Fragmentary Speeches
Incomplete but invaluable excerpts from otherwise lost orations.
Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BC), Roman advocate, orator, politician, poet, and philosopher, about whom we know more than we do of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In Cicero’s political speeches and in his correspondence, we see the excitement, tension, and intrigue of politics and the important part he played in the turmoil of the time.
Although Cicero’s oratory is well attested—of 106 known speeches, fifty-eight survive intact or in large part—the sixteen speeches that survive only in quotations nevertheless fill gaps in our knowledge. These speeches attracted the interest of later authors, particularly Asconius and Quintilian, for…