Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt (PDF)

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “An excellent introduction to a critical period in the history of Rome. Cicero comes across much as he must have lived: reflective, charming and rather vain.”—The Wall Street Journal“All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”—John Adams He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday—when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another’s sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.Praise for Cicero“ [Everitt makes] his subject—brilliant, vain, principled, opportunistic and courageous—come to life after two millennia.”—The Washington Post“ Gripping . . . Everitt combines a classical education with practical expertise. . . . He writes fluidly.”—The New York Times“In the half-century before the assassination of Julius Caesar . . . Rome endured a series of crises, assassinations, factional bloodletting, civil wars and civil strife, including at one point government by gang war. This period, when republican government slid into dictatorship, is one of history’s most fascinating, and one learns a great deal about it in this excellent and very readable biography.”—The Plain Dealer“Riveting . . . a clear-eyed biography . . . Cicero’s times . . . offer vivid lessons about the viciousness that can pervade elected government.”—Chicago Tribune“Lively and dramatic . . . By the book’s end, he’s managed to put enough flesh on Cicero’s old bones that you care when the agents of his implacable enemy, Mark Antony, kill him.”—Los Angeles Times

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review ‘Just a note to say how much I enjoyed Anthony Everitt’s Cicero, which I will certainly be choosing as my Book of the Year. I found it the most wonderfully written and perfectly paced book I’ve read (or reviewed) in ages. The way Everitt carefully and comprehensively unfolded the drama brought back the excitement of ancient history superbly. Congratulations on spotting a real winner.”-Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon and Wellington and Salisbury “Anthony Everitt is a brilliant guide to the intricacies of Roman politics… Everitt has written a book which is unobtrusively crammed with fascinating information about Roman life and customs, splendidly clear and coherent in its narrative and altogether convincing in its portraiture.” -Sunday Independent (Dublin)”We know more about Cicero than about almost any other figure of antiquity. We know so much about him, thanks to the happy chance which has seen so much of his correspondence preserved, that it is possible to write the sort of biography of Cicero that one might write about someone from, say, the nineteenth century. Anthony Everitt has done just that, sympathetically and very well. This is an engrossing book, written lucidly for the general reader, and one that only a foolish expert would disdain.” -Allan Massie, Literary Review”Of all the arts, that of politics has advanced least since the days of Greece and Rome. This week’s new biography of Rome’s most famous politician by Anthony Everitt tries to answer the question, why?…Cicero mastered the essence of politics. He preached the difference between authority and power. He was an orator who wrote poetry, a politician who read history, ruthless yet able to articulate the demands of clemency, democracy and the rights of free men under law…If good government is rooted in history and history in biography, Cicero is the man of the hour.” -Simon Jenkins, The Times “In the course of Cicero’s long life, he made several powerful enemies, often through his own witty put-downs, and he was accused of everything from cowardice and self-importance to histrionics, homosexuality, and incest. But the great majority of his contemporaries – and of course posterity itself – were much kinder to Cicero, and this engrossing new biography by Anthony Everitt does a superb job of explaining why…Cicero’s political life forms the real backbone of this book…As an explicator, Everitt is admirably informative and free from breathlessness. He has a sophisticated conception of character, too, including a willingness – so crucial in biographers – to embrace contradictions.”-Independent on Sunday”Mr. Everitt introduces the man graciously to a new generation, and will endear him anew to all those who never grasped the sense, let alone the beauty, of that multi-clausal prose.” -The Economist”Everitt is an attentive biographer who continuously rehearses and refines his account of the motives of his subject…His achievement is to have replaced the austere classroom effigy with an altogether rounder, more awkward and human person.” -Financial Times From the Publisher “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.” —John AdamsHe squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday—when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another’s sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.“[Everitt makes] his subject—brilliant, vain, principled, opportunistic and courageous—come to life after two millennia.” —The Washington Post“Gripping . . . Everitt combines a classical education with practical expertise. . . . He writes fluidly.” —The New York Times From the Back Cover “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”–John Adams He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents’ sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator. Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus’ famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and Americanrevolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny. Anthony Everitt’s biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics–where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another’s sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories–about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on–make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste. Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome. On Cicero: “He taught us how to think.”–Voltaire “I tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man.” –Edward Gibbon “Who was Cicero: a great speaker or a demagogue?” –Fidel Castro “From the Hardcover edition. About the Author Anthony Everitt’s fascination with ancient Rome began when he studied classics in school and has persisted ever since. He read English literature at Cambridge University and served four years as secretary general of the Arts Council for Great Britain. A visiting professor of arts and cultural policy at Nottingham Trent University and City University, Everitt has written extensively on European culture and development, and has contributed to the Guardian and Financial Times since 1994. Cicero, his first biography, was chosen by both Allan Massie and Andrew Roberts as the best book of the year in the United Kingdom. Anthony Everitt lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans, and is working on a biography of Augustus. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1FAULT LINESThe Empire in Crisis: First Century BCTo understand Cicero¹s life, which spanned the first two thirds of the first century bc, it is necessary to picture the world in which he lived, and especially the nature of Roman politics.Rome in Cicero¹s day was a complex and sophisticated city, with up to a million inhabitants, and much of its pattern of life is recognizably familiar, even at a distance of two millennia. There were shopping malls and bars and a lively cultural scene with theater and sport. Poetry and literature thrived and new books were much talked about. Leading actors were household names. The affluent led a busy social round of dinner parties and gossip, and they owned country homes to which they could retreat from the pressures of urban living. Politics was conducted with a familiar blend of private affability and public invective. Speech was free. Everyone complained about the traffic.The little city-state, hardly more than a village when it was founded (according to tradition) in 753 bc, gradually annexed the numerous tribes and statelets in the Italian peninsula and Sicily. The Romans were tough, aggressive and, to reverse von Clausewitz, inclined to see politics as a continuation of war by other means. They came to dominate the western Mediterranean. First, they gained a small foothold in the Maghreb, the province of Africa which covered roughly the territory of modern Tunisia. From here the great city of Carthage ruled its empire, until it was twice defeated by Rome and later razed to the ground in the second century bc. Spain was another prize of these wars and was divided into two provinces, Near Spain and Far Spain. In what is now Provence, Rome established Transalpine Gaul (Gallia Transalpina), but the rest of France was an unconquered and mysterious mélange of jostling tribes. Northern Italy was not merged into the home nation but was administered as a separate province, Italian Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina).Then Rome invaded Greece and the kingdoms of Asia Minor, enfeebled inheritors of the conquests of Alexander the Great. In the first century bc, along the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean, now named with literal-minded accuracy ³our sea² (Mare Nostrum), Rome directly governed a chain of territories: Macedonia (which included Greece), Asia (in western Turkey), Cilicia (in southern Turkey) and Syria (broadly, today¹s Syria and Lebanon). Beyond them, client monarchies stood as buffers between Rome¹s possessions and the unpredictable Parthian Empire, which lay beyond the River Euphrates. Pharaohs still ruled Egypt, but their independence was precarious.This empire, the largest the western world had so far seen, was created more through inadvertence than design and presented Rome with a heavy and complicated administrative burden. This was partly because communications were slow and unreliable. Although a network of well-engineered roads was constructed, travel was limited to the speed of a horse. The rich would often travel by litter or coach, and so proceeded at walking pace or not much faster. Sailing ships before the age of the compass tended to hug the coast and seldom ventured beyond sight of land.There being no public postal service, letters (which were scratched on waxed tablets or written on pieces of papyrus and sealed) were sent at considerable cost by messengers. The state employed couriers, as did commercial enterprises, and the trick for a private correspondent was to persuade them, or friendly travelers going in the right direction, to take his or her post with them and deliver it.The greatest underlying problem facing the Republic, however, lay at home in its system of governance. Rome was a state without most of the institutions needed to run a state. There was no permanent civil service except for a handful of officials at the Treasury; when politicians took office or went to govern a