Orator

A wonderful book. The complexities and paradoxes of Cicero’s character are as fascinating as those which characterised the Roman Republic in the final decades of its existence – and no biography I have read does richer justice to both * Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and co-host of The Rest is History * Wonderful... Edwards has done a marvellous job of showing us Cicero the man, the scholar and the politician in highly entertaining style * Emma Southon, author of A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women * Orator gives us a Cicero for our times, not a detached observer but an active participant and ultimate casualty of the convulsions that brought down the Roman Republic. Catharine Edwards has crafted an intimate and deeply informed portrait of a man struggling to make sense of his world’s slide into civil war and chaos… Compelling and beautifully written * Eve MacDonald, author of Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire * A man of thought in an age of thugs, a pen amongst swords: every age needs its Cicero and Edwards has written a resonant Cicero for ours * Peter Stothard, author of Palatine: An Alternative History of the Caesars * It is a very tall order to make readable sense both of the brutal politics of late-republican Rome and of the complex inconsistencies of Cicero’s own character – but Catharine Edwards has carried it off superbly. Written with grace, pace and scrupulous annotation, Orator is an exemplary historical biography * Peter Wiseman, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Exeter *