Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶93 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶93

It is true I might expatiate, did the subject require it, on the many and various objects with which the soul will be entertained in those heavenly regions; when I reflect on which, I am apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers who are so struck with admiration at the knowledge of nature as to thank, in an exulting manner, the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy, and to reverence him as a God. For they declare that they have been delivered by his means from the greatest tyrants, a perpetual terror, and a fear that molested them by night and day. What is this dread—this fear? What old woman is there so weak as to fear these things, which you, forsooth, had you not been acquainted with natural philosophy, would stand in awe of? The hallow’d roofs of Acheron, the dread Of Orcus, the pale regions of the dead. And does it become a philosopher to boast that he is not afraid of these things, and that he has discovered them to be false? And from this we may perceive how acute these men were by nature, who, if they had been left without any instruction, would have believed in these things. But now they have certainly made a very fine acquisition in learning that when the day of their death arrives, they will perish entirely. And if that really is the case—for I say nothing either way—what is there agreeable or glorious in it? Not that I see any reason why the opinion of Pythagoras and Plato may not be true. But even although Plato were to have assigned no reason for his opinion (observe how much I esteem the man), the weight of his authority would have borne me down; but he has brought so many reasons that he appears to me to have endeavored to convince others, and certainly to have convinced himself.