CIC NICERO (Marcus Tullius), the celebrated Roman CICE ICERO tof Rome 617, about 107 years before Chrift. His father Marcus Tullius, who was of the equeftrian order, took great care of his education, which was directed particularly with a view to the bar. Young Tully, at his firit appearance in public, declaimed with fuch vehemence againft Sylla's party, that it became expedient for him to retire into Grecce; where he heard the Athenian orators and philofophers, and greatly improved both in eloquence and knowledge. Here he met with T. Pomponius, who had been his fchool-fellow; and who, from his love to Athens, and fpending a great part of his days in it, obtained the furname of Atticus; and here they revived and confirmed that noted friendship which fubfifted between them through life with fo celebrated a conftancy and affection. From Athens he paffed into Afia; and after an excurfion of two years came back again into Italy.

Cicero was now arrived at Rome; and, after one year more spent at the bar, obtained, in the next place, the dignity of quætor. Among the caufes which he pleaded before his queftorfhip, was that of the famous comedian Rofcius, whom a fingular merit in his art had recommended to the familiarity and friendship of the greatest men in Rome. The quæftors were the general receivers or treasurers of the republic, and were fent annually into the provinces diflributed to them, as they always were, by lot. The ifland of Sicily happened to fall to Cicero's fhare; and that part of it, for it was confiderable enough to be divided into two provinces, which was called Lilybeum. This office he received, not as a gift, but a truft; and, he acquitted himself fo well in it, that he gained the love and admiration of all the Sicilians. Before he Left Sicily, he made the tour of the island, to fee every thing that was curious, and especially the city of Syracule; where he discovered the tomb of Archimedes to the magiftrates who were fhowing him the curiofities of the place, but who, to his furprife, knew nothing of any fuch to.b.

We have no account of the precife time of Cicero's marriage with Terentia; but it is fuppofed to have been celebrated immediately after his return from his travels to Italy, when he was about 30 years old. He was now difengaged from his queftorship in Sicily, by which first flep, in the legal gradation and afcent of public honours, he gained an immediate right to the fenate, and an actual admiffion into it during life; and fettled again in Rome, where he employed himfelf conflantly in defending the perfons and properties VOL. V. Part I.

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of its citizens, and was indeed a general patron. Five years were almoft elapfed fince Cicero's election to the queftorfhip, which was the proper interval preferibed by law before he could hold the next office of ædile; to which he was now, in his 37th year, elected by the unanimous fuffrages of all the tribes, and preferably to all his competitors. After Cicero's election to the ædilefhip, but before his entrance upon the office, he undertook the famed profecution of C. Verres, the late prætor of Sicily; who was charged with many flagrant acts of injuftice, rapine, and cruelty, during his triennial government of that ifland. This was one of the moft memorable tranfactions of his life; for which he was greatly and juftly celebrated by antiquity, and for which he will, in all ages, be admired and etteemed by the friends of mankind. The refult was, that, by his diligence and addrefs, he fo confounded Hortenfius, though the reigning orator at the bar, and ufually ftyled the king of the forum, that he had nothing to say for his client. Verres, defpairing of all defence, fubmitted immediately, without expecting the fentence, to a voluntary exile; where he lived many years, forgotten and deferted by all his friends. He is faid to have been relieved in this miferable fituation by the generofity of Cicero; yet was proferibed and murdered after all by Mark Antony, for the fake of thofe fine ftatues and Corinthian veffels of which he had plundered the Sicilians.

After the ufual interval of two years from the time of his being chofen ædile, Cicero offered himteli a can didate for the prætorship; and, in three different affemblies convened for the choice of prætors, two of which were diffolved without effect, he was declared every time the firft prætor by the fuffrages of all the centuries He was now in the career of his fortunes; and in fight, as it were, of the confulfhip, the grand object of his ambition: and therefore, when his prætorfhip was at an end, he would not accept any foreign province, the ufual reward of that magiftracy, and the chief fruit which the generality proposed from it. He had no particular love for money, nor genius for ams; fo that thole governments had no charms for him: the glory which he purfued was to thine in the eyes of the city as the guardian of its laws; and to teach the magiflrates how to execute, the citizens how to obey, them.

Being now in his 43d,year, the proper age required by law, he declared himself a candidate for the confulfhop along with fix competitors, L. Sculpicius Galba. 1. Sergius Catilina, C. Antonius, L. Caffius Lon gina, 2. Cornificius, and C. Licinius Sacerdos. The

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fhip, took care to fend a particular account of his Cicero. whole adminiftration to Pompey, who was finishing the Mithridatic war in Afia; in hopes to prevent any wrong impreffions there from the calumnies of his enemies, and to draw from him fome public declaration in praife of what he had been doing. But Pompey being informed by Metellus and Cæfar of the ill. humour that was rifing againt Cicero in Rome, an fwered him with great coldness; and inftead of paying him any compliment, took no notice at all of what had paffed in the affair of Catiline: upon which Cicero expoftulates with him in a letter which is ftill excant.

