Orator

A wonderful book. The complexities and paradoxes of Cicero’s character are as fascinating as those which characterised the Roman Republic in the final decades of its existence – and no biography I have read does richer justice to both * Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and co-host of The Rest is History *
A pacy narrative… Edwards brilliantly presents the much neglected Cicero, Man of Action * Spectator *
A good biography of Cicero and the bloody age in which he tried to maintain the old ways… Edwards rehabilitates him as the greatest orator of the Roman world * Patrick Kidd, The Times *
Compelling… A truly informative account of Rome in crisis * Literary Review *
Wonderful… Edwards has done a marvellous job of showing us Cicero the man, the scholar and the politician in highly entertaining style * Emma Southon, author of A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women *
A man of thought in an age of thugs, a pen amongst swords: every age needs its Cicero and Edwards has written a resonant Cicero for ours * Peter Stothard, author of Palatine: An Alternative History of the Caesars *
Edwards has crafted an intimate and deeply informed portrait of a man struggling to make sense of his world’s slide into civil war and chaos… Compelling and beautifully written * Eve MacDonald, author of Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire *
Orator brings Cicero to life as a brilliant, complicated, flawed human being; it is also an ideal introduction to the end of the Roman Republic * Harry Sidebottom, author of A Day in the Life of a Gladiator *
It is a very tall order to make readable sense both of the brutal politics of late-republican Rome and of the complex inconsistencies of Cicero’s own character – but Catharine Edwards has carried it off superbly. Written with grace, pace and scrupulous annotation, Orator is an exemplary historical biography * Peter Wiseman, Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Exeter *

Catharine Edwards is a professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London. She has taught there since 2001 and is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on Roman History.

A Fellow of the British Academy, she has published extensively on Roman cultural history. She translated Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars for Oxford World’s Classics, is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, presented a three-part TV series on Roman imperial women for BBC Four in 2018, and writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement.

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