Cicero

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Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust

Marcus Tullius Cicero (IPA: [ˈsɪsərəʊ]; Latin pronunciation: [ˈkikeroː] ; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, political theorist, lawyer and philosopher, widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.[citation needed]

In the latter half of the second century BC the Republican era came to an end. Cicero held idealistic hopes for the Republic's continuation, and remained its champion. He was a practical statesman, although his career was marked by inconsistencies and policy shifts to suit the changing political climate.

Birth and family

Cicero was born in Arpinum, a town 100 kilometres distant from Rome. The Arpinians received Roman citizenship in 188 BC, and had stopped using their native Italian dialect, Volscian, but spoke Latin instead.[1]

Although Cicero's family belonged to the local gentry, domi nobiles, they had no connections with the Roman senatorial class nor the Roman aristocracy. Cicero was however distantly related to one notable person born in Arpinum, Gaius Marius. Marius led the populares faction during the first Roman Civil War against the optimates, led by Cornelius Sulla in the 80s BC. However, Cicero received little political benefit from this connection. In fact, it most likely hindered his political standing, for the Marian faction and many connected with it were ultimately destroyed by Sulla.

Cicero's father was a well-to-do Roman eques (knight) with good connections to important persons in Rome. He was a semi-invalid, and had to stay away from public life. He compensated for this by turning to studies. Cicero´s mother's was Helvia. Little is said about her in the written record, except from a line in a letter by Marcus' brother, Quintus, that says she was a thrifty house-wife.[2]

The name Cicero derives from the Latin word Cicer, meaning chickpea. Plutarch explains that the name was originally given to one of Cicero's ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. Plutarch adds that Cicero was urged to change this superficially depreciative name when he entered politics, but he refused, saying that he would make Cicero more glorious than Scaurus ("Swollen-ankled") and Catulus ("Puppy").[3]

Early life

The Young Cicero Reading, 1464 fresco, now at the Wallace Collection.

According to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome,[4] and was granted the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola.[5] In the same way, years later, the young Marcus Caelius Rufus would study under Cicero; an association of the sort was considered a great honour to both teacher and pupil. Cicero was fond of poetry, but his poetry, in general, was looked down upon, as Juvenal's satirization "O fortunatam natam me consule Romam" (O Fortunate Rome, born in my consulship) makes clear. His works in poetry included translations of Homer and the "Phaenomena" of Aratus, which later influenced Virgil's to use that poem in the "Georgics".

In 90 BC–88 BC, Cicero served both Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo and Lucius Cornelius Sulla as they campaigned in the Social War, though he had no taste for military life. Cicero had a love for almost everything Greek, and even stated in his will he wanted to be buried in Greece. He also studied ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato.

Cicero took his first case in 84 B.C., defending Quinctius. He took his first major case in 80 BC, defending Sextus Roscius on a charge of parricide. Taking this case was a courageous move for Cicero; for Parricide and matricide were considered appalling crimes, and the people whom Cicero accused of murder — the most notorious being Chrysogonus — were favourites of Sulla who had written thousands of names on proscription lists. Indeed, the elder Roscius was put on the list by Chrysogonus after the murder. At this time it would have easy for Sulla to have Cicero murdered, for Cicero was barely known in the Roman courts.

His arguments were divided into three parts: in the first, he defended Roscius and attempted to prove he did not murder; in the second, he attacked those who likely committed the crime — one being a relative of Roscius — and stated how the crime fitted them more than Roscius; in the third, he attacked Chrysogonus, stating Roscius' father was murdered to obtain his estate at a cheap price. On the strength of this case, Roscius was acquitted. Cicero's successful defense however was an an indirect challenge to the Dictator Sulla. It was due to the potential, though never realised, wrath of Sulla and a sudden attack of laryngitis, brought on by Cicero’s early speaking style, that Cicero left for Greece and Rhodes, where he indulged his love of Hellenistic culture. While there, he visited Publius Rutilius Rufus, a former magistrate who had been exiled to Asia and who held staunch Republican ideals, and Posidonius, a famed philosopher and scholar who also held an idealized view of Rome. He also met and studied oratory with the rhetorician Molon of Rhodes. He instructed Cicero in a more expansive and less intense (and less strenuous on the throat) form of oratory that would define Cicero's individual style in years to come.

