Marcus Tullius Cicero was an exhilarating person during his time, but how did it become to this or where did it begin? The main reason behind all his learning and teaching experience did it benefit his cause throughout his life. For the most part, would you consider Cicero as a primary source based on the information from his past? In totality, I believe he is an incredible source because his life work shows the depth on what he went through in order to achieve the shortcomings that he came across. One of his famous quote's states, "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." What I've taken from this is that even though the person may be gone, all the knowledge learn will still pass on toward the future. Which in tell means that the individual is not dead, just placed in another afterlife. Even till this day, we are using Cicero teaching. If it's through politics, warfighting or just being a human being, he will always be perceived as the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. His experience is due to his time as a young boy; Cicero was sent to Rome to study law under the Scaevolas. Also, was studying under the hands of a philosophy name Philo, who had been head of the Academy at Athens and also the stoic Diodotus. However, one would think Cicero's early life was not social at all just sheltered behind books and learning, but at the age of 17, he served in the Social war under Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. At this moment he realized the importance of political views and the issues, with the difficulties swarming around Rome with political tension during the 80s BCE, that Cicero finished his formal education. Throughout this paper, I will make many sources within his life as a Quaestor, Aedile, Praetor, and a Consul. You will realize at the end that his life can be resourceful in many ways than one during our lifetime.
The Catiline Orations is a set of speeches to the Roman senate given by Cicero. In which he accused the Senator, Catiline, in order to make a plot to overthrow the Roman government. Some modern historians and ancient sources such as Sallust suggest that Catiline was a more complex and sympathetic character than Cicero's writings declare and that Cicero, a career politician, was heavily influenced by a desire to establish decisively a lasting reputation as a great Roman patriot and statesman. Most accounts of the events come from Cicero himself. This is one of the best, if not the very best, documented events surviving from the ancient world and has set the stage for classic political struggles pitting state security against civil liberties. Running for the consulship for a second time after having lost at the first attempt, Catiline was an advocate for the poor, calling for the cancellation of debts and land redistribution. There was apparently substantial evidence that he had bribed numerous senators to vote for him and engaged in other unethical conduct related to the election (such behavior was, however, hardly unknown in the late Republic.) Cicero, in indignation, issued a law prohibiting such machinations, and it seemed obvious to all that the law was directed at Catiline. Catiline, therefore, so Cicero claimed, conspired to murder Cicero and other key senators on the day of the election, in what became known as the Second Catilinarian conspiracy. Cicero announced that he had discovered the plan and postponed the election to give the Senate time to discuss this supposed coup d'état. The day after that originally scheduled for the election, Cicero addressed the Senate on the matter, and Catiline's reaction was immediate and violent. In response to Catiline's behavior, the Senate issued a senatus consultum ultimum, a declaration of martial law. Ordinary law was suspended, and Cicero, as consul, was invested with absolute power. When the election was finally held, Catiline lost again. Anticipating the bad news, the conspirators had already begun to assemble an army, made up mostly of Lucius Cornelius Sulla's veteran soldiers. The nucleus of conspirators was also joined by some senators. The plan was to initiate an insurrection in all of Italy, put Rome to the torch and, according to Cicero, kill as many senators as they could. Through his own investigations, he was aware of the conspiracy. On November 8, Cicero called for a meeting of the Senate in the Temple of Jupiter Stator, near the forum, which was used for that purpose only when great danger was imminent. Catiline attended as well. It was then that Cicero delivered one of his most famous orations.
"When O Catiline, do, you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?" Catiline was present when the speech was delivered. He replied to it by asking people not to trust Cicero because he was a self-made man with no family tradition of public office, and to trust himself because of the long experience of his family. Initially, Cicero's words proved unpersuasive. Catiline then ran from the building, hurling threats at the Senate.[citation needed] Later he left the city and claimed that he was placing himself in self-imposed exile at Marseille, but really went to the camp of Manlius, who was in charge of the army of rebels. The next morning Cicero assembled the people and gave a further oration.
Cicero informed the citizens of Rome that Catiline had left the city not in exile, as Catiline had said, but to join with his illegal army. He described the conspirators as rich men who were in debt, men eager for power and wealth, Sulla's veterans, ruined men who hoped for any change, criminals, profligates and other men of Catiline's ilk. He assured the people of Rome that they had nothing to fear because he, as consul and the gods would protect the state. This speech was delivered with the intention of convincing the lower class, or common man, that Catiline would not represent their interests and they should not support him. Meanwhile, Catiline joined up with Gaius Manlius, commander of the rebel force. When the Senate was informed of the developments, they declared the two of them public enemies. Antonius Hybrida (Cicero's fellow consul), with troops loyal to Rome, followed Catiline while Cicero remained at home to guard the city.
Cicero claimed that the city should rejoice because it had been saved from a bloody rebellion. He presented evidence that all of Catiline's accomplices confessed to their crimes. He asked for nothing for himself but the grateful remembrance of the city and acknowledged that the victory was more difficult than one in foreign lands because the enemies were citizens of Rome.
In his fourth and final argument, which took place in the Temple of Concordia, Cicero establishes a basis for other orators to argue for the execution of the conspirators. As consul, Cicero was formally not allowed to voice any opinion in the matter, but he circumvented the rule with subtle oratory. Although very little is known about the actual debate (except for Cicero's argument, which has probably been altered from its original), the Senate majority probably opposed the death sentence for various reasons, one of which was the nobility of the accused. For example, Julius Caesar argued that exile and disenfranchisement would be sufficient punishment for the conspirators, and one of the accused, Lentulus, was a praetor. However, after the combined efforts of Cicero and Cato, the vote shifted in favor of execution, with the sentence carried out shortly afterward.
While some historians agree that Cicero's actions, in particular, the final speeches before the Senate may have saved the republic, they also reflect his self-aggrandizement and, to a certain extent envy, probably born out of the fact that he was considered a novus homo, a Roman citizen without noble or ancient lineage.