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Extracted from H. Baltussen (ed) Greek and Roman Consolations. Eight Studies of a Tradition and its Afterlife (Swansea 2013) 67–92 [uncorrected proofs]

3 CICERO’S  CONSOLATIO AD SE : CHARAC CHARACTER, TER, PURPOSE AND IMPACT OF A CURIOUS TREATISE *  Han Baltussen  In March 45 BC  Cicero made a remarkable claim in a letter to his friend  Atticus not long after the tragic death of his daughter Tullia, informing  him that he had done something unprecedented, that is, write a consolation to himself (  Att. 12.14.3): ‘I will send you the piece as soon as the copyists  Quem librum  librum  have finished it. I can assure you there is no consolation like it’ (  Quem ad te mittam, si descripserint descripserint librarii .  tibi adfirmo nullam consolationem esse talem  ).1 nullam...consolationem solationem talem ? And can we interpret such  What did he mean by nullam...con a claim, when we have very limited access to the content of a work  surviving only in fragments? 2 In this chapter I will revisit the excellent but  much neglected analysis of the fragments by the Polish scholar Kumaniecki (1968) to raise the profile of the  Consolatio  and give it a meaningful place  within Cicero’s response to his loss. I will argue that we may be able to answer these questions by identifying the stages of Cicero’s grief and correlating them to the relevant writings. An improved insight into the correlation between Cicero’s grief and how he expressed himself about it,  will, I believe, enhance our understanding of the claim he makes about the Consolatio and its possible effect on recovery. His own offhand evaluation of the therapeutic value of writing – a standard element of modern grief  management – is a signal that the ancient perspective has a different focus from ours. I will first give a summary of our knowledge of the text and the reconstruction reconstruct ion by Kumaniecki (sections 1–2) on the content and structure of the Consolatio. Here I will emphasise the importance of chronology of the main sources for Cicero’s grief, of which there are three: the letters, the Consolatio  and the  Tusculan Disputations  3   3 (hereafter  Tusc. ).  ). His letters from 48–44 BC  give us very regular updates on the progression of his mental state and moods in his correspondence with his friend Atticus (and a few  others). They will be used to contextualise the  Consolatio  (section 3). The letters and the fragments have been undeservedly overshadowed by the more easily accessible philosophical discussion of emotions in  Tusc.  I do

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Han Baltussen  not dispute the importance of   Tusc.   for the history of philosophy or Cice Ci cero ro’s ’s th thou ough ght, t, bu butt ma main inta tain in th that at th thee wo work rk do does es no nott in info form rm us sufficiently about Cicero’s personal  reaction to  grief, but rather about his considered  views about  grief.   grief. Another question to reflect on is whether Cicero’s use of the Greek and Roman consolatory traditions influenced his claim that there is   nullam...talem   (and (and did he mea mean n unp unpara aralle lleled led,, unequalled or both?). I will conclude (section 4) that the remarkable claim Cicero makes about the work should not solely be taken as hyperbole, but  as the statement of someone regaining his confidence in the face of  adversity and attempting to outdo the traditional grief responses in Greek  and Roman writings up to his day. What I hope will emerge from my  analysis is a better understanding understanding of the efficacy of (consolatory) writing for a man mustering all his intellectual and emotional powers in order to survive a storm of personal and political adversity. 1. Cicero’s Consolatio ad se : status quaestionis  The reconstructio reconstruction n of the   Consolatio   was was gi give ven n ne new w im impe petu tuss wh when en Kumaniec Kuma niecki ki gave a critical assessment of the flaws of earlier reconstructions reconstructions and provided a plausible argument for the structure and content of the  work. Kumaniecki’s analysis has remained very much underused in recent  research.3 His analysis and reconstruction are valuable, but it should be noted that his objective was mostly literary and polemical: to refute previous (flawed) reconstructions of the fragmented text and to reassess the evidence as he knew it. My analysis will extend Kumaniecki’s work by  placing the  Consolatio in its intellectual and social context and by assessing  Cicero’s consolatory strategy with the help of some modern insights. I believe that the role the  Consolatio played for Cicero’s recovery may have been more significant than has been acknowledged. Much of the scholarly attention has understandably gone to Cicero’s philosophical discussions of emotions in the  Tusc.  There he tries to clarify  emotions within the framework of the Greek philosophical tradition (grief  is mostly treated in book 3). The problem with the work is that it reveals his personal experience of grief only sparingly, in some references to his Tusc. ) earlier  Consolatio.4 The philosophica philosophicall account written written from hindsight hindsight ( Tusc.  )  will not allow us to grasp fully the way in which Cicero managed to cope  with his grief. 5 If we focus on the  Tusc.   we are reading Cicero’s grief  backwards . In order to interpret Cicero’s grief we should keep to the chronology of his writing activity.  The natural order of the stages of his grief is reflected in his writing  chronologically (with some overlap): the letters, the  Consolatio,  Tusculan   Disputations . In focussing on the first and second stage we maintain the

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  close relation between the experience and the way in which it was expressed. In this way we view grief first and foremost as an emotional problem (not just a literary or philosophical one), which in Cicero’s case  was dealt with in different ‘registers’, while he was trying to cope with multiple experiences of loss.6 To put it in another way, this approach more fully appreciates that the most relevant texts chart the stages of his bereavement.7  The  Consolatio, I suggest, marks a halfway house between unresolved and resolved grief.8 This point about grief stages in the Ciceronian sources becomes important, if we want to reach a more realistic interpretation of his bereavement  process .9  Asking about the nature and evolution of Cicero’s grief therefore requires analyzing its progression and how this unfolded in his writings. Let us briefly consider the nature of the sources before we look at the content of his  Consolatio ad se   (section 2). To have access to someone’s personal as well as philosophical views is quite special in the study of  ancient authors. 10  Their different purpose and context should make us sensitive to the author’s self-presentation. The letters assist in contextualising  Cicero’s mood, political relevance, and priorities of the moment. His philosophical reflections in  Tusc., written while in a more balanced state of  mind, are not merely produced for ‘self-centered grief-management’ (Gildenhard 2007, 69), but are part of a broader strategy, so they do not  apply exclusively to his personal situation. 11 It is also of interest how Cicero himself refers to his  Consolatio. His comments raise questions about format and genre. In some places he refers to the work as ‘consolation’ ( Tusc.   3.76; Att . 12.14.3) or a ‘book on diminishing mourning’ (  Att . 12.20, librum de luctu diminuendo ), elsewhere he calls it ‘written work’ (   per litteras , Att . 12.14.3).12 Lössl points out that   Augustine thought Cicero’s work was little more than ‘a speech’, which emphasises its rhetorical nature. 13 The various descriptions suggest that its form cannot easily resolve questions about content. 14 Kumaniecki’s useful reconstructive work on the  Consolatio ad se  has given us a credible foundation for the text and arrangement of the fragments. Kumaniecki also managed to eliminate certain misunderstandings from previous studies.15 In particular he rejects the idea that the important  comment in Cicero on his approach in the  Consolatio ( Crantorem sequor , fr. 7 Mueller = fr. 4 Vitelli) should be read as indicating that he  slavishly  followed Crantor in his consolation. 16 Crantor did write a consolation, regarded as the first philosophical consolation, but it is more likely that  this work was a general guide for Cicero’s approach, not a template to be copied.17  Another reason to believe Cicero did not just rely on Crantor is the fact that he mentioned many other authors, some more recent than

