Of the outstanding personalities of the last phase of the Roman republic, Cato Uticensis has left behind the image of a principled conservative fighting for liberty, Caesar that of an autocrat imposing order on society and the body politic. Somewhere between those two is Cicero, trying to sit on two seats, as the poet Laberius joked. The orator was not prepared to risk everything in all-out opposition to Caesar or to enroll as an unconditional follower of the dictator. As one occupying a middle position, Cicero was ill-suited to become a symbol for a course of political action. The modern world therefore entertains not one but several versions of Cicero. There is Cicero the embodiment of lawyerly eloquence invoked, for instance, by Johnny Cochrane in wrapping up his defense of O. J. Simpson. There is the Cicero enshrined in high school Latin textbooks, the defender of the state against forces of sedition and conspiracy. And there is Cicero the fountainhead of the humanist ideal of the liberally educated person looking to literature for models of morally fine behavior.

Though his family background was a disadvantage, Cicero compensated through his education and hard work, building his own support network with successful advocacy in court. He ascended the cursus honorum to consulship in the minimum time. As consul, he quashed Catiline’s conspiracy. But his efforts to memorialize his consulship had mixed success. His position was brittle, as was shown when P. Clodius forced Cicero into exile for executing captured Catilinarians without a trial. Recalled the following year, Cicero became subservient to the power brokers. After service as a provincial governor and in Pompey’s army in the civil war, he made his peace with Caesar and slipped into the role of courtier while expressing resentment in correspondence. After Caesar’s assassination, Cicero thought he could revive the republic when D. Brutus and Octavian took up arms against Antony. But the unstable coalition soon fell apart, and Cicero’s death entailed.

Bowing to pressure from the coalition, Cicero defended A. Gabinius, consul when Cicero went into exile, on charges of extortion, as well as C. Rabirius on trial for recovery of tainted money. On January 18, 52, when Milo and Clodius encountered by chance at Bovillae, eleven miles southeast of Rome, a fight erupted, and Clodius was killed. Milo was convicted in spite of Cicero’s defense. The published speech is brilliant but flawed because it must ignore too many of the facts. Around this time, Cicero was elected to the prestigious board of augurs. Cicero’s mature reflections on the Roman state and the statesman’s role are contained in the dialogue On the Commonwealth. A companion dialogue, On Laws, was begun at this time but never published. On the Commonwealth appeared just before Cicero’s departure for Cilicia, where he was required to serve as governor under a new law enacted by Pompey.

Instead of governing a province in the year following his consulship, Cicero continued his activities in the courts. A number of Catiline’s followers were prosecuted this year, and Cicero, with his expert knowledge of the conspiracy, was often called upon to testify against them. He also, however, chose to defend one of the accused, P. Sulla. In his defense of Sulla, Cicero takes the opportunity to soften his image and reflect on his position more generally. For his successful defense, Sulla advanced Cicero a loan of two million sesterces, which enabled the orator to purchase a fine mansion on the fashionable Palatine Hill, confirming his place in the elite. This year, he also defended one of his old tutors, the poet Archias, who was accused of illegally usurping Roman citizenship. Cicero anticipated that Archias would compose an encomiastic poem on the events of his consulship, but he never did.

Cicero and his brother, Quintus, went on a two-year study tour of Greece and Asia Minor, visiting major centers such as Athens and Delphi and seeking training from the leading teachers of rhetoric and philosophy. This enabled Cicero to rebuild his oratorical technique so that he could speak with less exertion. Upon his return, Cicero resumed his career at the bar and then stood for the office of quaestor. Duly elected, he was allotted a post in Sicily, where he served for a year. When he returned to Rome, he took his seat in the senate and continued pleading in the courts, mostly for unimportant clients, and publishing his speeches.

A rumbling that was heard in Latium led the senate to consult the haruspices, Etruscan seers, for their opinion. They declared this a portent, listing the offended deities and possible dangers. Meanwhile, P. Clodius claimed that the destruction of the temple of Libertas had prompted the divine anger. In the senate, Cicero countered Clodius’ claims and put his own “spin” on the diviners’ opinion. Another senate speech deals with the allocation of consular provinces, with Cicero arguing that Caesar should retain his Gallic provinces. Continuing his forensic work, Cicero defended Cornelius Balbus, Cn. Plancius, and M. Aemilius Scaurus. In the senate, he exchanged invectives with L. Calpurnius Piso. He also wrote On the Orator and drew closer to Caesar, receiving a sizable loan of 800,000 sesterces. Toward the end of 54, he penned a letter to his political patron Lentulus Spinther defending his changed policies.

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.

Cicero was elected consul together with Antonius, whose cooperation he won by conceding him the lucrative province of Macedonia, which had been allotted to him for the year after his consulate. Cicero began his term of office by delivering a series of speeches in opposition to an agrarian reform bill proposed by the plebeian tribune Servilius Rullus. He also defended C. Rabirius in court on a charge of treason. In general, he followed optimate policies, opposing restoration of political rights to the children of those who had been proscribed by Sulla. In addition, he quieted an angry mob at the games of Apollo and enabled the noble L. Lucullus to celebrate a triumph for his command against Mithridates. He also presided over the election for next year’s consuls, in which Catiline, once again, was defeated.

Toward the end of 62, P. Clodius, dressed as a woman, invaded the annual rites of the Bona Dea, which were for women only. A board of priests and Vestal Virgins declared that the ceremony had been polluted, and the senate voted that Clodius should be put on trial. Cicero had been visited by Clodius the day before and so could destroy his alibi. Clodius attacked Cicero in public meetings, whipping up sentiment against him for the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators without a trial. Cicero counterattacked in his own speeches and testified against Clodius at trial. A feud resulted, with Clodius seeking and obtaining transfer to plebeian status and election as plebeian tribune for 58. Meanwhile, Cicero was trying to shore up his position with the publication of his speeches as consul, as well as an epic poem about his consulship and an account of it in Greek.

Cicero was born in Arpinum, a town some sixty miles southeast of Rome, on January 3, 106 bce. His family was well-to-do (of equestrian status) but previously involved only in local politics. His brother, Quintus, was one to four years younger. Their father took care to see that they received the best education available, first in grammar and rhetoric, later in philosophy, supplemented by observing the activities of a leading jurist. Cicero was a keen student and began writing, with poetry, a book on rhetoric, and a translated book on philosophy to his credit by the mid-80s. At the end of the decade, he began pleading in the courts and publishing his speeches. He won Terentia, an upper-class woman, as his wife and started a household.