Cicero and translation in the summer of 45 BCE: A study of 'De finibus', 'Academica posteriora', 'Tusculanae disputationes' (Roman Republic)

Ever since Jerome invoked the authority of Cicero to defend his own free translation method (Letter to Pammachius 57.5), Cicero has been touted as the champion of literary translation, as a fierce opponent of literal translation, and as the first translation theorist whose writings are extant. In support of these views translation theorists have cited Cicero's rare statements concerning translation in isolation from all context as well as from his actual translation practice. This thesis demonstrates that a critical and re-contextualized reading of Cicero's translation statements not only fails to substantiate such a binary interpretation of Cicero's 'theory' but also challenges the validity of his status as a translation theorist. In order to assess Cicero's translation practice itself a systematic investigation was conducted of a corpus of three philosophical treatises written in the summer of 45 BCE (De finibus bonorum et malorum, Academica posteriora, and Tusculanae disputationes) which include an impressive quantity of prose and verse citations translated from many genres of Greek literature.* (Abstract shortened by UMI.); *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation).