"Andrew R. Dyck's full commentary on this work is the first to appear in English or any other language for over a century. Whereas previous commentaries focused primarily on grammar and textual criticism, this one, while not neglecting those areas, insightfully relates the text to the trends, political, philosophical, and religious, of Cicero's times; identifies the influences on Cicero's thinking; and analyzes the relation of this theoretical treatise to his other utterances, public and private, of the time."--BOOK JACKET.

Cicero's The Republic is an impassioned plea for responsible government written just before the civil war that ended the Roman Republic in a dialogue following Plato. This is the first complete English translation of both works for over sixty years and features a lucid introduction, a table of dates, notes on the Roman constitution, and an index of names.

Hegel's often-echoed verdict on the apolitical character of philosophy in the Hellenistic age is challenged in this collection of essays, originally presented at the sixth meeting of the Symposium Hellenisticum. An international team of leading scholars reveals a vigorous intellectual scene of great diversity.

Recovering the Ancient View of Founding questions the consensus view of contemporary scholars who view Cicero as an eclectic and unoriginal political thinker. For them, De Legibus is perhaps the most striking example of this eclecticism. They say that Cicero claims a universal ground for laws that would restore the political privileges of his own aristocratic class. Yet Timothy Caspar shows that Cicero offers a unified, coherent, and original teaching about politics whose aim is justice for the entire republic, not just a part of it. Contrary to the prevailing view, Cicero does not embrace but rejects Stoicism--and any philosophy that culminates in a community of the wise--as a standard for politics. Instead, nature serves as the foundation of Cicero's laws, and he elucidates a political standard grounded in nature and applicable to all citizens. Thus, the law codes of De Legibus are not only in harmony with but required by Cicero's natural law principles. Caspar's Recovering the Ancient View of Founding is a reinterpretation of a key work of ancient Roman political philosophy and belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in philosophy, politics, or ancient Rome.

A prolific philosopher who also held Rome's highest political office, Cicero was uniquely qualified to write on political philosophy. In this book Professor Atkins provides a fresh interpretation of Cicero's central political dialogues - the Republic and Laws. Devoting careful attention to form as well as philosophy, Atkins argues that these dialogues together probe the limits of reason in political affairs and explore the resources available to the statesman given these limitations. He shows how Cicero appropriated and transformed Plato's thought to forge original and important works of political philosophy. The book demonstrates that Cicero's Republic and Laws are critical for understanding the history of the concepts of rights, the mixed constitution and natural law. It concludes by comparing Cicero's thought to the modern conservative tradition and argues that Cicero provides a perspective on utopia frequently absent from current philosophical treatments.

Cicero (106-43BC) was the most brilliant orator in Classical history. Even one of the men who authorized his assassination, the Emperor Octavian, admitted to his grandson that Cicero was: 'an eloquent man, my boy, eloquent and a lover of his country'. This new selection of speeches illustrates Cicero's fierce loyalty to the Roman Republic, giving an overview of his oratory from early victories in the law courts to the height of his political career in the Senate. We see him sway the opinions of the mob and the most powerful men in Rome, in favour of Pompey the Great and against the conspirator Catiline, while The Philippics, considered his finest achievements, contain the thrilling invective delivered against his rival, Mark Antony, which eventually led to Cicero's death.

CICEREO was a prodigious letter writer, and happily a splendid treasury of his letters has come down to us. Collected and in part published not long after his death, over 800 of them were rediscovered by Petrarch and other Italian humanists in the fourteenth century. Among classical texts this correspondence is unparalleled: nowhere else do we get such an intimate look at the life of a prominent Roman and his social world, or such a vivid sense of a momentous period in Roman history, years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic. The 435 letters collected here represent Ciceros correspondence with friends and acquaintances over a period of twenty years, from 62 BC, when Ciceros political career was at its peak, to 43, the year he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony. They range widely in substance and style, from official dispatches and semi-public letters of political importance to casual notes that chat with close friends about travels and projects, domestic pleasures and books, and questions currently debated. This new Loeb Classical Library edition of the Letters to Friends, in three volumes brings together D.R. Shackleton Baileys standard Latin text, now updated, and a revised version of his much admired translation first published by Penguin Books. This authoritative edition complements the new Loeb edition of Ciceros Letters to Atticus, also translated by Shackleton Bailey.