I didn't know much about Cicero before reading his Selected Works. I knew he was a Roman statesman, killed for opposing Mark Antony, and that some letters survived. That was it. After working through On Duties, On Old Age, and his correspondence, something shifted. What emerged wasn't just a politician or philosopher, but a lawyer-philosopher-orator-statesman hybrid—exactly the kind of polymath I'm trying to become, just in another century and a collapsing republic. He left me with two ideas I desperately needed at 27. First: the clash between doing what's right and doing what's advantageous is an illusion. In reality, they are inseparable. Second: a life is judged at seventy, not twenty-seven. The qualities that matter—thought, character, judgement—don't peak early. They compound over decades. Sitting in London, halfway through building AION and choosing a harder path over comfort, I needed both of those truths.