Marcus Tullius Cicero was the greatest orator Rome produced, possibly the greatest the ancient world produced, and he was killed for it. His head and his right hand — the hand that had written the Philippics, the series of speeches attacking Mark Antony — were displayed on the Rostra in the Roman Forum by Antony’s orders in 43 BC. Antony’s wife Fulvia reportedly pushed hairpins through the tongue that had destroyed so many reputations with such elegance. The story may be exaggerated. The impulse it describes was not.

Nearly a thousand letters written by Cicero survive, along with approximately ninety letters addressed to him from other correspondents. They span the period from 68 BC to his death in 43 BC and constitute the most intimate documentary record of any figure from the ancient world. They were not written for publication. They were written to friends, family members, political allies, and enemies, in the urgency of specific moments, and they reveal a man whose public persona — the great orator, the defender of the Republic, the statesman who executed the Catilinarians — was inhabited by someone considerably more anxious, vain, inconsistent, and human than the published speeches would suggest.