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New edition of and detailed commentary on perhaps Cicero's best-loved speech, suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
This book presents five of Cicero's courtroom defences, including the defence of Roscius, falsely accused of murdering his father; of the consul-elect Murena, accused of electoral bribery; and of Milo, for murdering Cicero's enemy Clodius.
Pro Marco Caelio is perhaps Cicero's best-loved speech and has long been regarded as one of the best surviving examples of Roman oratory. Speaking in defence of the young aristocrat Marcus Caelius Rufus on charges of political violence, Cicero scores his points with wit but also with searing invective directed at a supporter of the prosecution, Clodia Metelli, whom he represents as seeking vengeance as a lover spurned by his client. This new edition and detailed commentary offers advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as scholars, a detailed analysis of Cicero's rhetorical strategies and stylistic refinements and presents a systematic account of the background and significance of the speech, including in-depth explanations of Roman court proceedings.
Perhaps no other single Roman speech exemplifies the connection between oratory, politics and imperialism better than Cicero's De Provinciis Consularibus, pronounced to the senate in 56 BC. Cicero puts his talents at the service of the powerful triumviri (Caesar, Crassus and Pompey), whose aims he advances by appealing to the senators' imperialistic and chauvinistic ideology. This oration, then, yields precious insights into several areas of late republican life: international relations between Rome and the provinces (Gaul, Macedonia and Judaea); the senators' view on governors, publicani (tax-farmers) and foreigners; the dirty mechanics of high politics in the 50s, driven by lust for domination and money; and Cicero's own role in that political choreography. This speech also exemplifies the exceptional range of Cicero's oratory: the invective against Piso and Gabinius calls for biting irony, the praise of Caesar displays high rhetoric, the rejection of other senators' recommendations is a tour de force of logical and sophisticated argument, and Cicero's justification for his own conduct is embedded in the self-fashioning narrative which is typical of his post reditum speeches. This new commentary includes an updated introduction, which provides the readers with a historical, rhetorical and stylistic background to appreciate the complexities of Cicero's oration, as well as indexes and maps.
A striking portrait of one of the most fascinating women in Roman history Noble and notorious, the flamboyant Clodia Metelli was the object of passion in poetry and prose in ancient Rome and appears in more written sources than any other woman of her day. Cicero, in a famous oration, branded her a whore yet in private correspondence mentions seeking her help. Her stormy affair with the poet Catullus—the Western world’s first recorded romance with a real and richly characterized woman—had a profound influence on erotic literature. Bringing together works by Cicero, Catullus, and others in which Clodia plays a part, Julia Dyson Hejduk has produced a striking portrait of one of the most fascinating women in Roman history. Her accurate and accessible English translations include not only all the classical texts that mention Clodia, but also a substantial selection of Roman erotic poetry by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. While many sourcebooks offer only small illustrative excerpts, Clodia provides most sources in their entirety, such as the Pro Caelio of Cicero, nineteen complete letters, all of Catullus’s poems on “Lesbia” (his pseudonym for Clodia), and many subsequent love elegies. Hejduk’s translations please the ear while remaining faithful to the original meaning. Her introduction reviews topics in classical culture and themes in Roman love poetry, placing the texts in their literary, social, and historical context and making them accessible to high school students and undergraduates. Notes, glossary, and bibliography make the book a well-rounded teaching tool.
This is the OCR-endorsed edition covering the Latin AS and A-Level (Group 1) prescription of Cicero's pro Caelio, 51–58, 61–68, and the A-Level (Group 2) prescription of 33–50, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed material to be read in English for A Level. Pro Caelio is one of Cicero's finest and funniest speeches. In 56 BC, he defended Marcus Caelius Rufus who was being prosecuted on charges of violence, including the attempted poisoning of Roman noblewoman Clodia with whom Caelius previously had an affair. Cicero's primary tactic was to blacken the character and reliability of Clodia, whom he depicts as the woman scorned, prosecuting Caelius out of revenge. Drawing on characters well known from Roman comedy, Cicero casts Caelius as the decent young man victimized by the aggressive courtesan, thereby shaming Clodia and glossing over the more awkward charges levelled at his client. Supporting resources are available on the Companion Website: https://www.bloomsbury.pub/OCR-editions-2024-2026
In 62 BC, the year after his suppression of Catiline, Cicero delivered Pro Sulla, a successful defence of P. Cornelius Sulla, the nephew of the dictator, on a charge of participation in the Catilinarian conspiracy. This edition, which contains a new text together with introduction, commentary and appendices, is the first full-scale scholarly treatment of the speech. The text takes account of Gulielmius' reports of the missing portion of the Erfurtensis manuscript, recovered by Dr Berry and published as a preliminary to this edition in 1989; a complete collation is provided of this and the other principal manuscripts. The introduction includes a reassessment of Sulla's guilt and Cicero's undertaking of the case, and also considers issues such as the prose rhythm of the speech and its publication. The commentary discusses history, text and syntax as well as rhetoric and style.
The ancient Romans quite literally surrounded themselves with the dead: masks of the dead were in the atria of their houses, funerals paraded through their main marketplace, and tombs lined the roads leading into and out of the city. In Roman literature as well, the dead occupy a prominent place, indicating a close and complex relationship between literature and society. The evocation of the dead in the Latin authors of the first century BCE both responds and contributes to changing socio-political conditions during the transition from the Republic to the Empire. To understand the literary life of the Roman dead, The Ghosts of the Past develops a new perspective on Latin literature's interaction with Roman culture. Drawing on the insights of sociology, anthropology, and performance theory, Basil Dufallo argues that authors of the late Republic and early Principate engage strategically with Roman behaviors centered on the dead and their world in order to address urgent political and social concerns. Republican literature exploits this context for the ends of political competition among the clan-based Roman elite, while early imperial literature seeks to restage the republican practices for a reformed Augustan society. Calling into question boundaries of genre and literary form, Dufallo's study will revise current understandings of Latin literature as a cultural and performance practice. Works as diverse as Cicero's speeches, Propertian elegy, Horace's epodes and satires, and Vergil's Aeneid appear in a new light as performed texts interacting with other kinds of cultural performance from which they might otherwise seem isolated.
