Cicero

Introduction

Marcus Tullius Cicero was the most celebrated orator of ancient Rome and one of the most influential political thinkers in Western history. A lawyer, consul, philosopher, essayist, and prolific correspondent, he lived through the violent final decades of the Roman Republic. His career brought him into conflict or cooperation with nearly every major Roman figure of his age, including Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Octavian, Cato the Younger, and Brutus.

Cicero mattered partly because of what he did. As consul in 63 BCE, he helped suppress the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina, commonly known as Catiline. Later, during the struggle that followed Caesar’s assassination, he used a famous series of speeches—the Philippics—to rally the Senate against Mark Antony. His uncompromising opposition contributed to his murder during the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate.

He mattered just as much because of what he wrote. Cicero adapted Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and political theory for a Latin-speaking Roman audience. His clear, rhythmic prose became a model for Latin style, while his works on law, duty, friendship, old age, religion, government, and public speaking remained central to European education for centuries. Renaissance humanists regarded him as a master of eloquence, and early modern writers drew on his belief that public speech should unite wisdom with moral responsibility.

Cicero was not a detached philosopher. His writings emerged from political ambition, personal grief, civil war, and the collapse of republican institutions. He could be courageous and principled, but also vain, indecisive, status-conscious, and politically inconsistent. His surviving correspondence reveals these contradictions with unusual immediacy. Through Cicero, historians can observe both Rome’s public institutions and the private calculations of a statesman struggling to preserve his position in a disintegrating republic.

Quick Facts

Early Life and Education

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BCE at Arpinum, a hill town about 100 kilometers southeast of Rome. His family belonged to the local equestrian order, a prosperous social class below the senatorial aristocracy. The Tullii possessed status and connections, but Cicero had no consular ancestors. In Roman political language he was therefore a novus homo, or “new man,” who had to enter the governing elite through ability, patronage, and ambition rather than inherited senatorial prestige.

The origin of the family name Cicero is uncertain, though ancient writers associated it with cicer, the Latin word for chickpea. Plutarch reports that friends urged the young Cicero to replace this supposedly undignified name. He allegedly answered that he would make it more famous than the aristocratic names Scaurus and Catulus. Whether literal or embellished, the story captures his confidence and sensitivity to reputation.

Cicero and his younger brother, Quintus, received an elite education in Rome. Cicero studied literature, law, philosophy, and rhetoric—the skills required for public life. Among his teachers and intellectual influences were the jurist Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the Academic philosopher Philo of Larissa, the Stoic Diodotus, and the Greek poet Archias. He also observed leading Roman speakers, especially Lucius Licinius Crassus and Marcus Antonius, grandfather of the later triumvir Mark Antony.

During the Social War, in which Rome’s Italian allies fought for citizenship, Cicero performed limited military service under Pompeius Strabo. Warfare did not appeal to him, and his real gifts lay in advocacy and public speaking. Political conditions in the 80s BCE were dangerous: the civil wars of Marius and Sulla produced massacres, confiscations, and proscriptions. Cicero’s early adulthood was shaped by the lesson that Roman law and republican custom could quickly yield to organized violence.

His earliest surviving speech, Pro Quinctio, dates from 81 BCE. Soon afterward he defended Sextus Roscius of Ameria against a charge of murdering his father. In Pro Roscio Amerino, Cicero challenged figures connected with Sulla’s powerful freedman Chrysogonus. The defense was risky, although later accounts may exaggerate the degree to which Cicero directly confronted the dictator. Roscius was acquitted, and Cicero established himself as a bold and talented advocate.

Around 79 BCE, Cicero left Rome for Greece and Asia Minor. Ancient sources say that he wished to improve his health and develop his speaking technique; political prudence may also have encouraged the journey. At Athens he studied philosophy, while in Rhodes he trained with the rhetorician Apollonius Molon. This education helped him moderate an overly forceful youthful style and develop the controlled rhythm, emotional range, and logical organization for which he became famous.

Rise to Prominence

Cicero pursued the traditional sequence of Roman magistracies known as the cursus honorum. He became quaestor in 75 BCE and served in western Sicily. Responsible for financial administration and grain supplies, he earned a reputation for fairness. His Sicilian connections later proved crucial when communities on the island asked him to prosecute their former governor, Gaius Verres, for extortion and abuse.

