On December 7, 43 BC, a group of heavily armed soldiers poured into a luxurious manor house, they were murderous, and after the unsuccessful search, they continued to search along the road, and finally easily broke into the owner of the villa from the slave's obstruction, and then, before the old man could react, they sent the deadly short swords into the old man's body one after another...
On this day, the most famous literati in the history of Roman civilization finally died, his name was Cicero. He died of murder by political enemies, but more often than not, of the general trend of history, and culturally speaking, his death was a historical loss, but from the point of view of the Roman people, his death was deserved, even a little late.
Statue of Cicero
Why should Wenhao be damned? This has nothing to do with his cultural achievements, and the only way to explain this is to look at Cicero's political life journey.
If we had turned back the wheel that dominates time, we might not have imagined that Cicero, born in 106 B.C., would have ended up with the prodigy, who was recognized as a child prodigy born into a wealthy family and, as an adult, became actively involved in political life, not because Cicero was so addicted to politics, but because of the roman upper culture, which must have been involved in politics, which is a fundamental tradition of the Roman Republic.
Cicero was hailed as a child prodigy at an early age
Cicero was a genius in law, and one of his great achievements in politics was that he once sued the dictator Sula's confidant Krisogunus as a lawyer, and eventually won a great victory, which made him famous and gave him a great political boost. The impact of this incident at that time was so great that the later famous Julius Caesar, before his death, also tried to imitate Cicero's way of becoming famous and became famous in Rome as a lawyer, but the result was that Dong Shiyi was defeated and finally had to leave the city of Rome for a while.
In 76 BC, after the death of rome's famous archdictator Sulla, a power vacuum appeared in the city of Rome, where the political atmosphere had slowed down again, so many new political stars appeared one by one, one of the brightest rookies, Cicero, who was elected treasurer and began his political career. Out of a sense of urgency for promotion, Cicero accused the outgoing governor Viles of perverting the law, and once again used his rich legal knowledge and strong eloquence to defeat the opposing lawyer, and became famous, and then Cicero, who rose to fame in this way, rose step by step, and in 63 BC, Cicero was elected consul of the Roman Republic, leaving the later Caesar far behind in his career.
The suppression of Mediterranean pirates became a major achievement of Pompey
Many people like to portray Cicero as a man who guards the spirit of the Roman republic, but one thing during this period is enough to shake this view, that is, Cicero supported Pompey to command the kingdom of Pontus, the great enemy in the east, and also supported Pompey to control all the navies of the republic to encircle and suppress pirates, although the trend of Pompey's rise after Sulla's death and becoming the "second Sura" is well known, but Cicero actually supported Pompey to continue to make achievements, no doubt, This reflects Cicero's desire to continue to improve his exploits by supporting Pompey, a short-sighted act that contrasts ironically with his future repression by the Three-Headed Alliance.
And from this time on, the fatal flaw of Cicero began to appear, he had the talent of a politician, but not the ability of a politician, he thought he represented justice and justice, but in reality, he was either unaware or unwilling to believe that he was speaking out for a regime that had poisoned the Roman people and even the people of the whole Mediterranean.
Cicero exposes Catiline's plot in the Senate
Cicero, who became consul, did not have any outstanding achievements, as he had just made in politics, when an event that would later cause an uproar in Rome occurred: the "Catiline Conspiracy". The so-called "Catiline Conspiracy" was actually an incident in 63 BC when Catilin, a senator, tried to take control of the Political Situation in Rome by arming a coup. Catilin came from a traditional aristocratic family and was a long-time political enemy of Cicero, but he was heavily indebted, and the election he participated in many times did not make him have the opportunity to get the campaign expenses back, this sentence is no problem, you know, the Roman campaign at that time was very expensive, many people were elected to make up for the expenditure, and Catilin did not have this opportunity.
Thus, Catilin conspired with other unscrupulous Romans to overthrow the present Senate, of which Cicero was a thorn in his eye, and Catillin ruled out the Assassins' attempt to assassinate Cicero, which failed, prompting Cicero to speed up the debunking of Katillin to the Senate, and in the end, through Cicero's personal eloquence and the information of the people in the Catelin gang, Catillin eventually plotted to be exposed and died with his party.
Cicero's yearning for fame and fortune is obvious
After this incident, Cicero was dubbed the "Father of the Fatherland" by many Romans, but Cicero was so overwhelmed by this honor that he actually uttered the phrase "How fortunate rome was born during my consulship!" "Lo and behold, would that be what a politician should say?" Not only that, but he shamelessly wrote to his historian friend Lucius, hoping that the latter would praise him by writing an article about his foiling the Cateline conspiracy, and a Greek poet who had asked him to be a lawyer received a similar request.
