Murder Trials (Penguin Classics)

What makes Cicero's courtroom strategies so impressive is the fact that he never bothers to dispute the evidence against his clients. In both the defenses of Roscius and Cluentius, he doesn't even use a single witness. He doesn't offer contradictory evidence or waste much time with alibis. Instead, he focuses his entire arguments on the most critical part of the case - motive. In both trials he successfully creates such compelling versions of the events that all remaining details became irrelevant to a jury who believes there was no motive. His speeches are fantastic illustrations of a whole swath of Robert Greene's strategies in The 33 Strategies of War: Control the Dynamic, Weave a Seamless Blend of Fact and Fiction, Take the Line of Least Expectation and so on. Cicero's work is filled with so many applicable examples and fables and syllogisms and his name still carries such weight that I really leave each of his books with a ton of material I use for other things. This is one of those books. You should read it.

I purchased this in order to follow Cicero's career as it has been documented in somewhat recent fiction. It is always a very good idea to go to original sources and in this case the idea holds true. Since I don't read or understand Latin I was, of course, at the mercy of the translator, but the works seemed quite alive and will help someone who wants to see if the current fiction works about Cicero are accurate (see Robert Harris, for one). I'm sure my Roman History teacher re-reads these frequently.