It was during his consulship that the Catiline conspiracy attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces, and Cicero (by his own account) suppressed the revolt by summarily and controversially executing five conspirators without trial, an act which would later lead to his exile.

During the chaotic middle period of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, Cicero was a supporter of the Optimates faction.

[34][35] According to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome,[36] affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola.

His first major appearance in the courts was in 81 BC at the age of 26 when he delivered Pro Quinctio, a speech defending certain commercial transactions which Cicero had recorded and disseminated.

[43] His more famous speech defending Sextus Roscius of Ameria – Pro Roscio Amerino – on charges of parricide in 80 BC was his first appearance in criminal court.

The post, which was largely one related to financial administration in support of the state or provincial governors, proved for Cicero an important place where he could gain clients in the provinces.

His time in Sicily saw him balance his duties – largely in terms of sending more grain back to Rome – with his support for the provincials, Roman businessmen in the area, and local potentates.

[49] Promising to lend the Sicilians his oratorical voice, he was called on a few years after his quaestorship to prosecute the Roman province's governor Gaius Verres,[50] for abuse of power and corruption.

[51] In 70 BC, at the age of 36, Cicero launched his first high-profile prosecution against Verres, an emblem of the corrupt Sullan supporters who had risen in the chaos of the civil war.

While Verres hired the prominent lawyer, Quintus Hortensius, after a lengthy period in Sicily collecting testimonials and evidence and persuading witnesses to come forward, Cicero returned to Rome and won the case in a series of dramatic court battles.

[54] Oratory was considered a great art in ancient Rome and an important tool for disseminating knowledge and promoting oneself in elections, in part because there were no regular newspapers or mass media.

[59][56] Cicero was also active in the courts, defending Gaius Rabirius from accusations of participating in the unlawful killing of plebeian tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus in 100 BC.

[60] Most famously – in part because of his own publicity[57] – he thwarted a conspiracy led by Lucius Sergius Catilina to overthrow the Roman Republic with the help of foreign armed forces.

Cicero procured a senatus consultum ultimum (a recommendation from the senate attempting to legitimise the use of force)[57] and drove Catiline from the city with four vehement speeches (the Catilinarian orations), which remain outstanding examples of his rhetorical style.

At first Decimus Junius Silanus spoke for the "extreme penalty"; but during the debate many were swayed by Julius Caesar, who decried the precedent it would set and argued in favor of life imprisonment in various Italian towns.

[70] Shortly after completing his consulship, in late 62 BC, Cicero arranged the purchase of a large townhouse on the Palatine Hill previously owned by Rome's richest citizen, Marcus Licinius Crassus.

[73] In 60 BC, Julius Caesar invited Cicero to be the fourth member of his existing partnership with Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus, an assembly that would eventually be called the First Triumvirate.

[85] In his Oratio De Domo Sua Ad Pontifices, Cicero convinced the College of Pontiffs to rule that the consecration of his land was invalid, thereby allowing him to regain his property and rebuild his house on the Palatine.

[88] The conference at Luca in 56 BC left the three-man alliance in domination of the republic's politics; this forced Cicero to recant and support the triumvirate out of fear from being entirely excluded from public life.

Early in his governorship he received information that prince Pacorus, son of Orodes II the king of the Parthians, had crossed the Euphrates, and was ravaging the Syrian countryside and had even besieged Cassius (the interim Roman commander in Syria) in Antioch.

[117] Cicero supported Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and urged the Senate to name Antony an enemy of the state.

Terentia's family was wealthy, probably the plebeian noble house of Terenti Varrones, thus meeting the needs of Cicero's political ambitions in both economic and social terms.

Cicero sent him to Athens to study as a disciple of the peripatetic philosopher Kratippos in 48 BC, but he used this absence from "his father's vigilant eye" to "eat, drink, and be merry.

The quality and ready accessibility of Ciceronian texts favored very wide distribution and inclusion in teaching curricula, as suggested by a graffito at Pompeii, admonishing: "You will like Cicero, or you will be whipped".

Cornelius Nepos, the first century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period.

[168] Michael Parenti admits Cicero's abilities as an orator, but finds him a vain, pompous and hypocritical personality who, when it suited him, could show public support for popular causes that he privately despised.

[179][181] During his life the area was the most desirable in Rome, densely occupied with Patrician houses including the Domus Publica of Julius Caesar and the home of Cicero's mortal enemy Clodius.

[189] In the historical novel series Masters of Rome, Colleen McCullough presents a not-so-flattering depiction of Cicero's career, showing him struggling with an inferiority complex and vanity, morally flexible and fatally indiscreet, while his rival Julius Caesar is shown in a more approving light.

Robert Harris' novels Imperium, Lustrum (published under the name Conspirata in the United States) and Dictator comprise a three-part series based on the life of Cicero.

[196] Giancarlo Esposito portrays Mayor Franklyn Cicero, a character from Francis Ford Coppola's 2024 sci-fi epic film Megalopolis, which is a modern futuristic interpretation of the Catiline Conspiracy.