A written republic : Cicero's philosophical politics / / Yelena Baraz

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910822299403321
• Autore: Baraz Yelena <1975->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Princeton, NJ, : Princeton University Press, c2012
• ISBN: 1-280-49451-4; 9786613589743; 1-4008-4216-6
• Edizione: [Course Book]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (267 p.)
• Disciplina: 320.1
• Soggetti: Philosophy, Ancient; Rome Politics and government 265-30 B.C
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations and Translations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Otiose Otium: The Status of Intellectual Activity in Late Republican Prefaces -- Chapter 2. On a More Personal Note -- Chapter 3. The Gift of Philosophy : The Treatises as Translations -- Chapter 4. With the Same Voice: Oratory as a Transitional Space -- Chapter 5. Reading a Ciceronian Preface: Strategies of Reader Management -- Chapter 6. Philosophy after Caesar: The New Direction -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- General Index
• Sommario/riassunto: In the 40s BCE, during his forced retirement from politics under Caesar's dictatorship, Cicero turned to philosophy, producing a massive and important body of work. As he was acutely aware, this was an unusual undertaking for a Roman statesman because Romans were often hostile to philosophy, perceiving it as foreign and incompatible with fulfilling one's duty as a citizen. How, then, are we to understand Cicero's decision to pursue philosophy in the context of the political, intellectual, and cultural life of the late Roman republic? In A Written Republic, Yelena Baraz takes up this question and makes the case that philosophy for Cicero was not a retreat from politics but a continuation of politics by other means, an alternative way of living a political life and serving the state under newly restricted conditions. Baraz examines ; the rhetorical battle that Cicero stages in his philosophical prefaces--a battle between the forces that would oppose or support his project. He presents his philosophy as intimately connected to the new political circumstances and his exclusion from politics. His goal--to benefit the state by providing new moral resources for the Roman elite--was traditional, even if his method of translating Greek philosophical knowledge into Latin and combining Greek sources with Roman heritage was unorthodox. A Written Republic provides a new perspective on Cicero's conception of his philosophical project while also adding to the broader picture of late-Roman political, intellectual, and cultural life.