Roman life in the days of Cicero

Editorial Reviews

• Product Description

  This book does not claim to be a life of Cicero or a history of the last
  days of the Roman Republic. Still less does it pretend to come into
  comparison with such a work as Bekker's _Gallus_, in which on a slender
  thread of narrative is hung a vast amount of facts relating to the
  social life of the Romans. I have tried to group round the central
  figure of Cicero various sketches of men and manners, and so to give my
  readers some idea of what life actually was in Rome, and the provinces
  of Rome, during the first six decades--to speak roughly--of the first
  century B.C. I speak of Cicero as the "central figure," not as judging
  him to be the most important man of the time, but because it is from
  him, from his speeches and letters, that we chiefly derive the
  information of which I have here made use. Hence it follows that I give,
  not indeed a life of the great orator, but a sketch of his personality
  and career. I have been obliged also to trespass on the domain of
  history: speaking of Cicero, I was obliged to speak also of Caesar and
  of Pompey, of Cato and of Antony, and to give a narrative, which I have
  striven to make as brief as possible, of their military achievements and
  political action. I must apologize for seeming to speak dogmatically on
  some questions which have been much disputed. It would have been
  obviously inconsistent with the character of the book to give the
  opposing arguments; and my only course was to state simply conclusions
  which I had done my best to make correct.