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Han Baltussen  Crantor. In combination with Ps. Plutarch’s  Consolatio ad Apollonium  (itself  supposed to reproduce parts of Crantor’s work), 18 this led to misguided notions about Cicero’s consolation. The preferable approach, Kumaniecki argues correctly, should include the wider tradition, which is why we need to revisit both the internal and external evidence.  The Consolatio  was written in March, 45  BC , most likely between March 6 and 22.19 As noted, there are some references to his  Consolatio in his Tusc.,  written after his acute grief had subsided and he had started a more ambitious programme to create a body of philosophical works in Latin. From hindsight this activity can be viewed as a welcome distraction as well as a good way to focus his energy and skills to cope with the collapse of his political and private life. 20  To a modern reader at least his letters suggest  how both philosophical ideas  and   writing are the main therapeutic tools. Cicero himself only names the former, when he writes, some eighteen months after the event: ‘For my part, my endurance of this and all other evils that can befall a human being, makes me feel profoundly grateful to philosophy which not only distracts my thoughts from anxiety, but also arms me against all the slings and arrows of fortune’ (  Fam.  12.23.4, Oct. 44  BC ).21 Clearly he has regained his faith in philosophy, while he rejected philosophical advice early on in his grief. Kumaniecki revises the common view about the chronology of the  work’s genesis (1968, 29). When Cicero writes to Atticus on March 7 ‘I will send you a copy as soon as the clerks have made a fresh version’ (  Att . 12.14.3), we might think he finished the work in full draft, as Philippson maintained. However, Cicero asked Atticus for further materials on March 15 (  Att.  12.20.2), March 18 (12.22.2) and March 20 (12.24.2). 22 So Kumaniecki is probably right to suggest March 11 as a more likely date for the preliminary draft completed (  Att.  12. 18. 1), and a date of March 20, or shortly after, for the final version (  Att. 12. 24).23 2. Structure of the work   To recapture the structure of the work in greater detail is more problematic, but the main outline can be established and discrepancies with Vitelli’s edition are not substantial.24 Cicero can be seen to follow some traditional arguments and familiar sources. A more complete version of Cicero’s Consolatio  would no doubt have given us greater insight into the Greek  tradition which he was familiar with, given his claim that he had read everything he could find. He also soon developed an interest in Latinizing  the rich set of stock arguments (so-called  solacia  ). Cicero mentions other philosophers, including Poseidonius, the polymath of the late second century  BC. Not all sources would have counted as consolations in the

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  strictest sense (see Scourfield’s chapter in this volume). Kumaniecki plausibly surmises that the whole work could not have been very long, perhaps 20–40 pages.25 He distinguishes three broader sections. It will be  worthwhile to highlight his main arguments, because the article is rather dense and not easily available, and because the details will show we know  more than is often assumed. For part 1, the  praefatio, he considers several fragments (Lactantius, ps. Plut., Crantor, Cicero). In what is a likely opening section of the  Consolatio ( Inst . III.14, 20 = fr. 2 V.; paraphrased at III.18,18 = fr. 1 V.) the Christian  writer Lactantius is seen to accuse Cicero of a contradiction, but  Kumaniecki is surely right to argue that this is a misreading of the passage and context. 26 Cicero’s comment expresses a general feature of human beings (indicated by the modest plural  nos  ), when he says that philosophy  is magistra vitae  (III.14, 6), while all of us are maintaining erroneous thinking, miserably ignorant of the truth ( nescio qui nos teneat error ac miserabilis ignoratio veri  ). His ensuing rhetorical question might suggest he is presenting  Cicero’s opinion: ‘What role does Philosophy have as a teacher or what  did she teach you as life-giver, when you suffer from a deplorable ignorance?’ Kumaniecki argues that this is not necessarily Cicero’s own  view. In his polemic Lactantius has transferred the general point ( nos  ) to Cicero himself (repeated at III. 18, 18). We should ask how this kind of  comment would function at the start of the  Consolatio: one possible reading, based on  Tusc . 3.1–6, sees philosophy or reason as medicine for the mind (3.6, est profecto animi medicina philosophia  ). Cicero may also be alluding to the Stoic view on how humans have difficulty living ‘in accordance with nature’, because we are given only ‘small sparks’ of spiritual insight (  parvos  igniculos  ) which are liable to quick decay as a result of poor beliefs ( malae  opiniones  ).27 Consequently we are deprived of ‘nature’s light’ to live the right  life. Yet Cicero also believes we humans possess seeds of virtues ( semina  virtutum  ), but erroneous beliefs occur from birth – a point reminiscent of  the fragment under discussion. Cicero almost seems to suggest that babies ingest these beliefs with the mother’s milk. 28  A second passage for this part expresses the notion that humans are born in order to make up for mistakes in a previous life. This idea may well come from Crantor’s  Περὶ πένθους, as is suggested by the surviving passage in ps.Plutarch 115b with reference to ‘many wise men’, possibly Orphic philosophers.29  Three further passages may be allocated to this part of the work. The first concerns the short phrase:  Crantorem sequor .30  As discussed earlier, Kumaniecki rightly proposes that the statement should not be read as saying that Cicero’s translations of Greek materials were very close to the

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Han Baltussen  original (suggested, some thought, by Pliny’s comment preceding that on Crantor,  NH  22  transcriptum ad verbum  ). We know that Cicero did not do literal translations. 31  Jerome’s comment that Cicero has simply followed Crantor’s work (  Ep. 60.5.2 = fr. 4a* V.) repeats the mistake. Jerome’s access to Crantor’s work is far from certain. What he does provide, by  showing off his knowledge of Cicero, is the names of many more authors, all probably found in Cicero’s work. Some of these lived after Crantor,  which also proves that Cicero’s knowledge is based on his broader reading  of these authors (e.g. Clitomachus, Posidonius), not on Crantor alone. 32  These considerations suggest that Cicero most likely followed Crantor in his philosophical position on emotion, that is, he did not support the Stoic position of   ἀπάθεια, but that of (Peripatetic)   µετριοπάθεια. This doctrine allowed humans (including philosophers) to give in to emotion, so long as it was done with some measure (e.g. ps.Plut. 102d). Cicero’s clearest expression of this view can be found at  Tusc. 3. 12, which translates Crantor’s comments on ‘impassivity’ (i.e. not being affected) and how he prefers to experience ‘medical intervention’: I do not wish to be ill. But if I am, and if some part of my body is to be cut  open or even amputated, let me feel it. This absence of pain comes at a high price: it means being numb in body, and in mind barely human. 33

 This stance of   µετριοπάθεια  is also clear from the letter of March 24 (  Att . 12.28  maerorem minui, dolorem nec potui, nec, si possem, vellem  ), and does not  dismiss this attitude of Crantor even in his  Tusc.  indiscriminately (3.13  nec  absurde Crantor ille  ), where he does speak from the Stoic perspective of  apatheia  (extirpation of emotion). A further passage at  Tusc. 4.63 shows how  Cicero admits to ignoring Stoic advice to let the most acute grief  pass before he tries to deal with it. We know this was Chrysippus’ recommendation ( quoque vetat Chrysippus  ), who used a well-known medical analogy between mind and body to support the injunction not to treat the ‘wound’ too early. Lactantius  Inst . III.28, 9 (= fr. 13 M. = fr. 3a V.) is also probably part of the  praefatio, a passage in which Cicero expresses defeat  against fate, which he claims to have fought successfully in the past. 34  Thus Kumaniecki’s reconstruction of the introductory parts shows that  the work contained (i) a personal admission that fate has now beaten him (fr. 13), (ii) his failed search for consolation in philosophy (fr. 1) and admission that nothing helps (  Att . 12.14.3; 12.18.1), (iii) his decision to  write a consolation to himself as a form of ‘soul-care’ (psycho-therapy), ignoring Stoic advice to wait ( Tusc. 4.63; cf. reply to Sulpicius below, Section 3), thus also shifting from the Stoic   apatheia   to the more moderate µετριοπάθεια  as found in Crantor (fr. 7). The highly personal tone and the

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  claim that he was doing something unusual, possibly unique, is supported by the fragments and his awareness of traditional (literary) means to deal  with grief and mourning, as some of the parallels have already shown.  The reconstruction of parts 2 and 3 is complicated by the more problematic state of the evidence, in which passages contain relevant  material, but without explicitly attributing it to the   Consolatio. Several passages reveal that Cicero gave elaborate attention to the misery of human fate ( Tusc. 1.75, 83; Lactantius Inst. III.19,13; Augustine De Civ. Dei XIX 4, 2).  This theme can be paralleled in the pseudo-Platonic  Axiochus   366d–68e, but is absent in some of the more well-known consolations (Plutarch, Seneca, ps.Plutarch). However, when it does occur, it tends to be located in an earlier part. His treatment of this theme was probably quite eloquent, as the passages in  Tusc.  and Augustine indicate  Why should I now deplore human life?... I did this in the book, in which I have consoled myself to the best of my ability ( quid ego nunc lugeam vitam  hominum? vere et iure possum...fecimus hoc in eo libro, in quo nosmet ipsos, quantum   potuimus, consolati sumus  ). [ Tusc. 1.83 = fr. 6 V.]35 For what flood of eloquence can suffice to explain the miseries of this life? Did not Cicero lament in his  Consolation   concerning the death of his daughter as much as he could, but how much was his effort going to achieve? ( quis enim sufficit quantovis eloquentiae flumine vitae huius miserias explicare?   Quam lamentatus est Cicero in Consolatione de morte filiae, sicut potuit, sed quantum  est, quod potuit?  [  De Civ. Dei  XIX 4, 1 = fr. 6a V.]

