Cicero's Brutus (46 BCE), a tour-de-force of intellectual and political history, was written amidst political crisis: Caesar's defeat of the republican resistance at the battle of Thapsus. This magisterial example of the dialogue genre capaciously documents the intellectual vibrancy of the Roman Republic and its Greco-Roman traditions. This book is the first study of the work from several distinct yet interrelated perspectives: Cicero's account of oratorical history, the confrontation with Caesar, and the exploration of what it means to write a history of an artistic practice. Close readings of this dialogue-including its apparent contradictions and tendentious fabrications-reveal a crucial and crucially productive moment in Greco-Roman thought. Cicero, this book argues, created the first nuanced, sophisticated, and ultimately 'modern' literary history, crafting both a compelling justification of Rome's oratorical traditions and also laying a foundation for literary historiography that abides to this day.

‘a fine study … Recommended.’

A. M. Keith Source: Choice Connect

‘… van den Berg’s book is an ambitious, well-argued, and timely work that offers a wealth of approaches to a challenging text with a complex reception history. Like the Brutus itself, it deftly straddles the often-siloed disciplines of history and literary criticism to provide valuable insight into the confluence of art and politics at a critical point in the story of Rome.’

Noah Segal Source: Bryn Mawr Classical Review