Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

's ''Divinatio in Caecilium'' is his oration against Quintus Caecilius in the process for selecting a prosecutor of Gaius Verres (70 BC). Cicero asserts that he, rather than Q. Caecilius, will make the better prosecutor of

Verres Gaius Verres ( 114 – 43 BC) was a Roman magistrate, notorious for his misgovernment of Sicily. His extortion of local farmers and plundering of temples led to his prosecution by Cicero, whose accusations were so devastating that his defence advo ...

, the Roman magistrate notorious for his misgovernment of

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

. It is the only surviving text of a rhetorical genre, the ''divinatio'' ("prophecy"), that has survived.An observation made by Christopher P. Craig, "Dilemma in Cicero's ''Divinatio in Caecilium''", ''The American Journal of Philology'', 106(4) (Winter 1985:442–446), p. 442; Craig gives a bibliography of commentaries on the text. The advocate for Verres, against whom the chosen orator must bend his rhetorical skills, was Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, the ally of the ''

optimates ''Optimates'' (, ; Latin for "best ones"; ) and ''populares'' (; Latin for "supporters of the people"; ) are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated ...

'' and principal

orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14 ...

of the day.

Notes

External links

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''Divinatio in Q.Caecilium'', English translation
at ''attalus.org'' Orations of Cicero {{classics-stub