Letters to Atticus

Cicero. Ciceronis, M. Tullius. Epistulae, Vol. II. Pars Prior and Pars Posterior. Purser, Louis Claude, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.

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Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.

This collection of letters contains the extensive private correspondence sent by the Roman statesman and orator Cicero to his lifelong friend and confidant, Atticus. Spanning several turbulent decades, the letters begin with Cicero's political campaigns for the consulship and detail his subsequent exile, return, and tenure as proconsul of Cilicia. As the civil war between Caesar and Pompey erupts, the correspondence vividly captures Cicero’s agonizing dilemma over which side to support and whether to flee Italy. Alongside these monumental historical events, the letters reveal the intimate details of Cicero’s private life, including his passion for collecting books and art to decorate his villas, and his profound, inconsolable grief following the death of his beloved daughter, Tullia. Concluding with the chaotic aftermath of Caesar’s assassination and the rise of young Octavian, this work offers an template-less, firsthand account of a brilliant mind navigating the collapse of the Roman Republic.