He was '23 years old when lie set out on is travel's. At Athens he studied Greek philosophy with that deep curiosity and disci which has enabled him to be the most faithful reporter of its outlines ; and here, as well as at Rhodes and in Asia, he mingled the study of oratory with that of philosophy. At the end of two years he returned with his lungs repaired, his constitution confirmed, and the solid faculties of his mind polished to their utmost brilliance. At this time the greatest of the Roman orators were Cotta and I fortensius. The former was a decided mannerist, and so remarkable for a swing ing action, that it was satirically said he had learnt his eloquence in a boat. Hortensius lad been hitherto call ed the king of the Roman bar, but his crown was soon to be transferred to Cicero. Our orator, however, did not think himself yet entirely accomplished in the exte i for requisites of a speaker, but took lessons front the eminent players, /F.sopus and Rosen';, the latter of whom he successfully defended in a pecuniary cause.
In his :3 tst year, he was chosen one of the questors. These officers, who were sent annually into the pro vinces as assistants to, or n.ther as checks upon, the pro consuls or governors, had the care of the provincial re venues, of pros idling grain for the armies abroad, and the public consumption at home. The office was the first step in the ascent from plebeian to patrician dignity, as from the questors who had been censors, the vacancies of the senate were supplied. The mai riage of Cicero probably took place in the same year. He was appoint ed to the questorship of Sicily, and filled it so as for ever after to possess the gratitude of the Sicilians. We shall presently have occasion to observe how very rarely the provinces had the good fortune to have a Cicero among them. Before he left Sicily, he made the tour of the island. At Syracuse, he enquired of the magistrates if they could point out to him the tomb of Archimedes. It marks the degradation of a conquered people, that they knew not the spot where the dust of their greatest genius reposed. But Cicero discovered it. When they had carried him to the gate where the greatest number of their old sepulchres stood, lie observed, in a place overgrown with shrubs and briars, a small column, of which the head just appeared above the bushes, with the figure of a sphere and a cylinder engraved. On clearing the ground, lie found also (though mutilated) the in scription which he expected : So Tully paus'd, amid the wrecks of time, On the rude stone, to trace the truth sublime ; 'When at his feet, in honotted dust disclosed, Th' immortal sage of Syracuse rcposcd.—Roc Ens.
After his year of questorship, he returned to the Ro man bar, and was elected xffile by the universal suffrages of the tribunes. The 2edileswere police magistrates, whose duty was to take care of the public buildings, to inspect the markets, weights and measures, and to regulate the shows and public festivals. At this period, in the strength of his powers, and progress of his honours, he was called upon by the Sicilians to accuse Verges, their base and violent oppressor. Verges, guilty as he was, had the support of the powerful at Route. The great men, who regarded it as one of the rights of office to fleece the pro vinces assigned to their charge, made common cause with him, and used every means to disarm the laws. Ci cero demanded three months and a half to go to Sicily, and collect proofs against the culprit ; but aware that it was in view to postpone the trial till next year, when the friends of Verres were expected to be the prxtor and consuls, he collected his facts in 50 days, brought his evidence to Rome like a thunderbolt on the accused, and by one speech, in which he produced witnesses of every fact, confounded his adversary Hortensius, and raised such a storm of indignation against Verres, that he was advised not to wait for judgment, but to betake himself to exile. The lenity of Roman law did not seek for far ther vengeance on a Roman citizen, when he went volun tarily into banishment. Verres, whose crimes deserved an hundred deaths, fell afterwards a victim to Octavius and Anthony. Having refused to the latter some Corin thian vases and Greek statues, of which he had plunder ed the Sicilians, he was proscribed ; and Verres and Ci cero died by the same persecution.
