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Death and Legacy

Cicero

Ten orations of Cicero (by Cicero, Marcus Tullius)
Cicero's life and letters. The life by M... (by Middleton, Conyers)
Cicero against Catiline : First Oration (by Cicero, Marcus Tullius)
Philippics (by Cicero, Marcus Tullius)
Cicero (by Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Bunyan's Country : Studies in the Bedfor... (by Albert John Foster)
The Sources of Plutarch's Life of Cicero (by Gudemann, Alfred)

Marcus Tillius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher, is said to be one of the greatest orators and largest influence on the European literature. Through his numerous translations, letters, and orations, he introduced the Romans to the breadth of Greek philosophy and made a permanent mark on Latin by introducing new neologisms, rhetoric, and clarity of logic.

From his youthful writing of De Inventione, in which scholars credited the first use of the term “liberal arts,” to De Oratore published in his latter years, Cicero drew up the foundations of a well-rounded speaker, one who well-schooled in a breadth of general knowledge and delivers speeches with dignity and restraint. Furthermore, he outlined the qualities of good rhetoric as pathos, the appeal to emotion; ethos, the appeal to authority; and, logos, the appeal to reason.

Cicero’s public use of his oratory powers led to his demise. In the power struggle ensuing after Julius Caesar's death, Cicero launched a series of condemning speeches against Mark Antony, collected in Philippics. In retribution for the speeches and in a new alliance of the second triumvirate with Octavian and Lepidus, Antony ordered Cicero killed, severing his head and right hand to display in the Roman forum. Cicero was assassinated December 7th, 43 BC.

Cicero's undaunted legacy as a writer and orator was built on a well balanced philosophy of the stoicism of Diodotus, the epicureanism of Phaedrus, and the skepticism of Philo of Larissa. Although he is mostly viewed as a stoic, his breadth of education allowed him to adapt to adapt his philosophies to the situation at hand.

While he didn't create a new school of philosophy, his command and inventiveness with Latin provided the foundation for new thought. Julius Caesar said of him, "it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman empire." Many historians attribute the beginning of the Renaissance to Plutarch's discovery of Cicero's letters in 1345. Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński claimed, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity.” Many of America's founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, name Cicero's letters as a key teachings which informed the Declaration of Independence. Cicero's name later came to mean "eloquent."

For more on Cicero, read Cicero’s Old Age, Grasp and Dissent: Cicero and Epicurean Philosophy by Maso Stefano, Cicero Select Letters by Albert Watson, Cicero by William Lucas Collins, and Ten Orations of Cicero.

By Thad Higa