On Life and Death [Paperback]

Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world and a leading politician of the closing era of the Roman republic. These three dialogues here are among the most accessible of Cicero's philosophical works.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.IntroductionNote on the TextSelect BibliographyA Chronology of CiceroTUSCULAN DISPUTATIONSBook 1Book 2Preface to Book 3Preface to Book 4Book 5ON OLD AGEON FRIENDSHIPAppendix: Two Letters to FriendsExplanatory NotesJohn 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'sDialogues and Essaysand 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 Stl³‚