CICERO, the name of two families of ancient Rome. It may perhaps be derived from cicer (pulse), in which case it would be analogous to such names as Lentulus, Tubero, Piso. Of one family, of the plebeian Claudian gens, only a single member, Gaius Claudius Cicero, tribune in 454 B.C., is known. The other family was a branch of the Tullii, settled from an ancient period at Arpinum. This family, four of whose members are noticed specially below, did not achieve more than municipal eminence until the time of M. Tullius Cicero, the great orator.
I. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Roman orator and politician, was born at Arpinum on the 3rd of January 106 B.C. His mother, Helvia, is said to have been of good family. His father was by some said to have been descended from Attius Tullius, the Volscian host of Coriolanus, while spiteful persons declared him to have been a fuller; in any case he was a Roman knight with property at Arpinum and a house in Rome. His health was weak, and he generally lived at Arpinum, where he devoted himself to literary pursuits. Cicero spent his boyhood partly in his native town and partly at Rome. The poet Archias, he says, first inspired him with the love of literature. He was much impressed by the teaching of Phaedrus, the Epicurean, at a period before he assumed the toga virilis; he studied dialectic under Diodotus the Stoic, and in 88 B.C. attended the lectures of Philo, the head of the Academic school, whose devoted pupil he became. He studied rhetoric under Molo (Molon) of Rhodes, and law under the guidance of Q. Mucius Scaevola, the augur and jurisconsult. After the death of the augur, he transferred himself to the care of Q. Mucius Scaevola, the pontifex maximus, a still more famous jurisconsult, nephew of the augur. His literary education at this period consisted largely of verse-writing and making translations from Greek authors. We hear of an early poem named Pontius Glaucus the subject of which is uncertain, and of translations of Xenophon’s Oeconomica and the Phenomena of Aratus. Considerable fragments of the latter work are still extant. To this period also belongs his de Inventione rhetorica, of which he afterwards spoke lightly (de Orat. i. 5), but which enjoyed a great vogue in the middle ages. Cicero also, according to Roman practice, received military training. At the age of seventeen he served in the social war successively under Pompeius Strabo and Sulla (89 B.C.). In the war between Marius and Sulla his sympathies were with Sulla, but he did not take up arms (Sext. Rosc. 136, 142).
His forensic life begins in 81 B.C., at the age of twenty-five. A speech delivered in this year, pro Quinctio, is still extant; it is concerned with a technical point of law and has little literary merit. In the following year he made his celebrated defence of Sextus Roscius on a charge of parricide. He subsequently defended a woman of Arretium, whose freedom was impugned on the ground that Sulla had confiscated the territory of that town. Cicero then left Rome on account of his health, and travelled for two years in the East. He studied philosophy at Athens under various teachers, notably Antiochus of Ascalon, founder of the Old Academy, a combination of Stoicism, Platonism and Peripateticism. In Asia he attended the courses of Xenocles, Dionysius and Menippus, and in Rhodes those of Posidonius, the famous Stoic. In Rhodes also he studied rhetoric once more under Molo, to whom he ascribes a decisive influence upon the development of his literary style. He had previously affected the florid, or Asiatic, style of oratory then current in Rome. The chief faults of this were excess of ornament, antithesis, alliteration and assonance, monotony of rhythm, and the insertion of words purely for rhythmical effect. Molo, he says, rebuked his youthful extravagance and he came back “a changed man.”[1]
He returned to Rome in 77 B.C., and appears to have married at this time Terentia, a rich woman with a domineering temper, to whom many of his subsequent embarrassments were due.[2] He engaged at once in forensic and political life. He was quaestor in 75, and was sent to Lilybaeum to supervise the corn supply. His connexion with Sicily led him to come forward in 70 B.C., when curule-aedile elect, to prosecute Gaius Verres, who had oppressed the island for three years. Cicero seldom prosecuted, but it was the custom at Rome for a rising politician to win his spurs by attacking a notable offender (pro Caelio, 73). In the following year he defended Marcus (or Manius) Fonteius on a charge of extortion in Gaul, using various arguments which might equally well have been advanced on behalf of Verres himself.
In 68 B.C. his letters begin, from which (and especially those to T. Pomponius Atticus, his “second self”) we obtain wholly unique knowledge of Roman life and history. In 66 B.C. he was praetor, and was called upon to hear cases of extortion. In the same year he spoke on behalf of the proposal of Gaius Manilius to transfer the command against Mithradates from Lucullus to Pompey (de Lege Manilia), and delivered his clever but disingenuous defence of Aulus Cluentius (pro Cluentio). At this time he was a prospective candidate for the consulship, and was obliged by the hostility of the nobles towards “new men” to look for help wherever it was to be found. In 65 B.C. he even thought of defending Catiline on a charge of extortion, and delivered two brilliant speeches on behalf of Gaius Cornelius, tribune in 67 B.C., a leader of the democratic party. In 64 B.C. he lost his father and his son Marcus was born. The optimates finally decided to support him for the consulship in order to keep out Catiline, and he eagerly embraced the “good cause,” his affection for which from this time onward never varied, though his actions were not always consistent.
