5. Cicero, On Laws, 1.1-1.3, 1.15, 2.6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •plato, as model for cicero Found in books: Gilbert, Graver and McConnell, Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy (2023) 35, 37, 48 | 1.1. ATTICUS: This is the very grove, and this the oak of Arpinum, whose description in your poem on Marius, I have often read. If, my Marcus, that oak is still in being, this must certainly be it, but it appears extremely old. QUINTUS CICERO: Yes, my Atticus, my brotherʼs oak tree still exists, and will ever flourish, for it is a nurseling of genius. No plant can owe such longevity to the care of the agriculturist as this derives from the verse of the poet. 1.2. ATTICUS: How can that happen, my Quintus? How can poets bestow immortality on trees? It seems to me that in eulogizing your brother, you flatter your own vanity. QUINTUS: You may rally me as much as you please, but as long as the Latin language is spoken, this oak of Marius will not lose its reputation; and as Scaevola said of my brotherʼs poem on Marius, it will "Extend its hoary age, through countless years."Do not your Athenians maintain that the olive near their citadel is immortal, and that tall and slender palm tree which Homerʼs Ulysses says he beheld at Delos, do they not make an exhibition of it to this very day? and so with regard to other things, in many places, whose memorial endures beyond the term of their natural life. Therefore this acorn-bearing oak, on which once lightedstill flourishes before us. And when the storms of centuries shall have wasted it, there will still be found a relic on this sacred spot, which shall be called the Oak of Marius. 1.3. ATTICUS: I donʼt doubt it, my Quintus; but there is one question I would ask, not of you, but of the poet Marcus himself, whether the tree is indebted for its celebrity to his verses alone, or whether the circumstance they record really happened in the history of Marius? MARCUS CICERO: I will answer you frankly, my Atticus. But you must first inform me what you think of the tradition which asserts, that not far from your house at Rome, Proculus Julius beheld our first king Romulus walking after his decease, and that he heard him declare his desire of being invoked as a God, of being entitled Quirinus, and of having a temple there dedicated to his memory? Tell me also what you think of the tradition of the Athenians, who maintain that not far from your Athenian villa, Boreas made a stolen match with Orithyia, for so runs the story. 1.15. ATTICUS: For my part, if you ask my opinion, I should reply, that after having given us a treatise on the Commonwealth, you cannot consistently refuse us one on the Laws. In doing so, you will imitate the example of your favorite Plato, the philosopher whom you chiefly admire and love with an especial affection. MARCUS: Do you wish then, that we should emulate that conversation which Plato held with Clinias of Crete, and Megillus of Lacedaemon, which he describes as taking place one summer day under the cypress trees of Cnossus, and in its sylvan avenues: where, after discoursing and arguing respecting the best kind of commonwealths and their appropriate laws, he sauntered with his delightful friends? -- Do you wish that thus we also, walking beneath these lofty poplars, along these green and umbrageous banks, and sometimes reposing, should investigate the same subjects somewhat more profoundly than is usual among barristers? 2.6. ATTICUS: It was not then without reason, that Pompey said, when he pleaded conjointly with you the cause of Ambius, that the Commonwealth owed great gratitude to this village for having given it two of its preservers. For my part, I quite agree with you, that your native place may be called your country, no less correctly than the Commonwealth of Rome. But here we are, arrived in your favourite island. How beautiful it appears! How bravely it stems the waves of the Fibrenus, whose divided waters lave its verdant sides, and soon rejoin their rapid currents! The river just embraces space enough for a moderate walk, and having discharged this good-natured office, and secured us an arena for disputation, it hastily precipitates itself into the Liris; where, like those who ally themselves to patrician families, it loses its obscure name, and gives the waters of the Liris a greater degree of coolness. For I have never found water much colder than this, although I have seen a great number of rivers; -- and I can hardly bear my foot in it when I wish to do what Socrates did in Platoʼs Phaedrus. |
