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[4] Inasmuch as Aristotle and Theophrastus, too, both of whom were celebrated for their keenness of intellect and particularly for their copiousness of speech, have joined rhetoric with philosophy, it seems proper also to put my rhetorical books in the same category; hence we shall include the three volumes On Oratory, the fourth entitled Brutus, and the fifth called The Orator.

2. I have named the philosophic works so far written: to the completion of the remaining books of this series I was hastening with so much ardour that if some most grievous cause1 had not inter- [p. 375] vened there would not now be any phase of philosophy which I had failed to elucidate and make easily accessible in the Latin tongue. For what greater or better service can I render to the common wealth than to instruct and train the youth— especially in view of the fact that our young men have gone so far astray because of the present moral laxity that the utmost effort will be needed to hold them in check and direct them in the right way?

1 Cicero refers to the chaotic condition of public affairs following the death of Caesar.

Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.

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  • Cross-references to this page (10):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), ASTROLO´GIA
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    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CORRI´GIA
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), JUGUM
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