Description
Book SynopsisThis book argues that Cicero deserves to be spoken of with more respect and to be studied with greater care. Using Plato's influence on Cicero's life and writings as a clue, Altman reveals the ineffable combination of qualities that enabled Cicero not only to revive Platonism, but also to rival Plato himself.
Trade ReviewThis is a book fizzing with energy, and full of learning of many sorts, from which any discriminating reader stands to gain. * The Classical Review *
Altman’s essays, as he explores Cicero’s hidden and open Platonism, are as engaging and stimulating as one might imagine. Few if any contemporaries have read as widely and deeply in Cicero’s writings. With objectivity but no pretended scholarly detachment, he brings his immense erudition to his personal engagement of Cicero. He finds himself in awe at Cicero’s integrity and achievement as a thinker, writer and political leader. We and our modern republics, he rightly concludes, are much in need of a properly understood Cicero. -- Walter Nicgorski, University of Notre Dame
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: Cicero as Platonis aemulus Part 1: The Foundations of Cicero’s Platonic Revival Chapter 1. Cicero’s Platonic personae and the Problem of De legibus Chapter 2. Augustine’s Hortensius and the Invention of “Cicero” Chapter 3. Self-Contradictory Skepticism in the Academica Chapter 4. The Limits of Stoicism and Tullia’s Shrine in De finibus Part 2: The Literary Fruits of Cicero’s Platonism Chapter 5. Womanly Humanism in the Tusculanae Disputationes Chapter 6. Phaedo and Timaeus in De natura deorum Chapter 7. Interpreting Plato’s Dreams in De divinatione Chapter 8. Epicurus, Chrysippus, and Homer in De fato Chapter 9. The Ciceronian Renaissance in De senectute and De amicitia Part 3: Cicero’s Platonism in Action Chapter 10. Returning in Topica, De officiis, and the Philippics Chapter 11. Brutus as Funeral Oration. Chapter 12. Ending with Orator. Bibliography