After his return to Rome, Cicero's reputation rose very quickly, assisting his elevation to office in 75 BC. Cicero served as quaestor in western Sicily in 75 BC. He wrote that in Sicily he discovered the tomb of Archimedes of Syracuse, on whose gravestone was carved Archimedes’ favorite discovery in geometry, that the ratio of the volume of a sphere to that of the smallest right circular cylinder in which it fits is 2:3.

Cicero built an extremely successful law practice, and, in August 70 BC, attained prominence for his successful prosecution of Gaius Verres, the former governor of Sicily, who was represented by Hortensius, a former consul and reckoned to be Rome's greatest lawyer and orator.

Despite his great success as an advocate, Cicero had a lack of reputable ancestry; he was neither a noble nor patrician. There was the further hinderance that the last memorable “new man” to have been elected consulate without consular ancestors had been the politically radical and militarily innovative Gaius Marius — a distant relative of Cicero's who also came from Arpinum.

Cicero matured in an environment of civil unrest and war. Sulla’s victory in the first of many civil wars led to a new constitutional framework that undermined libertas (liberty), the fundamental value of the Roman Republic. However Sulla’s reforms strengthened the position of the Equestrian class and contributed to that class’s growing political power. Cicero was both an Italian eques and a "novus homo", but more importantly he was a constitutionalist, meaning he did not wish to side with the Populares faction and embark on a campaign of ‘seditious’ reform. His social class and loyalty to the Republic ensured he would “command the support and confidence of the people as well as the Italian middle classes.” However, his lack of social standing resulted in an inability to secure a reliable and viable power base, as the equites, his main support base, did not hold considerable power. The Optimates faction never truly accepted Cicero, despite his outstanding talents and vision for the security of the Republic. This undermined his efforts to reform the Republic while preserving the constitution. Nevertheless, he was able to successfully ascend the Roman cursus honorum, holding each magistracy at or near the youngest possible age: quaestor in 75 (age 31), curule aedile in 69 (age 37), praetor in 66 (age 40), and finally consul at age 43.

Consul

Cicero

Cicero was elected consul in 63 BC. During his year in office he thwarted the supposed Catiline 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 he drove Catiline from the city by four vehement speeches, the Catiline Orations, in which he described Catline and his follower's debaucheries, and denounced his followers as a company of dissolute senators and assorted rogues who, deeply in debt, latched onto Catiline as a last hope. Cicero vehemently urged Catiline and his followers to leave the city. At the conclusion of Cicero's first speech, Catiline burst from the Temple of Jupiter Stator, where the Senate had been convened, and made his way to Etruria. Cicero did not directly addressed Catiline in the following speeches but addressed the people or Senate. By these speeches, Cicero wanted to prepare his audience for the worst possible case, and he delivered more evidence against Catiline.[citation needed]

Catiline fled, but left behind his ‘deputies’ to start the revolution from within whilst Catiline assaulted it from without with an army recruited among Sulla’s veterans in Etruria. Cicero had these deputies confess their crimes in front of the Senate, after his forces ambushed an embassy the deputies had sent to a Gallic tribe, the Allobroges.

The Senate then deliberated upon the punishment for the conspirators. As it was the dominant advisory body to the various legislative assemblies rather than a judicial body, there were limits on its power to do so; however, martial law was in effect, and it was feared that simple house arrest or exile — the standard options — would not remove the threat to the State. At first most in the Senate spoke for the ‘extreme penalty’; many were then swayed by Julius Caesar who spoke decrying the precedent it would set and argued in favor of the punishment being confined to a mode of banishment. Cato then rose in defense of the death penalty and all the Senate finally agreed on the matter. Cicero had the conspirators taken to the Tullianum, the notorious Roman prison, where they were strangled. Cicero himself accompanied the former consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, one of the conspirators, to the Tullianum. After the executions had been carried out, Cicero announced the deaths by the formulaic expression Vixerunt ("they have lived," which was meant to ward off ill fortune by avoiding the direct mention of death). 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. He also received the first public thanksgiving for a civic accomplishment; previously this had been a purely military honor. Cicero's four Catiline Orations remain outstanding examples of rhetorical style.


