Cicero, the Orator

As a young man, Cicero (106-43 BC) studied under the best minds in Rome. The youth of the aristocratic nobility in Rome were commonly taught by Greeks, and this was no exemption for Cicero, who was a brilliant student. He rose swiftly and was renowned for the brilliance of his mind and his dazzling oratorial skills.

Cicero was never troubled by false modesty, but the Roman people generally reflected his high opinion of himself. Although an outsider to the patrician-dominated political system, he eventually won election to the highest offices of state at the earliest permitted age. In 63BC, he quickly established himself as a national hero. When he discovered a plot to overthrow the republic, he swayed the senate to decree the death penalty to the conspirators.

Cicero was the greatest orator Rome ever produced. In a few sentences, he could move juries and crowds from laughter to tears, anger or pity. His renowned declaration ‘civis romanus sum’ (‘I am a Roman citizen’) came to encapsulate the defence of a citizen’s rights against the overbearing power of the state.

A century after Cicero’s death, Plutarch eulogised him as the republic’s last true friend. Idealistic, yet consistent, he was convinced that virtue in public life would restore the republic to health, in a time of civil unrest. Cicero, taking his lead from the renowned Athenian orator Demosthenes, Cicero delivered the philippics, a series of four orations against the tyranny of Caesar and against his faithful henchman Mark Antony. It was magnificent, although ultimately a forlorn cry for political freedom.

Having been taught by the famous Greek philosophers of the day, Cicero’s knowledge was as broad as it was deep and was unmatched in Rome. Cicero introduced to Rome Greek ideas that formed the basis of Western thought for the next two thousand years. He translated Greek works into Latin and endeavoured to Hellenise the Roman world, as he believed Greek ideas of democracy and virtue were far superior to Roman values that were mainly subservient to the Roman state.

He wrote to a friend that ‘my writings are transcripts…I simply supply words, and I have plenty of those.’ It is a humble statement for a man who made such an extraordinary contribution to Western philosophy; he translated Greek works, invented Latin words to explain untranslatable Greek words and concepts, and elucidated the main philosophical schools. His vast discourse amounted to an encyclopaedia of Greek thought.

In the end, Cicero’s inability to hold his tongue proved his undoing, when Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and the future emperor ‘Augustus’ learned of Cicero’s remark about him- ‘the young man should be given praise, distinctions and then disposed of’- it spelled doom for Cicero. Octavian, Mark Antony and their staunch allies declared Cicero an enemy of the state.

Pursued by soldiers as he half-heartedly fled Italy, Cicero was brutally murdered, his head hacked off, and the hand with which he had written the offending speeches displayed in the Roman forum. ‘There is nothing proper about what you are doing soldier’, Cicero reportedly said to his assassin, ‘but do try to kill me properly’. The rhetorical skill of the statesman was undimmed to the last.

Ardent defender of the Roman Republic, principled and unbending in life, in death Cicero was dignified and fearless!