Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
CICERO.
BUST IN THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUM, ROME.
The letters contained in this volume cover a largeand important period in Cicero’s life and in thehistory of Rome. They begin when he was 38 yearsof age; and at first they are not very numerous. Thereare only two of that year (68 B.C.), six of the followingyear, one of the year 66, when he held the praetorship,and two of 65. Then there is a gap in his correspondence.No letters at all survive from the periodof his consulship and the Catilinarian conspiracy;and the letters to Atticus do not begin again untiltwo years after that event. Thereafter they aresufficiently frequent to justify Cornelius Nepos’ criticism,that reading them, one has little need of anelaborate history of the period. There are full—almosttoo full—details, considering the frequentcomplaints and repetitions, during the year of hisbanishment (58–57 B.C.), and the correspondencecontinues unbroken to the year 54. Then after alapse of two years or more, which Atticus presumablyspent in Rome, it begins again in 51, whenCicero was sent to Cilicia as pro-consul, much againsthis will; and the volume ends with a hint of thetrouble that was brewing between Caesar andPompey, as Cicero was returning to Rome towardsthe end of the next year.
The letters have been translated in the traditionaryorder in which they are usually printed. That order,however, is not strictly chronological; and, for theconvenience of those who would read them in theirhistorical order, a table arranging them so far aspossible in order of date has been drawn up at theend of the volume.
For the basis of the text the Teubner edition hasvibeen used; but it has been revised by comparison withmore recent works and papers on the subject. Textualnotes have only been given in a few cases where thereading is especially corrupt or uncertain;