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6. Cicero, De Oratore, 1.28, 1.45-1.47, 1.82-1.93, 1.211, 1.224, 2.155-2.156, 3.24 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •plato, as model for cicero Found in books: Gilbert, Graver and McConnell, Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy (2023) 35, 37, 38, 39, 40| 1.28. postero autem die, cum illi maiores natu satis quiessent et in ambulationem ventum esset, dicebat tum Scaevolam duobus spatiis tribusve factis dixisse 'cur non imitamur, Crasse, Socratem illum, qui est in Phaedro Platonis? Nam me haec tua platanus admonuit, quae non minus ad opacandum hunc locum patulis est diffusa ramis, quam illa, cuius umbram secutus est Socrates, quae mihi videtur non tam ipsa acula, quae describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse, et quod ille durissimis pedibus fecit, ut se abiceret in herba atque ita illa, quae philosophi divinitus ferunt esse dicta, loqueretur, id meis pedibus certe concedi est aequius.' 1.46. multi erant praeterea clari in philosophia et nobiles, a quibus omnibus una paene voce repelli oratorem a gubernaculis civitatum, excludi ab omni doctrina rerumque maiorum scientia ac tantum in iudicia et contiunculas tamquam in aliquod pistrinum detrudi et compingi videbam; 1.47. sed ego neque illis adsentiebar neque harum disputationum inventori et principi longe omnium in dicendo gravissimo et eloquentissimo, Platoni, cuius tum Athenis cum Charmada diligentius legi Gorgiam; quo in libro in hoc maxime admirabar Platonem, quod mihi in oratoribus inridendis ipse esse orator summus videbatur. Verbi enim controversia iam diu torquet Graeculos homines contentionis cupidiores quam veritatis. 1.84. Charmadas vero multo uberius eisdem de rebus loquebatur, non quo aperiret sententiam suam; hic enim mos erat patrius Academiae adversari semper omnibus in disputando; sed cum maxime tamen hoc significabat, eos, qui rhetores nominarentur et qui dicendi praecepta traderent, nihil plane tenere neque posse quemquam facultatem adsequi dicendi, nisi qui philosophorum inventa didicisset. 1.85. Disputabant contra diserti homines Athenienses et in re publica causisque versati, in quis erat etiam is, qui nuper Romae fuit, Menedemus, hospes meus; qui cum diceret esse quandam prudentiam, quae versaretur in perspiciendis rationibus constituendarum et regendarum rerum publicarum, excitabatur homo promptus atque omni abundans doctrina et quadam incredibili varietate rerum atque copia: omnis enim partis illius ipsius prudentiae petendas esse a philosophia docebat neque ea, quae statuerentur in re publica de dis immortalibus, de disciplina iuventutis, de iustitia, de patientia, de temperantia, de modo rerum omnium, ceteraque, sine quibus civitates aut esse aut bene moratae esse non possent, usquam in eorum inveniri libellis; 1.86. quod si tantam vim rerum maximarum arte sua rhetorici illi doctores complecterentur, quaerebat, cur de prooemiis et de epilogis et de huius modi nugis—sic enim appellabat—referti essent eorum libri, de civitatibus instituendis, de scribendis legibus, de aequitate, de iustitia, de fide, de frangendis cupiditatibus, de conformandis hominum moribus littera nulla in eorum libris inveniretur. 1.87. Ipsa vero praecepta sic inludere solebat, ut ostenderet non modo eos expertis esse illius prudentiae, quam sibi asciscerent, sed ne hanc quidem ipsam dicendi rationem ac viam nosse: caput enim esse arbitrabatur oratoris, ut et ipse eis, apud quos ageret, talis, qualem se esse optaret, videretur; id fieri vitae dignitate, de qua nihil rhetorici isti doctores in praeceptis suis reliquissent; et uti ei qui audirent sic adficerentur animis, ut eos adfici vellet orator; quod item fieri nullo modo posse, nisi cognosset is, qui diceret, quot modis hominum mentes et quibus et quo genere orationis in quamque partem moverentur; haec autem esse penitus in media philosophia retrusa atque abdita, quae isti rhetores ne primoribus quidem labris attigissent. 1.88. Ea Menedemus exemplis magis quam argumentis conabatur refellere; memoriter enim multa ex orationibus Demostheni praeclare scripta pronuntians docebat illum in animis vel iudicum vel populi in omnem partem dicendo permovendis non fuisse ignarum, quibus ea rebus consequeretur, quae negaret ille sine philosophia quemquam nosse posse. 1.89. Huic respondebat non se negare Demosthenem summam prudentiam summamque vim habuisse dicendi, sed sive ille hoc ingenio potuisset sive, id quod constaret, Platonis studiosus audiendi fuisset, non quid ille potuisset, sed quid isti docerent esse quaerendum. 1.93. Quid multa? Sic mihi tum persuadere videbatur neque artificium ullum esse dicendi neque quemquam posse, nisi qui illa, quae a doctissimis hominibus in philosophia dicerentur, cognosset, aut callide aut copiose dicere; in quibus Charmadas solebat ingenium tuum, Crasse, vehementer admirari: me sibi perfacilem in audiendo, te perpugnacem in disputando esse visum. 