Letters to Friends, Volume III, 281-435

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero 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 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.

The 435 letters collected here represent Cicero's correspondence with friends and acquaintances over a period of 20 years, from 62 BCE, when Cicero's political career was at its peak, to 43 BCE, the year he was put to death by the victorious Triumvirs. 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 Bailey's standard Latin text, now updated, and a revised version of his much admired translation first published by Penguin. This authoritative edition complements the new Loeb edition of Cicero's Letters to Atticus, also translated by Shackleton Bailey.

Genres: Classics

496 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

Born 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Italy
Died 7 December 43 BC (aged 63), Formia, Italy

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

Alternate profiles:
Cicéron
Marco Tullio Cicerone
Cicerone

Note: All editions should have Marcus Tullius Cicero as primary author. Editions with another name on the cover should have that name added as secondary author.

Reviews

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, thats it for Cicero's letters. I started this journey late last year and slowly worked my way through it. What I ended up finding far surpassed anything that I had read from antiquity. I cannot describe this experience as anything but the most personal insight into someone. The only thing that could remotely come close is Ovid's exile poetry. That Cicero lived well over 2000 years ago but here I am reading his honest thoughts and feelings is amazing. The letters to friends and to Atticus span his entire career. All the highs and lows. From his exile, governorship, his divorce, the civil war and Caesar's ascendancy, the death of his daughter, and his final attempt to 'right' the republic after Caesars death. Its all there and its all so personal. While the entire series was amazing, this final volume was truly a whirlwind... covering the hectic and often confusing final moments before the formation of the second triumvirate.

To much information, I am sure, but this was exactly what I needed to read at this point in my life and I read it in many different places and personal moods. I started this journey in Australia and took this with me, reading parts in the remote towns in Oregon, all the way to the Roman Forum, Corcyra, Athens, Delos. As cringy as it is to say, but these books taught me a lot. Cicero's letters to Varro just struck a cord with me. I often find myself repeating his line about the games of Brutus on the ides of July (although I cannot for the life of me find the original quote). This really is something that will stay with me.

So much for a basic review on a little read book on Goodreads... a Loeb classic edition to boot.

[John Cairns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even beter than the equivalent Letters to Atticus volume. It also doesn't give the lead-up to the Ides but more fully gives Cicero taking the lead in the Senate subsequently. If he'd been let in on the conspiracy, he'd've had Antony killed and that would probably have been that, for a bit anyway. I loved mention of Spurrina. Is that Spurrina of 'Beware the Ides of March'? Yes! because the index calls him a diviner.