province they had to bring in their own people to help them conduct business. The concept of a police force did not exist, which meant that the public spaces of the capital city were often hijacked by gangs of hooligans in the service of one interest or another. Soldiers in arms were absolutely forbidden to enter Rome, so all the authorities could do to enforce law and order was to hire their own ruffians.The Republic was governed by the rule of law but did not operate a public prosecution service, and elected politicians acted as judges. Both in civil and criminal cases it was left to private individuals to bring suits. Usually litigants delegated this task to professional advocates, who acted as private detectives, assembling evidence and witnesses, as well as speaking at trials. Officially these advocates were unpaid, but in practice they could expect to receive favors, gifts and legacies in return for their services.There was no penal system, and prisons were used for emergencies rather than for housing convicts. (Distinguished foreign captives and state hostages were exceptions and could be kept under lock and key or house arrest for years.) Penalties were usually exile or a fine and capital punishment was rare: no Roman citizen could be put to death without trial, although some argued that this was permissible during an official state of emergency.The Republic became enormously rich on the spoils of empire, so much so that from 167 bc Roman citizens in Italy no longer paid any personal taxes. However, banking was in its infancy, and there were no major commercial financial institutions. Moneylenders (silversmiths and goldsmiths) laid cash out at interest and it was even possible to hold private accounts with them; but most people felt it safer to borrow from and lend to their family and friends. Without a bureaucracy the government was not in a position to collect taxes, selling the right to do so to the highest bidder. Tax farmers and provincial governors often colluded to make exorbitant profits.All these things, in their various ways, were obstacles to effective administration. However, the constitution, which controlled the conduct of politics, was the Republic¹s greatest weakness.Rome was an evolutionary society, not a revolutionary one. Constitutional crises tended to lead not to the abolition of previous arrangements but to the accretion of new layers of governance. For two and a half centuries Rome was a monarchy that was very much under the thumb of neighboring Etruria (today¹s Tuscany). In 510 bc King Tarquin was expelled in circumstances of great bitterness; according to legend he had raped a leading Roman¹s daughter, Lucretia. Whatever really happened, the citizenry was determined that never again would any single man be allowed to obtain supreme power. This was the main principle that underpinned constitutional arrangements which, by Cicero¹s time, were of a baffling complexity.For generations the system worked well. It created a sense of community. To be a Roman citizen did not confer equality, but it did mean that one lived under the rule of law and felt a personal stake in the Republic¹s future. Rights, of course, were accompanied by duties and one of the secrets of Rome¹s strength was that even in moments of military catastrophe the state could call on all its citizens to come to its rescue. Another was pragmatism: for most of its history Rome¹s leaders showed a remarkable talent for imaginative improvisation when they met intractable problems. These were the qualities that assured the triumph of the Republic¹s legions and the creation of its empire.After the fall of the monarchy, royal authority was transferred to two Consuls who alternated in executive seniority month by month. They were elected by the people (that is, all male Roman citizens within reach of the capital city, where elections took place) and held office for one year only. There was a ladder of other annual posts (called the cursus honorum, the Honors Race) up which aspiring politicians had to climb before they became eligible for the top job, the Consulship. The most junior of these brought with it life membership of a committee called the Senate and led on to glittering privileges: in Cicero¹s words, ³rank, position, magnificence at home, reputation and influence abroad, the embroidered robe, the chair of state, the lictors¹ rods, armies, commands, provinces.² The number of Senators varied; at one point, in Cicero¹s youth, there were only 300, but half a century later Julius Caesar packed the Senate with his supporters, and the membership reached 900.On the first rung of the ladder were twenty Quaestors, who were responsible for the receipt of taxes and payments. The next stage for an aspiring young Roman was to become one of four Aediles, who handled‹at their own expense‹various civic matters in the capital: the upkeep of temples, buildings, markets and public games. Lucky for those with limited means or generosity, the Aedileship was optional, and it was possible to move directly to the Praetorship.The eight Praetors, like the two Consuls, stood above the other officeholders, for they held imperium‹that is to say, the temporary exercise of the old power of royal sovereignty. Imperium was symbolized by an official escort of attendants, called lictors, each of whom carried fasces, an ax and rods signifying the power of life and death. Praetors acted as judges in the courts or administered law in the provinces. Only after he had been a Praetor