered in the instruction of his promising disciple, was, as Cicero himself informs us, the effort of containing within its due and proper channel the overflowings of a youthful imagination(352). Cicero's natural fecundity, and the bent of his own inclination, preserved him from the risk of dwindling into ultra-Attic slenderness; but it is not improbable, that from the example of Hortensius and his own copiousness, he might have swelled out to Asiatic pomp, had not his exuberance been early reduced by the seasonable and salutary discipline of the Rhodian.

Cicero, in his youth, also wrote the _Rhetorica, seu de Inventione Rhetorica_, of which there are still extant two books, treating of the part of rhetoric that relates to invention. This is the work mentioned by Cicero, in the commencement of the treatise _De Oratore_, as having been published by him in his youth. It is generally believed to have been written in 666, when Cicero was only twenty years of age, and to have originally contained four books. Schutz, however, the German editor of Cicero, is of opinion, that he never wrote, or at least, never published, more than the two books we still possess.

A number of sentences in these two books of the _Rhetorica, seu de Inventione_, coincide with pa.s.sages in the _Rhetoric.u.m ad Herennium_, which is usually published along with the works of Cicero, but is not of his composition. Purgold thinks that the _Rhetor. ad Herennium_ was published first, and that Cicero copied from it those corresponding pa.s.sages(353). It appears, however, a little singular, that Cicero should have borrowed so largely, and without acknowledgment, from a recent publication of one of his contemporaries. To account for this difficulty some critics have supposed, that the anonymous author of the _Rhetor. ad Herennium_ was a rhetorician, whose lectures Cicero had attended, and had inserted in his own work notes taken by him from these prelections, before they were edited by their author(354). Some, again, have imagined, that Cicero and the anonymous author were fellow-students under the same rhetorician, and that both had thus adopted his ideas and expressions; while others believe, that both copied from a common Greek original. But then, in opposition to this last theory, it has been remarked, that the Latin words employed by both are frequently the same; and there are the same references to the history of Rome, and of its ancient native poets, with which no Greek writer can be supposed to have had much acquaintance.

Who the anonymous author of the _Rhetor. ad Herennium_ actually was, has been the subject of much learned controversy, and the point remains still undetermined. Priscian repeatedly cites it as the work of Cicero; whence it was believed to be the production of Cicero by Laurentius Valla, George of Trebizond, Politian, and other great restorers of learning in the fifteenth century; and this opinion was from time to time, though feebly, revived by less considerable writers in succeeding periods. It seems now, however, entirely abandoned; but, while all critics and commentators agree in _abjudicating_ the work from Cicero, they differ widely as to the person to whom the production should be a.s.signed. Aldus Manutius, Sigonius, Muretus, and Riccobonus, were of opinion, that it was written by Q. Cornificius the elder, who was Caesar's Quaestor during the civil war, and subsequently his lieutenant in Africa, of which province, after the Dictator's death, he kept possession for the republican party, till he was slain in an engagement with one of the generals of Octavius. The judgment of these scholars is chiefly founded on some pa.s.sages in Quintilian, who attributes to Cornificius several critical and philological definitions which coincide with those introduced in the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_.

Gerard Vossius, however, has adopted an opinion, that if at all written by a person of that name, it must have been by the younger Cornificius(355), who was born in 662, and, having followed the party of Octavius, was appointed Consul by favour of the Triumvirate in 718. Raphael Regius also seems inclined to attribute the work to Cornificius the son(356). But if the style be considered too remote from that of the age of Cicero, to be ascribed to any of his contemporaries, he conceives it may be plausibly conjectured to have been the production of Timolaus, one of the thirty tyrants in the reign of Gallienus. Timolaus had a brother called Herenia.n.u.s, to whom his work may have been dedicated, and he thinks that _Timolaus ad Herenianum_ may have been corrupted into _Tullius ad Herennium_. J. C. Scaliger attributes the work to Gallio, a rhetorician in the time of Nero(357)-an opinion which obtained currency in consequence of the discovery of a MS. copy of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_, with the name of Gallio prefixed to it(358).

Sufficient scope being thus left for new conjectures, Schutz, the German editor of Cicero, has formed a new hypothesis on the subject. Cicero's tract _De Inventione_ having been written in his early youth, the period of its composition may be placed about 672. From various circ.u.mstances, which he discusses at great length, Schutz concludes that the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ was the work which was first written, and consequently previous to 672. Farther, the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ must have been written subsequently to 665, as it mentions the death of Sulpicius, which happened in that year. The time thus limited corresponds very exactly with the age of M. Ant. Gnipho, who was born in the year 640; and him Schutz considers as the real author of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_. This he attempts to prove, by showing, that many things which Suetonius relates of Gnipho, in his work _De Claris Rhetoribus_, agree with what the author of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ delivers concerning himself in the course of that production. It is pretty well established, that both Gnipho and the anonymous author of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ were free-born, had good memories, understood Greek, and were voluminous authors. It is unfortunate, however, that these characteristics, except the first, were probably common to almost all rhetoricians; and Schutz does not allude to any of the more particular circ.u.mstances mentioned by Suetonius, as that Gnipho was a Gaul by birth, that he studied at Alexandria, and that he taught rhetoric in the house of the father of Julius Caesar.

