In "Cicero and Rome," David Taylor takes Cicero as the focal point forexamination of the last years of the Roman Republic. He traces theoften dramatic and violent events from the harsh dictatorship of Sulla(82 BC) to Cicero's own death in the massacres of Mark Antony and theSecond Triumvirate (43 BC). Evidence is taken largely from the speechesand the orator's surviving letters - especially those to his closefriend Atticus.