History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

by John Colin Dunlop

Academica.—This work is termed Academica, either because it chiefly relates to the Academic philosophy, or because it was composed at the villa of Puteoli, where a grove and portico were called by Cicero, from an affected imitation of the Athenians, his Academy[416]. There evidently existed what may be termed two editions of the Academica, neither of which we now possess perfect—what we have being the second book of the first edition, and the first of the second. In the first edition, the speakers were Cicero himself, Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius. The first book was inscribed Catulus, and the second Lucullus, these persons being the chief interlocutors in their respective divisions. The first dialogue, or Catulus, was held in the villa of that senator. Every word of it is unfortunately lost, but the import may be gathered, from the references to it in the Lucullus, or second book, which is still extant. It appears to have contained a sketch of the history of the old and the new Academy, and then to have entered minutely into the doctrines and principles of the latter, to which Catulus was attached. Catulus explained them as they had been delivered by Carneades, whose lectures his father had attended, and in his old age imparted their substance to his son. He refuted the philosophy of Philo, where that writer differed from Carneades, (which, though of the new Academy, he did in some particulars,) and also the opinions of Antiochus, who followed the old Academy. Hortensius seems to have made a short reply, but the more ample discussion of the system of the old Academy was reserved for Lucullus. Previous, however, to entering on this topic, our philosophers pass over from the Cuman villa of Catulus to that of Hortensius, at Bauli, one of the many magnificent seats belonging to that orator, and situated a little above the luxurious Baiæ, in the direction towards Cumæ, on an inlet of the Bay of Naples. Here they had resolved to remain till a favourable breeze should spring up, which might carry Lucullus to his Neapolitan, and Cicero to his Pompeian villa. While awaiting this opportunity, they repaired to an open gallery, which looked towards [pg 233]the sea, whence they descried the vessels sailing across the bay, and the ever changeful hue of its waters, which appeared of a saffron colour under the morning beam, but became azure at noon, till, as the day declined, they were rippled by the western breeze, and empurpled by the setting sun[417]. Here Lucullus commenced his defence of the old Academy, and his disputation against Philo, according to what he had learned from the philosopher Antiochus, who had accompanied him to Alexandria, when he went there as Quæstor of Egypt. While residing in that city, two books of Philo arrived, which excited the philosophic wrath of Antiochus, and gave rise to much oral discussion, as well as to a book from his pen, entitled Sosus, in which he attempted to refute the doctrines so boldly promulgated by Philo. Lucullus was thus enabled fully and faithfully to detail the arguments of the chief supporter and reviver in those later ages of the old Platonic Academy. His discourse is chiefly directed against that leading principle of the new Academy, which taught that nothing can be known or ascertained. Recurring to nature, and the constitution of man, he confirms the faith we have in our external senses, and the mental conclusions deduced from them. To this Cicero replies, from the writings of Clitomachus, and of course enlarges on the delusion of the senses—the false appearances we behold in sleep, or while under the influence of phrensy, and the uncertainty of everything so fully demonstrated by the different opinions of the great philosophers, on the most important of all subjects, the Providence of the Gods—the Supreme Good and Evil, and the formation of the world.

