This edition is the first since J. D. Denniston's of 1926 to present the Latin text of and a commentary on the First and Second Philippics, two of the most polished orations in the Ciceronian corpus. These speeches, which were composed less than six months after the murder of Julius Caesar in March 44 BC, offer a scathing account of the early years and the rise to power of Mark Antony, Caesar's chief lieutenant. The period covered by these speeches (roughly 63-44 BC) is an important one because the Roman state was in transition from Republic to Empire. The Second Philippic not only gives us Cicero's assessment of his own political career and place in Roman history from a perspective late in life, but it also provides a vivid eyewitness account of how the dominance first of Julius Caesar and later of Mark Antony was shifting the locus of power from the Senate and Roman aristocracy to a single dynast.
