this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one website platform more about them later in the video Welcome Back to biographics I'm your host Cosmic horror madman Eric Malachite and today's script was pinned by Ru Alexander so be sure to show him some love in the comments and tell us whether you think the title for this video is accurate was Cicero the greatest Statesman of ancient Rome let's find out poet CIS described Cicero as the most eloquent of all the sons of Romulus while quintilian wrote that Cicero was regarded not as the name of
a man but as the name of eloquence itself famed for his oratorical skills without rival in the Roman World Cicero is remembered today for his speeches on law politics and philosophy but he was Far More Than A Gifted writer and public speaker Cicero was a key figure in the last Decades of the Roman Republic the three greatest attempts to overthrow the Republic all happened within his lifetime he managed to escape the first one by Sula unscathed he was instrumental in stopping the second one by Catalina and despite his best efforts failed to prevent the third
by Caesar which saw Cicero's beloved Republic crumble to dust Marcus tus Cicero or kikiro was born on January 3rd 106 BC in the Italian town of arpinum nowadays called Arpino about about 60 Mi southeast of Rome according to Plutarch the main ancient source we have on the life of Cicero the future Statesman was descended from the vuli an italic tribe that used to be a real thorn in Rome's sign during the early years of the Republic after fighting for centuries the volans were defeated and their territory was assimilated into the ever growing Roman Republic around
300 BC fortunately for Cicero the volans received full Roman citizenship in 188 BC so by the time he came on the scene he had had the same rights as a regular Roman that being said some of his political opponents still tried to use the fact that Cicero was not a native Roman against him some things never change with one of them deeming Cicero a naturalized immigrant while another referred to his consulship as the reign of an alien for his part Cicero remained proud of being an arpon although he downplayed his vultan roots and referred to
himself as a Roman he wrote that he had two Fatherland that of which he is a native and that which he is a citizen he will never deny his allegiance to his native Town only he will never forget that Rome is his greater Fatherland and that arpinum is but a portion of Rome vultan or not kikiro was born into a wealthy and privileged family with his father part of the equestrian order not much is known about his mother except that her name was Elia and according to Plutarch she was well-born and lived an honorable life
his father meanwhile supposedly traced his ancestry to tulus attakus a King of the vult tribe who once weed war against the Romans the final member worth mentioning was the original Cicero who gave him his surname the name comes from ciser Latin for chickpea and this ancestor gained the moniker because he had a CFT on the tip of his nose making it look like a chickpea Cicero was advised to change his name early in his career to something less legume based but he refused stating instead that he would strive to make the name Cicero more illustrious
than such names as scarus and catalus since most of us have no idea who those two even were without Googling them we argue that he succeeded and Cicero certainly maintained a good humor regarding his surname on one occasion when he offered a silver plate as a tribute to the gods he requested the Craftsman to inscribe his first two names Marcus and tus but instead of Cicero to engrave an image of a chickpea thus making him a Pioneer in the use of emojis Cicero was a gifted student described as fond of learning and fond of wisdom
capable of welcoming all knowledge and incapable of sliding any kind of literature or training from a young age Cicero showed a remarkable aptitude for poetry and oratory and also began studying Roman law with the help of a prominent Statesman named muus scava however a full Roman education could not be completed without military service therefore in 90 BC the 17-year-old Cicero went to fight in the social war which has nothing to do with Facebook and Twitter first under pomp strabo Pompei the Great's father and then under Sula the social war occurred between the Roman Republic and
some of its Italian allies who just like the vuli tribe A Century earlier wanted to receive Roman citizenship the Romans won although we don't know of any particulars of the war involving Cicero it doesn't seem like he spent much time in the Army though because in 88 BC cisero was already back home learning from the greatest orators Statesmen and philosophers that Rome and Greece had to offer if you're a lawyer writer and oror like Cicero and you want your brand to be just as influential then you're going to need a snazzy website and the sponsor
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now back to the video in 81 BC the 25-year-old Cicero began his career as a lawyer with his first appearance in court being the defense of a guy named puus quintius but it was a different case one year later that earned him a claim Fame and some powerful enemies at the time Sula had seiz power in Rome following a civil war but if you want to learn about that check out the bio we have on Sula once he was in charge Sula allowed his friends and supporters to enrich themselves through various Shady dealings such as
