Cicero

Cicero (106-43 bc), Roman writer, statesman, and orator. Although he had a distinguished political career, he is best known as Rome's greatest orator and as a man of letters. Born Marcus Tullius Cicero in Arpinum (now Arpino, Italy), as a youth he was also known as Tully. As a youth he studied law, oratory, literature, and philosophy in Rome. After brief military service and three years' experience as a lawyer defending private citizens, he travelled to Greece and Asia, where he continued his studies. He returned to Rome in 77 bc and began his political career. In 74 bc he was elected to the Senate.

Although Cicero's family did not belong to the Roman aristocracy, he was supported in the competition for the consulship in 64 bc by most rich and powerful Romans because of their distrust of his aristocratic but less respectable rival, Lucius Sergius Catilina, known as Catiline. Cicero was elected, but during his administration Catiline organized a plot to overthrow the government. Cicero suppressed the conspiracy and had several members of Catiline's group executed. Julius Caesar and other Roman senators argued that Cicero had acted too hastily, without giving the conspirators due process of law. As a result, in 58 bc, Cicero was forced into exile. After a year in Macedonia he was recalled by the Roman general Pompey the Great.

Cicero occupied himself with literature until 51 bc, when he accepted an assignment to govern the Roman province of Cilicia as proconsul. He returned to Rome in 50 bc and joined Pompey, who had become Caesar's bitter enemy. After Pompey was defeated by Caesar in 48 bc, Cicero, realizing that further resistance was hopeless, accepted Caesar's overtures of amity. While Caesar was virtual dictator of Rome, Cicero lived as a private citizen and wrote extensively. After Caesar's assassination in 44 bc, Cicero returned to politics. Hoping to see a restoration of the Republic, he supported Caesar's adopted son Octavian, later the emperor Augustus, in a power struggle with the Roman consul Mark Antony. Octavian and Antony were reconciled, however, and Cicero was executed as an enemy of the state on December 7, 43 bc.

Influenced by the Greek poet Archias, Cicero created a rich prose style that combines clarity with eloquence and has become one of the standards by which all other Latin prose is judged. His work did much to enrich the vocabulary of his own language. Cicero's writing covers numerous subjects of intellectual interest. His philosophical works reveal a belief both in God and free will. Nearly all of his philosophical works derive from Greek sources; they served to preserve and popularize texts which might otherwise have slipped into obscurity. After 45 bc and the death of his daughter Tullia, Cicero retreated from political life to concentrate on literary and philosophical writings. Outstanding are the treatises De Legibus (On the Laws), De Officiis (On Duty), and De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). His work greatly influenced the Italian poet Petrarch and other writers of the Renaissance. His rhetorical works, written in dialogue form, particularly De Oratore (On Rhetoric), are of value as the products of an accomplished rhetorician and as a rich source of historical material. The most famous of his orations are the 4 against Catiline and the 14 so-called Philippics against Antony.

Among the minor works of Cicero, the treatises De Senectute (On Old Age)and De Amicitia (On Friendship) have always been admired for their urbane, cultivated style. Highly important are four collections of letters written by Cicero to acquaintances and friends. These letters are a spontaneous self-revelation of their author and an excellent source of information on the politics and customs of ancient Rome, addressed to correspondents of widely varying political opinion and social standing, and cover subjects from philosophy and literature to domestic matters.