Anthony Everitt’s biographical novel Cicero tells the life and times of Cicero in an exemplary way through his knowledge, objective historical judgments, and organization of the text. It is evident in the detail of events that Everitt has a vast knowledge of Cicero’s life, but also of the socioeconomic, cultural, religious, and political culture of Rome. From the beginning of the novel, Everitt approaches the book with a historical perspective, seeking to show what Rome was like in the first century BC by establishing a proper context for Cicero’s political life. Not to mention, Everitt begins the biographical focus of the novel with the famous death of Julius Caesar on the steps of the Senate on the Ides of March, which is at the end of Cicero’s life. This choice to begin near the end of Cicero’s life may seem unusual, but this scene captivates the reader in terms of figurative language and shows what the political instability of Rome caused, that is, the death of Julius Caesar, who only came to power because …show more content…
The novel remains an articulate biography that shows and tells the life of Cicero and history of Rome. In addition, Everitt writes Cicero as seeming human rather than a flat character in the sense of his growth into a skillful lawyer, politician, and speaker; he does not grow into the world’s greatest politician without the drama in his own family and turmoil among Rome’s political atmosphere. Critically speaking, no novel is perfect, but Everitt’s biography of Cicero remains effective in persuading the reader that Cicero became the world’s greatest politician in the midst of ancient Rome’s political