Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and Academic Skeptic. He played an important role in the politics of the late Roman Republic and upheld republican principles during the crisis that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His influence on the Latin language was immense: he wrote more than three-quarters of surviving Latin literature from the period of his adult life.

About Cicero in brief

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and Academic Skeptic. He played an important role in the politics of the late Roman Republic and upheld republican principles during the crisis that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His influence on the Latin language was immense: he wrote more than three-quarters of surviving Latin literature from the period of his adult life. He introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary with neologisms such as evidentia, humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BC after having been intercepted during an attempted flight from the Italian peninsula. His severed hands and head were then, as a final revenge of Mark Antony, displayed on the Rostra. The peak of Cicero’s authority and prestige came during the 18th-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu and Edmund Burke was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of theRoman Republic. His cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer.

Plutarch explains that the name was originally given to one of Cicer’s ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpeA. Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome. He belonged to the tribus Cornelia. His father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life and studied extensively to compensate. Although little is known about his mother, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. His brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife. However, it is more likely that Cicero’s ancestors prospered through the cultivation and sale of chickpeas. The famous family names Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the names of lentils, lentils and peas. Cicero refused to change deprecatory name when he entered politics, but refused, saying that he would make Cicero more glorious than Sculus and Catulus. During this period in Roman history,. Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating them into a larger philosophical audience for a larger audience. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to traditional republican government.

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