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Original of the Cicero bust, the following link leads you directly to Wikipedia and the representation of the Capitoline Museums in the Vatican:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Tullius_Cicero#/media/File:M._Tullius_Cicero_IMG_2414_B1.jpg
Marcus Tullius Cicero, born 106 in Arpinum (Samnium), murdered 43 BCE in Formiae, Roman orator, politician and writer
Cicero came from a knighthood. He came to Rome at an early age, where he received an excellent education in rhetoric, philosophy and law.
After he had already appeared as a speaker in trials with political background under Sulla (1st speech "For Quinctius", 81 BCE), he perfected his education by a study trip to Greece 79-77 BCE (in Athens friendship with Atticus, actually Titus Pomponius, a rich Roman knight, so named because he spent over 20 years in Athens.
At the "Grand Master" of rhetoric, Apollonius Molon from Alabanda/Karien, he took part in his famous speaker courses on Rhodes.
His successes as a speaker in court also paved the way for his political career, so that, despite the resistance of nobility (lat."glory","noble birth", ruling nobility of the Roman Republic) to the homo novus (lat."new, hitherto unknown man", originally despicable designation), he held all offices at the earliest possible date. He became 75 Quaestor (lat."investigator", senior tax official) in Sicily, 69 Kurul Ädil (assistant to the tribune of the people), 66 Praetor, 63 Consul.
During his consulate, Cicero celebrated his greatest political triumph by suppressing the conspiracy of Catilina. The alleged illegal execution of the ringleaders, however, became Cicero's downfall. At the request of Clodius, he was banished in 58, and although he had already been recalled honourably after one year, he had lost his political influence. In the following years he wrote his most important state-philosophical and rhetorical writings, until he had to take over the administration of the province of Cilicia. At the outbreak of the civil war, Cicero joined the Pompeius after unsuccessful mediation attempts, but he exercised political restraint and received forgiveness from Caesar.
The following years of forced political inactivity became the main epoch of Cicero's philosophical writing (46-44). After Caesar's murder, Cicero reappeared politically and sought to restore the old republican order. As leader of the Senate Party, he fiercely attacked Antony in the 14 "Philippine speeches" (named after the Philippika des Demosthenes, an extremely skillful rhetorician, known in particular for his polished speeches against Philippos of Macedonia, the father of Alexander III, the Great, whom he passionately persecuted as the most dangerous opponent of Greek freedom). After the conclusion of the second triumvirate, Antony had him put on the list of proscriptions and murdered (September 7,43).
Cicero's literary work includes the speeches, rhetorical writings, philosophical writings and letters. His friend Atticus published the rhetorical and philosophical writings during his lifetime, while his friend Atticus published the speeches of his Free Tyroleans, who also arranged Cicero's estate and prepared part of Cicero's correspondence for publication.
Of Cicero's speeches, 57 have been preserved in their entirety (judicial, senatorial and popular speeches, and about as many have been lost. While Cicero, in the earlier speeches in which he rivalled Hortensius, leaned towards the Asian style manners, he already showed his own personal style in the speeches against Verres, which is free from the one-sidedness of Asianism and atticism in equal measure and is characterized by the avoidance of foreign words and vulgarisms, ample but not exaggerated use of the rhetorical means of jewellery, the great.
Since the trial of Verres, Cicero has been regarded as an unqualified master of Roman eloquence. Cicero revised his speeches for the book edition, as they were intended to be stylistically and literary in style and spread his fame as a speaker beyond the immediate judicial or political occasion.
Of the rhetorical writings, the three books "De oratore" (From the speaker, 55), in which Cicero draws the ideal of the all-round philosophical orator, which he himself aspires to;"Brutus" (46), a history of Roman eloquence;"Oator" (The speaker, 46), in which Cicero deals with the question of the best style of speech and his own style.
Cicero only found time for philosophical writing in the days of forced political leisure. At the beginning (56-51) there are the state-philosophical works "De re publica" (The State, only fragmented preserved) and "De legibus" (The Laws, unfinished), in which Cicero draws the picture of the best state with the best legislation, realized in the Roman constitution (mix of consulate, magistrate, people's assembly) following Plato's main philosophical work, and at the same time the mobility heroes.
Political and personal misfortune (victory of Caesar, premature death of his beloved daughter Tullia) prompted Cicero to devote even more attention to philosophical studies than before, and allowed him to develop a plan to treat the entire Greek philosophy in its most important parts in Latin, thus making it accessible to his Roman compatriots. He realized this plan in the years 46 to 44 (main works received:"De finibus bonorum et malorum","The greatest good and evil;" Tusculanae disputationes ", conversations in Tusculum;" De natura deorum "," The essence of the gods;"De officiis", The duties).
Without conducting independent research, he chose from Greek philosophy those teachings which seemed to him to be reasonable and useful (especially those of the academics Philon of Larissa and Antiochos of Askalon and the stoic Poseidonios), and presented them in popular form (dialogue form).
From Cicero's extensive correspondence, four collections of letters are sorted by addressees, which enable us to get to know Cicero in his personal thoughts and feelings more precisely than any other person in antiquity. In addition, the letters are an invaluable source of information for the social, political and cultural-historical circumstances of the time.
Cicero's importance is not, as he himself believed, political in nature. In complete disregard of the historical situation, he sought to support the internal and external threats of corruption and the demands of the popular regime of nobility, to which he himself did not belong, and was forced to suffer political shipwreck in the power struggles of the outgoing republic, as he did not have a firm political standpoint. On the other hand, Cicero's importance in the field of language and literature is hardly high enough. His speeches, but also his rhetorical and philosophical writings made him the creator of classical Latin art prose, which in the following years was regarded as the norm and pattern of the Latin language.
Through his philosophical writings, he not only spread the knowledge of Greek philosophy in Rome, but also handed it down to the Middle Ages and thus contributed to its repercussions into modern times. He was deeply convinced of the importance of Greek culture for the education of mankind, and he made the word "Humanitarian Awareness" into an educational concept, thus expressing that it is only through education that man becomes a human being.
Cicero's effect has been enormous since ancient times, and in the history of the antiquity, Cicero has always been the most important among Romans. 120 years after Cicero's death, Quintilianus founded "Ciceronianism" by declaring Cicero's speeches exemplary and propagating Cicero's ideal of style and education. Very quickly, early Christianity also found access to Cicero. Lactantius was called the "Christian Cicero" because of his imitation of Cicero; Hieronymus accused himself of being a Cicero follower ("Ciceronianus") and not a disciple of Christ ("Christianus"); Augustine dated the decisive turn of his life from reading the (lost) Ciceronic dialogue "Hortensius".
Petrarca, who was an ardent admirer of Cicero, finally helped "Ciceronianism" to victory, so that the imitation of the Ciceronian style, which went hand in hand with the study of Cicero's writings, became the declared goal of the Humanists. It was not until the new humanism of the 18th century, when the original Greek works were rediscovered, as it were, that Cicero lost his primacy in the aftermath of antiquity. His passing on of Greek philosophy, culture and living conditions are a unique merit of this fascinating personality.
Original bust exhibit of the Capitoline Museum in Rome, inventory no. 589, middle of the 1st century BC, replica special edition limited to 20 copies, reduction.
The cast collection of the Freie Universität Berlin offers this bust with 38 cm uncolored for € 580, -.
This product was added to our catalog on Saturday, February 1, 2014.