M. Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman, whose speeches and letters are such a
valuable source of information for the high society and politics of his time. Born in a well-to-do family
at Arpinum in southern Italy in 106 BC, he rose to be leader of the Roman bar in 70, consul in 63, and a
prominent figure in the political intrigues of the 50s; he died in the proscriptions of 43 B.C.
We need, therefore, to ascertain how great is the distortion which the inevitable prominence of Cicero
lends to our conception of the last and greatest phase of the Roman Republic. As regards Latin prose, we
can rest easy. However regrettable the loss of works by other authors, either for their intrinsic merits or
their value as evidence, Cicero rightly dominates the scene. There is copious testimony to the fact that
the survival of so many of his works corresponds to their superiority in the eyes of the Romans
themselves. After Cicero, no one could compose a speech in Latin, or a letter of any literary pretensions,
or a work on philosophy or rhetoric, without author and audience being acutely conscious of the great
exemplar. His works survived as textbooks in the grammar schools and models in the rhetorical schools.
He was savagely criticized and passionately defended. Only his poetry was consistently and, as the
remains show, justly ignored.