This volume provides a portion of the original text of Ciceros speech in Latin, a detailed commentary, study aids and a translation. Ingo Gildenhards commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both high school and undergraduate level. It will also be of help to Latin teachers and to anyone interested in Cicero, language and rhetoric, and the legal culture of Ancient Rome. A free online interactive edition is also available.

This work contains a series of speeches by Cicero in 70 BC during the corruption and extortion trial of Gaius Verres, the former governor of Sicily. These speeches were concurrent with Cicero's election to the aedileship and shaped Cicero's public career.

'Two things alone I long for: first, that when I die I may leave the Roman people free...and second, that each person's fate may reflect the way he has behaved towards his country.' Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world and a leading politician of the closing era of the Roman republic. This book presents nine speeches which reflect the development, variety, and drama of his political career,among them two speeches from his prosecution of Verres, a corrupt and cruel governor of Sicily; four speeches against the conspirator Catiline; and the Second Philippic, the famous denunciation of Mark Antony which cost Cicero his life. Also included are On the Command of Gnaeus Pompeius, in which he praises the military successes of Pompey, and For Marcellus, a panegyric in praise of the dictator Julius Caesar. These new translations preserve Cicero's rhetorical brilliance and achieve new standards of accuracy. A general introduction outlines Cicero's public career, and separate introductions explain the political significance of each of the speeches. Together with its companion volume, Defence Speeches, this edition provides an unparalleled sampling of Cicero's oratorical achievements.

During the Civil War between Marius and Sulla (88-87 BC), Verres had been a junior officer in a Marian legion under Gaius Papirius Carbo. He saw the tides of the war shifting to Sulla, and so, Cicero alleged, went over to Sulla's lines bearing his legion's paychest.Afterwards, he was protected to a degree by Sulla, and allowed to indulge a skill for gubernatorial extortion in Cilicia under the province's governor, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella. By 73 BC he had been placed as governor of Sicily, one of the key grain-producing provinces of the Republic (Egypt at this time was still an independent Hellenistic kingdom). In Sicily, Verres was alleged to have despoiled temples and used a number of national emergencies, including the Third Servile War, as cover for elaborate extortion plots.At the same time, Marcus Tullius Cicero was an up-and-coming political figure. After defending Sextus Roscius of Ameria in 80 BC on a highly politically charged case of parricide, Cicero left for a voyage to Greece and Rhodes. There, he learned a new and less-strenuous form of oratory from Molon of Rhodes before rushing back into the political arena upon Sulla's death. Cicero would serve in Sicily in 75 BC as a quaestor, and in doing so made contacts with a number of Sicilian towns. In fact a large amount of his clientele at the time came from Sicily, a link that would prove invaluable in 70 BC, when a deputation of Sicilians asked Cicero to level a prosecution against Verres for his alleged crimes on the island.

This work contains a series of speeches by Cicero in 70 BC during the corruption and extortion trial of Gaius Verres, the former governor of Sicily. These speeches were concurrent with Cicero's election to the aedileship and shaped Cicero's public career.

Collecting the most incisive and influential writings of one of Rome's finest orators, Cicero's Selected Works is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant in Penguin Classics. Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literary and oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature and thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith. This selection demonstrates the diversity of his writings, and includes letters to friends and statesmen on Roman life and politics; the vitriolic Second Philippic Against Antony; and his two most famous philosophical treatises, On Duties and On Old Age - a celebration of his own declining years. Written at a time of brutal political and social change, Cicero's lucid ethical writings formed the foundation of the Western liberal tradition in political and moral thought that continues to this day. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.