Markland and Wolf believe, that these harangues were written as a rhetorical exercise, by some declaimer, who lived not long after Cicero, probably in the time of Tiberius, and who had before his eyes some orations of Cicero now lost, (perhaps those which he delivered on his return from exile,) from which the rhetorician occasionally borrowed ideas or phrases, not altogether unworthy of the orator’s genius and eloquence. But, though they may contain some insulated Ciceronian expressions, it is utterly denied that these orations can be the continued composition of Cicero. The arguments against their authenticity are deduced, _first_ from their matter; and, _secondly_, from their style. These critics dwell much on the numerous thoughts and ideas inconsistent with the known sentiments, or unsuitable to the disposition of the author,—on the relation of events, told in a different manner from that in which they have been recorded by him in his undoubted works,—and, finally, on the gross ignorance shown of the laws, institutions, and customs of Rome, and even of the events passing at the time. Thus it is said, in one of these four orations, that, on some political occasion, all the senators changed their garb, as also the Prætors and Ædiles, which proves, that the author was ignorant that all Ædiles and Prætors were necessarily senators, since, otherwise, the special mention of them would be superfluous and absurd. What is still stronger, the author, in the oration _Ad Quirites post reditum_, refers to the speech in behalf of Gabinius, which was not pronounced till 699, three years subsequently to Cæsar’s recall; whereas the real oration, _Ad Quirites_, was delivered on the second or third day after his return. With regard to the style of these harangues, it is argued, that the expressions are affected, the sentences perplexed, and the transitions abrupt; and that their languor and want of animation render them wholly unworthy of Cicero. Markland particularly points out the absurd repetition of what the declaimer had considered Ciceronian phrases,—as, “Aras, focos, penates—Deos immortales—Res incredibiles—Esse videatur.” Of the orations individually he remarks, and justly, that the one delivered by Cicero in the Senate immediately after his return, was known to have been prepared with the greatest possible care, and to have been committed to writing before it was pronounced; while the fictitious harangue which we now have in its place, is at all events, quite unlike anything that Cicero would have produced with elaborate study. The second is a sort of compendium of the first, and the same ideas and expressions are slavishly repeated; which implies a barrenness of invention, and sterility of language, that cannot be supposed in Cicero. Of the third oration he speaks, in his letters to Atticus, as one of his happiest efforts(343); but nothing can be more wretched than that which we now have in its stead,—the first