Rhetoric was very crucial in Cicero’s Oration, because without it he wouldn’t have made a big impact in the history of literature in the modern days. By using Rhetoric, Cicero expressed various emotions to persuade the senate that Catiline was a dangerous criminal (by criminal I mean a threat to Roman society).
Out of all Rhetoric users in history Cicero managed to get himself a bigger name out of it. It’s not that surprising if you think about it, for he was a Roman politician. To be a politician, you were expected to have good public speaking skills. Rhetoric just takes his existing, public speaking, skills to a whole different level. I understand that Cicero (like I’ve said in my other essay) likes to hear himself talk and that he talks a lot. I can assure you, however, that he isn’t just all talk. Cicero clearly had a big plot laid out in all of his orations, therefore in each oration he would speak of many points and details that lead up to that plot/goal. Basically what I’m trying to say here, is that in his speeches he stayed consistent into delivering his point throughout the whole speech.
The victims knew how horrifying it is to just stand there next to the senate while hearing this man (Cicero) deliver whatever he has to say about them. They knew better to not mess with a guy who has the talent to just overpower you with words. The victims knew that no matter what they say, nothing will surpass Cicero. Even if they had a point, Cicero will instantly find other ways to keep them defeated. Even if it takes Cicero to use such harsh harassing language (this shows the real power of rhetoric).
There are some moments in the speech where Cicero may or may not have went too far. That’s just my opinion though, that’s ultimately the point of rhetoric, to be able to express a certain emotion into words and sentences. Anyway, there’s a moment were Cicero says that he saved Rome from the wickedness of this man (he means Catiline) and that this monster (again Catiline) should be banished or executed for his actions. By using Rhetoric he added the words such as; wicked and monster to really help express the anger he felt at that moment.
Cicero’s ultimate goal was to to have Catiline leave the senate and even better leave the city altogether. To do this he set up these powerful speeches to fully ensure the fact that Catiline will definitely leave. Throughout these speeches, to stick to the goal, he made a bunch of accusations towards Catiline. Not just any accusations, but some severely harsh ones. Some of them weren’t even true and Cicero didn’t give proof with what he said. He made sure that the senate had their full focus on the main things that Catiline has done and the threat that he is causing to Rome. Everything else, that includes stating proof along with his accusations, didn’t matter as long as the senate got the main picture that Cicero is trying to describe to them.
Thanks for reading this essay, I hope you learned something from it or just enjoyed reading through it. I’ll post more soon so stay tuned.
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