This edition is the first since J.D. Denniston's of 1926 to present the Latin text and commentary on the First and Second Philippics, two of Cicero's most polished orations, composed less than six months after the murder of Julius Caesar in March 44 BC. This period--roughly 63-44 BC--is important because the Roman state was in transition from Republic to Empire. The Second Philippic not only presents Cicero's assessment of his own political career and his place in Roman history from a perspective late in his life, but it also provides a vivid eyewitness account of how Julius Caesar, with the...

This unique collaboration between a classicist and physicist at the University of Illinois at Chicago is the first work to combine the evidence from both China and Rome for the spectacular daylight comet of 44 BC, perhaps the most famous comet in antiquity. This investigation, which also examines allusions to this comet in astrological literature from later antiquity, sheds new light on the significance of the comet as a powerful symbol in the political propaganda that launched Augustus' career.