Cicero’s full name is Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC). He was a statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic in the Roman society. It is believed by a lot of people that Cicero was one of the greatest rhetoric (According to Google, rhetoric means “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques”) masters in history. He had a very unusual kind of power. This pow.er was that in the arguments in which he participated in, he was very persuasive. This is a very unusual kind of power. He was also a lawyer and a politician. While he was a lawyer, he had a verbal confrontation in which he attacked a guy. His name was Catiline. Catiline at that time was a part of the Roman senate. However, he had his very own organizations. It was because of this that there were suspicions drifting through the city that he might overthrow the city.

In this political orientation delivered by Cicero, he used his rhetoric skills to address Catiline. The goal of Cicero in this orientation was to make Catiline want to leave the city, though he does not make this obvious in this speech. The entire orientation was focused on this one point. With a master of rhetoric being a lawyer and “attacking” people must have really intimidated them. If I were Catiline, then I would try to persuade Cicero to believe why I did what I did, which in this case is building his own organization. Cicero made accusations against Catiline which may or may not have been true. But, basically, Cicero considered Catiline a huge threat toward the Romans and the Roman Republic. Cicero’s accusations against Catiline were actually not specific nor direct. In this way, he did not refer specifically to any wrongdoings that Catiline might have done. If I were Catiline, then I would try to get Cicero to specify his accusations and provide solid proof for them.

I wonder why Catiline never never tried to change the mind of Cicero. Maybe because they were true. Maybe because they did have solid proof and there was nothing that he could have done. Maybe because they never gave him to talk and defend themselves. There were multiple things that he could have done to defend himself, yet he did not use any of them. There were also multiple things that Cicero could have done to make Catiline not able to talk, or just not want to talk. Or maybe Catiline thought it would just be best if he remained silent.

After he was banished along with his army, some time later he attacked Rome which was what he was going to do anyway.

The reasons for Catiline’s silence is unknown to us because it was not recorded in the text. If I were in Catiline’s place, then I would confront Cicero and ask of what proof they have. And depending on the answer, things would go from there.