Roman Philosophy

Roman making a speech (Florence, about 50 BC)
Thanks to VROMA for the image

Roman men didn't begin studying philosophy until about 200 BC. At that time, the Romans were conquering Greece, and so a lot of Roman soldiers and generals spent a lot of time in Greece, and got a chance to talk to Greek philosophers.

The Romans found out that Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had been doing a lot of thinking about philosophy just recently. Some Romans got interested, and by about 50 BC these Romans were even beginning to write philosophy themselves, though most of it was pretty much just translating Greek philosophy into Latin.

One of the first Roman men (Men wouldn't let women study philosophy) who wrote about philosophy was Lucretius. Lucretius followed Greek Epicurean philosophy. He left us a long poem, called On the Nature of Things, explaining Epicurean philosophy in Latin for men who couldn't read Greek.

Cicero was another man who wrote about philosophy at just about the same time as Lucretius. Cicero was mostly a Skeptic philosopher. Like other Skeptics, Cicero thought that you should question any ideas or facts you heard about, and always ask "How do they know that?" or "How can they be sure?" or "What about this other thing?". Cicero tried to use philosophy to make men more logical thinkers, so that they would make better decisions about how to run the government. But Cicero also held some Stoic ideas, especially that men should try to be as good as possible.

About a hundred years later, in the time of the emperors Claudius and Nero, another philosopher called Seneca wrote another set of essays about Stoic philosophy. Seneca thought that men should not waste time on things that really didn't matter. Instead, they should use their time well, to help improve the world, and to improve their own minds by studying philosophy.

In the later years of the Roman Empire, many men and women began to think about the world in terms of Christian thought. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose both studied earlier philosophers and tried to create a Christian philosophy that would include both Christian ideas and Greek and Roman philosophy.

The fall of the Roman Empire did not stop men (or even a few women) from thinking about these ideas. In both the Islamic Empire and medieval Europe, men like Maimonides and Dante continued to try to make religion agree with philosophy.

Greek Philosophy
Islamic philosophy
Chinese philosophy
Main philosophy page
Main Romans page
Kidipede - History for Kids home page