Ricerc@Sapienza

Cicero’s involvement in the political crisis of the Late Republic elicited divergent reactions from historians, declaimers and men of letters in the early imperial period. In particular, Cicero’s controversial role in the outbreak of the civil war of 49-45 BCE ignited a fierce debate over his political legacy and the role he played in the violent transition from the Republic to the imperial regime. This chapter starts from the depiction of Cicero as ‘man of war’ in Lucan’s epic-historical fiction and draws attention to the ambivalent treatment of Cicero as politician in Greek and Roman historical accounts. It then focuses on Cassius Dio’s reconfiguration of Cicero as moral and political authority in the speech on amnesty. By fictionalizing Cicero as a man torn between love of peace and political harmony on the one hand and desire for personal glory on the other, historians of the early empire elaborated on the relevance of the ideals of concord and stability to the downfall of Republicanism and the emergence of the Roman Principate.