01
Ethos
De Oratore II.182–184
Appeal through the speaker's character, credibility, and moral authority.
De Methodo
Methodology
"Officium oratoris est docere, delectare, movere."
"The orator's task is to instruct, to delight, and to move." — Cicero, Orator 69
The Eight Dimensions
02
Logos
De Inventione I.41–49
Appeal through reasoned argument, evidence, and logical structure.
03
Pathos
De Oratore II.185–211
Appeal through the emotions of the audience.
04
Anaphora
Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.13
Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
05
Periodic Structure
Orator 204–212
Suspended sentence whose meaning is completed only at its close.
06
Antithesis
Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.21
Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
07
Amplificatio
De Partitione Oratoria 27
Heightening of subject matter through accumulation and intensification.
08
Civic Virtue
De Officiis I.20–22
Appeals to the res publica, duty, and shared political life.
A note on sources. Several definitions above cite the Rhetorica ad Herennium. It is an anonymous late-Republican handbook — the oldest surviving Latin treatise on rhetoric — that was traditionally attributed to Cicero in the medieval and early modern periods. That attribution is no longer accepted by scholars: the work is not securely Ciceronian. We cite it because it preserves the technical vocabulary Cicero's contemporaries used, not as Cicero's own words.
How the Score is Calculated
The final Cicero Score is not a holistic guess. The model rates each of the eight dimensions from 0 to 10, with a quoted piece of evidence and a rationale. The score is then computed deterministically as a weighted sum:
Cicero Score = Σ ( dimensionᵢ × weightᵢ ) → max 100
| Dimension | Weight | Max Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Ethos | × 1.5 | 15 / 100 |
| Logos | × 1.5 | 15 / 100 |
| Pathos | × 1.5 | 15 / 100 |
| Anaphora | × 1.0 | 10 / 100 |
| Periodic Structure | × 1.0 | 10 / 100 |
| Antithesis | × 1.0 | 10 / 100 |
| Amplificatio | × 1.0 | 10 / 100 |
| Civic Virtue | × 1.5 | 15 / 100 |
| Total | 10.0 | 100 / 100 |
The three classical pillars — ethos, logos, pathos — and civic virtue each carry weight 1.5, reflecting their primacy in Ciceronian theory. The four stylistic dimensions (anaphora, periodic structure, antithesis, amplificatio) each carry weight 1.0.
Example: a speech scoring ethos 8, logos 7, pathos 9, civicVirtue 6, anaphora 5, periodic 4, antithesis 6, amplificatio 5 yields (8+7+9+6)×1.5 + (5+4+6+5)×1.0 = 45 + 20 = 65 / 100.
Rhetorical Devices Catalogued
The devices the analyzer looks for, grouped as Cicero's school would have grouped them. Each is paired with a Latin exemplar and source.
Emphasis & Repetition
- AnaphoraIn Catilinam I.8
Repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses (the "Quo usque tandem…" style buildup).
"Nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas quod ego non modo non audiam, sed etiam non videam."
"You do nothing, you plot nothing, you think nothing which I do not hear, indeed see."
- EpistropheCiceronian paradigm
Repetition at the end of successive clauses — the mirror of anaphora.
"…poenas rei publicae graves, graves civibus, graves sociis."
"…penalties heavy upon the republic, heavy upon the citizens, heavy upon the allies."
- ConduplicatioIn Catilinam I.2
Doubling a word for emotional emphasis.
"Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit."
"He lives? — yes, more than that, he even comes into the senate."
- SynonymiaIn Catilinam II.1
Piling up near-synonyms to amplify a point — very Ciceronian (he rarely uses one word when three will do).
"Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit."
"He has departed, withdrawn, escaped, broken away."
- TricolonSuetonius, Divus Iulius 37 — paradigmatic in Cicero's school
A series of three parallel members, often climactic.
"Veni, vidi, vici."
"I came, I saw, I conquered."
Appeals & Argumentation
- Ethos-buildingIn Catilinam I (composite)
Constantly positioning the speaker as the reasonable, patriotic Roman against his opponents.
"Ego consul video; ego provideo; ego denique hoc senatus consulto…"
"I as consul see it; I foresee it; I, finally, by this decree of the senate…"
- PraeteritioIn Verrem II.1.32 (paraphrastic)
"I won't even mention…" — then mentioning it anyway.
