person
Theophrastus
Greek philosopher (c. 371-287 BC), Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school; author of the Characters and a lost treatise On Style much used by Cicero.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 2.3 §4 Bring me the book of Theophrastus
Theophrastus of Eresus, Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school; Cicero asks Atticus to fetch one of his treatises from the library of his brother Quintus.
- Ad Atticum 2.9 §2 or from Theophrastus
Theophrastus of Eresus, Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school, whose works on politics and character Cicero had studied. Cicero claims to have learned the fickleness of popular favour both from experience and from his reading.
- Ad Familiares 16.17 §1 as Theophrastus would have it, a modest metaphor
Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatos, wrote on style; Cicero invokes his doctrine that a metaphor should be modest and apt. The whole letter is a playful lesson on usage, treating Tiro as the standard (kanon) of Cicero's Latin.
- On Duties §2.56 Theophrastus
Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school (c. 371-287 BC). Cicero faults his lost treatise On Wealth for praising lavish public shows, but elsewhere (2.64) approves his praise of hospitality.
- Tusculan Disputations §1.45 as Theophrastus says
Theophrastus of Eresus, Aristotle's successor as head of the Lyceum; Cicero ascribes to him the thought that the beauty of the heavens kindled the earliest 'ancestral' philosophy through the desire to know.
- Tusculan Disputations §3.21 as Theophrastus, lamenting the death of his comrade Callisthenes
Theophrastus of Eresus (c. 371-287 BC), Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school. Cicero reports his grief that his kinsman and pupil Callisthenes had attached himself to the powerful but ill-using Alexander.
- Tusculan Disputations §3.69 Theophrastus, again, is said to have accused nature as he was dying
Theophrastus's deathbed complaint that nature gave long life to stags and crows but a short span to man, just when one begins to understand. It is a famous example of (mild) regret rather than crippling distress.
- Tusculan Disputations §5.24 Theophrastus
Theophrastus of Eresus (c. 371-287 BC), Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatos. Cicero faults him for conceding (in his lost On the Happy Life) that torture and misfortune can wreck happiness, thus failing to maintain the dignity of virtue.