Cicero – a hero to some, but a villain to others.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, commonly known as Cicero, was an influential orator, philosopher, consul and lawyer. His life, coinciding with the decline of the Roman Republic and the formation of the Roman Empire under Julius Caesar was so influential, that he has been remembered, and revered, on the same level as other famous statesmen of the Greco-Roman era. Although Cicero was born into a rather wealthy family of the equestrian order, the lower of the two aristocratic classes in Ancient Rome, nobody from his family tree had ever served in the Senate, let alone become a consul. Cicero himself
(whose name derives from the Latin word cicer , meaning “chickpea”) became consul in 63BC, thus achieving what nobody in his family line had achieved, and was classified as a novus homo meaning “new man”, a title given to the men who were the first to achieve the position of consul in their respective families. Before Cicero became consul, Cicero had to complete the cursus honorum , essentially a course lasting up to several decades, during which he would serve in many public offices before having the opportunity at being elected consul. Cicero served in the military at the age of just 16 during the Social War, but having little taste for military affairs, he turned his eyes towards a more studious profession, namely a career as a lawyer, where he made a name for himself on the Roman political scene as a brilliant but ruthless prosecutor. Cicero’s first major case caused great political controversy in Ancient Rome, as he acquitted Sextus Roscius, a man charged with patricide, whom also posed an indirect challenge to the dictator of the time, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Following this unlikely victory, Cicero, by then a quaestor , (the first rank of many on the political ladder to consulship) achieved another victory, this time a prosecution, of Gaius Verres, a Sicilian who had plundered Sicily as well as certain parts of Greece. The speech, which has been recovered in its entirety, was so extensive and damning, that only a fragment of it was actually spoken in court, as Verres fled to Marseille before the second day of the court session had begun. Such flamboyant performances in court gained him a place amongst the political elite in Rome, whither he returned after Verres’ flight. Cicero had an eventful year as consul in 63BC. During his time in office, he was forced to impose martial law, Senatus Consultum Ultimum , after Lucius Sergius Catilina tried to overthrow the Republic in an attempted coup d’état. The speeches (known as the Catiline Orations) given by Cicero, condemning Catiline, were of such great impact that a famous Roman historian, Gaius Sallustius Crispius, chose extracts from them in his work Bellum Catilinae , “The War of Catiline”. For his efforts in successfully thwarting the coup, Cicero was awarded the Pater Patriae – “Father of the Fatherland”. Despite this recognition, Cicero lived in exile for several years due to the fear of being prosecuted for sentencing Roman citizens to death without trial during the time of martial law. Following his return from exile in 60BC, Cicero was invited to join the “First Triumvirate”, a group spearheaded by Julius Caesar, with the intention of overthrowing the Republic. Cicero, however, had just returned to Rome and was still being accepted rather grudgingly by the Senate, and did not want to give the impression that he wished to undermine the position of
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