"Non dicam te peculatum fecisse, non aerarium expilasse…"
"I will not say that you embezzled, that you plundered the treasury…"
- Interrogatio (Erotesis)In Catilinam I.1
Rhetorical question used to implicate the audience or corner an opponent.
"Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?"
"How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?"
- Translatio (Metaphor)In Catilinam I.17
Transfer of a word from its proper sense to an analogous one.
"Patria est communis omnium nostrum parens."
"The fatherland is the common parent of us all."
Sound & Style
- CursusOrator 213–219
Rhythmic prose endings (cursus planus, velox, tardus) — Cicero was meticulous about cadence.
"esse videátur."
"…would seem to be. (the canonical cursus velox close)"
- ChiasmusRhetorica ad Herennium IV.39
Inverted parallel structure (A-B / B-A).
"Non ut edam vivo, sed ut vivam edo."
"I do not live that I may eat, but eat that I may live."
- HyperboleIn Verrem II.5.161
Dramatic exaggeration, especially in the Verrine Orations and the Philippics.
"Os, oculos, vultum denique totum…"
"His mouth, his eyes, his whole face…"
- HyperbatonDe Natura Deorum II.167
Striking departure from normal word order for emphasis.
"Magna di curant, parva neglegunt."
"The great things the gods care for; the small they neglect."
- Periodic SentenceDe Officiis I.62 (typical suspended period)
A suspended sentence whose meaning lands only at its close.
"Si, quemadmodum saepe iam dictum est, omnia honesta…"
"If, as has often been said, all honorable things…"
- AsyndetonIn Catilinam II.1
Omission of conjunctions to accelerate and intensify.
"Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit."
"He left, withdrew, escaped, burst forth."
- PolysyndetonIn Catilinam I (composite paradigm)
Deliberate repetition of conjunctions for weight and accumulation.
"Et te et patriam et fortunas tuas perdere conatus es."
"You sought to ruin yourself and your country and your fortunes."
Emotional Manipulation
- AmplificatioPro Murena 23 (paradigm)
Building up the gravity of a situation for emotional effect.
"Quanta vis, quanta gravitas, quanta dignitas…"
"How great the force, how great the weight, how great the dignity…"
- ApostropheIn Catilinam I.9
Suddenly addressing an absent person or abstract concept for dramatic effect (e.g. addressing the res publica directly).
"O di immortales! ubinam gentium sumus?"
"O immortal gods! where on earth are we?"
- ExclamatioIn Catilinam I.2
An emotionally charged outcry breaking from the argument.
"O tempora, o mores!"
"O the times! O the customs!"
- AposiopesisVirgil, Aeneid I.135 — cited as model in Cicero's school
Breaking off mid-sentence, leaving the threat or thought unfinished.
"Quos ego—! sed motos praestat componere fluctus."
"Whom I—! but better to calm the troubled waves."
- ClimaxRhetorica ad Herennium IV.34
Step-by-step ascent in which each clause builds upon the last.
"Africano industria virtutem, virtus gloriam, gloria aemulos comparavit."
"Industry gave Africanus virtue, virtue glory, glory rivals."
De Scripturis
The Scripture Section
The Scripture tab is a companion to this methodology, not a replacement for it. It shows how the same eight Ciceronian dimensions appear in the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament — the anaphora of the Psalms, the antithesis of Ecclesiastes, the chiasmus of Genesis, the apostrophe of the prophets, and the periodic climaxes of Paul.
The point is not theological. It is rhetorical: the devices Cicero named and the West imitated were not invented in Rome. They are audible wherever speakers shaped language for the ear — whether in the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, in the Greek prose of the New Testament writers (whose formal rhetorical schooling varied and is largely unknown), or in the Roman Forum.
The Scripture section does not change the numerical Cicero Score. The score is still computed from the eight Ciceronian dimensions alone. Instead, scripture appears in the commentary and parallels: when the analyzer spots a device, it may cite a biblical example alongside the Latin one to show that the same figure appears across ancient rhetorical traditions.
The yardstick remains Ciceronian. The Scripture section simply widens the listening field so users can hear how old and continuous the art of eloquence really is.
A Note on the Tool
The AI is explicitly framed as an instrument — it identifies devices, applies a rubric, and produces structured output. The rubric, the definitions, and the interpretation belong to the scholar. This distinction matters ethically, and it is what makes the project an argument rather than an output.