Pro Caelio; De provinciis consularibus; Pro Balbo

by Marcus Tullius Cicero, R. Gardner (translator)

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, Nonfiction, Philosophy

416 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1958

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

[AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

And that I should do with all the more vehemence, were I not hindered by my personal enmity to that woman's husband- I meant to say brother; I always make that slip

[k · Rating 3 out of 5]

unpopular opinion but (AS OF NOW) i do not get the cicero hype. i'm sorry

[Brotologist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cicero makes me want to cry because he is so darn boring. The guy is like consistently angry for no legitimate reason and anybody who's obsessed over him is just either German or Italian

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cicero's Pro Caelio is his defence speech on behalf of Marcus Caelius Rufus accused of a number of 'crimes' including adultery with Clodia Metelli whom he possibly (or possibly not) tried to poison. In a speech which revolves around ideas of truth, integrity, abuse, slander, lies and deception, Cicero himself gives us the key to exonerating Clodia from these accusations which have left her as one of the most vilified and notorious of Roman women: 'quotus quisque istam effugere potest in tam maledicta civitate? How few there are who can avoid such reports in so slanderous a city?' (38).

This particular speech is especially telling when read in conjunction with Catullus' poems (Catullus) and the depiction of young, urban, hedonistic Rome.

This Loeb translation hasn't been updated since 1958 and may feel a little old-fashioned in places (thou, thy, thine) which is slightly at odds with some of Cicero's use of 'neoteric' terms. That said, it's readable, flowing and pretty accurate, and captures Cicero's outrageous, entertaining mode of speech, complete with all the rhetorical tricks (such as the double use of prosopopoeia). This really is Roman legal speech as street theatre.