It is likely that this traditional argument of the misery of human life was followed by that of premature death. 36 In this line of thinking death is presented as bringing release from our mortal existence, which makes it a good thing. Kumaniecki proposes to add the first half of fr. 15 M. (Cicero  De div . II.22) to this context; in this passage Cicero refers to his  Consolatio and a set of examples he adduced there about the terrible death of famous individuals (e.g., Priam of Troy). This last point presumably intends to show that the individuals he chose (Crassus, Pompey and Caesar) would have preferred to die earlier than they did. In the  Consolatio Caesar could of  course not be mentioned, as he was still alive at the time of writing. The most probable inference is that Cicero would have wanted a premature death for himself, so that it could be a happy one. To go at the height of  his power and success would have given him fame and respect, while avoiding the misery of losing his daughter. 37  The middle part of the  Consolatio  is the hardest to recover. Possibly  fr. 14 M. (= fr. 16 V.) was part of this section, the gist of which can be retrieved on the basis of the important passage in  Tusc . 3.76. Here Cicero

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Han Baltussen  outlines the tasks of consolers and refers to his  Consolatio; after enumerating  the ‘comforter’s responsibilities’ (four approaches ranging from removing  to restraining grief) and giving each school connected to them, he states: Finally, there are those who bring together all these types of consolation, since different methods work for different people. In my   Consolation , for instance, I combined virtually all these methods into one single act of  consolation ( ut fere nos in Consolatione omnia in consolationem unam coniecimus  ). For my mind was swollen ( erat in tumore animus  ) and I was trying out every  remedy I could. (transl. Graver 2002a, 33–4, slightly modified)

In this passage Cicero clearly acknowledges different  types  of grief and thus the need for variety  in treatment (similar comment in ps.Plut. 102b quoting  Euripides fr. 492 Nauck); moreover, it strongly suggests that his  Consolatio incorporated most (  fere...omnia  ) of the known tropes or ‘commonplaces’ –  a method also found in other authors. His own motivation is that he tried everything and anything in view of his miserable mental state. It is unclear  what the success of this strategy was, but in at least one of his letters he suggests there was some effect (  Att . 12.28; March 24, 45 BC ): ‘For the consolation I have sought in writing, I am not discontented with my  measure of success ( quantum profecerim  ). It has made me show my grief less; but the grief itself I could not lessen, nor would I, if I could’. 38 It is clear that he is talking about social expectations, while still holding on to his grief (more on this in section 3). A cynical reading would be to say that the effect is limited to establishing a socially acceptable presentation, not to reducing grief. Finally, the second part of fr. 15 M. stands in close connection to the Chrysippean view that grief is based on a misguided belief that something  bad has happened, that is, emotion is defined as the result of rational judgment. It emphasises the point that men should not give in to sadness and tears. Cicero adduces several famous Romans who bore their sorrow  bravely (cf. Jerome Ep. 60, 5); such exempla are also part of his correspondence  with Atticus (see n. 38). Cicero was clearly not capable of this kind of control at the time, reminds his readers of Tusculans implicitly of this difficulty (3.79), but has nonetheless by this time accepted Chrysippus’ position. For part 3 Kumaniecki uses materials found in fragments 10–12 M. Lactantius Inst.  III.19,3 ff.39 (fr. 10 M. = fr. 22 V.) relates the view that the human soul is made of the fifth element as was postulated by Aristotle,  which, unlike the other four elements, is of divine origin and hence immortal.40  The arguments used here show a close resemblance to those in Plato’s Phaedo : they recount the rewards and punishments for good and bad souls respectively (cf.  Phd . 107d; 113b). This parallelism also supports the assumption that an account of the afterlife followed the argument on

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  the soul’s immortality (cf. also  Tusc.  1.71–2), i.e. F 12 should follow fr. 10; on the other hand, fr. 11 should probably (  pace  Kumaniecki) go last in this section (Lactantius  Inst . I.15.16 = fr. 23 V.). It contains the notion of  humans becoming divine after death (daughter of Kadmos, Hercules, Castor and Pollux) and the claim that Tullia deserves the same reward:  When truly, he says, we see that several men and women are among the gods... I shall make you the best and most learned of all [women], placed in the company of the approving immortal gods and shall consecrate you in the opinion of all mortals ( Cum vero, inquit, et mares et feminas complures ex hominibus  in deorum numero esse videamus. [...] quod quidem faciam teque omnium optimam  doctissimam 41 adprobantibus deis immortalibus in eorum coetu locatam ad opinionem  omnium mortalium consecrabo .)

No doubt several  exempla   of immortalised men and women preceded this passage. His scientific argument about the non-physical nature of the fifth element is thus followed by a non-scientific, traditional argument, such as the one he recounts in  Tusc . 1.27–8, where the belief in the immortality of  good humans is claimed as an ancient view ( illud erat insitum priscis  ). Here too he gives examples, identical to those in the  Consolatio (Hercules, Castor and Pollux). The evidence for his motive to offer Tulia this reward must lie in the claim that she is ‘the best and most learned of all [women]’ ( teque omnium  optimam doctissimamque  ). The Platonic perspective clearly offers justification for the idea that the ‘best and most learned’ deserve an immortal fate after death ( Phd. 107d; 108a, c), but it is possibly further supported by  Hortensius  fr. 97, where Cicero stated that those who ‘live a life of philosophy’ have the greatest chance of reaching the heavens ( in philosophia viventibus magna  spes est ...hoc ibis faciliorem ascensum et reditum in caelum fore  ). In sum, we end up with the following components for the  Consolatio.42 Part 1 ( praefatio)  – Cicero declares himself beaten, laments that human fate is miserable, and hence early death not an evil  – he follows Crantor’s approach ( Crantorem sequor  ) and he looks for consolation in previous, mostly philosophical writings (not religion), yet is unable to control his grief; human nature is weak and the road to the truth difficult   – he decides to do   what no one has done : write a work to   console himself    (a medicine for his sick soul, cf.  Tusc.  3. 1–5)  – he admits that he has ignored advice of the Stoic Chrysippus to wait for the first phase to pass, but he says he needs ‘medicine’  now  Part 2  – the four tasks of the consoler listed  – the many methods of consoling (known types)  – general thoughts on human fate as miserable

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Han Baltussen  Part 3  – immortality of the soul (much like Plato in the  Phaedo ) and death as a release of earthly toils  – Tullia declared worthy of apotheosis adprobantibus deis immortalibus  (cf. Pliny  pref. NH  22, see Scourfield, this volume, p. 22, n. 10)

In outline, then, we can infer that five major themes were incorporated into the   Consolatio: (i) the importance of philosophy, (ii) the value of  exempla , (iii) the awareness of different arguments, (iv) the general reflection on the human condition, and (v) belief in the immortality of the soul and deification of Tullia. The exact sequence of these parts cannot be recovered with certainty on the basis of the extant evidence. Kumaniecki’s reconstruction is highly plausible, yet still speculative in parts. In his analysis Kumaniecki refrained from commenting in detail on Cicero’s decision to address  himself   (his p. 43) or what the end product was supposed to represent, so I will add one point on the work’s purpose. I want to suggest that, by ending with an  apotheosis , the Consolatio seems to have transformed into an unusual means to memorialise Tullia. The initial plan to commemorate Tullia was strongly expressed in a letter of March 11, 45  BC  (  Att . 12.18.1):43 I shall use all the opportunities of this enlightened age to consecrate her memory by every kind of memorial borrowed from the genius of all the masters, Greek and Latin. Perhaps I will only gall my wound ( quae res forsitan  sit refricatura vulnus meum  ): but I consider myself pledged by a kind of vow or promise [...] while I was engaged on the essay I mentioned before, I was, to dolores  ). some extent fostering my grief   fovebam ( 

