US President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 “a date which will live in infamy.” On that day Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It wasn’t the first December 7 to mark something awful.
December 7, 45 B.C. probably found Cicero at his villa on the Bay of Naples outside Puteoli – he was certainly there a little more than a week later. What was on his mind?
Philosophy, his passion, surely received some attention. But philosophy requires books and Cicero’s most valuable books were missing. A year earlier a trusted slave named Dionysius stole them and ran away. Rumor said that he was now in the Roman province of Illyricum (modern Croatia). Two different governors of Illyricum received letter after letter from Cicero asking them to find Dionysius and his books.
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