The trial of Verres in 70 BCE transformed Cicero into one of Rome’s leading advocates. Verres was defended by Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then considered Rome’s greatest living orator. Cicero gathered extensive evidence in Sicily and opened the proceedings with such a strong presentation that the defense abandoned the case before the full set of speeches could be delivered. Verres went into exile. Cicero later published the Verrine Orations, including material not actually spoken in court, as a devastating portrait of corrupt provincial rule.

Cicero was elected aedile for 69 BCE and praetor for 66 BCE. During his praetorship he delivered Pro Lege Manilia, supporting a proposal to grant Pompey an extraordinary command against Mithridates VI of Pontus. The speech demonstrated Cicero’s growing political stature and his ability to appeal to senators, equestrians, tax contractors, merchants, and the wider public.

In 63 BCE Cicero reached the consulship, the Republic’s highest regular office. His election was remarkable for a new man, although his success depended on broad support from voters who distrusted his aristocratic rival Catiline. Cicero presented himself as a defender of civic order, property, and cooperation between the senatorial and equestrian classes.

The defining crisis of his consulship was the Catilinarian conspiracy. Catiline, defeated in the consular elections and burdened by political and financial difficulties, organized an armed movement drawing support from indebted aristocrats, veterans, and discontented Italians. Cicero obtained intelligence about the plot and denounced Catiline before the Senate in the first of four Catilinarian Orations. Catiline soon left Rome to join an armed force in Etruria.

Five conspirators remaining in the city were arrested after incriminating evidence was obtained through envoys of the Allobroges, a Gallic people. The Senate debated their fate. Julius Caesar argued against immediate execution, while Cato the Younger urged death. Cicero supervised the execution of the prisoners without a regular popular trial. When he announced their deaths with the word vixerunt—“they have lived”—supporters hailed him as pater patriae, “father of the fatherland.” Yet the legality of the executions would haunt his career.

Major Achievements and Contributions

Cicero’s first great achievement was his mastery of forensic and political oratory. Roman public speech combined legal argument, historical example, invective, humor, theatrical delivery, and emotional appeal. Cicero excelled in every part of this demanding art. His speeches were not neutral transcripts: he revised many for publication and carefully shaped how readers would remember each controversy. Nevertheless, they remain indispensable evidence for Roman law, politics, provincial administration, and social values.

His second major contribution was the creation of a sophisticated Latin philosophical vocabulary. Roman elites had long studied Greek thought, but Cicero made debates among Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics available in polished Latin. He did not claim to found a new philosophical school. Instead, he compared arguments and often followed the skeptical method of the New Academy, presenting opposing positions before reaching a cautious conclusion.

Cicero’s political thought emphasized a mixed constitution, the rule of law, civic virtue, and government directed toward the common good. In De Re Publica (On the Republic), he argued that a true commonwealth is a partnership united by agreement about justice and shared interest. Rome’s traditional constitution, combining elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and popular government, appeared to him more stable than any simple constitutional form.

In De Legibus (On the Laws), Cicero developed a theory of natural law. Right reason, grounded in nature and applicable to all human beings, was for him more fundamental than decrees enacted by particular governments. An unjust command did not become morally right merely because rulers called it law. This conception later influenced Christian thinkers, medieval jurists, Renaissance humanists, and early modern theories of universal rights.

Cicero also formulated a lasting ideal of the educated public speaker. In De Oratore, he rejected the idea that eloquence was only a collection of verbal techniques. The genuine orator required broad knowledge, sound judgment, moral awareness, wit, memory, and sensitivity to an audience. Speech without wisdom could be destructive, but wisdom without the power to communicate was politically ineffective.

His surviving correspondence is another extraordinary achievement, although Cicero did not prepare most of it for publication. More than 800 letters by Cicero and roughly 100 addressed to him survive. Written to Atticus, family members, politicians, and former subordinates, they document alliances, elections, provincial government, civil war, household concerns, literary plans, and emotional distress. Few ancient figures can be studied through such an intimate body of evidence.

Key Works / Battles / Ideas

The Catilinarian Orations

The four speeches against Catiline are Cicero’s best-known political performances. The first begins with the celebrated challenge, “How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?” Together, the speeches depict the conspiracy as an existential attack on Rome. Modern historians value them while recognizing that Cicero had strong reasons to dramatize both the danger and his own role as savior of the state.

