Cicero's well-to-do father arranged for him to be educated with his brother in Rome, Athens and probably Rhodes in 79-77 BC. Around 70 BC he married Pomponia, a dominant woman of strong personality. He divorced her after a long disharmonious marriage with much bickering between the spouses in late 45 BC. His brother, Marcus, tried several times to reconcile the spouses, but to no avail. The couple had a son born in 66 BC and named Quintus Tullius Cicero after his father. Quintus was Aedile in 66 BC, Praetor in 62 BC, and Propraetor of the Province of Asia for three years 61-59 BC. Under Caesar, during the Gallic Wars, he was legatus, and was under his brother when the latter was governor in Cilicia in 51 BC. During the civil wars he supported the Pompeian faction, obtaining the pardon of Caesar later. During the Second Triumvirate, when the Roman Republic was again in civil war, Quintus, his son, and his brother, were all proscribed. He fled from Tusculum with his brother. Later Quintus went home to bring back money for travelling expenses. His son, Quintus minor, hid his father, and did not reveal the hiding place although he was tortured. When Quintus heard this, he gave himself up to try and save his son; however, both father and son, and his famous brother, were all killed in 43 BC, as proscribed persons.
Personality and relationship with brother Marcus
Quintus is depicted by Caesar as a brave soldier and an inspiring military leader. At a critical moment in the Gallic Wars he rallied his legion and retrieved an apparently hopeless position. Caesar commended him for this with the words "He praised Cicero and his men very highly, as they deserved". However, later the legate was purportedly responsible for a near-disaster in Gaul but does not receive condemnation from Caesar as a result. Quintus had an impulsive temperament and had fits of cruelty during military operations, a behaviour frowned on by Romans of that time. The Roman ideal was to control one’s emotions even in battle. Quintus Cicero also liked old-fashioned and harsh punishments, like putting a person convicted of patricide into a sack and throwing him out in the sea. This punishment he meted out during his propraetorship of Asia. His brother confesses in one of his letters to his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus that he dares not leave Quintus alone as he is afraid of what kind of sudden ideas he might have. On the positive side, Quintus was utterly honest, even as a governor of a province, in which situation many Romans shamelessly amassed private property for themselves. He was also a well-educated man, reading Greek tragedies - and writing some tragedies himself. The relationship between the brothers was mostly affectionate, except for a period of serious disagreement during Caesar’s dictatorship 49-44 BC. The many letters from Marcus ad Quintum fratrem show how deep and affectionate the brothers’ relationship was, though Marcus Cicero often played the role of the "older and more experienced" lecturing to his brother what was the right thing to do. Quintus might also feel at times, that the self-centred Marcus thought only how his brother might hinder or help Marcus’ own career on the Cursus honorum.
Authorship
As an author, during the Gallic wars he wrote four tragedies in Greek style. Three of them were titled Troas, Erigones, and Electra, but all are lost. He also wrote several poems on the second expedition of Caesar to Britannia, three epistles to Tiro and a fourth one to his brother. The long letter Commentariolum Petitionis has also survived. Although its authenticity has been much questioned, recently the scholar Andrew Lintott has argued that Quintus was the true author. It is in any case a guide to political behavior in Cicero’s time.
