circle of politics, and turned to the larger field where he had an
undisputed supremacy, of political and ethical philosophy clothed in the
splendid prose of which he had now obtained the full mastery. The roll of
his great speeches is indeed continued after his return from exile; but
even in the greatest, the _Pro Sestio_, the _Pro Caelio_, the _De
Provinciis Consularibus_ of 56, or the _In Pisonem_ and _Pro Plancio_ of
55 B.C., something of the old tone is missing; it is as though the same
voice spoke on a smaller range of notes and with less flexibility of
cadence. And now alongside of the speeches begins the series of his works
on oratory and philosophy, with the _De Oratore_ of 55, and the _De
Republica_ of 54 B.C.

The three books _De Oratore_ are perhaps the most finished examples of
the Ciceronian style. The subject (which cannot be said of all the
subjects he deals with) was one of which, over all its breadth and in all
its details, he was completely master; and, thus left unhampered by any
difficulties with his material, he could give full scope to his brilliant
style and diction. The arrangement of the work follows the strict
scholastic divisions; but the form of dialogue into which it is thrown,
and which is managed with really great skill, avoids the tediousness
incident to a systematic treatise. The principal persons of the dialogue
are the two great orators of the preceding age, Lucius Crassus and Marcus
Antonius; this is only one sign out of many that Cicero was more and more
living in a sort of dream of the past, that past of his own youth which
was still full of traditions of the earlier Republic.

The _De Oratore_ was so complete a masterpiece that its author probably
did not care to weaken its effect by continuing at the time to bring out
any of the supplementary treatises on Roman oratory for which his
library, and still more his memory, had accumulated immense quantities of