Abstract
Some figures in history loom so large that they become multiple people in the imagination, and Marcus Tullius Cicero is certainly one. Scholarship about Cicero has fractured his identity into multiple pieces, so that “Cicero the orator” seems a separate character from “Cicero the philosopher” or “Cicero the exile” or “Cicero the grieving father.” This is especially the case in scholarship regarding Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. These were written late in Cicero’s life, when his rhetoric and philosophy was well developed and his grief was acute, due to the recent death of his daughter, Tullia. Thus, the complexities of the entirety of Cicero factor into the composition of the work, and a reader of it should keep this in mind.
Included in
Reading Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
Some figures in history loom so large that they become multiple people in the imagination, and Marcus Tullius Cicero is certainly one. Scholarship about Cicero has fractured his identity into multiple pieces, so that “Cicero the orator” seems a separate character from “Cicero the philosopher” or “Cicero the exile” or “Cicero the grieving father.” This is especially the case in scholarship regarding Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. These were written late in Cicero’s life, when his rhetoric and philosophy was well developed and his grief was acute, due to the recent death of his daughter, Tullia. Thus, the complexities of the entirety of Cicero factor into the composition of the work, and a reader of it should keep this in mind.