Cicero - The Man Who Lived by Words and Died by Them

Books & Insights · Plutarch's Lives Series #8

Cicero

The Man Who Lived by Words — and Died by Them

📚 Series Contents

1. What Is Plutarch's Lives?
2. Theseus
3. Romulus
4. Alexander the Great
5. Julius Caesar
6. The Vessel of a Conqueror — and Its Breaking Point
7. Pericles
8. Cicero ← You are here
9. The Rise and Fall of Heroes
10. Why We Still Read Plutarch's Lives Today

Alexander changed the world with a sword. Caesar changed Rome with an army. Cicero shook his age with words alone. And in the end, it was his words that got him killed. Of all the figures Plutarch recorded, Cicero may be the most human — the most vulnerable, the most contradictory, and in many ways the most recognizable to us today.

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The Outsider Who Made It

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) was born in Arpinum, a small town about sixty miles southeast of Rome. He was not from a senatorial family. He had no military record. His only weapon was his mind — and his mouth. He was what Romans called a homo novus, a "new man": the first of his family to reach the highest levels of Roman public life, on ability alone.

He became the greatest orator Rome ever produced. In courts, in the Senate, in the Forum — his speeches moved juries, reversed verdicts, and redirected the course of politics. Two thousand years later, his Latin prose is still the standard against which the language is measured.

"Cicero means 'chickpea.' Aristocrats mocked the name. Cicero said he would make it the most glorious name in his family's history. He did."

— Plutarch, Lives, Cicero

Consul Cicero — Foiling the Catilinarian Conspiracy

In 63 BC, Cicero was elected consul — Rome's highest office. A man with no noble blood and no military reputation had reached the top of the Roman state by the force of his intellect. And in that same year, he faced the greatest test of his life.

The Catilinarian ConspiracyLucius Sergius Catilina, a Roman aristocrat who had lost two elections, was planning to seize power by armed force. Cicero obtained intelligence about the plot and confronted Catilina directly in the Senate, delivering one of the most famous speeches in history. "How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?" Catilina left Rome the same day. The conspiracy collapsed. Cicero had saved the Republic — or so he believed.

The Senate erupted. Roman citizens called him "Father of the Fatherland" — Pater Patriae. Cicero had reached the summit of his life. And from that summit, almost immediately, his descent began.

Exile and Return

In suppressing the conspiracy, Cicero had ordered the ringleaders executed without trial. At the time it seemed decisive. Later, his enemies used it against him. Roman law protected citizens from execution without due process. In 58 BC, his political rival Clodius pushed through legislation that sent Cicero into exile. His house was burned to the ground.

Cicero fled to Greece. And there, Plutarch records something uncomfortable: he fell apart. He wrote letters — to friends, to family, to senators — begging, lamenting, blaming himself. Plutarch is honest about this. He says the letters were "not heroic." The man who had stood before the Senate and stared down a conspiracy now wrote like a man who had lost everything — because he had.

"Even great men can be broken by exile. Cicero's letters from Greece reveal how deeply he needed Rome, needed recognition, needed to matter."

— Plutarch's lens on Cicero

After eighteen months, he was recalled. Romans lined the roads to welcome him back. But the Rome he returned to had changed. The First Triumvirate — Caesar, Pompey, Crassus — now controlled the city. Cicero's place in it was not what it had been.

Civil War — A Choice He Could Not Avoid

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, Cicero had to choose a side. Caesar wanted him and made it clear. Cicero wavered for weeks. In the end, he chose Pompey and the Senate — the Republic he had spent his life defending.

• 49 BC After the RubiconCicero joins Pompey's side. Civil war sweeps him into its current.
• 48 BC PharsalusPompey defeated. Cicero surrenders to Caesar and is pardoned.
• 46–44 BC Years of SilenceWithdrawn from politics, Cicero writes philosophy. On Duties, On Old Age, On Friendship.
• 44 BC After Caesar's DeathCicero returns to the stage. He allies with Octavian against Mark Antony.

The Philippics — His Last Words

After Caesar's assassination, Cicero saw one more chance to defend the Republic. He identified Mark Antony as the next man who would make himself a tyrant. Between 44 and 43 BC, he delivered fourteen speeches against him — the Philippics, named after the speeches Demosthenes had made against Philip of Macedon centuries before.

The PhilippicsCicero attacked Antony with everything he had — calling him an enemy of the Republic, a drunkard, a tyrant in the making. The speeches circulated across Rome. Antony was furious. And he waited.

The MiscalculationCicero tried to use the young Octavian as a tool against Antony — privately saying the young man should be "praised, used, and then set aside." Octavian heard of it. He chose to ally with Antony instead. Cicero had outmaneuvered himself with the one weapon he trusted most: words.

The Man Who Did Not Run

In 43 BC, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate. They exchanged lists of enemies to be eliminated. Antony put Cicero's name at the top. Octavian resisted — and then gave way.

When the assassins reached his villa, Cicero had already tried to flee by boat — and turned back. He was being carried in a litter when they caught up with him. Plutarch records that he leaned out and looked directly at the men who had come to kill him. He did not flinch. He was killed where he sat.

"Antony had Cicero's head and hands nailed to the speaker's platform in the Roman Forum — the same hands that had written, the same mouth that had spoken, the words that once saved Rome."

— Plutarch, Lives, Cicero

Plutarch records Antony's act and calls it one of the most savage things one human being has done to another. Then he adds: Cicero's writings outlasted everyone who tried to silence them.

What Cicero Left Behind

Field	Key Works / Achievements	Significance
Philosophy	On Duties, On the Republic, On the Laws	Brought Greek philosophy into Latin
Rhetoric	On the Orator, Brutus	Foundation of Western oratory
Letters	Over 900 surviving letters	The most vivid record of the late Republic
Politics	Suppressed the Catilinarian conspiracy; the Philippics	The Republic's last voice

Cicero never held a sword. He never commanded a legion. But his words have survived two thousand years — read in schools, quoted in parliaments, studied by anyone who wants to understand what it means to argue for something you believe in, in a world that would rather you stayed quiet. That is why Plutarch includes him. Greatness does not only come from force. Sometimes it comes from refusing to stop speaking.

Next Episode

The Rise and Fall of Heroes

The pattern Plutarch found in every life — why greatness and ruin so often share the same root.

This series draws on Plutarch's Lives to reinterpret its key figures and moments through a contemporary lens.