In 62 BC, the year after his suppression of Catiline, Cicero delivered Pro Sulla, a successful defence of P. Cornelius Sulla, the nephew of the dictator, on a charge of participation in the Catilinarian conspiracy. This edition, which contains a new text together with introduction, commentary and appendices, is the first full-scale scholarly treatment of the speech. The text takes account of Gulielmius' reports of the missing portion of the Erfurtensis manuscript, recovered by Dr Berry and published as a preliminary to this edition in 1989; a complete collation is provided of this and the other principal manuscripts. The introduction includes a reassessment of Sulla's guilt and Cicero's undertaking of the case, and also considers issues such as the prose rhythm of the speech and its publication. The commentary discusses history, text and syntax as well as rhetoric and style.

Excerpt from Tulli Ciceronis Pro P. Cornelio Sulla: Oratio Ad Iudices Publius Cornelius Sulla had been elected consul with Publius Autronius Paetus, for B. C. 65, but was impeached for bribery (ambitus), convicted and deprived of his office. T. Manlius Torquatus (son of one of the unsuccessful candidates, who became a consul on Sulla's deprivation) was then, as now B. C. 62., probably in July, the prosecutor. In the trial before us Sulla was impeached under the lex Plautia de vi on the charge of being implicated in both of the conspiracies of Cataline. Autronius, who was also accused, endeavoured to retain Cicero for his defence, but Cicero refused to appear for him and even gave evidence against him. But from Sulla Cicero had borrowed 2,000,000 sesterces, and he wished moreover to lay him and his powerful friends under an obligation. Torquatus in his speech for the prosecution had attacked Cicero himself, and endeavoured to damage him with the court by saying that he had taken upon himself the kingly power of acquitting or condemning according to his own will: and calling him the third foreign king that had reigned in Rome, the two former being Numa and Tarquin. This attack seems not to have lessened the friendship between Cicero and Torquatus. Cicero is defending himself almost as much as Sulla. His was the last speech for the defence. Sulla was acquitted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.