These two books, the Catulus and Lucullus, of which, as already mentioned, the last alone is extant, were written after the termination of the civil wars, and a copy of them sent by Cicero to Atticus. It occurred, however, to the author soon afterwards, that the characters introduced were not very suitable to the subjects discussed, since Catulus and Lucullus, though both ripe scholars, and well-educated men, could not, as statesmen and generals, be supposed to be acquainted with all the minutiæ of philosophic controversy contained in the books bearing their names. While deliberating if he should not rather put the dialogue into the lips of Cato and Brutus, he received a letter from Atticus, acknowledging the present of his work, but mentioning that their common friend, Varro, was displeased to find that none of his treatises were addressed to him, or inscribed with his name. This intimation, and the [pg 234]incongruity of the former characters with the subject, determined the author to dedicate the work to Varro, and to make him the principal speaker in the dialogue[418]. This change, and the reflection, perhaps, on certain defects in the arrangement of the old work, as also the discovery of considerable omissions, particularly with regard to the tenets of Arcesilaus, the founder of the new academy, induced him to remodel the whole, to add in some places, to abridge in others, and to bestow on it more lustre and polish of style. In this new form, the Academica consisted of four books, a division which was better adapted for treating his subject: But of these four, only the first remains. The dialogue it contains is supposed to be held during a visit which Atticus and Cicero paid to Varro, in his villa near Cumæ. His guests entreat him to give an account of the principles of the old Academy, from which Cicero and Atticus had long since withdrawn, but to which Varro had continued steadily attached. This first book probably comprehends the substance of what was contained in the Catulus of the former edition. Varro, in complying with the request preferred to him, deduces the origin of the old Academy from Socrates; he treats of its doctrines as relating to physics, logic, and morals, and traces its progress under Plato and his legitimate successors. Cicero takes up the discourse when this historical account is brought down to Arcesilaus, the founder of the new Academy. But the work is broken off in the most interesting part, and just as the author is entering on the life and lectures of Carneades, who introduced the new Academy at Rome. Cicero, however, while he styles it the new Academy, will scarcely allow it to be new, as it was in fact the most genuine exposition of those sublime doctrines which Plato had imbibed from Socrates. The historical sketch of the Academic philosophy having been nearly concluded in the first book, the remaining books, which are lost, contained the disputatious part. In the second book the doctrines of Arcesilaus were explained; and from one of the few short fragments preserved, there appears to have been a discussion concerning the remarkable changes that occur in the colour of objects, and the complexion of individuals, in consequence of the alterations they undergo in position or age, which was one of Arcesilaus’ chief arguments against the certainty of evidence derived from the senses. The third and fourth books probably contained the doctrines of Carneades and Philo, with Varro’s refutation of them, according to the principles of Antiochus. From a fragment of [pg 235]the third book, preserved by Nonius, it appears that the scene of the dialogue was there transferred to the banks of the Lucrine lake, which lay in the immediate vicinity of Varro’s Cuman villa[419].

These four books formed the work which Cicero wished to be considered as the genuine and improved Academics. The former edition, however, which he had sent to Atticus, had gone abroad, and as he could not recall it, he resolved to complete it, by prefixing an introductory eulogy of Catulus to the first, and of Lucullus to the second book,—extolling, in particular, the incredible genius of the latter, which enabled him, though previously inexperienced in the art of war, merely by conversation and study, during his voyage from Rome, to land on the coast of Asia, with the acquirements of a consummate commander, and to extort the admission from his antagonist, Mithridates, who had coped with Sylla, that he was the first of warriors.

This account of the two editions of the Academics, which was first suggested by Talæus[420], has been adopted by Goerenz[421]; and it appears to me completely confirmed by the series of Cicero’s letters to Atticus, contained in the 13th book of his Epistles. It is by no means, however, unanimously assented to by the French and German commentators. Lambinus, seeing that Nonius quoted, as belonging to the fourth book of the Academica, passages which we find in the Lucullus, or second book of the first edition, considered and inscribed it as the fourth of the new edition, instead of the second of the old, in which he was followed by many subsequent editors; but this is easily accounted for, since the new edition, being remodelled on the old, many things in the last or second book of the old edition would naturally be transferred to the fourth or last of the new, and be so cited by those grammarians who wrote when the whole work was extant. Ranitz denies that there ever were two editions of the Academica made public, or preserved, and that, so far from the last three books being lost, the Lucullus contains the whole of these three, but from the error of transcribers they have been run into each other[422]. This critic is right, indeed, in the notion he entertains, that Cicero wished the first edition of the Academica to be destroyed, or to fall into oblivion, but it does not follow that [pg 236]either of these wishes was accomplished; and indeed it is proved, from Cicero’s own letters, that the older edition had passed into extensive circulation.