Cicero, who was unquestionably the first orator, was as decidedly the most learned philosopher of Rome; and while he eclipsed all his contemporaries in eloquence, he acquired, towards the close of his life, no small share of reputation as a writer on ethics and metaphysics. His wisdom, however, was founded entirely on that of the Greeks, and his philosophic writings were chiefly occupied with the discussion of questions which had been agitated in the Athenian schools, and from them had been transmitted to Italy. The disquisition respecting the certainty or uncertainty of human knowledge, with that concerning the supreme good and evil, were the inquiries which he chiefly pursued; and the notions which he entertained of these subjects, were all derived from the Portico, Academy, or Lyceum.

The leading principles of the chief philosophic sects of Greece flowed originally from Socrates-

-- "From whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools Of Academics, Old and New(359);"

and who has been termed by Cicero(360) the perennial source of philosophy, much more justly than Homer has been styled the fountain of all poetry.

Though somewhat addicted to them from education and early habit, Socrates withdrew philosophy from those obscure and intricate physical inquiries, in which she had been involved by the founders and followers of the Ionic school, and from the subtle paradoxical hypotheses of the sophists who established themselves at Athens in the time of Pericles. It being his chief aim to improve the condition of mankind, and to incline them to discharge the several duties of the stations in which they had been placed, this moral teacher directed his examinations to the nature of vice and virtue, of good and evil. To accomplish the great object he had in view, his practice was to hazard no opinion of his own, but to refute prevalent errors and prejudices, by involving the pretenders to knowledge in manifest absurdity, while he himself, as if in contrast to the presumption of the sophists, always professed that he knew nothing. This confession of ignorance, which amounted to no more than a general acknowledgment of the imbecility of the human understanding, and was merely designed to convince his followers of the futility of those speculations which do not rest on the firm basis of experience, or to teach them modesty in their inquiries, and diffidence in their a.s.sertions, having been interpreted in a different sense from that in which it was originally intended, gave rise to the celebrated dispute concerning the certainty of knowledge.

The various founders of the philosophic sects of Greece, imbibed that portion of the doctrines of Socrates which suited their own tastes and views, and sometimes perverted his high authority even to dogmatical or sophistical purposes. It is from Plato we have derived the fullest account of his system; but this ill.u.s.trious disciple had also greatly extended his knowledge by his voyages to Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Graecia. Hence in the Academy which he founded, (while, as to morals, he continued to follow Socrates,) he superadded the metaphysical doctrines of Pythagoras; in physics, which Socrates had excluded from philosophy, he adopted the system of Herac.l.i.tus; and he borrowed his dialectics from Euclid of Megara. The recondite and _eisoteric_ tenets of Pythagoras-the obscure principles of Herac.l.i.tus-the superhuman knowledge of Empedocles, and the sacred _Arcana_ of Egyptian priests, have diffused over the page of Plato a majesty and mysticism very different from what we suppose to have been the familiar tone of instruction employed by his great master, of whose style at least, and manner, Xenophon probably presents us with a more faithful image.

In Greece, the heads of sects were succeeded in their schools or academies as in a domain or inheritance. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, continued to deliver lectures in the Academy, as did also four other successive masters, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, and Crantor, all of whom retained the name of Academics, and taught the doctrines of their master without mixture or corruption. But on the appointment of Xenocrates to the chair of the Academy, Aristotle, the most eminent of Plato's scholars, had betaken himself to another Gymnasium, called the Lyceum, which became the resort of the Peripatetics. The commanding genius of their founder enlarged the sphere of knowledge and intellect, devised the rules of logic, and traced out the principles of rhetorical and poetical criticism: But the sect which he exalted to unrivalled celebrity, though differing in name from the contemporary Academics, coincided with them generally in all the princ.i.p.al points of physical and moral philosophy, and particularly in those concerning which the Romans chiefly inquired. "Though they differed in terms," says Cicero, "they agreed in things(361), and those persons are grossly mistaken who imagine that the old Academics, as they are called, are any other than the Peripatetics." Accordingly, we find that both believed in the superintending care of Providence, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of reward and punishment. The supreme good they placed in virtue, with a sufficiency of the chief external advantages of nature, as health, riches, and reputation. Such enjoyments they taught, when united with virtue, make the felicity of man perfect; but if virtuous, he is capable of being happy, (though not entirely so,) without them.

Plato, in his mode of communicating instruction, and promulgating his opinions, had not strictly adhered to the method of his master Socrates.

He held the concurrence of memory, with a recent impression, to be a criterion of truth, and he taught that opinions might be formed from the comparison of a present with a recollected perception. But his successors, both in the Academy and Lyceum, departed from the Socratic method still more widely. They renounced the maxim, of affirming nothing; and instead of explaining everything with a doubting reserve, they converted philosophy, as it were, into an art, and formed a system of opinions, which they delivered to their disciples as the peculiar tenets of their sect. They inculcated the belief, that our knowledge has its origin in the senses-that the senses themselves do not judge of truth, but the mind through them beholds things as they really are-that is, it perceives the ideas which always subsist in the same state, without change; so that the senses, through the medium of the mind, may be relied on for the ascertainment of truth. Such was the state of opinions and instruction in the Academy when Arcesilaus, who was the sixth master of that school from Plato, and in his youth had heard the lessons of Pyrrho the sceptic, resolved to reform the dogmatic system into which his predecessors had fallen, and to restore, as he conceived, in all its purity, the Socratic system of affirming nothing with certainty. This founder of the New, or Middle Academy as it is sometimes called, denied even the certain truth of the proposition that we know nothing, which Socrates had reserved as an exception to his general principle. While admitting that there is an actual certainty in the nature of things, he rejected the evidence both of the senses and reason as positive testimony; and as he denied that there existed any infallible criterion of truth or falsehood, he maintained that no wise man ought to give any proposition whatever the sanction of his a.s.sent. He differed from the Sceptics or Pyrrhonists only in this, that he admitted degrees of probability, whereas the Sceptics fluctuated in total uncertainty.

