Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BC, hailing from a local equestrian family in Arpinum. Both Cicero and Pompey, who became associates at a very young age, struggled to detach themselves from the Marian clan that held the foremost political position in the region. While both followed the footsteps of Marius to become novus homo (new men) in the Roman Senate, they did so in completely different fashions. Pompey, of course, chose the military route, paying little regard to the traditional steps of the political ladder (cursus honorum). Cicero, on the other hand, was the idyllic Republican politician. From the moment he arrived in Rome, his career was spent adhering to the courts of law and to strict principals of traditional Senatorial advancement.
As a boy, Cicero visited Rome and received the finest literary education that money could buy. In this time, he met and became the best of friends with another equestrian youth by name of Atticus. It is Atticus who was the recipient of numerous letters from Cicero, in which many have survived as an indispensable window into the final days of the Republic and Roman politics.
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