Cicero, Marcus Tullius

Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 bc), referred to sometimes as Tully, was the most influential of Roman prose writers. He became consul in 63 bc when he suppressed the conspiracy of Catiline. He supported the senatorial party against Julius Caesar, and after Caesar's assassination he attacked Mark Antony in his Philippic orations. On the formation of the triumvirate he was put to death. His writings left their mark on ethics, epistemology, and political thought, on men's ideals of conduct, on the development of oratory and letter-writing, on literary style, the popularity of paradox, and the viability of Latin as an international language. During the Middle Ages Cicero figures primarily as a master of rhetoric. The textbook De Inventione remained the best-known of his works and was imitated by Alcuin. De Amicitia served Aelred of Rievaulx and others as a model for disquisitions on Christian love. His works contributed substantially to the late 16th-cent. revival of Stoicism and Scepticism. Cicero stood behind Hume's systematic doubt as he stood behind the half-hearted republicanism that led up to the French Revolution.