The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~220,000 words · 1,058 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-orations-of-marcus-tullius-cicero-volume-4
- MLACicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-orations-of-marcus-tullius-cicero-volume-4.
- ChicagoCicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/the-orations-of-marcus-tullius-cicero-volume-4.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
A volume of Cicero's speeches in English translation: prosecutions, defences and addresses before the senate or the people.
Context and history
One thing changes how they should be read: these texts are not what was said in court. Cicero published his speeches afterwards, revised and polished, and sometimes much altered. The famous case is the Pro Milone: the speech that has come down to us is not the one he delivered — that day he was shouted down and Milo was convicted — but the version he wrote later, as he would have liked to give it. They are literature as much as legal record. The division into volumes is the publisher's.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
power for the future, was taken away from us; and a great pledge appeared to have been given by him to the republic that he did wish the city to be free, when he utterly abolished out of the republic the name of dictator, which had often been a legitimate title, on account of our late recollection of a perpetual dictatorship. A few days afterwards the senate was delivered from the danger of bloodshed, and a hook[5] was fixed into that runaway slave who had usurped the name of Caius Marius. And all these things he did in concert with his colleague. Some other things that were done were the acts of Dolabella alone; but, if his colleague had not been absent, would, I believe, have been done by both of them in concert. For when enormous evil was insinuating itself into the republic, and was gaining more strength day by day; and when the same men were erecting a tomb[6] in the forum, who had performed that irregular funeral; and when abandoned men, with slaves like themselves, were every day threatening with more and more vehemence all the houses and temples of the city; so severe was the rigour of Dolabella, not only towards the audacious and wicked slaves, but also towards the profligate and unprincipled freemen, and so prompt was his overthrow of that accursed pillar, that it seems marvellous to me that the subsequent time has been so different from that one day. For behold, on the first of June, on which day they had given notice that we were all to attend the senate, everything was changed. Nothing was done by the senate, but many and important measures were transacted by the agency of the people, though that people was both absent and disapproving. The consuls elect said, that they did not dare to come into the senate.…