The De Officiis, written hurriedly not long before Cicero's death, has always commanded attention. It is based on the moral philosophy of the Greek Stoic Panaetius; but Cicero adapted the material to his audience in such a way that the book stands as an invaluable witness to Roman attitudes and behaviour. This new edition is based on a more systematic examination of the vast manuscript tradition than has previously been attempted, and exploits fresh evidence for the poorly represented X branch. (...) The apparatus shows with new clarity the major contribution to the emendation of the text made by scribes and readers of the later manuscripts, both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. (shrink)

The late eleventh and twelfth centuries were Europe's first age of pamphlet warfare, of invective and satire. The perceived failure, or at least hypocrisy, of its new institutions-the new monastic orders and the reformed papacy-gave rise to the phenomenon, and it was shaped by the study of grammar and rhetoric in the new Schools. The central figures in the texts in the present book are Bernard of Clairvaux, the powerful ostensible founder of the Cistercian order, and the popular and influential (...) teacher Peter Abelard, leader of the radical faction in the Schools of Paris. The event which sparked this controversy was the Church council at Sens in 1141 which had led to the condemnation of Abelard's doctrines. Abelard proposed to use reason to explain the mysteries of faith, and this had led him into all kinds of difficulties with established church doctrine. The leading light in the atttack on his ideas was Bernard, the famous abbot of Clairvaux, a group of whose letters, written to gather support for it before and after the Council, are presented here. A little while later Abelard was defended by the vituperative but otherwise unknown Berengar, who wrote an outrageous Apology attacking Bernard; we also edit his remaining polemical works: his Letter to the Carthusians, and his Letter to the Bishop of Mende. None of Berengar's works has been translated before. An extensive introductory essay describes the course of the debate and the personnel, and analyses the invective employed by both Bernard and Berengar. There is full annotation identifying the writers' sources and clarifying the issues."-- Back cover. (shrink)

This excellent and accessible work includes many major texts in translation: Aristotle's Poetics, Longinus' On Sublimity, Horace's Art of Poetry, Tacitus' Dialogues, and extracts from Plato and Plutarch. Based on the highly praised Ancient Literary Criticism, it contains a new introduction and explanatory notes, and will be of enormous value to students both of Latin and Greek and of literary criticism and theory. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature (...) from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

An edition, with a new Latin text and full commentary, of Book 2 of Quintilian's Education of the Orator. Education and the conceptualization of technical disciplines are now focal points of research into Graeco-Roman antiquity, and Quintilian's work is central to both areas. Following the treatment of elementary education in Book 1, Quintilian proceeds to the discussion of the second stage of instruction, provided by the teacher of rhetoric. He gives important insights into the way teaching was conducted in a (...) rhetorical school in Rome in the first century AD, and discusses the various elementary rhetorical exercises one by one. The second half of the book is concerned with Quintilian's theoretical conception of rhetoric. Rhetoric is seen as an 'art', a technical discipline grounded in rules and organized like medicine or seafaring, and - less obviously - as a virtue. The section as a whole provides an argument for Quintilian's celebrated claim that the perfect orator is 'a good man, skilled in speaking'. (shrink)

The main outlines of the story of the textual transmission of Quintilian's Institutio have long been clear and well known. A series of French manuscripts, dating from the ninth century on, present a mutilated text in which perhaps a third of the whole work is missing. One such manuscript, the Bambergensis , was taken from France in the tenth century and supplemented from a separate unmutilated stream that is also available to us in a ninth-century Ambrosian manuscript , now itself (...) unfortunately damaged. The Bamberg manuscript generated in the following centuries further complete texts, but all these, as well as their earlier relations A and Bg, escaped scholarly detection in the fourteenth century: Petrarch and his contemporaries had to make do with mutili of the French type. (shrink)

The main outlines of the story of the textual transmission of Quintilian's Institutio have long been clear and well known. A series of French manuscripts, dating from the ninth century on, present a mutilated text in which perhaps a third of the whole work is missing. One such manuscript, the Bambergensis, was taken from France in the tenth century and supplemented from a separate unmutilated stream that is also available to us in a ninth-century Ambrosian manuscript, now itself unfortunately damaged. (...) The Bamberg manuscript generated in the following centuries further complete texts, but all these, as well as their earlier relations A and Bg, escaped scholarly detection in the fourteenth century: Petrarch and his contemporaries had to make do with mutili of the French type. (shrink)

Attenderes Physicis; quaereres, utrumne ignis esset initium rerum, an vero. minutis editus et mirabilibus ementis perpetuus hie mundus, an mortalis esset.

