Today, The Grandma has been doing one of her favourite hobbies -reading in Latin and translate it to Catalan. She has chosen her favourite author, Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and philosopher, who was killed on a day like today in 43 BC.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC-7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.
His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.
His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century.
Cicero 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, distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher.
Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. It was during his consulship that the second Catilinarian conspiracy attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces, and Cicero suppressed the revolt by summarily and controversially executing five conspirators.
During the chaotic middle period of the 1st century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government.
Following Caesar's death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. 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 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.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture.
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 the Roman Republic.
More information: History
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometres 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 Cicero's mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of significant Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Cicero's brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife.
Cicero wanted to pursue a public career in politics, along the steps of the Cursus honorum. In 90-88 BC, he served both Pompeius Strabo and Lucius Cornelius Sulla as they campaigned in the Social War, though he had no taste for military life, being an intellectual first and foremost.
Cicero started his career as a lawyer around 83–81 BC. The first extant speech is a private case from 81 BC, the pro Quinctio, delivered when Cicero was aged 26, though he refers throughout to previous defences he had already undertaken.
His
first office was as one of the twenty annual quaestors, a training post
for serious public administration in a diversity of areas, but with a
traditional emphasis on administration and rigorous accounting of public
monies under the guidance of a senior magistrate or provincial
commander. Cicero served as quaestor in western Sicily in 75 BC and
demonstrated honesty and integrity in his dealings with the inhabitants.
Cicero, seizing the opportunity offered by optimate fear of reform, was elected consul for the year 63 BC; he was elected with the support of every unit of the centuriate assembly, rival members of the post-Sullan establishment, and the leaders of municipalities throughout post–Social War Italy. His co-consul for the year, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, played a minor role.
He began his consular year by opposing a land bill proposed by a plebeian tribune, which would have appointed commissioners with semi-permanent authority over land reform.
In 60 BC, Julius Caesar invited Cicero to be the fourth member of his existing partnership with Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus, an assembly that would eventually be called the First Triumvirate.
Cicero refused the invitation because he suspected it would undermine the Republic.
Cicero and Antony now became the two leading men in Rome: Cicero as spokesman for the Senate; Antony as consul, leader of the Caesarian faction, and unofficial executor of Caesar's public will. Relations between the two were never friendly, and worsened after Cicero claimed that Antony was taking liberties in interpreting Caesar's wishes and intentions.
Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, even though Octavian argued for two days against Cicero being added to the list.
Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted among the proscribed. He was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public, and many people refused to report that they had seen him.
He was caught on 7 December 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter heading to the seaside, where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia. When his killers -Herennius (a Centurion) and Popilius (a Tribune)- arrived, Cicero's own slaves said they had not seen him, but he was given away by Philologus, a freedman of his brother Quintus Cicero.
As reported by Seneca the Elder, according to the historian Aufidius Bassus, Cicero's last words are said to have been:
Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem.
I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.
Download Extracts Narrative and Descriptive by Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero has been traditionally considered the master of Latin prose, with Quintilian declaring that Cicero was not the name of a man, but of eloquence itself.
The English words Ciceronian (meaning eloquent) and cicerone (meaning local guide) derive from his name. He is credited with transforming Latin from a modest, utilitarian language into a versatile literary medium capable of expressing abstract and complicated thoughts with clarity.
Cicero was declared a righteous pagan by the Early Church, and therefore many of his works were deemed worthy of preservation. The Bogomils considered him a rare exception to a pagan saint.
Subsequent Roman and medieval Christian writers quoted liberally from his works De Re Publica (On the Commonwealth) and De Legibus (On the Laws), and much of his work has been recreated from these surviving fragments.
Cicero also articulated an early, abstract conceptualization of rights, based on ancient law and custom. Of Cicero's books, six on rhetoric have survived, as well as parts of seven on philosophy. Of his speeches, 88 were recorded, but only 52 survive.
Download The Republic by Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
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