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SPEECHES
We may surmise however that the nature of Roman legal procedure did
promote Cicero's oratorical development; for it differed from that of Athens in
that the set speeches were delivered before, not after, the calling of witnesses.
(The normal difference is highlit by the Pro Milone of 52 B.C., whose organization
does approximate to that recommended by Greek handbooks because
Pompey's emergency rules, designed to limit the effect of pathetic oratory as
well as judicial bribery, had assimilated Roman procedure to Greek.) This
meant that the speaker was more free to range, expatiating on generalities and
personalities and indulging in excursuses and extended narrative; and more
important, that he was less tempted to rely, with Roman deference, on the
prescriptions of Greek handbooks, whose arrangement would not tally. So we
find Cicero tailoring his speeches to suit the needs of the occasion. Thus in the
Verrines he forwent the preliminary speech, since the defence "was playing for
delay and an adjournment till the next year, when its leader Hortensius would be
consul, and went straight to the revelation of his devastating evidence. He thus
sacrificed to winning his case a seductive opportunity for competitive oratorical
display. Again, Greek forensic speeches were composed 'in character' to be
delivered by the litigant. At Rome the advocate's own personality and prestige
counted for much, and he could speak of and for himself as well as his client.
In his early speeches Cicero sought to win sympathy as a courageous young
man, and a 'new' man at that, in his later ones, to impress with his consular
prestige (auctoritas). We know of 139 speeches of his out of a doubtless much
larger number (speeches in civil suits were generally not thought worth publishing,
Cicero's Pro Caecina being an exception). He won 74 of diese cases and
lost 16, the result of the remaining 49 being unknown. 1
Of the 58 speeches of his which survive whole or in part the most famous are
probably the Verrines (70), the Catilinarians (63) and the Philippics (44—43). The
Verrines have come to life again particularly wherever there has been resistance
to an oppressor of provincials or colonials, the Catilinarians in times of privy
conspiracy and rebellion, the Philippics where republican freedom has been
threatened by autocracy. Together they have created a rather one-sided impression
of Ciceronian oratory. They are all vehement, not to say ranting,
whereas many of the odier speeches are relaxed. Thus the Pro Murena, composed
amid the Catilinarians in the year of Cicero's consulship, has amusing
passages at the expense of Sulpicius' legalism and Cato's philosophy (all the
judges laughed, and even Cato forced a wry smile). Not that the invective
characteristic of the Verrines, Catilinarians and Philippics is absent elsewhere:
we meet it in the In Pisonem, which was soon being studied in the rhetorical
schools as a model, and counter-attack was often the better part of defence. It
was regarded as an art form (Ovid's Ibis is a counterpart in verse). No holds
1 Granrud (1913) 241.
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