Tusculanæ Disputationes, are so called by Cicero, from having been held at his seat near Tusculum—a town which stood on the summit of the Alban hill, about a mile higher up than the modern Frescati, and communicated its name to all the rural retreats in its neighbourhood. This was Cicero’s chief and most favourite villa. “It is,” says he, “the only spot in which I completely rest from all my uneasiness, and all my toils.”—“It stood,” says Eustace, “on one of the Tumuli, or beautiful hills grouped together on the Alban Mount. It is bounded on the south by a deep dell, with a streamlet that falls from the rock, then meanders through the recess, and disappears in its windings. Eastward rises the lofty eminence, once crowned with Tusculum—Westward, the view descends, and passing over the Campagna, fixes on Rome, and the distant mountains beyond it.—On the south, a gentle swell presents a succession of vineyards and orchards; and behind it towers the summit of the Alban Mount, once crowned with the temple of Jupiter Latiaris. Thus Cicero, from his portico, enjoyed the noblest and most interesting view that could be imagined to a Roman and a Consul; the temple of the tutelary divinity of the empire, the seat of victory and triumph, and the theatre of his glorious labours,—the Capital of the World[423].” A yet more recent traveller informs us, that “the situation of the ancient Tusculum is delightful. The road which leads to it is shaded with umbrageous woods of oak and ilex. The ancient trees and soft verdant meadows around it, almost remind us of some of the loveliest scenes of England; and the little brook that babbles by, was not the less interesting from the thought, that its murmurs might perchance have once soothed the ear of Cicero[424].”

The distance of Tusculum from Rome, which was only four leagues, afforded Cicero an easy retreat from the fatigues of the Senate and Forum. Being the villa to which he most frequently resorted, he had improved and adorned it beyond all his other mansions, and rendered its internal elegance suitable to its majestic situation. It had originally belonged to Sylla, by whom it was highly ornamented. In one of its apartments there was a painting of his victory near Nola, during the Marsic war, in which Cicero had served under him as a volunteer. But its new master had bestowed on this seat a more classical [pg 237]and Grecian air. He had built several halls and galleries in imitation of the schools and porticos of Athens, which he termed Gymnasia. One of these, which he named the Academia, was erected at a little distance from the villa, on the declivity of the hill facing the Alban Mount[425]. Another Gymnasium, which he called the Lyceum, stood higher up the hill than the Academy: It was adjacent to the villa, and was chiefly designed for philosophical conferences. Cicero had given a general commission to Atticus, who spent much of his time in Greece, to purchase any elegant or curious piece of Grecian art, in painting or sculpture, which his refined taste might select as a suitable ornament for his Tusculan villa. He, in consequence, received from his friend a set of marble Mercuries, with brazen heads, with which he was much pleased; but he was particularly delighted with a sort of compound emblematical figures called Hermathenæ and Hermeraclæ representing Mercury and Minerva, or Mercury and Hercules, jointly on one base; for, Hercules being the proper deity of the Gymnasium, Minerva of the Academy, and Mercury common to both, they precisely suited the purpose for which he desired them to be procured. One of these Minerval Mercuries pleased him so wonderfully, and stood in such an advantageous position, that he declared the whole Academy at Tusculum appeared to have been contrived in order to receive it[426]. So intent was he on embellishing this Tusculan villa with all sorts of Grecian art, that he sent over to Atticus the plans and devices for his ceilings, which were of stucco-work, in order to bespeak various pieces of sculpture and painting to be inserted in the compartments; as also the covers for two of his wells or fountains, which, by the custom of those times, were often formed after some elegant pattern, and adorned with figures in relief[427].

La Grotta Ferrata, a convent of Basilian friars, is now, according to Eustace, built on the site of Cicero’s Tusculan villa. Nardini, who wrote about the year 1650, says, that there had been recently found, among the ruins of Grotta Ferrata, a piece of sculpture, which Cicero himself mentions in one of his Familiar Epistles. In the middle of last century, there yet remained vast subterranean apartments, as well as a great circumference and extent of ruins[428]. But these, it would appear, have been still farther dilapidated since that period. “Scarce [pg 238]a trace,” says Eustace, “of the ruins of Tusculum is now discoverable: Great part remained at the end of the 10th century, when a Greek monk from Calabria demolished it, and erected on the site, the monastery of Grotta Ferrata. At each end of the portico is fixed in the wall a fragment of basso relievo. One represents a philosopher sitting with a scroll in his hand, in a thinking posture—in the other, are four figures supporting the feet of a fifth of colossal size, supposed to represent Ajax. These, with the beautiful pillars which support the church, are the only remnants of the decorations and furniture of the ancient villa. ‘Conjiciant,’ says an inscription near the spot, ‘quæ et quanta fuerunt.’[429]”

