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 Cicero3,468 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

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

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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: 3,468
distinct concepts: 2,444
by passages held, corpus-wide: #7

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “justice” and “rhetoric”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 27 pairings. 82 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
justice	rhetoric	59
evidence	rhetoric	52
political legitimacy	republicanism	52
justice	political corruption	46
political violence	republicanism	42
corruption	evidence	41
corruption	justice	35
evidence	justice	32
justice	political violence	26
political corruption	rhetoric	26
political legitimacy	rhetoric	21
political legitimacy	political violence	20
justice	political legitimacy	16
political corruption	republicanism	16
corruption	political legitimacy	14
corruption	political violence	14
corruption	rhetoric	12
evidence	political corruption	12
political violence	rhetoric	11
justice	republicanism	10
evidence	political violence	8
corruption	republicanism	5
political corruption	political legitimacy	5
republicanism	rhetoric	5
political corruption	political violence	4
evidence	political legitimacy	2
evidence	republicanism	2

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 EN
-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.
EN
-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.
EN
-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.
EN
-45 A Treatise on the Chief Good and Evil (De finibus bonorum et malorum)
Cicero's fullest treatment of ethics: three conversations, set years apart and in different places, bound into one survey of what the leading schools said a life is for.
EN
-45 On the Nature of the Gods (De natura deorum)
Finished after the Tusculan Disputations, it opened a run of three books on religion: On Divination and On Fate followed in 44 BCE.
EN
-45 The Academic Questions (Academica)
Readers who wondered why Cicero sided with the sceptical Academy were sent here by On the Nature of the Gods, written later the same year: this is where he defends arguing every side of a question and settling for the probable.
EN
-45 The Tusculan Disputations (Tusculanae Disputationes)
The practical sequel to the treatise on the chief good, written next: that book compares what the schools say the good is, and this one puts the answer to work against fear and grief.
EN
-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.
EN
-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.
EN
-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.
EN

— or open another of their works