The public career of Cicero henceforth is largely covered by the general article on [Rome]: History, II. “The Republic,” ad fin. The year of his consulship (63) was one of amazing activity, both administrative and oratorical. Besides the three speeches against Publius Rullus and the four against Catiline, he delivered a number of others, among which that on behalf of Gaius Rabirius is especially notable. The charge was that Rabirius (q.v.) had killed Saturninus in 100 B.C., and by bringing it the democrats challenged the right of the senate to declare a man a public enemy. Cicero, therefore, was fully aware of the danger which would threaten himself from his execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. He trusted, however, to receive the support of the nobles. In this he was disappointed. They never forgot that he was a “new man,” and were jealous of the great house upon the Palatine which he acquired at this time. Caesar had made every possible effort to conciliate Cicero,[3] but, when all overtures failed, allowed Publius Clodius to attack him. Cicero found himself deserted, and on the advice of Cato went into exile to avoid bloodshed. He left Rome at the end of March 58, and arrived on the 23rd of May at Thessalonica, where he remained in the deepest dejection until the end of November, when he went to Dyrrhachium (Durazzo) awaiting his recall. He left for Italy on the 4th of August 57, and on arriving at Brundisium (Brindisi) found that he had been recalled by a law passed by the comitia on the very day of his departure. On his arrival at Rome he was received with enthusiasm by all classes, but did not find the nobles at all eager to give him compensation for the loss of his house and villas, which had been destroyed by Clodius. He was soon encouraged by the growing coolness between Pompey and Caesar to attack the acts of Caesar during his consulship, and after his successful defence of Publius Sestius on the 10th of March he proposed on the 5th of April that the senate should on the 15th of May discuss Caesar’s distribution of the Campanian land. This brought about the conference of Luca (Lucca). Cicero was again deserted by his supporters and threatened with fresh exile. He was forced to publish a “recantation,” probably the speech de Provinciis Consularibus, and in a private letter says frankly, “I know that I have been a regular ass.” His conduct for the next three years teems with inconsistencies which we may deplore but cannot pass over. He was obliged to defend in 54 Publius Vatinius, whom he had fiercely attacked during the trial of Sestius; also Aulus Gabinius, one of the consuls to whom his exile was due; and Rabirius Postumus, an agent of Gabinius. On the other hand, he made a violent speech in the senate in 55 against Lucius Piso, the colleague of Gabinius in 58. We know from his letters that he accepted financial aid from Caesar, but that he repaid the loan before the outbreak of the civil war.[4] There is no doubt that he was easily deceived. He was always an optimist, and thought that he was bringing good influence to bear upon Caesar as afterwards upon Octavian. His actions, however, when Caesar’s projects became manifest, sufficiently vindicated his honesty. During these unhappy years he took refuge in literature. The de Oratore was written in 55 B.C., the de Republica in 54, and the de Legibus at any rate begun in 52. The latter year is famous for the murder of Clodius by T. Annius Milo on the Appian Way (on the 18th of January), which brought about the appointment of Pompey as sole consul and the passing of the special laws dealing with rioting and bribery. Cicero took an active part in the trials which followed, both as a defender of Milo and his adherents and as a prosecutor of the opposite faction. At the close of the year, greatly to his annoyance, he was sent to govern Cilicia under the provisions of Pompey’s law (see [Pompey] and [Rome]: History). His reluctance to leave Rome, already shown by his refusal to take a province, after his praetorship and consulship, was increased by the inclination of his daughter Tullia, then a widow, to marry again.[5] During his absence she married the profligate spendthrift, P. Cornelius Dolabella.
