Řeči proti Verrovi

by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Václav Bahník (Translator), Jaromír Kincl (Foreword)

Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BCE), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era which saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, 58 survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.

Genres: Classics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

515 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 71

About the author

Born 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Italy
Died 7 December 43 BC (aged 63), Formia, Italy

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

Alternate profiles:
Cicéron
Marco Tullio Cicerone
Cicerone

Note: All editions should have Marcus Tullius Cicero as primary author. Editions with another name on the cover should have that name added as secondary author.

Reviews

[Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original - and still the best...

[Mehmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Excellent set! I will go through them one by one, but as a general comment, this is perhaps the closest we can come to a Roman New Journalism. The second speech and its components (never delivered because Verres legged it after hearing the first speech) are essentially a riveting novel of a compelling and ludicrously horrible villain, a Roman scion leaving a path of robbery, destruction, corruption and death across the legal realm, the provinces, the art world, army and finance. Cicero sets himself up as a worthy hero to take down this villain, it is a great luchadores doubling.

Speech against Caecilius: This is essentially Cicero's own pre-match commentary, and establishing shot for himself. Turning Caecilius in to a pin cushion, he mainly establishes himself in a hilariously over the top but also deeply compelling way as the only man who can take down Verres and help the Senate save face.

Verrine Oration I: This is the speech that Cicero gave that essentially made Verres leg it. It serves as a general accounting of how horrible Verres is on a distant cam, and is mostly focused on how hard Hortensius (Verres's quite excellent lawyer) and Verres's patrons worked to keep the case out of sight. It perfectly works to establish Cicero as a relentless Underdog. The general idea that the senate has to convict if it wishes to preserve any semblance of Moral authority is enunciated the best here. It has so much more promise of more to come, which Cicero delivered with the multi part Oration II.

Verrine Oration II.I: Oration II is a humongous beast of a text, exactly because it was never meant to be read and is in 4 parts each detailing another indepth facet of Verres's career. Cicero did not want the insane amount of work he put into the case wasted, and published these far and wide in a great publicity coup as a blockbuster. Oration II.I is Verres's early career and is a litany of horror, sin, and going way beyond even usual provincial corruption. The account of his Questorship makes for hilarious reading, while his legal pursuits are a more general Ciceronian account of moral outrage. Dolabella makes for a weirdly compelling dummy, absolutely brutalised by Cicero for abetting so much of his subordinates crimes while also being utterly powerless or careless to seemingly benefit much at all from it.

Verrine Oration II.II: Oration II.II is all about Verres as judge and it is basically a long daunting list of Sicilian inheritence he stole with timetabling schenenigans, shameless witness tampering and bribe auctioning. This is followed by an extended account of Verres's mass attempt to extort further money by forcing cities to "voluntarily" put up huge statues of himself and his family made by contractors he found and to get them to fund an Annual Verres festival. This is capped by an excellent black comedy story of Cicero going through company ledgers in Sicily that crudely had "Verres" changed to "Verruc" to hide payments. All along, way overstays its welcome as this would have clearly been shrunk down had it been actually delivered, but it is still a goldmine for historians because of the insane amount of detail it provides on the functioning of provincial culture, governance and judiciary.

[Siebric]

Read In Q. Caecilium, In Verrem first part and book one of the second part

[Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cicero, The Professor and the Artist

Cicero's writings need little or no introduction. His erudition, eloquence and fluid writing style give the readers instant familiarity with the historical and political background of his times. His defense and prosecution speeches are like lectures given in court. Cicero the Professor teaches the jury and his opponents the meaning of justice and propriety, and demonstrates how to execute justice, by arguments of moral principles, precedent and custom, and proper interpretation of the law.

Cicero the Artist, on the other hand, delivers his speeches as if he were painting a masterpiece, a vivid picture of another man's whole life in the minds of his hearers. There are contrast of light and darkness (e.g., stories of heroes and villains), ascending and descending gradation (e.g., levels of acceptable behavior), anticlimaxes and climaxes (e.g., twists and turns in the unfolding of events, and the exhilarating finale).

(Read full review at Nemo's Library)

[John Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like writing depicting the writer in action and all the incidental information given of the time he lived in but also that Cicero isn't going to waste what he prepared simply because Verres fled and it was never given. Some was but he'd've 'improved' it all for reading anyway.