As Arcesilaus renounced all pretensions to the certain determination of any question, he was chiefly employed in examining and refuting the sentiments of others. His princ.i.p.al opponent was his contemporary, Zeno, the founder of the stoical philosophy, which ultimately became the chief of those systems which flourished at Rome. The main point in dispute between Zeno and Arcesilaus, was the evidence of the senses. Arcesilaus denied that truth could be ascertained by their a.s.sistance, because there is no criterion by which to distinguish false and delusive objects from such as are real. Zeno, on the other hand, maintained that the evidence of the senses is certain and clear, provided they be perfect in themselves, and without obstacle to prevent their effect. Thus, though on different principles, the founder of the Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics and old Academicians, that there existed certain means of ascertaining truth, and consequently that there was evident and certain knowledge. Arcesilaus, though he did not deny that truth existed, would neither give a.s.sent nor entertain opinions, because appearances could never warrant his p.r.o.nouncing on any object or proposition whatever. Nor did the Stoics entertain opinions; but they refrained from this, because they thought that everything might be perceived with certainty.

Arcesilaus, while differing widely from the teachers of the old Platonic Academy in his ideas as to the certainty of knowledge, retained their system concerning the supreme good, which, like them, he placed in virtue, accompanied by external advantages. This was another subject of contest with Zeno, who, as is well known, placed the supreme good in virtue alone,-health, riches, and reputation, not being by him accounted essential, nor disease, poverty, and ignominy, injurious to happiness.

The systems promulgated in the old and new Academy, and the stoical Portico, were those which became most prevalent in Rome. But the Epicurean opinions were also fas.h.i.+onable there. The philosophy of Epicurus has been already mentioned while speaking of Lucretius. Moschus of Phnicia, who lived before the Trojan war, is said to have been the inventor of the Atomic system, which was afterwards adopted and improved by Leucippus and Democritus, whose works, as Cicero expresses it, were the source from which flowed the streams that watered the gardens of Epicurus(362). To the evidence of the senses this teacher attributed such weight, that he considered them as an infallible rule of truth. The supreme good he placed in pleasure, and the chief evil in pain. His scholars maintained, that by pleasure, or rather happiness, he meant a life of wisdom and temperance; but a want of clearness and explicitness in the definition of what const.i.tuted pleasure, has given room to his opponents for alleging that he placed consummate felicity in sensual gratification.

It was long before a knowledge of any portion of Greek philosophy was introduced at Rome. For 600 years after the building of the city, those circ.u.mstances did not arise in that capital which called forth and promoted philosophy in Greece. The ancient Romans were warriors and agriculturists. Their education was regulated with a view to an active life, and rearing citizens and heroes, not philosophers. The _Campus Martius_ was their school; the tent their Lyceum, and the traditions of their ancestors, and religious rites, their science,-they were taught to act, to believe, and to obey, not to reason or discuss. Among them a cla.s.s of men may indeed have existed not unlike the seven sages of Greece-men distinguished by wisdom, grave saws, and the services they had rendered to their country; but these were not philosophers in our sense of the term.

The wisdom they inculcated was not sectarian, but resembled that species of philosophy cultivated by Solon and Lycurgus, which has been termed political by Brucker, and which was chiefly adapted to the improvement of states, and civilization of infant society. At length, however, in the year 586, when Perseus, King of Macedon, was finally vanquished, his conqueror brought with him to Rome the philosopher Metrodorus, to aid in the instruction of his children(363). Several philosophers, who had been retained in the court of that unfortunate monarch, auguring well from this incident, followed Metrodorus to Italy; and about the same time a number of Achaeans, of distinguished merit, who were suspected to have favoured the Macedonians, were summoned to Rome, in order to account for their conduct. The younger Scipio Africa.n.u.s, in the course of the emba.s.sy to which he was appointed by the Senate, to the kings of the east, who were in alliance with the republic, having landed at Rhodes, took under his protection the Stoic philosopher Panaetius(364), who was a native of that island, and carried him back to Rome, where he resided in the house of his patron. Panaetius afterwards went to Athens, where he became one of the most distinguished teachers of the Portico(365), and composed a number of philosophical treatises, of which the chief was that on the Duties of Man.

But though the philosophers were encouraged and cherished by Scipio, Laelius, Scaevola, and others of the more mild and enlightened Romans, they were viewed with an eye of suspicion by the grave Senators and stern Censors of the republic. Accordingly, in the year 592, only six years after their first arrival in Rome, the philosophers were banished from the city by a formal decree of the Senate(366). The motives for issuing this rigorous edict are not very clearly ascertained. A notion may have been entertained by the severer members of the commonwealth, that the established religion and const.i.tution of Rome might suffer by the discussion of speculative theories, and that the taste for science might withdraw the minds of youth from agriculture and arms. This dread, so natural to a rigid, laborious, and warlike people, would be increased by the degraded and slavish character of the Greeks, which, having been an accompaniment, might be readily mistaken for a consequence, of their progress in philosophy. As most of the philosophers, too, had come from the states of a hostile monarch, the Senate may have feared, lest they should inspire sentiments in the minds of youth, not altogether patriotic or purely republican.

