Cicero: Catilinarians

As consul in 63 BC Cicero faced a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman state launched by the frustrated consular candidate Lucius Sergius Catilina. Cicero's handling of this crisis would shape forever after the way he defined himself and his statesmanship. The four speeches he delivered during the crisis show him at the height of his oratorical powers and political influence. Divided between deliberative speeches given in the senate (1 and 4) and informational speeches delivered before the general public (2 and 3), the Catilinarians illustrate Cicero's adroit handling of several distinct types of rhetoric. Beginning in antiquity, this corpus served as a basic text for generations of students but fell into neglect for roughly the past half-century. This edition, taking account of recently discovered papyrus evidence as well as recent studies of Cicero's language, style and rhetorical techniques as well as the relevant historical background.