Cicerone

Self-referential, verbose, and opportunistic, but no one has ever done it better than him; a mediocre poet, yet a prince of the bar: he could entangle things to such an extent that he managed to exonerate the leader of the armed bands of the optimates. Besides this, he would deserve at least 10 extra stars for having edited De Rerum Natura by Lucretius. An immense prose writer (the model of Western prose), a timid and dull politician, a deplorable person.