especially the first and third exhibit a splendid eloquence. 4. Pro Milone, distinguished by masterly argumentation. 5. One or other of the Philippicae (the second seems to be the best). 6. Pro Ligario. 7. Pro Marcello. 8. Pro Archia Poeta (contains a magnificent passage on the Liberal Arts). – Cicero's invectives (against Catiline and Anthony) are sometimes wanting in gravity, and are too declamatory; his laudatory orations, on the other hand, are among his happiest efforts. But all abound in descriptions full of life and nature, and his skill in amplification is unsurpassed.
II. Philosophical writings:
1. The finest part is his Somnium Scipionis, on the immortality of the soul, (in his De Republica, which cannot well be read on account of the many gaps in the text).[1] 2. Cato Major, or De Senectute, is clear and easy, and is better than Laelius: De Amicitia.[2] 3. De Officiis is well fitted for the highest classes. 4. The Disputationes Tusculanae, especially lib. 1, form good and relatively easy reading.[3]
III. Rhetorical Works. De Oratore, Orator ad Brutum etc., are read in Rhetoric class (Sophomore).
IV. The Letters of Cicero form the most valuable, as well as the largest, collection of letters (870 pieces)
- ↑ There exist good separate editions of the Somnium Scipionis, for instance, Reid's (Pitt Press Series).
- ↑ In the introduction to his excellent commentary on the latter work, Professor Seyffert says: "De Senectute may be read in Tertia (fourth class), De Amicitia should not be taken up before Upper-Secunda (sixth class)."
- ↑ See Dettweiler, p. 200. – On Cicero's philosophy see also Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. II, p. 118 sq.