for example acquiring property on the cheap from people who had been exiled or executed that was the plan for a guy named chrysogonus who bought at auction the house of a deceased man from amiria named seus rius for the lavish Countryside estate chrysogonus paid the low low sum of 2,000 dener but in came the man's son an heir also named sexus rius who publicly decried the auction as a sham as the property was worth 250 talents which was to put it simply a crapload more than what chrysogonus paid for it angered that their actions would
be called into question chrysogonus accused rius of killing his father and Sula indicted him on trumped up evidence most lawyers wanted nothing to do with the trial out of fear of what sulab might do to them but wasn't is there anyone willing to take the case and fight for justice in came Marcus kikiro Ace Attorney at Law despite his lack of experience Cicero delivered an impassioned speech where he accused chrysogonus of being The Mastermind behind the murder of sexus rius the Elder and the frame up of his son to get his hands on the deceased
man's Fortune but you know what he was a lot better at this than we are so let's see what Cicero had to say chrysogonus asks you gentlemen of the jury that for as much as he has made himself master of so ample a fortune which belongs by right to another man and for as much as he is hindered and hampered in the enjoyment of that fortune by the fact that seus rius lives he asks you I say to relieve his mind from every shade of doubt and anxiety while Rus is a citizen he does not
think that he can keep hold of rias's rich and Splendid inheritance if only rius be condemned and cast forth from society then he hopes that he may be able to squander in luxury and profusion that which he has won by crime he begs you gentlemen to pluck from his bosom this rooted distrust which Frets and plagues him night and day and to lend yourselves to secure him his ill gotten gain there's a lot more to it but in short Cicero urged the jury not to fall for Cogan's scheme into acquit sexus rius and guess what
they did the defendant walked off a free man and Cicero became the Perry Mason of the Roman World however rius was only cleared of patricide we don't know if he ever got his family estate back back or what happened to him or chrysogonus after the trial but what about cisero surely now the high-profile cases would start flooding in well not exactly because after this Victory Cicero decided to take an extended leave from the bar and travel to Greece and Asia Minor some argued this was because he feared repercussions from Sula although Cicero wrote that he
did it for health concerns due to overexertion and strain of the lungs either way he spent 2 years away from Rome once he returned in 77 BC Sula was dead the Republic had mostly been restored to its old ways and Cicero was again ready to resume his promising career it didn't take long for Cicero to become a rising star again despite his 2-year absence he was still well regarded and was appointed quester in 76 BC assigned to Sicily where his main duty was to ensure that the grain kept flowing to Rome he kept practicing law
while in Sicily in his most high-profile case involved the successful prosecution of the ex governor of of Sicily gas vys another of sula's former supporters who stood accused of extortion once back in Rome Cicero was promoted to more important political and administrative positions in progression usually referred to as cursus anorm he was already a member of the Senate thanks to his status as quester and in 69 BC he was elected as adile and then in 66 BC as preder only one position remained that of Consul during the Roman Republic the consulship was the highest elected
office in the the land the consul served for a term of one year and they were always elected two at a time so there would never be a single man who held all the power it was possible to be conso more than once although ciso served only one term in 63 BC alongside a politician named guas Antonius hia although the two consoles were technically equal cisero was definitely the guy in charged with hia described by others as a political non-entity and afraid of his own shadow doing it strictly so he could score a governorship in
a rich province after his one year in office little did either of them know that their consulship would be so eventful for starters Cicero had to navigate the tricky world of politics at a time when there were some pretty important players on the rise in Rome mainly talking about Julius Caesar and Pompei with Marcus crus as an honorable mention a few years later the three realized that together they would be unstoppable and formed an unofficial Alliance dubb the first triumvirate but for the moment Pompei and Caesar were at odds with each other politically and yes
we have bios on all three of them if you're interested wink also at odds were the two main political groups of Rome and formally dubbed the optimatus and the popularis the former were more traditional and backed Pompei while the latter were populous in favor of Caesar and in the middle of this bruhaha was the consul Cicero he usually cited with the optimatus as he felt that the popularis resorted to demagogy to often indeed one of Cicero's first acts as console was to oppose a bill put forward by an obscure Tribune named ruis but really authored
by Caesar it was a plan to redistribute land among the poorer Romans and on the face of it at least it looked like something that would help the average citizens of Rome however Cicero objected to the fact that 10 men or the 10 Kings as he called them would have complete control over the confiscation resettlement and redistribution of the lands thus giving them unchecked power to sell off whatever property they desired across the provinces three times was the bill put forward during his consulship and all three times Cicero fought veh ly to have it vetoed
