Towards the end of his life, Cicero turned away from his oratorical and political career and looked instead to matters of philosophy and religion. The dialogue The Nature of the Gods both explores his own views on these subjects, as a monotheist and member of the Academic School, and considers the opinion of other philosophical schools of the Hellenistic age through the figures of Velleius the Epicurean and Balbus the Stoic. Eloquent, clearly argued and surprisingly modern, it focuses upon a series of fundamental religious questions including: is there a God? If so, does he answer prayers, or...

"Whereas the place for prejudice is a public meeting, a court of law is the adobe of truth."
Cicero was still in his twenties when he got Sextus Roscius off a charge of murdering his father and nearly sixty when he defended King Deiotarus, accused of trying to murder Caesar. In between (with, among others, his speeches for Cluentius and Rabirius), he built a reputation as the greatest orator of his time.
Cicero defended his practice partly on moral or compassionate grounds of "human decency" - sentiments with which we today would agree. His clients generally went free. And in...

In On the Ideal Orator, (De oratore), Cicero, the greatest Roman orator and prosewriter of his day, gives his mature views on rhetoric, oratory, and philosophy. Cast in the lively, literary form of a dialogue, this classic work presents a daring view of the orator as the master of all language communication while still emphasizing his role at the heart of Roman society and politics. Cicero's conception of the ideal orator represents his own original synthesis of the positions of the philosophers and the rhetoricians in the age-old quarrel between these disciplines.
The...

Cicero Rhetorica. Vol. I (De Oratore)

(Brutus, Orator, de Opt. Gen. Oratorum, Part. Orat., Topica.) Edited by A. S. Wilkins.

Cicero Epistulae. Vol II. Part ii (ad Att. 9-16)

Cicero Epistulae. Vol. II. Part i (ad Att. 1-8)

Cicero Epistulae. Vol. I (ad Fam.)

This volume presents new texts of Cicero's dialogues on political philosophy, De Re Publica and De Legibus, together with corrected versions of the editor's previously published editions of Cato Maior de Senectute and Laelius de Amicitia. The texts are based on a full reconsideration of the manuscript evidence and are presented in a clear and readable form.

Cicero's De finibus, written in 45 B.C., consists of three separate dialogues, dealing respectively with the ethical systems of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the "Old Academy" of Antiochus of Ascalon. An encyclopedic survey of this nature is of particular importance for its detailed account of Stoic ethics. This critical edition of the text, based on a fresh study and collation of the manuscripts, is the first to appear for many years and the first to reflect a clear understanding of the whole manuscript tradition. It will be the second in a series of editions of Cicero's philosophical works;...