Ciceronis, M. T. [ Cicero, Marcus Tullius ] ; Proust, Jacobus [ Proust, Jacques ] (editor)

[Classics] De Oratore ad Q. Fratrem Dialogi, seu Libri Tres. Interpretatio ac Notae, Quas in Usum Serenissimi Delphini edidit Jacobus Proust, E Societate Jesu, Hac Editione auctae prodeunt & emendatae

Oxonii [ Oxford ]: E Typographeo Clarendoniano [Clarendon Press] Impensis Stephani Fletcher 1723. 8vo., [ff 1], [vi], 317, [318-339] Index & Index to Notes, [340] ads; contemporary calf, worn; spine replaced with later binder’s tape; ex-library label and call numbers to spine; ex-library stamps and markings to top edge, contemporary holograph notes and later bookplate to front pastedown; reinforcing binder’s tape to gutters at endpapers front and rear; front pastedown, title leaf, and p. [iii]; library pocket and bar code label to rear endpapers; else a serviceable reader’s copy. Later Proust edition. Frontispiece with several amateur cellotape mends. This copy with the bookplate of one Thomas Hughes, L. L. B. (Aul. trin. Cantabr.). Properly withdrawn. Good. Boards. [27983]


The third book of De Oratore by Cicero which describes the death of Lucius Licinius Crassus. Engraved frontispiece is by Michael Burghers (b. c.1647/8 – 1727), a Dutch illustrator and artist of the 17th century, who spent most of his career in England. He was commissioned to create maps, estate plans, and illustrations of stately houses, by the English aristocracy. (wiki)

"De Oratore is a dialogue written by Cicero in 55 BC. It is set in 91 BC, when Lucius Licinius Crassus dies, just before the Social War and the civil war between Marius and Sulla, during which Marcus Antonius (orator), the other great orator of this dialogue, dies. During this year, the author faces a difficult political situation: after his return from exile in Dyrrachium (modern Albania), his house was destroyed by the gangs of Clodius in a time when violence was common. This was intertwined with the street politics of Rome.[1]

Amidst the moral and political decadence of the state, Cicero wrote De Oratore to describe the ideal orator and imagine him as a moral guide of the state. He did not intend De Oratore as merely a treatise on rhetoric, but went beyond mere technique to make several references to philosophical principles. Cicero understood that the power of persuasion—the ability to verbally manipulate opinion in crucial political decisions—was a key issue. The power of words in the hands of a man without scruples or principles would endanger the whole community.

As a consequence, moral principles can be taken either by the examples of noble men of the past or by the great Greek philosophers, who provided ethical ways to be followed in their teaching and their works. The perfect orator shall be not merely a skilled speaker without moral principles, but both an expert of rhetorical technique and a man of wide knowledge in law, history, and ethical principles. De Oratore is an exposition of issues, techniques, and divisions in rhetoric; it is also a parade of examples for several of them and it makes continuous references to philosophical concepts to be merged for a perfect result. " (wikipedia)

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