might a man stand for the Consulship.The constitution had a safety valve. In the event of a dire military or political emergency, a Dictator could be appointed on the nomination of the Consuls. He was given supreme authority and no one could call him to account for his actions. However, unlike modern dictators, his powers were strictly time-limited: he held office for a maximum of six months. Before Cicero¹s lifetime, the last Dictator had been Quintus Fabius Maximus in 217, whose delaying tactics had helped to drive the great Carthaginian general Hannibal out of Italy. The post then fell into disuse.Life after the high point of the Consulship could be something of a disappointment. Former Consuls and Praetors were appointed governors of provinces (they were called Proconsuls or Propraetors), where many of them used extortion to recoup the high cost, mostly incurred by bribing voters, of competing in the Honors Race‹and, indeed, of holding office, for the state paid no salaries to those placed in charge of it. After this point, for most of them, their active careers were to all intents and purposes over. They became elder statesmen and wielded influence rather than power through their contribution to debates in the Senate. The only political job open to them was the Censorship: every five years two former Consuls were appointed Censors, whose main task was to review the membership of the Senate and remove any thought to be unworthy. Circumstance or ambition allowed a few to win the Consulship again, but this was unusual.In theory the Senate was an advisory committee for the Consuls, but in practice, largely because it was permanent and officeholders were not, it became the Republic¹s ruling instrument. It usually met in the Senate House in the Forum (Curia Hostilia, named after its legendary founder king, Tullus Hostilius) but was also convened in temples and other public buildings, sometimes to ensure the Senators¹ safety. It gained important powers, especially over foreign affairs and money supply. The Senate could not pass laws; it usually considered legislation before it was approved by the People at the General Assembly. But to all intents and purposes it decided policy and expected it to be implemented. The proud wielders of imperium knew that they would soon have to hand it back and as a rule thought twice before irritating the one body in the state that represented continuity.Another remarkable device inhibited overmighty citizens. This was the widespread use of the veto. One Consul could veto any of his colleagues¹ proposals and those of junior officeholders. Praetors and the other officeholders could veto their colleagues¹ proposals.At bottom, politics was a hullabaloo of equal and individual competitors who would only be guaranteed to cooperate for one cause: the elimination of anybody who threatened to step out of line and grab too much power for himself. It follows that there was nothing resembling today¹s political parties. Governments did not rise and fall and the notion of a loyal opposition would have been received with incredulity.However, there were two broad interest groups: the aristocracy, the oldest families of which were called Patricians, and the broad mass of the People, or the plebs. Their political supporters were known respectively as optimates, the ³best people,² and populares, those who favored the People. The high offices of state were largely in the hands of the former and, in practice, were the prerogative of twenty or fewer families. With the passage of time, some plebeian families were admitted to the nobility. But only occasionally did a New Man, without the appropriate blue-blooded pedigree, penetrate the upper reaches of government. Cicero was one of these few.Since the fall of the monarchy in 510 bc, Roman domestic politics had been a long, inconclusive class struggle, suspended for long periods by foreign wars. During one never-to-be-forgotten confrontation over a debt crisis in 493 bc, the entire population withdrew its labor. The plebs evacuated Rome and encamped on a neighboring hill. It was an inspired tactic. The Patricians were left in charge‹but of empty streets. They quickly admitted defeat and allowed the creation of new officials, Tribunes of the People, whose sole purpose was to protect the interests of the plebs. In Cicero¹s day there were twelve of these. While everybody else¹s term of office ran till December 31, theirs ended on December 12.Tribunes could propose legislation and convene meetings of the Senate, of which they were ex officio members, but they had no executive authority and their basic role was negative. Just as the Consuls had a universal power of veto, so a Tribune could forbid any use of power that he judged to be high-handed and against the popular will. Tribunes could even veto one anothers¹ vetoes. No doubt because their purpose in life was to annoy people, their persons were sacrosanct.Different kinds of popular assembly ensured a degree of democratic control. The Military Assembly (comitia centuriata) elected Consuls and Praetors through voting blocs called ³centuries² (the word for an army platoon), membership of which was weighted according to citizens¹ wealth. The more important Tribal or General Assembly (comitia tributa) voted by tribes, which were territorial in composition rather than socioeconomic. It had the exclusive power to declare peace or war and it approved bills, usually after consideration by the Senate. The General Assembly could only