Cicero

　　He squared off against Caesar and was friends with youngBrutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botchedtransition from military hero to politician. He lambasted MarkAntony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his witas he was for exposing his opponents? sexual peccadilloes.Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation butalso a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome?s most fearedpolitician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times.Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill allstudied his example. No man has loomed larger in the politicalhistory of mankind.　　In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everittplunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancientRome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through hislegendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection ofunguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to lifein these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.　　Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of ageduring Spartacus? famous revolt of the gladiators and presided overRoman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled thelegendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victoriousgeneral who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought tomobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest ofGaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar?s dictatorship andassassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and amodel, later, to French and American revolutionaries who sawthemselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance totyranny.　　Anthony Everitt?s biography paints a caustic picture of Romanpolitics?where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation,walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another?s sexualescapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This wasa time before slander and libel laws, and the stories?about dubiouspardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buyingand rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on?make the Lewinskyaffair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.　　Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew noequal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotionalenough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloveddaughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intenselyhuman, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to thelast days of Republican Rome.