Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BC, hailing from a local equestrian family in Arpinum. Both Cicero and Pompey, who became associates at a very young age, struggled to detach themselves from the Marian clan that held the foremost political position in the region. While both followed the footsteps of Marius to become novus homo (new men) in the Roman Senate, they did so in completely different fashions. Pompey, of course, chose the military route, paying little regard to the traditional steps of the political ladder (cursus honorum). Cicero, on the other hand, was the idyllic Republican politician. From the moment he arrived in Rome, his career was spent adhering to the courts of law and to strict principals of traditional Senatorial advancement.
As a boy, Cicero visited Rome and received the finest literary education that money could buy. In this time, he met and became the best of friends with another equestrian youth by name of Atticus. It is Atticus who was the recipient of numerous letters from Cicero, in which many have survived as an indispensable window into the final days of the Republic and Roman politics.
In the Social War of the 80's BC, the young Cicero was beginning to follow his career path. He served under Pompey's father, Pompeius Strabo, along with Pompey and his future enemy Catilina. Cicero quickly learned though that he wasn't suited to military affairs and chose instead to pursue his career as a lawyer, orator and politician. Despite convenient and likely beneficial connections to Marius and his supporters during the civil wars, Cicero avoided using these contacts to his advantage. He clearly sided against the populares party and stuck to an early path of conservative policy. However, conservative principals didn't necessarily push him to the extremes of the Sullan camp either. During the dictatorship of Sulla, Cicero first began to gain notoriety as an attorney and orator opposing Sulla's proscriptions. In 80 BC, in the midst of Sulla's supreme authority, Cicero defended one Sextus Roscius against proscription. Making his case tactfully and in such a manner as not to offend the dictator, Cicero made a lasting impression on Roman audiences.
By the 70's BC, Cicero returned to his educational pursuits. He studied rhetoric abroad in the east, of which he would eventually come to be considered as the penultimate master. Using his oration as a base, Cicero clawed and scratched his way to prominence as a new man in Roman society. Little opportunity was available for a man with so few family connections in the ancient world, while trying to break into the elite Senatorial circles. While some gained prominence through military achievement, Cicero traveled the road of lesser glory and forced his way through the sheer force of will and conviction. At a still considerably young age, he had grown into one of the most formidable defense attorneys in the Republic, and used the prestige and notoriety from this to continually gain position.
In 75 BC, Cicero ran for his first important office, the Quaestorship. Successfully winning election he was later assigned to Sicily to oversee the grain supply. The appointment provided a unique opportunity with potentially spectacular results. The previous governor, C. Verres, was detested by the local Sicilians and they asked Cicero to prosecute him on their behalf. Verres was heavily involved in various extortion schemes to rob Sicily while lining his own pockets at the expense of others. While gubernatorial excesses in their provinces were typical in the late Republic, Verres took matters to nearly indefensible extremes (included the illegal execution of a Roman citizen without trial). Even normally conservative Senators were outraged at the apparent crimes committed. Cicero, while normally avoiding the potential enmity that a prosecution could create, agreed to take the case. In the prosecution speech Cicero so blistered and attacked Verres that the defendant went into self-exposed exile before the trial was even over.
After his term as quaestor Cicero continued his conventional rise through the Senate. While Pompey was in the east gaining new Roman territories, in which Cicero played a major role in advocating the legality of the command, he worked diligently to make inroads with Roman aristocracy. Despite his court successes, Cicero was still viewed as somewhat of an outsider and his advocating the disliked and distrusted Pompey didn't help. Even so, he had little trouble gaining election to each political office, successfully winning the Praetorship in 67 BC. Perhaps a bit of luck, or simply being the right man at the right time played a role, but regardless, Cicero was steadily rising.
Becoming Consul was the next and highest step available, and within 2 more years Cicero would achieve it. However, the political system of the late Republic may have been continuing to erode Cicero would find himself as a center target of a conspiracy against the Senate. His old acquaintance during the Social War, L. Sergius Catilina had already been embroiled in various scandals and his attempt at open rebellion was to become one of the most dangerous in the Republic's history. Whatever was necessary to gain power, Catilina was prepared to try. During the Catilinian Consipiracy, he and Cicero would come head to head in a battle for the Republic

