Cicero expressed extreme pride not only in being a novus homo (" new man "; comparable to a " self-made man ") who became consul even though none of his ancestors had ever served as a consul, but also in having become consul " in his year ".

The notion of the state of nature itself derives from the republican writings of Cicero and of Lucretius, both of whom enjoyed great vogue in the 18th century, after having been revived amid the optimistic atmosphere of Renaissance humanism.

A tradition mentioned by Cicero states that Agamedes and Trophonius, after having built this temple, prayed to the god to grant them in reward for their labor what was best for men.

Aius Locutius gave clear, urgent instructions of great importance to the State, in everyday Latin, to an ordinary plebeian passer-by – and thereafter, according to Cicero, " having acquired a temple, an altar, and a name, ' Speaker ' never spoke again ".

On the charge of maiestas ( high treason ) incurred by having left his province for Egypt without the consent of the senate and in defiance of the Sibylline books, he was acquitted ; it is said that the judges were bribed, and even Cicero, an enemy of Gabinius, was persuaded by Pompey to say as little as he could.

He returned to Rome with his commander in 63 in time for the elections at which Murena secured his family's first consulate, mainly with the help of Lucullus ' army veterans and the consul Cicero, Clodius almost certainly having assisted as well.

On one occasion, in particular, having to perform the part of Telamon, banished from his country, in one of Lucius Accius's plays, the tragedian, by his manner and skillful emphasis and an occasional change of a word, added to the evident reality of his feelings, and succeeded in leading the audience to apply the whole to the case of Cicero, and so did him more essential service than any direct defense of himself could have done.

Although known to, for instance, Cicero, there is no extant record of the text having been translated into Latin prior to Boethius in the fifth or sixth century.

As tribune of the people in 61 BC, he was chiefly instrumental in securing the acquittal of the notorious Publius Clodius when charged with having profaned the mysteries of Bona Dea ( Cicero, Ad.

He was accused of treason for having opposed Julius Caesar in a war in Africa, but was defended so eloquently by Cicero that he was pardoned and allowed to return to Rome.

The most remarkable, contained in his Chronologiae ex nummis antiquis restitutae ( 1696 ) and Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum, was to the effect that, with the exception of the works of Homer, Herodotus and Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius.

Metellus once accused Cicero of having caused more people to die through his personal testimony than he had saved through his representing them in court.

Terentia was also responsible for paying Dolabella the second installment of Tullia's dowry in 48 BC, when Cicero was having financial trouble.

Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives, tells us that Cicero was forced to testify against Clodius by Terentia, in order to prove that he was not having an affair with Clodia ( Clodius ' sister ).

He was soon after implicated in the Catiline conspiracy, but was not convicted, having Marcus Tullius Cicero and Quintus Hortensius leading his defence.

Milo, having read the later published speech whilst in exile, humorously commented that if Cicero had only spoken that well in court, he would " not now be enjoying the delicious red mullet of Massilia ".

In his speech Pro Cluentio, delivered in 66 BC, Cicero refers to a case he had heard of in which a woman from Miletus was sentenced to death for having aborted her pregnancy, upon receiving bribes from those who stood to inherit her husband's estate if he produced no heir.

In 62 BC he was accused by a certain Gratius of having assumed the citizenship illegally ; and Cicero successfully defended him in his speech Pro Archia.

Cicero describes it, perhaps with some exaggeration, as being by far the largest and richest city of Sicily, and as having a population of 10, 000, engaged in the cultivation of an extensive territory.

After Julia ’ s first husband died in 74 BC, she married Publius Cornelius Lentulus ( Sura ), a politician, who in 63 BC, was involved in the Catiline conspiracy and was executed on the orders of Cicero.

In December 43 BC, Cicero, Quintus and his son were executed on the orders of Roman Triumvir Mark Antony.

This came to a head in 63, when Marcus Tullius Cicero had men charged with complicity in the Conspiracy of Catiline, including the former consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, executed without a trial.