 This was to lead to a shrine, but it was never built. However, the quoted passage leaves open the possibility for another form of commemoration: the eulogy can function as a  memorial in words .44  The use of traditional arguments here can be confirmed on the basis of  familiar sources (e.g.,  ad Apollonium ,  Axiochus  ). The incomplete text of  Cicero’s Consolatio only gives us a glimpse of the rich set of stock arguments since Crantor. Cicero’s philosophical allegiance in these matters emerges slowly from the later parts of the  Consolatio as well as from certain passages in his philosophical works. Crudely put, he adheres to a Platonist stance (indicated by the immortal soul, implanted on a star as a form of apotheosis) 45 combined with certain Stoic views when limiting the expression of emotion. 46 3. Interpreting Cicero’s grief  My summary of Kumaniecki’s reconstruction of the main parts of the Consolatio has given us some idea of the content and structure of the work. But questions remain as to how this work was in any way effective for the

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  resolution of Cicero’s grief. The motivation for, and efficacy of, this work  is never really put to the test, since the work is often either declared lost or considered insufficient evidence. We now know that the letters and fragments offer significant pieces of information. In this section I propose to show how a chronological reading of the evidence will lead to the best understanding of these written records of  Cicero’s grief. It is here that some insights of recent grief analyses and practices are used as tools for clarification and plausible speculation. The social sciences have made great inroads into clarifying causes and symptoms of grief since 1944 and, as we shall see, their new insights can assist our understanding of responses to emotions.  The difference between Cicero’s self-evaluation and the modern perspective is instructive here. The evidence seems to tell us that Cicero saw his writing activities not as helpful in the resolution of his grief (  Att. 12.16; Att. 12.26; discussed below). In modern practices grief counsellors have for some time been using reading and writing as tools for recovery  (e.g., bibliotherapy). 47 Emotions are certainly culturally embedded, in particular in the way in which they are valued and expressed, but the process of recovery from grief seems broadly similar across cultures: the stages of denial, anger, negotiation and acceptance can be identified in many accounts of grief. 48 One suspects therefore that social codes and expectations about grief management play a role in Cicero’s selfassessment, that is, his interpretation of this process depends on his addressees or potential audience (in his case, social peer pressure). Cicero’s response is that of an intellectual, seeking solace in a familiar activity, reading and writing, which acts as a ‘comfort zone’ and provides shelter and a kind of empowerment to deal with the emotional turmoil brought on by such an event. 49 But it was not an average response.  We may clarify his grief in a way that allows us to extend Cicero’s own interpretation of the process by paying attention to the stages or phases reflected in his writings. In modern approaches grief is seen as a process;  which is why it makes sense to study Cicero’s grief in its progression . Modern clinical research indicates that the earliest stages of grief include denial and difficulty with ‘letting go’ as significant features of mourning; moreover, the loss of a child is (still) considered the most traumatic of all. 50  We can trace the deterioration of Cicero’s mental stability as soon as Caesar rose to power, but especially from 49 BC  onwards. Caesar’s politics went against  Cicero’s Republican instincts and his resistance brought him little gain and much grief (political isolation, separation from his family and friends). 51 In the first stage of his grief (‘acute grief’) which starts with the death of  his daughter in early Feb. 45 BC, Cicero is seen to slip into depression.

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Han Baltussen  But the symptoms were already there in the preceding years: apathy, tears (  Fam.  14.1.1; Att . 12.15), sleeplessness, irritability, tendency to exaggerate (3.8.2), sense of failure (3.15.8), even suicidal moodiness (letters to his brother Quintus,  ad Quint.  1.4; cf. 1.3). His precarious situation had now  gone from bad to worse. Tullia’s death after giving birth to her second child broke Cicero.52 He declares himself inconsolable and he is not afraid to say so (  Att . 12.14.3 omnem consolationem vincit dolor ; 12.18.1 nunc omnia respuo nec quicquam habeo tolerabilius quam solitudinem  ). The loss of his political standing, the subsequent divorce from his wife and death of his daughter seem to justify his remark that ‘my grief is exceptional’. 53 Moreover, the silence in the correspondence until March 6, 45 BC  is a telling one.54 For the first six weeks he sees no way out of his grief. As we saw, his first report reveals how he has read everything he could get his hands on, again a response typical for Cicero the intellectual – an intensified form of the common reaction to find help, guidance or relief anywhere (  Att. 12.14.3): Every word that has been written by anyone on the subject of assuaging  grief ( de maerore minuendo ) I read at your house. But my sorrow is beyond any  consolation. Why, I have done what no one has done before, tried to console myself by writing a book (  per litteras  ).

Cicero’s reaction represents a typical primary response: when unexpectedly  confronted with the end of human life, we are often at a loss for words. Familiar primary responses are lament, isolation and sadness. The intellectual and writer will seek solace and comfort in words, which can assist in defusing the sense of powerlessness. 55 But Cicero’s preoccupation, or rather obsessive interest, in finding a piece of land on which to build a monument for Tullia suggests to me that the first and most extreme outlet  of his grief was indeed an overwhelming and intolerable experience of loss, in which the range of psychological and physical states include ‘sadness, loss of interest, anxiety, anger, questions about self-worth, altered states of appetite, sleep disturbance, agitated or depressed motor functions, and  withdrawal’. 56 In modern research this is called ‘maladaptation to loss’ (Jacobs 1995). Clearly Cicero’s writing reveals a number of these symptoms including frequent references to distress, grief and the need for, or lack of, consolation.  The second stage of bereavement is when he searches for a way to deal  with his grief and takes up writing a  Consolatio ad se , a ‘self-consolation’, in  which he extols his beloved daughter, to whom in one letter to his wife he referred as lux nostra  (  Fam . 14.5). It is possible that this new approach came about after he had to abandon the plan to build a monument about which he continuously besieged Atticus, who seems to have played along 

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  reluctantly until the idea was quietly dropped. 57 His denial that there is any   value to writing about his grief (which he did, first in letters, then also in the consolation) is somewhat surprising, seeing how much time he is spending on doing just that. As I indicated earlier, it may in part be caused by the social pressures of his peer group: would it not make sense to try and convince Atticus that he realizes he should not be wasting his time or admit  that writing in this manner could be of any help? In one letter to Atticus Cicero confesses that he is writing all day, but fails to see that it makes a difference (  Att . 12.16; March 10, 45  BC ): ‘Writing and reading do not soften my feelings, they only disturb them’ ( me scriptio et litterae non leniunt, sed  obturbant  ).58  And in similar vein he writes (  Att . 12.18) ‘while I was engaged on the essay mentioned before I was to some extent fostering my grief    fovebam dolores  )’ (March 11, 45 BC ). In yet another letter we get a sense of  (  the social (peer) pressure Cicero must have felt:  You exhort me and say others want me to hide the depth of my grief  ( ut dissimulem me tam graviter dolere  ). Can I do so better than by spending whole days in writing? Though I do it, not to hide, but rather to soften and to heal my feelings, still, if I do myself little good, I certainly keep up appearances. (  Att. 12.20; March 15)

Our best example to illustrate that his behaviour during his bereavement  is far from standard and outside of what was expected of him is a letter from Servius Sulpicius, then governor in Greece (  Fam . 4.5; reply in 4.6)  who wrote a consolatory letter to Cicero. Cicero’s grief tells us much about  aristocratic expectations in this situation, but even more so given the difficult times they lived in. Servius’ letter, probably the most famous letter of consolation to survive from Antiquity, seems to invoke the old Roman  virtues (see below), and strikes us as a rather harsh advisor. His opening  lines, though, show some empathy, expressing his sadness experienced upon hearing the news (4.5.1,  graviter molesteque tuli, communemque calamitatem  existimavi  ). He also emphasises that he would have wanted to be with Cicero in person, if he could have ( meum dolorem tibi declarassem  ). But he goes on to justify his letter by imagining that Cicero will be probably so ‘blinded by grief’ that he will not have the appropriate thoughts that have occurred to Sulpicius.59  The implication is that Sulpicius’ greater distance from the event and from the deceased helps him to play the role of the stern consoler, even if he is saddened by Tullia’s death. Sulpicius’ comments reveal how he lets public and political considerations prevail over personal agony. They contain some of the tried-and-tested consolatory tropes familiar from other texts. Thus he speaks of public and private interests (‘Why is it that a   private grief    should agitate you so deeply?...( we lost) country, honour, rank, every political distinction ’), self-control

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Han Baltussen  (we are all mortal), and the notion of heal thyself (‘ do not forget  that you are Cicero, ...and do not imitate bad physicians, who in the diseases of others profess to understand the art of healing, but are unable to prescribe for themselves’). His most important comment conveys the message ‘count  your blessings’:  You, too, withdraw soul and thought from such things, and rather  remember  ...that she lived as long as life had anything to give her; that her life outlasted that of the Republic; that she lived  to see you  – her own father –  prætor, consul, and augur ; that she  married young men of the highest rank ; that she had  enjoyed  nearly every possible blessing ; that,  when the Republic fell, she departed from life . (my italics)

 This style of consolation reminds us of the exhortatory approach found in tragedy, Seneca or ps. Plutarch’s  ad Apollonium .60 Servius admonishes Cicero to be strong, act like a man, and not wallow in his grief, because in the present historical context he should realize that his smaller grief stands in no comparison to that of the state (and its protagonists). 61  This male perspective is not highly sympathetic. Cicero’s reply shows he remains aware of the public eye, yet not capable of following the advice. He defends himself by the use of exempla from Republican times: ‘those consolations fail me, which were not wanting in a similar misfortune to those others,  whose examples I put before my eyes...[examples follow]’ (April 45,  Fam . 4.6.1–2).62  The extreme response he exhibits was compounded by a sense of guilt about his daughter, esp. her marriages (  pace   Sulpicius), the last of   which was to Dolabella who had been cause for some embarrassment.63 It is not impossible that both guilt and grief were clouding his judgment.  Thus two reasons suggest themselves as to why Cicero felt forced into  writing a self-consolation: (1) he found the general and generalized tropes unsatisfactory regarding his specific misfortune – realising that he wanted to give a more personal context to his grief; (2) his personal life was at a point that his sense of self-worth and influence could only be improved through his intellectual activities. These points suggest that the unique nature of his work does not lie simply in the fact  that he wrote it , but, as he saw it, in the  manner in which   he used the material, whereas to us it also lies in the combination of self-consolation and commemoration. 64  With regard to the efficacy of the consolation, it seems that Cicero has given it little thought that his chosen method of coping with grief – writing   – could be the therapeutic tool, at least not one that is  patently   effective in his eyes. The dates of the letters may be significant, but there is clearly no expectation that writing would help. 65 According to modern approaches in grief counselling he used an effective method. That he fails to see the effect  of his own routine is due to the historical and cultural context: his focus on

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  content (arguments) rather than strategy (reflective journalling) shows how  he cannot disentangle himself from the constraining forces of political disaster, personal misfortune and the social conventions of the Roman elite. His use of other comparative materials requested from Atticus (examples in which parents have lost a child,  Att. 12.20.2; 12.22.2; 12.24.2) looks almost like a historical exercise of self-justification for his extended grieving, and the work as a whole, culminating in a kind of apotheosis of   Tullia, now looks like a eulogy to commemorate her, a replacement ‘shrine’  which he initially planned to build for her. With a gap in the evidence for an important period of the year 45 (esp. August), we are forced to speculate as to when Cicero emerged from his grief: did he give himself a form of  therapy, almost unwittingly, by writing, which he called a distraction? What  he was doing fits the modern notion of ‘grief-work’, which encourages mourners to be actively involved in dealing with their grief, for instance, by   writing journals or diaries, undertaking physical activities, or doing  extensive reading.66 Cicero’s ‘grief work’ consists of extensive reading and  writing, which is his attempt to share his grief and channel it into action.  This, rather than philosophy, was the more effective cure. 67 4. Conclusions My examination of the chronology of Cicero’s grief has revealed how his grief had a significant impact on his  modus operandi   in responding to this sad event. By making use of our privileged access to his letters and the intriguing fragments of his self-consolation, we were able to adjust the usual neglect of the   Consolatio   and the incomplete picture of Cicero’s personal grief that came with it.  The different degrees of privacy found in the three types of evidence show that reading his progression in the proper order illuminates the grief  process. The day-to-day thoughts in his letters on his own mental state, its causes and proposed solutions should not be ignored: they show how he struggles with a desperate situation and moves through a progression towards acceptance of his loss. Even if his letters to Atticus are  rhetorical  in the sense that they are influenced by customary considerations of social and political interaction, they are not to be interpreted in the same way as any of his writings from before his personal misfortune. When he next  started to write a self-consolation (in parallel to the correspondence and his first philosophical treatises), he was seeking an unusual solution for unusual circumstances: in this sense his consolation is  unparalleled . In view of his status Cicero would have been expected to mourn for his daughter publicly, but in the context of the breakdown of the Republic he did not have the opportunity to do so in a dignified way. As a result he

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Han Baltussen  resorted to ‘performing’ his duties in his writing. 68 His strategy to deal with the loss of his daughter is in one sense typical for a Roman male of the upper classes in the first century  BC, determined by social pressures to restrain emotions and rationalise the meaning of the event. 69 Less typical are his admission that he is not coping well, his limited use (or explicit  rejection) of philosophical ideas, and his decision to find a way out of his grief by writing about it in a work  addressed to himself  . Once he did this, Cicero clearly moved past his debilitating early grief, to the transitional stage of his bereavement in his letters, in particular those to his life-long  friend Atticus, while emotions were still raw and his grief unresolved. 70 In modern terms, the  Consolatio is part of the ‘grief work’ Cicero undertakes,  whilst   Tusc.  3–4 ,  expressed in more generalized and reflective form, relay  his later thoughts and do not give a highly personal account of grief. 71 Thus  we not only gain a more accurate appreciation of Cicero’s emotional states and how he describes them, but we are in a position to recognize the gap between his actual procedure and his lofty ambitions written from hindsight. On this reading Cicero’s  Consolatio also emerges as playing an important  role in his intellectual endeavours. Apart from commemorating his daughter the treatise itself suggests that his  strategy  was new and the product unique: firstly, because of the simple fact  that   he tried to console himself, and secondly, because of the new arrangement of tropes and materials, which transformed the Greek material into Roman form. 72 On this point his consolation may be called   unequalled . His self-consolation serves the immediate purpose of alleviating his grief, but became much more than that. We cannot be sure when its final content was decided upon, but since the work is also a  laudatio culminating in a deification of Tullia, it is tempting  to consider it a replacement for his initial plan to build a physical monument. Once the treatise gained momentum, he also began to see it as a kind of ‘pilot project’, a way to regain the respect of his fellow citizens and to make it the start of his program to educate his fellow Romans in Greek  thought. Thus Cicero’s work, largely motivated by personal grief, acquired a new significance, which straddled Greek and Roman cultures and had a considerable impact on the Latin West ( Jerome is a good example, see Scourfield’s chapter in this volume). If this is correct, Cicero may well be right to claim another literary  creation as his own: the self-consolation – but one that had few successors (in this form). In it Cicero managed to transcend his personal misery and to write a work which harnessed important traditional elements into a new  synthesis. It made a personal experience public and communal and offered a new consolation to his contemporaries. 73 Roman political and social codes continued to play a role in everything he did.

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise   The Consolatio ad se  may stand alone as a unique case of  self  -consolation.  Yet it also remains problematic as a document charting the personal struggle of an intellectual coming to grips with the desperate times, personal grief and the ruin of everything he had worked for professionally  (  Fam. 4.6.2). Cicero seems to have succeeded – albeit without realising it –  in writing himself out of his misery, thereby finding a way to regain some of his self-worth by applying his intellectual and scholarly qualities to this ‘problem’. The renewed energy he poured into his elaborate philosophical  writings shows that he had found himself a new mission.74  Thus Cicero’s self-consolation emerges not only as an act of emotional recovery, but also as a starting point for his social and intellectual rehabilitation.

 APPENDIX TO CH. 3: CICERO’S CONSOLATIO AD SE 

Concordance Mueller – Kumaniecki – Vitelli (F = Fragment; T = Testimonium) M. F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F16 F17

K. F1a F1b F2 F5 F6 F7a F3 F1d F7b F12 F14 F13 F1c F10 F8, F11 F9

V. T T F18 F6 F5 F6a F4. F4* T, F1, F7, F2–2a F9 F21 F23, T F22 F3 F16 F15, F19–19a* T F10*

Notes (1) K. numbers are mine; they reflect the sequence in K. (see his p. 45). (2) For Vitelli see his p. 53.

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Han Baltussen  Notes * I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant 2007–2009, DP 0770690) which made the research for this chapter possible, as well as the help of my former assistant Benjamin Madden. 1 Shackleton-Bailey overstates the case by translating ‘as effective as this’. See section 3 below. 2 For a recent edition see Vitelli (Milan 1979, testimonia and fragments). The work  is still described as lost in standard handbooks: e.g. OCD 2, 1970, s.v. ‘Cicero’, 237 ‘two lost works probably came first: the Consolation...’; OCD 3, 1996 (repr. 2003), s.v. ‘Tullius Cicero, Marcus’, 1563 ‘Several lost works probably came first: a  De gloria ...; the Consolatio, an attempt to console himself for the loss of Tullia’. Such statements are easily misleading as to the quantity and value of the extant materials. 3  Apart from Scourfield’s mention in his important study of Jerome’s letter of  consolation (1993), the dense and even-handed article is rarely mentioned in the literature. The same neglect holds for the recent edition by Vitelli (n. 2 above), which makes use of, and adds a few passages to, the discussion of Kumaniecki. The latter’s article was first published in German in the obscure journal  Acta Classica  of the University of Debrecen (Hungary) and later in the  Annales de la Faculté des Lettres et  Sciences humaines d’Aix   (in French). See also n.5. 4 References to the Consolatio occur in Tusc. 1.65, 76, 115; 3.71, 76; 4.63. See Appendix. 5 Graver 2002 offers a very useful analysis of  Tusc. 3–4, but seems unaware of either  Vitelli or Kumaniecki. The same seems to hold for Gildenhard 2007. 6 Many different sources provide information and quotations. Kumaniecki (1968) mentions the following works as directly relevant: Cicero Tusculanae disputationes, De  divinatione, De republica, Hortensius, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares ; Lactantius  De ira, Institutio divina ; Jerome Ep. 60 [Consolation to Heliodorus] ; Augustine [various works] . Kumaniecki uses Mueller’s fragment edition (for a concordance with Vitelli 1979 see my appendix at the end of this chapter). 7 Exceptions to the neglect of the work are Kumaniecki 1968, White 1995 and Erskine 1997, but the latter two are very recent and focus more on  Tusc. and the personal motivation of Cicero while writing  about  grief as an abstract concept (see for instance Erskine 1997, 40). 8 For these (‘resolved’, ‘unresolved’) and other technical terms I draw on some modern studies of grief: the first modern empirical study of grief, Lindemann 1944, a broad study by Stern 1985, and the widely praised handbook by Worden 2010. Classicists have also applied modern psychological categories to Cicero’s grief, with  varying results: Jaeger 1986, Koch 2006. For other relevant comments see Erskine 1997 [previous n.], and Graver 2002a ‘Introduction’, n.15. 9 Modern psychologists prefer this notion of process, see Worden 2010 with further literature. The recent criticism of Kübler-Ross’ ‘stages theory’ in Walter 1999, 160–4 is different from the role I give to chronology in my analysis, which is confined to a reading of the sources determined by their date. 10  Treggiari 1998, cf. Baltussen 2009a. Wilcox 2005b, 278 n. 30 justly warns against  taking Cicero’s ‘intimate’ thoughts as innocent representations of his feelings, since they are ‘de facto rhetorical’. But ‘rhetorical’ should not always be understood to mean ‘disingenuous’. 11  The role of   Tusc. lies outside the scope of this analysis: I have great sympathy for

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  Gildenhard’s view (2007, 68), when he presents the Tusc. as an outreach exercise for (re-)educating the Romans. Here I am trying to draw lessons from such an interpretive stance for the analysis of the self-consolation. Erskine 1997 does see the work as a selfconsolation, but uses different considerations. 12 Shackleton-Bailey translates ‘literary composition’ (1966, 87). See also Scourfield’s chapter in this volume, n. 12. 13  As Lössl notes (see chapter 7 in this volume), Augustine called it ‘a mere speech’ (  De civitate Dei  19.4) insisting that ‘eloquence did not help Cicero overcome his grief. More is needed, in Augustine’s view, than mere consolatory rhetoric in order to tackle grief.’ Lactantius, on the other hand, is full of praise ( Inst . I, 15.16): ‘the whole of that  speech, which was perfect both in learning and in its examples, and in the very style of expression, gave no indications of a distempered mind, but of constancy and judgment’. 14 For the range of texts involved see Scourfield’s chapter in this volume. 15 He argues against Wageningen 1917 and Buresch 1886, who had gone beyond the evidence in their conclusions (Kumaniecki 1968, 27–8), and reviews other attempts at reconstruction by Philippson RE   1917, and Büchner 1964. 16  Apparently Panaetius called it a ‘golden book’ and advised his students to learn it by heart: Est enim non magnus, verum aureolus et, ut Tuberoni Panaetius praecipit, ad verbum  ediscendus libellus  (Cic. Acad . ii. 44). 17 Graver 2002a, 187 for a more nuanced view: ‘this means, probably, that he imitated the format of Crantor’s work and at least some of its language and content’. Sage 1910, 2 already took the view that ‘Cicero in his  Consolatio only used Crantor as a general guide’. 18  There are clear references to Crantor at  Apoll. 102d, 104c, 114c, 115b. Crantor’s περὶ πένθους is the first  attested  consolation, though probably not the first consolation. See Scourfield’s chapter in this volume, Kassel 1958, 35, Kumaniecki 1968, 32 and Boys-Stones in this volume. 19 First mention of the work is on March 6 (  Att . 12.14.3), with hints about further additions on March 7, 11, 15, 18, 20 (asking for Roman examples in the last three); see Kumaniecki 1968, 28–9. 20 Cf. Koch 2006, Baltussen (2011a,b) and below. 21 Distraction is also a well-known component in modern grief therapy, so long as it does not lead to denial (Walter 1999, 161). Note, however, the late date of this letter. 22 Kumaniecki 1968, 28. 23 Graver 2002, xxxii, n. 13 thinks he finished it ‘by mid-May’, together with the  Academica , but it is unclear how she concludes this from the same evidence (  Att . 12.14.3; 12.20.2). 24  A sentiment also expressed by Vitelli himself (1979, 10). He largely follows Philippson and Kumaniecki in the order of fragments, even if it is tentative ( ibid . 9–10, italics mine: ‘quod autem ad seriem fragmentorum attinet, etsi haud firmissima   videbantur quae Robertus Philippson et Casimirus Kumaniecki coniecerant,  horum  nihilominus secutus plerumque vestigia...’). 25 Kumaniecki 1968, 30 establishes this by analogy, comparing the  ad Apollonium  (45 Teubner pages), Seneca’s consolations ad Marciam  (29 pp.), ad Polybium  (19 pp.), ad Helviam matrem   (24 pp.), Hieronymus’ Consolation to Heliodorus   (28 pp.), and the ps.-Platonic Axiochus  (11 pp. in OCT).

