Cicero

For other uses see Cicero (disambiguation)

Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC - December 7, 43 BC) was an orator and statesman of Rome, and is generally considered the greatest Latin prose stylist.

Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust

Contents

1 Biography

1.1 Early life
1.2 Consul
1.3 Later life and death

2 Major works

2.1 Speeches
2.2 Philosophical works
2.3 Letters

3 See also

4 Further reading

5 External links

Biography

Cicero was born in Arpinum and caught and killed outside of Rome, fleeing from political enemies. His family, the Tullii Cicerones, was one of the landed gentry in Arpinum and resented the fame and fortunes of the other great Arpinate families, the Marii. Throughout his life, the conservative Cicero loathed being compared to the then more famous Marius.

Early life

Cicero served as a quaestor in Western Sicily in 75 BC. He wrote that in Sicily he saw the gravestone of Archimedes of Syracuse, on which was carved Archimedes' favorite discovery in geometry, that ratio of the volume of a sphere to that of the smallest right circular cylinder in which it fits is 2:3. He built an extremely successful career as an advocate, and first attained prominence for his successful prosecution in August 70 BC of Gaius Verres, the former governor of Sicily. Despite his great successes as an advocate, Cicero suffered from his lack of reputable ancestry; as no Tullius Cicero had been consul before him, he was neither noble nor patrician, and his family was considered unimportant. He was furthermore hindered by the fact that the last man to have been elected to the consulate without consular ancestors (i.e., the last "New Man", or Novus Homo) had been the political radical Marius.

Consul

In 63 BC, Cicero became the first New Man in more than 30 years by being elected consul. His only significant historical accomplishment during his year in office was the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy, a plot to overthrow the Roman Republic led by Lucius Sergius Catilina, a disaffected patrician. Cicero procured a senatus consultum de re publica defendenda (a declaration of martial law, also called the senatus consultum ultimum) and ordered the summary execution of a handful of the conspirators in Rome. He received the honorific "Pater Patriae" for his actions in suppressing the conspiracy, but thereafter lived in fear of trial or exile for having put Roman citizens to death without trial.

Later life and death

In 58 BC, the populist Publius Clodius Pulcher introduced a law exiling any man who had put Roman citizens to death without trial. Although Cicero maintained that the sweeping senatus consultum ultimum granted him in 63 BC had indemnified him against legal penalty, he nevertheless left Italy for a year and spent his quasi-exile setting his speeches to paper.

As the struggle between Pompey and Julius Caesar grew more intense in 50 BC, Cicero favored Pompey but tried to avoid making Caesar into a permanent enemy. When Caesar invaded Italy in 49 BC, Cicero fled Rome. Caesar attempted vainly to convince him to return, and in June of that year Cicero slipped out of Italy and travelled to Salonika. He returned to Rome, however, after Caesar's victory.

In a letter to Varro on April 20 46 BC, Cicero indicated what he saw as his role under the dictatorship of Caesar: "I advise you to do what I am advising myself – avoid being seen, even if we cannot avoid being talked about... If our voices are no longer heard in the Senate and in the Forum, let us follow the example of the ancient sages and serve our country through our writings, concentrating on questions of ethics and constitutional law."

In February 45 BC Cicero's daughter Tullia died. He never entirely recovered from this shock.

Cicero was taken completely by surprise when Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March 44 BC. Cicero and Caesar's subordinate Mark Antony became the leading men in Rome; Cicero as spokesman for the senate, and Antony as consul and as executor of Caesar's will. But the two men had never been on friendly terms, and their relationship worsened after Cicero made it clear he felt Antony to be taking unfair liberties in interpreting Caesar's wishes and intentions. When Octavian, Caesar's heir, arrived in Italy in April, Cicero formed a plan to play him against Antony. In September he began attacking Antony in a series of speeches he called the Philippics.

Cicero described his position in a letter to Cassius, one of Caesar's assassins, that same September: "I am pleased that you like my motion in the Senate and the speech accompanying it... Antony is a madman, corrupt and much worse than Caesar - whom you declared the worst of evil men when you killed him. Antony wants to start a bloodbath..."

Cicero's plan to drive out Octavian and Antony failed, however. The next year the two reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Triumvirate for the Constitution of the Republic. Immediately after legislating their alliance into official existence for a five-year term with consular imperium, the Triumviri began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals. Cicero and his younger brother Quintus Tullius Cicero, formerly one of Caesar's legates, were both numbered among the enemies of the state.

Cicero fled, but was caught and decapitated by his pursuers on December 7, 43 BC; his head and hands were displayed on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum. He was the only victim of the Triumvirate's proscriptions to have been so displayed after death. According to Plutarch, Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head and pulled out his tongue, jabbing the tongue repeatedly with her hatpin, taking a final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.

Major works

Speeches

Pro Quinctio
Pro Roscio Amerino
Pro Roscio Comodeo
de Lege Agraria Contra Rullum
In Verrem
de Imperio Cn. Pompei
Pro Cæcina
Pro Cluentio
Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo
In Catilinam I-IV
Pro Murena
Pro Sulla
Pro Flacco
Pro Archia
Post Reditum in Senatu
Post Reditum in Quirites
de Domo Sua
de Haruspicum Responsis
Pro Cn. Plancio
Pro Sestio
In Vatinium
Pro Caelio
de Provinciis Consularibus
Pro Balbo
Pro Milone
In Pisonem
Pro Scauro
Pro Fonteio
Pro Rabirio Postumo
Pro Marcello
Pro Ligario
Pro Deiotaro
Philippics

Philosophical works

de Inventione
de Optimo Genere Oratorum
Topica
de Oratore
de Fato
Paradoxa Stoicorum
De Partitione Oratoria
Brutus
Orator
De Re Publica
de Consulatu Suo
de Legibus
de Finibus
Tusculanæ Disputationes
de Natura Deorum
Academica
Cato Maior de Senectute
Laelius de Amicitia
de Divinatione
de Officiis
Commentariolum Petitionis

Letters

ad Atticum
ad Familiares
ad Quintum
ad Brutum

speeches - 58 survive, 88 are recorded

similar positive reputation.

External links

Read about Cicero's life (http://www.heraklia.fws1.com/contemporaries/cicero)
Works of Cicero at the Latin Library (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cic.html)
Links to Cicero resources (http://gracie.smsu.edu/cicero.htm)

bg:Цицерон da:Marcus Tullius Cicero de:Marcus Tullius Cicero es:Cicerón eo:Cicerono fr:Cicéron it:Marco Tullio Cicerone la:Cicero nl:Marcus Tullius Cicero ja:マルクス・トゥリウス・キケロ pl:Cyceron pt:Cícero ro:Marcus Tullius Cicero ru:Цицерон sv:Cicero

Categories: Ancient philosophers | Roman era philosophers | Roman era writers | Natives of the Lazio

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