Abstract

Cicero was a man of ideals. During his whole life, he strived for only the best that he could produce and the best that his fatherland could produce. He was somewhat disillusioned by the end of his life for the Republic of the Scipios was no longer. The man who believed that the Republic would live forever had faltered. He saw, with the Sullan proscriptions and the formation of the first triumvirate, two events that foreshadowed the downfall of the Roman Republic. Cicero was a man of principle, a man who believed that good, honest, just, and virtuous men could save the State. The problem, though, was that no man would step up and become one of the next "gods" among men, a man that would look from the heavens as the Scipios now overlooked Cicero and the sad state that he was forced to experience during its greatest time of conflict and treachery.