CICERO: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician, by Anthony Everitt. Random House, 359 pp. 

As recently as 200 years ago, the luminaries of ancient Greece and Rome were, in effect, still alive. They were part of the ongoing conversation that educated people had about the world. Classical references made sense of the contemporary moment by placing it in a larger context. The illustrious dead of antiquity hovered in a cultural zone somewhat comparable to the one occupied by the celebrities of today: They were elevated just above the world of ordinary mortals, yet details of their personalities were intimately familiar. To call a contemporary politician "an Alcibiades," for example, conveyed a whole range of qualities: youthfulness, charm, a reckless streak and the conspicuous absence of scruples. (See also "a Clinton," modern usage.)

The greater your command of classical literature, then, the better suited you were to deal with the future. Imagine that some underachieving scion of the ruling class had ended up in public office, more or less by accident. One way to imply that he was none too bright a bulb would be to hint that his entire knowledge of the ancient world came from skimming Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans -- in translation.

Not too many references to Plutarch on Capitol Hill lately, of course. Nowadays, when the president's cultural literacy comes up, we discuss Ozzy Osbourne. So Anthony Everitt's detailed and yet breezy look at the career of Marcus Tullius Cicero will probably not be required reading at the heart of the Empire this summer, as we gear up for the next round of warfare (including fresh atrocities by the barbarians). For generations of readers, any mention of Cicero -- rhetorician and jurist, philosopher and gentleman -- would have served as a reminder that eloquence is, in itself, a kind of power. Today, his name signifies very little (though reference to Winston Churchill seems to be taking up the slack).

Because the contemporary relevance of ancient figures is no longer something his readers will take for granted, Everitt tries to narrow the gap. He portrays Rome in the first century B.C. as something like a modern cosmopolitan city, without the electricity: "There were shopping malls and bars and a lively cultural scene with theater and sport. ... The affluent led a busy social round of dinner parties and gossip, and they owned country homes to which they could retreat from the pressures of urban living. ... Everyone complained about the traffic." And the opening pages describe a meeting of the Senate, one fateful March, when a hit squad descended upon Julius Caesar with knives drawn. The scene has the vivid quality of historical fiction, though Everitt follows contemporary chronicles, without excessive embellishment.

But the "you are there" narrative technique soon yields to the rather more complicated demand of explaining Cicero's political role -- which requires, in turn, some background in Roman history, a tale of steadily accumulating disorder. Over the course of several centuries a prosperous city-state had expanded into a continent-wide military power, with outposts in Asia and Africa. The authority of the old aristocracy had been eroded, but not completely destroyed, by the regular emergence of military and/or populist leaders. In this context, the term "politics" covers a broad continuum of activity, with corridor intrigue at one end and gang warfare at the other.

Cicero belonged to the middle class. His family made a killing in what was, basically, a toga-cleaning business: just the sort of detail to raise an eyebrow (and a snicker) as he made his way into the political establishment. Drawn to Greek literature and philosophy, he showed a particular interest in the study of rhetoric -- a field that included not only the art of making speeches but a fair bit of what today might be called "social science."

Cicero made a name for himself as a lawyer, and rose to the position of consul (something like a prime minister, though the analogy isn't exact). He exposed preparations for a coup d'etat led by a dubious character named Catalina, and made sure the conspirators were executed. For this, he was hailed as the savior of the nation. And then (in the grand tradition of those who not only write their own press releases but believe them), Cicero published a long poem proclaiming just how wonderful a leader he had been. He got really good at making enemies, and spent a prolonged period in exile when his fortunes turned.

In describing one of Cicero's opponents, Everitt dryly remarks that the man revealed "a basically conventional ambition to climb the political ladder, reach the Consulship and make a fortune from misgoverning a province." Cicero's motives were more complex. His politics tilted to the right, but not from any overwhelming need to climb the social ladder. His conservatism reflected a belief in the virtues of the old republic -- and a suspicion (not groundless, as it turned out) that reforms were simply a tool for upstarts who would turn Rome into a military dictatorship.

In broad outline (as well as a good many anecdotes) Cicero closely follows the narrative provided by Plutarch. But there are differences, even beyond the fact that Everitt has access to an additional 2,000 years' worth of scholarship and research. Cicero's original biographer paired the Roman off with a Greek counterpart, Demosthenes, on the grounds that both had transformed themselves from mediocre public speakers into the greatest orators of their era. For Everitt, by contrast, Cicero is much less a rhetorical genius than a died-in-the-wool politico.

He quotes from Cicero's correspondence with Atticus, his best friend, creating a "behind the scenes with the great statesman" effect, faintly reminiscent of a Barbara Walters interview. But Cicero's other writings, including the speeches that people studied as models of eloquence for centuries afterwards, receive only perfunctory treatment. His extensive works on political philosophy and the art of rhetoric (clearly essential for understanding how Cicero himself understood what he was doing) get a few paragraphs each. And yet Everitt offers a surprisingly detailed account of the treatise on grief that Cicero wrote after his beloved daughter died, only fragments of which survive.

The result is an admirable reconstruction of the man's public career and private life that nonetheless leaves the modern reader unclear why Cicero remained such a central figure for generations of readers in the Western world. His name was once synonymous with thoughtful political action. His writings and his life taught a single lesson: "How invincible justice is, if it be well-spoken." Or so wrote Plutarch, as I dimly recall; having read him, of course, in translation.