Abstract

This chapter focuses upon defining a particular reception-based approach to understanding changing interpretations of Cicero. Most readers stress the dogmatic ambitions of Cicero's philosophy over his Academic approach, seeking to establish what Cicero thought about Rome and to make his own interests appear central to Rome. This critical tradition is the result of a particular manner of reading that developed from a decline in the reputation of rhetoric, and in the popularity of sceptical philosophy, after the Enlightenment. A case study is Cicero's reworking of material from Timaeus in De republica: the ambiguities of Plato seem unnecessarily elaborate when applied to Cicero. It is argued that a dogmatic reading of Cicero is a misreading, which emerged as a result of the crucial role of Cicero in the establishment of all post-Renaissance models of civic education.