How The Complete Essays drew on The Works of Cicero
A documented line of influence: Michel de Montaigne demonstrably engaged Marcus Tullius Cicero’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Works of Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero · c. 50 BCE
Ancient RomeThe influenced
The Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne · 1580
RenaissanceRelevance
7/10
On The Complete Essays’s page
- Cicero is one of the load-bearing names in the Essays — Montaigne quotes, paraphrases, and argues with him page after page
- "That to study philosophy is to learn to die" (I.20) takes its title and core claim directly from the Tusculan Disputations
- Knowing the Cicero behind the borrowing turns Montaigne's offhand citations into a running conversation you can hear both sides of
On The Works of Cicero’s page
- Montaigne's chief philosophical quarry — he quotes and reworks Cicero throughout the Essays
- His essay "That to study philosophy is to learn to die" lifts its title and whole argument straight from the Tusculan Disputations: that the philosopher's life is a rehearsal for death
- Read Cicero here and you meet the voice Montaigne is forever turning over in his hands a millennium and a half later