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The Greek rhetorical tradition and its development during the Hellenistic period allowed rhetoric in Rome to have a broader purpose, ceasing to be the source of creation of technical manuals with function and utility for a particular forensic activity. Cicero and, subsequently, Quintilian wrote a series of handbooks, rhetorical treatises, or literary dialogues with the purpose of establishing a complete theory of the new symbolic, political and persuasive role of the orator, not only through the creation of new rhetorical theories, but also of new frameworks for philosophical thought. This is the moment when rhetorical theory conceives the word as an image, and it is only through the process of representation that one can understand and construct a discourse about reality.

En medio de la ya desgastada relación que se daba en Roma entre religión y política a mediados de la década de los años 40.a.C, Cicerón escribió un diálogo sobre la religión llamado De Divinatione, que en más de dos libros, presenta un argumento que se sustenta específicamente en el tema de la adivinación. En este diálogo el autor latino reprueba y ataca fuertemente al final del tratado las creencias supersticiosas que se practicaban en esta época. Los magistrados romanos ya no recurrían a los arúspices para consultar los signos divinos en beneficio del Estado, sino que los manipulan para alcanzar sus intereses políticos. Pero en medio de esta fuerte reprobación por parte de Cicerón, también hay un intento por preservar y propagar la religión verdadera y defender las costumbres de los antepasados que han sido consagradas por el tiempo, la mos maiorum.Amidst an already deteriorated relationship between religion and politics in Rome (40 BC), Cicero wrote a dialogue about religion called De Divinatione. The treatise is composed of two books in which Cicero addresses the subject of divination. At the end of this dialogue, he argues against the superstitious beliefs of his time, when the Roman magistrates, on behalf of the state, did not consult the auspices to read the divine signs anymore. Instead, they manipulated them to achieve their own political goals. Nevertheless, and despite of Cicero's determined condemnation of divination, there was also an attempt to preserve and spread the true religion, and defend the immemorial ancestors' customs, mos maiorum.