accept or reject motions and, except for speeches invited by the officeholder who convened the meeting, debate was forbidden. Despite these restrictions, the General Assembly was a crucial mechanism for enforcing change against the Senate¹s wishes. An informal assembly meeting (contio) could also be called, at which reports could be given but no decisions taken.A serious problem of unfairness arose as Roman citizenship was increasingly conferred on Italian communities at a distance from Rome. Democratic participation in Roman political life was direct and not based on the representative principle: the General Assembly was not a parliament. Those who lived more than a few hours¹ travel from the city (say, twenty miles or so) were effectively disfranchised and ³rural² communities were often represented by a handful of voters, who therefore exerted considerably more influence than members of city wards. Well-targeted bribes could easily swing bloc votes. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐John Adams once said of Cicero, “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.” His son, John Quincy, referred to Cicero as something akin to his spiritual father, a man whose writings got him through the darkest of times. I greatly admire both these men so I wanted to learn what was it about this man that stoked so much of their admiration. To this end, I purchased two books. This one, which is a biography of Cicero, gives an excellent and detailed account of the society in which he lived. Although it gives the reader a pretty good idea of the ethics and personality of the man, and does present a large amount of Cicero’s correspondence, it only gives a brief summary of his many books and did not give me a complete understanding of what provoked the Adams’s admiration. Hopefully, the second book which is a collection of his more renowned writings will provide that.What was the world in which Cicero lived? He lived from 106 – 43 BC. Although not born in Rome, he spent most of his life there. The era in which he lived was one of enormous change within the Roman Republic. It was collapsing into a dictatorship. We normally think of the collapse as occurring in 49 BC when Julius Caesar brought his troops into Rome thus violating one of the Republic’s greatest taboos. But it began before that. This taboo had already been violated in 87 BC, when the Roman General Sulla brought his soldiers inside the city limits of Rome. He did this because one of the tribunes was attempting to strip him of his command of the Eastern army. Once in the city, he killed the tribune and many of his allies. Sulla took his army and returned to the east to fight the King of Pontus. While he was in the East, Rome erupted into what was essentially a civil war. The conflict was between two groups, the optimates (those who favored patrician objectives. Sulla was the leader of this group) and the populares (those who favored the objectives of the common people). Both groups, despite their different objectives belonged to the wealthier classes. Sulla returned in 83 BC, restored order in Rome, had himself declared dictator, and began another massacre. This time those targeted were members of the populares. According to one estimate there were 9,000 victims of this purge. Sulla resigned his dictatorship in 79 BC.Where was Cicero in this chaos? Although he was a member of the gentry and not an aristocrat, he aligned himself with the objectives of the optimates. To him, they represented the rule of law that he so valued. Ideologically he supported Sulla but the memory of the dictator’s vengeance never left him. In a book published in the 40s, one senses in Cicero almost a physical shudder as he relates, ‘’the proscriptions of the rich, the destruction of the townships of Italy, the well-known ‘harvest’ of Sulla’s time.” So, as he was to do throughout his life, he retreated from the violence into his world of books. However, it was only temporary for he did have a hunger for recognition and when circumstances became more stable, he entered law and politics with an ability that very few at that time, or any time, had.The book details the many cases that he won in court. His rise to the highest levels of the government (Consul); the formation of the First Triumvirate (60-53 BC: Caesar, Crassus, Pompey). I did not realize that Caesar had repeatedly enticed Cicero to become a fourth member of this ruling group and that Cicero repeatedly refused because he believed in the rule of the Senate rather than autocratic rule. His refusal was probably one of the principal reasons why his enemies were successful in having him briefly exiled from Rome (58-57 BC). The book describes the collapse of the Triumvirate; Caesar’s defeat of Pompey and his assigning himself the role of dictator for life; Cicero’s support of the assassination of Caesar (44 BC); the formation of the Second Triumvirate (43-32 BC: Augustus, Marc Antony, Lepidus); and finally the assassination of Cicero by Marc Antony’s henchmen (43 BC).In the last chapter of the book, the author, Anthony Everitt, evaluates the character of the man and his effect on history. Some of his comments about Cicero are unflattering. He says that Cicero was insecure, nervous and boastful but he also acknowledges that “his philosophical writings are masterpieces of popularization and were one of the means by which the heritage of classical thought was handed down to posterity. . . . his writings are imbued with a humane skepticism . . . His greatest gift to European civilization was the man himself – rational, undogmatic, tolerant, law-abiding and urbane.” To support this assertion of society’s appreciation of the nobility of the man, the author at the very end of the book recounts a story involving the Emperor Augustus. Augustus had colluded in Cicero’s assassination. One day Augustus found his grandson reading one of Cicero’s books. He took the book from the boy, stood for a long time reading the entire text, handed it back to the boy and said, “An eloquent man, my child, an eloquent man, and a patriot.”I am looking forward to reading Cicero’s actual writings to give me a greater understanding of why he was so adamant for a republic and so opposed to an autocracy. It should be noted that several of Cicero’s books were written after the death of his beloved daughter Tullia (45 BC). He essentially had a mental breakdown and for several months withdrew from society, only able to deal with his overwhelming sadness by relentlessly reading and writing.

⭐I kinda suspected Cicero wasn’t my cuppa tea until this book. He was in a great position to see all the goings on in the first century BCE. What drew me in was the author, and that the subject had no real interest in military affairs, and didn’t even like leaving Rome except to stay in his villas. Makes you want to read more about Caesar, as they had such an ambiguous relationship, and were equals as politicians.

⭐Well written and engaging. A great book that tells the details and entertains even when you know the broad arcs of his story.

⭐The dust jacket of Everitt’s attractive biography quotes a perceptive English reviewer, who observes, “Of all the arts, that of politics has advanced least since the days of Greece and Rome.” Upon closing the book, my overwhelming sense was that Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and, yes, Bill Clinton would have done perfectly well in Julian Rome. The broad contours of the political game have, in the intervening two millennia, acquired several strips of veneer and a few layers of varnish, but they are immediately recognizable in this briskly paced work. Pompey’s political ponderousness, Caesar’s bright dexterity, and Cicero’s conservative deliberateness all find ready parallels in this and every other age. Gain, glory, and fear are here the prime motivators–generalize to politics Thucydides’ famous observation that men will go to war for any of these three reasons and you will have neatly summarized all political motive–and Everitt nicely sifts through the ample historical record to relate how the great men of the late Republic clambered for the pinnacle as the challenge of Julius Caesar loomed.For readers not particularly well versed in Roman history, Everitt does particularly well in quickly situating Cicero’s life in the great events of his day, the context of an expanding empire, and the daily life of a Rome that had no city government as we would know it–little public security (private guards for the wealthy, nothing for the rest), sanitation, services, or urban administration. An accretion of checks and balances (so admired by our own founders) caused politics to deadlock, with each of the major protagonists offering solutions that either restored, or circumvented, the formal primacy of the Senate and Rome’s great families. Throughout, Everitt renders intelligible a bewildering tangle of events and human interactions. He shows Cicero standing at the center of these great events–with the exception of the plot to kill Caesar, of which he knew nothing (but you who know your Shakespeare will have known this as well…)–or, less charitably, desperately working the Roman public relations apparatus to “seem to stand,” on firm Republican principals. At those times when when his cause fails–perhaps as a result of words or long harbored grudges that return to haunt him–Everitt’s statesman retires to one of his well-appointed villas and the life of the mind, turning to his beloved philosophy and the composition of the writings that comprise his greatest legacy.I dock this commendable biography a star for an insufficiency of documentation and the generally cursory handling of Cicero’s ideas. Yes, yes, I recognize this is popular biography, but some particularly quirky looking passages beg for sourcing and don’t get it, while other, better known material gets copious sourcing (and with endnotes, by page and passage, rather than with numbered end- or footnotes). As for Cicero’s rich store of written ideas, the major works are dutifully listed, their contents for the most part cursorily described. I for one would have appreciated a broader, deeper discussion, but concluded that Everitt viewed his chapters on the works as necessary drudgery required by the life and legacy and as impediments to his narrative design. (He does in fact refer to the authoritive scholarly studies in a bibliographic appendix.) The author seems too eager to gallop off–perhaps to the cheers of most readers–on his thrilling, often bloody, tale. And so he does.(And why didn’t someone at Random House point out to the design people that the Coliseum, which graces the dustjacket, was erected more than a century after Cicero’s death? A particularly shameless attempt to cash in on the Russell Crowe picture.)This is nevertheless a very worthy book and a solid–and solidly entertaining–introduction to the life and significance of a great man and to the timeless world of Roman politics. Highly recommended.

