Retorica e diritto criminale in Cicerone

The purpose of this paper is to show, for some hypotheses, within what limits the references to the death penalty, torture and corporal punishment in the orations of Cicero had instrumental value with respect to the specific needs of the defense or the prosecution (of praise or invective). Reading these references in the context of the defensive and accusatory strategies of the individual speeches and disentangled from the elements aimed at animum permovere helps in fact to grasp in its proper dimension the testimony offered by the orator on these issues, highlighting limitations (more or less important) of Cicero's forensic and deliberative oratory as a source of knowledge of various aspects of criminal repression in the Roman world during the republican crisis