BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA. EDITED BY GEORGE LONG, M.A. FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDge, AND THE REV. A. J. MACLEANE, M.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRidge. M. TULLII CICERONIS ORATIONES. WITH A COMMENTARY BY GEORGE LONG. VOL. IV. LONDON: WHITTAKER AND CO. AVE MARIA LANE; PREFACE. HAVING finished a work which has employed me several years, I have a few remarks to make at the end of my labours. The volumes which contain the second edition of Orelli's Orations of Cicero were not published when I began this work, and I have only been able to use the second edition from the 163rd page of the Second Volume, where the Oration for Fonteius begins. I have mentioned this before', and I mention it again to anticipate any possible objections. This edition by Baiter and Halm is very useful, for the MSS. readings are presented in a better and more complete form than in Orelli's edition, and the editors have shown great judgment in amending the text. I have not always followed them, but the number of cases in which I have taken or retained a different reading are not very numerous. Ever since the revival of ancient literature many industrious and excellent critics have employed themselves in amending and explaining the text of Cicero's Orations, and we can now read them with ease and profit; but future editors will still find something to do, for Cicero's text has been much corrupted by transcription and glosses. The extant orations of Cicero belong to a period of near forty years, from the twenty-sixth year of his age to the year of his death, when he was past sixty-three. He lived in a time of commotion and revolution. As he says himself, between his youth and his old age he had seen five civil wars. His ambition and his abilities led him to seek the highest honours in Rome, and he, the native of a small Italian town, made his way to the consulship and 1 Preface to the Second Volume. |