106–43 BCE · Rome

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was Rome's greatest orator and one of its most consequential statesmen, defending the Republic in its final, violent decades. Between political battles he gave Roman readers their philosophy, translating and arguing with the Greek schools in his own elegant Latin. His works on duty, friendship, old age and the good life shaped European thought for two thousand years. He was killed in the proscriptions that followed the Republic's fall.

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