Tusculan Disputations

among us; though we find in Cato De Originibus that the guests used, at their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of the flute; but a speech of Cato’s shows this kind of poetry to have been in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior for carrying poets with him into his province; for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with him into Aetolia. Therefore the less esteem poets were in, the less were those studies pursued; though even then those who did display the greatest abilities that way were not very inferior to the Greeks. Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius,3 a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrhasii? Honor nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation which are looked upon disparagingly. The Greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man among the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles, some years before, was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. For this reason musicians flourished in Greece. Music was a general study, and whoever was unacquainted with it was not considered as fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honorable than mathematicians. But we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating.

But, on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the orator; though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at speaking. In subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius were men of learning; and that even Cato, who preceded them in point of time, was a studious man: then succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators after them, down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the Greeks. Philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this present time, and has had no assistance from our own language, and so now I have undertaken to raise and illustrate it, in order that, as I have been of service to my countrymen, when employed on public affairs, I may, if possible, be so likewise in my retirement; and in this I must take the more pains, because there are already many books in the Latin language which are said to be written inaccurately, having been composed by excellent men, only not of sufficient learning; for, indeed, it is possible that a man may think well, and yet not be able to express his thoughts elegantly. But for anyone to publish thoughts which he can neither arrange skilfully nor illustrate so as to entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and retirement: they, therefore, read their books to one another, and no one ever takes them up but those who wish to have the same license for careless writing allowed to themselves. Wherefore, if oratory has acquired any reputation from my industry, I shall take the more pains to open the fountains of philosophy, from which all my eloquence has taken its rise.

But, as Aristotle,4 a man of the greatest genius, and of the most various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician Isocrates,5 commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my former study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in this greater and more fruitful art. For I have always thought that to be able to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions was the most perfect philosophy. And I have so diligently applied myself to this pursuit, that I have already ventured to have a school like the Greeks. And lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used to practice declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age. I desired anyone to propose a question which he wished to have discussed, and then I argued that point either sitting or walking. And so I have compiled the scholae, as the Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. We proceeded in this manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what he thought proper, I spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method of arguing against another’s opinion, for Socrates thought that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at. But to give you a better notion of our disputations, I will not barely send you an account of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore let the introduction be thus:

A.	To me death seems to be an evil.
M.	What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A.	To both.
M.	It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A.	Certainly.
M.	Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A.	So it appears to me.
M.	Then all are miserable?
A.	Everyone.
M.	And, indeed, if you wish to be consistent, all that are already born, or ever shall be, are not only miserable, but always will be so. For should you maintain those only to be miserable, you would not except anyone living, for all must die; but there should be an end of misery in death. But seeing that the dead are miserable, we are born to eternal misery, for