we possess of any of the ancients. They are the most important source for the history of this remarkable period. In a very pleasant manner the writer exposes all his good and weak points: his honest, although short-sighted patriotism, his affectionate heart, his fickleness, inconstancy and vanity. Drumann and Mommsen, who take his naive confessions in a wrong light, are too severe on Cicero. Professor Mommsen is altogether biased against Cicero in favor of his hero Caesar. Mr. T. Rice Holmes has well said with reference to Mommsen: "Historical imagination is a great quality, but it should not be allowed to run riot."[1]
These letters are an excellent subject for study in the middle or higher classes. A selection can easily be made so as to illustrate Cicero's stormy career from 62-43 B. C., as well as to reflect the whole history of that period fraught with events, which were to change the world's history. For this purpose the following selection used to be read in a Jesuit college of this country: Ad Fam. V, 1; V, 2; Ad Att. II, 22; Ad Fam. XIV, 4; Ad Att. IV, 1; Ad Fam. VII, 1; XIV, 4; Ad Att. VII, 11; Ad Fam. XVI, 12; Ad Att. VIII, 3 (Cicero's opinion of Pompey and Caesar); Ad Att. IX, 18 (a highly interesting description of Cicero's interview with Caesar); Ad Att. XII, 18; Ad Fam. IV, 5 and 6; Ad Att. XIV, 12; Ad Fam. XI, 27 and 28; XI, 1; IX, 14; XII, 4; X, 28, etc.[2]
- ↑ Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, p. 755 (see also p. 803).
- ↑ On "Cicero's Letters as Class Reading," see the excellent article of Dr. O. E. Schmidt in Neue Jahrbücher, vol. VIII, pp. 162-174. This author wishes them to be read, after the orations against Catiline, De Senectute, or De Amicitia have been studied. He adds also a plan for a new selection of the letters.
