In 58 the hostility of P. Clodius effected Cicero’s banishment, on the ground that he had put the Catilinarian conspirators to death without trial. Retiring at first to Vibo, in Lucania, he moved successively to Sicily, Thurii, Tarentum, Brundisium, Dyrrhachium, Thessalonica, and Athens. At Dyrrhachium he resided from November 58 to August 57, when, after several unsuccessful efforts by his friends, a law was passed for his recall.
In 53 he was chosen augur in succession to the younger Crassus (Plut. Cic. 36), and two years later was appointed proconsul of Cilicia, under the new arrangement providing for an interval of five years between office in Rome and the government of a province. There he carried on a petty warfare with the mountaineers, and captured the fort of Pindenissus (a success for which the Senate decreed a supplicatio), occupying the winter with judicial business in the towns. His absence from the centre of affairs, though it lasted only a year, was most distasteful to him; cf. ad Att. v. 11, 1, ‘Ne provincia nobis prorogetur, per fortunas! dum ades, quidquid provideri potest, provide: non dici potest quam flagrem desiderio urbis, quam vix harum rerum insulsitatem feram.’ For his just dealing with the provincials, cf. ad Att. v. 21, 5.
In November, 50, Cicero returned to Italy, to find a crisis imminent, and finally cast in his lot with the senatorial party. He left Rome with the consuls and the leading optimates, and for some time had charge of the district of Capua (ad Fam. xvi. 11, 3, ‘nos Capuam sumpsimus’). On 7th June, B.C. 49, he embarked to join Pompey in Epirus, though far from enthusiastic for his leadership (ad Fam. vii. 3, 2, ‘mei facti poenituit... Nihil boni praeter causam.’) The chiefs of the party looked upon him with suspicion, and he was not present at the battle of Pharsalus. After Pompey’s overthrow he returned to Brundisium, and in 47 was allowed by Caesar to return to Rome (ad Fam. xiv. 23). His mode of life at this time he thus describes (ad Fam. ix. 20, 3), ‘Ubi salutatio defluxit, litteris me involvo, aut scribo aut lego. Veniunt etiam qui me audiant quasi doctum hominem, quia paullo sum quam ipsi doctior.’
In 46 he divorced his wife Terentia, of whose neglect he complains, ad Fam. iv. 14, 3; and married Publilia, with whom he parted in the following year. In 45 he lost his only daughter Tullia, who had been thrice married; he tried to drown his grief by close application to literary work, moving about from villa to villa, and it is to this period that most of his philosophical works belong. In 44 he appeared once more in Rome, and took a prominent part in the proceedings which followed upon Caesar’s death. April to July he spent at his various villas (ad Att. xiv. passim), and then decided to visit Athens, where his son (born B.C. 65) was studying. On 1st August he reached Syracuse, but hearing at Leucopetra that his presence was required at Rome, he gave up his plan of travel and returned to the city. With the series of Philippics against Antony (44-3) Cicero’s career closes. In the proscription agreed on by the triumvirs he was marked out as one of the chief victims. A fragment of Livy, quoted by Seneca, Suas. 6, 17, states that he fled first to Tusculum, then to Formiae, and took ship from Caieta, but returned to land, exclaiming, ‘Moriar in patria saepe servata.’ On his way from the shore to his villa he was slain by a party of Antony’s soldiers, and his head was carried to Rome and exposed on the Rostra. The date of the assassination was 7th December, B.C. 43 (Tiro quoted by Tac. Dial. 17).
(2) WORKS.
(a) Speeches.
1. The earliest extant speech is that Pro Quinctio, delivered B.C. 81 (Gell. xv. 28, 3) in an action before a iudex for restitution of property. This was not Cicero’s first appearance as an advocate: § 4, ‘quod mihi consuevit in ceteris causis esse adiumento.’
2. Next year (cf. Gell. ibid.) Cicero made his first speech in a criminal case, defending Sex. Roscius of Ameria on a charge of parricide. By so doing he incurred the risk of Sulla’s enmity, but at the same time established his own position. De Off. ii. 51, ‘contra L. Sullae dominantis opes pro S. Roscio Amerino’; Brut. 312, ‘prima causa publica, pro Sex. Roscio dicta, tantum commendationis habuit, ut non ulla esset quae non digna nostro patrocinio videretur.’ In later years he criticized the ‘iuvenilis redundantia’ of this speech (Orat. 108).
3. The speech Pro Roscio Comoedo, usually assigned to B.C. 76, was a defence of the famous actor in a civil case.
4. The year 70 B.C. is memorable for the group of speeches (‘accusationis vii. libri,’ Orat. 103), against Verres, accused of repetundae by the Sicilians, at whose urgent entreaty Cicero undertook the prosecution. The preliminary question, who should conduct the prosecution, is argued in the Divinatio in Caecilium. Q. Caecilius Niger, Verres’ quaestor, claimed the right to prosecute, but this manoeuvre failed. Of the six speeches in Verrem only one, the Actio Prima, was delivered: Cicero, seeing that the other side were anxious to carry the trial over into the next year, confined himself to this short introductory speech (on 5th August, cf. § 31), after which he called his witnesses. Their evidence was so damaging that Hortensius[25] threw up the defence, and Verres was sentenced to banishment and his property confiscated. The five Books of the Actio Secunda were published afterwards in order that the facts might be thoroughly known.