Selected Political Speeches (Penguin Classics)

Wow this seller was amazing. I prefer older vintage books even if new as they were made of better quality back when. And the cover art is always worlds better. All of the new books, safe Oxford Classics (who use real classic art work on their book covers, art that has to do with the theme of the book) Great translation

Cicero's writings are mesmorizing ...cannot put the book down. IMO they are a treatise if his legal skills, his writing skills, his philosophical thoughts, his view of history of his day, his view of war and business and economics.

Table of contents provided.

If you're going to read the works of arguably THE greatest orator ever, I would highly recommend sticking to either Penguin or Loeb.

Great!

~Cicero: Selected Political Speeches~ is a great anthology of select speeches of the famed Roman statesman. Marcus Tullus Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesmen, expressed principles that became the bedrock of liberty. He was adamant that the law is legitimate only when it is consistent with transcendent standards of liberty and justice. He emphatically held the moral obligation of government to protect liberty and private property. Historian Murray Rothbard, heaped praise on Cicero, as "the great transmitter of Stoic ideas from Greece to Rome... Stoic natural law doctrines heavily influenced the Roman jurists of the second and third centuries A.D., and thus helped shape the great structures of Roman law which became pervasive in Western civilization." Cicero rejected political violence as the tool of tyrants and demagogues. He spoke out against political violence, and even sounded mildly like Polybius in decrying Roman imperialism: "It is a hard thing to say but we Romans are loathed abroad because of the damage our generals and officials have done. There is now a shortage of prosperous cities for us to declare war on that we can loot them afterwards... Do you know of any single state that we have subdued that is still rich?" Cicero's renown also emanated from his powerful oratory. He took a sterile Latin language, invigorated it with Hellenic finesse, and made a few neologisms along the way, and made it into a poetic language. Among the pagans, I found Cato the Younger to be a better exemplar, but Cicero is really worth reading about. Cicero turned to a pragmatic realpolitik as he realized his endeared Republic was in shambles culturally, morally and politically. Maybe, it was practical. That's debatable. Maybe, I'm hopelessly idealistic like Cato. I don't know. "Long before our time the customs of our ancestors molded admirable men, in turn these men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic as if it were some beautiful painting of bygone ages, its colors already fading through great antiquity; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its forms and outlines." --Marcus Tullus Cicero

In its last days, the Roman Republic was a wild and wooly place. Popular thugs like Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) and Publius Clodius Pulcher saw in the shifting vacuums of power an opportunity to flout the law and win power and riches at the expense of their fellow countrymen. Standing squarely in their path was a Roman Senator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who knew how to win men's minds with his powerful speeches and who had a fanatical dedication to maintaining the rule of law in the face of anarchy. The art that Cicero practiced is not held in great repute today: We tend to distrust a man who can marshal cogent arguments and dazzling rhetoric in support of a cause. Consider, however, how remarkable it is that so many of Cicero's orations, letters, and other writings have survived today. Not only were his speeches eagerly read by his contemporaries, but early Christian monks saw in the great orator a basically moral, even if Pagan, writer whose work was worth saving in the scriptorium. Among his own speeches, Cicero most highly rated his four blistering attacks on Catilina. My own personal favorite is "In Defence of Titus Annius Milo." In it, the wily orator shows he had a strong streak of Johnny Cochrane. The Tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher had been one of Cicero's most determined enemies and at one time had him banished for his advocacy of executing the leaders of Catiline's conspiracy. When Clodius is killed attempting to bushwhack a rival, Cicero jumped to defend the accused murderer. In a letter, Cicero had bragged, "Let me tell you that it was I who produced the necessary darkness in the court to prevent your guilt from being visible to everyone." Where Cicero claims that Titus Annius Milo was attended at the time of the ambush with an "unwarlike retinue of maids and pages," he was actually accompanied by a large party of gladiators who were more than able to thwart the attack. While claiming that Milo had never threatened Clodius, Cicero wrote a letter to his lifelong correspondent Atticus stating the opposite, that Milo had openly threatened to kill Clodius. Even when pulling the wool over his listeners' eyes, Cicero's political speeches in this volume provide a fascinating picture of a time and place which would otherwise be largely unknown to us.

read it if you're into the subject of this era already. not great, but good.

A very prompt service, my only (very minor) quibble is this. There is some annotation by pencil, so this would have influenced me in choosing whether to order this book. However, it was so reasonably priced that I am prepared to overlook this issue. Hence the five stars.

A collection of speeches from the Peerless late Republican Roman Orator, Senator, and eventually Consul. Its a Penguin Classic so the translation is first rate and the book is beautifully put together. Highly recommended if you are interested in Cicero or the period in which he lived.

Bent cover

arrived on time. condition as stated

my husband says Cicero is hard enough in English,never mind Latin! But jolly good all the same.