Тускуланские диспуты Цицерона

Literary work by Cicero

The Tusculanae Disputationes (also Tusculanae Quaestiones; English: Tusculan Disputations) is a series of five books written by Cicero, around 45 BC, attempting to popularise Greek philosophy in Ancient Rome, including Stoicism. It is so called as it was reportedly written at his villa in Tusculum. His daughter had recently died and in mourning Cicero devoted himself to philosophical studies. The Tusculan Disputations consist of five books, each on a particular theme: On the contempt of death; On pain; On grief; On emotional disturbances; and whether Virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life.

In the year 45 BC, when Cicero was around 61 years old, his daughter, Tullia, died following childbirth. Her loss afflicted Cicero to such a degree that he abandoned all public business and left the city retiring to Asterra, which was a country house that he had near Antium. It is largely agreed that Cicero wrote the Tusculan Disputations in the summer and/or autumn of 45 BC. Cicero addresses the Disputationes to his friend Brutus, a fellow politician of note, and later assassin of Julius Caesar. In the first book Cicero sets up the fiction that they are the record of five days of discussions with his friends written after the recent departure of Brutus. Cicero heavily relied on Crantor's "On Grief" (De Luctu, Περὶ Πένθους) in his Tusculan Disputations. Cicero also made great use of it while writing his celebrated Consolatio on the death of his daughter, Tullia. Several extracts from "On Grief" are preserved in Pseudo Plutarch's treatise on Consolation addressed to Apollonius, which has many parallels with Tusculan Disputations.

In the third book, Cicero treats of the best alleviations of sorrow. Cicero's treatment of this is closely parallel to that of pain. People have a false estimate of the causes of grief: deficiencies in wisdom and virtue, which ought to be the objects of the profoundest sorrow, occasioning less regret than is produced by comparatively slight disappointments or losses. Happiness and misery depend on character and are independent of circumstances, and Virtue is the source of all in this earthly life that is worth living for. as well as of the sole mention of cultura animi as an agricultural metaphor for human culture. Cicero also mentions disapprovingly Amafinius, one of the first Latin writers on philosophy in Rome.

The rhetor's theme De contemptu mundi, on the contempt of the world, was taken up by Boethius in the troubled closing phase of Late Antiquity and by Bernard of Cluny in the first half of the 12th century. Thomas Jefferson included the "Tusculan questions", along with Cicero's De Officiis, in his list of recommendations to Robert Skipwith of books for a general personal library.