Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum, a city of the Samnites, which had long enjoyed the freedom of Rome. His family was an ancient one, and of the equestrian order; which comprehended the most respectable gentry of the empire, who were only inferior in rank to the patricians. Having assumed the manly gown at his sixteenth year, he immediately began to acquire a knowledge of the laws of his country, under the two Scævolas, eminent persons of that day. The Marsian war, and the civil broils of Marius and Sylla, the former of whom was also a native of Arpinum, occurred during the prosecution of his civil studies; and although they gave some interruption to them, yet these violent contentions falling immediately under his observation, he became at an early period accustomed to consider the political situation of his country. These circumstances no doubt had some influence in deciding his future career; although the rare natural activity of his mind would perhaps have led him under any situation to the investigation of all moral and physical relations. Prompted by this impulse, he now began the study of Grecian philosophy under the learned Athenians who fled to Rome from the persecutions of Mithridates, and afterwards perfected himself in it under Molo the Rhodian; a man so distinguished, that he was permitted to address the Roman Senate in the Greek tongue without an interpreter. About the age of twenty-six, with his mind filled with all the knowledge taught at that period, he first began to plead at the Forum. His celebrated successful defence of S. Roscius was made soon after, in which he braved, what the other Roman orators had not dared to do, the resentment of Sylla. By this bold measure, the generosity of his character, as well as the force of his talents, were developed, and his reputation established as the most powerful orator of Rome. He visited Athens not long after this period, partly to avoid the displeasure of Sylla, and partly to renew the study of philosophy, which he here pursued with great ardour. His friend Atticus, who was at Athens at the same time, had embraced the Epicurean doctrines; but Cicero appears at this early period to have believed in a future state; a doctrine which at a later period he has most eloquently recorded in his celebrated Dream of Scipio. At the end of two years, he returned to Rome, greatly improved by his intercourse with the philosophers and orators of Greece and Asia.
In his thirty-first year, and not long after his marriage, he was elected to the quæstorship, which opened his way to the Senate. One of the provinces of Sicily fell to him by lot, and he exercised his quæstorial functions with such moderation and ability, as to induce the Sicilians to confer extraordinary honours upon him at the termination of his year; when he returned to Rome, determined henceforward to withdraw himself as little as possible from the eyes of the Roman people. In his thirty-seventh year he received the unanimous suffrages of all the tribes for the edileship, which introduced him into the magistracy. The exhibition of the shows and games, which was the province of the ediles, was conducted by Cicero with great satisfaction to the people, and without injuring materially his own private fortune. In this he achieved a difficult point, which marks his great prudence and address. So great had the affection of the people now become for him, that at three different elections for prætor, he was each time placed at the head of the list by the unanimous vote of all the centuries. In his forty-third year, having been very diligent in strengthening his interest, he became a candidate for the consulship with others; among whom were L. Sergius Cataline: but such was his popularity that he was saluted consul by acclamation of the people before the votes were counted. He received also a strong support from the patricians, who had uniformly been opposed to his advancement; but Cicero’s reputation for knowledge and probity was so great, and the times were becoming so critical, that they deemed the government safe in his hands. The patricians at this time were of the faction of Sylla, to which also Cataline belonged: and the Tribunes and the people were of the Marian faction; at the head of which was Julius Cæsar, a near relation to Marius. Although Cæsar, and Cicero were both on the popular side, yet they were not united upon any common principles of order. Cæsar was always individually opposed to him: and when Cicero being consul, was endeavouring in the senate to bring the associates of Cataline to punishment; Cæsar defended them, and even indirectly encouraged their cause, by declaring his disbelief in the immortality of the soul. The suppression of this conspiracy of Cataline, Cethegus, Lentulus and many others, among whom Cæsar was generally numbered, raised the reputation of Cicero to the greatest height. By his incessant vigilance, Rome was saved from the horrors of a general massacre and pillage. The greatest honours were paid him by the senate and equestrian order: and for the first time the sublime epithet of “Father of his Country” was addressed to a Roman citizen in the senate, in the person of Cicero.[4] This great action of his life he most feelingly alludes to in the introduction to his first book of the Republic. “Nor is my name forgotten,” &c. The feelings too which the circumstances attending the very last act of his consulship excited in him, are eloquently pourtrayed in a passage immediately following. It was the custom for the consul at the expiration of his office, to make a speech in the assembly of the people, and to swear that he had executed his duties with fidelity. When he was already in the rostra, and was about to address the whole people assembled on this interesting occasion; Metellus, a new tribune, prompted by the officious spirit of popular authority, which often delights to mortify the great and good, forbade the consul to address the people, alleging that Cicero having caused Lentulus and the rest to suffer death without being heard in their defence, did not deserve to be heard himself. Whereat with an enthusiastic presence of mind peculiar to himself, he swore with a loud voice that he had saved the republic: and the multitude moved by a generous feeling which the demagogues had no time to tamper with, more than atoned to him for the intended affront from their tribune, by a simultaneous shout that he had sworn nothing but the truth,[5] and by accompanying him from the Forum to his own house.
In this most glorious year of his life, and at the very time when he was occupied in saving his country, Octavius Cæsar was born; by whose arts and influence Cicero, as well as the republic, were not more than twenty years after destroyed. And although he had acted so noble a part toward his country, which under his government had been saved from the most profligate attempt that had yet been made upon its liberties; and enjoyed the highest rank in the senate, and the first consideration from all good men; corruption had now reached such a height, that pre-eminence in virtue, shining forth in so active a citizen as Cicero, who was constantly thwarting the designs of bad men, served but to unite their efforts against him. He became henceforward the object of their hatred and vengeance. Cæsar, who did not believe in a future state, and who consequently had no principle to restrain him, was constantly plotting means to usurp the government. Pompey, in whose interest Cicero had always been, and who at the close of the Mithridatic war had become the most powerful man in the Republic, was afraid to disoblige the numerous enemies of Cicero, and declined even to strengthen him by a public approbation of the measures he had taken to suppress the conspiracy of Catiline. The luxurious and the corrupt, who far outnumbered the rest, were willing to sell the republic and themselves to the highest bidders. The people were as usual the tools of demagogues. Every thing conspired to accelerate the downfall of the republic. In the face of these fearful odds stood Cicero, a large majority of the senate, and of the equestrian order, which comprehended the independent landholders and gentry of the Roman nation: and with but little other support than the satisfaction of being engaged in the noblest of causes, the maintenance of regular government. It is most painful to look back upon the history of the degradation of such a people; corrupted and ruined by their blind admiration of that falsest of all idols, military glory.
An event occurred the year after his consulate, which brought him into a new conflict with some of the worst of these men. P. Clodius, at this time a quæstor, a vicious and debauched young man of family, and who possessed many personal advantages, had an intrigue with Cæsar’s wife Pompeia. Satiated with ordinary voluptuousness, he disguised himself as a woman, and entered the house of Pompeia in the night time, when she with other distinguished Roman matrons, was celebrating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, or Patroness of Chastity. He was discovered and fled. Such was the respect in which these mysteries, at which women alone officiated, were held, that the profanation excited the utmost indignation throughout the city. Even Cæsar found it necessary to put away