When Cæsar had attained the supremacy at Rome, and Cicero no longer gave law to the Senate, he became the head of a sort of literary or philosophical society. Filelfo, who delivered public lectures at Rome, on the Tusculan Disputations, attempted to prove that he had stated meetings of learned men at his house, and opened a regular Academy at Tusculum[430]. This notion was chiefly founded on a letter of Cicero to Pætus, where he says that he had followed the example of the younger Dionysius, who, being expelled from Syracuse, taught a school at Athens. At all events, it was his custom, in the opportunities of his leisure, to carry some friends with him from Rome to the country, where the entertainments they enjoyed were chiefly speculative. In this manner, Cicero, on one occasion, spent five days at his Tusculan villa; and after [pg 239]employing the morning in declamation and rhetorical exercises, retired in the afternoon with his friends to the gallery, called the Academy, which he had constructed for the purpose of philosophical conference. Here Cicero daily offered to maintain a thesis on any topic proposed to him by his guests; and the five dialogues thus introduced, were, as we are informed by the author, afterwards committed to writing, nearly in the words which had actually passed[431]. They were completed early in 709, and, like so many of his other works, are dedicated to Brutus—each conference being at the same time furnished with an introduction expatiating on the excellence of philosophy, and the advantage of naturalizing the wisdom of the Greeks, by transfusing it into the Latin language. In the first dialogue, entitled De Contemnenda Morte, one of the guests, who is called the Auditor through the remainder of the performance, asserts, that death is an evil. This proposition Cicero immediately proceeds to refute, which naturally introduces a disquisition on the immortality of the soul—a subject which, in the pages of Cicero, continued to be involved in the same doubt and darkness that had veiled it in the schools of Greece.

It is true, that in the ancient world some notion had been entertained, and by a few some hope had been cherished, that we are here only in the infancy of our existence, and that the grave might be the porch of immortality, and not the goal of our career. The natural love that we have for life, amidst all its miseries—the grief that we sometimes feel at being torn from all that is dear to us—the desire for posterity and for posthumous fame—the humiliating idea, that the thoughts which wander through eternity, should be the operations of a being destined to flutter for a moment on the surface of the earth, and then for ever to be buried in its bosom—all, in short, that is selfish, and all that is social in our nature, combined in giving importance to the inquiry, If the thinking principle was to be destroyed by death, or if that great change was to be an introduction to a future state of existence. Having thus a natural desire for the truth of this doctrine, the philosophers of antiquity anxiously devised arguments, which might justify their hopes. Sometimes they deduced them from metaphysical speculations—the spirituality, unity, and activity of the soul—sometimes from its high ideas of things moral and intellectual. Is it possible, they asked, that a being of such excellence should be here imprisoned for a term of years, only to be the sport of the few pleasures and the many pains which [pg 240]chequer this mortal life? Is not its future destination seen in that satiety and disrelish, which attend all earthly enjoyments—in those desires of the mind for things more pure and intellectual than are here supplied—in that longing and endeavour, which we feel after something above us, and perfective of our nature? At other times, they have found arguments in the unequal distribution of rewards and punishments; and in our sighs over the misfortunes of virtue, they have recognized a principle, which points to a future state of things, where that shall be discovered to be good which we now lament as evil, and where the consequences of vice and virtue shall be more fully and regularly unfolded, than in this inharmonious scene. They have then looked abroad into nature, and have seen, that if death follows life, life seemingly emanates from death, and that the cheerful animations of spring succeed to the dead horrors of winter. They have observed the wonderful changes that take place in some sentient beings—they have considered those which man himself has undergone—and, charmed by all these speculations, they have indulged in the pleasing hope, that our death may, like our birth, be the introduction to a new state of existence. But all these fond desires—all these longings after immortality, were insufficient to dispel the doubts of the sage, or to fill the moralist with confidence and consolation. The wisest and most virtuous of the philosophers of antiquity, and who most strongly indulged the hope of immortality, is represented by an illustrious disciple as expressing himself in a manner which discloses his sad uncertainty, whether he was to be released from the tomb, or for ever confined within its barriers.

In the age of Cicero, the existence of a world beyond the grave was still covered with shadows, clouds, and darkness. “Whichsoever of the opinions concerning the substance of the soul be true,” says he, in his first Tusculan Disputation, “it will follow, that death is either a good, or at least not an evil—for if it be brain, blood, or heart, it will perish with the whole body—if fire, it will be extinguished—if breath, it will be dissipated—if harmony, it will be broken—not to speak of those who affirm that it is nothing; but other opinions give hope, that the vital spark, after it has left the body, may mount up to Heaven, as its proper habitation.”