Quintilian Institutionis Oratoriae Vol. I.

At Dialogus 13.4, Tacitus makes Maternus decry the good fortune of the orators Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus: ‘Nam Crispus iste et Marcellus, ad quorum exempla me uocas, quid habent in hac sua fortuna concupiscendum? Quod timent, an quod timentur? Quod, cum cotidie aliquid rogentur, ii quibus praestant indignantur? Quod alligati cum adulatione nec imperantibus umquam satis serui uidentur nec nobis satis liberi? Quae haec summa eorum potentia est? Tantum posse liberti solent’.

I refer to the editions of the third book of Columella by S. Hedberg and J. C. Dumont . … nullus tamen uel iniquissimus locus non maiorem quaestum reddet quam acceperit inpensam: siquidem, ut cultoris neglegentia sex milia seminum intereant, reliqua tamen decem milia tribus milibus nummorum libenter et cum lucro redemptorum erunt… 3.3.12–13.

Thus begins a letter of an anonymous Pelagian, printed in Patrologia Latino, Suppl. 1.1687–94 from the edition of C. P. Caspari in Briefe, Abhandlungen und Predigten , 3–13. habitationibus is Caspari's emendation for the MSS' laboribus; it gives the right sense, but clashes with habitatione in the next sentence, and is palaeographically unconvincing. J. Baer, De operibus Fastidii, Britannorum episcopi , 31–2 for these reasons suggested litoribus. laboribus itself is not quite impossible, in the sense ‘fields’, ‘estates’ , 147–8, following (...) on Eranos 44 , 347–50). But this usage is late and unrespectable, unless we count the fifth-century Cyprianus Gallus, Gen. 1323 ‘patrios seruare labores'. And we should consider the possibility that our Pelagian wrote laribus. One parallel is Valerius Maximus 7.7.3 ‘in proprio lare’, where lare is Madvig's emendation for iure. More intriguing is a series of passages in Jordane's Getica. (shrink)

Cicero's Topica is transmitted as part of the so-called Leiden corpus; but it appeared in only two of the three Carolingian manuscripts carrying that corpus , and in both it lacked 1–3, 28 tratuum–73 Haec. During the ninth century, however, B was supplemented by the addition of folios which completed the text. In 1860 these folios were officiously transferred to A. There are a large number of integri, dating from the tenth century on. Editors have picked more or less at (...) random from this pile to back up the evidence of β. They are also blessed with a detailed and intelligent commentary on the Topica written by Boethius. ‘That the text of the commentary influenced manuscripts of Cicero has been suspected but not proved’. (shrink)

To my Oxford Classical Text of Cicero's De Officiis, published in 1994, I add two footnotes. The first is an important citation of Cicero in Augustine, which I missed thanks to my own incompetence. Maurice Testard, in his Saint Augustin et Ciceron remarks in Augustine's Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum not only the passage I note at Off. 1.7, but also 4.43 . Migne's text reads as follows: Sequitur ergo ut uerecundiam deponas, ac manente amicitia cum magistro Cynicis foedereris: quos tamen (...) aliquorum, ut Cicero in Officiis refert, etiam Stoicorum argumenta comitantur. Arguunt quippe communem honestatem, ‘quod ea quae re turpia non sint, uerbo 5 flagitiosa ducamus; ilia autem quae re turpia sint, nominibus appellemus suis. Latrocinium perpetrare, fraudem facere, adulterium committere, re turpe est, sed dicitur non obscene: liberis operam dare honestum est re, nomine obscenum. Pluraque in earn sententiam ab eisdem’ inquit ‘contra uerecundiam disputantur. Nos autem 10 naturam sequamur, et omne quod abhorret ab oculorum auriumque approbatione fugiamus.’. (shrink)

By the time his Teubner De Officiis had reached its fourth edition, C. Atzert was running out of hope. So great was the number of the still-accumulating manuscripts ‘ut paene desperaverim in seligendis et ordinandis eis’. In fact, there were hundreds more of which he knew nothing. My own list approaches seven hundred in all, and there will be others lurking still. The present paper aims to impose some order on this vast army.2 It sketches in new detail the interrelationships (...) of the old witnesses to the ξ tradition, and the transition to a twelfth-century Vulgate ; it throws light on the early story of the ξ family; and it makes a start on the task of showing how the f stream, from the twelfth century onwards, fitfully mingled with the Vulgate . It could never have been written without the help of Marina Luttrell and of countless friends and colleagues who provided information about manuscripts I could not see for myself. (shrink)