To my knowledge, this is the first English translation of Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" since J. E. King's 1927 production for the Loeb Classical Library. I worked from the Loeb texts extensively while studying for my Bachelor's in Classical Languages, and although I cannot provide an excerpt since I no longer have convenient access to the Loeb editon, I will ask you, reader, to trust me when I say that the English prose usually left much to be desired.Which would you rather read? This:"But as the perturbations of the mind make life miserable, and tranquillity renders it happy; and as these perturbations are of two sorts, grief and fear, proceeding from imagined evils, and as immoderate joy and lust arise from a mistake about what is good, and as all these feelings are in opposition to reason and counsel; when you see a man at ease, quite free and disengaged from such troublesome commotions, which are so much at variance with one another can you hesitate to pronounce such an one a happy man?"Or this:"So perturbations of the mind cause misery, and mastery of one's feelings brings about a happy life. Perturbation has a twofold path, because anxiety and fear are based on imagined evils, while eagerly desired joy and lust hinge on an erroneous understanding of goods. All of these things, however, clash with reason and level-headed counsel. When you see someone free from, unbothered by, and unconnected to emotional distresses so serious, antagonistic, and at variance with each other, will you doubt that he should be called happy?"The second excerpt is from the book I'm reviewing (I have included a photo of the page, with the author's permission, so you can read the full context of this passage if you wish). The first is from C.D. Yonge's 1877 translation, and is pretty much the sort of prose you'd find in most of the Loeb editions (I cannot include an excerpt from the Loeb because I no longer have convenient access to it). That is to say, it's representative of the translations done during this general period, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when scholarship was more poetic, and the emphasis of translation was placed on imitating Cicero's oratorical style.Well, unfortunately, the English language is simply not suited to the task. In Latin, much of the syntax can be signaled by inflection -- for example, indirect statements can be signaled by a subject accusative with an infinitive -- and this permits Cicero's Latin to be very elegant, as many elements of standard constructions can be omitted or implied. It also allows Cicero to make the syntax of his sentences as complicated as he wants, without seriously jeopardizing the ability of a fluent reader to follow along. This is not the case with English, where syntax is determined by word order and conjunctions. That's why Yonge's translation of this paragraph ended up being a single, obnoxiously long sentence that almost runs on in places.Quintus makes the opposite choice: he prioritizes the clarity and the rigor of the ideas being discussed over the stylistic flourishes. This is the choice I wish more translators would make, because, after all, this is a philosophical text, and not a speech on the floor of the Roman senate.When translating a text such as this one, Logos must take precedence over Pathos, because Cicero was not merely a rhetorician, but a serious moral philosopher in his own right, and the emphasis in these translations should be on conveying the particulars of his world view to a new generation of readers. Since the academy has failed to lay this emphasis, it's no surprise that even the educated public has not been very interested in the Tusculan Disputations, or even in Cicero in general. This new translation from Quintus Curtius goes a long way towards rectifying the situation.