Reinventing Cicero
The Afterlife of the Speeches, Letters and Dialogues between 60 and 50 BCE
Reinventing Cicero
The Afterlife of the Speeches, Letters and Dialogues between 60 and 50 BCE
Description
Exploring the reception of an influential phase in the life of the orator and politician Cicero, this volume focuses on the legacy of his public speeches and political writings that were made between 60-50 BCE. During this period, Cicero experienced multiple challenges in his public career, which he countered by setting up an elaborate self-fashioning programme. His aim was to reinvent himself as republican statesman and a political philosopher. It is this body of Cicero's work that has been discussed, (re)interpreted and evaluated by countless later readers.
The contributions in this volume examine specific moments, such as Pro Caelio and Pro Milone, that have been crucial to his later image as a politician and writer. They focus on the profound interplay between Cicero's strategic political choices and the interpretations of writers and scholars spanning from antiquity to the early modern period. Together, they meticulously construct the canonical image of Cicero – an eminent literary figure, a formidable philosopher and the unrivalled orator of ancient Rome. As a result, the reader gains a deeper understanding of Cicero's enduring influence from antiquity, through the renaissance and right up until the 21st century.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction (Leanne Jansen, Christoph Pieper)
Part I: Cicero Representing Cicero
Chapter 1: Cicero's genus dialogorum between Fact and Fiction (Gesine Manuwald)
Chapter 2: Cicero poeta in the 50s BCE (Thomas J. Keeline)
Chapter 3: Mediating the Message in Cicero's Correspondence (Lidewij van Gils)
Part II: Putting Cicero's Persona Together from the Letters and Speeches
Chapter 4: Cicero's humanitas? Valerius Maximus on Cicero's Defences of Enemies in the 50s BCE (Henriette van der Blom)
Chapter 5: Historia contexta. Atticus' Mediated History of the 50s (Andrew Sillett)
Chapter 6: Cicero solitarius. The Discovery of Cicero's Private Person and Its Impact on the Construction of Francesco Petrarca's Authorship (Karl Enenkel)
Chapter 7: Cicero ipse sordidatus! Cicero's Exile and his Enmity with Clodius in Early Modern Biographies of Cicero (Christoph Pieper)
Part III: Rethinking Cicero's Platonic Dialogues
Chapter 8: Cicero's Legal Analogies in Seneca's Political World (Maarten Klink)
Chapter 9: Platonis aemulus. Ancient Reception of Cicero's 'Platonic' Dialogues (Caroline Bishop)
Chapter 10: Cicero in the Anti-Machiavellian Tradition of the French Renaissance (Eric MacPhail)
Chapter 11: The 'Reconstruction' of Cicero's De re publica by J.E.D. Bernardi (1798/1807) (Reinhold F. Glei)
Part IV: Reading Cicero's Pro Milone in Rhetorical and Historical Contexts
Chapter 12: Cicero Unmasked? The Legacy of Pro Milone from Asconius to Cassius Dio (Leanne Jansen)
Chapter 13: Reading Some of Cicero's Speeches in Late Antiquity: Pro Milone, In Pisonem, Pro Plancio (Andrea Balbo)
Chapter 14: Positioning the Paratext. Medieval and Renaissance Readings of an Argumentum to Pro Milone (Irene O'Daly)
Chapter 15: Cicero's Pro Milone in Gerardus Vossius' Institutiones oratoriae (Verena Schulz)
Afterword (Leanne Jansen, Christoph Pieper)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 29 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 9781350443327 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 4 bw illus |
| Series | Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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