THE CORRESPONDENCE OF M. TULLIUS CICERO, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO ITS CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER; WITH A REVISION OF THE TEXT, A COMMENTARY, AND INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS. BY ROBERT YELVERTON TYRRELL, LITT.D., Late Senior Fellow of Trinity College, and sometime Regius Professor of Greek in the AND LOUIS CLAUDE PURSER, LITT.D., HON. LL.D. (GLASG.); Senior Fellow of Trinity College, and sometime Professor of Latin in the DUBLIN: HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., LTD., GRAFTON STREET. PREFACE. WHEN in February of last year the publishers informed me that the fifth volume of our CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO was out of print, and that a second edition had been asked for, and was desirable in order to render possible a continuous sale for the work as a whole, I felt considerably perplexed. For I knew that Dr. Tyrrell was in such precarious health that he could no longer act as the guiding and commanding spirit in any continuance of the work; and I was fully conscious that my own powers were not equal to the task of producing a new edition such as would meet even remotely the exacting requirements of modern scholarship, or provide the many-sided erudition now expected of a commentator. But Dr. Tyrrell was so pressing in his desire that the new edition should be produced (and in the circumstances he could hardly be refused), and the authorities of the College so readily approved of the proposal, that, though with considerable misgiving, I undertook the task. Only three sheets of the Commentary were even glanced at by Dr. Tyrrell before his death: we did not think that he was so soon to be lost to us and to scholarship.' In those three sheets the familiar 'we' had been used, and I continued it throughout, not only for the sake of consistency, but also because I am fain to hope that there would not have been much diversity of opinion between us in most of the views advanced. But I' may well be mistaken; and I must take on myself full responsibility for whatever is said. The dates of some of the letters as given in the first edition seem to be wrong; but, as in re-editions of the first three volumes, the order has been left. unchanged, lest references in the succeeding volumes and in the Index should prove untrustworthy. This defect is remedied to some extent by the table given on pp. 460–465. A chapter has been added to the Introduction under the title "Antony succeeds Caesar," dealing with the history of the five and a-half months from March 15 to August 31 of the year 44 B.C. 1 It was only after Dr. Tyrrell's death (Sept. 19, 1914) that Dr. Sihler's volume, Cicero of Arpinum, dedicated to him, reached this country. As this volume in its revision has not had the advantage of Dr. Tyrrell's scholarship, it asks for every indulgence that the reader can bring himself to grant it. It makes no claim to anything even approaching a full treatment of the subject. Neither this nor any other volume of our work is to be regarded as other than a mere transitory contribution to the study of Cicero's Correspondence; the best that our edition can hope for is that it may prove a sort of scaffolding, by the aid of which some of the very learned and acute young scholars of to-day may erect a permanent building "four-square, a work without flaw." Even with this limited aim the present volume can claim but little. Though it has been in great part re-written, I am only too conscious of what even indulgent criticism must regard as grievous shortcomings; and I feel little doubt that there is a great quantity of literature on the subject which has wholly escaped my notice. But I have done my best to render it here and there a little less inadequate than it was in its original form. That little, I fear, would have been hardly attained (if it has been attained at all) were it not for the invaluable assistance given me by my friend, Dr. J. S. Reid, Fellow of Caius College, and Professor of Ancient History in the University of Cambridge, not only from his published works, but from a great number of learned manuscript notes which he was good enough to put at my disposal. Of this, as of nearly every other work on Cicero issued by British scholars, Professor Reid pars magna fuit. I desire here to render him my warmest thanks. The last two-thirds of the Commentary, and the whole of the Introduction, have been read by another friend, Dr. W. A. Goligher, Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology in the University of Dublin, whose trenchant and acute criticisms have been of the greatest service, and to whom I am very grateful. I am also deeply indebted to Mr. J. T. Gibbs, Manager of the Dublin University Press, who has devoted no little time to reading through the several sheets before they went to press, and, by his accurate knowledge of English, has saved me from many errors of expression. L. C. P. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, |