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The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

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About this book

Letters written amid public disputes also reveal Cicero's concerns as a brother and friend. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh's English translation arranges the correspondence chronologically and supplies notes on people and events. The preface explains why these exchanges can be difficult to interpret: some answer letters that no longer survive, while others mention matters their recipients already understood. This gives readers both a view of life in ancient Rome and a sense of the gaps that remain in its surviving records.

Courtroom work and political loyalties run through the correspondence. Cicero describes defending Bestia against a bribery charge, assisting Sestius and observing the forces gathering around Pompey and Clodius. In the same letter, he discusses housing arrangements and asks after his brother's health in Sardinia.

About the author

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, advocate, orator, and philosophical writer whose Latin prose helped transmit Greek ethical debate to later readers. On the Good Life is a Penguin Classics selection, translated and introduced by Michael Grant, that gathers Cicero’s reflections on moral integrity, friendship, public duty, and happiness.