Background Info
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on January 3, 106 B.C and was murdered on December 7, 43 B.C he was an important politician in many of the political events of his time He was, among other things, an orator, lawyer, politician, and philosopher.
Cicero's life
At the time in Rome, though technically achieved by winning elections, were almost exclusively controlled by a group of wealthy powerful families that had held them for many generations. Cicero's family, though smart, was not one of them, nor did it have great wealth. Cicero had a great deal of political ambition; at a young age he chose as his motto the same one Achilles, "to always be the best and overtop the rest." Lacking the advantages of a proper family, there were essentially only two career options available for him. One was a military career, since military success was thought to come from exceptional personal qualities and could lead to popularity and therefore political opportunity. Cicero, however, was no soldier. He hated war, and served in the military only very briefly as a young man.
Cicero's thought
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Cicero made a philosophy based of politics, so it should not surprise us to discover that his philosophy had a political purpose, “the defense, and if possible the improvement, of the Roman Republic.” Cicero and the Academic Skeptics In Cicero's time there were in fact two schools claiming to be descended from the First Academy, established by Plato. Cicero studied briefly in both the Old Academy and the New Academy. What they shared was their basic commitment to skepticism, “a belief that human beings cannot be certain in their knowledge about the world, and therefore no philosophy can be said to be true.”
Cicero and Epicureanism
Cicero, a man deeply involved in politics and the pursuit of glory, would find any doctrine that publicly recommend the rejection of public life repulsive. It is also easy to see why someone concerned with the reform of character and conduct would reject public atheism, since fear of divine punishment often prevents people from acting immorally.