The Senatus Consultum Ultimum in Cicero’s Speeches

Abstract

Cicero’s oeuvre mentions it at several points, and on two occasions — in the same year, 63 BC — elaborates on the importance of the senatus consultum ultimum, by which the senate, declaring a state of emergency, empowered the magistrate to act beyond certain legal limits, considering only the interests of the state as supreme law. These two longer analyses can be found in Pro Rabirio perduellionis, the speech in defence of Rabirius, accused of the crime of perduellio, the murder of the people’s tribune Saturninus, and in the Catilinarias, the speeches against Catilina, who as consul had incited the conspiracy (coniuratio).