Cicero could never have imagined at this time that this event was not another starting point for his brilliant political career, but the pinnacle of his life, and that from this moment on, the deterioration would be a problem that Cicero would have to face. In 60 BC, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus secretly formed a three-headed alliance that would later become famous, which combined Caesar's political skills, Pompey's prestige, and Crassus's wealth, making it impossible for the Senate to balance the three men, and since then, the three-headed alliance has begun to manipulate the political situation in Rome, the so-called republic exists in name only, Cicero chooses to continue to be with the Senate, and Caesar, who is familiar with Cicero's eloquence, issued a rule that almost bans Cicero's eloquence in the Senate, that is, " Senate Chronicle".
Stills from the TV series "Roma", the staff who are announcing the contents of the senate meeting
It turned out that although Cicero was very eloquent, he was better at preparing written materials in advance, and there was once a case in which a rich Roman man asked Cicero to defend himself, and although the latter tried very hard in the courtroom, the rich man eventually lost the case and had to move to a harbor city far away from Rome. Cicero's debate is characteristic. Caesar's stipulation was that all the contents of the senate meeting and the main speeches must be read to the Roman people in the square the next day, and if there were friends who had watched the TV series "Roma", the fat man who always announced important announcements in the square was doing the work of the senate chronicle.
It is conceivable that Cicero faced this rule, so that the commoners did not think that they were inseparable from the wine bag of the book, they must speak freely, but once they were not prepared to speak at will, it was likely to say a flawed speech, so that Cicero would greatly reduce the opportunity to speak in the Senate.
Cicero served as a witness to the affair of Caesar's wife, the High Priest
To make matters worse, Cicero once identified a nobleman named Claudius as having an affair with Caesar's wife, but Caesar did not admit it for political reasons, so claudius was married to Cicero, who later defected to the Three-Headed Alliance, and later renounced his nobility, participating in the election to become a security officer by becoming the adopted son of a commoner, and eventually became the high-ranking thug of the Three-Headed Alliance in the city of Rome, under the revenge of Claudius and the hint of the Three-Headed Alliance. Cicero was punished for staying away from Rome, so he went into exile in Greece, but the property that remained in the city was either confiscated or destroyed, and Cicero fell to the bottom.
Politicians often need a tough heart to deal with political struggles, and it is clear that Cicero does not have this merit, and during his exile in Greece he often wrote to friends lamenting the misfortunes of his fate, and even wrote "All I can do is cry!" In this way, comparing the honor he had received as the "Father of the Father of the Motherland", and thinking about what kind of heroes such as Brutus, the founder of the Republic, and Malleus, the father of the Roman Legion, who also received this title, could not help but laugh off their teeth.
A rift appeared in the three-headed alliance that showed harmony
However, around 59 BC, Cicero was recalled to the city of Rome, because of the power struggle within the Three-Headed Alliance, Claudius fell victim to it, as one of the measures of rehabilitation, Claudius's sworn enemy Cicero was able to return to Rome, and once he returned to the city, perhaps believing that Pompey and Caesar had broken up, Cicero urgently attacked Caesar's military campaign to conquer Gaul in the Senate, which also laid the groundwork for his future choice of Pompey.
In 49 BC, Caesar formally broke with Pompey, and war broke out between the plebeian faction led by Caesar and the Senate faction that Pompey had turned to represent, and while Caesar marched, he also sent his cronies to invite Cicero. Apparently, Cicero had been opposed to Caesar for a long time, and although he did waver for a long time, he eventually went with his brother to Pompey's camp in Durres.
The Battle of Pharsalus ended in Pompey's crushing defeat, and the Senate was devastated
Cicero made the same choice as most of the elders, Pompey was a military hero, a young man, and a power all over the Mediterranean, in the minds of most people, Pompey's escape was only because of Caesar's surprise attack, and with a slight regrouping, he would surely be able to defeat Caesar, ironically, in this battle later known as the "Battle of Pharsalus", Pompey was finally defeated, and the Senate became the street rat of the republic almost overnight.
With Pompey killed in Egypt, the Senate deteriorated, so some people hoped that Cicero would continue to lead the Senate against Caesar, but Cicero, who had been boasting about his exploits, was timid, and not only that, he chose to return to Italy, what does this mean? This shows that Cicero has decided to surrender to Caesar, as a highly prestigious celebrity in the Senate, Cicero's behavior is not only far from the staunch anti-Caesar faction of Cato Jr., but even Caesar's subordinates, Rabbi Ainus, who had to turn to Pompeii for the sake of his family, fought with his old superiors to the last moment, and a senior senator like Cicero turned to Caesar, and it has to be said that Cicero' banner of defending the republic could no longer be erected.
