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    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
    Audiobook15 hours

    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

    Written by Anthony Everitt

    Narrated by John Curless

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    - John Adams said of Cicero, "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined." Voltaire said of Cicero, "He taught us how to think." And yet Anthony Everitt's authoritative yet accessible work is the first one-volume biography of the Roman statesman in over 25 years. - "Using Cicero's letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome . Everitt's first book is a brilliant study that captures Cicero's internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) - "Comprehensive, accessible survey of the personal and political life of lawyer, politician, philosopher, and crank Marcus Tullius Cicero . Masterfully lucid and compelling; sure to be required reading in the Cicero canon."-Kirkus Reviews
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 5, 2014
    ISBN9781490645292
    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
    Author

    Anthony Everitt

    Anthony Everitt is a former visiting professor in the visual and performing arts at Nottingham Trent University and previously served as secretary general of the Arts Council of Great Britain. He has written extensively on European culture and history, and is the author of Cicero, Augustus, Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome, The Rise of Rome, and The Rise of Athens. Everitt lives near Colchester, England's first recorded town, founded by the Romans.

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    Reviews for Cicero

    4/5

    325 ratings22 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Just fantastic, lovely to listen to. Inspiring to hear. Thank you.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A good biography of a man referenced a great deal in books I have read, but one I had never specifically read about. Cicero lived during the the famous years of the fall of the Roman Republic, and was a central player who knew and had influence with the great characters in Roman History. This book does a good job of focusing on Cicero, but also providing the story and context of the history of Rome at the same time. Well worth the read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Good read. A not quite monumental book about a not quite monumental man.
    • 4/5
      Everitt did an excellent job of making Cicero seem human, instead of an unreachable hero we could never understand. All of his best and worst qualities are displayed, along with in-depth coverage of the political climate and wars Cicero lived in.
    • 4/5
      Great book if you’re wanting to learn more about Cicero and his influence on Rome and modern civilization. Can be a bit dry and long, but still a great book.
    • 5/5
      Cicero is a puzzling and complicated character filled with contradictions. A man who thought he put his principles above all else, when in reality it comes off as though he could not stomach the ends to his means. Always reacting, never acting, he gave the initiative to his contemporaries and rivals while he secluded himself to write an admittedly brilliant piece of oratory. In fact, during the one time he takes the initiative, his consulship, he comes off as too far over his head. He desperately pleads to get a conviction of Catalina, more so that he doesn’t tank his reputation rather than there being any real plot to the extent he states. Nevertheless I wonder if I would have done much better in his place. The man was flawed, brilliant, but more well meaning than vain. I think he truly believed in the republic, despite his views on how it should be run and how to restore it being wildly unequipped for the time he lived in. I can’t help but be fond of the man, and recognize him as a fellow human being. My one wish being, that he told his brother how much he really loved him before they passed. Everitt did a fantastic job of instilling these thoughts on Cicero within me. This book is fascinating and well written. I listened to it while at work and I can not express how grateful I for such a literary work to enter my life. I especially will be thinking over the last line of this book for quite some time, for it is the perfect summary of who Cicero is.
    • 4/5
      Everitt did an excellent job of making Cicero seem human, instead of an unreachable hero we could never understand. All of his best and worst qualities are displayed, along with in-depth coverage of the political climate and wars Cicero lived in.
    • 5/5
      Great biography of an exceptional individual, narrated with class and panache.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent biography of the great Roman orator and lawyer Cicero. Everitt truly brings to life the man and his thought process as he made his way through crumbling Republican Roman politics. The work is sourced through original documents, many of them correspondence between Cicero and his brother Atticus where he revealed his most personal thoughts. Because of this work it just dawned on me how Atticus Finch received his name. To my mind's eye Cicero will always look like the actor who portrayed him on HBO's series Rome. This work brings to life the surprisingly modern world of Rome. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A very detailed accout of the Politician, Philosopher, Orator and Lawyer. The first half of the book is rather insipid, but it does really pick up during the latter half. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      This is a very well written biography of the great Roman orator, lawyer and statesman. I read this straight after finishing the final volume of Robert Harris's excellent trilogy of novels about his life. Cicero was at the centre of the great events of the middle part of the 1st century BC, the critical two decades which saw the demise of the Roman Republic whose values of (by the standards of the time, and sometimes more theoretical than practical) democracy, checks and balances and the rule of law he held so dear. As a principled pragmatist, he stood in mostly consistent opposition to the growing tendency towards one man rule in the times of Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony and finally Octavian. His writings betray a humanism which is rare by the standards of his contemporaries. Many of his speeches, hundreds of his letters and a number of philosophical and political works survive and provide a rich trove of classical thought to which we should be indebted two millennia after their author lived and died. His final demise, hunted down and killed on the run by soldiers hired by Octavian, is ignominious, but his name rightly lived on and still does as one of the greatest and best figures of his time.
    • 3/5
      Biography that places Cicero well in context - but a little tedious.Read Nov 2006
    • 5/5
      Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus’ famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.
    • 3/5
      A well written biography on Cicero, provides good insight to the hows and whys of the death of the Republic and the task thrust upon the man. Parts of the books subject matter were fairly dry for me though, hence the rating. Regardless I look forward to reading the authors other biographies on Roman figures.
    • 4/5
      A biography of 'Rome's Greatest Politician'. Human nature is the same as always, and the political animals are as beastly as ever.

