What was going on:Rome, 63 BCE. The consul Cicero faces Catiline, who planned to seize power by force, in the Senate. Catiline had come anyway; no senator would greet him, and the senior men left his bench empty. Cicero skipped the formal business and turned straight on him.
Why it matters: Cicero's speech here, the First Catilinarian, is the most famous speech in Latin literature.
Catiline, when will you stop abusing our patience? How long will your madness keep mocking us? When will your reckless swagger end?
When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?
His own words, in a speech to the Senate. Cicero, Against Catiline 1.1, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on: The Senate in Rome, 63 BCE. The consul Cicero has exposed Catiline's plan to seize power by force, and Catiline himself has come to the meeting. With guards posted across the city, Cicero speaks straight to him.
Why it matters: Scholars disagree about its weight: one called it among the best known and least significant episodes in Roman history, while others stress that it jolted the Republic into action.
What times we live in! The Senate knows all this, the consul sees it, and still this man is alive. He even comes into the Senate.
Shame on the age and on its principles! The senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the senate.
His own words, in a speech to the Senate. Cicero, Against Catiline 1.2, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on:Rome, 63 BCE. The consul Cicero is denouncing Catiline in the Senate for plotting to seize power by force. He says that putting Catiline to death would leave the other plotters in Rome, while his leaving would draw them out of the city with him.
Why it matters: Catiline's response to this first speech was to withdraw from the city and join an uprising in Etruria.
The consul orders an enemy to leave the city. Are you being exiled? I am not ordering it. But if you want my advice, I advise it.
The consul orders an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me, Are you to go into banishment? I do not order it; but, if you consult me, I advise it.
His own words, in a speech to the Senate. Cicero, Against Catiline 1.13, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on:Rome, 63 BCE. The consul Cicero has denounced Catiline, who planned to seize power by force, and Catiline has left the city to join his army. Cicero calls the people into the forum and gives them this speech.
Why it matters: Scholars disagree about its weight: one called it among the best known and least significant episodes in Roman history, while others stress that it jolted the Republic into action.
He is gone, he has left, he has vanished, he has rushed out. That monster can no longer plot against this city from inside its walls.
He is gone, he has departed, he has disappeared, he has rushed out. No injury will now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness.
His own words, in a speech to the people. Cicero, Against Catiline 2.1, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on:Rome, 3 December 63 BCE. The Senate had just thanked Cicero and voted to hold Lentulus and the other plotters around Catiline. Cicero then went to the Forum to tell the people everything: how he had uncovered the plot and what the Senate had decided.
Why it matters: Cicero's efforts to suppress the conspiracy, which he reports here, earned him the honorific father of the fatherland, though he lived thereafter in fear of trial or exile.
Romans, today you see the republic, your lives, families and this beautiful city saved from fire and sword, by the gods and by my work and risks.
You see this day, O Romans, the republic, and all your lives, your goods, your fortunes, your wives and children, this home of most illustrious empire, thus most fortunate and beautiful city, by the great love of the immortal gods for you, by my labours and counsels and dangers, snatched from fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and preserved and restored to you.
His own words, in a speech to the people. Cicero, Against Catiline 3.1, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on:Rome, 63 BCE: the consul Cicero, who exposed Catiline's plot to seize power, speaks to the Senate again. He tells the senators to stop sparing him and look to the Republic, and says his brother is there grieving and his wife and daughter are afraid.
Why it matters: In this fourth speech Cicero laid the ground for others, chiefly Cato, to argue for executing the conspirators, and after their combined efforts the Senate vote shifted in favour of execution.
If something happens to me, I will die calm and ready. Death cannot shame a brave man, come too soon for a consul, or make a wise man miserable.
…if anything does happen to me, I shall fall with a contented and prepared mind; and, indeed, death cannot be disgraceful to a brave man, nor premature to one of consular rank, nor miserable to a wise man.
His own words, in a speech to the Senate. Cicero, Against Catiline 4.3, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856)
What was going on:Rome, 63 BCE, as Plutarch tells it. Cicero took the plotters around Catiline to the prison one by one, leading Lentulus first through the Forum, and had each put to death. That evening crowds lit lamps and cheered him home.
Why it matters: Executing the conspirators without trial came back on Cicero: he was exiled in 58 BCE, though recalled the next year.
Seeing plotters in the forum still hoping the men were alive and could be rescued, he shouted that they had lived: the Roman way of saying someone is dead.
And seeing that many members of the conspiracy were still assembled in the forum in ignorance of what had been done and waiting for night to come, with the idea that the men were still living and might be rescued, he cried out to them with a loud voice and said: They have lived. For thus the Romans who wish to avoid words of ill omen indicate death.
As Plutarch tells it, over a century later. Plutarch, Life of Cicero 22.2, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919)
What was going on: Plutarch, writing over a century later, describes Cicero's exile, 58–57 BCE. Sailing from Brundisium, he was driven back by a counter-wind, set out again and put in at Dyrrhachium, where, it is said, an earthquake struck as he was about to land.
Many visited him and Greek cities sent envoys, yet he spent most of his time in grief, gazing toward Italy like a heartbroken lover.
But although many people visited him out of goodwill, and the Greek cities vied with one another in sending him deputations, still, he passed his time for the most part in dejection and great grief, looking off towards Italy like a disconsolate lover,
Plutarch, describing him, over a century later. Plutarch, Life of Cicero 32.4, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919)
What was going on: Cicero writes this in 44 BCE, the year senators stabbed Caesar to death. Here he is explaining how land becomes private property and what people owe each other, leaning on Plato and the Stoics. The next year Cicero himself was killed on Antony's orders.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
As Plato put it so well, we are not born just for ourselves. Our country has a claim on us, and so do our friends.
But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it, we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share;
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 1.22, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: Cicero wrote this in 44 BCE, the year senators killed Caesar. Here he is finishing his discussion of justice, right after examples of fair dealing with enemies in war and with slaves.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
Wrong is done by force or by trickery. Both are beastly: trickery seems the fox's way, force the lion's. Both are beneath us, but trickery is worse.
While wrong may be done, then, in either of two ways, that is, by force or by fraud, both are bestial: fraud seems to belong to the cunning fox, force to the lion; both are wholly unworthy of man, but fraud is the more contemptible.
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 1.41, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: 44 BCE, the year Caesar was killed. Writing to his son Marcus, Cicero argues that arms are of little value without wise counsel at home, and holds up his own past service to the state as proof.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
When I ran the state, didn't weapons give way to civilian rule? The republic was never in more danger, and never more at peace.
Not to mention other instances, did not arms yield to the toga, when I was at the helm of state? For never was the republic in more serious peril, never was peace more profound.
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 1.77, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: Cicero wrote this in 44 BCE, the year Caesar was killed. He is arguing that people of different character can owe different things, and uses Cato, who killed himself at Utica in 46 BCE rather than accept Caesar's pardon.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
Cato was unbelievably stern by nature and never wavered from his purpose. For a man like him, dying was right rather than facing a tyrant.
But Cato had been endowed by nature with an austerity beyond belief, and he himself had strengthened it by unswerving consistency and had remained ever true to his purpose and fixed resolve; and it was for him to die rather than to look upon the face of a tyrant.
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 1.112, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: Cicero writes this in 44 BCE, the year senators stabbed Caesar to death in the Senate. He has just listed the reasons people submit to someone's power, and argues that love holds power fast while fear only breeds hate.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
We just learned that no amount of power can survive the hatred of the many. This tyrant's death shows it, though the state still obeys him.
And we recently discovered, if it was not known before, that no amount of power can withstand the hatred of the many. The death of this tyrant, whose yoke the state endured under the constraint of armed force and whom it still obeys more humbly than ever, though he is dead, illustrates the deadly effects of popular hatred;
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 2.23, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: 44 BCE, the year Caesar was killed. Writing to his son Marcus, Cicero compares his own leisure with Scipio Africanus' chosen rest, and says his is forced on him: the senate, he writes, is abolished and the courts closed.
Why it matters: The killing failed to restore the Republic. Instead it led to Caesar's deification and a civil war between his supporters and his killers, which became a stage in the Republic's collapse.
Armed treason keeps me out of politics and the courts, so I have time on my hands. I have left the city and wander the country, often alone.
…for as I am kept by force of armed treason away from practical politics and from my practice at the bar, I am now leading a life of leisure. For that reason I have left the city and, wandering in the country from place to place, I am often alone.
His own words. Cicero, On Duties 3.1, translated by Walter Miller (1913)
What was going on: As Plutarch tells it, over a century later: in 43 BCE Cicero, put on the list of the proscribed by Antony, was being carried in a litter toward the sea when his killers caught up. One of them, Popillius, he had once defended in court. Cicero told his servants to set the litter down.
Why it matters: After the killing, Cicero's head and hands were displayed on the Rostra; he was the only victim of the proscriptions displayed that way.
Holding his chin in his left hand as he always did, worn out and unkempt, he stared at his killers. Most of those watching covered their faces.
Then he himself, clasping his chin with his left hand, as was his wont, looked steadfastly at his slayers, his head all squalid and unkempt, and his face wasted with anxiety, so that most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him.
Plutarch, describing him, over a century later. Plutarch, Life of Cicero 48.3, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919)
Portrait: Roman marble bust of Cicero, 1st century CE, Musei Capitolini, Rome; this portrait type is identified as Cicero by comparison with an inscribed bust at Apsley House. Wilfredor, CC0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