Tiberius Gragu, who was beaten to death
Having said that, we might as well turn to Cicero's position that the political career of Cicero alone until the settlement of the Catelian conspiracy seems to be a good Roman statesman of great ability, but Cicero's so-called "defense" of Rome was meant only to protect the Roman upper class, including himself. As early as decades ago, in the era of the Brothers of Gragchu, the Roman Republic had been reduced to a hegemonic state under the control of major families, the Senate maintained the wartime system that had begun since the time of Hannibal's war, unwilling to return power to traditional organizations such as the Citizens' Assembly, the laws of the founders of the republic had been distorted, the republic of which the Romans were proud had long become a hotbed of corruption and degeneration, even the reformists within the Senate could not survive, and the Gracchu brothers tried to start with state land. The return of state-owned land that had been plundered by the elders and nobles to the commoners was illegally and violently suppressed by the elders, and no one dared to open the deadly "poisonous sores" of the Republic under the blood of the Gragu brothers and their supporters.
So what is Cicero defending? Was it the republic that Brutus founded? No, what he defended was essentially the interests of the senators, but also his interests, and as for the Roman commoners who had lost their land, shops, and even freedom under the gap between rich and poor, they were not human beings, and they were qualified to talk to Cicero about a "republic"? But even so, Cicero did not have the same tenacity as Cato the Younger, and he returned to Italy, waiting for Caesar in the southern Italian seaport city of Brindisi, during which time Cato Jr. held out in Utica, North Africa, and finally committed suicide. From this perspective, Cicero not only has no position of justice, but also has no admirable fighting spirit.
Death of Caesar
Caesar eventually forgave Cicero, and Cicero was able to return safely to the city of Rome, and if he had lived in peace and renounced interfering in political affairs, he would have been no more than a literary man with a bad political reputation, but when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Cicero once again played the role of speculation and betrayal. When Cicero learned of Caesar's death, he excitedly rushed to Brutu and the other assassins, and encouraged them to go to The Capitol Hill to announce caesar's assassination to the whole Romans, Cicero's attempt to restore the rule of the Senate naturally failed, as mentioned earlier, he had long been separated from the masses, Cicero and Brutus and others did not understand that a major reason for Caesar's smooth rule was That Caesar's obedience to the people, Caesar's policy not only inherited the Grazu brothers' restoration of state land order, the Farmland Law. At the same time, many Roman laws were reformed, Caesar reorganized the lives of the commoners and gave hope to the commoners, and Cicero's Rome was a Rome ruled by the nobility, and there was no place for the commoners in his ideal state.
Brutus, Cassius and other conspirators eventually fled in the face of the surging public opinion in the city of Rome, and the counterattack of the Senate faction lasted only a few days before it ended, caesar's successors, namely The General Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian, divided Caesar's power, Cicero originally thought that he could manipulate the young Octavian against Antony and take the opportunity to rebuild the senate rule, but Octavian only used Cicero to lay his foundation in the Senate. When Octavian and Antony compromised with each other and decided to eliminate the remnants of the Senate first, Cicero was naturally in that long blacklist, and new political forces like Antony had long wanted to use their hands on the old forces to increase their power and wealth, Cicero was originally one of the goals, thanks to Caesar's amnesty to survive until now, now that Caesar is dead, the new hatred of the old, Can Antony let Cicero go?
Death of Cicero
On December 7, 43 BC, the 62-year-old Cicero was killed by Antony's men in his villa, and in order to humiliate the literary magnate and to deter the senators in the remnants of the Senate, Antony deliberately nailed Cicero's hands to the door of the Senate, and at the same time, kept Cicero's skull as a spectator until Antony got tired of it.
What kind of person is Cicero? As a literary hero, his exploits are unquestionable, his achievements are remarkable, but politically, Cicero has neither considered the toiling masses of the Roman Republic nor the tenacious will to fight for the factional struggle of the Senate he represents, and if in peacetime he may have become a small and accomplished politician, but in the chaotic world at the end of the Republic, he is destined to be a capricious speculative politician, and from a personal moral point of view, Cicero, who contacted the assassins immediately after the death of Caesar, who spared himself, was more like a villain. These acts of his were long enough to make him look different, regardless of his literary achievements or not, and his death may be a little late for the Roman people.