(iii.) THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO.
During the whole of an exceptionally busy public life Cicero devoted his spare moments to reading and to the society of the learned. After his exile in 58 and 57 B.C. his political career, except for a brief period just before his death, was over, and it is at this time that his period of great literary activity begins, In 55 he produced the work De Oratore, in 54 the De Re Publica, and in 52 the De Legibus, all three works, according to ancient ideas, entitled to rank as philosophical.[[5]]
From 51 to 46 B.C., owing first to his absence in Cilicia, then to the civil troubles, Cicero almost ceased to write. But in the latter year he was reconciled with Caesar, and as the Senate and law courts were closed against him on his refusal to compromise his political principles, he betook himself with greater devotion than ever to literature. The first work written in 46 was the Hortensius, or De Philosophia, now lost. It was founded on a lost dialogue of Aristotle, and set forth the advantages of studying Philosophy. During the same year Cicero completed several oratorical works, the Partitiones Oratoriae, the Brutus, or De Claris Oratoribus, and the Orator, all of which are extant.
Early in 45 Cicero lost his beloved daughter Tullia. He passed the whole year in retirement, trying to soothe his grief by incessant writing. In quick succession appeared
De Consolatione, an attempt to apply philosophy to the mitigation of his own sorrow and that of others;
Academica, an exposition of the New Academic Philosophy, advocating probability rather than certainty as the foundation of philosophy;
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, a work criticising the most prominent views entertained concerning Ethics;
Disputationes Tusculanae, treating of certain conditions essential to morality and happiness;
De Natura Deorum, an examination of the principal theories regarding the nature and power of the gods;