Cicero somewhat arrogantly claims the credit of being the first to awaken a taste for philosophy, and to illuminate the darkness in which it lay hid by the light of Roman letters.[[834]] He did not confess the obligations under which he lay to his predecessors, because he never could forget that he was an orator.[[835]] He could not deny that some of them thought justly; but he denied that they possessed the power of expressing what they thought. He felt that there was nothing in the philosophical writings already existing to tempt his countrymen to study the subject: they were dry, unadorned, unpolished. It required an orator to array philosophy in an enticing garb. He proposed, therefore, to assuage his anxieties—to seek repose from the harassing cares of politics[[836]]—by rendering his countrymen independent of Greek philosophical literature.
This was all he proposed to himself: it was all that his predecessor had attempted; nor did he pretend to originality. The periods which he devoted to the task, and to which all philosophical works belong, were those during which he was excluded from political life. The first of these was the triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus; the second was coincident with the dictatorship of Cæsar and the consulship of Antony. Not only did his contemplative spirit delight in such studies, but, whilst all the avenues to distinction were closed against him, his ambition sought this road to fame, and his patriotism urged him to take this method of benefiting his country. But as he was not the first who introduced philosophy to the Romans, it will be necessary briefly to sketch its progress up to the time at which his labours commenced.
Roman philosophy was neither the result of original investigation nor the gradual development of the Greek system. It arose rather from a study of ancient philosophical literature than from an examination of philosophical principles. The Roman intellect did not possess the power of abstraction in a sufficiently high degree for research, nor was the Latin language capable of representing satisfactorily abstract thoughts. Cicero was quite aware of the poverty of its scientific nomenclature, as compared with that of Greece. In one treatise,[[837]] he writes,—“Equidem soleo etiam, quod uno Græci, si aliter non possum, idem pluribus verbis exprimere.” Pliny[[838]] and Seneca[[839]] assert the same fact. “Magis damnabis,” writes the latter, “angustias Romanas si scieris unam syllabam esse, quam mutare non possim. Quæ hæc sit quæris? το ον.” The practical character also of the people prompted them to take advantage of the material already furnished by others, and to select such doctrines as it approved, without regard to their relation to each other.
The Roman philosopher, therefore, or rather (to speak more correctly) philosophical student, did not throw himself into the speculations of his age, pursue them contemporaneously, or deduce from them fresh results. He went back to the earlier ages of Greek philosophy, studied, commented on, and explained the works of the best authors, and adopted some of their doctrines as fixed scholastic dogmas. Consequently, the spirit in which philosophical study was pursued by the Romans was a literary and not a scientific one. A taste for literature had been awakened, and philosophy was considered only as one species of literature, although its importance was recognised as bearing upon the practical duties, the highest interests and happiness of man. The practical view which Cicero took of philosophy, and the extensive influence which he attributed to it, is manifest from numerous passages in his works,[[840]] and is imbodied in the following beautiful apostrophe in the Tusculan Disputations:[[841]] “O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque vitiorum! Quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine te esse potuisset? Tu urbes peperisti; tu dissipatos homines in societatem vitæ convocasti; tu eos inter se primo domiciliis, deinde conjugiis, tum literarum et vocum communione junxisti; tu inventrix legum, tu magistra morum et disciplinæ fuisti; ad te confugimus, a te opem petimus; tibi nos, ut antea magna ex parte, sic nunc penitus totosque tradimus.”
It is plain, therefore, that the chief characteristics of Roman philosophy would be—(1.) Learning, for it consisted in bringing together doctrines and opinions scattered over a wide field; (2,) Generally speaking, an ethical purpose and object, for Romans would be little inclined to value any subject of study which had no ultimate reference to man’s political and social relations; (3,) Eclecticism; for although there were certain schools, such as the Epicurean and Stoic, which were evidently favourites, the dogmas of different teachers were collected and combined together often without regard to consistency.
