234 



ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 



' Paradoxa 

 Stoicorum.' 



Cato discourses on the immortality of the soul, has been always cele- 

 brated ; and the opening of the latter, in which Fannius and Scasvola 

 come to console Lselius on the death of Scipio, is as exquisite an instance 

 of delicacy and taste as can be found in his works. In the latter he 

 has borrowed largely from the eighth and ninth books of Aristotle's 

 ' Ethics.' 



De Officiis. 1 His treatise ' De Officiis' was finished about the time he wrote his 

 second Philippic, a circumstance which illustrates the great versatility 

 of his mental powers. Of a work so extensively celebrated, it is 

 enough to have mentioned the name. Here he lays aside the less 

 authoritative form of dialogue, and, with the dignity of the Roman 

 consul, unfolds, in his own person, the principles of morals, according 

 to the views of the older schools, particularly of the Stoics. It is 

 written, in three books, with great perspicuity and elegance of style ; 

 the first book treats of the lionestum, the second of the utik, and the 

 third adjusts the claims of the two, when they happen to interfere 

 with each other. 



His * Paradoxa Stoicorum' might have been more suitably, perhaps, 

 included in his rhetorical works, being six short declamations in sup- 

 port of the positions of Zeno ; in which that philosopher's subtleties 

 are adapted to the comprehension of the vulgar, and the events of the 

 times. The second, fourth, and sixth, are respectively directed against 

 Antony, Clodius, and Crassus. They seem to have suffered from time. 1 

 The sixth is the most eloquent, but the argument of the third is strik- 

 ingly maintained. 



Besides the works now enumerated we have a considerable frag- 

 ment of his translation of Plato's ' Timaeus', which he seems to have 

 finished about this time. His remaining philosophical works, viz. : 

 the * Hortensius,' which was a defence of philosophy ; * De Gloria,' c De 

 Consolatione,' written upon Platonic principles on his daughter's 

 death ; ' De Jure Civili,' ' De Virtutibus,' ' De Auguriis,' ' Chorogra- 

 phia,' translations of Plato's ' Protagoras,' and Xenophon's * (Econo- 

 mics,' works on Natural History, Panegyric on Cato, and some 

 miscellaneous writings are, except a few fragments, entirely lost. 

 Epistles. His Epistles, about one thousand in all, are comprised in thirty-six 



books, sixteen of which are addressed to Atticus, three to his brother 

 Quintus, one to Brutus, and sixteen to his different friends ; and they 

 form a history of his life from his fortieth year. Among those ad- 

 dressed to his friends some occur from Brutus, Metellus, Plancius, 

 Cselius, and others. For the preservation of this most valuable de- 

 partment of Cicero's writings, we are indebted to Tyro, the author's 

 freedman, though we possess, at the present day, but a part of those 

 originally published. As his correspondence with his friends belongs 

 to his character as a man and politician, rather than to his powers as 

 an author, we have already noticed it in the first part of this memoir. 



1 Sciopp. in Olivet. 