The Verrine Orations

The speeches against Verres exposed extortion, judicial corruption, the theft of artworks, and the mistreatment of Roman subjects in Sicily. They enhanced Cicero’s reputation and articulated the principle that provincial governors should be accountable for abuses of power. They also reveal how prosecution in Rome could serve political advancement.

De Oratore, Brutus, and Orator

These works form the center of Cicero’s rhetorical theory. De Oratore presents a dialogue about the ideal speaker. Brutus traces the history of Roman eloquence, while Orator describes the accomplished speaker’s command of plain, middle, and grand styles. Their influence on education, preaching, law, and political speech continued well beyond antiquity.

De Re Publica and De Legibus

Cicero’s main political dialogues explore justice, constitutional order, statesmanship, and natural law. Much of De Re Publica was lost for centuries, though a substantial manuscript was recovered in the nineteenth century beneath another text. Its surviving conclusion, the “Dream of Scipio,” presents public service undertaken for the common good as a path to enduring honor.

De Officiis

Written for his son Marcus in 44 BCE, De Officiis (On Duties) examines moral obligation, honorable conduct, and apparent conflicts between virtue and practical advantage. Cicero insists that what is genuinely useful can never conflict with what is morally right. The work became one of the most widely read ethical texts in European history.

Philosophical and Religious Works

In De Finibus, Tusculan Disputations, De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, and De Fato, Cicero examined happiness, death, pain, emotion, the gods, prophecy, and free will. He often acted as a critical guide rather than a dogmatic teacher. His discussions preserve valuable evidence about Greek philosophical works that have otherwise disappeared.

The Philippics

After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, Cicero delivered fourteen surviving speeches against Mark Antony. Named after Demosthenes’ attacks on Philip II of Macedon, the Philippics portray Antony as a drunken, immoral tyrant and enemy of the Republic. They represent Cicero’s final campaign and some of his most powerful political invective.

Timeline of Key Events

Personal Life and Character

Cicero married Terentia, probably around 79 BCE. Their marriage lasted more than three decades and produced two children, Tullia and Marcus. Terentia was wealthy and appears to have managed important family financial matters, particularly during Cicero’s exile. The marriage deteriorated amid disputes over money and trust, and they divorced in 46 BCE.

Cicero soon married Publilia, a much younger and wealthy ward, but that marriage was brief. Ancient and modern interpretations of the union vary, and the surviving evidence largely reflects Cicero’s own perspective. His most important family attachment was to Tullia. Her death in 45 BCE after childbirth devastated him. He withdrew from political life for a time, wrote a now-lost work of consolation, and considered constructing a shrine in her memory.

His relationship with his son Marcus was affectionate but often anxious. Cicero worried about the young man’s expenses, discipline, and education. De Officiis was addressed to Marcus while he studied in Athens, though it was also intended for a wider public.

Cicero’s closest friend was Titus Pomponius Atticus, a wealthy equestrian who generally avoided direct political office. Their correspondence spans decades. Cicero trusted Atticus with literary, financial, and personal matters, even while occasionally complaining that his friend’s advice was too cautious.

The letters expose Cicero’s complicated personality. He was intellectually curious, witty, emotionally expressive, and capable of loyalty and courage. He was also intensely concerned with glory, rank, public applause, and how posterity would judge him. He could condemn extraordinary commands and then support them, praise allies and later ridicule them, or advocate peace while moving reluctantly toward war. These inconsistencies make him more historically revealing, not less: they show the pressures confronting a civilian politician in an age dominated by armies and personal power.

Challenges and Controversies

The execution of the Catilinarian conspirators was the most consequential controversy of Cicero’s career. The prisoners were Roman citizens, and no ordinary criminal trial preceded their deaths. Cicero relied on the Senate’s emergency decree and the argument that enemies of the state had forfeited normal protections. His opponents maintained that a senatorial debate could not lawfully replace the people’s judicial authority.

In 58 BCE the tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher sponsored legislation targeting anyone who had executed Roman citizens without trial. Cicero left Italy before the measure passed. His property was confiscated, and his house on the Palatine was destroyed. The exile wounded him deeply; his letters from the period reveal despair, self-reproach, and resentment. Political allies secured his recall in 57 BCE, but his earlier dominance was never fully restored.

