All five speeches in the Oxford University Press selection of Defence Speeches by Cicero are given extremely thorough and wonderfully lucid introductions by the volume’s editor and translator, D.H. Berry. Pro Milone has the longest introduction of the lot, at 12 pages of small font, i.e. a lot of content because there’s a lot to […]
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Pro Milone by Cicero (52 BC)
Posted by Simon on July 20, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/07/20/pro-milone-cicero/
Pro Caelio by Cicero (56 BC)
Background Marcus Tullius Cicero gave the speech known as Pro Caelio on 4 April 56 BC in defence of his young protegé and one-time friend, Marcus Caelius Rufus, generally known as Caelius. The full background to the trial is staggeringly complicated. It is explained in great detail and with admirable clarity by D.H. Berry, editor […]
Posted by Simon on July 18, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/pro-caelio-cicero/
Pro Murena by Cicero (63 BC)
‘Hardly anyone dances when he is sober, unless he is insane…’ (Cicero defending his client against charges of loose living in Pro Murena) It is late November 63 BC and Marcus Tullius Cicero is drawing towards the end of his year serving as one of Rome’s two consuls. The last few months have been marked by […]
Posted by Simon on July 13, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/07/13/pro-murena-cicero/
The poems of Propertius translated by Ronald Musker
He errs who expects the madness of love to end; Love that is true can know no measure… In life I shall always be hers; in death I shall be hers still. (Book 2, elegy 15) Robert Maltby’s introduction to the Oxford University Press edition of the elegies of Tibullus is outstanding in its clarity […]
Posted by Simon on November 4, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/11/04/propertius-ronald-musker/
On Friendship by Cicero (44 BC)
‘Friendship is the noblest and most delightful of all the gifts the gods have given to mankind.’ (On Friendship, section 5) On Friendship is a treatise or long essay by Marcus Tullius Cicero, 50 pages long in the Penguin volume titled On The Good Life. The setting is a little convoluted. It is set in […]
Posted by Simon on July 4, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/on-friendship-cicero/
On Old Age by Cicero (44 BC)
‘Of what immense worth is it for the soul to be with itself, to live, as the phrase is, with itself, discharged from the service of lust, ambition, strife, enmities, desires of every kind!’ (On old age by Cicero) Cicero wrote De senectute or ‘Of old age’ to disabuse people of their negative stereotypes about […]
Posted by Simon on July 1, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/07/01/on-old-age-cicero/
De republica by Cicero (54 BC)
The best possible political constitution represents a judicious blend of these three types: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. (De republica by Cicero, fragment of Book 2) De republica was written by the Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosophical populariser Marcus Tullius Cicero between 54 and 51 BC. It is variously translated into English as The Republic, A […]
Posted by Simon on June 27, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/06/27/de-republica-cicero/
Books & Boots 