Marcus Tullius Cicero was well known during his life (and for centuries afterwards until the decline of a classical education), for his work as an advocate and speaker during dangerous times in Rome as it moved from a weak Republic, through Dictatorship and into the beginnings of the Empire. Why do we know so much about Cicero? Mostly because so much of his legal and philosophical writings survived through the ages, much of it written by himself, naturally putting himself in the best of lights. He loved to write about himself so much that he managed to write two biographies of himself (sounds like a certain President we know) concentrating on the one major accomplishment, his actions in putting down the Cataline conspiracies.




