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The crude tirades of Cicero the demagogue

Far from being a crusader for virtue, the Roman statesman is seen as a violent firebrand, disregarding the law when it suited him and laying the groundwork for Julius Caesar’s assassination

25 January 2025

9:00 AM

25 January 2025

9:00 AM

Lawless Republic: The Rise of Cicero and the Decline of Rome Josiah Osgood

Hachette/Basic Books, pp.373, 25

It is rare to read a book about Cicero that likens its hero to a demagogue. Rome’s prosecutor of conspiracy and corruption in the last years of the Republic is seen more commonly as a toga-draped crusader for virtue. Was he also a ranter steeped in violence, crude character-assassination, tendentious storytelling and racial stereotypes? Yes, argues Josiah Osgood, an American historian, whose book persuasively analyses a range of Cicero’s murder, fraud and extortion cases.

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