The chief encyclopaedia of facts and citations for this period is the
cumbrous old 'Geschichte Roms, oder Pompeius Caesar Cicero und ihre
Zeitgenossen' of W. Drumann (Koenigsberg: 1834-44). The plan is ideally
bad, being a series of _family chronicles_, while these three men are
more completely isolated from their families and kin than any other
great trio in all Roman history! The book is however an exhaustive,
inexhaustible, little acknowledged, but still worked quarry of
erudition. The best single book in English is Watson's edition of the
(selected) letters (or Jeans's translation), until it shall be
superseded by the complete annotated edition of the correspondence, by
Tyrrell.
Mommsen's severe judgment on Cicero is well known. The other standard
historians are less severe. Forsyth's life is not the final word on the
subject by any means, but gives a good general view. The stately
Ciceronian Lexicon by Merguet, already complete for the orations, will
eventually provide a complete concordance and copious elucidation for
all the works. The most accessible complete edition of Cicero's writings
in Latin is by Baiter and Kayser, in eleven volumes. The Index Nominum
alone fills four hundred closely printed pages of Vol. xi. The great
critical edition is that of Orelli (Zurich: 1826-38).
On Cicero as an author, and indeed in the whole field of Latin
literature, the 'Geschichte der Roemischen Literatur' of Martin Schanz
(in I. Mueller's 'Handbuch') is most helpful, and even readable.
[Signature: William Cranston Lawton]