Societas Via Romana - Discussion Archives

Hi!

I'm am doing a paper on Cicero, and I was wondering if any of you could give me some references on which websites to check out. My paper is due on the 20th December and I'm stressssssed! Please help me!

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Cic.html

this is a whole site about Cicero

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cicero.htm

This one is much better tough.

"Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on January 3, 106 BC and was murdered on December 7, 43 BC. His life coincided with the decline and fall of the Roman Republic, and he was an important actor in many of the significant political events of his time (and his writings are now a valuable source of information to us about those events). He was, among other things, an orator, lawyer, politician, and philosopher. Making sense of his writings and understanding his philosophy requires us to keep that in mind. He placed politics above philosophical study; the latter was valuable in its own right but was even more valuable as the means to more effective political action. The only periods of his life in which he wrote philosophical works were the times he was forcibly prevented from taking part in politics"

Salve Clodia,

What exactly is your paper about ?

Vale,

Q. Pomponius Atticus

Salva sis Clodia

Try the Perseus Project at Tufts Univeristy http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
Then write "Cicero" in the search and you will find translations of some of his works, articles about Cicero and even some photos of him.

Another good website on Cicero http://gracie.smsu.edu/cicero.htm

And then there is Herakleia's page at Ancient Worlds which is a good source http://heraklia.fws1.com/contemporaries ... index.html

Not as good as sources go, but for quick references try N. S. Gill at About.com's Cicero page http://ancienthistory.about.com/library ... cicero.htm

Vale optime et habe bonam fortunam

Wow, I never thought you would answer this soon Thank you!

I basically have to set out the political situation in Cicero's time and also his political influence on society. I have to comment 2 or more sources written by or about him.. I was thinking about his "De Republica" and maybe a small part of "In Catilinam Oratio Prima" which I have translated into Danish and worked with in the Latin lessons.
I'm in high school so the niveau has to be quite high without being of university standards.

Do you have any ideas what I could do besides this? The paper has to be around 8-10 pages long.

Salve Clodia,

It's actually the opposite of political influence on society, but I always heard that Cicero wrote quite some letters to Atticus, complaining about his declining influence before the Civil War between Caesar and Pompeius.

There's a certain Atticus around here, who has read all his letters, did you find anything about this Attice ?

Good luck on your paper, this morning I had to hand in mine, also of the 8 to 10 pages variety (about Tacitus tough), could this be a mere coincidence ?!?

Well, it probably is

Lupus

Salve Clodia,

About Cicero and politics, see (among others) :

A. Everitt, Cicero : the life and times of Rome's greatest politician (quite recent, so should be easy to find)
M. Fuhrmann, Cicero and the Roman Republic
F.R. Cowell, Cicero and the Roman Republic (quite old, perhaps harder to find)

The letters to Atticus do indeed contain interesting political reflections, especially in the period of the civil war with Caesar.

Vale,

Atticus

Salve Clodia

Clodia wrote:I basically have to set out the political situation in Cicero's time and also his political influence on society.

Hm, I think one would have to break his career down into three parts. The success he had in his early career in the courts certainly impacted on how the post Sulla regime operated. His own consulship and the Catalina affair ruined Cicero, undermined his credibility so that he had no influence with anyone in the period leading to the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar. But he did have a come-back. I think that it can be argued that more than anyone else he did rally the Senate against Antony and indirectly for Octavius.

His Republic may have had an influence on political thought in later centuries, but influenced no one in his own time. It was a reflection by a defeated politician who most people thought was a clown by then. Perhaps his most influential work in his own time was the Phillipics. Those speeches changed the course of political events and ultimately led to his own death.

Habe bonam fortunam

Ave Clodia! Marius Peregrinus at your service. <bows>

For a "different" (and non-laudatory) take on Marcus Tullius, it's hard to beat Arthur Kahn's The Education of Julius Caesar. The author has his own politics and so must be read carefully; but before this book, hardly anyone dared write of Cicero except as some mythic Savior of the Republic. (The Taylor Caldwell novel, Pillar of Iron, is especially disgusting.) I'm certain that is how Cice' saw himself; and if Kahn had been a Republican Roman, he would likely have yanked the Consul's toga right off of him in public, and all the pretensions that went with it.

Aside to Antonius Lucullus: I seem to have picked my Avatar just after you picked yours; would you like me to change it...?

In amicitia,

I must admit that this it quite a large subject. I do not have so many books to look up in other than Vita Romana and Oxford Companion. I find it difficult to trust the Internet.
I can not get my hands on the previous mentioned book because the libraries of Denmark sucks. Pardon my French...
I am not losing hope yet, although I feel a strong urge for this very thing..
The assignment is due tomorrow but I would like to thank you all for your help

Still on the loose,