On this occasion, the only one, as Cicero boasted, in which he had hitherto appeared as an accuser, he pro nounced only two orations, but left five others as models of the style in which an accusation should be supported in all its parts. The two last of his Verrinc orations are regarded as the masterpieces. The object of one of them is to expose the rapine and injustice of Verres, the other his more wanton barbarities. The first is remarkable for
the variety and richness of its detail, the interest and pic turesqueness of its narrative, and, above all, by the art which he employs to prevent satiety in a series of robbe ries ; the other is still more admirable for its vehemence and pathos. It displays all the resources which the ora tor can bring, to work upon the hearts of his audience, and to excite their moral indignation. A frightful picture, indeed, those speeches exhibit of the Roman governors in their arbitrary use of " brief authority," and a full dis play of the desolate corruption which had grown over the stagnated justice of Roman law.* At the time that Ver res was entrusted with the prxtorship of Sicily, its sea coasts were infested by pirates, and though the prxtor's duty was to support a fleet for the protection of com merce, he employed that trust only as the means of new exactions. Obliging the soldiers and sailors to purchase immunity for their services on board the defensive fleet, he manned it so imperfectly, or rather so totally disman tled it, that it was wholly unlit for service. At the head of this miserable squadron he put, not a Roman, as he was bound to do by law, but a Sicilian, Cleomenes, whose wife was the prxtu•'s mistress. At the first sight of the pirates, the Roman fleet took to flight, Cleomenes setting the example. The pirates burnt their deserted ships, and entered Syracuse in triumph. This disgrace to the Ro man arms made considerable uproar at Rome. It was notorious, that the captains of the galleys had acted from necessity, as they had only followed their admiral in ves sels which could not have fought the pirates. Yet Verres brought those innocent men loaded with irons to impri sonment and trial. Cleomenes was alone excepted from accusation, though he had fled first. On the contrary, he took his seat at the side of the prxto•, and was seen as usual familiarly talking with him. The men of the most respectable birth and character in Sicily, when they plead ed their cause, were threatened with death if they utter ed the name of Cleomenes, and, when they alluded to die true causes of their retreat, were struck over the eves, at the command of Verres, by the lictors. When the dreadful sentence was passed, its horrors were even ex tended to their relatives. Parents, says the orator, were interdicted the sight of their children ; they durst not bring them clothing or food. Stretched before the thresholds of their prisons, there did miserable mothers pass the night in tears, without being able to obtain a last embrace of their sons. There they sought as a favour to breathe the last sighs of the condemned, but they sought it in vain. It was there, that the barbarous servant of Verres, the lictor Sergius, the terror of the citizens, established a revenue from the agonies and tears of the unfortunate. So much he asked for leave to visit your child ; so much to give him food. Nobody refused it. What will you give me to make your son die by one blow, that lie shall not suffer protracted pain ? Horrible trade of tyranny, when life was not sold as a Favour, but the promptitude of death itself. But does the outrage on humanity stop here, or can barbarity itself go farther ? Yes, says the tyrant, when they have been executed, their bodies shall be exposed to beasts of prey ; and the parents of the unfortunate must purchase a privilege to bury them. Such were some of the facts, all substantiated by evi dence, which Cicero charged against this culprit with strong and pathetic eloquence. When he collies to the particular case of Gavius, he exhibits a most minute and strong case of oppression, which makes even at this day the reader's blood boil with indignation ; but must have roused still stronger sensations in the bosoms of his au dience, as lie appealed to a principle, which was absolute ly religious in the Roman mind, namely the respect which was maintained for the name of a Roman citizen. Is it lawful, said St Paul, to scourge a Roman ? That sacred title the greatest power durst not violate with impunity ; and the republic was ready to carry war to the utmost corner of the world, to avenge an outrage committed on a single citizen,—a sublime principle, which imposed me spect for the Roman name on the fiercest barbarians, while it taught the people themselves to love its value. In the case of Gavius, where Verres had violated this law, the genius of the orator seems to expand with the horrible richness of his subject, and he surpasses himself in eloquence, as much as Verres surpasses the ordinary limits of human cruelty.