Cicero was the greatest orator of ancient Rome — a brilliant lawyer, statesman, and writer whose speeches and ideas shaped Western thought for two thousand years. And though we remember him as the very voice of Rome, his story has a surprising connection to this corner of Turkey.
Marcus Tullius Cicero lived from 106 to 43 BC, through the dramatic final decades of the Roman Republic. He rose by sheer talent rather than noble birth, became consul, and defended the Republic with his unmatched gift for words — first against the conspirator Catiline, and later, fatally, against Mark Antony. His courage cost him his life: he was killed in 43 BC as the Republic he loved collapsed into civil war.
What many travellers do not realise is that Cicero spent time governing here in Asia Minor. In 51 BC he was sent out as the Roman governor of Cilicia, a province in the south of what is now Turkey, and by the standards of his greedy age he governed with remarkable honesty and fairness — refusing to plunder the people in his charge, as so many Roman governors did. He grumbled in his letters about being so far from the politics of Rome, but he did his duty well.
Cicero’s true monument, though, is his writing. His speeches, his letters, and his works on philosophy, justice, and the duties of citizens were treasured throughout antiquity, rediscovered with delight in the Renaissance, and studied by the founders of modern democracies. When people speak of the Roman ideals of law, liberty, and the republic, they are very often speaking, knowingly or not, in the words of Cicero.
Although his world was the Republic of the first century BC, not the Christian centuries that followed, Cicero is part of the same Roman story that the ruins of Ephesus and the Aegean tell — the world of marble forums, law courts, and great public speeches whose stage you can still stand upon today. To explore that Roman world with a nationally licensed local guide, find me at toursaroundturkey.com’s contact page.
