WorkCicero

Orations

The half of Cicero delivered aloud, in courtrooms and the senate house — including the fourteen attacks on Mark Antony that cost him his hands and his head.

by Cicero5,079 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

First published: 70 BCE(aged 36)
Original language: Latin

Report a rights issue

Overview

A Sicilian province brought a case against its own former governor in 70 BCE and hired an advocate from Arpinum with no consul among his ancestors. Gaius Verres had the better name, the better lawyer and the calendar on his side; Cicero declined to make the expected opening speech, put the evidence in front of the court instead, and promised the rest in writing. Verres fled to Massilia before the defence. Cicero published the speeches he never had to give, and they made him. These four volumes carry the rest of a working life at the bar and in the senate — the speeches on the land bills, the four against Catiline in the year of his consulship, the defence of the poet Archias, the defence of Milo, the appeals to Caesar on behalf of men who had backed the losing side of the civil war. The speeches are not transcripts. Cicero revised them for publication, which is why they survive at all and why they are also a record of how he wanted the events remembered. The last of them are the fourteen Philippics of 44 and 43 BCE, named after the speeches Demosthenes had made against Philip of Macedon and aimed at Mark Antony, who, Cicero told the senate, was the one man the Republic could not survive. When Antony, Octavian and Lepidus divided the state among them, Antony required Cicero's name on the proscription list. He was killed on 7 December 43 BCE, and his head and his hands were fixed to the speakers' platform in the forum, where the speeches had been given.

Key concepts

Why does Cicero put the evidence first in the case against Verres?

He puts evidence first to prevent courtroom performance from carrying the case by itself. In 70 BCE, Cicero declined the opening speech the court expected and presented the Sicilians’ evidence instead, then promised the fuller argument in writing. Verres fled to Massilia before the defence could answer, making proof—not the contest between rival advocates—the event that decided the prosecution.

Why are Cicero’s published speeches not transcripts of what happened?

They are revised reconstructions, shaped both to preserve events and to control their memory. Cicero edited speeches for publication even when he had delivered them aloud, and he published the speeches against Verres that he never had to give. The Orations therefore record courtroom and senatorial action, but also the advocate’s later judgment about how that action should be understood.

What does the Verres prosecution show about an advocate’s public reputation?

The prosecution shows reputation being made in conflict, not merely inherited. Verres possessed the better name and the better lawyer, while Cicero came from Arpinum without a consul among his ancestors. By making the evidence carry the case and publishing speeches that made the episode memorable, Cicero turned an outsider’s prosecution into the foundation of his public authority.

Why are Cicero’s attacks on Antony called the Philippics?

The name aligns Cicero with Demosthenes’ speeches against Philip of Macedon and presents Antony as a comparable threat to republican government. The fourteen speeches of 44 and 43 BCE thus belong to an inherited political form while addressing a present emergency. Cicero told the senate that Antony was the one man the Republic could not survive.

What do Cicero’s appeals to Caesar reveal about advocacy after civil war?

They show advocacy continuing after military defeat, when legal persuasion had to address the victor rather than an ordinary court. Cicero appealed to Caesar on behalf of men who had backed the losing side of the civil war, extending the advocate’s work from prosecution and defence to requests for political judgment and mercy.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Speech Against Power

Can public speech make authority answerable, or does power decide what counts as truth? The answer places reputation, law, and political survival at risk.

Speech, in these volumes, does more than persuade a court: it tests character, exposes corruption, and makes authority answerable before a public. In 70 BCE, Cicero broke with courtroom expectation by leading with evidence against Verres rather than delivering the opening his side had been promised; Verres fled, and the written speeches made Cicero. Later, the Philippics turned rhetoric against Mark Antony. The Republic paid for that judgment.

justice
integrity
rhetoric
virtue
truth
ethics
character
logic
leadership
power
reputation
authority
corruption
judgment
duty
responsibility
legacy
accountability
wisdom
morality
communication
dignity
evidence
law
loyalty
perception
courage
influence
tradition
political corruption

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 5,079
distinct concepts: 2,555
by passages held, corpus-wide: #2

What this book thinks together

Every arc around the wheel is one concept in this book. A ribbon joins two the text reaches for together, and its width is how many of its passages hold both. Strongest: logic with rhetoric.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 15 pairings. 559 shared passages in all. 85 weaker pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
logic	rhetoric	61
integrity	justice	55
character	integrity	54
ethics	virtue	50
integrity	virtue	45
character	virtue	42
ethics	integrity	42
justice	truth	42
ethics	justice	37
integrity	truth	33
logic	truth	31
rhetoric	truth	28
justice	virtue	15
integrity	rhetoric	13
character	ethics	11

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

-70 Orations you are here LAEN
-54 The Republic (De re publica)
Plato wrote a Republic and then a Laws; Cicero set out to do both, and the treatise on law is this book's companion — begun a couple of years later and left unfinished.
LAEN
-52 Treatise on the Laws (De legibus)
Unfinished, unpublished, and on the available evidence never released at all. For centuries it travelled as the lesser half of a pair whose better half had gone missing.
LAEN
-46 Brutus or History of Famous Orators (Brutus; Orator)
Not the speeches but the account of them, made when the courts had stopped sitting. The edition carries Orator with it, the portrait of the ideal speaker written for the same dedicatee in the same year.
LAEN
-45 The Academic Questions, Treatise de Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations (Academica, De finibus bonorum et malorum, Tusculanae Disputationes)
Three treatises that Cicero wrote as separate books, each with a life of its own; the single volume that holds them is a Victorian publisher's construction, not a shape he gave them.
LAEN
-45 Tusculan Disputations, Treatises on the Nature of the Gods, and on the Commonwealth (Tusculanae Disputationes, De natura deorum, De re publica)
Harper's American gathering of Bohn's cheap English classics: the Tusculan Disputations for a second time, standing at the front of a volume that goes on into theology and politics.
LAEN
-44 On Friendship (De Amicitia)
Copyists kept this and On Old Age bound together for so long that printers followed them. The edition prints the Dream of Scipio after it, which belongs to De re publica.
LAEN
-44 On Moral Duties (De officiis)
The last of his philosophical books, and the one that travelled furthest: for centuries afterwards it was simply the standard book of conduct.
LAEN
-44 On Old Age (Cato Maior de Senectute)
Written alongside On Friendship and sent to the same friend, Atticus; the later book refers back to this one by name.
LAEN

— or open another of their works