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Name | Marcus Tullius Cicero |
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Caption | Marcus Tullius Cicero |
Birthdate | January 3, 106 BC |
Birthplace | Arpinum, Italy |
Deathdate | December 7, 43 BC (aged 63) |
Deathplace | Formia, Italy |
Occupation | Politician, lawyer, orator and philosopher |
Nationality | Ancient Roman |
Subject | politics, law, philosophy, oratory |
Movement | Golden Age Latin |
Notableworks | Politics: In Verrem, Catiline Orations, PhilippicsPhilosophy: De Inventione |
Influences | Plato, Middle Platonism, Stoicism, Peripatetism |
Influenced | Tacitus, Plinius, Quintilian, John AdamsHas had an immense influence on European culture for over 2000 years}} |
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Marcus Tullius Cicero (; ; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as "Tully"), was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, Cicero thought that his political career was his most important achievement. Today, he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period. Cicero's speeches and letters remain some of the most important primary sources that survive on the last days of the Roman Republic.
During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate. His indecision may be attributed to his sensitive and impressionable personality; he was prone to overreaction in the face of political and private change. "Would that he had been able to endure prosperity with greater self control, and adversity with more fortitude!" wrote C. Asinius Pollio, a contemporary Roman statesman and historian. Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and subsequently murdered in 43 BC.
Cicero's cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was originally given to one of Cicero's ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However it is more likely that Cicero's ancestors prospered through the cultivation and sale of chickpeas. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames: the famous family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils, and peas. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this deprecatory name when he entered politics, but refused, saying that he would make Cicero more glorious than Scaurus ("Swollen-ankled") and Catulus ("Puppy").
During this period in Roman history to be considered "cultured" meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek. The Roman upper class often preferred Greek to Latin in private correspondence. Cicero, like most of his contemporaries, was therefore educated in the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophers, poets and historians. The most prominent teachers of oratory of that time were themselves Greek. Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite.
According to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Cicero's fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus (who became a famous lawyer, one of the few whom Cicero considered superior to himself in legal matters), and Titus Pomponius. The latter two became Cicero's friends for life, and Pomponius (who later received the cognomen "Atticus" for his philhellenism) would become Cicero's longtime chief emotional support and adviser.
Cicero wanted to pursue a public civil service career along the steps of the Cursus honorum. In 90 BC–88 BC, he served both Gnaeus 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. His first major case, of which a written record is still extant, was his 80 BC defense of Sextus Roscius on the charge of patricide. Taking this case was a courageous move for Cicero; parricide was considered an appalling crime, and the people whom Cicero accused of the murder, the most notorious being Chrysogonus, were favorites of Sulla. At this time it would have been easy for Sulla to have the unknown Cicero murdered. Cicero's defense was an indirect challenge to the dictator Sulla, and on the strength of his case, Roscius was acquitted.
In 79 BC, Cicero left for Greece, Asia Minor and Rhodes, perhaps because of the potential wrath of Sulla. Cicero traveled to Athens, where he again met Atticus, who had become an honorary citizen of Athens and introduced Cicero to some significant Athenians. In Athens, Cicero visited the sacred sites of the philosophers, but not before he consulted different rhetoricians in order to learn a less physically exhausting style of speech. His chief instructor was the rhetorician Apollonius Molon of Rhodes. He instructed Cicero in a more expansive and less intense form of oratory that would define Cicero's individual style in years to come.
Cicero's interest in philosophy figured heavily in his later career and led to him introducing Greek philosophy to Roman culture, creating a philosophical vocabulary in Latin. In 87 BC, Philo of Larissa, the head of the Academy that was founded by Plato in Athens about 300 years earlier, arrived in Rome. Cicero, "inspired by an extraordinary zeal for philosophy", sat enthusiastically at his feet and absorbed Plato's philosophy, even calling Plato his god. He admired especially Plato's moral and political seriousness, but he also respected his breadth of imagination. Cicero nonetheless rejected Plato's theory of Ideas.
In the 50s BC, Cicero's letters to Terentia became shorter and colder. He complained to his friends that Terentia had betrayed him but did not specify in which sense. Perhaps the marriage simply could not outlast the strain of the political upheaval in Rome, Cicero's involvement in it, and various other disputes between the two. The divorce appears to have taken place in 51 BC or shortly before. In 46 or 45 BC, Cicero married a young girl, Publilia, who had been his ward. It is thought that Cicero needed her money, particularly after having to repay the dowry of Terentia, who came from a wealthy family. This marriage did not last long.
