Born into a liberal family of the lawyer Pasquale Ciccotti, a landowner and several times mayor of Potenza, he studied in the local high school.

[1] He was appointed professor of ancient history at the University of Pavia, but his attacks on the government and solidarity for the workers on the occasion of the tragic events in Milan in May 1898 earned him an arrest warrant for subversive incitement.

[2] In June 1900, he was elected in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (1900-1904)[3] in the Vicaria district of Naples, upsetting the traditional electoral alliance between local politicians and the Camorra.

[5] Camorra boss Enrico Alfano was said to be the man behind the election in 1904 of the Count Vincenzo Ravaschieri Fieschi who had the support of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti.

[6][7] The night before the election dissident voters were intimidated, assaulted, beaten, and sustained knife injuries by ruffians hired and encouraged by both the Camorra and the police, since the authorities equally disapproved of a socialist candidate.

[9] Meanwhile, Ciccotti initiated the translation in Italian of the major works of the Socialist theorists Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lassalle.

[11] His pro-war stance and dislike of the liberal Giovanni Giolitti – Ciccotti called Giolittianism the "death of political life"[12] –, and in opposition to the post-war revolutionary movements, he looked sympathetically at the rising Fascism and its leader Benito Mussolini.