Brutus (ed. 2)
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~43,200 words · 205 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). Brutus [Brutus (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/brutus
- MLACicero. Brutus [Brutus (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/brutus.
- ChicagoCicero. Brutus [Brutus (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/brutus.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The Latin original of the 'Brutus', of 46 BC: the history of Roman oratory told as a catalogue of orators.
Context and history
Cicero goes through two long centuries of Roman eloquence, orator by orator, until he reaches himself, and it is nearly everything we know of that history: without this book, most of those names would be only names. The form is a dialogue with Brutus and Atticus in the garden of his house, but the tone is set by the moment: Caesar is dictator, the courts no longer decide anything, and the book is at once a history and a mourning — the chronicle of an art written as the art runs out of air. Hence the pages on Hortensius, the lifelong rival, which close the book like a funeral elegy for the whole profession. With the 'Orator', written the same year and dedicated to the same Brutus, it forms a diptych: this one looks back, the other draws the ideal.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Hic ego: Laudare igitur eloquentiam, et quanta vis sit ejus expromere, quantamque eis qui sint eam consecuti, dignitatem afferat, neque propositum nobis est hoc loco neque necessarium. Hoc vero sine ulla dubitatione confirmaverim, sive illa arte pariatur aliqua sive exercitatione quadam sive natura, rem unam esse omnium difficillimam. Quibus enim ex quinque rebus constare dicitur, earum una quaeque est ars ipsa magna per sese. Quare quinque artium concursus maximarum quantam vim quantamque difficultatem habeat, existimari potest. VII. VII. Testis est Graecia, quae, cum eloquentiae studio sit incensa jamdiuque excellat in ea praestetque ceteris, tamen omnes artes vetustiores habet et multo ante non inventas solum sed etiam perfectas, quam haec est a Graecis elaborata dicendi vis atque copia. In quam cum intueor, maxime mihi occurrunt, Attice, et quasi lucent Athenae tuae; qua in urbe primum se orator extulit primumque etiam monumentis et litteris oratio est coepta mandari. Tamen ante Periclem, cujus scripta quaedam feruntur, et Thucydidem, qui non nascentibus Athenis sed jam adultis fuerunt, littera nulla est, quae quidem ornatum aliquem habeat et oratoris esse videatur. Quanquam opinio est et eum qui multis annis ante hos fuerit, Pisistratum, et paulo seniorem etiam Solonem, posteaque Clisthenem multum, ut temporibus illis, valuisse dicendo. Post hanc aetatem aliquot annis, ut ex Atticis monumentis potest perspici, Themistocles fuit, quem constat cum prudentia tum etiam eloquentia praestitisse; post Pericles, qui cum floreret omni genere virtutis, hac tamen fuit laude clarissimus. Cleonem etiam temporibus illis turbulentum illum quidem civem, sed tamen eloquentem constat fuisse; huic aetati suppares Alcibiades, Critias, Theramenes. Quibus temporibus quod dicendi genus viguerit, ex Thucydidi scriptis, qui ipse tum fuit, intelligi maxime potest. Grandes erant verbis, crebri sententiis, compressione rerum breves et ob eam ipsam causam interdum subobscuri. VIII.