Cicero: On the Orator: Book 3. On Fate. Stoic Paradoxes. On the Divisions of Oratory: A. Rhetorical Treatises (Loeb Classical Library No. 349) (English and Latin Edition)

I read the Loeb library volume 1-5 in Cicero. I have to say, out of the books, only Rhetorica Ad Herennium seemed to teach me something - and this book taught me a lot in a very efficient manner. The other books seemed very focused on defending Cicero's views vs others. For a layman such as me, the "cookbook" style of RhAdHer was much more useful than endless debates up and down about how important it is to be a good man. I would recommend buying only Volume1 if it is a few (i.e. MANY!!) good tips to rhetorics you're after, but if you like the classical reading in itself, the texts are indeed quite well written and much can be learned from that in itself.

738. Paradoxa Stoicorum by Cicero. This has been an interesting exercise. I found some of the essays very difficult to translate. I think that the concise Stoic manner of speaking combined with technical terms of philosophy took some time. Number six was the easiest to translate. I think that this one was most similar to his other philosophical works (De Finibus, De Officiis, De Legibus) and this made it easier.I read these because Elizabeth Rawson in her book, Cicero, suggested that Cicero put these together to help friends who lost so much during the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar to deal with their troubles.Each is prefaced with a premise.#1 ParadoxonThat the only good is what is morally good.Money, fine houses, riches, power, I never considered these among the true goods. Those who have these goods ( in the common sense of the term) in abundance never have enough.These, fine house, riches etc, should never have been given the name of goods.Do goods determine who is good? No matter what is the common accepted means of speaking, true reason with me carries more weight than the opinion of the crowd. This last is a famous latin sentence:plus apud me tamen vera ratio valebit quam vulgi opinio….Cicero goes on to say that he never considered the loss of expensive things as the loss of those concepts truly good.There is the story of Bias whose city was sacked by the enemy. People were fleeing the city in droves. One person as he passed Bias warned him to get his stuff while he could- he replied that he already did for “I carry all that is mine in me.”So if the loss of cattle and fine furniture is not the loss of goods, what is?The only good is what is right and honorable and morally perfect.It is irritating to discuss these calmly, says Cicero. So he illustrates these with examples of those from the past.Did Mucius Scaevola do what he did for gold? Money? Would someone rather be like Mucius or someone whose house if stuffed with gold or expensive furniture?Some claim that riches are not that important, yet these same defend pleasure as the highest good. To do so puts someone on the same footing as a quadruped.Each person who shares of the good is especially deserving of praise. So does anything which is good makes a person better? Yes.Does the pursuit of pleasure make a person more praiseworthy? Does anyone publish himself adept in obtaining pleasure?If pleasure is not listed among the good, then to live well and happy is to live honorably and conscientiously.#2 ParadoxonNothing is lacking for living well in whom there is virtue.What is virtue?The development and exercise of the intellect for what is good.All are most blessed who place everything in themselves. Can we place everything in fortune? In that there is no certainty. Those who place their life in material things will face problems in misery. To these death is terrible. Lusts and wrong doing torment day and night.Being a good person has its own rewards and means there is no remorse over past events because such things were never done.#3 ParadoxonMoral offenses are equal and right actions are equal.Moral wrongs are equal in and of themselves. Moral wrongs can not be measured by how things turn out. A wrong is a wrong.If virtue is equally virtuous, then faults are equally faulty. There are no degrees of good or bad. There may be degrees in circumstance but not in the act itself. It may be worse to kill a parent than a slave but both are wrong.#4 ParadoxonEvery fool is insaneCicero takes an extreme case (perhaps his own).Can someone actually be exiled? Not really. For a state which exiles a good citizen can not at that moment actually be a state. But I was recalled by the true state by a true assembly, by a true Senate. Whereas when exiled, none of these existed.So see, those attacks, destruction of my property, the loss of property, these were not who and what I am. What I am is in me. It is not material, but in the very depths of what I am.Consequently I was a citizen all of the time. Exile is a penalty for a crime. I committed none. You, the fool, understood none of this.You are the exile.#5 ParadoxonThe wise person alone is free and every fool is a slavePeople often stand in awe of a Commander. But a commander in what sense? Can he control his own desires? Can he curb his lusts? Display restraint? As long as these are beyond his control, he is no commander and certainly not free.Thus many philosophers have said that only the wise person is free. What is freedom? The power of living as one wishes. Who lives as he desires unless he follows what is right, who rejoices in doing what is right, who does not even follow the laws because of fear or follows these and cherishes these because they are the safe thing to do, but does so because he knows that it is proper to do so.Whoever does not conduct their life in knowledge of what is right in themselves is not free.Anyone under the thumb of another is a fool. Or who believes that the possession of fine things is the key to greatness. Just bring back someone like Manlius Curius. Manlius Curius Dentatus, consul 290 BC defeated and conquered the Samnites after a war which lasted for almost 50 years. A Samnite embassy tried to bribe him with money when they found him on his farm. He looked at them and said that he preferred controlling those who had money instead of possessing it himself. Would this guy be impressed with someone making pets out of expensive fish?What could possibly be worse than being subject to the values others place on things, instead what is truly important?#6 ParadoxonOnly the wise person is richThat person who is content with less has more than that person who is always in need of more. This is virtue- to know in oneself what is important based on a study of life and those who have lived it.Besides many have no idea how much money there is in being thrifty.Realtors often value highly estates in a prime location. How much more must virtue be valued which can not be stolen or taken away, or lost in shipwreck or in a fire or storm or civil disturbance?signed,The Obstinate Classicist

Marcus Tullius Cicero may not have been the greatest trial lawyer of ancient Rome, but he is the best remembered. He wrote much on many subjects, and some of his private correspondence also survives. He did his best writing in the field of rhetoric. Although he was not an original thinker on the subject of rhetoric, "De Oratore" shows him to have had an encyclopedic practical knowledge of oratory in general and criminal trial advocacy in particular.Cicero wrote "De Oratore" as a dialog among some of the preeminent orators of the era immediately preceding Cicero's time. The occasion is a holiday at a country villa, and the characters discuss all facets of oratory, ceremonial, judicial, and deliberative. They devote most of the discussion to judicial oratory, and their discussion reveals the trial of a Roman lawsuit to be somewhat analogous to the trial of a modern lawsuit. You have to piece it together from stray references to procedure scattered throughout the work, but it appears that a Roman trial consisted of opening statements, the taking of evidence, and final arguments. Modern trial advocacy manuals devote most of their attention to the taking of evidence, but Cicero dismisses the mechanics of presenting evidence as relatively unimportant compared to the mechanics of presenting argument."De Oratore" is divided into three books. The first speaks of the qualities of the orator; the second of judicial oratory, and the third of ceremonial and deliberative oratory. The modern trial lawyer would find the second book most interesting and most enlightening. A lot about trial advocacy has changed since Cicero's day (e.g. no more testimony taken under torture), but a lot hasn't.. Much of what Cicero says holds true even in the modern courtroom.Trial lawyers cannot congregate without swapping "war stories," and Cicero's characters are no exception. They pepper their discussion with references to courtroom incidents which have such verisimilitude that they could have happened last week instead of 2,000 years ago. I have no doubt that Cicero, had he lived today, would have made a formidable trial lawyer.The Loeb Classical Library edition of "De Oratore" consists of two volumes. Volume one contains Books I and II of "De Oratore," and volume two contains Book III along with two shorter philosphical works and "De Partitione Oratoria." "De Partitione" purports to be a discussion between Cicero and his son on oratory. "De Partitione" differs so much from "De Oratore," that many (myself included) doubt Cicero wrote it.

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