Chapter 3, The Forum and the Fray, The Birth of an Orator, 81-77 B.C. Summary and Analysis

Cicero was from a small, provincial town, so Rome impressed him. The city was unplanned, chaotically built and dangerous in many places. It is said that the Forum was where Rome was founded and it was the heart of the city politically, commercially, legally and spiritually. The author describes the landscape and buildings at length. Political life was grounded in a sense of what it meant to be Roman and tied to ancestral custom which was embodied in the Forum's layout. It contained the Black Stone, a sanctuary of antiquity where Rome's founder, Romulus, was said to have been assassinated.

Most activities conducted in the Forum were sacred; political and private life was governed by...