"Sed vetuere patres quod non potuere vetare."

Though driven from Rome, many of the Greek philosophers took up their residence in the munic.i.p.al towns of Italy. By the intercession likewise of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, an exception was made in favour of Panaetius and the historian Polybius, who were permitted to remain in the capital. The spirit of inquiry, too, had been raised, and the mind had received an impulse which could not be arrested by any senatorial decree, and on which the slightest incident necessarily bestowed an accelerated progress.

The Greek philosophers returned to Rome in the year 598, under the sacred character of amba.s.sadors, on occasion of a political complaint which had been made against the Athenians, and from which they found it necessary to defend themselves. Notwithstanding the disrespect with which philosophers had recently been treated in Italy, the Athenians resolved to dazzle the Romans by a grand scientific emba.s.sy. The three envoys chosen were at that time the heads of the three leading sects of Greek philosophers,-Diogenes, the Stoic, Critolaus, the Peripatetic, and Carneades of Cyrene, who now held the place of Arcesilaus in the new Academy. Besides their philosophical learning, they were well qualified by their eloquence, (a talent which had always great influence with the Romans,) to persuade and bring over the minds of men to their principles. Such, indeed, were their extraordinary powers of speaking and reasoning, that it was commonly said at Rome that the Athenians had sent orators, not to persuade, but to compel(367). During the period of their emba.s.sy at Rome they lectured to crowded audiences in the most public parts of the city. The immediate effect of the display which these philosophic amba.s.sadors made of their eloquence and wisdom, was to excite in the Roman youth an ardent thirst after knowledge, which now became a rival in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the love of military glory(368). Scipio, Laelius, and Furius, showed the strongest inclination for these new studies, and profited most by them; but there was scarcely a young patrician who was not in some degree attracted by the modest simplicity of Diogenes, the elegant, ornamental, and polished discourse of Critolaus, or the vehement, rapid, and argumentative eloquence of Carneades(369). The principles inculcated by Diogenes, who professed to teach the art of reasoning, and of separating truth from falsehood, received their strongest support from the jurisconsults, most of whom became Stoics; and in consequence of their responses, we find at this day that the stoical philosophy exercised much influence on Roman jurisprudence, and that many principles and divisions of the civil law have been founded on its favourite maxims. Of these philosophic amba.s.sadors, however, Carneades was the most able man, and the most popular teacher. "He was blessed," says Cicero, "with a divine quickness of understanding and command of expression(370)." "In his disputations, he never defended what he did not prove, and never attacked what he did not overthrow(371)." By some he has been considered and termed the founder of a third Academy, but there appears to be no solid ground for such a distinction. In his lectures, which chiefly turned on ethics, he agreed with both Academies as to the supreme good, placing it in virtue and the primary gifts of nature. Like Arcesilaus, he was a zealous advocate for the uncertainty of human knowledge, but he did not deny, with him, that there were truths, but only maintained that we could not clearly discern them(372). The sole other difference in their tenets, is one not very palpable, mentioned by Lucullus in the _Academica_. Arcesilaus, it seems, would neither a.s.sent to anything nor opine. Carneades, though he would not a.s.sent, declared that he would opine; under the constant reservation, however, that he was merely opinionating, and that there was no such thing as positive comprehension or perception(373). In this, Lucullus, who was a follower of the _old_ Academy, thinks Carneades the most absurd and inconsistent of the two. Carneades succeeded to the old dispute between the Academics and Stoics, and in his prelections he combated the arguments employed by Chrysippus(374), in his age the chief pillar of the Portico, as Arcesilaus had formerly maintained the controversy with Zeno, its founder. He differed from the Pyrrhonists, by admitting the real existence of good and evil, and by allowing different degrees of probability(375), while his sceptical opponents contended that there was no ground for embracing or rejecting one opinion more than another. Carneades was no less distinguished by his artful and versatile talents for disputation, than his vehement and commanding oratory. But his extraordinary powers of persuasion, and of maintaining any side of an argument, for which the academical philosophy peculiarly qualified him, were at length abused by him, to the scandal of the serious and inflexible Romans. Thus, we are told, that he one day delivered a discourse before Cato, with great variety of thought and copiousness of diction, on the advantages of a rigid observance of the rules of justice. Next day, in order to fortify his doctrine of the uncertainty of human knowledge, he undertook to refute all his former arguments(376). It is likely that his attack on justice was a piece of pleasantry, like Erasmus' Encomium of Folly; and many of his audience were captivated by his ingenuity; but the Censor immediately insisted, that the affairs which had brought these subtle amba.s.sadors to Rome, should be forthwith despatched by the Senate, in order that they might be dismissed with all possible expedition(377). Whether Cato entertained serious apprehensions, as is alleged by Plutarch, that the military virtues of his country might be enfeebled, and its const.i.tution undermined, by the study of philosophy, may, I think, be questioned. It is more probable that he dreaded the influence of the philosophers themselves on the opinions of his fellow-citizens, and feared lest their eloquence should altogether unsettle the principles of his countrymen, or mould them to whatever form they chose. Lactantius, too, in a quotation from Cicero's treatise _De Republica_, affords what may be considered as an explanation of the reason why Carneades' lecture against justice was so little palatable to the Censor, and probably to many others of the Romans. One of the objections which he urged against justice, or rather against the existence of a due sense of that quality, was, that if such a thing as justice were to be found on earth, the Romans would resign their conquests, and return to their huts and original poverty(378). Cato likewise appears to have had a considerable spirit of personal jealousy and rivalry; while, at the same time, his national pride led him to scorn all the arts of a country which the Roman arms had subdued.

