place
Graecia
also: Greece, Athenas, Pergamum, Cyzicum, Miletum, Chium, Samum, Asiam, Achaiam, Graeciam, Siciliam
Greece, in Cicero's usage either the Roman province of Achaia (founded 146 BC) or, by metonymy, the whole of the Greek-speaking East from Macedonia to the Aegean. The standing antithesis to Roman gravity throughout the speeches and the model of letters and philosophy (Verr. 2.1.55; Pro rege Deiot. 28; Pro Cael. 40).
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 7.13 §3 best to send them off to Greece
Cicero weighs evacuating his son and nephew to Greece, away from the fighting in Italy and toward the safety of Atticus's connections in Epirus and Athens.
- Ad Atticum 10.16 §6 present yourself to us in Greece full of vigour
Greece was the gathering-ground of the Pompeian cause, where Pompey was massing his forces after quitting Italy. Cicero's hope to meet Atticus there marks his hardening resolve to leave Italy and join Pompey's camp.
- Ad Atticum 14.16 §3 run over to Greece
Cicero's recurring plan in these weeks to sail to Greece, ostensibly to oversee his son's studies at Athens, in part to escape the political danger at home.
- For Lucius Flaccus §9 Greeks
Cicero mounts a sustained attack on the trustworthiness of Greek witnesses, contrasting the discipline of Roman testimony with what he calls the levity of the Greek temperament under oath.