Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist. He is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary, distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, he probably thought his political career his most important achievement. Today, he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. Although a great master of Latin rhetoric and composition, Cicero was not Roman in the traditional sense, and was quite self-conscious of this for his entire life. He was declared a "righteous pagan" by the early Catholic Church, and therefore many of his works were deemed worthy of preservation. Saint Augustine and others quoted liberally from his works On the Republic and On the Laws, and it is due to this that we are able to recreate much of the work from the surviving fragments.

Cicero is considered to be Rome's greatest orator and prose writer. His writing is some of the best classical Latin still in existence. Cicero introduced Rome to Greek philosophy and created the Latin philosophical vocabulary. This book contains two selections. Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators was written during the end of the civil war in Africa. It discusses all the Roman and Greek speakers of any note at the time. The conference is supposed to have been held with Atticus, and their friend Brutus. The Orator was written shortly after and is a plan, or critical delineation, of what he esteemed the most finished eloquence, or style of Speaking. As the following Rhetorical Pieces have never appeared before in the English language, I thought a Translation of them would be no unacceptable offering to the Public. The character of the Author (Marcus Tullius Cicero) is so universally celebrated, that it would be needless, and indeed impertinent, to say any thing to recommend them. The first of them was the fruit of his retirement, during the remains of the Civil War in Africa; and was composed in the form of a Dialogue. It contains a few short, but very masterly sketches of all the Speakers who had flourished either in Greece or Rome, with any reputation of Eloquence, down to his own time; and as he generally touches the principal incidents of their lives, it will be considered, by an attentive reader, as a concealed epitome of the Roman history. The conference is supposed to have been held with Atticus, and their common friend Brutus, in Cicero's garden at Rome, under the statue of Plato, whom he always admired, and usually imitated in his dialogues: and he seems in this to have copied even his double titles, calling it Brutus, or the History of famous Orators. It was intended as a supplement, or fourth book, to three former ones, on the qualifications of an Orator. The second, which is intitled The Orator, was composed a very short time afterwards (both of them in the 61st year of his age) and at the request of Brutus. It contains a plan, or critical delineation, of what he himself esteemed the most finished Eloquence, or style of Speaking. He calls it The Fifth Part, or Book, designed to complete his Brutus, and the former three on the same subject. It was received with great approbation; and in a letter to Lepta, who had complimented him upon it, he declares, that whatever judgment he had in Speaking, he had thrown it all into that work, and was content to risk his reputation on the merit of it. But it is particularly recommended to our curiosity, by a more exact account of the rhetorical composition, or prosaic harmony of the ancients, than is to be met with in any other part of his works. As to the present Translation, I must leave the merit of it to be decided by the Public; and have only to observe, that though I have not, to my knowledge, omitted a single sentence of the original, I was obliged, in some places, to paraphrase my author, to render his meaning intelligible to a modern reader. My chief aim was to be clear and perspicuous: if I have succeeded in that, it is all I pretend to. I must leave it to abler pens to copy the Eloquence of Cicero. Mine is unequal to the task.

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This Is A New Release Of The Original 1879 Edition.

This volume appears now finally in English, sixty years after the death of its author, Lucien Tesnière. It has been translated from the French original into German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, and now at long last into English as well. The volume contains a comprehensive approach to the syntax of natural languages, an approach that is foundational for an entire stream in the modern study of syntax and grammar. This stream is known today as dependency grammar (DG). Drawing examples from dozens of languages, many of which he was proficient in, Tesnière presents insightful analyses of numerous phenomena of syntax. Among the highlights are the concepts of valency and head-initial vs. head-final languages. These concepts are now taken for granted by most modern theories of syntax, even by phrase structure grammars, which represent, in a sense, the opposite sort of approach to syntax from what Tesnière was advocating. Now Open Access as part of the Knowledge Unlatched 2017 Backlist Collection.