Philosophical Life in Cicero's Letters

ISBN-13: 9781108820233 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 268 str.

Sean McConnell

Opis

This first book in English dedicated to philosophy in Cicero's letters addresses classicists, philosophers, political theorists, and historians. Cicero's political and philosophical activities are reassessed, with special attention given to the civil war and Caesar. A new picture emerges of Cicero the philosopher and philosophy's place in Roman political culture.

Recenzje

'The author has done a great service in pushing far beyond the conclusions, now well-established, that Cicero could 'do' philosophy or fit it to a Roman audience. What the letters reveal - even more than the treatises, perhaps - was that Cicero was not merely putting favored doctrines into practice, but experimenting constantly with how ideas and political realities could reshape one another. A truly gifted intertextualist, McConnell shines brightest in his attention to the manifold ways in which Cicero engages his intellectual forebears.' Lex Paulson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Spis treści

Introduction; 1. Exploring the relationship between philosophy and politics; 2. Cicero and Plato's Seventh Epistle; 3. Cicero and Dicaearchus; 4. A Stoic lecture: Epistulae ad familiares 9.22; 5. Dealing with Caesar: the συμβουλευτικόν; Conclusions.