Cicero on divination : De divinatione, book 1 / translated with introduction and historical commentary by David Wardle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cicero, Marcus Tullius.

Contributor:

Wardle, D.

Series:

Clarendon ancient history series

Standardized Title:

De divinatione. Liber 1. English & Latin

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Divination--Early works to 1800.

Divination.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De divinatione--Liber 1.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius.

Physical Description:

xii, 469 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

Translated from the Latin.

Summary:

This is the first English commentary on Cicero's On Divination Book I that is fully accessible to the reader who knows no Latin or Greek. Cicero's philosophical dialogue is the most detailed and essentially complete work in Latin on divination, encompassing a wide range of mythological and historical examples of divinatory practice and presenting Stoic arguments for the validity of divination and Academic arguments against it. After an introduction to the general phenomenon of divination in Graeco-Roman culture, Cicero provides in Book I a rich and complex argument for divination, placed in the mouth of his brother Quintus. This preserves most of the evidence we have for the arguments mounted by Posidonius and Cratippus on a subject hotly contested in ancient philosophy. In recent years there has been renewed interest in Cicero's work as a piece of philosophical argument and intercultural communication illuminating the intellectual and religious life of the Late Republic. Quintus attempts to make the Greek arguments relevant to the Roman context, providing invaluable evidence about Roman elite attitudes to, and practices within, the Roman state religion.

David Wardle provides a new translation, an introduction, and a full commentary. The introduction explores Cicero's treatment of divination in all his works, his purpose in writing On Divination, his use of philosophical sources, and the context in which the work was written. The fully documented commentary pays attention to the development of the philosophical argument and construction of the work, and to the historical, historiographical, and religious aspects of the examples used by Quintus.

Contents:

Divination in Republican Rome

Cicero on divination outside De divinatione

Nature, form, and purpose of the work

The sources of De divinatione

Dramatic date, date of composition, and publication

The text and translation.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [427]-441) and index.

ISBN:

0199297924

9780199297924

0199297916

9780199297917

OCLC:

70921391