'On the Nature of the Gods' Summary

De Natura Deorum belongs to the group of philosophical works which Cicero wrote in the two years preceding his death in 43 BC. He states near the beginning of De Natura Deorum that he wrote them both as a relief from the political inactivity to which he was reduced by the supremacy of Julius Caesar, and as a distraction from the grief caused by the death of his daughter Tullia.

The dialogue is supposed to take place in Rome at the house of Gaius Aurelius Cotta. In the dialogue he appears as pontiff, but not as consul. He was made pontiff soon after 82 BC, and consul in 75 BC, and as Cicero, who is present at the dialogue as a listener, did not return from Athens till 77 BC, its fictional date can be set between the years 77 and 75 BC, when Cicero was about thirty years of age, and Cotta about forty-eight.

The book contains various obscurities and inconsistencies which demonstrate that it was probably never revised by Cicero, nor published until after his death. For the content, Cicero borrowed largely from earlier Greek sources. However, the hasty arrangement by Cicero of authorities who themselves wrote independently of one another means that the work lacks cohesion, and points raised by one speaker are sometimes not countered by subsequent speakers.