Cicero's Officium in the Civil War

Abstract

If great men were the driving force in historical development, the history of antiquity according to Beloch could not be written; our knowledge of their actions is incomplete and their personalities are virtually unknown. ‘In the best case we have only a couple of anecdotes of altogether dubious value, but almost never a line from their own hand; the first and nearly the last of whose character we can form a picture in some degree adequate is Cicero; apart from him we may perhaps count Julian, who already stands on the threshold of a new age.’ In this judgement there are obvious exaggerations, but its truth in many instances is beyond question, and those historians who feel obliged to hold that the course of history is not entirely determined by impersonal factors, which may also be no better known, must acknowledge that any reconstruction of developments in the ancient world is speculative to a greater degree than for some more recent periods.