The melancholy of the antique world seems
to me more profound than that of the
moderns, all of whom more or less imply that
beyond the dark void lies immortality. But
for the ancients that "black hole" was infinity
itself; their dreams loom and vanish against
a background of immutable ebony. No crying
out, no convulsions - nothing but the fixity of
a pensive gaze. Just when the gods had ceased
to be and the Christ had not yet come, there
was a unique moment in history, between
Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood
alone. Nowhere else do I find that particular
grandeur.
-Gustave Flaubert, letter to Mme Roger de Genettes, 1861

Alive, Cicero enhanced life. So can his letters
do, if only for a student here and there,
taking time away from belittling despairs to
live among Virgil's Togaed People, desperate
masters of a larger world.
- D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero, 1971