The object of this book is to give the English-speaking public, in aconvenient form, as faithful and readable a copy as the translator wascapable of making of a document unique in the literature of antiquity.Whether we regard the correspondence of Cicero from the point of view ofthe biographer and observer of character, the historian, or the lover ofbelles lettres, it is equally worthy of study. It seems needless todwell on the immense historical importance of letters written byprominent actors in one of the decisive periods of the world's history,when the great Republic, that had spread its victorious arms, and itslaw and discipline, over the greater part of the known world, was in thethroes of its change from the old order to the new. If we wouldunderstand—as who would not?—the motives and aims of the men who actedin that great drama, there is nowhere that we can go with better hope ofdoing so than to these letters. To the student of character also thepersonality of Cicero must always have a great fascination. Statesman,orator, man of letters, father, husband, brother, and friend—in allthese capacities he comes before us with singular vividness. In everyone of them he will doubtless rouse different feelings in differentminds. But though he will still, as he did in his lifetime, excitevehement disapproval as well as strong admiration, he will never, Ithink, appear to anyone dull or uninteresting. In the greater part ofhis letters he is not posing or assuming a character; he lets us onlytoo frankly into his weaknesses and his vanities, as well as hisgenerous admirations and warm affections. Whether he is weeping, orangry, or exulting, or eager for compliments, or vain of his abilitiesand achievements, he is not a phantasm or a farceur, but a human beingwith fiercely-beating pulse and hot blood.
The difficulty of the task which I have been bold enough[Pg vi] to undertakeis well known to scholars, and may explain, though perhaps not excuse,the defects of my work. One who undertakes to express the thoughts ofantiquity in modern idiom goes to his task with his eyes open, and hasno right at every stumbling-block or pitfall to bemoan his unhappy fate.So also with the particular difficulties presented by the great founderof Latin style—his constant use of superlatives, his doubling andtrebling of nearly synonymous terms, the endless shades of meaning insuch common words as officium, fides, studium, humanitas,dignitas, and the like—all these the translator has to take in theday's work. Finally, there are the hard nuts to crack—often veryhard—presented by corruption of the text. Such problems, though,relatively with other ancient works, not perhaps excessively numerous,are yet sufficiently numerous and sufficiently difficult. But besidesthese, which are the natural incidents of such work, there is thespecial difficulty that the letters are frequently answers to otherswhich we do not possess, and which alone can fully explain the meaningof sentences which must remain enigmatical to us; or they refer tomatters by a word or phrase of almost