Tusculan Disputations

Tusculan Disputations (Tusculānae disputatiōnēs, ‘discussions at Tusculum’), philosophical treatise in five books by Cicero on the conditions for happiness. The work was completed in 44 BC (see CICERO (1) 5) and is addressed to Marcus Brutus. It takes the form of conversations between two characters indicated as M and A.

After an introduction defending the adoption of philosophy as a subject for treatment in Latin literature, Cicero in book 1 deals with the proposition that death is an evil and an impediment to happiness. His answer is that death is either a change of place for the soul or annihilation; in neither case is it an evil; ‘How can what is necessary for all be an evil for one?’ In a famous sentence Cicero says that he would rather be wrong with Plato than right with some other philosophers: errare, mehercule, malo cum Platone …