Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 B.C./BCE – 7 December 43 B.C./BCE) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher. He left behind a tremendous opus (trans. Lat. body of work) that includes treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. Cicero is considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and authors. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that all subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. The peak of Cicero’s prestige was during the 18th-century Enlightenment, during his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu and Edmund Burke was substantial. Cicero’s standing as one of the towering intellects of Western Civilization has lasted over 2000 years.
Cicero is remembered in mindfulness circles for his beautifully composed reminder to be grateful for whatever life brings us (trans.), “Gratitude is the principal virtue, and the prerequisite for all the others.” This phrase is available for download on numerous mindfulness, stoic, leadership, and resilience building sites. This beautifully worded quote is even available as an A4 Size Parchment Card Poster Quotation inspirational poster for college dorm rooms. One might think that he represented the flower of Roman civility and gentility. One would be wrong – Cicero was a lot more complicated than that.
Gifted with an agile brain, Cicero was able to eviscerate opponents in the law courts, in the Roman Senate, and in the public square. If he had limited himself to public life, he might have survived to influence Western Civilization through his writing and rhetoric for a decade or two more.
Cicero was also a cunning, occasionally cruel man who made enemies easily. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C./BCE, his enmity against Caesar’s son Octavius and Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony created the circumstances that led to his death. This account is well known. The lesser-known causes of his demise are much less befitting of his noble stature.
One of Cicero’s enemies was the nobleman Clodius, who came to hate Cicero after Cicero had defended a young man in a breech of promise case brought to the courts by Clodius’ sister. Cicero won the case by shredding the young woman’s reputation in obscene and mocking terms. Cicero as able to circulate in society due to the protection of a debt collector turned muscleman named Milo and members of his protection gang. Cicero had Milo appointed as a Roman Senator for his services.
On 18 January 52 B.C./BCE there was an altercation between two large parties led by Milo and Clodius along the Appian Way. The altercation was fatal for Clodius, who was stabbed more than a dozen times by Milo’s men. Cicero defended Milo in court, and while he was convicted, Cicero’s eloquence led to banishment rather than a death sentence. Milo went on to enjoy the remainder of his days in Marseilles in Gaul, i.e. modern-day southern France.
Cicero’s past eventually caught up with him on 7 December 43 B.C./BCE. Two of Mark Anthony’s men, a centurion and a tribune cornered Cicero leaving his villa at Formia, heading to take a ship to Macedonia. Cicero did not resist arrest, and ever eloquent, his last words were “Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem.” (Trans. Lat. “I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.”) The centurion not only severed Cicero’s head, he also severed his hands.
Cicero’s head was nailed to the rostra in the Forum in Rome. Legend has it that Clodius’s widow approached the head and stuck a needle in the tongue that had brought her family so much grief. (With apologies to Mark Anthony and his wife Fulvia, who is mentioned by other authors as the deliverer this ultimate after-death insult). (Fulvia is also the gleeful figure in the painting above, “Fulvia With The Head Of Cicero” by Pavel Svedomsky).
So dear readers – your verdict – a Mindfulness Hero or a Mindless A$$hole?