The defects of such a system are fatal to its claim to be considered philosophical; for the scientific connexion of its parts is lost sight of, and results are presented independent of the chain of causes and effects by which they are connected with principles. Such a system must necessarily be illogical and inconsequential. Even the liberality which adopts the principle, “Nullius jurare in verba magistri,” and which, therefore, appears to be its chief merit, was absurd; and the willingness with which all views were readily admitted led to skepticism, or doubt whether such a thing as absolute truth had a real existence.
Greek philosophy was probably first introduced into Rome by the Achæan exiles, of whom Polybius was one.[[842]] The embassy of Carneades the Academic, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic, followed six years afterwards. In vain the stern M. Porcius Cato caused their dismissal; for some of the most illustrious and accomplished Romans, such as Africanus, Lælius, and Furius, had already profited by their lectures and instructions.[[843]] Whilst the educated Romans were gaining an historical insight into the doctrines of these schools, the Stoic Panætius, who was entertained in the household of Scipio Africanus, was unfolding the mysterious and transcendental doctrines of the great object of his veneration, Plato. But although the Romans could appreciate the majestic dignity and poetical beauty of his style, they were not equal to the task of penetrating his hidden meaning; they were, therefore, content to take upon trust the glosses and commentaries of his expositors. These inclined to the New Academy rather than to the Old: in its skeptical spirit they compared and balanced opposing probabilities; and went no farther than recommending the adoption of opinions upon which they could not pronounce with certainty. Neither did the Peripatetic doctrines meet with much favour, although the works of Aristotle had been brought to Rome by the dictator Sulla, partly, as Cicero says, because of the vastness of the subjects treated, partly because they seemed incapable of satisfactory proof to unskilled and inexperienced minds.[[844]]
The philosophical system which first arrested the attention of the Romans, and gained an influence over their minds, was the Epicurean.[[845]] But it is somewhat remarkable that, although this philosophy was in its general character ethical, a people so eminently practical in their turn of mind should have especially devoted themselves to the study of the physical speculations of this school.[[846]] The only apparent exception to this statement is Catius, but even his principal works, although he wrote one, “de Summo Bono,” are on the physical nature of things.[[847]]
Cicero accounts for the popularity of Epicureanism by saying that it was easy—that it appealed to the blandishments of pleasure; and that its first professors, Amafanius and Rabirius, used none of the refinements of art or subtleties or dialectic, but clothed their discussions in a homely and popular style, suited to the simple and unlearned. There were many successors to Amafanius; and the doctrines which they taught rapidly spread over the whole of Italy. Many illustrious statesmen, also, were amongst the believers in this fashionable creed; of whom the best known are C. Cassius, the fellow-conspirator of Brutus, and T. Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero. All the monuments and records, however, of the Epicurean philosophy, which were published in Latin, have perished, with the exception of the immortal work of T. Lucretius Carus, “De Naturâ Rerum.”
Nor was Stoicism, the severe principles of which were in harmony with the stern old Roman virtues, without distinguished disciples; such as were the unflinching M. Brutus, the learned Terentius Varro, the jurist Scævola, the unbending Cato of Utica, and the magnificent Lucullus—a Stoic in creed, though not in life and conduct. The part which Cicero’s character qualified him to perform in the philosophical instruction of his countrymen was scarcely that of a guide: he could give them a lively interest in the subject, and reveal to them the discoveries and speculations of others, but he could not mould and form their belief, and train them in the work of original investigation. Not being himself devoutly attached to any system of philosophical belief, he would be cautious of offending the philosophical prejudices of others. He loved learning, but his temper was undecided and vacillating: whilst, therefore, he delighted in accumulating stores of Greek erudition, the tendency of his mind was, in the midst of a variety of inconsistent doctrines, to leave the conclusion undetermined. Although he listened to various instructors—Phædrus the Epicurean, Diodotus the Stoic, and Philo the Academician—he found the eclecticism of the latter more congenial to his taste. Its preference of probability to certainty suited one who shrunk from the responsibility of deciding.