Crantor’s influence on Roman consolatory tradition. The case of Cicero

This paper aims to discuss Crantor’s influence on Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes in order to shed light on the Academic origin of Cicero’s treatment of emotions. The main focus is the role of Crantor’s On Grief in the third book of Cicero’s Tusculanae, since this book is representative of the development of Roman consolatory tradition as well as of the influence, more or less explicit, of Crantor and, more generally, of the Academy as a centre for the pursuit of practical ethics. In the first part of this paper, I will present Cicero’s Tusculanae, book 3, as a source for the philosophical debates on emotions; then I will focus on Cicero’s references to and quotes of Crantor, and lastly on the contribution of the Consolation to Apollonius in discovering also the latent debts Cicero owes Crantor.