In letters to his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except, perhaps, his brother. These letters, in this four-volume series, also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history--years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.
When the correspondence begins in November 68 BCE the 38-year-old Cicero is a notable figure in Rome: a brilliant lawyer and orator, who has achieved primacy at the Roman bar and a political career that would culminate in the Consulship in 63. Over the next twenty-four years--to November 44, a year before he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony--Cicero wrote frequently to his friend and confidant, sharing news and discussing affairs of business and state. It is to this corpus of over 400 letters that we owe most of our information about Cicero's literary activity. And taken as a whole the letters provide a first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey was Pope Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Harvard University.
Title: Letters to Atticus: v. 1 (Loeb Classical Library)
Author: Shackleton Bail, D. R.,Cicero, Cicero
ISBN: 9780674995710
Binding:
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 1999-05-30
Number of Pages: 352
Weight: 0.2269 kg
The remarkably broad range of topics treated in this correspondence, and the innumerable details about Roman life that they include, will likely cause these volumes to be of some interest for every student of the ancient world...This is a translation which aims more for the spirit than the letter, and in that aim it is usually remarkably successful. The accuracy with which Shackleton Bailey can capture a nuanced rendering of a closely interconnected set of clauses is often dazzling, enhanced even further by the frequent elegance of his turns of phrase...The editors of the Loeb series are...to be commended for making this editor's rendition of Cicero's Letters to Atticus so conveniently accessible. The collections of Cicero's correspondence are of undeniable importance in illuminating the Roman world, and Shackleton Bailey's editions of them well deserve their definitive status. -- Richard Hamilton * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *