Cicero: The “Father of His Country” Anthony Everitt, in his suave and gripping biography of Cicero, the famed orator of the late republic, paints a picture of one of the most brilliant lawyers and statesmen of all times. He derives most of his facts from Cicero’s own legendary speeches as well as letters to his close personal friend Atticus. His portrait of Cicero is a witty, principled, genius of political and legal tactics who at his core was a true patriot and conservative idealist. Moreover, Cicero was a vain, voluble, wisecracking sort of guy; in fact “often in his career, Cicero let his sense of humor do serious damage to his prospects.”(122) Cicero's life (he was born in 106 B.C., in Arpinum, and died in 43 B.C.) coincided with the last golden age of the Roman republic before it was dismantled and turned into an empire. A brilliant and sometimes scathing lawyer from a well-to-do provincial family, Cicero found himself unwillingly at the heart of a 100-year civil war that pitted the traditional oligarchy of the Senate, known as the “optimates“, against a new breed of fiery class-war demagogues known as “populares“. Like our left and right, Democrats and Republicans, both parties were drawn from much the same social class, attended the same dinner parties and often saw politics as a personal power trip. But they had two radically different visions of the Roman state. The “optimates” yearned for a moderate republican status quo; the radicals wanted reforms that would eventually lead to a completely different kind of state, one ruled by a purportedly enlightened dictator. Deeply influenced by Greek culture, Cicero was by temperament still firmly entrenched in Roman tradition. Socially, he was among the "new men" of the first century B.C., a host of provincial upstarts making legal and professional careers for themselves in the booming imperial city. This