Ahhay and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast looking at the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host Matt Smith and my guest today is

Dr. Sonia Worcester, a lecturer in classics at the University of Melbourne. This is

episode XX I. V. Cico. A couple of months ago I put out the call for some

by request episodes and this is one of those requests. Chayam Chapanari requested a

podcast on Cicero, his oration and philosophy.

And now his Dr. Sona Worcester.

Cicero was born in a town called Apernum, which is modern Aperno in Italy, and he was born in 106

B.C. on the 3rd of January. We know that his family was, he was a

member of the local elite in Apernum and he was what we call an equestrian.

So when we talk about an equestrian rank in Rome, what that means is not the top of the

top, that's a senatorial class, but they're still land-owning elite.

So he came from a well-off family in Apurnum who had political profile there.

What sort of role would he have been groomed for in his life then?

Definitely one for politics. I guess at this point in the late republic people are trying

to get into the Senate because it helps raise the profile of your family. Whether or not he was

groomed from a young age to try and end to the Roman Senate, we don't know, but he was

certainly groomed for political life. Do we know much about his young life then?

Not very much, no.

He doesn't really tend to talk about that.

So we can kind of hypothesize based on what we know about other people of his class

and we certainly can guess about the sort of education he would have received.

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