Siobhan McElduff

Having read a number of Cicero's philosophical works, I thought I should get more acquainted with his rhetorical works. The title of this compilation certainly drew me to it. I was impressed with Cicero's Republic and thought this collection of orations would give me a more complete picture of this aspect of his thought. It certainly does that. I'm not sure all of the orations here are literally defenses of the Roman republic as such, but Cicero's republicanism can always be discerned as a primary motivation behind everything included here.

It is pretty clear that Cicero was influenced by Isocrates. I detected similar patterns of language. It also could be due to Cicero's dependence on Demosthenes, and Isocrates influence on him; but whatever the case, Isocrates was either a direct or indirect influence. Many of these orations were spoken by Cicero in a literal public forum. He did apparently alter and reedit these orations before publication, so it isn't certain how much was actually spoken and how much was only written, but at least certain portions of these were a part of a political discourse and, occasionally, a legal defense of someone. For me, the most impressive works were those that dealt with Catiline and Mark Antony. These show Cicero at his most courageous and at his most poignantly vituperative. Both these men were considered by Cicero to be serious threats to the Roman republic and he didn't mince words when he denounced them. In both cases, Cicero put his life in danger. Indeed, when he denounced the latter in a number of orations called the Philippics, Mark Antony had him murdered.

One of the things that struck me the most was how volatile the Roman republic was. Almost anything could cause assassinations and riots. We aren't quite there in our own republic, but, I must say, we are seeing a tendency towards lawlessness and extreme factionalism that is building at an alarming rate. This is more the case on one side of the political spectrum which continues to harbor Communistic anarchist thugs that need almost no excuse to riot and attack people they don't agree with. This was certainly something that happened in the Roman republic as well. Civil discourse is pretty much impossible when dealing with an ignorant mob. Cicero had nothing but contempt for mob tactics. He saw it as a constant danger to a republic. He knew, as well as I do, that there will be huge swaths of the population of any society that can be manipulated into following just about anything, or anyone, when they are blinded by emotion and programmed by propaganda. He was keen to denounce those who were threats to the republic. He attempted to expose these people before they gained too much power. In the case of Catiline, he was successful; in the case of Mark Antony, he wasn't; but it wasn't from a lack of trying in either case. Cicero had incredibly high ideals; he didn't always live up to those high ideals, but one must admit that he made an effort to do so, and given the time he was living in, he was certainly exemplary by comparison.

I should note that I felt the translation was fair, but I was put off by the tendency of the translator to resort to modern English idiom when Cicero is being facetious and engaging in hyperbole. Nothing seems more stark than reading modern English expression within a text based in Latin that is over two thousand years old. I would have preferred less concern for a modernized translation and more concern for an unsuitable rendering. Thankfully, the translator didn't indulge this tendency too often, but I found myself slightly frustrated by clearly inappropriate modern English colloquialisms (e.g. at one point she translated a kind of Gallic sandal with the English word "flip-flops" - I am not joking). If one can ignore the preceding, I think one will enjoy the translation more. Of course, it could be that I am just finicky.… (mehr)