Pertinax Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 a nice extract from Harris' work is here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2339656.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Nice find! speaking of Harris, Publisher Simon & Schuster sent PP a review copy of this particular book, so expect a review from our very own PP soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Excellent find. Another potential mark on my wish list. I'm not sure what Cicero would think about being compared to Bill Clinton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 According to the review, Cicero had chick peas engraved onto dishes as a play on his name. Does anyone know the source for that? BTW, it was nice to see this excerpt from the speech against Verres: "If you, Verres, had been made a prisoner in Persia or the remotest part of India, and were being dragged off to execution, what cry would you be uttering, except that you were a Roman citizen? What then of this man whom you were hurrying to his death? Could not that statement, that claim of citizenship, have saved him for an hour, for a day, while its truth was checked? No it could not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WotWotius Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 According to the review, Cicero had chick peas engraved onto dishes as a play on his name. Does anyone know the source for that? It comes from Plutarch--I was only reading this last night...strange. Below is a quote from source in question: 'It is said of Helvia, the mother of Cicero, that she was well born and lived an honourable life; but of his father nothing can be learned that does not go to an extreme. For some say that he was born and reared in a fuller's shop, while others trace the origin of his family to Tullus Attius, an illustrious king of the Volscians, who waged war upon the Romans with great ability. However, the first member of the family who was surnamed Cicero seems to have been worthy of note, and for that reason his posterity did not reject the surname, but were fond of it, although many made it a matter of raillery. For "cicer" is the Latin name for chick-pea, and this ancestor of Cicero, as it would seem, had a faint dent in the end of his nose like the cleft of a chick-pea, from which he acquired his surname. Cicero himself, however, whose Life I now write, when he first entered public life and stood for office and his friends thought he ought to drop or change the name, is said to have replied with spirit that he would strive to make the name of Cicero more illustrious than such names as Scaurus or Catulus. Moreover, when he was quaestor in Sicily and was dedicating to the gods a piece of silver plate, he had his first two names inscribed thereon, the Marcus and the Tullius, but instead of the third, by way of jest, he ordered the artificer to engrave a chick-pea in due sequence. This, then, is what is told about his name.' Plutarch, life of Cicero, I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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