Exile and return

In 61 BC Gaius Julius Caesar, who was forming an informal alliance with Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus, invited Cicero to be the fourth member of the partnership, which in due time came to be called the First Triumvirate. After some hesitation, Cicero refused Caesar's proposition as undermining the republic.[6]

In 58 BC, Publius Clodius Pulcher as the tribune of the people introduced a law exiling any man who had put Roman citizens to death without trial. Although Cicero maintained that the sweeping decree senatus consultum ultimum granted him in 63 BC had indemnified him against legal penalty, he nevertheless appeared in public and began to ask for support from the senators and consuls, and especially Pompey. Realizing that no help was forthcoming, he went into exile in Thessalonica, Greece, where a loyal friend of his had invited him, arriving there on May 23 58 BC.[7] On the day when Cicero left Italy, Clodius put through another bill outlawing him to 400 miles from Italy and confiscating his property. His villa on the Palatine was destroyed by Clodius and his gang, and so were also his villas in Tusculum and Formiae.[8][9]

Cicero completely lost his nerve. A man of extreme emotions, he became deeply depressed, actually hopeless. "Your pleas", he wrote to Atticus, "have prevented me from committing suicide. But what is there to live for? Don't blame me for complaining. My afflictions surpass any you ever heard of earlier." In another letter written in a calmer mood to Atticus, Cicero maintained that the Senate was jealous of his accomplishments, and therefore did not save him from exile. Here he was just flattering himself and pampering his bruised ego. Later, writing to his brother Quintus he made the correct diagnosis of his untenable position: "The defection of Pompey, the hostility of the senators and judges, the timidity of equestrians, the armed bands of Clodius." Meanwhile Atticus, his loyal friend, tried his best together with Cicero's wife Terentia to obtain the recall of Cicero.[10]

Cicero returned from his exile on August 5, 57 BC landing in Brundisium (modern Brindisi) where he was met by his beloved daughter, Tullia.[11] He returned to Rome to a cheering crowd. This time he was in clouds. Some time later the senate also passed a resolution to restore to Cicero his property and ordering a compensation for whatever had been destroyed.[12]

During the 50s, Cicero supported Milo to use as a cat's-paw against Clodius, who continued to use his popular support to establish terror in the streets. During the mid-50s, Clodius was killed by Milo’s gladiators on the Via Appia. Cicero defended Milo on counts of murder from the relatives of Clodius, yet failed. Despite this failure, Cicero’s speech Pro Milone was considered by some as his masterpiece. Cicero argued that Milo had no reason to kill Clodius and had all to gain from his living, pointing out that Milo had no idea that he would encounter Clodius on the Via Appia. The prosecution, however, pointed out that Milo had freed the slaves who were with him during the attack on Clodius, so that they could not testify against him in court that he had ordered the killing. Cicero in turn claimed that Milo’s slaves had defended him honorably and deserved to be free, for they had saved their master "from an attack by Clodius." Milo fled into exile and continued to live in Massilia until he returned to stir up further trouble during the Civil War.

As the struggle between Pompey and Julius Caesar grew more intense in 50 BC, Cicero favored Pompey but tried to avoid turning Caesar into a permanent enemy. When Caesar invaded Italy in 49 BC, Cicero fled from Rome. Caesar attempted vainly to convince him to return. In June of that year Cicero slipped out of Italy and traveled to Dyrrachium (Epidamnos), Greece, where Pompeius staff was situated.[13] In 48 BC, Cicero was with the Pompeians at the camp of Pharsalus and was disappointed with all he saw. He quarreled with many of the commanders, including a son of Pompey. Even Cato told him, that he would have been of more use to the cause of the optimates if he had stayed in Rome. In Cicero's own words:"I came to regret my action in joining the army of the optimates, not so much for the risk of my own safety as for the appalling situation which confronted me on arrival. To begin with, our forces were too small and had poor morale. Secondly, for the exception of the commander-in-chief and a handful of others, everyone was greedy to profit from the war itself and their conversation was so bloodthirsty that I shuddered at the prospect of victory.(...) In a word everything was wrong except the cause we were fighting for."[14] After Caesar's victory at Pharsalus, Cicero returned to Rome slowly and hesitatingly. Caesar pardoned him and he tried his best to adjust to the situation, hoping that Caesar might revive the Republic and its institutions.

