Marcus Tullius Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in Arpino (Italy) in 106 B.C.
He leaves its mark on the entire 1st century. B.C.
Belonging to an aristocratic city family, he grow up in a city far from the center of power. At that time small villages far away from Rome preserved old traditions, the ancient spirit and the MORES now lost in the capital.
He later moves to Rome and studied with Greek masters (his brother Quinto was destined for a political career), initially aimed at the study and practice of the art of oratory.
Cicero entered the circle of the Scipios, under the protection of the family of UCI. He was the only one of his family to achieve a political career through eloquence, an exceptional case in a society that saw military glory as the only way to obtain fame and the DIGNITAS which acquired the family was based on the war commitment.
Cicero is the pride of this way of acquiring power and arriving at the consulate (there is opposition in his orations between Toga and Armi).
His works have been preserved almost entirely, which is not a coincidence (as is often the case). His production emerges in a period in which he developed a sensitivity for the written book/text (Silla brought among the war spoils from Athens the library and Lucullus reported the libraries of Mithridates VI).
T. Pomponio Atticus, due to his aptitude for the study of Greece, and Cicero's friend, was his publisher and thanks to him Cicero's work had a wide and widespread diffusion:
- XIII 12,2 - letter to Pomponio - entrusts him with the sale for the future
- III 5,6 a Quinto: "for the Latin books I don't know who to turn to, because they are deformed" (read the different packaging of the texts in Greek and Latin)
Until then, rhetoric and the study of oratory had been based on Greek oration. The technical schemes and contents were Greek. Cicero instead argued that it had to have Roman arguments and be written in Latin.
It was important for the education and instruction of the Romans, who took over the custom from the Greeks, being a fundamental didactic and political tool for convincing the public in assemblies in Rome, in groups in the Senate, etc.
The School of Rhetoricians was created in 93 B.C. by L. Clotio Gallio, client and partner of Cicero. The school, due to destabilizing factors of the aristocracy and the arguments there discussed was closed by the censors in 92 B.C.
Oratory for Cicero was the bearer of moral values and his lessons were used in Latin exercises in rhetoric schools.
Period of political tension
Cicero is defender and critical in his orations
Consul in 63 B.C. - the circulation of ideas was limited by the restrictions of the time and the relative freedom of the Romans: for example in the theaters real or current topics could not be represented but Greek tragedies and the first theater's book was that of Pompey completed in 55 B.C.
It acted in the Comitia, presided over by magistrates who negotiated with the people and were the bearers of their requests, and in the Senate, where a precise hierarchy was in force whereby the senators who entered last (PEDITES) did not have the right to speak like the older ones.
The freedom of the citizens was limited by the DIGNITAS, reserved for a few families, and the denunciation of this situation took place through invective (pamphlets), dear to the Romans for the use of insulting Epictets, with which the taste for witty jokes found vent, written walls preserved in Pompeii were also present in Rome.
HOMO NOVUS, is part of this great circulation of ideas and makes itself known in the criminal tribunals (in the 1st century B.C. 8 permanent ones were established in the forum). According to Ciciero the trials were more popular than the theatrical performances because more interesting than the actors were the great criminals and the most prominent political figures. The customers followed politics and supported their patron. Here Cicero makes himself known, a cunning man who chose the people to defend in order to create friendships and support.
