Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶44–47 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
From “On the Contempt of Death”
Translation by C. D. Yonge (1853)
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶44–47
M. You do not perceive that you are asserting contradictions, for what is a greater contradiction than that that should be not only miserable, but should have any existence at all, which does not exist? When you go out at the Capene gate and see the tombs of the Calatini, the Scipios, Servilii, and Metelli, do you look on them as miserable? A. Because you press me with a word, henceforward I will not say they are miserable absolutely, but miserable on this account, because they have no existence. M. You do not say, then, “M. Crassus is miserable,” but only “Miserable M. Crassus.” A. Exactly so.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶44–47, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/tusculan-disputations/1.44
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesWalking past the tombs of famous Romans, nobody feels the dead inside are suffering. The friend retreats from calling the dead miserable outright to saying they are miserable only because they do not exist, which is a verbal dodge the speaker exposes.
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Judgements and impressions
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