Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 9,001
About someone who couldn't shut up...
Today I want to tell you how the then famous politician Marcus Tullius Cicero came to an end, because today is that day...
After he had been consul in the year 63 - and the later opponent constellation of the Roman civil war was already becoming apparent - Gaius Iulius Caesar wanted Cicero in the year 61 in his triumvirate with Crassus and Pompeius...
...win (i.e. buy him!) but Cicero...
...rejected because he saw the republic endangered.
From then on Caesar and his followers harbored deep distrust of Cicero.
But precisely because of his principles - which must have been almost unbearable at times! - his opponents, on the other hand, achieved a court conviction.
Cicero, who had already stormed out of Italy, was completely dispossessed and banished - he was not allowed to go closer than 500 Roman miles to Italy.
This early medieval picture shows him in exile...:
He occupied himself editing his various letters to friends and relatives...:
Caesar's allies then became active again and a friend of Pompey, Titus Annius Milo...
... achieved the lifting of the ban and the return of Cicero's property in the year 57 before the People's Assembly (which could overrule the Senate!).
From then on, Cicero supported the Caesarians - albeit halfheartedly. The talker spoke publicly only once in support of Caesar - 56 BC. in his speech "De provinciis consularibus", on whether the Senate should leave the province of Gaul to Caesar or hand it over to one of the last year's consuls.
In the course of time, however, he again became Caesar's political opponent, because Cicero - quite rightly, by the way - saw the republic threatened by Caesar's reckless striving for power.
Caesar temporarily solved the problem by arranging for Cicero to be sent as governor to Cilicia—roughly what is now Turkey's Mediterranean provinces—in 51.
And while Cicero was lying in the sun on the beach in Kemer or Antalya (oh no, those two places didn't even exist back then!), the big wheel kept turning in Rome - the Caesarian triumvirate disintegrated and Pompeius and Caesar first became opponents and then mortal enemies.
Cicero returned from Turkey at a very inopportune moment after his governorship - the war between Pompey and Caesar was imminent.
But instead of learning from his past experiences and staying out of it in the future, he joined Pompey, left Italy with him, and was one of the people who persuaded Pompey to fight the battle of Pharsalos (in northern Greece) against Caesar against his will - which Pompey promptly lost!
But even after that Cicero didn't get any wiser! After the assassination of Pompey when he landed in Egypt in 48 BC, instead of rushing off to some safe corner of the earth ...
...back to Italy like a magnet - he still couldn't get enough of politics!
He traveled to Brundisium (Brindisi) after publicly distancing himself from Pompey's annexes in several speeches - and waited there to see what Caesar would do next.
Cicero publicly pardoned (47 BCE)
So now Cicero was reconciled with power and close to it - but the man must have had an infinitely thick board in mind when it came to Realpolitik!
In the aftermath, he left absolutely nothing to step on Caesar's and his followers' toes at pretty much every opportunity!
He gave a number of speeches supporting Pompey's followers (from whom he had recently distanced himself) and in a book glorified Cato Minor, who had also been one of Pompey's persuaders at Pharsalos and committed suicide after the defeat ...:
The reason why Caesar didn't just let Cicero get killed is probably because the power politician didn't really take a rhetorician (Caesar would have said "talker"!) seriously.
Although Cicero was not involved in the conspiracy against Caesar, he was an accomplice because he was a close friend of the main conspirator, Marcus Iunius Brutus!
Cirero's comments after the murder...
...but showed his triumphant rejoicing at the death of the "tyrant" Caesar, although he criticized the conspirators' lack of planning and foresight, noting that the assassination was "carried out with the courage of men but the wits of children ".
**continued next post**
Today I want to tell you how the then famous politician Marcus Tullius Cicero came to an end, because today is that day...
After he had been consul in the year 63 - and the later opponent constellation of the Roman civil war was already becoming apparent - Gaius Iulius Caesar wanted Cicero in the year 61 in his triumvirate with Crassus and Pompeius...
...win (i.e. buy him!) but Cicero...
...rejected because he saw the republic endangered.
From then on Caesar and his followers harbored deep distrust of Cicero.
But precisely because of his principles - which must have been almost unbearable at times! - his opponents, on the other hand, achieved a court conviction.
Cicero, who had already stormed out of Italy, was completely dispossessed and banished - he was not allowed to go closer than 500 Roman miles to Italy.
This early medieval picture shows him in exile...:
He occupied himself editing his various letters to friends and relatives...:
Caesar's allies then became active again and a friend of Pompey, Titus Annius Milo...
... achieved the lifting of the ban and the return of Cicero's property in the year 57 before the People's Assembly (which could overrule the Senate!).
From then on, Cicero supported the Caesarians - albeit halfheartedly. The talker spoke publicly only once in support of Caesar - 56 BC. in his speech "De provinciis consularibus", on whether the Senate should leave the province of Gaul to Caesar or hand it over to one of the last year's consuls.
In the course of time, however, he again became Caesar's political opponent, because Cicero - quite rightly, by the way - saw the republic threatened by Caesar's reckless striving for power.
Caesar temporarily solved the problem by arranging for Cicero to be sent as governor to Cilicia—roughly what is now Turkey's Mediterranean provinces—in 51.
And while Cicero was lying in the sun on the beach in Kemer or Antalya (oh no, those two places didn't even exist back then!), the big wheel kept turning in Rome - the Caesarian triumvirate disintegrated and Pompeius and Caesar first became opponents and then mortal enemies.
Cicero returned from Turkey at a very inopportune moment after his governorship - the war between Pompey and Caesar was imminent.
But instead of learning from his past experiences and staying out of it in the future, he joined Pompey, left Italy with him, and was one of the people who persuaded Pompey to fight the battle of Pharsalos (in northern Greece) against Caesar against his will - which Pompey promptly lost!
But even after that Cicero didn't get any wiser! After the assassination of Pompey when he landed in Egypt in 48 BC, instead of rushing off to some safe corner of the earth ...
...back to Italy like a magnet - he still couldn't get enough of politics!
He traveled to Brundisium (Brindisi) after publicly distancing himself from Pompey's annexes in several speeches - and waited there to see what Caesar would do next.
Cicero publicly pardoned (47 BCE)
So now Cicero was reconciled with power and close to it - but the man must have had an infinitely thick board in mind when it came to Realpolitik!
In the aftermath, he left absolutely nothing to step on Caesar's and his followers' toes at pretty much every opportunity!
He gave a number of speeches supporting Pompey's followers (from whom he had recently distanced himself) and in a book glorified Cato Minor, who had also been one of Pompey's persuaders at Pharsalos and committed suicide after the defeat ...:
The reason why Caesar didn't just let Cicero get killed is probably because the power politician didn't really take a rhetorician (Caesar would have said "talker"!) seriously.
Although Cicero was not involved in the conspiracy against Caesar, he was an accomplice because he was a close friend of the main conspirator, Marcus Iunius Brutus!
Cirero's comments after the murder...
...but showed his triumphant rejoicing at the death of the "tyrant" Caesar, although he criticized the conspirators' lack of planning and foresight, noting that the assassination was "carried out with the courage of men but the wits of children ".
**continued next post**
