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Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106, -43) was born in Arpino, a small town south of Lazio, a middle class family, received his training in Rome and completed in Greece. Lives in the final half century of the Republic, a time of great internal convulsions: the social war that bloodied Italy to all italics got Roman citizenship, the power struggles between Marius and Sulla, the slave revolt led by Spartacus, the Conspiracy of Catiline, the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. All these events the lives closely, intervening decisively in some of them. Direct starred Conspiracy of Catiline, which made it fail. Also attacked Mark Antony in his Philippics, which cost him his life at the hands of the assassins of the one that nailed his head on a pike and paraded around the Foro.Cicerón, ardent Republican, he developed an incessant intellectual activity, at the same time, an intense political actividd. Cicero himself says he could have lived very quiet, devoted to the sweetness of the study but did not hesitate to expose themselves to the harshest storms "to save my fellow citizens and to purchase, at the expense of my own risk, the tranquility of everyone. "
The incessant intellectual activity of Cicero himself gave an extensive body of literature that we can include, depending on their thematic content into four groups: speeches, rhetorical works, works of philosophy and letters.

I. - SPEECHES. Cicero is the largest representative of the Roman orators. It ends a long tradition of public speaking, developed and perfected over the Republic in terms of political freedom. His teachers were Antonio and Crassus who, like most speakers before him, developed a very active in public life. In the first century BC, favored by social and political upheaval, the Roman oratory reached its highest height of perfection. Two streams are vying for primacy speeches at the time: the Asian, which tends to long periods, grandiloquent, expression florida, with great care oratory rhythm, and the attic, the opposite trend, which is distinguished by the nakedness of the expression . Well, Cicero is not typecast. In fact, combines the best of both schools. Its expression is ornamental or naked, always adapting to the circumstances require. His speeches can be divided into court, made before a court, as defense counsel or prosecutor, and politicians, delivered in the Senate or the Forum. Now, in chronological order, some particularly important for both sections: