Keep Your Eye on the Balbus: Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 72)

This week Balbus the Stoic is on the hot seat as he attempts to convince this feisty gathering of intellects that not only do the gods exist, but they actually care deeply for humanity's well-being. After shoring up Cicero's debt to Plato and Aristotle, Jeff and Dave get down to the nittus grittus (quaedam rudera) -- Balbus' gods aren't the disinterested, off-playing-shuffleboard-somewhere-bureaucrats Velleius the Epicurean prefers. Before you know it, he's dropping syllogisms and hegemonika to some sick beats. But is he convincing? Do the gods really exist just because a lot of people have talked about them? It quickly gets heated before the whole episode threatens to devolve into a cutthroat round of Rack-O. Also, please subscribe our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AdNavseam