Included in every list of great books are Cicero's orations. For a long time the editors of the Modern Library have cherished the hope of bringing into the series not only the orations, but the essays and letters of Cicero within the compass of a single compact volume. Only when Professor Hadas provided the means by which the writings of one of the greatest of the Romans could be presented in the best of a variety of translations was this aim achieved. Now such essays as "On Moral Duties", "On Old Age", "Scipio's Dream" and "On the Character of the Orator" and the orations "Against Catiline" and the "Second Philippic" as well as a generous assortment of Letters, make a volume of immense value to scholar and general reader alike.