1.211. Sin autem quaereremus quis esset is, qui ad rem publicam moderandam usum et scientiam et studium suum contulisset, definirem hoc modo: qui quibus rebus utilitas rei publicae pareretur augereturque, teneret eisque uteretur, hunc rei publicae rectorem et consili publici auctorem esse habendum, praedicaremque P. Lentulum principem illum et Ti. Gracchum patrem et Q. Metellum et P. Africanum et C. Laelium et innumerabilis alios cum ex nostra civitate tum ex ceteris. 1.224. philosophorum autem libros reservet sibi ad huiusce modi Tusculani requiem atque otium, ne, si quando ei dicendum erit de iustitia et fide, mutuetur a Platone; qui, cum haec exprimenda verbis arbitraretur, novam quandam finxit in libris civitatem; usque eo illa, quae dicenda de iustitia putabat, a vitae consuetudine et a civitatum moribus abhorrebant. | 1.28. But on the next day, when the older part of the company had taken sufficient repose, and were come to their walk, he told me that Scaevola, after taking two or three turns, said, “Why should not we, Crassus, imitate Socrates in the Phaedrus of Plato? for this plane-tree of yours has put me in mind of it, which diffuses its spreading boughs to overshade this place, not less widely than that did whose covert Socrates sought, and which seems to me to have grown not so much from the rivulet which is described, as from the language of Plato: and what Socrates, with the hardest of feet, used to do, that is, to throw himself on the grass, while he delivered those sentiments which philosophers say were uttered divinely, may surely, with more justice, be allowed to my feet.” 1.46. and there were many other famous men besides, highly distinguished in philosophy, by all of whom, with one voice as it were, I observed that the orator was repelled from the government of states, excluded from all learning and knowledge of great affairs, and degraded and thrust down into the courts of justice and petty assemblies, as into a workshop. 1.47. But I neither assented to those men, nor to the originator of these disputations, and by far the most eloquent of them all, the eminently grave and oratorical Plato; whose Gorgias I then diligently read over at Athens with Charmadas; from which book I conceived the highest admiration of Plato, as he seemed to me to prove himself an eminent orator, even in ridiculing orators. A controversy indeed on the word ORATOR has long disturbed the minute Grecians, who are fonder of argument than of truth. 1.84. Charmadas indeed spoke much more diffusely on those topics; not that he delivered his own opinion (for it is the hereditary custom of every one in the Academy to take the part of opponents to all in their disputations), but what he chiefly signified was, that those who were called rhetoricians, and laid down rules for the art of speaking, understood nothing; and that no man could attain any command of eloquence who had not mastered the doctrines of the philosophers. [XIX.] 1.85. “Certain men of eloquence at Athens, versed in public affairs and judicial pleadings, disputed on the other side; among whom was Menedemus, lately my guest at Rome; but when he had observed that there is a sort of wisdom which is employed in inquiring into the methods of settling and managing governments, he, though a ready speaker, was promptly attacked by the other, a man of abundant learning, and of an almost incredible variety and copiousness of argument; who maintained that every portion of such wisdom must be derived from philosophy, and that whatever was established in a state concerning the immortal gods, the discipline of youth, justice, patience, temperance, moderation in everything, and other matters, without which states would either not subsist at all, or be corrupt in morals, was nowhere to be found in the petty treatises of the rhetoricians. 1.86. For if those teachers of rhetoric included in their art such a multitude of the most important subjects, why, he asked, were their books crammed with rules about proems and perorations, and such trifles (for so he called them), while about the modelling of states, the composition of laws, about equity, justice, integrity, about mastering the appetites, and forming the morals of mankind, not one single syllable was to be found in their pages? 