Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCaspar poses a thoughtful challenge to many of the professional dogmas about this work. His commentary brings De Legibus out of the shadows where it has languished, and gives it the illumination it deserves. -- J. Jackson Barlow, Juniata College
Today, Cicero's De Legibus is the most misunderstood work of the most misunderstood author in the great tradition of political philosophy. Timothy Caspar recognizes that this strange state of affairs is a serious mistake and boldly sets out to rectify it in this fine book. -- Douglas Kries, Gonzaga University
Thanks to Timothy Caspar’s close reading, this book gets Cicero’s handlers—those scholars who want to make him stick to his philosophical sources—out of the way, so that Cicero can be Cicero! The result is that a renowned statesman and orator is revealed to have been also a great philosopher. -- David Fott, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
A discursive yet exclusively philosophical commentary on the arguments of the dialogue itself.... Overall Caspar offers a very successful challenge to the conventional view that Cicero's Laws is a derivative or misconceived work of political philosophy....By doing so much to return Cicero to the prominent place in the canon of ancient political philosophers that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment regularly awarded him, Caspar has done the contemporary study of political philosophy a great service. * The Review of Politics *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction. Reviving the Study of De Legibus Chapter 2 Chapter One. Nature and the Foundation of Just Law Chapter 3 Chapter Two. The Natural Law Republic I: Laws of Religion Chapter 4 Chapter Three. The Natural Law Republic II: Laws of the Magistracy Chapter 5 Conclusion. Philosophy, Politics, and Rhetoric
