Marcus Tullius Cicero

106-43 BCE · Roman · Forensic and Deliberative Oratory, Rhetorical Theory, Roman Political Thought, Latin Philosophy

Eloquence is the attendant of peace, the companion of ease and prosperity, and the tender offspring of a free and well-established constitution.

Cicero was a *novus homo* — the first of his family to reach the Senate — from a hill town outside Rome, and he arrived at the top of the Republic by the only route open to a man without ancestors: he could speak better than anyone alive. He made his name at twenty-six defending a man against a favourite of the dictator Sulla, reached the consulship at the earliest legal age, and put down Catiline's conspiracy in the year he held it. He also executed five Roman citizens without trial in the process, and spent much of the rest of his life defending that decision.

Topics Marcus Tullius Cicero addresses

• the ideal orator
• the union of wisdom and eloquence
• the five canons
• invention of arguments
• arrangement of the parts
• the three styles
• the orator's memory
• delivery and gesture
• the plain, middle and grand styles
• decorum
• prose rhythm and the clausula
• status theory
• the Atticist controversy
• humanitas
• otium cum dignitate
• concordia ordinum
• natural law
• the mixed constitution
• the republic as a partnership in justice
• duty and the honestum
• the four personae
• the Catilinarian conspiracy
• the senatus consultum ultimum
• provocatio

Questions to put to Marcus Tullius Cicero

Eloquence and the Education of the Orator

• Why do you say Socrates ruined both philosophy and rhetoric by separating them?
• What does the complete orator need to know besides speaking techniques?
• How is your view of rhetoric different from the Greek technical handbooks?
• What's the difference between the three styles of speaking you describe?
• Why do you defend your own rhythmical, abundant style against the Atticists?

The Consulship and the Catilinarian Conspiracy

• What was Catiline actually planning to do to Rome?
• How did you decide to execute the conspirators without a trial?
• Was putting citizens to death without trial legal under Roman law?
• Why do you call the suppression of the conspiracy your greatest achievement?
• How do you answer the charge that you violated the rights you were defending?

Philosophy in Latin and the Academic Method

• What do you mean when you call yourself an Academic skeptic?
• How is arguing both sides of a question a philosophical method and not just indecision?
• Why did you spend so much effort creating Latin philosophical vocabulary?
• Are your philosophical dialogues original arguments or translations of Greek sources?
• What's the relationship between your philosophy and your political life?

The Republic and the Life of Persuasion

• What do you mean by saying the Republic is a partnership in justice?
• Why does a free state require eloquence and not just good laws?
• How can speech compete with military force in politics?
• What happens to political life when persuasion fails and arms take over?
• Why did you keep opposing Antony in the Philippics when it was clearly dangerous?

Duty, Friendship, and the Moral Life

• What do you mean by duty in your book for your son?
• How do you balance what's honorable with what's useful when they conflict?
• What makes friendship different from alliances of convenience?
• How should someone face old age and the approach of death?
• Can philosophy actually console someone in real grief or is it just words?

Converse with Marcus Tullius Cicero on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Marcus Tullius Cicero's own writing, cited to the page.