Cicero :: essays research papers

Marcus Tullius Cicero, is remembered in modern times as the greatest Roman orator and innovator of what became known as Ciceronian rhetoric. He was the son of a wealthy family of Arpinium. He made his first appearance in the courts 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. After his election as consul for 63 his chief concern was to discover and make public the seditious intentions of his rival 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. Evidence incriminating the conspirators was secured and 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. He was hailed by Catulus as pater patriae, "father of his country". This was the climax of his career. At the end of 60, Cicero declined Caesar's invitation to join the political alliance of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, and also Caesar's offer in 59 of a place on his staff in Gaul. When Publius Clodius, whom Cicero had antagonized, became tribune in 58, Cicero was in danger, and in March fled Rome. In 57, thanks to the activity of Pompey and particularly the tribune Milo, he was recalled on August 4. Cicero landed at Brundisium on that day and was acclaimed all along his route to Rome, where he arrived a month later. Pompey 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. He was obliged to accept a number of distasteful defenses, and he abandoned public life. In 51 he was persuaded to govern the province of Cilicia, in south Asia Minor, for a year. By the time Cicero returned to Rome, Pompey and Caesar were struggling for complete power. He disapproved of Caesar's dictatorship; yet he realized that he would have been one of the first victims of Caesar's enemies, had they triumphed. Cicero was not involved in the conspiracy to kill Caesar on March 15, 44, and was not present in the Senate when he was murdered.