Cicero’s relationship with Rome’s military strongmen was equally difficult. He admired Pompey but frequently criticized his indecision. He opposed aspects of the alliance among Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, yet lacked the power to confront it consistently. When civil war began in 49 BCE, Cicero hesitated before joining Pompey. He believed Caesar threatened republican liberty but doubted Pompey’s competence and feared that either side’s victory might produce autocracy.

After Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus, Cicero returned to Italy and accepted Caesar’s pardon. He spoke on behalf of several former Pompeians and praised Caesar’s clemency, but he also lamented the loss of free political debate. He did not participate in Caesar’s assassination on 15 March 44 BCE, though he approved of the tyrant’s removal and later associated himself rhetorically with the conspirators.

His final strategy against Antony was bold but flawed. Cicero hoped to use Caesar’s young heir Octavian and the consular armies to defeat Antony, after which the Senate would restore republican government. He underestimated Octavian’s independent ambition. In August 43 BCE, Octavian forced his election as consul; later that year he formed the Second Triumvirate with Antony and Lepidus. Cicero’s belief that the young heir could be used and then set aside proved disastrous.

His speeches also require critical reading. Cicero was a brilliant advocate, not an impartial reporter. He exaggerated, selected facts strategically, attacked opponents’ sexuality and ancestry, and adapted principles to the needs of particular cases. His defense speeches could minimize behavior that he condemned elsewhere. These practices reflected Roman forensic culture, but they caution historians against treating every claim as literal fact.

Death and Immediate Aftermath

In November 43 BCE, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus established the Second Triumvirate with legal authority to reorganize the state. They issued proscription lists naming political enemies whose lives and property were forfeit. Ancient sources report that Octavian initially resisted sacrificing Cicero but eventually yielded to Antony’s demand. The precise negotiations cannot be reconstructed with certainty.

Cicero attempted to flee Italy. On 7 December 43 BCE, soldiers caught him near his villa at Formiae as he was being carried in a litter toward the coast. According to later accounts, he ordered his attendants not to resist and extended his neck to the executioners. Herennius killed him, and his head and hands were taken to Rome.

Antony had the remains displayed on the Rostra, the speaker’s platform in the Forum from which Cicero had addressed the Roman people. The display turned the instruments of his eloquence into trophies of political revenge. Cassius Dio, writing centuries later, adds the dramatic story that Antony’s wife Fulvia pierced Cicero’s tongue with a hairpin. The anecdote is famous but cannot be independently verified.

Cicero’s brother Quintus and Quintus’s son were also killed during the proscriptions. The triumvirs defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42 BCE, and the republican cause Cicero had defended ceased to be a viable military movement. Octavian eventually defeated Antony and Cleopatra and became Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. Cicero’s son Marcus survived, served under Octavian, and became consul in 30 BCE—the year Antony died.

Legacy and Influence Today

Cicero’s immediate political campaign ended in failure, yet his literary afterlife was extraordinary. Under the Roman Empire, students analyzed his speeches as supreme examples of Latin prose. Quintilian treated him as the model orator, and later writers measured their vocabulary, sentence structure, and rhythm against his style.

Early Christian authors had an ambivalent but productive relationship with him. His ethics, natural theology, and polished language were deeply attractive, even when his pagan assumptions required correction. Augustine wrote that reading Cicero’s lost Hortensius awakened his youthful love of wisdom. Medieval scholars copied his works, while De Officiis remained especially important as a guide to moral conduct.

During the Renaissance, Petrarch’s discovery of collections of Cicero’s letters helped stimulate humanist scholarship. The letters revealed a more vulnerable and inconsistent Cicero than the majestic public moralist known from formal works. Humanists debated whether they should imitate his Latin exclusively. “Ciceronianism” became both an educational ideal and a target for critics who thought rigid imitation restricted intellectual creativity.

Cicero’s ideas shaped republican political traditions. His accounts of mixed government, civic virtue, natural law, and resistance to tyranny influenced writers in Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-century England, Enlightenment Europe, and revolutionary America. Thinkers did not simply repeat his conclusions; they adapted his language of constitutional balance and public duty to new circumstances.

