Lost Republic

Cicero''s dialogues De oratore (On the Orator) and De re publica (On the Commonwealth), composed between 55 and 51 BCE, examine two topics central to Roman public life: the role of the orator in society and the importance of honorable statesmanship for the preservation of republican government--which came to an end in Rome with the dictatorship of Julius Caesar only a few years later. The two dial...