The suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 BCE was the major event of Cicero’s consulship, if not his career, and it is thus not surprising that Cicero would want to preserve an account of the speeches he delivered. These speeches, four in total, were published as the
In Catilinamtogether with other speeches that Cicero had delivered during his consulship. It seems that Cicero waited almost three years before publishing these orations as part of a consular ‘corpus’ (Cicero,
Letters to Atticus2.1.3). Consequently, the accuracy of the
In Catilinam, as well as Cicero’s motives for publishing the collection, has been variously interpreted. For, by 60 BCE, when Cicero published the speeches, there was a need for Cicero to defend his actions as a consul and, in particular,…
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Citation: Tempest, Kathryn. "In Catilinam". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 June 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20488, accessed 14 December 2024.]