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Han Baltussen  26

Kumaniecki 1968, 30 contra Philippson 1917, 1124. Vitelli 1979 reverses the order of the two. 27 Kumaniecki 1968, 31. 28 Tusc. 3. 2: nunc autem simulatque editi in lucem et suscepti sumus, in omni continuo pravitate  et in summa opinionum perversitate versamur, ut paene cum lacte nutricis errorem suxisse videamur  (Kumaniecki 1968, 31). The singular example of the perfect infinitive  suxisse   (L&S, s.v. sugo, ‘to suck’, lit. of young animals suckling: Cic.  ND  2, 47, 122; Varro R.R. 2, 1, 20) suggests that the figurative usage is unusual. Evidence to suggest that this passage belongs to the  Consolatio  is perhaps  Tusc.  3. 70–2 where grief is described as an misjudgment. 29  According to Kumaniecki 1968, 31, pointing to Aristotle Protrept . 10b Walzer.  The same thought is found in Cicero’s Hortensius   fr. 95. 30 On this point Kumaniecki 1968, 32 agrees with Philippson 1917, 1124. 31 Cf. his translation of Plato De rep. (noted by Kumaniecki 1968, 32); see also Scourfield 1993, 12–13 and Baltussen 2011b with further literature. 32 Scourfield 1993, 115–16. 33  Ne aegrotus sim; si sim, qui fuerat sensus adsit, sive secetur quid sive avellatur a corpore. Nam  istuc non nihil dolere non sine magna mercede contingit, immanitatis in animo, stuporis in corpore . On the body-soul analogy see also Tusc. 3. 76 and Kassel 1958, 20–1. 34 cedo et manum tollo, a metaphor from the military or gladiatorial fights (Kumaniecki 1968, 34, who, however, does not comment on the metaphor). 35  A response to this idea as expressed in the Consolatio is given by one of the interlocutors at  Tusc . 1.76. The theme that it is better not to be born is also found in ps. Plut. 107d. 36  Also found in ps. Plut. 110e–111a and 113c–114c (Kumaniecki 1968, 37). 37 Kumaniecki 1968, 37. 38 It is not impossible, as Kumaniecki suggests (1968, 43), that the plethora of  consolatory types (cf. Tusc . 3. 32–78) was also intended as a way of familiarizing the Romans with these views. But this aspect cannot be treated in detail here (see my  conclusion and Gildenhard 2007 [above, n. 11]), White 1995, 224 and Baltussen 2011b for contributions on this point). 39 Kumaniecki 1968, 40 prints ‘V. 19. 3 sq.’, but this must be a typographical error. 40  A view paralleled in this form only in his Somnium Scipionis  (Kumaniecki 1968, 39,  who mentions other passages where Cicero allows for soul to be either mortal or immortal, e.g. Hortensius   fr. 97; Lael . 4, 13; Tusc. 1.76). 41 doctissimamque  in some mss (PV), see Vitelli 1979, 52. 42 See Kumaniecki 1968, 41–45. 43 See also Att . 12.19.1 (March 14); 12. 23. 3 (March 19); cf. Kumaniecki 1968, 38, n. 19 and Boyancé 1944, 181–3. 44 I owe this point to a comment from Marcus Wilson when I presented an early   version of this paper. 45 Note that he only uses the Greek term for this (see also Att . 12.36 quam ut maxime  adsequar   ἀποθέωσιν ); apparently he is basing this view on Crantor. See Carcopino 1969, 169. 46 Epicurean views are absent, as is to be expected (unlike Tusc ., which has them at  least for the sake of comprehensiveness; cf. Graver 2002a, xxvi); perhaps his comment  that bad memories are plaguing him (  Att . 12.18), is a further indication that he would

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  not easily accept Epicurus’ approach of using memories to soften his misery, as is the case in Plutarch’s Consolation to his Wife   (see Baltussen 2009a). 47 My first attempt to analyse Cicero’s grief using a modern angle was offered in Baltussen 2009b. On writing as one fruitful form of expressing and processing grief  see e.g. the collection edited by Bertmann 1999 Grief and the Healing Arts: Creativity as  therapy , and the handbook for grief practitioners by Worden 2010. Witness also the steady stream of autobiographical documents in the modern age since C.S. Lewis’ groundbreaking   A Grief Observed   (1961), especially in recent decades: Crider 1996, Ironside 1997, Kellehear 2001, Didion 2005, Horne 2008, Carter 2009. For an evolutionary perspective on grief, see Archer 2009. 48  They are present in the Gilgamesh epic, Iliad  23–4, and Aeneid  6, to name a few. 49 See e.g. Baltussen 2009b which compares Cicero with C. S. Lewis, and n. 5 above. 50 On the role of denial in terminal patients Kübler-Ross (1969) is still worth reading; for the loss of a child, see Sprang and McNeil 1989, ch. 9; this kind of grief  is sometimes referred to as ‘maladaptation to loss’ (Jacobs 1993, Worden 2010, ch. 2). 51 Cf. Gildenhard 2007, 63–7. 52 See his reply to Sulpicius Severus (below). Graver (2002a, xiii) seems to think  that it was the first grandchild, but the evidence from Att . 10.18 (May 19/20, 49  BC ) seems to suggest it is the second (the first child did not survive). 53  Wilcox 2005a, 248. 54 Cf. White 1995, 223: ‘The gap in Cicero’s correspondence is eloquent.’ 55 See next note. 56  Jansen 1985, 19. Further useful comments in Jaeger 1986, Worden 2010, ch. 3. 57 See Att . 12.18.1 (March 11, 45  BC ); 12.19.1 (March 14); 12.23.3 (March 19), 14.20 (May 11, 44 BC ). David Scourfield has made the interesting suggestion (personal communication) that the protracted negotiations on the land to be purchased support  a view that there might be an issue of letting go: that is, buying the land would have represented an admission that Tullia was really dead. 58 Similar sentiments are found in Att . 12.20 (quoted below). 59 quod forsitan dolore impeditus minus ea perspicias . While the sentence on thoughts offered by Sulpicius ( quae in praesentia in mentem mihi venerunt  ), has the rather neutral quae , I infer ‘appropriate’ from the preceding sentence, which mentions duty of the consoler to others ( suum officium praestare  ). For an excellent discussion of this letter see  Wilcox 2005b. An interesting modern parallel is that of the nineteenth-century  architect Sir John Soane, who also got told by his friends that he was over-indulging  in grief over the death of his wife (Walter 1999, 128). 60 See also the chapters by Chong-Gossard, Wilson and Boys-Stones in this  volume. The latter stresses that   paramuthia   refers to stern admonishing, not endless empathy. 61  Wilcox 2005b, 275 points out that Cicero formulates a similar belief in De off. 1.160. A more balanced approach is found in Lucceius’ letter to Cicero (  Fam . 5.14, May  9, 45  BC ) which gives Cicero latitude on his withdrawal, so long as he is doing work  ( cum scribas et aliquid agas eorum, quorum consuesti  ). Cf. next note and n. 65. 62 Cf. Treggiari 1998 on ‘life-work balance’ and esp. Wilcox 2005b, 268–70 who clarifies Cicero’s defence by  exempla  with reference to Hutchinson 1998, 76, who in turn argues that this ‘robust self-assertion’ is meant to prove the uniqueness of Cicero’s grief. Kumaniecki 1968, 45 points out that there were two examples of women (one

