Although there is no equivalent term for ‘essay’ in either Greek or Latin, ancient literature was instrumental to the development of the English essay in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in three principal ways. First, some classical prose works provided stylistic models for early English essayists. Second, some ancient authors (Seneca in particular) processed information in a way that resonated with later essay writers; even if there were not ancient essayists, there were ancient ways of reading and writing that were fundamentally essayistic. And finally, the essay became one of the principal ways that readers gained access to ancient texts and ideas.

This chapter outlines a profile of Cicero as a literary historian, starting from the idea that his interest in the historical development of literature relates to a broader and more comprehensive interest in history and historiography. The analysis of some digressions about literary history in the dialogues of the fifties (De oratore and De legibus) and forties (Brutus and Tusculanae disputationes) shows that Cicero is interested in placing literary figures on a timeline according to a chronology that he constructs on the basis of synchronisms and other chronological schemes. His method is influenced by contemporary intellectual debates, in which he engages, that led to the production of antiquarian and chronographic works. Therefore, in addition to discussing Cicero’s literary history in light of his intellectual and historiographical interests, this chapter shows how the literary-historical dimension of his oeuvre attests to a lively contemporary context in which various forms of historical knowledge and writing flourished.

This contribution attempts to reconstruct the lost voices of Roman freed persons by focusing on the performative function of literary texts, rather than on their authorship. A study of the performative function of texts considers the contextual motivations of an author’s decision to cite, (re)phrase, and frame freed person’s words, and allows for a nuanced deconstruction of certain passages that might otherwise be labeled merely “elite discourse.” The texts chosen for this analysis are Cicero’s correspondence with Tiro, Tacitus’ historical works, and a letter written by the freed man Timarchides as quoted by Cicero in his oratio against Verres. Ultimately, the contribution’s goal is to suggest a methodological approach that – to some extent – rehabilitates literary texts as evidence for the freed person’s voice, and to argue that the value of literary sources when trying to recover this voice lies specifically in the tension between the public limits of freed persons’ (discursive) agency on the one hand, and the range and inventiveness of their self-representation in the context of their own or their patron’s trust network on the other.

This chapter shows that although the Epicureans claim that justice comes to be by agreements, they also argue for the existence of a robust virtue of justice. The first section of the chapter gives a general overview of the Epicurean theory of the virtues, while the second section examines in detail the passages in which Epicurean authors discuss the virtue of justice. The third and last section of the chapter turns to the precise relationship between contractual and aretaic justice on the Epicurean view. It argues that the former is a precondition for latter, as contractual justice specifies the content of aretaic justice and provides the developmental basis for aretaic justice to emerge.

This chapter discusses the question of the plurality of historical genres practiced by historians, and their function as a galvanizer of the classics. I proceed first (‘Taxonomies’) by analyzing the theories, definitions, and taxonomies of historical genres developed by ancient scholars such as Cicero and Dionysius to the modern taxonomical project by twentieth century scholars. In the second section (‘Developments’), I provide a brief history of the development of historical genres over time, focusing especially on the moment of their emergence, from ancient and medieval ethnographies, biographies, genealogies, and chronicles to modern monographs and papers. In the last section (‘Reappraisals’), I combine the premodern and modern approaches described in the first two sections, assuming postmodern theories to apply them to the discernment of the classic and the canon in history/historiography. To conclude, I propose an ethical purpose that make historians more attentive to the new developments and possibilities of historical genres, to better adapt the historical form to its content, making it compatible with respect and appreciation for the classics of the discipline. A more comprehensive and flexible approach to historical genres may facilitate the task of those who envisage a more creative and innovative historical writing and production.

