The life of Cicero, the most famous orator of ancient Rome

Pierre-Vincent Letourneau, edited by Alexis Patri 09:00, March 19, 2022

 We are in November of the year 63 BC, in the temple of Jupiter Stator in the heart of the city of Rome.

The members of the Senate have been summoned there, because the situation is serious: the Republic is in danger!

Catilina, one of the senators, secretly hatched a plot to seize power by force.

But the consul in office, a charge that falls to two people each year, is aware and will not delay in putting him in default.

This consul is Cicero.

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 The man then gets up to launch his speech with a formula, still famous 2,000 years later: "Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?", which can be translated as "Until when, Catilina, abuseras- you of our patience?", "How much longer will we be thus the plaything of your fury?", or even "Where will the outbursts of this unbridled audacity stop?".

A speech that has gone down in history

And Cicero continues with a famous declamation: "O tempora! O mores!", "O time! O morals! The senate knows all these plots, the consul sees them; and Catiline still lives..." That day, Cicero's speech is so well conducted, the effect is so strong on the assembly, that Catiline flees, thus admitting her guilt, when no proof has yet been presented.

It's a masterstroke.

With a speech and the three that will follow, the conspirators are unmasked and the danger averted!

Cicero is acclaimed as a savior and "Father of the Country".

He is at the height of his career, at the height of his glory, although he was not predestined to be part of the Republic's elite.

Cicero, a social "outsider"

Cicero is what is called in Rome "a new man".

He reached the upper echelons of the state, without his ancestors having done so before him.

He was born in 106 BC.

in Arpinum, a hundred kilometers from Rome, in a family belonging to the equestrian order, a sort of bourgeoisie united by wealth and the ability to wage war as a knight.

He does not come from a patrician lineage with prestigious ancestors and is not a priori destined to occupy the supreme magistracies or to join the Senate. 

It is therefore essentially through his oratorical art – in addition to a certain ability to follow the direction of the wind – that Cicero acquired the aura and reputation that he lacked at birth.

His political legitimacy will be forged in his speeches.

Its culture is its only authority, its eloquence its only power.

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Let's be clear, Cicero was not born in the lower strata of the plebs either.

He enjoys a refined education, completed in Athens in his youth.

Greece no longer dominates the seas, but she still dominates culture and enjoys great prestige in spiritual activities.

Cicero mastered Greek perfectly, as did a large part of the aristocracy.

In Athens, he then sharpened his art of rhetoric and devoted himself to philosophy, which he wanted to permeate Latin thought.

But before philosophy, it is above all eloquence that matters in the many assemblies and elections that structure Roman institutions.

Pleasing and convincing are a necessity.

And since Cicero does not have his foot in the mysteries of power, he must first shine in another way: by pleading! 

Latin, a language made for public speaking

At the time, any good orator could defend someone in court, in theory voluntarily, and thereby seal relationships of friendship and kindness that are part of a sociability that constitutes the base of social ascent. .

Cicero also takes care to marry a woman of high extraction, thus infiltrating the Roman nobility.

This is for him the best way to sustain what looks like a tenacious ambition to gain power. 

His numerous and brilliant pleadings, which he takes care (not without a certain vanity) to put down in writing to distribute them, testify to a perfectly accomplished oratorical skill, of which he masters all the subtleties.

Cicero excels in the art of presenting his words as much as in the art of stating them. 

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It must be said that Latin lends itself perfectly to effects and figures of speech.

Syntax is malleable, since it is the declensions of words and not their place in a sentence that signify their function.

The syllables are long or short and allow you to play on the scansion to support the impact of the speech.

Nothing is left to chance.

And it is through his mastery of rhetoric that Cicero acquired the reputation that enabled him to now engage in politics. 

In 76 BC, when he was just 30 years old, the age required to claim positions of power, Cicero launched his honorary course.

That is to say the succession of elective magistracies which will be able to bring him quietly to the consulate 13 years later.

Cicero is now fully part of the political world, then in constant turmoil.

Republican institutions are no longer sufficient to ensure the stability of an immense territorial empire.

Internal conflicts are on the rise;

military leaders are taking up more and more space. 

Speeches that will cost him his head

While Cicero continues to advocate a third way between the old conservative aristocracy and the new, sometimes radical (embodied in particular by the famous Julius Caesar), alliances are forged and undone.

And the confrontations are affirmed, to the point of arriving at real civil wars.

So many opportunities for Cicero to speak to the Senate or to the people to support this or that party, always with the idea of ​​defending the Republic, and always with a certain talent never to get completely angry with each side.

Clever politician or weak calculator?

Historians say... 

As soon as his role is no longer preponderant (as after the war between Pompey and Caesar), Cicero retires to his country houses to write.

His correspondence is extremely abundant, his theoretical treatises, notably on the art of public speaking, are finely elaborated.

Some will cross the ages to us, a sign of their echo through history.

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But, for Cicero, rhetoric cannot suffice if we do not add philosophy to it!

He then spent a large part of his time translating Greek texts to give Hellenic wisdom its full place in Latin thought, and in a certain way of looking at public affairs.

The Republic he loves so much, Cicero will also die with it, when it expires in the face of the personal and imperial power of new leaders.

The turf wars continue.

Caesar is assassinated.

His successors Marc-Antoine and Octave fight for power.

Cicero does not choose moderation and aggressively attacks Antoine in a series of speeches.

Once reconciled with his rival to share power (only for a time), Antony, avenging, demands Cicero's head.

Head that will be cut off and then presented in a public place.

Cicero's speeches will certainly have made it shine but will have finally finished it.

Bibliography:

• Yves Roman,

  Cicero

  , Fayard, 2020

• Cicero, Premier discours contre Catiline

  , trad J. Thibaud, Hachette, 1849 - revised and enlarged by a society of Latin scholars in 2018.

• Fernand Delarue,

  Cicero and the invention of the gaze

  , in Literary information vol 4, 2004