In a letter to Varro on c. April 20 46 BC, Cicero outlined his strategy under Caesar's dictatorship : "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."[15]

Opposition to Mark Antony, and death

Cicero was taken completely by surprise when the Liberatores assassinated Caesar on the ides of March 44 BC. Even though the conspirators were sure of his sympathy and Marcus Junius Brutus called out Cicero's name when he lifted the bloodstained dagger after the assassination, he was not included in the conspiracy.[16] A letter Cicero wrote in February 43 BC to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, began, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March!"[17] Cicero became a popular leader during the period of instability following the assassination. He had no respect for Mark Antony, who was scheming to take revenge upon Caesar's murderers. He arranged to avoid having Caesar outlawed as a tyrant so that the Caesarians could have lawful support, in exchange for amnesty for the assassins – which the Senate agreed to.

Cicero and Antony, Caesar’s subordinate, 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 and adopted son, 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, in honour of his inspiration – Demosthenes. Praising Octavian to the skies, he labeled him a "god-sent child" and said that the young man only desired honor and would not make the same mistake as his father by adoption. Meanwhile, his attacks on Antony, whom he called a "sheep", rallied the Senate in firm opposition to Antony. During this time, Cicero became an unrivaled popular leader and, according to the historian Appian, he "had the [most] power any popular leader could possibly have."[18] Cicero heavily fined the supporters of Antony for petty charges and had volunteers forge arms for the supporters of the republic. According to Appian (although the story is not supported by others), this policy was perceived by Antony's supporters to be so insulting that they prepared to march on Rome to arrest Cicero. Cicero fled the city and the plan was abandoned.

Cicero supported Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and urged the Senate to name Antony an enemy of the state. One tribune, a certain Salvius, delayed these proceedings and was "reviled," as Appian put it, by Cicero and his party. The speech of Lucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, delayed proceedings against Antony. Antony was later declared an enemy of the state when he refused to lift the siege of Mutina, which was in the hands of Decimus Brutus. 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..."[19]

Cicero’s plan to drive out Antony failed, however. After the successive battles of Mutina, Antony and Octavian reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Second Triumvirate. Immediately after legislating their alliance into official existence for a five-year term with consular imperium, the Triumvirate began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals. Cicero and his younger brother Quintus Tullius Cicero, formerly one of Caesar's legates, and all of their contacts and supporters, were numbered among the enemies of the state[citation needed] (though reportedly Octavian fought against Cicero being added to the list for two days).[20]

Among the proscribed, Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted. Other victims included the tribune Salvius, who, after siding with Antony, moved his support directly and fully to Cicero. Cicero was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public and many people refused to report that they had seen him. He was eventually caught leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside from where he hoped to embark on a ship to Macedonia.[21] When the assassins arrived, his slaves said they had not seen him, but a freed slave of Quintus Cicero, Philologus, gave Cicero away.[22]

Cicero's last words were said to have been “there is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.” He was decapitated by his pursuers on December 7, 43 BC at Formia. 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 be so displayed. According to Cassius Dio[23] (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch),[citation needed] Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin, taking a final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.

Cicero's son, Marcus Tullius Cicero Minor, during his year as a consul in 30 BC, got a small revenge for his father's death, when he announced to the Senate Mark Antony's naval defeat at Actium in 31 BC by Octavian and his able commander-in-chief Agrippa. The Senate voted in the same meeting that no Antonius would ever in the future have the right to use the name Marcus.

