Marcus Tullius Cicero was a famous roman lawyer who was involved in the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. He wrote extensively and is considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.
Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BC[ in Arpinum, southeast of Rome. He was an extremely talented student whose contemporarie were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, and Titus Pomponius. Cicero started his career as a lawyer around 83–81 BC. His first major public case was his 80 BC defense of Sextus Roscius on the charge of patricide. Roscius was acquitted.
Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, it was these skills that eventually got him into trouble. He held a consulship when the second Catilinarian conspiracy attacked Rome and Cicero responded by summarily executing five conspirators without trial. Following the death of Julius Caesar, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle and attacked him viciously in his speeches. This led to him being proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and this led to his execution in 43 BC as his was trying to escape the Italian Peninsula.
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