Cicero’s compromise between stoic and rethorical pathos

In the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero admires the Stoic theory of emotions. According to this theory, emotions are failures of reason, and a healthy soul must be free of them. Yet, in his rhetorical writings, Cicero holds that an Orator must experience the emotion he seeks to transmit to be truthful. Cicero’s Stoic theory and rhetorical theory of emotions are irreconcilable. However, this paper argues that we cannot speak of an inconsistency in Cicero’s thought. As a skeptic and rhetorician, Cicero never intended a systematic correspondence between his philosophical and rhetorical doctrines.