Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman statesman and orator who brought Greek philosophy into Latin, coining words like humanitas Show bio
Bio
Marcus Tullius Cicero refused, Plutarch writes, to drop a family nickname meaning "chickpea." He said he would make it more glorious than names meaning "Swollen-ankled" and "Puppy."
He made his name in court, defending a man accused of killing his father. Cicero executed five conspirators without trial as consul and was exiled for it. He later built a Latin vocabulary for philosophy, inventing nearly 150 words from Greek terms.
He paid with his life for a series of speeches attacking Mark Antony. Cicero made the chickpea name glorious, his rediscovered letters often credited with sparking the Renaissance.