Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic

A new biography of Cicero, one of the most influential and fascinating figures in classical history.

When the great Roman orator Cicero was murdered in the Autumn of 43 BCE, his tongue was seen as such a powerful weapon against his enemies that Fulvia, the wife of Marc Antony, had it cut out of his severed head and pierced with pins. Marcus Tuillius Cicero, however, was more than a brilliant orator. His was born on January 3 106 BCE and was assassinated on December 7, 43 BCE. The arc of his life almost perfectly mirrors the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. His actions and reactions to the rising tyranny of the world around him continue to fascinate and inspire today. The story of Cicero’s life is full of peaks and troughs, uncertainty and scandal.

In this gripping new biography, Catharine Edwards breathes new life into one the ancient world's most notable figures and offers a fresh take on the end of the Roman Republic. Edwards examines Cicero's life for what it can tell us about a turbulent society in which longstanding tensions and inequalities were exacerbated by the wealth of empire, and ambitious generals battled to seize control and remake Rome. As democratic institutions are radically subverted by strongmen and their lackeys in our own world, Catherine Edwards’ Cicero’s Tongue is a thrilling mirror reflecting both the distant past and the tumult of history playing out again all around us. View Less