Aside from the fact that he was a lawyer, IOW, a weasel, by definition, there is much with which to fault Cicero as a person.

As a politician, he often reminded me of the late Hubert Humphrey. Now, I know you can claim that is a flawed comparison in terms of the political philosophies of each, but let's consider a few things. Both were physically and and psychologically incapable of just shutting the hell up. Both were more than willing to compromise their principles in the advancement of their political careers. Both, also, met their deaths bravely.

However, aside from all that, I have to freely and gladly admit that Cicero was perhaps one of Rome's greatest word smiths. I steal shamelessly from his works when I want to make a point. An instance was this past summer when we had a rather nasty, and continuing, political scandal here in Des Moines with a couple of city councilmen and their roles in financial malfeasance in a state agency. While they both resigned from the controlling board of that agency, they also refused to resign from the city council.

City council meetings this past summer were just chockablock with citizens assailing these two councilmen. I was one of them. I got up and, in one address to the city council, borrowed Cicero's opening line from his first speech against Catiline. I have no doubts that this line's origin was lost on the audience and press, but guess which line was the lead sound bite on the evening news for two of the three TV stations here and in the next morning's paper.

Behold the power of the Classics and/or Cicero!