Quintus Tullius Cicero

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Quintus Tullius Cicero was the younger brother of Marcus Tullius Cicero. He was born in 102 BC into a family of the equestrian order, in Arpinum, sixty miles south-east of Rome. He was a man of ability, but a minor figure compared with his famous older brother. Quintus had an impulsive temperament and he showed fits of cruelty during military operations. His brother confesses in one of his letters to his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, written in 51 BC while he was proconsul of Cilicia and had taken Quintus as legatus with him, that he dares not leave Quintus alone as he is afraid of what kind of sudden ideas he might have. Nevertheless, the relationship between the brothers was affectionate, as the many letters from Marcus to Quintus prove. Unfortunately few of Quintus´ replies have been preserved.

His rich father arranged for him to be educated with his brother in Rome, Athens and probably Rhodes. He married Pomponia (sister of his brother's friend Atticus), a dominant woman of strong personality. He divorced her after a long disharmonious marriage with much bickering between the spouses in late 45 BC. His brother, Marcus, tried several times to reconcile the spouses, but to no avail. The couple had a son, named Quintus after his father.

He was an aedile in 66 BC and praetor in 62 BC, legatus of Caesar's during the Gallic Wars from 54 BC to 52 BC, and of his brother in Cilicia in 51 BC. During the civil wars he supported the Pompeian faction, obtaining the pardon of Caesar later. Then, he was declared to be an enemy of Mark Antony and fled from Tusculum to escape Antony's revenge. He went back home to Arpinum, where a peasant denounced him. Quintus gave himself up to save his son, who was being tortured. Both of them were put to death under the Second Triumvirate in 43 BC.

As an author he wrote four tragedies in Greek style. Three of them had as titles Tiroas, Erigones, and Electra; all of them are lost. He also wrote several poems on the second expedition of Caesar to Britannia, three epistles to Tiro (extant) and a fourth one to his brother, and also a long letter: Commentariolum Petitionis (Little handbook on electioneering, extant).

For more detail, see Cicero.