Cicero at Tusculum: the villa of the Tusculan Disputations

Above Monte Porzio Catone rises the hill of Tusculum. Two thousand years ago it was where the Roman aristocracy spent the summer, and one of the most famous villas belonged to Marcus Tullius Cicero, lawyer, politician and writer, one of the best known figures of the Roman Republic.

Why did Cicero live at Tusculum?

Once it became part of the Roman world, Tusculum turned into a favourite summer retreat for senators, writers and later emperors. Sulla, Lucullus and Cicero had villas on the hill and around it, and later so did Tiberius and Matidia. Cicero lived and worked at Tusculum for long periods.

Another great Roman was born here: Cato the Elder, in 234 BC. His name survives in the name of our town, Monte Porzio Catone.

What are the Tusculan Disputations?

They are a work of philosophy in five books, named after Cicero’s villa at Tusculum, where he imagines the conversations taking place. He wrote it in the summer or autumn of 45 BC and dedicated it to his friend Brutus, the same Brutus who a year later took part in the murder of Caesar.

It was a hard time: that year his daughter Tullia had died, and Cicero had withdrawn from public life to devote himself to philosophy. The five books deal with how to face:

1. the fear of death;
2. physical pain;
3. grief;
4. the other disturbances of the mind;
5. and whether virtue alone is enough to live a happy life.

What was Cicero’s Academy?

At his villa Cicero had a gallery for philosophical discussion built and called it the Academy, after Plato’s school in Athens.

At Tusculum, though, the name “Academy of Cicero” points to something else. As early as the seventeenth century it was given to the amphitheatre, about two kilometres from the theatre. Studies have shown that it was built in the second half of the second century AD, some two hundred years after Cicero: apart from tradition, it has nothing to do with him.

Where was Cicero’s villa?

Nobody knows for sure. Scholars were already arguing about it in the nineteenth century: some placed it where Frascati stands today, others where the abbey of Grottaferrata is. None of the sources we consulted places it with certainty. What is certain is the setting: the hill, the remains of the city with its theatre and forum, and all around, on the slopes towards Monte Porzio and Frascati, the great Roman structures that still emerge from the ground.

In short

• Who: Marcus Tullius Cicero, who owned a villa at Tusculum and lived there for long periods.
• The work: Tusculan Disputations, five books, summer or autumn of 45 BC, dedicated to Brutus, after Tullia’s death.
• The Academy: the philosophy gallery of his villa; the “Academy of Cicero” at Tusculum is instead a second century AD amphitheatre.
• The neighbours: Sulla, Lucullus, later Tiberius and Matidia.
• The villa: exact site unknown; Frascati and Grottaferrata are the main theories.
• Read next: Villa Mondragone and the Gregorian calendar, Frascati wine.