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Han Baltussen  of whom, Rutilia, may have been borrowed by Seneca, ad Helviam matrem  16, 7). See also Wilson’s chapter in this volume (esp. text to n. 22). 63 Even if Cicero speaks highly of him in the same context that he alludes to these problems, Fam . 6.11. 64 Kumaniecki 1968, 44–45 does make the former point, but not the latter. 65 But in specific contexts he is willing to bow to pressure from his esteemed colleague Lucius Lucceius, when he writes (  Fam . 5.13): ‘it was your intention, I know, to raise me from my depression ( nos levare aegritudine voluisti  ) by making me think about  certain things; well, it soothes me to talk about them too ( earum etiam commemoratione  lenimur  ).’ 66 See esp. Worden 2010 on the change of attitude towards the Freudian idea of  grief; cf. Bertmann 1999. In Att . 12.35 (May 3, 45  BC ) Cicero gives the impression he has almost recovered ( ipse prope modum collegi  ); at  Tusc . 3.5 he considers the mind capable of healing itself; and at   Fam. 4.13.4 (46  BC ) he assumes the viability of the notion of  self-consolation, attributing it to Nigidius Figulus. 67 Gildenhard 2007, 59 agrees: ‘for Cicero philosophy as grief-management was only second best’. 68 Cf. Wilcox 2005b, 272–3 who gives a perceptive account of the role of ritual in mourning. 69 For a similar case see Leigh 2004, 122–140 (esp. p. 140 on Aemilius Paullus and Quintilian). 70 In modern terms: stage 1 represents grief first experienced, hardly articulated and private; stage 2: ‘acute grief’ [Lindemann 1944], articulation starts for oneself and others; it is semi-public; stage 3: grief represented in a generalizing way to others with didactic intent; it is fully public. 71  As argued in Baltussen 2009a. Compare Gildenhard 2007, 62, who describes Cicero’s writing activity as ‘elevating his  philosophia Latina   above the level of private grief management’. ‘Grief work’ is here used in a general sense; in modern theories it  refers to focusing on the pain of loss (Walter 1999, 160–1). See also previous n. 72 Kumaniecki takes a similar view (1968, 47; cf. 46) when he says: ‘Am wichtigsten ist jedoch, daß er bei Inanspruchnahme einer umfangreichen Literatur zweifellos ein neues und originelles Werk schuf, ‘das es bisher nicht gab’.’ Cf. n. 61 above. 73  White 1995, 224 n. 7 points out that Cicero later did state that helping others  was one of his aims ( Tusc . 5.121; Div . 2.3). If my line of argument is accepted, it is unlikely that this objective was part of his initial motivation. 74 On the notion that this activity was an educational mission see Gildenhard 2007. For a more detailed argument on grief, translation and the philosophica   see Baltussen 2011b.

Bibliography  Archer, J. 1999 The Nature of Grief. The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss . LondonNew York. Baltussen, H. 2009a ‘Personal Grief and Public Mourning in Plutarch’s Consolation to His Wife ’,  AJPh  130.1, 67–98.

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  2009b ‘A Grief Observed: Cicero on Remembering Tullia’, Mortality. A Journal for  the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying  14.4, 355–69. 2011a ‘Marcus Aurelius and the Therapeutic Use of Soliloquy’, in B. Sidwell & D. Dzino (eds) Emotion, Power and Status in the Roman Empire. Papers presented  in honour of R. F. Newbold , Piscataway (NJ), 39–57. 2011b ‘Cicero’s Translation of Greek Philosophy: Personal Mission or Public Service?’, in S. McElduff and E. Sciarrino (eds) A Sea of Languages: Rethinking  the History of Western Translation , London, 37–47. Bertmann, S. 1999 Grief and the Healing Arts: Creativity as Therapy , New York. Boyancé, P. 1944 ‘L’apothéose de Tullia’, REA 46, 179–84. Buresch, K. 1886 Consolationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia critica , Leipzig. Carter, A. 2009 The Alchemy of Grief. A Young Widow’s Transformation , Melbourne. Crider, T. 1996 Give Sorrow Words. A Father’s Passage Through Grief  , Chapel Hill. Didion, J. 2005 The Year of Magical Thinking , New York. Erskine, A. 1997 ‘Cicero and the Expression of Grief’, in S. M. Braund and C. Gill (eds) The  Passions in Roman Thought and Literature , Cambridge, 36–47. Gildenhard, I. 2007 Paideia Romana. Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations , Cambridge. Gill, C. 1985 ‘Ancient Psychotherapy’, JHI  46.3, 307–25. Graver, M. 2002 Cicero’s On the Emotions. Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4, Chicago. Horne, D. and F. 2008 Dying. A Memoir , Camberwell, Vic. Hutchinson, G. O. 1998 Cicero’s Correspondence. A Literary Study , Oxford. Ironside, V. 1997 You’ll Get Over It: The Rage of Bereavement, London.  Jacobs, S. 1993 Pathological Grief: Maladaptation to Loss , Washington D.C.  Jaeger, W. 1986 Briefanalysen. Zum Zusammenhang von Realitätserfahrung und Sprache in Briefen  Ciceros , Frankfurt am Main-Bern-New York.  Jansen, M.A. 1985 ‘Psychotherapy and Grieving: A Clinical Approach’, in E. M. Stern (ed.) Psychotherapy and the Grieving Patient , London-New York, 15–25.  Johann, H.-T. 1968 Trauer und Trost. Eine quellen- und strukturanalytische Untersuchung der philosophischen  Trostschriften über den Tod , Munich.

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Han Baltussen  Kassel, R. 1958 Untersuchungen zur griechischen und römischen Konsolationsliteratur , Munich. Kellehear, A. (ed.) 2001 Grief and Memory: 25 Australians Tell it like it is , East Hawthorn, Vic. Koch, B. 2006 Philosophie als Medizin für die Seele. Untersuchungen zu Ciceros Tusculanae   Disputationes , Stuttgart. Kumaniecki, K. 1968 ‘Die verlorene Consolatio des Cicero’, Acta Classica Univ. Scient. Debrecen  IV: 27–47. 1969 ‘A propos de la ‘Consolatio’ perdue de Cicéron’, Annales de la Faculté de   Lettres et Sciences humaines d’Aix , Sér. class., 369–402. Lain Entralgo, P. 1970 The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity , Engl. tr., New Haven. Leigh, M. 2004 ‘Quintilian on the Emotions ( Institutio Oratoria  6 Preface and 1–2)’, JRS  94, 122–40. Lindemann, E. 1944 ‘Symptomatology and Management of Acute Grief’, American Journal of   Psychiatry  101, 141–48. McLaren, J. 1998 ‘A New Understanding of Grief: a Counselor’s Perspective’, Mortality.  A Journal for the interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying  3.3, 275–90. Philippson, R. 1917 ‘M. Tullius Cicero’, RE  VII A 1, 1123–26. Sage, E. T. 1910 The Pseudo-Ciceronian Consolatio (PhD diss.), Chicago. Scourfield, J. H. D. 1993 Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60, Oxford. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (ed.) 1966 Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, vol. v, 48–45  BC , Cambridge. 1999 Cicero: Letters to Atticus , 4 vols. Loeb Classical Library, 7, 8, 97, 491. Cambridge, MA and London.  Treggiari, S. 1998 ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private’’’, TAPA 128, 1–23.  Vitelli, C. 1979 M. Tulli Ciceronis Consolationis Fragmenta , Florence.  Wageningen, J. van, 1916 De Ciceronis Tusculanis Disputationibus , Groningen.  Wajnryb, R. 2008 ‘Words as Tranquilisers’ (podcast & transcript, ABC Radio ‘Lingua Franca’ of 27/9/08), accessed 04/10/08 at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ linguafranca/ stories/2008/2375517. htm#transcript.  Walter, T. 1996 ‘A New Model for Grief: Bereavement and Biography’, Mortality. A Journal    for the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying  1.1, 7–25.

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Cicero’s   Consolatio ad se : Character, purpose and impact of a curious treatise  1999 On Bereavement. The Culture of Grief ,  Buckingham. 2006 ‘What is Complicated Grief ?’ Omega  52.1, 71–79.  White, S. A. 1995 ‘Cicero and the Therapists,’ in J. G. F. Powell (ed.) Cicero the Philosopher , Oxford, 219–46.  Wilcox, A. 2005a ‘Sympathetic Rivals: Consolation in Cicero’s Letters’, AJPh  126, 237–55. 2005b ‘Paternal Grief and the Public Eye: Cicero Ad Familiares  4.6’, Phoenix  59,  Vol. 3/4, 267–87. 2006 ‘Exemplary Grief: Gender and Virtue in Seneca’s Consolations to Women’, Helios  33, 73–100.  Worden, J. W. 2010 Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy. A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner  (fourth edn; first edn 1991), London.

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