Roma

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 6.5 §2 the seven-hilled city

  A periphrasis for Rome (Greek heptalophos), the city of the seven hills; Cicero veils the whole financial paragraph in Greek as a cipher against prying eyes on a letter that may be intercepted.

• Ad Atticum 9.16 §3 at hand to me near the City

  "Near the City" (ad urbem) means just outside the formal boundary (pomerium) of Rome; a magistrate holding military command, like Caesar or Cicero as imperator, forfeited that command on crossing it, so business was often transacted just beyond the line.

• Ad Atticum 10.3 §1 in what state he had left the City

  Caesar was about to leave Rome for the Spanish campaign against Pompey's legates; Cicero is anxious to learn what arrangements he made for the capital before going. "The City" (urbs) is the standard Roman shorthand for Rome itself.

• Ad Familiares 6.1 §1 for a good man, to be at Rome is the most wretched lot of all

  Torquatus was in exile or self-imposed absence abroad after Pharsalus (48 BC), while his property and family remained in Rome; the paradox Cicero exploits is that Rome itself, under Caesar's post-Pharsalus settlement, is the worse place to be.

• Ad Familiares 16.1 §1 it matters greatly to my standing that I reach the city as soon as possible

  Cicero is hurrying home from his Cilician governorship in late 50 BC, hoping to be voted a triumph; "the city" is Rome, which a commander seeking a triumph could not enter until the vote, but which he needed to reach before the political crisis deepened.