7. ad
Att. 1.2), on which L. Julius Caesar and C. Marcius Figulus were elected consuls. He is
frequently spoken of, while a boy, in terms of the warmest affection, in the letters of his
father, who watched over his education with the most earnest care, and made him the companion
of his journey to Cilicia. (ad Att. 5.17), while the proconsul and his legati were prosecuting the
war against the highlanders of Amanus. He returned to Italy at the end of ad Att. 9.6, 19), being then in his
sixteenth year, passed over to Greece and joined the army of Pompey, where he received the
command of a squadron of cavalry, gaining great applause from his general and from the whole
army by the skill which he displayed in military exercises, and by the steadiness with which
he endured the toils of a soldier's life. (De Off. 2.13.) After the
battle of Pharsalia he remained at Brundisium until the arrival of Caesar from the East (ad Fam. 14.11, ad Att. 11.18), was chosen soon
afterwards (ad Fam. 13.11), and the
following spring (ad Att. 12.7), and it was
determined that he should proceed to Athens and there prosecute his studies, along with
several persons of his own age belonging to the most distinguished families of Rome. Here,
although provided with an allowance upon the most liberal scale (ad Att.
12.27, 32), he fell into irregular and extravagant habits, led astray, it is said, by a
rhetorician named Gorgias. The young man seems to have been touched by the remonstrances of
Cicero and Atticus, and in a letter addressed to Tiro (ad Fam. 16.21),
expresses great shame and sorrow for his past misconduct, giving an account at the same Ad Att. 14.16, 15.4, 6, 17, 20, 16.1, ad Fam. 12.16.) After the death of Caesar he was raised to the rank of
military tribune by Brutus, gained over the legion commanded by L. Piso, the lieutenant of
Antonius, defeated and took prisoner C. Antonius, and did much good service in the course of
the Macedonian campaign. When the republican army was broken up by the rout at Philippi, he
joined Sext. Pompeius in Sicily, and taking advantage of the amnesty in favour of exiles,
which formed one of the terms of the convention between that chief and the triumvirs when they
concluded a short-lived peace (
Young Cicero was one of those characters whose name would never have appeared on the page of
history had it not been for the fame of his father; and that fame proved to a certain extent a
misfortune, since it attracted the eyes of the world to various follies and vices which might
have escaped unnoticed in one enjoying a less illustrious parentage. Although naturally
indolent (ad Att. 6.1), the advantages of education were by no means lost
upon him, as we may infer from the style and tone of those two epistles which have been
preserved (ad Fam. 16.21, 25), which prove that the praise bestowed on
his compositions by his father did not proceed from mere blind partiality (ad
Att. 14.7. 15.17), while his merits as a soldier seem unquestionable. Even the stories
of his dissipation scarcely justify the bitterness of Seneca and Pliny, the latter of whom
records, upon the authority of Tergilla, that he was able to swallow two congii of wine at a
draught, and that on one occasion, when intoxicated, he threw a cup at M. Agrippa, an anecdote
which Middleton, who is determined to see no fault in any one bearing the name of Cicero,
oddly enough quotes as an example of courage and high spirit.
(Suasor. 6, de Benef. 4.30; Plut. Cic. and Brut.; Appian,