20
votes
Accepted
Descriptive example of Cicero's style
The first example that comes to my mind is the beginning of the Second Catilinarian:
Tandem aliquando, Quirites, L. Catilinam furentem audacia, scelus anhelantem, pestem patriae nefarie molientem, ...
- 30.6k
18
votes
Accepted
Meaning of "S. P. D." in letters
SPD is likely an acronym for Salutem Plurimam Dicit. When used in the phrase
[Person X] salutem plurimam dicit [Person Y]
it literally becomes
Person X sends many greetings to Person Y
Person ...
- 2,500
17
votes
Meaning of "S. P. D." in letters
I'll just expand slightly on @HDE226868's excellent and correct answer and say that the literal translation of salutem plurimam dicit is "says very much health."
Another version you're likely to see ...
- 16.4k
14
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of this quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero?
The first part of your quotation is not from Cicero, but from the Apologeticus Adversos Gentes pro Christianis (3,2) by Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240 AD):
Laudant quae sciunt, vituperant quae ...
- 2,886
13
votes
Accepted
Why is Cicero considered the best Latin prose author?
One of the best and earliest extant comments about Cicero's eloquence is found in Quintilian's Institutiones Oratoriae. Therein, he delivers a defense of the claim that Cicero bests any other Latin ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
13
votes
Accepted
Did Cicero say or write "dubitando ad veritatem pervenimus"?
No. However, it likely is a boiled-down version of Abelard's saying in the Sic et Non:
Dubitando quippe ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus.
"By doubting indeed we come to ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
11
votes
Accepted
Cicero sentence
Note the forms of the other verbs in this passage:
Ex patriis ritibus optuma colunto.
From the ancient rites, let the best be cultivated.
This is a third-person imperative, something we don't have ...
- 64.7k
11
votes
Accepted
Are all of Cicero's writings considered models?
When stylists claim to use Cicero as a model, they are chiefly talking about his orations, and his orations are what he is originally known for. Long before he penned philosophy, he was lauded as an ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
9
votes
Descriptive example of Cicero's style
Hic enim dies vobis, patres conscripti, inluxit, haec potestas data est, ut, quantum virtutis, quantum constantiae, quantum gravitatis in huius ordinis consilio esset, populo Romano declarare possetis....
- 18k
9
votes
Accepted
Why does Cicero in his In Verrem pretend he has not heard of Praxiteles before?
I think the meaning of the passage is a shade different from your translation. At this point, he is speaking of the sacrarium (private shrine) of Heius, in which four beautiful statues are located.
...
- 38.5k
9
votes
At what level of Latin would I be able to understand the writings of Cicero without translating to English?
It is a little difficult to describe such a “point” – as you can imagine, there does not come a time when it suddenly clicks and you switch from translating to reading. It is a gradual process – it ...
- 31.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Meaning of the first line of Cicero's De Oratore
I deal here with the first part of this long sentence, as I it seems there lies the crux of the question.
The main structure of this sentence is this:
mihi videntur illi fuisse perbeati. To me they ...
- 10.1k
7
votes
What is the meaning of this quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero?
Laudant quae sciunt, vituperant quae ignorant
"Those who know [something] praise [it], those who don't know [it] censure [it]".
This is a quotation from Christian church father Tertullian's ...
- 19.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Why did Cicero switch from "abs te" to "a te" in his later works?
It seems to be a case of simple regularization. As L&S point out, abs is rarely used before a word other than te; a Packard search yields only ten such cases vs. 277 of abs te (and two of the ten ...
- 30.6k
7
votes
Accepted
On the syntax of 'Cogitate quantis laboribus fundatum imperium (...) una nox paene delerit' (Cic. Cat. 4, 19)
Summary: the reason why this sentence seems unusual after translation is only because of the limits of English syntax, not because anything odd in the Latin.
A short form of expression combining two ...
- 19.8k
7
votes
Quid est opus quod Cicerō in Dē senectūte § 75 prōfert?
