The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Cicero, Marcus
Tullius
(
106
–
43
BC
), referred to sometimes as Tully, the most influential of Roman prose writers. Born into a rich provincial family, he studied philosophy as well as rhetoric and law. Early success as a pleader and as a politician led to his becoming consul in
63
BC
when he suppressed the conspiracy of Catiline. He supported the senatorial party against
Julius
Caesar
. After the assassination of Caesar he attacked
Mark
Antony
in a series of speeches and was put to death. His influence on later ages has been remarkable for its variety. His writings left their mark on ethics, epistemology, and political thought, on men's ideals of conduct, on the development of oratory and letter writing, on literary style, the popularity of paradox, and the viability of Latin as an international language. During the Middle Ages
Cicero
figured primarily as a master of rhetoric. The textbook De Inventione...
[The entire page is 324 words long]
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