Carneades promulgated his opinions only in his eloquent lectures; and it is not known that he left any writings of importance behind him(379). But his oral instructions had made a permanent impression on the Roman youth, and the want of a written record of his principles was amply supplied by his successor c.l.i.tomachus, who was by birth a Carthaginian, and was originally called Asdrubal. He had fled from his own country to Athens during the siege of Carthage, by the Romans, in the third Punic war(380); and in the year 623 he went from Greece to Italy, to succeed Carneades in the school which he had there established. c.l.i.tomachus was a most voluminous author, having written not less than four ample treatises on the necessity of withholding the a.s.sent from every proposition whatever.

One of these tracts was dedicated to Lucilius, the satiric poet(381), and another to the Consul Censorinus. The essence of the principles which he maintained in these works, has been extracted by Cicero, and handed down to us in a pa.s.sage inserted in the _Academica_. It is there said, that the resemblances of things are of such a nature that some of them appear probable, and others not; but this is no sufficient ground for supposing that some objects may be correctly perceived, since many falsities are probable, whereas no falsity can be accurately perceived or known: The Academy never attempted to deprive mankind of the use of their senses, by denying that there are such things as colour, taste, and sound; but it denied that there exists in these qualities any criterion or characteristic of truth and certainty. A wise man, therefore, is said, in a double sense, to withhold his a.s.sent; in one sense, when it is understood that he absolutely a.s.sents to no proposition; in another, when he suspends answering a question, without either denying or affirming. He ought never to a.s.sent implicitly to any proposition, and his answer should be withheld until, according to _probability_, he is in a condition to reply in the affirmative or negative. But as Cicero admits, that a wise man, who, on every occasion, suspends his a.s.sent, may yet be impelled and moved to action, he leaves him in full possession of those motives which excite to action, together with a power of answering in the affirmative or negative to certain questions, and of following the probability of objects; yet still without giving them his a.s.sent(382).

c.l.i.tomachus was succeeded by Philo of Larissa, who fled from Greece to Italy, during the Mithridatic war, and revived at Rome a system of philosophy, which by this time began to be rather on the decline. Cicero attended his lectures, and imbibed from them the principles of the new Academy, to which he ultimately adhered. Philo published two treatises, explanatory of the doctrines of the new Academy, which were answered in a work ent.i.tled _Sosus_, by Antiochus of Ascalon, who had been a scholar of Philo, but afterwards abjured the innovations of the new Academy, and returned to the old, as taught by Plato and his immediate successors,-uniting with it, however, some portion of the systems of Aristotle and Zeno(383). In his own age, Antiochus was the chief support of the original principles of the Academy, and was patronized by all those at Rome, who were still attached to them, particularly by Lucullus, who took the philosopher along with him to Alexandria, when he went there as Quaestor of Egypt.

In the circ.u.mstances of Rome, the first steps towards philosophical improvement, were a general abatement of that contempt which had been previously entertained for philosophical studies-a toleration of instruction-the power of communicating wisdom without shame or restraint, and its cordial reception by the Roman youth. This proficiency, which necessarily preceded speculation or invention, had already taken place.

Partly through the instructions of Greek philosophers who resided at Rome, and partly by means of the practice which now began to prevail, of sending young men for education to the ancient schools of wisdom, philosophy made rapid progress, and almost every sect found followers or patrons among the higher order of the Roman citizens.

From the earliest times, however, till that of Cicero, Greek philosophy was chiefly inculcated by Greeks. There was no Roman who devoted himself entirely to metaphysical contemplation, and who, like Epicurus, Aristotle, and Zeno, lounged perpetually in a garden, paced about in a Lyceum, or stood upright in a portico. The Greek philosophers pa.s.sed their days, if not in absolute seclusion, at least in learned leisure and retirement.

Speculation was the employment of their lives, and their works were the result of a whole age of study and reflection(384). The Romans, on the other hand, regarded philosophy, not as the business of life, but as an elegant relaxation, or the means of aiding their advancement in the state.

