The marble bust depicting Cicero, the famous jurist and orator of the ancient Rome. It is host in a room of the Capitoline Museums, inside the Palazzo Nuovo. In his attitude the bust represents the spirit of Cicero, a very famous man in the Republican Rome. A man who defended the "mos maiorum", two words that underline all the skills of a perfect Roman: justice, right, honour.
Cicero protected Rome and its society from who didn't follow these ideas, like Verre, the governor of Sicily that Cicero managed to report with its famous orations, named in this case "Verrine". Verre was convicted and Cicero became so famous that arrived in Rome, showing all his skills. The peak of his career was the orations against Catilina, a nobleman and a senator who, after twobad elections for him, tried to organize a conspiracy. In this way he wanted to destroy the Senate, the core of the Republican style. This is the reason why Cicero was able not only to discover his plot, but also to asked for him a simple exile.
A public murder could be something uncorrect for the roman moral. Then, Cicero died because he made a mistake. He wrote and talk other orations, named "Filippiche", against Marco Antonio. He was a member of the second triumvirate, with Lepido and Ottaviano (the famous Augustus). So, it was a really powerful man. For this reason, the name of Cicero was write down in the first position in the proscription lists. They were a list of name and surname that were convicted to death. And everybody could execute it, gaining also a reward...
At the end, when Cicero was old, he escaped from Rome, trying to be safe in one of his villas. But some hit men, envied by Marco Antonio, reached him and kill him, cutting his head. According to the legend, it was brought in Rome, and when the Roman general, Marco Antonio, saw that he was so horrified that he threw it. But not his wife, which didn’t love very much Cicero. He took her hairpin and sticked strongly his tongue, the venemous tongue which claimed so many bad things against his husband…
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