The Nature of the Gods

Here is presented Cicero's theological exposition, "The Nature of the Gods", in which the ancient Roman philosopher reflects upon the philosophical questions of religion. "He was, he says, urged to them as a means of relief from the irksome political inactivity to which he was reduced by the supremacy in the state of Julius Cæsar, and he also hoped to find in them a distraction from the grief caused him by the death of his daughter Tullia. He felt, too, that for the sake of the national credit it was right that the philosophy of Greece should be brought before his countrymen in their own tongue, and in the case of the special branch of philosophy discussed in the 'De Natura' he had another and more pressing motive. For it was necessary there to consider those theological questions the answers to which determined the character and even the possibility of religion, and therefore, in his opinion, of morality as well."