29. For six years we have no speech; but in 46 Cicero broke his rule of silence (‘in perpetuum tacere,’ ad Fam. iv. 4, 4), and in the speech Pro Marcello thanked Caesar for allowing Marcellus, the consul of B.C. 51, to return to Rome.
30. On 26th November B.C. 46 he pleaded before Caesar the cause of Q. Ligarius (Pro Ligario).
31. In the latter part of B.C. 45 he delivered in Caesar’s house the speech Pro Rege Deiotaro on behalf of his ‘hospes vetus et amicus,’ the tetrarch of Galatia, accused of treachery to Caesar.
32. Cicero’s oratorical career closes with the fourteen speeches against Antony, called Philippics, after the speeches of Demosthenes. This title was suggested by the author himself; cf. the letter of Brutus (ad Brut. ii. 5, 4), ‘iam concedo ut vel Philippicae vocentur, quod tu quadam epistula iocans scripsisti.’ It was the usual title in antiquity, though Gellius (xiii. 1, 1) uses the alternative Antonianae. The Philippics cover the period from 2nd September 44 to 22nd April 43. They were all delivered in the Senate, except iv. and vi., which are contiones, and ii., which was never spoken, but published as a political pamphlet after Antony had left Rome: for its fame cf. Juv. 10, 125,
‘Te conspicuae, divina Philippica, famae,
volveris a prima quae proxima.’
There are fragments of about twenty speeches, and the titles of thirty others are known. The invective in Sallustium, and the speech Pridie quam in exilium iret, are undoubtedly spurious.
Many of the speeches were to a large extent extempore, the heads only being committed to writing. These notes were afterwards collected by Tiro (Quint. x. 7, 30-1). In publishing, Cicero occasionally omitted some passages of the spoken oration, e.g. in Pro Mur. 57 only the headings appear, ‘De Postumi criminibus.’ ‘De Servi adulescentis’: cf. Plin. Ep. i. 20, 7, ‘ex his apparet illum permulta dixisse, cum ederet omisisse.’ For the practice of reporting his speeches in shorthand cf. Ascon. in Mil. ‘manet illa quoque excepta eius oratio’ (his speech at Milo’s trial). The only case in which Cicero appeared for the prosecution was that of Verres: the part of an accuser was generally distasteful to him; cf. De Off. ii. 50, ‘duri hominis vel potius vix hominis videtur, periculum capitis inferre multis.’
(b) Philosophical Works.
1. De Re Publica, a discussion of the ideal state and the ideal citizen, was published before B.C. 51, for Caelius writes to Cicero in Cilicia, ‘tui politici libri omnibus vigent’ (ad Fam. viii. 1, 4). In this treatise Cicero made use of Plato, and of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and other Peripatetics (de Div. ii. 3). There were six Books; but until 1822 the Somnium Scipionis, extracted by Macrobius from Book vi., was the only portion of the work known to exist, with the exception of a few fragments. In that year Mai published at Rome, from a Vatican palimpsest, remains which make up about one-third of the whole.
2. The De Legibus succeeded the De Re Publica, as Plato’s Laws came after the Republic. The speakers in this dialogue are Atticus, Cicero, and his brother Quintus. Book i. expounds the Stoic position that the laws of the ideal state are made by the wise man in accordance with the mind of God; this position is worked out in Book ii. in the regulations for religion, and in iii. on the duties of magistrates. The treatise was never completed, and was perhaps a posthumous publication: it is not mentioned in the list in De Divinatione ii. 1-3, and there is no preface, though Cicero says (ad Att. iv. 16, 2) ‘in singulis libris utor prooemiis.’ Certainly it had not appeared in B.C. 46, the year of the Brutus (Brut. 19). It was composed after the murder of Clodius in January, B.C. 52 (ii. 42), and in Pompey’s lifetime (iii. 22): probably in 52, as the government of Cilicia and the civil war left Cicero no time for literature during the years 51-48.