John T. Ramsey - Böcker

This edition is the first since J. D. Denniston's of 1926 to present the Latin text of and a commentary on the First and Second Philippics, two of the most polished orations in the Ciceronian corpus. These speeches, which were composed less than six months after the murder of Julius Caesar in March 44 BC, offer a scathing account of the early years and the rise to power of Mark Antony, Caesar's chief lieutenant. The period covered by these speeches (roughly 63-44 BC) is an important one because the Roman state was in transition from Republic to Empire. The Second Philippic not only gives us Cicero's assessment of his own political career and place in Roman history from a perspective late in life, but it also provides a vivid eyewitness account of how the dominance first of Julius Caesar and later of Mark Antony was shifting the locus of power from the Senate and Roman aristocracy to a single dynast.

Chronicles of a Caesarean partisan.Sallust, Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86–35 BC), a Sabine from Amiternum, acted as tribune against Cicero and Milo in 52, joined Caesar after being expelled from the Senate in 50, was restored to the Senate by Caesar and took part in his African campaign as praetor in 46, and was then appointed governor of New Africa (Numidia). Upon his return to Rome he narrowly escaped conviction for malfeasance in office, retired from public life, and took up historiography. Sallust’s last work, the annalistic Histories in five books, is much more expansive than his monographs on Catiline and Jugurtha (LCL 116), treating the whole of Roman history at home and abroad in the post-Sullan age. Although fragmentary, it provides invaluable information and insight about a crucial period of history spanning the period from 78 to around 67 BC.Although Sallust is decidedly unsubtle and partisan in analyzing people and events, his works are important and significantly influenced later historians, notably Tacitus. Taking Thucydides as his model but building on Roman stylistic and rhetorical traditions, Sallust achieved a distinctive style, concentrated and arresting; lively characterizations, especially in the speeches; and skill at using particular episodes to illustrate large general themes.For this volume, which completes the Loeb Classical Library edition of Sallust’s works, John T. Ramsey has freshly edited the Histories and the two pseudo-Sallustian Letters to Caesar, supplying ample annotation.