Select orations of Cicero with an English commentary and historical, geographical, and legal indexes - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ...of this speech. To the argument adduced from Plutarch, ho answers, that some months had elapsed between the orations for Marcellus and Ligarius, which might readily be called a long period by one accustomed to hear Cicero harangue almost daily in the senate or forum. Besides, the phrase of Plutarch, Xlyoiroj, may mean pleading for some one, which was not the nature of the speech for Marcellus. As to the motive which led to write and publish the oration, Cicero, above all men, was delighted with his own productions, and nothing can be more probable, than that he should have wished to preserve the remembrance of that memorable day, which he calls, in his letters, " diem illam pulckerrimam." It was natural to send the oration to Marcellus, in order to hasten his return to Rome, and it must have been an acceptable thing to Caesar, thus to record his fearlessness and benignity. With regard to the manner in which Pompey and the republican party are talked of, it is evident, from his letters, that Cicero was disgusted with tte political measures of that faction, that he wholly disapproved of their plan of the campaign, and, foreseeing a renewal of Sylla's proscriptions in the triumph of the aristocratic power, he did not exaggerate in so highly extolling the humanity of Caesar. The arguments of Wormius were expanded and illustrated by Weiske, in a commentary on the oration for Marcellus, published at Leipsic, in 1805, while on the other hand, Spalding, in a disputation published in 1808, supported the opinions of Wolf. The controversy was in this state, and was considered as involved in much doubt and obscurity, when Aug. Jacob, in an academical exercise, printed at Halle in 1813, adopted a middle course. Finding such dissimilarity in the different...