Books: Sleaze Strikes the Senate ; Cicero: A Turbulent Life by Anthony Everitt John Murray, Pounds 22.50, 346pp; Viewed from a Sceptical Angle, Cicero Looks Less like a Gladiator for Truth Than a Smarmy Spin-Doctor. Robin Waterfield Asks If It's Time to Puncture an Over-Inflated Reputation That Has Lasted 2,000 Years

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Everybody has heard of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Generations of school- children failed to find anything more in his elegant Latin sentences than hard work and the chance of a ruler-slap on the palm. In earlier years, one spoke familiarly of, for instance, "Tully's Offices" (his De Officiis or On Duties). But who was this master of style, the most famous writer and orator of his day? Even after reading Anthony Everitt's book, I am only partially enlightened.

Plutarch of Chaeronea, the best biographer of the ancient world, distinguished between history, as concerned with events, and biography, as concerned with character. In these terms, the problem with Everitt's book is …