“Civitas quae sit cogita, quid petas, qui sis.”

What great advice for an aspiring politician, which translates to “Always remember what city this is, what office it is you seek, and who you are.”

This is the second paragraph from a fun new book recently published by Princeton University Press, How To Win an Election:  An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians, by Quintus Tullius Cicero and translated by Philip Freeman.  It’s sort of a Roman The Prince, though written not from the perspective of how to rule, but about how to run an election campaign in ancient Rome.  The book features the original Latin, with the English translation on the facing pages.  So election geeks get the best of both worlds, both Latin and English!

Thanks to Princeton Press editor Chuck Myers for sending this along to me; PUP has published a lot of interesting books recently, including Thad and my Electronic Elections.  However, as far as I know there are no plans to translate our book into Latin, at least not yet.