How the words may have been taken down in such a case we do not quite know; but we are aware that short-hand writers were employed, though there can hardly have been a science of stenography perfected as is that with us.[150] The words which we read were probably much polished before they were published, but how far this was done we do not know.

What we do know is that the words which he spoke moved, convinced, and charmed those who heard them, as do the words we read move, convince and charm us.

Of these twelve consular speeches Cicero gives a special account to his friend.

"I will send you," he says, "the speechlings[151] which you require, as well as some others, seeing that those which I have written out at the request of a few young men please you also.

It was an advantage to me here to follow the example of that fellow-citizen of yours in those orations which he called his Philippics.