Word: ciceroism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...after Julius Caesar's death, when his adopted son Octavian returns to Italy. Octavian wants to reclaim his inheritance, which Mark Antony has stolen, and he is determined to fight for his fortune. Octavian was confident of his military power, but he needed some political clout, so he persuades Cicero to come out of retirement, go back to the Senate, and challenge Mark Antony's supremacy...
...Octavian gets corrupted, and makes a deal with Mark Antony--"at that point, Cicero is finished," Segal says. Octavian is forced to sign for Cicero's execution--reluctantly, he does...
...Cicero is an unlikely hero, Segal says, because for most of his life, he was the quintessential politician. "He was a Lyndon Johnson type. He was very successful, and basically bent with the wind. He was never a moral leader," says the writer. "Cicero was a major figure in contributing to the world of great power, great money and great corruption, but at the end of his life, he fought against this corruption. It was heroic, because he didn't have to do it. He could have just led a rich, quiet and safe life in retirement...
...Shackleton explained to us that Cicero took on Mark Antony because he thought he could win--he didn't do it to be a martyr. But at the end, he decides he prefers death to running away," Segal says...
Segal says that if Cicero is a success, he has discussed with Bailey the possibility of working on even bigger projects, including a television miniseries about Cicero and ancient Rome. Cicero, who always wanted to make a name for himself, would never have expected to go from ancient Rome to off-off Broadway to the television screen...