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58 3 Philosophical Life versus Political Life An Impossible Choice for Cicero? Carlos Lévy The ways of life in antiquity have been the subject matter of many studies.1 Some of these studies are focused specifically on the case of Cicero, who is indeed especially interesting since he presents a fine example of the assimilation of philosophical themes into a different society from the one out of which those themes had arisen.We shall not dwell on the works we evoked, but we shall rather question something that seems obvious. Indeed, to one looking back, it seems self-­ evident that Cicero could never have devoted himself to a theoretical life. It is precisely this idea of an absolute impossibility that comes to light in the title of the chapter J.-M. André has devoted to our author: “Cicero and the Drama of the Impossible Retirement.”2 What is the nature of this “impossibility”? The solution does not appear very clearly throughout the works we have read. If one is content with raising the issues of anthropological and sociological Philosophical Life versus Political Life    59 strains, two examples that move in opposite directions spring immediately to mind. First, the example of Lucilius, who though a knight was a poet influenced both by the Stoicism of Panaetius and by the New Academy of Clitomachus. Although this was before Cicero’s time, he had decided to stay away from the cursus honorum and devote himself to literature and to increasing his fortune.3 The second example is Atticus, who chose to lead a life of leisure in conformity both with his material interests and his philosophical ones. Cicero himself, in the Pro Cluentio, will pay a vibrant tribute to the life tranquilla et quieta of the equites (Clu. 153). Our task therefore shall be to understand this “impossibility”by showing how Cicero has continually evolved through the ways of justifying his choice or, more exactly, his absence of choice. A Matter of Voluntas As a starting point, we shall take a sentence from a letter to Atticus, dating from 5 December 61 B.C. The letter is devoted mostly to the deterioration of the relationship between Quintus, Cicero’s brother, and Atticus, with regard to which Cicero expresses his affection for his friend. We are especially interested in the following sentence: “I am thoroughly persuaded of your disinterestedness and magnanimity, and I have never thought that there was any difference between you and me, except our choice of a career. A touch of ambition led me to seek for distinction, while another perfectly laudable motive led you to honorable ease.”4 What does this sentence mean exactly? Let us leave aside the fact that Cicero is in an emotionally difficult situation where he is caught between his family and Atticus. He tends to put himself down and to give emphasis to Atticus’s choice. We should note that the organization of the life of an individual depends on his voluntas, which takes on two forms in the sentence: a passionate form, ambitio, and a reflective form, ratio, which is associated with otium, perhaps alluding thereby to the rational calculation of the drawbacks and advantages of a given situation, which is the basis of Epicurean ethics. In this letter, the duality of will and judgement features in the first line: “He has 60  Carlos Lévy continually changed his mind—varietas voluntatis—and wavered in his opinion and judgement.”5 This duality is taken up again, further in the letter, with regard to Atticus’s decision not to go to Asia: “so the fact that you are not with him cannot be attributed to your quarrel and rupture, but to your choice and plans—voluntate ac iudicio tuo— already fixed.”6 In other words, the choice of life depends on a still-­ mysterious power, voluntas, that can be either in contradiction with reason or in harmony with it. If we look at the only theoretical work written before this letter, the De Inventione, we can see that voluntas is very present in it,7 appearing like an enigma that the orator must decipher in order to perceive the intentions of the accused or of the legislator. If we acknowledge, at least as a hypothesis, this anthropological fact, how then is the Ciceronian choice of life approached and thought through? How is it justified with regard to the poles of either contradiction to or harmony with respect to reason? A Foundational Experience and Cicero...

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