's age, his
daughter, Tullia, died in childbed; and her loss afflicted Cicero to
such a degree that he abandoned all public business, and, leaving the
city, retired to Asterra, which was a country house that he had near
Antium; where, after a while, he devoted himself to philosophical
studies, and, besides other works, he published his Treatise de
Finibus, and also this treatise called the Tusculan Disputations, of
which Middleton gives this concise description:

"The first book teaches us how to contemn the terrors of death, and to
look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil;

"The second, to support pain and affliction with a manly fortitude;

"The third, to appease all our complaints and uneasinesses under the
accidents of life;

"The fourth, to moderate all our other passions;

"And the fifth explains the sufficiency of virtue to make men happy."

It was his custom in the opportunities of his leisure to take some
friends with him into the country, where, instead of amusing themselves
with idle sports or feasts, their diversions were wholly speculative,
tending to improve the mind and enlarge the understanding. In this
manner he now spent five days at his Tusculan villa in discussing with
his friends the several questions just mentioned. For, after employing
the mornings in declaiming and rhetorical exercises, they used to
retire in the afternoon into a gallery, called the Academy, which he
had built for the purpose of philosophical conferences, where, after
the manner of the Greeks, he held a school, as they called it, and
invited the company to call for any subject that they desired to hear
explained, which being proposed accordingly by some of the audience
became immediately the argument of that day's debate. These five
conferences, or dialogues, he collected afterward into writing in the
very words and manner in which they really passed; and published them
under the title of his Tusculan Disputations, from the name of the
villa in which they were held.

* * * * *

BOOK I.

ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH.

I. At a time when I had entirely, or to a great degree, released myself
from my labors as an advocate, and from my duties as a senator, I had
recourse again, Brutus, principally by your advice, to those studies
which never had been out of my mind, although neglected at times, and
which after a long interval I resumed; and now, since the principles
and rules of all