Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic

Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic
Author: Caroline Bishop
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2018-11-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0192564803

The Roman statesman, orator, and author Marcus Tullius Cicero is the embodiment of a classic: his works have been read continuously from antiquity to the present, his style is considered the model for classical Latin, and his influence on Western ideas about the value of humanistic pursuits is both deep and profound. However, despite the significance of subsequent reception in ensuring his canonical status, Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic demonstrates that no one is more responsible for Cicero's transformation into a classic than Cicero himself, and that in his literary works he laid the groundwork for the ways in which he is still remembered today. The volume presents a new way of understanding Cicero's career as an author by situating his textual production within the context of the growth of Greek classicism: the movement had begun to flourish shortly before his lifetime and he clearly grasped its benefits both for himself and for Roman literature more broadly. By strategically adapting classic texts from the Greek world, and incorporating into his adaptations the interpretations of the Hellenistic philosophers, poets, rhetoricians, and scientists who had helped enshrine those works as classics, he could envision and create texts with classical authority for a parallel Roman canon. Ranging across a variety of genres - including philosophy, rhetoric, oratory, poetry, and letters - this close study of Cicero's literary works moves from his early translation of Aratus' poetry (and its later reappearance through self-quotation) to Platonizing philosophy, Aristotelian rhetoric, Demosthenic oratory, and even a planned Greek-style letter collection. Juxtaposing incisive analysis of how Cicero consciously adopted classical Greek writers as models and predecessors with detailed accounts of the reception of those figures by Greek scholars of the Hellenistic period, the volume not only offers ground-breaking new insights into Cicero's ascension to canonical status, but also a salutary new account of Greek intellectual life and its effect on Roman literature.

Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic

Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic
Author: Caroline Bishop (Classicist)
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN: 9780191867941

The Roman statesman, orator, and author Marcus Tullius Cicero is the embodiment of a classic, though only in part due to his subsequent reception. This volume demonstrates how Cicero's strategic adaptation of classic Greek texts allowed him to envision and create texts with classical authority for a parallel Roman canon.

Cicero’s Philosophy

Cicero’s Philosophy
Author: Stefano Maso
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2022-01-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110658666

Cicero was not only a great Roman politician, lawyer and orator: he also dealt extensively with philosophy, which he believed constituted the surest foundation for his commitment to civic affairs. Not limiting himself to the translation of previous philosophical thought, he critically addressed central theoretical questions, and thereby made a lasting impact on Roman intellectual life. This book offers a modern guide to interpretations of Cicero’s philosophical studies, one that ranges across his numerous philosophical works. Addressed to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, and to interested readers in the humanities more generally, the volume aims to break down the boundaries between the philosophical, literary and linguistic dimensions of Cicero’s highly influential oeuvre. Stefano Maso is a full professor in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Ca’ Foscari – Venice. Among his books are: Grasp and Dissent: Cicero and Epicurean Philosophy (Brepols 2015); Epicurus on Eidola: Peri Phuseos Book II. Update, Proposals, and Discussions (ed. with F. Masi, Hakkert 2015). He is co-editor of “Lexis. Poetica, retorica e comunicazione nella tradizione classica”.

Cicero's ‘De Officiis'

Cicero's ‘De Officiis'
Author: Raphael Woolf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2023-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1009058827

Cicero's De Officiis, perhaps his most influential philosophical work, ranges over a wide variety of themes, from the role of the family in society to the question of whether our duties can conflict with one another, and from the moral significance of offence to the question of whether it is right to kill a dictator. This Critical Guide, the first collection of essays devoted to the work, is helpfully organised in thematic sections and aims to illuminate both the main individual topics of De Officiis and their interconnections, with essays by an international team of contributors that will allow readers to appreciate the work's distinctive blend of philosophical theory and social and political reality. It will be valuable for a range of readers in fields including philosophy, classics and political theory.

The Scholia on Cicero's Speeches

The Scholia on Cicero's Speeches
Author: Christoph Pieper
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2023
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004516441

This volume, the first one dedicated to the ancient scholia to Cicero's speeches, analyzes them from different angles and positions them in the broader context of late antique commentaries and learning.

Cicero and the Early Latin Poets

Cicero and the Early Latin Poets
Author: Hannah Čulík-Baird
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2022-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009033085

The writings of Cicero contain hundreds of quotations of Latin poetry. This book examines his citations of Latin poets writing in diverse poetic genres and demonstrates the importance of poetry as an ethical, historical, and linguistic resource in the late Roman Republic. Hannah Čulík-Baird studies Cicero's use of poetry in his letters, speeches, and philosophical works, contextualizing his practice within the broader intellectual trends of contemporary Rome. Cicero's quotations of the 'classic' Latin poets, such as Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and Lucilius, are responsible for preserving the most significant fragments of verse from the second century BCE. The book also therefore examines the process of fragmentation in classical antiquity, with particular attention to the relationship between quotation and fragmentation. The Appendices collect perceptible instances of poetic citation (Greek as well as Latin) in the Ciceronian corpus.

Cicero and Roman Education

Cicero and Roman Education
Author: Giuseppe La Bua
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2019-02-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1107068584

Presents the first full-length, systematic study of the reception of Cicero's speeches in the Roman educational system.

Cicero in Greece, Greece in Cicero

Cicero in Greece, Greece in Cicero
Author: Ioannis Deligiannis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2023-12-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111292770

The volume aims at complementing the international literature on the interaction between Cicero and Greece. It offers new and unpublished material on Cicero's presence in Greece literally, deriving from his epistles, speeches and philosophical treatises, but also on his interaction with the Greek philosophical schools, the Greek language and politics, etc. Besides, it offers new knowledge on the appreciation and reception of Cicero and his texts by the Greek world from Late Antiquity to Byzantium and Modern Greece, based on material deriving from a variety of sources (papyri, manuscripts, compendia or encyclopaedias, imitations, translations, early editions, etc.), an aspect of the relationships between Cicero and Greece still understudied. Thus, the volume offers an image as illustrative as possible of various aspects of the presence of the Greek world in Cicero's works and of Cicero's presence in Greece from his own times to the present day.

Reading Cicero’s Final Years

Reading Cicero’s Final Years
Author: Christoph Pieper
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2020-12-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110716399

This volume contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate regarding the reception of Cicero. It focuses on one particular moment in Cicero’s life, the period from the death of Caesar up to Cicero’s own death. These final years have shaped Cicero’s reception in an special way, as they have condensed and enlarged themes that his life stands for: on the positive side his fight for freedom and the republic against mighty opponents (for which he would finally be killed); on the other hand his inconsistency in terms of political alliances and tendency to overestimate his own influence. For that reason, many later readers viewed the final months of Cicero's life as his swan song, and as representing the essence of his life as a whole. The fixed scope of this volume facilitates an analysis of the underlying debates about the historical character Cicero and his textual legacy (speeches, letters and philosophical works) through the ages, stretching from antiquity itself to the present day. Major themes negotiated in this volume are the influence of Cicero’s regular attempts to anticipate his later reception; the question of whether or not Cicero showed consistency in his behaviour; his debatable heroism with regard to republican freedom; and the interaction between philosophy, rhetoric and politics.