Cicero's Philippics

After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC, Mark Antony took control of Rome. Before the end of the year, Cicero had taken on the leadership of the opposition in the Senate to Antony and his policies. The speeches made by Cicero against Antony, later published under the title Philippics, mounted a sustained attack on the way Antony exercised and abused his position of power. This volume of essays reconsider their historical impact and later significance in Roman culture. Delivered at the crucial point in the painful political transition from Roman Republic to the imperial system, the Philippics are the final speeches of Rome's greatest orator at the peak of his powers and they cost him his life.