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 centuries, much of Western political speech was schooled on a handful of rhetorical authorities — Cicero's De Oratore among the most influential, alongside Aristotle, Quintilian, and the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium. We lost the habit of reading speeches against that standard. The Cicero Score puts one such 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.
The Workshop
How to workshop your own speech
- 01
Write or paste your draft
Open the Workshop and paste a speech you are writing — a wedding toast, a campaign opener, a pitch, a eulogy. Anything you are trying to make land.
- 02
Receive the Cicero Score
The same eight-dimension rubric evaluates your draft. You get the same score, officia, lineage, devices, and counsel that a canonical speech receives.
- 03
Learn from Cicero directly
Every weak dimension is paired with a Latin passage showing how Cicero handled that same move. You are not told to imitate him — you are shown what the standard looks like.
- 04
Save and revise across drafts
Your drafts persist between visits. Edit, re-score, compare versions, and watch the Cicero Score rise as you sharpen the argument, rhythm, and civic voice.
- 05
Earn the certificate
When your draft reaches a score you are proud of, generate a certificate. It records the title, score, and date — a small monument to craft.
Actio
How to deliver your own speech
The Delivery Coach listens through your microphone while you rehearse. It transcribes what you say in the browser, times your pauses, and measures the sound of your voice. Paste your script first so fidelity can be measured, press Begin rehearsal, and speak as you would to a real audience. When you finish, save the rehearsal — the script, the transcript, and every measurement are kept in the sidebar so you can compare attempts. Clear wipes the current attempt without touching what you saved.
What the measurements mean
- Words per minute (wpm)
- Your speaking pace. 110–155 is the range of the great deliberative speeches; above 175 an audience cannot follow the thought.
- Pauses & full stops
- Every silence of 0.7 seconds or more counts as a pause; one of 1.2 seconds or more is a full stop — the pause an audience actually feels as emphasis.
- Average pause
- How long your typical silence lasts. Short averages read as nervousness; longer ones read as command, until they read as hesitation.
- Average sentence
- Words per sentence as spoken. Cicero's periods run long, but only when short sentences surround them.
- Cadence variety
- How much your sentence lengths differ from one another, scaled 0–100. Low variety means every line lands at the same length and the ear stops listening; break a long period with a four-word sentence to raise it.
- Filler words
- Counts of um, uh, like, so, basically, actually. Each one is a pause you filled with noise instead of silence.
- Script fidelity
- The share of your spoken words that appear in the script you pasted. High fidelity means discipline; low fidelity means warmth — decide which the occasion wants.
- Repetition heard
- Anaphora, epistrophe, and tricolon detected in what you actually said aloud, not merely what you wrote.
- Expressiveness
- A combined reading of pitch movement and volume change, 0–100. It answers the question: does your voice do anything?
- Pitch range (semitones)
- How far your voice travels from its lowest to highest note. Under about three semitones sounds flat to a listener.
- Monotone reading
- The inverse of expressiveness, as a percentage. A high number means you are delivering on one note.
- Volume variation
- How much your loudness rises and falls. Variation is how emphasis is made without shouting.
- Median pitch
- The centre of your voice in hertz. Useful as a baseline: nerves push it upward, gravity pulls it down.
- Emphasis moments
- Points where your volume and pitch jumped together — the words you actually stressed. Few moments in a long speech means nothing was marked as important.
- Average loudness
- Your general projection. Low averages usually mean you are speaking to the room you are in rather than the room you will be in.
- Longest silence
- The longest stretch with no voiced sound. A deliberate one is rhetoric; an accidental one is a lost place in the text.
- Delivery persona
- A one-line character read — 'grave but level', 'kindled advocate' — drawn from your pace, pitch, and energy together, with the next thing to work on.
- Corpus et vultus
- What a microphone cannot hear: stance, gesture, eye contact, countenance, and breath. Cicero treated these as part of delivery, so they appear as a checklist rather than a score.
Vis persuadendi — the persuasive force
Delivery also feeds a second reading: how persuasive the speech sounds, measured in the four classical proofs Aristotle named and Cicero absorbed into his own art. The Delivery Coach reports a Vis persuadendi score alongside the vocal measurements.
- Ethos — character
- Does the speaker sound trustworthy? The coach listens for personal testimony, shared values, and balanced claims. High ethos sounds like someone with standing to speak.
- Logos — argument
- Does the reasoning hold? It counts because, therefore, if-then, and contrastive markers. Strong logos means the audience can follow the case.
- Pathos — feeling
- Does the speech move the listener? It detects urgent words, direct address, and emotional contrast. Pathos is not manipulation; it is the proof that makes an audience care.
- Actio — delivery force
- Does the voice itself persuade? Drawn from your pace, emphasis moments, pitch range, and volume variation. A flat delivery weakens even the best argument.
- Vis persuadendi
- The combined persuasive force, scaled 0–100. It is not the Cicero Score — that measures the text — but a partner reading of how the living voice carries the text into the room.
- Signals
- Concrete counts that sit beneath the proofs: calls to action (we must, let us), reasoning words (because, since, therefore), and rhetorical figures actually spoken aloud.
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. Write your own speeches in the Workshop and watch the rubric become legible by doing.
Speechwriters & Communicators
Diagnose drafts in the Workshop. Paste your prose, get the Cicero Score, and read Cicero's own handling of your weakest dimensions. Revise across saved drafts until the score rises.
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
A weighted 0–100 total across the eight dimensions. Every score earns a verdict — the same scale that appears on your certificate:
Score Verdict Meaning 90–100 Ciceronian Worthy of the canon — periodic, balanced, and ethically charged. 80–89 Eloquent Stylistically accomplished with clear classical lineage. 70–79 Accomplished Well-crafted and effective; a few dimensions still uneven. 60–69 Competent Sound argument and structure; light on ornament and movement. 50–59 Workmanlike Functional prose that delivers the point without lifting it. Below 50 Plain Clear but unadorned — an invitation to revise, not a failure. - 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.
- Do you also draw on scripture?
- Yes. The Scripture tab pairs every Ciceronian dimension with examples from both the Old Testament (Hebrew scriptures) and the New Testament. The same devices — anaphora, antithesis, chiasmus, amplificatio — appear in the prophets and apostles as well as in Cicero, so the analyzer may reference scripture when a modern speech echoes that tradition.
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.