I have a soft spot for Cicero. As a high school junior, a year's worth of Latin class was dedicated to dissecting one of Cicero's speeches against Catiline. If memory serves, we only got maybe four or five paragraphs into it (hey, Latin isn't a cakewalk!), but for so many other reasons that class was really fun.
So when the
political thought course I was teaching transitioned from Greek to Roman philosophers, I was particularly happy to lecture on Cicero:
Of the many ideas found in his works, the ones that I think resonate best with students are his arguments why people should have civic/political involvements. I particularly like his rejoinder to the oft-heard "I'll be there when I'm needed," which I suppose illustrates how people's predilections -- right or wrong -- are just the same today as in Roman times.
[Confused about Presentation Thursdays? Then read the first in the series].
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