Arpinum, 106 av. J. - C. - Formies, 43 av. J. - C.
BiographyPolitician, speaker and Roman writer. In Latin Marcus Tullius Cicero. Born from a honourable but obscure equestrian family, Marcus Tullius Cicero receives in Rome a very complete education near the Latin and Greek Masters. He studies philosophy with Philon (Neoplatonic), Phèdre (epicurean), and later with stoical Diodote.
After having been useful during the “social war” (91 av. J. - C.), it is pointed out with the bar by its brilliant defense of Sextus Roscius against one freed from Sylla, then the Almighty. It is only after the death of the latter that Cicéron, to the return of a voyage in Athens and in Asia, during which it improved near the philosophers and of the rhetors, will really enter the public life. In 79 (it is 29 years old), it marries Terentia, which brings to him a dowry of 120 ' 000 drachmas. From this marriage will be born two children: Tullia and Marcus. Cicéron takes place with the Forum then, beside the large speakers, and starts the career of the honors (course honorum).
In 75, Cicéron is named questeur in Sicily; it is during this magistrature that in the name of the Sicilians he pronounced against the propretor Verrès the famous pleading of the Glass casings, four speeches which, behind the personality of the defendant, blamed excesses of the governors, who drew from scandalous profits of their provinces, and the political preeminence of the senatorial big families. Municipal official then praetor in 66, Cicéron enters the career under the protection of Pumped and thus places as regards preserving aristocracy. Once consul (63), it thwarts the conspiracy of the Catilina conspirator, who prepared a popular takeover by force against the senatorial Republic. The strength of Catilinaires persuades the senate to pronounce the state of siege, and Cicéron makes carry out the accomplices of the conspirator in their prison, action perfectly illegal.
When César, consul in 59, form with Crassus and Pompée the first triumvirate, the party of moderate is put in minority and Cicéron is seen continued by the powerful orator of the people, Clodius, for the execution of the conspirators. Preceding the sentence of exile, it leaves Rome, while the confiscation of his properties is ordered. Recalled into 57, it returns in possession of its goods, at the cost of its alignment on the triumvirs. Withdrawing political life somewhat, it writes several theoretical works then (Of oratore, Of republica). In 51, it leaves, in the capacity as proconsul, to control Cilicie. With its return, the rupture of César-Pumped alliance plunges Rome in the civil war. Cicéron hesitates a long time before following Pompée, then, after the defeat of Pumped in Pharsale, it requires the forgiveness of César, which grants it to him.
With its political vexations are added private misfortunes: it loses his Tullia daughter and divorce of with Terentia. Resigned to the dictatorship of César, it finds a consolation in the retirement and philosophy. With the death of César, it cannot hide its joy and tries to return in the foreground. But the ambitions of Octave and Antoine allow him only one effort despaired to save the Republic. He pronounces his fourteen Philippics against Antoine, who becomes his mortal enemy. Also, when Octave approaches this one and forms with him and Lépide the second triumvirate, Cicéron does not have any more but to die. Outlaw, it is cut the throat of in Formies on on December 7th, 43. Its head and its hands were exposed on the platform with the harangues.
The politician
Cicéron, resulting from a family hitherto unknown, was gay a novus (a new man); it thus had some difficulties of being made admit by the Roman aristocracy. Nevertheless, it is it which supported its career and, during its consulate, one of its first aid was to make push back a land reform which would have distributed the grounds of the State to the poor plebs. In addition, he pled, at the time of the business Catilina, the reconciliation of the knights for the formation of a party of the center which would fight against corruption and would defend the institutions against the threatening dictatorship. But its calls to the reconciliation of the classes remained vain. If, when it had the choice of them, Cicéron were in favor of the senatorial mode, its attachment with Pompée and the report of the forces in Rome of the triumvirs made him accept the idea of an authoritative evolution of the power: in Of republica, it wishes that a guard, a prince, comes to ensure the good performance of the senatorial mode. It is thus not without ulterior motive that Cicéron joined in César, whose popular bases always rejected it: its brutal death was for him the ultimate occasion to try a return to republican Rome, but the force of the plebs and the ambition of its leaders were from now on too large.
In its political treaties, Cicéron is made the continuator of the Platonic republic, with nevertheless a more pragmatic vision. Its Of legibus makes rest the laws written of the city on a natural right; this concern of attaching the policy and the legal one to a philosophical base will be worth to him to be one of the favorite authors of the Age of Enlightenment.
The philosopher
With three occasions at least Cicéron was tempted to devote itself entirely to philosophy. Its life of politician, his legal formation especially made some to him retain the moral and practical aspects. Eclectic reader, Cicéron shows in his works a great admiration for the Greek thinkers (Platonic, epicureans, stoical), of which he discusses the systems. But it is in margin of these philosophies that its own reflection develops: he awaits an ethics which answers the difficulties of the life, the adversity and old age. Thus after Pharsale and the death of Tullia, its Tusculanes and Of senectute show it more and more near to the peaceful resignation of the stoical ones.
The speaker
One agrees to grant to Cicéron a very first row in the legal and political eloquence. It leaves great pleadings (Glass casings, Pro Milone, Pro Murena), which are, in fact, of the works of cabinet, written and worked over again after having been marked. Between the néo-attics with the sober style and pure, and the Asian ones with freer and whimsical turnings, it is attached to the school of Rhodos, which it had the occasion to practice a long time with its Molon Master. Its great political discourses (Catilinaires, Philippics) show a great art of the composition, related to an ease in the handling of the irony and the invective which was worth to him to be rented by its contemporaries and who makes of him the exemplary author for the study of Latin.