ABSTRACT
The Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero lived during a time of great political turmoil. In this period, the Roman empire exerted an immense outward force, but suffered a series of internal upheavals that threatened—and ultimately succeeded in overturning—its republican institutions. This chapter focuses on Cicero’s dialogue with Cato, and their discussion about Stoicism’s teachings on death and life. Stoicism presents itself as a refined devotion to the noblest virtues of human life. Cicero shows that one effect of Stoicism’s increasing popularity was a transformation in the way citizens conceived of human mortality and, as a result, in their understanding of public and private obligations. The natural self-love and desire for preservation in all human beings develops, according to Cato, into a duty “to preserve oneself in one’s natural constitution.”.
