empire from two to twenty, as it now stood from the last regulation of Sylla. They were sent annually into the several provinces, one with every proconsul or governor, to whom they were next in authority, and had the proper equipage of magistrates, the lictors carrying the fasces before them; which was not, however, allowed to them at Rome. Besides the care of the revenues, it was their business also, to provide corn and all sorts of grain, for the use of the armies abroad, and the public consumption at home.

This was the first step in the legal ascent, and gradation of public honors, which gave an immediate right to the senate, and after the expiration of the office, an actual admission into it during life and though, strictly speaking, none were held to be complete senators, till they were enrolled at the next lustrum in the list of the censors, yet that was only a matter of form, and what could not be denied to them, unless for the chargè and notoriety of some crime, for which every other senator was equally liable to be degraded. These quæstors, therefore, chosen annually by the people, were the regular and ordinary supply of the vacancies of the senate, which consisted, at this time, of about five hundred: by which excellent institution, the way to the highest order of the state, was laid open to the virtue and industry of every private citizen; and the dignity of this sovereign council maintained by a succession of members, whose distinguished merit had first recommended them tọ the notice and favor of their country*.

* Quæstura, primus gradus honoris [in Verr. Acc. 1. 4.] Populum Romanum, cujus honoribus in amplissimo concilio, et in altissimo

The consuls of this year were Cn. Octavius and C. Scribonius Curio; the first was Cicero's particular friend, a person of singular humanity and benevolence, but cruelly afflicted with the gout; whom Cicero therefore urges as an example against the Epicureans, to shew, that a life supported by innocence could not be made miserable by pain*. The second was a professed orator, or pleader at the bar, where he sustained some credit, without any other accomplishment of art or nature, then a certain purity and splendor of language, derived from the institution of a father who was esteemed for his eloquence: his action was vehement, with so absurd a manner of waving his body from one side to the other, as to give occasion to a jest upon him, that he had learned to speak in a boat. They were both of them, however, good magistrates; such as the present state of the Republic required; firm to the in

gradu dignitatis, atque in hac omnium terrarum arce collocati sumus. [Post red. ad Sen. 1.] Ita magistratus annuos creaverunt, ut concilium senatus reip. proponerent sempiternum; deligerentur autem in id concilium ab universo populo, aditusque in illum summum ordinem omnium civium industriæ ac virtuti pateret. Pro Sext. 65.

This account of the manner of filling up the senate, is confirmed by many other passages of Cicero's works: for example; when Cicero was elected ædile, the next superior magistrate to the quæstor, and before his entrance into that office, he took a jonrney into Sicily, to .collect evidence against Verres; in the account of which voyage he says that he went at his own charges, though a senator, into that province, where he had before been quæstor. [In Verr. 1. 1. 6.] Again; when the government of Cilicia was allotted to him, he begged of young Curio, as he did of all his friends in the senate, not to suffer it to be prolonged to him beyond the year. In his absence, Curio, who, before, had been only quæstor, was elected tribune; upon which, Cicero, in a congratulatory letter to him on that promotion, taking occasion to renew his former request, says, that he asked it of him before as of a senator of the noblest birth, and a youth of the greatest interest; but now of a tribune of the people, who had the power to grant him what he asked. Epist. fam. 2. 7.

*De Fin. 2. 28,

terests of the senate, and the late establishment made by Sylla, which the tribunes were laboring by all their arts to overthrow. These consuls,

therefore, were called before the people by Sicinius, a bold and factious tribune, to declare their opinion about the revocation of Sylla's acts, and the restoration of the tribunician power, which was now the only question that engaged the zeal and attention of the city; Curio spoke much against it with his usual vehemence and agitation of body; -while Octavius sat by, crippled with the gout, and wrapped up in plaisters and ointments: when Curio had done, the tribune, a man of humorous wit, told Octavius, that he could never make amends to his colleague for the service of that day; for if he had not taken such pains to beat away the flies, they would certainly have devoured him*. But while Sicinius was pursuing his seditious practices, and using all endeavors to excite the people to some violence against the senate, he was killed by the management of Curio, in a tumult of his own raising t.

We have no account of the precise time of Cicero's marriage; which was celebrated most probably in the end of the preceding year, immediately after his return to Rome, when he was about thirty years old: it cannot be placed later, because his daughter was married the year before his consul

* Curio copia nonnulla verborum, nullo alio bono, tenuit oratorum locum. [Brut. 350. it. 323.] Motus erat is, quem C. Julius in perpetuum notavit, cum ex eo, in utramque partem toto corpore vacil lante, quæsivit, quis loqueretur e lintre-Nunquam, inquit, Octavi, collega tuo gratiam referes; qui nisi se suo more jactavisset, hodie te istic muscæ comedissent. Ibid. 324.

+ Vid. Sallust. Fragm. Hist. 1. 3. Orat. Macri. Pigh. Ann. 677.

ship, at the age only of thirteen; though we sup pose her to be born this year on the fifth of August, which is mentioned to be her birth-day*. Nor is there any thing certain delivered of the family and condition of his wife Terentia; yet from her name, her great fortune, and her sister Fabia's being one of the vestal virgins †, we may conclude, that she was nobly descended. This year, therefore, was particularly fortunate to him, as it brought an increase, not only of issue, but of dignity into his family, by raising it from the equestrian to the senatorian rank; and, by this early taste of popular favor, gave him a sure presage of his future advancement to the superior honors of the Republic.

*Nonis Sextil. ad Att. 4. 1. † Ascon. Orat, in Tog, cand.

SECTION II.

THE provinces of the quæstors being distributed to them always by lot, the island of Sicily happened to fall to Cicero's share*. This was the first country, which, after the reduction of Italy, became a prey to the power of Rome†, and was then thought considerable enough to be divided into two provinces, of Lilybeum and Syracuse; the former of which was allotted to Cicero; for though they were both united at this time under one prætor or supreme governor, S. Peducæus, yet they continued still to have, each of them, a distinct quæstort. He received this office not as a gift, but a trust; and considered it, he says, as a public theatre, in which the eyes of the world were turned upon him; and, that he might act his part with the greater credit, resolved to devote his whole attention to it, and to deny himself every pleasure, every gratification of his appetites, even the most innocent and natural, which could obstruct the laudable discharge of it§.

*Me quæstorem Siciliensis excepit annus. Brut. 440.

† Prima omnium, id quod ornamentum Imperii est, provincia est appellata. In Verr. 1. 3. 1.

Quæstores utriusque provinciæ, qui isto prætore fuerunt. Ib. 4. § Ita quæstor sum factus, ut mihi honorem illum non solum datum, sed etiam creditum, ut me quæsturamq; meam quasi in aliquo terra