Editing Latin literature (section)

==== The age of Cicero ====
[[File:M-T-Cicero.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Cicero]]]]

[[Cicero]] has traditionally been considered the master of Latin prose.<ref>{{cite book|author= Charles W. Eliot|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uLGVxD1fX8UC&pg=PA3|title=Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus: Part 9 Harvard Classics|publisher= Kessinger Publishing|year= 2004|page= 3| isbn=9780766182042 |access-date= 15 October 2011}}</ref><ref>Nettleship, Henry; Haverfield, F. [https://books.google.com/books?id=pPcgIEC3CPIC&pg=PA105 ''Lectures and Essays: Second Series.''] Cambridge University Press, 2010. p. 105. Web. 18 October 2011.</ref> The writing he produced from about 80 BC until his death in 43 BC exceeds that of any Latin author whose work survives in terms of quantity and variety of genre and subject matter, as well as possessing unsurpassed stylistic excellence. Cicero's many works can be divided into four groups: (1) letters, (2) rhetorical treatises, (3) philosophical works, and (4) orations. His letters provide detailed information about an important period in Roman history and offer a vivid picture of the public and private life among the Roman governing class. Cicero's works on oratory are our most valuable Latin sources for ancient theories on education and rhetoric. His philosophical works were the basis of moral philosophy during the Middle Ages. His speeches inspired many European political leaders and the founders of the United States.

[[File:Young Folks' History of Rome illus148.png|thumb|Roman orator]]
[[Julius Caesar]] and [[Sallust]] were significant historical writers of Cicero's time. Caesar wrote commentaries on the Gallic and civil wars in a straightforward style to justify his actions as a general. He wrote descriptions of people and their motives.

The birth of lyric poetry in Latin occurred during the same period. The lyrics of [[Catullus]], whom the writer [[Aulus Gellius]]<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0071%3Abook%3D6%3Achapter%3D20 | title=Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, A. Gellii Noctium Atticarum Liber Sextus, XX }}</ref> called "the most elegant of poets", are noted for their emotional intensity. Contemporary with Catullus, [[Lucretius]] expounded the Epicurean philosophy in a long poem, ''De rerum natura''.

One of the most prolific writers of the period was [[Marcus Terentius Varro]]. Referred to as "the most learned of the Romans" by [[Quintillian]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=LacusCurtius • Quintilian — Institutio Oratoria — BookX, Chapter1|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/10A*.html#1.95|access-date=2022-02-02|website=penelope.uchicago.edu}}</ref> he wrote about a remarkable variety of subjects, from religion to poetry, but only his writings on agriculture and the Latin language are extant in their complete form.