Catiline

Cicero's nemesis and a key political figure in the 60's BC was L. Sergius Catilina. Like Crassus, Catiline profited enormously from the proscriptions of Sulla's dictatorship, but Catiline was notorious for his brutality and unlawful methods. While a definite villain of the Late Republican period, he was also the victim of Cicero's eloquent attacks, which certainly did little to commend him either with his ancient peers or in modern review.
In 67 to 66 BC he served as the Propraetor governor of Africa and may have used his position to extort large sums of personal wealth. Upon his return to Rome, he sought the Consulship but accusations of provincial mismanagement and a general distrust barred his ability to run. In the year 65 BC, Catiline's efforts for the Consulship were blocked by impending trials for extortion, but massive bribery would eventually see his acquittal of the charges.
64 BC saw the election of Cicero as Consul. While Cicero, as a new man, wasn't overly popular with the Senatorial elite, he was a far better conservative alternative than the long line of corrupt individuals that sought the highest office. The choices for election in that year were Cicero, the despised Catiline, and his similar contemporary C. Antonius. To prevent a joint consulship with Catiline and Antonius, the Senate pushed Cicero forward along with Antonius to prevent the worst of three bad choices (in their opinion) from taking power.
During the Consulship of Cicero, he faced one early challenge of note. The agrarian bill of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus was intended to elect ten land commissioners with imperium. These commissioners would oversee all concerns with selling public land and distributions to veterans, with sweeping power. Cicero vehemently opposed the concept in light of the massive corruption of the time. Such positions would've undoubtedly been major sources of extortion and greed. The proposal was defeated in the plebeian assemblies, thanks in large part to Cicero's usual eloquent speeches. In a testament to his oratory skill and prestige, this was the first land reform bill that was ever defeated in a vote of the citizen assemblies.
For the year 62 BC, Catiline was again running for Consul and bribery was the operating standard of the day. Despite massive bribes, Catiline lost one again, however and certainly began to look at other measures to gain power. Shortly after the elections, a bundle of sealed enveloped were delivered anonymously to Crassus addressed to several Senators. In opening the one addressed to him, Crassus found that the letters were warnings, telling certain individuals that an impending massacre of many Senators was about to take place. Crassus took the letters to Cicero and it was discovered that they all said the same thing. Cicero then addressed the Senate with the plot and he was authorized with a tumultus, or a military emergency, to find the writer and uncover the plot. While Cicero tried to place the blame on Catiline, the author was never found, and it was suggested that the entire concept may have been hatched by Cicero himself as an excuse to prosecute troublemakers.

Catiline Conspiracy

Regardless of the truth regarding Catiline's involvement in various plots, social conditions outside of Rome were again building a foundation for civil war. The great indebtedness of the Italians and other provincials was creating a situation ripe with potential disaster. In Etruria, a former Sullan centurion by name of C. Manlius was stirring up trouble by gathering weapons and recruits for a potential revolt. Cicero once again blamed Catiline, though there was no real evidence of his involvement. Cicero managed to convince the Senate of the danger and a senatus consultum ultimum was passed granting him extreme authority to deal with the threat.
Catiline, meanwhile, in order to thwart Cicero's attacks against him, organized a meeting of his supporters. In this meeting, while little real evidence existed, Cicero claimed that a plot to assassinate him was developed, as well as setting in motion the overthrow of the Senate. In a debate before the Senate, both men blistered each other in partially surviving speeches, but eventually Catiline volunteered to go into exile. While en route to his supposed destination of Massilia, however, Catiline instead joined with C. Manlius and his armed mob in Etruria.
While that move was suspicious enough regarding Catiline's various involvement in plots, another move by his supporters in Rome was even more damning. Representatives of the Gallic Allobroges tribe were in Rome discussing conditions relating to their own debt issues. The Roman conspirators sought to have the Gauls join in their rebellion, but the Gauls wanted little do with it and word reached Cicero of the conspirator's proposition. P. Cornelius Lentulus Sura was forced to admit to his own participation in the plot and a great debate over the punishment ensued. Gaius Julius Caesar, the praetor elect at the time, argued against death which was the prominent choice of the Senators. He suggested that the plot of Sura was different than the reason Cicero was granted a Senatus Consultum Ultimatum, and that the death penalty shouldn't apply. He, however, was over ruled by the veracity of M. Porcius Cato, and several conspirators were sentenced to strangulation.
In Etruria, the short lived revolt never really got off the ground. With little assistance from neighboring Italians, or the Allobreges, the plot was doomed to failure. In 62 BC, a force under M. Petreius destroyed the armed mob of Catiline and Manlius, killing Catiline in the process, and the conspiracy was over.
Cicero was hailed as the 'father of his country' for saving Rome from another rebellion. Later, however, the death sentences of various Senators would eventually be a source of much resentment. It's important to note, that Cicero's action may have been far more motivated out of fear of Pompey, than the actual conspiracy. Just as Pompey was getting set to return from his eastern conquests, with veteran legions in tow, conditions in Rome were similar to that of the Marian and Sullan civil war. In order to stabilize the situation, and not give an excuse for Pompey to march on the city, Cicero likely pushed his agenda of dealing with the potential plots as quickly and severely as possible. He would eventually pay a price of his own for it, however. Within a few years, Cicero himself would be exiled, with his actions during the conspiracy playing a prominent part. But far greater things were in store for the master orator, as he would play a major role in the coming Fall of the Republic.