The Political career of Marcus Tullius Cicero began in 75 BC when Marcus Tullius Cicero was elected to political office, and ended in 43 BC, when he was assassinated upon the orders of Mark Antony. Cicero, a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist, reached the height of Roman power, the Consulship, and played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. A contemporary of Julius Caesar, Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
Cicero is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary, distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, Cicero probably thought his political career his most important achievement. Today, he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st-century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters to Atticus contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period.
During the chaotic latter half of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate. His indecision may be attributed to his sensitive and impressionable personality; he was prone to overreaction in the face of political and private change. "Would that he had been able to endure prosperity with greater self-control and adversity with more fortitude!" wrote C. Asinius Pollio, a contemporary Roman statesman and historian.
Read more about Political Career Of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Early Career, Entry Into Politics, Consul, Exile and Return, Civil War, Opposition To Mark Antony, Death, Legacy, See Also, Further Reading
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“What is impossible by the nature of things is not confirmed by any law.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“The best interpreter of the law is custom.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes.”
—Greil Marcus (b. 1945)
“Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“What is impossible by the nature of things is not confirmed by any law.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)