When Octavian, later in life, came upon one of his grandsons reading a book by Cicero and saw the boy trying to conceal it, fearing his grandfather's reaction, he instead took the book from him, read a large part of it and then handed the volume back with the words "He was a learned man, dear child, a learned man who loved his country."[24]

Marriage and issue

Cicero had two children, a daughter, Tullia Ciceronis, probably born in 76 BC, and a son, Marcus Tullius Cicero Minor, born in 65 BC, from his marriage to Terentia. He later divorced Terentia, though the cause of this is unknown and a matter of much confusion. Cicero and Terentia's marriage had lasted thirty years and a good amount about the relationship is known from first-hand accounts from Cicero's own letters to his slave and friend Tiro, to his brother Quintus, his friend Atticus, and some to Terentia herself. The relationship had been warm and loving. Both were intelligent people, and their union was based on trust and mutual contribution; in fact, their marriage was much more of a modern style partnership than a typical Roman male-controlled situation. Despite this decades-long success, however, the relationship suddenly turned cold in the early 40's BC. In 47, Terentia was working on her will, a document that would have ensured the financial security of Tullia, and her brother Marcus, in the event of the death of their parents. This was of particular importance to Cicero, as throughout his career he was constantly finding himself on the wrong side of volatile political situations in Rome, and he was anxious to have Terentia secure Tullia's future, as his own was so uncertain. Terentia was slow to create the will, however, which seems to have caused great tension between the two, and could have been a part of their growing rift.[25] Cicero's letters to Terentia became short, bitter, and focused only on business and financial matters between the two. Unfortunately, these later letters give us only circumstantial evidence about the reason for the divorce, allowing many theories but confirming none. Torsten Petersson believes, "apparently Cicero and Terentia drifted apart, and nobody can assign the blame."[26]

Perhaps the marriage simply could not outlast the strain of the political upheaval in Rome, Cicero's involvement in it, and various other disputes between the two. The divorce appears to have taken place in 47 or 46, but the date has never been secure. It may have even been an amicable split, according to J.M. Claassen.[27] Divorce enabled Terentia to protect her finances, as it would have made her a woman sui iuris,[28] and thus would also have kept more money in Terentia's accounts for later inheritance by Tullia and Marcus. Regardless, the cause of the divorce cannot be gleaned from the letters we have today, and we cannot even know if it was contested or not. It is a confusing event in Cicero's life, especially because his writing was so prolific, and yet does not ever account for the split.

In late 46 BC Cicero remarried to a young girl who had been his ward, Pubilia (then aged 15). It is thought that Cicero needed her money, particularly after having to repay the dowry of Terentia, who came from a wealthy family.[29] This marriage did not last long. Shortly after the marriage had taken place Cicero's daughter, Tullia, died. Publilia had been jealous of her and was so unsympathetic over her death that Cicero divorced her. Several friends of his, among them Caerellia, a woman who shared Cicero's interest in philosophy, tried to mend the break. But he was adamant.

Cicero's children: Tullia and Marcus

Tullia was Cicero's great love. (The marriage with Terentia was a marriage of convenience, as Roman marriages generally were at that time.) She was the only person he never criticized. He describes her in a letter to his brother Quintus: "How affectionate, how modest, how clever! The express image of my face, my spech, my very soul."[30] When she suddenly became ill in February 45 BC and died after having seemingly recovered from giving birth to a son in January, Cicero was stunned. "I have lost the one thing that bound me to life" he wrote to Atticus.[31]

Atticus told him to come for a visit during the first weeks of his bereavement, so that he could comfort him when his pain was most acute. In Atticus large library he read everything, that the Greek philosophers had written about overcoming grief,- "but my sorrow defeats all consolation."[32] Caesar and Brutus sent him letters of condolence. So did his old friend and colleague, the lawyer Servius Sulpicius Rufus. He sent an exquisite letter that posterity has much admired, full of subtle, melancholy reflection on the transiency of all things.[33] [34]

After a while, he withdrew from all company to complete solitude in his newly acquired villa in Astura. It was on a lonely spot, but not far from Neapolis (modern Naples). For several months he just walked in the woods, crying. "I plunge into the dense wild wood early in the day and stay there until evening", he wrote to Atticus[35]. Later he decided to write a book for himself on overcoming grief. This book, Consolatio , was highly appreciated in antiquity, (and made an immense impression on St. Augustine for instance), but is unfortunately lost.[36]A few fragments have survived, among them the poignant:"I have always fought against Fortune, and beaten her. Even in exile I played the man. But now I yield, and throw up my hand."[37] He also planned to erect a small temple to Tullia's, "his incomparable daughter's", memory. But he dropped this plan after a year, for reasons that we don't know. [38].

