Cicero | Biography, Philosophy, Writings, Books, Death, & Facts (2024)

Cicero (born 106 bce, Arpinum, Latium [now Arpino, Italy]—died December 7, 43 bce, Formiae, Latium [now Formia]) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer who vainly tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic. His writings include books of rhetoric, orations, philosophical and political treatises, and letters. He is remembered in modern times as the greatest Roman orator and the innovator of what became known as Ciceronian rhetoric.

Early life and career

Cicero was the son of a wealthy family of Arpinum. Admirably educated in Rome and in Greece, he did military service in 89 under Pompeius Strabo (the father of the statesman and general Pompey) and made his first appearance in the courts defending Publius Quinctius in 81. His brilliant defense, in 80 or early 79, of Sextus Roscius against a fabricated charge of parricide established his reputation at the bar, and he started his public career as quaestor (an office of financial administration) in western Sicily in 75.

As praetor, a judicial officer of great power at this time, in 66 he made his first important political speech, when, against Quintus Lutatius Catulus and leading Optimates (the conservative element in the Roman Senate), he spoke in favour of conferring on Pompey command of the campaign against Mithradates VI, king of Pontus (in northeastern Anatolia). His relationship with Pompey, whose hatred of Marcus Licinius Crassus he shared, was to be the focal point of his career in politics. His election as consul for 63 was achieved through Optimates who feared the revolutionary ideas of his rival, Catiline.

In the first of his consular speeches, he opposed the agrarian bill of Servilius Rullus, in the interest of the absent Pompey; but his chief concern was to discover and make public the seditious intentions of Catiline, who, defeated in 64, appeared again at the consular elections in 63 (over which Cicero presided, wearing armour beneath his toga). Catiline lost and planned to carry out armed uprisings in Italy and arson in Rome. Cicero had difficulty in persuading the Senate of the danger, but the “last decree” (Senatus consultum ultimum), something like a proclamation of martial law, was passed on October 22. On November 8, after escaping an attempt on his life, Cicero delivered the first speech against Catiline in the Senate, and Catiline left Rome that night. Evidence incriminating the conspirators was secured and, after a senatorial debate in which Cato the Younger spoke for execution and Julius Caesar against, they were executed on Cicero’s responsibility. Cicero, announcing their death to the crowd with the single word vixerunt (“they are dead”), received a tremendous ovation from all classes, which inspired his subsequent appeal in politics to concordia ordinum, “concord between the classes.” He was hailed by Catulus as “father of his country.” This was the climax of his career.

Alliance with the First Triumvirate

At the end of 60, Cicero declined Caesar’s invitation to join the political alliance of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, the so-called First Triumvirate, which he considered unconstitutional, and also Caesar’s offer in 59 of a place on his staff in Gaul. When Publius Clodius, whom Cicero had antagonized by speaking and giving evidence against him when he was tried for profanity early in 61, became tribune in 58, Cicero was in danger, and in March, disappointed by Pompey’s refusal to help him, he fled Rome. On the following day Clodius carried a bill forbidding the execution of a Roman citizen without trial. Clodius then carried through a second law, of doubtful legality, declaring Cicero an exile. Cicero went first to Thessalonica, in Macedonia, and then to Illyricum. In 57, thanks to the activity of Pompey and particularly the tribune Titus Annius Milo, he was recalled on August 4. Cicero landed at Brundisium (Brindisi) on that day and was acclaimed all along his route to Rome, where he arrived a month later.

In winter 57–56 Cicero attempted unsuccessfully to estrange Pompey from Caesar. Pompey disregarded Cicero’s advice and renewed his compact with Caesar and Crassus at Luca in April 56. Cicero then agreed, under pressure from Pompey, to align himself with the three in politics, and he committed himself in writing to this effect (the “palinode”). The speech De provinciis consularibus (On the Consular Provinces) marked his new alliance. He was obliged to accept a number of distasteful defenses, and he abandoned public life. In the next few years he completed the De oratore (55; On the Orator) and De republica (52; On the Republic) and began the De legibus (52; On Laws). In 52 he was delighted when Milo killed Clodius but failed disastrously in his defense of Milo (later written for publication, the Pro Milone, or For Milo).

In 51 he was persuaded to leave Rome to govern the province of Cilicia, in southern Anatolia, for a year. The province had been expecting a Parthian invasion, but it never materialized, although Cicero did suppress some brigands on Mt. Amanus. The Senate granted a supplicatio (a period of public thanksgiving), although Cicero had hoped for a triumph, a processional return through the city, on his return to Rome. All admitted that he governed Cilicia with integrity.

By the time Cicero returned to Rome, Pompey and Caesar were struggling against each other for complete power. He was on the outskirts of Rome when Caesar crossed the Rubicon and invaded Italy in January 49. Cicero met Pompey outside Rome on January 17 and accepted a commission to supervise recruiting in Campania. He did not leave Italy with Pompey on March 17, however. His indecision was not discreditable, though his criticism of Pompey’s strategy was inexpert. In an interview with Caesar on March 28, Cicero showed great courage in stating his own terms—his intention of proposing in the Senate that Caesar should not pursue the war against Pompey any further—though they were terms that Caesar could not possibly accept. Cicero disapproved of Caesar’s dictatorship; yet he realized that in the succession of battles (which continued until 45) he would have been one of the first victims of Caesar’s enemies, had they triumphed. This was his second period of intensive literary production, works of this period including the Brutus, Paradoxa Stoicorum (Paradoxes of the Stoics), and Orator (The Orator) in 46; De finibus (On the Supreme Good) in 45; and Tusculanae disputationes (Tusculan Disputations), De natura deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), and De officiis (On Duties), finished after Caesar’s murder, in 44.