Marcus Tullius Tiro

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Marcus Tullius Tiro (d. ca. 4 BC) was first a slave, then a freedman of Cicero.

The date of Tiro's birth is uncertain. From Jerome it can be dated to 103 BC,<ref>Jerome, Chronological Tables 194.1</ref> which would make him only a little younger than Cicero. However, he may have been born considerably later than that: Cicero refers to him as a "young man" in 50 BC.<ref>Cicero, Letters to Atticus 7.2</ref>

It is possible that Tiro was born a slave in Cicero's household in Arpinum and came with his family to Rome. However we do not know for sure that he was a verna (homegrown slave). Cicero refers to Tiro frequently in his letters. His duties included taking dictation, deciphering Cicero's handwriting and managing his table,<ref>Cicero, Letters to Friends 11.22</ref> as well his garden<ref>Cicero, Letters to Friends 16.20</ref> and financial affairs.<ref>Cicero, Letters to Friends 16.23, 16.24</ref> Cicero remarks on how useful he is to him in his work and studies.<ref>Cicero, Letters to Atticus 7.5</ref>

He was freed in 53 BC and accompanied Cicero to Cilicia during Cicero's governorship there,^{[citation needed]} although he was frequently separated from his patron due to poor health, and many of Cicero's letters refer with concern to his illnesses.<ref>e.g. Cicero, Letters to Atticus 6.7; Letters to Friends 16.8, 16.9, 16.10, 16.11, 16.13, 16.15</ref>

He is believed to have collected and published Cicero's work after his death, and, it seems, was a writer himself: several ancient writers refer to works of Tiro, now lost. Aulus Gellius says he "wrote several books on the usage and theory of the Latin language and on miscellaneous questions of various kinds" and quotes him on the difference between Greek and Latin names for certain stars.<ref>Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 13.9 (Loeb edition, translated by John C. Rolfe, 1961)</ref> Asconius Pedianus, in his commentaries on Cicero's speeches, refers to a biography of Cicero by Tiro in at least four books,<ref>Asconius Pedianus, In Milone 38</ref> and Plutarch refers to him as a source for two incidents in Cicero's life.<ref>Plutarch, Cicero 41, 49</ref> He is said to have invented the shorthand system known as Tironian notes after him. There is no real evidence that he did, although Plutarch credits Cicero's clerks as the first Romans to record speeches in shorthand.<ref>Plutarch, Cato the Younger 23.3</ref>

After Cicero's death Tiro bought an estate near Puteoli, where Jerome says he died in 4 BC at the age of ninety-nine.<ref>Cicero, Letters to Friends 16.21; Jerome, Chronological Tables 194.1; William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology vol. 3 p. 1182</ref>

[edit] Tiro in fiction

Tiro appears as a recurring character in Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa crime fiction series, where he occupies the role of sometime sidekick to Saylor's investigator hero, Gordianus the Finder. He was also used as the first-person narrator in Robert Harris's 2006 fictionalised biography of Cicero, Imperium.