Cicero
Images are sometimes not shown due to bandwidth/network limitations. Refreshing the page usually helps.
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
Is Cicero worth reading? Did he make any contributions to philosophy as a whole outside of Rome? Are his writings easy to read or difficult?
>>7722225
Dunno
His latin can be pretty difficult, yes. Not the most abstruse one, but he had his own quirks about archaic expressions and his way of composing phrases even got his own name, concinnitas ciceroniana.
Topics are mainly stoicism and rhetoric.
If you're interested in latin texts you shouldn't skip him.
his Philippics can be funny especially when he's bashing Marc Antony
>>7722225
His Latin is benchmark good Latin so prepare for hell if you read that way; otherwise I find his non-political philosophy pieces easy, enjoyable reads. On friendship is a great piece.
He is a really fun writer, enjoyable to read if you know the context in which he wrote it.
>>7722225
ABSOLUTELY- read his defense speeches (oxford)
i really like his philosophy of law and his overall approach to argument.
>>7722225
My favorite Cicero is The Dream of Scipio. Top tier platonic wizardry.
Cicero was a great systematizer of Greek philosophy. His On the Nature of the Gods, as well as Academica I and II are fantastic overviews of Greek philosophy up to his time.
Also, it's a good bet that Cicero invented Aristotle.
http://harpermcalpineblack.blogspot.com/2013/08/aristotle-was-phoney.html
He contributed a lot to the Epicurean tradition so if that philosophy interests you then he might be worth reading.
>>7724798
He was actually against it (I remind you that Epicureanism was against political activism). He's more stoic than anything else
>>7722225
Cicero is God tier along with goats such as Rutilius Namatianus
"Thou has made of alien realms one fatherland. The lawless found their gain beneath thy sway. Sharing thy laws with them, thou hast subdued, thou hast made a city of the once-wide world."
Absolutely based
>>7724813
Cicero was neither Epicurean nor Stoic (though he thickly addresses these - as I said in my earlier post, the history of Greek philosophy as it's come down to us was a task initiated by Cicero and his ilk in the wake of Sulla's conquest of Athens).
Cicero self-identifies as a New Academy Skeptical philosopher along the lines of Carneades. He pioneered Latin translations of Greek technical terminology and himself translated the Timaeus. When Philo, the then scholarch of the academy, visited Rome, Cicero made a point of studying Plato under him.
>>7724782
Reading that was so trippy but it's a great read
Romans didn't impact Phil too much, but they are amazing self help, depussification lit.
Cicero's political speeches have some top tier bants.
10/10 would recommend. They were way more entertaining than I thought they'd be.