this herd is standing with the common people who perceived it as Cicero and the optimatus Striking down something that would help them whereas the popularist were trying to look after their own interests and indeed it is likely that that was Caesar's intention all along ever a shrewd Statesman he came out on top whether the bill passed or not but Caesar was not cisero's biggest problem during his consulship but rather one of his allies named Lucius sergius Catalina katalina had previously stood for consulship two times unsuccessfully after being rejected Again by the voters in 63 BC
he began plotting a coup against the Republic katalina had the support of multiple Senators many of them crippled with debts that he promised to erase and intended to use foreign armies to overthrow the consules and take over the Republic by force unfortunately for him Cicero found out about his plan according to plutarch's several former allies of Catalina that he tried to recruit including Marcus crus informed Cicero of the plot with this new information the ccil called a meeting of the Senate on October 21st 63 BC and warned them that a rebellion was imminent everyone took
the threat seriously and passed a decree that matters should be put in the hands of the cils to preserve the city basically this was martial law that gave Cicero the power to do whatever he deemed necessary to save the Republic a few days later Cicero may have avoided an assassination attempt on himself thanks to a woman named fulvia who informed him that two men named marcius and keus would come to his house to pay their respects however they were Catalina's men who were going to strike Cicero down with swords as soon as they were inside
the two men did indeed arrive the following morning but they were not allowed inside the house despite their protest so they just left whether or not they were truly assassins on Catalina's payroll we cannot say with certainty we might as well point out at this stage that most of our info about the Catalina conspiracy comes from the speeches of of Cicero himself and he has occasionally been accused of exaggerating the threat to the Republic and his role in preventing it to boost his reputation slow down drama queen as far as Catalina was concerned he was
allowed to speak before the Senate to defend himself but no one was buying what he was selling not buying it now get away from here after his speech Cicero banished him from the city and Catalina left and joined his army which was waiting in aturia Cicero delegated duties he stayed in Rome to deal with a threat in the city while his fellow Consul hia assisted by the more capable quintis matus would ride out and face the enemy in battle believe it or not cisero had the more dangerous task ahead of him because one of Catalina's
allies named lenus intended to kill all the Senators and as many of the other citizens as they could to burn down the city itself and to spare no one it was a stroke of luck that Cicero found out about this plan because lenus tried to recruit a GIC tribe called the Alois to their side he intercepted the gall envoys and made them send a fake reply to lenus requesting a written oath signed and sealed guaranteeing their Alliance should the Alibis help Catalina overthrow the Republic basically Cicero asked the traitors to stamp a giant guilty sign
on their foreheads and guess what they did lenus replied as requested with the names and signatures of his co-conspirators who were immediately arrested now came the controversial part what to do with them Cicero asked for input from the Senate one group led by Caesar suggested life imprisonment while another led by K the younger demanded the death penalty both choices were illegal under Roman law since the conspirators were Roman citizens condemned without a trial a vote was cast and KO won even though ultimately it was Cicero's call he went along with the Senate vote and ordered
the men executed the rest of the conspiracy quickly fell apart once word reached Catalina that the coup inside Rome didn't work most of his men abandoned him by the time he fought hibria at the Battle of Pistoria in January 6 2 BC he only had a few thousand men remaining katalina was killed in battle and his plot had failed Cicero was hailed as a hero for saving the Republic a few years later his execution of the conspirators would come back to bite him in the ass but for now the people voted him the greatest honors
ever conferred and called him the father of his country for now Cicero was the Talk of the Town but once the serious crisis had been averted it didn't take long for Rome to fill up with its typical political Shenanigans again in 60 BC cisero did himself no favors when he refused to join Caesar Pompei and crus in the first triumvirate that we mentioned earlier say what you will about the guy but Cicero was a True Believer in the principles of the Republic and didn't want any single entity to attain too much power even if it
was him at least not at the moment unfortunately this left Cicero vulnerable to attacks from his political enemies and one of them struck his name was puus cl Aus and he's probably best remembered for the Bon and DEA Scandal where he supposedly dressed up as a woman to attend the secret rights for the goddess Bona which forbade the presence of men thanks mainly to the influence of Caesar and the money of crus Claudius not only escaped the Scandal unscathed but was made Tribune in 58 BC Claudius hated Cicero so as soon as he had the
