Cicero :: essays research papers

Marcus Tullius Cicero, is remembered in advanced times as the greatest Roman orator and innovator of what became cognize as Ciceronian rhetoric. He was the son of a wealthy family of Arpinium. He make his source appearance in the courts in 81. His brilliant defense, in 80 or early 79, of Sextus Roscius against a fabricated charge of parricide established his paper at the bar. After his election as consul for 63 his chief annoyance was to discover and make globe the seditious intentions of his rival Catiline, who, defeated in 64, appeared again at the consular elections in 63 (over which Cicero presided, wearing equip beneath his toga). Catiline lost and planned to carry out armed uprisings in Italy and arson in Rome. Evidence incriminating the conspirators was secured and they were executed on Ciceros responsibility. Cicero, announcing their conclusion to the crowd with the single word vixerunt ("they are dead"), received a tremendous ovation from all classes. He was hailed by Catulus as pater patriae, " set about of his country". This was the climax of his career. At the end of 60, Cicero declined Caesars invitation to join the political adherence of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, and also Caesars offer in 59 of a place on his staff in Gaul. When Publius Clodius, whom Cicero had antagonized, became tribune in 58, Cicero was in danger, and in bunt fled Rome. In 57, thanks to the activity of Pompey and particularly the tribune Milo, he was recalled on August 4. Cicero set down at Brundisium on that day and was acclaimed all along his route to Rome, where he arrived a month later. Pompey renewed his compact with Caesar and Crassus at Luca in April 56. Cicero thence agreed, under pressure from Pompey, to align himself with the three in politics. He was make to accept a number of distasteful defenses, and he abandoned public life. In 51 he was persuaded to govern the province of Cilicia, in southeastern Asia Minor, for a year. By the tim e Cicero returned to Rome, Pompey and Caesar were struggling for complete power. He disapproved of Caesars one-man rule yet he realized that he would have been one of the first victims of Caesars enemies, had they triumphed. Cicero was not involved in the conspiracy to kill Caesar on March 15, 44, and was not present in the Senate when he was murdered.