Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BC at Arpinum into an equestrian family and through his eloquence became Rome's greatest advocate and statesman. As consul in 63 BC he crushed the conspiracy of Catiline and was hailed 'father of his country'. All his life he defended the Republic, opposed Caesar's dictatorship and later attacked Mark Antony with fierce speeches; in 43 BC he was proscribed by the Second Triumvirate and murdered. He brought Greek philosophy into the Latin world, coining much of its vocabulary, and his prose became the model of Latin style for two thousand years.