Although his marriage to Terentia was one of convenience, it is commonly known that Cicero held great love for his daughter Tullia. When she suddenly became ill in February 45 BC and died after having seemingly recovered from giving birth to a son in January, Cicero was stunned. "I have lost the one thing that bound me to life" he wrote to Atticus. Atticus told him to come for a visit during the first weeks of his bereavement, so that he could comfort him when his pain was at its greatest. In Atticus's large library, Cicero read everything that the Greek philosophers had written about overcoming grief, "but my sorrow defeats all consolation." Caesar and Brutus as well as Servius Sulpicius Rufus sent him letters of condolence.
Cicero hoped that his son Marcus would become a philosopher like him, but Marcus himself wished for a military career. He joined the army of Pompey in 49 BC and after Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus 48 BC, he was pardoned by Caesar. Cicero sent him to Athens to study as a disciple of the peripatetic philosopher Kratippos in 48 BC, but he used this absence from "his father's vigilant eye" to "eat, drink and be merry." After Cicero's murder he joined the army of the Liberatores but was later pardoned by Augustus. Augustus' bad conscience for having put Cicero on the proscription list during the Second Triumvirate led him to aid considerably Marcus Minor's career. He became an augur, and was nominated consul in 30 BC together with Augustus. As such, he was responsible for revoking Mark Anthony's honors, whose was the proscription primarily, and could in this way take revenge. Later he was appointed proconsul of Syria and the province of Asia.
Cicero grew up in a time of civil unrest and war. Sulla’s victory in the first of many civil wars led to a new constitutional framework that undermined libertas (liberty), the fundamental value of the Roman Republic. Nonetheless, Sulla’s reforms strengthened the position of the equestrian class, contributing to that class’s growing political power. Cicero was both an Italian eques and a novus homo, but more importantly he was a Roman constitutionalist. His social class and loyalty to the Republic ensured he would "command the support and confidence of the people as well as the Italian middle classes." The fact that the optimates faction never truly accepted Cicero undermined his efforts to reform the Republic while preserving the constitution. Nevertheless, he was able to successfully ascend the Roman cursus honorum, holding each magistracy at or near the youngest possible age: quaestor in 75 (age 31), aedile in 69 (age 37), and praetor in 66 (age 40), where he served as president of the "Reclamation" (or extortion) Court. He was then elected consul at age 43.
Catiline fled and left behind his followers to start the revolution from within while Catiline assaulted the city with an army of "moral bankrupts and honest fanatics". Catiline had attempted to involve the Allobroges, a tribe of Transalpine Gaul, in their plot, but Cicero, working with the Gauls, was able to seize letters which incriminated the five conspirators and forced them to confess their crimes in front of the Senate.
The Senate then deliberated upon the conspirators' punishment. As it was the dominant advisory body to the various legislative assemblies rather than a judicial body, there were limits to its power; however, martial law was in effect, and it was feared that simple house arrest or exile — the standard options — would not remove the threat to the state. At first most in the Senate spoke for the "extreme penalty"; many were then swayed by Julius Caesar, who decried the precedent it would set and argued in favor of life imprisonment in various Italian towns. Cato then rose in defence of the death penalty and all the Senate finally agreed on the matter. Cicero had the conspirators taken to the Tullianum, the notorious Roman prison, where they were strangled. Cicero himself accompanied the former consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, one of the conspirators, to the Tullianum. Cicero received the honorific "Pater Patriae" for his efforts to suppress the conspiracy, but lived thereafter in fear of trial or exile for having put Roman citizens to death without trial.
In 58 BC Publius Clodius Pulcher, the tribune of the plebs, introduced a law (the Leges Clodiae) threatening exile to anyone who executed a Roman citizen without a trial. Cicero, having executed members of the Catiline conspiracy four years previously without formal trial, and having had a public falling out with Clodius, was clearly the intended target of the law. Cicero argued that the senatus consultum ultimum indemnified him from punishment, and he attempted to gain the support of the senators and consuls, especially of Pompey. When help was not forthcoming, he went into exile. He arrived at Thessalonica, Greece, on May 23, 58 BC. Cicero's exile caused him to fall into depression. He wrote to Atticus: "Your pleas have prevented me from committing suicide. But what is there to live for? Don't blame me for complaining. My afflictions surpass any you ever heard of earlier". After the intervention of recently elected tribune Titus Annius Milo, the senate voted in favor of recalling Cicero from exile. Clodius cast a single vote against the decree. Cicero returned to Italy on August 5, 57 BC, landing at Brundisium. He was greeted by a cheering crowd, and, to his delight, his beloved daughter Tullia.
