Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 B.C.), a Roman statesman, prose writer, and orator. His prose style, characterized by dignity, grace, and ease of expression, was never surpassed by any Latin writer and has served as a model for the Latin language through the centuries. Cicero's style was imitated by great writers of English prose such as Samuel Johnson and Edward Gibbon. During 40 years as lawyer and politician, Cicero delivered many orations, of which 57 survive. The most famous are 4 speeches that opposed Catiline and 14 orations against Mark Antony. Cicero also left several works on the theory and practice of oratory. He was hot-headed and vain, but was patriotic, honest, and unselfish.
Cicero was born in Arpinum, near Rome. He went to school in Rome and at age 17 served in the army during the Social War. He later studied law in Rome and became a brilliant courtroom lawyer. In 75 B.C., he became quaestor (treasurer) of Sicily, an office that gave him a seat in the Roman Senate. In 66 he became a praetor (judge). In 64, in a bitter contest with Catiline, he won election as consul. (The consuls, of which there were two, had general charge of the Roman state.)
During his year as consul, Cicero performed the first of the two great political actions of his career. Catiline, embittered by a second failure to win election as consul, plotted a revolution. After Cicero exposed his conspiracy in four orations before the Senate, Catiline left Rome to gather an army. Forces sent by the Senate killed Catiline in battle. On Cicero's orders, some of Catiline's fellow plotters were arrested in Rome and put to death. This action was a direct violation of the Roman constitution, which provided that no citizen could be put to death without being given the right of appeal to the assembly of citizens.
Cicero was first thanked, but was later attacked for violating the constitution. In 58 the Senate passed a law banishing him from Rome. A year later Cicero was back in Rome after friends had persuaded the Senate to pass a law for his recall. During the next few years Cicero practiced law. He was made proconsul (governor) of Cilicia in 51, but returned to Rome after a year's service.
From 55 to 45 Cicero wrote most of his important literary and philosophical works. They include On Oratory, On the Republic (modeled to some extent on Plato's Republic), On Laws, On Duties, On Ends, and Brutus (a history of Roman oratory). Most of his philosophical works are restatements of Greek ideas.
When Caesar was assassinated in 44, Cicero was pleased because he thought the republic could be restored. He plunged into the second great political action of his life—bold public opposition to Antony, the dead Caesar's best friend. In late 44 and early 43 he delivered his 14 orations, known as “Philippics,” against Antony, the man who had tried to make Caesar king. Cicero hoped to restore republican rule, and for a time his prospects were bright. But then Octavian (later called Augustus), Antony, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate, and his hopes were dashed.
With Octavian's reluctant consent, Antony had Cicero condemned to death in 43 B.C. Cicero fled from Rome but was found at his country villa by hired killers.
