Cicero, Post Reditum Speeches: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary

The high point in Cicero’s life (according to his own assessment), his reaching the consulship at the earliest opportunity in 63 BCE and his successful confrontation of the Catilinarian Conspiracy during that year, was soon followed by a backlash, which made Cicero withdraw from Rome in 58 to 57 BCE. Upon return to Rome from this absence (traditionally called ‘exile’ by a term Cicero himself never uses in this context), Cicero delivered two speeches, in the Senate and before the People respectively, to express his gratitude for his recall and to establish himself again as a respected senior statesmen. This volume offers the first-full scale commentary in English, including a revised Latin text and a fresh English translation, on these speeches, which have suffered from neglect in scholarship and doubts about their authenticity. This book outlines their particular nature, the characteristics of their specific oratorical genre and their importance as documents of Cicero’s techniques as an orator and of the strategies of presenting himself. In addition, the book includes the spurious speech, Pridie quam in exilium iret, that Cicero supposedly gave on the eve of his departure. Thus, offering the first proper study of this speech, this volume presents all oratorical material related to Cicero’s departure from and return to Rome in a single volume and enables direct comparison between speeches now confirmed to be genuine and a later spurious speech, which also gives insights into the reception history of Cicero’s works. This book will therefore be an essential tool especially for Classicists and Ancient Historians interested in Cicero, in exile literature and in the history of the Roman Republic and Roman oratory.