1.87. Their precepts he ridiculed in such a manner, as to show that the teachers were not only destitute of the knowledge which they arrogated to themselves, but that they did not even know the proper art and method of speaking; for he thought that the principal business of an orator was, that he might appear to those to whom he spoke to be such as he would wish to appear (that this was to be attained by a life of good reputation, on which those teachers of rhetoric had laid down nothing in their precepts); and that the minds of the audience should be affected in such a manner as the orator would have them to be affected, an object, also, which could by no means be attained, unless the speaker understood by what methods, by what arguments, and by what sort of language the minds of men are moved in any particular direction; but that these matters were involved and concealed in the profoundest doctrines of philosophy, which these rhetoricians had not touched even with the extremity of their lips. 1.88. These assertions Menedemus endeavoured to refute, but rather by authorities than by arguments; for, repeating from memory many noble passage? from the orations of Demosthenes, he showed that that orator, while he swayed the minds of judges or of the people by his eloquence, was not ignorant by what means he attained his end, which Charmadas denied that any one could know without philosophy. [XX.] 1.89. “To this Charmadas replied, that he did not deny that Demosthenes was possessed of consummate ability and the utmost energy of eloquence; but whether he had these powers from natural genius, or because he was, as was acknowledged, a diligent hearer of Plato, it was not what Demosthenes could do, but what the rhetoricians taught, that was the subject of inquiry. 1.93. In short, he seemed bent on convincing me that there was no art of speaking, and that no one could speak skilfully, or so as fully to illustrate a subject, but one who had attained that knowledge which is delivered by the most learned of the philosophers. On which occasions Charmadas used to say, with a passionate admiration of your genius, Crassus, that I appeared to him very easy in listening, and you most pertinacious in disputation. [XXI.] 1.211. But if we should inquire what sort of character he is, who should contribute his experience, and knowledge, and zeal to the management of the state, I should give this sort of definition, that he who understands by what means the interests of the republic are secured and promoted, and employs those means, is worthy to be esteemed a director in affairs of government, and a leader in public councils; and I should mention Publius Lentulus, that chief of the senate, and Tiberius Gracchus the father, and Quintus Metellus, and Publius Africanus, and Caius Laelius, and others without number, as well of our own city as of foreign states. 1.224. but his books of philosophy he must reserve to himself, for the leisure and tranquillity of such a Tusculan villa as this, and must not, when he is to speak on justice and honesty, borrow from Plato; who, when he thought that such subjects were to be illustrated in writing, imagined in his pages a new kind of commonwealth; so much was that which he thought necessary to be said of justice, at variance with ordinary life and the general customs of the world. |
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7. Cicero, Republic, 1.1, 1.10, 1.30, 2.21, 2.64, 4.3, 6.3 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •plato, as model for cicero Found in books: Gilbert, Graver and McConnell, Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy (2023) 37, 38, 40, 48, 143| 1.1. im petu liberavissent, nec C. Duelius, A. Atilius, L. Metellus terrore Karthaginis, non duo Scipiones oriens incendium belli Punici secundi sanguine suo restinxissent, nec id excitatum maioribus copiis aut Q. Maximus enervavisset aut M. Marcellus contudisset aut a portis huius urbis avolsum P. Africanus compulisset intra hostium moenia. M. vero Catoni, homini ignoto et novo, quo omnes, qui isdem rebus studemus, quasi exemplari ad industriam virtutemque ducimur, certe licuit Tusculi se in otio delectare salubri et propinquo loco. Sed homo demens, ut isti putant, cum cogeret eum necessitas nulla, in his undis et tempestatibus ad summam senectutem maluit iactari quam in illa tranquillitate atque otio iucundissime vivere. Omitto innumerabilis viros, quorum singuli saluti huic civitati fuerunt, et quia sunt haud procul ab aetatis huius memoria, commemorare eos desino, ne quis se aut suorum aliquem praetermissum queratur. Unum hoc definio, tantam esse necessitatem virtutis generi hominum a natura tantumque amorem ad communem salutem defendendam datum, ut ea vis omnia blandimenta voluptatis otiique vicerit. 1.1. Plin. Nat. praef. 