Titus Pomponius Atticus was a Roman editor, banker, and patron of letters, best known for his correspondence and close friendship with prominent Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero. Atticus was from a wealthy Roman family of the equestrian class and from the Pomponia gens.
Cicero with his friend Atticus and brother Quintus, at his villa at Arpinum. (Richard Wilson, c. 1771)
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as "Ciceronian rhetoric". Cicero was educated in Rome and in Greece. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.
First-century AD bust of Cicero at the Capitoline Museums, Rome
Arpino, Italy, birthplace of Cicero
The Young Cicero Reading by Vincenzo Foppa (fresco, 1464), now at the Wallace Collection
Marcus Tullius Cicero dragged from his litter and assassinated by soldiers under the command of Marc Antony 43 BC (1880 illustration)