“…he thinks politics is a fight for justice. Politics is a profession.”
Back in the day, I attended an all-girls Catholic high school where Latin was a very popular class. My 9th and 10th grade Latin classes were packed. Within my own family it was a tradition not just to take Latin (as opposed to Spanish or French), but to take it for the full four years of high school. I probably would have continued that tradition if not for 2 things: the sudden availability of a Russian class and Cicero. Cicero is known for his orations and rhetorical style, but translating him nearly broke me. I had nothing personal against Cicero as a teenager. It seemed like he was using his formidable skills as a lawyer and public speaker to take down some bad guys in the Roman Empire and I was more concerned with conjugations and declensions than the actual history. After reading this novel, however, it was brought home to me that Cicero was a gifted politician, and that while he had some lofty principles, he also very much wanted power and glory. As a result, his principles could be occasionally put aside for his personal ambition. This novel by Robert Harris is the first in a trilogy about the life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, and I was really drawn into the story. Harris uses Cicero’s slave/secretary Tiro (who really existed and really developed a system of shorthand for taking notes in the Roman Senate and for Cicero’s personal dictation) as his narrator, and through his eyes and his personal recollections, we see the rise of Cicero from a provincial nobody to a major player in Rome.
I won’t give the blow-by-blow history of Cicero’s life as shown in this novel. You can Google the details for yourself if you don’t care to read the book.This first volume in the trilogy covers the years from when Cicero achieved his first ambition (becoming a Roman Senator) until the achievement of his ultimate ambition of becoming a consul. Dudes who are thinking about the Roman Empire would probably find a lot to like about Cicero. Aristocrats in Rome looked down on him for being a “self-made man” from the provinces. Cicero was able to join the senate after marrying a wealthy woman, and from the aristocrats’ point of view, Cicero was an upstart who needed to be put in his place. The common people, who heard him argue in court, thought of him as their champion and ally, especially after Cicero won a high profile corruption case against an aristocrat who had clearly abused his power as a provincial governor to enrich himself. Through Tiro we see how Cicero was the consummate politician. He knew how to work a crowd through his public speaking and through “shaking hands and kissing babies.” It was a little disturbing to read how Cicero’s moral and political high ground could be so easily sacrificed to his ambition. But as Tiro points out, the Cicero he knew was never a revolutionary. He was never interested in leading a mob against the political order. What he wanted was power for himself through legal means. The problem, which we see as readers, is that in order to achieve that ambition, one not only sometimes has to sacrifice lofty moral ideals; sometimes one must make uncomfortable alliances. The result is that one also makes formidable enemies. Cicero was far from the only ambitious man in Rome.
It’s especially interesting to read about the rise of Cicero in our modern age, because clearly some things never change. Politics and ambition are ever the same. Powerful rich men form alliances and make deals amongst each other so as to get richer and more powerful. A good number of these men are both stupid and immoral. The ones you think might be good will sell out to save themselves or for a chance to promote themselves. At the end of Imperium, Cicero has become consul but he also is in a very precarious position: the people think he has betrayed their interests, he is about to alienate one of the most powerful men on the planet who was also his ally, and his alliance with the aristocrats is sure to be temporary. Reading about Cicero reminded me of reading Hillary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy; both Cicero and Cromwell were very smart, ambitious, and successful, yet both paid the ultimate price for it. This is a good read for those who really enjoy politics and political intrigue.