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 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO was born at Arpinum, in Central Italy, where his family occupied a leading position. He was well educated in Greek literature, and was specially trained for the legal profession. At the age of seventeen, he served for a few months as a soldier in the Marsic war; but oratory and Greek philosophy were his principal pursuits. He soon became prominent in the law courts; and, when thirty years old, held the office of quæstor in Sicily; his duty being to supervise the corn supply of Rome. Here it was that he discovered the tomb of Archimedes. Three years afterwards we find him conducting his celebrated prosecution of Verres, the unjust and corrupt governor of that province.
At forty, he became prætor, B.C. 66, and two years afterwards, consul. He now joined the aristocratic party, which he had previously opposed. He crushed the democratical conspiracy of Catiline with vigour, and even with cruelty; for he had the principal conspirators executed without trial; an act which led to his own banishment. Cicero cannot be called a great or wise politician. That he should have opposed the democratic dictatorship of Caesar was pardonable; not so, that he should have accepted favours from Caesar, and yet have displayed indecent joy at his assassination. His vehement attacks on Antony, whom he saw to be as ambitious as Caesar without Caesar's capacity or virtues, led to his own death at the close of the following year.
Cicero's true fame rests on his philosophical writings. He was one of the principal channels through which Greek thought and culture diffused itself in the Roman world. His philosophy shows the enlargement of view that followed from the establishment of the Roman State. Two conceptions became much clearer than they had been to the Greeks; duty to country, duty to man as man. Rome, which had stimulated patriotism, first developed the consciousness of Humanity. "The fellowship of the human race," "the citizenship of the world," are phrases very prominent in his writings. Notable, too, is the influence of the "Roman Peace" in his glorifications of human industry, "by which a new nature had been brought into the natural world."
His religions was that of a Theist, emancipated from legend and superstition. He believed, though without bigotry, in the immortality of the soul. His ethical system was practiced and high-toned; as the third part of his work on Duties will show. He there discusses the question, whether a man, in dealing with another, may conceal important facts, as, if bringing corn to a famine-struck town, the fact that other corn-ships are on their way. He decides in favour of openness. What it is for the interests of others to know, you should not wish them to be ignorant of.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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