Classicists & Rhetoricians
Operationalize Ciceronian theory on contemporary corpora. The rubric is a falsifiable rendering of De Oratore — argue with the weights, refine the dimensions, publish the readings.
Manuale
A Guide to the Instrument
How to use the Cicero Score — and what it is for.
Why this exists
Eloquence, made measurable
For two millennia, Western political speech was trained against a single book — Cicero's De Oratore. We lost the habit of reading speeches against that standard. The Cicero Score puts the rubric back on the table: eight dimensions, three officia, real Latin parallels, and a score that invites argument rather than ends it.
Think of it as a literacy device. Where a music critic hears voice-leading, this instrument helps you hear periodus, amplificatio, contentio — the structures Cicero named and the canon imitated.
How to use it
- 01
Find a speech
Choose any oration: a presidential address, a commencement speech, a corporate keynote, a sermon, a courtroom statement. Length 50–40,000 characters.
- 02
Paste the full text
Open the Analyze page, give the speech a title (speaker + occasion is ideal), and paste the transcript. Cleaner text yields cleaner readings.
- 03
Compute the Cicero Score
The instrument applies the eight-dimension rubric, scores the three officia oratoris, identifies rhetorical devices, and places the speaker in the canonical lineage.
- 04
Read with Cicero at your elbow
Each dimension and identified device is paired with an actual Latin passage from Cicero, so you can see the modern figure measured against its classical model.
- 05
Interpret, do not obey
The score is a structured reading, not a verdict. Use the rationale, the devices, and the counsel to argue with the instrument — that is the scholarship.
Who it is for
Students of Rhetoric
Learn the canon by collision. Every dimension surfaces with a real Cicero passage; every device with a Latin parallel. The framework becomes legible by example.
Speechwriters & Communicators
Diagnose drafts. Where does your prose under-deliver on logos, on amplificatio, on civic virtue? The Counsel section names concrete revisions.
Journalists & Critics
Add a classical axis to political coverage. The instrument turns 'great speech' or 'flat speech' into specific, citable claims.
Teachers
Run a class corpus — Lincoln, Churchill, King, Obama, Reagan, a CEO keynote, a TED talk — and let students debate the scores. The rubric is the syllabus.
Curious Citizens
Recover an old habit: judging public speech by craft, not only by ideology. Cicero believed eloquence and citizenship were the same training. This is that exercise.
Reading a Report
- Cicero Score
Weighted 0–100 total. 85+ is Ciceronian; 70–84 eloquent; 55–69 competent; below that, plain or workmanlike.
- Officia Oratoris
The three classical duties — docere (instruct), delectare (delight), movere (move). A great speech does all three; most modern speeches collapse to one.
- Lineage
The orator the speech most resembles. Useful as provocation: if your CEO keynote channels Demosthenes, that is data; if it channels nobody, that is also data.
- Dimensions & Devices
Each score and each device is paired with an actual Cicero Latin passage. Read modern speech and ancient model side by side.
- Counsel for the Orator
Concrete suggestions for revision. Speechwriters can treat this as an editing pass; critics can treat it as a falsifiable claim.
Questions
- Is the AI doing the thinking?
- No. The eight dimensions, the rubric, and the Latin parallels are the scholarly substance. The AI applies the rubric the way a research assistant might — quickly and consistently. The interpretation is yours.
- Why Cicero and not Aristotle?
- Aristotle gave us ethos / logos / pathos. Cicero gave us those three plus a complete civic theory of style — the periodic sentence, amplificatio, the three officia, virtus civilis. Cicero is the canon that actually shaped Western political oratory from Burke to Lincoln to Churchill.
- What kinds of texts work best?
- Speeches meant to be heard — campaign addresses, eulogies, sermons, opening statements, keynotes. Memos, essays, and tweets work less well because they were not built for the ear.
- Can two scores be compared?
- Yes, but treat the comparison the way a critic treats two close readings: as an argument, not a measurement. The instrument is consistent enough to be productive and modest enough to be honest.
- Why are some passages in Latin?
- Because the model is Cicero, not a paraphrase of Cicero. Every dimension and every matched device shows the actual Latin source with translation, so the reading is anchored in the corpus, not in a vibe.
Now go and read
Score your first speech
Start with something you already know — a speech you love, or one you suspect is hollow. The instrument is most revealing when it agrees with you, and most useful when it does not.