Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) was born on January 3, 106 BCE in Arpinum, a mountain town located about 100 km southeast of Rome.

He was one of the largest, if not the greatest Roman speaker. Promoter of Greek philosophy and politician. Optimization supporter. He came from an old equestrian family – Tullius.

Origin and family

The inhabitants of Arpinum had Roman citizenship from 188 BCE, and the Tullius family participated in the management of their hometown for several generations. With his family home in Arpinum, Cicero was emotionally connected for the rest of his life and often mentioned it in his writings. Mark’s father belonged to the state of equites, while his mother came from a Roman senatorial family. Cicero had a brother of about five years younger Quintus.

At all costs, his father wanted Cicero and his brother to be eminent politicians who would be characterized by extraordinary abilities. Marcus’ father thought that the key to children’s careers would be to provide them with proper education. He was wealthy enough to buy a house in Rome and live there with his two sons when Marcus was about ten years old. In the capital, the family’s friends included prominent politicians and speakers at the time – Marcus Antonius Orator and Lucius Licinius Crassus. Youths from significant families, writers and Greek rhetors visited their homes. In such an environment, under the care of Mark Antony and Crassus, eleven-year-old Cicero began to study Greek, philosophy and rhetoric. His first philosophy teachers were the Epicureans Fajdros and Zenon.

Political career

After coming of age, at the age of 16, he began his practice as a lawyer with the well-known Roman lawyer Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur, an expert in civil law, who did not step down. He attended court hearings where he listened to famous lawyers. In Augur’s house, Marcus’s friendship with Titus Pomponius, three years older, was born, who later received the nickname Attica. This friendship was to last until Cicero’s death. Cicero also watched and listened to the speeches at the Forum Romanum, which also had a positive effect on its development. Cicero also began learning public life (tirocinium fori), which, according to tradition, lasted a year. In time, however, he decided to join the army, knowing that this was the best way to continue his political career, which, however, stopped his studies for some time.

When the war of Rome with allies broke out, as a 17-year-old he enlisted in the army for a year. He was first assigned to an internship to the staff of the consul Gnaeus Pompey Strabon, then fought as an officer under the command of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He completed military service before the outbreak of civil war between Marius and Sulla in 88 BCE, during which many of his teachers and friends were killed. The aversion to terror and bloody domestic struggles that he had lived all his life made him look with disgust at what was happening in Rome at the time. In this conflict, young Cicero took a neutral position, although after Sulla’s victory, he was suspected of favouring his countryman Marius. During his service, he met the later prominent commander Pompey the Great.

After completing military service in 88 BCE, Cicero was able to focus on science again. Eighteen-year-old Cicero was admitted by another distinguished lawyer – Quintus Mucjus Scewola Pontifeks. In addition, he began to attend lectures by the well-known head of the Platonic Academy, Philo of Larysa. He was taught pronunciation by Molon of Rhodes. During the political fighting, Cicero undertook to write poetry. His youthful achievements during this period include such items as “Halcyon”, “Pontius Glaukus”, “O Nile” and “Thalia masta”. However, these songs have not survived. Fragments of the poem “Marius” and translations from Greek “Phenomena” by Arata have survived to our times in short quotes. However, the translation of Xenophon’s “Household” has not survived. Another well-known work from his youthful life was the textbook of rhetoric – Libri rhetorici (“Rhetorical Books”). He managed to write only two of the planned five books.

During the Sulla dictatorship in 82 BCE, Cicero began his career as a court lawyer. He managed to defend Publius Quinquius (first recorded speech). His eloquence and ability to speak perfectly allowed him to gain relative publicity, and eventually became one of Rome’s best court defenders. The very issue of Quincius, rather complicated, did not give a special opportunity to shine with rhetorical talent. Cicero opposed the simplicity and modesty of his client with the wealth and power of influential people associated with the dictator.

Another winning case was the defence of Sextus Russian, where he was falsely accused of patricide. Sextus was accused of patricide by Sulla’s close associates who wanted to take over the property of the murdered. Cicero proved the innocence of the accused, which no other lawyer undertook, showing great courage towards the dictator. It was Cicero’s first criminal case.

Against Sulla once again, in 79 BCE during a trial of a woman who was deprived of Roman citizenship. Cicero bravely attacked the dictator and firmly stated that once granted citizenship could not be taken against anyone’s will. When at the end of 79 family and friends began to fear for Cicero’s life, he decided to realize his dreams of seeing Greece and went to Athens. There, he listened to the lectures of Antioch of Askalon, the founder of the Fifth Academy, who was inclined towards stoicism. He visited monuments and places famous for the deeds of great Greeks.

After six months, he crossed to the Roman province of Asia, which he wandered practising in pronunciation under the direction of the most outstanding local speakers. In Rhodes, he listened to Stoic Peseidonis and learned from the rhetor Molon known from Rome.

In 79 BCE he married Terentia, who for thirty years of their marriage was a real support for him. She survived Cicero, was married three times and died after living for a hundred and three years. Their first daughter, Tullia, was born to them, a few years later son Marcus

In 77 BCE, after Sulla’s death and the restoration of the rights of the republic, thirty-year-old Cicero returned to Rome. Known for his trials against Sulla’s power, he returned to work in the courts and defended himself in subsequent high-profile cases. Not one of the speeches he made during this period survived, but his popularity had to increase, because in 76 BCE he was elected by centurial committees one of the twenty quaestors. When drawing the province, he was quaestor in Lilybeum, Sicily. He served in Western Sicily for a year, and his tasks included enforcement with the help of tax tenants, the so-called publications, tithes from agricultural produce, additional tithes payable and taxes. There, he also dealt with defence in courts, he also sought and renewed the grave of Archimedes in Syracuse.

In 74 BCE, Cicero returned to Rome and, as a former quaestor, sat in the senate. He supported the restoration of power to the people’s tribunes, as he saw it as a return to the traditional rights of the republic. Of the many court cases in which he appeared during this period, only three of them were preserved – the defence of the freedman Skamander accused of attempting to poison the equite; the trial of a Tullius against a rich neighbour Fabius, who, with the help of slaves, attacked Tullius’s villa and beat many of his people; defending Stenius, who wrongly condemned to Sicily, fled to Rome.

In 69 BCE, Cicero was aedile. As an aedile, he had temples, public buildings, streets and market places under his care. He was dealing with provisioning of the population and organization of public games. He was not a poor man, but he was far from wealthy, so he edited to the best of his abilities – he received, among others, financial help from grateful Sicilians.

Cicero’s financial situation improved