Academica Priora
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~23,800 words · 113 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). Academica Priora. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-priora
- MLACicero. "Academica Priora." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-priora.
- ChicagoCicero. Academica Priora. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-priora.
What it is about
The Latin original of the first edition: the book of it that survives, the 'Lucullus'.
Context and history
Written in 45 BC, this is Cicero's book on whether anything can be known: the defence of the scepticism of the New Academy, the school in which he had been formed. The quarrel is with the Stoics, who held that there are perceptions so clear they cannot deceive, and that the wise man may assent to them with certainty; against this Cicero deploys the arguments of Carneades — dreams, illusions, indistinguishable twins — to conclude that certainty is not to be had, and that what remains is not silence but the probable: one can live and decide by what is plausible without affirming it as certain. Cicero rewrote the whole work within a few weeks, which is why there are two editions, neither preserved complete. It is the principal source for the whole Hellenistic debate on knowledge, and when Augustine set out to fight scepticism, it was against this book that he wrote.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII · XXVIII · XXIX · XXX · XXXI · XXXII · XXXIII · XXXIV · XXXV · XXXVI · XXXVII · XXXVIII · XXXIX · XL · XLI · XLII · XLIII · XLIV · XLV · XLVI · XLVII · XLVIII ----I. Magnum ingenium L. Luculli magnumque optimarum artium studium, tum omnis liberalis et digna homine nobili ab eo percepta doctrina, quibus temporibus florere in foro maxime potuit, caruit omnino rebus urbanis. Vt enim admodum adulescens cum fratre ari pietate et industria praedito paternas inimicitias magna cum gloria est persecutus, in Asiam quaestor profectus, ibi permultos annos admirabili quadam laude prouinciae praefuit; deinde absens factus aedilis, continuo praetor — licebat enim celerius legis praemio — post in Africam, inde ad consulatum, quem ita gessit ut diligentiam admirarentur omnes, ingenium agnoscerent. Post ad Mithridaticum bellum missus a senatu non modo opinionem uicit omnium, quae de uirtute eius erat, sed etiam gloriam superiorum. Idque eo fuit mirabilius, quod ab eo laus imperatoria non admodum exspectabatur, qui adulescentiam in forensi opera, quaesturae diuturnum tempus Murena bellum in Ponto gerente in Asia pace consumpserat. Sed incredibilis quaedam ingeni magnitudo non desiderauit indocilem usus disciplinam. Itaque cum totum iter et nauigationem consumpsisset partim in percontando a peritis, partim in rebus gestis legendis, in Asiam factus imperator uenit, cum esset Roma profectus rei militaris rudis. Habuit enim diuinam quandam memoriam rerum, uerborum maiorem Hortensius, sed quo plus in negotiis gerendis res quam uerba prosunt, hoc erat memoria illa praestantior, quam fuisse in Themistocle, quem facile Graeciae principem ponimus, singularem ferunt, qui quidem etiam pollicenti cuidam se artem ei memoriae, quae tum primum proferebatur, traditurum respondisse dicitur obliuisci se malle discere; credo, quod haerebant