Marcus Tullius Cicero - On Life and Death

Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 bc ) was the son of a Roman equestrian from Arpinum, some 70 miles south-east of Rome. He rose to prominence through his skill in speaking and his exceptional success in the criminal courts, where he usually spoke for the defence. Although from a family that had never produced a Roman senator, he secured election to all the major political offices at the earliest age permitted by law. His consulship fell in a year (63) in which a dangerous insurrection occurred, the Catilinarian conspiracy; by his persuasive oratory and his controversial execution of five confessed conspirators, he prevented the conspiracy from breaking out at Rome and was hailed as the father of his country. Exiled for the executions by his enemy Clodius in 58 but recalled the following year, he lost his political independence as a result of the domination of politics by the military dynasts Pompey and Caesar. His governorship of Cilicia (5150) was exemplary in its honesty and fairness. Always a firm Republican, he reluctantly supported Pompey in the civil war, but was pardoned by Caesar. He was not let into the plot against Caesar. After Caesars assassination (44), Cicero supported the young Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) and led the senate in its operations against Mark Antony. When Octavian and Antony formed the Second Triumvirate with Lepidus in 43, Cicero was their most prominent victim; he met his end with great courage.

Ciceros letters, together with his speeches and his political and philosophical works, form the chief source for the history of the late Republic. His philosophical treatises, written in periods when he was deprived of his political freedom, are the main vehicle by which Hellenistic philosophy was transmitted to the West. His prose style raised the Latin language to an elegance and beauty that was never surpassed.

John Davie is former Head of Classics at St Pauls School, London and now a Lecturer in Classics at Trinity College, Oxford. He is the author of a number of articles on classical subjects and has translated the complete surviving plays of Euripides for Penguin Classics (four volumes). For Oxford Worlds Classics he has translated Senecas Dialogues and Essays and Horaces Satires and Epistles.

Miriam T. Griffin is Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College at the University of Oxford. After her retirement, she edited for five years the Classical Quarterly. She is the author of a number of books on classical subjects including ed. with E. M. Atkins, Cicero on Duties for Cambridge University Press and Seneca on Society: A Guide to De beneficiis for Oxford University Press.