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Authors: Simon Sebag Montefiore
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His ability to layer clause upon clause while maintaining his argumentâs clear line became the model for formal Latin.
A century after Ciceroâs death, Plutarch eulogized him as the republicâs last true friend. In a time of civil unrest Cicero harked back to a golden age of political decorum. Idealistic yet consistent, he was convinced that virtue in public life would restore the republic to health. Refusing to be involved in political intrigue that might undermine the system, he rejected Caesarâs offer to join him in the so-called First Triumvirate of 60 BC . Cicero played no part in Caesarâs assassination in 44 BC , but he seized on the end of his dictatorship to vigorously re-enter politics. Over the following months, taking his lead from the renowned Athenian orator Demosthenes, Cicero delivered the
Philippics
, a series of fourteen coruscating orations against the tyranny of Caesar and against his faithful henchman Mark Antony. It was a magnificent, if ultimately forlorn, cry for political freedom.
After Caesar as dictator had encouraged the staunch republican to refrain from politics, Cicero turned to philosophy to keep himself amused. As a youth he had been tutored by the famous Greek philosophers of the day. His knowledge, as broad as it was deep, was unmatched in Rome. Ciceroâs treatise on the value of philosophy,
Hortensius
, was practically required reading in late antiquity. St. Augustine credited it as instrumental in his conversion. The early Catholic Church deemed Cicero a ârighteous pagan.â
Cicero introduced to Rome the Greek ideas that formed the basis of Western thought for the next 2000 years. His works have sometimes been criticized as derivative, but he laid little claim to originality in his treatises. âThey are transcripts,â he wrote to a friend. âI simply supply words and Iâve plenty of those.â It is a remarkably humble statement for a man who made such an extraordinary contribution to Western philosophy: he translated Greek works, invented Latin words to explain hitherto untranslatable concepts, and elucidated the main philosophical schools. His vast discourse amounted to an encyclopedia of Greek thought.
In the end, Ciceroâs inability to hold his tongue proved his undoing. When Octavian, Caesarâs adopted son and the future Augustus, learned of Ciceroâs remark about himââthe young man should be given praise, distinctions, and then disposed ofââit spelled doom for the orator. Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate shortly afterward, and Cicero was declared an enemy of the state. Pursued by soldiers as he halfheartedly fled Italy, Cicero was brutally murdered, his head hacked off, and the hand with which he had written the offending speeches displayed in the Roman forum.
âThere is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier,â Cicero reportedly said to his assassin, âbut do try to kill me properly.â
CAESAR
100â44 BC
I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome
.
Gaius Julius Caesar, possessed of all the talents of war, politics and literature, was born of a noble but no longer rich family. Ruthless, cold and irrepressibly energetic, (yet an epileptic), he climbed the
cursus honorum
of Roman republican politics with astonishing speed, a rise made possible by the brutal civil war between Marius and Sulla. At age nineteen and keeping his distance from Sulla, he first distinguished himself in the wars of the east (where he was accused of a gay affair with the king of Bithynia). Caesar was captured by pirates, who ransomed him. Typically, once he was freed, he put together a flotilla and returned to hunt them down, killing all of them. Caesar was a keen practitioner of the adventurous school of politics and a serial seducer of married womenâa sexual adventurer, nicknamed the bald adulterer who slept with the wives of his rivals Crassus
A century after Ciceroâs death, Plutarch eulogized him as the republicâs last true friend. In a time of civil unrest Cicero harked back to a golden age of political decorum. Idealistic yet consistent, he was convinced that virtue in public life would restore the republic to health. Refusing to be involved in political intrigue that might undermine the system, he rejected Caesarâs offer to join him in the so-called First Triumvirate of 60 BC . Cicero played no part in Caesarâs assassination in 44 BC , but he seized on the end of his dictatorship to vigorously re-enter politics. Over the following months, taking his lead from the renowned Athenian orator Demosthenes, Cicero delivered the
Philippics
, a series of fourteen coruscating orations against the tyranny of Caesar and against his faithful henchman Mark Antony. It was a magnificent, if ultimately forlorn, cry for political freedom.
After Caesar as dictator had encouraged the staunch republican to refrain from politics, Cicero turned to philosophy to keep himself amused. As a youth he had been tutored by the famous Greek philosophers of the day. His knowledge, as broad as it was deep, was unmatched in Rome. Ciceroâs treatise on the value of philosophy,
Hortensius
, was practically required reading in late antiquity. St. Augustine credited it as instrumental in his conversion. The early Catholic Church deemed Cicero a ârighteous pagan.â
Cicero introduced to Rome the Greek ideas that formed the basis of Western thought for the next 2000 years. His works have sometimes been criticized as derivative, but he laid little claim to originality in his treatises. âThey are transcripts,â he wrote to a friend. âI simply supply words and Iâve plenty of those.â It is a remarkably humble statement for a man who made such an extraordinary contribution to Western philosophy: he translated Greek works, invented Latin words to explain hitherto untranslatable concepts, and elucidated the main philosophical schools. His vast discourse amounted to an encyclopedia of Greek thought.
In the end, Ciceroâs inability to hold his tongue proved his undoing. When Octavian, Caesarâs adopted son and the future Augustus, learned of Ciceroâs remark about himââthe young man should be given praise, distinctions, and then disposed ofââit spelled doom for the orator. Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate shortly afterward, and Cicero was declared an enemy of the state. Pursued by soldiers as he halfheartedly fled Italy, Cicero was brutally murdered, his head hacked off, and the hand with which he had written the offending speeches displayed in the Roman forum.
âThere is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier,â Cicero reportedly said to his assassin, âbut do try to kill me properly.â
CAESAR
100â44 BC
I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome
.
Gaius Julius Caesar, possessed of all the talents of war, politics and literature, was born of a noble but no longer rich family. Ruthless, cold and irrepressibly energetic, (yet an epileptic), he climbed the
cursus honorum
of Roman republican politics with astonishing speed, a rise made possible by the brutal civil war between Marius and Sulla. At age nineteen and keeping his distance from Sulla, he first distinguished himself in the wars of the east (where he was accused of a gay affair with the king of Bithynia). Caesar was captured by pirates, who ransomed him. Typically, once he was freed, he put together a flotilla and returned to hunt them down, killing all of them. Caesar was a keen practitioner of the adventurous school of politics and a serial seducer of married womenâa sexual adventurer, nicknamed the bald adulterer who slept with the wives of his rivals Crassus
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