place
Athenae
Athens
Principal city of Attica and seat of the most famous classical democracy; pre-eminent centre of Greek philosophy.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 15.15 §4 transferred for him to Athens
Athens, where young Marcus was studying philosophy and rhetoric; Cicero wants his annual allowance remitted to him there by a bill of exchange (permutatio) rather than carried in coin.
- Ad Atticum 16.6 §2 at your Athens without it
Athens stands here for the safe but exiled life abroad that Cicero is contemplating; he says he would rather be at home in Italy in fear than untroubled in Greece.
- Ad Familiares 6.3 §3 you are in a city in which these things --- these and many more, and in ampler form --- the very walls would seem able to speak
Athens, where Torquatus was residing; Cicero means that Athens, the home of philosophy (Plato's Academy, the Stoic Stoa, the Epicurean Garden), surrounds Torquatus with consolatory wisdom richer than anything Cicero can supply by letter.
- Ad Familiares 6.3 §4 owls to Athens
The Greek proverb glaukos eis Athenas ('owls to Athens'), equivalent to 'coals to Newcastle': Athena's sacred bird was the owl, and Athens minted owl-coins; sending philosophical consolation to a man living in the philosophical capital is self-evidently superfluous. Cicero quotes the Greek in the Latin text.
- Ad Familiares 9.3 §1 in whose own house they are home-born
Cicero quotes the Greek proverb 'owls to Athens' (the equivalent of 'coals to Newcastle'): owls were sacred to Athena and abundant in her city, so to bring one there is pointless. He means it is absurd to lecture the supremely learned Varro on matters Varro knows best.
- Ad Familiares 9.9 §3 withdraw either to Athens or to whatever quiet city you please
Athens was the natural refuge for a cultivated Roman wishing to sit out the war in dignified neutrality, a centre of philosophy where Cicero had studied as a young man and would later send his son to study.
- Brutus §167 the Attic manner
Attic style: the plain, pure, restrained manner of the classical Athenian orators (especially Lysias), held up against the florid 'Asiatic' style. The contest of the two styles is a running theme of the Brutus.
- Brutus §284 an Attic orator
The 'Atticists' of Cicero's day affected the plain, lean style they took for that of the classical Athenian orators. Cicero argues that the Attic orators were in fact diverse, and that true Attic includes the grand style of Demosthenes.