RomanHistorical106–43 BCE
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero
Orator · Advocate · Statesman · Philosopher
Cicero’s speeches, letters, and philosophical works expose the ambitions, ideals, friendships, and violence of the late Roman Republic in unusual detail.
Known for
- The Catilinarian speeches
- Courtroom oratory
- Political letters
- Latin prose style
- On Duties
- On the Republic
- Against Catiline
- Letters to Atticus
His corpus is essential evidence for Republican politics and law, but also a powerful act of self-presentation. Later readers used his Latin as a model and his political career as a case study in principle, compromise, and survival.
“Ciceronian” still describes an expansive rhetorical style. His arguments about civic duty, tyranny, and political violence recur in speeches, classrooms, historical fiction, and debates over the collapse of republics.
Read from the evidence