They heard with attention the ingenious disputes agitated among the Greeks, and perused their works with pleasure; but with all this taste for philosophy, they had not sufficient leisure to devise new theories. The philosophers of Rome were Scipio, Cato, Brutus, Lucullus-men who governed their country at home, or combated her enemies abroad. They had, indeed, little motive to invent new systems, since so many were presented to them, ready formed, that every one found in the doctrines of some Greek sect, tenets which could be sufficiently accommodated to his own disposition and situation. In the same manner as the plunder of Syracuse or Corinth supplied Rome with her statues and pictures, and rendered unnecessary the exertions of native artists; and as the dramas of Euripides and Menander provided sufficient materials for the Roman stage; so the Garden, Porch, and Academy, furnished such variety of systems, that new inventions or speculations could easily be dispensed with. The prevalence, too, of the principles of that Academy, which led to doubt of all things, must have discouraged the formation of new and original theories. Nor were even the Greek systems, after their introduction into Italy, cla.s.sed and separated as they had been in Greece. Most of the distinguished men of Rome, however, in the time of Cicero, were more inclined to one school than another, and they applied the lessons of the sect which they followed with more success, perhaps, than their masters, to the practical purposes of active life. The jurisconsults, chief magistrates, and censors, adopted the Stoical philosophy, which had some affinity to the principles of the Roman const.i.tution, and which they considered best calculated for ruling their fellow-citizens, as well as meliorating the laws and morals of the state. The orators who aspired to rise by eloquence to the highest honours of the republic, had recourse to the lessons of the new Academy, which furnished them with weapons for disputation; while those who sighed for the enjoyment of tranquillity, amid the factions and dangers of the commonwealth, retired to the Gardens of Epicurus. But while subscribing to the leading tenets of a sect, they did not strive to gain followers with any of the spirit of sectarism; and it frequently happened, that neither in principle nor practice did they adopt all the doctrines of the school to which they chiefly resorted. Thus Caesar, who was accounted an Epicurean, and followed the Epicurean system in some things, as in his belief of the materiality and mortality of the soul, doubtless held in little reverence those ethical precepts, according to which,

-- "Nihil in nostro corpore prosunt, Nec fama, neque n.o.bilitas, nec gloria regni."

Lucretius was a sounder Epicurean, and gave to the precepts of his master all the dignity and grace which poetical embellishment could bestow. But Atticus, the well-known friend and correspondent of Cicero, was perhaps the most perfect example ever exhibited of genuine and practical Epicurism.

The rigid and inflexible Cato, was, both in his life and principles, the great supporter of the Stoical philosophy-conducting himself, according to an expression of Cicero, as if he had lived in the polity of Plato, and not amid the dregs of Romulus. The old Academy boasted among its adherents Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates-the Lorenzo of Roman arts and literature-whose palaces rivalled the porticos of Greece, and whose library, with its adjacent schools and galleries, was the resort of all who were distinguished for their learning and accomplishments. Whilst Quaestor of Macedonia, and subsequently, while he conducted the war against Mithridates, Lucullus had enjoyed frequent opportunities of conversing with the Greek philosophers, and had acquired such a relish for philosophical studies, that he devoted to them all the leisure he could command(385). At Rome, his constant companion was Antiochus of Ascalon, who, though a pupil of Philo, became himself a zealous supporter of the old Academy; and accordingly, Lucullus, who favoured that system, often repaired to his house, to partake in the private disputations which were there carried on against the advocates for the new or middle Academy. The old Academy also numbered among its votaries Varro, the most learned of the Romans, and Brutus, who was destined to perform so tragic a part on the ensanguined stage of his country.

Little was done by these eminent men to ill.u.s.trate or enforce their favourite systems by their writings. Even the productions of Varro were calculated rather to excite to the study of philosophy, than to aid its progress. The new Academy was more fortunate in the support of Cicero, who has a.s.serted and vindicated its principles with equal industry and eloquence. From their first introduction, the doctrines of the new Academy had been favourably received at Rome. The tenets of the dogmatic philosophers were so various and contradictory, were so obstinately maintained, and rested on such precarious foundations, that they afforded much scope and encouragement to scepticism. The plausible arguments by which the most discordant opinions were supported, led to a distrust of the existence of absolute truth, and to an acquiescence in such probable conclusions, as were adequate to the practical purposes of life. The speculations, too, of the new Academy, were peculiarly fitted to the duties of a public speaker, as they left free the field of disputation, and habituated him to the practice of collecting arguments from all quarters, on every doubtful question. Hence it was that Cicero addicted himself to this sect, and persuaded others to follow his example. It has been disputed, if Cicero was really attached to the new Academic system, or had merely resorted to it as being best adapted for furnis.h.i.+ng him with oratorical arguments suited to all occasions. At first, its adoption was subsidiary to his other plans. But, towards the conclusion of his life, when he no longer maintained the place he was wont to hold in the Senate or the Forum, and when philosophy formed the occupation "with which existence was just tolerable, and without which it would have been intolerable(386)," he doubtless became convinced that the principles of the new Academy, ill.u.s.trated as they had been by Carneades and Philo, formed the soundest system which had descended to mankind from the schools of Athens.

The attachment, however, of Cicero to the Academic philosophy, was free from the exclusive spirit of sectarism, and hence it did not prevent his extracting from other systems what he found in them conformable to virtue and reason. His ethical principles, in particular, appear Eclectic, having been, in a great measure, formed from the opinions of the Stoics. Of most Greek sects he speaks with respect and esteem. For the Epicureans alone, he seems (notwithstanding his friends.h.i.+p for Atticus) to have entertained a decided aversion and contempt.

The general purpose of Cicero's philosophical works, was rather to give a history of the ancient philosophy, than dogmatically to inculcate opinions of his own. It was his great aim to explain to his fellow-citizens, in their own language, whatever the sages of Greece had taught on the most important subjects, in order to enlarge their minds and reform their morals; while, at the same time, he exercised himself in the most useful employment which now remained to him-a superior force having deprived him of the privilege of serving his country as an orator or Consul.

