Lettres et discours : la persona de Cicéron après l’exil

As shown in his letters of the year 58 Cicero, laid low by exile, had to glorify his consulship of 63 B. C. in order to restore his dignitas, just as he had done in his consular speeches, his letters toPompey and in other writings. To the glory of his consulship, henot only added his triumphal return but also, paradoxically enough, his departure into exile which, according to him, would yet again prevent bloodshed in Rome. But the reconstruction of his own image, this persona reflected in his speeches and letters, faces a dilemma commonly acknowledged by rhetoricians : that of self-praise, being torn between moral depreciation and political necessity.Bernard Jean-Emmanuel. Lettres et discours : la persona de Cicéron après l’exil. In: Vita Latina, N°189-190, 2014. pp. 40-53