two firft were patricians; the two next plebeians, yet noble; the two laft the fons of fathers who had first imported the public honours into their families: Cicero was the only new man, as he was called, among them, or one of equeftrian rank. These were the competitors; and in this competition the practice of bribing was carried on as openly and as fhamefully by Antonius and Catiline as it ufually is at our elections in Britain. However, as the election approached, Cicero's intereft appeared to be fuperior to that of all the candidates for the nobles themfelves, though always envious and defirous to deprefs him, yet out of regard to the dangers which threatened the city from many quarters, and feemed ready to burft out into a flame, began to think him the only man qualified to preferve the republic, and break the cabals of the desperate by the vigour and prudence of his adminiftration. The method of choofing confuls was not by an open vote; but by a kind of ballot, or little tickets of wood diftributed to the citizens, with the names of the feveral candidates infcribed upon each: but in Cicero's cafe the people were not content with this fecret and filent way; but, before they came to any scrutiny, loudly and univerfally proclaimed Cicero the first conful: fo that, as he himself fays, "he was not chofen by the votes of particular citizens, but the common fuffrage of the city; nor declared by the voice of the crier, but of the whole Roman people."

Cicero had no fooner entered upon his office than he had occafion to exert himself againft P. Servilius Rullus, one of the new tribunes, who had been alarming the fenate with the promulgation of an Agrarian law; the purpose of which was to create a decemvirate, or ten commiffioners, with abfolute power for five years over all the revenues of the republic, to diftribute them at pleasure to the citizens, &c. Thefe laws ufed to be greedily received by the populace, and were propofed therefore by factious magiftrates as oft as they had any point to carry with the multitude against the public good; fo that Cicero's first bufinefs was to quiet the apprehenfions of the city, and to baffle, if poffible, the intrigues of the tribune. Accordingly, in an artful and elegant fpeech from the roftra, he gave fuch a turn to the inclination of the people, that they rejected this law with as much eagernefs as they had ever received one. But the grand affair of all, which conftituted the glory of his confulfhip, and has tranfmitted his name with fuch luftre to pofterity, was the fkill he showed, and the unwearied pains he took, in fuppreffing that horrid confpiracy which was formed by Catiline and his accomplices for the fubverfion of the commonwealth. For this great fervice he was honoured with the glorious title of pater patria, "the father of his country," which he retained for a long time after.

Cicero's adminiftration was now at an end; but he had no fooner quitted his office, than he began to feel the weight of that envy which is the certain fruit of illuftrious merit. He was now, therefore, the common mark, not only of all the factious, against whom he had declared perpetual war, but of another party not lefs dangerous, the envious too: whofe united fpleen never left him from this moment till they had driven him out of that city which he had fo lately preferved. Cicero, upon the expiration of his conful

About this time Cicero bought a house of M. Craffus, on the Palatine-hill, adjoining to that in which he had always lived with his father, and which he is now fuppofed to have given up to his brother Quintius. The house coft him near L. 30,000, and feems to have been one of the nobleft in Rome. It was built about 30 years before by the famous tribune M. Livius Drufus: on which occafion we are told, that when the architect promised to build it for him in fuch a manner that none of his neighbours fhould overlook him ; "But if you have any skill (replied Drufus), contrive it rather fo that all the world may fee what I am doing." The purchase of fo expensive a houfe railed fome cenfure on his vanity; and especially as it was made with borrowed money. This circumftance he himself does not diffemble; but fays merrily upon it, that "he was now plunged fo deeply in debt, as to be ready for a plot, only that the confpirators would not truft him."

The most remarkable event that happened in this year, which was the 45th of Cicero's life, was the pollution of the myfteries of the bona dea by P. Clodius; which, by an unhappy train of confequences, involved Cicero in a great and unexpected calamity. Clodius had an intrigue with Calar's wife Pompeia, who, according to annual cuflom, was now celebrating in her houfe thofe awful facritices of the goddefs, to which no male creature ever was admitted, and where every thing mafculine was fo fcrupulously excluded, that even pictures of that fort were covered during the ceremony. It flattered Clodius's imagination greatly to gain accefs to his miftrefs in the midft of her holy miniftry; and with this view he dreffed himself in a woman's habit, that by the benefit of his fmooth face, and the introduction of one of the maids, he might pafs without difcovery: but by fome miftake between him and his guide, he loft his way. when he came within the house, and fell in unluckily among the other female fervants. Here he was detected by his voice, and the fervants alarmed the whole company by their fhrieks, to the great amazement of the matrons, who threw a veil over their facred myfteries, while Clodius found means to escape. The ftory was prefently fpread abroad, and raised a general fcandal and horror throughout the city. The whole defence which Clodius made when, by order of the fenate, he was brought to a trial, was to prove himself abfent at the time of the fact; for which purpose he produced two men to fwear that he was then at Interamna, about two or three days journey from the city. But Cicero being called upon to give his teftimony, depofed, that Clodius had been with him that very morn