His rhetorical influence remains visible in law courts, legislatures, sermons, essays, and political campaigns. The arrangement of arguments, adaptation of style to subject, strategic use of character, and appeal to emotion all have Ciceronian precedents. Modern readers can also recognize the darker side of such techniques: invective, polarization, selective storytelling, and the transformation of opponents into enemies of the state.

Cicero continues to matter because he asked a question that remains urgent: can learning and eloquence protect constitutional government when institutions depend on people willing to respect them? His life offers no easy reassurance. He defended law but approved extrajudicial execution, opposed autocracy but repeatedly depended on powerful generals, and sought peace while helping intensify the conflict with Antony. His writings preserve the ideals of republican public life, while his death demonstrates their vulnerability.

Famous Quotes

Translations vary; the following statements are genuinely found in Cicero’s surviving works.

“How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?” — First Oration Against Catiline, 1

“O the times! O the customs!” — First Oration Against Catiline, 2

“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.” — On the Laws, 3.8

“We are not born for ourselves alone.” — On Duties, 1.22

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” — For Plancius, 80

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” — Ninth Philippic, 10

“For laws are silent amid arms.” — For Milo, 11

“There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher.” — On Divination, 2.119

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Cicero?

Cicero was a Roman lawyer, orator, statesman, philosopher, and author who lived from 106 to 43 BCE. He served as consul in 63 BCE and became one of the foremost defenders of the Senate and republican constitutional government during Rome’s civil wars.

Why is Cicero considered one of history’s greatest orators?

His speeches combine carefully structured arguments with humor, invective, vivid narrative, ethical appeals, and emotional power. Because many speeches and rhetorical treatises survive, his practical performances can be studied alongside his theories about eloquence.

What did Cicero do during the Catiline conspiracy?

As consul, Cicero exposed Catiline’s plans, persuaded the Senate to act, and oversaw the execution of five conspirators arrested in Rome. The suppression enhanced his fame, but the executions without trial later provided the grounds for his exile.

Was Cicero involved in Julius Caesar’s assassination?

No evidence shows that Cicero participated in the conspiracy. The assassins apparently excluded him from their planning, perhaps because they feared his caution or inability to keep the secret. He welcomed Caesar’s death afterward but criticized the conspirators for failing to prepare a political settlement.

What philosophy did Cicero follow?

Cicero was most closely associated with the skeptical New Academy, which tested competing arguments and resisted unwarranted certainty. He nevertheless drew heavily from Stoicism, Platonism, and Aristotelian thought, especially in ethics and political theory. He strongly opposed Epicurean withdrawal from public responsibility.

Why did Cicero oppose Mark Antony?

Cicero believed Antony sought tyrannical power after Caesar’s death. In the Philippics, he encouraged the Senate to declare Antony a public enemy and supported military resistance to him. Personal hostility and Cicero’s hope of restoring senatorial authority also shaped the campaign.

Why was Cicero killed?

Antony regarded Cicero as a dangerous enemy because of the Philippics. When Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate in 43 BCE, Cicero was placed on the proscription list. Soldiers captured and executed him while he was attempting to escape Italy.

Which Cicero work should a beginner read first?

On Duties is a strong introduction to his ethical and political thought. The First Catilinarian demonstrates his oratorical style, while selected letters reveal his private personality and the uncertainty of the late Republic.

Lessons We Can Learn

1. Eloquence should be joined to knowledge and judgment. Cicero believed persuasive skill becomes dangerous when separated from education, ethics, and responsibility.

2. Institutions depend on political habits. Laws alone could not save the Republic once leading Romans treated violence and exceptional powers as normal tools of competition.

3. Defending liberty does not excuse every method. Cicero’s execution of the conspirators illustrates how emergency measures adopted in the name of security can undermine legal principles.

4. Political allies have ambitions of their own. Cicero’s attempt to use Octavian against Antony failed because he underestimated the young Caesar’s determination and resources.

5. Private evidence complicates public reputation. Cicero’s letters reveal hesitation, grief, vanity, humor, and self-doubt behind the confident voice of his published speeches. Historical figures are rarely as simple as their public images.

Further Reading

• Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician.
• Kathryn Tempest, Cicero: Politics and Persuasion in Ancient Rome.
• Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: A Portrait.
• Thomas N. Mitchell, Cicero: The Ascending Years and Cicero the Senior Statesman.
• Gesine Manuwald, Cicero: Philippics 3–9, for scholarly study of his campaign against Antony.