Cicero, Letters to Atticus 7.9.1-2

‘cottidiene,’ inquis, ‘a te accipiendae litterae sunt?’ si habebo cui dem, cottidie. ‘at iam ipse ades.’ tum igitur cum venero desinam. unas video mihi a te non esse redditas quas L. Quinctius, familiaris meus, cum ferret ad bustum Basili vulneratus et despoliatus est. videbis igitur num quid fuerit in iis quod me scire opus est.

You are asking, ‘Am I to receive a letter from you every day?’ As long as I have someone to give it to, then yes, every day. ‘But you are already here in person.’ When I do actually arrive I shall stop writing. I see that one letter from you to me has not been delivered: it was being carried by Lucius Quinctius, a friend of mine, when he was robbed and wounded at the tomb of Basilus. So do see whether there was anything in it that I need to know.

Cicero is writing from Formiae, down the road from Rome on the Appian Way, on December 27th, 50 BC, at the end of a long journey back from his province in Cilicia.

Cicero, Letters to his Friends 5.12.1

To Lucius Lucceius.

coram me tecum eadem haec agere saepe conantem deterruit pudor quidam paene subrusticus, quae nunc expromam absens audacius; epistula enim non erubescit.

I have often tried to speak of these matters with you in person, but an almost clownish sense of shyness has scared me off; now, being away from you, I shall declare them more boldly, since a letter does not blush.

Cicero, Letters to his Friends 12.2.1

Cicero writes to Cassius shortly after delivering his First ‘Philippic’ in 44 BC.

vehementer laetor tibi probari sententiam et orationem meam; qua si saepius uti liceret, nihil esset negotii libertatem et rem publicam reciperare.

I am extremely happy that my opinion and my speech meet with your approval; if it were allowed me to make such speeches more often, it would be no trouble to restore freedom and civil affairs.

Cicero, On the responses of the haruspices 19

etenim quis est tam vaecors qui aut, cum suspexit in caelum, deos esse non sentiat, et ea quae tanta mente fiunt ut vix quisquam arte ulla ordinem rerum ac necessitudinem persequi possit casu fieri putet, aut, cum deos esse intellexerit, non intellegat eorum numine hoc tantum imperium esse natum et auctum et retentum?

Who is there who is so senseless that, on looking up to the sky, he does not sense that there are gods, and think that those things happen by chance which are done with such a mind that scarcely anyone, by any kind of skill, can explain their order and interconnections? Or, when he has understood that gods exist, does not understand that this great empire has been born, increased, and maintained through their divine power?

Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.8

et si conferre volumus nostra cum externis, ceteris rebus aut pares aut etiam inferiores reperiemur, religione, id est cultu deorum, multo superiores.

And if we want to compare our own affairs with those of foreigners, we shall be found to be equal, or even inferior, in other matters, but much superior in religion (that is, the worship of the gods).

Cicero, On the Orator 2.276

From a selection of good jokes.

ut illud Nasicae, qui cum ad poetam Ennium venisset eique ab ostio quaerenti Ennium ancilla dixisset domi non esse, Nasica sensit illam domini iussu dixisse et illum intus esse; paucis post diebus cum ad Nasicam venisset Ennius et eum ad ianuam quaereret, exclamat Nasica domi non esse, tum Ennius ‘quid? ego non cognosco vocem’ inquit ‘tuam?’ hic Nasica ‘homo es impudens: ego cum te quaererem ancillae tuae credidi te domi non esse, tu mihi non credis ipsi?’

And so too with that joke of Nasica, who had come to the house of Ennius the poet, asked for Ennius at the door and been told by the slave-girl that he was not at home; Nasica had a feeling that she had been told by her master to say this, and that he was really inside the house. A few days later, when Ennius had come to Nasica’s house and asked for him at the door, Nasica shouted out that he was not at home; then Ennius said, ‘What? Don’t I recognise your voice?’ Nasica replied, ‘You’re an impudent man! When I asked for you I believed your slave-girl when she said you weren’t at home. Won’t you believe me in person?’ 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.34

Socraten ferunt, cum usque ad vesperum contentius ambularet quaesitumque esset ex eo, quare id faceret, respondisse se, quo melius cenaret, obsonare ambulando famem.

They say that Socrates used to walk rather vigorously right up to evening-time, and when he was asked why he did this he replied that he was getting up an appetite by walking, so that he would have a better dinner. 

Cicero, Letters to his friends 9.22.3

Sometimes a word is innocuous in one language but sounds a bit like a rude word in another. Cicero, who casually drops in Greek words quite frequently, discusses the problem in this letter. Here’s one of his examples, where bini ‘two at a time’ is perfectly respectable Latin, but sounds uncomfortably like the Greek βινεῖ ‘he has sex’.

cum loquimur ‘terni’, nihil flagitii dicimus; at, cum ‘bini’, obscenum est. ‘Graecis quidem,’ inquies. nihil est ergo in verbo, quoniam et ego Graece scio et tamen tibi dico ‘bini’, idque tu facis, quasi ego Graece, non Latine, dixerim.

When we say ‘three at a time’, we’re saying nothing disgraceful, but when we say ‘two at a time’, it’s obscene. ‘Well, to the Greeks it is,’ you say. Therefore there’s nothing in the word itself, since I know Greek but still use the word ‘two at a time’, and you take it as though I had spoken in Greek, not Latin.

[Cicero], Rhetoric for Herennius 4.39

The anonymous author is explaining how to employ different rhetorical techniques. He gives five examples of commutatio, of which I include just the first: it’s a sentiment which was much quoted in antiquity.

commutatio est cum duae sententiae inter se discrepantes ex traiectione ita efferuntur ut a priore posterior contraria priori profiscatur, hoc modo: ‘esse oportet ut vivas, non vivere ut edas.’

A ‘reciprocal change’ is when two sentiments which disagree with each other are expressed by a transposition, in such a way that the latter follows from the former even though it is contradictory to it, like this: ‘You should eat to live, not live to eat.’

Cicero, For Murena 36

nihil est incertius volgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more uncertain than the public, nothing more obscure than men’s will, nothing more deceptive than the whole business of elections.