"This was the self-defeating political system that Cicero and his contemporaries inherited. As boys and young men they witnessed the demolition gangs move in." (Chapter 1, 20)

"Always be the best, my boy, the bravest." (Chapter 2, 21)

"Today the eyes of the world are upon you. This man's case will establish whether a jury composed exclusively of Senators can possibly convict someone who is very guilty—and very rich." (Chapter 4, 79)

"In less than twenty years, Cicero had risen from being a little-known lawyer from the provinces to being joint head of state of the greatest empire in the known world." (Chapter 5, 94)

"The present crisis was unlike anything he had faced before. Even the most sanguine mind would have been daunted. If we are to believe what he writes in his letters, he may have suffered something like a mental breakdown and seems to have attempted, or at least considered, suicide...