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Unforgotten Classics
The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Treatise on the Laws
The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Treatise on the Laws
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ALL who are acquainted with Cicero's Republic are probably aware that it forms a general introduction to the Treatise on Laws, which we now translate for the first time into English. This treatise is therefore to be regarded as a necessary supplement to the former work, and each supports and illustrates the other with surprising force and beauty.
Cicero evidently intended it as a text book of the grand principles and elements of law; and next to the bible, we cannot mention any volume better entitled to our esteem in this respect. The influence that this treatise on Laws has avowedly possessed over the minds of the great jurisconsults who have subsequently written on legal morals, has been immense. It has been continually quoted and referred to, as a kind of legal oracle by the sages of modern times and nations, and in indirect modes, it has diffused its sublime sentiment through the main body of ethical literature.
In the course of this work, Cicero treats of the law,--divine or theologic; the law of nature and nations; the law ecclesiastical or canonical, and the law civil and municipal.
In translating it, we have endeavoured to preserve that basso relievo style of translation, if we may use the term, which gives the original phrases something of that relief and prominence, which are necessary to produce a distinct and durable impression on the modern reader. Many words and phrases occur in the original, which were strong and definite enough for the Romans to whom Cicero wrote, but which would not strike into the apprehension and realization of the English reader, had we not developed and expanded their latent energies, by certain paraphrastical illustrations, calculated to elicit familiar associations, ideas, and images of truth, which come home to men's bosom and business in real life as it is.
Many of these terms are of so technical a nature in Cicero's laws, that we never met with any thing more difficult and obscure in all Latinity. Yet we hope in the great majority of instances, to have hit their meaning with sufficient precision. Where we have not done so, we shall willingly submit to the emendations of any scholars who can propose more perfect renderings.
Cicero evidently intended it as a text book of the grand principles and elements of law; and next to the bible, we cannot mention any volume better entitled to our esteem in this respect. The influence that this treatise on Laws has avowedly possessed over the minds of the great jurisconsults who have subsequently written on legal morals, has been immense. It has been continually quoted and referred to, as a kind of legal oracle by the sages of modern times and nations, and in indirect modes, it has diffused its sublime sentiment through the main body of ethical literature.
In the course of this work, Cicero treats of the law,--divine or theologic; the law of nature and nations; the law ecclesiastical or canonical, and the law civil and municipal.
In translating it, we have endeavoured to preserve that basso relievo style of translation, if we may use the term, which gives the original phrases something of that relief and prominence, which are necessary to produce a distinct and durable impression on the modern reader. Many words and phrases occur in the original, which were strong and definite enough for the Romans to whom Cicero wrote, but which would not strike into the apprehension and realization of the English reader, had we not developed and expanded their latent energies, by certain paraphrastical illustrations, calculated to elicit familiar associations, ideas, and images of truth, which come home to men's bosom and business in real life as it is.
Many of these terms are of so technical a nature in Cicero's laws, that we never met with any thing more difficult and obscure in all Latinity. Yet we hope in the great majority of instances, to have hit their meaning with sufficient precision. Where we have not done so, we shall willingly submit to the emendations of any scholars who can propose more perfect renderings.
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