The republic of Cicero
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~35,800 words · 170 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). The republic of Cicero. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-republic-of-cicero
- MLACicero. "The republic of Cicero." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-republic-of-cicero.
- ChicagoCicero. The republic of Cicero. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-republic-of-cicero.
What it is about
Cicero's Republic: a dialogue on the best form of state, arguing for the mixed constitution that combines monarchy, aristocracy and democracy.
Context and history
This text was lost for more than a thousand years. In 1819 Angelo Mai found it in a Vatican palimpsest, written beneath a commentary of Augustine on the psalms: Cicero had been scraped off to reuse the parchment. It came back very incomplete, and the gaps show. The exception is the ending, the Dream of Scipio, which had survived separately because Macrobius wrote a commentary on it, and which was therefore read throughout the Middle Ages when the rest of the book did not exist.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON; OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; OF THE LYCEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK, &C. &C. &C. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY G. & C. CARVILL, 108 BROADWAY. 1829. SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss. Be it remembered, that on the 23d day of January, A. D. 1829, in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, G. & C. Carvill, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: “The Republic of Cicero, translated from the Latin; and accompanied with a Critical and Historical Introduction. By G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Esq., Fellow of the Geological Society of London; of the American Philosophical Society; of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York, &c. &c. &c.” In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, “An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;” and also, to an Act, entitled, “An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints.” FRED. I. BETTS,