The third marriage of Cicero’s beloved daughter Tullia ended in divorce in 46, though she was pregnant with Dolabella’s child. She gave birth in February 45 but died of complications soon afterward (and the child also died). Cicero was devastated. Trying to write his way out of depression, he wrote a Consolation, which included, at the end, the vow to create a shrine for his daughter as a divinity. Cicero set about to find a property suitable to contain the shrine, but the project was still pending at his death. At the same time, he resumed philosophical writing, first on epistemology, on which he produced two dialogues, Catulus and Lucullus, later changed to four Academic Books with new characters and dedication to Varro. Then he went on to ethics, with On Ends, consisting of three dialogues in five books and setting out the views of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics.

Caesar, a patrician war hero already from his youth, followed the model of the Scipiones in the combination of a patrician pedigree with a "popular" political stance and the pursuit of military glory. Despite his family connection, he was no "Marian" in the strong sense of reviving and refighting the battles of the 80s. By the time of his entry in 63 on the highest stage of politics, he was known as a popularis of a particular sort: one exceptionally skilled at cultivating the support of the Roman People but not a demagogue or even a significant player in the classic popularis proposals for land redistribution, debt relief, or the like. Caesar’s reputation for "largesse" does not seem to have exceeded the norms of his day, or perhaps even what many of his contemporaries considered to be mere necessity. The best evidence suggests that his objective at this time was, as Sallust writes, to obtain "a great command, an army, a new war in which his excellence could shine forth." But that path lay through the Senate. Like many aristocrats Caesar did not shy away from a feud with a powerful figure (Q. Catulus), but that did not put him at odds with the aristocracy as a whole.