April 1, 2002
Using Cicero's letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome. Against this backdrop, he offers a lively chronicle of Cicero's life. Best known as Rome's finest orator and rhetorician, Cicero (103 –43 B.C.) situated himself at the center of Roman politics. By the time he was 30, Cicero became a Roman senator, and 10 years later he was consul. Opposing Julius Caesar and his attempt to form a new Roman government, Cicero remained a thorn in Caesar's side until the emperor's assassination. Cicero supported Pompey's attempts during Caesar's reign to bring Rome back to republicanism. Along the way, Cicero put down conspiracies, won acquittal for a man convicted of parricide, challenged the dictator Sulla with powerful rhetoric about the decadence of Sulla's regime and wrote philosophical treatises. Everitt deftly shows how Cicero used his oratorical skills to argue circles around his opponents. More important, Everitt portrays Cicero as a man born at the wrong time. While Cicero vainly tried to find better men to run government and better laws to keep them in order, Republican Rome was falling down around him, never to return to the glory of Cicero's youth. A first-rate complement to Elizabeth Rawson's Cicero
or T.N. Mitchell's monumental two-volume biography, Everitt's first book is a brilliant study that captures Cicero's internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes. Maps.
September 15, 2002
Everitt's first book is a good read that anyone interested in ancient Rome will enjoy. It is also the first one-volume life of the Roman leader in 25 years. To create a work that flowed and was therefore more colorful for the lay reader, Everitt, the former secretary-general of the Arts Council for Great Britain, has taken liberties when describing a person or a place that may annoy scholars. Yet reading this book is an excellent way to understand the players of the period and the culture that produced them. Bloody, articulate, erudite, sexist, slave-owning-Cicero and his circle were all that, but Everitt is careful to recognize that the orator was a product of his age. This is not strictly a political history; Everitt scrutinizes Roman society in discussing events of the orator's life and, when describing Cicero's marriage, acquaints the reader with various aspects of that institution and the home of the era. Throughout, he is willing to admit when the evidence for a theory is weak and when he is extrapolating from the assumptions of scholars. Recommended for public and undergraduate collections.-Clay Williams, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from May 15, 2002
Everitt's masterful biography draws on Cicero's letters to his friend Atticus to give a clear picture of the famous Roman orator, noting both his brilliance and his faults. A staunch defender of the Roman Republic, Cicero spent his political career battling foes such as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, whose rise to power spelled doom for the ailing republic. Cicero followed the traditional route to power, moving through the political offices to become a consul in 63 B.C.E. He also was an advocate of high repute, boldly defending citizens who had fallen out of favor with those in power. During his consulship, Cicero pursued the seditious Catalina, whose attempted attacks on the senate were ultimately halted by Cicero's drastic measures. Cicero's actions come back to haunt him, however, when a tribune he testified against has him banished from Rome. Ever fickle, popular opinion swings back in Cicero's favor, and he returns to Rome, but he is forced to compromise his beliefs to stay in favor with those in power. Everitt does a superb job of bringing the last days of the Roman Republic to life, and he accurately portrays the tenuous political situation that marked the times. Most important, he creates a sympathetic portrait of Cicero, a man weighed down by the necessity of "moving with the times."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)