About the Book: Cicero: Selected Political Speeches
Amid the corruption and power struggles of the collapse of the Roman Republic,
Cicero (106-43BC) produced some of the most stirring and eloquent speeches in
history. A statesman and lawyer, he was one of the only outsiders to penetrate
the aristocratic circles that controlled the Roman state, and became renowned
for his speaking to the Assembly, Senate and courtrooms. Whether fighting
corruption, quashing the Catiline conspiracy, defending the poet Archias or
railing against Mark Antony in the Philippics-the magnificent arguments in
defence of liberty which led to his banishment and death-Ciceros speeches are
oratory masterpieces, vividly evocative of the cut