 It is perhaps no accident that Cicero’s first two major philosophical works should be in political philosophy, given both the crisis faced by the republican system of government and the need to produce work in a field that would be regarded as suitable for a Roman statesman. But the Republic and Laws (in Latin De Re Publica and De Legibus respectively) are in at least one respect radical nonetheless: together with On the Orator, they introduce the dialogue form into Latin literature. And notwithstanding the influence of Plato, the two works can lay claim to being among the most original parts of Cicero’s philosophy, since each deals to a substantial extent with the government and institutions of a state of which Plato could have had no inkling, namely Rome.