Dicaearchus of Messana

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 2.2 §2 I had in my hands the work

  One of the antiquarian constitutional treatises of Dicaearchus of Messana, the Peripatetic geographer and political writer (pupil of Aristotle); his works On the Pellenians, On the Corinthians, and On the Athenians described those states' political histories.

• Ad Atticum 2.12 §4 You rightly love Dicaearchus

  Dicaearchus of Messana, the Peripatetic philosopher, geographer, and political theorist whom both Cicero and Atticus admired. His name sets up the pun in the next clause.

• Ad Atticum 2.16 §3 the active life

  Cicero frames his choice between politics and study as the old Peripatetic debate over the best life: Atticus's favourite Dicaearchus of Messana championed the bios praktikos (active, public life), while Cicero's Theophrastus preferred the bios theoretikos (the contemplative life of scholarship).

• Ad Atticum 8.4 §1 Dicaearchus, or Aristoxenus

  Two famous Greek scholars of the Peripatetic school, both invoked sarcastically: Dionysius is no such savant. Dicaearchus of Messana and Aristoxenus of Tarentum had each argued that the soul was not a separate substance but a kind of attunement or balance of the body, a doctrine Cicero associates with them elsewhere.

• Ad Atticum 13.30 §2 in the manner of your friend Dicaearchus

  Dicaearchus of Messana, a pupil of Aristotle, wrote dialogues and political works Cicero admired as models. The "political gathering" Cicero wants to stage imitates Dicaearchus's technique of assembling notable figures in conversation.

• Ad Atticum 13.31 §2 add the \textit{Descent} \textit{[Greek: katabaseōs]}

  The Katabasis ("Descent"), a work of Dicaearchus that Cicero wants alongside his other books for source material. He is collecting Dicaearchus's writings as he plans his own antiquarian dialogue.

• Ad Atticum 13.32 §2 Of Dicaearchus's \textit{On the Soul} \textit{[Greek: peri psychēs]}

  Cicero is gathering Dicaearchus's works as sources for his planned dialogue: the two-volume On the Soul, the Descent (Katabasis), the Tripoliticus, and a letter to Aristoxenus. None of these survives; Aristoxenus was Dicaearchus's fellow Peripatetic and musical theorist.

• On Duties §2.16 Dicaearchus

  Peripatetic philosopher and pupil of Aristotle (fl. c. 320 BC), wide-ranging in geography, history, and ethics. Cicero cites his lost On the Destruction of Mankind on the toll of war.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.21 Dicaearchus

  Dicaearchus of Messana, Peripatetic pupil of Aristotle, who denied the soul any separate existence, holding it merely the harmonious functioning of the living body. Cicero, who calls him a favorite, repeatedly cites him as the chief materialist denier of immortality.