Cicero tried to reintegrate himself into politics, but on attacking a bill of Caesar's proved unsuccessful. The conference at Luca in 56 BC forced Cicero to make a recantation and pledge his support to the triumvirate. With this a cowed Cicero retreated to his literary works. It is uncertain whether he had any direct involvement in politics for the following few years. But from May, 51 BC, Cicero was absent from Italy till November, 50 BC, as proconsul of Cilicia — which, to his chagrin, he was obliged to undertake owing to the regulation in Pompey's law (de provinciis) of the previous year enforcing a five years' interval between consulship or praetorship and a province, and providing for the interim by drawing on the ex-consuls and ex-praetors of previous years who had not had provinces. Accompanied by his brother the expraetor and exproconsul Quintus as a legate, he was majorly spared from warfare due to the Parthians' interior conflicts, yet for storming a mountain fortress he earned the title of imperator.
In a letter to Varro on c. April 20, 46 BC, Cicero outlined his strategy under Caesar's dictatorship. Cicero, however, was taken completely by surprise when the Liberatores assassinated Caesar on the ides of March, 44 BC. Cicero was not included in the conspiracy, even though the conspirators were sure of his sympathy. Marcus Junius Brutus called out Cicero's name, asking him to "restore the Republic" when he lifted the bloodstained dagger after the assassination. A letter Cicero wrote in February 43 BC to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, began, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March"! Cicero became a popular leader during the period of instability following the assassination. He had no respect for Mark Antony, who was scheming to take revenge upon Caesar's murderers. In exchange for amnesty for the assassins, he arranged for the Senate to agree not to declare Caesar to have been a tyrant, which allowed the Caesarians to have lawful support.
Cicero supported Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and urged the Senate to name Antony an enemy of the state. The speech of Lucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, delayed proceedings against Antony. Antony was later declared an enemy of the state when he refused to lift the siege of Mutina, which was in the hands of Decimus Brutus. Cicero’s plan to drive out Antony failed. Antony and Octavian reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Second Triumvirate after the successive battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina. The Triumvirate began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals immediately after legislating the alliance into official existence for a term of five years with consular imperium. Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, and reportedly, 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 December 7, 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia. When the assassins – 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 freed slave of his brother Quintus Cicero. (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch), Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.
Cicero's son, Marcus Tullius Cicero Minor, during his year as a consul in 30 BC, avenged his father's death somewhat when he announced to the Senate Mark Antony's naval defeat at Actium in 31 BC by Octavian and his capable commander-in-chief Agrippa. In the same meeting the Senate voted to prohibit all future Antonius descendants from using the name Marcus. Octavian would later come upon one of his grandsons reading a book by Cicero. The boy tried to conceal the book, fearing the reaction of his grandfather. Octavian, now called Augustus, took the book from his grandson, read a part of it, and then handed the volume back, saying: "He was a learned man, dear child, a learned man who loved his country."
While Cicero the humanist deeply influenced the culture of Renaissance, Cicero the republican inspired the Founding Fathers of the United States and the revolutionaries of the French Revolution. John Adams said of him "As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight." Camille Desmoulins said of the revolutionaries that they were "mostly young people who, brought up on reading of Cicero at school, were fired by them with the passion for freedom."
Likewise, no other antique personality has inspired venomous dislike as Cicero especially in more modern times. Friedrich Engels notably referred to him as "the most contemptible scoundrel in history" for upholding republican 'democracy,' while at the same time denouncing land and class reforms. Cicero has faced criticism for exaggerating the democratic qualities of republican Rome, and for defending the Roman oligarchy against the popular reforms of Caesar. His vain, pompous personality revealed from his letters also often led to negative characterization in modern popular depictions.
In her series of historical novels "Masters of Rome" Colleen McCullough presents an unflattering depiction of Cicero's career, showing him struggling with inferiority complex and vanity, with flexible morals and fatally indiscreet. He is portrayed as a hero in the novel A Pillar of Iron by Taylor Caldwell (1965). He is a major recurring character in the Roma Sub Rosa series of mystery novels by Steven Saylor. Robert Harris' novels Imperium and Lustrum (Conspirata in the U.S.) are the first two parts of a planned trilogy of novels based upon the life of Cicero.
