On the Nature of the Gods. Academics

by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Harris Rackham (Translator)

Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BCE), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era which saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, 58 survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Religion, Theology, Mythology, Nonfiction, History

688 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Born 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Italy
Died 7 December 43 BC (aged 63), Formia, Italy

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

Alternate profiles:
Cicéron
Marco Tullio Cicerone
Cicerone

Note: All editions should have Marcus Tullius Cicero as primary author. Editions with another name on the cover should have that name added as secondary author.

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book Cicero attempts to analyse the nature of the Gods according to other philosophical schools and religious thinking at the time. I am amazed by the currency of his thoughts. And think it's a remarkable work on the intersection of philosophy/ theology. Remarkable by its comprehensive examination: Epicurus, Stoics, natural philosophy all were detailed. He also turned his analysis to the views of Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes and Anaxagoras, who thought all things were planned and achieved through a powerful and intelligence of an infinite mind. He continues through the views of the poets: Orpheus, Musæus, Hesiod, and Homer, through whom Cicero dispels to his own satisfaction that violence and anger were not part of the Gods nature, with only excellence (being achieved through rationality) being part of an immortal and blessed nature. This is a powerful book that will absolutely check your views on such a definitional issue to so many in the 21st Century. My favourite phrase: "for what can we name as being more miserable than folly!"Indeed. Great book! You will like reading if you love philosophy.

[Eleanor Zhang · Rating 4 out of 5]

bee bee boo boo conflagration

[Viktoria Michaelis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accepting something merely because it has always been that way - whether in a religious sense or any other - has always been the easiest thing a person can do. Discussion, on the other hand, is difficult, especially when the discussion takes place between people of different opinions, different beliefs, different cultural backgrounds.

To understand much of the present day arguments about religion it is necessary to go back through time and see how some of these beliefs began, where they have their roots, what makes people follow one specific belief over another. It is necessary to look critically at what is propounded by modern-day religions, and where they stem from, how they came to be in the present form, what appeals to people who follow these religions, this form of faith.

Cicero's book, written in the final years of his life, takes three differing aspects of the subjects 'gods' and 'belief' and allows his characters to explain why they follow a certain train of thought, why their own belief is based within a specific area. His characters discuss three differing schools of thought during the pre-Christian era, thoughts which have influenced us whether we know it or not.

His carefully constructed discussion is a masterpiece of poetic language as much as a revelation about our past. How the philosophical schools of his time came to terms with the idea of a god, or many gods, or even the lack of a supreme being. How daily life was governed by their perceived rule, by their actions or inaction, by the messages they are purported to have passed down to mortal man. On the Nature of the Gods gives us a valuable insight into the thinking of his times and the first constructs which would, in coming centuries, be adapted and forced into the belief in one single god. Coupled with many other writings, both from Cicero and other great thinkers of the past, it casts a light into the depths of a subject few are able to discuss without acrimony and hate, and where few are capable of proving that one system or another is the right path to follow.

[Chiggins1066 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cicero's De Natura Deorum is one of his few attempts at theology--if it can be called that. With the eye of a suspicious stoic, he surveys the many religions and cults of the late republican period. Some wonderful writing here.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cicero examines the existing religious (and philosophical) currents of the day, offering critiques on them and their justifications. Some of his arguments against God are surprisingly fresh, and many of his arguments for the existence of the divine are still used today to justify God.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, most will find I reread many of my favorites. That is the mark of a good book, its rereadable factor!

[Bas · Rating 3 out of 5]

But good men have sometimes success. They have so; but we cannot, with any show of reason, attribute that success to the Gods. Diagoras, who is called the atheist, being at Samothrace, one of his friends showed him several pictures of people who had endured very dangerous storms; "See", says he, "you who deny a providence, how many have been saved by their prayers to the Gods." "Ay", says Diagoras, "I see those who were saved, but where are those painted who were shipwrecked?" At another time, he himself was in a storm, when the sailors, being greatly alarmed, told him they justly deserved that misfortune for admitting him into their ship; when he, pointing to others under the like distress, asked them "if they believed Diagoras was also aboard those ships?" In short, with regard to good or bad fortune, it matters not what you are, or how you have lived. The Gods, like kings, regard not everything.

[Bohdan Pechenyak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two classics by Cicero, delivering the essence of the principal Greek philosophical schools to the Roman audience and the Latin readers of later ages. “De Natura Deorum” (on the nature of gods) expounds the doctrines of Epicureanism and Stoicism, along with the Academic skepticism’s critique of both. “Academics” presents a debate between different generations of Academic philosophers, covering the differences between the Old Academy and the Middle Academy (academic skepticism). Cicero defends skepticism of Philo, Arcesilaus and Carneades against Antiochus, the Academic philosopher who decided to abandon skepticism.

[Mauricio Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose and argumentation by Cicero, which truly sheds a light on the thread that joins Classic Greek thought with an assimilated (afterwards) Judeo-christian cosmology; thus exposing the common line of thought that permeates throughout Western civilization.
It is fascinating and eye-opening how similar is the faith (organized religion), and questioning of said faith, of the Romans compared to present day Christianity cf. atheism, and how the arguments to and fro are basically the same two thousand years later. Amazing.
That without mentioning the window it also opens into the status of biological, astronomical, physical, anatomical knowledge by Cicero's times.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not read this entire book, only 'Book 2' for a book club. Overall, Cicero is weird. Like, really weird. Majority of it was enjoyable, funny, and surprisingly easy to understand (I kinda assumed that this would be some sort of super advanced text that I would struggle to comprehend). Pretty interesting, I would definitely read it again!

[Jake Yaniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fascinating to see how little has changed (not progressed) in the debate between theism and atheism. Epicurus' philosophy is spanked soundly, as it ought to be, but the opposition does little to impress the mind with any sense of certainty concerning the existence of God.

At one laughable moment one of the speakers in this dialogue foreshadows the silliness of Ray Comfort's 'Banana Argument' by suggesting that the fittedness of an ox's neck for the yoke is proof of the divine providence of the gods!

The steam of the book sort of vanishes from sight by the gaps in the original text.