Marcus Tullius Cicero is famed for being one of
the greatest orators of Ancient Rome. However,
speaking was only one of his many talents, for he
also excelled both in the public sphere as a
lawyer and a senator, and in the private sphere
as a poet and philosopher. Born in 106 B.C. into
a wealthy family, Cicero quickly made a name for
himself as a lawyer after studying rhetoric and
philosophy in Rome, Athens, and Rhodes. In 80
B.C., at the age of twenty-six, Cicero
successfully
defended a man unjustly prosecuted by a friend
of the dictator Sulla, thereby cementing his
reputation. He was elected to the office of
quaestor in 76 B.C., making him a member of
the
senate. In 63 B.C., he was elected consul. His
consulship was extraordinary, both for the fact
that he was elected at the lowest legal age
possible and was the first individual coming from
a family where no member had been a senator to
achieve that position in more than thirty years.
As consul, he put down the Catilinarian
conspiracy, for which he was awarded the title of
“Father of his Country.” Politically, Cicero could
be characterized as a champion of traditional
institutions of the Roman Republic and the
common man. However, after the political shift
initiated with the rise of Julius Caesar and
Pompey, Cicero’s influence waned. During this
period away from the public eye, Cicero
composed a number of philosophical works for
which he is still famed today. In fact, Cicero’s
writings formed one of the backbones of
classical Western education until recently. Later
in his life, after the assassination of Caesar,
Cicero briefly returned to politics to lead the
Senate’s unsuccessful battle against Mark
Antony. For this, Cicero was murdered during a
spate of assassination that took place on
December 7th, 43 B.C. after the rise of the
triumvirate regime of Octavian, Antony, and
Lepidus. To Cicero, there was no higher duty of
a Roman citizen than to serve in the public life
and give back to the institutions that made the
Roman way of life possible.
This bust from the 1st Century A.D. depicts the
head of Cicero from the neck up. He has short,
closely cropped wavy hair and appears to have a
receding hairline characteristic of a middle-aged
man. His
expression is pensive and his brow is slightly
creased, perhaps a reflection of his age, perhaps
a result of his mood. This bust is a perfect
example of the portrait-type initiated during the
reign of Augustus. Certain elements reflect the
specific individual physiognomy of Cicero (the
receding hairline and the furled brow), while
other facial features have been idealized in the
Hellenic tradition (the eyes, mouth, and neck
show none of the aging signs that would be
expected from his suggested age).
The following analysis was kindly provided by Dr
John Riley (D. Phil. Oxon. Classical Art and
Archaeology)
‘This Roman head is almost certainly an
Imperial-period copy of a portrait of Cicero, and
that if this is confirmed (as I am confident it will
be), you will be in possession of only the fifth
known and acknowledged head of Cicero. Cicero
portraits are incredibly rare and if your portrait is
confirmed as Cicero it will be the first ‘new’
Cicero portrait identified in more than a
century…Your Roman bust most nearly
resembles the ‘Capitoline Cicero’ in Rome- but
now, in your version, idealized, smoothed out
and ‘juvenated’ (so that Cicero now appears
twenty years younger than in acknowledged
portraits). But your bust also bears a striking
resemblance to the Vatican, Apsley House and
Uffizi heads, i.e. all the other acknowledged
Cicero portraits.’
