Cicero, De haruspicum responsis: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary | Agenda Bookshop Skip to content
Selected Colleen Hoover Books at €9.99c | In-store & Online
Selected Colleen Hoover Books at €9.99c | In-store & Online
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
automatic-update
B13=Anthony Corbeill
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DB
Category=DNS
Category=DSBB
Category=HBLA1
Category=HRKP4
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€100 and above
PS=Active
softlaunch

Cicero, De haruspicum responsis: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary

English

During the Roman Republic, any unnatural event occurring in nature--from a talking cow to a hermaphrodite to an earthquake--was deemed a prodigium. A prodigy signaled awareness of a rupture of order not only in nature but in politics and morality. As a result of its cosmic significance, any potential prodigy demanded authentication. Unsurprisingly, prodigies proliferate during political crises, such as the violent times of 56 BCE. What perhaps does occasion surprise is that in the process of expiating a prodigy, the Roman senate monitors each individual step. And yet, despite the hundreds of allusions to prodigies in ancient texts, only one source provides insight into the senatorial process of analysis, assessment, and resolution. That text is Cicero's speech before the senate, De haruspicum responsis ('On the Responses of the Haruspices'). On this occasion the senators summon for assistance a group of Etruscan priests (haruspices). Herein lies an apparent paradox: the senate entrusts an elemental decision about divine attitudes to a group of foreign priests from the obscure culture of a long-conquered people. The haruspices duly produce from their books of Etruscan lore a cryptic response. This response--the only version of such a response surviving--became the subject of a speech delivered by Cicero's archnemesis Clodius, detailing how Cicero's return from exile prompted this disruption of the natural world. The next day, Cicero argues in De haruspicum responsis the opposite: in the presence of Clodius, he engages in a character assassination that corresponds with a close line-by-line reading of the response. Cicero teaches the senate how to read Clodius's guilt in the reaction of the natural world. In addition to explicating rhetorical and syntactic features, this commentary details the interplay of Etruscan and Roman religious traditions. During a period of gang violence, arson, and murder, the haruspical response achieves what Cicero, Clodius, and the Roman senate could not have effected unaided: introduce into senatorial deliberations a seemingly objective assessment of divine intention. Through rational political debate, a peaceful natural world is restored, one that rests upon the logical analysis and rhetorical prowess of a Cicero. See more
Current price €156.59
Original price €173.99
Save 10%
Age Group_Uncategorizedautomatic-updateB13=Anthony CorbeillCategory1=Non-FictionCategory=DBCategory=DNSCategory=DSBBCategory=HBLA1Category=HRKP4COP=United KingdomDelivery_Delivery within 10-20 working daysLanguage_EnglishPA=AvailablePrice_€100 and abovePS=Activesoftlaunch
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
Product Details
  • Weight: 778g
  • Dimensions: 160 x 242mm
  • Publication Date: 25 Aug 2023
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Publication City/Country: United Kingdom
  • Language: English
  • ISBN13: 9780192868954

About

Anthony Corbeill is Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD from the University of California Berkeley and is author of Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton 1996) Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2004) and Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton 2015). He has held fellowships at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Munich) American Academy in Rome Institute for Research in the Humanities (Madison) All Souls and Corpus Christ Colleges (Oxford) and the Institute for Classical Studies (London).

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue we'll assume that you are understand this. Learn more
Accept