Cicero: Philippics I-II (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

Great commentary included.

This is a review of John T. Ramsey's commentary on Cicero's First and Second Philippics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2003. Philippics I and II are the first two speeches in a series of fourteen delivered against the person and policies of Mark Antony in the ongoing aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar. The First Philippic was delivered by Cicero in the Roman Senate on 2 September 44 BC, and the Second Philippic was composed some weeks later but was probably only circulated in written form rather than delivered orally. These two speeches represent a part of one of Cicero's chief achievements as an orator, and the Second Philippic in particular is one of the most scathing and entertaining examples of invective to survive from Antiquity. In it, Cicero first engages in a spirited defense of his own political career and then undertakes an extended survey of Mark Antony's entire life in and out of politics, providing a portrait of Caesar's erstwhile right-hand man that paints him as an abominably dissolute and corrupt would-be tyrant. As an oratorical showpiece and as a key source for the lives and careers of two of Rome's most interesting statesmen, the Second Philippic repays careful reading by anyone interested in Roman History and Latin Literature.This edition consists of a thorough 11 page bibliography, two maps (one of the Mediterranean, one of the city of Rome), a 2 page timeline of the key events of 44 BC relevant to the speeches, a 28 page introduction, just over 50 pages of Latin text (Philippic I comes in at 12.5 pages of Latin, the Second Philippic counts for the rest), about 256 pages of commentary, and an index. On the whole, the commentary is mostly concerned with historical issues, and in this respect it is much like Denniston's older commentary on the same speeches, which this commentary replaces. The commentator provides only minimal help with tricky grammar and syntax, although he does do an excellent job of providing the meaning of words if they are rare or if Cicero has attributed an unusual or marked meaning to them. A reader therefore needs to already have a very considerable amount of Latin reading experience and competency to read Philippics I and II efficiently and profitably using this commentary.Both the introduction and the notes are chiefly concerned with providing the historical and cultural background information necessary for the reader to be able to comprehend and evaluate the assertions Cicero makes over the course of these speeches. The introduction thoroughly covers the historical background of the speeches, the other primary sources (both extant and lost) for the historical period covered in the speeches, the basic themes and content of all of the Philippics, the origin of the title "Philippics", Cicero's use of Demosthenes as a model, the aim and style of the Philippics, Cicero's use of prose rhythm (with a conspectus of the most common clausulae), and the manuscript tradition (with a list of this edition's divergences from the critical text of Shackleton-Bailey; there is no apparatus criticus under the Latin text itself). One would be hard-pressed to find a more concise, cogent, and information-rich introduction to the Philippics than this one.The notes do an excellent job illuminating the unrelenting stream of allusions Cicero makes to contemporary and near-contemporary political realities. The commentator includes extensive references and citations to other primary sources for the period, including Cicero's Letters, which often discuss the same events and people covered in the speeches. Biographical sketches and historical anecdotes are included when necessary, and the commentator makes extensive use of his own and other scholars' analytical work to attempt to resolve the historical and textual problems posed by the speeches. Because Cicero is a politician and not a historian (as far as the Philippics go), Cicero engages in an extensive amount of exaggeration, distortion, and downright fabrication of Mark Antony's and even his own political record in the Philippics, and the chief value of this commentary is the methodical exposition of the information the reader needs to test the validity of Cicero's claims and accusations.Finally, it is well to mention that the notes also pay close attention to the figures of rhetoric Cicero deploys in Phillips I-II and to other aspects of the speeches' literary composition, and the commentator even provides schematics of the speeches' structure in terms of rhetorical theory (narratio, digressio, propositio, etc.). For readers more interested in Philippics I-II as oratorical specimens than as historical sources, this commentary also therefore has much of value to offer.