      Cicero was described as a defender of the republic, and a brilliant orator, but most of all, a politician. He waffled, he did character assassinations. But compared to the relative chaos that was Ancient Rome, he stands almost as a beacon. One wonders, once Republic became Empire, how the state managed to survive for so long.

      A very interesting book, and recommended for those with any interest in Roman history.
    • 4/5
      Great insight in the personality of Cicero but also Roman politics
    • 4/5
      Very informative. It changed my views on Julius Caesar, Cato and Cicero. I just wish that the author put devoted more pages on Cicero's writings and philosophy.
    • 4/5
      Excellent, vivid engaging book. Cicero seems so alive and so human.
    • 4/5
      Subtitled "The life and times of Rome's greatest politician". Cicero was a great orator and an expert in trial law in the complex Roman court system. His career overlapped those of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus during the first triumvirate, and ended on the accession of Octavian to consul. According to Everitt, Cicero never deviated from a principled dedication to upholding the Roman constitution, although he was egotistical, sometimes vacillating, and overly fond of sharp witticisms that were often politically illjudged. Cicero was also reputed to be a great populizer of philosophy as well, with some of his works the source for much of what is known about the philosophy of the time. The book was very well written, moved along well, and described a fascinating time in Roman history that I have never before studied well
    • 4/5
      Everitt did an excellent job of making Cicero seem human, instead of an unreachable hero we could never understand. All of his best and worst qualities are displayed, along with in-depth coverage of the political climate and wars Cicero lived in.
    • 5/5
      Well-crafted, highly readable biography of Marcus Tullius Cicereo (106-43 B.C.): lawyer, orator, prolific and popular writer, and statesman of Ancient Rome. Everitt takes his information from some 900 letters Cicero wrote (most of which were to his friend Atticus); many of his speeches (revised and edited by Cicero himself); and Cicero's books on philosophy and oratory. He wrote about the political events of his day: the rise of Julius Caesar, his assassination, and subsequent maneuvering to power of Mark Anthony and Octavian (later known as Augustus). He also set out to cover "the whole field in detail" of every philosophical system. Cicero had a son, Marcus, and a much-beloved daughter Tullia (who died while giving birth). He divorced his wife Terentia after some 30 years, although it is not clear why to historians. His second marriage lasted only a few months. Cicero was a life-long devotee to Republican government (and thus an opponent of Caesar, who nevertheless lived to tell his tale for several reasons: Caesar was reknown for his leniency, Caesar enjoyed Cicero's wit, and Cicero himself was a successful manipulator of people in general and alliances in particular). Cicero longed for power, but always played a secondary role in Roman politics. As Everitt observed, "Julius Caesar, with the pitiless insight of genius, understood that the constitution with its endless checks and balanaces prevented effective government... [but] for Cicero [the solution to Rome's crisis of inaction and inefficacy] lay in finding better men to run the government and better laws to keep them in order." How well Eliot's Prufrock unintentionally captures Cicero!"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,Deferential, glad to be of use,Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool."Cicero never understood that he was wrong, nor passed by an opportunity to tout his own insight, influence, and value. Eventually Cicero was put to death after Octavian put Cicero's name on a proscription (a posting of people wanted dead by the leadership. All property was then confiscated and turned over to the state after the killer was rewarded.) Everitt brings Ancient Rome to life as if we were contemporaries of the protagonists. Excellent book that only makes the reader want to know more.(JAF)
    • 5/5
      Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman orator, advocate, politician, philosopher, and an introvert who led the most public of lives. Cicero lived through the stormy era of the Republic and testified the rise, the dictatorship and the assassination of Julius Caesar in addition to seditious movements of those who inherited his political legacy.Drawn from Cicero's letters of correspondence with his friend Atticus and various modern sources, Everitt deftly recreates a vivid chronicle of Cicero's life and restores him to the pantheon of our common past.To help readers understand the political infrastructure of the Roman Republic, Everitt begins with a chapter that explores the fault lines of the Republic that gave rise to all the seditious movements and military melee and thus inevitably led to the decadence. Cicero and his contemporaries helplessly inherited a self-constraining, self-defeating political system that inculcated the virtues of fortitude, justice, and prudence. Such inwardly unsound gesture was implemented to thwart any overmighty citizen seizing power.The very same precautionary measure ironically pushed the Republic to the verge of hostilities and wars. The yearlong co-consulship, the lack of a prosecuting service and the continuous class struggle between the Patricians and People manifested venality, bribery, and collusion among officials.In his portrait of the tenuous political situation, Everitt delineates Cicero as a man who was born and lived at the wrong time, or rather, the cruel times had dragged him along. Not a single day passed did Cicero not to worry about his opponents and those whom he had testified against with his instigation. Cicero thwarted and put down collusion and conspiracies, acted in defense and won acquittal of Roscius convicted of parricide, challenged the dictatorship of Sulla and the decadence of his regime. During his consulship, Cicero pursued the sedition of Catilina and thwarted his attacks on the Senate. Cicero vehemently opposed Julius Caesar and his despotic attempt to form a new Roman government. Even though Caesar took a liking of Cicero and looked up to him, Cicero asserted his preference for Pompey in the First Triumvirate and supported Pompey during Caesar's reign to restore Rome back to republicanism. In the remaining days of Caesar's dictatorship, Cicero remained a thorn to Caesar until his assassination.Everitt's account also leaves readers in awe of Cicero's merits. Cicero had administrative gifts and oratorical skills of a very high order that none of his contemporaries could deploy. In a society where politicians were also expected to be good soldiers, Cicero was preeminently a civilian, a philosopher, a writer (Cicero admitted his physical weakness and nervousness) and this makes his success all the more remarkable. Cicero ceaselessly advertised and spread anti-war sentiment. He devoted his whole life, through his influence as a statesman; to negotiate a republic made of a mixed constitution. Cicero, when his career ended, must be in searing pain as he no longer entertained hopes that the Republic will be restored. Everitt deftly pointed that for the long years Cicero was a bystander in the working of Rome was not due to his lack of talent but a "surplus of principle." The republic collapsed around his neck as he tried to find more able men to run the government and enacted more efficient laws to keep these men in order.Behind the political success laid Cicero's internal struggles. From Everitt's account, it seems the only people whom Cicero engaged in an emotional bonding were his daughter Tullia and his best friend Atticus. His divorce of Terentia (on the basis of her thoughtlessness and financial mismanagement) and his failed marriage with Publilia brought him nothing but loneliness. When Tullia died from a miscarriage, Cicero was completely devastated and read every book that the Greek philosophers had to say about grief. Atticus recounted his friend's grief as something of a new intensity too raw and too astonishing to be publicized. His rabid disagreement with Quintus, who heaped all the blame of his ill behavior on Cicero and switched to Caesar, pricked his heart. All the unfulfilled dreams led to Cicero's drastic change in personality that he was willing compromise his beliefs to stay in power and to exercise unscrupulous methods to restore the republic.Everitt's book astutely captures the success, struggles, uproars and the spirits of truly the greatest politician of Rome. The book is up to the par of Boissier's Cicero and His Friends and Cowell's Cicero and the Roman Republic. Recommended.