Cicero was in many respects well qualified for the arduous but n.o.ble task which he had undertaken, of naturalizing philosophy in Rome, and exhibiting her, according to the expression of Erasmus, on the Stage of life. He was a man of fertile genius, luminous understanding, sound judgment, and indefatigable industry-qualities adequate for the cultivation of reason, and sufficient for the supply of subjects of meditation. Never was a philosopher placed in a situation more favourable for gathering the fruits of an experience employed on human nature and civil society, or for observing the effects of various qualities of the mind on public opinion and on the actions of men. He lived at the most eventful crisis in the fate of his country, and in the closest connection with men of various and consummate talents, whose designs, when fully developed by the result, must have afforded on reflection, a splendid lesson in the philosophy of mind. But this situation, in some respects so favourable, was but ill calculated for revolving abstract ideas, or for meditating on those abstruse and internal powers, of which the consequences are manifested in society and the transactions of life.

Accordingly, Cicero appears to have been dest.i.tute of that speculative disposition which leads us to penetrate into the more recondite and original principles of knowledge, and to mark the internal operations of thought. He had cultivated eloquence as clearing the path to political honours, and had studied philosophy, as the best auxiliary to eloquence.

But the contemplative sciences only attracted his attention, in so far as they tended to elucidate ethical, practical, and political subjects, to which he applied a philosophy which was rather that of life than of speculation.

In the writings of Cicero, accordingly, everything deduced from experience and knowledge of the world-every observation on the duties of society, is clearly expressed, and remarkable for justness and acuteness. But neither Cicero, nor any other Roman author, possessed sufficient subtlety and refinement of spirit, for the more abstruse discussions, among the labyrinths of which the Greek philosophers delighted to find a fit exercise for their ingenuity. Hence, all that required research into the ultimate foundation of truths, or a more exact a.n.a.lysis of common ideas and perceptions-all, in short, that related to the subtleties of the Greek schools, is neither so accurately expressed, nor so logically connected.

In theoretic investigation, then,-in the explication of abstract ideas-in the a.n.a.lysis of qualities and perceptions, Cicero cannot be regarded as an inventor or profound original thinker, and cannot be ranked with Plato and Aristotle, those mighty fathers of ancient philosophy, who carried back their inquiries into the remotest truths on which philosophy rests. Where he does attempt fixing new principles, he is neither very clear nor consistent; and it is evident, that his general study of all systems had, in some degree, unsettled his belief, and had better qualified him to dispute on either side with the Academics, than to examine the exact weight of evidence in the scale of reason, or to exhibit a series of arguments, in close and systematic arrangement, or to deduce accurate conclusions from established and certain principles. His philosophic dialogues are rather to be considered as popular treatises, adapted to the ordinary comprehension of well-informed men, than profound disquisitions, suited only to a Portico or Lyceum. They bespeak the orator, even in the most serious inquiries. Elegance and fine writing, their author appears to have considered as essential to philosophy; and historic, or even poetical ill.u.s.tration, as its brightest ornament. The peculiar merit, therefore, of Cicero, lay in the happy execution of what had never been before attempted-the luminous and popular exposition of the leading principles and disputes of the ancient schools of philosophy, with judgments concerning them, and the application of results, deduced from their various doctrines to the peculiar manners or employments of his countrymen. Hence, though it may be honouring Cicero too highly, to term his works, with Gibbon, a Repository of Reason, they are at least a Miscellany of Philosophic Information, which has become doubly valuable, from the loss of the writings of many of those philosophers, whose opinions he records; and though the merit of originality rests with the Greek schools, no compositions transmitted from antiquity present so concise and comprehensive a view of the opinions of the Greek philosophers(387).

That the mind of Cicero was most amply stored with the learning of the Greek philosophers, and that he had the whole circle of their wisdom at his command, is evident, from the rapidity with which his works were composed-having been all written, except the treatise _De Legibus_, during the period which elapsed from the battle of Pharsalia till his death; and the greater part of them in the course of the year 708.

It is justly remarked by Goerenz, in the introduction to his edition of the book _De Finibus_(388), and a.s.sented to by Schutz(389), that it seems scarcely possible, that those numerous philosophical works, which are a.s.serted to have been composed by Cicero in the year 708, could have been begun and finished in one year; and that such speed of execution leads us to suppose, that either the materials had been long collected, or that the productions themselves were little more than versions. In his _Academica_, Cicero remarks,-"Ego autem, dum me ambitio, dum honores, dum causae, dum reipublicae non solum cura, sed quaedam etiam procuratio multis officiis implicatum et constrictum tenebat, haec inclusa habebam; et, ne obsolescerent, renovabam, quum licebat, legendo. Nunc vero et fortunae gravissimo percussus vulnere, et administratione reipublicae liberatus, doloris medicinam a philosophia peto, et otii oblectationem hanc, honestissimam judico." It is not easy to determine, as Schutz remarks, whether, by the expression "haec inclusa habebam," Cicero means merely the writings of philosophical authors, or treatises and materials for treatises by himself. "We ought, however," proceeds Schutz, "the less to wonder that Cicero composed so many works in so short a time, when we read the following pa.s.sage in a letter to Atticus, written in July 708-'De lingua Latina securi es animi, dices, qui talia conscribis! ?p???afa sunt; minore labore fiunt: verba tantum affero, quibus abundo(390)'; which words, according to Gronovius, imply, that the philosophic writings of Cicero are little more than versions from the Greek."

