CICERO'S LETTERS. The letters, of Cicero cover a period of 25 years, from 68 to 43 a.c., the year of the orator's death, and are embraced in four groups: (1) (Epistulz ad Familiarese consisting of 16 books of letters to various friends, including an entire book of those addressed to his wife and children, and another book of those to his faithful freedman Tiro.
(2)
(3) (Epistulae•ad Quintuni Fratrem,' three books of letters to Cicero's brother Quintus.
(4) (Epistulk ad Marcum Brutum,> two books of letters to the Brutus who headed the conspiracy against Julius Caesar.
The contents of the letters are so various that it is difficult in brief compass to give any adequate conception of their range and quality. Many of them deal directly with the stirring political issues of Cicero's own time, the strife of parties, the competition for office, the am bitious aspirations of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus in the First Triumvirate, the struggle between Caisar and Pompey and the chaotic conditions subsequent to Caesar's assassination. Others have to do with the purely personal af fairs of the writer, the publication of his works, the construction and furnishing of his villas or the gossip of the day. Several touch upon the domestic infelicities of Quintus Cicero and his wife, Pomponia, the sister of Atticus, in which Atticus naturally blamed Quintus, while Cicero blamed Pomponia.
Most of the letters are written in the more intimate style of the Roman sermo fonsiborit, contrasting strongly with the studied elegance of the formal style characteristic of Cicero's other works. Equally marked is the unreserved frankness with which Cicero discusses the men and measures of his day. In the letters to Atticus in particular he practises as little re serve as if he were writing a diary for his own private edification. As a result, some of the less attractive features of Cicero's personality are brought out in strong relief. Thus in 65 B.C. we find him writing to Atticus that he con templates the defense of the unsavory Catiline. "I am thinking," he says, "of defending Cati line. We can have any jury we wish with the full consent of the prosecutor. If Catiline is acquitted, I hope it will make us better friends.'
Thus he writes of the man whose true character he knew well, and whom only two years later he was branding in his speeches with all the vituperation at his command. On his way into exile and later when in banishment he breaks out into the most disconsolate lamentations as to his hard lot, bewailing the sad fate of his wife and children and expressing regret that he had not committed suicide. Fifteen months later the exultation to which he gives utterance on his return to Italy and the capital is no less extravagant. In 52 E.c. he went to Cilicia in Asia Minor as provincial governor. He cannot dwell sufficiently upon the enthusiasm mani fested at his arrival in the different towns through which he passed on his outward journey. A trivial military success over some wild mountain tribes within his jurisdiction impels him to write home in loud praises of his achievement.
The four collections above enumerated con tain 774 letters written by Cicero. As many more are believed on good grounds to have ex isted in antiquity and to have been lost. In corporated in the (Epistulm ad Familiares) and the 'Epistulz ad are some 90 letters written by Cicero's correspondents. Thus we have one entire book of letters from Cwlius. Others from whom letters are preserved are Plancus, Cato, Pompey, Cassius, Lepidus and Asinius Pollio. One of the most notable letters is from Julius Caesar, written in reply to one of Cicero. Cicero had praised the dictator for his magnanimity in sparing the lives of his opponents who had surrendered at Obrfiniuth: Cmsar's reply breathes the same generous spirit which had prompted his act of clemency.
In their range, their sincerity, their connec tion with the events of the time and their in tensely human quality, the 'Letters' are not only of commanding interest, but they are of the greatest value in helping us to understand the complex character of the orator and the tangled events of his day. In modern times the first manuscript of the 'Letters) was dis covered by Petrarch in the 14th century. The great humanist was shocked at the new light thrown by them on Cicero's character, and com posed his famous letter to Cicero. There is an ex cellent translation of all the letters by E. Shuck burgh in the Bohn Library; also of the 'Letters) to Atticus in the Loeb Library by E. 0. Winstedt.