History Creator / Cicero

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
* Played by Creator/GottfriedJohn in ''Imperium: Augustus'' (2003).
* Appears in both seasons of HBO's ''Series/{{Rome}}'', played by David Bamber. In the series, the soldier who assassinates him turns out to be [[BeenThereShapedHistory Titus Pullo]].

* CourtroomAntics: Roman legal proceedings in this period were very nearly a spectator sport, and Cicero was practically an all-star quarterback. Cicero lost only one case- the trial of Titus Annius Milo for the murder of Clodius Pulcher- and only because the court was [[JuryAndWitnessTampering filled with heavily armed, menacing looking men wanting a conviction and staring meaningfully at both him and the jury throughout proceedings]], who then [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor started a brawl in the courtroom in the middle of Cicero's speech]].\\
Antics Cicero got away with in court include:
** Calling the prosecution's witness, who was an attempted murder victim, a shameless slut, whore, and murderess, and then saying he wasn't going to call her a shameless slut, whore, and murderess, and then [[RefugeInAudacity calling her a shameless slut, whore, and murderess repeatedly throughout the rest of his speech.]]
** Accusing a political rival (Clodius) of incest in a completely unrelated case, where the sister of said rival accused her lover of attempting to poison her (see above).
** Pretending to be Rome personified (it's complicated).
** Pretending to be a long dead Roman Consul (again, it's complicated). Incidentally, he was pretending to be the Consul so he could call the attempted murder victim above a shameless slut, whore, and murderess. And being quite graphic about it.
** Telling the judge he was going to ignore all courtroom procedure for the citizenship application he was arguing for and [[ItMakesSenseInContext spend the next hour discussing Greek literature]]. (His client was Greek.)
** Giving speaking tips to opposing counsel.
** Complimenting opposing counsel on his skill -- because the counsel was once one of his students.
** Accusing opposing counsel of being sexually submissive.
** Accusing the jury of being corrupt (although this ''was'' often the case).
** Discussing fashion in the middle of a murder trial.
** Discussing town planning in the middle of a murder trial.
** Discussing highway maintenance [[RuleOfThree in the middle of a murder trial]].
** Discussing the inconvenient placement of Public Holidays, wait for it, [[OverlyLongGag in the middle of a murder trial]][[note]]Where else?[[/note]].

!!Cicero in Fiction:

** Discussing the inconvenient placement of Public Holidays, wait for it, [[OverlyLongGag in the middle of a murder trial]][[note]]Where else?[[note]].

** Discussing the inconvenient placement of Public Holidays, wait for it, [[OverlyLongGag in the middle of a murder trial]][[Note: Where else?]].

** Discussing highway maintenance in the middle of a murder trial.
** Discussing the inconvenient placement of Public Holidays in the middle of a murder trial.

* DoomedMoralVictor: A∂gainst Mark Antony, where his denunciation of the Second Triumvirate's military junta (and very specifically, Antony's consulate in 43 BC) are generally characterized as his finest hour, even by historians who otherwise have an ambivalent or negative view of the man himself.

->''"Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici. (We are not born for ourselves alone; our country, our friends have a share in us.)"''

* CowardlyLion: unlike most Roman politicians, he wasn't a soldier, but he was capable of being exceptionally brave, as shown by his verbal assaults on Mark Antony that led to his execution.

* DoomedMoralVictor: against Mark Antony, where his denunciation of the Second Triumvirate's military junta (and very specifically, Antony's consulate in 43 BC) are generally characterized as his finest hour, even by historians who otherwise have an ambivalent or negative view of the man himself.

** After Antony fell to Octavian, the first Consul that Octavian appointed to serve with him was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero_Minor Cicero's son]]. It was Cicero the Younger who announced Marc Antony's death at Actium, and he later worked to remove Antony's entire family from political power, avenging his father's death with Augustus' approval.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (sometimes called "Tully" in later references), 106-43 BC, was a prominent statesman and the preeminent orator of late Republican Rome, credited by some for being single-handedly responsible for the persistence of the ancient Greek intellectual tradition in Western culture. This is as much for the quality and content of his writings (which is quite good and interesting) as it is for its sheer volume. While by no means complete, a vast quantity of Cicero's writings and especially his letters have survived into the present day. The First Century BCE has always known to be an unusually rich era (before and afterwards) in terms of availability of information, but even in that light, Cicero stands out.

* SimpleCountryLawyer: Part of his technique was the Roman version of this: like many ''novi homines'', he came from one of the smaller towns in Latium (in his case, Arpinium) that had been granted Roman citizenship relatively recently. And he did work his way up the legal profession to Consulship and then the Senate.

His legacy is very complicated. Elements of his work have found a place of [[ValuesResonance timeless applicability]] in the scholarship of political theory, but he was also very much [[ValuesDissonance a product of his time]] His views on republicanism, liberty, the relationship between the rich and the poor, and slavery, stand very much at odds with the mainstream of democratic theory, and the post-Enlightenment world which his works inspired. His role as the last great champion of the Optimate cause highlights this contrast. His defense of political liberty against the emergent dictatorship of the Second Triumvirate is tempered by the understanding that the political status quo of the Republic was elitist, violent, sclerotic, and irrevocably destroyed. Regardless of his politics, Cicero as revealed in his own writings, is a deeply compelling individual, someone who is interesting for his flaws and failures as much as he is for his insight and virtues. He was a smart man, deeply human, vacillating and politically inconsistent and yet capable of courage when he complained about the erosion of the Republic during the Second Triumvirate.

During the wars following the death of [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Caesar]] he essentially gambled on his life and lost: he re-entered the political stage attempting to play [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]] and UsefulNotes/MarkAntony against each other, which succeeded for a while but backfired when they decided to bury the hatch and launched [[ThePurge a fresh round of proscriptions]] ended up joining forces in the Second Triumvirate. He denounced this alliance and spoke out against Mark Antony, which eventually led him to being added to the proscription list in 43 BC. After evading his killers for some time with help from his many sympathizers, he was eventually betrayed. He was killed, according to legend, with some amount of dignity: unable to escape or fight, he acted as a true philosopher and calmly offered his neck to the centurion's sword. He was brutally executed and dismembered, with his head and hands put on display in the Roman Forum, and left to rot for days. However, his memory and his works were preserved and published by Emperor Augustus, who probably did regret condoning his death.

Most people don't like Cicero anymore on account of his blatant snobbery, his contempt for the poor, [[AristocratsAreEvil his whining about his runaway slaves]] and how irritating it is, [[ItsAllAboutMe for him]], to hunt them down and bring them back to servitude and [[ValuesDissonance other such fun things]] that was the mores of his tempora, but became less so in the last two hundred years or so, when Democracy and Republican institutions greatly exceeded its classical models and predecessors in its definition of liberty and freedom. Each success only made Cicero's works seem more and more obsolete at least in the context he saw himself in. Regardless of his politics, Cicero as revealed in his own writings, is a deeply compelling individual, someone who is interesting for his flaws and failures as much as he is for his insight and virtues. He was a smart man, deeply human, vacillating and politically inconsistent and yet capable of courage when he complained about the erosion of the Republic during the Second Triumvirate.

During the wars following the death of [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Caesar]] he essentially gambled on his life and lost: he re-entered the political stage attempting to play [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]] and UsefulNotes/MarkAntony against each other, which succeeded for a while but backfired when they decided to bury the hatch and launched [[ThePurge a fresh round of proscriptions]] ended up joining forces in the Second Triumvirate. He denounced this alliance and spoke out against Mark Antony, which eventually led him to being added to the proscription list in 43 BC. After evading his killers for some time with help from his many sympathizers, he was eventually betrayed, by a former slave of his as it happens. He was killed, according to legend, with some amount of dignity: unable to escape or fight, he acted as a true philosopher and calmly offered his neck to the centurion's sword. He was brutally executed and dismembered, with his head and hands put on display in the Roman Forum, and left to rot for days. However, his memory and his works were preserved and published by Emperor Augustus, who probably did regret condoning his death.

* Robert Harris' ''Literature/{{Imperium}}'' trilogy chronicles the life of Cicero from the perspective of his slave/scribe Tiro.

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: Antony had him murdered because Cicero made a series of speeches against him. His head and his hands (which had penned the speeches) were cut off and displayed in the Forum Romanum.

Cicero's writings in prose on a variety of subjects, provided a model for later prose writers in Latin, and thanks to being described by the Church fathers as "[[IfItsYouItsOkay a righteous pagan]]", his writings were preserved and served as a model for prose writers in TheMiddleAges to UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance, during which time, Cicero's reputation as a prose stylist faded in light of Montaigne (who was not a fan of him) and Francis Bacon. Cicero's works provide a nearly day-to-day glimpse of the last days of the Roman Republic and the first days of the Empire, and several of his works serve as a model for political oratory well into the 21st Century.

Most people don't like Cicero anymore on account of his blatant snobbery, his contempt for the poor, [[AristocratsAreEvil his whining about his runaway slaves]] and how irritating it is, [[ItsAllAboutMe for him]], to hunt them down and bring them back to servitude and [[ValuesDissonance other such fun things]] that was [[LamePun the mores of his tempora]], but became less so in the last two hundred years or so, when Democracy and Republican institutions greatly exceeded its classical models and predecessors in its definition of liberty and freedom. Each success only made Cicero's works seem more and more obsolete at least in the context he saw himself in. Regardless of his politics, Cicero as revealed in his own writings, is a deeply compelling individual, someone who is interesting for his flaws and failures as much as he is for his insight and virtues. He was a smart man, deeply human, vacillating and politically inconsistent and yet capable of courage when he complained about the erosion of the Republic during the Second Triumvirate.

* CategoryTraitor: Most critical views of Cicero in history take this approach, charging that despite his humble origins, he was strongly opposed to land and class reforms in favor of plebeians. He also tended to be something of a slumlord, being anal about tenants paying their (often inflated) rents while doing little to maintain his properties. Cicero had contempt for people who worked for a living, he was a slaveowner and considering that he complained about some runaway slaves, he probably must have been quite insufferable or cruel to be around, at least for some of them. He was finally betrayed by one of them during his proscriptions.

* Played by Creator/GottfriedJohn in ''Imperium: Augustus'', the 2003 adaptation of ''Literature/{{Imperium}}''.

** The main problem, and the main reason that the Republicans [[PyrrhicVictory lost the Battle of Mutina in the way that really mattered]] was that both consuls died there -- both consuls dying in battle had not happened since the Second Punic War and would be one of the handful of instances where a dictator would be appointed. Instead, with the dictatorship abolished, Octavian seized the consulship by force. Vibius and Pansa were both moderate Caesarians and without the jump start that their deaths brought to Octavian's career, it's possible that the Caesarian faction would have been divided, delayed in establishing the agreement that formed the basis of the Second Triumvirate, and too weakened by the battle to stop Brutus and Cassius's invasion of Italy: exactly as Cicero planned. With better luck, he might have succeeded.

* ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime: His attempt to divide the Caesarians by supporting Octavian against Anthony seemed sound at first. Anthony was the more pressing threat and would have gained the ability to freely march on Rome should Cisalpine Gaul fell under his command. Unfortunately, Octavian turned out to be far more dangerous than Anthony ever was. After routing Anthony to Gaul with the Cicero and the Senate's support, Octavian turned on them and secured himself a consulship by force. As if that wasn't enough, Octavian then proceeded to ally with his former enemy Anthony and staged a political purge of their enemies, including Cicero.

During the wars following the death of [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Caesar]] he essentially gambled on his life and lost: he re-entered the political stage attempting to play [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]] and Mark Antony against each other, which succeeded for a while but backfired when they decided to bury the hatch and launched [[ThePurge a fresh round of proscriptions]] ended up joining forces in the Second Triumvirate. He denounced this alliance and spoke out against Mark Antony, which eventually led him to being added to the proscription list in 43 BC. After evading his killers for some time with help from his many sympathizers, he was eventually betrayed, by a former slave of his as it happens. He was killed, according to legend, with some amount of dignity: unable to escape or fight, he acted as a true philosopher and calmly offered his neck to the centurion's sword. He was brutally executed and dismembered, with his head and hands put on display in the Roman Forum, and left to rot for days. However, his memory and his works were preserved and published by Emperor Augustus, who probably did regret condoning his death.

* Appears briefly in ''Film/Cleopatra'', played by Michael Hordern, and displays his customary sarcastic wit.

* CourtroomAntics: Roman legal proceedings in this period were very nearly a spectator sport, and Cicero was practically an all-star quarterback. Cicero lost only one case- the trial of Titus Annius Milo for the murder of Clodius Pulcher- and only because the court was [[JuryAndWitnessTampering filled with heavily armed, menacing looking men wanting a conviction and staring meaningfully at both him and the jury throughout proceedings]], who then [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor started a brawl in the courtroom in the middle of Cicero's speech]].

* CourtroomAntics: Roman legal proceedings in this period were very nearly a spectator sport, and Cicero was practically an all-star quarterback. Antics Cicero got away with in court (copied from UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic page):

** Discussing the inconvenient placement of Public Holidays in the middle of a murder trial.[[note]]It is worth noting, after reading the above, that Cicero lost only one case. He lost that case because the court was filled with heavily armed, menacing looking men wanting a conviction and staring meaningfully at both him and the jury throughout proceedings.[[/note]]

* SelfMadeMan: Famous for being a ''novus homo'', lacking the significant lineage of 99% of politicians at the time. He came up through the Roman law courts and was the first member of his family to be elected consul, solely on his talent. Ironically, he caught a lot of flak about this from the entrenched patrician class whose traditional rights he often had to defend against populist reformers like Catilina and Caesar.

* TheDitherer: Cicero was well known for being remarkably inconsistent in his political opinions, especially in times of strife. Ironically, when he finally did take a stand -- against Marc Antony -- it got him killed.

* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Octavian, though there was mutual admiration between the two even after Octavian largely discarded him, and the future Emperor later appointed Cicero's son as his consul. He also turned a blind eye to the latter's RoaringRampageOfRevenge against Mark Antony and Antony's entire family.

* TakeAThirdOption: His ''Orator'' noted that oratory at the time was split into two schools: the Attic school which was formal and traditional, and the "Asiatic" style which was florid and stylish. Cicero decided to synthesize the two, and later rhetoricians such as Tacitus and Quintilian considered his novel style to be better than either of the originals.