He features as a quest giving character (compare cicerone) in the 2009 PC game, .
;Speeches
; Rhetoric & Philosophy
;Letters More than 800 letters by Cicero to others have survived, and over 100 letters from others to him.
;General:
;Works by Cicero:
;Biographies and descriptions of Cicero's time:
Category:106 BC births Category:43 BC deaths Category:People from the Province of Frosinone Category:1st-century BC Romans Category:1st-century BC writers Category:Ancient Roman rhetoricians Category:Translation scholars Category:Ancient Roman senators Category:Classical humanists Category:Executed Ancient Roman people Category:Executed writers Category:Golden Age Latin writers Category:Humor researchers Category:Latin letter writers Category:People executed by the Roman Republic Category:Political theorists Category:Philosophers of Roman Italy Category:Latin-writing philosophers Category:Roman Republican consuls Category:Ancient Roman jurists Category:Tullii Category:Roman era students in Athens Category:1st-century BC executions Category:Ancient Roman exiles Category:Recipients of Ancient Roman pardons Category:Trope theorists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Roger Cicero |
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Background | solo_singer |
Birth name | Roger Marcel Cicero Cziczeo |
Born | July 06, 1970Berlin , Germany |
Origin | Romania |
Genre | German Jazz, Pop |
Occupation | Singer, songwriter |
Years active | 2003-present |
Label | Starwatch |
Url | Official site |
Roger Marcel Cicero Cziczeo (born July 6, 1970 in Berlin) is a German jazz musician and the son of the Romanian pianist Eugen Cicero.
Cicero was Germany's participant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki but finished only 19th in the rankings. With his song Frauen regier'n die Welt (Women rule the world) he won the preliminary decision in a competition against Monrose and Heinz Rudolf Kunze. Although he won with Frauen regier'n die Welt it peaked at number 7 in the hit parade; it stayed in the Top 10 for one week and dropped out of the Top 30 after four weeks.
On 7 July 2007 he performed at the German leg of Live Earth in Hamburg. On May 1, 2008 he became father to a son, Louis.
Cicero made his film debut in "Hilde" (2009) and received good notices for his performance as musician Ricci Blum. Directed by Kai Wessel, the film is a biography of the German singer and actress Hildegard Knef, who is played by Heike Makatsch. He appeared as the singing and speaking voice of Prince Naveen in "Küss den Frosch", the German dubbed version of The Princess and the Frog.
His third studio album, Artgerecht, was released on April 3, 2009. On March 20, 2009 the first single from the album, "Nicht Artgerecht", was released.
He was one of the participating artists at the concert in honor of the Dalai Lama in August 2009 in Frankfurt.
Cicero and his Big Band headlined at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on 12 July 2010. This performance introduced an English version of his song "Murphy's Gesetz" (“Murphy’s Law”), and “That you and I feeling”, a new version of his song, "Ich hab das Gefühl für dich verlor'n". The concert was recorded for a DVD, Roger Cicero - Live at Montreux 2010.
In October 2010 Cicero published a book, Weggefährten: Meine Songs fürs Leben (Companions: My Songs for Life ) reflections on songs that have personal meaning for him, revealing his memories associated with the songs, and exploring the history of the songs and their composers. The book describes Cicero’s youth in West Berlin, his musical studies in Holland, and a formative trip he made as a teenager with his father to his paternal family’s native Romania then under the rule of Ceauşescu’s government.
After appearing in promotional talks for Weggefährten at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Cicero toured in a series of concerts with his pianist and musical director Lutz Krajenski. The Roger Cicero Solo programme featured the duo performing songs from their albums, including jazz numbers Cicero and Krajenski recorded as part of the group After Hours. Along with swing and jazz, they showcased rock and soul songs in English and German, and presented new arrangements of “Every little thing she does is Magic”,”What’s Going On”, ”Let’s Stay Together” and Prince’s “Forever in My Life”. During some of the numbers, Cicero accompanied himself on piano and guitar. Reviews of the tour acclaimed Cicero and Krajenski’s virtuoso performance of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo A La Turk”.
Category:1970 births Category:German male singers Category:German Eurovision Song Contest entrants Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2007 Category:German jazz singers Category:Living people Category:People from Berlin Category:German people of Romanian descent
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.