London CJ CLAY AND SONS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AVE MARIA LANE Cambridge DEIGHTON BELL AND CO New York MACMILLAN AND CO PRO GNAEO PLANCIO ORATIO AD IVDICES WITH INTRODUCTION ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY BY THE REV. HUBERT ASHTON HOLDEN M.A. LL.D FELLOW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE EDITOR OF CICERO DE OFFICIIS AND PRO SESTIO EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF the UNIVERSITY PRESS THIRD EDITION REVISED CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1891 All Rights reserved PREFACE THE Planciana is not included in any English edition of select orations of Cicero, nor has any separate edition of it ever been published with English notes. And yet it must be regarded as one of Cicero's best, if not so choice a specimen of formal perfection as the Miloniana, or of such historical importance as the Verrines or Catilinarians. There is no tearing of any enemy to tatters,' as Mr Anthony Trollope well remarks in his Life of Cicero, 'but there is much pathos and a few passages in it of peculiar force.' Such are the orator's lively comments on the caprice of the people in their appointment of magistrates, on the relation between a candidate for office and his electors, and on the arts of electioneering; on the use of the ballot; on political consistency: such is the famous comparison between the pecuniae debitio et gratiae, and such again the beautiful irony with which he ridicules the pretensions of the pro secutor. It is the more surprising then, that while other speeches of Cicero have been edited and re-edited, this has lain in comparative neglect. Wunder's edition, 'which' it has been said 'may safely be pronounced to be the most elaborate, if not the ablest, edition of any of Cicero's works,' has been long out of print, and Köpke's is practically useless, the notes being written in German. No apology therefore seems to be needed for the publication of a new edition with English notes for the use of students at the University and for boys at public schools. |