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must have been electrifying—and that effect can only be conveyed by beginning with the same words as the orator himself did: ‘The long silence, conscript fathers …’.
    If we turn now from periodicity to prose rhythm, we find that unfortunately there is little that a translator can do, since prose rhythm is a feature of the original that cannot normally be reproduced: crowds do not burst into applause when English speakers produce striking cadences. Good English does, however, avoid certain rhythms—to a greater extent, perhaps, than is commonly realized: without conscious thought, speakers and writers will produce sentences that sound elegant. In writing English translation, then, the translator can at least take care that the English he is writing does not strike the ear harshly.
    As for rhetorical devices, I have retained these as far as possible. Questions have been translated as questions, exclamations as exclamations, direct speech as direct speech, and indirect speech as indirect speech. I have also tried to reproduce the many examples of alliteration, assonance, wordplay, and metaphor that feature in Cicero’s writing. It has very often been impossible to provide an alliterative effect using the same letter as Cicero, and in such cases I have introduced alliteration of some other letter (when an ancient author uses alliteration, my feeling is that it is generally the alliteration that is significant, not the letter). I have followed the same policy with regard to assonance.
    I have been careful not to introduce material that has no basis in the Latin, and not to omit any of the original—and here I have been presented with a dilemma. Cicero is exceedingly fond of doublets, particularly in the first three of the speeches in this collection, but in good English doublets (‘aims and objectives’, ‘terms and conditions’) are used only sparingly, if at all. When Cicero uses a doublet with two words of identical meaning, as he quite frequently does, should the translator preserve the doublet and write intolerably verbose English or solve the problem by omitting one half of the doublet? It would not be acceptable, in my view, to omit a word that Cicero has included, and especially to omit a stylistic feature, a doublet, when Cicero has wished it to be there; but equally I feel it would not beacceptable to write bad English. My solution in such cases has therefore been to keep the doublet, but choose two English words which are similar in meaning, but not quite synonymous.
    One phrase of Cicero’s that translators are often inclined to omit is
populus Romanus
, ‘the Roman people’: Cicero’s speeches (especially, in this collection,
In Verrem
I and II.5) are full of references to ‘the Roman people’. I have always included such references in full, and not abbreviated them to ‘the people’ (which in British English sounds ideological and rather leaden). The result is that these speeches retain their popular feel, and serve as useful reminders of the prominence of the democratic element in Roman politics. Similarly,
equites Romani
is translated as ‘the Roman equestrians’, and not ‘the equestrians’; the
equites
were, I think, particular about such niceties.
    The translator needs to decide how he is going to render the Roman names that are mentioned in the text: prominent Romans generally had at least three names (
praenomen
,
nomen
, and
cognomen
), but normally only one or two are used when the person is referred to. My own practice has been to translate the names exactly as Cicero gives them, adding (where necessary) an explanatory note at the end of the book giving the full form of the name together with any other relevant information. This allows the translation to present an accurate reflection of the Romans’ customs of naming. Some prominent Romans have a traditional English version of their name which will be more familiar to readers than their Latin name. I have therefore written