The province of Cilicia was a large one. It included, in addition to Cilicia proper, Isauria, Lycaonia, Pisidia, Pamphylia and Cyprus, as well as a protectorate over the client kingdoms of Cappadocia and Galatia. There was also danger of a Parthian inroad. Cicero’s legate was his brother Quintius Cicero (below), an experienced soldier who had gained great distinction under Caesar in Gaul. The fears of Parthian invasion were not realized, but Cicero, after suppressing a revolt in Cappadocia, undertook military operations against the hill-tribes of the Amanus and captured the town of Pindenissus after a siege of forty-six days. A supplicatio in his honour was voted by the senate. The early months of 50 were occupied by the administration of justice, chiefly at Laodicea, and by various attempts to alleviate the distress in the province caused by the exactions of his predecessor, Appius Claudius. He had to withstand pressure from influential persons (e.g. M. Brutus, who had business interests in his province), and refused to provide his friends with wild beasts for their games in Rome. Leaving his province on the earliest opportunity, he reached Brundisium on the 24th of November, and found civil war inevitable. He went to Rome on the 4th of January, but did not enter the city, since he aspired to a triumph for his successes.[6] After the outbreak of war he was placed by Pompey in charge of the Campanian coast. After much irresolution he refused Caesar’s invitations and resolved to join Pompey’s forces in Greece. He was shocked by the ferocious language of his party, and himself gave offence by his bitter jests (Plut. Cic. 38). Through illness he was not present at the battle of Pharsalus, but afterwards was offered the command by Cato the Younger at Corcyra, and was threatened with death by the young Cn. Pompeius when he refused to accept it. Thinking it useless to continue the struggle, he sailed to Brundisium, where he remained until the 12th of August 47, when, after receiving a kind letter from Caesar, he went to Rome. Under Caesar’s dictatorship Cicero abstained from politics. His voice was raised on three occasions only: once in the senate in 46 to praise Caesar’s clemency to M. Claudius Marcellus (pro Marcello), to plead in the same year before Caesar for Quintus Ligarius, and in 45 on behalf of Deiotarus, tetrarch of Galatia, also before Caesar. He suffered greatly from family troubles at this period. In 46, his patience giving way, he divorced Terentia, and married his young and wealthy ward Publilia. Then came the greatest grief of his life, the death of Tullia, his beloved daughter. He shortly afterwards divorced Publilia, who had been jealous of Tullia’s influence and proved unsympathetic. To solace his troubles he devoted himself wholly to literature. To this period belong several famous rhetorical and philosophical works, the Brutus, Orator, Partitiones Oratoriae, Paradoxa, Academica, de Finibus, Tusculan Disputations, together with other works now lost, such as his Laus Catonis, Consolatio and Hortensius.
His repose was broken by Caesar’s murder on the 15th of March 44, to which he was not a party. On the 17th of March he delivered a speech in the senate urging a general amnesty like that declared in Athens after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants. When it became apparent that the conspirators had only removed the despot and left the despotism, he again devoted himself to philosophy, and in an incredibly short space of time produced the de Nature Deorum, de Divinatione, de Fato, Cato maior (or de Senectute), Laelius (or de Amicitia), and began his treatise de Officiis. To this period also belongs his lost work de Gloria. He then projected a journey to Greece in order to see his son Marcus, then studying at Athens, of whose behaviour he heard unfavourable reports. He reached Syracuse on the 1st of August, having during the voyage written from memory a translation of Aristotle’s Topica. He was driven back by unfavourable winds to Leucopetra, and then, hearing better news, returned to Rome on the 21st of August. He was bitterly attacked by Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) in the senate on the 1st of September for not being present there, and on the next day replied in his First Philippic. He then left Rome and devoted himself to the completion of the de Officiis, and to the composition of his famous Second Philippic, which was never delivered, but was circulated, at first privately, after Antony’s departure from Rome to Cisalpine Gaul on the 28th of November.
Cicero returned to Rome on the 9th of December, and from that time forward led the republican party in the senate. His policy, stated briefly, was to make use of Octavian, whose name was all-powerful with the veterans, until new legions had been raised which would follow the republican commanders (Phil. xi. 39). Cicero pledged his credit for the loyalty of Octavian, who styled him “father” and affected to take his advice on all occasions (Epp. ad Brut. i. 17. 5). Cicero, an incurable optimist in politics, may have convinced himself of Octavian’s sincerity. The breach, however, was bound to come, and the saying, maliciously attributed to Cicero, that Octavian was an “excellent youth who must be praised and—sent to another place,” neatly expresses the popular view of the situation.[7] Cicero was sharply criticized by M. Junius Brutus for truckling to Octavian while showing irreconcilable enmity to Antony and Lepidus (ad Brut. i. 16. 4, i. 15. 9); but Brutus was safe in his province, and it is difficult to see what other course was open to a politician in Rome. Whether Cicero was right or wrong, none can question his amazing energy. He delivered his long series of Philippics at Rome, and kept up a correspondence with the various provincial governors and commanders, all short-sighted and selfish, and several of them half-hearted, endeavouring to keep each man in his place and to elaborate a common plan of operations. He was naturally included in the list of the proscribed, though it is said that Octavian fought long on his behalf, and was slain near Formiae on the 7th of December 43. He had a ship near in which he had previously attempted to fly, but being cast back by unfavourable winds he returned to his villa, saying, “Let me die in the country which I have often saved.” His head and hands were sent to Rome and nailed to the rostra, after Fulvia, wife of Antony and widow of Clodius, had thrust a hairpin through the tongue.
Works.—The literary works of Cicero may be classed as (1) rhetorical; (2) oratorical; (3) philosophical and political; (4) epistolary.