40 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
the republic. There were two consuls who each
served a one-year term. They held equal power
as political and military heads of state. Consuls
controlled the army, presided over the Senate,
and proposed legislation. On paper, the Senate’s
job was to advise and consent, but because the
body was made of roughly 600 elite and pow-
erful patrician men, it gained much power and
influence. Legislative authority rested with as-
semblies, most notably the Comitia Centuriata.
Plebeians could belong to this body, whose pow-
ers included electing officials, enacting laws, and
declarations of war and peace.
In the same year Cicero clinched the consul-
ship, he exposed and defeated a rebellion led bya political opponent, Catiline. The plot called
for assassinations and burning the city itself.
Widely considered the best orator of his time,
Cicero had attempted to warn Rome about Ca-
tiline’s treasonous intentions through dramatic
speeches in the Senate, but his pleas fell on deaf
ears. After the plot had been exposed, Catiline
escaped. Five of his conspirators were caught,
however, and Cicero advocated for their imme-
diate execution, without trial.
Most senators agreed with Cicero, with one
major exception—Julius Caesar. He advocated
for imprisoning the men, but his recommenda-
tion was overturned. The conspirators were ex-
ecuted, and Catiline died later, fighting alongside
his men while making one last stand. The defeat
of the Catiline conspiracy was a high mark for
Cicero, whom his supporters proudly called pater
patriae, father of the fatherland.
Julius Caesar and his patron, Marcus Licinius
Crassus, were both formidably rich, and had each
used their wealth to gain popular support over
the course of their political careers. In the chaos
that followed the conspiracy, Julius Caesar andFOUNDING
FATHERS’
FAVORITE
Benjamin Franklin’s
1744 edition of
Cicero’s “Cato
Major” (above) was
the first classic to
be translated and
printed in North
America.
GRANGER COLLECTION/AGE FOTOSTOCK
A LONG LEGACY
F
or some scholars, the Renaissance started when
Petrarch discovered Cicero’s letters to Atticus in- Overjoyed with his find, Petrarch was one of
the first to worship at the altar of Cicero, whose
orations and defenses of liberty against tyranny would
inspire generations of philosophers. Perhaps no generation
would be as inspired as the Enlightenment thinkers, like
John Locke, David Hume, or
Montesquieu, who stated
that “Cicero is, of all the an-
cients, the one who had the
most personal merit, and
whom I would most prefer
to resemble.” He was also a
guiding light for the Found-
ing Fathers who took En-
lightenment ideals and put
them into practice in North
America. In 1744 Benjamin
Franklin published M. T.
Cicero’s Cato Major, or His
Discourse of Old-Age, the
first classic work translated
and printed in the colonies.
Thomas Jefferson drew on
Cicero’s ideas when draft-
ing the Declaration of In-
dependence in 1776. John
Adams idolized Cicero and
his powerful words. In his
1787 A Defence of the Con-
stitutions of Government of
the United States of America,
Adams cites Cicero’s ideals
as support for this new gov-
ernment: “As all the ages
of the world have not pro-
duced a greater statesman
and philosopher united than
Cicero, his authority should
have greater weight.”CICERO AND MODERN THOUGHTDefeating the Catilinarian conspiracy
earned Cicero praise and the honorific
pater patriae, father of the fatherland.