After the Return

This chapter focuses on Cicero's correspondence and speeches following his return to Rome. These cover the defence of property, friends, and optimates. It then discusses the pro Sestio, which marked the close of an enormous parenthesis in Cicero's career. In December 60 he had decided to hold to his traditional line of optimate politics in spite of an invitation to join Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Refusal of the invitation led to exposure to Clodius, exile, guilt, recovery of status, and a desperate attempt to expunge guilt by apologia and assertion of impeccable optimate credentials. This...

This chapter focuses on Cicero's correspondence and speeches following his return to Rome. These cover the defence of property, friends, and optimates. It then discusses the pro Sestio, which marked the close of an enormous parenthesis in Cicero's career. In December 60 he had decided to hold to his traditional line of optimate politics in spite of an invitation to join Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Refusal of the invitation led to exposure to Clodius, exile, guilt, recovery of status, and a desperate attempt to expunge guilt by apologia and assertion of impeccable optimate credentials. This reached a climax in pro Sestio. It led nowhere, and Cicero found his debt to Pompey in particular requiring him to abandon the ‘good men’.