Chapter 2 considers how Cicero responded to the model of the body politic proposed by Catiline. Rejecting the head of state metaphor, his oratory describes a civic healer capable of diagnosing and curing the ills of the Republic. This idea drew upon a well-established moralizing tradition that identified vice as a contagion that had infected the res publica. Whereas Varro, Sallust, and Lucretius employed such imagery to indict Rome’s governing class for its ambitio and avaritia, Cicero used it to justify the extralegal execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. Although he sought to protect a constitution under threat, his medically inspired language helped legitimize violence as a tool of political engagement. Identifying Clodius and his allies as new malignancies in need of amputation, he contributed to a corrosive cycle of civic conflict that culminated in Pompey’s sole consulship and Caesar’s dictatorship, two constitutional innovations justified as curative remedies. In the end, his rhetoric proved susceptible to appropriation by those less invested in collegial governance than he.

Chapter 1 begins with the Fable of the Belly, a foundational myth of civic organization that Roman thinkers dated to the Conflict of the Orders. Naturalizing the hierarchical distribution of power between the senate and people, the fable identified concord as the basis of civic health. Late Republican thinkers used this metaphor to explain the problem of discord, which seemed akin to the splitting or doubling of the res publica. While writers like Cicero, Sallust, and Varro crafted such imagery to lament the loss of civic unity, Catiline used it to justify the acquisition of personal power. Describing the senate and people as separate bodies with little in common, he proposed reworking the Republican constitution to better reflect their divide. He then laid claim to the role of the caput populi, which confirmed his aspirations to tyranny. His conspiracy would be put down in a matter of months, but the language he used to articulate his ambitions proved more difficult to extinguish.

Often viewed as derivative, philosophy written in Latin has in recent years been enjoying a scholarly renaissance, as critics realise that philosophical thought does not develop in a vacuum but is intrinsically linked to the time, place and language in which it is expressed.This chapter brings a historicising approach to the phenomenon of Roman philosophy, combining a diachronic narrative with a focus on particular themes.After considering the Roman adoption of Greek philosophy in the second century BCE, I use Lucretius as a case study for the Latinisation of Greek thought and Cicero as an example of the political and cultural uses of philosophy in the late Republic.I explore some of the many appearances of philosophy in Latin poetry – evidence of the saturation of the Roman cultural imaginary with philosophical ideas and the fact that Latin philosophical writing was not restricted to genres viewed as philosophical.Moving into the Empire, I discuss Seneca as a proponent of philosophy as a way of life and consider the self-representation of philosophers, with a focus on Apuleius, before concluding with an exploration of the Christianisation of philosophy in late antiquity.

This chapter turns to Augustine’s account of his own Christian conversion in Confessions. It offers a new account of what Augustine thought it meant to be a Christian – in particular, this chapter finds that the idea of God as the saviour of sinners (and therefore the giver of virtue) stood at the heart of Augustine’s conception of Christianity. This finding allows this chapter to show that Augustine’s intellectual and moral conversion coincided in the garden in Milan and also that Augustine made his criticisms of Manicheanism and Platonism from within the eudaimonist tradition.

This chapter asks whether Augustine criticised Stoicism and Platonism because he thought that there was something fundamentally flawed about the eudaimonist approach to ethics, or whether he criticised Stoicism and Platonism because he thought that these philosophies had insufficiently understood eudaimonism itself. It finds that the latter explanation is correct: in reaching this conclusion, this chapter establishes that Augustine defined virtue and vice, or sin, from within the eudaimonist tradition, making use of the ideas of love as eros and philia, and of the highest good, or summum bonum.

This chapter looks into the constitutions of Antiquity, notably those of the Greek city states - the (old) constitution of Dreros and Athens (the Draconian and Solonian constitutions), and Rome - the twelve tables. Aristotle claims to have had access to 158 city state constitutions: every respectable city state had on. For the first time in history we see evidence that communities (cities) try to learn from examples set by other city-states. Rome, for example, sends out envoys to learn from (and copy) the Athenian constitution before enacting the laws in their own Twelve Tables

The chapter surveys the meanings of moderation in the works of ancient writers. It emphasizes the centrality of moderation to the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero and ends with the definition of moderation given by Joseph Hall: “the silken string that runs through the pearl-chain of all virtues.”