Ancient · 106–43 BC
Who influenced Cicero?
Influences and legacy
Rome's great translator of Greek philosophy — the lens through which the Middle Ages met antiquity.
Cicero was influenced by Plato, Zeno of Citium and Posidonius, and went on to influence Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel de Montaigne and Hugo Grotius. That is 6 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: José Luiz, CC BY-SA 4.0 See the whole map
Who was Cicero?
Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, orator and philosopher who tried to defend the Republic during the crises that turned it into an empire. As consul in 63 BC he crushed the Catilinarian conspiracy, but executing five conspirators without trial cost him a year of exile. After Caesar's murder he led the Senate against Mark Antony in the Philippics, and when Antony and Octavian joined forces he was proscribed and killed in 43 BC.
In Latin he restated the main schools of Hellenistic philosophy and coined much of the Latin philosophical vocabulary, including words such as qualitas and humanitas. Petrarch's rediscovery of his letters helped start the Renaissance, and he strongly influenced Locke, Hume and Montesquieu.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Cicero?
3 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Zeno of Citium c. 334–262 BC
- Posidonius c. 135–51 BC
Who did Cicero influence?
3 thinkers on this map draw directly on Cicero.
- Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527
- Michel de Montaigne 1533–1592
- Hugo Grotius 1583–1645
The line of teachers behind Cicero
The longest documented line of influence ending at Cicero runs 10 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Cicero
Indirect influences
- Through Plato: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Protagoras, Socrates, Philolaus
- Through Zeno of Citium: Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes
- Through Posidonius: Panaetius
The second generation
- Through Michel de Montaigne: René Descartes, Pierre Bayle, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Through Niccolò Machiavelli: Montesquieu
- Through Hugo Grotius: Thomas Hobbes
Contemporaries of Cicero
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Cicero, with no direct line between them.
- Lucretius c. 99–55 BC
Cicero by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 3
- Direct followers
- 3 — #35 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 20
- Thinkers downstream
- 137
- Wikipedia languages
- 133 — #7 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Questions about Cicero
- Who influenced Cicero?
- Plato, Zeno of Citium and Posidonius.
- Who did Cicero influence?
- Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel de Montaigne and Hugo Grotius.
- When did Cicero live?
- 106–43 BC. The map files Cicero under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Cicero card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Cicero in 133 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC
- Marcus Aurelius AD 121–180