Quintus Tullius Cicero (/ˈsɪsəroʊ/SISS-ə-roh,Latin:[ˈkɪkɛroː]; 102 BC – 43 BC) was a Roman statesman and military leader, as well as the younger brother ofMarcus Tullius Cicero. He was born into a family of theequestrian order, as the son of a wealthy landowner inArpinum, some 100 kilometres (62 mi) south-east ofRome. He is known for his political career, governorship ofAsia, time serving as a general in Gaul underCaesar, and for his relationship with Cicero.
Cicero's well-to-do father arranged for him to be educated with his brother in Rome,Athens and probablyRhodes in 79–77 BC.[1] Around 70 BC, he marriedPomponia (sister of his brother's friendAtticus), a dominant woman of strong personality.[2] He divorced her after a long disharmonious marriage with much bickering between the spouses in late 45 BC.[1] His brother, Marcus, tried several times to reconcile the spouses, but to no avail.[3][page needed] The couple had a son born in 66 BC and named Quintus Tullius Cicero after his father.
Quintus wasaedile in 66 BC,praetor in 62 BC, andpropraetor of the province ofAsia for three years (61-59 BC.)[4] UnderCaesar, during theGallic Wars, he waslegatus (accompanying Caesar on his secondexpedition to Britain in 54 BC and surviving aNervian siege of his camp duringAmbiorix's revolt), and was under his brother when the latter was governor inCilicia in 51 BC. DuringCaesar's civil war, he supported thePompeian faction, obtaining the pardon of Caesar later.[citation needed]
During theSecond Triumvirate, when theRoman Republic was again in civil war, Quintus, his son, and his brother were allproscribed. He fled fromTusculum with his brother. Later, Quintus went home to bring back money for travelling expenses. His son hid his father and did not reveal the hiding place even under torture. When Quintus heard this, he gave himself up to try to save his son, but father, son, and famous brother, were killed in 43 BC as proscribed persons.[5][6]
Quintus is depicted by Caesar as a brave soldier and an inspiring military leader. At a critical moment in the Gallic Wars, he rallied his legion and retrieved an apparently hopeless position. Caesar commended him for this with the words "He praised Cicero and his men very highly, as they deserved".[7] However, later the legate was purportedly responsible for a near-disaster in Gaul but does not receive condemnation from Caesar as a result.[8]
Quintus had an impulsive temperament and had fits of cruelty during military operations, a behaviour frowned on by Romans of that time. The Roman (andstoic) ideal was to control one's emotions even in battle. Quintus Cicero also liked old-fashioned and harsh punishments, like putting a person convicted ofpatricide into a sack and throwing him into the sea. Such convicts were traditionally "stripped, scourged, sewn up in a sack together with [a] dog, a cock, a viper, and a monkey, and thrown into a river or the sea to drown".[9] This punishment he meted out during hispropraetorship of Asia.[10]
His brother confessed in one of his letters to his friendTitus Pomponius Atticus (written in 51 BC while he wasProconsul ofCilicia and had taken Quintus aslegatus with him) that he dares not leave Quintus alone as he is afraid of what kind of sudden ideas he might have.[3][page needed] On the positive side, Quintus was utterly honest, even as a governor of a province, in which situation many Romans shamelessly amassed private property for themselves. He was also a well-educated man who enjoyed reading Greek tragedies, and even wrote some tragedies himself.
The relationship between the brothers was mostly affectionate, except for a period of serious disagreement during Caesar's dictatorship 49-44 BC.[11] The many letters from Marcusad Quintum fratrem show how deep and affectionate the brothers' relationship was, though Marcus Cicero often played the role of the "older and more experienced" sibling, lecturing to his brother on what the right thing to do was.[12]
As an author during theGallic wars, he wrote fourtragedies in the Greek style. Three of them were titledTroas,Erigones, andElectra, but all arelost. He also wrote several poems on the second expedition of Caesar toBritannia, three epistles toTiro (extant) and a fourth one to his brother. The long letterCommentariolum Petitionis (Handbook on electioneering) has also survived. Although its authenticity has been much questioned, recently the scholar Andrew Lintott has argued that Quintus was the true author.[13] It is in any case a guide to political behavior in Cicero's time.
Citations
Modern sources
Ancient sources
Works by or aboutQuintus Tullius Cicero atWikisource