‘Political Intratextuality’ with regard to Cicero’s Speeches

Over the course of research on Cicero’s writings it has long been noted that his speeches contain references to arguments advanced earlier and repetitions of points, that he refers to earlier speeches in later ones and that he comments on his speeches in treatises and letters. If one looks at such connections from the perspective of ‘intratextuality’, therefore, one cannot restrict oneself to single speeches, but will have to consider the entire oratorical corpus: from the point of view of intratextuality a ‘text’ can be defined as a single work or a text with paratexts or the entire oeuvre of a single author consisting of a number of self-contained works. The various manifestations of ‘intratextuality’ can thus be viewed as placed on a scale ranging from connections within a single work to links between several independent texts by the same author, when intratextuality approaches intertextuality.