Pro Archia poeta

About “Pro Archia poeta”

Pro Archia Poeta is a speech by Cicero from 62 BC, the published literary form of his defense of Aulus Licinius Archias, a poet accused of not being a Roman citizen. The accusation is believed to have been a political move against Lucullus through Archias, who was originally Greek but had lived in Rome a long time. A letter from Cicero the following year mentions Archias, but there is no conclusive evidence of the trial's outcome. The oration was rediscovered in Liège by Petrarch in 1333. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)