Roman Reflections

Studies in Latin Philosophy

Edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk

Focuses on the specificity of Roman philosophy (often neglected or denigrated vis-à-vis Greek thought)
Takes a historicizing approach to philosophy
Stresses the linguistic and literary manifestations of philosophy

Roman Reflections

Studies in Latin Philosophy

Edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk

Description

When the Romans adopted Greek literary genres, artistic techniques, and iconographies, they did not slavishly imitate their models. Rather, the Romans created vibrant and original literature and art. The same is true for philosophy, though the rich Roman philosophical tradition is still too often treated as a mere footnote to the history of Greek philosophy. This volume aims to reassert the significance of Roman philosophy and to explore the "Romanness" of philosophical writings and practices in the Roman world. The contributors reveal that the Romans, in their creative adaptation of Greek modes of thought, developed sophisticated forms of philosophical discourse shaped by their own history and institutions, concepts and values-and last, but not least, by the Latin language, which nearly all Roman philosophers used to express their ideas.

The thirteen chapters-which are authored by an international group of specialists in ancient philosophy, Latin literature, and Roman social and intellectual history-move from Roman attitudes to and practices of philosophy to the great late Republican writers Cicero and Lucretius, then onwards to the early Empire and the work of Seneca the Younger, and finally to Epictetus, Apuleius, and Augustine. Using a variety of approaches, the essays do not combine into one grand narrative but instead demonstrate the diversity and originality of the Roman philosophical discourse over the centuries.

Roman Reflections

Studies in Latin Philosophy

Edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk

Contents
Contributors
Preface
Introduction
Part I
1. Philosophy and philosophi: From Cicero to Apuleius
Harry Hine
Part II
2. Roman Pythagoras
Katharina Volk
3. Philosophy Is in the Streets
James E. G. Zetzel
4. To See and to Be Seen: On Vision and Perception in Lucretius and Cicero
Tobias Reinhardt
5. Teaching Pericles: Cicero on the Study of Nature
Gretchen Reydams-Schils
Part III
6. Tyrants, Fire, and Dangerous Things Andrew M. Riggsby
7. Precept(or) and Example in Seneca
Matthew Roller
8. True Greatness of Soul in Seneca's De constantia sapientis
Yelena Baraz
9. Minding the Gap: Seneca, the Self, and the Sublime
Gareth D. Williams
10. The Emotional Intelligence of Epicureans: Doctrinalism and Adaptation in Seneca's Epistles
Margaret Graver
Part IV
11. "You're Playing You Now ": Helvidius Priscus as a Stoic Hero
Wolfgang-Rainer Mann
12. Platonizing Latin: Apuleius' Phaedo
Richard Fletcher
13. Why Ancient Skeptics Don't Doubt the Existence of the External World: Augustine and the Beginnings of Modern Skepticism
Katja Maria Vogt
Works Cited

Roman Reflections

Studies in Latin Philosophy

Edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk

Author Information

Edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk

Gareth D. Williams is Professor of Classics at Columbia University and a specialist in Latin literature of the early empire.

Katharina Volk is Professor of Classics at Columbia University and a specialist in Latin literature and Roman culture.

Contributors:

Yelena Baraz is Assistant Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She has a written a book on the political and cultural dimensions of Cicero's philosophical works and is currently working on a book about the Roman concept of pride.

Richard Fletcher is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at Ohio State University. He is the author of Apuleius' Platonism: The Impersonation of Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Margaret Graver is Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College. In addition to her earlier work on Stoic moral psychology (Cicero on the Emotions, 2002; Stoicism and Emotion, 2007), she has recently produced (with A. A. Long) a complete annotated translation of Seneca's Letters on Ethics. She is currently working on a monograph on Cicero's reception of Stoic ethics.

Harry Hine is Emeritus Professor in the School of Classics at the University of St Andrews. He has edited Seneca's Natural Questions, and has written on Seneca and on Latin technical and scientific literature. He is currently working on the development of the language and style
of Latin prose in the early Empire.

Wolfgang-Rainer Mann is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the author of The Discovery of Things: Aristotle's Categories and Their Context (Princeton, 2000); and he is currently working on a book on dialectic and eristic in Plato's Dialogues.

Tobias Reinhardt is Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford University. He has published on Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian among others and is currently working on a commentary and a critical edition of Cicero's Academica.

Matthew Roller is Professor of Classics at Johns Hopkins University. He has published books and articles on the politics and literature of early imperial Rome, on aspects of Roman dining, and on Roman history and historiography. He is currently completing a monograph on exemplarity in the Roman world.

Gretchen Reydams-Schils is Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and holds concurrent appointments in Philosophy and Theology. She specializes in the traditions of Stoicism and Platonism, and is currently working on a monograph about Calcidius' fourth-century Latin commentary on Plato's Timaeus.

Andrew M. Riggsby is Professor of Classics and of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. His past work has treated the cultural history of Roman political institutions. His current research is focused on the cognitive and social contexts of Roman information technologies.

Katja Maria Vogt is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She is the author of numerous articles and has published monographs on Pyrrhonian skepticism, Stoic cosmopolitanism, and the Socratic tradition in ancient epistemology. She is currently working on a book project entitled Desiring the Good, and preparing a Greek-English edition of Diogenes Laertius' report on Pyrrhonism.

Katharina Volk is Professor of Classics at Columbia University. She has published monographs on Latin didactic poetry, Manilius, and Ovid and is currently working on a book on the intellectual history of the late Republic.

Gareth Williams is Professor of Classics at Columbia University and has published mostly in the areas of Augustan poetry and Senecan philosophical prose.

James E. G. Zetzel is Anthon Professor of Latin at Columbia University. His scholarly interests include Cicero, the history of ancient scholarship, and the transmission of texts.