power he passed a law that outlawed anyone who had put to death Roman citizens without a trial clearly this was aimed at ciso for his execution of the Catalina conspirators and it worked cisero suddenly found himself without many allies so without any protection he left Rome in Exile and to add insult to injury Claudius had his house torn down Cicero stayed in exile for about a year and a half it was a dark time for him where he even wrote about contemplating suicide luckily for him Claudius quickly got drunk with power and began opposing Pompei
and then even Caesar consequently Pompei put forward a petition to recall Cicero to R and with Caesar's support it was enthusiastically endorsed therefore in August 57 BC Cicero was back home but with one major caveat he had to crush those Republican ideals he held so dear and not make any more disparaging comments towards the members of the triumvirate particularly Caesar humbled and submissive Cicero agreed to the terms likely because he was kept on a leash Cicero mostly stayed out of politics for the rest of the decade on the bright side he dedicated most of his
time to writing and this period was when he produced many of his greatest works particularly his papers on rhetoric and philosophy then in 51 BC Cicero's servile demeanor was rewarded with a governorship in chela he was praised for the work he did in the province and this could have been the start of his political comeback unfortunately for him Caesar had declared war on the Republic we've talked about this Civil War from the perspective of Caesar Pompei Mark Anthony Brutus and probably others so we'll stick to the short version in 49 BC Julius Caesar refused the
order of the Senate to give up his provinces and disband his army instead he marched on Rome his enemies led by Pompei abandoned the city to gather their forces Cicero followed Pompei but after the latter Was Defeated at the Battle of ARS Solus in August 48 BC Cicero surrendered While others stayed on to fight back in Rome Caesar pardoned Cicero hoping to turn him into a reluctant Ally because this would help legitimize his power grab for his part Cicero seemed somewhat willing to accept his role not because he had any love or trust for Caesar
but because he had utterly lost confidence in the Republican side however whatever plans he had went out the window in 44 BC when Caesar was assassinated during a meeting of the Senate by Brutus and dozens of other conspirators Cicero himself had no part in the plot although he certainly was a fan of it writing in a letter to gas tronus how I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the IDS of March after Caesar's death cisero became one of the leaders of the Republican faction while the opposing cesarians were
led by Mark Anthony who was Consul at the time at first the two sides seemed conciliatory Cicero even proposed a compromise at a senate meeting where Caesar's assassins would not be punished for their deed but all the acts passed by Caesar as dictator would stay in place and he would even receive a public funeral the smiles and handshakes were just for show though Mark Anthony had no intention of letting bygones be bygones instead he provoked a new Civil War later that year when he tried to take over Caesar's former governorships by force cisero saw this
has a great opportunity to be rid of Anthony forever and declared him An Enemy of the State little did Cicero know that he doomed himself with that action Mark Anthony outplayed him to be honest he forged a new alliance with Marcus lepidus and Caesar's Heir Octavian thus forming the second triumverate together they grabbed power and enacted prescriptions like Sula did before them they assembled a list of hundreds of rich and influential men who would be executed and their properties confiscated and Cicero was at the top of the list despite Octavian pleading for 2 days for
Cicero's life because he respected The Old Man Mark Anthony refused to listen to any terms unless Cicero should be the first man to be put to death and so he was cisero was at his Villa in Tusculum when he heard of the prescriptions he attempted to flee Italy but bad weather turned his ship around eventually Cicero accepted his fate he returned to another Villa in cayeta and awaited his executioners to track him down they found him on December 7th 43 BC among his assassins was papus a Tribune whose life Cicero once saved by defending him
in a case of paraside the 63-year-old former Consul and Statesman offered no resistance and even stretched out his neck so his Killers would land a good swing Cicero's head and hands were delivered to Anthony in Rome who had them nailed to the rooster of for all Romans to see of course things didn't work out too well for Anthony either as he was defeated by Octavian who then took on the name of Augustus Caesar and became the first Roman Emperor plutar ends his tale of cico with an anecdote one day when Augustus visited his nephew the
boy tried to hide the fact that he was reading one of Cicero's books but the emperor took the book and began reading from it himself and when he returned it to the boy he said of Cicero a learned man my child a learned man and a lover of his country I hope you learned something today and if you liked what you saw here today be sure to deploy your likes subscribe to the channel and comment your favorite thing about kikiro or Cicero I'm Eric malachit and I'll see you next time space cowboy [Music]
