„ 45. Death of Tullia. The De Finibus and Academics.
„ 44. The Tusculanae Disputationes: the De Natura Deorum: De Divinatione: De Amicitia: De Senectute: De Officiis.
Philippics i-iv.
„ 43. Philippics v-xiv. The Second Triumvirate (Antonius, Octavianus, and Lepidus). Murder of Cicero.
2. Works.
(1) Speeches.—We possess 57 speeches, and fragments of about 20 more, and we know of 33 others delivered by Cicero.
‘As a speaker and orator Cicero succeeded in gaining a place beside Demosthenes. His strongest point is his style; there he is clear, concise and apt, perspicuous, elegant and brilliant. He commands all moods, from playful jest to tragic pathos, but is most successful in the imitation of conviction and feeling, to which he gave increased impression by his fiery delivery.’—Teuffel. Quintilian says of him that his eloquence combined the power of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates.
(2) Philosophical Works.—The chief are the De Republica (closed by the Sommium Sciponis): the De Legibus: the De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum: the Academics: Tusculan Disputations with the De Divinatione: the De Senectute and De Amicitia: De natura Deorum, and the De Officiis.
As a philosopher Cicero had no pretensions to originality. He found the materials for most of these works in the writings of the Greek philosophers. ‘I have to supply little but the words,’ he writes, ‘and for these I am never at a loss.’ It was however no small achievement to mould the Latin tongue to be a vehicle for Greek philosophic thought, and thus to render the conclusions of Greek thinkers accessible to his own countrymen.
(3) Rhetorical treatises.—The chief are the De Oratore (in 3 Books), perhaps the most finished example of the Ciceronian style: the Brutus or De Claris Oratoribus, and the Orator (or De optime Genere Dicendi).