On Life and Death (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Cicero

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199644144 ISBN 13: 9780199644148

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Rome's greatest orator, had a career of intense activity in politics, the law courts and the administration, mostly in Rome. His fortunes, however, followed those of Rome, and he found himself driven into exile in 58 BC, only to return a year later to a city paralyzed by the domination of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. Cicero, though a senior statesman, struggled to maintain his independence and it was during these years that, frustrated in public life, he first started to put his excess energy, stylistic brilliance, and superabundant vocabulary into writing these works of philosophy. The three dialogues collected here are the most accessible of Cicero's works, written to his friends Atticus and Brutus, with the intent of popularizing philosophy in Ancient Rome. They deal with the everyday problems of life; ethics in business, the experience of grief, and the difficulties of old age.

About this title

About the Author

John Davie is Lecturer in Classics at Trinity Collge, Oxford and former Head of Classics at St Paul's School, London. He has previously translated the complete plays of Euripides for Penguin Classics and has also translated for the Oxford World's Classics Seneca's Dialogues and Essays and Horace's Satires and Epistles.

Miriam T. Griffin was born in New York and studied at Barnard College and Radcliffe before receiving a Fulbright Scholarship to Oxford, where she completed her DPhil under the supervision of Sir Ronald Syme. She was initially the Fulford Research Fellow at St. Anne's College, later being appointed to a tutorial fellowship in Ancient History at Somerville College and a CUF Lectureship in the University, as well as holding a post as Langford Eminent scholar at Florida State University in 2008. She was the editor of The Classical Quarterly from 2002 until 2007 and was a long-standing editor of the Clarendon Ancient History Series for Oxford University Press. In 2018, Dr Griffin was posthumously awarded a British Academy Medal for her lifetime's contribution to Roman history and ancient thought.

Review

Very accessible... provides much thought-provoking material... will appeal both to those who are already well-versed in philosophy and to those who come new to this discipline. * Marion Gibbs, Classics for All *

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0199644144
• ISBN 13: 9780199644148
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Davie John, Griffin Miriam T.