N. V. Bugaeva The lost works of Cicero: the poem  “On his consulship”

Abstract: The article attempts to reconstruct the content of the autobiographical poem “On his consulship”, which the famous orator wrote between 62–60 B.C. The autobiographical works of Marcus Tullius Cicero for this period, primarily known through references made by the author himself and other Ancient authors, are of great value: it was mainly based on them (and not on the preserved speeches) that formed the historical tradition of the Catilinarian Conspiracy – one of the most famous events in Ancient Roman history. The author of the article analyzes Cicero’s correspondence and a fragment of the poem preserved within one of his philosophical treatises, which chiefly contains a description of the omens accompanying the conspiracy. The similarity of the poem with the Third Catiline Oration allows to conclude that Cicero’s description of the events of 63 B.C. in the lost works coincide with his consular speeches known to us. Thus the article represents a preliminary reconstruction of the “missing link” in the transfer of information from the eyewitness and participant of the events to the later authors, who were influenced above all by the Ciceronian presentation of the Catilinarian Conspiracy.

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