Cicero
Cicero, Marcus Tullius Cicero,the famous orator.
Life
The first of two sons of a rich and well-connected eques (see equites, origins and republic) of Arpinum, he was born on 3 January 106 BC, the year following the first consulship of Marius, with whose family (also from Arpinum) his grandmother Gratidia had marriage connections. His intelligent and ambitious father (who was to die in the year of Cicero's canvass for the consulship), advised perhaps by Lucius Licinius Crassus, gave his two sons an excellent education in philosophy and rhetoric in Rome and later in Greece, with their two first-cousins as their fellow students. Cicero did military service in 90/89 under Pompey's father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, and attended legal consultations of the two great Scaevolae (both called Quintus Mucius Scaevola). He conducted his first case in 81 (Pro Quinctio) and made...[The entire page is 6679 words long]
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