Opening On Old Age — Cicero in Plato Scroll…
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Cicero · E. S. Shuckburgh
Translated by E. S. Shuckburgh, 1900. Cato the Elder, aged eighty-four, answers the four charges laid against old age, and closes with the soul’s hope of immortality. (i.) ORIGIN AND SCOPE. 1. Date and Circumstances of Composition. The date at which the Cato Maior was written can be determined with almost perfect exactness. A mention in Cicero’s work entitled De Divinatione shows that the Cato Maior preceded that work by a short time. The De Divinatione was written after the assassination of Caesar, that is, after the 15th of March in the year 44. Again, the Cato Maior is mentioned as a recent work in three letters addressed by Cicero to Atticus. The earliest of these letters was written on or about the 12th of May, 44. We shall hardly err, therefore, if we assume that Cicero composed the Cato Maior in April of the year 44. This agrees also with slight indications in the work itself. In …
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