{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "cicero.letters_to_atticus",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/cicero/letters-to-atticus/reference-5-20-1/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Letters to Atticus",
    "author": "Cicero",
    "date": "68-44 BCE",
    "summary": "In letters to Atticus, Cicero shares calculations, fears, and reversals with his closest political confidant. The correspondence preserves a voice less polished than the speeches, caught within the crises of the late Republic.",
    "learning": "Observe political decisions taking shape, distinguish confidence from self-fashioning, and reconstruct the role of the largely absent addressee.",
    "long_summary": "The letters follow elections, alliances, civil war, exile, and domestic decisions almost at the pace of events. Cicero seeks advice, passes news, assesses Caesar, Pompey, and their supporters, then often revises his judgement in the next letter.\n\nThis immediacy reveals reasoning in motion rather than settled doctrine. Atticus remains an active addressee whose replies are largely absent, so silence, self-defence, and relational strategy must be read alongside the events discussed.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Roman world, 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood.",
        "science": "Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory.",
        "medicine": "Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist.",
        "transport": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour.",
        "communication": "Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand.",
        "clothing": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood. Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory. Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky. Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "greek-roman-traditions",
        "label": "Greek and Roman traditions"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "lat",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/letters_to_atticus/representations/lat.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 1479,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "c18722b900f27d95234987069046b79c90898739422ab6d543c77f5c7ad65fc8",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-letters_to_atticus-lat"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/letters_to_atticus/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 1479,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "46a9ba0e94d4cd6726a644eddf2c8ebec7d27b5555352262be4a1e98e0e84ef0",
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            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
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            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/letters_to_atticus/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
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            "sha256": "e4cbdb57ec4313306c1e4fa44f92c123e845d086b7c5e2324ae86d08fc3b709b",
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            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_en_05/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "2d5e9462ef8b2f005b93d341387273fed1ead58e543dc8fce2a6b5ba8ac93b1e",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-letters-to-atticus-en-carrier"
        },
        {
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            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_en_05/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 1,
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            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
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        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_en_14/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "historical_translation",
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            "source_id": "gutenberg-selected-letters"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
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            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
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            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
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    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "civic_duty",
            "label": "Civic duty"
        },
        {
            "id": "fortune",
            "label": "Fortune"
        },
        {
            "id": "friendship",
            "label": "Friendship"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "cicero.letters_to_atticus",
        "cicero.translation_carrier_en_05",
        "cicero.translation_carrier_en_14"
    ],
    "passages": 1479,
    "word_count": 211714,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 211714,
        "fr": 203445,
        "lat": 124700
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "cicero-work-hierarchy-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "hierarchical_ref",
                "label_fr": "Division",
                "label_en": "Division"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Passage",
        "leaf_en": "Passage"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:cicero.letters_to_atticus:5.20.1",
    "canonical_ref": "5.20.1",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Saturnalibus mane se mihi Pindenissitae dediderunt septimo et quinquagesimo die postquam oppugnare eos coepimus. qui malum! isti Pindenissitae qui sunt? inquies; nomen audivi numquam. quid ego faciam? num potui Ciliciam Aetoliam aut Macedoniam reddere? hoc iam sic habeto nec hoc exercitu nec hic tanta negotia geri potuisse. quae cognosce ἐν ἐπιτομῇ ; sic enim concedis mihi proximis litteris. Ephesum ut venerim nosti, qui etiam mihi gratulatus es illius diei celebritatem qua nihil me umquam delectavit magis. inde in oppidis iis †quae erant† mirabiliter accepti Laodiceam pridie Kal. Sextilis venimus. ibi morati biduum perinlustres fuimus honorificisque verbis omnis iniurias revellimus superiores, quod idem Colossis , dein Apameae quinque dies morati et Synnadis triduum, Philomeli quinque dies, Iconi decem fecimus. nihil ea iuris dictione aequabilius, nihil lenius, nihil gravius.",
            "edition": "perseus-cicero-letters_to_atticus-lat",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-letters_to_atticus-lat",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Early on the Saturnalia the people of Pindenissus surrendered to me, on the fifty-seventh day after we began besieging them. “Who the devil are these Pindenissitans?” you will ask. “I have never heard the name.” What was I to do? Could I turn Cilicia into Aetolia or Macedonia? Take this now as settled: neither with this army nor in this place could great achievements have been performed. Hear what was done ἐν ἐπιτομῇ, for in your latest letter you grant me that form. You know how I reached Ephesus, since you even congratulated me upon the crowded reception of that day, than which nothing has ever delighted me more. From there, after a marvelous reception in the towns †which were†..., we reached Laodicea on the day before the Kalends of Sextilis. After remaining two days, we departed amid great distinction and by honorable declarations rescinded all previous injustices. We did the same at Colossae, then at Apamea, where we remained five days, at Synnada for three, at Philomelium for five, and at Iconium for ten. Nothing could have been more impartial, mild, or dignified than that administration of justice.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Le matin des Saturnales, les habitants de Pindenissus se sont rendus à moi, cinquante-sept jours après que nous avions commencé à les assiéger. «Qui diable sont ces Pindenissites?» demanderas-tu. «Je n’ai jamais entendu ce nom.» Que pouvais-je faire? Pouvais-je transformer la Cilicie en Étolie ou en Macédoine? Tiens désormais pour certain que, ni avec cette armée ni ici, il n’était possible d’accomplir de si grandes choses. Apprends-les ἐν ἐπιτομῇ, puisque tu m’accordes cette permission dans ta dernière lettre. Tu sais comment je suis arrivé à Éphèse, puisque tu m’as même félicité de l’éclat de cette journée, qui m’a plus charmé que toute autre. De là, merveilleusement accueillis dans les villes †qui étaient† sur notre route, nous sommes arrivés à Laodicée la veille des calendes d’août. Après y être restés deux jours, nous nous sommes illustrés en annulant par des paroles honorables toutes les injustices antérieures. Nous avons fait de même à Colosses, puis durant cinq jours à Apamée, trois à Synnada, cinq à Philomelium et dix à Iconium. Rien ne fut plus impartial, plus doux ni plus digne que cette administration de la justice.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
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}