[Sidenote: The third period.] The speeches of the third period were delivered for the most part in private cases, though one of them, _On the Consular Provinces_ (B. C. 56), urging that Cæsar retain his proconsulship of Gaul and that Gabinius and Piso be recalled from Syria and Macedonia, is political, while political considerations have an important place in several others. In the year 55 B. C. the dialogue _On the Orator_ (_De Oratore_) was written, in which the two great orators of the generation before Cicero, Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius, discuss the proper qualities of an orator. The dialogue is supposed to have taken place shortly before the death of Crassus (91 B. C.). The lesser parts are taken by some of the younger statesmen of the day, and in the beginning Cicero’s teacher, the augur Scævola, appears. This is one of the most attractive of Cicero’s works. The technical discussions are enlivened by anecdotes and conversation, and the whole dialogue has a grace and sprightliness not often found in Latin prose. The dialogue _On the State_ (_De Re Publica_), in six books, was published before 51 B. C. Only about one third of this is preserved in a fragmentary condition, and for many centuries the entire work was lost with the exception of the _Dream of Scipio_ (_Somnium Scipionis_), from the sixth book. The discussion of the state was followed by a dialogue _On Laws_ (_De Legibus_), which was begun apparently in 52 B. C., but was never finished. In this period we find Cicero turning his attention to technical works on rhetoric and also to philosophy.