Cesare Maccari, Cicero Denounces Catiline, 1880

Rome, Palazzo Madama

This image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cicero_Denounces_Catiline_in_the_Roman_Senate_by_Cesare_Maccari_-_3.jpg

When his work was rediscovered in the late middle ages, humanist scholars fell in love with Marcus Tullius Cicero. Petrarch even wrote letters to him as though he were still alive!

What was it about this Roman orator and statesman that could enthral the greatest minds of the renaissance, and also ensure his veneration down to our own time?

Well that’s what we’re going to find out! He wasn’t highborn, but he always believed in the structure and integrity of the Roman Republic. He made his name as an intensely combative lawyer with a speciality in character assassination. He then entered politics at a time when the Roman world was undergoing great convulsions and changes. He didn’t survive the last of those, but he did leave behind a vast body of work: not just his brilliant speeches, but also his letters and his thoughts on everything, from friendship to the nature of the gods. Let’s get to know him.

RJW F2620 Online course (via Zoom)

3 weeks, Tuesday 16 June - Tuesday 30 June.

£45 (individual registration); £80 (for two people sharing one screen).