The members of the commission were to be invested with powers so extensive that Marcus Tullius Cicero spoke of them as ten " kings ".

Cicero and Pliny the Elder state that the family was originally from Tusculum, and that members still lived there in the 1st century.

Regrettably they do not include any of Appius ' replies to Cicero as extant texts of any sort by members of Rome's ruling aristocracy are quite few and rare, apart from those of Julius Caesar.

* Nov. 13, 1925-Samuzzo Amatuna, an ally of the " Bloody Gennas ", was gunned down after sitting down in a Cicero, IL, barber shop chair, allegedly by North Side Gang members Jim Doherty and Vincent Drucci.

The most prominent members of the family were Lucius Licinius Murena, who was defended by Cicero in 62 BC against a charge of bribery in the extant speech Pro Murena, and his father of the same name who was defeated by Mithridates in Asia in 81 BC.

This resulted in two of his most original operas being consigned to his desk drawer, namely Cublai, gran kan de ' Tartari ( Kublai Grand Kahn of Tartary ) a satire on the autocracy and court intrigues at the court of the Russian Czarina, Catherine the Great, and Catilina ( Cataline ) a semi-comic-semi-tragic account of the Catiline conspiracy that attempted to overthrow the Roman republic during the consulship of Cicero.

* 63 BC – Cicero gave the fourth and final Catiline Orations.

Cicero Denounces Catiline, fresco by Cesare Maccari, 1840-1919

Cicero Denouncing Catiline by Cesare Maccari. One of several political conflicts in the Roman Republic during this century

Cicero Denouncing Catiline by Cesare Maccari

Cicero also contemplated defending Catiline in court.

The author of Commentariolum Petitionis, possibly Cicero's brother, Quintus Cicero, suggests that Catiline was only acquitted by the fact that: " he left the court as poor as some of his judges had been before the trial ," implying that he bribed his judges.

Comic depiction of Cicero denouncing Catiline.

As it pertains to Catiline, much of the information originates in Cicero ’ s speech In Toga Candida which was given during his election campaign in 64 BC.

Nevertheless, Catiline was defeated by Cicero and Antonius Hybrida in the consular election, largely because the Roman aristocracy feared Catiline and his economic plan.

Another leading conspirator, Lucius Cassius Longinus who was praetor in 66 BC with Cicero, joined the conspiracy after he failed to obtain the consulship in 64 BC along with Catiline.

Much to his surprise, Catiline was in attendance while Cicero denounced him before the Senate ; however, the senators adjacent to Catiline slowly moved away from him during the course of the speech, the first of Cicero's four Catiline Orations.

After Catiline ’ s death, many of the poor still regarded him with respect and did not view him as the traitor and villain that Cicero claimed he was.

Well after Catiline's death and the end of the threat of the conspiracy, even Cicero reluctantly admitted that Catiline was an enigmatic man who possessed both the greatest of virtues and the most terrible of vices.

Here serious drama and politics were blended with high and low comedy ; the plot centered on a love affair between Catiline and a daughter of Cicero as well as the historic political situation.

* Robert Harris ' book Imperium, based on Cicero's letters, covers the developing career of Cicero with many references to his increasing interactions with Catiline.

* The Roman Traitor or the Days of Cicero, Cato and Catiline: A True Tale of the Republic by Henry William Herbert originally published in 1853 in two volumes.

Cicero attacks Catiline in the Roman Senate | Senate of the Roman Republic.

* Catiline accused of conspiring against the Roman Republic with Autronius and the younger Sulla ( also in 63 during the consulship of Cicero ).

The Catiline Orations or Catilinarian Orations were speeches given in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the consul of Rome, exposing to the Roman Senate the plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina and his allies to overthrow the Roman government.

Catiline, in turn, conspired with some of his minions to murder Cicero and the key men of the Senate on the day of the election.

Cicero Denounces Catiline, fresco by Cesare Maccari, 1882-1888.