Cicero's Orator.

Brown leather binding. Red title plate with gilt lettering. Translated by William Guthrie A unique and very rare edition Marcus Tullius Cicero 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy, and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order and served as consul in 63 BC. His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of surviving Latin literature from the period of his adult life, and it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. Cicero introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary with neologisms such as evidentia, humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia, distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. It was during his consulship that the second Catilinarian conspiracy attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces, and Cicero suppressed the revolt by summarily and controversially executing five conspirators. During the chaotic middle period of the 1st century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. Following Caesar's death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BC having been intercepted during an attempted flight from the Italian peninsula. His severed hands and head were then, as a final revenge of Mark Antony, displayed on the Rostra. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the 18th-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu and Edmund Burke was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic. William Guthrie (1620–1665) was a Scottish Covenanter minister and author. He was the first minister of Fenwick parish church in Ayrshire, Scotland. He is known primarily for his book on assurance, The Christian's Great Interest. William Guthrie, born 1620, was the eldest son of James Guthrie of Pitforthie, Forfarshire, by a daughter of Lyon of Easter-Ogle, in Tanadice parish. He became an apt scholar, and on 5 June 1638 he graduated M.A. at the University of St Andrews, where his studies had been directed by his cousin, James Guthrie, then a regent in philosophy. He studied divinity under Samuel Rutherford. To free himself from what he considered purely worldly affairs, he made over Pitforthie to one of his brothers. He was licensed by the Presbtery of St Andrews in August 1642, and became tutor to the eldest son of John Campbell, first Earl of Loudoun, the Lord High Chancellor of Scotland. Some persons from Fenwick having heard him preach at a Fast-day service in Galston Kirk, they desired him to be called as the first minister of their newly created parish. That was done, and he was ordained 7 November 1644. Soon afterwards the General Assembly appointed him an army chaplain, and he was present at the engagement which took place at Mauchline Moor in June 1648. He also witnessed the covenanting defeat at Dunbar on 3 September 1650. He joined the Protesters in 1651. On 8 August 1654 he was appointed by the English Council on a committee for supervising admissions to the ministry within the bounds of his own Synod. Refusing to submit to Episcopacy, he was deprived 24 July 1664. He went to Pitforthie, which had again come into his hands through the death of his brother, and following a period of ill-health, he died in the manse of his brother-in-law, Laurence Skinner, minister of Brechin, 10 October 1665, and was buried in the Cathedral there.