Tusculan Disputations

A work in five books, written in 45 BCE soon after the death of Cicero's daughter Tullia and dedicated to Brutus. It reports discussions held over five days at Cicero's country house at Tusculum. In each, a listener puts forward a view, and Cicero argues against it at length, in the manner of the Academic school. Book I argues that death is not an evil, whether the soul survives or perishes. Book II teaches how to bear physical pain. Book III argues that grief and distress rest on false beliefs and can be cured by philosophy. Book IV extends this to the other disturbances of the mind, such as fear, desire and excessive joy, largely following the Stoic theory of emotions. Book V argues that virtue alone is enough for a happy life. Throughout, Cicero presents philosophy as a medicine for the mind and draws freely on Roman history and Greek poetry.

It is one of the clearest ancient works on philosophy as therapy for grief, fear and pain, and a main source for the Stoic theory of emotions.