Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. - 43 B.C.)

Roman statesman and man of letters, Cicero was Rome's greatest orator and its most articulate philosopher. The last years of republican Rome are often referred to as the Age of Cicero.

Cicero was once called the father of his country. He was a brilliant orator, lower, statesman, writer, poet, critic, and philosopher who lived in the century before the birth of Christ and was momentously involved in all the conflicts between Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, and many of the other historical characters and events that make up ancient Roman history. He had a brilliant and long political career and was an established writer whose work was considered the most influential of its time. In those days however, dissidents were not treated kindly. He was executed in 43 B.C., his head and hands displayed on the speaker's platform at the Forum in Rome.

In one of his most memorable treatises, Cicero outlined the six mistakes of man as he saw them evidenced in ancient Rome.