By Charles E. Bennett

Description

The relevance of Cicero's On Old Age transcends time and culture as it examines with superlative clarity the challenging problem of aging.

Cicero brilliantly addresses the aspects of old age and its sociological problems in a manner that is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago. With Latin text, notes, and vocabulary, this is a valuable text that intermediate students will find instructive and insightful.

Translation available from Loeb Classical Library
Cicero
on Old Age
on Friendship
on Divination
English Translation by William Armistead Falconer
ISBN 0-674-99170-2
LOEB Classical Library is a registered trademark of
the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Author Bio

Charles Edwin Bennett (April 6, 1858–1921) was an American classical scholar and the Goldwin Smith Professor of Latin at Cornell University. He is best remembered for his book New Latin Grammar, first published in 1895 and currently available from Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Bennett graduated from Brown University in 1878 and also studied at Harvard (1881–1882) and in Germany (1882–1884). He taught in secondary schools in Florida (1878–1879), New York (1879–1881), and Nebraska (1885–1889), and became professor of Latin in the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1889, of classical philology at Brown University in 1891, and of Latin at Cornell University in 1892. His syntactical studies, notably various papers on the subjunctive, are based on a statistical examination of Latin texts and are marked by a fresh system of nomenclature; he ranks as one of the leaders of the New American School of syntacticians, who insist on a preliminary re-examination of all available data.

Comments and Reviews

On Old Age was the first ancient text in translation that publisher Benjamin Franklin chose for release in America. He was rightfully proud of his now much admired 1743 edition and anticipated, with his customary wry wit, that reading it would give pleasure:

"I have, Gentle Reader, as thou seest, printed this Piece of Cicero's in a large and fair Character, that those who begin to think on the Subject of OLD AGE, (which seldom happens till their Sight is somewhat impair'd by its Approaches) may not, in Reading, by the Pain small Letters give the Eyes, feel the Pleasure of the Mind in the least allayed."

Franklin was not alone among American patriots in his praise of Cicero, about whom John Adams remarked: "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined."

Cicero's On Old Age speaks as directly to all of us today — those approaching old age as well as the younger — as it did to Franklin and Adams. Long considered one of Cicero's most engaging, charming, and readable treatises, it quite simply transcends time. Cicero steps out of the persona of the 'great man' and examines, with superlative clarity, the challenges all human beings must one day face.

— From the back cover