In the laudable attempt of naturalizing philosophy at Rome, the difficulty which Lucretius had encountered, in embodying in Latin verse the precepts of Epicurus,-

"Propter egestatem linguae rerumque novitatem,"

must have been almost as powerfully felt by Cicero. Philosophy was still little cultivated among the Romans; and no people will invent terms for thoughts or ideas with which it is little occupied. One of his letters to Atticus is strongly expressive of the trouble which he had in interpreting the philosophic terms of Greece in his native tongue(391). Thus, for example, he could find no Latin word equivalent to the ?p???, or that withholding of a.s.sent from all propositions, which the new Academy professed. The language of the Greeks had been formed along with their philosophy. Their terms of physics had their origin in the ancient Theogonies, or the speculations of the Milesian sage; and Plato informs us, that one might make a course of moral philosophy in travelling through Attica and reading the inscriptions engraved on the tombs, pillars, and monuments, erected in the earliest ages near the public ways and centre of villages(392). Hence, in Greece, words naturally became the apposite signs of speculative and moral ideas; but in Rome, a foreign philosophy had to be inculcated in a tongue which was already completely formed, which was greatly inferior in flexibility and precision to the Greek; and which, though Cicero certainly used some liberties in this respect, had too nearly reached maturity, to admit of much innovation. Its words, accordingly, did not always precisely express the subtle notions signified in the original language, whence there was often an appearance of obscurity in the idea, and of a defect in conclusions, drawn from premises which were indefinite, or which differed by a shade of meaning from those established in Greece.

Aware of this difficulty, and conscious, perhaps, that he possessed not precision and originality of thinking sufficient to recommend a formal treatise, Cicero adopted the mode of writing in dialogues, in which rhetorical diffuseness, and looseness of definition, might be overlooked, and in which ample scope would be afforded for the ornaments of language.

It was by oral discourse that knowledge was chiefly communicated at the dawn of science, when books either did not exist, or were extremely rare.

In the Porch, in the Garden, or among the groves of the Academy, the philosopher conferred with his disciples, listened to their remarks, and replied to their objections. Socrates, in particular, was accustomed thus to inculcate his moral lessons; and it was natural for the scholars, who recorded them, to follow the manner in which they had been disclosed. Of these disciples, Plato, who was the most distinguished, readily adopted a form of composition, which gave scope to his own fertile and poetical imagination; while, at the same time, it enabled him more accurately to paint his great master. One of his chief objects, too, was to represent the triumph of Socrates over the Sophists; and if a writer wish to cover an opponent with ridicule, perhaps no better mode could be devised, than to set him up as a man of straw in a dialogue. As argumentative victory, or the embarra.s.sment of the antagonist of Socrates, was often all that was aimed at, it was unnecessary to be very scrupulous about the means, and, considered in this view, the agreeable irony of that philosopher-the address with which, by seeming to yield, he ensnares the adversary-his quibbles-his subtle distinctions, and perplexing interrogatories, display consummate skill, and produce considerable dramatic effect; while, at the same time, the scenery and circ.u.mstances of the dialogue are often described with a richness and beauty of imagination, which no philosophic writer has as yet surpa.s.sed(393).

When Cicero, towards the close of his long and meritorious life, employed himself in transferring to Rome the philosophy of Greece, he appears to have been chiefly attracted by the diffusive majesty of Plato, whose intellectual character was in many respects congenial to his own. His dialogues in so far resemble those of Plato, that the personages are real, and of various characters and opinions; while the circ.u.mstances of time and place are, for the most part, as completely fict.i.tious as in his Greek models. Yet there is a considerable difference in the manner of Cicero's Dialogues, from those of the great founder of the Academy. Plato ever preserved something of the Socratic method of giving birth to the thoughts of others-of awakening, by interrogatories, the sense of truth, and supplanting errors. But Cicero himself, or the person who speaks his sentiments, always takes the lead in the conference, and gives us long, and often uninterrupted dissertations. His object, too, appears to have been not so much to cover his adversaries with ridicule, or even to prevail in the argument, as to pay a complimentary tribute to his numerous and ill.u.s.trious friends, or to recall, as it were, from the tomb, the departed heroes and sages of his country.

In the form of dialogue, Cicero has successively treated of Law, Metaphysics, Theology, and Morals.

_De Legibus_.-Of this dialogue there are only three books now extant, and even in these considerable chasms occur. A conjecture has been recently hazarded by a learned German, in an introduction to a translation of the dialogue, that these three books, as we now have them, were not written by Cicero, but that they are mere excerpts taken from his lost writings, by some monk or father of the church(394). There are few works, however, in which more genuine marks of the master-hand of Cicero may be traced, than in the tract _De Legibus_; and the connection between the different parts is too closely preserved, to admit of the notion that it has been made up in the manner which this critic supposes. Another conjecture is, that it formed part of the third, fourth, and fifth books of Cicero's lost treatise _De Republica_. This surmise, however, was highly improbable, since Cicero, in the course of the work _De Legibus_, refers to that _De Republica_ as a separate production, and it is now proved to be chimerical by the discovery of Mai. The dialogue _De Legibus_, however, seems to have been drawn up as a kind of supplement to that _De Republica_, being intended to point out what laws would be most suitable to the perfect republic, which the author had previously described(395).