Cicero

But word was now brought to him that Sulla was dead,[*](In 78 B.C.) and since his body, strengthened by exercise, was taking on a vigorous habit, while his voice, acquiring modulation, had grown pleasant to the ear, and had been moderated into keeping with the habit of his body; and since, moreover, his friends at Rome earnestly besought him by letter and Antiochus strongly urged him to apply himself to public affairs, he once more sought to prepare for service therein his instrument, as it were, to wit his rhetorical style, and to rouse to action his political powers, diligently cultivating himself in declamation and taking lessons of the popular rhetoricians. With this end in view he made a voyage to Asia and Rhodes.

In Asia, he studied oratory with Xenocles of Adramyttium, Dionysius of Magnesia, and Menippus the Carian; in Rhodes, oratory with Apollonius the son of Molon, and philosophy with Poseidonius.[*](Cf. Cicero’s Brutus, 91.) Apollonius, we are told, not understanding the Roman language, requested Cicero to declaim in Greek, with which request Cicero readily complied, thinking that in this way his faults could better be corrected.

After he had declaimed, his other hearers were astounded and vied with one another in their praises, but Apollonius was not greatly moved while listening to him, and when he had ceased sat for a long time lost in thought; then, since Cicero was distressed at this, he said: Thee, indeed, O Cicero, I admire and commend; but Greece I pity for her sad fortune, since I see that even the only glories which were left to us, culture and eloquence, are through thee to belong also to the Romans.

However, though Cicero, full of hope, was being borne on towards a political career, a certain oracle took the edge from his eager desire. When he inquired, namely, of the god at Delphi how he could become most illustrious, the Pythian priestess enjoined upon him to make his own nature, and not the opinion of the multitude, his guide in life.

And so during the first part of his time at Rome[*](Cicero returned to Rome in 77 B.C., being in his thirtieth year.) he conducted himself with caution, was reluctant to sue for office, and was therefore neglected, being called Greek and Scholar, those names which the low and ignorant classes at Rome were wont to give so readily. But he was naturally ambitious and was urged on by his father and his friends, and so when he gave himself in earnest to the work of an advocate, he did not advance slowly to the primacy, but his fame shone forth at once, and he far surpassed those who strove with him for distinction in the forum.

But it is said that he too, no less than Demosthenes, was weak in his delivery, and therefore sought with care to imitate now Roscius the comedian, and now Aesop the tragedian. This Aesop, they tell us, was once acting in a theatre the part of Atreus planning to take vengeance on Thyestes, when one of the assistants suddenly ran across the scene, and the actor, losing control of himself in the intensity of his passion, smote him with his sceptre and laid him dead.