De inventione: De optimo genere oratorum. Topica, Volume 2We know more of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE), lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, than of any other Roman. Besides much else, his work conveys the turmoil of his time, and the part he played in a period that saw the rise and fall of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. 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. |
Contents
BOOK II | 165 |
DE OPTIMO GENERE ORATORUM INTRODUCTION | 349 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 352 |
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2nd Imp 3rd Imp accused Aeschines alia alicuius aliis aliqua aliquid aliud animi argument Aristotle atque autem bracketed causa causarum Cicero common topics confession and avoidance constitutio controversia Ctesiphon cuius defendant deinde Demosthenes dicere dicitur eius enim Ennius eorum epideictic erit esset etiam example exemplum exordium facti factum fuisse genera genus haec hanc Hermagoras hoc modo homines honour huius id quod igitur illa illud inductione ipsa ipsum issue lege lese-majesty locis loco locus minor premise modum nature necesse neque nihil nisi nobis nunc omnes omnia omnibus omnino omnis oportebit oportere orator partem partibus pecunia possit poterit potest praetor primum propter quae quaedam quaeritur quam Quare quibus quid quidem quoniam quoque ratione rationibus rebus rei publicae rerum rhetoric saepe satis scriptum sine sint speech Ströbel sunt tamen things unum videtur Vols