Cicero hoped that his son Marcus would become a philosopher like him, but that was wishful thinking. Marcus himself wished for a military career. He joined the army of Pompey in 49 BC and after Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus 48 BC, he was pardoned by Caesar. Cicero sent him to Athens to study as a disciple of the peripatetic philosopher Kratippos in 48 BC, but he used this absence from "his father's vigilant eye" to "eat, drink and be merry".[39]

After his father's murder he joined the army of the Liberatores but was later pardoned by Augustus. Augustus's bad conscience for having put Cicero on the proscription list during the Second Triumvirate made him aid considerably Marcus Minor's career. He became an augur, and was nominated consul in 30 BC together with Augustus, and later appointed proconsul of Syria and the province of Asia.[40]

Political and social thought

Cicero’s vision for the Republic was not simply the maintenance of the status quo. Neither was it a straightforward desire to revitalise what many, such as Sallust, term the ‘moral degradation’ of the Republican system. Cicero envisaged Rome as a "selfless nobility of successful individuals determining the fate of the nation via consensus in the Senate”. Cicero’s middle-class background resulted in a broader outlook, not marred by self-interest.

Cicero aspired to a Republican system dominated by a ruling aristocratic class of men, “who so conducted themselves as to win for their policy the approval of all good men”. Further, he sought a concordia ordinum, an alliance between the senators and the equites. This ‘harmony between the social classes’, “which he later developed into a consensus omnium bonorum to include tota italia (all citizens of Italy), demonstrated Cicero’s foresight as a statesman. He understood that fundamental change to the organization and the distribution of power within the Republic was required to secure its future. However, Cicero was also naïve to believe that ‘the best men’ would institute large-scale reforms which were contrary to their interests as the ruling oligarchy. Cicero's guiding principle throughout his political career was:

That “some sort of free-state” is the necessary condition of a noble and honourable existence; and that it is the worst calamity for a people to permanently renounce this ideal and to substitute for it the slave’s ideal of a good master.

Links with the Equestrian class, combined with his status as a novus homo meant that Cicero was isolated from the optimates. Thus, it is not surprising that Cicero envisioned a “selfless nobility of successful individuals” instead of the current system dominated by patricians. The fact remains that those who sat in the Senate had appropriated huge profits by exploiting the provinces. Repeatedly, the oligarchy had proved to be shortsighted, reactionary and “operating with restricted and outmoded institutions could no longer cope with vast territories containing multifarious populations.” The repeated failings of the oligarchy were not only due to leading patricians, such as Cato, but also to the influx of conservative equites into the Senate’s ranks.

The combination of the Roman governing system, established by the oligarchy to maximize economic exploitation, and the introduction of the business minded Knights only sought to increase the plundering of resources within the Empire. The large-scale extortion destabilized the political system further, which was continuously under pressure by both foreign wars and from the populares. Moreover, this period of Roman history was marked by constant in-fighting between senators and the equites over political power and control of the courts. The problem arose because Sulla originally enfranchised the equites, but then, these privileges were soon removed after he stepped down from office. Cicero, as an equite, naturally backed their claims to participate in the legal process; moreover the constant conflict was incompatible with his vision of a concordia ordinum. Furthermore, the conflict between the two classes showed no signs of a feasible solution in the short term. The ruling class for over a century had showed nothing of ‘selfless service’ to the Republic and through their actions only undermined its stability, contributing to the creation of a society ripe for revolution.

