Who was Cicero and what is his legacy to society?

Did you Google just “Cicero”? I just did so and came up with 10 really food sites, listing his contributions, quotes, writings, etc. Let me know if they don’t come up for you and I’ll send you the links.

i did and got some good info but what i really need is to know what influence he had on society.

The article in wikipedia has a section on his legacy, his position in Roman politics. Those would all be an influence on society (Roman and eventually modern).

i tried wikipedia and got the part on his legacy and it looks like it should be good thank you so much! I will still be taking more suggestions.

Cicero is like Obama….He is a good orator and came from a family with NO political ties. With his suberb oratory skills, he quickly rose in the ranks (a lot like Obama, wouldn’t you say?)

As a Latin student, I must say though, I don’t like reading Cicero. His grammar structure is annoying, and he drones on and on, and a whole sentence can run on into a paragraph. But he was considered a great orator…so back in the day, he must have been great to listen to I guess ><

Marcus Cicero is considered to have been Rome’s greatest orator. He was a true Rhode scholar (as in the real Rhodes) and studied philosophy and rhetoric there, as well as in Athens and Rome. He was known to have a silver tongue and was a very successful pleader of court cases. Many copies of his speeches exist, as well as hundreds of private letters. He also wrote poetry, but not much of that has survived. His downfall came several months after Julius Caesar’s assassination when he gave several violent orations against Marc Antony at a time when he was allied with Octavian (later Augustus Caesar). Not too smart for a man of his genius. He was murdered in 43 C.E., as was his younger bro, Quintus Cicero, who was known for his literature (only a few letters to his brother survive).
Incidentally, Cicero is pronounced Key-Care-Oh in Classic Latin. And as seekingwolf mentioned, Cicero was a novus homo (self-made man).

Cicero was a brilliant orator, but an incompetent politician.

And as I understood it, “murdered” isn’t as accurate as “executed for political reasons”—if I recall correctly, the Caesareans hung his head and his hands in the Forum as a warning to others.