Age 20. Studying in Rome under Q. Mucius Scaevola the Augur, the great jurist of the age, and reading philosophy under the Epicurean Phaedrus and the Stoic Diodotus. Marius dies in January at his seventh consulship; the civil war between the Marians and the absent Sulla grinds on in Italy. Cicero's youthful verse translation of Aratus belongs somewhere in this period.

fil. Aratea 86 BC

Age 21. Still in legal and philosophical training; not yet ready for the courts. The youthful rhetorical handbook De Inventione is drafted in this period and Cicero will later disown it as immature.

ret. De Inventione 85 BC

Age 50. Conference of Luca in April renews the Triumvirate and forces Cicero, leaned on by Pompey, to recant his opposition to Caesar's laws — what he later calls his "palinode." Pro Sestio defends his recall; Pro Caelio, the most theatrical of the speeches, demolishes Clodia.

fil. Marius perdida 56 BC

Age 52. De Re Publica underway, the Scipionic dialogue on the ideal constitution. Caesar campaigns in Britain; Cicero's brother Quintus serves on Caesar's staff in Gaul and writes lively letters home.

fil. De Temporibus Suis perdida 54 BC

cartas 1 carta

1.   Epistula ad Caesarem de Milone 54 BC

fil. Epos ad Caesarem perdida 54 BC fil. Epos Britannicum perdida 54 BC

Age 60. Caesar formally pardons him and the philosophical writing begins in earnest: Brutus (a history of Roman oratory), Orator, Paradoxa Stoicorum. Pro Marcello and Pro Ligario before Caesar. Divorces Terentia after thirty years; briefly marries his young ward Publilia.

cartas 1 carta

1.   Epistula ad Calvum de Genere Dicendi 46 BC

Age 61. Tullia, his daughter, dies in February after childbirth. The grief is annihilating, and drives an outpouring of philosophy unmatched in Roman literature: Consolatio (a self-consolation, now lost), Hortensius (the protreptic that would convert Augustine, now lost), Academica, De Finibus, Tusculanae Disputationes, De Natura Deorum.

fil. Consolatio perdida March 45 BC

cartas 2 cartas Jun

1.   Ad Atticum 13.15 June 45 BC
2.   Ad Atticum 13.18 June 45 BC

fil. Hortensius perdida 45 BC

cartas 1 carta Aug

1.   Ad Atticum 13.36 August 45 BC

Age 62. Caesar assassinated on the Ides of March; Cicero is in the senate that day but not in the plot. After a few months of uncertainty and a planned trip to Greece that he aborts, the Philippics against Antony begin in September, with the speech later called Philippic 2 (never delivered) the most savage. De Officiis written for his son.

fil. De Gloria perdida 44 BC