The establishment of individual power bases both within Rome and in the provinces undermined Cicero’s guiding principle of a free state, and thus the Roman Republic itself. This factionalised the Senate into cliques, which constantly engaged each other for political advantage. These cliques were the optimates, led by such figures as Cato, and in later years Pompey, and the populares, lead by such men as Julius Caesar and Crassus. It is important to note that the although the optimates were generally republicans there were instances of optimate leaders with distinctly dictatorial ways. Caesar, Crassus and Pompey were at one time the head of the First Triumvirate which directly conflicted with the Republican model as it did not comply with the system of holding a Consulship for one year only. Cicero’s vision for the Republic could not succeed if the populares maintained their position of power. Cicero did not envisage wide spread reform, but a return to the “golden age” of the Republic. Despite Cicero’s attempts to court Pompey over to the Republican side, he failed to secure either Pompey’s genuine support or peace for Rome.

After the civil war, Cicero recognised that the end of the Republic was almost certain. He stated that “the Republic, the Senate, the law courts are mere ciphers and that not one of us has any constitutional position at all.” The civil war had destroyed the Republic. It wreaked destruction and decimated resources throughout the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar’s victory had been absolute. Caesar’s assassination failed to reinstate the Republic, despite further attacks on the Romans’ freedom by “Caesar’s own henchman, Marc Antony.” Furthermore, his death only highlighted the stability of ‘one man rule’ by the ensuing chaos and further civil wars that broke out with Caesar’s murderers, Brutus and Cassius, and finally between his own supporters, Marc Antony and Octavian.

Cicero remained the ”Republic's last true friend” as he spoke out for his own ideals and that of the libertas the Romans had enjoyed for centuries. Cicero’s vision had a fundamental flaw. It harked back to a ‘golden age’ that never existed. Furthermore, the Republic had reached such a state of disrepair that regardless of Cicero’s talents and passion, Rome lacked “persons loyal to [the Republic] to trust with armies.” Cicero lacked the political power, nor had he any military skill or resources, to command true power to enforce his ideal. He also failed to recognize the real power structures that operated in Rome, instead following the rules of the ideal Republican game, which no longer (or perhaps had never) existed.

Cicero is credited with the precept "nun erit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis" -- the law (meaning in context specifically the principles of contract and commerce) must be the same in Rome as in Athens. That precept has cropped up in debates over federalism and commerce in the United States.

Works

Cicero was declared a “Righteous Pagan” by the early Catholic Church, and therefore many of his works were deemed worthy of preservation. Saint Augustine and others quoted liberally from his works “On The Republic” and “On The Laws,” and it is due to this that we are able to recreate much of the work from the surviving fragments. Cicero also articulated an early, abstract conceptualization of rights, based on ancient law and custom.

Books

Of Cicero’s books, six on rhetoric have survived, as well as parts of eight on philosophy.

Speeches

Of his speeches, eighty-eight were recorded, but only fifty-eight survive. Some of the items below are more than one speech.

Judicial speeches

Political speeches

Early career (before exile)
Mid career (after exile)
Late career

(The Pro Marcello, Pro Ligario, and Pro Rege Deiotaro are collectively known as "The Caesarian speeches").

Philosophy

Rhetoric

Other philosophical works

Letters

More than 800 letters by Cicero to others exist, and over 100 letters from others to him.