Nota bene nomen istius operis re vera esse « Cato Maior de Senectute »! Nam etsi a Cicerone scriptum est, hic praeclarus scriptor Catonem Maiorem ipsum induxit disputantem, quia neminem existimabat de ...
- 31.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Quid est opus quod Cicerō in Dē senectūte § 75 prōfert?
In opere Cicerōnis Dē senectūte ipse dīxit: «quod scrīpsī in Orīginibus»
You have to be careful here, as, yes, this is Cicero's De Senectute, but the speaker in the text is Cato the Elder. So it is ...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
7
votes
"gerund + genitive" vs "gerund+accusative" ("scribendo epistulas" vs "scribendo epistularum")
I would not read the genitive and the gerund together.
I suggest this reordering and grouping to clarify:
…(plus operae) poneremus (in agendo) quam (in scribendo)…
≈ …we would put more work into ...
- 110k
7
votes
What does “fac posse” mean in Epistulae ad Atticum VII.22?
Facio can be used to introduce a hypothetical, as L&S shows:
To make believe, to pretend: facio me alias res agere, Cic. Fam. 15, 18: cum verbis se locupletem faceret, id. Fl. 20: me unum ex iis
...
- 6,219
6
votes
Accepted
The Role of "quem" in a Translation of Cicero
Quem
The quem is part of quem ad modum (= ad quem modum), which is a common fixed phrase mean "how".
The rest of the sentence
The first thing to notice is the parallelism between the two ...
- 110k
6
votes
Uter vs. Uterque
Indeed, uter is a question word "which [of two]".
And uterque can be translated as "both [of two]", but it might be better to think of it as "each [of two]".
The reason is that uterque, like "each", ...
- 110k
6
votes
Accepted
Translation of de Natura Deorum, 53
Your translation is very close and only requires a few tweaks.
For context, Cicero introduces this passage a little earlier: he is talking about the five stellae errantes ("wandering stars"), which ...
- 38.5k
6
votes
Cicero sentence
That translation is about right, although famulus usually means an enslaved domestic servant of some kind, not a priest. In the context of a temple, the famuli would be acolytes.
cogito is the future ...
- 5,137
6
votes
Is there an "comprehensive" list of Tironian symbols?
The bottom of the Wikipedia article Tironian notes includes a link to Wilhelm Schmitz's edition of the Commentarii notarum tironianarum. I apologize if you've already seen it, but in case you have not,...
- 26.6k
5
votes
Did Cicero say or write "dubitando ad veritatem pervenimus"?
As a supplement to the accepted answer, there is actually a passage in which Cicero expresses a contradictory opinion.
The context is that Simonides, who was asked to explain "quale sit deus,&...
- 38.5k
5
votes
"vel" in Tusculan Disputations V.iii
It's a way of intensifying the superlative: "of the very highest..."
L&S, s.v. vel, II.B: " With superlatives, to denote the highest possible degree, the very; the utmost; the most...possible."
- 30.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Quis opera Ciceronia partivit in capitula intervallaque?
First of all, to address the question as to whether Cicero himself divided his works into chapters and paragraphs, Lynn
S. Fotheringham says the following:
In the first century BC, although ...
- 10.7k
5
votes
"gerund + genitive" vs "gerund+accusative" ("scribendo epistulas" vs "scribendo epistularum")
As pointed out in the previous answers, it seems quite clear that plus...operae is an argument of the verb poneremus. I found that some philologists corrected the text as follows: in agendo plus quam ...
- 7,511
5
votes
Quid est opus quod Cicerō in Dē senectūte § 75 prōfert?
A note in my text of De Senectute (edited by Shuckburgh) says "for Cato's Origines see Introduction. Cicero quotes this sentence from the fourth book of the Origines again in Tusc. 1, 42, 101.&...
- 393
5
votes
Accepted
What word does 'iucunda' modify in this sentence from Cicero?
As has already been explained, iūcunda is neuter nominative plural modifying quae, which has omnia as its antecedent. And the translation of omnia, quae iūcunda...accidere possunt into English would ...
- 19.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible