Cicero claims to represent all right-thinking citizens, the boni, associated with an ideology of traditionalism, as opposed to the populares, whom he describes as a few seditious and degenerate outliers. This reflects a partisan rhetoric associated with the so-called optimates, even though it rests on the paradoxical claim that there are not two similar parties at all. In De Domo Sua and Pro Sestio, Cicero’s partisan rhetoric construes the optimates as having a monopoly on legitimacy, particularly on the legitimate use of violence as a political tool. In a letter to his brother in 56 BCE, Cicero gives a revealing report of an episode in which Clodius and Pompey were addressing simultaneous, partisan contiones. In the Philippics Cicero reflects on the role of factions in the 50s and attempts to resurrect his polarizing rhetoric in order to brand Antony a popularis and therefore an undesirable leader.

Cicero shows deference to the senate’s will and holds up the senate’s authority as a defining characteristic of the functioning republic. The more the senate’s authority seems to erode in this period of crisis and dysfunction, the more Cicero insists on its solidarity and power. Especially in orations delivered to the senate, Cicero casts himself as a champion of the senate’s collective authority and promotes concord among its members based on a sense of shared virtue, shared values, and mutual respect.In De Haruspicum Responsis and In Pisonem, he describes his recall from exile and the restoration of his house on the Palatine as symbols of the senate’s support for him and his politics, while his opponents Piso, Gabinius, Clodius, and later Antony and Calenus (Philippics 2, 5, 7) are characterized in his orations as detested by the senate. Historically, one of the most obvious symptoms of the aspiring tyrant in Rome was contempt or abuse of the senate. He claims that Caesar shares his fidelity to the senate in De Provinciis Consularibus and Pro Marcello, and therefore is not a tyrant.

Cicero puts on an exciting show of outrage, anger, and contempt in his attacks on certain opponents, but balances attacks with statements of restraint and self-control in order to maintain his own dignity and decorum, so that he is not seen as contemptible himself. This balance can be observed in the opening sections of his speeches In Vatinium and De Haruspicum Responsis, where he particularly criticizes the failures of his targets as orators. His persona as an attacker may distract from political weakness in his speech In Pisonem. In the Second Philippic, never delivered in public, he shows less restraint. The Philippics generally show less of the balance he maintained earlier in his career, probably due to political circumstances. While this persona will be familiar to most readers of Cicero, it is a good initial example of how Cicero portrays contemporary people and events through a distorting lens. It is also a good example of how Cicero uses (or weaponizes) norms to police others, often by claiming to embody those norms himself.