Appearances in modern fiction

See also

References

  1. ^ Rawson, E.:"Cicero, a portrait" (1975) p.1
  2. ^ Rawson, E.:"Cicero, a portrait" (1975) p.5-6; Cicero, Ad Familiares 16.26.2 (Quintus to Cicero)
  3. ^ Plutarch, Cicero 1.3–5
  4. ^ Plutarch, Cicero 2.2
  5. ^ Plutarch, Cicero 3.2
  6. ^ Rawson, E.:Cicero, 1984 106
  7. ^ Haskell, H.J.:This was Cicero,1964 200
  8. ^ Haskell, H.J.:This was Cicero,1964 p.201
  9. ^ Plutarch. Cicero 32
  10. ^ Haskell, H.J.: This was Cicero, 1964, p.201-202
  11. ^ Tullius, Marcus Cicero:"Samtliga brev"/Collected letters (in a Swedish translation)
  12. ^ Haskell. H.J.: "This was Cicero", p.204
  13. ^ Everitt, Anthony:"Cicero" pp. 215.
  14. ^ Everitt, Anthony: "Cicero: A turbulent life. p.208
  15. ^ Cicero, Ad Familiares 9.2
  16. ^ Cicero, Second Philippic Against Antony
  17. ^ Cicero, Ad Familiares 10.28
  18. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 4.19
  19. ^ Cicero, Ad Familiares 12.2
  20. ^ Plutarch, Cicero 46.3–5
  21. ^ Haskell, H.J.: "This was Cicero" p.293
  22. ^ Haskell, H.J.:"This was Cicero" (1964) p.293
  23. ^ Dio 47.8.4
  24. ^ Plutarch, Cicero, 49.5
  25. ^ Cicero, ad Att. 11.16; ad Fam. 14.4, 14.1.
  26. ^ Peterssen, Torsten. Cicero: A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1920, p. 518.
  27. ^ Claassen, Jo-Marie. "Documents of a Crumbling Marriage: The Case of Cicero and Terentia." Phoenix 50:3. 1996, 208-232.
  28. ^ Ulpian, Dig. 50.16.195.
  29. ^ Rawson, E.:"Cicero" p.225
  30. ^ Haskell H.J.:This was Cicero, p.95
  31. ^ Haskell, H.J.: "This was Cicero", p.249
  32. ^ Rawson, E.: "Cicero", p.225.
  33. ^ Rawson, E.: "Cicero" p.226
  34. ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero:"Samtliga brev"/"Collected letters"
  35. ^ Haskell, H.J.: "This was Cicero", p.250
  36. ^ Rawson, E.: "Cicero", p.225-227
  37. ^ Haskell, H.J.:"This was Cicero" p.251
  38. ^ Rawson, E.: Cicero, p.250
  39. ^ Haskell, H.J.: "This was Cicero" (1964) p.103- 104
  40. ^ Paavo Castren & L. Pietilä-Castren: "Antiikin käsikirja"/"Encyclopedia of the Ancient World"

Sources

  • Everitt, Anthony 2001, Cicero: the life and times of Rome's greatest politician, Random House, hardback, 359 pages, ISBN 0-375-50746-9
  • Haskell, H.J.: (1946) This was Cicero, Fawcett publications, Inc. Greenwich, Conn. USA
  • Rawson, Elizabeth (1975) Cicero, A portrait, Allen Lane, London ISBN 0-7139-0864-5
  • Taylor, H. (1918). Cicero: A sketch of his life and works. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.

Further reading

  • Francis A. Yates (1974). The Art of Memory, University of Chicago Press, 448 pages, Reprint: ISBN 0-226-95001-8
  • Taylor Caldwell (1965), A Pillar of Iron, Doubleday & Company, Reprint: ISBN 0-385-05303-7

External links

Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikiquote has quotations related to Cicero.
  1. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Cicero’s letters to Atticus, Vol, I, II, IV, VI, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1965
  2. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Latin extracts of Cicero on Himself, translated by Charles Gordon Cooper , University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1963
  3. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Selected Political Speeches, Penguin Books Ltd, Great Britain, 1969
  4. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Selected Works, Penguin Books Ltd, Great Britain, 1971
  5. Cowell, Cicero and the Roman Republic, Penguin Books Ltd, Great Britain, 1973
  6. Gruen, Erich, The last Generation of the Roman Republic, University of California Press, USA, 1974
  7. Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic, Penguin Books Ltd, Great Britain, 1972
  8. Rawson, Elizabeth, Cicero, Penguin Books Ltd, Great Britain, 1975
  9. Scullard, H. H. From the Gracchi to Nero, University Paperbacks, Great Britain, 1968
  10. Smith, R. E., Cicero the Statesman, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1966
  11. Strachan-Davidson, J. L., Cicero and the Fall of the Roman Republic, University of Oxford Press, London, 1936
Preceded by Consul of the Roman Republic
with Gaius Antonius Hybrida
63 BC 		Succeeded by

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