Cicero In and On Political Crises - Melissa Lane

00:00 // Introduction: Meet Professor Melissa Lane 00:15 // Cicero's Dilemma: A Letter on Tyranny 03:07 // Who Was Cicero? Rise of a "New Man" 05:36 // Philosopher and Statesman of Rome 09:44 // Five Crises That Defined Cicero's Life 12:27 // Crisis One: The Gracchi and Land Reform 18:39 // Crisis Two: Sulla's Dictatorship and Civil War 23:16 // Crisis Three: The Catiline Conspiracy 27:13 // Crisis Four: Caesar's Tyranny and Assassination 31:45 // Crisis Five: Cicero's War Against Mark Antony 38:09 // Conclusion: Hero of the Republic, or Its Undoing? Watch the Q&A session here:    • Q&A: Cicero In and On Political Crises - M...   An enthusiast of the Roman mixed constitution, Cicero was elected consul and in that role dramatically curbed the tyrannical ambitions of Catiline. He would later become fatally embroiled in the shifting politics of later generations of ambitious strongmen, while also writing his own theories of constitutional change. This lecture explores Cicero’s life and death as a way to articulate the crises of the late republic. This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 11th of June 2026 Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and was published in a paperback edition with modifications in 2025. Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/c... Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve... Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook:   / greshamcollege   Instagram:   / greshamcollege   Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcolle... TikTok:   / greshamcollege   Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve...