This day in history is so very important because...

it is the supposed birthday of Marcus Tullius Cicero in 106 BCE.

Born a novus homo or new man, Cicero came from a good but not noble family and everything he achieved in his early life, by and large, came from his own genius and decisions. Of course no one got anywhere on the cursus honorum - the ladder of civil promotions - without patronage and it would have been his father that helped to begin his career in Rome. By the age of 42, Cicero had climbed to the top of that ladder and was appointed one of the two consuls for 63 BCE and it was in that tumultuous year that Cicero moved from being the greatest lawyer or jurist in Rome to becoming one of the most famous, or infamous consuls, for his decision to execute members of the Cataline Conspiracy without trial - a huge decision for a man who had spent his life defending every letter of the constitution of the Roman Republic.

His letters, speeches, books and even poems open unique windows not only into his own life and personality but also the world in

which he lived, the problems he faced and the people he had to work with and it is in these senses that I tried to write my book on his life - seeing our problems with democracy today as the same as those that he faced 2,000 years ago.