He was the greatest orator of the late Roman Republic. A brilliant lawyer and the first of his family to achieve Roman office, Cicero was one of the leading political figures of the era of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Marc Antony and Octavian.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in the hill town of Arpinum, about 60 miles southeast of Rome. His father, a wealthy man, paid to educate Cicero and his younger brother in philosophy and rhetoric in Rome and Greece. After a brief military service, he studied Roman law under Quintis Mucius Scaevola. Cicero publicly argued his first legal case in 81 B.C., successfully defending a man charged with parricide.
Cicero was elected quaestor in 75, praetor in 66 and consul in 63—the youngest man ever to attain that rank without coming from a political family. During his term as consul he thwarted the Catilinian conspiracy to overthrow the Republic. In the aftermath, though, he approved the key conspirators’ summary execution, a breach of Roman law that left him vulnerable to prosecution and sent him into exile.
During his exile, Cicero refused overtures from Caesar that might have protected him, preferring political independence to a role in the First Triumvirate. Cicero was away from Rome when civil war between Caesar and Pompey broke out. He aligned himself with Pompey and then faced another exile when Caesar won the war, cautiously returning to Rome to receive the dictator’s pardon.
Cicero was not asked to join the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar in 44 B.C., but he was quick to celebrate it after the fact. In the infighting that followed Caesar’s death, Cicero made brief attempts at alliances with key figures, first defending Mark Antony before the Senate and then denouncing him as a public enemy in a series of withering speeches. For some time he supported the upstart Octavian, but when Antony, Octavian and Lepidus allied in 43 to form the Second Triumvirate, Cicero’s fate was settled. Antony arranged to have him declared a public enemy. Cicero was caught and killed by Antony’s soldiers, who are said to have cut off his head and right hand and brought them for display in Rome—Antony’s revenge for Cicero’s speeches and writings.
Cicero offered little new philosophy of his own but was a matchless translator, rendering Greek ideas into eloquent Latin. His other peerless contribution was his correspondence. More than 900 of his letters survive, including everything from official dispatches to casual notes to friends and family. Much of what is known about politics and society of his era is known because of Cicero’s correspondence. Few of his letters were written for publication, so Cicero gave free reign to his exultations, fears and frustrations.