De Divinatione
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Contents |
Books
Cicero: On Old Age On Friendship On Divination
Paperback
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An Introduction to Roman Religion
English translation of La Religion des Romains (ISBN 2200263775). A must for all those who wish to know what the Religio Romana was and how it was practiced.
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Cicero: The life and times of Rome's greatest politician.
Cicero's dialog in two books on the topic of divination, written after his De natura deorum. "The dialogue is represented as taking place between Cicero and his only brother Quintus, at Cicero's country home at Tusculum, about ten miles from Rome." [1]
Until recently, the prevailing view was that expressed by Fowler in his introduction to the Loeb edition of 1923: "[Cicero] became convinced that the commonly accepted belief in divination was a superstition which 'should be torn up by the roots.' He was himself an augur, and in his book On the Republic had written in favour of maintenance of the rites of augury and of auspices. But these practices were engrafted on the Roman constitution and he advocated their observance because of his belief in obedience to law and because, as a member of the aristocratic party, he thought augury and auspices the best means of controlling the excesses of democracy."[1]
This view is most succinctly summed up by Thayer: "Synopsis: He doesn't believe in it."[2]
In order to resolve the apparent conflict that exists between the ideas expressed elsewhere in Cicero's corpus in support of divination and the skeptical view expressed by Marcus in de divinatione, some have proposed a pragmatic cynicism on Cicero's part[3]
while others[4]
have suggested that he experienced a change of belief.
Beard proposes an alternative reading, distinguishing "Marcus", a character in the dialog from "Cicero", the man.[5]
Moreover, de divinatione should be read as a whole, with its balanced structure and its conclusion that specifically refuses to take sides[6]
"'It is characteristic of the Academy [says Marcus Cicero, at the very end of the work] to put forward no conclusions of its own, to approve those which seem most like the truth, to compare arguments, to draw forth all that may be said on behalf of any opinion, and without asserting its own authority to leave the judgement of those listening entirely free."
The Text
- Latin text in The Latin Library
- 1923 English translation by W. A. Falconer from the Loeb Classical Library. (Also, Introduction to this edition by Falconer.)
Sources
Beard, M., 1986. Cicero and Divination: The Formation of a Latin Discourse. The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 76, pp. 33-46 (Retrieve from JSTOR)
Linderski, J., 1982. Cicero and Roman divination. La Parola del Passato 37, 12-38
Scheid, John and Lloyd, Janet (Trans.), 2003. An Introduction to Roman Religion. ISBN 0253216605 English translation of La Religion des Romains (ISBN 2200263775).
Schofield, M., 1986. Cicero for and against divination. The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 76, pp. 47-65
Wardle, D. (ed. & tr.), 2006. On Divination Book 1. Clarendon Ancient History Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xii + 469. ISBN 0199297916 Review by J. Linderski: http://www.classics.ukzn.ac.za/reviews/07-41war.htm Website: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/series/ClarendonAncientHistorySeries/
References
- ↑ 1.1 1.2 Introduction to the Loeb edition by Falconer.
- ↑ http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Divinatione/home.html
- ↑ For "pragmatic cynicism", see e.g. Falconer, supra.
- ↑ E.g. Linderski 1982 cited in Beard.
- ↑ Beard, 1986, page 33, note 2
- ↑ Beard, op. cit. (n. 12, page 35) observes that Cicero repeats this idea in de fato and applies it to both de divinatione and de natura deorum.