7 nec docti/ssimis. †Manium Persium haec le/gere nolo, Iu/nium Congu/m volo. 1.10. Illa autem exceptio cui probari tandem potest, quod negant sapientem suscepturum ullam rei publicae partem, extra quam si eum tempus et necessitas coegerit? quasi vero maior cuiquam necessitas accidere possit, quam accidit nobis; in qua quid facere potuissem, nisi tum consul fuissem? Consul autem esse qui potui, nisi eum vitae cursum tenuissem a pueritia, per quem equestri loco natus pervenirem ad honorem amplissimum? Non igitur potestas est ex tempore, aut cum velis, opitulandi rei publicae, quamvis ea prematur periculis, nisi eo loco sis, ut tibi id facere liceat. 2.21. Videtisne igitur unius viri consilio non solum ortum novum populum neque ut in cunabulis vagientem relictum, sed adultum iam et paene puberem? Tum Laelius: Nos vero videmus, et te quidem ingressum ratione ad disputandum nova, quae nusquam est in Graecorum libris. Nam princeps ille, quo nemo in scribendo praestantior fuit, aream sibi sumsit, in qua civitatem extrueret arbitratu suo, praeclaram ille quidem fortasse, sed a vita hominum abhorrentem et moribus, 6.3. Eulog. somn. Scip. 401Or. qui rogo impositus revixisset multaque de inferis secreta narrasset haec, quae de animae immortalitate dicerentur caeloque, non somniantium philosophorum esse commenta nec fabulas incredibiles, quas Epicurei derident, sed prudentium coniecturas. | 1.1. Without active patriotism .... could never have delivered our native land from attack, nor could Gaius Duelius, Aulus Atilius, or Lucius Metellus have freed Rome from her fear of Carthage, nor could the two Scipios have extinguished with their blood the rising flames of the Second Punic War, nor, when it broke forth again with greater fury, could Quintus Maximus have reduced it to impotence or Marcus Marcelius have crushed it, nor could Publius Africanus have torn it from the gates of this city and driven it within the enemy's walls. Marcus Cato again, unknown and of obscure birth - by whom, as by a pattern for our emulation, all of us who are devoted to the same pursuits are drawn to diligence and valour - might surely have remained at Tusculum in the enjoyment of the leisurely life of that healthful spot so near to Rome. But he, a madman as our friends maintain, preferred, though no necessity constrained him, to be tossed by the billows and storms of our public life even to an extreme old age, rather than to live a life of complete happiness in the calm and ease of such retirement. I will not speak of the men, countless in number, who have each been the salvation of this republic; and as their lives do not much antedate the remembrance of the present generation, I will refrain from mentioning their names, lest someone complain of the omission of himself or some member of his family. I will content myself with asserting that Nature has implanted in the human race so great a need of virtue and so great a desire to defend the common safety that the strength thereof has conquered all the allurements of pleasure and ease. 1.10. And who in the world can approve of the single exception they make, when they say that no wise man will take any part in public affairs unless some emergency compels him to do so ? As if any greater emergency could come upon anyone than that with which I was confronted ; and what could I have done in that crisis unless I had been consul at the time? And how could I have been consul unless I had held to a manner of life from my boyhood which led me to the highest office of State in spite of my equestrian birth ? Hence it is clear that the opportunity of serving the State, however great be the dangers with which it is threatened, does not come suddenly, or when we wish it, unless we are in such a position that it is possible for us to take action. 2.21. Do you not perceive, then, that by the wisdom of a single man a new people was not simply brought into being and then left like an infant crying in its cradle, but was left already full-grown and almost in the maturity of manhood ? Laelius. We do indeed perceive this, and also that you on your part have entered upon a new style of discussion, one that is nowhere employed in the writings of the Greeks. For that eminent Greek, ** whose works have never been surpassed, began with the assumption of an unoccupied tract of land, so that he might build a State upon it to suit himself. His State may perhaps be an excellent one, but it is quite unsuited to men's actual lives and habits. 6.3. . . . Er the Pamphylian ], ** who, after being laid on the pyre, came to life again and told many secrets of the world below . . . The things that are told of the immortality of the soul and of the heavens are not the fictions of dreaming philosophers, or such incredible tales as the Epicureans mock at, but the conjectures of sensible men . . . |
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