⭐Anthony Everitt writes very accessible Roman history; his book on Augustus was very readable, and offers many opportunities for further study by anyone interested in following through on the themes raised in the book. Cicero is a fascinating character by anyone’s standards; he pops up in all the Roman historical novels set in the late Republic, and everyone seems to have their own take on what he would have been like. So it is good to be able to get some historical non-fiction perspective on this intriguing man. Extricating Cicero’s life, and his personal politics, from the broader (unresolved) discussion on the end of the Roman Republic is quite a challenge in itself, so I was eager to see how the author approached the life and times of Cicero.Beginning with a prologue word picture of Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, the first chapter then outlines briefly and very clearly the political status of Rome at the time of Cicero’s youth. The burgeoning political class struggles, the growing problem of land and wealth distribution, the unwieldy and increasingly violent political differences, and the external threats that built up towards the end of the Republic are well, though quickly, reviewed here. And then we are in to Cicero’s life itself. Around and through Cicero’s life move many other well-known figures of Roman history – Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Catilina. Cicero also seems to have retained close ties with his family and friends, and we are lucky to have so much of his correspondence, including letters with his friend Atticus, and his writings on his cases and Senatorial involvement.Cicero seems to have firmly believed in the Republic, and that the glory of the past years of that institution could be recovered and reclaimed, if only the optimates and the populares would find common ground (without really taking much notice of the new class of men rising from the equites). He dedicated much of his public life to that end, or so he felt. He does not seem, realistically, to have taken into account some of the `new’ men who moved into the political and military arena, particularly those who banded together to thwart him in many of his endeavours: Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, even Clodius. Perhaps in that respect at least, Cicero’s `glory days’ lay firmly in the past of Rome, a past that was quickly being lost forever.The continual ebbing and flowing in late Republican Rome of political groupings, cemented by familial alliances, makes for fascinating and engrossing reading. Cicero’s strength, and his ultimate and final weakness, was his inability to accept that the Republic as he believed in it could be gone; his ultimate aim was always “to restore traditional political values” and for this he lived, and died.A wonderful book, beautifully written and so readable that I found it hard to put it down; Cicero’s life and times are treated empathetically and compassionately. To finish the book is to feel that you have come to the end of a great story told of a great man. Totally recommended.

⭐Arrived from the USA well before the estimated date of 27th December. In fact it arrived about a week before Christmas, which was a real bonus as it was a present for my son and I hadn’t been able to locate a copyin the UK. Although not brand new in appearance it was in excellent condition with an intact dust jacket abd nice and clean. The recipient was very pleased and started reading it immediately.

⭐I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. It is well written and easy to access. The author knows his subject and has a very easy style. A good into to Cicero.

⭐Great condition and delivered on time. I’ve really enjoyed this book, which is a very accessible biography of one of the greatest and interesting of Rome’s history.

⭐A great book. Well written and not too academic so that even non academics will enjoy this one. If you are interested in the fall of the republic then you will find this very interesting.

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