Cicero set a new tone by curbing exactions made by previous governors, investigating corruption, and demanding restitution, measures that restored the cities of Cilicia to solvency. A feared invasion by the Parthians was averted by their defeat in Syria by C. Cassius Longinus and again in the following year by a court intrigue. Cicero saw some military action against rebels in his province, but his triumph was never realized. When Cicero returned to Italy, he found civil war brewing between Caesar and Pompey. After long hesitancy, he joined the latter but saw little action. After Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus, Cicero returned to Italy but remained bottled up in Brundisium for over a year until Caesar finally granted permission for him to return home. But there were now domestic troubles, leading to the divorce of Terentia and marriage to Publilia, a teenager.

Cicero can be viewed either as a historical actor or as a figure of Latin culture. The former, inevitably, dominates the historical narratives of the period. Over time, a law of diminishing returns sets in as the earliest assessments by writers who were personally familiar with Cicero and/or the institutions and politics of the republic give way to an imperial mindset that focuses on the role models of the “good emperor” on the one hand and the “good courtier” on the other. These categories, retrojected not without distortion to the late republic, then become the basis of interpretation.

The Caesarians in the senate now resisted Cicero’s calls for war and enacted an embassy to present terms to Antony. Antony refused those terms but offered terms of his own. Some proposed that a second embassy be dispatched, including Cicero among the ambassadors, but the idea was dropped. Brutus’ status in command of troops was regularized, but Cicero was unable to persuade the senate to appoint Cassius to a command. The Fourteenth Philippic recounts Antony’s defeat at Forum Gallorum. At the following Battle of Mutina, Antony was again defeated, and the siege of D. Brutus was lifted, but there was no effective follow-up since Octavian and D. Brutus quarreled. In the end, Cicero’s coalition fell apart, the Caesarian commanders all uniting under a single banner and imposing their rule and a new set of proscriptions to liquidate their enemies. Cicero was on the first proscription list and fell victim on December 7.

Of the outstanding personalities of the last phase of the Roman republic, Cato Uticensis has left behind the image of a principled conservative fighting for liberty, Caesar that of an autocrat imposing order on society and the body politic. Somewhere between those two is Cicero, trying to sit on two seats, as the poet Laberius joked. The orator was not prepared to risk everything in all-out opposition to Caesar or to enroll as an unconditional follower of the dictator. As one occupying a middle position, Cicero was ill-suited to become a symbol for a course of political action. The modern world therefore entertains not one but several versions of Cicero. There is Cicero the embodiment of lawyerly eloquence invoked, for instance, by Johnny Cochrane in wrapping up his defense of O. J. Simpson. There is the Cicero enshrined in high school Latin textbooks, the defender of the state against forces of sedition and conspiracy. And there is Cicero the fountainhead of the humanist ideal of the liberally educated person looking to literature for models of morally fine behavior.

Though his family background was a disadvantage, Cicero compensated through his education and hard work, building his own support network with successful advocacy in court. He ascended the cursus honorum to consulship in the minimum time. As consul, he quashed Catiline’s conspiracy. But his efforts to memorialize his consulship had mixed success. His position was brittle, as was shown when P. Clodius forced Cicero into exile for executing captured Catilinarians without a trial. Recalled the following year, Cicero became subservient to the power brokers. After service as a provincial governor and in Pompey’s army in the civil war, he made his peace with Caesar and slipped into the role of courtier while expressing resentment in correspondence. After Caesar’s assassination, Cicero thought he could revive the republic when D. Brutus and Octavian took up arms against Antony. But the unstable coalition soon fell apart, and Cicero’s death entailed.

Bowing to pressure from the coalition, Cicero defended A. Gabinius, consul when Cicero went into exile, on charges of extortion, as well as C. Rabirius on trial for recovery of tainted money. On January 18, 52, when Milo and Clodius encountered by chance at Bovillae, eleven miles southeast of Rome, a fight erupted, and Clodius was killed. Milo was convicted in spite of Cicero’s defense. The published speech is brilliant but flawed because it must ignore too many of the facts. Around this time, Cicero was elected to the prestigious board of augurs. Cicero’s mature reflections on the Roman state and the statesman’s role are contained in the dialogue On the Commonwealth. A companion dialogue, On Laws, was begun at this time but never published. On the Commonwealth appeared just before Cicero’s departure for Cilicia, where he was required to serve as governor under a new law enacted by Pompey.

Instead of governing a province in the year following his consulship, Cicero continued his activities in the courts. A number of Catiline’s followers were prosecuted this year, and Cicero, with his expert knowledge of the conspiracy, was often called upon to testify against them. He also, however, chose to defend one of the accused, P. Sulla. In his defense of Sulla, Cicero takes the opportunity to soften his image and reflect on his position more generally. For his successful defense, Sulla advanced Cicero a loan of two million sesterces, which enabled the orator to purchase a fine mansion on the fashionable Palatine Hill, confirming his place in the elite. This year, he also defended one of his old tutors, the poet Archias, who was accused of illegally usurping Roman citizenship. Cicero anticipated that Archias would compose an encomiastic poem on the events of his consulship, but he never did.

Cicero and his brother, Quintus, went on a two-year study tour of Greece and Asia Minor, visiting major centers such as Athens and Delphi and seeking training from the leading teachers of rhetoric and philosophy. This enabled Cicero to rebuild his oratorical technique so that he could speak with less exertion. Upon his return, Cicero resumed his career at the bar and then stood for the office of quaestor. Duly elected, he was allotted a post in Sicily, where he served for a year. When he returned to Rome, he took his seat in the senate and continued pleading in the courts, mostly for unimportant clients, and publishing his speeches.

A rumbling that was heard in Latium led the senate to consult the haruspices, Etruscan seers, for their opinion. They declared this a portent, listing the offended deities and possible dangers. Meanwhile, P. Clodius claimed that the destruction of the temple of Libertas had prompted the divine anger. In the senate, Cicero countered Clodius’ claims and put his own “spin” on the diviners’ opinion. Another senate speech deals with the allocation of consular provinces, with Cicero arguing that Caesar should retain his Gallic provinces. Continuing his forensic work, Cicero defended Cornelius Balbus, Cn. Plancius, and M. Aemilius Scaurus. In the senate, he exchanged invectives with L. Calpurnius Piso. He also wrote On the Orator and drew closer to Caesar, receiving a sizable loan of 800,000 sesterces. Toward the end of 54, he penned a letter to his political patron Lentulus Spinther defending his changed policies.