INTRODUCTION. M. TULLIUS CICERO was born on the 3d of January B.C. 106, during the consulship of C. Atilius Serranus and Q. Servilius Caepio, at a villa near Arpinum, a municipium in the south-eastern part of Latium. His family was one of the most ancient and noble of the district, and ranked among the Roman equites. The rough warrior C. Marius was a native of the same township as Cicero ; and Cn. Pompey was born in the same year. The origin of the name Cicero is uncertain; though it is more probable that it arose from the cultivation of peas (cicer), peculiar to his family-just as other families owed their names to similar occupations-than that it should have been derived from a disfiguring mole resembling a pea. Cicero received the rudiments of his education in the house of his father, who, far from the bustling turmoil of Rome, in his splendid villa, in a wild and romantic part of the country, devoted his time to study and the education of his sons. As soon as Marcus-who, at an early age, showed extraordinary talents-was sufficiently prepared for the higher branches of study, he was sent to Rome, where his father had a house, and where he devoted himself with zeal, and the most brilliant success, to the study of philosophy and oratory. In these subjects he enjoyed the instructions of the most renowned men of both Rome and Greece. In his sixteenth year he assumed, according to custom, the toga virilis, and henceforth became a zealous student of practical eloquence in the Forum; at the same time he pursued the study of the Roman law and of rhetoric with such success, that in his twentyfirst year he wrote a work on rhetoric, of which a portion is still extant. The fearful period of the civil war between the parties of Marius and Sulla fortunately did not induce him to exchange |