Rome and philosophy: an introduction

Abstract

This special issue of Eikasía Philosophy Magazine has been coordinated by Román García Fernández (Dr. F.ª/PHD and editor of Eikasía) and by José Ignacio San Vicente (Dr. H.ª and professor in Ancient History at the University of Oviedo) and is dedicated to a time in which philosophy was transformed: over the two centuries prior to the Christian era, an obscurantist veil has once again been drawn that attempts to account for a supposed Roman philosophical poverty. However, despite this textual scarcity, it can be clearly established that at this time a transformation took place in the philosophy that resized it: both because it adapted to the new cosmopolitan situation that emerged after the end of the Greek city, and because Rome needs a new worldview when faced with a vast empire and thus, philosophy will be seen by those who aspire to exercise public activity as a comprehensive training structure.

We have chosen to structure the issue according to a chronological and thematic order at the second level: one of the first influences of Greek philosophy in Rome is analyzed - long before the arrival of Polybius from Megalopolis (-167) or the Athenian embassy (-155) that scandalized Cato the Elder― through Hermodoro of Ephesus, a fellow citizen of Heraclitus. We now focus attention on two of the most important currents that were nested in the empire in progress and that knew how to accommodate the demands of Roman society: stoicism (Panecius of Rhodes, but also Cicero with his sustainable stoicism in the expression of Esperanza Torrego) and Epicureanism (with Tito Lucrecio Caro as a central figure and through whose study we pay tribute to the Latinist and researcher Serafín Bodelón). We close the issue with a detailed study of the other great transformation and mixture between Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion in the book starring Philo of Alexandria and a coda about Marcus Aurelius.