Cicero and Greek Philosophy*

To speak about Cicero and Greek philosophy is to speak about Cicero and philosophy, period. Philosophy, for the Romans of Cicero’s age, was a Greek thing, and there was no other philosophy around. Philosophy was one of the disciplines the Romans of the first century B.C. took over from the Greeks as a part of higher education. It was both a prestigious and a suspect branch of Greek culture—prestigious because it was intellectually demanding, suspect because philosophical argument could be seen as subversive; witness the notorious story of the futile attempt by Cato the Censor in the second century to banish philosophers from the city in order to safeguard the morals of Rome’s young men.