"...Cicero is generally seen as one of the most versatile minds of Roman culture and his writing the paragon of Classical Latin. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, Cicero likely thought his political career his most important achievement. However, today he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture....

...During the chaotic latter half of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate....

...Cicero’s vision for the Republic was not simply the maintenance of the status quo. Nor was it a straightforward desire to revitalise what many, such as Sallust, term the ‘moral degradation’ of the republican system. Cicero envisioned Rome as a selfless nobility of successful individuals determining the fate of the nation via consensus in the Senate. Cicero’s country and equestrian background resulted in a broader outlook, not marred by self-interest to the same extent as the patricians' of Rome.

Cicero aspired to a republican system dominated by a ruling aristocratic class of men, 'who so conducted themselves as to win for their policy the approval of all good men'. Further, he sought a concordia ordinum, an alliance between the senators and the equites. This 'harmony between the social classes', which he later developed into a consensus omnium bonorum to include tota italia (all citizens of Italy), demonstrated Cicero’s foresight as a statesman. He understood that fundamental change to the organization and the distribution of power within the Republic was required to secure its future. However, Cicero was also naïve to believe that 'the best men' would institute large-scale reforms which were contrary to their interests as the ruling oligarchy. Cicero's guiding principle throughout his political career was: "That 'some sort of free-state' is the necessary condition of a noble and honourable existence; and that it is the worst calamity for a people to permanently renounce this ideal and to substitute for it the slave’s ideal of a good master." (from Wikipedia.com)