The Catilinarians are a set of four speeches that Cicero, while consul in 63 BC, delivered before the senate and the Roman people against the conspirator Catiline and his followers. Or are they? Cicero did not publish the speeches until three years later, and he substantially revised them before publication, rewriting some passages and adding others, all with the aim of justifying the action he had taken against the conspirators and memorializing his own role in the suppression of the conspiracy. How, then, should we interpret these speeches as literature? Can we treat them as representing what Cicero actually said? Or do we have to read them merely as political pamphlets from a later time? In this, the first book-length discussion of these famous speeches, D. H. Berry clarifies what the speeches actually are and explains how he believes we should approach them. In addition, the book contains a full and up-to-date account of the Catilinarian conspiracy and a survey of the influence that the story of Catiline has had on writers such as Sallust and Virgil, Ben Jonson and Henrik Ibsen, from antiquity to the present day.
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN: 9780195326475
Number of pages: 304
Weight: 376 g
Dimensions: 137 x 206 x 23 mm
Berry contributes decisively to clarifying significant aspects of Catilinarian rhetoric. Unveiling more recondite subtleties of Ciceronian oratorical discourse and in this sense stimulates the reading of the Catilinaries and keeps its indelible charm alive. - Giuseppe La Bua, BOLLETTINO DI STUDI LATINI
Berry does not simply rehash running theories or historical approaches to the Catilinarians: he instead provides a novel, exciting supplementary document that breathes new life into them. Teachers of Latin and Classics will appreciate the numerous rich lesson plans pre-made, as it were, awaiting in these pages. More important: students will appreciate them even more. - Evan Dutmer, Culver Academies, The Journal of Classics Teaching
Berry, then, has produced an important book with which serious students of the Catilinarians will want to engage closely... He has diligently collected and sifted relevant evidence and has set out his case with flair. Building on the work of predecessors, he mounts a strong argument for extensive revision of Catil. 4 and parts of Catil 3. Perhaps Berry's main contribution is to formulate systematically how the publication of the speeches after an interval of two and a half years served Cicero's political interests in 60. - Andrew R. Dyck, Los Angeles, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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